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Monday, October 27, 2014

A Zombie Crawl Ushers in Prizes and the End of an Epic Undead Saga





October is the scariest of months, and to celebrate all things Undead, the fine folks at Band of Dystopians have set up the Zombie Crawl Blog Party and Giveaway (see schedule below). Please visit them to read more and to earn chances to win some great swag.

As my contribution to the crawl, I'm treating you to an exclusive inside peek at my forthcoming novel, Dead Reckoning, the second book in the Jessie's Game duology and the final installment of my GAMELAND saga, the epic cyberpunk, dystopian zombie series. (The final cover has not yet been decided).

To kick this off, I'm offering the entire first season omnibus (8 books) for only 99 cents everywhere and chance to win a personalized ecopy of Signs of Life (Jessie's Game, Book 1)! Just leave a comment below. The omnibus offer is good only through Halloween, so hurry to your favorite ebook store to get it. 



EXCERPT FROM DEAD RECKONING (JESSIE'S GAME #2)

The lights in the cell flickered, then went off, throwing them all into a dull, gray twilight. The backup generator kicked in, along with the emergency strobes. Stu didn’t seem to notice.
Eric held up his free hand. “He needs help. We need to call someone.”
The rattling of the ventilation system came to a halt. All was eerily silent for a moment. Both men looked outside the cell, as if sensing that something had changed.
Marco sputtered on the floor.
From elsewhere in the block, someone shouted in dismay. Then the racket quickly grew as the other prisoners took up the chorus.
Stu turned back and stepped toward Eric again. Marco was holding onto the cuff of his pants, gawping for air. Stu tried to shake him off. “Get offa me, homes.”
“Wait a minute,” Eric said. He could see that Marco was trying to speak. He was gesturing with his other hand out through the bars of the cell. “There’s something—”
A screamed pierced through the growing clamor. The banging noises and shouts sharply increased. Then came another scream.
But Stu was too focused to hear them. He leaped. Eric hadn’t been expecting it, but he instinctively stepped back, barely managing to avoid what might have been a fatal attack, but Stu had misjudged the distance and gotten off balance. Eric grabbed his shirt and pulled him down. “Something’s happening out there! You need to stop!”
“It’s nothing compared to what’s happenin’ in here, f**ker,” Stu growled as he stood up again. His eyes flashed red. He backed Eric up against the bunk and laid the edge of the shiv against his nose.
“Now you gonna see what I’m gonna do to you for f**king up my friend Marco.”

To be notified of when Dead Reckoning will be released and a heads up for the pre-order discount, as well as other news and offerings, make sure to register for my newsletter, The Tanpepper Tidings.


DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW TO BE ELIGIBLE TO WIN A FREE eCOPY OF SIGNS OF LIFE


VISIT THE ZOMBIE CRAWL SITE MORE!

Zombie Crawl Blog Party Schedule

Party Host & Grand Prize: Band of Dystopian

October 22

October 23

October 24

October 25

October 26

October 27

October 29

October 30

October 31

Monday, August 4, 2014

Should you KU? Subscription plans. Plus my newest story free 4U.

Hey Best Fans in the World!

By now you'll have heard about  Amazon's new subscription ebook/audiobook plan called Kindle Unlimited (KU). It adds to a segment of the market already occupied by Scribd and Oyster. But should you pay for a subscription service? And if so, which one?
 

Are ebook subscription services worth it?

If you typically consume, on average, more than about $10 in ebooks per month AND the limited catalogs currently available don't constrain your reading habits too severely, then you should definitely look into these services. But even if you're not sure, I recommend checking them out anyway (they each offer a free 30-day trial period, which I'll talk about below).

What do I get, and for how much?

Kindle Unlimited offers access to 600,000 books for $9.99/month.
You're allowed to have 10 books on up to 6 devices at any given time.
Oyster boasts a catalog of over 500,000 books which will cost you $9.95/month.
You're allowed to have
 10 books on up to 6 devices at any given time
.
Scribd's catalog contains ~400,000 titles and costs $8.99/month.
You're allowed to have
 2books on up to 6 devices at any given time.

Amazon titles are currently limited to authors participating in Select (primarily indies, a few traditionally published books, and Amazon imprints), and their audiobook selection is very small (~2000 titles).

Both Oyster and Scribd offer ebooks only, but both include titles from Harper Collins and Simon & Schuster.

