In my post “Changes to My Website” (4/23) and a few previous posts, as well as my website’s pages, I’ve explained why no new books of mine will appear on Amazon in the future. For this reason, A, B. Carolan’s new novel Origins: The Denisovan Trilogy, Book One is now available in all ebook formats at Smashwords and its affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and library and lending services (Overdrive, Scribd, Gardners, etc.), and not on Amazon.

Also in previous posts, you’ve seen a preview and some background material for this new sci-fi mystery/thriller for young adults and adults who are young-at-heart. It’s A.B.’s fourth book, and Origins is just as exciting as the previous three. It answers physicist Fermi’s famous question about ETs, “Where are they?”, by “They’re right here among us!” (Of course, you’ll have to read the novel to find out how that came to pass!)

Not being available on Amazon doe not mean you can’t download it to read on your Kindle or Kindle app. Those .mobi files that Amazon likes to pretend as proprietary and exclusive for Kindle use are the only ebook files you can download from Amazon, but Smashwords offers you the option to download any ebook format, including .mobi, when you purchase an ebook from them. Its affiliated retailers only offer their own formats, of course, (.epub is the most common not .mobi) but Smashwords offers them all.

To buy and download your .mobi ebooks from Smashwords, please do the following: (1) Open a Smashwords account if you don’t already have one, and choose .mobi as your download option. The account is free, and it will allow you to explore a brand new world of ebooks that are there for your entertainment, including Origins. (2) Get your Kindles’s email address from Amazon (you probably created it when you bought your Kindle) and put it on file at Smashwords. (3) Also on Amazon, list edelivery@smashwords.com as a trusted content provider for your Kindle. This process is less complicated than it seems. Amazon likes to hide these details and make them seem complicated, of course, because they want you to buy ebooks exclusively on Amazon. Please don’t play their game!

I bought and downloaded a .mobi-formatted copy of Origins from Smashwords exactly the way described, although I had already done steps 1-3 long ago to purchase other ebooks (many not on Amazon, by the way!). It always feels good to put one over on Amazon, of course. And, as an author, it also feels good to “go wide” and offer A.B.’s and my ebooks at multiple e-retail sites (as well as Walmart—have you seen the Kobo kiosk there?). This follows the marketing advice: The more retail sites where a product is available, the greater the sales figures for that product!

By the way, keep your Amazon account active if you feel the need. Smashwords and its affiliated retailers only sell ebooks! Amazon started out that way, but we all know what a greedy monster it has become. We use Amazon only for some other things now, not books. In any case, we prefer local merchants and suppliers to Amazon—no waiting and no shipping fees! Some will say, “But I have Prime!” Don’t kid yourself. Your Prime membership fee has prepaid your shipping fees. Amazon makes tons of money off that big swindle! (Of course, you might be a reseller with a garage full of products bought from Amazon—a Prime account might work for you in that case! Some activity like that was going on during the pandemic where people made a killing by reselling PPE and even toilet paper.)

Our local merchants include local booksellers, which we use primarily for non-fiction doorstoppers—again, who wants to wait and pay those onerous shipping costs? And that way we stay involved in our local community by supporting local vendors. We’re coming out of the Covid pandemic now, so we’re increasingly doing that!

Many tech giants have become monopolistic—Amazon, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, and so forth. But they don’t need to be broken up. They just need some serious competition. That’s what it takes to make free enterprise work.

Do your part to break Amazon’s ebook monopoly if you’re not already doing so. A.B. and I are doing ours. Please download your .mobi copy (or any other format) of Origins now. A.B. and I will appreciate it…and happily welcome you to our book boycott of Amazon.

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Comments are always welcome!

Origins: The Denisovan Trilogy, Book One, by A. B. Carolan. 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. Available at Smashwords and all its affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and library and lending services (Scribd, Overdrive, Gardners, etc.).

