Ed Ryder's Blog, page 2

A poem about loss

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A poem about the loss of a horse, in the style of Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, from Les Misérables

Empty nets in empty stables

The yard is full of laughter,
But I cannot hear their song,
For his stable now stands empty,
And all the joy has gone.

Photographs of us together,
Rosettes hanging on the wall,
Frozen moments to always cherish,
And yet time comes for us all.

It could always be tomorrow,
But to spare him from the pain,
Decisions must be taken,
And too soon tomorrow came.

One day the grief will lessen,
And happy memories will soar,
But today there’s just a stable,
Where my best friend stands no more.

The Last of Us 2 – A great video game, but a good narrative journey?

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So, the sequel to one of the most loved games of this and the previous console generation is out. I lived and breathed the first game, but how does the second one rate? Read on to find out!

PREVIOUSLY, ON THE LAST OF US…

Normally, stories in video games are there as a frame to hang the gameplay on. Even in RPGs, I often leave the main story until the end when I’ve spent 100+ hours messing about first with side quests and exploration. The Tomb Raider reboot is another example. I loved the game, but couldn’t tell you much about the narrative other than ‘Lara crashes on a spooky island’

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The Last of Us was different. The PS3 tale of a two-bit smuggler named Joel and his post-apocalyptic delivery adventure with Ellie, the only human immune to a zombie-like plague, across America to a group called the Fireflies, had myself and players around the world enthralled. It was also a game that as soon as I’d finished it, I played through again. And then I bought a PS4 just so I could play it again with better graphics. It wasn’t just the gameplay was fantastic; the excellent story and memorable characters elevated it to masterpiece status and a game I enjoy every time I play it. So when a sequel was announced, I waited with dizzy anticipation…

THESE TURBULENT TIMES

Last of Us 2 has had a troubled birth. First, its release got delayed due to the pandemic, then the plot got leaked and the company tried to shut down any YouTuber who talked about it, causing a massive backlash. On the day of release, it got bombed by negative user reviews, despite overwhelmingly positive scores from the critic reviews. It now seems to become the latest battleground in the SJWs (social justice warriors) vs VSACs (virtue-signalling agenda conspiracists – a term I just made up). On one side the VSACs complain about anything different or that challenges ‘social norms’, and the SJWs shout down any criticism (even if valid) as bigotry.

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Representation is important (see my previous blog), and if you don’t think it is, then you’re already represented enough for it not to feel like an issue. On the other hand, representation alone is not sufficient – the characters still have to be interesting, and any amount of accusation of bigotry won’t change that. Both sides are as bad as each other, to be honest, and in the middle are the rest of us thinking ‘so, is the game any good?’
Thankfully, apart from a few sketchy details and the hints of drama mentioned above, I managed to get through all that without any spoilers or reading any reviews, so went into the game pretty fresh. Being the massive fan that I am, I pre-ordered the game, installed it on release day, and then refused to play it for several weeks because I had a scientific paper to write and the editor had already asked where the hell it was once. So, with the journal article submitted, I held the controller with trembling hands, sweat beading on my forehead at what raptures and horrors awaited me over the next 30 hours or so…

THE GAME

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If you don’t care about the story and / or characters that much then purely as a game, LoU2 is hard to fault. The graphics are superb, the game mechanics are bolted on at this point and there are some amazing set-pieces. If you liked the first game, you’ll be doing more of the same stealth / shoot / craft loop here: mainly avoiding or taking out humans from different factions, the same with a variety of infected enemies, or raiding buildings for supplies.
A few of the new additions, however, ended up being annoying rather than anything else. Take the dogs, for instance. They can track your scent, meaning hunkering down stops working and forces you to keep moving out of cover. My transition from ‘oh no, I don’t want to hurt the little doggies!’ to ‘die bitch, die!!’ took about five minutes. Also, my last-ditch strategy when I get stuck of ‘if in doubt, just peg it to the next autosave point’ doesn’t always work as you suddenly have to stand exposed for ten seconds while you open a door. As well as a new enemy that throws acid bombs at you, there are also a few boss battles. After years of battling them in various Final Fantasy games for about 8 hours at a time, I now hate boss battles in anything (apart from Doom Eternal which effectively sticks you in God mode if it thinks you suck at them) as I really don’t have the time to die 4895 times before I finally work it out. But these are just minor niggles and apart from that, the gameplay is solid as it’s ever been.
It’s just a pity then that I played a good chunk of LoU2 like I was rushing through a video game, rather than savouring every encounter as I did with the original. And why’s that, you ask?

PLOT SYNOPSIS SPOILER-THON

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It’s difficult to discuss the story and characters without MASSIVE SPOILERS, so consider that a warning. Go and play the game if you haven’t already, and come back to see if you disagree enough to rage about my review on Twitter, or congratulate it on confirming your world view.

The game opens with Joel out on patrol, discussing with Tommy about his decision to stop (ie kill all) the Fireflies operating on Ellie to find a cure (the process of which would kill her) and then lie to her about it. The relationship between Joel and Ellie is now slightly awkward, with much left unsaid and unasked.
Fast forward four years and Ellie is out on patrol with her might-now-be-girlfriend Dina after it all kicked off at a party the night before. Joel and Tommy are also out on patrol, and meet up with a traveller called Abby (who you play in this section), who’s been parted from the rest of her group. After she is rescued, Abby brings Joel and Tommy to a house to meet the rest of her group. After Joel shares his name with the others, she shoots him and beats him to death with a golf club. As an inciting incident, it’s a shocking scene that comes straight out of the blue and knocks you for six. It’s also the story’s biggest problem, but not for the reasons you might think (more of that later).
Ellie arrives at the house just in time to witness Abby killing Joel. Thus begins a tale of revenge as Ellie, with Dina in tow (and Tommy a few days ahead), pursues Abby to Seattle, taking on the Washington Liberation Front (WLFs) and taking out Abby’s associates in the process. The encounters get more grisly, culminating in Ellie killing Abby’s best friends – a heavily pregnant woman called Mel and her partner Owen. In some superbly acted cut scenes, Ellie realises the person she is becoming but can’t find the will to back out. At a climactic showdown in an abandoned movie theatre, Ellie and Abby finally face off. With my adrenaline pumping, I poised my fingers on the controller for what lay ahead…

And then, the game fades to black and slams on the brakes like a Ferrari driver at 90 mph heading towards a speed camera in a 30 zone. It wants you to know Abby’s side of the story, and I hope you’re okay with that because you’ll be spending the next 10 or so hours with her going through it all.
Wait – what?

THAT TIME I MURDERED ABBY’S DAD.

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It turns out that Abby’s dad was a Firefly, and he was the doctor working on the vaccine back at the climax of the first game. With him dead at Joel’s hands, the Fireflies fall apart and disband, and the dream of a cure is lost forever. The Fireflies are, quite understandably, a bit miffed about it.
I have a rather odd relationship with Abby’s dad, being probably the first video game character I actually murdered. This seems a bit odd considering the tens of thousands of Nazis, monsters, zombies, and randos in GTA I’ve killed over the years. The difference here was as I burst into that operating theatre in the first game, I had no idea what the game wanted me to do. I just shot the guy in the head without a second thought, because I wanted to protect Ellie. And you know what? He had it coming. Sorry Abby; sucks to be you, I guess.

THE STORY, OR ‘HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE ABBY’?

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Ellie’s story in the first section is inter-cut with playable flashback scenes of her and Joel, as their relationship begins to deteriorate under the weight of the lie they are both burdened with. Eventually, Joel tells her what happened at the hospital, and Ellie can’t forgive him for stealing her chance at making a difference to the world. Similarly, Abby’s story flashes back between the events directly leading up to the confrontation and earlier times as you get to know both her, her friends, and their history within the group.
The WLF are in a turf war with another group – a bunch of religious zealots called the Seraphites (aka Scars). On her travels during the main timeline, Abby meets up with a young Scar called Lev, who’s outcast due to them wanting to identify as a different gender. I can imagine the VSACs foaming at the mouth at that little revelation, but it’s an interesting twist on the story, and a lot better than “I stepped in the Forbidden Flowerbed,” or similar (ask Wesley Crusher about that one). Abby and Lev form a strong bond, and probably the best section of her story is about them infiltrating the Seraphite stronghold during a massive WLF raid to try and rescue Lev’s mother.

