Buying Books Then And Now

In 2009 I purchased Darkship Thieves as described below. Just now I purchased its sequel, Darkship Renegades and I'm updating what I originally wrote back then. And added what I've learned.

How Books Are Were Bought In 2009

I was minding my own business, surfing to my favorite blog. Instapundit. He linked to a SF novel twice. The second had an interesting author's story of how the novel got published.

This interested me enough to want the book. But I was not going out and I doubted Barnes & Nobel has it on their shelves this soon after release. So, I clicked the Amazon link that Professor Reynolds helpfully provided. Sadly, I learned the book is not available on the Kindle.

My sadness was short-lived. "Hey, the publisher is Baen." Those guys aren't luddites. There's got to be an electronic copy available somewhere. So, I bypassed Amazon.com and went to see if they were selling an ebook that I could download immediately. I could.

A few mouse clicks later, I'd purchased the ebook for $6.00. A relative bargain. Moments later, I received an email with links to download the book. I clicked on the link for epub format (for my Motorola Droid and also my SONY Reader) and also mobi format (for my Kindle DX). They arrived on my hard disk and I unzipped them to a scratch directory.

Then I fired up Calibre and imported them into its database. (Think of Calibre as iTunes for ebooks.) Then I plugged in my Kindle DX and told Calibre to upload it. Then I repeated the procedure with my Motorola Droid.

Altogether satisfactory. Less time that it would take to drive to the bookstore. Cost is $6.00. And completely DRM-free. This is the way the future of books and reading should be.

How Books Are Bought In 2012

Inflation may have hit food and gasoline, but not ebooks. The price is still $6.00.

Meanwhile, Baen has streamlined the buying process. Buying the ebook directly from Baen is still the only option, but you can tell them to deliver it directly to your Kindle (or iPad).

I love Calibre, but shlepping cables from my laptop to my iPad is annoying.

Delivery from Baen to your Kindle is now a 2-step process.

First, you go to your Amazon account's Manage Your Kindle page. Find the link and click on Personal Document Settings, and add ebooks@baenebooks.com to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List.

Second, copy the email address that Amazon uses for your specific Kindle device under your Send-to-Kindle E-Mail Settings. When you click on the link from Baen, you'll find an option to have them send the ebook to your Kindle, and that's where you'll paste the email address you just copied. Click the button and Baen will do the rest. Painless. Easy.

Let me know if you have any difficulty with these instructions.

(Of course, after you buy Sarah's books, I'll be much obliged if you'd consider Finding Time or The Aristotelian.)

Isaac Asimov vs Gene Roddenberry

Isaac Asimov is a Science Fiction demigod. And he was a Science Fiction demigod back in 1966 when he wrote an article in TV Guide wherein he ragged on the science fiction shows airing at that time. In addition to being a Science Fiction demigod, Asimov was also an author of textbooks. I don't write textbooks, but I get annoyed at bogus science when I see it in science fiction stories. In 1966, I was an 11 year old, and I picked up on some of the same errors that he did.

In addition to savaging Lost In Space, Asimov also made disparaging remarks about the other TV show that premiered that fall: Star Trek.

The fella getting disparaged over Star Trek was another Science Fiction demigod: Gene Roddenberry.

And they exchanged letters as described here. You really should read their correspondence. It's amazing.

What I found particularly helpful reading the Roddenberry/Asimov correspondence is how Asimov did not create an enemy with his critical remarks about Star Trek. Instead, Roddenberry came back with a gracious reply to Asimov's criticisms that displayed a great deal of admiration for Asimov's work. (Did I mention that Asimov was a Science Fiction demigod back in 1966?)

Both men were adults and nobody felt so insecure that he got mad or defensive. Instead, they went on to correspond most profitably and Asimov provided helpful suggestions to Roddenberry. I think that it was because both men loved Science Fiction and that could put criticism into an appropriate context.

