Stories by Williams

Conan, Then and Now

by storiesbywilliams on November 29, 2011 in Movies, Reviews and tagged and if you do not listen then to hell with you, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Aryas there was an age undreamed of, born of the 4th of july, cimmerian, conan the barbarian, conan the destroyer, crom, dragon: the bruce lee story, dragonheart, Dune, HBO miniseries, hyboria, hyborian age, james earl jones, jfk, john milnius, makes us stronger., Mako, max von sydow, natural born killers, Nietzsche, Nietzschean, oliver stone, Raffaella De Laurentiis, red dawn, red sonja, riddle of steel, rome, sons of Aryus, subotai, That which does not kill us, the wizard, to crush your enemies see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations fo their women, valeria, valkyrie, what is best in life?

When I first started doing sci-fi movie reviews, I knew I wanted to tackle Conan sooner or later. It was one of the Fantasy entries I was making room for, and I thought a comparative analysis, old versus new, would be a cool idea. Well, I finally got around to seeing the new one recently, […]

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The Diamond Age

by storiesbywilliams on November 25, 2011 in Books, Reviews and tagged Boxer Rebellion, bud, carl hollywood, celestial kingdom, coastal republic, confucian, cyberpunk, dr. X, economic protocol, feed, Fists of Righteous Harmony, fullerenes, hackworth, harv, hindustan, john percival hackworth, judge fang, leased territories, lord Alexander Chung-Sik Finkle-McGraw, lord Finkle-McGraw, matter compiler, mc, miranda, mouse army, nanotechnology, Neal Stephenson, nell, New Chusan, phyle, post-cyberpunk, primer, princess nell, ractives, ractor, Sci-Fi, science fiction, Shanghai, snow crash, technological singularity, tequila, the diamong age, thete, tribalism, turing machines, victorians, young lady's illustrated primer

Yesterday, I got into one of my all-time favorite sci-fi novels, Snow Crash! And, as I believe I mentioned, that was the novel that put Neal Stephenson on everyone’s radar as the new voice of post-cyberpunk. Well, if that novel established that reputation for him, it was his very next novel, The Diamond Age, that […]

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Snow Crash!

by storiesbywilliams on November 24, 2011 in Books, Reviews and tagged Aleut, aleutians, anathem, ashera, Bridge Trilogy, Cryptonomicon, cyberpunk, Ed Meeses, enki, franchulates, Gippers, hiro protagonist, hyperinflation, I'm sure they'll listen to Reason, L. Bob Rife, mafia, motorbike, Neal Stephenson, nuclear bomb, nuke, Pearly Gates, pentecostal, post-cyberpunk, raven, Reason, Reedism, Reverend Wayne's Pearly Gates, Russian sub, Sci-Fi, science fiction, sidecar, snow crash, sumeria, sumerian, sumerian myth, the big U, the diamong age, uncle enzo, Virtual Light, William Gibson, y.t., yours truly, Zodiac

You know how everyone has a set of favorite authors, people that they feel inspired them more than anyone else? Some people are lucky and have just one. Others, the “well-read” type, can name about ten, twenty or more! Me? I guess I’m lucky in that that list comes down to about five names. For […]

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Hunters of Dune, part II

by storiesbywilliams on November 19, 2011 in Books, Reviews and tagged arrakis, axlotl, axlotl tanks, baron harkonnen, baron vladimir harkonnen, bene gesserit, bene tleilax, caladan, chani, chapterhouse, chapterhouse dune, dan, duncan idaho, Dune, dune: house corrino, face dancers, fan fiction, fanfic, fremen, gammu, geidi prime, ghola, gholas, guild, guild navigators, gurney halleck, honored matres, hunters of dune, Ix, Ixian, Jessica, khrone, kwisatz haderach, lady jessica, melange, murbella, oracle of infinity, oracle of time, paul, Paul Atreides, rakis, richesse, sandworms of dune, Sci-Fi, science fiction, scytale, serena butler, sheeana, sisterhood, spacing guild, spice, spice melange, stilgar, thufir hawat, tleilaxu, uxtal, vladimir harkonnen, waff, xavier harkonnen

Okay, now that I’ve managed to sum up the book, let’s get down to why it sucked! In addition to the usual weakness one can expect out of a book by these two – bad characters, bad story, cliches, and a general feeling of exploitation – there were several other glaring points. As usual, I’ve […]

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Hunters of Dune, a review

by storiesbywilliams on November 17, 2011 in Books, Reviews and tagged arrakis, axlotl, axlotl tanks, baron harkonnen, baron vladimir harkonnen, bene gesserit, bene tleilax, caladan, chani, chapterhouse, chapterhouse dune, dan, duncan idaho, Dune, dune: house corrino, face dancers, fan fiction, fanfic, fremen, gammu, geidi prime, ghola, gholas, guild, guild navigators, gurney halleck, honored matres, hunters of dune, Ix, Ixian, Jessica, khrone, kwisatz haderach, lady jessica, melange, murbella, oracle of infinity, oracle of time, paul, Paul Atreides, rakis, richesse, sandworms of dune, Sci-Fi, science fiction, scytale, serena butler, sheeana, sisterhood, spacing guild, spice, spice melange, stilgar, thufir hawat, tleilaxu, uxtal, vladimir harkonnen, waff, xavier harkonnen

