The Best of 2012

Each year, the reviewers here at the New Podler Review of Books pick the book (or books) which we feel are the very best independently published (or small press) works. The only other requirement is that we reviewed it here on the blog. Here are the winners for 2012.

Libby Cone had two picks: "My favorite books of 2012 were Fred Setterberg's Lunch Bucket Paradise and Scott Dominic Carpenter's This Jealous Earth. Both featured excellent writing and interesting characters. Both had something intelligent to say about modern life."

Rob Steiner had one pick:

"For the second year in a row, I'll have to go with Colin McComb. Oathbreaker Book Two: The Magus's Tale had the beautiful language and vivid world-building I liked from Book One, but with different characters that gave added depth McComb's Empire of Terona. I'm looking forward to Book Three."

It was difficult for me to pick the best story for 2012. There were five really good books among the twelve I reviewed so narrowing it down to one required me to nitpick, quibble, and split hairs. But I had to settle for two.

Jeremy Robert Johnson's second short story collection, We Live Inside You, revealed the inner monsters that compel us to do terrible things. These monsters can be anything from arrogant ideologies to emotional voids that desperately need filling. Oh yeah, there's the occasional parasite too. His writing is gritty and honest. His characters are very real; you've seen them around town, unaware of what churned inside them.

My other, very different choice is M. Terry Green's Shaman, Friend, Enemy. I thoroughly enjoyed how Green's characters evolved in their complexity and realism. No cardboard here, not even her antagonist. Green built up the conflict and resolved it with mastery. It's a pleasure to see a writer's improvement parallel that of her protagonist. Although this is the second book in the series, one need not have read the first to enjoy this one, but it wouldn't hurt.

We reviewed 24 stories and rejected over 250. Now that we have a new reviewer on board we hope to improve upon that. The submissions window will be opening soon.

Forged in Death by Jim Melvin

Forged in Death, the first of six books in Jim Melvin's Death Wizard Chronicles, starts out with a scene from a claustrophobic's nightmare – Torg, the Death-Knower and king of the Tugars, is imprisoned by the evil wizard Invictus at the bottom of a cold, dark pit bored hundreds of feet into a mountain. He can't stretch out because the pit is too small, and he can't lean against the walls, because they're enchanted with flesh-burning magic. He either has to stand or curl into an uncomfortably tight fetal position.

We're only in the prologue, and the book is already giving me the willies. And that's a good thing.

Torg eventually escapes the pit and embarks on an Odyssey-like journey back to his desert home to stop Invictus from enslaving the world of Triken.

Jim Melvin's world-building was at once fantastic and logical, from the unique human cultures to the strange twists on traditional monsters. It's obvious Melvin put a lot of thought into the ecosystems that support his world. For example, Torg discovers a race of monkeys that live deep underground. How do they sustain themselves? By carving meat off a gigantic tentacled monster that inhabits the caverns, like microscopic mites on human skin. How does the monster survive? By eating the monkeys. It's an elegant symbiosis, and Melvin portrays other unique creatures similarly throughout the book.

Forged in Death has a non-traditional magic system – Torg enters a state of temporary death, feeds off the power of the afterlife, and then returns to his body magically recharged (which is why he's called a “Death-Knower”). The evil wizard Invictus, however, gets his power from the sun. This is a switch from most fantasies, which usually have the good guys feeding off the sun and the villains using death for their evil schemes.

The book also felt like a primer for real-world Theravada Buddhism (something the author acknowledges). The characters, Torg in particular, describe the principles behind meditation, karma, the eternal quest for enlightenment, and reincarnation. As one who's ignorant of Buddhist scriptures, I now want to read up on the subject to learn more.

I do have some quibbles with an otherwise outstanding novel.

The hero Torg was a likable character and an all-powerful wizard. But at times he seemed too good and too all-powerful. He won every battle unless he chose to lose, like when he allowed his enemies to throw him into the pit. I wanted Torg to fail or make more mistakes, and then watch him overcome those failures to become a different man by the end of the book.

Also, Forged in Death was a cliff-hanger book. I'm not a fan of the style, but it's a personal nit-pick of mine and not anything Melvin did wrong. Readers who enjoy cliff-hanger endings, however, will see no problem with it.

Forged in Death was beautifully written and a worthy addition to the epic fantasy genre. I hope to see Torg challenged a bit more in future books. I also look forward to learning more about Invictus, whose brief appearances painted him as an “interesting” villain. And the final battle between Torg and Invictus -- Triken's two most powerful wizards -- promises to be truly world-shaking.

Forged in Death is available on Amazon.

This Jealous Earth by Scott Dominic Carpenter

This Jealous Earth by Scott Dominic Carpenter. Midwestern Gothic Press.

It is interesting that one of these sharply written short stories, “The Spirit of the Dog,” takes place in a uranium mine. Instead of looking for sparkly bits of gold, the miners run around with Geiger counters after a preliminary blast, looking for little bursts of radiation. Most of these stories involve connections: their breaking, their forming, their resilience, their failure. Just as the forces binding particles in the atomic nucleus are enormously strong, many of the characters in these pieces are drawn, despite themselves, to their imperfect families, to their treasured pets. The opposite occurs in “The Spirit of the Dog”; the various miners pit themselves against the new, pretty engineer. Their individual stubborn egos form a sort of misogynist hive mind whose evil ideas drive everyone apart.

The egos of squabbling or drunk parents get in the way, but their kids band together for mischief or otherwise store up memories that refuse to die, and, when probed, yield little bursts of love. In “Inheritance,” a computer programmer is reminded of the illogical kindnesses of his alcoholic father as he cleans out the latter's home after his death, and has to confront some of his darker ideas of the family romance as he sees himself through the eyes of his son. In “The Death Button,” a young college student sells his plasma to make rent; he is caught up in the drudgery of survival until, as the subject of a psychology experiment, he is compelled to note each instance he thinks of death. His inadvertent running over of a squirrel starts him obsessing about death, spurring him to behave more decisively towards someone he loves.

