Diane Burton: Amazon Prime

Showing posts with label Amazon Prime. Show all posts

Monday, January 19, 2015

Post-Holiday Blues

The tree and decorations are put away for another year. The house looks bare, a lot like the world outside. No leaves on the trees, the shrubs dormant, the snow has melted enough to reveal the brown grass and dirt from the construction next door, the sky is Michigan-in-January gray. I really don’t like this time of year.

In November when the gray skies start, we have holidays to look forward to. In January, what? I guess we can look forward to spring. Spring that won’t be here for another three months. Or longer.

What do we do as we wait for spring to arrive? Hide out in our caves. If it were up to me, I would stay indoors . . . and watch movies. Hah. Bet you thought I was going to say write. That, too. I am working on the third book in the Outer Rim series. But I love my movies and television series. Thanks to accidentally getting Amazon Prime (I forgot to discontinue after the free month), we’ve been able to get old television series. Lately, I’ve been OD’ing on Stargate SG-1. (I didn’t know when I started that there were ten seasons. Holy cow!) I’ve had to “bribe” myself into writing in the morning. The reward is watching TV in the afternoon . . . after Hubs drags me to the fitness club.

Oh, yes. We go out in the snow. We grew up driving in this stuff. Not during blizzards, of course. A great benefit to being retired from regular jobs. We don’t have to join the idiots who forget they need to reduce speed in bad weather. But snow-covered roads don’t stop us. Our little cul-de-sac and parking lots present the biggest challenge. Baby steps, I tell myself as I walk from the car to a store or restaurant. I sure don’t need to fall and break my arm or wrist. How would I write? One handed? Yikes. Better to stay in my cave. If only Hubs didn’t get cabin fever.

Just saw this wonderful picture from George Takei. Perfect.

What do you do in the winter? Hibernate or brave the weather and go about your regular routine?

Monday, September 22, 2014

The Reluctant Hero

Before Christmas, I fell for the worst ploy. Sign up for a free month of Amazon Prime and enjoy all the benefits—free two day shipping (I really needed that for gifts), unlimited free movies and TV shows (sounded good), over 500,000 free books (even better), 20% off diapers (didn’t need that). If you like Prime, do nothing and we’ll bill your account. If you don’t, cancel before the end of the trial period. Ri-i-ight. Did I remember to cancel? Of course, not. So there I was with something I really didn’t need and had already paid for.

Flash forward to this summer. Hubs discovered Falling Skies. I remember watching the first episode when it began four years ago. Slow, boring. Still, when you have 800 channels and nothing’s on . . . Suffice it to say, we watched the show. I have to say it wasn’t boring. However, this was worse than coming into a play after the second act. Who were these people? Everybody hated Karen. She seemed okay to me. Then the season ended—on a cliff-hanger, of course. The new season hadn’t started for our favorites. Desperation again.

So how are the two paragraphs above connected? Remember the unlimited free movies and TV shows? Ah, hah! We figured out how to get them on our television. We could watch all the previous episodes of Falling Skies. Again, when there’s nothing on besides endless reruns . . .

So here’s where the title of this post comes in. I’ve never thought of Noah Wyle as a hero. He looks too . . . cute. After watching Falling Skies, I finally got it. In the show, Earth has been invaded by aliens with a conquer-and-kill-the-natives mentality. The natives didn’t think too highly of that scenario so after being stunned by the brutal deaths of family and friends, they decide to fight back.

Before the attack, Noah Wyle’s character, Tom Mason, was a history professor. Sure he knew all about revolutions. In books. What did he know about actual fighting? That’s what our military is for. But who were the first casualties of this war? The military, with a few exceptions. So who’s left? Regular people like you and me. People who escaped and hid from the invaders. People who lost family, friends, their homes. People who were scared to death. Ordinary people looking for somebody to tell them what to do.

Their military leader is more concerned about fighting than protecting the civilians. A reluctant Tom Mason steps forward. What good will it do to fight the invaders if there’s no one left to begin again? Tom’s not a natural leader. He’s more concerned about the safety of his three sons. Slowly we watch him become stronger, more confident. He’s not just a hero, he’s Every Man.

When all is lost, we either give up or fight back. Who among us wouldn’t fight to save our children? I’ve never handled a real gun. At a demonstration, I fired an AK-47 fitted with a laser instead of bullets and shot at a screen. Didn’t hit a darn thing. But that wasn’t real. Could I shoot to kill a living thing? If it threatened my family, I not only could but would, for sure. (Did you just hear the Mama Bear in me come out?)

I now see the appeal of Falling Skies. Tom Mason could be you or me. Someone with the courage to fight, to lead. Someone to protect the children. Someone to fight for the future.

I don’t usually have reluctant heroes or heroines in my stories. But in Switched Resolution, a secondary character becomes one. Shy, quiet Communications Officer Lilliam Cabbeferron is caught aboard her starship when rebels steal it. If they find her, they’ll shove her out the airlock into space. She does what anyone would do in the situation—she hides. Until she realizes someone has to do something. Someone has to take back the ship before the rebels kill her captain. Since there’s no one else, that someone has to be her. She mounts guerilla warfare against the bad guys. Like Tom Mason in Falling Skies, Lilliam is a reluctant hero.