Archive for the ‘Book News’ Category
In Her Name: Empire Snags 5-Stars From Independent Reviewer
Posted by: Michael R. Hicks in Book News on October 26th, 2009
It’s always nice to get pleasant surprises (unlike the other kind!), and that’s indeed what I got when I checked out Red Adept’s Kindle Book Review Blog to see how her review of In Her Name: Empire fared. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it fared pretty darn well!
Empire is the first of the three books contained in the original omnibus version of In Her Name, and begins the story of Reza Gard and his trials and tribulations in living between the human Confederation and the alien Kreelan Empire.
Red Adept (a.k.a. Lynn) happened to buy my book and let me know that she would be reviewing it. If you look at her reviews, she doesn’t hand out stars like candy. Clearly, like any reviewer, she has her likes and dislikes, but Empire fortunately fell deep into the “like” category. Here’s an excerpt from her review:
This is one of the hardest types of reviews for me to write. It’s much easier to write a review of a “good, mediocre, or bad” book. It’s not that I enjoy being so critical, just that it’s easier to explain flaws than it is to explain why a book has achieved ‘greatness’. I can sit here and type all of the words: compelling, interesting, wonderful, intriguing, etc., but none of them do it justice. They don’t really explain how a book speaks to the reader, how it draws the reader in and echoes in the mind long after it is finished.
This book grabs the reader with the opening scene and rarely relaxes its grip. With a wonderful mix of science fiction and fantasy, the plot is vastly different from most science fiction books I have read. Sure, you have your hero, your war, your deadly aliens. However, this story takes you in a different direction.
So, check out her review and the reader reviews on Amazon and see if Empire appeals to you – it may just open up an entirely new universe of entertainment!
Salt Lake City – Working on In Her Name: Legend of the Sword
Posted by: Michael R. Hicks in Book News on October 7th, 2009
My wife, Jan, is a “ScrapGirl” (see ScrapGirls.com) and they’re having their annual convention in Salt Lake City. I’ve never been to Salt Lake before, and it sounded like a great way to get away from my day job for a while and do some writing to move In Her Name: Legend of the Sword (my current work in progress) a bit further along.
The flight in last weekend was great, with some awesome views out the window of our Southwest 737 as we left Baltimore, climbing above the clouds, and when we came in for landing at Salt Lake.
We stayed the weekend with Jan’s cousin, who’s really cool. But she has a 1947 Piper Cub, which in my book makes her way cooler! We couldn’t get a ride last weekend, though, because the weather was totally crappy: it poured rain and was really gusty. So we just stayed inside and chilled out, reading, writing, and playing with her Abyssinian cat, Martini.
We did manage to get out and have some excellent Indian food at the Himalayan restaurant downtown. Then we took a quick tour of the Mormon Temple square in the evening drizzle. I have to say, the Temple is pretty spectacular at night!
After we left Jan’s cousin’s place on Monday, we headed to the University of Utah where the ScrapGirls convention is being held this year. It’s a beautiful campus, which incorporates Fort Douglas, which was established in the late 1800s. The convention itself is actually in the old officer’s club, so that’s kinda cool. The view from the Guest House hotel isn’t bad, either!
We’ve been exercising every morning since we got to the Guest House, running and/or doing the stationary bike. Well, I had to do the stationary bike this morning, because I strained my right calf at Jan’s cousin’s place and it’s still not very happy. Jan also went down and demonstrated Beachbody’s Insanity workout to some of her fellow ScrapGirls. Lotsa sweat there!
While the girls were going bonkers greeting each other (you haven’t heard a racket until you’ve been to an almost-all-female convention like this!), I staked out a corner in the hotel lobby and got to work on In Her Name: Legend of the Sword. I’m up to chapter 7 now, and while it hasn’t come together quite as readily as First Contact, it’s starting to weave together. A lot of this story focuses on the character of Tesh-Dar, the warrior high priestess who’s appeared in all the In Her Name novels so far. In fact, the name of the novel – Legend of the Sword – is a term of endearment, for lack of a better term, given her by the Kreelan Empress. I haven’t made a ton of progress since we’ve been here, simply because there’ve been a lot of pleasant distractions. But tomorrow the ScrapGirls convention will be in full swing, so while the girls are scrapping, I plan to be hammering out some serious wordage. I’d like to get the draft of this novel done by the end of the year, which doesn’t leave me a lot of time. Faster, fingers, faster!!