None will likely offer new releases for the foreseeable future unless they're exclusive to Amazon. Consider these  services the Netflix equivalent in the ebook world.


All three services work on iPhones, iPads and Android devices. Scribd and Kindle also work on personal computers and Windows devices. Only Kindle supports webOS and BlackBerry and dedicated Kindle e-readers such as the Paperwhite.

So, how many Tanpepper titles are currently available in each service?

Kindle Unlimited: 2 titlesOyster: 25 titlesScribd: 39 titles

Why the differences? Kindle Unlimited requires exclusivity, which means if I enroll my books in KU, they are no longer available through any other vendor. I dislike this practice and believe it penalizes faithful readers and shuts out whole segments of the market. The two titles I currently have have been available elsewhere and will be leaving the program in a couple weeks. I am also enrolling my latest short, They Dreamed of Poppies, for a 3-month term as an experiment, which is why I'm offering it to my newsletter subscribers for free for the week preceding its launch. All of my titles are enrolled in Scribd and Oyster through Smashwords, but Oyster appears to be very slow getting the books onto their site.

Take advantage of a free 30-day subscription

If you're curious, sign up for one or all, but make sure to mark your calendar to cancel before the 30 days is up so you won't be charged if you don't wish to continue with them. Here are the links to the free trial period pages:

If you've been thinking about reading all of my works, or even just the GAMELAND series, now's your chance to do so for free! And don't worry, I still get paid. Win-win!
 

So, where's the free ebook you promised?


I wrote They Dreamed of Poppies specifically with the intention of enrolling it into Kindle Unlimited to test the new program's ability to reach a broader audience. Because this requires 90-days of exclusivity, I'm offering it to you free on my website through a secret link (to get it, subscribe to my newsletter here). It's available in both ePub and Kindle (mobi) formats, but only until August 11, which is when it goes live on Amazon and I have to stop giving it away.

What is the story about?

Decades after an ecological disaster destroyed life on Earth, twenty intrepid individuals flee their crowded space station in hopes of resurrecting a failed terraforming experiment on Mars. What they find is an abandoned planet turned into an Edenic paradise. As they prepare to receive the last tattered remnants of Mankind, they slowly begin to realize the missing colonists who came here fifteen years earlier never actually left.
I hope you enjoy the story. I'd love to hear what you think. And I hope you found this post about subscription services helpful.

All my best,
Saul
 

Find my books at:

        
 
 

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

THE CATASTROPHE THEORY - A Progressive Story in 20 Voices

Following on the heels of the wild, dystopian ride that was The Hunt For Tomorrow, 20 of the participating authors are collaborating on a tale of disaster and hope like none other. Written over the course of three weeks, each author adding a chapter in turn, the story follows Eve, Cassie, and Jared as they reconcile their existence and learn how to survive in a dark, new world. The story title and character names were suggested by Gayle Noble, winner of the Hunt for Tomorrow contest.

Here's a teaser from the first chapter published today, written by Joseph Turkot, author of the post-apocalyptic series, The Rain, and the story collection Darkin.

For the second time in the long dead night, the flicker came and went. Wide and bright and so quick that Eve almost didn’t have time to grab Jared so that he would see it. So that he would believe her this time. Because she was convinced he was ignoring it on purpose—that he’d seen it each time through the window and was pretending he hadn’t. Buying time for something. Stalling for hope. Hope that everything would just fix itself.
      When he saw the light, just the last bit of it—and he knew she’d seen him see it—he drew up tightly against her. Everything looked so far away. Even the sidewalk and the street and the dead cars right below them, and the black windows in every house surrounding theirs. With a nervous jerk, he nodded and pulled her down from the slope of the roof. Down to where the incline wasn’t so steep, where no eyes could watch them anymore—or whatever was looking out from dark windows, or the hill that rose to the east, a ridge of pine so high it touched the first strand of space dust.
    “We’ve got to go…” she said as he tugged her back to the window....

The rest can be found here.

Check out Joe's books:
  

For more dystopian, pick up the 11-author box set, A Taste of Tomorrow. Including works by Hugh Howey, Joe Nobody, T.L. Piperbrook, Jason Gurley, and Saul Tanpepper, it's a steal!


Sunday, June 29, 2014

Want a good laugh? Check out my Voigt-Kampff interview.

