#97:  I received a very nice review of Survivors of the Chaos from Kellie Sheridan of Sift Book Reviews (www.siftreviews.com), which posts honest reviews of science fiction and fantasy books.  Thank you, Kellie.  Just a reminder:  This book is available in trade paperback and all eBook formats.  You’ll want to read it before the sequel, Sing a Samba Galactica, comes out—a teaser for this sequel is included in Survivors of the Chaos.

#98:  As a follow-up to my blog post “Antisocial Networking,” I have finished my experiment with Google Adwords.  My conclusion:  Google’s program doesn’t work, at least for this author as a method for selling books (for me, one of the many ways to reach readers).  While I saw a temporary increase in the number of visitors to my website, over time, the number of readers of my blog held study and there was never a marked increase in book purchases.  I wonder if any other authors have (1) tried Adwords, and (2) had an equally bad experience.  Comment if you have.

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I read that teachers in Idaho are pushing back on requirements that they become computer savvy (NY Times, Jan. 3).  While the Idaho Statesman, a local newspaper, writes this off as politics (there are always at least two sides in these matters), blaming it on legislators pandering to high-tech companies (apparently they contributed to some school superintendent’s election campaign), it reminds me that I’ve heard about teachers resisting technology even in high tech areas like the Northeast and the West Coast.  (I apologize for my bias, but I can’t think of Idaho as another Californian Silicon Valley or Bostonian 128 Loop.  It’s the land of down-to-earth good people—the exception being Aryan supremacy groups—and beautiful, rustic scenery.)

In defense of teachers in general, it’s not like school districts make it easy for them to get any kind of additional training, let alone computer literacy.  Legislatures and governors everywhere are slashing budgets for education, so teacher training goes down the toilet with many other programs.  This is certainly happening here in NJ where, in spite of appearances, our governor performs well in the role of the anti-Santa Claus.  I’m at a lost to come up with a way for a teacher, who has been twenty years on the job and wants to update his or her knowledge and skill sets, to actually do so.  I give education a high priority.  I also know things are wrong with the system.  But slash and burn tactics on the part of governors and legislators is not the answer for our kids.

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(William Brown, Amongst My Enemies, eBook, ASIN B006LAOIWY)

This story might be categorized as “historical fiction,” but the second word almost seems incorrect—the historical details are so well interwoven and authentic that the reader will swear Mr. Brown lived through them.  It might also be categorized as “a thriller”—there are thrills and suspenseful twists at every turn of the page.  It might even be categorized as “a romance”—the two protagonists are as right for each other as Romeo and Juliet.

Perhaps it is best to categorize this story as a “tale of intrigue, adventure, and romance.”  It reminds me of Jeffery Deaver’s Garden of Beasts and Frederic Forsythe’s The Odessa File.  It is the tale of Michael Randall, an unlucky POW at the end of WWII, and his quest for closure.  Here closure means revenge, a desire so intense that it almost takes him into a dark place where everything else, including his love for Leslie Hodge, comes in a distant second place.

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#88:  The January issue of eFiction is now available for download from Amazon…or you can read the individual stories throughout the month on their website.  An up and coming eZine for short story writers and readers!  Congrats to Doug and his editorial staff for selecting another set of good short stories….

#89:  A new issue of Mini-Reviews will follow this one of News and Notices:  Baldacci, Land, Eisler, and Castle—all thriller or mystery writers, but….

#90:  Look for my review tomorrow of William Brown’s Amongst My Enemies…a good read with historical nuances and moral ambiguity….

#91:  I’m putting the finishing touches on Sing a Samba Galactica (sequel to Survivors of the Chaos) and Angels Need Not Apply (sequel to The Midas Bomb).  Coming real soon!  I’m also outlining a new YA novel (NOT a sequel to The Secret Lab, still at $0.99)—this will take longer.

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#9:  David Baldacci, One Summer, 2.5 stars—If you’re looking for a Baldacci thriller, this is not your book.  David is better known as a thriller and suspense writer (I’ve read so many of his books that I feel I’m on a first-name basis), but he can write literary fiction with the best of them (it probably doesn’t pay as much, however).  (How “literary fiction” became part of the legacy publishing lexicon is beyond me—isn’t all fiction literary?)

One Summer is a case in point.  Like his Wish You Well, this little jewel is a folksy, down-home, humorous, uplifting, and romantic entry in the genre that will please some and disappoint others.  While Wish You Well can be considered a coming-of-age novel, One Summer can be considered a dealing-with-death novel.  Nevertheless, One Summer is not morose, since the main characters work their way out of their funks—you might find it enjoyable, especially if you find Baldacci’s thrillers a bit gritty and violent (they’re not).  I found it slow going at first but more interesting as I worked through it—but definitely not a page-turner.

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It’s Saturday, December 31, 2011, and Mr. Obama has just given a New Year’s gift to terrorists.  Barack, the Avenger, just became Barack, the Santa Claus, with respect to Mr. Karzai and his entire corrupt government.  And Mrs. Clinton, his head elf, just goes along with it.  The Afghan leader, who knows he sits on a powder keg, is trying to make peace with the Taliban—our foreign policy gurus just helped him along the way.

