The old world is dead, destroyed by nuclear fire. The old ways are long forgotten–except by one man in search of the Holy City. He wanders the Earth with two guns and a Bible, leaving a trail of death and ancient prophecy in his wake. Brigands fear him, honest men pity him, and the Hellborn hunt him. He is John Shannow–the Jerusalem man.
This is some vintage David Gemmell. In fact, I think this particular edition has been reprinted as Wolf in Shadow, and can no longer be found except in used bookstores and book trading sites. Regardless, the book is awesome, right on par with Gemmell’s other work.
David Gemmell has the uncanny ability to suck you in almost as soon as you open the book, making you emotionally invested in the characters and conflicts to the point where you can’t stop thinking about it. My favorite part of this book was in the first few chapters, when John Shannow found a frontier woman and briefly settled down. It only lasted a handful of pages, but it was so powerful and moving that I felt compelled to read almost nonstop until I’d finished the book.
The later half gets a little outlandish, with magic stones, the lost city of Atlantis, and a Satanic cult bent on world domination. It was a fun adventure, but not as compelling for me as the personal story of John Shannow. In fact, it seems as if Gemmell unconsciously fell back on all the old tropes of the Drenai series, turning his post-apocalyptic western into a sword and sorcery romp, like Waylander with guns. It wasn’t bad, but at times it did feel a little over the top.
This might have to do with my own personal tastes, however. I tend to enjoy stories that have more to do with the personal lives and intimate struggles of the characters than grand quests to save the world. I don’t know if it’s always been like that, or if it’s just something that’s changed as I’ve gotten older.
Regardless, The Jerusalem Man was a great book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. If you’re a fan of fantasy-western mashups, or post-apocalyptic fantasy in general, then this is a must-read. And even if that’s not your usual fare, if you’re drawn to loner heroes who don’t pull any punches, you’ll almost certainly love this book.
First, some housekeeping: I recently did an interview over on Slava Heretz’s blog, which you can find here. I talk a little bit about Desert Stars, as well as how traveling has influenced my writing and how I overcome writer’s block.
In other news, I got smacked upside the head with the flu yesterday and slept in today until 1pm. I feel marginally better, but I’ll probably do the same tonight. Productivity: shot in the face.
However, I did manage to run through the copy edits for Desert Stars and format it for publication. Finished the author’s note today, so as soon as I get the cover art, it’s good to go.
For the cover art, I’ve commissioned Hideyoshi again, the same artist who did the cover for Genesis Earth. He sent me the initial sketch the other day, and it looks good! It comes from a scene toward the beginning, when Jalil and Mira share an intimate moment while overlooking the planetary domes on the edge of the desert:
That night, Mira couldn’t sleep. The wind roared past the window in her room, making an eerie whistling noise as it shook the windowpanes. That wasn’t all, though. Perhaps it was the woody, foreign smell of the room, or the perfect straightness of the walls, or the uncomfortable softness of the bed. Whatever it was, she tossed and turned for what felt like hours, trying to find some firmness that would let her sleep. Eventually, she gave up and lay on her back, staring at the ceiling.
The stars, she thought to herself. If only I could see them, maybe I could forget how far I am from home.
She quietly rose from the bed and threw her cloak over her shift. The sound of the wind made her shiver, and she stepped carefully in the darkness, groping her way through the room until she came to the door. Once out, the stairwell was only a short distance down the hall. The night air was cold, the breeze stiff. The familiar stars and satellites stared down at her from the sky, though with all the light from the streetlamps, they were noticeably muted.
Wrapping her arms around herself for warmth, she made her way to the edge and stared out across the valley at the glass mountain—the world in a bottle. White and yellow lights shone through the glass, too fuzzy to make out with any clarity. It was a strange sight, and Mira stared at it for some time.
“You couldn’t sleep either?”
The sound of Jalil’s voice gave her a start. She turned quickly and saw him sitting on an old, weathered couch facing the valley. The upholstery was torn, and stuffing was falling out in places.
“Oh,” she said softly. “I—I didn’t see you.”
“That’s all right; I could use some company. Here, have a seat.”
He scooted over and made some room for her. When she sat down, the couch gave way underneath her until she was practically sitting on the ground. The wind picked up, and Mira shivered.
