Comic Book Art

Recently, I was reading a bit about science fiction movie poster art from yesteryear. I rather like those cheesy posters, actually. Some people don't like retro, but artwork for such films have become part of the culture for my generation. However, one of the folks who purchased my suspense book, The Gift Horse, said that the cover to Trinity on Tylos kept him from buying it. Others have mentioned that the cover is too much like a "comic book." Okay, I would rather have had my cover art look like that iconic poster art for the very first Star Wars film, the one with Vader's helmet as a huge backdrop and Princess Leia wielding a blaster but not looking much like Carrie Fisher. That was seriously cool art. Despite its possible role in low sales and abysmal royalties, I don't dislike the Whiskey Creek Press cover for Trinity. It isn't bad, it just isn't quite comic book worthy, and maybe that's the problem.

My first reader for The Gift Horse, Sarah Trippe, has three children. Her first born, Dean, is a comic book artist. That is, he graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design with a degree in sequential art. He has blogs and websites, is multi-published in print, and seems to be building quite a following. While I am no expert in such matters, his art seems to be well-received by fans. I have not done enough research to know what the critics say about it, but his drawings combine action with simplicity. They're clean...or something. Anyway, check out this print, which I really like. Or better yet, buy one!

Online, Typos Never Die

I've been an English teacher for more than thirty years. That's scary. And, during most of those years, I have tried to help students make their writing better. Or, as my current supervisor says of her own career, "For years I thought I was combating ignorance; then I realized I was just documenting it." Yes, we English teachers spend a great deal of time looking for mistakes.

Whenever I do web design, one of the wonderful things about it is that electrons are ephemeral. I can correct mistakes and the problems go to some cyber-heaven. However, once words are online, other entities copy those words, usually without credit or permission, and typos just keep on turning up.

Periodically, I use a search engine to keep me abreast of online use of my novel titles. Seldom does any reference to "The Gift Horse" have anything to do with me, since the phrase is widely used. "Trinity on Tylos" seems to be unique, however, so any use of those three words in that order should refer back to my science fiction novel. Recently, a Google search for "Trinity on Tylos" led me to a site called Vampire Raves. Someone posted my novel's back cover blurb on the site, but the source was apparently Amazon, rather than the book itself. How do I know that? Here's the story—

When the publisher's printing partner, Paw Prints POD, first posted it on Amazon, the title was Trinity on Trylos. It took me quite a while to correct that. But the description, which is that back cover blurb, misspells the main character's name. One of my teacher friends from long ago often mentioned a colleague, Venice. I wanted an exotic, yet human name for my futuristic character, so I swiped it. Quite frankly, I stole the last name from the social pages of the Athens, Georgia newspaper, so the main character is Venice Dylenski. However, Amazon's page, which was created in part by someone from PawPrints, called the character Benice Dylenski.

Indeed, a search for that name yielded ten results, and none of them are Vampire Raves, so there are undoubtedly other sites which have this same error. Just how many sites have posted this incorrect copy from Amazon? I have no idea, but it does illustrate that one mistake can go a very long way online.

There is something even more scary about that.

eReader update

Some years back, I purchased a Palm device as an eBook reader. Oh, I might not have chosen it if the only thing it could do was display books, but it does more than act as a reading device. For half a decade, I have read scores of eBooks and used the Palm for my calendar, quick notes, and as a portable phone/address book. At the time, I thought spending a hundred and fifty bucks was a bit much for it, but in the long run, I have enjoyed cheaper books, being able to read at night, and less junk in my purse. Nowadays, it will die after just a couple of hours of reading, and battery life has always been a problem. In the past few months, the cover has worn out, the charger won't work so I have to use the USB port to recharge it, and when I pull it out, folks look at it the way folks in the eighties would look at an eight-track tape deck. Like other fans of eBooks, I am looking for a replacement reading device.

Being an Apple aficionado, I view the iPhone as a good candidate. Like the Palm, an iPhone would serve multiple purposes. But, that small screen won't be much better than what I have now, and newer should be markedly better, don't you think?  No doubt, well-heeled eBook readers who like Apple products will probably opt for the iPad, and that is the most appealing alternative. But, it won't fit in my purse, and while it is a real computer, it won't really replace my Macbook, so I can't see spending the bucks for one of those.

Amazon has been perfecting, and dropping the price of the Kindle. The second generation device isn't as butt-ugly as the first one, but I am not ready to buy one just yet. Amazon's content is probably better than most, which is a better selling point than the reader itself. If I were a student again, having to read large textbooks, the oversized version would catch my attention, but black and white magazine content is so retro.

