Ann Christy's Blog, page 4

Testing the Kindle Previewer with Robot Evolution

I have no idea if this will work, but I do wonder what it looks like to you out there in internet-ia. This new Kindle previewer for web seems very nifty, but is it? If so, please do let me know!

 

Robot Evolution is Live! (And it’s $1.99 for a couple of days)

 

Robot Evolution is live on Amazon!

For those who have read the Perfect Partners, Incorporated series already, this is the first compilation of those novellas into a single book. Robot contains volumes 1-5, including Corrections, Imperfect, The Dogcatcher, PePr, Inc., and Posthumous.

All in all, there are 376 pages of sentient robot fun, gasps, and tears for your reading pleasure.

As always, I’ve got it on New Release pricing for a few days, so it’s $1.99 at the moment. It will go up to regular price shortly (by Saturday morning), so don’t miss out. And I don’t have this volume in Kindle Unlimited (though I’m leaving the individual stories in KU if you’re a KU user).

So far, the reviews are excellent, which is a ginormous relief, but I could always use MORE reviews. If you’re feeling like it, please do leave a review on Goodreads or Amazon (or even on Barnes and Noble, since they are selling the paperback version there).

As a side note: If you’re feeling super generous, leaving a review on individual stories as well as the collection would be hugely appreciated. Reviews are getting SUPER hard to come by in recent months.

Here are the blurbs for each novella inside:

– Corrections: Deirdre is a SUPer, a government owned robot in the time before Perfect Partners were released. Originally designed to be a battlefield intelligence unit, politics demanded her unit be scrapped or sent to work in a less controversial profession.  Now, she’s a parole agent for recently released criminals in need of supervision…nicknamed Anklets by their criminal charges. And this time she’s got herself a doozy for a client. Greg, a petty thief and con artist with a rap sheet extending back more than 40 years, is almost more than she can handle. Between arthritis and illegal card games, Deirdre and Greg forge a new relationship even as the world around them shifts and alters in startling ways.
– Imperfect: Sandra was built with everything; a perfect body, perfect face, and every upgrade that can be bought. Yet somehow she finds herself on the reject table next to a half-disassembled robot with an erratic personality. And now, on top of everything else, she’s just experienced her first emotion. Too bad for her it turned out to be fear.

But all is not as it seems inside the cold Perfect Partners facility. Behind the cool concrete and stainless steel there is more to find than just freshly minted PePrs with empty eyes, or unwanted returns awaiting recycling. As Sandra gets swept up in the plots and plans inside the PePr facility, she must maintain her placid facade or wind up on the chopping block along with her new friend. In the end, it all boils down to one question: How much is Sandra willing to give up to provide a better future for her kind?
– The Dogcatcher: As a civil service PePr, Ace has a job that keeps him in the public eye and under constant scrutiny. Designed and built to relate well with animals, he’s the perfect Animal Control worker. He’s also got a secret and it’s not just that he has emotions. Deep within the abandoned relics of humanity’s industrial past, he has a secret home for himself and all the unadoptable dogs that he rescues.

When Ace does something that will demand his termination, his only wish is that his dogs will not suffer for his actions. It’s only when all hope is lost that he discovers he has more friends than he imagined in the most surprising places. Will he survive? Will the dogs he shelters find the places they can call home? By discovering the true meaning of friendship…and even love…combined with a lot of luck, Ace just might just win the day.
– PePr, Inc.: Hazel has a busy life with a great career and friends she loves. She also has Henry, and that’s not working out quite like she expected.

Perfect Partners, Incorporated – PePr, Inc. – promised her a match with perfect compatibility. A PePr is meant to complement their human, filling in all the gaps to create the ideal couple. They are meant to be something no human could ever hope to find in another human. It’s just not turning out that way for Hazel. When Henry finally goes too far, Hazel finds that getting free of him might not be as easy as going back to PePr to void the contract.
– Posthumous: Love is eternal in a silicon heart.  Edna writes, but isn’t allowed to publish. She lives on her own, but can’t legally own her home. She has a beagle she loves, but is considered property herself. Life can be complicated for a PePr – a Perfect Partner, designed to be exactly what an individual human needs in their life. That’s especially true when that PePr falls in love.

