Monday night I was finally able to catch the new Star War’s episode with my buddy Alan on the way home after work. It’s kind of funny where we caught the movie. Sitting in a German movie theater and watching the film in English, instead of catching the movie on base. I would have loved to have seen it on opening night, but I’d have been forced to go alone. While I was an option, honestly I’d rather see the movie with a friend. While I’ve gotten my wife into some Sci-Fi and a lot of superhero movies and TV shows, she’s still not a fan of hard Sci-Fi, so basically anything with deep space is mostly out. Did you catch the word “mostly”? I think she would actually enjoy some of the hardcore Sci-Fi stuff if she’d give it half a chance, since she likes stuff like Continuum, Falling Skies, The 100 and Dark Matter. Don’t even ask me how someone can love Dark Matter, but keep on saying they’re not into Sci-Fi. Whatever, I’ve learned to accept her Idiosyncrasies on this, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t drive me crazy when I want to see a movie like Star Wars with her.
     In regards to the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens movie, I’m of two minds. On the one side, I loved the action and the overall flow and the characters were fresh and interesting. I really liked the character Rey. She’s pretty cool how she’s been surviving on her own on the planet Tatooine. The only thing I didn’t like was how she kept feeling like she had to go back to the planet. Yea they explained the why in the storyline, but even so it didn’t sit right with me. Finn, the Stormtrooper, was another cool character. I liked his story even better and the whole “awaking” made sense enough to complete his character, especially with the whole concept of the Stormtroopers being stolen children raised and drugged into obedience. I guess after the Clone Wars the Empire moved away from the whole cloned soldier thing, not that doing so makes any sense. I mean seriously, why would the Sith Empire move away from cloned Stormtroopers?
     Overall the action in the new movie was fast and the scenes cool, but still there was something lacking. At first I couldn’t put to words what it was. After the movie was finished we sat and talked to a German couple that wanted to discuss the film’s storyline and merits. I was still trying to figure out what didn’t sit right with me about the movie, when something the German guy said struck a chord. He said the movie was very predictable. After thinking about it for a moment, I realized he’d hit the proverbial nail on the head.
     There was no true surprises in the storyline like there’d been in any of the other episodes’ storylines. Yea there was the awakening of Finn, but you knew something was going on and it wasn’t a surprise. Rey flying the ship out into space and being caught by Han and Chewbacca wasn’t a twist. There was a storyline as to why they were there, which worked. The Rathtars in this Han Solo thing were pretty kick ass. Made me think of how an Eye of the Beholder from Dungeon and Dragons would look in real life. Still, it wasn’t a twist in the plot that amounted to anything. Also, Kylo Ren started out the movie super kickass and scary Sith that made Luke Skywalker look like a child playing with the force, but almost immediately turns into a whiny Emo wannabe Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader.
     Overall the storyline itself and the feeling of desperation was very vanilla. The producer was trying to get that New Hope first Star War’s movie feel, while mixing in the emotional intensity of the Return of the Jedi and not really catching either feeling. There just wasn’t that fear of annihilation from the original Star War and the destruction of the Death Star. More importantly there wasn’t any amazing twist that changed the whole storyline that made sense once you saw it and made you say Wow. It was like they were trying to force too much into one story.
     Now don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean I didn’t like the movie. I immensely enjoyed the new Star War’s film. Still the negatives were major enough that it made me think seriously over Destiny’s storyline to make sure I didn’t make the same mistakes. Thankfully so far I am happy with the plot twists and the ending, although I’m still waiting to read through the whole flow of the story to make sure everything is just right.
     Still, being in Germany during Christmas time is not all about Star Wars. Normally it’s about Christmas Markets. Every town in Germany has a Christmas Market and Germans love to go to their local city’s or village’s market throughout the week. Usually vendors come in with these prefab timber shops that they put up to sell their wares, carnival food and warm alcoholic drinks. Usually the drinks are gluhwein, which is a mulled wine served hot. To be honest, it’s not my favorite drink. Thankfully now-a-days they have two other choices: apple juice served warm with a shot of amaretto or a Bailey’s coffee. Being the non-drinking I am, one apple juice with a shot of amaretto is more than enough for me and even better it tastes good.
     The other thing that the Christmas Markets are known for is their carnival food. Different in many way then what is typical for the USA. The core essential food for any Christmas Market is bratwurst on a round bun with mustard. Germans just love their bratwursts, that and their roasted fried almonds. There are some other fun foods like handmade doughnut and a flat bread like pizza covered with cream, bacon bits and onions, which I like best. Lastly there is all of the vendors selling all kinds of hand crafts like any other carnival. All in all fun stuff, except for one thing. They do these markets in the middle of winter, outside and without any heaters to keep you warm. The only thing warm you have is the gluhwein. Frustrating when you’re from Florida. I’ve never been one for standing outside and freezing to death, while eating and drinking. Unfortunately I seem to be the only one of this mindset. Thankfully this year has been unusually warm and my annual visit to the Christmas Markets was actually pretty enjoyable.
     A quick update on my sick boy Kanchen is that the surgery came out okay. Unfortunately there wasn’t much they could do, except trim back the tumor so that his head doesn’t feel like it’s trying to split open from the pressure. The doctors are doing a biopsy, but it’s really only to see which type of cancer we are dealing with. Hopefully the surgery will give him some more time without severe pain. I spent the day watching over him and working on Destiny. Yesterday during the surgery I ended up reading a new book from Elliot Kay called “Life in Shadows” http://www.amazon.com/Life-Shadows-Elliott-Kay-ebook/dp/B018VBMPTI/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1450908392&sr=1-1&keywords=elliott+kay The awesome part of the book is that it’s in the Good Intention’s universe, which I absolutely love. I don’t know how Elliot managed to get the book out while working on his published series Poor Man’s Flight, but somehow he managed to squeeze it out. My hat off to your Mr. Kay! If you get a chance check it out and leave a good review. It’s the only way we’ll motivate him to keep the series going.
     For those of you who keep up with my web site, you know I ran into Elliot Kay by accident. A fan of mine who I’ve become friends with directed me to check out the Good Intention Series, which I just loved. Henceforth that lead into reading all of Elliot’s other books and keeping up with his personal story somewhat. It was awesome to hear that he was picked up by a Publishing company for his Poor Man’s Fight series.
     I try to work on my own writing style a lot by checking out Elliot Kay’s writing and John Conroe’s. Both writers have become two of my favorite authors to keep up with. John Conroe’s God Hammer series is a great example of an overpowered hero that still struggles against overwhelming odds. There is so much to learn from both writers style. For now there is not much I can do but keep writing and getting my content out. Only in that way can I be a writer that does this as their primary job. Making it to that point would be a dream come true.  
     Anyway, I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Holidays. I celebrate Christmas, but it’s the Santa Clause and Christmas Tree style of the holiday and the idea of giving flavor. For me, the idea of giving and sharing is very important during this time of year. The way I tend to do this is by baking cookies and sharing them out with people I care about. This year I did eight batches of cookies and five different types: traditional chocolate chips, oatmeal peanut butter chip cranberry, oatmeal banana raisin, oatmeal peanut butter and crushed walnuts and straight peanut butter drop Hershey chocolate kiss cookies. Europeans love the American style cookies and they are a great hit. Best part is I get to share and give in the gift of giving and the ideal of “paying it forward” that I love so much. Christmas Eve will be a Polish style dinner that my wife likes to make. Thankfully I’m off the hook this year for baking a twenty-two pound turkey with all of the sides. We only do that when family is visiting. Everyone always finds it crazy to have such a humongous bird on the table and all of the American style sides makes my wife family think of the American Christmas shows that they see on TV. Fun stuff all around. The best present I have this year is time off with my family and seeing Kanchen feeling much better. He still hurts, but he’s obviously is in less pain after the partial removal of the tumor.
     I hope everyone’s holiday is wonderful and spent with people that you love and cherish.  

