Lewis Perdue's Blog, page 30

How Traditional Publishers SUCK On eBooks

 

I’ve been working hard on new edits for my two Amazon bestsellers, Die By Wire and Perfect Killer (and a new cover for PK … preview it here.).

But I got an email last night pointing out just how badly traditional publishers suck at ebooks. And they used one of my own books as an example of how bad things can get. Ouch!

 

The Amazon review below –cited in the email — and the story behind it illustrate just how bad traditional publishers can get.

4.0 out of 5 stars DY Autocorrect?, April 6, 2012


By MBargie – See all my reviews


Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)
This review is from: Daughter of God (Kindle Edition)

“I love this book & read a physical copy a few years ago. I just got the kindle edition & there are mistakes. It looks like whoever typed it up as an ebook, did so on a device with autocorrect. It’s been awhile since I read the physical copy, but I don’t remember seeing these mistakes. Any decent book editor would have caught them. I’d suggest that Amazon have the writer of the ebook copy go re-do their work on this one. All in all though, I do love this book & any authors & books like it. EX: Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, etc.”

 

Well, yes, it reminds you of Da Vinci Code because this was one of my books plagiarized by that bestseller. But, as pointed out, the Daughter of God ebook is filled with crappy, crappy typos left over from a crappy, crappy scan that no one bothered to correct.

Here’s yet another take on traditional editing: Traditional Bad Editing: Not Just For The Self-Published

OVER-PRICED, UNDER-PROMOTED, NO PAY

Daughter of God’s publisher , Macmillan’s Forge/Tor imprint has fumbled every aspect of one of the best books I’ve ever written. (Anger. Tears of frustration).

Not only have they — like many other publishers — loosed an embarrassingly flawed version on the public, but they have grossly OVER-priced it, failed to do any promotion and can’t even keep the dead-tree version in print.

Oh, I forgot to mention that even though this book came out in 2000 and earned its advance out a way long time ago, they don’t pay me anything for whatever pitiful sales happen despite the price and the crappy, crappy typos.

A couple of years ago, I proposed (numerous times) that since the publisher was incapable of keeping Daughter of God in print, that I create a print-on-demand version via Createspace and pay THEM the same royalty rate on those books that they pay ME.

No dice. So the book goes in and out of print, the ebook text looks like a Chimp hit auto-correct and they over-priced things and don’t promote it. And give me no payment — and thus no reason to promote it like I have with my other books.

See this piece for more on payments: How “Free” Got Me $2,202.29 From Amazon

PROOF OF INDIE CONCEPT: PERFECT KILLER

Perfect Killer, is a thriller whose rights I re-acquired from Macmillan/Forge/Tor.

Because it’s priced correctly and I promote it, it regularly makes the top 10 in one or another Amazon Kindle paid bestseller list. While Daughter of God is usually somewhere between #244,224 (as it was this morning) and #1 million.

And they wouldn’t let me  re-copy edit this even if I would — which I would NOT under the current arrangements.

Why?

Why should I spend my limited time as an author to do work for someone who is not paying me when I can make several thousand dollars per month writing, editing and promotion my own e-books including Die By Wire and Perfect Killer?

I am not THAT dumb!

A NOTE TO READERS

I admit that some of the scans I have done from my older (pre-1985 … like Zaibatsu) books have more scan-induced typos than they should. I’m working my way backward in time on all of those books. When better versions of those older books come out, just write me with proof that you bought an earlier, flawed e-version, and I will get you a new e-copy free.

That proof is easy to find: Amazon has every purchase you ever made with them online in your account section. I’ll set up a mechanism for this exchange/upgrade when improved versions are completed.

 

 

Traditional Bad Editing: Not Just For The Self-Published

Supporters of traditional publishing often tout editing as one of the advantages of the legacy process. And, of course, anytime people who are enamored of the old ways find an editing mistake in a self-published book, they point out how inferior the indie route goes.

And then there are those self-published books –  like my thriller, Perfect Killer — that were traditionally edited and published before the author regained the rights and self-published it.

New cover for upcoming re-edited edition

4-STARS AND ANNOYING STYLE

A kind reader gave Perfect Killer a 4-star Amazon review, then took me to task me for repeating a phrase (“Mona Lisa smile”).

 ”After the FOURTH repetition of describing the female lead as having “a Mona Lisa smile,” I was starting to want to time-travel and kill da Vinci before he could paint the thing!” He wrote.

He also expressed how confusing the book was for using both first- and third-person points of view.

” It is very disconcerting for the reader when the story jumps back and forth between first-person and third-person narrative like a volley ball on Spring Break.”

(You can find that review and the resulting comment by scrolling down on this page)

I have written all my other books completely in third person.

THIRD PERSON IS MY USUAL POV

But in Perfect Killer, I used the hero to tell the very personal story of my family history in the Mississippi Delta and my own journey from the scion of a Delta plantation family with a U.S. Senator and other powerful figures … to my expulsion from Ole Miss (where my great-grandfather had been Chancellor) for leading a civil rights march.

