For All their Wars are Merry, The Final Roundup

Well, it's here, the roundup.

.... For All Their Wars are Merry will be out by tomorrow.

And in case you're new here, this is what the book is about.

On IRA Music and Free Books
When I first referred to this insanity coming out. And debuts "My Little Armalite"

Pius History, And #SadPuppies Bite Back
Where I explain where this comes into the overall plan.

COMING SOON: For All their Wars are Merry

.... This is mostly just an excuse to post "The Supergrass."  Heh.

For All Their Wars are Merry -- What's it really about?

A best summary of what I'm doing, really, complete with a bit of history, an outline, and even more of the songs.

....Yeah. I haven't done a whole heck of a lot to set the ground for this one. And sorry about that. But I've been pushing myself to keep publishing as fast as I can. AND dealing with the Hugos. AND dealing with the Dragon Awards. AND preparing for Castalia House's rejection, so I can get THOSE books set up and ready to publish....

And working on a nonfiction proposal for Ave Maria press.

So, yes, I keep busy.

Enjoy all.

Oh, and if you haven't, please vote in the dragon awards.

And if you haven't read it yet....click here, that'll get you started. It's a speedy read. Most people can't put it down. So it'll be done in time for the Dragon vote.

For All Their Wars Are Merry, THIS SUNDAY

First, since I haven't mentioned it all that often, please go, look into The Dragon Awards, register, and vote.  And please, but all means, vote for me. If you wouldn't mind. It's under "Horror."

Back to business.

I've mentioned For All Their Wars Are Merry a few times. It's a book about Irish Rebel Songs. It's going to be one of those that's a little drier than my usual fair. Little will blow up in grand fashion, though there will be quite a few train wrecks along the way.

There's a reason that the full quote from GK Chesterton is

“The great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.”

Except, of course, for some of their songs about war. And trust me, if you lost as many engagements as the Irish did, most of the after action songs would be depressing as hell....But they're not. Not all of them, anyway. There are at least two hero songs where the hero ends BADLY, and they're still generally bright, upbeat songs, even in the lyrics.

If you don't believe me, look up a song of "Father Murphy, of County Wexford." Father Murphy was a badass.

For All Their Songs Are Merry comes out this Sunday, just as I said it would. (I said it would be this past Sunday or this upcoming Sunday....well, it's this upcoming Sunday.)

Once more into the description: 

"For all Their Wars Are Merry" is an examination of the uses and implications of songs in Irish terrorist organizations such as the IRA and all of their various and sundry splinter factions. Basically, it will examine why the Irish have these songs as such a widespread phenomenon, and what the songs tell us about these Irish terrorists.

From songs like “My Little Armalite” to “Come out Ye Black and Tans,” one gets the feeling that the IRA doesn't quite take their British opponents as seriously as one would think, given the amount of bombs and firepower the IRA and all of its mutations has thrown at them in their fight to have Northern Ireland united with the Republic of Ireland, or at least independent of the United Kingdom.

Along the way, it will cover why the Irish terrorists have such songs, why they apologize for their atrocities, how Catholic they thing they are. It will trace these traditions going back back to the days of the Druidic Bards-Irish poets-of the early Celts some three thousand years ago, up to and including the poet Patrick Pearse in the 1916 Easter Uprising in Dublin.

The book will come out in Kindle and in Paperback, and it will be strangely priced.  How so?

Well, I did something strange, and I priced it according to Amazon Guidelines. Yes, Kindle now has a program where it takes your book, everything you say about the book (genre, categories, keywords) and puts together an algorithm for how it should be priced as a Kindle copy.

And so the Kindle Edition of For All Their Wars Are Merry is $3.49.  Why that and not $2.99? I have no idea. It's not like I get that much more, but I'm going to something really odd and trust that Amazon knows how to sell Amazon books.

The price of the paperback will be .... the usual price of a paperback. Yes, Sorry, but for the dimensions of the book, $14.95 is still the most reasonable. I swear that the cut Createspace takes is getting bigger as we go along.

Anyway, that's it. The Kindle and Print editions are already in the works. They'll be up on Sunday, and I'll send a letter to Amazon to make sure that the pages are linked sometime before Hell freezes over this time. It took a week and direct action to make Pius History linked up.

Have a good weekend, all, and remember to vote for Honor at Stake in the Dragon Awards.

And if you haven't read it yet....click here, that'll get you started. It's a speedy read. Most people can't put it down. So it'll be done in time for the Dragon vote.

For All Their Wars are Merry -- What's it really about?

I already mentioned what For All Their Wars Are Merry is about.

It's about...

"For all Their Wars Are Merry" is an examination of the uses and implications of songs in Irish terrorist organizations such as the IRA and all of their various and sundry splinter factions.  Basically, it will examine why the Irish have these songs as such a widespread phenomenon, and what the songs tell us about these Irish terrorists.

