Ann Christy’s second collection of six stories covers an eclectic mix of time travel, super powers, far-future doom and alternate history. Some spoilers ahead, so be warned.
“Sedge” puts together a young man and woman on a newly-settled world, each of them not quite fitting their own culture. There is an abrupt tonal shift due to a rather significant event happening right at the end, and I felt it was glossed over a little too readily, but it’s still charming to watch these two flirt on this new world before that happens.
“The Mirroring” is a weird story about a new counselor investigating some very strange self-worth issues some students at a private college are experiencing. A strong (and agreeable) Twilight Zone vibe here.
“Life/Time in the New World.” Alpha male business guy gets frozen for 300 years, pops out of his capsule and continues being an alpha male business guy in the future, which is part paradise, part sneaky Twilight Zone hell. All the pieces are here, but the story felt a bit perfunctory at times, and the character’s growth as an individual almost seems deliberately undercut by the ending.
“Unnatural” imagines an alternate history where Pope John Paul I doesn’t die after only 33 days and basically announces that births as a result of in vitro fertilization are A-OK, resulting in a future where natural birth is…illegal? Again, all the pieces here are put together well, but the basic premise, while a fun “What if?” exercise, doesn’t seem that plausible. Maybe this is just a reflection of the world we live in now.
“Yankari” tells the story of Olisa, an eight year girl in Africa who has some very potent abilities that she struggles to control and use to protect wildlife from poachers. I felt the ending broadened out the story in a way that was unnecessary, but this is still a tight, enjoyable tale of a little girl learning to harness some amazing abilities to do the right thing.
“Lulu Ad Infinitum” is an SF piece about a colony ship that suffers a catastrophic failure, forcing its lone survivor, the titular Lulu, to survive by cloning, then learning to live with, herself. Despite the grim backdrop, the tone remains surprisingly light as Lulu grapples with a possibly untrustworthy AI, the process of raising her clones and more. Christy does an excellent job here with the setting, fleshing it out in satisfying detail.
Overall, even the lesser stories were eminently readable and I enjoyed all six, just some more than others. An easy recommendation if you’re looking for a blast of SF/fantasy variety with a (mostly) hopeful theme.
This is a good book. It’s a short book. You should read it.
The End.
Okay, I should probably elaborate a bit. If you’ve read David Gaughran’s two other books on self-publishing, Let’s Get Digital and Amazon Decoded, then Strangers to Superfans will nicely complete the trilogy, and unlike some trilogies, the Shire doesn’t get burned to the ground in the process.
Superfans is less nuts and bolts than the other books, discussing some of the intangibles of self-publishing, focusing on the potential pitfalls (the failure matrix, as Gaughran calls it) in trying to capture and hold readers, then turn them into willing promoters of your work. In this sense, the book is going to be more useful to those with one or more books ready to be set loose into the sea of millions of other self-published efforts. Amazon is once again the focal point of discussion and rightly so, as it utterly dominates the ebook market, but Gaughran doesn’t ignore other markets, and even highlights how they can present unique opportunities given their smaller size.
And while there may be fewer specifics in this book compared to his others, there is still plenty of sensible advice on advertising (he is a strong advocate on newsletters), positioning and categorizing your books, along with tips on how to hook the reader at the end to keep them engaged and wanting more.
Overall, anyone thinking of self-publishing would do well to read all three of Gaughran’s books, in the order of release: Let’s Get Digital, Amazon Decoded, and Strangers to Superfans. There’s no guarantee his advice will make you rich, but your odds will certainly be better. As a bonus, his writing style is so utterly friendly and engaging you can’t help but feel more excited to self-publish afterward.
This review is full of spoilers, the way the hole under a lifted rock is full of bugs. Or something like that. If you want a short, non-spoiler review, read the next paragraph, then stop.
Abandon is well-written and has an intriguing premise–why did the 100+ inhabitants of a Colorado mining town suddenly disappear on Christmas Day in 1893?–that unravels once the mystery is revealed, and the plot gets hijacked by cartoonishly evil people, way too many coincidences and convenient acts of god. It’s a story about how isolation and greed affect people (hint: neither are good), but it fails to resonate because Crouch regularly undercuts the reader’s ability to suspend disbelief.
