Review: The Mind Game by MG Harris.

 The Book:

Years have passed since her childhood friend disappeared, but Roni remains consumed by the mystery. Can she uncover what happened to Maxim Santiago?

Podcast fame thrusts 17-year-old Roni into a perilous quest to find her missing friend, who disappeared from Dulles Airport, Washington D.C. She teams up with tech-savvy Kenzie to crack cryptic messages and unearth a dark secret about trafficked kids. Dodging shadowy agents of the ruthless Russian dictator waging a global ‘Mind Game’ on his enemies, they end up in a sweltering Mexican town, a nexus for refugees

They shared childhood memories, but Maxim has changed. He’s older, wiser, perhaps even dangerous. Now he seeks their help to rescue enslaved children guarding a world-shaking secret, but time’s running out. Roni and Kenzie dive into Maxim’s risky mission, testing their friendship amid a struggle for control of a key project that could win the ‘Mind Game.

It's a journey that brings Roni an astonishing self-discovery. Can she trust in herself to help the rescue succeed?

 

My Thoughts:

This is a fast paced action packed teen adventure with a unique concept at its core from the author of bestselling teen series The Joshua Files.

I really enjoyed reading this. It’s a fun romp through some great locations. One of the things this author does so well is bring Mexico to life. The pace never lets up and the pages almost turn themselves.

The story is narrated by teen podcaster Roni and is told in an engaging and chatty style, perhaps to reflect her online persona, yet for some reason that I can’t put my finger on I never really clicked with her. The character of Max by comparison had much more depth and I’m curious to see where his story leads.

This is the first in a new series from this author. I will certainly be looking out to see what comes next.

Review: The Day the Earth Turned: Book 1. Summer by Chantelle Atkins

 The Book

The adults are all dead. Society has collapsed.

Two groups of teenagers emerge on either side of a rural village, traumatised, bereaved and determined to survive.

As tribes form and territorial lines are drawn, can they overcome their differences and find a way to rebuild?

Or will gang warfare end this emerging new world before it’s even begun?

Each of them have their theories about what killed the adults and as the dust settles on the old world, a far bigger, darker, and angrier threat is bursting to life all around them.

 

My Thoughts

A compelling survival story. This is the first in a series of four books which are clearly going to rotate through the seasons and the challenges that this will present. It’s a well written book with a compelling cast of characters and plenty of mystery and intrigue. Be aware though, that this series functions very much as a whole, rather than a series of standalones, so you will need to commit to reading all of them. There are a lot of loose ends and unanswered questions and I’m looking forward to seeing how this new world Chantelle has created all pans out.

Recommended

Review: Ironheart by Allan Boroughs

The Book

First comes the iron and then comes the snow. And then comes the winter when nothing will grow.

A hundred years after the catastrophic Great Rains, a shattered world cries out for salvation. Haunted by the mysterious disappearance of her father, India Bentley, embarks on an extraordinary adventure to unlock the secrets of a bygone era. Teaming up with the seasoned Tech-Hunter, Verity Brown and an enigmatic military android, India sets out to discover the secrets of Ironheart— a mythical fortress that holds the power to either save or annihilate humanity.

Driven by the urgency of her father's unfinished mission, India ventures into the remote depths of Siberia, braving treacherous landscapes and ruthless outlaws led by notorious oil baron, Lucifer Stone. But as the race to find Ironheart intensifies, the truth that awaits them beneath the icy wasteland proves far more sinister and perilous than they ever anticipated.

In this gripping tale of resilience and sacrifice, failure is not an option. If India falters, the fate of the world will hang in the balance. Prepare to be enthralled as you join India on a journey that will test her limits and ignite a battle for survival against insurmountable odds.

 

My Thoughts

This is an excellent book, pacy and well written. India is an engaging character, but in fact all the characters we meet are well rounded and authentic. I particularly enjoyed the worldbuilding, from the desolation of a ravaged London to the icy Arctic bleakness of Siberia. The book is aimed at a younger audience, but all ages will enjoy this exciting adventure. It is a fabulous romp and I enjoyed it immensely.

Recommended

Ten Years of RED ROCK

 It is now ten years since Red Rock was first published.

Red Rock remained in print for nine years until my rights reverted and I self published it so that it would still be available. I’ve enjoyed the process. It’s good having control although I do now realise how much my publisher did with marketing and promotion. They fixed me up as a speaker at conferences and placed Red Rock into libraries (from which I still get a modest income in PLR).

