Michael Offutt's Blog, page 140

Visionary of Peace is the coolest book set on Mars you'll read this year

The Vallar saga by Cindy Borgne is a great "visionary" achievement. They are books so original and exciting they stir my imagination the same as the cutting edge of science can do when narrated by Stephen Hawking, Neil deGrasse Tyson, or Brian Cox. Like most science fiction space opera, Visionary of Peace imagines an alien world filled with technology, lots of gadgets, and fights between spaceships. But it also leaps into the vast and bleak terrain of Mars to visit such unknowns as the Nocturne Labyrinthus and the largest volcano in the solar system: Olympus Mons.

The German director Werner Herzog has said that we live in an age starved of new images. What Cindy Borgne provides us in her sequel Visionary of Peace is the solution to such starvation by borrowing visuals literally ripped from the Mars Rover. Man is already leaving tire tracks on Mars. How long before those tire tracks are a footprint and before corporations rise to terraform the red planet?

Cindy Borgne nourishes us with a tale that shows human nature is not so different in the far future, despite all that has happened. Psychics now dwell among humans, and scientific advances have made wormhole creation a reality, giving man for the first time in history the ability to step beyond Sol and colonize a world orbiting an alien sun. We still have wars, people still die in violence, and the battlefields have become the windswept rock of Mars. However, there is hope in the true "Visionary of Peace" who is named at the end of the book. Perhaps it is appropriate that the dust of the fourth planet is red, because this narrative is steeped in blood that is not so much a story, but an experience because of the first person alternating narrative of two lovers, Ian and Kayla, who despite all odds find a way to make things work in a breathtaking romance that spans the stars. Ah to be young and in love and saving the world. I think even Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Total Recall" could get on board with that concept.

Visionary of Peace combines science fiction, space opera, and young adult "coming of age" in surprising and refreshing ways making familiar elements new. Cindy Borgne employs insect swarms that are in fact machines, explores betrayals among corporations and friends, and her villains are merely so because their motivations run completely counter to those for whom we cheer. Toward the end, there is a thrilling, almost apocalyptic battle that left me on the edge of my seat. And I have to say upon finishing, this is a book for anyone who still has a sense of wonder and a feeling for bold visual style.

I look forward to the next book in this series, and I hope that Cindy writes it soon.

I give Visionary 5 stars out of 5 and recommend it to anyone who likes sci-fi epics and wonderful, emotional characters.

Cindy Borgne's AMAZON PAGE.
Cindy is also on GOODREADS located HERE

Have a great Tuesday. Tomorrow I will be hosting Ellie Garratt early and for two days (Wednesday and Thursday) because she's on the other side of the world, and I want her post live so there is no problem in linking from the UK to the US.

A Monday in which I reminisce on Requiem and my days in an uber World of Warcraft guild

I got kind of confused with the book tour post for Ellie Garratt's new book Passing Time and published it/unpublished it. You may see it in your Google Reader. That post will go up on Wednesday, so I'm sorry for the confusion. If you would like to visit Alex J. Cavanaugh's blog today, he is hosting Ellie Garratt on schedule.
My friend Kevin is gonna make me want to play a pandarian before this
post is over. *Shakes fist at Kevin!Today I would like to introduce you to the first of two "Kevins" that I met while playing World of Warcraft. I still don't know what this particular "Kevin" looks like in real life as I haven't met him, but I've talked to him on the phone and on ventrilo and he's a fellow druid lover (although I thought his character's name "Shribryn" was far cooler than the one I picked, which was "Velanna"). I hope to introduce you to the other "Kevin" soon. I sent him some interview questions. The other Kevin was my raid leader and guild master of "Requiem" (a very handsome fellow I might add) and we dominated our server for about five years. Plus we were a top 200 guild. That's sayin' a lot for those of you who don't know what that entails. That other Kevin went on to raid with the guild "Elitist Jerks" after I left, which is a "top 10 in the world guild" on the server Mal'ganis US.

Anyway, this first Kevin (and my good buddy) wants to take you on a little nerdy history of Azeroth. So those of you that like video games and/or fantasy stories may enjoy this entry. As a side note, I think those of you who "despise" video games because they take boys away from reading should check this attitude because video games are just "graphical" fiction with the best possible "choose your own adventure" engine. To explain further, it would be like an author of fiction hating on another "author of fiction" simply because they get all the attention and their product looks way better. In other circles...we might call that jealousy (a topic for another time). So yeah, jealousy does not become you my dear...

