Category Archives: update

The Rest of the Summer

The July 4th holiday, AKA Independence Day, is fast approaching, which means for me that the summer is half over. I’ve done a bit of traveling but that’s about to stop for the most part.

I’ll be teaching a class the second summer term, which starts on Tuesday. It’s at 8:00 a.m. That’s early, but that’s okay. I’m tanned, ~~I’m rested,~~ ~~I’m ready.~~ What that means is I’ll have a lot less free time on my hands.

Current projects are to finish Bradley Beaulieu’s new novel, Twelve Kings in Sharakhai. I’ll do that in a bit and try to get the review up tomorrow night. (Spoiler: It’s awesome.)

I’ve not done a BAF post in a while, but I’ll start on the next book this weekend. I’m going to try to read the short fiction that’s up for the Hugo that I’d not already read when the ballot was announced. Ditto for the Gemmell Awards. I won’t be able to finish everything on the Gemmell ballot before the deadline, but I’ll at least get a couple of books out of the way.

I was accepted into the Ace Roc Stars program earlier this year. What that basically means is that i get advanced copies of most of the upcoming books by either Ace or Roc. The first batch of titles didn’t have much that interested me, but the second batch is a gold mine. The first volume in Jim Butcher’s new series, the second Lizzie Borden novel by Cheri Priest, a couple of new fantasy novels and the first volumes in some space opera series.

In addition I”ll be trying to read as much fantasy, science fiction, and crime as possible. I want to read as many of the Shamus Award nominees as I can. Anyway, that’s what’s going on with reviewing and blogging. Writing I’ll discuss in another post once i have some things in better shape.

Memorial Day Weekend

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I hope everyone has a happy Memorial Day weekend. Be safe if you’re traveling. For those of you who don’t live in the US, this is the official start of summer, at least in Texas. I don’t know about states in the northern part of the country. The public schools still have a week to go, but it’s mostly final exams and graduations.

Summer classes for me will start on June 1. I’m not teaching the first summer term, but I will the second. I’ll still be making sure the labs run smoothly no matter what.

I’m hoping to get caught up on a few titles I’ve started and never finished. I’m hoping I can get more reading done than I have been lately. I’m also hoping to get back on track writing fiction on a regular basis. I’ve got one story I need to finish by the end of the week.

I’ve mentioned a few times that I’ve got a major post I’ve been working on. I managed to finish it today. It will go live Tuesday with a followup on Wednesday. After that, I’ll review the latest issue of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly.

That’s about all I’ve got for an update. For those of you who are celebrating, have a safe and happy Memorial Day.

Finally I would like to thank all members of the military for their service.

Hello? Is Anybody Still Out There?

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*peers out into the darkness*

Hello?

Did they all go home?

Look, I realize it’s been two and a half weeks since I last posted something. I apologize for that. I’m not usually this quiet. I have been working on a couple of things, but they’re not quite ready to go yet. It’s a long post, part rant and part review followed by a related review. I need to reread some stuff, which will have to wait until after finals.

I’ve got one more to give. (I gave one tonight; yes, some administrator who doesn’t have to be there scheduled exams for Saturday.) Grades for graduating seniors have to be in by noon Wednesday. It’s more of a headache to do those separately, so I’ll should be done with the semester (except for dealing with unhappy students) about then.

If I weren’t dealing with the worst sinus infection I’ve had in a long time, I would have had at least one post up in the last few days. I hope to get it done tomorrow. Then blogging, fiction writing, and reading should pick up quite a bit. Especially since my son won’t be going to anymore out of town dive meets on weekends since that’s all over for the year, which means I won’t be spending so much time in a car.

Oh, and one other thing. This little item you see on the right arrived in the mail today. I’m looking forward to diving right in. This looks like it’s going to be one of the top fantasy anthologies of the year.

Too Many Irons in the Fire

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Just a quick update. This past week has been Spring Break, and I’m still waiting for the break part to begin. This week has involved several days of unexpected travel. (No, I didn’t go to the beach. Or the mountains, either.)

I’m less than 75 pages from finishing several books, including the next title in the BAF series I’m doing for Black Gate. I’m about halfway through Neil Gaiman’s Trigger Warning, and I’m making progress on a book for a major post that I’m not ready to talk about.

So, no, I haven’t dropped off the face of the Earth. I’ve just got too many things going on.

Back to the Salt Mines

Planning for 2015

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First, Happy New Year, everyone. I hope it’s a good year for all of you, prosperous in many ways. I’d like to thank everyone who stops by and reads any of my posts, whether it’s at one of my blogs, a review at Amazing Stories, or a Ballantine Adult Fantasy post at Black Gate. I’ll add an additional thank you to those of you who leave comments, as the discussions are always rewarding. Finally, I’d like to thank everyone who sent me material for review, whether an author or a publisher.

