Unexpected Packages And Star Trek Into Darkness

So . . . this is a bit random, but I received a surprise in the mail and thought I'd share it with you guys, because all the nerds I know are a.) online and b.) mostly bloggers.

This was on the top of the steps leading to the house when we got home yesterday. My mom's response was a quick "That's not ours" because no one had ordered anything, but when I checked the label it was addressed to me. And it was from Paramount.

It was kind of obvious what the package was based on the shape, but I still had no idea what it was from. I've been playing around with the Star Trek Into Darkness app (which is pretty cool, by the way, even if the software it uses has to be reinstalled every so often) but hadn't put my address into that.

Then I found this paper attached by rubber band to the roll--

--which is something I had signed up for way back when, a few weeks after it launched in December. Are You the 1701? was just a black screen with a sign up form at that point and I couldn't resist, it being about Star Trek and looking so mysterious.

The other side of the paper said this:

And the 3D trailer is here. But anyway, here's the best bit:

The detail is impressive. I love just looking at it and admiring it--the poster's quite big, around 2.5x4.5 feet. For now it's going to stay in its packaging since I don't know what to do with it exactly (all my wall space is taken except for right across from where I sleep, and I'm not sure I want to stare at it when I've got insomnia, lovely as it is) though I'm definitely keeping the poster. (Insert obligatory comment about selling it on eBay as an antique in the future.)

Anyone else looking forward to the movie?


-----The Golden Eagle

The National Wormhole Day Blog Hop

The National Wormhole Day Blog Hop is hosted by Stephen Tremp, Laura Eno, and L.G. Smith. Like the recent Back to the Future blogfest, it's based on time travel--though this time it's a person traveling through time, not a shoe box! It sounded like fun, so I signed up.

About the blogfest (from Stephen's blog):

What would you do or where would you go if you could traverse a wormhole through space or time just once? One safe round trip passage. Would you go back in time and talk some sense into a younger you? Go five years into the future and bring back the Wall Street Journal? See just how the heck the Great Pyramids of Giza were really built? View what the other side of the universe looks like? Kill Hitler?

I love speculating about the future; I am a huge fan of stories that cast human society forward hundreds or thousands of years. Therefore, I'd choose traveling through time to year 3001, just to see what it looks like--because while 2001 didn't turn out to be the milestone predicted I'm sure 3001 will be entirely different from today, either for better or for worse. Hopefully the better.

And (since this is for fun and I don't want to think about all the possible breakdowns of spacetime if time travel occurred) I'm pretty sure I'd try sticking around in the future for a while before cashing in on the second part of the "safe round trip". You know, move into a space colony, experience all the cool technology, eat amazing food, be amused by the historians who think Windows was the pinnacle of engineering a millennium before. The usual things one would do a thousand years after they were born.

What would you do if you ended up in the future? Where would you go if you could travel through time?

-----The Golden Eagle

Cover Reveal: CassaStorm by Alex J. Cavanaugh

Alex J. Cavanaugh, the power blogger who somehow visits an insane/incredible number of sites a day and is one of the most impressive voices in the blogosphere, is revealing the cover for his next book today. Here it is!

Blurb:

A storm gathers across the galaxy…
     Byron thought he’d put the days of battle behind him. Commanding the Cassan base on Tgren, his only struggles are occasional rogue pirate raids and endless government bureaucracies. As a galaxy-wide war encroaches upon the desert planet, Byron’s ideal life is threatened and he’s caught between the Tgrens and the Cassans.
     After enemy ships attack the desert planet, Byron discovers another battle within his own family. The declaration of war between all ten races triggers nightmares in his son, shaking Bassan to the core and threatening to destroy the boy’s mind.
     Meanwhile the ancient alien ship is transmitting a code that might signal the end of all life in the galaxy. And the mysterious probe that almost destroyed Tgren twenty years ago could be on its way back. As his world begins to crumble, Byron suspects a connection. The storm is about to break, and Byron is caught in the middle…

Release date: September 17, 2013 

Other details:
Genre: Science Fiction - Space Opera/Adventure
Print ISBN: 9781939844002
E-book: ISBN 9781939844019

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Congratulations, Alex! The cover for CassaStorm is amazing.


What's been one of your favorite new covers or books recently? Or, what's one cover you can go back to over and over again and admire each time?


-----The Golden Eagle

My Favorite Martian Bloghop

Co-hosted by The Geek Twins, Just a Dash of Geek, L.K. Hill, and Comic Book and Movie Reviews, this blogfest is all about Science Fiction.

From The Geek Twins:

On January 21st, 2013, share your all-time favorite alien individual (Martian or not) and why you love them. Find like minded blogs, get new visitors and make new friends!

I wasn't sure what alien to choose for this blogfest at first, but then I realized it wasn't a very hard choice. I'm absolutely going with whatever caused the circumstances of 2001: A Space Odyssey, because it's my favorite portrayal of "aliens": Strange, incomprehensible, confusing, and non-human, as I would be willing to bet real aliens would be. Sure, it's fun when aliens are humanoid and speak our languages and resemble human society (I'm lookin' at you, Star Trek) but it's very unlikely to happen if we did encounter anything from a place other than Earth. At least, that's the way it seems to me.

What's your favorite alien?


-----The Golden Eagle

Cover Reveal: From the Ashes by Jessica K. McKendry

Jessica K. McKendry has revealed the cover and blurb of her debut, From the Ashes! I'm excited to be part of the reveal, since it sounds like a really good book (and the cover is fantastic):

Blurb:

I'm not sure how it all went wrong.
The concept was simple.
The Trials were made to test us. They were made to challenge our strengths; our bravery.
We were supposed to come out better.
Winning the Trials would make us Superior citizens.
It would bring us honor and demonstrate our loyalty to the Imperial Alliance. I knew exactly what I wanted.
Until I met him.
There was something about him. Something dark. If only I had known the danger it would put us in.
I thought I knew the risks.
But I never imagined the price we'd pay.