Anyway...take it away Kevin a.k.a. "Shribryn"...

As some of you may know, Mike used to play a lot of Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft (WoW) and in fact, it is in that game where I met him. Since I’m assuming some of you have never played WoW or don’t know anything about it, I will explain a few basic facts. WoW is an MMORPG which is shorthand for saying it is a multiplayer online role playing game and Azeroth is the world where most of the game takes place.
Comment from Mike: Graphics continually improve. I remember when I thought this
looked good. This is what Wizard 101 looks like LOL.The game is a simple concept. In exchange for $15/month, each player starts with a few basic abilities and your character improves through a combination of leveling to gain new abilities and gear to make you more powerful.  The combination gives a feeling of improvement that can be addictive. This isn’t a particularly new idea but when Blizzard released the game, they hit the sweet spot. When their game came out in late 2004 there were only about 6 million people playing MMORPGs. In under a year the number jumped to almost 13 million and many of them were playing WoW. In the United States alone, they had to open almost 200 servers to accommodate the traffic, each essentially their own little world.
Growth in MMO Accounts per year. Impressive, eh? It reminds me of the explosion
that the iPhone experienced (or the iPad) or for that matter, Apple. Only Apple
did it better. Still, a company would be proud to have this kind of growth.I will never forget the day in game when I got a whisper from a guild of casual players asking for help against some of the game’s harder content. After a few failed attempts, one of their druids bombarded me with a constant steam of private messages and our conversation continued long after his guild gave up the fight. Within a week, I recruited Velanna (aka Mike) and a few of his friends to join my guild. Mike’s character is in the picture below on the far right. I’m next to him in tree form.
Having the name <REQUIEM> floating next to your character was pretty damn cool.
People all over the server basically treated you like a celebrity because you could clear
all the content on hard-mode. It really taught me how working together as a team
with someone is the best way to play a game. Some of our guildies were such
attention whores. They'd sit in all their epics and legendary gear at some high
trafficked location in the game and just go idle so that people could "marvel" at all
their cool stuff. The psychology behind video games is fascinating.As you can imagine, finding long-term friends in an online game like WoW is hard. During the time I was in charge of recruiting for the guild I noticed a consistent trend that every month we’d lose around 10% of our members. That might not seem like much but it essentially means over the course a year, guilds (teams of players) will look completely different than they did a year earlier. Beating the ‘boss’ in the picture below took ‘playing’ 4 hours a night, 3 days a week for almost a year. Only about 5 people remained of the 40 that were there from the start.
The <REQUIEM> Bad-assess. Seeing these pics brings back memories.That is the nature of the game and the trap of MMORPGs. They suck you in with the promise of a fun social experience but it eventually becomes a grind.  As Penny Arcade perfectly summed up in their GIFT cartoon (below), the anonymous nature of a game like this means you will find a greater percentage of idiots and it’s a test of your interpersonal skills if you want to find a good friend. Of the thousands of people I met in the World of Warcraft, Mike is the only one I talk to on occasion.
Click to EmbiggenA few weeks ago, Blizzard sent me a 10-day pass for their latest expansion, Mists of Panderia. I’ve heard some good things about it and despite my misgivings, I decided to check it out.  At first, it was weird to play as I couldn’t remember any of the buttons to press but it came back quick and so did the nice feeling of falling into the world of Azeroth.
Oh the peril of a huge sword is just too hard to resist
standing underneath and sneaking a screenshot.The newest Warcraft storyline is based on Chinese and Asian legends and the world they created is breathtaking. The first thing I noticed was just how good the new areas look despite the game’s age. In addition, the questing is streamlined, there are better tools for new players, and the game’s mechanics are simpler. One huge improvement is the addition of the tools added since the Lich King expansion that helps players find groups. The LFR/LFG system minimizes the playtime needed at the highest levels so there’s no longer any need to devote a year of your life to experience all the content.  I can attest that is a good thing.

