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Showing posts from April, 2016

"Honor From Ashes" and drunken baggage handlers

I want this to be one of the best bits I've written. There's a bit more at stake here than there is with my usual book reviews. And that makes me flinch a little, because I don't believe life is fair, and yet I'm trying to MAKE a situation fair by writing about it. I'm hoping that in the execution of this blog, plus the accompanying Amazon review, I will even the scales for an author; just a bit. Let me get the drunken baggage handlers out of the way first, shall I? Unless all your travels have been by your personally owned vehicle, at some point you have handed over your luggage to someone else for safekeeping. Happens at airports, bus stations, train depots, and on the dock of a cruise ship. In exchange for your baggage, you get a little ticket, or a few little tickets, and then your bag goes away. You are no longer in control of what happens to it. At the end of your journey, you go to claim your baggage. If all goes well, you are out of the station quickly, and

Offspring for sale on Amazon

After the last episode of family drama, here's something I've thought about: selling my offspring on Amazon. I don't know that it's legal to sell THEM on Amazon, but maybe I could write up a bio of each, include a picture, and sell that. Then, once I had the product out there, I could review it. And maybe base their birthday present and Christmas gifts on how many stars they had earned.The product would, of course, be subject to updates, as they did more stupid things or more wonderful things, and I would include the updated narrative for no additional cost. To get over the adult children getting a case of bad attitude because I outed them for doing something stupid, I'd give them a code name, like Jilly Back and Sary Mue. Maybe I'll start a franchise: Review-Yer-Kids! Include a set of templates. Get Samuel L Jackson to be my Celebrity Spokesperson. Thinking about ground rules for assigning review stars: as a default condition, GRAND children get a two-star

Changeling's Island, revised

I wrote about  Dave Freer's book, Changeling's Island, when it was released as a Baen ARC back in January. It's now on Amazon, and is therefore eligible for review. So review it I did, again demonstrating the value of recycling and cut and paste. However, this blog post has additional original content, and is therefore MUST reading. Part the first: The Review of the Book, in which I have made Few Changes Tim Ryan is a nice young man who has had a string of bad luck.  Part of that luck is having parents who are much more interested in being nice to themselves than being parents.  Another part is that he has fallen under the influence of a glamour-girl of his own age, who uses her feminine wiles to persuade him to make all sorts of bad decisions, the most recent one being shoplifting (rotten little snip!).  However, unbeknownst to him, much of the bad luck he's having is due to the fact that he is being followed and "assisted" by mumble pixie mumble fairy mumble