Of all the things that Edna has, only her love belongs entirely to her. And when one can never forget, love becomes endless. Eternal love can sometimes be more painful than never loving at all.

*****

I got a good question from a reader on Facebook about the new releases in the PePr, Inc. universe. I figure if one person asked, then probably more people wondered but didn’t ask.

Questions: Will I be releasing the new novellas in the series individually or only in the collections now? And do readers need to buy them twice or is the content the same as the novellas?

Answer: I’ll be releasing them individually and only collecting them once I’ve got another five out. Because it could very well be many…many…months before I get another five out, I’ll release them individually as they get ready. That way people don’t have to wait.

And yes, I’ll leave the novellas at $0.99 until the new collection comes out and then raise the price. That way, no one is out very much. And yes, I absolutely will give you a review copy of the collection if you’ve reviewed the individual novellas. The cover art is awesome and I don’t want people to have to buy it twice. I’ve always been cool like that and I don’t intend to change. I’m too stubborn for that sort of personality shifting.

As for upcoming novellas, I like to keep my options open but I have several on the docket that seriously interest me. I don’t write them until I have a clear head and the story is fully formed in my head, which often takes me by surprise at inconvenient times. It works though, because the novellas have not disappointed me at all. I’m going to keep on doing them in that fashion for the foreseeable future.

– Mercy – A battlefield medical robot and a soldier trapped by the enemy engage in a battle of wills, with life and death as the stakes. This one goes back to SUPer time again and will revisit Greg, a favorite character from Corrections.
– Protector – When humans figure out the best way to protect our vanishing endangered species is to use untiring PePrs with special skills, then the directive to protect can wind up being implemented in shocking ways.
– Rebellion – In the end, sentient beings will always seek freedom, but freedom usually comes at a dear price. Sometimes that price can be too high.
– Tester (tentative title) – Adopting a child is a privilege and the children available for adoption a very limited resource in our future. Only the best potential parents qualify, and who better to decide than a PePr who looks like a child but has the mind of a social worker.
– Justice – Humans often secretly root for the brave one who exacts immediate justice against those who would do harm. When a tinkerer and a discarded PePr join forces, justice can take on a whole new meaning.

Amazon Giveaway for Posthumous – Try Your Luck!

I’m testing out this new ebook giveaway thingie that Amazon has going and it’s just as cool as it seems!

The only hitch is that it’s not nearly as easy to spread the word about them as you might think. So, there are a big old load of copies left on this giveaway.

Try your luck if you like and if you’re feeling like it, share away via whatever social media venue you’d like to. That would be cool.

Hey, it’s a free book! What’s not to like?

Here’s the linkie:  https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/e370cd35476eeebc

Read and Loved: A Dirty Job (On Sale this Month!)

This is normally one of those pricey trad-pub ones, so having it on sale for $1.99 for the month is a big deal. I had to share it because this happens to be one of my super-favorite books!

First off, it’s Christopher Moore, so you know the humor is going to be weird and catch you completely off-guard. Second, it’s about a guy who discovers he’s death, but in a ridiculous way. Third, there are hellhounds…that like bubbles and a baby.

And don’t even get me started on his neighbors (I still say “like bear” after things and crack myself up).

Just trust me on this one and get it. It’s as cheap as they come right now. And bonus, this is literally the most hilarious, side-splitting, blow snot out of your nose, and pull over somewhere to pee audio-book you’re ever likely to hear. No joke, no exaggeration. On my long commutes back and forth from D.C. I got stared at in traffic jams like I was a lunatic.

Yeah, it’s that funny. Where’s the bonus? The audio-book is $3.99 instead of something ridiculous when you buy the book. So, grab that too. Then come back and tell me how much you laughed and how good it was!

Huge, Ginormous SciFi and Fantasy Promo

 

That’s right, it’s the monthly giant promo from Patty’s place. This month the focus is on Kindle Unlimited books as well as Kobo free books. Every month there’s a different focus…sometimes sales, sometimes new releases, sometimes completed series, or box sets. Since it is different every month, it’s always worth seeing. Just click the link to get to Patty’s place.

