Let’s Get Digital is a concise, current and captivating collection of considerations on why and especially how you might go about self-publishing your books. It also doesn’t suffer from the terrible alliteration I used in the previous sentence. Sorry about that.
Author David Gaughran has updated his book with this third edition and considering the changes that have occurred since the first edition in 2010, it’s a thoughtful and interesting look back at the early days of self-publishing (through ebooks rather than a vanity press) and an excellent primer on what the current market is like. Gaughran covers the pros (many) and cons (a few) of self-publishing and doesn’t just focus exclusively on Amazon, acknowledging that other online stores exist. He highlights where you may want to spend money (editing, a good book cover) and advises against the necessity of many things that don’t apply to those working outside the traditional model of publishing.
He backs up his advice with anecdotes, both personal and at the conclusion of the book where 30 self-published authors share their successes, along with statistics on the growth of indie publishing. Likewise, he offers detailed advice on pricing, researching your market/genre and provides a good set of resources for further investigation and follow-up.
If you write and have toyed with the idea of self-publishing, it’s hard not to be enthused about the prospect after reading Let’s Get Digital. This is an excellent, clearly-written primer and highly recommended to aspiring authors looking to break into the burgeoning world of indie fiction (and non-fiction).
In which I once again dive into the weird yet strangely fascinating world of Whitley Strieber.
Strieber was originally known as a horror author known for books like The Hunger and The Wolfen. He branched out with a pair of novels in the mid-80s that posed “What if?” scenarios regarding a limited nuclear war and the destruction of the environment. Both are still compelling reads today, and Warday especially presents a chillingly authentic take on how devastating a “small” nuclear exchange would be.
Then came 1985’s Communion, in which Strieber relates experiences with what he calls “visitors” (not aliens) to his cabin in upstate New York, the now infamous grays. Unlike the pseudo-documentary style of Warday and Nature’s End, Communion is presented as fact, events that actually happened to Strieber, his family and others around him.
Some people dismiss this as a con, but it strikes me as too detailed and comprehensive to be the book equivalent of a snake oil salesman. I’ve seen people recount experiences with aliens and there is a strong sense of delusion in the way they present their stories, with obvious gaps and little evidence to suggest anything happened other than in the alleged victims’ minds. And one could claim the same here, that Strieber is similarly deluded, that he is simply not well. But if you’ve read the narrative he’s formed over the last 30 years it is impossible to dismiss everything without assuming a level of paranoia about all the others going in with him on the scam.
All of this is a long way of saying Strieber reports a lot of weird shit happening to him, and who am I to tell him it didn’t? I think what we know of the world and the universe is a tiny slice of a very thick wedge, and as advanced as we think we are with our internet-connected refrigerators and smart cars that almost never crash, the stuff we don’t know towers over what we do.
And that is a slightly-less longer way of saying I’m willing to give anyone the benefit of the doubt when it comes to weird shit, especially if they can present their case with humility, at least some circumstantial evidence, and make it interesting, too.
The Afterlife Revolution posits one thing: that when we die, the physical body ends, but the soul–or whatever you want to call it–persists, leaving the body and returning to a non-physical realm where it exists both as a separate thing and also as part of a giant consciousness that encompasses the entire universe. Anne Strieber describes it as “universal love” during her many chats with her husband Whitley.
Anne Strieber died in August of 2015.
Since then Whitley Strieber claims he has been contacted by her and the book is in large part a dialogue between himself and his late wife, as she tries to answer his questions about what lies beyond the end of life. Mixed in with this is a somewhat urgent need to create a “bridge” to better facilitate communication between the living and the not-so-living because the world is on the brink of catastrophic change. For those who have read Strieber’s other books, this will be familiar, as he has long been warning of cataclysmic climate change and the immense toll it will take on humanity–usually estimating billions dead and humanity possibly extinguished altogether.
By bridging the gap between the living and the dead, it is suggested we would be able to at least mitigate the worst of the effects and humanity would survive, albeit probably not with internet-connected refrigerators. At least not for awhile. There is talk of how hard it is for the dead to appear before the living due to being so much lighter and faster and existing in a different space, which accounts for why they prefer making loud noises and being spooky. Apparently taking any sort of “physical” form is very demanding. Anne also talks about how some of the post-living are denser that others and that their souls sink instead of rising (to where is never really specified, though it’s suggested that “bad” people get reincarnated and keep getting sent back until they straighten out).
