The Phoenician Series

#SampleSunday snippet from #SciFI #novel MAN MADE MAN avail only @Amazon http://amzn.to/MMM-KindleUS * http://amzn.to/MMM-KindleUK

2013-10-13T07:29:00.000-04:00

Because #SampleSunday is all about trying before buying, I thought I'd share a scene that inroduces some of the major characters in the series and lets you sample two books at once! Man Made Man is Book 1 of the Phoenician Series and in it, you'll read Raif's story so he's in this scene. His sense of humor, his sense of self-confident arrogance, you get all of Raif, all the time here (LOL),

Also meet Raif's "new best friend," Jared Crenshaw, who was used to "spy" on Raif for Dr. Cory Jansen and whose daily and weekly reports crossed the desk of William Harrington--Director William Harrington--for five years. But they never got a chance to speak to each other, not until now.

It's quite the juggling act to watch the varying dynamics of all three of these men. They each interact with the other two in differing ways. Well, William lies to everyone but like everything Harrington, he lies beautifully!

If you enjoy this scene, you'll probably like the rest of Man Made Man, given that this scene is demonstrative of my "voice," and writing style, the pacing, tone, and humor in my books, and of course, the characterizations I write.

If you like William and Jared's chemistry, in particular, you should also check out their m/m romance, a gay scifi erotica piece titled A First Time for Everything which will be releasing on my birthday, November 7th of this year.

By next weekend, you'll be able to place preorders with Apple, Nook and Kobo and or directly from Smashwords, where I'll earn the highest royalties. For now, add A First Time for Everything to your "Wants to Read" shelf on Goodreads and come back here next weekend on #SampleSunday to read a snippet from that short story (28,000 words).

Now onto the sampling from Man Made Man, which is available exclusively from Amazon Kindle for now ((frown)) but that means Kindle PRIME customers can get a copy free!

###

It’s been 400 years since When Minds Collide and William still hasn’t given up hope of recovering some remnant of Andrew Caine. The current rendition of the merged man is masquerading as a Proctor named Raif. Then William meets Raif’s "new best friend," Jared Crenshaw, and Will forgets about Raif--not easy to do without help!

###

The man in the blue tunic turned his head slowly and his pale blue eyes fixed on Jared. He hadn’t seen the man in real life since that moment, for three minutes, five years earlier. It was amazing how vividly he still remembered those icy blue eyes. The Director’s gaze sent a shiver down his spine now just like it had five years earlier.

The Director’s eyes narrowed and he said, “Crenshaw, isn’t it?”

God, did the man actually remember him? Horrified as the myriad of reasons why flooded his mind, Jared just nodded.

Raif kicked at the empty chair between himself and Director Harrington and said, “Please, Jared, sit down. Join us for a drink.”

Jared hung there for a moment, gaping, then the Director added, “Yes, please do, Jared,” before he grinned at Raif. “We’re all friends here tonight.”

Friends? With the Director? What the fuck, indeed! Jared slipped in front of the chair and started to put his bag down on the floor next to the Director, then realized his social faux pas and swung it around to drop onto the floor next to Raif’s chair instead.

Jared stood there, between table and chair, and Harrington repeated, “Please, Jared, do sit, and you,” he turned to Raif, “why don’t you tell me why you called for a MedTech? Are you feeling unwell suddenly, Proctor?”

“No, but thanks for asking, Will. I’ll admit I’m a little tired. I’ve had a long day.” Raif sounded like he hadn’t a care in the world and they were all old chums; Jared wanted to punch his gleaming teeth in and knock that superhero smirk off his face. Raif added, “Jared’s here because he’s a friend of mine, and I thought he might enjoy meeting you.” Raif leaned back, hooking an arm over the back of his chair. Slouching. In front of the Director. Of the fucking Centre. What alternate universe had Jared entered and how could he get out of it again? When Jared just kept standing there, shocked into silence, Raif added, “Jared’s a little star struck I think.”

Yeah, Jared was struck by something all right, and Jared was going to use it to kill Raif, just as soon as the Director was gone.

Harrington said, “I’d feel more comfortable if you’d sit down, Jared. MedTech.”

Great, now he was making the Director nervous. Jared looked around the table for something to drink but all the glasses were still empty. So they’d just gotten here. Raif had sent the call through Lawrence and Sam a good twenty minutes ago. He must’ve been stalling Harrington all this time waiting for Jared to show up. Jesus, Raif had nerve and he was just sitting there—slouching—like nothing was wrong at all.

Jared considered taking out a sedative for himself. He was definitely going to need something to help him calm down if this was how the evening was going to go, but he couldn’t think clearly enough to figure out how to slip himself so much as a ten-patch of Seretin.

The Director asked again, “MedTech, are you all right?”

Raif quickly answered, “I told you, Will, you simply dazzle him. Jared, Sit. Down. You’re being rude standing there.”

Jared managed to speak but his voice was weak. Better faint than mute. “It’s an honor to meet you, Director Harrington.” Jared just couldn’t bring himself to sit down and pretend this was normal. Then again, if he stood here much longer, his voice wasn’t the only thing going to faint. “I’m just…a little confused. I was in the middle of a task that,” Jared glared at Raif, “our friend here knew was not to be left unattended or to be interrupted and yet, well, here I am. Interrupted and not attending…anything—not that meeting you isn’t delightful. We met five years ago, I’m sure you don’t remember.”

The Director stood up now and said, “Oh, yes, I remember. You’re the lucky MedTech who found our stolen property during that terrible incident we had over in production.”

Harrington placed a hand on Jared’s shoulder—gripping his clavicle with surprisingly force. In fact, if Jared didn’t sit down, he wondered if he’d be forced down by a brachial stun, jokingly called a Vulcan Death Grip by pop culture fans. Maybe Harrington could kill with that grip. It was strong enough—and that thought stirred images of Harrington’s strong grip on other parts of Jared’s body. A flush of arousal rippled through him, no doubt leaving an embarrassing flush to his face. Harrington’s expression softened and his grip on Jared loosened then shifted, his thumb brushing briefly against Jared’s jaw. The brief contact, though only a light touch, was enough to jerk his dick to life. Clearly Harrington’s touch was more powerful than any Vulcan Death Grip.

For everyone’s sake, Jared dropped himself down and dragged the chair back up to the table, trying not to notice the Director smiling at him. God, what had Raif been thinking calling him here for this? Jared stretched his legs out, placing his hands flat on the table’s edge to steady himself and took a few deep breaths to calm down. He’d be fine. Or wake up. This was quite possibly all just a dream. God knew he’d had more than a few erotic dreams about William Harrington five years ago. There was something about the guy that shot right through Jared. Try as he might, he couldn’t stop being aware of him now.

Harrington offered, “I’ve ordered a bottle of wine, Jared. Would you join me in a glass?” He smiled at Jared and the man’s entire face lit up. It was remarkable how much a smile transformed his countenance. He quickly added, “That offer extends to both of you, of course.” And just like that, Harrington’s smile vanished, the light with it. That was a shame.