So, I’ll post more pics and information as we go…
In Her Name: First Contact – The First Week
Posted by: Michael R. Hicks in Book News on September 5th, 2009
In one way I hate to toot my horn, but – all shameless self-promotion aside – I wanted to thank my readers, especially with how In Her Name: First Contact has been received after it was released for the Amazon Kindle and Mobipocket Reader last weekend.
I have been awesomely, awesomely pleased at how it’s done this first week, considering that I haven’t really done all that much promotion for it (in between tying up a bunch of other loose ends and starting in on In Her Name: Legend of the Sword). It’s been bouncing around up and down in the top 100 of the science fiction category in the Amazon Kindle store, and moved immediately into the top 100 on Mobipocket.com’s sci-fi category (it’s at #45 right now).
So that really made my week! I just wanted to give a big “thank you!” to all the folks who’ve bought it so far, and I hope you enjoy the story!! And for those who would like a print version, I expect that to be out on the streets in the next three weeks or so (sorry, it takes longer for the stars to line up for print publication!).
If you would be interested in talking about the book in an on-line/virtual book club, there’s a set of discussion threads for it over at KindleBoards.com. Come on over and join us!
New Work In Progress – In Her Name: Legend Of The Sword
Posted by: Michael R. Hicks in Book News on August 19th, 2009
Now that In Her Name: First Contact is in the final review stages (the last round of revisions is underway now!), I decided to go ahead and get started on the next installment of the series, which I’ve given the tentative title of In Her Name: Legend Of The Sword.
I wish I could give you more of an idea of what’s going to happen in this book, but it’s a bit hard to say because I don’t write from an outline! So my fingers sort of decide what’s going to happen as I type. Go figure.
What I can tell you is that Tesh-Dar, the warrior priestess who was one of the main supporting characters of the original trilogy (Empire, Confederation, and Final Battle – and the omnibus edition, of course), appears to be playing a more central role in this one. In fact, “Legend of the Sword” is a reference to her.
My suspicion is that, much like First Contact had a heavier emphasis on the human point of view, Legend Of The Sword will favor the Kreelan point of view. It certainly has in the first chapter, the draft of which is just about finished.
So, stand by for updates on that, and I’ll let you know when First Contact is ready to hit the streets!
In Her Name: Confederation Now on Mobipocket
Posted by: Michael R. Hicks in Book News on August 14th, 2009
The second novel of the original In Her Name trilogy, Confederation, is now available on Mobipocket.com!
In the second book of the In Her Name trilogy, Reza Gard has been banished from the Kreelan Empire and is once again a stranger in a strange land as he returns to the human Confederation. Befriended by a marooned naval officer leading a desperate fight against the Kreelans on a distant colony world, she reunites Reza with Nicole Carré. With their help, he fulfills his childhood dream of becoming a Confederation Marine as he befriends Eustus Camden, who becomes his best friend and ally. Reza will need all the help he can get, for dark forces are at work at the heart of the Confederation, and Reza becomes a pawn in a lethal power struggle that leads him back to the planet Erlang. There, a heartbreaking reunion awaits him, along with the discovery of an ages-old power that the Kreelan Empire will stop at nothing to control.
The Draft of In Her Name: First Contact is DONE!
Posted by: Michael R. Hicks in Book News on July 29th, 2009
After hamming through over 156,000 words in fifteen weeks, I’d like to announce that the first draft of In Her Name: First Contact is finished!
I was very happy with the way the draft went, and it certainly came along quickly enough. I was originally planning to take a full year to have the initial draft done, and writing that much in odd hours here and there (with a few marathon weekend sessions) came as a complete, but pleasant, surprise.
There’s still obviously a lot of work left to go in revisions and editing, but at this point I’m hoping that I can make my goal of having it out on the street no later than early September (of 2009!).
So, stay tuned!