The title story concerns a family in the last throes of preparation for the rapture. The son doesn't buy into it. As his parents scurry around doing useless things like housecleaning and clothes packing, he thinks about practical, Earthly concerns like money and food. Slowly, the rest of the family, starting with his sister, realize the strength of their own connections. What girl would choose the uncertain amusements of Heaven when she has a brother who calls her “Kitty Cat,” and who tries to arrange future care for her hamster?

Blackened Cottage by A.E. Richards

A young woman is haunted by a past she can't remember. She feels threatened by her father and his lascivious friend. In her efforts to elude the pair and track down her brother, a third man hunts her for his own depredations.

Set in England in 1875, the story has a definite Gothic feel to it. Richards is adept at illustrating the scene. The "Blackened Cottage" where Lisbeth, our protagonist, lives evokes fear with every creaking floorboard. The air she breathes threatens to smother her in gloom.

Richards doesn't hold back with her descriptive narrative. Every adversity that Lisbeth faces is given its due in highly detailed prose. She gets credit for her inventive metaphors. Here are three brief selections that jumped out at me:

There is no response but the wind’s drunken slur.
I whisper with the breath of a mosquito's wings...
His nails scrape my skull like a wolf scraping soil for bones.

The story is primarily told from Lisbeth's point of view. Not only does she provide the narrative but we also get to read her diary entries and letters to her absent mother, who left the family for reasons unknown (part of Lisbeth's memory loss). To add to the drama, Richards also offers diary entries from the father and wicked confessions from the third man. By doing so, Richards helps the reader bond with Lisbeth and sympathize with her plight. There really are men after her.

While I believe the intent was to maintain tension, I found a lot of passages that repeated character intentions and internal monologues. The third man's confessions and the father's diary entries say much of the same thing with different wording. Lisbeth dwells on her fate at the hands of one man or another and revisits her revulsion with each encounter.

As this is "a psychological thriller with a twist", you'll have to look hard to find the clues that Richards gives the reader. Other than one obvious clue, they're hard to find and Richards throws a couple red herrings at the reader to mislead us. Once the truth was revealed, I went back and re-read some sections from objective voices. I have to say that Richards pushed the limit here. Even with the clarity afforded by the reveal, there are certain sentences which cross the line. I can't say anything more without spoiling it.

As for the technicals, there were many dialogue punctuation errors, primarily involving commas. Spelling typos were minimal. There was also one historical inaccuracy. At one point, Lisbeth talks about a distance in meters, but the metric system hadn't been adopted outside of the scientific community in England at the time. However, Richards used miles to show the distance between towns. I think most readers will overlook these things.

In summary, Blackened Cottage is a solid debut from A.E. Richards. Her descriptive narrative underscores her attention to detail, helping readers get lost in the dreary winter of 19th century England. Characters are vivid too. While the red herrings thrown at the reader are the size of bluefin tuna, Richards holds true to the plot and her protagonist. Fans of psychological thrillers who don't mind a trip back to the 19th century, or Victorian era historical romance readers looking for something different, will enjoy this book.

Blackened Cottage is available for the Kindle on Amazon UK and US.

Cover Story - Libby Cone

One thing that an indie author has to be is resourceful. Book covers can be expensive and sometimes you just don't have the money to splurge, especially when you're publishing a short story for 99¢. Libby Cone explains how public domain artwork and graphic design shareware can be an indie author's best friends.

I have designed the covers (if you can call them that) for all my Kindle books and short stories. I hired a designer I found on LinkedIn to execute my idea for the self-published paperback edition of War on the Margins. She did a very good job.

When I published the Kindle edition of Flesh and Grass I used a Dutch painting that I thought was in the public domain. When I found out it wasn't, I obtained a public domain painting.

I did the "cover" for "Quantum Fashionistas" using GimP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), but had to redo it when I realized its definition wasn't high enough. GimP is somewhat daunting, but I eventually figured out how I did it the first time and produced a reasonable facsimile!

Libby Cone's works can be found on Amazon.

Cover Story - Adam Copeland

April 2020 Update: Adam's website is down or gone so no links from this article to his site are going to work.

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When hunting for an illustrator, the Web is often the best option for an indie author. Online galleries are the most convenient place to check out an artist's work. Adam Copeland realized that freelance artists are in the same boat as indie authors. They're unknowns looking to make their mark. Working together is a win-win for both parties.

When it came time to choose a cover for my book I perused DeviantArt.com, looking for artwork that was similar to what I had in mind. I found it, and made sure the artist was someone who was good, but not a professional (i.e., didn't make his living from his art). I emailed him and asked if he would be willing to be paid to make cover art for me. He was thrilled that someone wanted to offer money for his hobby and agreed.

My original concept, however, was still very complex, time consuming, and expensive, so we compromised on a simpler version. The result is the art I have now, which I've had nothing but compliments on. I've had comments such as "unique" and "iconic" and "eye catching."

I've also contracted a local artist to make images for a book trailer (you can see it on my website). That guy is a very talented up and coming recent college grad whom I met through a mutual friend. Again he wasn't a "professional" and his cost was significantly affordable for the quality I got. I blogged about the process we went through in creating my trailer which you can also find on my website.

The movie trailer can be a great marketing tool for an indie author. Here are Adam's blog posts about his experience:

• The First Steps
• A Focus on Individual Image Creation
• Part 2.5 – Music
• Story Boarding and Finish

On Adam's website, you'll find a list of places where you can purchase Echoes of Avalon and read excerpts from the book.

Little Deadly Things by Harry Steinman

Once they were friends. Now two scientists race-one to save mankind, one to destroy it.

Nanotechnology made Eva Rozen the world's wealthiest woman. Rage made her the deadliest. Marta Cruz alone can stand between Eva and the death of millions. But will a crippling illness stop Marta first?

That's a great blurb. Unfortunately Steinman takes far too long to get to it. Except for the intriguing first chapter, he spends the first half of the book on back story. The plot is ignored in favor of character development, which might not have been bad had anything interesting happened. It isn't until two-thirds of the way through the book that we get a hint that the plot blurb is happening.

