Straight from the Barrel...

PUBLISHED!!!

2008-06-25T19:41:30Z

Ha ha, yeah, I'm not always the crispiest cookie in the jar, so to speak. I sort of misplaced my blog for a couple months there (long story), but the good news is I found it! Ha!

And better yet I'm going to be published! (In Andromeda Spaceways Inflght Magazine - woot! I'll let you know when they give me a publication date.) So hang in there, gang. More news to come...

(BTW the old e-mail address is still defunct - it was essentially spammed right out of existence. I have a new one but I'm not giving it out yet. Look for a new contact through the website within the next couple months.)

I'm Not Dead Yet...

2008-01-19T01:35:36Z

Monty Python fans might recognize the title of this post. If you don't, go rent The Holy Grail. You'll get it.

The site isn't being updated right now while I focus on my writing. Furthermore, my old e-mail addresses were utterly swamped by spammers, so like any good space marine, I nuked em from the air. (Watch Aliens if you don't get that one.) E-mails to my old addresses don't reach me anymore. I'll give you a way to contact me later, when I can figure out something that will be both public and utterly spam-free. (Wish me luck.)

In the meantime, know that the site is not dead, (know that I am not dead), and know that slowly but surely things are moving forward. I have several short story submissions in the works and a graphic novel project underway, so look for news over the weeks and months ahead. The site redesign is also still in the works but has been postponed due to responsibilities in other areas of my life, first and foremost being my own writing.

BTW, I'd like to offer special thanks to a few folks for generally bearing with me:

Mitchums, you rock. No one could ask for a better supporter or a better friend.

Phil Gerbyshak, you are a prince. You know the value of staying in touch and cheering people on. You are a gift and a blessing.

Rosa Say, you are magnificent. The Joyful Jubilant Learning network has been tremendously important to me, and I thank you and all the crew there form the bottom of my heart. Look for me in the months to come...

And of course to all my family and personal friends, thank you for your love and support. You are all so very, very precious.

And finally, to the entire Realm of Arygos, you people are wonderful. Don't change a bit. God bless, and good hunting...

New Artwork!!!

2007-10-02T16:25:52Z

In the past two weeks, the blog accumulated over 500 junk comments. I've deleted the spam, but I've also turned commenting off for the time being, while we work on the site redesign.

In other site news, I'll be running the monthly book drawing this afternoon and sending out an October newsletter this week to update readers with some sneak preview artwork, so stay tuned...

What's Up with the Website...

2007-09-14T19:10:06Z

For those of you who might be wondering whether the blog is fading... FAR FROM IT!!! In fact, our talented web team has recently embarked upon a major redesign of the entire site, with tremendous things in store...

My own writing is starting to take off, and the new site will feature original Brent Woodside artwork of several characters from my stories. (I can hardly wait!!!)

And for all you faithful readers, the new site will also have all its content organized in an easy-to-find fashion, with separate sections for reviews, interviews, a calendar of events, new releases, and of course the bookshelves, where you can find tons of great reads in fantasy and science fiction.

You won't even have to wait a whole month for each new set of reviews because we'll be publishing new stuff whenever we have it. So no more waiting for that next great read. Find it when you want it!

In light of these developments, the updated content might be a bit on the slim side while we develop and build the new site, but rest assured that Mind Unbound is growing and evolving at a rapid pace, to be re-released within the next couple of months, bigger and better than ever!

Stay tuned!

(To be notified when the new release is up and running, sign up for the free Mind Unbound newsletter!)

Looking for a Website Designer

2007-09-07T16:23:59Z

The website has come a long way since it first started up, and I'm looking to do some major upgrade/redesign work ASAP. I also need to move the site to a new ISP (and probably a new publishing system).

If anyone out there likes what I'm doing, has some serious web programming talent, and wants to help upgrade the site for a fair price and in a reasonable time frame, by all means get in touch.

Thanks.

Erin Gray - Still as Beautiful as Ever

2007-09-06T17:58:19Z

Dragon-Con was amazing; I'm still recovering. But here's a sneak preview of some of the things to come. Photos galore. Stay tuned...

It Works!!! (Oh, and the Newsletter is Up...)

