"The Girl Who Played with Fire" by Stieg Larsson [Review]

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist is back, this time in pursuit of a ring of human traffickers who are forcing women into prostitution. An idealistic reporter approaches his magazine "Millennium" with a killer story. He and his girlfriend are planning to release a report on the sex crimes industry in Sweden. Not only will the report detail the horror of these crimes, it will also expose the identities of police officers, judges, and politicians involved. It will also discuss a mysterious figure known only as "Zala" who is the mastermind behind the operation. "Millennium" plans to publish an issue dedicated to it, as well as publish a book that will out the names. But before the book can be published, the authors are brutally murdered, and Salander is accused of the crime. The police are hunting her while Blomkvist tries to find the truth and clear her name.


This is a very different book from the first novel, "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." "Tattoo" was a dark and twisted mystery, mainly set on a remote island, dealing with grisly murder. At times, it felt like a horror novel along the lines of "Red Dragon" or "Silence of the Lambs." Readers of "Dragon's Tattoo" will probably go into this looking for a taut and gripping mystery. That's not what they get. The killer is revealed earlier on, a blond giant with a resistance to pain. The only mystery is the identity of Zala, but it's not a mystery that the main characters are even pursuing for most of the novel. This novel is more of a traditional thriller.

The feel of "Fire" is also much different. Most of this novel takes place in the city of Stockholm. It doesn't have the claustrophobic horror of the first novel. There's more police procedure with a team of detectives trying to track down Salander. Along the way, they dig deeper into Salander's past while Salander and Blomkvist try to get one step ahead of them. We find out some of the trauma that led to her emotional problems, and also discover she has a shocking connection to the man behind the slavery ring. There's also some political intrigue as Blomkvist's investigation of Zala leads to a government conspiracy.

Most of the familiar characters from the last novel are here, including the return of Advokat Bjurman, who Salander tortured and tattooed in the last novel. It turns out he's dedicated himself to avenging himself on Salander. Unfortunately, his plans don't go as he expects.

This is a good novel, but not as good as "Dragon Tattoo." Besides the lack of mystery, there's also a lack of Salander, who was the big star of the last novel. She spends most of the novel hiding from the police. While her fugitive status should be a source of tension, it's not. In the early stages, she finds an apartment which she rents in another name that the police don't know about, so she's untraceable. No car chases, no close calls. She just sits in her apartment, surfing the Internet, eating frozen pizza, and reading about how people are chasing her. Though Salander isn't as involved in the story, her moments are dynamite. She does a lot of sleuthing with her hacker skills, trying to help Blomkvist and find Zala. There's also a scene where she faces down two huge bikers, and comes out a winner. But Blomkvist is clearly more the hero in this novel, and he's just not as interesting to me as Salander.

I would also argue this novel has a lot of the same flaws as "Dragon's Tattoo," which desperately needed editing. There's a similar lack of focus as the last one. While there aren't as many sandwiches in this novel, we do get an exhaustive amount of information about Apple computers, Swedish politics, police work, and geography. One particularly memorable section where Salander goes to an IKEA store reads like a catalog as the author details the name and model of every stick of furniture she buys. There's also a scene where one of the detectives meticulously sweeps the dead couple's apartment for clues, cataloguing everything in every drawer and every pocket of the clothes he finds. Interesting to a point, but way beyond what we need to know for the story.

The opening of the novel is also unnecessary, dealing with Salander traveling the world on the ill-gotten gains she stole in "Dragon Tattoo." We read about Salander lounging on the beach in the Caribbean, having an affair with an underage boy (but she's a woman, so it's okay), and her suspicions about the couple in the hotel room next door to her. That subplot about the couple leads to its own conclusion which never comes up again, making it more like a short story than an actual part of the novel. You could have cut that whole section out, sold it as a separate novella "The Girl With the Sunburned Tattoo," and it wouldn't have changed a thing.

There are also more chapters about how incredibly attractive Blomkvist is, including a whole subplot about how a new intern at "Millennium" is desperately trying to seduce him, which doesn't factor into the plot at all. Poor Blomkvist moans about how frustrating it is for a hot teenage girl to be banging on his front door at night. Yes, Mikael Bonkvist is in full effect. Pretty much any female in the story is either sleeping with him or wants to sleep with him. Since Blomkvist is clearly a stand-in for the author, a fun game is to replace "Mikael Blomkvist" with "Stieg Larsson" and it makes his gushing praise even more ridiculous.

Let's also mention that Salander gets breast implants, which a lot of readers who enjoyed the feminist theme of the first novel found upsetting. It's a controversial move, but not surprising. Larsson was so focused on her small breasts in the last novel that it seems he simply couldn't handle writing another novel about a woman who doesn't have huge boobs. Certainly all the other women in the novel do.