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

Did you watch Prince Philip’s funeral procession and ceremony last Saturday? I didn’t. I was never into a lot of pomp and circumstance for any reason. First, in my first three years of high school, I had to play trombone in Elgar’s march of that name far too many times, sometimes in 100 degree heat. (At my own graduation, I wore Bermudas and sandals under that damn toga!) Second, I’d seen too many little girls want to be princesses (that song in Frozen was super-annoying, but not quite as much as the Titanic song, both of them repeated over and over again ad nauseum!). Third, how that old British empire ruled by their royals exploited their colonies, turning their citizens into second-class subjects, was unconscionable and unforgivable (the American and Irish colonies are a bit close to home, of course), and many current problems around the planet can be traced to that. I hasten to write that’s all more British government, a so-called democratic monarchy.

Fact is, I love the British people. Binge-reading British-style mysteries in la grande dame Agatha Christie’s tradition has made the Covid-19 pandemic more tolerable for me too. Some PBS shows from Britain also offer great entertainment for me—I’m a fan of “Shakespeare and Hathaway” (but not of “Downton Abbey”). I read all of the James Bond books from Ian Fleming long before that movie franchise began. (The earlier movies were better because they followed the books more closely. It’s gone off track.) British actors are among my favorites. I just don’t understand the Brits’ obsession and infatuation with their royals…and even less Americans’. And the royals’ “work” is to move around the kingdom to add sparkle to public events? C’mon!

While the British royals might seem closer to Americans (Lord knows why, because we booted mad King George’s army out in the American Revolution), my problem is with royals in general, and for much the same reasons—they represent an anachronistic age that’s entirely irrelevant if not detrimental in the 21^st century, a lot of pomp and circumstance signifying nothing…or worse. I suppose Philip was a decent guy most of the time, and I mourn his passing in that sense, but only in that sense. He wasn’t a Bernie Madoff, after all, nor an Idi Amin. He looked like a guy I could sit down with at a pub and enjoy a pint. Of course, he never would invite me, out of propriety. I’m too low class and half-Irish besides.

As a result of my anti-royal bias, I don’t have many in my books! Prince Harry has a cameo in The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan and several royals (not Brits) appear in Aristocrats and Assassins (#4 in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco” series). A prince is a main character in Rogue Planet, a story that takes place in the far future. #4 in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series, Palettes, Patriots, and Prats, will have a duke in a supporting role. That’s about it. And most of these stories portray royals as good persons trapped in a bad lifestyle they’d rather not have to live.

You see, I also feel sorry for royals. They can’t be scientists, engineers, bankers, politicians, and so forth now even if they wanted to live normal lives. They are mere ornaments on the Christmas tree of nostalgia. Some of them might achieve greatness doing other things, but they’re basically stuck in their royal lives with all the pomp and circumstance. They’ll never feel hungry or be without safe lodging. In general, they’ll only theoretically know the struggles of ordinary folks at best. Many can never know true love either, although Harry might be an exception, and old Elizabeth seemed rather fond of her old consort.

But I feel even sorrier for those people who would like to live the life of a royal. They’re much better off being what they are because of the reasons already enumerated.

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Comments are always welcome!

The “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series. In a way, these three novels (soon to be four) are a nostalgic bow to my years as a young reader. The novels also pay homage to la grande dame of mystery, Agatha Christie, and her two famous sleuths, Miss Marple (Esther’s role) and Hercule Poirot (Esther’s paramour Bastiann van Coevorden’s role). I often wondered those many years ago why Christie never allowed her two sleuths to solve a crime together. Of course, Esther and Bastiann are very much twenty-first century characters, so I have added a lot of thrills and suspense to the mystery. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold. Print versions can be ordered for you by your favorite bookstore, or they can be found on Amazon.

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

…past, present, and future. I’m always tweaking things, so I thought it might be appropriate to discuss some recent changes that you, the reader, might find important.

Generally speaking, my “Home” web page is the least permanent, if only because I announce events and books to be published or were recently published there. For example, I recently announced updates to my list of free PDF downloads, which include the new Sleuthing, British-Style, Volume Two (two novellas)—Volume One is available everywhere quality ebooks are sold…for only $0.99—and, to continue, an update to my little course “Writing Fiction,” and a press kit for general use. I also announced the imminent publication of A. B. Carolan’s new ebook Origins, Book One of the Densisovan Trilogy. Other than such newsy items, the random visitor might not notice many changes between visits.

