With the barrier between writer and reader now obliterated thanks to Amazon and others who have effectively eliminated the middleman by making it easy for authors to bring their books right to the public we’re all left with a quandary; what about all these books?

Fiction books are flooding the market at a pace that makes it impossible for even the most voracious readers to keep up.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not in favor of the archaic model of the publisher holding court at their desk as the monarch of the mailbox determines which books will live and which ones will die with a cursory sixty second review of the book synopsis.

On the other hand, how does the book-buying public hope to make a decision as to what their next book purchase will be as they attempt to fish in a vast ocean of new entrants seeking that one new book that may change the world?

When all is said and done we have to wonder at what a good choice or a bad choice might be when purchasing fiction books. Do we gamble $1.99 on a first time, self-published author? What do the reviews tell us? Is the budding author gaming the system with fake reviews? Are the positive reviews posted by good friends of the writer with only the best of intentions?

Do we decline to gamble and stick with the authors we know as the very real possibility exists of passing by a new author with fresh fiction that we’re kick ourselves for missing? Formulaic fiction books are a sure bet as we sell ourselves short by taking a chance on a new author that could change conceivably change everything – 50 Shades of Gray anyone?

I don’t have a hard and fast answer but I can rely on a tried-and-true answer; let’s let the free market decide.

If a book is crap that will come to light fairly quickly. That aspiring author’s sales will suffer and likely not spend any more of their precious time for a round two. And most certainly not a third round.

As the saying goes — the cream rises to the top.

On the heels of my post yesterday commenting on a piece appearing in the Financial Times I’m here to do it again.

This time I’m sounding off on “Writer’s Second Thoughts” by Liz Jobey.

What would happen if JK Rowling went back to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone with a pen to annotate it? You might just find out.

She and fifty other authors are stepping into a time machine to go back to masterpieces they’ve already written and propose changes to their own work. Some are adding new tufts of writing, others add never-before-seen illustrations.

All of them are committing a cardinal sin insofar as I’m concerned.

Graham Nelson, the man largely responsible for seeing to it interactive fiction remains alive and well into the 21st century and beyond describes the temptation to go back to an original work and do it all over again. The fair second shot of luck with a “do over” is a popular cultural notion with a sense of fairness and justice letting us go back and do what we already did — but better.

Maybe.

I’m of the same mind as Graham Nelson on this subject. Once you’re done you’re done. It’s over. Finished. Barring editing, some last minute changes or re-writes or a quick discovery of an egregious oversight — it’s a done deal. Once the book goes on sale it should be set in stone.

As an Implementor of interactive fiction books with over ten years of experience under my belt, I’ve developed my skills as both a writer and a programmer. I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t tempted by the idea of returning to Pentari: First Light ten years later and bringing my hard-won powers of Implementing to bear on a story to make it even better.

But would I?

Who I was and where I was ten years led to the fiction I wrote then just as my present day circumstances and experiences are inspiring me to write my latest suspense thriller The Barista. The point is; the Pentari: First Light I would theoretically annotate wouldn’t necessarily be better than the original one I wrote a decade ago.

I could conceivably make it worse.

No thanks. When it comes to fiction books done is done as far as I’m concerned.

What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear it.

By Howard Sherman

Leafing through this weekend’s edition of the London Financial Times I stumbled upon an article that gripped me immediately. The title alone “Writers in Love with Other Art Forms” is what we stopped me in my tracks. The article’s author, Andrew O’Hagan, really hit this nail right on the head.

Nabakov had butterflies. Ernest Hemingway considered bullfighting a form of art. Henry James loved painting. Artwork is one of my own passions. Apparently, every author has one. He or she has something outside of writing that inspires their writing.

This quote from the article jolted me like a bolt of lightning – ” Writing novels is quiet work: it can reveal astonishments but it doesn’t usually proceed from them. Maybe that is why novelists are so often attached to second art forms that wear their physicality or their beauty outwardly.”

Music is another art form that inspired me to write. In fact I’ve often found I write my best fiction when there’s music playing in the background. The type of music really doesn’t matter too much. Techno, classic rock or modern progressive tunes seem to elicit the same response from me; a free flow form of creativity as my fingers dance across the keyboard.

I recommend this article from the Financial Times if you want to be a better author or gain a better understanding OF authors.

