My Adventure: I've Chose Life!

IN HONOR OF BRIANE PAGEL's Temporary Anne blog tour, which continues today at Sandra Ulbrich's blog, he has been writing a choose your own adventure type of tale based on reader comments. Genius idea.

As such, I read one a week or so ago after hearing the topic of Choose Your Own Adventure style stories on a podcast. One of the panelists said Choose Your own Adventure #71: Space Vampire, was the single greatest entry into the market ever made for those type of books.

So I purchased. I read. I reviewed (Read that review by clicking here).

I won't rehash, I went back and checked every option in the 118 pages of story and figured out that there were 25 possible endings to the story.

Of those, I counted 10 endings where the Vampire(s) was defeated.

"I vant to suck your Space Blood!"

12 where the hero (YOU) died, some of which overlapped with the Vampire's death.

And a smattering of no confrontation with the vampire(s), but instead a court-martial, or banishment or even accidentally loosing a vampire on earth.

All in all, it was great fun. I can see why those were so popular when they were new.

LITTLE DID I KNOW before a few weeks ago that there was a kickstarter campaign, a successful one, that was to take Shakespeare's Hamlet and turn it into one of these tales.

Did I mention it was successful? Like, of an initial goal of $20k, they managed to squeak by with $580,000 dollars! Yeah, that happened.

It ended a long time ago, but the actual video was so amazing that I had to share. Yes, it is a choose our own path story for adults!


It did sort of bum me out that after raising nearly $600k, that the the price point for the kindle edition is still $9.99... maybe has something to do with not owning the copyright and he needs that price point to make something he feels is reasonable per sale. Anyway, it's too much for me to make as an impulse buy, but I'll be watching for possible sales in the future.

Damned Titles

Hey everyone, a quick reminder that Briane Pagel's enormously fun choose your own adventure style of story continues today over at Jessica Bell's blog. All part of the promotion for his latest release, Temporary Anne.

http://www.jessicabellauthor.com/

Please stop by and check it out. 

Speaking of new releases, thanks to everyone that picked up a copy of my latest, which I snuck out into the world recently. The pic and link to the amazon page is on the sidebar. Of  course, about 75% of my blog hopping happens on on my phone, which doesn't include a sidebar. So, I suppose it's possible that other folks could have all sorts of things in their sidebar that I never see. Regardless, for your reading pleasure, please click here and enjoy..

Of course, when I put it up, my thought was to just slip it up and never mention it again. I really didn't think anyone would notice. So, kudos to those of you that did, you're paying attention.

Anyway, it's a twenty something page short story, one I enjoyed writing quite a bit. Hopefully, it's not too much of an investment to read. Oh, and if anyone want's a freebie from Amazon, let me know and I can send one.

The cover, it was more work than I like to do, but then again, I enjoy doing my own covers because I tend not to stress over the fact that my robot looks more like an alien cybernetic skeleton. I figured I could have kept working on it until it was perfect, or just go with it as-is. So, I have a robot that clearly has a femur. I figure, it's a robot, it can have a femur if it wants one.

Temporary Anne Blog Party Continues!

DAY FIVE of the "Temporary Anne" tour is continuing on the blog 

lit, a place for stories.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THAT BLOG and find out what happened on the spider web!  Here's a teaser:

My back arches with agony, the spider's legs grab me, and the speck grows even larger.  

I have one hope.

Just one.

And, for those who haven't gotten it yet, 

THANKS to everyone who's following the Temporary Anne blog tour!  

TEMPORARY ANNE is free again today!

If you didn't already get it click this link to download this excellent horror story. 

AND, as an added bonus, I'm going to let you get a complete book of horror stories, FREE, today.  "The Scariest Things, You CAN'T Imagine" is full of monsters tormenting kids, dead wives coming back from the grave, catacombs full of bodies, angry babies stolen by gargoyles, and more.  NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART.  Get it free today by clicking here!