Spoilers ahead! The premise–and the fact that I enjoyed Crouch’s fun alternate reality romp Dark Matter–is what drew me to pick up Abandon. (It should be noted that Abandon is Crouch’s third novel, published in 2009, where Dark Matter came out in 2016.) Abandon establishes a structure where scenes jump from Christmas 1893 to late fall 2009 and back again. The present-day scenes follow Abigail Foster, who, along with her estranged father Lawrence, a ghost-hunting couple, and their guides, head up to Abandon to check the town out before the snows come and it becomes inaccessible until the spring.
Crouch starts unwinding things slowly and there’s some tension early on over whether anything actually supernatural might happen, especially in the present day. The 1893 scenes depict a town hit on hard times and winding down, its citizens poor and tired and about ready to, well, abandon Abandon. Crouch neatly handles the differences in dialect between the two time periods without making it seem forced or unnatural, though the citizens of Abandon tend to fancy the exact same expressions.
Where the story started to lose me was after the mystery got revealed–not because the mystery was gone, but because of what happens for the remainder of the novel. In 1893 the town’s preacher, Stephen Cole, goes mad because–well, he does (a brain tumor is hinted at). And God tells him to kill all the wicked heathens (the citizens of Abandon). Meantime, there’s a stash of Conquistador gold that’s been piled up and hidden in the area for a few hundred years and a couple of the locals look to make off with it.
Cole convinces the town that a marauding band of cannibal Indians is making its way to Abandon and everyone must hide in the mine above the town while they pass through. He escorts them all into the mine for safety (hehe), and then marshals some of the men to go meet the savages head-on. Cole shoots and kills the men. A few days later he returns to the mine with a team of burros carrying the gold. He dumps the gold off in an alcove inside the mine. Then he locks the impenetrable steel door for good, leaving the last few still alive to die.
One person manages to escape by getting boosted through a natural chimney by the barmaid due to be hanged in the spring–more on her fate in a bit.
From the 1893 side we see men who beat women, men who beat men and men willing to murder over gold or just because they’re plain loco.
In 2009…it’s mostly the same. It turns out Abagail’s father has lied about their trip to Abandon–he knows about the gold, and how it was never found. A small band of Iraqi vets (who maybe totally have PTSD) want him to lead them to it, then use everyone to help haul it out and be rich, hooray.
From here the 2009 scenes alternate between a kind of torture porn, with the group leader Isiah constantly threatening to hurt people, and sparing no detail in telling them how. He kills the husband of the ghost-hunting team to prove he’s a credible threat. After that the other members of the party–all of whom are evil or foolish, save Abigail, who is only kind of foolish–face various horrible ends.
There are several near-comedic scenes where Abigail and the others almost escape, but always get caught again. They finally think they’ve succeeded when Isiah and his right-hand man Jerrod go sliding off a cliff. But they can’t get close to the cliff edge to see the bodies. But they’re totally dead, right? Of course not. Convenient ledge.
But Isiah dispatches Jerrod because Jerrod is hurt and there’s no hope of rescue. Sorry, Jerrod! Isiah somehow gets down unscathed, spoiling for revenge/whatever. He also managed to hold onto his gun.
Meanwhile, the sudden appearance of a guy named Quinn startles, then delights Lawrence. He’s a big admirer of Lawrence’s work. What a coincidence they’d meet up at Abandon. Quinn has a key. Lawrence thinks some more and thinks he knows where the key might fit. Plus maybe gold. The three head up to the mine, unlock the magic door, and in that little alcove, there it is. While Lawrence and Abigail are exploring the mine–and finding the bones of the citizens of Abandon–Quinn helps himself to a bunch of gold, then uses the key to lock up that impenetrable steel door because he is super-evil.
Thus trapped, Lawrence and Abigail spend several days trying to find a way out. A veritable blizzard begins blanketing the mountain. They finally find a natural chimney and Lawrence is able to boost Abigail up high enough for her to climb out. She somehow makes her way back to Abandon, finds Scott in the old hotel, one of the guides thought to be dead, but who totally went ninja on his captor despite a grievous injury. They head out for Scott’s SUV, located miles down the mountain.
Quinn immediately pops up and gives chase, taking potshots with a rifle.
