A. Regina Cantatis's Blog, page 15

What Do You Give the Alien Who Has Everything? - Now on Sale!

At long last, What Do You Give the Alien Who Has Everything? is now available for purchase. I've had to make it exclusive to Amazon because Smashwords just refuses to accept my file*, so unfortunately that means I won't be able to offer 25% coupons. However, if you purchase the book between October 22 and October 23 PST, you'll get 25% off during the Kindle Countdown Deal I've set up. But even if you miss that special, the e-book is still only $3.99 at full price - for a book that was over 1200 pages single-spaced in Word. So however you buy the book, you're getting a great deal.

Here's the whole blurb. I hope you'll check out the book and enjoy it to the full:

Imagine yourself as a reporter on a radically altered planet. After a disastrous mission to Europa, two astronauts have returned to Earth with strange powers and a newfound lust for world domination. No one can stand before them. Now they've invited you and several dozen other telegenic young reporters to a press conference in their island lair.

You know they’re up to something more, but what? And what can you do about it anyway? The Imperators have the power to warp everything around them – plants, animals, and humans – and so far no one has been able to stop them. They seem unkillable, and the pacification fields they send out periodically reduce earth’s populace zombies. How can you possibly resist them?

You can't...at first. But this is a story in which you chart the course of your own adventure. If you set out on this journey, you will encounter the Imperators – but how and when you encounter them, and what happens next, are all up to you. Perhaps you’ll choose to surrender blissfully, or perhaps you’ll choose to fight. You might try joining forces with the enemy. Or if you’re especially clever, you might find a game-changing hidden plot line that turns the whole story on its head.

Meanwhile, you can also search the Imperators’ complex for clues: What happened to them on Europa? Why are they so alike in some ways and so different in others? What do they have in store for you and your fellow reporters – and, indeed, for the world? Are they really as unstoppable as they seem?
 
"What Do You Give the Alien Who Has Everything?" is all about choices. The first two are your character's gender and (very loosely defined) orientation. After that, you'll have your pick of 1862 more story paths: enough to keep you exploring the Imperators' world for days or weeks to come.

Thanks once again to my beta readers K, Lady K (no relation) and anemone. I couldn't have done it without you! You'll be getting your free copies soon.

*But only after accepting a slightly faulty version that three people bought before I removed it. Sorry about that, folks!

Next weekend, my "Choose Your Own Adventure" goes to print

Pretty nearly all the kinks are worked out (thanks to K, Lady K, and anemone), I have a cover and a blurb I'm happy with, and all that's left are a few small additions/corrections.

Here's a bit of what to expect from the story:
It's a very widely expanded version of my EMCSA story, "What Do You Give the Man Who Has Everything?". Almost every scene from that story makes it into the new one, yet that's only about 10% of the content. This e-book is huge: in my single-spaced Word document, it's over 1200 pages.There is a mind controller of each sex for you to submit to, resist, or...well, there are other options, but I'll let you find them on your own. You can choose your protagonist's gender and (very loosely defined) sexual orientation.There's a mysterious location at the top of the mountain where you'll find lots of answers (as well as a few lies), but it's not easy to get to.There's a game-changing secret plot line that really does kind of turn the story into a game.There are over 1860 individual story segments to choose from.You are allowed to make stupid choices. If you do, 95% of the time you'll end up getting what you deserve. 5% of the time, you'll get something better than you deserve. Writing this story has been occasionally frustrating but frequently exhilarating. I hope it will exhilarate you when you read it. Stay tuned for next weekend's announcement - and the usual 25% off coupon. :-)

A word from the *fourth* beta reader

As you know, I asked for volunteers to beta read my upcoming "Choose Your Own Adventure" story, and the winners were K, Busty Brenda, and Anemone. But there's a fourth beta as well: a longtime friend who's been helping me proof my stories almost ever since I started e-publishing. That's Lady K. While she was helping me with Sleepwalkers, she offered to write an early review for my blog, and I was happy to accept. Now she's offering to do the same for "What Do You Give the Alien Who Has Everything?"

I'll paste in her words below, but before I do, here are a few quick words about the story's progress. My beta readers have been hugely helpful, the story is in great shape and getting greater, I plan to publish it on September 20, and yesterday I created the final (or maybe almost-final) version of the cover. Take a look at it and tell me if you think there's anything else I need to do to it.

And now I'll pass the mic to Lady K.

