Available: "Little Green Men: The Complete Novel"

All three parts of the Little Green Men serial are now assembled into one volume, Little Green Men: The Complete Novel.

Saving the world was just the beginning...

Jeffrey Foster thought saving Earth from an alien invasion would be the high point of his life. Now he just wants to find a nice place in the Galaxy to settle down. But when he discovers the Xenon Empire plans to send its deadliest warlord to destroy the Earth, he must go through grueling training to earn the right to become an official Planetary Savior. If the training doesn't kill him, his annoying squadmates just might. And can he ever find some alien food to eat that won't make him gag?

"Little Green Men" is the second in the "Flying Saucers" trilogy. Fans of Douglas Adams, Monty Python, and "Red Dwarf" will enjoy this new series.

CLICK HERE to get it on Amazon. You can also buy the first in the series, Flying Saucers.

More aliens and planets lie ahead as the journey continues in Heart of the Nexus, part two of the Nexus Trilogy!

Myths of "Fight Club": Homemade Napalm

This is a series about Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. The novel is famous for the popular movie adaptation, but also for the numerous anarchist "recipes" provided in the text. Throughout the book, the narrator and Tyler Durden provide various tips and methods for everything from making nitroglycerin to how to make a silencer. Palahniuk has claimed he carefully researched all of them and apparently a lot of people believe him. I'd like to set the record straight: Fight Club is full of lies. Today, we'll talk about his "homemade napalm."

“The three ways to make napalm: One, you can mix equal parts of gasoline and frozen orange juice concentrate. Two, you can mix equal parts of gasoline and diet cola. Three, you can dissolve crumbled cat litter in gasoline until the mixture is thick.”

This "recipe" is one of the most frequently mentioned in the novel. In fact, it becomes a mantra of sorts with members of the secret society Project Mayhem reciting it at random times. That made many readers and fans of the movie wonder, can you really make napalm with gasoline and orange juice concentrate? No, none of these recipes is even close to accurate.

This Copy of "1984" Gets Less Censored As You Read It [Art]

1984 by George Orwell is a classic and defining dystopian novel, set in a future Britain ruled by a fascist government that uses manipulation, propaganda, and censorship to control the minds of its citizens. The novel brought us the term "Big Brother" as a catch-all term for any oppressive government actions, and has only grown more popular over the years as technology has allowed new levels of surveillance into our lives, and propaganda grows more sophisticated.

Wendy's Released a Trashy Romance Novella About Fruit Tea

I want to make absolutely clear that this is not an endorsement of Wendy's or its products. I'm sure Wendy's Berry Cherry Fruit Tea is very nice, but I think iced tea is disgusting, so I haven't and never would drink it.

Fast food companies have a lot of competition and have to promote their products in different ways, so they've done some pretty crazy schemes. The annals of advertising are littered with wild campaigns like  Wendy's "Where's the Beef" to Burger King's Coq Roq website, but Wendy's has done something I can get behind. They released a trashy romance novella on Wattpad called The Forbidden Fruit Tea. It's a love triangle between a man, a woman, and a cup of Wendy's Berry Cherry Fruit tea. Here's the description:

New Release: "Little Green Men 3: Starship Losers"

The final book in the three-part Little Green Men is finally done: Starship Losers.

Once, Jeffrey Foster was just a cashier at a convenience store until an alien warlord invaded Earth. He helped to fight them off but they returned, and this time they mean business.
The alien Xenon Empire has sent a fleet of battleships to destroy Jeffrey Foster and the planet Earth, but Jeffrey is trapped in a rickety spaceship more likely to kill him than the Empire. The military training facility trying to teach him to become a hero has been destroyed. His ship's crew is fighting a duel to the death. Other than that, Jeffrey's goal of trying to save Earth from destruction is going great.
This is it, the final part of "Little Green Men!" Fans of Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, "Red Dwarf," and other comedy science fiction will love this series.

