Tara Maya's Tales

Special Spice: Alliteration

2013-06-19T06:45:00.000-07:00

A guest post by Rayne Hall

Several words close together starting with the same sound can either empower your writing or spoil it, so use this technique with thought.

Here are some examples of skilfully applied alliterations from famous books:

...the foam-flakes flew over her bulwarks.... (Moby-Dick by Herman Melville)

… the baked red ruts of the road.... (The Beaver Road by Dave Duncan)

A sliver of soft sunlight pierced a crack in the silk drapes (Panic by Jeff Abbot)

… tokens of the mitred, martyred St Thomas (Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin)

….the all-over tan, the tailored teeth... (How to Kill Your Husband and other Handy Household Hints by Kathy Lette)

Fires were a common occurrence, leaving more and more buildings blackened and boarded, and discarded drug paraphernalia clogged garbage-filled gutters. (Two for the Dough by Janet Evanovich)

Alliteration is an effective technique for creating impact. If you want to emphasise a sentence, perhaps for an emotional revelation or a shocking twist, or make the reader remember a certain phrase, try alliteration to make the section poignant and punchy.

The English language is perhaps the best language in the world for alliterations. The earliest literature in the English language used a lot of alliterations (e.g. Beowulf).

Alliterations are highly effective for audiobooks, performances and reading aloud. It also works superbly in humour, in poetry, for public speeches, for slogans, headlines and titles.

Next time you're stuck for a title for a story, play with alliterations. Examples: Pride and Prejudice, Famous Five, Sense and Sensibility, The Pickwick Papers, Love's Labour's Lost, The War of the Worlds, Nicholas Nickleby, The Wind in the Willows, Of Mice and Men.

In poetry, you can use a different alliteration for every line. Alternatively, you can use a different alliteration for every couplet (two lines) or stanza (paragraph), or you can use the same alliteration for the whole poem. Another option is to sprinkle pairs of alliterate words throughout the poem. A famous poem using frequent but subtle alliterations is The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe: http://www.heise.de/ix/raven/Literature/Lore/TheRaven.html

In prose, it's best to use alliteration sparingly, no more than four words in a sentence, and not in every sentence. It often works well in setting descriptions, but not in dialogue.

Caution: strings of alliterations can be silly. This may be the effect you want if you write humour, but for most kinds of prose it's better to use alliterations sparingly.

Some sounds have psychological effects on the reader/listener. 'W' is good for powerful nature and wild weather. 'B' is good for blunt bold aggression. 'D' is good for sadness and defeat. 'J'/'Ch' is good for jolly cheerful moods. 'Sn' can serve to hint at sneaky, untrustworthy people. 'Tr' suggests traps and troubles. 'R' creates urgency and speed and is perfect for fast-paced scenes. 'S' can create spooky effects, useful in ghost stories. 'P' hints at authority, force, masculinity or pompousness. 'L' suggests sensuality, laziness or leisure. Consider choosing alliterative sounds for their psychological effects.

How much alliteration you use is one of the aspects of your voice. You may like to use a lot, very little or none at all. Treat alliteration as a special spice: a pinch adds flavour, but too much spoils the meal.

About Rayne Hall

Rayne Hall has published more than forty books under different pen names with different publishers in different genres, mostly fantasy, horror and non-fiction. Recent books include Storm Dancer (dark epic fantasy novel), 13 British Horror Stories, Six Scary Tales Vol 1, 2, 3, 4 (creepy horror stories), Six Historical Tales (short stories), Six Quirky Tales (humorous fantasy stories), Writing Fight Scenes, The World-Loss Diet, Writing About Villains, Writing About Magic and Writing Scary Scenes (instructions for authors).

She holds a college degree in publishing management and a masters degree in creative writing. Currently, she edits the Ten Tales series of multi-author short story anthologies: Bites: Ten Tales of Vampires, Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts, Scared: Ten Tales of Horror, Cutlass: Ten Tales of Pirates, Beltane: Ten Tales of Witchcraft, Spells: Ten Tales of Magic, Undead: Ten Tales of Zombies and more.

Rayne has lived in Germany, China, Mongolia and Nepal and has now settled in a small dilapidated town of former Victorian grandeur on the south coast of England.

The Day My Son Discovered Death

2013-06-17T07:39:00.001-07:00

I have three sons, who are six (almost seven), four (almost five) and three. Their usual conversations involve stories about dinosaurs and potty jokes. Yesterday, however, they startled me.

The boys were fighting--hardly unusual--but when I went to break it up, my middle son turned to me and said, "Mommy, I wish you'd never had [Youngest Son]. You did a bad thing, Mommy! Because now [Oldest Son] loves him and hates me!"

I cuddled him and the other two boys crept near to hear what I would say. I was a little angry, I admit, because I knew exactly what had precipitated this outburst.

I said to my oldest son, "Do you see how upset your brother is? This is because of the comments you've been making lately, saying one of your brothers is great and the other is a bad guy. That's not nice to either of your brothers. It turns them against each other, and that's not fair to them. Imagine how you would feel if someone else said those things about you."

I repeated some of his comments verbatim, but with his name, concluding, "How would you feel about that?"

He started crying.

Then I turned to my middle child and said, "Your younger brother loves. And you love him. Why would you let someone else destroy that? All of you are brothers. You all love each other. You're all on the same team."

Youngest brother was oblivious to the drama and enthusiastically threw himself on middle brother to give him a hug. Or maybe it was a tackle. Anyway, there were hugs all around, and the crises passed.

It was not forgotten, however.

That night, after the younger ones had fallen asleep, my oldest one started sobbing in his bed. I heard and went to check on him. He said his thoughts had made him sad.

"What thoughts?" I asked.

"I can't remember the games I used to play before [Youngest Son] was born," he said. "What if in the future I forget all the games I know now too? What about in the future when I stop living here and I don't have a Mommy and Daddy anymore? And what about when everything goes away?"

Ah, I thought sadly. He's discovered death.

Of course, the children already knew that if you are hit by a car, you will "die." But they also know that zombies and sword-wielding pirate skeletons are "dead," so it's all kind of relative to them. My oldest, though, he figured out this year that there's no Santa Clause or Easter Bunny, "It's just parents." He figured out, "Magic is isn't real."

And that includes not coming back as a zombie after death. Not coming back at all. Going away.

And he's discovered, too, that death, the great going-away, is not just a one-time thing that happens to the body, but the slow robbery committed by time of everything familiar, even your self.

He hugged me and said, "I don't want to stop being six years old. I don't want to stop being me. I don't want you to die. I don't want you to leave me."

Many times, a parent can comfort a child by saying, "What you fear is not real. You don't have to worry. I will protect you."

But sometimes, all a parent can say is, "I know. I'm sorry. I'll always love you."

"Even after you die?" he asked.

"Yes," I promised, "Even then."

Price Fixing Books Destroys Literature

2013-06-16T21:49:00.002-07:00

Quebec is considering fixing book prices, joining nations like France, Sweden, Mexico, Argentina, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Switzerland, Israel, and Belgium.

The hearings on fixed prices for new releases are a direct result of lobbying efforts by the One Price for Books campaign, launched on August 22 of last year. Organized by a roundtable of major book industry players and backed by several high-profile writers and artists.... For the past 15 years, the industry has been requesting that lawmakers fix book prices.

The excuses given are the usual claptrap:

(1) "to prevent operators of big-box stores from cannibalizing small bookstore sales with deep discounts"
(2) "to stop the spate of bookstore closings"
(3) because the "book industry is fragile"
(4) "to protect its bibliodiversity"

These are thin disguises for the real motivation of the campaign, which is to stop competition from new formats (digital) and new authors (indies and small presses). When corporations scheme together to fix prices, the result is collusion and monopoly. When corporations (usually the very same ones) scheme with pocket politicians to fix prices, the result is... collusion and monopoly.

Make no mistake. The goal of price fixing is not to protect bibliodiversity. It is to crush bibliodiversity. The Big Publishers behind the campaigns for price fixing know this very well, of course. What's frustrating is some authors are taken in by the prettified rhetoric.

To see why, examine this graph, which I've borrowed off the blog from Kevin McLaughlin (where it appeared in a different context):

Indie authors, it is well known, flourish by offering their books at low prices. Some indies mistakenly think that this is exploitation of indie authors. Wrong. Indie authors are unknown to readers. Low (or free) prices can tempt a reader to take a chance on unknown authors, or on books that might have more grammar errors or less than professional covers. For a new author, Big Publishers can buy coop and advertising and send out hundreds of galleys well ahead of publication, they can pay for speaking tours and fancy gimmicks, all of which makes the readers feel familiar and comfortable with buying the book. Indies can't do any of these things, generally. They have one card to play, and that's price.

The indies use price to even the playing field and lure readers into taking a chance. After the readers have been wooed, then everything changes. My latest release, STRAT, hit the Top Twenty in two genre charts after I released it, despite having no reviews on any bookselling site yet, because by now I've built up a modest readership who were interested in buying it. But I gained most of those readers by offering the first book of my Unfinished Song series for free. And even now, I've kept the price of STRAT low, to encourage readers who don't know me to try it out.