Ever wanted to know the biggest lie I've ever told? Or if I have a police record? And what kind of sauce I would eat with children? Then check out my Voigt-Kampff  interview on the Hunt for Tomorrow blog! 



The Hunt for Tomorrow: Saul Tanpepper:



HAVE YOU WRITTEN IN ANY OTHER GENRES BESIDES YA DYSTOPIAN?  WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS GENRE? I actually got serious about writing in 2005,...

Sunday, June 15, 2014

22 AUTHORS - 3 DYSTOPIAN BOXED SETS - 1 MASSIVE EVENT

  Huntfortomorrow
22 AUTHORS. 3 DYSTOPIAN BOXED SETS. 1 MASSIVE EVENT.
A virtual scavenger hunt through twenty-two fictional dystopias.
Friday, July 18 at 6:00pm (EST) - Sunday, July 20 at 6:00pm (EST).

Join THE HUNT FOR TOMORROW, an on-line scavenger hunt, and embark on a virtual odyssey through twenty-two dystopian futures. Become an intrepid scavenger and solve clues at each of the dystopian author stops as you navigate your way to the finish line where you’ll be entered into a random draw for the Grand Prize.

For each correct answer collected along the way you’ll get an additional chance to win. During The Hunt, the authors will offer up their own exclusive material, sneak peeks, contests, and giveaways at their individual stops on The Hunt, giving all scavengers multiple chances to win bonus prizes. The twenty-two participating indie authors include best-selling, award-winning and emerging writers from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom who all have books included in three dystopian boxed sets - - What Tomorrow May Bring, A Taste Of Tomorrow, and Shattered Worlds.

In a unique collaboration of story-telling, nineteen of the authors will write a progressive short story over nineteen days following The Hunt. The Grand Prize Winner of The Hunt For Tomorrow will name characters and contribute the title for this dystopian world, and all participants in The Hunt will receive an advance copy of the story for an exclusive period before it is made available as a free download. The Grand Prize also includes a signed copy of books included in the boxed sets, an ebook of all the boxed sets, and the first copy of this one-of-a-kind progressive story.

THE HUNT FOR TOMORROW begins at http://huntfortomorrow.blogspot.com on Friday, July 18 at 6:00pm (EST) and ends on Sunday, July 20 at 6:00pm (EST). The Hunt is on for one weekend only, although there is no time-limit for completing the course. The Hunt is open to scavengers around the world; there is no cost to enter and one grand prize winner will be selected at random from all eligible entries.

Go to THE HUNT FOR TOMORROW for details and the full list of participating authors.


JOIN THE HUNT. JULY 18-20.  


book blast button
     
Blast Giveaway
$50 Amazon Gift Card or Paypal Cash Ends 7/20/14 Open only to those who can legally enter, receive and use an Amazon.com Gift Code or Paypal Cash. Winning Entry will be verified prior to prize being awarded. No purchase necessary. You must be 18 or older to enter or have your parent enter for you. The winner will be chosen by rafflecopter and announced here as well as emailed and will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. This giveaway is in no way associated with Facebook, Twitter, Rafflecopter or any other entity unless otherwise specified. The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. Giveaway was organized by Kathy from I Am A Reader and sponsored by the publisher. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW. a Rafflecopter giveaway

Friday, June 13, 2014

Writing from the Peak: The Serialized Novel: Part 4 - The Formula

Pikes Peak Blogger and Creative Writing Coach Deb McLeod talks about serialization in her 4-part series. This final installment summarizes my strategy in serializing GAMELAND as an example.



Writing from the Peak: The Serialized Novel: Part 4 - The Formula: by Deb McLeod In the final episode of my exploration of serials and serialization, I want to look at what makes a good serial and how t...

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Read the 1st chapter of "A Dark and Sure Descent"

This is the full 1st chapter of

A Dark and Sure Descent
Being a Chronicle of the Long Island Outbreak

(expected publication May/June 2014)

The dried bundle of fur, bones, and leaf litter in the gutter wrenched at six-year-old Cassie Stemple’s guts, but she wasn’t actually that surprised by it. Not really. She knew about road kill, knew what it was and how it was made. She’d been in the car that one time they ran over a possum up near Riverhead. The mewling, bloody thing seemed to be vibrating, like electricity was passing through its broken body. And as her mother dragged it off the road by its tail she was shaking too. She fretted for a minute, waving her hands about and saying they needed to put it out of its suffering. “I know, I know,” she kept repeating to herself, her eyes overflowing with tears. “Breaking its neck is the merciful thing to do.” And Cassie, watching in silence, her eyes wide with horror and her hands plastered against the window, wanted so badly to look away.

