Special Labor Day Release! LEGENDS OF WINDEMERE #FANTASY SERIES BUNDLE #1
My friend Charles Yallowitz shared the news about “To Survive the Maelstrom” and “A Dark and Stormy Night” earlier this summer…now it’s time to return the favor.
And this is a really good deal — three books for $4.99? Go take a look right now. (He has a new one coming soon, too.)
Cover Art by Jason Pedersen
3D Conversion by Bestt_graphics
*This Book Bundle contains the first 3 volumes of the LEGENDS OF WINDEMERE fantasy series.*
Every hero must take that first courageous step into adventure. For Luke Callindor, it’s more of a blind stumble. From battling a demonic assassin to facing the family he left behind, this warrior’s adventuring career has been one awkward mistake after another. Most days the only things that keep him alive, yet never unharmed, are his trusted friends and his reckless courage. How long can his luck hold out before the gods of Windemere decide to cut his legend short?
CLICK HERE TO BUY ON AMAZON for $4.99
That’s right. Guess who just released a book bundle that includes the following:
- BEGINNING OF A HERO
- PRODIGY OF RAINBOW TOWER
- ALLURE OF THE GYPSIES
If you wanted to get into LEGENDS OF WINDEMERE, but feel like…
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Three Days, Three Quotes, and Three Bloggers Challenge
Folks, the lovely and talented N.N. Light (also known as Mrs. N.), challenged me on her blog last week with the latest blog-hop called “Three Days, Three Quotes, and Three Bloggers.” You’re supposed to give a quote every day from something in pop culture — at least, I’m going to assume this, as Mrs. N.’s quotes were all in that realm — and challenge three other bloggers a day to do the same thing.
Now, I’m not sure I know nine bloggers who might be willing to take part in this challenge. But I do know at least six. And I have a few favorite quotes to try out…so, here goes!
My quote is from possibly the best baseball comedy ever, the original Major League.
Bob Uecker, as radio announcer Harry Doyle, says:
“Ball four. Ball eight. Low, and he walks the bases loaded on twelve straight pitches.
“How can they lay off pitches that close?”
Now, why does this quote amuse me so much? It’s simple. Any baseball fan knows that if someone’s just walked the bases loaded, no pitches were actually that close. (So, Uecker is taking part in an old baseball tradition — sarcasm. Love it.)
As for why I picked this quote first? It’s probably my favorite quote ever — partly because it’s really funny, and partly because there’s actually somewhat of a moral in there if you dig deep enough.
See, part of the story of Major League is that of Ricky Vaughn, a pitcher who comes up with the nickname “Wild Thing” because he seemingly can’t find the strike zone — but he’s kept on the team because he throws hard and the manager believes Ricky will learn. (Plus, when the year starts, there really aren’t that many good players on his team that can outplay him. Keep that in mind.)
Usually, it’s only the talented guys who are left out on the mound to walk the bases loaded. The manager who does that makes the calculation that the pitcher needs to learn how to get out of trouble — including trouble of his own making. And the only way to do that is to put your pitcher in pressure situations.
Like pitching with the bases loaded. (Talk about a pressure-filled situation!)
So, Ricky’s walked the bases loaded. The pressure is on. What’s he going to do next?
All of that is summed up, laconically, by Bob Uecker’s character Harry Doyle in the quote I referenced above.
That’s why I love this quote.
Now, as for today’s three victims — er, bloggers? How about Jason Cordova, Chris Nuttall, and Dora Machado?
U.S. Supreme Court Rules that KY Court Clerk Must Issue Marriage Licenses to All
The Supreme Court of the United States tonight ruled that county clerks must give marriage licenses to all, regardless of their own personal religious convictions.
As the Associated Press article (by way of Yahoo News) states:
(Kim) Davis stopped issuing all marriage licenses in the days after the landmark decision. Two gay couples and two straight couples sued her, arguing that she must fulfill her duties as an elected official despite her personal religious faith. A federal judge ordered her to issue the licenses, and an appeals court upheld that decision. Her lawyers with the Liberty Counsel filed a last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court on Friday, asking that they grant her “asylum for her conscience.”
Justice Elena Kagan, who oversees the 6th district, referred Davis’ request to the full court, which denied the stay without comment. Kagan joined the majority in June when the court legalized gay marriage across the nation.
Meanwhile, a couple that had been turned away went to Rowan County Attorney Cecil Watkins to ask that she be charged with official misconduct, a misdemeanor defined by state law as a public official who “refrains from performing a duty imposed upon him by law or clearly inherent in the nature of his office.” The crime is punishable by up to a year in jail.
I’m not at all surprised that the Supreme Court upheld its own, earlier ruling. But apparently, Kim Davis, County Clerk of Rowan County in Kentucky, did not think that was going to happen — else, she’d not have taken the position she has thus far.