Praise for Temporary Anne:

The FIRST REVIEWS ARE IN: 

"Amazing to read. The man just oozes cleverness. And his descriptions of the demon world are the best I've ever read anywhere. Creepy as hell." Speculative fiction Author Rusty Carl.

 "It's fascinating. If you like horror, this is definitely a book worth reading."-- Fantasy/Spec fic author Andrew Leon

"Another chilling tale from the author of The Scariest Thing You Can't Imagine. ...Pagel's style reminds me a lot of Vonnegut's work in that while the narration seems jaunty with its humorous asides and such, there's a lot of hidden depth to that narration."-- Author PT Dilloway.

Temporary Anne and Choosing Your Own Adventure

Briane Pagel has released the much ballyhooed Temporary Anne. And he's celebrating with a blog tour. Over the course of the past week or so he has been writing an entire tale based on the recommendations of commenters. So, please, contribute ideas so the story can continue. I'm such a fan of Choose Your Own Adventure styles stories that the latest book I ordered off Amazon was Space Vampires: Choose Your Own Adventure # 71. Because, how can you not love that? So let's see where that story takes us today.

And as a side note, I did read and review Temporary Anne, check that out here if you'd like to see my thoughts, which surprisingly enough, barely mentions the book I was rating. Still, great job, Briane, it's always a huge treat to read something of yours.

Please, take it away...

This is DAY FOUR of the release tour for my newest book, Temporary Anne.

Temporary Anne is a horror story about a woman so desperate to avoid Hell -- the fate for the evil she's done during her life -- that she makes things infinitely worse after her death. To celebrate the release, I'm doing a blog tour in which I'm writing a short story, LIVE, with your help!  At each stop, I'll do an installment of the story and you can suggest where it goes next!

Below is PART FOUR of the story. PART ONE appeared on Tina Downey's Life Is Good, PART TWO on Andrew Leon's Strange Pegs, and if you didn't catch either, click here to read PART ONE and HERE to read PART TWO.  Then Part Three was on Laws Of Gravity, and now

PART FOUR of "This Is How I..."

(Special Thanks to Crystal Collier for the intro to today's installment.  She wrote the first paragraph. (Check out her blog here!)

I froze, standing stick straight as uniformed men funneled around me, fixed on the Drum Major's steely eyes. A sucking sensation tugged at my gut, curling upward, like the smoke essence of my very soul leaking through our connected stares.

I didn't want to look down.

I didn't

want

to

look

d

o

w

n

and the Drum Major held my gaze.

"Don't," she said, softly, so softly I could barely hear her.

"I..." I said.

The soldiers were rushing forward, shouts of don't move and arrest and the like ringing out. They were almost to the stage.

"... have to," I said.

And suddenly I was 

f

a

l

l

i

n

g

down

down

down

down

spinningheadover

heelsoverhead

overheelsover

down

down

down

(you

get

the

point)

at one point when I turned over I saw above me the Drum Major standing on the edge of the abyss that had sucked me down the moment I'd turned my eyes on it -- the real things of this world becoming less real in my eyesight just as the imaginary things of the other worlds could be made real by my thinking about them -- her own beautiful eyes wide and her mouth saying something as a soldier grabbed her from behind and tried to wrestle her hat out of her hands.

I saw her struggle on the edge of the abyss, in flits and flickers as I tumbled overandoverandover the dim light of the auditorium spinning away from me and the circle that represented safety -- a smashed auditorium filled with soldiers ready to shoot everything, and containing a captive, angry, ENRAGED, Beast was now safety! -- getting smaller and smaller and smaller and then I 

stopped.

I stopped falling but had no idea why, there in the darkness of the pit.  I could see nothing, hear nothing (even the gunfire and struggle above was a tiny speck of light and distant shouting), and I tried to lift up my head to look around, but couldn't move it.

Fighting, I pulled my arm up but couldn't move that, either.

I kicked with my legs but they wouldn't move, either.

"This... like some kind of..." I began

Don't say it don't say it don't even think it something in the back of my brain, the part of me that still thought I had some sort of control over this, screamed at me as loudly as it could.