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Sound like a book you'd check out? What's an upcoming debut that's caught your eye?


-----The Golden Eagle

Blogfest: Did I Notice Your Book?

The Did I Notice Your Book Blogfest is hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh and Ciara Knight, and is all about spreading the word about books.

Post about a book you've noticed. You can choose a book that you've read, something you saw on a blog or social media site, Goodreads, or a sales website. Anything that caught your eye because of a great cover, blurb or reviews, but DON'T tell the author that their book has been noticed. Instead, shout out on social media sites, and encourage others to do the same, until the author finds his/her book.

Leave a blog comment at Ninja Captain Alex's BLOG or Ciara Knight's BLOG when the author finds their book.

Only two rules:

1. You can't post about your own book.
2. The book shouldn't be on the New York Times or USA Today bestseller list. 

This is your chance to shout out about a book that might not have been noticed by others.

I had a hard time deciding which book to post about for this. I follow hundreds of authors, many of whom have published their work, and they're all impressive. However, as I had to narrow it down to something, here's what I went with:

Year Zero by Rob Reid.

An alien advance party was suddenly nosing around my planet.
Worse, they were lawyering up. . . .

In the hilarious tradition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Rob Reid takes you on a headlong journey through the outer reaches of the universe—and the inner workings of our absurdly dysfunctional music industry.

Low-level entertainment lawyer Nick Carter thinks it’s a prank, not an alien encounter, when a redheaded mullah and a curvaceous nun show up at his office. But Frampton and Carly are highly advanced (if bumbling) extraterrestrials. And boy, do they have news.

The entire cosmos, they tell him, has been hopelessly hooked on humanity’s music ever since "Year Zero" (1977 to us), when American pop songs first reached alien ears. This addiction has driven a vast intergalactic society to commit the biggest copyright violation since the Big Bang. The resulting fines and penalties have bankrupted the whole universe. We humans suddenly own everything—and the aliens are not amused.

Nick Carter has just been tapped to clean up this mess before things get ugly, and he’s an unlikely galaxy-hopping hero: He’s scared of heights. He’s also about to be fired. And he happens to have the same name as a Backstreet Boy. But he does know a thing or two about copyright law. And he’s packing a couple of other pencil-pushing superpowers that could come in handy.

Soon he’s on the run from a sinister parrot and a highly combustible vacuum cleaner. With Carly and Frampton as his guides, Nick now has forty-eight hours to save humanity, while hopefully wowing the hot girl who lives down the hall from him.

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What book(s) have you noticed recently and/or are on your TBR? If you're participating in the Did I Notice Your Book Blogfest, which book did you choose? Heard of Year Zero before?


-----The Golden Eagle

My Novel Is The Next Big Thing!

Well, okay, maybe not. But Chris Kelworth (of The Kelworth Files) and David Powers King (of The Cosmic Laire) both tagged me in the Next Big Thing, or Be Inspired, meme-whatsit that's been circulating in the blogosphere and asks people about their current works-in-progress. Thanks for tagging me, guys!

The questions are a little different for each tag but basically ask the same things, so I'm going to mix and match from both. The WIP in question is my upcoming NaNoWriMo novel since I've pretty much decided what I'm going to write about. This will help me flesh out my ideas, at any rate.

On to the tag!

1. What is the title of your book?
I don't know, actually. It's just half an outline and an underlying concept at the moment.

2. Where did the idea for your book come from?
A bit of a long story. You see, I was feeling destitute of good ideas, and in hopes of jogging my creative side I decided to write down ALL of the things I liked in fiction onto slips of paper (separated by category, such as Writing Style, Plot Element, Point of View, etc.) and then randomly combine a few from each. One of those combinations inspired the idea of a ship traveling to a new planet. Then, editing the idea, I thought:

"What if colonists decided to land on a known and as-yet-unexplored continent, but while journeying to their destination were plagued by mysterious disappearances and tragedies onboard an airship? And what if the main character befriended the saboteur behind their problems?"

Yup. That's the stuff that comes out of my brain.

3. In what genre would you classify your book?
Science Fiction/Steampunk. I love reading Steampunk but I've never actually tried writing it myself. I'm not positive about the age group, though I think the protagonist will be from 15-20 years old.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie?
Other than the obligatory Alan Rickman somewhere, no clue. I'll probably have more of an answer after the book's been written.

5. Give us a one-sentence synopsis of your book.
On the way to a new world, the son of a prominent airship captain becomes tangled in the beginning of war that could lead to the destruction of his family and his career.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
My dream, at the moment, is to have my work represented and traditionally published. I think self-publishing is a great and highly viable alternative, but I think I'd try submitting to agents first. Just to see if anyone liked what I had to offer.

7. How long did it take you to write your book?
Seeing as I haven't written anything yet, I'd estimate this novel to take around two months. I finished last year's NaNoWriMo novel during December.

8. What other books within your genre would you compare it to?
I am hoping for a Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld/Airborn by Kenneth Oppel/Jules Verne-ish feel. I'm sure it will fall far short of such works of fiction, but those are the novels with a Victorian Era setting that come to mind. Though it's not exactly Victorian Era; the world isn't Earth and the society has key differences.

9. Which authors inspired you to write this book?
All Steampunk authors influence me, but other than that, there aren't any specific people.

