Christian Book Lover's Hop - And Giveaway!

For the blog hop, I've giving away a copy of Armored Hearts... signed by the authors!

From the back cover:

"Part Steampunk, part Fantasy, all Romance...

When a crippled young lord rescues a girl falling from a tree, it reveals a secret about himself and his mother's side of the family that could put him at the center of a war with beings he thought only existed in fairy tales. Tristan Gareth Smyth lived his entire life stuck at home at Waverly Park and left behind while his Grandfather makes trips to London, all because of his blasted wheelchair. Then an American heiress falls in his lap, literally, and he must find a way to keep her at a distance to protect not only his secret, but everyone around him from an assassin sent to kill him."

I read this book a few months ago and loved it, you can read my review here.

Click here for an interview with the authors!

Enter to win here:

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Be sure to check out the other sites in the hop to win other cool stuff!

Cover reveal for "Secrets Kept"

With a curse, she will build an army. With the dagger, she will undo the last sacrifice. But first the sorceress must find the secret keeper.

From the back of the book: Torn from her homeland and thrust into a betrothal against her wishes, Ayianna learns her family has a deadly secret that now has her on the run. She joins forces with Kael, an embittered half-elf, and Saeed, an elderly High Guardian, to seek answers to her father's death, the destruction of Dagmar, and the plains people's bizarre behavior.

Ayianna discovers there is more at stake here than just her mother's disappearance and her familial duty to her betrothed. The sorceress has cursed the plains people, and it is a race against time to release them before the sorceress resurrects an ancient evil.


This is the full-length novel by J.L. Mbewe set in the same world as the Desert Rose and Dragon Thief short stories. If you haven't read those yet, go do so!

Enter to win a bookmark!


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I write like...

So there's the "I write like" site (http://iwl.me/) I've done it before, and it's told me Author Clarke. I decided to try it agian.

"A New Threat" still gives Arthur Clarke.

"Wings of Truth" gives Issac Asmoiv

"An Unwanted Apprentice" gives J.K Rowling. (Personally, I think this is because the site has never heard of Piers Xanthony....)

Blind Taste Test: Mountain Dew vs imitators

Blind Taste Test: Mountain Dew vs imitators

Mountain Dew is my favorite soft drink (around here, it's called pop, down south, soda. More on that here.)

Everyone knows that Mountain Dew is the best, right? Or do those commercials just make us think that. I mean, the only reason we buy off brand is because we can't afford the real thing, right?

Well, a few of us Mountain Dew lovers decided to find out. We did a blind taste-test.

Products Tested:

 

What was tested:

• Mountain Dew in a plastic bottle
• Mountain Dew in a can
• Mountain Dew Throwback in a can
• Mountain Dew Throwback in a glass bottle
• Diet Mountain Dew
• Rocky Mist (Meijer)
• Sun Drop
• Citrus Drop (Kroger)
• Moon Mist (Faygo)
• Mountain Lightning (Wal*Mart)
• Mello Yellow (Coca-Cola)
• Mountain Holler (Save A Lot)

Each of these is marketed as a competitor (or at least store-brand knock-off...) to Mountian Dew. But are they really any good?

The Method

My wife mixed up the order of the product, then poured the same amount of each of these into identical glasses, labeled A through L. None of the tasters was in the room when this happened.

After the samples were poured, we came back in to sample each product. Judging solely by taste, we had to rank the samples from Best, to Worst, in order. Bonus points if we could correctly identify a sample.

Our tasters were four males who's favorite drink was Mountain Dew. My Mom was also curious, so she tried them as well.

The Prediction:

Each of us pretty much expected the different Mountain Dew varieties to be clustered together at the top, with the wanna-bees trailing after... and diet Mountain Dew as dead last (None of us like diet soda.. at all. It was tossed in as a control worst.)

Is that what happened? Keep reading...

The Results:

This is why I love science. It's fun, sometimes surprising, and, in this case, tasty. The first thing we all noticed was the variation in color (very close, all yellow. All oddly packaged in green containers....). There are also variations in carbonation, cloudyness, and scent.

