A ghostly read with a 1980s vibe: FREE for a limited time!

Do you like supernatural coming-of-age stories? Do you like stories set in the 1980s?

Then check out 12 Hours of Halloween:

On Halloween night, 1980, three young friends must face a Halloween curse. Their familiar neighborhood becomes a ghostly landscape filled with witches, vampires, and supernatural creatures!

You can read 12 Hours of Halloween here on Edward Trimnell Books for a limited time.

Click here to start reading it for FREE!

 

(Don’t like to read online? You can also get the book in various formats, if that’s what you prefer!)

Is the Internet going to video?

Some people certainly think so.

I was listening to an Internet “guru” the other day, who basically sees the future of the Internet as one video clip after another. Fahrenheit 451, here we come!

But here’s a counterargument from just last year:

People are constantly putting videos up with little to no content that can REALLY benefit their intended audience. They just don’t understand that nobody’s going to sit there for 20 or 30 minutes listening to them go on and on and on without having real content. These video sales pitches are just becoming overwhelming on social media. It’s happening on Facebook too; I haven’t quite seen it on Twitter yet, but it’s coming. And with Instagram Story, you’re going to see more and more and more of that. Here’s what it boils down to: How do we make what we do relevant — especially to the audience that we’re trying to reach?

Business2Community.com

There is a lot of video on YouTube, but most of it is pointless. Tell me: Does anyone who isn’t a bored 13 year-old really want to watch Pewdiepie? 

Video has its place. As I’ve admitted many times, YouTube is absolutely great if you want to learn how to fix your leaky commode. I also prefer video for things like Photoshop instruction, which are inherently visual.

But for most objectives, in the fields of both instruction and entertainment, YouTube-style video provides little or no improvement over text (unless your audience is completely illiterate).

And in many cases, text is demonstrably superior. You can skim through a page of text. Skimming through a 20-minute YouTube video, on the other hand, is almost impossible. 

The Eavesdropper: Chapter 12

It occurred to me that I had overlooked the obvious: In large companies like Thomas-Smithfield Electronics, difficult personnel issues were handled by human resources departments. And if a conspiracy between my boss and two of my coworkers to kill our group admin didn’t count as a difficult personnel issue, what did?

So the very next morning I sent an intentionally vague email message to Anne Hull. Anne was a mid-level manager within the human resources department. She was high enough on the ladder to make things happen, but she wasn’t so high up the corporate food chain that she would pass me off to an underling.

Within less than an hour, there was an email from Anne in my Lotus Notes inbox:

“Why don’t you stop by at 10:00 a.m. My office is on the first floor, in the HR area.” Continue reading “The Eavesdropper: Chapter 12”

Luk Thep: Chapter 8

“Would you like me to give you a ride to your hotel?” Khajee asked. 

When Jane hesitated in her response, the Thai woman laughed and said, “Oh you probably thought that I was going to take you on the back of a moped!”

“Not necessarily,” Jane said. That would have been her first thought, though. Mopeds were ubiquitous in the cities of Southeast Asia—Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Kuala Lumpur, and, of course, Bangkok. The truth was that as tired as Jane was, she simply hadn’t had time to fully contemplate Khajee’s offer.

Continue reading “Luk Thep: Chapter 8”

‘Blood Father’ is worth seeing

Mel Gibson is, to put it kindly, a “complex individual”.

But so are a lot of brilliant artists, writers, and filmmakers. Gibson has played key roles–both in front of and behind the camera–in some of my favorite films: Air America, Hamlet, Maverick, Braveheart, Hacksaw Ridge, and the much maligned The Passion of the Christ.

(Whatever your religious beliefs, or lack thereof, The Passion of the Christ is worth watching for the Latin and Aramaic alone. I do have religious beliefs, and I’m a language aficionado, so the movie was a winner for me on both counts.)

Blood Father (2016) is a movie about redemption of a more earthly kind. Gibson plays an ex-alcoholic, ex-con father who must save his young adult daughter (Erin Moriarty) from Mexican gangsters who are bent on killing her.  

Blood Father has the action of a Jason Statham film, but it’s a lot more intelligent and believable than anything Jason Statham ever appeared in. Blood Father explores the themes of parental relationships and reconciliation, but it doesn’t veer into the sappy. 

In short, it’s a good movie. 

The material of Blood Father isn’t the stuff of the twenty-first century blockbuster. There are no superheroes, or spaceships, or teenagers performing magic.

Even in a more sophisticated era, Blood Father probably wouldn’t have been a blockbuster. It’s essentially the story of two people–a father and his daughter–evading and eventually fighting the bad guys. The fate of civilization isn’t on the line anywhere in this movie. 

But a lot of small movies (White Men Can’t Jump (1992) comes to mind) can nonetheless be a lot of fun. The fate of the entire world need not hang in the balance every time. 

 

Get Blood Father on Amazon!

Coming-of-age horror from the 1980s

How about  a coming-of-age horror tale set in 1980?

How about you get to read it for FREE? (Or at least try it for FREE.)

I’m serializing my novel 12 Hours of Halloween here on Edward Trimnell Books, where you can read it for FREE.

You can also check out the book on Amazon (available in multiple formats).

And while you’re on Amazon, don’t forget to check out Prime Day (7/15~16) deals on Electronics!

Skip ‘Revenge’

I hate to pan a Kevin Costner movie. But Revenge (1990) just didn’t live up to my expectations.

This is the setup: A jet pilot and Vietnam vet (Kevin Costner) retires and travels to Mexico, where he is the guest of an old (and much older) friend, Mendez (Anthony Quinn).

Oh, and Mendez just happens to be a Mexican gangster. 

And the hero falls in love with Mendez’s comely young wife (Madeline Stowe). 

Of course, the lovers are discovered.

And what do Mexican gangsters do when their wives are unfaithful? Nasty stuff.

That’s the first of half of this rather long (too long, really) movie. The second half of the film is vaguely reminiscent of The Count of Monte Cristo. It’s a revenge plot, as the hero embarks on a rather convoluted quest to exact retribution. 

For the guys, there are lots of nude shots of Madeline Stowe. (I hate to be crude, but that’s really the only good thing I can see here.)

Costner, Stowe, and Quinn all put in competent performances. But they were working with a bad script. The story structure here is flawed. Revenge felt like two movies stitched haphazardly together. 

Not everyone agrees with me, of course, though. You can watch Revenge on Amazon, and decide for yourself. (The film actually has a rather high rating average.)