Author Archives: Deb Houdek Rule
Season of Marvels: Viking Tales
It’s Vikings past, present, and future! Available on Amazon Kindle Season of Marvels: Viking Tales joins my novel, Of All the Western Stars, and science fiction story collection, Stars That Sing the Requiem, on Amazon Kindle, all published by Variations … Continue reading
Tales of Television: Becoming a Tourist Attraction in Hollywood
Millions of people visit Hollywood every year hoping to see a real movie or television production. Sure, you can go to the Universal Studios Tour, and it’s great fun, but it’s also contrived and carefully orchestrated to keep people herded … Continue reading
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Tales of Television: Britney Who?
For about five years in the late 90s I worked at a PBS television station in California. At its most normal, it’s safe to say, a PBS station is a strange place to work. Sometimes it’s dull, as long programs … Continue reading
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Tales of Television: What Not to Say
Inevitably, when off the air, someone will rush in and ask, “Can’t you put a slide up?”, with said slide being the Technical Difficulties, Please Stand By graphic everyone at every tv station wishes to never see on the air. Continue reading
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Tales of Television: When Take 2 Would Have Been a Good Idea
The news story usually was ‘written’ by the receptionist; cribbed, in reality, from the newspaper. Whoever really wanted to be on television became the news anchor (also usually the receptionist). Continue reading
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Coming in Tales of Television
What to say, or not say, to the Military Police at 2am when it’s raining and you just want to get the shot Great Moments in Closed Captioning: Do you know what “sinned-re-la-la” means? What not to say if your … Continue reading
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Tales of Television: An Easter Bunny Tale
A sobbing bunny-girl was probably not going to sell cars. Continue reading
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Tales of Television: Vanished Into Electrons
So what is it I’ve done in this past 30+ years? In the final analysis, I’ve arranged electrons into interesting patterns, flung them into the ether, and seen them vanish. Continue reading
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Stars That Sing the Requiem
Stars That Sing the Requiem, a science fiction short story collection, joins my novel, Of All the Western Stars, on Amazon Kindle, published by Variations on a Theme publishing. Four of the six stories in Stars That Sing the Requiem … Continue reading
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The Hunger Games
Originality of concept often isn’t as important as the freshness and the vitality of the approach. As the Harry Potter series breathed a vibrant new life into some very old fantasy concepts, The Hunger Games gives a hint of that vitality to the post-apocalyptic survival scenario, at least in the first book. Continue reading
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Prophets of Science Fiction
Most of you who read here probably know I’m heavily involved in the world of Heinlein. I am on the Board of Directors of the Heinlein Society, and spend quite a bit of time and efforts advancing our goal to … Continue reading
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Romance Guest Author
Today I’m guest blogger on romance writer Bernadette Marie’s website talking about how I came to be interested in Tudor history, and how it led to the writing of my historical time travel romance novel Of All the Western Stars. … Continue reading
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Warrior Princess Romance Writer
I am delighted to be the guest author this week on romance writer Bernadette Marie’s website. On Warrior Princess Romance Writer blog site, I am the featured interviewee today, will have a guest blog on Thursday, and will be giving … Continue reading
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Of All the Western Stars
My historical-time travel-science fiction romance novel, Of All the Western Stars, is now available on Kindle from Amazon.com published by Variations on a Theme publishing. You don’t need a Kindle to read Kindle books. Just select to purchase the novel, … Continue reading
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Tudorland
I’m pleased to announce the launch of a new website, Tudorland. Tudorland explores an area I’ve long been interested in, which is the history of the Tudor and era in England. Since I was only eleven-years-old and saw the movie … Continue reading
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Emeralds, Diamonds and Amethysts
It’s with a great deal of pleasure I direct your attention to an upcoming book by friend, and college roommate, Mary Matthews. Emeralds, Diamonds and Amethysts is the sequel to Splendid Summer, a novel of the Roaring Twenties set in … Continue reading
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Boat Day: With Spiders
We’re in the last waning days of summer. I just moved to sit outside on the deck, to enjoy the summer sun, but it’s sixty-seven degrees right now, and feeling very much like autumn. The aspen tree has already lost … Continue reading
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Remember Flight 93
In the midst of the remembrances and reflections on the tenth anniversary of 9-11, I will remember and honor the brave people of Flight 93. That flight, aimed for our nation’s capital, was crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. … Continue reading
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Splendid Summer Honors Tasha
Mary Matthews, the author of Splendid Summer, available on Kindle from Amazon.com, is honoring the memory of our dearly beloved Tasha with a donation to PAWS of Coronado. The $1000 donation was the award for having one of the best … Continue reading
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Remodeling the Website
I’ve been working the last few days on another major website remodel. This gets rather technical, so bear with me. When I did the redesign I’ll call the “misty blue lake” design, I built using ASP.NET, a programming language based … Continue reading
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Tasha
We lost our dear Tasha last night, age 16. She was our baby from the time we were first married. Abandoned at four-weeks-old, weighing only one pound, and deaf, it was we who were the luckiest people on earth to … Continue reading
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Splendid Summer
Splendid Summer is a new website by an old friend, my college roommate Mary Matthews. She has a new book out, “Splendid Summer,” available on Kindle at Amazon.com. It’s a mystery tale set in 1920′s San Diego. I helped Mary … Continue reading
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May 2, 2011
Flag flying over the Flight 93 Memorial site in Shanksville, PA And where is that band who so vauntingly swore, That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion A home and a country should leave us no more? Their … Continue reading
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Krystal Loves the Kitty Half-Time Show
The dog portion of Puppy Bowl VII on Animal Planet held no interest for her, but Krystal was enthralled by the Kitty Half-Time Bowl. Geo commented she probably thinks it’s the best way to have kittens in the house–on the … Continue reading
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Minnesota Winter Driving Rules
As I told to Husband his first winter here: 1. Green light does not mean ‘go’, it means check to see if the other direction can stop. The car sliding sideways through the intersection on a red has the right-of-way. … Continue reading
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The Long Winter
Laura Ingalls Wilder and The Long Winter When I lived out west for ten years or so, and it never snowed and summers were brown and winters were rainy, the book I most read and reread when I was homesick … Continue reading
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Flowers on the Moon
Who ever imagined, who had ever thought, there would be a blue sky on the moon? Beyond, the landscape looked much like the previous plain, save for the bluish haze hanging low over it. If she looked directly up, through the clear roof of the car, the sky that appeared blue at an angle was darker, almost black, with stars still showing through. Mariah quit looking up. Continue reading
Posted in Publications, Stars That Sing the Requiem
Tagged fiction, science fiction, women in science fiction
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Beyond the Prairie: True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder
Beyond the Prairie: True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder reviewed by Deb Houdek Rule Beyond the Prairie: True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder, released on DVD November 23, 2010, is a made-for-TV movie from 2000 which intended to return the … Continue reading
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Dobby the Deer
Naturally it was right after the big foot-and-a-half snowstorm that I first saw the lone baby deer struggling through the snow toward the house. It’s rare to see a deer alone here. Usually they’re in groups of four to a … Continue reading
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The Stages of Christmas Lights Denial
It’s November 12th, and I’ve now passed through the first stage of Christmas Lights Denial. This is the stage where I sigh heavily, look around the place, and decide putting up lights is really far too much work and I … Continue reading
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