Bill Swears's Blog, page 3
September 8, 2012
Zook and Rogue Country news
I sent out the proof copy corrections on Tuesday the 28th, and am now waiting anxiously for the start of my vacation. I'm taking a month off to work on Zook Country's sequel, Rogue Country. I hope that there's somebody out there who wants to read Zook Country, and that this will lead to somebody wanting to read the sequel.
We lived through what would probably be called a hurricane if we lived in an area that had hurricanes. Hills near us reported winds in excess of 100 MPH. We had no electricity, running water, or telephone for about a day and a half starting Tuesday evening, and ending on Thursday morning. The upside is that I've found a new small engine repair guy, so my chainsaw is running very well. The downside is it's been raining up here in the hills for three nights, and I don't really want to wander around in wet underbrush cutting down alder and cutting up fallen trees. I'm thinking the neighbors feel much the same, so maybe we'll get together and have a pity party next week. The office I work at in Anchorage closed on Wednesday, because we had no phone or systems servers. I hope that there's somebody out there who wants to read Zook Country, and that this will lead to somebody wanting to read the sequel. I may be repeating myself.
There is other news, but I think going to sleep might be the best plan for me. Until later, then.
August 26, 2012
Zook Country News
Lida's intent to publish on September 15th meant that there would be no Advance Reader Copies to deliver to reviewers. I wasn't terribly happy with that, because most of the major reviewers that we'd want to put on the book cover won't even read the e-book version. Lida and I had an e-mail discussion, and she allowed me to push back the publishing date. She offered December 15th, and the book will be available for pre-order for a month before publication. Since I'd already lost the summer reading crowd, I'm hoping that I can take advantage of the holiday crowd. This is a publisher being extremely flexible for an unknown author, and I'm really hoping that I can make it work out to her profit.
I guess the publishing party will have to be postponed, since I'll not have signable stock until December. The upside, we'll probably have Advanced Reader Copies for distribution to certain reviewers next month. Oh, it turns out that having a publishing party on publishing date wouldn't have worked, because I wouldn't have actual books to sign until the mail delivered them a few days later. Lida recommends that scheduling publishing parties wait until the paper copy is in hand.
August 3, 2012
Don't forget
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyLxuy...
July 22, 2012
Zook Country publishing news
http://www.amazon.com/Zook-Country-ebook/product-reviews/B007J6DPPA/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13530587-zook-country
Bill
June 3, 2012
Reviewing the Looking Glass Club
The Looking Glass Club by Gruff DaviesMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I truly enjoyed LGC and would happily recommend it to friends. It's near future SF, and I think one of its strengths is that it doesn't really strike me as SF most of the time. I became immersed in the life of the main character, Steel, and his dilemma. He is rather suddenly saddled with a young woman who has no continuous memory, and is very pregnant, and who comes with instructions linking her to a part of Steel's life that lives on within him like an open and cancerous cyst in his chest.
Steel appears to be a black market computer hacker with dark connections, and on a very flimsy surface level that holds true. But the story goes back more than twenty years to a turning point event in his days at university, and nothing is really as it seems at first. Steel bends reality, on occasion, at great cost to himself, and how this came to be is one of many secrets that Davies reveals through the course of the novel.
I felt that the early parts of the novel spent a little too much time artfully drawing the reader into the complexities of the protagonist's life, and had to push through a few chapters, teased along by snippets of action. The story flows better as both flashbacks and contemporary action improve in pace, and the book becomes more riveting as the reader finally gains enough insight to link the parts of the storyline together. There were a couple of threads that, IMO, should have been tied up by the end and weren't, but overall, I found it a very satisfying read, and will be buying whatever Davies publishes next.
View all my reviews
May 4, 2012
supporting the next John Carpenter
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/seanmannion/abel-and-cain
Bill
April 8, 2012
Weather and Reviews
It snowed on my house all Friday night, and continued snowing in Anchorage until sometime after 7:00 pm last evening. With 134.5″ as of yesterday evening, we’re now about two inches over the highest recorded snowfall for a single winter (1954-55, with 132.6″), although it only snowed as much as 7 inches twice all winter (we did have something like 32 days in a row with an inch or two every day). It froze pretty solidly last night (Saturday, April 7th) and somebody left my son’s window open all night, so I just woke up to a very chili upstairs floor a few minutes ago. The snow may not last long as temps should reach into the 40s today. My son didn’t build a snowman yesterday, because the two of us lit out and visited Anchorage.
Zook Country has generated some outstanding reader reviews, and I hope that there are many more to come! I’ve posted snippets of a couple at my Zook Country page, and my publisher has posted a few reviews at http://twilighttimesbooks.com/ZookCountry_ch1.html#ZookCountry_rev.
The nature of the industry is that “literary reviewers” aren’t likely to review Zook Country spontaneously. Jake’s voice is very much appropriate for the story told, and literary types discuss authorial and narrative voice all the time, but many of them just can’t see a uniquely voiced book as worthy of review until the author is dead or somehow pulls the J.K. Rowling trick. It’s up to fans and reader reviews to get the book enough attention to merit attention on high visibility web-sites.
That said, I posted a couple of entirely notional awards at my website.
April 1, 2012
March 23, 2012
I been interviewed!
Bill
March 20, 2012
John Carter of Mars
I took my family to watch this film, and every one of us liked it. Even my wife, who found huge nits when she watched Casablanca, loved this. I draw that comparison because Casablanca has spawned so many imitations that My Bride thought the original film was full of clichés. John Carter of Mars started just that size of revolution among F&SF fans around the world, and the stuff Edgar Rice Burroughs dreamed up has been almost endlessly regurgitated for B movies and B pulp fiction, but ERB created it, and Disney brought that oeuvre boldly to life. I'm just pleased as punch, and my family had a great night at the movies. If this show hasn't left your village, go and watch it.
Visually it's as real in its stark reds and severe clime as Avatar is in its blues and verdant forests, and John Carter doesn't require that humanity export evil exploitation from America in order to fight it. Instead it gives us a hero who finds reasons for hope and love in extreme conditions, and doesn't then belabor that. It squeezes a love story into a few looks and some shared peril, and unfolds an entire alien, impossible, amazing and fun world before our eyes. And I loved that dog.
My only real nit was the red-men of Mars. In my mental picture they're a bold red, not a standard human coloration. I think giving them a native American cast of color but not foregrounding Native American actors gives the movie a mildly off ambiance - it looks too much like 1950s Western Movie red-face. They should have gone Cadillac Red.
Bill