“Are you all right?” Jalil asked. “You look cold—here, take this blanket.”
He leaned forward and pulled off the blanket that he’d brought up from his bed.
“That’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to—”
“No, here,” he said. “You need it more than I do.”
Mira tried to protest, but Jalil draped the blanket over her shoulders without another word. She had to admit, the added warmth felt surprisingly good against the chill night air.
Man, I’m so looking forward to getting this book out! It’s been a long time in coming. I started the first draft back in 2008, but some elements of it have been bouncing around my head since 2005. More on that in the author’s note.
In any case, we’re definitely on schedule to get Desert Stars out before the end of the year, probably before Christmas. So keep an eye out for it!
For today’s Trope Tuesday post, I thought it would be fun to bring on my friend Kindal Debenham to speak about one of the tropes in his new book, Wolfhound.
Kindal and I were in the same writing group in college, and attended Brandon Sanderson’s English 318 class together. I just picked up a copy of his book, and it’s pretty good–definitely the kind of science fiction that I love. You can currently find Wolfhound on Amazon, as well as Kindal’s self-publishing site.
So anyhow, here’s Kindal’s discussion of space pirates in Wolfhound.
==============================
Space pirates are kind of a staple in science fiction. We’ve seen them in all sorts of different forms since the genre came into being. As the trope states, though, there are basically two main classes. The first class is basically a bunch of violent criminals on a spaceship, kind of mirroring the behavior of modern day pirates in Somalia or Southeast Asia. The second are a corny recycled in space variant of the eighteenth century Caribbean pirate with robotic peg legs and a space parrot. Obviously one is a bit more realistic than the other. 🙂
The version I went for leans a lot more heavily on the first class of space pirates rather than the second. I wanted a smaller scale conflict in order to introduce my main character, and pirates seemed to be a good opponent to use for that purpose. Since the ship that Jacob Hull is on was partially based on the USS Constitution, I decided that I could use some of the pirates that ship fought during its history: the Barbary pirates.
These pirates weren’t your clichéd corsairs with parrots and a desire for plunder. The Barbary pirates were a collection of raiders that operated out of northern Africa. Their motivation was to support their nations by taking ships and capturing crews, which they then added to their fleet and put to work as slaves. In addition to raiding ships, the Barbary pirates also went on slave raids throughout southern Europe. They would accept tribute to ignore the ships of certain countries (think ‘protection money’ for a mob equivalent). The US had to pay about a fifth of the early national budget in tribute to these pirates until the politicians decided that guns were cheaper to buy—which led directly to the creation of the USS Constitution.
Building off of those ideas, I created the Telosian pirates. Vicious, more interested in valuable ransom for prisoners and well armed ships than simple cargo, and willing to do just about anything to satisfy their greed. With an utter ruthlessness only matched by their subtle plots, they made quite a good enemy for Jacob Hull and the rest of Wolfhound’s crew, and they were a much more interesting enemy to fight than a stereotypical Pirate-with-an-Eyepatch would have been. In my opinion at least, though I’m a little biased.
So those are the bad guys of Wolfhound—at least, they’re the majority of the bad guys—and believe me, they live up to their reputation as nasty pieces of work. Hope you guys enojoyed the background, and I hope I didn’t get too history nerd on you guys. See you around!
In the last couple of weeks, there’s been a lot of discussion about Amazon’s new Lending Library program. Just a few days ago, Amazon opened it up to indie writers with the KDP Select program. By signing up, writers gain access to Amazon Prime members (US only), where readers can borrow the book for free and Amazon still reimburses the writer.
The catch? Two, actually: writers agree to make their books exclusive to Amazon for 90 days, and payment for all KDP Select authors comes out of a monthly “fixed pot” of $500,000, where every writer gets a cut according to what percentage of the Lending Library downloads were for their books.
Reactions from the indie community have been mixed. Within only a few hours, several thousand enthusiastic writers had signed up (the current number of participants is ~50k), but many others remain cautious and aloof.
The full range of reactions can be seen in the Kindle Boards thread. Guido Henkel does a good job pointing out how the numbers don’t add up, while David Gaughran offers a compelling analysis that likewise dampers enthusiasm for the program. On the Smashwords blog, Mark Coker pleads with writers to keep their options open, while at Writer Beware, A.C. Crispin points out some disturbing language in the terms & conditions that essentially amounts to a non-compete clause.
