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“Okay, are you ready to give this a try?” Patty decided changing the subject was the best approach, drawing his attention away from the state of the world. Leo nodded eagerly and though she couldn’t see his face behind the wrapping, she knew he was likely smiling. His hands were covered in fabric, a pair of thin work gloves that Gordon have given him to avoid the cumbersome bulkiness of his winter mittens. Patty bent over, placing the rifle in the boy’s hands, giving him quiet, but insistent direction on where to hold the handle, on placing his index finger on the trigger guard and cradling the chassis carefully in his opposite hand.

“Remember— you do not put your finger anywhere near the trigger unless you intend to shoot, understood?”

The young boy nodded, his finger twitching slightly in apparent anticipation.

“Put the stock in your shoulder here.” Patty knelt next to the boy and helped him position his arms and the rifle, trying to bind it all together, slowly moving both arms and torquing his upper body, as if he were a clay figurine that she was attempting to pose around a wire armature. To his credit, Leo kept his muscles slack, allowing his mother to move him at will, adjusting his placement, his posture, and his position without pushing back against her gentle, but insistent touch. Considering Leo was approaching the age where he was no longer interested in her hugs or kisses, this seemed remarkably tender to Patty, even given the fact that she in the middle of trying to maneuver him into a firing position. What strange days these were, indeed.

“How are you feeling?” She patted her son’s shoulder, squeezing it gently.

“Okay, I guess.” He held his posture, straight-backed, rifle held level, barrel pointing vaguely downrange.

“Great. Hold the rifle tight and square, aim through the scope, right here, okay?” She pointed toward the circular end of the CenterPoint scope, a low cost accessory that she and Gordon had picked up at a department store in town. Nothing fancy, nothing infrared, just the basics, which would have to do, considering the circumstances. “It doesn’t magnify much, magnifies up to nine times. It’s already been calibrated for the 6.5 Creedmoor at fifty meters, so nothing else for you to do there, but if we increase the range at all, we’ll need to recalibrate.”

Leo remained in his firing position, but said nothing and Patty knew she was getting too deep in the weeds for her son. However, she hoped that Gordon was absorbing some of this detail as well, after all, he needed it just as much as Leo did.

“Are you looking through the scope?”

Leo nodded stiffly, his head lowered and eye pressed closed to the circular reticule.

“You see the crosshairs? The four lines that inters—”

“I know what crosshairs are, mom.”

Patty muffled a smirk behind her bandana and squeezed his shoulder again.

“Of course you do, bud.” She leaned over slightly, looking down the length of the barrel, toward the direction of the paper targets in the distance, barely illuminated by the torchlight. “Find the target you want and center the crosshairs on that silhouette.”

Leo moved slightly, adjusting the position of his shoulders very slightly.

“Do you feel the breeze?”

Leo shook his head and Patty closed her eyes, trying to sense the shifting winds. Being all wrapped up in long sleeves, gloves, and even a bandana around her face, it was tough to gauge where the wind was coming from and how strong it was, which put them at a bit of a disadvantage.

“Normally you’d want to test the wind, but that’s difficult to do bundled under all these clothes, and honestly, at fifty meters it doesn’t matter quite so much.”

Leo retained his pose, but she could feel him stiffen slightly under her hand, the boy clearly getting antsy to just get on with the lesson. She couldn’t disagree— going through all of this verbally would only take them so far, she had to let him shoot eventually, and practical experience was the best way for him to learn.

“When you’ve got the target centered, draw a breath and hold it, okay, suck it into your lungs and lock it in there, ensure you don’t move as much as possible.”

She felt her son draw his shoulders up, taking a breath, then freezing, his posture locked tight.

“Finger to the trigger.”

Leo’s gloved finger slid smoothly from the trigger guard to the trigger.

“Squeeze.”

Leo squeezed and the Mossberg roared a loud, echoing crack of blistering fire, the deafening boom almost painful to her ears at such close range. The twenty-four inch barrel jerked swiftly and suddenly upward, Leo lurching back with the kick, not anticipating the sudden shift in momentum. Leo managed to keep his grasp tight around the weapon and recovered quickly, but still expelled a breath of stiff air from pursed lips. The echoing report of the rifle carried over the trees, slowly cascading into faded volume like the roiling crash of a mid-summer thunderstorm.

“Woah.” Leo lowered the barrel, looking in the direction of the targets, which Patty felt pretty sure he’d missed cleanly. He hadn’t been prepared for the kick and she silently chided herself for not warning him sufficiently. They were both lucky the weapon hadn’t smacked him in the face.

“Should have warned you about that recoil, kid. Sorry.”

“That was awesome.”

“Well— it’ll be more awesome when I can get you to hit the target, but that was a good start.”

“Can I try it again?”

“Do you remember everything I said?”

