I’m pleased to release another short story for your enjoyment.  The Maestro was written a few years ago as a “starter” story for a novel that I was contemplating about aliens and augmented reality.  The novel, Ghost and the Nether, will be released sometime this summer or fall (depending on my other projects.)

The Maestro finds solace in exploring the strange new planet called Giant’s Belt aboard his walking laboratory Vassoru. But when the Cardinal arrives on planet and demands justice for the Maestro’s crimes on Earth, he must prove his innocence or be sentenced to death.

The Maestro can be found on eBook for $0.99 at:

Amazon Store

B&N Nook Store

Smashwords

Free copy of The Maestro will be available for a little while through Smashwords.  Use the code: ZP85F.

I love learning about what other people are reading. I’m always in search of a good book, regardless of genre. If you’ve met me in person before, and if we’ve had any length of discussion, you’ve probably had me ask what books you’re reading. It’s up there as one of my top favorite conversation starting questions, along with “what high school did you go to,” but that’s strictly a St. Louis phenomenon (don’t ask, it’s a common question in St. Louis, it’s taken my wife years to get used to it and she still rolls her eyes.)

Of course, I’ll also tell you want I’m reading and probably goad you into at least considering to read my favorite books. Doesn’t everyone feel as passionately about books as I do? So to save you all from some incessant pestering, I decided to steal an idea from Kris Rusch’s blog and do an occasional “What I Read and Enjoyed List.”  The list will appear in no particular order.

Spring 2011

Rothfuss, Patrick, A Wise Man’s Fear (Kingkiller Chronicles, Day 2), DAW Hardcover, March 2011.  I probably cannot gush enough about this book (and the first if you haven’t read it.)  Go buy it now!  The book is one-thousand pages long and frankly, it’s not long enough.  I didn’t want the story to stop.  Rothfuss effortlessly tells a timeless tale within a tale story based in a fantasy world that shows us life at the little edges.  Those thousand small, and yet important events, paint the picture of a legendary figure growing in front of the reader’s eyes.  As a writer, I kept trying to read the words to figure out how he was doing it, but the story so thorough sucked me in I couldn’t maintain that kind of reading at all.

Bellet, Annie, “The Light As Seen From Tartarus,” Doomed Muse Press, February 2011.  The novelette is about the Talley brothers and their crew, hired by an eccentric billionaire to take him to Pluto.  While it’s as much about space flight and how little we really know about our own backyard, it’s also about honor and the can-do spirit of human kind.

Rusch, Kristine Kathryn, “Broken Windchimes,” Asimov’s 2009 & WMG Press 2010.  I’ve long seen Kris’ name, but never had an opportunity to read any of her work.  I’m not sure why, because she’s definitely become one of my favorite authors and I’ve been busy devouring her fantasy and sci-fi works in recent months.  I now put her in my “will read anything this author writes” club along with George RR Martin and a few others.  Broken Windchimes is a good reason why–it’s a deceptively simple story about humanity’s relationship with music.  It haunted me for weeks after I read it.  There’s a good reason this story won the Asimov’s Reader’s Choice award in 2009.

Bacigalupi, Paolo, The Windup Girl, Night Shade Books 2009.  The book was described as agri-punk to me, but the stylistic use of language was only one part of why I loved this book.  The heart and soul of the novel lies within the windup girl, Emiko, and I found myself cheering for her in this post-oil world of megodonts and calorie men.  I cheered when the tiger’s men captured her and decided to dunk her in a vat of water to drown her.  That may sound contradictory, but it’s true.  Read it and find out why…

Andrijeski, JC, Rook: Allie’s War (Book One), White Sun Press 2011.  Like most other adult-sized boys, I’ve always wanted to have secret powers, I just wouldn’t want them to come with the potential end of the world.   The novel was an action packed thrill ride and I’m looking forward to reading the next two in the series.

Torgersen, Brad R, “Outbound,” Analog November 2010.  The novelette starts out with, “I was eleven years old when the Earth burned.”  Brad had me hooked from the first sentence.  It’s a touching tale of loneliness and loss and the resilient nature of the human spirit set against the backdrop of the far ends of the solar system.  It has a lot in common with the 2010 movie Moon and that is one of my favorite sci-fi movies from the past few years.

Martin, George RR, “In the House of the Worm,” Electronic Story 2005.  As I said above, I will read anything written by Martin.  He’s my favorite short story writer and it’s a real treat when I find stories I haven’t yet read.  This is a dying world story, darkly fascinating, and so engrossing I’ve read it multiple times.

————————————————————–

Whew.  Those are just a fraction of the books and stories I’ve read the past few months.  Unfortunately, most of them were not-yet-released copies by writer friends.  When they do come out, I’ll be sure to point them out to you.  Enjoy.

Unless you’ve been living in a box today, you know that Apple finally unveiled the tablet iPad today. The biggest surprise about the announcement was the lack of a camera on the lap sized PC. No camera, really? If you don’t believe it, check the official spec page.

Besides the implications for augmented reality, which I’ll get to in a moment, the iPad not having a camera is a giant fail.  I actually expected the iPad to have two cameras.  One forward-looking so the iPad could function as a giant Polaroid and the other user-facing so videos could be recorded.  We could forgive eliminating one of them, probably the forward-looking one since its so big, but not having the user-facing camera is inexcusable. 

The series of tube we call the Internet has moved beyond simple text.  People want to record and upload videos straight to YouTube without having to yank out their dust-covered hand held or use Skype to call their friends while they’re watching the game. 

The Apple iPad not having even one camera is like hooking up satellite without DVR.  Sure you can do it, but why? 

Of course, I’m being overly melodramatic here. 

The real point to the iPad is competition for the Kindle, eReader and the Vook.  Apple wants to revolutionize the way we read magazines, books and newspapers.  Functionality for augmented reality isn’t even an afterthought.  How many people are using their camera lying in bed reading an interactive book?

And is this a major setback for augmented reality?  Not really.  A giant-sized magic lens would add a fun new canvas to play with, but really wouldn’t be a game changer.  Additionally, Apple isn’t expecting the tablet market to come even close to the smartphone market in sales.

So in the end, the iPad is a fail for augmented reality, but will probably give Jeff Bezos nightmares for months as he wonders how he’s going to compete against a Pentium 286 when he’s selling a Commodore 64. 

And maybe, just maybe, Steve Jobs is still working on a see-through AR-enabled HMD.  Then I’d say, all is forgiven Stevie, I’m coming home to Apple.