Thomas A. Mays's Blog, page 10

REMO Crowd-Sourced Editing

Ooooor, what do you think of the following goodies.  First is my proposed back/sale page copy for REMO.  Then are my finalists for the cover.  Lemme know whatcha think in the comments below, or on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, or by email.  Looking forward to your suggestions!

Back Copy Draft:

Man and Machine. Soldier and Drone. Where does One end and the Other begin? 

With the advent of reliable AI, the UAVs of today will only become more ubiquitous, more autonomous . . . but would Man ever allow himself to be totally removed from the equation? Enter the world of the REMO, Remote Operators leading squads of autonomous, intelligent combat units in the air . . . on the ground . . . beneath the waves . . . and to the furthest reaches of outer space.

War is hell, even if you’re not pulling the trigger directly . . . .

From the acclaimed author of  A Sword Into Darkness  comes five tales of military and AI science fiction that will remain on your mind long after the pages are done. Includes:

“Tinker Bell Unbound”

“Strategic Deployment”

“Dogcatcher Blues”

“Identity Crash”

and “ILYAMY”

The Art World vs. Tom Mays – PART DEUX

It turns out I am not the graphic artist bad-ass I thought I were.  Talent, it is out there, and READILY available for the low, low price of $299.  Now I have TONS of designs coming in (my original has been relegated to my false cover page) and I need YOUR HELP choosing one before the contest ends.

Go here, at 99Designs, and vote NOW for your favorite cover.  I’m judging primarily on the front cover, but have asked for a book spine and back cover as well.

The Art World vs. Tom Mays

Damn you, Jeff Edwards, you insidious voice of reason, you.

So, if you’ve been following, you know I’m launching an ebook anthology with a bunch of my military AI short stories, called REMO.  And since the last cover I did was 96-ish % successful, I started off doing my own for this one as well.  And I’ve got a cover I like, but Jeff reasoned that hey, it turns out you are NOT a graphic designer, so you MIGHT just wanna get some options rather than commit to something developed on the fly, with a kind of art you’re unfamiliar with, and which is not necessarily evocative of a military SF anthology.

Damn correct bastard . . . .

So, on advice, I’m opening up the cover design for REMO to some actual graphic artists via the 99Designs website.  I’ve offered up a $200 bounty to the designer that can beat what I already have:

We’re looking for a cover that is more immediately recognizable as military SF, and which looks more compelling as a thumbnail image.  All the subtle sci-fi-isms of my design seem to vanish at that size.

If you’re a graphic artist and want to compete for the bounty, go HERE.  You’ve got four days to present a proposal, so no dawdling!

Achievement Unlocked: 100 Customer Reviews for ASID!

To quote the irrepressible Sally Field, “You like me!  You really, really like me!”

Well, at least 90% of y’all anyways.  As of a couple of minutes ago, A Sword Into Darkness logged its 100th customer review, and it did it in the best way possible, with a short and sweet 5-star love note.  THANK YOU, DEAR READERS!  For those of you keeping a tally, the current count is 68 5-star reviews, 22 4-star reviews, 8 3-stars, and one each of the 2-star and 1-star variety.  I’m pleased as punch about the whole thing, not because I’m that concerned about my own vanity (though I do go tee-hee and squee a little every time I get a new 4 or 5-star one in), but because I genuinely want to show folks a good time.  I’ve stolen perfectly good beer money from you.  You deserve to have a few hours or days of kick-ass super-sciencey fun in return.

ASID is not a perfect book.  I acknowledge that, and its admitted flaws are probably what kept the gatekeepers of traditional publishing from allowing me into their club.  But, I think it is a really fun book and one I hope subsequent folks will like just as well as those 90% which have so far.  It’s my first book “worthy” of publication, and as a first novel, I get a by for some of its less-well-put-together elements by a lot of people, but I don’t think kindness is the sole reason I’ve got the track record I do.  There are a lot of things that people think I accomplished pretty damn well. 

