Early St. Paddy’s Day wishes for all my readers. On this day, everyone can be Irish! You don’t need to be of Irish descent to celebrate. (St. Paddy himself was a Briton.) Visit your local pub and toss down some Irish ale, stout, or whiskey and enjoy some lamb, bangers and mash, or a plate of corn beef and cabbage (that’s more an Irish-American invention, but it’s the spirit of celebration that counts), finishing everything off with an Irish coffee. If you’re vegetarian or vegan, have some potato skins or chips with cabbage. There might be singers and dancers to enjoy as well on this day when the leprechauns and banshees are out and about speaking their special secret versions of Irish Gaelic. Enjoy morning, noon, and night. Slainte!

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[Note: Readers might know that George Langston was Esther Brookstone’s boss when she worked in the Art and Antiques Division of Scotland Yard; like Dr. Watson with the sleuth Sherlock Holmes, George became the chronicler of Esther’s adventures. In the following, he interviews both Esther Brookstone and Steve Morgan, another ex-Scotland Yard detective and now Bristol PD Detective Inspector.]

George: I’m here at The Masterworks Gallery with Esther Brookstone and Steve Morgan. Who wants my first question?

Steve: Ladies go first, George.

George: So, Esther, people are asking why you seemed to have turned your sleuthing activities over to Steve here. Was it because you were tired of being compared to Dame Agatha’s Miss Marple?

Esther (with a laugh): That was used more as an insult by wags at the Yard. When my husband, my Dutchman Bastiann van Coevorden, came into my life, they started calling him Poirot, although he only looks like the actor who played that sleuth. I’m still a lot sprier than Miss Marple, so there was never any valid reason for anyone to identify me with her.

Steve: I believe some of what led to those nicknames, madam, was your and Bastiann’s sleuthing prowess, so you could consider the moniker an honor. Lots of people recognized that even before that BBC documentary came out.

Esther: I made those pillocks remove that documentary from their server. No one even remembers it now.

George (with a grin): Except for the copies people had already downloaded. Do you think the fame that brought helped sales in this gallery?

Esther: You should study that, George. It will give you something to do in your own retirement. It’s hard to imagine any potential clients even making the connection to that BBC trash.

George: So, should we consider that Steve took over your sleuthing activities?

Esther: I don’t mind. He’s young; I’m old. And I might still be a spry old hen, but Bastiann and I aren’t getting any younger. We’re both retired.

Steve: And you cats have used most of your nine lives by now.

George: You were once at the Yard, Steve, like Esther. Why did you move to Bristol?

Steve: Esther was in your division, old man. Generally speaking, that should have been a more genteel policing position than being a detective inspector in the crime-ridden area of London where I was working. Too intense. It got to me. My girlfriend left me too. I needed a change.

George: Seems to me, considering recent events, that you jumped from the firing pan into the fire. Did you expect that to occur?

Steve: No. And I didn’t expect to find the love of my life in Bristol either. Esther and I have both been lucky in our meeting someone through our work.

Esther: The difference being that I met Bastiann when I was still at the Yard, and that only happened because recovering art and chasing art thieves is an international activity. I just stumbled onto my three previous husbands as well. Read the rest of this entry »

Inspector Steve Morgan writes:

I’ve always had a healthy respect for water. I’d been without water in Afghanistan; and I had too much of it in a London canal when a wanker tossed me in one, thinking I was dead. England has two coasts. Once I’d settled in Bristol, I thought about buying a small boat to sail on the Irish Sea; I thought it might be fun in the future to sail a bit with Kanzi and our kids, after all. But that dip in the North Sea waters off Newcastle-on-Tyne where most of her folks lived to bring in the body of a Chinese spy made me reconsider that idea to buy a boat.

I’m DI Steve Morgan, a copper in the Bristol constabulary (technically part of the Avon and Somerset Police District). When I got my first case there after saying goodbye to the Big Smoke (London is known for other things besides its polluted air and river with its associated tides and canals), I barely had an inkling about how much it related to one of Esther Brookstone’s cases and a Russian oligarch’s yacht anchored off Scotland’s eastern shore.

