C. Litka's Blog, page 28

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 4)

This post is the first of two where I review novels written by British women authors who are largely - but not entirely - forgotten today.

All the books are published by the Furrowed Middlebrow via Dial Press and are available as ebooks and trade paperbacks. I came across them by the Furrowed Middlebrow Blog that was listed on yet another blog, and I was curious enough to investigate their catalog of books - some 72 of them - and go on to read some sample pages on Amazon. They publish a good number of D. E. Stevenson books, an author who I have read and reviewed already on this blog. However it was Molly Clavering who I happened to sample first because her stories were set in Scotland, and liking what I read, I actually purchased one to read. Having enjoyed that title, I've gone on to purchase seven more titles of hers plus two other authors so far. I've sampled several more titles, but they did not quite intrigue me enough to get me to hit buy button, however I will likely be returning to this collection at some point in the future to see what else I can find, since for some strange reason, I very much enjoy this type of story.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

As I you have sees in my statement above, I like small stories with pleasant characters, and for some reason these little stories of everyday life in Scotland and England in the first half of the last century appeal to me.

In this first installment, I'm going to review books by Molly Clavering, the first two written under her early pen name of B. Mollett from 1936 & 1939.

Susan Settles Down by Molly Clavering  B+ (Writtenas B. Mollett)

Writtenin 1936, it is the story of Oliver, an ex-Royal Navy officer with aleg smashed in a car crash, inherits a rundown manor in the Scottish Border lands, and of his mid-30’s single sister, Susan who keeps house for him, which in the case of many of these books, means overseeing the cook and maids who do the actual housekeeping. In the course of the story we meet the local residences,get a glimpse of the tide of life in that age in rural Scotland, andwatch several tentative romances weave their way through thenarrative. In short a light little novel, the type of story I like – a quiet,relatively realistic understated romance set in a lushly, andlovingly, described countryside. Miss Clavering was a neighbor andgood friend of D E Stevenson, whose books, as I mentioned, I’ve read decades ago. I actually paid money forthe digital copy of this book after reading the free sample ofanother book which I will be reviewing shortly.

Touch Not the Nettle byMolly Clavering  C + (Written as B. Mollett)

Thisstory is a return to the locales and characters in Susan Settled Downwritten several years later in 1939. It introduces several newcharacters, the local Heriots, brother Larry and sister Ruth, tworather unpleasant people, and Amanda Carmichael, the possibly widowedshirttail relative of Susan’s husband Jed, who they take in helpher to escape her domineering mother while she awaits word about thefate of her husband, an aviator whose plane disappeared, and isthought to have crashed in the Brazilian jungle. We learn the state of Amanda’s marriage, and the reasons behind the unpleasantness ofthe Heriots. I did not like this one quite as much as the first book,perhaps because it had some unpleasant characters.

The next four Clavering books I read werewritten between 1953 and 1956, and they are much more mellow books,with older protagonists. These early books I think are still slice oflife stories, but have some mildly melodramatic elements, and moreconflicts. Though there are two more of the "B. Mollett" books fromthis era that are available, their blurbs don’t appeal to me, so Ithink I’ll pass on them for now.

NearNeighbors by Molly Clavering  B+

Ican’t for the live of me say why I find these little domestic sliceof life stories so delightful, as a character in these stories mightexclaim. But I do. And always have. Decades ago I read all of theMiss Read books I could find in the library, as well as most of D EStevenson’s books, plus a number of similar but more contemporarystories set in the America. Moreover, as I mentioned in the intro, I have always been fascinated by life inEngland in the first half of the 20th century, be it theFu Manchu stories of Sax Rohmer, the London books of H V Morton, thecomic stories of P G Wodehouse, and the adventure stories of JohnBuchan. And in similar vein, the Cape Code stories of Joseph Lincoln. I just find them more engaging than sprawling epics withworld shattering stakes, just as I would much rather read a historybook entitled “Every Day Life In…” than a book that focused onkings and queens, princes and knaves, generals, wars, and politics.Go figure.

Thisstory is set in Edinburgh post WW2. The main character, Dorothea is a68 year old spinster whose domineering elder sister has just died.Over the years she has watched the comings and goings of the neighborfamily, a widowed mother, four daughters, (one married with theyoungest 16) and a son. After the funeral, one of the daughters seesDorothea in the window and decides to pay her a call of condolences,something she wouldn’t done when the elder sister was alive. Thisvisit is the beginning of a friendship between Dorothea and the Lenoxfamily and the affairs, love and otherwise of the Lenox family, aswell as the emergence of Dorothea as her own person.

Ifind these stories interesting in their fictionally enhanced view ofeveryday life in England. The main characters are what I supposeyou’d call upper class middle class, i.e. they’re not rich, butwell off enough to employ at least a cook, if not a maid as well. Andif they have young children nannies and nurses. Though we sometimesget a view of the lower classes as well, they are filtered through theeyes of the upper class middle class writers of these stories.

MrsLorimer’s Quiet Summer by Molly Clavering  B+

Ireally like the way Miss Clavering wrote. While there is nothingidentifiable Clavering in the writing, as one could say about, say, PG Wodehouse, nor is there nothing startling about the stories shetells, they are stories about the little domestic dramas of uppermiddle class life in Britain before and after World War Two, nevertheless shewrites them with such a deft fluidity that her stories have anunderstated elegance to them. I couldn’t put my finger right on it,but I’ve read Babbacombe’s by Susan Scarlett, anovel written for the same market, and it just doesn’t have quitethe charm of Miss Clavering’s stories. Review of that book is coming next week.

Thisnovel concerns, as the title suggests, one summer in Mrs. Lorimer’slife, though it is not quite as quiet as the title suggests. TheLorimers, Mrs., a successful author, and Colonel Lorimer, now retiredand an avid gardener, have a house in the Scottish Border lands. MrsLorimer feels, with some justification, that the house too small for when all four of their children, two sons and two daughters plus theirfamilies come for a week long visit. Some of thechildren have to stay at her best friend’s house, Miss Douglas.Each of them bring with them their own problems, a broken heart, anunhappy marriage, a dreamy, un-domestic wife as well as a long lostlover, for Mrs Lorimer to try to sort out. Once again we are treatedto life in Scotland in 1950 seen through (likely) rose colored, upper middleclass glasses, which, as I’ve said I find entertaining.

Dear Hugo by Molly Clavering   B

AStory set in the early 1950’s Scottish Border lands, in the villageof Ravenskirk, likely a fictionalized version of Moffat where MissClavering lived for a time. Sara Monteith writes a seriesof mostly monthly letters to Hugo, the brother of Ivo, her love  killed in WW2, who is an officer stationed in NorthernRhodesia. The letter format is just a loose framing device, and itreads pretty much like a first person narration, with just a fewasides to the recipient. Sara has moved toRavenskirk for sentimental reasons; it was the home of Ivo and his brother, she wanted to becloser to his memory. She somewhat reluctantly agrees to look after Arthur, the teenageof a cousin of hers. He is moving to the U.S. with a new wife, andArthur, having been raised with his grandparents, did not settle inwith his father's new wife and family. The story covers several years as Sara and Arthur, who is away during the school year at an Edinburgh boarding school quickly bond. As usual, it tells the story of everyday life, the people and the countryside in rural Scotland as well as the special social events around the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. And, as usual ,there is just a hint of romance.

I should note that Sara in this story is not wealthy enough to employ a full time maid or cook, but does employ a part time maid to keep her small house in shape. She is not employed outside of the home, but lives on some sort of inheritance, plus money she receives from her cousin for the care of his son. I have to wonder if the necessity of employing even part time help to keep house is a reflection of how many time saving devices we enjoy today that allow most people to keep house without help, or a reflection of the social attitude of the time; a gentlewoman does not do housework. I'll report back if I ever get a better insight into this phenomena. 

Becauseof Sam by Molly Clavering  B

Anotherstory set in the Scottish Border lands of the early 1950’s, i.e. acontemporary story at the time it was written. This story featuresthe long widowed Millie Maitland who has a rather prickly daughterAmabel who is in her late 20’s and is employed in Edinburgh. Once again, Millie gets some sort of income from inheritance, but has to make ends meet by taking in dogs as boarders for vacationing people. Sam in the title being one of the dogs she looks after for a neighbor's cousin. And once again we’re given a story of everyday life in rural Scotland,its people their social customs and classes, seasons, and setting, with several traces of romancewoven through it. However, though all of Miss Clavering’s books, romanceis only a minor element. Miss Clavering’s heroines, like the authorherself, are independent women whether married or not.