From songs like “My Little Armalite” to “Come out Ye Black and Tans,” one gets the feeling that the IRA doesn't quite take their British opponents as seriously as one would think, given the amount of bombs and firepower the IRA and all of its mutations has thrown at them in their fight to have Northern Ireland united with the Republic of Ireland, or at least independent of the United Kingdom.  
Along the way, it will cover why the Irish terrorists have such songs, why they apologize for their atrocities, how Catholic they thing they are.  It will trace these traditions going back back to the days of the Druidic Bards-Irish poets-of the early Celts some three thousand years ago, up to and including the poet Patrick Pearse in the 1916 Easter Uprising in Dublin.

Well, what does that look like?

Introduction
The Limits of Terror: How to Define a Terrorist and a Rebel.
This is a little dry, but the short version is that this isn't just "IRA songs" because, well, while not all Rebels are terrorists, all terrorists are rebels.

Chapter 1: 
A Brief History of the Irish Rebel: A Sketch of Rebellion
A do a brief overview of the Irish versus the British, and noting that, gee, the Irish do have several distinct qualities to them, with some odd songs. To match. So we're going to use the songs to examine what makes the Irish unique in their blowing stuff up.

Chapter 2: 
Heroes and Hatreds: Examining Songs of Irish Rebel Heroes
From The Tain to today, the Irish do seem to like a good front man. It's the bard in them, I think.

Songs covered include
"Bold Robert Emmet”
“James Connolly”
“Kelly, the Boy From Killane”
“Henry Joy”
“Kevin Barry”

And more. Those are just the ones I mention in the first paragraph of the chapter. Literally.

Chapter 3: 
The Rebels Whom Bards Forgot: Rebels Who Were Not Honored
I highlight several people who had been either instrumental in the modern era of Irish rebels, and why they never got songs, even though they possibly should have.

Chapter 4:
Dances With Armalites: The Rebel Songs of Humor.
Obviously, I look at the Irish rebel songs that are almost jokes in execution. And they're a little insane.

The following are only SOME of what I use
"Rockall"
“My Little Armalite”
“The Supergrasse”
“Auf Wiedershein Crossmaglen”
"The Black Watch"
“Come Out Ye Black and Tans"

Chapter 5:
Wrap the Flag Around Me, Boys: Examining Irish Memorial Songs
Again, the title, is kind of self explanatory.

SOME of the songs used?
“Boys of the Old Brigade”
“Tipperary So Far Away”
“Wrap The Green Flag Round Me, Boys”
“Lonely Woods of Upton,”
“Gallipoli”

Chapter 6: 
Soldiers and Bombers: The Self-Image of the Rebel
Why don't the IRA have suicide bombers? How Catholic do they think they are? Are they religious, political, or communist?  Yes, communist. It was a thing for a bit. Yeah. It gets strange.

“Down by the Liffey Side”

“Provo’s Lullaby,”

"A Nation once again!” 

“A Soldiers’ Song”
Chapter 7:
Apologies and Other Oddities: The Irish Rebel as Catholic
Considering that "Catholic" is the most common impression of Irish Rebel groups, it deserved d a section to itself.

Songs? "A Sniper’s Promise” is the major new one. I also used songs from before.

Chapter 8: 

A Bard One Cannot Refuse: Comparing Songs of the Irish Rebel to Songs of the Italian Mafia.
Yes. I do a compare and contrast. 

Short version? The Mafia is not at all apologetic. Ever.

Chapter 9: Conclusion.
As noted.

And this book is dedicated to William D. Griffin ... my professor who died in 2011.

COMING SOON: For All their Wars are Merry

I know I had suggested it would be this Sunday that would feature it, but it's more likely that next Sunday (I hope) will have "For All Their Wars Are Merry: An Examination of Irish Rebel Songs" coming to Amazon.com in Kindle and Paperback.

I'm actually rather proud of this one. Most of the legwork was done over the course of years, before I even started doing the actual paper. Why? Because, well, as I've mentioned before, I have had occasion to go to the Great Irish Fair on Coney Island. And I've had occasion to pick up a CD or two.

And maybe, just maybe, you could conclude from my name that I'm a wee bit Irish somewhere in there, can't ye?

Ahem.

Anyway, as I pointed out last week, there are some entertaining songs along the way, and I think you'll at least like the appendix if nothing else. And, yes, I do have an appendix filled to the brim with songs. Why? Because context helps, I think.

Again, this sudden shift to nonfiction has been brought on by my impatience. You might remember me saying that Castalia House will be getting back to me in about, perhaps, a month, now that Vox Day gave my submissions priority. What that actually translates to in terms of speed is anyone's guess. I submitted four books. I don't know if they're going to be rejected as a package deal, or individually. Then again, as Honor at Stake is already published, and the most likely project to be rejected, you would have think I would have heard about that one first. Perhaps they're looking over all of the Love at First Bite novels just to see if they want the whole set or not. Which would make sense.

But, yeah, I am seriously unable to just sit still and do nothing while I wait for Castalia House.