My main market was through those travelling book fairs that do the rounds of schools in the UK, and through these Red Rock sold quite well. It’s a book I am very proud of. I hope my readers, past, present and future, enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

So to celebrate Red Rock’s ten year anniversary I am making it free on kindle for three days only – 12th, 13th and 14th September.

If you would like to grab yourself a copy, now is your chance.

Countdown Deal for Earth Day

April the 22nd is Earth Day. A perfect opportunity to promote Red Rock. And also to test out Kindle countdown deals.

So for one week in the run up to Earth day, from the 15th - 22nd April, Red Rock will be available for the reduced price of 99p (UK) and 99c (US).

I will do my best to promote it on social media during this time. Let's see if I get an uptick in sales.

Formatting for Kindle and Print: A very simple guide.

 

Here is a very simple checklist for formatting your book for publication using Amazon. This is for both kindle and print. Make sure that before you start this stage that your novel had been fully edited and proofed.

Formatting for Kindle:

•         Clean document:  Ctrl A to select all. Set to ‘normal’ from headings section.

•         Set up title page, copyright etc format to centre set book title to Title, other text to normal.

•         Insert hyperlinks.

•         Inset page break at end of section

•         Set chapter titles to Heading, set text to normal,

•         Put page break at end of each chapter: On the Paragraph screen, under Indentation > Special: select First Line, and indent it by 0.38”

•         Remove spacing before and after

•         Click on normal and update normal to match selection

•         Edit title and heading style in the same way so they do not indent.

•         Generate epub/MOBI files (I use Draft2Dignital for this stage but I don’t press ‘publish’ as I’m only after the files.

I find it useful at this stage to send the novel to my kindle to check it is displaying correctly and also to pick up any last minute errors that may have crept in.

Formatting for print:

•         Use your clean kindle file as your starting point.

•         Set book size 6x9 (or 15.24: 22.86)

•         Ensure that you have no clickable hyperlinks in your book.

•         Add page numbers at bottom of page in the centre.

•         Select different first page to remove the page 1 number.

•         Check page breaks are where you want them

•         Export to pdf

Red Rock (new) Cover Reveal

 Today I am delighted to share with you - the new cover for Red Rock!

A few tips for generating book cover and promotional artwork on MidJourney

Using MidJourney to generate artwork in support of my forthcoming self-publishing adventures has been a lot of fun. I’ve learned a lot along the way and I’m going to share a few tips with you. I hope, if you’re going to give MidJourney a try, that you find them useful.

1.    Discord channel: Set up your own Discord Channel and then invite the bot to it. This will enable you to keep all your images in one place and to easily find earlier prompts if you decide to generate further variations or upscales. The feed in the Midjourney channels moves far too fast!

2.    Aspect ratio: Midjourney defaults to a square image format. But you can change this. The aspect ratio’s I found most useful were 16:9 for a widescreen format, and 1600:1256 which is the ratio I used for book covers. You can use whatever you like but the algorithm responds to some better than others. The command to set aspect ratio is --ar 16:9

3.    Test algorithms: These are fun to play around with. More keep coming on line but the two I’ve tried are --testp and --v 4. Of these v 4 gave the results I liked best, however it does not allow you to set aspect ratio. So keep an eye out for whatever is new. You might find something you like.

4.    Lighting effects: You can influence the mood of you image by adding commands such as dramatic lighting, cinematic lighting, or octane render. Play around and see what works.

5.    Time of day: Moonlight, night-time, sunset, dusk. These all change the colours in your image and can dramatically change the outcome. I particularly like moonlight! Why not also try snowy landscape or stormy skies. And anything else your imagination suggests!

6.    Mood and style: You can make your image fit with a particular mood or genre. I’ve tried post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk and fantasy, all of which were very effective and created some interesting results

This however has only skimmed the surface of what you can do. If you have a hunt online you will find many more useful guides. Here is one I found particularly handy. Midjourney Prompt Database - A.E. Alexander (aealexander.com)

 

Artwork for Red Rock using MidJourney

 The self-publishing journey for red Rock continues.

Since Red Rock has already been professionally edited my first major task is to generate artwork and create a cover. There are two cover formats required. One is a simple cover for the kindle edition and the other is the full wrap around cover for the print edition. I also need to generate supporting artwork for use in promotional activities.

To do this I took out a subscription to MidJourney, the AI art generator that runs on Discord. When you sign up you get 25 free credits after which a month’s subscription costs £12 for 200 credits. I let my subscription run for two months before cancelling it. This has given me plenty of images to work with.

