…at least for now.
We have quite the potpourri this time. First up is something completely different. A podcast I really thought some of you would enjoy.
Kind of like 21st century Twilight Zone episodes. This quirky, darkly comic, Southwestern-flavored anthology brings you a new paranormal audio play every month. Sit back, relax, and hold on tight. Because you’re about to take a quick detour…through Uncanny County…
There’s more…
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Next up is Paul Wartenberg:
Body Armor Blues: There are superheroes in the world, people with Talents, and the ones who choose can get to train and suit up to work the streets fighting crime and saving lives.
Sometimes, though, there’s a problem suiting up. Even with powers, those would-be heroes need to protect themselves with the best armor they can get. But one young woman training up in 1993 is finding out that some armors can’t fit her needs, and she might not even get the chance to save the day.
Good thing she’s bumped into another Talent able to help her out.
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Silly Luther Siler thought his sci-fi books might not be a fit. I’m pretty certain he’s mistaken, so I’ve included both his fiction and his non-fiction works today.
The Sanctum of the Sphere: Troll evictions! Dwarf pirates! Daring rescues! Angry gods! Impossible technology! Oversized bars! Pissed-off ogres! Disrespectful spaceships! All this and a mild disregard for proper wound treatment!
THE BENEVOLENCE ARCHIVES, VOL. 1 is a novella-length collection of six short stories set in a common universe. Combining elements of space opera-style science fiction and high fantasy, THE BENEVOLENCE ARCHIVES tell the adventures of Brazel, Rhundi, and Grond, a gnome/halfogre team of smugglers.
THE PLANET IT’S FARTHEST FROM: A simple job in a saloon goes poorly for Brazel.
THE CLOSET: Brazel and Grond are hired to teach someone why gambling can be a bad idea.
YANK: Dwarven pirates. ‘Nuff said.
REMEMBER: Brazel and Grond are hired by one of the galaxy’s most powerful people for a suspiciously easy job.
THE CONTRACT: Rhundi tries to get through a simple business negotiation without anyone being shot.
THE SIGIL: Brazel and Grond encounter something horrifying on a frozen rock in the middle of nowhere.
His non-fiction work takes us into the world of modern education. As someone charged with grading standardized tests for a while, I look forward to reading this one.
Searching for Malumba: Why Teaching is Terrible..and Why We Do It Anyway
Luther M. Siler’s long-awaited book about teaching, SEARCHING FOR MALUMBA collects nearly 150 of the best of his essays and blog posts from 15 years of writing about American urban education. Alternately hilarious, sad, furious, horrifying, and touching, as well as frequently profane, Siler’s writings shed a light on the reality of teaching in America’s urban schools during the reign of the No Child Left Behind Act and the rise of standardized testing. Available as an ebook and in print.
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Carol Van Natta has a few books that can all be found here.
From her author’s notes: Carol is an independent science fiction author. Works include the Central Galactic Concordance space opera series—Overload Flux, Minder Rising, and Pico’s Crush—and the retro science fiction comedy, Hooray for Holopticon. She shares her Fort Collins, CO home with a sometime mad scientist and various cats. Any violations of the laws of physics in her books is the fault of the cats, not the mad scientist.
Let’s start with Overload Flux
Forensic investigator Luka Foxe and security specialist Mairwen Morganthur fight corrupt pharma corporations, murderous mercs, sabotage, and deadly space battles, and must trust each other with dark secrets if they hope to survive.
Stability has reigned throughout the Central Galactic Concordance for two hundred years, but trouble is brewing. A new pandemic is affecting hundreds of civilized planets, and someone is stealing the vaccine…
Brilliant crime scene investigator Luka Foxe has a problem. His hidden mental talent is out of control, making him barely able to function in the aftermath of violence, and the body count is rising. The convoluted trail leads to a corrupt pharma industry and the possibility of an illegal planet-sized laboratory. Faced with increasing threats, Luka must rely on an enigmatic, lethal woman he just met, but she has enough secrets to drag a ship down from orbit.
Mairwen Morganthur hides extraordinary skills under the guise of a dull night-shift guard. The last thing she wants is to provide personal security for a hot-shot investigator, or to be plunged into a murky case involving deaths, murderous mercenaries, sabotage, treachery, and the military covert operations division that would love to discover she’s still alive.
Two more lives in a rising death count won’t bother their enemies one bit. Their only hope for survival lies in revealing their dark secrets and, much harder, learning to trust one another.
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And the final submission is from Alan Flurry:
From his author page: Born in 1968 in Savannah, Georgia, novelist and filmmaker Alan Flurry is a distinctive new voice in American literature. His often cinematic approach to literature now takes to the stage in Cansville, a playwright’s journey into the fevered dream that is the slowly unfolding act of creation.