The novel ends with a cliffhanger, leading to the third novel. But this book is still worth reading, even with its flaws.

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Apparently, I've Been Using an Oxford Comma My Whole Life

When I started writing for CBR, their style guide said, "no Oxford comma." I was like "Fine, I just use regular commas." On my first post, I got feedback that I had used the Oxford comma. I was like, "My bad. Must have been that stylized quotation mark that Word does." I took that out. On my second article, I got "no Oxford commas" again. I looked through my article and couldn't find the weird quotation mark, so I let it go. On my third article, I got the same feedback less politely, so I decided to look up the Oxford comma. Turns out I have been using it all along.


I literally had never heard of the Oxford comma until now. It's also called the "serial comma." Wikipedia describes it this way:

In English language punctuation, a serial comma or series comma (also called Oxford comma and Harvard comma) is a comma placed immediately before the coordinating conjunction (usually and or or) in a series of three or more terms. For example, a list of three countries might be punctuated either as "France, Italy, and Spain" (with the serial comma), or as "France, Italy and Spain" (without the serial comma).

In other words, a regular comma.

To me, it seems bizarre to use anything but the Oxford comma. If I wrote "my father cooked dinner for me, my mother and our dog," it could sound like my father cooked my mother and dog for dinner. Why wouldn't you use a comma in there?

I don't understand opposition to the serial comma. I'm following the mandate for CBR, but I'm still going to use the Oxford comma in my novels, short stories, and other writing. (See what I did there?)

Did you know about the Oxford comma? Do you use the Oxford comma? If not, why not?

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New Sodom (view) from Hal Duncan on Vimeo.

On Identity Politics

If you're a Leftist even thinking in terms of "identity politics" you need to ask yourself: Would you lump all activism on homelessness, drug and alcohol related causes, mental health related issues, battered womens' shelters, LGBT youth kicked out of the family home, squatter culture, Roma and traveller issues, refugee housing, and suchlike as "indigency politics"? Would you then emblematise

Professor Accuses Latina College Student of Plagiarism Because of "Hence"

Via Tiffany Martinez

A young woman attending Suffolk University in Boston got a shock when her paper was returned by her professor. Not because she got a bad grade, but the reason why and how. On her blog, she explained:

This morning, my professor handed me back a paper (a literature review) in front of my entire class and exclaimed “this is not your language.” On the top of the page they wrote in blue ink: “Please go back and indicate where you cut and paste.” The period was included. They assumed that the work I turned in was not my own. My professor did not ask me if it was my language, instead they immediately blamed me in front of peers. On the second page the professor circled the word “hence” and wrote in between the typed lines “This is not your word.” The word “not” was underlined. Twice. My professor assumed someone like me would never use language like that. As I stood in the front of the class while a professor challenged my intelligence I could just imagine them reading my paper in their home thinking could someone like her write something like this?

When she says "someone like me," she means that she's Latina.


For background in her post, Tiffany Martínez explained she's a McNair Fellow and student scholar. She's presented at national conferences in San Francisco, San Diego, and Miami. She crafted a critical reflection piece that was published in a peer-reviewed journal managed by the Pell Institute for the Study of Higher Education and Council for Opportunity in Education. She's consistently juggled at least two jobs and maintained the status of a full-time student and Dean’s list recipient since her first year at Suffolk University. She also used this past summer to supervise a teen girls empower program and craft a thirty page intensive research project funded by the federal government.

But to her professor, she couldn't possibly be bright enough to use the word "hence."  It’s patently offensive that a professor would dismiss an entire work as plagiarism simply because she used the word “hence.” While I agree it’s not a common word, it’s not proof of plagiarism. Just an elevated style of writing.

This really bothers me for personal reasons. My African-American mother, who was a valedictorian at her school, a published author, and was a Certified Public Accountant for many years, went to get a loan to start her own accounting business. She wrote up a professional business plan, put it in a binder, and submitted it to the loan officer.

The officer took one look at it, laughed, and said my mother didn’t write it. My mother continued to insist that she did write it, but the officer just kept laughing and threw it back onto the desk. She wouldn’t even look at it. Because of course, an African-American woman could never write a business plan on her own.

Know this sort of thing happens all the time, where people put minorities into boxes and won’t even accept their attempts to rise above them.

