Finalised Version of "Fool's Illusion" Book Cover

Okay. One giant step for monster-kind. Here's the final version of the cover to the more closely approaching Fool's Illusion. Feel free to let me know what you think of it in the box below and keep checking back here for updates on the release of my book. You can also visit the book's Facebook page.

Until next time . . .

 Photo Credit: Steven Rose, Jr. 



One long, dark and hot night . . .

I know I said in my last post that I would have information on how to purchase The Fool's Illusion. But I also said that life gets in the way of us writers and artists.  Well it got in the way all right, on that Saturday night when we had that Hell's heat wave here in Sacramento. So I don't bore anybody by repeating myself here, I thought it best to redirect you to my latest post on the book's Facebook page where I discuss that long dark, hot night in detail. Yet, I promise you it won't be a long dark story. (Just a short dark story.)

Until next time . . .

Life, the Earth and the Universe

I didn’t get as much done on The Fool’s Illusion as I wanted to even over the Memorial Day weekend. My parents were in town for my two cousins’ college graduation and I had a friend’s National Towel Day party to attend. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a fan celebration day for Douglas Adams’ sci fi satire series of novels, The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In the third novel of the trilogy, Life the Universe and Everything, there are scenes that involve a towel which is one of the major symbols of this hilarious (mock) space epic. I actually started reading the third installment just for the party (I’ve read the first two already). As funny as it is, it all centres around the destruction of the Earth (by aliens) and the rest of the universe. But the great thing about this series is that it dares to laugh in the face of death, even death of the entire universe.

 

With so much crap destroying our world--crap such as war, crime, social injustice including famine, and pollution--and it’s apparent increase as the years fly by, with so much bleakness and the sense of doom conveyed by media, one of the things I truly believe will save us more than anything is a sense of humour. And that includes humour even in the face of grinning Death. That’s why satire such as Adams’ and other sci fi fantasy writers’ such as Kurt Vonnegut’s, or dark humour in movies such as Vincent Price’s The Comedy of Terrors, Mel Brook’s Young Frankenstein and Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strange Love are so great. They laugh at the bleakness of life and of the world around us.

 

Yet, we can’t just take things lying down (in this case, lying down laughing). As a society, we must respond to issues that impact us in order to resolve them. I thought that because we are on the subject of fear of our planet’s destruction, I would post my article that talks about how science fiction handles the concerns we have for humanity’s safety. Originally, this article was going to be for my sci fi column at Examiner.com, but as I implied earlier, life get’s in the way, as they say, and so I didn’t get a chance to post it on time for it to be considered news.

 

The article discusses particularly how sci fi can get us to think about how we can prevent future destruction of our planet, destruction caused by problems such as pollution and global warming. And so the authors who are centred on in this article are Kim Stanley Robinson and Tobias Buckell, probably two of the best environmental oriented authors today. The first I’m proud to say resides in my home area of Sacramento, Davis to be exact. And so even though life may “get in the way” of any one of us, death of our planet doesn’t have to. Please feel free to comment on the article in the box below.

 

 

 

Photo Credit: Amazon

 

Kim Stanley Robinson: Back to the Prehistoric Past for a Greener Future

by Steven Rose, Jr.

UC Davis’s Whole Earth Festival on Mother’s Day Weekend was full of fun activities that emphasized the search for and educating of solutions for an environmentally sustainable future. One of the events there was Davis author Kim Stanley Robinson (most known for his Mars Trilogy) and Ohio author Tobias Buckell’s panel on climate change on Saturday of the festival.  Robinson and Buckell discussed science fiction’s suggestions of environmental utopic futures.

Buckell, a Caribbean born sci fi author, has been writing and publishing as early as 2006, some of his works being novels The Apocalypse Ocean and Arctic Rising, and his short story collection Mitigated Futures. Unfortunately, by the time I was able to make it through the vast quad of festival tents and booths to Young Hall where the panel was held, Buckell was already reading from one of his books and so I didn’t catch the title.

After Buckell’s reading, Robinson read an excerpt from his novel, Shaman, set in a prehistoric ice age. But this is no pulp-/Hollywood-/ One Million Years B.C.-inspired novel. Robinson takes his science fiction seriously; he writes hard science fiction. Strangely, however, Shaman does not seem to be his typical hard sci fi. In fact, with references to tribal magicians and mystic journeys one would think it’s closer to fantasy. But, after the reading, Robinson used the tribe from his this alternate (pre-) history novel as a model for how modern day humans are capable of planning ahead to save themselves from future ecological disaster such as an arctic meltdown. He explained how we can collectively come to solutions to prevent the disastrous effects of global warming.