That's what we should do when someone rubs our fur the wrong way. If there's something wrong with The Aristotelian or Finding Time, then I should hear it, own up to what's real in the criticism, and fix what I can. The fella pointing out the flaws isn't my enemy as much as my ignorance of the writing craft or my laxity in not paying attention to detail.

The Red pill or the Green pill?

Are you going to take the Red pill...

... or are you going to take the Green pill?

I've rambled on about how much I hate dystopian novels. And how I intend to write prose that is anti-dystopian.

Sarah Hoyt, et alia, have suggested an alternative they call Human Wave. Human Wave is basically old-fashioned Humanism (neither Secular nor Religious, just Humanism qua Humanism) that's contextualized within the motifs of Science Fiction.

That's a fine sentiment. I like humans. I really like cute little humans and attractive female humans--particularly the one to whom I'm married. But I've always thought "man is the measure of all things" to be a bit too uppity. Not humble enough.

Thus I now feel more of a co-belligerent of Human Wave than an unequivocal ally. Instead, something got me thinking about the future and how my writing should engage the future.

Let's suppose I take all the problems in the world and consider worst-case scenarios. The great terror of my childhood was nuclear war.

Maybe there will be a nuclear war, and the radiation will keep growing so that we'll all die. And if that happens, the last survivors would live in Australia, drive race cars, and take suicide pills. That's not a fun day On The Beach, is it?  
Conversely, the survivors in such a scenario would have the time and resources to build underground or underwater habitats with sufficient shielding to protect against radiation. OR they could build rockets and live on the moon for a century or two while waiting for the radiation to half-life away.

So, do you want to keep calm and carry on or do you want to get excited and make things? Do you want the Red Pill or do you want the Green Pill?

(You'll note that I did not say Blue Pill.)

When I was a wee lad (That sounds better in a Scottish brogue.), you could drive through Gary, Indiana and you would see an orange haze in the air from all the steel making. The river in Cleveland caught fire.

Today you can fill your lungs with air that's a lot cleaner. You can go to the beach and take a dip in water that's a lot cleaner, too.

(But I live in Michigan. It's too cold to go swimming. At least, not until we get some more Global Warming, please.)

What changed between then and now is that our parents saw problems and set about to fixing them. They fixed them so well, that the remaining pollution problems became much more subtle, and more questionable.

That's the green pill. You see something is wrong, and you set about to fixing it.

Is the planet too hot or too cold? Don't Stay Calm and Carry On, roll-up your sleeves, build a thermostat, and hook it up. What about unintended consequences? There's risks in anything and we're already dealing with unintended consequences of everything else that's gone before.

Once Upon A Time the world of the future was not a dystopian place. Stay Calm and Carry On was WW2 and on the other side of the Atlantic. The American way has been to see a problem, and do something to try to fix it. We Get Excited And Make Things.

Happily, today most of the things that are worth making are within the scope and skills of one or a few tinkerers. The Maker Movement is a bunch of folks doing art installations, starting companies, subverting monopolies, and engaging in creative destruction. A lot of us are engineers and computer geeks. Note the word "us" because that's who I am. You may have noticed my experiments with the Raspberry Pi.

I also write. And after you read my stories I hope that you will want to get up and invent a jetpack or a flying car. Or a cure for cancer. Or a better way into space.

Two Styles of Science Fiction

When I was a tender young lad my favorite authors were Jules Verne and H. G. Wells.

These guys represent two different approaches toward science fiction. Verne took a more technological approach. He looked at technological trends and wrote about cool scientific inventions that would in turn serve a central role in the story: submarines, space guns, and airships for example.

Conversely, Wells took a more sociological approach. He looked at historical trends and wrote about the cultures likely to arise from them. The "Upstairs/Downstairs" class stratification of Victorian society would likely drive human evolution to elf-like Eloi and troll-like Morlocks.

If you look at any science fiction story, you can gauge how much Verne and how much Wells is in the story. When I speak of the line between Fantasy and Science Fiction, it's a lot easier to start with a Verne-style story and prove it is not Fantasy than to do so with a Wells-style story.

