Dr. Pus reviewed Oasis on the latest edition of Library of The Living Dead. He was very complimentary and even said my last name right.

Thanks, Doc!

You can listen to the audio trailer I made for Oasis in this week’s episode at Decoder Ring Theatre. The episode is part of their summer showcase and this time features Blaze Bing, Rodeo King. You can check it out here: Summer Showcase ep. 09 – Blaze Bing, Rodeo King. Give it a listen and tell me what you think!

And while I’m thinking about it, let me just put in a plug for Decoder Ring Theatre. I love Old Time Radio. There are a lot of groups out there producing audio drama these days, and most of it is mediocre, but amusing. Decoder Ring Theatre is not one of those groups. Decoder Ring Theatre happens to be very best group producing audio drama today, and I include the strictly commercial production groups when I say that. Their shows are amusing, well presented, and well acted.

The Red Panda Adventures series is a lot of fun. He’s Canada’s greatest superhero!

The Black Jack Justice series is absolutely delicious. I love the dueling monologues of Jack and his partner.

Anyway, go check them out. Listen to a few shows, and if you like them, throw a couple of bucks their way. That way, everybody can keep enjoying these shows.

Thank you, Gregg Taylor (& everybody else @ DRT), for all the Mystery, Comedy, and Adventure!

And for those of you who are wondering where this week’s chapter of The Journey of St. Laurent is, it is almost done. Maybe lunchtime, maybe tomorrow morning it’ll be up. Just follow me on twitter and you’ll be the first to know when you can read it.

How to Enter/Rules

1. You must have a twitter account
2. You must tweet about this giveaway
3. Your tweet must include 2 things: a link to this post and the hashtag #oasisgiveaway
4. I’ll only count one entry per user.

*edit* Here’s an example: my tweet to announce the giveaway

#Win a #free signed copy of pulp action adventure #zombie #novel Oasis. – http://bit.ly/kmsWg – #oasisgiveaway

I’ll pick at random then announce the winner on Friday (June 19, 2009), so you have until Friday morning sometime to enter. I will also attempt to notify the winner via Direct Message on twitter.

I’ll then send the winner a signed copy of Oasis. I’ll sign it to whomever you want, so if you already have a copy, and you want to give this one to your brother I can eerily mention the time he wet his pants in the fifth grade (or whatever you’d like me to mention) in the inscription.

If you don’t know what Oasis is, check out the Oasis website:

www.ZombieNovelOasis.com

or see Oasis on Amazon:

This book is like a $0.69 cent bean burrito from Taco Bell. It will dull your hunger for zombie brain bashing if you’re really in a fix, but it will not satisfy.

Ouch.

Oh, well. There’s no accounting for taste. If Stephen King can be a self-proclaimed literary Big Mac, I guess I should be proud to be a burrito. Oddly enough, the review didn’t even dampen my spirits much. I know my book isn’t a 1. It may not be a 5 either (btw, thanks for the two of you that did give me a 5 – you guys are awesome), but it’s definitely not a 1.

Anyway, my book was ranked yesterday at #62,167 today at #49,655, the highest I’ve seen so far. While that may sound at first like a totally crappy rank, consider the fact that Amazon has like 10,000,000 books. Even if there are only 2 million, that puts me ahead of 97% of the other listed books.

So thanks everybody for all your support!

Oh, yeah, and I still think I’ll be able to get chapter two of The Journey Of St. Laurent up tomorrow.

So without further adieu, here’s a tiny preview of…

The Journey Of St. Laurent

Chapter 1: Down by the Bay

“Man fights with his mind. His hands and his weapons are simply extensions of his will, and one of the fallacies of our era is the notion that equipment is the equivalent of force.”

-Jeff Cooper

I ran to the crumpled vehicle and threw open the door.

A trickle of oily black smoke puffed out. The car’s interior was cramped and now crumpled from the front. It was hard to see where anything had landed in the crash. The increasing smoke didn’t help. Just a few tongues of flame licked up from under the dashboard. The driver hadn’t worn a seat belt and his head had somehow taken a chunk from the custom steering wheel. His broken body shifted and half fell from the car.

My first impulse was to take a kick at his bloodied head. I gritted my teeth , fought back the urge, and checked his pulse.

Nothing. He was already gone.

Good riddance.

A tiny part of me wished he had suffered rather than die instantly in a wreck. After all, it would only seem right after everything he’d done.

I grabbed for his seat latch and pushed his seat toward the front.

His lifeless body blocked things just enough so I couldn’t see if what I wanted was on the back floor.

I hooked my hands under his armpits and pulled.

He was definitely heavy for such a skinny guy.

The flames inside grew.

I twisted and braced a foot against the car.

His body tumbled out all at once into a heap next to the burning car.

It was a little unceremonious, but it didn’t matter. He was dead, and I only had a few seconds. After that the flames would engulf the whole interior and then our only chance would be lost forever.

I stepped on or over his body, I can’t remember which, and pushed again on the latch and seat. This time it all slid forward. I jammed my head in the opening.

The thickening smoke burned my lungs and the rising heat clawed at the skin on my face.

My heart skipped a beat. Through the mess, I saw it.

The cost of a signed book will be the regular retail price($15) + shipping($3) = $18

For those of you who have already purchased the paperback through Amazon, if you’d like to get your copy signed, use the “contact” link above and we’ll work something out.

Also, I’ve seen hard at word outlining and preparing to write the sequel to Oasis. I should be ready to post Chapter 1 within a week and a half or so.

At long last, Oasis is poised to take take the world by storm.

Oasis is now available at the following places:

• Amazon
• CreateSpace
• Amazon Kindle Store (ebook edition)

Three ways to wish me an even merrier Christmas

1. I would just love it if you (yes you) would go on to Amazon and leave a review of Oasis for me.
2. Put a link on your blog/website/somewhere to Oasis
3. Put Oasis on one of those “listmania” lists on Amazon.

Signed Copies

A couple of you have expressed interest in obtaining signed copies. I’ll be making a few available through the website sometime after Christmas. I’ve just got too much going on to think about it right now.

Sorry about the poor picture quality. I took it with my cell phone. But that’s not the important part.

The important part is that I got my proof copy of Oasis today!

It’s hard to describe just how stoked about this I am.

The bad news that my wife opened it up and immediately found a glaring defect: Somehow, I had inserted extra copies of Chapters 4 & 5 in there.

Sigh.

Oh, well. I’m one step closer.

Also, do you think it would be useful to work up some kind of pre-order thing for folks that want signed copies?

That’s right folks, My edits to Oasis are finally done! And it’s only 2:00AM!

Now I just need to do some formatting, then pretty soon the paperback will be topping the charts!