I considered the eBookman, marketed by Fictionwise, five years ago, and there are a few of those still around. But its successor is the Nook, a WiFi capable dedicated eBook reader sold by Barnes and Noble. The price of this device is currently $149. Since Fictionwise, my favorite eBook vendor, is now a BN.com subsidiary, moving my pre-purchased content should be easier if I decide on the Nook. Barnes and Noble has my sophomore novel, Trinity on Tylos, on sale for under three bucks. That's a deal, folks! If other small press books are priced similarly, that would put new books into used book price range. Quite frankly, when just purchasing the content, and not the paper and cover, I think that a new eBook really should be less expensive than a new print copy, so plenty of low priced content is absolutely necessary. And, of the eBook readers available now, apart from Apple's elegant designs, the Nook has the best form factor, too.

Let's see... we have price, content, and long battery life. If it only had a light for night reading, I might be sold on the Nook.

In the mean time, I am reading Girl Gone Nova on my Palm and Interred with Their Bones in print.

Trinity on Tylos available at Barnes and Noble.com

As the title (and link) state, my science fiction adventure, Trinity on Tylos, is now at available at Barnes and Noble online. This is not really "news" in my mind, because BN bought eBook vendor Fictionwise a while back. For the moment, both are still operating independently, but I have noticed that Fictionwise now gets eBook versions of the good stuff early on, and that has to be due to the partnership with BN. Now, a few months after, BN.com customers can purchase eBooks from small presses. My publisher sent out a notice, which is what prompted me to look at the listing. Alas, it is barebones, with no editorial reviews and only one customer rating.

Will an additional outlet increase sales for small presses? I suspect that it won't, especially with minimal information in the listings, but I hope that I am wrong. Many good books are only available via small presses, and I enjoy reading offbeat works, so I have been a good customer at Fictionwise. As FW adds titles from the big six, I don't know if small presses will continue to use it as a sales vehicle.

Regarding sales of my own titles, I have noticed an upward trend for The Gift Horse, via Amazon and via a local retailer. I'm pleased by those sales, of course. I've done absolutely nothing to promote it in quite a while, so such sales are due to product placement and word of mouth.

I'm glad that readers continue to find The Gift Horse an entertaining read. And, I wish more readers would discover Trinity on Tylos, for it, too, deserves an audience.

Trinity on Tylos available at the Palm eBook store

As an eBook fan, and as the owner of a Palm devise, I was doubly pleased when a "Google Alert" let me know that my science fiction novel, Trinity on Tylos is now available at the Palm eBook store. The book is formatted for Palm's eReader software, which is one of the programs I use on my own pda.

Readers of Pam's Pages no doubt realize that this novel has garnered several good reviews from sources as varied as the Midwest Book Review, Living Jackson magazine, and is a Fallen Angels Reviews recommended read, and the novel is still available in print via the internet and at the Bookstand of Northeast Georgia in Commerce.

Five Best of ’08

I’ve heard that retailers are worried about the holidays, because people have less to spend, now that the "r" word is official. That is certainly true for us. Daughter is in the midst of her freshman year at a good state college, and tuition, room & board, and myriad fees have run us about the same as a good used car, and that will repeat each year unless she gets some scholarship dollars from somewhere. There will be less under our tree this holiday.

So, instead of creating a Christmas list of things I want, I am going to mention the best things I purchased in 2008. I do want to remember that I had a good year, even in troubling times. Perhaps, readers of Pam’s Pages will find the perfect gift for family or for themselves on my five best list—

First, I purchased a great book, Phantom, by Susan Kay, for my daughter. She has loved this book and is a fan of the Webber musical, which we saw on Broadway in May. The film version of the musical, available on DVD, is also worthy, but nothing beats the stage version.

Second, I suffered a huge loss of pictures and writing, among other things, when the hard drive of my iBook ceased to function. Having never had such a loss of data, after the shock wore off, I purchased a Western Digital “My Passport” 320GB Portable Hard Drive to use with “Time Machine” which is part of the operating system for my new laptop computer. Hopefully, I won’t suffer that kind of loss again, since the computer reminds me every ten days to back up the entire drive.

Third, my son wanted to have a smaller, more rugged music player, so his birthday present was an Apple iPod nano. I still marvel at the small size and seamless software of this device. Also, due to having flash memory, it is far more “guy friendly” than the older, hard drive model that he used before. Thus far, it has performed flawlessly, so it makes the list.