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The WLF group are shown as overall decent people trying to build a community, and you get to meet all the lovely people who Ellie (or Tommy) will kill later on, the most charismatic of which is Abby’s friend Manny. You can even play fetch with the doggies!
And this where things start to get muddy, and I felt the game trying to manipulate me. It’s basically the writers screaming at you: “YOU SEE! ALL THOSE PEOPLE YOU’VE BEEN MERRILY SLAUGHTERING HAD LIVES, YOU AMORAL, PSYCHOPATHIC DOG-MURDERER!!”.

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Problem is, the game doesn’t give you much choice in what you do to progress the narrative. Although you can theoretically stealth your way through a lot of the WLF enemies, you can’t decide not to kill someone in a cut scene – it just happens. It’s a bit like someone pressuring you into eating an extra slice of cake and them calling you a greedy fat bastard for doing so. You are playing through someone else’s story, and it wants you to feel bad because of its decisions, not yours. Compare that to a game like Witcher 3, where all your decisions have consequences that you have to live with and own. Sure, you can kill the witches who demand infant sacrifices from the local population, but come back later and you’ll find the village is dying without their protection. That’s your fault (disclosure – I let them be, so you can add complicity in infanticide to the list of my video game crimes).
This added moral layer of ‘killing is bad, m’kay’ doesn’t apply to the Scars, apparently, who you can murder with impunity without a second thought. Okay, so they’re a bunch of nutjobs who hang and disembowel unbelievers but hey, they do have pet horses.

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All this considered, I’d imagine there’s a lot of hate out there for Abby, but there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with her as a character. She’s interesting, has her own moral code, story arc and relationships, and her actions are, in her mind, justified. In a different story where everyone starts from scratch, it would be pretty easy to feel empathy for her. But we aren’t starting from scratch. I have hundreds of hours of being on Ellie’s side, and I don’t care about a character just because the story says I should. That empathy has to be earned, and by waiting so long and after such a pinch point in the story to introduce it all, there’s a mountain to climb to get it.

Once the game finally brings us back to the cinema showdown and your allegiance is supposed to be switched to Abby, our all-new hero has to fight Ellie; something I really didn’t want to do. As a test, I wanted to know happened if I just stood there and refuse to fight? Would an interesting secret cut scene occur? Nope, you die and the scene reloads.

MORE ENDINGS THAN LORD OF THE RINGS

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After the big showdown at the cinema, Abby proves to be the bigger woman when she finds out that Dina is pregnant via Jessie (who Abby just shot in the head – whoopsie!), and lets them all go.

Fast forward to a few months later, and Ellie (suffering from PTSD flashbacks) and Dina are playing happy families with the baby on a farm somewhere. Tommy, seemingly back from the dead, visits with news that he may have located Abby. Dina tells him to get lost, as does Ellie, but when he goes she gazes longingly at the map he left behind. And that would have been a pretty good place to end the story on a slightly ambiguous note, like in the first game. Was Ellie ready to let go and continue with her life, or would her thirst for vengeance overtake her again? What do we think? Doesn’t matter – she chooses the latter, and the game continues.
A flashback to the party where it all kicked off with Jessie and Dina gives us a hint of her motivation. Ellie has a big, public argument with Joel, the assumption being that guilt is behind her decision. Again, a really good driver. So, with Dina’s warning that their relationship wouldn’t survive this, Ellie sets off again for a few more hours of gameplay.

FANTASY ISLAND

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To me, the whole Santa Barbara section seems tacked on and unnecessary, but here we go…

Once at her destination, Ellie gets instantly captured by the same group who grabbed Abby and Lev when they arrived and has to fight her way out. On the way, she rescues an emaciated Abby (and Lev) who’d been left for dead and then forces her nemesis to one last fight. Ellie gets the upper hand and tries to drown Abby, but a sudden flashback of Joel changes her mind and she lets Abby go. It turns out that after their bust-up Ellie goes to see Joel and they start to rebuild their relationship. Although this last scene of Ellie and Joel gives us a nice send-off for Joel, it does undermine Ellie’s motivation from the previous flashback. I’m also not entirely sure if this scene actually happened or if it’s just in Ellie’s head, and that’s what she wishes she’d done.
Now missing a couple of fingers from the final fight, Ellie returns home to find Dina gone. She picks up her guitar, tries to string out a tune, and then walks away, presumably to patch things up with Dina, leaving the instrument behind; a symbol of her finally letting go of the past.

Abby, on the other hand, gets no ending at all. We last see her rowing away into the fog with Lev in a ‘Gendry from Game of Thrones’ style, and that’s it. Considering how much emphasis the game put on her story, it’s a bit of an odd decision.

THOUGHTS AND DISCUSSION

THAT BIT WITH THE GIRAFFES

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Ask anyone who’s played the first game and they’ll probably talk about the giraffe scene, where Joel and Ellie say hello to some escaped zoo animals and discuss what’s going to happen when they finally reach the Fireflies. Taking place near the end of the game, it’s a beautiful moment for several reasons (including some wonderfully understated music), mainly because it rounds off their relationship and all that they’ve been through together up to this point. There’s also the feeling that Joel and Ellie are reaching the end of their journey together, and our time with them grows shorter.
Despite the odd attempt (for example, when Abby shows Lev the aquarium) the sequel can’t reach those heights, because the new characters and relationships aren’t developed enough to generate that kind of reaction. Ironically, the closest it comes is a flashback scene with Joel and Ellie as they visit a natural history museum.

CHARACTERS WITH A LACK OF CHARACTER

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Pretty much all the characters in the first game were interesting. Tess, Bill, Marlene, David, etc were all multi-layered, had their own stories, and were compelling to be around.

Here’s an example of one of my favourite scenes from the original:

Nothing in the sequel gets anywhere this level. Mainly because none of the new characters in LoU2, except for Lev and Abby, bring much to the table. For Ellie, Dina is just kind of there most of the time, and Jessie doesn’t do anything of note or consequence.
Similarly, Abby’s companions (Manny notwithstanding) aren’t that great either. Owen just comes across as a bit of a dick, who gets his girlfriend pregnant and then loses interest, cheating with the woman he probably should be with anyway (tip: don’t put sex scenes in video games – they always comes across as awkward and cringe-worthy). Fine for Brookside, not that good for The Last of Us. Similarly, Mel spends most of the time walking around looking upset, and kept reminding me of Lambert from Alien for some reason.

SHOCK AND AWE
As mentioned earlier, it’s the death of Joel which causes the biggest shock in the game, as it’s so unexpected. The problem is, it can only be that way once. Compare this with the bit in the first game when Sam gets bitten and his brother Henry is forced to kill him, before turning the gun on himself. That’s shocking, and remains shocking no matter how many times I see it, because we’ve spent a lot of time with both the characters and got to know and like them. At the point Joel is killed, we’ve known Abby for about 5 minutes and that she’s in a love triangle and someone is pregnant.
There’s a great clip on the internet of Alfred Hitchcock explaining the difference between shock and tension – a bomb is under a desk and about to explode. In one version it blows up out of the blue (shock). In the other, the audience knows it’s there, ticking away as the characters talk. It could go off at any second, and the tension mounts up. For a great example in modern cinema, the opening scene of Inglorious Bastards that goes on for about ten minutes is a masterclass of rising tension. We know that Colonel Hans knows the farmer is hiding a family of Jews, and what’s going to happen when he finds them, but Tarantino draws out the inevitable to nearly unbearable lengths. Shock is over in seconds and the audience moves on. The tension stays with us.