“Sure.” His voice sounded dubious but Patty shrugged it off. They had several cases of ammunition, plenty to spare, and while locating extra rounds would be a problem eventually, it wasn’t yet. 

“You see this?” She pointed toward the curved bolt at the right side of the weapon. “Lift it up and pull it back, it’ll eject the shell casing and load the next round. But before you fire, we need to police the brass. Do you know what that means?”

Leo shook his head.

“Pick up the shell casing— clean up after yourself. We’ve got plenty of ammunition, but it’s not infinite— there may come a time we need to figure out how to make more bullets. Whatever material we can retain will help with that.”

“Dad taught you all that? Even before all of this happened?”

“Your dad had— an eclectic collection of knowledge.” Patty tried to frame her words carefully, not wanting to make Gordon somehow feel inadequate or unprepared for their current situation. In truth, Gordon’s background working on his parent’s farm was likely to provide them much more value than Jake’s weapons training. Both, however, had their place. Leo nodded, seeming to understand her hesitation to get into too much detail, then racked the bolt and lowered the rifle, scanning the wilted, brown edged pasture for signs of the glittering brass casing. Wordlessly Gordon stepped forward, removing a torch from the ground and holding it down a bit, shining pale light along the surface of the ground. Gordon had been staying away from the lesson so far, choosing to draw back and watch it all from a distance, giving Patty and Leo their chance to bond, but as he ran the torch along the ground, the pale glisten of reflective light drew Leo’s eyes.

“There!” He bent and used his fingers to pinch the shell casing from the surrounding grass, dried and dead, lifting it between gloved fingers. He held it up, squinting at it, tilting it back and forth as he scrutinized it carefully. “We can make more bullets out of this?”

“I suppose we can— though I’m not sure how,” Patty admitted with a shrug. “Your father never got to that point in the lesson.” She chuckled alongside Leo and took the casing from him, stuffing it in her pocket as he readied the rifle for another shot. Patty pinched her lips closed, saying nothing, just giving her son the space and time to frame his next shot. She watched in silence as he went through the familiar motions, his face contorting beneath the wrapping, shifting in focus and memory. Eventually, he fell into the familiar posture and pose, his arms leveled, the barrel straight, his finger resting cleanly on the trigger guard as he fell into a surprisingly well-executed firing stance. She could hear him suck in a quiet breath, could see his shoulders square and steady, then watched as the finger glided less than an inch backwards. Then, there was a gentle squeeze, little more than a push of pressure and once again, the rifle cracked a sudden slashing bark of thunder.

But the recoil was far better controlled the second time through, Leo’s grip on the weapon firmer and more rigid, the weapon jolting but not jerking upwards. From the distance she stood, she couldn’t tell if his shot hit any of the targets, but already his movements were well-learned and well-practiced and she couldn’t help but nod in admiration of her son’s progress from the first shot to the second.

“Very nice, Leo. Much better.”

“I don’t think I hit any targets.”

“Maybe not, but you were clearly paying attention, which is almost more important than hitting the target. Anyone with a little luck can hit a target once— learning how to go about hitting the target consistently takes practice and knowledge. We’ll get you there.”

Leo nodded, lowering the rifle.

“Can I go and see Libby for a few minutes?” He gestured toward the barn, indicating where his favorite cow had been living for the past nearly three weeks, somewhat against Gordon’s better judgement.

“Sure. You’ve learned a lot tonight already. Go ahead— just be careful, okay? Remember the coyotes.” Patty nodded toward him, a silent reminder of the time, a week ago, when Leo had snuck out of the cabin to pay a visit to the cow and had ended up nearly being dragged down by wild, feral coyotes. Gordon had been forced to race outside and rescue him, but had suffered coyote bites and nasty burns for his trouble, injuries that were likely still a long way from healing.

As Leo walked off in the direction of the barn, Gordon drew up next to his wife, resting a hand on her back.

“You’re a good teacher.”

“It’ll be tough to tell how good a teacher I am until he really needs to put those skills to use. I’m not sure I want to find out just how good a teacher I really am.”

Do you like what you see? Don’t forget to pre-order Edge of Ruin Book 4 now! Haven’t tried the Edge of Ruin series yet? Give it a try on Amazon, or you can sign up for my mailing list to read the Free Prequel!

The post Edge of Ruin Book 04 – Mother’s Day ’22 Excerpt first appeared on Justin Bell's Author Page.

Denver, Colorado

Day 19

Meredith awoke with a start, the soot and smoke stained portrait of her husband’s agonized face slathered in pale swaths of paint on the inside of her eyelids. His eyes wide, pleading, his mouth formed into a twisted oval, skin bubbling, melting and peeling away from the bleached bone beneath as claws of fire raked his expression from the stark skull it covered. Her breath hitched and stabbed as she labored her way into a waking state, desperately trying to close the door to the nightmare that was a mixture of bad dream and haunting memory. Her husband Barry had been a terrible man, abusive, perpetually angry, remorseless and unrepentant for his myriad of sins— yet all the same the gnarled fist of guilt formed in her gut for the role she’d played in his demise, burning alive as Denver City Hall was consumed by flames and reduced to smoldering ash.