They evade until Scott finally has to get out of their hidden tent to take a poop. He then gets shot dead–by Isiah! Then Isiah starts to describe how he’s going to kill Abigail. He then gets shot dead–by Quinn! This is why guns are bad. So much shooting! At this point I thought the whole thing was just kind of ridiculous, but nearly everyone was now dead or stuck in a cave, so what else could happen?
Well, as it turns out, Abigail makes it to Scott’s SUV and peels off, just as Quinn arrives to get off a few more shots. He gets in another vehicle for a good ol’ car chase.
Meanwhile, in 1893, Lana Hartman, the mute piano-player, has escaped the mine, but Cole is on her like Quinn on Abigail, except slower, because they don’t have motor vehicles. He chases her on down through the snowy slopes of the mountain and though she falters, she never gives up. In the end she grows weak and stumbles and Cole–who has conscripted a seven-year-old girl as his co-murderer (it’s easier to just not explain) is about to dispatch her when…an avalanche literally sweeps them all away, killing Cole, probably the girl, but leaving Lana relatively unscathed. Those darned convenient acts of god.
Lana pushes on through the snow and finally makes it to the town of Silverton, where she is brought to the hotel and treated by a local doctor, who regretfully has to amputate her legs and left arm due to the “mortification.” As she can’t talk, he gives her a notepad and she writes out the terrible tale of Abandon and also P.S. ALL THAT GOLD UP THERE. This is the doctor’s cue to reveal himself as super-evil. He knocks Lana unconscious, cuts off her good right arm, then signs her off to an insane asylum, because who knows what trouble a mute woman with three missing limbs might get up to when there’s gold to be found otherwise?
Somehow he never finds the gold, despite Lana earlier handing him the key to the mine door and telling him via the notepad to send a rescue party as there are children and such locked up there.
Back in 2009, Abigail arrives at…Silverton! Is she safe in civilization? No, Quinn is still hot on her trail. She dashes into a hotel and asks where the sheriff is, then tells the indifferent clerk to hide under the counter. Quinn comes in, huffs and puffs a bit, then leaves.
Abigail makes it the sheriff’s office or actually his home. Or maybe both? Anyway, his daughter Jennifer lets her in and for some reason Abigail clams up about her whole story, as if Quinn is suddenly not a threat. She finds an old book on a shelf and leafs through it. It’s that super-evil doctor’s journal from 1893! The sheriff spies her reading it and that’s when the drugged tea she was given kicks in. Turns out the Quinn is the sheriff’s son and they, along with Jennifer, are descendants of the super-evil doctor and have been hankering for that gold he never found. They are also super-evil, blithely willing to pass off multiple murders as a few days of bad behavior in exchange for lots and lots of gold.
They plan to take Abigail back up the mountain to make it look like she didn’t make it trying to get down through the snowy conditions. Instead, Abigail remembers she has her father’s Ruger stuffed in her pants (okay, it’s actually in her jacket, which the super-evil trio somehow failed to check), and even though she has 30 milligrams of Oxicodone–per Jennifer–coursing through her system, she manages to shoot and kill all three of them while completely zonked out.
THE END.
Except she goes on trial for murder, but then is found not guilty due to “mental defect.”
THE END.
Except I haven’t even scratched the surface of all the other details that just don’t add up. Abigail keeps quiet about the gold during the trial–confiding to her mother afterward how it brings out the worst in people (you think?) But it’s made clear earlier that multiple people knew about the gold and have been trying for more than a hundred years to find it. It doesn’t really seem that secret. Also, the drugged tea, the bullet holes in Scott’s SUV, Quinn’s rifle where said bullets came from, and a billion other pieces of evidence would clearly paint a picture of how yes, maybe someone really was trying to kill her and it wasn’t a “mental defect.”
But anyway, that’s where the story ended, so I was glad.
What frustrated me is despite everything I’ve said, Crouch writes the whole thing really well for the most part. It’s not just readable, it’s colorful, full of interesting and weird characters, vivid imagery, scenes that blend the real and hallucinatory. It’s just saddled with cartoonishly evil people, and a stream of coincidences and plot contrivances.
A curious “great idea/not so great execution” I can’t really recommend, unless you’re okay with everything that was obviously a problem for me. If you are, all the better for you, because the writing, as said, is quite good.
One thumb up, the other thumb waggling at the first one disapprovingly.
