Random Rejection: OMNI Magazine

This week I reached into my folder and pulled out a rejection from OMNI magazine:

The Early Years: The What Is On The Shelf?

I’m going to file this one under “sentences that you are unlikely to see on contemporary elementary school writing assignments”. I’m sure you can guess which sentence I mean.

Video Game Preview Review: “Shadow Hearts: Covenant”

A few weeks ago, I posted a capsule review of the PS2 game “Shadow Hearts” and mentioned that I had the sequel queued up for my next game. I’ve got a few hours into the sequel now and while it’s too soon for an actual review, I would like to make a few comments about it:

Scene-Of-The-Month: June 2009

The results of voting are in and once again Dragon Stones is the readers’ choice for a scene of the month!  Taking the book off the shelf and flipping to a random page got me this scene, which is quite near the beginning and, once again, involves some misfortune befalling poor Adaran.  There really is a dragon in this book, honest — in fact, in this scene, Adaran and his companions have just returned from a raid on her lair.  I just haven’t pulled any scenes yet in which the dragon actually appears.  But if Dragon Stones keeps winning the polls, I’m sure she will turn up here eventually.

Just a reminder:  The Dragon Stones PDF file can be found here.

Video Game Review: “Shadow Hearts”

So this week I finally finished up a game I’ve been playing for about six months, a fantasy RPG called Shadow Hearts.  This game is relatively ancient by video game standards (it came out in 2001), but what can I say — I only play one game at a time and I have a stack of games eight inches high waiting for me.  Once I’m done playing those, I can upgrade my PlayStation 2 to whatever is out at that point — probably the PlayStation 6.  But I digress.

The Early Years: Good Story

Ummmm …. no. No it’s not.

Random Rejection: Design Image Group, “The Exclusive”

I haven’t done a random rejection in a while, so here’s one from 1998 from the Design Image Group.  DIG was active in book publishing in the mid-to-late 1990s and I tried a number of times to get something going with them, coming closest with “The Exclusive”, a vampire story that I originally posted here back in 2007.  I did eventually get it published in a webzine (I was an early webzine contributor), where it won a reader’s choice award for the issue.  But still, it would have been nice to see it in DIG’s anthology, which was released in December 1998 as Kiss of Death.

Dragon Stones

Last week’s Scene of the Month post was an excerpt from Dragon Stones, which prompted my friend Almostgotit to plead, “More Dragon Stones, please!”  So after careful consideration, I have decided to give Almostgotit, and anyone else who wants it, more Dragon Stones (which are not to be confused with, say, kidney stones).  In fact, here’s the whole thing:

Scene-Of-The-Month: May 2009

The poll results are in, and this month it’s a blowout — 81% for an excerpt from Dragon Stones.  It looks like my advice to “vote early, vote often” was really taken to heart by readers in April!  So, without further ado, here is a randomly-selected scene from Dragon Stones:

Auction for Soldiers’ Angels

Anyone who has been reading here for a while has no doubt seen comments from Kristen Tsetsi, a fellow small-press/self-published author.  You may also remember my short review of her terrific Operation Iraqi Freedom novel Homefront last year.  Now Kristen is preparing an eBay auction to benefit Soldiers’ Angels.  From the Soldier’s Angels website:

Soldiers’ Angels is a volunteer-led 501(c)(3) non-profit organization providing aid and comfort to the men and women of the United States Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and their families.

I’ve given one copy each of all four of my published books (just the novels, not the anthologies) to the auction, which also includes a number of other books (including vintage books such as a 1953 copy of The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway), photographs and other artwork, jewelry, and more. Rather than reiterate everything that Kristen will be listing, I would encourage you to visit her blog and view the variety of items that people have donated to the auction.  It’s for a good cause, and Kristen always has something there worth reading.