During the two authors’ dialog on the subject of climate change and science fiction, one phrase Robinson kept bringing up was “utopian societies”. He referred to the primeval tribal society of Shaman as a model for a more communal future society that can plan ahead to prevent, or at least reduce, ecological disaster such as a global meltdown of the ice caps. Robinson explained how such a society could work in a high tech age: by utilizing clean energy technology and reforming capitalism to make it more socially just (though not necessarily communist). Through this idea, Robinson explained the economic implications and necessary reform for an environmentally responsible society.

Buckell added to the idea of a sustainable utopian society a, what he said is, too often overlooked fact: a city is a form of technology. He said the problem with the concept of the city today is that most people think of a city as “an accident of trade”. As an example of a holistic society Buckell talked about an innovative and creative community in the Virgin Islands. Emphasizing this community’s art, he compared the community to a town in Ohio that is more utilitarian by capital means and prevents the innovation that can bring sustainability and clean technology. In relation to this, he said that the problem with modern day capitalism is that money does not circulate back into the society and so doesn’t benefit the people as a whole, two of those benefits being clean energy and technology to create a healthier environment. He used Walmart as a microscopic example of today’s capitalism.

Both authors discussed how the best type of science fiction is that which makes readers think about the consequences of future technology. This topic started when Buckell and Robinson said they felt there were more sci fi writers as early as 1930s and as late as the ‘70s who wrote stories about the impact of the atom and nuclear bombs than there are sci fi writers today writing about the impact of climate change and global warming.

Much more than your Hollywood-inspired space opera and sci fi-horror reading, Robinson and Buckell’s stories generally depict more realistic futures and plausible scientific phenomena, commenting on the technology of today’s societies. Science fiction should be used to help people think and offer ideas about how to build better futures that work for all society rather than just certain elitist groups. In the case of Robinson and Buckell’s work, it does this by offering or suggesting solutions to environmental problems.

Robinson and Buckell’s presentation on climate change and science fiction was definitely fit for UCD’s Whole Earth Festival. After all, how much science fiction deals with future technology and the planets it effects including our own? If more science fiction like Robinson and Buckell’s asked socially significant questions, such as the impact of technology on the environment, as did the Golden Age sci fi writers did with the atom bomb, it would be more subject for environmental events such as the Whole Earth Festival. Page-turner sci fi about wars in space or in distant futures can only contribute so much to the development of a more socially just and sustainable society. (But don’t get me wrong--we all need a break from thinking at least once in our lives.)

 

 

And here’s a link to a list of environmental science fiction reading.

For those of you that will be in the Sacramento area on Sunday the second of the month, I will be at Sac-Con and so will my updated Fool’s Illusion bookmarks which will be free while supplies last. And you must be sick of hearing about my upcoming book but seeing no book in view. I don’t blame you. But again, life gets in the way, but it doesn’t have to be in the way forever. I have completed the book’s introduction and am nearly finished with the front cover. I will be sending the manuscript off to Amazon’s CreateSpace by the end of the upcoming week. So please tune in next weekend for more details on how you can purchase the book and perhaps even receive a free copy.

 

Until next time . . .

 

 

Check out The Fool's Illusion Facebook page for more!

Just Checking the Facts, Ma'am, for My Book

I was about to mail off printed copies of The Fool's Illusion bookmarks to my friend Emerian Rich, of HorrorAddicts.net for her to distribute at BayCon in Santa Clara. However, the con is next weekend and so I didn't think they would reach her in time. Emerian was nice enough to offer to put them out on the free literature table at the con. So if you're reading this, Emerian, I apologise for not being able to mail them to you but I really appreciate the offer and will definitely let you know when Fool's Illusion is out. And it's getting closer to its release, everybody! I apologise for not being able to give specifics at this time, but once it's ready for release I'll let you know.

I'm in the fact checking stage of my introduction to the book. I was working on that for nearly half the day today, sitting in a Starbuck's burning my brains out researching information for the accuracy of the details of my subject which is harder than a lot of people would think. You want to make sure you check credible sources but the problem with Internet, unlike with most libraries, is that there are a lot of unreliable resources out there in cyberspace written by any pea brained dork. And it take's a hell of a lot more time weeding through all the crap resources in order to get to the credible ones. But then what do you expect? It's the Internet, which is an entire universe within itself and one that is expanding like our own outer universe (material as opposed to virtual) has been said to be. It's kind of funny because the very research I was doing today covers the subject of the unreliability of resources though not so much in the sense of academic research but more in the sense of popular media.

