Mistaken Identity

It was a scene that could have been taken from any number of action movies. A truck with dark tinted windows is followed by the LA police department. They had received word of a recent murder and the suspect was reported to be driving just such a truck. The police surrounded the truck and forced it to pull over. Not being able to see the driver they became afraid for their lives and took up positions behind their car doors with pistols drawn. The driver was told to step out of the car slowly with hands raised. In the next moment the door of the truck opened. Immediately pistols were cocked and rifles were aimed and ready to fire. From the cab of the vehicle appeared a woman. She raised her hands and came around to the front of the truck. When she came around to the front it became obvious that she was quite pregnant and scared. All it would have taken is one itchy trigger finger or one perceived threatening move by the mother-to-be and a simple case of mistaken identity could have become a terrible tragedy.

Mistaken identity is also the theme of my current chapter. The Chotians believe that the Kevutians are on their way to have come to their planet to take them home. The Kevutians, on the other hand, think they are the only beings in the universe (know any other creatures like that?) and are, therefore, shocked when they first encounter the Chotians. They believe they are under attack by unknown beings and choose to get away without making contact. Like many cases of confused intentions the consequences of not trying to understand the other person can lead to disastrous results.

Communicating with aliens

Writing science fiction sure creates some unusual challenges not encountered in everyday life. Maybe that' why I enjoy it so much. How often are you encountered with problems like communicating with an alien race in your day-to-day job? That is the problem I face in my current chapter. Having a few Kevutians literally fall into the laps of a new race of humanoids creates many difficulties but perhaps the greatest is the need to communicate. I came upon the idea that maybe instead learning each other's languages they could use and develop sign language. Since they are both humanoid it would make sense that many of the shapes they can create with their hands might have similarities. My idea was bolstered by a rather unusual source. Keep in mind I am speaking with tongue-in-cheek about this source.

A person named W. H. Mumfrey has put himself forward as being an expert in aliens that have come to Earth and live among us. He goes out of his way to point out that these aliens do not reveal their secrets and yet he has been able to compile a complete book revealing their secrets. Ignoring this inconsistency, let's play along. He has written a book entitled The Alien Invasion Survival Handbook. This book purports to tell us all about the aliens that are planning to invade us poor humans so that we may be better prepared. On his section on language, he tells us that these aliens communicate through "airborne electrical signals." According to Mumfrey, some aliens have actually been captured and are kept in secret research facilities. Evidently they are not much different than monkeys in this case because they have been taught to do sign language in the same way that primates have. Maybe these aliens have just tapped into the Planet of the Apes series on their interstellar Netflix. In any case, the aliens have learned some basic sign language in a short period of time.

I ask you, what better confirmation of my idea could that be??

The Dark Side of Publishing

Recently, when a friend asked me if my first book was available as an e-book on Amazon I said yes. In the past, whenever the print version was available I immediately worked on the electronic version (it's harder to format than you might think) and got it ready to go. Electronic versions, once formatted, can be distributed quickly. Usually within a week my e-version would be ready and would go live shortly thereafter. I have been working with a site called Smashwords and they have been very good about getting books out to a lot of electronic distributors. One of those distributors had been Amazon–the name most people think of when they want to buy a book online. Lately, however, Amazon has started dragging their enormous feet on the ground and causing small tremors as they do so. They don't seem to want to distribute from places like Smashwords anymore. Why?

Because they have started their own ebook publishing and distribution serve, of course. OK, so what? Well, they require exclusivity of their others. Something no one else would dare do. Any author that wants to be part of their service must commit to a minimum of 90 days whe and are they will not allow anyone else to publish the work. This means that people with readers other than a Kindle or Kindle app will not be able to read it. So, the question for authors as it stands now is to go with a wide range of distributors like the Kobo reader, Apple iBooks, and so on, or to go with just Amazon and be chained to them like a prisoner on a chain gang.

I chose the chains for at least 90 days. Let's see if it makes any difference.

