Book Review: Explorations: Through the Wormhole

Overall:  

I quite enjoyed the anthology, there were high points and low points, but it worked well as a number of stories linked by a common thread, wormholes.  Several of the stories also seemed to reference at least the first story, and from there others, to a lesser degree.  Whether this was accidental or intentional, it worked out well.  To anyone looking for a quick read of some engaging stories I recommend picking this volume up.  Below I have reviewed each individual story.

The Challenge:  

An intriguing story of a near future journey through a mysterious wormhole.  It follows the mission commander Elaine who had been training for a long duration colonization experiment on Mars when the wormhole appears.  It's nice to see a story with professionals doing their job even when the job changes suddenly.  The characters are believable, interesting, and relatable.  Excellent job.

Through Glassy Eyes:

Lady or the tiger.  Many of us read this short story in high school, the elegant cliff hanger that left you asking what door to open.  TGE is set after thr challenge and follows a mega Corp as they create, release and then deal with the fallout of the world's first networked neural implants.  It's an excellent sorry and one that anyone interested in such tech should read.  It is also quite similar to the short lived Web series H+ which is a must watch.  A great effort with touches of mega corps and a future that while only 70 years ahead had undergone significant societal change.

Here, there, forever:

Not my favorite of the stories.  It starts out promising, then takes an odd turn into fantasy.  The ending does raise an interesting question though about the nature of the rest of the narrative.  Quite a lot of echoing in the story however.  Another edit pass would have tightened it up nicely.

AI denier:

Fonts are important, especially with the letter I.  I originally went into this story thinking it was called Al denier.  The story stumbles at first to get the protagonist shifted forward in time.  Once in place however, it ran along fine with a woman out of time dealing with a future where the AI have taken over and turned most sentient biologic life into subjugated citizens, little better than slaves.

Flawed Perspective:

A story with a definite twist. When an earth exploration ship find itself cut off from Humanity, The Crew ally themselves with a powerful yet pacifistic race. They then take up arms against their new allies enemies and begin to carve out a new Empire for themselves. Ultimately this is a story about the corruption of power. And comma House of such corruption can blind you to your own history. An interesting read, that would probably work better as a full-on novel comma as certain advances are just glossed over in an effort to advance the plot.

The Lost Colony:

When a smuggler ship cuts it a little close trying to jump out of a protected wormhole things go very wrong for the crew.  This story had me pumped from the start with a very firefly-esque crew doing their best to keep their ship flying as they evade an STA patrol and attempt to jump out system.  Things don’t go to plan and they end up stranded inside the closed wormhole, looking for a way out.  A fun, self contained story, that was a blast to read.

The Aeon Incident:

What happens when you combine Star Trek with Warhammer 40k?  The Aeon Incident, that’s what.  Be prepared for intense battle armored action, mixed with first contact protocols of Star Trek’s Federation.  Action packed and fun, the twist at the end was a genuine delight.

The Doors of the Temple:

The Earth is being ravaged by a war against powerful aliens, and no idea is too outlandish to examine as a means of ending the conflict.  When a widowed Ace Pilot is offered one final chance at saving the Earth using mythology and a crazed, BO ridden Irish scientist he takes it and one final ride through a wormhole like no other.

Dead Weight:

Months from rescue with a damaged ship thrown through a sudden wormhole, Captain Guan Xi Has a mystery on his hands.  Who, or what is killing his crew.  A fun little mystery story with some nice twists.

Webbed Prisms:

This was probably the most interesting story so far.  Told from two different perspectives, on either side of the wormhole it showcases how societies differ and can changes, especially with advanced technology.  I don’t want to give away too much, but would love to see this one expanded into a novel.  Even so, as it stands now, it is a nicely contained story.

Anathema:

Quite an interesting story and one that diverges from the norm in a good way.  The crew of the wormhole corvette Anathema must escort 4 freighters to a mining colony cut off for 16 years.  What they find when they arrive changes everything.