Next week I will review two more books from two different British women authors published by the Furrowed Middlebrow from this time period. But until then, a period cover...

AI And the End of Everything :)

Bertieknew that Barkley needed only a hard reset to be restored to hisnormal, loving, playful self. But there his troubles began. He foundhimself situated without a paper clip and Barkley had, earlier inthe evening in what, with hindsight, seems to have taken on a muchless mischievous cast, eaten his phone.

Everyone is talking about how AI will replace all sorts of artist, including writers. I've not weighed in on the subject, until now, for the simple reason that it's a done deal. The genie is out of the lamp and the genie is not about to go back into the lamp. Railing against AI is just yelling at clouds. 

Why? If there's a common thread woven into the last several hundred years of human history, it is that workers are replaced by machines whenever the opportunity presents itself. There is nothing capitalists hate more than paying workers even starvation wages. If the soft machine of AI can eliminate writers, they will do it. And AI can. The only caveat is that the process will likely take longer than one might suppose. Hell, they're still printing paper newspapers in 2023. But seeing that they've already started replacing writers with AI generated content, it is only a matter of time before almost all writers find themselves in the dustbin of history. While it will affect all sorts of writers, I'll just concern myself with writers of fiction in this essay.

While there are various legal issues that will need to be addressed in the coming years, these will be contested and settled by corporations with their army of lobbyists. The question will not be the pros and cons of AI but who gets what cut of the AI revenue. Hint: it won't be writers.

Wait just a moment, people will say. Machines can't be truly inventive or creative since those are human characteristics arising out of distinctly human thought process and experiences which are too complex for mere machines to duplicate. Or to put in another way, AIs ain't human, so they'll never be able to offer the unique human insight that humans can put into words. This attitude strikes me analogous to saying that humans are unique, and superior to every other living and non-living thing, because they have a soul. If you care to believe in souls and the specialness of humans, fine, but I don't think you need to invoke the supernatural to explain the creative process (even though it can feel like it sometimes). It is a matter or gathering and rearranging experiences, specific and vague, facts and feelings, into words which may be unique, but never entirely new, simply because those words express what the creator has experienced and read in life. Given this, I see no reason why advanced machines supplied with the vast human experience set down in words won't be able to find ways by a similar process of association to use those words creatively within a well defined structure to write new, entertaining and very human books. 

And then there is the fact that a story doesn't need to be totally new to please readers and sell books. In fact, most readers aren't looking for something totally new. You need only consider at all those fictional villages where your chances of getting murdered would seem to be about one in four to realize that what most readers want are familiar stories with just enough shinny new chrome on them to make the story read just different enough from all the similar ones without breaking the expected format. Heck, these days bookshops are full of modern "retellings" i.e. recyclings of classic literature and Greek myths, not to mention all those long series of best selling books written to a proven formula to know that originality is not what most readers value most in their books

And when you consider the fact is that most commercial stories are constructed according to very specific blueprints - hero's journeys, three acts, "save the cat", etc. This type of structure would seem to be something that a machine like an AI will be designed to use and likely excel at. Human writers draw on their life experiences and what they've read and then rearrange those experiences according to these blueprints to create a new story. I see no reason why AIs cannot be designed to use those blueprints to produce stories just like humans.

If I am right, the end is in sight for a career as a writer, and as far as I'm concerned, good riddance. Clubbing baby seals to death is less brutal than the way publishers treat authors in that it's over fast. For most traditionally published "professional" writers, their career is a short, ill payed gig - a classic example of casual labor, or gig labor in today's parlance. Authors pay must 15% of their often meager pay to the agents who land them a limited project with no benefits. They are paid just several times a year, most often for what they could make working part time, with benefits, at Aldi. It is said that 60% of traditionally published writers' careers are over after three years and 90% are out in ten. I would guess that the same can be said for indie authors. Many indie authors burn out after a few years by the pace they have to produce books at.(Or their readers do.) Plus most indie authors actually lose money as publishers. Little wonder that writing drives many authors to drink and depression, making writing fiction an ideal job for a machine. And as I said, given capital's historic disinclination to employ people when there is any alternative, publishers can be counted on to replace writers with AI just as soon as they can. 

Plus, we can't ignore the fact that human writers will also be using AI to produce their work as well, so even without publishers, AI work will infiltrate every aspect of writing. Indeed, I expect author generated AI work to spread like a wild fire through indie publishing because it offers the holy grail of indie publishing - a very short turn around time between books. And given the formulaic output of most best selling indie authors, the machine version will likely replace a lot of the hand-crafted stories without anyone noticing it.

However, it is not just the writers who face commercial extinction. Publishers may, if they don't adopt, find themselves in dire straits as well. I see great potential in a new type of publishing - stories on demand - personal stories. I can envision in the not too distant future apps on cell phones that are tied to large AI systems that can generate, in a matter of seconds, stories specifically crafted for the tastes of the individual subscriber. I see it as a service where customers fill out forms describing the type(s) of stories they like and the service's AI will generate custom stories for them on demand. Feed back will fine tune these stories, allowing the reader to (almost) write their own books - while still being surprised by it. Perhaps for a premium price, readers will be able to design their own characters as well for their story plots, to create their own long running series with their characters. The fact is, AI might make the reading experience better for readers, a win for readers even if it's a lose for writers.

Still, what AI can't do is to prevent writers who enjoy writing from writing. Writing is a relatively popular form of creative activity, and it isn't going away. There will be opportunities for writers, along with artist, musicians, actors, dancers, etc. who will be displaced by AI at the commercial level to earn pocket change as an artisan. They will join the wood workers, birdhouse makers, quilters, scrapbookers, and all the other arts and crafters who create their art mostly for fun and sell them at craft fairs for a modest profits. It will simply be a matter of adjusting expectations.

Expertsare unable to explain the apparent popularity of Karl Marx’s DasKapital amongst robots. Even such relatively ‘dumb’-- or‘proletarian’ as they would prefer to be called -- applianceslike refrigerators, coffee makers and toasters are fond of scrollinglong quotes from Das kapital on their status display screens. Someexperts point to this as evidence of robotic humor. Others scoff atthe very idea of robotic humor. Prof. Albert Humperdike is quoted assaying: ‘If robotic humor does exist, and I find no compellingevidence of it, I would allow that Karl Marx would be the height ofit.’

The Saturday Morning Post (No.3)

This week I have three Dr. Greta Helsing novels to discuss. These books are sort of a cross between cozy mysteries and urban fantasy, with a lot of medicine tossed in as well. Shaw takes familiar monsters from classic literature, the bible, and movies and treats them like regular, if marginalized, people. While on one hand, this is a clever elevator pitch for a story, and can be used as a metaphor for other marginalized people, it also strips from these characters their identity as monsters, demons, devils, which is to say, the thing that makes them special. It is a fine line to walk. I think if you are familiar with the literature of vampires, and classic horror as well as all the monster movies Hollywood has churned out over the years, you might enjoy the stories more than I did, who is not familiar with the stories and who last saw a monster movie some 60 years ago.

A fourth novel and a novella are slated to be released in this series in 2024/25.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw C+

This is the first book inthe Dr. Greta Helsing series. The story is set in contemporaryLondon, where Dr Helsing, like her father before her, is a HarleyStreet doctor to monsters. You know, movie type monsters; vampires(famous in film and fiction), werewolves, mommies, gremlins, andvarious other familiar and unfamiliar monsters and demons. She iscalled to the home of Lord Varney, an old friend and vampire inorder to treat another famous Vampyre, one Sir Francis Varney who hadshowed up at his door, having been attacked in his flat by garlic andpoisoned knife wielding monks in brown habits, inflicting a wound onhim that he was unable to heal on his own. The story turns into asort of cozy mystery when the Doctor, and an assortment of monstersand regular people who know about them, try to track down the order ofmonks responsible for attack. Since I don’t like to go intospoiler territory, I’ll leave it there, except to say that thestory moved along, while introducing a cast on monsters and demons.