Jared heard himself sighing and when Harrington looked his way again, he covered by saying, “I’d love a glass of wine. Thank you!” He tried to wrap his brain around the situation. The Director of the Centre had just offered him a glass of wine, and he’d accepted. And sighed. If this was a dream, he hoped this time he didn’t wake up before the really good parts.

Thankfully, the head waiter came over with three glasses of water and the Sommelier, who presented a bottle of wine even better than Raif-as-Gaultier kept on private reserve. It shouldn’t have surprised Jared; Director Harrington had ordered it. The man probably could afford the best of everything. He probably took this sort of thing for granted.

As the Sommelier presented the wine for Harrington’s approval, Jared asked the head waiter hovering nearby for the strongest synthahol Jared could think of by name. Wine, no matter how fine, was not going to cut it tonight. Before the waiter could escape again, Jared revised his order, making it a double.

Then he regretted only ordering one.

Jared decided he was going to get—and stay—drunk for the next three days if this was any indication of the hijinks Raif would be pulling in his newfound free time. Staying out of Raif’s practical joke range was never easy but this was a whole new level of Raif-ness.

Jared downed the water in his little glass and tried to ignore the fact that Harrington and Raif were bantering back and forth like old chums. When they both laughed at a joke that was absolutely not in the least funny, Jared wondered where exactly the waiter had gone with his drink. He reached over to pick up Raif’s water glass and was lifting it to his mouth when both Raif and Harrington lunged at him, grabbing at his wrist and shouting in unison.

“Don’t!” Raif shouted as Harrington said, “No!”

They each had a hand on Jared’s wrist now. The water, amazingly, only sloshed a little and did not spill over the lip. But it was close. So, maybe Raif’s paranoia wasn’t entirely unfounded. Jared eyed them both and waited for his wrist to be released by the two of them. One by one, they withdrew and Jared sat back with the glass of water in both his hands and looked down into it. Sure looked like plain old water. He gave his two table mates a look. They were both trying to recompose themselves as though nothing at all had happened.

“What exactly is wrong with this water?” Jared asked the two of them.

Harrington said, “There’s nothing wrong with that water.” at the same time Raif said, “I wouldn’t want you to catch my cold.”

Harrington sat back and smiled again—that brilliant and blinding light that Jared studiously tried to ignore as it was a definite distraction. The man really needed to stop doing that, or Jared would never think straight again. Raif added a cough for effect and brought Jared’s mind back to focus. Raif had never been sick a day in his life and he was a very bad actor. Raif held out his hand for the water glass with a smile as fake as his cough. Jared decided there was something in the water that his naked eye couldn’t detect—and both of the other men at the table knew what it was.

“I’ll just hold onto this a moment, if you don’t mind.” Jared drew the glass towards himself, nestled at the table’s edge, and he leaned forward, bodily owning it. Finally, the waiter arrived with their drinks and Jared told him to bring him another round right away. Jared held onto Raif’s water glass with one hand while downing his synthahol with the other. It felt amazingly good going down.

“Now, gentlemen,” Jared started, sitting back and holding the water glass up in front of his face again with both hands, “shall I test this with the equipment in my kit or would one of you like to tell me what exactly is in this glass?”

Harrington said, “You mean, besides water?”

Jared laughed, but it was a snide laughter, surprising even himself. “Oh, yes, Director, that’s exactly what I meant, and I think you know it.” Jared couldn’t believe he was speaking that way to Harrington but extreme times called for extreme measures. He turned to Raif. “Let’s have it, Raif, what’s in the water?”

“Other than my germs, I really don’t know, but if you’ll give it to me, I’ll drink it and prove it’s just water.” Raif put his hand out again for the glass.

Jared held up the glass and took an other close look at it. No lip marks at the rim, so he hadn't imagined that no one had touched the glass yet. In fact, only his own fingerprints marred the spotless surface. The head waiter wore pristine white gloves. So Jared was the only one with dirty hands here. Lovely. Now he felt conspicuous and out of place. He said, “Raif, you haven't drunk from the glass yet so how’d your germs get in here? And I’d note, you know as well as I do, there are more germs on this table cloth than you’ve had in your body in your entire lifetime.” Jared turned to Harrington and shook his head. “He’s the healthiest human being on this planet. It’s really kind of disgusting how abnormally strong his immune system is. Trust me, I would know.”

Harrington smiled, a dark smile this time. “You would, wouldn’t you?” Harrington leaned forward, a sharp interest in his eyes now. He rested one elbow on the table and perched his chin in his palm, fixing Jared with his piercing gaze. “Are you his personal MedTech, then?”

God, it was like being stunned by a laser when the man stared at him like that. Jared just sat there trying to breathe, never mind comprehending what the man had asked.

Raif took advantage of Jared’s momentary distraction to snatch the glass from Jared’s grip with a muttered, “Give me the damned glass.”

Before Jared could stop him, Raif had lifted the glass to his lips and downed half the contents. He said, “There. Now you can get your kit ready in case I keel over from—” Raif stopped but Jared suspected Raif-ness was about to strike again. Raif’s eyes widened and his mouth opened but he really was a bad actor. Jared knew he was faking. Raif’s idea of humor. The jerk.

Raif clutched at his throat with his free hand and Jared shoved at him. Raif burst into laughter, that deep, rich laughter that Jared loved so much and that annoyed him no end right now.

“Not funny, asshole.” Jared muttered then remembered their guest. “Excuse my language, Director, but he actually thinks he’s hilarious.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed his humor with others, and you know, I’ve heard that word before. I’ve even been known to use it on occasion.”

Still resting his chin on his hand, Harrington smiled at Jared again. His eyes sparkled this time. If Jared weren’t already sitting down, he’d have fallen down from that look. He couldn’t take his eyes off the Director’s mouth and for a terrible moment, Jared thought he was drooling at the prospect of tasting those full lips. He swallowed loudly and grabbed at the wine glass for another drink. It was a bad idea to mix synthahol and wine but if Jared didn’t put something else in his mouth, he was likely to try and fill it with Director Harrington. Talk about biting off more than he could swallow.

Raif said, “Will, maybe you could do us all a favor? Prove to Jared that this is just water by drinking some yourself.” Raif smiled, one of those cold, calculating smiles Jared had heard about but until now, never seen applied first-hand. Now he understood why that look scared grown men. Raif’s smile sent a chill down Jared’s spine—killing all the warm fuzzies that Harrington’s smile had been spinning in Jared’s gut a second ago—and Raif’s smile hadn’t even been aimed at him.

Harrington didn’t seem at all affected by Raif’s chilling intent. He barely hesitated before sitting up and reaching out to retrieve the glass from Raif’s hand. They maintained eye contact as Harrington raised the rim of the glass to his lips, held it there and even bobbled his Adam’s Apple; but from Jared’s angle of view, he could tell that Harrington hadn’t actually drunk the water. He’d faked it for Raif’s benefit. Harrington put the glass down in the middle of the table and asked Raif, “Happy now?”

