Free Foo Foo

Until midnight tonight you can download a free copy of Foo Foo using the coupon code UK82D. 

Get it here.

I've also dropped the price to the lowest possible: $.99.

I suppose the next step is to give steaks away to people who read it.*


*(No steaks are included with the ebook, yet.)

The Smashwords Adventure

I've taken Foo Foo down from LuLu and put it up on Smashwords, instead. Smashwords seems to have a wider distribution model, including stores for Sony, Amazon, and some that I've never even heard of.  Eventually, I'll return to LuLu for some hardback copies, but that's down the road a bit - there are a few more illustrations to be done before Foo Foo is ready for hardback.

Foo Foo at Smashwords

Smashwords has been an adventure, to be sure. Their formatting document is the War and Peace of style guides, and it took me about a week to make sure the Word copy of Foo Foo met their standards. It was worth it, though, because the book looks so much better than the LuLu version, and while the Style Guide is hefty, it is very easy to use and understand. In the end, I only had one problem from the AutoVetter (the program that scans your document for formatting errors), and that was one of my fonts was 2pts too large. Fixed and resubmitted in minutes, and it's now eligible for their premium catalog. I'm not sure how elite of a club that actually is, but I'd settle for even just a tiny bit of elite right now.

I had to redesign the cover, unfortunately, since I really liked the old cover with the dead rat. Smashwords doesn't allow the depiction of violence on their covers, and while the old cover ranks up there with Itchy and Scratchy in terms of horror content, I didn't want to risk being off the premium catalog because of it, so I just went ahead and did a little redesign.

The Smashwords site appeared to be a little slower than LuLu's, which isn't good since LuLu's site is already pretty slow. Thus far, though, the overall experience at Smashwords has been easier than LuLu's, formatting aside.

I've already made 6 revisions to the text (you can sort of get away with it if nobody has read your book), but I think that the Smashwords edition will be the standing edition for a while, at least. One of my writer friends suggested that the allegory was a little heavy-handed, so I took the effort to tone it down, some. I think it adds to the experience, personally.

Buttons and Tricks

Here are two illustrations from the upcoming hard and softback editions of Foo Foo.

The mouse with the flag is Buttons, an otherwise intelligent mouse that ends up getting sucked into the fervor of nationalism in the face of an invisible enemy.

The dark mouse is named Tricks, and he is armed with a blood-soaked hammer.

These were created using CAD software, then exported into Photoshop and the gray tones added. They are in black and white because the color printing process is so much more expensive.

I've got about 4 or 5 more to do.

Illustrations

I've been working on some illustrations for the hard and softcover editions of Foo Foo.  Unfortunately, I don't have much to share right now, but stay tuned.

Foo Foo, by Me

I've just self-published my first eBook, entitled Foo Foo. It is a young-adult parable about fear in the face of an invisible enemy as told from the perspective of mice. From idea to the first draft that hit LuLu, it took 60 hours. I've since made a few little tweaks to it based on reader feedback.

"The mice of the United Squeaks have been attacked by the rabbits that live under the chicken coop. Can Milton keep his neighbors from going crazy with fear?"

Foo Foo, by Patrick Riot

I hope you enjoy it, or Little Bunny Foo Foo will get you.

Soul Identity, by Dennis Batchelder

Title: Soul Identity
Author: Dennis Batchelder
Rating: 3/5 Riots
Format: Kindle
Price: Free

Plot Blurb: You can't take it with you...but what if you could?

Most people believe their souls outlive their bodies. Most people would find an organization that tracks their souls into the future and passes on their banked money and memories compelling.

Scott Waverly isn't like most people. He spends his days finding and fixing computer security holes. And Scott is skeptical of his new client's claim that they have been calculating and tracking soul identities for almost twenty-six hundred years.

Are they running a freaky cult? Or a sophisticated con job?

Scott needs to save Soul Identity from an insider attack. Along the way, he discovers the importance of the bridges connecting people's lives.

Review: This was one of the first works that I picked up from Amazon, most notably because it was one of the few freebies of modern fiction that I could find at the time. For the price, I have to admit to not being disappointed by Soul Identity, however as a whole it's just... Meh.

For the most part the protagonist (Scott Waverly) moves through the story like a greased-up technophilic superman. He has no flaws. Many chapters end with his getting his Input/Output on with a hot-nerd Russian programmer named Val. He's always one or two steps ahead of the villain. Scott smacks of Mary-Sue because of these things. The only thing he doesn't seem to know about is the 2600-year-old conspiracy that everyone else seems to know about.

Some of the characters, beyond the protagonist, seem a tad cardboard. We do not meet the villain until the end so he seems rather one-dimensional. He's cool and collected when we first meet him, but he quickly turns into Snidely Whiplash by the end. Another character that is totally unbelievable is Bob, a Soul Identity errand boy. He switches his entire world-view in under two days, using the excuse that he's "grown" a lot during that time. Bullshit. World-views tend to be set pretty solid without some sort of soul-shattering event that makes one question that world-view.

The plot does not feel organic; it feels scripted, almost too convenient. We move from event to event without any real feeling of complication. Obstacles that are put before the protagonists are torn down like paper. For example, toward the end Scott and Val are thrown off of the Soul Identity campus and ordered not to return, however, Scott socially engineers his way back in via the guy who threw them out in the first place. Too convenient... Too scripted. Thus, reading Soul Identity feels like reading source code instead of a book:

10 print "Here is a supposed complication."
20 x = plot_complication_solution
30 if scott = x then print "Scott wins!"; goto 10
40 if val = x then print "Val Wins!"; goto 10
50 print "*** Error *** We should never reach line 50."

Beyond these issues, the book was "fun" and mildly entertaining, and even humorous in some spots. I would encourage Batchelder to continue writing and honing his craft, but I doubt that I'm personally going to shell out 3 bucks for the sequel to this novel. You might feel differently, so give it a shot, at least.

Cleopatra, by Henry Rider Haggard

Title: Cleopatra
Author: Henry Rider Haggard
Rating: 4/5 Riots
Format: Kindle

Price: Free
 

Plot Blurb: Originally published in 1889, Cleopatra is the story of Harmachis, a Pharaoh of Egyptian lineage secretly conspiring against the manipulative, petulant and beautiful Cleopatra, the last of the Egyptian Pharaohs. The priests prepare Harmachis for his destiny: assassinate the Greek pretender Cleopatra and seize the throne for the glory of Egypt, but can Harmachis resist the seductive machinations of his enemy?

Review: This is a thoroughly entertaining romp through the dusk of Ancient Egypt as seen through the eyes of Harmachis, the real Pharaoh in a Kingdom that is being drained of her riches by the extravagant Cleopatra. The plot is a solid one, and it is an interesting twist on the well-known Mark Antony and Cleopatra love story.

Haggard is quite good at his craft. The emotion is well-conveyed and Harmachis is a wholly sympathetic character. When he falls in love with Cleopatra, we do as well. When she betrays him, that knife cuts us just as deep.

Where Haggard really shows his literary chops, however, is in the style of the language: the story is written as if it were translated from hieroglyphics that were pulled from a dusty papyrus scroll. This gives the story a feeling of authenticity that I found enjoyable, but I will readily admit that this might not be everyone's cup of cesium.  Here's an excerpt:

I, Harmachis, who cast aside the opening flower of our hope, who turned from the glorious path, who forgot the voice of God in hearkening to the voice of woman.

Reminiscent of Budge!

As for formatting issues, the text seems a little crowded during chapter and section transitions as there are no blank lines, but it's nothing that can't be easily ignored. The rest of the formatting is pretty solid.