Sarah Chorn's Blog, page 35

#SPFBO 2017 Finalists

As I said in my round five mini reviews, I am planning on writing full book reviews for each of the finalists. I figured that I should probably make a list of what the finalists are, what they are about, and link to their Amazon pages, for those who are interested.

So, without further ado, here are the SPFBO 2017 round finalists from Bookworm Blues. Keep your eyes peeled for their full-length reviews which will drop randomly throughout the next few weeks.

Congratulations to the round winners. I’ll try to be as fast as possible with my reading and reviews so you guys don’t have to wait too long to see who the overall winner is. In the meantime, enjoy the publicity.

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Valley of Embers by Steven Kelliher

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For hundreds of years, the flame-wielding Embers have been the last line of defense against the nightmare creatures from the World Apart, but the attacks are getting worse. Kole Reyna guards Last Lake from the terrors of the night, but he fears for his people’s future.

When Kole is wounded by a demon unlike any they have seen before, the Emberfolk believe it is a sign of an ancient enemy returned, a powerful Sage known as the Eastern Dark.

Kole has never trusted in prophecy, but with his people hanging on the precipice, he reluctantly agrees to lead the Valley’s greatest warriors in a last desperate bid for survival. Together, they will risk everything in search of a former ally long-thought dead, and whether Kole trusts him or not, he may be the only one capable of saving them.

Anaerfell by Joshua Robertson & JC Boyd

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Drast and Tyran might be considered a bit black-hearted, or even immoral. Drast is cunning but reckless, hunting for admiration. Tyran is calculating but tactless, searching for affection. When the two brothers set aside their ambitions to fulfill their father’s desire for immortality, they readily discover many opportunities for redemption. Now, while wielding a powerful magic that drains their life, Drast and Tyran will embark on a maddening quest, facing skin-switchers, dragons, and the God of the Dead.

Sufficiently Advanced Magic by Andrew Rowe

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Five years ago, Corin Cadence’s brother entered the Serpent Spire — a colossal tower with ever-shifting rooms, traps, and monsters. Those who survive the spire’s trials return home with an attunement: a mark granting the bearer magical powers. According to legend, those few who reach the top of the tower will be granted a boon by the spire’s goddess.

He never returned.

Now, it’s Corin’s turn. He’s headed to the top floor, on a mission to meet the goddess.

If he can survive the trials, Corin will earn an attunement, but that won’t be sufficient to survive the dangers on the upper levels. For that, he’s going to need training, allies, and a lot of ingenuity.

The journey won’t be easy, but Corin won’t stop until he gets his brother back.

Ascend Online by Luke Chmilenko

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Diving into a revolutionary new video game, Marcus and his friends escape a stagnant society, entering into a world that defies their wildest imaginations. But from the moment that he logs in, Marcus finds himself separated from his friends and thrown into remote village under attack by a horde of goblins.

Forced into battle, Marcus rallies the beleaguered villagers and with their help, manages to drive off the invading creatures. With the village in ruins and their supplies spoiled, the survivors desperately turn to Marcus for help in rebuilding the village.

Realizing that this game is nothing like he’s ever played before, Marcus is swept up into a whirlwind of adventure as he struggles to defend his new home, quickly finding that marauding goblins are the least of his problems.

Once Lost Lords by Stephen Morse

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Humanity hasn’t been alone for almost two thousand years. Elves, wolves, vampires, all joined together with mankind to eradicate the ‘darker’ races and maintained a tentative peace until modern times. Society adapted, everyone has rules that help keep the peace in this modern era. Yet, absolute genocide is impossible when talking about creatures beyond the pale. Some hid, some buried, other were re-purposed.

Some, like Jay Fields, pass for human with a little bit extra. His abilities didn’t belong to one of the major races, but any information was buried along with the long dead boogie men. All Jay cared about was those closest to him and a job that let him hit people. He used to be a bouncer at a bar, a part-time enforcer for a loan shark, and even a fight club champion. That was four years ago, before betrayal by someone close sent him packing.

Now he’s back and trying to recover a life he left behind. Questions of origin aren’t his only problems. His ex-girlfriend is a vampire. His part-time boss doesn’t think he’s up to snuff anymore. There’s a missing elf who might have some answers, and Jay’s best friend is caught up in something dangerous…

Congratulations to all round finalists. Be on the lookout for your reviews (which will drop in no particular order). As soon as the last one is reviewed, I’ll announce the winner who moves on to the final round. 

#SPFBO 2017 | Round Five Mini Reviews (and some information about what’s next)

Well, here it is. The last round of mini reviews for the SPFBO 2017. Thanks to everyone who stuck with me throughout health drama, and surgeries, and all this life that keeps happening.

Now, we only have about five or six weeks of this phase of the contest and I really, really want to try something different. Usually I just list all of my round finalists and then I decide which one I like the most and say that it’s the winner. This time, I want to write full book reviews for each of the finalists, and then when I’m done with those reviews, tell all of you fine people which one was the overall winner.

This will take time, and it’s also requiring me to re-read each of the finalist books. I’ve already started, and unless life happens, I should be able to get it done. While I realize that everyone wants to know who the overall winner is, I also think that a big part of this contest is the publicity that authors get from it, and one of the ways that all of these finalists can win, and get the most out of their semi-finalist position, is if I give them as much publicity as I can. Therefore, I’m going to be throwing up full sized book reviews of each of the semi-finalists. I’ll try to plow through them as quickly as possible, but expect a few weeks before you learn who my overall winner is.

And, now on to this final group of SPFBO contestants.

Ginny O – The Lone Prospect

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This book is action-packed, and rather gritty. If you want to read a book that starts with a bang (kind of literally), then this might be your bag. This book is about a motorcycle club with a supernatural bend. Things aren’t all what they seem, and soon Gideon and his crew find themselves in a situation that is more than any of them expected, with far-reaching implications. I really enjoyed Ginny’s relentless storytelling ability here. She doesn’t pull any punches and really pounded the plot down my throat. That sounds bad, but I love a book that is what it is with no apologies. It’s fast paced, and easy to sink into. If I have some complaints, it’s regarding editing. There were some oddly worded sentence, some of the pacing was off, and some of the grammar made my eyes twitch. Other than that, this was a surprising book that packed a punch.

