The Gift

Copyright 2020, Steven M. Moore

            “You’re from the Middle East, I suppose,” Bubba said to Ed as they sped along.

“Iraq. I was an interpreter for the US Army. I was able to get here just before…well, you know. I’m still trying to get my family out.”

“Sometimes our government does things that make no sense. Where ‘bouts in Iraq did you serve?”

“Green Zone mostly. Outskirts of Baghdad. I retrained as an EMT when I arrived here in the States.”

“Probably better than truckin’. ‘Course I know how to fix a truck. Your heli’s a complete loss.”

“Not mine. Birdman’s. The dead pilot inside. He was a great guy. Lived to fly helis.”

“Sad. Heli looked old, though. They don’t last forever, you know. Them tourist ones are always going down.”

Bubba sounded the horn and went around two slow cars, doing so in the prohibited fast lane.

Please, troopers, don’t stop us now, mused Ed.

***

            “You fellas are in an awfully big hurry,” drawled the trooper.

“Cut me some slack, sir,” Bubba said. “Ed here needs to deliver a heart for a transplant.”

“Is that right? Where’s the heart?”

Ed pointed to the container behind his seat. It looked a bit like a picnic container for brewskis, but the red cross and lettering was distinctive.

The trooper nodded. “Okay, just follow me. I’ll use the siren and flashers. I can radio ahead too.”

They pulled into the ER’s entrance about forty minutes later than the original time Ed had estimated. Nurses were waiting.

Are we in time to save the woman? thought Ed.

***

[Six months later…]

“Ready for the best damn barbecue this side of the Mississippi?” Mitch Brady called out to his guests when they walked nervously into his backyard. “You all find some seats and I’ll get you some brewskis.”

“Diet coke or some other soda for me,” Ed said, “if you have any.”

“I’ll get them,” said Dr. Chang. “You watch the meat, Mitch.” He later joined Bubba, Ed, and Charlie Red Feather, the state trooper, all of them a bit uncomfortable for being invited to what was a special family affair.

“We’re a bit like the UN here,” the surgeon said with a laugh, saluting his new friends with his Bud.

“Cherokee Nation in my case,” said Charlie, saluting them too. “Just my papa, though. Mama was a Mexican lady. I don’t drink much, but a cold beer on a hot day goes down well.”

At that moment, Dot Brady made her appearance. She came out of the house, looked around, and then walked toward them. She hugged them all.

“Thank you for coming. This is my birthday. I thought I wouldn’t have another one. Thanks to you fellows, I can. Thank you for saving my life.”

“Me too,” said Mitch, walking over. “Dot’s doing real good now.”

“That’s wonderful, Mr. Brady,” said Bubba.

“You bet it is. And call me Mitch. Let me introduce you all to the family. And then we feast. Watch out, though, ‘cause our daughters are eating for two. I even have lamp chops and chicken breasts for you, Ed.”

Ed smiled at Mitch and winked at Bubba and Charlie.

***

Comments are always welcome.

Binge-Reading #2. While I binge on other author’s series, you can binge on mine. Last week, I featured the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy.” This week, consider my “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” seven books that make concrete the first part of my trademark motto, “Around the world…,” because they generally start with a homicide in Manhattan but often move to other US and international settings. The one exception is Aristocrats and Assassins, which starts with Castilblanco and his wife Pam on vacation in Europe (Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden, a main character in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, makes his first appearance here).

Available on Amazon and Smashwords and all the latter’s affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and lending and library services (Scribd, Overdrive, Baker & Taylor, Gardners, etc.)

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

[Note from Steve: The following is an old story that I dug out of my archives and modified. It reflects some current sociological concerns. It’s in two parts; the second appears tomorrow. Enjoy.]

The Gift

Copyright 2020, Steven M. Moore

“We have a heart for you, Mrs. Brady,” the cardiologist said to his patient. He also smiled at the husband.

“Thank you, doctor.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

The husband glared at Dr. Chang. “Not from one of them virus patients, I hope. You’d like that I suppose. Or is it a black heart? She don’t need any black heart either.”

“Mitch!” This time the woman’s voice rose to a more normal level. “You should have left your bigotry at home!”