Beyond her consistently disturbing dreams, Meredith felt almost normal these days, since getting access to the anti-nausea medicine, which Jake managed to find in that trashed drugstore several blocks away. The adventure to recover the medicine had very nearly cost Jake his life, but he’d shown not a single ounce of regret in the days since, even though they were filled with painful recovery from the deep and life-threatening stab wound he’d suffered. Mr. Franklin, the enigmatic property manager of the gated community where Meredith and her husband Barry had lived for the past few years, had been the one to actually coax Jake through the roughest stretch of his injury, a fact that made her considerably uneasy. Swinging her legs off the bed, she turned and looked at Ace, the large Rottweiler who had been part of the package deal with Jake, a smile turning her lips. She brushed slicked hair from her sweat soaked forehead, then reached over and gently stroked the side of the large dog, feeling the gentle bulge of ribs beneath his coat of matted fur. Ace was getting skinny. They were all getting skinny. Caressing her pregnant belly, she chuckled, reminding herself that skinny was relative. Her curved belly certainly didn’t resemble anything skinny, but her face was drawn, skin pulled taut around the angular edges of her jawline, her eyes sunken, and her arms looking like flesh covered branches on an old, withered tree.

In truth, she and Jake had it much better than most— Barry had been almost obsessive about having a stocked pantry, and they had food and water, though they were being exceedingly cautious in their rationing. As Jake struggled through the first few days of his recovery, Meredith silently wondered just how long they’d be stuck in her house, a veritable mansion she had once been awed by, but now felt almost haunted with the memories of her dead husband and reminders of the abuse he’d levied in her direction on an almost daily basis. Standing with a soft groan, she wandered her way to the bathroom, creasing her eyes as the wafting smell of stale urine struck her upon entry. The bathroom situation at the house was far from optimal, with no running water and the fetid odor of waste permeating each of the four point five bathrooms contained within the large structure. They’d long since stopped actually using the toilets, choosing instead to venture out to the thick clutch of trees that lined Meredith’s backyard, but still, the remnants of their first few days grew languid and stale, managing to battle its way through her anti-nausea medicine and curdle in her plump stomach.

She rested a hand on her rounded belly, looking into the bathroom mirror, using her hand to steady herself against the broad, porcelain sink counter. While her stomach was generally feeling better and she did indeed feel normal, normal for an almost seven month pregnant woman in the midst of a solar apocalypse was a long way from a true normal and she found herself battling the pendulum swing of emotions on an almost hourly basis. She was beginning to realize just how much of a savior Jake had been, not just from a physical standpoint, but from a mental and emotional one as well. She’d found hope in his eyes, in spite of his anti-social demeanor— he had a purpose, a desire, and by being in his orbit, she felt the same. But he’d been out of commission for nearly a week, spending most of his time silent and bed-ridden, his body resting to recover from the loss of blood and trauma to his body. As such, she found herself drifting in darkness, creeping far too close to fatalism as she spent her days looking out over the sun-soaked horizon of the meadows behind her house, the sunlight no longer warm and welcoming, but a beacon of horror and pain.

A bottle of water rested on the counter by the sink and she picked it up, checking its contents, then cupped her hand, spilled some water into it and splashed it across her face. The sudden jolt of room temperature liquid shocked her into a slightly more awakened state and she repeated the motion twice more, blinking through the water, trying to comprehend the face that stared back at her from the mirror. Her skin was pale and almost flaccid, languishing on her skull like moist wax paper, her eyes set into her sockets like white marbles placed in mottled, clay bowls. She exhaled, closing her eyes against the image of her own reflection, her fingers curling around the edge of the sink as she felt another relentless crashing wave of despair threaten to drop her to her knees. Pressing her eyes tightly shut, she focused her attention on Jake, someone she could help, someone she could heal— something good that she could do rather than curling into a fetal position and praying that everything would just magically go away.

Releasing her cast iron grip on the sink, she made her way out the door, each stride becoming at least slightly more resilient and determined than the last. Ace perked his head up as she made her way back past the large, king-sized bed and he leaped down, following her out into the hallway, toward the landing, which lead to the curved downward staircase to the first floor. She made her way down the stairs carefully and quietly, not wanting to disturb Jake if he was still sleeping. Ace, of course, had no such concerns, his claws clattering on the stairs as he scrambled down, then darted across the floor, heading to where the first level guest room was, its door locked tight. Scratching anxiously at the door, Ace lowered his head and sniffed loudly at the seam near the floor, as if he could materialize his master just by snorting his scent through the narrow gap.