Laws such as those proposed in Quebec are slyly but precisely aimed to knock players like me out of the arena. Take a look at the proposed law: all books would HAVE to have the same price in the first nine months after release. How many of those books in the green columns on the above chart would be there if the Big Publishers and their purchased politicians had their way? They are betting--not as many. That's exactly what they are lobbying for.

It's estimated that by 2016, 50% of the US book market will be digital. Europe and Asia are far behind. Why? In part because of collusion between Big Publisher and governments, of the kind being attempted in Quebec. In some European countries the taxes on ebooks are astronomical compared to the taxes on print books, leading to the absurd situation that it's more expensive to purchase 0's and 1's than dead trees. As always, protectionism and monopoly leads to the strangulation of innovation, competition and new technology.

The people who gain are the big corporations, the 1% of authors who are already established, and the rich who can afford any price for books. The people who suffer are the little guys, the young, new and unknown authors, and the poor, who can't afford to move into digital ereaders, which would vastly open up their reading vistas.

Finally, the other kind of diversity squashed by price fixing is the diversity of art itself. Niche markets cannot operate on economies of scale like big, popular genres. The rise of ebooks has not only allowed more authors than ever to make a living from their creative work, but it has expanded and deepened the diversity of topics, genres, and sub-genres that authors are free to explore.

When innovation is crushed by corporate and political collusion, literature as a whole suffers.

"Dad, I don't care about money"

2013-06-16T09:10:00.003-07:00

When I was about twelve, I remember having a conversation with my Dad about What I Was Going To Do With My Life.

I said, "I'm going to be a writer."

After he stopped laughing, he said, "Okay, now be serious. What are you going to do with your life?"

He explained that only the most skilled of writers could actually make a living at it, and since I couldn't even spell (still true), obviously, that did not include me. So, if I wanted to make any money, I needed to be "realistic" and pick a more lucrative career. I then retorted, alone with every aspiring artist everywhere and everywhen,

"Dad, I don't care about money. I just want to be happy!"

:D

A lot has changed since then. Dad has come around to my point of view. He decided that after a life-time of towing the line, he only wanted to be happy, so he changed gender and is now a woman, and also finally published his secret fantasy novel.

Oh, the irony.

But meanwhile, now a parent myself, I've come around to my Dad's point of view, that, really, all things being equal, making money turns out to be fairly crucial to that whole Feeding The Hungry Brood part of life. I don't like telling kids that I have to cancel swimming lessons because I didn't sell enough books this month. Not that I'm willing to give up on being a novelist. I just wish I'd had more advice about how to balance art and business along the way.

It's been my experience that those who are pro-business scorn art, and those who are pro-art, scorn business. There are even few other authors, already successful, who are willing to explain in a calm and sensible manner that yes, you can make a living as a writer.

In fact, a lot artists, writers, poets, painters and such not only oppose making any money personally, the oppose the idea of anyone at all making money, they oppose the whole capitalist system.

I came across an interesting article by Robert Nozick seeking to explain why intellectuals oppose capitalism. In a nutshell, verbally smart kids do well in school, and expect to do well after they graduate...but often don't. Even if they land a lucrative career in academia, they don't become billionaires like entrepreneurs with good coding skills. Then they get resentful.

That's an interesting theory. I think it's missing a few bits, however.

For instance, I didn't exactly do well in school. In elementary school, I'd miss 18 out of 20 spelling words on the test and get an Unhappy Face on my report card. (My elementary school didn't use Letter Grades because that might make us feel bad....uh, how do you think a seven year old thinks about a giant Unhappy Face and being made to stay in recess?) I took Algebra three times and never did get higher than a D. In college, I nearly flunked a course when I blew off finals to write a novel. I was possessed by my muse...what was I supposed to do? Wait to write it, and miss my moment of inspiration, which I well knew would never come again?! Pah!

I think that we humans have two standards to dealing with others. One is for dealing with family and close friends. A friend in need is a friend indeed. A fair weather friend is no friend at all. True love is in sickness and in health, for better or worse. You commit whole-heartedly to those you love. You love them whether they are poor or rich, sick or healthy, reviled or respected.... if you don't, it's not real love.

The second way is for dealing with total strangers. That's where money comes in. If you are a decent person, you deal fairly with strangers, giving them value for their money, being honest in your transactions, and relying on mutual self-interest to ensure the other party will do the same. If someone cheats you, you never deal with that person again, and warn others against him as well.

Both systems of morality are important, but they are completely different. Imagine if you had the attitude that if your child lied to you, you wouldn't ever do business with them again.

Parent: Did you wash your hands already already?
Child: (hides dirty, sticky hands behind back quickly) Yes!

Uh, that wouldn't last long.

Anyone who has had a newborn in the house knows that if you didn't love your children irrationally, you would behave like a lizard parent, just to get a full night's sleep, and eat them in the first week.

My theory is that our artistic creations, art and novels and such, are the children of our mind. We must love them even if no one else can. Because if we didn't love our art just as irrationally as we love our children, we wouldn't keep at it for the 10,000 hours we need to produce works that outsiders are finally capable of recognizing as worthwhile.

The first picture you drew, the first story you wrote, the first work of art you tried to produce, no matter what the medium, was, I guarantee you, crap. Except, of course, to your parents, who stuck in on the refrigerator with an Alphabet magnet. If you were lucky, no one tried to inform you of the market value of those pieces until you were at least into puberty.

Because of that, we disdain and scorn making art for money. It seems...uncouth. Not real art. It would be like parents who said, "We're going to have a kid to raise some cash." Wtf...? They should be arrested! An artist or writer who says, "I'm only going to work on that project if it makes a lot of money" is the epitome of slime. (Never mind that there are plenty of them.) And the strange thing is, those who love their art actually achieve greatness more often than those who are trying to turn it into a cash-cow right from the start. So our scorn feels justified.

But once we have put in our 10,000 hours , and the work we produce no longer looks like scribbles, I'd say it's time to put aside that scorn.

Not while we are in the throes of creation itself. That's a process like childbirth, and really, the only thing to focus on at that point is to push that product our. (Ok, that's a very maternal metaphor, so for you dads; hold onto your muse's hand while she's in labor, even if she almost breaks your arm.) (I'm not sure that metaphor was better... moving on....)

But at some point, we can put on our business hats without betraying our art. And we can be appreciative that we live in a free market society where we can sell our art on an open market, as opposed to ninety-five percent of history, where we would have had to sleep with our patron and/or praise tyrants you loathe to publish anything.

Art and business do not have to be enemies. They can be allies.

Anyway, that's what you can tell Dad next time he asks you What Are You Are Going To Do With Your Life.

Barnes and Noble Firesale on Nooks

2013-06-15T17:32:00.001-07:00

Rumor has it that Barnes and Noble is planning to give up direct production of the Nook. Microsoft might take it over, or a breakaway child-company.

The firesale on Nooks seems to lend credence to this rumor. The upside though is that you can get Nooks at incredible prices right now

Wouldn't that make a great Father's Day Present for dad or hubby? Hehehe. My husband got his three days ago, a little early! (He is the nook fanatic, and I'm the kindle girl.) I also bought him Daddy's Little Princess... sequel to the equally poignant yet side-splittingly hilarious Vader and Son.

Of Mechs And Men

2013-06-11T07:35:00.000-07:00

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Sulphurygenby *Shue13

In yesterday’s post, I discussed the pre-existent ideas about the future that a sf author should be aware of when world-building. In fact, if you think of these as a series of scales or levers, just answering these questions can toss up an interesting setting for a SF story.

Questions:
1. Will artificial intelligence ever expand, change, or overtake human intelligence?
2. How might we travel Faster Than Light?
3. What would be the biggest challenges to establish colonies on other worlds?
4. Has life evolved more than once? Do aliens exist? If so, how might they interact with humanity?
5. How will genetic engineering change what it means to be human?
6. What social, political, and military changes will emerge in response to new technology and new discoveries?

I’m going to talk about the decisions I made while building the STRAT universe, and explain them.

1. Artificial Intelligence

STRAT is a story about artificial intelligence… but not hypersmart robots. In fact, even though “mechs” are an important part of the story, they are not Transformer type mechs, with human intelligence and a taste for pop music. Nor are they Kill All Humans obsessed Terminators. They are merely tools that extend the fighting leverage of human soldiers.

This isn't to say that mechs never turn on humans. During training for the Galactic War, the hero and his platoon are taught two different ways to program strats into their mechs, one using "chained tactics" and the other, "freestyle."

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Chained tactics meant you stacked a decision tree with a long list of tactics, and the mechs followed that order of operations. You could program complex stratagems that way, creating traps and bluffs and long-term deployments. The downside was that if any of your planning assumptions were wrong, your whole decision tree would be hacked down at the root, and the long chain of tactics would be worthless, leaving the mechs helpless to readjust without direct oversight.

Freestyle tactics meant that you gave your mechs a multitude of short decision trees, and let them shuffle through the tactics randomly as they traversed the combat terrain, learning on their own which worked best. The drawback was that freestyle mechs took a while to learn what worked, so they could be sucker-punched by the other side. Worse yet, sometimes they learned wrong.

