The –isms are often thought of as political or religious: conservatism, progressivism, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, and so forth. The –isms in the title often mingle with those first –isms, but they can also appear in fiction. A lot of Steinbeck stories are examples of provincialism, for example, that of California’s middle coast area around Stockton. The US is so large that provincialism naturally occurs as varying regions become settings for a novel. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is provincial. Even genre fiction—Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch series, for example—is provincial for the most part (I think Harry leaves the LA area in one book to go to China, though).

One can argue that American readers want provincial or national—DC is often a setting for a political thriller, for example. There’s something familiar and comfortable about regional and national settings. Let’s call these readers “comfort readers”—I don’t mean anything pejorative by using that description; it’s a reading choice.

There are other readers who want to explore new places, even places far away from Earth! They might still want to be comfortable in those strange settings, or want the author to make them feel comfortable in them. But some also want to feel threatened by a hostile government to empathize with the protagonists of the novel. Let’s call these readers “experience-seeking readers.”

Finally, there’s a class of readers who are a bit masochistic. They like “raw” stories of violence and horror, especially if it occurs in setting they’re familiar with. Dean Koontz and Stephen King are old masters who appeal to this group, with Dean being a little more mature in his storytelling than Stephen. Let’s call these readers “masochistic readers.”

I repeat: I don’t mean anything pejorative by choosing these names for these classes, nor do I claim they’re the best names—you might have better ones. Moreover, what’s curious to me is that these sets aren’t disjoint. Readers are a bit like hummingbirds, flitting from flower to flower in their reading. (I probably shouldn’t call books appealing to readers in that third class flowers—my metaphor is a wee bit flawed—but they’re flowers in the sense that many are quite good.)

I certainly skip around a bit in my own reading and writing. In Isaacson’s Leonardo da Vinci, I found that Florentine setting as interesting as Leonardo’s life; it influenced my writing of Son of Thunder (see below). For an Italian, that book is provincial; for me, as an American, I was in that second class of readers as I read it—I was exploring Renaissance Florence in a way I never could by visiting (I visited the 20^th century version once). I had a similar experience reading Carole Lawrence’s Edinburgh Twilight; 1880’s Edinburgh is different than the 20^th and 21^st century Edinburgh found in Ian Rankin’s books. In other words, readers in my three classes can experience settings that span the entire four-dimensional continuum of space and time.

These distinctions go far beyond genre. Even additional adjectives like historical, archaeological, and so forth are just keywords we can use to describe books readers read and writers write. These keywords express commonalities. I prefer to think of every book as unique (even though I committed the sin of creating those additional classes above!). The great adventure lies in discovering their differences! Saying one book is like other books is not necessarily a good promotional tool either, because readers might not like some of those other books. The mere fact that readers often read books from all three classes indicated above means reading tastes are fluid. And that’s wonderfully human!

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Comments are always welcome.

Son of Thunder. #2 in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective Series,” this sequel to Rembrandt’s Angel has Esther Brookstone, now retired from Scotland Yard, obsessed with finding St. John the Divine’s tomb, using directions left by the Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli. Esther’s search, the disciple’s missionary travels, and Botticelli’s trip to the Middle East make for three travel stories that all come together in one surprising climax.

Esther’s paramour, Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden, has problems with arms dealers, but he multitasks by trying to keep Esther focused and out of danger. The reader can also learn how their romance progresses, as well as travel back in time to discover a bit about Esther’s past with MI6 during the Cold War.

History, archaeology, romance, religion, and art make for a tasty stew in this moving, moralistic mystery/thriller novel published by Penmore Press. Available in print and ebook formats at Amazon and from the publisher, and in ebook format at Smashwords and the latter’s affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and lenders (Overdrive, etc.). (The print version might be slightly delayed.)

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

Some writers are super-conscientious about counting words. Maybe they’re ex-journalists—the editor says, “I want a nine-hundred-word story about the mayor’s birthday party”—or they’re submitting to a ‘zine—“We want short stories, three-thousand word limit.” Whatever the motivation, don’t worry about word count upfront. The right fixation should be making the words count!

