Androigenous

After an exciting month visiting doctors for regular checkups, being
called back for not-so-regular checkups, and generally freaking out, I
got the unwelcome opportunity to think about my mortality. Nothing
like a medical scare (and the accompanying expense) to bring you back
to the realization that life is a gift that can be taken away at any
time, so you had better appreciate what you've got today.

Since I love science and science fiction, it is no coincidence that
one of my first SF stories, "Good Bloodlines" in Sorcery and the Far Frontier
featured a heroine whose android enhancements made her
stronger and faster than ordinary humans. It's commonplace for
characters in today's SF stories to have nanobots running around in
their blood systems, fixing anything that goes haywire with the
biological body.

But, it's been good to return to work on promoting my science fiction
publishing business, Third Flatiron. We're proud to announce that "A High Shrill
Thump: War Stories" is now out.

Readership for the first issue so far has been low, and I'd like to get sales
above 100 copies per issue so that I can pay
some royalties to the many excellent writers who have contributed to
the first year. They've helped get us off the ground, after all.

In the e-publishing world, as in the hardcopy world, word of mouth and
good reviews can make or break a book. With a hardcopy book, it can
take years if you are not one of the Big 6 publishers. But with
self-publishing, indie publishers might expect to speed this process
up. It's hard to be patient, however, and it's still going to take a
lot of hard work. I've signed up with many fan forums, and now am
investigating book bloggers. I'll be spending more hours on the
Internet finding and contacting the ones who look honest and popular
and who review books by indie publishers at no charge.

Some blogs are technically considered "fanzines." Of the ones I've
sampled, they feature articles on a variety of science fiction and
fantasy issues, conventions, and other activities. They have become a
major category in the annual Hugo Awards, so they are definitely an active
community. Most don't seem to do reviews, but I've found some who do.
Notable is the Hugo winner, SF Signal, edited by John DeNardo, which
has a huge backlog of reviews to do, but at least they do them.

An especially interesting fanzine is Journey Planet, who this spring
published a special Bladerunner issue. It was fascinating to read the
contributors' praise of Bladerunner's seminal role in making androids
an everyday concept in SF movies, as well as Bladerunner's roots in the world
of pulp fiction film "noir."  I have seen the theatrical version, the
director's cut, and okay now I have Ridley Scott's "Final Cut" version
sitting in my to-view pile.

I'm currently reading Robert Sawyer's "Mindscan," about a rich man
with a deadly brain condition having his consciousness transferred to
a sturdier android body. Asimov did a great job of portraying the
dilemma of giving robots autonomy, but the dilemma increases the
closer the robot is to human, or when it used to be human. Is it still
human? I'll be curious how life works out for Sawyer's androidicized
protagonist.

The Reviewing Game

As I work my way down the checklist to publishing success, I've
encountered some suggestions that straddle the line of ethical. One is
using artificial (marketing) means of increasing web hits, such as
Amazon's KDP Select Program, which gives Amazon exclusive distribution
rights. In return, they promote your book via such tools as free
giveaways. It may increase your web hits, but there's no guarantee
readers will buy the book.

An avenue that appears more promising, at least in my view, is
reviews. The idea is that good reviews will bring in readers. I
recently joined Goodreads and am working to learn their model of word-
of-mouth to get more readership.

But again, even reviewing is subject to abuse. You can always get your
mother and your best friends to write glowing reviews, and no one's
the wiser. But surely that will backfire if a reader buys a book that
turns out to be crappy.

However, I'm trying to take the high road and am encouraging unbiased
reviews of our issues at Third Flatiron. I'm happy to share a free copy
to people who agree to write a review, either on Third Flatiron,
Smashwords, or Amazon.

One of the authors in our first issue, "Over the Brink: Tales of Environmental Disaster,"
Rich Larson, has recently published an electronic collection of his short stories
on Amazon, "Datafall: Collected Speculative Fiction." I've agreed to
read his stories and review them. I already know that Rich is a
talented writer, so I don't fear that there will be any need for
prevarication...

War Issue Lineup

Congratulations to the following authors, who will feature in our
upcoming issue, "A High Shrill Thump: War Stories" appearing online
everywhere on September 1, 2012.