To generate an image, you enter a text prompt. For example, one of the prompts I used to generate images for Red Rock is: “A girl walking through flooded city ruins at sunset.” I used variations on this theme as well as specific instructions such as changing aspect ratio, lighting effects, and which algorithm I wanted to use (there are constantly new test ones coming available. Some work for me and others don’t.)

Now I’ve generated images that I’m happy with I will turn to Canva to add text and turn the image into a book cover. I can also use Canva to generate various promotion graphics as well as videos which I will be using on social media to try to get the word out.

But I will talk in more depth about these in future posts. In the meantime, here are a couple of images to whet your appetite.

Self Publishing Red Rock

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts I now have my rights back for Red Rock and I intend to self publish it. I hope it will be the first of many, and I will be sharing the process with you as I go.

I will be republishing Red Rock under the name Kate Kelly which is how it first appeared. But I also have a second author pen name, KM Kelly under which The Sleepers was published. I intend to keep both these going. Children’s books will join Red Rock under Kate Kelly and my adult fiction will join The Sleepers under KM Kelly.

I did vacillate about whether my thrillers and adult SF should also be separate, but since my thrillers tend towards speculative anyway and my SF tends to be thrillers, I think they will work well together, and having them together under one name will make the marketing and promotion easier.

There are a number of stages to self publishing a book and I will be exploring these in detail and sharing what I learn along the way on this blog. But broadly they are as follows:

1. The Written Word

2. Editing

3. Cover Design

4. Formatting for Kindle and print

5. A Marketing Plan

6. The launch

7. Managing Expectations

For Red Rock steps 1 and 2 are already covered. The book is written and has been professionally edited. So I will join the process at stage 3.

And if anyone is reading this who is also starting on a journey of self publishing, or has already self published and would like to share some tips, then do reach out. I would love to hear from you.

Welcome to the Climate Fiction Writers League

I have recently joined the Climate Fiction Writers League, an exciting new venture set up by author Lauren James.

The league has members from all over the world who have one thing in common – we have all seen the perils that climate change poses to our planet and have used this threat in our fiction.

From picture books through to YA, adult SF and contemporary fiction you can find books that explore a wide range of scenarios and environmental issues, any of which could be our future.

The books may carry a message, but not at expense of story, so do pop over to the website and see who is involved, sign up to the newsletter, and discover some wonderful books.

Visit the Climate Fiction Writers League here: Climate Fiction Writers League

And read more from Lauren about why she has set up the League over at Tor: Lauren James Launches Climate Fiction Writers League

The MG Sci-Fi void.

I’m currently pitching a Sci-Fi kid’s novel to agents, so I headed over to my local branch of Waterstones in order to try to identify comparison titles. (Similar books that I can reference in my covering letter to give prospective agents an idea of where on the shelves my story would fit.)

This particular book of mine is aimed at the 10+ market, the same market as Red Rock. It’s quite sciency but not science heavy and I’ve made sure that the science in it is accessible. It’s probably best described as a Girls in STEM story.

So I started searching in the 9-12 age section for similar types of books – and you know what – nothing. I couldn’t find a single book even remotely sciency or Sci-Fi! Nothing! Diddly-squat!!!

So I came home and searched on Amazon. I found a couple but nothing that would really work as a comparison title!

I did the same for YA and guess what? Yup. Apart from the hangovers from the Dystopia boom a while back – and yes, Dystopia is a type of Sci-Fi – but my book isn’t a dystopia, so they weren’t a good match either.

It’s puzzling. There’s a huge drive to encourage STEM subjects at school, and particularly to encourage girls into STEM – it’s nothing new – it’s been going on for a while – so why isn’t this being reflected in kid’s literature?

Then, yesterday I spotted an agent commenting on this very thing. Her inbox was full of YA Sci-Fi – which suggested to her that there were plenty of readers and writers of the genre out there - but editors simply don’t want to buy it.

Clearly there’s a mismatch here. There could be many reasons for it, but as a humble writer rather than an industry insider I wouldn’t know.

All I can say is it doesn’t bode well for the story I’m pitching. Or for my current WIP which has a definite YA feel to it – Maybe I’d be better off pitching it as Adult instead!

The importance of Research

I recently spotted someone on twitter bemoaning the fact that people weren’t taking her seriously as a SF writer because she didn’t have a science background. And it got me wondering why that would be.

The wonderful thing about SF is that it explores the possibilities – the “what ifs”. It may involve an element of pseudoscience, it may take real science and technology and extrapolate these to a possible, if frightening, conclusion. It may suggest concepts that haven’t yet been thought about; Solutions to real world problems that for now seem unsolvable.