"Spider web," the rest of my brain rather unhelpfully finished.

Clikkerclakk

I heard.

tikkittatikkittatiktiktisk

I heard.

I closed my eyes as tightly as I could, hoping against hope that if I didn't look it wouldn't be real.

I heard a tiny faraway shout above me.

I opened my eyes, almost inadvertently.

For just a second I saw a speck drop or be thrown or dive or something into the opening far far far above me.

Then I saw eight eyes, the smallest the size of bowling balls, the largest terrifyingly bright and shiny and close, looming over me and just below them a set of fangs as large as my legs but far far sharper.

Clikkerclakk, the fangs went.

Clikkerclakk...

_________________________________________________

What happens next? Use the comments to help Rusty decide, and follow the story on the next tour dates:

The Tour Dates: 

1. Life Is Good: Friday 9/13

2. Strange Pegs: 9/1

3. . Laws Of Gravity 9/18

TODAY; 4. The Blutonian Death Egg 9/20

5. Nigel G. Mitchell Author, Blogger, Geek 9/23

6. Jessica Bell Author/Musician 9/26

7. Sandra Ulbrich Almazan, Speculative Fiction Author 9/30

8.  Jess' Book Blog 10/3

9. Lara Schiffbauer's Motivation For Creation 10/7

10.PTDilloway.com 10/10

The FIRST REVIEWS ARE IN:  "It's fascinating. If you like horror, this is definitely a book worth reading."-- Andrew Leon

"Another chilling tale from the author of The Scariest Thing You Can't Imagine. ...Pagel's style reminds me a lot of Vonnegut's work in that while the narration seems jaunty with its humorous asides and such, there's a lot of hidden depth to that narration."-- PT Dilloway.

If you didn't already get it, "Temporary Anne" just $0.99 today, so click this link to download this excellent horror story. 

Let's All Help Ben!

Brian Pagel recently caught wind of the plight of Ben Wolverton, the son of Author David Wolverton (who also writes under the pen name, David Farland).

Ben had an accident while skateboarding. That accident left him in a coma and in need of some serious medical attention. To the tune of around $1,000,000.

And there is no health insurance to cover these costs. Since the father works as an author in a place where you can only get affordable health coverage through your employer, he’s stuck with the bill.

I’ve gone without insurance for long periods of my life. And one of the main reasons I have the job I do now is for the health benefits. Ironically, they were amazing benefits to have a decade ago, now they’ve become so expensive and with so much less actual benefits, that we’ve been forced to drop my employer’s offered plan and go with my wife’s, which I used to think were horrible.

Anyhow, I have a son about the same age as Ben, and he has, at various stages of his youth, decided to be a skateboarder (watch an episode of Ridiculousness and see how horrid those accidents can be), a parkour practitioner (again, watch Ridiculousness), and a football star (um, watch a football game to get a view of the violence).

At any given time, my son is nursing any of a host of injuries, bruised ribs, sprained wrists, pulled hamstrings,  sore back… and those aren’t just during the season, offseason workouts, spring practice, it’s a yearlong thing nowadays. I’ve seen broken bones, noses, torn ligaments, and even one life threatening injury in the past couple of years since my son has been playing.

Risky behavior just seems to be a part of being a young man. When I read the story about young Ben my thoughts immediately went to my own son, and how devastated I’d be if something similar happened to him. Add to that a million dollar medical bill and I’m not sure what I’d do.

I bought a copy of David's recently released enhanced novel (for tablets only, I believe) as soon as I read about the incident. It’s only $10 and was told that this is probably the best way to help him outside of a direct contribution (which can be done as well).

Since Brian Pagel got word of Ben, he immediately begin throwing around some ideas to help. As of now, he's asking for authors to contribute proceeds for May sales to help Ben. I signed up right away. So, for the month of May, any story of mine that earns any amount of royalties earned will be donated to a fund for Ben Wolverton.

If anyone else is willing to commit, please let Briane know… Click here to join the cause. Or see all the info below:

 CLICK THIS LINK IF YOU WANT TO JUST GIVE SOME MONEY.  

