Review: Pixels

Okay, how much crap am I going to get for admitting I actually enjoyed Pixels? I think i had expectations set to the lowest possible setting, not just because of the reviews, but more because that's my default setting for any Adam Sandler movie. It was VERY stupid, intentionally so, but not especially so for a Sandler movie, in fact, it's pretty much his Citizen Kane, and yes I'm including Punch Drunk Love in that calculation. So I'm not a fan, but, I'll be honest, I laughed a lot and I caught myself being actually anxious to see if these videogame has-beens could save the day even though the end was never in doubt. Yes, I actually bought into the premise and managed to suspend disbelief. That's gotta count for something. Throw in that and some 80s nostalgia, and yeah, it had me. I enjoyed it far more than Minions, which seemed just like the summation of a 15 minute pot fueled bullpen session with little thought beyond the merchandising tie-ins. Pixels more than cleared that hurdle and actually made me care about these creepy and intentionally unlikable losers.

Was it the greatest film ever? Hardly, but it was just egregiously stupid fun. Sometimes I wonder what bee got up the critics' posterior. The whole thing from start to finish was just one long lampshade and should have been treated with the Everest size grain of salt it warranted. Yes we are doing it and yes it's ridiculous, so just go with it. You would have thought they were promised the video game equivalent of Wuthering Heights and got...well...a typical Adam Sandler movie.

Jessica Jones! Um...cool, I guess?

Marvel's Jessica Jones!
Cool.
By the same people who did Daredevil.
Wicked cool.
Gritty Film Noir hard drinking private eye drama complete with with voiceovers and a glass door with her name on it.
Sooooo cool.
And she has superpowers!
I love you.
And a lot of PTSD and abandonment psychological issues.
Um...still cool...I guess.
Cuz it makes for an awesome psychological thriller.
Oh...okay, in that case VERY cool.
Cause we more or less drop the voiceovers and Film Noir vibe after the first three episodes anyway.
Oh...well that could still be awesome if you play up on the psychological drama.
Oh we do, but not before we wander though a lot of other territory.
Really?
Oh yeah, for a big chunk there it just turns into a really creepy rape trauma body horror revenge thing...
Um...
With lots of borderline torture porn.
 ...
Just barely above a snuff film at times really...
 ...
Did I mention the dismemberment scenes?
Um no.
...
...
(ahem.) DAVID TENANT!!
AWESOME!!
He's the villain!
STILL AWESOME!
He wears a lot of purple!!
I don't care...STILL AWESOME!!
He's a mind-controlling rapist!
Uh...okay...that depends on how you play it...but...
He whines a lot!
What?
Like the whole series, he just totally whines, the whole time.
Seriously, why the heck would you hire Tenant and just have him...
Luke CAGE!!
What? oh...AWESOME!!
Superhero sex!
AWESOME!!
LOTS of SUPERHERO SEX!
FRIGGIN' AWESOME!
LOTS AND LOTS OF SUPERHERO SEX!!
Okay, kinda less awesome.
THREE SEX SCENES IN ONE EPISODE!
Yawn.
That do nothing to advance the plot or develop the characters...
Dude...
And then Luke leaves for most of the series.
Really?
But he comes back at the end.
Oh...okay
But he spends most of it knocked out.
What?
With Rosario Dawson's nurse character from Daredevil.
Oh. Okay that's cool.
But she just exists to tie into the larger shared universe and doesn't do much.
Um..
I mean she hints around a lot but never even uses Daredevil's name.
Well...okay.
FIGHT SCENES!
AWESOME!
MORE FIGHT SCENES!
AWESOME!
Fight scenes that are just people wailing on each other and throwing other people into walls because we didn't hire the guy who choreographed the great fight scenes for Daredevil.
Decidedly LESS awesome.
...
...
LESBIANS!!
Really?  Well I guess that's cool...
OLDER LESBIANS!
Um...
But one of them is Carrie Anne Moss and there's also one younger hot blonde one.
OH! well okay then...
But no Lesbian sex.
...
I mean we tease the heck out of it...but don't really show anything.
...
And we spend a lot of time on this divorce subplot with Carrie Anne Moss that really isn't crucial to the main plot.
...
Oh and a druggy neighbor, AND a creepy brother/sister pair of neighbors that are super weird and annoying...I mean, we are talking REALLY annoying, but don't worry, most of those are only created so we have plenty of disposable victims you don't care about for the villain to kill cause you know we aren't killing of Luke or Trish because they are major Marvel properties.
...
Oh, and an older black cop detective close to retirement.
...
We kill him in a totally offhanded way.
...
And he doesn't even get killed by the villain.
Shut up.
Did we mention the random Marvel villain shoehorned into the story that is part of some weird secret military experiment to create superwarriors that goes horrible wrong and causes the subjects to go insane?
Get out.

