http://briantrent.com Fri, 22 Aug 2008 01:21:48 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Tomorrow (August 22) is Ray Bradbury’s birthday, and I will be lighting a candle though I’ve never met the guy and, frankly, have never been to Waukegan Illinois. But through his books, I’ve always felt a kinship with this master of poetry and fantasy. And we have crossed paths – sort ... http://briantrent.com/bradbury%e2%80%99s-birthday-and-block-headed-beasts/ In 1985, one of the best things I had ever read was Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. In 2008, one of the worst things I’ve ever read is by this same man. No, this isn’t a book review. Ironically, I had a run-in with an ignorant zealot yesterday in a grocery store ... http://briantrent.com/a-fight-with-orson-scott-card/ So it’s official – The Copperfield Review has just published two of my works. You can study a magazine, peruse what they like to publish, and deliberate over this field intelligence, but in the end you can never be certain what will strike an editor’s fancy as she sits down ... http://briantrent.com/published-seven-samurai-and-cold-pizza/ There were thunderstorms all this past week, which made me happy. Grey rainy days have always appealed to me more than bright blue ones. Colors seem richer, contrasted with the dark-quilted sky. I might be a scientific rationalist, so I understand the physics of a thunderstorm, but this doesn’t cheapen ... http://briantrent.com/fire-good-and-bad/ So, The Dark Knight turned out to be an excellent, if somewhat overlong, film. I saw it this past weekend, and for those who have yet to: believe all the hype about Heath Ledger; I am instantly suspicious when postmortem accolades start pouring in, but in this case it’s true. ... http://briantrent.com/pulp-heroes-and-poetry/ Today the new Batman film opens, and I’m excited about it. I generally hate sequels. They have a habit of screwing up everything the better original did right. But The Dark Knight looks like an exception to the rule. Excellence is not restricted by genre. As long as a film has ... http://briantrent.com/batman-battles-and-my-brother/ A moment of silence for the Thylacine. On July 10th in 1936, the Tasmanian government passed legislation protecting one of its more unique animals... a creature that had died off in the rest of the world. This was the Tasmanian marsupial wolf. But they were a bit late... since by the time ... http://briantrent.com/a-moment-of-silence/ A muggy week in CT, but an exciting one… and not just because of the new Bond movie trailer. I received a phone call Monday from an acquisitions fellow at the McGraw-Hill publishing company. They are one of the bigger publishers of textbooks in the world. Back in 2004, The ... http://briantrent.com/hitchcock-and-july-3rd/ This past Saturday I was one of four writers who sat on a Science-Fiction panel at The Yale Bookstore, to discuss how the genre sees the future. More to the point, the event was called "Literary Futures," and one of the main themes was addressing the concerns of Ray Bradbury's ... http://briantrent.com/tomorrows-storms-and-strawberries/ I like to think of a writer’s struggle in military terms… the quest of a lone warrior against a mighty empire. Robert E. Howard would have enjoyed the metaphor. This summer I decided to step up the attack: I have pitted my work against a medley of contests, magazines, publishers, and ... http://briantrent.com/the-writers-fight/