They say China and Russia are the West’s major autocratic enemies. I personally experienced that at a local level. The politicians in Parliament—or maybe more the PM?—have to worry about the national and international levels. My copper colleagues and I worry about the local fallout. Yet China and Russia, led by thugs as bad as any of our local ones, get involved in local crime and even encourage it—anything to destabilize a Western democracy to further their autocratic agendas.

And Britain is one big island. It has to worry about water too because crime so often reaches its shores via its ports, Bristol being one. West, east, south, and north there’s water, and that creates entry points for smugglers, spies, human and drugs traffickers, and other rough scrotes who put no value on human life.

The island is a target for hate groups as well because it sits right off the rest of Europe’s coast, and they tend to support each other (and are sometimes funded by China and Russia). The Luftwaffe tried to destroy Britain in WWII; fascists, external and internal ones, have tried to destroy it more recently. The worst crimes often occur when scurrilous thugs like those listed above join forces with the local hate groups—or are one and the same thing.

I’ve had to deal with all that during my short stay in Bristol. Water itself isn’t culpable of anything bad, so I can respect it more academically. By isolating the island somewhat, it has mostly protected the UK and its citizens, after all, just like I try to do. I don’t respect the thugs I must deal with, though. They don’t deserve my respect at all.

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“Inspector Steve Morgan” trilogy. These three novels deal with some of the events and themes Inspector Morgan writes about above. In Legacy of Evil, Steve and his team tie up loose ends left over from Celtic Chronicles and tangle with a Russian oligarch. In Cult of Evil, they tackle an evil cult, but Steve is distracted by a terrorist out for revenge. In Fear the Asian Evil, China’s plan to destabilize British democracy is exposed as the team tracks down the shooter who attacked one of its members. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold (just not on Amazon).

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

I have many characters sprinkled through my stories, of course. Most of my favs are found in my seven series. That’s no surprise: One reason authors create series is that they want to develop the characters present in the series’ novels a bit more. That’s probably why readers follow a series as well, but their main reason might just be their increasing familiarity with those characters.

I’ve created so many characters since I started publishing in 2006 (Full Medical) that it’s hard to signal out the favs. All my characters differ, of course, and I even like many of the secondary ones a lot too, not just the main characters (the priests in Son of Thunder, Soldiers of God, and Muddlin’ Through, for example). Two of those secondary characters I killed off, causing some complaints from editors and reviewers. (Always problematic.) The favorites I select here seem are longer-lived, though.

Readers won’t be able to accuse me of being sexist when I list my favs—many of them are women. My favorite female protagonists are: Ashley Scott (an exception to the rule—while she appears a lot in the “Chen & Castilblanco” series, she shows her mettle in the stand-alone novel The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan); Esther Brookstone, from the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series; Mary Jo Melendez, from the “Mary Jo Melendez Mysteries” series; and Penny Castro, from “The Last Humans” trilogy. Among the male characters, I’d single out Rolando Castilblanco, from the “Chen & Castilblanco” series; Brent Mueller, from the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy”; Dr. Carlos Obregon, from many sci-fi short stories; and Vladimir Kalinin, from many series and stand-alone novels.

Penny Castro, the obvious MC in “The Last Humans” trilogy, most recently appearing in the third book Menace from Moscow (just published), might be evidence for my most recent fav being the one from my current work in progress or a novel I’ve just finished. All the rest become blurred in my old brain until I add another book to a series!

The entire “Last Humans” trilogy is Penny’s extended story, a post-apocalyptic saga of struggle and survival, but, as her adopted son Sammy points out in Menace from Moscow, the third book in the trilogy, she and Mary Jo Melendez are somewhat alike—strong, smart women, a bit fragile at times, but quite capable of handling what life throws at them. Readers probably expect that from my male characters; they should also expect that from my female ones as well. And yes, men can be fragile as well! All of my characters are complex.

All characters listed here are protagonists except for the villain Kalinin, who spans several series and stand-alone novellas and novels, all the way from The Midas Bomb to Soldiers of God on one extended fictional timeline. The only protagonist who comes close to competing with him is Bastiann van Coevorden from the “Chen & Castilblanco” (cameos), the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, and the “Inspector Steve Morgan” trilogy (cameos). (Brent Mueller plays an important role but has an alias in one stand-alone book as well—readers can have a bit of fun deciding which one that is!)

