Book Review: Hunters of Dune

Aaaaand the next installment of my Dune Retrospective, Hunters of Dune, is up on Goodreads.  If you feel the great urge to read it, you can find it here.

After one terrible, terrible book, and two mediocre ones, Brian Herbert, son of the original author of the Dune Series teams up with Kevin J Anderson to complete his father's epic series, and this ending is sooooo much better than the previous three books in hte series.

Back to Nobody

Soooo, after about 40 rejections, most of which say the same thing, I'm doing some more editing on I Am Nobody.  The biggest problem that agents have had with it is that Mia, the protagonist, doesn't have enough personality.  So, I'm seeing what I can do about that before trying to pimp it out some more.  I know I can sell this one, it just needs some more work.

Book Review: Earth Afire by Orson Scott Card

I've posted my review of Earth Afire by Orson Scott Card, second in his prequel trilogy to Ender's Game

This book is awesome, but it is overshadowed by Card's very vocal intolerance of the homosexual community over the last year or so.  He has written several dozen books with themes of tolerance, acceptance, and learning to live with those who may have incompatible lifestyles from our own.  I grew up reading his books.  He taught me many lessons about tolerating those who are different from myself that I live by today.  That he would then turn around and show how completely intolerant and hypocritical he is is a very deep and painful betrayal to me, and a whole lot of others out there.  I am not gay, nor do I condone that lifestyle, but I also believe in allowing people to live their lives as they see fit.  I mean, Christ never said love thy neighbor unless he happens to love dudes.  He left it at love thy neighbor period, meaning everyone, whether or not they may lead lifestyles that you find abhorrent.  It is not my place to judge, and it makes me angry to see others doing so so harshly, especially when they have written many books about tolerating the intolerable.  It just doesn't make sense.

Awesome Corn

Want to make your boring old corn into an epic side dish?  Try this recipe o' mine ~_^

Ingredients:

2 Ears of Corn
1/4 Cup Diced Onion
1/4 Cup Diced Red Bell Pepper
1 Tablespoon Butter
1/2 Teaspoon Garlic Salt
Water (amount varies)

Prep Work:

Melt butter in a skillet at medium-high heat and add salt and a dash of pepper or hot sauce if you're so inclined.
Dice your onion and pepper.
Using a butcher knife, remove the corn from the cob, make sure you get all of the stringy hair crap off of it before you do.

Cooking Directions:

Dump your corn, onions, and peppers into the melted butter/salt mixture and sautee until the onions have cooked through.  Add in 1/2 cup of water and bring heat up to high.  Allow the water to boil off.  If the corn is not cooked through yet, add in another 1/2 cup of water, and so on until the corn is cooked to your liking.  When the water boils down the final time your corn will be coated with a light buttery sauce.

 Makes an awesome side dish, I also use it as part of the filling for my epic, pan-fried burritos.

Starfire: Attrition - Prologue - Draft 2

And after finishing up the first draft I've gone immediately into the second draft.  It's been about a year since I started work on this book, so I feel I'm sufficiently distanced in time to look at it with fresh eyes.  If you feel the great urge to check it out, you can find the latest version of this chapter at the bottom of this page

Starfire Chapters 20-23 + Epilogue Draft 1

Soooooo, I've finished up posting the first draft of Starfire: Attrition on my Lovely Starfire: Attrition Homepage if you are so inclined to check it out.  I've got individual chapters posted as well as the full first draft, whichever floats your boat.

The first draft ended at 91,599 words, which is right about where it needs to be.  A typical mainstream sci-fi book is around 90k words in length.


Also, be advised that a.) this is a first draft, and therefore is faaaaaar from perfect, and b.) I took 7 months off to write I Am Nobody for NaNo before returning to and finishing this draft of this book.  There are bound to be a ridiculous number of continuity errors.

Remember Starfire...?

Remember Starfire? Yeah, that was that book I was writing before I started I Am Nobody for NaNo last November.  And in the several weeks since I last posted on my blog here I’ve been working hard on it.  I’ve come to an annoying realization with Starfire.  The story is too long for a mainstream science fiction book.  I mean, it’s going to end up at about three times the length of a normal sci-fi book.  I don’t like to do this, as I’ve yet to get any of my works published and basically get my foot in the door, but I’m going to have to split the story into multiple volumes in order to keep with current word count expectations for the genre.  And so, as I was very near an excellent breaking point, I have written up to that point, and *drum roll* TADAAAAAAAH!!!  I have now completed the first draft of Starfire: Attrition.  Yay me. 

I’ve yet to post any of the recent material on my Starfire website as of yet, due to my internet being a little dead at the moment (I’m posting this from my phone) But, I’ll get the ending of the first draft posted ASAP if anyone cares to read it.  This draft ended at just over 90k words, and through editing and revisions will probably end up around 105k words which is a little long for a sci-fi book, but not long enough for publishers and agents to dismiss it out of hand… hopefully.  I’d like to start right in on the second part, which will be titled Starfire: Retreat, once I’ve finished the final draft of Attrition, but I also have the incomplete first draft of The Eternal Chain that needs finishing as well.  We’ll see which one I feel like working on next.

Anyway, I’m currently shopping around for agents for I Am Nobody, seeing as how my agent seems to have dropped off of the face of the earth, and working on Starfire: Attrition revisions for the time being.

And that’s what I’ve been up to over the last few weeks.  Well, that and I’ve been rereading the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher.  GREAT series for anyone who likes a good mystery, urban fantasy (wizards in modern day), or just really entertaining, sarcastic characters.  I’ve read most of the books three or four times over the last decade or so, but man, even still, I can’t put them down.  They’re just too entertaining.