David L. Felts, The Man Who Couldn't Die
Gustavo Bondoni, Comrade at Arms
K. R. Cairns, Angel
John Harrower, The Rocketeer
James S. Dorr, Refugees
David G. Turner, The Home Front
Jack Skelter, The Fixer
Lon Prater, A Childproof War
Michael Trudeau, The Frontline Is Everywhere
Tom Sheehan, Half a Century Later at a Mid-Earth Pub
Brenda Kezar, Homeland Security
Nick Johnson, In the Blink of an Eye
David J. Williams, I Think I Won

Introducing David J. Williams

The first issue from Third Flatiron Anthologies is out, and we've already sold a few copies. I took out an ad on the current issue of Musa's Penumbra ezine, so I hope their readers will swing by to check us out.

I was a bit surprised when I put the issue out on Smashwords that it took so long to migrate over to their distribution sites (more than three weeks). The test I had done earlier seemed to indicate they worked much faster than that. Another unpleasant surprise was finding that they don't distribute to Amazon. They claimed they are "making progress" toward that.

So, I ended up creating my own .mobi-formatted version of "Over the Brink: Tales of Environmental Disaster," joining Amazon's Kindle publishing group, and putting it out there myself. On the plus side, I now have experience in converting to multiple e-formats, including epub and mobi, so that will free me to use whatever distributor I like in the future. I've noticed some other competitors to Smashwords on the rise.

Meanwhile, I have now begun reading the submissions for the upcoming 'War" issue, with the working title, "A High Shrill Thump."

At first, submissions dribbled in slowly, but toward the June 30 deadline, a lot more stories arrived, so I think readers will receive a good selection. (Why would writers procrastinate like that, do you suppose?) It has also helped to join a few forums, such as SFreader.com, where I am meeting some authors who I hope will appear in our anthologies. They have even kindly set up an area under their forum on Book, Magazine, and eZine Publishers to showcase Third Flatiron.

I am holding a spot in the war issue for a special writer. His name was David J. Williams, and he was my brother. The J. stood for Joseph. Joe always wanted to write science fiction and left behind some drafts of his stories. One, called "I Think I Won," is an excellent story on the horrors of war. It  also holds up surprisingly well to the test of time, considering that it was written in the early 1970s. I can divine hints of Ellison and Stephen King peeking out through the prose. Joe had a big vocabulary and a satirical descriptive technique, and he applied them skillfully in this story set at Cheyenne Mountain, the NORAD center near Colorado Springs.

Joe never managed to get published, but I feel honored that one of his stories will at last appear in a professional publication. The yellowing pages are now preserved in the digital universe.
Buy "A High Shrill Thump: War Stories" on Amazon.

My First Issue

Well, it's finally out. Some details still have to fall in place, but I say a cautious "Woo hoo!"

Third Flatiron Publishing presents "Over the Brink," a new digital anthology of science fiction stories by an international group of award-winning and emerging writers, who offer their visionary takes on the theme of environmental disaster. Contributors include Colleen Anderson, Kurt Bachard, Thomas Canfield, Linda A.B. Davis, William Highsmith, Rich Larson, Curtis James McConnell, Mark Mills, Tim Myers, Khristo Poshtakov, Ian Rose, Ken Staley, and Robina Williams. These expert storytellers show us a broken world that is at once guilty and innocent, leaving us to ponder the aftermath.

It's been really fun editing this issue. The authors are all great (read: very patient with my first fumbling efforts). The stories are great too. The issue comprises a tasty baker's dozen short stories about the possible consequences of fooling Mother Nature. These tales are sometimes heart-breaking, sometimes way out or hilarious, but always mind-expanding. It's an honor to include them in my first issue. To say nothing of the fine cover by Keely Rew.

I Hope People Will Buy It

Over the Brink is available for online reading in multiple ebook formats, including Epub (for iPad/iBooks, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo), .mobi (Kindle), HTML, PDF, plain text, RTF, and Palm.

Download from Smashwords.com (Free samples available. Full book price: $2.99 USD).

Download from Amazon.com (Kindle edition).

I'm still waiting for premium distribution status from Smashwords, but when that happens (soon), the book will also be available from the iTunes Store, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.

I'm getting ahead of myself for sure, but someday I hope to graduate to the big leagues (professional publisher status with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America). Maybe SF is making a big resurgence. Have you seen the latest issue of The New Yorker? It's a special SF issue.

You've Got to Read Couch

I've had a favorite book for 30 years, and that's "Vanity Fair," by
William Makepeace Thackeray. It pretty much says it all. So, I've had
little call to push books by other authors, beyond simply recommending
them to a few friends.

But now, I am on a mission to introduce as many people as I can to a
wonderful little fantasy called "Couch" (2008), by Benjamin
Parzybok. Take heed, all you geeks. Couch is an all-too-short glimpse
into the depths of geek soul.

