Monthly Archives: October 2013

Review – Dark Shadows: Wolf Moon Rising by Lara Parker

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Wolf-Moon-RisingLara Parker is the (still) lovely lady who played the witch Angelique (and a few other roles) on the 1960s horror soap opera, Dark Shadows. She appears very briefly in Tim Burton’s recent film adaptation of the series, and she’s done a boatload of Dark Shadows audio productions for Big Finish, also usually playing Angelique.

Wolf Moon Rising is her third novel set in the Dark Shadows universe. (Or, more correctly, the Dark Shadows multiverse, which she’s expanded with this volume.) In her first venture, Angelique’s Descent, she gave us a biography of her character. That is, she chronicled one of Angelique’s numerous lives, albeit a short one. Angelique Bouchard was born in the 1770s and lived on the island of Martinique, where she was a servant to Josette DuPres, daughter of a wealthy French merchant. As a very young woman, Angelique fell in love with an American, Barnabas Collins, a young man on his first business trip abroad, representing his family’s company. Sadly, Barnabas had his fun with Angelique, then met her mistress Josette and forgot all about the poor servant girl. Josette, as heir to another fortune, was more fit to be the wife of a rich New Englander.

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I Am All These Things

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Okay, I’m doing something a little different this week. It’s not going to be a regular occurrence, but it may be something I play with when I’ve got something to say that’s important, either from a publicity perspective, or from a “this is important to me personally” perspective.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog at StevenHWilson.com, then this week you’re also reading the script for my weekly podcast. (And you can hear my reading, as well, here!) If you’re a regular listener to my podcast, that is the Prometheus Radio Theatre podcast, then this week you’re listening to my blog. Again, not a permanent change. Next week my listeners will hear the next chapter of Phil Giunta’s wonderfully scary novel By Your Side, and my readers will hear about Lara Parker’s wonderful expansion of the Dark Shadows mythos, Wolf Moon Rising. But this week, and now and then in the future, both groups will receive the same message. Continue reading →

My name is Steven Howell Wilson, and I do a lot of different things…

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I’m a husband and father of two. I’ve written fan fiction and published fanzines. I’ve assumed the role of custodian for my friends who created a fanzine called Contact. I founded a convention called Farpoint, which has run for almost three decades. I’ve been a comic book writer and a comic reviewer. I ran Prometheus Radio Theatre, and used to put out a (mostly) weekly podcast. I’m publisher for Firebringer Press. Finally, I’m a recovering librarian, a retired IT Director, a part-time politician and a full-time IT contractor. And yes, I do all this because I’m allergic to work. I figure as long as I look busy, I won’t have to perform actual labor. It’s worked for more than half a century so far…

Capclave 2013

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small_dodo_transparentI haven’t been to a con on Farpoint’s old weekend (Columbus Day, politically incorrect as it now is) since, well… Farpoint 2000. People still complain that Farpoint made the choice to move from October to February, but, well, if we moved back now we’d be against Capclave. And that would be a shame, because Capclave is not a con I’d want to miss, or hold a con up against. It’s not a huge con, just as Farpoint isn’t. It is, like Balticon, a literary SF con, sponsored by the Washington Science Fiction Association (WSFA). The program was chock-full, with six tracks running until midnight Friday and Saturday, and I was kept quite busy throughout, which is how I like it.

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Don Jon – Losing it

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Explicit Language Warning!

Yeah, that’s my second warning in as many weeks, isn’t it? Of course, you only know that if you’re still here after last week, right? Are you still here? I promise, this time out, not to say anything that will offend the sensibilities of my left-wing readers. Oh, except this observation: Miley Cyrus is a lot prettier when she’s trying to look like Michele Bachman than she is the rest of the time these days. There. That’s done. You’re safe now. On with the show. Which may offend the sensibilities of everyone not offended last week.

don-jon-posterJoseph Gordon-Levitt is an actor I admire a lot, ever since I first saw him play David Collins in Dan Curtis’s 1991 primetime remake of Dark Shadows.  He’s one of the most talented performers of his generation, taking on roles that are sometimes provocative, sometimes downright bizarre, but, even when he’s doing a comedy like 3rd Rock from the Sun or a blockbuster like The Dark Knight Rises, never pedestrian.

Recently, he broadened his career horizons by making his debut as a writer-director with Don Jon, a film in which he also starred. This film is laugh-out-loud funny, insightful and daring. I recommend it wholeheartedly… but… It may make you uncomfortable. It is very, very explicit. The opening line, narrated by Gordon-Levitt as Don Jon, contains the f-word and describes the state of his genitalia. It gets more explicit from there. So be warned. It made a lot of viewers in the theater where I saw it uncomfortable, even as they enjoyed it. Continue reading →