Hey everyone, I’m happy to reveal the awesome cover for Stolen Valor, Book 2 of the Forsaken Valor series.
Stolen Valor comes out next week, June 8th, and I can’t wait for you all to see what happens in this one. It was a blast to write and I think you’re all going to love it!
They stole my life, so I stole one right back.
Alright everyone! Mark you calendars, because Stolen Valor, the second book of the Forsaken Valor series is coming! Right now I’ve got it scheduled for June 8th.
I’m really excited to get this one out to everyone, because it’s been incredibly awesome to write. William Armstrong has a very different story from that of his sister and the places it goes and the ideas and themes I’m getting to explore are a blast. Plus there’s powered armor and big guns, so what’s not to like?
Stolen Valor will be live on Amazon on June 8th, and I hope you enjoy reading it!
John Wick was a movie that quite frankly caught me off-guard. I went into it expecting some kind of mindless action flick and got caught up in a visceral revenge movie with amazing fight scenes. John Wick as a character possessed intriguing levels of depth and a level of resignation and crisp professionalism about everything he did. There was no wasted movement, no extra effort.
Coming out of that, John Wick 2 was far more mindless and violent. It had a over-complicated plot that tried to tie into a greater world, one of debts and secret societies and complex conspiracies, one which the first one hinted at but never really explained. JW2 explored that world, but at a cost to the titular character. His motivations became murky, his actions lost their singular, vengeful purpose. Also, to challenge him, the fights became bigger, broader, more elaborate and challenging.
Into that setting sweeps John Wick 3 and at first, it seems to take a step back to the original. John is fighting to survive. But then it delves back into the secret society stuff, which, while interesting, doesn’t grip as emotionally. There’s plenty of action. Some very awesome fight scenes, especially early on… but then there’s some mid movie that are *over* choreographed, almost wooden. You can almost hear the director going stop, now do step b, stop, now do step c, etc. And then the motivations become less clear. Is John doing what he does to survive or for some other reason. Is this part of his plan, has he had a plan? Indeed, is John his real name?
It’s a sort of existential crisis that robs the movie of some of the hook. It’s an interesting set of twists, but these twists aren’t explored. Bits of JW’s past are brought up, hinted at, revealed, and discarded without any emotional impact. The ties that bind this secretive criminal empire are shown, but we aren’t given reason to care. Each new group is either a reluctant ally or the source of countless assassins willing to die for the chance to take down John Wick.
And boy do they die. Sometimes in inadvertently amusing fashions as they come and go so quickly. JW’s coup-de-grace headshot is almost comical as the CGI blood splatters from him splitting skulls and stabbing through craniums and then following up with headshots. The action is rapid-fire (see what I did there?) and it doesn’t stop. The tension is constant, with some heel-turn moments that leave you guessing… but also left me unsatisfied. Those who take action are for the most part open books, but JW’s motivations are hard to interpret and, well, murky. And those of some of his allies, well, those can be even less satisfying.
I’m all for the awesome carnage and the fantastic fight scenes. Keanu Reeves and Halley Berry do and did some amazing scenes and I would love to see this level of fedelity in more action movies. On the other side of things, the movie’s writers need to be beaten. Both actors did fantastic jobs with the bits they were given, but the writers seemed to think that a few mysterious looks and sparse words would do, when in reality that’s just not enough. At this point, hundreds, possibly even a thousand, assassins have died at John’s hands. People don’t go blindly to their deaths against those kinds of odds without real motivation. Someone doesn’t *kill* that many people without some kind of real drive. Give JW a story worthy of that drive, not some half-assed power struggle in an organization that we don’t even know the name of… after three movies.
Make the goals, the motivations, something we are emotionally invested in… make the carnage something worthwhile. Otherwise you end up with this, a movie where a guy we used to know kills a lot of faceless mooks in really cool, creative ways.