I’m sure that many others will weigh in on KDP Select in the coming days, and I look forward to reading their analysis, but I’ve already decided that I won’t be signing up with the program. Even if no one else signs up, with 50k writer splitting a $50,000 pot, the average monthly paymentis only going to be $10. Unless you’re one of the lucky bestsellers, you’ll probably make even less than that.
But the real reason I’m not signing up is because I don’t feel that it serves my readers. If I put any of my titles through KDP Select, I’d be giving Amazon a 90 day exclusive, which means that my readers would be forced to either buy through Amazon or wait three months to buy my books. I don’t feel that that’s fair to my readers, especially in territories where Amazon levies a $2 surcharge.
At this point in my career, my goal is to build up a dedicated fan base that looks forward to each new release. To do that, I want to make my books available in as many places as possible. Even if I’m not selling all that well right now at Barnes & Noble or the smaller retailers, it’s not worth it to cut those readers off and tell them to go to Amazon or wait.
However, the KDP Select program does foreshadow the next big phase of the ebook revolution, and that is the move to subscription services. I expect that in the mid- to near-future, we’re going to see a lot of ebook lending models arise, kind of like Netflix for books. The big question in my mind is how the writers are going to be compensated.
Like David, I have a lot of concerns with KDP Select’s “fixed pot” model. Besides the lack of any guaranteed or minimum rate of compensation and the general opaqueness of the system, it fundamentally pits writers against each other in a zero-sum game, where one writer’s gain is another one’s loss. To me, this represents a giant step backward.
When a reader finds something they like, they’re more likely to try out another book just like it. This is how readers have historically found new writers, and it fosters a sense of community, where writers work together to reach out to new readers and expand the scope of the genre. The “fixed pot” model disincentives all this and replaces it with a Machiavellian system that, at its worst, works against the natural advantages of the medium and undermines the genre community.
For all these reasons, I won’t be signing up for Amazon’s KDP Select. The exclusivity hurts writers and readers, the numbers just don’t add up, and the “fixed pot” model represents a fundamental shift in bookselling that I cannot support.
Since I plan on publishing a number of books this next year, I decided to write down the step-by-step instructions for how I make my ebooks.
There’s 50 steps altogether and the process can get a little complicated, but if you follow the instructions it should all be very straightforward. It takes me about two hours now to run through all the steps, and when I’m finished I have a .mobi file for Amazon, an .epub file for Barnes & Noble, a .doc file for Smashwords, and a couple .jpg files for cover art and thumbnails.
The best part is that all the programs are free, so once you know what you’re doing, it costs nothing but a couple hours of your time to actually make the ebook files. Other than maybe another hour (if that) to upload the files to Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords, that’s all it takes to publish.
Since publishing isn’t a zero-sum business and all of us benefit when writers have options, I’m making this short manual available as a free PDF. It may or may not work for you the way it works for me, but if it helps you to climb the steep learning curve that all of us face when we first start out, then I’ve done my job.
Also, if any of you are more knowledgeable about formatting than I am, please let me know if you have any suggestions. I’m always looking out for ways to make my books better, so none of this is set in stone (or print, for that matter 🙂 ).
This post might get a little emo, so I apologize in advance.
I feel like I have so much on my plate right now, and yet when I look back at what I’ve accomplished each day, I wonder if I couldn’t have been more productive. I’m moving out of my apartment on the 21st, so that’s the deadline for pretty much everything, and here’s what I’ve got to do before then:
Run through the copy edits for Desert Stars and rewrite the epilogue.
Get the cover art and publish Desert Stars.
Write the epilogue for Journey to Jordan and publish it.
Finish Star Wanderers and submit to Writers of the Future.
Do a guest post for Slava Heretz.
Finish the application for the TLG program.
Get rid of all my remaining books.
Figure out electronic W2 and other forms for taxes (before leaving in January).
Write up the “About My Books” page on blog.
Do a couple of recap posts on the travel blog.
Pack and ship my desktop computer.
Pack all my remaining stuff.
Get post office to forward all mail to home address.
Clean apartment for move-out inspection.