Oddly, there are flavor variations as well, from subtle, to drastic. At one point, I wasn't sure we'd have a clear winner. A lot of the samples did taste nearly identical, with a few standing out as pretty good, and a few we didn't like. These results did vary by person, though.



Fortunately, a clear winner did emerge. More on that later...


Here's the results for each taster. The key is down below. Remember, we didn't get to see what product each sample was until after we'd turned in a sheet with our picks.

Aaron	Joe	Benny	Phil	Ranee
C	C	C	E	C
K	H	F	C	I
E	D	J		G
D	J	E
J	E	D
L	K	I		H
H	I	B
G	G	A
I	A	G		F
B	F	K	F	D
F	B	L	K	B
A	L	H	H	L

Note: Un-ranked samples for Phil and Ranee were declared too close to call.

So, what were our mystery samples?

A. Rocky Mist (Meijer)
B. Sun Drop
C. Mountain Dew Throwback - can
D. Citrus Drop (Kroger)
E. Mountain Dew - plastic bottle
F. Moon Mist (Faygo)
G. Mountain Lightning (Wal-Mart)
H. Diet Mountain Dew - plastic bottle
I. Mountain Dew - can
J. Mountain Dew Throwback - glass bottle
K. Mello Yellow -  (Coca-Cola)
L. Mountain Holler - (Save A Lot)

So, we have a clear winner, Mountain Dew Throwback in a can!

But, which one was worst? At first glance, everything but the winner is all over the board. This is probably due to us drinking cheap pop too often. Or, possibly the imitators do a really good job. Also, the sample size for this study is very small, and taste is a subjective thing too. Also, we're not trained tasting scientists, just average Mountain Dew fans.

The weirdest result is that diet Mountain Dew came out about in the middle of the pack. Remember, all our tasters hate diet pop. (It's that nasty aspartame aftertaste.) We all commented that it was very different from all the other samples, but not bad. A few moments later most of us were able to identify it as diet. And yet, it still only ranked dead last on one taster's list.

Let's assign points to each product, then add the points together, and see if that gets us some more useful data. Like in golf, a low score is better here. If a taster ranked it as their number one pick, it gets one point, if they ranked it their worst, it gets 12 points. With five tasters, the best possible score is 5, worst is 60.

Product	Points
Mountain Dew Throwback - can	6
Mountain Dew - plastic bottle	19
Mountain Dew Throwback - glass bottle	24
Citrus Drop (Kroger)	28
Mountain Dew - can	30
Diet Mountain Dew - plastic bottle	33
Mountain Lightning (Wal-Mart)	34
Mello Yellow -  (Coca-Cola)	35
Rocky Mist (Meijer)	41
Moon Mist (Faygo)	42
Sun Drop	45
Mountain Holler - (Save A Lot)	47

Or, in chart form:

Well, now we're a little closer to our prediction, but you can see that the small sample size does some interesting things to the bottom and middle ranked contenders.

I also wish that I'd been able to find Mountain Dew Throwback in a plastic bottle. At the beginning of the test, we all had our favorite storage medium, but weren't sure if it actually effected the taste or not. You can see from above that just by being in a can, Mountain Dew got bumped down out of the pack from the other Dew. Of the four of us that state that Dew is our preferred beverage, canned Dew was at exactly in the middle of the pack. Only the tester that likes, but does not prefer, Dew, gave canned Dew a bump up. Just being stored in plastic bumped Dew up four rankings. That's got me wondering if Throwback in plastic might just be the best beverage ever. Only one tester ranked Throwback in a can as a number two, and he vacillated a bit.

Note however, that this may be co-incidence, as the small sample size is throwing results here, as well. One tester rated Dew in plastic as number one. No one else rated it as a one, or a two, but it did get a three, four, five, and six.