Cansville: When Toby Alameda begins a stint as creative director of the Cansville Theatre in Louisville, Kentucky, he sets about to reconstruct the story of his boyhood home and the extended family that had lived there. The structure itself had been expanded from a modest farmhouse where his family took in relatives during the Great Depression. By the time the young Toby was practicing archery in his upstairs bedroom two generations later, the great emptied house had so grown into his being that he hardly gave it any thought.
The folly of melding imagination and memory wends through the characters and local actors as the house comes to life upon the stage: the transvestite, Grey Calhoun, who will star as his beloved cousin, Virginia; Darling Forrest Nixon, wife of the theatre owner and aspiring muse to Toby; the old, empty LBJ Hotel where he rents a room on the top floor; and Charlotte Brown, maid in the hotel whose piano playing moves the play toward music and Toby toward the play’s completion.
The plot of the novel is Toby’s attempt to make up a story he already knows; it builds with the writing of the play and culminates in the day before the premiere of “The Big House.
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That’s it for now. I’m still on board if you want to have a monthly reading thread to discuss favorite books. All the previous Authors In Our Midst can be found here.
Hopefully our authors will show up to answer any questions you might have. What’s on your bookshelf these days?
Mnemosyne
Did JoyceH ever send you an email? She absolutely should have — her traditional Regency novels are a fun blend of history and sly modern humor. Think Georgette Heyer, not Jane Austen.
I’m going to my first meeting of one of the local chapters of Romance Writers of America tomorrow. God, I hate meeting new people even though I know it’s good for me.
RSA
@Mnemosyne: I hope it’s fun! And supportive.
Luther M. Siler
Hi folks! I’m Luther; I wrote two of the books up there. I should point out that the description up there is for Benevolence Archives vol. 1, not 2, which is a full length novel. The short story collection is just 99 cents at Amazon.
I’m at work tonight, but I’ll try to monitor the thread as best I can if anyone has questions.
Baud
Congrats to all of our authors.
Iowa Old Lady
TaMara, thank you for all your work in putting these posts together.
Mnemosyne
@RSA:
I hope so, too. Social anxiety and introversion is not a fun combination for situations like these, but romance novelists as a group have a reputation for being pretty friendly.
Carl W
@Mnemosyne: Ooh, tell me more (if you’re allowed to). I’m a sucker for books that mention Heyer in promotional blurbs (and for the original Heyer comedic romances). For example, I recently enjoyed Newt’s Emerald by Garth Nix, which I bought in large part based on:
Since I’m a regular Garth Nix reader and a Georgette Heyer fan, I couldn’t resist :)
Mnemosyne
@Carl W:
She’s promoted them here in the past and her pseudonym is not exactly a major concealment, so here’s the first one: A Feather To Fly With. There are three novels and a novella. Katherine, When She Smiled was my least favorite of the series, but still enjoyable.
SiubhanDuinne
My local NPR station has a reporter who consistently mispronounces “author” as “Arthur.” I’m just having a terrible moment (in my inner ear) listening to her read this thread and comments aloud.
@Mnemosyne:
She’s also written two very good murder mysteries set in a vineyard — Died on the Vine and Bidding on Death. I enjoy the Regencies, but I wish she’d return to the mystery genre now and then.
billb
Tamara, great job putting these up. I hold out hope that mine might appear. But over and over it does not, this saddens me. Guess you think the book sucks.
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/billBAD
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: Years ago, a local ABC reporter mentioned something about A.za..leah Street in Roswell. I for the life of me didn’t know where A.za.. leah street was, until suddenly, I realized he was talking about azalea street.
TaMara (HFG)
@billb: I never received your submission. Sorry if it got lost in my junk mail filter.
PaulWartenberg2016
TaMara, thank you so much for including me on this Authors list!
and efgoldman, yeah the Rays are pretty bad this year. Our pitching’s gone south and we still don’t have enough good hitters in the lineup. But still, I gotta represent GO RAYS (dammit get better)!
SiubhanDuinne
@Luther M. Siler: Very much looking forward to reading Searching for Malumba.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
LOL. My dad lived on Azalea Circle in Decatur when he first moved here in 1951 or so. I was not yet 10 and looked at the return address on his letters and pronounced it in my mind “AZ-uh-lee.”
TaMara (HFG)
@Mnemosyne: I didn’t receive anything from her. We may have to have another round in the fall. I suspect my summer is going to be pretty busy. fingers crossed.
Nunca El Jefe
@Luther M. Siler: I read them both after seeing you in one of the previous threads and, since you’re here, will take the opportunity to tell you how much I enjoyed them. Is there a volume 3 in the works? No rush, I’m sure it will be worth the wait.