Mechs operating freestyle could screw you up royally, if they fell into a bad rut, which sometimes happened for no obvious reason. Sometimes they even turned on each other, or worse, on you. When you had your own mechs bite you in the arse like that once or twice, you tended to shy away from freestyle. But despite a few spectacular screw-ups, freestyle mechs usually beat chained mechs in most dust-ups. The longer and more chaotic the engagement, the more likely freestyle mechs were to triumph over mechs chained to a pre-ordained decision tree.

Even freestyle mechs are tools, however, not people made of metal.

The real artificial intelligence tech in the story is “meme” tech, the ability to store and transfer memory from one mind to another. In addition to meme tech, there are also two other forms of neural adjustment technology: emotivation, which is imprinting an emotional state or attitude (i.e. loyalty to a lord, or love for a husband); and mindwiping, which is turning a human into an obedient doll... programmable much like a mech.

Is meme tech all-powerful and irresistible? Is human nature like plastic in the hands of the architects of direct neural propaganda? Or does reality bite back? That's the question.

2. Faster Than Light Space Travel

In the STRAT universe, I hypothesize two types of FTL transportation. One is the old stand-by in SF, the wormhole, or “jump gate,” suitable for large ships at the edge of star systems. The other, which is called a “synapse,” works on the principle of quantum entanglement. Neither idea is new to SF. What was important to me was to choose a method that could conceivably evolve and improve over the course of time.

ArthurBlue

3. Colonies in space

Since FTL travel is possible, colonies on other planets are also possible. (In this particular series, I don't explore anything more exotic than other planets--that's for another book...) Here I hypothesized that in seeking another world, the single most important “Earth-like” quality humans would seek would be the right gravity. They have no easy way to create that in the STRAT universe, whereas if they can create spaceships, I figure, they can also create self-sufficient archologies that have air, water, plants and living space for humans.

Because of this, planets which might seem inimical to human life, like Neraka, with its atmosphere, glaciers, volcanoes, and seas all oozing sulfur dioxide, are colonized. Neraka is not easy to terraform, but it has the right gravity, so that makes it “habitable.” Ironically, this means that once established there, the denizens are condemned to mad scramble for breathable gases. They mine oxygen and carbon from the rocks, to keep themselves and their crops alive. Mass asphyxia, not famine, has been the great killer in times of want.

4. Aliens

Aliens, and their relationship to humanity, are extremely important in STRAT, but not in the usual way. That’s because the aliens do not (usually) interact with humans, so their influence is felt only at arm’s length. Who the aliens really are and what they want, and whether they work for humanity’s harm or benefit, are huge questions in the background of the novel. STRAT is in many ways a straightforward military adventure novel, but this was an element that I wanted to remain ambiguous and uncertain, as real life is ambiguous and uncertain.

5. Genetic Changes to Humanity

It’s possible that humans on other planets would change their own genetic make-up rather than their environment. After all, it’s easier to manipulate DNA—we can do that already to some extent—than change the weather…at least in the direction we want! However, I treat this conservatively in STRAT. Humans prefer to genetically engineer microscopic symbionts to help them adapt to poisonous environments. They also use genetic engineering on animals, such as the mouse-cows that provide miner families with fresh milk, or the unicorns that adorn the gardens of the nobility.

The main ways that human groups differ from each other are the accidental and incidental results of the separation of different lineages over long periods of time. Racial differences, in other words. These are not important, except as a cause social friction: “Sagittarians and Cygnians,” the hero observes, “differ from one another in subtle ways, the cast of the eye, the tint of the skin, trivial divergences that fools make much of.” (He also finds that decapitation does marvels for discouraging attacks by racist hooligans.)

tman2009

6. Social Changes to Humanity

Social change is really at the heart of STRAT. Many SF stories take a snapshot of the future…the technology is already different, and people have adjusted to this new way of life. Often, if the author is good, the characters take their amazing new abilities and circumstances for granted. However, I wanted to show a society experiencing an accelerated rate of change. There are a few authors who have done this well, and they happen to be among my favorites: Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, of course; Haldeman’s Forever War; Olaf Stapledon’s First and Last Men and Star Maker; Stephan Baxter’s Evolution....

Where else would change be most rapid, most obvious, and most lethal, than in war? That’s why I wanted STRAT to be specifically military SF. What if a millennia worth of change in military technology all occurred within the lifetime of one man? How would he deal with that? It’s said that generals are always prepared to fight the last war. In the STRAT universe, that’s a particular danger, because both military and social technologies are changing so rapidly.

It’s hard enough to show change. It’s even harder show change accelerating. It’s hardest of all to show accelerating future change—by definition unknown! So, I admit, I cheated a bit, and looked to the past for inspiration. This is a time-honored tradition in military SF too, by the way. The Honor Harrington series is basically Horatio Hornblower in space, StarshipTroopers references WWII, the Forever War can be read as an allegory of Vietnam, and after 911 a whole new slew of military SF featuring sneak attacks and terrorist suicide bombers emerged. In Star Wars, they fight with glowy swords. Really? Swords? Really?

Also, have you ever noticed how common monarchies and empires are in SF? What’s up with that?

Well, I can’t criticize. The society on Neraka at the beginning of STRAT is also feudal. While the hero belongs to an equalitarian, democratic clan-based society, who live as outcastes out in the “Wayout,” or wilderness, the majority of people are ruled by lords and their armsmen, who are equivalent to knights or samurai. My hero aquires a knightly weapon called a vajram, which has several modes, including a sword-form. (Though it’s really more like a slender, super-powered chainsaw.)

This is not because I actually think that the future will recapitulate the past.

The real reason I did this was so that I could show society moving from a feudal base to a more complex form—and show war grow larger in scope at the same time. However, within the story universe, the rise of “space feudalism” is explained in an faux academic Aside by “Demographic Density Theory,” or the hypothesis that when the majority of people are dispersed but tied to the land (by agriculture in Earth’s past, by mining for gases during the age of galactic exploration), they become vulnerable to bandits, and must turn to a strong central military caste for protection.

The hero too must give up the freedom he believes in to join this feudal system and fight for his abducted wife. That, however, is only the beginning of the story. For the feudal system is soon itself overturned by new technological and social developments. The question at the heart of the novel is whether freedom is sustainable, and what is required to defend it.

In the Future, We Will Look Like Zebra-Lemurs (5 Things To Remember About SF)

2013-06-10T08:49:00.000-07:00

Nickelay Lamm predicts we will have huge, lemur-like eyes in the far future. Presumably this will be driven by sexual selection from millennia of watching Anime. I added the zebra stripes. Because, really, who doesn't love zebras?

5 Things To Remember About SF

1. Science Fiction can be about the past, the present, or the future.

Short cut answers to the question, ‘what is sf?’ reach for topics typical to the genre: “SF is about the future,” or “SF is about space travel,” or “SF is about aliens.” Of course, SF doesn’t have to involve space travel or aliens, nor does it have to be set in the future. In fact, there is a whole sub-genre of SF that is set in the past: Alternate History. (One of my favorite sub-genres, in fact!) But whether it takes place in the past, the present, or the future, all science fiction deals with the question of how things change.

In a SF story, the author is proposing a thesis about change:

“If this happens, then that will happen.” (Future)

“If this had happened, then that would have happened.” (Past)

“This is happening, because that is happening.” (Present)

So is SF about predicting the future? No, not really. It’s about predicting change, but that’s not the same thing. Which brings us to our next point.

2. Science Fiction is about extrapolation, not prediction.

Prediction would be saying, “This is what the future will look like.” Humans are notoriously poor at predicting the future, and although, arguably, sf writers have done a better job than most futurists, if we judged sf works only by how many of their descriptions had been true predictions, it would be a sorry record.

Take Orwell’s 1984. The world in 1984 was not a dreary dystopia completely dominated by three warring totalitarian powers. In fact, the Soviet Union, which was most like the societies he depicted, fell only six years later. Taken as a futurist, Orwell failed.

However, that wasn’t the point of 1984. Orwell, a former Communist who was horrified by the direction he saw the ideology going once it was in power, wanted to show, in vivid and personal terms, what it would mean to live in a world where there were no longer any free societies, only rival totalitarianisms.

3. Science Fiction is about extrapolating social and technological change.

SF is about extrapolating change, but only certain kinds of change. Supposed the story question was: “What if a waitress fell in love with a billionaire?” That situation would no doubt involve change in the emotional and financial state of the waitress, but it’s obviously a better set-up question for a romance than a SF novel. Now, if the question were, “What if a waitress fell in love with a billionaire…and then she found out he was a robot?” that would clearly be SF. But why? Not just because it involves robot billionaires, which don’t yet exist (correct me if I’m wrong), but because suddenly this love story has implications far beyond the mating game of two individuals. The question of whether a human can love a robot, at least if he’s rich enough, has implications for all humanity.

Or suppose the story question was: “What if anti-gay terrorists were going to release a bomb in San Francisco?” That would make a good premise for a Thriller. But it’s not a SF question, because we already have terrorists, and anti-gay movements, and San Francisco. Now, if the question were: “What if anti-gay terrorists were going to release a bioweapon in San Francisco, using a new technology that only infected anyone with the ‘gay gene’?” That would be SF. Why? Because this premise now asks a larger question about how a new technology (such a targeted bioweapon) and/or a new discovery (the ‘gay gene’) could interact to be a game-changer in human history.

