More Reading from At The Queen’s Command

Friday evening April 23rd, starting at 6PM Pacific time, I’ll be reading in Second Life from At The Queen’s Command again. On the 9th I read for four straight hours and got through the first twelve chapters. I’ll start with a synopsis of what’s happened up to this point, and then begin reading at Chapter Thirteen.

I’m doing this as a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. You pay, I read, and keep reading as long as folks are there to listen. On the 9th we had folks from all around the world and raised about $200.00 for the cause. That would be US dollars, not game dollars.

Second Life, as I’ve mentioned before, is free, graphically-based chat software which supports voice-chat. I’ve been using it for over two years now for readings, classes and just chatting with folks during my weekly Office Hours.

Once you’ve downloaded and installed the software, and registered with Second Life, you can click this link to be teleported to where the auction will take place. That same link will bring you to where I have office hours. There you can ask questions about writing, and get my take on issues facing writers each Wednesday evening—including this evening, at 6 PM Pacific Time.

I noted above that Second Life is free. This is true, but it does have its own economy. You can purchase game dollars to pay for me to continue reading. My partner and I set a price of $10 an hour for the reading, and many folks were far more generous than that. (That’s $10 in the aggregate, not individually—I’m a good reader, but not that good.) Second Life has been very supportive of RFL. Last year we were part of the effort which raised over a quarter of a million dollars for cancer research. It was during RFL last year that I lost my very good friend Dave Arneson to cancer, bringing home both the tragedy of the illness, and the need to fund research.

At The Queen’s Command is my latest novel. It’s a fantasy set in a parallel world, during the American Colonial period—though names have been changed to protect the innocent and so I can do cool things in messing with history. For example, Tharyngia, which is the analog to France, had a revolution about a hundred years earlier in which an insane and superstitious king was overthrown by scientists and natural philosophers. As a result, the nation is ruled by the Laureates, whose scientific research methods are viewed suspiciously by others, and who have become very successful with magick because they treat it as a science.

Anyway, think Last of the Mohicans with flintlocks and dragons and magick and you’ve got the idea.

At The Queen’s Command is coming out from Night Shade Books in November, just in time for all your holiday gift-giving needs. But if you want to experience it now, just download Second Life and get a listen to what you’ll be able to read in November.