Book Review: Eversion

In the 1800s, a sailing ship crashes off the coast of Norway. In the 1900s, a Zepellin explores an icy canyon in Antarctica. In the far future, a spaceship sets out for an alien artifact. Each excursion goes horribly wrong. And on every journey, Dr. Silas Coade is the physician, but only Silas seems to realize that these events keep repeating themselves. And it's up to him to figure out why and how. And how to stop it all from happening again.

Nataliya describes the way this novel begins so well that I'm just going to quote her:

This starts more like if “Moby Dick” had a literary baby with “Groundhog Day” while cheating on Jules Verne...

Who knew that the astrophysicist author best known for high tech sci-fi could dive deep into such mundane earthly matters as 19th century nautical fiction?

This is a difficult book to review, for I don't wish to spoil it for anyone. As you can glean from the blurb and Nataliya's quote, Dr. Silas Coade is the ship's physician on ill-fated expeditions across time. Through his exchanges with the crew and passengers aboard these ships, a host of clues are presented, but Silas is oblivious to them at first. As they come together, Silas is forced to confront the truth, but his reluctance to do so will doom him and the others to disaster.

That's all I can say about the plot.

I enjoyed each expedition across time as Reynolds varied the details and the unfolding of events. The interaction between the characters rang true to their time period with Ada being a bit of fresh air each time. Figuring out some of the clues wasn't too difficult as the narrative moved from one timeline to the next, but the big reveal caught me by surprise. And once revealed, the story still had enough mileage to stay glued to it.

Overall, an entertaining sci-fi mystery adventure. Would make for a good movie.

4.5 stars

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Book Review: Fearless Writing

Find the courage to create your best writing life. Whether you're a fledgling writer or a veteran with years of experience, fearlessness—that elusive blend of self-acceptance, confidence, and curiosity—is the defining quality of those who find fulfillment and success. Truly fearless authors banish writer's blocks with ease, receive critiques gracefully, and infuse their passion for the craft into every word they write. Filled with insightful wisdom and practical advice, Fearless Writing teaches you how to thrive as a writer, no matter your genre or career path. You'll learn how to:

• Find and enter a Flow state in which writing is a natural, deeply satisfying process.
• Quiet both internal and external critics and embrace the inherent value in your work.
• Use love, emotional engagement, and curiosity as the guiding principles for what you write and how you share it with others.
• Overcome rejection, procrastination, and other obstacles that stifle your creativity.

From the blank page to the first draft, and from querying to marketing, the writing life is filled with challenges, roadblocks, and new experiences. With Fearless Writing, you'll find the inner strength to embark on a bold journey—and build a lifelong career in the process.

I took a class based on this book a few years ago through Writers Digest University. It was handled remotely with assignments that went along with the lessons. The assignments were there to reinforce the lessons. And Mr. Kenower provided feedback on the assignments.

I loved it. It provided the spark I needed to finish my second novel, Gateway to Empire. I knew that I needed to have a copy with me on my desk at all times.

The book blurb does a great job outlining what's in this book, so I won't rehash it. I will point out that each chapter addresses some aspect of the writing or publishing process. Kenower always provides an anecdote that fits the chapter's subject which reinforces his overall argument. I'll admit that I wasn't necessarily 100% convinced by every chapter's example in and of itself, but Kenower was at least consistent with his argument, and it made the argument presented in the book as a whole more solid.

I found myself reading it this year because I'm back in that dark place that I was before. That shouldn't be interpreted as a condemnation of the effectiveness of this book. The problem is all mine. I've suffered from recurring bouts of low self-esteem and depression my entire life, and my experiences with publishing haven't helped in the least. In fact, they've contributed to a feedback loop that constantly inhibits my ability to sit down and write. "Why do I bother?" is a constant refrain in my head.

But in Fearless Writing, Kenower offers the right pep talk to break me out of that vicious cycle. And I'm good for a while, but something invariably comes along to mess me up. So I will be reading this book again and again until it becomes second nature. I don't know if I'll ever succeed in defeating my personal demons, but I know I won't if I don't try.

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Book Review: Ancillary Sword

Breq is a soldier who used to be a warship. Once a weapon of conquest controlling thousands of minds, now she only has a single body and serves the emperor she swore to destroy.