Your story determines the words that are needed; how many there are is secondary. A short story can have as much impact as a novel, and a 130k-word novel might be better received as two novels. Write the story that you need to write, and worry about the word count later. And make sure those words are the right words. As much as possible, make them flow for the reader in such a way that s/he cannot imagine any other possible words to use in that story.

I learned this the hard way for “The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy” (now in an ebook bundle—lots of words in that e-file!). I didn’t cause my first problem: an agent said the MS was too long, and there was too much narrative. The narrative she was referring to was world-building; she didn’t know anything about writing sci-fi obviously. World-building is essential. It’s what often makes sci-fi novels longer than mystery or thriller novels. Only fantasy writing requires as much world-building.

But I receive comments and try to reap some benefit from them. Too long? I thought. Maybe. Maybe I should turn the MS into something like the Foundation trilogy? Segue to the second problem: I’m not Dr. Asimov. Yes, I’m an ex-scientist who likes to write sci-fi, but I’m a lot more theme-oriented than the great master, and I cut my sci-fi teeth on dystopian and post-apocalyptic novels.

That MS became two and led to the first two books in the trilogy: Survivors of the Chaos and Sing a Zamba Galactica, with a few excisions and additions along the way. I’d probably still piss off that agent—now there’s even more hard science narrative, with starships jumping through multiverses instead of Asimov’s jumps; ETs whose language is spread-spectrum-based like your cellphone; strange collective intelligences; and so forth. Dr. Asimov, who had no ETs in his Foundation stories (End of Eternity “explains” how that happened), probably wouldn’t like my trilogy at all, especially because at first it wasn’t a trilogy.

The next problem: After all that, how do I make a third book to complete the trilogy? I’ve already pissed off Dr. Asimov’s ghost, so I decided I needed someone like his Mule. Having just come through the 2007-2009 recession, which led to my mystery/thriller novel The Midas Bomb, I decided my Mule would be a mad shipping magnate. That made the trilogy come full circle—starting with the dystopian Earth of Survivors of the Chaos, where multinationals had run amok, and ending with my version of the Mule, who upsets peace and prosperity, just like Asimov’s Mule did, an outlier no one can predict, not even that strange, collective intelligence called Swarm.

Some have called Come Dance a Cumbia…with Stars in Your Hand! military sci-fi. Yes, there are battles, but none more important than the battles between Humans and Tali in Sing a Zamba Galactica where Humans fight to regain control of Earth. My Mule, the psychotic shipping magnate, is an amalgam of many evil autocrats, from the corporate boardrooms to the Kremlin and White House (I’m actually channeling Gabo’s dictator in Autumn of the Patriarch to some extent, another amalgam). Greed and power drives the Tali; it drives some Humans even more.

So the third book just rounds out the series and establishes ITUIP (the International Trade Union of Independent Planets), which appears in many of my sci-fi stories. But these books aren’t Asimov’s, and I really didn’t worry about word count. I only worried about finishing a saga that I’d started with that agent who had no clue about how to write sci-fi. Narrative aka world-building is important; the number of words the sci-fi writer, or any writer, uses to make that narrative isn’t. Use the words you need to use, no more, no less. The Goldilocks Principle applies.

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Comments are always welcome.

Soldiers of God. An FBI agent and priest collaborate to thwart a group of domestic religious terrorists in the US and uncover an even larger worldwide conspiracy created by an international villain who uses extremists to further his own agenda. This novel is an important bridge between the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy” and the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy.” The villain has been causing trouble since The Midas Bomb. Available in ebook format from Amazon and Smashwords and the latter’s affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and lenders (Overdrive, etc.)

Note: To understand all the connections between several of my series, download the free PDF “Future History Timeline”—see the web page “Free Stuff & Contests.”

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

I haven’t registered mine: “Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!” It describes my books. I write and sell books, in case you didn’t know.

The first phrase tells readers something about the settings in my books. I write mystery, thriller, and sci-fi novels, often combining those genres, and their settings can be anywhere on Earth and beyond. I want to entertain my readers, and I want to do so in many places so we can have fun touring the world and the cosmos together.

