Cary Neeper's Blog: Reviewing World-changing Nonfiction - Posts Tagged "scifi"

Here's a hint at what the series is all about:

If you like Out of a Silent Planet, The Hobbit, Dragon Riders of Pern, A place Beyond Man or Oz, you'll love THE ARCHIVES OF VAROK.

LAUNCHING THE SECOND IN THE SERIES--THE WEBS OF VAROK
Set in an alternate 21st century
--where realistic solutions offer a promising future
--where human assumptions are challenged by aliens too close and too similar to ignore
--where Earth's species, driven by sexuality, are trumped by alien drives even stronger.


Two related websites have just gone online. Check out the series website at ArchivesofVarok.com and read the Prologue and Chapter 1 premiering there. Penscript-Publishing.com is offering ten free copies of A Place Beyond Man to those writing reviews there. Here is the link http://ow.ly/eLAGL I'm putting two more excerpts on My Writing, and will be doing a giveaway here on Goodreads of A Place Beyond Man so you can read the prequel to WEBS before it comes out. Enjoy!

To prepare for a reconnoitering hike across L'orkah, Conn found a tough moss in the shallows on the northern edge of the lake. There he fashioned a crude wet-sweater by lacing four-foot lengths of the moss together with tough weed stalks. Then he went hunting.

He dove to the bottom of the lake and swam in wide circles until his tiles picked up the pressure pattern of large, barbed petals scanning the water for passing fish. Slowly, he zeroed in on the voracious plant. It looked like a giant rose in full bloom, but its outer petals beckoned dangerously, ready to snap closed sensitive edges and hold fast anything that ventured too near.

For bait, Conn caught a fish hiding in the mud. He dispatched it with a bite, then, holding it by the tail, swam just out of reach of the carnivore, brushing the fish over its petals. When the petals snapped closed on the fish, Conn threw himself under the great rose and uprooted it. Too late its petals felt their new danger and reached backward to entrap the elll. A few barbs struck at the back of his arms, but he quickly found the stem of its food bladder and pulled the organ from the dying plant intact.

He cleaned the tough sack with the shell of a sand slug and fashioned its stem into a shoulder strap. Then he filled it with fresh lake water, and laced it shut with reeds. One of the largest petals of the plant made a workable pack, which he filled with edible weeds and fish.

Ready at last, he rose to the surface of the lake wearing his newly woven wet-sweater. The burden of food and water he slung over his shoulders. Nothing stirred on the western edge of the lake. He let himself drift slowly along the bottom until he reached the shore. Then he stood quickly and ran for the nearest clump of nitro-bush.

"Ae-yulll." He stifled a cry of pain as his third toe-web came down on a small rock. "How could I be so stupid?"

He walked back to the lake, much more carefully this time, and scrambled along the shore weeds. Within minutes he resurfaced, shod with tough moss sandals.The Webs of Varok

(Newly arrived on Varok, the human Tandra meets a varok who does not play by the rules of common decency.)

Like the slicing of cold steel, I felt the invasion of Mahntik's probe into my thought. I fought to keep my mind blank, but her attention leapt from image to image like an electric shock, dredging up related thoughts and flashes of memory as it went along, quickly giving Mahntik a clearer vision of our suspicions.

Back off, I demanded in thought. She did. Then she pressed deeper, beyond my natural shields. She tore at the core of my emotions, until it took great effort to protect sensitive roots. Gradually, one by one, my poorly developed human defenses fell—the anger at being badly treated on Earth, the frustration that no one would listen, then the guilt at leaving Earth's crises behind for a better life. And Orram. Fear of being too dependent on him. All was raw and exposed.

Here's the link to a review by Douglas Cobb, including an overview of the entire series THE ARCHIVES OF VAROK. WEBS is the second in the series, which is setup in A PLACE BEYOND MAN.
http://www.bookspotcentral.com/2012/1... A Place Beyond Man: The Archives of Varok

Penscript Publishing House is offering a drawing for ten free copies of A Place Beyond Man, the prequel to THE WEBS OF VAROK,now available in trade paperback, hardback, Kindle and Nook Editions. http://archivesofvarok.com/articles/n...

Neither dystopia or utopia, THE WEBS... is a realistic scifi crossover novel set in an alternate 21st century solar system, where the nearby aliens are too interesting and too nosy to ignore.

"Who knew sustainable economics could be so much fun? Served up with large helpings of adventure and novel romance, the post-growth society of Neeper’s complex but completely imagined world on a hidden moon of Jupiter is the setting for a page-turning struggle between the eternal themes of personal accumulation vs. the common good. . . ."

—Kathy Campbell, past president, League of Women Voters New Mexico

"Cary Neeper deftly weaves the various points of view she writes about into a page-turning novel that will keep you interested and wanting to read more from the start to the finish. With her in-depth descriptions of the moon, she displays incredible world-building skills and makes Varok seem like it could be a real place with a myriad of life forms.

The Webs of Varok is a spellbinding read and a great addition to Neeper’s series, The Archives of Varok. . . ."

—Douglas Cobb, author and book blogger, Book Spot Central. Here's the link to his comprehensive review:
http://www.bookspotcentral.com/2012/1...

