Throwing the Genres in a Mixer -- Mystery and What?

Energized isn't a witchie cozy, but Mary Behre took a little bit of mystery, a lot of suspense, a serial killer, romance, and the preternatural to construct her urban fantasy. You might say that most books in the genre do that. Maybe because writers and readers got bored with books with only one note. But the book didn't bore me with predictability even if it had a hunky former marine as the love interest. Yeah, she does the usual urban fantasy bit. Threw the ideas in the mixer.

It's no secret I read more mysteries than out and out fantasy. I read even less romance. The characters felt fresh to me. How many electricians are the heroes in urban fantasy? I know of one series with a carpenter mystery protagonist. Behre manages to round out all the important characters until they escape their clinches. One exception. The perp who was surprising mostly because she didn't give the character much of a spotlight. Still, the mystery held up quite well.

Best of all, Mary Behre gives you an example of how you can take a cliched genre book and make it totally fresh. The book didn't bore me with predictability even if a former hunky marine was the love interest. In fact I might expend a little effort and find the other two books [about the protagonist's long lost sisters] -- used, of course. You can read the sample of Energized to find out what you think on

Amazon          Barnes & Noble

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Other Reading Notes

Sometimes The New York Times Book Reviews yields little nuggets I hoard. Sharyn McCrumb has a new book out--The Unquiet Grave. Now I'm sitting here waiting. I find it hard to read hardbacks with my achy thumbs, so I'll hope the mass paperback will eventually appear. Sigh. I love the way she's been mixing historical fact and mystery lately.

Picked up another useless piece of information from the NYT Book Reviews. Who do you think are the four best sellers authors of all time? Shakespeare obviously since he had a few years to out-publish the competition. Danielle Steele is the fourth best selling writer. Agatha Christie and Barbara Cartland are the other two. Do you think romance writers get no respect?

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My Writing Rut

So comfortable to be back writing again. Still in Andor, but a much earlier time in its history--when the country was on its way to recovery after the "Disasters". I'm working trying to get Trapper out of the hills into a town. 

But I don't think you can call the stories dystopian. People have already learned to survive and are building larger communities and a central government again. Trial by Lies was the novella I was working on when I decided to drag There Be Demons out of the computer and publish it. The story has its own genre cliche--YA coming of age mixed with magic.

Not that its important, but I got a chuckle out of my one 2* review. The reviewer didn't like it. The beginning and ending grabbed her as well as some of the middle. The rest was just boring everyday stuff. Actually, that was one of the things I was trying to do...convey the "hurry up and wait" aspect of desperate fights, how Britt juggles her every day life with fighting demons.

When Good Things Go Bad

Be careful what you wish for,

 bad things always come attached, especially in fantasy.

Yeah, I know that's not how the saying goes, but that's what usually happens in the second book of a trilogy. Karina Sumner-Smith's Defiant polishes that premise mirror bright. Her narrative gets a little bogged down in detail at times. But that's fine with me--if there's plot moving information. I grew up in a slower moving age. Problem is style rather than info dump.

In the opening of the second book of the Towers Trilogy, Xhea's strange dark magic has disappeared while she recovers from her leg shattering injuries in Radiant. Edren,  the tower that rescued her, is basking in the magical power radiated by the ghost Shai. This set up soon launches into the discovery of a planned attack on the lower city tower by enemies unknown. 

The plot is off to the races with who planned to attack Edren and why. Xhea learning to control her magic after the attackers capture her. Edren leaders chasing after the wrong towers in preemptive attacks. The most alarming problem of the book? How Xhea and Shai cope when the bond between them is severed.

A rousing good tale from an Canadian author who doesn't get the credit or reviews she deserves. At least this hermit doesn't see much buzz about it online. You can look at the free sample on

Amazon        Barnes & Noble

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My Writing Rut

I've read all sorts of writer blogs complaining about marketing their books. Now I'm living it. 