Of course, there are things I didn’t like. Now that that it is easier for players to access the highest-level content, the designers have decreased the challenge to accommodate players that don’t take the time to understand the game’s mechanics. This seems to have made some players even lazier as many don’t seem to bother to move when they are ‘standing in fire’ as they know healers can keep them alive. Despite that, the latest expansion is a definite win for Blizzard.
The one thing Blizzard can’t change is the fact that no online experience can replace real life interaction and the rise of mobile gaming on Iphones/ Ipads/ Androids is stealing potential customers. As you can see on the chart at the top of the post, the MMORPG industry has stagnated for over the last 4 years and mobile gaming has been a big reason. Games like Angry Birds or Words with Friends are cheap, have little of the social stigma and place little/no time demands on its customers. There’s nothing Blizzard can do about that but I don’t feel too sorry for them. They still have millions of subscribers paying $15 every month and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
Even with the positive changes to the game, my return to Azeroth was short.  I know from experience that the time demands are still too much and my completionist nature can’t handle it.  I’m not leaving Blizzard’s domain entirely as the new Starcraft expansion is/was released on March 12th so if any of you are interested in playing, my player ID is jebei#674.

*****
Thanks Kevin for taking me down a stroll through memory lane. I do miss playing World of Warcraft with <Requiem> a lot. However, I made a choice to quit playing so that I could get my mojo back with regard to writing (to play something so incredibly creative destroys my own creativity), to start getting in better physical shape, and to concentrate on goals I wanted to make which are namely: to buy a house and get my retirement all set up nicely and maybe do some traveling (if there's any money left). All of that is really difficult to do when you are raiding four nights a week, and people are depending on you to show up because you have the gear that allows them to tackle the difficult content. However, there's nothing like a game to show you the people that have no ability to do math and to point out those that may have an IQ of around 80. You quickly learn to distance yourself from those people, as they will waste all of your time. It sounds ruthless, but that's the way it is.

Any of you watch the trailer? It shows actual game play. Pretty impressive in my opinion. Have a great Monday.

As published authors we are more than just a sum of our word count and our pages

I am publishing my Insecure Writers Support Group post early this week as I am scheduled for surgery today to get the kidney stone out that has been plaguing me for a while, and I may not put up another blog post before next Monday. You can read about my battle with the 1 cm kidney stone HERE.

In Salt Lake City where I live I have a few friends that show me their writing and ask for advice. One of them showed me something last night that I thought was really good. It showed great imagination, and I was really entertained by it. I asked him, "Why don't you write more? This could easily be turned into a short story or a novella."

He said, "I have several problems that stop me from writing a complete story. The first is I lack courage to put my writing out there for just everyone to read. The second is that I keep adding to a story and my brain goes wild with all the things I want to do that I'm just out of control and the story becomes a complete hot mess."

It made me think how special all of us are that actually have written "the end" to a project; that manage to see something through to its ultimate finish. And I became really appreciative of that. Lately, I've kind of had this attitude that authors are as common as grains of sand on a beach. But now, I'm not so sure.

So if any of you have been in the same frame of mind that I sometimes find myself in...the one that says "everyone is writing a book," then I want you to step back and remember the story of the guy I just told you about. Everyone is in fact NOT writing a book. And some people who may be born storytellers may never finish one because they have mental "road blocks" in their mind that keep them from realizing a dream. What we manage to just "power" through is an impossible task for others.

As published authors, we are more than just a sum of our word count and our pages. We are people who complete what we start. We are people who manage to tame the conflicting ideas into a cohesive storyline that can be understood by others. And we are all people who have the courage to put our work in front of others to be judged over and over again.

And THAT is in fact nothing to be insecure about.

When I think about the great writers who have died and realize that they will never tell me another story like the ones that deeply touched me, I am sad. But I am also grateful that they had all of the things that made it possible for them to put their story in front of us. If David Eddings didn't have courage, I would have never been touched by the story of Belgarion of Riva. If Anne McCaffery couldn't sort out the hot mess of her mind to finish a book, I would never have met Moretta, Dragon Lady of Pern.

If you think about it, there are a lot of conditions that need to be met before a book lands in front of you on a desk or on your ereader. And that's pretty special, and it's one reason why I think the greatest crime ever committed in history was the destruction of the Library of Alexandria.

All of those stories lost because ignorant savages saw no value or even contemplated what it takes to write a book. And the world has paid for it ever since.

A Grand New Age of Boom or Dust? M. Pax is the new Joss Whedon

I really love this cover art. Go Mary!Boomtown Craze, Book 3 in the Backworlds series is here!