But if you'd like to get something in return and still help out, you can buy a T-shirt for Ben.  The shirt is $20, and has this design on it:

AND IF YOU CLICK THIS LINK IT'LL GO DIRECTLY TO THE SITE SO YOU CAN BUY THE SHIRT AND HELP BEN OUT.

Ben's dad is an author, too, and if you buy his book, it'll help him directly and you'll get a great book to boot.  There are two books, in fact: Nightingale, a speculative fiction book about a young man raised in foster care who learns he can sing and affect evil, andMillion Dollar Outlines, a nonfiction book to help writers learn to write better outlines.  The books start at $6.99 in pretty much every format.

IF YOU LIKE TO READ AND WANT TO HELP BEN JUST BY READING OR WRITING, CLICK THIS LINK.

Other authors are joining, too.  Author J. Leigh Bralick, author of "The Lost Road Chronicles", is donating all the sales proceeds from her book for the month of May to help Ben.

You can read her post about why she's doing it, here, or you can go to her page at Amazon and buy one -- heck, buy ALL-- the books she's got.  (The "Lost Road" Chronicles begin with "Down a Lost Road," in which a 16-year old uncovers family secrets and gets swept into Earth's mystical past.)

CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO HELP BEN BY BUYING ONE OR MORE OF J. LEIGH BRALICK'S BOOKS ON AMAZON.








I couldn't just sit and watch others do something.  When Mr F was going in for surgery, I reached out over Twitter and my blog to ask people to pray for him, and people's words of encouragment helped me over the roughest time I've ever had.  I can imagine how much worse it is for Ben and his family.  So I'm pitching in to help out by creating

INDIE 

AUTHORS 

FOR 

BEN WOLVERTON!

...Here's how it works:

1. Be an author.  Indie or not, we'll take you.
2. Pledge to donate all profits from sales of your books for the month of May to Ben Wolverton.
3. Spread the word, frequently and with enthusiasm.
4. Post a post encouraging people to visit Ben's site, and to buy all the books from all the authors who are participating.

So I'm in.  If you want to join, leave a comment and I'll add you to the list.  I intend to update frequently across all my blogs -- I won't promise daily, I've got a trial coming up and that takes some time -- and Tweet about this.

I'll even help you out: the remainder of this post can be cut-and-pasted and put directly on your blog. No muss, no fuss.  Just add your own details at the end.  Here we go!

INDIE 
AUTHORS 
FOR 
BEN WOLVERTON!




Help young Ben Wolverton recover from a bad skateboarding accident by buying books from these authors, who have pledged that all profits from their sales in May, 2013, will go to Ben's recovery fund:

Nightingale, (sci-fi) by David Farland.  David is Ben's dad, with two books to buy.  Nightingale, a speculative fiction book about a young man raised in foster care who learns he can sing and affect evil, and Million Dollar Outlines, a nonfiction book to help writers learn to write better outlines.  The books start at $6.99 in pretty much every format.

To buy either of these books, CLICK THIS LINK.

The Lost Road Chronicles 
(ya/speculative fiction) by J. Leigh Bralick, The "Lost Road" Chronicles begin with "Down a Lost Road," in which a 16-year old uncovers family secrets and gets swept into Earth's mystical past.)

CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO HELP BEN BY BUYING ONE OR MORE OF J. LEIGH BRALICK'S BOOKS ON AMAZON.





Books by Briane Pagel.  Pagel is the indie author of books like

Eclipse, a harrowing sci-fi story about an astronaut who wanted nothing more than to reach the stars, and did so -- but it took murder to get there.  Or did it?

the After: Saoirse's life didn't begin until she died in a plane crash. But with everything perfect in the After, why is she so unhappy? With the help of a possibly-unfriendly William Howard Taft, Saoirse looks for, in her afterlife, the meaning she never had in her life.

