As I write this, Twitter is dead. Not just down with the usual overusage whale or twittery bird, but completely dead as in their home page won't even come up.

This begs the question of how useful the service really is when it seems to spend so much time being down instead of up. Over on Men with Pens, there's a lengthy discussion going on about just that subject.

I've been using Twitter since my initial post about how I didn't get it. I like it well enough now. I don't use it all the time or even every day, but it was recently #2 on my list of driving traffic to my site (it only recently fell to #3 behind... [More]

Just a short list this time. Have a good one.

Online collaboration lands young authors book deal
Two 21-year-old women have landed a book deal after writing a book together online in only 18 days. Danielle Bennett, from Victoria, and Jaida Jones, from New York, managed to attract the attention of a major publishing house with a fantasy novel featuring flying metal dragons, magicians and an all-out battle between warring rivals.

Twelve Books You Should Read at the Beach This Summer
It's boiling hot up here in the Earth's northern hemisphere, so hopefully at some point you'll find yourself vacationing at a beach —... [More]

Tor's latest free e-book giveaway is In the Midnight Hour by Patti O'Shea.

Ms. O'Shea has an impressive list of books to her name with a definite slant towards the romantic.

From the author's web site:

Ryne is a magical troubleshooter, sworn to protect the innocent from being harmed by magic—and she's been chasing Anise, her former mentor, for six years.

Deke is a private investigator who knows something key to defeating Anise.  But Anise cast a dark spell over him, and even though Ryne has managed to temporarily lift the curse, Deke can't remember what it is that he knows. ... [More]

The Wertzone continues The SFX Top 100 List with numbers 1 through 50.

Who's #1? Terry Pratchett.

I was happy to see some of my favorites: Michael Moorcock, Stephen R. Donaldson, Lois McMaster Bujold, Robin Hobb, Steven Erikson, Stephen King, and others.