Find suitable traveler’s insurance.
Go clothes shopping.
Half a dozen other things that I’m sure I’ve forgotten.
In other words, this is not the time to be playing minecraft.
And yet, taken individually, most of these tasks are not all that difficult. A lot of them are just mindless chores associated with moving, and the other ones, while requiring hard work, are pretty straightforward. So am I really swamped, or am I just disorganized and lazy?
This is something I’ve struggled with since graduating last year. When I was in school, I was constantly busy, but I was also constantly producing. Even though my writing suffered a bit when I was swamped, I still found time to write three novels (Ashes of the Starry Sea, Genesis Earth, and Bringing Stella Home) and hold down a student job. For the last year, I haven’t had any school and most of the time I haven’t had a job, and yet my productivity doesn’t seem to have improved.
Part of it has to do with structuring time and organizing myself. In the past year, I’ve learned that a routine isn’t something you should hang onto doggedly, but something you need to constantly reinvent. And yet, when I’m staying up until 2am-3am and not getting up until 8am-9am, I can’t help but feel that something’s off. The whole moving limbo thing certainly doesn’t help, but hey, the work’s still got to be done.
Maybe it’s just deer in the headlights syndrome. I’ll try making a checklist of everything I want to accomplish in the next two weeks and go for it. In the meantime, I’m going to get out of this apartment and take a walk, because if I don’t, I’m going to go insane.
Also, as a token of gratitude for putting up with my babbling, here’s something cool I made the other day:
Last year, I submitted Genesis Earth to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest and made it to the quarter-finals. I’m pretty sure I could do at least that well this year, but after reading the contest rules, I’ve decided not to participate.
Why? Because of this:
5. GRANT OF RIGHTS. By submitting an Entry and if you are selected as a Quarter-Finalist or Semi-Finalist, you grant Penguin the exclusive first publication rights to your Entry. If you are selected as a Quarter Finalist, Penguin’s exclusive first publication rights to your Entry terminate when you are eliminated from the Contest (unless you are selected as a Semi-Finalist); and if you are selected as a Semi-Finalist, Penguin’s exclusive first publishing Rights to your Entry terminate after June 30, 2012.
But mostly because of this:
A. Grand Prize. If you are selected as the Winner in a category, you will receive one of two Grand Prizes each consisting of a full publishing contract with Penguin to market and distribute your Manuscript as a published book…you may not negotiate the publishing contract with Penguin, and you must sign it “as is” upon receipt of the executable contract.
The language is a little unclear as to whether the grand prize winner can elect to turn down the publishing contract, but considering how merely submitting to the contest constitutes a grant of publication rights, I’m guessing no.
So why is this a big deal? Because it gives the writer no room to negotiate. Suppose the boilerplate contract is unfavorable when it comes to rights reversion, non-compete clauses, or derivative works. Penguin could conceivably retain the rights to my book indefinitely, even if I’m earning less than $10 a year on it. With a non-compete clause, they could forbid me from writing or publishing any other books. Even worse, they could conceivably buy up rights to the world or the characters, making it impossible for me to write any other books in my own series without their approval.
But even if none of those unfavorable terms are in the contract, the standard royalty for erights is 25% of net, not gross. For those of you who know the difference between net and gross, that’s a red flag in itself, but even supposing Penguin does pay me the full 25% of the 70% it receives from Amazon, that comes to only 17.5% of the cover price. Right now I’m getting 70%. Is it really worth it?
I checked the sales rankings for the last three years of ABNA winners, and they aren’t all that great. The ebook versions for the 2010 winners have a slightly better ranking than mine, but they can’t be selling more than a couple of books a day. At the prohibitively high price of $9.99, that’s $.30 less per unit than what I’m earning for Genesis Earth at $2.99. And the 2009 winners? Their sales rankings are abysmal. Whatever Penguin did to market those books, it either didn’t work or they’ve given up and moved on to other things.
Now, I don’t expect to win the grand prize even if I submit to this contest. Most of the previous winning novels are either literary, mystery, or mainstream YA–no science fiction. Even so, by submitting to this contest, I would not be able to negotiate a publication contract with any other publisher until my book is eliminated. That’s a headache I could do without. And as for the consolation prizes, if this year’s Publisher’s Weekly reviewer is anything like last year’s, I already know what she’ll say: “science fiction is garbage.”
