Luna Waning Cover

The Luna Waning: Book 2 of the Luna Cycle cover is here.

There were a couple options of what to do with the scroll and how to position it. In the end, I decided that this way was the best combo of scroll, blood and moon. It helps that it matches the first book.

Oscar Best Picture goes to best picture

For the first time since 2003 when The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won best picture, the Oscars gave the Best Picture Oscar to the best movie of the year. 12 Years a Slave is a masterpiece. I would like to call it an American masterpiece since it is about America in so many ways, but it was made by a bunch of Brits, so I will leave out the extra adjective.

About 2 hours into the film, I was still undecided about whether it was better than Before Midnight. Then, it went to another level and nailed the ending perfectly. I was crying in my seat for joy and sorrow at the same time. It takes a unique movie to be able to do that.

I didn't think it would win. I figured there would be too many people not watching it, too many people thinking that Gravity or American Hustle would make a good enough Best Picture. I anticipated the same thing as last year (when Zero Dark Thirty should have won, or the not even nominated The Impossible) or 2010 (when The Social Network or Inception should have prevailed). But enough people voted for the movie that will be remembered.

I was wrong, but in this case, I am happy for that.

Is there something between YA and adult?

Is there something between YA and adult?

All novels get labels based on the target audience: children’s, middle readers, YA, adult, ect. A lot of factors go into determining what that is, but rarely are the reasons articulated. Sometimes it’s obvious why a book is considered, for example, YA. The characters are teenagers, the setting is high school, the themes are growing up, the writing style is 8^th grade reading level, and so forth. Content also plays a factor as some books are obviously targeted at adult (erotica) or children (picture books).  An entire different conversation is a publisher’s (or author’s) desire to tap the lucrative YA market.

So what about those books that don’t fit so neatly into the common categories? What about the ones that straddle the line between YA and adult? Two types come to mind.

The first is in terms of content, i.e. violence, sex, and profane language. Books seemed to have followed the way of movies to a certain extent where nearly all violence is acceptable if relatively bloodless. The Hunger Games raised the bar on acceptable violence in YA books. The series did this not just in descriptions of violence but also in the nature (children killing children mercilessly). The emotional impact of such violence is underrated. Consider also the last Twilight book Breaking Dawn and its portrayal of sex and teenage pregnancy (Bella being eighteen), which includes discussions of abortion and ends with the death of the mother. YA readers can see and hear worse on the Internet, but well constructive narrative stories carry more power than random posts and short videos. That being said, while the stories may contain mature content, none of the themes are presented nor discussed with any complexity, as they are (likely) to be in an adult novel.

The second type is defined by its handling of themes and ideas. These books may tackle the same themes, but they try to provide deeper and wider commentary than typical YA novels. In a way, the novels seek to speak to where the reader is going rather than where the reader is. It’s college versus high school. This issue of the present versus the future leads to very few explicitly college set YA novels. The ideas and feelings of college can be seen in any number of stories set at boarding schools or private academies (Harry Potter, Mortal Instruments). But a college setting with 18-22 year olds is rare. Luna Waxing and its sequels show the difficulties of a true college setting. First, the story could easily be transferred to a private high school without major changes. The college setting seems to add nothing and at the same time to discourage younger YA readers. Yet the themes of loneliness, connection, growing up, and finding yourself are classic YA. The conversations and ideas are philosophical and nuanced as found in adult novels. However, the violence and sex are too deliberately obscured and talked around for it to be considered a true adult novel.

It is somewhere in-between YA and adult. It is in some nether realm avoided by other authors and publishers. There is no name for it because there are so few books targeted at this audience – if there is an audience that is. There must be. There must be college student that read something besides textbooks. There must be young adults wanting something more mature and insightful. There must be adults looking for YA-style books that don’t read like they were written by a high schooler. There must be, so I am going to name this new category, audience, group.

They will be called...

