Thank you!

Good Monday, everyone!

Back from the holiday weekend, I start up my daily routine of Outlook and Google Analytics, an astounding number of emails begin to flood my inbox. Beyond that, my blog Analytics has an enormous spike on Thursday... Wow! What a response to Steven Savile's SILVER. I have already responded to them once with thanks, but now I come again, posting a separate message to those who went the extra mile by posting referrals from their sites to ours! Please be sure to visit the following friends - great content, great friends:

• Stel Pavlou
• Andreas at Cross-Cult Publishers
• TLM-Blog
• James A Moore
• Stefan Linblad
• Mark Seiber at Horror Drive-In

If there is anyone that I missed, apologies, but a heart felt thanks goes out to you too.

The SILVER Cover is Here!

That's right, the wait is over! For you die hard fans, this has been a long time coming. Even longer for those of you who are Steven Savile fans. But here it is, SILVER, in all of its Larry Rostant glory:



One of our best covers to date, and it should be as a lot of blood, sweat and tears went into this bad boy. So, what do you think? Be sure to leave your thoughts! Do you think that this could make him the #1 bestseller here in the US that he is internationally? Want to help make that happen? Pre-order SILVER at Amazon today!

Need a little push for the pre-buy? Here are the blurbs we have to date, more to come of course:

"SILVER is a wild combination of Indiana Jones, The Da Vinci Code, and The Omen. Read this book...before the world ends."
-- Kevin J Anderson, international best selling author of THE SAGA OF SEVEN SUNS and coauthor of PAUL OF DUNE

"Move over Dan Brown! Steven Savile's coming for you and he's got a silver dagger!"
-- Stel Pavlou, international best selling author of DECIPHER and GENE

"With SILVER, Steven Savile has delivered a stunning and bold thriller that sheds new light on the world of terror and uncovers a dark history that rocks the foundations of the modern world. A must read!"
-- Jeremy Robinson, author of PULSE and KRONOS

To match these great blurbs, SILVER rights have been sold to more than a dozen countries world wide! Jump on the band wagon and join the rest of the world in SILVER fever.

AJ Tata on O'Reilly TONIGHT!

Good Thursday, Zealots!

I hope all you US inhabitants are looking forward to the anniversary of the birth of our nation over this long weekend. Be sure to keep those close to your mind and heart this weekend who keep us independent, both stationed around the world and here closer to home!

Along those lines, Sudden Threat and Rogue Threat author, Brigadier General (ret.) AJ Tata, will be on Bill O'Reilly's The O'Reilly Factor tonight, live at 8pm EST (5pm PST). If you are more of a night owl, it will replay at 11p EST (8p PST), and tomorrow morning at 5a EST (2a PST). Joining him will be former presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, also a Fox News show host of Huckabee. Be sure to tune in!



This isn't the first time that Tata has been on Fox News, visit our YouTube Channel to see all of his appearances, including Fox and Friends.



After you watch the show, I would love to hear your thoughts! Be sure to stop by and leave a comment. Enjoy.

Events: Steve Alten

Hey fans,

Here are a few events going on, interviews of Steve Alten, author of MEG: Hell's Aquarium to be more exact.

• TODAY, June 29! 2:08 PM Alaska Time (6:08PM EST), www.kybr.com - Eddie Burke Show
• July 1st, 9:35 am EST, www.wmov1360.com - Live with Greg Gack
• July 7th, 9:05 am MST (11:05am EST), www.1530kcmn.com - Tron in the Morning

Enjoy the events! If any past ones get archived, I'll be sure to get them up on the website so you can listen to them at a later date - all authors included.

Thanks fans! Looking for certain content? Let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Sean Young

Can the real Sean Young, please stand up? =)>

If you're out there Sean, we need your contact info. Since you've moved from your old S. African residence we have no contact info for you.

For all you others, take a look at Sean Young and his historical thriller, Violent Sands.

Thanks everyone.

Paul Byers Says Thanks; Steven Savile Interviewed

Good day people,

I couldn't help but post something on a Monday, it's been habit =)>. Any who, Paul Byers, author of Catalyst, had a couple of signings a few weeks back, and in response to that he wanted me to send out a message of thanks:

Thank you fans of the Great Pacific Northwest!

Thanks to all of you who came out to Borders Books on June 6th, you helped make my first signing there in Lynnwood a great success and thank you to those who came out the following week to the Borders in Everett who helped keep the interest going strong there.

Also a special thanks to those who attended the Olympic Flight Museum’s air show in Olympia, this past Father’s Day weekend. It was a great show and with your support, my best turnout for a book signing yet!

Thanks to all.

Paul


We here at Variance also thank the fans that went out for your support!

Next, Steven Savile, author of SILVER, had an interview posted this past weekend, and what a great interview! You can find it here, http://hagelrat.blogspot.com/2009/06/steven-savile-interview.html, and granted it's not on SILVER specifically, but is on Steve, who he is, and what he's about.

And speaking of SILVER, we are so close to a finalized cover... I can't wait to unveil it!

