Note from Steve: How could I forget? October is a busy holiday month—Columbus Day aka Native Americans’ Day and Hallowed Eve (watch for those kiddies, whatever day your town celebrates it!). But the whole month is Hispanic Heritage Month. I was once so immersed in Hispanic culture (in Colombia) that I dreamed in Spanish even when I returned to the States. Of course, I enjoyed a lot of that culture as I grew up in my native California. So, readers, let’s celebrate all these holidays!

I can understand readers have different preferences for non-fiction, but their preferences for fiction often make zero sense to me. You see it in the NY Tines “Book Review” (I can only recommend that Sunday supplement for the bottom of your bird cage). “Oprah’s Book Club,” “The GMA Book Club,” and many others, where they think they can tell readers what to read and bludgeon readers with their opiniated schlock.

You’re probably thinking, “Just another disgruntled writer who can’t compete!”…or something similar. You’re wrong. Most of my opinions here (which none of the above values, of course) originate in being a pissed-off reader. Oh, I’ve tried to find some traditionally published fiction to which the above cater and that’s worthwhile to read: The blurbs and “peek inside” features (or browsing in a bookstore or library) tell me they’re nearly always formulaic, boring stories that some agent and/or acquisitions editor has decided fits their marketing ideas (as if they do much marketing except for their old formulaic mares and stallions ready for the literary glue factory).

Traditional publishers make it difficult to enjoy reading now. No wonder people have turned to streaming video and video games for their entertainment: They can’t find anything worthwhile to read because they’ve been brainwashed by traditional publishers and their media minions into thinking only their schlock is worthwhile.

Yes, Oprah and the cast of GMA are collaborators in this literary conspiracy: I ignored Oprah’s choices, and I’m ignoring Robin Roberts’s gang’s too. I know where to find entertaining, interesting, and profound fiction, and it’s generally not what they recommend or what traditional publishers try to shove down my throat. Amazon sneakily keeps tabs on what I’ve been reading. At least their bots are smart enough to know I don’t read fiction from the bureaucratically bloated traditional publishers (readers pay for that bloat). You’d think the latter and their sycophants would change their business model and start paying attention to what avid fiction readers actually read instead of trying to force us to read something else.

The last traditionally published book I read was the exceptional pleasant surprise (the review is found at Bookpleasures—it was an honest one, so I reported on a few negatives, hence author, marketing guru, or publisher didn’t want it reposted on Amazon or my blog); it was okay. The one before that I tried and couldn’t finish was Deaver’s stupid whatever-you-call-it written in reverse. He went downhill after Garden of Beasts; I suspect his publisher had a lot to do with that. I suspect a lot of old authors like Deaver don’t really want to be boring and formulaic, but their publishers force them to be. That’s how you get series like Deaver’s or Grafton’s. Or maybe authors like them just let their publishers do that to them?

Too many readers let traditional publishers get away with this. If you’re an avid fiction reader like me, please join me in boycotting traditional publishing by reading entertaining, interesting, and profound fiction from self-published authors. You’ll be happier. And don’t fall into the trap if another reader says, mostly to one-up you, “Have you read X. It’s in the NY Times bestsellers list.” That poor sucker doesn’t know what he or she is missing.

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Comments are always welcome.

More than Human: The Mensa Contagion. Apocalypse and first contact are two ubiquitous sci-fi themes. I like to stir conventional themes and plots up a bit, though. Here first contact comes via an ET virus that kills at first (an apparent apocalypse that’s worse than Covid) but benignly creates Homo sapiens, version 2.0. What do these new humans do? They colonize Mars and later meet the makers of the virus, in a manner of speaking (this isn’t your normal first contact). You’ll have some fun with this one, and, like many sci-fi novels, it will make you think about possible futures. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold.

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

A while ago, as I was reviewing a book for Bookpleasures.com, something struck me. I was noting how the author’s style reminded of Michael Connelly’s early work, in particular the Harry Bosch books. The first, The Black Echo, came out in 1992, and I remember being impressed. And then I thought: Bosch is like my Detective Castilblanco! Not the same, of course, but similar. Harry was a tunnel rat in Vietnam; Castilblanco was a SEAL who had many missions in the Middle East, Afghanistan in particular. They both became detectives in big cities, Bosch in LA, Castilblanco in NYC.

I had to analyze this a bit further to put myself at ease. Had I inadvertently copied Connelly?