Luna Waxing Available on Diesel

I've been looking for Luna Waxing on various bookstores and haven't it found it on a couple yet.
Thankfully, I just found it on a new one.
Diesel E-Books has a page up. Here it is.

http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/item/SW00000394211/Gidley-Devon-Luna-Waxing-Book-1-of-the-Luna-Cycle/1.html

I've been busying editing the second book in the series -- Luna Waning. It's on track for a February publishing date. Check back and I will post some excepts. 

Luna Waxing: Book 1 of the Luna Cycle Published

Yes, it's been an extremely long while since I wrote here. I was busy off experiencing and writing the next two books in the Luna Cycle. Speaking of which, coincidentally, not really, the first book is being published this week at Smashwords.
It will be available at most major retailers. And to make it easier for you, they are below.

 https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/394211

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/luna-waxing-devon-gidley/1118002927?ean=2940045547291

Find it soon on Apple's iBookstore and Kobo. 

Others are coming later when the book officially publishes on Jan 19th, 2014.

 

Here's the cover art

moon, strawberry, mystery

and there's my name

 

The First Easter Egg

I received my copy of 'Ready Player One' by Ernest Cline and started sorting through it to find the Easter Egg (a hidden website). I had this idea that the clue might end in .com but I also considered that it could end in .net or .org making it possibly very hard.

You know how they say that sometimes the mind works best if it's allow to wander while doing something else? Well, that's the tactic I employed. I was streaming some video over the net and flipping through the book to try and find the clue.

(1) I went supremely obvious with the first one. I tried the name of the game world - theoasis.com which took me to a weird website. Okay, it wouldn't be that easy.

(2) I considered how the hero of the story solved the puzzles. The one that seemed to fit the most was the "Adventure" video game clue (for the 2nd key?). I checked out that scene because I recalled it included a hidden room. I remembered incorrectly and that led nowhere.

(3) I went back to the beginning of the story. I was reading through the "video" that starts the contest. In the video, it mentioned Warren Robinett, the first designer to add an Easter Egg to a game. I went on to wikipedia to check him out. His name was spelled correctly, but I tried warrenrobi.net anyway. Nothing.

(4) In the same section, the name of the company running the game world stood out - Gregarious Gaming Systems. I tried that website. It lead me a real one with the logo for the company. I tried clicking all over it, but nothing happened. Still, I knew I was on the right track.

(5) I figured if Gregarious Gaming Systems was on the web, I could search for it on google. I did just that and it brought up two websites that seemed relevant. I was already on the one, but the other one led me straight to the first gate. In retrospect it seems too obvious, and yet it took me a while to find it. That either says something about me or them.

(6) The game was called "The Stacks" and it was a classic Atari platformer. I didn't read the entire instructions, so it took me a while to beat it. Only after reading how to avoid dying by the "flashers" was I able to collect all the parts to the console. I beat it and found the QC image.

(7) I don't have a smartphone, so I couldn't scan it normally. It took me three downloads to find a program that would scan it from my computer. Then, I had to crop, brighten, and increase the contrast so the program would read it and reveal the second gate.

The current leader board is below. At least 225 people beat me to it. I'm going to have to be faster if I want to win that car.


Leaderboard

playing games for cars

what a sweet fun life I have

when I believe it

The Hunting Game

One of my favorite books from last year was "Ready Player One" by Ernest Cline. The basic idea is an Easter Egg hunt across a giant video game / virtual reality world. All the clues and answers are based on 1980s pop culture (movies, music, video games, books).

I wasn't even alive in the '80s (although neither is the protagonist of the book), but the story sucked me in like quicksand. I missed most of the references, including ones to class works that I will not mention because I am still ashamed I haven't actually read/saw/played them.

So, I read the book, liked it, and forgot about it. Until today. Ernest Cline set up his own Easter Egg hunt like the one in the book (on a smaller scale of course). I'm going to try and do it. Inside the book is a clue to a web site. Once on the site, you have to play 3 different video games (probably from the 1980s) to win a 1981 DeLorean. Thankfully I know that's the car from Back to the Future. I'm not sure how I'm going to find it, but like in the book, it sound like fun.

www.ernestcline.com

today's game challenge:
find the hidden Easter Egg
win an awesome car