10. What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?
I'm contemplating adding a few steampunk dragons--and other animals. Hovercraft, cyborgs, and sentient trees are already in there.

11. Tag five people!
I'm going to do the same thing David did here and tag the last five people who commented on my blog (though if anyone I list would rather not do the tag, that's fine with me):

Ellie Garratt
Nutschell
Patricia Stoltey
Rachna Chhabria
Anthony Stemke

**********

What are you working on right now? Are you gearing up for NaNoWriMo or brainstorming for some other project?


-----The Golden Eagle

Genre Favorites Blogfest

The Genre Favorites Blogfest is hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh, and the rules are simple:

One blogfest, four favorites!
List your favorite genre of:

Movie
Music
Books

And a guilty pleasure genre from any of the three categories!

My favorites:


Movies: Fantasy
I was going to say Science Fiction for this category . . . but then I realized that a lot of my favorite movies (The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter) are Fantasy. I've seen more Fantasy than SF.

Music: Classical
I do like some contemporary music. But classical is the type I can listen to non-stop, and there are so many amazing composers/works that have emerged over hundreds of years.

Books: Science Fiction
Would you believe I used to somewhat avoid SF? I'm not really sure why . . . but most of my reading was Fantasy/Contemporary before I began writing my first novel, which was inspired by a Science Fiction book. And now I'm a bit obsessed with the genre.

Guilty Pleasure: Books: Young Adult Dystopian
I suppose you could put this under Science Fiction, but Dystopian (particularly YA Dystopian) has its own distinct traits. The genre can be very formulaic, predictable, and after reading too much of it I begin to feel like the future is a mire of hopeless politics and oppression (not to say that current events are full of sunshine and optimism, of course), but I do enjoy the character development that usually comes with the protagonist's refutation of their world's rules.


What's one of your favorite genres from the above categories?


-----The Golden Eagle

We Can Be Heroes Blog Tour: Interview With Scott Fitzgerald Gray

Today I have an interview with Scott Fitzgerald Gray, author of the recently released We Can Be Heroes, a Science Fiction Thriller.

Blurb:

Death and Friendship.
Love and Gaming.
Mind and Machine.
The Meaning of Life.
High School Graduation.
The End of the World.
That Kind of Stuff.

If you press them, anyone who games will admit to some variation on the idea of how they'd love to be the hero for real, just once. Just for one day. But right now, I'm on an empty street five hundred kilometers from home, barely able to walk. I'm soaked and shivering, wearing someone else's clothes, and with way too many memories of almost dying rattling around in my head. And right here, right now, all I can think about is what I'd say if anybody asked me how much I want to be a hero...

I try to focus. I need to bring the previous days into some sort of relief that will let me sum things up.

"Me and some friends of mine, we got caught up in something. We thought we were beta-playing a game. An online tactical simulation, but the game turned out to be... you know what, that doesn't matter. But none of it was our fault, and now we have something this guy Lincoln wants. A piece of tech. I want to give it back to him, but I can't trust him to leave things alone after that."

"What kind of tech?"

"A Soviet-era mobile weapons platform, whose heuristic on-board systems developed advanced artificial intelligence capability while it sat forgotten in a bunker in Smolensk." Saying it sounds just about as ridiculous as I expect it to.

"I didn't think you wrote fiction." Connor tries and fails to laugh. It's like he has some sort of esophageal deformity that routes all intent to guffaw straight from his lungs to his nose.

"Not fiction. This is the truth..."

And now, for the interview!

What inspired We Can Be Heroes?

The story behind We Can Be Heroes is one of those uber-geek recollections that really has no interest for anyone except me. But since you ask… :-)

The novel is a kind of homage to my own experience of high school, and being a geek and a gamer, and developing friendships at that age that helped shape the person I was and the person I became. The book starts out in a kind of analogue version of the small town in which I grew up, and features an analogue version of the high school in which my precocious intellectualism was first given voice, and its characters are an analogue version of me and analogue/gestalt versions of the above-mentioned friends, and its baseline emotional story is built largely on a question that really defined much of my own adolescence — How we meet the challenges of a world so large, so impersonal, and so out of control that we as individuals have no ability to face up to it?

Then as a kind of ironic metafictional thing, the larger techno-thriller plotline that sees the main characters on the run from a private paramilitary group with a load of stolen technology is actually inspired by a roleplaying game that was a big part of the high school experience of my friends and I. For me as a writer, it was fun to play with the resonance between the different layers of the story, knowing how they related to each other. And though the book contains pretty much nothing in the way of actual events drawn from real life, I was able to write it very much with the feel of something “based on a true story”. To judge by the initial feedback I’ve had on the book, that sense of the story feeling real — of it feeling very personal despite a fairly high-concept plot and a lot of action — has come through in the writing, and that’s very gratifying.

What draws you to speculative fiction?

Like a lot of bored middle-class North American kids coming of age in the 70s and 80s, I was first drawn to speculative fiction because it represented a great alternative to a real world that seemed pretty profoundly dull. (With the benefit of much hindsight, I’m happy to report that I understand a lot of significant things actually happened during the 70s and 80s. But growing up in a very small town in Western Canada, I wasn’t in a much of position to appreciate them at the time.) And though my interest as a reader covers just about every genre and type of fiction, I continue to focus on speculative fiction and fantasy as a writer because I like to be able to tap into the broad possibilities of those genres.