“Come on, let’s get you out first, then wake him up.” Meredith swept a makeshift pet poncho from the end table near the rear sliding glass door and wrestled it over the large dog as he squirmed eagerly, suddenly realizing what gift he was about to be given. She slid the door open and he burst outside in a blur of movement, vanishing from view. Meredith had been worried about him doing that at first, though Jake promised her that he would come back, and so far, three times a day, every day, he’d done just that. Feeling the pressure of her own bladder, Meredith sighed and went through the arduous process of dressing in her own protective suit, a combination of the MOPP gear and rain poncho that she’d been given back at City Hall, making sure to leave herself access in the lower half of the suit so she could drop her drawers and do what she needed to do. Any sense of self-consciousness or self-awareness had gone, now that she was nearly a week into the process, though it was still a hassle and still felt like tempting fate.

She’d learned the hard way to not even gaze in the direction of the sun,  the familiar ball of yellow light and gas, unfiltered by ozone, could very easily burn out her retinas if she stared at it for even a few moments too long. Already, the air felt several degrees hotter than it had when everything had started, and in one case, when she’d hiked up her pant leg just a little too much, a sudden clawing burn radiated along her shin within seconds of exposure. Long story short, the sun was no longer humanity’s friend, and as the days wore on, it would only become more and more dangerous. Not just dangerous, but deadly. Her arms wrapped around her body, shoulders hunched, her hazardous materials suit clutched around her, covering every inch of skin. she pushed out onto the back patio, moving with dedicated purpose toward the small group of trees thrust up from the withered grass in a section of her once lush backyard.

Where there had once been over an acre of vibrant, green grass, there was now a sprawling wasteland of beaten down, dried out straw, the bland variations of brown looking like the left over crust of a decades-long draught instead of only three weeks of normal Colorado summer. Meredith’s shoes crunched through the dried growth as she made for the trees, which were little more than thick, leafless stalks jutting up from hard ground, many of their leaves wilted and browned, drooping as if just emerging from a particularly harsh winter. As the leaves continued to shrink, crust over and die off, the shelter the trees provided became more and more meager, giving Meredith pause as she drew into the copse of growth and searched for a place to relieve herself. Trying to expose certain areas of her body without exposing them to the sun— or her neighbors, was getting more and more challenging and she was quickly growing concerned about how it might work long term.

Fumbling with the straps and buckles, she inched the lower section of her modified suit down, exposing just enough to do what she had to do, crouching in the narrow trees, her eyes darting out from beneath the lenses of her goggles, searching to make sure nobody was playing peeping tom. To her right, she heard the rustling sound of something charging through the trees and jerked, shifting her weight so she wouldn’t topple over, only to see Ace barreling toward her, tail swishing from beneath his doggie poncho.

“Don’t knock me over, Blockhead.” Meredith finished what she was doing, used some toilet paper she’d brought out from the house, then bundled herself back up, wincing as she stood, her stiff back barking slightly as she elevated. Ace circled around her, then joined her in making their way back to the sliding glass door. Meredith had only been out in the sun for a few minutes and she felt sapped and tired, completely leeched of her energy, sweat thickly coating her skin, creating a layer between her body and the outer shell of the MOPP suit. Slipping back inside, she slammed the door closed and removed her hood and mask, expelling a breath of exhausted air. She rushed to remove the layers of clothing, feeling sweltering to the point of overheating. Taking tentative steps forward, she wrestled free of the cumbersome outfit, relishing the fresh air, even though she’d only been clad in her protective gear for less than ten minutes. She wasn’t sure if it was just her imagination or not but venturing outside was getting more and more taxing every day. 

While they’d been at City Hall, Dr. Liebert had gone on a rambling diatribe about UV-A rays and UV-B rays and about direct sunlight being invisible to ozone, but her mind roiled with the science behind the event and she found it almost impossible to tie all of the various loose threads together. She knew the sun was getting brighter, she knew that it would be far more damaging to exposed skin, both in the capacity to burn and to cause skin cancer, but would the surface temperature of the earth actually rise? Would the summers be hotter, or was it simply her imagination? She sighed and stepped out of the pool of her loosely gathered MOPP suit, trying to shut the freight train of frantic thoughts out of her mind. It was far too easy these days to follow that train into a deep, dark tunnel and she remained in constant fear that she wouldn’t be able to find her way back out once that happened. Ace had followed her back inside and shook vigorously, as if trying to throw the poncho from his back, so Meredith moved toward him, assisting the large dog in getting free of the heavy, protective outfit. Once loosened of the garment, the animal shook again, with even more aggression, the vigor with which he shook bringing a rare smile to Meredith’s lips.

She walked to the kitchen and located a quarter full plastic bottle of water, slipping it free from behind the rows of ginger ale, then tipped the bottle and took a long drink. Before she’d even set the bottle down, Ace had perched near the closed door to the guest bedroom, looking at her, his head tilted sideways inquisitively.

