S. Evan Townsend's Blog, page 111

Book Trailer Gods of Strife

Today we present the book trailer for the upcoming, exciting urban fantasy novel, Gods of Strife :

Cover Reveal: Gods of Strife

Today we are proud to reveal the cover of the next Adept Series novel, Gods of Strife .  Set in 1976, this fourth book in the series features the same globe-hopping, historical, and exciting action as the previous books in the series.  It will be released May 15, 2014 from World Castle Publishing.

They live among us.  We know they are there.  No government can control them; no authority can stop them.  Some are evil.  Some are good.  All are powerful.  They inhabit our myths and fairy tales.  But what if they were real, the witches, wizards, and fairy godmothers?  What if they were called "adepts" and an ancient evil stalks them?

An assassination attempt on the head of the American Meta Association guild sends adept Peter Branton looking for who wants him and his leader dead.  Finding the beautiful, shape-shifting assassin leads him to his real enemy, an enemy that is much worse and much more dangerous: living gods of Atlantis.  Branton must team with up with his would-be killer and a mysterious warrior to defeat the gods of strife that are intent on starting a war that could devastate all mankind.

 So without further ado, the cover of Gods of Strife:


See the trailer here.
Read an exciting excerpt here.

Reality versus Fantasy

Yesterday I did a review of the movie Gravity in which I excoriated the movie for scientific inaccuracy, especially when it comes to orbital dynamics.

And then I started thinking: why do I care?  I've watch Star Wars and Star Trek and hundreds of other science fiction movies that completely ignore science.  And I don't feel the need to correct their science.  Well, maybe if it's completely implausible.  Like the scene in Star Trek: First Contact that's supposed to be in "zero gravity" and vacuum yet you can see gasses interacting with air and people move as if they are in gravity ("magnetic boots" are the supposed reason why).  But I sort of shrug and go on.  Why?  Why did I care that Gravity had such bad science yet don't care that Star Trek does?

I think it's because Gravity was "real world" as in it was set in contemporary times and it involved places (Earth) and technology that exists.  It was the real world.  Star Wars is verging on fantasy (the creature living in the asteroid with creatures living inside it?) and Star Trek, at least before the J.J. Abrams versions, were at least marginally accurate and what wasn't accurate could usually be explained away by some technology that doesn't now exist.  (I lost a lot of respect for Mr. Abrams when I learned he wrote the awful movie Armageddon which has laugh-out-loud science errors).

I think there's a lesson here for writers.  You have to keep your audience in mind for how accurate you are gong to be on your research including science.  In my novel Rock Killer I tried to be as scientifically accurate as I could because I knew the audience for that novel would expect it.  Now I'm fair to middling with math (don't ask me to do calculus anymore) and sometimes I just don't think about everything that you have to think about.  So what I'm saying is, there are probably science errors in Rock Killer.  But I did my best to minimize them.  In my work in progress that is currently at a beta reader, The Treasure of the Black Hole, I also did my best to minimize science errors even though it is not what I would call "hard science fiction" like Rock Killer.

In my Adept Series of novels I also tried to be very historically accurate (they are set in the past) and also scientifically accurate within my fantasy framework.  Because it's a lot easier to check the historic record than calculate an orbit I knew I'd have lots of fact-checkers with those novels.  Someone might read it who know the actual historic details.  Again, that is because I was keeping my potential audience in mind.

How accurate to facts or science your novel is depends how who you are writing it for and what genre.  But I think glaring scientific errors will be pretty much noticed by anybody.  So unless it's a complete fantasy, you'd better get at least the basics correct.

Movie Review: Gravity

Last night I watched Gravity on Blu-ray.  I'd like to start by saying this is a visually stunning movie and gives one a feeling of being in space, in orbit about the Earth.  The performances by George Clooney and Sandra Bullock are very good, especially Bullock as you feel her fear, pathos, and final triumph.

But, while I won't recount every scientific and factual error in the movie (there's plenty of lists on the internet), I would like to say I have no idea why this movie was called Gravity.  Except for the last few scenes, the filmmakers ignored gravity completely.

People think there's no gravity in space.  If that were true then planets wouldn't orbit the sun and satellites (and space shuttles) wouldn't orbit the Earth.  Nor would the Moon.  There's lots of gravity in space and unless you're in the deep interstellar area between stars, there's enough you have to worry about it.  That means when you are in orbit about the Earth you have to deal with Earth's gravitational field.