Greetings and salutations, readers of thrall's blog!

This is thrall's friend Lady K with another guest blog post. I, along with three other lucky people, am a beta reader for thrall's latest work, a Choose Your Own Adventure tale called What Do You Give the Alien Who Has Everything? Since that's a bit of a finger-twister to type I'll be calling it WDYGtAWHE for the rest of this post. Hmmn. That's really not much easier to type. Ah well, onward!

So, what can you expect from WDYGtAWHE? This is thrall's fiction at its turbo-charged best. thrall has a gift for coming up with different ways to describe the experience of entrallment. As a writer of MC erotica myself, I can tell you that is not easy.

So what can I tell you about WDYGtAWHE? Without giving any spoilers, I'll answer the question this way. Does the story have:
Squick? Check.Latex? Check.Blank, staring eyes? Check.Blissed-out thralls of multiple varieties, including a few I'd not thought of myself? Check.Fetishes thrall hasn't explored/included in her fiction before? Check.Smoking hot MC induction scenes? Duh, this is thrall we're talking about! Check!The coolest element by far is the Choose Your Own Adventure format. Trust me, thrall is using the features of this format brilliantly. There are multiple plot lines, twists and turns and a mcguffin or two.

There's something for everyone in WDYGtAWHE. You can follow plot lines that conform to your fetish, then go back and follow other plot lines that are just as hot. This is a tale of multiple delights.

You're going to love this story. Trust me.

What it's like to be a writer

Recently I came across a passage from another writer's book that so perfectly fits my own experience I had to write about it. It's about writing, and about the darkness every writer has inside, which we try to exorcise by putting it on paper or on a screen. Reading this passage makes me remember what I did as a teenager, when my mind control fantasies built up inside me to such a degree that I had to let them out any way I could. So I wrote them in notebooks, then tore out the pages and burned them in the backyard. That settled me down for a while, but eventually the stories (the darkness) built up inside me again, and I had to repeat the process. Once my stepfather caught me burning my pages, but he was wise enough not to ask me about it. I was a teenager, so of course I was doing weird stuff. And at least I was burning things safely.

Anyway, below is a passage from Jeff VanderMeer's "The Strange Case of X," one of the short stories City of Saints and Madmen. This part is a story within the story, a fable that X has written to explain what it's like for him, being a writer.

By this time it was dusk. He knew it was dusk because he could feel the dusk inside of him, choking his lungs, moving across that part of him which housed his imagination. He coughed up a little darkness, but thought nothing of it. There is a little darkness in every writer. And so he sat down to dinner with his wife and her daughter and they asked him how the writing had gone and he said, "Rotten! Horrible! I am not a writer. I am a baker. A carpenter. A truck driver. I am not a writer." And they laughed because they knew he was a writer, and writers lie. And when he coughed up a little more darkness, they ignored it because they knew that there is a little more darkness in a writer than in other souls.

All night the writer coughed up bits of darkness - shiny darkness, rough darkness, slick darkness, dull darkness - so that by dawn all of the darkness had left him. He awoke refreshed. He smiled. He yawned. He ate breakfast and brushed his teeth. He kissed his wife and his wife's daughter as they left for work and for school. He had forgotten the darkness. Only when he entered his work room did he remember the darkness, and how much of it had left him. For his darkness had taken shape and taken wing, and had flown up to a corner of the wall where it met the ceiling and flattened itself against the stone, the tips of its wings fluttering slightly. The writer considered the creature for a moment before he sat down to write. It was dark. It was beautiful. It looked like a sleek, black manta ray with cat-like amber-red eyes. It looked like a stealth bomber given flesh. It looked like the most elegant, the wisest creature in the world. And it had come out of him, out of his darkness. The writer had been fearful, but now he decided to be flattered, to be glad, for he had helped to create a gorgeous apparition. Besides, he no longer coughed. His lungs were free of darkness. He was a writer. He would write. And so he did - all day.

I found these pictures - and several more - here.

Congratulations to my three beta readers!

They are, in order of appearance, K, Busty Brenda, and Anemone. Thank you all for taking on a big (but I hope very fun) assignment that will make a world of difference in the final product.

As I type this, I'm uploading the zip file to Dropbox, and I've already emailed/PM'ed you with the link. If you didn't get my message, leave a comment below and I'll try again. If you did get my message but the link doesn't work, it's probably because the file is still uploading. Give it a little while and try again.