I just couldn’t write the words to describe the deep emotions for what I was feeling if I used third person, no matter how hard I tried. I believe I did a better job using first person.

SLOPPY EBOOK EDITING

Anyway, just recently, another well-meaning reader who sympathized with the original reviewer, expressed her opinion that the errors were all part of sloppy e-book publishing.

” The ebook market has made it ever so much easier for writers to have their works see the light of day without the benefit of serious editing, “ she said.

I agree with the original reviewer. And disagree with her comment.

Perfect Killer is not an ebook original. The hardcover edition was published by Macmillan’s Forge/Tor imprint in 2005. The Mona Lisa smile thing was imposed on me by an editor. It annoyed me as well. I have a new edit (and new cover) coming and I’ve removed all but one of those references.

As for the first/third person, it’s a stylistic choice that’s used by some authors who are obviously  far more accomplished than I am (Ernest Hemingway and James Patterson being two of those). Obviously, not everyone likes it.

Usually, Perfect Killer’s POV change is moderated by not making the change within a chapter. In those occasions when the point of view changed within a chapter my original manuscript I used

*   *   *   *   *

to let the reader know that the POV had transitioned. But those signals were deleted by the editor. And I agree that the lack of a signal or other transition is confusing.

There are a number of other editing problems and other issues far more serious than those that prompted me to sever my relationship with the publisher.

I do NOT Think That Thinking Undermines Religious Faith

But, that’s the gist of this new study that devalues religion and any sort of “gut” feeling:  Thinking can undermine religious faith.

I think the conclusions of that article are flawed by insufficient data and inadequate analysis.

Minds that remain locked by bias and preconceptions will never find the truth. My snapshot of this Amsterdam lock says that very clearly. (Click to enlarge)

I think that people who THINK they’re thinking can UNDER-think the issue because of pre-conceived opinions and scientific political correctness … and can get wrong answers based on too little information. Analytical processes do not create correct answers when they grind through incorrect or incomplete data.

I write about this in my thriller,  Perfect Killer.

The following excerpt from Perfect Killer will tell you why I think this is important:

PERFECT KILLER, CHAPTER 27 (MOST OF IT)

 When I reached the enclosed bridge to the next building, I began a jog toward the conference room inside, the half dozen postdoctoral students from Toronto were sitting around a long, elliptical plastic-laminate table, drinking coffee from a variety of disposable cups. The rest of the seats around the table along with the standing room around the windowless walls were jammed with a collection of my current students I vaguely recognized but whose names I could not recall.

The conversation lulled when I entered the room and made my way to the big white board at the front.

“Good afternoon,” I greeted them. “Before we get started, I want you to know that if today’s lecture is interesting and you want more, you can find my notes and other data at my Web site: ConsciousnessStudies.org.” I turned and wrote the address on the white board.

“Okay.” I turned to face them. “Let’s begin with a question: Did you really decide to attend this seminar today, or are you here because of some unremembered incident last year or maybe during your infancy?”

The attendees unanimously gave me the confused stares I wanted.

“Or maybe you’re here because of some artifact lurking in your DNA?”

Their befuddlement deepened.

“Some among us today believe everything you do is predestined. These reductionists and determinists whose dogma dominate brain science today think free will is an illusion and consciousness an accidental by-product of synaptic electricity.”

A couple of the faculty members present, acolytes of the orthodox, frowned deeply at this.

I tapped an index finger against my temple. “’One hundred percent in the meatware,’ they say. ‘Inspiration, meditation, right and wrong, eloquence, philosophy, do not exist; transcendence is a fantasy and everything’s just the meat talking.’”

Most heads shook their disagreement.

“This issue transcends science because free will underpins our relationships with others and forms the philosophical foundations of law and society. Genuine accidents carry a different reaction than intentional injury or insult. Courts treat two people convicted of identical crimes very differently if one’s insane or visibly, provably brain-damaged.

“Sadly, the scientific mainstream has mishandled free will. They have a vested intellectual interest in promoting politically correct science over reality, just as the Renaissance Vatican favored the religiously correct over provably factual heresy.

“They conveniently forget Albert Einstein when he said that ‘science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.’”

I ignored an assassinating frown from a slight man sitting toward the back of the room. The man, Jean-Claude Bouvet, had a lot to lose if I was right. A widely published author and leader of the “consciousness as meatware” movement, Bouvet was a pompous, brilliant man who received lavish research funding from large pharmaceutical companies.

“We will speak heresy today,” I continued. “Because like Copernicus, our search for truth requires that we see things as they are, rather than as we would like for them to be. This means setting aside politics, social engineering, and corporate profits to accept the unwelcome pain of unexpected discoveries. Unlike our reductionist colleagues” — I singled out Bouvet with a glance— “we will deal with science rather than fantasy.”

Bouvet mumbled something derogatory, and I continued without acknowledging him.

“Our quest for the truth begins with three important steps:

“One, free will derives from consciousness. Two, consciousness is our perception of reality. Three, reality is weird.”