But her mother couldn’t do it, couldn’t wrap her too-big hands around its too-small neck. Couldn’t snap the delicate bones. Instead, she’d had to bash its head in with a brick.

Six or seven blows, that’s how many it took to do the job. She was shaking that badly.

Cassie shivered at the memory, but didn’t draw her eyes away from the barely recognizable thing. She wondered what it had been when it was alive. A cat, maybe. Or a dog. Although a raccoon seemed just as likely. There had been more of them around the house lately, raccoons, scavenging through the trash, making trouble, bearing diseases. That’s what her neighbor said, Mister Sam. “Hen killers,” he’d said. Lots of raccoons.

And rats too, come to think of it.

The sight of the poor dead creature made her stomach hurt and her heart feel heavy with sadness, but it was better than the view that waited for her a few feet to beyond, so she stared fixedly at the ragged furry thing and whispered a silent prayer and pretended the shadow hovering over it wasn’t there.

The car nudged forward a few feet. Her mother uttered impatiently under her breath, cursing and saying something about the constant delays lately and wishing she’d taken the long way around to her father’s place. “Another damn tower,” she said to herself. Cassie knew better than to reply.

Her eyes flicked to the work crew beside them in their fluorescent green coveralls, their faces hidden behind plastic masks. On their backs was printed in black letters: PROPERTY OF THE US GOVERNMENT. Cassie didn’t like the way those people looked. She didn’t like the stiff, shuffling way they moved and the mute way they went about their work, never once speaking or acknowledging anyone, not their team members or the strangers who gawped at them as they walked past. Once, while in the car with her father, Cassie had waved at them, said hello in a tiny, timid voice. But it was like they didn’t even see her. “Don’t talk to them,” Daddy had told her. “They’re not nice people. They’re convicts, murderers. At least like this they can give something back to the society they stole from.”

She didn’t know what a convict was and hadn’t bothered to ask, but she did know what it meant to be a murderer. Looking at them after that, she couldn’t understand how they could do something so terrible. They seemed incapable of doing anything so violent.

The dead raccoon — she was thoroughly convinced by now that that’s what it was — was now hidden by the bumper of the car behind them. Why didn’t killing animals make them murderers?

On the periphery of her sight, there on the sidewalk adjacent to the curb where the carcass had come to rest during the last rainfall, too large to slip through the gaps in the drain, was the object which terrified her. It was closer now.

She wrenched her head back around to the front and scrunched down in her seat and looked forward. She became aware of her mother’s eyes fixed on her in the mirror. “Everything okay back there, honey?”

Cassie nodded stiffly, biting her lip so the whimper threatening to crawl out of her chest would stay there.

Her mother’s pained eyes lifted away from her, refocused on the scene out the back window.

“Can we go?” Cassie pleaded.

Her mother frowned but didn’t answer. The car inched forward, then jerked to a sudden stop. Behind them, someone honked.

Cassie closed her eyes. She wished she were home instead of in the car. She wished her father lived with them instead of across town. She wished Ben Nicholas were here with her. And Shinji.

And her brother.

She wondered: Was he a flattened mass of skin and bone too, now, inside of his tiny coffin?

She tried to push the memories away, both the happiness her parents had worn like cloaks in the days leading up to the day her brother Remy was supposed to come. The happiness of the drive to the hospital to pick him up. But also the sadness which smothered them when they returned a week later without him. The deep, vile sadness.

She had only gotten to see him the one time, at the hospital, behind glass. She’d sensed something was wrong even then. But the feeling had passed, washed away by her parents’ excitement. Her own heart had swelled with love for the tiny baby, if only for the happiness he had brought to her parents.

If it were possible to keep only the good memories, she would’ve. Keep the good and get rid of the bad. But they were all so intertwined with each other that it was impossible to separate them. Which is why they all had to go.

“Come on!” her mother snapped, startling Cassie. She jerked her head up, her eyes flying open and slamming shut the box which held those memories . The sound of the horn filled the car. “Damn it! Your father’s going to be angry that we’re late.”

Cassie watched her mother lean forward to call him on the dashboard phone. She heard the series of beeps which she had come to recognize as her father’s cell phone. Then the rings which meant the call had gone through.

