It’s occurred to me that I haven’t written a lot about the writing of A Pius Stand: A Global Thriller, even though it came out for rerelease this month. Looking back over my blog, I never really discussed the construction of the novel the first time through, either. As I tend to write more about writing than anything else (after all, I will only discuss politics if I’m pissed off) I’m a little surprised.As Stand is book three of a trilogy, there are, of course, some spoilers.
When I first started on The Pius Trilogy, my thought process was fairly linear. The solution was cui bono: who benefits? In the case of A Pius Man, who benefits from destroying the Catholic church? I can come up with a list of nation states, a few dozen dictators, and every Left-wing organization in America, and that’s before I even start writing the fiction. In choosing the villains for book one, Russian mercenaries with old Soviet ties felt right — jihadis aren’t organized enough for what I had in mind, and Russians have just the right level of Byzantine thinking. And after 80 years of old Nazis being the only acceptable villains, I think it’s time that someone looks at the Soviets as actual bad guys for a change.
Andy
ashetoashes
catholicgeekguest
Declan Finn
Karina Fabian
Matthew Bowman
Lori Janeski
Hannah Rose
Ross Windsor
Olivia Bushey
“Annihilation” and My Spiritual Journey
About halfway through Lent, I decided to check out a new sci-fi horror film called Annihilation, which follows a group of scientists on an expedition into a mysterious “shimmer” that has already swallowed up multiple military teams. It’s an excellent film with the best cinematography I’ve seen in sci-fi since Arrival (which admittedly wasn’t that long ago) and a superb main cast (including Tessa Thompson in a role I only recognized during the closing credits). This isn’t a review, though. My review is “good movie, check it out”, whereas this post…is more of a discussion of some things I took out of Annihilation.
Content Advisory: blood, violence, body-horror gore, briefly-depicted sex scene with nudity, depiction of suicide
I’ll be discussing specific details from the movie, including spoilers, so I highly recommend that you watch before reading, particularly because it’ll help give you context for many of the things I discuss.
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