Weekend #2 of Vacation Reads!

Please enjoy these suggestions for your summer reading, including someone other than me talking about Aether Age!

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BASED UPON AVAILABILITY by Alix Strauss

What is your book about, Alix?

Based Upon Availability delves into the lives of eight seemingly ordinary women, 

each who pass through Manhattan’s swanky Four Seasons Hotel.  While offering 

sanctuary to some, solace to others, the hotel captures their darkest and 

twisted moments as they grapple with family, sex, power, love, and 

death.  Trish, a gallery owner, obsesses over her best friend’s wedding and 

dramatic weight loss. Robin wants revenge after a lifetime of abuse at the hands 

of her older sister. Anne is single, lonely, and suffering from 

obsessive-compulsive disorder. Drug-addicted rock star Louise needs to dry out. 

Southerner-turned-wannabe Manhattanite Franny is envious of her neighbors’ 

lives. Sheila wants to punish her boyfriend for returning to his wife. Ellen so 

desperately wants children, she’s willing to pretend to be pregnant. And Morgan, 

the hotel manager— haunted by the memory of her dead sister—is the thread that 

weaves these women’s lives together.  

In this an utterly original read, I try to ask and answer the age-old question; ‘what happens behind closed doors’ while 

examining the walls we put up as we attempt intimacy, and inspecting the ruins 

when they’re knocked down. 

Alix Strauss

Journalist/Author

www.alixstrauss.com

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NATIVE VENGEANCE by Julie Achterhoff

Julie Achterhoff is the author of three books, Native Vengeance, Quantum Earth, 

and Deadly Lucidity. They are paranormal thrillers. She grew up reading such 

authors as Stephen King and Dean Koontz, which influenced her own writing. She 

has been writing since childhood, scaring her teachers with her horror stories. 

Reading has also been a great influence on her. Her books can be found on 

amazon.com in regular form, and now on Kindle for $3.19 a piece. They can also 

be purchased from the publisher at allthingsthatmatterpress.com. You can read 

parts of her books on BookBuzzr.

Why did you become involved in your particular genre?

I just love scary stuff! It's exciting for me to write stories that will scare 

people and make them wonder if something like that could really happen. When I 

was a kid I read every scary book I could get my hands on. I loved H.P. 

Lovecraft and others that kept me up at night. I enjoy creating characters who 

are strong, yet also vulnerable, so the reader can relate to them throughout the 

story. I also enjoy writing a strong storyline that will keep readers engrossed 

until the very end. I also like adding a romantic element in my books. I think 

that gives them a little spice. I believe that thrillers are the most 

interesting books. They can really get to you!

Read more about these, and other great titles at Vacation Reads.

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The Aether Age: Helios, edited by Christopher Fletcher & Brandon H. Bell

One of the AeA writers, Jaym Gates,  offered us some thoughts on writing

for the shared world anthology:

I have to admit, when I first heard about the Aether Age project, I kind of 

wrote it off. Like so many other things, I'd heard about it on Twitter, when a 

couple of guys asked me if I would be involved. At the time, I was in California 

for a week, on vacation, and heading for some major deadlines. 

I said I'd try. I wrote four different starts. My computer crashed, I was trying 

to put out a wildfire in the writing community I was administrating, I was 

running too tight on the deadlines as it was. On top of that, it's been 

established that I don't play well in other people's worlds. I'm an unrepentant 

devotee of massive, detailed worlds, and had several failed collaborative 

attempts behind me. 

A week before the deadline, I took my retired dinosaur of a computer and 

hammered out a first draft, a second draft, polished, sent it in 2 days before 

deadline...before the deadline was extended. The editors asked me if I'd be 

interested in writing another story. Ok, well, if you insist. 

The world of Aether Age is difficult to write in, the first time through. 

Anything dealing with ancient Egypt or Greece is going to be problematic. The 

sheer level of detail is boggling, and the confusion. Was this ruler male, 

female, 1st Dynasty or 20th? Add a complex alternate history, and there are 

thousands of possibilities. It's like trying to find the one special blueberry 

in a 5 pound box. 

But, it does get a writer thinking. How would technologies change religion? How 

would airships change economy? How much horror would you get from mixing an 

unstable, unknown eternity of space with an endless pantheon of gods?

My stories explored the horror. What happens when criminals and monsters are 

abandoned on a rock, thousands of miles from anything they know, reliant on an 

atmosphere that goes away every now and then? What are those shadows in the 

dark? Where did the legends of Hades come from? What new gods would form in the 

endless depths of space, and how would they be worshiped? 

Join me in the Aether, in the Age of Helios, this fall. It will be the adventure 

of a lifetime.

-Jaym Gates

 See the book at: http://www.Aether-Age.com

Watch the trailer at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdoYnhCqtp0&feature=player_embedded