Back of the Book Summary–Where, No One Knows

August 29, 2013 rybpierceAuthor, Blackwood Empire, book summary, Book Writing, copyright @rbpierce2483.wordpress.com, fiction, Icebreaker, looking for feedback, pulp fiction, retro-futurism, Rigel Rinkenbach, scifi, steampunk, Writers Resources, writingLeave a comment

A back of the book summary is a powerful tool for any writer. Not only is it the first thing potential readers look at to gauge their interest in your novel, it can help the author consolidate their thoughts on what their book is about and provide an ice breaker when discussing their work with people face to face.

I thought I would take a crack at writing once such summary for my current project. The novel itself is still in first draft form, and does not yet have an ending, but I figured I would share this exercise and hopefully get some constructive feed back. Notes on clarity and whether or not the story presented piques your interest are most appreciated.

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Blackwood Correspondence: A Letter from Rigel Rinkenbach to Pixie Sinclaire, On the Occasion of Her 25th Birthday

August 27, 2013 rybpierceabsinthe, bad poetry, birthday card, Blackwood Empire, break up, character building, copyright @rbpierce2483.wordpress.com, correspondence, correspondus interruptus, Encryption, Pixie Sinclaire, poetry, pulp fiction, retro-futurism, Rigel Rinkenbach, Roses are Red, scifi, steampunk, writingLeave a comment

I’ve spent the last week doing some light editing of what I plan to be my next novel, The Adventures of Pixie Sinclaire. In it, Pixie finds Rigel Rinkenbach’s lab, which is covered with scraps of paper full of encrypted writings. She reflects on his birthday cards to her, which were also encrypted. This set me thinking about what kind of a birthday card a man like Rigel Rinkenbach would give. What follows is a bit of a character building exercise:

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The Shroom Job, Part VIII

August 17, 2013 rybpierceBlackwood Empire, Cartographer, copyright @rbpierce2483.wordpress.com, Eli, Hester, pulp fiction, retro-futurism, revolver, scifi, serial fiction, steampunk, Violet, writingLeave a comment

The jungle came alive with a myriad of sound that Violet had never heard before. Some sounds were familiar, crickets and the like. Many were down right alien. Hester kept to the center of the tracks, away from the tree line on either side of them, and Violet followed suit.

The moment Hester had spoken of, when it felt as though fire covered her entire body and she wouldn’t be able to carry on, had come and gone. And come again, and gone again. Four times the wave of pain hit her, and each time proved more difficult to push through than the last.

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The Shroom Job, Part VII

August 10, 2013August 26, 2013 rybpierceairship, Blackwood Empire, copyright @rbpierce2483.wordpress.com, Hester, pulp fiction, retro-futurism, scifi, serial fiction, short story, steampunk, VioletLeave a comment

Violet opened her eyes to a blurry swirl of orange and green. She rolled over onto her back and pain shot through her body from her right side. Her teeth grit against the pain and tears welled up in her eyes, further blurring her vision.

Trails of smoke led by bits of flaming wood still arced through the sky above her. The sky itself had deepened to shades of red and purple. The shape of a person limped into view above her.

“You alive, kid?”

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Pacific Rim: A (mostly) Technical Review

July 23, 2013August 3, 2013 rybpierceCharlie Day, Charlie Hunnam, copyright @rbpierce2483.wordpress.com, Guillermo Del Toro, Hong Kong, Pacific Rim, Reviews, Rinko Kikuchi, scifi, vfx, Visual effects1 Comment

I read an article yesterday saying Pacific Rim has only made 68 million dollars domestically. It’s doing better internationally, but still has an uphill battle to recoup its 200 million dollar budget. Considering that a movie generally has to make three times its budget to be considered successful in Hollywood, it has quite a way to go.

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Serial- The ‘Shroom Job, Part 5

July 21, 2013August 3, 2013 rybpierceBlackwood Empire, copyright @rbpierce2483.wordpress.com, retro-futurism, scifi, steampunk, The 'Shroom Job, writingLeave a comment

Eli froze in place when he heard the train car explode behind him. He scrambled over one of the benches lining the car and looked out a window. Flames and splintered wood filled the sky.

