31 Dec 2018

SHOCKING: I Married a Neanderthal!

posted in: family | 0

For real. Allysen’s DNA was tested by 23andMe, and the results are in, and my universe is shaking! My wife is 3% Neanderthal! She has 298 Neanderthal variants, which is more than 83% of 23andMe customers. I’m not sure what that means, but I’m sure it must be impressive.

What does this mean for me? Have all my efforts to civilize my children been in vain? They must be part Neanderthal, too. Or maybe this: Is the world actually being run by Neanderthals? There’s a sobering thought. Just think about Washington, and you know it could be true.

On the other hand, my knowledgeable Neanderthalian wife informs me that the Neanderthals were on the whole a kinder, gentler species than homo sap. So maybe the Washington argument is wrong, after all.

Whatever the case, now I know that it was not for nothing that years ago Allysen acquired the nickname Thagga. (Although I acquired the nickname of Thag, so what does that suggest about me? I haven’t been tested, but maybe I have some Cro-Magnon in me. That could explain a lot.)

(One of these pix is my wife. The other is a pic from the Museo Arqueologico Nacional in Madrid. See the family resemblance?)

[My name is Allysen. I have approved this post.]

 

 

 

29 Dec 2018

Ticket to Crazy: Special on Panglor!

posted in: ebooks, my books, specials | 0


I’ve just arrived in Puerto Rico for another work-trip/visit to the house in Ponce. But as a parting gift to all my friends, past present future, I’ve turned down the price on the ebook of Panglor, for a few days only! (Today’s the start of my Bookbub promo.)

Panglor’s kind of a crazy dude, and he’s got problems that go way beyond being crazy. Join him for a journey to Strange, and see what got the Star Rigger universe going! $.99! How many dog biscuits can you buy for less than a dollar? What are you waiting for? Buy a whole box for your friends!

26 Dec 2018

Merry Christmas 2018!

posted in: holiday greetings, Uncategorized | 1

This is where I use my special timestream skills to go back and wish you all a Merry Christmas! We had a wonderful day with family, and I hope you did, too. (Even if you don’t celebrate the holiday as such, I hope the day was good to you.)

Here’s what our outdoor tree looks like this year. You can’t really see the laser display on the side of the house, which was initially intended to substitute for the time-consuming installation of lights in the tree. Didn’t quite work, though it looked pretty cool on its own, and I ended up adding to the project, rather than simplifying it. Story of my life. But I still like the magical, almost ethereal quality of the blue lights, with a bit of green.

On the other hand, our tree inside, which started all fresh and pliable and thirsty, has turned into Charlie Brown’s tree. Piles of needles everywhere. I used tree preserver, too. Where’d I go wrong?

20 Dec 2018

For All Battlestar Galactica Fans

posted in: Battlestar Galactica, books, essays | 0

 

Here’s the perfect book for all fans of the multifaceted Battlestar Galactica! Just published, it’s called Somewhere Beyond the Heavens: Exploring Battlestar Galactica, edited by Rich Handley and  Lou Tambone. It’s a large collection of essays about the series in all its incarnations, from the original (let’s admit it) cheesy show to the far more realistic and thoughtful Sci-Fi Channel’s incarnation from 2003.

As it happens, I contributed an essay on how I experienced the show as the writer of the 2003 Miniseries novelization (which you can download here for free), and my editor wrote the story of the licensing and publishing of books in the BSG universe by Tor Books. It’s only just out, so I haven’t dipped into the other pieces yet, but I look forward to doing so soon.

If you’re looking for a gift for that BSG fan in your life, here it is. In paper and Kindle formats.

 

 

20 Dec 2018

The Modern Yuppie 12 Days of Christmas

posted in: family, holiday greetings, humor | 1

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…
A vacation to Switzerland to ski!

On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…
Two Toyota Priuses…
And a vacation to Switzerland to ski!

… tum de-tum de-tum…

 

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…
Twelve Ivy League acceptance letters…
Eleven carbon offsets…
Ten Canada Goose jackets…
Nine yachts with paneling…
Eight NPR memberships…
Seven Revels tickets…
Six Goorin Brothers hats…
FIVE ROTH IRAs!…
Four laundry services…
Three Whole Foods gift bags…
Two Toyota Priuses…
And a vacation to Switzerland to ski!

