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At The Bright Empire....
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www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/science/trapp...exoplanets-nasa.html
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It's still International Women's Day, but in the real world some women are taking the day off as a political protest. Only that presumably doesn't include doctors and emergency workers. In the unreal world, it certainly doesn't include superwomen like Kalla Zaver'el of the Empress of the Dawn series.
The unreal world, like the real one, can be unpredictable. Just a year ago today, I had committed myself to a fourth book in the series. But that depended on outside input for the Battle of the Triple Moons, which hasn't been forthcoming. And my second thoughts have given way to third thoughts: I can't get a handle on how the build-up to the battle and the battle itself could make for a short novel of close to or even more than 50,000 words.
I had actually begun work on Book Four, but I sensed that it was taking a different direction than I had first imagined. It still had to do with how long-freed Companion Kalla would become the savior of her adopted planet Andros, but it was now past time for superheroics as such. Part Three of Book Three, "The Final Battle," has to do with her variation on the loneliness of command, with how she has to deal with political necessity, including necessary lies – and with unexpected setbacks. She must also deal with personal heartbreaks, and gain a measure of wisdom in both the personal and political spheres...
www.brightempire.com/Empress-3.pdf
I've also done some heavy editing to Part Two, "Love Found and Lost," to better tie in with Part Three.
On a lighter note, some added links to Tarot Barnes' long ago (13 or 14 years) essay Boobs and Bullets.They include short videos, an anime and even a comic strip.
www.brightempire.com/boobs&bullets.html
--Brantley Thompson Elkins
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I can relate to most of what was said. Tarot and you did a nice job on this one.
Like everything regarding our individual perspectives into this genre, it will resonate with some and get a shrug from others. But I like it.
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"I'm not made of glass, I won't break" is an expression commonly used in sex scenes. Well, a man in an superheroine story knows that she is definitely NOT made of glass -- that he can let loose with her and that she'll love it.
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--Brantley
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www.brightempire.com/DinnerParty.pdf
Today is the 80th birthday of film and TV composer Angelo Badalamenti. You must know him from Twin Peaks, headed for revival on Showtime. But he should be known for a lot more, and in my latest update of an essay about him, I'm including the latest:
www.brightempire.com/Badalamenti.htm
And then there's "Rambles in the Brambles," an edit of a discussion here at Superwomenmania about a hairy issue in the AU mythology:
www.brightempire.com/Rambles.htm
--Brantley Thompson Elkins
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--Brantley
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--Brantley
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1. /Incident.pdf 5,956 38 56.95%
2. /Pictures.html 3,225 36 1.13%
3. /Houseguest.html 4,697 30 1.11%
4. /Corrididor.pdf 2,399 30 8.46%
5. /DinnerParty.pdf 428 26 2.85%
6. /lit-rant.htm 2,256 18 0.99%
7. /new.htm 54,100 15 1.69%
8. /Girlfriend.htm 3,746 13 0.53%
9. /July4.htm 1,648 13 0.07%
10. /Links.htm 14,431 12 0.07%
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www.brightempire.com/AU-2017.htm
Also added a link to True Spartan's AU story at Deviant Art, "Prelude:"
www.brightempire.com/TrueSpartan.htm
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Not a new story, but First Protector 2 got 49 hits yesterday, for a total of 1,012. True Spartan's Prelude at 31 and Shadar's AU-2017 essay at 28 were new, while the latter's "A Dinner Party" gained 16 for a total of 497.
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bruceleeeowe.files.wordpress.com/2010/06...life.jpg?w=434&h=400
It comes from an article about what aliens might look like, but the link for that doesn't identify the author or illustrator.
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Another edit of First Protector, Part Two. Some mistakes corrected, section titles changed and key passages edited. A new scene makes the first allusion to the epilogue of Homecoming 3, but of course Vespyr and the rest don't know it's an allusion...
I'll be out of state for nearly two weeks beginning tomorrow. Don't know how much I'll be able to keep in touch...
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--Brantley
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--Brantley
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My take on Wonder Woman, posted to mark the summer solstice. Loved it, despite the nits...
Quite a contrast to a failed pilot six years ago: Nothing but nits there!
www.brightempire.com/WW-rant.htm
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brantley wrote: www.brightempire.com/WW-Gadot.html
My take on Wonder Woman, posted to mark the summer solstice. Loved it, despite the nits...
Quite a contrast to a failed pilot six years ago: Nothing but nits there!
www.brightempire.com/WW-rant.htm
--Brantley
Nice review… I think you captured the essence of the movie. First two acts were good, peaking in the second, and the third act was forgivable (but not notable) given it was the required ultra-powerful CGI fight that it seems all superhero movies have to include. At least Jenkins pushed it back far enough into the movie to do justice to two really good acts.
The underlying philosophy, that war is intrinsic to humans, along with, strangely enough, love, is handled reasonably well. Or as I would say it more simply, we humans are bipolar in that we can kill and love in the same day.
I thought of General George Patton, who claimed:
"Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best; it removes all that is base. All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty. Duty is the essence of manhood.”
Of course, I’ve always (wanted to) reject his philosophy, but it is possible he is right. In any case, the movie makes the case that war is part of our nature and cannot be removed. So we have to counter it with love whenever we can.
Not a bad message for a Hollywood superhero CGI fest.
Shadar
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By the way, before the Tom Hanks version of Cast Away, there was a 1986 movie called Castaway with Oliver Reed and Amanda Donahoe. Amanda spends a lot of her time naked, and in one scene she's naked reading Colin Wilson's The Criminal History of Mankind. I wonder if Jenkins or screenwriter Allan Heinberg had ever read that....
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<< The frightening thing about the members of the Japanese Red Brigade who machine-gunned passengers at Lod airport, or the Italian terrorists who burst into a university classroom and shot the professor in the legs - alleging that he was teaching his students ‘bourgeois values’ - is that they were not criminal lunatics but sincere idealists. When we realise this we recognise that criminality is not the reckless aberration of a few moral delinquents but an inevitable consequence of the development of intelligence, the ‘flip side’ of our capacity for creativity. The worst crimes are not committed by evil degenerates, but by decent and intelligent people taking ‘pragmatic’ decisions. >>
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Book Two of First Protector is about to reach its climax in today's update.
Vespyr Tal-esta, the Companion who has come home from Tazzi to bring proof about the heavy GAR being deployed by the Aurean Empire against the Velorians and the innocent worlds where they serve, has no idea that the Galen are about to intervene on their behalf.
But their advance man Alexius Tornikios and the Galen he speaks for, Aphro'dite, likewise have no idea what is happening on Velor, with rival factions on the High Council faced with how to deal with the threat from the Empire with whatever resources Velor itself can muster. Story lines that began in the Empress of the Dawn and Homecoming series are about to come together.
www.brightempire.com/Empress-3.pdf
www.brightempire.com/Homecoming-3.pdf
The Aurora Universe has always been about superheroine adventure and romance, and my version of it has always been about world-building in the science fiction tradition. But here it is about Big History.
--Brantley Thompson Elkins
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For the wrap-up of Empress of the Dawn III (www.brightempire.com/Empress-3.pdf).
It has to end with the Battle of the Triple Moons, which has to involve both the Androssian fleet and Kalla herself. I'm not sure how to make it all come together.
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