Where were Hester and Violet? He had lost sight of them shortly after the track buckled and began to collapse. It had since stopped. Eli wondered if he should go back and find them.

The sound of propellers whipping through the air outside put that notion away from his mind. He looked up and saw one of the pirate airships speeding by, toward the rear of the train, toward the cargo car.

Eli knew he had to get there first.
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Review as Read: WOOL, by Hugh Howey: Part I-“Holston” and “Proper Gauge”

July 15, 2013July 15, 2013 rybpiercefiction, Holston, Hugh Howey, Jahn, Reviews, scifi, Silo, WOOL2 Comments

WOOL, the debut novel by Hugh Howey, has a pretty interesting back story. It was first self-published as a series of short novels by Howey, and later picked up by a publisher and collected into the WOOL Omnibus. It is the story of a world so ravaged by a poisonous atmosphere that humanity has been relegated to living in a structure known as the Silo, a bunker that reaches 140 stories underground. Their only knowledge of the outside world comes in the form of images shown on screens transmitted by cameras lining the outside of the silo. These cameras are constantly under threat of being covered by grime, and need to be cleaned often. Cleaning, however, is a death sentence, and a job delegated to those to break the Silo’s laws, the most heinous of which is expressing a desire to leave and go outside.

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Serial- The ‘Shroom Job, Part 4

July 13, 2013August 3, 2013 rybpierceairship, Blackwood Empire, copyright @rbpierce2483.wordpress.com, Eli, fantasy, Hester, illustration, pirates, pulp fiction, retro-futurism, scifi, steampunk, Violet, writingLeave a comment

Violet had already started moving before Hester hit the platform. The sudden movement of the train caught her off guard, however, and she stumbled. Hester, being much more graceful, hopped over her and kept going.

Violet scrambled to her feet and found it hard to keep them under her. The train was definitely moving forward, and gaining speed quickly. The collapsing steel and wood structure of the train track roared throughout the valley. She dared not look back as she found her balance and pushed forward.

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Video-Blackwood Empire Prototype (Keylight Exercise)

July 11, 2013 rybpierceabsente, absinthe, action adventure, airship, Animation, Blackwood Empire, compositing, copyright @rbpierce2483.wordpress.com, Keylight, Motion Graphics, Pernicious, pirates, Platitude, pulp fiction, retro-futurism, scifi, steampunk, vfx, video, Visual effectsLeave a comment

Hello, all! This was a project I made for school about a year and a half ago, and it was my first real experience using Keylight in After Effects. We had to come up with a theme, build a matte painting around that theme, and composite ourselves into the scene. I had been kicking around the idea of doing something in the steampunk sub-genre for a while, and came up with this.

This video was also the genesis for ‘Blackwood Empire’, and the character that would eventually become the disgraced Admiral Roderick Beauchamp La Pierre. My initial idea was to do something like a kid’s show, complete with catchy songs to earn the eternal ire of parents everywhere, but I have absolutely no idea how to write for children, especially when the protagonist is a drunken pirate, and I don’t have a musical bone in my body, so that was out. So now I’m aiming squarely for that golden PG-13 spot occupied by such pulpy adventure movies like Indiana Jones, The Mummy, and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Serial- The Shroom Job, Part 3

July 7, 2013August 26, 2013 rybpierceBlackwood Empire, copyright @rbpierce2483.wordpress.com, fantasy, pirates, pulp fiction, retro-futurism, scifi, serial fiction, steampunk, writingLeave a comment

“How many rounds do you have left for that thing?” Hester asked, leading them to the rear of the car and squeezing herself into the tiny space between the door and the wall.

“Three,” Violet said, somewhat embarrassed. The feeling only grew when Hester fixed her with a perturbed gaze.

“I can only hope the other three rounds now reside within the corpses of three pirates,” Hester said. Violet’s failure to reply prompted a frustrated roll of Hester’s eyes.

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