How do I keep all these characters straight? The answer is obvious: I must do as my readers do. I refer back to previous stories. I certainly couldn’t remember all of them! (Although they seem to remember me, haunting my dreams and asking for more prime time!)

***

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Menace from Moscow. For your consideration and enjoyment: The end of Penny Castro’s post-apocalyptic adventures. In this third novel of this post-apocalyptic sci-fi trilogy, the critical and difficult management of geopolitics in a post-apocalyptic world caused by a worldwide bioengineered virus continues: Survivor Penny Castro and her friends’ new task is to recover nuclear-armed missiles aboard a US submarine that sunk off Cuba’s coast at the beginning of the pandemic. As if the train trip from Colorado to Florida across a dangerous, desolate, and devasted US isn’t enough, what awaits them in the Caribbean and beyond will put any fan of sci-fi thrillers on the edge of their seats. From SoCal to Cheyenne Mountain and on to Florida, Cuba, and what remains of the Russian Federation, Penny’s adventures are full of mystery, thrills, and suspense. This novel will soon be available at most online retailers (but not Amazon!) and at most library and lending services.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

I’m sometimes (albeit rarely now) asked what are the best retailers and lenders of ebooks. Readers (and authors!) all too often just assume it’s Amazon. It’s not…and there are many. Amazon has its hands in too many cookie jars now (the jars are full of money, not cookies, of course), going far beyond being a simple online retailer of ebooks (or being a lender in several programs that scam authors and publishers), so it dominates the world of retail sales so much that you have to wonder if the retail world will soon be controlled by the Bezos bots. I want to correct that misconception.

I can heartily recommend any of the affiliated retailers and lenders of Smashwords and Draft2Digital for your ebook purchases. As you may know, the two have merged (although their catalogs haven’t), so I’ll list them all together. The affiliated retailers include Apple, Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, Gardners, and Kobo (and Kobo Plus, although I don’t know what that subtle distinction is…and don’t really care!); the affiliated library and lending services include Bibliotheca, BorrowBox, Hoopla, Library Direct, Overdrive, Scribd, and Vivlio. Amazon distributes to no one! (They think they’re the be-all and end-all of the publishing universe!)

Those two “aggregating services” (technical term meaning they group reading material together and distribute it to retailers) also do a lot more for authors and publishers than Amazon, including distribution to those affiliates, which continue the service to authors and public at large. B&N, for example, groups books in a series together automatically. (An author or publisher has to ask Amazon to do that most of the time because it’s run by stupid bots—but they usually have no luck in accomplishing that…for the same reason!) Amazon’s bots are also very efficient at discarding qualified, valid reviews!

Many of the Draft2Digital and Smashwords affiliates allow readers to find authors and publishers’ ebooks in unusual places they themselves distribute to—Kobo to Walmart and the lending services to public libraries who often lend ebooks, for example. Moreover, they don’t discriminate between Prime and non-Prime customers—there is no damn Amazon Prime! (That “Anazon service” costs the consumer over $100 per year now.) Draft2Digital and Smashwords also don’t discriminate between traditionally and self-published ebooks. (Amazon pimps the traditionally published ebooks more, especially those from their own subsidiary traditional publishers. So much for supporting self-publishing! The reason is obvious: Most traditional publishers charge almost as much for the ebook versions as the print version, so Amazon makes more money from selling their ebooks!)

One of the worst things about Amazon is, in fact, its KDP for authors of ebooks (this is an acronym for “Kindle Direct Publishing”—the words “direct publishing” form an oxymoron, of course). Long ago, they (meaning the big Bezos bot, I suppose) layered KDP on top of the normal Amazon sales site that consumers love (or, like me, love to hate). That means the username and password used at the Amazon retail site by authors for their own book purchases are the same ones they log-on to KDP with for their publishing activities. Huh? Moreover, in their pond-scum-like wisdom, Amazon’s two-factor authentication on the main retail site, with its email or cellphone options, can only be used with a cellphone option on KDP! Because older authors (or even very tech-aware ones, young or old!) don’t use cellphones (I only use mine in the car for emergency situations, never for internet business), they can’t get their tax info like they used to. (Recently, I spent a lot of time trying to get a work-around to that roadblock.) This is a recent “feature” of two-factor authentication for KDP that even the guy on the help-line I talked to admitted was a major gaffe. Bottom line: Amazon doesn’t give a damn about authors!