Policy changes are announced too, and they’re spread across the website’s pages. For example, I announced that after March 1, 2021, I’ll no longer offer new books on Amazon. I won’t dwell on my reasons—if you read these blog articles regularly, you’ll know some of them. Ebooks will only be sold via Smashwords or Draft2Digital and their affiliates. (For example, my Irish colleague A. B. Carolan’s new ebook will only be offered on Smashwords and its affiliated retailers and lending and library services. Never fear, Kindle users! .mobi formatted ebooks are available on Smashwords and many of those affiliates.) I won’t be publishing anymore print books after that date either. These are big policy changes!

I’ve also stopped posting a newsletter in this blog. My only newsletter from now on is written exclusively for email subscribers. The major enticement to subscribe is found in select ebook sales I offer on Smashwords—only to subscribers! This is done via a Smashwords promo code, so subscribers can share this information with family and friends. Because all my ebooks are reasonably priced, that’s no biggie, but it’s something. (Note that my small-press-published ebooks available on Smashwords and its affiliates, Rembrandt’s Angel, Son of Thunder, and The Last Humans might be on sale at the publisher’s website, but they won’t be on Smashwords, simply because I have no control over that!)

Most of my tinkering goes toward making the web pages more readable. After fifteen-plus years, the website is a classic, so, like a classic car, I have to tune it up occasionally. You might have already noticed that I shortened my book blurbs and eliminated reviews on the “Books & Short Stories” web page, for example. Already published books are still linked to their corresponding Amazon book pages where reviews can be found, along with (sometimes different) blurbs and the “peek inside” feature (most retail sites also have the latter—for example, Smashwords, B&N, etc.). New ebooks will be linked to book pages on Smashwords or Draft2Digital. Most of the old reviews plus new ones will now appear in the “My Reviews” archive, including those not on Amazon!

You’ll still find free fiction in the “Steve’s Shorts,” “ABC Shorts,” and (new!) “Friday Fiction” archives of my blog, and the (now updated) list of free PDF downloads will still be found on the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page—look for new material I’ll put there from time to time, as I’ve just done).

I have several cover images I need to add to the “Books & Short Stories” web page. Of course, the title-links will still take you to some retailer’s page for the book that displays the cover in all its glory.

If you get the idea that all this tweaking is a never-ending process, you’re right! It’s probably why many authors’ websites are basically gravesites neglected by the authors or their publicists.

Onward!

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Comments are always welcome.

“Detectives Chen & Castilblanco” series. These seven novels start in Manhattan, and some end up going national or international. All are “evergreen” in the sense that they’re as current and entertaining as the day I finished their manuscripts. Ideal for binge-reading, or just jump in anywhere—they all are stand-alone tales filled with mystery, suspense, and thrills. Available wherever quality ebooks are sold.

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

Nowadays I barely scan the “Review.” I haven’t purchased a book reviewed or featured in ads there in ages. (I’ve received some hardbounds as gifts which I often give away to schools when I finish—these are mostly non-fiction doorstops, lengthy tomes weighing ten times my Kindle.) When I finish scanning (max five minutes), I usually say to myself, “What a waste of time!” and wonder if there are other uses for this Sunday insert. I’ve come up with a few over the years: If you have a bird, paper the bottom of its cage with it. If you buy fresh fish, wrap it with it. If you need to start a fire (real wood or charcoal), it’s ideal because it burns well. I’m sure I’ve imagined other uses, but memory fails…because that insert is so immemorable and irrelevant to my reading life.

Harsh? You might object, or you might have other recommended uses and reasons for them. Mine are:

Only traditionally published books appear there. Except for some dying PODs who continue to swindle their authors by buying ads (after getting a second mortgage to pay for their spots, they might say, “Look at me! My book appeared in the NY Times ‘Book Review’!”), books and authors featured there are generally from the big NYC publishing conglomerates (the Big Five, soon to be Four) because the Times is a big NYC publisher itself and therefore biased to hell. Small presses and self-publishers are snubbed, which is sad, because I find the most interesting and entertaining books come from them, not the Big Five traditional publishers. (I can’t say I’ve read any traditionally published fiction lately except that coming from small presses!) This bias converts many readers into lemmings who follow the snooty crowd over the cliff and look down their noses at small-press and self-published books, doing just what the Big Five and their sycophant, the Times, wants them to do. It also negatively influences the Times‘s hiring and business practices for its reviewers, of course.

