Conditioned Response by Marjorie F. Baldwin

[Suki]

Well, yes, Brennan wasn't too bad. I didn't want to slap him half the time, so that's a plus. :-)

Thank your writing for me pushing on; at least THAT was a 'Satisfactory Reader Experience'! I could appreciate what you were trying to convey, even if I didn't much like the characters you created to get there.

[Marjorie]

Sue-Ann wrote: "Well, yes, Brennan wasn't too bad. I didn't want to slap him half the time, so that's a plus. :-)

Thank your writing for me pushing on; at least THAT was a 'Satisfactory Reader Experience'! I cou..."

Although that's good to know and might make some authors happy, I'm disappointed (in myself, my book) that I wasn't able to deliver something in all of those thousands of words to entertain you.

I believe books should make a reader think, yes, but I want to entertain, too. Ah well, not all things to all people, as they say, and some readers have just been over the moon about this book. Interestingly enough they are not people I can "get" to write reviews (grrr) I'll just have to write/release another story! LOL

-Friday
@phoenicianbooks

[Suki]

See, our views of what's entertaining are completely different. I'm a fantasy nut, and thoroughly enjoyed American Gods, while you hated it (and you've said you don't enjoy fantasy). Not everything has to entertain, and I started Conditioned Response after weeks of reading complete fluff, so my brain had to engage on a whole new level. Gears started moving that hadn't been worked for a while.

I do wish I'd liked the characters more, but compared to some of what I've read lately - hey, at least yours didn't make me stop reading!

[Marjorie]

Oh wow, I had no idea you were a fantasy buff; I thought you liked both SF and F "equally" or at least, liked SF :) Yeah, it makes total sense now that you wouldn't have liked my book (much like Jonathan who never reads gritty SciFi). Conditioned Response is about as "classic" and "old school" as SciFi can get these days. I deliberately harkened back to the SciFi written before the Godzilla and The Blob and the Aliens Among Us! wave launched borderline pulp which in turn launched the Fantasy genre (was that back in the 50s that Fantasy truly launched as a genre unto itself?)

My stuff is also considered "softSF" on top of being seriously SciFi-ish, though I notice your shelf "blinded-me-with-science" (chuckled at that! thanks! :) implies you felt the "softSF" (social science) was overshadowed by the genetic engineering stuff. There wasn't even that much of the genetic engineering and/or AI stuff! And it only gets "worse" as the series goes on so you probably wouldn't like the prequel When Minds Collide any better than CondResp.

But again, as I said, THANK YOU for not putting the book down. I'm glad I was at least able to provide good-enough quality writing to keep you hoping...just sorry to have disappointed on the content, even if you ARE a Fantasy grrl :-)

[Marjorie]

The short story I kept mentioning during the group read of my novel Conditioned Response is now available for download--and priced at FREE as promised :)


Long Short / Short Novella / Novellette (29,000 words)
Whatever you decide to call this little guy, it's a prequel to the tome of a novel and a heck of a lot shorter--some say too short! haha Jonathan has already read it and reviewed it and that was definitely one of his "complaints" if it can be a complaint that a short story is too short. I think it could have been longer but I would have written past "The End" of the story I was telling. I could easily have gone on for another 100,000 words. You should know that about me by now ((grin))

Download Links:
http://bit.ly/WMC-Smash (all formats)
http://bit.ly/WMC-Goodreads (ePub only)
http://bit.ly/WMC-Biblio (ePub, Mobi, PDF)
http://bit.ly/WMC-ObookO (ePub, Mobi, PDF)

(the first three allow you to review the book, ObookO only allows for star ratings)

If you are steadfast in your preference for Kindle and don't mind paying money, you can also get it from the Kindle Store but Amazon doesn't allow me to price books as "free" so you have to pay 99c / £0.77

http://bit.ly/WMC-KindleUK
http://bit.ly/WMC-AmazonUS

In case you haven't seen/heard the blurbage yet, here it is for your reading pleasure:

When Minds Collide
Can two men co-exist inside one mind? Andrew Caine and Joshua Scherrer can barely co-exist outside, on the same planet. After they're involved in a fatal car accident, the enigmatic native Phoenicians have sent someone to "help" them blend together, into a new man. Can they accept the new existence together, or will their minds collide as fatally as the car crash that killed them?

#

When two brilliant scientists die together in a careless traffic accident, the Community, a fledgling human colony on an alien world, suffers a devastating blow. Joshua Scherrer and Andrew Caine might have loathed each other personally, but their collective knowledge was vital to humanity’s survival on this Phoenician world. Without them and their contributions, Administrator Stafar Baghendi fears for the very survival of humanity’s last stand.

In a desperate attempt to salvage both men, Stafar Baghendi uses an untried, theoretical gene therapy process, infusing the genetically-encoded memory of Andrew Caine into the DNA of Joshua Scherrer. The two men awaken to find themselves living together inside one mind, but their clashing personalities might prove a more fatal collision than the one that killed them the first time.

What none of the humans realize is that here on the Phoenician home world, the Seven Chiefs have a Plan for everything—and this time, the Plan will change the course of human history forever.