Strieber provides the circumstantial evidence, some of it in the form of coincidences (asking for a sign of Anne’s presence, then seeing something shortly after that seems “planted” by her, mixed in with a few out of body experiences, strange sightings and yes, loud noises. He freely admits there is no way to prove any of it, but the scenarios involving other people suggest that if this were a fraud, it’s one in which he has conscripted quite a few others.
In the end I was–being the logical, rational, but open-minded guy I like to think I am–intrigued by the ideas presented. There is a strong spiritual element throughout the book, but it’s not tied to a specific religion, it’s offered up more as an explanation of why these religions came into being, along with stories that persist across cultures, like a great flood. I admit I like the idea that there may be something beyond the physical, if only because a non-physical version of me would probably have nicer teeth. Or wouldn’t need them. I begin thinking in practical terms before long–how would an eternal non-physical entity keep itself entertained or interested? What would it do? How would it have fun? But that’s just me sitting here with a head cold not being able to fully comprehend questions of the universe.
I still like the idea, though. And if nothing else, The Afterlife Revolution is a sweet, and touching encapsulation of the life of a loving couple.
If you are absolutely sure that once we are dead, that’s it, this book will not convince you otherwise. You may even shout out, “Bah!” and toss it aside. But if you’re willing to at least entertain the notion that there is some other realm we lowly humans can inhabit after we expire, The Afterlife Revolution presents some interesting ideas on what it might be like, and frames it as a kind of thriller in which the dead and the living better learn how to talk to each other–and soon.
Even though the title of What the Hell Did I Just Read is self-referential in the same the previous novel was (This Book is Full of Spiders), I still kept reading expecting some sort of arcane book to play a part in the story.
Don’t be dumb like me. The only book is the novel itself, the third adventure of David, John and Amy, twenty-somethings living in Undisclosed, a small town beset by supernatural as well as super gross manifestations.
Like the previous entries, What the Hell Did I Just Read is filled with weird (Batmantis???) and gruesome (giant squirming larvae) monsters that the would-be heroes must stop before the town and possibly the universe itself is destroyed.
It’s more fun than it sounds.
The story starts with a child kidnapping and as the saying goes, things escalate quickly, with seemingly immortal not-government agents, a biker gang and others tossed together as an unceasing storm threatens to sweep the town away in a devastating flood.
Jason Pargin, going under the pen name David Wong, does his usual excellent job juggling all of the elements while tossing in regular dollops of absurdist humor. There are even a few serious moments of personal growth for some of the characters. But only a few. Mostly it’s dildo guns, silicone butts, dimensions of endless despair and children who may not be quite as they appear.
My only real disappoint with the story is how it builds to a climax that never really happens. Sure, stuff happens but not necessarily what you’d expect, although you could argue that’s not necessarily a bad thing, either. It’s open-ended when I was not expecting it to be open-ended. Maybe Pargin wanted to leave room for a direct sequel, because who can’t get enough of giant squirming larvae that could potentially destroy the world?
This is an easy recommendation for anyone who enjoyed the first two Books (the first being John Dies at the End). For anyone else who is not averse to some well-written and occasionally gross-out horror with tongue in/through cheek, it’s still a solid recommendation (though you should still read all three in order for maximum effect).
There were 11 school shooting incidents in the U.S. in the same month that I read Columbine (January 2018). That the number of shootings has actually accelerated since the April 20, 1999 attack at Columbine High School, is testament to both the gun epidemic in the United States, and a broad failure to apply lessons learned from Columbine.
As author Dave Cullen sees it, the significant takeaway on Columbine is how important early detection is for teen depression. Eric Harris was a psychopath but not necessarily beyond control. He conscripted Dylan Klebold, who spent the last years of his short life mired in depression, anger and sadness. Early detection and treatment would likely have stopped the attack from happening or even from being planned at all. There’s no way to ever know for certain, but Cullen’s plea for better help for troubled teens stands against a backdrop of dozens upon dozens of school shootings since 1999.
