Some readers of this blog might say, “What a stupid question? Of course, smart phones are useful.” And they might wonder if I need to be in a mental institution? But I’m talking about authors’ marketing of their books!

Here’s what motivates the question: I hate smart phones because they’re such a poor excuse for a laptop! (The recent foldout models basically admit that.) Those tiny phones in your pocket don’t have standard keyboards per se is one clear negative: I’m a touch-typist with big hands, so that little QWERTY box that pops up at the bottom of an already tiny screen I can’t see well in bright sunlight is about as useful as an ice-cream truck in a blizzard, especially if the auto-correct is turned on! What I type is generally what I mean, damn it!

Yes, I have a cell phone. It’s an old flip-style Nokia (yeah, I had to upgrade it to 5G!). I keep it in my car or on my person for emergency use only. (Those emergencies often include the times when my wife needs to be able to contact me, of course!)

Yet, as an author, I take advantage of other people’s smart phones. Assuming they’re smart enough (the phones, that is), those little computers allow their owners to access the internet. In particular, they can access my author’s website here, https://stevenmmoore.com.

That’s great for marketing my books! I can tell a person, even flat on my back during a medical procedure, when they invariably ask what do I do with my time, now that I’m officially retired, that I’m an author of many mystery, thriller, and sci-fi novels, and they can see all the titles on said website. I recommend that they peruse the list of my published books as well as the list all the free PDF downloads I offer, and this blog, of course. (Actually, I doubt all smart phones allow them to download PDFs, but I’m no expert on that subject, but you can try it. It works on my Kindle. Try it and let me know. Of course, if you’re an author, you can’t use this marketing technique on me!)

This marketing gimmick is a lot better than trying to adapt some memorized elevator pitch each time someone asks what I do or what I write when I first say I’m an author. I’ve used it a lot, impressing a lot of people, discounting those who think I should be playing golf. I don’t know how much it affects my sales figures or augments my fan base, but it often interests people, even if they’re only casual readers.

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A Time-Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse. I write in a few genres or combinations of them. This book is my only rom-com sci-fi novel! A brilliant physicist and her clever techie visit other times (always in their future with respect to their current multiverse to avoid the paradoxes rampant in many time-travel stories). It’s an unusual road-trip tale full of adventure and tongue-in-cheek comments about the human condition. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it.

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

In my many mystery, thriller, and sci-fi novels, I often leave some questions unanswered. Critics might say that I’m just setting the stage for a sequel. Fortunately, I don’t have many critics or readers in general, so I could just ignore any complaints they might have; but even in the middle of what will become a series, I’m never sure there will be a sequel!

For example, by the end of No Amber Waves of Grain, I’d decided to end the “Clones and Mutants” trilogy. So far, the mysterious pregnancy of one of the main characters, one of the clones, still remains a mystery. Is the villain of the tale the father? He appears in the bridge book Soldiers of God, but the clones aren’t even mentioned there!

In Son of Thunder, the second novel in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, Scotland Yard Inspector Esther and her paramour, Interpol Agent Bastiann van Coevorden, find the tomb of St. John the Divine. She tries to inform the Vatican museum of their find, but that bureaucracy is still dragging its heels after that series ends after seven more novels. In another novel, Gaia and the Goliaths, the last in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco” series, Bastiann hesitates to take a shot at a fleeing villain, but someone else does it for him. There are some clues about who that shooter is in later novels, but Bastiann will always be wondering, as will some readers, I expect. Another unresolved issue occurs at the end of Fear the Asian Evil (third novel in the “Inspector Steve Morgan” trilogy), where a Chinese agent places a bomb in Duke Freddie March’s plane. Because that novel ends the trilogy, readers might be upset.

Sometimes these unresolved issues are disparagingly called “cliffhangers,” a term more germane for describing soap opera episodes. I suppose that depends on how egregious the unresolved issue is. On the other hand, a lot of unresolved issues occur in real life, don’t they? (Will we ever know the true story about those who benefitted from Epstein’s sex trafficking?) As Tom Clancy once said, genre fiction has to seem real. (That’s true for science fiction and even fantasy, where the futuristic or fantastic setting has to be consistent and logical within the story’s universe. Both Star Wars and the Harry Potter stories fail at that.)