It’s been said before by people smarter than me, but working within a fictional world limited only by your own imagination is both a blessing a curse. A blessing because you can tell literally any story that comes to mind; a curse because it gets very easy to tell stories that disconnect from the core essentials of dramatic storytelling — morality, the struggle for survival, and what William Faulkner famously called "the human heart in conflict with itself." SF & F writers can too easily get caught up in the world building that's a core part of speculative fiction and fantasy, and character story too often suffers as a result. Even working within SF & F, I'm a writer who believes pretty strongly that real character story is the ultimate point and purpose of fiction, and I like the challenge of crafting effective character story within the wide-open narrative vista that speculative fiction represents.

How do you view the future of indie authors/publishing?

Again making full acknowledgement that this has been said by smarter people than me, the publishing world is obviously at a point of massive upheaval and transition, and it seems pretty clear that the larger publishers (what many call the Big Six or "legacy publishing") aren’t doing a particularly good job of navigating that upheaval and transition. I’m fairly ambivalent about the whole tradpub-vs.-Amazon/indie-vs.-legacy debate that a lot of writers get very passionate about, though I don’t begrudge anyone the right to voice their opinions and back them up with action. But I think the one thing that is clear is that indie-author publishing is a great opportunity for those authors willing to take advantage of it.

I think that in the future of indie author/publishers, you’re going to see a lot more authors making the leap to define themselves as publishers first and foremost, in recognition of the importance of the full process of publishing — writing, story/developmental editing, copy editing, proofreading, cover design, promotion, distribution. And I think that indie author/publishers are going to have to do so in order to separate themselves from the increasing numbers of authors who simply focus on the first and last steps in that process — writing the book, then getting it out there without any real sense of whether the book is ready to be out there. Uploading to Amazon, Smashwords, Lightning Source, or what have you is only the final stage of the publishing process, and the unfortunately large number of writers who don’t understand that are missing out on the ultimate rewards of what indie publishing can do for authors.

If you could have a conversation with any author (living or dead) who would it be?

Probably Joseph Conrad. There are any number of writers who have inspired me that I’d love to sit down with for an afternoon over a beverage. But for me, Conrad had a singular ability to weave intellect and emotion into his narratives in a way that made each aspect of the narrative stronger. A lot of literature does intellectual narrative really well, but at the expense of emotional resonance; a lot of literature focuses on the emotional journey of characters but creates a kind of internalism that comes up short when dealing with broad ideas. Standing right at the transition point between romanticism and modernism, Conrad managed to nail down both the internal and external, the emotional and the intellectual, with a degree of skill that gives his works an incredible resonance for me.

Additionally, I think Conrad's writer’s journey is a pretty interesting one, and I'd love to be able to hear about that first hand. He didn’t speak English until well into his twenties and didn’t publish his first works until nearly forty years of age, but still managed to create some of the most significant works in English literature. That seems pretty cool to me.

What's a random fact about you that isn't a secret, but which few people know?

I spend much of my day in a state of seething rage at the world and all the people in it. (Except for all of you reading this; you’re totally awesome.) This usually comes as a surprise to people who know me casually, though most of those who’ve put up with me for a number of years know of what I speak. I've always had a somewhat dark view of things that I’ve spent many years trying to deal with (thankfully mostly successfully). In We Can Be Heroes, the first-person narrator Scott is a semiautobiographical version of me during my high school days, and his somewhat bleak view of the world is very much an echo of me on my bad days. The book ultimately is a kind of expression of the process of coming to terms with understanding that the world is only as bleak a place as our own fear of the world allows it to be. The Scott in the book figures that out in the course of the events of the novel, which means that on some level he did a better job of getting his life in order than I did. Still, the fact that I was able to write the book means I caught up to him in the end. :-)

About Scott:

Scott Fitzgerald Gray has been flogging his imagination professionally since deciding he wanted to be a writer and abandoning any hope of a real career in about the fourth grade. The time since has seen him indulge in educational forays in science, arts, and film, and the bewildering variety of occupations that have driven his search for the secret of the human condition include information systems specialist, multimedia developer, teacher, facilitator, journalist, production manager, editor, graphic designer, and logger (because this is Canada, after all).

Purchase links for We Can Be Heroes:
www.amazon.com
www.amazon.co.uk 

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Also: I've been interviewed myself over at the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge blog! Hope you'll stop by--I talk about my favorite scientists and post subjects, and even what I might be doing for 2013's Challenge.

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What do you think of self-publishing? What author would you meet, if you could? Have you read We Can Be Heroes, and/or do you know Scott?


-----The Golden Eagle

Stopover At The Backworlds' Edge By M. Pax

The sequel to The Backworlds is now available. Craze and his friends continue their adventures in Stopover at the Backworlds' Edge. See what role chocolate plays in the galaxy this time.

Blurb:

The interstellar portal opens, bringing in a ship that should no longer exist. A battleship spoiling for a fight, yet the war with Earth ended two generations ago. The vessel drops off a Water-breather, a type of Backworlder thought to be extinct. She claims one of Craze’s friends is a traitor who summoned the enemy to Pardeep Station. A betrayal worse than his father's, if Craze lives to worry about it.

Available for all ereaders from:
Amazon / Amazon UK / B&N / Smashwords
iTunes and Kobo will be available shortly.

If you haven’t read The Backworlds yet, it’s available as a free read from many outlets. See HERE for links.




Trailer:





About the Author:

Inspiring the words M. Pax writes, Mary spends her summers as a star guide at Pine Mountain Observatory in stunning Central Oregon where she lives with the husband unit and two loving cats. She writes science fiction mostly and has a slight obsession with Jane Austen. Mary blogs at http://www.mpaxauthor.com/blog/

Have you read The Backworlds or Stopover at the Backworlds' Edge? Do you know Mary?


