The IndiePENdents.org Seal of Good Writing

My book, Pepe (shown in the previous post) has been awarded the Seal of Good Writing by IndiePENdents.org. Read the announcement on their Facebook page here, and their mention in their newsletter here.

A downside to the self publishing, or "Indie" world of books is that one doesn't know where to look to find good worthwhile reading. There are good books there, but they may be difficult to pick out from those written by raving crackpots, or those readable only by the authors mother. IndiePENdents.org acts as a unified voice of independent authors, and a means of verifying the good writers from the bad. Membership is free. Then, a panel of authors and editors, themselves members, goes through the submissions of members, and the well written, well edited and well formatted books get their Seal of Good Writing.

Any writers among you, do join! Anyway, it feels good to be a part, and have their seal of good writing.

John C. Wright's Gospel of the End Times

When I read Orphans of Chaos, by John C. Wright, my first impression was that the author must be some sort of Gnostic pagan, as that sort of philosophy seemed to shine through the narrative. However, when I did my research (okay -- Google) it turned out that at the time he wrote that piece of fantasy fiction, he was an atheist, and the Gnosticism was no more than a backdrop for that particular series of novels. However, since that time, he had converted to Christianity, influenced in a large part by the writings of C.S.Lewis. He's still a fan of C.S.Lewis, and also of G.K.Chesterton. In fact, John C. Wright is now a Roman Catholic (like Chesterton was).

It's rather ironic, in one sense. C.S.Lewis, a Protestant, was converted from atheism through the influence of J.R.R.Tolkien, a Catholic. John C. Wright, a Catholic, was converted from atheism through the influence of C.S.Lewis, a Protestant. I said, ironic, but it's also intensely beautiful in another.

Lest any of my Protestant friends are of the opinion that Catholics are so tradition bound as to obscure any hope of them finding saving faith within their walls, here's a blog post by John C. Wright that will dispel that illusion. He paints his scenario through the medium of Noah, preparing for the destruction of the world. His eschatology is right on, the message is cross centred, and he even acknowledges some of the mistakes made by the Mother Church during the middle ages, insinuating that the church, under persecution, has faired better. Here's a couple of quotes:

The Orthodox Church, the Nestorians, the Copts, the Syrians, and all the Indians instructed by St. Thomas have been ground under the bootheels of pagan kings and paynim sultans for over a thousand years: they have more martyrs to their glory and more saints than earned the palm in the West. When the Church was burdened with worldly power, one thing she ended up doing was corrupting herself, and shattering via Reformation and Counter-Reformation, wars, tumults, and persecutions, into fragments large and small. It was not until the Enlightenment that the keys to the liquor cabinet where the wine of worldly power is stored were locked away from our poor, drink-besotted Mother Church.

And another one:

... So, no, Christians do not need to be in the shoes of Caesar or Pontius Pilot to save the world. That salvation was done by one whose feet were pierced by nails: as far as the world could see, a crackpot agitator who died a traitor’s grisly death. This is because the world sees things backward. The cross the world sees as an instrument of torture, humiliation, and death we Christians see as exalted, and we take it as our labarum of comfort, glory, and victory.

How's that for a Catholic? Read it yourself...

William Gibson, on the "future" of Science Fiction

To some, "future" is what science fiction is all about. William Gibson begs to differ. His last few books have been set in the present (as for myself, at least one of my SF books is set in the distant past, during Earth's recorded history).

The blog post I'm highlighting here is that of William Gibson, himself, and it's a transcription of a luncheon talk on the release of his latest novel, Zero History. He starts by giving some current events which, I must admit, do sound like SF:

Say it’s midway through the final year of the first decade of the 21st Century. Say that, last week, two things happened: scientists in China announced successful quantum teleportation over a distance of ten miles, while other scientists, in Maryland, announced the creation of an artificial, self-replicating genome. In this particular version of the 21st Century, which happens to be the one you’re living in, neither of these stories attracted a very great deal of attention.

It's a great talk for anyone interested in the genre of science fiction. Read the rest here...

That Makes Two (self published authors making a living)

Two interviews within days of each other of authors who have succeeded in making a living off their self published e-book sales: J. A. Konrath, and Karen McQuestion (click and read their stories).

For some of us (authors) that's good new.

An author who earns a living off e-books

This is good news -- for me, anyway:

So much media attention has been given to the iPad and to eBooks lately that it made GalleyCat wonder aloud: Is it possible for an author to make a living from selling eBooks?

Author, J.A. Konrath of the Jack Daniels series says, "Yes." He has successfully built a career and a living wage doing exactly that. In our interview with him, he tells us exactly how he did it, what the advantages and disadvantages are of publishing traditionally and why he says his books are outselling even bestselling authors such as James Patterson.

