I Just Love Babylon 5!

A Warning...

On Wednesday, November 9, 2011, FEMA, DHS and FCC will conduct the first national test of the Nationwide Emergency Alert System (EAS) test. This nationwide test will kick off at 2:00 p.m. (EST) and run concurrently across all time zones.

This system test is the first of its kind designed to broadcast a nationwide message to the American public.  In the history of the country, nothing like it has been conducted on such a level.  As you may be aware, there have been tests in the past, but not of this magnitude encompassing all regions of the Nation simultaneously.  The three (3) minute test will run concurrently on all radio and TV band stations exceeding the previous messages broadcast which were anywhere from a 30 second to 1 minute message.

There is great concern in local police and emergency management circles about undue public anxiety over this test.  

The test message on TV might not indicate that it is just a test.  Fear is that the lack of an explanation regarding the message might create panic.  Please share this information with your family and friends so they are aware of the test.

There will be, of course, the zombies to deal with.

Loyalty Program Launches

Why yes, we do have a loyalty program!

Read all about it!

Unbridled Offers 25 eBooks for 25 Cents

Unbridled Books is partnering with the American Booksellers Association for a promotion that highlights 25 Unbridled eBooks for 25 cents. The titles, all Google eBooks™, will be available for 25 cents via the Mos Eisley Bookstore for three days, June 9 - 11.

 

The 25 Unbridled eBooks for 25 Cents

 

• Conscience Point by Erica Abeel
• The Islands of Divine Music by John Addiego
• Panopticon by David Bajo
• Shimmer by Eric Barnes
• The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish by Elise Blackwell
• Green Age of Asher Witherow by M. Allen Cunningham
• Breath and Bones by Susann Cokal
• The Journal of Antonio Montoya by Rick Collignon
• The Good Doctor Guillotine by Marc Estrin
• Wolf Point by Edward Falco
• Small Acts of Sex and Electricity by Lise Haines
• The Distance between Us by Masha Hamilton
• Stranger Here Below by Joyce Hinnefeld
• Vanishing by Candida Lawrence
• Song of the Crow Layne Maheu
• The Evolution of Shadows by Jason Quinn Malott
• The Singer’s Gun by Emily St. John Mandel
• The Pirate’s Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson
• Captivity by Deborah Noyes
• Hick by Andrea Portes
• The Wonder Singer by George Rabasa
• Taroko Gorge by Jacob Ritari
• Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters by Timothy Schaffert
• Rain Village by Carolyn Turgeon
• Sometimes We’re Always Real Same-Same by Mattox Roesch

My childhood has changed...

Pat the Zombie: A Cruel (Adult) Spoof

New

iZombie Vol. 1: Dead to the World

Starbuck - a Legacy of Awesome



"Sorry, I can't hear you over
the sound of how awesome I am."

 In going over some of our Battlestar Galactica inventory, I realized something that didn't really stand out as a kid.  If you look up "awesome" in the dictionary, it has Starbuck's picture (sure, and Captain Kirk, but let's stay on topic).  There are a lot of awesome archetypes, but this one took me longer to realize.  As a kid, you just assume anyone who flies a Viper and carries a gun is awesome.  The whole sexually awesome thing was lost on us.  Then with the remake of Battlestar Galactica you finally get it.

Sure, at first everyone, myself included, pooped a walrus over Starbuck being played by a girl.  The only thing POSSIBLY worse would be to make the feared cylons hot chicks.  Wait...what?

The hot chick thing quickly made sense.  The only thing more terrifying than a shiny metal death machine, at least to a geek like myself, was an army of hot babes that would kill you as look at you.  As a teenager, that was exactly how all the hot babes I saw were like.  Case in point: cheerleaders.  The prosecution rests.



"I will break things on you that you didn't know you had."

 But Starbuck a girl?  PUH-leeeze.  And she wasn't even as good looking as the Cylon girls.  She was kinda stocky, good upper body strength, realistic proportions.  The sort of body you'd expect on a Colonial Warrior.  And she smoked.  And everyone knows cigars stink like burning dog and are more of a turnoff than, say, dandruff.  So where was the Awesome?

