An Eclipse, Thrills, and a Touch of the Fantastic

I don’t know about all of you, but I’m getting a lot of reading done this summer. I suspect I might get even more done on August 21, since my hometown, Lincoln City, Oregon, is the first place the eclipse makes landfall, the experts predict we’ll have internet outages, power outages, and cell phone outages because of all the visitors taxing systems not meant to handle more than 1 million extra people. The town’s been planning for this for more than a year. The emergency services folks have stations set up every mile or so, because they expect the highway (we only have one) to be gridlock.

So, I’m going to view the eclipse with my nifty glasses, and then I’m going to read. And read. And read. My iPad and Kindle will both be charged. And filled with books.

You don’t need an eclipse to encourage your summer reading. You can find a nice warm beach somewhere or a great coffee shop, and download one (or both) of these two bundles.

Yep, the summer of bundles continues. I’m in two that I haven’t told you about, both of which have a limited timeline.

First, in keeping with the space theme, the Bump In The Night bundle has the Challenger Center For Space Science Education as its designated charity. The Challenger Center is dedicated to helping a new generation get excited about space. Events like this eclipse do that. The Challenger Center gives someone who has been inspired by the eclipse a place to go and take classes to learn more.

You can donate a few bucks to the Challenger Center and buy a bundle of books at the same time. For $15, you’ll get sixteen suspenseful reads, including the just-released Fiction River: Pulse Pounders Adrenaline, and one of my books about the Oregon Coast (timely!), The Devil’s Churn. This bundle isn’t about space, though. It’s about thrillers and fantasy and chills and things that go bump in the night. Kevin J. Anderson curated it, and put one of his popular Dan Shamble Zombie P.I. books in it. Dean Wesley Smith has a Ghost of a Chance novel in it. If you haven’t read the Ghost of a Chance series, you’re missing something truly fun and original.

I haven’t read the other books in the bundle, and I’m unfamiliar with some of the writers, but I trust Kevin’s editing. (That’s why we hire him to do Fiction River.) There are a number of books I want to read here, and probably will be reading on August 21. Click here, or click on the image below to get to the bundle. This bundle disappears on August 24, so act fast.

While you’re on the Storybundle website, check out the other bundle I’m in. Dean curated it. It’s called The Universe Between bundle, named for the Fiction River volume at the heart of the bundle. This bundle features books that fall between worlds, fantastic worlds. I’m very excited about this one. It has a new release from T. Thorn Coyle, To Raise A Clenched Fist To The Sky, which I’ve been waiting to read for more than a year. Magic, Black Panthers, and the 1960s. Right up my alley. Then there’s Dayle A. Dermatis’s What Beck’ning Ghost, which just hits all of my reader cookies, and an Annie Reed book I’ve never read before. In fact, I love the work of every writer in this bundle, and I haven’t read most of the books here. You’ll find work from Judith Tarr, M.L. Buchman, Darcy Pattison, and Leslie Claire Walker. I have, of course, read Dean’s book, since I’m his first reader. If you have never read his Ghost of a Chance series, you’re missing some of the most innovative fantasy around.

I have a novella in this bundle in my Abracadabra Inc. universe. I’ve been noodling in that universe a lot lately. My last two Uncollected Anthology stories are in that universe (including a story that released this month.)

When you buy the books, you can also contribute to Able Gamers. Able Gamers helps disabled gamers participate in the online gaming world, where they can assume avatars and interact with the world in a completely different way than they do in the real world. I love this charity, because it encourages social interaction and imagination at the same time.

The Universe Between Bundle disappears at the end of the month, so you have a bit more time, but since you’ll be on the Storybundle site anyway…

Click here to go there directly or click on the image below.

Let’s read a lot of books together after the sky show. Enjoy!