REVIEW: Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger Hunt by Michaelbrent Collings

ASIN: B07ZR8HBC3

Available: October 31, 2019

Not that any of Michaelbrent Collings’ novels are timid, but this journey reads the rawest and grittiest I have seen from him.  Even the grungy cover implies that the game refuses to play nice. The bloody smiley face reminds me of both Alan Moore’s Watchmen cover and the “Have a nice day” t-shirt with a bullet hole between the eyes. I think this story marks a change for MbC, a new level of maturity in his work. 

         

PLOT

          Scavenger Hunt tells us of five diverse and unique characters forced into a deadly game similar to Saw or perhaps a nightmarish version of The Amazing Race. Abducted—an event they only vaguely remember—the group wakes in a metal room with no indication of where or when it is.  A mysterious Mr. Do-Good invites them to play his game of terrifying choices or die.

Collings seamlessly weaves themes of action versus consequence. The story pits the lure of wealth against the desperation to escape poverty. Fate (and Do-Good) is an aggressive dealer of life choices within the definition of Home and Heritage. These are characters who seek danger to feel safe, and as they do, images of family take new and tenuous forms.    

And the clock is always against them.

The pace of this episodic novel tears through an urban landscape, but the characters also to come to life with their depth. I cared about each of these people and their fates. What unsettles me most about this is that some of the characters were murders, embezzlers, and human traffickers. 

THE AUTHOR

          Michaelbrent Collings seeks out what most publishing professionals advise against: He writes in just about every genre imaginable. I don’t see that this has hurt him any. While he is one of the most successful indie horror writers on the planet, MbC’s catalog also includes tales about a highly skilled “FixIt” in the far reaches of space (The Darklights), a pack of hyenas that makes the most vicious lion seem docile by comparison (Predators), and even a YA fantasy where fighters battle in gladiator-style arenas nestled among five mountain tops.

          When I saw Collings had been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award, I cheered.  It wasn’t long ago when being an indie author meant you were precluded for consideration of any award. MbC has been a finalist multiple times now. He is a trailblazer.   

ARE YOU THE AUDIENCE?

          I would recommend this book for MbC fans—especially so they might see what he is capable of when he pushes the envelope.  Thriller fans would equally be entertained by Scavenger Hunt where enemies race for a common goal to save their own lives among heists and guns and untouchable hackers.

Buy Scavenger Hunt on Amazon. (Not an affiliate link.)

Michaelbrent Collings' website WrittenInsomnia.com. 

REVIEW: Wild Hunt

October 11, 2019

Cover design by Istavan Kadar.

Wild Hunt

by Nancy Kilpatrick

ASIN: B07YR8BBZ5

I have read several of Nancy Kilpatrick’s vampire novels and was grateful to receive and an advance copy of Wild Hunt. It is set in a more modern time than her recent THRONES OF BLOOD series. I loved experiencing this world through the female lead, Loralie. She is blind but also a fortune teller, which in many ways makes her stronger and better able to see more than her supernatural captor.

Vampires from Nancy Kilpatrick’s imagination become some of the most wickedly unique I have ever read. This could have grown only from decades of loving the genre as much as her fans. Her creations are neither Dracula nor dark angels, but they are steeped in the gothic traditions we love and are just as attractive as their literary ancestors. These creatures are quick to enrage and brutal once there, but also oddly sympathetic. Kilpatrick never shies from where her imagination draws her or what her fans desire.

Nancy Kilpatrick’s Website

Buy Wild Hunt

(Amazon link. Not an affiliate.)

REVIEW: Abduction of Two Rulers

June 26, 2018

Cover design by Istavan Kadar.

Abduction of Two Rulers

by Nancy Kilpatrick (Macabre Ink) ASIN: B07DRBCHK3

THRONES OF BLOOD Vol. 3

Award-winning Canadian author and editor with nearly two dozen novels and more than 200 short stories to her credit, Nancy Kilpatrick excels at writing dark fantasy, horror, mystery, erotic horror, and nonfiction. Abduction of Two Rulers--a dark, erotic fantasy--sizzles with her veteran skill and sense of adventure.

This third novel in the series involves the betrayal, imprisonment, and romance of the vampir King Thanatos. Meanwhile, King Moarte and the Sapiens are on the brink of war. Moarte and Wolfsbane are busy trying to head off the war, leaving them unable to help Thanatos or his true love search for him until long after he is surely dead.

