That treasured line from The Princess Bride didn't inspire the next Shadowfast heist thriller, but it could have. The real inspiration was my trip to Germany, floating up the Middle Rhine where we saw 30 castles on the hills in one day.
I fictionalized Schloss Stolzenfels (pictured) as Schloss Falkensten ("Falcon Stone"), where Shadowfast plays at a science conference After Party. They want to trick a genius into divulging where he hides his breakthrough invention. No one counted on...
The trailer for War Machine inspired me to do something I've never done before: I texted a half-dozen buddies to come watch the movie with me.
For action fans, sharing a TV with a spouse requires everyone to have a turn. I have seen every episode of Bridgerton, a Victorian romantic frock flick, because my wife digs it. I have endured three seasons of Victoria, and learned grudging respect for Downton Abbey. But these aren't my first pick for entertainment. My wife likes some action movies but...
I once felt making a Halloween costume each year was a chance to celebrate creativity, but nowadays, I greet it more with an eyeroll and a grumpy, “One more damn thing to do.” Are you into it? Or… not?
What is the best Halloween outfit you ever wore?
The earliest costume I remember was my worst. I wanted to be The Invisible Man. I was six, so not exactly a master of sewing. Neither were my mom and dad, but they tried.
This was before the days when every kid purchased a licensed cartoon...
This podcast has a fun premise: even though my book is already published, I had two minutes to pitch it to the host, Mark P J Nadon, as if pitching to an agent or a publisher. Then he asked follow-up questions. So if you ever wondered what Metal Spies is about (the first book in my Shadowfast series), you can get the down-low right from me in two minutes. Then, if you want any of the "behind the scenes" inspiration, keep watching!
https://markpjnadon.ca/metal-spies-by-cole-chase/
"Puns are the lowest form of humor," Buddha taught. Or Oscar Levant. Or Jonathan Swift. Or someone; even mighty AI can't figure out who said it first.
Doesn't matter, because it's dead wrong.
How can puns be the lowest humor, when they're the most concise? When I grew up, funny men like Buddy Hackett or Flip Wilson based whole careers on telling actual jokes, requiring a story with a set-up and a main character and a narrative just to get to a punchline. Three to five minutes between laughs....
There have been many deaths in space, usually from space craft malfunctions.
So far, no one has been murdered in space.
But given human nature, doesn't that seem inevitable as more and more people migrate to the Moon and beyond?
From Sputnik in 1957 until the first decade of the 21st century, escaping earth's atmosphere required such massive resources that only governments could attempt it. But "the privatization of space" has taken over.
Private companies from India and Japan have landed on...