I also regret not being able to test more product in glass. It's just not available. Note that Dew imitators were only tested in plastic, two-liter bottles. It was hard enough ranking these... (and that'd add more expense.) We can see from the data that we do have that, though packaging does effect flavor, the formula used effects it more.

Another conclusion is that Pepsi shouldn't have switched from cane sugar to High Fructose Corn Syrup in the late 80's/early 90's. (For those that live in a hole in the ground, that's what's different about Throwback. It uses real cane sugar.)

I'm sure there's stuff I've done wrong in the above. Feel free to point it out to me in the comments (nicely!)

Do you like Mountain Dew? Prefer one brand/package/variety over another? Are you sure you do, or is it all in your mind? Feel free to try this experiment at home. Test your friends. Let me know what you find out!

Book Review: Son of Truth

I just finished Son of Truth, the eagerly awaited sequel to Morgan Busse's Daughter of Light.

The sequel starts out right where Daughter of Light left off. Nierne's story continues as she her situation gets even worse. Caleb struggles with what happened to him in the first book.
We get a tensy bit of romance, but Lore and Rowan are... well, not much happens here yet...

Spoilers ahead. 

You've been warned... If you don't want the spoilers, my over-all take is: if you haven't bought this already, wait for book three, then read the whole series in one sitting.










(scroll down)










The Good:
The story picks up right where Daughter of Light left off, and picks up on all the loose ends from that book. Well, if you can call it a loose end if it's an over-arching plot threat meant to span multiple books in a series. I don't.
This is a great story, and it's shaping up to be a great series.

The Bad:
When all's said and done, not much happens in this whole book. Sure, it's a great read, I stayed interested until the end (more on that later), and it did follow up on plot threads, but that's about it. Not much happens in the whole book, except getting characters in place for book three. Granted, we need this to happen, and the character development is great, but still.
In the first book, we have introductions, characters get into position, and world-changing things happen, then the end. In Son of Truth, we have just the first two things.

The ending. Oh my. I was reading along, flipped the page.... and it was over. The whole book is awful things happen to Nierne (how does one pronounce that, anyway?), Calab tries to figure out what how to be a good guy, awful things happen to Rowen, Lore finally arrives, then everyone heads off (via different means) to fight the big bad first mentioned in book 1... then it ends... That's right... it ends with everyone in transit.

I think the problem here is that there are basically two ways to write a series of books (well, probably more, but they boil down to two.):

1. Stand alone books with over-arching themes, characters, etc.
2. Basically one big book broken into parts.

I'm a big fan of the first type, and really only like the second type if I discover the series after it's all been written. I don't like reading part of a story, then waiting FOREVER for the rest to come out.

I also think the only reason the second type of series exists is because people try to imitate Tolkien. The problem is that The Lord of the Rings was written as one book. The only reason it's three books is because it wasn't physically possible publish that big of a book in one volume (still isn't, in most cases...)
It's purely my opinion, but I feel that this type of series also encourages sloppy writing. It's possible to get the same characterization and plotting for most of these types of series in about half the amount of books.

I don't really know what to rate this. I'd give it a three just for the ending and lack of goings-ons... but then I really did enjoy every minute of reading it. I think I'm going to rate this whole series as one big book (and in the future, re-read it as such.) In that case, I give the series over-all a 4, with the possibility of moving to a five, depending on what happens.

I'm going to keep an eye on this series, and not review any more books in it until the series has ended, then re-read it in one big chunk and rate it as such. This might be a bit of an odd way to do it, but thinking about it, it's what I've done with The Lord of the Rings. I'd give that series a five, but each of the individual books (except book three) only gets three stars. Book one started very slow, and nothing really happened in book two (sound familiar? ;) ), and book three got a four. Yet, taken together, the whole series was.... well, it created it's own genre (with an assist from Chronicles of Narnia...)

A few of my favorite books

I got tagged in this one by Robert Mullin. The idea is to list five or so of your favorite books (I understand it started as historical fiction, but apparently the last two people in the chain haven't done that. I'll toss in a few of each, just for fun.)