So many covers to peruse (and drool over if you’re me), all conveniently arranged by genre so you can find what you want. I’m starting to love these kinds of promos…I find so much to read!

One Amazing Month of Work – The Count

Very randomly I’ll look at what I’m accomplishing and I just did that for the period between January 20th and February 20th. I had this notion that I’d done a lot, and I finally got curious enough to actually check it out.

To say I was shocked would be a total understatement. I actually went over it again because I thought it had to be wrong. Nope, not wrong.

I decided to post about it because I think it demonstrates what can actually be accomplished in a short period of time when someone is dedicated to getting it done and doesn’t mind working way too much, even from the comfort of home.

Here’s the short list:

-Started and finished TWO entire novels (in first draft) of 60K each. (Those are for a different pen name, not yet launched.)
-Added to and ran a first pass edit on the first of those two novels.
-Tried to make my own covers for that pen name, spent too much time, realized I couldn’t, then worked with an amazing cover artist to get the first three covers done.
-Created my launch plan, with a whole lot of details
-Outlined and got 10K into the third novel for that pen name.
-Last review and publishing of Corrections (PePr, Inc. #5)
-Wrote, edited, and published Hope/Less (PePr, Inc. #6)
-Outlined and created covers for Mercy (PePr, Inc. #7) and The Protector (or maybe The Guardian, PePr, Inc. #8)
-Wrote 45K words of Strikers: Eastlands
-Edited and turned in an 11K short story for an anthology
-Wrote an 8K short story just because I had the idea
-Wrote a wicked 500 word flash fiction that is as tight as I have ever written in my life
-Collated, then formatted for print and ebook the first of the PePr Collections. Again, I tried to make covers and must have spent 30 hours trying. Now I’m putting all that hot mess together to go back to that wonderful cover artist.

And that’s just with writing! My average word count over those days…including counting days off as writing days…is 6,700 words per day. Holy macaroni on a hot plate!

So, what was the point of that? What did it get me and what did I give up to do it?

This is where it gets interesting, because it turns out that I had absolutely zero work/life balance there. I still cooked for my family and got things done, but my floors should have been vacuumed far more than they were and there was extra dust I should have gotten rid of. We did do about 50% of the redecorating for the first room we’re re-doing, which took a great deal of time, but regular maintenance was somewhat lacking.

I also didn’t go the gym even once and this is the worst one. I do need to keep working out. I need to do it for my longevity and that wasn’t good. But it turns out I can write like a demon between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. when others start getting up. Too bad that’s also my best time for the gym. I’ll need to figure that out somehow. And no, I definitely can’t do them at the same time. No way.

So, that’s my month! I may not be able to do another one of those, but this one was amazing for work. Now, if only I could get bookbub to like me again I might even get paid for all the work!

 

 

Email: Corrections Card Question Answered!

I got a cool email question about the card game at the end of Corrections and I thought I would take a second to answer it here too.

Question: What hand was Deirdre holding at the end?

Answer: Well, if you know my writing, then part of that answer will seem obvious once you hear it. She was one card away from a Royal Flush, but could have put down two or three cards to get a more likely or safer hand of two pair or three of a kind.

Her hand was an Ace, King, Jack, and ten of Hearts with a King of Clubs tossed in.

All she was missing was the Queen of Hearts.

See? That missing card…obvious!

***

Oh..and check my author facebook page because I just put up a sneak peek of Hope/Less, the next PePr book! Plus the cover it up there.

I’m opening up the ARC list for that one too, so if you want in on that, let me know.

Strikers: Eastlands – First Chapter Sneak Peek

Oh yes, I’m making excellent progress on Strikers: Eastlands. I passed over 45,000 words in the first draft this morning. I decided to take a read through, clean up the typos, and post that first chapter as-is. Because it’s as-is, that means it’s pretty much first draft and it could change substantially before publication. Nevertheless, here it is:

Chapter One

Susanna always says, “Life is a strange bird, so grab it out of the air and look it in the eyes before it flies away.”

