J.B. Garner's Blog, page 28

Book News: The Opening Bell Now Available in Hardcover!

Wow, this is a first.  I mean, I feel like it’s a (possibly insignificant) milestone to have one of my books released in hardback format but I’m pleased as punch either way!

You can get The Opening Bell in e-book, softcover, and hardcover through Amazon KDP and, if Amazon doesn’t please you, you can get the e-book through Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, and other outlets!

Starving Review News: Review Submissions Closed For 2015!

After another mad rush of chefs into my pantry, it’s time to close the doors for 2015!  Thank you, everyone, for your interest and your books.  They will keep me well-fed for months to come!

Check back regularly for news on the next submission period, as well as your usual bill of faire containing all the writing articles and book news you have come to expect!  Until next time, good reading, good writing, and good luck!

Uprooted – Book Review

jbgarner58:

Another review from one of my colleagues at the BRD. Enjoy!

Originally posted on The Book Review Directory:

In Naomi Novik’s Uprooted, a wizard called the Dragon protects a small mountain village from the evil forest called the Wood. Every ten years the dragon takes one young woman from the village as tribute. She will live in the Dragon’s castle the next ten years, and when she is released, much to the horror of her village, she will leave the mountain valley that is their home and never return.

View original 348 more words

Starving Review: The Collector (A Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Book) by Steven M. Moore

The Collector (A Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Book) by Steven M. Moore (Amazon, Goodreads)

I certainly hope I don’t start a riot in the crowd once more, because we have another dish from the pantry that is not technically the first volume in a series.  However, once again, I have been assured by the chef that this is a solo dish, one that doesn’t need to be served in the proper order of courses in the larger meal.  After my last experience, I was a bit more dubious.  However, recalling the time I had spent with many of the classic pulps of years past, I decided to crack open the box and see if this modern-day mystery/thriller didn’t leave me wanting.

Before we delve into the depths of this mystery, let us recite the Starving Review pledge:

I attempt to rate every book from the perspective of a fan of the genre
I attempt to make every review as spoiler-free as possible

To get the big question out of the way, *this* is how you cook up a series where each book stands on its own.  As I chewed my way through The Collector, I was never lost or confused.  Mr. Moore has done an excellent job in evoking past meals he has created while succinctly adding the flavor of familiarity to each call-back to previous meals.  It takes an even hand and a skillful pen to do that, so kudos are definitely deserved there.

That is all well and good, but how does this mystery/thriller stand up as, well, a mystery/thriller?  As always, we must look at the core ingredients of the meal: characterization, plot, and pacing.  So, in that order, characters!  The chef didn’t skimp here to make his job of series writing easier.  Our main protagonist duo are exceptionally well-written, seeming to step off the page.  Moore doesn’t hold back much in terms of the secondary cast either, filling them out as well as any of the main characters.

Plot is a vital ingredient when it comes to the mystery/thriller genre.  It’s possible to have a weak series of characters bolstered by a great mystery into being a masterpiece.  Again, the chef here shows his expertise, blending foreshadowing, subtle clues, and a keen understanding of how police work, well, works to keep the reader constantly on their toes.  If I have any fault with the plot, it’s in the ending.  I can’t be very specific due to SPOILERS!, but the conclusion is realistic in the leaving of loose ends, which left my natural desire for a clean finish unsated.  However, this is certainly a matter of personal opinion and I can see why the chef made this decision in the recipe.

Along with the well-baked plot, The Collector dances along at a brisk but not overwhelming pace.  Moments of action and suspense are spaced between moments of reflection and character-building, making for a smooth and creamy blend that went down easily.

There’s been a lot of praise for this meal so far and rightfully so!  However, I do have one quibble with the style of the book.  Mr. Moore utilizes a strange (to me, anyway) perspective, writing much of the book from the first-person perspective of Castilblanco.  However, regularly the point-of-view changes to the third-person perspective of various other characters, dancing through almost all the major players at various points and a variety of minor characters.  This isn’t technically wrong, I suppose, but I always find such things jarring.