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The game had the ingredients already there but it sacrifices it all for that one shock moment, and by the time it bothers to tell us about Abby’s (quite understandable) motivation it’s all too late. I was trying to find a suitable analogy and think I’ve found one – it’s like not introducing Snape until the 6th Harry Potter book and him killing Dumbledore in his second scene. Snape’s secret history is one of the highlights of that series, but his big memory reveal only works because of all we’ve learned about him and experienced with him up until that point. We care. If you want the audience to feel empathy with the antagonist, you need to throw them a bone and give them a reason way earlier, especially if they’ve done something so seemingly unforgivable when you first meet them.

Imagine this instead: The game opens with the section with Abby as a child at the scene with the zebra and the foreshadowing of the hospital, and remove the exposition of Joel and Tommy doing the ‘previously on’ bit. This establishes Abby’s character and motivations instantly and gives us something to anchor to when we see her again years later. It removes the surprise element somewhat (you know something is going to happen), but seeing Joel being lured into a trap replaces that with rising tension instead. Joel’s death will still be a shock as you’d expect Ellie to make it in time and save him, but there would be that extra layer of understanding.
For clarity’s sake, I don’t actually have a problem with Joel dying. The characters live in a violent world, and the death of the mentor is a powerful driving force in many plots; it’s just that the writers don’t do anything that interesting with it. It’s like the story was written when ‘subverting audience expectations’ was all the rage but then they didn’t know where to go afterwards.

THE SEQUEL

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If you took out Joel and Ellie, and made this a stand-alone story about a completely different set of characters in the same universe, then despite the issues I think that it would have worked pretty well. Problem is, it’s a sequel to the Last of Us, and it doesn’t.

It doesn’t work because, as a massive fan of the original, at the time of the Abby plot reset I was 100% invested in Ellie’s story and cared precisely 0% about Abby. And without that investment in the characters, it’s just playing another computer game. Throughout those early Abby sections, I just wanted to get through them as quickly as possible and get back to the main story. Which is a pity because as mentioned earlier there’s some great stuff in there. As sequels go, and considering all the other stories they could tell with Joel and Ellie, it all seems unnecessary.
I presume Abby was kept a secret in all the pre-release material (or, indeed, the box) to prevent the Reddit render-farm from guessing the plot, but it feels like a bait-and-switch and not the game which was advertised. Because of that, there’s another reason to feel resentful towards Abby and another hurdle in appreciating her story.
And all for a shocking moment.

So, would I recommend The Last of Us 2?
As a game: Excellent.
As a stand-alone story: Really good, with some caveats.
As a sequel to The Last of Us: Yes, but measure your expectations. Next time I return to this world, I’ll be playing the original again instead.

So, there you go. If anyone needs me, I’ll be scouring the reviews to see what I agree with or can get indignant about. Until next time!

Ed Ryder is a research scientist by day and writes in the evening when he can fit it in.
Like a bit of fun urban fantasy or fancy some hardcore dystopia? Check out his books from the links below!

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Jack Gilmour: Wish Lawyer on Amazon 

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In Vitro Lottery is out now on Amazon

Wish Lawyer tales: A fresh start

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There are various stories in the Jack Gilmour universe I’d like to tell, but probably wouldn’t stretch out to a full book on their own. So, as I’m currently taking a quick break from editing the next Wish Lawyer novel, I thought I’d put them here for you all to enjoy! First up, is how Jack met Gloria…

A fresh start

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With work as specialized as mine, you don’t often get the luxury of choosing your employers. For every wide-eyed tourist or unrequited lover, there’s a client from the less-desirable end of the spectrum. Take the pillar of the community sat across the table from me: Rico Chavez. Strip club owner, small-time drug dealer, and wannabe kingpin.
I’d arrived at ‘Girls and Garters’ a few minutes before closing, pushing a path through the last dregs of the clientele as exhausted waitresses in French maid outfits ushered them out the door. The dancers had departed too, leaving nothing but sweat-stained poles and the odd grubby dollar bill cast aside in their wake.
Rico loved to surround himself with trophies and symbols of power. To the left sat the muscle, and to the right whichever girl had caught his eye that month. In this case, a beautiful, diamond-clad redhead in a plunging dress that left little to the imagination.
The Heavy clomped a revolver onto the table and stroked a tattooed finger around the trigger. “Do I make you nervous, lawyer?”
Not much point in playing the big man. “Yeah. Any idea how many people a year get killed in accidental firearm discharges?”
“No.”
“Me neither, but I’m guessing it’s more than none.” My deadpan response garnered a laugh from Rico, but no action. I knew his type. Petty criminals who’d scraped up enough cash to get delusions of being the next Godfather. These wannabe gangsters were a prickly bunch, with an anger switch that flicked without warning. But they respected strength, and dealing with them became a tricky tightrope between deference and defiance. “Call off your dogs, please, Mr. Chavez. You phoned me, remember?”
A nod from the boss and his bodyguard slid the gun out of view. Rico reached into his jacket pocket, withdrew a scroll, and tossed it over to me. “I have a problem with a business rival called Hotaka Takahashi. I want him gone.”
I didn’t know who or why, and I didn’t ask. Not my concern. And what did I care if one more lowlife ended up dead? Only one thing mattered – the demonic author. After that, all the loopholes, double-meanings, and twists of law fell into place. I skipped down to the cartouche at the bottom. “Birsha Azzeren. Tricky customer and extremely powerful — you need to be careful.”
“That’s why you’re here.”
A quick scan of the scroll gave me the gist of Rico’s request. “Murder is serious business, Mr. Chavez, and as set out here in the soul contract, the price will be heavy. Nothing I can do to help with that part. You might be better off hiring a hitman.”
The bodyguard sneered at my suggestion. “Like you’d know anything about that.”
“You’re paying for my advice,” I said to Nico, ignoring his aide, “I give you all options — it’s up to you what happens next.”
“I heard you were good. Now I believe it,” said Rico. “But accidents are much cleaner. No trail.”
Well, couldn’t say I didn’t warn him. “Okay, so it says here your competitor will be killed ‘getting hit by a truck’. Only one problem — you’ll be dead too.”
That raised an eyebrow. Rico’s cocky demeanor slipped for a moment. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, this contract is very sketchy on the details. For example, where was Takahashi going when he gets struck? I’ll tell you: running away after killing you. Birsha Azzeren is not a patient demon, and not one to hang around waiting for his payment. You need an extra clause about your lifespan remaining within the natural order while the contract is active.”
“Natural order?” asked the girl, in a foreign accent I couldn’t place.
“For want of a better word: fate. You might still die tomorrow, but only because that’s the way it’s meant to be. The clause stops demons manipulating events to collect payment early.”
As Rico grappled with the concept of pre-determination, my eye got drawn to a young blonde woman clearing glasses and mopping a puddle of beer off a nearby table. And it wasn’t just her outfit. From the cleaners to the management, people who’ve worked for men like Rico long enough have a certain distant look, like the fire’s been quenched from their soul. This one must be new — she still had a spark, some life about her. One I’d hate to see snuffed out before its time. “So do we have a deal, Mr. Chavez? I can reword this for you and hammer out the details with Azzeren’s associates before final approval.”
Rico made the decision like a man in too much of a hurry. “Yes.”
“Great. About my fee.”
“What about it?”
“Change of plan. Forget the cash. I want that girl.”
Rico followed my gaze over his shoulder to the blonde server. “You wouldn’t want her. She’s not even broken in yet. But I understand, a man has needs.” He held up and squeezed the wrist of the girl next to him, whose practiced smile wavered under the pressure. “Take Nikita here for the night instead. Hell, keep her for the whole week!” He made a gun out of his free hand and put the weapon to his head. “Blow your mind, man.”
Nikita remained silent. I hoped she hadn’t learned that the hard way. “Not what I meant.”
“Then what?”
I pointed to the serving girl. “That girl works for you. After this, she doesn’t. Or for any of your associates.”
Rico threw a confused glance backward at the blonde waitress, who clattered a glass off a tray in response. “If you want? Her table skills are about as good as her singing. Plenty more where she’s from.”
“And to be sure we all understand each other, I presume you don’t object if I write it into the contract?”
Rico bemused expression said more about his character than any gold ring ever could. “Sure.”

