Monthly ArchiveJuly 2007
Book 11 Jul 2007 06:24 am
Eclipse CHAPTER ONE IS HERE!!!
Just got the news. Chapter ONE is online!
Yeah, I miss you, too. A lot. Doesn’t change anything.
Sorry
Jacob
In PDF over at stepheniemeyer.com
***Eclipse Quote of the Day*** (7/10/07)
“This hostage stuff is fun.” — Alice Cullen
AUGUST 7TH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
EEP!
Book 10 Jul 2007 10:55 pm
Stay off the Grid
Here is another new cool series by a mystery author. Not an author that writes mysteries, an author no one has met… No seriously, look at his RH page here. There is nothing.
John Twelve Hawks has written two novels. The Traveler was the first and that is now available in paperback. Dark River is the second in the Fourth Realm series.
A couple of cool interviews, here at SFF World, and here is the J12H blip from the Telegraph article,
John Twelve Hawks
Age Unknown
Real name Secret
Previous occupation Who knows?
Address Off the grid
Star character Warrior-babe Maya
Commercial status One novel The Traveller (2006): UK sales, 150,000-plus. Sequel The Dark River due out in July.John Twelve Hawks is either the world’s most mysterious author or one of its most brilliant conmen. His agent and publisher insist they have no idea of his true identity, describing how he communicates via untraceable satellite phones, using a digital synthesiser to distort his voice.
He does not own a television and drives a 15-year-old car. They report conversations in which Twelve Hawks intones, ‘I saw your office the other day,’ without revealing how or when.
He has also told his editors that he has visited every location he writes about, including London, Prague, the Arizona desert… and Hell. Hawks’s determination to live ‘off the grid’ - without credit cards, conventional ID, personal bank-accounts or a fixed address - is a radical response to the creeping menace of the surveillance society.
His debut novel, The Traveller, read like an obsessive, paranoid mix of Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Matrix and Blair/Bush legislation, in which populations are constantly monitored, supervised and coerced into appropriate behaviour by the ‘vast machine’ of computers, micro-chips and CCTV.
Traveler was a really interesting read, and while some of the reviews I have read feel that Dark River falls into the “middle child” syndrome of the trilogy and is weaker than the first, I am still excited to read it.
I know it isn’t necessary to show the full size cover of The Traveler, but it is just so PRETTY.
Anyways, this is a great set of novels, and they really bring to mind the issues that we in the United States are having with privacy, and with the whole 1984 “Big Brother is Watching You” concept.
A good read all around, go check it out! They should both be available in your local independent bookstore!
Uncategorized 04 Jul 2007 09:12 am
Happy Birthday to the United States
Just wanted to give a big shout out to my country, the United States!!!
It’s her birthday. I know she has been having a rough time lately… Maybe in country time 231 years are the teenage years? When you do stupid things REPEATEDLY…
Regardless, Happy Birthday!
Uncategorized 02 Jul 2007 10:32 pm
No Time for Goodbye
Now, most of my books are happy-go-lucky types. What if you like thrillers? My site might not be the most fun. Well, for all you scary thriller and murder mystery fans, fear not, I have read a thriller, a new author to me and lordy it was good!!!
Linwood Barclay, with about six books to his credit before this new standalone, PLUS being a very successful newspaper columnist (not to mention a father and husband), (well, quite a busy man eh?), has written a new standalone thriller set in a small town of Connecticut where a high school girl wakes up and finds her family gone. No word, no note, no blood, just G O N E. The book is set twenty-five years later as she tries to figure out what really happened. Told through her husband (who I really liked), this book REALLY shows that sometimes, the truth is better off not discovered. It may hurt not to know, but it the truth might be a killer!
No Time For Goodbye, wowsers…
From the back cover:
“High school student Cynthia Archer woke up one morning to discover that her entire family had disappeared. No note. No clue. Nothing. Twenty-five years later, Cynthia is still trying to make sense of it, and trying her best to lead a normal life with her husband and daughter. When she begins to notice odd and sinister signs, all pointing to her missing family, no one seems to believe her – even her husband doubts her. Could Cynthia be losing her mind? Was she involved with her family’s disappearance all those years ago? As dark secrets unfold, the shocking truth slowly emerges. Cynthia might finally get her answer, but sometimes it’s better not to know.”
Dave also read this one, and yeah, I pretty much agree with everything he said. I didn’t get to read it in one sitting, but hot damn did I want to!!!
It was just so GOOD. As I think about it, I am glad that I only read it in half hour intervals because I was able to formulate opinions about WHAT actually happened to her family. Were they all killed by serial killers? Did Cynthia kill them in a drunken blackout? What about the mob? This book went beyond my meager guesses and BLEW me away!!!
I even emailed Mr. Barclay through his site to let him know how good it was. I figure, more praise can never hurt eh?
SEPTEMBER 25th 2007, sorry for the delay, I don’t choose the dates! But keep your eyes peeled in the Bantam Dell monthly podcast program for October AND at bantamdell.com for their Mystery features, and it was selected for the Booked For Breakfast Book Club feature at DearReader.com. So check those places out, plus his website, Good times!