Given a new ship and a troublesome crew, Breq is ordered to the only place in the galaxy she will agree to go: Athoek station, to protect the family of a lieutenant she once knew – a lieutenant she murdered in cold blood.

So I read the first book, Ancillary Justice, nine years ago, which was four years after it came out. This book came out a year after the first, but I'm just getting to it now. Why? Well, Goodreads friends of mine had mixed feelings about it and warned it was even more soaked in tea than the first book. But also, by then I'd discovered Murderbot and that's been a far more enjoyable series. In fact, I was wondering if I should re-read Ancillary Justice to see if my opinion of it (five stars) held up.

Not wishing it to collect any more dust on my nightstand, I read it. I'm glad I did, but I didn't love it. Yes, everyone is having tea, and they're having it all the time. It's right there on the very first page.

So the Radch, the name of the empire, comes across as Victorian era Great Britain: The non-stop tea drinking, priceless tea sets, tea plantations, indentured servitude, self-righteous attitudes towards the "uncivilized heathens", fussiness about manners, and aristocratic nobility getting anything they want because of who they are. I didn't get that in the first book, but here it's in our face. With Breq being granted a ship and the rank of Fleet Admiral, we're thrust onto the high seas with Athoek Station as port-of-call. I'm picturing Victorian navy uniforms, all epaulets and big hats.

I found myself more annoyed by usage of the feminine pronouns than in the first book (The Radch doesn't acknowledge gender, so the default is "she") for two reasons. The first is that the indentured people on the planet do acknowledge gender so Breq is forced to be respectful and use their proper pronouns and titles like "grandfather." She struggles to get it right (Wait a second, did I?). The second is that in the Radch navy, everyone uses "sir" to address officers. So everyone is addressed by the feminine all the time in the Radch, except in the navy when they're also addressed by the masculine. The switching back and forth from she to sir and back again was silly. And with more characters to deal with, I had to look for behavioral clues to figure it out. Why was that important? Well, as a reader, I'm always trying to concoct a picture of the character in my head, and Leckie's not making that easy for me. I think I got it right. Maybe.

Anyway, back to the story. The galactic intrigue is put on the backburner. There's a murder that could've been something, but it wound up being nothing other than an excuse for Breq to go down to the planet to observe a mourning ritual. Once there, the whole story turned into the whole Victorian British Empire tea plantation indentured-servitude-is-bad thing, which is fine, but not what I tuned into this series to read about.

Again, it was a fine read, but not what I was hoping for. And with the meh reviews of the third book in the series from my Goodreads friends, I don't know if I want to bother continuing with this series. I mean, there are only so many tea parties I can read about, particularly since my daughter is too old to have them with her stuffed animals.

3 stars

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Book Review: The End of All Things

Humans expanded into space and found a universe populated with multiple alien species bent on their destruction. Thus was the Colonial Union formed, to help protect us from a hostile universe. The Colonial Union used the Earth and its excess population for colonists and soldiers. It was a good arrangement...for the Colonial Union. Then the Earth said: no more.

Now the Colonial Union is living on borrowed time—a couple of decades at most, before the ranks of the Colonial Defense Forces are depleted and the struggling human colonies are vulnerable to the alien species who have been waiting for the first sign of weakness, to drive humanity to ruin. And there's another problem: A group, lurking in the darkness of space, playing human and alien against each other—and against their own kind—for their own unknown reasons.

In this collapsing universe, CDF Lieutenant Harry Wilson and the Colonial Union diplomats he works with race against the clock to discover who is behind attacks on the Union and on alien races, to seek peace with a suspicious, angry Earth, and keep humanity’s union intact...or else risk oblivion, and extinction—and the end of all things.

In the previous entry of this series, The Human Division, the book was a collection of a serialized stories bundled together with an overarching storyline. It didn't work for some people, but it worked for me. This entry gets to the bottom of the matter: Who's trying to sabotage the Colonial Union? The story is told over four novellas which offer varying viewpoints as to what's going on in different places and at different levels of society in Scalzi's Old Man's War universe.

