Novel Now Available on Sony Reader Website

Smashwords offers "On The Gathering Storm" and tons of other ebooks on their website in the appropriate format to read on your iPad, iPhone 4, Palm, Nook, Kindle and Sony Reader devices but now my novel is also available at the Sony Reader Store. And! The book is currently on sale there. Check it out!

On The Gathering Sale!

Right now, Smashwords is having a summer reading sale and my novel, "On The Gathering Storm" is being offered at a 25% discount*.  To get the deal, visit the book's page, and enter the discount coupon code ( SWS25 ) at the checkout. Get it soon, because the sale concludes with the end of July.

*It's actually 26% off the regular price, but who's counting, right?

J Goes To The Movies

Loves me some movies.  But, unfortunately, this summer has been an absolute gas at the theatre.  Very few of the current offerings interest me and nothing is getting great reviews.  I was totally revved to see "The Last Airbender" a film by M. Night Shyamalan, but it is getting reamed by the critics and public alike.  After his first few films blew me away with their originality and story-telling style, he's had a couple of real duds in a row and everyone seemed to be holding their breath that this one would break his bad streak and show off his talents once again.  Now, I will reserve judgement on the film until I've actually seen it for myself but based on the bad buzz, I won't rush out for it.

(I still remember being on a holiday out of town and rushing to the local theatre to see "Lady in the Water" the day it came out because M. Night's flicks had been elevated to the automatic "see-at-all-costs" stature for me based on his previous efforts. I hadn't read a word about the movie, nor had I seen any ads or trailers because I didn't want anything spoiled.  Well, twenty minutes into the blasted thing, I wanted to actually get up and leave the theatre.  Part of me still wishes I had.)

Christopher Nolan, another director I admire, has a film coming out on July 16 called "Inception" and this one is getting nothing but positive buzz.  I must say I'm on the bandwagon with this one and I will be avoiding all pictures, reviews, trailers and such regarding it and seeing it the first week it arrives.  I've been a Nolan fan since his first indie film, "Following" and his bigger indie film "Memento".  He's had other mainstream films like "Insomnia", "The Prestige" and of course, his Dark Knight films which are, if I'm not mistaken, some of the most successful films of all time.

The second Twilight film was so bad that I couldn't even get through it so I won't be seeing the third or any subsequent ones.  I'm not it's target audience so I won't be too sad to miss it.  The first Danish film based on Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy, "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" is queued up at home but I just haven't found the time to give it my full attention yet.  It's waiting for an evening when absolutely nothing else calls for my attention.

I love tearjerkers, thought-provokers, and adrenaline-pumpers.  I'm a big fan of movies of any kind, age or genre.  But, please tell me.  Are there any other summer movies that I absolutely need to see?

Local Bookstore Closes; Blames eBooks

Recently, the owner of a long-standing local book store announced the store's closure. He blames the onslaught of online book retailers like Amazon, the insurgence of large, warehouse-style chain stores like Chapters, and the new-ish ebook format for killing his business.  

"We could continue to fight," he said. "But in the end we stand no chance."

This got me thinking. It makes me sad that this man, his family, and the nineteen employees who made a living (or perhaps a portion of a living if they worked part-time) at his book store now have to search elsewhere for their income. This particular store was a touchstone in this city for many years and technology, whether better or not (that can be debated) has created a new world for them.  A world in which the book store as we know it will be gone. Simply gone.

My personal belief is that a quality ebook reader plus the equally-usable infrastructure for buying and downloading the content which populates the reader can actually be a better fit for most book readers, but there is still a sadness at the passing of this torch.  It's not unlike a modern-day version of the Pony Express being killed by the invention of the telegraph machine.  I like being able to access four million books at my fingertips instead of only twenty-five thousand, the one I really want being on back-order for up to eight weeks while it ships from Albuquerque.  But it's still hard to watch those ponies put out to pasture after they ran so fast and so hard in their prime.  What beautiful, lithesome creatures.

The ebook seems to be doing the same thing to the traditional book binding and selling business as downloaded music has been doing to the Sam The Record Man and other brick and mortar record shops.  I can only wonder if wider bandwidths and the increasing availability of high definition video will mark the beginning of the end for movie theatres and cable TV providers.  What do you think?