Tourist Trap: Best Fiction Book Award.

Three years ago, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

There is nothing like cancer to make you realize that your time on Earth is limited, especially if you’re in your late 60’s to start with. If I wanted anyone to read the five novels I’d written, I had to do something. I went to a round table discussion on publishing shortly after I finished radiation therapy, and for the first time heard of assisted self-publishing. This sounded do-able, and I wrote down two names: Lulu and iUniverse.

I checked their web sites and decided to try the first book with iUniverse, which offered an editorial evaluation as part of the package. I had it edited by Carla Helfferich, who’d edited much of my popular science, and sent it off. The result, with Editor’s Choice right from the start, was my first published book, Homecoming. I submitted it to several contests, of which only Reader Views offered an online book review as the first step in judging. The review was published, and the book won 2^nd place in science fiction. Further, it was evident from the review that the reviewer had really read and fully evaluated the book.

Tourist Trap, which Carla thought was the better book of the two, did not fare as well with the editorial review at iUniverse. I think the problem was that I did not use a standard science fiction plot arc. My protagonist leaned a few things about himself, rather than getting himself out of an impossible situation without help. The iUniverse editor wanted me to drop the last two chapters and have the protagonist get himself out of trouble, which would have completely ruined what I saw as the main point of the book.

With Carla’s backing, I went ahead without Editor’s Choice. This has meant among other things that bookstores did not get discounts or returnability, which has certainly hurt sales. (I think that, at least, has been fixed.) Partly because of this I entered Tourist Trap in only one contest, Reader Views, as that way I would at least get another unbiased review.

I hoped to get another placing in science fiction.

I know I had that March 1, when they announced the finalists.

On March 7 the winners were announced, and I was pleased to find Tourist Trap took 1^st place in science fiction. Then I found a later e-mail, and discovered that Tourist Trap had won the Garcia Award for the Best Fiction Book of the Year. What? Science fiction books don’t do that! But when I checked the winners list again, there at the end of the post were the special awards, and Tourist Trap had won a $1000 value publicity package from Maryglenn McCombs Book Publicity.

Tourist Trap is a book about a young man’s coming of age as well as a science fiction adventure, and that young man already knows he will face an awesome responsibility as an adult. He must learn the difference between justice and revenge, and recognize that he himself may be destroyed by his own choices. But it’s also a book about a group of teenagers traveling through a world populated by the animals we lost at the end of the ice age—mammoths and sabertooth cats, to name a couple. The travelers don’t even realize—until it’s almost too late—that they are the intended victims of a murder plot. To quote from the review: “Tourist Trap” is a great read for anyone that wants motivation and feeling to accompany the action in their sci-fi adventure. Alien beings and super powers are an integral part of Roi’s story but what makes this novel really shine is the heart. Nobody is good or evil just because that’s their assigned role. Just like in real life, everyone has their own motivations and desires, and Bowling does a great job of letting the reader see what it would be like to walk in the shoes of Roi, Xazhar, and even madman Zhaim.

Sometimes it pays to stay with your own feeling about what’s right with a book.

Six Sentence Sunday

Today’s snippet is from near the end of the first chapter of Rescue Operation, my current WIP. Zhaim has been arguing that he’s done the right thing in imposing slaving on Horizon, a recently colonized planet, as they refuse to pay their dues and are breeding people faster than their economy is growing.

Right if he wanted to make the Confederation into a military dictatorship rather than something that allowed over a hundred human-occupied planets to live in peace, if not harmony, Roi thought as he returned home. Not that there weren’t times he would have liked more power over individual planets, especially those that abused their own people. For that matter, he’d like more power over Central, to eliminate slavery there, but not at the cost of turning the Confederation into something people feared, instead of a protection.

Mark and Ginger, the latest of the slaves he’d rescued, adopted and educated for freedom, found him sitting in his office with his face in his hands. “Audi told me,” the young man said awkwardly. “Were you able to do anything?”

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Six Sentence Sunday

Six sentences from Rescue Operation, following directly from the six I had last week.