And then finally I gave the show a chance and watched it.  It was good.  And not just good like as in Star Trek: The Voyage Home.  Not even Extra Large Good as in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.  But spooky good like having William Shatner as floor monitor in college.

She had the Attitude of Awesome.  She could kick your ass and make you thank her.  She could drink you under the table, taste like an oreo after smoking those rat turd stogies, and fly in ways that would make a lesser man's eyes explode out his nose.  Sex appeal rolled off her in waves you could see as if you were in a Loonie Toons movie with that pervert skunk, and men would lick the sweat off her old socks.  She was cooler than you and anyone you've ever met, and she damn well knew it.

That was Starbuck.  The original Starbuck managed to pull that off in a more subtle age, but you still got the point on a level that kids didn't care about.  Starbuck was cool. 

Starbuck was awesome.  And awesome is Starbuck.  So say we all.

Amazon vs The Mos Eisley Bookstore

Crosspost from Because I'm Your Father, That's Why!

As many of you may know, I have my own online bookstore. But, for some reason, people still buy books at Amazon.com. That’s just crazy. But, I thought, maybe people just haven’t had it explained to them properly. So I’m “splainin’” it to them.

Grand Opening!

Our new ecommerce bookstore is live.  Be the first to shop and win free stuff!

• FREE Shipping on purchases over $100 through April 11th!
• Prizes and free stuff!

Once a day until April 15th we'll pick a winner from the day's sales and they'll get one of these handy items!

• $100 and our love forever!
• First Edition Hardcover
• $25 gift certificate to the Mos Eisley Bookstore

Reservations Open for Tea With Children’s Authors

Booksellers and librarians can now reserve a spot for the Tea With Children’s Authors, to be held on Wednesday afternoon, May 25, at BookExpo America. Tickets for the event are $15 each.

Participating authors include:
• Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, The Bridge to Neverland (Disney)
• Anna Dewdney, Llama Llama Home With Mama (Penguin)
• Mordecai Gerstein, Dear Hot Dog (Abrams)
• Beth Kephart, You Are My Only (Egmont)
• Walter Dean Myers and Christopher Myers, We Are America (HarperCollins)
• Christopher Paolini, Inheritance #4 (Random House)
• Jerry Pinkney, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star (Little, Brown)
• Judy Schachner, Skippyjon Jones: Class Action (Penguin)
• Marilyn Singer, Tallulah’s Tutu; A Stick Is an Excellent Thing (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• Maggie Stiefvater, Forever (Scholastic)
• R.L. Stine (Macmillan) The First Day of School ... Forever!
• Scott Westerfeld (Simon & Schuster) Goliath

[more]

Become an Angel Investor!

Here's the scoop.  The Mos Eisley Bookstore is in the process of getting a business loan to expand from online-only to a brick and mortar store in Mechanicsville, Virginia.  But with the economy the way it is we're having trouble staying afloat during that waiting period while we secure financing.  So I'd like to give everyone the opportunity to help out a local business while helping out themselves.

There are three ways to help.  Choose one or all three. 

1. Buy a whole lot of stuff from us online.
We're still selling books and collectibles, and the more we sell, the more we have to go towards surviving long enough to finalize the business loan.  We'd love for you to do this one anyway, but I wanted to put it out there.

2. Become a Book Club Member.
We're setting up a membership program where you pay a small monthly fee and receive bookstore benefits.  These include discounts on purchases, free snacks, and more.

3. Invest and Loan us money.
It's all legal-like, using lendfriend.com.  You let us know how much you want to loan us, and we draw up the terms, payment schedule, and things of that nature.  If you loan us over $100 then we throw in a year's membership for free.



If all this is too cumbersome, or you just want to slip us a few bucks all quiet-like, you can still do that through PayPal. 

10 Best SF Novels

SF Now's 10 Best Science Fiction Novels.

10. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
Heinlein’s elegantly constructed novel evokes some of the finest traditions in science fiction, with a near-future setting on the mongrel colony of Luna, which is preparing its revolution against the tyrannical rule of Earth. Although much of the novel doesn’t make the strictest sense in a sociological, political and creative way, it’s still one of the greatest works of SF.