With the formalities over, I left Rico and the others and headed outside to the car, my mind wandering on idle fantasies of taking up Rico’s offer of Nikita, no matter how wrong it would feel in reality. As I fiddled with the fob, trying to get the correct key between my fingers, the girl from the bar stormed towards me. A long coat hid her outfit, but not the angry puffy eyes and bullets of hostility being shot in my direction. “Hey! Are you the asshole who just got me fired?”
“You can thank me another time.”
“I don’t need a savior,” the young woman said, her face blooming to the color of her purple handbag, “I needed a job! I can solve my own damn problems.”
They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and I’d just built a freeway straight down to the center. “At least let me give you a lift home.”
“Well, it ain’t like I can afford a cab now.”

My old Prelude wasn’t exactly the height of luxury or cleanliness, but it did the job most of the time, despite the odd smell of gasoline that wafted up through the air blower. The girl sat beside me up front to give directions, her eyes never daring to leave me for a second. “Don’t pull any crap,” she said, and pointed down to the bag gripped between her feet. “I got a gun.”
“I’m sure you do. What’s your name?”
“Gloria.”
“Gloria what?”
“Just Gloria.”
“Pleased to meet you, Just Gloria. My name is Jack Gilmour. How’d you end up working for a man like Rico Chavez?”
I offered my hand but Gloria refused to take it. “They play live music once a week — thought it would be a way in, to kick-start my singing career. You know, work my way up.”
“Oh, you’d work your way up alright. Be thankful I got you out of there.”
Gloria tightened the grip on her coat. “What, and I’m supposed to go back to your place now and show how grateful I am?”
“Not at all. You can do what you want.”
“Like find another job?”
Not the best time for a pitch, but it might be my only chance. “I have one going if you’re interested?”
“So you’re a pimp?” said Gloria, the disgust dripping from her words. “I don’t do crap like that.”
“No, and yes you would if you’d carried on working for Rico much longer. Might even find yourself sitting next to him one day. For a while.”
“That wouldn’t happen.”
“I’m sure that’s what Nikita back there thought once, too. Rico’s not a man to take ‘no’ for an answer.” With one hand on the wheel and a snapshot of the traffic in my mind’s eye, I reached over to the glove compartment and pulled out a creased business card. “I’m a lawyer.”
Gloria read the spiel and laughed. “Demonic contracts? So you’re a con artist.”
“If I were, and Rico found out, I’ll be dead pretty soon, don’t you think?” I patted the scroll safely secured in my breast pocket. “But I hope for Hotaka Takahashi’s sake you’re right.”
Gloria gestured at a boarded-up liquor store on the next junction. “Here will be fine.”
One last chance at my pitch. “I’m after an assistant. Receptionist-type stuff. If you’re not interested, that’s okay and you’ll never have to see me again.”
Gloria wrestled with the door handle, which threatened to break off in her hand. “Good.”
“But you might want to wait until I’ve stopped the car first.”
The second I pulled up to the sidewalk, Gloria unclipped the seatbelt and flew out of the car before I could say anything else, leaving the door hanging open and my business card crumpled up on the seat. I watched her march off, her journey stopping only to confirm I wasn’t following her. She might hate me for the rest of her life, but at least she had another shot of having one.

With no clients booked for the morning, I spent the time in my office pouring over a new tome of demonic case law with a glass of bourbon. When demons weren’t making contracts with this side of the Plane, they busied themselves dealing with each other. The texts offered a unique perspective on the nuances of demonic legal code, a vital tool when it came to bargaining, or at the worst, appealing against a bad pact.
More than a week had passed since the events at Rico’s place and my mind had moved on to other concerns. Some battles you win, some you lose, and some you never know the outcome. That was until the door clattered open, and the silhouette of a female figure cast itself across my desk.
I glanced up to the blonde woman, my pulse quickening despite my attempts to effuse a nonchalant aura. “You remembered my address.”
“I got a great memory.” Gloria threw a folded up newspaper to me, where one article had been ringed with a highlighter pen. The tragic accident of one nightclub owner and ex-con, Hotaka Takahashi. Killed while crossing the road. “How did you know, Mr. Gilmour?”
“Because I’m a con man and not a specialist in wish-granting demonic contracts. Oh, and call me Jack.”
Gloria peered at the open tome and the confusing mess of symbols. “Why don’t people wish for nice things? Like world peace, or a cure for cancer?”
“Because they’re human,” I replied. “Plus, even demons have limits when it comes to changing the natural order.”
From her derisive snort, I only needed the first part of the explanation. “That job opening still available?”
“To you? Of course.” I felt the sick feeling of guilt worming its way up and around my stomach. Apologies never came easy, even when deserved. “I feel I owe you one for ruining your life back at Rico’s without asking you first.”
“Would have been nice,” replied Gloria, through gritted teeth.
“You still want to be a dancer, or whatever it was?”
“Singer.”
“That’s right,” I said, more to myself than Gloria. “Well, no problem if you want to attend auditions. Just make the time up later.”
Gloria stuck out her hand. “Deal.”
I gave her offering a hearty shake in return. “Fantastic. Start tomorrow — I’ll sort out a typewriter and introduce you to my card indexing system.”
I might as well been talking in Chinese, judging by Gloria’s frown. “How about you buy a computer?”
“No problem, not that I know anything about — ”
I never got to finish my sentence. A foul-mouthed shout rang out from the reception room and Rico Chavez burst into the office, his shirt ripped at the elbows and blood running from a deep cut on his sweaty forehead. “You set me up!”
“What happened?”
“Takahashi’s men came after me. They knew.”
Interesting. “And you think I told them?”
Rico reached behind his back and pulled out a pistol, which he waved mockingly in my face. “Who else?”
Well, it couldn’t have been Azzeren; the contract clause on the natural order had that little loophole closed. Meant someone else got a better offer. “Where’s your bodyguard?”
“Back at the club,” Rico said, “full of holes.” His frantic eyes fell on Gloria. “Hey, I know you.”
Gloria starred right back, fearless of the gun now trained on her. “And it wasn’t me, neither.”
Rico, distracted by the distant shouts of Japanese, lowered the weapon. “Don’t matter. I’m taking Nikita and going where they’ll never find me. They can keep the damn club.”
As the voices got ever louder and agitated, Rico gesticulated with the gun one last time to show how in charge he was, swore, and turned tail out of my office.
I checked the door while Gloria downed the dregs of my whiskey and poured another glass. “Don’t worry,” I said, “he won’t get far. He’ll be in that paper of yours in a day or two.”
Gloria choked out a cough of alcohol so potent I could have set it on fire. “How do you know?”
I picked the top scroll from a pile on a nearby shelf and passed it to her. “Seems you weren’t the only one who got a fresh start.”
Gloria slid the ribbon off the parchment and read out the name. “Nikita Tarasovich.”
“First lesson of demonic contracts: don’t underestimate anyone. Especially beautiful women who are paying a lot more attention than you think. Azzeren couldn’t touch Rico by himself. But on a contract, commencing directly after Rico’s? No problem.”
“‘The client will receive permanent freedom from the control of and abuse by Rico Chavez or any of his associates’,” Gloria read out. “Jack, what will that cost her?”
“Nothing,” I replied. “Azzeren is nothing if not pragmatic. Nikita got her wish, and the demon got its prize delivered early. A win-win.”
“Except for Rico.”
“Oh well.” I plucked the scroll from Gloria’s grasp and stored it up with the others. “So, after all that excitement, do you still want to work here?”
Gloria’s crooked but charming smile lit up the drab decor of my office. “Looks like someone needs to look out for you.”
“Tomorrow then?”
My new assistant shook my hand once more and turned to leave, pausing briefly on her way out. “Oh, and Jack?”
“Yes?”
“Thanks.”

