Death & Clockworks

For some reason, clockworks come to mind when I look at this cover.  I so do not have a clue about this novel, but check out the cover art. It’s fascinating. The cover was done by Steve Montiglio for Greg Egan’s upcoming Crystal Nights and Other Stories, which is set to release September 30, 2009.  Honestly, I’m not familiar with the author or have a clue what genre he’s writing, but I’m loving this cover.  There’s just so much to explore.

Interviews:

• Candace Havens, author of The Demon King and I, by Christacarol Jones
• Annaliese Evans, author of Night’s Rose, by Bitten by Books
• Patti B. Ogden, author of Keoni’s Big Question, by Blogcritics Magazine

Maria Snyder has posted a tour schedule for her novel, Storm Glass.  While it is still focused near Pennsylvania, she does get out to California and Arizona, so I would check to see if she’ll be near you.  She won’t be near me unfortunately.  CONTEST ALERT – Snyder is also having a contest for 3 copies of Storm Glass, but you have to have a mySpace page for it.

CONTEST ALERT – Larissa Ione was actually one of the authors caught up in the Amazon Ranking issue and she’s fighting back by giving away three novels from her unranked Sydney Croft collectoin.  The contest will end Tuesday night.

SciFiGuy has found yet another cover and it’s a great one.  It’s the new cover for Charlaine Harris’s A Touch of Dead.  Oh you know I’m posting it too.  :)  Now while this is a new Southern Vampires book, it is not a full length novel.  Instead, it is a compilation of various Sookie Stackhouse short stories.  And according to SciFiGuy, it doesn’t include all of them either.  A Touch of Dead is set to release October 6, 2009.

Did you hear about the epic fail of Amazon over the weekend?  If not, check out yesterday’s post for the specifics, but I thought I would add a couple updated links where the whole Amazon’s Rank issue has shown up in the media:

• The Guardian.co.uk is reporting about some of the obvious displeasure over the issue.
• The Information Week actually did a few of their own searches in Amazon to see if books have lost their rankings and found a few that did (which didn’t make sense).
• CNET is also comparing a few novels that have their rankings vs those that do not.
• The Seattle Examiner is now wondering if Amazon was the victim of conservative cybervandals.  Kind of sounds like Amazon is grasping at straws in my opinion.
• Foreign Policy takes a look at the effects that anti-corporate cyber activism can have on a company.
• And I have to say that I am with Alpha Heroes when Nicola calls for Amazon to come crawling and groveling with an apology on why they thought they could tell me what to read when I can make that decision myself.
• And the last one, I promise, but io9 has added their 2 cents into the #amazonfail ring.

Remember that petition going around for people who are against this new ranking policy, well it has over 13,709 votes the last time I looked.

Ahhh…check out what Kimberly over at Darque Reviews gave me – it’s the Let’s Be Friends award!

These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers.

This really means a lot to me since I’m secretly envious of all the books she gets ahead of time and her site is just that fabulous.  Well, it’s not really a secret since she knows that, but you get what I’m saying, right?  :P  Anywho, so now I get to give this gorgeous award to eight fellow bloggers who are friends as well and I have to say, these eight are really awesome – Alpha Heroes, Amberkatze’s Reviews, American Bibliophile, Bitten by Books, Sam’s Book Blog, Sidhe Vicious, Tez Says, and The Movieholic and Bibliophile’s Blog. Most, if not all, I have known since I started this little project over a year ago and they’ve helped me out a lot.