TIS THE SEASON! And with books being one of the greatest gift ideas anywhere, anytime, there’s plenty of reason to be jolly.
Books, compared to other forms of entertainment, are relatively inexpensive. They last a long time, and you can enjoy them more than once. You can trade them for other books, or share them with friends. Most important, they take you to places you might never have been before, where you’ll meet fascinating people and enjoy fabulous adventures on this world and others far more economically than a Prius.
We’re delighted you’ve stopped by Novel Ideas from Zumaya. We’re celebrating, despite the state of the economy, and you’re invited to join us. For the next three weeks, beginning Friday, November 21, our best-selling books will be on sale for 30% off, and shipping is absolutely free in the US. Want to ship overseas? Drop us a line at our customer service address and we’ll see what we can arrange.
Don’t see anything appealing? Stop back next week and see what new titles are listed.
We Zumayans believe we have some of the finest reading material available anywhere. We hope you’ll agree–and come back again if you don’t see anything that appeals this visit.
My own Synergy is up there for now so go right now and buy it for someone you love, or for yourself. And if you don’t fancy an SF Thriller there are plenty of good books to be had at 30% off.
Here it is, finally, and I must say it looks great. Meter Destiny, the third Jack Meter Case file, will be out in the next few days.
Having saved the universe twice in less than a year, Jack Meter is looking forward to moving into his new downtown apartment and settling back into routine. Instead, he is hurled into his weirdest case yet: one of the Three Fates from Greek mythology has been kidnapped. Although the claim stretches his credulity to the breaking point, he soon must wade through a series of riddles and lies that threaten the life of his closest friends. Along the way, despite his attempts at staying aloof, he acquires a new neighbor, a quirky housekeeper and a mysterious cat.
As the case becomes more complex Jack is embroiled in a world of deities, daemons and djinn, and he must use all his wit, humour and courage to free his friends and save the world…yet again.
You can learn more about Jack’s new adventure by going to the Meter Destiny page on Jack Meter Case Files website.
Last Friday I went through the galley for the third Jack Meter Case File, Meter Destiny and it was pretty fine so I’m crossing my fingers very tightly that the book will be ready for WFC in Calgary at the end of the month. Time is flying, though, and my hopes are dwindling.
I’ve found the delays in the publishing schedule very frustrating since it’s extremely difficult to do any kind of advanced marketing, contest, or whatever. I’ll be talking to my publisher today about some kind of two for one deal… we’ll see how that goes.
rating: 4 of 5 stars With wonderful illustrations by Gahan Wilson. A wonderful, humorous set of 31 chapters linked together by an upcoming full-moon Halloween night where the way may open for the return of the Elder Gods to Earth.
Snuff, the narrator of the story and a dog, guides us through each day where we meet a slew of strange characters (the Count, Rastov, the Good Doctor, the Great Detective) bent upon intrigue and mayhem. The human characters take a back seat to the voices of their familiars.
Zelazny has given us a quick, fun read that, although somewhat story-less, entertains and makes you smile. Worth the read.
Seems like we should replace the term speed of light with speed of life. Is it a function of age, I wonder, or a function of our crazy lives with all the calls upon our time? It seems I never have enough time to write, read, cook, go shopping, exercise, listen to music, watch a little tv, spend time with family, make love, do needlework, go sailing, brush the cat, blog, socialize, visit with friends… ah, of course, not of these activities are in order of priority.
I usually get up between 5:30am and 6am and usually go to bed by 10:30pm and it seems I always get to do about a quarter of what I wanted to do. I’m not a disorganized person, I’m a list fiend so I like to plan ahead and still I don’t have enough time. Am I going to have to become ruthless and plan every minute of my day? It seems like an uncomfortable and inflexible way to live.
Lately I've found sitting in front of the computer to write more of a chore than a pleasure. It's probably in large part because I need a new chair, but also because we recently moved and my office is a mess of boxes waiting for a custom-made bookcase (coming soon, coming soon).
