Tag: blogging

DiMortuiSunt April Book Giveaway #2

Fantasy Realism or Classic Science Fiction? You Choose

Welcome to week two of the DiMortuiSunt April Book Giveaway. Congratulations to Denton Froese on winning a copy of Rebirth of a Nation! This week I’m giving away two books! One is a piece of fantasy literature that doesn’t have any magic or wizards or dragons, it has Roman legions in a fictional land. The other is an old American written sequel to H.G. Well’s War of the Worlds that most people have never heard of but set a surprising number of firsts in the genre. My reviews for both are below.

My review from the San Francisco Book Review:

Paul Kearney’s Corvus is the second book to take place in the fictional classical world of Kef. Kearney again focuses his story on a legion of mercenaries with magic armor. The protagonist, Rictus, is the leader of these mercenaries. He is aging and thinking of retiring to his farm with his wife and two daughters. Unfortunately, fate has plans that drag Rictus, his legion, and his family into a war of survival as their homeland is invaded by an army from across the sea lead by a mysterious young man who calls himself only Corvus.  Kearney is a talented writer who has a knack for presenting the chaos of the ancient battlefield in such way that excites the reader without reducing the horror of melee combat. This book is full of descriptions of battles, perhaps a few too many; Kearney doesn’t have the time to develop his characters as much with all that fighting going on. So, instead of having characters we have quick studies and archetypes. This is hardly going to be an issue for fans of the genre though; most characters in fantasy are nothing more than archetypes and Kearney certainly makes it work.

From my upcoming review in either the Sacramento or San Francisco Book Review:

H.G. Wells was a visionary writer, rightfully considered one of the founders of Science Fiction. One of his most famous works is The War Of The Worlds, a chilling tale wherein humanity is saved from the predations of more technologically advanced Martians not by any of their own actions but by mere microbes. The story when it was first serialized in the United States that the Hearst newspaper group commissioned a sequel to be written by one of their own writers. The result? Garrett P. Serviss’ Edison’s Conquest of Mars which for the first time since originally appearing in 1898 is now in print complete and unabridged.  Serviss’ Edison’s Conquest of Mars despite being a product of its time, whose science has, mostly, been surpassed or discredited the book remains a charming, pulpy, adventure tale that holds a number of “firsts” in genre fiction: ancient astronauts, disintegration rays, alien abductions, and more. The story takes place shortly after the events of Wells’ book: the governments of Earth have united to act together and with the helpful genius of Thomas Edison take the war to Mars and succeed in defeating those aliens who caused so much destruction on Earth.

Leave a comment below and you’ll be entered to win one of these books. Random winners will be selected on the 15th when the next book(s) go up.

The DiMortuiSunt Book Giveaway!

Everyone Likes Free Stuff!

I get a lot of books. Way too many books. I don’t really have room for all the books I get. I feel bad taking them to used bookstores (and that business model isn’t doing that great anyway.) The local library doesn’t want to take books from me anymore and it feels downright criminal to toss them into the recycle bin.

What am I going to do with all these books?

Then I remember I had this blog. This blog that people occasionally read, if they are good people they then mention it to their friends who also read it. I could give the books away to these people!

So this is how it’s going to work: every Friday in April I will post a picture of a book as well as a short book review of it. Anyone who comments on the post will be put in a random drawing for the book to be held the following Friday when the next book becomes available.

Seeing as I only have maybe 30-60 people who view this blog there is a reasonable chance that you just might win a book. If this is successful (wholly to be determined by me) than I’ll do it every month or so.

PS – don’t be a dick and require a bunch of legalese gobbley-gook or this will go away and you’ll never get your book!

PPS – I’ll pay shipping.

 

 

Tuesday Share (late) for July 21, 2009

Collection of links to stories and odd things I enjoyed over the last week.

I need to get the hang of writing postsbeforehand andscheduling them for later release so they don’t all tumble out at once and then the site goes dead for awhile until I’m able to update again.  I have a lot of great links.  I’m thinking these linking posts are getting boring.  Does anyone who reads the blog find any of the stories I put up here interesting?  Would a themed post be better, or should I simply eliminate them? 

Ok, let the random linking begin!

I’m a sucker for video games and pixel art and this post combines both so it showing up here was almost guaranteed.  Darkstalkers was one of numerous SF2 clones that Capcom made, the games only claim to fame was basing all the fighters on horror staples like Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, etc…

Follow this link to see the Penn and Teller Bullshit episode on video game violence.  Penn and Teller are libertarians and I don’t agree with some of the things they say but it is always interesting.

It appears this post already has a theme: video games, and this next link fits in with it as well.  Microsoft is rebooting the Mechwarrior franchise and part of the marketing campaign they’ll be releasing Mechwarrior 4 and its expansions, for free, to begin promoting.