Wish Lawyer tales.

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There are various stories in the Jack Gilmour universe I’d like to tell, but probably wouldn’t stretch out to a full book on their own. So, as I’m currently taking a quick break from editing the next Wish Lawyer novel, I thought I’d put them here for you all to enjoy! First up, is how Jack met Gloria…

A fresh start

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With work as specialized as mine, you don’t often get the luxury of choosing your employers. For every wide-eyed tourist or unrequited lover, there’s a client from the less-desirable end of the spectrum. Take the pillar of the community sat across the table from me: Rico Chavez. Strip club owner, small-time drug dealer, and wannabe kingpin.
I’d arrived at ‘Girls and Garters’ a few minutes before closing, pushing a path through the last dregs of the clientele as exhausted waitresses in French maid outfits ushered them out the door. The dancers had departed too, leaving nothing but sweat-stained poles and the odd grubby dollar bill cast aside in their wake.
Rico loved to surround himself with trophies and symbols of power. To the left sat the muscle, and to the right whichever girl had caught his eye that month. In this case, a beautiful, diamond-clad redhead in a plunging dress that left little to the imagination.
The Heavy clomped a revolver onto the table and stroked a tattooed finger around the trigger. “Do I make you nervous, lawyer?”
Not much point in playing the big man. “Yeah. Any idea how many people a year get killed in accidental firearm discharges?”
“No.”
“Me neither, but I’m guessing it’s more than none.” My deadpan response garnered a laugh from Rico, but no action. I knew his type. Petty criminals who’d scraped up enough cash to get delusions of being the next Godfather. These wannabe gangsters were a prickly bunch, with an anger switch that flicked without warning. But they respected strength, and dealing with them became a tricky tightrope between deference and defiance. “Call off your dogs, please, Mr. Chavez. You phoned me, remember?”
A nod from the boss and his bodyguard slid the gun out of view. Rico reached into his jacket pocket, withdrew a scroll, and tossed it over to me. “I have a problem with a business rival called Hotaka Takahashi. I want him gone.”
I didn’t know who or why, and I didn’t ask. Not my concern. And what did I care if one more lowlife ended up dead? Only one thing mattered – the demonic author. After that, all the loopholes, double-meanings, and twists of law fell into place. I skipped down to the cartouche at the bottom. “Birsha Azzeren. Tricky customer and extremely powerful — you need to be careful.”
“That’s why you’re here.”
A quick scan of the scroll gave me the gist of Rico’s request. “Murder is serious business, Mr. Chavez, and as set out here in the soul contract, the price will be heavy. Nothing I can do to help with that part. You might be better off hiring a hitman.”
The bodyguard sneered at my suggestion. “Like you’d know anything about that.”
“You’re paying for my advice,” I said to Nico, ignoring his aide, “I give you all options — it’s up to you what happens next.”
“I heard you were good. Now I believe it,” said Rico. “But accidents are much cleaner. No trail.”
Well, couldn’t say I didn’t warn him. “Okay, so it says here your competitor will be killed ‘getting hit by a truck’. Only one problem — you’ll be dead too.”
That raised an eyebrow. Rico’s cocky demeanor slipped for a moment. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, this contract is very sketchy on the details. For example, where was Takahashi going when he gets struck? I’ll tell you: running away after killing you. Birsha Azzeren is not a patient demon, and not one to hang around waiting for his payment. You need an extra clause about your lifespan remaining within the natural order while the contract is active.”
“Natural order?” asked the girl, in a foreign accent I couldn’t place.
“For want of a better word: fate. You might still die tomorrow, but only because that’s the way it’s meant to be. The clause stops demons manipulating events to collect payment early.”
As Rico grappled with the concept of pre-determination, my eye got drawn to a young blonde woman clearing glasses and mopping a puddle of beer off a nearby table. And it wasn’t just her outfit. From the cleaners to the management, people who’ve worked for men like Rico long enough have a certain distant look, like the fire’s been quenched from their soul. This one must be new — she still had a spark, some life about her. One I’d hate to see snuffed out before its time. “So do we have a deal, Mr. Chavez? I can reword this for you and hammer out the details with Azzeren’s associates before final approval.”
Rico made the decision like a man in too much of a hurry. “Yes.”
“Great. About my fee.”
“What about it?”
“Change of plan. Forget the cash. I want that girl.”
Rico followed my gaze over his shoulder to the blonde server. “You wouldn’t want her. She’s not even broken in yet. But I understand, a man has needs.” He held up and squeezed the wrist of the girl next to him, whose practiced smile wavered under the pressure. “Take Nikita here for the night instead. Hell, keep her for the whole week!” He made a gun out of his free hand and put the weapon to his head. “Blow your mind, man.”
Nikita remained silent. I hoped she hadn’t learned that the hard way. “Not what I meant.”
“Then what?”
I pointed to the serving girl. “That girl works for you. After this, she doesn’t. Or for any of your associates.”
Rico threw a confused glance backward at the blonde waitress, who clattered a glass off a tray in response. “If you want? Her table skills are about as good as her singing. Plenty more where she’s from.”
“And to be sure we all understand each other, I presume you don’t object if I write it into the contract?”
Rico bemused expression said more about his character than any gold ring ever could. “Sure.”

With the formalities over, I left Rico and the others and headed outside to the car, my mind wandering on idle fantasies of taking up Rico’s offer of Nikita, no matter how wrong it would feel in reality. As I fiddled with the fob, trying to get the correct key between my fingers, the girl from the bar stormed towards me. A long coat hid her outfit, but not the angry puffy eyes and bullets of hostility being shot in my direction. “Hey! Are you the asshole who just got me fired?”
“You can thank me another time.”
“I don’t need a savior,” the young woman said, her face blooming to the color of her purple handbag, “I needed a job! I can solve my own damn problems.”
They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and I’d just built a freeway straight down to the center. “At least let me give you a lift home.”
“Well, it ain’t like I can afford a cab now.”

My old Prelude wasn’t exactly the height of luxury or cleanliness, but it did the job most of the time, despite the odd smell of gasoline that wafted up through the air blower. The girl sat beside me up front to give directions, her eyes never daring to leave me for a second. “Don’t pull any crap,” she said, and pointed down to the bag gripped between her feet. “I got a gun.”
“I’m sure you do. What’s your name?”
“Gloria.”
“Gloria what?”
“Just Gloria.”
“Pleased to meet you, Just Gloria. My name is Jack Gilmour. How’d you end up working for a man like Rico Chavez?”
I offered my hand but Gloria refused to take it. “They play live music once a week — thought it would be a way in, to kick-start my singing career. You know, work my way up.”
“Oh, you’d work your way up alright. Be thankful I got you out of there.”
Gloria tightened the grip on her coat. “What, and I’m supposed to go back to your place now and show how grateful I am?”
“Not at all. You can do what you want.”
“Like find another job?”
Not the best time for a pitch, but it might be my only chance. “I have one going if you’re interested?”
“So you’re a pimp?” said Gloria, the disgust dripping from her words. “I don’t do crap like that.”
“No, and yes you would if you’d carried on working for Rico much longer. Might even find yourself sitting next to him one day. For a while.”
“That wouldn’t happen.”
“I sure that’s what Nikita back there thought once, too. Rico’s not a man to take ‘no’ for an answer.” With one hand on the wheel and a snapshot of the traffic in my mind’s eye, I reached over to the glove compartment and pulled out a creased business card. “I’m a lawyer.”
Gloria read the spiel and laughed. “Demonic contracts? So you’re a con artist.”
“If I were, and Rico found out, I’ll be dead pretty soon, don’t you think?” I patted the scroll safely secured in my breast pocket. “But I hope for Hotaka Takahashi’s sake you’re right.”
Gloria gestured at a boarded-up liquor store at the next junction. “Here will be fine.”
One last chance at my pitch. “I’m after an assistant. Receptionist-type stuff. If you’re not interested, that’s okay and you’ll never have to see me again.”
Gloria wrestled with the door handle, which threatened to break off in her hand. “Good.”
“But you might want to wait until I’ve stopped the car first.”
The second I pulled up to the sidewalk, Gloria unclipped the seatbelt and flew out of the car before I could say anything else, leaving the door hanging open and my business card crumpled up on the seat. I watched her march off, her journey stopping only to confirm I wasn’t following her. She might hate me for the rest of her life, but at least she had another shot of having one.