2.5/5 stars

Award: Grittiest

 

Marie Andreas – The Glass Gargoyle

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The Glass Gargoyle is one of those really fun books that you want to read on a rainy afternoon where you need a vacation from yourself. Seriously, just curl up with a mug of tea, and sit back and put yourself on pause. This book doesn’t require a lot of thought. It’s easy to sit back and just enjoy the book for what it is. It’s an adventure, and a sort of love letter to fantasy. The plot is pretty fast-paced, and some of the book falls into tropey territory, but that’s okay. The characters are lovingly crafted, and the world is created with some good details. The book is a lot of fun. Could it have used better editing? Yes. Some parts of the plot felt a little long-winded to me, and could have been cut down while others could have been expanded upon. Some of the grammar and sentences were awkward. There were some leaps of logic that left me puzzled. Despite that, this book was a lot of fun, and recommended for those times when you just need to sit back and enjoy something.

2.5/5 stars

Award: Most Passion and Heart

Gemma Perfect – The Kingmaker

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This is one of those books that will either work for you or it won’t. On the one hand, readers are introduced to this dark world where a young girl knows she’s about to die basically for the greater good. This interests me. I enjoy darker themes, and people who are willing to explore the emotional turmoil that often comes with them. On the other hand, I just had a really, really hard time believing any of it. The main character, the one fated for her death is so very placid, but she’s got this will to survive, and that juxtaposition is basically the factor that the plot hangs on and I just didn’t buy it. She was too placid to have such a will to survive. The story is told through various points of view, varying from first to third person and it felt really disjointed. There were grammatical errors and oddly phrased sentences which didn’t help matters, and the dialogue in some parts was unbelievably presented. Now, it might seem like I’m poo-pooing this book, and I guess I kind of am, but I did really enjoy the premise. I loved the setup, and I think the idea has merit. I just think it needs more editing to bring all the different parts of the idea together into a more cohesive whole.

2/5 stars

Award: Bravest

The Ghost Magnet – James Beach

I got this file as a .doc, and this has happened to me once before. I never notice it until I’m right on it. The email I got said the book was to be published around July 1, but after spending way too much time looking all over the internet, I can’t find it anywhere. Therefore, I’m going to use my judge’s power to say a little something about the book but not rate it. As far as I can see, this contest should be for published books (published, being the second word of the contest title), but since I didn’t notice this document right away, it’s my bad and the author deserves to have something said.

That being said, I am not perfect and I do make mistakes. If this book does exist in a published form somewhere, I’ll link to it’s page, add a cover, slap on a rating and etc. In it’s .doc incarnation, I will say something about it and then move on.

The Ghost Magnet takes place in St. Petersburg. It’s a gritty setting and some wham-bam writing that instantly pulled me in. I loved the style of prose, and the fact that the author seems to know how to pace things and how to pull readers in. It’s quickly apparent that the author knows how to work the atmosphere, and lead readers to certain conclusions while other things are actually happening. It’s short and sweet with very little dallying around. The editing looks good, by and large, and while I do think some parts went on a little long while I would have liked a few more details and a little elaboration in other parts, it’s a solid effort.

Elena Bryce – Guardian of the Grail

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It takes a lot (a whole lot) for me to want to read anything involving vampires these days. However, this one might be worth your time if you’re into this type of thing. I really enjoyed Bryce’s unique spin on mythology and her ability to take some tropes, and solidly turn them into her own thing. Hats of for that. There’s some Arthurian mythology, Christian mythology, a twist on vampire lore, and all of that is in 220+ pages. If it isn’t obvious from the cover, this book does involve romance, and the romantic element is pretty obvious as soon as it is introduced. Some of the dialogue is stilted, and if I really had to say anything negative about the book, it’s the fact that this book is going to be fighting against a tide of people who are sick of vampires, and it’s going to have a hard time due to that. That’s not the author’s fault in the least, but it’s market saturation and the way things go. Regardless, this is short and sweet, a nice romance and happily-ever-after for those of you looking into that sort of thing, and I really enjoyed the author’s ability to take tropes and mythology and weave them into a fun story in her own way.

3/5 stars

Award: Best Spin on Tropes and Mythology

Kit Abbey – All The Things You Have To Burn

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The idea of this book is wonderful. I also really liked the cover art. However, the editing was…. It really made it hard for me to read the book or enjoy it. There were a lot of typos, a lot of grammar errors, and some aspects of the plot that could have done with chopping and streamlining. I can see that there is a gem here, but I had a hell of a time taking off my editing hat and just reading the story. I hate saying that, and I feel like a real jerk for doing so, but there it is. This book is written with passion. The idea is fantastic, and there’s plenty of love here, but I had a really hard time seeing the forest for the trees. Basically this is a case of great idea, execution needs work.

2/5 stars

Award: Great Idea

Guys, this last chunk of books had a lot for me to love. Lots of great books and passion here, but I am going to harken back unto the rules I made when this SPFBO contest started where I said that if a group had more than one worthy finalist, I’d let them both be finalists, however if a group does not have a book that I feel stacks up, they will not have a finalist.

Ultimately, I fall into that second part of the rule here. Great books, all worth reading and checking out, but fundamentally I feel like they don’t hold up to quality I look for in round finalists.

 

Guest Post | 50,000 words and beyond by Glynn Stewart

About Glynn Stewart:

Glynn Stewart is the author of Starship’s Mage, a bestselling science fiction and fantasy series where faster-than-light travel is possible–but only because of magic. Stewart’s other works include the science fiction series Castle Federation and Duchy of Terra, as well as the urban fantasy series ONSET.

Writing managed to liberate Stewart from a bleak future as an accountant. With his personality and hope for a high-tech future intact, he now lives in Canada with his wife, his cats, and a portable cast of thousands for readers to meet in future books. You can learn more about Glynn Stewart at his website.