I honestly didn't intend to go a year between releasing each part. The original plan was to release one every six months or so, but it turned out to be a lot harder to write than I thought. But it's finally finished. As I originally planned, I'll be putting them together into a single volume Little Green Men, which will be the sequel to Flying Saucers. There is a third book coming to complete the Flying Saucers trilogy, but I'm not making any promises after last time.

Also, check out the rest of the "Flying Saucers" series:
Flying Saucers
Call Center Of Doom
Little Green Men #1
Little Green Men #2

More aliens and planets lie ahead as the journey continues in Heart of the Nexus, part two of the Nexus Trilogy!!

Authors Behaving Badly: Richard Brittain

While most authors are wonderful, some authors are not. That's why I'll be featuring some of the worst behavior of authors in this series. Today, the worst response to a bad review ever.

I think every author is upset by bad reviews. Some authors don't read reviews at all. Some authors read reviews, just swallow the pain and go back to writing. Other authors get into long and heated arguments with their reviewers online. One author Richard Brittain took his anger way, way too far.

In 2014, Richard Brittain published The World Rose, self-described as an "epic fairytale romance." Before this incident, Brittain was best known as a former champion of the TV quiz show Countdown in 2009. His book, however, didn't receive positive reviews. One particularly long review by a reviewer named Paige Rolland on Wattpad seemed to have sent Brittain over the edge.

In October 2014, Brittain used Facebook to track down the eighteen-year-old Rolland. He traveled from England to Scotland (a distance of 400 miles) where Rolland worked at a grocery store. While she worked stacking cereal, Brittain picked up a bottle of wine from a shelf, snuck up on her from behind, and smashed the bottle over her head. Then he walked out.

Rolland was knocked out briefly, and ended up going to the hospital with lacerations on her scalp. Doctors said if the blow had been harder or in a slightly different part of her head, it would have killed her.

That's right. He knocked a woman unconscious and sent her to the hospital. Over a bad review.

Brittain was later arrested, confessed to the police, was charged and put in prison. Last we heard from him, he claimed to be hearing voices that told him to stare directly at the sun for several days.

As of this writing, his book The World Rose has a one-star rating on Amazon. But no one's been hit over the head with wine bottles for those reviews, so there's that.

UPDATE: So the story gets worse. It turns out the main character in The World Rose was based on a woman Brittain had been stalking for years, both online and in real life. Guess that's where he learned his mad Facebook stalking skills.

More aliens and planets lie ahead as the journey continues in Heart of the Nexus, part two of the Nexus Trilogy!

Worst Books Ever: "Moon People" by Dale M. Courtney

Whenever people call books like Twilight the worst book ever, I always shake my head. Not because Twilight is good, but because it's by no means the worst book ever written. It's time we talked about the real stinkers. That's why I'm going to be highlighting the true worst books ever published by a traditional publisher in the science fiction and fantasy genre. Today, Moon People by Dale M. Courtney.

Long before Amazon leveled the playing field for self-published authors, anyone who wanted to publish their own books had to go to companies called vanity presses. Vanity presses became notorious for their sleaziness, charging huge amounts of money to desperate people to print books regardless of quality that would end up gathering dust on the author's shelves. In 2008, the online self-publishing industry was just getting off the ground with Xlibris, a company that published books on demand. That's where Moon People came from.

New Release: "Heart of the Nexus" - Book 2 of the Nexus Trilogy

The second book in the Nexus trilogy, Heart of the Nexus, will be released on June 1, 2018. It continues the saga from the first book and throws the four refugees from Earth into a new and more dangerous world.

Four people have been taken from Earth to the interplanetary maze known as Nexus where they've survived their first journey to a dangerous world, but the trip home is far from over. It isn't long before they discover the brutal alien Kraghs have returned, and they don't plan to leave them empty-handed. When one of the four is threatened, the other three must fight to save them but they discover the Kraghs have a plan that could threaten the Universe.

Click here to pre-order your copy

Of course, you can also get the first book, Enter the Nexus now.

You only know half the story of Jekyll and Hyde. Prepare to see literature's greatest monsters in a whole new light with Hyde!

