I’m working on a sci-fi book idea and it is a new experience for me. So for the next week or so, I’m going to pop in to ask you, the sci-fi nerds of the world, to answer some questions.
Here’s my first one – the flying car – beloved Sci-Fi must-have or outdated trope?
My personal opinion – there are a lot of people, right now, who shouldn’t even be behind the wheel of a regular land car, do we really want them in the equivalent of a small, personal spacecraft? People would literally drive into buildings every 2 seconds. And if your mechanic doesn’t check everything, your car is going to drop out of the sky.
Plus, wouldn’t people crash their flying cars into each other constantly? Is every flying car going to be equipped with some kind of satellite monitoring so they can detect when another car is near so there isn’t a crash?
On the other hand, hey, let’s be honest, they’re cool, and who knows? Tech might evolve one day to the point where they’re feasible and even idiots can drive them with a minimal amount of damage.
My sci-fi world will most likely have flying cars. As a potential reader, is that cool or infuriating?
“My regrets are about the people I couldn’t save—Marines, soldiers, my buddies. I still feel their loss. I still ache for my failure to protect them.”
– Chris Kyle, American Sniper
Chris Kyle – Husband. Father. Navy Seal. Most Lethal U.S. Sniper. Punisher comic-book fan. Self-declared bad-ass. Let’s talk about the film based on Kyle’s autobiography.
I recently saw it and was blown away (no pun intended). Actor Bradley Cooper was recently on The Howard Stern Show, discussing how he gained forty pounds of muscle to play the role, and man did it show. Cooper turned in a solid performance that did Kyle justice, and he’s definitely an Oscar contender.
Kyle’s friends and fellow soldiers nicknamed him, “The Legend.” The name starts out as a joke, but soon it fits as he starts racking up one enemy kill after another. Soldiers say they literally feel better when he’s watching out for them through the lens of his rifle scope. The terrorists hate him, putting out a $180,000 bounty on his head. Kyle jokes, “Don’t tell my wife. She might collect on it.” Self-Deprecating humor is one of his trademarks throughout the film.
Kyle takes an active role in a unit chasing after a terrorist nicknamed, “The Butcher.” As shown in the film, the Butcher has a penchant for running around Iraq with a power drill, which he tortures Iraqis when they dare work with U.S. forces. Also dogging Kyle throughout the film is a sniper known as Mustafa, an Iraqi who once went to the Olympics as a marksman, but later joined the terrorists in fighting against American forces.
The movie follows Kyle through four tours of duty, showing the stresses he experiences on the battlefield, as well as the toll it makes on his life back at home. His wife is unhappy that he keeps returning to battle, and he is suffering from out of control blood pressure.
I’ve read some reader reviews of the book, many positive, some negative (no writer gets off without at least some negative reviews unfortunately). The negative reviews claim Kyle comes across as having a big ego and being full of himself, that he just enjoyed being “a bad-ass.”
Well, here’s the thing – He was a bad-ass. The man made Chuck Norris look like a choir boy. (No offense, Chuck). And according to the movie, he was his own worst self-critic. Rather than be content with all the soldiers he did save, he often focused on those he died, wishing he could have saved them. And when he was home, he felt bad for being home, feeling he needed to be back in Iraq, back in the fight.
Eventually, he does leave active duty and returns to civilian life, but he’s haunted by the war, and still feels he should be helping his fellow soldiers.
Finally, a psychiatrist tells him there are plenty of returned soldiers in the US that could use his help. Kyle begins volunteering with wounded soldiers, taking them out for target practice. The idea was to help struggling veterans feel empowered by working on their marksman skills.
Thankfully the movie does not show it, but Kyle died when a veteran with mental problems he’d volunteered to help shoots him. Very sad to think about how this man cheated death over and over in Iraq only to be murdered by someone he was trying to help.
The book’s a good read, the film’s fast-paced and full of action, both worth your time. Check them out!
Thankfully, the movie doesn’t show it, but sadly, Kyle died when he was shot by a veteran with mental problems he had volunteered to help.
“I’ll never know, and neither will you, of the life you don’t choose. We’ll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn’t carry us. There’s nothing to do but salute it from the shore.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar
I’m glad the movie Wild introduced me to this author, because the quote above is important to remember. Honestly, how much time do we waste thinking, “Oh, I wish I’d done this?” or “I wish I’d done that?” It doesn’t matter, does it? What’s done is done. What’s in the past can’t be changed.
For me, I’d have to say The Dresden Files. I know there was an attempt at a TV show that didn’t take off, but with the right people behind it, I feel like a Dresden Files movie would be pretty spectacular.
How about you? What book would you like to see turned into a movie?
“All human wisdom is contained in these two words – Wait and Hope”
– Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
I’ve never read this book. Its sheer size is intimidating. I’ve read The Three Musketeers and thoroughly enjoyed it. But this quote is accurate. We spend so much of our lives waiting for what we want and hoping it will happen.
I’d like to return to it for a moment, not for its content, but one quote in particular that got me thinking:
“Your rabid romance reader who was buying $100 worth of books a week and funneling $5,200 into Amazon per year is now generating less than $120 a year,” she said. “The revenue is just lost. That doesn’t work well for Amazon or the writers.”
– Quote from Author H.M. Ward, in NY Times Article by David Streitfeld, “Amazon Offers All You Can Eat Books, Dec. 27, 2014
Question – Are there really people spending upwards of $5,000 a year on ebooks? If there are, well, I suppose that’s great for authors, whether they be self-published or traditional. If a reader has that kind of money to spend and the books make them happy, then God bless them for their patronage.
