I forgot to post this one...  I took the family out to see the third Iron Man movie the weekend it came out.  a bit crowded, but not too bad for the time slot we chose.  My boys and I were really psych'd about this one.  The movie was action packed, full of good witty humor, and I wondered when AIM would show up in the Iron Man story.  This movie really is Tony Stark's final transformation from playboy to hero.  I liked the interaction with the kid in the movie and I think it kept him grounded.

Despite how much fun it was, I did have a few issues.  First of all, some of the one liners and comic jabs looked forced and felt as if they were only there to get a laugh, rather than be truly something Tony or one of the other characters would really say.

Two.  After all the other crap that Pepper Potts has been through, she is playing the damsel in distress?  Come on!  She should be flying her own suit by now.

The final issue I had was really my kids issue.  I loved Ben Kingsley, but my boys wanted the Mandarin.  THE MANDARIN!   And yes, SPOILER; the Mandarin is a fake setup by AIM that uses Ben Kingsley's character as a prop.  Maybe the real Mandarin will get offended and come back wanting an Iron Man 4.  LOL.

All in all a good film.  I would give it 8 out of 10.

Ok, I pulled out my geek card to get stamped last weekend and trundled off to the movies with the family to watch the second J.J. Abrams Star Trek film, Into Darkness.  It was awesome!  The knitting of the old story timeline with the new one fit right in and Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of Khan was well done.  I know there are many of us Star Trek purists out there that believe that no one could replace Ricardo Montalban as Khan, but come on.  Just face it.  Benedict did the character proud.

There was only one issue I had with the movie and that goes back to the purist thing.  Long ago Gene Roddenberry declared that the Enterprise design could not operate in an atmosphere.  Well, even in the first movie, Starfleet was building the ship on a Earth ground based shipyard.   Not in space.  With the right thrust capabilities and stabilizers, I believe it could work, but that is my engineering background coming out again.

One spoiler.  I did like the movies role reversal with Kirk and Spock.  This time it was Kirk that lay dying in radiation chamber and Spock looking helplessly on the outside.  Very well done and nicely played.

Ok, second spoiler...  My son asked my why Spock went after Khan in the final big chase and not some of the security guys.  One, the red shirts die..  The walking dead...sorry.  Two, Vulcans are strong.  Much stronger than humans and there had to be someone that could face off with Khan in a hand-to-hand fight.

Only one final comment.  Alice Eve as Dr. Carol Marcus... Hot!

Crucible continues to get great reviews!   It has four 5 Star and one 4 star already.  To start off the summer, I am putting both Crucible and Embrace on sale for $0.99 from June 1 to June 7.

Check out my Podcast interview on Gizmosapiens.  I had a great time discussing Crucible and many of the characters from this series.  We even talked about other authors we enjoy and took a quick look ahead at what is to come with Echoes.

http://www.gizmosapiens.com/

Crucible is now available on Kobo and Apple iBooks!  Barnes & Noble, Sony, and Diesel Ebooks should be ready soon.  If you are looking to get Embrace on Kobo, I am still working an issue there.  The price is wrong and sample version still showed the older version that some changes for formatting and the preface, among other things.  I am working with Smashwords on the issue.  I recommend you get Embrace directly from Smashwords and use the Epub version if you normally use Kobo.