See, there’s a fundamental issue going on here — but it’s not the issue Ms. Davis thinks.
If you are a duly elected clerk of a county, you are being paid to do your job. And part of your job is to give out marriage licenses.
You can’t refuse to give out marriage licenses, citing religious convictions, after the Supreme Court has already ruled that civil courts must allow GLBT couples to marry.
I realize Ms. Davis is not the only court clerk in the United States who’s thus far refused to do her duty. And I also realize she may well have legitimate religious convictions that don’t allow her to perform this part of her job. And refusing to give out any licenses — as Ms. Davis did — is not the right answer.
Not if she wants to keep her job.
That said, she had two other choices she never considered.
One was to allow someone else to give out these marriage licenses. There are a number of court clerks here in Wisconsin who’ve done that; they quietly allow someone else to do that part of the job. No one gets upset at this, either — so long as the licenses are given out, and the job is getting done, everyone seems fine with this.
(To my friends in the GLBT community: We can’t change everyone overnight. This ethical side-step is far, far better than what Ms. Davis did, because no one is being denied the right to marry. End aside.)
The second is very simple: Resign.
If Ms. Davis truly does not believe she can give out marriage licenses any more because of her religious convictions, and refuses to give them out to anyone — well, she should leave her job. Because she’s obviously unfit to perform it.
And, I must add, that lawsuit that’s been floated saying she’s not been performing her job seems like a slam dunk from here. (Which is yet another reason she should resign. Because these suits are just going to keep on coming, if she insists on being intransigent.)
Look. The Supreme Court has said that all loving couples, regardless of gender, should be allowed to legally marry. I personally agree with this stance. I think it makes legal, moral, and ethical sense.
Ms. Davis obviously does not. Which would not be a problem in a private individual. We believe in dissent in this country.
In this case, however, Ms. Davis is a county official.
So her choices are very simple. She must either do her job, or resign.
Anything else is completely nonsensical.
Marketing for Romance Writers’ Blog Features “To Survive the Maelstrom” as part of #Thursday13
Folks, I’d asked to be part of the meme known as #Thursday13 at Marketing for Romance Writers’ busy blog a while ago. I thought letting some folks know about “To Survive the Maelstrom” would be interesting. And all they wanted was for me to post up to thirteen lines of the manuscript…so what could be simpler?
So if you’ve not read any of “To Survive the Maelstrom” yet, please go over there and read a bit about Command Sergeant-Major Peter Welmsley of the Atlantean Union. Peter was once my late husband Michael’s character, and I found his story so compelling, I wanted to know more.
That’s why I decided to write the story of how Peter meets his empathic companion, a sentient, sapient being known as a weremouse. I knew that someone who’d been so damaged as to need a complete epidermal regeneration must have a story to tell. And fortunately, I was able to figure out what, exactly, that story was.
Peter’s dilemma, you see, is one of many soldiers who come home, realizing the world around them has changed. Or at least the way they perceive the world around them has changed. They are ill in spirit, even if they might’ve been healed in body, and most of them aren’t fortunate enough to find something as accepting, loving and nurturing as a weremouse.
In fact, Peter’s struggles with his own family are alluded to, because they truly don’t seem to understand just how bad he feels. He’s lost nearly everyone he worked with; he lost his fiancée; he lost his best friend. And underneath it all, he feels guilty for surviving — and yet, if he didn’t survive, who would remember his friends? Who would remember Hunin? Who would remember to tell their stories as well as his own?
As a widow, I felt powerfully driven to write this story — not just to complete my late husband Michael’s work (which admittedly is a compelling motivation all on its own), but because I empathized with Peter.
No, I don’t have post-traumatic stress disorder, as Peter almost certainly does. No, I’ve never served in the military (though I was a military wife at one time, and they make enormous sacrifices that mostly go unnoticed). No, if Michael had lived, I probably wouldn’t have done more than edit for my husband, and talk with him about the possibilities here.
But as my life has changed profoundly due to being widowed too young, I understood where Peter was coming from. He’s a full adult. He had his life all planned out. He knew what he wanted, and he knew how to get it.
Then, in one day, everything changed. And he had to pick up the pieces.
Fortunately for Peter, a weremouse is about to change his life for the better. But that does not at all mean Peter doesn’t still have scars — many in places that do not show.
Anyway, I hope you will enjoy my story. (If you’re really sharp, you might even figure out what parts Michael wrote, and what parts I did. Though they’re not obvious…at least, I hope not.)
It’s available now at Amazon, and I hope in a few months’ time to have it up also at Smashwords and BN.com. Do let me know what you think of it.
