Thanks to 
angelina_zooma
Please see the original post for how to get one if you want!
I have eight of the Lightscribe CDs of Faerie Blood left over from my August 21st reading. If any of you all out there might be interested in taking them off my hands, please let me know!
On the CD you’ll find both the epub AND pdf versions of the book, along with a short Readme file telling you how to read either one and which you should use depending on your needs. There’s also a pdf copy of my short story “The Disenchanting of Princess Cerridwen”, included as a bonus.
The discs themselves are Lightscribe CDs and show Kendis’ face, a small bit taken from the book’s cover art. I will include a color printed insert and sign that upon request! (Or I will sign the disc itself.) The jewel cases the discs are currently in are either green or yellow, to match the cover art. I have more green available than yellow but will also swap out to red, blue, or purple on request as I have several spare cases in those colors.
If you’re local to me and I can hand-deliver you the disc and its jewel case, the price is eight dollars. If you’re not local, the price is ten dollars, to include the price of postage.
For payment, if you’re interested, please send the specified amount to my gmail address, annathepiper, via Paypal. Or talk to me in private about alternate payment methods, as well as arrangements to get you the disc.
I have no immediate plans to make more of these CDs, so get them while supplies last!
It is ON. Oh my yes. Well, not too impressively quite yet given that I’ve been smacked upside the head with a cold all weekend, but in the state of mind I’ve been in, it’s oddly easier to do a word count reduction pass than it is to write actual new content.
Which means of course that I’ve officially decided to go ahead and do a word count reduction draft while I’m waiting for the beta readers (all eight of you, like, WOW) to get back to me. This will also be doubling as an opportunity for me to review the manuscript in depth and lay down the game plan for what I want to change to tighten it up for Carina Press.
I found a couple hundred words or so to remove in both Chapters 1 and 2, and I’m leaving off tonight in the middle of Chapter 3, with about 300 words removed. So far it’s about 800 words down, and closing in on the first K. Given that the target range is between 6 and 12K, this is a promising start. I’m going to try to avoid making any big changes on this pass, but I may tweak a few smaller things as I go.
Beta readers, when I send out the editor’s feedback to those of you who haven’t gotten it yet as well as the overall gameplan, I’ll note the stuff I’ve already changed. But don’t let that stop you from reporting anything you think is worth reporting, even if I might have already tweaked it on this fifth draft pass. And, again, many many thanks!
Edited this weekend: -818
Chapter 1 revised total: 3,163
Chapter 2 revised total: 3,040
Chapter 3 revised total: 4,181
Lament of the Dove revised total (fifth draft): 117,540
spazzkat
There's also a 3D version, but you need old-school red/cyan 3D glasses to watch that!
The Solo Adventures 2D from Daniel L Smith on Vimeo.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I was given Disturbed by Her Song as a review copy from Lethe Press, and I’ve got to say, this was one of the most unusual things I’ve read in a while. It’s a collection of short stories written by Tanith Lee, but under the conceit that two of her characters are actually writing the stories. “Esther Garber” and “Judas Garbah” are half-siblings, and each of them is gay. The stories Lee writes for them explore same-sex relationships, and she does a very impressive job giving each of the siblings a distinctive writing voice. I didn’t think I’d like the conceit of her “channeling” these characters; thankfully, though, that’s gotten quickly out of the way in the intro, and the stories themselves stand strongly on their own.
Judas’ stories I liked less than Esther’s, but I think this was mostly a question of them being generally darker of tone and not terribly happy. It is however a testament to Lee’s skill that I picked up the strong impression that Judas’ stories are perhaps intended to be partly autobiographical. Of the lot, I found “The Crow” most intriguing, in no small part because it’s got enough substance to it that it would reward a second reading to pick up on what I missed.
Esther’s stories on the other hand quite impressed me. It is here that Lee’s language frequently shone. While I couldn’t quite call this collection erotica, it is nonetheless very sensual, and Lee’s command of her words goes a long way towards making this work. There are particularly lyrical passages in “The X’s Are Not Kisses” and “Death and the Maiden”, for example.
But hands down, the title piece of this work is the best. “Disturbed By Her Song” is a deeply bittersweet story, tying beautifully in with the ancient tale referenced by its title. Like Judas’ stories in the collection, it is not particularly happy. But it’s definitely one that stays with you.
All that keeps me from giving this five stars is how Judas’ stories didn’t captivate me as much as Esther’s. That said: a very, very strong four stars.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Once you get into Book 3 of the Amelia Peabody series, The Mummy Case, you start picking up steam for the long haul of the bulk of all these books. Hands down, the best aspect of it is that Amelia and Emerson’s young son Ramses joins them for the first time in Egypt, and therefore starts taking his place as a primary character in the family’s adventures. Much like with Book 2, though, aside from Ramses starting to become his catastrophically precocious self, the rest of this story doesn’t stand out as much for me plot-wise. There’s certainly plenty of intrigue surrounding the murder of an antiquities dealer and the disappearance and reappearance of a mummy case, as well as the usual colorful cast of characters that populates any Amelia Peabody adventure.
What really sells this one for me, though, is all the character interaction–particularly with Ramses. He’s still too twee as of this book, what with Peters still writing out all his dialogue with a lisp–but he starts exhibiting the tendencies that make him quite the little holy terror for his parents to raise. The bit with the lion in this book, in particular, is gold. I also absolutely adore that Ramses, in emulation of his parents, carries out his own tiny excavation that turns out to be quite a bit more important than either of his parents expect. Four stars.
Okay, this should be the last round of freebie ebooks from B&N, I think. They’re throwing out the big guns for this last drop!
- The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume I, by Arthur Conan Doyle
- The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas (note: this version is abridged)
- The Iliad, by Homer
- The Odyssey, by Homer
- A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
- The Complete Sherlocks Holmes, Volume II, by Arthur Conan Doyle
- Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Man in the Iron Mask, by Alexandre Dumas
- Aesop’s Fables
- Journey to the Center of the Earth, by Jules Verne
- Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens
- A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, and The Cricket on the Hearth, by Charles Dickens
Additionally, I picked up Elizabeth Peter’s The Falcon at the Portal, since I’ll be reading that next after I’m done with A River in the Sky.
And, last but very certainly not least, in print, I picked up Ann Aguirre’s Killbox and seanan_mcguire
This brings me to 290 books acquired for the year!