Coming Soon...

Now I just need to write the blurb and get the manuscript back from my editor.
Aiming for a 3/18 release date right now.

This is the story of Rafael, an American College student, who during a vacation in India fell afoul of a Rakshasa. Many years later when he finally wins his freedom (and gets deported back to America), the question becomes: Where can a shape-shifting tiger-demon find acceptance in America?

Portals of Infinity, Book Seven

Well, I officially started writing book seven today. Now lets see how long it takes me to finish it! One chapter down.

The King of Las Vegas should be up for sale soon!

So, the cover is currently being made for my next book: The King of Las Vegas.
This story is one from the 'Hammer Commission' universe, and it tells the story of how Rafael, the American College student turned Rakshasa during holiday in India came to be where he is today.

Once the cover is done I'll set it up on Amazon with a release date and everything. Just can't do that without a cover.

In other news Book 7 in the Portals of Infinity series is now underway, still cleaning up a few plot issues and I hope to start the first draft today or tomorrow.

-John

Today is the Last Day of my Sale 2/25

Well, Today is the last day of my Sale. If you haven't looked, go look now.
If you've been thinking of buying, but held off. Well after midnight tonight the prices go back up.

Big Sale!! Starts Tomorrow (2/19)

This is my 'Post Valentine's Day Sale', because you were probably all too busy on Valentine's day, right?

Well, okay, the way my KU stuff is set up, couldn't start it until tomorrow (and I can't start Lost Souls until Saturday - weird 90 day boundary thing). But I know February is slow for a lot of people, and I figured this might be a good time to have a massive sale, maybe spark some interest in some new readers even!

So! All of my books are going on sale tomorrow! Most are 50 percent or more off, a couple are only 30 percent.

So, if you've ever thought of checking out some of my stories, this is the time to go have a look!

http://www.amazon.com/John-Van-Stry/e/B004U7JY8I/ (my author page on amazon)

http://vanstry.net/vanstry/  (my home page with links to all my books)

The Sale runs until the 26th.

Worth reading

I'm linking to the post below, because I really despise the publishers who do this kind of thing, and I think people should read it to understand that there is a huge bias in the publishing industry (which would never in a million years publish Portals of Infinity, because it has a guy doing actual guy things! Horror!)

Also because I'm a third of the way through the book, and it's pretty good so far. I can't believe they turfed it, because some junior editor somewhere didn't like the fact that the AI decides to wipe out humanity because after watching a reality star get an abortion, they realize that humanity may very well treat them the same way.

In any case, I'd say to check the post out, and give the sample of the book a look.

http://www.nickcolebooks.com/2016/02/09/banned-by-the-publisher/

King of Las Vegas nearing completion

The first draft of my next book: The King of Las Vegas, is almost done. Hopefully I'll finish it up tonight or tomorrow, down to about the last 3K words. Then it's off to the first re-write. I'm not sure exactly how big this one will be, right now I'm thinking it'll be about 70K words, but I'll have to see what the re-write does to it.

My goal is to be able to send this out to my editor next week, I'll probably commission the cover this Friday. Once that all goes out, I'll start working on the next book in the Portals of Infinity series.

As for the King of Las Vegas, this story takes place in the same world as 'The Hammer Commission', it's not a sequel however, this story is about how Rafael, the Rakshasa that rules Las Vegas came to be. There were definitely some challenges in writing this, which may be why it's taken longer to write than expected. I do hope that everyone enjoys it, once it's finished.

-John

Car Work (fun!)

So, the Forester (2006 xt) is fixed and back on the road.
A new battery (I tried Bosch this time) was $140. I could have brought the duralast POS back to Autozone, as it was still under warranty, but there was no way I was going to give durlast another chance to do even more damage to my car.
The new battery cable was $70, and the new terminal was another $15. (the battery ATE the positive cable, it spewed out so much acid, never seen the like in all my life).
Replacing the cable was a pain, I had to pull the intercooler off the motor to get to the terminals, and routing the cables was a hassle.
Then I had to clean the acid off of the tray, the tray tie downs, everything around the battery in the engine compartment, take the battery hold down cross bar, clean the acid off of that, clean the rust off, prime it and repaint it.
The only sealed battery you can by in california is apparently Optima, and well, they're garbage (I bought one once, used the warranty 3 times in one week, then said screw it and went to something else).
I also noticed that none of the name brands I'm used to could be found in my area. I don't know if that's because of some stupid cali law, or some other reason. But hopefully the Bosch will work (Sears didn't have any diehards at the local Sears for my car when I checked on line, which was strange).
So, the duralast is offically the most expensive battery I've ever had for my car, as it cost me $100 in repairs, a weeks downtime, while I waited for parts, and a lot of freaking work out in the cold.
So yeah, don't buy Duralast, they're freaking acid generators. Never saw so much acid build up on a battery in my entire life.