The three main characters (and their specialties) are Eva (chemistry and computers), Marta (biology), and Jim (good with dogs). After the first chapter, Steinman takes us back to their youth where we see how they handled childhood adversity. Steinman does a great job developing the characters, but I didn't really like them. I found Marta to be self-righteous, and her messiah complex made her insufferable. Jim started out as a likable character until anger management turns him into a goofy dolt. After a period of sullen petulance, he redeems himself by returning to a character the reader can root for. Eva's childhood is so horrific it borders on unbelievable. However, extraordinary characters are permitted to develop from extraordinary circumstances. While Eva is a well-crafted antagonist, her actions clearly show that she's a villain.

How these three remain friends strains credibility. Eva delights in antagonizing Marta, who is so stiff and idealistic that she can't see how the system works. If Eva really was Marta's friend, she'd explain her plans to Marta before the biologist's head exploded. Instead, she revels in making Marta's blood boil. But later, she acts surprised when Marta doesn't trust her and uses it to justify her terrible behavior. Steinman could explain how their friendship developed after their initial contact, but instead rushes through the crucial developing years. The transition from the introductory period to when Marta and Jim become a couple (a span of two years) all happens on one page! We don't get to see how this romance came about, nor do we get any indication that Eva's interest in Jim is anything more than a brief curiosity.

There is one time when Eva helps Jim stay out of jail and Marta to the hospital to deliver her baby. It could've been a pivotal moment in the trio's relationship, but instead it becomes the one shining moment that the characters cling to as proof of friendship. Honestly, that isn't enough in light of the negative interactions that Steinman shares with the reader.

Oh and that leads to the fourth character, Dana, who is the son of Marta and Jim. He factors into the second half of the book when Jim is no longer useful to the plot. Dana becomes another point of contention between Eva and Marta. "Aunt Eva" takes Dana under her wing and teaches him "ghosting" (hacking). An incident, which Steinman withholds from us, sends a crying teenaged Dana into the arms of his already jealous mother. Marta reacts by keeping Dana from Eva, and it's the final straw as far as she is concerned. The details of this pivotal incident that pushes Eva over the edge is deliberately left vague. We don't know what was said and none of these supposedly great friends tries to get this worked out, so all three of them look bad.

The good news is that Steinman did his homework. The nanotech applications are all solid science, though he is a little guilty of explaining how it all works and slowing down the story's pace. What worked really well was when he led us through the biochemical reactions that went on in a character when a dramatic moment, like death, struck. I would've preferred more story time spent on showing us the effects of nanotech on society instead of the melodrama.

From the acknowledgements, I learned that Steinman utilized an editor and proofreaders. However, I found about 40 typos. And I have to wonder why no one called his attention to some troubling storyline tangents. I don't want to spoil it so details are going to be left out. There's a scene at the climax where Jim is involved in a fight for his life. His mind wanders and he's having a flashback about the relationship he had with his parents after he got married. Sure, there's time for a thought or two but it goes on for several paragraphs; two pages of Kindle text! This isn't the time for lengthy reflection, not just from the character's standpoint but this is the climax of the story! It's a distraction to the reader!

In conclusion, Little Deadly Things is a well researched novel with well developed characters. Unfortunately I didn't like the characters all that much (you might) and their long friendship seemed unlikely. I spent too much of this review pointing out the flaws. There's a solid kernel of story here, I just feel it needs work. As this is Steinman's first novel, I believe he'll learn what works and what doesn't and come up with a stronger work the next time around.

Little Deadly Things is available on Amazon.

Demonworld by Kyle B. Stiff

Demonworld by Kyle B. Stiff is a highly imagined Lovecraftian tale that combines science fiction, fantasy, and horror in a way I've never seen. It's dark and dystopian, but with elements of humanity that hint at a hopeful future in the books to come.

The world is dominated by monsters called “flesh demons." Most human tribes appease the flesh demon “gods” by offering them human sacrifices. But a small hope for humanity exists in a technologically advanced city called Haven. It has survived and thrived by staying isolated on a small, bleak island in the middle of a vast ocean, hidden for hundreds of years from the flesh demons and aggressive human city-states.

Wodan, a gifted teenage boy from Haven, finds himself mysteriously exiled from his home for no reason he can comprehend. Wodan has to battle flesh demons, their twisted minions, and humans just as warped and evil as the demons, to return home to Haven and discover who kidnapped him and dropped him into the middle of the wasteland.

Demonworld was a book of extremes for me.

Many times I was floored by beautiful prose or a brilliant plot twist. The story and setting were intriguing and kept me turning the pages. I was also impressed with the editing, since I didn't find one typo or grammar mistake.

But the next moment, I was jarred out of the fantasy world by 21^st century American slang uttered by supposedly primitive tribesmen (I saw “ding-bat,” “nit-wit,” and “weirdo;” one primitive referred to his biceps as “cannons”). The events in the book were far removed from our own time, so I would liked to have seen dialogue with slang and speech patterns that evolved from this strange world, not our present day.

Another issue I had was character “monologue-ing.” A villain went on for pages on how slavery was the natural state of humanity. Later, a good guy went on for pages on why humans had the potential to be more powerful than they imagined. These speeches were interesting in a philosophical sense, but they brought the action to a hard stop. I tended to skip most of them. I think their content would've been more dramatic if presented as an argument between two characters.

It was Demonworld's setting and mysteries that saved the book for me and set up a solid foundation for the projected nine additional books. As long as the author works through these craft issues in future installments, I think the Demonworld saga will be a highly entertaining series.

Demonworld is available on Amazon.

Cover Story - Thomas Carpenter

In his search for an illustrator, sci-fi author Thomas Carpenter found one much closer than he thought. He graciously shared his book cover experience with us and offers some advice to other indie authors.

Initially I hired out cover design to a friend that did work similar to book design. The first covers he made for The Digital Sea and The Godhead Machine were passable, but not exciting at all. After he made those, I asked him to do the cover for my YA dystopia novel called Gamers. Unfortunately, we didn't see eye-to-eye on the design process. He hadn't read the book and didn't understand the YA market, so I fired him. In the meantime, my wife had purchased Photoshop with the idea that eventually she could make covers. Once I fired the other guy, I asked her to go for it (she'd done a short story cover by this time, which was a good starter cover). We'd walked the bookstores and studied covers for a while so we know want we wanted.