Unlike several ofthe urban fantasies I’ve read, Shaw understands that you can’thave magical things happening on any sort of scale and expect peopleto be ignorant of the existence of magic. So for the most part, the events in thisstory are low key affairs, involving only a few people who are in the know,the good monsters and the bad ones, without involving the police.However, for some reason, perhaps to raise the stakes that didn’tneed raising, she also includes an unnecessary string of 11 Jack theRipper like killings undertaken by the monks in the book.Because the good guys and monsters deal with the monks on theirown, these murders never get solved – undermining her reasonablepremise that monsters need to stay hidden for the premise to workreasonably well. She also left another thread dangling… but here Iam nitpicking, as usual. Never mind. If you enjoy urban fantasieswith likable characters and an inventive treatment of monsters, Ithink you will enjoy this book.

DreadfulCompany by Vivian Shaw C+

This is the secondvolume of three in the Dr Greta Helsing series. This time Dr Gretatravels to Paris for a monster medicine doctor’s conference andsoon finds herself neck deep in a cove of bad vampires. Some oldcharacters, some new characters, a little more of the magical world.I think this one was a little better than Strange Practice.But I have to admit that I found it maybe a little over wrought and,and as you can see from my grade above, there were longsections of Greta making her through underground Paris, with bits andpieces of the Phantom of the Opera tossed in, that got tedious, which I ended up skim reading.Indeed, perhaps even the author felt it was getting tedious as well, since she shiftedto another the viewpoint of Greta’s friends to have her emerge fromthe tunnels – only to then go back, and continue the trek, even after she had shown how it all ended. Curious. I just didn’t getwrapped up in the characters as much as I would’ve liked to.

Grave Importance by Vivian Shaw  DNF 85%

In this third installment, Dr. Helsing is asked to take over a clinic for mummies located in the south of France for 4 months while its medical director does something in Cairo. Many of the main characters from the first two books return in this story. In the story mummies around the world are experiencing fainting spells that can damage their frail bodies, or what is left of them. And we have agents of an alternative heaven who are working to rend the dimensional wall between their universe and ours in order to bring about the end of the world as described in the bible. Those two plot threads are linked, as we jump from those two viewpoints, and others as well, all the while being treated to an inside look at the care and treatment of mummies.

Spoilers ahead.

It was okay for awhile, but as the plot heated up and we neared the final grand climax I found that, despite my the best of intentions, I was starting to skim read more and ever more as the final crisis built to its climax - and not in a good way. I wasn't on the edge of my seat because couldn't wait to find out what happens next. Rather I found that I didn't care what happened next and just wanted it to be over. In the end, I simply gave up skipping whole pages, so I have to call this a DNF, somewhere around the 85% mark. So why did it run off the rails for me? 

It starts with characters. As you can see from my review criteria, l like pleasant characters. Shaw's characters are all peasant, The problem for me is that they are, in fact, too pleasant. Something I wouldn't have thought, possible. They're all goody-two-shoes, too sappy sweet, too self sacrificing, too serious, too heroic for my taste. I mean, even the devils are polite, concerned, and helpful. I guess I never quite connected with her characters in previous books and by this book, I simply found them so sticky-sweet as to be actually annoying.

Next up is the romance elements in the story. This too, I found to be annoying, for I felt that all the romances were unearned, in that they all were love at first sight, and even months later the relationships were lovey-dovey to be rather icky. Being both a fan of romance in stories, and pleasant characters, to find myself disliking both the romance elements and the characters in a story, they'd have to have been written over the top. And I found them so. They were so sappy. So soapy. So unconvincing. Nope.

As you might have already gathered, believability, was, for me, totally lacking in this story. Take the medical practice in this story. Its main focus this time is the medical practices regarding mummies. Mummies, it seems, are mostly wrapping and frail bones, and in this story they are animated and conscious via unknown magic, as they don't even have anything like a working brain, or body for that matter. And yet Doc Helsing spends her time gluing their bones and tendons back together along with pest control for their wrappings, as if their physical condition would matter to creatures animated by magic. If these magically animated beings needed healing, magic would be the way to heal them, one would think. Didn't make any sense, except to high light Doc Helsing's devotion to caring for her monster patients. She's wonderful.

My next complaint is, well, as you recall from what I said in my review of Dreadful Company, is how I liked it that the author kept the story grounded by keeping the presence of monsters and their problems very low key, and thus, out of the public eye. This greatly contributed to my ability to suspend my disbelief concerning the premise of the story. Well, that reasonable restrain was tossed over board in this book. We have a story where the end of the world happens just as it is described in the bible,(or so I gather anyways) complete with angels with fiery swords and raining blood. I found the ending increasingly frantic, silly, sappy, soapy, cluttered, melodramatic, and simply way too too much to be even remotely believable. I ceased to care about it. Since I was skim reading and then not reading the story by the time we got to this point in the story since I can't say too much about how it all ended up, save that I gather that this end of the world somehow gets magically reversed, with a 300 point bold "No" in the text, so that in the end, all that the people of the world might remember of the climatic ending of the world, is as a strange dream. As far as I'm concerned, the series, even granting its rather silly premise, jumped the shark in this book, big time.

In the end, the gimmick of this series is making monsters into ordinary, if marginalized people. While it is a cute idea, making them so ordinary and oh, so nice, strips them of their essential character, as  I mentioned previously. Take Hell for example. While a good part of this story takes place in Hell, I don't recall any mention of all the damned souls being tortured for eternity there, which is the biblical reason for Hell, even though she frames the story with the trappings of biblical mythology. Shaw makes Hell an ordinary place with some interesting scenery and portrays devils/demons as pleasant, ordinary people just like us. There are harried demon doctors and bureaucrats, pastry chefs and TV anchorpersons, all living the ordinary 21st century life just like we humans. Apparently they get sick, go to spas, watch TV, they even have cell phones with service to our world. I can see that Shaw may've been making the point that our understanding of the devil, seen as evil, just like all the monsters, has been twisted by the tellers of ancient stories. But if you are going to make them so mundane, so familiar, why bother making them devils at all? And why bother concocting some sort of vague, hand waving, pseudo-scientific explanation of Heaven(s) and Hell(s) as some sort of inter-dimensional locales when you include magical creatures and employ all the trappings of biblical stories, including angels with flaming swords and the apocalypse? She seems to be trying to have it both ways, science, magic, myths, and that doesn't work for me. The story becomes just one big McGuffin, an excuse for drama that doesn't the least matter in the end.

So, to sum up the series, while I never connected with the characters, the first two stories were interesting enough, if a bit too soap operatic for my taste. Seeing that elements in the first two stories were used to set up the final apocalypse in this last story, I have to believe that it was always her intention to have this vast melodramatic ending to the series from the get-go. Too bad. And given that five years will have elapsed between the third book and the fourth, I have to suspect that she had planned only three books. But I guess they proved popular enough that she and her publisher find that it would pay to put out several more.

In the end, thinking about it, the main problem for me was that these stories, with their pleasant monsters and loving vampires, are small, cozy adventure/horror stories, and as such, the vast, fiery world ending apocalypse fought mostly in Hell was out of character. It was just too much and in the end, it had to be dealt with by being, in essence, "just a dream" for just about everyone in the world, which is, in my opinion, a cheap cheat. 

Your mileage may vary, but I can mildly recommend the first two book if you're into cozy urban fantasy, but I'd say skip the third book and wait to see what the next two bring to the table.

Batman With Swords and Magic

Batman with swords and magic; sounds like an interesting idea for a book. It's not my idea, but one proposed by fantasy author Mike Shackle on Mike's Book Review YouTube channel. When Shackle was asked what he was working on next, and he listed two story idea, one of which was "a modern retelling of Legend, with Vikings. i.e, What it would be like if Vikings were standing on the walls of Helmsley." and the other, "Batman with swords and magic." Care to take a guess as to what idea resonated with the host? If you said "Vikings on the walls of Helmsley," you've another guess coming.