Weighing in at a hefty 834 pages my book review of Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller,Sr. will paint broad strokes of a brilliant biography that reads like any superior novel in the universe of fiction books.

In as much as Titan is a non-fiction book, some of what you’ll learn about the world’s first mega-rich man and the empire he built reads more like a spy thriller or work of suspense fiction than a biography about a businessman.

My hat’s off to Ron Chernow for delivering a book with classic yet compelling writing backed by meticulous, well-documented research.

If you’re a native born American over the age of thirty the odds are excellent you have some notion of who John D. Rockefeller, Sr was but very few people can profess to know the entire story of him, his family and the dynasty he spawned unless they read Titan.

I confess to similar ignorance myself.  While on a day trip with my wife to The Rockefeller Estate in the Hudson Valley of New York I was so inspired by what I saw and what I learned within two minutes of stepping foot in Kykuit, I immediately purchased this eBook on my phone and started reading my latest Kindle book as the shuttle bus pulled away from the estate to deliver us back to our mundane lives.

From John D. Rockefeller, Sr’s humble origins in a God-fearing, poverty stricken home with a dad who – literally – was a snake oil salesman and a saintly mother to his first job to his stumbling on the greatest money-making opportunity of the 19th century to building a multinational string of companies that was so rich and powerful it took the US Government to dismantle it — which only made Rockefeller richer than ever before — Titan is a colossal book that tells a story any book fan can only admire.

The years that follow are covered in exquisite detail as Rockefeller’s progeny make their own way in the world in both predictable and unpredictable ways.  Nobody could help but be amazed at how much of modern American society is the direct result of Rockefeller influence thanks to their unequaled generosity funded by an unbelievable set of business practices that would land most businessman in jail in the present day.

This book is for anyone who was ever curious about the name Rockefeller and wants an intimate glimpse inside the world of the first man to hold the title “The World’s Richest Man.”

As a voracious reader and fan of books since before I could walk I’m more than a little concerned by the thought of Goodreads being acquired by Amazon.

As an entrepreneur I salute both Otis Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler for making millions from building Goodreads from scratch and then selling it for a fortune.  This is a very familiar business model in the entrepreneurial world.

As a businessman I applaud Amazon for purchasing Goodreads and capturing an audience of 16 million readers and scooping up what is arguably the single largest community of book readers in the world.  It’s a logical move and very strategic but…

…the backlash from the reading community is probably not what Amazon expected to see.  New Goodreads groups have formed in opposition to this move, some of the people I follow on Twitter are already planning to close their Goodreads accounts and in general there’s a very dark cloud hovering above Amazon’s latest acquisition.

Goodreads works because it’s FOR readers BY readers.  When a titan of the book industry takes over such a community we all have cause for concern.  It’s like a multinational food conglomerate acquiring Farmer Brown’s Happy Farm.  Everything was working great; the cows made milk, the chickens laid eggs and all was well until a corporate Goliath stepped in and turned a happy farm into a bloody slaughterhouse.

The smarter move Amazon should have made would be to embrace the Goodreads community by becoming one it’s most prominent advertisers.    This would keep Amazon top-of-mind for readers on almost every screen while allowing Goodreads to retain some resemblance of independence.  In as much as Goodreads would be beholden to Amazon and the rivers of money they would be sending Goodreads via advertising dollars, Goodreads would still be an independent entity with external influence from Amazon while retaining internal control.

I will remain an Amazon affiliate and I will continue my Goodreads participation in good faith and hope for the best while keeping a sharp eye on what will unfold in the months ahead.

This is an idea I’ve been brewing lately thanks to some of the books I’ve recently read….

Are good cops becoming bad cops in today’s fiction?

Lucas Davenport the legendary hero of John Sandford’s Prey series really went rogue in Stolen Prey by conducting an illegal search of a suspect’s home.  He had the right reasons and only the best intentions but still – he broke the law.  Maybe more than once.  He committed a moral crime later in the book by openly lying to the media at large to flush out the real bad guy.  Or girl in this case.  He got the job done and justice was served but nobody can deny he crossed a line or two.

Lee Child really raised my eyebrows in The Affair. Jack Reacher, one of my very favorite fiction book heroes, committed a double murder while local law enforcement and a fellow MP looked on and not only let it happen — but let Reacher get away with it. As with Lucas Davenport, I completely understand what Jack Reacher did and why.  And I agree with it.  But still — he broke a few laws there.  Lee Child wrote it and I’m glad he did but the moral and legal quagmire portrayed is impossible to ignore.