This produced a titter of nervous laughter.

“There’s no real argument over the first two steps,” I continued. “Because without the awareness provided by consciousness, there can be no exercise of free will. And even the most orthodox priests of reductionism agree that consciousness is perception. But the nature of reality divides us bitterly.

“The reductionists believe we live in a classical, clockwork universe as defined by Sir Isaac Newton where any future action can be predicted by knowing all the data about its starting point and every starting point can he determined by reversing the process.

“The classicists also believe that all action must be local. But entanglement—the foundation of quantum cryptography now being tested by banks for money transfers—proves that actions on a particle here can instantaneously affect an entangled particle anywhere else in the universe.

“Uncertainty and entanglement mean that biological reductionism is about as right as the Vatican was about astronomy in Copernican days. Quantum physics has trumped Newton’s classical physics in everything from semiconductors, global-positioning satellites, and nuclear bombs. Despite this, classicists cling to predictability despite quantum physics’ proof that uncertainty rules the universe.

“In our quantum world, we cannot even predict the behavior of a single electron or proton in any atom of your body. We can calculate probabilities of its behavior, but nothing is certain—not even whether that particle will exist a nanosecond from there. Thus, classical reductionism falls short because quantum reality prevents it from determining starting conditions, and this means they cannot forecast actions based on those conditions. In place of their fantasy clockwork, reality consists of infinitely nonpredictable sets of mathematical probabilities. In other words, uncertainty is the only thing of which we can be certain.”

“I can’t sit here and let you mislead these people.” Bouvet’s angry interjection riveted the room. “Your theory is misleading because quantum physics determines science at the very small levels of atomic and subatomic particles, whereas people and the cellular structures that govern life and our behavior are many times larger. A biological system is too large, too warm and messy, for any sort of coherence or quantum phenomenon to govern it.”

He jutted his jaw at me like the tip of a spear. Eyes flitted from him to me and finally fixed me with expectations.

“An excellent recitation of the current dogma,” I said, nodding evenly at Bouvet. “But one rooted in the erroneous belief that biology and physics operate by different rules.”

Bouvet snorted.

“Biology is not immune to the laws of physics,” I responded. “Every atom in our bodies obeys the same rules, adheres to the same quantum mechanical properties as every other atom in the universe.

“Biology is chemistry; chemistry is physics; and quantum mechanics rules physics,” I said. “Biology may seem like the study of large, messy systems, but all life depends on chemical reactions: metabolism, cell division, DNA replication—you name it. Chemical reactions depend on electron bonding orbits, and those are entirely quantum-based. What’s more, every atom in your body is composed of the very same subatomic particles as those in a doorknob or a distant star.

“Let’s do an experiment. Imagine your head, then visualize your brain.” I saw some eyes close. “Pick a neuron, any neuron. Then select a random molecule, and from that molecule, single out one atom. I paused to let people focus as more eyes closed.

“Okay, focus on a particle in the atom—proton, neutron, electron—doesn’t matter. Particle physics tells us that particle is a wave and a particle at the same time, which says that even though the results of our experiments allow us to perceive it as one or the other, it is in reality probably neither. Superstring theory indicates that energy and matter are just different patterns of vibration from space-time, the basic fabric of the universe. That is the ultimate weird nature of the reality we must understand in order to comprehend consciousness and, through that process, come to grips with free will.”

“But you’re still confusing the rules!” Bouvet interrupted. “Quantum mechanics applies to the very small, not to biology.”

I gave Bouvet an indulgent smile. “If you’ll allow me, Doctor?” He slid sullenly into his seat without replying.

“Quantum effects underlie all processes, even those with large, observable effects which—”

“Name one!” Bouvet’s temper burned down toward the limits of my patience.

“Well, Doctor, a nuclear bomb fits pretty well. Hard to miss one of those, and yet quantum processes underlie the whole thing.”

“But—”

“Every biological process including consciousness is rooted in quantum physics, which carries the inherent uncertainty that makes it impossible to determine the fixed starting point you and other reductionists and behaviorists need to predict anything at all. Doctor classical physics is dead. You need to get a grip on that.”

In the front, a slight young man with thinning sandy brown hair tentatively raised his hand. I nodded at him.

“Doesn’t that just shift the issue of free will around from the tyranny of biological predestination to the chaos of rolling dice?”

Bouvet smiled at the young man, then shot me a challenging look.

“You might think so,” I said, “if not for some very good published studies into cognitive behavior therapy—CBT—showing that people with various problems—depression for example—can create new interneuronal connections through directed thought. What’s more, the research proves these people overcome their psychological problems in far more significant and lasting ways than those who pop a pill.”

I looked around the room and, for the first time, saw Jasmine inside the door, leaning against the far wall nearly hidden in the standing-room crowd. I took a deep breath and desperately scanned my notes for an intelligent thought. Her hair framed her face like an aura and created the perfect backdrop for the dazzling diamond studs in her ears. Her eye shadow sparkled faintly violet, and she wore a bright cornflower-blue polo shirt and khaki slacks with lots of pleats. A large leather bag hung over her shoulder.