“Should we check on him, bud?”

Ace’s tail slapped the floor in answer, the Rottweiler clearly sensing her intentions. Meredith crossed the floor and the dog leaped to his feet, pressing his head against the seam of the door as if trying to squeeze through the narrow gap between door and frame.

“Slow down, you big goofball. Don’t jump on him, okay? Stay down.”

Ace pressed his head harder as Meredith turned the doorknob just enough to release the latch securing it closed. The dog barreled forward, ramming the door open with his thick skull and sprinting into the dimly lit room.

“Ace—”

The dog ignored her, immediately jumping and landing on the bed where Jake lay with a spring creaking groan and shuffling of loose blankets. Jake grunted and turned away from the dog’s heavy impact, waving a casual hand as Ace pushed his head forward and began licking his master’s face.

“I thought you were well-trained, you bozo.” “He’s good at pretending.” Jake murmured from beneath the piled blankets, running his fingers over the Rottie’s head.

The post Edge of Ruin Book 4 – Excerpt first appeared on Justin Bell's Author Page.

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So, here I was… deciding that I was going to watch twenty-one films in a period of three weeks.  For someone who works a 50 hour a week job plus almost another full time job as an indie author, no problem right?

Riiight.

But here we are…  my tickets for Avengers: Endgame are set for Friday, April 26th and I sit here April 25th and I’ve just finished watching Avengers: Infinity War.  My MCU marathon is complete, just in the nick of time.

During my recap for Phase 2, I made sure to mention how impressive it was that the folks behind the Marvel Cinematic franchise are able to introduce new characters and make them meaningful and relatable, not just to the comics faithful, but for the general viewing audience at large.

As impressive as Phase 2 was, Phase 3 may be even better.  Sure Phase 2 gave us Falcon, Winter Soldier, Scarlet Witch, Vision, and the pop culture icons who are the Guardians of the Galaxy, Phase 3 introduced Black Panther (whose solo film got an Oscar nomination for Best Picture), Dr. Strange, Captain Marvel, and brought the Amazing Spider-Man to the MCU in grandiose fashion.  Every one of these characters now plays a crucial lynch pin role within the MCU, even though they came a bit late to the party.  Pretty remarkable how they’re able to make that work.

But what about the films themselves?  Here are some of the take aways:

Captain America: Civil War gets a bad rap.  Does it?  Honestly, it seems like a mixed bag, but I feel like there are a lot of people who turn their nose up at it, and I really don’t get it.  Obviously coming off of Winter Soldier I can see why people would think it might not measure up, but the way they balance all of those different characters as well as the over-arching story line and bring the Cap/Iron Man conflict to a head was truly well done.  There’s a huge cast of characters, including the introduction of both Black Panther and Spider-Man to the MCU yet none of it feels especially cheap or phoned in.

At some point along the way, the MCU films became spectacle films.  It’s especially evident when you watch them all in such a compressed time frame, but looking at the Phase 1 films, which were generally understated more “real world” sorts of comic book movies, then looking at films like Black Panther and Dr. Strange, which were more or less CGI, special effects laden blockbusters, and you can really see the evolution of these movies.  Some will argue if that’s for better or worse.  I will admit I felt a little disconnected from both Black Panther and Dr. Strange because they were so heavily dependent on special effects to tell their story.  Black Panther especially almost felt… fake?  Like real life physics no longer applied.  It was a great movie but when you compare it to the visceral, hard-hitting films like Winter Soldier, Civil War, or even Age of Ultron and Iron Man, it felt like a lot “flashier” and more “blockbuster” than previous films did.

Infinity War was insane.  I’m not sure I appropriately appreciated the scope and spectacle of Infinity War until I watched it for a third time and truly absorbed all of the different cast of characters coming together into a single cohesive film which managed to do credit to a now classic comic story in a way that felt like a culmination of everything that came before, yet did justice to everything new that was introduced.  If this is any indication what we can expect from Avengers: Endgame… wow.  Tomorrow afternoon is going to be fantastic.

Even the Phase 3 sequels didn’t feel like sequels.  Phase 3 felt like a “fresh start” even if it was a continuation of what came before.  Technically there were several sequels – Civil War, Ragnarok, Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2, Ant Man and the Wasp, but both Civil War and Ragnarok almost felt like new franchises.  More like “mini-Avengers” films that were quite different in style and scope than previous films.  GOTG and Ant Man/Wasp felt very much like the sequels they were, but between Civil War, Ragnarok, Black Panther, Dr. Strange, Spider-Man Homecoming, and Captain Marvel, it was almost a “new generation” of the MCU in the immediate ramp up to Infinity War, which is a remarkable achievement.