Although it’s a bit long, I don’t think that first phrase is a bad one. Versions I discarded had “Travel” and “Travel with me” tacked on at the beginning, but I rejected them because I didn’t want to seem like a tour guide. I also rejected a version with “…the U.S., the world, and to the stars!” I took out “the U.S.” because I want readers anywhere to understand that they can be entertained by my storytelling (even ETs like the ones I’ve created). For example, my “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco” books often start with a homicide in New York City (itself a wonderfully diverse mix of people from everywhere) but can often travel beyond the constraints of Manhattan, even outside the U.S.

Another option I rejected was “…to the planets and beyond!” That seemed a bit limiting because many of my stories go far beyond our own solar system (of course, the planets could be those in another solar system!). There’s an implied mindset too—my own thoughts that human beings should explore space, the final frontier. While it’s true that the ocean deep with its strange flora and fauna also is a mostly unexplored frontier, the oceans are a finite part of Earth (a big part!) and space is basically infinite—that final frontier will always exist, even long after our sun goes nova and turns Earth into a crisp. And what’s possibly out there offers infinite variety for storytelling.

“In libris libertas!” is more important. Yes, it’s in Latin, but it’s easy for any reader to guess it’s important meaning. It’s a statement describing my belief that reading stories and storytelling is liberating, encompassing many meanings of that word. Reading is a freedom human beings can ill afford to lose. That’s why autocrats censor books, from some tyrannical principle in a hick-town high school, to the most murderous despot like Putin. Many politicians don’t want people to read—an educated population only takes so much of their crap. Other politicians are just the opposite, and some even surprise me by being avid readers. Illiterate tweets do not a leader make; an avid reader can be a good leader. Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 points out the extreme limits of anti-book thoughts. We have to avoid that extreme at all costs.

I’d used “In libris libertas!” for years before I added the first part. Buildings and institutions often have Latin phrases in their mottos. I think I stole “In libris libertas!” from a public library somewhere; it’s appropriate for libraries, of course. (I wonder if some VIP backing the movie Ad Astra went to the University of Kansas; it’s motto is “Per aspera ad astra.” It’s also the motto of the Spanish Air Force and other institutions, although it could describe the imaginations of most sci-fi writers!)

So the first part of my slogan describes my settings; the second part my belief that books and reading are essential for freedom and equality. I have yet to pare that down to one phrase that says both. When I do, I’ll let readers know.

Does an author need a slogan? Probably not. I use it on my web pages and at the end of my email signature. I’m not sure I derive any marketing or promotion benefits from it. So what? Publishing is a business; storytelling is an art and a quintessential human activity. Actually, that’s a good slogan too!

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Comments are always welcome.

Son of Thunder. #2 in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective Series,” this sequel to Rembrandt’s Angel has Esther Brookstone, now retired from Scotland Yard, obsessed with finding St. John the Divine’s tomb, using directions left by the Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli. Esther’s search, the disciple’s missionary travels, and Botticelli’s trip to the Middle East make for three travel stories that all come together in one surprising climax.

Esther’s paramour, Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden, has problems with arms dealers, but he multitasks by trying to keep Esther focused and out of danger. The reader can also learn how their romance progresses, as well as travel back in time to discover a bit about Esther’s past with MI6 during the Cold War.

It might seem like The Da Vinci Code, but the historical references here are confirmed as true and a product of my extensive research. History, archaeology, romance, religion, and art make for a tasty stew in this moving, moralistic mystery/thriller novel soon to be published by Penmore Press. While it can be read independently from the first book, you can learn more about Esther and Bastiann in Rembrandt’s Angel, available in print and ebook formats at Amazon and from the publisher, and in ebook format at Smashwords and the latter’s affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and lenders (Overdrive, etc.). Son of Thunder will be available at the same places (the Kindle version is now available on Amazon while the Smashwords and print versions will soon be released).

Both are entertaining stories for your fall reading.

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

My editing eyes were already functioning one morning after Dorian turned north. I read a headline in the venerable NY Times calling the disaster zones in the Bahamas “dystopian.” Not to diminish that huge human tragedy—as New Orleans and Puerto Rico have shown, it takes years to recover—or ignore the evidence it adds about the dangers of global warming, the idea for this post popped into my head. Maybe the Times’ loss, but my gain? They blew it. The correct word they should have used is “post-apocalyptic.”