-----The Golden Eagle

Gravity Trilogy Cover Reveal

Three alien couples in three space fantasy novelettes fall in love in the Gravity trilogy. After a couple months, Cherie Reich decided that her novelettes needed a new cover. She spoke with her cover artist, Aubrie Dionne, and the new covers for Defying Gravity, Fighting Gravity, and Pull of Gravity are now ready to be revealed.

Homesick upon the SS Perseid, Linia, a young linguist, thinks she signed up for a mission of peace, but her crew members have another plan: attack the planet Medusa.
   Bored with his dying planet, Alezandros, a space cruiser pilot, joins the Medusan Army in his quest for adventure.
   When the SS Perseid clashes with the Medusans’ space cruisers, Alezandros and Linia’s lives intertwine. Sucked through a wormhole, they crash upon a post-apocalyptic Earth and are captured by cannibals. In adjacent cells, Alezandros and Linia cast their differences aside for a common bond: escape. But when romantic feelings emerge between them, they might do the unthinkable because for a Medusan and a Persean to fall in love, it would defy gravity.

To Purchase: iTunes  Kobo  Nook  Smashwords  Amazon US  Amazon UK  Amazon DE  Amazon FR  Amazon IT  Amazon ES

Forced into executing Aresia’s people, Phoebus escapes the Aresian Guard by flying his spaceship through a wormhole.
   The only single woman of marrying age, Marissa flees town instead of becoming a third wife.
   When Phoebus’s spacecraft crashes upon an asteroid-ravaged Earth, he is captured by a rogue Earthling youth and thrown into a cellar. Marissa stumbles upon the spacecraft, but it explodes before she can find any sign of the alien. When she awakens, she discovers the alien’s whereabouts and vows to help him. But Phoebus’s Aresians have landed and are searching for him. Phoebus and Marissa must battle against their despair and their peoples in a quest for their freedom. And through it all, an Earthling and an Aresian will find it easier to fight gravity than their love for each other.

To purchase: Apple  Kobo  Nook  Amazon  Amazon UK  Amazon DE  Amazon FR  Amazon IT  Amazon ES  Smashwords

   A no-nonsense Earthling corporal, Nike accepts a mission to destroy the winged-people of Cupidis to give her race a chance at a new life.
   A spoiled Cupidian prince, Edonys gets whatever he wants until his dying father tells him he must choose a mate and take his rightful place as king.
   When Nike’s space cruiser lands upon Cupidis, she’s taken to the royal palace where she crosses paths with Prince Edonys. His arrogance leads her to believe her mission of domination will be easy. Edonys refuses his father’s last request to fall in love, but Nike isn’t anyone. She’s bold and different than any Cupidian female. When he shows her his planet’s delights, Nike and Edonys realize they must discover another way to save their loved ones because it will be easier for an Earthling and a Cupidian to ignore the pull of gravity than the pull of love.

Forthcoming end of July/early August!

Cherie is also giving away the complete trilogy. I'm using Rafflecopter--there's a Facebook login option, but you can also just use your email. There are several extra entry options as well.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

About the Author:

Cherie Reich is a writer, freelance editor, book blogger and library assistant. Her short stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies, and her e-books include Once Upon a December Nightmare, Defying Gravity, Fighting Gravity, A to Z Flashes of Foxwick, and The Best of Raven and the Writing Desk. She is a member of the Virginia Writers Club and Valley Writers and placed third in Roanoke Valley's BIG READ writing contest.
   A self-proclaimed bookworm, Cherie received her bachelors of the arts in Classical Antiquities at Missouri State University. She currently lives in Virginia with her family and four adorable pets: Cinderella the cat, Romeo the cat, Abby the guinea pig, and Dash the goldfish. Besides working in a library, she is surrounded by over 1000 books in her room at home. Can anyone say bibliophile?

-----The Golden Eagle

Book/Graphic Novel Review: CO2: The Mendoza Files (Preview)

Title: CO2: The Mendoza Files (preview of complete book)
Author: Paul Tobin
Artist: David Morris
Publisher: Corvus Press
Publication Date: N/A
Genre: Science Fiction/Thriller
Rating: 4.5


My expectations: High. I'd read some of the author's posts about CO2 and was quite intrigued by them. Graphic novels don't always agree with me, but if done well they can offer more than your usual all-text book.

I can safely say those expectations were surpassed.


About the book: Kudos to the creators of this graphic novel preview. It is unique and unusual, particularly due to the setting and format. Instead of the comic-style panels and speech bubbles, this is presented in colorful pages that contain police files, magazine articles, photographs, and illustrations of the characters that add further visual details to the writing.

The writing itself is clear and the style changes appropriately to fit the different contexts mentioned above. If the writing and graphic design weren't as good, I suspect the format would have been a problem, since it jumps around so much--but the preview maintains its integrity through visual continuity and a strong setting.

And the setting is fascinating. There are seven parallel worlds in CO2; furthermore, history has been so dramatically altered that "the Church of the Holy Footprint" is taking over the world and, during the time period that the preview takes place, conquering "the Dragon Empire", i.e. the remains of China. The perspective on sweeping social/global change (and its contrast to today's world) is very interesting.

Characters and plot did not seem to be the focus in the preview, and I assume that's due to its length (it is, after all, only a preview). However, there were brief and interesting glimpses of individuals involved in certain cases that provided further insights into the world and the different kinds of people in the universe.

Content: Some swearing; references to prostitution; violence.

Other: Disclaimer: I received this preview free from the author. That did not in any way affect the opinions expressed in this review.


Do I recommend CO2? I haven't read the entire book, but based on the preview, I would definitely recommend checking it out once it is released.


