Harry Bosch is an LAPD detective because Michael Connolly lives in the LA area. Inspector Rebus is an Edinburgh detective because Ian Rankin is from there. A lot of Geza Tatrallyay’s thriller Twisted Traffick takes place in Vienna; he doesn’t live there now, but he did (see the previous interview). My new book The Last Humans (to be published by Black Opal Books in 2019) is a post-apocalyptic thriller set in SoCal; I grew up there. Is the best way to come up with realistic settings to live in the place for at least a time?

I’ve lived in many places and visited many more. Maybe it’s unusual that my only novels that take place in California are Silicon Slummin’…and Just Getting’ By (Carrick Publishing, 2015) and The Last Humans. Most of the books in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series” either take place in the NYC area (where I live now), or start there, although I’ve only lived in this area for about eight years.

What about sci-fi? More than Human: The Mensa Contagion starts in NYC too (it ends up on Mars and beyond). Much of the first part of Survivors of the Chaos takes place in a dystopian NYC.

I’ve lived in the Boston and DC areas as well as Colombia (South America). Part of my first novel, Full Medical (2006), takes place in the Boston and DC areas; parts of Muddlin’ Through (2014) and Soldiers of God (2008) take place in Colombia, and one villain in The Midas Bomb (2009) comes from Venezuela (in both books, I predict the far left chaos produced by dictators in that country). Am I also writing novels with settings corresponding to where I live or have lived?

Not really. I doubt that many writers put settings over plots and characters. In other words, I don’t think any novelist says, “I live here, so I have to make ‘here’ my setting.” Connolly’s Bosch could work in any major city in the U.S.; Rankin’s Rebus could work in any major city in the British Commonwealth. (For example, Jill Patterson’s character, Inspector Fitzsimmons, works in Australia—Rebus could live there too.) Settings can be anywhere, and with Google you can send your readers anywhere in the world. (I dare any reader to determine what places I’ve actually been to in Rembrandt’s Angel. You might be surprised!)

Of course, fiction has to seem real. Part of that fictional reality is setting. When we write our stories, we have to transport the reader to the story’s setting—the more real it seems, the better. Yet there is no doubt that it’s easier to describe the venue of the story if the author has been there. Some authors even couple leisure travel with studies of potential settings. I never had settings in mind for initiating my travels, most of them for business, but I’ve certainly wrote notes and accessed the hard drive in my head about the places I visited.

I know other writers who live in the tristate (NYC) area—Jenny Milchman (Wicked River) and Harlan Coben (the Myron Bolitar series), and many others. I should ask Jenny if her settings are local. I know many of Harlan’s are.

There are settings where readers know I’ve never visited. New Haven, a planet in the 82 Eridani solar system (Sing a Zamba Galactica, 2012) and the planet Eden (Rogue Planet, 2016) are examples. Most places in sci-fi tales weren’t visited by their authors, but they still seem real in a well-written story (Niven’s The Integral Trees is maybe the strangest example). But you never know! Maybe I don’t write about time travel because I’m really from the future!

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Comments are welcome!

The entire “Clones and Mutants Trilogy” is now on sale at Smashwords. Full Medical, Evil Agenda, and No Amber Waves of Grain are sci-fi thrillers featuring (surprise!) clones and mutants, heroic protagonists, and a criminal mastermind that’s as creepy as he is complex. These books are 50% off on Smashwords. Use the coupon codes for each book to get this discount.

In libris libertas!   

“To have faith is to trust yourself to the water.  When you swim, you don’t grab hold of the water because, if you do, you will sink and drown.  Instead you relax…and float.”—Alan Watts

OK, Mr. Watts probably didn’t write this advice for authors. But authors must have faith in their work, that what they’re saying is worthwhile saying. But that’s not enough. That faith builds with your motivation. I see “the water” of our writing lives as that vast ocean of good books and good authors where we’re expected to rise above the average sea level, although most of us want to become a tsunami. We can’t do any of that without motivation. And readers are interested in what motivates us to write a book!