Luther M. Siler
@Nunca El Jefe: Working on Vol 3 of Benevolence Archives right now, which is another collection, but longer than Volume 1 is. Then the sequel to SKYLIGHTS, then something entirely new. :-)
Glad you liked the books. Can I beg for an Amazon review?
Steeplejack (phone)
@JPL, @SiubhanDuinne:
Well, you do live in a town where Ponce de Leon comes out “Ponce [one syllable] duh LEE-on.”
Adam L Silverman
@PaulWartenberg2016: Veee veeel nouw vee goink thruw yor text to determin zee accurazee ov zee martial arts material…. Yu haf veen warned…
SiubhanDuinne
@Steeplejack (phone):
True enough, and that is why I named a long-ago yellow kitty “Pounce de Lion.”
opiejeanne
@Luther M. Siler: I’m on nook so I will check it out at B & N.
These books all looks good.
WaterGirl
I would hate to see this series end, so I am hoping that some of our authors see this post and think, damn, I should have sent my info to TaMara! If I’m right, I hope you will send her your info anyway. I’m sure she will put up a post.
TaMara, I am on board with the monthly reading thread. I also wonder what you would think of doing an author Q&A like we did with Cole’s friend who wrote a couple of very popular books. I have been wanting to read Don’t Tell My Parents I’m a Supervillain – if anyone is interested in that. I have given it as a gift (twice) but never read it myself!
Also, Tom’s book, The Hunt for Vulcan, got rave reviews from the two people I gave it to. Maybe we could have a Q&A with Tom about that book.
Luther M. Siler
@opiejeanne: right now my ebooks are Amazon exclusive, but if you want nook versions email me at Luther at prostetnic dot com and we can work something out. Thanks!
opiejeanne
@JPL: Ha! When my son was learning to read, he pronounced azalea that way when we were in a garden shop.
opiejeanne
@Luther M. Siler: Thanks. That’s ok. I own a Kindle, so I can read them there. I just use the nook more because it’s a better model than our Kindle, which was a gift from one of our kids.
opiejeanne
@Steeplejack (phone): I had a teacher in 4th grade who insisted that Ponce was pronounced “PAHN-kuh”; took me a couple of years to undo the damage he did to Spanish names, and in California 4th grade was when you studied the missions and all of the Spanish explorers.
opiejeanne
@WaterGirl: I read “Don’t Tell My Parents” and enjoyed it.
NotMax
So the first item is sort’a like Nigthvale Radio?
(Among other places to savor, their YouTube channel.)
Carl W
@Mnemosyne: Just finished A Feather to Fly With. Very enjoyable. (Beginning was good, middle dragged a bit, end was very good — literally laugh-out-loud funny.)
Mnemosyne
@Carl W:
I liked both A Regency Road Trip (the novella) and The World’s A Stage — for me, they had just the right balance of Regency and modernism. I think she said that Katherine, When She Smiled is supposed to be her nod to Austen instead of Heyer, but I really think brightness and action is more her forte.
Alan Flurry
Honored to be included in this list. Thanks to the gracious Tamara.
There must be many more aspiring writers out there, and that’s part of what my book is about. We all live in Cansville – so get to it.
Carol Van Natta
Thanks, TaMara, for including my space opera series in the last group of “Authors in our Midst.” I love finding new books to read, too. Luther Siler’s silly SF sounds fun!
For them what are interested, you can find my space opera series (Overload Flux, Minder Rising, Zero Flux, and Pico’s Crush) at Amazon Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iTunes, and Google Play. I’ve also written a light paranormal romance novella, In Graves Below, that’s only available for Kindle.My work in progress is Book 4 in the space opera series, and I hope to have it out in October or November.
Nunca El Jefe
@Luther M. Siler: this may be a dead thread, but yes, I would be happy to put some of my thoughts up at Amazon. You do good work, amigo.
Luther M. Siler
@Nunca El Jefe: Thanks again, boss. Reviews are hugely important to independent authors– I really appreciate it.
Miss Bianca
I’ll digest this all later – King Lear and Love’s Labour’s Lost taking up all my time! But thanks so much for doing these author threads, TaMara!
Luther Siler
@SiubhanDuinne: This slipped past me somehow. Thank you!
Nicole
@NotMax: Sort of a Southwestern Twilight Zone, I’d say. I wrote the third episode, “Mother Loves You” and the August episode, “Rainbow Magic Kittens” is mine, too. I love “Welcome to Night Vale”!
Ultraviolet Thunder
I bought three of Tom Levenson’s books today: ..Newton.., Einstein.. and Vulcan. I’ve had good luck recently with four nonfiction books by Tom Standage and three by Ben Macintyre so I decided to stay with nonfiction. After reading all of Dorothy L. Sayers and Jill Paton Walsh (the fiction only) over the winter I was a bit burnt on fiction.