Still reading Toby Streams the Universe, by Maya Lassiter. The titular psychic, Toby, continues to try to get a handle on his visions while trying to prevent the election of a president who will lead the world into … wait, sorry, that’s a different psychic. Toby is just trying to keep his friends safe and happy and himself from going insane. And did I mention he still lives in New York City?
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 5/7/2013: Toby Continues to Stream the Universe”
This week’s free book is Toby Streams the Universe, by Maya Lassiter, in which a psychic (the titular Toby, looking like a PhotoShop mashup of Elijah Wood and Tobey Maguire on the cover) who is increasingly unable to control his visions attempts to help his private investigator friend solve cases, prevent his sister (also a psychic) from killing herself, find his missing father, protect his new neighbor from an abusive ex-husband, keep his family’s finances afloat by reading the minds of stockbrokers, change the dark future that awaits various friends, relatives, and acquaintances, and avoid going insane. All while living in New York City. So what have you done lately?
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 4/30/2013: Toby Streams the Universe”
I’m between books at the moment, having finished off Wool and not picked up a replacement yet, so rather than Teaser Tuesday, this week I offer another side-by-side comparison of a scene from The War of the Ravels. In this scene, Our Heroes meet a fellow named Brennendah, of the same species (“Rittandic”) as the villain of the piece, Kihantroh. As usual, the original, 20-year-old version of the scene is on the left, while the rewritten version is on the right.
Continue reading ““The War of the Ravels” Then And Now: When Mercy Met Brennendah”
So lately I’ve been doing mostly Teaser Tuesday posts, which are quick and fun, but for the last post of the year I thought I would go back and do another comparison of an original scene from the Shards follow-up, The War of the Ravels, and the same scene as it currently stands in the draft revision. (The final revision will be done in 2013.) Although the scene name remains the same for the moment, and the activity in the scene is similar — Mercy is still going after Daras-Drûm, AKA the death-wind — the setting has totally changed. There’s no longer a flashback to Yexandor’s place (which in the current version was no longer a temple, but instead a fallen tree) and a certain blue-skinned sorcerer, whose influence is alluded to in the original scene, is no longer involved in the death-wind’s activities. But other than that it hasn’t changed at all.
This month my free book from Amazon is Tears in Rain by Rosa Montero. The astute reader may recognize “tears in rain” as part of Rutger Hauer’s epic Famous Last Words in the film “Blade Runner”, appearing here as listed on Wikipedia:
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. [laughs] Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like [coughs] tears in rain. Time to die.”
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 12/11/2012: “Tears in Rain””
So at the moment I’m reading a book by David Weber with the somewhat unfortunate title The Apocalypse Troll, which always makes me snicker a little, perhaps because of Dennis the Vizsla’s run-in with Obvious Troll a few years ago. (However, the Troll in this book is not obvious. At least, not once it stops firing nukes at the U.S. Navy.)
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 12/4/2012: The Apocalypse Troll”
Well I finally paid for another book, The Half-Made World by Felix Gilman. Why, you ask? Two reasons:
Continue reading “Teaser Tuesday 11/20/2012: “The Half-Made World””
So my quest to save money continues this week with Bad Juju and Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem, a collection of short stories by Jonathan Woods. It’s sort of like what you might get if Joe R. Lansdale, Elmore Leonard, and Carl Hiaasen spent the night together drinking and trying to top each other with crazy stories about life in an unnamed Caribbean republic. For some reason, the setting keeps making me think of a much, much seedier version of Catalina Island, probably because that’s the only island I visit on any sort of regular basis.
As Ariel’s hands grabbed my throat, I kneed him in the jewels as hard as I could. The next instant he was writhing on the floor like a dying insect.
Oh, ouch. I’ve got nothing to add to that one!
And, of course, here is this week’s excerpt from The War of the Ravels, my current work in progress:
The sun lay very near the horizon now, thick and red, coloring the sky with swirls of angry color. The bottom of the chasm became obscured by a thick layer of luminous fog that oozed up from the sea, as if someone had dumped a massive quantity of dry ice into the water and then lit it from below with flood lamps.
Hmm, that can’t be good …
This week I’m reading Pines, by Blake Crouch. This is another Prime freebie for the Kindle, thus continuing my effort to avoid spending money on books for a while — an effort which has probably just been extended by another few months due to my iPod’s unfortunate high-speed encounter with a tile floor. Deceleration trauma is rough on small spinning drives! Anyway, “Pines” is about a Secret Service agents who awakens in a small Idaho town following a car crash, and has a rather rough time leaving. I’m almost finished with it and, while I figured out the Big Twist well before the Big Reveal, the rules say no spoilers, so I had to choose my two sentences carefully. Here goes!
“It’s done,” Pilcher said, “and you’re my new sheriff. Welcome aboard.”
Believe me, this falls into the category of “An Offer You Can’t Refuse”.
And now, of course, here is this week’s teaser from The War of the Ravels:
The innkeeper tugged his blade free again, and accidentally dropped it this time. It failed to penetrate the ground, ending up lying on its side like some sort of unintentional metaphor.
So right now I’m reading Feed, a — wait for it! — not-quite-post-apocalyptic zombie book set in a future America in which people never leave the safety of their homes, preferring to communicate and interact via the Internet, where one is less likely to get attacked by the undead. (Getting attacked by trolls is, of course, still a risk.) The main characters are a trio of bloggers who follow a presidential candidate on the campaign trail, reporting on the stops and events and trying not to get eaten.
My father has always had just one piece of advice about zombies and ammunition, one he’s drilled into my head enough times that it’s managed to stick: When you have one bullet left and there’s no visible way out of the shit you’re standing in, save it for yourself.
Dads are always ready with the good advice! (A certain character from “Deep Rising” may wish he had learned this particular lesson.) Let’s not forget a couple of other important ones, like “Cardio” and “Double-Tap”.
And of course, here’s a little teaser from the upcoming conclusion of Shards:
One did not leave the husks of swatted flies lying about one’s kitchen, especially when expecting visitors. Untelleh would come to the castle once she had been restored from her exile, and it would hardly do to receive her atop a pile of slaughtered Rittandics, like some sort of barbarian despot.
Viscosity 