When the Skies Open:

Not all colonies are created equal.  On an Earth colony cut off from resupply generations have past and what technology that is left is in ill repair, if it functions at all.  When a wormhole reopens and Earthers return they bring with them new miracles of technology and medicine, but at what price?  This was a well constructed story, with the mechanics of it such that you felt the confusion of the main character as she witnesses a major change to her society and wrestles with the long terms impacts, a good read with a solid, coherent story.

A Second Infection:

This was an odd one.  For the medically minded the story will be easy to follow, for others, get ready to learn a lot about how infections work.  The story gets medical and metaphysical fast so might not be everyone's cup of tea, but is an interesting take on the overall subject matter.

Personal Growth:

The longest story in the anthology wraps up the book, and follows the Hong Kong based crew of a budget mission through a wormhole.  Not giving away too much it works nicely with some of the other stories presented here (The Challenge, Webbed Prisms in particular) and bookends the anthology well.  Clearly some talent here and a well constructed, concise tale that handles its own internal technologies, sciences, and logic well.

In the end, this is a great book and a definite recommended read.

Explorations: Through the Wormhole Kindle Edition

Product Details
File Size: 2467 KB
Print Length: 376 pages
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: Woodbridge Press (August 31, 2016)
Publication Date: August 31, 2016
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
Language: English
ASIN: B01LC0JZD4
Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
Not Enabled
Word Wise: Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled

We're Back...

Sorry for the last of updates for the last 9 months.  Life has been busy, and has kept me from working on this.  But, we are back now.  Here are some updates:

Spiral War, Book 3, Rising Warriors, Rising Threat, is with the editor and should be back in my hands NLT my birthday in late August.  After that I will send it off to the Beta Readers, including the cover artist before finalization and hopeful release in Fall 2016.  I will be posting this novel to Kindle Scout, see if I can't get Amazon to help foot the bill for advertising and promotions.

Spiral War, Book 4, The Gorvian Campaign (Working Title), is finished and now fermenting before I jump in to the self edit.  I have submitted the first three chapters to the OWW however for comment as I proceed through my self edit.

I am also stepping up my own self-promotion game.  I will be attending several conventions in the coming months, some I missed out on the deadline to appear, but the first will be a tiny art and hobby show at work.  I won't be able to sell there, but it will get me some exposure, and I will hand out the new book cards with links to here, the amazon purchase site, and the ISBN for physical book purchase.  Speaking of which, I have two boxes full of Books 0, 1, and 2, awaiting my convention appearances.

My special Owen showing off the hardcopies.

Convention appearance one will be at the Olympic Collectible Expo's fall show on October 1, 2016 at the Silverdale Beach Hotel.  I missed the last show, but am glad to appear at this one.

I am on the wait list for Jet City Comic Show  on November 5-6, 2016.  Crossing my fingers to get into this one.  I will update on this and other upcoming appearances as they arise.

Onto the writing front, some errors were pointed out in the current edition of Spiral War: On Dagger's Wings.  As a result, I am preparing a version 1.2.  I found most the errors pretty quickly, which was upsetting, but then I have gotten better on the editing front, so that is not surprising.  Version 1.2, which will update to all kindle addresses for free, will include a new Forward section to address the issues and hopefully appease some fans.

Final note for this update.  I love doing reviews and am getting back into it.  As part of that, I will bring out an old game I used to play with my father and other writers, 5 Scene Fixes.  In that we take a movie or show that could have been great, but was hampered, and maybe ruined by 5 scenes, in some cases more.  My first victim, the Star Trek reboots.  That being said, I saw Star Trek Beyond over the weekend and absolutely loved it, so a longer review will be forthcoming.

Review Roundup October 2015

I have not posted any book or movie reviews of late, but that is because I have been doing them for my old friends over at Slice of Sci-Fi and their sister sites.  Rather than post each one as it went up I decided to wait and post the lost of them at once.