SF is about change, but that change has to have larger implications than changes to individuals, even though SF stories are, of course, about individuals. The social and technological changes indicate something critical is different from our known present.

4. Science Fiction is not written in a vacuum.

Science Fiction is not written in a vacuum, but in response to other SF and ideas about the future, the past, and technology. This has ups and down.

On the down side, you have to fight against falling into ready-made clichés. You might come up with what you think is a terrific idea, but readers immediately recognized it as a re-hash of Star Trek/Star Wars/Battlestar Galactica. You have to work hard to push past the obvious, easy answers, which are probably sloppy borrows from other SF, and search for true originality.

On the upside, as long as you are aware of the dangers of clichés, you can also lean on them strategically. You can use conventions, complete with acronyms, such as FTL drives (faster than light), without having to waste your info-investment opportunities. You focus your originality on the area that is relevant to the thesis of your book—at the heart of the issue you are interested in exploring. You can let sci-fi conventions fill in the rest of the story, the way literary writers use their readers’ knowledge of the contemporary world (and other literary works), and regency romance readers use their readers’ knowledge of Regency England to give a leg up in world-building.

David Farland calls this ‘resonance.’

For example, in Orson Scott Card’s classic military sf book, Ender’s Game, his aliens are amorphous BEM (Bug Eyed Monsters) intent on conquering the Earth. (Other books in the series may complicate that, but I’m referring to the first novel, which, after all, stands alone on its own merits.) Card is perfectly capable of building more complex, less clichéd aliens, but that was beside the point in Ender’s Game, which was about children fighting wars, not really about the aliens at all. Card could use his readers’ knowledge and expectations of BEMs as a prefabricated building block in the story structure he wanted to build.

5. Science Fiction must answer, implicitly or explicitly, current commonly held expectations about what kinds of technology will change.

Because SF is not written in a vacuum, a writer building a new story universe must address, current commonly held expectations about what kinds of technology will change. This can be don implicitly or explicitly. Keep in mind, though, that if these things aren’t explained, or explained away, readers may wonder about them:

- Artificial Intelligence

- Faster Than Light Space Travel

- Colonies in space

- Aliens

- Genetic Changes to Humanity

- Social Changes to Humanity

Suppose, for instance, you want to hypothesize a future in which humans have evolved bigger brains, lemur-like eyes, and zebra skin. Also, they all live in Antarctica, the only habitable continent left. You don’t specifically have to say that they don’t have robot servants, don’t have faster than light travel, aren’t living on another world, and haven’t met sexy aliens from Zor-la. That will be obvious in the context of the story.

But at the back of your mind, you must have answered the question of why these things don’t exist

It could be as simple as the premise that faster than light travel and aliens don’t exist, or at least still haven’t been discovered yet after another 100,000 years. In other words, your worldbuilding premise is: What if all the dreams of a Singularity, colonies in space, leaving the Earth behind, and a dramatic break with our present biology were not possible? How might we still change in 100,000 years? (Stripes! Anime eyes!) You might even allow that those things do exist… maybe at some point, humanity was divided into “Those Who Left” and “Those Who Stayed,” but this story is about the latter.

STRAT: A New Military Scifi Novel

2013-06-07T08:56:00.001-07:00

On a hell-class world where feudal lords joust with mechs and use memetic tech to imprint loyalty onto their vassals and thralls, all Charlie and his people ask is to be left alone, free to think for themselves.

Then, on his wedding day, Charlie's bride is kidnapped to be a thrall. As he fights for his life and her freedom, he discovers the war helm of an ancient and powerful lord. He needs the knowledge in the helm to bring the battle to his enemies. But if he uses it, he risks losing himself... and becoming embroiled in a war that will soon span the galaxy.

Peek inside the novel:

“Whhhhy doeth thou hhhhesitate?” the alien Sulphine queen asked.

“Sorry, ma’am.” I shook my head. “I can’t put on the helm. Not even to save my life. It will steal my mind.”

With that decision, I felt a deep peace and joy. I wasn’t scared of death no more, I just felt good.

“And what of thhy mate?” the Sulphine asked me. “Hhhumans fighhht for many thhhings thhat to us seem worthhless but yet thhou wilt not for thhy mate?”

All my fine feeling left me. I choked. The sound of them bandits flyin away with Benisse on the plane rang in my ears. There was no way I could save Benisse if I was dead. Hell, wasn’t no way I could save Benisse if I was alive neither, not unless a miracle occurred.

A miracle, like, say, findin a weapon that would let me take the fight to them what took my girl.

Shit.

I hadn’t never been sure I believed I had a soul till I had to make the choice to give it up.

To save her, you gonna have to fight them on their own terms and win.

Better to lose my life than my mind; but better to lose my mind than to lose her.

I unzipped the kit of Lord Brin. For a minute, I stared at him, or what was left of him, a skinny white skeleton grinnin at me. Once I had got to knockin his bones out of my way, I sat into the lee of the open kit. Kits is designed with smart-threads so that an old one will weave off you and a new one weave on you without exposin you to the poison gas about you. The whole lot slid on smoothly.

“Thhhou hhhast made thhhy chhhoice,” said the Sulphine “Thhhou hhhast chhhosen life. We shhhall bidhh thhhee farewell now.”

Suddenly, I was blind and in pain again. But I was breathin better and I could feel Brin’s kit and helm. Can’t explain how, but I knew that me and the plane wasn’t in the Sulphine palace no more. It’s like them Sulphines was able just to melt clean away once they was satisfied they was done with me.

I took a deep breath of the stale air in Brin’s kit and pressed the button that welded the implants of the Helm of Brin into my skull.

STRAT is available for download on Amazon, Kobo and Barnes and Noble. After you've finished reading, be sure to leave a review where you purchased it or on Goodreads/Shelfari to help other readers find STRAT.

(Another!) Cover Reveal for STRAT - New and Improved!

2013-06-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

You've seen the draft of the cover art for STRAT, but the real cover art is now complete! Same design, a bit more detail. Ta-dah! You may find this already available on some sites....If not, keep checking. It will be up soon! We're holding off on the official release announcement until it's live everywhere.

The hero stands on Neraka, a hell-class planet. The atmosphere, lake, and ice that you see are all sulfur dioxide. (It is one of the few elements that can exist in all three states at a certain temperature range.) This is where Charlie Cooper was born and grew up. All his life, he's known the importance of wearing a kit'n'breather at all times, because even the smallest leak can result in sulfur dioxide parts per million rising inside your breather.... the result is pulmonary edema, pain and blindness, and eventually, death.

As in this excerpt...

EXCERPT:

Thirteen helmed Lords escorted me out to the center of the caldera: twelve lords from the legation, and Lord Ivess.

I knew Domany was right. They were unlikely to keep their word; but if there was even a chance I could save Sard from obliteration, I had to try.

We passed the frozen corpse of the woman who had taken her father’s helm and avenged her family during the jousts. All anyone had cared about her act of courage was that she had violated a stifling thousand-year-old code of law. Now I was to share her fate, for the same reason.

The legation offered Lord Ivess the honor of removing the faceplate and breather. My hands were chained behind my back. They forced me to kneel in the sulfur snow.

He leaned close to me, although he did not need to be close to whisper to me over the link.

“You stole my daughter from me, and that embarrassed me,” he hissed. “I will enjoy your death greatly. I’m not going to take off your breather, though. A quick death would be too easy. I’m going to remove everything but your breather. I’m going to let you die slowly, and as you die, you can watch Tears-of-Gold die too.” He laughed. “Did you really think we would spare Sard after you contaminated it with your thralls who think they can be lords?”

“No,” I said. “I expected you to lack all honor, having fought you before.”

He kicked me face forward onto the ground. My jaw smashed painfully against my breather. He grabbed the back of my kit and jerked me back up to my knees.

“Then why did you surrender yourself to us? That was stupid.”

“I’m a Fredder,” I said. “I guess stupid is just a bad habit.”

The other lords stood in a semi-circle around us, a few meters away. They watched impassively as Ivess dismantled my kit piece by piece, until he ripped away the last underlayer, and left me naked in the bitterly frozen acid. As he’d promised, Ivess left on my helm, the cursed Helm of Brin, trailing tubes to my discarded, but functional, air pack, so I could still breath.

It felt as though I had been dipped into fire. My skin sizzled and buckled. Every inch of my body below my neck came alive with pain, raw unbearable pain. I screamed inside my mask. Through my tears, I could see a huge army of mechs, the combined cavalcades of the lords of the “peace legation,” advance toward Tears-of-Gold. They weren’t going to just let the city die of neglect, they were going to blast it straight to hell themselves.

GOLEM an indie military sf short film

2013-06-04T07:16:00.001-07:00

GOLEM from GOLEM on Vimeo.

This movie is based on the short story “GOLEM XIV” of “Imaginary Magnitude” by awesome Polish science fiction author Stanislaw Lem from 1973. Many of Stanislaw Lem's stories concerned the futility of war. In this story, an intelligent military robot intelligence comes to question its purpose and the logic of war.

Stanislaw Lem is one of the less well known of the greatest twentieth century sf authors. It's taken awhile for all his works to be translated.His stories are often strange and wonderful, and he touches on all the deep themes and questions of the field with a subtlety and depth often lacking in lesser works. The stories are very much idea driven, with characterization and adventure taking second place behind the sheer grandeur of the vast universe.

