A book trailer I helped to make...

Check out this cool book trailer I helped create this week. I took a lot of the photos that were used as a basis for the "sketches" and located a few of the others. The music from Incompetech.com is really stirring, too, don't you think?

Better yet, The Hetzenberg Chronicles: Volume 1, is now on sale until the end of the year. It's available at Amazon and via the publisher, Smiling Assassin Productions, too. The author always gets more royalties if you buy directly through the publisher, you know. Remember that whenever you shop at Amazon. ;-)

More videos should be on their way soon and can be found at our You Tube "Smiling Assassin Presents" Channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/cynthianna63?feature=mhsn

Enjoy!

Smiling Assassin Presents...

The hubby and I finally did it!

Check out our new video showcasing some of our most original and functional designs for the most discriminating SF/Fantasy/Steampunk enthusiast:


Smiling Assassin Presents...




Enjoy! (And don't forget to contact us early with your holiday orders.) ;)

http://www.smilingassassin.com

"Original and Functional art for gamers and SF fans"

Writers Don't Get an Even Break

I'm re-printing a blog post here written by my husband, A J Matthews. It demonstrates the uphill climb (and constant slogging) we writers take as we try to make a living (or at least sell a few copies of our books).

A Disappointing Review...

Somewhere in the middle of the night my name must have changed. This from the book review of The Hetzenberg Chronicles, vol. 1, as printed in issue 23 of Battlegames magazine.

"...Mr Mitchell clearly had enormous fun writing this book and his enthusiasm for his characters is obvious, but alas, not contagious. The lack of either any wargames background or historical verisimilitude make it hard to think of anyone to whom I could honestly recommend this book." --John Preece

Hello? Excuse me? Mr. Mitchell? Who he?

A writing friend, an award-winning book reviewer for print and online publications, and who has been quoted in Publisher's Review on more than one occasion, upon reading this review states:

It appears that the editor of this publication doesn't proof his book reviewers' articles--as seen by the reviewer calling you by a different last name. What is more troubling, is it is obvious that the "reviewer" didn't read your book at all or at least not in its entirety. He seems to be copying details from the blurb on the back cover and possibly picked up something from your blog, but he doesn't authoratively discuss the plot, the characterizations or the over-all tone of the piece. (He does seem to have an ax to grind against "historical romance" or novels in general. Where did he come up with this idea your book is a romance anyhow? I'd classify it as "historical fiction" since Imaginations are a "fictional" concept as you explained it to me.) I find this "review" very sloppy journalism, and paints all of us who write professional book reviews as incompetents. I mean, how can you trust this person's opinion (and by extension, the magazine's) on anything if they can't 1) bother to proofread articles for inaccuracies before publication, and 2) they don't insist on their "reviewers" reading the entire book before reviewing it. Very disappointing on the whole.

So what would you do in my place? As the quote above says, it's very disappointing. I had hoped to receive an honest review from someone who would see this as a novel and not a dedicated wargames publication full of rules, background data etc. How do you feel if you've read the review -- do you think this reviewer has 1) read the book 2) has an axe to grind against novels in general and romance in particular (and why did he assume the book is an historical romance? Anyone who has read the book would know it isn't). 3) I can understand publisher Henry Hyde had some personal troubles to deal with recently, but why did Battlegames magazine let this pass un-copyedited?

I am rather hurt by this, and don't know if I should pursue the matters outlined above with Battlegames or not. At the moment I'm working on the next volume of The Hetzenberg Chronicles - The Heat of Battle - but such a "review" from a respected magazine doesn't make it easy to continue. Any help or advice you fans of the Hetzenberg Chronicles can give will be appreciated.

Thanks for reading and for your support,

A J Matthews - not Mitchell!


If you feel inspired, give A J a comment at his "Hetzenberg Chronicles" blog and let him know that all is not lost. Thanks.

Why Can’t We All Just Learn to Recycle?

You’re not seeing things—that’s a piano….sitting by a dumpster. It’s being thrown out. It wasn’t a particularly good piano (I couldn’t get it to make a sound), but you’d think its last owner could have found another home for it instead of simply tossing it out on the junk heap, wouldn’t you?

I discovered the piano the other night while out walking with the hubby. He honestly didn’t see it when I pointed it out to him, and he’s got better eyesight than I do. The reason he didn’t see it was probably because there are so many items being dumped in our neighborhood on a weekly basis that something the size of a piano doesn’t really make a mark on your conscious. We regularly spy sofas, overstuffed chairs, kitchen tables, end tables, mattresses, dressers, plastic cabinets, bookshelves, entertainment centers, televisions, lamps, urns, carpets, Christmas decorations, etc., being put out with the trash. A lot of these items we’ve put to good use, too.




And before you ask, yes, we do have mandatory recycling where we live. We have to sort our garbage out into bins for plastics, papers, metals and other recyclable materials. But for some unknown reason, you can’t make people pick up the phone and call Goodwill or the Salvation Army to take away these large items to sell and put the money to good use. Sad, isn’t it?

If you don’t want to garage sale your items, put them on Craig's List, or donate them to a charity shop, people like us will continue to put them to good use ourselves (if we can use and/or move the item—the piano was a bit out of our league). But wouldn’t it be nice if we could all come up with a better alternative to rid ourselves of old furniture items rather than sending them off to the landfill?

Hot Time in the City

Hot time! Summer in the city--back of my neck gettin' hot and gritty!

Yeah, it's summer, it's sweltering, and my melted brain has resorted to quoting (badly I might add) lyrics from a classic top 40 hit. It can't get much worse than this, huh?

Well, all hasn't been that bad this summer. The handsome man and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary on July 3rd. Yipee!! We still haven't killed each other (yet) in spite of the heat. The honeymoon keeps going on and on.

Revisiting the scene of the crime--er, our wedding in the park gazebo!

And we've done a bit of "time-traveling" again at a regional historical re-enactment. Here are some photos from the first ever "Muster at Forest Glen". It was held at a very lovely park near Danville, Illinois, and a good contingent of French and Indian War re-enactors showed up (in spite of the horrible heat and humidity) and some of the public did as well, too.

Discussing topics of high importance--like how to avoid the French field surgeon who'd bleed you to death!

Drilling before the battle.

You try smiling in the heat in all these layers. Our ancestors were first-rate masochists!

Big cannon goes KA-BOOM!

Diana demonstrates the art of spinning to eager young minds.

Adrian hits the bullseye with his tomahawk throw. Don't mess with him, Frenchpersons!

The British contingent at colors.

As soon as it cools down here, I promise to write something more coherent. In the meantime, all we can do is sit and fan ourselves silly... There's really nothing else one can do when it's 110 degrees in the shade, is there?