A prime example of an unresolved issue that’s present in one novel but later resolved in a second one is when Jenny Wong disappears in Survivors of the Chaos to reappear in Sing a Zamba Galactica to be reunited with an old love. (Both novels are followed by a third and found in The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection.) I was giving a bit of a nod to “Sleeping Beauty” there, but those two novels have a lot more to them than that old fairy tale!

Of course, these unresolved issues can be resolved in another novel anywhere in a series…but they don’t have to be. A bit of unresolved mystery isn’t a bad thing, either in real life or in fiction!

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The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection. While I’ve always been an avid Isaac Asimov fan, the future universe I created in this trilogy, unlike Isaac’s, has ETs (both good and bad) as well as robots. (AI receives more emphasis than robotics…sorry, Isaac.) The three novels in the collection cover a long span of future history, from the dystopian world during the future Chaos to the insane villain who wants to control all of near-Earth space (my bow to Isaac’s Mule). For the scientific-minded, there are also some interesting extrapolations of current science as well as conjectures about humanity’s progress in the future despite the existence of fascist mentalities who have no interests beyond satisfying their greed and thirst for power.

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

Donald Trump, Takes a Dump. Sabrina Carol (2025). I’m guessing that many people (including the MAGA faithful?) would enjoy this little book just for the laughs: ‘Tis funny. Hilarious at times, to be honest. Especially the cartoons of Mr. Donald Trump, presidential versions 45 and 47, if memory serves me, a buffoon who will surely go down in history as the worst president the US  has ever had (and maybe the last if he and his fellow fascists succeed in destroying American democracy?). (No artistic credits are given for those funny caricatures of that great “orange Cheeto,” though. Are they Sabrina’s? I’ll never know.)

This book gathers together many of the infamous utterances of the “fucking moron” (as his first SecState Tillerson so aptly described him): “legendary brain farts, feuds with everyone, spelling disasters, the art of the incoherent deal, and the 2024 election…,” accompanied by that great artwork that belongs in some Louvre’s wing dedicated to laughable tyrants of history that have plagued mankind. Get moving, Macron!

Political roasts are usually fun, and this little book qualifies as one. Comedians love to roast Mr. Trump so much that 99.9% of the American ones will soon be gathered up and and sent to that dungeon in El Salvador, Bill Maher included. (He’ll surely face a special torture there, ordered by the great leader personally. And deprived of his weed? Mr. Trump has already sued him, of course. He sues anyone that displeases his eminence!)

While a fun and light read, I have to admit that I have a problem with this little book: It’s not funny if you think about it too long. If you take seriously what’s now happening to America, you might feel the same way. The fascist takeover now occurring in the US is quite sad and has already made this beacon of democracy into a stinking cesspool of fascism. That’s barely treated towards the end of the book. Like too many Americans, the author refuses to call it a fascist takeover, but that’s exactly what it is: Use the correct word, people!

The cartoons in a sense are superfluous. Trump is already a caricature of a caricature, of Gabo’s patriarch in his famous novel, but we are experiencing a real American and world tragedy, not fiction: wannabe dictator Trump and his fascist followers are destroying American democracy! And that’s not funny at all!

Sabrina, all comfy and cozy in England’s Lake District snuggled in up next to the border with Scotland (Penrith and vicinity) doesn’t have to worry. While people in the US are worrying about what to pack in their bags when they flee to Canada or anywhere else, she’s living well in a modern democracy, better said, a parliamentary democracy, like many European countries have, keeping their worthless pomp and circumstance separated from affairs of state for the most part. (Instead of stealing legit birthday celebrations from their military like Mr. Trump did by raining on the US Army’s birthday parade. I guess the flyover there was because he still thinks the US Air Force was around to help George Washington win the Revolutionary War?)

True, England has battled tyrants like Mr. Trump over the centuries: Oliver Cromwell’s tyrannical rule (US’s far-right evangelicals would declare that man a saint, I suppose, if he were Catholic—how do they feel about that White Sox super-fan?); and Adolph Hitler’s bombardment of England in World War Two are but two examples. They’ve defeated authoritarian despots long before Washington’s rag-tag colonial army beat up King George’s redcoats, so Sabrina is probably safer now where she is compared to being here in the Fascist States of America. We’ll probably not make it to the US’s 250^th birthday!

If you read this book and you haven’t read at least a summary of Project 2025 and Mr. Trump’s big, ugly bill, you deserve what you get. And Sabrina, to quote you, that seems more than right!

