Last weekend my wife, one of my sons, and I attended Anime Riverside. It’s a relatively new (three years old) convention and was only ten minutes from my house! We attended as fans, not vendors, so that was a nice change of pace. There were lots of creative people selling anime related merch, but no books.
One of the cool things about this show was they had their main stage outside, so pretty much anyone who wanted to see their biggest panels could. No long panel lines. You had to stand, but the weather was nice and they had a sunshade. The sunshade was deceiving, though. I stood under it for about four hours on Sunday and ended up getting sunburned.
Overall, the show was a lot of fun. We watched the big cast panels for Demon Slayer, currently one of the most popular animes, and one on Naruto and Dragonball Z, two other older but very famous animes which I believe are still running in some form or another. As a writer, I love to hear the stories about the shows and find out why people have such a connection to them. I watch Demon Slayer with my family so I’m very familiar with that one. As for Naruto and Dragonball Z, I’ve never really gotten into them, though my son is a fan.
We also got to see several live bands/singers and idols perform. We even got to see a live wrestling match. This was a lot more entertaining in-person than I thought it would be! Oh, and of course, there were tons of awesome cosplayers! No convention would be complete without them!
What I’m watching:
I recently finished Freiren: Beyond Journey’s End…wow! This show is powerful. It deals with an elf mage who is part of a party that slays a powerful demon king and become heroes across the land. But as an elf, Freiren doesn’t age, and witnesses her friends grow old and pass on. The show is an exploration of how Freiren deals with attachment and loss and how it changes her moving forward. It’s slower and more contemplative than I think most people are used to, but it has great world building and character development. And when it gets to the action, it is crazy good. This is going up there as one of my favorite series, especially if future seasons keep delivering like it has been.
Delicious in Dungeon… this is showing on Netflix and is pretty fun. I think I’m about halfway through the first season. It seems silly on the surface…a band of adventurers are too poor to buy food while dungeon crawling, so they resort to eating the monsters they kill. As it turns out, dungeon critters are very tasty! I’ll leave it there for now except to say it looks like the series is getting a little more serious, so I’m looking forward to what happens next.
Dune 2: I missed it in the theaters, but it’s showing on Max now, so I’m hoping to watch this soon.
Are you watching anything cool right now? If so, let me know!
Mechhaven Missives
- I’ve really been striving to hit my word count goals on Mechhaven Book 5. I ended up writing just over 14,000 words in May. While I didn’t hit my goals every day this week, I’ll be pushing hard to catch up this weekend. I want to stay on pace to finishing the first draft by the beginning of August. Once I’m sure I’ll hit that deadline, I’ll work with my editor to schedule some time in October for him to do his magic. This should give me enough time to release Book 5 in late December.
- Audiobook news… Last week, I sent some final notes to my narrator for Pax Machina. We hopped on a call to discuss some things we wanted to fix/tweak. Once he wraps up those changes, I’ll approve the final files and then ACX/Audible will run the files through their process, which can take anywhere from a couple of days to a few weeks. I’m really excited for you all to hear the final product! Soon… Very soon!
Featured Authors
I have quite a range of authors to feature this week. Some of these aren’t the first book in the series, so if you see something you like, please be sure to check out the other books in the series as well!
Ghost Jumper-$0.99 Launch Sale
by
A.A. Warren
He’s the fastest pilot in the galaxy. But he can’t outrun his past…
Trev Corvus was the Star League’s best pilot, until a disastrous intergalactic war left him a burned out shell of a man. Now he’s a Ghost Jumper… an interstellar getaway pilot, helping criminals escape the oppressive Trans-Corp Security Force. But in a galaxy this tough, betrayal is an occupational hazard…
When his latest job goes sideways, Trev and his synthetic canine co-pilot find themselves stuck with a feisty female mutineer named Xiri. And a cargo hold hiding a brutal gangster’s most prized possession.
by
Edita A. Petrick
An occupied world. A slave labor mining camp. Two captured Fleet officers. And a frontier god who could no longer stand to watch innocent lives perish.
The conflict between the Shoultain Warlords and the Federation has been going on for millennia but only through a series of skirmishes in the Neutral Zone. The latest such conflict, precipitated by traitors within the Fleet ranks, results in the capture of two young Fleet officers, Chief Medical Officer of the UGS Trevor Meridian, Karin Vexley and the ship’s second rotation navigator, Kitaya DeWynter. Their ship can’t assist them in any way, because that would constitute an outright declaration of war. Their friends and loved ones can only look on from outside the Neutral Zone, helpless in their anger and grief.
Honeymoon Aboard The Mary Celeste
by
Jay Toney
How far will the parents of a newly wed couple go to punish their children?
Mr. Turner is well off owning his own tech company, and on the side, he is a popular paranormal investigator. He is furious with his son for eloping with a Hartwell of all people. Snobs, all of them!
Mrs. Hartwell is equally as mad at her daughter. How dare she marry for love. Marriage is family business, not for outsiders.
Mr. Turner meets with Mrs. Hartwell. He has a business proposition that will increase their wealth, and punish their children for defying them. How far will they go? They agree to give their children an all-expense paid tour of the solar system aboard the newly commissioned Mary Celeste for a wedding gift. It is a cruise that is doomed to end in failure before it begins.
Neurabreak: A YA/NA cyberpunk sci-fi novel
by
Eris Goode
The battle is over. But the war has yet to come.
JUNIPER and her friends’ narrow escape from the New Realm station revealed something sinister: Phase Three, a new form of mind control, will be unleashed to incite a war. Millions could die.
Including Mino.
Juniper will do whatever it takes to save him. To do so, she must locate Anders Moore, the only person with the means to stop Phase Three. But when Juniper is kidnapped and forced to join the Novayr Workforce Initiative, her plans unravel.
Featured Promotions
I have one new Kindle Unlimited promotion for you this week. The rest are ones from the last newsletter that are still going on through the end of August/beginning of September. Please take a look and support these authors if you see anything you like!
Kindle Unlimited
Bold Futures: Sci-Fi in Kindle Unlimited
Free
FREE Fantasy and Science Fiction for June 2024
Until next time, have fun and read a lot of books!
Greg Sorber