Friday Links: Bad Hair and Bad Behavior

To quote Marvin Gaye, "What's going on?"

• At Sean Eaton's invaluable R'lyeh Tribune, we learned about a truly bad hair day: "Medusa’s Coil borrows heavily from some of Lovecraft’s earlier fiction.  For example, there is an artist who paints a ghastly soul shattering portrait that recalls Pickman’s Model (1927)—and perhaps Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890).  The opening is almost identical to that in The Picture in the House (1921), and there are subsequent scenes that are reminiscent of that ill-fated visit to a cannibal’s abode, (for example, a tell-tale spreading blood stain on the ceiling)."
• Sadie Forsythe has reviewed more books than I've had hot dinners (check out her review of The Blessed Man and the Witch here).  In a recent post, she discussed a recent dust-up on Goodreads with another special snowflake author: "But more importantly, a man banned under numerous profiles really shouldn’t be advising new authors on how to succeed on goodreads. It’s like a Special Snowflake instruction manual—read it, learn to perceive everything as a personal attack and to respond with anger and aggression, then wonder why no one wants to play with you on the monkey bars and throw a hissy. Crazy." It underscores something I learned early on: if you write books and have a thin skin, just leave Goodreads alone.  I write books and have a thick skin, but I leave Goodreads alone myself.
• At Ginger Nuts of Horror, author Duncan P. Bradshaw talked about Dawn of the Dead: "Here you have a main character who you’ve been rooting for, for the best part of two hours, he’s a bit of a dick, but you still want him to live, especially after the biker attack. The frantic last moments in that elevator, you’re hoping he can get back to Peter and get out of there."
• At Play With Death, we were treated to a real-life story about a murderous zombie hunter: "There were also zombie mannequins found in Miller’s car, a decommissioned police car. A few people who knew Miller have stated that he frequented horror and fantasy conventions as a ‘Cyberpunk Zombie Hunter’ costume along with his unusual car. For this reason, the press are describing Miller as the ‘Zombie Hunter’ killer."
• Here, I reviewed two films: The Possession and Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles.  Also, on Liberty Island, I wrote a piece about adoption and abortion for the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision.  Obviously, this is a hot-button topic, which is one of the reasons I didn't post it here.  We should be able to discuss these things, but it's very difficult because of the other issues involved: right to one's person, right to life, the beginning of life, religion, etc.  If you dare to click on it, you'll see my thoughts on the subject, and you can decide for yourself if they're valid.  Just remember that we can disagree on many fundamental things: it's perfectly okay.  It doesn't make one of us better or worse than the other.

In other news, I'm working hard to complete the first draft of the sequel to BMW by early March, which is a year after BMW was released on an unsuspecting public.  Blogging will continue.  I'm also reworking some of the short fiction pieces I've written here for submission to relevant fiction sites.