Thieves -- the cover

This came out quite beautifully, don't you think?



Artwork by Noel Paolo Libunao.

Colors by Hu-Ann Mulia (Psycho Ann)

Logo by Sherwin Schwartzrock.

Awesome.

Look for it soon.

~ Ben

BIBLE ZOMBIES!!!

Kingdoms #4 is about Ezekiel. It's due to come out sometimes around summer, 2008 I believe.

But here's a little treat to whet your appetite:


And you can get a glimpse of the cover at the NEWS section of my website:

http://web.mac.com/benavery/iWeb/Avery/News/News.html

~ Ben

Terrorism Hits Home

He took refuge in a sacred place.

No one knew how he had infiltrated the land. That didn't matter. What mattered was that he was there. He had been seen and when he was, he hid. He scurried into the nooks and crannies of his sacred refuge.

Nothing would bring him out. Many techniques were tried. Noise. Arms. Gas. Fire. And then just waiting him out.

He was given the chance to leave peacefully, with full amnesty, but perhaps that was tried to quickly. Perhaps he should have been left alone, allowed to calm down and gain our trust.

But in the end it was decided: we will not deal with terrorists.

And so, we pretended to give in to his demands.

Knowing, all the while, we had no intention of letting him get away.

The trap was set. He offered him what he wanted.

But that sneaky little conniving rat . . . took the money and ran . . .

* * *

OK, so we weren't really dealing with a terrorist. But I felt like I was in the middle of a hostage situation last night.

My wife heard a noise in the stove. I pulled out the drawer from beneath the oven and there was a mouse, crawling under the cookie sheets. It jumped out of the drawer and ran back under the stove.

After that, it disappeared. There was nowhere for it to go, so my wife and I stood and watched, the back door open and a broom ready to guide it on its way outside.

Of course, he did not come out.

I tried scaring it out by banging on the stove. Nothing.

I tried putting the broom under the stove and moving it around. Nothing.

I tried turning the oven on and sweating him out. Nothing.

Finally, I tried putting a piece of cheese with peanut butter on it in the doorway and my wife and I waited and watched, ready to shoo him out as soon as he went for it.

Yeah, right, like that was going to happen.

Then it was decided. Peaceful negotiations were over. We gave the thing a chance to just leave quietly.

But now our only alternative was violence.

I set three traps, very strategically.

The mouse ate the peanut butter from one trap.

He's still with us today.

But tonight . . .

Yes, tonight . . .

~ Ben

Mac vs. PC

I’m sitting in Border’s, writing. I look around and see three people reading magazines. Two with books. And four people working. I’m not sure what they are working on, but they are engrossed in their laptops. Except the guy in the business suit. He’s got a laptop bag, but he’s working on a stack of papers. Not sure if they are papers he’s grading or business reports. Doesn’t matter.

Here’s what matters. Of the four people using laptops (three plus me), THREE of us are on Macs. The fourth has a Compaq.

I found it interesting. Not sure if anyone else is gonna care, but I found it interesting.

~ Ben

I Won the Yahoo Lottery!

So, I got an e-mail informing me that I won the Yahoo lottery!

$300,000.00!

SWEET!

And Yahoo and Microsoft Windows, together, arrange all the e-mail addresses of the people that are active online and select only 20 people every year!

This is funny, because I'm a Mac guy and haven't used Windows for years. But somehow, Windows is STILL collecting my information! I feel violated.

The best thing about this, though, is that I was notified about winning the YAHOO LOTTERY from a HOTMAIL ACCOUNT!

Yes, the people in charge of the Yahoo lottery have gone through the trouble of signing up for a FREE HOTMAIL ACCOUNT so they can notify me and twenty other people about the win! You'd think Yahoo would at least let them use the free YAHOO account . . .

~ Ben

PS -- To claim my winnings, I have to give my bank information to someone in Africa. Seems some sort of mix up sent my Payment Approval File there. But at least they apologized:

PAYMENT OF PRIZE AND CLAIM

We are sorry that your Payment Approval File was sent to Africa so that you can be cleared and paid simultaneously there. You are to contact our UK Agent to give you more details for the collection of your winning fund.

Yahoo Beta Lottery Prize must be claimed not later than 14 days from date of Draw Notification after the Draw date in which Prize has won.

Speaking of Time Travel -- new Star Trek movie news

POSSIBLE SPOILERS.

I've just read a news story that implies the new Star Trek movie will involve going back to some elements from many Trek fan's favorite episode, "City on the Edge of Forever".

Seems the Guardian donut guy is going to be the element used to travel through time, so old Spock can meet young Spock.

http://trekmovie.com/2007/11/12/more-rumored-star-trek-plot-details/

And Harlan Ellison, the guy who originally WROTE "City" is none too happy.

Not that he ever IS too happy.

I never did read the book that had his original script for "City". I've heard it's a completely different story than the one we ended up with.

I do like time travel. A lot. There's some really good Trek time travel. "City on the Edge of Forver". "Yesterday's Enterprise". Star Trek IV. Star Trek VII (Generations). Star Trek VIII (First Contact). But the whole time travel element of Enterprise lost me. I only watched about half the episodes, and that was a major plot element.

So I hope this goes well.

