Hello again, everyone! I’m happy to announce that Pure Textuality has just posted a review of my latest book, Unstable Prototypes. The review was penned by longtime fan Alicia, so many thanks to her! As this is BookOfDeacon.com, I tend not to push the sci-fi stuff nearly as much as the fantasy stuff, but in light of this review, I guess I ought to take a moment to discuss that side of the creative coin.
The science fiction stories differ from my fantasy stuff in a number of ways. First, they rely a bit less upon each other. Bypass Gemini and its sequel Unstable Prototypes each represent a full story, rather than being an installment in a trilogy or the like. While it is useful to have read the first before reading the second, I tried to introduce and explain all of the elements in each book, such that a first time reader of the series picking up Unstable Prototypes shouldn’t be completely lost. It also means that the sci-fi series is open-ended, with no hard ending or overall story arc setting the pace. (There are at least 2 more books planned.) I take things less seriously in the sci-fi books, with a heavier use of comedy, and a few naughtier words and references. The story is more like an action movie than an epic; high speed chases, explosions, etc.
Currently, the sci-fi isn’t doing nearly as well as the fantasy, but there are a few reasons for that. One has to do with the fact that I don’t have the first entry free. For now, that’s beyond my control, but if all goes according to plan, the price will become less of an issue in the future. Another is because there is no indication in any of the storefronts that either book is related to the other. I know that I prefer to read books that are part of a series, so that if I like it, there’s more to look forward to. Thus, I’d like to think that grouping these as a named series would help. The problem is, no amount of wracking my brain has produced what I would consider to be an appropriate series title. “The Book of Deacon” was an obvious name for the fantasy series from the start. Nothing comes to mind for the sci-fi series. I’ve toyed with the idea of running a contest to name the series, but the problem with that is that ideally people would have had to read both of my books to be able to come up with a good suggestion, and there aren’t very many people who have done so. It’s what you might call a Catch-22, I need to get readers to run a contest to get a name to get readers. Tricky.
One thing that I’m proud to say is that I seem to have created a few memorable characters for the sci-fi series, and as usual, the main character is the least among them. Lex may be the designated protagonist, but from what I’ve heard, Karter, Ma, and Solby/Squee are the winners when it comes to the character popularity contest. That’s nice, though, because Solby and Squee (each of which are examples of a creature called a funk) are prime candidates for a plush… which is a sneaky way for me to segue back into talking about The Book of Deacon. Unfortunately, I’ve got some bad news. As followers of this blog and my various other means of social communication should already know, the plush-maker I talked to about making a Myn plush had to back away from the task for a bit while she dealt with a medical procedure and its recovery. Well, she’s fine, but according to her most recent post, unfortunately the recovery is taking its toll. For now she’s going to have to set aside plush projects until further notice. The Myn plush is still happening, but there is no longer a timetable for completion. Sorry about that. I’ll try to come up with some digital doodads and goodies to hold you folks over until I can oblige the plush requests.
One last thing. A few friends have suggested I should do a reddit AMA. My reply to them was “What’s a reddit AMA?” It turns out, it is an “Ask Me Anything”, a post in a special section of the reddit site where you make yourself available to answer questions. Though I’d like to think I’m always available to answer questions through facebook, twitter, this site, and any other means you can find to communicate with me, if there are folks out there interested in seeing me do an AMA, I might give it a shot.
That’s about all for today. If you’ve got any thoughts or questions, go ahead and leave a comment. That goes for sci-fi questions/name ideas, AMA opinions, and anything else you’ve got on your mind. Thanks for reading!