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Randomness for 12/8

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1) The Avengers have a change in health care plans. Video. Pretty funny.

2) And, to switch to DC, Batman as life-size puppet stage show on Japanese TV. Video. You know you can’t resist a description like that. Via

3) Quality hate mail.

4) Ten comics-related gifts guaranteed to ruin your Christmas.

5) An alignment chart for DS9. Personally, I would switch lawful evil and neutral evil, but that’s me.

6) Seven horrifying cost-cutting measures.

7) The Penmonkey’s Paean. “I will not sing lamentations to my weakness.” Damn but I needed to read this today. Thanks, JJ.

A Glimpse of Darkness goes on sale today

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Here it is:

Cover

What is it, you ask? For those who missed it the first time through, earlier in the fall Suvudu.com held a round-robin audience-choice story game for several writer, and I was included in the fun. One writer would write a short chapter and at the end would be a poll to allow readers to decide what to do next. Once the readers made their choice, the next writer in queue would create the next section of the story according to their wishes. The authors were Lara Adrian, Stacia Kane, Kelly Meding, Lucy A. Snyder, and me.

Well, it goes on sale today, (for those of you who read ebooks). The novella is available for only 99 cents. You can order through Powell’s, Barnes and Noble, and of course, Amazon.com.

I’ll say this: it’s very different from the Twenty Palaces books. There’s a lot more magic in it, for one thing, and many of the characters are non-human folkloric creatures. For another, it’s fantasy alt-history. For a third, I didn’t write most of it.

But I think it’s a fun adventure story. Check it out.

Reviews, part 22

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1) An anonymous reviewer at Daily Ebooks Reviews gives Child of Fire four and a half stars (out of five, it seems). “I found Child of Fire to be both an accomplished debut novel and an extremely enjoyable read.”

That’s a much more positive response than the Game of Cages review from last month.

2) Dr. Henry Leon Lazarus (pseudonym? real?) at Philadelphia’s Weekly Press liked both Child of Fire and Game of Cages: “Only the tattoos that protect him from bullets, his magic knife that can slice through anything, and grit and determination can keep Ray alive in this solid thriller. Impossible-to-put-down. I liked the tale well enough to find the first, Child of Fire (paper), at Amazon for my kindle software. It was just as much fun.”

3) Josh Vogt at Examiner.com gives five stars to both Game of Cages and Child of Fire. “A rare and greatly enjoyable set of reads, with exceptional potential for the next installments.” Nice!

4) David Marshall at Thinking about books weighs in: “In many ways, I think Game of Cages rather better than Child of Fire.” NB: He liked the first one quite a bit.

5) Charlaine Harris, being Charlaine Harris, has read and posted about Circle of Enemies declaring it “just as action-packed and thoughtful as the first two.”

6) Drey of Drey’s Library gave Game of Cages a Very Good rating: “Harry Connolly keeps you on your toes from the first page until the very last word as you ride shotgun with Ray in this rough-and-tumble read.”

7) Tegeus at Mare Nostrum calls Child of Fire a “This is a definite keeper and is recommended for fans of the Dresden Files and Anita Blake.“

Randomness for 12/4

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1) Every Star Trek episode explained in four panels.

2) “Speedflying” a new extreme sport that freaks me out just watching a clip on YouTube. Video. If I prayed, I’d pray for those dudes.

3) Fictional characters in need of a book deal. With covers!

4) This is why I’m a capitalist at heart.

5) Can’t remember what movie I certain line of dialog comes from? Do a search.

6) “Furthermore, only non-Christians can curse.”

7) If this is what it will take to be a successful writer, I’ll go back to answering phones.

Randomness for 11/27

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1) The 30 most amazingly terrible VHS boxes of all time. Like Chris Sims, the only one of these I’ve seen is HAWK THE SLAYER, and my god it was awful. Still, I’d think anyone could take two of these boxes and come up with a pretty awesome story idea.

2) And as a palate-cleanser, check this huge, beautiful artwork.

3) Reasoning with vampires: Annotated excerpts from the Twilight novels.

4) Archetizer on the top ten libraries in the world. Seattle’s downtown branch makes the list, as well it should. via email from my sister-in-law.

5) Also from my s-i-l, Nathan Sawaya makes art from Legos. More here.

6) TSA agents do not know their own rules. Video. And this description of the event from the victim’s point of view.

7) In the libertarian paradise, “justice” can be hired down at the local bar.

Book advances in convenient graph form

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Over at SFNovelists.com, Jim C. Hines makes a graph of his advances to show how they’ve grown. I say good for him that they have grown, especially in this difficult economy; the man must be doing something right.

And it reminded me of a section in one of Donald Maass’s books (this one, I believe, which he’s offering online for free) in which he goes through his own client list to see which writers are earning six-figure incomes. This was back in the nineties (and the numbers need to be updated) but to make six figures through royalties on their backlist, one of the things the writers had to do was be writing for at least ten years already.

Instead of an overnight success, it’s an overdecade success.

Randomness for 11/22

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1) 10 Great Time-Lapse Construction videos.

2) 10 Great Animated Gifs from Detroit Metal City.

3) Tardis socks, with a link to the knitting pattern included.

4) Tintin in the Lovecraft world.

5) Grandmas discover PhotoBooth. Video.

6) “Not much between the temples.” Thank you, Not Always Right, for documenting the Awful.

7) Speaking of independent movies with super-awesome special effects: BIRDEMIC: The Most Epic Scene Ever Filmed! Video. Wyrd folks, don’t miss this inspirational video!

Randomness for 11/15

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1) Wow. Monsters drawn on post-it notes. via tor.com

2) 10 Things the New Batman Live! Show should include. I mean, duh! As if they wouldn’t include a bit where Batman fights a gorilla.

3) “Is there anything worse than not being able to fit your giant fist into a tall glass of milk, yearning for one last Oreo dunk? No. There is literally nothing worse. But the Dipr cookie peripheral will make dips easy.”

4) The United States of Movies. For Americans, which movie do you want to represent your state? I’m surprised PA isn’t ROCKY.

5) Battles won with unusual weapons.

6) Ten centuries of change in five minutes: Changes to European nation-states from the year 1000. Video. Pretty cool, but what it really needs is a counter giving the year.

7) Quidditch for Muggles. Video.

I R 4 Real

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Someone created a Wikipedia page for the Twenty Palaces books. (It wasn’t me and I’m not going to mess with it, not even to add sources or correct errors.) Check it out.

Randomness for 11/9

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1) I haven’t even seen this movie, just the trailer, and I already have my two word review: “Hot mess.” Video.

2) An insider’s take on AFM and the “shadow film industry.”

3) Meritocracy: it doesn’t work the way you expect. via James Nicoll

4) An 8-month old baby’s reaction to his cochlear implant. Video.

5) Teaching equality via the Socratic Method. Video. Gotta tell you, I love this one.

6) The Big List of RPG Plots.

7) This. Is. Hilarious. Our Valued Customers. (NSFW Language). No kidding, I keep going page after page through those comics and I can’t stop laughing. via Seattle Geekly.

Special bonus 8th thing! Watch this high school football play. Video. Jeez, there’s a whole self-help book in that somewhere, and it’s freaking hilarious.