Many readers don’t have that kind of money to burn. Despite claims that libraries are becoming more and more obsolete and may be going the way of the Dodo (though I hope not, wouldn’t that be sad?), I like to borrow books from my local library and find that to be a cheap (heck, free!) way to supplement my reading habit. And after I’ve discovered an author by getting his or her book from the library, if later I have a few bucks to spare, I might see they have a new title available for digital download and will say to myself, “Oh what the hell, why wait? Just pay the few bucks and enjoy reading it now.”
What is the role of the library when it comes to the publishing industry? In practice, libraries do lend out copies of copyrighted works for free and people who borrow free books aren’t sending any money the author’s way. Yet, we literary lovers tend to also be library lovers. Heck (I feel like I’ve used that word too much in this post), most of us probably first began our love affair with the English language in a library. So, authors, publishers, literary nerds of all kinds – we support libraries, at least, I do – I think most of us do, don’t we?
Question – Are there ways for self publishing Indie authors to get their books to libraries? Maybe an indie author, if he or she has the money, could produce several copies and donate them to libraries. Although, that could be a problem in and of itself. Often times, people bring books donations to libraries and are shocked to find that the library can’t use them – for whatever reason. Sometimes the books are old and outdated, sometimes a library just won’t have the shelf space. Indie Authors might try to donate their books only to receive polite responses from librarians of “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Still, I wonder if this isn’t an avenue that self-publishers should look at. People who love books but don’t have $5,000 a year to spend on them might read a self-published book through a library, get hooked, and maybe then spend a respectable $50 bucks a year on books, which, ok, no one’s going to celebrate that until we think $50 X a large segment of the book reading population.
What say you, reader? Are traditional lending libraries an option that self publishers should look into?
He’s self-publishing superstar Hugh Howey, whose Wool books about people living in underground silos have taken off like wildfire. He published a report awhile ago (and alas, I’m playing catchup here) claiming, among other things, that books released from the Big Five Publishers tend to be priced higher and yet be reviewed more negatively than average:
Note the shortest bar in one graph correlates to the tallest in the other. Is it possible that price impacts a book’s rating? Think about two meals you might have: one is a steak dinner for $10; the other is a steak dinner that costs four times as much. An average experience from both meals could result in a 4-star for the $10 steak but a 1-star for the $40 steak. That’s because overall customer satisfaction is a ratio between value received and amount spent. As someone who reads both self-published and traditionally published works, I can tell you that it’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference between the two. Most readers don’t know and don’t care how the books they read are published. They just know if they liked the story and how much they paid. If they’re paying twice as much for traditionally published books, which experience will they rate higher? The one with better bang for the buck.
– Hugh Howey, “The 7 K Report”, AuthorEarnings.com
What say you, reader? Personally, I think he might be on to something. For a ten buck steak, I won’t be too annoyed if there’s a lot of fat and gristle. For a forty buck steak, that had better be the most succulently juicy and tender, mouth watering, flavorful to die for steak I have ever tasted, or gosh darn it, someone’s going to get an ear full out of me!
Now, I tend to criticize everything, even when it is information I want to be accurate, such as Howey’s report. It’s just my cynical mind at play. Give me two differing points of view, and I can tell you in great detail how both sides are wrong and right at the same time. It’s a gift. Or a curse. I haven’t decided yet.
My gut reaction says, – “Well, everyone knows the James Patterson (Or Insert Favorite Big Publishing Author Here) Steakhouse because it is hustling and bustling every night. Therefore, more people are in and out of that steakhouse, and therefore, just by the sheer volume of business that steakhouse does, that steakhouse is more likely to get more negative reviews just through the sheer law of averages that if more people are eating your steak, then the number of people who don’t like it will be on the rise. Meanwhile, the nice folks at “Indie Author Hole in the Wall Steakhouse,” may have a very have a very tasty and reasonably priced steak, but the steakhouse is in a back alley, off the beaten path, and there’s very little walk-in traffic since it is not near a busy street. Ergo, fewer people eating there=fewer people to say they didn’t like the steak.”
But then I catch myself and note that in fact, Howey’s report does claim to be taking statistics from bestsellers. In other words, when he’s comparing Indie Authors to Big Publishers, he’s looking at Indies who have had some success, i.e., Indie Steakhouse Owners who have managed to put up a big neon sign on their back alley steak house that says, “COME ON IN, THE STEAK IS FINE!”
I don’t know. I’m not a numbers person. I’m just giving you my take on Howey’s report. I could be wrong. I could be right. I don’t even know what I think about it so I don’t even know what I’m trying to say.
But personally, as a prospective self-publisher, I hope he’s right.
Unless the Big Five sign me up, in which case, I hope he’s wrong.
Just a quick post today. The gist? Reading a novel isn’t a waste of time, because more than likely, the reader would just do something more ill-advised anyway:
TO A LADY WHO SAID IT WAS SINFUL TO READ NOVELS
BY: CHRISTIAN MILNE
To love these books, and harmless tea,
Has always been my foible,
Yet will I ne’er forgetful be
To read my Psalms and Bible.
Travels I like, and history too,
Or entertaining fiction;
Novels and plays I’d have a few,
If sense and proper diction.
I love a natural harmless song,
But I cannot sing like Handel;
Deprived of such resource, the tongue
Is sure employed — in scandal.
Bookshelf Battle 