I don’t often read books I’d describe as adorable, but this coming out story is adorable.
It’s also utterly different than what would have been written 20 or especially 30 years ago–and the differences are all for the better. It may not seem like it circa 2018, but we’ve made some genuine social progress here.
Simon Spier is a high school junior who knows he’s gay but can’t muster the nerve to tell anyone, though he is desperate to do so. He comes across a post on his school’s tumblr and impulsively writes to the anonymous author. They begin a lengthy, silly and touching exchange of emails, carefully keeping their identities hidden, though they know they attend the same school. The emails act as interstitials between chapters.
After forgetting to logout of his email account on a school computer (how many people sweat over this sort of thing, yet continue to login to public computers to check personal information? All the better for authors looking to convincingly complicate their characters lives), a fellow drama student blackmails Simon into setting him up with a girl he likes or else he’ll spill the beans on the email love affair.
Hijinks ensue as Simon and his blackmailer work together in the school’s production of Oliver! and friendships go through their usual ups and downs, with hormones raging and tempers flaring at the slightest provocation. Simon and his anonymous admirer edge closer and closer to meeting in person and of course there are complications.
Still, it all manages to stay…adorable. There are no real villains here, there’s little in the way of violence, other than an overly friendly dog, and the sex is limited to kissing with both feet (mostly) on the floor. It is a YA novel, after all.
And it’s not a spoiler to say there is a happy ending.
If you love Oreos, watching teenagers grapple with being teenagers in that silly teenage way, and reading about people who are far wittier on the spot than I’ve ever managed to be, you’ll enjoy Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda.
Thinking, Fast and Slow, is in a small way a depressing read, in that author Daniel Kahneman explains–as documented by years of research and studies–just how susceptible we are to leaping to the wrong conclusion, making clearly unwise choices and falling victim to blatant manipulation.
On a more positive note, Kahneman also shows how we can at least be aware of both how our brains work when making decisions and the ways it which our brains can be manipulated, whether through deliberate action or side effect.
The book lays out its essential premise, then builds on it in citing the many studies Kahneman and others conducted. The premise is that our brains run on two main systems, System 1 being fast, driven by emotion and intuitive, while System 2 is more deliberate, logical, but also kind of lazy, often letting System 1 win because doing all the background checks on what we impulsively think is right is just too much work. To our benefit, it turns out that System 1 is right most of the time.
The bulk of the book goes into detail about various ways we filter the world and how these two systems deal with what we find, whether it’s making a seemingly safe but sub-optimal choice due to loss aversion (we feel loss much more than we feel gains, something that can be used by companies or other agencies to steer us toward the choices they want us to make), or letting the last memory of an experience shape our desire to go through it again, even if that last memory is not representative of the experience overall.
This is a thorough book and the author does at times belabor the points being made. A few edits would keep all of the ideas presented intact while only losing some redundancy, but Kahneman’s writing style is completely accessible, so the difficulty is entirely in the length and not in the prose.
Equal parts snarky and respectful, this look back on the paperback horror novels of the 1970s and 80s is a gruesomely delightful trip down memory lane.
Hendrix’s language in describing the outlandish stories moves beyond colorful and into tasteless at times, but I could never decide if it was in keeping with the spirit of the books described or if he was trying (and perhaps failing) to adopt the presence of a guy at a bar sharing some whacked-out stories with you. It doesn’t come up a lot and I suspect it won’t be an issue for most people attracted to this book, but be warned all the same.
How you read this book will greatly affect your enjoyment of it. This is not something to read on a Kindle or Kobo ereader. If you are not in possession of a paper copy, you owe it to yourself to read this on a larger tablet, all the better to take in the dozens of gaudy, gory and inevitably skeleton-filled book covers. I recognized a few here and there, but even as a fan of horror in the 80s, a lot of these were new to me.
Did I mention the skeleton covers? Skeletons were very popular.
When you’re not drinking in the bloody book covers, Hendrix provides a somewhat truncated overview of the period, dividing the chapters into different themes such as Hail Satan, Creepy Kids, Weird Science and so on. For everyone who scrunched up their toes at that scene in Stephen King’s IT (hint: it involves sex and kids), Hendrix lays out stuff that is far worse here, stuff that layers on one outrageous, offensive, gory, horrible, disgusting thing on another, then slices them all in half with a machete and serves them up for dinner, with the boiled blood of babies as the gravy. I’m probably underselling some of these novels on how gruesome they are–and this is before Hendrix even gets to the actual splatterpunk sub-genre.