I’m not a big fan of New Year’s resolutions. My philosophy is if you need to make some changes in your life, do it when you see the need, not at some arbitrary date on the calendar. That being said, the disruption to routine that the holiday season brings with it provides a good incentive to reboot some aspects of your life as you try to reestablish a regular schedule..

So insert the standard things about losing weight/exercising more/getting more sleep/etc. here.

Now, as far as blogging, writing, and reading go, here’s what I hope to accomplish this year. Continue reading →

From Now Until Labor Day

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I didn’t realize until a few minutes ago how long it had been since I’d posted here. I guess I’d been posting more at Gumshoes, Gats, and Gams than I realized. Of course two of those posts are obituaries/tributes. I still have one review I need to write over there.

Anyway, I’ve gotten a bit burned out on novels. Probably because I’ve been juggling too many of them lately. Having multiple formats for reading has its downside. I’ve got a novel I need to finish, That would be The Raven’s Banquet by Clifford Beal, a gritty historical fantasy that I’m liking a lot.

There are a couple of more novels I need to make some progress on, but for the next couple of weeks, I’m going to concentrate on short fiction. Classes start next Monday, but I’m back in the office trying to get ready. That means the syllabus for my class, syllabi for all the labs I’m directly in charge of, and trying to get TA assignments complete. We don’t normally run labs the first week because there are too many logistical issues, but the semester schedule has some quirks in it that necessitate doing so.

All of which is to say that I’m not sure what my time is going to be like. I may have large blocks free (not likely, but hey, it could happen), or I may have to read and write in quick snatches. Which means I’ll be focusing on short fiction.

I’ve got about half a dozen anthologies/single author collections in multiple genres I’m working my way through. Plus some short fiction venues such as Weird Tales and Heroic Fantasy Quarterly. The last two will be finished and reviewed by Labor Day for sure. Beyond that, I’ve learned the hard way not to make promises I might not be able to keep.

The result could very well look like feast or famine as far as posts are concerned. I might not post anything for a week, then have four or five posts go up at my various blogs over the course of a couple of days. It will all depend on what I’m in the mood for and how much time I actually have.

And somewhere in there, I’d like to make some progress on my own writing…

Being Nibbled to Death by Ducks

Why It’s Been So Quiet Around Here Lately

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Some of you may have (hopefully) noticed that I’ve not posted much in the last month or so. There are reasons for that.

When the spring semester ended, I thought I would have a few weeks where things slowed down. Not so. My son had few weeks of school left, and his schedule was pretty full. Also, I’m on a 12 month contract, so I still had things to do at the office, things I’m still working on.

Memorial Day involved some travel, both to see family as well as visit Scarborough Renaissance Festival. This makes 25 consecutive years I’ve attended. The next weekend was my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary celebration. The actual anniversary was a week later, but that was when we could all get together at the same time. Everyone had a great time.

Classes started the Monday after that, my son got braces, life happened. Nothing bad, but time consuming.

The first Friday in June, a friend and I spent a couple of days in New Mexico. He’s moving back to Kansas this week, and we’d been talking about taking this trip for months. We got up early and drove over to the Lincoln National Forest and spent the afternoon hiking up to about 9k feet. Then we went and spent the night at the Wortley Hotel in Lincoln, where no guest has been shot for over 100 years. It was once owned by Pat Garrett, the man who shot Billy the Kid.

The next morning we took a walking tour of the town, which is a historic site. The whole town, not just a few buildings. I’ll probably write about that on Dispatches From the Lone Star Front. I also intend to post something here about Lincoln and Robert E. Howard, since Howard was interested in the Lincoln County War. I knew almost nothing about it, but I can see why Howard was so keen on it. It’s fascinating stuff.

The day after we got back, I went with my son as a sponsor at his church youth camp. The camp was in Estes Park, Colorado. We had a blast. The elk we walked up on before dawn on our hike to see the sun rise from a ridge above camp was worth getting up at that hour.

We got back at 2:30 in the morning Saturday. The only downside (besides being on a bus full of middle school students for a total of 24 hours) was that I ended up missing Howard Days. I had hoped to drive down for Saturday, but that wasn’t in the cards.

Since Memorial Day weekend, we’ve gotten almost 8 inches of rain, which is unusual. I had to go buy a power mower when I got back because the grass was too high for my old fashioned push mower to handle.

Other than a diving competition in Corpus Christi at the end of the month, things should start settling down for the rest of the summer.

It’s been hard to squeeze much reading in, and when I’ve had the time, I’ve been too tired to read. I’ve been trying to finish K. V. Johansen’s The Leopard. I had intended to have the review up before the book went on sale, but no luck. I should finish it tomorrow and get the review posted by Thursday. After that, there are a number of titles I’ve been trying to get to or finish, including the new issue of Weird Tales. I’ll try to get as many things read and reviewed as possible over the next few weeks. Hopefully, everything will fall into a routine by the end of the week.

Adventures Fantastic

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