The Concord Book Shop

I have been having some success in getting my book into several of the local bookshops around my hometown of Maynard MA. I decided to try my luck at some bookstores in nearby towns so I headed on over to Concord MA. You'd think that I had traveled from Kevutu to another planet. I entered the Concord Bookshop and asked if they carried books by local authors. From the first look from the guy behind the desk I knew I was in for trouble. He had this look like: "Oh no! Not another one!" I guess there are a lot of writers in Concord. Yea, I know it's the town of Thoreau and Emerson and all the rest but if they had been given that kind of look from their booksellers we might have never heard of them. Maybe everyone who thinks she is the new Thoreau or Emerson has moved to Concord and now hounds the local bookstores.

When I was directed to another person in the shop I was given a piece of paper stating the policy guidelines for getting books on consignment. The first line told me that I would have to pay a $100 fee just to be considered. The paper explained that the money was necessary for paying for shelf space and the time and energy it took to put that book on said shelf space. Really? I want that job.

Is this what bookstores have come to? They are losing sales from customers so they are going to make it up by dousing struggling authors. I know I'm no Thoreau or Emerson but I'm no Trump or Buffet either. I'm lucky if I make a couple of bucks from a single book sale. How many books would I have to sell to justify paying a $100 shelf fee. What if all the bookstores adopted this policy?

The internet may ring the death knell of bookstores and may be the only saving grace left for authors.

My first Amazon review

I just returned from a week's vacation in Provincetown. My current chapter of Book 2 involves a sea battle between the Wesuran corp and the freedom fighters of Kethix so it was fun to look out across Cape Cod and imagine the battle taking place in those beautiful blue waters.

I am happy to report that I got a positive review on Amazon for my first book. I will quote it here.

"This book captured my imagination. I loved the author’s creativity, character development, philosophies, story line and even some poetry mixed in too. Dialogue, flow and imagery all move nicely through the book and kept me wanting to see how the story would unfold and resolve. The fantasy of a different world and time were simply a backdrop to the real story of people solving life's challenges and problems."

Life on other planets

Is there life on other planets? Assuming we agree on what defines life then we must consider the possibility that there are. Consider this. There are 125 billion galaxies that have been detected by our own telescopes. If only 10% of all stars have orbiting planets, there would be more than 6 x 10(with 18 zeros) possible planets. Even if only 1% of those planets could sustain life there would still be billions and billions of possible planets.

What if we discovered such life tomorrow. How would it impact us here? Would we panic? Would we be curious. Would we have to rethink the majority of world religions that claim that they're people are the only chosen ones of the universe? Creation stories of almost all cultures mention the beginnings of mankind, the animals, and the earth but none mention that the creator also made green globules of living matter on a planet millions of light years away. It is more comforting to believe we are the only ones.

That's what the Kevutians have always believed as well. There was never a need for any other beings. They alone were created for the purpose of seeking perfection in the universe. What happens to a society when its long standing sense of self importance is shattered?

The Seven Sisters

In both the first and the current book there are references to something called The Seven Sisters. They are only mentioned briefly in the first book. They appear in some of the opening quotes and only a few times by the characters themselves. Only at the end are the Seven Sisters mentioned as being seven bright lights that appear in the night sky.

In the second book they play a more significant role. You learn that there is a religious connection to them. The residents of Pa'Kevutu believe the Sisters are all just bright stars until circumstances cause them to actually go out and explore one - a heretical act in itself. The idea of the Seven Sisters has always been part of the original (an unrevealed) back story for the entire collection of asteroids called The Milleran Cluster. Although it is not mentioned much in the first text it was always part of the original idea. That idea began over a year ago on the shores of an idyllic lake in Vermont.

Imagine my surprise when I began reading Neal Stephenson's newest book Seveneves. The title of the second chapter is The Seven Sisters. In his book he refers to seven parts of our moon which have just recently and mysteriously broken apart. These seven fragments threaten to break apart and eventually destroy all life on earth.

My sisters are a little less mischievous.