“Finish him!” – with two words, “Mortal Kombat” forever changed the landscape of video games and popular culture. Centered around a series of fight-to-the-death tournaments where the best fighters from the world’s multiple realms battle for supremacy, “Mortal Kombat” set a new standard for video game violence and even caused the congressional hearings that created the video game rating system. Read more...

Photo: (DC Comics)

In large, boldfaced text at the top of the back cover of “Olivay” by Deborah Reed are the words, “We don’t believe that our lives can change in an instant – until they do.” It is an elegant statement that, at first glance, promises depth and profundity. Read more...

Photo: (Lake Union Publishing)

Deborah Reed started writing in 2011 under the pen name Audrey Braun to avoid the genre writer label. The UCLA Extension professor felt authors that wrote thrillers or science fiction novels, like her, were stigmatized as lesser kinds of writers than those that wrote literary fiction. Read more...

Photo: UCLA Extension professor Deborah Reed authored “Olivay,” a novel set against a backdrop of the Los Angeles Marathon. In the book, bombs detonate across the city and trap Olivay and her one-night stand inside her loft, forcing them to experience the aftermath of the bombing with each other. (Courtesy of Andrew Reed)