John Walters's Blog, page 27

Book Review: The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal

The Fated Sky is a sequel to The Calculating Stars, and they are both part of Mary Robinette Kowal’s Lady Astronaut series. The Calculating Stars is a superb novel; it blew me away when I read it a year and a half or so ago. The Fated Sky is interesting and entertaining, but it suffers a bit from sequel syndrome. In the first novel, Kowal introduces the background of her alternate history: in the 1950s, a massive meteor strikes the east coast of the United States. It turns out to be an extinction-level event, propelling the nations of the world into an accelerated push towards a space program so that the solar system can be colonized. Kowal presents her story in the context of the fifties bias against women and minorities in favor of strong-seeming white men. The story is narrated by the Lady Astronaut, pilot Elma York, who is strong, determined, and brilliant.

This second novel carries on the story in the first-person narrative voice of Elma York. The moon has already been colonized, and an expedition for Mars is setting out. York is added as a crewmember almost at the last minute, mainly for the publicity when funding for the journey is at risk. Two ships with seven passengers each, as well as a supply ship, set out on the three-year return voyage. Most of the book takes place on York’s vessel, the Nina, as all sorts of things minor and major arise to challenge the wits and capabilities of the crews. For instance, at one point the toilet becomes clogged with a used condom, and York is tasked with attempting to clean up globs of urine floating in zero gravity. At another point, the crew of the other ship eats some bad food and everyone gets acute diarrhea; the cleanup this time is even more difficult. There are EVAs to be performed to repair a damaged cooling system and a broken radio antenna. Besides these physical problems, there is tension among the crew concerning the jobs that women and African Americans are given on the duty roster.

All of this sounds somewhat mundane, but in fact these details are what make this book fascinating. Kowal has obviously done her research, and these are the problems that astronauts would likely encounter on long journeys to far planets. This scenario is much more realistic than attacks from alien bug-eyed monsters.

For me this novel started sort of slow but I became more and more absorbed as I went along. One problem in the early stages is that Kowal assumes that you probably read The Calculating Stars first, and so you must be intimately familiar with the recurring characters and situation. For me, though, this was an errant assumption. After all, I had read the first book about eighteen months previously, and the only characters I could remember were Elma York and her husband. I vaguely remembered the alternative history background, but what the novel could have greatly benefited from would be a synopsis of the first book. (Sort of like what is done in volumes two and three of The Lord of the Rings.) A brush-up on the main characters and the situation would have enabled me to plunge right in at the beginning.

Still, despite my confusion at the beginning and the fact that it didn’t quite rise to the level of the previous book, I enjoyed this novel and recommend it. Just be sure to read the first one first.

Book Review: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

I saw this book on the library shelves for several weeks before I decided to give it a read. That’s because I was so disappointed by Weir’s second novel, Artemis. Weir’s first novel, the one that catapulted him to international literary fame, was, of course, The Martian, which was turned into a major movie that received numerous awards and accolades. I never read The Martian, but I watched the film several times. On the strength of that story, I read Artemis, which is entertaining but ultimately a disappointment. The main character is unsympathetic; she is a petty smuggler who is willing to sabotage expensive industrial equipment just so she can improve her living conditions.

In Project Hail Mary, Weir returns to the perspective and focus that made The Martian such a hit: an emphasis on science, or at least pseudo-science, as the hero that saves the day. In The Martian, stranded astronaut Mark Watney must use his scientific knowhow to learn how to survive on Mars until he is rescued. In Project Hail Mary, the stakes are far greater. The fate of the entire planet is at stake. A single-celled space creature has begun to feed on the sun’s energy, and first-person protagonist Ryland Grace must figure out a way to stop the invading pests before the Earth and the rest of the solar system freezes. To accomplish this, he is sent on an interstellar mission to the Tau Ceti system; Tau Ceti is the only nearby star that has not been infested by the space plague, and he and his crewmates need to find out why. However, to complicate matters, when Grace arrives at his destination, he wakes up from a four-year coma with amnesia, and his crewmates are dead. Lo and behold, though, an alien ship has arrived in the system with a sole survivor and the same mission. Grace slowly recovers his memory in flashbacks that provide back-story. He also learns to communicate with the alien, a spider-like creature without eyes but with a heightened sense of hearing, and together they set about working together to save their respective worlds.

