For those of you who might be wondering whether the blog is fading... FAR FROM IT!!! In fact, our talented web team has recently embarked upon a major redesign of the entire site, with tremendous things in store...

My own writing is starting to take off, and the new site will feature original Brent Woodside artwork of several characters from my stories. (I can hardly wait!!!)

And for all you faithful readers, the new site will also have all its content organized in an easy-to-find fashion, with separate sections for reviews, interviews, a calendar of events, new releases, and of course the bookshelves, where you can find tons of great reads in fantasy and science fiction.

You won't even have to wait a whole month for each new set of reviews because we'll be publishing new stuff whenever we have it. So no more waiting for that next great read. Find it when you want it!

In light of these developments, the updated content might be a bit on the slim side while we develop and build the new site, but rest assured that Mind Unbound is growing and evolving at a rapid pace, to be re-released within the next couple of months, bigger and better than ever!

Stay tuned!

(To be notified when the new release is up and running, sign up for the free Mind Unbound newsletter!)

The website has come a long way since it first started up, and I'm looking to do some major upgrade/redesign work ASAP. I also need to move the site to a new ISP (and probably a new publishing system).

If anyone out there likes what I'm doing, has some serious web programming talent, and wants to help upgrade the site for a fair price and in a reasonable time frame, by all means get in touch.

Thanks.

Woo hoo! Blog posting works again, just in time for DragonCon 2007! So good luck finding me over the next few days, I'll be in sci-fi/fantasy dream land...

If you're going to be there, the folks at ArcheBooks will generally know where to find me. Look for them in the exhibit room, table A98 or A99 I think. And while you're there, be sure to say hello to author Sandy Lender!

And... the September newsletter is up!

Check it out for reviews of Killing the Rabbit by Alison Goodman, The Fire Opal by Catherine Asaro, and Weremones by Buffi BeCraft-Woodall. You'll also find a whole mess of links to September releases in science fiction and fantasy.

Finally, if you haven't yet signed up to win a free book with free worldwide shipping, it's not too late for the August drawing. It might be after Dragon-Con before I get around to it, so take advantage of the extra time and sign up today!

Once you enter, you'll automatically be entered every month, plus you'll get a special notice of any surprise promotions we decide to run.

Hey, free books! What more could you ask for?

So, I have good news, and I have bad news.

The good news is I've managed to fix the publishing problem, so at least I can post to the blog again. Woo hoo!

The bad news is that I haven't worked the comment captcha system out yet. Stay tuned...

Bear with me while I work out the technical details. Hopefully we'll be fully back on track within the next day or two...

I am in a grunchy, growly mood today. The site was bombarded with spam last night, the comment system is a mess, and I'm getting one server error after another.

The tech folks will be upgrading the blogging system from MT 3.31 to MT 4.0 tonight or tomorrow. Hopefully that will get things sorted out. Expect comments to remain off until then. In the meantime, wish me luck with the whole grunchy, growly thing. I think I'll go out for tacos...

The 2006 Dream Realm Awards have been announced, and I'd like to offer up a very special congratulations to Sheri L. McGathy, author of The Birth of Spring, which won the Young Adult catagory.

Other categories include Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Anthology, Erotica, Spec. Fiction Romance, and Cover Art in Electronically Published Books, so drop by the award site to browse through some of the very best in speculative fiction.

I have to offer up a very special thanks to all the authors who called in for the show yesterday. What an amazing four hours! And now, a little link love for the final roll call:

• Catherine Asaro
• Buffi BeCraft-Woodall
• Sam Cheever
• Alison Goodman
• Simon Haynes
• Sandy Lender
• Patrick Rothfuss

And of course our gracious hostess, Rowena Cherry! Let's have a huge Mind Unbound thank you to everyone who participated. (Everybody say, "BOO-yah!") And if you didn't get a chance to listen in, stay tuned. It looks like you might get another opportunity in November...

