Resident Alien and Righteous Gemstones New Seasons—Rocky Start
Watched first episode of season 2 of Resident Alien last night. The first season was enjoyable if a bit rough story wise. But episode 1 of season 2 felt like 8 different writers wrote skits and then someone stuck them all in the same episode with the only connection being they were characters in the same show. There were abrupt shifts between scenes with no segue.
There was the usual crazy humor. And yes, it’s not meant to be taken as reality (there is an alien, after all, who can look like a human because, well, he can), but at points the silly got to be not funny but just silly. There was a hint about where the story is going—more aliens coming to destroy Earth, but overall, it was a very uneven watch. There were serious scenes with little, to no, connection, such as the two cups of coffee. Perhaps foreshadowing?
My wife commented that it felt like the original season was written as a one off, did well, and suddenly the writers went—“Hey! We need to write more stuff.” I’ve been in that position and if you have enough time it works, but if it’s on a tight schedule, a lot harder to do, especially during a pandemic.
The Righteous Gemstones also debuted its second season after a wicked satire of a first season.
The problem seems to be one of tone. It’s dark comedy, but the dark is starting to overshadow the comedy. We’ve got murders and secrets and child abandonment while also seeing a silly baptism.
The bathroom scene is brilliant. Edi Patterson as Judy Gemstone was hilarious and one can easily see her in a Christopher Guest movie ad-libbing. But John Goodman’s father figure seems to be a dark brooding cloud over everything. Broken thumbs are in.
To come: Dexter finally ends; I finally binge all of Yellowstone and am following 1883. Also rewatched the 2nd Battlestar Galactica and am slogging through the last season and all the talk of God. Anyone else ever try to figure out what the hybrid is saying? I tried it on my wife earlier trying to distract her and she was not so easily fooled.
Anywho. Stay warm out there.
What If You Know The Moment Of Your Death?
What is more valuable than money? Time. That was the premise for Burners, one of my favorite books. After all, we’re already seeing the discrepancy in life expectancies between the rich and poor grow. As we move forward and expensive medical procedures, especially in terms of nanotechnology advance, the gap will grow larger.
Burners is set in a post-apocalyptic future in an area that is today’s Puget Sound. Society is stratified with four groups of people: The People who have an indeterminate Death Date. The Evermores and the Middlemores who have Death Dates but reasonable life expectancies.
And then there are the Burners whose death date hovers around 25. The title comes from the Edna St. Vincent Millay poem First Fig:
Burners play hard, party hard and die young. Before they die, they get 30 days in Heaven.
This is the way it’s been for generations. But it is now 30 days until Grace’s Deathday.
That is the fate on the red card Grace was dealt at age six on Dealing Day. A burner. Her twin sister, Millay, was dealt a white card. A People. No Deathday.
For twenty years, the sisters have lived different lives. In different places.
Then there’s the wild card, Ryker, a burner, who has no memories of his own past.
In what was left of the world after the Chaos, mankind surrendered control to Dealer, a powerful computer that has kept society running for centuries.
But truths don’t come easy. And everyone and everything is not as they appear.
The mantra in following Dealer’s edicts: It is what it is.
Until today.
Notes to a Midlist Author (All authors actually)
I wrote this in response to a blog post by a midlist author, Michael Mammay posted here where he talks about the lessons he’s learned in the last 4 years as a midlist science fiction author. These lessons apply to all authors working with a traditional publisher. Here is the blog. So:
You have a realistic view of things. I’ve been making a living as a writer for three decades and few people have heard of me. True, I did write under 5 pen names for a while. But, like you, I learned all these lessons the hard way. I had no idea what to expect when I signed my first book deal in 1991. No clue my advance was tied to where I would be on the list and what my print run would be. In essence, my future was pretty much determined before the book even came out. There are exceptions to that, which I’ve also experienced, but generally, if a trad author tells me their advance, I can predict what will happen to the book.
I had to laugh when you said no one is “bottom list” although, yes, someone has to be. I’ve experienced the spectrum of treatment by publishers from bottom list to top list, NY Times bestselling, and they are very different worlds.
One key is they offered you a new contract so you’re not doing the higher percentage sales, lower print run death spiral, but I suspect that’s changed because of eBooks which is a positive. A publisher can recoup a lot of investment now with little capital output in terms of printing because of eBooks. So authors who bitch about Amazon need to realize that Amazon is keeping a lot of this business alive. And a lot more authors alive. Indie bookstores are great, but they are not focused on mid and bottom list authors. That’s a harsh reality few want to admit publicly. Barnes and Noble is a friend, but is slowly losing shelf space and stores.