In a way, Paperbacks from Hell is sad, as it chronicles the rise of popular horror fiction that began after Rosemary’s Baby became a hit in the late 60s, and follows along as it sputters out in the early 90s. This is when horror proper gave way to thrillers (aka a million variations on “killer on the loose” stories). While Grady doesn’t talk about contemporary horror, a visit to any decent-sized bookstore (those that remain) will reveal that not much has changed. Horror is again a niche, and in some ways worse (or better, depending on your perspective), with endless series based on zombie apocalypses, other apocalypses, or zombie apocalypses mixed in with other apocalypses. If you like zombies, though, you pretty much have a lifetime smorgasbord already waiting for you.
In the end, though, it’s the lurid full color book covers that make Paperbacks From Hell worth looking through. There is enough here to keep a Ridiculous Book Cover blog going for years.
Recommended for fans of horror or fans of paperback art who don’t mind the occasionally gruesome work. And lots of skeletons.
On the one hand it’s a downer because humanity is doomed.
On the other hand, there’s a small chance humanity isn’t doomed.
Around these two extremes and via a conversation Strieber transcribed from memory of a man who came to his Toronto hotel room at 2:30 a.m. on June 6, 1998, there are warnings about screwing up our planet before we are able to leave it and inhabit other worlds, detailed descriptions of the barrier between the living and the dead and how we can learn to both detect and communicate with the dead by using the devices seen on the ten thousand or so ghost hunting shows on T&E. The mysterious man who arrives at Strievber’s hotel room refers to himself by many names and descriptions–Master of the Key, Michael, Legion, a Canadian (who doesn’t pay taxes), and at times seems both human and more than human. There are condemnations from him of our stewardship of the planet (which seems perfectly sensible, really), government secrecy, the accumulation of wealth over spiritual growth, and the bonus revelation of how the murder of a couple in the Holocaust prevented us from learning how to harness gravity, because the smart person who figured this out was never born.
But wait, there’s more. There is confirmation of intelligent life on other planets and in space itself (I’m assuming something more subtle than the giant hand that grabbed the Enterprise in the original series). There are aliens here, both helping us, and trying to thwart our growth and evolution. They are in the government, well-hidden. Lizard people? Well, the Master of the Key doesn’t say, but he does note that these aliens are skilled in deception, general mind control and besides, some of them look just like us so don’t even need to hide themselves.
But there’s even more! Earth is a fallen world. Another ice age is imminent and with it the risk that humanity will be wiped out because, to paraphrase Illidan, we are not prepared. If we are made extinct we will not evolve and join with the other radiant humans who have already ascended and become part of the fabric of the cosmos (we here on Earth are referred to as “elemental beings” by the MOTK. This comes across as a bit of a putdown). There is talk of how three major faiths–Christianity, Buddhism and Islam–are all part of the same triad, each just a different aspect. Also there is no god because we are all god. And we should help starving children.
Also, there are intelligent machines out there and we need to get around to making our own intelligent machines that are smarter than us because it’s the only way we’ll get out of this climate mess. But these intelligent machines will become self-aware and…it kind of sounds like maybe that’s not a good thing, although SkyNET is never precisely invoked.
At one point Strieber describes himself as crying at the words of the Master of the Key, and it’s not difficult to see why. This is a lot of stuff to absorb when you were just expecting a waiter to come in and change your hotel room’s towels.
Now, it may sound like I’m being flip, but Strieber does provide some evidence and plausible thoughts on the climate change warnings, which only seem even more compelling in 2018 vs. 1998. There is also evidence that some kind of electromagnetic hijinks are happening in areas where people report ghosts. The idea that a soul–some kind of intelligent (plasma?) energy–may exist outside of the body has some evidence to support it. But it’s still a lot to take in. The Master, like any good prophet/seer/I-know-more-than-you-do often speaks in riddles and metaphors. And just as you try to wrap your brain about what he’s really saying he lays out a hard scientific explanation for the soul and how to detect it.