Albert Ryan, the protagonist in Stuart Neville’s Ratlines might take the prize.  Strictly speaking he committed murder and theft right there at the end of the book.  Anybody who read Ratlines can easily understand why and very few people would take exception to Ryan’s actions given all he’d been through over the course of the story.

I’m not jumping up and down and shaking my fist in righteous indignation in any of these cases at all.  As a writer of interactive fiction books, I’ve crossed more than my fair share of lines myself in the 14 fiction books I’ve written over the past ten years.  I like the trend.  I agree with it.  And I’m 100% behind it.  Good guys need to think outside the box and not run around and through a plot with their hands tied behind their back.

That said, I do see a potential pitfall here for society at large if it becomes socially acceptably for anyone in law enforcement of any level and in any department to override the laws of the land to get the job done.  If that trend really does take hold in the minds of the people we trust to protect us, can we trust them to know when not to cross the line too far?

What say you?

Stolen Prey by John Sandford

As you may expect, Stolen Prey is an excellent Lucas Davenport novel.  The writing is as crisp as ever and for my part I’m not reviewing Stolen Prey as such; I’m defending it.

Stolen Prey has received some raw reviews and thumbs down for the extreme violence portrayed.   That’s good news and bad news.

It’s good news in the sense that the critics who have slammed Stolen Prey for crossing the lines haven’t had the unfortunate experience of being hunted down by Mexican drug lords.  That’s because Mexican drug lords and the criminal elements they recruit are notoriously brutal and vicious, often committing inhumane atrocities far worse than what Sandford has described in Stolen Prey.

It’s bad news because too many readers may be turned away from reading an excellent work of crime fiction with plenty of suspense and real-world drama thrown into the mix because of the unfair negative reviews.

It’s a waste of time telling you this is a good fiction book. When John Sandford writes a book it’s a given it’s a good read.  I’ve really grown fond of the Lucas Davenport main character as well as Weather and Letty.  The other minor characters also work well for me which is a tribute to John Sandford in writing such realistic characters with all the human foibles and peculiarities we see in our own day to day life.

The plot of Stolen Prey is believable and easy to follow. A Mexican drug cartel operating in The Twin Cities? YES! It’s explained so easily and with plenty of plausible cover.  The twists and turns are executed with the accuracy and artistry of a master and the violence in the novel is not out of place; it’s exactly where it needs to be.  Do a Google search for “Mexican drug violence” to pull up dozens of examples right there on the first page of results.

If you’re an established John Sandford fan then Stolen Prey belongs in your collection just like every Prey novel.  If you’re curious about a John Sandford book, Stolen Prey is an excellent starting point for your journey of disovery.

I love book blogging — both maintaining a book blog and visiting other book blogs thanks to all the fresh new fiction books I discover by authors I’ve never heard of.

Stuart Neville is one of those new authors I picked up on and I’m so glad I did. I started with Ratlines for no particular reason and plan to continue reading all the fiction books Stuart Neville writes and any non-fiction books that may come along.

Stuart Neville has proven that the suspense fiction genre is not completely dominated by American authors and Ratlines bears that out.

Here’s the book description:

Ireland, 1963. As the Irish people prepare to welcome President John F. Kennedy to the land of his ancestors, a German businessman is murdered in a seaside guesthouse. He is the third foreign national to die within a few days, and Minister for Justice Charles Haughey is desperate to protect a shameful secret: the dead men were all former Nazis granted asylum by the Irish government.

A note from the killers is found on the corpse, addressed to Colonel Otto Skorzeny, Hitler’s favourite commando. It says simply: ‘We are coming for you. Await our call.’

Lieutenant Albert Ryan, Directorate of Intelligence, is ordered to investigate the murders and protect Skorzeny. But as he infiltrates Ireland’s secret network of former Nazis and collaborators, Ryan must make a terrible choice: his country or his conscience?

Being a history fanatic since grade school and a fanatical fan of fiction books since forever makes Ratlines a slam dunk winner in my eyes. Given the backdrop nobody should be surprised to learn the Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad enters the already complicated mix of multiple murders with the national interests of Spain, Ireland, Britain, World War II Germany and even America in some small way.

