dagny wrote:

I hope you get this before you buy the paper back:
https://www.amazon.com/Then-There-Were- … dpSrc=srch

Perfect! Thank you.

There's a 2016 remake with Aidan Turner (never heard of him). It sells for $35 on DVD, $30 for Blue-ray. I'd love to see a modern version, but not for that money. Neither Amazon, Netflix, or Youtube have newer versions to rent in Canada. There's a 1945 version in English and a 1987 Soviet version available on Youtube that I'll check out tomorrow.

Thank you, dagny. Will check.

I own Angels & Demons by Dan Brown. It has some similarities to what I'm doing (Rome and murders). Time to dust it off.

I went looking for Ten Little Indians by Agatha Christie, hoping it was in the public domain. No such luck and, naturally, not on Kindle. The most recent movie version of that book was made in 1974 and sells for $20. I may have to do it the old fashioned way and order the paperback. I read the first chapter online. Many of the characters are introduced in the first chapter, each in a very short scene. That's a lot of faceless characters to remember.

I'm in the process of planning a supernatural thriller that includes a serial killer believed to be the Antichrist. I was wondering if anyone can suggest favorite murder mysteries/thrillers to read for research. Preferably classics or well-researched bestsellers. If they're about serial killers, so much the better.

Thanks
Dirk

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(1,217 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

My favorite remains The Empire Strikes Back. Return of the Jedi could have topped it IMO were it not for the Ewoks. That being said, the confrontation between Luke, Vader, and Palpatine remain my favorite scenes in the franchise.

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(1,217 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Just saw Solo. No wonder it didn't make more money. It didn't have the magic of Star Wars. They really should have used the classic Star Wars scroll for these anthology films. Also, more of the original Star Wars music. As is, it's just another meh sci-fi film. Three stars.

Hmm. My latest physical book purchase, In the Steps of Jesus, is very well done. Lots of details, photos, and Biblical context, as I previously mentioned. Too bad the damn thing is a decade out of date. The author re-released it on Amazon in 2017 without a complete update. The only reason I know that is I already did the research for the three competing baptism sites. One of them didn't exist when he first released this book, and he makes no mention of two of them in the re-release. They're major tourist attractions for Christians in Israel, so I'm a bit surprised. I was kind of hoping the book would help me fast-track my research, but it's just another "mostly" reliable source to sift through. Still makes for an interesting read, though.

I just read the first cartoon. While that type of humor appeals to me in small doses, I'm trying for a Catholic-friendly story this time. Although the ending I have in mind differs from Revelation, it will be very Christian. I read the Lord of the World, which is a 100-year-old Catholic novel about the End Times recommended by Pope Francis, and it simply omitted the troublesome part where humans are judged and sent to hell for eternity. My book summary will be clear that it's a story about a Catholic orphan who may be Christ returned in the flesh. Fundamentalists would disapprove since they take literally the angel's statement to the apostles that Christ will return in the same form as when he left (i.e., an adult God, roughly thirty years old). The Pope's Council of Cardinal Advisers will debate that issue early in the book since it needs to be addressed.

I don't know yet what to change about New Testament events that Connor observes. I'm thinking of ramping up slowly on those changes, starting with subtle differences that the religious characters in the story find curious (e.g., some of the wording of Jesus's sermons). That could be explained by the fact that Jesus gave those sermons many times all over Galilee and could have changed them to suit His audience. I'm hoping to build up to one striking change that leaves the characters awed, if troubled. It gets resolved cleanly at the end of book one. Nothing as crazy as Christ having a child, although that idea sold a lot of books, just not to good Catholics.

Correction to my previous statement that I can't really mess with the content of the Gospels. I just remembered that my book doesn't follow Revelation to the same ending. Given how my trilogy will end, I can explore other differences between what Connor observes to have happened in the past versus what is documented in the New Testament. Adds to the mystery of the book.

I don't plan to kill one per chapter, but yes it will be a large number.

I'm not sure yet how to deal with the fact that the police would normally put together a large task force to capture a serial killer, especially one killing cardinals in Rome. I'd rather not do a task force since it requires other unnecessary characters and a lot more information about police procedures, which I don't yet have. Even if I wanted to do it, I'd have to base it off how the US would handle the situation, since there's no information available in English about Italian police procedures. The Vatican's Secretary of State (the most senior position among cardinals) will be involved in both halves of the story (Connor, serial killings) as a proxy for an ailing pope (he appears at the end of book one). Since the Vatican believes it's the Antichrist, I'm considering having the cardinal insist on secrecy to avoid freaking out the whole world. That would allow me to limit the number of police personnel involved to a manageable number. There would be obvious rumors about multiple deaths and a possible serial killer, but the Vatican and police could deny it. They could get away with that because many of the deaths will seem like natural causes, accidents, even suicide. The number of outright murders is still up in the air. I plan to have a female police detective and her counterpart from the Vatican police as the lead investigators.