So yeah, I won’t be submitting to this year’s ABNA contest. If I win, I’m forced to sign a contract that I haven’t seen and have no power to change, and if I lose, I get an unnecessary hassle for all my time and effort. Thanks but no thanks.
The Bechdel Test is a way to measure how prominently women figure in a story. It mostly comes up in discussions of TV and film, but can also be applied to works of literature. To pass the test, the story must have
at least two named female characters
who talk to each other
about something other than men.
The surprising thing, as you can see in this discussion of the trope, is that so few stories actually pass this test. Even in literature, works like The Odyssey, Romeo & Juliet, and even War & Peace fail to pass or only barely pass this test.
Closely related to the Bechdel Test is the Smurfette Principle, where only one of the major characters is female–the token chick. Stories that fail to pass the first part of the test fall into this category.
So why does this happen? It may be because most writers are male, but that isn’t necessarily true of books and literature. Novel writing, after all, was originally considered a womanly pursuit, and the English major was created in the so that women could have something to study while they were in college. Not surprisingly, 19th century works by female writers like the Bronte sisters tend to pass…
…or do they? It’s been a while since I read Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice, but the impression I got was that the women in those books spend only really talk with each other about men. And when you look to contemporary writers like Dickens and Tolstoy, the trend holds. After all, how many female characters are there in A Christmas Carol? Do any of them ever even talk to each other?
This isn’t necessarily a measure of how good or bad a story is, or even of how feminist it is (Aliens, after all, technically passes), but it is a measure of how independent and well rounded the female characters really are. If the story doesn’t pass, it’s a sign that the women only play a role in relation to the men, or that the male characters are the ones who advance the plot.
I don’t usually like to bring up my own stories in relation to these tropes, but I thought it would be useful to apply this test to my own books and see how they shape up. As a writer, I think it’s a good idea to do this periodically, to make sure my work isn’t slipping into a rut. So here we go:
Genesis Earth
Point 1: Yes, there are two named female characters: Terra and Stella.
Points 2 & 3: No, they never talk. However, when you apply the reverse Bechdel test (two men who talk to each other about something other than women), Genesis Earth only barely passes. Michael talks with Tom in the first chapter, mostly about Terra, and for the rest of the book he and Terra are alone.
Bringing Stella Home
Point 1: Yes, it passes. Named female characters include: Stella McCoy, Danica Nova, Anya Sikorsky, Tamu, Lady Borta, Lady Zeline, Sergeant Maria.
Point 2: Yes; in most of Stella’s scenes, she’s talking with Tamu or Borta or one of the other Hameji women. Also, since Danica is the captain of the Tajji Flame and Anya is the chief pilot, they interact quite a bit.
Point 3: Yes, but just barely. In most of their scenes together, Stella and Tamu are talking about Qasar or the harem or sex. There are a couple where they talk about each other and their past, but it all relates back to their captivity under the Hameji. At one point later in the book, Anya goes AWOL and Danica has to talk her down, which is probably the scene that makes the book pass, but a hardcore feminist might argue that that conversation is indirectly about a man. Still, I’m counting it.
Desert Stars
Point 1: Yes, there are plenty of women. In fact, as you can see from this list of non-minor characters, there are almost as many women as there are men:
Female
Male
Mira
Jalil
Shira
Sathi
Zayne
Hamza
Tiera
Rumiya
Lena
Gregor
Surayya
Kariym
Amina
Ashraf
Rina
Ibrahim
Sarah
Lars
Michelle
Nash
Mark
Will
Point 2: Yes, plenty of these women talk to each other. Surayya and Amina are practically joined at the hip, Tiera, Shira, and Lena all have private conversations with Mira, and the only time Rina even talks is when she and Mira are alone.
Point 3: While most of the conversations between the female characters revolve around men and marriage, Tiera talks with Mira about honor, and Rina talks with Mira about leaving home. Without spoiling too much, there are other conversations that have nothing to do with men, though they happen off-stage and only get reported second-hand. Either way, I’d say this book passes.