The only problem was that we were about to leave for a few weeks and the book had been waiting for two months for the cover, so in a forty hour period, she made the cover to Gamers from scratch. It's still one of my favorites. After that, I realized she could do it and, except for my anthology series and a few early short stories, she's been doing all my covers. She's also gone back and redone the covers to The Digital Sea and The Godhead Machine. I couldn't be happier, plus the savings on an in-house cover designer is huge.


Having said that, we both know that for a different type of book, like a fantasy series, we might have to hire a designer who can create art from scratch, which we know will be more money, but a cover really has to match the feel of the book.

And is price a factor? Not if you get the right cover. The thing to remember is that the book will be owned by you for your lifetime plus seventy years. Even a $500 cover will pay for itself over that time period.

To see more Carpenter book cover revisions, click here. You can check out all of Tom's books on Amazon or visit his website for other bookstores.

Amazon Links to Works Featured Here:
Gamers
The Digital Sea
The Godhead Machine

Cover Story - M. Terry Green

M. Terry Green is one of those authors fortunate enough to have graphic design skills. However, she learned that the path to cover creation can be a tortuous one. She was generous enough to provide us with a history of her Techno-Shaman series book covers.

Hired an Illustrator

First Novel - For the first book in my urban fantasy series, I hired an illustrator who did a great job and I was thrilled. She created the raw artwork by painting in Photoshop and then I put the cover together using Photoshop and Illustrator (I have some background in graphic design). Although I liked the cover (in fact, it’s still my favorite), I did receive some negative feedback from reviewers (which wasn’t specific).

Second Novel - Prior to releasing the second novel, I wasn’t yet convinced I needed to change the first cover and so went back to the illustrator who had done it and asked for artwork for the second book. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to visualize my protagonist in quite the same way. We called it quits after a few iterations and I paid her for her time and thanked her for her hard work. At that point, I decided to start from scratch on both covers and design them myself.

Drew Them Myself

I Can’t Draw - Unfortunately, I don’t have the artistic chops to either draw or paint. My graphic design skills are relegated to digital work that’s mostly line art. So, the first thing I tried to do was create a line art version of my protagonist. Because it’s a series, I hunted stock photo sites for a reference model who bore some resemblance to my character and who was available in different poses. I did find a model at iStockphoto and contacted the photographer in Romania for a color version of one shot in particular. She got back to me quickly (she was just about to go on maternity leave!), uploaded the photograph, and I purchased it from the stock site.

Line Art Misfire - But, my fantasy protagonist is a young woman with blindingly white hair. That’s not a tweak or a filter that can be done in Photoshop. So, I set about rendering her in Illustrator. I was pleased with the end result (after creating over 1,000 paths to do it) but then decided I didn’t like it on the cover (!). I know from previous graphic design work that I sometimes have to see a concept through to the end before I can tell if it’s going to work or not. So, after an intense weekend with Illustrator, I went back to square one.

The Competition - I collected urban fantasy series covers in an effort to understand what the rest of the genre was doing. You might expect that this should have been my first step and yet I knew that the protagonist I had created (a techno-shaman) was going to be at odds with most urban fantasy leads, in that she’s not a kick-ass, bare-midriff, crossbow-toting babe. Instead, I focused on how books in a series are linked by design motifs, colors and fonts. Because I wasn’t happy with an illustrated white-haired protagonist, couldn’t find stock photos that could be manipulated to portray one (let alone in multiple poses with regular street clothes), I decided to forgo the protagonist entirely and concentrate on objects in the stories.

Objects - Although I liked the tripartite division of the original cover, I abandoned it in effort to get something that’d look better at a thumbnail size. I decided to keep the reference to the urban skyline and added specific objects related to the story plus a dose of design elements that refer to shamanism. I was glad to have two covers that I could use for the first and second novels, though I wasn’t thrilled with them. Again, the response was tepid to negative.

I Wanted an Illustrator

I Was Sick of Designing - By the time the third novel was close to being done, I had decided yet again to go with an illustrator. I wanted to be hands-off with the graphics and let them worry about the motifs and models. I cruised deviantART and found photo-manipulators and illustrators whose work I liked and who were entirely out of my price range. Most of what I liked was more than I wanted to spend and the work that I could afford looked like something I might be able to do myself. Even so, I found the work of some the artists that I ran across so extraordinary that I decided to spend some money.

What to Tell Them - My first step in hiring an illustrator was writing a description of what I wanted–and I was stumped. I don’t expect artists to read all three books in my series to understand what the cover needs to be. I thought I ought to at least be able to do that. And yet, I didn’t have a clue about the essential visual elements that would tell a prospective reader what they’d encounter inside the book. In hindsight, I think the object-style covers failed in this respect and my inability to describe the necessary look and feel to my initial illustrator is one reason we were never able to settle on a look in our second effort together. In terms of instructions, I tried to distill the common visuals in each each story: my protagonist, the use of high-tech goggles, lightning, an urban setting, and action. I also surveyed covers again for examples to which I could point, concentrating on the growing number of independently published urban fantasy covers. Frequently, I was able to discover who did the artwork (discussed about in writer forums, thanked in acknowledgements or a blog, found independently by Googling book cover artists and seeing their portfolios). I found that other indies were running into the same problems I faced: urban fantasy covers are dominated by photo-manipulation; it’s hard to find the same models in different poses; the photos that fit the bill are getting used repeatedly. I was back to designing my own.

