Sheep vs Pigs

I glanced at an internet forum this morning and I saw all sorts of horror about how the Chinese government crushed some protestor with a steamroller.

 

A particular comment caught my eye ... someone stated that the Chinese government views its citizens as disposable. I don't know this person, but I do believe they have touched on one of the most basic truths about all governments.

 

The American government views its citizens as sheep to be sheared, as often as possible. Occasionally they eat one or two in order to keep the others in line and complacent enough to be sheared. In many other places, tyrannical governments view their ctizens as pigs, to be raised as efficiently as possible and then devoured.

 

The sheep look on in horror at what is happening to the pigs without realizing that they're ultimately in the same boat. When the government no longer desires to shear us, they'll eat us the same as the pigs.

 

We were warned that this would happen when the government ceased to fear its citizens.

The Story Campaign So Far ...

For the short novella "Year of the Wendigo", so far we've given away 125 copies on Kindle Direct Publishing. Not too bad. I don't really know what a free campaign is supposed to yield so I'm impressed that we've given away any at all.

Writing is an enjoyable exercise and I continue to do it, time allowing. These days there's a lot of demands on my time and it seems like I never get much done but when I do have spare time ... I drift back to writing. I would be well-pleased if it bore some fruit and the readership gained a little traction.

I remember when I first started writing on this blog, I was getting over a thousand hits per day and generating a substantial ad revenue. The readership dropped dramatically when I stopped posting the BI every day and even more so when I began to speak more solely about religion. Is this not the very nature of mankind though? There's a narrow gate Christians are told to be seeking, and I suppose an even more narrow readership for those authors out there. I don't really write "Christian" literature and many of my stories span the past two decades of my life so they certainly run the gambit but I notice that there is a more Christian trend as I continue to age in the craft.

How do each of us use our gifts towards Christ? I suppose this is something we are to be continuously asking ourselves.

Short Story available for Free

In an effort to promote some of my short stories on Amazon's direct publishing, I'm putting some of them out there for relatively free and some of them for actually free (for a short time).

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004UVRI4G

"Year of the Wendigo" will be freely available for Kindle users to download from Amazon until the 5 day promotional period ends. I would be very pleased if you would also write a review.

To Whom It May Concern

Dear Glacier Bay,

I am writing to you in regards to your oak finish toilet seat which I purchased today. I am very pleased with this product.

It fits over the top of a 5 gallon bucket right and proper and the finished surface is smooth and comfortable, unlike some of your competition's products which can get a bit splintery. The hole through which a man's private business is conducted is just the right size and the seat is perfectly conformed. I have to compliment your craftsmen on this particular feature. It is so perfectly crafted that it grips a man's butt in what I proudly call the "toilet hug".

I hang your product proudly on the stub of a broken tree branch next to where my bucket sits and beside an old stump where I place my reading material and the toilet paper. I shall be very pleased if it stands up to the weather and vigorous use over the next few years. One can only expect so much from a toilet seat, but your product delivers the goods.

My hat's off to you!

Sincerely,
Ernie Lee of Possum Creek

Book Review - Micro by Michael Crichton

My oldest son is a big fan of Michael Crichton. I'm slightly less so. Somehow this book ended up in our cabin, unknown to me, and was only recently brought to my attention when a friend borrowed it and then returned it. His excitement at it as he chattered back and forth about the plot brought me to pick it up.

As usual, Crichton writes about complex science concepts on about an 8th grade level. This is probably why he's a bestseller. It's entertaining fiction, not a science textbook.

His characters end up getting shrank down to smaller than insect size and then cast into the Hawaiian forest where they are then forced to deal with all manner of predatory insect life. This is not a new or novel concept. I seem to remember a cartoon from my childhood days that had an entire family battling bugs every week as they struggled to survive in small form. Crichton's exception, representing the current zeitgeist perhaps, is that the shrinking is done by an evil CEO instead of a mad scientist. Interestingly enough, society now considers scientists to be essentially naive but good-natured fellows doing their all to improve the human condition and CEO's represent bad and evil capitalism and are the ones dragging us all down. Oh my how things have changed since the 1950's when it was usually the capitalists who had to come in and save us from the raw evil and menace of the scientists.

Crichton died in the middle of this novel and someone else picked it up. I hate to judge an author by his photo on the book jacket, but this prissified dandy writes about as goofy as he looks. He's playing in someone else's sandbox, and it shows. Boy does it show. The two different writing styles conflict heavily. I don't know what else this second author (who will remain nameless because I don't want to be too mean-spirited OR go find the jacket to remind myself of the name) normally writes about, but I suspect it may involve vacations to a tropical paradise and illicit affairs with the cabana boy. I get the feeling that Crichton's tough science is out of his normal parameters.

This book redeems itself only if you like bugs and enjoy a speculative yarn set in the micro-universe where bugs live. Or if you like seeing greedy capitalists and ignorant grad students get what they so richly deserve. Either way, it's a fun read but not very deep.

Despite the fact that I'm adding an Amazon link to the review, I recommend picking this one up at the local library and getting your entertainment value out of it that way. You won't care to reread it but you'll be glad to have read it once.

Hrrmph.

A year ago I self-published a short story through Amazon's Kindle direct publishing model. As of today, I've not sold one single copy. Ever.

Yet there are 5 bad reviews. One person announced that this was the worst thing they've ever read. Really? I'd be hard pressed to say which story was the worst I'd ever read.

So I'm lowering the price and changing the marketing scheme to let Amazon market this for me. I'm also posting a link to it here. After years and years I essentially gave up writing fiction because finding a publisher was so ridiculously painful. Is self-publishing equally painful?

http://www.amazon.com/Year-of-the-Wendigo-ebook/dp/B004UVRI4G

If you wait until tomorrow to look into this, you'll find the price has been reduced from $2.99 to $0.99 in an attempt to increase sales. At the current royalty rate, Amazon is supposed to help market this story as well. I'll put more (and older) stories up soon and I've got an older novel I'm editing up now to put out there.

This is sort of a sea change for me. I used to focus almost everything I had on writing, then I just sort of stopped for a few years. Now I'm getting back into it, but in a much more leisurely fashion. I just want to write fun, interesting stories and put them out there for people to read. I'm going to be writing anyway, so a little money flowing my way doesn't hurt. I don't expect to become a bestseller, but my writing certainly isn't doing me any good just idling away the years on my hard drive where nobody can see it.

Book Review - Fiction - Tailchaser's Song

I haven't read this book for years, but I found it on the bookshelf and picked it up for a reread. The weather has been gloomy and I've been stuck unable to do much gardening or outdoor projects all week and I needed something to read.

Tad Williams explores the rich and vibrant world of cats in this one. He crafts for them their own society which feels very real and populates it with conventions and a mythology unique to cats. It's a very entertaining read and you lose yourself in the story very quickly. I also find it very refreshing to just pick up a good book that resolves itself between the front and back cover. So much of modern fiction, especially fantasy, works itself out in these sweeping epics across 15 or so novels. Unless you happen to stumble upon an unknown author who wrapped up his sweeping epic before you were born then you end up waiting for the story to resolve itself over the course of two decades, as my wife and I had to do with Robert Jordan's series.

As a rule, I keep only Kindle versions of books I don't plan to reread. Tailchaser's Song earns its permanent place on the bookshelves though as my large family will end up rereading it every couple of years. I highly recommend this book if you've got a day or two and want to kick back and relax.