Conroyverse, by Lawrence M. Schoen

Well, damn. At first, I thought what I needed was a buffalo dog like Reggie. But I’ve come to realize that what I really need is a friend like Drinder. Because Drinder makes pizza.

Lawrence M. Schoen’s Conroyverse contains four different works of science fiction. A short story, two novels and a novella, I think it was. All the works are connected to the same universe.

I’m struggling to find the right words to explain what Conroyverse is.

Okay, Schoen wrote the first story, Buffalo Dogs, which tells the story of how Conroy came by Reggie. Then he wrote a series that had to do with Conroy, Reggie, Left John and all those guys, and he wrote spinoffs from that.

So, Conroyverse takes the first story of each spinoff series and puts them in one book.

I very much enjoyed this book, from the beginning to the end. It was comfortable reading, fun, science fiction, adventurous and humorous. I laughed a lot while reading, though some of it did hurt my heart too.

I feel like my review here doesn’t really convey how much I love this book, but I’m telling you, it’s a great read and I believe you would love it too.

Flowerbeds

Just started cleaning up my flower beds. Hope I’m able to get fresh mulch this year, as well as the lumber to build the 8ft-long flower planter I’ve been wanting for a couple years.

Chris Kuell

I just found out why I hadn’t heard back from Chris Kuell, Breath & Shadow’s Editor in Chief, on an article I sent him in January. Chris has seen more of my work than any other editor, and he always responded within a month. He told me once that it should never take him more than a month to get back to me on a submission.

We’ve exchanged many messages over the years and found out a lot about each other. We both loved sports and music, and that was what we talked about most. I finally broke into Breath & Shadow last year with my article about Sean Forbes and Warren Snipe and the Super Bowl halftime show. Shortly after that article was published, I sold another article to them, “Walking With Cerebral Palsy”.

On my birthday last year, he sent me a fiction story he’d written that had to do Stevie Ray Vaughan, and a few months back, he was telling me about his book “Morris” that just came out. I think it’s a collection of stories about Rock n Roll. It’s next on my to-read list. I thought I would have read it while he was still well and alive.

Baseball and Stuff

Reds just beat Dodgers. Earlier, Mets lost to Astros. There’s more baseball games on, but I gotta turn the TV off and get back to work. As much as I want to watch all these games, I need to limit it to just my top teams, namely the Detroit Tigers for MLB, and the other Detroit teams for the other sports, as well as the Michigan Wolverines.

In Baseball, there are teams I love, teams I like, teams I don’t like and teams I hate. Someday, I oughta list out which teams are under which category.

Probably going to turn the Red Wings on at 7. Might or might not actually sit in front of the TV and watch the game.

I’m hungry. Going to make hamburgers. Hope I don’t burn them like I did last time. By the way, production has been moving steadily. Getting work into novels and short stories every day.

My First Spring Training Game of the Year

Heaven returns to Earth. I just turned on the TV and my heart thudded when I saw there is a live Spring Training game on right now. First game I’ve caught this year. Astros and Mets.

Didn’t Justin Verlander just tranfer from the Astros to the Mets? If that is correct, I’ll be favoring the Mets over the Astros this year.

In any case, baseball is here again and all is right in the world. I’m stopping production to watch the remainder of this game.

Go Mets!