Hey everyone, it’s been a bit of a crazy past few months, but I’m getting back into things and I should be on track again soon. If you hadn’t seen, my father passed away recently and combined with some other family things, some work things, and some Army things, well, life has been a bit more hectic than usual. I can’t say it’s getting any better in the near future, but I am adjusting and, well, there’s about as much good as (or more than) the bad.
So, anyway, what’s the rest of May hold in store? Well, I’m hopeful to get Stolen Valor, the 2nd Forsaken Valor book, completed, edited, and published by the end of the month. It’s a matter of completing it and getting it to my beta readers in time and I think that’s on track.
As I finish that off, I aim to do the same with the second Argonauts book, A Cold Day in Hades, which I need to finish, edit, and again, send to my beta readers. From there, I’ll do my final edits and send it to Chris Kennedy Publishing. My goal is to get that sent to them before the end of the month, as well.
What else, you ask? Well, there’s quite a few projects I want to work, including a new one (gasp, I know, I have a lot of in-progress series). But the next book I plan to publish is the last of the main-line Shadow Space Chronicles books, The Star Engine.
I know I won’t get it done before the end of the month, but it’s going to be coming in the next few months. It’s a bit behind when I planned it, but I think it’ll be worth the wait, tying of the SSC storyline and setting things up for future series in that universe.
That’s all for now, thanks for reading!
My father passed away on Thursday.
Steven Spriggs passed away on May 2nd, 2019 while recovering from surgery. He was sixty-eight years old. Steven served thirty years in the military, as an officer and enlisted, active duty and reserve, in the Army and the Navy. A father of four, he was preceded 
in death by his wife, Janis, who passed away in 2010. He is survived by his four children: Jacob, Paula, Brooke, and Luke and one grandchild, Robert.
Steven was a complicated man. He served 
in the military, he taught yoga as a certified yoga instructor, he rode a Harley, and drove a tractor on his farm. He could give you his heart in one sentence and then dismiss your existence in the next. He could be kind and generous at one moment and at another, the most miserable bastard in the world. Steven grew up in an abusive family, dealt with PTSD from deployments, and in his final years he dealt with a chronic, painful condition as a result of injuries that eventually lead to his death. He retired from the United States Army after thirty years of service, serving two tours in Vietnam, deploying in the Gulf War and again in Operation Iraqi 
Freedom. He obtained two masters degrees, one in Plant Pathology and the other in National Defense. He worked construction, taught JROTC, instructed yoga, worked his farm, made beer and wine, and loved art and music.
A conservationist, Steven loved the outdoors. He was an avid hiker, camper, snowboarder, fisherman, and hunter. A Colorado native, he passed away in the state not long after returning home. Services will be held at Fort Logan Veterans Cemetery at a date to be determined.
I’ll preface this by saying that I tried really hard not to get any spoilers. Then, on my way into the movie theater, there were a ton of people headed *out* who were discussing every detail. Talk about spoilers… it was rather frustrating for me, but overall didn’t impact my enjoyment of the movie as much as I feared.
It’s hard to say much about the movie without getting into the heavy spoiler department. There’s a lot of emotional stuff. There’s a fair bit of fan-service. There’s something for just about everyone. Some of the humor is spot on. Some of it is so far off base that I’m left scratching my head. The major emotional stuff hits home and it does so very well and doesn’t pull any punches.
The movie doesn’t stop. Be fully prepared to be locked in your seat for that three hours. This is a movie with very real stakes and they make it clear from the beginning that things aren’t going to be all happiness and light. The acting is great, the actors are fully invested, and the sequences and staging of the story are fantastic.
Sit back and enjoy the ride is my best advice. Also, maybe wear earplugs while you’re walking in so you don’t have the biggest twists and turns given away by people walking out of the theater.
