"I cannot recommend Taylor Anderson too highly." -David Weber, author of Out of the Dark
Lieutenant Commander Matthew Reddy and the crew of the USS Walker find themselves caught between the nation they swore to defend and the allies they promised to protect. For even as the Allies and the Empire of New Britain Isles stand united against the attacks of both the savage Grik and the tenacious Japanese, the "Holy Dominion"-a warped mixture of human cultures whose lust for power overshadows even the Grik-is threatening to destroy them both with a devastating weapon neither can withstand.
Taylor Anderson: Hi David! I just now--literally--got back from the WorldCon in Reno. It was fun--and I was also able to personally thank Steve Stirling for the nice blurb he gave my first book. Of course, I am also humbly honored by the very nice blurb you just gave me! If we're not careful, people might begin to suspect we are friends! Of course my meager, good opinion of everything you have written is a matter of record--and espoused at every opportunity!
David Weber: Friends! Friends!? How could anyone possibly suspect such a thing?! But I digress. You're certainly welcome to the cover blurb, since it's only accurate. I mean,! us being friends and all I probably would have lied for you i! f I'd ne eded to, but what the heck? It's always nicer when you can say nice things because they're accurate. Helps add to your reputation for infallibility, you know.
Anyway, I've got How Firm a Foundation, which is, what--Safehold #4?--coming out in September. You've got one coming out next month, too, as I recall. So you want to tell me what you're going to do to Walker's crew and their friends this time?
Taylor Anderson: I am SOOOOO stoked to read How Firm a Foundation. Most of my reading lately has been old tech manuals, and I need some David Weber! I love how your "Merlin" manages to prod the Safehold tech development along. Artificial being or not, it has to be frustrating to have all that information--that will save lives--running around in his/her head and have to be so careful about revealing it in a logical progression. I'm still improving the "tech" in Firestorm: Destroyermen--which comes out October 4th--but the c! ontrast in how it is applied is fun to compare to the Safehold series.
Your "Merlin" knows…everything, but has to hold back while everyone else accepts what is possible, whereas my Destroyermen know what is possible, but don't necessarily know how, or how best to achieve it. Different frustrations. Your guys have to be a lot more careful! Of course the Grik are still there, with their mad Japanese advisor--but the Grik are starting to "get wise" almost in spite of Kurokawa. He gives them technology, but retains his own agenda. Battle will rage on the land, sea, and in the air!
David Weber: Well, as you know, I "snippet" excerpts of the books on my website, so we're several thousand words into How Firm a Foundation, already. That makes things…interestin! g from my perspective, since the fans can't wait to start sugg! esting w hat my characters should be "inventing" next. I haven't even got steam engines past the proscriptions of the Inquisition yet, and some of these guys seem to think I should already be designing King Edward VII-class, pre-dreadnought battleships! I did just give the Charisians breech-loading caplocks, though. That's going to make life interesting for the other side. And Merlin is about to find out (sort of) what I stashed--I'm sorry, what the Archangel Langhorne stashed--under the Temple. It is a bit darker book, though, since the Church gets in a few licks of its own this time around. Your guys have had that experience, too, I think, haven't they?
One thing I'm pondering about is introducing a better propellant than black powder. I'd have to be really careful about that, dealing with the anti-technology proscriptions, but back when Safehold was first settled, the Church did set up the rote preparation and production of fertilizers on a relatively large! -scale. It's occurred to me that if I want to introduce nitrocellulose, I might have a platform for that in the fertilizer industry. Or perhaps I should say in the fertilizer pre-industry, since we're not exactly talking about current day DuPont levels of production. What do you think? Practical or would I be stretching things too far?
Taylor Anderson: I haven't done "snippets," but I still get a lot of suggestions and speculation on my web site and through direct contacts. I think it's fun and exciting that so many people are thinking about our books. Some of the suggestions are a little strange--okay, sometimes all I can do is just stare--but Destroyermen is a kind of strange story! The contrast between "They couldn't really do that," and "Why don't they have atomic weapons yet?" from one contact to the next can be amusing though. Things take time, particularly when your characters have to find the things to build the things to build the! things they need.
If you're asking my opinion on pro! pellants , I'd have to suggest sticking with black powder for a while. Your caplock breechloaders will be easy to convert, certainly. I'm converting rifle-muskets to a type of "Allin" breechloader myself. But you can actually get better performance out of black powder in such weapons since they weren't designed (or alloyed and treated) for the higher pressures "smokeless" produces. You'd have to make some major leaps in metallurgy to support jacketed bullets as well, and without them, you're stuck with black powder velocities anyway. Besides, your battles are so much more artistic with plenty of fire and smoke!