So, in no apparent order, here are some of my favorites:

Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffery

Lessa wakes to a sense of danger. The dragon riders come on search, and she's off to the Weyr, where F'lar insists she'll be the next Queen Rider, though there's no guarantee. And what of the rumors of the return of Thread, the deadly rain that eats anything living. She and F'lar seem to be the only ones who believe in those old stories anymore. If it does come, can they restore the Weyr in time to save everyone?

I love this book. It has great characters, a fully developed word, and, at the time, a different take on dragons. It also has an almost poetic or lyrical flow to the words that makes it almost magical to read. Sadly, this isn't repeated in the rest of the series, though the storytelling improves and the depth and scope of the world increase to epic proportions. (Though the books can still be enjoyed individually. I really like that. You can pick up a Pern book and read it and love it without reading the rest of the series... well, you'll want to when you're done, but...)

My Mom introduced me to this series when I was in junior high. I've tried to re-read the whole series every year since (with varying degrees of success. ;) )

I, Jedi, by Michale Stackpole

Coran Horn is despondent when his wife is kidnapped. Being a member of Rouge Squadron, though, he does everything he can to get her back. He has a bit of an identity crisis though. A former member of CorSec, he tries to use police methods. This gets him nowhere, as the kidnappers are one of the fragments of the Empire, and they've got Darkside force-users. So he learns about his past, and taps into his own families' jedi history. To save his wife, though, he has to learn to be walk his own path, and be true to himself, instead of following what others want him to be.

I grew up watching Star Wars. My Grandma had in on VHS tape, and we'd watch it every time we went over to her house. (Roughly once a week...) Naturally, I devoured everything Star Wars. Star Wars books can be really good, or really bad. Most of them are"meh". This is one of the really good ones. It's a story about true love and being true to yourself, and it's excellent writing. I'd recommend this book even if you aren't a Star Wars fan.

Remnant in the Stars, by Cindy Koepp

From the back of the book:
"Two hundred years ago, the Aolanian home world exploded and a remnant of survivors escaped. As their convoy combed the galaxy looking for a new world to colonize, they discovered Earth and were given permission to establish a temporary base while they continued their search for a new home world. When an Aolanian exploration vessel goes missing after transmitting a garbled distress call, the uneasy alliance between the humans and the Aolanians is put to the test as two anti-Aolanian groups jockey to use this opportunity to press their own agendas by foiling the rescue mission.
Because his daughter was onboard the Kesha when it vanished, Calonti Sora reluctantly signs on as an astrogator with the Gyrfalcon, one of the ships in the search party. There he meets up with an old human friend, Kirsten Abbott. Together, they work to overcome prejudice and political plots as they race toward an enemy no one could expect. "

Most of the books on this list I've loved since I was a kid and have re-read multiple times. This one's rather new. I first met Cindy in an online writing critique group. Lots of my author friends have books out, and I try to read all of them, by reading time is sadly limited by work and family and such. Cindy posted an "interview" with the characters, and that hooked me. I'm a sucker for great characters. I'll even read bad stories if I love the characters. So, I tried Remnant.
I was blown away. The book is set in a future universe with spaceships, aliens, and bad guys, and it has a wonderful sense of adventure.
The story is primarily about Sora, an self-outcast alien who's daughter has gone missing, but it has a great ensemble cast whose characters are all fleshed out (naturally, some get more character development than others, but there's a nice balance.)
The rest of the cast of main characters include Kirsten, a pilot who's having trouble with her replacement arm; Peter, the ex-military gunner; Derek, the freelance captain who's always dreamed of having his own ship; Janice, the engineer with a love for puns; and Vince the doctor.
The book feels similar to a combination of Han Solo (and Chewie and the Falcon) and Cowboy Bebop, with a storyline that's serious but still humorous at the same time.
I love it, and want more in the series! This book reminds me of why I love sci-fi.

The Greatest Knight, by Elizabeth Chadwick
This was apparently supposed to be your favorite historical fiction books, long before I was tagged. So here's my favorite (Almost all of G.A Henty's work would also go here).