“Mr. Brady, can I speak to you outside?”

“I suppose. Be right back, Dot.”

The patient’s husband followed the doctor out of the room, a scowl on his face. The Chinese American doctor shut the door behind them.

He went right to the essential. “FYI, Mr. Brady: Your wife is going to die soon if she doesn’t receive this transplant. Do you understand that?”

“It is a black heart. I knew it!”

“It’s a healthy human heart. A man was killed in a terrible accident on the interstate. He was a full organ donor. Eyes, everything. Do you understand how lucky your wife and you are?”

“Black and male too. God help Dot!”

“His heart will save your wife’s life, Mr. Brady. Or do you want to be her murderer? That’s how I would think of you.”

“Listen here, you young punk!” Mitch Brady poked the doctor in the chest. “You can’t order me ‘round or insult me.”

“Let me suggest you go back in there, then, and tell your wife you want her to die. You might want to ask her what her choice is before you do that, though.”

He seemed a bit more subdued. “I know what the hell she wants. She’d like a chance to live to see her grandkids. Always talks about that, the stupid woman. Makes our daughters nuts.”

“Sounds like she’s a loving person. How did she come to marry you?”

Brady didn’t catch the insult and thought a moment. “There’s no other way?”

“No. And time is of the essence.”

“She’ll live?”

“No guarantees, but it’s her only chance at this moment.”

“A black man’s heart. What’s this world coming to? But okay. Let’s do it.”

***

            “Only seventy miles? Piece of cake, Ed.”

Ed handed the refrigerated container to the pilot and climbed aboard the helicopter. He had complete confidence in Birdman to get him and his precious cargo to Mercy Hospital in time. Ed had lost count of how many times they’d done it before. He put on the headphones and adjusted the mike. Birdman already had his on, his bald head glistening with perspiration. One might expect the tattoos to start running in the heat.

“They have three landing pads,” Ed said over the engine noise. “At least one should be open.”

“I’ll land on the lawn if I have to. Hold on!”    Read the rest of this entry »

Oops! I just realized that I didn’t post #182. Even though the audiences are very different, there’s some overlap in my email and online newsletters. I sent out the email newsletter, but I forgot the online one. My apologies. The following is a combination that will bring readers of this blog up to date just as well. A lot is happening now, but not that much in my publishing life. To wax optimistic, I can say that COVID has one positive: I’m reading and writing a lot more! (See below for both.)

The virus is still out there. We want to avoid it coming back, that is, leave “They’re here!” to that Poltergeist movie of 1982 (for COVID, “they” equals viruses). As we open up the tri-state economy, please continue to be careful. We deserve to congratulate ourselves, at least those of us who have followed good practices—going out only when necessary, using masks, staying away from crowds, and keeping apart by at least six feet. However, if we don’t continue these good practices, a new COVID wave will occur, as states like Arizona, Florida, Texas, and others that never left the first wave have shown.

Stay smart and be safe.

“Tyger tyger, burning bright…”. No “fearful symmetry” here, just a beautiful one. The tiger lilies are out to remind us that Nature can do rather well without us. We’re only passengers on spaceship Earth, so we shouldn’t be making such a mess of things. We can do much better in that regard! (See my blog post last week “The Cardinals” for another perspective.)

Bastille Day. The French national holiday last year gained more media attention because POTUS was there and came home wanting a parade down Penn Avenue that will outdo the festivities there. His July 4 events this year were poor imitations, though, only used by him to continue his divisive speeches.

Frankly, I’ve always admired the French. They helped in the American Revolution, which in turn inspired their own (a bit bloodier with Madame Guillotine, of course, but both began the end of aristocratic privilege that finally came after World War I). Their slogan “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” was enshrined in the Third Republic and is a good motto in these times when the world is turning once again to fascism. And the Statue of Liberty, though battered and bruised by the Trump administration, still stands at the entrance to New York Harbor, a gift from the French.

Their holiday celebrates the start of the French Revolution when French revolutionaries stormed that old prison to release the political prisoners. It’s no accident that my novel Goin’ the Extra Mile (#3 in the “Mary Jo Melendez Mysteries”) ends with Mary Jo and her family and friends in France after being pursued by the US, Russian, and Chinese governments. I couldn’t choose the UK. After all, the UK has its own Trump-clone in the fascist Boris Johnson!

