Perihelion has published another review I wrote for them

This has been up since the 12th but I've been busy. It is a review for James Gunn's Transcendental and is the review at the top. Enjoy and share:

http://www.perihelionsf.com/reviews.htm

A new review is up at New Myths

New Myths has published a review I wrote (the featured review at the moment). The link is below, feel free to share it:

https://sites.google.com/a/newmyths.com/nmwebsite/books-we-are-reading/a-short-stay-in-hell

Another review up at Buzzy Mag

Buzzy mag has published another review I wrote for them. The first bit is below leading to a link. While you're there check out some of the great stuff they have for sale.

Writers are known for being obsessive compulsives; that is just a characteristic that comes with the territory. After reading Blood And Magick by James R. Tuck, I have to wonder if we are hitting the age of the books for people with attention deficit disorder. Are we going to start seeing multiple books where the action constantly jumps around?

Deacon Chalk, our occult bounty-hunting hero, is having a nice dinner with his friends when a trio of witches attacks the restaurant. Deacon and friends jump into action with bullets and bravado flying. We are beat over the head with the types of guns used and with all of the training and experience that Deacon has fighting. And we are shown that Deacon is a real man, oozing with machismo from every pore. The good guys prevail and the bad guys regroup for a bigger, badder attack...more

Another review is up at Perihelion

Perihelion has published another review I wrote for them this month. The review is the first one, you can check it out here:

http://www.perihelionsf.com/reviews.htm

It's a good magazine and good people, check it out.

Another review is up

Perihelion has published another review I wrote for them this month. The review is the second one down, you can check it out here:

http://www.perihelionsf.com/reviews.htm

Another Review Up At Buzzy Mag

Buzzy Mag has published another review I wrote. The first bit is below leading to the link. While you're there buy a t-shirt, they're funny.

The late Richard Matheson will always be remembered for the ideas he brought about in his stories (ok, he will most likely be remembered for The Twilight Zone). He was a good writer but not a great one. With his constant supply of original ideas he didn’t need to be great. On the other hand, if you are going to take an unoriginal idea, you best have some writing chops to keep us interested. Richard Ellis Preston Jr. is no Richard Matheson.

Our hero, Romulus Buckle, lives in a post-apocalyptic world where it is always snowing and technology has been reduced to a steam powered level. Buckle lives on his ship, the Pneumatic Zeppelin (it’s easy to remember because they say the phrase Pneumatic Zeppelin on almost every page). He is out to save his adopted father and clan leader, Balthazar. But you would think he is more concerned with his wardrobe as he seems to always be changing and thinking about what he is wearing. By the constant asides on clothing one would think that half of the ship is nothing more than storage for Buckle’s various outfits...read more

Win Some Free Stuff

A magazine that I've had a review published in is having a giveaway. Buzzy Mag is a very cool magazine and right now they are giving some stuff away. Follow the link and you can win some cool stuff including a brand new MacBook Air:

Buzzy Mag Giveaway

A Milestone

Something I thought I might add here: it isn't writing or art related but it is language related. I have been a member of Lingq for a while now and have just passed a milestone. I have learned 10,000 words in Spanish. I can hold a halfway competent conversation at this point.

A Free Market Database For Your Submissions

A few years ago I made a post about different websites for your submissions (post can be found here). One of the websites is no longer free, Duotrope.

Duotrope was (and presumably still is) a wonderful website for writers. Not only was it searchable for open markets, it had a wonderful search engine for putting in specifics such as pay rate or whether or not said markets accept reprints, it was also a database where you could store your submissions. Sadly Duotrope became a pay service, I believe early this year (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

There is nothing wrong with Duotrope charging for their service. They have almost 5,000 markets listed and help you keep track of where you are sending your stuff. Besides it doesn't actually cost that much, $50 a year. If you are on staff somewhere or are regularly selling stuff to pro and semi-pro markets, bite the bullet and get a membership. Or you can always ask an understanding family member for a birthday/Christmas present in that amount. For the service they offer it is a really good deal.

However, if your writing income makes up less than 5% of your yearly income (like mine does) you'll want to know where else to go to submit your stuff. I've used Ralan's for years.