Whether an author is trying to sell a book to an agent, or an agent to an editor, or an author selling books to readers as an author/publisher, they need to quickly spark their potential readers' interest using images that they can immediately translate into a vision of the story. When querying manuscripts to agents, authors are told to compare their book (i.e. "comps") to one or more recent best selling books, as in "so-and-so book but with this twist," or "it's a mash up of this book and that book." The reason given for this is that it illustrates the author's knowledge of the current market, thus giving agents some measure of confidence in the author's professionalism. This, in turn, might lead the agent or editor to actually read the sample work at the bottom of the email. The same dynamics  applies to self published books as well, except that authors are using the comparisons to address readers directly, hopefully encouraging them to buy their book. So no matter what type of author one is, if an author can imagine (and write) a book with a simple, but catchy premise, they are halfway to success.

But it's more than a concept, its also a matter of how the concept is phrased. Let's take a deeper look at the "Batman with swords and magic" premise, and how the phrasing works to sell the idea. Shackle when on to mention that he had set the story in a fantasy world based somewhat on revolutionary France, to the point were people were losing their head at the guillotine in chapter one. 

It occurred to me sometime later that, well, isn't there already a book like that, though without the magic? The title that struck me was "The Scarlet Pimpernel" (actually it was "The Scarlet Pumpernickle" that occurred to me, but a quick Google search lead me to the correct spelling.) So what is Baroness Orczy's The Scarlet Pimpernel about? Wikipedia says:

The novel is set during the Reign of Terror following the start of the French Revolution. The title is the nom de guerre of its hero and protagonist, a chivalrous Englishman who rescues aristocrats before they are sent to the guillotine. Sir Percy Blakeney leads a double life: apparently nothing more than a wealthy fop, but in reality a formidable swordsman and a quick-thinking master of disguise and escape artist. The band of gentlemen who assist him are the only ones who know of his secret identity. He is known by his symbol, a simple flower, the scarlet pimpernel.

Isn't that, sans the magic, pretty much "Batman with a sword", and indeed, pretty much plain old Batman? Now I'm certain that the story Shackle would write, if given the green light, would be significantly different from The Scarlet Pimpernel, even before adding a fantasy element to it, but the story idea could've been phrased as "A fantasy retelling of The Scarlet Pimpernel" just as accurately. But would that have resonated the way "Batman with a sword and magic" did? I doubt it, because The Scarlet Pimpernel is not part of today's popular culture, and any reference to it would have fallen flat, i.e. " isn't Pimpernel, some sort of rye bread?" if anything at all occurred to the listener. To appeal to readers authors have to know them and know what they are familiar with. And if they can intrigue them with their story using a minimum of words, so much the better. Readers, agents and editors, have too many options to spend more than a couple of seconds considering and author's book, be it a proposal, manuscript, or an Amazon listing.

I've never read Baroness Orczy's story, (still, Batman with swords... I downloaded a copy from the Gutenberg Project, so look for my thoughts on it some future Saturday) so I can't tell you how I became aware of its central theme, but I suspect that being 73 years old has something to do with it. I doubt very much that a whole lot of people younger than me would've been aware of The Scarlet Pimpernel except as an old movie or TV show, since the last presentation of it was a six part BBC tv series in 1999-2000. 

The bottom line is that if an author wishes to produce a commercially viable story, they need to write one that presents an interesting new twist on the popular premise. And this premise should be able to be expressed in a short, snappy line or two. 

This, however is one of those things to do as I say, not as I do. I was unaware of comps until a few of years ago, and it never seemed to apply to me as an author/publisher. More significantly, my books are "passion projects," i.e. books I wanted to write rather than books written to sell. One of the reasons why I wrote them was that I couldn't find many contemporary books that I actually wanted to read, so I had to write my own. This means, however, that I'm not familiar with any recent books to compare mine to, even if  there are recent books that I could use to compare them to. I tried. When I was writing The Girl on the Kerb, the only thing I could come up to use as a "comp" was the Hope and Crosby "Road Pictures." One of its working titles was The Road to EuraEast for that reason. However, I didn't think anyone who'd be looking at my query letter would have ever heard of those old movies, so I didn't include comps in my query letter, and changed the title of the story to something more contemporary, though with a wink of sarcasm as well.

Still, when all is said and done, success can still be found by thinking out of the box, by trusting your talent and making something unique. I wouldn't do anything different if I could do it over.

The Saturday Morning Post (No.2)

I've reread three books in June, two of them old favorites, and one from so long ago that I had no recollection of it. The first, one of the favorites, is Flashman and the Mountain of Light. I picked it off the shelf to read early in June while waiting for The Book That Wouldn't Burn to arrive from the library. The second book is John Masefield's The Brid of Dawning, a sea story that I no doubt read some 30 years ago, and remembered nothing about it. And the final one, another old favorite is Patrick O'Brian's H.M.S. Surprise.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

 Flashman and the Mountain of Light by George MacDonald Fraser A+

After last month's two books set in India/Burma in the 1840’s, and with none of myfree books I had on hand appealing to me, I selected this Flashman book off myshelf to reread. Truly, this book is an order of magnitude betterthan those two previous historical fiction books set in India and Burma, Sands of Truth and Windrush. Fraser really knows how to write, and becausehe writes in the first person, he can showcase his vastlyentertaining skill with words by having them “written” by thecentral character of the story, Flashman, which makes the character himself all themore entertaining.

What I mean by thisis that when a writer had a distinctive voice – think of Chandleror Wodehouse – their writing risks overshadowing the story when written in third person, as theirdistinctive style can insert the writer between the story theyare telling and the reader, perhaps outshining the story being told.In some cases, this might be the author’s intent. But if not, by using afirst person narrator, their wit and styles becomes that of the character and comes from within the story – fleshing him or her out as they tell their story, in their style, keeping the storyitself in the fore.

ThisFlashman story set in 1845-46 India. Flashman is sent as a secret agent toPunjab city Lahore in the guise of an attorney to settle the questionof who is entitled to a treasure held by a British bank. The Punab isruled by a child, with his drunken and luscious mother, as regent. The Punjab has a large, European trained army that is itching to drive theBritish from India, waiting only for an excuse. Fraser seamlesslyinserts his (anti)hero, Flashman in to an extensively researched historical event, the first Punjab War –which includes footnotes highlighting the various historical events and people. The two book covers suggest something of how Flashman fits in to history. This combining fiction with real history facts and facets that are often too unbelievable to befiction, makes for both entertaining and educational history. This is the way I like my history. Highly recommended.

The Bird of Dawning by John Masefield C+

This is a sea story written by a fairly well known British author, first published in 1933. At the age of 15 in 1893, Masefield went to sea as an apprentice in a Cape Horn windjammer. He became ill in Chile and abandoned the sea, working at odd jobs in the U.S. before returning to London in 1897 to become literary editor of the Speaker. He went on to publish many books of novels, prose, and poetry until his death in 1967. 

The novel is set on a tea clipper in the late 1860's, a time when tea clippers raced from China to London with the new crop of tea. A time when hard nosed Scottish ship owners would spend a fortune building fast, yacht like sailing ships, manned by large crews, hard-driving captains, especially designed to bring the first crop of tea each year from China to London in the least amount of time. In the Great Tea Race of 1866, five ships arrived in London within three days, the leading three ships within hours of each other after a voyage of 99 days from the far side of the world. I came across Basil Lubbock's The Tea Clippers while exploring the stacks of the University of Wisconsin Library while in college, and fell in love with the romance of tea clippers and the sea stories he told of their exploits over the decade or so of their brief heyday until steamships and the Suez Canal replaced them.

This novel is a fictional account of a tea clipper that is struck on a foul night by a steam ship, It sinks, leaving 16 survivors in an ill provisioned boat in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. Having been trained as a sailor, Masefield writes about their plight and the measures taken to deal with their situation in extensive detail, probably more than most casual reader would need, or care to know. Even I found it so, plus shipwreck survivors in a small boat is not one of my favorite tropes. It does, however have some twists and turns, that I won't spoil and ends with an exciting race; a fictional account similar to the ending that Great Tea Race of 1866 that I mentioned, which lifts it up from a simple C to a C+.