But he had another heritage as well, one that he was even less comfortable with. His father had left him in charge of the Inner Council of R’il’noids that effectively ruled the Confederation. Not the planets that made up the Confederation; in fact he as the regent of the Confederation had no voice at all in the laws of Central, where the Councils met and he lived. Now and then Council duties included fieldwork when the specialties of individual Council members were needed, and in truth he’d been eager to get away when the government of a distant planet thought (wrongly) that others were making it the target of biological warfare. Wif, the other medical expert, had already been away from Central, and Derry’s specialty of xenotelepathy and Kaia’s of communications had been needed in the field while Roi was gone, leaving Roi’s older brother Zhaim in charge without the steadying influence of the other two.

Roi had never expected a disaster like this.

Again, I know this is more telling than showing, and this, with the last week, makes up a section separated from the action. Suggestions for improvements are welcome!

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Six Sentence Sunday

This is telling, not showing–I know it, but this and next week’s snippet are information the reader needs to have. Any suggestions for livening it up are welcome!

By choice, Roi was an esper Healer, an artist and devoted to his family. The Healing talent was a legacy from his R’il’nian father, the last survivor of the now-extinct R’il’nai. His creativity was a gift from the Human mother he could barely remember. His love for children and other small, helpless things might have come from his mother as well, though he thought it just as likely to have been learned from Marna, the R’il’nian stepmother who had taught him to use the Healing ability he’d been born with. His birth mother had also given him a gene that was far too dangerous to be passed on–on that, he agreed with the Genetics Board. Luckily Wif had been born before the problem was recognized and was not even a carrier, but Roi had no other children of his own.

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Jarn’s Journal Year 2 Day 201

Year 2 Day 201

Flying turns out to be much easier than levitating and then teleporting to a landmark I can see. I just have to levitate to the height I want, set up levitation struts to keep me there, and then push backward on the ground. Memorized teleports at altitude work, too, but for exploration flying is wonderful. And I’ve found the perfect way to counterbalance!

I have been following the little stream that runs by my shelter. It almost disappears during the dry season, but it’s not hard to follow. It flows into another, and then another, and a few days’ flying downstream I would have to call it a river. Rather slow and broad at this season, but it is apparent that it runs far faster and fuller during the rainy season.

Near the end of the third day I thought I saw smoke rising, and at first I thought I was seeing another fire. It’s been getting pretty dry, and for a moment I almost teleported back to the shelter. What if fire was there, too? I haven’t set backfires to burn off the area yet. Still, a teleport to a spot nearer the smoke, to be sure what was happening, seemed a good idea.

It wasn’t a fire, but a waterfall — one of the largest I have ever seen. I almost forgot to keep my levitation struts steady, it was so overwhelming. Once I got into a position to study it, though, I realized that here was all the vertical mass movement I would ever need. Teleport water from the torrent below the falls to the top when I want to go down; teleport water from the top to the bottom when I want to go up. Momentum might still take some work, but the potential energy would be far easier to handle than it is using dirt.

Needless to say I memorized the feel of the waterfall and the surrounding area, and made sure I could tie into the water wherever I was. With that kind of counterbalancing available, I could fly above the tribe as they migrate, keeping track of them. Maybe next year, if they only come back, I can follow them to their gather.

Jarn’s Journal is part of the back story of my science fiction universe. Jarn is a human-like alien who was stranded on Earth, in Africa, roughly 125,000 years ago. His story is being transferred to my author site as I write it.

Six Sentence Sunday

I’m skipping around a little in Rescue Operation, as doing it continuously just doesn’t give me good six-sentence fragments. This follows Roi’s explanation of the vote on slaving.

Keishala sighed as she picked up her music tablet. “Come on, Lani. If you’re going to finish that before the concert, we’d better go somewhere else. If it’s going to be politics, neither of us is going to be much help.”

“Anything I can do?” Emeraude asked.

She had seen immediately what the Inner Council had missed–how the citizens of Horizon would most likely react. Keishala and Lelani were dear to him, though right now they were best off preparing for Keishala’s next concert, but Emeraude might be a real help.

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And I know we’re not supposed to do this, but I just have to crow a bit: Tourist Trap is a finalist for the Reader Views Literary Awards!