More like, I'm scratching at the cosmos in search of reviews myself. *funny, growly faces*

There Be Demons blog tours are just getting off the ground. My fate will be known by the end of the month. Do wonder how the reviews will fall since I made the conscious decision to develop the routine daily lives the Gargoyle Gang had to break out of to learn how to fight the demons. May have made the wrong decision since most teens have been conditioned by movie explosions.

You can read the sample of There Be Demons on Amazon or read the short story prequel -- Night for the Gargoyles -- for free.

As for the writing bit, I've gone back to the novella I was writing before I decided to publish There Be Demons -- Trial by Lies.

Makes me wonder why an old lady is writing YA.

Survivng Reading Doldrums

Yay! I finished a book I started -- E. J. Cooperman's Spouse on Haunted Hill. As always, the humor kept the mayhem churning even though the body remains off scene. Can't have a murder mystery without the body, even in a cozy.

Allison, the owner of a haunted guesthouse, must rescue her ex-husband's [The Swine] from gang-like collectors who are unhappy with an iffy investment deal. They want their money back or maybe an implied pound of flesh. While Allison would prefer to let The Swine reap his just desserts, the needs of her daughter for her father trumps her druthers. Of course, the resident ghosts help solve the mystery with their many talents. Sounds cut and dried, but Cooperman's a master of characterization and plot twists.

I've read many books in this series and was sort of dismayed when so many loose ends were neatly tied up at the end. Maxie, the truculent ghost, even got married to her ghostly boyfriend. Then, read that there are two more books in the series when I when looking for the links. With Maxie's off on her honeymoon, I'm wondering who'll provide the vinegar to counter the cozy sweetness in the next book.

See more reviews and comments.

Amazon      Barnes & Noble

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Am wondering why why I didn't laugh out loud when reading Berk Breathed's new Bloom County comic on Facebook. Am sure laughing while I read my Christmas present, a compilation of the strips. I snort and snurggle so much my old man keeps asking what's wrong with me.

If you missed the new series and/or miss the gang after a 25 year absence you can try this Facebook link.

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Writerly Stuff

Like covers? The Literary Hub just did a blog on the best book covers chosen by professional designers. If you write, you should take a look so see what professionals think. 

Personally, I thought some were "busy" and "hard to read". If I have time, I might go to Amazon and see what the sales figures were.  After all, "they" say: the quality of your cover influences your sales.

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Haven't been pushing on my writing. My critique group isn't going to meet until mid-month so Pissing at the Green Onion is sitting. Did get some 2000+ words on another Andor story started ... two disjointed segments in the computer and lots of sticky notes. Not going to worry about them until tomorrow.

What Keeps You Reading???

Here a Book, There a Book

Am wondering ... about the books I started pile. Not the to-read pile, which is growing, but the books I started and put down to read again ... whenever. At last count, there're eight of them in various stages of completion. 

The one I finished last? Neil Gaiman's Stardust, the story of a feckless lad who grows up during a quest to bring his lady love a fallen star. I picked it up last weekend and finished it in three days. Written in the classic fairy tale style, I enjoyed the sly humor of the piece as well as Gaiman's inventiveness in using the standard motifs. Well worth reading. But you probably already know that. It's been around for a while as the various covers tell you.

You can take a look on Amazon and Nook.

So, I finished Stardust midweek. Did I pick up one of my already started books? No. I'm reading Darynda Jones' The Curse of the Tenth Grave. 

Am wondering if you hop, skip, and jump through your reading pile. 

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On my writing front,  the content editor has On the Run. Yeah, I finally got all the critique and beta edits collated into the draft. 

Other progress, finished Pissing at the Green Onion, a short story meant to be a freebie sometime or other. Also, got a couple pages into a post-disaster Andor story set during the times the Kingscourt established its rule over the western lands. Yeah, both There Be Demons and On the Run happen on Andor's west coast. After all, I'm a California valley girl -- Central Valley, that is. For sure.

May seem silly to have a cover so early [My critique group isn't going to be looking at it until January.], but some people seem to think it helps with the writing to have a working cover.

