First DLC for KINGDOMS OF AMALUR: RECKONING announced
Thanks to worthplaying.com, we have the first details on the upcoming expansion DLC for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. It’s called Legend of Dead Kel and will hit Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, Origin and Steam on March 20th, 2012.
Suvudu » Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, Comics, and Games
The 2011 Stoker Nominations for Superior Achievement in a First Novel
Before we take a look at the nominations for Superior Achievement in a First Novel category, let me reprint what is meant by “superior achievement in”.
The awards are not for “the best of” but for “superior achievement in”. This means two things:
- There can be and occasionally are ties in a category.
- There can be times when there are no winners in a particular category.
Last year there was one tie.
What will happen this year?
Superior Achievement in a First Novel
Remember, if you are interested in this book, click the mouse on the store icon below the summary to order it from an online bookseller through an affiliate link.
 |
Isis UnboundAuthor: Bird, Allyson |
||||
|
Nominated for the 2011 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel Inspired in part by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Percy Bysshe Shelley’s, Prometheus Unbound, and the works of Rider Haggard and R. E. Howard, Isis Unbound is set in an alternate history, steampunk version of 1890′s Manceastre, Britanniae, ruled by a new governor-general related to a descendant of Anthony and Cleopatra, who won the battle of Actium two thousand years ago, and where the ancient Egyptian gods are real. . . . Only a god can kill a god. Nepythys has killed her sister, Isis, and therefore the dead cannot pass over to the underworld — their ranks are rapidly swelling and they now roam the streets as zombies. Chief Embalmer Ptolemy Child’s two daughters, Ella and Loli, aged eighteen and ten respectively, are being instructed in the secrets of the mummification process, when the dead begin to wake and walk. And eventually lead the sisters to the greatest mystery of all: Isis, herself . . . |
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
 |
Southern GodsAuthor: Jacobs, John Horner |
||||
|
Nominated for the 2011 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel Recent World War II veteran Bull Ingram is working as muscle when a Memphis DJ hires him to find Ramblin’ John Hastur. The mysterious blues man’s dark, driving music — broadcast at ever-shifting frequencies by a phantom radio station — is said to make living men insane and dead men rise. Disturbed and enraged by the bootleg recording the DJ plays for him, Ingram follows Hastur’s trail into the strange, uncivilized backwoods of Arkansas, where he hears rumors the musician has sold his soul to the Devil. But as Ingram closes in on Hastur and those who have crossed his path, he’ll learn there are forces much more malevolent than the Devil and reckonings more painful than Hell . . . In a masterful debut of Lovecraftian horror and Southern gothic menace, John Hornor Jacobs reveals the fragility of free will, the dangerous power of sacrifice, and the insidious strength of blood. |
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
 |
The LamplightersAuthor: Lee, Frazer |
||||
|
Nominated for the 2011 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel Life on Meditrine Island is luxurious . . . but brief. Marla Neuborn has found the best post-grad job in the world — as a “Lamplighter” working on Meditrine Island, an exclusive idyllic paradise owned and operated by a consortium of billionaires. All the Lamplighters have to do is tend to the mansions, cook and clean, and turn on lights to make it appear the owners are home. But the job comes with conditions. Marla will not know the exact location of the island, and she will have no contact with the outside world for the duration of her stay. Once on the island, Marla quickly learns the billionaire lifestyle is not all it is made out to be. The chief of security rules Meditrine with an iron fist. His private police force patrols the shores night and day, and CCTV cameras watch the Lamplighters relentlessly. Soon Marla will also discover first-hand that the island hides a terrible secret. She’ll meet the resident known as the Skin Mechanic. And she’ll find out why so few Lamplighters ever leave the island alive. |
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
 |
The Panama LaughAuthor: Roche, Thomas S. |
||||
|