Buy Interstellar Mage here.

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With NaNoWriMo around the corner, I get a lot of questions about how I write 70-100K words per month. Part of the reason I can write so much is that it’s my job: I target 5,000 words a day, which is about an eight hour workday most of the time.

My process involves breaking things up so that I have enough energy to reach my target by the end of the day: I write quicker at the end of the day than I do at the start. About half of my workday is actually spent writing. Basically, I write a scene (which takes about a half hour) and then I go do something else: get coffee, have lunch, pay attention to the cats, check Facebook, play video games… it doesn’t really matter as long as at the end of the hour I’m back to writing.

It’s definitely easier as time goes on and you learn how to hit your stride. I’ve been writing full-time for about two years, and this July I finally reached 100,000 words in a month. That’s not something I plan to do every month! But it feels great that I’m at a point where I can sustain this pace: I can write the books that I want to write, my wife and I can work on it full-time, and I think my craft is getting better for it. I’m very pleased with the Duchy of Terra space opera trilogy that I’ve been working on for the last year or so.

So if you’re writing part time, getting to the point where your writing is a habit is your biggest goal—although other goals like using NaNoWriMo to write 50,000 words in a month can definitely help. But it’s not the be all end all, not if you’re trying to grow writing into something that you do every day. When I was writing part-time, I was targeting 1,000 words a day as best as I could, which translated into somewhere between 500 and 1,000 words a day in practice (or about three novels per year.)

There will always be someone who writes faster than you do: I know people who write triple the amount of words that I do in a week, and I do pretty well. Hold to your own goals, build habits, and figure out what works for you.

About Interstellar Mage:

Mars destroyed his ship — but gave him a new one.

Mars drafted his Mage — for the good of humanity!

He should have known that wouldn’t be the end of it…

Captain David Rice has a new ship, a new crew, and a new set of Jump Mages to carry him between the stars. All he wants is to haul cargo, make money and keep his head down.

His past, however, is not so willing to let him go. An old enemy is reaching out from beyond the grave to destroy any chance of peace or life for Captain Rice—and old friends are only making things more complicated!

All he wants is to be a businessman, but as the death toll mounts he must decide what is more important: his quiet life or the peace humanity has enjoyed for centuries…

#SPFBO 2017 | Round 4 Mini Reviews

Hats off to the most patient SPFBO group in the history of SPFBO groups. Life has been a bit all over recently (look at recent posts for details). I really, really appreciate people being so patient while I sort out my life.

Without further hesitation, here’s round four!

Kathy Cyr – Max Hamby

Max Hamby is one of those characters that you’ll really enjoy reading about, if you enjoy books like Harry Potter and various others of that nature. There’s a lot of magic, a lot of bad things happening to a kid that is obviously misunderstood. This book is geared toward young readers, so I read it with my kid. To be honest, she struggled a bit and lost interest in the first few chapters just because there was too much going on for her to track. I think if she’d stuck with it, she would have loved it, but as it was, the choppy beginning made it hard for her to want to see it through. The writing is strong, with a good blend of humor and tension, and the plot is imaginative, if a bit too reminiscent (at times) of other popular books on the market today.

2.5/5 stars

buy the book

Award: Most Adventurous

Trip Ellington – Evermage: Clash of Chaos

This is essentially an origin story. It’s well written, with a few issues. For example, there were some (one in particular) timeline jumps that made me a bit confused for a while. The book itself started strong, but it took me a bit of time to really feel fully engaged in the story and characters due to a full cast of names being dropped in quick order. A lot of things happen in this book, but our main protagonist keeps a feeling of hope alive throughout. I did feel like the author fell into the habit of telling not showing, and sometimes I felt like things got reiterated to me a few times too many. All in all, this is a really fun book with a strong premise and good writing.

3/5 stars

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Award: Best Origin Fantasy

Thaddeus White – Kingdom Asunder

Kingdom Asunder is one of those books you’ll either love or hate. Off the top, the scope is broad and sprawling, and it’s heavily political, so if you’re into shifting alliances, battles, and plenty of tension in that regard, this might be your animal. It’s obvious that White has a knack for really seeing huge sprawling dynamics and parsing them down to easily enjoyable bites for his readers. Now, I will say that I think this book could have used a little more editing. There were some rough edges, some oddly worded sentences and etc that stuck out to me. I will also say that I had a hard time really getting into the book at first because there was so much happening but it was all happening at once and it sort of overwhelmed me and was hard to track for a while. That being said, this is a strong start to an epic series.

3/5 stars

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Award: Grandest Epic

Luke Chmilenko – Ascend Online

First things first, I am not a gamer. I do not play games. I do not like playing games. I do not understand games, and I generally struggle with books focused on gaming. Another thing is, apparently this book is absolutely roaringly popular as an audiobook. I did not have the audiobook, so I read it, and maybe that impacted how I enjoyed it. Who knows. So, this book kind of flew over my head just because I am absolutely not the target audience for it. However, if I take off my not-a-gamer hat and put on my nerd-hat, I totally get it. This is homage to all of those people who have spent so much time immersing themselves in RPG games. This is like a love letter to gaming, and for its target audience, I think it (rightfully) a hit. It takes time for things to get going, for characters to build up and for the world to come alive, but I can see the passion and I just loved it for that. No, it’s not my cup of tea, but I really enjoyed it despite that. For what it’s worth, Luke Daniel’s narrated the audiobook. He is one of my FAVORITE narrators so I will probably end up spending a credit on this book sometime soon so I can listen to it.

4/5 stars

Buy the book

Award: Most passion

Howard Gurney – Twin

I struggled with this one. The idea is interesting, but the execution left something to be desired, mostly because I feel like the book could have used more editing. This is a book with an interesting premise, and it deserves attention, but, to be honest, I’m a little tired of the good ol’ prophecy epic fantasy themes. The reveals didn’t surprise me that much and while I do consider this one a valiant effort and absolutely worth the time spent reading it, in the end I was kind of left wishing it had turned out to be more unique that it ultimately ended up being. I know that seems cruel for me to say, but in truth there is a lot here for readers to enjoy. If you’re a fan of adventure fantasy, the old-style epics that deal with quests and big reveals and prophecies, then this might be your book. The author loved what he was writing, and while the book wasn’t my precise style, it might be yours.