I’ll be at Starfest this weekend, so if you’re in the area, I’d love to see you there! I’m on two panels:
Combat in SF and Fantasy (Friday 9 PM)
A discussion of the good, the bad, and the ugly scenes of combat and action in Science Fiction and Fantasy. To include the differences between games, movies, and literature and examples of each. Also a discussion of the morality and emotional impact both upon the audience and the characters involved
These Aren’t The Drones You’re Looking For (Saturday 8:30 PM)
A look at modern cyber and drone warfare and delving into the future of where things are headed. Killer Robots aren’t just in the future, they’re here and now. We’ll talk about how to use them in writing as well as where it’s going in the future.
Hey everyone. I try to post mostly positive stuff here, but the last couple weeks have been pretty rough. Between my wife’s surgery and stuff happening with my family, I haven’t been able to focus on writing. So I’m behind on getting Stolen Valor done and edited, which is going to push it back to next month.
On a more positive note, I’ve been invited to a books and beer event next week and I’ll also be participating in Starfest. Both events will be happening here in Denver.
Halfpenny Brewing Company is having a meet Colorado Authors event on 24 April from 4:30 to 6:30. I’ll be there and if you’re in the area, come by and see me or some of the other authors (and there’s beer!). That’s Halfpenny Brewing Company, 5150 E Arapahoe Rd Unit D1-B, Centennial, CO 80122
For Starfest, I don’t have my final schedule yet, but I’ll post that on Monday. It will be 26-28 April, at the Denver Marriot, DTC.
DC/Warner Brothers has done a shift towards more light-hearted entertainment and they went to the kid/superhero Shazaam with their latest release.
It’s a pretty big shift, one that began (arguably) with Wonder Woman and continued with Aquaman. Overall, it’s a shift I appreciate because, well, I’ll admit I detested their grimdark approach from before.
So how does it work? Well… it’s complicated. On the one hand, the actors involved do a fantastic job. Zach Levi totally sells his role as the titular superhero/kid. The kid actors, too, do fantastic jobs. Same for everyone else, they play their roles brilliantly and some of the side characters are positively awesome, feeling far more real than anything else and therefore reinforcing the suspension of disbelief.
On the other hand… holy crap is the opening dark. I was actually getting pretty uncomfortable with it and starting to wonder if I’d been sold a humorous superhero movie cover on another grimdark Zach Snyder flick. It got better, but given the tone and theme of the rest of the movie, they could have cut that whole section out or done it as a flashback. The villain, too, is a dark, vengeful type totally at odds with the lighthearted tone of other parts of the movie. He didn’t really fit, nor did some of the CGI. I mean, it was cool to see… but it was also pure nightmare fodder for kids.
Which brings me back around to some of the branding. They marketed it as a family movie, but I won’t be bringing my kid to it (I nearly did and now I’m glad I didn’t). It’s not just some of the violence & CGI (which are both borderline for what I’d feel appropriate for young kids), but there’s some themes on family that are really, really dark for young kids to take in.
They’re mostly done well. There’s no promises that are made by the story that aren’t paid off (sometimes in heartbreaking fashion). The story is tight enough and flows pretty well from scene to scene, with no moments jumping out as not fitting. There’s a few loose ends and some things you just have to make assumptions on (or just sort of ignore as being sequel material or something they didn’t have time to wrap up). But those are minor things.
The humor is awesome. There aren’t any jokes that fall flat and it all works organically. The kinds of humor that would naturally come from the ridiculous situation. Once it gets going, the movie is a whole lot of fun.
There’s a bit of awkward wording, some lines just don’t make sense in the context of what’s happening in the rest of the movie. It’s either the CGI not matching up to the scenes or editing having changed what happened. They’re small things, though, and easily overlooked with everything else going on.
All in all, though, it’s a fun movie. It’s not one I’m going to go see again in theaters, but I will be buying a copy. It’s also, as I said, not one I’ll be showing my son until he’s a bit older. It passes the fun bar, it’s almost on track to match Marvel’s movie franchise, except for that whole darkness at the beginning.
Kal Spriggs 