Note that the author might be better known for her internet security work and concerns for making safe places for children at home and on the internet, all noble pursuits, even if done from the Lake District. There’s a continuation of her version of the Trump story that worries about the next four years, perhaps an additional funny but sad prediction for Mr. Trump’s second term?

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“Steve’s Bookshelf” etc. The reader will find more serious studies of fascism and other political atrocities listed on this web page. Most of my mysteries, thrillers, and sci-fi stories are at least partially inspired by my hate for fascism and what fascists like Trump have done to this world. The human race won’t survive if we continue in this matter. Ignore the fluff of streaming video and silly computer games as well as fantasy and romance novels. Read some serious fiction and open your eyes to see the evil of world fascism!

I mostly tune out when political ads flood my email in-box or ruin my TV viewing (not streaming video—I have no use for streaming or video games as escapes from reality).

First, it’s impossible for a political candidate or party to summarize the main points of their campaign in a thirty- or sixty-second TV ad. It just can’t be done! So their ads essentially become zero-content or attack ads that waste my time.

Second, I have to conclude that if those ads are at all effective with my contemporaries, the human race is in big trouble! In other words, if most people make their voting decisions about who or what deserves their vote with so little information, how can democracy survive? (It’s dying, of course, but more because of leaders like Trump than their ads.)

Third, I believe those who are pushing a candidate or cause use these absurdly short statements to hide all sorts of things from us. Here’s an example; Trump during his 2024 campaign stating that he knows nothing about Project 2025. Fact: After reading more extensively about this almost 1000-page Heritage Foundation blueprint to destroy democracy in America, I had to conclude that that it’s a hundred times more dangerous than Mein Kampf and that Narcissus le Grand has been faithfully following it during the first months of his four-year term! (For example, destroying the entire DoE or going after trans.) Either Trump is reading and following this insidious plan to the letter, or his handlers are (many of them worked on it!).

It might seem boring at times, but reading extensive exposes of candidates and their causes makes you a better citizen and might just preserve American democracy. Please read serious non-fiction and fiction. Don’t read fluff like fantasies, romances, and erotica. You’ll not learn anything from the latter; you will from the former. Make your reading count at least in two ways: As entertainment and as information gathering. Democracy in America is at stake.

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“Fascist Tango” in Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape, Volume Three, and other short fiction. You will find a lot of mysteries, thrillers, and crime stories with a political bent among my short fiction pieces. The published collection Fantasic Encores expands on some characters and situations in my sci-fi stories and covers, but you can download even more, including less futuristic themes, for free (see the list on the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page). And while some of my novels aren’t political thrillers, they often have political themes and don’t contain the fluff you’ll find in fantasy, romance, and erotic novels. (Nothing wrong with those genres per se, but you can’t ever call them deep!) Okay, A Time-Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse is a sci-fi rom-com that makes fun of a lot of politics, but that’s an exception!.

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

Blaise Metreweli is the new head of MI6, James Bond’s old outfit. While I read all of Ian Flemings’s Bond adventures years ago and probably have seen most of the tongue-in-cheek movies, I miss “M” the most. Perhaps a real-life “M” will take me back to the theater? There’s a better chance for that than for the second-rate movies about the seeker of impossible missions (although Schifrin’s music is better…RIP, Lalo!).

My “art detective” Esther Brookstone (that description of EB was created by Penmore Press, but they only published her first two novels) started out as an MI6 spy during the Cold War, between husbands one and two, but her activities in East Germany are only flashbacks in her series of novels; she had two handlers there, but they were men, not M’s: Poor Esther didn’t have the standing that Fleming gave Commander Bond that would have allowed her to interact with the MI6 chief; poor EB was just “another employee” doing her job the best she could.

Of course, the Bond books and movies are more fantasy than thriller, more rom-coms than serious fiction (Bond’s babes sometimes die, though). That parody-villain Auric Goldfinger is also more believable in Fleming’s novels than in the movies. While EB finds husband number four, the villains she faces are certainly more realistic than those found in the Bond books or movies.

In Esther’s novels, I do create some tongue-in-cheek situations, though—she’s a cheeky and flirty bird at times—but the themes of my novels are more current and serious than Fleming’s ever were. Or those of most mystery and thriller novels even today because, unlike many writers, I’m not afraid of treating controversial or shocking themes. Generally speaking, I don’t have to please some tyrannical Big Five editor or agent who think they know best what a good story is.