I am a fan of dark fantasy but not a reader of erotica. When I pick up the first in this series, and then the next, and now this one, I always say, “I am not the right audience.”  Nevertheless, I can’t help but get caught up in the story.  Kilpatrick has been a vampire fan for decades and she knows them well. Her skill weaves stories that feed the cravings of the traditional lore fan as well as offering new treats.

Nancy Kilpatrick’s Website

Buy Abduction of Two Rulers. 

Review: Uncommon Type: Some Stories

Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks
September 5, 2017

A friend loaned me the ARC of Tom Hanks' book. (Yes, THAT Tom Hanks.) It is a collection of short stories that, for the most part, are quite good. They are mainstream/general fiction. A couple might tilt toward adventure.

Hanks writes very well. Fantastic descriptions. Interesting characters. Vividly speakable dialogue. (No wonder, considering his day job.) It is also a quick read at 403 pages (at least this ARC was) including one screenplay.

The only criticism I might have is that I expected more from the implied typewriter theme. Hanks weaves a typewriter into every story and a couple of them center on the machine, but in most, the stories offer a cameo of one at best. Often, a character is doing something unrelated and hears someone typing in the distance, for example. In cases like that, I felt attention was drawn to an insignificant event for the sake only of making sense of why these stories are bound in the same volume. It felt forced. After seeing the title, reading the blurb, and then seeing press-release photos of Hanks standing in front of antique typewriters, I wished for something more than largely token appearances

However, it was not enough to ruin any of the stories, and I am eagerly looking forward to his next book.

REVIEWS - Ghostbusters (2016) and Netflix: Strange Things

Here are a couple of reviews for you.  Mild spoilers.

NETFLIX: STRANGER THINGS

Season 1, Episode 1

Wynona Ryder as Joyce. Photo: NETFLIX

          The first episode of Netflix's new series STRANGER THINGS is Eh, okay so far.  Thirty minutes in, I wasn't yet convinced to watch episode two, but by the end I was curious as to what would happen next.

          WHAT'S NEW:  Not a lot, yet.

          WHAT'S NOT NEW:  Small, isolated town with a morally questionable sheriff.  Mom (Wynona Ryder) who is overworked, over stressed, and raising her sons alone. Dad is out of the picture and might be anywhere with any number of girlfriends. Ryder's younger son is abducted by what may or may not be a supernatural evil created in the lab.

          Part of that evil (possibly) is a girl who is around the same age as the four boys on whom the show focuses.  An X-FILES-style secret lab sends out forces to track her down. She obviously originated in the lab and seems to have been part of or birthed by a huge Mordor-ish tree-trunk-looking-thing, growing out of the wall, sporting short tentacles and a clickety-smacky kind of maw.

          WHAT I LIKED:  Story is set in the 1980s, and since I am a child of that era, the show sparks a lot of nostalgia for me.  The music--even the background music that sets the mood--sounds like the synthesizer horror-movie riffs you'd hear in a John Carpenter flick from the '80s. That's a nice, subtle touch.  Spoiler here, but I gotta tell ya:  In one scene, Ryder shows her son that she bought tickets for them to watch a movie.  The movie is POLTERGEIST.  I think it would have been funny--cheesy, but funny--if the movie had been BEETLEJUICE.  (Even though we're six years too early for that one.)

          PREDICTIONS:  I have not watched episode two yet, but . . . .  Ryder's son most likely has been pulled to The Other Side (whatever its name will be).  Hence the POLTERGEIST reference. He will act as liaison between the human realm and that of the monster(s) always under great risk of losing his innocence and becoming one of Them.  The three other boys (his friends) will form a sort of Hardy Boys/Stand By Me kind of club to search for their abducted friend--a mystery that will last at least the entire season.  The club will always be closer to the truth than are the adults and especially the police.  The only adult the boys will trust will be some sort of Mentor, a grandfather- or uncle-type, who sends them on missions (probably secondary missions that aid in the main goal) but cannot participate beyond sage advice and will be unreachable when they most need him. The escapee girl, who we are not yet sure about, will probably be an on again/off again ally with whom we must work to build our trust while she does the same towards those around her.

          Wynona Ryder will always be worried and weepy.

~   ~   ~

GHOSTBUSTERS (2016)

Ecto-1, Tulsa, OK convention. Photo: Sam Reeves

           Part of me thinks the movie is overhyped, part thinks that the movie is smart but not brilliant.