“CBT upsets the reductionists because classical physics offers no provision for something as ethereal as the mind to act on the physical world. In other words, their dogma rests on matter creating thoughts, but they have absolutely no intellectual explanation for thought-creating matter.”

Bouvet squirmed and fidgeted. He was beside himself now, barely able to contain his growing indignation. Orthodoxy fed such incredible anger, I thought, and it didn’t matter whether the beloved dogma was religious or scientific.

“How’s this possible?” asked the brown-haired man in front. “Is this your fantasy or is there a plausible scientific explanation?”

“As a matter of fact, new work in this centers on a small set of nano-capable structures in every neuron called microtubules. These work on a quantum-level scale, possibly through a biological variant of a Bose-Einstein condensate in surrounding water molecules, which enables them to achieve a quantum coherence. World-renowned physicist Roger Penrose and his colleague Stuart Hameroff theorize that quantum consciousness may entangle itself in space-time, which means our thoughts may even permanently alter this basic fabric of reality.”

“So, why don’t we read more about CBT?” The question came from a crowd near Jasmine. I smiled at her, then said, “Mainly because the multibillion-dollar drug industry has a vested interest in keeping the truth covered up. CBT research fails to get research funding because the pharmaceutical companies can’t afford for the world to know their products are a poor chemical Band-Aid that does not fix the underlying problem and that their science is based on the buggy-whip science of classical reductionists who do get funded by these megacorporations. In a real sense, those who are addicted to the big research bucks are not seekers of the truth, but seekers of grants. And you don’t get grants by challenging the establishment’s dogma even if it is provably wrong,”

“Bullshit’.” Bouvet’s anger finally overran his self-control. “I’ve had enough of your insupportable, insulting, and completely unscientific speculation!”

I watched him search the assembled faces for some support. Finding none, Bouvet elbowed his way toward the door.

Jasmine shifted slightly and nudged Bouvet off-balance. The pompous Frenchman ricocheted awkwardly off the doorjamb, then disappeared.

I couldn’t tell if she had done it on purpose. Then she offered the room a faint conspiratorial smile. Mona Lisa again for an instant. Then applause resonated in the small conference room and spilled from the doorway.

Amsterdam in Bloom – Flowers To Die For

From the tulip mania of the mid-1600s to today’s vast flower exports from The Netherlands to the world, Amsterdam has been a place marked by blooms and beauty amid intrigue and shenanigans.

An atypical tulip. You could probably have bought a farm in 1640 with two or three of these bulbs. Click the image to see it full-sized. You can do that will all images on this page.

All but one of my books (Perfect Killer) has had some part of it set in Amsterdam.

And almost all of Die By Wire is set in Amsterdam or nearby.

Most of the photos I take when I do research involve plot points or settings that I have to remember or may have to describe. Lots of these are totally UN-photogenic. Like construction cranes (used in great detail in Die By Wire. Imagine Mira taking her final shot from the very end of the crane … with people in helicopters shooting at her.)

Fortunately, as the rest of the images on this page demonstrate, I do get to take shots of beauty in between the prosaic. So, herewith, more photos and little text.

 

Amsterdam In Pictures From Die By Wire Heroine Mira Longbow

One of the wonderful thing about being an author is the ability to re-live experiences through a character’s actions, to re-see favorite sights and to re-think thoughts evoked by a walk through old scenes. Of course, nothing is ever the same — whether I recall a scene in a daydream or play the thought in the mind of a character.

But in the following Chapter 19, Die By Wire’s heroine Mira Longbow is walking where I have walked and thinking thoughts I have had. And I can share some of the scenes because I have photographed a few of them.

All these photos are all copyrighted, but you may Pin them if you wish.

Hope you enjoy.

Oh, yes, if you click on the photo, it gets BIG!

 

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Die By Wire

Amsterdam

Deep in thought, Mira charted a determined course through the Vondelpark with no destination in mind. Walking, running — just moving — had always transported her from anger’s hot obfuscations to the cold clarity of purpose.

Clothed in a bristling body language that cleared a path through cyclists, pedestrians and panhandlers,

"Mira bore to the right, made her way into the cool darkness of a graffiti-splattered viaduct."

Two steps in, a voice derailed Mira’s thoughts.

“Hash?”

A reedy adolescent with cannabis-glazed eyes confronted Mira from the shadows. She gave him an assassinating glare that rocked him back on his heels.

He ran.

Mira marched on.

At the Stadhouderskade she waited for a 66 tram to pass then sprinted through a break in traffic, heading for the Leidseplein.

To her left, bicycles rattled by in their own lane. To the right, a lean strip of grass bounded the Singelgracht, its green-brown water jammed on this stunning day with water taxis and small private watercraft making their way among the gaggle of tourists and locals peddling canal bikes.

So many places in this old city comforted her, felt familiar in a thousand irrational ways. From her very first visit, the old city had embraced her with a comfortable familiarity and stirred a warm sense of belonging in her heart that made her feel as if she was of Amsterdam, not just in it.