Oh boy, it’s finally here! After years of waiting and having to endure those horrible prequels, the long-awaited conclusion is finally here! Yes, that’s what I thought when I first heard the news. After years of making us wait and spend our hard earned money on a sleuth of teaser prequels and filler, Brian Herbert […]

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More Reviews

by storiesbywilliams on November 17, 2011 in Novels, Reviews and tagged authonomy, book reviews, comments, ebook sites, ebooks, free ebooks, free-ebooks.com, indie authors, obooko, Reviews

Some more reviews are in! Again, these are just for the free samples I’ve made available on a couple of ebook sites, but that’s what they’re there for! Besides, feedback always matters to me and I take it seriously wherever it comes from. For the sake of the commentators anonymity, I’ve also substituted their full […]

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Sickness, more Alternate History, and some coming reviews…

by storiesbywilliams on November 16, 2011 in Books, Novels, Reviews and tagged a song of fire and ice, alternate history, anglo-american alliance, anglosphere, anschluss, atomic bomb, atomic weapons, chiang kai-shek, cold war, collective security, fatherland, game of thrones, germany, great depression, guns of the south, hitler, kuomintang, lannisters, league of nations, lenin, man in the high castle, maxim litvinov, mussolini, nazi germany, rabbletown, randy attwood, red scare, Russia, soviet union, stalin, starks, sudeten crisis, sudetenland, trotsky, world war 2, world war II, WWII

I hate being sick! Whenever the seasons change for me, I tend to come down with one of those colds that comes on hard and takes forever to leave. Well, this Fall season has been a double whammy, seems I’ve gotten sick twice in the last four weeks, which has meant a month of convalescing […]

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Rabbletown: Life in these United Christian States of Holy America, by Randy Attwood

by storiesbywilliams on November 14, 2011 in Books, Reviews and tagged apocalypse, book review, catholic, christian republic, clash of civilizations, crusade, crusaders, dick cheney, dystopian, dystopian future, ebook, evangelical, fundamentalism, fundamentalist government, future history, holocaust, holy war, inquisition, inquisitor, inquisitors, islamic republic, jerry falwell, Jerusalem, jews, muslims, pastor, pastor governor, pastor president, pat robertson, rabble, rabbletown, religion, review, satire, satirical novel, Sci-Fi, science fiction, speculative fiction

Hello and welcome to the first literary review I have had the honor of doing for a fellow author! On the docket for today, a sci-fi, near future dystopian work known as Rabbletown: Life in these United Christian States of Holy America, by Randy Attwood. Awhile back, this author and his work came to my […]

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Alternate Histories…

by storiesbywilliams on November 8, 2011 in Books, Reviews, Sci-Fi and tagged Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, ak-47, allies, alternate history, auschwitz, axis, civl war, cold war, concentration camps, confederacy, CSA, detente, england, FDR, france, german empire, german reich, gettysburg, great depression, greater east asia co-prosperity sphere, guns of the south, Harry Turtledove, history, holocaust, imperial japan, japanese empire, man in the high castle, Miranda Richardson, nazi germany, nazis, nuclear weapons, Peter Vaughan., Philip k dick, PKD, reich, robert e lee, robert harris, Russia, Rutger Hauer, slavery, south africa, south african ultra nationalists, the I Ching, the man in the high castle, the oracle, time travel, timeline, timelines, u-boats, ultra nationalists, uzi, white supremacy, world war I, world war II, wwI, WWII

When it comes to science fiction, alternate histories are a special kind of sub-genre. They explore the what ifs of history, challenge our notions of inevitability, and open up whole worlds based on what could have been. They are a source of fantasy and speculation on the one hand, offering the reader a chance to […]

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Legends of Dune Prequels

by storiesbywilliams on November 5, 2011 in Books, Reviews and tagged agamemnon, AI, Brian Herbert, Butlerian Jihad, cymeck, Dune, dune interquels, dune prequels, dune sequels, erasmus, evil the cat, fan fiction, foldspace, foldspace technology, Frank Herbert, fremen, geidi prime, ginaz, ginaz swordmasters, golden duck, guild highliners, holtzman engines, hunters of dune, iblis ginjo, Kevin J Anderson, KJA, legends of dune, machines, mentat, norma cenva, omnius, sandworms of dune, selusa secundus, serena butler, spice, spice harvesting, synchronized worlds, the fremen, the guild, the machine crusade, the spice, thinking machines, tio holtzman, titans, tleilaxu, vorian atreides, xavier harkonnen

Last time around, I made a big deal about prequels and why they aren’t so good. And of course, the Dune prequels were featured pretty prominently in that post. However, what I came to realize shortly after writing it was that I’ve never dedicated a post to the prequel work of Brian Herbert and Kevin […]

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