     Unfortunately, this is something that I’ve heard going on almost two months now, since one of my black babies have needed several emergency surgeries. It all started in November with a blown ACL for my Kanchen. After his knee surgery there was an abscessed tooth with complications. Just before Christmas we discovered he might have a malignant tumor in his nose that’s eating its way back into his skull, so again we’re trying to do what we can to get him healed up as much as possible and keep his pain in check.
     Even though Kanchen and his brother Rowen are both around nine years old (something like forty in dog years), they will always be my babies plain and simple. They’re both wickedly smart. I always think of them as being around six to eight years old mentally in their human understanding of things. They both traveled with me from Florida to Germany and have been traipsing around Europe with me on my travels, so much so that they even have their own passports.
     For those of you who are pet owners you know how much your dogs can mean to you and your family. For those of you who are not pet owners or who do not have kids, it’s probably something that sounds crazy. For me, they are just as important as any family member. More so in many ways, but that’s coming from someone who’s never have had much in the way of family. I had to laugh because one of my co-workers was talking about the death of his hound being more terrible then that of some of his family members dying. It was a perspective that I could readily understand.
     Anyway, when I found out how sick Kanchen was it kind of knocked me off my feet Tuesday and Wednesday evening. I didn’t get much done in the way of editing Destiny, but slowly I’ve been getting back in the swing of things once again. Tuesday we’ll find out if the tumor is malignant or not, so to keep my mind busy and to not think about everything too much I downloaded Elliot Kay’s books Poor Man’s Fight & Rich Man’s War and read them both. You can find the first book of the series here: http://www.amazon.com/Poor-Mans-Fight-Book-ebook/dp/B00RH1NV4M/ref=sr_1_6?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1450542538&sr=1-6&keywords=elliott+kay  It’s a good series btw and was just what I needed at the time to get my mind off of everything. I really enjoyed the basic training in book one. It brought back memories of my own time in the Army.   
     Tuesday my Christmas vacation starts. I’ll be at the vet for Kanchen’s surgery for most of the day, but I’ll be home editing and sitting with him Tuesday afterwards and probably most of Wednesday as he’s recovering, while finishing up the first run through of Destiny. My first check is mostly the story’s flow. Although I’m checking sentence structure and spelling too on this first run through, it’s not my focus. That will be the second check I run using an app from Grammarly.com. Then I’ll be passing it out to people to help me correct mistakes I’ve missed and let me know what they think of the story. Once that’s finished, I’ll run it by a couple of fans who’ve expressed interest in being beta readers and who really enjoyed the series. After making the corrections that people have found, I’ll release the story.
     The only major pain in the ass thing I need to also finish up is the back cover. Something that seems like it would be simple, but it’s really not. The back cover to your book, if done properly, is quite the work of art. It’s your main advertisement to get people to check out your story. I’ll go into the how more once I’m working on getting Destiny’s finished.
     I’ve included some pictures of Kanchen below for those of you who are interested. I’ll talk more about Christmas in Germany in next week’s post. For now I hope everyone has a great weekend.   