That's it for now. I may have more later today, including upcoming events for a few authors, so enjoy this for now and we shall talk to you soon!

Authors Are People Too! - Daniel Brenton

Tidings Variance fans!

I hope you had a wonderful weekend and are excited for this, the last, Authors Are People Too! Our final guest is Daniel Brenton, co-author of RED MOON.



Q. What questions have you always wished people would ask you?
A. We managed to finagle a few interviews, a couple of them being by podcasters, which turned into interviews by phone or by Skype. One interviewer asked a question that I felt was really pretty thoughtful, to the point of being innovative: "Is there anything I didn't ask that you wished I had?"

I think we both drew a blank at that point.

I didn't realize interviews could lead to moments of hair-raising astonishment, but this one in particular did. I'll need to set this up a little.

In the book, Dave Michaels used the historical character of S.P. Korolev, the father of (and driving force behind) the Soviet space program, to make the point that the space program was a way to divert attention (and some funding) away from the nuclear weapons race. On the other side of the ocean, he had a collaborator in spirit: most of you probably remember John Kennedy's words that provoked America to throw the gauntlet down before the Soviet Union and challenge it to a duel in the heavens:

First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.

With this, Kennedy did in fact turn the Cold War into a symbolic war in the heavens, which almost certainly distracted us from our seemingly hell-bent drive for Mutual Assured Destruction.

In the interview I made reference to this theme and specifically to Kennedy's challenge, and managed to get out the sentence: "by doing this, he may in fact have saved the human race." In the final podcast, the interviewer closed the episode by seizing on this sentence and repeating it staccato with several enhancing effects, which, frankly, gave me chills when I heard it.


Q. Where do you get your ideas?
A. Everyone asks this question, and I guess I'm a little surprised that people ask it. I say this in that I've always had a very active imagination (RE-active at times, sometimes to my detriment), so much so I still am surprised at people who don't share this. I think in part the reason I do is that it was a childhood escape. Frankly, my home environment was not particularly pleasant emotionally. As a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut, and I remember many happy days spent at libraries during the summers, absolutely fascinated with any book with anything to do with space flight. A personal favorite (long after it had become outdated) was The Exploration of Mars by Willy Ley and Wernher von Braun, featuring those gorgeous paintings by Chesley Bonestell. In reflection, this was probably about as far as I could get from my home (symbolically), so it's not really surprising.

To ... actually answer the question: sometimes, outwardly, I can juxtapose two very different ideas and come up with something interesting, though I think this is really a way of accessing an internal process. I think it's really a matter of being quiet and letting the mind connect with the unconscious mind. Usually if I have a story problem or need, I get a handle on the problem and hang on to it until I get an answer. I've been doing this so long that I pretty much take for granted that there's always an answer, even if it's an answer that says I have to start over. It's a process.

Ideas, actually, are cheap. It's the execution that's important. I read recently that Harlan Ellison, author of all those award winning science fiction short stories ("'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman," "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream," "The Deathbird," and on and on) sued the producers of The Terminator for infringing on his scripts of the classic Outer Limits episodes "Soldier" and "Demon with a Glass Hand." There are some similarities in the material, but in my opinion Ellison was just plain wrong. The execution and theme were so different it shouldn't have even been a question.

And, no, I don't have a percentage of the Terminator franchise. Wish I did.


Q. What has been your experience with Variance as a publisher?
A. Needless to say, I'm extremely pleased to be in the Variance "stable" of writers. The contractual relationship between Variance and the book is actually with Dave, but Variance has been kind enough to treat me like part of the project and not an unwanted appendage, as some have treated me in the past. (Not naming names, but you know who you are.)


Q. Do you have any advice to new writers?
A. In all honesty, I'm a new writer. As much as writing has been a dream for me for most of my life, in reflection I see I have not approached it with the level of determination it needed to get anywhere. This, truly, was my mistake.

Advice?

Write, keep writing, look for your opportunities, and create them if you don't see any. It's an uphill climb, and it's not one little bit as glamorous as the stereotype suggests. But you know you have to do it, and to deny that is to deny a part of yourself. Don't wait until later in your life to start taking it seriously.

Do it now, because now is all you have.


Great way to close it, Dan! To learn much much more about Red Moon be sure to take a jaunt to Luna 15 or visit the Variance Red Moon Page. Be sure to check out Daniel's blog, The Meaning of Existence (and all that): The Curmudgeon's Guide to Spirituality, at danielbrenton.com. You can also follow Daniel on Twitter: @DanielBrenton. Be sure to leave your questions and comments below for Dan to check out too!

I'm kind of sad to see it go - I've truly enjoyed reading what our authors have had to say who have been so kind let us into their lives. This won't be the end though! Starting up soon will be a twist on this idea, Author on Author interviews (who better to interview an author than another author?). Want to put your two cents in on the next sessions? Shoot me an email, I look forward to seeing your ideas.

Thanks again for all your support, both authors and fans! Talk to you soon,

--ST