And yes, I say "Nothing," even though I'm going to be doing the King Arthur anthology, I did Pius History this week, I'm doing For All Their Wars Are Merry this week, I'm working with someone on making a proposal on Snarky Theology 101, on the 21st (maybe the 28th), I'm going to rerelease The Complete Pius Trilogy as .... The Complete Pius Trilogy on Kindle for $9.99.  Yes, that's probably something I should have done two years ago, but ... yeah. That'll happen.

So, yeah, I'm working like a maniac because I am anxious as hell, waiting for everything to happen.

But this is my month of history and nonfiction.

And if you have no idea what I'm going to be doing for For All Their Wars are Merry, there's a bit of a hint here.

If you don't understand what's going on in the song ... that's the point of For All Their Wars are Merry. I fell into this for so long, I couldn't help but footnote Kirkpatrick, Black, and Gilmore.

And if you can't understand the lyrics as sung here ... that's what the appendix is for.

But yeah, I wound up going through the history in the songs, the types of songs, historical allusions in the songs, and everything but the exact history of the songs by time period ... and that last, I probably would have done in a PhD dissertation expansion on that, but I felt that would have been nitpicking at that point. And require more music than actual history.

But, yeah, I first pounded out For All Their Wars are Merry in January of 2004, over the course of three weeks. It was then refined and retooled over the course of several months, before culminating in an actual thesis.

We don't even go into the alternate songs I used for compare and contrast -- the songs of the mafia. Yes, you didn't think that the IRA were the only people who sold these songs, do you?

And, yes, for those people who are about to say that Islamofascist terrorists have songs too ... I can find Mafia and IRA songs on Amazon. I couldn't find Songs of the PLO or Hamas ... and if someone wants to correct me, please just post ONE link. And please, if you're going to correct me, make sure that someone else hasn't already.

Anyway, if you haven't already, you might want to pick up Honor at Stake. 

Preferably before the sequel comes out.

NEW RELEASE of Pius History: The Facts Behind the Pius Trilogy

Yup. It's here. At long last, I've actually done something.

Welcome to Pius History.

Ever wonder about what was fact or fiction in your favorite thriller? How much was made up or how much was just to push the story along?

Well, wonder no longer as Declan Finn pulls back the curtain on his epic trilogy to show you his meticulous, painstaking research. Did his fictional pope grow up in a world as rough as described? Are the bad guys really that motivated to end the church? Are some of the weapons real? Did Pius XII really take a side for or against the Nazis? This book has the answers you're looking for.

A few elements about the creation of Pius History and it's creation.

First, this one is short. It's about 100 pages. Why? Because, again, this is not a massive, in-depth book. These articles are are snapshots. Call them vignettes of history, if you will.

These are what inspired me in the creation of the Pius Trilogy.

So, obviously, a 100 page nonfiction is not going to be priced the same as, say, a full novel.

Why? Because it's so freaking short. Duh.

Usually, when I self publish a novel, I get about $4.00 a paperback. Why? Because the production costs are are at least $6.00 a unit now. Yes, I know, it's getting stupid. If future novels become shorter, this might be part of the reason. But, honestly, my books keep getting longer. Odd.

Also, on the other hand, Amazon wants their cut. Order it from Createspace, I get more money. Order from Amazon, I sell more, but get less.

And if, Heaven forbid, an actual brick and mortar store deigns to have me on the shelves, I make a whole $3.00.

In this case, I'm making Pius History $9.99 in paperback.  Amazon gives me $3.84.  CreateSpace gives me $5.84. And brick and mortar locations? $1.84.

Kindle Direct Publishing, on the other hand .... suggests that Pius History be $4.99.  Yeah. I don't know why either. Because nonfiction is priced more? I don' t know. I'm going to go with it for right now, on the assuming that Kindle knows more about what the bleep they're doing, since I don't.

And, I make ... $3.46 a unit. Again. The same as with paperback.

Okay, if that's something that Amazon had planned, that is a cute trick.

To break this down a little more, Pius History has...

With Burning Anxiety, about Pius XII.

Sudanistas, which is the back story for Pius XIII.

The Guide to the Weapons of A Pius Man ... okay, that part is obvious.

This Troublesome Priest, which is something about the bad guys for The Pius Trilogy.

Each of these are over two dozen pages, and the footnotes are something you might want to take a look at.

No, I will never say that these are the last word on any of these subjects. I even make recommendations in the book. And if I don't, you can figure out which one is which by how often I cite individual items.

It'll be interesting to see what happens with the sale.

If things go well, next Sunday will be For All Their Wars are Merry. If they don't, it'll be released the Sunday after.

We'll see.

For the record, please remember, PIUS TALES IS FREE TODAY, TOMORROW, AND THE DAY AFTER.

Thank you.

Pius History, And #SadPuppies Bite Back

So, of course, now that I've got people suggesting that I publish nonfiction, I'm working on two books...

To be released in the next two - four weeks ...

Did I ever mention that I get bored easily, and I feel the need to publish at least one thing every 12 months?

Preferably every six months, because after month that, I feel like a knot is slowly tightening in my guts. It's that spot right above and behind my belly button, below the diaphragm, and if feels like someone is trying to constantly and consistently push it's way out of my guts.