The deep persistent emotion lurked just beyond the peripheral vision of her consciousness and defied all her efforts to fathom its meaning. It flirted with her now for an instant. Then abandoned her, leaving her to despair at the Dutch.

Aliyah had died because the Dutch wallowed in their self-destructive tolerance of intolerance. Politically correct doctrine had triumphed over reality and human rights.

Muslim women in Amsterdam have been murdered in honor killings for talking birth control pills.

Instead of standing up for human rights, the Dutch had decided that all cultures were morally equivalent even if they raped children, held women as chattel and deprived them of the most meager levels of human decency.

Aliyah was not some abstract philosophical concept of cultural equivalence. She had been a young, innocent girl who died a horrible, painful death. The Dutch had failed to support her right to live a decent life.

Damn them!

Turning right on the Leidsestraat, Mira’s anger shifted as her gaze fell on the Marriott’s banal brick box. And just beyond it, the cheese-yellow, anorexic monstrosity of a tower crane, its impossibly balanced skeletal arm arcing slowly about, raising huge hods of concrete. One more architectural insult for the old town.

She made a rueful shake of her head and made her way across the Singelgracht bridge. She checked her Droid for a text from Electra. Found nothing new.

Moments later, she picked her way across a confusion of tracks where two major tram lines intersected, then plunged into a sea of humanity jamming the Leidseplein. She opened her mind to the polyglot filling her ears. Mostly Dutch, but a lot of English right now along with some German, French, a dusting of Arabic.

Languages came to Mira like deconstructing a sweater: find a thread, pull it.

With Dutch, the alpha thread came through geography: straat meant street, gracht was canal, a plein was a plaza, steeg was alley. Put them together with another word — Prinsengracht: Prince’s Canal — and the new word was easier to remember because it hung onto a familiar one.

Mira navigated the funky miasma in front of the Bulldog Cafe and skirted the crowd taking in a juggler in front of the Burger King. She checked the Droid again.

Nothing. She left the square behind and strode northwest.

Center. Settle. Balance.

A destination finally emerged, the Athenaeum book store: a small nook-riddled and jammed with books in every language.

At the Keizersplein, the Kings plaza, Mira stopped again to check her Droid. Again, nothing.

C’mon! Talk to me!

Along the Singel to her right, irresistibly gaudy splatters of fragrant color pulled her to the flower market. Brilliant tulips begged Mira to take them home.

“By the window,” they pleaded, “that place where the sunlight blazes through in the afternoons.”

Mira bent over. Reached for a bunch. Stopped. Something felt suddenly out of place.

She stood up quickly.

Someone following me?

She turned in a complete circle, registering face after face. Nothing seemed amiss.

A voice startled her from behind: “Kan Ik U helpen?”

Mira turned. Despite her own above-average height, she had to lift her gaze to take in the flower stall vendor’s deep, eager smile. She looked to be in her early twenties and had a long, perfectly symmetrical, oval face with prominent cheek bones and pale blue eyes, all framed by Chardonnay hair bobbed into a page boy.

Her skin was perfect. Mira felt envious.

“Nay, bedankt,” Mira said quickly. No thank you.

“Tot siens,” Mira said. So long.

As Mira turned, a young man who had hovered attentively nearby, slipped quickly in to ask the lovely flower vendor about a bouquet. He held the flowers like a suitor seeking her pleasure.

Heading back the way she had come, Mira passed her favorite wine store, then paused at the Leidsegracht bridge. She looked west and feigned interest in the canal bikers on the water below, then turned toward the Muntplein where a crew renovated a section of the Singel’s canal wall. She saw nothing more remarkable than the young man and the flower vendor now deep in a private conversation.

Was someone following her? She looked around again.

Down girl! Paranoia does nothing for those lines in your forehead.

Still, someone had already tried to kill her. A little paranoia might be called for.

Mira headed off along the Singel, curving clockwise the north. From there, she traced an aimless path among the short, narrow steegs that were all but deserted, save for locals running household errands and those relaxing at a sidewalk tables with coffee, pils or jenever. A tail would find it nearly impossible to remain undetected here.

Back across the Herengracht, past the Bible Museum, over the Keizersgracht and east along the Run Huidenstraat.

Mira stopped frequently to check for texts.

And to study reflections in the windows of the many tiny shops. Here, one carrying nothing but toothbrushes, there another with old movie posters and next to that one filled with faucet handles of every sort. Just handles.

She finally decided no one was following her and made her way directly to the Athenaeum.

Half an hour later, Mira made her way down the Athenaum’s steps and into the tree-screened sunlight. Behind her, the all-too-familiar sight of one more guy who had been unable to keep his eyes off her bust, the cashier. She handed him the book she had selected.

He leered, he stared. Then, every trace of lust fled his face when he saw the book she had handed him: a Serbian language hardcover of The Brothers Karamazov. Incomprehension blanked his face. He even stopped looking at her breasts.