          I mean, let's face it, the comedy in the first half of the movie rarely ascends above fart jokes. 

          When I first heard about the GHOSTBUSTERS reboot and saw that they were all women, I thought that this was another unfortunate bastard of political correctness.  The less sexist part of me said, "Stop wondering how they eat and breathe and other science facts.  It's GHOSTBUSTERS, not Shakespeare."  Besides, nobody said four guys were the perfect match for this story.

          One of the main reasons I wanted to watch the movie was Melissa McCarthy.  I have loved everything I have seen from her.  She is naturally hilarious, seems affable, gorgeous, and umpteen million other adjectives that boil down to just plain awesome.

          She didn't stand out in this movie.  I mean, she's good, but I felt that her character never really got off the ground in the explosive way a person might expect from a fantasy, special-effects driven movie. Then again, she is trying to recreate and renew the slot of Peter Venkman's character.  Bill Murray is pretty hard to outshine.  And maybe that is McCarthy just being smart.  If she had done something totally new and alien, we might have been put off.

          Leslie Jones is Patty Tolan, who represents (is that the right word?) Winston (originally played by Ernie Hudson). I liked her from her first second on screen. She is snarky and brilliant without falling into the Angry Woman stereotype. Patty knows the history of the city in what seems like a School of Hard Knocks versus Ivy League College educated way. The only thing I found incongruent with her is that she is obviously a history buff, yet she had never heard of ley lines. I mean, I have no history expertise (most of what I know about the US Constitution, I learned from the old School House Rock song) but even I know what ley lines are.  Maybe I am just nitpicking there though. 

          Kate McKinnon might be my favorite of the bunch. She is Jillian Holtzmann, or Egon, if we are going to keep comparing.  McKinnon's version, however, is probably the more original.  Her look with the blonde pompadour is more like the Egon from The Real Ghostbusters cartoon than it was Harold Ramis. She is a loveable rogue (the woman can't keep from propping her feet up onto the furniture) but she is not an intentional charmer.  She is goofy without being bumbling.  She is having fun with every second. 

          Holtzmann loses credibility for me because of the speed in which she creates impossibly theoretical, nuclear-physics kind of equipment.  The Ghostbusters are barely more than leaving one scene, when Holtzmann is already presenting them with the next phase of the invention they just used.

          CONS:  What the hell is it with that whirlygig-looking thing that Abby (McCarthy) keeps using to detect ghosts?  I mean, we've all seen sixty or seventy seasons of the Syfy Channel's GHOST HUNTERS.  We know what KVM and EMF meters look like.  It's not a kid's night light toy that can also cool you off during a ball game.  

Sam Reeves with Ghost Hunter founder Jason Hawes. Photo by Tonya Reeves

          PROS:  The first half of the movie was the new crew trying to terraform a VERY familiar country.  Rebuilding an iconic world is no easy chore.  They did a pretty good job of it, though.  While this movie may not be as immortal as the Summer 1984 blockbuster, it will be one of the best movies of this year.  Once the contemporary version made it past the midpoint, they started mixing in the new with the old.  It no longer felt completely like a reboot and more like a different flavor of the same story. 

            The special effects were not just cool, they were beautiful.

          There were a few hilarious moments.  Plenty of cute cameos.  And my wife and son roared with laughter throughout.

          Reboots have an inherent handicap:  they must recreate (and outdo) the magic of the original.  The originals became iconic because they expanded the borders of what we knew.  STAR WARS took an old story and gave us visuals that rewrote the books for the special effects industry.  One of the most significant reasons the original GHOSTBUSTERS succeeded was that it gave us a ghost story without the nightmares.  Changing the genders of the main characters was a good start, but it shouldn't have stopped there.

       

           

         

Northwest of Eden

My best friend of the last 37 years, Yancy Caruthers, published his first book.  I could not be more proud of him.  This memoir recounts a year-long tour of duty at the Al Asad Airbase in Iraq.  It's nonfiction that reads like a thriller, telling an in medias res story of a real military hospital. 

          Parts reminded me of the old TV series MASH.  Other parts played out far differently.  Not always do the scenes gush blood and guts.  There are pranks and gun barrels and broken chairs, swollen feet and good food and pitch-black chopper rides.

          Yancy also gave me the honor of designing the book cover.