None of this is to say that a good story must pass the Bechdel test. Lawrence of Arabia, for example, doesn’t have a single female actress–not one single actress!–and it’s an amazing film. As a counterpoint, I’m sure there are plenty of good stories out there (most of them probably anime or manga) that do not pass the reverse Bechdel test.
However, it is a good measure of female presence and how much the story is driven by men. And as a lens through which to view the wider culture, it offers a surprising and somewhat disturbing perspective on male-domination in fiction.
That’s right: the second draft of Heart of the Nebula, direct sequel to Bringing Stella Home, is now finished. Here are the stats:
words: 90,081 chapters: 20 ms pages: 426 start date: 7 Nov 2011 end date: 4 Dec 2011
And the word splash:
This was just a quick draft to fix some of the known problems before sending it off to my first readers. I’d thought that it was missing a whole bunch of stuff, but I ended up taking out more than I’d put in. Still, it feels like it’s missing something, and I’m not sure what. Hopefully, my readers will be able to help me figure it out.
I’m starting to notice a pattern with my writing. The first draft is always the hardest, fraught with all sorts of frustrations and setbacks. In contrast, the second draft is usually pretty quick, and involves fixing the problems without making any drastic changes. The third draft is where the story really comes to life, as I start to make connections and tap the latent possibilities. This may continue in the fourth draft, but anything after that is usually just a matter of polishing the prose.
For those of you who’ve read Bringing Stella Home, this novel takes place five years after and centers around James McCoy and Lars Stewart. Stella/Sholpan makes a brief appearance, but Danica and the Tajji mercenaries do not; I plan on writing more about them (a LOT more about them) in Stars of Blood and Glory.
I’m going to send this draft out to my first readers and let it settle for a couple of months. Once I’ve gotten their feedback, I’ll undertake a thorough revision, possibly with some drastic changes to the story. I don’t want to commit myself to a specific date, but if all goes well, I may publish it sometime next summer.
In the meantime, if you’re interested in beta reading Heart of the Nebula, shoot me an email–but please, only ask if we know each other IRL. My next big project is Star Wanderers, which should hopefully be finished by mid-January. And of course, there’s Desert Stars–I’m in the process of getting the cover art, so it shouldn’t be more than a couple of weeks before it’s up!
So much going on…it’s good to get something finished.
So as many of you know, I ran a kickstarter campaign as an experiment to see if I could raise enough money to fund my next release, Desert Stars. Over the course of the month, about a dozen people pledged over $300, but ultimately it wasn’t enough to meet the goal.
First of all, I want to thank everyone who made a pledge or spread the word. I appreciate all of your support, no matter at what level. My biggest obstacle at this point is obscurity; without you, I’d never be able to overcome it. So thanks!
While the campaign was a bit of a disappointment, I learned a lot from the experience. My strategy going in was to set a modest goal and give a variety of high-value rewards at various pledge levels. However, I didn’t do much to publicize the project, mostly because self-promotion makes me so uncomfortable. That was probably the biggest single reason why the support never reached a critical mass.
If I were to do it again, I would work out a plan for the marketing and publicity before launching the campaign. I would also run the campaign for a longer period of time and talk about it more, just to make sure people are aware of it. Also, I would try to get an endorsement from someone with an established audience that overlaps with my own. It’s hard to tell people you’re awesome, but if someone else who is awesome tells them, they’re much more likely to believe it.
Will I ever do a kickstarter campaign in the future? Probably, but only after I’ve built my fanbase a little more. Kickstarter isn’t a good way to launch if you don’t already have a devoted following. Like everything at this point, it’s a catch-22. In order to be successful, you have to be noticed. In order to be noticed, you have to be successful. Obscurity is the biggest obstacle, and there’s no sure way to overcome it besides trying and failing until something finally works.
Fortunately, while the kickstarter campaign was a bit of a setback, it’s not going to prevent me from releasing the book. I’ve secured an alternate source of funding, and should be able to have it out by January if not before. As a gesture of gratitude to everyone who made a pledge, I’ll send you a free copy once it’s out.
The old world is dead, destroyed by nuclear fire. The old ways are long forgotten–except by one man in search of the Holy City. He wanders the Earth with two guns and a Bible, leaving a trail of death and ancient prophecy in his wake. Brigands fear him, honest men pity him, and the Hellborn hunt him. He is John Shannow–the Jerusalem man.