As the name implies, post-apocalyptic refers to what comes after an apocalypse. To be precise and succinct, here’s a short definition: post-apocalyptic = denoting or relating to the time following a nuclear war or other catastrophic event. Emphasis is on “catastrophic event”—it doesn’t have to be a nuclear war, and Dorian qualifies.

The original apocalypse is portrayed in the Book of Revelation, although Noah’s flood can be considered a prequel (some people like to capitalize religious terms, so I meet them halfway by capitalizing Book of Revelation but not apocalypse—take it as a bow to Noah). Official Church dogma tells us that St. John wrote the apocalyptic vision in the Book of Revelation, and a lot of Christian lit portrays such an event will occur in the post-apocalypse when the “true believers” ascend to heaven.

An objective person, however, when reading that last book and St. John’s gospel, has to conclude at least that the styles are very different. It’s hard to believe that the same author wrote those two books. And, unlike the loving God of John’s gospel, the Book of Revelation is a throwback to the vengeful God of the Old Testament. This is discussed briefly in my new book Son of Thunder. I focus on John’s gospel in that novel rather than the Book of Revelation and its unknown authorship. In brief, there’s nothing post-apocalyptic or dystopian about that novel!

For many, Dorian was just a quirk of Mother Nature. For me, it was a result of global warming, at least its intensity. Recent storms have been intensified by increasing ocean temperatures. 90% of extra greenhouse heat is absorbed by the oceans! This also causes adds to the destruction of coral reefs and other ocean flora and fauna around the globe. In other words, that apocalypse called Dorian was mostly man-made.

A bit of this adds to the apocalypse portrayed in my post-apocalyptic thriller The Last Humans, mostly in climate problems and fresh water availability, but the main cause of that disaster is also man-made. It’s caused by a bio-engineered and airborne super-virus that blankets the Earth. It even kills most of its creators. Oops! I focus on the survivors. Surviving in a post-apocalyptic wasteland makes for good thriller fiction—depressing, yes, but there’s some hope as the story progresses.

While humans are responsible for the apocalypse in The Last Humans—even the consequences of global warming—ETs are responsible for the bioengineered and very adaptive super-virus in More than Human: The Mensa Contagion (“Mensa” here refers to the southern constellation, not the group of self-proclaimed super-geniuses). That sci-fi novel has a twist, though: An apocalypse occurs, but humans benefit in the post-apocalyptic world! I don’t know of any other post-apocalyptic novel that does that.

Dystopian is the antithesis of utopian: dystopian = relating to or denoting an imagined state or society where there is great suffering or injustice. The sequel to The Last Humans could be called dystopian: humans can react in a post-apocalyptic environment by creating a dystopia—there’s usually nothing left to create a utopia. I’m not sure that describes the dystopia in Survivors of the Chaos, though. It’s unlike Brave New World and 1984 too, two classic dystopian novels. In my novel, multinationals react to the breakdown of social institutions and breakups of large countries into smaller, tribal ones, called the Chaos, by maintaining order on Earth via their paid mercenaries and turning space exploration into space exploitation. That’s a different twist on dystopia too, one that neither Huxley nor Orwell could have imagined.

Bottom line: the NY Times should learn the difference between dystopian and post-apocalyptic. Sci-fi authors should too. Arguably the boundaries between them are a bit fuzzy, and the distinctions, as always, must take second place to the storytelling when writing fiction. Newspaper reporting is another matter.

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Comments are always welcome.

The Last Humans. Did you miss this? Ex-USN and forensics diver for the LA County Sheriff’s Department Penny Castro surfaces from a dive for a body only to find death all around her.  Follow her adventures—her struggles to survive and create an adopted family–in this post-apocalyptic thriller brought to you by Black Opal Books. Available in print and ebook format at Amazon or the publisher’s website, and at Smashwords and all their affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and lenders (Overdrive, etc.).

