Cover by Rocky Kelley
As we barrel toward the August 29 premiere of Rayguns Over Texas at LoneStarCon 3 (aka the 71st Annual World Science Fiction Convention) in San Antonio, I am presenting book excerpts, one contributor per day.
Today’s selection comes from Marshall Ryan Maresca‘s “Jump the Black.”
Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.
Written by Mark Russell
Cartoons by Shannon Wheeler
Promo copy:
God Is Disappointed in You is for people who would like to read the Bible… if it would just cut to the chase. Stripped of its arcane language and its interminable passages of poetry, genealogy, and law, every book of the Bible is condensed down to its core message, in no more than a few pages each. Written by Mark Russell with cartoons by New Yorker cartoonist Shannon Wheeler, God Is Disappointed in You is a frequently hilarious, often shocking, but always accurate retelling of the Bible, including the parts selectively left out by Sunday School teachers and church sermons. Irreverent yet faithful, this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to see past the fog of religious agendas and cultural debates to discover what the Bible really says.
Cover by Rocky Kelley
As we barrel toward the August 29 premiere of Rayguns Over Texas at LoneStarCon 3 (aka the 71st Annual World Science Fiction Convention) in San Antonio, I am presenting book excerpts, one contributor per day.
Today’s selection comes from Chris N. Brown‘s “Sovereign Wealth.”
Cover by Rocky Kelley
As we barrel toward the August 29 premiere of Rayguns Over Texas at LoneStarCon 3 (aka the 71st Annual World Science Fiction Convention) in San Antonio, I am presenting book excerpts, one contributor per day.
Today’s selection comes from Aaron Allston‘s “Defenders of Beeman County.”
Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived at the Geek Compound.
by Robin Wasserman
Cover by Ian Sanderson
Promo copy:
A taut, haunting read, The Waking Dark is “a horror story worthy of Stephen King” (Booklist) and will appeal to the readers of Gillian Flynn and Rick Yancey.
They called it the killing day. Twelve people dead, all in the space of a few hours. Five murderers: neighbors, relatives, friends. All of them so normal. All of them seemingly harmless. All of them now dead by their own hand . . . except one. And that one has no answers to offer the shattered town. She doesn’t even know why she killed—or whether she’ll do it again.
Something is waking in the sleepy town of Oleander’s, Kansas—something dark and hungry that lives in the flat earth and the open sky, in the vengeful hearts of upstanding citizens. As the town begins its descent into blood and madness, five survivors of the killing day are the only ones who can stop Oleander from destroying itself. Jule, the outsider at war with the world; West, the golden boy at war with himself; Daniel, desperate for a different life; Cass, who’s not sure she deserves a life at all; and Ellie, who believes in sacrifice, fate, and in evil. Ellie, who always goes too far. They have nothing in common. They have nothing left to lose. And they have no way out. Which means they have no choice but to stand and fight, to face the darkness in their town—and in themselves.
Cover by Rocky Kelley
As we barrel toward the August 29 premiere of Rayguns Over Texas at LoneStarCon 3 (aka the 71st Annual World Science Fiction Convention) in San Antonio, I am presenting book excerpts, one contributor per day.
Today’s selection comes from Derek Austin Johnson‘s “Grey Goo and You.”
Cover by Rocky Kelley
As we barrel toward the August 29 premiere of Rayguns Over Texas at LoneStarCon 3 (aka the 71st Annual World Science Fiction Convention) in San Antonio, I am presenting book excerpts, one contributor per day.
Today’s selection comes from Aurelia Hadley Mohl‘s “An Afternoon’s Nap, or; Five Hundred Years Ahead.” Continue reading
While researching something else entirely, I ran across a scathing review of Conversations With Texas Writers from the Winter 2006 issue of Great Plains Quarterly (#26:1 for those who are counting) by Don B. Graham of the Department of English at the University of Texas at Austin.
(Full disclosure time: I interviewed Joe R. Lansdale and Bruce Sterling in Conversations.)
While I agree with some of Graham’s assessments especially the book’s lack of focus, I, not surprisingly, have serious issues with his elitist attitude regarding genre writers.
Another problem is that genre writers are accorded the stature of Flaubert or Dostoevsky. This is perhaps the inevitable result of posing questions to an author of young-adult fiction or adult crime novels: the very, act of treating such authors seriously, as artists, produces what we might call the Fog of Literature. All writers are good on the subject of their own fiction, poetry, drama, whatever; indeed, everybody sounds like Tolstoy when asked about their intentions, their influences, their feelings.
Cover by Rocky Kelley
As we barrel toward the August 29 premiere of Rayguns Over Texas at LoneStarCon 3 (aka the 71st Annual World Science Fiction Convention) in San Antonio, I am presenting book excerpts, one contributor per day.
Today’s selection comes from Don Webb’s “The Art of Absence.”
Cover by Rocky Kelley
As we barrel toward the August 29 premiere of Rayguns Over Texas at LoneStarCon 3 (aka the 71st Annual World Science Fiction Convention) in San Antonio, I am presenting book excerpts, one contributor per day.
Today’s selection comes from Rhonda Eudaly‘s “Operators are Standing By.”