New Reviews

A pair of great reviews showed up recently. The first is for Star Wars vs. Star Trek, and Earl Davis wrote it for the Empyrean. He gives the book 4 out of 5 stars and writes:

It took one of our own, Matt Forbeck to shine an honest light on the subject and force us to laugh at ourselves… Forbeck pulls no punches, laying out lightsaber swipes and Vulcan Nerve Pinches with equal aplomb.

Over at Amazon.com, Darrin Drader tackles Amortals. He awards it a perfect 5 out of 5 stars. Among other kind things, he writes:

The story has the kind of action that you would expect from a Hollywood movie, but there’s a very touching human element to the book that you simply don’t find in a lot of action movies.

Thanks, guys!

Bid and Vote on ENnies Dream Dates

Once again, the ENnies (the biggest tabletop RPG awards around) will have a cocktail hour and award ceremony at Gen Con this August. As part of that, they’ve asked a number of industry folks to help raise money by auctioning off an arrangement to hang out with them during the big ballyhoo. The list this year includes Paizo, White Wolf, the 2011 ENnies Judges, Ed Healy/Rone Barton (Atomic Array), Erik Bauer (Gaming Paper), Evil Hat Productions, Hero Games, Monte Cook, Owen K.C. Stephens, Sean Fannon (DTRPG), Stan!, and me–even though I’m only able to commit to the cocktail hour due to conflicting plans later in the evening.

The auctions for Paizo and White Wolf are already up on eBay. For the rest of us, the ENnies are running a poll to see whose time should be put up for bid next. Go check it out and vote for me or whoever else you’d like to see on the block next. We’ll all get there sooner or later, have some fun, and raise some money to help keep the ENnies running.

[Edited to add:] I don’t recall if I ever publicly thanked Ben McFarland for his winning bid last year. We had a great chat at the ENnies about his burgeoning work as an RPG writer (check out Streets of Zobeck, for instance), but that was just part of a series of talks throughout the weekend, starting at the Diana Jones Award ceremony. Thanks, Ben!

eBay Burst

With school out, my son Marty is listed a bunch more things from the games collection in my attic on eBay. We also have a few things left from the collection of Liz Danforth up there now. If you’re looking for old, good games cheap, be sure to check out our listings. He’ll be adding to them regularly over the next few weeks.

You’ll also help keep Marty too busy to play ding-dong-ditch on me while I’m trying to write, so that’s a double bonus.

Hot & Steamy Review and Interview

Over at Steamed, Suzanne Lazear asked me to write a quick post about my story for Hot & Steamy: Tales of Steampunk Romance. In the post, I explain how the invitation to write such a story surprised me, but that turned out to be a good thing. Anything that forces you to stretch your creative muscles outside of your standard strolls seems wise to me.

Also, at the Main Edge, Allen Adams gives Hot & Steamy a solid review. This includes a shout-out to my story, “In the Belly of the Behemoth,” which he describes as “a Civil War-era tale about a crazed Confederate inventor and the slaves he may push too far.”

Hot & Steamy Out Today

Hot & Steamy: Tales of Steampunk Romance, the new anthology from Jean Rabe and Martin H. Greenberg, hits digital and analog bookshelves today. It features stories from Donald J. Bingle, Maurice Broaddus, Tobias S. Buckell, Mary Louise Eklund, C.J. Henderson, Vicki Johnson-Steger, Dean Leggett, Jody Lynn Nye, Mickey Zucker Reichert, Michael A. Stackpole, Stephen D. Sullivan, Marc Tassin, Robert E. Vardeman, Elizabeth A. Vaughan, and C.A. Verstraete, plus one from me.

Despite the basic theme running through the anthology, the tales vary in particulars as much as their authors. My tale “In the Belly of the Behemoth,” pits the slaves on a Georgia plantation in the midst of the American Civil War against their mad-scientist master and his steampunk battle machine. Here’s a short sample:

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Happy Birthday, Quads!

I had a wonderful, jam-packed weekend, most of which was spent celebrating the ninth birthday of my quadruplet kids: Pat, Nick, Ken, and Helen. It started off Friday right after school with a sleepover party with four of their friends and their big brother Marty, who was nursing a side pain that landed us in the ER on Thursday. (He’s fine now, thanks.) This involved pizza, playing outside in the record-breaking heat (94F), making s’mores over an open fire, and camping out in the backyard.

The kids and their guests had a wonderful, wild time, staying up past midnight and then getting up at the crack of dawn. We dined on donuts and started playing again until the guests’ parents came to collect them, except for one boy who plays on the quads’ soccer team. I coached the quads’ last soccer game at 11:30 AM, and we all came home to collapse for a couple hours before heading out to a friend’s pool party, at which there was another cake with the quads’ names on it too.

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Insightful Interview and Bond Podcast

You can tell when I’m busy because I don’t post around here nearly as often as I’d like. Things like Twitter and Facebook make it easy for me to toss out quick updates or observations with far less effort, so I tend to rely on those rather than writing bits for here–or for GeekDad or Tor.com, both of which are kind enough to publish my posts too.

In the meantime, though, I took part in a couple interviews that were released over the past week. First, I joined the crew at the RedPhoneZone for a discussion of one of my favorite movie series, the James Bond films. We had a great time, ranging over the entire gamut.

Today, Sue London posted an interview with me over at Writing Insight. In it, I talk about the ups and downs of being a freelance writer, plus a description of me as a superhero action figure.

At the moment, I’m gearing up for a quick trip to Seattle later this week for a still secret-project, so expect a bit more silence here as I keep my nose to the virtual grindstone, even as I wander about.

 

Free Angry Robot Song Remix Album

Earlier this year, John Anealio asked me to help him out with some verses for the “Angry Robot” song he’d written as a theme song for the Angry Robot podcasts that Mur Lafferty hosts for Angry Robot, the publisher of my original novels. He posted it on his website for free downloads, and people seemed to like it.

That included the folks at Angry Robot, who suggested we run a remixing contest for the song, with the prize being a death scene for a character named after the winner in my next original novel, Carpathia. We had a lot of great entries, and we recently announced the winners. John then assembled the best of the remixes and has made them available as a free, downloadable album. Be sure to check it out, and enjoy!

Heading for WisCon

I’m heading up to WisCon in Madison this weekend to take part in, as they bill it, the world’s leading feminist science-fiction convention, which has expanded over the years to include discussions on gender, race, and class. I’m scheduled for one panel at 1 PM on Saturday: “Shakespeare Got to Get Paid, Son.” My fellow panelists (Shannon Prickett, Shana Cohen, Alexandra Erin, and Kathryn Sullivan) and I will talk about the changing landscape of professional writing and how to make a living while weathering it.

Other than that, I plan to wander around, meet people, catch up with old friends, and have a great time. I’ll definitely check into the Tor party on Saturday night, to do many of those exact same things, but in a single suite. If you’re in the area, I hope to see you there!