Fourth, hubby likes to listen to television, loud television, when I don’t, so he requested a new set of wireless headphones. I ordered a Sony Wireless Headphone for him, and he loves this device, which lets him soar and me snore.

Fifth, I enjoy a pot of tea from time to time, and my favorite tea is Taylors of Harrogate Yorkshire Gold Tea. These bags make a pot, not just a cup, and this tea has a lovely color and aroma. Oh, and it tastes good, too.

So, there are five diverse items, with prices beginning under ten bucks, that I have purchased for myself and for my family during 2008. The links are to Amazon.com, and while you are there, remember that they stock my debut novel, The Gift Horse, and Trinity on Tylos, by yours truly, and books are a great gift.

$igns of the Times

For whatever reasons, The Gift Horse, my really weird, suspenseful tale of kidnapping, materialism, and moral decay, outsells my space opera with a dash of romance, Trinity on Tylos. Both books share certain traits. An abduction moves the action along, the villain isn't always bad, there is quite a bit of dialogue, and the narratives are not precisely linear. In short, I write the way I write, and the genre is secondary to me.

Readers don't see the commonalities, for the most part. Instead they seem to get invested in the main character or the setting. In The Gift Horse, she is Angie Donalson, a bit of a waif, albeit a tall and strikingly beautiful one. And she is a mistress, not by choice, but by circumstances. This alternately fascinates or really annoys readers. So be it. Many wealthy people do worlds of good with their wealth, and I am all for that! Some, however, indulge in whatever money can buy, and it can buy rather a lot. Even the super rich are feeling a bit squeezed these days, and I could not help myself when I saw an article about wealthy folks cutting back on payments to mistresses. This was, I am not kidding, in the Wall Street Journal. I'm including a link to the article, which won't work forever, so follow it soon! As for the setting, it is in the deep south, which is more comfortable for my local fans.

Trinity on Tylos has a more mature heroine, a woman who makes her sacrifices rather than having them foisted upon her. Venice has been described by reviewers as "a winning heroine." She is a more noble and thoughtful character than the hapless Miss Donalson. Oh, I do like Angie's combination of innocence and spunk, but Venice has guts, and I admire that in a character. In the second novel, Tylos is a solar system far from this one, and as one Jeffersonian observed, "This isn't a town where readers like science fiction."

While neither book has sold well enough for me to tell my employer that I am no longer interested in teaching, I notice that the royalites continue to come in for The Gift Horse. Like many others, I hang on in a job that is sometimes a source of annoyance, to keep a few more dollars coming in to the family coffers.

My retirement dollars are invested in the stock market, so I may never retire at all. Hopefully, those who are out of work will continue to seek further education to enhance their employablity, which will keep me employed as well.

A Brief History of SF

One of my main interests, in reading and on screen, is the various sub-genres of Science Fiction. However, it is important to know the past, so my "very brief" history of science fiction is now a short video.

Enjoy!

Is marriage a thing of the past?

Fashion changes rapidly. Last year’s colors aren’t featured this year; shoes change in terms of materials, heel heights, and even in shape. Technology changes quickly as well. In my lifetime, cars have become far more reliable, personal communications blitzed from party line phones to internet and cellular phones, and the slide rule I used in high school is an obscure antique.

As for human relationships, a couple of millennia back, the writer of Proverbs described a man’s sons as “a quiver filled with arrows” and a wife and mother as a “prize more valued than rubies.” Just a century back, a man and woman with several children were considered fortunate, because they had plenty of hands to work in the fields and around the house.

Nowadays, many educated couples choose not to bear any children, and often they don’t bother with marriage either. The lower socioeconomic groups are still having children, but increasingly there are no husbands/fathers in the picture. Quarter after quarter, when asked to write or give a speech about their reasons for coming to post-secondary school, I hear young women in my class speak about needing a better job to pay for their children, and they struggle because they are single parents. Their male counterparts talk about livin’ in up, but say little regarding family matters. Unfortunately, children today are either spoiled or neglected, or both. That’s not an oxymoron: modern parents give children too much in order to entertain them. This is necessary so these parents can have their own time to use as they wish.

Despite having grown up in a reasonably conservative home with lots of chuch-going relations, I also have relatives who readily acknowledge that their children have a live-in lover. Although some of these go on to marry, that isn’t happening as often as it once did. Young folks are viewing marriage as unnecessary or even as an undesirable commitment. Watching parents and others battle in divorce court has contributed to this social change, but surely that can’t be the only factor!