I was going to post a link to the story of the US soldier who doesn’t think President Obama is a citizen of the United States of America and so doesn’t have to take orders from him, but these “birthers” are getting way too much attention form the media which only legitimizes they’re special brand of insane, so I won’t be linking to it and no one else should either.  They people should be shunned and humiliated not giving the spotlight.

A short interesting piece on climate warming and the arguments made against the United States enacting any law or provision that might reduce the use of fuels that contribute to it.  The gist of it is if the USA is worried about other countries not following in our footsteps by simply refusing to provide funding for dirty power plants.  Obviously this issue is more complicated than that but the post is a good jumping off point.

There are too many myths about the Star Spangled Banner (which are in good company with the scores of other myths and distortions about the birth of the United States)  all of which are busted by Ed Darrell from Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub.

Mediums get busted on this BBC show, I don’t know anything about it I just found the “mediums” so bad and transparant, and the dupe so funny.

Again, let me know if this is part of the blog you’d like to see continue or if you don’t bother reading them.

Tuesday Share for June 23, 2009

A little late with the post, this evening.  I had a lot going this weekend and hadn’t had time to write it up early, and free time seems to be scarce in these parts…  Anyway here’s this week’s odd collection of miscellanea from around the web.

The Atlas Obscura is a new website that has set out to catalog all the weird and bizarre places in the world that just aren’t mentioned in normal travel books.  This link is a short overview with more links talking about giant burning holes scattered about the globe.  I knew about the one in Centralia, PA, but didn’t know about the others, including one in Germany that has been burning continually since 1688!  Giant Burning Holes via Boing Boing.

I do some occasional cooking, my fiance loves it, so I keep my eye out for good cooking blogs and recipes that cross my path.  Annie’s Eats is a pretty good blog that always has a new recipe every day, just about?!  Most of them are baking or sweets, so I don’t pay too much attention.  I’m trying to maintain a decent weight not balloon into gross obesity. This recipe though for tinroof ice cream had to be looked over.  Chocolate, peanuts, fudge?!  Decadent and delicious sounding.  Summer is the perfect time to make ice cream and my next batch is sure to be this.

The index card is kind of ubiquitous. It has uses from the office to the kitchen, pretty much anywhere you look you’ll find them.  Their just so convenient and obvious, it’s hard to think that they had to be invented.  But they did and by the father of taxonomy to boot, Carl Linnaeus!  Mr. Linnaeus devised the card to help organize and manage a great deal of information.  Check out the entire story at Science Daily.

I don’t know what to call a link to a series of link?  Is there a word for that yet?  Anyway this short article is a quick summary by Phil Plait, of Bad Astronomy, of all the recent news stories that’ve been critical of alternative medicine and medical quackery claims and those who support them.  From Oprah to British Chiropractors, alt-medicine is taking a hit and hopefully losing credibility.

Michael Moorcock isn’t the most widely known science fiction author, but his creation, Elric has had a lasting effect on the fantasy and science-fiction genre, the music scene, and gaming.  With a new collection of his writings coming out Mr. Moorcock was interviewed by some of his lucky fans to help promote the book.  This is a lucky chance to get inside the head of  a real artist and arguably the most important British fantasy writer since J.R.R. Tolkien – The Readers of Boing Boing interview Michael Moorcock

I sometimes question of America has a culture at all, or if it’s been replaced by a marketable facsimile thereof.  The blind pursuit of profit purely for the sake of having more profit, is a poor goal for a person, organization, nation, or culture, but it seems that is what the United States has been reduced to at times, with considerations of family, community, meaning, a greater purpose to life having been discarded as unprofitable.  J.F.K spoke out against this most eloquently as has our current president Barack Obama, but this isn’t a partisan issue, or a Democrat one, every great teacher we know of from Moses, to Jesus, from the Buddha to Laozi has tried to humanity that life is not just the accumulation of items, but is instead a quest to understand ourselves and the community that sustains us.

The world’s rarest insect, Lord Howe Island stick insect, was thought extinct for the last 70 years until in 2001 30 individuals were found on Ball’s Pyramid.  The insect is now in a breeding program and scientists hope to one day re-introduce it to Lord Howe Island if the rats can be exterminated from the island.  Via Boing Boing, more info at the Australian Dept. of Environment.

The president of the Liberty University Democrats club is leaving the college behind… Liberty University, a fundamentalist christian liberal arts college, has had a history of controversy.  The most recent being the banning of the democrat club from campus.  I hope other students will be inspired and find other avenues of education and centers of higher education that respect a diversity of opinions and viewpoints.

Another link from Debunking Christianity, this time on the genealogies of Jesus, plenty to read over there so I’m not going to add to it.

That’s it for this week.  Expect an original post tomorrow or Thursday as well as some additional old stuff (Necrons, etc.)  The next part of my Camus saga will be this weekend or the beginning of next week.

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