As a friend recently pointed out to me, "Science Fiction gets bogged down in telling you how the watch works, Fantasy just tells you the time and moves on." I heartily agree when you're talking about a Verne-style story. Less so with a Wells-style story.

Granted, we never read detailed technical specifications for the power plant of the Nautilus, but Verne provided details like the electric guns being powered by Leiden jars (super-capacitors). In contrast, Well's time machine had a lever and an odometer that showed what year it was.

Could "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" be retold as a Fantasy story? I don't see how it could--you really need the submarine. Feel free to prove me wrong.

Conversely, could "The Time Machine" be told as Fantasy? Maybe. The gist of the story is that the time traveler goes to someplace different where the Morlocks (who keep everything working) terrorize the Eloi (who do lunch).

I think I could write a story where a magic-user casts a spell and lands in Middle Earth with dwarfish Morlocks and elvish Eloi doing everything the same as in The Time Machine. The biggest thing lost in such a translation would be Wells' sermonizing about how evil and destructive war is. We really don't need the sermonizing as long as there are pictures of Hiroshima available.

I've elsewhere suggested that there's good reason to classify the stories of Finding Time under fantasy, since the science of chaos theory causes a lot of trouble for ANY time travel scenario. And quantum mechanics implies that you cannot even OBSERVE quantum systems.

Nevertheless, I love science and technology too much to not give inventions a prominent role in my stories. I feel an unstoppable need to tell the reader how the watch works. Consider my story, "Sealed Was The Tomb" wherein Sid is testing a time machine. I show a spaceship going to Epsilon Eridani and the story turns on the need to maintain an UNOBSERVED quantum system. (Is there sociology in the Spacer/Lubber conflict? Yes, but that's another story.)

This makes Finding Time Science Fiction.

Fantasy vs Science Fiction

The lines between Fantasy and Science Fiction have never been impermeable or as well defined as one might like. I've been to Cons where this was the topic of panel discussions.

I have a simple rule of thumb: is there more polished metal or more rough-sawed wood? The former betokens Science Fiction and the latter betokens Fantasy.

Consider Babylon 5, a TV show set on a space station in interstellar space. The various alien species could just as easily be replaced by Elves, Dwarfs, Orcs, etc. Or take Conan the Barbarian, he could just as easily be a post-apocalyptic tough-guy dealing with occasional bits of technology so advanced they're indistinguishable from magic.

When you try to enforce hard boundaries between SF and Fantasy, you have to answer questions: Can you go faster than light-speed and still be SF?

What about mind-reading through ESP? There's no science to justify these story elements, but during the golden age of SF, these things were scientifically plausible. Moreover at that time science-fact notions like programmable matter and nanotechnology were implausibly magical.

Years back I wrote a story wherein characters used "mental telephony": They had chips in their heads that allowed them to wirelessly communicate without speaking. I think that was clearly SF.

Or consider time travel. I've heard some science fiction writer claim that all time travel stories are pure fantasy. If you go back in time, there is absolutely no way it won't change the present in some unpredictable way.

Chaos Theory tells us that a change as big as the mass of an electron at the opposite edge of the universe makes an observable, unpredictable difference.

Scale that up to the effects you'd get if you were to send Sid & Nell back to WW2 Greenland and you've got big trouble doing so without disrupting the time-line.

So, is Finding Time a collection of Fantasy or Science Fiction stories? Tell me what you think.

The Spirit is Willing, but the Flesh is Selling

36    Others who ignore these mantras will get published ahead of you.

Years back when I started seriously trying to get a book deal I made the mistake of reading a newspaper. It listed the bestsellers and my gaze lighted upon two of the worthies carrying the torch of American culture by virtue of being bestselling authors: One was a professional wrestler. The other was a pornographic movie actress.

Let that sink in for a bit.

Doubtless these worthies had more going for them than copious amounts of exposed flesh. I'll let others wring their hands about the corrosive effect of such upon the nation's morality.

