November 2013 archive

Story Sold

yes, as it closes in on Christmas more and more editors close out anthologies and transmit the decisions so they’ll be able to have a break over Xmas/New year. Contract signed for“EndlessFreedom.Com,” which is to appear in the anthology Strength From Within: Stories of Recovery.

CHALICE by Robin McKinley.

Paperback published ACE December 2009. (Not crazy about the quality of the actual book. The paper of the spine started peeling back right after I received it and before I’d even started to read the book. That really isn’t good…) But the book is great, another of McKinley’s wonderful fantasies. I find that I either …

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The Lawn is looking Sheepish

For a number of woolly reasons – as in, on Friday the sheep were shorn and are currently infesting my lawn, eating that down before we all vanish in the spring growth. And most surprisingly the gaggle are sharing their territory without much fuss. I put that down to my having waited until the gosling …

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Social Media Can be Useful

Of recent weeks there’s been a howling fuss about a group of silly little boys who went onto their website to describe activities that were – at the least – immoral if not illegal. (And IMHO they were also illegal) but the interesting thing to me was that they generated huge notice because they could …

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Gosling Stops don’t only stop Goslings

Something to which I can testify. After that dratted gosling squirmed under the front gate and was discovered wandering on the other side of the road – hastily retrieved – I put up a gosling stop. This has the same purpose as a cattle stop, i.e. to prevent cattle wandering, or as in this case, …

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Early Appearance – Belated Knowledge

Quite by accident a couple of weeks ago I discovered that a story of mine had appeared. This was a horror/mystery story, See You On The Other Side in the Dark Bard anthology out from Indigo Mosaic Press.The anthology was apparently published in late July, however I wasn’t told and had no idea that it …

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Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance by Lois Mcmaster Bujold.

Baen softcover, published September 2013. I pounced on this as soon as it arrived. I’ve always loved the Vorkosigan books and didn’t expect this to be any exception. The books and short stories cover a very wide range of plot. Some have been extremely dark with ethical dilemmas involved, others have been light and frothy …

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Sigh – Spam – the continuation…

appapprently taking my comments in September on the futility of receiving (much too much) spam in French to mean that I may speak other languages, I opened my blog this morning to discover I am now being fervently addressed in a spate of German. Dear Spammers. I don’t read German either, nor Chinese, Japanese, SerboCroatian, …

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Cold Days by Jim Butcher. (Spoiler Alert! )

Softcover (I think, larger than usual pb, smaller than ususal SC.) Roc. Sept.2013. The whole tone of The Dresden Files books changed around three books back in the series. Harry found a daughter he didn’t know existed, was murdered, came back as Winter’s Knight, and found that he now faced an enemy that was greater …

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HAVE YOU OVERLOOKED – Gail Dayton?

This author hasn’t written a huge list of books. What she has written, which is why she is on my ‘Overlooked’ list, is a terrific trilogy; The Compass Rose in 2005, The Barbed Rose in 2006, and The Eternal Rose in 2007. These are often classified as romance, but I find them much more inclined …

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