New release sample: RETURN OF THE LIVING PROOF

 

The dang contract was ten sheets of paper, printed front and back. In pretty small font. I estimated it was maybe eight point, comparing it to the font we used at the newspaper. She offered us both pens, and I half-expected to find out the ink was red.

I never found out what color the ink was.

Cerb came tearing into the building, frisking and wriggling and leaping up to put his front paws first on Pete's chest, then the arms of my chair. He pushed on my chair -- which was a pretty good trick, considering he pushed from the right side, but my chair started rolling backwards.

"Shoo! Get out! Where did that mangy thing come from?" Kerri's voice cracked as she stumbled out of her chair and reached for a phone book sitting on the shelving behind her desk. She heaved it at Cerb with pinpoint accuracy.

He dodged and the phone book bounced off my knee with a hard thwack-crack. I swore for a second that crack was my femur breaking. My whole leg went numb, or at least more numb than usual.

Kerri twitched the contract away, to the side extension of her desk, before racing after Cerb, who fled the building.

"Was that weird?" Pete whispered.

I just rolled my eyes at him. I couldn't say anything that I wanted to, because Kerri came back to her desk. She moved awfully fast, smoothly and silently, despite those high spike-heeled shoes on her feet.

"Sorry about that. I guess we're going to have to keep the door closed from now on, to stop mongrels wandering in." She shrugged and let out a giggle that sounded like wind chimes. 

A giggle did not belong in that office, any more than her warm voice belonged with the rest of the impressions I was gathering up about her. Like she was wearing a mask, or maybe even someone was dubbing another person's voice over hers.

Off the Bookshelf: THE BATTLE FOR SKANDIA, by John Flanagan

 

Ranger's Apprentice Series, Book 4

Finally! Will and Evanlyn (Princess Cassandra) are one step closer to home. At long last, after a long winter in Skandia. Halt and Horace have found them, after some harrowing adventures of their own. 

Except of course there's an invading horde coming through Skandia, and the locals need to change their battle tactics, fast, if they have any hope of defending their land. Lucky for them there just happens to be a Ranger present. 

Maybe. Old friends and nemeses return for another gripping adventure as Will, and now a growing circle of friends, grow up and face challenges in a dangerous world. The ending was ... hmm, a little disappointing, and yet stays true to the characters and their society. Yet there is some hope -- isn't there? Can an orphan peasant-born boy rise high enough to be a worthy match for the future queen? Or is he too dedicated to his chosen path in life to realize who is watching him with longing, tear-filled eyes?

Or is that giving away too much? Well, lucky for me, I have 3 more books in the series sitting on my bedside table. Unfortunately, I don't get many nights when I can read myself to sleep. Ah, well, I must soldier on. The sacrifices we make to enjoy a favorite book series!

New release sample: RETURN OF THE LIVING PROOF

 The boys jumped out of the car and looked around and recognized us. They waved. Pete waved back. Then he cringed.

"They're here to sign contracts too?" I asked. He nodded. "They're two years older than you. They probably don't need an adult. Want me to stay out here until they're gone?"

He rolled his eyes and made that little grunting sound that usually stood in for a lot of things that he either couldn't or didn't dare put into words. This time I interpreted it as, "Thanks for not embarrassing me in front of the guys."

Pete got out and went into the building after the other two. I took my time getting out of my Jeep and pulling my wheelchair out of the back seat. They came out just as I dropped down into my seat and reached to push the door closed. They waved, I waved back, and waited as they pulled out of the driveway. A few memories made me smile. I had loved the feeling of independence I had with that beater car. I was glad it was still alive and serving another generation of high school kids learning to spread their wings. I just hoped my car would refuse to function when those boys chose to do something stupid.

I wheeled into the building. The door was propped halfway open. Once I got around it and could look inside, I had to admit Pete was right. The renovations were all interior for now. Fresh paint stung the air and brightened the inside. That wasn't dirt on the inside of the windows, but sheer curtains, kind of a grayish, peach-ish shade I wasn't sure I liked. Carpet squares covered the floor and seemed to grab at my wheels for a few seconds as I went to the far right of the door, where Pete stood in front of a desk. 

The woman sitting there wore one of those power suits, all sharp angles and sleek lines, in a glossy, gray-black material. She was one of those pale blondes who would only need some blood-red lipstick and black eyeliner to be a convincing vampire in cosplay. Her name was Kerri, and her skin felt just a little too chill when we shook hands. Her smile was bright and warm, and so was her voice, and they just didn't seem to go with the rest of her. Yet she was polite, friendly, and apologized for the "silly legal necessities" that needed me to co-sign the contract with Pete.