2007-08-31T15:37:06Z

Woo hoo! Blog posting works again, just in time for DragonCon 2007! So good luck finding me over the next few days, I'll be in sci-fi/fantasy dream land...

If you're going to be there, the folks at ArcheBooks will generally know where to find me. Look for them in the exhibit room, table A98 or A99 I think. And while you're there, be sure to say hello to author Sandy Lender!

And... the September newsletter is up!

Check it out for reviews of Killing the Rabbit by Alison Goodman, The Fire Opal by Catherine Asaro, and Weremones by Buffi BeCraft-Woodall. You'll also find a whole mess of links to September releases in science fiction and fantasy.

Finally, if you haven't yet signed up to win a free book with free worldwide shipping, it's not too late for the August drawing. It might be after Dragon-Con before I get around to it, so take advantage of the extra time and sign up today!

Once you enter, you'll automatically be entered every month, plus you'll get a special notice of any surprise promotions we decide to run.

Hey, free books! What more could you ask for?

An Interview with Sandy Lender and Nigel Taiman

2007-08-27T20:45:00Z

EM: Welcome back to the Cobblestone Café, everyone. I'm here this week with, not one, but two special guests: fantasy author Sandy Lender and her leading man, Nigel Taiman. Sandy, Nigel, thanks for joining me today!

Sandy Lender: Good morning. It's good to be here.

Nigel Taiman: Good morning. It's good to see you again, Ms. Sky. Thank you for hosting Sandy today.

EM: Nigel, please, there's no need to be formal. It's just EM, like the letter "M."

Nigel Taiman: Pretty. So does anyone in your life call you Emmie?

Sandy Lender: You can pretend he's not really here. He has this propensity for misusing everyone's name. It sends the women in the novel into conniptions half the time.

EM: That's all right. He can call me Emmie, if he wants to.

So, Sandy, there's a tremendous background to Choices Meant for Gods, a rich tapestry of gods and sorcery and at least two different kinds of magic, a tremendously complex history, not to mention different cities with different cultures that I presume are expanded later in the trilogy... How long did it take to work out all these details?

Sandy Lender: All your visitors will think I'm insane after this answer, but I guess an epic fantasy author has to be a little on the "touched" side or she wouldn't be in the business. I first envisioned my main character, the heroine of Choices Meant for Gods, Amanda Chariss, back in 1982 or 1983, as she stood on her benefactor's balcony with her arms holding back the curtains, as if she was embracing the morning before her like some sort of goddess. I was instantly taken with her...fell in love right then and there. What I didn't realize at the time was that I viewed her through the eyes of the bad guy; my villain, Lord Jamieson Drake, was the one showing me this stunning young lady. I've been hearing whispers of her story and her world's history ever since.

So it took roughly from 1983 to 2000 to sketch out the history and the religion and the map and the stars and the genealogy and the legends and everything necessary to create the story behind Choices Meant for Gods. I sat down at the computer in 2000 and wrote the first book in about three years.

As one of my muses and guides in the writing of the story, Chariss herself was instrumental in getting all the facts straight. Lately, Nigel here has been a big help in making sure I have the story right, as well.

EM: Wow, that's some serious dedication! But the Choices trilogy has obviously been an ambitious project from the start. Nigel, you probably know Sandy better than anyone. Tell us, how do you think she managed to stick with it through all those long years? What kept her going?

Nigel Taiman: I might be sitting too close to her to answer that honestly. I guess I could say she's quite driven to get the story of my bride told. She has deep sympathy for what Mandy goes through. Chariss. Pardon me. Everyone else calls her Chariss. Because she has such compassion for Chariss and the other characters, Sandy wants to get the story right. That means spending time on all the details. I think that's why the two of us are spending so much time in editing with Book II right now. The details are driving her nuts.

EM: Speaking of details... in the world of Choices Meant for Gods, there are at least three different kinds of magical ability that we've seen so far. There are wizards, like Hrazon, who use a kind of sorcery; there are "gifted" people like Chariss—and like you, too, Nigel, right?—who use the geasa; and there are even gods who walk the earth among mortals.

Can you give us just a bit of background about these three kinds of magic? What are their strengths and weaknesses, and how do they differ from one another?