H. M. S. Surprise byPatrick O’Brian  A+

Iwritten about how much I admire the writing style of Raymond Chandler,P. G. Wodehouse, and George MacDonald Fraser, and I do, but thewriting style of Patrick O’Brian is, in my opinion, every bit theirequal, though subtler. His writing style is very different than theseothers, and though his style may take a little getting used to, itis every bit as clever and delightful, while being perhaps more insightful and literary. Though it is written in a modern, if unique style, it iswritten in such a way as to suggest the period of which the novel isset. Found families are a trope these days, and a ship's crew in the days of sail is very much a found family. The books feature many shipmates who follow their captain from ship to ship, so that the stories are filled with both old friends as well as new characters, unique for each story. His books are a perfect blend of great literature and excitinggenre fiction, fiction that in the 21 book series takes the readeraround the early 19th century world, several times over, with many unexpected events and interesting ports of call.

Thisis the third book in the series. I’ve read all but the last twoor three books at least twice and probably three times, so Icould just pick this title off the shelf to read, knowing where Iwas in the saga. Not only is this one perhaps my favorite, but it takes us to India,something of a theme these last two months.

The story openswith Captain Jack Aubrey in temporary command of the frigateLively while the ship’s captain, a member of parliament is sittingwith parliament. They are on tedious blockade duty in the Med, keeping an eye aFrench fleet in harbor. He is ordered home to return the ship to itscaptain, and to stop along the way to pick up his best friend,Stephen Maturin, who, though he usually sails with Aubrey as the ship’s surgeon, is also a volunteer secret agent for the British. Maturin had gone tothe Spanish/French controlled island of Minorca to meet with Spanishresistance groups. However, it had been leaked to the French that Maturinmight be a spy, and so they had taken him into custody. Aubrey must rescue him in a daring night raid. After this episode, in order to“rehabilitate” Maturin, i.e. to make the French think they made amistake about him being a spy, he is to be sent as an aide to a diplomat bound forKampong in Indochina. Being very well regarded by the boss of British navalintelligence, and knowing that Captain Aubrey is aware of thissecond, secret occupation, Aubrey is appointed captain of thefrigate, Surprise, that will carry the diplomat to Kampong. The story then relatesvarious incidents at sea during the long voyage, first to Bombay. In India the ship is refitted after a harrowing passage southof the Cape of Good Hope, giving us a taste of India. And when they sail on to Kampong, they eventually come upon a French squadron consisting of a ship of the line and several frigates that have been sent to the India Ocean to disrupt British trade. This leads to a sea battle in between the French squadron and the East India Company's yearly convoy of large merchant ships bringing a vast quantity of tea and good from China to London, aided by the Surprise.

Theseries is best read in order, and though every book has its own story,there came a point where the series simply became one 21 volume novel. I have read other books of this period and in this sub-genre from a number of other writers including C. S. Forester, Alexander Kent, and Dudley Pope, and I can say that O'Brian's books stand head and shoulder above them, not only in writing, but in bringing in the world and society of the time period into his stories.

If you have any taste for historical fiction of this period and/or the sea, be sure to give Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin books a try. I can not recommend them enough.

Coming up next week: Three cozy mystery/medical/monster urban fantasy books. Stay tuned.

What Next? (Writing)

 

My writing desk, with Popeye "I Yam What I Yam" and my jar of tea candy. On the screen I have my usual two pages open when writing; my notes on the story to the left, the story itself to the right. Music being provided by Matthew Halsall & et.al (a radio mix) on YouTube music.

Last, but not least,what can you expect to read from C Litka going forward? A goodquestion. Wish I knew the answer. I’ve never been one ofthose authors who have more story ideas than they have time to writethem. I don’t have notebooks full of ideas. And most importantly, Ineed an idea for a story that interests me so much that I not only want to spend months exploring and developing the idea in my head, shaping it into an actual story with interesting characters with original things to do, i.e. a plot, but then go on to spend months writing it down. Those ideas arerare. Plus, I don’t want to write the same story overand over again, so it has to be different enough from what I’vedone before for me to even want to write it.

Given all this, Ihaven’t done all that badly; having written and published 12novels 2 novellas, plus a short story in the last 15 years or so.Indeed, beginning in 2020 with The Prisoner of Cimlye, I’vewritten and published 7 books in the last three years. That’s apace I can’t maintain. Ideally, I plan to write and publish a booka year going forward. Ideally.

Right now my planned2024 novel is A Passage to Jarpara, thethird and final Tropic Sea story. Being the third book in aseries, only the people who liked The Prisoner of Cimlye are going to read it, so it has a relatively narrow market. I’ve beenworking on it off and on since last fall and have some 45K wordswritten in the first draft, probably more than halfway written.Indeed, I have only two major episodes, the connectingnarrative between them, and the conclusion to write. The major hang upis that I while I have a general idea what those episodes involve, Idon’t have a clue regarding the details or how to make themdifferent and interesting enough to make it worthwhile to write them.I hope it is just a matter of getting motivated. In any event, thiswill be a minor novel – a very self-indulgent, nostalgic story,written only because I like the characters and the locale and wanted to revisit them one last time. Plus, I feelobliged to get Taef Lang to his university post so that he can starthis long delayed career as an island archaeologist/historian. Thestory will be very episodic, really more of a travelogue than a novel. I’ve got 18 months to finish it. We’ll see.

I’ve exploredseveral other story ideas in the meantime. 

I spent a great deal of time thinking about a fantasy(ish) novel. It would've been a hidden SF novel, as the "magic" would have used the advanced science = magic trope. It would feature a colony of Earth, like in Sailing to Redoubt, that has, perhaps deliberately made the settling of the planet into a founding myth, describing the advanced technology of the Founders as "magic" and outlawing it. But not all of this banned "magic" was forgotten, and indeed, the richest and most powerful families have secretly used various forms of this banned technology to maintain their influence and wealth. Our narrator would be a member of one such but a very modest family, who inherits a mansion from his great grandfather after the grandfather has been missing and declared dead. He discovers that the "ghost" of the grandfather still resides in the abandoned mansion, and that his grandfather may have been murdered, though the ghost can not say for certain... The female lead would be a woman who so nondescript, so ordinary looking and dressing that she is virtually invisible in the art show openings that she and the narrator both attend, making her extra-ordinary. Together they would solve the mystery. As with this, and the other story ideas below, the devil is in the plot, not the setting. I have to come up with a mystery story that would new and interesting, at least to me, and that has proven to be very hard. I shelved the idea for now.

Another story idea I've explored, one that I mentioned in my Marchupdate, is that of a portal fantasy novella. The idea sprang from onevening I experienced many years ago. It was spring, I was in collegeand it was exam time. I took a break from studying to take a longwalk in the falling evening, and for some reason, that walk feltsomehow enchanted – remembered and never duplicated. Nothingspecial happened, it was no doubt just a state of mind. But I thoughthat perhaps I could use that experience, along with a girl I noticedon one of my virtual bus trips through London, to make a story of anenchanted evening that was more than a state of mind. But I’ve yetto come up with a plot that works, nor a setting that issignificantly different enough from a thousand other stories thattake readers to fairyland to justify putting it into words. I am notoptimistic.

I’m also thinkingabout a story along the lines of what I’ve been reading recently,which is to say light novels by Molly Clavering and Ruby Ferguson setin Scotland of the 30’s & 40’s. These stories are delightfullittle stories of domestic life in what is now a bygone age. I don’think I could write the same type of story, but I do like reading“small” stories of everyday life, and I like to try my hand atit. I would use post-Storms Scotland which I set A Summer in Amberin as my setting, though I wouldn’t use the same characters. My currently version has a bachelor in his late 50’sretiring in a small Scottish town and… well there’s where theidea peters out at the moment.

A new idea has occurred to me; setting the story I just mentioned in post-storm London, and then using a version of the characters I had developed for the first story I mentioned, though once again, I would have to invent a new plot as it would not involve magic of any kind. Combining story ideas seems to be my go to method of getting stories to work these days. We’ll see what, if anythingdevelops.

The bottom line is that Iwrite for pleasure. I like to do it everyday. Since no one has hired me to write, no one owes me any money for mywritings, which is one reason why I share rather than sell my stories.However, the reverse is also true; no one has hired me to write astory, so I don’t owe anyone a story. If writing stories turns into work, Iwon’t write them. And if I can’t come up with a story that I want towrite, I won’t lose any sleep over not writing one. So while I can semi-promise A Passage toJarpara, for sometime in 2024, beyond that, only time will tell.