Also, as a graduate who earned a bachelor's degree from ASU, I'm offended by the blatant breach of procedure. I took the liberty of checking Suffolk Universities’ ethics policy, where it says: “A faculty member suspecting academic misconduct will contact the student using the Suffolk email address to schedule a meeting and will make all effort to do so within five business days of detecting the incident. During the meeting, the faculty member will present the documentation that led to suspected academic misconduct. If the faculty member reaches the conclusion that academic misconduct has occurred, he or she may impose limited sanctions that are meant to acknowledge the behavior in the context of providing remediation and addressing skill development.” [emphasis mine]

Clearly, her professor did not do this. If he or she suspected cheating, the professor needed to provide proof, specifically the writing that was copied. It’s impossible to prove something in the negative. In this case, the professor is making Tiffany prove that she didn’t cheat, which isn’t possible. What is she supposed to do, submit the entire body of the world’s written work to prove she didn’t copy it?

Sadly, the comments on the author's blog reflect the world at large with comments like:

Another Whiny latino playing the fake race card when she doesnt [sic] agree with the truth!!! You are whats wrong with the world,and also a horrible person! 

Get over it! Nobody uses the word “hence” stop playing the race card you lazy brat

Hope you get kicked out of school for plagiarism. Playing the race card to get out of trouble, what a douche bag you are!

And those are just the three most recent. With an attitude like that, no wonder she's struggling.

I wish Tiffany well in her studies. Her hard work is an inspiration.

[Via Cosmopolitan via Buzzfeed]

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The Butcher's Boy

Butcher's Boy from Hal Duncan on Vimeo.

A wee treat for Halloween! For access to hours more readings of stories & poems, sponsor me on Patreon for as little as a dollar. Sonnets! Scruffians! Sodomy! Stuff! All of it free to see to patrons, with downloadables available for a few more bucks, even collector's edition quarterly chapbooks for the true champions among yez. Step right up!

Bob Dylan Won the 2016 Nobel Prize For Literature

The definition of "literature" is a broad one, and one that's been contested many times. But the term "literature" has been stretched further by the Nobel Prize committee, because they awarded Bob Dylan the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2016.

As you probably already know, Bob Dylan's life's work is as a writer of music, not as a writer of literature. He's been influential in popular music for more than five decades, and is known most for his songs in the 1960s like "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'." Those songs became anthems for the American civil rights and anti-war movements.

According to the press release, the prize was awarded to Bob Dylan "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition." Essentially, the committee is arguing that his lyrics constitute a body of literature. It's the first time a musician has won the prize.

Whether music can be considered great literature, and whether Dylan deserves a Nobel Prize for his work, has become a topic of hot debate since the announcement. There have been arguments for and against the prize, and I personally don't want to weigh into it. I'm not a fan of Dylan specifically or pop music in general, so I don't feel qualified to comment on it. I also don't care for most writing held up as "literature," but that's just my opinion. But I'm sure the Nobel Prize committee made this choice as a statement to argue that music can be defined as literature.

What I've found most interesting is Dylan's response to the announcement, which is nothing. He hasn't commented on it publicly, and even removed mention of it from his website. So it seems like Dylan might not be too crazy about the prize either. One Nobel academy member publicly called him "impolite" and "arrogant" for the lack of a response, but what did they expect? He's been critical of all the awards he's gotten in his career. He's a loner, man. A rebel! Or he's just crazy. If they wanted gushing thanks and excitement, they should have awarded it to Taylor Swift.

What do you think? Should Dylan have gotten a Nobel prize? Is music literature?

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Image Source: By Alberto Cabello from Vitoria Gasteiz - Bob Dylan, CC BY 2.0, Link

Profiles (.mobileconfig) are awesome!

I shouldn't be telling you anything that isn't already prevailing knowledge, but I'm excited about it anyway. Profiles have been around for a while now, but I'm just starting to adopt them more in our environment. I'm still not using an MDM for our Macs, but I know we have a gap there.

The point of this post is to remove a random text file from my desktop and to share it with everyone else, plus my blog is really stale. So, without further ramblings, here's a list of some locations where you too can find, and benefit, from existing profiles:

https://github.com/nmcspadden/Profiles
https://github.com/rtrouton/profiles
https://github.com/rtrouton/documentation_VM_profiles
https://github.com/golbiga/Profiles
https://github.com/gregneagle/profiles
https://github.com/rodchristiansen/Profiles
https://github.com/erikng/osxprofiles
https://github.com/amsysuk/public_config_profiles

I know there are more out there so please comment if you've got one! I'll be creating one eventually and will share it here, too.

Happy Profiling!

"Triplanetary" by E.E. "Doc" Smith [Review]

Triplanetary by E.E. "Doc" Smith
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This review is for any modern reader who didn't grow up reading pulp fiction from the 1930s: this probably isn't the story for you. "Triplanetary" is a classic science fiction story, but it doesn't hold up well compared to modern fiction.