3/5 stars

Buy the book

Award: Best Classical Fantasy

Stephan Morse – Once Lost Lords

I’m going to admit, when I saw the word “vampire” in the synopsis of this book, I just about put it down. However, I’m sooooo glad I didn’t. This book has vampires and werewolves and elves and all that stuff, but it’s got a new twist on them that I really enjoyed. The protagonist it believable and rough around the edges, the world is real and well realized, and the plot is fast paced. Events do get a bit muddled and confused in places, but the writing is strong and the plot really is addicting. I was pleasantly surprised throughout this book. The pacing can be a bit slow and some of the protags decisions were kind of dumb and obviously made to further the plot rather than for logical purposes, but all in all, this was a lot of fun and a very pleasant read.

4/5 stars

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Award: Best Twist on Tropes

 

 

Remember how, way back when I said I would award no winners, one winner, or more winners in a round if I felt like it? Well, I am exercising that right this week.

Congratulations to both winners of this round!

The Day I Met Tad Williams, and other things

I’ve been a little, um… distracted.

I wrote a book. I edited the book. I landed an agent. I printed my book off and now I’m doing the final edits before I send it to beta readers, and then off to my agent. I’ve also had some medical stuff going on, like becoming a cyborg. I’ve been so up to my neck in my own book and life, that I’ve lost the thread of this blog.

The truth is, I don’t like reviewing when I’m distracted. I don’t feel like I’m giving the authors or books I’m reading the attention and dedication they deserve, so I kind of go quiet and surface again when I’m not so lost in my own life.

However, something very cool did happen. First, a bit of a backstory so you get where I’m coming from.

When I was about 14 or 15, I hated just about everything. I was a miserable teenager, both in attitude and with how I generally felt. I was very depressed and lonely and I just hated life, myself, and everyone and everything. My two big brothers were really into reading, and they approached me and basically thrust a series of books at me. They spent WEEKS urging me to read them, and I remember I finally decided I’d do it just to shut them up.

I fell in love with those books. During a time in my life when I literally didn’t love anything, and I was thinking of nonexistence with a fondness that really shocks me looking back on it, these books broke through my dark haze and made me feel passion for the first time in years.

Ultimately, these books got me started reading fantasy, and loving fantasy. These books also got me wanting to write fantasy. These books are, in a very real way, the fundamental building blocks that led me on the road I’m on today, with years reviewing books in the genre, editing, and my own epic fantasy book, an agent, and potentially, my own publication.

These books are huge to me, and so is the author.

These books are the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series by Tad Williams.

Recently Tad was in town for Salt Lake Comic Con. I couldn’t attend this year due to recently having spine surgery. It was too hard for me to manage a venue that big, and the idea of being inevitably bumped by someone in a crowd terrified me. However, Tad Williams, this sort of icon for me, was in town and I had to meet him. I just had to. It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

I contacted his wife, who has worked as a go-between for me and Tad in the past for interviews and what have you, and she kindly worked out a time I could meet him. It was a short visit last Saturday morning. I had a funeral to attend, and he had some things going on at SLCC, but it was a visit, and it meant the world to me.

Tad is a very nice guy. We talked a bit. He signed my books, which I will cherish, and generally surprised me with how approachable and kind he was. I am overjoyed that he took the time out of his busy life to visit with me. It was absolutely surreal and fantastic to meet him. I really can’t say enough about the experience. It was really nice to be able to chat with him and tell him how his books profoundly impacted me, and really paved the way for my life to go the direction it has with reading/editing/writing things.

It was incredible, and I’m very, very lucky/happy that I got to meet him.

Here are some photos.

My Cyborg Life

Life has been absolutely nuts for me recently, to the point where I just threw my hands in the air and had to totally give up reviewing for a span. Hopefully now things will slow down and I’ll be able to get back into it. In this precise moment, however, I want to tell you one big thing thats been flipping things on its head.

It all started in 2011 when I reached into the closet to get a towel and my lower spine basically caved in on itself and smashed the nerve root that controls my right leg. At the time I was pregnant and fighting cancer, so I was living in extreme pain and basically unable to walk for over a year before I could get it treated. I ended up having three spine surgeries. Those, along with extensive physical therapy, got me walking again. I have lost almost complete feeling in my right leg, but luckily I retained function. I walk with a limp and when it’s bad, I use a cane.

However, those smashed nerves I mentioned above, were smashed for so long that they ended up getting smothered by scar tissue and they are constantly firing pain signals into my brain. Nerve pain is awful. I’ve been on medication, which has done nothing to help it. Physical therapy also didn’t help at all. I’ve had injections directly into the nerves. Nada. I’ve had injections into my spine. Zippola. Nothing has helped and I’ve literally tried everything. I’ve been living with this pain for six years now.

Last winter I switched to a different primary care doctor. He asked me how I was doing, and I just fell into tears in the doctor’s office. I mean, rivers of tears. You see, my nerve issues have been getting worse, to the point where I spend most nights wrestling my leg now because the nerves trigger and it moves on its own. My foot bends the wrong way. The muscles in my calf and thigh feel like they are being ripped apart. It takes hours and HOURS to get them to calm down, and it’s unimaginable agony while I try to keep my nerves from forcing my muscles to snap my leg in half like a twig.

I knew that I had gone through every pain management treatment in the books, so when my doctor gave me a referral to a chronic pain management doctor and asked me to just give it a try, I decided to do just that, but I had absolutely no hope of this doctor offering to do anything any previous doctors haven’t already offered.

I was wrong.

I’ve spent most of this year going through extensive tests and having my medical history combed through. After it was established that yes, I have literally tried every treatment to impact this pain in the books, I was sent to get an MRI. My doctor said my MRI showed that I fall under the “failed back surgery” umbrella, where, for one reason or another, the chronic pain just never goes away. In this MRI it was also established that my nerves are being smothered by scar tissue and operating in that area isn’t an option because that would just add more scar tissue and make it all so much worse.