I check it every day I'm submitting. You can join his Facebook that he updates frequently. Ralan's is nice. It has led to quite a few acceptances for me over the years (and I've paid back the favor by donating some money to him). But it doesn't have the nifty search engine or tracking abilities of Duotrope.

Recently I kind of bumbled along and found The Submission Grinder.

The Submission Grinder is a free alternative to Duotrope. Not only does it work in a very similar manner, you can actually import your information from Duotrope into The Submission Grinder. The Submission Grinder only has about 2,500 markets listed at the moment but you can help by dropping emails to them about markets you've found and if you have a magazine get it listed.

Is it perfect? No. But it is free and it is pretty cool. And it is one more tool to help you get your stuff out into the world.

Another review is published

Perihelion Science Fiction has just published another review I wrote. It is the first review on the page:

http://www.perihelionsf.com/reviews.htm

A review is up at Buzzy Mag

I enjoyed reading this book and writing the review. The first bit is below leading to the link:

Take one part Moby-Dick, mix it with one part Kidnapped and one part Treasure Island, and sprinkle in just a bit of The Odyssey. Now blend these up nicely, dump them on a train, and try to push it under a PG-13 rating and you’ll have an idea of whatRailsea is like. Miéville knows the rules but throws them all to the wind in his latest work and somehow still manages to pull off an amazing novel. From using an odd vocabulary and slang, to the use of an ampersand (&) in place of the word “and” throughout the book, to the strange story of how the world changed, Miéville never comes right out and fully explains these things but makes the reader learn on the go. He also presents something to young adults that is not about wizards or something that seems like a bad knock-off of The Running Man with bows and arrows, or some weak tale about boring vampires that are anything but scary.

Our hero, Shamus Yes ap Soorap (Sham for short), is exceptional only in the sense that there is nothing exceptional about him. He is a bumbling, awkward doctor’s assistant on the train, Medes. He longs to be a salvor (one who finds and deals with salvage from crashed trains) but is held back by his own inhibition. Like most of us, he hesitates when opportunity knocks and ends up playing catch up to the real action...

http://buzzymag.com/railsea-book-review/

Another Short Story Published!

It isn't a new short story but here is a reprint of a story I had published a few years ago:

http://issue.liquid-imagination.com/article/mortar-attack-by-adam-armstrong/

The magazine is liquid imagination and is worth a read. There is also an audio version on the above link.

The story was originally published in Allegory Magazine 9/36, Spring/Summer 2009

Another review is up!

Here is a review I wrote for Innsmouth Free Press. It is a review for the new Stephen King novel which I can't recommend enough. Innsmouth is a pretty cool magazine as well.

Check it out:

http://www.innsmouthfreepress.com/blog/?p=22084

Another Review And A New Beginning

As some of you know, I was on staff as a reviewer for Withersin Magazine. I started in 2007 and worked hard for them up until their website/magazine went on hiatus last year. Before that I had a review published in a little magazine called Blood Rose (though they never credited me and I think they died when they published the issue I’m in).

I originally starting sending out reviews because I wanted greater exposure and I thought that I had something to say. I read anywhere between 50-100 books a year and generally I have quite a few thoughts about them. So when I was given the chance at Withersin to go to town I took it. After a few hundred reviews to my name they went on hiatus like many magazine tend to do, both small and large.

After some time I realized that I really enjoyed sharing my views on certain things, especially those that aren’t seen by the mainstream as much, and I missed writing reviews. With Withersin there was a certain formula I followed but if I wanted to get more stuff out there I’d have to start over from scratch. After a bit of searching I came up with a list of magazines looking for reviews and started to write them again and send them in.

At first nothing happened (there is a type of rejection where the publisher just doesn’t answer, people take this as a bad sign but in most cases they are just too busy and you didn’t land on the right mark with your piece). But then the rejection letters started coming in. They were hopeful and made me change my style rapidly. And then the acceptances started coming in.

The first published review I wrote is here on Perihelion Science Fiction, it is the second one down entitled “Hot Air In A Vacuum”:

http://www.perihelionsf.com/reviews.htm

Feel free to comment below and check out the magazine it is pretty cool.

I’ll post the others as they are published.