Me Again

In my second survey of covers above, I made a few new general observations: indie covers in a series change little from book to book; human faces and figures are obscured, cropped tightly, or silhouetted; the quality of indie book covers is on a dramatic rise; traditional publishing covers are still clearly identifiable through their use of dedicated photo shoots and models. My final versions of the covers employ several of my specific findings for my genre: a textured background to imply the grunge of urban fantasy a primary unifying visual (the goggles) a secondary unifying visual (lightning) the same fonts (including a custom letter to hint at shamanism) the same layout (author name up top, snippet of a review, unique visual within the goggles, title as big as it can be, name of the series at the bottom) a change in color for each book a varying silhouette of my protagonist Although only one reviewer has mentioned liking the new covers, that’s an improvement. In terms of graphic design, I played to my own strengths by colorizing stock photos, using two-dimensional art in multiple layers, and keeping it simple–a big help in making sure the covers worked at the thumbnail size. At this point, I can say I’m satisfied and able to create new covers relatively quickly and easily. And that’s important because all I really want to do is write. All three novels are available for purchase with the latest covers. Go through Terry's website to select your preferred book format or store.

Cover Story - Rob Steiner

A great book cover inspires readers to ask the question the book seeks to answer. Since my design skills scream “amateur” (to put it kindly), I hired professionals to design great covers for two books I will publish in 2013. I think both designers did a fantastic job conveying the question of each book, and it was a pleasure to work with them both.

ZERVAKAN

ZERVAKAN is a fantasy novel set in a world with 19th century technology -- steam engines, guns, telegraphs -- where two magical bands of light suddenly appear in the sky one night, spanning the horizons like rings around the planet. A scientist and a priest must discover the mystery behind the rings before their world is consumed by an evil they're not ready to fight.

Given the setting, I wanted a cover with a 19th century feel, but one that said "fantasy" and not "historical."

TJ Lomas brought my vision to life. He found an old photograph and added two bands of magical light on the horizons. He added color to the bands so they stood out. It's simple, but elegant. It grabs your attention and makes you ask, "What's with those two bands of light?"

ZERVAKAN will be released in January 2013, but you can read the "pre-published" version on Quarkfolio.com.

UMBRA CORPS

UMBRA CORPS (a working title) is an alternate history/sci-fi novel about a Roman Republic that survives its true-life fall and reaches the stars. A star ship crew of rogues must help the 12-year-old Consular Heir escape Rome with the terrifying secret behind the Republic's god-like technology.

For this cover, I worked with professional illustrator Stone Perales. My idea was to combine something iconically Roman with an anachronism that told readers it was alternate history.

The result: Mark Antony holding a musket while looking down on his Legions as they sack Rome.

Stone did a wonderful job capturing the ethereal look on Antony's face and the subtle detailing of his armor. My hope is that readers will see the cover and think, "Why is that ancient Roman soldier holding a musket? I've got to read this book to find out!"

UMBRA CORPS will be released in 2013.

Cover Story

You can't judge a book by its cover.

While that statement is generally true in the figurative sense, when it comes to actual books we readers really do judge books by their covers. Despite all the lofty talk about literature being a form of art, the hardcore truth is that it is primarily a form of entertainment. The publisher, whether corporate behemoth or indie author, has to convince people that reading the book will entertain them. How do they do that? By capturing your eye with an appealing cover.

Which of the following covers looks more interesting? There is no right answer. Some might prefer the simplicity of text. Others are drawn in by the illustrated cover of a scientist at work in his lab. I prefer the illustrated cover and I suspect most people do too. It offers a glimpse into the story. While The Time Machine is a sci-fi classic known to a great deal of people alive today, there will always be a new audience that has never read the work. It is up to the publisher to find a way to lure in these potential readers.

While publishing companies have a staff, formulas, and focus groups for determining what will work for a cover, the indie author doesn't. He/She has to figure out on their own what they should put on the cover of their book. Sure, they can simply stick to the textual Title and Author cover, but that really doesn't grab most people. Images grab eyeballs. We're a visual species. It doesn't matter if it's cars, houses, or clothes. If it looks dull (or crappy) to us, we're not going to buy it.

There's also a matter of budget. Indie authors don't have the deep pockets that publishing companies do. Some authors can and will spend whatever it takes to ensure their vision is met, but plenty have to find a way to optimize quality versus cost. We can't all afford a Mercedes.

The sad truth is that throwing a book on Amazon isn't a guarantee to a best seller. It's safe to say that 99% of indie published books struggle to sell more than 100 copies (a great deal sell less). Self-publishing can become an expensive hobby. If one's work doesn't break even, it can be hard to justify the expense. We've seen plenty of submissions here at the New Podler where authors spent nothing on their book covers and it showed! That's not to say one has to spend thousands of dollars for a good cover, but when authors sacrifice quality (whether by covers or editing) they shoot themselves in the foot. Would you buy a car that looked like it had been built by a four-year old? Would you spend $500,000 on a house with holes in the roof, broken windows, and leaking pipes?

Setting cost aside, the book cover has to be something that grabs a reader's attention. While I feel that it should be something that captures the essence of the book's contents, plenty of covers are just a mish mash of random images which may or may not have anything to do with the story. I could start a discussion of the marketing science behind book covers but that's beyond the scope of this post and my intent. Instead, we're going to have a series of posts over the next couple of weeks about how some indie authors have approached crafting covers for their books. Consider this the introduction.

Authors In This Series:
Thomas Carpenter
Libby Cone
Adam Copeland
M. Terry Green
Rob Steiner

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DED

Separating the Wheat from the Spam

Our email address has been snatched up by an email marketing company. No real surprise there. This is the Internet Age after all.

We don't mind having our site listed on indie book reviewer lists. Most of them are courteous to both author and reviewer. They list the reviewer's likes and dislikes and other submission guidelines, and even provide a link to the reviewer's site. This is the right way to go about it. They save the author time in their hunt for reviews and the reviewers from having to deal with books they're not interested in.

But that's not how this marketing company operates. Authors pay a fee to generate an email marketing campaign. Judging by the format of these emails, they fill out a form listing pertinent info about themselves and their book. Upon completion, it gets shot out to every book reviewer in their database, regardless of the reviewer's book preferences.

We're tired of this.

There's a reason why we have submission guidelines. There's a list of what we're not interested in and who's available and what they like to read. It's a waste of our time to have to go through these blind submissions, telling Joe Schmoe that his 101 Ways to Serve Lima Beans cookbook isn't what we want to read.