Reviews and interviews are little more than ads for the books or for their authors’ branding, both invariably those from the Big Five. Frankly, I don’t care about authors who sell their souls to these conglomerates for low royalties; they’ve drunk their Kool-Aid, so they must suffer the consequences (i.e. exploitation). Only the formulaic old mares and stallions in the Big Five’s stables get any help; new authors suffer and are tossed aside at the first book that doesn’t sell well.

Above all, the reviews are worthless to me because they don’t provide me enough information to make intelligent decisions about my book purchases. There’s usually no cover image (probably because those for most traditionally published books look like something done on PowerPoint); no “peek inside” (don’t think Amazon, because nearly every online retailer offers a cover image and “peek inside”), and libraries and bookstores at least allow you to browse—that could be done with a few excerpts, but I’ll admit it’s hard to do in a newspaper and subtracts from the reviewer’s bloviating space; and they don’t tell you whether a paper or ebook version is available.

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Sci-fi often extrapolates current science or “invents” new science we might see in the future. A.B. Carolan’s new book Origins (see last week’s preview) does both, but it’s mostly based on ongoing scientific discovery about human beings’ past. Denisovan and Hobbit hominids have had more press lately than Cro-Magnons and Neandertals because they’re new discoveries. They flourished thousands of years ago, and bits of their DNA are found in modern humans’ DNA (modern humans are mainly Cro-Magnon descendants). A.B. summarizes the current situation in his end notes:

“When I began thinking about a plot with genetics as a theme, Anna Utkin [an early short story of mine] turned me towards human prehistory. The final inspiration occurred when I found the portrait of a young Denisovan girl. (The interested reader can google ‘What did Denisovans look like?’ to see answers to that question—I focused on the BBC version.) It might seem weird, but I immediately thought, ‘Here’s a young girl who doesn’t look like any girl I know.’ That led to other thoughts along the lines that we often react negatively to people who don’t look or act like us and don’t seem to fit into our personal ‘tribe.’ Could I write a story that takes such a girl and makes her into a reluctant hero—almost a superhero even? I could and did, and you have just read the first installment. I hope more will follow.”

“That BBC portrait* has an interesting history, by the way. From genetic material in a pinky and jaw bones (not from the same archaeological site, mind you), researchers were able to construct the entire Denisovan genome and then use it to show us what that Denisovan girl must have looked like. For me, that portrait is Kayla [A.B.’s protagonist], a twenty-first-century Denisovan descendant who is super-smart and can kick ass with the best superheroes”

“The search for the origins of modern humans and their cousins continues to be the focus of exciting research, and the Denisovans, only discovered recently, are no exceptions. Unlike the equating of ancient hominids to burros and horses, i.e., species unable to breed and have fertile offspring, a theory found in Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens (his first two chapters, in particular), which Steve and I read long after I wrote the manuscript for this book, the DNA evidence shows ancient hominids did interbreed. Yet I had to wonder: If they could do so, why not more? Why aren’t we more of a mix of Cro-Magnons (always called Homo sapiens by Professor Harari), Neanderthals, and Denisovans, as well as other ancient hominids thrown in? Considering that Cro-Magnons’ descendants have come to be the dominant species, maybe that just means that they were the bad-ass denizens of ancient Earth? Maybe they were so bent on conquest that they didn’t have that much time to intermingle? I then asked myself: Would they even do so if that hominid evolution was interrupted by visitors from the stars?”

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First they ignored masks, social distancing, and washing hands…young (i.e. idiots less than forty) doing just what the virus wanted people to do. It was all about hedonism and freedom; “we deserve to have fun!” Completely irresponsible behavior! Now they refuse to be vaccinated. As we approach a situation where vaccine supplies are more than enough to vaccinate anyone over sixteen, i.e,. we can achieve herd immunity in a safe way, too many in this age group now express their freedom by refusing the vaccine.

Unlike the “marching morons” in C. M. Kornbluth’s classic novella, our current morons might be bright enough otherwise—and maybe that’s how their sociopathic behavior arises—but they’re too stupid to realize they’re playing Russian roulette with five chambers loaded. And, when it comes to public health, they’re selfish people who don’t care about their fellow citizens.