We talked options, and that’s when I first learned about spine stimulators.

Spine stimulators are electrodes that are inserted into your spine above the injured area. Nerves send signals up your spine to your brain, so basically when the spine stimulator is on, those smashed nerves fire pain signals up to my brain, and the electrodes sort of scramble the message so my brain gets white noise. It’s not perfect, but for those it works on, it can cause a dramatic reduction in pain, with no medication or shots required.

The iPad is how they program the device. The iPod is the remote control I’m given, and the gray things are the battery packs/generator, which is inserted into my left hip.

I decided to go that route, which started another whole barrage of tests. One test was a three hour appointment with a psychologist. Due to the fact that these stimulators directly impact your brain and the signals its getting, I had to be screened to make sure that this sort of stimulation wouldn’t flip a mental switch, because that is a risk. Once I passed that exam, my insurance approved the trial period.

During the trial I was put on twilight drugs, and the electrodes were inserted via epidural needle and the battery pack was attached to my hip by tape. My St. Jude’s representative was there to program the device and show me how it worked. One week later I went back to have it removed, and talked to the doctor about my results.

I decided to really go for it and see how this device would work during my trial period. After a few days of recovery, I went back to work and I completely took myself off of my medications (I’m on a medication to calm my nerves, and a muscle relaxer). I wanted to see how this thing would work against my pain, unmedicated.

The trial reduced my pain by about 70%, and reduced my nights of fighting my nerves to one, instead of seven.

My doctor sent my trial information and patient work and all that etc over to a neurosurgeon who specializes in installing medical devices. After a wait, the insurance approved a permanent device, and my surgery was scheduled September 12.

The surgery takes about an hour and a half. They put the electrodes into my T8-T9 level spine (about the bra strap range – the top box on the graphic, while my injury is in the bottom box). The incision is about four inches long. They used a paddle for these electrodes, and had to carve out a little bit of my vertebrae to place them and then stitch them in place. In about two months the scar tissue will form and hold the electrodes where they are. Until then I have to be very careful. I can’t bend, lift, or twist or it could move the paddle and that would mean another surgery.

So they put the paddle there, and then they run the wires over to the battery pack, which was installed in a pocket the doctor created in my left hip. All of this is under the skin. Once I heal, all that will be seen are scars. The battery lasts about 5-7 years, and the surgery to replace it takes about ten minutes.

During the trial, the electrodes were on wires, about the size of spaghetti. They switched them to paddles for permanent placement because the paddles give out a stronger signal, and the surgeon can direct it a lot more than they could with the wires, so I need to use less of a signal (conserves battery life) to get a better result (targets the nerve signals a lot better than the trial ones did).

I have a remote control, which for now is an ipod touch that St. Jude gave me. Apparently they are working to make the device useable on smartphones, but due to HIPPA issues, for now the app can only be used on iPod touches. It kind of sucks having two devices to carry around, but in the scheme of things, that’s really small potatoes. The remote allows me to turn the electrodes off and on, control their strength, and I have a few different programs I can use. I also have an MRI mode (I can only use certain certain MRIs). I have an airplane mode, and I have a surgery mode. Along with that, I have this nifty card I need to carry in my wallet because I can’t go through metal detectors anymore, and if there’s an emergency, people need to know I’ve got stuff going on.

I have a lot of hope, and I’m very excited that this basically eliminates the need to take medication to handle the issues associated with these nerves, so in a huge way, I feel liberated.

I have a lot of healing I need to do, but I’m really excited to see just how this transforms my life. I was basically sedentary before, just due to pain and issues moving a leg I can’t feel and all that. I’m excited to see how much more I can do. When I did my trial period, I walked through Costco and didn’t need to rest for hours after, which was incredible. I can’t wait to do that again.

The TL/DR summary:

I am now a cyborg.

Sometimes Good Things Happen

Wow. So this is something I never thought I’d write.

I’ve been writing a book. The working title is Seraphina’s Lament, and it sits firmly under the dark epic fantasy banner. Really dark. Really, really dark.

So I was writing this book more because I just had a story to tell, rather than anything serious. Then I decided I liked this story that I was telling, so I decided to take it seriously. Well, after about a month and a half, I pounded out roughly 107,000 words and last week I got to type “The End.” It was surreal. I wrote a whole entire book.

I did that.

Me!

So I wrote this book and I decided somewhere along the way that I’m going to try and get an agent. This is a book that I’m going to try to publish. But, you know, I’ve been around for a while and I’ve seen how dog-eat-dog this stuff is. I figured I’d give it a try, but not hang my hopes too high. It takes years for authors to get agents, and why would it be any different for me? Plus, my life these past few years, health-wise, has been one gigantic battle and I just dug in and figured that publishing this book would be the same way.

But what the hell, right? What am I out? If nothing else, I can learn origami and make pretty little things out of rejection letters.

Last night I sat down and pounded out a query letter, and a biography, and I edited the first three chapters of my manuscript. I attached all this stuff to an email to my dream agent and mailed it off at about 9:30pm. Then I figured out a plan of action. While I’m waiting to probably never hear from this dude, I’ll work on editing Seraphina’s Lament, while I outline the second book in that series, and edit projects that clients are paying me to edit. I’ve got a lot of things to keep my mind off of the wait for this agent.

This morning I took my six-year-old to school, and then went to the store with my two-year-old so I could buy the caffeine I need to drink to survive. I got home at about 9:30am, and checked my email.

And lo! A letter from Dream Agent was sitting in my inbox. I clicked on it and read that he wants me to call him so we can discuss representation. Then I promptly fell into a ball on my kitchen floor and started crying. I don’t know about you, but apparently my first reaction when I am grappling with a childhood dream coming true is falling into tears. My two-year-old was kind of panicked, standing over me and saying, “Okay, mama? Okay?” Yes, little bird, I’m okay.

