Follow Friday - There Are 158 Nations in the World Chess Federation

It's Friday again, and this means it's time for Follow Friday. There has been a slight change to the format, as now there are two Follow Friday hosts blogs and two Follow Friday Features Bloggers each week. To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

1. Follow both of the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts (Parajunkee and Alison Can Read) and any one else you want to follow on the list.
2. Follow the two Featured Bloggers of the week - Except that this week there are no featured bloggers, because the selected bloggers apparently didn't respond to either Rachel or Alison.
3. Put your Blog name and URL in the Linky thing.
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.
5. Follow, follow, follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "Hi".
6. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the love . . . and the followers.
7. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!
8. If you're new to the Follow Friday Hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

And now for the Follow Friday Question: Have you met a favorite author and have a picture? Share.

This has been something of a lost week for me. I was swamped with work from my day job and didn't get anything posted Tuesday, and then I was hit with some particularly bad news on Wednesday, which, when coupled with some interpersonal conflicts essentially consumed my writing time for that day. Then I got some disappointing news on Thursday which knocked me out of my rhythm as well. The short version is that this has been a lousy week and I'm glad it is over.

Me and Catherine Asaro

But on to the question: Here is a picture of me with Catherine Asaro, one of my favorite authors and the creator of the Saga of the Skolian Empire, a science fiction epic that spans more than a dozen novels and numerous other shorter pieces of writing. She has also written a number of near future science fiction novels such as The Veiled Web, Sunrise Alley, and Alpha. Asaro is known for injecting romance into her science fiction, and she does it quite well, producing very good books. I have actually met her several times, as she lives reasonably near me and we both attend many of the same local conventions, including the excellent literary science fiction convention CapClave. I've waxed lyrical over her before, so for now I will simply say that she is a fantastic author who is interesting and engaging in person, and who is also one of the kindest and most generous people I've met.

By the way, Catherine is currently doing a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for an audio book version of her anthology Aurora in Four Voices, which contains several stories set in the aforementioned Saga of the Skolian Empire. The anthology collects several of Asaro's novellas and short stories into one volume, including the Hugo- and Nebula-nominated story Aurora in Four Voices and the Nebula-winning story The Spacetime Pool. If you are interested, you can find the Kickstarter at this link.

Go to previous Follow Friday: "157 Riverside Avenue" Is an REO Speedwagon Song

Go to subsequent Follow Friday: In Roman Numerals, 159 Is CLIX

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