Michael Offutt's Blog, page 172

How long before we have a real Robbie the Robot?

If the title of this post confuses you, Robbie the Robot was a $200,000 invention created by movie studios for the amazing 1950's film, Forbidden Planet. It cost so much, that the studio re-used the robot in several projects following Forbidden Planet and the character remained extremely popular.

I recently re-watched Forbidden Planet because I love the story so much. Some of it inspires my first novel that will be available in 2012. But aside from that, I saw a YouTube video of a real life robot that blew my socks off.

Want a sandwich? Well the robot PR2 has learned how to fetch stuff from the fridge, which is great and all, but thanks to a technique called semantic search, it can now bring you a sandwich when it's not even sure where the sandwich is.

"Semantic search" is simply the ability to make inferences about an object based on what is known about similar objects and the environment. It sounds complicated, but it's really just a computerized version of what we humans think of as "common sense." For example, if someone asks you to bring them a cup without telling you exactly where the cup is, you're probably clever enough to infer that cups can be found in drawers or cabinets or dishwashers, and that drawers and cabinets and dishwashers are all usually located in a kitchen, so you can go to the kitchen, poke around for a little bit, and find a cup. Semantic search allows robots to do the same sort of thing.

The advantage of this technique is that it gives robots the ability to infer things that it doesn't know from things that it does know, and use reason to make deductions about parts of the word that it's less familiar with. Additionally, the robot can add to its knowledge base to quickly adapt to new places and people with weird habits. So like, if you're one of those people who stores peanut butter in the bathroom, the robot can start associating peanut butter with bathrooms.

The following demo, from the University of Tokyo and Technische Universität München, puts semantic search to the test by tasking a PR2 with fetching a sandwich. The PR2 has no detailed information on sandwiches, but its database tells it that sandwiches are a type of food, and that food can be found in kitchens and restaurants, and from that, it figures out where to look.  Please watch the video and tell me what you think in the comments:I don't know about you, but this is pretty cool.  We live in interesting times.  Asimov would be proud.

Official Publishing Date and a Meme

I got an email from Double Dragon Publishing on Friday. It looks like my book SLIPSTREAM will be e-published in May 2012, so basically a year sooner than I expected.  I think that they make it into a Print-on-Demand file at some point...probably a month or two later but DDP's print books seem to be God Awful expensive. I don't really expect to sell any paperback books anyway which fits with the whole e-publisher thing. Now, I'm working on edits/issues with it before the May date. I've got several months so I'll probably just work on it during weekends.

I also got tagged by a meme from Charity Bradford.  So here it is:
If you could go back in time and relive one moment, what would it be?  I would have eggs benedict at the Main Street Deli in Moscow, Idaho for Sunday brunch one more time. Their hollandaise sauce was sooo good. They're out of business now so I'll never get to eat there again :(.If you could go back in time and change one thing, what would it be?  I would go back and give myself the winning lottery numbers for a huge powerball.What movie/TV character do you most resemble in personality? I think I resemble Harriet in Harriet's Law as far as personality goes. We are both allergic to bullshit.If you could push one person off a cliff and get away with it, who would you choose? Fred Phelps from the Westboro Baptist Church.Name one habit you want to change in yourself. Overeating.Why do you blog? To stay informed.Name at least three people to send this to:Briane Pagel at Thinking the LionsRogue Mutt at The Grumpy Bulldog BlogAndrew Leon at StrangePegs

Want to get paid for editing? My publisher is hiring.

In the yahoo group that my publisher runs, Deron Douglas, the CEO of Double Dragon Publishing posted this:

Hello All,

DDP is looking for new editors to help with the edit of 2012-2013 titles. If you know someone with experience and the need to make a difference, please have them contact me directly at deron@double-dragon-ebooks.com

Cheers,

Deron

I figured I'd post it for anyone that may have a little time on their hands that wants to make some money on the side and find out a little about how the publishing business works. I have no idea what they pay and nothing aside from this post on what is entailed. But if I had to "guess" it would be that they email you a Word document in .rtf form...maybe chapters at a time...and you go through and edit them using the "review" options in the word processor, making notes on the side and then when those are done, shipping them off to the writer.  Then I also assume that you would be paid through Paypal which is how they seem to conduct business for the authors. So, I'm thinking you would need a Paypal account. However, please don't quote me on this because I'm just "guessing".