Of course, then comes logistics! Ha! As you always show so well, getting "new" stuff to the pointy end--and supplying it--is the greatest challenge of all…but then that's pretty fun to write and read about too, isn't it? Wow. I can't wait to be taunted with what you Langhorne stashed! People who know we are friends ask me all the time what "it" is and don't r! eally believe me when I tell them "I don't know!" If I did, I wouldn't rat--and I don't WANT to know until it unfolds on the pages in front of me!
David Weber: I'm inclined to stick with black powder for small arms for quite a while, for a lot of reasons, including the ones you've mentioned. I'm not too sure about how major a jump I'd have to make to support jacketed bullets--the Safehold-ian tech structure doesn't match up perfectly with any particular, in Earth's history, thanks to all of the "technologies without the science" tucked away in the Holy Writ. That means it wouldn't be beyond the reach of allowable technologies (and Safehold-current techniques) to form copper jackets and then compress the lead into them. I'm inclined to agree with you about the conversion process, and I'm also inclined to think that converting the smokeless powders would also require a drop in caliber, if I want to take advantage of the higher velocities flat! ter trajectories without beating my poor riflemen to death!
I was looking at improved propellants more from the perspective of naval gunnery, field artillery, and shell-fillers (I know, I know--not a "propellant". So sue me!) and that sort of thing. Can't have really long-range gunnery without predictable propellant burn times, and I don't think I can get that kind of quality control out of black powder. At the same time, I have to be thinking in terms of reasonably attainable technologies. And you'd better believe I plan on putting my head together with yours when I actually start converting to cartridges and repeaters!
Of course, my life is even more interesting in the next couple of months than yours is, because I [he said, blushing modestly and looking down at his toes] have a new book coming out in October, as well! I finally got around to writing that young adult novel I've wanted to write for so long for Baen's publishing, A Beautiful Friendship, next month. Trust me; it's a very different change of pace from ! the Safehold books!
Taylor Anderson: Oh I know about A Beautiful Friendship, you prolific devil. I've already pre-ordered it too. You're right of course. No real reason why better steels would be proscribed I guess. That's what I meant about jacketed bullets, by the way. Not the bullets themselves, but the barrels that will have to survive them--especially if you increase your rate of fire dramatically! Hehe. Once you eliminate that gas-gushing vent in a muzzle-loader, black powder is amazingly consistent in cartridges--but you still need a whopping heavy (and abusive) bullet to carry your energy along. Flat shooters they ain't.
It's no secret that "my" Destroyermen have been working on guncotton and other things. They have the recipe--from that same, valuable little manual we both have!--but the recipe needs a little adjustment when you're not sure what to use for cotton, for example!
Experimentation can be exciting, and ! a lot of the fun is letting the characters come up with their ! own angl es. Like I've said, as capable as my Destroyermen are, there are a lot of things they don't know how to do, and they often come up with weird, "wrong," but adequate procedures. Also, with their fascination for gizmos, the Lemurians are beginning to come up with some slap your forehead notions and applications that might never have occurred to humans--which begs the question: why did they occur to me?
I'm all for juicing up naval artillery--or any artillery at all, as you know--but at sea, particularly, greater range is wasted without some advanced means of fire control. Even rifling won't help much. It's all in the timing, if you know what I mean. Oh, I've got the perfect repeater for you! I can't--actually won't use it--for the same reason I won't use another conversion we discussed, and I would love to see you use (hint). They just wouldn't make sense for my guys and their different starting point. For YOU however…they might even pass the proscriptions!
David Weber: Oh, yeah. I just finished, like a week or so ago, posting somewhere around a 5,000-word dissertation on the requirements for long-range naval gunnery on the Safehold forum on my website, because some of my readers were wondering how soon the Imperial Charisian Navy is going to go to long-range gunnery, by which some of them seemed to be thinking 20,000 or 30,000 yards. I had to explain that without centralized fire control to make sure all guns fired at exactly the right moment and on the right bearing, without inclinometers to be sure they fired at the right point in the ship's roll, without the ability to predict target movement, without accurate range-finding, and--especially--without predictable and repeatable propellant burn times (not to mention monitoring board erosion, temperature, humidity, propellant temperature, etc.), accurate naval gunnery at anything much over 6,000 yards is going to be problematical at best. I think that ! sort of "taking things for granted" is part of the price we pa! y for li ving at the "user end" of a technological world in the first place, but it starts coming home to you when you do the kind of thing you and I are doing in our books which is trying to build a technological infrastructure from scratch and figuring out how the wheel was invented in the first place!