In Trinity on Tylos, I began “in medias res”, or in the middle of the action. Instead of having my main character, Venice, meet her lover, she was already married to him and had joined the colonization mission in part to help her husband, who is the second in command. During the story, their marriage is interrupted by the complications thrust upon them by the alien Azareel, but only once does Venice even contemplate divorce. Her love is strong and she’s willing to make sacrifices for those she loves, especially her offspring.

Did I goof? Will future parents be merely genetic donors, who give their offspring to others to rear, while mom and dad pursue pleasures or careers? Will there be marriage in the future, or is that as much a part of the past as an eight track tape player?

Telling You Where to Go

(on the web, that is.)

I have a number of links on my website, but here are some others which readers of Pam’s Pages just might enjoy. This list is almost as eclectic as I am.

For fans of horror, dark science fiction, dark fantasy, and poetry along those lines, you might find this spot worth your time: Aberrant Dreams is both a print magazine and a webzine.

Author and archivist Nina M. Osier has amassed quite a few reviews on her website. Science fiction is one of her main interests, but not the only one. I’ve found numerous titles which I have enjoyed on her list of reviews.

A few people may be so well-heeled that being careful with money isn’t necessary, but the rest of us want to make the most of what we have. Atlanta radio show host Clark Howard helps with that more than any other media resource. To “save more, spend less, and avoid being ripped off” take a look at his site. Visitors will find lots of help in Clark’s Greatest Hits, but I prefer the show notes.

At a loss for words? Readers will find many quotes, famous and not-so-famous here: http://www.math.uchicago.edu/~shulman/quotes/quotes

The professor on Gilligan’s Island seemed to know how everything worked. I’ll never have his knowledge, but I think even he might have learned something at How Stuff Works, a site which is fun to research or just browse. Recent front page articles included “How Nanotechnology Works,” “How the U. S. Postal Service Works,” and “How Mummies Work” which must be a Halloween favorite.

Like to read? Do you like to stretch your brain with an occasional quiz? Then visit First Lines, a collection of opening lines from books in various genres. “Venice Dylenski had measured the possibility of losing hold on that transient state that human beings call life more than once, but at the moment she couldn’t recall a more painful experience” is the first line of my science fiction novel, Trinity on Tylos. It isn’t featured in the quiz just yet, but I’m sure they’ll add it with the next site update.

Now you have some places to go, but do come back to Pam’s Pages for more-or-less weekly entries on who knows what.

Water Woes

In the opening chapters of Trinity on Tylos, the main character, Venice Dylenski, discusses the frustrating matter of finding the right planetary home for the human colonists onboard the Excalibur. She states,“It just remains to find the right balance of land and water. I’m beginning to understand that it’s not air that is precious, it’s water.”

When I wrote those words, I was looking ahead toward the middle portion of the book, when the characters are on the planet Tylos, a rocky-red planet with limited water, but enough. The inhabitants just have to manage that precious resource responsibly. I didn’t view her words as prophetic, but perhaps I should have.

I live in a section of Georgia which used to be rural, with small rivers and streams meandering through woods and pastures. For “city water” folks here would dam up a creek or river and create a pond as a reservoir. Anyone outside of those areas would dig a well and use the ground water. Occasionally a well would go dry, necessitating digging a bit deeper or in a different spot, but most folks had plenty of land and therefore enough water.

Then came our new neighbors. Lots of ’em. The water resources in northern Georgia are no longer sufficient to meet the needs of the population. Oh, we’ve had a drought, but if it rained every week, we’d still have water woes. We haven’t balanced the use of the land with the water available. Leaders here seem baffled, but a look at a map of our country shows that a few decades back, there was much better balance. Large population centers and industry were clustered around the Great Lakes, beside the mighty Mississippi, or on the coast. The idea of using a river the size of the Chattahoochee for both industrial use and for a multimillion population center would have caused leaders fifty years ago to smile knowingly. That stream just isn’t big enough, even when dammed up to create Lake Lanier.

Venice manages to solve the water woes on Tylos, but that’s fiction. Any problem that crops up in a novel can be solved by the inventive mind of the author. Alas, it isn’t so easy in the real world.

A New Print Review of Trinity on Tylos

Readers in Jackson County have come to know Living Jackson Magazine as a classy, professionally produced periodical which serves as a guide to a fascinating and fast growing area of Georgia. The September/October issue of Living Jackson features a full page review of Trinity on Tylos, a science fiction adventure, by Pamela J. Dodd, a native of Jackson County. (Yes, that is yours truly.)

Reviewer and fellow author Malcolm Campbell states, "In her very readable novel, Dodd gives us a strong female progagonist whose journey to the forbidding planet of Tylos is more than a trip through space. It's also an inner journey, one in which Venice will learn if she has what it takes to be more than a mere survivor."