UPDATE:  20 May 2014 --

         Here is an old video of Yancy that I just found when he was stationed in Iraq.

You can purchase Northwest of Eden through . . .

Kindle

 

Paperback

Also, drop by his Facebook page.  He would love to see you. 

          If you read Northwest of Eden, please leave a review.  Each improves his book’s visibility in the vast crowd.  He reads every comment, because he is the type of writer who wants to know his readers and appreciates their support.  

About the author:

Yancy Caruthers retired from twenty years of service in the U.S. Army Reserve after completing his second deployment to Iraq. He left the nursing profession in 2010 and now lives abroad with his family.

Salem Witch Trial Viewing

          Hear ye!  Hear ye!  Here there be spoilers.

         

          I watched episode 1 of Salem last night.  Judging the show at this point is probably not fair.  This was merely the get-to-know-us-and-our-thigh-suckling-toads episode. 

          My first thought was a phrase my best friend often used when we were children:  extremely mediocre.  It doesn't really mean anything.  It is just fun to say.

          The part of me my wife calls the Writer Snob thinks they are trying too hard to shock.  Besides the whole toad sucking thing, lots of people get nekkid.  By "lots," I mean we see butts and side boob and the witch-hunting reverend preaching doggie style.  (Oppa Salem Style!)  Nekkidness doesn't bother me, but I suspect this will become a cheap ratings device.  The first couple of episodes we will see several of the cast's finest heinies.  Then we will enter Puritan wasteland where we have lots of plot and other story thingies occasionally interrupted by a gratuitous cleavage shot.  Depending on whether it is Sweeps Week.

          The show opens by telling you it is September 21.  I know little of the historical facts of Salem, but this strikes me funny that the date is also Stephen King's birthday. 

          Isaac "Fornicator" Walton confesses to "gazing upon the nakedness of Abigail Cook."  I love how Iddo Goldberg delivered this line, almost bored.  I'm in stocks, I'm about to get "ten hard ones" with a whip across my back, a scarlet F branded into my forehead, and I have to pee.  Can we hurry this up?  I haven't had coffee yet.

          He also confesses to "self pollution."

          My wife looked up from her Facebook game and said, "He did what?"

          "Self pollution."

          Blank stare.

          "He defiled himself.  He peeped at Miss Abigail and took Little Isaac in hand."

          Still a blank stare, but this one was to inform me that I am a goober.

         

          At the end of Act I, Tituba and Mary perform a sort of Satanic abortion of John Alden's child, complete with some Satanic baby oil as personal lube.  The Devil cavorts satyr-like through the forest, while the procedure is performed by a tree (a tree surgeon?) with its black goo that resembles Venom from Spider-Man.  As best I can figure, Mary agrees to this so no one knows that she and John Alden played Doctor in the graveyard, and so she doesn't have to say, "No, the F doesn't stand for Forehead!" the rest of her life.  Suddenly everything is over, Mary looks down at herself, while Tituba is obviously calling Ye Ole Guiness Book of World Records to report the world's fastest tummy tuck.  Immediately, we jump into Act II and seven years into Salem's future, where John Alden has returned from war and Tituba's accent is gradually becoming more Marie Laveau-ish. 

          Mary married Mr. Sibley and apparently gave him a frog in the throat as a wedding gift.  

          There are many thinly veiled morals of the story.  The witch hunt seems to be telling us to look at our own hypocrisy.  Also, the story emphasizes an ongoing comparison between the two Puritan "enemies," which are the witches amongst us and the Native Americans beyond the town borders.  Both are savage "nature worshippers." 

          This is not addressed in the show, but whenever I hear anything about the Salem Witch Trials, I think back to something I read when I was still in high school.  (In the era my son refers to as Before Technology.)  The Salem prosecutors hosted various, no-win tests to see whether you were a witch.  The one that fascinated me most was dunking the person's head in a bucket filled with water.  If they lived, they were a witch. 

          Honestly, Salem is not that bad.  There were a few moments of genuine creepiness, in a The Exorcist sort of way.  It is WGN America's first originally scripted series. Star Trek's Brannon Braga creates, executive produces, writes, and generally kitchen-sinks the whole thing. 

          I would watch again. 

Similar Post(s):

Sucker Punch: Sam's First Official Movie Review

Writer Website Review: WriteHook

Scott Morgan’s WriteHook climbed high into my list of most frequent Internet landing pads from the first time the link beguiled me and I did click.  The header dropped that first bit of advice coming from the core of his design in a font so blood red that I have been tempted to touch the screen to see if it is wet:  Write for the jugular.

