Steve Umstead's Blog, page 13
February 16, 2012
Excerpt from Gabriel's Redemption, Book 1 of Scifi Trilogy – Hand to Hand Combat
Meanwhile the titanic struggle between Brevik and Rheaves had reached a crescendo. The two bodies were crashing into workstations, chairs splintering under their combined weight. Rheaves was slightly larger, but in the clumsy Chinese battlesuit lost out to Brevik in dexterity. Realizing this, Rheaves attempted to keep the fight close to overwhelm Brevik, but each [...]
February 15, 2012
If everything is bestselling, can anything be bestselling?
I was rereading an old blog post by my dear friend* Joe Konrath the other day about the "Myth of the Bestseller". It's a really good, quick, to the point article that says essentially who cares about being a bestseller? * Actually Konrath has no idea who I am, but after reading his blog for [...]
February 14, 2012
Watched The River last night…yeah, creeped me out. You?
Yes, finally watched the premiere of The River on ABC last night….as you may remember, I'm a timeshifter (no, it's nothing scifi – I just always watch shows on DVR, never live…can't stand commercials, which is ironic considering I have a marketing background). I have to say – I loved it. I heard a lot [...]
February 11, 2012
Getting back in gear…dropping pounds & laying down wordcount
After a week spent in Mexico, unsuccessfully trying to suck in my gut during the day on the beach, and unsuccessfully staring at my laptop screen hoping words would appear each evening, it's officially time to get my butt in gear. Starting Sunday, February 12th, I'm taking the next 50 days and doing two things [...]
February 3, 2012
It's been a humbling, exciting, wonderful Year One of writing
Today is Friday, February 3rd, and tomorrow morning I'm getting on a plane to Mexico with my family on a week's vacation, one we have done for the past seven years this same week (a Super Bowl party on the beach is better than hanging in some dude's basement watching it). Today is also the [...]
February 1, 2012
Typos, spelling errors, plot holes, oh my! Gabriel's Redemption takes two shots to the chin
Those of you who know me (or as well as anyone can be "known" in an online, social media world) know that a huge pet peeve of mine is making an error. Whether it's a typo, or a spelling error, or a missing dialogue tag, or misplaced apostrophe, or even a factual mistake or inconsistency, [...]
January 31, 2012
Gabriel's Revenge Excerpt – The Shadowy Benefactor
A loud bang startled the man sitting on the couch. He looked up from his reading to see that a large painting on the far wall had fallen onto the floor, and was now leaning against the wall. The glow from Earth in the skylight illuminated the painting like it sat on display in a [...]
January 29, 2012
Gabriel's Return entered into Amazon's Breakthrough Novel contest
I'm coming up on my one-year anniversary of publishing Gabriel's Redemption (February 2nd), and I was struck with a memory the other day. Last year on a whim, just before publishing, I submitted it to Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award Contest (ABNA), and a few weeks later was astounded to find it qualified for the second [...]
January 27, 2012
Excerpt from Gabriel's Revenge – Chasing the Station
"Closing, sir," said Stirling. "Slowly but surely." McTiernan clenched at the armrests of his command chair, staring at the main wallscreen that showed the computer generated image of their course. The icon for the Marcinko was inexorably drawing closer to the icon representing the out of control skyhook station. The computer superimposed their courses, showing [...]
January 26, 2012
Blast from the Past: Star Blazers…one of my ultimate childhood memories.
I ran across a blog post at Tor.com by Rajan Khanna when doing a little military scifi research, and the title caught my eye: A Ship Called Argo. Wow, flashes of running home from 4th grade to see Star Blazers pops into my head. And since I can't simply describe the coolness of Star Blazers, [...]