“Lyssa?” she heard him say through the speaker. And he didn’t sound upset. “Was just going to call you. Where are you? Everything all right?”

“We’re stuck in the car at one of the construction sites. They’ve got the road dug up. They’re letting people through, but only one at a time. And we haven’t moved in, like, ten minutes.” She huffed in exasperation. “I don’t know why they have to do this all at once.”

“It’s the new mobile technology,” her father replied. “I heard that iTech— excuse me, iArc, or whatever they’re called now — wants to get everyone converted to the new devices by the end of the summer.”

Her mother growled. “Yeah, but why Long Island?”

“Hey, I agree. It would’ve been better to launch in the City. Anyway, listen, when do you think you’re going to get here? Because I have some paperwork I can do before—”

“I don’t want you working,” her mother interrupted. “Cassie needs your full attention when she’s there.”

Her father sighed. “Is that what she told you, that I ignore her? Because if she—”

“She doesn’t have to tell me anything. I know you. You’ve been too wrapped up with work lately.”

There was nothing but silence from the speaker for a long time. Outside the windows Cassie could hear the low rattle of the workmen’s tools and the muffled shouts of the men in charge, the ones wearing the yellow hardhats and the fat goggles with the black lenses and the funny-looking gloves on their hands.

She remembered the statue and wondered if it was still there.

“No doubt we’ve had a hard time dealing with all . . . this, honey,” her father said at last. “And maybe not in the best way, either. I was thinking that it might be time for us both to get some help.”

“I’m dealing with it just fine!”

Cassie cringed at the harshness in her mother’s voice and thrust her feet against the back of the seat. If she could melt into the cushion, she would. If she could push her mother hard enough to sense her frustration, then maybe they’d finally stop fighting.

They’d never argued before Remy, only once they came back from the hospital. Mom had asked her father to leave, but the fighting continued. The arguments made her father sad and her mother bitter. But worst of all, they made Cassie miss them all the more.

“Stop pushing on the seat, Cass!”

Cassie sighed and twisted her head around slowly. Maybe it would be easier to look at the scary statue if she did it little by little, like sneaking up on it. But a glint of bright sunlight thrown by the hood of the car behind them caught her eyes, blinded her. She squinted against it and turned even more.

The dancing statue wasn’t there.

“I just need time,” her mother said.

Cassie’s attention was no longer on the fight. It was elsewhere, on the sidewalk behind — not the gutter with the dead raccoon, but the sidewalk itself where the statue had been standing — so that her parents’ voices were beginning to sound far away.

Where did it go? Why was it dancing?

She turned quickly back and stared down at her lap. But she hated not knowing.

Quietly, she unlatched her seatbelt. Then, slowly, carefully, she moved to her knees. She didn’t want to see it, but what was even worse was not knowing where it had gotten to.

“I agree, honey, but I think it’s going to take more than just time to fix things. And we’d be better off trying it togeth—”

“Time and space. That’s what I need.”

“Honey, we—”

“Look, I just called to let you know we’re going to be late. And to ask you to pay attention to Cassie while she’s there. Not to fight. Just promise me: No paperwork. Or phone calls. It’s Sunday, for Christ’s sake.”

“I wasn’t—”

The call disconnected.

Cassie shielded her eyes from the glare. Where did it go?

She put her hands on the seatback and pulled herself fully up onto her knees again. The car shifted beneath her, pressing her against the seatback as they slid forward another ten feet. The motor revved. The tires crunched over something. It sounded like bones.

She kept expecting her mother to yell at her for getting out of her seatbelt. But if she could just see where the statue had gone.

The woman in the car behind them waved and smiled at her. She was an older woman, white-haired, but the car she was driving was brand new and like something a teenager might drive. sporty. A tiny dog sat on the woman’s lap, hair just as white and curly. It yapped silently at her through the windshield. Cassie returned the wave, then quickly swung her eyes back to the empty sidewalk.

She knew the intersection they were stuck in. There was the sandwich shop her father had taken her to the first time she’d come to visit him in his apartment. A couple offices in the corner. A print shop. The parking lot was nearly empty— only a couple cars. Probably because of the construction. A man stood outside the print shop and watched the workers. Cassie couldn’t tell by the look on his face what he might be thinking. It looked like nothing.

“Cassie, why are you—? Get back in your seat, young lady!”