“Oh, yes. Just thrilled.” Raif said, clearly simmering under the surface.

Raif used just thumb and forefinger to touch only the rim of the glass in the spots where no one had drunk, and drew the glass back towards his place setting, then folded his hands around the glass marking it off as his personal territory. So he wasn’t clueless to the risk, just stupidly exposing himself to potential poisons, contagions and other artificial means of sabotage. Just like a Proctor to do a stupidly-heroic thing like that.

Jared had never understood the Proctor’s drive to commit suicidal heroic acts, even in all his years of working with them, but it was part of the brainwashing designed by Harrington’s own ancestor. Maybe this Director Harrington could explain it to Jared one of these days.

Jared had never seen Raif actually doing it either, not before now. Jared wasn’t sure just what rationale had made Raif swallow whatever biohazard was in that glass, but at least now it was clear why Raif had called him here. Raif had wanted Jared here to revive him once the toxin, drug or other alien substance took hold, and Jared was utterly convinced now that there was something besides water in that water glass. He just hoped his MedKit contained an antidote for it.

Harrington took a sharp left turn—literally turning back to Jared before speaking again. His expression softened but the smile was forced this time, adding none of that brilliant light the natural smile caused.

“Jared, you said you had an interest in meeting me? So many do these days. Was there a research project you want funded?”

“No, I—” Jared laughed nervously and decided there was no graceful recovery “No research, Director. It was just—It was a joke, and a bad one, telling Raif here that I’d love to meet you one day because here we are.” Jared laughed nervously. As though to remind Jared that he was sitting right there, Raif clapped a hand down over Jared’s forearm on the table and held him there with an iron grip. Why? Did Raif think Jared was going to jump up and run away now he’d been completely embarrassed in front of one of the most-desirable men on the planet? Or was Raif finally experiencing whatever was in that glass? That was a bad thought. Jared looked up at Raif and didn’t see any joking or cajoling in his expression, just cold, stone blankness as he stared across at Harrington.

Harrington glanced down at Raif’s hand holding Jared’s arm to the table and a small smile crept into the corner of his mouth, though he tried to hide it. Jared wished it were another one of those light-inducing smiles, and he wondered if Harrington also had a nice laugh to go with it. Perfect men were like that. Jared’s laugh was too loud, he’d been told by former lovers. Raif had disabused him of that insult, saying he liked Jared’s laugh, that it was unrestrained, not loud. Would Harrington like his laugh? Would Harrington ever make him laugh? Could he ever make Harrington laugh as brightly as that perfect smile?

Before Jared realized it, Harrington stood and pushed his chair a fractional distance away from the table, saying, “Yes, I’m a little unpredictable myself so I do believe it’s time for me to go. Please enjoy the wine. It’s a very fine vintage and I assure you, there’s nothing wrong with it.” Harrington poured himself a small refill and sampled it, vapor first, then just a taste. “Mm, delicious as ever. It does need to breathe a few more minutes but,” He held the wine up to look at it, then looked down at Jared and said, “it’s one of my personal favorites.” Harrington said it as though he knew Jared had an interest in his personal preferences in wine. In his person, generally. Was Jared that obvious tonight?

“Thank you, Director.” Jared muttered.

“Will.” Harrington said quietly then pushed his chair back in and told Raif, “Proctor, I strongly advise you to wait for your friend in Dr. Jansen’s office from outside the building. You have about,” Harrington checked the time, “a half-hour left before the records show you leaving, so if you decide to re-enter, please wait another half hour or Security will receive an alert about the logs. Your friend should be in there another hour anyway. Enjoy your unrecorded freedom here. It’s not something that someone in your position happens upon often.”

“No, it’s not.” Raif said, again with the blatant sarcasm in his tone. “Thank you so much for that, Director. I mean, Will.” Raif gave Harrington a snide smile. “My night would have been so different without you showing up.”

Jared didn’t want to know what Raif meant by that. Since Raif hadn’t released Jared’s arm, he was unable to rise to bid farewell to Director Harrington. Despite Raif’s conflicted feelings about Harrington’s presence, Jared was feeling sorry about how the evening had turned out—and he knew he might never get another chance like this. He couldn’t let it go by untried.

Jared blurted out, “Director—Will—maybe sometime when the Proctor here has his own plans, you and I could try having a drink again? Just the two of us, a social visit, nothing to do with business. I promise, no research proposals.” Jared smiled but he was sure it was obvious it was a nervous smile.

Harrington clasped his hands behind his back and inclined his head to smile down at Jared. It wasn’t one of those smiles that lit his face, though; it was a cold, polite smile. Distant. In fact, Harrington had an air of superiority now. Maybe it was just his posture.

Jared was just about to try and take it back when Harrington asked, “You mean a date?” Harrington looked Jared over as though he were considering the prospect.

Raif’s vice-grip on Jared’s arm hadn’t loosened and Jared was feeling like a bug pinned under a glass being examined by two bullies facing off in the courtyard. He wished one of these two men weren’t here; he just wasn’t sure which one. He just nodded and tried to smile up at the Director. He hoped it didn’t come out making him look like a goofy idiot. One ex-lover had described his nervous smiles that way.

Finally, Harrington said, “I don’t date much anymore. It might be nice to change that before it becomes a habit. My schedule’s quite a challenge though, so I’ll have to call you when I can get some free time blocked off and see what we can do with it. Thank you for asking.”

When Harrington made to go, Jared asked, “Don’t—that is, don’t you want my numbers?”

Harrington looked over the table and his gaze tracked from Raif’s grip on Jared’s arm up to Raif’s face, then he came back to Jared and smiled openly, one of those smiles that lit up his whole face, “Oh, I’ve got your number.”

Jared sat there stunned as Harrington left, his foot falls barely audible. Jared only knew the man was gone because that was when Raif finally released his grip on Jared’s arm.

“What the fuck, Raif?” Jared massaged his forearm, which had started to ache. “You trying to break my arm? And what were you thinking bringing me in here—with him?”

“I was thinking you droned on about how much you wanted to meet him and you might appreciate my giving you the chance to ask him out. I’m proud of you for doing it. Good job—and you’re welcome.”

“I didn’t thank you, asshole!”

“No, you didn’t and I noticed that. Poor form, Jared, really. You usually have better manners than that. You know, he seems like a stuck-up snob to me, not to mention closed and emotionally unavailable, but I guess he’s pretty enough to look at and he’s certainly a better class of man than your usual fare. He might even be good enough for you.”

“Yes, speaking of stuck-up assholes.” Jared muttered.

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You have reached the end of the free sample. If you enjoyed it and would like to keep reading, please consider purchasing Man Made Man from the Amazon Kindle Store (KindleUS and KindleUK). Amazon PRIME members may borrow it from the Kindle Owners' Lending Library (KOLL) at no charge through the end of the Kindle Select period, so until the end of November. The book will be available to purchase from Smashwords or other eTailers worldwide after December 5, 2013.