The point I'm making today is that when these folks sat down to write, the writers mantras I've inflicted upon you were not considered. As you learn to write and try to write better, you'll see where others have flouted what constitutes good writing and have still acquired a book deal.

When some politician gets a zillion-dollar advance, it will not be on the basis of his or her writing chops. The professional wrestler, the politician, and the porn star each have a measure of notoriety that they can parley into a book deal. They have a pre-built writers platform that guarantees book sales.

The lesson to learn from this is not to toss away learning to write and write well, but to keep in mind that publishing is a multidimensional enterprise. What works for one person won't for another. Unless you intend to start taking off your clothes... and getting into the wrestling ring (what? You were thinking something else?) you should put some thought into how you are writing and how to write well.

Despite a certain archness of tone, I'm not really begrudging the successful author who ignores the writers mantras. There's many roads to success and some leverage writing mantras and others do not. You have to decide for yourself how you'll proceed.

The main thing is not to get discouraged when you learn someone else succeeds by taking their clothes off.

Wesley Crusher Die Die Die

I sell a $0.99 story, The Aristotelian, and a $2.99 anthology of stories, Finding Time, so this post tacks close to the wind. You should not buy every $0.99 and $2.99 ebook you find on Amazon. Maybe it's because I'm an evil, running-dog capitalist, that I make enough money to make these prices seem quite small. But some $0.99/$2.99 ebooks are no bargain. This is a post arguing against the indiscriminate buying of low-priced ebooks.

Every story is an investment by the reader. The writer has a fiduciary responsibility to protect that interest. The writer who forgets that is a thief and a cheat.

The reader takes her hard-earned, after-tax dollars and buys your book. Then the reader sits down and reads it. We all have a limited amount of time on this Earth. The reader's investment is thus the sales-price plus the time spent reading. This is time that might otherwise be spent catching up on sleep, exercising, or enjoying another hobby. For all but the poorest among us, the time-cost is the harder one to justify. A novel will consume a long Friday night, or an entire weekend, depending upon how long it is and how quickly one reads.

How do you know before you sit down to read whether you'll get to "The End" close the book and think, "More please." OR you'll think, "That's time I'll never get back."

There was a time when wise men of compassion and vision saw publishing as a high vocation. Such men sought to protect the public from inferior prose. They served as watchful dragons making sure only the right words got published. And often publishing dreck that pandered to their bigotry along the way.

Independent publishing means there are no watchful dragons today. Anyone can upload anything to Amazon and get their mother to write a 5-star review of it before suppertime.

This creates a broad spectrum of writing that you can buy for not much money. Some of it is easily identifiable as horrid. Some of it absolutely rocks. (You should decide about "The Aristotelian" and "Finding Time" for yourself.)

The absolute worst thing you can encounter on the Kindle is neither horrid nor awesome. This is what happened with me last night. I had purchased. The Last Praetorian by Mike Smith and I started to read it.

The first thing I noticed was the grammar. I think I can get its/it's and there/their straight, and I feel rather comfortable with who/whom. But lay and lie are a minefield I tend to walk about if I can. These are all mechanical things you can fix if you take the time to learn the rules of grammar and ruthlessly review your text, OR hire someone who already knows the rules of grammar to apply them to your manuscript.

Then I noticed the misspellings. Any fool can find the little red squiggles underlining the wordz spelt worng. But a writer gets no such warning when he says discrete when he means discreet. This is where you need to hire someone who knows the differences and has an eye that can spot them in your manuscript.

I have only myself to blame. I read the opening chapter and the hero, Jon Radek, is the YOUNGEST officer to ever COMMAND the MOST ELITE unit of the BIGGEST empire in human history. He wields the SHARPEST sword ever. And he is assigned to guard the EMPEROR and his spoiled PRINCESS who just so happens to be the MOST BEAUTIFUL woman in the galaxy. The hero not only is an expert with all things martial arts, he is also the BEST PILOT in known space.