All these problems motivated my decision to not offer any of my recent ebooks on Amazon—and I’m definitely boycotting KDP! Sure, Amazon offers some products buyers can’t find elsewhere. I’ve found this especially true of ebooks produced overseas (e.g., Joffe imprint’s Brit-style mysteries that I love to read). Like everyone else, I have to grimace, cave in, and buy those products on Amazon. Otherwise, I recommend you do what I’m doing: Boycott Amazon entirely, whether it’s the main retail site or KDP.

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Menace from Moscow. For your consideration and enjoyment: The end of Penny Castro’s post-apocalyptic adventures. In this third novel of the post-apocalyptic sci-fi trilogy “The Last Human,” the critical and difficult management of geopolitics in a post-apocalyptic world caused by a worldwide bioengineered virus continues: Survivor Penny Castro and her friends’ new task is to recover nuclear-armed missiles aboard a US submarine that sunk off Cuba’s coast at the beginning of the pandemic. As if the train trip from Colorado to Florida across a dangerous, desolate, and devasted US isn’t enough, what awaits them in the Caribbean and beyond will put any fan of sci-fi thrillers on the edge of their seats. From SoCal to Cheyenne Mountain and on to Florida, Cuba, and what remains of the Russian Federation, Penny’s adventures are full of mystery, thrills, and suspense. This novel will soon be available at most online retailers (but not Amazon!) and at most library and lending services.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

I’d always intended to finish “The Last Humans” trilogy. Unfortunately, circumstances beyond my control affected the second novel and delayed my writing of the third. To describe what occurred, I’ll just quote from the “Notes” section that will appear at the end of the recently published third novel, Menace from Moscow:

“…the trilogy has endured a troubled publishing past. It almost seemed that it was jinxed. The ups and downs I experienced in publishing it were largely beyond my control. You see, a while ago I had this crazy notion that I had to try traditional publishing again to have the full experience as an author. (When I began my publishing career, only traditional or vanity presses existed—today’s self-publishing options aren’t vanity presses!—and I was soon self-publishing my stories because I’d quickly tired of traditional publishing’s oppressive bureaucracy.) After first publishing Rembrandt’s Angel [2017], “Esther Brookstone Art Detective,” Book One with Penmore Press , I wanted to publish Penny’s first novel traditionally as well, but Penmore doesn’t publish sci-fi (even though Rembrandt’s Angel took place in the near future as well—they didn’t realize that, I guess). So, I tried another small press, Black Opal Books. Their acquisition editor loved that first novel [The Last Humans, 2019], so I thought the stories of Penny’s adventures had found a good home. That didn’t happen! I submitted the second novel [A New Dawn] to them; Black Opal was sold; and the new owners sat on the novel for over a year. I finally got disgusted, withdrew the novel, and self-published it [2020]. Then the Bezos bots at Amazon confused the second novel with the first (that’s not been fixed to this date!), one reason I’m now boycotting Amazon as a retailer for all my future books!

I consequently said, “To hell with it!” about completing the trilogy for a long time. Even though I had lots of ideas for the third novel (hints are found at the end of the second), I abandoned the project. But Covid validated my ideas about how a worldwide pandemic could have disastrous effects in our world. (Covid-19 might not have even been made in a Chinese lab, and certainly not one in the PRNK, and it wasn’t dispersed by an ICBM, which might have let it propagate even faster [if that was what the Chinese had intended], but it still efficiently killed millions as it moved around the globe.) Wasn’t it time to finish Penny’s odyssey?