​This week I’m supporting a Science, Technology, Engineering, Math conference for my job, which is pretty cool. I love seeing the new technology the kids are working on and it gets me out of the office for a week which is always nice. Checking out the 3D printing and robotics is pretty awesome. It makes me wonder how much better my High School would have been if I’d been able to have options like that for courses to study when growing up. One of the many things I’d love to pick up is serious programming or 3D graphic design skills. Nothing is stopping me except having enough time to squeeze it into my busy schedule, so one day I’m sure I’ll work it in, just not right now.
                During one of the conference breaks I was checking out some of the up and coming movies and ran into the World of Warcraft movie for 2016. I’m not sure what I’d expected story wise. Something like a group of gamers being sucked into their MMO game somehow. I just wasn’t sure how Blizzard was going to approach the storyline. But as always Blizzard kicks ass. Instead of doing what people expected, they just made the story of WarCraft into a movie and it looks freaking awesome. The main human hero is played by Travis Fimmel, who plays Ragnar Lodbrok in Vikings, which I thought was pretty awesome. The hero role fits his looks perfectly. Anyway, I’m supper excited to see the movie and you know they’re going to have the ability to have multiple movies based on their storylines from World of Warcraft, so if this movie is well received we should be seeing a bunch more movies in the same series.
To be honest, so far the end of 2015 and beginning of 2016 is shaping up to be an incredible line of movies that I just can’t wait to see. Some of my favorites are Captain America: Civil War, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and of course Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I also saw another up and coming movie that could be really awesome or suck incredibly, the movie is called Gods of Egypt. Even though I am a huge Egyptian fan in general, I would even have to say the whole “Egypt Theme” has been overplayed throughout the last fifty years of movies. Still I have to say the movie caught my eye. I’ve never seen Egypt pictured like they did in this story, with a battle of the gods. Even cooler is the massive monsters and incredible armor and swords that the gods wear when fighting. The incredible graphics and oversized larger than life monsters alone could make the movie worth seeing. I also included the Deadpool movie in the mix for those hardcore gamers like me. Hopefully all of the good parts aren’t in the trailer. Deadpool is one of those games that either you love or hate, I don’t think there’s much in-between. If they did the story right it could really rock, but either way I have to check out the movie. I was really surprised by the last Captain America movie. I loved how the movie hit many of the current major issues we’re facing today as a society and this new release just looks like it has taken this off the hook. I’m really looking forward for the movie, especially when you know they have crossover heroes like Ant-man in the mix. It’s even better due to the whole Ironman vs Captain America theme coming out at the same time Batman vs Superman is being released, which is another movie I’m jonsin to see. The action and effects just looks awesome. I’m not even going to bother going over my excitement for the new Star Wars movie. I mean seriously, what Sci-Fi freak isn’t excited to see the movie? Anyway, for those of you unfamiliar with any of the movies listed, I’ve added them below.
                What can I say, I’m a big fan of powerful heroes fighting against massive oversized evil monsters. When a movie can pull off a great storyline and graphics with both of my beloved stereotypes then I couldn’t be happier, which reminds me of a new book series I’ve just been reading. A friend of my introduced me to John Conroe’s The Demon Accords series, which I absolutely love. Unfortunately, even though John is pushing out novels at a high rate of speed, I still end up having to wait too long for his next book to come out. Same problem with the other writers of the same style that I love to read, like: Richard Raley’s The Foul Mouth, Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files and Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series, so I was really excited when I accidentally ran into William E. Brown’s Daniel Black series. I’m just like a kid with a new toy and read three books in three days. By the time I’d finished the last book I was happy and sad that there wasn’t a number four out yet, since I needed a day or two to recover from staying up late reading. If you get a chance definitely check the Daniel Back Series out.  
                I hope that I manage to achieve this same fervor with my own books. From the reviews I’ve received I feel like I’m hitting the storyline right, but I won’t know for sure until I can get Destiny out and see what everyone thinks. I’m so excited about the story and sharing it that I can’t stand it. I did try to put in a little more meat into the storyline, which slowed down some of my balls-to-the-wall action. Still, I believe I’ve kept the action moving fast enough to make everyone happy.
                Anyway, I’m getting lots of time to work on my editing this week. I’m already nearly half way through the manuscript! For now, back to my editing. Hope everyone has a great weekend.   