Mira had seen it all before: one more guy who equated her bra size and IQ. Her ability to string together compound complex sentences in languages they had never heard of always sent them away at dead run.

Good riddance.

Even those who could successfully maintain eye contact never lasted much longer than a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. Her love of languages, intellectual eagerness and an imposing physical presence assured no second dates.

As the author of Ecclesiastes would say, life was “vanity and chasing after the wind.” Enjoy the moment and forget about the things that cannot be changed.

Subconsciously, she let her feet follow her heart, tracking faint memory traces of a long-past summer day. Her feet soon carried her into an afternoon-shaded passageway. A score of steps later, she gazed at a ghost from her first visit to Amsterdam: a delightful pastry shop that made the best hot chocolate on the planet.

Mira slipped inside and breathed in an intoxicating fragrance of chocolate and freshly baked pastry that spun her head with a past pleasure now made present again.

People crowded the three tables that stood by the wall of small-paned windows that gazed out on an architect’s office on the steeg’s opposite side.

Bicycles passed. A motorcycle messenger. A tiny three-wheeled delivery van pulled up on the sidewalk in front of the windows and unloaded flour.

When the little van pulled away, Mira took her hot chocolate out to the only unoccupied sidewalk table. She settled into the seat, took a generous sip. Behind closed lids, she communed with a sensuous intensity that managed to vanquish the day’s every negative emotion.

The soft warmth of the chocolate warmed her heart and settled below her breastbone. Mira waited until all the pieces in her mind reached a peaceful equilibrium. Then she opened her eyes, took another sip, picked up Karamazov.

Instead of starting on page one, Mira flipped toward her favorite chapter — Rebellion. Here, brother Ivan Karamazov berates God for creating a world so plagued by evil that even innocent children must endure the most horrible pain and suffering.

“Listen,” Ivan says, “if everyone must suffer to buy eternal harmony with their suffering, pray tell me what have children to do with it?”

Unconsciously nodding to herself, Mira sipped again at her chocolate and scanned forward. Mira skimmed the part about babies being tossed in the air and caught on bayonets, past Dostoyevsky’s other graphic atrocities and to Karamazov’s ultimate truth that resonated in her heart: If the final act of history were a play in which God reveals the harmony created by innocent suffering, Ivan says he’d return his ticket because the price is too high.

“I absolutely renounce all higher harmony,” Ivan says. “It is not worth one little tear of even that one tormented child …. I’d rather remain with my unrequited suffering and my unquenched indignation …. I hasten to return my ticket, And it is my duty, if only as an honest man ….”

The growl of a motorcycle engine competed for her attention.

Watch out!

A voice, a tug. A hand. She looked around.

No one near!

Behind you!

Mira whirled.

A massive BMW motorcycle hurtled down the narrow street, its rider clad all in black leather and a full-face, black helmet, its visor down. A second later, it leapt the curb, came straight like a missile.

Directly at Mira.

Sgt. Bales’ Lawyer Should Ask If He Was A Secret Drug Guinea Pig

Was Staff Sergeant Robert Bales a secret drug guinea pig in the military’s attempts to chemically enhance warfighter efficiency?

The proof that such a program to develop a “brave pill” existed can be found in these Government Freedom Of Information (FOIA) documents from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and in the extensive  factual sections of my book, Perfect Killer.

While the government said it has stopped the tests, Dr. Richard Gabriel said that the program just went “black” after he helped expose it.

Gabriel also believes that the secret drug was tested on some American troops in the First Gulf War and could be responsible for a variation of Gulf War Syndrome.

Dr. Gabriel is professor at the U.S. Army War College, a retired Army Colonel and former intelligence officer, the author of more than 30 books and former consultant to the Department of Combat Psychiatry at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He believes the secret pharmaceutical program at the heart of Perfect Killer may bring death and casualties on an unprecedented scale.

A more extensive bio of Gabriel can be found at the top of the non-fiction Afterword for Perfect Killer in which he explains why a drug like this — even without side effects — would be more devastating for soldiers that chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

Bales’s lawyer needs to investigate to see if his client might have been a secret test subject.

The extensive  factual sections of Perfect Killer earn it the right to be found in the non-fiction sections of Amazon and other sellers are the historical background and hard-data that I included in the book. The scenarios of the characters in the book who were affected by military psychopharmacology are based on data from Dr. Gabriel and the FOIA documents.

Sgt. Bales' Lawyer Should Ask If He Was A Secret Drug Guinea Pig

Was Staff Sergeant Robert Bales a secret drug guinea pig in the military's attempts to chemically enhance warfighter efficiency?

The proof that such a program to develop a "brave pill" existed can be found in these Government Freedom Of Information (FOIA) documents from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and in the extensive  factual sections of my book, Perfect Killer.

While the government said it has stopped the tests, Dr. Richard Gabriel said that the program just went "black" after he helped expose it.

Gabriel also believes that the secret drug was tested on some American troops in the First Gulf War and could be responsible for a variation of Gulf War Syndrome.