This all sounds wild and complex, and it is, but Weir makes it exciting, poignant, and credible with his emphasis on hard science supplying the answers to the innumerable crises that pop up one after the other. Grace is a scientific and mathematical genius, and his alien ally, whom Grace nicknames Rocky, is an engineering whiz. Their skills complement each other as they unravel the mystery of what the space plague is and how it can be defeated.

This all makes for a lot of fun and adventure. In fact, Project Hail Mary is the most entertaining hard science fiction novel I have read in a long time. I don’t know enough science or math to know whether Weir’s explanations make any sense, but they have verisimilitude, and that’s the important thing in a story like this. Of course he is making it all up, but as far as I can tell, he is using as much real science as he can in the process. It’s a lively read, and one of the great things about it is its escapism; it takes us off this planet to a faraway place where a lone human and his lovable alien sidekick attempt to rescue worlds from oblivion. If I have one qualification to my praise, it is that for me Weir throws in a few too many crises at the end. Everything that can possibly go wrong does go wrong, one thing after the other, and the hero Grace must use his ingenuity over and over to figure out the problems and come up with solutions. I kept thinking that finally they’ve done it; they’ve saved the day; and then something else comes up. But even these seemingly tacked-on crises are well-presented, exciting, and fun.

Weir is not a stylist. His prose is simple and direct, but that’s the approach that is needed in a novel in which the characterizations are subservient to the ideas. If you take it on its own terms, this is a terrifically entertaining novel. Highly recommended.

The Relocation Blues Is Now Available!

The Relocation Blues: An Inquiry into Transitions, my latest memoir and thirty-first book, is now available in digital and print form. Pick up a copy by clicking on one of the links below. Here’s what it is about:

Life is full of transitional experiences: relocations from one place to another and one job to another, setbacks due to accidents and injuries, the loss of family and friends, and the metamorphosis from youth to old age. This lively memoir takes you on a journey through transitions the author has experienced while traveling abroad for thirty-five years, seeking a place to call home in his native United States, raising five sons, and pursuing excellence in the art of writing. Besides telling his fascinating tales of multitudinous changes, the author shares tips on how to adopt a lifestyle that makes transitions more manageable. As uncertainty and confusion threaten to overwhelm us all, this memoir is not only entertaining and exciting, but also relevant, timely, comforting, and helpful.

Trade paperback

Amazon Kindle

Barnes and Noble

Kobo

Apple iBooks

Book Review: One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon by Charles Fishman

I picked up this recently-published book thinking it was an updated history of the Apollo program but as I began to read I soon realized that it is not really that at all. Instead, it is a look behind the scenes at some of the aspects of the intense race to the moon in the 1960s that never made it into the spotlight of public awareness. This is evident from the first few pages of the introduction, as Fishman describes that when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin got back into their capsule after humankind’s first-ever moon walk, they discovered that the moon dust clinging to their suits smelled like spent firecrackers.

Besides bringing lesser-known stories of the Apollo program to light, in the first and last chapters Fishman focuses on a retrospective look at its value. At the time and in subsequent decades, many critics derided the Apollo program for its expense and for the lack of follow-up missions. In the almost fifty years since the last moon mission in 1972, there have been no landings of humans on celestial bodies. One would think that by now the entire solar system would be colonized, but we seem to be as far from that as we were in the sixties. As for the cost, One Giant Leap points out that compared to the cost of the Vietnam War, which was occurring at the same time, the expense of Apollo was miniscule. Additionally, in practical terms, if the Apollo program had never happened, it doesn’t mean that the funds spent on it would have been automatically diverted to feeding, clothing, and housing the poor. That’s not how government spending works. And it’s true that the trips to the moon in the late sixties and early seventies were not followed up by further forays to the moon, Mars, and the outer planets and moons, but its legacy goes far beyond that. The intense research into computers capable of the complex calculations necessary for space travel that would fit snugly into a tiny manned capsule helped ignite the digital age.

As I mentioned above, Fishman does not tell the story chronologically but in the highlighting of various facets of the program. One of these is MIT’s development of computers that would be small enough to go to the moon but complex enough for celestial navigation. At the time, computers were prohibitively expensive and filled rooms. It was all but inconceivable that a computer could be devised to meet the need. To accomplish it, for the first time MIT constructed computers using integrated circuits, which at the time were brand-new and very expensive. The software too had to be incredibly complex, because the aim was to make it sophisticated enough to navigate the ship on its own with very little help from the astronauts. The stories of the computer hardware and software development each have lengthy sections in this book. Other technical stories that Fishman tells involve the creation of the lunar module and the decision to use LOR, or lunar orbit rendezvous, as the flight plan to land men on the moon.

