Listen. If you support Barack Obama for President of the United States, there’s only one thing for you to do. Go to your polling place and vote. Do not look at the numbers. Do not pay attention to the people in the magic talking box. Show up on November 4th [...]
J.C. Hutchins has released the first episode of his shared-world short story anthology 7th Son: Obsidian. In addition to the first story (”Miles to Go Before I Sleep,” a hell of a leadoff by Tee Morris), Hutch finally fills us in on the real title of Code Phantom, and I’m more excited about it than ever. There is also an exclusive instrumental version of the podcast’s theme song, Celldweller’s Birthright, at the end of this first episode. Chock full o’ goodness. There’s even a couple of cliffhangers, just for old time’s sake.
This is great stuff, so subscribe now. Race ‘em and trade ‘em.
Crack dealer Podcast author J.C. Hutchins has unleashed a scavenger hunt on us in anticipation of his latest project, 7th Son: Obsidian. Fourteen beautiful propaganda posters are scattered across the Internet, and your life will never be everything it could be unless you collect each and every one of them. Not only that, but if you call the number for the National Blackout Hotline found at the bottom of each poster, you have a chance to become part of the story.
All this builds to the May 31 release of 7th Son: Obsidian, stories set during the nationwide blackout that comes near the end of Hutchins’ 7th Son trilogy. That gives you just enough time to listen to all three novels before Obsidian launches with stories by Michael Stackpole, Mur Lafferty, Tee Morris, Scott Sigler, Christiana Ellis, and many, many, many (well, nine) more.
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
- e.e. cummings
Podcasting regular CA Sizemore recently lost his wife Kelly. Please support him in this very tragic time. Donations to defer funeral expenses are being taken here.
This video posted on Common Craft is hands-down the best explanation of podcasting I’ve seen. It really is this simple. Don’t be afraid of the unknown, people.
J.C. Hutchins kept all of us on the edge of our collective iPods with his 7th Son trilogy. Now he’s invited more authors to play in his blast crater of a sandbox. Find out more about 7th Son: Obsidianhere.
It is the sworn duty of all officers to try to escape. If they cannot escape, then it is their sworn duty to cause the enemy to use an inordinate number of troops to guard them, and their sworn duty to harass the enemy to the best of their ability.
Tessie the Dog spends her afternoons in her crate. Usually, barring any illnesses of Biblical proportions, she handles this with stoic heroism, mostly by sleeping. Monday, however, she greeted me at the door. She had decorated the floor of the dining room using her own home blend. After performing the necessary clean-up, I checked Tessie the Dog’s crate to see how she got the door open. She did not. Instead, she bent the back bars of the crate and squeezed her not-so-supple frame through the opening.
We have taken measures to reinforce the cooler.
I have some small hope that this will prevent further escapes, but I can’t be certain. I suspect she had help from the outside.
If that’s the case, those two will be in the cooler for an awfully long time.
OK, so it’s not as catchy as NaNoWriMo. It doesn’t start on a nice, convenient day like November 1st. There are no forums to read for solidarity. However, considering the declining state of my writing habits, the inclining state of my intellectual struggle, and the reclining state of my ass, today begins Local Get Off My Ass Month.
Tessie the Dog and I are going to start taking walks in the morning. Erin the Girl, Vincent the Computer, and the unnamed bookshelves (they know what they did!) and I are going to start having story times of varying styles, lengths, and intensity. Snacks will become healthier. Floors will become cleaner. Clothes will become folded and hung up. God will be in His andsoforth.
Things are going to, all fortissimo, change around here. Take it from me, kiddo.
Every morning, I take my horrible state-mandated ward Tessie the Dog outside for a constitutional. Most mornings, this is distasteful yet brief. Yesterday morning, I upheld my part of the bargain, but she did not. Not wanting to be late for work, I accepted my fate. I knew I would be mopping up pee when I got home.
Instead, I found the apocalypse.
Tessie the Dog is ill. Frighteningly ill. Eye-bleedingly ill. Face-meltingly ill. Tessie the Dog stood in her crate, amidst a sea of bile and other horrible manner of tummy rumblings and poopy. My plan had been to mop up, feed Tessie the Dog, and go get the kiddo from school. Instead, I tied Tessie the Dog outside, donned my haz-mat suit, and proceeded to clean up a crime scene. When things were sufficiently clean (meaning there was a path), I got the kid and launched her down the hallway with one arm, where gentle television could soothe her wounded eyes. I mopped. And mopped. And bleached things. And mopped. And threw away some adequate towels. And bleached.
I am home today with Tessie the Dog. Not out of any particular affection for her, but because I have no desire to ruin any more towels, my eyes, or my nose. Not to mention my shattered psyche. She seems to be feeling better (meaning most of her innards have remained innards), but this is pathetic. No, this is beyond pathetic.
For those of you not devoting the next month of your lives to NaNoWriMo (or, if you are, for those of you who need a well-deserved break), two excellent authors are launching new podcast novels this week.
Mur Lafferty’s Playing for Keeps launches November 1 (though the first chapter is available a little early … Happy Halloween).
Keepsie Branson is a bar owner in the shining metropolis of Seventh City: birthplace of super powers. Keepsie and her friends live among egotistical heroes and manipulative villains, and manage to fall directly in the middle as people with powers, but who just aren’t strong enough to make a difference. Or that’s what they’ve been told. As the city begins to melt down, it’s hard to tell who are the good guys and who are the bad.
Mur is offering several subscription options for this podcast. You can get just the novel, either through her feed or through Podiobooks.com, or you can subscribe to the Playing for Keeps Experience, which offers each chapter in PDF as well as audio, and a supplemental podcast called Stories of the Third Wave.
Something lives deep beneath the streets of San Francsico. Something that has been there for centuries, something that comes out at night … to feed on the dregs of society. A sub-culture, with its own myths, its own legends of leader named The King that will lead them out of bondage, and their own demon, a hunting shadow known only as Savior.
But the legends of Savior’s brutality have faded, the fear passed into stories told to frighten the young ones. When The King finally appears, just as foretold, the Nocturnals know their time has time — the time to come out from under the streets and hunt humanity in the open.
Scott’s new novel Nocturnal is scheduled for a print release in 2010, but at the stroke of midnight tonight, the podcast launches. If you’ve heard any of Sigler’s other podcast novels, you know what you’re in for. If you haven’t, I encourage you to subscribe on an empty stomach.
Somewhere, there is a use for a man with an equal love of science fiction, caffeine, and early 19th-century American literature. When that use is found, I will probably be playing video games, and I will miss out.
Dave on May 31st, 2008