Cullen also holds out blame for the media for sensationalizing these types of attacks, for giving the killers the fame and notoriety that many of them seek. Local media in and around Littleton, Colorado ran stories on the shootings every day for months after. Cullen offers deliberately ghoulish advice to would-be killers to make his point: you need to go big to crack the top ten (up the body count) or go all-in for “performance violence”–spectacle murder.
Today the spectacle murders have left as many as 58 people dead at the hands of a single individual, the usual empty “thoughts and prayers” offered, while help for those that need it most goes unfulfilled, and the guns continue to pile up.
Against this, Columbine offers little hope. Cullen has researched his subject exhaustively, starting at the school less than an hour after the attack started, and kept researching and interviewing for years after, compelled to determine why and what to do with that knowledge.
He deconstructs the myths that quickly built up around the shootings–that the killers were victims of bullying, that they targeted jocks, that they were Goths or it was “The Trenchcoat Mafia” behind them. What he found is a lot simpler than all of that. Eric Harris was a full-blown psychopath and used his charm to recruit others in his nihilistic plan to exterminate “inferior” humans. He convinced others to secure weapons and supplies, but it was Klebold that he was most successful with, tapping into the existential despair of his friend and conscripting him as an ally against everyone else. The world.
While Columbine is remembered as a shooting, Cullen points out that it is only Harri’s incompetence at bomb-making that really made it that way. The intricate plans, had they worked, would have seen propane gas bombs explode in multiple locations, such as the cafeteria, to maximize casualties. Harris further planned on covering exits to pick off survivors. He wanted to kill hundreds, to destroy the school because he could not destroy the entire world.
But the bombs all fizzled.
They still killed 13 before killing themselves and Cullen details how the families of victims handled the aftermath and–in some of the few hopeful moments in the story–how some survivors overcome the shooting to triumph over the tragedy.
Columbine is not an easy read and given the climate today, it is hard to remain hopeful that anything has changed for the better (one thing that did change was the idea of creating a “perimeter defense” around the area of the shooting. This setup allowed the killers to freely wander the school for over an hour before SWAT teams entered, shooting any and all they encountered. That doctrine has been abandoned in favor of going in as soon as possible to take out the threat). Even Cullen himself admits to depression following his immersion into the story.
All this is before you even take into account all the information suppressed by local law enforcement. They knew about Harris early on, but ultimately did nothing and later covered it up. This serves to further underscore how important early detection is. The killers extensively recorded and spoke of their plans, and were largely ignored.
The book is a tough read, but it’s an important one. Too many people slip through the cracks. Cullen vividly details the events of Columbine as both lesson and warning. Highly recommended.
Can a story about a murderbot be funny, charming and even a tiny bit touching? Yes, it can.
In the short novel All Systems Red Martha Wells presents a story told from the point of view of a SecUnit–an android designed to protect humans who, in this case, are mapping out an unknown planet on behalf of their corporate masters. Events take a turn for the deadly when a neighboring habitat’s humans are found dead, victims of an unknown assault.
Despite the grim setting, Wells presents the partly-organic and sex organ-free (“If a construct has those it’s a sexbot”) android as a delightfully fretful being that really wants to protect its humans, even if it is kind of afraid of interacting with them (it prefers opaquing its helmet to avoid making eye contact).
The story, such as it is, is really just a stage for the murderbot to act on, and while it gets the opportunity to use its arm-mounted cannons, it spends most of its time consuming serials and other media it’s downloaded, and pondering what–or who–it is and what it wants to be.
It’s not as profound as it sounds. But it is consistently amusing, thanks to SecUnit’s droll telling of the tale.
My only real criticism is minor–the story ends a bit abruptly, setting up the next chapter of The Murderbot Diaries. Otherwise, very much recommended.
As with most anthologies, the quality of the individual stories varies in Lost Signals and while a few didn’t do much for me, the collection overall is well worth reading if you enjoy horror.
A lot of enjoyment comes from how the authors make use of the broad theme of the book, with the inevitable stories about weird radio transmissions, and others that get even weirder, darker or both. There are references to the Cthulhu mythos, Twilight Zone-ish dead people calling on phones, jovial electronic devices that seem to enjoy killing, time displacement and enough electrical discharges to put your hair permanently on end.