Although, you know, thinking about it, what we're both doing in our different ways that's even more significant than the technology, I think, is looking at the values of the fictitious societies we've created. When you come down to it, technology is just tools -- it's what people do with those tools that distinguishes them from one another. Dark Age mentalities can do terrifying amounts of damage with modern technology. God knows we've seen enough of that in recent years, haven't we? I first came up with the concept for the Safehold books something like twenty years ago, and I've been mostly faithful to that original concept, but I can't pretend it hasn't been modified by th! ings that have happened in the real world since. I actually make an effort to avoid having that happen, but I don't think any author can do that, really. After all, we live in the real world! But what my heroes are doing on Safehold and what your Destroyermen and their allies are doing on your alternate Earth is trying to push back the darkness, and I think that's the real reason a lot of their fans want to know what happens next in both universes. I know I sure do, at any rate!
Taylor Anderson: Ha! Few things could be more difficult to comprehend than all the variables that prevent accurate long range naval gunnery. Just figuring out all those variables is hard enough, and then compensating for them all presents an incredibly daunting challenge. The first "modern" computers, in all their complexity, were devoted to just that. Powered torpedoes add even more wild variables. I'll have to read your post to see how you managed to explain it all in a me! re 5,000 words! I imagine that if anyone could do it, it would! be you!
Ultimately however, I couldn't agree with you more; the people are the story. The technology is fun to research, bend to our specific applications, write about, and kick around with each other, but our characters--defined by their character--drive the stories. The "Safehold" and the people who inhabit it, that Nimue Alban's…memories…awoke to was every bit as alien as the world Matt Reddy and his crew of USS Walker encounter in Destroyermen. Both worlds are as remote as they can possibly be to what they knew before, and full of unfamiliar threats and challenges. It is how they--and those around them--deal with their apparently insurmountable obstacles that form the "souls" of each story. Both have a vision for how best to protect and secure the people--and worlds--they have inherited, and both are determined to accomplish their task regardless of the cost, particularly to themselves. In this day and age, it may seem quaint to some that people mig! ht be so determined to "do the right thing, as they see it, when nobody is looking," in a sense. But I believe that quality is still admired, and is, I hope, the most resonant chord we have struck with both our tales.
I cannot recommend Taylor Anderson too hi! ghly." -David Weber, author of Out of the Dark
!Lieu tenant Commander Matthew Reddy and the crew of the USS Walker find themselves caught between the nation they swore to defend and the allies they promised to protect. For even as the Allies and the Empire of New Britain Isles stand united against the attacks of both the savage Grik and the tenacious Japanese, the "Holy Dominion"-a warped mixture of human cultures whose lust for power overshadows even the Grik-is threatening to destroy them both with a devastating weapon neither can withstand.
Taylor Anderson: Hi David! I just now--literally--got back from the Wor! ldCon in Reno. It was fun--and I was also able to personally thank Steve Stirling for the nice blurb he gave my first book. Of course, I am also humbly honored by the very nice blurb you just gave me! If we're not careful, people might begin to suspect we are friends! Of course my meager, good opinion of everything you have written is a matter of record--and espoused at every opportunity!
David Weber: Friends! Friends!? How could anyone possibly suspect such a thing?! But I digress. You're certainly welcome to the cover blurb, since it's only accurate. I mean, us being friends and all I probably would have lied for you if I'd needed to, but what the heck? It's always nicer when you can say nice things because they're accurate. Helps add to your reputation for infallibility, you know.
Anyway, I've got How Firm a Foundation, which is, what--Safehold #4?--coming out in September. You've got one coming out next month, too, as I r! ecall. So you want to tell me what you're going to do to Walke! r's crew and their friends this time?
Taylor Anderson: I am SOOOOO stoked to read How Firm a Foundation. Most of my reading lately has been old tech manuals, and I need some David Weber! I love how your "Merlin" manages to prod the Safehold tech development along. Artificial being or not, it has to be frustrating to have all that information--that will save lives--running around in his/her head and have to be so careful about revealing it in a logical progression. I'm still improving the "tech" in Firestorm: Destroyermen--which comes out October 4th--but the contrast in how it is applied is fun to compare to the Safehold series.
Your "Merlin" knows…everything, but has to hold back while everyone else accepts what is possible, whereas my Destroyermen know what is possible, but don't necessarily know how, or how best to achieve it. Different frustrations. Your guys have to be a lot more careful! Of course the Grik are still there,! with their mad Japanese advisor--but the Grik are starting to "get wise" almost in spite of Kurokawa. He gives them technology, but retains his own agenda. Battle will rage on the land, sea, and in the air!
