[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.

***

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.

***

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.

***

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!

[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.]

Like Neil Diamond’s existential song of the title (I love the version where a 70-piece orchestra accompanies him—it was recorded along with other famous songs on the CD at the famous Abbey Road Studios), this post is an ode to the loneliness of the artist. Whether writer, musician, painter, potter, or sculpturer, creating art is often a lonely pursuit, at least in the creative part. Diamond might have received inspiration from NYC streets for “Beautiful Noise” (also on that CD), but I’ll wager he was alone in his NYC apartment when he composed both the songs mentioned here. (Ironically, cities are often very lonely places.)

Writers of fiction, even as they mirror the romance, comedy, and tragedy of human existence in their prose, must go it alone. Patterson might have 300+ novels to his name, but his “co-authors,” who wrote a lot of them, still worked alone, as he did in his first books. Like a painter with his brushes, palette, and easel (my father was one), the writer paints with words within the solitary confinement of his story, reaching out to readers as if to slice away at that loneliness.

It’s a big decision for any creative to take: Choose loneliness in order to create. Most people can’t do it; or they don’t want to do it, thinking that creating art just creates more loneliness. There’s some truth to the latter, but creating art also is a cure for loneliness, medicine that with the proper dosage kills the ennui of disconnection.

Or maybe it’s not a decision but an addiction? Some people must create; they can’t help themselves. They’ve decided the loneliness of the creator is an obstacle they’re willing to jump over in order to be creative. And whether other people can benefit from and admire those creations or not, the creatives can still revel in their creations. That satisfaction relieves the loneliness.

I suppose there’s also the satisfaction that some creations might live on after we leave this “mortal coil.” This is one reason I include end notes in every novel. I think every author should. While it might be possible to piece together a writer’s creative life  just using her or his novels, the reason for writing them has some importance, if only as a last blow against loneliness. In my case, someone could patch together a decent biography of my life, but I suspect no one will! Yet my novels will live on, at least for a time, as evidence of my creative life…and my loneliness.

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Comments are always welcome.

Rogue Planet. Perhaps you’re familiar with my Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection. Did you know several stories are set in that same sci-fi universe, including the Dr. Carlos tales and A. B. Carolan’s first three YA sci-fi mysteries? Rogue Planet is another one, and it has some Game-of-Throne aspects while still being hard sci-fi. A young prince’s planet is ruled by an oppressive theocracy that has led to a quarantine by ITUIP (Interstellar Trade Union of Independent Planets). He strives to defeat the theocracy’s leader and bring the planet back from the galaxy’s Dark Ages.

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

Authors like to talk about their works-in-progress (WIPs). I’d rather call them writing projects. Most of writing is DIY, up to a certain point (unless you’re James Patterson using co-authors to keep his book assembly line going). An author assembles a story like a DIY home construction project, without instructions or blueprints, of course.

I usually forget about how I assemble each of my stories—the process and the motivations. (No, I’m not going senile. I’ve just written a lot of stories!) Remodeling a kitchen or bathroom is a project that needs some kind of plan. A story, especially a novel, is no different, even if you’re a seat-of-pants writer like me, creating the story as I go with only a general plot and themes in mind. This is why my novels have end notes, a commentary that’s as useful and interesting for me to jog my memory later as it might be for readers who have finished the book. Unlike most authors, I include them in almost every book. As a reader, I appreciate it when other authors do the same.

Also unlike most authors, I often have several projects ongoing. That helps my writing because I come back to a manuscript fresh each time. (I suppose blogging can accomplish the same thing, but a blog post usually isn’t a story.) Multiple projects also help me do the content editing for each one.

So what are my current projects?

“Friday Fiction.” When I start a story, it can become short fiction (a short story or novella) or a novel, more often the former now (dashes are over more quickly than marathons). I now give away my short fiction, either in some blog posts or as free downloads (see the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page at this site for a list). You’ve seen the beginning of the novella “The Prodigal Son” (archived in “Friday Fiction,” of course). This will be followed by “Poetic Justice” and “The Conference,” two more British-style mystery novellas.

