Teaser Tuesday

J.A. Campbell news - Remember to keep your eyes open for the sequel to Senior Year Bites. Summer Break Blues has been picked up for publication and should be available. On top of that, Campbell has written a short story that has been accepted by Bleeding Ink Anthology. Look out for Roses For The Devil in the anthology.

Ms Campbell has been BUSY!

{I wish my bookshelves look this organized}

Well, everyone! Here we are on another Teaser Tuesday. Monday has been survived. {somehow, that sentence just doesn't sound right}

Hosted by MizB of ShouldBeReading, this is where we tease each other unmercilessly with snippets from current or recent reads. No spoilers allowed.

I just finished reading Strength and Honor by R.M. Meluch. Now this is the fourth and final {in paperback, anyway} Novel from the series featuring the U.S.S. Merrimack. Hell of a series. There is a fifth novel, The Ninth Circle, but I think it's just coming out in hardback - and so is out of my price range...

from page 43

' Commander Gypsy Dent's hair was an elaborate nest of serpentine dreadlocks detached from Gypsy's head and exiled to her cabin until Gypsy got off duty, when she reattached it to her head hair by hair.

Gypsy was very proud of her hair, and she had given Captain Farragut an order:"Speak not of the hair." '

Still in a SciFi mood, I went right into Boneyards, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. I've never ever ever read any SciFi from her. Apparently there is a short prequel e-book - Becalmed - available.

From page 41

' She raised her head, expecting to see the station blow into a million pieces. Instead it remained intact, and she wondered if she had gotten her count wrong. She hadn't really been paying attention to the clock She'd been running, not counting minutes.

Her heart was pounding and she was breathing hard. Her palm had left a damp print on the controls.

She stared at the screens and wondered, for the very first time, if she had gotten it all wrong.'

Rusch has written this novel in a combinationof first person and third person narrative. So far, it's working. But then, I find that this does work with some writers, and usually makes for a more interesting book.

Rush is AKA Kristine Dexter, Kristine Grayson, and Kris Nelcott

Tonight's LOL catz pics have been taken by someone else, captioned by me.

It's one more Monday in a long string of Mondays (thank god, we're alive, right?)

I'm still laptop-less. Tonight on the news I heard about the new I-pad 3 that's come out. It's suppose to take great pics, and have a pretty good photo app (at least, I think it takes pics, might have understood that wrong - cause can't imagine holding it up to take pictures, now that I think about it.) and has great screen resolution for reading text. Might be something to save up for in the future - haha, y'know to spend all my money that I DON'T have on. Onc can always dream, though.

Hosted by Sheila of Book Journey, it's time to discuss our current reads....

I'm having stronger than usual shoulder pain, and the other back issues haven't gone away, so there won't be a lot of typing going on tonight...

This past week, I finished reading R.M. Meluch's The Sagittarius Command. Boy what a good, fun Space Opera romp! (I love that word, ROMP, it's so...ROMPY!)

I also reviewed it (faster than normal). Now I'm about 100 pages from the end of the fourth in the series - Strength and Honor. Just as fun, except there's way more information being introduced - space information...science and planet/star formations, etc. Luckily these are presented as one or two page sections, and aren't two eye-glazing. There's also some history, although it's future history. important to the story, yet --well, there's quite a bit of it. Thank goodness Meluch has an interesting way of presenting her "info-dumps" - interesting enough to keep me reading.

Thanks to my brothers, I'm going on a trip - except it's by plane, it's to a place very far away, and right now the location is secret - because it's a surprise for someone....I don't think this person reads my blog, never gave the info up. But I'm getting nervouse because I don't like planes. I don't like being around a lot of people, crowds kind of freak me out and it's going to be in a hot and steamy place. I don't do heat well. tend to melt.

Even so, I am looking forward to it - though I might need a hefty dose of valium.

I'm starting to stress out about everything to do with going on a plane trip.

I.D.

carrying tubes of toothpaste

my perfume that I can't go without

my medicine, do I have to bring my whole bottle?

all of them? each one is a month supply of medicine, and what if it gets lost?

what if I throw up on the plane

what if we have a crazy stewardess?

how am I going to make it up all those steps?

