Digital Titles on Sale Friday!
A whole slew of my books on sale from Open Road - digital - on Friday, April 15, for $1.99 - US only, it looks like.
Stranger At The Wedding - This was my stand-alone fantasy which came out of a challenge at a workshop: somebody wanted me to demonstrate how I put a story together. I said I started with characters, often using people I'd seen in movies. They said, "How would you put together a story whose hero & heroine were Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn?" I thought about it for a moment and came out with the complete plot to this book - no demonstration. Just, "Here's the story..." Didn't help them much, but it's a pretty entertaining book.
Magicians of Night - This was Book 2 of the du-ology "Sun-Cross," about a wizard who comes to OUR universe only to find himself in Nazi Germany working for the Occult Bureau. Open Road may have had the first volume, "Rainbow Abyss," on sale a couple of weeks ago. I'm just starting to pick up the pieces after the dislocation that followed my Mom's passing, so I don't know, but I can't think of any other reason they'd put Book 2 on sale and not Book 1.
Witches of Wenshar - The second Sun Wolf and Starhawk book. I think they did have "Ladies of Mandrigyn" on sale a couple of weeks ago. Not really part of a trilogy: a stand-alone story with the same characters.
Dark Hand of Magic - The third Sun Wolf and Starhawk book. Again, a stand-alone about the same characters: What happens if somebody puts a Murphy-hex on a beseiging army, and everything goes wrong?
Armies of Daylight - Third book of the Darwath Trilogy.
I'm slowly getting back to work, but it's still difficult to make myself post. The whole Mr. Spock On-line Flap helped. (We'll see what happens with that...)
Hi Barbara - I wanted to let you know how much I still love these 80's and 90's fantasies, which I discovered in the 80's while in college. Recently I FINALLY succumbed to ordering my first e-books ever - your Further Adventures collection - because although I hate reading for pleasure on a screen, I couldn't pass them up anymore. Thank you so much for continuing to write about these characters - I identified very strongly with them, especially the scholar-warriors, as I gradually completed my PhD in Linguistics. I am also delighted to learn that Joanna and Antryg are (were?) training in aikido! I had been practicing aikido for two years and was preparing to test for fourth kyu when I became pregnant and decided to stop martial arts at least for that period of my life. I very much want to go back, it's such a beautiful art, if I can handle the falling, rolling and getting back up that was so much easier when I was younger... Thank you, Sue H.
ReplyDeleteSue, thank you. I SO much look forward to writing further Further Adventures when I get the current deadline under control. I'm glad people like following the further adventures of these characters as much as I do. I need to go check out the Draft 2 Digital site (which bought out Smashwords) to see if they still sell stories as pdf's - I simply haven't had time (see deadline, above).
DeleteIt stood to reason, for me, that Antryg would continue sword practice while in exile in LA in the '80s and early 90s: a swordmaster doesn't let his skills lapse. And a lot of aikido dojos also teach iaido, the art of the samurai sword (it's an integral part of the Nishikaze style of aikido), so it made sense that Antryg and Joanna would train in aikido at a dojo that included iaido as well.
Many years after I started writing the A & J novelettes, I started training in Nishikaze aikido/iaido myself, and love it, as I loved my years in Shotokan karate back in the '70s. I find the learning curve in aikido steep and difficult, particularly because of my age. With a bad back and a brace on one knee I'm not able to do the falling, rolling, or getting back up, and my sensei is perfectly happy to work around these limitations (and to give me a Senior Discount) - when we do group work she'll split the class into "falling" and "non-falling" groups, since there are a number of people in the dojo who aren't young and limber. (And, at age 70, I am NOT the oldest woman training in the dojo).
Good for you! As one of the benefits of training with my dojo, we were also welcome to train with the local aikido club at Cornell, who would use the gymnastics space. Training on a sprung floor instead of mats once in a while was awesome, so much easier to take the falls and bounce back up.
DeleteOur sensei was also highly proficient in iaido, and I believe offered private lessons to those who were interested. We trained with bokken once in a while, and he used a lot of swordsmanship references when teaching technique. I would love to learn more of that art. So many fascinating things to try, so little time.
How does your karate background influence your aikido learning? I think of karate as a direct, linear kind of attack which would be in opposition to aikido's circularity and blending. Though I understand that the Nishikaze approach incorporates stuff from other arts, like karate. -- Sue H.