One of the advantage of the move to our condo is that it comes with facilities, including a library. Early on I found out there was very little traffic there and I've started taking pad and paper, a thermos of tea, and my iPod and simply write.. by hand.
I've been amazingly productive. I guess part of it is there are no distractions like email or computer games, which I'm prone to go to when I hit a snag in the writing. Down in the library I simply get up, do a turn about the room, get the thinking cells to rest and recharge.
The only downsize of all this handwriting productivity is that I then have to retype everything. It seems like a waste of time but in the end I end up doing some small edits that refine the story (no wordsmithing, though, that's for later).
I don't know if I'll write the whole novel that way but for right now, it works for me. Best of all, I'm writing again.
I can’t keep up with today’s languages. The internet and gaming languages, that is. I thought I could handle LOL, for instance; I thought it meant “Laugh out Loud” or “Lots of Laughs.” Now they’ve added an overusage meaning to it, which means “Lack of Laughter.” It’s a replacement for having nothing to contribute to a chat, for instance, or “Your statement lacks even the vaguest trace of humor but I’ll pretend I’m amused.”
A friend of M. D.’s keeps using W00T! in answer to some emails. That friend is also a writer so I figured she wasn’t illiterate or using it for the exclamation “What!”
Since I am a detective and I like to find things out, I went on the scent of the W00T! definition.
In the process I discovered a completely new language (well, if 1982 can be called new) that was developed in the early 80’s by computer geeks who didn’t want search engines to detect their websites. They invented l33t, or “Elite,” where letters are changed to numbers and symbols and are phonetically written. Gamers and chatters (aha! M. D.’s friend is a gamer) appropriated the language, sometimes as shortcuts, sometimes as a status of what they are. From what I could tell, there’s a fine line between use and overuse, and you can teeter between cool or a total idiot or nerd. In addition, the language evolves continuously with new acronyms and new usage. (How the heck are you supposed to keep up?)
W00T! has gaming origins and meant “We Owned the Other Team” or “Wonderful Loot” (Everquest gaming slang). Now it means a sign of agreement or excitement, or less commonly “Waste of our Time” or “Way out of Topic” in chat rooms (although this is less common).
Okay, here’s one:
ROFL!!!!1 u r teh FUNi!11 i lub u <3
It means, as far as I can tell, Roll on Floor Laughing!!! You are the funniest. I love you. (emoticon meaning heart).
Oh, yeah, because emoticons, groups of punctuation or/and letters, in a non-graphic environment, also translate into feelings. : – ) is the regular happy face (remove the spaces), ; – ) is a wink, : – D is LOL, and : – P is a raspberry. Here they are, translated graphically, courtesy of WordPress:
I suppose it’s like any language, you learn it as you use it, but there is potential for silliness. Tell me why the following l33tsp34k is easier than writing English:
On the other hand, if you want to feel like you’re part of an l33t or that you can write an esoteric language only teh f3VV (the few) can understand, this is it.
Oh, and curious what the above means? Here it is:
For example if you can read this, you really need to get laid.
(LOL)
For more on the new urban language, consult the Urban Dictionary.
This just in from M. D.: she’s completed the NaNoWriMo challenge for another year! I’m very proud of her. She tells me that her work-in-progress, tentatively entitled Noth’Nor, can be loosely called a space western, simply because the story happens on a ranch on another planet. After some doubts about whether she would continue playing with it after November, she told me that she probably will for the simple reason that she hates leaving stuff lying around, half alive…
However, when she started telling me about the story, I decided I had my doubts about whether this is an appropriate branching of her writing.
Well, first of all, it’s not really a space western. Sure, it happens on a ranch, but you’re talking sabotage and attempted murder rather than an oater, and there’s a sprinkling of romance thrown it (oh, pulease …). Not really her style, she says, and I agree. I think she should stick to my case files, at least that stuff really happened, hard as is it to believe. Bad enough she got wrapped up in those cloning stories. That first one, Synergy, maybe could happen; it’s a hundred years in the future. But that other one, the one coming out next year? Clone farms. Huh.