The Denisovan Trilogy, Books Two and Three. Book One is already published, so these two are projects. I want to know what happens to Kayla Jones as much as some readers do. For me and them, A.B. Carolan needs to get his butt in gear! These novels, unlike the first, will take place “out there somewhere,” not on Earth—stories about the descendants of ancient hominins in space, if you will.

The Last Humans: Long Days (tentative title). Readers of the first two novels probably realized there might be another novel in the making to complete the trilogy. Penny Castro has more battles to fight, this time with what remains of the Russian government. (Because of Amazon’s error made by confusing the first two books, my motivation here is a bit low. Unlike the second, you can bet I won’t put this third novel for sale on Amazon!)

More than Human: The Complete and Unabridged History. This is a big project. I want to expand and continue the saga of Homo sapiens 2.0 and their Mensan buddies found in More than Human: The Mensa Contagion. We left it with humans and Mensans in a starship heading for a star near Sol yet not visible to the unaided eye. As with Kayla Jones, I want to know what happens with Captain Kensha, her XO Sara, and the starship’s crew. Maybe you do too.

“Esther Brookstone Art Detective.” You now have five novels in this British-style mystery and thriller series. In the middle one, Death on the Danube, principal characters Esther and Bastiann got married, but they even had a mystery to solve on their honeymoon cruise down the Danube. I didn’t stop there. Two more books involve crimes on Esther’s home turf. I have some tentative ideas for more novels; we’ll see if they gel. These novels are my longest to date, so the next one would be long too…a real marathon I’d have to run again.

I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to complete any of these projects. I might even lose interest in some of them. I hope readers will be understanding. After all, I haven’t signed a contract with a traditional publisher to deliver a finished manuscript for any of these future stories. (I’ve experimented with traditional publishing, but I shall not repeat that experiment. I’ve been burned twice now.)

In this post, I just wanted to let readers know that I’m working on several projects. My addiction to storytelling continues, at least for now. (Amazon and other bad players make my motivation more difficult to come by with time, though.) I’m sure that I’ll leave this “mortal coil” with projects uncompleted. That’s inevitable…and the curse of any storyteller.

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Comments are always welcome.

Rogue Planet. Perhaps you’re familiar with my Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection. Did you know several stories are set in that same sci-fi universe, including the Dr. Carlos tales and A. B. Carolan’s first three YA sci-fi mysteries? Rogue Planet is another one, and it has some Game-of-Throne aspects while still being hard sci-fi. A young prince’s planet is ruled by an oppressive theocracy that has led to a quarantine by ITUIP (Interstellar Trade Union of Independent Planets). He strives to defeat the theocracy’s leader and bring the planet back from the galaxy’s Dark Ages.

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

Most readers of this blog and my recent works know that I’m surviving the Covid pandemic by reading a lot, in particular, binge-reading entire series of British-style mysteries. I published a list at the end of my little collection, Sleuthing, British-style, written in honor of Dame Agatha, who started that story tradition. So here are some additions to that list (in alphabetical order, which coincidentally corresponds to the order of light-to-serious themes), the best of my recent binge-reading:

A. G. Barnett’s “Mary Blake” series. Interesting concept: The subtitle’s character is an aging actor who has lost her series role and her career; she discovers she has talents as an amateur sleuth. A bit of stretch for the reader’s imagination, especially concerning the patience of the inspector she often annoys (she’s a younger, meddling Miss Marple), but entertaining stories nonetheless.

M. S. Morris’s “Bridget Hart” series. The subtitle’s character is a single mom who struggles to make her mark as a DI in and around the hallowed halls of Oxford University’s colleges. There are many secondary characters readers will find interesting.

Gretta Mulrooney’s “Tyrone Swift” series. Here the subtitle’s character is a PI who has good creds—he’s no amateur sleuth because of past service with the Met and Interpol. He also has problems with the women in his life. These novels are a bit darker about their treatment of more modern and serious themes than those above. The main character harks back to hard-boiled, tenacious PIs of yore.

