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Book Review: The Martian by Andy Weir
(from my Goodreads page. Please feel free to friend/follow me there. I love books and love to talk about them!) I LOVED THIS BOOK. I shall shout about it to anyone who cares to hear me. I listened to it in audiobook, over the course of about 4 days, which is very fast for a 10+ hour audio. (pro tip: listen while you cook dinner, fold laundry, or other mundane household stuff. I also listen on short, long, and medium length drives, and while I walk the dogs. My dogs are very well exercised at the moment.) What I liked: this book has so much technical depth and detail. While…
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Ursula Le Guin on writing
Great article/interview with Ursula Le Guin on Slate’s Book Review site.
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Book Review – Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold
From my Goodreads review (which can be found here.) I am still a hearty fan of the Vorkosigan Saga. Every book I’ve ready (via audiobook) has been a joy to read/listen to. I find myself making excuses to listen more. The dogs are very well walked and my dishes are quite clean now thanks in part to Grover Gardener’s sure narration. This book follows Miles and Ekaterine to quaddie space, and features a mystery (like many/most of these novels do) as well as some old friends (love how Lois McMaster Bujold leaves little dangling bits in other works and then revisits the characters and events, usually with some wry observations, later.…
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Barbie Brouhaha
This week’s Internet Ragestorm is about a really ridiculous Barbie book about computer programming (article also appears on gizmodo if you encounter issues) that includes Barbie “only creating the design ideas, ha ha” and “needing to get Steven and Brian to do the heavy lifting of programming.” And then accidentally cause she’s an idiot infecting hers and another’s computer with a virus carried on a USB drive (a cute heart-shaped one!) Now, I don’t want to join the Barbie hate because…back in my youth I *adored* Barbie. I remember getting the “Pretty in Pink” (not related to the movie) Barbie for maybe my 9th or 10th birthday and being in heaven.…
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In Defense of Sparkle Science
I have an article up on the New York Times’ The Motherlode section called In Defense of Sparkle Science. Some of my daughter’s lip gloss and lip scrub experiments I’m thrilled with this piece as I’ve wanted to place something at The Motherlode for a while. If you are interested in the topic, please take the time to read through the Carnegie Science Center’s response to the criticism about the image that went viral, as they address the fact that they used to offer a wider range of options for Girl Scouts but no one signed up. I agree it looks ridiculous to have only one thing out for girls…
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Now available for purchase – SNOW WHITE AND THE ASSASSIN’S GUILD! (Kindle only)
Now available for purchase – my short story SNOW WHITE AND THE ASSASSIN’S GUILD! I wrote this short story during a workshop I took with Mary Robinette Kowal called Writing on the Fast Track (I highly recommend the workshop! It was conducted via online google+ hangouts, small number of classmates, we did exercises and critiqued each other’s work from week to week, and otherwise just had a ball. It helped me refine my ability to write short stories.) The story blurb: Snow White is frustrated in her role as an assassin in the king and queen’s service. As the third princess, it is her duty to help clean up the…
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COVER REVEAL! Snow White and the Assassin’s Guild
Check out my beautiful cover for my upcoming short story, SNOW WHITE AND THE ASSASSIN’S GUILD I’m so thrilled with the design, from Delilah Stephans Design. Absolutely beautiful. Thanks so much! Story goes on sale on Saturday, March 22, 2014.
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CONVERGENCE – by Karen T. Smith, a YA Sci-Fi novel
Desperate for something new to read? My young adult (young end of YA, perfectly appropriate for most middle-grade readers) science fiction novel CONVERGENCE by Karen T. Smith is now available on all ebook platforms (amazon kindle, barnes and noble nook, smashwords for most other e-readers. Note: Kobo and Sony Reader distribution should be within the next 1-2 weeks. Apple mail trail a bit longer.) Paperback available at most e-retailers and Createspace.com. First of all, isn’t the cover gorgeous? I had a fantastic cover model (one of the kids’ babysitters!) and my really awesome friend Renee of The Cover Counts worked on this cover with me. We found some fantastic images,…
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Book Review – Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
I recently reviewed the book Ship Breaker, by Paolo Bacigalupi, over on my mom blog – Suburban (in)Sanity. I really enjoyed this book, even though in general I’m tired of future-told dystopia stories. Hunger Games overkill I suppose. This one was fantastic, though, and kept me up late reading.
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E-book Formatting Checklist
How to Format your e-book for independent publishing In formatting ebooks for independent publishing, I’ve found that the detailed information offered in the Smashwords style guide, while top-notch and something that EVERY indie publisher needs to read, is a bit hard to parse when you’re going through the routine of formatting another book/story for publication, so I (with the help of my 9 year old son) documented the process in a simple(r) checklist, so I could be sure I was following the correct steps as I went. This is heavily based on that Smashwords style guide, so you really need to read that if you want to publish your own…