Binge Review 2: Jessica Jones

Okay so I'm only three episodes in but here's my first impression:  Because the series revolves around the titular character, who is also a private eye, they created this wonderful Film Noir opening credits scene.  The conventions of Film Noir are all there too.  Tough hard-drinking P.I.  Glass front office door with the name in gold letters (that get's smashed in the first five minutes) gritty streets, a bigger mystery, all narrated by the main character herself in a seen-too-much confessional style.  So it seems like it's a conventional detective series, only it's not.  It's Marvel which means there's a twist, she's a superhero with PTSD hiding from her past and the villain that made her jumpy is alive, even though he's supposed to be dead.  This villain, Kilgare, played by David Tenant has the power to control minds, which makes things a tad weirder.  It's a dark and gritty vision for sure, and a little grimier than previous Marvel offerings.  Even Daredevil, which I loved for its darker tone didn't get into gutter sex in the first five minutes like this one and it's not even the only one.  We get three sex scenes in the first episode, so fair warning, not for kids, and maybe not for this adult either.  Your mileage may vary.  And the ending of the first episode?  Well not to spoil anything, but it's brutal.

Still, I'm not sure it works.  It should be right up my alley.  I love superheroes, I love Film Noir detective movies, and I love psychological thrillers, all three genres are right up my alley.  I should be over the moon, but this really only works on the last level, the psychological thriller, which fortunately, is pretty darn good.  The detective angle feels tacked on frankly. As far as the superhero plot line goes, I never read the comics, so I have no expectations, which isn't bad.  Daredevil was a franchise I knew well, so it's nice to be surprised by this one though if this is anything like DD I'm sure it strays pretty far from the source material, while still giving fans the appropriate Easter eggs and aha moments.  They earned a lot of trust with Daredevil so I'll probably be sticking this one out too, though more cautiously.

Binge Watch Reviews! Man in the High Castle and The Expanse

Curse this age of online binge watching!  Don't they know I have things to do?  Oh well.

Okay, I finished watching Man in the High Castle last night and since it was already past midnight, I decided to throw the early release of SyFy's The Expanse on the pile as well.

Here's my review of both.

We truly live in the golden age of production design, both of these are beautiful with amazing attention to detail.  Let's start with MitHC.

It's beautifully acted and the performers deserve a lot of credit for keeping you involved.  I say that, because it drags...a lot.  There's an overarching mystery of course, some conspiracies, a resistance and a whole lot of Nazi and Japanese nastiness, but hey that's what they're there for.  What you don't know is what the plot is there for, because they tease an awful lot but really don't resolve anything.

What I'm there for is the performances.  Rufus Sewell is amazing - and horrifying - as New York SS head John Smith.  At first this America seems impossible but after his portrayal you really begin to believe in an Americans could sign up for the third Reich, enthusiastically. He's by far the most interesting character. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa is just brilliant as trade minister Tagomi as well, but much outside those fantastic portrayals, it begins to feel tedious.  It's amazing to see this world constructed, but I couldn't give two figs for the leads playing Blake and Crain.  I know, I know...they're conflicted, everyone's conflicted. I just don't care. I was rooting for the Marshall at points.  I do care about the films however, but I'm nervous.   The main mystery at the heart of this, the films and the identity of the mysterious eponymous Man in the High Castle, is barely teased.  I feel as if I am being baited.  I've watched a lot of high concept stuff get LOST in the weeds, if you know what I mean, because the writers didn't really know where they were going.  They were just peppering the drama with mysteries with no idea how to resolve them.  Let's hope that's not the case, but I've been burned so many times before, I'll remain wary, though I will check in for the second season, the acting is just that good.  Basically we get an alternate history that is really mesmerizing in its detail and conception overlaid with what can only be described as a paranormal mystery which is a head-scratcher that seems to be moving in the general direction of a big reveal.  It is, after all, based on Philip K. Dick, so that was to be expected.   Let's hope they don't blow it.