At the end, I decided there was no problem. After peeking inside some of those early Bosch novels again, I decided that the only things the Castilblanco books have in common with the Bosch books are those similar backgrounds of the detectives and their grittiness. Moreover, Harry is always local (at least in the Bosch books I read—I maybe read half of them), while Castilblanco’s cases usually start in NYC but often expand to national and international ones. Also, I’ve only reached #7 with Castilblanco, while Connelly is up to #19, last count. Still, eleven Bosch books were out before I published my first novel,  Full Medical (2006), and that was a dystopian sci-fi thriller, not a mystery/thriller. I didn’t write the first Castilblanco book, The Midas Bomb, until after the stock market crash in 2007-2008.

Harry doesn’t have the help of a partner like Castilblanco’s Dao-Ming Chen either. He has to do it all alone most of the time (he does get a little too close to an FBI agent). But both Bosch and Castilblanco are loose cannons sometimes, giving their superiors a tough time. That’s probably true of most innovative and successful cops who are detectives.

Bosch isn’t a hard-boiled detective like Sam Spade and Mike Hammer either; more of those old detectives is found in Castilblanco. My writing owes more to that old school than Connelly’s does—for Bosch, gritty, yes; hard-boiled, no. I call my prose minimalist writing, and it’s prevalent even in my sci-fi tales.

Does any of this matter? Of course not! Crime novels with their mystery, suspense, and thrills all have some similarities, but as long as they’re exciting, intriguing, and entertaining, who cares? I’m addicted to them, in both my reading and writing. And who knows? Maybe my Chen and Castilblanco stories influenced Michael Connelly? Nah, not likely. And I’m sure he doesn’t give a damn that I didn’t read his later Bosch books…for reasons I won’t go into here.

Yet this is a warning to all authors who are avid readers: Check every once and a while to see if your writing too closely mimics some other author’s. A little bit is okay, but even that can kill your own unique voice. I’ve always strived to maintain mine. Modesty aside, it’s not Asimov’s nor Connelly’s, just Steve Moore’s.

After all, you can like both Bosch and Castilblanco. Nothing wrong with that! (Seems like we need a detective whose name starts with A there.)

***

Comments are welcome.

The Chaos Chronicles Collection. This bundle contains three full sci-fi novels. Survivors of the Chaos begins with a dystopian Earth controlled by international mega-corporations that have resorted to private militias to police what remains of the collapse of Earth’s society; it ends with the third of three starships bound for the 82 Eridani system…and the first interstellar stowaway. Sing a Zamba Galactica is an epic history that goes from first contact with good ETs to a war against bad ones that have conquered Earth, but some strange collective intelligences also make trouble in the near-Earth galactic neighborhoods. If the first two novels are considered my Foundation tales, in Come Dance a Cumbia…with Stars in Your Hand! my Mule is the autocratic Human who wants to control all near-Earth space using ESP powers. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold.

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

The original Star Trek series had better episodes than any others in the Star Trek franchise. They’re dated now, especially if you’re looking for razzle-dazzle special effects. (They had to make do with what they had back then—literally!) Yet many of those original episodes were written by real sci-fi writers, not some young screenwriting novices. (The same can be said about the earlier Twilight Zone, even more so.) But The Next Generation‘s theme song was much more inspiring than the one from the original series’, hands down!

Written by the famous Jerry Goldsmith (the version I liked best was on a Boston Pops CD—”Pops in Space” I think it was called), it gave me goose bumps the first time I heard it. My ten-year-old son (he’s now forty-five) was even more impressed. It just held so much promise. The show delivered, with Jean Luc Picard matching my image of what a starship captain should be. (I had a hard time getting by Counselor Troi and Ensign Crusher, though.) Picard and Worf were my favorite characters.

But hearing that theme motivated me to watch every show. The stories were often disappointing, though, especially when compared to that magnificent theme song. The experience led me to conclude that it takes a whole team to make a successful series or movie. Good writers are needed as well as good music and good actors, writers who can spin good yarns week after week, a more difficult task than writing a movie’s screenplay…or just one novel.

The comparable challenge a fiction writer faces is a series of novels, not one. Like The Next Generation, an author’s series generally reuses many of the same characters over and over again. What changes are the plots and maybe the settings, and maybe the “guest” characters. The challenge arises because the ho-hums can set in. Like readers who read the books in a series, an author can become bored with writing about them.