I still kike the idea of a smart woman like “M” running things, though, even with Esther around. And, of course, Esther Brookstone isn’t an old woman like Christie’s Miss Marple either. (In their defense, both Dame Agatha and Ian Fleming wrote at a time when women were still second-class citizens in British society, so her Miss Marple and his “M” were quite a bold invention.) And Esther once headed the Art and Antiques Division of Scotland Yard (yes, it exists!) until she became tired of all the bureaucracy involved.

The UK didn’t beat the US in putting women in positions of power (with the possible exception of the Iron Lady), but now all the agency women in the US president’s current cabinet are complete fascists with loyalty only to a fascist president, so they don’t count for anything, do they? They’re nowhere close to being M’s!

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“Esther Brookstone Art Detective.” This nine-book series of novels (that’s counting two free novels available as PDF downloads—see the list on the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page) features Esther and her paramour and later fourth husband Bastiann van Coevorden as they battle crime and villains around the UK and the world. (For the complete list of titles, see the “Novels and Short Fiction” web page.) The first three EB novels are also available in trade paperback versions. Lots of “evergreen” British-style mystery awaits you!

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

Nobody calls it that, but that’s what Project 2025 is. It’s a plan to destroy American democracy but also shows how to implement that plan. You can either try to read the almost thousand-page document released by the Heritage Foundation, or David A. Graham’s little book titled The Project (Random House, 2025—consider this post a review of the latter). It should be required reading for any responsible voter or soon-to-be voter.

Trump denied he ever read it during his 2024 campaign—probably true because he won’t even read his security briefings! (You have to wonder if he can even read.) But those who whisper in his ear, his Hitlerian-like puppet masters, are following Project 2025 because it’s not just policy but how to execute it. In other words, it’s indeed a blueprint for a fascist takeover of the US government that will destroy American democracy if executed.

Don’t think that Project 2025 is just based on the Trump campaign platform either because it’s a lot more than that! Most everything our wannabe dictator has done or tried to do so far comes from that blueprint, and many of Trump’s handlers actually worked on the project and are anxious to implement it. It’s not religious in the constitutional sense; it’s Christian nationalism on steroids, though, where any president becomes America’s ayatollah. But it’s also a proposal for a fascist plutocracy and how to create it. And it’s definitely anti-American! Its authors think the American system is so rotten that they just want to burn it all down. We can’t let that happen.

There are political tomes that have injected evil into the world’s body politic: Those by Marx and Engels and later by Hitler led to a lot of death and suffering. We don’t want that to occur in America!

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“Steve’s Bookshelf.” The non-fiction books listed on this webpage outnumber the fiction books, and they represent some of the reading I do as background for my novels…and for my voting! They cover a variety of topics for that reason. If you want to learn about where I get some of the themes in my fiction, this is the place to start.

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

All the attention given to Tik-Tok celebs and internet podcasters makes me laugh because I only see (admittedly, my sampling space is small!) biased opinions and outright rants from barking mongrels. (With my own noise, over at pubprogressive.com I try to be a bit more fair and rational, I must respond to the schmuck and his cronies antics and lies, correct?)

I spend a lot more time creating real content with my stories. I’ll admit that’s not streaming video or other mindless fare like computer games, but adding video or even sound takes away from the power of the words. Authors in general are the ultimate “content providers,” and the best movies Hollywood makes are based on those books. All the Mission Impossible movies are action flicks without decent plots or character development, for example. (Not to mention that Cruise is just a glorified stuntman who can’t act, but he’s better than Can’t-Act Reeves as John Wick! Storytelling is a centuries-old (maybe millennia?) that has been developed so well that other media can’t really compete.

One of my maxims for living well has always been, “If it’s a good thing, don’t mess with it!” Words are powerful and can be combined in so may ways to tell a story. They are versatile too. Readers know this. Non-readers (especially gamers and streaming video addicts) don’t know what they’re missing.

Can you get in Cruise’s character’s head? Or in an assassin’s or politician’s? You can with books! And there’s so many good stories out there that even the clever AI bots searching for new material to spit back at you go crazy with it. If this all goes away, the human race will lose something precious. All it takes is for humans to stop reading and writing, becoming passive receptors of content without much meanings.

That will be a sad day.

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Time travel done right? You’ll see what I mean in the Time-Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse. This sci-fi rom-com is a tongue-in-cheek saga of a couple who gets lost in the many worlds of quantum mechanics by jumping always forward into the future until they find a suitable place to call home. Who knows? Maybe all the AI bots will follow them so we can get rid of them? Available where most quality ebooks are sold.