Vive la France!

Speaking of Trump… To begin my list of recommended readings, let me suggest Masha Gessen’s Surviving Autocracy, where the author does a fine job analyzing the deranged mind of #45 and how he’s the typical fascist. (See my review last week. His niece Mary, a psychologist, analyzes that diseased mine even further.) Obviously Gessen’s little book isn’t for anyone who supports Trump. (If it’s any consolation to them, most politicians are deranged, but, to paraphrase Orwell’s Animal Farm, some are more deranged than others.)

Shadow of the Wind (La Sombra del Viento). I reviewed Carlos Ruiz Safón’s novel in 2008 in both Spanish and English (the review is now archived). It’s probably the greatest Spanish language novel since Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien Años de Soledad), which led to the Colombian receiving the Nobel prize (many good things come to us from Colombia, including the wonderful coffee). You don’t need to read Carlos’s book in Spanish, though, to escape into the magical world of books in Barcelona at a time when Franco and his fascist minions gripped Cataluña in their iron fists.

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[Although we live in NJ (only thirteen miles from the Lincoln Tunnel), wildlife is plentiful around here, especially now during the pandemic. We’ve even had deer on the lawn. Earlier this spring, we had a woodchuck mother make her annual return to her hideaway under our shed, and squirrels and chipmunks seem plentiful this year as well. The little tale that follows is just another reminder that Nature’s creatures can do just fine without us. Consider this story a fable. Hopefully it brightens your life a bit.]

The Cardinals

Copyright 2020, Steven M. Moore

Mrs. Cardinal had picked Mr. Cardinal because he was a good-looking guy strutting on the branches and whistling his songs. He was a rather modest fellow as male cardinals ago, in spite of his spiffy red plumage. As a new wife, though, she chose a less than ideal place to build her nest—a forsythia hedge that formed the boundary between the Moores’ house and the neighbors’. It was high enough to keep her young safe from the neighborhood terrorists, the cat sisters; the cardinals rather enjoyed taunting them as they eyed them from below. But Mrs, Cardinal, being a new mom, hadn’t counted on the hedge trimmers, mowers, and leaf blowers.

The human gardeners threatened the nest with their trimming shears. At least they didn’t make that much noise, only a subtle snip-snip, but they seemed more dangerous than the cat sisters. Mrs. Cardinal left her children and Mr. Cardinal to forage, while Mr. Cardinal, also wary of the trimmers, stood guard from the neighbors’ portico.

The mowers and blowers then arrived. The cardinal parents decided that was more noise than threat, but when the human’s machines started, they darted away, only returning after they came to that decision. They’d also concluded that those machines weren’t so bad: they kept the cat sisters at bay.

The little cardinals are growing up now and soon will be ready to leave the nest and start their own families in their dangerous world of threatening cats, humans, and the latter’s tools. Winter would come and be a threat too. But even with all that, their cardinal lives were full of joy.

Moral: Gaia’s great wheel of life continues to roll along, in spite of human technology.

***

Comments are welcome.

Binge-reading #1. Reading an entire series certainly qualifies as binge-reading…and why not? The books in the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy” are examples of those rare kinds of thriller David Baldacci, Lee Child, Jeffrey Deaver, James Patterson,  and others might want to write but can’t: Each sci-fi novel in this trilogy is a big thrill ride. Full Medical is about a conspiracy where world leaders make sure they have enough body parts as they age; you’ll meet the clones. Evil Agenda is about an evil genius who’s out to take over the world; the clones are still around to try to stop him, and they’re joined by a mutant warrior. No Amber Waves of Grain is about a North Korean industrialist who’s out for revenge against the West; the clones team up with that first evil genius to try and stop him—but Chinese and Russians are lurking around too. The entire series can be found on Amazon and Smashwords and at all the latter’s affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and lending and library services (Scribd, Overdrive, Baker&Taylor, Gardners, etc.). Many entertaining hours of reading await you.