​     Being an avid fanboy of Sci-Fi/Fantasy in general and a huge gamer for most of my life, the concepts of armor styles, clothing, culture and the reasons behind “why” the characters wear what they wear and act the way they do are very important to me. The stories I grew up with at that time dealt with serious adult themes and moral issues that marked me for life. Movies like the Ralph Bakeshi’s Lord of the Rings Series and Wizards animated movies and even the Saturday morning cartoons I watched had solid stories to them with complete worlds. Cartoon shows like Thundarr the Barbarian, The Herculoids and the ThunderCats, the artwork of Dungeons and Dragons, reading novels like Piers Anthony’s Split Infinity and Xanth Series, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Princess of Mars Series, Jack L. Chalker’s Well World Series, Joel Rosenberg’s The Guardian of the Flame Series, Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Series are many of the formative influences that inflamed my love for the genre in my formative years. The heroes, heroines and species that were in these stories varied greatly in their physical appearance and equipment. Some were heavily armored, while others had light to no armor, but it all made sense in regards to the world/universe that they lived in and to the overall storyline.
     Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to play Dungeons and Dragons. I always wanted to play the campaigns and bought them just to read the stories, but at that time finding other geeks wasn’t so easy. Whoever they were they had to be in range of my bicycle. Also my family, like many adults at that time, thought Dungeons and Dragons was “Satin’s Game”. Sounds crazy now-a-days, but it was a serious concern at the time. Dr. Demento did a great spoof mocking this insanity to break people out of their idiocy at the time. Really, they were just the previews of the modern LAN party. That’s because any “gaming party” or “LAN party” or all night “MMO bender” was always fueled with high caffeinated soda like Jolt Cola https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jolt_Cola or Bawls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bawls and pizza.
     When I think back to that time, it’s sad to think that playing board games like Risk with total world domination was acceptable, but playing anything with a fantasy theme was considered evil. It makes you question the morality of society at that time, although in reality it was just ignorant people afraid of things they didn’t understand and weren’t interested in understanding. Although I like this graphic rendition better https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Rop4Zt-S0 I’ve put the full skit down below, because it has the full skit with the “Den of Satan” intro.