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

The list of books you’ll find on my “Steve’s Bookshelf” web page at this website is representative of my reading choices but far too short to cover them all. Consequently, I decided it might be interesting to add about what books I won’t read. (Of course, if you read all my posts—why not?—you might have a better idea about what I will read!)

I rarely read fantasy, not even sci-fi that’s nearly fantasy. The boundary between fantasy and sci-fi is a blurred one, but the “magic” in AB Carolan’s Mind Games differs greatly from JK Rowling’s “Harry Potter” tales.

I avoid romance and erotica stories. I don’t mind either in a mystery, thriller, or sci-fi story, but they have to take second place. My novel, A Time-Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse, is sci-fi with rom-com elements; in other words, it’s not The Time-Traveler’s Wife.

I avoid like the plague books written by famous or infamous celebs, especially the tell-all ones. I just don’t care about their miserable lives. Of course, I mean by “celebs” those generally mentally disturbed people with big egos whose lives and exploits more generally appeal to non-readers who are bored with their own lives. (I don’t know what percentage of the population fits in that category, but I do know that mind-numbing Hollywood blockbusters and streaming video have added to their numbers.) I will read about Enrico Fermi, Alan Turing, or the warrior popes; at least they’ve actually done something noteworthy.

In fact, I’ll also read history and politics as long as they’re as accurate and as fair as they can be. Historical fiction is a bit iffy because it tries to fill in the blanks (that’s the fictional part, of course), but it often fits in the mystery or thriller category too, like my Son of Thunder.

What really turns me off sometimes is how authors pimp their books. I stopped reading James Patterson long ago. (It seems he doesn’t write much of anything original anymore without a co-author, so you have to wonder.)

When celebs try to write fiction and it doesn’t work for me, I also can get upset. Jake Tapper is an example. In his fiction, he can’t decide if he’s a CNN pundit or a true author. (I think he was quite good as a newsman until recently, by the way! Jim Acosta might have been better, though.) Using his bully pulpit on CNN to frequently pimp Original Sin is beyond the pale, though, and I’m surprised CNN allows that. (Of course, CNN is going downhill just like MSNBC and CBS, while Fox News is already in the cesspool.) Yes, Jake, we knows the Dems blew the 2024 election, and Biden should have kept his 2020 promise to be a one-term president, a transition to the new guard. But we only needed that disastrous debate and old Joe’s stumbling about upon leaving the Marine chopper to confirm that running again was a mistake; there should have been a full primary, and then having David Plough et al preparing for four years like Trump’s handlers! Jake’s book might have some use as a record of all the mistakes made by the Dems, I suppose. It’s just that I hate to see Jake pimping it almost everyday. That’s not advertising; it’s akin to brainwashing.

I know which books I don’t want to read the same way that I always do: I read the blurbs and “peek inside,” either online or at a bookstore, to see if the author can write something original in a professional manner. Sometimes I even glance at the book’s cover.  (Celeb books often have awful covers, and most covers for books published by the Big Five publishing conglomerates are horrible.) You can use this tactic too. It’s all about being a smart consumer, isn’t it?

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Freebies. You don’t need much energy to get them here! Just go to the list of free PDF downloads on the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page at this website and click away. You’ll find a lot of short fiction in collections (short stories and novellas), two complete novels, and my course on “Writing Fiction.” Those few clicks are a great way to get to know me and my writing. Of course, my published books (over thirty now) are all available as inexpensive ebooks at various online book dealers (see the list on the “Books & Short Fiction” web page).

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

I wonder about readers’ lack of sanity sometimes. In a recent trend (via Substack, etc.), they spend good money subscribing to authors’ email newsletters. Those used to be free (ones I subscribe too still are!), and much of the same info is often available on their websites.

Like many things in the book biz, advertising has been turned on its head. I suppose authors who write those newsletters think they’re very clever in duping readers to pay for the authors’ advertising. “Oh, they include interesting material in those emails,” those readers say. “For a price,” I counter.

I guess I’m old-fashioned. When I used to advertise (now I just rely on this blog and word-of-mouth from fans), I paid for it, not my readers: Some person more skilled than I am would be doing a lot of work that I didn’t want to do, after all. I’d rather be writing my stories, spending my time trying to ensure they’re not sloppy ones that have no literary value. I suppose some gurus would argue that if people are willing to pay for my advertising, they’d also be willing to buy my books? Um, I don’t buy that. I don’t think readers can possibly determine if they’ll like a full novel by reading a short story or a snippet of one…or an author’s email!