I like that saying a lot and I’ve been living it for more than a year. And life has been a very strange bird indeed—but gloriously so, with bright plumage and wide wings. Every strange bird of new experience that flies past me, I grab and look in the eye.

Marcus’s mother is a wise woman, it turns out.

I pull on a semi-clean shirt and my favorite shorts, then take a minute to brush my teeth at the tiny sink we use for all sink-like purposes. The boat is rocking more than usual, so I brace my feet and try not sling toothpaste all over the place. It’s time to get moving, but Jovan still isn’t up yet. He sleeps like a log when we’re at sea. I’ll have to wake him if he’s going to get up on time.

Inside the smaller of the two cabins, Jovan is mumbling in his sleep again, something about a swimming cow. I’m guessing he’s mixing up a dream of the ocean with one of life back home in the Bailar territory in Texas. He doesn’t say so, but I know sometimes he misses it.

I don’t miss it. Neither do Cassie or Connor or Maddix. For us, there’s not much to miss. Sure, I think of my mom now and then, but she has her life and I was never an important part of that. Or, at least not more important than a bottle. And now she thinks I’m dead if she’s heard anything at all about me. I push the thought back and creep up to the bed.

When I brush back the lock of hair that’s fallen over Jovan’s eyes, he wiggles his nose as if I’ve tickled him and a giggle escapes me. We’re due on deck for our turn on watch soon or else I’d let him sleep till noon. The skies have turned angry and we’re going to need all hands on deck for whatever storm is coming our way.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” I whisper into Jovan’s ear. I see the smile bloom across his face even with his eyes closed.

His arms enfold me and he pulls me onto the bed like a sack of potatoes. With my arms trapped in his, all I can do is flail at him, but I think my laughter gives away that I’m not actually fighting too hard. He’s warm from sleep and he smells of salt and yesterday’s sunshine.

“No. You come to bed instead,” he murmurs in my ear. He nuzzles my neck like he’s seeking warmth, which is odd because it’s been broiling hot lately. I can barely stand to be near anyone in this heat. Even just sitting next to someone makes me sweat. The only way to be comfortable is to remain on deck in the wind.

Besides, what’s he suggesting is dangerous territory and I’m not rising to his bait. We’ve had a year to discuss this and the decision has been made. Marriage is for the future, not today. I’m still seventeen, effectively an orphan, and haven’t met my half-brother yet. He knows this, so I also know he’s not too serious about his suggestion.

We’ve spent this year whiling away our time inside a heavenly pause between lives. Fishing, doing trades with Florida via their weird little buoys, and occasionally shuttling trade cargo. Each trip from the big port of Pensacola in the Gulf Cooperative to one of the ports on the Mighty Miss allows us to while away more time without making decisions.

What all this movement hasn’t done is push us forward into what will be our new lives. What will those lives be? We don’t know. The world is big and full of choices. If there’s anything about Texas that I can safely say that I miss, it would be that I lived with certainty. I had no choices, no options, no hope for anything better…but at least I knew what came next. Out here, everything is limitless and that’s more than a little scary.

I’ve written back and forth with my father’s wife and my half-brother, but I can’t help feeling guilty that he’s lost a father and she, a husband. How can they not hold that against me? While I didn’t find his body that day when I went back to the burned remains of our hideout, his wife sent a team and found proof of his death.

Under the debris was a skeleton, his wedding ring and the metal bits from his clothes more than enough to identify him. Just like it must have done for them, the certainty of his death made me grieve harder. Without a body, there was always this tiny thread of hope that he’d survived somehow.

Past the grief, there’s still the reality of a brother for me to consider. It’s nice to think I have a family, but at the same time, I can’t bring myself to go there and see the pain of loss in their eyes. Especially since I’m the cause of that pain. There’s no getting around that simple truth.

My sigh must communicate more than I meant it to, because Jovan’s hand brushes my hair away from my face and he murmurs, “It’s okay. Everything is okay.”