Tune in for next week's #SampleSunday snippet from A First Time for Everything. Hope to see you then!

-Friday
@phoenicianbooks

Add http://bit.ly/MMM-Goodreads to your Wants to Read shelf; I just typed THE END so it's really happening! #SciFi #novel

2013-09-02T13:15:00.000-04:00

OMG! Was #amediting MAN MADE MAN but moments ago I typed the words THE END :) Now I'm off to write the backmatter content and reformat for Kindle as I do my final, cover-to-cover proofread-through. So close!!

*woohoo!!*

The book's not out TODAY (Labor Day, as scheduled) but it's going to be very close! So excited!!

Please add it to your Goodreads shelf today and look for it exclusively on Kindle for the first 90 days, pre-orders to start everywhere else for a December delivery! Yay!!!

*\o/* *\o/* *\o/* <<< that's three cheers ^)^

Raif Story #SciFi #novel update: Spoilers Ahead! http://bit.ly/MMM-Goodreads Add it to ur #Goodreads Shelf today

2013-05-05T07:34:00.000-04:00

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to post a little update as we close in on the date when I might fall silent for while again. I've been working like mad on the opener of the book, the part I didn't have written at all, and it's blossomed into the whole first third of the story. It's flowing incredibly well and I really wish I didn't have to go work a day job or find a new place to live or do any of that "life" stuff that is going to make me have to STOP WRITING. It hurts my heart to stop writing.

I've updated the Goodreads Page for Raif's Story with a few spoilers and teasers to let you know what's in the first third of the book. If I can find a new job and a new place to live all in the next 2-3 weeks, I could feasibly get this book done and out the door by September....but these days, that kind of speed on job hunts is rare if not impossible. Companies just don't move quickly anymore, not sure why.

I'll keep at it and once I'm in a nice and easy (not quite but close to "braindead" for me) desk job, I can crank out the rest of this book super fast! The content editing is the biggest time-sink and that's the part that's going so quickly. Having an outline seems to have worked out well for me. I might have to try this again! Who knew? (haha)

-Friday
@phoenicianbooks

1400 old words #Snippet from the new #PhoenicianSeries #novel

2013-03-06T16:52:00.000-05:00

The following snippet (after the jump-break) was material written in 2008 and posted to Authonomy but removed to be edited then set aside when I focused, instead, on completing Conditioned Response. Raif is such a great character. I'm loving writing his book and I do love reading my own work. I hope you do, too.

These 1400 or so words fall at the beginning of a new chapter near the beginning of the book, right after Dramond and Raif and the rest of Dramond's Proctor team have returned from "collecting" Shayla (she's only 14 years old back then, remember) and she is the "prisoner." During the excursion to get her, a greenhorn Proctor was killed. This is the aftermath.

In the hangar of the Council Office building, Azzi, the last member of their primary team waited with Ronen, two gurneys hovering between them. Ronen supervised Lawrence and Collier, escorting the "prisoner" up to the second floor, Security, Room Four. Azzi tried to help Raif with the body of the young Proctor but met with enough opposition, he settled for simply providing Raif an escort down to sublevel one, Medtech.

When the doors to Medtech slid apart, the smells hit Raif hard. The room wreaked of death, a mixture of anti-septics with blood and sweat. He would have thought he'd be used to it by now, but with the greenhorn lying dead next to his hand, the human effluvia was too much to dismiss. He allowed Azzi to help guide the gurney into an open spot in a row of six gurneys, each with a dead body on it, all wearing grey uniforms. There were likewise half a dozen men in long white lab coats milling about the gurneys, but only the sounds of clanking equipment broke through the deathly silence in the room. Raif knew it wasn't out of deference to the dead or attentiveness to the work. It was an attempt to get through the unpleasantries more quickly by not tarrying in conversation. A Medtech learned the routine of autopsy by rote after a few weeks on the job.

There was one live Proctor here for purposes of receiving medical attention, sitting with a Medtech at the far end of the long room. Raif noticed the attending Medtech was his friend, Jared, the Drug Lord of the building. He'd need to talk to him later today, to get some kind of assistance for the prisoner, assuming Dramond held true to form and authorized none himself.

Raif stood over the gurney with the fallen greenhorn while Singh, the senior Medtech, came over to check it in and start the paperwork. Singh pulled up one eyelid on the body and scanned the retina, then held the display out to Raif.

"Identity confirmed?" Singh asked him.

Raif glanced at the display and took in the number identifying the as-yet-unnamed Proctor. He whispered, "Rene-Michel." It was Councillor Dramond's first name but from this point forward, in Raif's mind, the name would always belong to the dead Proctor in front of him.

Singh looked up at him accusingly. "What did you just say?"

"He had a name. Rene-Michel."

Impatiently, the man in the white coat asked, "Is this his number or not?" Raif gave the Medtech a dirty look then looked back at the dead greenhorn without giving an answer. "Look, Sergeant," Singh persisted, "I've got a full house here, in case you didn't notice. Can we move this along?"

Raif snapped at him, "Singh, if you want to speed things up, you'll stop arguing with me. His name was Rene-Michel. Do you actually need me to spell that name for you?"

The Medtech shook his head and tapped at the display in his hand. "Identity confirmed. C-O-D?"

"No good reason." Raif mumbled.

"So, you just felt like it?"

Now Raif glared at the Medtech. "What? I didn't do this!"

"That's not how I heard it." Singh told him in flat tones.

"What are you--"

Azzi stopped Raif and turned his back to the Medtech to whisper, "That's the report Dramond filed, Raif."

"What are you talking about?"

Azzi leaned closer to Raif. "Dramond's pinning this on you. He filed the report before you even got back. Just call it insubordination and let the doc close his file."

"Whose idea was this?" Raif turned to Singh, "Yours?"

The man in the white coat held up a hand and shook his head. "I just take the orders as I get them, Raif. I need a cause of death. You got a preference?"

Raif started to move towards the man in the white coat and Azzi pushed gently at Raif's shoulders to stop him.

Raif spoke around him at the Medtech, "Yeah, I've got a preference. He was pushed off a cliff after willingly submitting to torture. How's that C-O-D strike you, Singh?"

Without missing a beat, the Medtech tapped at his pad and went on in businesslike fashion, "And the cause for the disciplinary action?"

Azzi turned around and told him, before Raif could answer again, "Singh, just put insubordination, and give us the damned pad."

"I'm not signing that." Raif told Azzi and went on to the senior Medtech. "You can't do that to him, Singh. You can't enter it that way. You're supposed to be a Medtech. You haven't even examined him."

"Well, I'm just a record keeper today. No time for exams." He gave his display a final tap and pulled another pad out of his pocket, clicked it onto the side of the display and held the pair out to Raif in both hands, expectant look on his face. "Signature, please?"

Raif glanced down at the display. Singh had recorded the greenhorn's number--no name--and put "Resisting disciplinary action for insubordination" in the block labeled "C-O-D."