In the far future, humanity settles the stars, bioengineering its descendents to survive in a harsh universe.
To secure his future, Craze must propel his world into a more prosperous era. Only days away from the grand opening of his new and improved tavern, he is confronted by a loony Backworlder intent on mucking up his plans. Gaunt and trembling, she claims her spaceship is possessed. She also has a connection to the underworld that shakes loose the dark past of one of Craze’s closest friends. It all threatens to end Craze’s prosperity before it begins.
Meanwhile off world, Captain Talos works desperately to outwit the mercenary Jixes and lure them away from his and Craze’s budding prospects. The mind-control weapon Talos uses against them is wearing thin, and his next move may be his last.
Will Craze and Talos’s efforts bring about a grand new age of boom or damn them to forever struggle in the dust?
Available in ebook at:
AmazonUS / AmazonUK / B&N/ SmashwordsOther Outlets can be found at http://mpaxauthor.com
It will also be available in paperback from Amazon shortly. M. Pax is a Browncoat and SG fan, she’s also slightly obsessed with Jane Austen. In the summers she docents as a star guide at Pine Mountain Observatory where the other astronomers now believe she has the most extensive collection of moon photos in existence. No fear, there will be more next summer. She lives in stunning Central Oregon with the Husband Unit and two lovely, spoiled cats.
Website / Blog ~ Twitter ~ FB ~ GoodreadsYou can also find M. Pax on LinkedIN, Pinterest, YouTube, and Wattpad
From March 4 to March 22, folks can enter to win the following:
1 set of signed Backworlds paperbacks, including The Backworlds, Stopover at the Backworlds’ Edge, and Boomtown Craze. Will only ship to US residents.a Rafflecopter giveaway
One of five free ebooks. All countries eligible. Enter the rafflecopter for a chance.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
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Who could have predicted that Sweet Home Alabama would make fiction writers obsess over fulgurite for more than a decade

"Sweet Home Alabama" (the movie) came out in 2002 and remains one of my favorite romantic comedies of all time. I just love the story and everyone is just absolutely perfect in it. But one of the best scenes in the movie is when the whole thing comes full circle, and Reese realizes that the one love of her life is now a successful glass blower selling fulgurite sculptures in his shop. What is fulgurite you might ask? It's what happens when lightning strikes sand. At the beginning of the movie, two kids are kissing on the beach, and lightning strikes a metal rod that sticks out of the sand, creating a breathtakingly beautiful glass sculpture.
Now, fulgurite is never as pretty as it is in the movie "Sweet Home Alabama." But that hasn't stopped it from cropping up in the popular CW show "Supernatural" as an ingredient to summon "Death" or from new age hippies finding it on beaches to make cheap jewelry that they purport is infused with "magical energy." It's even in the horrible Hillary Swank movie "The Reaping" as fulgurite wind chimes.

Who could have predicted that "Sweet Home Alabama" would make fiction writers obsess over fulgurite for more than a decade?

Sometimes I think there's this collective unconscious of fiction writers out there who are so driven to be "original" that they all go in search of something weird that supposedly "no one" has used before and it all channels down to one thing that everyone IN FACT uses. In this situation, I think fulgurite has been picked over for ten years in just about anything that has to do with paranormal stuff.
Fulgurite in Sweet Home Alabama Real FulguriteI mean...fulgurite is one of those things that logically, I should know nothing about. Yet I'm completely informed about it because it's in basically every show that I've watched because paranormal fiction is so hot (and has been hot for about a decade). Like you don't even need to explain what it is to me anymore (and I'm thankful that I saw "Sweet Home Alabama" years ago because that explanation is part of the love story).

If someone name drops "fulgurite" I'd be like "Oh yeah...the Winchesters used it to summon 'Death' in this one episode and then in last week's episode, Dean learned he could get 'fulgurite' in a new age shop and oh Hilary Swank had it in 'The Reaping' but it isn't as pretty as the one that was in 'Sweet Home Alabama'...I TOTALLY know what fulgurite is girlfriend..." and I'm sure that the person I was talking to might be mortified because I just took something that they thought was original and showed them...no...it's been done to death and you really should think of something else :(

I sorry. Anyway, now you too know what fulgurite is. May you find some on the beach and remember the words from "Sweet Home Alabama", the show that gave us the best version of fulgurite:

"[T]hat's what happens when lightning strikes..."
And in a love story, a lightning strike is the most important thing. Have a great weekend.

