Tyson Adams

Putting the 'ill' back in thriller

Archive for the tag “Australia”

27 Apr 2013

Guns and gun control

Does gun control work? Well, yes, yes it does.

I could post a bunch of statistics and the data from various countries, but instead I’m going to post  The Daily Show’s three part series on the topic.
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Now, I don’t like the idea of making it illegal for people to be able to be involved in the sport of shooting, nor making vermin control prohibitive. I think in some respects that Australian gun laws are probably a little too restrictive. I also think that the figures on how effective our gun control measures have been are a little overstated, as law enforcement had already made inroads into lowering gun crime prior to the new laws in 1996. But overall, in my opinion, Australia doesn’t have much of a gun problem now. Making sure gun owners are responsible people who are involved in the sport of shooting and not a disgruntled time bomb going unnoticed until they start shooting people, seems to be a good thing.

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07 Apr 2013

Bookstore profitability

With the recent changes in publishing everyone has been talking about who the losers from the rise of ebooks has/will be. I think it is safe to say that publishers are still doing okay, if not more profitable. Authors, well, they have more options than ever to publish and make money. Of course, the speculation around the industry has seen authors being nickel and dimed on advances and shelf stocking.

But the big losers have to have been the bookstores, right? We’ve seen plenty of the big chain stores cease to be, we’ve heard about how much bookstores are battling. I’m not really convinced, since I remember that before the Borders collapse in Australia, there was plenty of evidence of financial mismanagement and not paying for books.

Well, I found this American retail business data for bookstores over the last 5 years. Have a look for yourself and see how well you think bookstores are faring.

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NB: The source for this data covers a lot of the retail sector and makes me think that selling bakery goods is a great idea.

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23 Mar 2013

Five Animals

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I have five cats, how many of them are planning to murder me in my sleep?

I have five dogs, how many of them want to play fetch at sunrise?

I have five parrots, how many of them are a pretty boy?

I have five donkeys, how many don’t want to talk about their time in Mexico?

I have five horses, how many bottles of glue will they make?

I have five penguins, is that enough to make a dinner suit?

I have five rabbits, how many will I have tomorrow?

I have five ducks, boy do they hope it is rabbit season.

I have five lions, yes, the neighbour’s house looks like a much better place to rob.

I have five Australian native animals, they are all poisonous and want to kill me.

I have five rats, which one is the politician?

I have five lawyers, which one should die first?

Posted in Fun Articles, Humor and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment
09 Mar 2013

Choosing a location for your story

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As much as I love America, does every crime and thriller novel written have to be set there? Wouldn’t it be great if more stories chose some other locations?

Before anyone jumps on me, yes, I know, there are plenty of stories set in diverse locations. My comment is more about the way writers are so often told that people only want to read stories set in the US, that it has to appeal to the US market. I think we all know that this is a presumption on behalf of the industry for us readers. Let’s try and push for the more challenging locations in the stories we read.

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26 Jan 2013

Movies that needed claws

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Hugh Jackman is a genuine movie star and his recent Oscar nomination for his role in Les Miserable is well deserved.

But, and there always is a but, Hugh has appeared in some films that could have been greatly improved with one simple addition. I give to you the list of movies that would have been improved if Hugh had popped the adamantium claws and gone berserker.

Van Helsing
Let’s face it, anything would have improved this schlocky mess of a movie. Instead of Hugh turning into a werewolf toward the end, if he had turned into Wolverine and shniketied some vampires, this would have been watchable.

Australia
Wouldn’t it have made more sense to have Wolverine living in outback Australia? Then he could have taken on the invading army during the WW2 scene.

Scoop
Imagine a Woody Allen film with Wolverine in it! Imagine the boat scene with Hugh going Wolverine on Scarlet Johansen’s character, and Scarlet going Mystique on him!

Deception
Imagine if this film didn’t suck. I think adding Wolverine to the mix would have done wonders for this lame movie.

Real Steel
Wolverine versus Robots. I rest my case.

Swordfish
Who else wanted to see Hugh decapitate John Travolta in this film?

X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Wouldn’t it have been great if Hugh was playing Wolverine…… Wait a minute. This movie sucked even with Wolverine in it.

Posted in Fun Articles, Humor and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment
08 Dec 2012

E-book statistics for 2012

I seem to be finding a bunch of cool infographics recently, they are the future of communication (warning, sarcasm may be in affect here). It is always interesting to see what the status of sales, especially e-book sales. Personally, I see the e-book becoming the new paperback within a few years, and I also think that backlists will be all e-books. What will be really interesting is whether authors will be the one controlling their backlists or whether publishing houses will want to grab hold of those. Then it becomes a case of what rates are paid on backlist, because the sunk costs are a frontlist issue, so you would expect a greater author share of sales (although it could be argued that sunk costs are sunk, thus trying to recoup those costs as part of the sale price is bad economics).

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Posted in Reading, Writing and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment

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