I’ve said what you’re saying many years ago to publishers, editors and publicists: just tell me the truth. Which is usually: We’re not committing much at all to publicity for you. If anything. We’re throwing the book out there. There’s too much smoke blown up author’s asses on that. Too much vague promising without follow through. I finally got a publicist at Random House to be honest after all the vague promises turned out to be nothing on one series that ended up selling over a million copies in paperback. She said they put the vast majority of their marketing money behind their bestsellers. At first, I was outraged. But then I saw the light. They really can’t “make” a bestseller, although they think they can. But once they get one? They can ride that sucker forever; even beyond the author’s death. In fact, bestselling authors subsidize the mid and bottom list to a large extent so we can’t complain they get the big bucks and the publicity.
The only marketing money that made any impact in years past was placement. Where you were racked. The same is true now even with eBooks although it’s via AMS and Bookbub ads and the like. All else is fluff.
I’ve found science fiction as a genre to be behind the times in terms of the business of publishing. I’ve hit bestseller lists in several genres including scifi. The savviest genre? Romance. Where I’ve also hit the lists. I’m not slamming scifi, but from the outside it just seems really inwardly focused and cliquish. I’ve been a member of SFWA and it’s gotten better but it could do a better job of teaching new authors. Then again, RWA which did a great job has turned on itself and is imploding. Bottom line—the info is out there but hard to find among all the background noiae.
The few times I’m around scifi authors at conferences (I don’t get invited to cons– no one knows my name although I’ve been #1 in science fiction on Amazon numerous times—I even got told at one con hat I wasn’t a science fiction author which was humorous). I listen to them talk and realize most are woefully uninformed. I tell any midlist author that if they aren’t indie publishing at the same time, they are pretty much doomed. Unless, of course, lightning strikes, and they break out. That’s a whole ‘nother story, though, which I don’t have the time to cover here.
I’ve been published traditionally, 45 titles, and by 47North which is Amazon’s scifi imprint when it was first starting out, 9 titles, and indie published. Luckily, I got the rights back to all my trad books. Which means I failed in trad publishing. But that turned out to be a great blessing in disguise. The day I got my rights back to my Area 51 series from Random House, I told my wife that I got a good chunk of our retirement in place. Which has turned out to be true even though I signed those rights to Amazon Encore when it was first starting out since I got a spectacular royalty deal since it was the golden age of eBooks. I did as well with that as if I was indie publishing those books and I have the added advantage of Amazon promoting those books. Plus, I then continued the series with indie titles. That was a designed plan on my part that has worked well. Which is key: have a long-term plan to have a wide income base. I’ve also invested over $80,000 in Audible ACX titles over the years. I ran my own indie press for a while. It took three years to learn how to indie publish correctly. It’s not as easy as people think.
That’s one thing to do—can you indie publish titles that are in the series your publisher is doing? Or, at least, ancillary to the series? I’ve heard horror stories of publishers not allowing that, even though it’s a win-win for both. An author making 70% eBook royalty every month on a book is a hell of a lot more invested in promoting than one who hasn’t earned out in a trad deal. At the very least, indie publish in the same genre.
I applaud the fact you aren’t blaming your editor, agent, publisher but simply saying: “Tell me the real deal and let me work with that.” Exactly. You have the right attitude and it will stand you in good stead in you publishing future. All the best.
Area 51: Modern Myth? Or Something Else?
I first heard of Area 51 in the early 90s. My ex-wife was an Army helicopter pilot and deploying across the country with her unit to the National Training Center in southern California. She mentioned how they had to divert around the airspace west of Nellis AFB and that it was highly classified. That piqued my interest as a fledgling novelist. I always ‘what-if’ things. Part of that comes from my background in Special Operations where we did a lot of what-iffing for our missions.
I began researching and came across the term Area 51. The more I dug, the more I realized all the alien/UFO stuff went back to one man, Bob Lazar, who claimed they were reverse-engineering a spaceship they’d found. They, of course, being those guys, You know the ones in the black helicopters. I found that story interesting until I realized one day as we were flying about in the newly formed Task Force 160 (Nightstalkers) that I was one of the guys in the black helicopters. So.
I started thinking about Area 51. Most thought the government had brought alien craft, and even aliens themselves to the place because it was so remote. Which is true. The remote part. You just don’t go by Area 51 on your way to anywhere. It’s part of the Nellis Air Force Base Range. To the west is the Nevada test site where hundreds of nukes have been tested. Not a place to wander through.
As a fiction writer, though, I reversed the thinking. What if there was something at Area 51? What if it had been found there, but was too big to move, so the government established the Groom Lake facility there and the ranges and nuclear test site around it, to hide what had been found?
What could be so big and secret? And thus, I began writing. Interesting note for aspiring authors. The original title for the book was Dreamland because that is the call sign for the Nellis Air Force Base tower. You knew that right? Another one of my stupid titles early in my career (like Eyes of the Hammer).