One problem with novels for me is that their authors don’t often go into the motivation for writing the book. Bios only provide general information, and I suppose the more books authors have, the less important they consider the motivation for writing each one. Book reviews rarely talk about an author’s motivation. Interviews focus more on the author than the author’s books, and again there’s less tendency to talk about motivation for a specific book.

When I finish a good novel, I often ask myself, “What was the author’s motivation for writing this? How did s/he ever come up with that story idea?” (The latter question arises because I know that motivation often leads to a story idea in my own writing.) Maybe other readers feel the same way.

If an interviewer asks the interviewee about specific books, that might help readers answer those questions—if they see the interview, of course. An author can discuss motivation in a preface too. That has the advantage that it’s right there in the same book, but extra material before the prologue or Chapter One just gets in readers’ way. And probably won’t answer those questions until they finish the novel.

Because I feel the need to answer those questions in some way as a reader, I do something about it as an author. I generally add at the end of each novel a section titled “Notes, Disclaimers, and Acknowledgements.” The notes inform the reader about my motivations for writing the novel and sources I might have used, the disclaimers do just that (they might be apologies for screw-ups too), and the acknowledgements give the usual credit where credit is due (some authors put them at the beginning, but they belong at the end).

Curious readers like me are bound to read the first part; I might even read it before the novel, but I don’t want to be forced to do so. I write mine to cover both cases (although I write it after the novel is finished, because other motivations might have come along while I’m writing). I write this all down so I don’t forget later why I wrote the book. I ask myself, “Why did I write this?” You’d think I’d remember, but sometimes I need to refresh my memory—for a book event or interview, for example.

What do you think? Readers AND writers are invited to comment. Should authors make their motivation for writing a novel public knowledge? You already know my answer.

***

Comments are welcome!

The entire “Clones and Mutants Trilogy” is now on sale at Smashwords. Full Medical, Evil Agenda, and No Amber Waves of Grain are sci-fi thrillers featuring (surprise!) clones and mutants, heroic protagonists, and a criminal mastermind that’s as creepy as he is complex. These books are 50% off on Smashwords. Use the coupon codes for each book to get this discount.

In libris libertas!

I’m not talking about Peter Pan’s nemesis here. I’m talking about the beginning of a novel. In a way, “hook” is an insulting term.  It refers to the first chapter, first paragraphs, first words even, of a novel that can get a reader interested in the story. Readers aren’t fish, though, and an author can’t hook them and reel them in. That said, all fiction has to interest the reader at the beginning. Readers usually don’t start reading in the middle of the book, after all.

There is only one basic question an author must answer for the reader at the beginning: Is this interesting enough to continue? Writers answer that question in various ways. There might be action that’s gripping and suspenseful. The reader gets into the mindset of a main character. There’s an unusual, even weird, setting to grab the reader’s attention. So many others, but they all have to answer that basic question.

In my very first novel Full Medical (2006), I started with a Prelude. Whether Prelude, Prologue, or first chapter, that’s where an author must answer that basic question. My prelude describes the escape of three young people from a secret facility that’s part of the government conspiracy that unravels in the rest of the book. I wrote it in a way that lets the reader know that these young people are victims of that conspiracy. (It’s the first book in the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy,” so you can probably make an educated guess about what the conspiracy is—the cover provides a hint too.) This prelude was designed to answer that basic question and maybe replace it with another: who are these escapees? We only them at first as FS2, HJ1, and SW1.

That first novel was mostly pre-apocalyptic, not post, the trilogy eventually leading to the chaos that beset Earth at the beginning of the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy.” In the second book of that trilogy, Sing a Zamba Galactica (2012), a child falls off a bridge in a pioneer town of a new colony on a planet in the 82 Eridani system; the child is carried way by the swift current, but the colonists find her sitting on the riverbank downstream with something like rope burns all over her body. Who saved the kid? I won’t say.  You should read the book…or the full trilogy. The point is that yet again I try to provide an answer by suggesting another question to the reader. There’s a mystery afoot, even if we’re far from Earth.