New release sample: RETURN OF THE LIVING PROOF

 

Then how come the impression I got was that the windows inside were dirtier than outside? I couldn't see any lights through the grimy glass. There were cars parked on the far side of the building. When I pulled into the parking lot, I glimpsed a rental truck out back, and two people moving what looked like office furniture. I shuddered a little at the thought of them setting up an office in grimy surroundings. That reaction made no sense, because I'm not really that much of a neat-freak. This whole situation wasn't making a lot of sense. These people should have done more renovation work, at least fixed the sign on the corner, with broken panes in the lighted portion, and again, that sensation of grime clinging to everything. A long banner that might have been plastic sheeting covered the front face of the building, proclaiming it the new home of Pi Surprise Celebration Lawn Ornaments. In the window directly under the banner was a big sign declaring, "We're Hiring. Start Your Path to an Incredible Future Here."

Yeah, right. An incredible future getting up in the dark and cold maybe two mornings a week to stick dozens of flamingos or clowns or cows or storks or whatever in people's lawns.

Normally I wasn't that pessimistic, even if I was often that sarcastic. This place made me itch in a place I couldn't scratch because it was in my mind and spirit, not my body. That made me cranky. I was ready to tell Pete forget it, I wasn't going to let him work at a place like this. 

Then two kids I knew from high school sports pulled into the parking lot. They were driving a beater car that had all the signs of being a high school kid's first car, bought with summer job money and held together with desperate prayers and chewing gum. On a second look, I recognized that car. It had been mine Pete's entire lifetime ago. Somehow, that cheered me up, that my first car would come into this parking lot like a sign that everything was okay. At least it didn't blow gaskets or make weird shrieking sounds of warning.

Off the Bookshelf: ROMAN HOLIDAY and THE BATTERSEA BARRICADES

 

Audiobooks, Audible Originals

Narrated by Zara Ramm

The Chronicles of St. Mary's

Roman Holiday follows Dr. Max and her team as they go to investigate Julius Caesar, his wife Calpurnia and his mistress, Cleopatra, just a few short weeks before the Ides of March.

We see more of the utter lunatic brilliance of Max's team as they campaign to get the assignment, as well as how they deal with Roman social structures and political pressures, and the utter lunacy of a man who wants to rule the world bringing his Egyptian mistress to his wife's home and expecting his wife to be a good hostess. Max and her team are only there to "observe," but somehow they are there when someone makes an assassination attempt ... but they're not sure who the target is.

Of course, the strangers in town are fingered for the job, and they have to run for their lives. And that's only the first half of the story. Great fun, as I've come to expect from Jodi Taylor and her very proper and yet eccentric team of time traveling historians.

The Battersea Barricades gives a glimpse into an event in recent history -- at least, from the perspective of near-future England and the occupants of St. Mary's. Max only meant to drop off a schedule, but ended up being invited to drink wine and listen to reminiscences about the civil uprising several decades before. Three very prim and proper ladies who are the backbone of St. Mary's get together on the anniversary of the Battersea Barricades to salute those who died ... and they get to talking, revealing frightening and funny moments in the struggle of would-be rebels to get to London to participate in a rebellion. Only they keep getting lost. 

Delicious, funny, thought-provoking, with that lovely dry British wit. Do yourself a favor and indulge.

New release sample: RETURN OF THE LIVING PROOF

 

The next day was a half-day, a paper delivery day, so I agreed to pick up Pete after lunch and go down to the Pi office with him to sign the contract. If I didn't find anything weird about it. On the way there, I suggested that he consider getting a part-time job as an assistant circulation manager, overseeing the delivery boys and girls, since he didn't mind getting up really early. He just gave me a withering look. Ah, for the good old days when he considered everything I said as pure wisdom. Well, maybe not everything. The kid paid attention better when he still had a clear memory of being thrown off that balcony over the river in England, and me leaping off after him and flying us both to safety.

The corner beyond the Neighborlee Schools property was in that nebulous area between farms and park land, a section of road that ended up being the long way around no matter what the destination was. That contributed to hardly anyone using it. Hence the business-killing dearth of traffic. The last business in there had been a flower market, and from the state of the building, it looked like it had been closed for ten years, not three.