With no clients booked for the morning, I spent the time in my office pouring over a new tome of demonic case law with a glass of bourbon. When demons weren’t making contracts with this side of the Plane, they busied themselves dealing with each other. The texts offered a unique perspective on the nuances of demonic legal code, a vital tool when it came to bargaining, or at the worst, appealing against a bad pact.
More than a week had passed since the events at Rico’s place and my mind had moved on to other concerns. Some battles you win, some you lose, and some you never know the outcome. That was until the door clattered open, and the silhouette of a female figure cast itself across my desk.
I glanced up to the blonde woman, my pulse quickening despite my attempts to effuse a nonchalant aura. “You remembered my address.”
“I got a great memory.” Gloria threw a folded up newspaper at me, where one article had been ringed with a highlighter pen. The tragic accident of one nightclub owner and ex-con Hotaka Takahashi. Killed while crossing the road. “How did you know, Mr. Gilmour?”
“Because I’m a con man and not a specialist in wish-granting demonic contracts. Oh, and call me Jack.”
Gloria peered at the open tome and the confusing mess of symbols. “Why don’t people wish for nice things? Like world peace, or a cure for cancer?”
“Because they’re human,” I replied. “Plus, even demons have limits when it comes to changing the natural order.”
From her derisive snort, I only needed the first part of the explanation. “That job opening still available?”
“To you? Of course.” I felt the sick feeling of guilt worming its way up and around my stomach. Apologies never came easy, even when deserved. “I feel I owe you one for ruining your life back at Rico’s without asking you first.”
“Would have been nice,” replied Gloria, through gritted teeth.
“You still want to be a dancer, or whatever it was?”
“Singer.”
“That’s right,” I said, more to myself than Gloria. “Well, no problem if you want to attend auditions. Just make the time up later.”
Gloria stuck out her hand. “Deal.”
I gave her offering a hearty shake in return. “Fantastic. Start tomorrow — I’ll sort out a typewriter and introduce you to my card indexing system.”
I might as well been talking in Chinese, judging by Gloria’s frown. “How about you buy a computer?”
“No problem, not that I know anything about — ”
I never got to finish my sentence. A foul-mouthed shout rang out from the reception room and Rico Chavez burst into the office, his shirt ripped at the elbows and blood running from a deep cut on his sweaty forehead. “You set me up!”
“What happened?”
“Takahashi’s men came after me. They knew.”
Interesting. “And you think I told them?”
Rico reached behind his back and pulled out a pistol, which he waved mockingly in my face. “Who else?”
Well, it couldn’t have been Azzeren; the contract clause on the natural order had that little loophole closed. Meant someone else got a better offer. “Where’s your bodyguard?”
“Back at the club,” Rico said, “full of holes.” His frantic eyes fell on Gloria. “Hey, I know you.”
Gloria starred right back, fearless of the gun now trained on her. “And it wasn’t me, neither.”
Rico, distracted by the distant shouts of Japanese, lowered the weapon. “Don’t matter. I’m taking Nikita and going where they’ll never find me. They can keep the damn club.”
As the voices got ever louder and agitated, Rico gesticulated with the gun one last time to show how in charge he was, swore, and turned tail out of my office.
I checked the door while Gloria downed the dregs of my whiskey and poured another glass. “Don’t worry,” I said, “he won’t get far. He’ll be in that paper of yours in a day or two.”
Gloria choked out a cough of alcohol so potent I could have set it on fire. “How do you know?”
I picked the top scroll from a pile on a nearby shelf and passed it to her. “Seems you weren’t the only one who got a fresh start.”
Gloria slid the ribbon off the parchment and read out the name. “Nikita Tarasovich.”
“First lesson of demonic contracts: don’t underestimate anyone. Especially beautiful women who are paying a lot more attention than you think. Azzeren couldn’t touch Rico by himself. But on a contract, commencing directly after Rico’s? No problem.”
“‘The client will receive permanent freedom from the control of and abuse by Rico Chavez or any of his associates’,” Gloria read out. “Jack, what will that cost her?”
“Nothing,” I replied. “Azzeren is nothing if not pragmatic. Nikita got her wish, and the demon got its prize delivered early. A win-win.”
“Except for Rico.”
“Oh well.” I plucked the scroll from Gloria’s grasp and stored it up with the others. “So, after all that excitement, do you still want to work here?”
Gloria’s crooked but charming smile lit up the drab decor of my office. “Looks like someone needs to look out for you.”
“Tomorrow then?”
My new assistant shook my hand once more and turned to leave, pausing briefly on her way out. “Oh, and Jack?”
“Yes?”
“Thanks.”

NetGalley update – month 2

[image error]With Jack Gilmour: Wish Lawyer now released, it’s time to review my second month with NetGalley.

How did I get on, and was the extra month worth it? Read on to find out!

Previously, on NetGalley…

I went through the basics of NetGalley in my previous post, but as a quick refresher, it’s a web site where you upload your book for a not insubstantial fee, and readers hopefully grab a copy and review it. I signed up for the BooksGoSocial NetGalley scheme, which charges by the month, and also promotes your book through Twitter and Facebook. This cost me $89 (plus VAT), with a ‘one month extra free’ promotion.

At the end of your month, BooksGoSocial gives you a set of really handy reports on how many downloads you got, why they downloaded it, and what sector they are from. Here’s mine:

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A day after my report came out, another review came in (a 5* one at that!), making the total so far a very respectable 12.

A vital part of trying to market your book is the cover and blurb. Over 90% of people who voted liked my cover, and half downloaded because of the description, so that’s a good start. Also, 8 out of 10 reviews would buy my book, apparently, which is also good news.

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The extra month.

So what did the extra month give me? Lets look at the downloads:

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As you can see, there was a massive drop off in downloads in the second month of the promotion. From my total twelve reviews, two were from Month 2, which is about the same percentage as for month 1 (16% vs 15%).

 

Fantastic reviews and where to find them!

If you’re after unbiased reviews (ie not from friends, family and associates on social media), NetGalley is a great place to find them. Reviewers have no stake in the outcome, and will therefore hopefully leave honest and useful feedback. If your book sucks or hasn’t been edited properly, they’ll be sure to let you know. So, how did my book do?

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Pretty good! Half the reviews gave Jack Gilmour: Wish Lawyer 5 stars, and the minimum it received was 3 stars. Everyone seemed to like the premise, and overall the characters and story were well received. I’ve posted one below and you can read all the reviews here!

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One pet theory I’ve often harboured is that the longer it takes someone to get around to reading (or finishing) a book, the lower the score will be. Does this hold true?

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Not really! Three reviews of different scores all came in after 19 days, and the review that took the longest to be posted was 5 stars. It’s not exactly a huge dataset, though, and would be interesting to test the hypothesis with all of the data BGS has collected.