I had a two-book deal with Random House. The first book, which we got the deal on was The Rock, which is still one of my favorites. People either love that book or hate it. Anyway, we gave them Dreamland as the second book on that deal. The editor mentioned that Dreamland sounded too much like a fantasy novel, so I said, let’s change it to Area 51. At that point few people had heard of Area 51. But as the book went into promotion, X-Files started talking about it and then Independence Day came out and now everyone had heard of Area 51. And that is the power of luck in this business. Good timing.
Little did I know I had spawned a series that would still be going on with the 13th book, Area 51: Earth Abides, published last year. 25 years after the first. And there will be more.
What’s fascinating, though, is the epilogue I put at the end of Area 51 not planning on any more (remember, 2 book deal). Consciously, it was an ode to Arthur C. Clarke’s Sentinel story which was also the basis for 2001. Subconsciously? It became the opening of the next book, Area 51: The Reply as Random House gave me a new contract for more Area 51 books after the astounding success of the first book. And that is the power of the subconscious in creating. Something I’ve learned to trust more and more as the years have gone.
Nothing but good times ahead.
Book of the Day: Nightstalkers: The Rift
Who are the Special Operations who take care of things that go bump in the night?
The Nightstalkers.
Ever since the first Rift opened in Area 51 in 1947, via the infamous Demon Core from the Manhattan Project, exposing the world to deadly beings of pure energy, only the Nightstalkers have stood between humanity and complete annihilation. But as the decades have gone by, whatever power controls the Rifts seems to be getting smarter, as if refining an ultimate plan…
An old ally alerts the Nightstalkers to a resurgence of Rifts in Tennessee, not far from Oak Ridge, another institution from the Manhattan Project, and near one of the team’s first major skirmishes with the seemingly inexhaustible threat. Though still licking their wounds from their latest mission, the Nightstalkers know there’s no one else remotely prepared to battle these intrusions into our world. And this time, they’re intent on closing down the Rifts once and for all. But to do so, they’ll have to finally face the truth behind the Rifts’ origins.
They say that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
But what if the past has already doomed us all?
Nightstalkers are the elite Special Ops unit that take care of the things that go bump in the night; and worse. They correct the mistakes of scientists. They’re also a little bit crazy and a long way outside the bell curve, and not necessarily on the good end.
Wrath of Man and Archive. A Miss and a Hit
I stopped Wrath of Man about halfway through and went to sleep. I usually enjoy Jason Statham films as mindless, fun entertainment. There was nothing fun about this movie. I’m not sure why he took this role, which is out of character. He was so serious and brutal there was nothing redeeming. And I never knew so many armored cars were being robbed by so many different gangs.
Even the title feels a bit over the top. I think right away of Children of Men, the great 2006 movie based on the story. Why? I don’t know. That’s the way my brain works. It just feels like Wrath of Man is trying too hard, as is Jason Statham in this movie. Enough said.
Archive is a classic example of a bad title covering a good product. I don’t want to say too much about this movie to avoid spoilers. But essentially, it’s about a scientist trying to develop an artificial intelligence than can then accept the upload of the mind of a human. In this case, that mind would be that of the protagonist’s wife who was killed in a car crash and stored in a system that can only maintain her consciousness a certain amount of time as it slowly degrades. That, in itself, is an interesting concept.
The setting is beautiful. Supposedly it’s set in Japan, but in the credits you learn it’s set in Hungary. At times it felt like one of those cheap Netflix movies that have great blurbs and ideas than turn into two people sitting in a room chatting because the budget is next to nothing, but this movie transcends that, especially when you get to the end, which, unlike Wrath of Man, I recommend you hang around for.
The History of Time Travel—Low Budget, High Concept
This is a short movie, slightly over an hour, that is fiction presented as a documentary.
It is, frankly, quite brilliant.
It is one of those movies you’re either going to love for what it does, or hate and think it’s nonsense. As a writer, I would rather have someone hate my book than not care about it. Because, like a relationship, you want to evoke strong emotion, not apathy. I’ve written a Time Patrol series so I understand the travails of trying to delve into this subject. My take was that a Time Patrol’s primary mission is to keep our history exactly as it was, for a very simple reason: as flawed as things are, we’re still here.
It starts off exactly as what it says: a documentary about the history of time travel. It does a good job having an expert quickly discussing the various theories of time travel and the paradoxes. Then on to the key man who invented. We learned about his wife and his family. All of this is done through interviews with experts and a family friend.
You have to watch carefully, though as the documentary unfolds and things start to change. I love when the medium of the story actually is the story. That’s the case here. The documentary form never changes but the story does.
I don’t want to give away too much. I highly recommend it as a film that will get you thinking.
Stop Thinking Someone’s Going To Rescue You
Dawn comes this day with thousands of drivers trapped in freezing temperatures on I-95 in Virginia. A number of circumstances collided to produce this; one of them being a lack of plow drivers and emergency personnel due to record Covid numbers.