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

Let’s choose one example: Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch. I’ve had my eye on this book since it was published six years ago in 2013. It dovetailed nicely into my interest in crime stories involving stolen artworks, an interest that led to The Collector (2014) and the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective Series,” Rembrandt’s Angel (2017) and Son of Thunder (coming soon—see below for a description). That interest is in turn motivated by my belief that preventing the general public from viewing masterworks is a criminal act in itself (which is why the Louvre’s decision to make da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” less accessible did not set well with me), whether done by private collectors (often receiving the stolen artwork from art thieves), or by those who deal in the black market.

But I refused to buy, and still refuse to buy, The Goldfinch. It’s an old book by today’s standards, and yet it’s still $11.99 on Amazon (maybe because it’s now a movie?). If I read it, I’ll borrow it from a public library. Thank goodness books still provide that option. Public libraries are cherished institutions. The general public might never see the Boston Symphony Orchestra play Mahler’s Third Symphony or Les Bohemes at the Met—these tickets are astronomically expensive unless you sit in the nosebleed sections. You can buy a recorded performances of these great works, priced comparably with The Goldfinch, but you can also borrow the CDs from most public libraries.

But let’s stay focused on the book business. As the cost of ownership increases, often more than inflation, libraries will become more important. It’s a vicious circle that will eventually morph the Big Five’s long price-gauging reign into bankruptcy and cause them to lose a lot in the interim. By putting the exorbitant price of $11.99 on The Goldfinch (this is the ebook version—libraries often carry both ebook and print versions), a six-year-old book, Little, Brown, and Company (sorry fellas, I put in the Oxford comma!) are forcing readers to find alternative solutions, and that will hurt their bottom line more and more. Libraries are the obvious (and legal) alternative solution.

Readers who pay $11.99 for The Goldfinch should have their heads examined. Yes, I know, the publisher Little, Brown, and Company has huge costs to cover. And that’s the problems: Big Five publishing companies’ business models suck! Their bloated bureaucracy drives up costs, so they focus on what they consider are the sure bets provided by their agent-gatekeepers and their formulaic stable of old mares and stallions. In general, they’re not willing to gamble with the new, fresh voices found amongst small press and indie authors. Readers turn to the latter (I’m in that group). They can buy three ebooks like my The Last Humans from Black Opal Books  or Rembrandt’s Angel from Penmore Press, for the price of the six-year-old The Goldfinch. Maybe Tartt’s ebook is considerably better, if you believe the Pulitzer truly recognizes great literature—I really can’t say because I haven’t read it!—but is it three times better for the avid reader who has a limited budget? That avid reader will more likely turn to a library to find out. (In fact, s/he just might borrow my books too!)

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I learned something new a few weeks ago from editor Bobbie Christmas’s newsletter—rather the official name of something I haven’t liked for a long time. Consider: Judy’s the section head, Bill’s the IT guy. I never have liked that construction. Now I have a name for it: the comma splice. I’ll accept a conjunction or a semicolon in place of that comma, but a comma splice stops me in my tracks when I’m reading or reviewing. And too many authors are using it. Maybe they think it’s cool; it’s not!

Punctuation doesn’t have to be a worry for traditionally published authors. The following isn’t bad advice: “Write the book the way it should be written, then give it to somebody to put in the commas and ****.”—Elmore Leonard. (Note: If you know Leonard’s prose, you can fill in the asterisks.) Traditional publishers provide editing services to guarantee “good grammar and punctuation” consistently in their products. Self-published authors should also find a good editor. Many authors consider grammar and punctuation a matter of style. In particular, there are stylistic choices to be made, but I don’t consider comma splices one of them.

Whether self- or traditionally publishing a book, punctuation choices can be made that aren’t as flagrant as comma splices. Other readers, writers, and editors might not agree with your choices, though. Those that affect your voice are worth fighting for; those that are basically equivalent and amount to a roll of the dice must bow to consistency within the publisher’s book universe.