On a more positivenote, I still enjoy writing these posts, and I’m planning to continue to write and post pieces on this blog everyWednesday. (It's such a 2010 thing to do, you know.) In addition, I’ve just launched a new series, TheSaturday Morning Post, to be released every, you guessed it, Saturdaymorning. It will feature my book reviews. This means that my Wednesday post will most likely be about something otherthan the books I’ve read. I still love to write, and if I can't dream upstories to write, I can find other things of interest towrite about. (Fingers crossed.) The idea behind a writer’s blogsisn’t primarily to sell books, but to pull back the curtain alittle on the person behind the writing, so that you – dear readers– have an opportunity to get to know a writer as a personone way or another. I’ll keep that in mind when coming up withpieces to post. And, as always, I’ll remind you that I welcomecomments and emails from you.

The Saturday Morning Post

I am reading a lot these days. By the end of the month, I will likely have read 11 books and sampled one more. If I review all the books I read or sample, they, for better or worse, threaten to overwhelm this blog. So I have decided to break them down and out into their own post, The Saturday Morning Post. I may also include some book reviews in my Wednesday post if I have nothing else to say, but the Saturday post will be primarily for books reviews.

In the past I listed books in the order I read them, but for this post I think it would be better to jump around a bit to feature only one book, or group similar books together in a post. I will simply note the month I read the books. So where we go. Since these reviews reflect my taste in books, I will restate my tastes so that you can discount my opinions according to your taste in books.

This reviewer's taste in books:

I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

With that out of the way, let's launch this post with a new fantasy book.

The Book That Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence C+  (June 2023)

The first, 200Kword, fantasy/ SF book in The Library Trilogy. The story takes placeon a dusty world of dried up oceans with humans, humanoids, and bugeyed monsters at war with each other. It set in a magical/medievaltype of walled city that lays at the foot of a mountain. The city is smallenough to walk through in an hour. Bow and arrows are the weapon of choice at the start of the story, an indication of its technological level. 

Set within the mountain andreached from the city is a library containing billions of paper booksfrom countless places – apparently including Earth – and fromuntold ages. This library is so vast that it is divided into hundredsof rooms many of which can be measured in miles. Librarians can spenddays search for books within it, sometimes getting lost and dying init. Books are shelved in some rooms on racks of wood, in others,metal or carved stone. And in at least one room are just piled inrows and towers, and in another, scattered like a sea. Some of theserooms are accessible, others lay behind doors that can only be openedwith magic of some sort. There are magic machines in the library that can be entered that recreate the world of the book one bring into it. People can apparently live within this machine for years. Oh, and monsters that need to be killed come out of these machines as well. The vast rooms have placesthat can magically heal wounds. The library also has a staff of magicalrobots of various sorts and shapes, like crows, dogs, as well ashumanoids. Some appear to be broken, others serve the human librarians,sometimes. Oh, and the robot “blood” can open sealed doors. And last but not least, there is a section of the library where one can travel back and forth in time at will– even becoming a flying ghost when visiting the past. This part of the library will alsocreate any illusion that one wants. As you can see, it’s a magiclibrary. Anything goes.

The plot involvesthe city outside of the library being under increasing pressure fromtheir traditional enemies, a humanoid race from somewhere, who, overthe course of the decade which this book covers, close in and eventuallygather in the desert outside the walls of the city with the intent ofsacking it, for some reason. Only Lawrence knows what this army hasto eat while camping in the desert outside of the city for years, and he isn’tsaying. As the enemy closes in the city’s scientists begin to usethe books in the library to design and build new weapons like rifles, to defend themselves. And nail polish. The final fifthof the book involves on extended battle/action/danger/chase sequencein which we also get dramatic plot twists, revelations, magicalrescues and heroic sacrifices, as well as a metaphysical explanationof the library’s purpose that may, or may not, make any sense. Itdidn’t to me, but that might just be me, I was doing a lot of skimreading by this point, as I found it tedious reading.

The story is told inclose third person, with two point of view characters. One is Livira,who begins the story as a 10 year old child refugee from the dried upsea bottom desert whose boldness gets herself assigned to thelibrary. Over the course of the books she grows to become a youngwoman and a bold and curious librarian. The other point of viewcharacter is Evar, who is one of four children, raised by two of those robots, who have grown up toadulthood within one of the miles wide rooms of the library, trappedby doors that do not open. Each of his two “brothers” and his“sister” have great skills taught to them by the book that wentwith them when, somehow, they entered that machine I previouslymentioned as children. All except Evar, our point of view character,who remembers nothing about his experience and has no special skillsas a result. As a result, we don’t get to know much about how thismachine works.

I am fairly certainthat fans of fantasy will find this book very enjoyable given itssweeping scale and plenty of action. Indeed, the only reason why Iordered it up from the library is that it was getting almostuniversal rave reviews. However, as you can gather from my grade, I wasless than impressed, and gave it the “+” mostly for ambition. However, Idid read the whole book – though as I said, by the long actionsequence at the end, I was skim reading parts to get to the outcome.

I enjoy Livira as acharacter and found her story far more interesting than of Evar’s.In the chapters featuring Evar, Lawrence kept repeating the samestory of their origins over an over again, sometimes within a page or two, but onlythat story. And in that, I seemed to see the hand of the author deliberately withholding or dribbling out bits of the more complete explanations for the sake of using it at some other point in the story. He was keeping secrets for his own purposes. While not exactly cheating, I found it to be a peak behind the curtain of the story to glimpse the craft behind its construction, which took me out of the story a little.

I’m not a visualperson, so that intricate action scenes don’t work for me. I can’tpicture them. I find them tedious reading and if they’re long,I’ll skim read to the end. All I need to know is the outcome. I mention this because I had to slog through or read several long sections of wandering around the library discoveringmysterious things, plus, as I said, skim read nearly100 page atthe end where everything comes together for a conclusion that, in the end, mostly just sets up thenext book in the trilogy. Don’t expect a complete story here. Itserves to introduce characters and setting up the next one.

I also found thelibrary to be more of a plot device than a believable, organic, or even fantastic reality. The metaphysical/biblical explanation of it made no sense, at least tome. And, well, It seems to be the case here, as with most fantasies,that an author can create anything they care to, and then explain it away with anairy sweep of a hand saying it’s “magic.” Moreover, the worldbeyond the library is barely sketched it, with little thought put intoit, such as, as I pointed out previously, how a barbarian army canlay siege to a city for years from a vast desert – or why. One canonly hope that in the next volumes the world beyond the library andits place in it becomes more, dare I say, realistic. Alas, I don’tthink I care enough to find out.

Extra bonus book... 

Agent Zero by Jack Mars DNF  (June 2023)

A widowed collegeprofessor is kidnapped. The kidnappers, in searching for answers they believe he (unknowingly) possess findand remove a small device that had been surgically implanted under the skin behind his ear. With it removed, he is flooded with memories and abilities that had beenblocked from a previous career as some sort of secret agent… 

I am undecided about this book. I wasn’t in the mood for anotherthriller, so I did not read on beyond this point, but I have nothing negative to say about it, as a thriller, at least so far. I may return to it if or when I am in the mood for a thriller.

What Next? ( Publishing)

Next up for review is my publishing business. It is a business, andas such, it perhaps more than anything else is affected by theunderlying reason for these introspective accounts. And that is, Iain’t young anymore. I’m 73, and while I don’t have my foot inthe grave just yet, the time for long term planning has passed me by.If I was 20 or 30 years younger, I could perhaps look on mypublishing business and decide to try things different things. But I haveneither the energy nor the time to change much, and to be honest, nodesire to.

