Just a note for those who have Nook eReaders. My novel Limit of Vision is now up and available at BarnesandNoble.com.

I’ll have more to say on this book later, as the Amazon listing pulls itself together.

1. Go to Beloved Husband’s office, crawl under desk and disconnect the HP All-In-One. (Luckily BH is not home.)

2. Haul HP All-In-One through two rooms to the nearest phone line.

3. Disconnect phone. Connect HP All-In-One.

4. Return to BH’s office. Search for manual on how-to-send-fax. No manual.

5. Go upstairs to own computer. Look for manual online. Print appropriate pages.

6. Go downstairs. Run fax test. Okay.

7. Send fax. Both pages feed through at same time. FAX-FAIL.

8. Try again. Line Busy.

9. Try again. Transmission fail. Repeat steps 8 & 9 three times. FAX-FAIL.

10. Go upstairs. Email fax recipient: May I scan the document and email it? Answer, “Yes.” SCAN-SUCCESS.

11. Haul HP All-In-One back to BH’s office. Crawl under desk and reconnect it.

Note to self: ASK FIRST if a scan is acceptable.

I’m a fussy reader. I start lots of books and quickly drop them (Kindle samples, you rock!). So it’s a great feeling to be suddenly immersed in what is shaping up to be a great read. My current example is Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind. I’m presently on chapter 21, which my Kindle dutifully tells me is only 21% in, which is great, because that means there is 79% to go!

The storytelling style in the opening of this book is so unusual. Maybe only a writer would comment on this first, but the tale starts off with a camera-eye viewpoint in an invisible narrator’s voice, and all the while essential information is implied but deliberately withheld–which should be annoying, but it’s not. Later on we get deeper third-person viewpoints, and then fully realized first person viewpoints, and it all works wonderfully well, helped along by frequent humorous and ironic one-liners.

Another thing you probably won’t hear most reviewers mention is that many of the characters, minor and major both, are so often very kindly and thoughtful and even loving to one another. Yes, there are fearsome antagonists and terrible things happen, but people–even strangers–are still allowed to care about each other.

Oh yes, and the story is building up nicely as well.

I read slowly so it’s going to be awhile before I report back, but so far, thumbs up!

True story.

No, no, that’s not me on the left. Look over to the right . . . Yep! I’m the one opposite Kona.

This is the Japanese edition of Playboy from June 1997. I re-discovered it while searching through storage boxes.

Notice that I’m in the company of Sherlock Holmes, Clint Eastwood, Larry Flynt, and James Cameron. One of us is a fictional character. One of us is NOT rich and famous. You guess.

Because people only read Playboy for the articles, I should mention that my article was on cloning. I believe this was the era when Dolly the Sheep was famous.

So yeah–my picture was in Playboy.

One interesting thing about living with a 10,000-foot mountain in your backyard–said mountain rising out of the Pacific Ocean just north of latitude 20–is that it can still be warm enough to go swimming at the beach when there’s a frosting of snow at the summit.

These photos were taken this morning, showing a lovely snow fall at the summit of Haleakala on the island of Maui. For us, snow is exciting, since we only see it every two or three years, and since it only falls at the summit.

Snow on Haleakala - January 19, 2011

Snow on Haleakala - January 19, 2011

Goddesses is my Nebula Award winning novella originally published at SciFi.com. It’s now available at a nominal price for reading on the Kindle. Please have a look and let me know what you think!

Find it here at Amazon.com.

1. Publish my indie novel, The Wild, in both print and ebook versions, and PROMOTE!

2. Complete a draft of a new novel,

3. Release ebook versions of Limit of Vision and Memory.

4. Release print-on-demand versions of Tech-Heaven, The Bohr Maker, Deception Well, Vast, Limit of Vision, Memory, and my YA novel Skye Object 3270a.

5. Finalize and market my first screenplay.

6. Write a second screenplay.

7. Keep up with this blog

8. Meet lots of great people in the reading and writing communities!

That doesn’t sound too hard, does it? Hmm, except that part about promotion. That’s always the trick isn’t it?

Remind me to check back here next year to see how well I did.

And how about you? What are your reading or writing goals for 2011? Do share! I’d love to hear from you. And best wishes for 2011!

I’ve sent follow up emails to everyone who contacted me, but haven’t heard back from a few people. So if you haven’t heard from me and are still interested in being an advance reader for The Wild, please send me an email as soon as you can to linda at mythicisland [dot com]

Thanks!

Announcing the fifth ebook by Mythic Island Press LLC!

Skye Object 3270a is a young adult novel set in the same story world as Deception Well, but with its own set of characters and its own set of challenges.

The cover concept is mine, but the digital painting of Skye and the final polish is by Sarah Adams.

What’s the book about? Well…

In an isolated star system far from any other human outposts, a space-faring “lifeboat” was discovered by a scientist from the city of Silk. Inside the lifeboat was a two-year-old girl in frozen sleep. She had no name and no history. The people of Silk believed her to be the only survivor of a star-faring great ship attacked in the void and destroyed by the automated warships of the alien Chenzeme. They rescued and revived the child, and named her “Skye.”

But the people of Silk face dangers of their own. Their city is in space, built around the column of a space elevator that rises from the planet’s surface into high orbit. Three-hundred kilometers below is the wild, plague-ridden planet called Deception Well. Far-above, a dusty nebula shrouds the star system. The nebula is made of drifting dust, gas, and tiny nanomachines left behind by an ancient and mysterious race. The microscopic nanomachines were made to attack and destroy any Chenzeme ship that enters the system . . . but they will defend against other threats too, and they have no loyalty to human life.

Still, life in Silk is comfortable, and the dangers of their world mean little to the city’s youth. Skye has grown into an adventurous, independent teen–but more and more she wonders about her mysterious past. Where did she come from? Who were her parents? And, most importantly, was she really the only survivor? When evidence of her past begins to awaken within her own body, Skye finds herself driven to explore both the dangerous surface of Deception Well and the airless reaches of outer space.

She is not alone in her quest. Her best friend Zia Adovna, the handsome young astronomer Devi Hand, and the adventurous Buyu Mkolu join her as she seeks to prove that other survivors of the great ship might still be found.

If you know any young readers who love adventure stories and are equipped with Kindle or Nook, please encourage them to download a sample!

Skye Object 3270a is available at:

Amazon
Barnes & Noble

There was a total eclipse of the moon last night. I didn’t see it. Clouds, drizzly rain, that sort of thing, got in the way. I did get a glimpse of the partially eclipsed crescent a bit later, but that was through heavy clouds.

Several years ago there was another total lunar eclipse in our region, but it was the same thing for me: clouds, rain. I have never seen the red moon.

Worse yet, maybe fifteen years ago there was a total solar eclipse visible from Hawaii. This was a very strange event. The day before was brilliantly sunny. The day after was brilliantly sunny. The day of was cloudy, rainy. Where I live we even had an unseasonable fog.

So I don’t get too excited when I hear about an upcoming eclipse. Maybe I’ll see one someday, but I think the odds are better if I bet on bad weather!

But not everyone has my bad luck. Here’s a link to a photo taken by my daughter in Honolulu: This is her second red moon.

And a couple of other interesting shots:

Red moon in clouds

Moonlight returning