-----The Golden Eagle

Breakthrough By Stephen Tremp

Today (and tomorrow) Stephen Tremp is offering his Science Fiction/Thriller/Suspense novel Breakthrough for free, and hosting a blogfest/party to spread the word.

Of course, I signed up; he's one of my favorite bloggers, and posts some great science information. His A-Z Challenge series posts about physics and space were fascinating.

About Breakthrough:

A scientific breakthrough of such magnitude it could radically alter the future of humanity—for better or worse—is in the wrong hands.
   The Information Age is moving at breakneck speed. Breakthroughs in areas of science that were once fodder for science fiction are now becoming part of our everyday life.
   A group of graduate students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology has stolen a breakthrough in opening and stabilizing Einstein-Rosen Bridges, commonly known as wormholes, that allows them to instantly transport people from one location to another. Their goal is to assassinate any powerful politician and executive controlling the world’s banking system that would use this technology for their own greedy gain rather than the advancement of mankind.
   In south Orange County, California, young Chase Manhattan, part of a new breed of modern-day discovery seekers, seeks to leave behind his life of danger and adventure and settle down as an associate professor of physics at University of California-Irvine. He also desires to build a lasting relationship with a beautiful woman he has not seen since high school.
   His idyllic plan is postponed when he soon uncovers the diabolical scheme on the other side of the country. He realizes he is the one person who can prevent more murders from happening and either control or destroy the technology. Once the M.I.T. group understands Chase and his friends have the ability and motivation to not only take the technology from them, but also thwart more killings, Chase finds himself in their crosshairs, the top-of-the-list target on their assassination agenda.
   As the death toll mounts, Chase and his friends must battle this group of misled zealots from M.I.T. on both coasts and in cyberspace in a thrilling, desperate race to determine the outcome of this monumental, once in a millenium discovery that will drastically change life as we know it—for better or worse.

Have you read Breakthrough or downloaded it yet? Do you read Science Fiction or Thrillers?


-----The Golden Eagle

SLIPSTREAM Blog Tour: A Guest Post By Michael Offutt

Today it is my honor to host Michael Offutt, author of the new Science Fiction book Slipstream. He's an amazing blogger who writes about some truly interesting and thought-provoking subjects, so head on over to his blog and follow him. Or, you know, read this post and then head on over to his blog and follow him. Either's good.

And now, take it away, Michael!

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If you follow Eagle’s blog and are reading these words, you are most likely a person who is scientifically minded. Eagle has probably one of the best blogs that I visit for posting scientific thought amidst smatterings of book reviews and other things.

Anyone that knows me or visits my blog knows that I’m in the least, agnostic and at the most, atheist. I read Richard Dawkins, I post quotes from Sam Harris, and my heroes are Stephen Hawking, Neil deGrasse Tyson,  and Dr. Michio Kaku. I also love the teachings of the late Carl Sagan.

When I’m not working at the day job, I write science-fiction.  For my book, I combine real-world science with the idea of an intelligently designed universe. This doesn’t mean I believe in intelligent design. Rather, it means that I think intelligent design belongs in science-fiction. And this idea really rubs some people wrong.  If I wrote a fantasy novel and made up gods and gave them all names like Aburajj the Destroyer and Makeleh the Bringer of Light, no one would get upset.  But because the spirituality I choose to embrace in my book has (in part) to do with Christian lore, I've had some people be very vocal in how much they dislike that.

One person hinted in a review that spirituality should not belong in science-fiction. Fine. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

But where does it belong? Given my background, it makes perfect sense for me to talk about it the way that I do and in the format that I do.

In the end, I think that people who want a science-fiction view of what could be actual reality in twenty years or so will not like what I write. I'm not here to predict the future and give you a glimpse of things I see in a crystal ball at the end of the 21^st century.

SLIPSTREAM and the series A Crisis of Two Worlds is about a designer universe and what I hope is a new spin on angels and demons. The "spin" is I’m using real-world science and quantum mechanics.  And the final product…It’s all fiction folks! It's all make-believe and (in my mind) just as valid as a world that’s flat, filled with gods and hobbits, and an all-powerful ring to rule them all. To play the devil's advocate…aren't there already enough science-fiction books with spaceships and aliens? I wanted something different. I wanted a story based in present-day earth that combines some of the things that a lot of the people I know actually believe in. I think the result is going to be people will either love it, or they’ll despise it.

I have a contest for the release of my book.  I will pick one random person who comments on this post to win a $5 Amazon Gift Card and a SLIPSTREAM jeweled spider (the same person wins both prizes). The jeweled spider really sparkles in the sunlight. I hope whoever wins it really likes it. Also, please make sure that your email is linked to your signature in some way. :) And yes, the crystal spiders play an important role in my book.

Rules:

1) Mark my book “To Read” on Goodreads.

2) Comment on this post.

3) Tweet this post if you have twitter. You don’t have to sign-up for twitter. It’s the "honor" system. :)

That’s it. I will choose a winner on Saturday, May 19^th. And thank you, Eagle, for having me on your fine blog.

Slipstream on:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Goodreads

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So, what do you think about combining religion with Science Fiction?


-----The Golden Eagle

The Backworlds By M. Pax

Normally Tuesday would be for Teaser Tuesday, but I'm taking one more week off (hope none of you mind . . .) to celebrate the release of The Backworlds (came out yesterday) by the awesome blogger M. Pax, from the blog Wistful Nebulae.

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The Backworlds is here!

The first story in the Backworlds series by M. Pax. A vision of how humanity might colonize the galaxy some day in the distant future.