     Growing up as a kid, I never thought about the female heroines in the books, cartoons and movies I watched as being weak or men being super, I never questioned the armor or lack thereof. I just loved the action, the characters and the morality of the stories. I never looked at the female characters in the “Dungeon and Dragons Cartoon” as being oversexualized weak females. Sheila and Diana were strong characters that spoke their mind and fought smartly. In “The Herculoids”, Tara was a woman to be reckoned with who didn’t shirk from a fight and was beautiful to boot. Even in “Thundarr the Barbarian” where wielding a Lightsaber came into vogue before there was ever a Star Wars, there was the main female lead named Princess Ariel who was kick ass and was highly intelligent. Lastly, at least for this blog’s list is Cheetara from the ThunderCats who was an incredible warrior and priestess who was her own woman. For me, these female characters had a major effect on me, drawing me towards strong females in my adult life. For those of you who don’t know the comics or want to reminiscent, I’ve added the trailers to the shows below.
     Between all of these different Sci-Fi and Fantasy influences, I have a twisted perspective on armor styles to a certain extent. D&D basic was my first influence on fantasy art. David C. Sutherland III’s artwork was flashy and cool with fit characters, but it wasn’t the overtly sexualized artwork that you see in modern day MMO’s. I especially loved the iconic character artwork for Morgan Ironwolf. Where did you think Startüm Ironwolf got his last name from? Here are some of the links to the artwork from that time, although basic there is a certain flare to the images: 

​and most especially iconic Morgan Ironwolf

​     ElfQuest was an especially a favorite animation cartoon for me. The story of how Elves combined their lives with wolves to become a new species to survive a savage world explained the Elves clothing style and barbarian. Like any fan I loved the relationship that the Elves shared with their wild wolf companions.

