28% Discount

It just came to my attention that Barnes and Noble has my books The Sea Witch, and Through the Groaning Earth on sale for a 28% discount.  That means that the Sea Witch is $7.88 and Through the Groaning Earth is $8.60. If you've been waiting for a good deal to pick them up now might be the time.

The Groaning Earth in Digital

Fictionwise, a website that traffics in electronic versions of literature, regularly has Through the Groaning Earth listed at $2.99, which I--egotistically--think is a pretty good value.  However, since it's a new release they currently have it listed at just $2.54.

An unnatural storm arises with great fury and breaks the spine of a foreign warship upon the reefs of Bathos, casting the few survivors into the merciless machinery of the City of Corruption; A silver mine haunted by the vengeful dead; An Assassins Guild that will stop at nothing to slay one that was formerly their own--the woman known as the 'siren of slaughter'; a perilous journey through the bowels of a mountain where lurk the half-breed children of man and demon. Welcome to the City of Bathos! 

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [356 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [305 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [308 KB] , Portable Document Format (PDF) [932 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [356 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [352 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [342 KB] , hiebook (KML) [772 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [382 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [291 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [365 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [438 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [473 KB]
Words: 109559
Reading time: 313-438 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Portable Document Format (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
ISBN: 97814505005116  

The Sea Witch on Sale

When Olympic fencer Max Damage inherits the family business, Damage Inc, he finds messy bookkeeping and a number of mysterious projects, and when a long-legged Russian woman breaks into the offices late one night he finds himself the target of the president of Murmykia--the self styled chess-master and ruler of a splintered Russian state. As the pile of dead bodies and the mysteries grow deeper, Max fights to unravel the tangled skein of his own shadowed past until he comes face to face with his own twisted alter ego.

The Sea Witch is slated for general release at the end of September, but you can pre-order a copy at http://www.pulpworkpress.com and get free shipping.

Through the Groaning Kindle

My dark fantasy novel, Through the Groaning Earth is now available for the Kindle and for only $2.99.  If you've got a Kindle pick up a copy of Through the Groaning Earth at Amazon !

Nook Review

In the year 2000, in writing Dire Planet, I envisioned a 'Clip Pad' device created by NASA technology which enabled marooned astronaut Garvey Dire to store a library of thousands of books and movies.  Ten years later the general public has access to the 'Ipad' which can do just that.  

Though I easily imagine cutting edge technology it some times take me longer to adopt it.  Being slightly behind the technological curve gives one the advantage of a lower price and an opportunity for the bugs to be worked out.  For a long time I've been resisting the purchase of an electronic reader, but the falling prices of ereaders finally lured me in and I purchased a Nook from Barnes and Noble. Instead of a long-winded examination of the product I'll list some pros and cons and then make a summation.

Pros:
Good size for reading and portability
Capable of reading the standard Epub files and PDF files.
Lots of free public domain Epub and PDF files available for reading.
Barnes and Nobles offers a listing of free classic book downloads every Friday- more good books than you can possibly read in a week.
You can load up your music collection (MP3) and listen via a tiny speaker or headphones
Upgradable from 8 Gigabytes to 40 gigabytes by adding a 32 gb chip which you can get for $25 on Amazon.
Low eyestrain
Long battery life
You can fit hundreds or even thousands of books on your Nook and carry them with you.
The Nook has a small touch screen at the bottom
If you accidentally wipe out your memory you can redownload your books from Barnes and Noble at any time.
It handles black and white illustrations quite well.
It's the right size.  It's easy to lounge about and read your Nook just as if you were reading a book.

