It took a while, but Bedazzled Ink has finally released their new issue featuring a short story by me and a beautiful ad for Morning Rising

“Dark” is a very quick read and can be found here: http://bedazzledink.com/khimairal-ink-magazine/current-issue/

You can read the magazine online or download it.

I’m one of those authors who has a playlist for most books I write. Sometimes it might only be one song, and sometimes it’s thirty or so, but it’s rare that I don’t have any songs in mind when I write. It’s helpful to me with my writing and nice after the book is written because I forever associate certain songs with my books and think of them fondly when I hear the songs.

So, for anyone reading Morning Rising here is the playlist for it.

Closer by Burn Season (This is really THE song for this book)
Perfect by Burn Season
Anywhere by Evanescence
Take Me Away by Fefe Dobson
All Around Me by Flyleaf
Identity by Greenwheel
Dear Pain by Holly McNarland
Buried by Jackalope
Breaking The Habit by Linkin Park
Chaos by Mute MAth
How I Feel by Alexz Johnson
Sometimes by Papa Roach
Like O, Like H by Tegan and Sara
Comatose by Skillet
Whispers In The Dark by Skillet
Under My Skin by Skillet

There, I admitted it. I’m a bad blogger, I neglect my little website and forget to blog on it as much as I should. So for anyone actually checking here for updates, sorry!

I’ve been keeping busy editing and updating a couple different books the last couple months. Also, I made the decision to release Morning Rising on the Nook and Kindle. It’s the first in the Guardian of Morning trilogy, and as much as I love it, I know it might have trouble finding it’s place in traditional publishing due to the nature of the book.

I am finally done editing Prime, and the draft has been accepted by my agent, now we start the process of submitting it to publishers. Hopefully we won’t have to wait long for someone to bite, but I’ve taken a very zen outlook on this whole publishing process. I feel like it’s the only way not to go insane waiting.

I do have good news from my friend J. Gabriel Gates, his book Dark Territory was released earlier this month and is now available at Amazon and other bookstores! http://tinyurl.com/3sx6c9v

I’ll close with the description of Morning Rising, available for the Nook and Kindle for just .99 cents!

In the ever present dusk of Inbetween, Kara Hart wakes up dirty and alone with the memory of a girl named Dylan. She remembers meeting Dylan and how her heart beat when Dylan touched her face, but nothing else. When Kara is sent to Demitar, the evil ruler of Inbetween, the truth is revealed. She is Dylan’s Guardian and neither of them are who they thought they were.

Set in a darker version our own world, Morning Rising follows Kara as she tries to save Dylan from Demitar’s clutches. She is given three days to find Dylan and get her out of Inbetween before she belongs to Demitar forever. Memories must be regained and powers restored if they have a chance of escaping. Each memory and sighting of Dylan helps Kara remember the love they once shared. If only she can help Dylan remember before it’s too late.

Below is a post of mine that appears here: http://www.scifisaturdaynight.com/?p=3466

About a month ago I listened to the audio book of I am Number Four, and I rented the movie last night. Usually I don’t like to read a book and watch the movie so close together, but I did this time for comparison purposes. Let’s just say I feel like this movie should have been marketed as ‘loosely based on the book’.

The short rundown of both the book and the movie is this: Teenage alien boy fled from his planet with a guardian and eight other kids when he was little. Now they all live on earth, but not together, and they’ve been hiding from the Mogadorians, who are trying to kill them. They have to be killed in order, though they don’t explain why in the movie. John Smith is number four, and he is next in line to be killed.

The book dives deep into the how and the why of the Mogadorian’s attack on John’s home planet and the escape of the others and John. It also dives deep into John’s powers and how hard he has to work to gain them, and how hard it is to come out as an alien to your friends (even when one of them is a crazy UFO junkie). Everything just seems to flow too easily for John in the movie. There is also little development of relationships aside from the one between John and his love interest, so I didn’t really care when people were in danger.

I’ll admit the book was a little slow for its subject matter, about halfway through you start wondering if this really is a book about aliens. However, all that slowness gave it much more depth, and gave the reader more insight into what was really going on. The movie skips all that, and jumps around through the plot to hit all the key points that progress the story. Unfortunately, it feels like that is all they’re doing. It also really bothered me that they pronounced things differently in the movie than they did in the audi0book, I would have preferred consistency.

In short: read the book, skip the movie. The people I watched the movie with had no knowledge of the book, and they didn’t have much good to say about the movie either. The special effects were cool, but they didn’t even give John the main power he has in the book. Overall, I’d rather watch Jennifer’s Body again.