Now on to The Expanse.

It was just the first episode but again, just gorgeous, and more importantly, we have ships laid out like real spaceships with decks at perpendicular angles to the engines instead of like the decks of a cruise ship.  They move like real spaceships with thrusters and hard G turns instead of swooping around like biplanes in a vacuum.  No artificial gravity or inertial dampeners either.  Though our expectations of zero-g sex are probably too high, and we still can't seem to get around dark gritty corridor porn.  Seriously, where does sci-fi get this obsession with oodles of dark corridors?!  Outside the Enterprise in Star Trek it's like the future world has never heard of lighting.  Heck, even the dingiest modern oil tanker today isn't this depressing.  Oh well.  Other than that it portrays a believable near future with asteroid dwellers called belters and an inner-solar system political conflict between Earth, Mars, and the human colonies scattered around the asteroid belt fighting over freedom and resources.  The whole thing begins with an amazing fly through shot of the colony on Ceres while some revolutionary is monologuing about oppression,  Any show that gets the science and society that well deserves a prolonged look, it's just...well I'll be honest, it seems utterly conventional beyond that.  The characters are all stock issued, hard nosed detective, handsome leading man, natural leader, and a missing girl who's certain to be at the heart of a mystery that's going to change the fate of mankind...blah, blah, blah.  I hope it rises above this.  All expectations from the book suggests it will.  It is a good but not brilliant beginning.  I will definitely still tune in though.

Okay and now for some house cleaning.

Look I'm not going to bore you with the descriptions of my last few years.  Unemployed author gets serious depression and drops off the radar for years?! The Dickens you say!  Yeah, yeah, I'm a living stereotype, but I've been wanting to come back for a while now, still working on...well...a lot of things, but this review seemed like a good way to get back into the blog and kick it all off.  The hope is to return to the sequel of Limbo's Child and a bunch of other projects.  If you are still there after I've abandoned you for so long, well...thank you, and I hope there is more to come.  More reviews, more writing and more stories.

Thanks for sticking with me.

Jonah

Sincerity as shock value

People know I'm a fan of Lady Gaga.

Still, if you've made a career of wearing meat dresses and over the top performances, how do you shock the masses anymore?

By an act of pure unadulterated sincerity that really proves you've got the pipes, that's how.

http://youtu.be/Dvg_bwdirxQ

"Holy crap there's a lot of dust bunnies in here."

"More like dust mammoths.  Geez, when did you last clean up this place?"

"I don't know, years maybe, it's not that bad really."

"Not bad? Are you serious?"

"No I think it has a kinda benevolent neglect vibe going on, a sorta shabby chic thing, y'know?"

"Shabby Chic?  Shabby chic is lightly peeling paint on a charming Gothic revival manor, this is more like unsealing the tomb and feeling the  5,000 year old putrid breath of the mummy on your neck kinda chic."

"Ha-ha, very funny, Travis.  Are you going to help or not?"

"Fine, Jonah, give me the power hose.  It's going to take a lot to wash away all these drop shadows."

"What's wrong with the drop shadows?"

"Nothing, it's the finest aesthetic 1998 has to offer."

"Oh shut up and get to work."

"As soon as I get my tetanus shot, fine."

"(Sigh)"

Black Friday Giveaway!

The book will be available FREE on Amazon Kindle the Friday, Saturday and Sunday after Thanksgiving.

Just my way of saying Thanks to all the fans.

Share the book with all your friends.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005XHABAO

Reviews Disappearing

In the last several days, four of my positive reviews have disappeared from Amazon. I have contacted Amazon and they tell me they can't discuss the matter with me, but they told me reviews are either removed by the reviewer or because the

y didn't meet the guidelines. I contacted one reviewer and they say they didn't take it down. It appears I am under some kind of attack. Someone is challenging positive reviews on some technicality, getting Amazon to take them down, and a new one disappears each day. If you've read the book and haven't written a review, please write one. If you have written a review, please check to make sure it's still there, if not, please write a new one. Thanks. Jonah.

PS, and please share the book with everyone you know.

Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005XHABAO

The Secret Prologue: The Mummy

Here it is:  The first part of the new first chapter of the sequel to Limbo's Child.  Those of you who know me, know I like to do this a lot.  I get the plot settled and then BAM!  I have to change it all at the last moment.  Oh well.  It's a goodie.

This might make it in the final book it might not.  I meant it to replace the old first chapter (available here) but my wife begged me to keep that one in.   At the moment I consider this a "secret" chapter.  That is, it's not really crucial to the rest of the story, it just contains relevant backstory that would make the story more enjoyable.  These "secret" chapters contain some mild spoilers, but nothing too bad, but you've been warned, so no whining if you read on. Ok?  BTW - this has been through exactly one edit, by me, and not my editor, so it's kinda rough in places.

Parts II and III will be posted later this week.  And I will be doing a live reading of the entire chapter on Livestream this week so stay tuned for details.

And with all that throat-clearing out of the way...I give you, The Secret Prologue:  The Mummy Part I.

The Secret Prologue:

The Mummy

The body had been dead for forty days, but Pepy was still terrified of it.  It wasn’t that he was squeamish around bodies.   As the head royal embalmer he had mummified twenty-two royal persons.  As apprentice to the last head embalmer he had assisted with forty-five!  No it wasn’t dead bodies that bothered him.  It was this particular dead body.
She was a lovely thing, young, no more than fourteen, a daughter of one of the pharaoh’s minor wives, but a favored one, but it wasn’t her age that was so troubling, many died young, even in the palaces of the god-king.  No, it was the manner in which she died.  She was found, in the dawn, pale and lifeless on her own bed, safe in the palace.  The only mark on her was a subtle wound on the neck, two tiny punctures, small and needle like, like the bite of an asp, but the fang holes were so far apart, it could only have been made by an enormous asp with a mouth the size of a hyena.  Not another  trace of disease or injury was on her, but there she was, calm and peaceful, like she was sleeping with her arms crossed, as if someone had arranged the corpse for death, but the doors had been locked, from the inside.
The priests were beside themselves with anxiety and thought it a terrible omen.  They wanted her chopped into pieces and tossed into the Nile but the pharaoh forbad it.  Things only got worse from there.  Pepy himself had to make the small incision to remove the internal organs in preparation of embalming, but when the knife cut the flesh, it was utterly bloodless.  Not a single drop of blood was left in the girl.  Her flesh was as bloodless as a piece of salted beef in the marketplace.  Half the priests and nearly all of his assistants attempted to flee the room at that point until forced back at the point of the guards’ spears.  Pepy had nearly blanched himself, but he carried on.  Ramses the Great was not a man you wanted to disobey.  He had to carry on alone though.  The others wouldn’t pull themselves away from the walls.  Pepy dutifully removed the lungs, stomach, liver and intestine and placed them for preservation in the four sacred canopic jars with the heads of the four sons of Horus.  He took the heart, he yib, the seat of truth and knowledge and placed it carefully back into the body.  She would need it when her soul would be judged.  He packed the empty abdominal cavity with linen and natrun, the sacred salt that dried out the body, but he had to say all the prayers himself.  The priests were too scared.
Now he was back to finish her.  The body had been sealed in this chamber forty days ago.  She needed to be wrapped in the precious linens and resins.  When he broke the seal and entered the chamber, everything seemed normal, but that all changed when he pulled back the mummies linen covering.  In forty days the mummy should have browned, the eyes and cheeks becoming sunken, the lips taut.  She had hardly changed at all.  There was some anxious foot-shuffling on the stone floor when they saw her, but the others kept their tongues.  There was nothing to do but get on with it.
            As he went about wrapping her body in the resin-drenched linens, placing the sacred eye of Horus over the small incision on her stomach, intoning the sacred prayers beneath his breath because the priests were too scared to, Pepy couldn’t help but think that everything about this was wrong.  These rituals should be completed in the daylight, with great ceremony, but here they were in the middle of the night, with only a handful of priests and guards.  The pharaoh had insisted it be done as soon as the fortieth day had set, so here they were, after sunrise, in the embalming chamber with only a few oil lamps to light the way.  The pharoah had procured a dozen large jars of the most precious resin for the process, but he could only persuade two of his apprentices to come, so he had to carry two of the jars himself.  But the worst part, the very worst part of it all was him.
