Do you like yourself a rip-roaring novel now and then? Then may I suggest you get yourself right on over to Amazon and check out Shiver on the Sky

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

If you’ve got a Kindle, the book is just $.99 on Amazon. Whether or not you have a Kindle, you can read the book free with only one small catch.

I’ll get back to that free-book offer in a second.

Shiver is a “contemporary fantasy detective novel.” Its author, David Young, is a regular reader and occasional commentor here at Living Freedom. But I wouldn’t recommend the book just because of that. I started reading it yesterday afternoon (a day after he put it on Amazon) and I’m hooked.

Unfortunately Shiver is also an example of what fiction writers have to go through with mainstream publishers these days. David shopped the book around without getting so much as a nibble, mostly because his work didn’t fit neatly into any standard genre.

Then an editor at Baen — good house for this type of story! — took an interest. She asked for some changes, which David happily made. But when he went back with the alterations: “Oh, she doesn’t work here any more and nobody else remembers anything about it.”

That sounds flaky, but sadly it’s typical. Used to be that editors were advocates for writers. A good editor helped good writers become better ones. Great editors advocated for “their” new talents even when their first efforts weren’t commercially successful. Now? It’s a revolving door for editors and all publishers want is the next teen vampire novel or the next 50 Shades of Gray.

Somebody like David with something unusual to offer has to go it alone. (Which, thank the Internet, he can. And, as he says in good freedomista style, “The self-publishing thing feels better than asking permission anyway.”)

He’s not quite going it alone, though!

This is where you — and those free copies — come in.

David is offering free e-copies to people who will promise to review the book on Amazon. He didn’t even specify that it had to be a favorable review, though if the rest of the book is as good as what I’ve seen so far, I expect most will be.

So grab yourself a copy. Whether you buy one on Amazon or take David’s free-book offer, I don’t think you’ll regret it. I’d call it a page turner if the darned thing actually had pages. :-)

If you like this one, you might also want to know he’s got another coming out in a few months: Pagan Sex. Yes, Pagan Sex. I have no clue what that one’s about, but he’s definitely got himself an … er, interesting title.

Three ways to get the book:

1. Buy the Kindle edition on Amazon for just $.99.

2 and 3. Contact David and get a free copy in exchange for putting up an Amazon review:

email him at d.young at cabinfeversoftware dot com
or
make a request via his website.

Amazon also has a pretty generous “look inside” if you want to read a bit before your commit.

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NFI on my part other than the usual Amazon commission, which on a $.99 book fails to qualify as a deep financial interest (though as usual every purchase is appreciated).

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What I’m doing on my summer fall vacation

First I fixed a broken gun.

It’s an old .22 single-action plinker probably not worth a gunsmith’s fee. That morning I met someone who claimed to be a gunsmith and he was such an ass & irritated me so much I finally tore into the thing myself. It was either fix it or get one of these. Which I really don’t need.

Maybe I didn’t really have to tear it down into such itty-bitty pieces; I don’t know. This hoogie-ma-jigger here turned out to be the whole problem.

Instead of turning the cylinder (its job), it was keeping the cylinder from turning. It also kept me from being able to remove the cylinder to see what it was hanging up on. Taking the gun apart was educational. Putting the hammer and trigger back together was like getting a Ph.D. in cussing. But I did it. Works now. Pretty proud of me.

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Then the back fence and the tree came down. Somebody else did the work. I just helped with the Heaping Up of Things. That and shouting, “OMG!” at the most hair-raising moments. I’m sure he found that helpful.

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Monday I went to the beach. I laugh at your assumptions about bikinis and sunlit basking. This is a scary gray beach where you see sights like this.

And this.

And where you find the unexpected sitting on the sand (the chair, not the dog).

The place made me feel like writing ghost stories. If ever there was a haunted beach, it’s this one.

Ava carried our picnic lunch on the walk out. After we ate cold chicken breast and veggies, I removed her backpack and leash and she did zoomies like a crazed puppy the entire mile back to the car.

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Yesterday I commenced the Official Organizing of Stuff (the ostensible purpose of this entire week’s break). I began with guns, ammo, and gear. It took all day.

Not because I have so many guns, mind you, though I’m sure I have enough to make some guy in Boston think I’m a dangerous, paranoid weirdo.

If I were really a sufficiently paranoid weirdo, I’d take better care of these things. The reason it took all day was that it took at least half the day to find everything. Much of the other half was taken up re-labeling mystery boxes and cleaning guns that have lain neglected at the backs of closets ever since I moved back from the desert two years ago.

You do not leave guns unprotected in random places in the NorthWET. They rust. Fortunately, only a few were affected and those not too badly. A.G.’s WD-40 trick took care of that little problem. (And not to worry, I used WD-40 only on the exteriors. Despite the miraculous wonderfulness of WD-40 — it being one of the four fundamental forces keeping the universe intact and functioning — I know it’s a Foul Sin Against Nature to apply it to gunworks.)

In case you ever need to know, a toothbrush and a slightly dull fileting knife will get dog hair out of shotgun mechanisms. Okay, maybe you wouldn’t recommend that method for your $6,000 engraved Italian sporting clays gun, but it works in a pinch.