Next is to replace the headlight housings and then the shocks/struts as well as change the oil in the rear end. Hopefully it will then last for another 10 years.

Book review and a recommendation

Pam Uphoff is one of the writers on a blog I read and often comment on, (Mad Genius Club), and a week or so ago she had put up an article on bit characters who got carried away and ended up with more of the story than they ever were intended to have, and could sometimes run off to do major things later on. This really isn't that uncommon an occurrence, my novella 'Dialene' is about a bit character from Children of Steel who didn't even have a line of dialogue in that book!

So yeah, these things happen.

But I found the bit she put up about one of her recent books 'Dancer' ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KI8KLOY - which is book number fifteen - Long Series!) to be very interesting, so as I'm a KU member, and the book is in KU, I figured I'd check it out, why not? Technically it's free.

And yes, I'm glad I read it. Don't let the cover fool you, it is definitely not just a book for women. It's very much a good action and adventure scifi story, and even though this is #15 in the series, this one definitely can stand alone. I found the first few pages a little confusing, because yes, this is a sequel in a series, but that didn't last long. Things were explained and done well enough that it didn't intrude into the story or into the flow of the story. Not once in the story have I run into anything that I couldn't understand because I hadn't read the prior books. If past knowledge was necessary, it was always there, as a comment or reminder, or worked in seamlessly in some manner.

I really enjoyed the story, and I would recommend that you at least check out the sample to see if you like it too. It's very much a futuristic world, where humanity has been subtly changed by a bunch of cross dimensional visitors who were stranded many hundreds of years ago, and whose genetic heritage has had some major effects (as well as their political ambitions). It's a very different world and society now, but not different enough that you can't understand it easily.

Some post convention stuff

Overall, the convention was good, even if I was only there for one day. I spent most of my time talking with old friends and acquaintances, and I even allowed myself to tell some old stories about things I had worked at or done many years ago. Normally I try to avoid those, because they're all past history, and I do enjoy hearing other people's stories.

The presentation went well, the crowd was smaller this year, but the con moved all of the panel rooms to the other hotel, which is on the other side of the convention center from the main convention events. Which is pretty stupid. So panel attendance was down overall from what I could see. I still made a few good connections however from the panel. I also found that my new set of slides caused me to run a bit longer than normal, so I may have to edit them down a little bit.

Need to put them up online today as well.

I think this sums up my mood for today:

Quick Question

For those of you who have been looking at the chapters I put up recently on my Patreon Account, do you think I should continue that story in 3rd person, or go back and do it in 1st?

For the rest of you who have read what I've published so far, the same question: Do you prefer my 1st person viewpoint style over the 3rd person, or does it make no difference to you?

Really been wondering about that a lot lately. I've been doing the current story in 3rd, because the story is in the Hammer Commission universe, and that story was written in third for a couple of particular reasons. But the POI series is all in 1st (as well as the COS stories) and I'm wondering if I should take the story I'm currently working on (King of Las Vegas) and flip it over to 1st person instead.

As I'm about a third into KOLV, I'd need to make that change soon, if I'm going to make it at all. But I'm curious as to which style my readers prefer.

Comments welcome!

I will be at Further Confusion Sat, the 16th

I'll be doing a panel on self-publishing on Sat the 16th at Further Confusion in San Jose at 11am, till I think 12:30 or so. I'll probably be at the con until 8 or 9. I'd like to be there longer, but don't have anyone to watch the dog.

If you want to stop by, feel free. I'll probably be hanging out around Rozga's table in the dealers den quite a bit.