This is a new series set in the same universe as her other books but has almost no crossover except for a phone call. The setting is in Las Vegas and I think I have lost count of all the books I have read this year that were set in Las Vegas either as a one shot or the characters had to go go there. There is a hunt for a powerful shield by both the humans helping the angels, angles that are indifferent to the humans helping them and demons. Trixia is only interested in the artifact to trade it for info to find the demon that killed her brother. Of course things are not as they appear and the book is a good fun romp. I'll be looking for the next one.

Habitat for Humanity robbed of tools used to build people's homes

Four Police Officer's Executed in Washington Coffee House.

Okay, I've reached the age where gigolos stalk me on the internet. I received the following via MySpace, and I have to admit, this guy isn't the first, just the most... poetic.

Wow i wish i can kiss you with this pretty smile of your's cause you
look like an angel, your beauty is a gift by God from heaven and no one
can change it.sorry i need to introduce myself,i am [name removed],a Professional Model..I love
swimming,camping,hiking,dancing,going to beach's reading and written poems
whenever i am lonely at home, i am a christian and i don't do racism
cause i belief we are all created by One God almighty who see's us all
every minute of our lives no matter where we are, i don't mind your age
cause i belief its just a number which we can count from time to time i will stop here and await
to hear from you sweetie.

I remember a time when I was stalked by perverts because I was young and innocent, then stalked by horn dogs because I was ripe and single. All that has apparently passed, and while I'm not complaining about that, why does it have to be replaced by men who "don't mind your age."

Dang. Hehe.

• 13:25 2009 Pate award in civil history goes to Kenneth Howell - tinyurl.com/yf237gg #
• 13:36 The First Last Drink Bird Awards from World Fantasy Convention: bit.ly/4Z3AWE #fantasy #scifi #dfw #writers #amwriting #scifichatters #
• 14:09 @JasonAMyersTX because some of us can read more than one language :) #
• 14:09 still need a used electric dryer, anyone got one? ($100 or less please) #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

My Loyal Lieutenant (slrose) had informed me that Baker and Taylor listed Threshold, but the true sign of its impending release has just now made itself visible: it's listed, albeit without its lovely cover image, on Amazon.com!

I made money yesterday.
It was less than two dollars, but who’s counting? I still think it’s cool.

Somebody bought one of my tshirts on Zazzle. This happens maybe once a year if I’m lucky — I’m not actually trying to sell any of that stuff, it’s mostly just things I made for me and my family.

This is the design that caught someone’s eye this time:

My youngest daughter was particularly happy to hear about the sale… that was one of the tshirts I made for her, and she helped me with it.

While I’m on the subject of my zazzle tshirts. This particular shirt gets me a lot of comments when I wear it to cons…

Mirrored on My Website.

The first year we were married, we tried dividing our time on Thanksgiving between both families. Ginny decided that was too much driving and stress, so we've alternated which family to have dinner with since then.

During the last two years, the dynamic has changed somewhat for Ginny's parents. They both lost the last of their respective parents this year, and Ginny's younger brothers haven't been in very good positions for participating in the holiday. That didn't matter last year, since it was our year to have Thanksgiving with them and were able to contribute to their enjoyment of the holiday. But with it being my family's turn to have us visit for the holiday this year, who would be there for Ginny's parents?

Ginny decided to have a second Thanksgiving dinner with them today, while we still visited my family on the real holiday. It sounded like a good idea to everyone, so this year we've had two Thanksgiving dinners, and I don't see a problem with that. This time, Ginny's dad cleaned up his house for the event, and then came to realize how time-consuming it is to baby-proof a house, especially when Beatrix has become so determined to open cabinets and pull everything out of them.

In other news, BYU beat Utah 26-23 in overtime, which becomes even more impressive because Utah scored a field goal first when they had the ball after regulation time ended. So hooray for the Cougars, putting those arrogant Utes back in their place for another year!

• 00:38 I love you, K E Mills! THE ACCIDENTAL SORCERER is a wonderful mix of madness and magic set in a 20th cen where tech and magic coexist. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

This is only barely set in the Company universe of stories. It is a riff on the usual colonizing for profit that fails to turn a profit and the colonists that are fighting against the controlling company. The colonists turn the tables on the company and get out from under them. This is also a great stand alone novel.

sitting in the business center at the hotel, catching up on email and other info as it were.

Been getting my books signed, and in some cases, bookplates signed, and visting with folks.

did the Radcon room party last night, had some interesting conversations with assorted peoples. Fount out that Steve York and I have similar experiances while being crashed in a Fairchild airplane. Its a very small world.

Probably going to have an early night since .. uh... well, we will see how tonight goes.

Seeing folks from book group, my old PDX-B5 group, and others...

Heard that Herself made it through the knee re-replacement, and doing well, which was very good news.

Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.
Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.
Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Nathan Crowder is the author of a couple novels that take place in a crazy metropolis called Cobalt City where superheroes and supervillains run rampant. The main crime-fighting unit is called the Protectorate, but other groups exist as well, less savory ones.

I love Nathan's writing, and this world really tweaked my imagination, so when he said he was doing an anthology for the holidays, I wanted to try my hand at writing a story for it.

The combination of the holidays and superheroes turned out to be ripe with creative potential. I immediately decided to create a new hero, named Nutcracker. He's a foul-mouthed, bad-tempered asshole with big teeth, who is mourning his true love, the late superhero Ballerina.

The book will be available for purchase in early December, and I'll share more information on it as I get it.

Yeah, I'm doing day job work today. I was supposed to do it yesterday, but spent the day figuring out the new configuration for my kitchen instead.

I'm not too bothered. I'm doing fairly easy stuff today, and only for a few hours.

