Writer and blogger Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff interviews Philippa Ballantine and Tee Morris at Blogworld LA, focusing on their Phoenix Rising book trailer featured on this website back in April.
Tag: tee morris
Come join us starting at 5:00 pm on the TuacaCon Ustream Channel. Jump in, chat, have a shot… there might even be some surprises for those who attend.
Times are tentative at best. 🙂
5:00 PM – Live from TuacaCon Studio
5:15 PM – Ditched By Kate
5:30 PM – Philippa Ballantine
5:45 PM – P.G. Holyfield
6:00 PM – Ditched By Kate
6:15 PM – Scott Sigler
6:30 PM – Vivid Muse
6:45 PM – Ditched By Kate
7:00 PM – Nathan Lowell
7:25 PM – Ditched By Kate
7:30 PM – Patrick E. McLean
7:50 PM – Ditched By Kate
8:00 PM – Tee Morris
8:15 PM – Live from TuacaCon Studio
8:30 PM – James Durham
8:50 PM – Evo Terra
9:10 PM – Live from TuacaCon Studio
9:15 PM – Phil Rossi
9:40 PM – Ditched By Kate
9:45 PM – Starla Hutchton
10:00 PM – Rich Ragan
10:10 PM – Scott Roche
10:30 PM – Live from TuacaCon Studio
10:50 PM – Christiana Ellis
11:10 PM – Justin Macumber
11:30 PM – Zachary Ricks
11:50 PM – David Sobkowiak
12:10 AM – Nicole Gugliucci
12:50 PM – Ditched By Kate
12:30 AM – Chis Miller
12:45 AM – Tim Dodge
1:00 AM – Collin Earl and Chris Snelgrove
2:00 AM – Hugh O’Donnell
2:15 AM – Live from TuacaCon Studio (signing off if anyone is still awake and sober enough to sign off)
Tee Morris is one of the Writer Guests of Honor for TuacaCon 2011 (along with Nathan Lowell and Philippa J. Ballantine).
Tee Morris has been writing adventures in far-off lands and far-off worlds since elementary school. Inspired by numerous Choose Your Own Adventure titles and Terry Brooks\\™ Shannara series, he wrote not-so-short short stories of his own, unaware that working on a typewriter when sick-from-school and, later, on a computer (which was a lot quieter\\¦that meant more time to write at night\\¦) would pave a way for his writings.
Podcasting MOREVI led to the founding of Podiobooks.com and collaborating with Evo Terra and Chuck Tomasi on Podcasting for Dummies. It also won acclaim and accolades for his first solo title,Billibub Baddings and The Case of the Singing Sword, the podcast winning a 2008 Parsec Award for Best Audio Drama. While writing Fantasy is his passion, his journalism chops were still called upon when commissioned to write articles for BenBella Books\\™s Farscape Forever: Sex, Drugs, and Killer Muppets and So Say We All: Collected Thoughts and Opinions of Battlestar Galactica. He was also tapped to write All a Twitter, a definitive guide to working with Twitter. With his diverse background in Science Fiction, writing, and Social Media,Tee has hosted presentations at venues across the country and around the world including The Library of Congress, BlogWorld, CREATE South, and Te Papa Tongawera.
Tee has now returned to writing fiction with The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series, written with his wife, Pip Ballantine. When Tee is not creating something on his Macintosh, he enjoys a good run, a good swim, martial arts (which he will start up again, someday), and putting together new playlists to write by. His other hobbies include cigars and scotch, which he regards the same way as anime and graphic novels: \\I don\\™t know everything about them, but I know what I like.\\ (And he likes Avo and Arturo Fuente for his smoke, Highland Park for his scotch!) He enjoys life in Virginia alongside Pip, his daughter, and five cats.
Philippa J. Ballantine is one of the Writer Guests of Honor for TuacaCon 2011 (along with Nathan Lowell and Tee Morris).
Born in Wellington, New Zealand, Philippa has always had her head in a book. For this she blames her father who thought Lord of the Rings was suitable bedtime reading for an eight year old. At the age of thirteen she began writing fantasy stories for herself.
She first earned a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Political Science and then a Bachelor of Applied Science in Library and Information Science. So soon enough she found herself working in the magical world of libraries where she stayed for over a decade.