Some commonly noted positives:  I got the science right and it’s earned its bona fides as hard science fiction, with SCIENCE actually being necessary to the plot.  Yes, I have a very important, very central, very unexplained macguffin in the story, but its limits are well-charted and used consistently.  And as one reviewer noted, everything else is done so well, they can forgive an element or two of hand-wavium.  Another positive is my true-to-life portrayal of the Navy and the military in general, as well as its interaction with corporate interests and civil government oversight.  I’m glad folks recognized this, because it really was important to me (though some did note I was a bit heavy on the lingo and mil-speak).  In this, I cheated a leeetle bit, in that I have a modicum of experience in those roles due to my unspecified day job.  So I stole shamelessly from years of interaction with superiors, subordinates, and shipmates all. 

Other elements of goodness reviewers have noted:  The characters are interesting and quirky, the action scenes are clear, fast moving, and inventive, the plot is well-balanced, flowing briskly with a realistic timeline, and I had a few real surprises for readers, things they’d never seen before, but I also paid homage to a lot of classic sci-fi that preceded me, namely that of Niven, Heinlein, Weber, and Ringo, while still putting my own spin on well-used tropes.  One of the biggest notes of appreciation most folks had was that the book was well-edited and professionally assembled.  It does not read like a screed cobbled together in someone’s basement print shop.  Apparently there is a lot of self-published work riddled with typos, and copyediting mistakes that should never have been made public.  For that, I have to give credit to my own OCD and to Jeff Edwards, a true professional and a kick-ass author who has the attention to detail to save you from my usual misspelled rabmlings.

And then there’s the not-so-positives:  my ten more-critical reviews.  Some folks think I needed a bit more editing, less for bad copy and more to remove some meandering elements that perhaps should not have made the final cut.  I’m accused of shallow characterization, but some may have had preconceptions in that regard, considering it a common element of the genre.  Now, me . . . I like my characters, but I admit that I did not delve too deeply in their pasts or their internal lives.  They grow, but this book is not about catharsis.  It is a plot-driven vehicle and I think it’s a fun one, but deeper characterization is definitely a goal for the sequel.  Then there’s the accusation of predictability, which I both understand and somewhat disagree with.  It is a book of genre-classics, an intentional homage trying to one-up or become perhaps the definitive version of those tropes.  It is recognized that there are certain expectations in the plot.  As soon as a main character recognizes the potential for an alien visitation, you KNOW there is going to be an encounter, likely of the invasive kind.  That is expected, anticipated, but predictable?  I dunno.  Recognizing that something is likely to occur, that a pleasant, fun novel like this DOESN’T end with all the protagonists dying and the antagonists upsetting the whole apple cart is not necessarily predicatability.  How was the journey to that point?  Was it worth the trip, even if you anticipated what the destination would look like and turned out to be right?

So, check out my reviews, and if you haven’t tried it yet, give the book a spin!  It’s a whole lotta fun for less than a Venti Starbucks coffee (and not nearly as bitter).

 

Sci-Fi Anarchy in the UK!!!

No foolin’!  This weekend, from March 29th to April 1st (April Fool’s Day), the Amazon Kindle edition of A Sword Into Darkness is only a pence less than a POUND STERLING!!!

It’s the United Kingdom’s turn to have a Kindle Countdown Deal, so you can spend a mere 99 pence … 99 p … £ 0.99 … less than tea and crumpets … less than fish and chips … yes, for far less than her Majesties’ tinder of snuff, you can have my acclaimed, bestselling novel in handy electronic format.  Guvnah.  Here’s the Amazon UK link.

Is that racist/statist?  I dunno.  For less than a single Amazon Instant download of an episode of Doctor Who from the Beeb (the BBC, not Justin Bieber, I have no idea how much he charges for quirky sci-fi), you can have hours to days (depending on reading speed and available time on the loo) of kick-ass American outer space imperialism adventure.  Adventure which features a British space warship squadron in the awesome climax (spoiler!).  C’mon, you can’t beat that with a riding crop (which you have because you’re going fox hunting).