If you use a Kindle, it’s amazingly easy to sail through these series, one book after another. I found each novel is far more entertaining than the summer’s offering of droll telly shows, whether “new” game shows or reality crap or reruns. Sorry. Streaming video doesn’t appeal to me either, nor do computer games. Each novel is good for two to three nights of reading (they’re short).

Modesty aside, I’ll not refrain from mentioning Books Four and Five in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, Palettes, Patriots and Prats and Leonardo and the Quantum Code. The influence of all that binge-reading is obvious as Esther and Bastiann return to her home turf after their honeymoon only to run into more trouble on UK soil. The glossary in my collection mentioned above is extended in these novels as I continue to adopt the British vernacular if not the spelling, (The entire series represents ripe fruit for binge-reading, of course, but the novels are longish and hardly readable in two or three nights. Maybe the five in total equal fifteen of the above?)

I can only wish for other extended series in the sci-fi and thriller genres (besides my own, of course). The last one I read in the first genre was Asimov’s extended Foundation series, and that was years ago! Clancy’s “Jack Ryan” series is also too dated (not that it has the caliber of any of the books I’ve mentioned). (If anyone shouts back “Fifty Shades,” I might become violent. The “thrills” there are sicker than a story about a serial killer!) The fact that there are so many British-style mysteries shows they’re popular and a blessing for avid readers who still prefer books to streaming video and computer games.

In all these British-style mysteries, including mine, American readers have a chance to learn a lot about their English cousins…and sometimes those cousins will have a chance to learn a bit about us, the crazy Yanks!

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Comments are always welcome.

A. B. Carolan’s Origins. You can’t say A. B.’s novels are British-style mysteries; he’s Irish, and he writes sci-fi mysteries for young adults. In this one, Kayla Jones has dreams she can’t understand. Her future seems determined as the brilliant STEM student who looks forward to a research career, but her past gets in the way. As if the chaos afflicting the world and leading to her adopted father’s death wasn’t enough, killers begin to pursue her. With some friends who come to her aid, she’s on her way to discover a conspiracy that can be traced to prehistoric battles waged by hominins bent on conquest of a primitive Earth.

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

I used to like motorcycles. Even back in my tweens and teens, my mother would say, “Any motorcycle rider should be forced to sign up to be an organ donor.” She worried about the danger; I yearned to have enough money to buy one. I was a frustrated kid, seeing other boys having fun on their motorcycles yet knowing that I didn’t even have the money for a scooter. So I was relegated to being the guy on the back, a position useful for a drive-by assassin maybe, but never the fun ride one has up front. I suppose riding a horse might be a similar experience—wind in your hair, reveling in the sensation of speed—but even back then a horse cost more than a cycle.

Motorcycles don’t make many appearances in my stories, though. The terrorist’s night ride in Angels Need Not Apply provided a quiet and sinister hook—I hoped the reader would be wondering, “Who is this guy?” (they might have guessed if they’d read The Midas Bomb). Penny Castro’s brief ride along a post-apocalyptic LA freeway even made it to the cover of The Last Humans, and I hope the Hungarian assassin’s final ride in Leonardo and the Quantum Code provides an interesting climax for readers. Those reflect more my pubescent interest than any desire to make a cycle a main character, and I’d never want to encourage the risky, outrageous behavior seen in Sturgis, South Dakota, each year, Covid or no Covid.

Motorcars, or simply “motors,” is Brit-speak for automobiles, or “autos” (although the Brits say “car park” for “parking lot,” that usually have spaces for cycles too). My fascination with them isn’t so juvenile as the one with motorcycles and doesn’t compare with that or my brother’s strange predilection for unusual cars. He started with a ’52 Pontiac (a “blue bomb” that I inherited to use during high school) and went on to a pink Cadillac (a model with shark fins he bought from a Las Vegas gambler), the kind you saw in that famous X-Files episode; his last unusual purchase was a classic Porsche, the one with wooden floorboards, in which he carried grandfather’s guns to me from Ohio to Massachusetts. (I sold them to a gun collector—our kids were too young at the time to have guns around, especially antiques, and I didn’t want to deal with any NRA members.)