I was born in the seventies, so this story is about forty years ahead of my time to begin with, but I'm a big fan of pulp sci-fi. While a lot of it is cheesy and thin compared to works of today, I enjoy the over-the-top action, and lack of concern for scientific accuracy. If they wanted to have green bug-eyed Martians flying around space in hot air balloons, they did it, and didn't think twice about whether they'd be proven wrong. That's kind of refreshing with the hard sci-fi of today. But even compared to pulp fiction of the time, this story is pretty weak.


The novel starts with a cruise ship attacked by space pirates led by a mysterious man known only as Roger. Roger has advanced technology, including a moon-sized starship base (inspiration for the Death Star), and an army of human-like robots. Using deadly "Vee-Two" gas, he seizes secret agent Costigan and Costigan's love interest Clio, along with the ship's captain. But before they can escape, an amphibian alien warship arrives, determined to drain every last molecule of iron from the solar system. They even drain the iron from buildings, spaceships, and human blood. Costigan has to lead his team to escape the alien menace and save the Triplanetary systems from iron-stealing aliens and Roger.

Some of the scifi concepts are still in use today, like laser beams (called "rays") and video screens (called "plates"). But other technical inaccuracies are unintentionally hilarious. Like space is filled with "aether." At one point, someone actually says, "It's a good thing that space isn't an absolutely perfect vacuum..." To which I said to myself, "Yes, it is." Also, iron is the most powerful atomic energy source in the universe. As opposed to, you know, uranium. And at one point, a spaceship has its "inertia" removed (which even the characters admit is impossible), which somehow allows it to shoot across the galaxy beyond light speed.

The dialogue is full of terms that probably sounded very hip and contemporary when it was written, but now sound almost incomprehensibly dated. This is an actual line from the book: "I'll pick those jaspers off with a pencil ray and then stand off the bunch that's coming while you rub out the rest of that crew there and drag Bradley back here." If that doesn't make immediate sense to you, then you'll have a hard time reading the story.

The characters are little more than vague stereotypes. The hero Costigan is a swashbuckling, two-fisted tough guy. No details of who he is or how he became a secret agent or even what motivates him. His girlfriend Clio is even worse. I don't even know what her job is. She's just a swooning pretty girl who is constantly in need of rescue. Roger is a ruthless sociopath with no redeeming qualities. He barely has emotions, save for lecherous appetites towards Clio.

Their relationship amounts to Costigan saying things like, "Well, twenty-three skiddoo, you're the bees knees! I love ya, but I'm too much of a tough guy to marry you, beat me daddy, eight to the bar!" And she responding with, "Oh my darling, you're simply wonderful! You're so handsome and strong, and oh I'm so frail and delicate! I so love you, too, oh! I'll follow you to the end of time, oh!" Repeat that a few hundred times, and you've got the romantic subplot. No real sense of why they love each other or even how they related to each other before the novel began. They're dropped into the story in love, and it runs in circles from there.

Another big problem is the magical technology. All the problems are resolved through the use of some obscure gadget instead of actual logic or effort. I can describe it this way: A character is locked in a room. They don't have a key. They use the objects in the room to build a machine that unlocks the door. They're now outside. The bad guys attack. The bad guys are wearing armor. The heroes build weapons that are strong enough to melt through their armor and kill them. They need to get to the shuttle craft to escape. They use a machine that lets them escape unnoticed to the craft to escape. They're being chased by the enemy. The hero uses a machine that makes the shuttle go faster so they escape. It's just a series of deus ex machina where the heroes carry an assortment of devices that let them overcome any problems. If they don't have it, the heroes are virtual McGyvers who can actually build whatever they need from whatever they have. At one point, the hero manages to create a toxic gas (the aforementioned fictional "Vee-Two") capable of wiping out entire cities from the random stuff in his prison cell. Literally.

Roger is a danger because he has technology that borders on magic, like robots that look and act exactly like humans, invisible spaceships, and beams that can move objects from entire spaceships to human beings. The solution is for the heroes to have even more magical technology, like guns that can burn through anything, and "spy rays" that let them see through any object and can't be detected.

The space battles are actually numerous and exciting. Lots of spaceships blasting each other and grappling each other with rays. Although they also have magical technology so battles tend to revolve around, "Hey, their weapons are really powerful. Fortunately, my weapons are even more powerful!" But it can be good.

Honestly, I can see why this book would have been great in the thirties and even fifties, but right now it's borderline unreadable. If it were released today, even with adjustments to keep up with modern science and dialogue, it would be on the level of bad fan fiction or "Fifty Shades of Grey."

But for those who love bad pulp fiction, it's great.