This is one huge advantage self-publishing has over traditional publishing. For the latter, a publisher can get tired of a series even before readers and writer do. The publisher can cancel the series as a consequence. (This happened to me with the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series when the publisher wanted to end it with a trilogy. I knew Esther and Bastiann wanted me to create more adventures for them. I don’t know about readers.) The flip side of the coin occurs when a publisher wants an author to continue a series, even if the author is bored with it and knows subsequent novels will seem boring and formulaic to readers as well. The author often ends up writing little else, as in Sue Grafton’s case.

Self-publishing offers an author a lot of freedom when writing a series. Although my “Esther Brookstone” series is forty percent traditionally published, I self-published the last three books in the series. Sure, I completed the trilogy, even ensuring the third novel had a paper version, but I went beyond that for Esther and Bastiann. They deserved it, and I wasn’t bored with writing about their new adventures together as a married couple. I hope you aren’t either.

I’ll let someone else worry about theme music for the series when and if it becomes a TV series. I can suggest a few possibilities from classical music, but I’ll have to confirm those with Esther! She has a mind of her own.

***

Comments are always welcome.

Oktoberfests. I think my only mention of them is in Death on the Danube, and that only occurred as a reasonable facsimile at the beginning of Esther and Bastiann’s honeymoon river cruise (the beer gets to Bastiann, though!). We actually took the cruise that novel is based on in October through multiple European countries, so the reader can see most of what we saw by riding along with those two lovebirds. We didn’t have a murder on our cruise, of course, and there was no Interpol agent like Bastiann around to take over the investigation if we’d had one! This novel is in the middle of the five-novel “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, forming a bridge between the first two more international books and the last two, where the sleuths solve crimes on Esther’s home turf. Available in ebook and print format.

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

The exception is books! But first, a bit of history…

It all started with cable’s “On Demand”-type offerings (most cable companies had and have that), then HBO with premium movies, and now a whole Jurassic menagerie of streaming services and streaming bundles, a business so lucrative that even Disney jumped in and now competes with other streaming T-rexes. Expensive movie subscriptions, anyone?

And those video games! Lawsuits have been lost or won about who owns them and who can sell them, and they’re so popular that there are people now who make a living treating other people addicted to them. Big business creating cottage industries?

Your ordinary family movie matinee afternoon followed by dinner for four, even at McDonald’s, can easily cost parents $100 or more. That’s a hit on the old family budget!

Entertainment is big business in America, and Americans are willing to spend big bucks to get it.

What’s missing here? Books and reading! I still just make do with regular cable, mostly because I like to keep up on the news (CNN and network news) and PBS shows (new ones for the latter seem to have disappeared with Covid, though). But sometimes I look for a movie in the “On Demand” catalog, but I generally back out of there fast!

As Mr. Biden says, here’s the deal: Let’s say an “On Demand” service charges $3 for an old flick that I’ve missed (more chances for that now with Covid), and that movie lasts two hours. For $3, I can download a damn good novel that will take eight hours to read, say. In other words, for the same price, I get four times the entertainment! And that book is usually far better entertainment. Movie scripts nowadays are notoriously bad, often with no plot or interesting characters, just a lot of special effects. It’s incredible that I can buy a well-thought-out novel for $3, a story that’s almost guaranteed to be more entertaining than most movies.

Of course, I have to be selective, but I am for both media choices, and that’s another plus for books: There’s a lot more selection! There are more books because it doesn’t cost $100 million-plus to make a book. And with the book’s blurb and a “peek inside” (most online book retail sites have these features, and you use them also as you browse in a library, where a book is zero cost to you), I can home in and find a very entertaining book. Movie trailers all too often just show the few good parts of a movie, so I’ve learned to distrust them (same for book trailers, of course, especially James Patterson’s).

Conclusion: The best entertainment is found in books; the least expensive entertainment is found in books. Books are better. Period. Go out and spend a lot on other entertainment if you like. I’m sticking with books!

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Comments are welcome…but see the rules on my “Join the Conversation” web page.

Oktoberfests. I think my only mention of them is in Death on the Danube, and that only occurred as a reasonable facsimile at the beginning of Esther and Bastiann’s honeymoon river cruise (the beer gets to Bastiann, though!). We actually took the cruise that novel is based on in October through multiple European countries, so the reader can see most of what we saw by riding along with those two lovebirds. We didn’t have a murder on our cruise, of course, and there was no Interpol agent like Bastiann around to take over the investigation if we’d had one! This novel is in the middle of the five-novel “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, forming a bridge between the first two more international books and the last two, where the sleuths solve crimes on Esther’s home turf. Available in ebook and print format.