"How long have they been renovating this place?" I had to ask, pausing just a few seconds longer than necessary at the flashing yellow light in front of the schools parking lot entrance. There was no traffic coming from any direction, so I didn't really need to do more than coast to a near-stop and then make my turn. I came to a full stop anyway, and studied the building sitting kitty-corner so it turned the parking lot into a triangle. That had to be awkward maneuvering. Maybe that contributed to the deaths of the previous businesses.

"Maybe two weeks?" Pete shrugged. Then he frowned and blinked and shook his head.

"What?" I didn't like the hint of a dazed look in his eyes.

"Didn't really notice before …" Another shrug. "They're working on the inside, first."

New release sample: RETURN OF THE LIVING PROOF

 

 "You could be the target again." He shrugged.

"Why wouldn't Cerb -- okay, why wouldn't Maurice tell me that's what Cerb was doing? What's different about now than last year?"

"Yeah, that's a consideration. Whatever was sneaking around, Cerb let them know they aren't getting in, they aren't doing anything." Harry scrubbed his face with his palms and let out a groan louder than Cerb had been. "Go back to sleep."

"Physician, heal thyself."

He stuck his tongue out at me and stepped into his apartment. A moment later the little light over the door turned off. I sat for a few moments longer, looking out over my yard, trying to hear or feel if anything was out of place. Then it occurred to me that the nightlight over the stove was bright enough to outline me in the doorway. Enough to make me a target.

Not a good feeling to have sitting on the threshold of my own house. I said a few silent prayers as I backed up and closed the door and made sure it was locked. When I turned to go down the hall, Cerb was sitting in the hallway, right by the little nightlight.

"Is it gone? Was it dangerous? Or just something being nosy?"

He thumped his tail against the wall a few times, then went to the guestroom door and nudged it open with his nose and went back in with Loralee. I muffled a chuckle. What sort of etiquette made him use the door when he was indoors, but when he was outdoors he didn't need to use a door?

I went back to bed and had a talk with God about all sorts of unanswered questions and the problem of not knowing the right questions, to help us figure out what was going on.

At the Movies: FREE GUY

 

A funny thing happened on the way to seeing FREE GUY.

I used an app on my phone to get tickets to the theater -- hey, I saved the processing fee, plus this movie was totally free through reward points. So, I thought, "You know, I've been working hard, I earned a break, this looks like one of those silly movies you just relax and laugh at all the way through."

And it was, for the most part.

But anyway, getting back to the app ... when we got to the theater, they scanned the QR code on my phone and told us which theater door to go in. So we did. But after 25 minutes of commercials (!!!!!!) the movie started ... it was NOT a light, slightly brainless comedy about video games coming to life (with some very adult innuendo delivered as totally brainless lines by Ryan Reynolds who is getting pretty good at the tactless, brainless, goofball hero role).

We saw the first ten minutes of the new Samuel Jackson movie, PROTEGE. And I'm thinking, "Okay, when do I get up and find out how we walked in the wrong door? And how much of our movie have we missed already?"

The movie glitched several times -- going totally blank and silent for a few seconds, then starting up again -- then suddenly showing the studio logo for a different studio and movie. And then FREE GUY started. So it wasn't my mistake. Whew!

Anyway ... yeah, I saw FREE GUY a couple weeks ago (this review is being written about 3 weeks before it shows up. I only post book and movie reviews on Sundays), and it was fun. It was silly. It was a little crude in places that it just didn't need to be. It was brainless, lighthearted fun ... and it made you think a few times, which was surprising. Essentially two brilliant computer programmers design this game program where the NPCs (non-player characters) learn and grow as they interact with the gamers and each other. But of course, just like in TRON however many decades ago (I think I was in college -- I'll have to go check with my dinosaur) the genius program was not just stolen, but hidden away and illegally used as the basis for a game focused on total gratuitous meaningless violence. Oh, joy...

Anyway, Guy is our NPC hero, and he's happy-go-lucky despite his violent world, but not entirely. He's looking for the girl of his dreams, and when he sees her, he starts going beyond his programming. And when he takes the sunglasses off a character/player (because the sunglass people are the ones with the power, the ones earning points and winning things and having fun), suddenly he's growing and learning and changing his world.

Until the evil game designer and the computer programmers he robbed have their destined battle, and Guy's world might be wiped right off the servers.

Look for the cameo appearances by Alex Trebek and Captain America/Chris Evans!