Nominated for the 2011 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel Ex-mercenary, pirate, and gun-runner Dante Bogart knows he’s screwed the pooch after he hands one of his shady employers a biological weapon that made the dead rise from their graves, laugh like hyenas, and feast upon the living. Dante tried to blow the whistle via a tell-all video that went viral — but that was before the black ops boys deep-sixed him at a secret interrogation site on the Panama-Colombia border. When Dante wakes up in the jungle with the five intervening years missing from his memory, he knows he’s got to do something about the laughing sickness that has caused a world-wide slaughter. The resulting journey leads him across the nightmare that was the Panama Canal, around Cape Horn in a hijacked nuclear warship, to San Francisco’s mission district, where a crew of survivalist hackers have holed up in the pseudo-Moorish-castle turned porn-studio known as The Armory. This mixed band of anti-social rejects has taken Dante’s whistle blowing video as an underground gospel, leading the fight against the laughing corpses and the corporate stooges who’ve tried to profit from the slaughter. Can Dante find redemption and save civilization? |
|||||
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
 |
That Which Should Not BeAuthor: Talley, Brett J. |
||||
|
Nominated for the 2011 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel Miskatonic University has a long-whispered reputation of being strongly connected to all things occult and supernatural. From the faculty to the students, the fascination with other-worldly legends and objects runs rampant. So, when Carter Weston’s professor Dr. Thayerson asks him to search a nearby village for a book that is believed to control the inhuman forces that rule the Earth, Incendium Maleficarum, The Inferno of the Witch, the student doesn’t hesitate to begin the quest. Weston’s journey takes an unexpected turn, however, when he ventures into a tavern in the small town of Anchorhead. Rather than passing the evening as a solitary patron, Weston joins four men who regale him with stories of their personal experiences with forces both preternatural and damned. Two stories hit close to home as they tie the tellers directly to Weston’s current mission. His unanticipated role as passive listener proves fortuitous, and Weston fulfills his goal. Bringing the book back to Miskatonic, though, proves to be a grave mistake. Quickly, Weston realizes he has played a role in potentially opening the gate between the netherworld and the world of Man. Reversing the course of events means forgetting all he thought he knew about Miskatonic and his professor and embracing an unknown beyond his wildest imagination. |
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||
December 2011 (Limited Hardcover — Dark Regions Press)
July 2011 (Trade Paperback — Night Shade Books)
July 2011 (Trade Paperback — Night Shade Books)
Horror Books with the Undead Rat
RPG Addicts Beware
Time in RPGs
With the recent release of ‘The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’, the time of the RPG (role-playing game) is once again upon all avid gamers. These genera above all can generally consume more time than other types of games as they offer a large, open immersive world in which the player can explore, interact with hundreds of resident characters and battle hundreds of enemies. So with this in mind, it’s worth looking at how you can make the most of your time in Skyrim without over doing it!
Firstly, we must give credit where credit is due; it doesn’t take long to realise Skyrim is everything that we were promised. With improved graphics, gameplay and a much more fluid combat engine, Skyrim gives an RPG experience that we have never seen presented with such quality and detail. The sense of complete freedom to roam the wilderness and build a character from scratch is enthralling; making moral decisions that can affect your in-game reputation can make for a very convincing social system and adds to the overall sense of realism within the world of Skyrim.
Time Tracking
Throwing yourself into Skyrim is without a doubt one of the best RPG experiences available to date; but as with many RPGs, Skyrim can be incredibly time consuming and hours can fly by with little effort. The theory is always the same with RGPs; the longer you play the better it gets; new equipment and skills become available to you as your character develops. This is what pushes players to stay and play longer; the urge to further develop your in-game character can add an extra two hours to a gaming session without a second thought.
Spending too much time in open world RPGs is a common problem (particularly in massive multi player RPGs) and over exposure can encourage late nights, missing work and late schoolwork assignments. So when (not if) you find yourself spending a little too much time aback your trusty steed, maybe it’s time to start assessing exactly how much time is suitable for you or your children to spend in the fantasy worlds of RPGs!
A good way of assessing how much time you have spent in-game is by using the time tracking displayed on the ‘load game’ menu; the majority of RPG games will have this feature. Be sure to allocate time for all of your priorities before getting too involved with these games, if you have any work, assignments or social activities planned then try not to involve the games at all that day; it’s all too easy to let them spill over into your other plans.