View all my reviews

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"Operation: Masquerade" is Now "Infiltration"

I've been doing some work behind the scenes, including hiring out to design new covers for some of my books. Because I suck at cover design, period. I'm ready to unveil the biggest change, which is coming to what was formerly Operation: Masquerade. I always thought the title was a bit confusing, and never thought it was a good indicator of what the book is about. When I ordered the new cover, I also changed the title. Henceforth, the novel will be called...dun dun dun...Infiltration.

Here's the old cover:

And here's the new cover.

As always, you can order it at Amazon.com.

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The Most Feared Books of All Time [Infographic]

Works of art have always been met with harsh criticism. If a book is deemed controversial, it can be challenged, and if that challenge is successful, it can be banned. Books ranging from The Bible and “The Communist Manifesto” all the way to seemingly innocent stories like “Green Eggs and Ham” and the “Harry Potter” series have been met with challenges, or even been banned. Readers.com put together a list of the most feared books of all time in the infographic below.

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"Neuromancer" by William Gibson [Review]

Neuromancer by William Gibson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Neuromancer" is the classic novel that kickstarted the cyberpunk genre. It didn't invent cyberpunk, but it certainly set the tone for all the novels and movies that followed.

The novel is pretty much what we all thought computers would be like in 2016. Instead of clumsy keyboards and screens, users plug computers directly into their brains. "Neuromancer" tells the story of Case, a hacker who navigates cyberspace, a virtual reality representing all the computer networks of the world. After getting his hacking ability surgically removed by a double-cross, he jumps at the chance to recover his lost ability and pull off a new and dangerous job. But he soon discovers that the people he's working for have a hidden agenda, and he becomes embroiled in a conspiracy involving an ancient and powerful family and an evolving artificial intelligence.


The greatest achievement of "Neuromancer" is how Gibson makes the future feel real with what he calls "super-specificity." In our modern world, we don't just drive cars. We drive a Honda or a Ford, and the type of car can tell us a lot about a character in a story. In the same way, Gibson uses brand names for any products they use, even if he has to make one up. If Case sees a holographic projector, it's not just a projector. It's a Braun holographic projector. Case doesn't just use a cyberspace deck, he uses a high-end Ono-Sendai Cyberspace 7. He doesn't just put on a spacesuit, it's a Sanyo suit. Details like this help flesh out the story, and make it deeper.

Gibson also pioneered a style that moved against the typical portrayal of the future as sleek, clean, and miraculous. In Gibson's world, futuristic technology can be broken, grimy, cheap, and malfunctions, just like in our world. A character with a cybernetic arm has a "Russian military prosthesis, a seven-function force-feedback manipulator, cased in grubby pink plastic." Molly relishes a steak made from a living animal instead of "vat grown."

Gibson's prose is incredibly dense, poetic to the point of distraction. Sometimes, I have to read over his sentences a few times to translate his analogies and flowery text into real visuals. But I respect his love of words, and he often creates amazing sentences that bring the scene to life. Like: "Lifeless neon spelled out METRO HOLOGRAFIX in dusty capitals of glass tubing."

Unlike most science fiction, "Neuromancer's" future isn't just populated with white males. Case meets a variety of races from Japanese gangsters to space-bound Rastafarians. The beauty of the novel is how it takes us through a dizzying cross-section of the future. We travel from the seedy slums of Tokyo to the luxurious hotels of a space station. Istanbul, Japan, and other countries are all described so we can see an entire world with different cultures, not just the United States like most scifi novels.

Even Gibson himself mocked the outdated technology, like pay phones. But in a sense, we're living in the world Gibson imagined, where we can jump in and out of a digital reality at will, go anywhere virtually, and have any fact at our fingertips. The mistake Gibson made was imagining that accessing cyberspace would require brain implants and virtual reality. The cyberspace concept now feels dated and kind of cheesy. But even though the computer technology that caused such a stir in the eighties has faded in glamour, the rest of his world has become more vivid. Gibson described a world where things like weapons, genetic engineering, space travel, and body modification had reached new heights, and those still hold up. The overall conflict between security and those who would try to violate it still resonates.

Related: Why William Gibson Confuses Me

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I'm Writing For ComicBookResources.com

I've joined a new team at Comic Book Resources, where I'll be writing lists and news articles. Here's a handful of the articles I've written.

"Surge Order" Sends Fans on a Comic-con Scavenger Hunt For Rare Comics
New "Star Trek Beyond" Clip Sees Scotty's Introduction to Jaylah
Report: "Divergent" Finale Could Move to TV, Spawn Spinoff Series

"My name is Timothy McGill, and I'm a time travel addict..." Time Junkie, only 99-cents for a limited time!

"The Ruins" by Scott B. Smith [Review]

The Ruins by Scott B. Smith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Holy crap.