"Slaughterhouse Five" by Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Most people think the purpose of science fiction is to explore things that don't exist like laser guns and spaceships. In fact, the best science fiction is a way of exploring our modern world in ways that regular fiction can't. In that sense, "Slaughterhouse Five" is one of the best and most important science fiction novels ever written.

Bizarre Books: "English As She Is Spoke"

If you ever saw the classic Monty Python sketch about a bizarre Hungarian phrasebook, then you might have an idea of the comedy that can come from a badly translated English phrase. In modern times, the Internet has brought Japanese culture and its bad translations of "Engrish" to a whole new audience, but before all of them, there was English As She Is Spoke.

In 1883, an obscure author named Pedro Carolino published a small Portuguese-to-English phrasebook titled English as She Is Spoke. Though it was intended for Portuguese speakers, it quickly gained an international audience for its bizarre English phrases. It seems that Carolino spoke little to no English himself but did know French. As a result, it's believed he used a Portuguese-to-French dictionary to translate his phrases into French, then used a French-to-English dictionary to produce an English translation. The result was a lot like running English through Google Translate, and made unintentionally hilarious results.

Here are some of the more famous examples:

The walls have hearsay. = As paredes têm ouvidos ("The walls have ears")

That not says a word, consent. = Quem cala consente ("Silence is consent")

What do him? = Que faz ele? ("What does he do? / What is he doing?")

That pond it seems me many multiplied of fishes. Let us amuse rather to the fishing. = Este lago parece-me bem piscoso. Vamos pescar para nos divertirmos. ("This lake looks full of fish. Let's have some fun fishing.")

These apricots and these peaches make me and to come water in mouth.  = ??? ("These apricots and peaches make my mouth water.")

Ever since the 19th Century, many hours were wiled away with the book being passed around and read out loud to howls of laughter. Author Mark Twain himself wrote the introduction for the first U.S. English edition, and said, "Nobody can add to the absurdity of this book, nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect."

The book is available online in full at Project Gutenberg, and it sure lives up to its reputation.

Related Posts:
Bizarre Books: The Pop-Up Book of Phobias
Bizarre Books: Six-Gun Gorilla
Bizarre Books: How to Avoid Huge Ships

You only know half the story of Jekyll and Hyde. Prepare to see literature's greatest monsters in a whole new light with Hyde!

"Blindsight" by Peter Watts [Review]

Blindsight by Peter Watts
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I first read this book, I liked it a lot. I also thought I understood it. I had a few nagging questions, but I thought those were easily dismissed in favor of a larger story. I read the book again to clear up those questions, and I was even more confused. I also discovered plot threads that had come up earlier that were never addressed and parts where I thought something had happened that really didn't. I know some people argue this book improves on further reading, but I had the opposite experience. I thought the novel got worse on the second reading.

New Release: "Enter the Nexus" - Book 1 of the Nexus Trilogy

Today is the official release of my next novel, the first in a trilogy that will be released throughout 2018. Called Enter the Nexus, here's the cover and synopsis.

Shy librarian Brenda Martinez, tough cop Jack Taylor, arrogant businessman Wallace Carrington, and geeky teen girl Moonbeam Zhang were just living their lives until they were suddenly teleported onto a mysterious world. Facing terrifying monsters and bizarre aliens, they quickly discover they've been caught up in a strange experiment and the only way home is to go through a maze that crosses thousands of planets throughout the Galaxy. They'll have to work together to survive and uncover the secrets of the NEXUS.

Click here to buy your copy at Amazon.
You can check other online bookstores like Apple and Nook at Books2Read.

Stay tuned for more information on Heart of the Nexus (Book 2) and Fall of the Nexus (Book 3) in the Nexus Trilogy!

Already released:
You only know half the story of Jekyll and Hyde. Prepare to see literature's greatest monsters in a whole new light with Hyde!