What does that mean?  It means Scott is a writer, soul to chromosome, and to paraphrase Robert Heinlein, he pays attention to writing in the same way that most people pay attention to their own heartbeats.  His honesty never bores or depresses you with laments of how no one reads anymore or how trying to make a living writing is like making a living trying to win the lottery.  He doesn’t ask you, “Do you want to write, or do you want to have written?” 

He probably doesn’t care. 

But I don’t need to sell the point when his material speaks for itself.  Here are a couple of quotes from his site to give you a feel of his perspective:

“I am a former journalist. Former. I love that word so much because journalism will salt you up and eat your soul with a side of home fries and then wipe its greasy fingers all over what's left of your face.”

-- from The Girl with the Dirty Steps

“Characters are assholes. . . . And if you don't exercise your authority over them at all times (all times!) they will unzip their flies and wizz all over you.”

-- from Oh, Frustrated Writer ... What Company You Have

Scott has done (and succeeded at) this writing thing for more than half of his life.  He likes showing you how to take a wishy-washy character and drop an engine into it.  Treat yourself to an epiphany and watch his video to see what happens to your characters when you learn what D.R.I.V.E. is.  I watched it, felt my jaw drop, and then immediately went to Amazon and bought his book Character Development from the Inside Out. 

Not only this, but WriteHook offers a big buffet of writer services including blog, newsletter, videos, webinars, workshops, and plenty of free stuff.

Related post:

Character Development: Scott Morgan Radio Interview

Sucker Punch: Sam's First Official Movie Review

My wife's and my entertainment choices rarely agree.  For example, she refers to my library as "That crap you read."  It's gotten to the point that I can begin a sentence with, "I like..." and she instinctively shouts, "Crap!"

"But it's--"

"Crap!"

"No, I'm talking about--"

"Crap!"

"Will you listen to me?"

"Crap, crap, crap. Crap. Crap-crap-crap-crap!"

"But--"

"Crap!"

"I--"

"Crap!"

"Tonya likes--"

"Good stuff!"  Then she smiles. 

Okay.  Okay.  In How to Use Lubricant Inappropriately I admitted that occasionally I watch movies that ... um ...  Well, if The Shawshank Redemption is an A movie and Godzilla Versus the Bongo Monster is a B movie, then these would land somewhere around W. 

When I first saw the trailer for Sucker Punch, I was extremely underwhelmed.  I strained at least a dozen brain cells wondering whether somebody unintentionally made a live-action Powerpuff Girls movie.  A few days before the home video release, I saw new trailers.  In these, this pigtailed blonde in a half ninja, half school girl outfit was whipping around a Samurai sword, dodging bullets, and jumping in slow motion.  Part of my brain -- the part that later I inevitably refer to as Temporary Stupidity -- took note of the ka-pows! and shings! and booms!  and made me say, "You know, that kind of looks cool."

And so while everybody else in the world was going to opening night of Harry Potter, I rented Sucker Punch. 

The box claimed it was only 110 minutes long.  I'm pretty sure that was in dog years, though.  The story proved a little bit hard to follow, assuming you measure your "little bits" by the parsec.  I will do my best to recap.

It's a dancin' movie, like Footloose.  But nobody really dances and I suspect Kevin Bacon would have filed for a restraining order if the movie ever wandered within six degrees of separation from him.  Oh sure, every once in a while, Sweet Pea wiggles just a little bit (remember "little bits" are relative here) but it never actually reaches the exuberance of, say, sleepwalking.  But that doesn't matter, because as soon as there is even the slightest chance someone might Vogue, we fly into an extreme close-up of Sweet Pea's eyelashes, which are each just about the same size as the average feather duster.  The angle rotates  to an extreme close-up of her temple, her ear, her blonde pigtail, and the back of her head, where we stop and experience two magical realizations:  we have traveled Somewhere Else, and we are about to begin a mind-boggingly implausible fight scene.

Don't get me wrong, I like to watch an itty bitty Powerpuff Girl slice and dice a 30-feet-tall demon samurai just as much as the next guy.  All the fight scenes are cool.  It would have helped however if they all belonged in the same movie.  Because the next time we get a close-up of her eyelashes we end up on a train shattering shiny robots or in the air popping WWII Zeppelins.

