StanleyWheeler

  Interview with Alma Alexander Author of Changer of Days, Fractured Fairy Tales, and The Second Star Please tell me a little about your current work in progress. Currently wibbling between several projects to embark on – a science fiction novel, an urban fantasy, a historical fantasy, or an epic fantasy follow-up story on my “Changer of Days” novel which has just been released as a 20 th anniversary edition. I am leaning towards the SF book mainly because one of the characters is turning insistent – but I haven’t made up my mind yet…. Where did you get the idea for this book or series? If we’re talking about the science fiction novel I mentioned in question 1…the roots of it lie in a dream. I’ve done that before, for stories – dreamed either the whole thing or a beginning which then gets embroidered on and expanded as I start to think more about it. Do you write in more than one genre? Yes. Several. But mostly I swim in “fantasy” waters, with various subgenres coming in...

All three books in the first trilogy are available for only $0.99 cents each for a limited time. This is America -- with dragons, and magic, and monsters! Here are links to each: Threading the Rude Eye  -- Available as an ebook and in paperback. Power to Hurt  -- Available as an ebook and in paperback. Clamorous Harbingers --Available as an ebook - and coming soon in paperback.

For Flag Day, allow me to quote myself from Dec. 28, 2017: "For a few minutes, the audience and players, home and away, are united in reverence and respect for the sacrifices of those who brought forth a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, for the brave whose sacrifices have hallowed the cause; we add our devotion to the proposition, with knowledge of past imperfections, but with a desire to preserve this more perfect union."  When we honor the flag, we honor the nation, its founders, and those who have sacrificed their blood and treasure to protect it. While some prefer to focus upon shortcomings and injustice, both real and imagined, I suggest a recollection and return to the principles of the protection of life, liberty, and property upon which this republic was founded. Theodore Roosevelt said that a successful republic must combine intensity of conviction with broad tolerance for a difference of convict...

"Witch hunts are really only obnoxious for the witches." "Canada is America's hat." These were two of the comments I overheard yesterday during a game of Apples to Apples. I take no responsibility for, nor do I endorse the comments, but I did find them entertaining. Fun Fact : The British, having utterly failed to understand the position of the American colonists, decided that the best answer to the Boston Tea Party was the adoption of the Coercive Acts aimed at punishing Boston and Massachusetts. The Coercive Acts closed Boston Harbor until the damages for the loss of the tea were repaid, restricted Massachusetts' town meetings and made the governor's council an appointed body, made British officials immune from prosecution in Massachusetts, required colonists to house and quarter British troops on demand, and also extended freedom of worship to Catholics in Canada and allowed the continuation of their judicial system. If the British thought the...

Fun Facts : The Tea Act of 1773 might have been a stone calculated to kill two birds. If it was, it didn't. The British East India Company had dire financial problems. The American colonies disputed parliament's authority to tax and control them without elected representation. Parliament addressed both issues through the Tea Act with a tax of 3 pence on tea imported to the colonies. Of course existing legislation had already prohibited the colonies from importing tea from anyone other than Great Britain. Prior to 1773, the EIC didn't actually sell tea to the colonies, but sold it wholesale in Britain to merchants who then resold it to merchants in the colonies. As a result of a colonial boycott on British products, in 1770 Parliament had actually repealed most of the taxes in the Townsend Acts. The tax on tea was one of those not repealed; it was maintained as a show of authority to tax the colonies. With repeal of the Townsend taxes, the colonies lifted the boycott and tra...

Strap down the grey matter and hold on to your cerebellum (not to be confused with antebellum or parabellum) Clamorous Harbingers  will give your mind a ride! (Yes. I was listening to Boston when that bit of self promotional inspiration came to me). Not yet, but soon. My proclamation is premature as I've not yet completed the book. However, "Havoc!" has been cried, and the dogs of war let slip. The battle at the cache to shape the future of empires and liberty's struggle has commenced. Perhaps I should go into television repair. I performed a life-extending surgery on our television. The IR sensor which reads the remote had gone bad. It had started as a frequent but not complete failure to respond to the input from the remote control. In a matter of days, the failure to hearken waxed into willful rebellion such that all commands had to be given by physical administration. Wife picked up a new remote, but the TV's fault, like that of Brutus, lay not with the s...