9. Ender’s Game
Card’s seminal novel has been in and out of the news since its release, whether it’s for the long-mooted (and finally killed) idea of a film adaptation, through to the graphic novel version, through to it being a set text at US military academies. It’s worth reading, and relatively short, for those of us who are slightly word shy.


8. A Canticle For Leibowitz

It’s nigh-on impossible to talk seriously about the post-apocalyptic subgenre of science fiction without mentioning Walter M Miller Jr’s A Canticle For Leibowitz. Almost universally regarded as a bona fide classic, the novel spans many years in its fictional universe, and has done so as well in the real world through the raw power of Miller’s storytelling ability.


7. Flowers For Algernon

Flowers For Algernon is one of those odd books that you often hear referenced in popular culture, and one that everyone seems to be familiar with the story of, but doesn’t seem to have been read by anyone. Those who haven’t are really missing out. Keyes’s searing, poignant and eloquent tale of a man thrust into situations he has no control over is still resonant, and ultimately, timeless.


6. We

Widely credited with inspiring George Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and Kurt Vonnegut’s Player Piano, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We also has the dubious distinction of being one of the first novels banned by the Soviet Union’s literary censorship bureau, finally seeing a Russian language version in the late Eighties. Do your brain a favour, and read it.


5. The Forever War

Joe Haldeman’s hypnotic account of an interstellar war, and returning home to find yourself unable to integrate into a changed culture is highly allegoric, and particularly sad when taken in the context that it serves as a loose metaphor for the author’s experiences in Vietnam. Ridley Scott seems to like it as well, due to the fact that he’s currently got an adaptation on his production slate.


4. Childhood’s End

Weaving macrocosmic concepts with a deft hand and a number of human characters to ground the story in a relative sense, Childhood’s End is often cited as one of Clarke’s best novels. It may not have the same level of fame as Rendezvous With Rama, or 2001: A Space Odyssey, but our copies are falling apart from all of the times we’ve read them.


3. A Fire Upon The Deep

Written in Vinge’s usual complex style, this novel covers an equally large array of subjects. Genocide, love, betrayal and more technological areas are touched on, contributing to the whole of this excellent novel. If some of you doubt the author’s pedigree in science fiction, he recently won another Hugo for his novel Rainbows End. Give it a whirl, it’s not for everyone, but we loved it.


2. The Foundation Trilogy

There simply isn’t a more recognisable name in science fiction than Isaac Asimov, and Foundation is arguably his most popular series (if not itself the most recognisable). Indeed, Emmerich is doing a film version, and The Guardian even postulated a while back that Osama Bin Laden was influenced by Foundation. Perhaps not the best epitaph for SF’s most beloved author.

1. The Stars My Destination
I kill you filthy, Vorga! Bester’s best-known novel has had an indelible impact on the genre from the moment it was published, and still remains one of those hidden gems for the new generation that you only really find once you’ve become inextricably involved with SF. Joe Haldeman calls it a work of genius, and we’d be hard-pressed to disagree

Riyria Revelations series

"Orbit is pleased to announce that it has acquired the six-book Riyria Revelations series by author Michael J. Sullivan, in a six-figure deal with agent Teri Tobias of the Teri Tobias Agency LLC. Orbit will be publishing the six titles as three two-book omnibuses in consecutive months in Fall/Winter 2011-2012. The first volume, Theft of Swords, will be published in November 2011; the second volume, Rise of Empire, in December 2011, and the final volume, Heir of Novron, in January 2012.