Read on for the interview:

Review of Claralice Wolf's Prynne's Island

It's an experiment. Can a family, or a group of people set up a society based on love and mutual respect, in which all are treated justly as equals? Can such a society carry on with its original vision for generation after generation?

It’s worth a try, anyway. Claralice Wolf has written her heart out with this one. The story begins with a bazaar character, "the Red Prophet", who comes into the town of Verden. He's actually a clown, something of a pied piper. Once he has everyone's attention, he begins his prophecy, saying things one wishes would be proclaimed in any centre of power today.

Then, he gives Adam Prynne, a mere boy, his mandate.

Adam doesn't think like everyone else. He asks all the wrong questions. He says things people don't want mentioned. He rocks the boat. It's with a sigh of relief that they see him depart for an island far far away, over the mountains. The island was given to him by the king in return for befriending his sickly son. The prince fit in the same groove as Adam, so much so, one wishes he could have survived to become king -- but that would have been too good to be true.

The island is a very special one. Adam, his wife Zoe, and their two sons begin their new life. They are joined by other like thinking individuals, begin the struggle to make their paradise come true.

The human factor is authentic. Things don't happen automatically. Relationships take work from beginning to end. Adam and Zoe learn much, sometimes the hard way, but they make a solid beginning. The vision, the prophecy of the Red Prophet, important events, subsequent prophesies and light from above, are all written in a special Book.

Though the story lasts for seven generations, Claralice has skilfully woven all the lives into a common thread. We see each stage of the island's history through those lives, as the community grows from an extended family into a large town. The Red Prophet's words echo throughout the narrative, as various ones recall them. They are a warning, sometimes unheeded by those who most need to listen, and sometimes an encouragement. The unicorns also speak, but only certain people have the ability to hear them.

As the story comes to a climax, we see who are the true successors of Adam Prynne, and who only think they are. How does the vision survive? Does it end in a tragedy? For some, perhaps, but for others, it's a new beginning. Though it's a fantasy, it's a very true to life picture of the war between divine light and human nature.

Check out some more about the book, and about the author at www.tinyurl.com/prynne.

The Story of Saint Catrick -- published at Smashwords

I've made a discovery which I think will be useful to myself and many other authors out there.

The book review I did in my last post was for a book that has been published online at Smashwords. I wanted to post the review on his authors page, and in doing so, I was required to open an account. Later, I realised that my Smashwords account entitles me to publish any of my other (unpublished) novels as well, for the low low price of... -- free!

I had never heard of that before. Either a publisher has to accept your manuscript (with the idea that he/she can sell it), or you have to pay them (as in the case of a subsidy publisher). The reason you pay them is that they put out a lot of work in formatting your manuscript for sale.

However, Mark Coker, the proprietor of Smashwords, has come up with a nifty computer program that will take a Word document (in .doc or .rtf format) and automatically distill it as a whole bunch of files for various e-book readers, including PDF, Kindle, Palm Pilot, Sony and (I think) all the ones Pepe is in. That costs him nothing, therefore, it costs me nothing. This has taken the e-book industry a step further.

Anyway, I decided to republish Catrick. It's now up at Smashwords. It's no longer free, but you can read the first 50% as a free sample before downloading the whole thing for US$2.00.

You can click here for Catrick and my Author's Profile.

Book Proffesionals

I've joined a new Authors' group. To join, I had to agree to read four books by other authors on the group, and write a review of them. Hopefully, that means that Pepe will be also be reviewed four times.

My next post will be the first review I've written. Books reviewed here won't necessarily fit into the theme of this website, but as a more-or-less professional service. At least, the review itself should tell you if you ought to like them or not.

I'm a Redroom Author

Update on my previous post. I've now been approved as a Redroom author. I suppose, now I have to update the sidebar on this blogpage...

My new Redroom account

I've now got an account on Redroom, which is a site for authors and anyone interested in them. I've applied for status as an author, which they'll consider over the next couple of weeks. In the mean time, I've got a page, including a secondary blog site.

I found out about it through Derek Leman's blog. He's now a Redroom author.

Check it out, and visit a few authors...

coming VERY soon

Pepe is now in the process of being formatted for release. It should be any day now, that I replace this graphic at the right with one that says "Now Available".

The publisher prevailed on me for one last change. It's now set in 2040 and thereafter, not 2020. She thought 2020 was too early to expect the sea water to rise to the point where dikes were necessary to protect coastal farmland. It didn't matter to me whether it happened so soon -- actually it does matter! I hope it doesn't! -- but I also lament one bit where the general (who took over the country by force in 2002 (to be changed to 2042) has a campaign called "2020 - Cardovia's Year of Vision". However, I've been told now that opticians don't say 20-20 any more in reference to normal eye-sight.