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

[Note 1 from Steve: Missing something? For those of you who enjoyed reading my politically-oriented articles about current events in the US and around the world, you’ll now find them at http://pubprogressive.com. Please drop by if you’re interested.]

[Note 2 from Steve: If you’ve downloaded “Mayhem, Murder, and Music,” the free collection of short crime fiction—see the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page if you haven’t—you know that music often inspires me. It’s always been part of my life. I even attempted once to write a Broadway-style musical based on Huxley’s Ape and Essence (it’s now shredded—I didn’t get much further than a rousing march, “Seventy-Six Trombones” in an apocalyptic setting). This series of posts was also inspired by music. I might even repeat some of the songs from that collection! Enjoy.]

The version of “America” considered in this article isn’t the bastardization of the UK’s “God Save the Queen”; it isn’t the song that many in the US think should be the US national anthem either. It’s Neil Diamond’s song (yep, another one!). My roomie in college couldn’t understand how I liked Neil Diamond, One colleague at my old day-job thought he’s corny and anyone who liked him is too (including me). Tough. Musical tastes are as subjective as reading tastes. My feedback to them was always that Mr. Diamond is a talented songwriter who not only sings his own songs well but wrote songs for other famous soloists and groups. I have yet to hear a Neil Diamond song I didn’t like. So here’s another: “America.”

Some readers of this blog might remember that song as the anthem for the failed Dukakis presidential campaign. (Michael didn’t fail in his bid for the presidency because of the song, although it generated some anti-immigrant sentiment from the fascist Good Ole Piranhas even back then. Papa Bush played dirty by pulling that Willie Horton trick on Michael, and we were saddled with another Good Ole Piranha in service to the American plutocracy—Papa Bush was the cowboy’s VP; Reagan and Bush started us down the path to fascism.)

You might not remember the real reason Dukakis chose this song. Both he and Diamond were celebrating America as a land of immigrants, that is, our country’s diversity. This is an important theme throughout my novels, even in my sci-fi stories. (What’s more diverse than a bunch of physiologically different ETs and their strange cultures?)

No one ever accused Diamond or Dukakis of practicing cultural appropriation, though. (Papa Bush also played the race card with that Willie Horton ad, making a false equivalence between blacks and criminals to the delight of American racists who, unfortunately, can vote.) You might know I have no use for the anti-cultural appropriation movement. I celebrate our diversity and always have, long before Diamond recorded “America” in 1980. As far as I’m concerned, I equate anti-cultural appropriation sentiments to racist ones; they pretend just the opposite. (What!? An old white guy can’t like reggae?)

(more…)

[Note 1 from Steve: Missing something? For those of you who enjoyed reading my politically-oriented articles about current events in the US and around the world, you’ll now find them at http://pubprogressive.com. Please drop by if you’re interested.]

[Note 2 from Steve: My blog readers can consider this article a sequel to “I’m a failure…,” my 6/9/2021 article that’s about as equally positive and negative as this one. Read on if you want to learn more truth about this publishing business!]

I give up. No, not on writing—I’m addicted to storytelling and blogging (sometimes they’re the same thing). I gave up on traditional publishing (yeah, I tried it), and now I’m giving up on all those marketing gurus who promise everything and deliver nothing with their services.

Nearly all “book marketing experts” focus on Amazon now: Amazon this; Amazon that. We can help you get more Amazon reviews. We can help you with Amazon ads, key words, whatever. All this amounts to is a complete surrender to Jeff Bezos and his mega-monopoly that actually hurt authors more than help. And I don’t want Bezos’s bots screwing around with my books anymore! (I only leave my “evergreen” ones on Amazon because it would take a lot of time to pull them all down. I haven’t sold a book on Amazon in a long time! I’m now boycotting them.)

Those marketing gurus offer all kinds of “free” advice too (most of it involves using Amazon!). Believe me, I’ve tried most of it. It’s mostly worthless, especially if it’s based on using Amazon. About all you can do anymore that might do some good is a book-launch campaign to let readers know you have published a new book. (At least that might give you some useful graphics you can use in your own DIY promos.) Anything else is worthless. Period. Full stop.