An author’s travails on his road to publishing a novel aren’t that interesting to most readers, but they’re common enough that the NY Times not long ago published an article (Art Section, August 26, 2022), “Finished Writing a Novel? Now’s the Tough Part,” that offers an example of the problems another author had in running that gantlet of traditional publishing. In my letter to the editor that followed soon after, I argued that the author from the article should choose self-publishing the next time because it facilitates the whole process. But enough about authors’ publishing woes! Frankly, I only mentioned them here to explain the delay in publishing this third novel.

In any case, I now therefore feel a great sense of satisfaction after all these “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” because I finished the trilogy. Sure, they’re just three novels among many in my oeuvre, but they’re all special because of the problems I had with publishing them, more than with any others. I wanted to tell the world about Penny’s remaining adventures. I’m sure she wanted that as well. I’ve done that, and she can now have a well-deserved rest with her family….”

There you have it: The sad saga describing one author’s journey to finishing a trilogy!

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Menace from Moscow. In this third novel of this post-apocalyptic sci-fi trilogy, the critical and difficult management of geopolitics in a post-apocalyptic world caused by a worldwide bioengineered virus continues: Survivor Penny Castro and her friends’ new task is to recover nuclear-armed missiles aboard a US submarine that sunk off Cuba’s coast at the beginning of the pandemic. As if the train trip from Colorado to Florida across a dangerous, desolate, and devasted US isn’t enough, what awaits them in the Caribbean and beyond will put any fan of sci-fi thrillers on the edge of their seats. From SoCal to Cheyenne Mountain and on to Florida, Cuba, and what remains of the Russian Federation, Penny’s adventures are full of mystery, thrills, and suspense. This novel will be available at most online retailers (but not Amazon!) and at most library and lending services. For your consideration and enjoyment: The end of Penny’s post-apocalyptic adventures.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Hatchet Man. Elie Honig, author (2021, 2022). While one could argue that this is more a book for addicts of legal thrillers, it’s unfortunately non-fiction. It paints a disturbing picture of the man who never tried a case in his life yet became US Attorney General twice, William Barr. The focus here is on the second time, his two years as Jeff Sessions’s replacement in the Trump administration. In those two years, he preached the gospel of Trump’s “absolute immunity”; selectively released only aspects of the Mueller report to confuse people, and waved it off as a waste of time and money; damaged DoJ’s reputation (it’s still recovering); and promoted Trump’s “big lie.” And then he became the rat leaving the sinking ship by resigning!

I’d like to highlight four new things I learned in this expose of Barr’s incompetence and malfeasance in office. (Biopic? Chronicle? Call it what you want, but it’s an unflattering picture of an old fool who went out of his way to end his career by damaging so completely his reputation!)

First, by comparing Barr’s actions with the author’s time spent in the SDNY as a prosecutor  where he even prosecuted John Gotti a fourth time (the jury was incurably deadlocked, as in the previous three times), we not only see how unprepared Barr was to be AG but how much Trump and his family resemble a mafia family. More of an embellishment on what I already knew but with some surprises, and entertaining nonetheless.

Second, the book shows how complicit Barr was in destroying the DoJ’s reputation by turning his and his department’s focus on acting as the ex-president’s personal lawyers who would defend him at all cost. Added to the distrust we now have of SCOTUS and the court system as a whole caused by loading the courts with far-right judges, America’s justice system has been left in sad shape. It will take a long time for it to recover, if it ever does. Judges serve life terms, and Barr set the bar very low (pun intended) for any future AG who could very well think he can get away with the same crap.

Third, Barr’s actions were more driven by self-interest and furthering his own agenda. He viewed Trump only as a tool, a battle axe he could use to attack secularism in American society and promote the agenda of far-right Catholicism. I had no idea he was such an ultra-conservative Catholic. No one, absolutely no one, filled with such religious fanaticism should ever be AG! This unqualified and unscrupulous AG wrote papers about how secularism is corrupting America. Of course, evangelicals also saw Trump as their tool as well. This is also true of several current members of SCOTUS. The US barely escaped becoming an evil theocracy like Iran…and that still could happen!

Fourth, considering the damage Barr did to the DoJ, the reader of this review might ask what we can do to fix it. To Honig’s credit, he makes some sound proposals for reform in the chapter titled “The Road Back” that Garland and his minions should try to make DoJ policy. (Unfortunately, none of this chapter offers a solution for the problems with SCOTUS, which could do more lasting damage for a long time!)