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

Surviving Autocracy. Masha Gesson, author (Riverhead Press, Penguin/Random House). Although I’m a fiction writer, I read a lot of non-fiction, as a glance at the “Steve’s Bookshelf” web page at this website will show. A lot of it has to do with politics. I know many authors are afraid of alienating some of their readership, but I’ve been a political junkie since high school when John Bolton’s hero, Barry Goldwater, ran for president (I was not a Dr. Strangelove fan). Some readers, in fact, criticize me for being too political. Well, sorry folks, I call it morality—there is evil in the US and the world, and my themes are often related to that. In other words, if readers are moral human beings, they shouldn’t have any problem with my prose. Trumpism isn’t a political issue—it’s a bad versus good issue, because Trump is evil. Yes, Trump, Trumpsters, and Trumpism are immoral, and so are all his followers, including the Christian right. They’re preaching evil when they should be preaching good.

Political tomes come and go, but Surviving Autocracy is one of the most incisive, relevant ones because the author basically analyzes why the three Ts mentioned are evil. It not only digs into the Trump’s evil autocratic personality thoroughly, as Garcia Marquez did so well in Autumn of the Patriarch (Otoño del Patriarca), she shows this narcissistic wannabe dictator might be worse than any Third World autocrat—or his handlers, akin to Hitler’s staff, made him that way, although I think they only provided him the tools.

The author doesn’t go into any details; this isn’t an exposé of White House dirty dealings seen through an insider’s eyes. She’s more interested in the big picture, and that is one that makes many people, myself included, fearful that our republic is in grave danger, the moral danger that Trumpism represents. It might not survive another four years of Trump. However, the author doesn’t call him a fascist. This is a failing. It might be that NY Times culture, which has become so antiquated and unable to meet today’s pressing issues head-on, but the author doesn’t want to call Donald J. Trump a fascist. He is exactly that, an evil, corrupt, and perverted one to boot, and that he’s able to be all that and still become president and holder of the nation’s nuclear codes is frightening and an indictment of about 35% of the American population. He’s neither a reader nor a thinker (he’s an unstable moron), and he reacts in the same way as Garcia Marquez’s main character, an amalgam of Latin American dictators (of course, Trump would probably call Latin American countries “$%#^holes” too).

To be fair, the NY Times isn’t the only paper afraid of calling Trump a fascist. And all sixteen reviews of this book on Amazon (incredibly and belying its importance, the last time I looked, that’s all there were), avoided using the word “fascist.” Presumably Amazon’s censors axed all reviews using that word, which is why I didn’t even try to post this one. (Besides, it was purchased in a bookstore, not in Amazon—the online retailer frowns on those kinds of reader-reviewers.)

While I’ve only seen excerpts from that Room book, Surviving Autocracy is a much better study of Trump’s mentally diseased mind than Bolton’s doorstop (see last week’s op-ed). I won’t read Bolton’s book to hone that comparison, but I was happy to read this one in its entirety. It doesn’t really tell us how to survive Trump unfortunately, but it explains why we should. We only have one choice left: Give that man with a sick mind the boot in the 2020 election!

***

Comments are always welcome.

Binge-reading #1. Reading an entire series certainly qualifies as binge-reading…and why not? The books in the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy” are examples of those rare kinds of thriller David Baldacci, Lee Child, Jeffrey Deaver, James Patterson,  and others might want to write but can’t: Each sci-fi novel in this trilogy is a big thrill ride. Full Medical is about a conspiracy where world leaders make sure they have enough body parts as they age; you’ll meet the clones. Evil Agenda is about an evil genius who’s out to take over the world; the clones are still around to try to stop him, and they’re joined by a mutant warrior. No Amber Waves of Grain is about a North Korean industrialist who’s out for revenge against the West; the clones team up with that first evil genius to try and stop him—but Chinese and Russians are lurking around too. The entire series can be found on Amazon and Smashwords and at all the latter’s affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and lending and library services (Scribd, Overdrive, Baker&Taylor, Gardners, etc.). Many entertaining hours of reading await you.