New release sample: RETURN OF THE LIVING PROOF

 That night, Loralee woke up crying. I had the awful feeling she was sick, or maybe going into premature labor. Before I could get from my bed to my wheelchair, Cerb let out a howl that almost made me feel sorry for whoever had enraged him. Then he walked right through the wall from the guest room to my bedroom. He gave me a look that told me he was in defensive mode, then he leaped through my bedroom wall to go outside.

He stopped after that first howl, otherwise I might have had some irate neighbors to deal with. Harry got outside and was walking around the garage apartment and the rest of the yard by the time I got in my chair and to the door. He came up the ramp at the same time Cerb went back to the guestroom by going straight through the wall.

"Anything?" I asked, and backed up so Harry could come inside.

He stayed outside and shook his head. His forehead wrinkled up and his mouth twisted in a crooked grin, and I was pretty sure that shake wasn't a no, so much as it was admitting he wasn't quite sure what was going on.

"Could have sworn I saw something, but it scurried away before I could get close." He snorted. "Before Cerb could get to it. Something small. I'd say rabbits or groundhogs or something. We don't have skunks, do we?"

"Hope not."

"Yeah, well, there was a smell, but it wasn't skunk." He rubbed his nose. "It's gone now."

"Something worried Cerb."

"Yeah. I was really hoping …" Harry shrugged and started backing down the ramp. He had left his door open and a flickering, bluish light spilled out, meaning he was watching a movie when Cerb raised the alarm.

"Hoping what?"

"That they really are camping here to give them a break from all the woo-woo magical fluctuations at Divine's."

"Why wouldn't they?" 

He muttered something that I was pretty sure was Spanish his parents wouldn't have taught him.

New release sample: RETURN OF THE LIVING PROOF

 

"I can take my bike or the moped to the office and then ride with the truck carrying the signs and stakes and all that stuff. No problem."

"How close are they?" I tried to remember seeing a sign for Pi Surprise. They hadn't come into the Tattler to buy advertising yet. Which suddenly struck me as a little strange. All their advertising was either in the Plain Dealer, or stuffed into mailboxes. Nothing in the local paper. So how far away was their office?

"They're in that little flower market on the corner down past the schools."

"On the Neighborlee side of the border, or the Allenby side?"

Pete thought a moment, while I held my breath and told myself it was all right, nothing dangerous ever came into Neighborlee from Allenby. Darbyville, yes, but not Allenby.

"Across the street, so I guess Allenby. I saw the help wanted sign just about the time they were putting it up in the window. It's a new office, they moved here from Euclid, so I'll spend the first couple weeks just helping with renovating the office."

"Okay. Sounds good." I told myself I was hungry, it had been a long day at work, and Pete would make a good spy, to figure out if there was something not-quite-ordinary going on with Pi Surprise. Maybe someone was just out to make things difficult for an expanding business, moving those gnomes around.

I knew the place Pete was talking about. The lot held a ramshackle building that had once been a convenience store and then went through at least a dozen transformations all the years I was growing up. It was in a bad location for businesses. The chunk of land set aside for Neighborlee schools sat right on the southern border of town. The building had started out as a gas station, just across the street and over the border in Allenby, nearly hidden by huge clumps of trees on three sides. Over the years, all those businesses that had moved in and moved out had neglected the building and the parking lot. It was generally a bad location for businesses that depended on visibility and traffic driving by to survive. 

Thinking about it, I supposed a business that just used the building for a headquarters and sent its workers out would probably last longer than anything that had tried to set up there in the past. At the very least, Pete would have work for the summer. I couldn't imagine him keeping the job when school started again in the fall.

Off the Bookshelf: THE VERY FIRST DAMNED THING and WHEN A CHILD IS BORN, by Jodi Taylor

 

Audiobooks, Audible Original

Narrated by Jodi Taylor and  Zara Ramm 

The Chronicles of St. Mary's

This is a delicious series of stories, some of them very short, about a time traveling group of historians in a future England. I was lucky enough to be resting my brain in between editing sessions and perusing the free section of Audible and found 2 half-hour pieces. Then I went back for MORE, and found lots more.

The Very First Damned Thing is listed as the long-awaited prequel to the series, detailing just how Dr. Bairstow got the funding for the St. Mary's project, before they even found the location, and how he recruited the leading members of the team. This is a near-future England where civil unrest has shattered the country and toppled the government and the people are still putting things back together.