When Raif kept staring and didn't move to put his hand out, Azzi moved to put his own hand down on the large pad to be scanned. "I'll sign it." Azzi said quietly.

Singh pulled the dual pad back before Azzi could press down and insisted, "No! I'm supposed to get his signature."

Azzi withdrew his hand and told Singh, "Look, if you know what's good for you, don't be so picky--or you won't live to regret it."

Singh didn't offer Azzi the signature pad. "Councillor Dramond was very specific, it's to be your signature, Raif."

Raif grabbed the two-piece unit and turned his back to Singh as he started revising the record. The Medtech tried to reach around him to retrieve it and Raif's right elbow came up into his solar plexus then his left fist cut across the Medtech's jaw, knocking him to the floor. Raif turned his back again and resumed his quick tapping on the datapad. The Medtech, on the floor, was trying to move his jaw while giving Raif's back a cold stare. Azzi crouched down in front of him.

"Don't push your luck," Azzi warned Singh quietly, "it would've been easier for him to just break your neck and kill you to change the record. Don't worry. I'll witness your effort to Councillor Dramond."

Raif annotated the number with the name and revised the C-O-D to read "Fall from height of approx. 500 meters after sustaining extended application of shock stick. No aggressive action observed prior to fall. No physical evidence to suggest legal cause for stun by Councillor Dramond. No witnesses to alleged assault on the Councillor's person." It wasn't quite the full truth but it was as close as he dared make it for today. He put his own number and those of Ronen and Lawrence into three of the slots for eye witnesses then pressed his hand onto the large pad to sign the report. He tapped a few more times, locking the record and filing it, then turned around and looked down at the Medtech. Singh was still on the floor, holding a hand across his torso, still trying to catch his breath.

Raif pulled the two units apart and tossed them into the Medtech's lap. "There you go, Singh. All signed, sealed and delivered. And don't you ever try to railroad me again."

Raif started towards the door and Singh called out after him, "You and Dramond deserve each other!"

Raif stopped in the open doorway but didn't turn around. He shook his head and continued on into the hallway. Outside, he took just a few steps from the doorway and leaned back against the wall of the dark hallway. Azzi was on his heels.

"So what did you end up putting down, Raif?"

"The truth--or most of it."

"You know Dramond's gonna let you have it for that? He wanted you to sign it the way Singh wrote it up."

"Why doesn't he just kill me now and be done with it?"

"You can't mean that."

Raif looked up from the floor and glared at Azzi. "What do you care? You've been waiting for a promotion. With me out of your way, you'd have it tomorrow. I know there's no love between us, Azzi."

"I don't want your job, Raif. I'm just trying to keep my own."

"He told you to see to it that I signed that lie? And you were ready to sign it yourself, weren't you?"

"He just wanted it filed the way Singh had it. He didn't specify who should sign it--or not to me. Maybe he told Singh it had to be you. I dunno. It wasn't in my orders. Look, Raif..." Azzi took a deep breath and went on more gravely, "you're due upstairs. He's waiting for you."

Raif checked the time on his comm unit. Thirteen fifty-five. "He's got an appointment at fourteen hundred."

"Yeah, you. You're his appointment at fourteen hundred."

"What?"

Azzi sighed this time. "If you didn't sign it or wouldn't let me...it doesn't matter. You're on report as of right now. He gave me those orders before you even got back into the hangar. I'm supposed to take you up to see him now--and please don't make me use force. We'll both end up hurt."

"Or one of us dead, more likely. You really have no conscience at all, do you, Azzi?"

Azzi tipped his head back defiantly. "I have a stronger interest in living. It's nothing personal, Raif. I'm just following orders."

Raif stood up from the wall. "No, you'd have to be a person for it to be something personal."

"I thought you said these names made us a person." Azzi wasn't quite hateful but made his resentment clear enough.

"Apparently, it doesn't work on everyone. Well, let's go, Proctor. After all, you've got your orders."

#

Thanks for stopping by!

-Friday
@phoenicianbooks

Meet CADMUS, The Elder...but how old is he?? #PhoenicianSeries #Raif

2012-12-19T21:11:00.003-05:00

So I've been writing again, just a little and in both Book 1 and Book 3. It's been hard to choose! I wish I could just write both of them all at once and not have to deal with real life at all until they're done. Alas, real life doesn't really work that way.

What I have done is come up with a scene in Book 1 where Raif has just brought Shayla back from the World Council to Phoenician land. A lot of people died to get her out of there and back "where she belongs" so Raif is definitely not inclined to just turn around and bring her home with him again. He planned on dropping her off and having her people be glad to get her back among them...but Cadmus has other plans. Cadmus has The Plan. It is his plan given as he is the Elder and makes The Plan(s).

So just who is this Cadmus-the-Elder guy? Well, funny thing is he might be older than "Elder" suggests! Check out some of these references--and remember, in my far-future books in The Phoenician Series, the Phoenicians are not necessarily from Earth but "obviously" share some DNA with humans...they practically *are* human....aren't they? heh heh heh :)

Cadmus - the original Greek Myth

Cadmus - alternate backstory from WikiPedia

Signed Copy of eBook? Check! Coming right up!

2012-05-28T11:58:00.000-04:00

As you may have heard, I signed up to give away a free copy of Conditioned Response during the launch party for Cambria Hebert's new paranormal Charade this coming Friday, June 1st.

Now it's one thing to agree to give away a free copy of an eBook. Smashwords makes that super-easy with their instant coupons you can generate at will. But note, I said signed copy, as in personally autographed for the winner.

Tah-dah!

I just did a test run using an ePub format book (imported an ePub file, replaced the cover with the signed image, exported a new ePub file) and it worked! Now i just need the winner to tell me what format they want (I can do Kindle/Mobi too) and how they want it signed and we'll be good to go. I also need to practice a little with a nicer pen tool than the shaky pencil one I used here but I'm so excited! Gonna have to blog how I did this...under another name *haha*

-Friday
@phoenicianbooks

Friday on Friday - Author Interview of @phoenicianbooks by @Cassie639 http://ow.ly/b97zx it's #fridayreads #indie

2012-05-25T07:45:00.002-04:00

Cassie McCown (who was one of my fine editors for Conditioned Response) has posted an amazing, in-depth interview of mois. I can't believe she gave me so much screen real estate! Thank you, Cassie!

Click through here to read more about Friday (since today is Friday ;-) You may be surprised at some of the things I reveal about myself!

Thanks for stopping by!

-Friday

GIVEAWAY: Win a free, autographed* copy of Conditioned Response!

2012-05-23T17:33:00.001-04:00

I've been invited to participate in Cambria Hebert's launch party for her new paranormal CHARADE. She'll be having giveaways from over 40 authors on her Facebook Page on Friday, June 1, 2012 from 3pm to 9pm Eastern Time (USA). I'll give away a free, autographed* copy of CONDITIONED RESPONSE.

I hope you'll join us.