Listening 

Review Summary:

Listening is a movie that I would rate as average. There is little about it that makes it stand out amongst other movies, within and without its genre. This does not mean that Listening is a bad movie, it simply doesn’t bring much new to the table.

Containment

Review Summary:

I have never lived in a tower block/apartment building; part of the reasoning behind this is because I always saw them as perfect havens for disease vectors. This movie plays with that concept to a great degree, along with themes about not knowing your neighbors, fear of authority, isolation, and paranoia.

Nightmare Code

Review Summary:

The way these characters interact and the lack of flashy hollywood computer usage was a welcome change for me. I did my share of code writing and debugging in college and could feel their frustration. Forget the flashy screens and multiple person at a keyboard typing away like mad monkeys, this is what debugging code looks like. Mostly bored folks looking for stimulus as they scroll through line after line of text. Overall this is a great movie, and I recommend it for anyone who is interested in coding, computers and who wants to see a good A.I. movie.

June

Review Summary:

This is an interesting film, but doesn’t bring anything new to the genre, and most genre fans will spot inspiration from various other films. What I have found most interesting is the nebulous time frame the movie takes place in. The three adult leads will be recognizable to folks from my generation, appearing in numerous genre films since the mid-nineties. It was almost a 90s reunion, which kind of works as the movie appears to be set in the early to mid 90s.

Star Wars: A New Hope: The Princess, The Scoundrel, and The Farm Boy

Review Summary:

Do not consider this book a replacement for the movie, or the original novelization ghost written by Alan Dean Foster. Instead, look at it as a supplement. This book does an excellent job of getting into Leia’s head and really lets the reader/listener (since I am reviewing the audiobook version) know what she felt through this adventure. I almost would have liked the book to tell the whole story through her viewpoint, and those of the others as well.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back: So You Want to be a Jedi?

Review Summary:

When most people think about Empire, they consider it one of the best of the Original Trilogy Star Wars movies. It develops greatly on A New Hope and expands on the nature of The Force and the Jedi, and the universe at large. This book tosses out most of that for fairy tale stylings, and adds a trite fairy tale about Yoda right in the middle of the book.

Star Wars Beware The Power of the Dark Side

Review Summary:

Overall the book doesn’t add much to the story, and is an almost straight retelling of the movie but does add new links to the prequel trilogy and also describes a far more desperate rebel fleet then other media has portrayed. The audiobook is quite good and the choice of music good as well, though I would have preferred if they didn’t use the Ewok theme as much. Given that this book tried to portray them as warriors so much more, hearing the jaunty theme from the movie here actually did them a disservice.

Do the Young Adult Retellings of the Original “Star Wars” Trilogy Work?

This was a follow up to my earlier review of these three books where I outlined what they did right, and also their significant failings.

Deadlands: Ghostwalkers

Review Summary:

Throw every trope and genre you can into the mix, it’s here in some form or another. It can be a bit overwhelming at times, but made for a fun pre-Halloween read. My oldest wants to read it after he finishes my old HP Lovecraft books. The book also features more than it’s share of violence, and might not be for the squeamish. If a movie is ever made of this, Rob Zombie will probably be involved, let’s put that out there.

The Martian Movie Review

Go see this movie.  No, seriously, grab a friend, or two, or more, and go see this movie.  5 Stars.  Then come back here and read the review.

Did you go see the movie?

What do you mean no?

Need more of  a reason, here's the trailer:

Grab your keys and your wallet, or someone with keys and wallet and go see this movie, now.

Did you see the movie yet?

Well whether you have or not, spoilers ahead.  Quite simply put, this is the best movie I've seen this year.  Anyone who knows me knows that I hate it when movies deviate too far from the source materials, especially when it's a book.  I hated movies like I-Robot, Starship Troopers, I Am Legend, etc... for doing just that.  On the flip side I have praise the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies.