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Writerly Things

Colorado Writers have a wonderful marketing tool in the Ultimate Pitchfest. If you're a writer having problems with your queries, they offer digital lessons on how to create a perfect pitch. Again, having a pitch while you're editing, can help to keep you focused on your story line even if you don't have a manuscript ready to shop.

On the Run won't be ready in time to shop there. [They do Skype pitches to good agents.] But I'm going to be doing the digital learn to pitch workshop soon.

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Oh, Happy Holidays All

Hope you celebrate several during the holiday season.

Just Writing & Reading Along

Reading this last week has been disappointing. Am reading three books at the moment, none of which is keeping my attention for more than an hour or so. I'm just hooked enough to go back to the book, but none of them is pulling me along for "just one more chapter".

Would you believe they're all thrillers,

 books duty-bound to keep me reading in spite of sleep?

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It always feels nice when I managed to complete some writing task for On the Run. This time it's the sticky notes. They're all incorporated with their chapters. Now I have to go back and revise for my beta readers. It's a tedious process. *grin* But, I'm progressing and am further ahead than my co-readers.

More important. I found the rough idea outline for a short story/novella, Pissing at the Green Onion. Who knew Cahal [from: There Be Demons] was living in Taddledon? I didn't until I found the situation floating floating in a college town. Of course, Taddledon is a major city, but that doesn't mean it lacks a beer scene. Am thinking about a sequel combining the character of the two manuscripts, so plopped Cahal into the short story notes. Managed to add about 300 words for a tentative beginning.

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A link I found interesting and wish I could chat about:

A video from Slate about how a musical theme has been used over and over again in creative ways.

Anyone remember the list of the different kinds of plots?

Getting to Know You -- Using Flashbacks to Develop Characters

Did you miss R. S. Belcher's debut novel, The Six-Gun Tarot, when it first came out? 

I know I did. I can't even remember seeing the striking cover in the new books sections of the two bookstores I frequent. Fortunately, the family lending library treated me to the read. Guess New York City stores get to sample more books than the boonies where I live. Not only did the book keep me reading past my bedtime, but it snuck up on me with a lovely, believable steampunk subplot.

The Six-Gun Tarot takes place in Golgotha, Nevada on the other side of the 40 mile Desert from Reno/Virginia City. Belcher gives us one of the most ethnically mixed populations I've encountered in my reading and integrates the various belief systems into a complicated, occult fabric that's one of the most original takes on the western fantasy arcana I've seen. Yeah. The Tarot plays a big part in it.

Belcher develops his characters with extensive flashbacks which almost stand as novellas. Each of the main characters having some occult power or other ... even the supposedly Christian ones ... was just frosting on the read. Through the flashbacks, the reader learns about the acute danger the town faces.

Of course, the wounded hero and his pals must save the sheep like citizens. Sound like the cliches runneth over? Don't believe it. All the characters have odd-ball pains and strengths that will save the people of Golgatha ... if they can only arrive at the pit in time.

So recommended, I've been lending or suggesting the book to all my writer friends, even the ones that don't read fantasy. See excerpt and reviews at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

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Interesting Links

To Blog or Not to Blog. Rachelle Gardner recently posted some interesting comments about effective social media and writers. It all boils down to what you are passionate about. Makes me wonders why I'm blogging. Is it just a marketing myth? You can read it by clicking here. Care to comment on what you think? 

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My Writing Rut

Guess I'm back. Just ran out of steam over the winter doldrums. Medical issues didn't help. Besides I was/am tired of doing book reviews. Reminded me too much of English classes, I guess.

I'm in the process of revising my whole media presence. keeping Facebook ... because I interact with people I know there as well as having an author page, where it's easy to interact to comments -- when they happen. Yeah, I'm a pipsqueak, but the only media that turned out humanish was Facebook, in spite of all the manipulations.

May continue on Twitter, too, where I have two accounts: a "personal" one and a promotion one. Chances are you're reading this by responding to a tweet.

