Erotica, fantasy, and horror writer.
Feb 05
Do you know American President Ronald Reagan is to thank for the success of the Transformers franchise? In the early 1980s Hasbro executives noticed a line of Japanese toys called the Diaclones, which were robots that transformed into vehicles. They thought the concept had merit, so the company licensed them to be sold in the …
Feb 03
Jan 29
Oddball spells to use and abuse. Minor and Mundane Magic Spells Lungs of the Jester: Allows the caster to tell jokes in a loud voice that carries over the noise of a crowd, and the jokes will always come out amusing. Olnatra’s Cold-blooded Pancake: Turns any normal-sized cold-blooded animal (reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects) into …
Jan 27
The industrialized world depended on rubber once. There was rubber everywhere. But then, one day, it came to life.
Jan 22
In the recent hit Netflix Stranger Things the high school students hang out at Starcourt Mall to alleviate the boredom of their small-town lives. Though treated as an exotic element in the show, hanging out at the mall was, once, very common in the 1970s and 1980s. There was an element of snobbishness in it …
Jan 21
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi Pantheon Books, 2003 [Challenge # 29 : A graphic novel or comic book.] I finally got around to reading Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis which served as the graphic novel for this year’s reading challenge. It retread a lot of the ground I had just visited when I read Reading Lolita …
Jan 21
Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi Henry Holt and Co., 2019 I was impressed by Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone when it came out in 2018. It was something different, an African-based culture handled in a Western fantasy way. There’s a monarchy, magic-users who are persecuted, swords and armor, and exotic …
Jan 15
My Authors Water Cooler reading challenge list for 2020. Out of a list of 50 categories, the participant chooses 12, the idea being you read one a month. Cobalt Jade’s 2020 Reading Challenge List 2. Armchair voyages: A book taking place somewhere you have always wanted to go, but have never been. Henry Lawson’s …
Jan 15
Martial arts movies (kung fu in Hong Kong, wu xia pian in Mandarin) burst onto the international scene in the 1960s and early 1970s with the rise of charismatic actor Bruce Lee (he’s at the center of the pic above wielding nunchucks.) If you were not alive at the time, it’s hard to understand the …