What do you think?

EDIT: There won't be a separate chapter for each of Jesus's events. Events in close proximity to each other in Galilee will be covered in the same chapter. Jerusalem will probably need two or three chapters.

Ugh. Even after trimming the list of events in Jesus's ministry to only the most spectacular ones, that still leaves fifteen more events to research. So far, I've only done four, which took over three weeks. Fortunately, I have enough to start the outline.

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(1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

I can't find your chapter. Which book is it in?

Dirk

Capernaum is done, with one day to spare! It's a ridiculous fifteen pages of notes and photos that will probably be reduced to just two pages when integrated into the story. I'm going to have to scale back the number of sites Connor visits, otherwise I'm going to need six more months to research the rest of them. Granted, Capernaum was Jesus's base and the site of most of his miracles, so 1.5 weeks spent on it is fine. Jerusalem is the real bear. I'll probably need up to a month to do it justice.

Got a cool new 8.5 x 11 printed book that follows in the footsteps of Jesus. Lots of charts, pictures, and additional information. The pilgrimage books and travel guides weren't enough, and the web and YouTube videos are full of iffy information. Here's hoping the author knows what he's writing about.

Also, I settled on the Israeli government website as a more reliable resource than the tour guide videos and Wikipedia, although Wikipedia is still one of my main resources.

Yes. That's what I meant, but you explained it with one word. Nicely done, Professor.

Anyone have any idea how a single row of columns can divide a room into three aisles along three walls?

The prayer hall was divided by a row of columns (16 in all), that created three narrow aisles along three of its walls.

I'm inclined to assume that "row" here doesn't necessarily mean a straight line. I'm guessing it's a continuous "row" of columns that runs along three of the walls.

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(1,528 replies, posted in Fantasy/Magic & Sci-Fi)

Sounds German.

Note to self: reconcile official Israeli website about Capernaum with other sources.

It's also known as Lake Tiberias, among other names.

The folks on the Catholic forum, including two priests, were very helpful regarding the languages Jesus spoke. His native tongue was Aramaic, but he also spoke Hebrew and probably Greek. Hebrew was the language of the Scriptures, Temple, and prayer. Greek was the language of commerce and therefore the most common language of the Roman Empire, except in and around Rome, where Latin dominated.

It's amazing how much misinformation there is on what seem like credible websites. I read on one site that the Sea of Galilee was saltwater. In reality, it's freshwater, fed by natural springs. Stuff like this could lead to big errors in my book.

I'm wondering if folks can tell me what they do as far as acknowledgements of websites from which they uncovered useful information to include in their stories but didn't lift the text word for word from the source. I've been researching for a year for my new WIP and have visited hundreds of websites, most of which were useless. The number of useful sources is probably in the dozens, some of which provided as little as two or three sentences of new information. I had originally planned to acknowledge the ones.I use all the time, like Wikipedia and Catholic.com, but I haven't been tracking the others. I've also read about two dozens books and made detailed notes, and I watched many videos and photos on Googl,, resulting in more notes. Most of this stuff was educational to me but would be common knowledge to Catholics, so some of it appears on multiple Christian/Catholic websites.

Is there a best practice for how to acknowledge sources for a fictional tale?

More of a gherkin, actually.

In my space opera, I blew up a 400-pound male Mob boss named Mama of Mama's Little Shipping, which has a galaxy-wide monopoly on shipping. Mama was poisoned with Daemon-07, a substance that causes your intestines to expand at nearly the speed of sound. It happened at his Le Chick Restaurant, famous for its succulent baby chicken dishes. A favorite hangout of Mob bosses from around the galaxy, as each person in the restaurant inhaled the resulting fumes, they too exploded. Mama's head landed in the lap of the ever-elegant Lady Kay, named for our very own Kdot (see above). The quick-thinking Kay escaped out an air conditioning vent. On the news, she is quoted as saying: "Heads were popping like champagne corks in there. I thought I had cannon fire chasing my [censored]." I kept laughing while writing the full news report. He was one of my favorite characters, but the news report was too good to pass up once it was written.

Some day I'll tell you about a crazed 41st century taxi driver named Leonardo, his ex-wife Donna Pelosa (which Google Translate seems to think means "hairy woman"), and the cab's long-suffering artificial intelligence unit, Stronza, which is Italian for bitch (it was the ex-wife's rusty old cab). You should see what Stronza can do when Leonardo engages Suicidio Mode! He doesn't actually die (yet), but he leaves quite a body count behind as he flies his cab through rush hour traffic.