Should I ask my doc to send a note about my back problems?

I should have already taken care of that. geez

what if I don't have enough money for anything?

I hate never having as much money as the rest of my siblings

I don't even have a credit card, and they're always - "lets go out to this expensive restaurant!" Can't afford it.

now I'm getting negative

I'm nervous.

I'm also kind of aging, and I don't have pretty skin anymore on my legs, and my muscular brothers who are younger than I am and still are handsome - they're going to be all handsome while I look like a wrinkly, pale, overweight person with lumpy skin on my thighs. I'm NOT GOING SWIMMING unless I wear bicycle shorts -

I'm also not going to get a brazilian wax.....not for me

Okay - enough of that

I'm going to have fun no matter what.

The Sagittarius Command by R.M. Meluch - review

The Sagittarius Command

*****

Book Three of the U.S.S. Merrimack series

R.M Meluch

SciFi (2007)

cover - I like the cover. There are weird things exploding in space, spaceships taking hits, and those strange little eating entities affectionately called Gorgons by the Navy and Marine crews that man the U.S.S. Merrimack.

One of the things I enjoy about some women SciFi authors is the interesting blend of science, SciFi, Space Opera/Odyssey, tough fighting marines, opposing factions, spies, enemies and the interpersonal relationships between all characters that all tend to evolve when people work and live together for long periods of time. Not to be sexist, but sometimes you don't get quite the blend I'm looking for with a male writer. I know some men write the type of stories I love to read - and then again there are some times when I enjoy a more "male" perspective. I certainly do not look for or enjoy when a SciFi or horror novel goes all gooey and lovestruck - overwhelming the story. I'm referring to the novels that tend to end up being a strong romance novel with some fantasy, SciFi, horror or U.F. just lightly blended into the book. To me, they tend to read as if the genre came second to the love story. Which is fine, if that's what you're looking for. It's just not what I'm looking for.

With the U.S.S. Merrimack series, the blending of SciFi, humor, horror and personal relationships have just the right touch. An overall theme in this series is the war between the Romans (who have left Earth to claim as much space and as many worlds as they can, while re-building the Roman Empire) and the United States government along with the horror aspects of the hive like behaviour of the Gorgons. The gorgons travel through space, seemingly impervious to any repeated attacks as they literally eat their way through space ships, planets and galaxies - eating anything organic. And they are attracted by same resonance that the space-going ships and planets use to send messages to each other. Not a good thing.

At the end of book two, Rome had surrendered to the United States - or rather, to John Farragut, the captain of the U.S.S. Merrimack. He took their surrender and now both sides are supposed to be cooperating or at least working together to find the home planet of the gorgons and destroy them. Farragut, a very interesting, almost absurdedly charismatic man is made Commodore of a five ship fleet. He's in charge of the whole operation. The Romans don't particularly want to work with him. His own crew seems to be intensely loyal to him because of his way with people and soldiers. He not only remembers small details of his crews, but when he talks to a crew member, they feel like they are the only person he's paying attention to at the moment. Even some of the men who hate him, his enemies can't help begrudginly respecting and liking him. He almost seems to good to be true - and could be considered the male version of a Mary Sue, except that the story is so fun to read, the dialog so engaging, and Farragut is not completely perfect. But he's a fun character to read with his almost superhero ways.

The fleet comes into quite a few scrapes, where it seems like all is lost, but they manage to pull through - and this would be kind of unbelievable, except that this is SciFi and the narration and dialogue is so fun, that I just enjoyed the scenes and the impossible saves.

In fact, I enjoyed this novel just as much - possibly a bit more than the first two novels. The only thing that kept this from being a Six on my scale was that there were a few instances where the characters began to speak philosophy a bit more than I enjoy reading. I'm not really into too much of that "thinking man's" dialogue. However, I am impressed that Meluch stayed away from massive infodumps - SciFi reading can sometimes be a little overwhelming to the unscientifically geared mind when introducing a scientific theory. There was a bit of information being passed along in the guise of dialogue - but thankfully this wasn't an overwhelming experience.

On the whole, loved reading The Sagittarius Command, enjoyed the fighting, the action, dialogue and characters. I'm blissfully going to grab that fourth novel in the series that's waiting over there on the shelf....