“All That You Leave Behind” is a haunting tale by Paul Michael Anderson in which a couple experiences the sorrow of a miscarriage and the surreal joy of birth simultaneously. Keeping with babies, Damien Angelica Walters’ “Little Girl Blue, Come Cry Your Way Home” will make you look twice at baby monitors.
David James Keaton’s “Sharks with Thumbs” (apparently you needed at least three names to get into this anthology) nearly lost me up front as it’s written from the second person perspective, but the off-kilter story of a man and a fly that acts as a supernatural transmitter is so daft the unusual choice of perspective ends up working.
While I normally don’t give much thought to the actual order of stories in a collection, I had expected the long “All That You Leave Behind” to be the concluding tale, but it’s followed by a rather glib tale presented as an epistolary of a video game that inspires many of the children in a small town to kill themselves. The quiet, powerful conclusion of “All That You Leave Behind” would have been a nice conclusion for the book, but “somethinginthecode” feels like an attempt to abruptly lighten things up (weird, I know, given the plot of the story). It’s a minor thing, and others may react differently (or indifferently).
Overall, the range of styles and subject in service of weird horror and the specific theme are strong and varied enough to warrant a recommendation. Just be advised that the tinfoil hate probably won’t help.
It would be wrong, of course, to complain about this book.
But I do have one minor concern, if I may. While author Will Bowen issues the challenge of going complaint-free for 21 days, he only addresses verbally complaining to others–face to face, like in the olden days before social media. He doesn’t specifically say if complaining on Twitter or Facebook or anywhere online still counts. I think it would, but the clarification would be nice.
Also, declaring sarcasm as complaining-with-humor (which is more or less true) would make this challenge nigh-impossible for me. I love sarcasm the way Jupiter loves gravity.
Still, I want to try, because the numerous examples of people forsaking all manner of complaining (except in their thoughts, as Bowen admits trying to police the 70,000-odd thoughts we have on average per day would be…daunting) provide compelling reasons to go complaint-free. It’s not just turning off negativity, it’s about opening yourself up to the positive, to thinking beyond problems, instead of just dwelling on them. Bowen admits that it is, to a degree, committing to a kind of self-delusion, but he asserts that those complaining are equally delusional, just in a negative, counter-productive way.
Not every story told in the book worked for me. The opening story, in which Bowen’s beloved dog is mortally injured in a hit and run, left me with too many unanswered questions. Bowen drives after the truck responsible and confronts the owner at the front step of his home. The driver is dismissive, noting how he doesn’t care and if Bowen tries to clock him in revenge, that’s assault. Bowen leaves, still in a rage, but ultimately realizes the driver has undoubtedly suffered pain in his life, enough to make him indifferent to killing an innocent dog, and he makes peace with himself over what happened. This is fine for Bowen.
But I was left wondering what an apparently unchecked sociopath like that driver would go on to do, having emerged from the incident without any repercussions. I’m not concerned about meting out punishment–the driver obviously needed help–but without any consequences for remorselessly taking out a cherished family pet, what might the driver do in the future?
Still, this story comes early and Bowen otherwise capably builds a case for going complaint-free, even as he notes how tough it is. Most people take 8-10 months before they get to 21 days in a row (the number of days was chosen as Bowen says it’s how long it takes for something to become a habit).
There really isn’t an effective counter-argument to be made for going complaint-free, unless you see anger, negativity and bitterness as strengths. Maybe if you’re The Incredible Hulk.
The book itself is a quick, easy read, and the stories shared by others are all so positive you can’t help but feel compelled to at least try. Being very much a “get it down in writing” kind of guy, I would have liked a bit more on the nuts and bolts of going complaint-free, and some of Bowen’s advice for dealing with complaint triggers is presented a bit glibly (“Get a new job! Drop your friends! Spend less time with your family!”), even if the advice is ultimately accurate.
Going complaint-free, especially with the veritable storm of negativity the media surrounds us with every day, is an immense challenge, but Bowen makes the reward sound worth it. Recommended.
I read 37 books in 2017. Here are a few thoughts and stats on them.
Number of books reviewed: 37. Yes, I reviewed all of them. As the reviews were made on Goodreads using their four-star system, I couldn’t award half-stars, though sometimes I wanted to. Most were three or four stars. There were no stinkers, though a few rated two stars.