David Weber: Well, as you know, I "snippet" excerpts of the books on my website, so we're several thousand words into How Firm a Foundation, already. That makes things…interesting from my perspective, since the fans can't wait to start suggesting what my characters should be "inventing" next. I haven't even got steam engines past the proscriptions of the Inquisition yet, and some of these guys seem to think I should already be designing King Edward VII-class, pre-dreadnought battleships! I did just give the Charisians breech-loading caplocks, though. Tha! t's going to make life interesting for the other side. And Mer! lin is a bout to find out (sort of) what I stashed--I'm sorry, what the Archangel Langhorne stashed--under the Temple. It is a bit darker book, though, since the Church gets in a few licks of its own this time around. Your guys have had that experience, too, I think, haven't they?
One thing I'm pondering about is introducing a better propellant than black powder. I'd have to be really careful about that, dealing with the anti-technology proscriptions, but back when Safehold was first settled, the Church did set up the rote preparation and production of fertilizers on a relatively large-scale. It's occurred to me that if I want to introduce nitrocellulose, I might have a platform for that in the fertilizer industry. Or perhaps I should say in the fertilizer pre-industry, since we're not exactly talking about current day DuPont levels of production. What do you think? Practical or would I be stretching things too far?
Taylor Anderson: I have! n't done "snippets," but I still get a lot of suggestions and speculation on my web site and through direct contacts. I think it's fun and exciting that so many people are thinking about our books. Some of the suggestions are a little strange--okay, sometimes all I can do is just stare--but Destroyermen is a kind of strange story! The contrast between "They couldn't really do that," and "Why don't they have atomic weapons yet?" from one contact to the next can be amusing though. Things take time, particularly when your characters have to find the things to build the things to build the things they need.
If you're asking my opinion on propellants, I'd have to suggest sticking with black powder for a while. Your caplock breechloaders will be easy to convert, certainly. I'm converting rifle-muskets to a type of "Allin" breechloader myself. But you can actually get better performance out of black powder in such weapons since they weren't designed (or alloyed and! treated) for the higher pressures "smokeless" produces. You'd! have to make some major leaps in metallurgy to support jacketed bullets as well, and without them, you're stuck with black powder velocities anyway. Besides, your battles are so much more artistic with plenty of fire and smoke!
Of course, then comes logistics! Ha! As you always show so well, getting "new" stuff to the pointy end--and supplying it--is the greatest challenge of all…but then that's pretty fun to write and read about too, isn't it? Wow. I can't wait to be taunted with what you Langhorne stashed! People who know we are friends ask me all the time what "it" is and don't really believe me when I tell them "I don't know!" If I did, I wouldn't rat--and I don't WANT to know until it unfolds on the pages in front of me!
David Weber: I'm inclined to stick with black powder for small arms for quite a while, for a lot of reasons, including the ones you've mentioned. I'm not too sure about how major a jump I'd have to make to support j! acketed bullets--the Safehold-ian tech structure doesn't match up perfectly with any particular, in Earth's history, thanks to all of the "technologies without the science" tucked away in the Holy Writ. That means it wouldn't be beyond the reach of allowable technologies (and Safehold-current techniques) to form copper jackets and then compress the lead into them. I'm inclined to agree with you about the conversion process, and I'm also inclined to think that converting the smokeless powders would also require a drop in caliber, if I want to take advantage of the higher velocities flatter trajectories without beating my poor riflemen to death!
I was looking at improved propellants more from the perspective of naval gunnery, field artillery, and shell-fillers (I know, I know--not a "propellant". So sue me!) and that sort of thing. Can't have really long-range gunnery without predictable propellant burn times, and I don't think I can get that kind of quality ! control out of black powder. At the same time, I have to be th! inking i n terms of reasonably attainable technologies. And you'd better believe I plan on putting my head together with yours when I actually start converting to cartridges and repeaters!
Of course, my life is even more interesting in the next couple of months than yours is, because I [he said, blushing modestly and looking down at his toes] have a new book coming out in October, as well! I finally got around to writing that young adult novel I've wanted to write for so long for Baen's publishing, A Beautiful Friendship, next month. Trust me; it's a very different change of pace from the Safehold books!