Yeah. I feel sick if I don't publish in a timely fashion. You don't even want to know what my stomach feels like right now.

But you can imagine what it's been like since that I haven't published anything since Honor At Stake in September last year.

Technically, I republished Honor At Stake in June. But I haven't published anything new in nearly a year.

Of course, we're going to start with Pius History.  What will they be? Tied into the Pius Trilogy, really. They'll be the histories and footnotes in the books. Ever wondered what's real and what I made up? You're about to find out.

Ever wonder about what was fact or fiction in your favorite thriller? How much was made up or how much was just to push the story along?

Well, wonder no longer as Declan Finn pulls back the curtain on his epic trilogy to show you his meticulous, painstaking research. Did his fictional pope grow up in a world as rough as described? Are the bad guys really that motivated to end the church? Are some of the weapons real? Did Pius XII really take a side for or against the Nazis? This book has the answers you're looking for.

Now, after that will be For All Their Wars Are Merry, a historical look and review of Irish Rebel Songs. Not IRA songs per se, because saying that every Irish rebel is part of the IRA is like saying that ISIS, the PLO and al-Qaeda are all the same organization.

Again, Amazon wants me to post this at $3.99. I'm not going to object, certainly. They're the experts.

Pius Histories will be out on this Sunday, August 7th. Give or take a few hours, depending on how fast Kindle and Createspace will go. It may be a Kindle-only, I'm not entirely certain it's long enough for a paperback.

On August 21st, I'll release For All Their Wars Are Merry.

Here's where it gets tricky. If Castalia House rejects me by then -- if, I say -- then here's where things are going to get ugly. No, not for Castalia House, but for me.

Why? Because I'm thinking of publishing something .... a little sad.

That's right, not tearful. Sad. I'm done playing around.

That's right. I'm quite done thinking "oh, but what if they sue?" First of all, parody is covered under the first amendment. Second, if these schmucks sue me just for the pleasure of suing me, I'll CC all communication to whatever media outlets I can get my hands on.

Also please consider that Vox had a book titled "John Scalzi is a Rapist," and the most Scalzi did was whine to have Amazon take it down. The book was up with a different title the next day.

So, yes, if Castalia House rejects everything, I'm going to publish this and Set to Kill as almost a set. Definitely back to back.

Why wait? you ask. Because if Castalia wants Set to Kill, they might have a use for Sad Puppies Bite Back. If they can't see any use in Kill, they probably won't see a use in SPBB.

And what to do about Honor at Stake and Murphy's Law of Vampires if they are rejected? I've been talking with Matt Bowman over at Catholic Geeks.  If Castalia doesn't like Love at First Bite, then they'll be going to The Catholic Geeks Library.

Yup. I'm told it would be a shoe-in. Probably, so would the others in the series. Hilarity ensues.

Depending on if and / or when Castalia rejects me, Set to Kill will probably be out .... maybe even before World Con.

But if Castalia House accepts me ... again, I'd probably die from shock.

Anyway, do me a favor and check out Honor at Stake. You might like it.

Saint Patrick's day music blog: Auf Wiedersehen Crossmaglen

I mentioned in the previous post that you have to have an odd sense of humor to enjoy some of these songs.

Now, just imagine your average British recruit in the 1960s, with a recruiting Sargent spinning yards about pulling duty in the post-war Berlin ... and meanwhile, the recruit is sent to Northern Ireland. Talk about your bait and switch.

For the record, "crag" [sic], pronounced "crack," is Irish slang for a good time.

St. Patrick's Day music blog: Little Armalite

Did I ever mention that my masters thesis in history was on the rebel songs of the IRA?

For the record, an Armalite is a rifle. And this is only if you have an odd sense of humor.

Or if you enjoy gun humor.

I do both. Heh.

The Anthologies are here

Item the first, I'm still going to be here as time allows, so I may not be on for a while. Though I'm going to try to upload guest posts should I get any. I've got one or two people who have offered posts. We'll see who follows through.

Item the second, all three books are out on Kindle. Pius Origins  and Pius Holidays, both on Kindle. Pius Tales should be out sometime within an hour or so of this post, on Kindle and paperback.

Pius Origins is out, only $.99

Yaaay.

The short stories here include:

One Way to Get out of Jail
Sometimes, a legal defense can be murder.
We Have a Pope!
Spinning a story can go both ways.
Mile High Murder
A killer is roaming an airplane. And no one can stop him. Should anyone try?
Swiss Family Mafia
Being a bill collector can be trying.
Tinker, Tailor, Goyim, Spy
The Bostonian Catholic walks into Mossad. What is this, a joke?

But wait! There's more! Including character interviews and essays on their creation.

Also, ...