Also on the marketing front, I found out that a guy named John Klawitter (Find his website here) is producing a radio show for Double Dragon authors (again through our Yahoo group). It's a one-hour thing and provides exposure by featuring a short story or flash fiction read aloud over the radio with a plug for the author's book after the reading (paid for by Double Dragon).

In my opinion, it's pretty original marketing, and I was intrigued by it because of the different approach.  I'm telling you guys simply because it gives a glimpse "behind-the-scenes" on a mid-size publisher and their attempts at helping authors to market their work...kinda like the "Little Engine that Could."  I'm not complaining because I think the idea is pretty awesome and when it starts up in either January or February I'm gonna tune in to it to see how well it is done.  I mean...this is not a Big Six publisher...they don't have billions of dollars so really any marketing that they do shows an "attempt" at selling their books rather than just sitting there like a limp noodle.

Now if only I could prod them to use their twitter account...

Six questions for Briane Pagel, author of Eclipse

I finished Briane's book Eclipse some time ago, and I have to admit, it is the most cerebral read that I've found while combing the endless books written by independent authors that are begging to be read. I give it five stars out of five.

Now when I say "cerebral" I'm not saying that it is difficult to read. I'm saying that it is challenging to really know what is going on. It's like reading one of Brooke R. Busse's flash fictions that she posts on her blog. Half the time I have no idea what it is that she's writing about.  So if you buy this book, you are purchasing a puzzle. I personally have my own ideas of what is going on with the book but you'd have to look at my review on goodreads. And it is just that...ideas. Mr. Pagel has not elaborated at all as to whether I'm correct or not. Also know that the book is short...novella sized. You can read it in one sitting easy so this is not asking you to set aside weeks to plow through a book. This is something you could flip through while waiting for your turn at the doctor's office.

Mr. Pagel keeps many blogs but the one that I follow the most is Thinking the Lions. I urge you to follow him there (click on link) because he's funny, witty, and I think it's always nice to be friends with a lawyer. :)

For fans of Mulholland Drive, Twin Peaks, Eraserhead, and the Tree of Life...this book is for you.

Without further adieu, I give you the man that dared to eat a Twinkie on his blog that was so rancid, I thought for sure he was going to get sick.
I do lawyer stuff and chase my boys around with a camera.Q: If Eclipse were to be made into a movie, who would your dream director be? Myself, I would choose David Lynch as the cerebral quality of your writing seems to be spot-on with Mulholland Drive, Eraserhead, and even his film adaptation of Dune.

A:  This is hard because I don't really know directors. David Lynch's Mullholland Drive has the feel that I want for Eclipse, a kind of "what the heck just happened" feel, so he wouldn't be bad. But Tim Burton might be able to do a good job of putting a creative spin on it. The book isn't Tim Burton-esque at all, but I'd like to see what he'd do with it. I think a movie should do more than just parrot the written material; the visual and audio element to film both restrains the imagination and adds a new dimension to the work, and I think the interface where my imagination and Tim Burton's meet would be a great place to start Eclipse: The Movie.
Eraserhead...it simply must be seen and you will not understand it. Reaction is everything.Q: You indicate that Eclipse may have been a collaboration with a friend of yours who might have acted as your muse to egg you to finish this project. How exactly did this surreal story come together?

It actually was a collaboration with The Boy, my eldest son you might know from reading Thinking The Lions. He gave me the idea, which I won't repeat here because it actually spoils part of the story of Eclipse, and I ran with it, writing the first chapter to give him an idea how I'd start it. He read the first chapter and said "Make it weirder," so I did. The use of Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and other hard-rock lyrics in the book was a sop to The Boy, who was going through his 70s-music-phase at that point.

Q: Upon finishing your book, what reaction do you want from your reader?