William Marshal is one of my heroes. In a very turbulent political time, he still stood for loyalty, virtue, and honor. On top of that, women were considered more of a commodity than a person back then. Despite this, Marshal and his wife were still very close. By all accounts, he consulted with her about major decisions, and she went with him almost everywhere he went. When she didn't accompany him, he left her in charge of the castle instead of one of his knights.

Okay, so that's some of the virtues that knights were supposed to embody, but most didn't. That's still only part of what being a knight is about. So why's he called "The Greatest Knight," anyway? Heh, well, Chadwick didn't make up that title for him. That's what he was called by a few of his contemporaries, and most historians. For one, he was undefeated on the tourney circuit. How many knights did he defeat? All of them.
He also served King Richard the Lion-hearted. When Prince John tried to run the kingdom while Richard was off to the crusades, Marshal helped to hold the kingdom for Richard. Oddly enough, when Richard died and John became king, he kept Marshal at court. After John died, and his son Henry became king, Marshal was made regent of the kingdom.
During Marshall's time as Regent a bunch of uppity earls (with the help of the French) tried to take the throne from the young king. All it took was a then 60 year old William Marshal leading the king's troops into battle. Apparently the upstarts saw Marshal leading the battle, collectively crapped their pants, and went home. (Remember that at that time, 60 wasn't just a senior citizen, it was gezzer status... and he was still kicking butt and taking names!)

Anyway, Chadwick's novelization of Marshall's life is excellently done. There's only one scene near the beginning that I have a problem with (He has a bit of a fling with a questionable young lady. There is NO evidence that this ever happened at all. Even Chadwick admits that it "probably" never happened, but she felt she needed to make the character more human, since all the primary source accounts tell of a man that could beat up Chuck Norris with one hand tied behind his back.... and still defeat the whole French army at the same time.)

This is why I love historical fiction. You get real history, but it reads and engages like a novel.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, by Jules Verne

I could go on all day about books I love, but it's supposed to be five. So we'll close out with Jules Verne. Really, all his books, but this one's my favorite.

We'll just take a moment to say, if you've only seen a movie based on this book, and haven't actually read it, I feel a great deal of pity for you. (Well, this applies to ANY movie based on a book, but...) Seriously. Go read it right now. You can even get the eBook for free.

I'll not bother to sum up the story, as you should be familiar with it. I love the book because, like all Verne's work, it not only has great characters and a fun plot, but because Verne pretty much invented sci-fi. 20,000 Leagues, more than Verne's other books, it predicted the future (okay, not as much as most people think, but still.... more on that topic elsewhere...). Verne really nailed what sci-fi is: great stories that explore the human condition, and do so with imagination and cool tech.

The best part is Verne really did understand this. When interviewed about his books later, he said they weren't science-fiction, they were stories. (Either sci-fi got quickly filled with hacks, or Verne was just a crotchety old man... I'll leave that decision up to you...;) )

Ah, so many more I want to list, so little time...

So, what are some of your favorite books?

Do you also love, or hate anything on this list?

Book Review: The Wishing Well Curse

From the back cover:

"Zeke Clay is down on his luck. He’s lost everything—an apartment, an education, a girlfriend, his job…

When a mysterious letter comes from a law firm in Colorado, he decides things just might be looking up. Now he stands to inherit a fortune, but it comes with a price. He must break a family curse and restore true love. What does he know about breaking a curse? And who is this Great Uncle Luther Clayton, who claims Zeke is the one? Can he piece together the clues left by his dearly departed?

Who can he trust? The Apache Indian attorney? Her great nephew? The leather-clad, Harley riding Pastor? Least of all, himself?
What about the Ghosts?


…And why does his three-year-old tattoo bleed every time he gets near the wishing well?"


Disclosure: I have read an early draft of this novel, and provided an early critique. Despite this, I'll do my best to do an honest review.

