Papa Pat Tiny Devotionals

Before talking about why I won't read scary stuff, I want to admit that my blog output has been down lately. Most of that can be attributed to the fact that I am just now getting over pneumonia, and that my recovery time included some long times in the car, driving to Florida to visit family etc. No, I didn't go swimming, but I did see the ocean. It's big. I did do some reading, though, which I mention in my last blog post. I reviewed several works on Amazon, but hardly any on my blog. Reasons: My blog is ALWAYS more chatty than my reviews. And what with the recuperation and sleeping most of the day, I haven't been chatty. It takes additional effort to write the blog after writing the review, and what little awake time I had, I put into reading and reviewing, rather than blogging. The writers deserve to have me promote their works through the Amazon reviews, because there is a miniscule chance that those will get read. Nobody but the faithful few read my blog, and for a...

First, overall impressions, and then book-specific reviews at the end. I must mention, before I lapse into a state of forgetfulness, that I read to my gift-from-God, happily-ever-after trophy wife Vanessa, the elegant, foxy, praying black grandmother of Woodstock, GA, during our recent trip to Florida. First, I read Dave Freer​'s "The Road to Dundee," which I have reviewed on Amazon. She loved it, and wants it made into a movie. Then, I read "Hunted," by Amanda​, under her pen-name of Ellie Ferguson. She liked that a LOT, and I may have to read to her the rest of the trilogy. Finally, I read two of Cedar​'s short stories to her, "Memories of the Abyss" and "Fairy Little Sister." And, as might be expected, she loved them, and wants them made into HALLMARK movies (this time, she was specific). Before we were married, but after we were engaged, I gave her a copy of Starship Troopers, and told her that if she wished to understand the Patte...

I borrowed S&W .45 from the Kindle Unlimited Lending Library. Under the provisions of the new reimbursement plan for authors, Gina Marie ought to make a potful of money off this borrow, since the book is 493 pages long. Umm...that last is sort of a joke. No, I don't expect she will make a lot off the borrow, particularly since the book is priced at an economical $2.99. Actually, I haven't heard yet how authors are  making out on the new deal. I hope Gina makes a ton. It bugs me that authors aren't rich. It bugs me that Leslie Fish isn't filthy stinking rich. All of her stuff isn't even on Amazon, but you ought to track it down and buy it anyway. I'm serious about this. She is a foundation of filk, and she ain't getting no younger. You know what she's doing? She's out in the desert, trying to bring back rare and endangered species of plants, which ain't no picnic when the temperature hits a million. Send her some money here . She's also br...

I've been reviewing on Amazon for over a year now; my first review was of "Plant Life," by Cedar Sanderson, a member of The Mad Genius Club as well as the Evil League of Evil, on July 6, 2014. So, I missed my birthday. I knew nothing of the significance of Amazon reviews, but a small amount of investigation (meaning I asked a frakken question, not hours in the library) disclosed that authors who publish on Amazon have their books rated on how popular they are. Therefore, good reviews are a sort of rarified currency for authors: lots of reviews means high ranking, high ranking means more visibility, more visibility means more sales, more sales means royalties. And Amazon evidently gives bodacious royalties, compared to traditional publishers, and this has encouraged many more people to write books and publish them independently. And since there are more books, it's harder to get noticed, hence the need for reviews. Now, when I was a lad, I used to wish I didn't hav...

I borrowed each of the six stories in the Unquiet Gods series through the KU program. A smidge less than $10 per month, and I get some great books. You should try it! Caveat: these books are borderline creepy, so creepy that they might scare me off. What kept me with the story is the theme of redemption in each of the stories; each character has flaws, but each is determined not to be victims of the dark forces. I reviewed Shadow Hands some time back, and it's got a line that I might just write down on a sheet of paper, and look at when I want to know what a good writer can do: "She played until her hands hurt, and her heart didn't." MAN, that is a good line! It's speaking about Melody, the main character in the first book. She really sets up the rest of the series: evil creepy things are out to get her, and she's the only one who can see them. She discovers that her music has power, though; whether on her violin, or a penny whistle, or just humming, Melody ca...

I'm doing things a bit differently with my reviews now, based on the two different places they appear. Both of these are important, to me, but also to the authors I review. What you are reading here, of course, is the review that goes into my blog. Consider this as the bonus content you get on the DVD. The other place the review appears is on Amazon. Way back in the dawn of time, say around April of this year, the reviews were the same. In fact, I'd usually write the review on Amazon, then copy and paste it to my blog. Then I experienced a couple of minor hiccups with that. Mostly it centered around the brief delay (usually brief, sometimes not so brief) between the time I submitted the Amazon review and the time it posted. A small matter, actually. But because of the delay, I started writing the reviews on my blog FIRST, the copying THAT over to Amazon. And that brought with it two problems, one irritating, but minor, and the other PERHAPS major. The irritating but minor probl...

Normally, I wouldn't do two blog posts in one day, but I'm still catching up on my backlog. HOWEVER, this means I DON'T have to be massively clever in THIS review, because I already did most of that in my first one today. In fact, that's the only blog-specific writing you get, because I tried to cover the rest of it on Amazon, and the Amazon review follows: Let me say this up front because otherwise I'll forget it: The cover is GREAT, and it made me want to read the book. It's by Mia Darien, who I just discovered is also a writer, and I'm gonna look at her stuff as well. Okay. There is a whole series of time travel science fiction, and in that genre I include things like Jerry Pournelle's "Janissaries" series. That's because the culture shock is what drives the story, and to me, doesn't make much difference if it's warp drive or a time machine or even a quantum string that gets us there; those are all equally never-gonna-happen-in-m...

We were talking about Amazon reviews, and I went back and took a look at mine. They are too long, and probably getting ignored. That's because I've been writing my blog first, and then copy/pasting it over to Amazon. IT'S A BAD IDEA! See, I think one of the reasons people like my blog is because I put in a lot of interesting details, not related to the book. For example, last night I dreamed I was the President of the United States. It was a great gig! I could pick up the phone, and get ANYONE I wanted to on the line. Like WOW, man! Then I realized how HARD it was to get to meet with a buddy at Waffle House for breakfast. And then, I had to sign letters to families of men killed in combat. At that point, it wasn't such a great job. And finally, I had to take immediate action on something, and then found out I had gotten bad information. If you are my age or a bit older, or perhaps a student of recent American history, the Gulf of Tonkin will be on your mind right about...

This was NOT supposed to be my next review. Absolutely not! I owe at least two and maybe three reviews, depending on whether or not I have reviewed "One Drink" by Max Florschutz, and I forgot to check that a minute ago. But I got ambushed. I hit the Baen website   just to see what was there, and saw this, and casually checked it out. http://www.baenebooks.com/p-2824-cyberbooks.aspx AND HERE IS WHAT SPOOKED ME: The book was published on 1/16/1989. Note that year: 1989. If it was PUBLISHED then, it was written in maybe 1987, maybe 1988. And it forecasts with SPOOKY accuracy some stuff about ebooks & their impact, nearly 30 years ago. Okay, is that a big deal? Well, would you agree with me that the publisher who has MOST embraced ebooks is Baen? Yeah, that's right; they were WAY ahead of the curve on this. AND, the very, very first work that was published by Baen that was submitted to them electronically was a short story in the book 'Carmen Miranda's Ghost is Ha...