The Avin Project goes live!

I've been working with a team of educational consultants to make The Gamble of the Godless available for English teachers and homeschoolers free of charge (as a pdf); the team has put together a slew of curriculum materials, all of which have been vetted and okayed by me, and all of which address Common Core State Standards for English. This is a tremendously exciting project for me, and if it flies, it will give me a chance to interact face-to-face with high school kids all across the country as they work on various projects inspired by the book. So I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens.

Take a look at the pitch here, on the Chronicles of Avin web site. You can even watch a video of me being slightly less than eloquent about the whole thing (sorry, I'm a little camera shy.) And if you're an English teacher (or homeschool parent), give me a shout via the attached application form.

Two more bloggers get behind Gamble

Ahoy, it was a busy weekend out there in book-blogger land, with both The Canary Review and Cheryl's Book Nook coming out swinging in favor of everybody's favorite unorthodox epic fantasy novel.

The Canary Review was slightly more gushing, remarking that "the author world-builds like a fiend" and characterizing the book as "a stellar example of an indie publication," which is awfully nice. The reviewer goes on to urge readers to "Explore the book and the world of animals/ See if you make it back alive" which is pretty snazzy IMHO.

Cheryls Book Nook is a briefer review that admits that the reviewer wasn't crazy about the story at first, but it got better to the point that "You will love it. Dave Maine has a winner in this tale and hopefully the beginning of many more." So that's pretty gushing too--thanks folks.

I urge you to take a stroll to either or both of these blogs and say howdy. It means a lot to these folks, who read and review out of nothing more than the love of a good story, and who'd be happy to have a comment or two.