Pius Holidays is here, only $.99

Includes some fun stories as

God Hates ... Superman?
Crowd control made easy.
Erin Go Boom
Priest vs. terrorists. Oops.
Boys of the Old Brigade
Beating IRA terrorists 140 characters at a time.
See Something
Say something ... or beat someone's head in.
Let Freedom Ring
Terrorists come to blow up Boston. Nobody can stop them! Thankfully, there's a nobody on call.
Coyote Christmas 
Come for the party, stay for the wild animals.
O Little Town of BethMayhem
Terrorists are going to blow up Bethlehem on Christmas Eve.
Deck the Maul
A mercenary works mall security on Black Friday. Insert your own joke.

And, finally, Pius Tales, for $2.99 in Kindle, and $7.99 in paperback ... link to be posted. Sorry about that, there was a delay. Should be up today. Period.

Includes .... everything from above, plus additional content, essays, commentary, additional stories, story extras -- over ten thousand words of additional content.

Be well, all.

Father's Day

I love my father ...

Alec Baldwin

When they were filming It's Complicated at St. John's University, where my father teaches philosophy, Alec Baldwin crossed paths with my father. My father gave him a big broad smile, and said, "You know, Adam is my favorite Baldwin brother."

Adam Baldwin on
the right... again.

Alec Baldwin sighed and said "Yeah, I get that alot."

Adam Baldwin has nothing to do with the tribe of the Baldwin brothers, and is actually on the opposite end of the political spectrum from said family of left-wingers.

My father can be just a bit of a troublemaker.

But what is he when he's at Home? Other Novel Ideas.

I've had people in my Real Life tell me that they're confused about what I'm selling at the moment.

I post on my personal pages about what I'm working on, while at the same time inviting them to look over A Pius Man. 

So, it might be a good idea to clear things up.

To do that, I think it's time to allow you a glimpse into my dark, dark mind.

A Pius Synopsis

The below is basically how the fly leaf of a A Pius Man dustjacket would look like.
*******************************

A Pius Man is a mystery with too many suspects.

In Rome, an old terrorist is blown out the window of a hotel and crash-lands on a car at the gates of the Vatican. A figure in a priest’s robes is seen running from the scene. But the body on the windshield is just the beginning for a team of six unlikely investigators from around the world. Each pair of hands on this case has a past, and a few secrets … and an axe to grind. They don’t want to work together. They don’t want this case.

And one of them just might be the killer.

Is it....

Sean Ryan, an American stuntman turned mercenary and self-described “cleanser of the gene pool”? He’s supposed to be in Rome to train priests in combat, and old habits die hard.

Then there’s Giovanni Figlia, a homicide cop for the Pope who fears only paperwork. He was best known for starting soccer games with bishops in the Borgia gardens … until the corpse landed on the hood of his Jetta.

Could it be a former U.S. Army chaplain who was meeting with the murdered man on a weekly basis? Did the Jesuit priest who’s killed men with his bare hands know that his weekly luncheon date had just murdered a researcher in the Vatican Archives?

And what about Scott "Mossad" Murphy of Israeli intelligence’s “Goyim Brigade”? He and his partner are in the middle of investigating another murder at the Vatican … this one a high-ranking Muslim leader with connections to al Qaeda.

Into this mix comes Maureen McGrail, an Irish Interpol agent with a bitter past with Sean Ryan. She’s working her own murder case, related to the controversial canonization of Pope Pius XII, sometimes known as “Hitler’s Pope.” And guess who Interpol wants to send to Rome … ?

And the final, most distressing suspect is Joshua Kutjok....aka Pope Pius XIII, a right-wing African pope with rumors of blood in his past and the stated goal of turning “Hitler’s Pope” into the “Hero of the Holocaust.” To accomplish this goal, he’s already let terrorists into the Vatican Archives … would he kill a man who stood in his way?

In A Pius Man, six unlikely heroes must work together to unravel a web of intrigue and murder that entwines one of the most controversial figures of the twentieth century. Was Pius XII a Nazi collaborator who deliberately let millions of Jews die? Has the Vatican covered up the truth for more than 60 years? Or has someone perpetrated a decades-long smear campaign? And what will happen to six strangers trying to finally bring the truth to light?

Novels to films, a brief history

I have received the question, at times, about who should play characters in a film of A Pius Man.  This got me thinking about adaptations. Given the last decade of novel-to-film movies, the question becomes more interesting.

Looking at the slew of Harry Potter films, filmed comic books, etc, I find that Hollywood has obviously hired people who can read.

Why do I express surprise? I can answer that with another question.

Does anyone REMEMBER the 1990s?

Let's look at a few authors who had their work turned into films.

Michael Chrichton:

Author of such noted works as Jurassic Park, Congo, and Rising Sun, he probably had the most good fortune of any author short of Stephen King in having his books translated by Hollywood. And that's the sad part.

Anyone who's read Chrichton's work will appreciate a book I saw while shopping in London. Star Trek as Written By Other Authors—the short story as “written” by Chrichton had five charts and graphs over three pages. While no one missed those in the film versions, I'm sure they missed a few other things.

