David Erik Nelson's Blog, page 46
February 24, 2012
Spread the Gospel of Universal Emancipation and unfettered robosexuality!
Hey All: It's the LAST DAY for regular Janes and Joes to get a FREE copy of my Nebula-nominated post-Civil War steampunk-sexpot novella, "Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate"
Let's catapult the propaganda, monetize the eschaton, and show those Fat Cats in Richmond that we support Universal Emancipation and unfettered robosexuality!
Low-budget but palatable: The pit-fighting kids of "Nickel Children"
Yet another reason to be thankful the South didn't win the War 'twixt the States:
Nickel Children (2010) - Full Short Film - YouTube
February 23, 2012
"Tucker and the Clockies"--dave-o's celebrated steampunk sexbot novella about race and belonging--has stalled in the mid-20s!
My novella "Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate" is stalled around #22 on the Amazon Bestsellers "Free Kindle Scifi eBook" list. Folks are still downloading copies at a steady clip, but we're pinned behind a dense deposit of OFFICIAL STAR WARS FRANCHISE UNIVERSE novels. Wanna help Tucker power through? Spread the word about this FREE ebook, available to all *gratis* for just ONE MORE DAY! Please share/tweet/blog at your discretion.
ADDED BONUS: If we break #20, I'll release a picture of me dancing at Mojo's wedding with the engineer who ended up doing much of the technical advising for my geeky DIY book! I'm making a really odd face and totally wigging out!
What's Dave-o been up to? Gettin' down with the CraftFoxes!
Hey Mojonauts and Mojoketeers,
Over the last couple weeks I've been working on a few little things with CraftFoxes--a very cool new crafting/DIY community. First off, we've added my FedEx Diamond Kite to their database of free projects (you'll need to login to get access). To go along with this newly released sample, I've also posted some additional tips on kite launching and flying as a handy-dandy, DRM-free downloadable PDF.
CraftFoxes also posted a really long interview with me, and were really nice about my rambling, evasive answers. Check it out:
What is your craft medium of choice, and why do you like it so much?
This shifts around. When I was little, I loved LEGO, Capsela and cardboard boxes. In high school, I loved weaving and ceramics, then briefly delved into figure drawing. In college I was really into ironic, swear-leaden cross-stitch, which I'd actually learned from my mom in elementary school (not the swearing, just cross-stitch itself). After that I went through a sock-animal phase and a more general sewing phase. An abortive attempt at crochet came next, followed, almost a decade later, by a successful crochet phase. I also learned to knit once, despite having no interest, because my wife wanted to learn and couldn't decode the damn instructions in any of the books (which, I agree, are bizarrely algorithmic and technical; it's like trying to figure out integral calculus using a textbook written in Middle English. Any time I hear some blowhard characterizing women as being "naturally" poor at math and physics, I think of how damn complicated those knitting books are, and how few male engineers I know can figure them out).
180 words, and not a one of them *actually answering the question*! The whole thing is like that! It's more than 1700 words, and I skipped some questions! There are even pictures of me as a kid with a tame raccoon!
Finally, CraftFoxes is giving away a copy of my book; click on over and enter to win before Monday, Feb 27.
Hey! "Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate" is now #34 on Amazon's Free Scifi Kindle eBooks list!
Well done, Mojonauts and Mojoketeers! In under 24-hours you've nudged "Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate"--a tale of an inebriated Confederate ne'erdowell, a shady veterinarian, and clockwork soldiers' sexy steampunk shenanigans--up the ranks of the Amazon Bestsellers. WIthin the last hour we've edged out vampires, more vampires, and an erotic polygamy adventure novel in our quest to push this humble clockwork sexpot novella to #1 "Free Kindle Scifi eBook" (perhaps a dubious distinction, but still one for the ages)!
We're now at #34 (and #1,500-something overall--up from somewhere in the high hundreds of thousands at this time yesterday!) Once we clear #20, "Tucker" will be on the front page of Free Kindle Scifi Bestsellers--yes, that's a minor victory, but it will be *our* minor victory!
So, if you haven't already downloaded a copy, go grab one now: It's free as the wind blows. If you've downloaded one, and read it, and liked it, share that with the worked--or at least with Amazon's review form. If you're so inclined, please feel free to spread the love on your own shouting platforms or social networks of choice. There's some blurby stuff and links to art here to get you started.