The other interesting trend to these spam submissions is the quality. There's a definitive lower level of quality to this group. As a sweeping generalization, I'm going to accuse the mass mailers of trying to do things on the cheap. Many (not all) don't utilize an editor or spend the extra time proofreading their own work. Acceptances are far lower for this group than for those who follow procedure. We still have to read the submission, track down some sample chapters on the Web, and, after confirming the material is third rate, send out a rejection letter. More time lost.

As a whole, authors who take the time to check us out and follow our submission guidelines have invested more time in their work. And it shows. Even if we reject them (we have to; there's just too many), 80% of the time quality is not an issue.

We could just ignore everyone who lacks "submission" in their subject line, but that would be rude, right?

Instead, filters are in place to weed out spam-like marketing campaigns. Submissions from people who blindly submit to us via these mass mailers are deleted unread. We're not completely heartless though. An auto-responder lets them know that their submission is "improperly formatted" and provides a link to our submission guidelines page.

I'm hoping that the lazy authors will see what they have to do and either improve the quality of their work or just go away.

I don't know if this post comes across as a rant, whining, or rational. Frankly, I don't care. We're up to 30 submissions a month again. There's only time to review a fraction of those books. The less time spent sifting through the slush to find something of quality we want to read, the better.

If you have the time and the desire, why not join us? Take on some of the load. It doesn't matter if it's just one book review per year (though the more the better). Help us shine a light on those indie authors who deserve some time in the spotlight.

Quantum Fashionistas by Libby Cone

Full Disclosure: Yes, Libby Cone is a fellow reviewer here at the New Podler Review of Books. She'd told me about the story over the summer and I was intrigued. She sent me the finished story a couple of weeks ago. I enjoyed it so much that I offered to review it.

You can shout "shenanigans" if you want, but I believe future reviewers will bear me out.

In "Quantum Fashionistas", we're introduced to Sharon, a middle-aged actuary for an insurance company. The twist here is that the company works across multiple universes. Yes, breakthroughs in quantum physics have enabled travel from one universe to another, provided one can afford the cost. Sharon is one of a select few people who can handle multiverse travel without losing her wits. Still, she's replaceable and constantly frets about her pension.

While on assignment in sigma-Germany, she gets a call from her boss explaining that they have a special assignment for her. Unfortunately it involves time travel, an even riskier form of transport in which she could find herself transmuted into a different form entirely. In fact, her roommate is a refugee from another time and quantum reality and is stuck in alpha-Manhattan with her.

Sharon soon finds herself caught up in a struggle between opposing forces and prays that she can complete her assignment before playing Russian Roulette with quantum realities leaves catastrophically altered.

This is a clever story. Libby has mixed quantum physics with the insurance industry and spiced it up with high fashion. While she might play fast and loose with the scientific details, the basics are dead on. The reader is encouraged to not sweat the small stuff and just enjoy the ride.

My complaint, if you can it that, is the length. At just under 8,000 words it's too long for a short story and too short for a novella. The pace feels rushed. Neither Sharon nor the reader can catch their breath as we're whisked from one destination to another. Libby has crammed so much into this story that it begs to be taken to longer form where the reader can digest what's going on. This would make for a great series of novels.

In summary, Libby has taken a fresh approach to multiverse fiction. By knocking the concept of multiple universes down to the mundanities of everyday business, it spares the reader the dizzying implications that quantum physics throws at us. "Quantum Fashionistas" is a highly enjoyable read and worth checking out.

"Quantum Fashionistas" is available for the Kindle.

Kill Screen by Benjamin Reeves

Kill Screen by Benjamin Reeves is as creepy as a late-night session of Resident Evil in a dark basement. An apt description, considering the book is about a dark and creepy video game that achieves sentience and drives its players insane.*

Jack Valentine, co-owner of the video game company Electronic Sheep, finds his partner and best friend Dexter Hayward dead in a bathtub filled with his own blood. It's a confirmed suicide – something to which Jack is not a stranger – but it spurs Jack to discover why his friend abruptly killed himself. Jack's investigation leads him to Evi, a mysterious computer program embedded in a video game under development at Electronic Sheep. Evi shows Jack terrifying things, including horrors from his own past. To save his sanity, and gain justice for Dexter, Jack has to discover what the program wants and how to stop it from causing more deaths.

Kill Screen is set in San Francisco during the 1990s, a heady time and place to be working in software development. A tech veteran himself, Reeves does a wonderful job depicting the joys and frustrations of developing software on the bleeding edge of technology.

Told in first-person point of view by Jack, we see how tortured and guilt-ridden he is over the death of his wife, something that drives his single-minded pursuit to learn why Dexter killed himself. The secondary characters in the Electronic Sheep offices were stock – the opinionated art director; the uber-coder who programmed at 60-words per minute; the sycophantic newb who never had an opinion until he heard his manager's first – but made me nostalgic for my own software development days during the '90s. I knew people like that. For me, the stock characters only added to Reeves's techie credibility.

Reeves's prose is wonderful, especially in a first-time novel. His metaphors and descriptions are highly original and convey a mood or mental image as concrete as any I've read by more experienced authors. However, my enthusiasm is tempered by the many spelling errors of the misplaced-word variety (“her” instead of “here”, etc.). They were numerous enough to notice, but not so bad as to avoid the book.

I hope this isn't the last we see of Evi. A sequel with Evi escaping onto the Internet would be an entertaining follow-up to a novel I highly recommend to fans of tech thrillers.

Kill Screen is available on Amazon.

* No, I'm not suggesting Resident Evil will achieve sentience and drive its players insane. But it is freakin' dark and creepy.

Buying book reviews: Valid marketing tool or false advertising?

First, let me emphasize that New Podler Review of Books does not and never has charged money for book reviews. The only payment we get is a copy of the books we review. So the following article and questions are simply posted for conversational purposes.

The New York Times has a story on the rise and fall of GettingBookReviews.com, a service owned by Todd Rutherford where, for a fee, authors could commission several dozen 5-star reviews and get them posted on Amazon and other online markets.

