Book Reviews Wanted

Any writer will tell you, especially those who independently publish, that book reviews are essential to getting the word out there and generate interest.

Personally, I would rather simply write my books, publish them on Amazon and Createspace and leave it at that.

Surprise, surprise though. Even with my mouthy self and my fairly prolific postings on social media and whatnot, I haven’t yet achieved the level of connection that I want.

So, I’m coming to you, my audience and readers. If you have purchased a copy of Corona, The Three Safeties, and Vessel in the past and haven’t posted a review on Amazon, please please do so. The reviews will help me immensely and will help to spread the word.

If you’re worried about hurting my feelings because something about the book bothered you or you felt that it blew chunks, feel free to post that in your review as well. I have a thick skin and would rather have honest reviews than something thrown in there simply to be nice. Rip me to shreds if you feel you need to because pointing out those areas that I’ve come up short in helps me to improve as a writer and I can’t fix something if I don’t know it’s broken. I know I’m probably opening myself up to all kinds of interesting comments, but I knew the potential consequences when I decided to publish.

Much Love to you all and Ever Forward. 🙂

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Let’s Talk About Vessel

Number Three on the Posting Block, my book, Vessel, available on Amazon in both Kindle and Print Versions. This ride in print brought is intended to be an up to date summation of information I’ve posted before. Future articles will feature all new information. Enjoy!

What makes Vessel Special? Vessel is an older story and was supposed to be my last hurrah with space-based science fiction. At the time it was written, I had created so many spaceships and aliens stories that I was getting tired of the whole thing. Then a funny thing happened.

I decided to take all the disparate elements of a basic spaceship and aliens story and add a crime drama twist to them. Suddenly, I had a whole different story idea and Vessel was born.

I also learned that studying human behavior was a very important thing to do when writing because our motivations tend to steer our course through life. Plus, the idea of something we take for granted might be considered invaluable to an alien.

In essence, Vessel was the last story of its kind that I’ve written to date. These days, I write more character-driven pieces and I’ve not looked back since.

What is Vessel about? In the simplest terms possible, Vessel is a detective story in a futuristic SciFi Setting that centers around the old adage of “One Man’s Trash is another Man’s Treasure”. I would love to go into more detail but then we enter Spoiler Territory and I want to avoid that as much as possible.

Vessel’s Sequel Potential: Without realizing it at the time, I had created a story world that was infinitely sequel worthy. I haven’t written one because I want to clean out my ready-to-burst Idea Folder, but if there is enough interest, I could easily fit a sequel or five into my schedule. I enjoy writing these stories and a Life’s Work rarely gets finished in a lifetime.

Okay, that’s it. No more summaries, no more rehashing old information. After this point, there will be all new posts on this and my other books in between working on Parallax and putting out more story excerpts.

Have a great day and Ever Forward. 🙂

Let’s Talk About The Three Safeties

Next in line for discussion is my book, The Three Safeties, available on Amazon in Kindle and Print versions.

What makes The Three Safeties Special? The Three Safeties is an interesting story because at the time it was written, I was experimenting with introducing more darker elements in my stories. I dug deep when I wrote this particular story because I wanted to convey the feeling of someone who had lost everything that they held dear in their lives and had no hope left.

At its core, the story is about choices and how they can affect not only our own lives, but the lives of those around us. Those who have read the story picked up on the central theme and have relayed to me how much it resonated with them. That gratifies me, because I’m always striving to create deeper meanings with my writing and take my readers to a new level.

What is The Three Safeties About? At its core, The Three Safeties is a Time Travel story where reality tends to trump perception and I’ve thrown out the typical rules for Good Guy vs Bad Guy. Choices made for the right reasons don’t always turn out positive and can generally bite you in the butt without warning. This is the case with The Three Safeties. It’s fairly dark, kind of gritty, but I think it conveys the concept of a Pyrrhic Victory very well. Plus it has a cool time machine. 😉

The Three Safeties Sequel Potential? In my last article, I stated that with Fiction, anything is possible. That’s true here because The Three Safeties, along with Corona, is a glimpse into a unified story universe that I had been working to put together for a long time. The characters all coexist on the same Planet Earth although perhaps at different time periods and places, depending on the story needs. In any case, one never knows when the urge to write a sequel will come up.

Let’s Talk About Corona

First off, let me state that I am not talking about the infinitely tasty beverage…hehe. No, I’m talking about my book, Corona, currently available on Amazon in both Kindle and Print Versions. A good portion of this article are reposts from previous articles. So, without further ado, let us begin:

Corona’s Backstory: Corona is a story that is near and dear to me. Back in 2002, I had left college due to funding issues and had relocated from Ames, IA to San Diego, CA. As you can imagine, moving to a new city with few initial prospects and little faith in my ability as a writer (at the time) was a very daunting set of circumstances. I was out and about one day job hunting when I came across the Hotel Del Coronado. Man, what a beautiful place! While I was there at the Del, I heard the story of Kate Morgan, a young woman who was found dead on the beach of an apparent suicide back in the Day and that got me thinking of writing a ghost story. Of course, I could have easily written a standard ghost story, but I decided to give it something of a SF twist and then Corona was born.

I started by asking myself three questions:

What if ghost sightings were actually echoes of the past?

What if a structure had been built upon a transdimensional nexus?

What if that nexus was used to imprison an evil person’s consciousness?

Once I had answered those three questions, I set about creating Corona’s story world using elements from another story that I had been previously working on. I like to create connections between some stories and this idea seemed perfect to do a few tie-ins. It didn’t take long to write Corona, but unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be a place to shop it due to a limited market at the time. So, it sat in a file on my computer for quite a few years before I decided to self-publish it on Amazon. For all intents and purposes, Corona is my first published work and as such, holds a special place in my heart. It’s an added thrill to be able to share it with the world at large.

The World of Corona: Corona’s story world is a possible future to our own, but with a few twists. Most of the technology, mannerisms, and styles are similar to our own, but there are a few exceptions that exist firmly within the realm of fiction. It’s Speculative Fiction, go figure. 😉 The main story location is the Hotel Maldonado, a historic landmark hotel with something of a ghostly past. Normally, a haunted hotel would put the story right into the Horror or Supernatural Camp, but I like to put my own spin on things so there are wrinkles on the theme that I’m pretty fond of. The most important aspect of Corona’s story world are the characters. They are complex, relatable, and I like to think, truly unique unto themselves. I could go into more detail about them, but they are best when read without prompting.

Corona’s Sequel Potential: Every story has the potential to become a series and this one was originally intended to become a series featuring my intrepid investigators as they delve into various paranormal cases. Obviously, I haven’t done that yet, but the beauty of fiction is that anything is possible.