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

Too many Americans forget their origins: Unless you’re a Native American, you’re an immigrant or descended from immigrants. At one time, the poem on the Statue of Liberty was a clarion call for all who seek refuge in the US. Now DHS and ICE have basically edited it to say, “Give me your tired, your poor, your hidden masses…but only if Mr. Trump wants them here.”

What do a lot of autocrats have in common with Trump? If your answer is “fascism,” you’re right, but what fascists create is an us-versus-them polemic that haters and bigots feed on like Dracula, AKA many Trump supporters in the US. Trump uses refugees and immigrants as scapegoats and calls them migrants and invaders to create that us-versus-them picture. Never mind that his wife and her parents are immigrants; never mind that he himself is the descendant of immigrants. He still includes them in the class of “us” and anyone he despises in the class of “them,” including persons who were born here. All dreamers (DACA kids) are in the class of “them,” for example, and he told the Squad (that name was unfortunately created by those four new reps in Congress) they should go back to where they came from, never mind they’re all Americans.

Trump does this so his supporters have someone to hate. Although he’s a complete racist, he couldn’t use the Jews like Hitler did, but any fascist worth his vitriol knows that the wannabe autocrat must create a “them” so people can circle the wagons around the “us.” It’s a standard fascist tactic, and unfortunately it works. Trump was elected after all by people who are haters and bigots, and that group includes the Christian right. Trump didn’t win the popular vote—there are too many people who don’t become that extreme in their hate, racism, and bigotry—but the votes were distributed well enough to allow him to eke out a win using the Electoral College.

Of course, Trump is far too moronic to come up with that us-versus-them idea himself. In 2016, his handlers, Bannon and Miller, created the current immigration policy, if we can call it that. In spite of American industry pleading for more workers of all types, Trump and his minions want to close the country’s borders to all of “them” so they can concentrate their fascism on controlling and exploiting the “us,” with the privileged circle of “us” starting with the Trump family and becoming ever smaller as time goes on. Anyone not favoring Trump becomes one of “them.”

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Sometimes real life creates mysteries too. I’ll describe one that remains unsolved. No, I’m not an UFO junkie reporting on some mysterious events occurring at Area 51. There’s just one real-life mystery, and it would even stump Dame Agatha.

An author-friend’s husband—a fellow ex-physicist too, by the way, so there was a lot of scientific prowess applied to solving the mystery—was interested in one of Harlan Coben’s many tales, so he queried “Harlan Coben” on his smart TV system. Up came my novel The Last Humans, and Alexa started reading it. He repeated this experiment several times, as scientists are prone to do: different chapters, same book…and not Harlan’s! He was understandably bothered by this, so much so that his wife asked me what was going on.

Given my general lack of knowledge about how all this smart TV/streaming video/internet stuff works (we have neither a smart TV nor any streaming video service—I’d rather read a book), I haven’t been able to solve this mystery completely. Admittedly I was only a consultant and chronicler, a Dr. Watson for the true sleuths, my author-friend and her husband. They were the detectives at the scene of the crime, and they haven’t completely solved the mystery either.

Considering that my ebooks have been pirated before, my knee-jerk reaction was to think that was the problem, in which case all hope was lost. The only thing I could personally have done was to inform Amazon, Black Opal Books (my publisher, not Harlan’s, because mine would be the one worried about piracy), and whomever else might be affected. (Probably all ineffectual—book pirates are hard to bring to justice.)

But then my author-friend informed me she’d discovered that, if one buys an ebook (they bought the .mobi or Kindle formatted version from Amazon), one can ask Siri to read it—you can find the details here. Imagine. An audiobook version made from an ebook without the extra production cost of an audiobook! Who knew? Maybe some readers can try this with other ebooks—I have neither the hardware nor software to confirm this, nor any predilection for purchasing Apple products (Siri is that monotonous iPhone gal) that often only work with other Apple products, but I have no reason to doubt my author-friend, who writes excellent mysteries. Let me know if this works.