Taylor Anderson: Oh I know about A Beautiful Friendship, you prolific devil. I've already pre-ordered it too. You're right of course. No real reason why better steels would be proscribed I guess. That's what I meant about jacketed bullets, by the way. Not the bullets themselves, but the barrels that will have to survive them--especial! ly if you increase your rate of fire dramatically! Hehe. Once you eliminate that gas-gushing vent in a muzzle-loader, black powder is amazingly consistent in cartridges--but you still need a whopping heavy (and abusive) bullet to carry your energy along. Flat shooters they ain't.
It's no secret that "my" Destroyermen have been working on guncotton and other things. They have the recipe--from that same, valuable little manual we both have!--but the recipe needs a little adjustment when you're not sure what to use for cotton, for example!
Experimentation can be exciting, and a lot of the fun is letting the characters come up with their own angles. Like I've said, as capable as my Destroyermen are, there are a lot of things they don't know how to do, and they often come up with weird, "wrong," but adequate procedures. Also, with their fascination for gizmos, the Lemurians are beginning to come up with some slap your forehead notions and applications that mig! ht never have occurred to humans--which begs the question: why! did the y occur to me?
I'm all for juicing up naval artillery--or any artillery at all, as you know--but at sea, particularly, greater range is wasted without some advanced means of fire control. Even rifling won't help much. It's all in the timing, if you know what I mean. Oh, I've got the perfect repeater for you! I can't--actually won't use it--for the same reason I won't use another conversion we discussed, and I would love to see you use (hint). They just wouldn't make sense for my guys and their different starting point. For YOU however…they might even pass the proscriptions!
David Weber: Oh, yeah. I just finished, like a week or so ago, posting somewhere around a 5,000-word dissertation on the requirements for long-range naval gunnery on the Safehold forum on my website, because some of my readers were wondering how soon the Imperial Charisian Navy is going to go to long-range gunnery, by which some of them seemed to be thinking 20,! 000 or 30,000 yards. I had to explain that without centralized fire control to make sure all guns fired at exactly the right moment and on the right bearing, without inclinometers to be sure they fired at the right point in the ship's roll, without the ability to predict target movement, without accurate range-finding, and--especially--without predictable and repeatable propellant burn times (not to mention monitoring board erosion, temperature, humidity, propellant temperature, etc.), accurate naval gunnery at anything much over 6,000 yards is going to be problematical at best. I think that sort of "taking things for granted" is part of the price we pay for living at the "user end" of a technological world in the first place, but it starts coming home to you when you do the kind of thing you and I are doing in our books which is trying to build a technological infrastructure from scratch and figuring out how the wheel was invented in the first place!
Although, you! know, thinking about it, what we're both doing in our differe! nt ways that's even more significant than the technology, I think, is looking at the values of the fictitious societies we've created. When you come down to it, technology is just tools -- it's what people do with those tools that distinguishes them from one another. Dark Age mentalities can do terrifying amounts of damage with modern technology. God knows we've seen enough of that in recent years, haven't we? I first came up with the concept for the Safehold books something like twenty years ago, and I've been mostly faithful to that original concept, but I can't pretend it hasn't been modified by things that have happened in the real world since. I actually make an effort to avoid having that happen, but I don't think any author can do that, really. After all, we live in the real world! But what my heroes are doing on Safehold and what your Destroyermen and their allies are doing on your alternate Earth is trying to push back the darkness, and I think that's the real reason a lot ! of their fans want to know what happens next in both universes. I know I sure do, at any rate!
Taylor Anderson: Ha! Few things could be more difficult to comprehend than all the variables that prevent accurate long range naval gunnery. Just figuring out all those variables is hard enough, and then compensating for them all presents an incredibly daunting challenge. The first "modern" computers, in all their complexity, were devoted to just that. Powered torpedoes add even more wild variables. I'll have to read your post to see how you managed to explain it all in a mere 5,000 words! I imagine that if anyone could do it, it would be you!
Ultimately however, I couldn't agree with you more; the people are the story. The technology is fun to research, bend to our specific applications, write about, and kick around with each other, but our characters--defined by their character--drive the stories. The "Safehold" and the people who inhab! it it, that Nimue Alban's…memories…awoke to was every bit ! as alien as the world Matt Reddy and his crew of USS Walker encounter in Destroyermen. Both worlds are as remote as they can possibly be to what they knew before, and full of unfamiliar threats and challenges. It is how they--and those around them--deal with their apparently insurmountable obstacles that form the "souls" of each story. Both have a vision for how best to protect and secure the people--and worlds--they have inherited, and both are determined to accomplish their task regardless of the cost, particularly to themselves. In this day and age, it may seem quaint to some that people might be so determined to "do the right thing, as they see it, when nobody is looking," in a sense. But I believe that quality is still admired, and is, I hope, the most resonant chord we have struck with both our tales.