I particularly liked the beginning of The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan. Most of the plot is based on one of my short stories (found in Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape), but I knew that most readers hadn’t read that story. I worked on that beginning a lot. I wanted it to imply another government conspiracy, involve the protagonist immediately, and shock the reader into asking, “What’s going on?” The shock element isn’t uncommon in thrillers. Here a woman is killed in a park in Hoboken, NJ, and the protagonist is a witness. Coincidence, yes, but the victim is on a nurse who works in a nursing home, the killer seems to be a professional assassin, and the witness is an older government agent who is divorced and on her first date after a long time. (She’s DHS agent Ashely Scott who’s an old friend of NYPD homicide detective Castilblanco; he makes a cameo appearance in the novel.)

I thought this beginning was good—not exactly as good as three G’s and an E-flat (Beethoven’s Fifth), but it did exactly what I wanted. Most readers would want to know why this murder took place and more about the characters, including the victim. But one critic (not a reviewer) said he didn’t care why that murder occurred, didn’t like Hoboken (maybe he didn’t like Frank Sinatra?), and couldn’t connect with the protagonist or the victim. He also said I should stop writing! If you read the book, see if you agree. Or you might just agree with me: opening scenes don’t work for some readers. That was an important lesson, of course—a crushing one, because I’d spent so much time on that opening.  I’ve gotten over it. (You have to have a thick skin in this business!)

The Midas Bomb provides a similar opening, only with two murders. The first murder victim is an economics-modeling expert working on Wall Street (hence “Midas”); that’s Detective Chen’s case. The second murder is a Navy SEAL on assignment (working for the DHS agent just mentioned but in her younger days)—you only hear her first name during a com contact—and that victim becomes Detective Castilblanco’s case, who’s an ex-SEAL and knows the victim. The reader hopefully has her or his interest piqued and asks, “What’s the connection?” If s/he does, s/he’ll be satisfied later on because Castilblanco eventually makes one, but that’s only the beginning (the “Bomb” comes later). (more…)

Writers are doing it too. Most people I follow on Twitter are writers doing their own PR and marketing. Is this efficient?  They want to sell their books to me and aren’t particularly interested in buying mine.  But many retweet to their own followers, so maybe it all comes together.

I used to think Gookreads was the place to be. That’s where a lot of readers congregate, so you’d guess they’d be interested in new books, right? GR ads don’t work, though. And GR suffers from the same problem that damages internet PR and marketing for indie authors and authors published by small presses, especially since Amazon purchased GR: the Big Five has a lot more money to throw into PR and marketing for their sure-bet old mares and stallions in their stables, a lot more money than the previously mentioned authors can spend.

Internet PR and marketing works for the Big Five. In a recent GR ad blitz, I saw three ebooks that I liked on sale (all less than $6, my cut-off price), all from Big Five publishers. I bought all three, not without remorse: I’ll never be able to afford ads like that! (Same for full-page NY Times ads and trailers on TV, of course. But maybe only James Patterson is offered those?).

For every book launch, I spend something on PR and marketing using a publicist. That’s the least we have to do in order to tell the reading public we’re still writing and we’ve released a new book. But none of this really works for me…not much anyway. The campaigns are good for a few reviews and a few sales, but I couldn’t live off my writing. Far from it! (And glad I don’t have to do so.)

That’s the sad fate of most authors. There are many good books and good authors writing them, but they’re not recognized enough because (1) readership is down (and biased toward older people who are the readers—young people don’t read as much), (2) there’s a glut of books creating a low signal-to-noise ratio (our signals are lost in that noisy glut), and (3) and publicists rake in money by telling us we just don’t do enough advertising, but what they propose does NOT work.

The latter is true, in a sense, because we can’t compete with the Big Five when they decide to market a book from one of those old mares or stallions.  The above “enough” would mean advertise more than them, I’m guessing, and we can’t do that.  Indie authors can’t—they’re one person (with mnay books, it becomes worse).  Authors with small presses can’t either—they’re still only one person, because small presses can’t afford lots of PR and marketing help either. Even big traditional publishers don’t help (unless you’re one of their faves lik James Patterson).