In Jurassic Park, the novel, the differences were numerous and frequent. There were dozens of Velociraptors, and part of the problem was that raptors had been escaping to the mainland. The park staff was more than the seven people we saw over the course of the film, and security was so well armed, there were moments when it looked like it was Park security versus the dinosaurs in an all out war that included missiles.

Back then, there were few complaints because, despite all the differences, it was still a fun movie, and to create a full adaptation would have required a miniseries. Elements from the first novel would be scattered throughout the next two films.

The Lost World: The sequel to Jurassic Park, the novel, was... better than the filmed version. While the novel followed up on the original enemy from the first one (the problems of Jurassic Park were caused by industrial espionage), the movie decided to make the primary adversary was the stereotyped “Evil Businessman #1.” Someone decided that the movie needed to be made into an endangered species riff, complete with an action lead played by.... Matthew Vaughn, playing an ecoterrorist? And we're going to throw in a cute kid, just because Spielberg likes cute kids. There's a reason that the third film consisted of little plot, less character, and mostly running.

Rising Sun: Someone must have been asleep on the job when looking up their cultural research. I can only conclude that Hollywood wasn't paying attention the day that the Japanese Emperor declared that both blacks and women were “inferior”... why else would they change make one of the lead policemen of this murder mystery into Wesley Snipes?



Tom Clancy: The major problem here lies in one book, one that I'm sure everyone remembers as a film.

The Sum of All Fears: The premise of the novel was simple. Middle Eastern terrorists nuke the Superbowl in order to prompt the United States and the Soviet Union into World War III. It's up the National Security Adviser Jack Ryan to talk everyone down.

I will usually grant a lot of leeway to people who adapt a screenplay. A lot. The previous film had been several years before, and Harrison Ford had moved on to other things. It would have been reasonable to have gone onto later novels, changed actors, and move on. Alec Baldwin had played Jack Ryan in the first film, The Hunt for Red October, I would not have objected to bringing him back. And they had already skipped one novel—The Cardinal of the Kremlin—due to the fact that there wasn't a Kremlin anymore. Taking the character of Jack Ryan from his post as CIA director (from the previous film, Clear and Present Danger) and making him NSA director (in Debt of Honor, the first post-Cold War novel), would have been nice and easy.

Instead, the film for Sum of All Fears was a series reboot about shiny new CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Ben Affleck), going up against.... wait for it... Neo-Nazis. Most of whom were taken out in an ending sequence reminiscent of a Godfather film.

So, wait, the movie comes out after 9-11-01, and for some reason, terrorists from the Middle East are inferior villains? Hollywood's racism is astonishing; somehow, European bad guys are superior to any other flavor of bad guy, especially if the Europeans are evil Nazis.



Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

The Relic: The first book in their series about mysterious FBI Agent Prendergast, who seems to specialize in X-Files quality strange, without the space-alien level stupidity. The Relic was a thrilling tale about a monster in the New York Museum of Natural History. When the book was first written, the museum in real life looked like a great setting for a horror film. Part of this team consisted of a graduate student Margo Green, her wheelchair bound mentor Dr. Frock, and, of course, Special Agent Prendergast. The mystery starts with what, exactly, could have killed a museum security guard in two blows—one to rip open the chest, and one to smash the back of the head clean off.

The adversary of the novel was a genetic mutation that was about eight feet long, like a cross between a panther and bug... it had an exoskeleton like an insect's chiton, only bulletproof. It survives an encounter with a SWAT team with full assault rifles and a grenade launcher.

The film... eliminated multiple key characters (one being Prendergast, goodbye series), killed off several who were necessary for any possible sequel, replaced everyone remaining with pure cliches, and made the creature a thirty to sixty foot monstrosity. This extra large beastie is supposed to have slipped into a small employee restroom to kill a guard, when it couldn't even fit into the hallway leading to the restroom. It manages to kill an entire SWAT team because they all run like scared rabbits—possibly frightened by the horrid graphics—and it starts bleeding because it took a few rounds from a .9mm handgun (to quote the governor of California, if it bleeds, you can kill it). But, no, in this film, they had to try blowing it up with bad CGI fire.



I'm going to cheat for the next few books. They are not the nineties, but they are film adaptations that went horribly sideways.



F. Paul Wilson—The Keep.

This one is interesting. F. Paul Wilson, Fordham graduate, agnostic, and all around interesting person, who even created a character with a rabid following—one so rabid Stephen King is President of the fan club.

One of his earlier books was called The Keep. It opens in 1943, with the German High Command getting a communication from an outpost in Transylvania: “Something is killing my men.” In another area of Europe, a man awakes, and knows he has to get to The Keep before everything ends. It essentially starts out as Dracula and ends as Lord of the Rings.

Enter: the movie. The author himself has concluded that the set of The Keep had a lot of white powder going up a lot of noses. Frequently. Not even Ian McKellen could save this train wreck. The synopsis of the film is as follows: creature kills Germans in WW2; a professor in the Keep makes deal with creature. Professor's daughter sleeps with guy who comes out of nowhere. Creature kills everyone in the Keep. Guy who comes from nowhere has an entrance with lots of light, creature goes away. Credits roll. Audience goes “huh?”


