Timothy C. Ward's Blog, page 59
September 1, 2013
Parsec Awards 2013 – WINNERS
August 14, 2013
Book Review: READY PLAYER ONE by Ernist Cline
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Took a friend’s advice to make this my Audible pick this month because of Wil Wheaton’s narration and am very happy with the outcome. Even though I am a decade too young to have experienced the 80′s in the way it is highlighted in this book, I still enjoyed the sense of a larger than life video game scavenger hunt with life or death stakes. Would I have liked it more if the nostalgia was focused on Nirvana, Final Fantasy III and Jurassic...
August 13, 2013
Early Reviews for “Cornhusker: Demon Gene”
Buy on Kindle for $.99
Myfirst short story, “Cornhusker: Demon Gene,” was accepted into a future anthology, but I self published it in May. I have written a handful of short stories over the years, but this one is my favorite, so far. That said, I know I’m still learning this writing gig, so I put this story out there knowing the feedback could be less than glowing.
While I’m grateful for every review, I’m pleased that most people have enjoyed my first story.
Here are some quotes from my reviews...
July 30, 2013
Book Review: FIEND by Peter Stenson
REVIEW SUMMARY: The zombie apocalypse has never been more engrossing, heart-wrenching, or personal. I rooted for this hero with held breath.
MY RATING: 
BRIEF SYNOPSIS: A pair of drug addicts open their window to a zombie apocalypse, run for their lives and fight for what they’ll love more: sober life or death.
MY REVIEW:
PROS: Front-to-back engaging; phenomenal ending; emotionally powerful characters; scary zombies; survivalist setting.
CONS: The sexual descriptions, while consistent with the gor...
July 25, 2013
Finding Peace in Luke 12 and 2 Peter 3
Free on Kindle
Now that I am running Adventures in SciFi Publishing, I have a website, Twitter and Facebook feed to focus solely on writing and where I’ll avoid political and religous commentary. Because of this, I feel free to use my website as a place to be more honest about my spiritual walk. It will be obvious from the titles of my posts whether they will cross into taboo territory, but willalways be based on a motivation of love. Read on, if you like.
As you may have read in my blog post a...
July 17, 2013
My First Month on the Job at Adventures in SciFi Publishing
The occasional twitch in my right eye may say it all. Since taking over as Executive Producer at Adventures in SciFi Publishing podcast, I’ve posted a podcast about every five days, built a review team of four members, and spent about an hour or more each night just with scheduling/emailing/marketing. I am enjoying the perks of books I otherwise couldn’t afford to buy and knowing that the podcast interviews I produce are now reaching an audience ten times larger than AudioTim did. On top of t...
June 13, 2013
How My Personal Convictions Affect My Social Media Presence
My book review for the anthology, Like Water for Quarks, went live on SF Signal yesterday, and with it came a pretty upset commenter. This person thinks I should leave my personal convictions out of my reviews, to put it lightly. I’d like to clear the air as far as my philosophy on religion and politics being included or excluded in my social media presence, including book reviews.
Twitter and Facebook:
To be blunt, I don’t include religion or politics in my Twitter or Facebook feeds, nor do I...
June 12, 2013
What Makes an Author a Breakout Author?
My two part interview series with Zachary Jernigan is now up at Adventures in SciFi Publishing (Part one; Part two).
I recently complimented Zachary Jernigan, debut author of No Return
from Night Shade Books, as being a breakout author. He was shocked by this, because he’s humble at times, but also because he doesn’t think he has sold that many books. I told 
him I don’t see a breakout author as having to have sold a ton of books, but who has leaped ahead of the pack, or at least my expectation...
June 10, 2013
AudioTim Podcast Announcement
In spite of me supposedly being on a brain vacation after writing “the end” on my novel, within a week I have become the new Executive Producer of Adventures in SciFi Publishing. It’s surreal, because I’ve been a huge fan, and while this is a dream come true, I’m also kind of sad that I can’t be purely a fan anymore.
My goal is to still make the show as if the host is the biggest fan, so expect fun times and continued high quality production. This Parsec Award winning podcast, in the words of...
June 7, 2013
Book Review: vN by Madeline Ashby
My Rating: 4.5/5 Stars
A more formal review will go up on SF Signal soon, but for now, here are my thoughts.
I’m very impressed with this debut novel from Madeline Ashby. She excels at making her A.I. robot perspective feel real, sometimes in humorous ways, sometimes in scary ways and most enjoyably through their struggle to experience the human benefits of love, freedom and being responsible parents and loved ones. The layout for how the robots iterate (make copies) appeals...