That solves part of the mystery. Two ex-physicists are stumped, as well as my author-friend and I, about this part: The real mystery just might be why Harlan Coben’s name was the trigger! I had some email correspondence years ago with Harlan after I started to publish my novels. He was patient with my impatience, saying it took a few books to gain some name recognition (the Myron Bolitar series is still my favorite in his opus, so he already had my attention). In hindsight, that email exchange only amounted to a pep talk, because what he suggested would happen hasn’t (i.e. name recognition—ebooks didn’t exist back then). Shortly after that exchange, his email address disappeared—he’d become too famous, I guess. (I don’t save email addresses anyway, just to protect people’s privacy, the exception being addresses of subscribers to my newsletter.) No further communication with the reclusive Harlan has occurred.

Maybe Harlan is the culprit behind all this? Nah! That’s hard to believe. But thank you, Harlan Coben, for showing me how I can avoid production costs for an ebook. A lot more thanks are due my author-friend and her husband for showing how the tech elves can help authors without the authors doing anything. I wrote a post not long ago about the new trend of adding an audiobook at a reduced price when a reader buys an ebook. Readers, it looks like there’s no need for you to do that as long as you buy iBooks, which means, authors, it’s not such an effective marketing tool to offer that. Of course, readers will have Siri reading the ebook in that case, not James Earl Jones.

***

Comments are always welcome.

A Time-Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse. Readers of this blog know I don’t write romance or erotica, but I’ve met those popular genres halfway with this sci-fi rom-com—that’s sci-fi romantic comedy. Enrico Fermi wasn’t the last physicist who was both an experimental and theoretical genius, but Professor Gail Hoff will never receive the Nobel Prize. She goes time-traveling through several universes of the multiverse, never to return to her little lab outside Philly. Jeff Langley, her jack-of-all-trades electronics wizard, accompanies her. Their escapades, both amorous and adventurous, make this novel a far-out road-trip story filled with dystopian and post-apocalyptic situations, first encounter, robots and androids—those and more await the reader who rides along. An excellent distraction from the pandemic that’s coming soon!

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

“Eve Mallow Series.” Mystery on Hidden Lane, at Apple Tree Cottage, and at Seagrave Hall. Many readers of this blog know that the COVID-19 pandemic has driven me to more reading as well as writing (my finished manuscripts are stacking up—one is displayed below). In particular, I have binged on several series of British-style mysteries. Reading an entire series has been a lot more fun than watching TV reruns, cable TV’s old movies, summer game shows, and “family specials” (wasn’t that John Legend show last week a sappy mess—hey, John, I know you can sing because you were good in Jesus Christ, Superstar, but I really didn’t need to see how families of the rich and famous performers were getting on).

I’ve digressed. I’m happy to write I’ve discovered a new author, Clare Chase. I’ve read only the three novels indicated so far. All take place at Saxford St. Peter, a fictional village on the fictional river Sax (she admits the village is fictional, but so is the river, as near as I can tell), all in Suffolk, England. These are excellent mystery/crime stories with a dash of modern themes added to the Christie-like stew of suspense and intrigue. They will keep readers guessing right along with Eve Mallow. She’s the main character who uses her obituary writing business as a cover for doing some sleuthing (an original idea, to be sure, giving real meaning to Murder She Wrote).

All the village folk are well-drawn characters (in the real as well as literary sense), from the vicar who knows the villagers’ secrets, to the irrepressible woman who hires Eve to work in her tea shop because Eve makes such good scones. The latter nicely complements Eve’s main source of income, a necessary complement because her ex is an overbearing arse. Maybe the scone making justifies the classification “cozy” on the books’ front covers—that almost ended my desire to purchase the books, by the way—but I’ve lamentably read enough cozies to know this author’s novels aren’t well described by that mystery subgenre. They’re well-written classic mysteries. (The author uses that description on her website, although a more correct description would be “traditional mysteries with a modern flavor.” “Classic” make me think of Holmes and Watson.

Like Jessica Fletcher’s Cabot Cove in the TV series Murder She Wrote (one of the few good mystery shows, along with Columbo, that make the Hallmark mysteries seem like Harlequin romances), it’s hard to imagine that such a small village like Saxford St. Peter has so many murders. (I preferred to set my “Detectives Chen & Castilblanco” and “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series in large cities for that  reason, although Esther does a lot more globe-trotting than Rolando Castilblanco and, of course, Eve Mallow.) The author solves the Cabot Cove problem in her little imaginary village in two ways: (1) villagers who have left often return, some to do dastardly deeds…or become victims; and (2) new people come through, some doing the same—with Eve having to sift through both sets of suspects to solve the crimes.

