San Francisco, U.S.A. – If you are a fan of fast paced strategy games that consistently demand your attention, Youda Survivor from G5 and Youda Games is a challenge for you. Youda Survivor places the player in the role of a man stranded on a desert island. To survive, the player must complete numerous tasks across 80 different levels and win over the hearts of the native tribe that resides on the island. The game starts up simple. Early levels just require the player to attract birds and then collect their eggs. This sets the path towards increasingly complex goals which will keep you on the edge, always strategizing about your next move.

Soon you will learn rituals to control the weather, use special machines to advance in quests, learn to deep sea dive for food and fight off the relentless bands of pirates. Indulge in a little resource planning, bird-breeding, and pirate-stomping in this frenzied adventure. Youda Survivor challenges you to prove that you have what it takes to survive anywhere and under any circumstances.

Key Features:

• 80 amazing levels
• 5 extra powers: rain, wind, lightning, birds and monkeys
• 11 exotic animals
• Fast-paced action
• Exciting adventure
• Upgrades, bonuses and awards
• Survive a deserted island!

Youda Survivor is available for download on Nook today. Gamers can try the game for free an buy the full version for $4.99. Originally the game was developed for PC by Youda Games. The game is also available on iOS, Google Play and Kindle Fire.

Game trailer available at Youda Survivor for Nook on August 10, 2012.

The article Youda Survivor Paced Game is Now Available appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Bestselling author Jennifer Crusie claims she was born to write novels rather than short stories, but her newly-released collection of short stories, Crazy People: The Crazy for You Stories, proves that she is a versatile writer. The Ohio native has written 16 books, and over thirty of her essays have been published in magazines and anthologies. Crusie originally compiled this collection for her MFA in fiction at Ohio State University.

Anyone who has read her book Crazy for You, will recognize characters such as Quinn and her best friend Darla. Crusie first wrote about Quinn and Darla here, and they helped her develop the subsequent novel, which was one of the top ten romances of 1999 as selected by Romance Writers of America.

The collection is unique in that you get to follow Crusie’s writing process. Crusie illustrates the development of her characters through notes at the beginning and end of each story, providing readers with an insider’s look into what Crusie was thinking when she wrote them.

The voices of the different stories vary from pre-teens struggling with adolescent love and family drama to a grown woman whose husband has left her for the ‘Bank Slut.’ The characters vary in age and personality, but they feel realistic as they tell their stories.

The stories share a common theme: love. But the stories are not the typical romance stories that Crusie is famous for. Crusie covers all the different types of love, from one-sided love, to true romance, to love between family members.

The book starts out with a story entitled, “The Day My Sister Shot the Mailman and Got Away With It, Of Course.” Told by the fifteen-year-old version of Quinn, this story rambles on in an honest, funny way. Quinn notices everything about her attention-hogging older sister’s love life, and she tries to give the mailman tips on how to date her. Crusie says many of her fans do not recognize the narrator as Quinn in this story, but she reminds the reader that this story occurred seventeen years before Crazy for You.

“I Am At My Sister’s Wedding”, includes characters who got cut from the published version of Crazy for You. Written from the point of view of Caroline, the story follows her as she attends her older sister Stephanie’s multiple weddings. The story begins when Caroline is fifteen and continues over the next thirty years as Caroline attends five weddings. The two sisters seem to be polar opposites: while Caroline never settles down, Stephanie has settled down too many times to count. But in the end they have more in common than what appears—they both struggle to find that perfect guy. Caroline describes each wedding in vivid detail, from the crazy relatives in attendance to how the color of the punch had to match the color of the bridesmaids’ dresses.

Crusie tells us in the note before the story that the story was originally intended to be a way to learn more about Stephanie as a character. In the first drafts of Crazy for You, she was one of Quinn’s best friends. But Crusie realized the story was less about Stephanie and more about Caroline—who Crusie describes as having a “wacked-out view of men and relationships.” Crusie states that Stephanie was such a simple character that it was easy to cut her from the book.