Let’s see, let’s see, what other stereotypes can I shoehorn in here . . . OH!  I would be honoured if thou wouldst try mine novel!  Hmmmm.  That was kind of a mix of the Queen’s English and bad faux-Shakespeare.  Anyways, Big Ben is ticking, my dear Scots, Brits, Welsh, and N. Irish.  Don’t let the deal of the century, year, month, long weekend pass you by!!!

Spread the word!  How do you say “viral” in English?

Note:  Everything I know about the UK is from CGP Grey:

REMO – Five Entangled Tales of Science Fiction

Coming soon!  More stuff you can read by Thomas A. Mays!  This will be a themed anthology, collecting a number of my artificial intelligencea and military sci-fi short stories and should be out within the month.  The stories will include “Identity Crash”, “Tinker Bell Unbound”, “ILYAMY”, “Strategic Deployment”, and “Dogcatcher Blues”, and will be available exclusively for Amazon Kindle.  I’m not bothering with paperback for the moment.

Question?  Comments?  Thoughts on the cover?

Wearing my New Hats: Beret and Fedora

Howdy, all!  Just coming off a great weekend, great for sales (orbiting in and out of the Top 500 Kindles on Amazon), garnering great reviews (and one who was NOT a fan (sorry, dude)), and gathering some truly great numbers here on the blog (my highest number of hits EVAR).  I really should hold contests and make dictates about sci-fi-coolness more often.

And now I’m about to sit down to an Irish/New England Boiled Dinner, with corned beef, kielbasa, linguica, potatoes, onions, cabbage, carrots, and my third Guinness of the night.  St. Paddy’s Day tis a wonderful thing!

Being that things are rosy in writerly circles, I decided to doff my writer’s hat (it’s a dunce cap) and try on a couple of my other hats in order to challenge myself.  I left the Real Job’s hat in the closet, because who wants to think about the real world on a day like today.  Instead, I whipped out my artiste’s beret, and decided to focus on myself as a visual arts fella’.

As those of you who follow know, I did my own art for the book, and from that art, I created my own cover.  Now, I think I did a good job, and I don’t believe the amateur nature of my cover has done my sales any harm.  But, not all books can say that, and it is generally advised that any writer who hires himself to do the cover art for his own book has a fool for a client (that saying may have originated elsewhere, I don’t recall).  To determine whether or not the aphorism applied to me, I decided to put myself even further out there.  First, I offered up my cover to the new site CoverCritics.com for the inaugural week.  Nathan Shumate also runs LousyBookCovers.com, but this new site is all about CONSTRUCTIVE criticism rather than schadenfreude.  I encourage all of you aspiring cover artist/writers to check out BOTH sites before you attempt to do it yourself.  As for how I did, the consensus seems to be that the art is good, it sells the book and clearly lays out the genre, but my title fonts don’t really fit the SF tone, and I tried to be too clever by putting in a metallic texture.  I can’t fault the criticism, and when I eventually do put up a revised edition, I’ll see about applying them.  Another guy criticized my lens flare, but if it’s good enough for J. J. Abrams, it’s good enough for me!

By that same token, I also entered my cover in Joel Friedlander’s E-book Cover Design Awards for the month of February and the results came back today.  Well, he liked it and thought it was “effective” and he really liked the picture itself, but I didn’t win the grand prize or get a gold star.  The competition was fierce, but Mr. Friedlander also likely saw the not-quite-right part of the titles that the others saw as well.

That’s things on the artist front, but I promised TWO hats in the title.  Thusly, I doff the beret and slide on a Mad Men – esque fedora, straight from central casting.  Wearing this hat, I’m focused on things of business and networking.  Namely, I need to get out there more into the publishing industry, to meet authors, publishers, agents, and fans that might not have come across my Amazon postings or tweets.  So, I’m going to take the ultimate SF nerd plunge and attend my first sci-fi convention.