Have you noticed any of superlatives in the last paragraph? A perfectly serviceable story can be written around little people. Beginning writers don't realize this. A beginning writer doesn't realize s/he shouldn't make the protagonist and/or love-interest some version of himself. That's the problem with Wesley Crusher in particular and Mary Sue characters in general.

You can be a very good writer and fall into this trap, as I believe Dorothy Sayers did with Lord Peter and Harriet Vane. I think Ms. Sayers fantasized about a perfect man, then wrote him up as Lord Peter Wimsey. And then to indulge her own fantasy of having such a man, she wrote up Harriet Vane. I'll have to take this up with Ms. Sayers when I see her.

Meanwhile, back at the Last Praetorian, the hero is all those superlatives. But did you notice that he never has to practice? He never has to work out in the gym to have those rock-hard abs? He never spends any time in the flight simulator honing his mad skillz?

Likewise this hero is reluctant to kill, because he's seen too much killing in his life. Really? How do we know? We never saw any of it in the opening chapters. And when he chokes the life out of an assailant he doesn't seem remorseful.


The problem is that even in space centuries from now, human nature will still be recognizable. The characters in this story are just chess pieces moved about at the writers' whim according to the demands of the plot. And that's a hallmark of really bad writing: an obliviousness to human nature. Any character, good, bad or ugly, has to have motivation to do the next thing. That motivation can never be "to advance the plot." He may be like Conan or Inigo Montoya looking for revenge. Or Ferris Beuller just taking a day off.

And if you make your hero the owner of an interstellar shipping company, the emperor of a galactic thang, or the captain of a ship o' the line, s/he's a leader with followers. Same goes for your evil villain. S/He'll have minions (which are better than followers b/c you don't have to pay them as much). This means your leader will have to show some hallmarks of leadership or your book will suck.

The spear-carriers have got to have some motivation to keep on following. I quit reading Last Praetorian before I got to see much of the villain's organization. From what I did read, the minions would have ample opportunity to see the villain as inept, venal and certain to regard minions as cannon fodder.

This has been a pet peeve of mine ever since I saw Ernst Stavro Blofeld pet a Turkish Angora Cat while feeding a minion to a shark.

I think one of the hallmarks of a good writer is the ability to create believable motivations for the villain. Why does he live in an extinct volcano instead of the Hamptons? Why does he have a huge world map with blinkie lights behind his desk? Yeah those things were cool when I was 15. Same for Persian cats and monocles. But no sane minion follows a fella with the maturity of a 15-year old. Why follow a putz like that? Does he have a great dental plan?

I quit reading the Last Praetorian, but not before wasting too many hours reading it.

Whenever you read any story, it will raise questions in the mind. What has become of the Emperor? Is he really dead? How did Jon & Sophie get to the Imperial Senate? Why did they separate? Will the Senator's son whose life Jon spared grow up to become a valued ally?

The reader is made physically uncomfortable by story-questions that remain unanswered. This motivates the reader to stick with a story even as s/he is rolling eyes about cardboard characters and furious about the bad writing. That's why I would rather happen upon a story I despise and can quickly dismiss. Nope, no need to read about robot lesbians, next. Nothing I can relate to, I felt no discomfort abandoning Hegemony.

But I liked the Sten novels. And I like Mark Van Name's Jon & Lobo stories. Last Praetorian reminded my of them. So, I bought the novel and disregarded the early warning signs.

At some point I decided the discomfort of leaving the story-questions above unanswered was going to be less than the discomfort of finding them to be answered in an unsatisfactory fashion. My worries of a third-act fail made me think Last Praetorian was a negative sum game.

And the only way to "win" a negative-sum game is to not play.

Two stars. I wish it had been one star so that I would have quit reading sooner.

Because a friend recently got a bad review, and lamented the fact that the reviewer had not "thrown her a bone." I'll throw Mr. Smith, who wrote The Last Praetorian, a bone:

• your world building does not suck, though it reminded me too much of Andromeda, you can build on it.
• hire a copy editor and/or fire whoever you had copy-edit Praetorian.
• hire an editor-editor to point out structural problems and Mary Sue characters.