There's Nazis.

And there's steampunk.

And there's robots.

And there's steampunk robot Nazis.

Then, when it's all over and we zoom out from her eyelashes, we're back in the theater and everybody is clapping and telling Sweet Pea what a dancin' prodigy she is.

Oh, and the dancers might be hookers (well, actually love slaves), or they might be patients in a big ole Dr. Frankenstein insane asylum.  The bad guy might be a sleazy wealthy thug packing a tommy gun or he might be sleazy nurse with a key around his neck.  And, the songs are really cool, but they may just be part of the lobotomy.

Either way, my brain hurts.

After the 110 minutes in dog years was over, I realized that the only reason I began watching Sucker Punch was because I was younger and more impressionable then.  I brought the movie back into the living room and set it on top of the These Go Back Tomorrow pile.  

"It was crap, wasn't it?" my wife snickered.

"It was a dancin' movie," I said. "Where everybody was kung fu fighting."

Similar Post(s):

Salem Witch Trial Viewing 

Norton 360 at 20 Paces

NOTE:  The following giveaway ended 

August 1, 2011. 

**********************************************************************************


IMPORTANT NOTICE:   Added 7/12/2011 @ 1:25 PM CST -- I have just discovered that if you become a follower of my blog and select to follow privately, Blogger not only prevents everyone else from seeing those members, but it also prevents me from seeing them.  I would have no way to know that you have joined the site and consequently would have no way to enter you into the drawing for Norton 360.  The only way I see to resolve this is to ask you to follow publicly.  I was unaware of this when I originally posted the rules.  I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

If you have any other problems, please leave a comment below or email me directly at samrvs2@gmail.com

**********************************************************************************

When I got home from work, I saw that my copy of Norton 360 Version 5.0 arrived in the mail.  My brain was suddenly flooded with Nerdium Chloride, which scientists have identified as the hormone responsible for compelling people to try to make the word antidisestablishmentarianism longer or to invent high tech double-quilted toilet paper that responds to voice commands.  The effect on me was to focus my brain on a single goal:  "I need a computer!"

I became so excited I stuck the DVD back into the mailbox, hoping it would boot up and begin running a virus scan.  Alas, no.  The only things that happened was the mail courier looked at me the same way the dog does when I ask her to whistle, and he said, "You okay Mr. Current Resident?"  (see Just for the Ell of It) 

"Yep, I just need my computer.  Now."

"Oh...," he said.  "I used to know a guy who kinda felt the same way about a big fuzzy comforter with a stain on it shaped like Utah."  He backed up a couple of steps and moved his mail bag in front of him like a shield.  "So, why don't you just go in the house and maybe lay down for a while?  Take a load off.  And avoid any sharp objects."

I'm pretty sure I haven't actually run since 2003.  Clutching my copy of Norton, I zoomed from my mailbox to my office at about Mach 4.  Immediately, I plopped down in front of my PC and began installing the program.  The splash screen appeared, and I watched the little Norton arrow chase its tail while my brain generated such deep thoughts as "Ohhh, pretty!" and "Yellow!"

Then I realized something terrible.  Something that would endanger this entire digital adventure. 

I had forgotten to uninstall the freebie virus checker and all the anti-malware thingies in my system before installing Norton.  Typically, two competing anti-virus programs get along with each other about like most of the guests on The Jerry Springer Show.  The new application usually notifies the user of compatibility issues with friendly prompts like, "Get that Pokemon-looking, stanky piece of bloatware off my hard drive!"

Norton 360 did not seem to care.

I'm sure that if I had said, "Um, what about the other virus checkers?" Norton would have responded, "Is that what those are?  Are they house broken?  Come here, Freebie! Here boy!  See the spyware?  Sick 'em!  Sick 'em, boy!  Oh, it's so cute."

At this point, I became nervous.  What sort of power had I unleashed into my system?  This was my primary PC, the one hosting my family photos, my stories, my digital paintings, and my complete alphabetized and cross-referenced collection of redundancies, like "armed gunman" and "pink in color (as opposed to pink in height)."  Although, that last one I did back up, because I felt it appropriate to have a copy and a redundant copy.  (When my wife reads that last sentence, she's going to look up at me and say, "You're a dork, Dear.  No, you're a gord -- a Geek, a dORk, and a nerD all rolled into one.")