George Clooney did the sexiest version of Solaris EVAH.

Lem's most famous story was Solaris, which has been made into a movie twice, once behind the Iron Curtain and once by Hollywood. My favorite book/collection of his is the Cyberiad, a sort of robot Decameron. In that collection too, you'll find a story of two armies who are sent to war but achieve telepathy, which allows them to unify minds with the other side. At that point, they realize there's no point to fighting and end the war mutually.

That all seems painfully utopian...until you consider how the Cold War ended.

Storm Dancer On Sale for 99 Cents!

2013-05-29T12:01:00.000-07:00

My friend Rayne Hall's dark epic fantasy, Storm Dancer, is currently on sale for only 99 cents! Definitely worth checking out, especially if you're a fan of The Unfinished Song!

Demon-possessed siege commander, Dahoud, atones for his atrocities by hiding his identity and protecting women from war's violence - but can he shield the woman he loves from the evil inside him?

Principled weather magician, Merida, brings rain to a parched desert land. When her magical dance rouses more than storms, she needs to overcome her scruples to escape from danger.

Thrust together, Dahoud and Merida must fight for freedom and survival. But how can they trust each other, when hatred and betrayal burn in their hearts?

'Storm Dancer' is a dark epic fantasy. Caution: this book contains some violence and disturbing situations, and is not suitable for young readers. British spellings.

Storm Dancer is available to download on Amazon (US), Amazon (UK and other countries), Barnes and Noble, Kobo, iTunes and Smashwords.

Armageddon's Princess

2013-05-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year my friend Anthony Pacheco published a wonderful scifi mystery, Armageddon's Princess. Here's some details...

ANGRY PRINCESS IS ANGRY. Investigator Lexus Nancy Toulouse, ex-soldier extreme: finds her Libido Generator is on the fritz, learns her old warship wants to "get back together" (despite the fact she already has four husbands!), loses whatever war-torn sanity she had left in a crime reenactment and becomes the Princess Concubine to the mysterious Empress. Then, while trying on lingerie, someone tried to blow her up and she regenerated all the way back to a teenager. Now there will be lots of blood AND NONE OF IT HERS.

An Excerpt

On command, the CSI bots begin their inspection of the bodies. Scott and I search the house while they do their job. We don’t find anything interesting at all. We take the trash, the garbage disposal contents, the air filters. I change out the filters for the replacements right by the HVAC, and turn the house system back on.

This takes another hour. With two of us, it’s taking a shorter amount of time to look for evidence and run the checklists, even while Scott is an amateur. It’s a sobering wake up call to my solitary existence.

Then Bob drops a bomb.

—ICDA has a scene reconstruction. Program available on request.—

Whoa boy.

I give the house commands, and the windows go opaque, the doors lock, and the lights dim.

“What’s up?” Scott looks curious. At least his color is back. Watching the bots swarm over the bodies is sure to remind him of some war shit he wants to forget. I know it does with me.

“Investigators use ICDA—Investigation Crime Database and Analysis. It’s a big honking supercomputer. We’re talking war shit—the computer used to design the AIs, so when paired with all the crime data known to man, it knows all about human behavior in a disgusting amount of detail. As the bots and I collect data, it goes to Bob, my work comp, and Bob sends it to ICDA. It’s an expensive system to maintain, but worth it.”

“ICDA—as in, Cheyenne Mountain ICDA? I thought that was some old Defense Agency thing.”

“Cheyenne Mountain, yes. And no, that’s also where the ICDA hardware is.”

Scott’s expression darkens again. Or still. I can tell he’s been to Cheyenne Mountain because what little happiness he was holding onto for dear life after seeing the murder scene has dripped from him as if I squeezed it out of his body with my armored fists. I can almost see it pooling at his feet, turning black.

“Between the details of the prior murders, your dream description, and the data from the CSI bots, ICDA thinks it can display a reasonable facsimile of the crime as it occurred.”

“Whoa,” says Scott. I give him a stiff smile. “How is that possible?”

“The CSI bots are finding forensic evidence, and ICDA matches that with M.O.s and details from prior crimes going all the way back to the beginning of recorded history. Even the lack of evidence has meaning, a profile. Data analysis doesn’t get any better.”

“Kick ass. Let’s watch it.”

Anthony lives and works in the Pacific Northwest where he dreams speculative dreams, smooches the wife, harasses the kids, tosses squeaky toys for the dog and serves as a human scratching post for the cats.

You can buy Armageddon's Princess on Amazon (paperback and ebook), Barnes and Noble (paperback) or Powell's Books (paperback).

Assassin's Gambit

2013-05-16T08:44:00.000-07:00

Last month my friend Amy Raby released her latest fantasy romance, Assassin's Gambit from The Hearts and Thrones and Series. Here's a bit about the book:

Vitala Salonius, champion of the warlike game of Caturanga, is as deadly as she is beautiful. She’s a trained assassin for the resistance, and her true play is for ultimate power. Using her charm and wit, she plans to seduce her way into the emperor’s bed and deal him one final, fatal blow, sparking a battle of succession that could change the face of the empire.

As the ruler of a country on the brink of war and the son of a deposed emperor, Lucien must constantly be wary of an attempt on his life. But he’s drawn to the stunning Caturanga player visiting the palace. Vitala may be able to distract him from his woes for a while—and fulfill other needs, as well.

Lucien’s quick mind and considerable skills awaken unexpected desires in Vitala, weakening her resolve to finish her mission. An assassin cannot fall for her prey, but Vitala’s gut is telling her to protect this sexy, sensitive man. Now she must decide where her heart and loyalties lie and navigate the dangerous war of politics before her gambit causes her to lose both Lucien and her heart for good.

An Excerpt

Vitala was not her given name. When she was born dark-haired, Papa named her Kolta: “blackbird.”

She was eight years old when the stranger arrived. Mama and Papa took him into the bedroom to speak with him. They shut her out, but she pressed her ear against the door to listen.

“We’ve completed the testing,” said the stranger, “and your daughter is exactly what we’re looking for. Highly intelligent, physically strong, and coordinated. And, of course, she’s black-haired.”

Mama said something she couldn’t quite make out.

“In the village, perhaps,” replied the stranger. “But in the Circle, dark hair is an asset. She can pass for Kjallan. It will allow her to move in areas where others cannot.”

More mumbling from Mama.

“The Circle is prepared to offer you compensation. Four hundred tetrals.”

Papa gasped.

Mama raised her voice. “I’m not selling my daughter!”

“Of course not,” soothed the stranger. “But Kolta will never reach her potential here in the village—not with the prejudice against girls like her. Why subject her to harassment and ostracism, when among the Circle she will be valued and revered? The money is our gift to you. A token of our thanks for aiding Riorca in its time of need.”

Mama began to sob.

“Treva, he’s right,” said Papa. “It would be selfish to keep Kolta here. A half-Kjallan bastard will never be accepted—”

“You hate her!” cried Mama. “You want to be rid of her!”

“Madam,” said the stranger, “consider the advantages to Kolta in joining the Circle. She will receive a thorough education, far better than anything she could get here. And she will be among her own kind. We have other half-breeds like her, dark-haired girls who know what it’s like to be Riorcan but look Kjallan. For the first time in her life, she will have friends.”

Mama continued to sob.

“Treva, think of it,” said Papa. “Four hundred tetrals! You know what that money would mean for us. This man is right. The Circle can do far better for Kolta than we can.”

Something unintelligible from Mama.

“No,” said the stranger. “It must be now. She must begin her language training immediately, or she’ll never speak with the proper accent.”

A long silence followed, broken only by Mama’s sobbing. There were soft words that Kolta could not make out.

The stranger was saying, “We find it’s best if there are no good-byes.”

The door opened, and the stranger stepped out. Terrified, Kolta hid in the corner between the wall and the door. But the door moved away, revealing her. The stranger stared down at her in surprise. “Were you listening, Kolta?”

She shook her head.

He knelt, bringing himself to her eye level. “Tell me the truth, and you will not be in trouble. Were you listening?”

She hesitated a moment, but nodded.

“And yet you do not cry.” His mouth twisted as he lifted her chin with his finger. “My name is Bayard. I’m going to be your friend, Kolta. Would you like that?”

She was silent.

“The people here don’t treat you very well, do they? They don’t like dark-haired girls. But I’m going to take you somewhere else. Somewhere you’ll be loved, Kolta. Do you want to be loved?”

Her chin began to tremble.

“Of course you do.” He folded her into his arms, and she began to cry. “It’s what we all want.”

Amy Raby is literally a product of the U.S. space program, since her parents met working for NASA on the Apollo missions. After earning her Bachelor’s in Computer Science from the University of Washington, Amy settled in the Pacific Northwest with her family, where she’s always looking for life’s next adventure, whether it’s capsizing tiny sailboats in Lake Washington or riding dressage horses. Amy is a 2011 Golden Heart® finalist and a 2012 Daphne du Maurier winner.

You can buy Assassin's Gambit in paperback or ebook at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Kobo (ebook only).

Just released! ROWENA AND THE DARK LORD

2013-05-02T07:08:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to be sharing this excerpt from Melodie Campbell's latest release, Rowena and the Dark Lord. I think you all will enjoy this funny romantic fantasy series.