The full review is found in Living Jackson, and archived articles can be found at www.livingjackson.com. My previous novel, The Gift Horse, was reviewed in the debut issue of Living Jackson and can be found in those archives.

I've received a great deal of local support for my writing, including opportunities to speak at various functions and many local customers for my books. Campbell's insightful review is a welcome addition to that support. Thanks to Malcolm Campbell and Roxane Rose, the publisher of Living Jackson.

Yard Sale Prices

I don’t know how much you readers pay for books, or if you pay for them at all. I was a library lover as a teenager, because my parents were not able to buy many books. Now, I’m much older, with more cash, so I tend to be a purchaser. Still, I like a good deal.

Despite the title of this entry, I don’t buy books at yard sales. Actually, I don’t visit yard sales, because I don’t like standing in the heat looking for treasures. Instead, I sometimes buy at a used bookstore which is in a neighboring town. The selection and quality varies, of course, but I seldom visit The Corner Bookstore without finding a new contribution to my ever growing book collection.

Another way I save money and space (more the latter than the former) is through buying eBooks. Those require no disposal whatsoever, and if I choose to keep them, having a few more files on my Mac just isn’t a big deal. Many of the eBook authors I enjoy are so obscure that readers won’t find their titles at any bricks and mortar store.

Finally, I do use online bookstores quite a bit. My favorite, for price and selection, is Amazon, but sometimes other stores are better for certain items; therefore, I do shop around. At Amazon, I sometimes use the “other buying options” to get a used book at a better price than a new one. Shipping adds quite a bit to used pricing, so I always do a quick calculation to see where the best deal might be found. Buying used doesn’t contribute to the author’s income, of course, but I am not overly concerned about Stephen King’s welfare. He no doubt has enough to retire whenever he desires, and folks like Clancy and Grisham are also well-fixed.

When anyone asks, I tell them that publishing has not been profitable for me. That’s why I took my part-time teaching gig. Not that it matters to my pocketbook, but I’ve noticed a downward bidding war for used copies of The Gift Horse. The last time I looked, the low price on Amazon was $11.78 used, plus $3.99 shipping, which yields a “drive out price” of $15.77, a small savings over the new price. As more people decide that my first novel, signed or not, is not really collectible, those prices will continue to fall. As yet, Trinity on Tylos is not widely available used, but more copies will end up in the “pitch it pile” and the price will drop. In time, you can join in the hunt and get both of Pam’s books at yard sale prices. Until then, there is always the public library, a great place to find books and booklovers.

Everyone says there no such thing as bad publicity....

That’s manure, folks. Really. If I read review which skewers a book or movie, I might question the taste or even the ethics of the reviewer, but negative is still negative, and I am conservative with my cash. Often, I don’t buy the book with the negative reviews. Okay, I bought a copy of Cally’s War, which got some horrible reviews on Amazon, but I have never managed to read the thing. If I am not inclined to buy a book or attend a movie that multiple reviewers panned, I am probably not alone.

Fortunately for me, I have had multiple good reviews for Trinity on Tylos. Fallen Angels Reviews named it a Recommended Read, and my all time favorite review is posted on Amazon. Often, my past blog entries mention better reviews, so here are links to blog entries about each of my favorite reviews:

• The RR for Trinity on Tylos from Fallen Angels Reviews is my highest rating.

• From the Romance Studio I got four out of five hearts, and this book is not a romance.

• In all, I have received eight reviews at various internet review sites, but this one from Debbie in Winter Park, FL, remains my favorite review of Trinity on Tylos. I like it because she notes the controversial elements, but judges the book as a whole, which is important.

Fellow writer Malcolm Campbell gave Trinity on Tylos a very favorable five-star review on Amazon, and I got decent reviews from Harriet Klausner of Alternative Worlds and Rob Preece, publisher of Books for a Buck. I quote short passages from each of those on my website.

However, a reviewer for a science fiction site, emailed me after having read about half of an ARC of Trinity on Tylos, saying that rather than write a really bad review, that I could pull it. The criticisms that reviewer mentioned included an assertion that androids can’t use contractions. Obviously, I was unaware of that rule, but if you ever intend to write about artificial intelligence, KC says no contractions; I said “no thanks” to the review, but I was most careful not to use a contraction in my missive.