It was too late, now, though.  Norton reported that the installation was complete.  I quite possibly had just given my innocent computer -- that for years has brought me emails from friends and family and animated GIFs of Hamster Dancing kittens  -- the artificial intelligence to scatter to the four winds every "future plan," "harmful injury," and "hollow tube" that I had ever found.

The Explore button beguiled me, and I did click.

The main interface screen appeared.  I saw that it was divided into four major categories of protection:  World Domination, Download Your Consciousness, Make Google Your Bitch, and Global Thermonuclear War....

Okay, okay, that's not exactly what the screen said.  It was more like:  PC Security, Identity Protection, Backup, and PC Tuneup.  But the idea is that Norton 360 offers powerful tools that are not only easy to use but also go well beyond a simple virus checker.  (Although, I may mention the Download Your Consciousness thing to Symantec, because that would be kind of cool.)

I clicked World Dom...er, I mean PC Security, which opened a menu offering to Run Scans, Manage the Firewall, and launch Norton Insight.  I chose the last one, but I am not sure why.  I really don't like most insights that I receive, like "It's okay to eat one fat-free container of yogurt, but seventeen does not a meal make," or "No, we don't need voice-activated toilet paper."  This was different, though.  Norton Insight gave me a list of all my programs, how much resources each consumed, their threat level to my computer, and how popular they are.  The popularity review I suspect will annoy my programs enough that they will either go into full Jerry Springer mode or maybe stage a West Side Story dance off.  That's okay, though, under PC Tuneup there are enough optimization and cleanup applications to keep the conga lines short and the Cakewalking to a minimum.

There are more scheduled scans and automatic backups and reports and tools and doohickeys than I could possibly cover in one blog entry.  Rest assured, though, that I probably spent hours clicking on every one of them.  In fact, throughout the afternoon, I ignored my wife several times when she stuck her head into my office to say, "I hope by the time company arrives that you have quit repeating, 'That's cool!' and giggling insanely." 

The only negative thing that I can say is that the backup took 3 hours.  I'm pretty sure, however, that Symantec meant for you to backup things like your documents and pictures -- not your entire computer to an external USB drive.  The poor thing did it, though -- all 244 gigabytes of data that it compressed into 94, which I'm pretty sure is roughly equivalent to the human brain section that holds the average person's collective childhood memories.  (I suck at math, though, so I could be a little off on that.)

After it was all over, my computer not only runs faster but identifies whether websites in a browser search are safe before I click on them.  It can even scan my Facebook Wall to make sure the links are safe. 

I am a bit disappointed, though.  I hoped my computer might suddenly become self-aware, and the printer, scanner, and other peripherals split off into Autobots and Decepticons.  Oh well, maybe in Version 6.0.

Oh, and one more thing....

Symantec was nice enough that they did not send me just one copy of Norton 360.  So, because of their generosity I am able to give away Norton 360 Version 5.0 to one of the readers of my blog.  Free!  (And you just thought that coming here was a mostly painless way to kill brain cells.)  It is the full version, works with Windows 7 and XP, comes with a year's subscription, and protects up to 3 computers.  As of this writing, Symantec offers this program for $59.99.

The rules of the giveaway are simple.  You must be a follower of my blog with Google Friend Connect to be eligible.   (Sorry NetworkedBlog followers.)  Just go to the right sidebar on this screen and click the FollowJoin This Site button under the "Follow Sam's Blog" section, and, well, follow the directions.  On August 1, 2011, I will randomly pick a name from my list of followers and announce the winner on this blog.  (My family members are not eligible.)  

NOTE:  The above giveaway ended August 1, 2011. 

Visit the Symantec site and check out Norton 360 All-In-One Security:  www.symantec.com

You will find details and videos about this and all of Symantec's award-winning products.

I encourage you to leave comments.  Let me know whether you like this giveaway, and I might try to make this a recurring feature of this blog. 

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IMPORTANT NOTICE:   Added 7/12/2011 @ 1:25 PM CST -- I have just discovered that if you become a follower of my blog and select to follow privately, Blogger not only prevents everyone else from seeing those members, but it also prevents me from seeing them.  I would have no way to know that you have joined the site and consequently would have no way to enter you into the drawing for Norton 360.  The only way I see to resolve this is to ask you to follow publicly.  I was unaware of this when I originally posted the rules.  I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.


If you have any other problems, please leave a comment below or email me directly at samrvs2@gmail.com



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