Take regular breaks and ensure you are getting plenty of fresh air and sunlight, RPGs are very immersive and it’s not hard to spend four or five hour’s in-game without thinking to take a break. Be sure to spend planty of time in your bathroom suites, many gamer’s personal hygiene can suffer when RPGs become too immersive. And lastly, go to bed on time! Skyrim is a very enthralling game and spending “just five more minutes” completing a mission can easily turn into another hour or two when you get side tracked or attacked out of the blue. If you have a set time at which you go to bed then stick to it,
Always remember to prioritise; these games are tempting to pick up at the busiest of times, and developing your character is a lengthy and painstaking process which is not to be rushed. Skyrim and other RPGs alike are games which are not intended to be rushed; play at your leisure and don’t turn it into a chore.
‘The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim’ is truly one of the most impressive single player RPG experiences available today, a huge immersive world and fascinating character development is sure to give any player hours of entertainment. Just remember to prioritise and play recreationally; appreciate the land of Skyrim one dragon at a time!
Written by Daniel Travis – Brown on behalf of Bathshop321, providers of quality bathrooms suites . Follow him on Twitter at @DanTravisBrown
Possibly Related Posts:
- The Top Five Reasons Aliens Have Not Met With us Yet
- 5 Food and Movie Combinations
- Endworlds: Join the Hunt. Save The World.
- Immortal U: The Next Step in Human Evolution
- Top 10 Arcade Games of All Time
Soccer to the Rescue?
At The Atlantic, Rumpus contributor Chris Feliciano Arnold looks at efforts to draw Major League Soccer to Tucson, Arizona and wonders whether building a community around the game can be a healing force in a region “facing one of the most tumultuous periods in its history.”
Related Posts:
Filed under Poetry | Tags: Rescue, Soccer | Comment (0)Heather Killough-Walden’s The Vampire King 5 Book Giveway!!
Our featured author Heather Killough-Walden is offering 5 lucky readers their own copy of The Vampire King!!
To enter just stop by and leave a comment or question on the interview page. Winners will be chosen at random.
*US residents only*
CLICK HERE FOR INTERVIEW AND YOUR CHANCE TO ENTER A COMMENT TO WIN!
Filed under Romance | Tags: Book, Giveway, Heather, KilloughWalden’s, King, Vampire | Comment (0)New Release Interview: THE UNREMEMBERED by Peter Orullian
Finding that diamond in the proverbial rough known as the debut novel—now that is truly fun!
Such is the case with The Unremembered by Peter Orullian! His novel published in hardcover in 2011 and has just recently been released as a mass market paperback! To celebrate that release, I thought I would interview Peter about the book, becoming a published author, how his life has changed, and what’s in store for Book II. Here you go!
Suvudu » Science Fiction and Fantasy Books, Movies, Comics, and Games
Rainbow Book Fair
4th ANNUAL NEW YORK RAINBOW BOOK FAIR
Saturday, March 24, 2012 11am–5:30pm
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center
208 West 13th Street NYC
Welcome to the 4th ANNUAL NEW YORK RAINBOW BOOK FAIR On this website you can find out how you can become a Sponsor of the Rainbow Book Fair, how to become an Exhibitor, and keep abreast of Panels, Readings and the Poetry Salon for the 2012 Fair.
Plan to be a part of the most exciting LGBT book event in the U.S., the
4th Annual New York Rainbow Book Fair. More than 1OO publishers, writers, poets, editors, booksellers, and the 15OO+ readers who love and want to buy their books—from serious to wild, zany, and super hot. It’s totally free to the public with book discounts, giveaways, panels on writing and publishing, author readings, a non-stop Poetry Salon.
The event is sponsored by CLAGS The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies web.gc.cuny.edu/Clags/
Sponsors:
. 
Hosted by:
.
Visit us on Facebook 
Links
http://www.glreview.com/
http://www.gaywisdom.org/
Filed under Poetry
| Tags: Book, Fair, Rainbow |
Comment (0)
The Great Singapore Penis Panic, and Other Fantastic Titles
I am ever-so-slightly obsessed with literary prizes (I’m sure this goes back to my childhood somehow), so I know all about the Bookers and the Whitbread and the Orange and the NBCCs. But somehow I’ve overlooked this one for years: the Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year. It was first bestowed in 1978 (on Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice). Like the Bookers, it’s known its share of controversy: the 2009 winner, The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-Milligram Containers of Fromage Frais, was apparently not authored so much as it was computer generated. (Sadly, the nude mice book is out of print, but if you are concerned about the future of cheese, the fromage frais tome can be yours for a mere 5.)
