My kids painted eggs tonight. They obviously know what pays the bills around here.

Also, sort of funny. I looked out the window about ten minutes ago and there was the biggest jack rabbit I’ve ever seen sitting on the lawn. I’ve seen a lot of jack rabbits in my day, but this thing was massive. Not quite Night of the Lepus by any means, but it was bigger than our yard marmots. My youngest kid thought that was just absolutely awesome, because actually spotting the Easter bunny is a good omen of chocolate to come. 🙂

Tomorrow we will go to church, and we’ll talk to that kid about the reason for the holiday, but the spotting the actual magic super bunny? That’s pretty hard to beat.

Here are the Hard Magic book tour dates.  If you’re in the area, (and by area, I’m meaning most of the western US and Minnesota) drop by and say hi.

Uncle Hugo’s – Minneapolis, MN  April 30th 1-3PM

Barnes & Noble – Layton, UT May 3rd 5-8PM

Poisoned Pen, – Scottsdale, AZ May 5th 7PM

Mysterious Galaxy – San Diego, CA May 6th 6PM

Barnes & Noble – Huntington Beach, CA May 7th 2PM

Dark Carnival – Berkeley, CA May 8th 2-4PM

Powells – Beaverton, OR May 11th 7PM

University Bookstore – Seattle, WA May 13th 7PM

Aunties Bookstore – Spokane, WA May 14th 3PM

Hastings – Boise, ID May 15th 2PM

Michael Valentine, veteran and former member of an elite private military company, has been recruited by the government to conduct a secret counter-terror operation in the Persian Gulf nation of Zubara. The unit is called Dead Six. Their mission is to take the fight to the enemy and not get caught. 

Lorenzo, assassin and thief extraordinaire, is being blackmailed by the world’s most vicious crime lord. His team has to infiltrate the Zubaran terrorist network and pull off an impossible heist or his family will die. When Dead Six compromises his objective, Lorenzo has a new job: Find and kill Valentine.

As allegiances are betrayed and the nation descends into a bloody civil war, Lorenzo and Valentine must face off.  Two men. Two missions. Only one will win. 

Coming September 27, 2011

I was talking to somebody the other night about book reviews, about how I don’t really pay attention to the big well-known establishment reviewers, and so where to go to get good book reviews. That reminded me I needed to link to these guys. Elitist Book Reviews is by far my favorite place to go for reviews, and I’ll explain why.

http://elitistbookreviews.blogspot.com/

Now it isn’t because I’ve gotten generally positive reviews there either, because I’ve gotten fairly good reviews on most of the bigger review spots, (except for the Publisher’s Weekly one for Hard Magic, because sheesh, talk about missing the point!) it is more because I personally tend to agree with their ratings. Now I don’t always agree, and there are a few writers they like much more than I do, and a few the other way, but overall I find they’re usually pretty spot on.  

More importantly, they usually “get” a book, and understand what type of book the author was shooting for.  So they tend to judge the book in context.

For example, if I write something that is a glorified B-movie pulp action adventure, and a review place pans it for not having enough nuance and subtlety to get on the Oprah Book Club… The reviewer didn’t get it.  On the other hand, if an author wrote a sensitive romantic character study, and the reviewer hated it because there weren’t enough explosions and laser sword battles, the reviewer didn’t get it.  EBR usually gets it, and judges accordingly based on whether it is entertaining or not.

Plus they’re snarky. I enjoy the snark factor. I’m not big on dry, boring language.

I did an interview with Steve the Bookstore Guy (one of the people that runs the place) a while ago. I found out that he writes a review a week, and didn’t miss a week last year. That’s 52 reviews, most of which are 1,000-2,000 words long. That’s not even close to how many books he actually read either, just the ones he reviewed. And he’s not the only reviewer on the site, so they usually have several new reviews up each week.

There are a few other places that I get reviews from. Bookreporter.com has some writers that I like. I also enjoy The Sci-Fi Guys book review. http://scifiguysbookreview.blogspot.com/  Other than that, I enjoy reviews on blogs that I read, but those tend to be sporadic. (though I love when you guys out there post reviews about my stuff, because Word of Mouth rocks).   

So check EBR out. They tend to be more slanted toward fantasy, but they do get into horror, sci-fi, and thrillers as well. And yes, I’ve made sure that they’ll be sent ARCs of all my stuff in the future.

EDIT: of course, I post this, go on Facebook and end up talking to somebody else that does good book reivews that I forgot. http://frommyshelf.blogspot.com/  Ain’t that how it goes? :p

http://www.webscription.net/p-1327-hard-magic-book-i-of-the-grimnoir-chronicles.aspx 

Yep, $6. Go download the eBook for Hard Magic, book 1 of the Grimnoir Chronicles. It is pretty darn awesome, if I do say so myself… In all honesty, I do believe that this is the best thing I’ve ever written.

Think of it as a pulp-noir, action, hard-boiled, alternative-history, fantasy set in an alternative 1932. This book features a teleporting magic ninja fight on top of a flaming pirate dirigible. 🙂  You can read the first quarter of the book for free at the link above.

Or, for a little light reading set in the same universe, here is a prequel short, called Detroit Christmas. http://www.baen.com/DetroitChristmas.asp