The opening story is "The Life of the Mind" in which we see where all of the missing ships went. It's told from the viewpoint of Rafe Daquin, a computer programmer turned starship pilot who's just looking for work. He signs up for third string pilot aboard the Chandler and gets more than he ever bargained for. The ship is captured and he's forced to pilot the ship for Equilibrium, the organization looking to make life hell for the Colonial Union (CU). But despite being at their mercy at the outset, he plots his revenge.

"This Hollow Union" gives us a look inside the political operations of the Enclave, a confederation of 400 species who are united in their opposition to the CU and still smarting from their comeuppance at the conclusion of The Last Colony (Book 3). It's told by Hafte Sorvalh, the de facto number two of the Enclave. The Enclave is torn over what to do about Earth. Readers of the series will know that Earth told the CU to bugger off after they learned what the CU's been doing, not to mention that they believe the CU destroyed their space station. Some want to admit the Earth into the Enclave; others hate this idea as you just can't trust Humans. There's plenty of intrigue, and I admit to being caught off guard by the big reveal at the end.

"Can Long Endure" embeds you with a team of CU Marines as they're sent from one assignment to the next. CU colonies are upset and threatening to declare their independence. The CU can not allow that, and so the Marines are sent in to remind these would-be rebels that that would be a bad idea. Lt. Heather Lee listens to her squad debate matters from the CU's troubles to what's being served for lunch in the mess hall all while trying to stay above the fray and making sure that they focus on the job at hand. It's fairly lighthearted until the last world they're sent to and then Lt. Lee has had enough.

"To Stand or Fall" picks up where "Can Long Endure" leaves off. Lt. Harry Wilson narrates this one after appearing in "This Hollow Union." He's a realist, recognizing that the CU is falling apart but also that it's humanity's best chance for survival. Thanks to some clever interrogations, he's able to figure out the Enclave's grand plan that will tear everyone apart. The hard part is figuring out how to prevent it.

It's trademark Scalzi at the top of his game. He has characters you can root for, wonderful dialogue, and a worldview that I can get behind. While all of the worldbuilding was done at the beginning of the series and the aliens are people in rubber suits, I didn't mind. It works. It's solid entertainment for this reader.

4.5 stars

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Book Review - Black Star Rising

When a mysterious alien spacecraft approaches the Earth and demands to speak with the President of the United States, then destroys a large Pacific island to demonstrate its strength and its seriousness, you'd expect the President to talk. Problem is, in the late twenty-first century, there is no President—not even a United States. China rules the Americas, and to most people "US" and "USSR" are just quaint abbreviations in historical dictionaries. But the aliens prove unreasonable about accepting substitutes. So one Anglo rice-cultivator from the Heavenly Grain Collective farm near Biloxi, Mississippi is forced to begin an adventure that will take him from peasant to President, from Pettyman to Spaceman.

I remember when this book came out. I was subscribed to a science fiction book club (that might've even been the name), and this was the book of the month. I was intrigued by the cover and made a mental note to check it out in the future. Decades later, I found it at one of the used book sales I frequent and picked it up.

What a disappointment.

It's easy enough to picture this as an alternate future where the US vs. USSR nuclear war has happened and the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping have never happened. It's a bit stale, but not far-fetched. The far-fetched stuff comes later, after we meet the aliens. But I won't spoil that for any would-be readers.

The story starts off as satire, devolves to farce, and then falls flat trying to deliver some sort of message at the end.

The characters exist to advance the plot. I couldn't really root for any of them. We start with Castor, a man in his early 20s who has stars in his eyes but is pretty thick-headed about women. I felt a little bad for him early on, but that soon faded. There's a Chinese police detective in her 40s named Delilah who becomes Castor's sexual partner. Her constant denial of her feeling is over-the-top. Professor Fung Bohsien, aka Manyface, who has had the brains of dying people added to his in order to save their minds. The end result is a bit like multiple personality disorder. There are some alien characters, but to divulge anything about them would be a spoiler.

Pohl infuses the story with sexism and that attitude about sex that is common for sci-fi writers in the post "free love" era of the late 60s to mid-80s. It's very male fantasy oriented as that's who the target demographic was: teenaged boys and horny old sci-fi writers men. As a teenager in the 80s, I didn't know any better, but later as an adult, I realized wasn't real at all.

The coolest part of this book is the cover and the title. I should've just stuck with that rather than read it.