Her first professional sale was in 1997, and since then she has gone on to produce mostly novel length fiction. In 2006 she became New Zealand\\™s first podcast novelist, and she has voiced and produced Weaver\\™s Web, Chasing the Bard, Weather Child and Digital Magic as podiobooks. Her podcasts have been short listed for the Parsec Awards, and won a Sir Julius Vogel award.
Philippa is the author of the Books of the Order series with Ace- the first of which Geist was released in October 2010. Spectyr (June 2011), Wrayth (2012) and Harbinger are to follow. She is also the co-author of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series with Tee Morris (her soon-to-be husband). Phoenix Rising debuted in May 2011 and Of Cogs and Corsets will be out in 2012. She also has the Shifted World series with Pyr Books, with the first book Hunter and Fox coming in 2012.
When not writing or podcasting, Philippa loves reading, gardening, and whenever possible traveling. Her two Siberian cats, Sebastian and Viola make sure she and the family stay out of trouble.
Nathan Lowell is one of the Writer Guests of Honor for TuacaCon 2011 (along with Philippa J. Ballantine and Tee Morris).
Nathan Lowell has been a writer for more than forty years, and first entered the literary world by podcasting his novels. His sci-fi series, Trader’s Tales from The Golden Age of the Solar Clipper, grew from his long time fascination with space opera and his own experiences shipboard in the United States Coast Guard. Unlike most works which focus on a larger-than-life hero (prophesized savior, charismatic captain, or exiled prince), Nathan centers on the people behind the scenes–ordinary men and women trying to make a living in the depths of space. In his novels, there are no bug-eyed monsters, or galactic space battles, instead he paints a richly vivid and realistic world where the “hero” uses hard work and his own innate talents to improve his station and the lives of those of his community.
Dr. Nathan Lowell holds a Ph.D. in Educational Technology with specializations in Distance Education and Instructional Design. He also holds an M.A. in Educational Technology and a BS in Business Administration. He grew up on the south coast of Maine and is strongly rooted in the maritime heritage of the sea-farer. He served in the USCG from 1970 to 1975, seeing duty aboard a cutter on hurricane patrol in the North Atlantic and at a communications station in Kodiak, Alaska. He currently lives in the plains east of the Rocky Mountains with his wife and two daughters.
Nathan has one two Parsec Awards for novels from his “Share” Series.
Categories
Movie Review – Suckerpunch
This review comes to us from author Tee Morris (more on Tee after the review):
Director and Writer Zack Snyder can really make a beautiful movie. Snyder set his own style with films like 300 and Watchmen, but has also come under fire for making movies that lack depth or are very \\comic book\\ in their almost balletic approach to graphic violence. When you consider his last two films were pulling from (wait for it!) graphic novels, it makes you want to bitch slap critics. Perhaps this is why critics (and perhaps, some moviegoers) have been overly critical of Snyder’s latest film, Sucker Punch.
On reading some of these reviews, though, I have to ask \\Did you see the same film as I did?\\ I not only loved Sucker Punch, I am here to tell you that missing this on the big screen would be a crime. It is original. It is surprising. It is intelligent.
What is isn\\™t is what the critics are making it out to be: Geekboy Titillation.
Now there\\™s no denying it: Snyder covers all of the bases in this flick. Sucker Punch offers up zombies, steampunk, dragons, WWII bombers, and katana swordfights. And yes, all of the gunfire and swordplay is happening with women who all just happen to be hot.
Quite hot.
Smoking hot, as a matter of fact.
But the titillation critics rant on and on about just isn\\™t there. I didn\\™t find anything really \\stimulating\\ about Sucker Punch unless you count the alternate realities where our femme fatales are kicking surrealistic asses in a variety of ways. Snyder\\™s signature \\artistic action\\ sequences could hardly be described as \\erotic\\ in their video game brutality. (And the more I think about that, the more I come to understand why Snyder’s fantasy sequences are so epic. You have to see the movie to catch it.) An episode of Sailor Moon or Bubblegum Crisis has more titillation than Sucker Punch. What should be titillating \\” Baby Doll\\™s hypnotic dance that segues into her own imagination \\” we never see. All we see is the reaction to it, and that is really intriguing.
Before any of my female readers comment with \\If this isn\\™t geekboy pr0n, why then are Sucker Punch\\™s insanely attractive women so scantily clad in the action sequences? I mean, where’s the realism? What\\™s with the high heels in the giant samurai sequence?\\ I would like to present a few visual aids to end this debate.