Sandy Lender: Well, I need to make sure that we keep the two basic kinds of "magic" as people will call them very clear. I'm actually pretty careful not to refer to the geasa as magic. In fact, in the novel, bigots and people who fear the Geasa'n refer to those who possess the geasa as "magicked" and use the term in a derogatory fashion. It's often shortened to "'jicked" as a slang use, and it actually gets under my skin now as badly as some of our disgusting slang terms that bigots in our society use.

Hrazon, a wizard, does not use sorcery. He possesses the geasa. Chariss, a Geasa'n, does not use sorcery. She possesses the geasa. Nigel here, a Geasa'n, also possesses the geasa, but he's got a little surprise that we figure out in the novel and that will prove invaluable in Book II.

Now, Lord Drake, a sorcerer, uses sorcery. There's a big, bad, evil difference between the geasa and the power that is derived from sorcery in my novel. You see, I'm a southern baptist and I take to heart the parts of the Bible where it teaches that sorcery is a bad thing derived from a bad source. So I don't want to confuse younger readers with the idea that my "good guys" would use sorcery or magic, even if it was for a good purpose. This left me with a dilemma. How do I portray Chariss's gift without confusing the living daylights out of everybody? So I made something up. Yes, that's walking a fine line, but this is fantasy. What can ya do?

Oh, and then I had all these gods and goddesses (oh, that would kinda conflict with my southern baptist upbringing, by the way, but, again, epic fantasy...) that I couldn't have rushing about tossing spells derived from sorcery. So my best bet was to create a power derived from the positive forces in nature. Voila. The geasa was born. And I made Chariss just ooze with it because she rocks.

Nigel Taiman: She does.

Sandy Lender: There are different levels of power within the geasa. Everybody's got it doled out to them in differing amounts. That's why Chariss's power is unknown at first. Her wizard guardian, Hrazon, is forever being surprised by the things she can do, as is Master Rothahn, the god, when He shows up on the scene, because no one knows how much power a Geasa'n has until he or she starts practicing with it. Certain beings have known limitations, though, as the reader learns. For instance, wizards don't have good healing powers in the Choices Meant for Gods mythos.

EM: Nigel, I noticed you just had to chime in there about Chariss. It seems to me you have two important women in your life: Chariss, and this lovely lady here with you today. Tell us, do Chariss and Sandy remind you of each other at all?

Nigel Taiman: By the gods, Woman! There is no way I can answer that without getting punched soundly.

Sandy Lender: I could promise not to punch you.

Nigel Taiman: Do you see how amused she is by this, Emmie? You don't know the danger you've put me in. I've got a bride back home in my society who won't like any answer I give and a fantasy author right here who won't like any answer I give.

I think the best way to explain this is to give you Sandy's opinion, not mine. Sandy doesn't think Chariss bears any resemblance to her or vice versa, and I'm not just talking about the amethyst on her cheek. Chariss is Chariss. In fact, Sandy says that if there are any characteristics of a person from this society in Chariss, it's probably traces of her younger sister and traces of the orphan Jane Eyre from the Charlotte Bronte novel. I've not met Sandy's sister, so I can't comment on that comparison, and from the passages I've read of Jane Eyre, I'd have to say Chariss does possess Jane's indomitable spirit. Chariss possesses a lot of spirit. In fact, she's got this incredible ability to—

Sandy Lender: EM, you might want to interrupt him right about now. That look means we're going to get a diatribe on Chariss's merits.

EM: Right. So, Sandy, before I let you go, I hear you're going to Dragoncon. That's in Atlanta, from August 31st to September 3rd. Do you know yet what appearances you'll be making?

Sandy Lender: I'm not presenting at DragonCon, but I will have a presence at my dealer table that I share with fellow ArcheBooks author M.B. Weston. Then I'm also assisting the good folks at FantasyBookSpot.com with their "newscasting" of the show. That fifteen years of journalism experience I've got under my belt lets me help lots of people.

EM: So have you done one of these before? What's it like to appear at a convention as a new author?

Sandy Lender: The conventions I've attended in the past have all seen me in an organizational role so this and Context 20, where I'll be speaking about building religions and researching things that don't exist and e-publishing... I imagine it's going to be a nonstop whirlwind of activity. At both shows.

