Mark L. Van Name's Blog, page 276

To find the real answer to my quiz about the Booty Reader

all you have to do is go here. Check it out. Follow a few links. Turn on the sound for the full experience. The closer you look, the more offensive it becomes. It will even let you submit a photo of your booty. Yes, I'm tempted to submit a picture of mine, but I didn't.

At least not that I'm admitting.

Amazing.

Children No More hits bookstores today

Which means we have about three weeks to raise money to help rehabilitate and reintegrate child soldiers, because after that, unless we've made it a bestseller, bookstores are likely to remove it from their shelves. (Fortunately, online vendors generally keep a few in stock longer.) So, the big push begins now.

One tradition in my company is to send a copy of each new novel of mine to each of our most valued clients. Here's a photo of a table covered with stacks of most, but not all, of tho...

Today's quiz: What is the Women's Booty Reader?

Not familiar with this new sensation? Here's the ad I saw for it today in the window of an Old Navy store.


Is this mystery

(a) a device that whirls around a standing woman, weighing and measuring her butt while creating a perfect on-screen simulation of it and immediately and automatically posting both the simulation and live photos on the top ten ass-rating Web sites

(b) a smiling, pimply, sixteen-year-old boy sitting in a metal folding chair with his hands out, a sign on his chest saying...

Scott ain't even mad

I'm just sayin'.


The background is that Scott and Sarah have a running joke that as soon as possible they want to go to a double bill of the dumbest looking films of the upcoming months: Step Up 3-D and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole. I've sworn to join them if I possibly can.

Who could resist that pairing?

Children No More: the afterword

I've printed parts of this before, but with the book now appearing and us trying to raise as much money as possible, I thought folks might find this interesting reading. Enjoy.

My first goal in any book is to tell a good story. In the course of doing so, themes naturally arise. Sometimes, those themes are clear only in hindsight, when the work is complete.

Other times, as in Children No More, they appear the moment the story idea pops into my brain.

The use of children as soldiers is one ...

What's better than a Cone Man in the yard?

Why, a Cone Man in the yard with the world's cutest dog sitting next to it.


Yes, Holden and the Cone Man are now friends.

One shudders to think what strange plots they might be concocting. Fortunately, I don't think the cone speaks dog.

Children No More is now available from Amazon!

As you can plainly see in this screen capture:


I'm quite excited!

Cranking it up: The Children No More press release is going out

After way more time than we had planned, a delay due largely to my day job workload, we drafted the press release, everyone involved agreed on a final version, and Baen (and some of our volunteer team) are now distributing it.

Here's an image of the release. Click on it to see a larger, readable image.



The updated Children No More Web site will be live within a day or so.

We're rolling on this project now. We have only a few weeks of shelf life to sell enough copies to convince booksellers to ...

His tentacles were so shiny

I try very hard to be nice to servers in restaurants. I tip at least twenty percent, I strive to be organized, and I'm generally appreciative of their hard work. Sometimes, though, you get a strange server who tests your resolve. A few years ago, several of us, including Sarah, had one of the weirdest servers in my experience. After much hushed discussion, we concluded that he had to be an alien visiting various U.S. cities as part of an advance scouting team. We further surmised that hi...

Where the cone is now

The giant ice cream cone has developed its own following, and several of those folks have demanded to know where the great one is living now. Who am I to deny them this information?

Here's the cone in its current resting place, a spot in the yard along the driveway at my house.


The picture is a little fuzzy, so I considered reshooting it, but in the end I decided the oddness it added to the cone was a good thing.

The cone is even more conesome at night, as you can see in this photo:


The woman in ...