It’s not for lack of information. They obviously don’t read this blog, which isn’t much of a surprise (they might never read anything intelligent!), but can’t they see and hear all the warnings about the danger of those crazy actions mentioned above? Maybe they do; they just don’t believe them because they don’t want to.

Because of political proclivities, religious beliefs, conspiracy theories—whatever—some of these current morons rationalize their actions with them. That verb is absurd’ there’s nothing rational going on here. Others are just in defiance. They’re all marching over the cliff. Generally there a lot of hypocrites too…or maybe some part of their brain is just wired wrong, causing suicidal actions?

Their leaders, unlike the lemmings, sometimes exploit this for political and religious gain while secretly getting vaccinated (like Il Duce aka Mr. Trump the Big Loser), if the morons actually listen to them. Two recent cases show that all too often leaders are members of the marching morons too. Both Florida and Tex-ass governors have banned the use of “vaccine passports” in their states: No institution there can require a vaccine! This is the same thing as not allowing a “no shoes, no shirt, no service” policy or prohibiting states from requiring vaccinations for school children (why people are allowed to skirt these requirements for any reason is the ultimate stupidity!).

We’ll see who wins in future SCOTUS cases when this resistance to vaccination is adjudicated—I suppose the current court will approve policies that amount to mass suicide because they don’t give a rat’s ass about protecting public health (especially cult member Amy and the perverts Kavanaugh and Thomas). Democracy is being attacked from many directions! Logic and reason are thrown out the window!

If the suicidal morons only marched to their own deaths, I wouldn’t give a damn; I’m tired of these people, and the world would probably be a better place without them! But they’ll hurt the rest of us, and that’s equivalent to aiding and abetting murder. And if they kill me or anyone else I love and there’s an afterlife, I’ll try to make sure they go straight to hell when they die! I don’t want them to mess up heaven for me or my family and friends!

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Comments are always welcome!

The “Detectives Chen & Castilblanco” series. A seven-book series ideal for binge-reading. You’ve seen some reviews in “Reviews not on Amazon,” and I’ll be archiving more on Wednesday.  Pick an ebook and jump in anywhere. Available everywhere quality ebooks are sold.

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

I have written about “cancel culture” earlier in this blog. So far no one has gone after Allan Quatermain, thank God. I suppose those folks who practice cancel culture will eventually get around to Allan, given that they go after Washington, Jefferson, and other Founding Fathers for being slave owners, for example.

H. Rider Haggard’s Quatermain novels are the precursors of thrillers, especially of the Indian Jones-like variety—you can bet Steven Spielberg read them! (Or saw the movies based on them. He might not be much of a reader.) And, from the cancel-culture folks’ perspective, Spielberg probably went to great trouble to clean them up—sort of (the African people are generally replaced by Arabs, Asians, and Native Americans in the Indy movies, so they might yet be boycotted).

In my early reading (pre-high school), Haggard’s books kept me company, along with Christie’s mysteries and Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein’s sci-fi stories. I often read these classics under the covers with a flashlight (my definition of “classic” is a lot more general compared to snooty literary critics’, who ignore a lot of good fiction, of course). They provide a foundation for my own writing.

I’m sure many scenes similar to ones from Quatermain novels pop up in my oeuvre.

The “buried alive” scene in King Solomon’s Mines has been copied by so many authors and screenplay writers that one can hardly call it plagiarism. It’s similar to a scene in my More than Human: The Mensa Contagion. I have a good excuse: that scene takes place on Mars!

The battle scenes in my Rogue Planet might resemble ones in Haggard’s novels too—they’re certainly examples of face-to-face warfare—but I can’t pin those memories down to one Haggard book. (Topic for a future thesis in the future? Go for it, MFA students!)

No matter. There’s no doubt Haggard influenced me. I suppose he and his character Quatermain will be perceived as scurrilous in their racism as George Washington is for the cancel-culture folk. Both the author and his character are representatives of British racist colonialism. But hell, Quatermain’s adventures over his lifespan of many decades are interesting and entertaining, and they’re probably a lot more interesting than Indy’s (which are also racist).