            He had arrived late, dressed in long blue-black linens and wearing the mask of the jackal-headed god Anubis, which completely covered his face.  When he entered the guards and priests turned their backs to him and studiously stared at the walls, avoiding even looking at him, almost as if pretending he didn’t exist.  Pepy’s assistants obviously didn’t know the protocol, but quickly stumbled over each other to shove their noses in the nearest corners of the room they could find like naughty school-children.  He was tall and gaunt and though no one saw his eyes, you could tell he was watching you, intently.  Pepy didn’t even know who he was.  He wondered if anyone did.  He had never seen him before.  He had only heard rumors.  He was nameless, faceless and appeared only at the most dire times, plague, famine, war or perhaps the death of a pharaoh.  He never spoke, and even the Priests of Amun were afraid of him and bowed and backed away whenever he entered.  If he ever spoke or held counsel with anyone, it was only with the Pharaoh and then only in private.  He could disappear for years, but in times of distress, he would appear, and it was rumored that he had been doing it, since the days of Djoser the Great more than a thousand years ago.   No one could be certain it was the same figure behind the mask but everyone thought so.  Some said he was the god Anubis himself, others, only that he was an ancient magician.  Pepy wasn’t given to idle rumors or superstition, but the fact that he appeared here, at the embalming of a minor princess was troubling and Pepy was already nervous enough. But he couldn’t do his work with his nose to the wall, so he carried on, and tried not to think of the bloodless corpse, the fang marks or the ominous figure hovering over him like a vulture.
            Soon, however, he found his rhythm despite his fear and worked quickly but carefully through the night, wrapping the body, working from the abdomen to the feet and then from the feet back to the head, placing the sacred amulets between the folds of linen at their proper places.   He placed the golden finger-coverings on each of the dead princesses’ delicate digits, then placed the ankh, the symbol of life in the palm of her hand before wrapping each hand carefully.  Then he folded the arms across the chest and wrapped them against the body, binding them tight in layer after layer, so that she had the same repose she had had when they found her dead.  He worked carefully this way through eleven layers of linens and resins until he reached her neck and head.  He placed a tiny amulet in the shape of a headrest, behind her head, an emblem of the hope that she would at last find rest in the afterlife.  It was nearing dawn, under the best conditions it took days to properly do the job, and with his assistants’ noses planted firmly against the wall, it should have taken even longer, but somehow he had managed it, and gave the princess a respectable wrapping.  He was about to place the last amulet, the eye of Ra, over her mouth and finish the wrapping when the “vulture” spoke.
            “Stop.”  The black draped figure behind Pepy said in a low voice.
            Something clattered to the ground.  Pepy spun around.  He checked his hand.   He hadn’t dropped the amulet.   Thank the gods! That would have been sacrilege.  He glanced around.  A guard was slowly crouching down to retrieve his spear from the floor.  By Horus! thought Pepy, what courage! he thought sarcastically, but then he noticed he was clutching his own heart with the hand that didn’t hold the amulet.  It was pounding.
            The figure for his part, was calm and inscrutable.  For a minute Pepy wasn’t certain he hadn’t imagined it speaking, but then it took a step forward and spoke again.
            “I will finish her.”
            Pepy froze, blinked and knew not what to say.  Was the menacing figure a royal embalmer as well as a magician?  Pepy looked around the room.  The guards were frozen, the priests were muttering prayers for their own salvation, and his assistants were grinding their own faces into the relief sculpture as if they were hoping they disappear into the decoration.  Pepy looked down at the mummy of the princess, her pale face shining and all too life-like and then at the amulet in his hand.  When he looked up a pale, gaunt, corpse-like white hand had reached out from behind the tall figure’s robes.  It had fingering coverings of its own, made of silver, as if it were a mummy itself!  Pepy decided not to question him.  He put a knee to the ground, bowed his head, and offered up the amulet.  The black masked figure took the amulet and moved past him noiselessly. When it reached the other side of the chamber it inclined and its head to them and spoke one last time.
            “Go.” He said again in a voice like death. “Seal the chamber, return in thirty days to entomb her.”
            No one waited for a second command.  The guards and priests piled up at the door, only a scornful look by their master kept Pepy’s apprentices from doing the same.  They danced on their feet until he got to the door, but couldn’t bear it anymore.  Once it was clear they were outside.  Pepy would have to reprimand them later.  He was a master embalmer after all and they should have followed him dutifully out of the tomb, but their scolding would have to wait.  He too was anxious to leave.  At the doorway Pepy looked back at the black figure standing over the body of the princess.  “Seal the doors?” he thought.  There was only one door to the embalming chamber.  He opened his mouth and nearly spoke the question, but then he looked into the empty eyes of the Anubis mask and thought better of it.  Best not to question the mysterious person.  He certainly had his own way of getting out.  Or at least he hoped he did.  He would hate to come back and find him there, though something told Pepy the mysterious figure could survive the thirty days internment without any effort.   Pepy gave one short bow from the neck which the figure graciously returned, though more slowly.  Pepy swallowed hard before he pulled the doors shut.  He quickly pulled a cord from his side and ran it through both door handles and tied it off.  He then produced a lump of soft beeswax mixed with clay from a small pouch and pressed the wax tightly around the knot.  As he pressed the seal of his signet ring into the wax he spoke over his shoulder to his frightened apprentices.
            “No one is to speak of this. Understood?”
            Pepy turned around but his inquiry was met only with the sound of sandals on stone departing into the predawn darkness.  He huffed an angry sigh for the moment, but then, alone in the dark, he decided to drop his remaining dignity and follow his apprentices’ prudent example and fled.