Number of paper books read: 0. Yep, I was all-digital this year. I don’t really miss reading paper books and never needing bookmarks is nice.
Every book was bought on either amazon.ca or kobo.com and almost all were on sale. I didn’t mean to keep buying only sale-priced books, but I ended up with more than I could read (I have a backlog now, though not as massive as my Steam backlog, which would require living to the age of 280 to get through) so there was little reason to buy full-priced books as they came out. I also have few authors I consider must-buys and even those I do I can wait for the prices to drop because apparently I’m cheap. I’m sorry, authors! I promise to buy more full-priced books in 2018. Possibly.
On the plus side, this approach exposed me to a lot of authors I hadn’t read before. On the negative side, there are several I am confident I will never read again. I may need to be a tad more discerning.
Genres break down like so, though some books fit into multiple genres:
Self-help/pop psychology
3
Biography
2
Horror
13
Science fiction
7
Literary fiction
2
Writing
6
Non-fiction
3
Classics
0
Fantasy
1
A few things to note this year:
I only read one Stephen King novel and it was one I’ve read before and one that isn’t considered among his first tier of work (or even second or maybe third tier, depending on who you ask)–The Tommyknockers. I had a strange desire to revisit the book, mostly for its theme of “buried UFO drives town crazy.” I agreed with King’s own assessment that inside this 700 page novel was a good 350 page novel. Cocaine is a hell of a drug.
I didn’t read any classics. I usually read one or two. I vow to do better next year.
I read more books on writing, which is ironic, given how my writing sputtered out by year’s end. Given the uneven quality of the books, I may have been better off spending the time writing.
Horror dominated, as always, mostly due to a binge toward the end of the year. Good horror can be hard to find. I will probably read any new work by Sarah Lotz.
Three of the science fiction novels dealt with time travel, alternate dimensions or both. I greatly enjoyed all three, as I’m a sucker for these themes.
The full list of books can be read under the 2017 heading found here.
As always the character of Odd remains endearing and funny, with the customary pathos mixed in, but Odd Hours feels incomplete, more like the first act of a larger story, with plot holes left unexplained, characters lightly sketched across a few scenes, a couple of awfully convenient coincidences, and an incredibly high stakes story that feels utterly the opposite in the way it is executed (no pun intended–that’s a minor spoiler).
Still, it’s a quick read and by this fourth book Koontz has built up enough good will with the character of Odd Thomas that I’m willing to overlook the flaws and press on to #5, albeit with diminished enthusiasm.
The ending of The Boy Who Drew Monsters caught me by (pleasant) surprise, which was a fun way to end the novel, but it also made me reflect back on the story’s events that lead up to that ending, and I’m left with the feeling that while this is a good, creepy story, it falls short of its potential.
The potential goes unfilled for a couple of reasons. On the plus side, all the ingredients are here for a spooky tale–a remote(ish) seaside location during a snowy winter, a strange child with some rather unique talents, old shipwrecks and their possible ghosts, unearthed bones, sightings of weird people and animals. Into this author Keith Donohue inserts an unhappy family–a young couple straining to hold everything together as they raise their son, a ten year old with Asperger’s and agoraphobia who spends most of his time withdrawn into himself.
Things get progressively weirder as the house and area are beset by unusual sounds and fleeting glimpses of monstrous things. Holly, the wife, finding little comfort from her husband, the once unfaithful Tim, returns to church, seeking guidance from a surprisingly skeptical priest and his odd Japanese housekeeper, who speaks openly of ghosts over the objections of the priest.
All of this is good material but there are problems. The pacing feels off. When the first big storm of the winter arrives you know it’s going to lead into the story’s conclusion. The problem is that while a lot of plot points are introduced, there is no sense of escalation, things just keep happening until the storm hits and the story leaps forward to an abrupt conclusion.
The priest is an entirely odd character, seeming to fit more of a “skeptical scientist” role who adds little to the story. The housekeeper offers more, bringing comfort to Holly and speaking to the boy, Jack Peter, holding out the promise of a breakthrough with him, but this gets abandoned without further exploration, again making her character seem superfluous.
