Although one day Oda Nobunaga would conquer central Japan and find himself a hair’s breadth away from being named Shōgun, his early life was anything…
The Internet Home of Creator Justin Hebert
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Big News, everybody! I will be exhibiting at this year’s Alternative Press Expo (APE) on October 5-6, 2014 in San Francisco! APE is part of…
The “Sword and Dagger” style of fencing was popular during the Rennaissance, (1350ish-1600ish), and was most commonly used as a method of dueling. It is…
Hail, Caesar? Julius Caesar is remembered by history as a brilliant politician, republic-killing tyrant, ruthless dictator, and benevolent engineer for social change depending on whether…
In addition to working an exhausting (but enjoyable!) side-job, taking my family on various vacation adventures, and busily writing A Test of Honor’s sequel (The People’s Champion – coming fall 2015!), I have also been working on a new mailing list freebie.
Every Story Must End… Eventually
I finished the second book in the Hunger Games Trilogy, Catching Fire, about a year and a half ago. Last week, I finished the third and final book in the series, Mockingjay. What took me so long? Basically, I just wasn’t ready for it to end yet. I fell in love with the characters and I found the premise fascinating. Now that I’ve read book 3, though, I really can’t wait to see the movie and I hope they treat it with the same care and passion the crew and cast have brought to the previous adaptations.
WARNING: This post contains spoilers from A Test of Honor.
The Truth is Out There
I loved watching the X-Files in my teen and young adult years (yes, I am that old!). The long-running series featured every pseudoscience and urban legend it could find, from liver-eating coccoon mutants to the Jersey Devil. But no show about the mysteries of reality would be complete without aliens.
Aliens have long been a staple of Science Fiction, and American culture in particular seems fascinated with their existence. Some say they are here already, kidnapping people and experimenting on them, mutilating cattle, and of course manipulating historical events. And yet when it comes to producing conclusive proof, UFO believers have yet to produce anything that can’t be explained by natural phenomena, alcohol consumption, or simple human paranoia.
As far as we know, we are alone in the universe. But that may soon change.
After reading the first three trade paperbacks, I’m not sure whether Saga is a beautiful love story with a wartime setting, a brilliant war story with a love story as a plot device, or a perfect amalgam of both. One thing is certain: Saga is brilliant.
Saga is the story of war run amok, and readers are not spared from the practical horrors and visceral realities of proxy warfare. Two peoples, the techno-savvy winged warriors of Landfall and the spell-casting horned-headed mages of moon Wreath, are locked in a bitter feud with plenty of blood on everyone’s hands. Because the two worlds depend on one another to maintain a stable orbit, they fight their battles on other planets, essentially drawing the entire galaxy into their war. Horrific atrocities have been committed by both sides, and in some cases entire indigenous peoples on the proxy planets have been driven to extinction. And in the midst of this war, a baby has been born. A baby whose father bears the horns of Wreath, but whose mother has the wings of Landfall.
When I decided to make my passion for writing stories into a business, I wondered how long I had before someone gave me “the look.” If you work in a creative industry, you know the one. The raised eyebrows, pursed lips, and head tilt all point to one unspoken message: good luck, sucker.
We often tell children to follow their dreams. It’s a common theme in popular fiction, but it seems like few actually pull it off. Many people watch their dreams die slow deaths in the face of poisonous cynicism disguised as practicality. The dream seems too good to be true. There must be a catch. All too often, we decide that the whole idea is a catch – that only peolpe who are unstable, flaky, and flighty-as-pixies think the world will cooperate with their dreams, particularly if those dreams are artistic.