Injected and Negadon: The Monster from Mars

I knocked myself out of a running start on the first day of NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month. And it's my own fault: I received my free flu innoculation at Indiana University's medical center. While serving in the U.S. Air Force, this was a yearly event, and airmen had no choice. It was an order. I would take the injection, turn white as a ghost a few hours later, and usually got sent home by my boss for bed rest. Much the same happened to me yesterday, so I was in no shape to start writing my Used Starships story.

One grim little secret about the flu shots in the 70s was the possibility of a fatal allergic reaction. Every year, out of the 5000+ men and women who received the injections at March Air Force Base, two or three would drop dead within a few hours. The victims were usually middle-aged men. I know this to be true because, working in the Public Affairs Office, I was involved in issuing the press release about the fatalities. They always failed to mention that the deceased had received a flu shot, under orders, just before perishing. No surprise, it wasn't something that the Air Force wanted to widely publicize.

Today I'm feeling much better, thank you very much, and I have no excuse not to begin pounding the keys and write, write, write to meet my NaNoWriMo deadline.

I gave myself a Halloween treat this week: A screening of Negadon: The Monster from Mars. Here's the Wiki intro:

Negadon: The Monster from Mars (Wakusei Daikaijû Negadon - 惑星大怪獣ネガドン - literally "Great Planet Monster Negadon") is a 2005 tokusatsu-style CG-animated anime 40-minute film from Japan. Created by Jun Awazu and his independent company Studio Magara, this animated film captures the "Golden Age" of tokusatsu cinema of the 1960s. The film has a high-tech modern edge added for good measure, but tries hard to maintain the "hand-crafted" feel of classic tokusatsu movies. Production of this film actually started in 2003. It has also been broadcast across Japan by the anime satellite television network, Animax.

If you enjoy the classic Toho kaiju giant-monster movies, Negadon is worth renting or borrowing from your local library. Billed as Japan's first fully computer-generated feature, it is very reminiscent of director Ishiro Honda's Godzilla and science-fiction stories.

Okay, back to work, back to writing. I have a NaNoWriMo deadline to meet!

Do S'Vadaniya,

Viktor Kuprin


Technorati tags: science fiction,movies, Godzilla, films, Negalon, kaiju, NaNoWriMo,