EM: Wow, sounds exciting!

Sandy Lender: It does. I'm looking forward to carrying a sword around.

EM: Well, Larry's telling me we're just about out of time here, but I want to thank you both again for being on the show. Sandy, Nigel, it's been a real pleasure.

Sandy Lender: It has been fun! Thank you for inviting me. And this one here has been well-behaved.

Nigel Taiman: Nice. Emmie, it's been wonderful speaking with you again. Thank you for your hospitality.

And three... two... one... we're out. That's a wrap, everybody.

EM: So Nigel, are you going to Dragoncon, too?

Nigel Taiman: I'll be lurking. It's my job to keep the author safe, you know. She may carry that paltry little sword she's got but I'm the one who knows how to wield it. And you're going, right? You'll be accompanying us to the Tolkien party, I assume?

EM: Hey, really? You mean it?

Sandy Lender: Of course we have to hang out together. You've got to help me get away from my dealer table once in a while and make sure I get to meet all the celebrities I'm dying over. I'll be the gal with the amethyst on her cheekbone, high up near the corner of her right eye...

EM: That's terrific! I'll see you there!

Sandy Lender's Choices Meant for Gods was featured in the August issue of Wet Ink. Read the full review here, or visit the book site on Amazon.

Running the Blog on the New MT4

2007-08-27T20:00:00Z

So, I have good news, and I have bad news.

The good news is I've managed to fix the publishing problem, so at least I can post to the blog again. Woo hoo!

The bad news is that I haven't worked the comment captcha system out yet. Stay tuned...

Bear with me while I work out the technical details. Hopefully we'll be fully back on track within the next day or two...

Argh! Spaminated!

2007-08-21T18:18:11Z

I am in a grunchy, growly mood today. The site was bombarded with spam last night, the comment system is a mess, and I'm getting one server error after another.

The tech folks will be upgrading the blogging system from MT 3.31 to MT 4.0 tonight or tomorrow. Hopefully that will get things sorted out. Expect comments to remain off until then. In the meantime, wish me luck with the whole grunchy, growly thing. I think I'll go out for tacos...

An Interview with the Sheriff of Nottingham

2007-08-20T06:34:06Z

EM: Welcome back to the Cobblestone Café, where life slows down every Monday morning, and authors and characters stop in for a chat. Apparently our little show has caused quite a stir in Locksley after last week's interview with Robin Hood. So I'm here this morning at knife point— I mean, it's my pleasure this week to have the Sheriff of Nottingham here with us in the EM Sky studios. Welcome, Sheriff.

Sheriff: Thank you, EM. It's quite gracious of you to have me. I—

[voice interrupted by screeching feedback]

Sheriff: If this is your idea of a joke... Are we still on the air?

EM: Yes, we are, Sheriff. Sorry. We're all just a bit nervous around here, what with the armed henchman scattered about.

Sheriff: They are not henchman. These are my personal guard. One can't be too careful these days, with murderers like Hood on the loose.

EM: Not to argue with you, Sheriff, but he didn't threaten anyone while he was here.

Sheriff: Well he wouldn't, would he? Not on the air. No, no. He's far too underhanded for that. He'd rather break into my personal bedchamber in the middle of the night, put a knife to my throat, and threaten my life without any witnesses. That's how an assassin operates, you know. No proof against him, nothing corroborated.

EM: But if he's an assassin, why didn't he kill you?

Sheriff: What's that?

EM: When he was in your bedchamber, with the knife at your throat. If he's really the murderer you claim he is, why didn't he kill you?

Sheriff: Er... well... that was just a figure of speech, you see. My guards would never let a criminal like Hood anywhere near the castle. Absolutely not.

EM: But Robin's been to the castle plenty of times.

Sheriff: No, he hasn't.

EM: There are eyewitnesses.

Sheriff: No, there aren't.

EM: We have three eyewitnesses waiting on the call lines already!

Sheriff: Really? That's fascinating. I want their names. Just to talk with them, you understand. So we can conduct a thorough investigation.

EM: Um... hmmm... it seems they've all hung up.