This movie, while taking certain liberties from the book, stuck to it fairly well.  I understand why it it deviated too, most of the time it was to move the story along at a faster pace.  While there were some scenes I would have liked to have seen, losing them didn't upset me.  Even the additions didn't get my blood boiling.  Yes, there were a couple that were there for the ego of the stars, but they were ok and I could pass them off.  Even the extended ending, compared to the book, worked well in my opinion, it offered more closure.

I could sit down here for hours and dissect every scene of the film, but I won't.  It it simply a great film.  It is smart, it is funny, it is well paced, and it is believable.  They didn't turn any of the characters into mustache twirling villains, and on some level you could relate to almost everyone in it.  

This was a story about people coming together to save a single brave hero.  And, it worked.  It worked so well.  I hope that Andy Weir gets a dump truck full of royalties for this movie.

And for those of you haven't read the book.

BUY THIS BOOK!!!

Like I said, there are some changes, but they are minimal and fit the new medium.

5 Stars, well earned by all involved.  Now go see the movie if you haven' yet.

Book review, Of Ice And Magic by Hugh B Long

Once again Hugh B. Long showcases his expertise in Nordic history and mythology with this engrossing novella.  This was quite the fun read.  The story follows a Nordic blacksmith who forges living swords, fantastic weapons imbued with the soul of a willing sacrifice.  After forging such a blade his customer, an overly ambitious clan chief murders the smith's wife.  The smith then embarks on a quest for vengence.

I don't want to to give away too much in this review as this is Novella is a short read.  The writing in this book is great and focuses primarily on the blacksmith as the main character, but opens from the perspective of the sword itself, which, as stated, is imbued with a willing soul.

Long's writing style lends it self well to a visual realm, and I could see it adapted to a short film or fantasy anthology series without much difficulty.  The story could likewise be fleshed out into a much longer novel, and I applaud Long for keeping this story short and to the point.

Shield Rating 95%.  (Well written/edited and a good length for a novella)


Of Ice and Magic
File Size: 3415 KB
Print Length: 88 pages
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: Asgard Studios (July 14, 2015)
Publication Date: July 14, 2015
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
Language: English
ASIN: B011N13UZG
Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
Not Enabled
Word Wise: Not Enabled
Lending: Enabled

Book Review: The Forgotten Prince (Second Star Book 2), By Josh Hayes

What if Neverland was a real planet out there?  What if the story of Peter Pan as we know it was a flawed retelling of the actual events on that planet?  That is the idea that Josh Hayes took and ran with in this series of books.

I will admit that I have not yet read book 1 of the series, Breaking Through, but I will rectify that soon.

That being said I was not lost at all as I started reading this book.  Many a new author when writing a series will not write the second book assuming the reader has finished the first book.  This is always a mistake, and one that Josh Hayes has avoided.  I was in the action from the first word and didn't feel like I had to play catch up at all.  The characters were reintroduced well and we were off on an adventure in Neverland.

But this isn't the same Neverland you grew up with, and the main character, John McNeal, is well aware of that, commenting on that several times in the book.  It is nice to see a character who is genre savvy in that way.  John finds himself in the middle of a civil war between the Regency, led by the Infamous Captain Hook and his second in command Commander Peter Pantiri, and the rebellious Lost Boys led by Wendy herself.

As the book progresses it becomes more obvious that it is the middle part of the story, and as the author explains at the end of the book, he has plotted out a four book series.  The ending left me wanting more and caring about what happened next to the characters.  The book also left some questions unanswered, foreshadowing some things that will, hopefully, happen in the rest of the series.  Book 2 of a series is always a good place to do this kind of thing.

I was never a huge fan of Peter Pan growing up, the tale of a little boy who never grew up and never matured just didn't work for me.  I think having seen the Disney version first hurt my impression of the book.   Though I did love the short lived Fox series Peter Pan and the Pirates.

Peter in ripped up rags just looks so much more fleshed out then in tights, plus hook doesn't look like a joke.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a fun, genre defying book, with some fun characters and a world that gets more fleshed out with every page.  I am definitely looking forward to the next two books in the series and plan to go back and read the opening novella as well now to see what I missed.