This isn’t because of the shift of point-of-view character.  That’s common and expected.  It comes down to the shifting from 1st to 3rd person perspective and back again.  It is jarring as it makes it impossible to see the book as a retelling or recollection or any other storytelling device that gives it a certain weight of reality.  Now, this doesn’t ruin The Collector, no, not at all … but it did take me out of the story enough that it leaves it shy of perfection.

So, down to the final decision!  The Collector is a near-perfect slice of mystery, with flavorful characters and a punchy plot!  If you want a good mystery, I wholeheartedly suggest you pick this one up, even if you haven’t read any of the other books.  Taking this as a sample of the rest of the series, I think I can safely endorse the rest of them as well.

As always, until next time, good reading, good writing, and good luck!

FINAL VERDICT: **** (A near-perfect slice of mystery, with flavorful characters and a punchy plot!)

Starving Interview: Steven M. Moore, Author of The Collector

It’s Friday, my foodies, which means it’s time to bring a new chef into our kitchen!  Welcome Steven M. Moore, author of The Collector, part of the Detectives Chen and Castilblanco series!  A veteran chef, let’s see what insights he can provide for us!

Please introduce yourself to my literary foodies!

First, I want to thank you for this interview opportunity. I’ve been in this business for a while, and I know readers are interested in authors. I’m a reader myself, and I personally know a lot of interesting authors. More to the point: I wrote my first novel the summer I turned thirteen (it was terrible, but similar to the plot in the movie City of Angels), collected plot and story ideas all my life, wrote a bit now and then, and started publishing my prose just before and after I left my last day-job. I grew up in CA, spent years in Colombia, and made my way back to the U.S. East Coast, where my wife and I now I live in Montclair, NJ. Having seen some of the world and experienced different cultures, I celebrate human diversity in my novels (they’re designed to entertain too, of course) and don’t shy away from important themes and social problems. Every ebook in my “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series” (C & C for short, as used below) contains some of the latter. As a side to my main entrées, I believe women are generally smarter than men, the world would be better if they ruled it (a lot of testosterone seems to be associated with power), and celebrate strong women in many of my novels (I’ve also known many wonderful ones in my life).

Do you do any work outside of the writing kitchen? Any non-work interests?

My first jobs were in academia and R&D—I knew from an early age that writing probably wouldn’t put much food on the table—I didn’t want my family to be a starving writer’s. I don’t have any regrets here because those choices allowed me to collect all those plot and story ideas. Unfortunately, my muses (really banshees with tasers) know I have oodles of them and prod me to keep spinning out those yarns. My interests include music, math, physics, genetics, robotics, scientific ethics, and environmental concerns.

What is your latest dish to be served up? Are there any past pieces of literary cuisine you think we should take a bite out of?

My last ebook was the sci-fi novel More than Human: The Mensa Contagion (here Mensa is a constellation seen only in the Southern Hemisphere). It’s a stand-alone. I have four series; each ebook in them can stand-alone too. Silicon Slummin’…and Just Gettin’ By, #2 in the Mary Jo Melendez mystery series, and Fantastic Encores!, a short story collection following up on some characters from my “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy,” are also new this year. The latter and Pop Two Antacids…and Have Some Java are story collections that are reasonably priced intros to my prose. What do I recommend? Maybe print out my list of books, paste the list on a dartboard, and throw a dart? If you hit one, that ebook’s as good a start as any. (C & C #6, Family Affairs, will be published in a few weeks.)

What made you want to put on the chef’s hat and whip up your own books?

Reading. I’ve always been a reader. Early on, I figured I could write a novel or two. After collecting all those plot ideas, it seemed like time to do it (those muses again). It’s great fun, and if I can entertain just one person with each ebook, I consider that ebook a success, so I don’t set my bars high.

Do you have a genre of specialty or do you dabble? Why?

Mystery, thrillers, and sci-fi are my specialties. The first comes naturally from my technical background. The last two are genres I’ve always liked. Of course, some of my stories are combos of these genres. I’ve dabbled a wee bit in comedy and paranormal, and maintain an active blog where many articles are op-ed comments on current events (including the writing business). Genres are for retailers. I don’t pay much attention to them in reading or writing. If I want to write a fantasy, I will. If I want to write a sci-fi mystery, I will. Same for reading. (The great Isaac Asimov wrote two sci-fi mysteries, Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was a hard-boiled detective novel set in the future; it was made into the movie Blade Runner.)

