Month: November 2014

Holiday Gift Ideas for Everyone
Holiday Gifts

Holiday Gifts

Since I’m being inundated with emails from stores I rarely hear from, it must be time to buy things for friends and family.

Let me suggest — for those friends and loved ones who are looking for love and ending up with all the wrong people: Bad Boyfriends: Using Attachment Theory to Avoid Mr. (or Ms.) Wrong and Make You a Better Partner, on Amazon in Kindle and trade paperback formats. You can also get it at any bookstore by special order, or at the online sources below:

Amazon UK – Sale!

Amazon Canada – Sale!

Amazon Australia – Sale!

Barnes and Noble trade paperback

For those friends and family married or seeing “difficult” avoidants (dismissive or fearful), I suggest: Avoidant: How to Love (or Leave) a Dismissive Partner, on Amazon in Kindle and trade paperback formats. If you’re especially close to an avoidant and you want to get him or her to understand themselves better, you might dare to give them the book and stand back; tough love is not always appreciated!

And if you want to support this web site, you can do so by shopping through this Amazon portal: once you follow this link, a small percent of your purchases will be credited to this web site, and it doesn’t affect your prices at all: Amazon Cyber Monday Deals Week

“Red Queen: The Substrate Wars,” Second Part
Red Queen: The Substrate Wars

Red Queen: The Substrate Wars

I’ve finished a readable draft for the second part of Red Queen: The Substrate Wars, first book in a long series. Beta readers of Part 1 generally liked it and wanted to keep reading, so if you were holding off thinking it’s bad, maybe that will encourage you to give it a read.

In this part, our growing band of campus freedom-fighters discover a new technology that could either destroy the world, or save it. They take on the responsibility of using it for good. Homeland Security is one step behind them.

[edit: removed drafts since full book is available]

There are interesting questions about how much techno-geekery and science you should throw at the reader. Those who aren’t into it will see a paragraph of unintelligible babble and skip over it (“it’s magic!”), and those who are into it will read every word and try to find holes in the science, which they will of course be eager to point out.

So I need a wide variety of readers to help me decide just how far to go. There’s also an interesting problem with exposition: it’s necessary for the omniscient narrator to just tell the reader things, but they are more convincing coming from characters. But then you have long dialogues where characters go on in an unrealistic way. This has been accepted as part of the artifice since the time of the Greeks, but you can go too far. Let me know what you think!

Questions, errors, and comments to: jebkinnison@gmail.com. Hope you enjoy it.

“Red Queen: The Substrate Wars” First Part
Red Queen: The Substrate Wars, Cover

Red Queen: The Substrate Wars

If you’re a regular reader, you’ll have noticed my rate of posting has declined lately. This is because I’m working on a novel, my first venture into fiction in years. It’s science fiction and adventure; my effort to write a good story the kids will both enjoy and learn from, as I did in my youth.

I have criticized modern “politically correct” science fiction for its grim view of progress and its conformist political content. This is my answer to books for young people like Pills and Starships. And the resemblance to Hunger Games is intentional — what Hunger Games gets right is that young people can remake the world to be a better place.

The world of Red Queen is post-terrorist disaster, repressive and regimented — rather like China today, but poorer. In that sense it is a dystopia, though not so far from our own day and time; only a few steps beyond where we are now. The kids are cowed but not unaware, and they seize the opportunity to make a difference when their smarts and courage allow it. And so they change the world.

I’m putting the first section out for beta readers. I’d appreciate any thoughts and error corrections you might have. The science gets more fully explained in the next section, for those of you into physics.

I’m doing a Hugh Howey and publishing this myself. I’d be most interested in hearing from agents or publishers who are interested, but I expect to finish in three months and the legacy publishing timetable is simply too slow, even though a good editor would be very helpful.

So I’m counting on you folks. If you read the first section, send me your comments at jebkinnison@gmail.com, and also email me if you want to be on the beta reader list for the full draft version. I apologize in advance for getting you interested and involved in the story, then making you wait to finish it!

[edit: removed drafts since full book is available]