Well, lunch comes around and the little one takes a nap so I call Dream Agent and we talk. We talk about what he does. Who he is. Who he represents. How his agency works. His vision for my work. On and on, and it was everything I wanted to hear. I’ve been around a while, and I’ve seen a lot of authors complain about a lot of things, and he just checked off all of my boxes without me even needing to ask.

Then he said, “Well, do you want to think about this offer for a while?” and I said, “No. Yours is a bandwagon I’m completely prepared to jump on.” And thus, we started our relationship. We talked about next steps for Seraphina’s Lament, and future prospects (my favorite line was, “It’s not a matter of IF you get published, it’s a matter of WHEN.” Be still, my heart.).

And, the crazy thing is, this is all based on a twelve hour wait (most of which I slept through), and three chapters read. Three. Chapters.

Basically this all boils down to the fact that I am now being represented by Mark Gottleib at Trident Media.

Occasionally dreams do come true.

Guest Post | A Deeper World – G. R. Matthews

About the Author

Geoff Matthews began reading in the cot. His mother, at her wits end with the constant noise and unceasing activity, would plop him down on the soft mattress with an encyclopaedia full of pictures then quietly slip from the room. His father, ever the pragmatist, declared, that they should, “throw the noisy bugger out of the window.” Happily this event never came to pass (or if it did Geoff bounced well). Growing up, he spent Sunday afternoons on the sofa watching westerns and Bond movies with the self-same parent who had once wished to defenestrate him. When not watching the six-gun heroes or spies being out-acted by their own eyebrows he devoured books like a hungry wolf in the dead of winter. Beginning with Patrick Moore and Arthur C Clarke he soon moved on to Isaac Asimov. However, one wet afternoon in a book shop in his home town, not far from the standing stones of Avebury, he came across a book by David Eddings – and soon Sci-Fi gave way to Fantasy. Many years later, Geoff finally realised a dream and published his own fantasy novel, The Stone Road, in the hopes that other hungry wolves out there would find a hearty meal.

Website

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In science fiction we almost always look to the stars for our future. We imagine great starships plying trading routes, great wars, space stations and hard bitten rogues who don’t give a damn for the rules. You think; Star Wars, Star Trek, Peter F Hamilton, Iain M Banks, Kameron Hurley, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Asimov, Clarke, Robinson; stories that span galaxies and eons.

There is an undoubtable allure to space and pushing those boundaries – diving into that void and exploring what we can be, might be and maybe never will be. However, now that I have whet your appetite for those kind of stories, I am going to talk to you about another frontier, another setting for SciFi, and I am going to ask you to fill up your oxygen tank, or if you’re really brave clamber into your Fish-Suit and breathe down that Oxyquid.

We’re heading for the deep… it is cold, dark and full of adventure.

It isn’t difficult to imagine a possible future where we have a civilisation, or at least habitats and factories, at the bottom of the sea. The oceans cover seventy percent of the earth’s surface – over two thirds – and we are crowded on the third that’s left, and a lot of that is uninhabitable. Think about it; hot and cold deserts, mountains, forests. We lose a lot land that way. It is kind of amazing we have any room to live at all!

To make it worse, our resources are dwindling at an ever increasing rate. Below the ocean, below the mud that covers the plains down there, there are a myriad of resources just waiting to be exploited – as long as we do it carefully and sustainability. There is food, fish, crustaceans, plants. Energy from tides, currents, thermal vents. If it wasn’t for the tiny problem of the crushing pressure we’d be down there now.

It has been thought about before, in different ways, on television, in films and in books.

SeaQuest DSV (1993 – 1996) may have been closer to the truth than we realised at the time. Starring the man who killed Jaws, a dolphin and a teenage genius (Wesley Crusher underwater… in bigger sweaters) the SeaQuest patrolled the seas solving drama’s, quite often with an ecological edge to them. With that kind of sales pitch it is probably hard to understand that the series tried to bring politics, culture, science and science fiction into the same place and only managed four series. A world above of governments struggling to create a utopia and a below-the-sea culture of corporations, shaky governments and frontier style living.

Of course, as you’re all shouting right now, that this is far from the first example. Let’s go back in time to 1870 and Jules Verne – 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. In this classic we are first introduced to Captain Nemo, a man who has rejected everything the world above the seas has to offer and has chosen to live beneath the waves. They farm seaweed, hunt fish, and travel the eponymous 20,000 leagues around the world in Submarine so far in advance of anything that existed in the day, and today in many ways.

Submarines, the essential tool to living under the water, are not new. There are stories, written down in the 16th Century, of Alexander The Great employing divers and diving bells during his campaign around the Mediterranean – admittedly, that’s a less than reliable source (it being written almost two thousand years later), but it shows that people were thinking about it even then (in the 1500s, not 300BCs – though who knows?). If we are going to live under the sea, we would need better technology than we have currently. We’ll need to build cities, learn to draw power and sustenance from the oceans. More than anything we will need to deal with the pressure at depth, and that presents so many problems for us. We’re not evolved to live there and we breathe air.

Consider it for a moment. Take a pen and draw a spider diagram or a mind map… start with the problems we’ll face, the immediate ones and then draw out from there. Keep adding all the complications to life under the ocean.

Oxygen? Well, that’s in the sea water if we can find a way to separate it from the Hydrogen. We can use electrolysis for that, simple. Except now we need a constant supply of power to keep that running (add power to your diagram), but keep going on this chain. Oxygen at high levels (percentage of the atmosphere) and high pressures, even just 3 bars of pressure (20m deep), can cause convulsions after just ten minutes. We need to keep the oxygen at similar levels to the surface (21% or so) if we want to live in the deeps, which means we need more gases to “bulk out” the atmosphere… and they can’t be poisonous. Add that to your diagram. Then you’ve got to get rid of the Carbon Dioxide and do that for a whole civilisation that is contained in a city – no wind, no fresh air coming in, and no kilometres of atmosphere above your head.

