Science for dummies

Why must they always gear science shows toward nitwits? What about the rest of us, the ones who can think?

I just tried to watch an episode of "How the Universe Was Made" on the Science channel. Oy. The narrator might as well have been Mr. Rogers. He spoke s-l-o-w-l-y. Very s-l-o-w-l-y. And as usual, everything was illustrated with simpleton video, like cars crashing. Because no one can understand about asteroids in the Kuiper Belt hitting each other unless they see cars crashing.

It drives me crazy. Please make some science shows for people with brains. We'd love to watch stuff like that -- but there isn't any. Morgan Freeman's show, "Through the Wormhole" is the closest thing to an intelligent science show. But there, the problem is that he presents authentic geniuses and wingnuts, without telling you who's who. Plus the show tries really hard to present everything as strange. It's the way reality is. It's not strange at all. But they do present things with impact and style, so I guess I have to admit someone's at least opened the door to decent TV science shows. (And yes, NOVA is a Mr. Rogers show. It doesn't get my vote.)

Anyone out there agree (or disagree)? The Mr. Rogers approach drives me nuts.

The beat goes on

When I read this, I wasn't surprised.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Calls for Bishop Robert Finn's resignation intensified a day after he became the highest-ranking U.S. church official to be convicted of a crime related to the child sexual abuse scandal. 

(snip)

Through the decades-long abuse scandal, only one U.S. bishop has stepped down over his failures to stop abusive clergy: Cardinal Bernard Law, who in 2002 resigned as head of the Archdiocese of Boston [and was sent to prison for decades and was promoted to a cushy job at the Vatican for his efforts].

So, was Bishop Finn sent to the hoosegow for his transgressions? Of course not.

Jackson County Judge John M. Torrence sentenced Finn to two years of supervised probation. If the bishop abides by a set of stipulations from the judge, the conviction will be wiped from his record in 2014. 

They never suffer real repercussions -- and the beat goes on.

(Much better version of this story at the Times this morning.)

Light posting for a few days

Getting the book out was exhausting. When my energy returns I'll start posting again -- probably at a furious pace. Anyway, you should be reading Xmas Carol right now. Who needs blog posts when you've got a great book to read?

More formats for Xmas Carol

As I said yesterday, Xmas Carol is available at the Kindle Store. And as of this morning, it's available in various non-Kindle formats at Smashwords. They're an online indie bookstore that sells books and funnels them to the biggies in the book biz, like Barnes & Noble and the Apple bookstore. (I think it's kind of nice to buy directly from them.)

So now you have no excuse. Go get your copy of Xmas Carol today. It'll be the best three bucks you ever spent.

Xmas Carol is available at Amazon

The Kindle version of Xmas Carol, my horror novel, is available at the Amazon Kindle Store. Here's a link. 

It's already September, which means the Xmas rush will soon be upon us. So...what are you waiting for? Go read the book! And when you're done, come back here and share your reaction with the rest of us.

The book is out. Woot!

Nonsense creatures aren't scary

On the eve of Xmas Carol's publication, I'd like to re-post something I wrote last year. It's about the origin of the book.

I've always loved horror novels. I spent my entire life with my nose buried in a book (including during school hours) and half the time it was a horror novel. So when it came time to write one, I was certainly well-versed. Should be easy, right?

But then the obvious problem hit me: I've grown up and picked up some knowledge along the way. There are no witches, goblins, ghosts, gods or any other sorts of supernatural creatures. People don't come back from the dead, flesh-eating zombies are absurd, and not one single person on Earth needs an exorcism. I can't be frightened by nonsense. I'm all growed up.  If I included a monster in a book, it would have to be a real one.

To me, horror has to seem real to be frightening. The reader must accept the premise of the story for it to be effective. And while sizable American audiences seem happy to immerse themselves in any ludicrous idea at all, that's not the road I want to travel as a writer. No wizards, spells, demons or gods will find their way into my books.

In truth, even after these considerations, a large part of me wanted to write a ghost story. I'd been raised on them; they called to me. I even considered suspending my judgment, holding my nose and writing one for posterity. That salty, ramshackle beachfront mansion wanted me to write about it. It was so hard to resist. Couldn't I please write one? Please!? 

But I couldn't because there's no there there and that's an insurmountable problem. Still, I couldn't let go. But how could I possibly write a ghost story if ghosts don't exist? I refused to relinquish the idea; I gnawed at it for weeks. There must be a way, I thought.

Finally, I asked myself a question: What is like a ghost?  And therein lies the tale of Xmas Carol.

Next step: publishing

The book is finished. Soon, very soon, everyone will be able to read Xmas Carol. I'm not sure how long it will take before it appears in the Kindle bookstore. I'm working on that now. Once the Kindle version is out, I'll figure out how to publish the other versions. It's like the PC/Mac divide -- there are different e-reader platforms with different rules.

I spent the morning wrangling with formatting. Professionals want a lot of money to format your ebook. Not gonna happen. If the book is successful, I'll return to the formatting issue one day. But for now I'm just going to put out a clean-looking, basic book (with a fabulous cover).

As for the blurb, I think I've got one that works. I looked at the blurbs on current ebooks and didn't like them at all. Everything is written in the present tense, like this:

When Ginger realizes that Bubba intends to kill her, she pulls out all the stops and tries to kill him first.

The present-tense seems clunky to me. Mine will be different. That's all I'll say for now.

I'm a bit worried about the length of the book. People don't seem willing to read a "long" book these days. It might hurt their head, I guess. Current fiction is quite brief. The books are more like novellas than novels. My book is more than double the length of most horror novels out there. But I swear it's a quick read. Readers just fall into the book and tumble out the other end. Xmas Carol goes down like candy. I really can't see anyone (except religious wingnuts) wanting it to end until the final page. Even then, they'll want more. So I'm going to toss my worries aside and release a 200,000-word novel to an 80,000-word public. We'll see how it goes.

I'll report back when I reach the next stage. But hey, the book is done!

The insanity of blasphemy laws

So, Pakistan, how's that blasphemy law working out for you?

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A Muslim cleric is accused of stashing pages of a Quran in a Christian girl's bag to make it seem like she burned the Islamic holy book, a surprising twist in a case that caused an international outcry over the country's strict blasphemy laws. 

This is what happens when you pass a law that glorifies nonsense. Your society falls down the rabbit hole.

What could have been

Apparently, before the Roman Catholic church made the ghastly mistake of appointing Ratzinger as pope, they were moving in a different direction.

ROME (Reuters) — The former archbishop of Milan and papal candidate Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini said the Roman Catholic Church was “200 years out of date” in his final interview before his death, published Saturday. 

“Our culture has aged, our churches are big and empty and the church bureaucracy rises up; our rituals and our cassocks are pompous,” Cardinal Martini said in the interview published in Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera.

“The church must admit its mistakes and begin a radical change, starting from the pope and the bishops,” he said in the interview. “The pedophilia scandals oblige us to take a journey of transformation.” 

Amazing, isn't it? He was even open to gay relationships -- didn't think they were odd, at all. What a difference from this blind pope. But of course, the cardinals chose hatred over love, and went with Ratzi. It's the Christian way.

Today is the day

By sundown the book will be finished. Woot!