Again? Really? You're F-ing Kidding Me

I don't know what made me head over to Barnes and Noble's website tonight, but I did.  And I honestly can't believe what I'm seeing.  Just scant days ago I blogged about how Amazon had the wrong cover image up for my upcoming book The Forever Knight.  Now guess what--B&N has the wrong cover too.  The same wrong cover!  Honestly.  Check it out.

Okay, so it's late and I'll deal with this tomorrow.  But boy, I'm sick of this crap.

Btw, here's what  the cover is supposed to look like.  Why Amazon and Barnes and Noble are having such a tough time getting it posted escapes me entirely.

Goodreads

Let’s face it—it’s easy to get lost in social media.  It’s easy to lose hours to it and never know where they went. That’s what happened to me when I discovered MySpace. Heck, that’s what happened to me when I discovered CompuServe!  After resisting Twitter for a while I finally hoped on to it a while ago and now I love it.  Facebook is another easy addiction.  And now I’ve found another.  Curse the gods; I’ve discovered Goodreads!

Hawkman vs. Batgirl

Yes, that would be a cool fight to see, but that’s not what this post is about actually. Well, it is, kind of. I’ve been reading the New 52’s Savage Hawkman since it started back nine issues ago.  It started off okay, but not great, and every issue I read seemed less satisfying than the one before it. Plus, the artwork was starting to bother me. Maybe I’m a purist when it comes to comic book art, but I like really clean pencils, and to me the artwork in Savage Hawkman just seemed sloppy.

About a month ago, after reading issue #8, I posted on Twitter that I was thinking of dumping Hawkman for the new Batgirl comic book. The response I got was crystal clear—do it. Batgirl, apparently, has been kicking some serious butt out there. 

Snow White and the Huntsman--Seriously

As I mentioned in a previous post, this summer’s crop of movies isn’t as enticing to me as previous years. Avengers was awesome, but it’s probably going to be all downhill from there for me, because there really aren’t that many flicks I really, really want to see this summer. That won’t stop me from going, of course, because I just plain enjoy movies. But there is one flick that’s coming up this weekend that has me deeply intrigued—Snow White and the Huntsman.

Right now the film is polling an early 86% favorable at Rotten Tomatoes. A good start, especially since one of the critics giving it the thumbs up is David Edelstein.

Star Wars

I took my son to a book fair at his elementary school last week. It's something I always enjoy and try not to miss, because I have a genuine soft spot for books aimed at kids and books in general. One thing that's always bothered me about these book fairs is the focus on what I sometimes call "fake books," meaning things like lego sticker books, or Marvel superhero books, or Spongebob books, or any other stand-in for genuine creativity. I try to steer my son away from those kinds of books and towards books with real authors and stories. And yet, there I was at the book fair with my usual "tsk tsk" attitude, when I saw the Star Wars Character Encylopedia.

Oh, for Crying Out loud...

As some of you know, I've been waiting, waiting, waiting for my next book to come out. It's been a long, unnecessarily painful saga, and I'm still not 100% sure that the book will be coming out in November as promised by my publisher. I'm not going to get into all that bullshit again, but I have been checking on the Amazon page for the book, waiting (always waiting!) for them to finally post the cover image for it.  I check every day, and every day there's no cover image up there.  Except today.

Yes, today Amazon finally posted a cover image for The Forever Knight.  How exciting.  How wonderful.  Except, unbelievably, it's wrong. Instead, they posted a cover for a Tanya Huff book.

Please, someone tell me whose ass to kick.

Taco Redux

The JITB mascot--WTF?

You never know what blog posts are going to turn out to be popular. I blogged once or twice about Skylanders and ever since then it’s been the most popular post here on THN. Sometimes the popularity of posts goes up and down. For a while my post about John Carter was huge, but now almost no one comes here for that. It’s all kind of weird and unpredictable, like the post I did a while back about Taco Bell. Why so many people come here after searching for Taco Bell eludes me, though I’m certainly glad to have the visitors. Which brings me to something I’ve been meaning to blog about for a long time…

One of Those Days

It's one of those days when I have nothing particular to say but I feel like blogging, so I'm just going to wing it here, folks.

I reached a total of 106 free downloads of my short story The Hundredth Kill. Thank you to all of you who downloaded it and helped spread the word about it. The story is back up to 99 cents now, unfortunately. As far as I know, there's no way to lower that price until I run another promo on Amazon, and I can only do that once every three months. Happily, some people have actually decided to pay for it, though honestly if it was up to me it would be free all the time. But then I suppose Amazon wouldn't be able to make any money, and for the service and platform they offer indie authors, they should make money, obviously.

