News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #184…
Spring is gone. One of many things I loved about Colombia when I lived there was that the climate was just a function of altitude. It could get down to freezing at 8000 feet (Bogotá, the capital—not Bogota, NJ), sweltering heat on the coast (e.g. Cartegena—Colombia has both an Atlantic and Pacific shore), and eternal springtime in coffee country (e.g. Medellín) Here in the Northeast, we have four weeks of nice weather if we’re lucky—two in spring and two in fall. We can take it, though; we’re strong…as long as we don’t have a hurricane (we almost had one with Isaias). We proved that with COVID. And, after all, weather always gives us something to talk about. Writers, though, have to avoid that: “It was a dark and stormy night…” and similar clichés are verboten.
So spring is gone. Our resident woodchuck Hazel’s two children are out and about and the young cardinal fledglings have left the nest, although they still seem to be hanging around for a while. We think the bird flocks coming through are already heading south. Maybe they know something we don’t know about the coming fall and winter?
But any season is a good season for reading. Here’s some more ideas to entertain you in that way:
Anthologies. I don’t know about you, but some days my attention span is rather restricted. I like to read some fiction every day, though, just to maintain a balance, especially with election season now in full swing. My solution? I turn to short fiction.
Anthologies offer a wide variety of little bites of fiction that allow a quick read. Unfortunately, they’re not published much anymore. I can recommend two, though. The first comes from inimitable editor Donna Carrick and is titled World Enough and Crime. The second is from the Wolfpack Authors and bears the title Howling at the Moon. Okay, yours truly donated a short story to each one, but there’s still a lot of variety. Enjoy.
Collections. A collection is an anthology where all the short fiction is by one author. You’ll find three of mine on Amazon, although Pasodobles in a Quantum Stringscape offers the most variety. Pasodobles Two and Three are free downloads—see the “Free Stuff & Contests” web page at this website (there are many other free downloads listed there too, all in PDF format).
Looking for a light-hearted sci-fi rom-com? You know me—I rarely write humorous novels. Oh, they often contain humorous elements—Detective Rolando Castilblanco’s humorous and cynical quips are sprinkled through an entire seven-book series—and you can find humor in many other novels, because humor is part of being human. Many of my short stories are also all tongue-in-cheek.
But I like to challenge myself from time to time. A Time-Traveler’s Guide through the Multiverse is the result, and it’s hot off the press. It’s not a slapstick and fantasy-filled road trip like a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or a sappy romance like The Time Traveler’s Wife; it’s a typical Moore-shaken cocktail of hard sci-fi, adventures and misadventures, comedy, and yes, romance. It’s also time travel done right, without paradoxes, and a much farther ride than Douglas Adams or Audrey Niffenegger could have ever imagined. Here’s the blurb:
Enrico Fermi wasn’t the last physicist who was both an experimental and theoretical genius, but Professor Gail Hoff will never receive the Nobel Prize. She wants to travel through time but discovers she can only go forward. She goes time-traveling through several universes of the multiverse, never to return to her little lab outside Philly. Jeff Langley, her jack-of-all-trades electronics wizard, accompanies her. Their escapades, both amorous and adventurous, make this sci-fi rom-com a far-out road-trip story filled with dystopian and post-apocalyptic situations, first encounter, robots and androids—all that and more await the reader who rides along.
This sci-fi rom-com is available everywhere quality ebooks are sold, including Amazon and Smashwords and all the latter’s affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and library and lending services (Scribd, Overdrive, Baker & Thomas, Gardners, etc.).
Smashwords sales. I have many more novels to entertain you. I often call them “evergreen books,” novels that are as fresh and entertaining as the day I finished the manuscripts. Every month, one or more of these is on sale at Smashwords.
You can have access to those sales by subscribing to my email newsletter; use the contact page at this website to do so. This month Soldiers of God is on sale. Here an FBI agent and a priest battle religious fanatics and discover a conspiracy orchestrated by a shadowy character with a dangerous agenda.
Don’t have a Smashwords account? You can create one for free, and you’ll have easy access to many quality ebooks in all formats, not just Amazon’s mobi (Kindle) format, including others in my oeuvre.
Of course all my books are reasonably priced. Check them out on the “Books & Short Stories” web page at this website.
Future novels. Readers who regularly read this newsletter and blog will probably remember that the “Esther Brookstone Art Detective Series” (Rembrandt’s Angel and Son of Thunder) and The Last Humans have sequels waiting off-stage. Unfortunately, I’ve had to cut ties with Penmore Press and Black Opal Books respectively (only partly due to COVID, and I still have a lot of friends there).
I can’t abandon these manuscripts, though, so Death on the Danube (Esther Brookstone series #3) and The Last Humans: A New Dawn will be published as soon as I can manage it. Until then, here’s a secret: My Irish collaborator A.B. Carolan tells me he almost has a new novel ready, another sci-fi mystery for young adults and adults who are young at heart; it will be the first in a trilogy he’s sketched out.
And that’s all my news that’s fit to print…for now.
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Comments are always welcome.
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