February 22, 2012
My latest column for the Ann Arbor Chronicle, on Doing Time with AT&T
This month's column was split into two parts. DISCLOSURE: It's long, and by some accounts, tedious. *sigh*
The Ann Arbor Chronicle | In it for the Money: Time with AT&T (Part 1)
My research here is by no means rigorous – or even vaguely statistically meaningful – but my guestimate is that the average customer spent no less than one solid working-hour straightening out these "unfortunate errors." Oddly, although customers who've found themselves randomly dinged for $30 to $120 abound, I've had trouble locating any AT&T customers who've mysteriously received a $60 credit on their account. What an oddly consistent software glitch.
Second – and I offer this because it seems likely some of you are wrangling with AT&T right now – when you are calling about a billing problem, choose "Fraud" from the voicemail. As near as I can tell, Tanisha TR4213 at Fraud can execute magic fu that is beyond the reach of any member of the management team in any other sector of the company. She may, in fact, be the cyborg imbued with the deathless spirit of Alexander Graham Bell, condemned to wander the copper and fiber lo these many years. I don't know.
What I do know is this: If there is a single human-like entity in the entire AT&T corporate hierarchy who I would not invite to fight a tank of sharks drunk on methylenedioxypyrovalerone and cough syrup, it is Tanisha TR4213. I'm not joking right now: The gratitude I feel toward Tanisha TR4213 for being so magnanimous as to stop trying to rob me is actually embarrassing.
The Ann Arbor Chronicle | In it for the Money: Time with AT&T (Part 2)
Last week, following Part 1 of this column, a local government worker contacted me and mentioned that his agency spent three years sorting out just such an AT&T-created problem. How much did we, as taxpayers, invest in that? When fellas like Rick Santorum and Mitt(ens) Romney stump about "cutting government waste" by shifting services to the private sector, do they take into account how much of the "waste" comes from private corporation's self-serving share padding?
Download a Steampunk Kindle Freebie!
February 20, 2012
Be a mensch: Hook your pals up with a free steampunk sexbot ebook!
Mojonauts and Mojoketeers,
The Kindle ebook giveaway for my steampunk novella "Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate" is *this Wednesday through Friday* (February 22-24)!
Wanna help spread the love and catapult the propaganda? Rad! Please feel free to share this link as far and wide as you deem fit: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006RTWZF6 (The book will be ABSOLUTELY FREE starting on Wednesday).
Wanna share a few images from the book? Here are links to a couple of nice examples of the new, original art from Chad Sell:
http://www.chadsellcomics.com/wp-content/uploads/windmill-low-res.jpg
http://www.chadsellcomics.com/wp-content/uploads/dropin-low-res.jpg
Wanna blurb? Howsabout:
This Nebula-nominated novella was first published in Paradox magazine in 2008 and answers the pressing historical question: What would have happened if a crippled, alcoholic, Confederate veteran living in Utah Territory taught clockwork robots to have sex?
Thanks again for your help!
One last bit: Amazon reviews are a *huge* boost to lil guys like us; if you read the ebook and like it, why not take a second to post a review? If you read the ebook and don't like it . . . um . . . well, then, please feel free to grouse vociferously and at length in your home or place of business, among your closest confidents and immediate family--even send me a personal letter, or pick a fight with me on the streets of Ann Arbor, MI. Let me directly address your concerns about the literary merits of clockwork sexbots and foul drunkards without the cold intermediary of Amazon's star-based review system coming between us.
One way or the other, *Thanks!*
With Love, I Remain,
Yr dave-o . . .
So, what's the Bible *actually* say about abortion, conception, and the beginning of life?
Honestly, basically nothing.
DISCLOSURE: The author of these posts, Ari Kohen is an old pal of mine, in addition to being a bona fide poli-sci professor, the director of the Forsythe Family Program on Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln, and a generally smart cookie.
Running Chicken: The 'biblical view' that's younger than the Happy Meal
In 1979, McDonald's introduced the Happy Meal.
Sometime after that, it was decided that the Bible teaches that human life begins at conception.
Ask any American evangelical, today, what the Bible says about abortion and they will insist that this is what it says. . . . They'll be a little fuzzy on where, exactly, the Bible says this, but they'll insist that it does.
That's new. If you had asked American evangelicals that same question the year I was born you would not have gotten the same answer.
Kohen--who, not shockingly for a guy named "Kohen," can speak and read Hebrew--goes on to drop some science on all y'all's square heads in this post: Running Chicken: Serious Biblical Interpretation.