That could be my entire review, but I'll expand on it a little.


There's a blurb on the back of the book which I think is very descriptive. It says this book does for plants what "Jaws" did for sharks. That's a fair assessment. I never thought a simple plant could be so terrifying and horrifying and spine-chilling as the one in this novel. I'll never see flowers the same way again.

"The Ruins" is about a group of four college students on a vacation in South America who decide to investigate some ruins. It's an archaeological dig where a friend's brother is supposed to be waiting. When they arrive at the ruins, they discover to their horror that everyone at the ruins is dead, and a local Mayan tribe won't let them leave. But besides their fear, hunger, thirst, and attempts to escape, they discover a mysterious and malevolent vine is stalking them. To say more would ruin a lot of the surprises, so let's break that down.

The thing about this novel is that it's really a very well-written B-movie. I wasn't surprised this actually was made into a cheap B-movie, because it reads like one. Dumb kids on vacation? Check. Stereotypical characters like the jock, the bimbo, the good girl, and the jerk? Check. Monster hunting and killing them? Check. Characters getting picked off, one by one? Check. But the novel takes that format and expands it considerably.

The characters in the book are extremely well-defined in surprising ways. For one thing, we don't even learn their names until page two. I don't think the novel ever revealed their last names. But they all feel like real people. They start out as the aforementioned cliches, but their internal monologue and actions reveal much more complex personalities. Stacy (the bimbo) knows she's stupid, and struggles against her own limited imagination and libido. Jeff (the jock) seems like the boy scout who knows what he's doing and will save them all. Eric (the jerk) is always trying to find the funny side of things while secretly knowing they're in more danger than he lets on. Amy (the good girl) is frustrated with how no one listens to her because of her constant negativity. But over time, they begin to unravel and become deeper characters. Jeff turns out to be so focused on their survival that he loses his humanity. Eric becomes more and more panicked as he sees their plight before anyone else. Amy's desperation to escape turns her against the others. By about halfway through the story, I was fully invested in all of them and was fascinated with how they clashed and struggled against their own misconceptions. They all have secrets and make emotional journeys that change them. Their inner struggle was just as compelling as their external struggle for survival.

The descriptions in this book are sparing, but extremely powerful. Reading this book truly transported me into the plight of the heroes. I felt their thirst as they tried to ration out their meager water, their hunger as they shared a handful of scraps, and their exhaustion from the burning heat. When the vine began its work, I felt panicked and frightened, sharing their horror at what miseries they endured. When I would put the book down and pick it up, I was always surprised how quickly I was carried back into their world.

I haven't gotten into the vine, but I really don't want to say too much. I knew the story was about an evil vine, which baffled me, because I couldn't imagine a plant being a threat. I was wrong. Man, I was wrong. The things the vine does to the heroes in this novel are almost unbearable to read. I cringed at times just reading the descriptions. Other times, I would read the same passage over and over, because I couldn't or didn't want to accept what had happened. The vine isn't just bloodthirsty. It isn't just frighteningly intelligent. It's also sadistic. That makes it much, much worse. It's like the vine spends the entire story just thinking of ways to make the survivors suffer more than they already are. And it does. By the end, the deaths of many of the characters seems like a relief.

Another thing I loved about the book is that there is very little exposition, but it delivers just what we need. What is the vine? Is it an alien creature? Is it a prehistoric creature unearthed by the dig? Why do the Mayan villagers not allow the survivors to leave? What have they been doing with this vine and how? What happened to the archaeologists? There are signs and hints to answer all these questions and more, but some are left as mysteries. Which works. Sometimes, the unknown is scarier than the known.

I could go on, but I'll leave it at this. This is truly one of the scariest books that I've ever read. And I loved it.

One nitpick, though. As far as I could tell, there are no actual ruins. Just a big hill with a shaft dug in the ground. Minor, but significant, considering the title.

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4 Almost Forgotten 80's Toys Getting Their Own Movies

Marvel changed the face of Hollywood with its series of interconnected movies (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and Hulk), culminating in the massive crossover success of Marvel's The Avengers. The movie world they've created has become known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And it's a gold mine. Ever since, other studios have been crawling all over themselves to create their own cinematic universes, in particular DC with Batman v Superman and the upcoming Justice League movie. But in December 2015, Paramount surprised everyone with an announcement that they would be working with Hasbro to turn its hit G.I. Joe movies series into a cinematic universe. And the other properties they planned to combine it with took everyone by surprise.