Jarn’s Journal Year 2 Day 172

Year 2 Day 172

Songbird’s is not the only group of R’il’nian-like creatures here.

I’m not even sure they are the same species, as they seem to communicate more by gestures and scratching figures on the ground than by sounds. Certainly they did not understand me when I tried to speak to them in the language I learned from Songbird. In fact, they tried to attack me with their spears! But they are very similar. I will have to ask the shaman about them—it I can just figure out where this gather of theirs is!

I was exploring a lightly wooded savannah area, with gallery forests along the watercourses. It looked to me as if it would be an excellent hunting area for Songbird’s group, but not if it is claimed by another group. I wonder if they are the same species? If they can — or do — interbreed?

I should not take sides, especially as I think this new species is also intelligent. Certainly they make hunting tools and hunt cooperatively.

Do not interfere. I’m way past that. But I want company!

Jarn’s Journal is the (fictional) journal of an alien marooned in Africa roughly 125,000 years ago. His story is the remote background the the Jarnian Confederation, where Homecoming and Tourist Trap are set. The entire Journal to date is on my author site.

Six Sentence Sunday

For quite a while I’ve been blogging Chapter 2 from a WIP, tentatively titled Rescue Operation. That Chapter is now complete. I skipped Chapter 1 on the grounds that it was an unholy mess, but I think I finally have it straightened out. So for the next few weeks I’ll be giving six sentence segments from Chapter 1, starting with the beginning of the chapter, the book, and the trilogy. Please leave comments, letting me know how this works as an initial hook.

Roi Laian jerked upright on the interface lounge. “Oh, no,” he gasped aloud. “He can’t be that stupid. The Council can’t be. Is he trying to start a revolution?”

Lelani, the oldest of his three wives, hardly lifted her wrinkled face from the wire and beads that would become a new hair ornament, but Keishala turned toward him, lowering the musical score she had been studying.

Don’t forget to visit the other Six Sentence Sunday writers – lots of interesting bits and pieces. And I’d appreciate it if you could find time to visit the interview I had at Christine’s Words.

Six Sentence Sunday

It’s Sunday again, and I’m still posting consecutive bits from the second chapter of Rescue Operation (working title.) Tod’s the youngest of a group of teenaged “freedom fighters” who’ve been captured by slavers. To look at previous snippets, click “Six Sentence Sunday” on the Index page.

This is the end of this selection; I think for the next couple of Sundays I’ll try snippets from the newly revised first chapter of Rescue Operation. After that I’ll pull six sentences from other things — possibly from one of my published books, possibly a bit from something not published. And this has been very early (from Chapter 2) so Tod still has a large role to play.

Callan was no help, but Buck moved toward Tod, guessing what the younger boy intended.  Tammy stumbled into her captor, driving him toward Tod, and Tod managed to get his bound wrists over the man’s head, jerking back and around in an effort to choke the slaver while Tammy rolled under the cable and into the rocks and brush downhill from the road.

Run, he thought while he did his best to keep the slavers’ attention.  Then pain struck, even worse than one of his father’s beatings.

Keep fighting, keep their attention focused on him!  In the end, he passed out without even knowing whether Tammy had escaped.

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Six Sentence Sunday

It’s Sunday again, and I’m still posting consecutive bits from the second chapter of Rescue Operation (working title.) Tod’s the youngest of a group of teenaged “freedom fighters” who’ve been captured by slavers. To look at previous snippets, go to the index page (at the top) and click on “Six Sentence Sunday.” There you will find all of my SSS posts, listed by date and source.

Then [Tod] pricked up his ears as the conversation turned to getting them all into the transport.

Tod had hoped their captors would unfasten their shackles or at least release them from the cable, but it sounded like they planned to winch the whole cable into the transport.  The slavers’ concern was strictly over whether they’d all fit.  “We could take the girl in the flyer,” one of the men suggested, and Tod was instantly alert.  The best route to the flyer passed close to the cable, and yes, one of the smaller men was unfastening Tammy’s shackles from the cable and using a shoulder hold to push her along the cable toward Tod.

Tod shifted from side to side, trying to get slack in the cable.

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