And that’s not even one full chain of problems, solution and consequence. If we’re going to live under the ocean it is going to take a lot of effort, a lot of science, and a lot of driven individuals and companies.

But what if we had no choice? What if, for whatever reason, the surface world could no longer support us? What if we had to flee below the oceans for our very survival? What would our lives be like?

—

For more about the author’s work…

Even when Corin does something right, it all goes wrong. Now he is on the run from criminal gangs and the law.

With danger coming from every direction, can he save the lives of two children as well as his own? It isn’t going to be easy, but when has life in the corporation controlled cities ever been.

Feedback on Silent City (Corin Hayes, Book #1):

“(A) book that isn’t short on action or imagination and the setting is an interesting change of pace, so check it out!” – Mark Lawrence (Author of Prince of Thorns, Prince of Fools)

“Entertaining and exciting: Silent City is the start of a series I’ll certainly be following with interest.” – Laura M Hughes (Author of Danse Macabre)

“Damn good fun, intriguing as hell, different and exciting, I devoured this book.” – Dyrk Ashton (Author of Paternus)

Outlaw Mountain is a free short story you can find here.

Buy Silent City here.

Buy Three Times the Trouble here.

#SPFBO 2017 | Round 3 Mini Reviews

First of all, I am so very sorry this post has been so delayed. August has really been wiping me out. My two-year-old with a congenital kidney disorder had to undergo some really stressful tests at the hospital. I had my own medical crap going on (a temporary spine stimulator inserted into my spinal column). Then we had the big kid’s birthday on the 15th and the little kid’s birthday on the 17th, and my parents in town visiting. Tomorrow the big kid starts first grade. She will be happy to be back at school, and I’ll get to adjust to having one kid at home all day instead of two. I hope against hope that my productivity increases.

I have an appointment with a neurosurgeon on the 30th to discuss permanent placement of my spine stimulator. This is a surgery, and it should happen sometime in September, so as far as I know, that will probably be the next chunk of upset that will probably delay some postings on this website. I’ll keep people apprised when I know more.

Anyway, here’s group three!

M.M. Perry – Whom The Gods Love

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If you’re in the mood for an adventure fantasy with a strong female lead, this might be your jam. This story has a mythological feel to it, but Perry took time to develop some real believable characters. In fact, I was really surprised by how three-dimensional her characters felt. The world was just as interesting, and the adventure/goal complimented it all quite well. The writing was superb, but it could have used a bit more editing. There were some choppy sentences that set off my editing brain something fierce, but they were few and far between. My main issue would have to be the pacing. I just felt like things took a little too long to get going. There was a lot of development, and the action was too far behind the development for the one to punch into the other – if that makes sense. I think some of the emotional umph I like in the books I read was probably lost due to that. Furthermore, there were a lot of secondary characters and names introduced that seemed to get lost in the mix. Aside from that, however, this is one of those books that I found to be rather enchanting, and a nice diversion from the things I typically read.

4/5 stars

Award: Best Protagonist

 

Dale Triplett – Halcyon’s Wake: Faith

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I enjoy science fiction, but I’m a really picky science fiction reader. Halcyon’s Wake is a short, sweet book with an almost aggressive writing style that sort of punched me back in my chair and forced me to pay attention. This book is…. weird. I mean that in the best possible way. It’s kind of like Triplett let himself imagine just about anything, and took his most wild imaginings and put them in this book, like a space Sasquatch. There are some juvenile jokes thrown around as well, but under all this fluff is an interesting book that plays with some deeper themes that were really thoughtfully done. It’s one of those books you can enjoy for the banter, or you can enjoy for the deeper themes. Triplett has an obvious passion for space, UFOs, aliens, military stuff and whatever else. He talks about most of this stuff in easily digestible ways, which is good. The book itself was over almost as fast as it started, and while I wasn’t sure what to expect going into it, I ended up really enjoying myself by the end of it. It’s different. It’s not really like anything else I’ve read, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s a book full of passion and vision, and I felt that in each page.

3.5/5 stars

Award: The Most Passion

Nancy Foster – An Ominous Book

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My kid just turned six, and she’s obviously my kid and I read too much, which means that most of the young adult stuff I come across gets read to her. So, my six-year-old read this book along with me. Now, she’s not the person who judges what every kid her age enjoys, but I think she’s a pretty good barometer for what some young adults probably look for in books (or not, what the hell do I know?). Anyway, this is all to say that while I might be tired of elves and castles and witches and all that, it seems to me like a lot of kids really enjoy that stuff. I mean, look at Harry Potter, for example. Anyway, all of this aside, basically I’m saying that this book seems to have most elements that kids/young adults/people of various ages enjoy. Elves. Castles. Witches. Warlocks. Magic. Adventure. This book has it all, and it’s a whole lot of fun. It moves fast, and my kid was rather enthralled by it all and ended up really enjoying the book as a whole. Now, I did find some clunky sentences. The plot was a bit predictable, and the ending left something to be desired. As a whole, however, this book seemed to appeal to the audience for which it was written, and it was one of those books that I read with my kid, and we both enjoyed the experience.

3.5 stars

Award: Most Cross-Genre Appeal

Andrew Rowe – Sufficiently Advanced Magic

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One thing I can say about this book is that the world building was fascinating. I really enjoyed the scope and depth of the world, and the magic system as a whole. This is obviously the first book in a series, and I felt like a lot of it was spent setting things up for what is going to happen next, if that makes sense. Now, that’s kind of what I expect when I read the first book of an epic fantasy series. The characters are interesting for their own reasons, though one character got on my nerves a bit. This book had some pacing hiccups, and some people make some dumb decisions that I think were pretty obviously dumb. This is, in a large sense, an adventure fantasy. Our protagonist, Corin, is entering the Serpent Spire, and it’s full of trials and revelations as he goes. Is this a perfect book? No. But I don’t really think it needs to be. Rowe is building a world and establishing his characters. There’s an interesting magic system, and many shenanigans along the way. Corin got on my nerves at points. The plot does lag in certain places. But the world building was fantastic, and the magic system enthralled me (despite the fact that I felt like it was overanalyzed to death at certain points). For the first book in an epic fantasy series, you can’t really ask for more than what this one gives you.