The next con in my region is RavenCon, up in Richmond April 25-27.  I’ve got the hotel room, the registration, made contacts with the Baen Barflies (the only people I know in attendance, and then only by forum postings), and I’m ordering fresh copies of the book to pass out and have commissioned an ad for the con program (below).  I think it’ll be a lot of fun (my kind of fun — I couldn’t get the wife to even consider going).  Hopefully, I can make some contacts, help the book and its eventual sequel, make some friends, and build some memories.  A lot of the sniping, scandals, and arguing amongst fandom concerning “true” fandom, acceptable thought/attitudes/speech, and thin skins vs. true harassment that have been destroying the internet lately have me a little nervous, but I largely cannot help whatever has come before or where things stand now.  I hope RavenCon doesn’t get too issue-oriented or political, but my general plan — as it is in all things — is to just be friendly, fun, and fascinating, and trust that my humble awesomeness will shine through to sunder all barriers.

I’ve got this in the bag!

(famous last words before Tom Mays was ripped to shreds by an angry mob of sci-fi fans from across the political landscape)

The Coolest Ship in All of Sci-Fi-dom

The entries are in!  My thanks to everyone who participated, and for those who passed the contest along.  To the victor(s) go the spoils, and in this case the “spoils” are signed copies of my acclaimed, bestselling, hard military science fiction space opera blockbuster A Sword Into Darkness, featuring those COOLEST of ships, the Sword-class astrodynamic destroyers and the Trenton-class cruisers.  But, to the matter itself!  What ship among the entrants is truly the coolest of ships in all of science fiction?  The choices (and my thoughts on each) are:

*First, I made an error.  I attempted to ask what is the coolest of ships, but failed to define what exactly coolness was, trusting that all you little Fonzies out there would JUST KNOW COOL WHEN YOU SAW IT.  Problem is, there are different kinds of cool.  Is it crazy, wacky cool?  Is it super-realistic cool?  Retro-cool?  BADASS-cool!? Therefore, I have picked more than one winner (I’ve got those extra copies, after all), one in each of my completely arbitrary categories of cool.  Why?  Maybe I’m just cool like that.

Winner, the First, Category of BADASS-Cool:  the Battlestar Galactica! In the words of our victor, J. D. Locke, the BSG protected 35,000 civilians from Cylon fleet for 4 years across the galaxy, all w/o repair/resupply.  Now, me, I’m thinking the re-imagined BSG, not the original or the 1980 version.  There were just so many cool scenes with that ship:  the Atmo Jump, all the tracer rounds and missiles, soooo much damage survived, and her final assault on the Cylon secret base.  It just doesn’t get cooler than that.  Now, this was not the only vote for the mighty BSG, but as J.D. came in first, he’s the big winner.  However, I’ll be sending our second BSG voter, Simonas Juodis, a signed Advance Reader Copy as well!

Winner, the Second, Category of Kitschy-Cool:  the TARDIS from Doctor Who!  It’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, Time and Relative Dimension in Space, police boxes!!  The only things cooler than the TARDIS are probably fezzes, and we ALL know how cool fezzes are, right?  The winner here is Sam Hidaka, an old acquaintance/friend, who helped me make my first two pro short fiction sales.  I owe him my appreciation for making me a better writer (but that’s not why he won).  Sam, I hope you enjoy the book!

Winner, the Third, Category of Literary-Cool:  the ships rendered in visual media kind of have everyone else at a disadvantage.  You can SEE just how awesome they are, the product of pure Hollywood SFX magic.  In a totally different class of cool are those ships that simply LEAP off the page and take flight within your imagination.  And to judge this one, I had to either recognize the story, or your reasoning/description had to be compelling enough to sell me without foreknowledge.  In this case, the winner was absolutely clear-cut:  Ann McCaffrey’s B&B “shellperson” ships, for Brains and Brawn, for the two people bonded with the ship, as in the Crystal Singer series, The Ship Who Sang, and The City Who Fought.  In the words of our winning submitter, G. W. Pickle:  They used a black hole in the drive system. The Brain of the ship was a deformed human encased in a titanium shell and controlled all of the ship. The Brawn partner did all of the physical work and maintenance.

