Recently, my daughter and I caught The Maze Runner on HBO and liked the movie enough to see The Scorch Trials this weekend. What we found was a plot hole so big it literally swallowed the first film. And it left me wondering: what in the world went wrong with this franchise? Note, some *SPOILERS*…
Before my summer trip to Rome I re-read Angels & Demons by Dan Brown and it reminded me how well Brown crafts puzzle-like plots. I’ve always liked his thrillers because they involve history and religion. But the key for me is the puzzle at the heart of each story. Here’s what I mean. (Minor *SPOILERS*…
I’m pulling from the archives once again due to a hectic week. This one is about the book that helped inspire my own novel, Enoch’s Device. On a lazy weekend back in the early ‘90s, I stumbled across a movie on TV that helped me discover one of the finest books I have ever read –…
Tomorrow, the Kindle edition of Enoch’s Device will be featured as a daily deal on BookSends. But I decided to start the sale a day early on Amazon and run it for the rest of the week. (It’s on Amazon UK too.) If you’ve already read and liked the book, now is a great time to tell a friend. Here’s…
Another busy week means another post from the archives. This one’s from 2011. Because I was traveling for the past five weeks, I had little time to do research on Vikings for my next novel. But I did have enough time to re-read another of my favorite stories about Vikings, Michael Crichton’s Eaters of the Dead….
The Einstein Prophecy by Robert Masello begins with an ominous epigraph. It’s a quote from Albert Einstein, which reads: “I do not know how the Third World War will be fought, but I can tell you what they will use in the Fourth—rocks.” From there, I was hooked, and the rest of the book never…
With no time to blog this week, I’m digging into the archives. This one’s from January 2012.In one of my earliest blog posts, I talked about the fine line between the genres of historical fiction and historical fantasy. Earlier this month, two of my favorite authors, George R.R. Martin and Bernard Cornwell, touched on this issue in a joint…
It looks like Inferno might be coming to the big screen. I don’t mean the film version of Dan Brown’s latest novel starring Tom Hanks. But Dante’s Inferno. Yep, you can’t make that up. I learned about it yesterday in an article on io9 titled “Get Ready, Sinners: Warner Bros. Is Making Dante’s Inferno Into…
I returned from Rome a few days ago, but it still feels like I’m on Roman time. The research, however, was a smashing success. But for this trip, I would have botched my chapters on Castel Sant’Angelo. Despite copious research, I never would have understood that ancient structure until seeing it with my own eyes….
Medieval Rome! As I mentioned last week, I’m doing some on-the-ground research for the sequel to Enoch’s Device, so it’ll be another week before I have time to return to the blog. (But I promise, pictures will be coming!) Until then, you can check out my Pinterest board,which is full of images from Enoch’s Device…
My wife and I recently finished HBO’s Rome in advance of a trip to Italy we’ll be taking this summer (which, thankfully, will allow for some on-site research for the sequel to Enoch’s Device). We adored the show, and in reading about it afterwards I happened upon an article in The Verge titled “Before Game of…