Having a scientific background isn’t a pre-requisite for writing science fiction. Of course it isn’t. But it can help. Because it’s essential that the science is plausible. Pseudoscience, by its very nature, is of course, pseudoscience, and science fiction is full of it. But even the pseudoscience has to be convincing. Many SF readers are themselves scientists, or potential scientists, as was my own case – reading SF was what first inspired me to follow a career in science!

And this is where research is so vital. Especially for authors writing in the genre who don’t come from a scientific background. There are no shortcuts and lazy assumptions and blatant impossibilities will soon be exposed. The excuse “Well, it’s fiction. I can do what I like” does really work. Never under-estimate your readers.

If I chose to write historical fiction the fact I’m not a historian shouldn’t be an issue – so long as I did my research, immersed myself in the time period, knew it inside and out, and ensured I didn’t make any glaring errors. SF is no different.

So I couldn’t help wondering if this was the problem with the lady on twitter? Had she done her research?

Girls in STEM (Science Technology, Engineering and Maths)

As a female scientist I’m used to being the only girl in a room, or ship, full of men. It’s never bothered me, and in fact I rather like it. I’m also not sure I could handle the politics if I worked in a women only office!

When I first started work, the graduate intake I was part of was very male dominated. But I firmly believed that all this was going to change. I thought I was simply part of the first wave. After all – how can anyone NOT be fascinated by science.

It didn’t happen. For several years the graduate intake was only male. For no other reason than that the female science graduates simply weren’t there. It’s a recognised problem. Girls are not taking the science options in school.

But things are starting to shift. Many technology companies are starting to run STEM days with the local schools, and insisting that both boys and girls are equally represented. It will take time, but it will change.

So I found myself wondering what I could do. One of the things I noticed when I was doing school visits as part of the promotion for Red Rock was that the teachers were often very interested in the fact that I was a scientist and liked it when I talked to the kids about some of the science behind the concepts in the novel.

Plus the main character is a girl – and girls can have adventures too!

So maybe writing about girls in STEM is what I should be doing. After all, it was reading SF that first inspired me into science. Perhaps if I wrote something along these lines it might help inspire the next generation of budding scientists.

And this was the starting point for the YA novel I’ve just competed. The novel I’m about to start agent hunting for. Is there a market for such a thing? Who knows! But I’ve really loved writing it, reading up on the science and thinking “What if?”

When Science and Fiction collide

(Originally posted on the Author Allsorts Blog in January 2016)


When science meets fiction something amazing starts to happen.

As our understanding of the universe expands so do the possibilities. Even before the first rockets launched into space we were already pondering what wonders might exist on distant worlds. Was there life on Mars? Was it hostile?

What better way to explore the possibilities than through fiction. In fiction the limitations in technology that stop us doing something can be easily overcome. There’s no point in telling an author that faster than light space flight isn’t possible. Certainly it isn’t with our current technology.  But in fiction this isn’t a problem. Bring on the hyperdrive, the warp drive, stargates and cryosleep.

In the world of fiction anything is possible.

But science fiction isn’t just about technology and engineering, Any branch of science is fair game, the recent rise in Climate Fiction or Cli-Fi being a fine example. Yes, the science is real, the effects of anthropogenic climate change extrapolated to its logical and potentially terrifying conclusion. Some Science Fiction provides a salutary warning, exploring the dangers as well as the positives.

Of course the science has to be plausible. Your readers need to believe in whatever technology or innovation you’ve come up with, and often those readers will themselves be scientists, or budding scientists. They wants innovations and technologies, scenarios and situations that extrapolate the possible, rather than the ludicrous or implausible. The reader has to think – this really could happen. We could be living in this world someday.

In some cases we already are. (In fact I sometimes feel that we might already be living in one of those dystopian novels that have been so popular of late!) Ideas and technologies that started out in fiction have become science fact. We’ve all seen Jean-Luc Pickard using an i-pad on the Star Ship Enterprise, men have walked on the moon, and we all have computers and use robots to help us with our daily lives. I have one that washes my dishes, and I really fancy one of those little hoover robots!

Science fiction is also the inspiration for the next generation of scientists. I’m not the only person to follow a career in science, influenced by the books I read when I was a child. And the authors of these books were often well renowned scientists in their own right, Isaac Asimov and Fred Hoyle being two that spring to mind.

This is what makes science fiction so special. The ideas and possibilities it allows us to explore. Let today’s science fiction become tomorrow’s science fact! (The good bits that is! I’ll pass on the dystopias!)