The Longbow Hunters

Back in 1987 was the second time I really started to get into comic books. The first time was when I was a little kid and a neighbor who used to deliver books and magazines for a living started bringing me home copies of Spiderman. It's funny how you can remember what kicks of periods of interest in your life, because back in '87 was when I heard about The Longbow Hunters. At the time, a friend of mine who was really into comics took me to a (now defunct) comic store where I saw the poster for it. The picture of Green Arrow in his cool new costume captured me immediately.  The Longbow Hunters was a three part graphic novel written by Mike Grell, a reinvention of the character of Green Arrow to make him a bit darker and more serious.  So long trick arrows--hello pointed, deadly ones. 

On Writing--Cover Trouble

Here's the cover I can't use.

I never thought that making the transition to becoming an "indie" author would be easy. Frankly I never would have made the decision if I didn't have to, despite some obvious benefits to being truly independent. The fact is, if I'm going to keep writing I'm going to have to do it on my own. But one of the things that's had me worried from the start wasn't about writing, but about artwork. Specifically, cover art.

A few weeks ago I decided to take one of my old short stories and use it do finally dip my toe into lake indie. I quickly learned how to format the story for the Kindle and make it available for sale on Amazon. All that was pretty much a piece of cake, but when it came to slapping a cover on it I knew I'd be in trouble.

The Avengers

Blogging is a weird thing. You don't do it for a few days and suddenly you feel out of practice. Which is why I'm glad I saw The Avengers last night--it gives me something real easy to talk about. Right now the internet is full of people talking about and reviewing The Avengers, but I enjoyed the movie so much I really wanted to chat about it myself.

First off, there was no way I was going to miss the movie. I wasn't going to wait for the DVD to come out--this was always at the top of my too-see list for the summer.  But I did have my doubts about it.  I wasn't sure how they would manage to get all those great characters to coalesce into one decent movie, and I wasn't at all confident about the story because there never seemed to be one in all the trailers. I blogged about this a couple of weeks ago in fact.

Friday Rant--In Defense of Fun

A guy I work with made a face at me on the elevator today.  He's a nice guy, and the face wasn't really directed at me, but rather at a suggestion I made.  You know those information screens they have in elevators now (and food courts and gas stations and everywhere else you don't want to be bothered)?  Well this one was playing an advertisement for the Avengers, and when I casually asked him if he planned on seeing it, the face came out.  It was kind of like, "what, are you crazy?  I'm a grown man.  I'm not going to waste my time on a stupid movie like that."

I let it go.  Mostly.  I kind of shrugged and told him that I was definitely going to see it, because I see all those kinds of movies. And guess what dude?  I love 'em.

You never know where you might run into that kind of weird elitism.  The other day I was at Target with my son, sitting in their little cafe area sharing a pretzel.  A woman and her young daughter sat down near us and started chatting.  I don't know why--if you saw me you wouldn't think I'm the talkative type.  But there we were talking when somehow the subject turned to books.  Being a fantasy writer, I'm always on guard for the snobs.  So I told her I was an author, and she lit up with excitement (as the uninitiated often do), and I knew I was in trouble.  Naturally she asked what I write, and when I answered her face fell.  "I write fantasy novels."  That was all she had to hear.  Conversation over.

But I answered her with a smile.  You know why?  Because screw her, that's why.

The Perils of Diana

So, how's this for a change?  I was going to write about the last issue of Wonder Woman, and how good I thought it was, and how I've come to enjoy the direction the book has taken after it's relaunch. But then I saw this cover for the next issue and, well, I don't know what to say.  If you're one of those people who Google "Wonder Woman bondage pics," welcome to the Happy Nerd!

Seriously though, this cover really took my by surprise. It's been a long time since I've seen Wonder Woman depicted this way. It reminds me of an old cover where she has a gun to her head and she's flinching and sweating. Now honestly, if I had a gun to my head I'd freak out, but Wonder Woman?  No way.  At least in this picture she's facing the noose like a champ.  But it's the kink factor that makes the whole thing interesting.  The artist had to know what he was doing.  It's certainly eye-catching, I'll say that.  Oh, and that little guy with the candles on his head is Hades.  He's interesting looking too, but in a goofy way.  It'll be interesting to see how much the inside of the issue matches up with the cover.  I'm betting not much.  But it'll definitely have people picking it up for a look.