Readers who want to sit down with their tea and scone to enjoy all the village’s hidden secrets and meet the villagers there as well as the people who visit will find many hours of interesting and entertaining reading in these three novels—nothing earth-shaking but very pleasant.

***

Comments are always welcome.

A Time-Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse. Readers of this blog know I don’t write romance or erotica, but I’ve met those popular genres halfway with this sci-fi rom-com—that’s sci-fi romantic comedy. Enrico Fermi wasn’t the last physicist who was both an experimental and theoretical genius, but Professor Gail Hoff will never receive the Nobel Prize. She goes time-traveling through several universes of the multiverse, never to return to her little lab outside Philly. Jeff Langley, her jack-of-all-trades electronics wizard, accompanies her. Their escapades, both amorous and adventurous, make this novel a far-out road-trip story filled with dystopian and post-apocalyptic situations, first encounter, robots and androids—those and more await the reader who rides along. An excellent distraction from the pandemic that’s coming soon!

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

John Bolton’s book has made a lot of news (Simon & Schuster likes the free publicity, I’m sure), and he’s been attacked by both Dems and the Good Ole Piranhas firmly in Trump’s greasy, fascist hands now. The book will be published (copies are already distributed and many pundits have one), and we’ll have to see if Trump’s threat of reprisals isn’t just more autocratic blathering (loss of royalties and lawsuits for releasing classified info, although so far I see no reason for this, and the book passed inspection back in April).

So is he just another celeb trying to get rich writing tell-all crap? I hate celeb books. They’re often written by ghost writers (that’s financially good for those writers, I suppose) and replete with scandal and character assassinations. Has conservative hawk John seen the light, trying to save his soul by pretending to worry about the American people? Nah! His gaze has always been outward, a bit like many English leaders lamenting Great Britain’s loss of relevance; Bolton has never worried about social issues, which often affect Americans more. Has he suddenly realized that fascism is morally reprehensible, and the wannabe autocrat in the White House can destroy the country?

Who is the real John Bolton? First, let’s consider who he’s not. He’s not the guy who testified against Trump in the impeachment. He betrayed the American public there. Ho-hum…Trump broke the law some more: Supporting Xi’s concentration camps for China’s Muslim minority shows Trump’s immorality, but asking Xi to interfere in American elections on his behalf is as least as damning as asking the Ukraine to investigate the Bidens. After all, China’s Xi is probably a more dangerous foe than the bumbling Putin. But did you really expect anything else? And did Bolton? Why did Bolton not testify? Because he wanted to save those headlines for his book!

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In my novel Son of Thunder, the second book in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, a lifetime of discovery was employed. I like that term instead of research, which is used incorrectly by many authors. The historical data is already out there, even though historians hardly do research to find it either. Writers, especially authors of historical fiction, like to say they had to do a lot of “research” for their novels. Nope. They do a lot of discovery of what’s out there.

Maybe I make too much of this semantic nuance, but scientists are the ones who do real research. They collect data, and they create and test theories. As an ex-scientist, I’m qualified to state that this process greatly differs from discovering facts used in my fiction. The processes aren’t the same at all. The only thing I needed to “discover” as a scientist was whether I was duplicating something another scientist had done before. I had to discover a lot of history for Son of Thunder; I did no research.

Almost every novel I’ve written has some associated discovery time. My first, Full Medical (2006), the first book in the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy,” required a lot of discovery. I’m an ex-physicist, not a geneticist. Where did I do my discovery for that novel? In many places, digging up current facts about the cloning process (I might be wrong, but I think they’re still current, making the book into an “evergreen book”). I used the internet and articles from scientific journals; I was often led to the latter by Science News, which indicates at the end of each article where you can find more details about the subject of the article. (I’m in good company here. Isaac Asimov was a biochemist and as specialized in his discipline as much as I was in mine. He used Science News to go beyond the constraints of his discipline; so do I.)

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