The Sale on Most Of My Books is Over (but the blog post is back, although edited)

I just survived my first documented case of covid.

I might have caught it before, in January/May 2022, but I didn’t test. This time I had a positive test, right after coming back from a concert trip. My illness manifested mostly as fever, with some coughing and congestion, and very little energy. I lost my sense of smell/taste but I can feel it gradually coming back. I took Paxlovid and ibuprofen, and never even called in sick, although I’m probably going to continue avoiding humanity for a little longer. Glad I’ve had all my vaccines. 

After I got better I celebrated my victory over covid as well as the fact my favorite K-Pop idol, Lee Taemin, has completed his mandatory military service. He’s back, he’s hotter than ever, plus now he knows a couple dozen new ways to kill. 

I fixated on him in 2020, because he was the only artist I liked who seemed to be releasing new music, and he provided all the inspiration I needed to stay away from desperation and bad habits, while entertaining me with some truly fine aesthetics. If it hadn’t been for him I probably would have caught covid a lot sooner, or maybe I’d have done some other ill-advised things. I owe him some kind of K-Pop life debt and will be his fan forever. Whenever good things happen for him, I will celebrate. 

Anyway, here are the books: 

The Sonny Knight trilogy is One Sunny Night – Retrograde Horizon – A Dark And Stormy Day. It’s about the world of 3749, and a stupendously unlucky boy who manages to have misadventures in a number of societies that could be considered utopian (if it wasn’t for him). One of the main reasons I wrote it was so that when internet blowhards start pressing me regarding my politics, values, and/or what I think will happen in the future, I could direct them to my 900+ page trilogy, which is full of symbolism and allegory and futurism. YA/teen, mild violence, no sex. Note that only the first volume of the trilogy, One Sunny Night, is on sale. Amazon made me stop at five. 

Sieging Manganela is a prequel to the Sonny Knight trilogy and is the first book I ever finished (a NaNoWriMo). Somehow it managed to clear the logjam of unfinished novels I’ve been writing since my teens. It’s the story of Arturo Berengar, a genetically enhanced super soldier who is crushing on a girl who lives in the well-defended smart city his army is laying siege to. YA/teen, disturbing violence, abstract sex.

Rhonda Wray: Raptor Wrangler is about a girl rescuing her favorite boy band from a dinosaur planet. YA/teen, dinosaurian violence, pragmatic scenes involving sex, orientation, menstruation.

Astrology For People Who Don’t Believe In Astrology is exactly what it sounds like. Non-fiction.

Star Language is about a girl who survives horrendous abuse and trafficking to become rich and famous as the official translator for visiting aliens. Explicit sex and violence, sexual abuse, drugs. This is the new one. 

Q. Do you sell autographed copies?

A. I would be glad to autograph paper copies and/or send you an autographed sticker/bookplate to stick on your physical copy (or on a Kindle device, skateboard, or other item). So far I haven’t been organized enough to print supplies for that, so I’ll deal with it on a case-by-case basis unless a demand develops. 

Q. Are you going to be attending any conventions this year?

A. I’m going to one more convention, Baycon, on the 4th of July weekend in Santa Clara. 

Q. Wasn’t there supposed to be a horror novel?

A. Approaching Storm is my horror novel about qanons. It’s in post-production and may surface someday.

Q. What are you writing next?

A. A non-fiction book about K-Pop. For my next fiction, I’m thinking about a fantasy story, plus I have a courtroom drama that I shelved after some mansplainer found fault with it which I’m thinking of resurrecting. One advantage that I have over corporate writers is that I can change genres every book without alarming the board of directors. I’ve written enough science fiction to get into SFWA, and Star Language might be the last one in that genre for a while. I almost considered Star Language to be a romance while I was writing it, so I might just try to figure out whether that’s a genre I enjoy. I basically like to tell exciting adventurous stories about vengeance, so the set dressing isn’t really that important compared to things like emotional rhythm, and character chemistry. 

I spent a lot of the pandemic thinking about where I want my creative writing to take me. And I’m still not sure, I just know that I have to keep doing it. I’m not here for the praise, fame, or validation of my writing skills and/or intellect. A little spare spending money would be nice but I have no delusions I’m going to get rich doing this. I wouldn’t mind finding a few fellow oddballs though, so I'm going to keep moving forward with my quest to find a compatible literary scene. Possibly even create one.