Is that a broadsword on your belt, or are you just glad to see me?
“Hot and hilarious!"

“A fantastical tour de force”

“The Princess Bride with Sex”

Excerpt from ROWENA AND THE DARK LORD, book 2 in the Land’s End fantasy series:

I rose to my feet and turned to the east as the spell book instructed.
“What is she doing?”
Lars’s voice. What was he doing here?
I chanted the words from the book in my hand, silently, beneath my breath. Then I chanted them once more, louder and with confidence. My voice became richer, louder, resonating in my ears.
Whoosh. The ground trembled. The air in front of us seemed to swirl, clouding my view of the field ahead. A grey mist rose from the ground, thick with dust or soot, obliterating all vision.
I stood rock still, hardly able to breathe.
The mist swirled. I heard men yelling—coarse shouts over the ring of steel on steel, then an eerie silence. It put chills up my spine. Lars muttered something at my side. Gareth stood stock still. Loki moved up against me. We waited.
Men’s voices again, echoing like souls lost in a fog. The mist lifted in one swift movement to disappear into nothingness. In its place, were at least a hundred men.
Bugger. I messed up.
“Houston, we have a problem,” I said out loud. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I must have pronounced one of the words wrong.
“Who is Houston?” Lars said.
“Romans!” Gareth hissed. He drew his sword.
“Romans?” I stared at the battle-scarred men before us. They looked exhausted. They also looked bloody, dirty and rather short. Not to mention confused.
How the heck could they be Romans?
Someone yelled “Form Square!” in—yup—that was Latin.
“What the hell?” I stared. The men came to life moving with purpose into a square. Within seconds we were facing a shield wall bristling with spears.
Gareth and Lars already had their swords drawn. They tried to move in front of me but I spread my arms to hold them back.
“Sheath your weapons,” I commanded.
They hesitated, eyeing the wall of men and knives.
“For crissake,” I insisted, “what do you expect to do against that, besides get us all killed?”
With reluctance the swords slid back into their scabbards.
The man on the horse wore a breastplate the sort of armor that you only saw in museums back home. Or movies. I was reminded of Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor. Richard Burton playing the part of Marc Antony.
Hoo boy.
The man on horseback stared at me. No stirrups on his saddle. A helmet that was in history books. Definitely Roman. I stared back at him.
Romans? In this time? What the poop had I done?
“It’s a freaking temporal rift!” My laugh was strident. “Where the hell is Spock when you need him?”

Melodie Campbell achieved a personal best this year when Library Journal compared her to Janet Evanovich. She has over 200 publications, including 100 comedy credits, 40 short stories, and 4 novels. She has won 6 awards for fiction. Find out more about Melodie on her website or blog.

ROWENA AND THE DARK LORD, book 2 in the Land’s End series, is NOW AVAILABLE for only $3.99 on Amazon.

And the one that started it all: ROWENA THROUGH THE WALL, book 1 in the Land’s End series is also available on Amazon.

Cover Reveal: STRAT (military science fiction)

2013-04-06T15:38:00.001-07:00

STRAT is a military science fiction novel that I've had on the back burner for a while. I confess: It's a bit of an odd fish. The hero lives through five wars, which form almost complete stories in and of themselves. For a while, I thought it might work better as individual novellas. Eventually, however, I realized that even though the stories almost stand alone, they add up to a whole greater than its parts. The theme of the novel emerges from the gestalt.

I wrote the draft of STRAT while I was living overseas in a war zone, albeit as a peace-keeper, not a soldier. At the time, I was reading a ton of military science fiction--classics like Asimov, Heinlein, Haldeman, Card, Dickson, Drake, Weber, Turtledove and a host of others, whatever I could scrounge from other ex-pats and second-hand English-language bookstores. I was living in an area of the world formally colonized by a European power, which was now dealing with an rebellion of those who in turn wanted their own independence. The book started out a simple homage to the military science fiction genre, mostly for the fun of it, and, probably because of where I was and the conflict around me, included a meditation on the legacies of colonialism and the strange twists and paradoxes of history. Which are never quite as we expect...

It was, ahem, a while ago. It's strange to revisit the story now. I was tempted to revise it heavily--originally, I had planned on TEN wars--yes, I know, *eyeroll at self*--and restrained myself. I wouldn't do it justice; it would become a whole new story. Of course, I started the Unfinished Song a while ago too, but I've worked on it continuously since then. And, as a result, I have ended up changing large swaths of the Unfinished Song, which is why it's not as complete as I first, too rashly, promised.

I didn't think it would be a great idea to become embroiled in a huge new project while I am still in the middle of the Unfinished Song, but it bothered me to see STRAT sitting there on my hard-drive, lonely and neglected.

Therefore, I finally decided to publish STRAT, letting it stand as I wrote it. I won't second guess my earlier self, even if there are many things I would do differently today. I couldn't anyway. I did a huge amount of research into the hard science regarding the planetary environments and mirror matter tech used in the story, and it's no longer fresh in my mind. If it turns out to have rabid fans, despite itself, I might do the other five wars in a sequel. After I finish the Unfinished Song.

STRAT is complete and in the editing stages. If you're curious and want to either Beta Read it, or Review it in exchange for a free copy, contact me or my assistant Katie at my publisher, Misque Press. (katie@misquepress.com) Be aware that it's quite different from Dindi, and it's not Young Adult. (Includes strong language.)

I'll be post blurbs and excerpts from the book on this blog, so keep an eye out....

Google Treasure Maps

2013-04-01T11:12:00.001-07:00

New Release: Easter Bunny (Here Comes Peter Cottontail)

2013-03-18T08:12:00.001-07:00

Easter Bunny (Here Comes Peter Cottontail) is ready for downloading! This short story for young readers is only $0.99!

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Have you ever wondered where the Easter Bunny comes from? How old he is? And how he happened to become a talking rabbit with a fondness for chocolate eggs? Gather around, children, and I shall tell you the legend of Peter Cottontail…

Peek inside the first chapter:

Long ago, before light bulbs or sliced bread, people lived in houses made of wattle and daub—which is just a fancy way of saying sticks and mud. They cooked their food over a hearth—which is just a fancy way of saying, an open fire. Dragons and goblins roamed the earth in those days, sowing terror and destroying whole villages. At one point, indeed, the goblins, who usually stayed in their cavern kingdoms below the earth, decided to conquer the upper world too. Armies of pointy-teethed, green skinned monsters poured across the land, burning houses, stealing everything from spoons to horses, and even eating babies.

So it happened that one spring day, a mother and father with a new baby worried how to protect their child. Goblins attacked their village, taking every child they could. The mother and father hid their baby in a basket and ran to the river. They gave him the only gift they had, which was a single egg. They wrote his name upon the egg: PETER.

They placed the basket in the river, and let it float away. They cried and hugged each other. Then goblins arrived with swords and crossbows, and captured them. But their little baby was safe.

Kind river fairies guided the floating basket swiftly past the burning villages of that ravaged land. The basket floated all the way to a magic forest, which was ruled by elves. Even goblins on their bravest days did not dare enter the forest of the elves....

Blood Review from Rebekah B.

2013-02-27T07:07:00.000-08:00

Blood has been out for a little over a week and I'm loving your feedback! While my blog tour was coming together, I heard from a fan who wanted to join and share a review, but hadn't got sucked into blogging (yet!). I offered to share her review here. So here are Rebekah B.'s thoughts on The Unfinished Song

(Book 6): Blood:

I have just finished reading 'Blood' Tara Maya's 6th book in The Unfinished Song series.

Once again, Tara had me hooked from the first page and it took tremendous effort to be able to put the book down! I found myself transported into a magical land where the fight of great beauty and colour is raged against fear and darkness. I love Tara's writing style, it flows beautifully and draws you right into the very heart of the tale.

This book will keep you on the edge of your seat the whole way through, desperate to see what happens next. The twists and turns in the story were far from predictable to say the least!

An absolute must for all you readers out there!

If you've read and enjoyed Blood (or even if you haven't enjoyed it), please consider logging on to Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Goodreads, Shelfari, wherever and leaving a review. Also, if you would like a review copy of any of my books, they're always free!

Blood is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo and Smashwords.

Blood Is Here!

2013-02-14T06:00:00.000-08:00

The Unfinished Song (Book 6): Blood is ready to download its way to your e-readers TODAY!

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Enjoying Blood and want to talk about it? Tweet your thoughts with the hashtag #TUSBlood.

Dindi and Umbral have an uneasy truce, forced to work together to defeat a greater enemy: the Bone Whistler. The Bone Whistler’s scheme to sacrifice humanity and resurrect the Aelfae will culminate during an eclipse on the spring equinox…in three days.

Their fragile alliance may not withstand the terrors they face. Dindi hides as a clown, but even disguised, her dancing draws the eye of the Bone Whistler himself. She will have to defy him alone, for Umbral has his own troubles.

Finnadro, who has hunted Umbral for a year, finally catches up with him… determined to punish Umbral for all his black deeds.

Life and death, spring and autumn, human and faery, are all reeling out of balance, and these three days will determine the fate of all Faearth.