Maybe the little sportscar in Silicon Slummin’…and Just Gettin’ By and Esther’s Jag in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series (her insurance pays for a new one in Palettes, Patriots, and Prats) are the cars I remember best from my novels, maybe because they’re the most recent; but a ’67 Vette plays a key role in one early short story “The Bridge.” (It’s my first and only zombie story and first appeared in eFiction, an ezine that’s now defunct, I believe, and also in Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape, Volume One—Volumes Two and Three can be found in the list of free downloads on my “Free Stuff & Contests” web page.)

Curiously enough in my prose, I’ve avoided the stereotype that male characters ride motorcycles and female ones drive motorcars, as you can see by some of the examples I’ve mentioned. The same is true about horses: A female character in The Collector frequents a stable in that story, while Survivors of the Chaos (see The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection) opens with a solitary male rider. Horses as a ubiquitous mode of transportation even make a comeback in the post-apocalyptic thriller The Last Humans: A New Dawn (Penny Castro’s cycle is long gone by this second novel). NYPD detective Castilblanco (that’s NYC, in case you didn’t know!) even befriends a horse in the short story “The Case of Carriageless Horse” (found in the anthology World Enough and Crime—it’s the young cop’s first homicide case).

Horses have the longest history as a means of transportation for human beings, of course. Maybe I should feature them even more? After that fiasco at this year’s Kentucky Derby, one can imagine a murder mystery with a racetrack setting. We’ll see….

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Comments are welcome.

Sleuthing, British-Style. My binge-reading of British-style mysteries during the Covid pandemic has influenced the later novels in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, in particular Death on the Danube, Palettes, Patriots, and Prats, and Leonardo and the Quantum Code. I’ve also written short fiction to honor and celebrate Dame Agatha’s seminal work in this subgenre. Some examples are found in the little collection indicated here of six novellas, which also contains a glossary of words and phrases from the UK’s rich lexicon of dialects as well a list of British-style novels that I read and enjoyed. The collection is available wherever quality ebooks are sold (but not on Smashwords). A second volume is available as a free download (see the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page at this website).

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

[This post is a bit repetitive with one back in 2020. Consider it an encore for the detectives. They deserve it. And today you get a two-fer, this post plus the following book review. Enjoy.]

I have a few series (at last count six; or seven, if you count A. B. Carolan’s “ABC Sci-Fi Mysteries”), so every once and a while I pause and take stock of that part of my oeuvre. None of my series are as long as Sue Grafton’s; I stopped reading hers at “C,” I believe, and she never made it to “Z.” It’s not that I tire of writing a series and end it. Okay, maybe a bit, but the end of a series for me, if it truly ends, is more determined by the way I write. When I start a story, I don’t even know whether it will be a dash (short story or novella) or a marathon (novel). The same goes for a series, where I sometimes decide the main characters deserve more stories because they’re so interesting as human beings (I sometimes describe that as a collaboration between them and my muses, who are really banshees with Tasers, all encouraging me to write more). Plots, themes, and settings change from story to story and novel to novel; series’ books are just independent stories with the same main characters.

The “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco” series is my longest so far (seven books), and its main characters have become dear and respected friends. I don’t know if there’ll be an eighth, and, in a sense the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series of five novels, the novella :”The Phantom Harvester” (available as a free download—see my “Free Stuff & Contests” web page), and the novel The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan all represent continuations of Chen and Castilblanco’s series with the detectives just having cameos.

