Game of Thrones vs. The Walking Dead

Thought I would throw my hat into the "That's cute" meme thing. Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones thinks she has it bad? She's got nothing on Rick Grimes in The Walking Dead.

The Horror! Five 2014 Bram Stoker Award Nominated Stories You Can Read Online for Free - UPDATED!

Get ready for some horror! The Bram Stoker Awards have just announced their nominees for best Horror stories of 2014. Here's a link roundup of 5 stories nominated in the short story category that you can read online for free.  Plus two bonus stories that were on the original preliminary ballot, but weren't ultimately nominated. Enjoy.


"Baby's Breath" by Sydney Leigh (no longer online)

“Splinterette” by John Palisano

Illustration for Hot Tub by Hal Bodner

Here is an illustration I did for Hal Bodner's excellent, Bram Stoker Award nominated, short story "Hot Tub".

Art copyright © 2015 by James Hubbs

"Hot Tub" appears in the 2014 horror anthology From Big Time Books called Hell Comes to Hollywood II. Hal has had other short stories of his appear in the anthologies Halloween Tales & Fairly Wicked Tales. He is the author of the novels The Trouble With Hairy, Bite Club, In Flesh and Stone, & For Love of the Dead.

15 Stories Nominated for the 2015 Nebula Awards That You Can Read Online for Free. UPDATED!

Here's this year's link roundup of stories nominated for the 2015 Nebula Awards that you can read online for free.  Enjoy.

The full list of all of the Nebula Award nominees can be found at the SFWA web site.

Novellas

“The Mothers of Voorhisville” by Mary Rickert

“Grand Jeté (The Great Leap)” by Rachel Swirsky

36 Free Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror Novels (updated March 9th, 2019)

Free Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Horror Novels. These books are all free on Amazon. I originally posted this in 2015 and it included 50 titles. It is now 2019 and many of them have begun charging for them (the nerve!). So, I decided to update the list and remove the non-free titles. So, the number has dwindled down to 36 now. I don't know how long any of these will remain free, so grab them while you can.

Magic of Thieves (Legends of Dimmingwood Book 1) by C. Greenwood

A Tide of Shadows (The Chronicles of Llars Book 1) by Tom Bielawski

The Dawn: The Bombs Fall (A Dystopian Science Fiction Series) by Michelle Muckley

Test of Magnitude (The Torian Reclamation Book 1) by Andy Kasch

The Eden Plague (Plague Wars Series Book 0) by David VanDyke

The Noru: Blue Rose (The Noru Series, Book 1) by Lola StVil

Among the Dead and Dying (Among the Masses Book 1) by A.R. Wise

On Basilisk Station (Honor Harrington Book 1) by David Weber

The Honor of the Queen (Honor Harrington Book 2) by David Weber

Oath of Swords (War God Book 1) by David Weber

Marking Time (The Immortal Descendants, Book 1) by April White

The Descent Series, Books 1-3: Death's Hand, The Darkest Gate, and Dark Union by SM Reine

The Paranormal 13 (13 free books featuring witches, vampires, werewolves, mermaids, psychics, Loki, time travel and more!): Boxed Set Including a 14th free novel! by Christine Pope, K.A. Poe, Cate Dean, Nadia Scrieva, Nicole R Taylor, Stacy Claflin, Kristy Tate, Dima Zales, C.J. Archer, Kyoko M.

Courtlight Series Boxed Set (Books 1, 2, 3) by Terah Edun

Balanced on the Blade's Edge (Dragon Blood Book 1) by Lindsay Buroker

Antioch (The Circle Book 1) by William Harlan

The Devil's Concubine (The Devil of Ponong series #1) by Jill Braden

Out Of Darkness (The Starborn Uprising Book 1) by Jason D. Morrow

Anywhere But Here (The Starborn Ascension Book 1) by Jason D. Morrow

Planet Urth (Book 1) by Jennifer & Christopher Martucci

DinosaurChannel.TV

Dinosaur Channel? Well it's not a full fledged cable channel, but it's the next best thing. It's a new website with web shows. And they're all about... you guessed it... dinosaurs!

Paleoartists Bob Walters and Tess Kissinger from Dinoart.com have launched a project on the crowdfunding site Kickstarter to fund their new multimedia educational website, DinosaurChannel.TV.

10 Self Published Science Fiction & Fantasy Authors Speak Out On Indie Publishing

Only a few years ago if your book was self published it usually meant that it was a piece of garbage. The last resort for authors who couldn't get accepted by the traditional publishing houses.

O Ashara, Asharra! Wherefore Art Thou?

Damn you, George RR Martin!

Well, I thought that I at least had the name of my fantasy world nailed down. Not so. Apparently there is a character named Ashara in George RR Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" world. Ashara Dayne. Possibly Jon Snow's mother. Well crap.

So, I thought, I'll just add an extra r to the word. Asharra. That works. Until I Google it and find

Link Roundup: 28 Stories Nominated for the 2014 Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, and World Fantasy Awards That You Can Read Online for Free

Here's a link roundup of 28 stories nominated for the 2014 Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, and World Fantasy awards that you can read online for free.  Enjoy.

Worldbuilding: A Language For Ashara

I wanted to have a single language on Ashara. Just to simplify things. But I only wanted to do it if it made sense to do so. Since this world has had intelligent beings on it for at least 100 million years

How the Magic Works

On the world on which my science-fantasy novel is set, Ashara, there will be magic. And this magic will have rules.

Any fantasy novel involving magic needs to set some ground rules. Even if to only vaguely state who is able to use magic. In my novel the magic has a few attributes that require me to set the

Why "Dinosaurs, Aliens, Gods, and Men"?

So, why exactly is my blog subtitled "Exploring Science, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Dinosaurs, Aliens, Gods, and Men"? Well, generally, those are some of the things that have always fascinated me. Most of the books I read, whether fiction or non-fiction, are about those topics. But, specifically, the reason is those are the topics that apply to the novel I am currently writing. For now that's all I'm going to say about the novel.