3 Days of 99c Fantasy -- Part 3

2013-02-12T07:21:00.000-08:00

It's the last day to stock up on some great reads with the 3-day 99-cent fantasy e-book promotion, featuring The Unfinished Song (Book 2): Taboo. Through the end of today we'll have a total of 10 books discounted to 99 cents. Today I'll be featuring the final 3 books in the promotion.

Encrypted

Professor Tikaya Komitopis isn’t a great beauty, a fearless warrior, or even someone who can walk and chew chicle at the same time, but her cryptography skills earn her wartime notoriety. When enemy marines show up at her family’s plantation, she expects the worst.

But they’re not there to kill her. They need her to decode mysterious runes, and they ask for help in the manner typical of a conquering empire: they kidnap her, threaten her family, and throw her in the brig of their fastest steamship.

Her only ally is a fellow prisoner who charms her with a passion for academics as great as her own. Together, they must decipher mind-altering alchemical artifacts, deadly poison rockets, and malevolent technological constructs, all while dodging assassination attempts from a rival power determined the expedition should fail. As if the situation weren’t treacherous enough, this new “ally” may turn out to be the last person Tikaya should trust. Those runes cloak more than mysteries, however, and he’s the only one who can help her unravel them before their secrets destroy the world.

The Rose of Shanhasson

As Our Blessed Lady’s last daughter, Shannari must rule as High Queen or the Green Lands will fall into eternal darkness. Her destiny is to shine against the Shadow, protect the land and people with her magic, and keep the Blackest Heart of Darkness imprisoned. Her blood is the key, powered by the love in her heart. However, Shannari’s heart is broken, her magic is crippled, and the nobles must have forgotten the dire prophesies, because everyone wants her dead.

Only love can restore her magic, but her scars testify how love can be corrupted. So when a barbarian warlord conquers her army and professes a love like no other, Shannari’s first instinct is to kill the mighty Khul. Even worse, one of the Khul’s guards used to be an assassin–a very skilled assassin, if the darkness in the Blood’s eyes is any indication. The same darkness festers deep in her heart and draws her to the wickedly dangerous man as inexorably as his Khul’s unshakable honor. Her weakening heart is not only torn between love and duty, but also between two magnificent warriors.

Yet neither warrior will be able to help her when Shadow calls her name.

The Goddess Queen

Queen Onja has called for Shan’s head and her Kezanada agents stalk him with enchanted weapons. For Dreibrand Veta, his growing list of victories has increased his influence in circles of power, but his fame has not endeared him to everybody. The rebellion proceeds slowly for Miranda who cannot rescue her children until Shan defeats Onja. Shan has learned much since beginning the rebellion. His powers are growing. He has used his magic to kill, and, when the spring comes, his armies will fight the armies loyal to Onja. Despite Shan’s mounting confidence in his battle magic, Onja will tenaciously defend her throne, and Shan will discover that he does not know the powerful secrets of the Goddess Queen.

The Goddess Queen is the second book of The Rys Chronicles by Tracy Falbe. Normally priced at $4.95, it’s on sale for a limited time at $0.99. Enjoy!

To check out all the books available, and some ongoing freebies, click here.

3 Days of 99c Fantasy -- Part 2

2013-02-11T08:09:00.000-08:00

I'm back with more of the books in the 3-day 99-cent fantasy e-book promotion, which features The Unfinished Song (Book 2): Taboo. (Considering the first one is free, you can essentially own 1/6 of the series of only 99 cents!) From February 10-12 we'll have a total of 10 books discounted to 99 cents. While all of the books are available at 99 cents throughout the promotion, I'll be featuring 3 per day here.

The Chocolatier’s Wife

ROMANCE, MAGIC, MYSTERY…. AND CHOCOLATE

When Tasmin’s bethrothed, William, is accused of murder, she gathers her wind sprites and rushes to his home town to investigate. She doesn’t have a shred of doubt about his innocence. But as she settles in his chocolate shop, she finds more in store than she bargained for. Facing suspicious townsfolk, gossiping neighbors, and William’s own family, who all resent her kind – the sorcerer folk from the North — she must also learn to tell friend from foe, and fast. For the real killer is still on the loose – and he is intent on ruining William’s family at all cost.The Chocolatier’s Wife is a truly original, spellbinding love story, featuring vivid characters in a highly realistic historical setting.

Rowena Through the Wall

When Rowena falls through her classroom wall and lands in an alternate world, she doesn’t count on being kidnapped―not once, but twice―and the stakes get higher as the men get hotter.

College instructor Rowena Revel has a magical gift with animals and a huge problem. Gorgeous tunic-clad men keep walking through the wall of her classroom. If that isn’t enough, she’s being haunted by sexy dreams in a rugged land. Curious, she checks out the wall and falls through a portal into the world of her dreams.

After years of war, women are scarce. Rowena finds herself in a heap of man-trouble when she ‘accidentally’ marries distant cousin Ivan. Enter Cedric, who dabbles in black magic and has an even blacker heart. Throw in a Viking, the local wolf-king, a band of brigands and a goth-clad student who follows her through the portal, and Rowena is off on a rollicking adventure.

Unwanted husbands keep piling up, but that doesn’t stop her from falling for the wrong brother. Not only that, she has eighteen year old Kendra to look out for and a war to prevent. Good thing she has the ability to go back through the wall. Or does she?

Dragon Rose (Tales of the Latter Kingdoms)

The shadow of the cursed Dragon Lord has hung over the town of Lirinsholme for centuries, and no one ever knows when the Dragon will claim his next doomed Bride. Rhianne Menyon has dreams of being a painter, but her world changes forever when a single moment of sacrifice brings her to Black’s Keep as the Dragon’s latest Bride. As she attempts to adjust to her new life — and to know something of the monster who is now her husband — she begins to see that the curse is far crueler than she first believed. Unraveling the mystery of what happened to the Dragon’s Brides is only the beginning…

To check out all the books available, and some ongoing freebies, click here.

3 Days of 99c Fantasy -- Part 1

2013-02-10T07:57:00.000-08:00

I'm really excited to be joining some other fantasy authors for a 3-day 99-cent fantasy e-book promotion, featuring The Unfinished Song (Book 2): Taboo. From February 10-12 we'll have a total of 10 books discounted to 99 cents. While all of the books are available at 99 cents throughout the promotion, I'll be featuring 3 per day here. It also gives you something to read while I make the final preparations to release The Unfinished Song (Book 6): Blood on Valentine's Day! (That's Thursday!)

Yseult: A Tale of Love in the Age of King Arthur

For the price of a truce, Yseult is sent to a world where magic is dying – to marry the father of the man she loves. Marcus’s son Drystan would have saved her from a loveless marriage, but with her relatives being held hostage, Yseult cannot endanger them and must go through with the wedding. The tragic love story of Yseult and Drystan plays out against the backdrop of a violent world threatening to descend into the Dark Ages – only Arthur’s battles to push back the Saxon hordes can save what is left of civilization.
Yseult is a retelling of the tragic tale of Tristan and Isolde, a story older than Romeo and Juliet or Lancelot and Guinevere; an Arthurian romance with roots going back far into the realm of legend and the undying tales of King Arthur.
A historical fantasy novel by Ruth Nestvold, Book I of The Pendragon Chronicles. Also available on Kobo and B&N.

Once Upon a Curse: Stories and Fairy Tales for Adult Readers

STEP INTO THE WORLD OF MYTH AND MAGIC…Fair maidens, handsome princes, witches, and fairy godmothers all show their dark and dangerous side in this anthology inspired by myths and fairy tales, retold by some of the best authors in this generation and by some upcoming new talents. Told with a dark twist, focused on the lure of the gorgeous evil, this collection will take the readers on a wild ride through magical realms of Ancient Greece, old Russia, medieval Europe, and modern day America.

The Princess of Dhagabad

THE CURSE OF ABSOLUTE POWER.
THE MAGIC OF TRUE LOVE.

When, on the day of her age-coming, the princess opens a mysterious bronze bottle—a gift from her grandmother—she has no idea that she is about to unleash a power older than the world itself. Worse, she is not prepared for the bearer of this power to be a handsome man whose intense gray eyes pierce her very soul. Hasan, her new slave, is immeasurably older and stronger than anyone she has ever heard of, and he is now hers to command—if she can handle him, that is.“Truly compelling” — Booklist

“A fine recasting of Arabian Nights material into a fable for our times.” — Locus

To check out all the books available, and some ongoing freebies, click here.

New Fiction from Kevin O. McLaughlin

2013-02-01T06:00:00.000-08:00

“Ad Astra” launches STARSHIP, fresh episodic fiction from award-winning author Kevin O. McLaughlin. The first season of five episodes, released weekly, will carry the reader through a single novel-length adventure from Earth to the stars, and from broken spirits to humanity's unlikely heroes.

If life knocked you down, would you risk everything you had left to reach for the stars?

Ad Astra is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Kobo.