I realize this all sounds terrible, as if I’ve been some sort of sloven, letting my gear get so foul it can only be scraped clean with a knife. But trust me, most of the gear was well stored and in good shape despite my best efforts to neglect it and lose track of it. And I’m joking about the knife. Mostly.

I wrapped up with the Glock and my brother’s old Cub Scout .22 that I somehow inherited.

The Organizing of Stuff is a nasty job because you have to make a huge mess hauling things out, sorting, and cleaning them before you actually get anywhere. So there you are, trying to solve casual, but mostly hidden, disorganization by creating total chaos from one end of your life to the other. Ugh.

But it feels good when it’s done.

Well, except for those “what on earth is this?” items and those “I thought I had that but where could I possibly have put it?” items. And worst of all the “I don’t dare throw this out, but where the heck am I going to put it?” items.

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The new Price of Liberty blog. (Added to the blogroll, also.)

From The Oatmeal: “My dog, the paradox.” (H/T CB)

Tree is down (safely, but not without a little “adventure”), deadlines ALLLLLLL met. I’m off to the beach for the day.

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This coming week looks like a nice, long pause between rounds of deadlines. So I’m taking time off.

I hesitate to do it because I have this terrible fear that all you lovely readers will stampede to somebody else’s blog if I miss more than a few days and never return.

Yeah, I know better. If you’ve put up with me so far, I have faith you’ll put up with me a week from now. Besides, even in my absence, there will probably be conversations going on in the comment sections. And there are always Amazon links in need of clicking. (Yeah, shameless plug. Sorry.)

In any case, every time I say that blogging will be “lite,” that’s exactly when I get inspired to write something brilliant insightful devastatingly witty else. So who knows? Possibly I’ll even get a chance to prep and advance-schedule a few blog entries to magically appear.

Mostly, I’m going to stick around the house and perform serious Organizing of Stuff. Not just preparedness stuff, as I wrote about the other day. But stuff-stuff. After two years of constant construction chaos, I want everything finally neat and in its place for the cabin-fever months ahead.

I’ll also be working with a yard guy to take down old fencing, remove a nasty-looking tree, and lay the groundwork for as large a veggie, chicken, and (maybe) bee area as my tiny property will hold.

But I might also go wild & crazy and take Ava out to the ocean. There’s an interesting beach within day-trip distance, but I haven’t gone there since returning to the NorthWET. It’s about time.

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Sorry for the sorta funky picture, but it’s what I’ve got. Better yet, it was taken yesterday at a vet’s office, where Sweetie the deaf heeler — now Sweet Georgia Brown — was declared heartworm free! at her three-month post-treatment checkup.

Reports Linda, her foster-care coordinator:

Her 3-month test was negative! She weighs 44.4 lb. and was a good girl w/ the vet. She’s so pretty and sweet – Foster Dad Ted has a new forever dog, Doc – mixed breed about 5 years old and she and Doc have become fast friends – Ted says they play constantly. Yesterday in the vet’s office some folks came in w/ a Large Black Dog – indeterminate breed and mostly puppy – he and Sweetie were trying hard to play, I saw no indication of uncertainty or aggression on her side – just curious and interested in meeting/playing.

She’s doing well for the most part – still nippy with strangers, but that is something that can easily be dealt with with an educated owner who is willing to work with a trainer.

Yay! And thank you to all who helped bring Sweetie to the NorthWET and funded her heartworm treatment and her care.

I’m not sure what the plan is for finding a permanent home for Sweetie-Georgia. Everybody has been half hoping her foster dads would keep her. But it would also be a good thing if she went to an ACD-knowledgeable home with folks who’d work on that nipping problem. Linda also thinks she could be a happy little agility dog. Because of her deafness, she could never be a herder, but she still has the instincts.

ACD people in Oregon or Washington … anybody interested?

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• Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Obama.
• We eat this stuff???
• Occasionally, there is justice of a sort after a puppycide. But no real justice until the cops know they’ll have to pay personally. Otherwise, it’s just more of the usual from thugs, cowards, and incompetents.
• Gold bars salted with tungsten: not just a paranoid rumor any more.
• Beloved service dog Bingo Hein has died, leaving a legacy of giving.
• J.D. Tuccille takes apart that report on the angelic innocence of Eric Holder. Or at least the media coverage of it.

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Help save the Buckyballs!

No, not the molecule. Last I heard that needed no saving. I’m talking about the nerdy magnetic executive toy. The fedgov is trying to ban it because … erm, people might feed it to their children?

The company has repeatedly challenged Scott Wolfson, communications director of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, to debate Buckyballs CEO Craig Zucker live on TV. Mr. Wolfson having ignored the challenge, Zucker is now offering to defeat Wolfson in an arm-wrestling contest. (H/T S)

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You will be relieved to know that there was NO coverup of the Fast & Furious gunwalking operation.

… according to a Justice Department study commissioned by Eric Holder.

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ADDED (with H/T to Bear who put this link into the comments): Here’s a more thoughtful look at the report from the unmatchable David Codrea.

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