​     This story concept was used in different ways. I loved how in the Dungeons and Dragons Endless Quest book “Return to Brookmere” the story used giant weasels in the story line. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/878980.Return_to_Brookmere I never forgot the story even as I got older. I actually even re-read the story to get a feel for how Return to Brookmere flowed to an extent.
     In many ways the Wild Elves of Irlendria are flavored with many of these traits. The link Argus and Enelya share, the culture of the Wild Elf tribe that was influenced by all of these things, but with my own twist. When I was first developing the clothing and style I found a picture that in many ways exemplified my visual conception of the Wild Elves within my story here: 

​     The recent love/hate relationship modern gamers have with the over-feminization of female characters is new to the genre to a certain extent. I’m not saying that female armor was not oversexualized prior to this, but I think female armor has moved to a level of overt sexual appeal that was before not common to the genre in general and one that I am of two minds about. On the one hand, I have played with many female gamers and know they love to have their character look “HOT” and like sexy armor to a point. Usually until the armor between male and female characters begin to look something like this.

​     While visually pleasing to the eye for many of us guys, I can understand the negative feedback that questions the total impracticality of the armor. To a point, having physically fit female characters makes total sense, so that part of the character design doesn’t bother me. I mean, if you’re adventuring and fighting all of the time, you’re going to be physically fit and muscle mass is reasonably different between the sexes. I think my biggest complaint with the MMO’s move in the direction of skimpy armor for their female characters is the lack of reasoning for its existence within the game’s universe. What is the reason that a female player’s skimpy armor is just as effective as a male player’s total body covering armor? It normally doesn’t make any sense. This lack of following the MMO’s universe’s rules is what I think is so upsetting to a lot of players. Well, besides the fact that the game designers are dressing their female avatars like willowy stripers. I enjoyed Gnoggin’s video discussion on this issue.

​     Here are some of my favorite spoofs on this negative skimpy armor themes. 

     When I was creating my universe this whole concept of armor and reasoning was something that I had to sit down and contemplate. On one side, I wanted some of my characters to be sexy and skimpily clad, while other characters I wanted to be fully armored. What would be the reasoning for this? What would make sense to have this in my storyline? After a lot of thought, I addressed this on three different levels.
     The first was designing my sorcerers/sorceresses and wizards to pull their magic power in through their skin. The more exposed skin they had, the faster they could draw in their magic power to store their mana pool. Another point on power intake rule is that it differs for Paladins and Clerics due to the fact that their power is derived from a “holy” nature. This gave me an excellent reasoning and a beautiful opening to have fun with some of my special characters within the story.
     The second part to the rules within my universe was the incorporation of rune tattoos into the skin that can be used for protection. This “powered tattoo option” gives me a lot of flexibility for my magic welders to show more skin for their magical absorption, while still having an option to protect themselves in battle to a point. Albeit, this protection is not as effective as fully armored warriors with powered runes inscribed into their armor, still the main important thing for me was to follow the rules of my universe and have the skimpy armor worn for a reason.
     The third level I address this difference in armor was culturally. My Centaurs are similar to American Plains Indians/preverbal barbarians. While they use armor to a point, culturally they are not inclined to use much armor in general. This also includes clothing. The Centaurs in my universe are not concerned with nudity. The items they wear are for carrying weapons and equipment and not for modesties sake. On the other hand, the Minotaurs within my storyline wear heavy armor for protection and clothing, because it’s socially expected within their society. Having this “reasoning” was extremely important for me in creating my universe and the various races within the world of Irlendria.  
     Anyway, just to give everyone and update on my progress. The editing is coming along great for Destiny. I haven’t gone back over the story until now, which was something I purposely intended to do. This is because the longer it’s been since I’ve read the story, the easier it is for me to evaluate my writing and find my errors. While I like Flight’s storyline, now-a-days when I go back over my writing I now find areas that I’m not happy with even though I love the storyline itself. I see where I could have done better. This is something I want to try to clean up once I’ve passed on my editing corrections to my friends who are helping to clean up the book, before I publish Destiny. The cool thing is I’m not seeing this now that I’m going back over the words for Destiny. Instead I keep thinking to myself, “Damn this is good!”
     Like I said earlier, I have a lot of stuff I wanted to put out and talk about, but just didn’t have time. I did have to take an evening away from editing to get the post out, but this whole discussion over the universe and characters styles and clothing was pretty fun for me to talk about. For now that’s my update, I hope everyone has a great weekend.