News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #60…
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#336: The First Excellence. Some of you might know Donna Carrick as the exceptional formatter of my ebooks. Donna is also an excellent mystery writer. While The First Excellence isn’t her first excellent work, it is in promotion. I’m not sure how long this promo lasts (I think it only applies to the ebook), but here’s your chance to grab one of the best mystery stories I’ve read—it has a great plot, interesting characters, and fantastic insights into Chinese life. You’ve probably seen it listed in the “Stealth Reads” section of my webpage “Steve’s Bookshelf.” Even if you miss the promo, you should get the book—it’s a great read.
#337: Like sci-fi? Perhaps you’ve heard of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game? (I missed the movie—I’ll have to download it when it’s released online.) I reviewed a philosophy book about Ender and his xenocide on Wednesday. You might want to take a look at my review and the book. Yeah, I’m reading philosophy now—go figure. What occurred to me reading the book is that Card didn’t really solve the problem of communication between ETs and Humans (the real cause of Ender’s xenocide). I presented this problem in Sing a Samba Galactica, the second novel in “The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy.” Card also borrowed the idea of the ansible from Ursula Le Guin as a solution for FTL communication. Come Dance a Cumbia…with Stars in Your Hand!, the third novel in my trilogy, considers another solution that causes so much trouble that a collective intelligence known as the Swarm readjusts physical constants to rid the Galazy of it. Have fun with these books—you might want to start with Survivors of the Chaos, the first book in the series, though.
#338: 100 Notable Books of 2013? Who makes these lists? I was amused by this one found in last Sunday’s NY Times Book Review section, a humongous tribute to out-of-control commercialism. I scanned the list, both fiction and non-fiction, and have to confess I’ve not read one of these notable books! After reading the titles, I also have to say I wasn’t motivated to read any of them either. Maybe that’s proof that the Big Five (Four? Three?) and its “notable authors” just can’t choose good titles. Or, maybe it’s proof that my reading tastes are very different—I won’t say more refined, because that’s presumptuous. But I think it surely means that the person(s) who prepare these lists for the NY Times are probably just looking at criteria that are meaningless to my reading and reviewing life. Take a look. How many of these notable books (or “notable authors,” for that matter) have you read?
#339: A pet peeve…. The above reminds me of something: I was lurking around the internet and Goodreads last week and decided to take a look at book clubs and what they’re reading. My conclusion? Snobbery is very much alive in the land! I’ve always had a problem with reading by committee. We all know the famous definition of a committee’s IQ: you take the smallest IQ among its membership and divide it by the number of members. Every committee I’ve been on also has at least a couple of members who love to bloviate, so the IQ bit is usually not why nothing gets done (usually the quiet ones do all the work). And Lord help you if you’re an author invited to a book club meeting! They’ll usually rip you apart and make you wonder why you subjected yourself to their torture. If this doesn’t describe your book club, OK. Write me and tell me about it. But it’s what I’ve heard from other authors. Maybe this is some kind of rite of passage—did you ever see The Man Called Horse?
#340: Speaking of series…. Ender’s Game, mentioned above, is the first book in a series. The rest of the series, starting with Speaker of the Dead, is filled with oriental philosophy and guilt trips. I don’t find those books so interesting. Moreover, Ender’s Game is more a YA sci-fi novel—a very meaty one, to be sure—whereas the others are not (they’re meaty but not YA). This is an all too obvious segue into my other series. While “The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy” is comprised of three novels (surprise, surprise), “The Detective Chen and Castilblanco Series,” now at three with Teeter-Totter between Lust and Murder, will have two more entries next year, schedule permitting. I might stop “The Clones and Mutants Series” at the new release No Amber Waves of Grain, but there are a few more tales to tell between that thread and Soldiers of God. Bottom line: if you like series, you’ll find three of them in my opus. Enjoy.
In libris libertas….
