Who Gets the Throne?

How will Game of Thrones end? Doesn’t Daenerys have to kill Tyrion for helping Jaime escape into the arms of his beloved sister Cersei, the archenemy of Daenerys? Or will the clever Tyrion manipulate Jon Snow into killing Daenerys so that he, Tyrion, can gain the throne?  Does the power-mad Daenerys, fresh from torching Cersei’s castle, kill Jon Snow to prevent him from assuming the throne? Or does Jon Snow kill Daenerys, seeing that she has become mad with power?

I think somehow Arya Stark might take over the throne, just like she was the one that killed the king of the Ice Dead. And, after all, she did survive Daenerys’s dragon apocalypse that torched Cersei’s town, and she galloped off into the sunset on a white horse. Arya Stark is a survivor.  She is also a savior,

Daenerys Dragon Lady

You’d have to have ice water in your veins not to enjoy Daenerys morphing from sweetie pie to psycho killer as she launches a dragon apocalypse on Cersei Lannister’s castle and fries all the townsfolk.

It just goes to show power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Let’s face it, folks, this episode of Game of Thrones “The Bells” was a hoot.

50th Anniversary Year of Charlie Manson’s Rampage in Benedict Canyon

There’s an article about Charles Manson in the current edition of Esquire that mentions the movies about Manson, but it fails to mention one of the best movies about him, which was the excellent TV movie Helter Skelter starring Steve Railsback, directed by Tom Gries and based on the nonfiction book of the same name written by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry. Extreme oversight if you ask me.  Instead of mentioning the movie version of Helter Skelter, the Esquire author mentions The Haunting of Sharon Tate and Bad Times at the El Royale as movies about Charles Manson.  How can you leave out Helter Skelter?  It was one of the most popular programs on network TV during the year it premiered in 1976.

I was attending UCLA as a freshman in 1969, the year the Manson Family murdered the actress Sharon Tate and her wealthy friends.  The campus is right next door to Benedict Canyon where Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate were renting a house on Cielo Drive, the site of her murder, and I harbored the fear in the back of my mind in those days that members of Manson’s family might sneak onto campus and commit more murders in the name of Charlie and the race war he was trying to incite.  Instead of a race war, he precipitated the beginning of the end of the hippie movement, opening everyone’s eyes to the dark side of the flower people, their psychedelics, and their drug-fueled free-love orgies.

 

 

 

Audiobook for The Payout

Coming soon.  An audiobook edition of Bryan Cassiday’s chilling serial killer thriller The Payout is in the works.  It should be available this summer. Meanwhile, read the e-book on Kindle.

What to Do about Julian?

The US government is charging Julian Assange with conspiring to hack into a government computer.  They’re not charging him with publishing secret government documents, which would violate his First Amendment rights and threaten news outlets everywhere.  The New York Times wasn’t tried for publishing the Pentagon Papers, which had been stolen from the government by Daniel Ellsberg.

The question is, will Assange ever be extradited to the US?  If Assange chooses to fight extradition (and why wouldn’t he?), the process could take years to resolve itself.  Jeremy Corbin, who wants to be prime minister of the UK, is against extraditing Assange.  I don’t know PM May’s view, but she might not be PM much longer the way things are going with the Brexit fiasco.

The WGA Dispute

I support the Writers Guild of America, though I’m not fortunate enough to be a member. Packaging agents are in it to make money for themselves and therefore aren’t negotiating in the best interests of their writer clients. And now certain high-powered agencies like William Morris Endeavor and Creative Artists Agency are forming their own production companies, which shows they are not working to get the best deal for their writer clients but for the production company that they themselves work for and represent. How can an agent fairly represent both a writer and a production company that’s hiring the writer? There’s no way this kind of relationship can result in the best deal for a writer.

New Goodreads giveaway of Zombie Maestorm

There’s a new Goodreads giveaway of Bryan Cassiday’s horror shocker Zombie Maelstrom.  Enter for a chance to win one of a hundred e-book copies.  Enter now at Goodreads.