Fishman also delves into the controversy of the flag that ultimately got planted on the moon. Before the final decision there was intense controversy about whether to plant a UN flag, an American flag, or no flag. Ultimately an American flag was hoisted not as a symbol of conquest but as an acknowledgement of the achievement of having made the trip. Fishman also delves into the difficulties technicians faced of where and how to store the flag on a capsule on which space and weight was so precious. As a side note in the flag chapter, Fishman relates how the astronauts on one mission had multi-page instructions attached to their wrists; in the midst of these a member of the ground crew had hidden scaled-down pictures of Playboy playmates which the men discovered while going about their tasks.

The driving force behind the Apollo program was John F. Kennedy, who early in his presidency expressed determination to land men on the moon before the end of the decade of the sixties. According to Fishman, for Kennedy this was solely a Cold War tactic to prove superiority over the Russians, who had managed to get a satellite and even a man into orbit long before the Americans were capable of doing so. Fishman claims that by 1963 interest in space was waning, but Kennedy’s assassination helped to spur the program on to completion. Another recent book, American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race by Douglas Brinkley, gives a much more nuanced and complex look at Kennedy’s involvement and fascination with space exploration and the Apollo program in particular.

All in all, this book contains fascinating insights into the race to the moon in the 1960s; however, it gets very technical and a bit repetitive in parts, and it does not offer a comprehensive history of the Apollo program.

Staying Alive; or, The Martian as an Allegory of the Human Condition

“Never despair, but if you do, work on in spite of despair.”- paraphrase of Edmund Burke

Recently I checked out my various accounts so I could assess my financial situation, and I received a devastating shock. It was much worse than I had supposed. Despite a generous Christmas gift from an anonymous source, which I thought had put me out of trouble, January’s income has been so low that I still find myself in emergency mode. My first reaction was despair. I work all day long, seven days a week; I don’t ever do much else. And yet still it seems to be for naught. Every month I find it difficult to pay the rent and other bills. There is no surcease and no end in sight. My income as a freelance writer has never enabled me to do more than survive, and during the COVID pandemic, although I work the same amount of time or more, there is simply not as much work to be had. I could see no relief, no way out.

Fortunately, though, just a few nights previously I had watched the film The Martian, about an American astronaut who is left for dead on Mars when the rest of his team departs for Earth. He wakes up after the sandstorm he had been caught in and manages to stagger back to the habitat, but then he calculates the amount of rations remaining and realizes that he will starve to death before he can possibly be rescued. His first reaction is despair. However, he soon snaps out of his gloom and realizes that he has to “science the shit” out of his situation so that he can find some way to stay alive.

As I was wallowing in my despair, this story began playing in my head, and I realized that I too had to science the shit out of my predicament. Instead of moaning and groaning, I had to figure out some positive way to attack the problem. All of a sudden, as ideas began to occur to me, my depression lifted. I leaped out of bed (it was early morning before sunrise) and wrote down the thoughts that were crowding into my mind.

One of the important things I did immediately was revamp my schedule. I write at least five hundred creative words a day almost every day of the year. I had recently shifted from writing these words in the evening before bed to writing them first thing in the morning, which is my period of peak performance. For years it had been my strong desire to put my creative work first in the day, and finally I had made the change. I realized, however, during that surge of enlightenment, that I wasn’t ready to pull that off. Early morning was also when most of the article and essay jobs were posted, the jobs I could count on for quick money. I decided, for now at least, to switch back to ghost writing work in the morning and creative work in the evening. The first day that I made that change, I claimed and finished three times my usual amount of daily assignments.

You see, the triumph in The Martian is in the astronaut’s attitude. He encounters one crisis after another, but instead of giving up in despair he works the problems one after the other. And that’s what I realized I had to do too: attack my situation with a positive attitude. Of course, in the end, the astronaut cannot do it completely on his own. His crew turns around to come back and get him, even though they had almost made it all the way back to Earth. We all have our networks of relatives, friends, and supporters without which we would be unable to survive. I have had loved ones who helped me back to my feet when I thought I had received one punch too many and would be unable to rise again. The point is, though, that when difficulties seem overwhelming and insurmountable don’t despair. Don’t give up. Don’t surrender. Instead, work the problem. Science the shit out of your situation until you figure out something you can do to climb back up into daylight.

