USB drives having your cake and eating it too.

Hi all,

            This is a blog entry about a great thing I came across. I have just come into a supply of Flash Drives, pictured above, from USB Memory direct.

             It has often been my experience when selling my novels at events that E-book readers tend to lose out. Sure, if they remember they can download fine books like Horn of the Kraken or Nukekubi when they get home, but after a fun day at the event who remembers the great book you heard about? Business cards do only half the job, since if you’re like me you get home exhausted from a convention, or what not, and then get busy. It can be a week or more before you sort through the piles of paper and cards from the event. By then you are often wondering why you took the card in the first place.

            With customised drives from USB Memory Direct that problem is solved. Small convenient and versatile the potential reader can walk away with book in hand and it is a lot easer to sign a flash drive with a felt tip then an carve your name into an e-reader, so even the autograph situation is solved by these simple customised drives.

            I selected a wood book exterior with the title of my novel on one side and my website URL on the other, but there are many styles to choose from or USB Memory Direct will work with you to design your own.

            In any case, if you want to find out more about this product please visit any of the below.

Marketing, USB Memory Direct
Direct +1 866.404.4645 x111 | Fax 954.337.0206
usbmemorydirect.com | facebook | twitter | pinterest | instagram

More on Monsters

Ok, I know I write fantasy and a lot of leeway has to be given, but let’s play with making a monster real for a moment. I’ll take the Giant Spider because I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this one. Hay, I’m not slamming your hobbies, am I? :-)

Actually, I spent a lot of time thinking of how to up-scale anthropoids when I wrote War of the Worlds 2030 since the alien invaders used genetically modified earth life forms as their troops.

Bugs make good monsters in large part because of their psychological effect on humans. They seem almost like aliens on our own world with their body plan and exoskeleton.

A lot more goes into making a giant spider viable than just upsizing it though. First you hit the oxygen transfer limit. Anthropoids breathe through their skin as such they can’t get too large and still supply the oxygen needs of their body cores. If you want to upscale a spider, an arachnid, part of the anthropoid group, you have to deal with this. More oxygen in the atmosphere is one way, which was the case in the Devonian period, adding some kind of a lung or blow through vents to the body is another.

Next you run into the limitations of an exoskeleton. An exoskeleton may be built in armour, but it is not as useful for supporting a creature structurally as the solid pole construction of an endoskeleton. So if you want a giant spider you must A – reinforce the material of the skeleton. This process is useful in fantasy because it makes a more powerful beast. Or B – add an endoskeleton. This would make cutting off limbs even harder.

You might want to look at adding additional hearts when you upscale a spider as well to keep the blood flowing.

In the Fate of the Norns Ragnarok gaming system the giant spider is highly intelligent, which means a large, complex brain. The thing to keep in mind is that for life on earth the size of the brain is less important that the ratio of brain size to body size.

A T-Rex had a fairly large brain, but in relationship to its body size it wasn’t that impressive.

This is only a start. When making monsters for fantasy and books a little understanding of biology coupled with a lot of imagination and problem solving is a very useful mix for getting it right. One thing that often bugs me on the show Face Off, I really enjoy the show but nothing is perfect, is some one will be tasked with making an alien or monster and what they come up with seems to have no relationship to any conceivable environment. Evolution trims away the superfluous, go back to the T-Rex and the stubby arms, and keeps the useful. A pragmatic approach to survival in an ecological niche is, in my opinion, the best place to start when designing a monster. Undead are a notable exception to this as they operate under rules that may step outside the natural environment. Then again the Draugar in the Fate of the Norns cannon are fairly straight forward as they are corpses possessed by a spirit and juiced up with extra power.

Until next time.

Buy links:  http://www.amazon.com/Stephen-B.-Pearl/e/B00FEOLLIC/

Monday reading of Horn of the Kraken at Milton Pirate Festival.

Hi all, this is another reading from Horn of the Kraken performed at the Milton Pirate Festival.

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Video address: https://youtu.be/ZglbDM45WFs

Stephen B. Pearl: www.stephenpearl.com

Stephen B. Pearl on Amazon: www.amazon.com/Stephen-B.-Pearl/e/B00FEOLLIC

Milton Pirate Festival: www.thepiratefestival.com

Stephen B Pearl Horn of the Kraken reading. Jarl Erik BloodAxe

Another Reading from Horn of the Kraken.
This one with Words on the Outside. Wordsontheoutside.wordpress.com

Reading from Seven Days at Milton Pirate Fest 2015

Hi all. I just wanted to let you know that I have a new reading up from the Milton Pirate Festival. This is a reading from my story Seven Days in the Love, Time, Space, Magic anthology from Pop Seagull publishing and features Elizabeth Hirst and Stephen B. Pearl.

Video address: https://youtu.be/RPChHBA_-YY

Stephen B. Pearl: www.stephenpearl.com

Pop Seagull Publishing: http://popseagullpublishing.wordpress.com

Milton Pirate Festival: www.thepiratefestival.com