I’m willing to wager that the cancel-culture folk will eventually attack both Allan and Indy. They haven’t attacked Quatermain yet because they don’t watch old movies or read old books (if they read at all). I don’t know why they’re taking so long with Indiana Jones! Most people have watched Spielberg’s movie and enjoyed them. (Maybe that’s why they don’t attack Indy?)

So, please, let’s keep Allan Quatermain’s secret to ourselves. The cancel-culture folks are liable to attack him on any jerk’s say-so, as they blather away on Facebook or Twitter. That’s their brand of culture, banning books or movies without even reading them. And I certainly wouldn’t want them to enjoy a good book. They don’t deserve it! (That’s why I only mentioned one Allan Quatermain book!)

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Comments are always welcome!

Hard sci-fi, anyone? The bargain bundle The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection contains three “evergreen” sci-fi novels (i.e. as current and entertaining as the day I finished the manuscripts) that span thousands of years of future history, including the founding of ITUIP (“Interstellar Trade Union of Independent Planets”) featured in A.B. Carolan’s novels, Rogue Planet, and other stories. In the novel Survivors of the Chaos, readers discover a dystopian Earth where powerful international corporations rule and exploit the planet and the rest of the solar system, even hiding the greatest discovery Humans could ever make, an ET ship that crash-landed on a moon of Saturn. In spite of the chaos, three starships are launched to colonize planets orbiting Sol-type stars. In Sing a Zamba Galactica, readers can follow two colonies’ struggles to survive an ET invasion in near-Earth space; the colonists aren’t alone because new ET friends are there to help. The reader will also  meet new ETs, including Swarm, that strange collective intelligence so important in ITUIP history. In Come Dance a Cumbia…with Stars in Your Hand!, readers will see how a mad industrialist, akin to ones Humans fled decades earlier, plots to rule all of near-Earth peace and end the peace in that corner of the galaxy so dearly won. Three novels for the price of one ebook—a veritable smorgasbord of sci-fi! Available wherever quality ebooks are sold. (The first edition of Survivors of the Chaos is also available in print from another publisher.)

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

From the Fifty Shades books to the NY Times and Wall Street Journal’s reporting about Gov. Cuomo, we have ample evidence for this truism. Scandal is the opium of the masses today, not religion. Better said, scandal as reported in the media has become the new religion for most people, and they can’t seem to get enough of it. Where there’s a demand, there’s a supplier, and publishers, writers, and media outlets have jumped on the bandwagon and are shoveling the SOS out by the truckful.

We can’t really blame sleaze-meisters like Ronan Farrell or Pierce Morgan, or even Fox News or MSNBC pundits, who are out to shock their viewers. People love their doses of scandal, and others feed that addiction for profit. Blame the media outlets’ producers and writers. The sleaze-meisters are just their toadies.

There’s absolutely no concern for the people who might be hurt unfairly by scandalous accusations for the simple reason that they are assumed to be guilty until proven innocent. Even when proof of innocence is available—i.e. the scandal doesn’t just reduce to an X-said-Y-said, as in the case of Cuomo (you don’t thing a high percentage of politicos didn’t favor their families with Covid testing or vaccinations?)—the public only remembers the initial claims of scandal and never the proof that there was no scandal, or it was often simply an attack generated by a few disgruntled people with an agenda (Cosby’s case was a classic, because the AG was running for office; in Cuomo’s case, you have a new generation  of pols aching for a chance at power—his first accuser is also running for office and the twenty-years-old story of abuse came from a de Blasio supporter—guess which Dem in NY state is Cuomo’s biggest enemy!).

Often the person accused of scandal has to face a lynch mob spurred on by the likes of Morgan and Farrell, who become judge and jury for the lynching—this group includes such “fair and honest” news media stars as Jake Tapper. The media know scandal sells, there’d demand for it, and they supply it.

This is all exacerbated by the speed of communications nowadays, mostly social media, where bandwagons for scandal abound. Some of us rush to keep up with the scandal; others (I’m one) are more logical and reasonable and say they’ll withhold judgement until all the facts are in (i.e. due process takes place, and the scandal is proven to be true or false in absolute terms, not a storm in a teacup). But most people are scandal mongers—they buy, sell, and consume scandal.

