Category: Essays

A little update for you on “The Black.”
As one expects, the first day of the ebook launch was insane. “The Black” bounced around all day from the 6ks in Amazon’s total sales up to 23k. The rest of the week, the book’s rank bobbed up and down between 12k and 23k. Right now, it’s back to 14k. I’m not sure what’s driving it right now, but I assume it’s because readers tend to purchase books near the weekend.
The paperback is selling too. It hasn’t even been out a full 24 hours, but it’s sitting at 33k in rankings. But what does this mean?
Continue reading “The Black–Numbers and Sense”

It’s been a long year. Many great things have happened, many terrible ones, and I’ve been writing like a madman. Until recently.
2014 is a bit of a strange time for me. I have published The Street which has been pretty damned successful. We’re getting ready to publish Legends of Garaaga in paperback. The Rider, a novel I wrote with Scott Sigler, is due for publication sometime in Q4 2014 or Q1 2015. I have two other novels I haven’t finished and my first small press title, The Black is now in the hands of the publisher.
Phew. That’s a laundry list of books. Or is it? Since I’m working on the last novelette/novella for The Daemons of Ur, that’s another one that going to come out later this year or early next. Basically, shadowpublications.com has been a damned busy company, and I’ve been a scribbling lunatic.
Continue reading “Essay–The Black: One More Down”

My pets have always been part of my family. I don’t have human children. That, um, just didn’t happen. My wife and I have adopted five pets during our marriage. The current eldest is ready to pass on.
The Johnny Fiend was a little purrball of fluff we rescued. He was a long-haired little cat that looked more like a wisp of cotton when we brought him home. He was always talkative and extremely affectionate. He was my friend during the low points in my life, the high points, and always ready to snuggle at night. His loud purr frequently put me to sleep when nothing else would.
Continue reading “Essay–RIP Johnny Fiend”

With great apologies to Simon and Garfunkel.

Hello internet, my old friend
I’ve come to bitch at you again,
Because derision is loudly seeping
and only leaving me weeping
and the idiocy that destroys my poor brain
still remains
from the code of morons
Viewing jumbled code I groan
as my poor servers are slowly powned
by the morons who only say “can’t”
I can only glare and shake my head askance
when my systems are destroyed by the idiots who think they’re “right”
that isn’t right.
Admidst the sounds of idiots.
And in the conference room I saw
Ten thousand idiots, maybe more
Idiots talking without thinking
Idiots coding without listening
Idiots writing code that all should beware
and it’s not rare
admidst the sounds of morons
“Idiots,” said I, “You do not know–”
This kind of code will only slow
Hear my fury that I might save you
from systems choking that we can’t use
but my words and emails go unread
and lost within the sounds of idiots
And the developers bowed and prayed
to their idiot fucked up ways
and the applications crashed without warning
’cause of the shitty code that was swarming
And the servers cried “The code of the idiots are destroying my all
and business falls”
and ignored by the sound of idiots

I’ve been silent way too long and I guess I should let y’all know what’s going on.
First off, the new novel is finished. At least the first draft anyway. I’m working on getting the edits together so I can rewrite a couple of chapters, perform continuity checks, and then hand it off to my subject matter experts to vet my mentions of certain technologies. This is only my second “hard sci-fi” book (The Rider co-written with Scott Sigler was the first), so I need all the help I can get.
Secondly, let’s talk Shadowpublications.com books. Come August, I will be working with the great and wonderful Scott Pond to put together covers and book layouts for the upcoming paperbacks of the Garaaga’s Children series. These two books are yet to be titled, but they will be available from all the usual suspects including my site. Also, the ebooks will be getting out there as well. If you’ve already purchased the GC: Ancients hardcover, there’s not much reason for you to purchase both of these books. However, the second trade paperback will contain a bonus tale that wraps up the Ama/Drimesh cycle of Ur. I’m futzing around with calling this book The Daemons of Ur.
Continue reading “The Schedule…From HELL!”