I’ve always believed that giving away some freebies (see my list on the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page) is the best kind of advertising of all. Except for time spent, a reader has to pay and work very little to download and read them (my free PDF downloads just need one mouse click!), and they can peruse a variety of fiction—mysteries, thrillers, and sci-fi; short stories, novellas, and two complete novels (so far)—that’s enough to decide whether they want to read more by paying real money (a decision maybe aided by much lower prices for my books compared to what the Big Five offers, by the way).

Of course, I run the risk that readers will hate those free samples of my fiction and assume my books for sale will also annoy them, but at least they won’t have paid good money to develop that opinion. That’s the kind of advertising that should keep readers happy!

What I do to sell my books is more like a car dealer offering a potential buyer a demo ride. They might not buy exactly that model or choose the same features (color, upholstery, etc.), but they can see if they might like a similar product and are willing to make the investment. And they might just pass on info lauding that model to his family and friends, saying that the car dealer has something valuable to offer them. There’s no better advertising than that!

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

I never start a new story thinking it will become a novel, let alone the first book in a series. Sometimes it becomes a stand-alone novel (More than Human: The Mensa Contagion is an example of a stand-alone) or a bridge book between two series (The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan is an example). The only exception was A.B. Carolan’s Origins, where we’re all still waiting for the rest of that trilogy [wink, wink]. Characters in a series often inspire me to give them their own novel(s), though: Ashley Scott in The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan and Steve Morgan in the “Inspector Steve Morgan” trilogy both appeared in previous series; and the inimitable Esther Brookstone and her paramour and later husband Bastiann van Coevorden first appeared in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco” series.

That inspiration—indeed, creating the series itself—allows a fiction writer to do something often missed by even those who set out to create a series: Portraying the evolution of their characters. Michael Connolly does a good job of that in his Harry Bosch series; David Baldacci, Lee Child, and Jeffrey Deaver not so much in theirs. In fact, Baldacci and Deaver’s stand-alone novels are far better than the ones in their series because there is little character evolution in those!

Generally speaking, time progresses in a series, so character evolution should do that too. For example, Esther Brookstone progresses from a widow (three husbands before Bastiann) working for Scotland Yard in Rembrandt’s Angel to a retired and remarried lady in her nine-book series. Flashbacks are used to add past events in her life. (Esther’s often recall her past as an MI6 spy in East Berlin when she was much younger.)

Flashbacks represent one way to achieve this character evolution, of course, and they often refer to events in previous stories. The Goldilocks principle applies: The author doesn’t want too much or too little of that, just enough. And it can be done via the principal character’s memories or their colleagues. (And, to give it an interesting spin, one secondary character might recall things differently compared to another’s.)

The same goes for villains. I’ve been very careful portraying Vladimir Kalinin, my Russian ex-pat arch-villain, for example. He appeared in my very first novel, Full Medical, but his appearances jump around my fictional timeline that includes several series and bridge books from The Midas Bomb to Soldiers of God. And because I jumped around that timeline in my storytelling, it was a challenge to make his evolution through various novels a smooth one.

Kalinin is in fact a good example in another way: He’s a complex character. You might even think he has a good side if you only read No Amber Waves of Grain and the last few Esther Brookstone and Steve Morgan novels. Going back and forth between good and evil doesn’t make him into a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; it makes him seem more human. His swings back and forth represent what we so often see in real human behavior, albeit a bit extreme at times, so why not include them in my fiction? Pure heroes and pure villains are stereotypes that belong in old Hollywood flicks. They don’t belong in modern storytelling. Real human beings are more complicated than that.

Your characters must evolve, and that evolution must seem real. We all change over our lifetimes as we react to different events and stimuli in our lives. Authors putting that into their fiction make their stories come alive.

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The “Clones and Mutants” trilogy. The evolution of Vladimir Kalinin’s character might be the most complicated and evolved of any fictional villain. While Full Medical, Evil Agenda, and No Amber Ways of Grain are technically sci-fi thrillers, readers and writers can consider them to be the study of an evil genius at work. It all really starts with The Midas Bomb and ends with Soldiers of God, but you, the reader, can jump in anywhere. All my novels can be read independently. And all those involving Kalinin are available in ebook format or are free PDF downloads (see the list on the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page).

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