M. D. looks pretty determined to try to finish Noth’Nor, so I’ve decided to keep my trap shut for a while. It’s bad enough Christmas is coming. I don’t want to fight about writing genres on top of it. Too depressing. I’ll just shake her hand and say well done on that NaNo thing and jump her after the new year.
Wouldn’t you love being able to say that? Well, unfortunately, I’m not talking of the world’s destiny but of the publication of Meter Destiny, the latest installment in my case files. It just happened that M. D. was talking about it with her publisher Zumaya Otherworlds, and they’ve decided to delay at least 6 months. She says she’s not all that upset since she hasn’t had time to think of promoting the book at all, what with her trip to Rome and NaNoWriMo.
I’m not that upset about it either. It’ll give me more time to sort out my notes on the Kayzar case that I solved last year.
Okay, I had some help from Aldus, Claire, and Fred. But who ended up with the kids in the first place? Yours truly.
A word from my publisher:
A brave new world of language
December 14, 2007 by dom12
I can’t keep up with today’s languages. The internet and gaming languages, that is. I thought I could handle LOL, for instance; I thought it meant “Laugh out Loud” or “Lots of Laughs.” Now they’ve added an overusage meaning to it, which means “Lack of Laughter.” It’s a replacement for having nothing to contribute to a chat, for instance, or “Your statement lacks even the vaguest trace of humor but I’ll pretend I’m amused.”
A friend of M. D.’s keeps using W00T! in answer to some emails. That friend is also a writer so I figured she wasn’t illiterate or using it for the exclamation “What!”
Since I am a detective and I like to find things out, I went on the scent of the W00T! definition.
In the process I discovered a completely new language (well, if 1982 can be called new) that was developed in the early 80’s by computer geeks who didn’t want search engines to detect their websites. They invented l33t, or “Elite,” where letters are changed to numbers and symbols and are phonetically written. Gamers and chatters (aha! M. D.’s friend is a gamer) appropriated the language, sometimes as shortcuts, sometimes as a status of what they are. From what I could tell, there’s a fine line between use and overuse, and you can teeter between cool or a total idiot or nerd. In addition, the language evolves continuously with new acronyms and new usage. (How the heck are you supposed to keep up?)
W00T! has gaming origins and meant “We Owned the Other Team” or “Wonderful Loot” (Everquest gaming slang). Now it means a sign of agreement or excitement, or less commonly “Waste of our Time” or “Way out of Topic” in chat rooms (although this is less common).
Okay, here’s one:
ROFL!!!!1 u r teh FUNi!11 i lub u <3
It means, as far as I can tell, Roll on Floor Laughing!!! You are the funniest. I love you. (emoticon meaning heart).
Oh, yeah, because emoticons, groups of punctuation or/and letters, in a non-graphic environment, also translate into feelings. : – ) is the regular happy face (remove the spaces), ; – ) is a wink, : – D is LOL, and : – P is a raspberry. Here they are, translated graphically, courtesy of WordPress:
I suppose it’s like any language, you learn it as you use it, but there is potential for silliness. Tell me why the following l33tsp34k is easier than writing English:
EX) 1|= `/0|_| C4|| |234|) 7|-|15, `/0|_| |234|_|_`/ ||33|) 70 637 |_41|)
On the other hand, if you want to feel like you’re part of an l33t or that you can write an esoteric language only teh f3VV (the few) can understand, this is it.
Oh, and curious what the above means? Here it is:
For example if you can read this, you really need to get laid.
(LOL)
For more on the new urban language, consult the Urban Dictionary.
Posted in Commentary, Humour, Writing | Tagged gaming, internet, language, LOL, W00T | Leave a Comment »