This isn’t a long book, but it’s a pithy one. It will add a great deal to anyone’s understanding of how Trump and his MAGA maniacs almost succeeded in destroying democracy in America. It also provides a road map for what to avoid and what to fix in the future. Highly recommended!

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Menace from Moscow. Coming soon! In this third novel of this post-apocalyptic sci-fi trilogy, the critical and difficult management of geopolitics in a post-apocalyptic world caused by a worldwide bioengineered virus continues: Survivor Penny Castro and her friends’ new task is to recover nuclear-armed missiles aboard a US submarine that sunk off Cuba’s coast at the beginning of the pandemic. As if the train trip from Colorado to Florida across a dangerous, desolate, and devasted US isn’t enough, what awaits them in the Caribbean and beyond will put any fan of sci-fi thrillers on the edge of their seats. From SoCal to Cheyenne Mountain and on to Florida, Cuba, and what remains of the Russian Federation, Penny’s adventures are full of mystery, thrills, and suspense. This novel will be available at most online retailers (but not Amazon!) and at most library and lending services. For your consideration and enjoyment: The end of Penny’s post-apocalyptic adventures.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

In last week’s article, I reviewed J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Now, inspired by reading that prelude to The Lord of the Rings trilogy (I’d read the trilogy as a kid, but not its prelude), I’ve continued to read on into Frodo’s odyssey. This article isn’t about that, though.

Instead, I want to tell you about some advice to authors Tolkien offers in his Forward to the Ring trilogy. Okay, he doesn’t present it as advice, but I’ll interpret it in that way as a complement to my little course “Writing Fiction” (Revision 11 is now available as a free PDF download—see the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page at this web site for a list of all my freebies, which includes two full novels in the “Esther Brookstone” series). Let me start with a quote from that Forward:

“Some who have read my book [he considers the entire trilogy as one book here, although traditionally it’s divided into three parts], or at any rate have reviewed them [like today, there were probably reviewers in his day who never actually bothered to read the book], have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible, and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or the kinds of writing they evidently prefer.” Powerful words from a classic author!

First, let me state that I all I have to do is change “my book” to “my books” and “found it” to “found them,” and I’ll have something that also accurately describes my publishing career. Tolkien goes on to say that his goal is to have fun telling stories that he hopes might entertain a few readers. That’s all any fiction writer can hope for if they have any common sense at all—the publishing business is full of vagaries—and it’s all I hope for. In fact, I always state that if each of my books entertains at least one reader, for me that book is a success. Making a lot of money might be other authors’ goal, but my joy is in the storytelling.

Second, Tolkien’s quote certainly applies to the erudite critics of the NY Times who don’t seem to recognize a good story when they see one—or refuse to do so. It also applies to most literary agents who live in the River Styx among the rotting corpses between good fiction and the hell of predicting the marketability of a book. They choose something trashy like Spare (1.4 million copies as of the date I wrote this article) or any other celeb’s scandalous confessions over truly good, entertaining stories. In their defense, the Big Five publishing conglomerates. and all their formulaic old mares and stallions in their stables who should have been sent to the glue factory long ago, only worry about marketability—they’re well ensconced in that literary hell!

Some people will just write J. R. R.’s quote off to despair and despondency—he’d just lived through two world wars! While writers are undoubtedly influenced by current events (the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have been my most recent causes of agita, but the advances of fascism worldwide and in the US certainly mimic Tolkien’s frustrations with the Nazi fascists), his quote and my interpretation of it represents a damning indictment of the current publishing environment as well as his. What’s sad is that his Forward shows that not much has changed: The traditional publishing establishment still tries to control what people read. It’s a more insidious form of book banning than what is seen in Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (or DeSantis’s Florida). I’m actually surprised that the publisher of that pocketbook edition of the Lord of Rings trilogy didn’t leave out that Forward!

