Happy 2012!

It's not quite midnight here in California, where Allysen and I are visiting her brother and family, but we jointly decided to call it New Year at 9:00, when we knew the ball had dropped in Times Square. (Well, call it faith; we didn't actually check online to see if midnight had come to the Eastern time zone, but I'm pretty sure it did.) We're having a very nice visit, except that I'm fighting off a cold or something, and hoping I don't give it to anyone else.  We went to see TinTin today, and thoroughly enjoyed it in 3D, after an aborted effort to see it in Imax 3D. (The volume was earsplitting, and the theater people said they couldn't turn it down. We weren't the only ones asking for refunds on the Imax tickets.) Anyway, in regular 3D, and regular volume, it was a fun movie, even if it went on a little too long in the action sequences. 

Two of my good friends are taking the ebook plunge, and I thought this would be a good time to introduce them. First off is Richard Bowker, author of a bunch of novels ranging from straight SF (Forbidden Santuary) to supernatural fantasy (Marlborough Street) to techno-thriller (Replica) to SF-mystery (Dover Beach) to straight-up political mystery (Summit and Senator). He's been out of print for a while, and has just created a website and blog at www.richardbowker.com, where he'll post updates on the progress of converting and self-epublishing his previously published novels. Stop by and check on his progress. When his books go up for sale, I highly recommend them. 

Mary C. Aldridge works a completely different vein: African-folklore-inspired fantasy short stories. One of her stories was a Nebula finalist ("The Adinkra Cloth"), and one won her a Massachusetts Artists Foundation Fiction Fellowship ("The Work Leader"). She has five short stories up at https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/728grdn90, and I hope they'll also appear in the Kindle and Nook stores soon. (But you can buy the needed formats for both the Kindle [.mobi] and Nook [.epub] right now.)  Mary has a remarkable talent that has been expressed too infrequently. Why not give them a look?

And in the meantime...Happy New Year!