The Backworlds

After the war with Earth, bioengineered humans scatter across the Backworlds. Competition is fierce and pickings are scant. Scant enough that Craze’s father decides to hoard his fortune by destroying his son. Cut off from family and friends, with little money, and even less knowledge of the worlds beyond his own, Craze heads into an uncertain future. Boarding the transport to Elstwhere, he vows to make his father regret this day.

Available from: Amazon / AmazonUK / Smashwords / Feedbooks

Other links to more outlets can be found at either Wistful Nebulae or MPax

The Backworlds is an ebook and a free read. All formats can be found at Smashwords and Feedbooks.

It'll take a few weeks to work its way down to free on Amazon Kindle. It will also be available on B&N and iTunes. Sign up for M. Pax's mailing list to be notified the day it does go free on Amazon, and when the book becomes available at other outlets. You’ll also receive coupons for discounts on future publications. The NEWSLETTER (mailing list).

About M. Pax:

M. Pax’s inspiration comes from the wilds of Oregon, especially the high desert where she shares her home with two cats and a husband unit. Creative sparks also come from Pine Mountain Observatory where she spend her summers working as a star guide. She writes mostly science fiction and fantasy, but confesses to an obsession with Jane Austen. 

She blogs at her website, www.mpaxauthor.com and at Wistful Nebuae. You’ll find links there to connect on Twitter, Goodread, FB and other sites. 

The sequel, Stopover at the Backworlds’ Edge, will be released in July 2012. It will be available in all ebook formats and paperback.

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Do you know M. Pax? Have you read The Backworlds yet? (I want to . . . so many books on my TBR list!)


-----The Golden Eagle

A Bookish Shoutout: Elemental By Emily White Trailer Reveal

I recently found out that Emily White was revealing the book trailer for her novel Elemental (Young Adult Science Fiction). As it would help spread the word about a fellow blogger's book (and, I'll admit, I had nothing else to post about today and was looking for a subject), I thought I'd give it a mention.

Blurb for the book:

For ten years--ever since she was a small child--Ella has been held prisoner. Now that she has escaped, she needs answers.

Who is she? Why was she taken? And who is the boy with the beautiful green eyes who haunts her memories?

Is Ella the prophesied Destructor... or will she be the one who's destroyed?

Release date: May 1, 2012

And, of course, the trailer itself:

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Are there any recent book announcements that have gotten you excited?


-----The Golden Eagle

On Fire for Alex J. Cavanaugh's CassaFire!

It's the big day, everyone! It's the release date of Alex J. Cavanaugh's new book, CassaFire (sequel to CassaStar).

The goal is to help CassaFire “catch fire” on the best seller charts and achieve the success of the first book, CassaStar. There’s also a special package of prizes being given away at the author’s blog (copies of CassaFire, CassaStar, tote bag, mug, and bookmarks) as well as book giveaways during his two-week blog tour. See Alex’s site for details.

About the book:

CassaStar was just the beginning…

The Vindicarn War is a distant memory and Byron’s days of piloting Cosbolt fighters are over. He has kept the promise he made to his fallen mentor and friend - to probe space on an exploration vessel. Shuttle work is dull, but it’s a free and solitary existence. The senior officer is content with his life aboard the Rennather.

The detection of alien ruins sends the exploration ship to the distant planet of Tgren. If their scientists can decipher the language, they can unlock the secrets of this device. Is it a key to the Tgren’s civilization or a weapon of unimaginable power? Tensions mount as their new allies are suspicious of the Cassan’s technology and strange mental abilities.

To complicate matters, the Tgrens are showing signs of mental powers themselves; the strongest of which belongs to a pilot named Athee, a woman whose skills rival Byron’s unique abilities. Forced to train her mind and further develop her flying aptitude, he finds his patience strained. Add a reluctant friendship with a young scientist, and he feels invaded on every level. All Byron wanted was his privacy…

A review of his novel CassaStar, from Library Journal:

“…calls to mind the youthful focus of Robert Heinlein’s early military sf, as well as the excitement of space opera epitomized by the many Star Wars novels. Fast-paced military action and a youthful protagonist make this a good choice for both young adult and adult fans of space wars.” 

Trailer (you really should see this, because it's amazing):

Science fiction - space opera/adventure

Print ISBN 978-0-9827139-4-5, $15.95, 6x9 Trade paperback, 240 pages

EBook ISBN 978-0-9827139-6-9, $4.99, available in all formats


Links to purchase:
Barnes and Noble: http://dft.ba/-CassaFireBaN
Amazon: http://dft.ba/-CassaFireAmazon
Amazon Kindle: http://dft.ba/-CassaFireKindle

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CONGRATULATIONS, ALEX! :)

-----The Golden Eagle

Final Thoughts On Star Wars: The Original Trilogy

As you may know from reading my posts over the past couple of weeks, I've been watching Star Wars for the first time (go HERE for my thoughts on the first movie, and HERE for the second). I saw the final movie in the original trilogy, Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, on Saturday.

After watching three movies, I cannot say I was completely bowled over by the series. Luke did not appeal to me, I wasn't utterly enamored by any of the characters, and by the last movie it felt to me like the scenes were too long and dragged. Also, most of it felt predictable; though that's probably due to the "Hero's Journey" formula and the fact so many people have copied the story.

But I am glad I watched them. I liked several of the characters (Princess Leia, Han Solo, R2-D2, Chewbacca, and I even thought Luke was okay by the end), and being a fan of Science Fiction, the world really interested me. (Plus, there's always the fact I won't be so clueless when people talk about the series and say something stupid that makes no sense in relation to the Star Wars universe.)

Overall, I would recommend watching Star Wars, if you haven't yet. They movies are a bit predictable sometimes and the main character, Luke Skywalker, may not always appeal, but it's still an interesting SF trilogy and a good adventure story.