Style! Every literary chef aspires to have their own unique one! What do you think sets yours apart and why?

My style isn’t unique. I practice two basic principles: minimalist writing and the Goldilocks Principle. The first says, “Let the reader participate in the creative process.” I won’t spend pages of narrative describing a character, for example—a paragraph here, someone’s observations there, will let the reader form her/his own image and opinions about a character. No matter what, your image of a character will be different from someone else’s—the author might as well take advantage of that. It might make turning one my novels into a movie a challenge for any director, but that’s too bad. (For my mysteries and thrillers, some might call this hard-boiled a la Chandler or Child, but it’s a more general principle.) The second principle could be called balance—getting everything just right, and not too much of any one thing. Dialog, back story, characterization, and so forth have to be balanced in a story and appropriate to the genre. Of course, each element in that complicated Goldilocks dance has to be strong, or it will threaten the total balance.

Even the best of us find inspiration is the dishes of others. Do you have any literary inspirations, heroes, and influences?

Many. I’m an avid reader, and almost everything I read influences me in some way. I already mentioned Asimov and Dick. N. Scott Momaday taught me to love poetry. I can’t write poetry, though (my only published poem is at the beginning of C & C #5, The Collector, and I give Detective Castilblanco credit for it). Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, and a few others were more than an inspiration; they showed me that having a scientific background doesn’t preclude a writing career—quite the contrary. The classic mystery and dystopian writers also influenced me. A character in The Collector is modeled after Miss Marple. The complete list of inspirers is finite but too long for this interview.

Let’s get into the meat and potatoes: the art and craft of writing itself! Do you have a preference of points-of-view when you write?

I stick to first person and third person. I hate stuff like “…and little did he know that he would soon be meeting Pamela in less amicable circumstances.” I want to find out myself. In my detective novels save one, I mix first and third person POVs. Castilblanco is first person (lets the hard-boiled shine through) while everyone else is third person (and not just one). I don’t think I’m the only one who does this, but it’s unusual. (Don’t worry. I might shift POVs many times, but they’re constant within a section of a book.) I’ve never experimented with second person. A lot of sci-fi world-building is omniscient, but I generally put that in some character’s third person POV too, if I can.

Sparse or wordy, how do you like your descriptions served up? Are you a Hemingway man or do you like some saucy adjectives with your nouns?

Hemingway was a minimalist. Many ex-journalists are, although Garcia Marquez is an exception (maybe the language of Cervantes lends itself to that?). I’m not trying to emulate Hemingway, but I am a minimalist. Adjectives and adverbs, especially those in –ly, are scarce in my prose—for me, an –ly adverb just means I used a weak verb. My dialog tends to end in “X said” or “X asked” because anything else interrupts my reading (I’m a speed reader, but any reader “brakes for dialog tags” on the reading road).

Picking off the menu of base literary conflicts, what’s your favorite and why?

I like a thriller where the protagonist has to overcome stressful situations in order to survive (everyone knows the classic list of story categories); I like a mystery where the crime and suspects are complex. Social problems can amplify both of those. That’s what interests me in my reading, so it’s what interests me in my writing. Sexual tensions play a secondary role in my own prose—they’re there, but only when they make sense for the rest of the plot. (I won’t criticize readers or writers of bodice-rippers or erotica, but those books just aren’t my cup o’ tea.) Sometimes my literary conflict is unusual—in The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan, for example, the conflict is about accepting old age, among other things. There are infinite variations on the standard story plots and conflicts. Each novel I write is a new adventure. Maybe the critic can categorize it to hell afterwards, but I’m just out to tell a new story.

What do you think is more important to your recipes, plot or characterization? Why?

Plot. Let’s take it out of the book world. When someone tells you movie X is a great character study, do you cringe? I do. There are many elements necessary to make a good story, but plot is the most important one. Characterization is important, but, without plot, I’m not interested.

We all know that the first taste means the most! What do you do to get that first bite hook with your readers?