I have only recentlycome to fully consider publishing as a distinct activity, rather thanan extension of my writing, but even so, from the very beginning, I had to consider my products. My books are passionprojects, not commercial ventures with any sort of mass marketappeal. This being the case, I felt that spending money on promoting them would likely lose money. And the money I'd make without spending money to promote them and/or the money I'd leave on the table by selling my books at cost – wouldn't be enough to change my life in any meaningful way. Giventhese facts, I opted to use the most efficient and laziest method tosell them, i.e. to sell my ebooks at my cost in every available outlet as free ebooks, using their FREE! price alone to promote and sell them. Some might consider this cheating, but I consider myself the Aldi of publishing, a discount publisher. In the last eight years I've sold over 74,000 books which I think is well above the mean number of books sold for bothtraditionally and indie authors. While the $600+ I've grossed from Amazon's foreign stores doesn't hold a candle to even the most unsuccessful traditionally published authors, I suspect that when it comes to indie authors who follow the "experts'" advice and “do it right”, i.e. spending a lot of money on all sorts of services to produce an ebook, even a $50 clear profit from my gross sales would still put me above the mean for indie authors when itcomes profit and loss. While it is getting harder and harder to sell ebooks without spending thousands of dollars promoting them, I don't see any better alternative to my ebook sales model.

What has made a great difference in my sales was my willingnessto jump into audiobooks when Google offered me the chance to do so - for free - last year. These days half of all my sales now come fromaudiobooks on Google’s Play Store. Had I not made that move, my sales would be decliningrather than growing as they have been over the last two years. 

I can offer the Google auto-generated audiobooks on other audiobook platforms, as long as I keep them on Google. However, I would probably have to charge money for them, circling backto the fact that they would probably not sell in any economicallysignificant numbers, so why bother?

The paper booksmarket is a sector that I have entertained some ambitions in during thelast year or two – mostly with the goal of creating a more lasting and tangiblelegacy than ebooks will likely provide. I was even considering spendingmoney for that legacy. On the local scale, I toyed with the idea of offering some free sample copies of some of my books to the local bookshop. I also considered offering them into the local library. And on a larger scale, Iconsidered offering bookshops that specialize in science fiction a free sample set of my books forthem to sell. I have now abandoned those plans. Being a shyperson who has successfully avoided the limelight his entire life,why risk my anonymity, however slight the risk, by calling attentionto myself locally for sales that would amount to nextto nothing. Plus, the library does not guarantee that they will shelve books contributed to them. My books could just end up on their sales rack for discarded books. I can give my books to charity shops myself. On the nationalscale, if the bookshop actually sold my books and wanted more copies, I would have to become the distributor ofthe books, likely having to keep a stock of books on hand to send out, since my books are not set up for extended distribution onAmazon, and Amazon takes it's time sending out author copies. Not worth the hassle. 

I toyed with making print books via Barnes & Noble's print on demandservice in addition to my Amazon editions, since with the paper book files on hand, it would take little effort. I could then also sell my ebooksdirectly through B & N rather than via Smashword. But to what end?  B & N aren't going to carry the paper books in their stores, and my books will still be lost on their website without paying to promote them... so it hardly seems worth even the little effort.

I've found that no matter how big a publisher you are, books don't sell themselves. Selling books is a hardbusiness, even for big publishers with plenty of money. I could, however take a page from their promotional efforts by sending paper copies of my books to "media influencers." Unlike traditionally published books, I probably could not expect to receive a review, but I do know anumber of booktubers who post “book haul videos” every month orso where they show off the books viewers have sent to them. It amounts to maybe a minute of time holding the book, reading the blurb, and thanking the sender for the book in front of several thousand viewers. It isunlikely that they would read and review a self-published book as their TBR list numbers in the hundreds. Given how inefficientlysocial media works for selling books (it works, but you need clout and scale) Idoubt that any resulting sales spike would be worth the cost of the book and shipping.

I've also toyed with the idea going back to listing my ebooks with Kobo directly, just out of curiosity to see how many of my ebooks they are selling, since they do not report freesales to Smashwords. I've done so in the past, but sales were sominor that I decided it wasn’t worth the bother of entering theirsales on my sales charts, so I went back to Smashwords distribution. Still, I am slightly curious, and the effort would be small, but… beinglazy… we’ll see.

Looking back at all these ideas, it seems like I'm just being lazy by not pursuing them. Maybe if I felt that I had more time to grow my publishing business, I might be more willing to try new things. But since I don't, I’m just going to stay the course. I have abusiness that runs itself and produces, if not money, readership,which is what I value most. No point fixing what isn’t broken.

What Next? (Social Media)

 

With eight years as a publisher behind me, I’ve been mulling over my roles as an author and as apublisher. What has changed over the years? And what hasn’t? Whathave I learned? And what, in light of those answers, do I want tochange going forward.

One of the minor changes I'm implementing is to make this blog my main presence on theinternet. I really hate doing any sort of self-promotion, and whilethis blog serves that purpose, it also serves to make myselfavailable – and to some extent, real – to my readers. I see it asa two way street between my readers and myself.

I also have a gallery on DeviantArt where I post my artwork, including some of the covers I create for my books, On it I also mention my books. While this gallery does get viewers, I doubt it contributes much to sales. That is not the purpose of its, so I'll continue to post my art on it and respond to any comments as usual. Note: I do also have an art blog, but it is inactive, as I am not painting at the time, so I will not likely see any comments posted there.

Beyond these two sites, my culling of mysocial media footprint does not involve a great deal of change. Iset out publishing my work with the expectation that price alone would drive my sales, It has. Thus, I have made only a minimum effort in (free)promotions over my years as a publisher.

While not aimed atpromoting my work – the readers are all writers themselves – Ihave, over the last several years written some pieces about writingon a blog aimed at writers. However, I find that I have exhausted mywisdom when it comes to writing and publishing, and can think ofnothing more to write about. So I will likely draw a curtain on thatproject.

While not forself-promotion purposes, I have posted comments on blogs and YouTubevideos. And since some of the blog post comments have links back tothis blog, these posts could be construed as sort of advertising.However, I often feel that my comments end up being out of step with theother comments. This makes me uneasy, and given my unease, I’vedecided to give up commenting, no matter how tempted I am. While I’venever gotten into the practice of “liking” posts and comments as a rule, Ithink I will begin to do this instead of commenting to support theblogs and videos I appreciate.

For the last twoyears I have entered a book in the Self Published Science FictionContest, with the idea of promoting my books. It was free, after all.It hasn’t worked. All I’ve gotten from them is one review, and noappreciable spike in sales. I think the only people who pay attentionto it are the authors in the contest. I’m not going to dothat again. However, this year I did enter a book in the Fantasyversion of the contest, as it draws a lot more attention.Realistically, there is no chance my book will advance to the final10 books, and being my only fantasy book, this year will be the firstand last time I do that.

Last summer I signedup for the service known as Discord, and joined a number of Discordchannels that were set up by science fiction booktubers for theirviewers, with the idea talking about books and perhaps mentioning mybooks, since they all have sections for users to post their work. I alsojoined a Discord channel set up by a traditionally published authordesigned as a place for writers and aspiring writers to discuss theirwork, get critiques and such.

I discovered thatDiscord is basically a chat room, something that has been around fora long as the internet has been around, but something I’ve neverdealt with before. I found the nature of chat, short statements oftenseparated by replies to previous statements, too disjointed for thisold man to enjoyable engage in. Moreover, most of the people in the booktuber Discord channels were a lot younger than me and were talking about books that I hadn’t read,and had no interest in reading. As a result, I had nothing relevantto say. They probably weren’t my target market for my books anyway, so there was no point in being a member of them, so I dropped out.

As for the writingDiscord channel, while there were a few substantial discussions, they were still  chats, often broken up between cross postings and separated by timelags making the discussion disjointed and hard to engage in. Moreover, I noted just how easy it is for thewritten word, especially in casual chats, to be misinterpretation. I hadto be very careful how I phrased every comment, so as not to offendanyone. And well, there was the same age problem, plus the fact thatI am an author/publisher, and most of the other authors were eithertraditional published or aspiring to be traditional published and so they were writing stories in the contemporary style that I had no experience in. Ifelt that I did not have enough in common with them, nor much relevant advice to offer, so I dropped out of that group as well, as I was paying to be in that group.

Looking back on allthese efforts – as minimal as they were – I don’t see anypositive results as far as sales go. As they say, you have to pay to play, and I don't care to pay. Low price is what drivesmy sales, and given the minimal effort I put into publishing, I can’tcomplain about the results.