A:  "What the heck just happened here?" is the primary effect I'd like. The book has so many possible interpretations that I'd want a person to think "Okay, that's what it meant" and then later on say "But what if this" so that the storylines and imagery are constantly revisited. So far, people who have read it have almost uniformly come to me and said "So, was it real?" about one aspect or another. I love that.
What the heck just happened here is often what I ask when I watch "Eraserhead"Q: Eclipse is really literary art. You do a lot of bold things with this book that probably made it difficult to market to agents and publishers. However, if you wanted to pitch it and could do so in only one sentence before the agent of your dreams, how would you pitch Eclipse?

   A:  "Eclipse is more of a kaleidoscope than a book, but everytime you turn the kaleidoscope, you get an even more mysteriously horrifying version of an astronaut's journey from madness to murder."

Q: Having self-published, what advice do you give to those who may be looking to follow in your footsteps?
A:  I self-published because I am impatient with the "real" publishing process. I don't want to spend my time writing query letter and I don't want to have to conform my writing to what someone else expects.

I write because I enjoy writing, first and foremost, and secondly because I enjoy hearing from people about my writing, and if writing and being read is your goal, self-publishing is the way to go, because you have absolute creative control over it and never have to query yourself.

With that said, I make 98% of my money from my day job, and 1.9999% of my money from my blogs; the remainder comes from my books. My books are not money-makers. Yet. Selling books is like selling anything else; you have to work at it. If you want to make lots of money with your books, you have to either convince a publisher that you're the next John Grisham so they will put your book in giant stacks in the front of bookstores, or you have to relentlessly push your book in every forum imaginable and convince the public that you are the next John Grisham. I'm not going to quit my job and start going to Comic-con to sell my book, because then writing would just be another job instead of something that I have fun doing and can make a little money at.

But I said "yet." All success is a combination of luck and hard work, with the hard work creating more opportunities for the luck to strike. I market my books and market myself to a certain extent, and hope that I'll get lucky and the right person will read it and it'll start catching on. If it does, I'll finally buy that place in Hawaii. If it doesn't, then, well, I still got to write exactly the story I wanted to write and had fun doing it, and people occasionally review it or email me and tell me they loved it. That means a lot to me.

Q: If you were to pick one novel out there that could stand on the shelf next to Eclipse and be similar by tone and subject matter, what is the name of that novel?

A:  The Illustrated Man, By Ray Bradbury. Not a novel, but a set of short stories that I read when I was 12 and have never forgotten.

Buy Eclipse on Amazon for only .99 cents on your Kindle :)


Have a great Thursday.

A little Halloween to the greatest pop song of all time

I miss you Michael Jackson.
Thank you for Thriller.  Thank you for everything.
Have a great Wednesday.

The Crystal Bridge by Charles M. Pulsipher

This weekend, I finished Charlie's book, along with one called Lor Mandela, and a third called Monarch by Michelle Davidson Argyle. But I'm only going to talk about one book of those three today. It is written by Charles M. Pulsipher, and you can find his blog here .

First off, I want to mention that I enjoyed reading this book. Here's the stuff that Mr. Pulsipher did right. His dialogue was definitely age-appropriate, the science he presents is an extrapolation of the cutting-edge stuff that we hear about today, the pacing is perfect and there's a lot of action, and the idea/trope that Mr. Pulsipher uses to travel between worlds that he refers to as "Kaden's egg" is amazing. I've never seen a magical or scientific device described in such way. It's really kind of neat.

If you want to read the rest of my review, you're going to have to go to Goodreads and look for yourself.  I'm going to turn the floor over to Charles who was kind enough to answer a few of my questions.  So here he is:

Q: What kind of editing did you seek out prior to publishing this book?

A:  I quit my job to finish my novel, so I wasn't swimming in money. I couldn't pay someone to edit my book, so I took advantage of free editing. I self edited the novel about five times. Then I leaned heavily on my wife's skills. She's a high school English teacher. I had my brother read it. He's the biggest reader I know. I had a few other people read through it and offer suggestions. Then I self edited again three more times. I think I caught 98% of the typos. I, of course, just made that statistic up.

Q:  How did you get the idea for Kaden's egg? More specifically...why the egg shape as opposed to any other? I'm just curious. You also might want to explain how the egg works to the readers out there or they'll be wondering why I'm asking you about some dude's egg.