Albert Ryan is in over his head and Neville goes to great lengths to point this out along the way. In a rise to greatness that would do Joseph Campbell proud, Albert Ryan rises to the challenge and succeeds in ways that will surprise you right up to the very end. Most of the bad guys ended up very surprised too.

The most striking characteristic of Ratlines is its European flavor. Throughout my reading career I’ve been unintentionally slanted in reading almost purely American fiction. Call it a lack of marketing or successful book promotion on the part of authors and publishers outside of the US, I just never had the kind of exposure to international fiction the way we all do today thanks to book blogs. As such, readers anywhere in Western Europe will take the European flavor of Ratlines in stride while Americans will enjoy a pleasant surprise.

The setting and the ambiance aside, Ratlines presents the reader with a real murder mystery shrouded in international intrigue and a cabal that nobody will see coming. Much more than a work of crime fiction or suspense fiction or even historical fiction, Ratlines is a book almost any reader will find very satisfying.

As an author of fiction books in my own right I can’t help but feel some sadness that all of Stieg Larsson’s recognition as an accomplished author occurred posthumously. Raising his own bar very high over The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium book 1), The Girl Who Played with Fire (Millennium book 2) places most of the main characters on a vastly expanded chess board with one of the most intricate plots I’ve ever seen – anywhere and in any language.

A triple murder with two sets of fingerprints on one murder weapon. The first set belongs to the gun’s owner and the other set belongs to Lisbeth Salander who is rapidly (and understandably, for several reasons) put at the top of the prime suspects list.

In fact that list has just one name on it — hers.

As a reader I felt helpless watching this story unfold with Lisbeth Salander as the murderer beyond almost all doubt. Her chaotic history with ample psychological ammunition for any prosecutor along with placing her at the crime scene of two of the three murders that same evening — to the very hour they occurred along with the murder weapon itself with her prints all over it would lead any reasonable person to conclude she did it.

A part of me wondered if maybe she DID do it. She’s got the history. She’s got the capacity. But did she have the motive?

Enter Mikael Blomkvist to muddy the waters and present so many alternative murder suspects as to confuse and confound Sherlock Holmes himself.

I won’t ruin it for you and spoil all the fun but I will tell you this; the suspense is “ruined” well before the end. Have no fear as fresh waves of new suspense roll in to leave you guessing almost until the end.

The end itself is also suspenseful but in a completely different way. The end is so satisfying and so elegantly executed as it dovetails off the story built so exquisitely by Larsson from start to finish.

The Millenium Series is one of those series you really should read from book one. You don’t have to in the case of The Girl Who Played with Fire but you’ll gain a finer appreciation of all the main characters and the story told thus far if you do.

I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi

Major Spoiler: I Will Teach You To Be Rich does not deliver any groundbreaking material.

Most personal financial books don’t. Rules are rules and those rules are inviolate. Just like gravity or drinking hard liquor on an empty stomach, the laws of money are sacrosanct in the sense they cannot be broken. To violate the rules of the game – any given game – brings penalties.

Did I learn anything new from Ramit Sethi in I Will Teach You To Be Rich? No.

Was I impressed by I Will Teach You To Be Rich? Most definitely.

Ramit Sethi accomplishes two very important things with I Will Teach You To Be Rich:

1) All of the common sense steps anyone should take are re-structured in a very logical step-by-step pattern and re-framed in a modern world context.

2) Ramit Sethi turns all conventional wisdom of “buy this” and “sell that” investing and the tracking of “hot markets” and “emerging trends” on its ear with just one word — bullshit.

Bullshit is my word not his. I call bullshit on behalf of Ramit Sethi and cite his theoretical example of eBay missing estimated earnings by a penny equating to a 20% drop on the stock as being a pitfall to be avoided in the same sense a swimmer should avoid shark-infested waters. Maybe you’ll end up just fine and quite possibly you won’t.

Ramit Sethi reorganizes long-established financial planning wisdom in a logical, chronological approach in a six week action plan that will turn your financial life around. My heart was uplifted by the book’s slight lean towards a youthful audience in helping build a sound financial cornerstone while including ladder-climbing career builders and empty-nesters looking for the next curve in the road.

Don’t expect anything new, groundbreaking or paradigm-shifting in I Will Teach You To Be Rich but you can count on solid, can’t lose advise that has stood the test of time reformulated for a modern financial world fraught with chaos and consumer confusion.