I mentioned semicolon as an option in the above example. Consider: Judy’s the section head; Bill’s the IT guy. That’s a correct choice, although Kurt Vonnegut would have wanted to lynch you for choosing it—he hated semicolons. But it’s a valid choice, because semicolons can be used to join two complete sentences into a single written sentence when the two are closely related. I’m sure Vonnegut would have chosen the following: Judy’s the section head, and Bill’s the IT guy. Or: Judy’s the section head. Bill’s the IT guy. Both are okay, but maybe not as strong? To me the second takes me back to Dick, Jane, and Spot. (Why is Dick always first? Alphabetical order is trumped here my female/male order in order to be politically correct—one instance I care about it, because I’m a bit old-fashioned.) These are all stylistic choices the writer can and has to make. Sorry, Kurt.

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They don’t sell well. That’s not just my perception. I’ve stopped publishing my own short fiction collections. I’m giving away a companion volume to Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape, which was published six years ago and is now one of my “evergreen books” (books that are as current in plots and themes as they were when I wrote them). You can download Volume Two as a free PDF—see the list on the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page at this website. I’m preparing Volume Three, which will also be a free download.

I’ve participated in a few anthologies too—World Enough and Crime is an example. FYI: If the other subject matter or the theme of the anthology correlates well with my story, I’ll rarely turn down an invitation. That might also increase the chances my story will sell a bit better than a collection dedicated to just one author’s stories. I’d need more stats to prove that, though. For now, being a pessimistic guy about publishing in general and authors’ success in particular, I’m sticking with the assumption that neither collections nor anthologies sell well.

If true, isn’t it odd that it is? Someone on a long commute via bus or train can probably zip through a short story and get through most of a novella on their smart phone instead prefers to catch up on social media where “friends” and ‘followers” are often faceless e-acquaintances (I haven’t had the experience of contacting someone with one user’s name only to find that I’ve had contact with her or him where another name is used, but I know people who have). Or they participate in a silly video game where the sound effects annoy everyone else around them. Short fiction also suffers the same fate as novels—there are fewer readers every day that passes because there are too many other distractions available where people don’t have to use their minds.

When people do read—rare these days—they often prefer a novel to short fiction. There’s more demand for novels than short stories. Some of that lost demand for short fiction once rested in the domain of ‘zines, online or old paper standbys. They’re in trouble, so a vicious circle is created. Fewer ‘zines means fewer places for authors to publish short fiction. And the ‘zines left have become incestuous old boys’ clubs.

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Reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic are now taught poorly in schools, so this post isn’t about those three R’s. In fact, I often denote this post’s theme by R&R&R, a new kind of three R’s that signify “rest and relaxation and reading.” Many people don’t include that third R often enough with R&R, thinking that reading is more a chore than rest or relaxation. (Some schools, in fact, make it into a chore!)

It used to be that parents read to their kids to start them early in a lifetime of reading enjoyment of stories that can enrich their lives. To be sure, modern schools can destroy reading pleasure, from grade school on up—required reading often isn’t enjoyable reading. (Teachers can tell students that Silas Marner is a timeless classic, but they’ll know soon enough it’s a lie.) Maybe older kids are looking at streaming video on their iPads under the covers now instead of reading an exciting book. Times have changed, and change is accelerating. (In spite of Dylan’s song, the sixties often look tame now.)

But I digress. How does reading compare with other entertainment for relaxation? If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you probably have noticed I write a lot of movie reviews. When I go to a movie, I watch how the audience reacts. Afterward I listen to their comments about the movie. Both observations often reveal stress levels in adults and kids. I’m often stressed too. Does that differ from how we feel after reading a good book? I think it does.

A thriller novel causes thrills, not stress. A mystery novel relieves stress as we use the clues to solve the crime(s) along with the protagonists. Sci-fi novels generally cause wonderment; so does fantasy. The Star Wars movie in which a major character was killed caused me and many in the audience a lot of stress, neither wonderment nor thrills. I’ve never had that feeling with a novel.

Maybe the lack of stress when reading is because we can take measured doses tailored to our R&R needs. It’s a bit like a few glasses of wine now and then doing no harm while a full bottle all at once can get you into trouble. While I often read for a couple of hours straight, that’s not the same as two hours in a movie, maybe because the sensual audiovisual nature of a movie exacerbates the stress more than the intellectual savoring of a good book.