Oh, and on a side note, Journeyman, on NBC has become very interesting. The time travel is confusing (it's meant to be, it's part of the mystery), but consistent. And the consequences of bringing things back and forth in time has been cool to watch.

Back to Galileo.

~ Ben

Galileo is a JERK!

So I'm going along, writing the latest TimeFlyz book, and everything's going according to plan for the most part.

Mind you, it's TOUGH. It's been a difficult story to do, so far, but some recent revelations about some historical things that fit into my plan made it suddenly start to click!

Then, BAM!

Galileo shows up and ruins everything.

He didn't follow the outline!

Instead, as Laurel and her time traveling fly companions show up to protect him from the evil time traveling spider, he says to them, "You aren't more time travelers, are you?"

I was thunderstruck!

How DARE he deviate from the course!

But then, suddenly, there's a whole new level to this story. (Not only had Galileo been visited by time travelers before . . . he KNEW about it! There's a story there. For another day, of course.)

Meanwhile, I'm rushing to keep up with Galileo and this monkey wrench he threw at me. Is it going to make things easier? Or harder?

Who knows?

And is he going to pull something like that again?

(Answer: yes. He just tricked Laurel's brother into revealed that the Copernican view of the universe was right.)

Meanwhile, I'm extremely excited to do this story.

Did you know that Mr. "Poster Boy for Seperation of Religion and Science" Galileo was ACTUALLY a devout man of faith?

And that he believed that the Bible was inerrant?

That's right! He believed the Bible was T R U E true!

(Kinda embarrassing, for those who find him to be an awesome man of secularism . . .)

He also believed that -- get this -- if science and the Bible didn't match, then either the SCIENCE was wrong or our interpretation of the Bible was wrong.

And yet, he's credited with the rift between faith and science!

Galileo actually was afraid that the Catholic Church was going to get left behind. As the rest of the world discovered the truth about the world, the Church was going to be stuck believing an outdated lie! And that's exactly what happened.

Of course, the Aristotle/Ptolemy view of things WAS wrong. And the Copernicus/Galileo view WAS right. And for a LONG time after Galileo made his claim that the earth did, indeed, revolve around the sun, the Church suppressed those teachings. Because the Bible said, "The earth cannot be moved."

That's not to say the Church was wrong to question him. Some of his theories were wrong, and he sometimes did not have the evidence needed to fully prove his points.

But he sought the truth. And he tried to get the Church to do the same. And part of that truth, for him, was the Holy Writ. Awesome.

And I get to play the part of Paul Harvey and tell my readers "the rest of the story".

~ Ben

PS -- Turns out, he really was a jerk. if he had just been a little less pompous, he might not have made enemies in the Catholic Church and his theories just might have been more accepted earlier on. And he tended, in his writings, to do things to humiliate, on a personal level, his detractors.

An Exciting Summer

Whew. I'm getting ready to start what promises to, possibly, be the most exciting summer of my writing life.

Now, there was the summer when I was first published. That was exciting. But this summer is the big one.

On Wednesday, June 20, The Hedge Knight II: The Sworn Sword comes out from Marvel Comics. This is the sequel to The Hedge Knight, my break out work. It will be released as a monthly series after that.

In August (some reports say July) Zondervan will be releasing two series I have written. One is called Kingdoms, which gives some familiar (and not so familiar) Old Testament stories the Braveheart/Gladiator treatment. These are BIG stories, written on a BIG canvas. (Of course, the actual size of the books is small.)

The other is TimeFlyz, a story about . . . well . . . time traveling flies. I love time travel stories. Voyagers! Time Bandits. The old Choose Your Own Adventures. The Time Machine. And so on. This is one of my additions to the genre.

And then, in the month I'm calling Julaugust, The Oz/Wonderland Chronicles #2 will be released.

Finally, at some point this summer, the final two volumes in my ArmorQuest: Genesis series will be released, and I will begin working on a new trilogy in that series. (ArmorQuest books can be bought on the Community Comics website -- www.communitycomics.com)

Needless to say, I am very excited.

In my next entry, I'll explain why I'm excited about this summer in comics regarding other people's work.

Ben

I LOVE TIME TRAVEL . . .

I love Back to the Future 1 -3.

Voyagers.

Star Trek IV.

Indeed, ALL those Star Trek eps w/ Time Travel.

Heroes.

The Time Machine.

Escape from Planet of the Apes.

Millennium Actress

Superman I.

Time After Time.

Time Bandits. And 12 Monkeys.

Peabody's Improbable History.

Just read a nice little manga called Time Guardians. It wasn't technically time travel, but it came close, especially at the end.

Even bad time travel can be good.

And I love that the first REAL comic I had published was a time travel comic: TIMEPIECE. (Someday I may get to do the sequel I wanted to do -- TIMEPIECE: Redux.) (A revised TIMEPIECE is also going to be my first audio drama. I got to revise it to keep the core message and a narrative through line, instead of just pontificating on religiosity.)

And I'm sitting here writing TimeFlyz for Zondervan and thinking to myself . . . I get paid to write time travel stories.

I love time travel.

I don't know if anyone else will like reading it as much as I like writing it. But for now, I'm having fun.

~ Ben