The Scariest Things, You CAN'T Imagine: short horror stories that will leave you lying awake at night wishing you'd stuck with something lighter.  Try "The Grave-Robbers," in which New Sam learns that there have been a lot of prior Sams born to Mom and Dad.  And they're all down in the catacombs...

All these books and more, just $0.99 on your Kindle.

CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO HELP BEN BY BUYING ONE OR MORE OF BRIANE'S BOOKS FROM AMAZON.

BOOKS BY RUSTY CARL:

Rusty is a master artist and the author of several books:

A Dead God's Wrath (spec fic/novella): A mysterious stranger shows up to help avenge a brutal murder, unlocking magic of the best, and worst, kind in a sleepy 1895 western town.

War Angel: Like your romance with a bit of adventure and history? In this story, a young man learns of his grandmother's remarkable escape from Nazi Germany with the help of a dashing stranger.

CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO HELP BEN BY BUYING ONE OR MORE OF RUSTY'S BOOKS FROM AMAZON.

Another List - This One With Books!

My favorite books of 2012

What a loaded topic. Since I know so many authors that have produced a lot of content I read during the year, I considered not doing this list at all. I decided to just let it be though, and do what I do, and hope I don’t leave anyone out that I wanted to put in. You know, I don’t want to risk hurting anyone’s feelings. So, to alleviate that, I decided to post a list of all the books I’ve read this year first. (Skip below to see what I have to say about this)

Clicking makes it bigger... if that sort of thing is important to you.

First thing I’d point out, now that the year is over and I have a chance to reflect, is that I didn't read that many books last year. Without knowing a great way to verify this, I'd wager this was the least I've read in more than a decade*. Too bad. 

The second thing I'd point out is that I gave a lot of very good ratings to many of the books and stories listed here. I was disappointed in a few, but all in all, I had a good year reading. I still wish I'd read more, but I'm pretty happy with my selections. It was a really strong year for my personal enjoyment.

In fact, I think I gave something along the line of twenty 5 star reviews. That’s a lot of great books. I also get the feeling that if I were to make a new list I might be tempted to change things around a bit. I mean, this was the year that I discovered Brandon Sanderson, I’d put him at the top of any list I have of favorite authors, but when I came down to tallying up my favorite individual stories of the year, he didn't make the cut.

What did?

3) Desert Spear, By Peter V Brett: This is one fantastic novel. I was so thrilled when I got done reading that I spent 45 minutes or so doing some fan art. I was honored when the author saw it on my DeviantArt page and commented.

This is the sequel to The Warded Man from a few years earlier and is about as well done as a fantasy novel can be. I couldn't love it any more than I did. I’m so stoked for the third installment that comes out early in 2013. Brett writes a bit slower than many, so a new release from him is a big deal to me.

2) The Scariest Things You Can’t Imagine, By Briane Pagel: I had promised myself that I wouldn't put anyone I know on a list of things I like this year. I really did. To do that is to start ranking the works of people I know and like and am friends with, not what I want to do. But I did read a lot of small press or indie published books last year and the very least of them was still good. In fact, I can promise that if I expanded this list to a top 10, at least 3 other folks I know would have had their works listed. Actually, it might be more than that. Again, singling one person out gives me a bit of the ickies, but really, when I look back over the year, I’d be lying if I didn't mention this collection of short stories. I read a lot of short stories this year, I critiqued a ton for critters, I read many from magazines as 'research' as I wrote several short stories during 2012, but of them all, this was what blew me away. 

1) Caliban's War, by James S.A. Corey. That's actually a pseudonym for two people, but I won't get into that. This was the most fun I've had reading a novel in a while. It struck the perfect blend of Star Trekish type of space opera, hard-ish scientific vigor, and all out adventure. I find it stunning that this is the second book in a trilogy, I almost quit reading the first installment half-way through because I couldn't get into it. It either got way better after the debut or I learned to appreciate it. 

*Part of me is unsure of this. Several of the books I read were 800 - 1200 page epics. Total wordcount might not be too far off from previous years. But I'd have to start digging into details there, and I don't feel up to that right now.