RP, a reviewer associated with a site which primarily does erotic romance, states that “Azareel consistently forced his will upon Venice, even going so far as to use pain to get what he wanted. The author uses cultural differences to excuse his behavior. However, I was not convinced.” I’m not sure what convincing RP needs. Azareel is the villain, not the hero, so he should do nasty things, right? However, etiquette dictates that authors never argue with reviewers, and I didn’t. I did note that she gave "Cally's Sexy Surprise" and "Feral Hedonism" ratings two notches higher than she gave my sci-fi thriller, and she awarded "Wed and Wanton" five whatevers. If you ever see a My Space site offering free “exerpts” from her books, you’ve located RP. She does have a new novella out, but I haven't read it. Somehow, I think our tastes in fiction differ.

A review by AO, who spells even worse than RP, contains these passages: “Major Venice Delyenski, head of security, doesn't trust the Archeons... Venice discovers that her long lost ship mates have settled on Vention 11....He challenges Azareel and looses the battle.” In case you are wondering why I chose these passages, this reviewer misspelled the main character’s name, invented a new name for the planet where they settle, and seems to need a brush up in basic grammar. Worse, the review itself neither praises nor criticizes the book.

Reviewer SW writes better than some reviewers and professes to be an expert in military matters. He states, “One does not rise to the rank of Captain in military service, on-planet or not, by underestimating the value of security or ignoring the warnings of a top-flight security officer.” I’ve not argued this point either, but I sincerely hope this reviewer’s next assignment is a book about an officer named George Armstrong Custer.

The relationship between authors and reviewers is symbiotic, for they both stand to benefit from the process. Reviewers will have nothing to review if authors do not offer them the opportunity. Some authors have a list of favored reviewers, and they refuse to allow their publishers to submit to anyone else, which is wise indeed. I didn’t know which reviewers were good and which ones were not in 2005, so I let my publisher submit it to their list of review sites, and I submitted it any place which said they’d take science fiction. I wanted reviews for Trinity on Tylos, and I got more than I ever thought possible. As a parent, I often tell my children that getting what they want might not be what they need, and that has proven true for me as a writer. Eighteen months have passed since I got most of these reviews, so I have had plenty of time to rue my lack of knowledge regarding “who’s who” in the book review world.

Next time, I'll pull out the "good guys" list, because bad publicity hurts sales.

Summer reading

I just finished Tigra by R. J. Leahy, which is a really entertaining yarn. The main character is Jeena Garza, a former POW who crashes on a primitive planet of Ararat as she makes her escape. There she adopts a tigra cub, a carnivore native to her new planet and a beast which is far more intelligent than she could possibly have imagined.

Leahy’s prose is easy to read, but the book is far more complex than many space operas, and his characters are engaging. The plot moves right along, too. My tastes in fiction are eclectic, but this tale has much to offer: military action, romantic relationships, mysticism, and a bit of anthropology. I highly recommend this story.

Piers Anthony gave it a brief review at his site: HiPiers, and I saw another online at My Shelf as well.

I will admit, that this book surprised me, since it was published by Zumaya, which is a really small press that I approached back in 2004 with Trinity on Tylos. The acquisitions editor suggested that I look elsewhere since their publication schedule was filled for three years. After having read this story, I do wish that Zumaya had put my novel in the lineup.

My love of eBooks continues, so I read the electronic version, but if you prefer print, Amazon offers it as a trade paperback. Again, this is a fine summer read.

Characters in Torment?

Of course. That's why they call it fiction. I can do all sorts of mean, nasty, hateful things to them, and they just come back for more. Gosh, I just love it.

As a writer, I know that I have to throw a whole bunch of problems at my characters, otherwise my fiction will be boring. The secret of failure as a writer is to try to please everyone, especially the characters. Oh, those people in my head may want happiness, but there are huge obstacles in the way, obstacles which can thwart those characters, making their lives pure hell. Without realistic conficts, the best characters and beautiful landscapes are about as entertaining as a painting. You may look, but you won’t hang around.

Talented writers of novels and of screenplays know this, and they compose their conflicts every bit as well as they build their worlds and describe their characters. What is so entertaining about stories? Nowadays, much of network television is populated by far more “reality series” than stories, so are stories now passé? Not if you look at the movies, and not if you peruse the shelves of a library or a bookstore. Nope, people still like stories.

As a writer of novels, I do realize that I have an uphill battle. Whatever else has been said about this country, seldom has it been described as a nation of readers! However, fiction writers have plenty of tools available to give readers what they want. Not the boring, not the mundane lives we often lead, but rolicking adventure and many problems to solve.

