There is now a fourth screen adaptation of Stephen King’s classic novel “Carrie” (one film and three TV versions), this one a “reimagining” on Amazon Prime. I have my difficulties with reimaginings. They are often (but not always) tepid renditions featuring the key elements but with changes, such as modernizations to reflect a more up-to-the-moment ethos, added players, dropped or altered story beats, or worst of all rethinking the main characters. The latest “Carrie” has all

You never know who you'll meet at a convention with as broad appeal as the World Science Fiction Convention. Joshua met Nikhil Koparkar, film & TV composer and songwriter and founder of Shelf Esteem, a "Booktube Channel" on YouTube, who stopped by as he made the rounds on the dealer floor, looking for new and interesting works—he's a big scifi & fantasy fiction fan. Check out the chat with Mike and Joshua in this YouTube video. He arrives at the Planet Mertz table at about 6:

Planet Mertz made a good showing at the 84th World Science Fiction Convention in Anaheim, California, selling a five-day total of 102 books and five Poetic Licenses. Team Planet Mertz hard at work (mostly) at LAcon V, selling books and meeting celebs (David Gerrold!) It was the dedicated members of the Planet Mertz crew that made it all work: Mike Mayhew, best friend for decades, his lovely sister Kathy, her son Noah (we’ll get to his twin brother in a second), my nephew

I grew up outside of Sacramento, California in the sleepy suburb of Fair Oaks on three acres with some orange trees, a giant oak for my treehouse, and lots of lawn to mow. Dad worked at Aerojet General, a major supplier of rocket engines back in the late ‘50s and into the ‘60s. We’re talking big rocket engines, the ones that powered ballistic missiles. Aerojet General would test their rocket engines way out in the country, some ten, maybe fifteen miles from our house, and y

My dad was a rocket scientist. Really. An actual rocket scientist. One of the first 500 at Aerojet General’s Sacramento headquarters. He even had his own TV show—“Adventures In Rocketry”—which ran on KVIE, the local educational channel. He talked a lot about Newton’s Third Law of Motion (for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction) and found clever ways to demonstrate it, such as a frog (a real frog!) jumping off a floating piece of wood in a tub of water. The

Spider-Man: Brand New Day is breaking box office records left, right and center. At this point, Tom Holland’s seventh outing as the webslinger is practically a license to print money. But before he began his spiderly journey, before Andrew Garfield, Toby Maguire, Nicholas Hammond, Nicholas Cage, or even Ralph Bakshi took their turns with the character, there was Spidey’s first public appearance. It was me. That’s right, a mere four years after the character’s first appear

Self Portrait -- Cash Chapman This is a shameless plug for the artist who has done both covers for my latest books. He is a bright, young 21-year-old getting his art degree from the prestigious Ringling College of Art and Design in Florida and has, in my opinion, a heckuva career ahead of him. I met Cash at a Thanksgiving party some three years back. He is the nephew of one of my best friends, and we talked art and artists for quite some time. I had seen his work and had be

The mind of an octopus is a curious thing Because they’re aliens. Not actual aliens though, because the fossil record traces their ancient origins back almost 500 million years. They have three hearts and blue blood and can change the color and texture of their skin into the most amazing camouflage. Their brains are wrapped around their throats and two thirds of their neurons are distributed among their eight arms, effectively giving them nine brains. Plus they’re smart, wick

My first published novel, Machine Dreams, has been resurrected from the digital void, where bits and bytes go to... well, electrons can't die, can they? Published by the late great Bald Mountain Books, Machine Dreams was released as a print-on-demand book in 2000. If memory serves, we printed 500 copies. It's still listed on Amazon (ISBN: 0966155442). Believe it or not, using arcane spells and dubious science, the original book designer was laboriously located, unearthed, rea

Yes, it’s a fruit, not a vegetable. Why is it miraculous? They are tasty, good for you, and if you do it right you can grow a ludicrous amount of them. Some folks like cherry tomatoes (I dislike the skin-to-flesh ratio), some like exotics like Purple Cherokee or Green Zebra, and some like classics such as Brandywine or various heirlooms. I like big, well-shaped slicers, which is why I usually go with Early Girl. But no matter your taste, here are a few tips for a bountiful ha

I'm jazzed to announce that Planet Mertz has published Death In Springtime, my noir detective novella set in 1953 Los Angeles! In a world without electricity. What if Ben Franklin had been electrocuted by that famous lightning bolt? What if Thomas Edison and Robert Fulton's experiments had led to their deaths? What if electricity and internal combustion were forbidden and civilization ran on a watchmaker's wind-up world of springs and gears? And what if a noir detective murd