"It's a gift."
That's a quote from CUBE, the newest iFiction! release from me, Mike Whetzel. It hits the Amazon store "officially" tomorrow, 2/22. It will be FREE, "a gift" from me to you, on the 22nd through the 24th. That's 3 days to receive a novella clocking in at over 34,000 words for nothing. Of course, if you want to pay for it, it's up right now. I won't stop you :).
I think CUBE is my most ambitious work to date. It starts small and then balloons into this huge thing that at times I lost control of. Story can be like that. You take the reins and try to guide it where you want it to go, but like a bucking bronco, it can throw you and take off on its own. Hopefully I reined it in enough. Hopefully you like it. Hopefully I'm not the hack I think I am.
There are so many things that influenced this story and I want to share with you a couple of them, because if it turns out you do enjoy the bucking bronco of CUBE, you will enjoy these things also.
First, CUBE is science fiction all the way. There's no post-apocalyptic themes here. No zombies. No monsters (ok, maybe a couple), and not much violence. So this kind of goes against what my other works have been about. It is a science fiction adventure with a dash of space opera thrown in. And here are a few places the idea seeded from:
First I'm going to show you a picture of this man. His name is Ray Bradbury and CUBE contains a dedictaion to him. He was always in the back of my head as I worked on it. Bradbury is a master storyteller. We lost someone of great importance with his death last year. DANDELION WINE, SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, and everything else this writer gave us was amazing, especially the short stories. If I can be a 100th of the writer this man was, that would be something great.
This is Isaac Asimov (Best muttonchops ever BTW). He is the grandfather of science fiction. I'm ashamed to say I did not discover his work until college (thank you, Dave Turk). I started with the Foundation trilogy and never turned back. That series of books is awesome! After that it was on to his robot stories and everything else I could find.
There are a handful of films that also helped inspire the story.
MOON was the most influential and after you read the story you understand why. CONTACT is based on the novel by Carl Sagan, but I love the film version much more. And 2001 influences pretty much everything in the sci-fi realm. All three are about humans and space exploration (althought MOON is a little different.) Again, after reading CUBE you can pick up on some of the shared themes.
Towards the last part of writing the story, I was really struggling to tie it all up neatly. And then on a recommendation from my brother, I streamed this on Netflix:
After watching this, I knew what I wanted CUBE to really be about. It was always there in the back of my head but I was struggling with how to bring it to the story. This flick works as a great companion piece to MOON. But be warned, you may hate this movie. It is very polarizing in how it is set up. Considered arthouse all the way, this is not a typical film with a linear narrative. But if you go into it with an open mind and patience, I think you will be pleasantly pleased.
Which brings us back to CUBE. Yeah, I did not say much about how each work really influenced the story, but I don't want to give away anything either. I hope you do enjoy the story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
CUBE (what's with the little 3? Cube is cubed!) is available now for download from the Amazon store here.
It will be FREE starting 1/22 through the weekend!
Have a good week, folks.
peace,
Mike
I think CUBE is my most ambitious work to date. It starts small and then balloons into this huge thing that at times I lost control of. Story can be like that. You take the reins and try to guide it where you want it to go, but like a bucking bronco, it can throw you and take off on its own. Hopefully I reined it in enough. Hopefully you like it. Hopefully I'm not the hack I think I am.
There are so many things that influenced this story and I want to share with you a couple of them, because if it turns out you do enjoy the bucking bronco of CUBE, you will enjoy these things also.
First, CUBE is science fiction all the way. There's no post-apocalyptic themes here. No zombies. No monsters (ok, maybe a couple), and not much violence. So this kind of goes against what my other works have been about. It is a science fiction adventure with a dash of space opera thrown in. And here are a few places the idea seeded from:
First I'm going to show you a picture of this man. His name is Ray Bradbury and CUBE contains a dedictaion to him. He was always in the back of my head as I worked on it. Bradbury is a master storyteller. We lost someone of great importance with his death last year. DANDELION WINE, SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, and everything else this writer gave us was amazing, especially the short stories. If I can be a 100th of the writer this man was, that would be something great.
This is Isaac Asimov (Best muttonchops ever BTW). He is the grandfather of science fiction. I'm ashamed to say I did not discover his work until college (thank you, Dave Turk). I started with the Foundation trilogy and never turned back. That series of books is awesome! After that it was on to his robot stories and everything else I could find. There are a handful of films that also helped inspire the story.
MOON was the most influential and after you read the story you understand why. CONTACT is based on the novel by Carl Sagan, but I love the film version much more. And 2001 influences pretty much everything in the sci-fi realm. All three are about humans and space exploration (althought MOON is a little different.) Again, after reading CUBE you can pick up on some of the shared themes. Towards the last part of writing the story, I was really struggling to tie it all up neatly. And then on a recommendation from my brother, I streamed this on Netflix:
After watching this, I knew what I wanted CUBE to really be about. It was always there in the back of my head but I was struggling with how to bring it to the story. This flick works as a great companion piece to MOON. But be warned, you may hate this movie. It is very polarizing in how it is set up. Considered arthouse all the way, this is not a typical film with a linear narrative. But if you go into it with an open mind and patience, I think you will be pleasantly pleased.
Which brings us back to CUBE. Yeah, I did not say much about how each work really influenced the story, but I don't want to give away anything either. I hope you do enjoy the story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
CUBE (what's with the little 3? Cube is cubed!) is available now for download from the Amazon store here. It will be FREE starting 1/22 through the weekend!
Have a good week, folks.
peace,
Mike
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☺Trish
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Mar 03, 2013 09:58AM
I LOVE how easy Amazon makes it for readers to buy Kindle e-books (and at what a great value)!!! I remember the days (not so long ago) when I was one of the working poor waiting for a book to go "paperback" so that I could rationalize buying it. Oh yeah, I was all about delayed gratification - it helped build my character! Now, character be darned, (especially seeing as tomorrow is never guaranteed), I can get my book fix with no waiting! I love it! Thanks for the heads up, Michael! going to Amazon right now!
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Trish wrote: "I LOVE how easy Amazon makes it for readers to buy Kindle e-books (and at what a great value)!!! I remember the days (not so long ago) when I was one of the working poor waiting for a book to go "p..."Trish,
I know exactly how you felt. I hated paying hardcover prices for a book. I still search thrift stores for used paperbacks. I used to view the ebook as a fad of some sort. Funny how far someone can come :). Thanks for following the blog. Let me know how you enjoy the work. I want to make sure all my readers are satisfied.
Have a good week.
Michael Whetzel