I cannot recommend Taylor Anderson too highly." -David Weber, author of Out of the Dark
Lieutenant Commander Matthew Reddy and the crew o! f the USS Walker find themselves caught between the nation they swore to defend and the allies they promised to protect. For even as the Allies and the Empire of New Britain Isles stand united against the attacks of both the savage Grik and the tenacious Japanese, the "Holy Dominion"-a warped mixture of human cultures whose lust for power overshadows even the Grik-is threatening to destroy them both with a devastating weapon neither can withstand.
Two worlds collide when Poppy, a street orphan who makes a living by stealing, and Justin, the son of a wealthy jeweler, meet and become friends. Poppy plans to change her thieving ways, but when Justin loses money at his father’s jewelry store and Poppy is accused of stealing it, she flees back onto the streets. Justin insists on searching for herâ€"just as the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 breaks out.
Alternately narrated by Poppy and Justin, this is a gripping story of right and wrong, trust and forgiveness, and finding hope in the ashes of destruction.#1 New York Time! s bestselling author Iris Johansen turns up the heat in this explosive new psychological thriller. This time a gifted arson investigator teams up with a mysterious operative to stop a killer raging completely out of control...
For Kerry Murphy, the inferno is never far away. The flames of that long-ago night still burn in her nightmares: the heat, the choking smoke, the helplessness. She can never run fast enough...
Now Kerry works as an arson investigator with her evidence-sniffing dog, Sam. Together they're a great team, but her life is about to change in the time it takes to strike a match. The deadly flames of her past are back, and from out of the ashes a stranger appears. Who is Silver? And why has he chosen her in the desparate race to find a killer determined to ignite hell on earth? Kerry and Silver may not have a chance against a psychopath as coldhearted as his method is red-hot. To save themselves and the innocent lives at stake, Ke! rry will have to do what she hoped she'd never have to do: ! fight fi re with fire.
From the Hardcover edition.Arson investigator Kerry Murphy has a unique talent for sniffing out the cause of fires like the one that killed her mother years ago. She also has a secret, known only to the mysterious stranger named Silver, a "consultant" who needs her cooperation in stopping the psychopath who burned his brother alive and who's holding national security hostage to his own demented ego. Silver has an uncanny gift for getting under Kerry's skin, which is both the good and bad news--good because it doubles their chances of finding the man behind the terrifying weapon of the title, and bad because Kerry can't afford to be vulnerable to Silver or any other man. Johansen has written a taut thriller that's not quite as combustible as its title but one that will keep readers fired up enough to stick with it to the last page. --Jane AdamsThe heat is on and time is running out! Howie Long, Hollywood's hottest new action hero. ! stars with Scott Glenn, William Forsythe and Suzy Amis in a searing, pulse-pounding, edge-of-your-seat adventure! "The match is lit." These chilling words spark a deadly chain if events when a prison break pits fearless smokejumper Jesse Graves (Long) against two devastating, seemingly unstoppable forces of nature: a raging inferno and a cunning, psychotic killer. Packed with spectacular stunts, scorching suspense and a cast that'll blow you away.
Bad Boys II
No one goes to a movie directed by Michael Bay for delicacy and grace; you go because Michael Bay (Armageddon, The Rock) knows how to make your bones rattle during a high-speed chase when a car flips over, spins through the air, and smacks another car with a visceral crunch. Bad Boys II fulfills this expectation and then some. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence may be mere puppets amid all this burning rubber and shrieking metal, but they actually provide a human core to the endless cascade of car wrecks and gunfights. Their easy rapport makes their personal problems--a running joke is Lawrence's attempts at anger management--as engaging as the sheer visual hullabaloo of bullets and explosions. The plot is recycled nonsense about drug lords and dead bodies being used to smuggle drugs, but orchestration of violence is symphonic. If that's your thing, then this is for! you. --Bret FetzerMiami cops Marcus Burnett, a family ! man and Mike Lowry, a ladies' man are given 72 hours to regain drugs stolen from their police station; matters are complicated when they have to pretend to be each other.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: R
Release Date: 27-MAY-2003