Hey, gang, I'm going to be on Internet radio tomorrow morning (Tuesday, August 7, from 10:00 AM until noon, New York time.)

That's Tuesday, August 7, 2007 from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM GMT. (For your own local time, try the World Clock converter.)

Update: it looks like we might be on for as many as four hours total, from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM U.S. eastern time (2:00 PM to 6:00 PM GMT.) So if you'd like to call in, go for it. We should have plenty of time to chat!

The show is hosted by author Rowena Cherry, who has graciously invited me to co-host with her tomorrow. (Unfortunately, it's not being recorded.)

When authors get together, you never know who's going to show up, so tune in for a fun two hours and possibly a few surprises!

To listen: http://www.internetvoicesradio.com/home.htm
(choose the low-speed or high-speed audio stream)

To call in with a question: (+1) 916-233-4242; Access Code: 924920#
or (+1) 888-379-5442

Passionate Internet Voices Radio has surpassed 100,000 downloads and is still growing...

The August newsletter is now live on the web! Read reviews of Elizabeth Bear's Undertow, Sandy Lender's Choices Meant for Gods, and Rowena Cherry's Forced Mate and Insufficient Mating Material! Plus news about author e-signings and tons of August book releases!

And check out the new master book review index, your one-stop resource for links to every book review on the Mind Unbound site! Not to mention...

Win a Free Book, with Free Worldwide Shipping!

Sign up for the free Wet Ink... monthly reminder e-mail and you could win a free book, with free worldwide shipping! The winner will get his or her choice of any of the books reviewed in this month's newsletter!
(Drawing to be held August 31.)

Sign up here and select "Wet Ink" and "August Book Drawing" for your chance to win!

July's winners of a Goblin Adventure book by author Jim Hines and a free writing critique from author Sam Cheever have been randomly selected and notified by e-mail.

The dice have spoken.

Winners have at least a week to claim their prizes, maybe more. If either party fails to claim their prize within the week, I'll figure out the rules for exactly how long they have, but hopefully we won't run into that problem...

Congratulations to this month's winners! For everyone else, I wish you the best of luck with this month's free book drawing! Details are available now in the August issue of Wet Ink...!

I'll be closing the sign-up for the July Goblin Book drawing at about 6:00 PM (EST), so sign up now if you want a chance to win your choice of either Goblin Quest or Goblin Hero by Jim Hines (with free worldwide shipping)!

The drawing for the free writing critique by author Sam Cheever also closes at 6:00 PM (EST), so this is your last chance at this amazing opportunity. I don't have another author critique signed up for August, so take advantage of it while you still can!

And... registration is now open for the August free book drawing (also with free worldwide shipping), so sign up now or any time throughout August for your free monthly Wet Ink... reminder e-mail and choose "Wet Ink" and "August Book Drawing" for your chance to win!

(Details are the same as always. My immediate family members are not eligible to win. Past winners are ineligible for two months following their lucky drawing, but then they can enter again. There is nothing to buy, and there are no hidden costs—winners get their free book, shipped to any valid address in the world, without paying a dime. Winners will be notified by e-mail.)

To celebrate the paperback release of Armageddon's Children (July 31), Terry Brooks is hosting an online chat on his website at www.terrybrooks.net. Tune in from 3pm PST (6pm EST) until 4pm PST (7pm EST) to talk to this master of fantasy!

Just in case you're going to be in the San Diego area during next weekend's Comic-Con, there's going to be a terrific panel of speculative fiction literary greats on Friday, July 27th. From R.A. Salvatore's website:

Friday, July 27
11:00-12:00 She/He Who Understands History Gets to Rewrite It - Authors discuss how an appreciation of world history and modern events as well as mythology influences and colors their worlds of fantasy, science fiction, and alternate realities. Panelists Jacqueline Carey (Kushiel's Legacy series), David Anthony Durham (Acacia: Book One: The War with the Mein), David Keck (In the Eye of Heaven), Harry Turtledove (Settling Accounts: In at the Death), Peter David (Darkness of the Light), R.A. Salvatore (The Ancient), and Mel Odom (Quest for the Trilogy) adapt and build on world events for their own purposes. Maryelizabeth Hart of Mysterious Galaxy moderates. Room 8

Mr. Salvatore will also be appearing during another session on Saturday... possibly to talk about the new MMO (Massively Multi-player On-line) role-playing game that he and 38 Studios have planned for the near future?