First, the cons. The book borders on being too preachy. I don't feel it gets there, as one of the characters is a pastor, so it'd be weird if he didn't get a little preachy... Even at that, the characters faith is a part of who they are, and it isn't really shoved at anyone.

The theology is also a little weird in parts. But then, it's speculative fiction. There's not really any such thing as ghosts, but in a story that asks, what if they're real, some things are going to have to get shuffled a little.


Neither of theses things took away from my enjoyment of the story. Despite having read an earlier draft of the story, I was still sucked into the tale. I feel like I'm beating a dead horse when I say "the characters all felt real", or other words to that effect, but characters are what draw me to a story. The story is set in an otherwise "normal" world, and the characters all respond realistically to what's happening to them.


The mystery element is nicely done too. Everything is revealed at the right pace to make you keep turning pages, and make the story flow naturally too.


I give it four stars.

Buy this book at:

The Wishing Well Curse

There's a giveaway, too!:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Return of The One True Keyboard!

I recently bought a PS/2 keyboard adapter.

Why? Isn't that technology from the 80's? Why would I need to use a P/S2 device these days?

To use my IBM Model M keyboard, of course!

If you've never used one of these, you're missing out. (unless you can't touch-type, but that's another problem...)

There are all kinds of sites that rave about the benefits of the Model M, so I won't go into too much detail. To summarize, the tactile feedback is great, you know for sure if you've hit a key or not. Also, the thing is built like a tank--if mine were a human, it'd be old enough to drink.
I got mine from MSU salvage. That's right, they were just going to throw it out. I think I paid about five or ten dollars for it. It was filthy, and the right ALT key didn't work. After a few keyboard wipes, it looks brand-new. I didn't use the ALT key anyway, so that didn't bother me. A few years later I got a replacement spring... that's right, the only reason it wasn't working is that someone lost the spring under the key. I put it back in, and it's as good as new.

Mostly, though, I love it for how it types. Your fingers don't get as tired, you can feel when a key is pressed... it's great. The junky USB keyboard I've been using in the meantime feels mushy. Sometimes a key will press when I didn't think I'd hit it that hard, other times it'd double-key when I pressed too hard... yuck. In its defense, it was very cheap, but the Model M is two to three times as old, and has none of these problems. Many people have reported increased typing speeds on the Model M, and I believe it.

Also, no Windows keys! I can't stand them. I'm always hitting them on accident.

If you write (well, type) for a living, you've got to try one of these out. I can't really do it justice in words, you've got to try one. You can get them from a variety of places online for cheap, or brand-new from Unicomp.

Brand-new Model M's: http://unicomp.com/

More info on the IBM Model M, as well as a few old ones to buy: http://www.clickykeyboards.com/

Another critique applied, to be published this fall!

One more critique to "A New Threat" has been applied.

Oh, and this was kind of buried in an earlier post, but you can buy a copy of "A New Threat", the first book in the Psygen Chronicles, this fall.

That's right, it's been accepted for publication! More details will be posted as they become available.

Book Review: Daughter of Light

Today's book review is Daughter of Light!

We follow the story of Rowen Mar, as she is outcast from her village for witchcraft, then learns what and who she is...

Characters really make the book for me. We get some great characters here, from Rowan and Captain Lore, even the bad guy. They're all nicely developed. The only ones who's storylines aren't fleshed out is Father Ruff and Nicne (sp). I'm pretty sure they were just there for setup for book 2.

The first part of the book starts out a little slow. Mostly, this is because a new character that we've never met before keeps getting his own viewpoint every other chapter for about the first six chapters or so. I really prefer it when we meet the characters first, and then give them their own viewpoint. That way we're not constantly asking "Wait, who is, and why do I care?"

After the rough introductions are over, the story really picks up steam and I didn't want to put it down. The ending is a little rough and unresolved on it's own, but it's the perfect segue into book 2... which comes out in a week or so of the posting of this review. So, if you're new to the series, as I am, just buy both of them at the same time. You're going to want to. ;)

I give it four stars. Just missed out on five from the rough start.

Buy this book at:
Amazon.com