So, I got plenty of good reviews, but will anyone ever see them? With a bit of digging I was able to find out where they ended up.

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And this is my one bugbear with the current NetGalley system. There is no obligation for any of the reviewers to post their reviews anywhere other than NetGalley itself. Although over half of them were posted to GoodReads, for self-published authors our main shop window is Amazon, and out of the twelve reviews only two ended up there.

BooksGoSocial provide you with the email addresses of the requesters, but even when I contacted them from the first report, only one of the five responded. I’ll contact the remaining ones in the future and hopefully I’ll get a better response.

 

Conclusions and final thoughts.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with NetGalley and found it a useful feedback tool, as well as providing some good soundbites for advertising purposes. For a hobbyist writer like me, it offers some validation that I don’t completely suck at writing, and that people I don’t know enjoy my stories. The following caveats apply, however:

The extra month was a good freebie but I’m not sure I’d pay for it, given the large drop in downloads.
Where the reviews are posted outside of NetGalley is at the discretion of the reviewer. This can limit its potential as a selling tool for other promotions that require a minimum number of reviews on Amazon, or shoppers who want more social proof before buying.

Even given the above, I’ll most likely be using NetGalley for future releases.

Hopefully this and my previous post has given an insight into how NetGalley works and the results it can produce for newbie writers like me (ie not those with a huge following who have thousands of fans ready to devour their next book – maybe one day!). And just before I go, a big thank you to everyone who took the time to review my book. It’s greatly appreciated!

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Ed Ryder is a research scientist by day and writes in the evening when he can fit it in.
Order Jack Gilmour: Wish Lawyer on Amazon for only $0.99! 
In Vitro Lottery is out now on Amazon

Guest blog post – EJ Perez

[image error]Today we have a guest post from EJ Perez, talking about his upcoming book ‘The Superhuman Race’. This is part of a BooksGoSocial blog tour. Take it away EJ!

“The Superhuman Race was conceived close to 3 decades ago back in 1986. It was supposed to be a comic book story. An artist was hired and panels were drafted. I procrastinated, not sure on the concept and the artist moved on. It later evolved into a book with a journalistic style, I wrote a couple of chapters this way and I loved it. But I wasn’t too sure if I wanted this format. So I stopped.

At one time I considered hiring a ghostwriter to write the book, for me getting the story out was my satisfaction. I would become a story creator, writing the outline with the ghostwriter writing the book, it didn’t pan out.

For a while, I put the book on the back burner. With priorities in life coming into play, I concentrated on working 2 full-time jobs for years. Exhausted, my creativity couldn’t come out, I was too tired to think. I only worked, slept and ate for years.

My creative juices always in the background, they came back even with the exhaustion I felt. The cause for this; there were books being published with a hint of my story. I knew I needed to put this out before my ideas became a general thought to the rest of writers.

Not satisfied with my story and where it was going, my wife suggested I put the theme of the story in the future. With my interest in all things future, it felt like a perfect fit. Thus the Superhuman Race was born into the future.

I had initially 3 stories separate from each other, created way back in 1986, fusing them together only made sense. At the time, there weren’t a lot of multiple story arcs in a novel. I thought this would be different and began writing my outline. Then came GOT (Game of Thrones) and other books and I felt I was on the right track with the book as far as multiple story arcs.

But now, it came for me writing the book. I am an impatient person and doing a book that would have taken a year to a couple of years to finish, was just too daunting a task and frustrating. So why not with my love of comics and soap operas and television serials, why not make the book into a novella, with cliffhangers or one-shot character stories and make them all in the same world (Universe) . In other words make a comic book format novella, numbered and set in a comic book form with prose.

Writing the first book took only a month, getting it ready for publication took over 6 months. My research on getting my novella out was more in how to get it published. And which was the best route to get it published? I did not want to go the traditional route; which was finding an agent, waiting to get accepted, then more time waiting to get published (years) plus, I wanted complete control of my product idea.

Which is where I am now; The Superhuman Race is the beginning of a series that will be ongoing and my hopes entertaining. I’ve enjoyed writing the characters and I hope you will enjoy reading them.

Enter the Superhuman Race is the first book in a continuing Novella series set one-step into the future. It’s a quick read with about 25k-35k words, give or take, with the next book out every 2-3 months, maybe sooner.

It deals with humanities struggle against a one world government with advancements in technology as the backdrop. Including humans chipped, cloned and enhanced on physical abilities through natural or artificial means. This is not a dystopia story, but a story on what happens when humanity reaches the threshold of technology in the future. Does humanity change for the better? That is the question.

It’s the Superhuman Race the next evolution against the Human Race who have become oppressed in this future timeline; A very possible path that can take place if we’re not careful.”

 

NetGalley and the endless quest for reviews

[image error]With the release of Jack Gilmour: Wish Lawyer looming, I thought I’d do something sensible and try and get some reviews for it.

Enter NetGalley, the online service promising to connect authors to bloggers, librarians and booksellers. Did it prove to be the panacea of quality reviews , or a giant ripoff not really suitable for self-publishers? Read on to find out!

Show me the money!

Before we start, a word of warning. NetGalley is really expensive if you go it alone. It’s not really designed for self-pubs, and is priced accordingly. A minimum six-month stint will set you back $450, or $699 if you also want a spot in their newsletter. It’s going to take a lot of sales to make back that investment.

Fortunately, help is at hand. I signed up for the BooksGoSocial NetGalley scheme, which charges by the month, and also promotes your book through Twitter and Facebook. This cost me $89, with a ‘one month extra free’ promotion. They have since reduced their prices to $49 for a month, and $80 for two. If you live in the UK, expect to add VAT on top of that.

I present here the results of the first month.

First impressions

NetGalley puts your book on its own page and invites readers to apply to review it. The requests can then be filtered to weed out obvious freeloaders who just want something for nothing. With the BGS service, however, everyone who applies is automatically accepted. My end-of-month headline numbers are shown below.

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So, from 535 page impressions (a percentage of which was probably me checking to see if I had any reviews), 80 downloads were recorded. From the summary file BGS send you, 66 of those were from individual users.

From the graph below, after an initial surge on day 1, there was still a steady trickle of requests throughout the month, with an odd boost on 22nd June.

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So, who downloaded my book?

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60% (40/66) of the requesters were from reviewers, but there were some booksellers and librarians in there too.

In total, out of those 66 downloads I’ve so far got five reviews, which is about a 7.5% hit rate. That’s not to say that additional reviews from these requesters won’t come later, just not in time for this blog post. To put it in context, from an Amazon giveaway with extra third-party promotion, you’d be lucky to get a 0.5% review rate.

But is my book any good?

I had what I thought was a decent cover, the [image error]text was professionally edited with positive feedback, and I was feeling pretty good about my story. But until the reviews started to come in, I had no idea if the whole thing sucked or not. Kind of like a review version of Schrödinger’s cat.

Some people don’t care about reviews (or, at least, they say they don’t), but for new authors they are one of the few ways to legitimise yourself as someone who can tell a story, especially if the reviews are completely independent. Here are the results!

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As well as the number of reviews, the BGS NetGalley report also gives you a summary of if people liked your cover, and why they requested the book in the first place. My cover rating was very high (~95% approval) and the majority of users were swayed by either the description or the cover.

The good news is that so far Jack Gilmour: Wish Lawyer is getting some pretty good feedback! Here’s an example!

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From the five reviews received so far, four were 5* and one was 4* (although the reviewer gave it 4.5 in their text).

Where the wild reviews are

NetGalley publishes the reviews on their own site but apart from that it’s up to the reviewer where they end up; be it on a blog, Goodreads or nowhere else.  There’s no guarantee that these will end up on Amazon, where they’re possibly most needed. So far none have made it across for me, but that may be due to the pre-order status of my book.

Is NetGalley worth it?