4/5 stars

Award: Best Epic

Jamie Brindle – A Treatise on Blood and Iron

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I’m not really sure where to start with this one, and I’m afraid that’s something that the author probably gets a lot when reviewers read this book. That’s not a bad thing, mind you. Sometimes a book is just so…. much… that it kind of boggles my mind. That’s this one. First of all, I can’t fathom how Brindle put all this together. I mean, the author must have had charts stretching all over the place regarding how one story fit into another story which fits into another story…. Okay, let me slow down a bit. A Treatise on Blood and Iron is a fairytale type book. It starts out with an old woman telling a story to a bunch of kids in a cottage. From this story, starts another story, which starts another, until you’re reading a story within a story within a story. I will admit the start of the book was less impressive than the rest of it for a few reasons, and some of the stories later on got a little confusing, but all in all, considering how complex this book is, and how many moving parts there are, I was incredibly impressed. It’s a book that requires a lot of mental exercise, but in the end, the core focus of the book is clear, and the way the author danced around it was impressive. Will this book be for everyone? No, but again, that’s not a bad thing. It’s a book you sort of need to be in the mood for, but it’s quite impressive and really well written, so if you’re in the mood for a story within a story within a story within a… with a few laughs thrown in for good measure, then this one is for you.

4/5 stars

Award: Most Intricate

Alesha Escobar – The Tower’s Alchemist

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This book is an alternative version of WWII, full of magic and interesting creatures. While the lines that are drawn between the sides of the war remain roughly the same, each side has its interesting magic and use of said magic. I have to say, I’m kind of tired of books reinventing WWII, but Escobar did a really good job here. She took a war that is done and done and done in SpecFic, and she made it interesting. She drops readers right into the middle of the action, and from the first page things are going hard and fast. It’s a gripping story full of really wonderful historic detail, and the pacing is out of this world. Escobar has a way with making her words count. Her secondary characters didn’t get much stage time, but they were incredibly well drawn (for example). However, there were some odd sentences here and there that stuck out to me. The pacing can get a bit wonky in places, making me question the timeline. There was an overabundance of character names and code names, and I can see how they can get a bit confusing here and there. But all in all, this was a book that I really enjoyed. It had a unique flavor, and I really ended up devouring this one.

3.5/5 stars

Award: Best Twist of History

The winner is…

My SciFi Life | An Update (of sorts)

I’ve been a little out of commission recently. There are reasons for that, mostly health reasons (I can hear your gasp of surprise now). My almost two-year-old has a congenital kidney disorder and we had to take her back to the children’s hospital for a round of really horrible tests. I had a doctor’s appointment where I learned that Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome is ravaging my body (yeah, shock shock). The extent of that appointment really depressed me.

But I also had a trial period for a spine stimulator.

Now, for those of you who don’t know, a spine stimulator is electrodes that are inserted into your spinal column via epidural needle. These electrodes, when they are turned on, sort of fuzz the signals that the impacted nerves below the electrodes are sending up to your brain. Your nerves send the pain signal, the electrodes scramble that signal, and your brain gets white noise.

Back in 2011, I had a severe spine injury that landed me paralyzed for a while. I ended up having three spine surgeries, and had to learn how to walk again. The nerve damage, however, is permanent. I lost feeling in almost all of my right leg (though I retained function, after some re-learning). However, my smothered, smashed, and almost dead nerve roots that control my right leg are sending these blinding pain signals constantly. I’ve literally tried every single form of treatment, pain management and whatever else. The spine stimulator was my last option.

After an MRI, some other tests to see if I’d be a good candidate, and various things of that nature, last week I underwent the trial period for the spine stimulator. It was a surreal experience. It decreased my nerve pain by about 80%, and increased my mobility. I walked around Walmart without needing to rest for hours after, for example. The electrodes didn’t really feel like anything unless I turned them up too high, and then it felt like a gentle tingle. The remote control was an app downloaded onto my iPhone. It was really cool.

I did so well with the trial, that I’m going to have a surgery to permanently place the device. And then I will join the Cyborg Army. Technology is really neat, and I’m so glad that options like this are available for those that can benefit from them. I feel like I’m living in one of those near-future SciFi books I love to read.

I’m actually really excited to get these permanently placed. I’ve been so out of commission due to chronic pain for so many years, having at least one pain reduced so much has the very real potential of changing my life. Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome hurts, but I feel like that hurt will be so much more manageable when my nerves aren’t constantly screaming at me, on top of everything else. This technology is awesome, and the potential impact is has on chronic pain populations (who can use this sort of tech) is astounding. I’m excited to see where it goes and how it changes in my lifetime. But regardless, soon my spine will be bluetooth capable.

Aside from that, I’m also neck deep into writing a novel. Tonight I hit the 70k words mark, which I celebrated by sharing an oreo shake with my kids. It’s an epic fantasy which, I think, falls into the grimdark category. I’m pretty sure that once you add cannibalism as a major plot thread, you are, indeed, writing grimdark and I just need to own that. I’ve had a few people look at what I’ve written so far with very good results, and a few interested glances from some agents, which excites me. I have a long way to go before I’ve got a clean manuscript, but it’s a cool experience. I’m enjoying it, and I’m sure I will learn a lot while I write, clean it up, scream at it a bit, clean it some more, cry a little, and finally enter the attempt-to-publish ring, but that is most assuredly where I’m going to try to end up.

It’s a book featuring strong women, mostly people of color, various sexual/gender orientations, and disabilities. It’s dark and dirty, very diverse, and I’m very, very proud of it (and terrified about the whole process). Currently its working title is Seraphina’s Lament.

Aside from all of that, my editing business is keeping me hopping. I’ve got a lot of projects on my desk, and I’m loving every single one of them.

I was going to do my round three mini reviews for the SPFBO today, but I got lost writing that book, and I’ve only got half of my mini-reviews written, so you’ll have those to read on Wednesday.

So that’s where I’m at right now.