Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Breaking Bad Spin-Off "Better Call Saul"

Guest blog by SciFi/Humor author Walter Knight...

I dearly miss the TV series "Breaking Bad."  Its main Character Walter White (another world famous Walter) died horribly way too early.  I'm hoping Walter can be saved via soap opera surgery. 

I became on a first-name basis with much of the cast characters.  Grizzled ex-police officer Mike and DEA Agent Hank were interesting enough to carry their own shows.  R.I.P.  Marie, Walter Jr., and Skyler were annoying, but good support for the others.  Villain Gustovo deserved to die, but why Tuco?  Tuco was cool, wearing his temper on his sleeve.  The sidekick Badger was too loveable to kill off, but I feared for Skinny Pete.

But now "Breaking Bad" will live on in a spin-off, "Better Call Saul," featuring shady attorney Saul Goodman.  Junkie Jessie Pinkman may even make a cameo appearance.  I hope success for "Better Call Saul" so I can get my "Breaking Bad" fix.  It's been too long.  I'm still a bit twitchy from withdrawals. 

"Better Call Saul" premieres Feb 8, 2015 (AMC)

And don't miss Walter Knight's BREAKING VERY BAD - the next volume in the wildly popular AMERICA'S GALACTIC FOREIGN LEGION series, coming soon to Amazon!

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

New Book Release: The Valkyries Book 1

Penumbra Publishing is pleased to welcome veteran historical author Ann Chamberlin and present the first book in her latest series, THE VALKYRIES.

THE VALKYRIES BOOK 1
CHOOSERS OF THE SLAIN
by Ann Chamberlin
Fiction: Historical Fantasy Mythology



Throughout the recited and recorded history of mankind in all cultures, a few women have gone to great lengths to rise above their inherent positions of obscurity. Often they have reached a position of recognition only through great sacrifice. Common history chooses to discount the efforts and contributions of these amazing women, but this more thorough telling strives to give due credit, even in the fantasy realm of fiction. This series, The Valkyries, is dedicated to the goal of telling the woman’s side of history and life, predicated on the determination that not all myth and lore is reserved to celebrate men alone.
The Valkyries tells the story of one such woman. As a young girl, Brynhild of the Peoples of the North, the tribe of the Angles, is doomed to die in the Spring Thaw ritual. However, she manages to skirt death, only to be marked as warriormaiden destined to ride with Odin. How she comes into her own as she suffers the trials and tribulations of the life thrust upon her is only part of the story. Throughout her life, she wrestles with questions that plague her. As a female, is it possible to claim glory and freedom only at the expense of denying one’s womanhood? And the freedom from womanhood – is it truly freedom or some sham construct, a cruel trick played by the gods?
Perhaps there are no answers, only the life she chooses to live, despite the glower of the god who chose her, One-Eye, Aesir of the Sky. Perhaps her destiny truly is what she has always tried to avoid – embracing the Vanir of the Earth and her role in the Wheel of Life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
 

Ann Chamberlin believes that the purpose of storytelling – as of all true art as well as all true religion – is to support positions in exact opposition to the views prevailing in a culture’s powerhouses, whatever those views happen to be. Nowhere is this more crucial than in the retelling of history. As Milan Kundera tells us, people in the powerhouses are not so interested in who will control the future as in who controls the airbrushes in the labs where the past’s photos are retouched.
Born and raised in Salt Lake City, Ann Chamberlin also spent big blocks of time as a child in Europe where her father was visiting professor of mathematics. After flitting from school to school and major to major including theater, history, and English, she finally majored in Archaeology of the Middle East at the University of Utah. She spent a summer in Israel excavating the biblical city of Be’er Sheva, traveling throughout the Holy Land and living in the old city of Jerusalem for a month. She reads Hebrew, Arabic, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and ancient Akkadian, as well as French and German. She has traveled across all of North Africa, Turkey, Syria, and Jordan. She has two sons and twelve chickens, and lives in an old farm house on nearly two acres near Salt Lake City.
Ann is the author of fourteen historical novels, several of them named best foreign historical of the year by Romantic Times. Ann is pleased to announce a nonfiction history of women in the Middle East, through Haworth Press. She is the author of many plays which have been produced across the country from Seattle to New York. To find out more about Ann and her books, please visit her web site at

Look for THE VALKYRIES BOOK 1: CHOOSERS OF THE SLAIN at popular online retailers like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords, in both ebook and print!