That’s probably different for each book too. I’m probably more patient than most readers—I’ll give an author a few chapters before I give up on her/him (in my official capacity as a reviewer, I’ll always finish the book). I personally try to capture the readers’ interest in the first few pages. The trick is to get the reader to ask, “Why is this happening? Do I care?” “Hook” isn’t the right word. A reader’s already hooked because s/he picked up the book to read or loaded it onto her/his e-reader. “Reeling them in” is a better fishing metaphor. Every fisherperson knows that reeling the fish in is the difficult part. My technique is to imagine what I would think and feel as an impatient reader looking for a good story. There are so many reading choices these days—what would keep me interested? Hopefully, that method works more often than it fails in my own writing.

The most important of questions: Cake or pie?

Not particularly a reading question, but I’ll make it one. I prefer pie over cake because the former has interesting stuff going on between the crusts—fruit, nuts, gooey goodness (I’m eliminating the gooey stuff on top of the cake—that’s just frosting…sorry). Same for a book—the author better have something interesting going on between the cover art and the end of the book. I don’t care if it’s her/his first novel or the last.

Finally, if you could give one piece of advice to aspiring literary chefs out there, what would it be?

Write, write, write. Yeah, I know, if you’re an indie writer, or even traditionally published but not one of the biggies (the biggies follow this advice too, with a few exceptions like Harper Lee), you have to spend some time on things like editing your stories and PR and marketing (maybe even some money too). Many of us are born with a gift for storytelling (the Irish call it blarney), but we have to continuously hone our craft and learn the techniques. I’ve been at this for over ten years. I learn something new every day. Maybe my most recent novels and short stories aren’t any better than the first ones, but they’re certainly different. But I’ll bend the rules a wee bit and add another piece of advice: Be humble. Thank your readers and reviewers. Nowadays, they have so many good choices for books and so many authors to choose from, be thankful they chose yours. James, you and others like you (I’m a reviewer too), give back to the community of readers and writers. In this age of digital publishing, readers and writers are the most important groups. All others are less so, to the point that if they stand between these two groups, they’re a problem.

Starving Interview: A. J. York, Author of Delilah Dusticle

Good morning, folks!  It’s time to open the kitchen doors and invite in another Starving Review alumnus, A. J. York, to have a sit-down about her writing style, her books, and all the rest!  You can check our her last appearance here with the review of Delilah Dusticle.  Enjoy!

Please introduce yourself to my literary foodies!

Hej! This is hi in Swedish. My name is Jen. I am the author of a middle grade fantasy series under the name of A.J. York. I grew up in the UK with my English dad and my Swedish mum. I now live in Sweden with my amazing partner, who happens to be the illustrator of my books.

Do you do any work outside of the writing kitchen? Any non-work interests?

I have a Master’s in Arts Admin and Cultural policy and I have trained as a high school drama teacher. I currently work at an international school with kids from all over the world. Most of the students speak fantastic English, but new arrivals sometimes struggle at first. I am now undertaking a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) course online. I really enjoy creating imaginative lessons and seeing students get inspired. Outside of work I love to hang out in cafes. Gothenburg is full of them and there are still some I have not yet explored. I am big yoga fan and have being going to classes for nearly eight years now.

What is your latest dish to be served up? Are there any past pieces of literary cuisine you think we should take a bite out of?

I have just finished a short story called A Fairy Extraordinary Christmas Story. The illustrations are underway and the story will be released 1st December. Here is the description.

Upstairs in the Anderson’s attic there is chatter coming from the Christmas, Easter and Halloween boxes. Someone new has arrived. Tallulah the Christmas fairy wakes to find herself attached to the top of a tree. She soon makes friends and has a magical first Christmas. Once the festivities are over she finds herself in the attic and is introduced to the others from Easter and Halloween. Together they watch the seasons change and wait excitedly for their turn to go downstairs. Until one day new boxes appear and then the unthinkable happens. A Fairy Extraordinary Christmas Story is a magical and uplifting tale for the whole family.

I also have the third book in The Delilah Dusticle Adventures series ready for illustrations. I hope to release Delilah Dusticle and the Cursed Tempest in the New Year. I am now writing the fourth book.

What made you want to put on the chef’s hat and whip up your own books?