The space shuttle and the astronauts aboard it are being affected by gravity.  To say they aren't is to say a man jumping off the Empire State Building isn't being affected by gravity.  Both that suicidal man and the astronauts are in "free fall."  That is because an orbit is sort of like Douglas Adams' description of flying: throw yourself at the ground and miss.  An object in orbit about the Earth is falling toward the surface of the Earth with whatever acceleration gravity gives it at its altitude.  But it's forward speed is such that as it falls one meter toward the surface, the surface of the Earth is one meter farther away due to the curvature of the Earth.  The object is falling toward the Earth but never hits it because of the curvature of the Earth.  (This is true for all orbits including the Earth's orbit around the Sun.)

In the movie the astronauts are working on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) which orbits at 559 kilometers.  If you built a ladder to the altitude the the HST orbits at, you would be able to stand on it.  In fact, the gravity you would feel would be about 85% of the gravity you feel at the surface of the Earth (8.29 meters per second squared on the ladder versus 9.81 meters per second squared on the surface).  And the astronauts would fly by, floating around the cabin of the shuttle, because they are in free fall, but also in orbit.  So, yes, Virginia, there is gravity in space.  Which the filmmakers pretty much ignore.

In the movie there are scenes where astronauts move a long distance between points in orbit.  But they completely ignore orbital mechanics as if there's no gravity.  George Clooney's character uses a Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) to rendezvous with a distance object.  He sort of aims himself at it and accelerates (at least he didn't accelerate the whole way).  But in orbit, in order to rendezvous with something, you have to change your orbit to either speed up or slow down your velocity, then change your orbit again to match the orbit of the object you're trying to reach.  If Clooney accelerated so that he slowed down (i.e., accelerated in the direction opposite his velocity vector), this would put him in a lower orbit and his orbital velocity would increase (yes, this is counter-intuitive).  If he accelerated so that he sped up, this would put him in a higher orbit, he would slow down, and maybe the object he was trying to reach would catch up with him.  All of this was ignored in the movie as if there were no gravity.  And that was the biggest problem I had with the movie.

And then there's a scene that makes zero scientific sense when some something pulls George Clooney's character away when he had zero velocity relative to his objective and therefore had zero momentum (because momentum is mass multiplied by velocity and his velocity was zero) yet when he unhooks himself, he flies away as if some unseen force was pulling on him.  And since he moves away from the Earth, it wouldn't be gravity.

Plus I don't think an MMU has as much fuel as portrayed in the film.  Also, I really doubt NASA would let an astronaut zip around the shuttle, the Hubble Space Telescope, and other astronauts as Clooney is shown doing at the beginning of the movie.  Even if it was visually fun to watch.

But, with all that long dissertation, it was a good movie.  With better science, it could have been a great movie.

Coming Soon: Cover Reveal for Gods of Strife

Coming April 7th . . .

Are Adverbs Justly Verboten?

When it comes to writing, I am pretty much a lonely autodidact.  I greatly suspect a lot of writers are, also.  I have no formal "creative writing" training, I basically taught myself through trial and error and reading great writers.  So when I was told at my local writers' group I shouldn't use adverbs (or -ly words as they are sometimes called) I was suddenly surprised.

Then it was explained that because beginning writers tend to thoroughly over-use them, they are told not to use them at all but if you're an experienced writer you can "let a few slip in."  And, to be honest, since hearing this advice, I have strived diligently to minimize their use.  I especially like to avoid using them in "said" sentences such as " . . . he said sadly" or " . . . she said happily."

But I think eliminating them completely is a mistake.

When I write I really like to use powerful words that paint an image.  If I, for instance, want to say:

 Joe tripped and fell. 

I will tend to say:

Joe stumbled, lost his balance, and was slapped to the cold, hard concrete.

To me that paints a much better picture.  But, also to me, that sentence needs one more word to make it nearly perfect:

Joe stumbled, lost his balance, and was painfully slapped to the cold, hard concrete.

 Yes, an adverb!  A modifier to describe the verb "slapped" to me adds so much more to that sentence.  And if I try to eliminate the adverb, I have to use some clunky construction such as:

Joe stumbled, lost his balance, and was slapped to the cold, hard concrete with a lot of pain.