Paramount and Hasbro are going to create a cinematic universe combining G.I. Joe with four other toy properties: Micronauts, Visionairies, Rom, and M.A.S.K. To which, many responded, "Who?" Certainly, Hasbro has produced more popular toys to make movies out of, like the Transformers. The problem is, they don't own the movie rights to them. My guess is these four toys are the only ones they own the movie rights to, because no one else wanted them. Unfortunately, they have an uphill battle, because there's no mass audience clamoring to see the M.A.S.K. movie. Then again, there was no mass audience for Guardians of the Galaxy until they released it and showed how awesome they could be. Here's a brief overview of the properties and why they're awesome.

M.A.S.K. - M.A.S.K. is about a team of secret agents who fight a generically evil organization known as V.E.N.O.M. Each member of the team on both sides has a helmet with a special ability, like being able to fly or shoot flames. But the vehicles are what made M.A.S.K. toys awesome. They all had the ability to transform into different vehicles. One character drove a Jeep 4X4 which could pop open, and turn into a speedboat. Another flew a helicopter that turned into a jet airplane. Each vehicle was two vehicles in one. The show also had one of the coolest 80's theme songs.

ROM: Spaceknight - As an action figure in the 1970's, ROM wasn't much. Its main hook was that it had blinking lights, when LED lights were considered revolutionary. But the action figure wasn't very poseable, so it didn't last too long. But the comic book based on the figure was a huge hit, lasting seventy-five issues. In the comic, Rom is an alien from a peaceful world named Galador that's threatened by a hostile alien race known as Dire Wraiths. Rom volunteers to be turned into a cyborg to fight the Dire Wraiths, called a Spaceknight. Rom dedicates himself to traveling the Galaxy in order to wipe out the Dire Wraiths, and comes to Earth to fight them. Sort of a Silver Surfer meets Robocop.

Micronauts - The Micronauts started out as small action figures that were popular in Japan, because they didn't take up much room in the country's cramped apartments. The figures could also be taken apart and combined in different ways. But just like Rom, Marvel's comic book series elevated the toys into a sensation. In the comics, the Micronauts came from a microscopic universe called the Microverse, where worlds connected like molecules. The miniaturized planets were at war with an evil race led by Baron Karza. Micronauts featured an epic story combining elements of fantasy and science fiction. The Micronauts even crossed into the Marvel Universe with Ant-Man, the Fantastic Four, and even the Hulk shrinking down to enter the Microverse, and some Micronauts like Arcturus and Bug growing to become superheroes in the Marvel Universe.

Visionaries - This franchise is probably the least well-known of the five properties. Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light was an animated series about a distant future where technology has collapsed (for some reason), leading to a return to magic. The series pitted the heroic Spectral Knights against the evil Darkling Lords. The warriors could change into animals, and carried staffs that gave them special abilities. The action figures had holograms embedded in their chests and staves (again, revolutionary for the time). But both the toys and the TV series bombed, so there's not much of a fan base.

How Hasbro is going to combine all these properties into one cinematic universe is a mystery to me. Hopefully, they can work it out.

"My name is Timothy McGill, and I'm a time travel addict..." Time Junkie by Nigel G. Mitchell. Only 99-cents for a limited time.

"Fantastic Four" (2015) Somehow Makes Superheroes Boring

Fantastic Four (2015), Source: Fox

Summary: When a group of teenagers enter an alternate dimension, a freak accident grants them superpowers. Bound together by their new abilities, they become a Fantastic Four. But when one of their team plans to destroy the world, they must work together to stop him.

I'd read all the reviews, and seen all the news about the debacle that became Fantastic Four (sorry, that should be Fant4stic, according to the movie poster). I thought it really couldn't be as bad as everyone said. And I was right. Fantastic Four isn't the worst superhero movie ever, despite all the negative press. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace still holds that crown. If anything, Fantastic Four is actually okay up to a point. The problem lies squarely in the middle and end, which is why it's so disappointing. There was plenty of potential to this movie, which makes its wasted resources so frustrating.


The movie starts out well. We see a young Reed Richards and Ben Grimm working together to create a teleportation device, and succeeding. Cut to when they're teenagers, when their experiment at a science fair draws the attention of the Baxter Group, another organization working to perfect an interdimensional transporter, which Richards (now Miles Teller) can help to perfect. Richards gets to join the organization, where he meets the beautiful Sue Storm (Kate Mara), the wisecracking Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan) and the antisocial genius, Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell). Together, they work together to create the interdimensional gateway and secretly transport themselves to another world nicknamed Planet Zero. But in the alternate reality, a mysterious energy attacks and transforms them. Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell), pelted by rocks, becomes a rock-like humanoid Thing. Johnny, set on fire, becomes a never-ending flame. A Human Torch. Richards...for some reason...becomes elastic and Mister Fantastic. Sue Storm, hit by some sort of energy wave, turns into an Invisible Woman. And Doom gets lost in Planet Zero, seemingly dead.