Dr. Gabriel is professor at the U.S. Army War College, a retired Army Colonel and former intelligence officer, the author of more than 30 books and former consultant to the Department of Combat Psychiatry at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He believes the secret pharmaceutical program at the heart of Perfect Killer may bring death and casualties on an unprecedented scale.

A more extensive bio of Gabriel can be found at the top of the non-fiction Afterword for Perfect Killer in which he explains why a drug like this — even without side effects — would be more devastating for soldiers that chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

Bales's lawyer needs to investigate to see if his client might have been a secret test subject.

The extensive  factual sections of Perfect Killer earn it the right to be found in the non-fiction sections of Amazon and other sellers are the historical background and hard-data that I included in the book. The scenarios of the characters in the book who were affected by military psychopharmacology are based on data from Dr. Gabriel and the FOIA documents.

Why Did I Have to Wait for My Mama to Die Before I Could Write Perfect Killer?

Perfect Killer was a substantial departure for me and a book that had to wait for my mother to die before I could write it.

This book is a departure for two reasons: First of all, I've tried to write two books inside a single set of covers: a Southern novel wrapped inside a thriller.

The Southern novel is all about why a prominent civil rights attorney would ask a world-famous neurosurgeon to help her save the life of a white racist convicted of murder in a cold-case hate crime.

The thriller is the tale of the military's search for a perfect drug to turn the average soldier into the killing equivalent of a special forces operative. As it turns out, what I thought I had imagined turns out to be far more frighteningly true than fiction.

Perfect Killer also has an underlying core of deeper significance as the characters try to deal with the physical, biological roots of human consciousness and free will.

The second point of departure concerns my mother, one of the last of the "Steel Magnolias," born on one of her her father's two cotton plantations in the Mississippi Delta and an anachronistic believer in the white planter culture that reigned for so many years (and still lives on under the surface). I, on the other hand, got kicked out of Ole Miss for leading a march in 1967.

I needed to wait for Mama to die because Perfect Killer has some unkind observations about this culture. As much as I disagreed with her views about the culture and her father ("The Judge" in Perfect Killer) I loved her too much to break her heart by writing this book while she was alive. She, the Judge and the history and culture in which they lived are described in as accurate and contextual way I could muster. There is no fiction there.

My mother's name was Anabel (born Anabel Bradford) just like the hero's mother in Perfect Killer, and she was buried in the Itta Bena cemetery on just the sort of winter day described. The hero, Bradford Stone, remembers many things that I went through. Although I have taken some liberties with my personal history, I have been as accurate as memory allows with my mother and her father, Judge John Wester Bradford.

I will no doubt upset many of my living relatives with the straight-forward confrontation of this past. My cousin Billy Bradford still owns Mossy Island Plantation, but has no day-to-day operational involvement. He is an entomologist who still lives in Mississippi. I have tried to look him up, but have been unsuccessful so far in locating him. I am likewise estranged from my other cousins as well. Time, distance, politics, attitudes, all play a role in this, I suppose.

Perfect Killer is the first novel I have ever written in the first person. I did this because it was the only way I could bring out the intensity of emotions the book requires. The hero, Bradford Stone, is largely autobiographical, at least through the character's adolescence. Some names have been changed, but few other liberties have been taken.

For similar reasons, this book contains many characters who are real. The legal "vetting" of this manuscript was lengthy and intense as I scrambled to obtain legal releases giving formal written permission for the names to be used.

One of the names that has been changed is that of Al Thomas. The character in Perfect Killer named Al Thomas is a faithful rendition of him including the attempted hanging and cotton gin incidents and the VFW hut experiences, all of which happened. I do owe my life to Al. There is a street named after him in Itta Bena. The street's on the map, but I have been unable to locate it on the ground. There is an irony running around there somewhere.

There are many other ironies as well. The Judge's house is now owned by an African-American man. The house on Mossy Lake which my uncle William (Wish) Bradford and his wife Elodie used to live has been torn down. I vividly remember many wonderful days playing there with cousins Billy, Peggy and Juanita, but especially Billy who gave me my first shotgun, a single-shot .410.

There was a barn there and a country story and a dusty road among the cotton rows punctuated by the ramshackle wood-and-tin shacks surrounded by poor black people that I was taught not to see. I am thankful that teaching was eventually unsuccessful.

One of the newer and nicer houses there is owned by the man who now farms the plantation for my cousin Billy. It also houses a great outdoors outfitter, Mossy Island Outfitters, which I highly recommend, especially to those who'd like to go duck hunting in the area.

As with all my previous novels, Perfect Killer is fiction based on a solid core of factual research. It was inspired by No More Heroes,  a scholarly non-fiction book by Col. Richard Gabriel (U.S. Army, retired) who is a professor at the U.S. War College, the author of more than 30 other scholarly texts and a former consultant to the Department of Combat Psychiatry at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

After I had finished the manuscript, Col. Gabriel read it then emailed me back to say that far more of it was true than I knew. He said that the drug I had described had been tested on some of the troops in the first Gulf War and was, in his opinion, responsible for one of the forms of Gulf War Syndrome.