So.  I actually did it.  Somehow I found time to watch every film in the lead up to Endgame, and as much as I can’t believe it, I loved every moment of it.  There were films I was sort of dreading (as much as anyone can dread watching an entertaining film) but watching them as part of a larger whole felt incredibly  rewarding.  As amazing as it seems, there are pieces and parts from every single film, no matter how small, which end up creating part of the whole of the MCU.  A fantastic experiment, and it put me in the perfect mood for Avengers: Endgame.

BRING IT ON.

The post The Road to Avengers Endgame – MCU Phase 3 Recap appeared first on Justin Bell .

Full speed ahead!

My plan to revisit every single film in the MCU prior to the launch of Avengers: Endgame continues unabated and I’ve spent the last week diving through Phase 2 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  My first takeaway is that it really is amazing how a single film can entirely transform a whole segment of the MCU.

Starting off Phase 2 with the back-to-back struggles of Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World didn’t do this part of the universe any favors, and I find it sort of funny that like a standard novel or singular movie, one could surmise that the MCU got stuck in an “Act 2 slog” so to speak.  Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World are likely two of my least favorite MCU installments.  For all of Iron Man 3’s “buddy cop” glory, its entirely built upon Tony’s PTSD and how he adapts to his life as Iron Man.  The life-changing climax involves him destroying all of his armor and potentially giving up his life as Iron Man to be with Pepper Potts…

…which would have had a lot more meaning if the whole thing wasn’t completely whitewashed in Age of Ultron, showing that Tony not only still had armor, but had dozens of armored drones at his disposal.  When asked what happened with him and Pepper, he states matter-of-factly that he didn’t stop because “he didn’t want to” which completely undermines the entire thread of Iron Man 3.  Dark World, meanwhile is a film lacking in serious threat and where each solution to every problem is a matter of coincidence and convenience.

Then we get to Winter Soldier, and the whole thing is changed.  Captain America: Winter Soldier is not just my favorite MCU film, but may indeed be my favorite film of all time.  It’s magnificent, and this is probably at least the tenth or twelveth time I’ve watched it.  So, so good.  The highlights of Phase 2:

Avengers: Age of Ultron gets a bad rap.  I truly don’t understand why this film ends up on the bottom of so many people’s MCU lists.  It successfully introduces Scarlet Witch and Vision, ties Vision and Ultron together perfectly in a way that pays homage to the comics, but avoids much of the intertwining backstory, and it gives us a pretty kick ass Avengers story to boot.  This film is perhaps the only film in MCU history where the Avengers are the Avengers, front to back, and it does it very well.

I can’t believe how much I love Winter Soldier and how thrilled I am that the Russos took the helm here and were then more or less given the reins to steer the MCU ship through much of its life going forward.

I still don’t get the Guardians of the Galaxy Hype.  Maybe it’s just because I don’t dig the more cosmic side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but while Guardians of the Galaxy was entertaining, the cultural and financial behemoth it became baffles me.  Gunn took some super obscure characters and built a full-blown franchise out of it for the MCU which is fascinating to me, even if I’m not really in love with the films themselves.  Don’t get me wrong – I love how Marvel, Feige (and in this case James Gunn) are able to do this, it truly is remarkable.  But for whatever reason the goofy appeal of Guardians of the Galaxy is somewhat lost on me.

It’s funny to step back from Phase 2 and realize the only two films that I truly loved were probably Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron and realize that those two films were enough.  The others in this phase were certainly not bad, but compared to the highlights they don’t feel like they quite measure up.  Still, watching things end-to-end here is still a ton of fun as the puzzle pieces slowly start sliding together.

I was truly impressed and surprised by how nicely Age of Ultron sets up Civil War.  You start to see the cracks showing between Tony and Steve in this film, and as a precursor to the events in the third Captain America film (as well as the entirety of Phase 3) I think Phase 2 did its job.

What truly amazes me is how seamlessly the MCU can drop new characters into the existing canon and just have it work.  Phase 2 brought a wealth of them – Falcon, Winter Soldier, Scarlet Witch, Vision, GOTG, Ant Man and others, and they just slide right into place and feel natural.  Because of this I find myself very excited to see where Phase 4 takes us and how we get introduced to the Fantastic Four and yes, the X-Men as well.  Good stuff coming!

The post The Road to Avengers Endgame – MCU Phase 2 Recap appeared first on Justin Bell .

If you ever wonder what my life is like, picture this scenario– twelve months before Avengers: Endgame I’ve just finished seeing Infinity War in the theater and I am SO hopped up, I’m determined to go home and start watching the entire MCU over again, leading up to Endgame just to fully immerse myself in the universe again.

Fast forward eleven months and two weeks

Oh yeah. About that watching every MCU movie before Avengers: Endgame thing…

Nonetheless, I persist! On Sunday, April 7th I decided that I was going to watch all twenty-two films leading up to the big April blockbuster event (that I already have Imax tickets for). Well, technically twenty-one films, I saw Captain Marvel in the theater and don’t have a way to re-watch that one before April 26th.