There's a real sense of horror to their transformation, as they can't control their powers. Richards is strapped to a table with his arms and legs stretched out. Johnny screams in horror as he watches himself seemingly being burned alive. Sue fades in and out of existence while her adoptive father watches with dread. It's a great moment where we see how superpowers can be like an illness instead of something cool.

Up until this point, it's all good. There's a sense of excitement and direction as they head towards the moment when they become the Fantastic Four. But here's where the movie loses its way.

The military, as we all know from thriller movies and TV shows, loves to exploit superpowers for military use. Because that's what they do, right? Yeah, that cliche knocks the movie onto its butt. The military takes over, imprisoning the scientists to turn their powers into super-soldiers. Richards manages to escape, but the others remain behind. The movie picks up a year later as Sue and Johnny are given suits that allow them to control their abilities, and are subjected to experimentation. Grimm has become a reluctant warrior, fighting on the battlefields for the Army. Richards is hiding in Mexico, trying to cure them.

This part of the movie is far too long and dull. It's basically just the superheroes sitting around, complaining about what's been done and how to escape. They never fight anyone, except for a brief moment where Richards is re-captured by the military, and punches them with stretchy arms and legs. But then he's taken back to the lab, where he works to send them back to Planet Zero to find a cure. For some reason.

So they go back to Planet Zero, and discover Doom is still alive. He's been fused with his environment suit, which I guess is their way of doing a different take on Doom's classic armor, except it doesn't look anything like his armor. That's a fail. And somehow, he has weird powers which allow him to blast everyone in the lab and return to Planet Zero. He plans to open a portal to destroy the Earth. For reasons not immediately clear.

It's hard to describe how uninteresting all this is. With the Fantastic Four, you expect them to be fighting crime and supervillains. Not sitting in a lab having debates about morality. And Doom is really too much of a cipher to be scary. We don't understand why he suddenly wants to destroy the world or what he plans to do once that's done. Why would he want to return to the desolate Planet Zero? What was up with that mysterious energy, which seemed like it was alive? Is it controlling Doom? Is it teaming up with Doom? And what exactly are his abilities and how does he get them? And how did Doom survive for a year on this world, which looked like it had no food or water? And if you took Doom out (which is entirely possible since he only shows up at the very end), you have a movie about people with superpowers doing nothing with them.

Bottom line, this movie somehow manages to make a guy made of rocks, a guy who can shoot flames, a guy who can stretch, and a woman who can shoot force fields look about as dull as that can be.

Some other random thoughts:

• I wish they'd followed through on the "this is why they got their powers" theme. Rocks, fire, that made sense. But how did the energy turn Reed stretchy and Sue invisible? Why did it fuse Doom into his suit and give him telekinetic abilities? It's like they just gave up.
• Mister Fantastic is known for his ability to change shape, but this movie really just makes him a guy who stretches out his arms and legs. At one point, he changes his face to disguise himself as someone else. But for some reason, he never does anything like that again.
• They never actually gave their super-names in the movie. I guess they were trying to be low-key, but why not just say it? It's like watching X-Men where no one calls Logan the Wolverine.
• Apparently, the ending was changed due to reshoots because the studio said the ending was dull. But considering this ending was still kind of dull, I can only imagine how dull the original ending was. Given the tone of the rest of the movie, I'd guess it involved Doom and the Fantastic Four sitting around a table, arguing about the morality of U.S. military intervention in global affairs.
• They couldn't spend five minutes to explain what's going through Doom's head? He was lost on an alien world for a year with only a green energy pool for companionship, and he doesn't have anything to say about that?

My Rating: Two out of Five Stars

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IST 240 Gaming with Java

I recently completed my IST 240 course at Penn State and had the opportunity to create a game in Java. As we learned Objective Oriented programming with Java, myself and Joshua Mathews designed, coded, and bug fixed "Packet Attack". 

"Packet Attack" is designed as a customizable dungeon crawler style, with a IT twist. The game focuses around the main character, a network administrator whom was quick to curse their network switches. One day, the admin was struck by lightning and transferred into the network switches! To escape, the admin would have to fight through the Firmware Bugs, Firewalls, and Viruses, traveling between the network switches through the ethernet cables till reaching the treasure chest to escape! As you fight through the monsters, on death they will drop helpful items for the hero.

The game is designed to allow you to customize the number of levels, number of rooms per level, number of monsters per room, and their difficulty. The options allow the user to generate an easy or very difficult game.

Packet Attack is a free download here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5442688/PacketAttack%201.0.jar

I hope you enjoy the game!