Thanks and "The Skewed Throne" Chapter Three

First off, I want to thank everyone for the condolences and commiserations over the death of our guinea pig, Missy. I haven't been dealing with it all that well, which is why I haven't really been posting anything lately. I'm surprised how hard it hit me. I've lost many guinea pigs before but it doesn't seem to get any easier. This was the first guinea pig loss for my partner . . . which means we went out earlier this week and started searching for a new one. I figured it would take a while to find one, because I know that you need to get them very young and small if you want to raise them right, and typically the pet stores and such don't have them young enough. But of course we found one right away. So we have a little munchkin in the house now, temporarily nicknamed . . . Munchkin. I'm certain this name won't stick but it works for now. Pics coming soon. Yesterday, due to my intervention, she discovered that THERE'S ANOTHER GUINEA PIG IN THE HOUSE! Along with HE'S ONLY A FOOT AWAY IN ANOTHER CAGE! She hasn't shut up since, trying to get him to talk to her. She's also decided that climbing the side of her cage is fun (trying to get to the other cage I assume . . . or at least catch a glimpse of him).

In any case, life goes on. As you know already:

I got permission from my editor to post the first six chapters of my first novel, The Skewed Throne, the first book in the Throne of Amenkor series, over the course of six weeks. The idea is to give readers a chance to read a significant portion of the book to decide whether or not they might like the book, and hopefully entice them into buying the book as well. So far . . . it doesn't seem to be generating any additional sales. At least none that I can track. But in any case, here's the third chapter (along with the link to the first two as well). You'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader (free download here) in order to read it, since it's a pdf file. I found that it wouldn't open in AOL, but it does open in Explorer. It seems to work on most browsers actually.

I'd appreciate it if you could post a link to this blog entry in your own blog or website or on Facebook, to help promote the postings of the chapters. Thanks!

These are the actual page proofs from the book, if you're interested in seeing what those look like.

Skewed Throne: Chapter One
Skewed Throne: Chapter Two
Skewed Throne: Chapter Three

Chapter Four is coming in one week! Keep watch!

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Close Encounters of the Urban Kind

HA! The Table of Contents for the anthology Close Encounters of the Urban Kind, edited by Jennifer Brozak and being published by Apex, has been announced. You can read the announcement here. Congrats to all of my fellow authors who made the cut! Here's the ToC:

Alma Alexander - I Am Sorry for Talking So Rarely to Strangers
Erik Scott de Bie - Racing Lights
Richard Lee Byers - End of Life
Nate Crowder - Frames of Reference
Ivan Ewert - Waterheads
Robert Farnsworth - A Late Night Snack
Pete Kempshall - Dead Letter Drop
Carole Johnstone - The Invitation
Rosemary Jones - Two Out, Wendigo
Martin Livings - Lollo
Eric Lowther - It Came from the Backseat
Ramsey Lundock - Tea Cups & Saucers
Shannon Page - The Hippie Monster of Eel River
Joshua Palmatier - Mastihooba
Jennifer Pelland - Headlights
Rick Silva - Roadkill
Jeff Soesbe - Green Tears on Black Velvet
Eddy Webb - Gloomy Sunday

Look for the anthology, coming in April 2010!