Box O' Books!

Just my luck.

I get my box of author's copies of THE BANSHEE'S WALK the very day the world ends.

Pic is below!

You can get your copy from Amazon (or your favorite brick and mortar bookstore) starting on June 7.  Or you can pre-order from Amazon here, if you're impatient -- and why shouldn't you be?  Readers who have gotten a sneak peek of THE BANSHEE'S WALK report the following side effects:

* Weight loss
* Reading granted powers of flight, invisibility
* Overall physical attractiveness increased on average of 754%
* Shoes polished, undergarments dry-cleaned and folded

Can you afford not to read THE BANSHEE'S WALK?  Is my repetition of the title THE BANSHEE'S WALK creating within you a well nigh irresistible urge to purchase the aforementioned full-length novel?

Okay, okay, I get the hint.

I would like to thank the hard-working people at Samhain Publishing for making BANSHEE look so good.  Cover artist Natalie Winters did a great job, and of course without the patient and long-suffering attention of my editor Beth, BANSHEE would be 140,000 words of meandering muddle and it would still be making its sole home on my PC's hard drive.

June 7, print book hits the stands, shutting up now...

Last Day Before the Last Day

I shouldn't be making fun of the May 21 Doomsdayers.  It's never sporting to shoot fish in a barrel, or make fun of the mentally challenged.

And the May 21sters are some profoundly challenged fish in a very shallow barrel.

But I have a headache and they're easy targets, so here goes.

TOP TEN EXCUSES WHY THE WORLD DIDN'T END ON MAY 21, 2011 (For use on May 22):

1) Forgot to factor in Leap Years.  Math is hard.
2) Oprah's final show doesn't air until next week.
3) Oops, wrong planet.  It was Urth that was destroyed Saturday afternoon.  Urth, not Earth.  But man did they have it coming.
4) 2011?  Wait a minute, the t-shirt shop printed it wrong.  I meant 2211.  Yeah.  May 21, 2211.  Just wait, I tell ya!  Just wait!
5) It did end, right on schedule, and was immediately replaced with the back-up copy.  You won't notice any difference, since the backup is is is perfect.
6) Knew the date was bogus, was just tired of Mormons getting all the media attention.
7) I just wanted my van painted.
8) It did end, but the liberal media refuses to report it.
9) Gay marriage.  No, we're not sure how it relates, but we're sure it does, somehow.
10) Can we have all our stuff back?

TEOTWAWKI The End of the World As We Know It

I've watched the world end a dozen times during my perusal of the Internet.

Aussie Bloke predicted a major cometary strike a few years back.  A dowdy nutjob named Nancy Lieder spent years blathering away on sci.astro about a mysterious 'Planet X,' which was to swoop past the Earth in 2003, killing all but the usual chosen few.  More recently, there were the anti-CERN people, who believed we'd all be sucked into a black hole the instant the supercollider came online.

Despite being killed over and over again by rogue comets and sudden black holes, I still seem to be more or less alive.  Yes, the Earth is a ravaged, increasingly-barren wasteland populated by desperate hordes of humanity struggling for survival, but it's been that way for quite a while and so far we haven't seen fit to do much about it but gripe about switching to florescent light bulbs now and then.

So I hope you'll pardon me if I am less than terrified by the latest end-o-the-worlders, who claim Doomsday is scheduled for May 21, at 6:00 PM (Eastern, I think).

I haven't looked into their reasoning, since I'm pretty sure I've seen it all before, one place or another.  Pour up a base of religious wackery, add a dash of deeply flawed numerology, stir in a pinch of outright paranoia, season with ignorance and a dim-witted world-view more appropriate to mollusks than primates, and viola!  It's the end of the world.  Again.

Like every day before it, May 21 will dawn, proceed, and end at midnight.  People will be born.  People will die.  A far greater number of people will dress poorly and fail to pay sufficient attention to their personal hygiene.  There will be ill-conceived marriages and nasty divorces and whirlwind romances and somewhere young love will blossom.  In short, humanity will be up to its usual tricks, and will be no more or no less successful than it usually is with them.  The only constant will be humanity's steadfast refusal to learn from its mistakes.  And bacon.  We'll eat lots and lots of bacon.

Somewhere in that mix, I guess a couple of hundred people will exchange 'What was I thinking' looks before quietly going home to remove all the WORLD ENDS MAY 21 stickers from their cars.  And quite a few of those people will soon replace their failed May 21 stickers and placards with whatever date pops up next.  That's the whole live and don't learn bit I mentioned before.

So here's to May 22nd, which I predict will begin right on time, and with all the usual activity days generally bring.

Now, if you are one of the May 21sters, and you're reading my blog, you have 3 days to prove the sincerity of your faith by immediately arranging a significant PayPal cash transfer from you to me.  Details provided upon request....but hurry, this is a limited time offer!

Monday Horoscopes!

Horoscopes?

Why not?  I'm perfectly willing to believe that the positions of celestial bodies billions of miles away can have a direct influence on the most mundane facets of my life.  So if Jupiter is in the House of Mars, I'd better watch my interactions with public officials, right?

As long as we're willing to assume that Neptune is keenly aware of my financial dealings, let's take the next logical step and assign to me personally a variety of divinatory and predictive powers!  I was an Indigo Child, after all, one raised by Gypsies, tutored in the Mystical Arts by Jeanne Dixon, and well-read from the dread Necronomicon (Volume II, will vars. Illustrations)!

So let us see what the stars, quasars, pulsars, and various nebula have to say to you today, dear reader...

ARIES (March 21-April 20)
They say that being decapitated doesn't hurt, but you'll have to wait for Tuesday evening to know for sure.

TAURUS (April 21 - May 20)
Good friends are priceless.  The best you can probably do, though, run about $200 per night.

GEMINI (May 21 - June 20)
You know that fortune cookie you got, the one that read Good things await you?  Yeah, well, if by 'good things' they meant 'flesh-eating bacteria,' then man, they nailed that one.

CANCER (June 21 - July 22)
This is a good week to consider your finances, because after Sunday evening's prison riot, you won't be needing money anymore.


LEO (July 23 - August 22)
If you don't want to wind up going viral on YouTube, don't kick and scream while the grizzly bear mauls you. And if you do kick and scream, don't say we didn't warn you.  Pansy.


VIRGO (August 23 - September 23)
You laughed at the warning label that said DO NOT IMMERSE IN WATER WHILE IN USE, but who's laughing now, huh?  


LIBRA (September 24 - October 23)
Statistically speaking, being struck twice by lightning is highly improbable, and that's exactly what the coroner will note in her report.


SCORPIO (October 24 - November 21)
Look, sometimes hostage negotiations just fall apart.  


SAGITTARIUS (November 22 - December 21)
Despite the media attention surrounding your post-surgical appearance, air travel is still the safest way to travel.


CAPRICORN (December 22 - January 19)
That fear of needles you have?  Considering the events of next Friday, that is a bad, bad fear to have.


AQUARIUS (January 20 - February 19)
All those times you used the phrase 'an arm and a leg' take on an ominous new meaning when you regain consciousness Sunday.


PISCES (February 20 - March 20)
Nine times out of ten, a charging rhinoceros will turn away at the last moment.  Guess you wish now you'd been keeping a much better count.


SPECIAL NOTE TO LARRY IN SEATTLE:
Yes, you did adjust the rear-view mirror with your bare right hand, and yes, fingerprints are the most-used physical evidence type used in murder trials.