Clive Cussler—Raise the Titanic!

Before there was Indiana Jones, there was Clive Cussler. His main character is Dirk Pitt, one part old fashioned swashbuckler, one part nautical engineer. You may have seen the movie Sahara, made from another of his books—not a great film, but a decent popcorn movie. Better than this one.

Premise: there is an element that might be able to power a sonic-missile shield for the United States (this is the 70s). The only known sample was on board the Titanic, so, we—guess what—RAISE THE TITANIC! (this was before anyone knew how badly the ship had been totaled, so go with it). The book had everyone sail away on the resurrected vessel after a tense shootout with Soviet agents who had found out about the plan and tried to steal the precious material.

The movie, of course, had to have the Soviet bad guys come on board, and our hero scuttles the ship to make sure they don't get it. No victory, just a draw.

Movies of the day suffered from the Hollywood's idea of detente—there are no victories, only draws. If that was the only problem Raise the Titanic suffered from, it might have been salvageable. Instead, Hollywood took a fast paced, tightly written book, and turned it into a slow, ponderous mess. To tell you how bad it was, Clive Cussler saw Raiders of the Lost Ark and cried—mainly because it captured everything that he put into his own writing.


Today, I look at several adaptations—if you have major kvetches, I suggest holding off of them until my conclusions.

Lord of the Rings: Scenes lifted directly from the pages, dialogue from the novel, subplots taken from the appendix. You don't get much better than this. The major quibble I can conjure up is the buildup to the climax of the second film, The Two Towers—and I can blame that on the director's fondness for the buildup in the film Zulu, which felt like nothing but screaming “WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE.” Aside from that part of one film, I couldn't complain even if I wanted to.



Harry Potter: I read the books. They weren't bad for YA novels, and a nice parody of the English school system. The more you know about British culture, the funnier they were. Frankly, I thought the films improved on some things. Granted, some of what was left out of the films confused me... in movie three, there's no explanation for a major device of the film, or how another character knows of it. In #4, our protagonist asks why something went odd with his wand, and no answer is given. I say its odd because both “problems” could have been corrected with about three lines of dialog each. And, while confusing, no big deal. The end.



Comic books.

These are clumped together, and easy.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine: For a film that was studio mandated, it wasn't bad. Originally wanting to make Frank Miller's storyline about the mutant with anger management / memory / family issues, the people who did the film were ordered to make an origin story. Considering that the details of everyone involved in Wolverine's past were essentially turned into memory goulash, it was possibly the most comprehensible version they could come up with. I'm still confused about complaints that “Deadpool wasn't done well. He was just Ryan Renolds.” Considering that Deadpool wasn't the main character, and had, maybe, five minutes on screen, I don't think you can do anyone well in that amount of time.



The Spider-Man Films: The comic book career of Peter Parker looks like a rubric to diagnose bipolar disorder. Check. The whole Goblin family drama—mostly. Check. Parker puts on the black suit and turns from nerd to.... evil nerd. Big check. Though he could have taken tips from Neil Patrick Harris on being an evil nerd.

The biggest complaint has been about Spider Man 3, particularly on the character of Venom... well, as Sam Raimi said, “I had never read Venom in the comic books, since they came after my time. Because of that, I didn't have a natural inclination toward him. And when I read those comics, at [producer] Avi Arad's urging, I didn't understand where Venom's humanity was. I know that kids think he looks cool, and they think he's a good villain for Spider-Man. I actually didn't. What was it about Peter's own makeup that this villain represented some weaker or darker side to? Just looking like a dark version of him is not enough for me. The more I read [Venom stories], the less interested I became.” So, I get that. Though I wonder why he bothered putting Venom in a film if he didn't really like him.

Aside from that, there could be aesthetic quibbles—why they felt they had to make the Green Goblin look like a power Rangers, I don't know.


Batman Begins: I've had some people complain about the opening of the film, and how Bruce Wayne had been trained to become Batman. My usual response is that, if you read the comic books, the way it was done in the film contained the simplest, least convoluted explanation, as well as introducing the primary villain. And if there are any complaints about The Dark Knight, the best I can come up with is that the movie should have left off with catching the Joker, leaving Harvey Dent / Two-Face to be an ominous thread to be expanded into another movie. The last fifteen minutes felt odd, but having one of your key actors die in the middle of shooting can mess up a schedule a bit.



Now, aside from the above example, I will not say that modern day Hollywood adaptations are all perfect. That would be impossible. However, without lingering on minor quibbles, I can point you to several movies made recently that were based on books and made into something... different.


Shooter, based off of Stephen Hunter's novels about a marine sniper who had been framed for murder, turned into the usual conspiracy theory film about evil government employees messing around in Africa for one natural resource or another. That it starred Castro fan Danny Glover was a hint that the book would be rewritten.