Jack Peter, the boy, is unsympathetic. While the reader will naturally feel bad about his afflictions, his behavior is compulsively strange and remote, and never really changes.
In the end the story just needs more flesh on its bones. What is here is decent enough, there’s just not enough of it, leaving the story feeling thin and underdeveloped. Donohue’s writing has a lyrical rhythm to it, which makes the relatively thin material all the more frustrating. This could have been a great read instead of just a good one.
Ghostland is at turns frightening and horrifying, not because of the alleged ghosts said to haunt homes, bars, hotels and other places across the U.S., but due to the sometimes unspeakably awful ways the people who lived, worked or occupied these places behaved.
In the hands of author Colin Dickey, Ghostland is an examination of how crime, class warfare, sexism, racism and more are often the root of so many ghostly appearances. Where people have suffered, Dickey argues, stories of ghosts thrive, borne variously from anxiety, guilt and loss. Sometimes the stories have an economic motivation–people making a few bucks off tours of allegedly haunted houses. Other times the stories are a way of translating some human horror–the mistreatment and abuse of slaves, for one–into something more easily-digested. As Dickey notes, “Ghost stories like [these] are a way for us to revel in the open wounds of the past while any question of responsibility for that past blurs, then fades away.”
As Dickey details the operation of massive insane asylums constructed in the mid to late 19th century, with their horrific overcrowding and cruel experimentation on patients in search of “curing” them, it seems inevitable that ghost stories would emerge from the real-life horrors that went on inside the walls of these hospitals.
Dickey also covers some well-known haunted locales, such as the Winchester Mystery House. Here he lays out evidence suggesting that Sarah Winchester didn’t keep adding rooms to the mansion to ward off the spirits of those killed by her husband’s rifles, but because she had the keen mind of an architect–and nearly limitless funds to indulge her experiments in building.
And so it goes throughout Ghostland, with Dickey deconstructing nearly every haunted place he has researched. A few that he visits give him pause, leaving him genuinely unsettled, but there is no “a-ha!” moment when he becomes convinced–or tries to convince the reader–that ghosts are real.
Rather, this is a fascinating journey through the darker parts of American history, Ghostland is well worth reading for how capably it provides rational explanations for the ghosts, poltergeists and other entities said to haunt so many corners of America’s vast landscape. Recommended.
Much like the small steps the Kaizen technique recommends, this is a small book that is quickly read, all the better to start applying its suggestions for self-improvement.
Like the ancient expression “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” the Kaizen technique is one in which improvement is seen as a gradual process, where small steps lead (eventually) to big changes. The book covers several aspects of the technique, ranging from asking “small questions” to small rewards, small actions and so on. Each chapter includes tips and examples using patients of Robert Maurer’s.
Kaizen is appealing in its simplicity and logic. When we attempt major changes (think of New Year resolutions to lose a lot of weight or give up a bad habit or addiction) we usually trigger our brain’s fight or flight response, leading to anxiety and even fear. The body refuses to cooperate. The brain goes “Nope!” and suddenly that Boston Cream you swore you’d never touch has vanished from its plate.
Instead of going cold turkey, the Kaizen technique goes to the opposite end by promoting change through small increments, sometimes so small they may seem silly. In the donut example above (mmm, donuts…) you wouldn’t just give up Boston Creams immediately. Instead, you’d buy one as usual, sit down and then skip the first bite (Kaizen doesn’t tell you what to do with that bite so you’re on your own for that). The next donut skip the first two bites and so on. Eventually you’ll get to where you aren’t ordering the donut at all–and not missing it.
I’ve used this technique myself when I started running, adopting the well-known Couch to 5K plan. The first few runs were so brief (they were more walking then running) that it felt entirely effortless. How could I not continue? By the time I reached Week 7 of 9, it was the middle of summer, blazing hot and I struggled to meet that week’s goal–but I persevered, because I had spent nearly two months slowly building to that point and it wasn’t nearly as daunting as it would have been otherwise.
One Small Step Can Change Your Life is easy to read, easy to follow and lays out the case for Kaizen in a direct and accessible manner. I really can’t see how anyone couldn’t gain some benefit from adopting its technique for at least some aspect of his or her life. Recommended.
Let’s Get Digital: How To Self-Publish, And Why You Should by David Gaughran
