Steven Radecki's Blog, page 3

NaNoWriMo 2020 Report: Week Two

Current word count:  23,333

Words this week:  12,015

Average words per day:  1,716

Surprisingly, I didn’t really suffer much from the Week Two slump. (The Virtual Write-In during the weekend helped with that.) I have a feeling I might be saving that for Week Three …

The story still refuses to become, well, a story. The protagonist is doing things and encountering things, but there really isn’t any plot yet. Still, words are words, and this might still turn into something. And, to be honest, I’m kind of having fun with it!

Until next week … Write on!

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NaNoWriMo 2020 Report: Week One

Current word count:  9,800

Words this week:  9,800

Average words per day:  1,400

A good, steady start this year — not as many words as I had hoped, but I’m not (yet) hopelessly behind.

This was supposed to be a 10,000(-ish) word short story. It is clearly not going to be that. What it is going be, I’m not sure yet. Most of it has been exposition and travelogue as the point-of-view character journeys through its surroundings. Where the story itself is actually going to end up, I have absolutely no idea at this point.

Until next week … Write on!

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No, No, No … Not NaNoWriMo Already?

How did we suddenly get to November so quickly?

I know that it’s been quite a year (don’t get me started …), but still …

Anyway, I’m almost ready. This year I’m going to try something a little different. I don’t have an idea for a full-blown novel, so I’m going to start with a short story for an anthology that I started out as just a silly idea amongst those of us in our virtual writing group and took on a literary life of its own. That’s just how it works sometimes.

Once I finish that story, I have several writing projects that need to be completed, so I will probably tackle one of those to finish out for the remainder of the 50,000-word goal.

Until next week … Write on!

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New Book Release: “Once Upon a Nightwalker”

Ellen Bloom just wants a normal working relationship with her colleagues at her old job. But, at this point, she’d be happy with a pulse.

Originally published in the Corporate Catharsis anthology, “Once Upon a Nightwalker” is a terrific standalone story set in the author’s “The Z-Tech Chronicles” universe (the first two books which, I realize now, I have been remiss in publishing my reviews on — I will get on that right after NaNoWriMo). It’s a terrific blend of the eerie supernatural with the unpleasant reality of an unforgiving corporate culture.

I highly recommend this story. Even better, you can get it right now for free!

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New Book Release: “The Found Child”

Private Investigator Shelby McDougall is out for revenge.

Repeated miscarriages have caused Shelby’s marriage to disintegrate. Financial ruin lies ahead. A cheek swab sent to an online ancestry service turns up a surprise child: Shelby’s genetic offspring — found in the misty ether of the internet.

The only way Shelby can hang on to her shredding sanity is to take things into her own hands and, once and for all, locate and apprehend Helen Brannon — the woman responsible for hijacking her fertility … and her future.

As Shelby closes in on her target, the stakes get higher and higher. But when Shelby finds Helen Brannon … how far will she go?

The Found Child is a satisfying conclusion to the three-book “Shelby McDougall Mystery” series. The authors takes some slightly darker turns than in their previous two books, but that tone is actually quite fitting given the underlying theme of Shelby’s drive for revenge. Although this book brings closure to Shelby’s personal story arc, I would love to see future stories about her life and adventures.

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Listening to the Past, Present, and Future

As much as a I prefer reading physical books when I want to escape from what passes for reality these days, anyone who knows me also knows that I am a big fan of audiobooks. My Audible subscription has no doubt saved me from countless episodes of commute-induced road rage. For those of you who have followed along, you’ll also know that I find it a great way to revisit older, beloved stories without spending my limited physical reading time.

Sheltering and working from home has, of course, reduced my audiobook consumption rate to nearly zero. Now that I’m nearly caught up with listening to most of the podcasts to which I subscribe, I realized that, “Oh, yes!”, I can listen to audiobooks just as well as podcasts during my (somewhat) daily walks.

This week, I finally listened to one that had been in my “Up Next” list for a little while: Space: 1999 – Breakaway by Big Finish Productions. It’s actually a full-cast dramatization, rather than an audiobook, but it’s a terrific update to the television series of the same name. It brings the technology a bit more current to the present day and provides a (somewhat) more plausible explanation for the events that set the premise for the series. I highly recommend it and look forward to the new episodes in February 2021.