Yuck.

My advice is to use adverbs sparingly and to the greatest impact possible.  There are a lot better ways to indicate someone is sad than say " . . . he said sadly."  And this gets into the "show don't tell" part of writing (oh, perhaps another blog post is warranted).  Instead of saying he said it sadly, show that he was sad.  You could write " . . . he whimpered, his eyes full of tears."

Now, I did break my own rule.  In my novel to be released May 15th, Gods of Strife , I have a line:

"Apparently the lady doesn't wear underwear," the hotel dick said lecherously.

 But the scene was such that I didn't feel it would have been completely appropriate to spend an inordinate amount of time explaining the hotel detective's lechery.

I don't think adverbs are an evil never to be used.  I think their judicial use is justified in good writing.

And yes, I purposely put a lot in this blog post.

Capricious Northwest Weather

Blue Mountains from the East (picture by Lynn D. Townsend)My wife and I traveled to Southeast Idaho this week to visit friends (well, friends of mine). Since I'd taken the snow tires off the car and put on "summer" tires (not all-season radials) I was a little worried about weather even this late in the year. The Pacific Northwest can have capricious weather, and has especially this year.

The drive down the weather was beautiful.  The sky was blue, the roads were bare and dry, I set the cruise control at 5 mph over the speed limit (65 in Oregon, 75 in Idaho) and cruised.  While we were in the Pocatello area, the weather got worse and I was keeping a wary eye on the forecast for the Blue Mountains.  This was the highest (in altitude) part of the journey.  There is also a very steep, winding downhill grade from the west side of the Blue Mountains into the Columbia Basin near Pendleton, Oregon.  If it's snowy and slick, it is one of the most white-knuckle places you can drive that I know of.

The weather forecast for yesterday (Thursday) in the Blue Mountains was rain and snow mixed.  But temperatures were supposed to be above freezing so I was hoping for more rain than snow.  On high-performance Goodyear Eagle summer tires.

When we left Pocatallo it was snowing but the road was just wet.  I went a little slower than my customary 5 mph over the 75 mph speed limit and got passed by a cop.  Between Pocatello and La Grande, Oregon (just to the east of the Blue Mountains), we had snow, rain, sleet, and sunshine with bare roads.  We stopped at Starbucks in La Grande (big surprise) because my wife wanted some caffeine (and to be honest, so did I).  We got back in Interstate 84 and almost immediately, as if someone had turned on a faucet, it started raining steadily.  But soon it turned to hard rain and we even went through a mercifully short bit of hail.  There were puddles on the road because of the hard rain and the car would hydroplane.  I clicked of the cruise control and drove "as fast as I dared" which was usually under the speed limit.

Then, as if someone shut off a faucet, it quit.  We were under blue skies with a smattering of clouds and the road was damp but dry where everyone had driven.  I told my wife that if that was the worst of it, that wasn't so bad.

But we came over a hill and could see more weather ahead of us.  "Looks like a mist," my wife said.  "Looks like snow," I said, being more experienced with winter weather.  And it was snow.  The temperature as indicated by my car's thermometer plummeted quickly.  At first the road was just wet.  Then slush started creeping in from the sides.  Soon the temperature hit 33F (0.5C) and slush covered most of the road except for two bare ruts in the right lane where people were driving.  Everyone lined up in that lane even though it was only moving at about 30 mph (50 kph).

This went on for miles, and once I swear there was hail mixed in with the snow (or the snow got really hard).  We passed over the summit of the blue mountains at 4,193 feet (1,278 m).  Going down things improved, the road became clearer and I dared to cross the slush between lanes and start passing people going about 55 mph (90 kph).

Just as we got to the beginning of the down grade, I noticed a bunch of vehicles clogging the road ahead following a snowplow and seeming reluctant to pass it.  The road was bare and wet with some slush at this point and the snow almost stopped.  We could see into the Columbia Basin where it was sunny.  The temperature began to rise and people started passing the plow.

Not long after we were down on the straight, flat road heading into Pendleton and the temperature was almost 60F (16C).  And I thought about what they used to tell me when I lived in Idaho: if you don't like the weather, wait 15 minutes, it'll change.  Or in this case, travel 10 miles out of the Blue Mountains.

