Cover art reveal for LITTLE GREEN MEN AT THE MERCURY INN!

I'm thrilled to present the cover art I just received for LITTLE GREEN MEN AT THE MERCURY INN (Roaring Brook Press/Macmillan 2014)!  It's by Andrew Arnold, who also did the interior illos.

LITTLE GREEN MEN AT THE MERCURY INN is a comedic middle grade story about three friends at a motel in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and what happens when a manned space launch at Kennedy Space Center is scrubbed due to the appearance of an unidentified flying object over Cape Canaveral.

A Dino a Day Strikes Back: A CHRONAL ENGINE Celebration Day 12

 

Welcome to Day 12 of A Dino a Day Strikes Back, celebrating the paperback release of CHRONAL ENGINE, and the new editions of NINJAS, PIRANHAS, AND GALILEO and TOFU AND T.REX!

The paperback of CHRONAL ENGINE is available today!

Today's T-shirt is from Zazzle.com and features a riff on the popular WWII slogan "Keep Calm and Carry On."  I confess that I kind of prefer Churchill's formulation: "For each and for all, as for the Royal Navy, the watchword should be 'Carry on and Dread Nought.'"

But "Keep Calm and Ignore the Raptor" is pretty good, too.

The pictures were taken at Moody Gardens in Galveston last summer, at their Dinos Alive! exhibit.   They basically had about a dozen animatronic dinosaurs on display in conjunction with a 3D movie - the premise of which seemed to be a bunch of folks getting lost in the past :-) (We didn't see the movie itself).

They didn't have a Velociraptor, but they did have an Ornithomimus, which qualifies as a "maniraptor," and hence "raptor."  (Okay, I'm stretching it a little).  Anyway, here are the pics:

Big theropod head for posing next to/on top of

Baryonyx and me

Styracosaurus

Ornithomimus

T.rex, naturally

A nest of Edmontosaurus

A Dino a Day Strikes Back Previous Days
Day 1: Palmer Events Center (Austin Marathon Expo)
Day 2: Texas Memorial Museum 
Day 3: Waller Creek Boat House
Day 4: Hartmann Prehistoric Garden
Day 5: UT Alumni Center
Day 6: O. Henry House and Museum
Day 7: Santa Rita Rig No. 1
Day 8: Texas Memorial Museum (Piranhas)
Day 9: Night Wing
Day 10: Austin Nature and Science Center Day 11:Japanese Garden at Zilker Park

A Dino a Day Strikes Back: A Chronal Engine Celebration! Day 11!

 

Welcome to Day 11 of A Dino a Day Strikes Back, celebrating the paperback release of CHRONAL ENGINE, and the new editions of NINJAS, PIRANHAS, AND GALILEO and TOFU AND T.REX!

DINOSAUR!  In Japanese.  So it seemed appropriate to take the picture at the Japanese Garden in Zilker Park in Austin.  Photos are by Sam Bond of Sam Bond Photography.

 

On the stepping stones over the koi pond

A Dino a Day Strikes Back Previous Days
Day 1: Palmer Events Center (Austin Marathon Expo)
Day 2: Texas Memorial Museum 
Day 3: Waller Creek Boat House
Day 4: Hartmann Prehistoric Garden
Day 5: UT Alumni Center
Day 6: O. Henry House and Museum
Day 7: Santa Rita Rig No. 1
Day 8: Texas Memorial Museum (Piranhas)
Day 9: Night Wing
Day 10: Austin Nature and Science Center

A Dino a Day Strikes Back: A Chronal Engine Celebration Day 10!

Welcome to Day 10 of A Dino a Day Strikes Back, celebrating the paperback release of CHRONAL ENGINE, and the new editions of NINJAS, PIRANHAS, AND GALILEO and TOFU AND T.REX!

 Poor T.rex, his arms never get any respect. :-).  But they're still bigger than Carnotaurus's...

Today's T-shirt is from zazzle.com and features pics from the Austin Nature and Science Center at Zilker Park.  The place has a visitor's center and a great garden and pond, along with a Dino Pit and a Birds of Prey exhibit.  Definitely worth a visit!

At the pond

All these guys were there in the Cretaceous except the heron (and the human)

Barn owl!

A Dino a Day Strikes Back Previous Days
Day 1: Palmer Events Center (Austin Marathon Expo)
Day 2: Texas Memorial Museum 
Day 3: Waller Creek Boat House
Day 4: Hartmann Prehistoric Garden
Day 5: UT Alumni Center
Day 6: O. Henry House and Museum
Day 7: Santa Rita Rig No. 1
Day 8: Texas Memorial Museum (Piranhas) 
Day 9: Night Wing

A DINO A DAY STRIKES BACK:A CHRONAL ENGINE CELEBRATION! Day 9

 

Welcome to Day 9 of A Dino a Day Strikes Back, celebrating the paperback release of CHRONAL ENGINE, and the new editions of NINJAS, PIRANHAS, AND GALILEO and TOFU AND T.REX!

Nightwing!

Okay, not exactly. :-).

Today's Dino a Day T-shirt features T.rex on a bicycle with the moon in the background, a riff on the iconic scene from E.T. Naturally, T.rex is not using the handlebars.   T-shirt is from zazzle.com.

I'm standing next to the Night Wing sculpture at the corner of Congress Avenue and Barton Springs Road, near the Congress Avenue Bridge, home to the world's largest urban bat colony.

Alas, it doesn't seem that bats evolved until after the Cretaceous, but appeared not long after.