Thursday, October 2, 2014

Sci Fi author interview - Barry K. Nelson

Barry K. Nelson, author of THE MCKENZIE FILES science fiction series, has completed three books in the series, THE MCKENZIE FILES, and ASSASSINATION ANXIETY, BOOK 2 OF THE MCKENZIE FILES. The third book, OBLITERATION, is in publishing production right now.

Barry was recently interviewed by THE INKWELL. Check out the interview and stay tuned for OBLITERATION, BOOK 3 OF THE MCKENZIE FILES!

Friday, September 5, 2014

New Book Release: America's Galactic Foreign Legion Book 20

AMERICA’S GALACTIC FOREIGN LEGION
Book 20: Time Machine
Walter Knight
Fiction: Military/Futuristic/Humor/Time Travel
 
In the twentieth installment of this preposterous science fiction series, Colonel Joey R. Czerinski and Major (or is it General?) Manny Lopez guard the time machine recovered from an earlier altercation with a now-defunct alien species. Perhaps ‘guard’ is a loose interpretation of what is done with the time machine. The CIA, intent on changing the future by visiting the past, launches a mission to remold history. Meanwhile, Czerinski is tasked with overseeing the ratings-rich use of the time machine to observe historical events via drones sent back in time for ‘live’ broadcasts.

Of course, anything that can go wrong does, and Czerinski finds himself battling time paradoxes, Lopez’s evil time-twin from the future, and his own greed in an attempt to keep the time-space continuum in balance. The Arthropodan spider commander is pulled into the fray when Czerinski, while remotely observing Jesus’ crucifixion in the past, accidently transports the revered prophet to the future – and all Hell breaks loose. It will take nothing short of a miracle to fix this mess, but with Jesus now inducted into the Legion, courtesy of a sneaky ATM, maybe God will have to step in and take charge.

Whatever happens, the laughs are sure to keep coming.

Buy in ebook or print at popular online retailers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords!

New Book Release: THE HARD WAY

THE HARD WAY
James Boedeker
FICTION: Military/Action-Adventure

Growing up dirt-poor in the Wyoming wilderness as part of the white-trash Childress clan, Jonah learned life’s lessons fast, the hard way. At six years of age, Jonah learned to hunt to help feed his family. He also learned to fight to protect his sister.

With a drunken abusive father and a hapless lazy mother, Jonah had no hope, but vowed somehow to save his little sister Gail from their hell on earth. Then along came Kevin O’Malley, a soldier awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, in Wyoming with his wife for a vacation hunting trip.

Kevin took notice of the remarkable Jonah Childress. He couldn’t allow this boy’s life to be wasted. When Kevin’s wife Stacey agreed to take on the care of the two children, Kevin was all-in to save Jonah and Gail. His first order of business was to get the boy and his sister away from their abusive situation. That turned out to be no easy task, especially when Jonah had learned to trust no one, and the Childress clan wasn’t about to let go of one of their own without a fight.

Kevin was the type of man who’d never give up. He had long-range plans for Jonah. But, in the end, what would it really cost him – all of them?

Find this title in ebook or print at popular online retailers like Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes & Noble!

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Will You Wear Technology?

Science fiction has always been at the forefront of predicting future technology and related issues. Although not exactly science fiction, Dick Tracy comics by Chester Gould sported the wristwatch communicator, and over 80 years later, we're still waiting for it to become a commercial reality. (Although tantalizing TV advertisements have recently suggested it is a reality...)

Walter Knight, author of the popular AMERICA'S GALACTIC FOREIGN LEGION scifi series, has this to say about wearable technology...



I see wearable technology as the next big thing. What used to be science fiction is becoming reality.

The most obvious wearable technology I've explored in my "America's Galactic Foreign Legion" science fiction series is the helmet camera, a reality now. Soldiers, police officers, security guards, etc., wear cameras at work. Soon, everyone will be wearing these cameras on errands and vacations. We've already seen many news reports showing biker helmet cameras and dash camera images.