(more…)

In my old day-job, the projects where I was most comfortable were those where I got in on the ground floor. In other words, I was in it from the start, analyzing the data available and initiating its theoretical explanation.

I couldn’t do that with writing. I’d decided long ago to postpone my storytelling in order to put food on the table for my family, just like my father had done before me with his painting. Few people can make a decent living in arts and crafts, and my parents had taught me financial responsiblility. All this “follow your dream” stuff is nonsense. You can’t forget about your dreams, but you can postpone them while you take care of your loved ones.

People who get in on the ground floor still might have a tough time at first, but trailblazing has its satisfactions if not rewards. The old mares and stallions in the Big Five’s stables, their current “sure bets” in the race to successful novels, didn’t have much competition when they started. Emphasis should be on the word “old,” meaning they’ve been publishing solid, marketable stuff for years. One author, James Patterson, even invented an assemblyline approach to publishing.

But I think even Patterson had a few rejections at first. Tom Clancy and J. K. Rowling also had a hard time in the beginning. I bet none of them can beat my record, though. Not getting in on the ground floor led to over 1000 rejections from agents and publishers as I tried to go the traditional route. I was the “Cancer-Stick Man” from X-Files without that cancer stick.  No one had heard of me, no one believed in me, and probably no one wanted to hear from me again.

Thank God for self-publishing and traditionally publishing via small presses. For all who just want to spin a good yarn or two, they take away that advantage all those old mares and stallions have by having started on the ground floor. The odds are still stacked against us—from authors, bookstores, and critics (the dreaded ABC’s of the publishing establishment) shunning us, to disparaging remarks against indie books and those from small presses that we always hear or read about. But we’re still writing, putting our stories out there for all to read. Maybe we just changed that ground floor to some higher level with a ceiling determined by uninformed and prejudicial opinions, but we’re writing and publishing. They can try to take that away from us, but they won’t succeed.

(more…)

I’ve read so many books in my life that it’s hard to pick one that’s better than all others, even when I narrow the list down to American-authored novels. (The list is only a phantasm in my mind—I don’t keep track, and I often find myself reading something I’ve read before.) I know the books I’d exclude, probably incurring the wrath of English teachers and professors everywhere: Moby Dick, To Kill a Mockingbird, Giants in the Earth, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and many other plodding stories in that catch-all non-genre “literary fiction.” You can add to that list just about any book Hollywood has ruined for me, although tinsel town often reaches beyond our shores to ruin other novels too.

We often joke abut writing “the great American novel,” but it hasn’t been written yet, and probably never will be.  Streaming videos, computer games, and other distractions keep people from reading now, kill whatever extra time they have in this killer economy, and replace books where participation is more active with crap where people can be passive zombies. Despite a universal education paradigm to reach whatever level is required now in the U.S., and the need to go beyond that for any decent paying job that higher ed doesn’t train anyone for, Americans are less literate today than ever before. I see it on the banners running at the bottom of newscasts; I hear it at social events; and I read it in emails and text messages. How could “the great American novel” arise in such a wasteland?

That novel would have to be great in all the story elements: plot, characters, settings, dialogue, and themes, to name a few. Writers who excel in all thse elements and tell a damn good story while doing it are as rare as a T-Rex. (I make no pretensions.  I do my best to entertain my readers and have fun doing so, but I’d never have the hubris to call any story of mine great.) That infamous dinosaur actually existed millions of years ago; I’m not sure any such writers ever did…or will.

Most writers just muddle along, doing their best, myself included. There are so many books produced every year now, you’d think that the great American novel would have been published (or at least a few candidates), but I’m afraid it’s not going to happen. And, in spite of accolades from erudite critics or the NY Times Book Review, any declaration to the contrary is automatically suspect of being marketing hyperbole. Pulitzers, Nobels, and other famous book awards are determined by troglodytes sitting on some erudite committee and not the reading public, and that public’s numbers are shrinking with every passing year.