Saturday, July 28
4:00-5:00 Mission: McFarlane - Todd McFarlane (Spawn, McFarlane Toys), R. A. Salvatore (Drizzt Do’Urden, 38 Studios), Brett Close (38 Studios president and CEO), Brian Haberlin (editor-in-chief Spawn Comics), and in a special appearance Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead and Invincible) talk about all the stuff about the McFarlane Companies that they can talk about in one hour, including company announcements. Room 5AB

There's a lot more great stuff going on, so if you're going to be around, check out the full day-by-day schedule here: San Diego's Comic-Con

On Wednesday night, July 18th at 8pm EST (New York time), fantasy author Sandy Lender will be stopping by Author Island as part of her on-line book tour to celebrate the release of her debut novel Choices Meant for Gods.

Not even the gods noticed when Chariss was born with the mark of The Protector. Now she and her wizard guardian seek shelter from a mad sorcerer in a household not just full of secrets and false hope, but watched by the god who will unwittingly reveal her role in an impending war.

When an orphan sets aside a lifetime of running and fear to accept the responsibilities of guarding an arrogant deity, can she face the trials in the prophecies she uncovers? Will Nigel Taiman of her latest refuge dare to u se his dragon heritage to bind her to his estate or to help her in her duty?

During her stop at the Island, Sandy is going to talk about what she thinks makes the perfect heroine, so get your fingers ready to cyber-chat!

And as always, Author Island will be giving one lucky reader an autographed hardcover copy of Choices Meant for Gods in a beautiful book bag. To enter, read the excerpt on the ArcheBooks website, and get ready to answer this question: "What is the name of the hero who lives at Chariss's latest refuge?"

The e-mail address for entries will be revealed during the chat. So stop by for a chance to chat live with author Sandy Lender and maybe even win a free book!

Hey, check it out! I'll be on Sirius radio at 8:00 AM and again at 8:00 PM EST (New York) on Monday, July 16th.

If you don't get Sirius radio, you can hear the show for free by going to http://www.sirius.com/lime and signing up for the free three-day trial. (Firefox had a bit of trouble when I tried it, but Internet Explorer worked like a charm. And I have it on good authority that it also works beautifully on Safari for the Mac once you have the right plug-in.)

The show is on channel 114. Look for it in the online player under "Family & Kids" and then "Lime." (It's called Be Happy, Dammit! and is hosted by Karen Salmansohn.)

I'll be on for an hour with a few other folks from the Joyful Jubilant Learning Network, so if you get a chance, stop by and listen in for a while. It should be a lot of fun!

(If you have trouble loading the Sirius Lime page, try this link.)

You can also still order autographed and/or personalized copies of Richard K. Morgan's Thirteen. The e-signing will be held on July 23rd. I was hoping to receive my copy in June, but this just leaves all the more time for you to get your own order in.

Read the details here: Thirteen.

The Signed Page is currently taking orders for autographed copied of The Sandworms of Dune, by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.

Place your order between now and August 8th, and you can even have your copy personalized with your name and a brief message.

Order your copy here: The Sandworms of Dune.

The fabulous folks over at Author Island hooked me up with a whole mess of promotional goodies that just arrived in the mail. Sweetness!

(If you send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Author Island, they'll hook you up too!)

How can I even begin to tell you about all this amazing free promotional book booty? Bookmarks, pens, erasers, book promo brochures, magnets, business cards... even a couple of teabags!