“Just Wanted You to Know” takes the form of a letter written by Debbie, Darla’s sister, to her cheating husband. As the letter progresses, the reader sees Debbie go through the different phases of dealing with her cheating husband. In the beginning of the letter, Debbie is in denial that her husband has left her for a woman known locally as the ‘Bank Slut.’ Once she accepts the truth, she is still willing to forgive her husband, but throughout the story Debbie continuously changes her mind. Although written as a letter, it reads more like a diary. Debbie pours her emotion into the note, making it a form of therapy. She vents all her thoughts of the affair, the divorce, and even the problems it is causing with her nosy mother. The letter is complete with several postscripts in which Debbie’s feelings evolve, from thinking she can forgive her husband as she explains her plans to win him back, to her affair with her husband’s best friend.

The collection also contains appendices, which provide alternative versions of some of the stories. For example, “The Day My Sister Shot the Mailman and Got Away with It, Of Course” was first written for a seminar with short story and novel writer, Ron Carlson. For one assignment, he required his students to write a 26-sentence story, and the first sentence had to start with the letter A, the next with B, etc. Although a difficult and unusual assignment, Crusie was pleased with the outcome and expanded the story into the version you see published in her collection. Crusie included the original exercise in Appendix A, and it is interesting to see the transformations that took place.

Readers can also read the published first chapter of Crazy for You and the original chapter from the book proposal. Although the two chapters are similar in content, some characters were deleted and some details changed as Crusie’s ideas for Crazy for You developed.

Even though most of us cannot say that our sister shot the mailman, the stories are all very easy to relate to. Crusie’s writing is easy to follow and fun to read. Crazy People: The Crazy for You Stories is available for Kindle, Nook, and iBook. A print version will be available soon.

Rating: 4/5

The article Jennifer Crusie: Crazy People Shows Versatility, Progress: Review appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

After some intense bankruptcy negotiations, Barnes and Noble has finally secured permission to buy Borders’ customer list for $13.9 million. This purchase includes information from former Borders customers, including email addresses, purchase histories, home addresses, and phone numbers. However, no financial information will be transferred to Barnes and Noble.

Even though the initial sale was made on September 26, the sale was not finalized for several weeks due to Borders’ objection to having their customers’ information sold. The Federal Trade Commission’s consumer chief, David Vladeck, agreed with Borders’ concerns.

“In light of the promises Borders made to its customers, we believe it would be appropriate for Borders to obtain express consent from its customers, specifying the potential purchaser, before it transfers the data. The consent process would allow customers to make their own determination as to whether a transfer of their information would be acceptable to them.

For consumers who did not consent, their data would be purged,” he said. Judge Martin Glenn, who has been presiding over Borders’ bankruptcy proceedings, decided it would not be necessary for customers to express permission for their information to be transferred to the new company.

Instead, Barnes and Noble was required to provide former Borders’ customers with the ability to opt out, and have their personal information purged from all databases. Last week, Barnes and Noble CEO, William Lynch, sent an email to 40 million former Borders customers welcoming them to the “Barnes and Noble family.”

The email briefly explained the purchase, and encouraged recipients to take advantage of the opportunity to receive emails with special offers for in-store and online purchases at Barnes and Noble. There was also a note at the bottom of the page with a link giving customers the option to opt out and have their information deleted.

Customers who received this email will have until October 15 to opt out. Former Borders customers who did not provide an email address will have until October 29. After these dates have passed, anyone who has not specifically opted out will automatically have their information transferred to the Barnes and Noble database.

This sale has caused some controversy concerning a company’s right to sell the intellectual property of their customers to another company without express permission. The privacy rights of an individual are highly prized in American society, and Barnes and Noble’s ability to simply buy personal information is upsetting to some individuals.

Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, recently stated his objections. “The settlement reached between Borders and Barnes and Noble is wholly inadequate and unacceptable. Consumers are unprotected unless they explicitly opt out. Instead, their specific consent should be requested,” he said.

The bankruptcy courts have set a precedent for companies to sell their customers’ information to others in the future. Only time will tell if this sharing of information is determined to be a breach of privacy, or simply a new way for businesses to reach out to customers.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/benjamingolub/

The article Barnes and Noble Buys Borders Customer List appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.