“Why? We’re not moving.”

“Because I told you to.”

Cassie tilted her head to the side to see past the white-haired lady’s car, but a truck blocked her view.

Maybe it went back inside. It’s too hot to be dancing on the sidewalk.

She wondered why there would be a tiny Statue of Liberty here, why it would be dancing like that as people walked past. Of course she knew it was just a person in a costume, but that only raised more questions. Halloween was still months away.

Normally, things like costumes didn’t scare her. Ghosts and monsters — the costumed kind — were just dressed up people looking for candy. But it was the pale green of the statue’s face that had scared her, like the pale green of the shirts the hospital workers wore. And there’d also been something menacing in its bloodshot eyes, she was sure of it, something dark and mesmerizing in the way it stared at her, as if it were trying to look straight inside of her head. She shivered again, despite the sun baking her arms.

And she really hadn’t liked the way it was dancing like that over the mangled body of that poor dead animal in the gutter.

But it was gone now, which was only a tiny relief. Whatever it had been or meant to be, whatever reasons it had had for dancing there on the hot sidewalk, it was gone now.

But to where?

She heard her mother open her window, heard the rattle of the machines and the engines and voices outside grow louder behind her. She felt the sweep of hot air on the back of her neck and her bare legs, felt the brush of its thick fingers on her hair. With a sigh, she turned back around to get back into her seatbelt. But as her head swept toward the side of the car, toward the side she was sitting closest to, she became aware of a pale green presence filling her window. A cry rose in her throat as the terrifying stature bent down and grinned at her just inches away. She fell back, away from it, her cry coming out in a single dry, stifled gasp.

The dancing statue reached through her mother’s open window. “We’re protesting the new tax laws,” it said, and extended a printed sheet of paper. Cassie could see that it was just makeup now.

A voice yelled at them from further out on the street and gestured at them to go. The white-haired old lady behind them honked.

“Thanks,” her mother mumbled at the green man in the statue costume. “I have to go.” She took the paper and placed it on the seat next to her, rolled the window back up, and threaded the car through the gap.

As they passed, the statue man’s blood-red eyes met Cassie’s one last time. But this time, he didn’t wave or smile at her. He just nodded once, knowingly, and started to dance.

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Good-Bye Old Friend: A Tribute to Philip Seymour Hoffman

By now, most of us will have heard about the tragic death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman and the circumstances surrounding it. I've seen an outpouring of emotion on Facebook regarding this loss - pain, sorrow, sympathy. Philip was well known to have battled drug problems, was in and out of rehab, cleaned up and relapsed. There is also a lot of anger, and I'm confused and hurt by people who have lashed out at the actor for frittering away such talent and success, as if the lifestyle and behaviors he was known for were always completely by choice. I can say that they were not. Not always.


I grew up with Phil in Fairport, NY, knew him in high school, acted with him in drama productions. He was two years behind me, but he was well liked and respected by both those ahead of him and those younger. He was an infectious personality, quick to laugh but also quick to anger. He was endowed with more than his fair share of talent, wit, and intelligence, but no one ever begrudged him any of it. He was a good friend and a kind soul.



Over the course of my senior year, I got to know Phil very well. Our tight-knit group of cast members spent many a long night after rehearsals and performances partying. There was a lot of drinking involved, some drugs. Phil was into both. He enjoyed living outside of himself. I think he found who he was rather boring, so perhaps it's not surprising that he became a famous character actor. I hadn't spoken to him since high school.

I fondly recall the day, many years ago, when I first realized Phil had made it big. My wife and I were watching "Scent of a Woman" and I jumped up and cried, "That's Phil! I went to high school with him!"

Since then, I've been fascinated with the idea of how the lives of ordinary people might be influenced by celebrities both before and after fame. One of my first completed novels was a historical fiction about a girl who grows up with Neil Armstrong. Just last month I pulled the manuscript out of its digital drawer to polish up. I was planning on publishing it this fall under another pen name.

I am reminded of a line John Donne wrote: "Any man's death diminishes me." While true, it is the deaths of those who touched us personally which are especially hard to witness.

While digging through my old high school year book today, I came across an issue of the school paper, the Lampion and, in it, a photo of Phil with my best friend, Jeff Keesler, from the last play we put on that year, M*A*S*H. It was 1983, and the television series was airing its final episode. (I still have a postcard kicking around somewhere from Loretta Swit kindly declining our invitation to her for the performance.)