1 star

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Book Review: Children of Ruin

Long ago, Earth's terraforming program sent ships out to build new homes for humanity among the stars and made an unexpected discovery: a planet with life. But the scientists were unaware that the alien ecosystem was more developed than the primitive life forms originally discovered.

Now, thousands of years later, the Portiids and their Humans have sent an exploration vessel following fragmentary radio signals. They discover a system in crisis, warring factions trying to recover from an apocalyptic catastrophe arising from what the early terraformers awoke all those years before.

The book runs with two alternating storylines: the "present" (which is a joint venture between Portiids and Humans two generations after the events in Children of Time) and the distant past, roughly equivalent to the start of Children of Time. Eventually, the older timeline is advanced until it catches up to the present.

In the old timeline, we're introduced to a group of terraformers who've arrived in a system that, surprisingly, has life in it. Rather than destroy it, the terraformers split up: Half will study the lifeforms of the world (Nod), while the the other half will terraform the next planet out from the host star. Unlike Avrana Kern's expedition in Children of Time, there is no suicide bomber on board. Still, the Luddite faction back on Earth still manages to find a way to derail this batch of terraformers. But that isn't the worst of it, for Nod has an insidious lifeform of its own that threatens to devour everyone it encounters. There's a scene with serious The Thing vibes that I found terrifying.

Meanwhile, the terraformers successfully establish an octopus civilization on the other planet. Tchaikovsky does a fantastic job detailing how a sentient octopus thinks, behaves, and communicates and how their society might function. World building has always been his strong suit, and his ability to get inside alien minds is among the best in sci-fi.

So when the Kern's World expedition arrives, all signs point to some kind of war in progress. A scout ship sent to make contact finds out the hard way what's actually happening. The Humans and Portiids are still trying to iron out the wrinkles in their interspecies communication (vibrations for the spiders, vocalized language for the humans) and now they find that octopuses primarily communicate via color.

The book is a bit of a slow burn, and sometimes it seemed like Tchaikovsky was retreading the same old ground and story points. There were long passages of summarizing, where centuries of the octopus civilization's progress was told in anthropological fashion. It wasn't bad—Tchaikovsky manages to keep it interesting—but it can be dry and pads the word count. I think this book could be 10% shorter. It was at the midway point that the story's pace really picked up. Since I didn't bail, that's proof enough that Tchaikovsky knows what he's doing.

4 stars

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Draft2Digital Adding Fees

If you're an author who uses Draft2Digital for publishing your work, then you already know what I'm about to post. For the rest of you, read on.

Draft2Digital sent out an email this week informing its clients that they're going to add user fees to their platform. The first is account activation fees. Due to "automated content farms" overwhelming them with "slop," (in other words, AI-written books) they're requiring a one-time $20 fee to set up an account. Combined with "verification tools and human reviewers," they hope to cut down on those clowns that are abusing the system.

I'm ok with this. Granted, I'm an existing account holder so I'm exempt from this fee. However, the next one hits me, and I'd imagine probably about 90% of the authors who use their service.

There will now be an annual maintenance fee of $12 applied to all "accounts whose earnings from book sales, meaning your net proceeds after D2D's commission, total less than $100 over the preceding 12-month period. If you earn $100 or more from your book sales over 12 months, you will not be charged this fee." (emphasis on "net" is mine)

So if your book sales suck, which admittedly is most of us indie authors, you're not pulling your weight. We apparently need to up our game because we're a drain on their margins. As if we're not dealing with enough production costs (editing, typesetting, cover art) and marketing costs (ad campaigns, giveaways, paid reviews, etc.), we now have the added pressure of meeting our digital printer's revenue quota or else pay an annual fee. Swell.

As Smashwords is a D2D property, expect to see their FREE section to dwindle to next to nothing (well, successful authors can introduce the first book in a series for free to lure readers in and hope they can hook them for the rest of the series). In the past, Smashwords published statistics showing that the vast majority (90+%) of books that were purchased from them were books listed for free.

Needless to say, I am unhappy about this. I typically list my books for $2.99. After D2D takes their cut, I get $1.78. So I need to sell 57 copies to avoid the additional $12. If you think that's easy, then you don't know how difficult indie publishing is.

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