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Menace from Moscow. Edits almost done! Here’s a summary:

In the third novel of this trilogy, the critical and difficult management of geopolitics in a post-apocalyptic world caused by a worldwide bioengineered virus continues: Survivor Penny Castro and her friends’ new task is to recover nuclear-armed missiles aboard a US submarine that sunk off Cuba’s coast at the beginning of the pandemic. As if the train trip from Colorado to Florida across a dangerous, desolate, and devasted US isn’t enough, what awaits them in the Caribbean and beyond will put any fan of sci-fi thrillers on the edge of their seats. From SoCal to Cheyenne Mountain and on to Florida, Cuba, and what remains of the Russian Federation, Penny’s adventures are full of mystery, thrills, and suspense.

This book has Draft2Digital in its near future, so it will soon appear at all D2D’s affiliated retailers and library and lending services. I hope readers will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

The Hobbit. J. R. R. Tolkien, author (1957). “What?” you say. “I come here to read reviews about new books, not old ones. I can just see the damn movie!” A fair complaint, I suppose, but any reader of this blog who might say such a thing doesn’t write the articles for this blog! And while I greatly enjoyed the three Lord of the Rings movies, I read the corresponding books as a kid. (Much better reads than that Harry Potter crap, of course.) But I didn’t read The Hobbit, which is like Asimov’s Prelude to Foundation relative to his Foundation trilogy, i.e., this book is the prelude to the Rings trilogy. (By the way, that trilogy was just one epic novel that Tolkien divided into three for publication.) So, if I ever see The Hobbit movie (a big “if”), I’m better prepared to critique what Hollywood does with it.

As many of you know, this is the story of not Frodo but Bilbo Baggins, the little hobbit whom Gandalf the wizard forces upon the dwarf Thorin Oakenshield and his dwarf buddies to serve as their aide and moral rock on their quest to reclaim their riches guarded by the evil and murderous dragon Smaug. The reader will meet many more creatures from Middle-earth in addition to the dwarves and hobbits: goblins (where Bilbo steals the infamous ring from Gollum); elves (not always good guys and quite self-centered and smug at times); talking birds and wolves; and ordinary humans.

I couldn’t help making a comparison between Tolkien’s book and H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines. Of course, there are many stories about searches for lost treasure, old and new, and The Hobbit is both a weird and entertaining one. It has all the trappings of an adventure story, though—or a modern thriller!—but it’s fantasy, of course, one of the pioneering originals, better known than most, and better in quality than most everything else I’ve read.

Tolkien’s work, in fact, can provide lessons for any aspiring author. (See next week’s article for an unusual one.) None of his main characters are simple ones. Each one is as complicated as any real person might be. The settings are strange but well-described. The plot moves inexorably forward (although possibly a bit rushed toward the end?), and it’s mostly in the POV of the hobbit, alternating between action and introspective reflection for him and among its characters. This is classic storytelling that should be studied in any MFA writing program worth its salt.

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Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape. I don’t write a lot of fluff (and could never compete with Tolkien writing fantasy, or many other authors either, for that matter), so I don’t have any fantasy novels. But this collection of short fiction contains some stories that could be called fantasy—ghosts in a Massachusetts town, a zombie chasing a time traveler, a dog take over by an ET, and so forth—so you might want to have some reading fun with it. In contrast to other books, it’s only available on Amazon (it’s the other way around with my recently published books!). Note: The other volumes in this series of short fiction collections are even less expensive—they’re free. (See the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page for a list of all my free downloadable PDFs.)

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

Readers of this blog know that at the end of an article I usually sign off by writing, “Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!” Although it might be obvious, let me parse this motto’s meaning, which has two parts.

The first might be considered a genre statement, but it’s more a statement about my stories’ settings. (I’m no fan of genres or anyone who tries to categorize my fiction besides me.) Those settings can cover anywhere on planet Earth or go far beyond Earth into the cosmos. What that first part does not contain is the time element, which can go from prehistory (e.g., A. B. Carolan’s Origins) to more or less contemporary times (e.g., The Midas Bomb) or to the far future (e.g., Rogue Planet) or a lot of different times in parallel universes (e.g. A Time Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse). That’s a flaw in my motto, of course, but I didn’t want to make it any longer!