Book Shield Rating:  91%  (some minor editting glitches crept through, but nothing that I wouldn't see coming out of a major house as well as an indie publication.)

The Forgotten Prince 

• File Size: 2005 KB
• Print Length: 155 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publication Date: August 14, 2015
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0115790HU
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled  
• X-Ray: Not Enabled  
• Word Wise: Not Enabled
• Lending: Enabled

More Reviews Incoming

Like the title says I will be posting some more reviews soon.  I have been forwarded ARC (Advanced Reader Copies) of two books by fellow Indie Authors that I am in the process of reading for review.

The first is The Forgotten Prince by Josh Hayes.

Release Date is 14 August, but I should have my review up in time.

The second book is Of Ice and Magic by Hugh B. Long.

Released on 16 July 2015, I will get this one done right after Josh's book.

I am also considering some more movie reviews in the future, and since I just reread it, a review of the book, The Martian, but I think I will wait until I see the movie on that one, compare and contrast.  I also came across some old notes of mine from discussions my oldest and I used to have about how I would remake/rewrite a certain movie franchise that I am considering posting, but I'm not sure yet if I should.  Time will tell.

Spiral War: On Dagger's Wings Rereleased

Long story short I wasn't seeing much in the way of sales through my previous distributor/publisher.  So since I bought the ISBN for Spiral War: On Dagger's Wings, I decided to pull it back.  After some healthy edits to clean up grammar and punctuation mistakes left behind by myself, my editors, and some created during the conversion process I have rereleased Spiral War: On Dagger's Wings as a Kindle exclusive.

This move is for a few reasons:

#1:  It allows me to enroll SW: ODW into Kindle Select and Kindle Unlimited.  Many independent authors I have spoken with agree that KU has boosted their sales significantly.\

#2:  This rerelease allowed me to make some much needed edits, edits that if I had tried to make them through my previous distributor would have cost me.

#3:  I saw dismal, read almost no, sales out of the other e-book retailers, single digits from both B&N and iBooks.  Almost all sales thus far were through Kindle, so I am going to keep with that for now.

#4:  Hopefully this will generate renewed interest in the title as Book 2:  In Death's Shadow is forthcoming.  I have to put some finishing touches onto the last chapter, then it's off to the beta readers before one final scrub, assembly, and publication.

Anyone who purchased the previous revision of On Dagger's Wings should get the update automatically if they purchased through amazon.  For the few folks who bought the book through ibooks or B&N contact me directly with proof of purchase I and I will send you the update manually.

The Agony of Formatting and E-Book Conversion (A Tutorial)

Zero Cost E-Book Formatting and Conversion Tutorial

So you've written your book, edited it, and have decided to go indie on the publication, casting off the shackles of the "traditional" publishing houses.  But how do you ready your novel for publication without going to outside assistance?  You can always go out and pay someone to take your individual files, clean them up and convert them, or buy the software to do so, which can range from $40-$160 or more.  Well if you're willing to put in a little work and/or are on a tight budget, then consider this method.

I originally attempted this method as outlined on wikihow:

Convert-a-Word-Document-to-Epub

It's a good method, but somewhat incomplete and can result in some buggy output.

In my case the conversion of my book resulted in several thousand html based errors and convinced me to pay for the conversion, which I was never satisfied with.  Onto the actual tutorial.

Resources:
Word Processor (MS Word, Open Office, Libre Office, etc...)
Google Docs 
Calibre E-Book Manager
An Epub Validator  (There are many of these out there, but this one is free and was recommended by my original distributor)
Your Novel.

Part 1:  Formatting and Cleanup.

Step 1:

Using your preferred Word Processor open up your novel, be it all one file or multiple.  At this point you may not have done any formatting to the story itself  so it will look like the default plain text.  If you have already added a chapter title, then you are already a step in the right direction.