Sheriff: Of course they have. You see? Just a few harmless peasants wanting a little attention. There aren't any real eyewitnesses because Robin Hood couldn't get anywhere near me. I'm far too clever for him.

[sound of an arrow flying by the microphone and thudding into the wall; cue the action-adventure theme music]

EM: What the heck?

Sheriff: Robin! Where is he? Guards! Find him! Robin, come out and face me, you coward!

EM: Sheriff? Why are you hiding under the table?

Sheriff: [in a hissing whisper] I'm not hiding! Don't say I'm hiding on the air!

EM: Oh, right. Sorry. But really, what are you doing down there?

Sheriff: I'm not down anywhere. I'm sitting right here at the table with you.

EM: No, you aren't.

Sheriff: Yes, I am.

EM: No, you aren't.

Sheriff: Yes, I am!

EM: No, you—

Sheriff: Cut!

EM: Cut? You can't say 'cut.' This isn't a movie set.

Sheriff: When I say 'cut,' I mean 'cut'! Guards!

EM: Uh oh. OK, that's about it for this week's show, ladies and gentlemen. Let's have a nice, loud round of applause so the Sheriff can hear it down there under the—

Sheriff: Cut!

And-three-two-one-we're-out-and-I'm-out-of-here-bye-EM...

EM: Larry? Hey, Larry? Is anybody in the booth? Oh, that's just great. Lousy, ungrateful sound engineers... I tell you. You offer someone a job, and then at the first sign of mortal danger, wham! Bye-bye, boss.

Sheriff: Hey, I know how you feel. Miserable, isn't it? I lose more guards that way...

EM: All right, well, I guess I'm heading out, too. Sheriff? Can I get you anything down there before I go?

Sheriff: No, thanks. I'm fine.

EM: You sure?

Sheriff: Yep, I'm good.

EM: OK, well, keep your head down...

Sheriff: Yeah. Very funny.

Subscriptions for Your Local Library

2007-08-17T02:50:28Z

Just as a quick follow-up on Douglas Cohen's subscription drive post, I'd like to add a couple of suggestions from Chris over at SFWA who wrote:

When's the last time you gave the gift of a subscription? Or donated a subscription to a local library?

Subscription gifts and donations to your local library! It's brilliant! Tomorrow I'm going to find out what our own local library carries and make sure my favorites are on their shelves. If not, that's next on my list!

Short Fiction Subscription Drive

2007-08-17T02:06:28Z

Today's blog contribution comes from Douglas Cohen, the slushmaster for Realms of Fantasy. Please read it. Please take it to heart. I'll be subscribing to three short fiction magazines tonight. And I'll be reporting those subscriptions, as requested.

His post is angry in places, yes. Mr. Cohen is understandably frustrated, trying desperately to save a dying genre. And as of this moment, so am I. Without further ado, here's the post that started it all...

This is not a subscription drive for Realms of Fantasy. I repeat: THIS IS NOT A SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE FOR REALMS OF FANTASY.

This is what I'm calling a general subscription drive, specifically for the short story market in speculative literature.

Every year in Gardner Dozois' Year's Best Science Fiction collection, he does a market breakdown in the introduction. In this breakdown, he gives the details about the performances for the bigger magazines in the industry. Yesterday Mercurio D. Rivera was nice enough to email me what Gardner wrote for Realms of Fantasy:

Circulation figures for ROF lag a year behind the other magazines, but their 2005 figures show them registering a 13% loss in overall circulation from 2004, with subscriptions dropping from 17,191 to 16,547, and newstand sales dropping from 9,398 to 6,584 after two previous years in a row of newstand gains, sell-through increased from 20% to 29%. They published good stuff this year by Jay Lake and Ruth Nestvold, James Van Pelt, Richard Parks, Greg Van Eekhout, and others. Shawna McCarthy is the longtime editor.

Afterward Mercurio told me the other big mags did as bad or worse in their performance summaries.

Well. First, as always, congrats to the ROF authors who garnered these honorable mentions. But this aside, I got to thinking just how depressing the numbers for the short story market have become. It's been on a steady decline for some years, and it's only growing worse. Going by these numbers Realms of Fantasy took a nasty hit, and we're in better shape than most. I'm hopeful our upgraded website will draw more subscriptions when summary for 2006 comes out. That remains to be seen.