-Friday

*In order to autograph the book, I'll need to send the winner the autographed book in their preferred format (any format currently offered at Smashwords) via email.

To Auto-Follow or Not To Auto-Follow? That is My Question; What's UR Answer? #TweetAdder #twitter #autofollowers

2012-05-22T06:29:00.000-04:00

Seriously, now that I've got the system down for scheduling 3 days of promo tweets at a time, I'm considering that I should finally start using the auto-follower (TweetAdder) that I bought last winter. The thing is, it's indiscriminate about following back. It'll follow back everyone or no one. I can't say, only follow back the people I like. ;-)

The downside of using TweetAdder is going to be the noise in my stream will make it harder and harder for me to actually have conversations with anyone. Currently, I faithfully check my @ interactions so I see when I'm RT'd or Favorited or when someone is actually speaking directly to me. I still never think to check DMs (sorry if you've DM'd me and wonder why I'm not replying; just @ mention me in public instead and you'll get a reply right away, I promise!) If I use the auto-follower, I'll up my numbers (quantity) and lose massive amounts of quality. I suppose I can always try it and then change my mind later? Let's see what happens for a week or two, yes? No? What do you think?

TweetAdder's kind of a hard program to learn because the documentation is so badly-written and the GUI so UNintuitive but it's not a very complex program. It certainly shouldn't be this hard to master given how simplistic its functions are! Are you using TweetAdder yourself? If so, what cautionary tales of advice can you offer me?

-Friday
(May, 2012 - BTA - Before TweetAdder -grin-)

#NowPlaying Soundtrack to #ConditionedResponse #SciFi #thriller #mystery #suspense

2012-04-29T21:17:00.000-04:00

Every book should have a soundtrack--and Conditioned Response does! Because it's at the back of the book (so you'd have to buy the book to gain access to it), I figured I'd share the Soundtrack with you here. Plus I can make things more clicky here, right?

The following 3 lists were each made into a playlist (and/or burned onto a CD) then looped, repeatedly. I alternated between them on various days but definitely listened to one artist for days on end, including taking the CD into my car to keep myself in a “writing mood.” Certain songs became associated, in my mind, with certain characters or scenes. I've noted those, where applicable.

Except for The Crystal Method Single EP released on YouTube with La Machinima, I’ve bought all of the following music and urge you to do the same—then burn your own playlists to take everywhere with you! You can sample most (if not all) of these clips on YouTube. Tweet me @phoenicianbooks and tell me your favorites.

Dirty Vegas (@DirtyVegas3)
(for keeping me bouncy bouncy bouncy)

Changes (Electric Love)(Joshua’s Song)
Electric Love (Electric Love)
Pressure (Electric Love)
Round and Round (Electric Love)
Today (Electric Love)
Never Enough (Electric Love)
Weekend (Electric Love)
21st Century (Electric Love)
I Should Know (Dirty Vegas)
Lost Not Found (Dirty Vegas)
Days Gone By (linked DubStep Remix) (Dirty Vegas)
Throwing Shapes (Dirty Vegas)
All or Nothing (Dirty Vegas)
Alive (Dirty Vegas)
7AM (Dirty Vegas)
The Brazilian (Dirty Vegas)
Simple Things Part 2 (Dirty Vegas)

The Cruxshadows (@theCruxshadows)
(for singing the story of my book)

Isis & Osiris (Life & Death) (The Mystery of the Whisper)
Leave Me Alone (The Mystery of the Whisper)
Breathe (The Mystery of the Whisper) (Shayla’s Battle Song)

(...and if our children die before we reach our own demise,
then life is blacker still, blacker than the blackest fire,
and I am...the face you see within the mirror
and I am...the hand that holds the fist away,
and I am...the dream forgotten in the morning
and I am...I am! )

Cassandra (Ethernaut)
Flame (Ethernaut)
East (Ethernaut) (Julia’s Battle Song Part One)

( Live. Love. Be. Believe. )

Love and Hatred (Ethernaut)
Winterborn (This Sacrifice) (Ethernaut)
Citadel (Ethernaut) (Julia’s Battle Song Part Two)

( Languid waves of desperation fall before the rains
A vanguard to approaching war is borne upon the sea
The icy breath of cyclones bent on waging our destruction
Drills hard against the hearts of heroes called here to defend
I see storms on the horizon I see the Tempest at the gates
I see storms on the horizon, and a Citadel alone
Clinging brave, defying fate
And I will stand here at the gates to face the onslaught fighting
Without surrender or defeat )

The Seraphs (Ethernaut)
Windbringer (Dreamcypher)
Sophia (Dreamcypher) (Raif’s Song)

( Do not injustice to another,
Defend the weak & innocent
May truth & honor always guide you
Let courage find a life within
Stand up when no one else is willing
Act not in anger or in spite
Be to this world as a perfect Knight
even if it means your life...!
Here I am, alive among the injured and the dead.)

Ariadne (Dreamcypher)
Sleepwalking (Dreamcypher)
Memorare (Dreamcypher)
Birthday (Dreamcypher)(Brennan’s Song)

( You roll out of bed, look in the mirror and wonder who you are-
Another year has come and gone.
Today is your birthday but it might be...
the last day of your life
so what will you do if tomorrow, it's all gone?
You won't be young forever... )

Aten-Ra (The Mystery of the Whisper)

The Crystal Method (@CrystalMethod)
(just for the sheer energy of this music! almost better than caffeine--almost !)

Kling to the Wreckage (Divided by Night) (feat. She Wants Revenge)
Play for Real (Single EP released with LaMachinima on YouTube)
Smile? (Divided by Night)
Sine Language (feat. LMFAO) (Divided by Night)
Double Down Under (Divided by Night)
Come Back Clean (Divided by Night)
Dirty Thirty (Divided by Night)
Slipstream (Divided by Night)
Busy Child (Vegas)
Keep Hope Alive (Vegas)
Vapor Trail (Vegas) (my personal favorite)
She’s My Pusher (Vegas)
PHD (Tweekend)
Wild, Sweet and Cool (Tweekend) (amusing little graphic novel parody vid)
You Know It’s Hard (You Know it’s Murder) (Tweekend)
Name of the Game (Tweekend)
Ready for Action (Tweekend)
Ten Miles Back (Tweekend) (amazing poppers on the YT vid, even b4 the FX)

Where Does #ConditionedResponse Get its Title? #indie #writing #amwriting

2012-04-17T08:29:00.000-04:00

I usually get my titles from a line in the book, a piece of dialog or some turn of phrase I really like. The one thing all my titles--chapter titles, book titles, any titles--have in common is that they always have more than one meaning. Titles might even have more than one source.

This book originally was called Problem 4368: The Community of Trouville and the book really focused more on Problem 4368 (the machine-to-man subplot) than it did anything else. When I created Raif in 2005, as I've said everywhere, he really took over the page, the book, the series! Because his influence was so strong, I ended up with a second reference in the book to the phrase "conditioned response" which tied the original machine to the Proctors I'd created in a kind of subliminal way. That is, both the men and machines were being "programmed" or "conditioned" and I juxtaposed the way the machine here was going to become more of a man than the Proctors were being allowed to be.