Still, plenty of time for a guy who has a fifty hour a week job and a forty hour a week indie author career, right?

I’m proud (and okay maybe a bit distressed) to admit I finished Phase 1 in four days.

A few things that pop to mind:

1) Incredible Hulk and Iron Man 2 get a bad rap.

These two films are fun as hell, even if they have their faults. Sure, Tony Stark pees in his Iron Man armor, then proceeds to invent a new element by shooting lasers at stuff, but it features Don Cheadle’s debut as an awesome James Rhodes, donning the War Machine armor for the first time, and I’m pretty sure I’m genetically unconditioned to hate any film that Sam Rockwell stars in. Sorry not sorry.

I prefer Ruffalo’s Banner as well, but the Incredible Hulk film is still a joy. That battle on the campus of the college is craaaazy and though I do wish the destruction of Harlem was referenced SOMEwhere (like maybe the Netflix Luke Cage series?!?) that battle with Abomination was the stuff of legends. Plus, Tim Roth.

2) Avengers is almost a perfect movie.

Even though it’s not my favorite MCU film, it’s certainly my favorite Phase 1 film and executed what it was attempting to achieve to perfection. I’m still amazed at how seamlessly they bring together a global threat, all of the various Avengers, and still manage to weave humor, danger, and a blockbuster mentality without sacrificing any single element. There are moments of Whedon cringeworthy dialogue (and I’m a huge Whedon fan) but, damn. It’s everything Justice League was not.

3) We have come a loooooong way.

It’s easy to forget how relatively understated those first few MCU films were. Period pieces, character driven stories were plot and atmosphere overcame effects. You could really see the puzzle pieces just starting to come together. Looking at a “spectacle film” like Thor, and then Black Panther, it’s absolutely mind-blowing just where the MCU has gone in ten years and how much they’ve cranked up the whole blockbuster mentality.

Phase 1 is great stuff, beginning to end, pretty much without a stinker in the bunch, however its highs are not quite as highs as some of the highs of future phases. Solid foundation, though.

Sixteen days left and fifteen movies… can I make it in time?

The post The Road to Avengers Endgame – MCU Phase 1 Recap appeared first on Justin Bell .

Is it really Thanksgiving already? November? What a whirlwind year this has been for my life as an indie author. This time last year I was struggling to figure out how to sell my thriller trilogy and sci-fi novella series, experimenting with advertisement, marketing, book lengths, but really getting very little traction. I’ll be honest – I was very discouraged. I felt like I was putting a lot of effort and work into something (something that I love, to be sure) but really had little to show for it.

I’m not going to say I was considering giving up, as I said, I absolutely love doing this, so that was never an option, but scale and output was something I needed to explore.

But then something happened that really changed my career track, and in fact went a long way towards changing my life. I happened upon a Facebook post in an author group for someone who was looking for a co-author. A collaboration if you will. He was someone with an existing audience, someone who worked in a genre that I enjoyed, and someone that was willing to lend his expertise towards cover design, editing, and marketing. Somewhat reluctantly, I put my hat in the ring. Reluctantly because I didn’t realistically think he’d accept my submission. I had only three full-length novels released (without many sales) and the novella series was not really the same genre.

But he liked what he saw, we had a few phone calls, and my relationship with Mike Kraus and Muonic Press was born. Things haven’t been the same since.

To date, I’ve put over a million words on paper, I’ve published over fifteen books, I’ve sold 25,000 of them and have, at one point, worked my way up into the Top 25 Sci-Fi authors on Amazon. Even now, nearly a year after this journey began I look back on it with a bit of shock and surprise, as well as a healthy helping of gratitude for the success and good fortune that many who have worked at this far longer have not enjoyed.

I can’t thank Mike Kraus enough for the opportunity to work with Muonic Press. He truly has helped me not just reach some levels of success, but also helped inspire creativity and fueled my enjoyment for this work in ways I never thought possible. Looking forward to 2019 there is so much more still to come and stuff that I think a lot of you will really, really enjoy!

The post Giving Thanks appeared first on Justin Bell .

So after twenty-four hours of rumor within the author communities, Amazon officially confirmed to all authors today that Kindle Worlds is effectively dead.  Established in 2013, Kindle Worlds was a fascinating and unique collaboration between Amazon and several different authors, brands, and corporations, allowing authors to write fiction within those universes.  At the time of this announcement, there are dozens of Kindle Worlds universes out there, including one for G.I. Joe.

The G.I. Joe one is important to me, simply because that’s where this journey began for me back in 2013.  Without the opportunity to write and publish G.I. Joe fiction with Kindle Worlds, I likely would not be writing this post on my author website right now, because…well, I wouldn’t be an author.  That’s what started this whole thing.