Worse, the marketing gurus’ efforts are focused on one book (even though they offer the contradictory advice to write the next one, which I’ve done many times over). I tried to get BooksGoSocial to promote a full series (without using Amazon!), and they ignored me. Same for AME (a marketing service wholly dependent on Amazon it seems—do they work for Jeff Bezos?). Maybe their services produce results for some authors. Their advertising certainly implies that. But neither one offered solutions for my series. (BooksGoSocial has focused on NFTs lately. How stupid is that!?)

I can write a good story; I just can’t sell them. (That’s different from finding readers. Apparently some of those read pirated ebooks, but, of course, I’ll never know that number.) Marketing gurus don’t seem able to help authors like me who are in the same fix. They can’t sell books either. And their business models suck.

Even sleazy lawyers do pro bono work; for some of them, that’s all they do. Smack someone with a lawsuit, and the lawyer only collects if he wins the case. That’s because lawyers know what they’re doing. They work off percentages: Win enough cases, and they’ll get rich. Not so much who they represent, but they get something too.

Greedy marketing gurus want their money up front. There’s not one that does pro bono work. (If I were to go easy on them, I’d say they were just working under the delusion that they’re like Madison Avenue ad execs. Ha!) The reason is simple: Unlike the lawyers who know their business model works, book marketing “experts” know their business model doesn’t. So they just leech off authors by asking for their money up front even before doing a damn thing, and that’s all they end up doing for authors—take their money.

What’s an author to do? What I’m doing: Enjoy the storytelling and give up on all the rest. And you shouldn’t think a traditional publishing contract will help you. First, you can do much better with royalty percentages if you’re DIY. And traditional publishers won’t do a damn thing to help you in marketing either, unless you’re one of the privileged glue-factory-ready mares and stallions in their stables that consistently sell their schlock, tired and formulaic stories, to unsuspecting readers. And you should give the finger to marketing gurus except for those who are competent enough to run a good book launch. You’ll be a lot happier if you follow my lead.

By the way, give up on your dream of making a living with your storytelling. It’s unlikely you can do that now. Look elsewhere to make a living if you insist on doing it by writing (journalism or advertising work…or greeting cards?), or keep your boring day-job. You’ll be a lot happier doing that too, and so will your family.

I know some writers hate me for telling the truth about publishing. Tough. They have kicked me out of discussion groups so they can fester with their damn dreams, but they can’t stop me from blogging about my experiences. Some authors think like I do but are afraid to tell others, as if it’s some kind of stigma to tell the truth now. I’ve dedicated over two decades to putting my stories out there. I know the truth about today’s wacky publishing scene, and I’m not afraid to state it.

I always wanted to be a writer. Now that I am one, I’m happy enough. I’ve told many stories. I think most of them are good ones. The rest doesn’t matter except for warning you not to expect too much. You’re not likely to get it. It’s like playing the lottery. You might win, but you’d better just do it for the enjoyment, because you probably won’t win.

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Comments are welcome.

“Mary Jo Melendez Mysteries.” A trilogy that’s definitely binge-able! Meet the MECHs (“Mechanically Enhanced Cybernetic Humans”). In the first novel, Muddlin’ Through, ex-USN Master-at-Arms, now working in security at a firm with Pentagon contracts, is framed for her sister and brother-in-law’s murders when a secret US agency covers up their incompetence in letting the MECHs be stolen by Russian operatives; Mary Jo goes around the world to prove her innocence. In #2, Silicon Slummin’…and Just Gettin’ By, Mary Jo finds a new job in the Silicon Valley, only to have CIA and Russian agents pursue her to find out where the MECHs are hiding…and someone else is also stalking her! In #3, Goin’ the Extra Mile, China kidnaps her family to make her reveal the MECHs location, and she must take on the entire Ministry of State Security in Beijing. Rapid action and intrigue await the reader in this series, available wherever quality ebooks are sold.

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

[Note from Steve: If you’ve downloaded “Mayhem, Murder, and Music,” the free collection of short crime fiction—see the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page if you haven’t—you know that music often inspires me. It’s always been part of my life. I even attempted once to write a Broadway-style musical based on Huxley’s Ape and Essence (it’s now shredded—I didn’t get much further than a rousing march, “Seventy-Six Trombones” in an apocalyptic setting). This series of posts was also inspired by music. I might even repeat some of the songs from that collection! Enjoy.]