The stressful aspect of literature might be genre-dependent, of course. I’m guessing horror stories can produce more stress than cozy mysteries. And I suspect that the stress of sexual tension can be worse in a book than it is in a movie, but don’t forget that audiovisual aspect.

Have any psychologists studied which is more relaxing, a movie or a book? They might be tempted to limit their studies to people who read a book and then watch a movie made from it, but we more or less know the answer there: A recent survey in the NY Times Magazine found that 70% of those surveyed like the book better, 28% are ambivalent, and 2% say they like the movie better. I postulate that those results correlate well with stress levels, measured out in small doses in a book and all at once in a movie.

Until more scientists study stress levels in reading—I can imagine MRIs being taken of readers’ and moviegoers’ brains to analyze brain activity and where it’s located—I’ll keep on with my three Rs. You should too…and also teach your kids to do the same. Literacy is a gift that keeps on giving.

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Comments are always welcome.

Son of Thunder. #2 in the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective Series.” This sequel to Rembrandt’s Angel has Esther Brookstone, now retired from Scotland Yard, obsessed with finding St. John the Divine’s tomb, using directions left by the Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli. The disciple’s missionary travels and Botticelli’s trip to the Middle East make for three travel stories that all come together. Esther’s boyfriend, Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden, has problems with arms dealers, but he multitasks by trying to keep Esther focused and out of danger. The reader can also learn how their romance progresses. History, archaeology, romance, and art make for a tasty stew in this mystery/thriller novel soon to be published by Penmore Press in print and ebook formats. While it can be read independently of the first book, you can learn more about Esther and Bastiann in Rembrandt’s Angel—available in print and ebook formats at Amazon and in ebook format at Smashwords and the latter’s affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and lenders (Overdrive, etc.).

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

I kill people with them…in my books! My detectives Chen and Castilblanco have guns because the lowlifes they face in their cases have them. Guns are among the “props” in many of my stories. I write mysteries, thrillers, and sci-fi, and I use these props when writing in all those genres.

Although I’m against automatic and semi-automatic weapons and large-capacity magazines being available to the general public—they belong in the military and not in John Q. Public’s hands—I think reasonable gun control can be legislated so people can own the non-military weapons in a regulated fashion.

Emphasis is on “reasonable.” What we have now is chaos, with some states allowing free and open carry even of military style weapons, others not, and there’s no uniformity in background checks to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill  or insane individuals wanting to kill anyone who disagrees with them. There’s no Second Amendment right to kill people (that was only intended by our Founding Fathers to keep the militias armed—they are, and they’re called National Guards nowadays).

Even in NYC where Chen and Castilblanco hang out, with its tough gun laws, my detectives have to confront a lot of firepower. That reflects the reality real cops have to face. The “bad guys” often seem to be better armed than the “good guys,” even in real life. And, as Castilblanco points out a few times, a bad buy in NYC can buy a weapon from a “dealer” aka gun smuggler who’s selling a trunkful of weapons he’s “imported” from a state with lax gun laws. Gun regulations must be federal and tough—to hell with states’ rights in this case.

While guns are props in my stories, only Teeter-Totter between Lust and Murder focuses on the illegal gun trade…for now. In that Chen and Castilblanco tale, Chen is accused of murdering her senator-boyfriend with a gun—the murder weapon is her own she kept in her apartment. The illegal gun trade is a big deal, of course, nationally and internationally. Interpol agent Bastiann van Coevorden combats it in my new mystery/thriller, Son of Thunder, soon to be released by Penmore Press (the son of thunder is the disciple St. John the Divine—now there’s a twist that might whet your reading appetite). But the illegal gun trade almost seems irrelevant in the US considering that anyone can buy a gun from a friend, or at a gun show,  or order it online without any background checks.

(more…)

Let’s never forget the lives lost in the 9/11 attacks on the WTC. Terrorism came to America in a disastrous way, killing nearly 3000 innocent victims, along with first responders–the latter are still dying. Terrorism is evil in any shape or form, no matter who the perpetrators are! Let’s stamp this blight on innocent humanity.