As the book opens, three apartment mates in Portland, Oregon, are
sitting on a big orange couch, toking up and generally being
slackers. One is a computer hacker who has made something of a
reputation but who has gotten busted and now can't find a job. Another
is a streetwise hustler, and a third is a new-agey hippie.

The building gets flooded out, and the landlord sees this as an
opportunity to tear it down and build upscale lofts. Our three
roommates get kicked out, and the landlord says, "and take that ugly
couch with you."

Thus begins an epic and often hilarious journey as the three try
repeatedly to give the couch away and part ways with one another. But
no one will take the couch, and the couch gets heavier if they go in
certain directions. After a while, it's evident that the couch has
magic powers, and they have no choice but to go where it makes them
go, even if that means carrying the damn thing into the ocean.

As the journey lengthens, our hippie character, Tree, seems prescient,
and guides his reluctant buddies, saying "I think it wants us to go
here..." which eventually gets them fished out of the sea onto a
trawler bound for South America. When Tree falls overboard, though, we
grieve and suddenly wonder if the couch is good or evil.

Our remaining characters seem inevitably to be drawn into a mysterious
quest, fighting off villains after the couch, and we're pulled into a
mystical world far from the one we live in daily.

The geek character, Thom, searches for the meaning of this adventure
and shows amazing depth and growth that make us want to believe this
could really happen. As a geek myself, I spend a lot of time on the
couch, living a fantasy life to balance out the overly rational and
logical life I lead. Erik, who starts out as a petty thief, shows
great heroism and ultimately saves the day, much even to his own
surprise. And when we again see the reborn Tree, we rejoice.

I've bought two copies so far, and I lend them out to whomever will
take them. If you liked "Lord of the Rings," but prefer a bit of
modern irony, angst, and uncertainty, this is your ticket. I don't know
how a book so small could dig so deep. Even Thackeray would have loved
this one. Get it from Small Beer Press or Amazon.

Hit the Road, Boehner

Our latest Republican-versus-Democrat kerfuffle has got me riled
again. And this time I've had enough. Again.

President Obama came to Boulder this week to push for continued
reduction of the interest rate on student loans. The Republicans (John
Boehner) said they support that, but that the money to pay for the
subsidy should come from a "slush fund" of the Obama Health Care bill,
as he calls the Affordable Health Care Act.

The fund in question also has a name. It's called the Prevention and
Health Fund. It goes for women's health care, such as mammograms,
screening, and preventive care.

What the hell?

I agree with college prof Jerry Lanson, who says, "The challenge of easing
the debt burden can't be left to colleges or the taxpayers. At a time when banks are
giving their customers savings interest worth nickels and dimes, there's no
excuse for them to be raking in interest above the national inflation
rate."

We just bailed out the banks. They don't deserve any more of our money.

Furthermore, I don't think we should be giving students big loans
(regardless of interest rate, unless it's zero) when they haven't yet
earned a credit rating. To get a credit rating, you need to get a small loan and/or pay off a credit bill in a time. It shows you are a responsible borrower.

Originally the banks were given a blank check. Students could borrow
ever-larger amounts needed because college rates were skyrocketing, and if
they defaulted, say, by declaring bankruptcy, the government would
back the loans.

Understandably, that didn't work, so the laws for bankruptcy were
tightened. So now students are caught between a rock and a hard
place. They face paying off their loans for their whole working life.

Sure, it seems worth borrowing money to get a college education. It
has been shown that a college-educated worker earns much more over his
or her lifetime than someone with only a high school diploma.

But hundreds of thousands of dollars? When I went to college, I was
dirt poor, my single mother lived below the poverty level, and I
couldn't get credit from Sears to buy a portable typewriter. (I
boycotted Sears and Discover for many years for this reason.)

I still managed to get a college education. I worked, I got
scholarships, I got grants, and I got a loan. That loan was the
National Student Defense Loan. It had a very low interest rate, and
within five years, I was able to pay it off.

The truth is, the government has been backing away for a long time
from both higher education and health care. The University of Colorado
only gets 5% of its budget from the state. A lot of people think
higher education is an entitlement, like health care, and that you
should be able to go to school as high as you can go.

Unfortunately, our government does not agree with this. Our taxpayers
don't want to foot the bill. So, we are falling behind the rest of the
world in terms of well educated, well paid workers.

It has been easy to spot this trend, so when I had a child, I began
saving money so she could go to college. We paid for her education in
full. No free ride. No entitlement.