Runners-Up, Awarded a “gifted” Kindle copy of A Sword Into Darkness:  there were just so many neat entries, properties that I either want to go back to and re-read or re-watch, as well as properties I’ve never heard of before that I simply must experience for myself now.  These include Pat G with the carrier from Warpwar, Dan Glass with the Star Wars IV Rebel Blockade Runner, Arzvi with the ESS Adam Wickiewicz from Crash, Harliqueen and Joel Salomon with Serenity from Firefly/Serenity, B. W. Hartley with Gay Deceiver from The Number of the Beast, John Tae with the Cannon Space Guard ship from The Dragon Never Sleeps, and Rhonda Mason with Moya from Farscape (I’d have gone with Talyn myself).

Now, if I had to come down in favor of only a single ship as the coolest ship in Sci-Fi, well, I’d have to stick with my military sci-fi / space opera roots and go for the new-version Battlestar Galactica.  It’s just hard to keep a ragtag fleet together, you know?  Now, I was genuinely surprised there weren’t more entries from the Star Wars universe, and nothing from Star Trek, or Babylon 5, etc., but you go with what you get.

Am I right?  Am I wrong?  Hash it out in the comments below!

Congratulations, all.  I’ll be in touch to get your shipping addresses and will have your books to you presently.  I hope you all enjoy my book (and all its cool ships) and I look forward to hearing your thoughts!  As for all of you who didn’t enter in time or win, A Sword Into Darkness is on sale now on Kindle and as a trade paperback.  Don’t be the only one in fan-dom who doesn’t know what the buzz is all about!  Order yours today!

Win a Free Military Sci-Fi Trade Paperback!

Which military sci-fi trade paperback?  Why, the bestselling A Sword Into Darkness, of course!  I’m closing in on 5000 sales since launch (I’ll probably hit it by this evening, and I’m feeling magnanimous).  So I’ll make it easy since I have laundry and writing to do:

The astrodynamic destroyer USS Sword of Liberty (DA-1) and her sister-ships are pretty dang cool, but I’m prepared to allow that they may not be the coolest ships to ever sail the spaceways.  So, in 140 characters or less (approximately), what is the coolest spaceship to ever grace science fiction and why? 

Post your answer on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or here on the blog by Monday, and I will send the winning answer and maybe a runner-up or two a signed trade paperback copy of A Sword Into Darkness anywhere here on planet Earth, so long as you have an address.  Postage is on me.

So, what’s gonna win?  The Millennium Falcon?  The Enterprise, and which variant?  Serenity?  Or some bad-ass mama-jama I ain’t never heard of before?  Well, they’re all in the running!  Don’t forget to justify your answers!

This Guy Totally Gets Me

I know, I know, you’re not supposed to comment on customer reviews.  You’re supposed to be above it all, working too hard on your next piece to take note of what the hoi polloi are muttering about, but this guy, the magnificent Harold Vaughn (whom I have never met), TOTALLY gets me.  Best.  Review.  EVAR.

I enjoyed this sea story about a futuristic Space Navy developed by nerds. I have it five stars because of the good editing, the characters flowing smoothly, and the fact that Mr. Heinlein is flavoring this richly. I wish the Author Fair Winds and Following Seas

Ha, ha!  And, yes, there are other GREAT reviews written by real fans, that stoke my spirit every time I meander over there to view them, but this one is just a special kind of awesome.

Reminder:  the Countdown Deal on Amazon, offering the Kindle edition of A Sword Into Darkness for 99 cents ends today!

Now, back to writing . . . .