Senior Editor Devi Pillai says: “This is the kind of fabulous new adventure fantasy that readers of Terry Brooks and Brent Weeks can fall in love with. Michael really delivers a great story that keeps to the idea of great epic fantasy while taking on fantasy clichés and having fun with the idea of two thieves caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time. I read the first book – and I was hooked.”
Michael J. Sullivan says: “"I couldn't be happier to have The Riyria Revelations released by Orbit. Of all the fantasy imprints, they have shown an unsurpassed eye for quality and I'm both excited and humbled to be included in a select group of authors as talented as Brent Weeks, Gail Carriger, and so many others."
The first book in the saga, The Crown Conspiracy, was self-published through Ridan Publishing, a company started by Sullivan’s wife. He’s been a Kindle bestseller in historical fantasy ever since.
Born in Detroit, Michigan, Michael J. Sullivan has lived in Vermont, North Carolina, and Virginia. He worked as a commercial artist and illustrator, founding his own advertising agency in 1996, which he closed in 2005 to pursue writing full-time. He currently resides in Fairfax, Virginia with his wife and three children."

Aww...

Indie Bookstores Stage a Comeback

Borders, the No. 2 brick-and-mortar bookstore chain, is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, hammered by online discounting and the explosive growth of e-books. Barnes & Noble, the biggest chain, is so focused on digital expansion that last month it fired many of its top executives who dealt with physical books.


But all is not lost in the world of traditional bookselling. In retailing's version of a David and Goliath story, the independent bookstore is making a comeback in New York.
 
[more]

Classes and Workshops

The Mos Eisley Bookstore now offers classes and workshops in the following areas:
Introduction to Creative Writing
Creative Writing Workshop
Science Fiction from the 1940's to Present
The Best and Worst Undead Fiction
Introduction to Cartooning
Writing the Children's Book
Introduction to Creating eBooks

For more information, Go Here!

Instructor:
Chris O'Kennon

Author, Illustrator, Speculative Bibliophile, and Ordained Minister

My First Science Fiction Book

Way back in elementary school I remember I was in the library trying to find a book to check out.  So far I wasn't too into reading, as nothing kept my attention.  Then over in the fiction section I found "The White Mountains" by John Christopher, and I read my first taste of science fiction NOT in a comic book.

And nothing was ever the same.

Retail: $6.99

Our Price: $4.99

ABA to Honor NPR

The American Booksellers Association will honor NPR for its many years of comprehensive coverage of books, writers, and the bookselling and publishing industries during the Sixth Annual Winter Institute, which is made possible by the generous support of lead sponsor the Ingram Content Group and Wi6’s publisher sponsors. ABA will recognize NPR and its President and CEO, Vivian Schiller, at the evening reception that caps Legislative Day, on Wednesday, January 19. The reception, at the Library of Congress’ Madison Building, is co-sponsored by the Center for the Book and is open to all Wi6 attendees

[more]

Top Paperback Fiction

For January 6th, 2011.

Staff Pick

Star Wars: Death Troopers

Although a fan of Star Wars, I was never a big fan of the hordes of books written afterwards.  I was sort of a purist; if it wasn't in the movie than it was just window dressing.  But the idea of zombies and Star Wars combined, well, I just couldn't resist.

To quickly summarize the plot:

When the Imperial prison barge Purge—temporary home to five hundred of the galaxy’s most ruthless killers, rebels, scoundrels, and thieves—breaks down in a distant part of space, its only hope appears to lie with a Star Destroyer found drifting and seemingly abandoned. But when a boarding party from the Purge is sent to scavenge for parts, only half of them come back—bringing with them a horrific disease so lethal that within hours nearly all aboard the Purge die in ways too hideous to imagine.

And death is only the beginning.

The Purge’s half-dozen survivors will do whatever it takes to stay alive. But nothing can prepare them for what lies waiting aboard the Star Destroyer. For the dead are rising: soulless, unstoppable, and unspeakably hungry.

I enjoyed the book more than I expected.  The only flaw in an otherwise excellent read was the introduction of two iconic characters from the original movie.  Since you knew they wouldn't get killed (they had to make it to the movies, after all), it sort of took away some of the suspense.  You'd think it would have come up at least once in three movies.  "Yeah, this Death Star thing is bad, but at least it isn't full of zombies!"

But other than that, it was definitely worth the money.

The subject matter lends itself to some pretty gorey situations, so it isn't for the faint of heart.  For that reason I decided my nine year old wasn't ready for it (much to his displeasure).  But of you can handle the horror elements, then pick up a copy.