Diversity is a key theme in all the C&C novels. The detectives’ cases start in NYC; some stay there while others explode to have national and international proportions. NYC is often considered the capital of the world, and it’s very diversity adds to that fame—more than eight hundred languages are spoken there. C&C reflect that diversity. Chen is a Chinese-American from Long Island; she’s a true conservative (not like today’s fascist Good Ole Piranhas) driven to pursue criminal elements and set things right for their victims. Castilblanco is Puerto Rican; he’s a progressive whose motivations echo Chen’s, if not more so. Chen is a stoic who shows her emotions from time to time, her thin smiles leading Castilblanco to call her his Asian Mona Lisa; he is more excitable and often stressed (he’s addicted to Tums to ward off ulcers), but he’s also cerebral, going beyond his Catholicism to become a Buddhist.

Politics also play a role in these novels, but in a good sense: Contrary to our current national political chaos, I intended to show in the very first novel, The Midas Bomb, how a conservative and progressive can work together to better the human condition. That goes beyond the fluff of the good guys vanquishing the bad guys so prevalent in today’s mystery and crime stories.

There are causes too. For example, environmental ones in the last novel, Gaia and the Goliaths, where I try to show that the solution to global warming is reducing fossil-fuel usage with Castilblanco insisting that nuclear power is part of that solution. He reflects more my views; Chen better reflects the extremist view in this case, that of environmental activists who are rabidly anti-nuclear as well. (This discussion, appropriately enough, is never resolved in the novel.)

The final series item I’d like to mention is our shared humanity. We need more of C&C’s empathy towards their fellow human beings. Both detectives would wear masks and get vaccinated, for example (I wrote the last novel before Covid), to protect others as well as themselves and their families. There’s no doubt about that. They’ve shown concern for their fellow human beings in spades throughout their cases in the series. We need more people like that.

Of course, this article is more a presentation of the themes this series considers. They’ll be transparent to most readers and reviewers who will just enjoy these mystery/thriller crime stories. Maybe it’s time for you to try one?

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Comments are always welcome.

“Detectives Chen and Castilblanco.” Binge-reading who-dun-its with enough action, suspense, and twists to entertain and educate any reader, most of these two NYPD homicide detectives’ cases start in NYC, but they often expand to national and international proportions. Castilblanco is the gentle Puerto Rican progressive who lives on antacids and becomes a Buddhist; Chen is the serious Chinese lady with that Asian Mona Lisa smile. Together the two make a great crime-fighting team. These novels can be found wherever quality ebooks are sold.

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

Keeping with this Monday’s weather theme, let me discuss some consequences of global warming I’ve been worried about for a while, ever since I pounded stakes and did other menial and brain-numbing chores for a civil engineer in the San Joaquin Valley in California. Arriving home to tank up on water and take salt pills, my thoughts would start this way: It wouldn’t take much drought to turn my agricultural home turf into a barren no-man’s land.

While we tend to focus on extreme weather events as indicators of climate change and global warming, another related enemy for human civilization is water shortages. We’re finally seeing them mentioned more in relation to apocalyptic news about wildfires and forest fires—drought caused by global warming makes those fires all the more deadly because it’s hard to combat them with diminishing levels in lakes and reservoirs.

Burns, denuded hillsides, and water shortages play important roles in Book One of “The Last Humans” series. Because the primary “villain” in this first novel is a bio-engineered virus that travels around the world on prevailing winds even though the attack was aimed at the US West Coast, I don’t think the book, or the series, for that matter, has had as many readers as it might have had. Who wants to read about a fictional worldwide pandemic when we’re trying to survive a real one?!

Yet this novel represents much more than the tale about the survivors of a pandemic’s aftermath. This post-apocalyptic story (the second book is more a standard thriller) is more focused on global warming and water shortages, not the viral pandemic. The burn scars and dry conditions in Penny Castro’s apocalyptic landscape exist even before that virus turns Penny into a lonely survivor. And steps also have already been taken to alleviate the water shortage before the biowarfare attack: In the novel, offshore desalination platforms once pumped fresh water to thirsty Californians and crops. This technology is well-known today and constantly improved upon (see the notes at the end of the novel). More will be needed in the future.

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