(Courtesy of my daughter Lexi and her husband Connor, who devised it one morning while trying to get out of bed.)

© Lexi Carver and Connor Wood

22 Nov 2018

Happy Thanksgiving!

posted in: holiday greetings | 0

Thanksgiving greetings to all my family and friends! For my friends outside the U.S., I invite you to join with us in taking a moment to give thanks—and then enjoy the day with your own family and friends! No need for a formal holiday.

This may be the first year I’ve celebrated Thanksgiving with so much of my family split off in different locations. I’m in Miami for a short holiday visit with my brother and his wife; my newly married daughter is traveling with her husband, visiting his family; my wife Allysen and her mom and our other daughter (plus an honorary daughter) are roasting a turkey at home in Boston. Our California contingent, Allysen’s bro and family, are celebrating the end of the wildfires close to their house (they had to evacuate for several days).

Some things remain the same, though. I just walked the dogs. Different dogs, Chuck and Youngmee’s, but still. This is Tntn.

Have a great day, everyone!

14 Nov 2018

Specials at Book View Café!

posted in: ebooks, specials | 0

 

It’s “specials day” at BVC! My omnibus/box set, The Chaos Chronicles: Books 1-3, is on half-price special—at Book View Café only. Limit time only! If you don’t have it, go thou and take a peek. Like all of the books under my own imprint, it’s DRM-free, so you can give it as a gift with a clear conscience.

Mine isn’t the only book on sale, though. The specials include deals from Mindy Klasky, Jennifer Stevenson, Deborah J. Ross (Deborah Wheeler), and Madeleine Robins! Surely there’s something for every taste!

Book View Café Specials

6 Oct 2018

Clenched Fists in My Knotted Stomach

posted in: The Chaos Chronicles, The Reefs of Time, work in progress, writing | 9

Lest you think that veteran (i.e., experienced, tempered, refined—don’t say old!) writers are immune to beginning writer mistakes, all I can say is, think again. It’s confession time here in the Star Rigger foundries, where we labor 24/7 converting raw words into story for our ravenous audience. I’m going to share some revealing facts.

My editor, in the course of a long email full of editorial suggestions, helpfully provided me with a list of words and phrases I used too often. Now, all writers have verbal tics—that is to say words and expressions that they use habitually, without even noticing. Turns out, I have my fair share. And with my editor’s list in hand, I used the Find functions in Scrivener and Word to, er, find them and see if I could root some out. Turns out I could—by deleting, by using other words, by recrafting sentences (usually making them stronger in the process). Here’s part of the list, followed by the number of times I used the expression initially (in the 268,000-word book), and then the number after I’d gone through and cleaned things up:

  • indeed 50 / 14
  • very 323 / 96
  • draw(n, ing) 68 / 28
  • drew 89 / 29
  • further 76 / 27
  • farther 31 / 43 (some furthers got corrected to farthers)
  • clench(ed) 27 / 7
  • knot(ted) 25 / 9
  • . And 546 / 209

Did I really use “very” that many times?? Turns out I did. Usually in phrases like “very much want to…” And the last one, in case it’s not clear, is sentences starting with “And”—not unlike this one. Sometimes that’s a very—um, an effective usage. Other times, it’s just lazy habit. I still haven’t gone through and looked for excessive em-dashes—or ellipses… but I will.

I spent literally days of the most tedious editing imaginable doing this. But it was necessary, and you will all be happier for it when you read the story, though if I did my job right, you will never notice.

Most of this happened when I was in Florida helping my brother. I was intending on my flight home to sprinkle all the deleted very’s and And’s and clenched fists out the window as bread crumbs for the birds and the fish below; but alas, I did not get a window seat. I’ll sell them to you for cheap.

23 Sep 2018

Hanging with the Bro

posted in: family, personal news | 2

I’ve been pretty quiet the last couple of weeks. That’s because I’ve been in Miami helping out my brother Chuck and his wife, following his recent surgery for cancer. It’s been a rocky recovery; he was in the hospital for a week longer than expected. Now he’s home, recuperating, with the additional help of Tntn (pictured) and Tntn’s brother Jahnghan. I hope he’ll be well enough for me to go home in a few days.

I‘ve been getting a lot of work done, anyway—working on the final editing of Reefs, with feedback from my editor. (More on that in a forthcoming post.)

Here’s a picture of Chuck, a month ago, receiving the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award.

 

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