Media Type: DVDA cheerfully over-the-top action film, Bad Boys is notable chiefly for the rapport between its two stars, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, as two Miami cops on the trail of a drug kingpin as they try to protect a witness (Tea Leoni). Smith is the swinging bachelor and Lawrence the family man, and both must juggle their personal lives as they baby-sit the one chance they have to recover a stolen drug shipment, save their jobs, and take down the drug dealer. While the film is almost always implausible and its story is something seen many times before, director Michael Bay (The Rock) keeps things moving stylishly and at a feverish pace, as Smith and Lawrence prove themselves a te! rrific comic pairing. Their odd couple banter flies at a faster clip than the bullets and explosions, and becomes the best reason to see this hyperbolic but entertaining action flick. --Robert Lane BAD BOYS - DVD MovieSean Penn delivered a star-making one-two punch in the early '80s, debuting as stoner Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and turning up only a few months later, all but unrecognizable, as a steel-nerved teenage convict in this raw, powerful prison drama--and both performances hold up remarkably well. While the story line of Bad Boys has the familiar contours of classic jailhouse melodrama (Penn's fearless Mick stands tall against a bullying Latino gang boss played by Esai Morales), the sense of tightly wound raw force the actor conveys is so convincing that it's actually a little scary. It goes way beyond the blunt-force impact of a standard action star; Mick's acts of violence are expressions of personality, practically eruption! s of his life force. The authenticity of this portrayal is rei! nforced by the closely observed production design: the youth-prison set is so cunningly textured that many moviegoers took it for the real thing. Ally Sheedy also made her film debut in Bad Boys, as the girl Mick leaves behind on the outside. --David Chute From director Michael Bay (The Rock, Armageddon) and the production team of Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer (Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun) comes a thrill ride of explosive action from beginning to end. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence team up as partners in crime, crime-fighting that is, in this action-packed flick about a couple of good guys who are real Bad Boys One hundred million dollars worth of confiscated heroin has just been jacked from police custody. Once the career bust of Detective Mike Lowery (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence), the missing drugs now threaten to shutdown the narcotics division of the Miami Police Department. When the drug investigation turns! deadly, the murderers kidnap the only witness, a beautful police informant (Tea Leoni) and close friend of the boys, which makes things get personal! Fast cars, a gorgeous woman and non-stop action make Bad Boys a guaranteed good time!A cheerfully over-the-top action film, Bad Boys is notable chiefly for the rapport between its two stars, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, as two Miami cops on the trail of a drug kingpin as they try to protect a witness (Tea Leoni). Smith is the swinging bachelor and Lawrence the family man, and both must juggle their personal lives as they baby-sit the one chance they have to recover a stolen drug shipment, save their jobs, and take down the drug dealer. While the film is almost always implausible and its story is something seen many times before, director Michael Bay (The Rock) keeps things moving stylishly and at a feverish pace, as Smith and Lawrence prove themselves a terrific comic pairing. Their odd couple banter f! lies at a faster clip than the bullets and explosions, and bec! omes the best reason to see this hyperbolic but entertaining action flick. --Robert Lane
The movie's also as trivial as it is engaging; hack off 30 minutes and it might have had the delirious precision of early Marx Brothers classics. Instead, Allen's goofy conceit--enemies falling in love by hypnotic suggestion--is stretched to absurdity when efficiency expert Betty Ann "Fitz" Fitzgerald (Helen Hunt) is hypnotically attracted to seasoned insurance investigator C.W. Briggs (Allen), despite their office enmity. Plus, a jewel-heist caper masterminded by the nightclub hypnotist (David Ogden Stiers) casts them both as suspects! Woody harvests a bumper crop of old-fashioned laughs from this predicament, and despite their conspicuous age difference and occasional awkward delivery, Hunt and Allen exchange volleys of dialogue like a seasoned comedy team. Dan Aykroyd is also good in a stodgy supporting role, but Jade Scorpion remains ! a mixed blessing--a welcomed throwback to comedy's yesteryear,! from a master funnyman who's struggling to maintain relevance in the present. --Jeff Shannon An insurance investigator & an efficiency expert who hate each other are both hypnotized by a crooked hypnotist with a jade scorpion into stealing jewels. Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 04/12/2005 Starring: Woody Allen Dan Aykroyd Run time: 102 minutes Rating: Pg13With The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Woody Allen pays another visit to his idealized past, and his retro blend of humor and nostalgia will surely satisfy the filmmaker's most loyal fans. Like The Purple Rose of Cairo, Radio Days, and Sweet and Lowdown, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion is physically impeccable: its period-perfect costumes and sets capture 1940 New York with splendid authenticity and are further enhanced by the burnished glow of Zhao Fei's cinematography. And like those earlier films, Jade Scorpion mines comedic gold from its timeframe, molding it into ! a plot laced with expert zingers that could only spring from a keen awareness of comedic tradition. Add an appealing roster of costars (including Elizabeth Berkley and Charlize Theron) and you've got vintage Woody that perks right along.
