Up to now, I’ve been confining my opinions on the lawsuit of the U.S. Justice Department versus Apple and the gang of five of the Big Six to my “News and Notices.”  While I’m definitely biased about this and my blog is basically op-ed, I started out thinking that this case is small potatoes compared to some of the bigger issues of our day.  Now I’m not so sure that the case is not a big, messy pommes de terre au gratin with lots of cheese where cleanup will be a challenge to any dishwasher, human or otherwise.

Let me elaborate on one compound word that is key here: price-fixing.  I didn’t quite understand where the government was coming from, but now I see the issues better.  Apple’s alleged behavior is ironically a 180-degree turn-around from their behavior with the music industry.  Steve Jobs’ company allegedly undercut record companies’ prices and forever changed the music industry.  What they allegedly offered to the Big Six publishers was a mechanism for the latter to avoid Amazon’s undercutting their prices—this is the agency model, where Apple agreed to sell eBooks at a publisher-determined price at their iStore as long as the publisher guaranteed that Amazon and every other online retailer couldn’t sell for less.  Amazon could sell the publishers’ eBooks (so they’re available for Kindle) but they couldn’t sell them for less (thus indirectly favoring the Kindle).

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#145: What’s next on my agenda?  While I’ve been thinking lately that my muses have discovered tasers, torturing me and Donna Carrick of Carrick Publishing to release my next books, I want to slow down a bit and think about what my next releases will be.  I have a plethora of old and new ideas.  It’s good to reassess which ones I will follow through on in the immediate future.  Here are some of my thoughts.

I liked both my old character, the DHS agent Ashley Scott, and the new one, Mossad agent Judy Epstein—two strong women you will find helping detectives Chen and Castilblanco in Angels Need not Apply (although Judy works behind the scenes).  Perhaps they deserve a more important role.  That would be something new to explore in my writing.  Although I haven’t neglected writing about strong women—Dao-Ming Chen and the two agents named above are but three examples—sometimes a character grabs a taser from a muse and goes at me too.

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(H. Prévost, Desert Fire, ISBN 978-1-927361-16-0)

Someone has probably said it before, but excellent young adult (YA) novels are just excellent novels where the most of the protagonists are young adults (12-18 years old).  They can be in any genre—romance, thriller, sci-fi, you name it.  Moreover, especially if they’re excellent, they can appeal to adults too.  In fact, the ages of the protagonists are often irrelevant to readers’ enjoyment or lack of it.  For example, I often wondered about Rowling’s dark writing in the later installments in her famous YA fantasy series.  With Twilight and The Hunger Games, it’s clear that young adults like to be shocked with blood and gore and titillated by sexual scenes as much as adults.

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#141:  In case you missed them:  Angels Need Not Apply, the sequel to The Midas Bomb, and Sing a Samba Galactica, the sequel to Survivors of the Chaos, have been released through Carrick Publishing.  Just in time for that school holiday with the children…ha!  Nevertheless, good spring and summer reading, whether on the porch with a mojito or at the beach with a piña colada.

#142: Wish I could spruce myself up as easily as Monkey C Media did my website!  Check it out.  The “Steve’s Writing” webpage was getting too long.  Like a good amoeba, it divided into “Books and Short Stories” and “Join the Conversation.”  New stuff:  All my glorious bookcovers—the last few eBook covers provided by Donna Carrick of Carrick Publishing—now line the RHS of the afore-mentioned new webpages; you’ll find two new pics of your favorite author (still from our trip to Ireland—there’s a theme here, as book critics say, and its alcoholic); and the contests have been simplified and reflect my current focus on eBooks.  BTW, I read somewhere that Google now emphasizes content for website ranking.  We indie readers and writers can help each other there—hence my comments in “Join the Conversation” and providing a pseudo-press kit.

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(J. Elder, Spectra, ISBN 9781927085103)

In the old days of sci-fi, many of the subgenres were ill defined.  The two basic genres, science fiction and fantasy, could often be found in the old magazines, but cyberpunk, militaristic sci-fi, and so forth were either not invented yet or were being created.  Sci-fi was often divided into hard sci-fi and space opera.  The first referred to novels like Hoyle’s The Black Cloud—in other words, novels that didn’t stray too far from known science and technology.  The second, like Doc Smith’s Lensman series, stretched the scientific extrapolations to their limit.  As a boy, I didn’t pay much attention to the difference—all these books stretched my imagination.

Here we have a new entry into what is the next step in evolution beyond hard sci-fi and space opera.  It is both a new sci-fi subgenre and a combination of two genres, sci-fi and thrillers.  Asimov’s The Naked Sun can be called a sci-fi mystery, for example, so why not sci-fi suspense and sci-fi thrillers?  The latter simply means that the author gathers up all the elements that are employed by thriller authors (Lee Child, Barry Eisler, David Baldacci, and so forth—take your pick) and puts them in a futuristic setting.  My own novels are sci-fi thrillers—The Midas Bomb is more thriller than sci-fi and Sing a Samba Galactica is more sci-fi than thriller—but that’s the genre that classifies my work.  While I often include dystopian elements too, Ms. Elder doesn’t, unless you classify her portrayal of the Draco prison as dystopian (see below).

Spectra is both sci-fi and thriller then, and what a thrill ride it is!  Her protagonists jump over one physical or psychological hurdle after another following the best thriller tradition.  Moreover, there is enough sci-fi, both hard sci-fi and space-operatic arias, to make the avid sci-fi reader smile.  Let’s examine the thriller elements of the story first.

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#135: Two new eBooks for your spring and summer reading!  Angels Need Not Apply, the sequel to The Midas Bomb, pits your favorite NYPD detectives Chen and Castilblanco against terrorists and a Mexican cartel.  Castilblanco gets personal when an FBI agent’s son is murdered.  Chen steps out of her stoic oriental shell to have a hot and heavy romance.

Sing a Samba Galactica, the sequel to Survivors of the Chaos, is an epic sci-fi saga that takes you on a whirlwind tour around the galaxy.  Learn what becomes of Billy Clarke, the irascible Mayor of the New Haven colony in the 82 Eridani system; and Brent Mueller and Jenny Wong, last seen on Helene, a moon of Saturn.  Follow the high- and low-tech battles as Humans match wits with the xenophobic Tali invaders.  And more!

Both books are available at Amazon’s Kindle Select.  Angels goes for $4.99 and Samba for $5.99.  Download them now to have hours of entertainment just a point and click away.

#136:  Many kudos and many thanks again to Donna Carrick at Carrick Publishing.  The two new books mentioned above were formatted by Donna in record time.  She also did the covers (with a few inputs from me), turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse, to borrow the adage.  At the risk of overloading her with work (Donna and hubby Alex are both gifted and clever writers), I would like to recommend Donna and Carrick Publishing for your eBook releases—editing, formatting, and cover work.  (I also recommend that you read her and Alex’ books.)

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