How many of those trapped drivers took to the road unprepared for an emergency? Most. How many have a good pair of walking boots in their vehicles? Few. How many have blankets and extra water and food? Few. How many failed to check the weather?
We have a “normal” mentality. What I mean is we expect things to be normal, then get surprised when they aren’t. Worse, when things are abnormal, we expect someone to come rescue us rather than prepare to take care of ourselves.
When hurricanes or tornadoes or floods strike, help comes pouring in from unaffected nearby communities and states to help. But what if there is a disaster so large, that help isn’t available? Can you help yourself? What if, like today, a convergence of events: storms, accidents, COVID, come together to produce an unprecedented disaster?
Even a light perusal of recent news show disaster after disaster. Killer tornadoes. Winter storm. Drought. Floods. Devastating wildfires. It’s not going to get better.
So why don’t people prepare?
Complacency.
The assumption that help is only a cell phone call away.
A lack of focus.
Mainly, a mindset of “it can’t happen to me.”
Except 1 in 3 Americans experienced a climate related disaster in 2021.
We will see more extreme weather of all types.
Emergency services will continue to be stretched to the limits.
Bottom line? Get prepared. Take it step by step but start today. Tomorrow might be too late.
Here is a short slideshow I put together to help get everyone started.
Good luck and be safe!
Welcome to 2022. Free Books and Key Information to Start the New Year
I hope the New Year finds you well and safe. To welcome in 2022, I’ve put together some new deals and also have new timely, titles on the horizon.
New York Minute, the first book in the Will Kane Green Beret series is free today and tomorrow (3 and 4 Jan).
Independence Day (Time Patrol) is also free through 7 January. It has one of my favorite Time Patrol mission with Roland going back to 4 July 1863, the day after Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg where he has to make sure the Union doesn’t launch what could be a catastrophic counterattack. If you’ve consider audiobooks, that entire mission is free to listen to on Soundcloud HERE.
Three Special Operations thrillers in one is discounted to $3.99. It’s also in Kindle Unlimited so you can download it to count as only one title against your ten limit.
Four books in the Area 51 series: Excalibur, Truth, Legend and Nosferatu are only .99 this month.
Given events I am finally finishing up a project I’ve been working on for a while: The Green Beret Area Study Workbook. It’s a companion to the Green Beret Preparation and Survival Guide as it walks you through in detail how to do an Area Study in detail.
As part of that, I just put together a free slideshow on the basic things you should do now to get ready to a basic level. As many learned recently in the fire in Colorado, disaster can strike quickly and in a devastating manner. That fire burned through just to the south of where we used to live, starting the open space where we used to take our daily walks. So here is what you should do now.
Basic Disaster Preparation for All of Us
If you enjoy this newsletter and find the material worthwhile, please feel free to forward it and suggest to others to sign up. HERE
Stay safe and enjoy the New Year!
Bob
Don’t Look Up: So On Target It Will Make You Laugh and Cringe. Watch It!
Which is a hard thing to pull off. With a stellar cast led by DiCaprio, Blanchette, Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Ariana Grande, and more, this movie skewers all of us so accurately that some scenes will make you cringe as we see how senseless, selfish, and misguided humans are.
Written and produced by Adam McKay, who did The Big Short, which explained the financial crisis and derivatives in the best way, it takes the trope of a comet headed toward earth being discovered by Jennifer Lawrence’s character and plays it out. How will society react? Given what we’ve seen with the reaction to Covid, we now know it won’t be one of those traditional “let’s all band together and defeat this thing” reaction in the disaster movie genre. After all, while I accurately predicted, and was lambasted for, at least a million deaths from COVID 2 years ago, I didn’t predict a strong anti-vax movement leaving 40 million Americans currently unvaccinated despite ready availability. Tens of thousands are going to die in the coming month due to their own disbelief in science and sheer irrational beliefs. People make that partisan but it’s not. It’s science. Even more than science, it’s REALITY.
In Don’t Look Up, everyone has an angle and saving Earth is a very low priority for most. Science is debunked by amateurs, much as we have so many “experts” on epidemiology with no scientific background who have sprung forth in the past two years.
The title refers to the movement that grows up to deny the reality of the incoming comet: namely, simply, Don’t Look Up. If you don’t, the comet doesn’t exist. Sound familiar? That only begins to change when the comet finally can be seen by the naked eye, but by then, of course, it’s far too late.
The cast is superb. Jennifer Lawrence grounds everything as the grad student who first spotted it. DiCaprio, as her professor, shows how fame can corrupt. Blanchette plays the blonde anchor with no depth perfectly. Fox News will be after her.
The feeling grows that our sheer irrationality is dooming us. Even more than the pandemic, the growing climate crisis is parodied in this film. We know it’s happening, we see it happening all around us, but many deny it and have the mantra of don’t look up.
We need to not only look up and around us, but take action. Before it’s too late.
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