Come on, Barack!  The friends of my enemies are my enemies—the Taliban showed their true nature many years ago.  They gave safe haven to al Qaeda members and terrorized and killed their own people.  They have killed our soldiers and civilian contractors whose only crime in that God-forsaken land was to work for the betterment of the Afghan people.  They have falsely accused men under their strict Sharia law and beheaded them.  They have stoned women who have been raped after accusing them of adultery.  They have killed girls whose only sin was wanting to study.  In brief, the Taliban are a blight on humanity, a pestilence that Pandora could have never imagined.

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#82:  On Wednesday, I tried to comment on one of Joe’s posts at Joe Konrath’s website.  Previously, I was allowed to list the URL for my own website or use my Facebook fan page.  Now you have to sign on to Google+ (I don’t use Google+ or much of anything of theirs anymore beyond their search engine and Chrome—they’re becoming a monopoly).  Conclusion: either Google is being undemocratic and tyrannical, or Joe Konrath has succumbed to the pressures of rampant capitalism.  My first suspect is Google since I use Chrome and they obviously know I do.  If this keeps up, they can also take their web browser and shove it where the sun don’t shine.  If Joe is the guilty party, then shame on him and I’ll ask everyone to boycott his website.  In any case, pox on the house of the guilty one—I intend to find out who it is and launch an attack!

It won’t be the first time.  When the CEO of GoDaddy published video of his elephant hunt and subsequent butcher job on the carcass, I cancelled my GoDaddy account.  It cost me money too, but that’s the way I am.  I’ve noticed that during the last two days (Tuesday and Wednesday) GoDaddy has run a full-page ad in the NY Times.  Could it be that their business is hurting?  I sure hope so.

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#74:  If you’re a patient consumer, you’ve probably read reviews of products when visiting your favorite online retailer.  If you’re a smart consumer, you’ll ignore those one-liners which state “this product is (no) good” and give the product five stars (respectively one star).  Book reviews on Amazon are no different.  A well-written review goes beyond the one line and explains what the reviewer found good and what she found bad about the product (book).

A similar criticism can be applied to ranking systems, especially on Amazon.  One or two bad reviews can skew the total ranking of a book (who can figure out their ranking system anyway?).  It’s similar to those car insurance rankings in some states where you’re golden if you’ve never had a moving violation but on some black list if you look cross-eyed at a traffic cop.  The Amazon ranking is just as unfair as your car insurance ranking.  Professors use something similar for true-false tests—plus one for a correct answer, minus two for incorrect.  Amazon’s system is probably worse than most professors’.

Bottom line:  for an expensive book (eBook price > $9.99?), read reviews other than Amazon’s; for an inexpensive book (eBook price < $4.99?), you might want to just take a chance (for $0.99 or less, what can you lose?).

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The media has become fixated on spontaneous symmetry breaking and the Higgs boson (the so-called “God particle,” a name that would surely make Mr. Higgs cringe).  The Higgs mechanism (i.e. the spontaneous symmetry breaking) is necessary to give mass to some of the vector bosons in the electroweak or weak and electromagnetic interaction theory.  Forgotten in all this media hoopla is the theory that led to the idea of quarks and gluons, the Eightfold Way of symmetries popularized by Mr. Gell-Mann.  (Note that I refrain from using the term “discovered.”  In theoretical physics, the math is “out there.”  You just have to figure out what math matches up to the experimental data.  Experimental physics is where “discoveries” are made.)

Now that I’ve had some fun imagining your eyes glazing over as if you’d just had tequila mixed with sleeping pills, let me say that this post is not about physics.  (My eyes are glazed too, because the above is hardcore physics, and I’ve been sipping my Jameson’s while writing like a madman.)  The Eightfold Way I consider here is the shining path that leads you to a finished novel that someone might want to read. It’s my distillation of rules for writing a novel—a distillation that is not the quality of a fine Irish whiskey, but I’ve put some thought to it and would like to share (I’d like to share the Jameson’s too, but the internet hasn’t discovered e-drinking yet).

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#69:  Time is running out!  You can buy the entire “Clones and Mutants Series” (Full Medical + Evil Agenda) for $5.98 by using the Smashwords coupon on my “Steve’s Writing” page.  The coupon gives you Full Medical for $2.99 (normally $4.99) and Evil Agenda is already $2.99.  This is a holiday sale only.  Happy holiday reading!

#70:  Have you introduced your children to eBooks yet?  Want to be sure they’re not reading stuff you wouldn’t approve of?  Check out my sci-fi thriller for young adults, The Secret Lab, only $0.99 at your favorite online retailer.  If you like cats and enjoyed the young camaraderie in Spielberg’s Goonies and ET, you’ll probably also enjoy this novel.  I’m sure your tweens and young teens will.  It’s not Harry Potter in space—it’s the real magic of living aboard the International Space Station in the future.  Enjoy….

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