Now, a lot of the books represented here don't happen to fall within the world of speculative fiction, but that's just giving me a few cool ideas for some promotional give-aways of our own. (By the way... my favorite tag-line in the whole haul: "Read a book, ride a cowboy!" LOL! That one's from author Beth Williamson.)

But there is definitely some fantasy stuff in here worth taking a look at:

- Choices Meant for Gods, by Sandy Lender ("Treat yourself to a tale of prophecy twisting out of control in the captivating realm of Onweald -- where even the gods have to turn to an unlikely fugitive for help...")

- Super Natural Acts, by Rosemary Laurey (Read an Excerpt)

- Struck by Lightning, by Lizzie T. Leaf (Part of the Still Sexy Ladies Guide to Dating Immortals series

- The Blue Collar Werewolf series, by Buffi BeCraft-Woodall

- Zygradon, the new fantasy series from Michelle Levigne

So a very special thanks to Author Island for such a fun "care package." Visit Author Island and send in your envelope for your own free stuff today!

Okay, comments are posting correctly for the most part. No valid comments have yet been junked, and the spam filter caught 29 of the last 30 spams. Not ideal, but pretty good.

But the system is sluggish with a capital S. I'll call the help desk and see what I can find out about that... Will update this entry when I know more.

Update: the system is sluggish because it's running through a spam lookup service that is so bombarded with requests it's currently as slow as molasses. But without it, we'd have about 100 spam comments posted on the site every day. So... we're going to have to deal with some icky hairy sluggishness until I can get a captcha system online.

Again, I ask you... captcha plug-in help for Movable Type? Anyone?

And a note to Movable Type: please, please, please for the Love of God build a captcha system into your next release!!! Please???

Okay, I'm conducting an experiment for a bit. I've raised the junk threshold on comments and turned OFF comment moderation. In other words, your comments will be posted to the blog IMMEDIATELY as long as they make it through the junk filter.

There is a chance, of course, that this experiment will backfire miserably in one of two ways:

1. Genuine comments may be tagged as junk due to the higher comment junk threshold. I will do my best to check the junk folder manually over the next few days to make sure this is not happening.

2. Spam comments may be published on the blog. If the threshold has not been raised high enough, some comments that should be junked may not be caught by the filter.

I appreciate your patience as I try to find the best temporary solution to the comment issue, to allow readers to comment immediately while refusing spammers access to the site.

Again, if you can help me add a "captcha" to the system, please let me know!

Over the next day or two, please leave sample comments on the blog so that I can evaluate how well the new system is working. Thank you!

Hey, everybody. I want to add a "captcha" system to my comments so I can get rid of the junk and allow real comments to be posted on the blog immediately, but Movable Type doesn't come with that functionality.

There are plug-ins that do it, but I don't know how to install them, and my network provider doesn't offer plug-in help support.

Help? Anyone?

The new web-based home of Wet Ink... is up and running! There's a ton of science fiction and fantasy news, over a dozen new and upcoming releases, a couple of surprise announcements about authors appearing on the blog in July, and so much more.

And don't forget, we're giving away a free copy of a Jim C. Hines Goblin Adventure book. So tune in after midnight tonight and see what's new!

Wet Ink... has grown by leaps and bounds over these past six months, and there just isn't enough room to fit it all into an e-mail anymore.

Not by a long shot!

So coming July 1st--just four more days!--look for the first issue of Wet Ink... to hit the World-Wide Web. It's jam-packed chock-full of all kinds of news from the speculative fiction genre: new and upcoming releases, book reviews, chances to win free books, and a whole host of fun stuff dedicated to the many wondrous worlds of imagination.

Did I mention free books?

Win a Free Book, with Free Worldwide Shipping!

To celebrate the new online version of Wet Ink..., we're giving away a free copy of the Jim C. Hines' Goblin Adventure book of your choice, either Goblin Quest or Goblin Hero. (Drawing to be held July 31.) Sign up here for Wet Ink... by e-mail and select "Wet Ink" and "Goblin Book Drawing" for your chance to win!