Today, the Diagram Prize released its 2012 shortlist, and what a list it is:
- A Century of Sand Dredging in the Bristol Channel: Volume Two by Peter Gosson.
- Cooking with Poo by Saiyuud Diwong. (Tragically not available on Amazon. Also, I feel that I should clarify: “Poo” is both the Thai word for “crab” and the author’s nickname.)
- Estonian Sock Patterns All Around the World by Aino Praakli.
- The Great Singapore Penis Panic: And the Future of American Mass Hysteria by Scott D Mendelson.
- Mr Andoh’s Pennine Diary: Memoirs of a Japanese Chicken Sexer in 1935 Hebden Bridge by Stephen Curry and Takayoshi Andoh.
- A Taxonomy of Office Chairs by Jonathan Olivares.
- The Mushroom in Christian Art by John A Rush.
The Great Singapore Penis Panic is my personal favorite of the bunch, but I think you can make a case for most of them. And I think I’d read almost all of them, with the possible exception of the sand-dredging book. To be perfectly honest, I’m not entirely sure I don’t already own the Estonian sock book.
Want to make your voice heard on this important issue? Cast your vote.
Comment on Spanish fan-trans Little Brother ePub by Genevieve
I’m really interested in this (potential) tension between the “fan-translation” and the “Spanish edition” of this work, as I’m trying to work up a presentation on the effect of Creative Commons licensing on translation for the Literature and Translation class that I’m taking. Are all of the “official” translations CC licensed as well, or do the publishers/translators have the freedom to license their work differently? Is the fan-translation remix you list licensed or copyrighted at all? Are the two translations expected to impact each other in any way, given the (actual or perceived) difference in quality between the work of a “professional” and the work of a “fan”? Does having an “official” translation serve in a sense to delegitimize the fan work at all? Was any attempt made to encourage your editor/publisher to pick up the fan-translation rather than use their own translator? I notice you don’t list the name of the “official” translator – is there a reason for that? Do you have someone consistent with whom you work for all of your translations in any given language?
Any thoughts on any of these questions would go a long way to adding depth and insight to my presentation!
Filed under Sci Fi | Tags: Brother, Comment, ePub, fantrans, Genevieve, Little, Spanish | Comment (0)Keeping Your Passport Safe While Traveling Out of the country
Passports are necessary for travel in the modern world. Unfortunately, a stolen pasport can ruin a trip very quickly. This situation can present a multitude of difficulties as a person will have to obtain a duplicate passport before they can return home. It can be quite difficult to get a passport today as the threat of terrorism continues to grow. This has lengthened the time required to get a passport more than ever before. A privatized company is the best choice for anyone to get their passport on time as they can ensure that documents are had in as little as 24 hours.
Application Process
Passports are issued through the United States Department of State. There is usually a lengthy application process that is required before a passport can be issued. Expedition is often available, but will still take several weeks at the least. The best option for a person who wants to make an immediate international trip is to rely on the services that are offered from an independent, expedited pasport agency. They can provide a person with all of the necessary papers to leave the country quickly.
Passport Protection
There are several ways that a person can prevent their passport from being stolen. It is important to keep passports protected both at home and abroad. Experts recommend that when traveling to another country you keep your passport in a secure location that no one but the holder can access. This eliminates the chances that a burglar can steal these documents. There are many tips that can ensure travelers are able to enter and leave a foreign country without losing their passport.
Hotel Services
Hotels and other establishments regularly have safety deposit boxes at the front desk, and visitors are encouraged to leave their passports with the concierge when they check in. There is no need to have documentation while traveling throughout a country. You won’t need it and carrying it around only increases the possibility of having it stolen. Passports can easily be picked up from the concierge at checkout time. This is a very responsible way to protect your passport when traveling abroad.
What To Do If Your Passport Is Stolen
If a traveler has their passport stolen while they are on vacation, there are a few things that should be done immediately. The local consulate should be contacted right away. They will alert the authorities of the missing passport. This may enable a person to recover their original passport. Embassies will also help citizens make the necessary arrangements to have a duplicate issued. This is required before a person can travel through the borders back into the United States.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comment (0)