The scandal’s often not there, folks! Some social media sites even create it out of thin air, leading to all those conspiracy theories that seem impossible to debunk.

(more…)

Cancel culture is yet another current fad that smacks of censorship—in fact, just another but less common name for it in the publishing world, in fact. Like the anti-cultural appropriation movement, it inhibits free speech and an author’s right to self-expression. I know I’ll get into trouble for saying this, but go ahead and boycott me! I don’t sell many books anyway (probably more pirated than legal sales, because I favor ebooks), so, unlike that emcee of ABC’s “The Bachelor,” my livelihood won’t be affected. And what I have to say doesn’t compare with the fantastic lies and conspiracy theories that have created on both the far-right and far-left.

From cancelling Pepe Le Pew to George Washington, this so-called cancel culture begins in absurdity-land and ends in tyrannical censorship-Hades. You can’t change facts by trying to erase them! Yes, Pepe was a hilarious cad, a pursuer of women (and more a French stereotype), but he was a far cry from Donald J. Trump (have you already forgotten that “Access Hollywood” tape and his 16+ victims?). Yes, George Washington and a few other Founding Fathers of our great nation owned slaves—Blacks weren’t even counted as humans in the original Constitution! And Chris Harrison is correct: We are viewing our current culture with a lens that differs from the ones of 1776, 1945, or even from just a few years back.

Slavery was outlawed with Lincoln, it continued in Brazil until 1888, and the Brits exploited Blacks to clean up their country after World War II, but under those earlier lenses, all these were an accepted practices. Many other persons, not just the Founding Fathers, were racists. Theresa May, when she was Home Secretary (or was it PM?), tried to send them back, saying they weren’t British citizens, yet another example of the racism today’s UK inherited from its colonial past (remember, Southern plantations in the US were originally British!).

And poor Pepe! He’s a victim of LeBron James and other questionable censors who wrap themselves in the cloak of good intentions but should know better. (I’m not knocking him for being a Yankees fan who bought shares that make him a partial owner of the Red Sox.) But going after Pepe is just wrong! Next thing you know, Speedy Gonzales (Mexican stereotype?) and Bugs Bunny (“Hey, Mr. A-rab!”) will be targets. What about Daffy and Sylvester? Or Porky? (We make fun of them because of their speech impediments, you know.) Or the Big Bad Wolf? (That’s making fun of people with asthma or COPD, right?)

Censorship is alive and well in the US and elsewhere. In the US, it has a new name: cancel culture. But giving something a new name doesn’t make it right. It’s still wrong, and it has always played footsie with fascism. Admit it: No one would know how absurd that QAnon movement is if we cancelled those absurd spiels that led to its beginning in the first place. If only to help people stupid enough to believe it, we can’t cancel that from our national discourse.

A lot of cancel-culture folks scream, “But it was wrong!” about George, Pepe, and others they’ve aimed their guns of political correctness at. That “was” is an example of cultural transference, not cultural appropriation. What’s wrong now was not wrong then. It’s possible the cancelers haven’t studied history enough to realize that? In any case, consciously or otherwise, they’re indicting everyone back than for crimes they believe were committed, crimes defined by their beliefs at this much later time. Those “transgressors” lived within their cultural context; no one living now has the right to apply their cultural mores to them other than saying, “It was wrong but acceptable back then.” And there are unfair equivalences drawn in the process, which are often absurd; Slavery was terrible; the Nazis’ Final Solution was worse. Human beings were crucified, drawn and quartered, burned alive, drowned, electrocuted, hanged, and beheaded; Pepe just got laughs. Yes, human beings’ predilection for treating other human beings horribly is always wrong, but, to mimic Animal Farm, some evils are more evil than other evils.

(more…)

I published my first novel, the sci-fi thriller Full Medical, in 2006 (it now has an ebook second edition). I usually publish two or three novels per year, so you can do the math. (A. B. Carolan allows me to count his—wink, wink.)