A:  That does sound weird, doesn't it. No, he doesn't lay eggs like some freaky space-chicken. Kaden opens wormholes to distant worlds. He's able to see bits of these worlds before he opens the wormhole. They appear as images floating along the inner shell of a golden glowing egg surrounding him. Kaden's egg was plucked straight from the original dream that prompted the novel. I also liked the organic feel of the egg as opposed to the more mechanical process that Omegaphil uses later.

Q: Of all the worlds to visit, why did you decide to spend the majority of the time on one that had essentially elves, dwarves, and dragons?

A:  I needed a world that readers could relate to. Many of the other ones would be fun for a minute or two, but then the pure alien environment might have turned off some readers. I liked the contrast of the science and fantasy. I don't think that's done enough. I may also be obsessed with dragons. That part of James came from me.

Q:  Are you a plotter or a pantser? If you are a plotter, can you give us an idea of your story-boarding process.

A:  Both. A ploantser or ponttser...something like that. I start with a dream. I then write off the seat of my pants for a while as the dream settles and cements in my head. Then I write out an outline. I follow the outline for a while, but let tangents form when they feel right. Hollister and Penny were tangents. They didn't originally exist. I rewrite my outline several times until I finish the book.

Q: What advice do you have for those who may want to write a science-fiction novel?

A:  Research the science a lot and then use it sparingly. Most readers are going to care more about the characters than the hard science. The hard science fanatics will love the little nuggets of pure science you use. Those who don't understand the science will be able to ignore it and focus on the story. That's just my opinion though. You will find readers who want more science. I'm such a reader, but, as a writer, I know I'm the minority.

Q:  The god Rho seemed like a cross between alien and Cthulhu. What were you going for by making him this tentacled, spider-like dark mass with acid for blood?

A:  I don't like shiny black segmented spiders. I'm okay with the furry ones as long as they aren't touching me. My wife is terrified by all spiders. She points at them and makes this weird noise until I get rid of the thing. I wanted that image surrounding Rho. I wanted readers disgusted, terrified, and darkly intrigued, pointing at it, unable to look away, but wanting it gone every second. Rho's blood isn't really acidic. It tears down and absorbs anything it touches. The explanation as to why is implied in the last few pages of the novel. I won't give that away.

Q:  Who is your favorite character? For the record, poor Evandrel.

A:  I've had several people say Evandrel was their favorite. I have a hard time choosing a favorite. All the characters are like my little brain-children. I love Evandrel, Kaden, Aren, James, and Dveldor. I must admit I even like Rho, Vander, and Diresh. That said, I may be a bit partial to Penny. She was a pleasant surprise that just popped into existence as I wrote about James' strange experiences with the malfunctioning chip. She'll also have a large role in the next book.

Buy The Crystal Bridge on kindle for only $3.99 HERE.

Diablo III - Blackstone Cinematic!

As Deckard Cain's niece, Leah, struggles to make sense of her uncle's mysterious and disturbing notations, she bears witness to a dark vision. Azmodan, Lord of Sin, towers over the fragile young woman, swearing his armies of the burning Hells shall pour forth into Sanctuary, ravishing the world and all hope of resistance.

This cinematic game footage offers but a glimpse into the gritty, evolving story of Diablo II. Please take the time to watch it. The trailer is thrilling.
I sampled some of this game when I attended Blizzcon 2009 (Yes, I am that much of a geek but in my defense...some of my guildies attended too--I was really into World of Warcraft).  The character class  that I played in the few minutes that I was allowed to sit at the computer was the Monk, and man...I could lay waste to hundreds of demons in just a short time span.
All I can say is three words... "COMBAT. MAGIC ITEMS." Is there really anything else a person could want? I'm so excited for this game that when it gets released, you may not hear from me for a week unless you log onto Battlenet and play with me. Maybe I'll do a Diablo III give-a-way so one person who comments can join me in purging the world of the newest Prime Evil!
Diablo was groundbreaking when it was released.  I played Diablo II for months--again--because it was groundbreaking.
I expect Blizzard will once again snatch the coveted "Game of the Year".
Matthew MacNish...Steph Schmidt...I'm calling you two out! I know you play video games. Don't make me face the demon hordes without you.
Happy Monday... /demon giggle