I’ve been really busy lately, with super-cool guy-top secret-writer-type stuff, so I haven’t blogged as much as I’ve liked to. I need an update post.
In local news, MHI has been doing really well still. Toni at Baen told me that I’d had one of the fastest releases they’d had in awhile, with the whole first run selling out in a month. I’ve been editing MHV, and it is pretty much done. It will be going in to the publisher shortly, and should see the light of day about a year from now. I’ve just got a couple of little things to poke at, and then it is over.
After MHV goes in, then I’ve got to do a 2nd pass on TGC:HM to get it ready for shopping around. Then I’ve got to write the next Monster Hunter novel, and I’ve not decided which one to do yet. I’m actually inclined to do the Earl Harbinger book next, Monster Hunter Alpha. Depending on Mike’s active duty schedule, D6 will finally be finished sometime soon too.
I actually took a brief break from editing this week, so I watched like 5 movies and played some Rainbow 6: Vegas 2 and Ace Combat 6. (from Nightcrawler for my birthday, thanks, man.) Being a CoD:WaW kind of guy, I died about 300 times last night on R6, because I kept accidentally mashing the wrong button. (oh, that’s not reload, that’s drop a frag grenade at your feet…) AC6 has the most hilariously bad Japanese translated cut scenes I’ve heard in awhile. “We must protect the capital city of Gracemeria, which is the capital city of our beautiful country, which is Gracemeria. The golden king smiles on the capital, which is Gracemeria. Matilda! NOOO!” Huh? But then I shot stuff with missiles between the cut scenes, so it’s all good.
Of the movies I watched, some were good, like: Liam Neeson Presents the Documentary Film for Fathers: Taken, where you learn that if you’re a pretty girl in France, you will be kidnapped and sold to Saudi oil sheiks as a sex slave (I believe ACORN has a similar program). Some were b-movies that I needed to see to round out my overall b-movie nerdhood, like Baby Blood, about a slutty French girl who has a circus cheetah explode and then she’s impregnated by a parasite that makes her murder people and drink their blood, also in France. So basically my movie week really discouraged French tourism.
We’ve been thinking more about moving to the country. I currently have a 45 minute commute (if traffic is good) because my job is so far north of where I am. If I move so that I’m 45 minutes north of that, it places me out in the mountains instead of in the suburbs. If I’m going to drive that far anyway, I might as well be someplace that I can shoot a high powered rifle off my back porch. Unfortunately the value of my home has gone down so much that I need to save up a bunch more money to make moving feasible. We’re not the kind of people who go into extra debt unless we absolutely have to, but I am really sick of living in town.
I’m an asthmatic with bad allergies, and the air in the Salt Lake Valley is terrible for half the year. We live in a valley that has an awful inversion, and sometimes the air will be so nasty, brown, or on-fire that I can’t hardly breathe for a week. Luckily we’re not upside down in our house, not even close, we just don’t have as much equity as we thought there was.
Overall, life is good.
Well it greats to know that your still working on this book. I loved your last one. Read it quite alot and recently re-read it. I am currently doing a book report on it too and I shall make the your glorious work be praised by many!
Congrats on the 1st run sellout in a month! Bodes well for the future!
I’ve always thought that the environmentalist types, in Utah at least, ought to drop the the whole global warming thing altogether. Instead, when asked why reducing pollution is important, they could point out that in the winter our air changes color in a most unpleasant manner.
On the B-movie front, have you seen “Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter”? Definitely worth the watch for a B-movie geek like yourself if you haven’t seen it. =)
I’m glad you liked the games, Larry. And hey, at least the terrible voice acting in Ace Combat Six can be attributed to translation issues. What was World at War’s excuse? (I’m talking to you, Mr. Sutherland.)
I’m tenatively going to say that I expect to have my half of Dead Six done, at long last, by Christmas or so. I’m in the shit down here right now, but I do my best to make time on the weekends.
I’m almost halfway through NAVSCOLEOD. I honestly didn’t think I’d make it this far. Of the original twenty-five students in my class, only nine remain. And on top of that, I’ve only had to re-take one test so far!
Not out of the woods yet, though, not by a long shot. If I get through this division I’ll breathe a little easier, though. Might even start talking about “when” I graduate instead of “if”…
Taken was good, wasn’t it?
I really liked Taken. He was the sort of paranoid bad-ass I aspire to be.
Larry, I gotta say, your spectacular success with MHI has got me fired up. Dude, you are totally breaking the mold and defying the odds with this book-slash-series. I hope MHI goes to multiple printings and creeps up on the NYT Bestseller list before too long. Isn’t it there already?? (grin)
5 words “Chopper Chicks in Zombie Town”
http://gungeekrants.blogspot.com/2009/09/d-movie-review.html