Oh, yeah. The writing. May have been scarce on social media, but I've been writing. I've finished the draft of On the Run. The 50 page novella turned into a 280 page draft with an entirely different protagonist than the one I started out with. Guess there won't be a sequel to Noticing Jamilla. The short story did give me a better idea of my demons than the outlined world I used in Night for the Gargoyles and There Be Demons, but I guess Cassy Mae will remain a singleton quick read.

Now I'm incorporating all the addenda into the draft so I can get On the Run to my beta readers. Then, I get to go back to edit There Be Demons because the world is more complicated than it was before.

Who Was the Winner of Your Reading Derby This Week?

    Ended up hosting a reading derby this past week--with two books instead of seventeen. Started reading one book by a favorite author but ended up skimming it more than reading because the book emphasized action rather than character development. Maybe that's one problem for long running series--readers become more interested more in what's happening to the people in the book rather than sis-boom-bah action scenes running one after the other--and they fizzle? At least it was for me. [I did finish and enjoy the book, but it was an also ran.]

   The winner was Kay Hooper's  A Deadly Web , part of her new Bishop Files series. The story's a nice, tight thriller with Bishop trying to find out why psychics are going missing. The plot pits him against a deadly web of psychics preying upon psychics. I get a little tired of conspiracy theories in real life, but where would genre fiction be without them?

   I don't think the people in peril plot line ever gets tiresome once a writer sets up a likable set of characters. In A Deadly Web, you have an attractive main character who needs saving from a fate worse than death, which is more nefarious than the cliche. Since the book fits in the romance-suspense-thriller category, there's a caring male to anchor the MC, a character who is working with another psychic group than Bishop's to save psychics. Even the members of the cabal of villains are interesting and well drawn .

   Problem. Too much talking. Hooper weighed this book down with too much character and not enough action. Worse, the ending seems to dangle without a real resolution. Another way of putting it, the characters didn't seem to grow from their experiences. Granted Hooper needs some loopholes to hook readers for the next book in the series. But to me, the book felt 3/4s baked. Only the end sank rather than the middle.

   The multiple changes in viewpoint also bothered me. Even the secondary characters got their place in the sun. Often felt like Hooper was head-hopping. Thrillers need to get into the perps' minds to create suspense, but this story seemed to be spending as much time on the villains as the heroes. If I counted the pages, I'm sure this wasn't true, but it still felt like it.

   That said, let's talk about the pluses. Hooper's a master at creating a spine-crawling sense of dread in the reader. She sets up a menacing situation and then squeezes it dry. And, Hooper knows how to convey psychic sensibilities so they seem possible even to non-believers.

Recommend in spite of reservations. The book kept me reading well beyond my bed time so I guess it means the book is better than most. But the book definitely isn't Hooper's best.

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Did you hear my scream: "Finally, *#(&%"?

    GoDaddy's advanced tech support finally fixed my webbuilder so it stayed fixed. The new excerpt of my working draft of On the Run is now up. Now I have to start thinking about longlines. All of this is subject to change of course because Pillar may surprise me against with an insight I never dreamed of when I started the story. For once my reviewers might be happy. The story is threatening to be longer than my other self-published pieces, thus taking care of my biggest criticism in my reviews. My stories should be longer.

   Did get a nice review for The Ghostcrow at TMBA Corbett. I always find it interesting when others find my fantasy realistic. Oh, you have to scroll down through all the book promo stuff to get to the review since it's part of a blog tour.

Now all I have to do is get writing on my new stuff.

Does that sound familiar?

Getting the Science Right - Stephen A. Benjamin's Worst Writing Fear

My Worst Writing Fear:

Getting the Science Straight

by

 Stephen A. Benjamin

  I am a veterinarian and a biomedical researcher. The goal of scientific research is to decipher the workings of the natural world. Accuracy in the collection and interpretation  of experimental data is the fundamental basis for scientific discovery and advancement.

