Jim Nelson's Blog, page 19
November 13, 2016
The Drifting Paige reviews Bridge Daughter
Book blogger The Drifting Paige recently published a flattering 5 out of 5 review of Bridge Daughter. To quote:
This is an incredible scifi novel that bridges (ha) the gap between religion and science. It is so emotionally superb and is not overhanded with any of the themes … Nelson achieved the nigh impossible. You learn and grow with Hanna, you come to understand the world she exists in and the choices that she has to make…
I would suggest this novel to everyone- it is intelligent, gripping...
October 23, 2016
Sherlock by train
Last summer I had the great fortune to spend ten weeks in Japan. I traveled by train up and down the islands, from the agriculturally diverse Hokkaido to the richly historical city of Nagasaki at the southern tip of Kyushu. Japan is a fugue of culture, architecture, and landscape. The country never repeats itself, but is stitched together by interlocking themes.
On one leg of the trip I made the key mistake of failing to pack a second book, thinking B. Traven‘s The Death Ship was a hefty enou...
October 8, 2016
Publishers Weekly reviews Bridge Daughter
Publishers Weekly has reviewed Bridge Daughter and I couldn’t be more pleased. An excerpt:
Nelson … smoothly realizes a provocative alternate present seen through the eyes of naive adolescent Hanna Driscoll. … Hanna is an engaging protagonist, and her thought-provoking story blends action, introspection, and social commentary in a stark but indirect critique of efforts to control female bodies and restrict reproductive rights.
I’m honored to be reviewed by Publishers Weekly, negatively or oth...
October 3, 2016
Bikes to Books across San Francisco this Sunday
This week marks the third anniversary of Bikes to Books, a self-guided bicycle tour of San Francisco’s literary history. Created by Burrito Justice and journalist Nicole Gluckstern, the seven-mile tour stops at every street in San Francisco named after a famed local author.
This Sunday (October 9th), as part of the LitCrawl festival, Nicole and Burrito Justice will be leading the tour themselves. They’ve arranged for live readings of the respective authors’ works at each stop along the way. T...
September 21, 2016
Real-life bridge daughter
A friend of mine stumbled on a true-to-life bridge daughter. Recall the premise of my novel:
Hanna is a “bridge daughter,” born pregnant with her parents’ child. In a few months she will give birth and die, leaving her parents with their true daughter.
Compare it to this Redditor’s story (from /r/raisedbynarcissists):
The summer before I turned 16 my parents went to a fertility clinic in the city to see about having another kid. My mom had been sterilized after my sister was born because of c...
September 8, 2016
Kindle Unlimited Swap Meet
This month me and my fellow Kindle Press authors have organized a Kindle Unlimited Swap Meet. Over twenty authors, over twenty books, all free to read through the Kindle Unlimited program. If you’re not a Kindle Unlimited member, you can sign up for a month-long free trial and read as many books as you want. Even if you don’t want to give KU a go, many of the books in the Swap Meet are discounted this month.
Both Bridge Daughter and Edward Teller Dreams of Barbecuing People are represented in...
September 7, 2016
Greatest rejection letter of all-time
Recently I picked up Robert Silverberg’s superb Science Fiction 101: Exploring the Craft of Science Fiction, an unfortunate title for a remarkably sturdy book. Part memoir, part writing guide, part anthology, I’d recommend it to every writer whether or not they’re interested in science fiction as a genre or pursuit.
Silverberg mingles his breezy autobiography of struggling to get published as a young man in the 1950s with nuggets of practical writing advice he picked up along the way. All of...
August 30, 2016
BBC News on John Hersey’s Hiroshima 70 years later
Late last year I wrote about my love of front matter using John Hersey’s inestimable Hiroshima as an example of why the first pages of a book matter. To mark the 70th anniversary of Hiroshima‘s publication, BBC News published last week a fantastic article on the history of John Hersey’s masterpiece, detailing both the 1946 New Yorker article he penned as well as its reception when published in book form.
Not only does the BBC article reproduce some of the pages of the original “Reporter at La...
August 17, 2016
Edward Teller Dreams now on sale for 99¢ at Amazon
Edward Teller Dreams of Barbecuing People is now on sale at Amazon for $0.99.
My first published novel centers on Gene Harland, a seventeen year-old high school student growing up in Livermore, California during the Cold War. It’s a novel about Big Science and the nuclear arms race, as well as a story of love and regret.
The sale will be over soon, so if you’re interested in reading it, now’s the time!
Published August 17, 2016 by Jim Nelson. Updated August 13, 2016.
August 16, 2016
An Insider’s Guide to Kindle Scout
Kindle Scout winner R. J. Vickers has posted an incredibly thorough insider’s guide to Kindle Scout over at BookRazor. If you have any interest in Kindle Scout (and if you’re a fiction writer, you should), check out her savvy break-down of the program: its benefits and drawbacks, it short-term challenges and long-term gains.
Published August 16, 2016 by Jim Nelson.