One of the things that I keep running into is that while I may have situational stress, for the most part, I'm happy. I just have to remember to breathe.

After I finish day job I'm going to put up my Christmas lights and my wooden angels. I have a few other ornaments to put up as well -- my glass birds, my brand new robots and ray gun (!!!)

I hope that you are able to find your zen during the hectic holiday season.

Well, here we are at another Orycon. We turned up on Thursday night and nothing was quite ready (Thursday having been Thanksgiving, of course, and everything having been predicated on that) but that was okay - we were kinda early, after all.

Friday morning we came down to breakfast, said hi to a couple of people we knew, had breakfast, and went in search of important things like programs so that we could figure out where to go and what to do - but the Green Room people shrugged helplessly and said, "You'll have 'em when we get 'em..." - which finally happened a little later, AFTER the programming had already started, leaving the first few panels out there in something of a limbo - the panelists knew where they were supposed to be, because their name tents gave their itineraries and locations, but nobody ELSE knew anything about the panels or who was on them or where they were supposed to be and this year it was a new hotel anyway so even having a room name was no guarantee whatsoever of knowing its location (which could be in any of three separate wings of the hotel...) But we finally got hold of a program booklet, and it was off and running.

My first panel was at 3 PM, about "Alternative History" - and it was in what fellow panelist Michael Ehart called the "grown-ups room" - one of the ballrooms, a huge place with LOTS of chairs which made the panelists wonder whether we'd have an echo in the place if not enough people turned up to fill them - but the panel was surprisingly well attended and very lively (and Robin Hobb actually recommended my book to the audience, which was REALLY cool!) After that, straight after that at 4 PM, I had a panel I was supposed to be moderating, on whether artists and writers were "wired differently" and were moderately nuts, as it were, by definition. We had three writers, two artists, and a Jungian psychologist on the panel - and maybe as many people again, or even maybe fewer, in the audience. We decided that we were mostly just fine, thank you very much, and sometimes the rest of the world just needed to catch up with us dreamers while we ran on ahead and tasted the winds that blow sweet and terrible out of the sunrise... and I'm sure we gave that psychologist enough material to run a conference with...

After that, social time - dinner with a bunch of friends, and then lots of parties up on the party floor afterwards. We were moderate in our partygoing, and collapsoed into bed at around midnight.

8:30 this morning it was breakfast with Brenda Cooper, and then we picked up an entourage and made our way into the Green Room asking everyone we met, "excuse me, but do you know where the autograph tables are?" because in the program it said, helpfully, that authors would be signing at Table 1 or Table 2 but nowhere was the location of said tables actually specified. Some of our number so equipped and inclined even resorted to Twitter to try and find things out, and the plaintive, "Excuse me but does anyone know where the autograph tables are?" went out into the ether. (Yes. We found out. Eventually. Everything is fine now.)

Then we went to listen to radconbob read a short story which he is currently working on, which was a treat because we don't often get to see him wearing his writer's hat, he's always too busy doing organizational stuff or being goofy at parties (you know what's fun? As I type this, in the cybercafe here at Orycon, he himself is sitting right next to me and has no idea that I am talking about him... hi, Bob!!! [grin]) and after that it was my turn to read, and I actually had about seven people at the reading, which is not to be sneezed at, and a couple of them were even complete strangers who wandered in to listen TO ME and then left straight afterwards which made it evident that they had specially come there to listen to me. Which was rather nice...

Another panel in an hour, and then another, after that - and then lunch with some friends - and then I have an autographing at those mythical tables in the afternoon, followed by my appearance as the visiting pro at the Writers' Workshop where I'm to critique a couple of new writers' novels-in-progress. And after THAT, it's a question of find something to eat (probably accreting company on the way, as these cons are wont to go) and then more parties...

And then, Sunday, I have a nice lazy day, a concert I want to go to in the morning, and the Powells signing in the afternoon.

And then, Monday morning, we leave the hotel, hit the railway station, have some lunch in that nice little restaurant in the railway station building where we have yet to have a bad meal, and catching the afternoon train back home. Factoring in everything, home by 10, hopefully. (I miss my catses...)

And then I have a novel to finish...

But I'm running ahead of myself again. I have a panel in half an hour. About building a balanced mythos. I have to get my balance in order.

See y'all later. Maybe.

Hey, kids. Look what I found today: http://www.logan.ws/games/bloody-penguin.asp

• 13:53 NaNoWriMo winds down with a party - tinyurl.com/yjkr54g #dallas #dfw #fortworth #nanowrimo #writing #amwriting #writegoal #authors #
• 20:54 Warrior-Writer onlne class begins Nov. 30 - tinyurl.com/yf4vnvj #warriorwriter #writing #dallas #dfw #fortworth #writegoal #writetip #
• 20:58 Brandon Sanderson comets to NY Times top 10 - tinyurl.com/yavg62q #scifi #fantasy #writing #dallas #dfw #fortworth #scifichatters #
• 11:47 @Iwhodareswins hope your Thanksgiving was stuffed! :) Mine was. #
• 11:48 RT @AnasaziStories: RT @JasonAMyersTX: New Warrior Writer Blog Post by Yours Truly twurl.nl/fmntey #dfw #dallas #fortworth #writring #
• 11:49 @Sams_Antics I really enjoyed his booksigning in Dallas, have fun! #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

Yesterday we made it through 4 stores worth of shopping before noon. Then promptly needed sustanance and sleep.

After the nap we went back out shopping yesterday. The final result yesterday was... 6 1/2 hours of shopping. Which means we finished the last of the list of people we still had to get gifts for. And helped my father pick out gifts for ourselves.

Gift List Win... Human Survival Rate - Epic Fail.

I want to sleep until after the new year!

Just a quick post to welcome a friend to the ranks of Prius owners...