(more…)

[Note from Steve: This is post #2 about my internet woes.]

My life has changed. Once I was participating in discussion groups on Goodreads and LinkedIn. I ended all those associated with the first and will probably do the same with the second. Amazon bought the first; Microsoft bought the second. They allowed the trolls to take over.

I was banned from an old-fashioned authors’ discussion group I’d joined because the trolls objected to my opinions. I’ll admit that 10+ years in the publishing business have caused me to develop strong opinions about reading, writing, and publishing. But what did some members of that indie board object to so vehemently? My statement that having a successful book is like winning the lottery, that’s what! There are many good authors and books in the game, but few winners. The trolls will often punish anyone who speaks the truth.

Facebook has become just as bad. While I admit that I often use my personal feed (never my author’s page) to express some progressive opinions (mine are too varied to call them all progressive, by the way), what really bothered me were the attacks on me for my opinions about how we’re destroying the environment for future generations, a bipartisan positon to my way of thinking (or it should be). That’s when I started “unfriending” some trolls. I don’t have time to read idiotic comments from global warming deniers. I know the facts; I’m an ex-scientist, after all. If trolls don’t want to accept them, or worse, they believe “alternate facts,” I don’t need them as Facebook “friends.” Period!

I recently joined Twitter (there was a marketing campaign too good to pass up that required it). Except for climate control, I avoid all things political there, unlike a certain right-wing troll who’s like Voldemort—I shall not mention his name. I thank everyone for following me, but I don’t follow everyone. People who don’t have a bio are automatically suspect, but so far the trolls seem to be benign, just female members of the “lonely hearts club band.” (They might find romance in some of my stories.  They won’t with me because I’m happily married!)

We have trolls of all sorts: nasty ones, sleazy ones, romantic ones, commercial ones, and political ones. For the average Joe (for many things, that’s what I am), all the trolls are annoying. They’re ruining the internet. That happens in life. We have a good thing going (the internet was invented by physicsists to have an efficient exchange of information, after all), and a small gang of idiots destroy it for the rest of us. I think those tech gurus in Silicon Valley should be able to do something to clean it up, but maybe that’s asking too much. We can’t change human nature…or human stupidity. Einstein said only two things could possibly be infinite: the Universe and human stupidity. But he wasn’t sure about the Universe.  Of course, you can argue whether the internet trolls are really human!

***

Comments? They’re appreciated! Please see the rules on the “Join the Conversation” web page. Note that your first comment has to be approved; from then on, you’re a trusted commentator.

Soldiers of God. In the near future, an FBI agent and a priest fight religious fanatics…and a criminal mastermind who is using them to further his own agenda. More current today than ever before. This mystery/thriller bridges between the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy” and the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy” (pick up those three latter novels in one bundle). On sale now at 50% off on Smashwords.

In libris libertas!

Remember those murdered by al Qaeda. The war on terrorists must continue! They corrupt religious beliefs and tear down our sacred institutions. This must end until no terrorist is left standing. That goes for all terrorists, no matter where the infestation grows.

I don’t see any political bias in Google searches, but I see two other problems every day.  I didn’t particularly mind they weren’t present at the congressional hearing with Facebook and Twitter VIPs either (the congressional committee demanded the presence of one of the two CEOs—some nerve from a do-nothing Congress!).  My problems are woes shared by many users.  First, there’s the problem that when I do a search, commercial junk often appears first in the results (the companies pay Google for this, of course). My solution for that is the same one I apply on Facebook and Twitter: I ignore the commercial stuff (as well as anything clearly put there by trolls, especially Russians). (I sometimes “follow” a company if it has something to do with publishing, though.)  Those search results are annoying when I have to far down in the list to get what I need, and I often don’t find it!

Second, there’s the problem that Google pretends to know what my search tastes are. That isn’t in place of the first problem; it adds to it. Based on previous searches, Google fills in even more junk, not commercial necessarily, but still junk of no interest to me in that search.