No matter our religious preferences (or lack thereof), Hollywood, at least in old westerns’ prairie churches, exposed us to the old hymns that resounded from sea to shining sea. Of course, there might be a saloon  not far from the church where evil booze turned cowboys into warring gladiators. In many ways, this made mock of a serious issue, an existential problem human beings have often faced on planet Earth and may very well carry to the stars (see my novel Rogue Planet): How religious belief can breed the extreme violence when believers become fanatics.

It always seemed to me that this familiar juxtaposition of religion and violence, well-summarized by even the title of the hymn indicated above, was a telling indictment of human failings (the Taliban in Afghanistan is but one obvious example). Early on (at least by junior high—middle school for easterners), I’d realized the dichotomy was ubiquitous throughout our world. It’s extremes can be seen in the Nazi holocaust and other genocides, tribalism that can tear a society apart. It often amounts to “Believe as I do, or die!” In other words, religious fanaticism.

And it isn’t just restricted to murdering fanatics either. America’s fascists count radical evangelicals and right-wing Catholics among them (we now even have a few on our Supreme Court). These are people who might seem normal but hold extreme views. QAnon is basically a radical Christian cult. Scratch a militant male from the SBC VIPs and you’ll find a Taliban fanatic, including the belief that women are the property of their men and have no rights at all.

Religion has its place as a comfort to many; extremism doesn’t . But like many other critical themes, I haven’t treated it very often. Terrorism, its extreme form, yes; but the religious extremism that leads to that terrorism, rarely. There’s one novel, though, where I tried to strike a blow against religious fanaticism: Soldiers of God.

The novel’s title was motivated by that old Calvinist hymn of the title that might as well be the militant march of Christian fanatics. Three fanatical religious groups appear in the novel. An FBI agent and a socially conscious priest (obviously not a part of the Vatican hierarchy) battle one group in particular, but the villain of the story, a precursor of Mr. Trump, if you will, uses religious fanatics to further his own agenda. That’s the message: Fanatics all too often become the political tools of despots. We’re seeing this today, so, in that sense, the novel, like our present situation, is a prescient prelude to the apocalypse. (The book provides a bridge between the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy” and the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy.” It’s a sci-fi thriller that just might be too close to our present reality.)

In a previous post in this series, I considered unrequited love. I misspoke by saying there that I have no novels that contain that theme. The FBI agent’s love for her priest who works undercover in the fanatical group certainly qualifies as unrequited. This makes the novel stronger, of course, contrasting true love against the Christian fanatics’ hatred.

If I had to choose my two best and most profound books, I might choose Soldiers of God and Son of Thunder. (Yes, thrillers can be profound!) Both feature the clash between good and evil with religious overtones. For that reason, I see both novels as an analysis of how human belief systems can generate violence. Perhaps the first  novel reflects more the vengeful God of the Old Testament, He who inspires fanatics, while the second reflects the more loving God of St. John, He who disapproves of fanatical mayhem and violence in His name. Keep that in mind when you read those novels.

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Comments are always welcome.

“The Last Humans” series. I wrote the first novel in this series, The Last Humans, before the real Covid pandemic. The plague here is bioengineered by an American enemy and is delivered to the West Coast of the US via missile. But we all know from the experiences with those California wildfires that small particles, here the virus, can be carried across the US and to the rest of the world by prevailing winds. Penny Castro, forensic diver for the LA County Sheriff’s department, dives to recover a corpse and emerges to find apocalyptic desolation. The first novel is her story of survival. The second, The Last Humans: A New Dawn, is the story of a US-sponsored revenge mission that goes terribly wrong for Penny. (Fair warning: The idiotic Amazon bots—or the idiots who program them?—confused these two novels, so I’d recommend buying the two books elsewhere. Barnes & Noble, for example, where the links take you, kept them straight. The first novel was a bestseller from Black Opal Books at B&N for a bit, in fact.)

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

[Note from Steve: Double feature today! This article is followed by a book review.]

Movies, streaming videos, computer games—these are three audiovisual media, emphasis on the visual, to which people are addicted. Authors are told to show not tell (more terrible advice from writing gurus!), but “showing” isn’t really possible in novels, is it? Their media reduces to words on the written page; there’s nothing audiovisual about that.

But avid readers know they can create their own visuals from those words alone if an author gives them a minimalist nudge. That’s all it takes to draw a reader into the creative process. People can choose the more passive visual entertainment and eschew participation in the creative process, but that choice is a sad one. They will never be able to enjoy that experience of using an author’s words to create their own personal images of what’s going on. Every reader’s images will be different. True, their creation is guided by the words, but that’s all the author should be: A guide.