Tuesday Morning Roundup…and “Changing Faces” Update
Folks, I have been astonished by the number of visitors to my blog over the past few days.
Who knew that writing a blog about editors winning no awards whatsoever at the Hugo Awards would be so popular?
That said, I figured I’d give you an update as to where I’m at with CHANGING FACES, and maybe talk about a few other things.
My final edit/rewrite of CHANGING FACES is in train. I hope to have it back to my publisher in a month’s time. (It may go longer. It’s hard to say right now.) I hope to hit my publishing window of late October…we already have great cover art, the blurbs have been written, and now it’s up to me to make all changes.
As for why I didn’t do this before? Simple. Two books came up needing changes at the same time. One had a release date before the other. So, naturally, I took care of the book with the earlier release date first.
I’ve been told that A LITTLE ELFY IN BIG TROUBLE will soon have cover art. (Yes, that’s the book I took care of first. I’d hoped that it would come out this past spring, or maybe early in the summer, but the timing just hasn’t aligned thus far.) So I should hit my mid-to-late September window there.
It’s been interesting to do the last-minute touch-ups on A LITTLE ELFY IN BIG TROUBLE, which is of course a young adult urban fantasy novel, and also the intensive work on CHANGING FACES — a transgender romance with alien entities that may just be angels. (So, technically, a fantasy romance. But a transgender fantasy romance. Clear as mud, yes?)
Plus, I finished up a short story for an anthology, I looked over another few stories (as I am pondering what, if anything, I can try at the Writers of the Future contest, as I remain eligible and hope springs eternal), finished up the summer season with the Racine Concert Band, finished an intensive edit for a client…
In other words, the usual.
“So, Barb, when are you going to get back to reviewing over at Shiny Book Review, hmm?”
I hope to have something later this week. I’ve had three or four books ready to go for a while now–but while I was working on both novels, I just didn’t have any time whatsoever for it.
Now that I’m back down to working on one novel, I hope I’ll be able to carve out a bit of time.
Anyway, that’s my update…stay tuned.
Nightmare at the Hugo Awards: No Award “Wins” Five Times…including for Best Editor Categories
Folks, right now, I’m not happy. As a writer and editor, I look forward to the Hugo Awards ceremony every year to see what other people active in science fiction and fantasy think of other writers and editors.
This year, apparently the other active writers and editors in my field think that no awards at all should be given out to editors. Because that’s what “won” at the Hugos this year — No Award — in both “best editor, short form” and “best editor, long form.” (These were two of the results of the 2015 Hugo Awards; go take a look at the rest if you are so inclined. I’ll wait.)
Look. I understand that the SF&F community has been rent asunder over the past few years. But one thing I thought everyone could all agree on was that books do not produce themselves.
To have a book that reads well, you need not only a good writer with an interesting plot and some excellent characterization, but a highly competent editor to pull the story into its best-possible form.
Why? Well, the best writers in the world can and often do make mistakes, and it’s up to your handy-dandy, trustworthy, hard-working editor to fix them.
The people who were nominated for Hugo Awards all have a great deal of experience as editors behind them. None of them were people who just came in off the street and started editing yesterday; most have edited for at least ten years, and some a great deal more…even the casual fan is aware of Toni Weisskopf of Baen Books and Sheila Gilbert of DAW Books, to name two fine editors who were passed over for “no award” in the long form category, because these two ladies have had long and successful careers as editors to date.
How “No Award” can be voted for by anyone in good conscience over either of them bothers me.
Quite frankly, even though I’ve not been a fan of Vox Day as an editor or a writer, I don’t see how “No Award” can come before him, either. His authors have all sworn blind that he is as hard-working as any of the other editors who were nominated, and he’s been in the SF&F field for quite some time.
Editing awards are about simply that: editing…and who’s good at it.
And speaking of Vox Day solely as an editor — solely for the work he has done — if he’s been nominated for an award, dammit, he deserves to come in ahead of “no award” just like all the other hard-working editors in these two categories.
As a hard-working, lesser-known editor, let me be the first to say, “Boo, hiss!” to the Hugo Award voters who decided to turn the editing awards into a mockery — all because some respondents apparently did not like the Sad Puppies and/or Rabid Puppies, and decided to throw their votes away rather than vote for any of the people who’d actually done the work to help put high-quality books and magazines up for sale.
Hugo Awards committee people, I don’t blame you for this nonsense. You did your best with a bad hand, and I appreciate the hard work and effort you put in.
I do blame the campaign in the media, that has done its best to devalue the hard work of people of various races, creeds, ethnicities, and sexuality/gender preferences. Because I am tired of the narrative framing already, that somehow voting for “No Award” has brought back the “integrity” of the Hugo Awards…as that is simply hogwash.
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