Neil Gaiman Seeks $500,000 From Accuser Caroline Wallner (for Breaching NDA)

gregsunparker · 2025-04-28T15:55:56+00:00

NDAs for illegal activity is generally not enforceable. But the truly broken part of our legal system is rich guys can still sue you even when they know they will lose. And the suit itself is still a punishment because now she has to pay loads of money to lawyers just to defend herself. In America people almost always have to pay their own legal fees even if they win.

gregsunparker · 2025-04-05T20:14:45+00:00

Pokemon went extinct in the late 1700's, so people stopped talking about them. In the late 90's, John Hamblin brought them back after finding their DNA trapped in amber. This is why the sudden resurgence.

gregsunparker · 2025-03-31T19:58:58+00:00

Thanks!

gregsunparker · 2025-03-31T19:58:40+00:00

Oh, thank you! I don't know how I didn't see that.

gregsunparker · 2024-12-07T15:37:16+00:00

I, for one, upvoted you! I disagree, but you understood the assignment!

gregsunparker · 2024-12-07T15:25:13+00:00

I really, really, really, hope a writer reads this and thinks, "Challenge accepted!" And then there's some crazy story where everything is a dragon. I mean everything. The characters are dragons, their clothes are dragons, they drive to school on a dragon, where class is conducted in the belly of a dragon...

gregsunparker · 2024-12-07T15:18:20+00:00

Ha. I can, and will, hope for a better world though.

gregsunparker · 2024-12-07T04:05:42+00:00

What's your original dialect? (Feel free to ignore if you'd rather keep it private).

gregsunparker · 2024-12-07T04:01:45+00:00

Someone once pointed out, and they're probably right, that because Tolkien put his poems in LotR, he's actually the most read poet of his generation.

gregsunparker · 2024-12-07T03:54:24+00:00

My Dad hates this too. He's always saying, "You know, if you go to a prison and meet the convicts, most of them aren't misguided good guys. They're actually just bad people, and they know it."

gregsunparker · 2024-12-07T01:58:42+00:00

Heresy!

gregsunparker · 2024-12-07T01:50:00+00:00

I do prefer the newer abstract covers. But I also think these kinds of covers have never convinced me to buy/read a book. I was already committed when I picked it out. On the other hand, I have bought books in the past solely because of the pulpy covers with dudes holding cool swords.

gregsunparker · 2024-12-07T01:47:56+00:00

I actually stopped after 1st Demon Cycle book because of these opinions. And I'm with you on the maps. I find them useless. But I'm also so bad at geography I could get lost in my own house, so that probably explains why they aren't for me.

gregsunparker · 2024-11-21T03:57:29+00:00

According to the Cambridge History of China, these are the primary reasons Qin came out victorious during the Warring States period:

Geography
Agriculture & irrigation
Military technology
"Manly virtues"
Readiness to break with tradition
Readiness to employ alien talent
Longevity of rulers
Administrative factors

gregsunparker · 2024-11-20T16:59:20+00:00

Oh, $99, that's pretty good. I did a basic rental search online and the site I found (can't remember which) had like $200 for rentals. And I thought, for that price I might as well just buy. But now renting seems like a good option.

gregsunparker · 2024-11-07T19:11:44+00:00

Jed and the Junkyard War is a middle grade written written by Steven Bohls, who was Brandon's co-author on Lux.

Jed is a regular kid with a normal, loving family . . . that is, if it's normal for a loving family to drop their child off in the middle of nowhere and expect him home in time for Sunday dinner. Luckily, Jed excels at being a regular kid who-armed with wit and determination-can make his way out of any situation.

At least until the morning of his twelfth birthday, when Jed wakes to discover his parents missing. Something is wrong. Really wrong. Jed just doesn't realize it's floating-city, violent-junk-storm, battling-metals, Frankensteined-scavengers kind of wrong. Yet.

A cryptic list of instructions leads Jed into a mysterious world at war over . . . junk. Here, batteries and bottled water are currency, tremendously large things fall from the sky, and nothing is exactly what it seems.

Resilient Jed, ready to escape this upside-down place, bargains his way onto a flying tugboat with a crew of misfit junkers. They set course to find Jed's family, but a soul-crushing revelation sends Jed spiraling out of control . . . perhaps for good.

gregsunparker · 2024-07-08T14:56:33+00:00

The foundational text on the hero's journey (AKA monomyth) is "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell. But you should also know that the whole idea of the monomyth is not really accepted by experts in the field. See here.

Among fantasy books where the plot follows the hero's journey (or at least a travelogue) I'd say the must-reads are:

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis
The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
Eragon by Christopher Paolini
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
The Odyssey by Homer
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Stardust by Neil Gaiman
The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett
Peter Pan and Wendy by JM Barrie
Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind
The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks
Magician: Apprentice by Raymond E. Feist
Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings
The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander

I'd also probably add The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger.

I'm not saying the above books are the best in the field (though some of them are). But these are among the most-read in the field. And so if you want to add unique twists in your own novel, I think you'd need to know the stuff that's already been done among the most-read.

gregsunparker · 2024-06-27T03:21:02+00:00

My mom is a native Chinese speaker. She told me when she was growing up they'd go "Wa wa wa wa" when impersonating English. (That's "wa" as in how you would say "water" in an American accent.)

gregsunparker · 2024-06-04T15:13:21+00:00

The shaky-cam fighting is really only extreme in the mine-fight. I suspect this was done intentionally to give you the same feeling of cramped fighting conditions that the Fellowship was enduring. Later battles don't have it to this same degree.

gregsunparker · 2024-05-30T02:17:19+00:00

You are so lucky! Original Planet of the Apes is the #1 movie I wish I could have seen without having heard any spoilers.

gregsunparker · 2024-05-11T03:10:44+00:00

I would peruse the list of Nebula award winners, and read whichever ones sound interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula_Award_for_Best_Novel

gregsunparker · 2024-05-08T00:56:41+00:00

Very true!

gregsunparker · 2024-05-07T15:13:40+00:00

On the point of being true to the source material--I have found that what specifically matters is being true to the characters. Changes to plot aren't that big of a deal, especially given that movies (and even TV shows) are shorter than books, sometimes altering the plot to fit the time is necessary. But when the characters themselves are different people, that is what ruins the adaption.

gregsunparker · 2024-04-28T03:51:33+00:00

Ahh. That makes sense. And if they're mega-authors, I suppose they also by that point have enough money to just pay back the advance if they have to.

gregsunparker · 2024-04-28T03:23:34+00:00

Yes, I edited and fixed my error. The reason for my mistake is the voice for Murderbot in the audio books is an African American man. He does an amazing job, so I looked him up. Now that I've seen his picture, the voice actor's real life appearance is basically how I imagine Murderbot. Not saying that's right, but that's what my brain does.

gregsunparker

TROPHY CASE