All this makes my Google searches less efficient. I’m a writer who finds a lot of background material using Google (AKA “researching,” although, as an ex-scientist, my definition of “research” is clearly different). For example, for my last MS, Son of Thunder (sequel/prequel to Rembrandt’s Angel), I spent a lot of time doing that.  For my first novel, Full Medical, same thing (that book is dedicated to a family member lost in the 9/11 attacks). That’s a fifteen-year span. Google was better fifteen years ago than it is today, at least for my purposes, which is why I switched from that old DEC search engine to Google.

Of course, Google isn’t entirely to blame. Wikipedia has some good stuff, but I’m annoyed when Google comes up with Wikipedia articles that warn they’re not complete. Google’s search engine has no brains, apparently (I always check Wikipedia articles because even the ones pretending to be complete often aren’t.)  Same for word definitions. Online encyclopedias, dictionaries, and thesauruses are necessary complements.

I think Google has given birth to a lot of nefarious copiers too.  Amazon’s “Based on your previous searches, you might be interested in…” is often incorrect—I’m mostly not interested in what they show me because my reading choices are wide, or I’m looking for links to some author’s book I’m reviewing. Clothing stores offer products based on ones I’ve previously purchased—I only have so many pairs of socks.  And so forth.

The metatheme here is simple: I’m against any software that tries to second-guess me or interferes with how I work. AI hasn’t advanced far enough to read my mind about what I want. This goes for autocorrection which barely knows English and doesn’t know when I’m writing French, German, Russian, or Spanish amidst the English (as I often do). Another example is MS Word’s continued confusion between “it’s” and “its”—it has just the opposite of what’s correct.  And so forth.

Software and algorithms aren’t any smarter than the people who write them. When people assume they are, they’ll get into trouble. On the other hand, programmers at Google and other places should be smarter about writing them if they don’t want to annoy people like me. Of course, just try to get through to a help desk and read them the riot act about any of this. That’s a whole other level of frustration!

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Comments? They’re appreciated! Please see the rules on the “Join the Conversation” web page. Note that your first comment has to be approved; from then on, you’re a trusted commentator.

Soldiers of God. In the near future, an FBI agent and a priest fight religious fanatics…and a criminal mastermind who is using them to further his own agenda. More current today than ever before. This mystery/thriller bridges between the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy” and the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy” (pick up those three latter novels in one bundle). On sale now at 50% off on Smashwords.

In libris libertas!

When I saw the announcement of James Patterson’s new book Texas Ranger (co-author in small print, of course), my knee-jerk reaction was that this is an example of a current and endemic problem in the world of creative arts. The revival of My Fair Lady on Broadway is another. Disney’s regurgitation of the movie Frozen on Broadway (can’t we let go of that song “Let It Go”?) is yet another. Originality is getting killed, and it’s a slow, agonizing death.

I won’t read Patterson’s book. I haven’t read him for a long time, ever since he started his crusade against indie authors and indie publishers (small presses). (Of course, like all Big Five books, his are too expensive, so I wouldn’t buy them anyway.) The new book I mentioned frankly sounds too much like Jon Land’s Caitlin Strong series, which I very much admire. My Fair Lady is advertised as better than the original.  Huh? That “original” already plagiarized a George Bernard Shaw work and the movie beat it to death. And the last Disney show on Broadway that had some originality was The Lion King (it was much better than the movie, in fact, which is saying a lot—Disney has lost its touch).

I think there are two important causes for this contagion that’s killing the creative arts. First, big money concerns (Patterson’s publishing assembly line, financial backers of My Fair Lady, and Disney’s greed) want to milk the public for all they can when they manage to have a success. Second, big money concerns think the public is stupid enough to want more of the same old thing—formulaic books and regurgitated plays and movies—and not wanting anything new and creative.

Big Five publishers go with the old mares and stallions they feel are sure bets in their stables, mostly formulaic authors with nothing new to say. Broadway has more revivals now than new shows because there’s nothing new to produce. Disney buys rights to Pixar and Marvel because the old Disney has nothing new to present either. Creativity and originality are in peril. Saying something worth saying is too.

