The Shadow Warriors, soon to be on the Kindle

Soon, before the holidays I hope, my novel of technology and desire, The Shadow Warriors will be available for purchase on your Kindle.  I haven't set a price yet, but it will be cheap.  Information Warfare is as ripped from the headlines as it was in the nineties when I began to write the novel.  Amazon has some good reviews if you want to check them out.  Don't get it mixed up with Tom Clancy or Korea or the computer game.  Next time I'll Google the title far and wide. 

Just a heads up.  Sorry for the Blatant Self Promotion.
 

Emma Lee Davis must delve deep into the past to find a weapon to end the Infowar that threatens to de-stabilize a computer-dependent global economy.  Project manager of a  tiny firm of cyber-sleuths, Emma scrambles to make the connections between a body washing up on a beach in Singapore, and the technical derring-do at a German university.

She tracks a desperate hacker planning a unique software auction, a determined entrepreneur who will stop at nothing to acquire  ‘bleeding edge’ software and  tumbles onto a new generation of terrorists with their own agenda. 

Emma and her colleagues are sucked into a vortex of lies, spies, and betrayals and ultimately into the sleaze and paranoia of Berlin in the months before the wall comes down. Not quite glamorous, sometimes nerdy, always nosy, irreverent and intuitive, Emma becomes the reluctant sleuth. She narrates the story as she scrambles to manage a software project and her complicated love life, while puzzling over the paradox, “if our mission is to stop computer crime, why are we abetting it?”

  More holiday recipes anon, including from scratch Green Bean Casserole and Sweet Potatoes Stuff in Orange Shells.  Check out the Pumpkin Bars.  Yowza! 

Chicken Pot Pie

Roast chicken last night with garlic and lemon and thyme.  Such a heady infusion.  We ate it with mashed potatoes and cauliflower.  The pan drippings made a lovely sauce.  This was a big chicken (4 pounds) and we had generous leftovers.  Tonight I'm whipping up a 2008 Wine and Food recipe for a pot pie.  It's made in a skillet and baked in the oven, and instead of a crust, one takes thickly sliced bread and makes a crust, buttering generously, natch.  Sounds pretty good.  I made a broth from the scraps and bones of the chicken, adding some aromatics.  If I remember, I'll post a photo of the pie if it's gorgeous.

We tend to dig into the meal and remember the photo when the dish has been decimated.  Note to Blog:  It's Gorgeous!

Fall chores mostly done.  Still have cherry and grape tomatoes ripening, an extra unexpected bonus.  The dahlias have a new life, as do the tuberous begonias.  Greedy finches suck the food out of the feeder like it's water.  Woodpecker on the house this a.m.  The cats were most intrigued.   

I just finished reading The Help, and loved it.  Since it's been on the best seller list for 78 weeks, I must be one of the few   still to read.  I read it on my Kindle.   Love that e-reader.

One more chapter to go in my WiP.  Wheee!

Grapeshot

Cyber Czar

All this news (you do read a newspaper, don't you?) about the Cyber-Czar has me thinking of The Shadow Warriors, the book about Information Warfare that I wrote in the late nineties, published as an e-book in 2001, and by Booksurge in 2003. Jeepers, that's six years ago.

One of the cool things that in the opening pages of the book the protag is reading a paper about the appointment of the new cyber czar.

When we actually have an "info war," perhaps a mainstream publisher will pick up The Shadow Warriors, give it a quick edit and put it out for the world to find and read. Maybe it will even be available on the Kindle.

The "Warriors" are really rather fun, a dark romp, with scenes from Singapore and Hong Kong to a university town in Germany and Boston's Fanieul Hall and Public Garden. The sweep of history, if you will. It was such fun to write and I still had a lot of passion for writing in those days.

Now I carefully craft words, almost bloodlessly, although every now and then I work up a big push of enthusiasm when a scene that interests me needs to be written. Not true, really, but I had MORE enthusiasm in the old days when I thought a mainstream publisher would snap up my novels like carp after a worm.

Didn't happen.

I've been tweaking Festival Madness. When I wrote about Burning Man, the passion came back, because I could return to the Man, actually be there in my writing. I've been tweaking the beginning. Still not quite there. The queries weren't eliciting requests for the full manuscript or even partials. Zero interest. Sometimes I want to set my hair on fire.

Once more into the breach. Thank god the stuffed escarole is history and tonight we had black bean soup with chorizo and chicken and it was tastsy. I'm making composed salads from the garden and the supermarket and using my plane grater and they are good, good good.

Reading Sue Grafton's T is for Trespass. She's such a fine writer. Her writing never calls attention to itself, but keeps you on the page.

I loaded three more books and my friends manuscript onto my Kindle. Wheee!

Grapeshot

Report on the Kindle

It's actually a lot of fun to read on the Kindle. My first and so far only book is Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time. It's not what I expected, but her writing is sublime and I am enjoying it a lot. No way to lose your place. Shuts off when you get up to do something.

I'm still working on getting my novel downloaded to it, and the learning curve is a little, well, curvier. I'll definitely put another book or two on it before leaving for south Florida. Taking my new notebook as well. A high tech trip, along with the digital camera.

The trip is for research on my WIP. Work In Process to the uninitiated. I have travelled to South Florida for years and years, either on business or pleasure and sometimes both. However, I never thought I would find myself writing about it. Heaven knows, there are so many authors who use the setting, and it's a great setting. Carl Hiaasen comes to mind. John McDonald's Travis Magee (sp?) hung out, as well as many others. The Florida MWA is a large and productive group.

Nevertheless, my character headed to Florida and I followed her, and she went to Miami and Key West, locales I only had a passing acquaintance with, and now I need some telling details. My drug lord lives in Miami and the character makes a crucial trip to the Keys. Again, the plot follows its wimsey, in a controlled way, of course.

The web is good for research, but nothing beats being there. So I'm off. The best thing is the book takes place this time of year, so I should be able to nail weather, sunsets, what's blooming, how wilted one feels, and all that good stuff. Yes!

More anon.

Grapeshot

The Big Birthday

Here we are in Boston on our "Staycation." Note the words "stay" and "cat." We stayed home for the kitties, who had enough trauma for one week with Annie's seizure. They seem to be back to normal.

Yesterday we viewed the Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto exhibit at the MFA, then had a lovely if expensive brunch in the main dining room. Obviously one pays for the live music, the luxurious banquettes, the serenity and the garden view. But nice. I think I liked Tintoretto best. Always a soft heart for rebels.

I got a Kindle which has provided awe that one small device could be so cool. I've always wanted an e-book reader ever since I first pubished the Shadow Warriors as an e-book, or rather RFI West did. I am still getting used to it. Downloaded a Josephine Tey book first as a great price.

About the birds there is the following to say: they are scarce, and I hope it's because they are feasting on those $#**!$ inch worms. The goldfinches are at the thistle seed feeder in force, and yesterday with three males, there were a lot of fights. The hummingbird is back at her feeder, so sweet. Sometimes I spy her in the tree. We finally saw a chipmunk. Something decimated them over the winter.

Carnage on Cocasset Street. Hope it wasn't the neighborhood fox. And the white geese are missing from Glue Factory Pond. I know. Horrible name. Whatchagonna do? I carry all the wildlife worries in my breast.

The beets and the spinach have been transplanted to their proper homes, and now the garden is officially "ready." We will still get a bag of impatiens tomorrow. Lots of work and many tasks this year.

How about that orange rhoddy? I am the proud mom.

Grapeshot