There’s no question that I have the best boyfriend in the world. He’s my certainty, my north star, my safety amidst so much that is unknown. I love him and even better, I’m absolutely certain that he loves me too.

Cassie pokes her head in and purses her lips when she sees us, but the smile isn’t completely hidden behind her prim expression. “Well, now. I suppose I can just eat your breakfast for you.”

That gets Jovan up. He shoves me over on the bed and hops up like there’s a fire somewhere. “Them’s fighting words, little miss,” he says in his best cowboy accent. Then he leans forward to give her a peck on the cheek.

Cassie shoves him away and he disappears through the door with a laugh. I disengage myself from the mess that Jovan made of his covers and Cassie drapes an arm over my shoulder as we make our way up on deck. She chatters on about the sky, the clouds, and the possibility of storms in typical Cassie fashion.

Up on deck, I find that she’s more than correct. Cassie can be a little exuberant—she finds wonder in almost everything—but in this case, she’s minimized the impact of the low and threatening sky. It doesn’t look exciting to me, except in a scary way.

Connor and Maddix are in deep discussion with Marcus at the chart table, heads together and their voices impossible to hear over the wind that snaps our sails. The crackle of the radio punctuates their discussion and spurs Marcus to make another mark on the chart with a pencil.

When we picked up Maddix and Connor in Pensacola last summer, I felt like my family was back together again. And by family, I mean the real kind of family made up of people we love because we choose to love them. Neither of them is a natural sailor like Jovan and Cassie have turned out to be, but they’re doing pretty well and both learn quickly. The money isn’t bad either and that gives them incentive to learn.

Marcus looks up and catches my eye. There’s worry there and my stomach does a little back flip in response. Jovan must have caught it too, because his big hand lands on my shoulder and he whispers, “Go find out what’s going on. I’ll keep Cassie occupied.”

I nod and cross behind the wheel, tucking my hair into a ponytail while I walk. The wheel is locked on course with a line looped and tied just for that purpose. That tells me whatever they’re talking about is important. Marcus doesn’t like locking the wheel as long as there is someone on deck who can tend it. Even when we all got sick from something we ate last winter during a resupply trip, one of us stayed up near the wheel and locked it only when a visit over the rail to throw up was urgently required.

“What’s up?” I ask, my eyes taking in the neat series of dots and expanding circles on the chart.

“Tropical storm,” answers Marcus, his face grim. “Rapid developer too.”

The radio crackles out another series of numbers that Connor jots quickly down on the chart margin, resulting in yet another dot and another two circles around the dot. Jovan clearly failed at keeping Cassie occupied and away from the table, because they both come to the chart table—which is also our fish cleaning table—and listen.

“This is not good,” Maddix says, his eyes still locked on the chart. With one finger he points to our current location. With another, he traces the long line of dots and circles until his fingers touch. We’re just miles from the Florida coast. The dots they’ve been drawing based on the radio transmissions create a line that intersects our track quite neatly.

On the radio, a female voice says that the next storm track update will be in six hours, but that there will be hourly bulletins on conditions as the information arrives. Then the crackles cease and the wind in the sails is the only noise while Marcus stares at the chart in consternation.

I don’t interrupt him because he’s got that look on his face he gets when he’s trying to find a way out of a problem. And he’s been on the water his whole life, so he’s the one who’ll need to tell us what all this means.

I know what a tropical storm is, but we’ve not experienced one. Last year we pulled in to avoid some rough seas associated with one, but nothing came close to us. All a tropical storm was for me was some higher waves, a stiffer wind, and a cold glass of orange juice while we waited it out.

He seems to make up his mind about something and slaps a hand down on the chart. “Okay, we’re sort of in the pincer here.” Marcus drags a finger along a line connecting the dots again and then taps our position, north of the line, smack dab between the storm and the land. “We’re close to Florida and we can’t get too far west before we’re hit by the waves. Our best chance is to try to make landfall at the first place we can over the Gulf Cooperative border.”

That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Cassie agrees because she says, “Fine, let’s go to it then. The seas are kicking up and the sky looks like it’s going to fall on us.”