Yes, that sounds harsh, but greed is the worst sin next to desiring power. I have no other way to explain the Big Five’s support of assembly lines like Patterson’s, or the many regurgitations on Broadway, film, and in other creative arts today. “Creative arts” is fast becoming an oxymoronic phrase. The contagion is invading all art forms—literature, music, drama, and so forth. It’s a shame.

But let’s talk about books. I get requests for reviews all the time. The people querying haven’t bothered to read my review policies, so I’ll just stop answering them. (Hint: this website is not a book blog!) That’s annoying enough, but I get tired of reading something akin to “If you liked X, you’ll like my Y.” First, I might have hated X, so I would then conclude (perhaps mistakenly) I’ll probably hate Y. Second, the statement makes Y seem like a copy of X.

(more…)

After finishing the manuscripts for The Last Humans (a post-apocalyptic thriller to be published by Black Opal Books in 2019), Goin’ the Extra Mile (“Mary Jo Melendez Mysteries” #3, to be published by Carrick Publishing this fall), and Son of Thunder (sequel/prequel to Rembrandt’s Angel, back from editors and beta-readers and in the submission prcess), I’ve decided to spend a bit more time on short fiction, encouraged by A. B. Carolan, my Irish collaborator.

I just uploaded The Phantom Harvester to my OneDrive folder (see the web page “Free Stuff & Contests” for download directions—there’s more free short fiction PDFs in that folder too). It’s a novella about Cecilia and Pedro Castilblanco, Detective Castilblanco’s adopted kids. They’re not mentioned in either Rembrandt’s Angel or The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan, another two spin-offs from the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” so readers might be interested that Ceci becomes a CSI and Pedrito becomes a cop like his father. Here they end up working on the same case.

My short fiction either goes into my OneDrive folder now or the blog category “Steve’s Shorts” (A. B. Carolan has his own blog category for the same purpose, “ABC Shorts”). There are multiple reasons for this, but the major reason is to provide some freebies to readers hoping that they’ll become interested in my novels. (Neither A. B. nor I give away our novels, except to reviewers.)

I’ve had a few authors tell me this is silly. Publishing is a business after all. My counter argument is pretty weak: it’s as much trouble to peddle short fiction as it is to do so for a novel, usually more so. Moreover, ‘zines, whether traditional paper or online, pay very little for short fiction.  Of course, another counter argument is some of these same authors offer free novels, which is even sillier (I’m not speaking to free review copies here).

I’ve always enjoyed writing short fiction, though, and I can speedily write a short story or novella, which I’d rather be doing rather than spending time querying ‘zines and asking them to publish them. And, when I start a story, I never know whether it will end as a novel—a lot of my writing becomes short fiction because I think there’s just not enough there to make a novel.

You might say to me, “Take a bunch of short fiction and make a collection.” Been there, done that (see, for example, Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape)—it doesn’t pay either, financially for royalties or for the time and money spent. Moreover, not many people read short fiction anymore. You might read a short story in some ‘zine sometime (at a doctor or dentist’s office?), but its author either had more perseverance than I do, or s/he had good connections, or s/he was very lucky. (‘Zine editors are generally worse than literary agents and acquisition editors for wasting an author’s time.)

So, for now, I’ll be writing short fiction and you can read it for free. If you like the former, please try some of my novels. The same guy is writing them, after all.

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Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape. This collection of speculative fiction contains short stories and a novella. The shorts cover ghosts, zombies, and sci-fi, some humorous, others not so much. Most of the Dr. Carlos stories—he’s the medical officer on the starship Brendan—are also found here.  The novella is “Flight from Mother World,” the story of how the ETs from the second book of the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy” arrived in the 83 Eridani solar system before human colonists. Great late summer and fall reading.

There’s one review of this collection on Goodreads. Be the first to review on Amazon. How do you review a collection? Maybe select some of your favorite stories from it and tell other readers (and me!) what you liked about them?

In libris libertas…