The second part expresses a lot more in fewer Latin words than the first part (the English non-literal translation is a bit longer: “In books, there’s liberty”), and it’s more profound. Books are the traditional and best way to support the fight for liberty vs. autocracy, good over evil, and tolerance over bigotry and hatred. It’s also a statement against book banning, so important nowadays with haters, bigots, racists, and other fascist personalities trying to dictate what people can and cannot read. That such censorship is now ubiquitous and increasing in the US is troubling, to say the least, and I will never condone it. Whatever a book’s themes or topics, a reader is free to choose not to read it, and anything beyond these personal choices should not be a subject of discussion.

So, most everything I write, novels, short fiction, and even these blog articles, can be summarized by my motto. I know most authors don’t have one, but I’m not like most authors! Readers of my many books already know that. I hope the word about my books (and my motto!) gets out so that new readers will join me in this grand adventure we call reading.

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A Time-Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse. From the hard sci-fi perspective, this is time travel done right, using the “Many Worlds Theory of Quantum Mechanics” to avoid paradoxes. It’s also a rom-com because physicist Gail and her newly hired tech Jeff create a time machine that can only go into the future but also become lovers. But “the future” of one universe in the multiverse can seem like the past in another! The two hop from universe to universe living one romantic adventure after another, exploring some of the various possibilities of human existence…and non-human existence as well, each adventure a different commentary about our Earth and our own Universe. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

[Note from Steve: Some authors give away their published books. Except as an exchange for an honest review, I don’t. But I will give away unpublished fiction, mostly short fiction, and other fiction-related items, in the form of free downloadable PDFs. Here are two new ones you might want to download and peruse.]

The Detectives, Volume Two: The Earl of Penrith. Unlike that long first volume with many detectives and even a mystery that takes place in the future, this volume focuses on just one sleuth, Detective Inspector Earl Wilson, who works out of a substation in the Penrith Police District. Detectives in England’s northern counties generally have to cover large areas of beautiful countryside, and Earl’s Lake District is no exception. By the same token, they usually don’t have to solve a lot of murders—stealing stock and farm equipment are much more common crimes. Earl however has a rash of murder cases to solve, though. To solve them, his DS Sally Hill aids him.

As I was finishing the first story in this collection (there are four, the last never seen before), I thought Sally and Earl might inherit the mantles of Esther and Bastiann from the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series. But I decided that Earl seemed a bit old for the job (he’s about ready to retire too). I chose Steve Morgan and his team instead. But Earl is still an interesting bloke, and you might see more of him in the future.

Given that these are short stories (some are almost novella-length, though), I don’t focus on the CID briefings or relationships among the police personnel. That’s all better treated in a novel. Instead, I focus on the crimes and how Sally and Earl go about solving them. That has to be done in all short fiction, as you have seen in most of the fiction that I offer freely to readers. That’s the essense of most mystery and crime stories.

Writing Fiction, Revision 11. I can’t believe this is #11 already! Over my brief career of writing fiction (when my first novel Full Medical was published in 2006, I was already an old fellow), I’ve been continuously experimenting and trying out new tricks of the trade, so I’ve been passing on what I’ve learned to other writers, newbies or oldtimers who want a fresh perspective, or to anyone who wants to know the truth about this crazy business of writing and publishing fiction.

This new revision includes articles taken from this blog and expands on my recent experiences with Draft2Digital that I’ve used to self-publish my recent novels. It also sharpens my criticism against the Big Five and traditional publishing in general.

It also contains “The Recruit,” a short story you’ve seen in this blog (or in the above collection), but in annotated form to indicate key points about writing elements. This whole freebie is formatted exactly like the novels I’ve produced with Draft2Digital to go along with the article contained therein that explains how to use that easy-to-use software. (If I can use it, you can too!)

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Comments are always welcome. (Please follow the rules listed on the “Join the Conversation” web page. If you don’t, your comment goes into the spam folder.)

Where can you go to download these free PDFs? At this website, go to my “Free Stuff & Contests” web page and find the list of all my offered freebies and then follow the directions at the end of the list. You can also download the other freebies as well—be my guest. Among them, you will find two complete novels, Defanging the Red Dragon and Intolerance, #6 and #7 from the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!