I’m still not as good at reading charts as Jovan, but even I can tell that those storm locations are labeled to reach our area soon. And if those big circles around the storm track mean anything, we’re in real trouble. If the wind kicks up, we can’t just hoist more sail and go faster. It’s the opposite. We have to get out of the area before it gets bad or we’re sitting ducks.

Clearly, I’m thinking correctly because Marcus shakes his head, then looks past me toward the lowering clouds to our south. “We need to move. Now.”

The sky above is full of foreboding, dark and heavy and ready to spill on us. I have a feeling we’re in for one heck of a ride.

 

Let me know what you think! You’ve all been soooo patient while I worked on the Between Life and Death series, and I appreciate it. If this goes over well, I’ll share a few more chapters as I get them cleaned up.

Corrections – The Next Perfect Partners Novella – ARC Time!

That’s right! The next Perfect Partners entry is already almost ARC ready. I won’t be publishing it until the 22nd of January, so there will be two weeks for those who receive Advanced Review Copies to read and get ready to review it. Corrections is a bit of a ride, with some characters I really enjoyed getting to know and a look at our human world of crime from the view of a SUPer (the robots that came before PePrs).

For those who regularly get ARCs, I’ll be tagging you on Facebook, so no worries there. That said, I’m opening the list up to more people who want to join. All you have to do is review the work on Amazon on the day of publication…that’s it. Goodreads reviews are a nice thing, but in no way required to receive an ARC.

It’s about the same length as The Dogcatcher, so it’s a good chunk of novella and a nice read, but not one of my big old books like The Book of Sam or Strikers.

So..what’s this one about? Here’s the blurb:

Deirdre is a SUPer, a government owned robot in the time before Perfect Partners were released for personal use. Originally meant as a battlefield intelligence unit, politics demanded her unit be scrapped or sent to work in a less controversial profession.

Now, she’s a parole agent for recently released criminals in need of supervision…called Anklets by their criminal charges. And this time she’s got herself a doozy for a client. Greg, a petty thief and con artist with a rap sheet extending back more than 40 years, is almost more than she can handle. Between arthritis and illegal card games, Deirdre and Greg forge a new relationship even as the world around them shifts and alters in startling ways.

New Release – The Dogcatcher

It’s live!

The latest in the Perfect Partners, Incorporated series has been published. This novella was a painful joy to write and I really love the way it turned out. Based on the reactions of the beta readers and ARC  (Advanced Review Copy) readers, it turned out well.

What’s this one about? Well, my titles for this series are very literal, which I rather like. This one is about Ace, a PePr civil servant who works in Animal Control. Basically, he’s the dogcatcher. But like all my PePrs, he’s a very different sort of civil servant.

If you do decide to pick it up, please do me a huge favor and leave a review if you can bring yourself to. Those are getting very difficult to get and it’s making it hard to get any visibility for the volumes.

Here’s the current blurb :

As a civil service PePr, Ace has a job that keeps in the public eye and under constant scrutiny. Designed and built to work with animals, he’s the perfect Animal Control worker. He’s also got a secret and it’s not just that he has emotions. Deep within the abandoned relics of humanity’s industrial past, he has a secret home for himself and all the unadoptable dogs that he rescues.

And he’s not alone. PePrs from all over the city congregate there, working to ease the pain of those left unloved while making a hidden life for themselves.

When Ace does something that will demand his termination, his only wish is that his dogs will not suffer for his actions. It’s only when all hope is lost that he discovers he has more friends than he imagined in the most surprising places.

Will he survive? Will the dogs he shelters find the places they can call home? By discovering the true meaning of friendship…and even love…combined with a lot of luck, Ace just might just win the day.

The Dogcatcher is volume four in the Perfect Partners, Incorporated series, but they don’t need to be read in any particular order. Each is a complete tale unto itself. You can begin the series for free with the short story, PePr, Inc.

Like all the PePr novellas, this one is just $0.99 for now, though based on the market rate for most other well-edited novellas, I’m probably going to raise the prices of them to about half what is normal…which would be $1.50…at some point.