I know the days are gone where a student can work during the summer
and pay for a year's tuition. But the motivated student needs to suss
out a plan for getting a higher education. If you can't get into
Harvard, move your sights down. If you can't get into the University
of Michigan, move your sights down. By living at home or getting a
roommate and going to a community college for two years, you can cut
college costs in half. Working at Victoria's Secret is crappy, but
finite. Once you actually get a degree and a good job, nobody cares
where you went to college anyway.

It's time to cut off the banks from this cash cow, and it's time to
stop trying to rob Peter (us women) to pay Paul.

Hit the road, Jack.

Life in the Far Future

One of the joys of living in Boulder, Colorado, is the annual
Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado every
spring.

The conference, started by sociology professor Howard Higman in the
late 1940s, attracts equal numbers of students and gray-haired members
of the community. Invited speakers participate for a week in dozens of
panels on a wide range of topics including politics, the arts, and
science.

In the panel on "Life in the Far Future," three scientists and a
storyteller presented their fanciful--and mostly hopeful--visions of
what the future might hold for humans and life in general.

As a science fiction writer and publisher, I couldn't think of a
better way to spend an hour and a half. I grabbed a spot in the
audience, put my chin in my hand, and became all ears.

Joseph McInerney, a genetics professor and biology educator, pointed
out that there is one thing all species go through: extinction. Of
course, the sun will become a red giant in a few billion years and
destroy the inner planets, but that isn't imminent, so he talked about
some other more near-term possibilities. He said one might be the end
of racism. The human genome is so distributed now that there are no
actual racial dividing lines. At some point in the future, the concept
of race or "other" may simply become moot, if we're lucky.

Vivian Siegel, director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, had
browsed a bit on the Futurist web site the evening before, and tossed
out some SF-type visions of the future, including putting diverse bits
of life and embryos into capsules and shooting them into space,
possibly to colonize other planets in the very far distant future (she
acknowledges the improbability of FTL travel. Sorry, space opera
fans!). A student asked how a human embryo could be raised in a vacuum
without the presence of other humans. (Shades of Superman!) It became
evident that "life" here refers to species other than human, for
example, microorganisms. Microorganisms far outnumber humans,
McInerney pointed out, so we will have to devise ways to coexist with
them in a beneficial way. An audience participant pointed out there
could be ethical issues, such as polluting some other planet or
bringing in a deadly foreign species that would wipe out local life.

Feargal Lynn, an Irish storyteller, musician, and psychiatric nurse,
entertained us all by enumerating some things he'd like to see the
future bring. One was a cross between a microwave and a bed. You'd
climb into bed, punch in a few numbers in the box above your head, and
in five minutes you'd have a full night's sleep!  He noted the
importance of music, and talked about his Scottish musician friend
Bill Drummond's (of 80s band KLF) crusade to reinvent music, which he
thinks has been ruined by recording. Drummond burned all his records,
and now tours with a 17-member choir called The17.

Growing up on James Bond movies in the 1960s, Lynn noted that Bond had
great gadgets like GPS, pens that shot poison darts, and an Aston
Martin with missiles. But he always had to get out of the car to make
a phone call. He didn't have a cell phone! Lynn said he wished he knew
what the next gadget would be that would change the world so
dramatically for everyone.

A student asked what the panel thought the lasting impact of the
Internet would be. Several agreed that it was to fight tyranny by
removing control of information from despots. Lynn recalled the sad
example of political folk guitarist Victor Jara, whose fingers were
cut off before his murder during the Pinochet regime in Chile.

Douglas Ray, a lab director with DOE's Pacific Northwest Laboratory,
was by far the most gung-ho regarding technology and its benefits. The
panel cited several problems facing society, such as lack of fresh
water, but Ray said we are close to being able to desalinate ocean water
in a more energy-efficient manner. A student expressed concern about
the dangers of genetic engineering. Ray noted that the biological
diversity on Earth contains a wealth of possibly useful species, even
without engineering. For example, following the Deepwater Horizon oil
spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, there was a huge increase in
naturally occurring oil-eating bacteria, which had found a new food
source. Ironically, Ray also was the biggest believer that humanity
might damage the planet so badly that a life-seeding space expedition
like Vivian's might be needed.

One student asked about the future of education. McInerney felt the
U.S. is going backward since the days when Sputnik temporarily moved
science to the education forefront. He helped develop the Biological
Sciences Curriculum Study, which in the 1960s restored the teaching of
evolution in the schools. He feels that today's emphasis on rote
learning and testing is anathema to good teaching, critical thinking,
and creativity.

Feargal Lynn, who has two young daughters, hoped the educational
picture would improve, and quoted Winston Churchill, who said, "You
can always count on Americans to do the right thing--after they've
tried everything else."