Cons:
Speed of navigation: It takes time to switch between books or to find specific passages. A search function helps, but is very slow and not always effective. I've got scriptures on my Nook and it is time consuming to look up a specific passage. The Nook is not designed for any casual or serious scriptorian--only for lateral reading.
If the power goes out for three or four days the Nook will be useless
It requires a light source to read. The Nook is not backlit.
Color illustrations are sometimes translated into black and white quite well, but other times they confuse the Nook and end up looking like fuzz.
The formating on the PDF files sometimes comes out odd depending upon the size of font you choose.
Not good for visual books like graphic novels

All in all I'm quite pleased with the Nook. I've got hundreds of books loaded onto it and most were public domain and cost me nothing. There are also a number of publishers that offer very reasonable prices on their books. Largely the way I choose between hard copy and digital copy is economics. If I can purchase an electronic copy for less than half the price of a hard copy I'll go with the electronic copy.

However, the Nook is not all that I hoped. I had anticipated being able to cruise from scripture to scripture at least as fast as I could manage with paper scriptures. This was not the case. It has molasses-like navigation functions. Despite this I find the Nook a useful gadget that I'll be able to get lots of use out of--just not as much use as I was hoping.

The other day I went out of town and I took my Ipod in case I wanted to watch an old episode of Star Trek, my Nook for reading, and a AlphaSmart so I could do some writing. I realized that one compact gadget that could do all three of these things would be preferable. Turns out that Samsung's already got something on the way that's more compact than the I-Pad but has a larger screen than the Ipod touch.

The future is not this particular Nook, but barring nuclear war, it is inescapable that more and more people will be doing their reading on electronic devices. Those devices will change and evolve and each person will settle with something that fits their pocket book, their need, and their desires.  The idea of a handheld gadget that does only one thing is already outdated--and there is some room for improvement on the one thing that the Nook is designed for: reading books.

Oh, there's one development that I predicted in Dire Planet which still hasn't come to pass: the 'Clip Pad' was rechargeable with solar energy. An astronaut stranded on Mars doesn't always an electrical outlet handy.  Once Apple comes out with an Ipad that you don't have to plug in to keep charged up they'll really have something.  

The Expendables

Derrick Ferguson has a review for the movie The Expendables posted at the PulpWork Press website.

Long Night in Little China

Yesterday I was finally able to deliver on a promised Lone Crow Story, Against the Gathering Darkness, which is now available in Dark Worlds magazine #5.

It seems that Lone Crow isn't through with his adventures yet, though. An upcoming anthology, Six Guns Straight from Hell, has decided to pick up the Lone Crow story, Long Night in Little China. This story finds Lone Crow in gold rush San Francisco, at odds with the tongs that rule Little China and hold a lot of sway in the rest of the criminal-ridden city.

It will be a long stretch before Long Night in Little China sees print, so in the meantime get your fix of weird western by reading Against the Gathering Darkness.

Lone Crow & Wyatt Earp

I know I teased this story, Against the Gathering Darkness, a long, long time ago but sometimes that's how long it takes to get a story published. But it's finally here! Famous native American gunslinger Lone Crow and another guy named Wyatt Earp join forces to look for a lost archeologist up north of Skagway Alaska and discover a little more than they bargained for lurking at the bottom of a played out mine. This sucker is about 12,000 words long--room enough for some heavy-duty storytelling and an action-packed ending--and you can read it in Dark Worlds #5. If you've got an electronic reader that can handle (PDF) Portable Document Files or you don't mind reading on your computer you can save a bundle by picking up the $3.99 download.

However, some might be tempted to pick up the hard copy just because of the awesome M.D. Jackson cover. But besides the cool cover you're going to get the following line up of nifty pulp-style stories:

"Of Kings and Servants" by C.J. Burch (Sword and Sorcery)

The Hook by J.F. Gonzalez (Horror)

The Black Grave of Deception by Peter Welmerink (Sword and Sorcery)

Body of Work (A Mythos Horror 'Book Collector' story)

The Cryo Game by Jack Mackenzie (Space Adventure)

Black Destiny of Ys by David A. Hardy (Historical Fantasy)

Against the Gathering Darkness by Joel Jenkins (Historical Western Horror/Adventure)

An Interview with C. J. Burch: A Chuck the Barbarian Cartoon