My First Time

The first time one of my stories received a one-star review was on Smashwords. I had just experienced one of those lucky strikes that you never know where you'll find, that "big break" without which nothing that followed would have ever ventured. I had written and self-published a zombie satire called 'Zombie Nights', offered for free like all of my stories and promoted, like many of them, on a free website called getfreeebooks.com. It just so happened that the people who ran that website went on a long summer vacation right when 'Zombie Nights' was the lead promo on their main page. There it stayed for two whole months, during which time the downloads piled up to such an extent that 'Zombie Nights' actually became the number one most downloaded ebook on Smashwords, surpassing every piece of smut and even the Smashwords Style Guide itself. 

This did not sit well with one particular reviewer, a self-appointed guardian of Smashwords Lists, apparenty. The reviewer did not limit himself (or herself?) to trashing my book, but every book that eventually passed by a particularly favored writer of erotica. The reviewer eventually gave up this practice, but three reviews, including that of 'Zombie Nights', still remain on his or her Smashwords page . 

The 'Zombie Nights' review has since been edited. Originally, it blasted me as someone who had evidently recruited an army of friends and family to spend all their time downloaded the book over and over again in order to top the charts. I was clearly a blatant cheater. The charge was redacted and unfortunately I can find no trace of the original, but what remains of the one-star review is still fairly revealing:

I do not normally write reviews, but this one prompted me. It climbed to the top so fast that I felt compelled to check it out, and I assumed anything with enough downloads to out-rank the Style Guide must have some broader appeal. If, like me, you are looking at this one simply because it is the most-downloaded book on Smashwords, don't bother. As near as I can tell, it is the most downloaded simply because it has the word "Zombie" in the title. The story doesn't stink quite as badly as a reanimated corpse, but it isn't very compelling. The formatting is poor, there are plenty of typographic errors, and it is far from the degree of imaginative writing I expected from such an apparently popular work. This story has earned a single star, because judging from the previous reviews a zero-star rating won't have any effect on the overall count. 

I was extremely disappointed with this review. A lot of people have disliked the story, but most of them had better reasons. They did not like the ending, in which (spoiler alert! surprised?) the zombie dies, or they did not like the writing, or it did not match their sense of humor, or for other, genuine and valid reasons. But to have it "earn" a single star mainly because it had too many downloads? This was not the kind of one star review I had ever dreamed of. It reminded me of the hair color advertisement in which the model pleads, "don't hate me because I'm beautiful." I wanted to say, "It wasn't my fault, really! Next time I promise I'll try not to be overly downloaded". Happily, another self-published author came to my defense, which led to the reviewer's retreat from the original charges. He concluded with this: Oh, one more thing! If you read the story, take a moment and leave an honest review. Your words might help someone else decide whether or not they should give it a try.

Words to review by. 

Tags: self-publishing, reviews, indie+author

Dragon City Finale - Happy Slumbers - Now Available

Four episodes in the lives of these three people over a period of fifty years explore the mysterious worlds of Dragon City in four short novels, including Snapdragon Alley, Freak City, Dragon Town and now, in the series finale, Happy Slumbers.

When his brother Argus disappears, Alex Kirkham finds himself once again involved in the mystery of the place once known as Snapdragon Alley, an empty lot on the edge of the city where people have been seen to walk into thin air and simply vanish. Some say there is a creature there, an invisible intergalactic dragon that comes back now and then and takes what it wants, or maybe it's a black hole, or a place where aliens do their abducting. Nobody knows, certainly not Alex who, with nothing to go on, decides to visit the site, and hope for the best. In this, the fourth and final installment of the Dragon City series, all questions are answered, and all ends are tied.

Happy Slumbers is now available for free from Smashwords

(Also, pigeonweather headquaters has moved to wordpress. You can follow here)

Gone to Wordpress

Pigeon Weather Productions has a new home, at wordpress. See you there!