Jeff died in 1992, and it's in his memory that I write under this pen name. In January, I released the paperback version of my most recent book, Signs of Life (Jessie's Game, Book One), which was dedicated to him: "For Jeffrey, who was taken from us far too soon."

My thoughts and prayers go out to Phil's family and friends. He, too, was taken far too soon.

Phil, may you finally find peace, my brother.

.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Goodreads Giveaway of a Signed Print Copy of JESSIE'S GAME: SIGNS OF LIFE

STOP BY GOODREADS AND ENTER FOR A CHANCE TO WIN!!


Giveaway begins Jan 21 and ends Jan 30, 2014.



Goodreads Book Giveaway

Signs of Life by Saul Tanpepper

Signs of Life

by Saul Tanpepper

Giveaway ends January 30, 2014.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
Enter to win

Friday, January 17, 2014

GAMELAND's 10-foot Sea-level Rise Isn't Wild Speculation

There are those who refute my claim in this series that ocean levels could stably rise 10 feet and, temporarily, by thirty. Think again. Loss of ice shelf stability is the first step in destabilization of glaciers that feed into them. In this case, the Pine Island Glacier has reached a tipping point which could lead to a 10-16 foot rise in sea levels in the next two decades, right in line with the GAMELAND timeline.



Saul

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

1 Million words of Dystopian Fiction, 11 Titles, and We're Giving Away over 40 Books!

Greetings, Gamers. I hope you've all had a wonderful holiday and have started off 2014 with a bang! The year is promising to be very exciting!

Last month's launch of the second season of GAMELAND with Jessie's Game: Signs of Life was awesome! We had a ton of fun at the Twelve Days of GAMELAND event. I sent out a bunch of paperback books to the winners just before the holidays.

Thanks to those who have already purchased a copy and written a review. The book has a 4.8/5.0 star rating on Amazon. As a special thanks for taking the time to leave feedback, I'm giving away two personalized paperback copies of Signs of Life (or ebook copies, or ebook or print copies of either of my two story collections) on Monday, January 13, 2014.

  

To be eligible, just leave a link to any of your posted reviews to any of my books in a comment on this thread on my Facebook wall here before 1/13.  If you've written reviews on multiple books (Thank you!), post each separately for multiple chances to win. If you're not on Facebook, reply back to this with your links and I'll make sure to add them in.

HUGE NEWS!

Or maybe I should say "Hugh News?" GAMELAND has been honored to be represented in an 11-book dystopian box set from some very impressive writers. The digital set includes Hugh Howey's latest series Sand - The Belt of the Buried Gods, as well as titles by Joe Nobody, Jason Gurley, Joseph Turkot, serial kings Sean Platt and David Wright, and more. After only 2 days, the set has already reached rarefied air on Amazon's best-seller's list. And coming in at just about a million words, the $2.99 price is a steal! But here's a secret: it won't stay at this price for long. If you haven't read these other authors, RUN, don't walk to get this!


Currently available at:
Amazon (US UK CA ...) and Kobo
Even better, it's available through Saturday 1/11/14 for only 99 cents with the coupon code ML25N at Smashwords
Not yet live on B&N, iTunes, and Google Play.

Speaking of Google Play, I've just started distributing my books there. You can find them here. Only a few are live, so check back.

MEET THE AUTHORS, WIN SOME BOOKS

Join us on Facebook this Saturday, Jan 11th, from 1-3PM (PST), to meet and chat with the authors of The Taste of Tomorrow box set. Everyone is welcome to join. There'll be a ton of games and prizes given away, including:

10 audiobook copies of Joe's DARKIN: A JOURNEY EAST

11 mobi or epub copies of Wright/Platt's WHITESPACE: SEASON ONE 

2 ebook copies of Tony Betauski's CLAY (sequel to HALFSKIN; not yet out)

3 ecopies of Colin Barnes's ASSEMBLY CODE (follow-up to ARTIFICIAL EVIL)

3 ecopies of Chris Ward's TUBE RIDERS: EXILE (follow up to THE TUBE RIDERS)

10 epub or mobi copies of TW Piperbrook's CONTAMINATION Boxed Set

And I'll be giving away a slew of ecopies and print copies from several of my own books.

Hope to see you there!

That's all for now. Take care and read well.
Saul