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The Blood is on the Wall Finally Out as Stand Alone

Posted: October 24, 2019

With halloween in only a couple of days, I’m happy to tell you that The Blood is on the Wall is now out as a stand alone ebook. A short military horror read for a scary holiday.

Here is the description:

The vampires needs humans for only one thing: blood. Any human they capture either becomes their cattle or vampires themselves. Food or killer. The vampires, stronger and faster than humans, decided to stop hiding and take over the world.

UN soldiers try to stop them. One UN soldier, Rox, fights to protect her two sisters. She needs them, and for them she fights to protect the whole world.

But the vampires captures Rox.

Is everything lost or can Rox somehow get out on top?

You can buy it here as an ebook. Of course, it is also still available in two different anthologies, Fiction River: Editor’s Choice and Nightly Bites Volume 2.

Next month there is a couple of more season stories being released. Christmas ones. And then the releases will be quiet until 2020, when some very exciting stories will come out. I’ll talk more about that when they’re out.

Have a great halloween! Scary, happy, fun? Whichever you want most!

Reader Report: September, 2019

Posted: October 13, 2019

This my reader report for September. Things I read, saw, played, and ate that I really enjoyed and would recommend to other people.

I have been rereading the whole In Death series by J.D. Robb and finally finished rereading it. 48 books takes a while to read. I began the reread back in April. This is a mystery series, with romantic and science fiction elements that I really enjoy, but I’ve talked about it many times, so let’s move on to something else.

A friend told me about the TV series adaption of the book Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. One of my favorite books. I haven’t had a chance to see the series yet, but I went ahead and reread the book.

It is a fun romp about the biblical armageddon going completely sideways. Some really great laughs. It really doesn’t take itself serious at all, and is very well written. With hilarious footnotes.

I am a fan of musicals and finally watched the movie Perfect Pitch. I’d actually not heard anything about it nor had it recommended, but it was on Netflix, sounded like fun, and I really need a bit of feel good that day. If you like musicals, this will probably be an enjoyable watch.

Since I’m currently living in Japan, it feels almost criminal to not put in anything from that. So let me recommend a meal I recently had at a restaurant: chabu-chabu.

On the table is a pot with soup-stock that is puttering away. You get meat and veggies to put in the pot and then pick them out when they are done and eat them. At this particular restaurant, they made the leftover soup stock into a kind of stewed rice when we’d had enough meat and veggies (we had all you can eat chabu-chabu).

A delicious meal and I’m sure to hit that restaurant again.

Lastly, lets add a game recommendation. I played a few hours of War Grove on Switch (also available on PC and other consoles) and enjoyed this strategy game. I’m sure it gets a lot more complex, but it introduces each mechanic slowly so you have a chance to learn everything well. For me that is a must with strategy games because while I enjoy them, I can find them a bit impenetrable.

That is all for this month. I actually spent most of the month reading In Death, so that is why it felt like I didn’t consume much media, but thankfully I had enough to put together this!

Picture of the Month: A Year in Japan #2

Posted: October 1, 2019

For the first time in my life, I would officially reside in another country, Japan. I have stayed up to three months in another country before (Ireland and Japan) so I was a temporary resident there, but more like a long stay tourist.

I’ve also stayed about two months in several more places.

This time, as noted in the first PotM: A Year in Japan edition, I had/have a one year (and three months) visa, provided I study Japanese during that time.

For the first two months or so, I had two goals in mind: see as many cherry blossom trees I could stand and settle into my new life in Kyoto (my new apartment and as a student).

And that is basically what I did through April and towards the end of May.

I live close to the Kamogawa river, and when the temperatures aren’t consistently above 25 degrees Celsius, I often go for a walk along it. It has beautiful cherry blossom trees, and I look forward to seeing it in autumn glory too.

I also took the opportunity to see some geisha/maiko dances that are mostly held in spring (with a couple at other times of the year), and I can highly recommend it. Beautiful shows.

It was also in May that I turned 30 years old. No more twenties for me.

Kamogawa river in Kyoto during the day — Same river as above, not the same place and not the same type of day. A lovely place to walk at.

Reader Report: August, 2019

Posted: September 13, 2019

Here we are again, this is what I have read, played, seen, and experienced in August that stuck with me. (Yeah, I don’t mention everything, only things I finished that I thought were great.)

Subsurface Circular is a very short game. Took me about 2 hours to play. It is a mystery game where you are stuck in one place (a subway car), and you talk to the people who get on. And try to solve a mystery.

Short and charming. I enjoyed my time with it. Although it doesn’t really have replay value from what I could research (I haven’t replayed it myself), it is possible to just replay certain sections.

I read a great historical romanced called Someone to Love by Mary Balogh. It was a little confusing in the beginning for me. I haven’t read a Regency romance in a while, so I needed to get used to that time period, but beyond that there were a few too many characters to keep straight for the first couple of chapters. (More name dropping than characters showing up, but still.)

However, I figured I’d get it straightened out eventually, and I did. (Plus there is a family tree at the start of the book, at least the ebook.) And even with that confusion I couldn’t stop reading because it was so much fun.

I throughtly enjoyed the whole book. And the premise is handled really well, in my opinion.

I’ll most likely pick up the rest of the series eventually. (This was the first book.)