As for keeping it in 2020, I suppose the only mistake would have been adding the prospect of global warming and rising seawater. I suppose it's not certain how soon they'll begin rising. It's just that I read Cosmos Magazine that the changes could be as early as 2020, so in a panic, I went to my manuscript and and added dikes to protect my beloved Cardovia from too much change.

The other technological advances described in Pepe are probably on target. We might have Binary to Neuro technology by then (linking computers directly to people's brains), which is one of the central high tech ideas in the book -- changing an already despotic head of state into the ultimate villain.

As far as missing it, I'd be in good company. I think William Gibson set his story, Virtual Light, in 2005. George Orwell was certainly off the mark for 1984 (aren't you glad?), and as for Arthor C. Clark's 2001 ...

new links

It's about time I updated my site with new links, especially blogs that I've been visiting regularly.

One that I've found recently, which seems to fit right in with a lot of what I post here is, Messianic Musings, Rabbi Derek Leman's blog.

If you look at some of my earlier blogs regarding messianic/emerging hybrids, you'll know that I did a Google search about two years ago and couldn't find any blogs that were at the same time Messianic and Emerging-friendly (not that any of them were unfriendly, they just weren't into blogging -- apart from the occasional congregation that had one for posting church announcements, or those making political statements, etc.) Anyway, I did another Google recently, and one of the results had something from Messianic Musings that mentioned Scot McKnight. Anyway, have a look for yourself.

Being that I'm into Science Fiction, especially the writing of it, I also find SF Novelists a good site. It's got regular entries by a number of current authors on how they write, or what delights/peeves/affects them about writing, etc. I think I was pointed to that site by Tobias Buckell's blog, the author of Crystal Rain, and more recently, Ragamuffin. I don't know if he still has the first 10 or so chapters of Ragamuffin available for viewing. If you like reading a captivating novel half way through and putting it off indefinitely, you might want to check it out.

Anyway, that's a starter. I may add some more later.

Post Science Fiction?

I think I've found my genre. Michael Moorcock's blog of 18, June, talking about pre-generic prototypes for various genres, in which he suggests Jonathan Swift's third book of Gulliver's Travels as a possible candidate, suddenly starts talking about post-genre:

... Ah, and what of the post-generic form? Assuming that post-generic modes
must not necessarily (or invariably) lead to postmodernism, what might a
post-generic mode look like? Post-science fiction? Post-swords and
sorcery?

I would propose that in the case of Science Fiction, a post genre novel would simply treat the futuristic type technological backdrop as simply that. The story isn't specifically about the high tech device that saves the day, but about the same things that make any other story work, be it self sacrifice, intense love, brawn and wit, whatever. However, the rule of the genre is, the sci fi backdrop must be necessary to the story, so that the plot couldn't possibly happen in any other setting. In other words, you can't simply rewrite Romeo and Juliet with exactly the same plot Shakespeare used. but set it in an interplanetary setting, using light sabres instead of swards.

-- Or maybe 'post -' would imply breaking that rule as well? Maybe if what was previously written about as science fiction, suddenly appears to be reality in the very near future, one could get away with that and call it "Post Science Fiction". William Gibson has written some stories that I would class Post Science Fiction, but has been called "cyberpunk". He writes about the culture that is presently immersed in high tech, but setting their technology just slightly into the future by about 10 years. I don't think he breaks the rule regarding the link between plot and high tech setting though.

I think Pepe would fit into that genre.

Charles Dicken's Satire

I read this bit in Charles Dickens' preface to his 1847 edition of Pickwick Papers:

Lest there be any wellintentioned persons who do not perceive the difference (as some such could not when Old Mortality was newly published) between religion and the cant of religion, piety and their pretence of piety, a humble reverence for the great truths of Scripture and an audacious and offensive obtrusion of its letter and not its spirit in the commonest dissensions and meanest of affairs of life, to the extraordinary confusion of ignorant minds, let them understand that it is always the latter, and never the former, which is satirized here. Further, that the latter is here satirized as being, according to all experience, inconsistent with the former, impossible of union with it, and one of the most evil and mischievous falsehoods existent in society -- whether it establish it head-quarters, for the time being, in Exeter Hall or Ebenezer Chapel or both. It may appear unnecessary to offer a word of observation on so plain a head. But it is never out of season to protest against that coarse familiarity with sacred things which is busy on the lip and idle in the heart, or against the confounding of Christianity with any class of person who, in the words of Swift, have just enough religion to make them hate, and not enough to make them love, one another.