Cover Release: "Enter the Nexus" - Book 1

On Friday, my next novel Enter the Nexus will be released. It's the first in the Nexus Trilogy, an epic adventure that I'll be releasing every three months this year, starting on March 9, 2018. I'll have more details on Friday but check out the cover!

What do you think?

You only know half the story of Jekyll and Hyde. Prepare to see literature's greatest monsters in a whole new light with Hyde!

China Has the Most Beautiful and Horrible Library in the World

In 2017, China unveiled a library that captured the imagination of the entire world as what was called the ultimate library.

The Tianjin Binhai Library was designed by Dutch design firm MVRDV, working with local architects from the Tianjin Urban Planning and Design Institute. It was completed in only three years and stands five stories with more than 36,000 square feet.

The really impressive part is the atrium. Designed to look like a gigantic eye, the main area looks like it has bookshelves that run from the floor to the ceiling.

That's where the problems start.

"Hyde" is Now Available on Apple and Other Formats

If you've been wanting to read Hyde but you don't buy books through Amazon, I have good news. You can now find Hyde through Apple, Nook or other book services by checking out this Books2Read Universal Link to purchase it through other stores. Paperback is coming soon!

Of course, you can still get Hyde on Amazon as well.

14 Ways Reading Improves Your Mind and Body

If you're here, you probably love reading, but did you know it's good for you, too? The Expert Editor created this massive infographic that breaks down 14 different ways your brain and body are improved every time you snuggle up with your favorite book.

"My name is Timothy McGill, and I'm a time travel addict..." Time Junkie, now available in paperback and ebook formats!

New Release: "Hyde"

My latest novel is ready for download from Amazon, "Hyde!" It's the story of Jekyll and Hyde with a twist...it's told from the perspective of the monster. Here's the description:

You only know half the story... 

In the spirit of "Maleficent" and "Wicked," get ready to see one of fiction's greatest villains in a whole new way with HYDE. 

You may think you know the story of Jekyll and Hyde, but what if Hyde wasn't the monster? That's the question faced by Henry Jekyll's lawyer Utterson when a mysterious woman gives him a manuscript in the dead of night. In the pages, Utterson finds a new account of the story from the perspective of Edward Hyde, trapped in the body of Henry Jekyll, and hated by all men. As Hyde struggles to build his own life independent of his creator, Hyde finds himself drawn into sin and corruption, abused and driven to violence and murder. At the same time, he discovers the cruelty and hypocrisy of society at large. Prepare for a compelling story, not about good and evil, but the shades of gray that lie in between them.

Get your copy today!

UPDATE: I don't know what's wrong with my Disqus comments....

"My name is Timothy McGill, and I'm a time travel addict..." Time Junkie, now available in paperback and ebook formats!

"On Basilisk Station" by David Weber [Review]

On Basilisk Station by David Weber
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

On Basilisk Station is about Honor Harrington, the new commander of a future warship called Fearless. On her first command, Honor discovers her ship has been fitted with an experimental weapon that she's forced to use in wargames which leaves her humiliated. For her failure, she's banished to a supposed backwater post called Basilisk Station where Honor and her crew uncover a conspiracy that threatens her government.

"Handbook For Mortals" Shows the Trad Publishing Industry is Corrupt, Too

One of the persistent drumbeats that traditional publishers and authors like to sneer is that only getting published makes you a "real" author. Self-published books are crap, they say. Indie authors are bad writers who attempt to manipulate the system with shoddy work and lousy covers, taking away space from the long-suffering "real" authors. After all, they say, if they were any good, authors would be published through a traditional publishing house, which ensures that only quality material reaches the shelves and success. If only that were true, then books like Fifty Shades of Grey wouldn't be out there. Or the most recent example, Handbook for Mortals.

11 Best Post-Apocalyptic Novels

Post-apocalyptic fiction has become increasingly popular recently, especially in the horror and action genres. For some reason, the idea of civilization collapsing and people struggling to survive the aftermath appeals to us. Maybe it's our savage nature or a sense that life has become too easy, but we like to imagine the world that might come after we're gone. Here are the eleven best novels set after a potential world-ending event.