Col. Gabriel wrote a non-fiction Afterword for Perfect Killerwhich might make for interesting reading even before beginning the body of the book.

I hope you enjoy all the books within the books of Perfect Killer. I certainly believe it is one of the best pieces of writing I have ever done.

Perfect Killer Succeeds As Fiction AND Fact

I set out to write a non-fiction book on why good people do evil things.

Perfect Killer– originally published in 2005 by Forge/Tor — has a lot of current significance in the cases of the:

Robert Bales Afghan massacre,
Trayvon Martin case and
Mohamed Merah assassinations in France.

ARE THERE DIFFERENT LEVELS OF EVIL?

Clearly, evil has been done. But do we have a spectrum here?

In these cases we have acts of evil.

One one end of the spectrum, we have the case of Bales who  "snapped."

On the other end, we have an assassin who — for religious and political reasons — methodically plotted his killings over a long period of time and documented them with video.

And, in the middle, George Zimmerman, a murder of opportunity and chance, a man who killed out of what appears to be race and prejudice.

SCIENCE, RELIGION ETHICS — FACT VERSUS FICTION

Having been a biology major in college, I started research for Perfect Killer with scholarly and scientific references.

After a while, the religious and ethical aspects of what my research revealed began to dominate my  thoughts about what this book should be.

For more about the research, please see the Perfect Killer website at PerfectKiller.Com. I think Perfect Killer is the only thriller to have an extensive scientific and non-fiction bibliography.

WHY A FACT-DRIVEN THRILLER?

I decided to write a book that was part thriller, part investigative reporting and part scientific.

Why?

First of all, because scholarly books have a relatively small readership.

Second, because a thriller allowed me to create specific characters with behaviors — specifically Traumatic Brain Injuries — that were consistent with those reported in the scientific literature.

This also allowed me to have the characters work with the concepts of good and evil … we cut slack when we can see a brain injury that causes evil acts. That person is seen as wounded, not evil. If we see no physical cause for evil behavior, we brand the person as evil and punish them very differently.

Third, because after I had gotten deep into the research, I discovered documents and experts that indicated secret and unethical tests of experimental drugs on soldiers in the First Gulf War that may have caused one type of Gulf War Syndrome.

The plot was thickened by facts more fantastic than the fiction.

The massive amount of non-fiction in Perfect Killer is responsible for its appearance on paid kindle bestseller lists in both fiction and non fiction. I hope both sides are satisfying to my readers.

 

We Are All Staff Sgt Robert Bales

We are all Staff Sergeant Robert Bales.

My last post here (From Saint To Devil: A Path Carved By Head Injury), examined a real-life, medically researched case of Phineas Gage, who was transformed by a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) from a fine, upstanding man into a profane, violent thug.

I ran across Gage's case as a student studying biophysics at Cornell in the early 1970s. The provable concept that rearranging neurons could be the difference between good or evil remained with me because it goes right to the heart of morality, ethics, free will, justice and religion.

That enduring fascination led to half a decade's worth of scientific research. And that led me to write my Perfect Killer which has even more research and non-fiction data than any of my other thrillers. The research and the writing convinced me that the dark side lives deep within us all. Fortunately, the ubiquitous evil within remains imprisoned in most people through a combination of the right brain circuitry and a moral, ethical upbringing.

Perfect Killer.  explores this issue through four military combat veterans — two of whom have recovered physically from severe head wounds.

Do the other two have unseen TBIs? Both undergo — or have undergone — significant personality changes. Where did those changes come from? That question binds all of Perfect Killer's characters together.

The implications for the criminal justice system — and Staff Sergeant Bales — are overwhelming.

In the past, people with mental illnesses of one sort or another were abandoned, imprisoned or executed. "Retards" were sterilized, autistic people were ostracized, "Schizos" were locked up and doped out of their gourds on Thorazine (and before that just imprisoned until they died).

While we must all be held responsible for our actions, the consequences for failure need to be balanced against the causes, including those not readily apparent to the naked eye.

Science has begun to identify specific brain circuitry phenomena that can result in criminal behavior.  Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs) like the two suffered by Staff Sergeant Bales have been recognized as having the potential for thwarting the ability to "do the right thing."

But it's psychologically easier for most people to accept, understand — and forgive — Gage's post-injury behavioral changes because we can see the visible wound.

Invisible wounds are harder to accept, harder to comprehend.

A lack of a visible wound is a primary reason that the military and other experts were so slow in recognizing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It's now clear that PTSD has many manifestations and TBI is  just one of many causes

What separates people who are capable of doing the right thing from those who cannot? That question underpins Perfect Killer. The book reaches no easy answers. It does, however, raise significant for you to ponder every time you read a headline about Staff Sergeant Robert Bales.

Given the right circumstances …

Car accident? Stroke? Sports concussion? Genetic malformation?

… you are him.

Think about it.

More at PerfectKiller.Com