7729

That's how many words I wrote yesterday.  7,729.  Let that mull in your brain for a minute.  That's a really good sized chapter by itself, but no, I added that to an existing 5000+ words for a grand total of 13,005 words, and I'm thinking of adding more this morning.

This is all for the first chapter of the sequel. A new first chapter.  Those of you who have stuck with me through this know that on the eve of publication of the last book I did the same thing, added a whole new prologue and chapter one, so this is old territory for me.

It's a big chapter in more ways than just wordcount, however.  It takes place (mostly) in ancient Egypt.  It's a Hokharty based chapter and it establishes a lot of backstory, metaphysics and groundwork for the whole sequel, and the whole chapter.  It's stuff that I had floating around in notes, but somehow, it was just better to tell it in a story of betrayal, death and carnage between two ancient Egyptian vampires than just having Lucy explain it to Nephys, or vice versa.  It has Hokharty, a mummy, a royal embalmer and attendants, Hokharty's most trusted servant, and hey, even a couple of Egyptian gods thrown in!  One is the enigmatic and stonelike Anubis we've met before, the other is Sekhmet, lion-headed goddess of revenge that comes off as a snarky anthro.  All that and Miles, Sky and Nephys make a cameo appearance at the end.

It's insane.  And long.  Yep, it's a genuine Hewitt production.

And I'm going to be putting it up here.  No guarantees, but hopefully by this monday it will be available to download here, FREE.  It will be pretty rough, so no snarking on my spellings, but I hope you will enjoy it.

Flying. Zombies.

Writer's block is principally about motivation and discipline, not a lack of ideas.  I've heard of plenty of writers who can't get motivated, but I've never known one who would give you a blank stare if you asked them what they were working on.   The problem is not a lack of ideas.  They usually have at least a dozen projects going simultaneously.  That's the problem.    The ideas poor out of the walls like leaky plumbing and flood up the room to your neck.  Which ones to give precious access to your limited time and mental energy?  You work on the ones that won't leave you alone.  The ones that pour out the cracks you can ignore for now. The ones that run up your nose and shout "Me! Me! Me!" you have to deal with or they'll drown you.

I've been working on the sequel to Limbo's Child and this idea only happened last night, but it's been running up my nose so hard I had to sneeze it out.

So I wrote up a piece of flash fiction, just to set the characters, setting and ideas for now.  It's happy for the moment and I can come back to it later.

What's it about?

Flying. Zombies.

No joke.  It's called Risen and it's here, on Google Docs.  It's short and a little rough but fun.  Check it out.  Let me know what you think.

Blog shutting down

I hate to do this but the blog will be effectively shutting down over the summer.  I have writing to do on the book and more importantly we will be re-launching the website with a new domain name and all new graphics. (To tie in with the release of the sequel!) None of the old content will get lost and there will be plenty of new graphics as well. 

Thanks for all the support!

J.

Another five star...