I’m a professional writer; I make my living by my words. I’m happy to share these essays with you, but at the same time, financial support makes the words possible. If you’d like to become a patron of the arts and support my work, buy a few of my available books or available stories, or become a Patreon patron. (Heads Up: I haven’t been keeping up with my Patreon posts recently – if you head over there it should be for purely philanthropic motives.) Thanks!

Book Review: The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2021 Edited by John Joseph Adams and Veronica Roth

This collection has a different tone than the other best of the year collection I recently read and reviewed, The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Volume 2 edited by Jonathan Straham, and it’s not just that it includes fantasy. The selection process is different, and that has something to do with it. Straham chooses the stories for his collection on his own, while with Adams it is a dual process. Throughout the year Adams searches for what he considers the best speculative fiction stories of the year from as many traditional publications as he can find. (He does not include self-published works, which is a shame, but understandable considering how much more complex the selection process would be.) He comes up with a list of eighty, forty science fiction stories and forty fantasy stories, which he then passes on to a guest editor. This year it is Veronica Roth, author of the Divergent series. The guest editor reads the stories blind, that is, with the authors’ names removed, and chooses ten of each of the genres of science fiction and fantasy as the final selections.

One of the things I find most interesting about this collection is the inclusion of stories from literary magazines in the mix. Besides stories from the dedicated science fiction and fantasy magazines and anthologies, there are stories from The Paris Review, A Public Space, and One Story. This is a very good thing, not only because it demonstrates an inclusive expansiveness on the part of the editors of this volume, but also because it shows that the mainstream literary magazines are becoming increasingly willing to accept the value of speculative works.

When I read through these best of the year volumes, I do not expect all the stories to impress me as much as they impressed the editors, and in fact that’s not what happened. I had a mediocre reaction to several of them, and after I read a few I wondered how they managed to get published at all. Still, I am patient, waiting for that thrill of discovery that all readers look for. In this book, that ecstatic joy happened with two stories in particular. The first was “Our Language” by Yohanca Delgado, which first appeared in A Public Space. It concerns a woman in the Dominican Republic who inherits a strange curse. After marrying and having a son, she slowly begins to shrink and morph into a creature of the forest who can no longer speak in human language; however, when she leaves home she finds that there is a whole community of other women who have undergone similar changes. The other story that profoundly drew me in is “The Long Walk” by Kate Elliot. This one is about a heavily patriarchal society that condemns unwanted older women to take the titular long walk into the mountains to supposedly be consumed by dragons. After the death of her husband, a widow voluntarily takes the walk, only to discover that the reality beyond the mountains is different than what people on the other side believe.

Another excellent story is “The Plague Doctors” by Karen Lord. As the title indicates, this story concerns a worldwide plague that devastates humankind. An interesting side-fact is that Lord wrote the story six months before the COVID-19 break out, making it uncannily prescient. Daryl Gregory’s story “Brother Rifle” effectively deals with the traumatic aftermath of warfare, and Amman Sabet’s “Skipping Stones in the Dark” is a scary story about giving AI too much power, especially on a multi-generational starship.  All in all, I would say that there are enough good to excellent stories in this collection to make it a worthwhile read. There is also the undeniable fact that you may have different favorites than me. That’s what individuality is all about.

“Prodigal” in SFS Stories

My short story “Prodigal” has just appeared in Issue #8 of the magazine SFS Stories. The theme of this issue is “Tales of Time.” You can find a copy on Amazon at this link.

Book Review: Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956 by Anne Applebaum

This book is a heavy read; that applies to the physical weight of the book as well as the subject matter. It deals with the attempts of the Soviet Union to bring Eastern Europe into subjugation after World War II. When the conflict was nearing its end, the Allied leaders got together and divided up Europe between the Western Allies and the Soviets. Most of Western Europe fell into Allied hands, while Eastern Europe became Stalin’s personal plaything. He decided to grind the Eastern European countries into the image of the Soviet Union and compel their peoples to become part of a race of humans that Applebaum refers to as Homo Sovieticus. To accomplish this, even before the war was officially over the Soviets began taking over politics, economics, churches, organizations, publishers, radio stations, schools, summer camps, factories, shops – in short, they attempted to dominate every aspect of life.

You might wonder what caused me to take up and read such a horrific book. I didn’t choose it for its entertainment value. I wanted to see if there were lessons in it for those of us who are confused by this crazy polarized world we live in today, where people are dividing into opposing camps over whether or not to protect ourselves from a deadly pandemic, where it is difficult to tell truth from falsehood in the media, and where people with unpopular opinions can be effectively ostracized by mob consent. The first time I checked it out of the library, I weighed it in my hands, considered the depressing subject matter, and sent it right back. This second time, though, I knew that I wanted to consider what it had to say, and I persevered.