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH is a standout choice in understanding why steady state economics is the answer to our current dilemmas. Why? It's the elegant simplicity and regularity of its presentation. First, engaging anecdotes set the stage. 2) Undeniable data and simple graphs make the reason for change clear. 3)This why is then followed by a no-nonsense listing of what needs to be done.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH's crystal clear how and why makes it a book for anyone, and an excellent text for students of any age preparing to design the future. Rob Dietz and Dan O'Neill have handed us the prescription we need to cure the ills of our overused planet and to secure a perpetual, humane future for its life. There is no illegible scrawl in the prescription. The directions are precisely laid out--even the troublesome imperatives, like population stability. The authors introduce each chapter with engaging anecdotes, and illustrate data with simple graphs. A striking conclusion expresses the need to recognize which nations need economic development to attain a good life for their people, countries that should maintain their steady state, and those that need to plan and execute substantial degrowth. The benefits of a no-growth economy are beautifully summarized near the end, along with extensive notes on sources of information and a usefully detailed index. It should be required reading, not just for students.

Buried in the authors' reasoning, which tells us why we must take this medicine, are concepts we can all expand on--the need for technical development that is rationally selective, the need for legal ethics that do not allow the obfuscation of truth, and the need to deny business ethics that trample integrity in pursuit of the bottom line.

Dietz and O'Neill's pills may seem difficult to swallow, but they will go down easily, for their necessity is made quite clear. We all want the same thing. We want human genius and the awesome beauty and diversity of life on Earth to survive the long-run--with health, ever-growing enlightenment, and joy in living for all. They outline a good plan for how to achieve that.Rob Dietz

I just received notice from reviewer Frank Kaminski that he has reviewed both books of The Archives of Varok, including wonderful synopses I wish I could have written as well. It has appeared in three online sites.
Here are are few excerpts:
"...it is an involving, well-plotted story that does justice to both the hard science underpinning its interplanetary settings and the long evolutionary perspectives typical of the old scientific romances.
"...what a worthy revival it is, in both its continued timeliness and its intelligent, believable rendering of alien values and cultures.
"Its sequel, The Webs of Varok, was a long time in coming, but it's finally here waiting to be discovered by a new generation. ...the 38-year lapse between offerings has not dimmed Neeper’s storytelling ability nor dampened her ambition: the new novel is every bit as well made, poignant and entertaining as its predecessor.
"Three more Archives of Varok novels are in the works and are set to be released between now and the end of 2014. I look forward to seeing what additional insights their alien worlds have to contribute to the growing debate about our species’ predicament."
Here are the links: Reviews at variantperception.com and
http://www.resilience.org/stories/201...

What do you do when you realize that your books don’t fit common genre expectations? What category should you suggest when your publisher applies for a fiction contest? What discussion groups would you join on LinkedIn or here on Goodreads?

Book stores, even Amazon, need to find a place—a shelf or category—that defines literature so readers can find the kind of books they love. Finding the right shelf for your books isn’t easy, because most readers eventually gravitate toward books of any genre that tell in beautiful language a powerful story. Those are the books that last on the best seller lists for years, not just weeks. Those are the books we keep, to read over and over again.

As writers who love words and the process of crafting story and characters, we are caught in the genre dilemma if our books don’t follow the currently defined formulas. My example are the books called The Archives of Varok. What shelf should I put them on?

The stories explore issues critical for teens to consider, but the protagonist is an adoptive mother, a professional microbiologist. (So Adult fiction?) Her child is two years old in the first book, grows up in the second (YA!), meets her first love and her greatest challenge in the third, and redefines her life in the fourth book in her twenties. (Is there a shelf called New Adult?)

On the YA shelf, the protagonist is supposed to be . . . how old? One teen reader said the Archives are appropriate down to seventh grade. An elder reader recently noted that The View Beyond Earth was definitely adult. It explores how we would “realistically” react if we discovered that friendly, savvy, attractive, very-subtly-but-profoundly-aliens lived near Earth?

Aliens? The trap springs shut, and the AOV books land on the scifi shelf. But the aliens are fun, not horrible and dangerous, not even drooling. The covers suggest they love children. Some are even cute, like the ahlork on The Webs of Varok cover. I feel that the books’ covers reflect the theme and tone of the series—an exploration of who we are, we human beings.

Current realism is not the worst feature that makes me want to take the AOV books out of the Scifi Shelf. I am also a realist when it comes to space travel. In my “scifi” books, traveling to Jupiter takes time, costs lots of energy, and damages living beings. Answers to our horrendous problems like overpopulation stress, fossil fuels, and cognitive dissonance are more easily portrayed in a realistic setting.

I decided my stories would be more palatable if they provided good entertainment, so I populated them with challenging aliens that were fun to meet. Fun? Humor? In Science Fiction? Or are they YA? Maybe New Adult from the beginning? Or should AOV be on the Sociology shelf? Maybe Political Science, since the books portray a formula for achieving an equitable, democratic long-term steady-state?

How about the Speculative Fiction shelf? Most contests don’t list that category. It’s a bit broad. After all, readers want to know what a book is about. So we have to rely on writing the one-liners and the marketing paragraphs agents love. No one shelf seems to fit; the second book in the AOV series, The Webs of Varok, won a silver Nautilus award for adult science fiction and was a YA ForeWord Book of the Year finalist.

I suspect I’m not alone in this dilemma. What do you think?