I know many authors say they that they had always wanted to be a writer, but this is not the case for me. The thought of writing used to fill me with fear. It was much more fun to jump around on a stage. A few years ago, I was looking for a new creative project when I came up with the character Delilah Dusticle. I wasn’t working in theatre at the time, so I had to find another way of telling the story. I ended up writing it down and really enjoying the process. After I had finished, I wondered what I was going to do with it and that is when I started to look into publishing. I knew straight away that the traditional publishing route was not for me. I had just finished my Masters in Arts Administration and Cultural Policy and was pleased that I could use all that I had learnt to run and publish the project myself. It just goes to show you can do anything if you put your mind to it. Or in my case open my mind to the things I thought I couldn’t do.

Do you have a genre of specialty or do you dabble? Why?

I write middle grade fantasy. I did write a chapter of an adult mystery novel once. I did not feel the same enjoyment, so I stopped. I think writing for the younger audience is keeping me young. It is a bit like hot chocolate, where I can add marshmallows, chocolate flakes and whipped cream. The adult novel resembled herbal tea. Nice, but not as exciting. So, I passed.

Style! Every literary chef aspires to have their own unique one! What do you think sets yours apart and why?

I had a university professor who said that it was his job to get across meaning to students in a way that we would understand. He said he could be pompous and use long words, he said he could sneer at our current level of understanding or he could just ignore us. Instead he chose to use all his facilities to communicate to us, so then we could make our own meaning of it all. This has always stayed with me. I try not to overcomplicate my stories, I try to write simply.

Even the best of us find inspiration in the dishes of others. Do you have any literary inspirations, heroes, and influences?

I loved Astrid Lindgren as a child, Pippi Longstocking was a favourite of mine. I never managed to find an adult book with a heroine quite like Pippi.

Let’s get into the meat and potatoes: the art and craft of writing itself! Do you have a preference of points-of-view when you write?

I tend to write from a narrators point of view. I should try writing something in first person. It seems all the rage at the moment.

Sparse or wordy, how do you like your descriptions served up? Are you a Hemmingway man or do you like some saucy adjectives with your nouns?

Saucy adjectives of course! To my creamy, velvety hot chocolate there would be lashings of smooth, sumptuous chocolate sauce. I feel the need to go to a café for a hot chocolate.

Picking off the menu of base literary conflicts, what’s your favorite and why?

I recently read The Hunger Games. I would like to design a lesson based on how the government used fear and control to keep order in society. This is very complex conflict with lots of layers. However, I know this could be fantastic discussion for young people to get their teeth into.

What do you think is more important to your recipes, plot or characterization? Why?

I am always looking for balance in my recipes. I would have to say plot and Characterisation are equally as important. Who is interested in well-rounded characters with a rambling plot? As a reader I hope for both equal parts to sweep me away into bookland.

We all know that the first taste means the most! What do you do to get that first bite hook with your readers?

Honestly, I still think in drama terms and spend time setting the scene. It is tricky, as some readers desire a detailed where they are and who are these people approach. Whereas some readers want to dive right into the action. Reviewers will soon let you know if your beginning is slow or weak in any way. I have made edits before based on reader comments.

The most important of questions: Cake or pie?

CAKE! I can no longer write. I now must take a trip to a café for hot chocolate and cake.

Finally, if you could give one piece of advice to aspiring literary chefs out there, what would it be?

Right, I am back. I tend to shy away from this question. I still feel like such a novice and would never call myself an expert. If you find yourself saying “I have always wanted to…” Then make the time and do it. As long as it is legal.

Starving Review Update: Review Requests Open Tomorrow!

You saw rightly, my foodies!  If you fancy yourself a literary chef and want to add something to my pantry, you will have your chance tomorrow, the 1st of October, until midnight of the 3rd.  You will want to hurry, as this is your last chance to get a book in the review line for the rest of 2015 and possibly beyond, as the pantry bulges to dangerous sizes.

Until tomorrow, good reading, good writing, and good luck!

Writing Is A Bad Habit: A Splash of Color a.k.a. Character Details and Realism

When you create a character in your works, the depth of that character is entirely up to you, the writer.  Every speck of information the reader has about the character is brought to it by your words.  Even implied information is implied by other words you write or facts you bring up.  It all falls down to you and this is nothing new.  It is, however, important to bring back up again as we move onto to today’s topic: how character details can inform us about the ‘realism’ of your fictional world and how they should also be restrained by that.