Some novels are long; some are short, but they’re not novellas. Some I spend a lot of time writing, especially one I did with a small press. (Generally speaking, they’re usually responsible for publication delays, not the writers.) Generally speaking, time from start to published book isn’t all in the writing. Even for a long book, though, the writing time can be very short. I call those “quick books”; mine also are all “evergreen” now (i.e. as current and entertaining as the day I finished their manuscripts), but that could change.

Perhaps it’s the hounding by my muses (“banshees with Tasers” is a better description—they seem to know how many stories I have left in me!), or characters just taking over to tell their own stories, but I remember these quick books well. Writing them was akin to the Iguazu Falls at the corner of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, with the words gushing forth to form giant artistic cataracts from my thoughts.

The first quick book, and still the winner, is The Midas Bomb (now with a second edition in both ebook and print format—forget that old Infinity Publishing POD!). Here I introduce detectives Chen and Castilblanco. The latter has just lost two young partners, so he’s leery about teaming up with another one, namely Chen. (He actually met her as a patrolwoman during his first homicide case—see “The Case of the Carriageless Horse” in the collection World Enough and Crime. Donna Carrick reads that short story on her podcast—see my “Home Page” at this website for details.) The Midas Bomb is a mystery/thriller, not sci-fi, and has the sleuths chasing several smart criminals. (The title is also one of my best, hinting at two parallel crimes that are related.)

My second best quick book is Rogue Planet. I don’t know why this hard sci-fi novel, with Game-of-Thrones and Star-Wars flavors, didn’t resonate more with readers. Like most sci-fi, it will always be evergreen, and it serves as a bridge book for my extended “Future History” timeline between the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy” and A. B. Carolan’s young adult sci-fi mysteries, especially the last one. Maybe readers would have preferred a Disney-like princess as protagonist instead of a rakish prince? I’m currently thinking about a sequel that would also be a sequel to A.B.’s Mind Games—that might be hard to pull off, but I always like a challenge. (Della from A.B.’s book isn’t a princess, but Prince Kaushal in Rogue Planet is one, and he married his princess Anju.)

My third quick book of note is Son of Thunder, #2 in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” series (also part of that “Future History,” come to think of it). It’s the only one mentioned so far that’s traditionally published, which proves the point that writing time spent differs greatly from publishing time waiting. (#3, Death on the Danube, had so many delays just to get a response to a query, possibly because of COVID, that I ended up publishing it myself. Its writing went fast too. It would compete with The Last Humans or its sequel, The Last Humans: A New Dawn, for the fourth spot on the quick-books list, proving yet another point—writing time doesn’t correlate well with book length, at least in my case.)

Readers might be surprised that Son of Thunder is #3 on my list of quick books because the novel is very complex, following three independent stories about St. John (biblical times), Boticelli (Renaissance), and Esther (near future), and then bringing everything together. It’s not only complex, it’s my deepest book, considering the themes treated, which, of course, adds to the complexity, so it surprised even me that its writing went so fast. (Oh yes, it also required finding the most background material out of the three!) Not even with COVID, did I write so much so quickly. (I submitted it to the publisher long before it was published in 2019.)

Is there a difference in quality between these three quick books and the rest of my oeuvre? I doubt it. They might just be better, though, because of a phenomenon known better to artists when they are painting: The more they work on a painting, the muddier the colors can often become! Those first strokes on the canvas and those first words that come streaming out of a writer’s head to land on the page are often the best. I believe most authors will tell you that some novels come easier than others, which means the same thing. And that doesn’t mean the quality is less; it might be better.

One thing is certain: I didn’t choose to write these novels quickly. It just happened. I don’t recommend that any author establish a time limit for writing a novel. That’s silly. And any agent or publisher who tries to impose such a constraint might just receive a manuscript of poor quality, what neither they nor readers want.

***

Comments are always welcome.

New books. Like I said above, A.B. and I usually publish two or three new books per year. Two novels’ manuscripts are now waiting offstage: A.B. Carolan will start a new trilogy with Origins, a sci-fi mystery that goes far back into prehistory as well as into the near future. Its protagonist is a young STEM girl. Palettes, Patriots, and Prats, #4 in the Brookstone series, finds Esther and new hubby Bastiann back home in London but still getting into trouble. It all takes place in merry old England and Scotland. Watch for them. (Both were written fast because of COVID.)

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