The five greatest female villains to appear in fiction

My blogger friend L.G. Smith often writes about women in historical context, and she usually praises their heroism, which got me to thinking about all the non-heroic women out there. You know...the villains...and what they bring to a story. So I'm running down my list of my five favorite female villains that have appeared in stories. But I'm not leaving you out of the conversation. Afterward, I'm inviting you to weigh in on some that you would put on your own list.
5.) Catwoman. Her real name is Selina Kyle. We all know her story and depending on which side of Crisis of the Infinite Earths you fall on, she's both a unique addition to the Batman's rogue's gallery and probably one of his most interesting lovers (because she was a bad kitty that the Batman could "reform"). The character of Catwoman was introduced by Bill Finger and Bob Kane in the first Batman comic in 1940 (yeah she's that old) and it's said she was inspired by actress Jean Harlow. Julie Newmar, Lee Meriweather, Eartha Kitt, Michelle Pfeiffer, Halle Barry, and Anne Hathaway have all played Catwoman.
4.) Lady Macbeth.  She's a character in Shakespeare's Macbeth and the wife of the play's protagonist. She goads him into committing regicide and becomes Queen of Scotland. She's the epitome of ambition, ruthlessness, and the single-minded pursuit of power and really did a lot to break the idea that women were the "gentler sex."
3.) The Reverend Mother Giaus Helen Mohiam. In Frank Herbert's Dune, the Reverend Mother is a fantastic villain. She goes after Paul to test him with her Gom Jabbar because she fears what Jessica, the former Bene Gesserit now married to Leto Atreides, might have done in giving the Duke of Caladan a son. She says in Dune, "Damn that Jessica! If only she'd borne us a girl as she was ordered to do."
2.) Catherine Tramell. Sharon Stone brought this character to life in the 1992 film "Basic Instinct" and she got a lot of press at the time for the infamous "beaver" shot. However, this Paul Verhoeven film was riveting. It took place in San Francisco (which was a fabulous setting), was about a writer (how cool is that?) that writes a book that foretells a murder (thereby creating an alibi), and goes about mind-f*cking the protagonist so bad that you have no idea by the end of the movie as to which girl is innocent and which girl is the killer. The only thing that you do know is that Gus was a good guy and didn't deserve to die, and it's really sad to see a Lotus Esprit bite the big one.
1.) The Wicked Witch of the West. I'm talking Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz and not all of these moneygrabs knockoffs. For what it's worth, I still don't understand how there can be prequels to the Wizard of Oz seeing as the story is complete and as far as I'm concerned, it was a dream that took place in a girl's head (who got knocked unconscious during a wind storm). However, I know the great money machine that is America will want to squeeze every last drop of cash from a franchise so we will have endless prequels and side stories of characters that should be "just a dream" but aren't really because Mr. Baum is dead and can't defend his creation. Oh sorry...did I say that? I guess I did. Anyway, the wicked witch of the west is a great villain. She lives in a castle, has flying monkeys for servants, cackles and cast spells, and she's just downright nasty.

So there you have it, my list of the five greatest female villains to appear in fiction. Do you agree or disagree? Think of any female villains you'd have on this list? I look forward to reading your comments.

Making graphene with a consumer grade DVD drive is jaw-dropping once you understand what graphene is

Please watch this three minute video. It is about a substance called graphene that won its discoverers in 2010 the Nobel Prize. But in short, imagine a substance that is biodegradable, acts as the best battery in world history, is flexible, and cheap to manufacture. And when I mean it's a great battery, imagine being able to charge your phone in five seconds and it lasts all day, or charging your electric car in a few minutes, and it being able to go farther and weigh much less that it does now, and if the battery ever dies, you can just mulch it with your vegetables.
You can read about future applications for graphene in the March 2012 issue of Science. But I just want to add for the geeks and nerds out there that with graphene, we could build real life working lightsabers. Seriously.

So yeah, making graphene with a consumer grade DVD drive is jaw-dropping once you understand what graphene is. Are you impressed? We live in such amazing times. I can't wait to see the inventions that will arise from this wondrous material in the next few years. I predict that our world is literally about to change. How could it not when you have a power source that is so incredibly "powerful" and so incredibly small.

