Tag: machine civilization

“The English love an insult.” – Ben Franklin

At this point in time, it’s the only explanation in time for just how helpful people like Jordan Thornton (LLB Honours Grad; U of Portsmouth) and now the good (person/people?) at BooksChatter.  I’ve never thought of myself as a nice person, so they must be enjoying the insults….

Two years ago, with no prompting from us, a law student from southern England, Mister Thornton, sent 3-AR Studios a link to a huge TVTropes page about our flagship visual novel, OTChi Kocchi.  All his initiative, all his time.  We’re still getting sales as a result of folks stumbling across his page.

Two years later, not only is BooksChatter, of the UK, hosting my first traditional novel for a day, they’ve hotlinks throughout it, images pulled from half a dozen sources, and even put together a YouTube playlist, for heaven’s sake!  That’s a lot of work!

My family’s been in the US since before it was the US; it’s entirely likely that, 240 years ago, my ancestors were shooting at theirs.  Why are these good people being so nice to me now?

Book Tour – Day Three

BooksChatter!  And wow, but have they done their homework!  Not only are there links to some of the things that inspired this series in the Author Q&A link, they even went to far as to show some images from my older visual novel!  Heck, even my daughters make an appearance!

I wonder if anyone will be able to help fill in “If your book was made into a movie, who would be your dream team?”  That one is still a puzzle to me.

EDIT:  BChatter has now added a short video based upon my mentioned playlist of some of the music I listened to while writing.  Talk about above-and-beyond!  They even fixed the PJTV link that – being a member – I’d been unaware was behind a paywall.  Superior work!

Book Tour – Day 1

I’d like to give a huge THANK YOU to Rogue Angels for having the daring to be the first up to host “The Fourth Law” on its virtual book tour!

If you’ve questions or comments as a result of what you read there, please let’s chat in their comments section.  Also, please look around the rest of their site; so many interesting things!

“Where’s the world going?”

October Book Tour… Clear for Takeoff….

October Book Tour… Clear for Takeoff….

Alright, so that’s a bit clichéd.  Nonetheless, well sponsored by GoddessFish Promotions, almost a year on, I’m finally getting ’round to promoting “The Fourth Law.”

This virtual book tour includes interviews with me, with some of the characters, blog entries… all sorts of neat things!  I’ve much to say not only about this story, but also about creative writing, editing, and self-publishing.  Almost each and every day I’ll be hosted by a new website,  with their own series of questions and/or comments.  I promise to do my best to attentively address whatever anyone may want to discuss about “The Fourth Law” and Machine Civilization.

I think this is going to be a tremendous amount of fun, and look forwards to it very much!

Book Tour – October

Apologies all around:  my awful “day job” – which takes place at night – has me to the point where I see my children for four freaking minutes each evening before I go to work.  Not happy about that.

Anyhoo.  I’ve been a tick busy getting questionnaires answered and blog-posts typed for an upcoming Virtual Book Tour for “The Fourth Law.”  Sure, I’m almost a year late doing this… I’m old, dammit.

Some of the questions are straightforward; a few have been very thought provoking.  Much more dangerous are the requested blog entries.  For example, the one I’m working on now said ‘topic:  author’s choice.’  Ooo!  What trouble I can get into!  In fact, that’s exactly what I want to do.  So, I’m writing a little (~600 word) entry about Lily’s Catholic faith.  Honestly, it’s something you really don’t see in current science fiction much, and I had some early reviewers tell me that “it will turn off some readers.”

Fine.

Politics is downstream from culture.  I want my daughters to have a better life than I have, and, honestly, that looks iffy these days.  If I can nudge WestCiv culture in a way that I think might help them – even if it costs me readers and sales – I’ll do that.  In “T4L” I have Lily freely admit that although she grew up Catholic, her faith meant little to her, until she was on her own at the hospital and orphanage.  Much of how she thinks and acts towards God and the Church now are heavily drawn from Niven and Pournelle’s two books about the Inferno.  A sharp eyed reader of “T4L” will see that every time Lily cries  “…God!  Help me…!” things suddenly change for her, but not in a way she expects.  Getting your prayers answered is like that.

Lily’s witness to her Catholic faith is so important, that by the end of the first book of Machine Civilization, one of Ai’s family is well on her way to a conversion… which will be played out when my 20-page children’s book is completed in a couple of months (go Claudia go!).  It is also something that sustains her on her trek across the former southern States of the US in “Echoes of Family Lost.”  In both books, her faith, and her charitas towards her friends, define who she is.

I’m tired and rambling.  Need to get back to that guest-blog entry.  Thanks for reading… and… (grins)… prayers would be welcome!