Hey guys,

For a variety of reasons, I switched the writing under a pen name. In completely unrelated news, who IS this handsome devil?

Couple of my friends released their WotF stories as eBooks on Smashwords. They’re keeping me in the loop, and if it works out, I might do the same.

Adam Colston “Not in the Flesh”

Steve Savile‘s also posted at least one eBook.

Just got word from Mike Hanson that the Book Trailer for the shared world anthology that I was invited to last year has been released to the nets. Without further ado, here it is:

Here’s a taste of the anthology:

SHA’DAA: LAST CALL, a new anthology published by Altered Dimensions Press (an imprint of Cyberwizard Productions). Once every ten thousand years the walls between dimensions weaken for a period of 48 hours. And thus every inconceivable horror and monster in existence is given the opportunity to break through to our world and wreak untold havoc and destruction. This is the time of The Sha’Daa, and it is nearing.

Ultimately, I’m proud of the story I wrote for this anthology. I’d just come back from WotF and Clarion West and was completely burnt out. Normally, I pride myself on being a low maintenance author, but because of the burn out and a confluence of other events, I’m not sure I was the easiest author to work with. Kudos to Ed McKeown for being so patient with me.

When I wrote the piece, I used a Shoggoth as one of the bad guys… turns out Dungeons and Dragons co-opted Shoggoths and turned them into Gelatinous Cubes… something I should have remembered from my adventuring days. Luckily, the “cube” is used in a unique way, so hopefully readers will think Lovecraft more than Gygax.

I can’t wait to see a few reviews of the anthology. My piece is so different in tone from what I read in the first Sha’Daa antho, I’m sure it’ll get a mention… whether it’s a good or bad one remains to be seen.

Found this through a Google Alert:

The contest publishes an anthology of the winners each year and after reading the last few years of anthologies I understood where I was going wrong. And for those readers that enjoy reading speculative fiction short stories, the anthology is a must read each year. I still get goosebumps when I reread Jordan Lapp’s After the Final Sunset, Again.

Goosebumps? Hell yes. Thanks Thomas!

If you haven’t read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, like me and my wife, the movie is a long two and a half hours of suck. Characters lurch around doing things for absolutely no reason, and generally being complete morons. They end up finding a magical sword that is literally at the bottom of a random, unmarked lake in the middle of nowhere that they just happen to stumble upon,

At one point Harry is zapped with a disguise that is the equivalent of covering half of his face with his hand and none of the bad guys seems to recognize him, despite the fact that he’s in the company of his two friends when they apprehend him.

There’s a long boring part in the middle where they’re just teleporting around the countryside for no reason, until they suddenly decide to go in search of the hawkcruxes, and hey, like all Potter movies there’s a great big Deux Ex Machina at the end. Without others solving Harry’s problems for him, he would long ago be a smear on the wall.

About the only good part of the movie was the mini-movie that described the creation of the Deathly Hallows. It was your standard Brother’s Grimm Fairy Tale, but animated with enough style that I was thoroughly entertained.

If you’ve read the book, you’ll probably enjoy this movie. Otherwise you’ll be totally clueless (as were we, in spite of seeing the other movies).