David Lee Summers's Blog, page 35
July 12, 2022
Dealing Out Great Weird Westerns
The annual Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale is underway. It gets its name because where I live in the northern hemisphere, readers are loading up their e-readers for great beach reading and vacations. In the southern hemisphere, it’s the middle of winter and people are spending time in a warm and cozy place reading. All of Hadrosaur’s titles are available at deep discounts this month and I’ll be highlighting them all month long here at the Web Journal. If you’re looking for a specific title, you do...
July 9, 2022
A Deal on the Scarlet Order Vampire Novels
The annual Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale is underway. It gets its name because where I live in the northern hemisphere, readers are loading up their e-readers for great beach reading and vacations. In the southern hemisphere, it’s the middle of winter and people are spending time in a warm and cozy place reading. All of Hadrosaur’s titles are available at deep discounts this month and I’ll be highlighting them all month long here at the Web Journal. If you’re looking for a specific title, you do...
July 5, 2022
A Deal on the Hybrid Series
The annual Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale is underway. It gets its name because where I live in the northern hemisphere, readers are loading up their e-readers for great beach reading and vacations. In the southern hemisphere, it’s the middle of winter and people are spending time in a warm and cozy place reading. All of Hadrosaur’s titles are available at deep discounts this month and I’ll be highlighting them all month long here at the Web Journal. If you’re looking for a specific title, you do...
July 2, 2022
A Deal on the Space Pirates’ Legacy
The annual Smashwords Summer/Winter Sale is underway. It gets its name because where I live in the northern hemisphere, readers are loading up their e-readers for great beach reading and vacations. In the southern hemisphere, it’s the middle of winter and people are spending time in a warm and cozy place reading. All of Hadrosaur’s titles are available at deep discounts this month and I’ll be highlighting them all month long here at the Web Journal. If you’re looking for a specific title, you do...
June 28, 2022
The Forsaken
Over the last couple of years, I’ve enjoyed listening to the Gerry Anderson Podcast, which discusses the shows Anderson produced along with new books, videos, and products associated with those shows. Anderson’s shows included Space: 1999, Thunderbirds, UFO, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and more – a few of which I’ve mentioned here at the Web Journal. Back in episodes 188 through 190 of the podcast, producer Ben Page interviewed author John Kenneth Muir, who has written books about Space: 1...
June 25, 2022
Contreras Wildfire and Kitt Peak
Over the years working at Kitt Peak National Observatory, I’ve seen several fires from the domes at the summit. A few of these fires have even approached close enough to create nail-biting situations where we prepared to evacuate the site. However, a little over a week ago, a fire burned right up to our facility. As an operator on the Mayall 4-meter and WIYN 3.5-meter telescopes, I’m tasked with facility and personnel safety after hours. So, this means I was keeping a close eye on the fire up un...
June 21, 2022
Expedition Vega
This past week, I finished reading the second story arc in J-Novel Club’s translation of the Perry Rhodan NEO series. This arc of eight novellas was presented under the collective title, Expedition Vega. When the first arc, Vision Terrania, ended, astronaut Perry Rhodan, who had been to the moon and made first contact with aliens, had established his city Terrania in the Gobi Desert, and had won over the Chinese General Bai Jun who had laid siege to the city. What’s more they had rescued alien C...
June 18, 2022
Giants of Iron and Steam
Back around 2008, when I first learned that the weird westerns and alternate history I had been writing overlapped with steampunk, I decided to see if I could find some music to put me in a good frame of mind for writing. I tend to prefer instrumental music while I write, but I’m happy to have music with lyrics while I’m getting settled into write. I remember naively typing the phrase “steampunk music” into Google just to see what would come up. I found several discussion boards talking about a ...
June 14, 2022
The Threepenny League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
This last week, I’ve been working on a new steampunk story. After I wrapped up the story, I decided I wanted to read something in a similar vein to celebrate. When I think “steampunk” one of the first stories that comes to mind is The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novel written by Alan Moore with art by Kevin O’Neill. I’ve read the first two volumes of their centuries-spanning epic, so decided this was a good opportunity to dive into volume 3. The third volume, chronologically, is ca...
June 11, 2022
Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut
As a writer and an avid reader, I find myself subscribed to the newsletters for several publishers. One of those is Seven Seas Entertainment, which translates Japanese manga and light novels into English. In their latest newsletter, they mentioned a forthcoming light novel which caught my eye simply because of the title: Irina: The Vampire Cosmonaut. According to Seven Seas, the novel tells the story of how a space race between two global superpowers led to the “Nosferatu Project.” After sending...
