Other people follow sports teams, or knit. (Or follow competitive knitting teams.)

There are two times of the year that never fail to make me excited: May and September.  Most people associate these time periods with the start of basketball and football season.  (Do they?  I don't do sports.)  For me, though, these two months mark the beginning of something much bigger than any sports franchise.  May and September are, respectively, the beginning of the summer blockbuster season and the new run of television shows.

I'm kicking off with Iron Man 3 this Thursday, after which it's only a few more weeks until the new Star Trek and the Under the Dome miniseries*.  Be prepared to hear me from space.

*Will we finally see a King adaptation that doesn't suck?  Well, I'm a betting woman.

Today SCOTUS hears arguments on the Constitutionality of Prop 8.

Video from Huffpost here.

There is not one single argument against gay marriage that does not tell queer people that they are fundamentally worth less than "good" folk.  Not one, and you may unfollow me now if you think otherwise.

Leech Promotional Weekend

...which ends at midnight tonight.  Yeah, I know.  I fail at promoting properly, but that's been the story since Super premiered, I don't foresee myself getting dramatically better any time soon.  Anyway, from here until midnight, you can pick up Leech absolutely FREE on Amazon as part of the KDP Select program.  I wish I could tell you I was basing this on a St. Patrick's Day theme or something similar, but the honest answer is that I've been battling off a case of Captain Tripps for the past week or so, and in my fever-addled head it simply seemed like a neat idea.  This is Leech's first go-round in the KDP Select program (as I've mentioned here before, I have mixed feelings on KDP Select: on the one hand, I don't think that Amazon is the Great Evil many do, but neither do I like giving any corporate entity an easy path to power, so I tend to rotate titles in and out), but probably not it's last: I'm toying with the idea of putting all three Super titles back into KDP Select when Siren, Naomi's book, comes out and Shit Starts Getting Real, and then again for the finale.  Leech going into KDP Select means that it will not be available on any other platform save for Amazon for the next ninety days, but don't worry: give me a holler, tell me your favored format, and I'll hook you up.  I only ask that you drop me a rating or review on Goodreads or the like, if you please. :)

Second reason I suck at promotion: when I decided to do this earlier in the week, I completely forgot that I was going on a road trip this weekend, which severely curtailed the time I had available to tweet.  Or rather, it didn't curtail my ability to tweet promos, but it did make it significantly harder to bop, chat, and mask the fact that I was promoting.  On the other hand, it did stop me from hovering over my ranks like Gollum (an awful, awful habit of mine every time I do a promotion), so blessings in small places.  For those of you who follow me on Facebook and were wondering about the random country music posts: five hours each way, nothing better to do than listen to the radio and contemplate Eoin Macken.  A girl's gotta entertain herself somehow.

REVIEW: Collapse by Richard Stephenson

Description: America is falling, ready to join the Roman Empire as a distant memory in the annals of history. The year is 2027. Tired and desperate, the American people are deep in the middle of The Second Great Depression. The Florida coastline is in ruins from the most powerful hurricane on record; a second just like it is bearing down on the state of Texas. For the first time in history, the Middle East has united as one and amassed the most formidable army the world has seen since the Third Reich. A hidden army of terrorists is on American soil. This is the story of three men: Howard Beck, the world’s richest man, also diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. Richard Dupree, ex-Navy SEAL turned escaped convict. Maxwell Harris, a crippled, burned out Chief of Police of a small Texas town. At first they must fight for their own survival against impossible odds. Finally, the three men must band together to save their beloved country from collapse.

My Thoughts: I like dystopian fiction because there's a slightly sociopathic aspect of my personality that likes smashing the world to bits.  Not the most honorable part of myself, to be sure, but definitely the most fun, kind of like that kid who builds Lego towers over and over again just to knock them down.  Collapse is an excellent novel in that regard.  I admittedly lawled a little bit over the idea of Iran being able to conquer anyone, but in the good-hearted way you laugh at the sillier aspects of action movies while still maintaining suspension of disbelief.  Stephenson keeps the plot moving along at a deft pace and is adept at skipping between a multitude of characters while keeping their voices distinct.  (I will note that it's a good thing that the book is ensemble, though, because my dislike of the Navy SEAL character was approaching hateboner territory by the end.)  It's a fun little popcorn read, and I'll definitely look at the second book when it comes out this summer.

