Category: Books

Yeah, done for the night (I’m having a short story published!)

As you might guess, I’ve been social-mediaing the blazes out of Pickman’s Gallery (which is where the short story’s been published) this evening, and I’m pretty much useless for everything else.  So lemme go find a song for the night, and then I’ll stop with all of this.  For the night, at least.

Please buy “Pickman’s Gallery:” I have a story in it.

The story of mine in Pickman’s Gallery  (Ulthar Press, 2018) is called ‘Pickman’s Model,’ because… well, because it’s me, folks.  Of course I was going to feel no shame.  Besides, while it is advisable to read the short story of the same name by HP Lovecraft, I feel that it will be easy to tell the two stories about.  Truly, I do. Continue reading Please buy “Pickman’s Gallery:” I have a story in it.

In the e-Mail: The Valley of Shadows (Black Tide Rising).

Finally.  The Valley of Shadows is set in John Ringo’s Black Tide Rising zombie apocalypse series; and if you haven’t tried that series out yet, I recommend it. In Black Tide Rising, it’s not so much the zombies that are the problem; it’s that most of the people are gone and the remainder are constantly stuck busting their asses to keep civilization running. So, not nihilistic: just very, very grim.  …And lots of guns!  Which makes things less grim, at least to read about.

Anyway, The Valley of Shadows (written by Ringo, and Mike Massa) takes up a part of the story from the first book of the series, and runs with it.  I look forward to finding out to those particular folks.  I kind of wondered.

Book of the Week: Rainbow Six.

I’m putting up Tom Clancy’s military counterterror technothriller Rainbow Six because weren’t they going to make a movie version?  They were trying to get Ryan Reynolds to play John Clark, which I dunno is that great a fit.  I mean, obviously Reynolds can play a badass, but I always saw Clark as being more hulking than Reynolds.  Also: can they afford him, at this point?  Ryan Reynolds probably has at least one more Deadpool movie in him, or at least an X-Force movie. …But I digress.  Rainbow Six has a bit of the Clancy Bloat to it, but I never cared too much; it’s a blessed beach book anyway.

 

The Just In Time* ‘How To Invent Everything: The Time Traveler’s Guide’ Kickstarter.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/168734274/how-to-invent-everything-the-time-travelers-guide

 

Yeah, I don’t know how I missed this one, either.

Six hours to go on the How To Invent Everything: The Time Traveler’s Guide Kickstarter, but that’s only a problem if you don’t have a time machine.  If you do, you have all the time that you need, really.  You could go back to Day One and back it then. But if you do, don’t tell me then.  Temporal paradox is annoying, and makes me burp.

Moe Lane

*I’d say ‘sorry,’ except that it’d be a lie.

In the Mail: A Study in Emerald (graphic novel).

This is, of course, the graphic novel version of Neil’s Gaiman’s classic cosmic horror story A Study in Emerald, and I could not resist picking it up.  Both Gaiman’s original story and this graphic novel manages to keep the conceit and the zinger running until the very end; I shan’t give spoilers, but it’s all very well done if you’re at all checked out on Sherlock Holmes.  By all means, acquire this if you like graphic novels.

In the Mail: Howard the Duck (novelization).

Gimme a break. I had a bunch of people online tell me that the Howard the Duck novelization was far too good for the movie.  Do I believe them?  Well, I got the book, so maybe?  It’ll either be good or bad, but either way my getting it is odd — and ‘odd’ is enough. Besides, what’s the point of being an adult if you can’t indulge your morbid curiosity from time to time?

In the Mail: Dragon Age: Hard in Hightown.

Dragon Age: Hard in Hightown is an elaborate Dragon Age II joke.  One of the NPC companions — one of the cool ones — is a Dwarf named Varric who writes lurid novels, when he’s not shooting the greatest shotgun in the universe a crossbow.  One of these novels was called Hard in Hightown, and you would get references to it in-game, because Varric put everybody he knew in the book, including all your other NPC companions and, oh yeah, your own character.  So somebody decided to actually publish the book; and Mary Kirby got tapped to, ah, ‘co-write’ it.

The entertaining part?  I read part of it before I handed it off to my wife (she’s much more of a Dragon Age fan than I was).  It was not half bad, what I read.  Got a decent pulpy mouth-feel to it, really. I respect that.