What do I mean by putting realism in those little finger-quote things?  Well, the fact is that, in fiction, reality is mutable.  Things do not have to work they way they do on our little planet Earth.  However, for any aspect of your fictional world that is different from our own, you need to make sure the reader understands it to be so in a timely manner.  You can use details that expand characterization to also inform us about the rules of your fictional world in one go.

It’s a pretty simple technique to show in example.  If your protagonist has, say, magical abilities, you have a perfect chance to talk about the existence and rules of magic in your world while also providing us important information about the character him/herself.  You can apply this to many aspects of a character, from occupation to supernatural abilities to alien races.  Anytime you can streamline exposition, you can make room for more actual story and conflict.  This is a Good Thing ™!

At the same time, though, you should create character details that conform to our own understood reality, if there are no changes to it created by your setting.  Just as we need to inform the reader about any changes have been made to the rules of the fictional world, we must assume that anything we have *not* changed will be assumed by the reader to conform to the real world they know.  That forms its own set of restrictions and guidelines on how you create your characters that combines with the rules you have put into place for the fictional rules of the world.

Here it comes down to our old friend research to show the way.  If you provide realistic details to flesh out your characters, you will make your readers more comfortable and help expand the limits of their ability to believe the more fantastic elements of your tale.  You can balance fantasy with reality and form a cohesive whole that keeps your audience’s suspension of disbelief in check.

Now that doesn’t mean you *can’t* go all out, over the top, and just be crazy.  Just make sure you establish from the start that is how your world works!  In addition, you need to keep your audience in consideration.  Some genres and subgenres have inherent levels of fantasy and separation from reality baked into it, giving you more freedom to test the limits.

Whatever the genre and whatever your limits, simply remember that you can use the way you describe and flesh out your characters to not only establish the rules of reality for your world, but help enforce the limits of that reality.  You get great characters and a well-formed world in one step!

Until next time, good reading, good writing, and good luck!

Trope of the Week: Philanthropic Savior

jbgarner58:

Paige is back with more Tropes of the Week. Enjoy!

Originally posted on break the system:

Seeing how oppressed and overworked the poor impoverished are, Philip Moneybags, now aware of this horrible tragedy, throws money at the poor. They are now happy and love Mr. Moneybags because he is their great savior.

Why this can be bad: When a story shows poor people being saved from their horrible states of life by a kind philanthropist, it takes away the agency of the poor and treats poverty and its effects like they can be fixed with sudden influxes of money. Not only is poverty a lot more complicated than “people don’t have money,” it’s not as easily fixed as giving the poor money. These feel-good stories of rich people making others’ lives better by giving them money also sets up the same kind of story as heroes saving princesses; the saved are incapable of saving themselves, and need someone outside of their group to save them…

View original 154 more words

Monday Musings: You Give, You Get a.k.a. Totally Karma, Dude

A short one today, folks, as the weather hanging over the household has my sinuses in a strangle hold, but I still wanted to say a little bit about effort, karma, and rewards.

I guess to me it’s pretty simple and something backed up so far by my near-forty years on the planet.  Effort plus moral choices equals payoff.  Maybe not immediately and maybe not for sometime, but it does eventually come back to you.  Effort plus rat-bastardom almost always has swifter payouts but always comes out in the end.  Laziness, well, laziness just goes nowhere.

The biggest problem with karma for we mortal beings, hampered by aging and death, is the time for that karmic payoff.  Sometimes our proper reward doesn’t come until far after our ability to enjoy it due to age.  Sometimes it doesn’t come in our lifetime period.  Sometimes it may not come to pass in our children’s lifetimes.  That fact alone makes the hard choices that much harder.  Giving into that desire for the easier, quicker reward is a terribly seductive prospect.

I guess the way I try to stay on course is not to focus on the big, end-game reward, but to look for the small kindnesses among the way.  Even if you wind up the loser because of your morality, there is almost always some kindness, some positivity generated by your good actions despite the cost.  That’s what I look for and that’s what sustains me until karma provides.

Keep tuned later this week for your usual writing articles, book reviews, and author interviews!  Until next time, good reading, good writing, and good luck!