Modesty aside, I’ll choose two examples from my own oeuvre to illustrate the point.

At the beginning of Goin’ the Extra Mile, the reader is right there with Mary Jo Melendez (written in first person, by the way) as she hops atop a speeding car to stop the kidnapping of her two adopted children. That’s action-in-words designed to hook readers, telling all readers that the novel is going to be a thrill ride.

The second example shows the advantage of words over settings. While you might see the approach to Bogotá, Colombia from the air in streaming video or a movie, brought to you at high cost (the film company will want to recover the millions spent in production costs), you can enjoy this experience in Soldiers of God for less than the cost of a MacDonald’s meal. And I’d never expect that view in Hollywood schlock because they paint Colombia as a drug-infested land of terrorists, which it isn’t, of course. Lots of good people live there, and it’s a beautiful land, whether portrayed in visuals or words, but the latter must be done properly.

So the answer to the title’s question is simple: Yes! Readers know that answer well. After all, the best movie scripts come from novels. Writers of original screenplays rarely have the patience to paint pictures with words because they’re already seeing the cameras rolling.

True, some authors can overdo it, which is why I emphasize minimalist writing. An author must provide the words that lead readers to create their own images, but that leading must be just enough that readers don’t feel constrained by the words. That’s where the art of writing lies.

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Comments are always welcome.

“The Last Humans” series. I wrote the first novel in this series, The Last Humans, before the real Covid pandemic. The plague here is bioengineered by an American enemy and is delivered to the West Coast of the US via missile. But we all know from the experiences with those California wildfires that small particles, here the virus, can be carried across the US and to the rest of the world by prevailing winds. Penny Castro, forensic diver for the LA County Sheriff’s department, dives to recover a corpse and emerges to find apocalyptic desolation. The first novel is her story of survival. The second, The Last Humans: A New Dawn, is the story of a US-sponsored revenge mission that goes terribly wrong for Penny. (Fair warning: The idiotic Amazon bots—or the idiots who program them?—confused these two novels, so I’d recommend buying the two books elsewhere. Barnes & Noble, for example, where the links take you, kept them straight. The first novel was a bestseller from Black Opal Books at B&N for a bit, in fact.)

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

[Note from Steve: If you’ve downloaded “Mayhem, Murder, and Music,” the free collection of short crime fiction—see the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page if you haven’t—you know that music often inspires me. It’s always been part of my life. I even attempted once to write a Broadway-style musical based on Huxley’s Ape and Essence (it’s now shredded—I didn’t get much further than a rousing march, “Seventy-Six Trombones” in an apocalyptic setting). This series of posts was also inspired by music. I might even repeat some of the songs from that collection! Enjoy.]

You might recognize the snippet of the title as lyrics from a Janis Joplin song? I prefer the Kris Kristofferson version of “Me and Bobby McGee”; after all, he wrote the song! And his C&W mellow baritone belting out the song is much more satisfying than Joplin’s screechy, cat-fighting rendition. (Janet, not one to respect copyrights, unfortunately changed the lyrics too, including the snippet in the title.) I’ve always seen the song as unrequited love, something hard to see with the Joplin version.

What! Author Steven M. Moore is a romantic? You’re justified in thinking just the opposite, of course. I don’t, won’t, and can’t write fluffy romances or erotica. The sci-fi rom-com Time Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse came the closest. And the love between the main characters therein is hardly unrequited! It isn’t often unrequited in other novels as well.

Pam Stuart and Detective Castilblanco held the record of unrequited love until Esther Brookstone and Bastiann van Coevorden tied it. In both cases, love was “unrequited” for only two novels in the corresponding series. And I wouldn’t exactly call what they experienced before tying the knot unrequited either.

But Kristofferson’s song is more complex because it also makes me think of the “road trip” story, where two free souls come together in unusual circumstances and draw closer as the journey progresses. The African Queen with Hepburn and Bogart is a good early example from Hollywood; so is Thelma and Louise. The entire Indiana Jones series can be seen as one long romantic road trip, although Indy and his true love interest aren’t together most of the time.