In the end I was left simultaneously baffled, stimulated and entertained by The Key. I keep an open mind, even about things most people view as nutty, like UFOS, Bigfoot and healthy fast food, so I’m not willing to dismiss the things discussed in this slim book out of hand. Conversely, it’s actually pretty grim in retrospect. Strieber keeps things moving, though.
I can’t say I recommend the book per se, but it certainly offers some interesting ideas about our world and where humanity may be headed.
And if Donald Trump pulls off his human mask during the next State of the Union address and confesses to trying to stop the evolution of humanity, Strieber can totally claim he called it 20 years ago. Hmm, that sounds way more plausible than it should…
I’d easily give Strange Weather four stars, but one of the stories just didn’t work for me. Having said that, this is still an easy recommendation for both fans of Hill and horror in general.
The first story, “Snapshot” has a nice Twilight Zone vibe going on. Set in 1988, it tells of a surly, strange man with a not-quite Polaroid camera that does more than just take your picture, it takes you, a piece at a time. The man encounters an awkward, clumsy, but bright teenage boy and…things happen. It’s better to just read and enjoy the story.
The second story, “Loaded” is about a murderous psychopath who acquires a lot of guns and goes on a shooting rampage and kills a lot of people. And that’s it. In the Afterword Hill describes it as “my attempt to make sense out of our national hard-on for The Gun” and while the story certainly has plenty of guns and gun-related violence, it didn’t work for me, even as I imagine Hill leaning back in his chair, pointing a finger gun at the monitor after writing the last sentence of the story and saying, “Nailed it!” If “Loaded” were a movie, it would be an unrewarding slog, a series of killings that say little more than “a psychopath with guns is probably not a good thing.” I also felt the characters didn’t always act believably. The reporter makes a long string of stupid decisions for no apparent reason, while I think the psychopath would likely have killed himself after one particular event in the story.
spoiler
specifically after he accidentally shoots and kills his son
The forest fire that serves as a backdrop is maybe meant to be a metaphor, but it could have been cut from the story and not affected it at all.
I did think it was clever setting the story in Florida, though, allowing the character of Kellaway (the killer) to represent everyone’s crime headline favorite, Florida Man.
The third story, “Aloft” is a fantasy involving a petrified skydiver who, on his first jump, lands on a cloud that turns out to be more than just a cloud. It’s funny and weird and the background story that intersperses his travails on the cloud is touching and engaging. The whole story just hangs together tightly.
The final story, “Rain” is a bleak, nasty tale that asks the question, “What if it rained super-sharp shards of crystal?” If you guessed “a lot of people would die”, you’re right! Things tie together a little too conveniently at times and the whole “Comet Cult” group that serve as neighbors to the main character, seem more in service to the plot than being necessary to the story. Still, Hill skillfully paints a truly frightening picture of a world where the weather can suddenly kill. A certain president with a fondness for tweeting insults adds further to the story’s sense of despair.
Overall, Strange Weather is a terrific collection, even if “Loaded” was a misfire (sorry) for me.
Note: This book is free, but is only available if you sign up for author David Gaughran’s newsletter (as he graciously points out, you can unsubscribe from the newsletter immediately after if it gives you the heebie jeebies or something.)
Amazon Decoded is essentially a companion piece to Gaughran’s Let’s Get Digital, his guide to self-publishing that focuses primarily, though not exclusively, on Amazon’s Kindle market. This short book obviously does focus exclusively on Amazon and it offers detailed advice and explanations for self-publishing authors, both new and more established.
The tone throughout is very conversational and Gaughran admits to areas where his knowledge is incomplete, such as in how Amazon’s “Also Bought” listings affect sales and rankings. But there is still a lot of good information here, including what not to do. Much of this involves being careful how you promote your book, as the “wrong” audience can muddy the various lists Amazon generates and impact book sales. Gaughran illustrates these points with his own promotional blunders, adopting a good-natured tone as he recounts his marketing goof-ups.
This is a very quick read. As Gaughran points out, it’s more a booklet than a book, and I recommend it be read alongside Let’s Get Digital if you intend to self-publish through Amazon’s kindle store. For others it provides some insights into the virtual machinery of Amazon’s Kindle store, but perhaps not enough to warrant a read just for that alone.
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).
And Then Begin Again: Six Tales of Hope by Ann Christy