Happy reading!

Calling all beta readers!

Well, calling the first three volunteers to be beta readers. ;-) The rough draft of "What Do You Give the Alien Who Has Everything?" is ready to go, and I'm putting it in a Dropbox for the lucky trio to retrieve.


Warning : This is a very, very large story. It's not as long as it looks because the spoiler-hiding separators take up a lot of space on each page; but it's still novel length. And while I'm not expecting the beta readers to follow every path, I hope you'll read at least a third of them (and I'd love it if you read more) - including several of the male/male scenes, which I know aren't as popular among my readership as some other sexual combinations. I need those proofed just like I need the others proofed. And I need you to finish proofing the whole thing within three weeks.

Much Rejoicing: Death does not await you with nasty, big pointy teeth. Gifts await you. Each beta reader will receive a cameo in the story, a free copy of the finished ebook, another free ebook of your choice, and a gracious acknowledgement at the end of "What Do You Give" (complete with a link to your website or blog, if you have one).

Aaarrrrggh: In order to become one of my beta readers, you have to be one of the first three people to comment on this post; and your comment must include either a valid email or a link to your Facebook profile. This is to make sure I email or PM the Dropbox link to the right person. However, if you're one of the three, and if you want me to delete your post after you're chosen so that no one else sees your information, I'll be happy to do that.

Okay, folks, have at it!

10...9...8...

The next post I make will be the call for beta readers to help me with "What Do You Give the Alien Who Has Everything?" I'd say there's a 50/50 chance that the call will go out next weekend; otherwise, bar catastrophe, it'll go out the following week or weekend. Either way, I figured I should go ahead and make an announcement. It's a heads-up to those of you hoping to be beta readers (because, remember, I'm only taking the first three volunteers). And it's also incentive for me to write like the maniac I am.

But for everyone anticipating the story, here are some eye candy clues for you to enjoy. The photos generally come from Model Mayhem, and I've credited the photographers and models at the bottom of the post. The art is by Hajime "He Who Never Fails" Sorayama, and the rest of the pics came from wherever I could find them.




 

           

Model Mayhem credits: Image at top by Gil Perron. Woman in white in first row is Hexabelle. Mermaid is Thao N. Living statue is Michael Foster with body painting by Liz Berczel.

I've just published a new e-book: "Couples Skate"

Behold Couples Skate, otherwise known as "How Did It Come to This?" That was its title on the EMCSA, when the story was full of Muse lyrics and other nods to my favorite band. I had to take they lyrics out, for obvious reasons; but everything else remains the same.

I must say that this story is the one I see as my most underrated. The mind control is softer than what I usually write, the MC'er isn't a total villain, and I snuck a lot humor and subtle beauty into the story.

I hope you'll like "Couples Skate" as much as I do. Here's the usual coupon code,to get you a 25% discount during the first month of sales: BX44B. And here's the synopsis:

Larry Szymanski is a pro hockey player who wants to break into show business, so he takes the most logical first step he can think of: joining a reality TV show. “Life Swap” pairs people from very different worlds, giving them two weeks to explore each other’s lifestyles to hilarious and (occasionally romantic) effect. Larry hopes he’ll be paired with a pretty young woman, but what he gets is a pretty young man: out-and-proud figure skater Jimmy DeVere. The partnership might work out all right if Larry can break him quickly, but Jimmy won’t break; he’s so tough that he doesn’t even seem human.

When Larry’s one-upmanship doubles the length of their agreement, he finds himself falling under the spell of someone who has more on his mind than just breaking Larry. Jimmy DeVere really isn’t human…but what is he, and what does he want from his helpless Life Swap partner?

This is a story of mind control and paranormal romance.

Pretty pictures

As promised, this weekend it's all about total enclosure. Believe it or not, I found most of these images on Facebook. One of the advantages of this particular fetish is that it doesn't trigger the FB censors because there's no actual nudity.

If you'd like to imagine a story to go along with these images, try this one: a pair of secret agents, one male and one female, invade the lab of alien mind controllers.



 
 

Credits: Studio Black Fun, Nikitzo

Just as an aside, I am slightly pissed off about the upcoming Mad Max movie

The character posters and trailer look great, but goddammit, why did they have to name Charlize Theron's character "Imperator"? It's true that I didn't invent the word, but I was counting on it to sound cool and unusual in my new story. Now readers are just going to think I stole it from a movie.