Paranormal romance sale
If you enjoy paranormal romance, try out Zoe Winters’ “Preternaturals” series while they’re on sale this week. I enjoyed them, though they’re very much romance with fantasy rather than vice versa. 
http://zoewintersbooks.com/2012/06/24/kindle-nation-daily-romance-of-the-week-my-series-on-sale/
Learn to code in 2012!
Codeacademy presents a full year of interactive online programming lessons for beginners!
Here’s an article on it from Slate: You Need to Learn how to Program.
I figure at one lesson a week, it shouldn’t interfere with my writing time any more than random websurfing, tv-watching and reading do, and I definitely buy the argument that basic programming is becoming as important a skill as being able to type.
(No judgments from me on *how* you type – hunt and peck gets the job done just fine with enough practice, though I do find touch typing to be convenient.)
Writing is communicating with other people, programming is communicating with computers, not just in terms of telling, but of understanding.
Signal boost: EBooks for Breast Cancer Screening and Education
John Scalzi and Subterranean Press are donating all proceeds from the sales of his ebooks published by them for the next week to Planned Parenthood’s breast cancer screening and education activities, a gesture inspired by the way the Susan G Komen Foundation recently withdrew their funding for the same.
You can read all about it, and find links to the ebooks, at his post.
There are several shorter works available for $0.99, as well as a couple of longer options for a few dollars more. I’ve read The God Engines, and it was quite good, even if I wasn’t sure about the ending.
Occupy Wall Street – One Woman’s Account
No, not mine – Laura Anne Gilman’s
“… The estimates I heard, by 6pm, were over 20,000 people, while some estimates (backed by police scanner reports) said close to 30,000. People coming, and going, and talking, and listening to speeches, and sharing information, keeping each other warm (the rain had stopped, but the wind had picked up). I saw parents with young children, and elderly couples. I saw people in wheelchairs, and students and union workers and people in suits, all together for one cause.
One cause. Not the scattered demands or vague wishes. One cause: Justice. Justice that is not bought by the highest bidder, but given to all citizens, on the basis of their work and their effort, their determination to succeed – to make a living for themselves and their families.
To get Wall Street out of our government, out of our courts; to return the USA to a democratic republic, not an oligarchy.“
Please go to her blog and read the whole post – it’s worth it!
© 2010 Catherine Wechsler, used with permission.
Anne McCaffrey
Anne McCaffrey, author of the Pern novels and several other series, is dead.
I’ve been thinking for a few days that I should write something, maybe include links to some of my favorite books by her.
Every time I go to start, I wind up writing about something else, though.
* * *
I’m not sure why, but when I was a kid, for some reason I assumed that all of the people who had written the books I loved were already dead.
It was somewhat disconcerting, therefore, when someone would mention that a favorite author had just died. “Weren’t they already dead?” I would wonder, generally silently.
Likewise, it was a disconcerting pleasure when I would discover, say, a new book by Robin McKinley or Anne McCaffrey or Andre Norton. “Wait, why didn’t I know about this one? It was just published this year?? But I thought she was dead!!!”
Alas, now two of those three have passed on, though I am pleased to say that Robin McKinley is still writing, and even blogging daily, long may she continue!
* * *
Anne McCaffrey was 85 when she passed away a few days ago, so perhaps it was not entirely unexpected, but I think the flip side of having started my reading life thinking all these wonderful authors were dead is that having found out many of them were still alive, I almost expect them to be immortal, as if they have truly journeyed back from death once already.
And certainly, in an entirely selfish manner, I want them to continue being alive, and sharing their wonderful stories, for as long as possible! I take comfort, though, in the fact that even once they pass on, their work lives on, letting them continue to touch and shape readers’ lives and minds indefinitely.
Perhaps it is a little bit like immortality after all…
In any case; safe journey, Dragonlady, to whatever comes next.
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