Ok, now my ego is getting involved, which is bad, but I got another good review, and I do love sharing them.  Here's just a snippet but be sure to read the whole thing here.

Limbo's Child has vivid imagery, a relatable setting, and characters that are easy to love - and several that are just as easy to hate at the same time. It's well-paced and gripping, though the chapter lengths (and the fact that each chapter is a change in scene) are perfect for a break where you don't have a lot of time, but want some solid entertainment. My favorite parts of the book are the underlying dark humor surrounding so much of the content, and the touching scenes of difficult decisions and forced choices.

Thanks again to the reviewer and remember, the sequel is coming out this Fall.  All the characters you love and all the ones you love to hate will be back.

J.

Scrapple.

I was tickled by this addition to the book's Shelfari page.

The book takes place in and around the environs of Southeast Pennsylvania. The specific places are mentioned are Chester, Harrisburg, Ephrata and Germantown. All of the places are based on real life locations. The vampire's den, "Rivenden" is based on the famous 18th C. Manor in Germantown called Clivenden. The author lived in the area for twelve years and accurately describes the climate and locations, right down to Scrapple.

Ah Scrapple.  The taste of authenticity.  Love it. And thanks to whoever updated the page.

J.

OVER 9000! (Almost)

8824.  That was the final tally.

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think we'd have that many downloads.  For a time, we were even number 2 on the top 100 contemporary fantasy fiction free downloads on Amazon, and thirty-seven on the overall top 100 free downloads list.

Ya gotta hope that those people will help spread the world.  If I can't get another 30-40 reviews out of that many downloads...I don't what I'll have to do.

Thanks to all those that helped spread the word about this free promotion.  We will have another just before the release of the second book.

Thanks again everybody,

J.

Free on Kindle!

Today, tomorrow and Monday, the book is free on Kindle. 

Check it out:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005XHABAO

I'm living in the Matrix...

And I took the blue pill.

That's the only explanation I can think of when I keep getting awesome reviews like this.  Another five star review.

Check out the full review here:  http://www.amazon.com/review/RJJBYJSQC9BV6/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B005XHABAO&nodeID=&tag=&linkCode=

But here's a snippet:

This is the first review I have written on Amazon but I felt compelled to do so after reading this fantastic book. I bought it thinking that as a 99c book it would be readable and if I was lucky entertaining. Boy was I wrong, it hooked me from the beginning and had me reading into the wee hours on nights when I knew I really ought to be asleep.

Voluntary sleep deprivation is the greatest compliment an author can ever get.

Thanks Mandy! whoever you are, and when you want to buy the sequel at full price, let me know and I will send you a signed copy with a little sketch of Hiero.

Thanks!

J.

Summer Reading!

Start your summer reading off right! This memorial day weekend, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, Limbo's Child will be available free to download on Kindle.

It's the only book you'll need this summer. Seriously...it's like the Anna Karenina of humorous vampire action comedy young adult novels. Not joking. Dead serious here. 
Besides, it's nearly 800 pages of fun reading for FREE.  You can't beat a deal like that.

It's a young adult fun fantasy read with lots of action, thrills, humor and some other cliche I'm forgetting...oh! Heart, loads and loads of heart. Ooodles of heart, and oh...blood. Seriously, it's just dripping with the stuff. It's sort of a vampire teenage horror comedy action adventure fantasy kinda thing.

Perfect summer reading, really.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005XHABAO

Big Changes Coming

Big changes are indeed coming.  Not only to the website, but to my life in general.  We are moving... forward on the writing and publication on the second book, but that isn't the only thing that's moving.  We are also leaving behind one life and starting another.  It's scary...and terrifying, and not altogether unhumorous. 

We are also putting together some videos and other promotional materials for the series.  All of this costs money and your help would be greatly appreciated.  So I've decided to add a "donate" Paypal button to the website so that you can show your support.

If you can spare a few dollars we sure would appreciate it as we transition to a new life.

Thanks for everything and as always, share the book with friends.  If enough sell I can make this my full time gig and that means you get the sequels and updates that much sooner.

J.

Live READING! Tonight, May 4th, 8:30 CST.

So tonight I will be doing a live reading online of excerpts from the first book, Limbo's Child as well as a few samples of my next book, The Silver Guitar.

Hope you join us.

Here's the link for Livestream: 

http://livestre.am/UIqJ