Either way, the short story market is dying. We always talk about it, but very few people seem to do anything about it. So it got me to thinking about what I could do. I'm a novel boy at heart, but since coming to Realms of Fantasy I've grown to love the short fiction market. I want to see it go on. But if we keep going as we are, if people keep treating this market like America treats oil, it will dry up. Permanently. Yes, there are online venues and I'm all for them. Anything that promotes the genre is great. But at the moment these venues are fighting to create viable business models. Their ultimate success remains to be seen.

So again. What could I do? Well, it occurred to me how in recent years there have been subscription drives for Talebones and also The Apex Science Fiction & Horror Digest. I think there was also a drive of sorts to save Ralan.com. All three of these drives were successful. Mostly word spread the blogosphere. And people did something.

So I thought to myself, "Hey, what if we did a general subscription drive, to boost the magazines for general purposes? Every subscriber counts." The difference here is that I'm not talking about any specific magazine in danger of dying. There is no immediate urgency. Nothing right now. But like with oil, one day we'll wake up and the magazines could very well be gone. We need to do something now, before that happens.

So I'm asking people to do two things. First, spread this post throughout the blogosphere. Get the message out. Second, if you haven't subscribed to a magazine recently, unless you don't have the $$$ pick one and subscribe! At least one. Saying you don't have the time to read the magazine is a lame excuse. How many of us have books we bought years ago that we haven't read? I do. Add a few magazines to the pile. What's the harm? And if you just read novels, try short stories. Why have you only been reading novels, especially if you want to be a writer? Do you honestly think there is nothing to be learned from reading shorter works? And don't tell me you've tried all the magazines. New ones are always starting. And when a new editor takes over the helm, in many ways that magazine becomes new. (You can't very well tell me you've tried the new Weird Tales. Ann Vandermeer has been the editor a couple of months, sure, but the magazine has an inventory to get through. Her selections haven't been published yet, but they soon will be). Or you can ask for suggestions. I'll answer them. So will other people reading this post, here or elsewhere. The speculative community is cool like that.

Excuses are nothing but that. So pick a magazine. Again, it doesn't have to be Realms of Fantasy (although it can be). Make it Fantasy Magazine, or The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, or Weird Tales. Get your fantasy someplace else. I don't care. Just get it. Or get some science fiction from Asimov's or Analog. Or if you think online mags are the next wave, then go to Baen's Universe or Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. Or maybe there is smaller magazine you're been kind of curious about. Subscribe. Help them take the next step in their publishing timetable, or help keep them alive. And if you're not sure which magazine to subscribe to, another option is to go to Ralan.com and see which one looks interesting.

Don't be that schmuck who litters because you figure someone else will clean up your mess. Everyone who reads this genre and isn't subscribing is making that mess, causing this market to wither and die. And don't tell me why this won't help. Just spread the word and subscribe. Now. If you don't, that's why this won't help. Because every subscription does help. Negativity and the word "but" are not welcome here.

And yes, I am putting my $$$ where my mouth is. Interzone is publishing my premiere story, very likely next month. Far be it from me not to support them for recognizing my brilliance. I just charged a one-year subscription to my credit card before posting this rant.

This genre has given us all so much. Isn't it time we give something back? Books are fine for the moment, at least compared to the magazines. The magazines need help. Badly. So get to work or be a schmuck.

My thanks to Mr. Cohen for getting this started. I'd also like to add Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine as another option. (I just received Issue # 30, and I can't wait!)

I'll add more of my own thoughts to this thread later tonight or tomorrow, but for now, please, go pick up a subscription to any of these wonderful magazines, or to the magazine of your choice. Especially within the speculative fiction genre. Short stories need our readership if they are going to survive.

Dream Realm Awards

2007-08-15T22:35:18Z

The 2006 Dream Realm Awards have been announced, and I'd like to offer up a very special congratulations to Sheri L. McGathy, author of The Birth of Spring, which won the Young Adult catagory.

Other categories include Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Anthology, Erotica, Spec. Fiction Romance, and Cover Art in Electronically Published Books, so drop by the award site to browse through some of the very best in speculative fiction.