Step 2:

Highlight your main title, select "Format > Styles and Formatting" or the equivalent option for changing a "style" in your word processor, then select from the list of style options: "Heading 1" as shown here:

Step 3:

Repeat this process for every chapter, this is how you will assemble your table of contents later.

Step 4:

This is the step that will take up the most of your time, so settle in for several operator hours, but first meet your new best friend, the Pilcrow ¶. Click the  Pilcrow ¶ symbol (1)in your word processor and you should be immediately be presented with a view like the one below.  A properly formatted document will have nothing on the page except for the actual text and Pilcrows at the end of a paragraph.  Any additional spaces at the end of a paragraph (2), additional tabs (3), or carriage returns (4), should be eliminated.  Take your time here, as cleaning up these little errors will have a big impact later after you convert your document, so best to do it now.

Part 2:  Compiling.

Step 5:

Most word processors, MS Word in particular, have a bad habit of sneaking formatting into a document that you cannot readily see.  This formatting will bite you hard when you convert to an e-book format.  It was suggested by fellow author Bill Frisbee that a way to clean this up would be to first copy and paste the manuscript into google docs.

To that end, pull up google docs on your favorite web browser and paste the text from your novel into it.  Note, it is important to actually cut and paste it in, do not import the document.  I further recommend that this where you composite the whole document together.  To do this, after you paste in a chapter, go to the bottom and insert page break.

Repeat for every chapter.

Step 6:

Now that you've compiled/assembled your novel in google docs you need to export it.  There are several formats you can download it as, .docx, .odt, .rtf, .pdf, .txt, and .html.  I recommend exporting for submissions into .docx as most publishers prefer this format.  For e-book conversion though download it as an .rtf.  Now don't be shocked to see that the rtf file will be several MB in size.

Part 3: Conversion.

Step 7:

Now open up calibre (this is free software).  You will be presented with a screen like this one.

Step 8:

Click on the "Add Books" Icon in the upper right hand corner and select the rtf version of your novel.

Step 9:

Now click on the "Edit Metadata" Icon and enter in the pertinent data about your novel.

Step 10:

Click "OK" to exit back to the main screen and then "Convert books" Icon.  The "Convert books" window will pop up.  In the upper right corner of this screen find the "Output format" menu, select MOBI or EPUB. You can't do both at once, but you can do one then come back and do the other.  I recommend EPUB first as it can be tested with ease.

Step 11:

The left side menu has several items, but you'll only need "Look and Feel" and "Table of Contents."

Step 12:

Under "Look and Feel" check the "Remove spacing between paragraphs" box.

Step 13:

Under "Table of Contents" select the wizard button to the right of "Level 1 TOC (XPath expression).  This is where your formatting comes in handy.

Step 14:

From the drop down menu labeled "Match HTML tags with tag name:" in the new window that pops up select "h1" and click "OK."

Step 15:

You should now see "//h:h1" listed in the Level 1 TOC field.

Step 16:

Click "OK" and Calibre will begin converting. Conversion can take a few minutes, so be patient. If you converted to MOBI the first time, then hit the "Convert books" button again and select EPUB to convert to that format. Then you'll want to hit the big "Save to disk" button.

What you're saving is actually a directory (author's name) with a set of files (all their works.) Because off this, you'll want to save all your Calibre conversions into a super-directory called "authors" or some such. If you enlarge the picture above you'll see the location is:

Documents > My Documents > My eBooks > Authors

This is where you want to be, with the "Folder" field at the bottom of the windowblank when you press the "Select Directory" button. What happens is that Calibre will search this directory for the author's name and either save to that author's directory if it's already been created, or create it if it's not yet there.

Part 4: Testing.

Step 17:

Now navigate over to your epub validator and upload your newly created epub.

If you've done everything right then the system will return zero errors.  Most errors will appear as html errors though.

Yes, I cribbed most of this tutorial from the wikihow article, but there are some changes and additional steps that had I known them at the time would have saved me quite a bit of time, money and embarrassment.