I'm listing this story first, but it's really the third book I've listened to, so it was fun meeting "for the first time" characters I'd already seen in action in the previous stories. Actually, it might be more fun listening to this after enjoying several others, just because of the "Oh, yeah, so that's where he found them" sensation when people show up.

When a Child is Born was the first story I listened to. Lovely, short introduction to the whole premise of the series. Dr. Maxwell (Max) and her team are sent back in time to witness the coronation of William the Conqueror -- but of course, they never get there. Somehow, although they have the right time and location programmed into their pod, they land far away from the cathedral. They end up interfering in the fate of a peasant family -- because they can't just stand there and let a man bleed to death in the snow, and when they take him home, his wife is giving birth.  Max is the unlucky one who has to report their huge mistake to their leaders. Later, after much research, she learns that once again, the force of History itself intervened, to make sure they were at the right place at the right time, to make sure something further along in time did happen when it needed to happen.

Or at least, that's her theory ...

DO dive in and devour the series. I've listened to four so far, and there are so many more! Great fun.

New release sample: RETURN OF THE LIVING PROOF

 

"What was that?" I had an awful urge to stick my pinkies in both ears and dig, because my brain didn't want to acknowledge what Pete had just told me.

"Pi Surprise." He sighed, like he had gone through this a few times already in his mind, and practicing hadn't helped.

"Why would you want to do that? Especially after Gordon told us about all the complaints they've been getting."

"Because it has to be done really early in the morning --"

"I repeat, why would you want to do it? You're the one who doesn't run on solar batteries, remember?"

Getting up early to bomb someone's lawn with decorations was part of the package. It had to be done early, so the workers wouldn't get caught and sent away by the unwilling recipients of the embarrassment.

"Because it won't get in the way of going out in the afternoon, and it'll never get in the way of my other job."

"Okay, that makes sense."

Pete turned to look at me, to make sure I wasn't being sarcastic.

"Are you able to handle the work on your bike? Because I'm not getting up at four-dark-thirty to drive you around. I'm proud of you that you're being responsible for your expenses … and I can't believe I'm sounding more and more like …" I laughed.

"You were going to say you sound like Mum and Pop, but you don't, because they would never talk like that," he said, sinking down into the nearest chair with a big grin. 

"Just sounding like a parent. Man, is this what happens when there's a baby on the way? The air changes and does something to your brain so you start sounding like an adult?" I shook my head and held up a hand to stop him responding with whatever smart-aleck comeback was making him grin like that. "Okay, I'm proud of you. Even though you couldn’t pay me enough to take a job like that. Staying up late to fly patrol is one thing, but getting up early? Nuh uh. Not me."

Contest: CAN YOU FILK?

 All right -- first question: Do you know what FILKING is?

Basically, it's a fandom thing. People take a well-known tune and then put new words to it, about their favorite fandom, either a movie series, TV show, or book series.

I need YOU to put on your creative cap and do some filking for me.

You see these books to the left? The covers of the first two AFV DEFENDER books.

Book 3 is coming out in December (at least, that's the plan, I keep getting sidetracked from revisions and editing ...)

What's the TITLE for AFV Defender Book 3?

ALL THE BOYS I'VE LOATHED BEFORE

We kind of go backward in time and show you a few important episodes from M'kar's childhood and years at the Academy on Le'anka.

If you've read HERE THERE WERE DRAGONS, there's an episode that sort of gets glossed over, during which M'kar has an odd adventure on Nisandros, her homeworld, which she doesn't want to talk about. She promises to report to her captain later on the details, and refers to it as the "All The Boys I've Loathed Before incident."

Well, NOW's the time.

So what does this have to do with FILKING?

Write me the lyrics for this adventure -- M'kar dealing with some really arrogant, misguided, unreliable, disappointing, power-hungry, socially climbing jerks, who have tried to take advantage of either her telepathic Talent or her Nisandrian blood, her royal status, her diplomatic connections, for their own profit. 

What's your PRIZE?

Your choice of either all three books in ebook or audio (when I get them recorded, of course -- which I hope to have done in time for the release of ALL THE BOYS I'VE LOATHED BEFORE), or the new, third book in paper.

Check back here, and on the Ye Olde Dragon Books website blog for snippets of M'kar's story as I get them refined and polished, for help in writing the song -- and check the Ye Olde Dragon Books blog for  the rules and deadline.

Ready?

Set.

Let the silliness begin!