For one thing, I trust the writer. Anne Applebaum is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag: A History, which is also concerned with a deeply negative aspect of Soviet totalitarianism. She’s a good writer and knows several East European languages, so she is able to conduct research using documents in the original languages. She has a talent for creating verisimilitude by using the individual stories of survivors. In addition, she always maintains a nuanced viewpoint, not condemning those who were unable or unwilling to rise up against this oppressive regime, but instead explaining their motivations for reacting in the ways that they did.

The Soviets wanted to prove that their system of communism was correct and that if people only became enlightened and single-minded, they would see this for themselves. And then there was of course the paranoid madman Stalin sending cruel and sadistic dictates from on high. Applebaum stresses the immediate difference in political and police pressure after Stalin’s death in 1953, although of course the pressure did not ease completely until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

I needed to read this book to get a reality check. A lot of evil is rising in the world nowadays. It is tempting to brush off the warnings and think that everything will fix itself if we ignore it, but that’s not how it works. The people in Eastern Europe were living in democratic societies for the most part until the Nazis swept in from the west and then the Soviets swept in from the east. They were involved in their day-to-day lives just as we are. They never expected to be plunged into a horrific war and then an ongoing occupation that was just as horrific.

The Soviets, with their meticulous planning and propaganda, thought that they would be able to persuade the people of Eastern Europe to joyfully enter a communist utopia. Some of them sincerely thought their way was the best. All they proved was that though it was possible to physically subjugate people by force, they were unable to crush their spirits, which resurrected as soon as their oppressors left.

Keep Doing What You’re Doing

Often we create resolutions for the New Year because we are convinced that changes need to be made in our lives. Perhaps something is not right; something is out of kilter. We resolve to do whatever needs to be done to correct the error. However, many people are exactly where they need to be and doing exactly what they need to be doing and yet they still may be dissatisfied, frustrated, and sometimes overwhelmed. As example my first thought is of parents; they have embarked upon a long journey, a journey that in fact never ends. Their concern for their progeny lasts until their dying day; it does not cease even when the kids move out of the house. And yet though they have for the most part chosen this path, it is not always easy. It has its triumphs, yes, but it is also fraught with disappointment and danger. Parents accept the new lives they have brought into the world with no guarantees of success. If they are good parents, though, success or failure has no affect on the perseverance and wholeheartedness with which they plunge into the task of caring for their children.

A career that is life-work rather than mere job is another example. Not all people choose their occupations and devote themselves to them with fervor, but many people do. For instance, I am a writer. I have identified as a writer since I was seventeen or eighteen years old. I didn’t apply to become one. The fact that I am one burst upon me with the force of revelation. Now, as I approach seventy, I am still a writer and will always be one. Apart from my identity as a parent, it defines my existence. Being a writer or any other sort of creative person (and I use the word “creative” in the broad sense of a pursuit that wholly engages your mind and spirit) has nothing to do with success or failure. It is something that you are, and something that you do. It makes no sense, therefore, to resolve for the New Year that you will sell a certain number of stories to magazines and anthologies. Purchasing stories is not something you do; it is something that editors do. You can resolve to continue writing, and to produce the best words of which you are capable. But then, as a writer you probably already do that.

I am both a parent and a writer, and I am at a period of my life where I am doing the best I can in both areas. My five sons have all left the nest (although the youngest comes back from time to time during breaks from college) and I already do whatever I can to support them. I write every day, and I already compose the best words of which I am capable. I am far from perfect as a parent and as a writer, but I already try as hard as I can. My goal, then? To keep doing what I’m doing. To persevere. To be diligent. To not lose heart. To find glory and joy in the effort, even if the results fall far short of my expectations.

That said, let’s review a few of my writing accomplishments of the past year.

It was a good year for the writing. My ongoing goal is to compose five hundred original creative words a day, and in 2021 I managed to produce 176,939 words of novels, novelettes, short stories, flash fiction, essays, and memoirs. If I divide that into 365, it comes to 485 words a day, but of course I was unable to compose original words on all 365 days. On some days I needed to proofread already written words, and on some days (although only a few) I had finished one writing project and was casting about in my imagination as to what to write next. The months in which I produced the most words were May and October; in both of those months I was deeply immersed in creating works of considerable length. In May it was a linked collection of short fiction, and in October it was my latest memoir, The Relocation Blues: An Inquiry into Transitions, which should be coming out in early 2022.