In the theme of the video, may you have a very serendipitous Wednesday. :)

Passing a 1 cm wide kidney stone makes you love morphine

Last week I wasn't just absent from my blog, I also happened to be in the hospital getting treated for a massive kidney stone. If you haven't had one of these, be thankful because it hurt. A lot. And I still have it in me.
This illustration pretty much explains everything.See, the doctor decided to insert a "stent" during surgery. A kidney stone stent is a flexible plastic tube inserted between a kidney and the bladder to facilitate the passage of these horrible things. Basically, my urologist told me that I have to keep it in until March 5th (when I go in for follow-up surgery to have it removed). The doctor using a cystoscope threaded this thing into my ureter and left it in place.  It has hooks at either end to keep it there so that it can't drift.
Now, I had no idea Wednesday night that I had a kidney stone. All that I knew was that by 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday night, I had a fever, was in severe pain that wouldn't go away, and that it felt like it was centered in my left lower back. Sometimes (when lying on the heating pad) I could feel my kidney pulsate.  That was maybe my first clue. I've been plagued with this pain off and on for about a month (sometimes having to go home from work sick) and usually it resolved itself within a few hours. I attributed the cramps to being maybe a bout of food poisoning, or just bad gas, or to over-sensitivity to cold (it's been really cold here in Salt Lake City). Honestly, a kidney stone is not the first thing that just popped into my mind.
But as Wednesday turned to Thursday, and it was 1:30 in the morning (last week) and the pain was not going away...I gave up and went to the emergency room. They admitted me, did a CT Scan in this huge doughnut shaped machine, and fifteen minutes later, the doctor came in and said, "Mike, you have a 10 mm kidney stone." Let that sink in for a moment...I have a rock trying to pass through a small tube in my body that is as large as a pea. O.o... A picture of opium poppies. It's incredible that we have this flower. The drug
trade has given it a bad rap. But when used medicinally, this plant produces
wonder drugs. I love you opium poppy.So in I went for a hospital stay. I couldn't eat anything because I had surgery scheduled the next day, but oh did I learn to appreciate the power of Morphine and other pain killers. Morphine works so fast. If you've never had it, it literally works in a few seconds. They inject it into your I.V. and the pain (which was an 8 out of 10) goes to like a 2 out of 10 almost instantaneously. I think it's remarkable that a flower (the poppy) can produce morphine, heroin, opium, and codeine (the same frickin flower!). That's just crazy. And I'm really thankful that we have poppies. Sure...the drug can be abused but when used for its intended purpose, it is a powerful tool.
The surgery was absolutely awful. I've never had surgery before so I didn't know what to expect. Waking up is what I imagine it's like for vampires to come out of torpor. I literally felt like I was clawing my way out of death. I had no memory of where I was or what the hell had happened. I was nauseous for like three hours and then for the next day, every time I went to the bathroom I urinated blood (it felt like liquid fire) and there was this horrible ache in my back because my kidney was all bruised up and swollen. I'm honestly terrified of the follow-up surgery scheduled for March 5th, and I hope it is not as bad. The Urologist (once stent was in place) wants me to just pass this 1 cm stone on my own between now and then so I've been drinking lots of water. If I can't pass it by the 5th, then when they go in to remove the stent, they are going to laser it apart or something like that.
Anyway, that's my story on my kidney stone. It really gave me a new appreciation for life, for medicine, and for health insurance. I'm sure my hospital stay is going to generate some massive bills. My brother says that if I need anything else done this year I should do it because this stay in the hospital is basically going to wipe out my high deductible (which is around $1,500 out of pocket). Ah well...what can you do? It's not like the health industry obeys the capitalism laws of everything else in our society. If you are going out to buy a shirt, you can check J.C. Penney or Kohls or other competitors to see what kind of sales they got going on. But when you are in the Emergency Room, it's not like you can go to another E.R. to see if they'll give you a better rate. You've got to take what you get and you're in no mood to negotiate.
Have a great Tuesday, and I hope you don't get any kidney stones!

Escapement with Ciara Knight and CassaStorm with Alex J. Cavanaugh

I was in the hospital for a HUGE kidney stone last week. I'll tell more about it tomorrow. As for now, I want to give a shout out for some of my blogger buddies who have big things coming out.
Neumarian Uprising
We need your help! Thanks to our spy, Ciara Knight, we are able to communicate with you today via blogs, Facebook, Twitter and other social media.