... in Afghanistan was captured on special forces' helmet-mounted camerasPrivacy concerns are now focused on those cameras' encounters, and on government intrusion. I'm more concerned with the privacy of the wearer of the camera. What if an employer insists all employees wear the cameras? Will your union go along with that? What about bathroom breaks? Cheating at work? Picking your nose and flatulence? Political correctness? It all gets recorded and archived. Then there are hackers stealing images and posting them on the internet.

Fortunately, there is a low-tech solution if this scenario becomes reality. Duct tape over the camera lens. Ha! Another use for duct tape!

What wearable technology do you think will be the next big thing?

Let me know - visit my web page at waltknight@yolasite.com

See Walt's books at Amazon.com and other popular book retailers online!

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Review for ... ZOMBIE MISSOURI by Walter Knight

www.zombiebookblog.com was kind enough to post a review for Walter Knight's ZOMBIE MISSOURI...

Here's a short summary of the book followed by the review:

ZOMBIE MISSOURI
Walter Knight
SciFi Humor



Teenage loser Lenny Dreckle of Johnson City, Missouri, is finally a winner – in the zombie lotto. About to be shot by robbers at the Taco Bell after hours, Lenny’s saved by a bright light that scares the robbers away. Unfortunately, the world as Lenny knows it is fast coming to an end. An unknown disaster kills ninety percent of the human population, turning them into flesh-eating zombies.
Teaming up with other survivors and armed with cans of cat food to distract the zombies, Lenny embarks on a bizarre odyssey to find the cause of the zombie apocalypse and to take back the world one town at a time, starting with Johnson City. The question is, can Lenny keep his hands off the lovely zombie Andrea and avoid being devoured or infected by her? Loser that Lenny is, his fate hangs in the balance.

=================================

I’m not quite sure where to start with Zombie, Missouri. To be honest, I read the first few chapters of this book and put it down, relatively sure I wasn’t going to finish it. I’d make my apologies to the author who requested the review and be done with it. However, the guy spent his time asking for the review and, as your ever faithful Head Zombie, I always strive to do what I say I’m going to do… so I soldiered on.

I love hilarious zombie tales. Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland are in my top five favorite ZA movies of all time. I also love books that go against the grain and blow up zombie lore as we know it – writers get points from me for not following the rules which is exactly why I’m not going to trash Zombie, Missouri. It takes balls to pull off something like this. Make no mistake, however – those of you who are zombie purists will not enjoy this book AT ALL.

The main character is a stoner teenager named Lenny Dreckle whose primary objective, even in the ZA, is to lose his virginity. He teams up with a woman named Kansas (who has no intention of giving him any play at all) and together they must somehow fend off the zombies (and the aliens and maybe even the Chinese – those bastards) with or without the help of a weird, pill popping mad scientist sort named Oz. Dreckle may have a chance of getting some from his girlfriend Andrea, if he can keep the zombie hoochie from eating his brains.

The problem, in my opinion, with Zombie, Missouri is that it’s like getting on the tilt-a-whirl at the carnival right after you’ve finished with your cherry milkshake, your cherry corndog and your chicken cherry-yaki but before you’ve taken a good, stiff swig of your cherry Pepto Bismol. It’s everywhere at once and you just don’t know where to look as you’re getting tossed around and praying you don’t have to revisit your carnie cherry goodness.

Not to completely mislead you – this book is totally, freaking gut-bustingly funny in parts. At times I think I may have laughed so hard I peed a little. The characters do make you want to care for them and you do hope they make it so at least you’ll get to see what wacky and unpredictable thing they’ll do next. This book is like the ZA hopped up on meth or at least five or six shots of Five Hour Energy.
Walter Knight gets an A for originality and cojones, but Zombie, Missouri gets THREE out of FIVE ZOMBIE HEADS.

3

Break Time's Over, Back to WORK!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, so maybe some of you out there have noticed a sort of ... lull ... in the posting schedule for Penumbra Publishing's blog. (Or maybe you didn't notice.) There's a plethora of excuses...

1. Computer broke
2. Took some sick days
3. Took some snow days
4. Dog ate homework

But who cares anyway, now that

WE'RE BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!

Hang in there while we get our mojo going full-swing.