 A Dino a Day Strikes Back Previous Days
Day 1: Palmer Events Center (Austin Marathon Expo)
Day 2: Texas Memorial Museum 
Day 3: Waller Creek Boat House
Day 4: Hartmann Prehistoric Garden
Day 5: UT Alumni Center
Day 6: O. Henry House and Museum
Day 7: Santa Rita Rig No. 1
Day 8: Texas Memorial Museum (Piranhas)

A DINO A DAY STRIKES BACK: A CHRONAL ENGINE CELEBRATION DAY 8

Welcome to Day 8 of A Dino a Day Strikes Back, celebrating the paperback release of CHRONAL ENGINE, and the new editions of NINJAS, PIRANHAS, AND GALILEO and TOFU AND T.REX!

Today we feature a fishy (heh) interlude:  PIRANHAS RULE! Shirt is from zazzle.com.

Photos were taken at the Texas Memorial Museum, where it's about more than just dinosaurs.  During the Mesozoic, central Texas was part of the coast of the Western Interior Seaway, and so was home to some rather large aquatic critters.  Alas, piranhas don't seem to have been around back then, but one of my favorite fish with razor sharp teeth, Xiphactinus, was.  Scroll down for pics!

Giant turtle, Protostega

Big fish, Xiphactinus

Looking Mosasaurus in the mouth

My, what big teeth you have...

A Dino a Day Strikes Back Previous Days
Day 1: Palmer Events Center (Austin Marathon Expo)
Day 2: Texas Memorial Museum 
Day 3: Waller Creek Boat House
Day 4: Hartmann Prehistoric Garden
Day 5: UT Alumni Center
Day 6: O. Henry House and Museum
Day 7: Santa Rita Rig No. 1

A Dino a Day Strikes Back: A CHRONAL ENGINE Celebration Day 7

 

Welcome to Day 7 of A Dino a Day Strikes Back, celebrating the paperback release of CHRONAL ENGINE, and the new editions of NINJAS, PIRANHAS, AND GALILEO and TOFU AND T.REX!

In the spirit of Sinclair Oil (and Texas), these pics were taken at the Santa Rita No. 1 oil rig, on display at MLK and San Jacinto, on the University of Texas campus.

 Sinclair Oil, of course, used to feature a "Brontosaurus" as its symbol (and back in the day, Sinclair was a sponsor of many paleo-digs out West.):

The Santa Rita No. 1 is the first oil well on University of Texas lands in west Texas (about halfway between Austin and El Paso).  The oil well flowed from 1923 to 1990. This rig was moved to Austin in 1940. 

 A Dino a Day Strikes Back Previous Days
Day 1: Palmer Events Center (Austin Marathon Expo)
Day 2: Texas Memorial Museum 
Day 3: Waller Creek Boat House
Day 4: Hartmann Prehistoric Garden
Day 5: UT Alumni Center
Day 6: O. Henry House and Museum

A Dino a Day Strikes back: A Chronal Engine Celebration! Day 6

 

Welcome to Day 6 of A Dino a Day Strikes Back, celebrating the paperback release of CHRONAL ENGINE, and the new editions of NINJAS, PIRANHAS, AND GALILEO and TOFU AND T.REX!

These pics were taken by Sam Bond of Sam Bond Photography at the O.Henry House and Museum. 

On the porch

Listening to the only recording of O. Henry on the Gramophone

Out back

William Sidney Porter lived in the house between 1893 and 1895.  Every May, the site hosts the O. Henry Pun-Off. .Alas, it appears that he was not the first to refer to Austin as the "City of the Violet Crown" in print...

A Dino a Day Strikes Back Previous Days
Day 1: Palmer Events Center (Austin Marathon Expo)
Day 2: Texas Memorial Museum 
Day 3: Waller Creek Boat House
Day 4: Hartmann Prehistoric Garden
Day 5: UT Alumni Center

A Dino a Day Strikes Back: A CHRONAL ENGINE Celebration Day 5

 

Welcome to Day 5 of A Dino a Day Strikes Back, celebrating the paperback release of CHRONAL ENGINE, and the new editions of NINJAS, PIRANHAS, AND GALILEO and TOFU AND T.REX!

In case you ever wondered "How to Eat a Triceratops," this T-shirt (from zazzle.com) features a helpful diagram illustrating the choicest cuts. 

The photos were taken, appropriately enough, in front of a sculpture of another large horned animal: a longhorn at the Texas Exes Alumni Center.  The cattle drive, of course, is part of Texas lore, and Bevo, a longhorn steer, is the mascot of the University of Texas at Austin.

And, recently, scientists announced the discovery of a dinosaur named Nasutoceratops, whose horns looked kind of like those of Bevo's...

A Dino a Day Strikes Back Previous Days
Day 1: Palmer Events Center (Austin Marathon Expo)
Day 2: Texas Memorial Museum 
Day 3: Waller Creek Boat House
Day 4: Hartmann Prehistoric Garden

A Dino a Day Strikes back: A Chronal Engine Celebration Day 4!

 

Welcome to Day 4 of A Dino a Day Strikes Back, celebrating the paperback release of CHRONAL ENGINE, and the new editions of NINJAS, PIRANHAS, AND GALILEO and TOFU AND T.REX!

Shirt is from Zazzle.com and features a T.rex with a death ray laser coming out of its mouth, warning of the dangers of science.  Or maybe, science fiction :-).  Photos are by Sam Bond of Sam Bond Photography.

The Hartmann Prehistoric Garden at Zilker Park is one of my favorite spots in Austin.  It features plants that either existed during or had ancestors with similar forms that existed during the Mesozoic and, thus, were contemporaneous with the dinosaurs.

Ornithomimid sculpture.  Its tracks were found at the site.

 

A Dino a Day Strikes Back Previous Days
Day 1: Palmer Events Center (Austin Marathon Expo)
Day 2: Texas Memorial Museum 
Day 3: Waller Creek Boat House