I’ll be fully transparent right up front – Kindle Worlds was not a money maker.  It brings in a fraction of the monetary return that my own work does, but it was never about that for me, it was all about the joy and pleasure of writing fiction with some of my favorite characters in one of my favorite universes ever developed.  As of May 17th, Amazon will no longer be accepting new submissions, and as of July 16th, all Kindle Worlds content will be removed from Amazon.  Readers who have purchased books will still be able to read them, of course, but if you’ve been on the fence about checking some of this work out, time to get off.  There’s a bunch of really fun G.I. Joe stuff on Kindle Worlds, not to mention several other worlds as well.

I’m exceptionally disappointed in this news, probably more disappointed than I ought to be, but I have a deep affinity for Kindle Worlds… it really did completely change my life.   For those of you who haven’t explored it before, you might want to check it out, it’s not going to be around forever.

The post Rest in Peace Kindle Worlds appeared first on Justin Bell .

There’s no time like new release time!

I can’t tell you how excited I am to announce the Amazon release of a brand new Post-Apocalyptic Series Darkness Rising. I’m working in conjunction with Mike Kraus on a new thriller oriented series set in a Post Apocalyptic America.

When a terrorist plot results in the detonation of several nuclear devices across the West Coast, the Frasers are thrown into disarray and their strained familial relationships are tested as they watch society collapse around them. Tens of millions of people are killed, injured and driven away from their homes as the result of a sinister plot that the government and its citizens are struggling to understand. With their older daughter lost in the chaos, the Frasers must somehow pull together to support each other and fight to reunite their family.

Book One is available on Amazon right now, and pre-orders have been listed for Book Two and Book Three. This is a fast-paced, thrilling new novel series that I feel privileged to have been involved with and I hope everyone enjoys the ride.

This is my first collaborative effort in the independent publishing arena (though I did work alongside several fellow fine G.I. Joe authors for the “Legacy” series two years back) and it has been one of the best experiences I’ve had in writing and publishing.

Hopefully you all enjoy reading it half as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it.

The post New Series Alert – Darkness Rising hits Amazon! appeared first on Justin Bell .

It’s been a while since I posted an update here, but it’s customary to do some kind of year end post with these things, right?  A look back at the year in review and some kind of inspirational message about all of the things you’re going to accomplish in 2018…

Not sure how inspirational it will be, but here we go…

First and foremost, I consider 2017 to be the first real year that I buckled down to focus on being an author.  My first novel was published in 2015 and my second in 2016, but this year is when I really dedicated myself to making this thing work.

I published the final novel in my trilogy (and my longest book ever) in April, along with the latest in my G.I. Joe Kindle Worlds projects.  In June I shifted my focus to an experimental science fiction novella series – The War of the Three Planets and had an absolute blast working in this different genre.  Along with these more obvious things I spent a ton of time talking to author authors, learning from them, experimenting with advertisements and marketing, and just generally trying to build a base.

I managed to write nearly 500,000 words while doing all of this other stuff (though a good number of those words are still unpublished).  I completed NaNoWriMo again, using it as an opportunity to write two installments of my novella series.

I also managed to put in 650 miles running, and unfortunately lost a pet who had been a part of our family for 13 years.  Not everything in 2017 was wine and roses.

From an indy author perspective, my hope is that 2018 is where I start to build upon the base that I set in 2017.

In January, February, and March I’ll be releasing books 7 – 9 of the War of the Three Planets series, which will be the final installments.  January I’ll also be running a Kickstarter for a new thriller novel that I hope to spin out into a full blown new series to launch later this year.  While doing all of that, I’m also in full blown collaboration mode with Mike Kraus on a series of post apocalyptic novels that should also start seeing release in the first half of 2018.

So, yeah, it’s going to be a very busy first half of 2018, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  I’ve set a goal of a certain number of words for the year, and have every intention of hitting that goal, even while working a day job that looks to be even more demanding this year than last.

How does it all happen?  How do I get all of these words down while working a 40 hour per week job (often times more) with a family?   I’m honestly not sure how it’ll pan out, but I’m getting the planning together now.   Over the past decade of my life I’ve worked on creating a sense of discipline and it’s served me really well.  I don’t see that stopping for 2018.  I never would have imagined when I pressed that “publish” button for the first time in 2014  (with my G.I. Joe Kindle Worlds work) that it would lead down this long and winding road towards self-publishing, but here we are.  How much longer this road goes is anyone’s guess, but I’m going to do everything I can possibly do to make it go as long as possible.

Certain elements are out of my control, but whatever I can control, I will be, and I promise anyone reading this should hopefully have some stuff to enjoy themselves as I progress through 2018.

Onward and upward.

The post Wolf’s Head Publishing – the year in review and the year to come appeared first on Justin Bell .