I do want to add that Big Finish Productions does an absolutely incredible job on all of the productions that I have listened to. If you’re also a fan of Torchwood, I cannot recommend highly enough their original full-cast recordings based on that series. They totally sound and feel like unaired episodes from that series. Again, I cannot recommend those highly enough.

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New Book Release: “Back to the Land in Silicon Valley”

“We all worked together. Ate together. Sang together. Learned together. We had a good life. After living close to the natural cycles of the earth year after year, good and not good, we grew stronger and more resilient, learned to manage our occasional conflicts with tolerance and love.”

When Marlene Bumgarner and her husband moved to a rural plot of land in 1973, she thought of herself as simply a young mother seeking an affordable and safe place in which to raise her child.

By the time she left the land nearly a decade later, she had written two books and a weekly newspaper column, served as contributing editor to a national magazine, a college instructor, and a sought-after public speaker. Her natural food store, The Morgan Hill Trading Post, was the first one in her community.

Follow Marlene and her friends as they live on the land, coping with the challenges of rural life as Silicon Valley evolves into the high-tech center it is today, and the world in which they live transforms itself culturally, economically, and politically.

Back to the Land in Silicon Valley is a fascinating view from a personal perspective of the very early days of Silicon Valley and the lives of those who inhabited that place and time. Although I had certainly heard about the mysterious high-tech mecca that was Silicon Valley during the 1980s (it was the Shangri-la of employment opportunities for those of us earning degrees in Computer Science during that period), this book is a fascinating look at it during that time from an insider’s perspective from someone who was not a CEO or technology evangelist. For that, it is all the more valuable.

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New Book Release: “Goddess Rising”

Saved by a goddess … but only as a tool for revenge?

The nascent goddess Desiree meets the Egyptian archangel Joseph while ghost-busting the myth of Saint Patrick.

Aided by her psychiatrist, Sanantha Mauwad, Desiree discovers she is a pawn in a revenge quest that Isis has been planning for thousands of years.

Once again, gods and demons war on Earth with our heroes fighting not just for survival — but justice.

Goddess Rising by Jay Hartlove is available from Paper Angel Press (and the usual online booksellers).

This is an eminently satisfying conclusion to the author’s “Goddess Rising” trilogy. It brings its own surprises while neatly tying up the series.

New Book Release: “Grimaulkin Collected”

Mike LeBonte went to prison for summoning demons and using magic. At the age of 18, he is let out for good behavior. Now he’s trying to make a better life for himself.

He’s trying to stay out of trouble. However, trouble finds him, because someone has summoned a demon in a local park, and he is called in to assist the police in figuring out who did it — that is, if he didn’t do it himself.

At the same time, he is attempting to make inroads with a handsome young man in the city, the owner of a New Age store in downtown. Mike also assists his cousin who is being stalked by someone — or a group — while fighting off his new boyfriend’s ex.

And when you think it’s over, someone has summoned Lucifer. But with the help of modern chemistry, Mike doesn’t have magic anymore.

This is just a few of the adventures that befall Mike, also known by his prison name: Grimaulkin.

If you haven’t had a chance to read the three current books in the author’s “Grimaulkin” series, here is your chance to get all three in a single volume. (I recommend that you then follow it up with Grimaulkin Tales.)

Grimaulkin Collected by L. A. Jacob is available from Paper Angel Press (and the usual online booksellers).

New Book Release: “All That Was Asked”

It was supposed to be an easy jaunt to observe the stick-like aliens of Deep Valley Universe.

But Ansegwe — perpetual student, aspiring poet, and scion of the (allegedly criminal) Varayla Syndicate — well, he just has to ruin everything. As everyone knows, Ansegwe may have sensibility, but he’s not long on sense.

When a weird, twitchy little creature attaches itself to him, Ansegwe violates every protocol in the handbook to save its life. Finding himself in all kinds of trouble, Ansegwe needs to make some serious life changes, starting with that complicated family of his.

Ansegwe may just have to grow up … now that he’s adopted an alien.

All That Was Asked by Vanessa MacLaren-Wray is available from Paper Angel Press (and the usual online booksellers).

This first published fiction work by author Vanessa MacLaren-Wray is a winner in every way. It’s a neat, tight story of alien first contact from the alien culture’s point of view. I highly recommend this one.