I published three books in 2021: Adriana’s Family: A Novel; Visiting Hours and Other Stories; and Reviews and Reflections on Books, Literature, and Writing: Volume 2. I also self-published several original individual stories, and a story of mine, “Alchemy,” appeared in The Martian Wave magazine. Besides these accomplishments, the first three hardcover editions of my books appeared this year: the aforementioned Visiting Hours and Other Stories, as well as my memoir World Without Pain: The Story of a Search and the science fiction compilation Bedlam Battle: An Omnibus of the One Thousand Series.

All in all, despite the ongoing pandemic and having to move from one apartment to another, career-wise and for my sons it was a good year, and I expect great things to come.

*     *     *

As the year winds down (as I write this it is three days before New Year’s Day 2022) I would like to make one more observation. This is to assuage the uncertainty of people who are creative-minded. It is not always easy to keep doing what I’m doing. The most difficult periods are when I finish major projects and wonder what I am going to work on next. I might have been cruising along for months writing five hundred or more words a day seven days a week in a continuing outburst of creative fervor, and then all of a sudden the ground falls out from underneath me and I am in a void. I have finished the book. What do I do now? Sometimes I already have the subsequent project lined up and ready to start, but often I do not. I am used to achieving my word-count first thing in the morning no matter what else I am doing. I don’t even want to miss a single day. I flail about for anything I can get hold of, even a smidgen of an idea to keep me going, even if it doesn’t go anywhere, even if I eventually have to discard the effort. The activity of composing is a reward in itself, and I fervently desire that splendorous rush of composition.

When I recently finished The Relocation Blues, I first coped by writing a piece of flash fiction, a very short science fiction story, and then by writing several essays and a book review. After that, the void returned. I tried to write another longer story and got a thousand or so words in and it wasn’t working. I started the same story again, attacking it from a different angle, and still it didn’t catch hold of my interest and imagination as successful stories usually do, so I set it aside.

At that point, I decided to slow down, repress the urge to spit words into the wind, and spend some time in contemplation. Don’t get me wrong – I have often come up with great story ideas – even for some of my best stories – through trial and error – that is, attempting this and that until something works. This time, though, I felt the need to step back, appraise my state of mind, and reflect upon what direction I wanted my writing to take next. After all, I write novels, short stories, memoirs, essays, and book reviews; I work in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, and literary fiction. Which path should I take as I head into the new year? As you can see, I haven’t stopped writing completely; I am composing these thoughts for you even as I consider my next steps.

The point of this reflection is that if you are a writer or any other type of creative person, these impasses will come up, and when they do, you have to somehow deal with them. And direction-finding in creative endeavors is part of the ongoing process of keeping doing what you’re doing. Don’t let a temporary stall throw you off course. Maybe you need to refuel; maybe you need to consult a map. As long as you have the ultimate goal in mind, you are still on your way.

A Christmas Gift for My Blog Followers

As a Christmas gift to readers, I have enrolled electronic editions of some of my books and stories in the Smashwords End of Year Sale, which runs through January 1st. Complete books are half price, marked down from $3.99 to $1.99. Short stories and mini-collections of essays and memoirs are available to download for free. Take advantage of this sale to stock up on some great reading material.

Smashwords was the digital distributor I used when I first became involved in electronic publishing, and when I later switched to another distributor, I left numerous editions of my early works in the Smashwords catalog. You can find a complete listing at my author’s profile here.

Among the books available at a half-price discount are my memoirs World Without Pain: The Story of a Search, After the Rosy-Fingered Dawn: A Memoir of Greece, and America Redux: Impressions of the United States After Thirty-Five Years Abroad; the novels Love Children, The Misadventures of Mama Kitchen, and Sunflower; the collections The Dragon Ticket and Other Stories, Painsharing and Other Stories, Dark Mirrors: Dystopian Tales, and Opting Out and Other Departures; and the essay collection Reviews and Reflections on Books, Literature, and Writing.

The stories available for free include some of my personal favorites such as “Dark Mirrors,” “The Customs Shed,” “Life After Walden,” and “Noah and the Fireflood.”

So head on over to Smashwords and pick up some thrilling and thoughtful novels, short stories, memoirs, and essays at deep discounts and even free. Merry Christmas!