As for the Prequel Trilogy, I don't think I'm going to run and watch those right away. I'm pretty sure I will in the future--since even if they're bad, part of me wants to find out just how bad--but for now, the questions I have about the history of the characters can wait.

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And now what am I going to watch?

Now I think I'm going to try and tackle that other well-known Star series, Star Trek; starting with The Original Series, because that's what the library has, and I figure it can't be a terrible idea to start with the original. Right?

Rest assured, I shall be back with commentary on that as well. :)

(Unless you'd prefer I wouldn't?)

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In other, unrelated news:

The A-Z April Blogging Challenge sign-ups have begun.

For those of you who may not have heard of this before, it's a challenge hosted by several bloggers (all of which can be seen HERE) where you post for every letter of the alphabet in April, so every day except for 4 days. Last year there were over 1,300 participants (or was it more?) and there's plenty of posting madness, but it's a blast. I've already added my name--I was a participant in 2011, and I am definitely looking forward to doing it in 2012!

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How about you? What did you think of Star Wars: The Original Trilogy?


Are you signing up for the A-Z Challenge, and/or have you participated in previous years?


-----The Golden Eagle

Blog Tour Book Review: Exiled by RaShelle Workman

Title: Connected Series Book 1: Exiled

Author: RaShelle Workman

Release date 11-11-11 through Polished Pen Press in cooperation with Literary Underground. 

Genre: YA/Science Fiction

Page Count: 307

Rating: 4 out of 5

Cover Rating: 4 out of 5. I really liked this cover the first time I saw it, because it's different and a bit striking. It manages to include the Science Fiction-feel of the novel, along with the story's romantic side.

Book Summary:

Stubborn, sixteen-year-old Princess Venus of Kelari wants one thing, to become immortal, that is, until someone exiles her to Earth, kills her irrihunter and takes her family.
   Now she wants revenge.
   First she’s got to get home. But before she can return to Kelari, the Gods have commanded her to help an arrogant boy named Michael find his soul mate.
   Only she doesn't know the first thing about love.
   Rather quickly, her inexperience with human emotion is obscured by other matters—alien-controlled psychotic teens that are out to kill her, and a government group that is set on capturing and dissecting her.
   Worst of all, Venus will suffer a painful death-by-poisoning, thanks to Earth’s atmosphere, if she remains on the planet longer than one week.
   Still, Venus is a Princess and she's got a plan. Surely, with her help, Michael will fall in love with a human.
   But time is running out and Michael is falling for the wrong girl—her.

My expectations: High. I was intrigued by the blurb and the trailer, mentions of the story on the author's blog, and the other reviews I'd come across.

I'm happy to be able to say Exiled met those expectations.

About the book: This book is unique. That's one thing I really enjoyed about the story; I've never come across another YA book all that similar to it, particularly because it has SF and Romance as two central themes, not a usual combination. The writing, while occasionally awkward, is strong overall; I liked the way things were described, along with the dialogue.

• Plot:

Surprising. There were plenty of twists and turns in this book, from start to finish.

• Characters:

I liked Venus a lot more than I thought I would. She was strong and determined to complete the mission assigned to her by the gods, and she kept trying, even as she physically weakened due to Earth's atmosphere.

Michael was an interesting character. He didn't appeal at the beginning, but by the end of the novel, I was rooting for him.

Dervinias, also known as "Vinny", was a great antagonist. Excellent at keeping secrets, he was a formidable adversary, and a sinister one at that.

• Setting/Elements:

At the beginning, many of the alien words confused me. It does put the reader straight into the story without preamble, but I felt like I'd missed some kind of explanation that happened earlier on. However, the Science Fiction world in this book is detailed and, as I mentioned before, unique; Kelari is similar to Earth, but very different in other ways, and the contrast between the two is intriguing.

Other: Violence, sexual content.

Do I recommend this book? If you like Romance and Science Fiction, I definitely recommend this book.

Trailer:

About the Author:

RASHELLE WORKMAN lives with her husband, three children and three dogs. When she gets a quiet moment alone, she enjoys reading about faraway places. And, in case you were wondering, yes, she does believe there is other life out in the Universe.

Website/Blog: http://www.rashelleworkman.com/

Facebook: RaShelle Workman author
Twitter: RaShelleWorkman
Goodreads: Exiled

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Exiled is part of the Dark C.A.R.M.A blog tour:

-----The Golden Eagle

Insecure Writer's Support Group: Genre

I love writing Science Fiction. And Fantasy. The first stories I wrote were Fantasy, since I loved playing around with magic and all the cool things you could do by creating your own world. Once I started reading SF, though, I migrated a lot of what I wrote into that world-building field (not to say I don't love Fantasy anymore).

But sometimes I wonder if I'm cut out for it. While I enjoy Hard SF, full of its jargon and technicalities, I can't write it very well. It's too full of stuff I don't have a full grasp of. And though I enjoy reading Soft SF, exploring possible worlds that aren't quite so far ahead--or have more Fantasy elements--as some Science Fiction, I never really feel that I could match its level of complexity on a more human sort of level.

Then again, I write SF anyway. I write it because I love the genre and its twists and turns, and I love exploring new worlds and new ideas. Sometimes I don't think I do a story I've got in my head justice, or that my writing is up to it, but it's fun.

And when I do manage to come up with something part of my brain says, grudgingly, is not completely horrible,  then it's even more fun.

So. Go take on your genre. Because regardless of what it is you love about it, writing is supposed to be enjoyable. And hey, the more you write it, the better you get.

What's your favorite genre?


-----The Golden Eagle