Making cracks about leap-frogging is probably not appropriate, given that I've spent the evening writing smut under a pen name.

About a year ago, I was doing the first draft of Naomi's book--AKA When Shit Starts Getting Real--and, man, did I ever hit a wall. Hard. I looked like a pekinese. At the suggestion of Aud (who can just shut her face right now, she knows why), I threw it into a drawer and started work on a ridiculous standalone PNR as a way of blowing off steam. A year later, I'm editing it. I've learned two things:

1) Over-thinking, thy name is Mari.

2) Damn, I miss Naomi and Ophelia. They are truly the OTP of this series. Well, there's one more, but it's currently redacted due to spoilers.

Ugh, y'all.  Why must editing be so hard?

Pass-along post: KDP Select and Amazon's Recommendations Engine

Post by David Gaughran: Amazon's Recommendation Engine Trumps the Competition.

Some interesting discussion on the future of KDP Select going on in the comments.  I had some modest success with KDP Select when Super first came out, but I agree with the general assessment that it's usefulness in getting paid sales is waning.  The best current use for it, IME, is as a way of getting those all-important reviews, and I'm not sure that being restricted to Amazon for 90-day stretches is the best way to go about it when issuing a Smashwords coupon is so easy.

REVIEW: Alexander Death by JL Bryan

Description: While Seth searches for Jenny, Dr. Heather Reynard of the CDC unravels Seth and Jenny's secrets.

Alexander opens Jenny's mind to her deep past, and to the full horrific extent of her powers.

Torn between her feelings for Alexander and Seth, and between her past lives and her present, Jenny must prepare to face her enemies while fighting against the powerful, ancient darkness within, which threatens to grow until it consumes her...

My Thoughts:  All right, I'm probably one of the biggest champions this book series has and will gleefully fangasm about it to anyone who stands still long enough to let me.  JL Bryan has still created one of the most interesting and complicated heroines I've read over the past few years, and hands-down the best female villain.  Ashleigh of the first book will never not be deliciously evil and clever.  

That being said, I do have to finally admit that the series is starting to suffer as it rounds into its third installment, so much so that I'm not sure yet if I want to read the fourth.  (I would feel this way even if the wear and tear hadn't become so apparent, as Alexander Death comes to such a natural stopping place that to open the series up to further books seems a little forced.)  Jenny has run off with Alexander in order to save her own life after Ashleigh's latest attack, Seth is trying to find Jenny again while being harassed by the Department of Homeland Security, Ashleigh is sadly marginalized as a villain, and Tommy...well, Tommy actually really disappointed me.  The potential for truly epic villainy or even a stance as a solid antihero expressed in the second book of the series just sort of *poofs* off into nowhere, but he still gets his happy ending without actually doing anything to earn it.  Throw in a fairly silly PSA about drug use and a what-the-hell black ops rescue, and I did a fair amount of giggling through my fingers at points of this book.  

This isn't to say that Alexander Death doesn't still have a great deal to recommend it, because it does.  Though she doesn't get as much to do as in the first and second book, Ashleigh is still absolutely electric.  (She's Randall Flagg with a better leave-in conditioner, people.  I'm telling you, even if I didn't like Jenny so much, Ashleigh alone is worth the price of admission.)  The descriptions of the kids' past lives are rich and varied, Seth is back to being the good-hearted goober we saw in the first book, and the final showdown ties together three books worth of themes and plot lines in a neat little bow.  It's a fitting end to the series, but who am I kidding? I already know I'm going to read the fourth book sooner or later.  It's like crack.  (So maybe I was supposed to learn something about Jenny's little stroll down the dark side, after all.)