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[Note: This article forms a trilogy with my article about best sci-fi novels and best mysteries and thrillers.]

Sci-fi novels tend to be long…or they become trilogies or series. Some of this length is due to world-building, required narrative to establish exotic and strange settings. It’s also due to the “saga” aspect, because a novel or series can cover thousands of years of ET and human development. (I’ve written a few—see the ad below.)

Sci-fi short fiction is different. Both world-building and character development must be greatly reduced—plot dominates and there are fewer characters. Writing short fiction is a great way, though, for an author to become a minimalist writer, and sci-fi writing is no exception. Minimalism even serves writers well in their novels—you write just enough description to let readers form their own images, thus allowing them to participate in the creative process and identify more with the story.

That said, here is a list of what I consider the best sci-fi short fiction. The stories are notable classics for many reasons—originality, twists, eeriness, and so forth—and they also have influenced my own sci-fi writing.  Your list might be different, and that’s okay. The stories are listed in alphabetical order for author then title (discounting “the” and “a(n)”—years in parentheses indicate Hugo awards):

Isaac Asimov, “The Bicentennial Man”

Isaac Asimov, “Nightfall”

Arthur C. Clarke, “The Nine Billion Names of God” (1954)

Arthur C. Clarke, “The Star” (1955)

Phillip K. Dick, “Adjustment Team”

Phillip K. Dick, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”

Phillip K. Dick, “Minority Report”

Phillip K. Dick, “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”

Charles Louis Fontenay, “The Silk and the Song”

William Gibson, “Johnny Mnemonic”

Harlan Ellison, “’Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktock Man” (1966)

Daniel Keyes, “Flowers for Algernon” (1960)

Damon Knight, “To Serve Man”

C. M. Kornbluth, “The Marching Morons”

Geoffrey A. Landis, “Falling Onto Mars” (2003)

Larry Niven, “Inconstant Man” (1972)*

Larry Niven, “The Warriors”

Frederik Pohl, “Fermi and Frost” (1986)

Clifford D. Simak, “Grotto of the Dancing Deer” (1981)

*This recent addition was brought to my attention by fellow Black Opal Books author and friend Stanley Brown (author of Veiled Memories and Legacy). Many sci-fi stories are hard sci-fi in the sense that they contain lots of current science and technology and their extrapolations, often far into the future. This Niven story didn’t influence me like other hard sci-fi stories—I just read it, thanks to Stan! It’s a good example, though, of how to weave hard science into a short story. (Surprisingly, Niven doesn’t have an excessive background in science; he was trained as a mathematician.) Hoyle’s The Black Cloud (a novel) has probably influenced me most in that sense. Niven’s other entry here initiated the many-anthology multi-author enterprise of wonderful sci-fi short fictin describing the Man-Kzin wars.

Probably the best story twist here is found in Knight’s “To Serve Man” (He probably also wrote the best how-to book for writing short fiction, Creating Short Fiction.) The best mini-saga can be found in Fontenay’s story. But all these stories offer great examples on how to create short fiction, especially in sci-fi. Young writers would do well to emulate them.

Today short fiction is an endangered species in literature. Anthologies and collections don’t sell very well, and there are few ‘zines left where authors can publish their stories (the ones left are selective, or should we say old boys’ clubs of exclusivity?)—they don’t pay well either. That’s sad…and interesting in an age when people could read a short story with their smart phone while riding to work on a bus or train.

All that doesn’t mean that authors should stop writing short fiction. It can be used to introduce readers to our writing. That’s why A.B. Carolan and I give our short fiction away. (An exception is Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape. Volume One is sold on Amazon only. I give away Volume Two—see the list on the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page.) (I start writing a story, not knowing whether it will become a short, novella, or novel. Those that end up short fiction are maybe my loss and possibly your gain, because they’re free.)

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Comments are always welcome.

Rogue Planet. Extends The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy Collection to a planet ruled by an oppressive theocracy. The son of a deposed king must step forward and save his world. Game-of-Thrones action in a hard sci-fi setting…no dragons here, but plot and characters that will keep you reading. Available in ebook and print format at Amazon and ebook format at Smashwords and all the latter’s affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.).

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