The movie's also as trivial as it is engaging; hack off 30 minutes and it might have had the delirious precision of early Marx Brothers classics. Instead, Allen's goofy conceit--enemies falling in love by hypnotic suggestion--is stretched to absurdity when efficiency expert Betty Ann "Fitz" Fitzgerald (Helen Hunt) is hypnotically attracted to seasoned insurance investigator C.W. Briggs (Allen), despite their office enmity. Plus, a jewel-heist caper masterminded by the nightclub hypnotist (David Ogden Stiers) casts them both as suspects! Woody harvests a bumper crop of old-fashioned laughs from this predicament, and despite their conspicuous age difference and occasional awkward delivery, Hunt and Allen exchange volleys of dialogue like! a seasoned comedy team. Dan Aykroyd is also good in a stodgy ! supporti ng role, but Jade Scorpion remains a mixed blessing--a welcomed throwback to comedy's yesteryear, from a master funnyman who's struggling to maintain relevance in the present. --Jeff Shannon This digital document is an article from Semana, published by Spanish Publications, Inc. on August 24, 2001. The length of the article is 754 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser. The mov! ie's also as trivial as it is engaging; hack off 30 minutes an! d it mig ht have had the delirious precision of early Marx Brothers classics. Instead, Allen's goofy conceit--enemies falling in love by hypnotic suggestion--is stretched to absurdity when efficiency expert Betty Ann "Fitz" Fitzgerald (Helen Hunt) is hypnotically attracted to seasoned insurance investigator C.W. Briggs (Allen), despite their office enmity. Plus, a jewel-heist caper masterminded by the nightclub hypnotist (David Ogden Stiers) casts them both as suspects! Woody harvests a bumper crop of old-fashioned laughs from this predicament, and despite their conspicuous age difference and occasional awkward delivery, Hunt and Allen exchange volleys of dialogue like a seasoned comedy team. Dan Aykroyd is also good in a stodgy supporting role, but Jade Scorpion remains a mixed blessing--a welcomed throwback to comedy's yesteryear, from a master funnyman who's struggling to maintain relevance in the present. --Jeff Shannon Widescreen Edition dvdTitle: The Curse of the ! Jade Scorpion. Artist: Unknown. Image Size: 10.45in. x 15.56in. Paper Size: 11.00in. x 17.00in. HIGH QUALITY CANVAS Print With Light Added BRUSHSTROKES This is an unstretched canvas print which will be rolled and securely shipped in a sturdy tube. This beautiful canvas print also has added artist brushstrokes painted onto the print as well. All canvas prints should be cared for to avoid exposure to dust, grime or finger grease in handling. -
Citation Details
Title: Una burla a la hipnosis.(The Curse of the Jade Scorpion)(TT: Hypnotic satire.)(TA: The Curse of the Jade Scorpion)(ArtÃculo Breve)(Reseña)
Publication: Semana (Magazine/Journal)
Date: August 24, 2001
Publisher: Spanish Publications, Inc.
Page: 40
Distributed by Thomson GaleWOODY ALLEN FOUR MOVIE COMEDY COLLECT - DVD MovieWith The Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Woody Allen pays another visit to his idealized past, and his retro blend of humor and nostalgia will surely satisfy the filmmaker's most loyal fans. Like The Purple Rose of Cairo, Radio Days, and Sweet and Lowdown, The Curse of the Jade Scorpion is physically impeccable: its period-perfect costumes and sets capture 1940 New York with splendid authenticity and are further enhanced by the burnished glow of Zhao Fei's cinematography. And like those earlier films, Jade Scorpion mines comedic gold from its timeframe, molding it into a plot laced with expert zingers that could only spring from a keen awareness of comedic tradition. Add an appealing roster of costars (including Elizabeth Berkley and Charlize Theron) and you've got vintage Woody that perks right along.
All this is intelligently scripted by Edward A. Anderson (a maiden effort) and directed by Michael Radford with a crisp, unostentatious eye; the cold interiors of the Lon Di headquarters, generically oppressive on first sight, take on a nuanced familiarity as the place where, for the most part, Laura Quinn spends her life. Demi Moore--scarlet lips in a black-and-grey world--admirably catches Laura's not-quite-smothered ambition and frustration without breaking her cover, as it were. Michael Caine couldn't be better as Hobbs, an i! nvisible man in plain sight (how many viewers fail to notice his first appearance in the film?); he's the master of his trade, but you knew that. There's a framing story, set more or less in the present, which seems to be an obligatory bow to feminism but sets up a tease or two of its own, then adds yet another twist to the proceedings. --Richard T. Jameson
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