History tell us that this is Sparta:
Frank Miller and Zack Snyder, on the other hand, tells us that THIS \\” IS \\” SPARTA:
This just in from Zack Snyder: \\You\\™re welcome, ladies.\\
Critics have also been making references that the principle players as \\happy hookers\\ and \\sensitive strippers.\\ Both of these assessments are completely and utterly wrong, and ruin the subtext running through this film. While these girls are carrying stripper names like \\Rocket,\\ \\Sweet Pea,\\ and \\Baby Doll\\ (the lead), and while they are exotic dancers performing extravagant burlesque productions, they are not hookers nor are they strippers. And they’re not “happy” by a longshot. They\\™re sex slaves.
Let me say that again: These girls are sex slaves.
When you accept that uncomfortable fact, the whole mood of Sucker Punch changes; but from the opening \\” a very bleak, powerful opening telling the backstory of Baby Doll\\™s arrival to the insane asylum \\” this movie makes it clear that this is not a fun ride we are undertaking. This is the kind of darkness that makes Synder\\™s Watchmen look like an episode of Super Friends (the first season with Marv and Wendy\\¦who were those kids anyway?!), and adds a sense of desperation for the girls daring to escape. Calling them \\hookers/strippers with hearts of gold\\ really could not be farther from these characters\\™ dismal collected truth.
And when you consider the reality that Baby Doll is truly escaping, this tale takes an even darker spin.
That\\™s where I nurture a growing respect for Sucker Punch: it\\™s amazing layer-like quality and intelligence. Sucker Punch keeps you guessing as to where the lines of reality reside. Perhaps this is another reason why critics are coming out hard against this movie: Snyder made a geeky action movie that you have to pay attention to when watching it. This is a tale of redemption, and the lines of what is real and what isn\\™t are blurred just enough that when you walk out of the film, you are trying to piece together what was real and what wasn\\™t. Giving away any details right now would be spoilerific so I will simply say the ending completely caught me off-guard. How things play in the finale, which you discover isn\\™t the finale you were expecting, are a complete and utter surprise.
Perhaps this is why critics are so \\angry\\ about Sucker Punch: They didn\\™t see this coming. But isn\\™t that the title right there? I was waiting for this movie to jump the rails. Pip was, too. It\\™s the morning after and I\\™m still waiting! Sucker Punch was not even close to what I was expecting, and I loved experiencing it on the IMAX big screen.
And concerning Sucker Punch\\™s soundtrack, I rank it right up there with the music from Scott Pilgrim Versus The World. Sweet crapbuckets, did this soundtrack ever rock! Props to Snyder, Tyler Bates, and producers for coming up with some fantastic covers and a Queen mash-up that gave me goosebumps!
In the age of reboots, remakes, and comic book movies, Sucker Punch is a breath of fresh air and originality, along the same lines as Inception and Black Swan. Dismiss the critics on this one, and go see it. If you can catch it on IMAX, do so as the bigger screen just makes Snyder\\™s composition \\” even the ones based in reality \\” breathtaking. You may be pleasantly surprised. You might walk out wondering what the hell you\\™ve seen, but you will be talking about it. Consider the tagline: \\You will be unprepared.\\
I was. Delightfully so.
______
Tee Morris is the author of such novels as Billibub Baddings and the Case of the Singing Sword and Legend of Morevi, and is one half of the team (with Philippa Ballantine) that is set to bring us the steampunk thriller Phoenix Rising, Book 1 of the The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, from Harper Voyager.
Categories
Book Trailer – Phoenix Rising
From The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences site:
Gentle readers and true believers in the fantastic and unknown, we at the Ministry have completed the official book trailer forPhoenix Rising, the first volume in The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series from Harper Voyager.
These are dark days indeed in Victoria\\™s England. Londoners are vanishing, then reappearing, washing up as corpses on the banks of the Thames, drained of blood and bone. Yet the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences\\”the Crown\\™s clandestine organization whose bailiwick is the strange and unsettling\\”will not allow its agents to investigate. Fearless and exceedingly lovely Eliza D. Braun, however, with her bulletproof corset and a disturbing fondness for dynamite, refuses to let the matter rest . . . and she\\™s prepared to drag her timorous new partner, Wellington Books, along with her into the perilous fray.
Phoenix Rising from Harper Voyager, will be available in bookstores everywhere on April 26, 2011.