Dan tapped each dead soldier in the neck in turn, counting his kills for the evening. He came to six. Add in the bottle he was drinking, and he'd be at seven. That was still under budget. He figured this for a twelve-pack night.
He waved to the woman tending the tables, a middle-aged matron whose name he hadn't tried to catch. She'd made a few attempts to clear his growing pile of bottles away earlier in the evening, but he'd shooed her off. Dan wanted the physical memory of the drinks sitting right there, like a badge. The woman saw his wave, but didn't bother coming over. She just went to fetch another beer. He kept his eyes off her face. He didn't want to see her disdain, or worse, her pity.
Instead he brought his eyes back to the bar's TV, where the Ares rocket was still sitting on the launch pad. The countdown was frozen at four minutes and fifteen seconds. It hadn't moved for most of an hour now, last minute problems delaying the launch.
“Hey Joe, can we switch the channel? Missing the game here,” a burly man called to the bartender.
“Yeah, Joe. This shit is boring,” said another guy.
Both of them were lumberjack big, wearing dirty work clothes. None of which bothered Dan even a little.
“Don't touch that channel,” he snarled.
“Or what?” asked the first man.
“Wanna find out?”
“Man, don't mess around. Who wants to see this stupid rocket sitting there, anyway?”
“I do,” Dan said.
“Larry, you can't pick a fight with a gimp,” the guy's buddy whispered to him, loud enough that Dan could hear anyway.
Larry blushed, noticing Dan's wheelchair. “Hey, man, sorry. You can watch what you want.”
The bartender glared at Dan for a moment from behind his glasses, wiping furiously at a mug with a dishrag. But the TV stayed on the same channel despite what the local crowd wanted, so that was all right.
Finally the countdown kicked on again. Whatever the problem was, they must have solved it. There were four minutes left, now. Unconsciously, Dan activated his motorized chair and moved toward the TV. Three minutes left.
His eyes misted a little as the first plumes of steam appeared under the titanic rocket. The payload was a crew compartment and landing vehicle – and the first six humans from Earth to ever attempt bridging the vast distance to Mars. They'd be traveling for six months to get there, stay for six months, and then return. It was the adventure of a lifetime. It was supposed to have been the adventure of his lifetime.
He slugged down the last of the beer he was still holding. The bitter flavor matched how he was feeling. The matron plunked his new bottle down where he'd been sitting, and he reached for it without thinking, wincing as his back spasmed in protest. He grimaced. Wheelchairs went in reverse for a reason.
Less than two minutes left until takeoff. He leaned forward, willing himself into the cockpit of that ship with everything he had. He should have been there. Would have been there, if it hadn't been for a stupidly random accident. There was something ironic about being taken down by a mini coupe after surviving dozens of missions into space unscathed. He was one of the most experienced space pilots in the world. He'd fought hard to win his berth on that mission.
All gone, now. The driver who'd lost control of his car, crossed the highway median, and smashed into Dan's vehicle wasn't going to have his license back for a while, but that didn't help heal his badly fractured spine. NASA's policy toward injury as severe as his had no leeway. As far as they were concerned, he was grounded for good. So he'd taken the early retirement with full benefits and disability that the Air Force had offered. A good deal, but as a consolation prize it sucked. He had some buddies in Panama who told him that income would let him live like a king down there.
If only he could find some reason to live at all.
Fifty seconds left on the countdown. The numbers ticked away on the corner of the TV screen.
With thirty eight seconds left, Dan's phone rang. The sound startled him, but out of habit he answered it, not taking his eyes off the TV as he did.
“Dan Wynn here.”
He watched two more seconds tick away on the countdown before a distorted voice said “Dan! Was hoping to catch you. How're you holding up?”
“Who is this?” Dan asked.
“It's John,” the voice replied, after a short delay.
“John, you have any idea what you're calling in the middle of?”
Another brief delay, and then John said “I'm watching it too, Dan. Why do you think I called you now?” Dan could almost hear his friend's smile over the phone line.
“I think you're interrupting,” he said, eyes narrowing. The last thing he needed right now was a pity call. Even from an old friend.
Another pregnant pause. “Dan, I'm calling to offer you a vacation, and maybe a job if you want it. I need people I can trust, and you're top of the list.”
“I'm flattered, but–” Dan broke off in mid-sentence as the Ares rocket launched, huge plumes of fire obscuring it from view for a moment before sending it skyward. As it lifted into the sky, all his hopes and wishes vanished with it.
“Dan. DAN.” John's voice was still nattering at him on the phone. “Listen to me.”
“What?” Dan said. His voice sounded hollow to his ears.
“Vacation, Dan. You need it. And I can use you, if you want to stay on, after.”
“I can't,” Dan replied. “Still got paperwork to finish my retirement package, and the docs want to see me daily for rehab.”
“I've already cleared your paperwork up. Had a general who owed me a favor. And we've got doctors on site who'll continue your rehab. But I need you here, Dan.”
The little delays in John's responses finally made their way through Dan's muddled thoughts. A couple of seconds of pause, each time he spoke.
“Where are you, John?” he said, curiosity leaking into his voice.
“I'm on the far side of the moon, Dan. Want to come up for a visit?”
Dan almost choked on his beer. He'd been expecting...well, something. With John, it was always something. But not that.
Another short pause. “Put the drink down, go outside. Car should be waiting for you there. The driver will take you to the launch. That is, if you are still interested in going back into space?”
Dan stared a moment at the TV again, where the camera was still following the plume of fire burning its way into the sky. For the first time all day, he could look at the ship without feeling like he was being stabbed through the heart.
“I'm on my way,” he said. He turned off his phone, slapped enough bills on the table to pay for his beers plus a healthy tip for the scowling waitress, and went out the door.
John was as good as his word. The young driver was already waiting out front, standing outside a large black SUV hybrid with a wheelchair lift built into the side. He expertly hooked Dan's chair up to the device, chatting amiably as he worked.
“The boss was dead on right about you,” he said.
“Oh?” Dan replied.
“Yup. Called me, said you'd be out the door within five minutes. Took you three minutes thirty.”
“Well. John always did know what buttons to push on people.”
“He's good that way. I'm Andy. You're Dan Wynn, the astronaut?”
The simple question rocked Dan. “I suppose...I am. Again.”

Blood To Be Released on Valentine's Day

2013-01-24T07:00:00.000-08:00

Finnadro, who has hunted Umbral for a year, finally catches up with him… determined to punish Umbral for all his black deeds.

Life and death, spring and autumn, human and faery, are all reeling out of balance, and these three days will determine the fate of all Faearth.

Take a peek inside with this excerpt:

Umbral

Aelfae!

Umbral’s nerves hissed danger. At the same time, so much power, so close, tempted him almost impossibly. Fighting the urge to rush forward, start drinking in all that power, was like trying to brace himself against an avalanche. He had to pull away and physically anchor himself on a stalagmite—literally wrap his hands around the cone of rock—to stop himself from revealing himself as Deathsworn by trying to steal the Aelfae’s light.

A groan rose deep in his chest and he muffled it against the rock. He let himself siphon just a little of the Aelfae’s power, just a trickle, just enough to dull his hunger and allow him to suppress his need for more. Even that tiny amount felt like a huge cascade of power. The Obsidian Mask felt heavier than it usually did, but his Penumbra throbbed with strength, and he bore the extra weight easily.

Would the Obsidian Mask deceive the Aelfae? If it did not and he showed himself to them, they would fall upon him and slay him where he stood. He didn’t delude himself that he could defeat six Aelfae warriors at the height of their power, flush with new life from their resurrection.

Waiting for them to discover him was no better. He must know if he would need to flight or flee or if he could trick them. Only when he was sure he could control himself did he look again at the Aelfae. He stepped out from behind the stalagmite.

Dindi glowed just like one of them. Seemed to merge with them almost.

What had he expected? She was one of them—as close to Aelfae as still lived in Faearth.

What if she allied herself with them against him? What would it avail him for the Obsidian Mask to deceive the Aelfae if Dindi denounced him?

No one had noticed him. If he fled the cave now, though they would surely chase him, he might still have a chance of escaping. He would warn Obsidian Mountain. They would have time to prepare for this new threat. But in the meantime, the Aelfae would meet up with their old comrade, the Bone Whistler, and their power would only grow. Umbral had no idea how the Bone Whistler planned to destroy humanity or how close he was to achieving his goal.

Dindi fell to the floor, gasping. She wasn’t melding with the Aelfae at all. They were smothering her.

Umbral stepped forward, prepared to fight all six immortals, if he had to. If those fae muckers planned to hurt Dindi, they’d have to go through him first.

Please join the Blog Tour!

There are many ways you can participate!

Post a review of Blood or any book in The Unfinished Song series. Review copies are always free!
Share the cover, summary or excerpt above in a post leading up to the Valentine's Day release.
Share a guest post with either a character sketch, excerpt, or some of my thoughts on writing and reading.

The blog tour will officially run February 14 - March 14 and of course all tour visits will be linked to on my blog, Facebook and Twitter. To sign up, please email my assistant at katie@misquepress.com.

Big News About Book 6 TOMORROW!

2013-01-22T11:51:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! It's Tara's assistant, Katie, here to let you know that Tara has some big news to share about The Unfinished Song (Book 6) Blood tomorrow to all of the newsletter subscribers. Everyone else will have to wait until Thursday. Subscribe today if you want to be among the first to find out! Click here to sign up.

(Of course we will not sell your email address (No matter how much we're offered!) or use them for shady purposes. In addition to information about new releases, we're working on a regular monthly newsletter, so it shouldn't be too much extra coming to your inbox.)