The machine is called Charlie. He gets his name from the acronym of his designation: Conditioned Human Response Series machine, Rev E, or CHR-E. The idea of his design was that a Turing machine can and will learn to respond to situations in a "conditioned" manner.

The book, once Proctor Raif hit the stage, took another turn into conditioning. Proctors minds are manipulated and even used to turn these men into weapons--without their knowledge or consent. Human trafficking is a big issue to me, personally, so making the Proctors slaves really was important to me but they're also highly-skilled soldiers so I had to balance a fine-edged sword there. I had to figure out how to make them both. Conditioned responses were my answer. Proctors are programmed....like machines, not men.

One of the manners in which Proctors are programmed is referred to as "planting a trigger." It's like being hypnotized and having a post-hypnotic suggestion planted in your mind. A trigger is a directive to carry out a set of instructions--and he'll carry out the directive or die trying. To resist a trigger would destroy him, mentally. It's a do or die directive. I've handily "disabled" the Proctors' survival instinct, their natural instinct for self-preservation, so they will self-destruct trying to carry out a trigger's directive.

Bearing all this in mind, when I got to the following paragraph in the book (near the end), I knew I had my title--my new title.

“No.” She shook her head. “Not me, the trigger. I couldn’t stop the trigger in his head from firing.”

Brennan leaned back and the other two Proctors took a small step away from her. It was a conditioned response. The word “trigger” held that kind of power over Proctors. Distance yourself from a trigger. A man with a trigger in his head cannot control his actions. He might be programmed to kill you without warning and without regard for his own life.

What do you think? Did I pick the right title? :) Too late now. It's emblazoned on Raif's mind and there's no fixing that anymore! Read a free sample of the book on Smashwords by clicking here. The book's official release date is this coming weekend, April 20, 2012, but you can already find it on sale at Smashwords and the Amazon Kindle store (for Kindle UK, click here).

-Friday

Guest Blog @BenWallace Books: Memory Mapping & Thinking Machines

2011-08-09T08:06:00.002-04:00

The below content was prepared as a guest post for the Fascinations + Inspirations Blog at Benjamin Wallace Books. Reprinted here with permission. Enjoy! -Friday

Thinking Machines – Science Fiction or Science Fact?
by Marjorie F. Baldwin

When Ben Wallace invited me to do one of these guest blogs, I choked. I mean, I wanted the opportunity, but what the heck was I going to write about exactly? Then I recalled the words of the venerable John W. Campbell: Science fiction should be equal parts science and fiction—but do notice which word comes first! That’s when I knew. I’d just take one of the areas of science I used in my technothriller books (The Phoenician Series) and talk about that. Funny thing is, Ben sent me an email just minutes after this suggesting the same exact thing. Great minds think alike!

One area of science I’ve speculated on throughout all of the books in the series is “memory mapping.” I start out in the opening scene of the first chapter of the first book I’m editing with a reference to someone’s mind having been “Adjusted” (and I can tell you, it just gets more involved from there!) Not only do I explore mapping a human’s memory—and Adjusting it—but I delve into the age-old scifi dream of taking a human mind (every thought, every memory, every little detail about the person’s psyche that makes them unique) and putting that “mind” into another body, presumably a better body. I don’t use robot bodies, though, as they aren’t really better than a human, are they? Phoenician bodies, now, they’re better, but you’ll have to read the books to find out how and why.

I had a lot of areas to look at: the question of identity, of how thought works, of how memory is stored, and more. I chose to focus on memory mapping back in the 1970s when I was a teenager and first read about the work Alan Turing had done. I was a big fan of Asimov’s robot books so I looked into non-fiction to tell me about “Thinking Machines” at least, inasmuch as a kid in the 1970s could learn about such things. Turing was the first one, I think, to allude to the fact that human thought, essentially, is just a series of electrical impulses, so if we could “map” those impulses and “imprint” them onto a computer circuit (this was the 60s, okay? that was very scifi of him to suggest), we could reproduce human thought on a computer. Turing called these mythical machines “Thinking Machines.” We now call them “supercomputers,” but for a while they were called “Turing Machines.” There are even tests one can do to prove—or disprove—sentience. The Turing test remains the standard today.

I actually interviewed with a company called Thinking Machines in the Kendall Square part of Cambridge, Massachusetts, back in the 1980s. I was still a secretary, hadn’t yet gone to college, but they headhunted me. To this day, I have no clue how they found me. I got a call at my day job—working at Teradyne, an Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) company dominating the semi-conductor test industry. My boss was not amused when I told him (on three different occasions!) that I was interviewing at Thinking Machines. I’m nothing if not honest.

I was a little disappointed to discover their MIT-intellectual snobbery prevented hiring me. My boss was delighted, though I think that’s when he first realized I’d been writing these books using the Teradyne computers during my lunch hour. Hey, it was the 1980s. The “fancy” 8088 Intel processor machines were expensive! Hundreds of dollars, at least (LOL). By the time I went to college ten years later to study engineering, Thinking Machines was out of business but three of my series books were completed and dozens of engineers at Teradyne who’d been reading them were sad to see me go. Karma’s a bitch, huh?

Thinking Machines—the Turing concept from the 60s—haven’t ever been fully-realized in our daily lives. The closest we’ve come is to build parallel processors by using multiple processor chips (like multiple desktop PCs) on one printed circuit board. Then we sort of daisy-chain them all together to pretend the machine can do multiple tasks at once, in parallel.

Since they aren’t communicating with each other or sharing data, they aren’t truly “thinking” the way we envision thought. We tend to imagine thought as taking multiple sensory inputs and coalescing them all into one cohesive concept. A thought. A series of thoughts, actually. For instance, let’s say we enter a room and look for a place to sit down. We notice a vacant chair on the other side of the room. What’s happened? A lot! Automatically, our brains began processing data when we entered the room. We incorporated the fact that there is a room, something is in it called a “chair,” that the chair looks solid, it is X number of feet away, it is not currently in use, it is close or far—distance being a relative concept, we humans naturally relate it in our minds and notice if there’s another chair—closer, making it “better” or further making it “worse.” The list goes on. We automatically incorporate huge amounts of data into a single, cohesive thought, There’s an empty chair across the room I could sit down in. And we do it in a split second.

How? Electrical impulses in our brain fly across cells in a regular, but complex manner. Regular enough that someone like Turing—or myself—insisted the pattern could be mapped. Complex enough that no one’s been able to do it. Yet. When we do, I’m certain in my gut, someone’s going to figuring out how to create a map of your memory—or remap it, as I call it, and then some nefarious evil-doer will find a way to Adjust your thinking. Adjustments are just modified electrical pathways, but that’s not a very nice thing to do to a person, is it? It’s just so easy!