That depends very much on your point of view. As with all things, individual mileage may vary. For every one author who gets a bumper crop of dozens of great reviews, there’ll be several more who get very little back and wondered where all the money went. The latter option is what usually happens to me, so I was pleasantly surprised to get some results for this promotion.

If nothing else, it’s given me some ammo for advertising purposes, and there’s nothing that potential readers like more than social proof…

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Next steps

My book is up on NetGalley for another month, designed to span across the release date. I’ll write up how the rest of the promotion went in a future post. Since I started writing this one, the total review number has gone up to seven.

Ed Ryder is a research scientist by day and writes in the evening when he can fit it in.
Pre-order Jack Gilmour: Wish Lawyer on Amazon for only $0.99! 
In Vitro Lottery is out now on Amazon and other retailers

My editing pipeline 2: Grammarly, humans, and listening.

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With the first main edit of Jack Gilmour: Wish Lawyer finished on with Autocrit, it’s time for the next pass. Time to start tidying up the text before sending off to my editor. All of which, leads to the obvious question…

Why bother editing when your editor will do it for you?

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There are two main reasons for this:

Ask yourself “what do I want my editor to focus on?” Working on useful things like structure, or getting bogged down in endless minor corrections?
The percentage game. Even if a good editor spots 95% of errors, the more you have to start with, the more will sneak through. It’s the same reason to proof-read afterwards, too (but more of that later).

So what tools are there to help? MS Word’s basic spelling and grammar checker will only get you so far.

Grammarly

Grammarly comes in two versions – a premium and free version. I use the free one, which I find more than enough for my ‘hobbyist’ writing. I use it as a plug-in for MS Word, but it also comes as a stand-alone program, and an add-in for Chrome.

[image error]Whereas Autocrit will give you the broad brushstrokes, Grammarly focuses on the finer details. Incorrect words, strange comma usage, repeated words and use of tense all come under the spotlight. It also explains why it thinks the error is there, which can be handy for triaging.

Here’s an example of a comedy error Grammarly found that Word didn’t:

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My editing pipeline: adventures with AutoCrit

[image error]It’s pretty safe to say I released my first book too early, and it took a few substantial edits after release to get it into shape. With my next book now finished (a noir-inspired urban fantasy romp I’ll announce soon!), I’ve hopefully learned from the experience and am trying to do things better this time around

How am I achieving this? Read on to find out!

Pipelines!

I love a good workflow, so here’s my current editing one. I use Scrivener for the first and second draft, and once I’ve got to the second draft I switch to Microsoft Word for the next stages.

I tend to edit as I go along, to take a break between finishing one chapter and starting the next, so by the time I’ve got to the end it’s pretty much a second draft. By that time the plot is sorted, the structure is there, and most glaring errors and plot holes have hopefully been addressed. There’s still much work to be done, though!

The next stage is AutoCrit and Grammarly (which I’ll talk about another day), before the whole thing gets sent off and ripped to pieces by a human.

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Why use editing software?

Ask ten different writers about editing software, and you’ll probably get a range of answers from ‘I couldn’t live without them!’ to ‘They are worthless’, and everything in between. Personally, I think they are a tool like anything else — valuable if used correctly but not something to slavishly follow without human oversight.

One of the main problems with self-editing is that word-blindness quickly sets in and it’s easy to miss things, or not challenge yourself for better ways to write a scene. Editing software doesn’t care about your feelings, and a fresh pair of eyes is always good, even if it is an algorithm.[image error]

It still begs the question, though,  why bother if you’re then going to pay a professional editor to look at it anyway? To answer that, ask yourself this question: Would you rather your editor spent the time on the higher level themes and subtleties of your prose, or digging around in the mud with basic stuff you probably could have fixed yourself beforehand?

An adventure with AutoCrit

AutoCrit is a web-based software package that compares your writing to thousands of existing titles and gives scores and advice on what areas you should focus on. In addition to graphical summaries, it drills right down to the text and highlights potential issues.

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The following examples are not a comprehensive list of the things that AutoCrit does, but it should give you a flavour. For this exercise, I’ve focused on Chapter 2 where Jack, our hero, gets interrupted by some unwelcome visitors. From the second draft, I was pretty pleased with it. Let’s see what AutoCrit thought from the fingerprint summary.  The overall score, out of 100, represents the percentage of highlighted text (issues found) vs non-highlighted (no issues). The bigger the score, the fewer problems detected. Issues are further split up by into the five main sections, by percentage of the total. In this example, 54% of problems found are in the ‘strong writing’ section.

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78 isn’t a terrible score, but I’m sure I could do a lot better than that! So, what problems were found?

Paragraphs and sentences

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It’s good to vary the length of your text, otherwise it can seem a bit boring. A couple of slow paragraphs were spotted, but nothing major.

Adverbs

Because everyone hates adverbs! (for some reason). No major problems there in either text or dialogue (data not shown), and I’m firmly in the ‘good’ end of the dial.

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Passive voice indicators

Now we start hitting a few snags. I seem to really like the word ‘was’!

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Yep, and here are a couple of offenders!

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Let’s take them out and put in something else. Hopefully, this reads a bit less ‘was-y’. I also took out an ‘it’ at the end, which is apparently something else I do too much of…

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After a few more edits, including reducing my was obsession down from 32 to 11, I got my passive voice down to average. I can live with that.

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Show vs tell

Next up, do I feel my breath condensing in the air while I shiver some life back into my numbing feet, or is it cold?

Apparently the latter! Far too many ‘it’s and ‘see’s. There is the proviso in this chapter that a lot of it contains someone recalling events in dialogue, and people in general don’t flower up their language in conversation. After another round of edits we’ve reduced those down a bit.

All filler, no thriller

Filler words can interrupt the flow of the narrative and often serve no purpose. ‘That’ and ‘just’ are my two worst offenders, apparently, so let’s get rid of a few of those and replace them with something better.

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Getting rid of ten ‘thats’ and a few other things pushes us up to average.

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Putting it all together.

Making the changes above and many more from sections I didn’t have room to go into, how does that affect the final score?

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Much better! Now, hopefully, when it gets to my editor, he won’t be clawing his eyes out at the dreadful horror that seeps off the page. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of other things that need correcting and focusing on instead.

What Autocrit doesn’t do

What Autocrit won’t do is tackle your plot, narrative structure or characterisation, but then it’s not really designed to. For those, beta readers and human feedback are still invaluable. Neither is it a spell and grammar checker, which require different tools.

It’s a tool for the nuts and bolts of writing, and whether you find that appealing may depend on where you are in your experience level. Seasoned pros may find it of limited value, but for a relative beginner like me, it can be extremely useful.

Show me the money!

Autocrit runs on a subscription model, which is currently $29.97 per month with no minimum contract length, so if you only need it for a short while you won’t get stuck for a year. There’s also a free section on the website that will analyse your text but requires an email address. I’d recommend signing up to their mailing list, as they occasionally send through offers with good discounts. If you’re sitting on the fence because of the cost, it’s well worth keeping an eye on (as I did!).

Ed Ryder is a research scientist by day and writes in the evening when he can fit it in. In Vitro Lottery is out now on Amazon and other retailers

A quick update on current projects

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I don’t tend to post “here’s what’s going on!”-type content, as I’m never really sure if anyone is interested. But hey, it’s Sunday and I just spent about two hours sorting out horse rugs, so what the hell!

I currently have two projects I’m working on. Morula, set four years after In Vitro Lottery, is coming along well, with over 50,000 words down on the first draft. The rest exists as a brief outline in Scriver, so I know roughly where I need to be headed. One thing I do know, is that the story is probably going to need another book to finish it off. At least if I end Morula how I think I’m going to, anyway! Characters do have an odd habit of doing unexpected things at inopportune moments.

My other project is a novella-length film-noir homage, mixed with some urban fantasy. I’m aiming for a lighter tone, so don’t expect gritty realism – I’ll leave that to my dystopian stories