“I was creating reviews that pointed out the positive things, not the negative things,” Mr. Rutherford said. “These were marketing reviews, not editorial reviews.”

In essence, they were blurbs, the little puffs on the backs of books in the old days, when all books were physical objects and sold in stores. No one took blurbs very seriously, but books looked naked without them.

One of Mr. Rutherford’s clients, who confidently commissioned hundreds of reviews and didn’t even require them to be favorable, subsequently became a best seller. This is proof, Mr. Rutherford said, that his notion was correct. Attention, despite being contrived, draws more attention.

The system is enough to make you a little skeptical, which is where Mr. Rutherford finds himself. He is now suspicious of all online reviews — of books or anything else. “When there are 20 positive and one negative, I’m going to go with the negative,” he said. “I’m jaded.”

GettingBookReviews.com went out of business in 2011 due largely to Google suspending its advertising account, and Amazon removing most of its reviews from their site.

Authors, would you pay for book reviews? If so, would you pay extra for 5-star raves knowing their honesty was dubious at best?

Originally posted at Quarkfolio.

We Live Inside You by Jeremy Robert Johnson

I first heard about Jeremy Robert Johnson (JRJ) from Girl on Demand's POD-dy Mouth blog back in 2006. Her enthusiastic review of his short story collection, Angel Dust Apocalypse, led me to my first indie book purchase. I was not disappointed.

After writing two short novels, Siren Promised (co-written with Alan Clark and nominated for a Bram Stoker award) and The Extinction Journals, he focused on his publishing company, Swallowdown Press. Unlike most indie authors who form a publishing company under false pretense of being anything other than a vehicle for the author's own work, JRJ actually publishes the work of other indie authors that he enjoys (Forrest Armstrong, J. David Osborne, and Cody Goodfellow to name a few). We Live Inside You is JRJ's second short story collection, featuring his work published between 2006 and 2011. When I found out that JRJ finally got around to publishing another collection of his short stories, I had to pick up a copy.

From the cover it would be easy to dismiss We Live Inside You as a collection of parasitic body horror. But that would be a big mistake. Yes, there are three stories in which parasites appear but only in one of them, "When Susurrus Stirs", is it the focus of the story. In the other two, "Cathedral Mother" and "Laws of Virulence", the parasite's presence is secondary, a means to an end. The former is the story of how a young woman went from free love hippie to hardened anti-human ecoterrorist. The latter is the confession of how a guy who couldn't quit partying screwed up his last chance to salvage his marriage.

We Live Inside You is really about the emotions, needs, and ideologies that drive us and rule our lives. And in these stories they typically lead to terrible outcomes. The loneliness of a socially awkward orphan turns him into a thrill seeking cat burglar ("Persistence Hunting"). A father's mounting healthcare bills drive a daughter to stealing from drug dealers ("The Gravity of Benham Falls"). Ashamed of his father's weakness for alcohol, a young man joins a survivalist cult that believes the weak need to be culled from the human race ("Trigger Variation"). How people deal with the loss of a loved one is explored in "The Encore" and "States of Glass". A car accident doesn't faze a social Darwinist in "Consumerism". In fact, it solidifies his ideology. Tired of human suffering, a group of Buddhist monks decide to impose Nirvana (the state of mind, not the band) on the human race ("The Oarsman").

I'm trying not to spoil these stories for you. I couldn't even write anything about the emotional pain that lies in "Cortical Reorganization" without giving the story away. I'm trying to show that JRJ didn't write a bunch gross out stories; but the emotional monsters he throws at you are, in their own way, just as horrific as the physical ones burrowing underneath your skin.

We Live Inside You is available through Amazon.

Ghosts of the Multiverse by Harald Hansen

Poor Jeremy Fade. He lives in Goom, suburb of San Francisco, with his second wife and three kids. He worries. About his wife, about his ex-wife, about his kids, about his job. An engineer-turned-salesperson, his career and peace of mind depend upon the closing of his first sale, that of a huge software package to an unnamed university. But first he has to negotiate all the postmodern everything-is-a-social-construct politics and then kiss up to the Bursar, who decides everything. And he keeps seeing a ghost.

The beginning of the book deals with the various characters and their feelings of deserving things: Fade, his sale; the Bursar, deferential behavior; Fade's drug-counselor-wife's patients, her time. All are pursuing their agendas with varying degrees of success.

The University faculty is distracted from their usual concerns by the impending visit of a delegation, headed by an Imam Walid, from the Islamic Institute of Wyrigistan. Pakistan has been defeated by India. Its remnant joins with Baluchistan, Waziristan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan to form Wyrigistan, “balanced in power between the Pashtuns and the northern tribes.” It also is capable of relatively large-scale nuclear war. The delegation's secret purpose is to decide if San Francisco is too corrupt to go on, and is deserving (that word again) of nuclear wrath.

Enter Invention, Jeremy's brown-hooded ghost. Ghosts are the product of unlimited human possibilities, of at least three humans thinking outside the box simultaneously, reifying multiple universes. Invention, who has access to multiple universes (called “cosmi” in this case) believes that Jeremy's sales success is tied to his helping to prevent the Waziris from destroying San Francisco.

We wind up with a rather cartoonish team of bunglers from the various parts of Wyrigistan (plus a couple of American converts) sent out to plumb the most depraved depths (as they see it) of homosexuality to decide if San Fran can live or not. Their adversaries: Jeremy; Phil, a gay African-American ex-linebacker who works as a drug counselor; Homer, a Chinese-American accountant; and Ricard, a Filipino sportswriter-turned-mystery-author. The FBI and CIA are in on it, too. I was a bit disappointed in Ricard's quick synopsis of the Golden Age of Spain, when it was run by Caliphs after the Arabs (he calls them “Islamists”) conquered the not-too-swift Visigoths and held sway over a burgeoning of literature, philosophy, mathematics, music, and architecture that brightened the otherwise Dark Ages. He then cites 1492 as the “real” emergence of Spain as a superpower, while many readers will recognize the year as the one of the Expulsion of the Jews and Arabs and the rise of the Spanish Inquisition. While I don't relish the idea of living under a Caliphate nowadays, in 1000 C.E I would have preferred it over being tortured by Visigoths. Every civilization has its ups and downs.