[NOVEL SPOILER ALERT] The Bourne Identity was based off of Robert Ludlum's novel of the same name. A tv miniseries was made in the 1980s, starring Alan Chamberlain. The CIA had sent operative David Webb, war veteran, after assassin Carlos the Jackal, seeming to be another assassin and competitor named Jason Bourne. During the operation, he is shot in the head while fleeing a ship at sea, and awakes with amnesia. In piecing together the story of his life, he believes that he really is an assassin, the CIA thinks he has gone rogue, and the assassin he's hunting is returning the favor, and a civilian he saves from being gunned down in the crossfire is a female accountant who grows attached to him.

The movie: Boat, amnesia, perfect operative, check. Carlos the Jackal is replaced by African Dictator #1 from the nearest cliché yard, and the CIA isn't interested in listening to what happened to him, they all just want him dead. Period. Everyone involved on the CIA end dies, except for Julia Styles, using her amazing blonde powers. Bourne hooks up with a backpacking, gypsy-like female with no discernible education, intellect, or personality.

The Bourne Supremacy – The novel: elements in the government want to use David Webb to flush out another assassin, only this one has taken over the name of Jason Bourne. So, they kidnap his wife, the accountant he saved in the first novel, leaving clues that end him after this new Bourne. The CIA isn't the bad guy, but they are manipulative, which pretty much goes with the trade. Webb's other friends within the Agency lend him aide as he tries to find his wife.

The film: Still on the run as Jason Bourne, his girlfriend gets her head blown off by a Russian assassin on orders from a CIA administrator left over from an X-Men film .... Start your average revenge plot. Kill more CIA agents. Throw in some Russians, because they are obviously still the massive, intimidating threat that they were when they had a working government, now that they're taking orders from us, somehow.... huh? Julia Styles still manages to survive.

The Bourne Ultimatum—the novel is simple: Revenge of Carlos the Jackal. The film: obviously not, because they didn't have Carlos in the first film anyway.


In short, Hollywood has apparently become literate since the 90s—or, at the very least, is CAPABLE of adhering to source material such as novels and comic books. I'm certain that part of it has to do with a director appreciating the source material (Lord of the Rings), or a horde of slavering child fans who will tear them apart if they screw up the movie (the whole Harry Potter / Twilight franchise), or having the Intellectual Property owners run the studio (Marvel / WB). When you consider what has come in the past, things have improved.

Though, apparently, all bets are off when a film include Matt Damon or his clone (Mark Wahlberg). Still, even those films at least resemble the books they were based on to some degree. So, whenever you have a quibble about your favorite character in a novel / comic that's been adapted to film, or that elements had been changed, shifted or modified, always remember one very important lesson that I have learned over the years.....


It can ALWAYS be worse.

And if you don't believe me, ask the hordes of video game fans who have ever gone to see a Uwe Boll film of their favorite game.

Terrorists are stupid.

Yes, the title is exaggerated, but you're reading, aren't you?

I must say, though, for the most part, terrorists are not the brightest lights in the night sky.

Think about it. I can plan a better terrorist attack than any of these bozos. So could you.

For example....You want terror? Screw blowing up the World Trade Center—over fifty thousand people worked there, and the WTC could have upwards of 100,000 visitors per day (the magic notebook sees all and retains all). Infect all of them with the bio-weapon of your choice. A little smallpox, for example, maybe plague in the HVAC system. Have it running all day, and you infect both employees and tourists. They, in turn, infect people while going to lunch, on the subway, the ferry, their families, and when tourists go home, they bring it back with them. Being a smart terrorist, you tell the states friendly to you that they should really restrict travel to and from New York, and possibly all of America, period.

By the time the penny drops at the CDC, most of New York City now needs to be quarantined. The economy starts drying up, slowly. Tourism is dead. Fifty thousand jobs in the two buildings are lost, assuming that the employees are not all simply dead.

And I'm not even thinking hard.

Ironically, despite the Wyle E. Coyote explosive in Times Square, the attack itself was the right idea from their point of view. If terrorists want to inspire terror, then small, but frequent, attacks are the way to go. People are scared, frightened, uncertain about what may come around the next corner.

However, a word to al-Qaeda, et al, upon looking at the Time Square incident: when you're acquiring explosives, avoid the ones marked ACME....

As I was saying—thus far, when terrorists can't come up with ideas that I can in my spare time, they should probably reconsider their career goals.

And they are not necessarily uneducated. Osama bin Laden, last I checked, had a degree in engineering—and if I'm mistaken, his family is fill with engineers so he should have some idea. Mohammed Atta, one of the 9-11 pilots, had an upper middle class education in Egypt.

Though it does make me wonder why, thus far, a lot of the terrorists coming our way seemed to have come out of the Wyle E. Coyote school of home explosives.

The Underwear Bomber whose bomb caught fire without going off.

The Times Square bomber, with a Rube Goldberg timer.

The best answer I can come up with is that we're getting all the cannon fodder, who seem as bright as cannonballs. Not to mention that they have few experienced fighters—when you encourage martyrdom in your ranks, you have few people around who can share hard won combat experience. It didn't work well for the kamikaze, I can tell you that.

If I were going to do a terrorist attack....