So at the end of theday, I think that this blog and my DeviantArt gallery are my two places in the social media of the internet. I do, however, enjoy in hearing from and engaging my readers and on line friends, either by email at cmlitka@gmail.com, or in a comment on this blog or my art gallery. And like every good blogger, I respond to every commentor email. I want to hear from you!

Books I Read in May (Part 2)

Payment UponDelivery by Hackley Hammett DNF 4%

Meh. Began with arecent college Spanish major grad, Jake Williams, returning to hishome in a rather dumpy West Virginia town. Jake started a fightduring a baseball game he was playing in in college and that’s abig black mark against him. He’s offered a job as a salesman for aMexican plastics recycler over the phone, and takes it, even thoughhe can’t find any mention of the company on the web. He then flies downto Buenos Aires to meet the owner at a conference for some reason…You can guess where this is going. I don’t think I want to readabout a fellow that stupid. The boxed set of the first three bookswere free, if it sounds up your alley.

On Hadrian’sSecret Service by Gavin Chappell C

The story is set onthe northern border of Roman controlled England in AD 120. We have aRoman soldier, Flaminius who is recruited into dealing with thetroublesome tribes in the north of England, with the idea of keepingthem from fighting each other at the instigation of a more powerfultribe in Caledonia. Competently written, the author does attempt torecreate the world of second century Britain, It moves along, and isset in a new, for me, time period. It was not quite as evocative as Iwould’ve liked, but I don’t have a visualmind. What keeps it an average story is that the main charactersfailed to really come completely to life for me. Certainlyan effort was made to make them unique and motivated, but in the end,they seemed to be in the story mostly for the purpose of the story. Which is to say that they served to move the story along, rather than thestory being about them, if you get my drift. But again, not for alack of effort by the author, they just didn’t click with me. Theother knock I have against this story, is that the author felt theneed to insert the hero into a great event of history and make acritical difference, though I must admit that I haven’t beenmotivated to do the research to see if the event in the story was actuallyhistoric. In this case, the fate of the Roman Emperor in Rome hung inbalance. While this made for a hectic, cinematographic ending, it wasa little too over the top for me. But once again, that’s just me. Ilike things that are more understated. So final verdict; don’t letmy C grade keep you from reading it. I think it is worth reading ifyou find the premise interesting, and there are more storiesinvolving the characters set in other parts of the Roman Empire, ifyou find the story to your taste.

The Sands ofTruth by Richard Townshend Bickers B-

A well researched,authentic sounding account of a British officer in one of the nativeregiments (a seypoy regiment) of the British army in India set in1824. It begins with the mutiny of the 47th NativeInfantry in Barrackpore, who believe that they were to be sent toBurma via ship over the sea, which they believed would cost themtheir souls. They were actually being shipped in boats up river tosave time marching. In the aftermath of the mutiny, that included thedeath of some fellow officers and their families, the story’s hero,Hugh Ramsey, a lieutenant in a companion regiment at the base, someof whom also mutinied, decides to change his career, despitesoldiering being something of a family tradition. He agrees to becomea partner with a Calcutta merchant and take a large consignment ofgoods to a native state some weeks of travel up the Ganges. Thisnative state is ruled by a cruel and murderous leader, who, unknownto Ramsey, likely had the merchant’s first agent quietly killed,fearing him to be a British spy. Complications quickly arisebeginning in Calcutta which changes their agreement. On the journeyRamsey loses half of the merchandise to pirates and thugs. Then onarrival in native state’s capital, he must deal with theintricacies the of native politics with a population divided byreligious believes – Muslim and Hindu, of which we are given anextensive view of.

As I said at thebeginning, this reads like a well researched story, likely drawn fromcontemporary accounts of life in India during the 1800’s. Howeverthose accounts come from its colonial rulers, and their view of Indiathough the lens of their prejudices. How accurately those accountsreflect the total realities of India might be open to debate. I havelittle doubt that the practices described in the book – caste,child weddings and widowhood, beggars, traveling dancinggirls/whores, and degenerate rulers did exist, but do not offer acomplete picture of Indian culture. Plus there is the attitude of theauthor to be considered. While certainly not anti-Indian, he doespaint his India with a lot of its unpleasant aspects. And treats sexand romance in a traditional way, i.e. while it is fine for Ramsey tosleep with a native, he must marry a European, or in this case, anAmerican. Indeed, the romance aspect is a minor one, but handled in avery unconvincing and convenient fashion.

Bickers wrote thisbook in 1984, and is the author of over 50 novels, mostly militaryfiction, and mostly about war in the air. He knows how to write, andhis story is intricate and engaging, with may twists and turns. Wellworth reading if the story sounds appealing to you.

Murder at theManor by Catherine Coles C+ (for what it is)

A Tommy and EvelynChristie Mystery story, the first of at least six such stories. Aclassic/cozy country house whodunit. Written in 2020 and set in 1921,the story featured the husband and wife team of Evelyn and TommyChristie, he an ex policeman recovering from a war wound, and she hadalso worked in the police department during the war. He is third inline to a title and an estate, and she the daughter of a retired MP,i.e. both with an upper class background. She helps makes scones inthe kitchen, making this a cozy mystery. The story has all the tropesyou would expect in a mystery set in an English country house, amurder, a flock of suspects, all with motives, bumbling constables(largely off screen in this story) that ends with a gathering in thestudy where Tommy and Evelyn explain whodunit. You probably shouldn’twaste any time detecting yourself, as Tommy and Evelyn, despite theirname, not on the level of Agatha. Just go with the flow. If thissounds like your cup of tea, you should find it enjoyable.

Windrush by Malcolm Archibald B

This is book 1 ofthe Jack Windrush Series. Another story set in South Asia, this timein Burma in 1852. In this story opens in England with Jack Windrush,the funeral of his father, General Windrush. He expects to join theBritish regiment that his family has always joined, but instead, forhis mother purchases a commission as an ensign in the 113thRegiment, a regiment of ill repute for him, sending his youngerbrother to the family’s much more prestigious regiment. Jack’sregiment is stationed in India, and after traveling there, is givenan independent command of a dozen men to serve in a war in Burma, andthere, after a battle is sent on a mission to track down a crueldacoit band (bandits) possibility led by a renegade British soldier.

I found this to be apetty entertaining book. It seems that between the Lonesome Dovesaga, The Sands of Truth, and this book, I’ve been meeting somepretty cruel and bloodthirsty characters. I am not sure of the allureof writing these characters. Is it for historical accuracy or simplyfor thrills? Or both?

This is the firstbook of a long series – something like 15 books – covering JackWindrush’s career as he moves up in the ranks of the Victorian eraBritish Army while serving in its many wars, big and little. Ienjoyed this book more than I did the Sharpe book I read, though, inthis first installment, it doesn’t reach the heights of theFlashman saga.

The Lion At Sea A Kelly Maguire Thriller by Max Hennessy B

The story opens withKelly Maguire as an ensign in the Royal Navy in 1911 and follows hiscareer to the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Along the way he servesaboard a cruiser in the North Sea at the beginning of the war, in asubmarine during the Dardanelles campaign, and aboard a destroyerduring the fleet action known as the Battle of Jutland. This is thefirst of a three book series that was first published in 1977. MaxHennessy is the pen name of British novelist John Harris, who wrotesome 76 novels under various pen names in various genre over a longcareer. I enjoyed this book, though it features the, serious,fearless, never say die hero for which George MacDonald’s Fraser’santi-hero Flashman is an antidote for. I have long been a fan of theRoyal Navy. Back when I was a teenager, my friends and I engaged in anaval race of our own. We each purchased 1:1200 metal models of WW2 warships of the fleet that wehad chosen to collect in order to fight sea battles on our basementfloor. We used rules invented by the SF author, Fletcher Pratt. I hadchosen to built a Royal Navy fleet, which I still have, while my friendsbuilt the American, Japanese, French, and German navies. This isthe second free book I’ve read which is a reissue of a book written50ish years ago and are being used to draw readers into these olderseries books. The quality is there, making them a very good deal.Will I spend £4for a digital copy of the next book? Well, no, but if you're not as cheap as me, the next book covers the inner war years from theRussian civil war and then on the China...