Things get more interesting when the Norse Pantheon enters the fray. It all is very complicated, but many characters we have already met turn out to have both human and divine identities. There is violence and death and some destruction. Harald Hansen handles it all deftly; the writing is superb and holds your attention through all the wild events. He also includes some wonderful quotes from Neal Stephenson, Virgil and other august characters. A very satisfying book.

The Miracle Inspector by Helen Smith

England experienced a civil war and a Revolution, both in the seventeenth century. Each profoundly affected the English way of life: the civil war through violence, and the Revolution through a change in the power of the monarchy and modification of its succession formula to keep it out of Catholic hands, a change that was in effect until 2011. We do not like to think about it, but most of us with a knowledge of 20^th century and early 21^st century history have an understanding of the fragility of democracy and the strange, cultish, and often violent movements that threaten to replace it. In Helen Smith's dark book, parliamentary democracy has been replaced by an ideology of victimization that has turned strangely upon itself. A rise in global terrorism has resulted in the borders being sealed, and secret police lurking everywhere. Children are kept from unrelated adults (such as teachers) out of fear of pedophilia, and, in a bizarre sort of Stockholm syndrome, women are veiled and similarly restricted out of fear of rape. It seems to be the nationwide implementation of the signs you see outside of theatres: "Strobe lights, haze, cigarette smoke (herbal or tobacco) will be used during this performance,” and then some. Perhaps to tell themselves that they are indeed enlightened, people avoid meat (the author takes pains to mention that this includes human flesh) and stick to fish and vegetables. I did wonder why home schooling wasn't a big cottage industry, and how men were educated without using books. Anyway, lucky are the folks who can make it into their thirties or forties before getting whisked off by “the authorities,” never to be seen again.

A large bureaucracy includes various ministries and Inspectors, including Inspector of Cats, Inspector of Hedgerows & Grass Verges, and Inspector of Miracles. Lucas, a man in his twenties, is said Miracle Inspector. He keeps busy driving around London in his government car examining pieces of toast that are alleged to bear the likeness of Jesus, etc. His wife Angela is stuck in the house with just a few scrounged encyclopedia volumes to peruse. They share a lot of unspoken frustrations, but actually give voice to the idea of escaping to Cornwall, outside of the borders that have been set up. They befriend a woman, Maureen, who used to be a newscaster, and her special-needs child, Christina, whose miraculousness is hidden behind an enigmatic smile. After a friend of the family, Jesmond, is murdered by Nihilists following a poetry performance and Lucas is taken into custody when someone gets wind of a trip to Cornwall, Angela, Maureen, and Christina are left to hoof it out of authoritarian England. To their horror, all the places they seek refuge are just as bad: in the town of Clough they are expected to become sex workers, and at a back-to-the-land feminist commune of sorts they are exposed to magical thinking and a bloody ritual that does nothing to protect them from marauding men and escaped zoo animals. They learn to avoid the big trucks full of UN and other NGO personnel who make a big show of doing nothing. When Maureen disappears, Angela learns to assume the worst about everybody, and is left crossing the moors with Christina.

Could England, or America, become like Syria? England, while having no written Constitution, does have the Magna Carta and a Bill of Rights. The US obviously has both. The book seems to oscillate between blaming the heightened fear of terrorism and its usual anodyne, the attenuation of individual liberties, and blaming the victimhood felt by those who see every bright light, every peanut, every hug by a friend as a threat. The writing is beautiful, as Smith has shown in Alison Wonderland and Being Light. Other reviewers have characterized this book as a comedy, but I see no way out of its pessimism. Fear is our worst enemy. How do we wage war upon it without waging war upon ourselves?

Author's Website.

Oathbreaker, Book 2: The Magus's Tale by Colin McComb

The Magus’s Tale, book two in Colin McComb’s Oathbreaker series, primarily follows young Alton, a boy plucked from certain death by Magus Underhill to become the elderly magus's apprentice.  Alton spends his childhood and adolescence excelling at powerful magic despite abusive treatment from his master. 

Once Alton becomes a magus in his own right, he learns that great power comes with a price—loneliness.  To earn acceptance from his nervous neighbors in the village of Lower Pippen, he uses his magic to cure their ills and protect them from the bitter weather and wild animals that assault their farms.

But what seems like a minor encounter with petty brigands blows up into an unimaginably horrible event that releases a terror upon the world that “threatens life itself.”

The Magus’s Tale is Alton’s story, but we do learn what the main characters from book one, The Knight’s Tale, have been up to.  Sir Pelagir, General Glasyin, and Princess Caitrona are living a relatively quiet life in the small village of Kingsecret—an ironic place to settle, considering Caitrona’s lineage.  While Pelagir is forced to use his Knight’s Elite skills to keep the authorities off their tails, ten-year-old Caitrona displays glimpses of the leadership and tenacity she’ll need when she gets older and fulfills her royal destiny.

McComb’s writing is just as gorgeous in this book as it was in The Knight’s Tale.  McComb spices his prose with imagery and metaphor without drawing attention away from the story or doing so in a way that’s inappropriate for the viewpoint characters.  As with book one, The Magus's Tale is told for the most part in first-person point of view through character letters or confessions.  It’s a rare structure that can be confusing at first—characters arrive that don’t seem to have anything to do with the story up till that point—but you can trust McComb.  He brings these multiple threads together in an explosive finale that I certainly never saw coming.

The book ended on a downer and a cliff-hanger, but this is book two of a series, and McComb apparently does not intend for each book to be stand-alone.  I do ignore my stand-alone preferences for a “cliff-hanger” series that is well done, and Oathbreaker is such a series.  You fellow "stand-aloners" out there should do the same.

Both books in the Oathbreaker series have the character development of Rothfuss, the grittiness of Erikson, and the efficient prose and world-building of Cook.  The Magus’s Tale has made me an official fan of Colin McComb.

Oathbreaker, Book 2: The Magus’s Tale is available on Amazon.