So, what is my greatest fear as a writer of fiction, science fiction to be exact? The fear of getting something scientific wrong. How can I get something wrong if I am writing fiction? Good fiction is based on reality. Are the characters and their actions realistic; do they evoke emotion and caring in the reader? Are the settings well-drawn and believable? In any genre, if the reader cannot buy into the characters, the setting , or the action, they will suspend belief and, potentially, their reading.

  But science fiction is fantastical adventure, whether  set in the past, present, or future. It bears no relationship to “reality,” does it? Tell that to Jules Verne or H. G. Wells, nineteenth century writers who accurately predicted many of the scientific advances of the twentieth century. Did they get some of their predictions wrong? Of course they did. Verne, in Twenty-thousand Leagues Under the Sea, amazingly envisioned and described the  SCUBA apparatus in 1870, yet, in the same novel predicted that humans could never harm the vast diversity of creatures that lived on earth. Don’t we wish the latter prediction was true?

  If greats like Verne and Wells could make errors, why is that a fear for me? Scientists can and do make mistakes in carrying out experiments and drawing  conclusions. Mistakes, when recognized, can be important to teach us what is correct. Yet, I am still afraid to make scientific errors in my fiction. An example: In the beta version of my recently published novel, The Galactic Circle Veterinary Service, a friend and colleague, also a veterinarian, picked up two errors: one the misspelling of a horse’s bone, the other the wrong term for a dog’s anatomical structure. Well, shoot, who but a veterinarian would even know? Doesn’t matter. I would know. I learned such things in school and there is no excuse for getting them wrong. I was embarrassed even though those errors never saw the light of day.
  
  I approach my writing as I approach a scientific research problem. I exhaustively investigate what is known, then use that to predict what might be. If I don’t get the current science right, what I propose for the future doesn’t work, for me at least. In Galactic Circle, a future plague has a basis in what we know now about microbiology and biochemistry. Even the alien life-forms affected must fit within a logical and consistent biological scheme of the universe, or the disease can’t work, and my story is less believable.

  So I fear someone reading my work (especially other scientists) and finding the error that makes them say, “Boy, did he get that wrong.” The old saw says, “Write what you know.” I’m supposed to know science and medicine. If I make basic  mistakes with current science, it tells the reader that I don’t know my subject. Might as well put the book down now! 

  My science fiction is based on good science. I will continue to research my subjects ad nauseum before I prognosticate the future of that science. And I’ll continue to make sure that someone reads my books who can catch my inevitable errors before they go to print.

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Author Bio:

Stephen A. Benjamin

  Stephen A. Benjamin received his B.A. from Brandeis University and his D.V.M. and Ph.D. in pathology from Cornell University.  He has served on the faculty of two medical schools (Pennsylvania State University and University of New Mexico) and one college of veterinary medicine (Colorado State University).  He is currently Professor Emeritus in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at Colorado State University.

  Dr. Benjamin has been a teacher, researcher, and administrator, and his interests have spanned the areas of toxicology, radiation biology, cancer research, and veterinary medicine.  He has authored or co-authored over 100 scientific publications and book chapters.

  Fiction publications include his science fiction novel, The Galactic Circle Veterinary Service, which draws heavily on his medical background, and a short story, Just Desserts, a supernatural humor piece. Both were published by TWB Press, Lakewood, CO. Benjamin has an author page on Facebook.

  Dr. Benjamin lives in Colorado with his wife.  Besides writing, he enjoys travel, fishing, camping, golf, skiing, cooking, good wine, and five lovely granddaughters.

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BLURB:

The Galactic Circle Veterinary Service

His family threatened by his world’s tyrannical theocracy, a young veterinarian is forced to run an interstellar veterinary service as cover for espionage in advance of a galactic invasion. Watched over by a xenophobic and sadistic government spy, he offers medical services to the alien life-forms he meets. Treating werewolves for mange only scratches the surface of his adventures as he makes human and alien allies to help him free his parents and his world from oppression.

You can read samples of The Galactic Circle Veterinary Service 
on Amazon, Nook, Smashwords
and at TWB Press.