Charming Blue by Kristine Grayson (aka Kristine Kathryn Rusch) is on this list because I really enjoyed it, but it was a bit slow to start for me. Still not so slow that it let me go. Charming Blue is part of a world of stories from Kris, all of them very good (I can only speak for the ones I’ve read, but still). Some more fluffy than others, some really good young adult stories. If you like charming (yes, charming) contemporary romance with fairy tale and/or greek mythology magic, then this series is for you.

I particularly like it when I need some light reading in my life. Although it can get serious too.

To finish of this month’s reader report I want to point to two different YouTube channels I enjoy a lot. One of them I only recently discovered, and the other I discovered a few months ago, but I’ve been binging both although I have not seen every video on either channel because there are a LOT of videos.

WeezyWaiter, aka Craig Benzine. I’m not even sure how to describe this channel. Whatever it is, it is usually funny, has great video editing, and also sprinkles in some wisdom. Recent videos are mostly about different monthly challenges Craig Benzine (and sometimes his wife Chyna) have tried and how they went. Pretty hilarious.

The channel has been around for a long time so it has changed in content over time, so there is a lot to see. And a lot of laughs to have.

I actually found WeezyWaiter from watching older videos of Vlogbrothers. The Vlogbrothers are John and Hank Green. (John Green wrote the rather famous book: The Fault in Our Stars, which I haven’t read.) That channel started because the two brothers apparently wanted to do an experiment by only communicating through video for a whole year (or that is how I understand it begun).

And then it went on and on and many things have come from it like these YouTube channels: 100 Days (John and his best friend have a very fit mid-life crisis)—I really enjoyed watching this a couple of years ago—and Crash Course—I have watched several of the courses.

In fact, I think the first Vlogbrothers related YouTube content I consumed was The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which is a hilarious modern remake of Pride and Prejudice. Lizzie Bennet have a vlog. I can very much recommend this!

(Actually, now that I think about it. I probably watched something from Crash Course first. But still a good segue to talk about The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.)

And that will be all for this month. Just the YouTube content would keep you entertained for way more than a month, especially if you get into all the Vlogbrother things. My top recommendation is the historical romance Someone to Love by Mary Balogh though. Enjoyed that one a whole lot.

Picture of the Month: A Year in Japan #1

Posted: September 1, 2019

Cherry blossoms in Ueno Park — Ueno Park (Tokyo) shows off beautifully in spring.

A few years ago when I talked to my dad about potentially living in another country than Sweden, mentioning a few examples, he replied that he would miss the shifting seasons if he lived in a country that didn’t have four distinct ones like Sweden (and many other places).

Back then I didn’t know if I agreed or not.

Then a couple of years later, I became a digital nomad for a while. My work was—and is—completely mobile. All I need is a laptop and some internet.

Reading up on other digital nomads, I came to realize that they always seemed to chase the summer, and so did most travel companies that created work-vacation trips specifically for that crowd.

I was bored in no time.

Warm and hot (ugh!), warm and hot, warm and hot. That was the weather. Always, because when autumn came, flee to the equator, when winter comes to the northern hemisphere, flee to the south one.

It wasn’t that the weather alone bored me. But my skin missed feeling a chill. I missed seeing spring green and new plants; and autumn-colored trees and kicking through dry leaves.

I missed wearing sweaters and not being hot every time I walked outside.

Turns out my dad was very much right.

It made me realize I wanted to experience all seasons, regularly in my life. And since I’d loved Japan as a tourist a couple of times, I really wanted to experience a whole year there. Their beautiful Japanese maples in full autumn colors. Winter when temperatures in many cities (I wanted to be in) would be slightly chilly but not cold (in my opinion). And spring.

Wonderful, beautiful spring with its cherry blossoms.

The only thing I didn’t look forward to (and I was correct!) was Japanese summer. Hot, hot, hot, and humid, humid, humid.

Anyway, I got a student visa to study Japanese for a year, and off I went in April 2019. And these are a couple of pictures from my first couple of days in Tokyo, before I got to Kyoto where I would live for most of this year in Japan.

Cat figurines at Imado Shrine, Tokyo — This is the Imado shrine in the Asakusa area in Tokyo. One of the purported birthplaces for the lucky cat figure (maneki-neko).

A Story About a Book in a Book

Posted: August 24, 2019

The Book of Time records the God and Goddess’ moves on the eternal Game of Time, deciding the fate of humans and their world.

Every day, the God and Goddess play and the Book of Time records. It is only a matter of time until someone makes a mistake and the magic of the Gods goes haywire.

The Game of Time, a fantasy story about gods and their book, is finally out stand alone.

You can buy it here as an ebook. I hope you enjoy this book in a book in a book in a book. ^_~

If you are wondering if this story is any good, Tangent Online reviewed it as a part of the anthology Fiction River: No Humans Allowed, and this is what they said about my story:

“The story is interesting and well written…”
—Tangent Online

That was all about this month’s release. This summer have been full of them.

Coming up is the first picture from my first month in Japan during this one year+ stay. I also hope you like the changes to my monthly entertainment review posts.

There are so much great content to experience, both on screens, on paper (books), and out there in the quote/unquote real world.

I hope my additions to it (books and recommendations) brightens your day.