The Neumarian uprising has begun. We are fighting for freedom and equality for all, but we need your help. Ciara informed us that you might want to know more about the uprising and why we ask you to risk your lives for our cause. To answer these questions I’ve agreed to let Ciara tell my sister’s, Raeth’s, story about her captivity. It will be free for you on a site called Amazon until March 1, 2013.
Our spies have told us this will help spread the word and find more recruits for our rebellion against the tyrannical queen. You can help by simply downloading a free copy of Weighted , a prequel to the Neumarian Chronicles.
If you are intrigued and wish to follow our uprising, Escapement , book I of The Neumarian Chronicles, will be available for only $2.99 until March 1, 2013.
Escapement is told by Princess Semara. Don’t hold the fact Semara is a princess against her like I did, there is more to her than you can possibly imagine.
Here is a brief explanation of her telling of our uprising:Ten years after the great war of 2185 the queen’s reign is threatened by uprisings and fear. In celebration of my sixteenth birthday it is my duty as princess to sacrifice a slave to be initiated into the ruling council, solidifying my mother’s empire. When my own erratic powers surface I’m captured and tried for treason. Slaves hate me, my mother wants me executed, and my only chance of survival rests in the hands of a young man, Ryder Arteres, whose sister I sentenced to death.
What people are saying about Escapement :

“A heady mix of action adventure and steampunk -- leavened with a dash of romance -- ESCAPEMENT offers up its fair share of thrills, horrors and heart-pounding moments. A strong start to a captivating new series.”

 -- Jana Oliver, author of The Demon Trapper's Daughter 

“A riveting tale of justice, mercy, honor and love. Take a deep breath and hold on, because you'll be turning the pages of Escapement quickly. Three unlikely comrades, Princess Semara, Ryder, and his sister Raeth, embark on a journey that will alter their lives forever. The beautiful love story nestled into these action-packed scenes will make you sigh and remember why you love to love. After reading the prequel Weighted, I knew this story would be amazing, and it was. Ciara Knight truly has a gift for creating awesome worlds and characters you won't forget.”

 --Lindi Peterson--Award winning author of Summer's Song.

“Betrayal, secrets, and a rebellion send readers on a grand adventure, caught in the plight to discover Semara’s gifts and purpose.”

 --Alex J Cavanaugh, author of Amazon best sellers CassaStar and CassaFire

 “The most unmissable series ever! I couldn't stop reading, the action and romance too breathtaking to break the spell!”

 --ARC review by Sudah on Goodreads

"A courageous heart-stopping journey by young people to save their kind."

 --Hildie McQueen, bestselling author of Where the Four Winds Collide

If you’d like to see a peek into our world, please view this short clip on You Tube. 

If you are now ready to join our fight, please add Escapement to your TBR shelf on Goodreads here. Shout out on all your social media sites, and tell everyone you know to stand up and fight.
Be Bold.Be Brave.Be Free.In the name of the rebellion,
--Ryder Arteres
I know most of you have seen Alex's cover art for the next book in his space opera series. I'm a little late to the game, but I wanted to post/reveal it. I love the elements at play in this cover. The spaceship is not dead center, lending tremendous chaos to the overall picture. Yet the lightning bolts and explosions definitely draw your eye to the middle. It's a wonderful illustration, and Alex should feel proud at his amazing accomplishment of completing a trilogy. I can't wait to get my hands on this one. Have a great Monday, everyone.

Two ladies, a dragon, and a hot air balloon

EDIT: Still feeling a little tired from illness. I'm going on blog break until Monday 2-25-2013 to rest up. Today, I'm being featured on Laura Eno's Tuesday Tea with Miss Snark. You can find that post HERE. Please come save me!  It is anniversary week for Michelle Wallace who blogs at Writer in Transit and for Elise Fallson. If you have time, please stop by and wish both of these lovely ladies a happy anniversary. Michelle could do with some luck as she recently had a computer motherboard failure. I'm glad hers got resolved quickly. When mine crashed three years ago, I was out of a computer for two months. I had a lot of overclocking stuff done so that I could do high-end gaming (it was toward the end of my World of Warcraft career).

That's my attempt at captioning. Thanks to Elise and Michelle for putting up such a great blog fest idea.
Scott over at Indie Book Blog reviewed my first book Slipstream. If you've been curious about my first book, please go and check out what he has to say at this link HERE.