Our brains leave little chemical trails whenever we have a thought, like ants do in the physical world to find their way around. We call these chemical trails memory tracks. When we dredge up a memory, we retrace those tracks. The more often we trace and retrace, the more solidly emplaced is the memory. My proposition, with Adjustments, is that it would be possible to fake a memory track, to force the chemical reaction that would form the trail and then nudge the brain’s natural pattern onto the false trail so the pathway gets reinforced. It’s not that far-fetched. Or that hard—except we have no clue what one trail does versus another. The reality is, we have no clue what any of the brain’s pathways do! We like to claim we know this piece of grey matter does this and that one does something else. Reality is, we don’t actually know for sure.

Robots are way kewel to read about in scifi, but they aren’t nearly as glamorous (yet) in real life. In reality, we still have to turn to studying humans to figure out how “thought” works, and as it turns out, back in the 1950s someone named Jose Delgado did some very exciting experiments. Specifically, he tried to “map” human thought (horrifyingly he experimented on both humans and apes; hey, it was the 50s). Delgado “proved” (there’s still debate today about his proof but his brain chips are, in fact, used by epilepsy patients to control seizures so he wasn’t a total quack) that human thought really is just a series of impulses—many millions of parallel series but just impulses nonetheless. He didn’t successfully map anything but the neural networks computer scientists later explored (and now have microminiaturized to the atomic level!) were based on much of Delgado’s work in mapping the human brain and how the brain “thinks” (how the electrical impulses behave when the conscious being is subjected to known stimulii). Delgado managed to repeat his experimental results so as far as I’m concerned, he proved his theory. He was just about 100 years before his time, maybe 200 years!

In Conditioned Response, I’m going to “create” a Thinking Machine. Predictably, I called it the “Conditioned Human Response” machine, Series E, or “CHR-E.” Or for us humans, Charlie. He’s going to “install” the memory map of selected data from the machine into the organic grey matter and then…think. Like Delgado suggested.

To learn more about how Charlie—or any other thinking machine—works, in my far-future world, be sure to check out my chapters as well as some of the links I’ve provided below for further reading. Big thanks to Ben for letting me blather on and promote my scifi technothriller books in the process.

Marjorie F. Baldwin (or Friday) is a pen name under which will be published a series of scifi technothriller books set in the far future, involving alien/human cultures, genetic engineering at multiple levels, artificial lifeforms of several kinds, and memory manipulation at its best and worst. The books are scheduled to begin release in December, 2011 via Smashwords. You can read sample chapters by visiting the Harper Collins writer’s community web site, Authonomy and get news about the series on The Phoenician Series Blog. Communicate directly with Friday by “Liking” The Phoenician Series on Facebook or following her on twitter (@phoenicianbooks).

Suggested Further Reading

Inc. Magazine explains why Thinking Machines (the company) failed to succeed, despite the explosion of the market they created (and despite Marvin Minksy’s personal involvement!) The article also makes an eerie connection to genetics engineering (eerie in that I had the same exact thought before I even knew about the connection).

http://www.inc.com/magazine/19950915/2622.html

Scientific American Magazine has a fabulous article from September, 2005 where they delved into Delgado’s experiments of the 1950s, just prior to the era when lobotomies became “standard” treatment for those few horrifying years of mental health care. They even have pictures (only of the Great Apes he experimented on; none of his human subjects are pictured *whew*)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-forgotten-era-of-brai

Scientific American Magazine also moderated a discussion (validating respondents and publishing on those replies from certified and credentialed researchers) on the question of neural network computers becoming “smart” – or as I’ve been putting it, evolving into “Thinking Machines.”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-neural-network-comput

You’ll be correct if you suspect that some of the SciAm readership wondered if Skynet could or would become real one day. Little did they know it already exists! (see this Wiki article to read about the UK military satellite constellation amusingly dubbed “Skynet” and yes, the Brits at Paradigm knew what they were doing when they named it. The wankers.

Coming Soon!

2011-07-19T10:53:00.005-04:00

The first book in The Phoenician Series to be released will be Conditioned Response. It is actually the second book in the internal chronology of the series. The first book hasn't even been written yet so don't ask where it is but don't worry either. You won't need to have read it in order to get hooked on the series. Conditioned Response is infectious and addictive--like any conditioned response, you'll find it "unputdownable" and then want more!

Four other books in the series were written during the period 1986-1990, and two short stories in the same universe were added in 1990-1992 when even I, the author, just couldn't leave this universe behind. The books were submitted to and solicited by an editor at Del Rey, reviewed by him and returned with requests to make changes.

I was young, inexperienced and didn't understand that this is unheard of for a first-time author. Later, when speaking with published, well-established authors in the industry, I would hear awe in their voices that I managed to get a request for changes upon my very first submittal--instead of a flat rejection like they and everyone else has typically gotten for a first book. Conditioned Response, in its original form, was the first full-length novel I ever wrote. I am not only proud of it, but it holds a special and cherished place in my heart. Like any first-born child, I offer it up with the hope it will survive out there in the strange new world it finds. Be kind to it when you meet ^_^

Final edits are being conducted in the month of December, 2011 and release is still scheduled for New Year's Eve, December 31, 2011. However, I will hold the release date unless or until the final galleys are proofed. Even if it's "just an eBook" released by "just an Indie Publisher," it's still a Phoenician Book and as the flagship series for the new company I'm founding to produce this and other great SF stories I've written (as well as by other authors I've met over the years), my standards are high. I'd rather delay release a month to make the book 100% error-free than rush to market with a text where typos abound. Why?

When I pick up a book from the library that was released by one of the Big Six publishers, I have the reasonable expectation that there are not going to be typos, grammatical errors or just plain wrong words, so when I see those things, it's infuriating. I don't do that with my books; how can they get away with taking 85% of the cover price and not even bothering to copyedit, let alone proofread? What are they spending all that money on? Cover art? Probably--that and buying the shelf space in the bookstores (which yes, you have to pay huge sums of money for if you want a high-traffic location).

The only thing saving a typo-filled book from hitting the wall is the fact it belongs to the library, not me. If I've paid good hard money for a book and it turns out to have errors in its production, I get so angry that yes, I red-pen it at first and will eventually throwing it at the wall, unfinished, if the errors persist. It appalls me that the Big Six traditional publishers still put out error-ridden books. By founding Phoenician Books, I'm vowing to never ever do that to my readers. After all, if you throw your Kindle, Nook or other Tablet eReader at the wall, you might do real damage to the wall--and the book won't fare so well either! *haha*

If you'd like to get updated news about the release date for Conditioned Response, just use one of the widgets in the sidebar to the right to subscribe to this blog and/or follow me (@phoenicianbooks) on Twitter or "Like" The Phoenician Series on Facebook. Twitter and Facebook will be updated more often than the blog but I'll deliver all of your freebies and specials here, so I advise you to follow all three. See? There's always a Plan! Hey, I had to say it. That's the tagline of the series (and they'll know if I deviate from the Plan. They always know! *muahaha*)

-Friday