My most recent release, Trinity on Tylos, has a main character who has many dilemmas, especially those posed by the malevolent alien presence hovering beside her ride through the galaxy. This book has its roots in those space operas which I have enjoyed since I was a kid, with elements of space travel, advanced weapontry, and robotics, but it has a very human side, when my main character Venice Dylenski is forced to choose between losing her life along with all of her colleagues or saving her people and embarking on a first contact adventure which probably won’t have a happy ending. Venice has many problems, her companion has a problem, and her captor has a really big problem, so there is conflict galore as each person attempts to bring the conflict to a resolution which makes him or her the winner.

In my previous novel, The Gift Horse, the main character has so many problems that I've sometimes been accused of being mean-spirited. Nope, not really. I just wanted to see how far I could push the characters and how many times I could shock my reader without ever getting really graphic. The Gift Horse was an experiment in creation of suspense, and I've had some readers tell me they finished it in twenty-four hours, which I consider success. Indeed, two people told me they finished it the night they began, albeit having very little sleep. After all, it is almost three hundred pages long.

I don’t like stories without character development, and in order to get to know characters, an author has to throw impossible tasks and heart-wrenching dilemmas in their way. Only then can readers and viewers see how these folks deal with adversity. That’s why you have to torment your characters to create memorable stories.

Year Three

Have you noticed that people either go through life looking through the windshield, i.e. looking forward, or in the rear-view mirror, i.e. looking backward? One of my close relatives seems to have her eyes fixed upon that rear view, evidenced by her constantly talking about people I haven’t seen or heard from in thirty years. I find that somewhat irritating, so let me say that I won’t be looking backward at my blog. For that, just see the archives.

Looking forward, I know that I’ll be a guest at Sci Fi Summer Con, and that Chris Barber will be joining me for a promising panel topic, “How to Torment Your Characters” which should be entertaining for the audience and for us. I’ve been told that Living Jackson magazine has placed Trinity on Tylos on their book review calendar for later this year, and I hope that spurs some sales for local vendors who stock it.

I’m hoping that my career as adjunct instructor of English will continue, since I am enjoying that. One goal for 2007 is to brush up another manuscript or two and send out some queries. Sales of my current offerings have been slow, so I don’t feel much pressure to get something “out there.” My publisher has only a two year contract on Trinity on Tylos, so that book may be out of print by next February.

Our children are growing up, which will mean some changes in our household, including more financial pressures, which is another good reason to put publishing on the back burner and give more lucrative projects my attention for the next few months (or years.)

As for those of you who read Pam’s Pages from time to time, I appreciate your interest, and I do intend to keep posting on a regular basis. Due to these shifting priorites, the topics will probably venture beyond publishing with more frequency, but I am always reading books and trying to keep up with the publishing industry, so I won’t be abandoning either of those entirely. Science fiction is still one of my favorite genres in print or on the screen, so expect comments on that as well.

What you won’t read are more personal topics which might either bore or offend certain readers. One of my friends says I need to create an anonymous online persona for that, and I am quite intrigued with that idea. Just who will I become when I decide to start that more controversial, “tell all” exposé blogging experience?

Don’t call it Science Fiction!

Okay, my age is going to show here, but I don’t understand the death knell that is echoing for one of my favorite genres. When I was in elementary school, I watched television coverage of the rockets which occasionally propelled astronauts into orbit. I sought out books which explained the inner workings of these vehicles, and read fiction based on those early efforts. I know that Mike Mars Flies the X-15 didn’t make the bestseller list, but it was a keeper for me. Imagining that humanity would eventually try to conquer “the final frontier” didn’t seem too far-fetched, and still doesn’t to me.

However, I know that previous generations were not interested, because they wouldn’t see the dream become reality, and they seemed more interested in raises in social security and which denture cream might let them enjoy an apple.

My own children aren’t huge science fiction fans, although my son enjoys video games set in futuristic settings, and daughter has chosen to read a few volumes from my science fiction/romance shelf. Recently, Locus Magazine ran their annual poll of best science fiction works for last year, and there was a question at the end of the poll which addressed an important issue for the science fiction genre. I’m paraphrasing, but it referred to the lack of interest among young readers in the science fiction and fantasy genres, and asked for recommended reading to get young folks interested in sci fi and fantasy. This is a positive approach, but it does acknowledge that a problem exists.

I have experienced this first hand. People who gladly purchased a copy of my debut novel, The Gift Horse, refused to buy Trinity on Tylos. Or, worse, they purchased it and never read it. If I mention going to a sci-fi con, someone is bound to at least do that eye rolling thing which means I’m not entirely sane. I gave several talks after The Gift Horse came out, but I have given only two since Trinity on Tylos was published, unless I count visits to cons, and one of those was to the Atlanta Science Fiction Society. I am fifty-one years old, and I’d label many of them as “contemporaries.”