Why Do You Write?

Why?

Why sit in front of a computer, eschewing human contact, consuming coffee, and making up stories in your head to type into an electronic file?

Why do you write?

You're probably not going to get rich.  Chances are you're not one of the lucky few who make it big with indie publishing.  Chances are you're not going to sign with a major publishing house and have a million selling book that gets picked up for a movie and the movie is a huge hit and causes even more book sales and the movie starts Jennifer Lawrence who gives you a big hug at the premier party.  Probably not going to happen.

So why do you write?

I've been writing since I was twelve years old.  I'm now 53.  You do the math.  Why do I write?  Because I cannot not write.  Even when I was spending 50 - 60 hours a week in the corporate world, I spent an hour or two writing nearly every day.  As I read it described, there are things in my head that demand being written.  I write because I love it.

Why do you write?  Why motivates you?  If it's fame and fortune, good luck.  I hope you write because, like me, you have to.  I hope you write for the love of it.  I hope you write because there are ideas bursting from your head that demand to be written.  Yes, it's great when you make some money.  It's wonderful to have strangers read your books.  It's lovely to get great reviews.  None of that should motivate you.  You should be writing because you love to write, need to write, crave to write.

It's true, I would still be writing even if I'd never sold a book.  I write for the love of the craft.

Why do you write?

I Invented eBooks and Indie Publishing . . . Sorta

Yes, I, S. Evan Townsend, invented ebooks and indie publishing.

Well, sort of.

About ten years ago I was selling stuff on eBay.  It was mostly old electronics I no longed had a need for because I'd upgraded.  But it got me thinking, what if I could see my book on eBay.  At the time I only had one finished book, Rock Killer .  But here was my thought process: I could sell directly to the readers and cut out the gatekeepers at the publishing houses who only seemed to want to publish stuff by established writers or authors who had agents.  I could convert the Word file of Rock Killer to a PDF and sell it on eBay.  Since the marginal cost of the PDF file was essentially zero, even if I sold it for 99 cents I'd be ahead.

The problem I saw was getting the attention of the readers (this was before most social media).

Then I had an idea that I should make a website called storytellers.com (except that URL was taken) and allow other writers up upload their books, convert them to PDF, and sell them directly to readers, the website taking a small cut.  And readers could leave reviews to help weed out the crap.  Does this sound familiar?

The only problem was I was working more than full time at my job and could see this costing a lot.

So, circa 2004 I invented ebooks (as PDFs) and indie publishing.  I just didn't do anything with either idea.  Now there's Wattpad which is a lot like my storytellers.com idea only readers don't pay.  And Amazon took the ebook concept further with the Kindle ereader and indie publishing has taken off with ereaders and print-on-demand technology.

Which I suppose is a lesson in, if you have a good idea, run with it.

Movie Review: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

I was not impressed with the first Hunger Games movie.  The plot, such that is was, seemed to be an excuse for having teenagers trying to kill each other in the long, brutal climatic end.  Now I haven't read any of the books (so many books, so little time) and I have heard the book goes into the politics of the "Hunger Games" and shows how they are used to manipulate the populace of this totalitarian government of the country of Panem (which seems to sit where the United States is now).  But the movie didn't and it was plenty long and at times boring.  And the fight to the death at the end between teenagers frankly made me uncomfortable.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire I enjoyed a lot more because it went into the machinations of the government, showed how brutal and totalitarian it was, and explained more why there were the Hunger Games as a tool to demonstrate state power over its citizens.  And while the climax was another Hunger Game, fight to the death, they twisted it (what one character called "a wrinkle") and made it have much more depth and be a lot more interesting.  You never quite know who is on what side between the state, the rebellion, and the heroine, Katniss Everdeen.

In the first move, Katniss Everdeen was just angry the entire time and I really wondered if
In addition, there is President Snow, the dictator of Panem, played with delicious evilness by Donald Sutherland.  And this movie was probably one of Philip Seymour Hoffman's last performances and he plays the designer of the Hunger Games very well (as always).  Catching Fire is a much better movie than its predecessor.  The 2:23 minute run time flies by (of course, there's over 10 minutes of credits) and for the first time I feel compassion about these characters.  I'm looking forward to the third movie (and the fourth, apparently).