Teaser Tuesday

Some exciting news - J.A. Campbell's YA urban fantasy, Senior Year Bites, was released in e-book form in June of 2011. Luckily for us fans, Campbell has been working on a sequel titled Summer Break Blues - She just found out that her sequel is being published. Woo-Hoo!

Let's hear it for first time sequels!

As soon as I find out when it'll be published, I'll post it - but you can keep an eye out by going to J.A. Campbell's website.

Now it's time for Teaser Tuesday. Hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading - you guessed, we tease with snippets of our current reads, or in some cases, a book that's handy. :)

I'm in the middle of The Sagittarius Command by R.M. Meluch.

I've corrected it (them), but it seems almost everytime I posted about this series, I've mispelled her name - sometimes I put MJ Meluch and other times RJ Meluch. Must have been Trippin'! It's for sure R.M. Meluch (right in front of me, so I know for reals, for sure)

from page 191/192

'She boarded Merrimack under a Marine watch the whole way.

"What was that?" Cain Salvador cried after Amadea was escorted off the deck.

"White Tiger," Said Ranza Espinoza.

"I mean on her chin!"

"That would be a beard," said Ranza.'

Oh Yeah!

I don't have much more for you than this tonight - still having formatting and browser difficulties. I have to go to one browser to post and another JUST TO INSERT LINKS. How crazy is that? Uninstalling adobe shockwave didn't do the trick - I think it's a browser thing.

Here's another LOL Cat, because I'm obsessed, therefore, you should be too!

It's Monday, and I'm back

It's time for It's Monday, What Are You Reading hosted by Sheila of Book Journey

I've tried to get into the Urban Fantasy the last few weeks, but nothing feels right. At the moment, anyway. I'm back into the SciFi kick, but my all time favorite SciFi writers have either finished their series, or they aren't currently working or publishing anything SciFi for the moment. I did however, find a new to me series by R.M. Meluch. Even though I didn't quite get into the first of the Merrimack Tour series, somehow I ended up reading the second novel, loved it, and went for the first novel. The second time around with the first novel, suddenly I'm enjoying is so much more! Finished it and am now reading the third novel titled The Sagitarious Command. Luckily for my SciFi craving, I

have - right here, right now....in my house! - two more of this series. Then it's back to waiting for either Tanya Huff to write another Valor novel, or for Ann Aguirre to have her final Sirantha Jax (sob, sob) novel published. From there, it's a search for an interesting scifi series with a strong female presence - as those seem to be the novels I enjoy the most - female empowerment....fun for me.

It's time for a little rant here - I'm having issues with Internet Explorer tonight. Everytime I try to move a picture around, it closes on me. It's driving me nuts. So I had to go to Google Chrome, which is fine for playing cityville and Castleville, but sucks for trying to post on my blog....only because of formatting the pictues. On I.E., when it's working, I can put a picture with a lot of text next to it....with Chrome, the text won't start until the bottom of the picture, wasting lots of perfectly good space. It drives me nuts because no matter what I do, I cannot get around the picture formatting things - and I.E. is behaving crazily. Not only that, but I'm still stuck at this stupid desk, sitting in this damned chair, straining my back because we're still waiting for Hewlet Packard, or whatever they're called, to send me a Friggin Box to sent back the laptop so they can fix what ever it is that made the fan stop working. For close to a thousand dollars (with the warranty) you'd think it wouldn't take over TWO WEEKS to mail a friggin box, right? Ugh - guess I had some frutration built up. You can bet if I were making payments to them they wouldn't expect me to take over two weeks to mail it in, now would they?

Okay - It's been a rough week, with pain and computer issues. This is why I haven't posted even any Memes, it's been too hard. And this morning my emphysema reared it's ugly face and I coughed up unbelievable amounts of liquid - sorry, TMI, I'm sure, but I'm living this. Even though I quit smoking many years ago. Life is never fair, though.

So here's hoping the pain abates, although I doubt it will, the weather is turning cold again, and I'm having to sit up in this damned chair. And here's hoping the box shows up!

On a happier note, if you click on the book covers above, you'll be taken to book excerpts at R.M. Meluch's website. She has a very interesting website, go exploring.