Perhaps the younger generation feels that the future is already here. Some of the gizmos that I could only dream about in elementary school are fixtures nowadays. Captain Kirk’s “communicator” looked a heck of a lot like my clamshell cell phone, and the computer that ran the Enterprise doesn’t seem too much more advanced than the iBook I am typing on. Dr. McCoy could administer a drug which seemed to cure diseases, and some of the concoctions we have now seem to work miracles. So, with so much high tech in everyday life, where should a writer venture? More importantly, what will entice the modern reader to come along?

The film industry and the publishing industry have decided to avoid the science fiction moniker, because they want to sell their products. So, Star Wars is shelved as “adventure” in the video section, and publishers are trying out terms like “speculative fiction” or “paranormal romance” and the darker side is now “post apocalyptic.” Recently, Wired magazine ran an article about the film industry’s avoidance of sci fi as a label, while embracing the themes for which it is known, and a couple of months ago Publisher’s Weekly featured an analysis of how publishing houses are using various approaches to reach a new generation of readers. Some publishers are continuing to embrace the term science fiction, but I just learned that one of the high quality small presses which has been devoted to the genre, Meisha Merlin of Decatur, GA, has decided to close its doors in May. I have to wonder, if they put a different spin on their books, would they have found the distribution and the customers that were lacking?

Anyone who has studied literature is aware that times change and culture tends to reflect that. I sincerely hope that works which I would term science fiction will continue to be produced, regardless of what labels the marketing people feel compelled to bestow upon them.

Price$ to be paid

The printer/distributer of my science fiction novel, Trinity on Tylos, has raised the price by another three dollars per copy at Amazon. That makes the “drive out price” $21.94. Yep, for a trade paperback. The industry average price for one of these is twelve bucks. Since my last royalty check didn’t reflect a single sale of a paperback, it doesn’t really matter much to me, but I wouldn’t pay it. Anyone who wants a copy would be better off buying via my website, where I offer autographed copies sent media mail for sixteen dollars. I have decided to call it a “sale” and see if I get any customers.

I was sitting in a hospital waiting room this week and heard an elderly woman comment that gas prices are on the rise, “And there is no reason for it, none at all.” I do believe that the finite supply of dead dinosaurs might be a factor, but that doesn’t explain why my book has gotten a whole lot more expensive. Or does it? Maybe the printing plant is miles and miles from the nearest Post Office. That’s a thought.

As for high prices, I took a technology class last week as well, and the teacher shared this fact:

The ink in your computer printer is among the world's most expensive liquids, with a price per ounce outpacing Dom Perignon Champagne and dwarfing household products like milk. See how it stacks up, in price per ounce:

Printer ink: $60.88
Dom Perignon: $4.53
Milk: 3 cents

Update: I bought a Mac compatible Brother laser printer a few days after this post. It was $109 for a network printer, with toner, from amazon.com, and I got free shipping. That is about forty bucks more than one set of cartridges for the HP inkjet.

In good company, but sold out?

Like many authors these days, I have a “google alert.” This is a nifty service which sends me an email when someone does a search for either Pamela J. Dodd or Trinity on Tylos, and lets me know what that person clicked on after doing the search. My latest alert apprised me that Trinity is now available from The Dungeon Bookstore. Okay, I admit, my first thought was, “Say what? There’s not any BDSM in Trinity!” I touched on that in The Gift Horse, but not in Trinity. However, a visit to the site states: Science Fiction, fantasy, horror, and witch craft/magic books are our main categories, we've also begun to add science fiction dvd's and comic graphic novels.

Some of The Dungeon Bookstore’s other offerings are books I like quite a lot, including the series by Elizabeth Vaughan which begins with Warprize. Indeed, they have titles from Tor, Baen, and Eos, which is top notch content, and I am really glad to be included. Another great aspect of this site is that they offer free shipping, without up-pricing the books. The printer, Pawprints, sells it via Amazon, and they raised the price a dollar, which along with Amazon’s standard shipping price of 3.49 yields a purchase price of $18.48. Ouch.

Unfortunately, the product page lists the book as being sold out. I clicked on a couple of my fellow Whiskey Creek Press author’s titles, they were “sold out” as well. I asked over at the WCP author group, and the webmaster replied that this page just links to the WCP site, and customers are supposed to buy there. That's too bad, huh? I guess I'll always be "sold out" in the Dungeon.