Sound of my Voice

'Sound of my Voice' - "A journalist and his girlfriend get pulled in while they investigate a cult whose leader claims to be from the future". Directed by Zal Batmanglij

 This is a very Southern California "indie" film and nicely done, a fairly mellow film that leads to a really good moment (if not a classic 'climax'). It doesn't have anywhere near the sheer quantity of action or emotion that define contemporary American movies, but it does have an interesting story, decent acting, zero special effects, and a handful of ideas. It did leave me with the feeling that things don't have to be 'great' all the time. It seems that in this superlative-infested era if something is not deemed 'great' it's therefore shit. One thing I liked about this movie is that it was just good and that's okay.

 You can't really talk much about the details of the movie without wandering into spoiler territory. Spoilers follow here.

The main guy's transition from investigator to believer was not really believable and I'm not sure it was necessary, but the writers felt it was. The ambivalent ending is rare in that you think you can have it both ways - yes, she's a criminal gang leader and yes, she's from the future. Yes, they're training a cadre of true believers to use in some big score and yes, they're preparing them for the coming civil war. Of course, as the movie says early on, "no one's from the future". They have some sophisticated spying capabilities which explains everything, except why Klaus is not wanted by the Feds but Maggie is.

just a thought or two

Things don't have to be great. They really don't. Movies, books,songs,art and so on. It's okay if they're just good. But no. In this superlative infested culture, anything not "great " is shit.
Thought two. It seems that child sexual abuse is the sewer towards which all modern American drama flows.

Humpty Dumpty

'When _I_ use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less

Impossible Things

Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said: 'one CAN'T believe impossible things.'
'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why,
sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

Through the looking glass

The Job Application, by Robert Walser

I am a poor, young, unemployed person in the business field, my name is Wenzel, I am seeking a suitable position, and I take the liberty of asking you, nicely and politely, if perhaps in your airy, bright, amiable rooms such a position might be free. I know that your good firm is large, proud, old, and rich, thus I may yield to the pleasing supposition that a nice, easy, pretty little place would be available, into which, as into a kind of warm cubbyhole, I can slip. I am excellently suited, you should know, to occupy just such a modest haven, for my nature is altogether delicate, and I am essentially a quiet, polite, and dreamy child, who is made to feel cheerful by people thinking of him that he does not ask for much, and allowing him to take possession of a very, very small patch of existence, where he can be useful in his own way and thus feel at ease. A quiet, sweet, small place in the shade has always been the tender substance of all my dreams, and if now the illusions I have about you grow so intense as to make me hope that my dream, young and old, might be transformed into delicious, vivid reality, then you have, in me, the most zealous and most loyal servitor, who will take it as a matter of conscience to discharge precisely and punctually all his duties. Large and difficult tasks I cannot perform, and obligations of a far-ranging sort are too strenuous for my mind. I am not particularly clever, and first and foremost I do not like to strain my intelligence overmuch. I am a dreamer rather than a thinker, a zero rather than a force, dim rather than sharp. Assuredly there exists in your extensive institution, which I imagine to be overflowing with main and subsidiary functions and offices, work of the kind that one can do as in a dream? —I am, to put it frankly, a Chinese; that is to say, a person who deems everything small and modest to be beautiful and pleasing, and to whom all that is big and exacting is fearsome and horrid. I know only the need to feel at my ease, so that each day I can thank God for life’s boon, with all its blessings. The passion to go far in the world is unknown to me. Africa with its deserts is to me not more foreign. Well, so now you know what sort of a person I am. —I write, as you see, a graceful and fluent hand, and you need not imagine me to be entirely without intelligence. My mind is clear, but it refuses to grasp things that are many, or too many by far, shunning them. I am sincere and honest, and I am aware that this signifies precious little in the world in which we live, so I shall be waiting, esteemed gentlemen, to see what it will be your pleasure to reply to your respectful servant, positively drowning in obedience.

Snapdragon Fly

"Look on the branch above your head,' said the Gnat, 'and there you'll find a snap-dragon-fly. Its body is made of plum-pudding, its wings of holly-leaves, and its head is a raisin burning in brandy"

Through the Looking Glass

Humanoid Central - Free This Weekend

I decided to publish Humanoid Central on KDP Select, meaning it won't be available through Smashwords or Feedbooks for free until August 4th. This is just an experiment, for the heck of it. It's not like the world is clamoring for any more of my little books for free anyway. Heck, it's only 99 cents if you can't wait - but it's free this weekend on Kindle (KDP Select Promotion Days)