Author Archives: JBM
The Severed Tower Available for Pre-Order
For all those who don’t have problems with procrastination (anyone who isn’t myself, in other words) THE SEVERED TOWER, Book Two of CONQUERED EARTH, is available for pre-order at Barnes & Noble and Amazon. Holt, Mira, and Max have fled Midnight City with Zoey after watching her repel an entire Assembly army. Zoey’s powers are unlocked, but who and what [...]
Top Ten (More or Less) Obscure Alien Tales
MIDNIGHT CITY, book one of my science fiction series CONQUERED EARTH, is set on a near future Earth conquered by a powerful, technological alien race called the Assembly. For most of my life I’ve had a love affair with stories dealing with aliens and alien invasion, and I have a long, long list of interesting alien related yarns that have [...]
Union Station, Los Angeles, 2012
A shot I took with my friend and photographer Dennis Halkides last year, at the really amazing Union Station in downtown LA. The architecture is really iconic and timeless. Every time I come here, I think of BLADE RUNNER.
Telltales’ THE WALKING DEAD Game and Downbeat Endings
MAJOR SPOILERS below. You’ve been warned… So, my recent completion of Telltale Games’ THE WALKING DEAD episodic, retro cool, point and click adventure spurred some interesting thoughts. This is a good thing, most games don’t spur much thought at all. One of the really neat things about the game is that at the end of each episode, it gives you [...]
Cover Reveal: THE SEVERED TOWER
The cover for book two of my CONQUERED EARTH series, THE SEVERED TOWER, has been finalized. Check it out. I think St. Martin’s may have topped themselves.
J.J. Abrams’ STAR WARS: It Could Go Either Way
Well, it took a STAR WARS announcement for me to dust off the old blog. As I’m sure you’ve heard, J. J. Abrams will be directing the next STAR WARS movie, EPISODE VII: (INSERT TITLE WITH EPIC SOUNDING WORDS HERE). I was originally pessimistic when it came to this announcement, but I’ve changed my tune somewhat. Don’t get me wrong, [...]
Final Midnight City Artwork
It’s both exciting and sad to post illustrator/animator Evan Cagle’s last artwork from MIDNIGHT CITY. Exciting because it’s so awesome, but sad because I love seeing these images come in. Evan’s amazing talents have really helped bring the CONQUERED EARTH world to life. I think he saved the best for last. It’s a moment fairly early in the book, where [...]
New Project Announcement: DEEP
You might not think so, but I do write other material besides giant, dystopian, science fiction. For instance, I toyed with the idea of doing a Victorian romance, but I figured…stick with what works. No aliens in this one, but it is all under water with cool submarines. June 08, 2012 03:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time Director Shane Acker (“9”), [...]
Giving a Story World a Sense of “Real”
It’s interesting, I see a fair amount of articles and blogs on the subject of creating story worlds in speculative fiction, or “world building”. It’s a worthy subject no doubt, but for me there’s one aspect that seldom gets mentioned in these discussions, and in many cases also gets overlooked in finished novels and movies. It’s this: giving that story [...]
TRON LEGACY: A Missed Opportunity
This isn’t most the topical blog post, but I recently rewatched the Blu-ray version of TRON: LEGACY, and felt like commenting about it. While it’s visually stunning, the film itself, sadly, leaves a lot to be desired. Which is a shame. To me, this movie is a tremendous missed opportunity for Disney to establish a dynamic, unique, massively entertaining franchise. [...]