It’s strange that I can’t recall a serious novel that’s just a romantic road trip. Of course, my memory isn’t super-sized by any stretch of the imagination. The only one that comes to mind is Le Carré’s Little Drummer Girl, and that’s only part of that novel. Modesty aside, I could again use Time Traveler’s Guide… as an example, a romantic road trip to beat all road trips! It’s a comedy, though, a bit slap-sticky, ribald, and tongue-in-the-cheek. (Most reviewers lamentably seemed to miss the point.) Aristocrats and Assassins might be another example, as well as Rembrandt’s Angel, but the road trips aren’t the main theme in either novel, even though the protagonists move around a lot.

Romance and road trips aren’t main themes in my novels. They’re present in some (Mary Jo Melendez has several in her series, for example, and enjoys a bit of romance in the process), simply because romance is part of life and my characters do travel around a bit, as my motto “Around the world and to the stars!” indicates. The reason for this neglect might not be obvious: There’s a lot more to life than romance and road trips.

I celebrate life, not just a few of its aspects. I don’t, won’t, and can’t constrain my prose, wherever it leads me, and I rarely like fiction that seems too constrained and narrowly focused. I do like Kristofferson’s song, though—his version, not Joplin’s.

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Comments are always welcome.

Two more “Esther Brookstone” novels. Did you miss them? Maybe you thought Esther’s adventures ended with the story of her honeymoon with Bastiann, Death on the Danube? No, there are more adventures involving crimes back in merry old England after the couple returns home. In #4, Palettes, Patriots, and Prats, they befriend an American artist, only to find there’s a lot more to her troubles than expected. In #5, Leonardo and the Quantum Code, everyone wants to steal new algorithms for quantum computers based on ideas of Leonardo Da Vinci. If you love the idea of 21^st versions of Miss Marple (Esther) and Hercule Poirot (Bastiann), don’t miss any of the books in this series.

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

I gave my newsletter subscribers a little spiel about the importance of education this month, so I thought I’d elaborate on it a bit more. While most of us might recognize the importance of both formal and informal education, I haven’t used education as a major theme in my novels, or educators, for that matter.

Sure, Detective Castilblanco takes his Buddhist lessons from his mentor, and STEM student Kayla Jones has an early school friend in Billy, but my novels don’t take place in a classroom. Gail, one main character in Time Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse, and her new lab assistant, Jeff, who’s the other, work at a small college outside Philly, but I only use that setting at the beginning of the novel to joke around a bit about weird professors (I once was one). Using only my stories, you might conclude I don’t value formal education very much (I do).

I think education is important, formal or otherwise. I would have discovered books without it (I basically did, and I certainly read some that wouldn’t have met the approval of my teachers). Yet I probably wouldn’t have had a decent day-job without my formal education. Now it allows me to write my stories without worrying very much about the financial aspects of publishing.

My father, an excellent artist who was also a gruff old fellow with a heart of gold, often said, “Children should be seen, not heard.” The same can be said about education. I don’t mean we should take it for granted, far from it. Rather, it’s such a basic necessity and right that we shouldn’t have to think about it very much. It’s like air: We need it and should maintain its quality, but we generally don’t think about air with every breath we take—that’s automatic. I don’t discuss air in my books much (except for a few scenes in More than Human: The Mensa Contagion), and I don’t discuss education that much either.

Yet there’s a subtle sidebar here: My novels often treat profound and serious themes (even a sci-fi rom-com like Time Traveler’s Guide) that they can be considered educational because of those themes. You might say they educate by example. Or, by simply exposing readers to issues they might not otherwise think about. I know some readers don’t like that. All I can say to them is that there’s plenty of fluffy, formulaic novels out there to keep them happy.

We can learn from reading books, fiction included. Maybe books where that can be done aren’t bestsellers or become blockbuster movies, but I can’t lower myself to write simple novels. Or read them, for that matter. I need to continue learning about life and this world and others, a continuing education about the human (or ET) experience. I find this informal process, reading fiction, an important part of my education. I hope you do too.

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Comments are always welcome.

Two more “Esther Brookstone” novels. Did you miss them? Maybe you thought Esther’s adventures ended with the story of her honeymoon with Bastiann, Death on the Danube? No, there are more adventures involving crimes back in merry old England after the couple returns home. In #4, Palettes, Patriots, and Prats, they befriend an American artist, only to find there’s a lot more to her troubles than expected. In #5, Leonardo and the Quantum Code, everyone wants to steal new algorithms for quantum computers based on ideas of Leonardo Da Vinci. If you love the idea of 21^st versions of Miss Marple (Esther) and Hercule Poirot (Bastiann), don’t miss any of the books in this series.

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