Sacramento's May the Fourth Be With  You Star Wars mini celebration went by really good. Both organizations from the general community as well as fans were there and the event reflected the universality of the Star Wars myth because of that. You can read more about it in my article at Examiner.com.

I finally rented and watched the 2012 movie, Argo. It's based on the late '70s/early '80s hostage crisis in Iran, and shows how a CIA member helped six hostages escape through a film shoot front. The film: a Star Wars knock-off called "Argo". As historical based as the movie is, it has some great meta-theatrical, particularly meta-cinematic, themes playing in it. The popular culture of the 1970s is depicted really well in it unlike with the majority of 20th century period films. The main characters were realistically portrayed. However, there were some flaws, one of the biggest being that the conflict between the U.S. and Iran was depicted too simplistically to a point where an anti-Semitic/anti-Islamic message seemed to be implied. However, as a film that depicts the pop culture of an era and conveys the power of B-rated movie making used in a real life crisis, I thought the movie worked well. The basic historical facts were presented convincingly enough. But then again, it is Hollywood, so watch out.

Here's a particularly good, well thought out review of Argo by film critic Lisa Kennedy of the Denver Post.

I'll leave you with that for now.

Until next time . . .

--Steven Rose, Jr.


Please visit and Like The Fool's Illusion Facebook page.

Latest on "Fool's Illusion" and Sacramento Sci Fi/Fantasy Events



Credit: https://www.facebook.com/May4StarWarsWestSac/photos_stream

 

 



Well I didn't announce the winner of the April Fool's Illusion contest because, as you can all see, there wasn't one. Nobody participated. Regardless of a chance to win a free copy of the book, nobody wanted to play. Yes, in order for the winner to receive a free print copy (along with accessories such as the bookmarks and poster) I would have needed his/her mailing address. However, I do understand that in this age of identity theft and computer hacking that many of us have a concern about sending out personal information even for things such as a contest prize. So we'll just let it go. But because you're all a good lot, I'll make it up to you in another the way. I'll probably make free digital copies of the book available for a limited time; that seems to work well with everybody when it comes to new book releases. And that's safe because it's done through Amazon who I plan to sell copies of my book through.

I've been working hard on the book cover all week. As I've said before, I'm still a new comer to graphic design software and so I'm learning as I go. A lot of it's trial and error, but then that's almost art in all forms and mediums, isn't it? But the big day of the launch is getting closer and closer; it will be here before you know it. It will have to be here soon because I plan to sell copies at WesterCon 66, the science fiction fantasy convention for the West coast, that occurs during the 4th of July weekend here in Sacramento. Yes, the big West coast con hits my home town of Sacramento this year, and we Sacramento sci fi/fantasy fans and artists alike are very proud for the state capital to host this annual event this year!

If you haven't done so yet, check out  The Fool's Illusion Facebook page, where you can also get updates about the book and be sure to Like it so your Facebook wall will receive updates.

Some more Sacramento area sci fi/fantasy news: next Saturday, 4 May, is Sacramento's first Star Wars mini celebration, May the Fourth Be With You. It will be held in West Sacramento from 4 PM to 9 PM, at the West Sacramento Community Center. It will feature costumed characters, Star Wars memorabilia vendors, award-winning fan films, and much more. It's going to be far out of this world! For more details, please visit Toy Fusion collectables' ad about the event.

I'll have more news about The Fool's Illusion and other sci fi/fantasy events next time. So . . .

Until next time . . .

--Steven Rose, Jr.

April "Fool's Illusion" Sweepstakes Extended Deadline

Because of the lack of entries in The April Fool's Illusion Sweepstakes, yours truly is extending the entry deadline to 11:59 p.m., Sunday 14th April 2013 Pacific Standard Time. So now you have almost a whole week more to get your best April Fool's story in the comments box below for a chance to win a Fool's Illusion collector's set! That's a free print copy of my upcoming book, two fully coloured book marks, and a fully coloured poster. Who doesn't like free stuff? Take advantage of this chance to win these items. One of you may even end up being the first to own a copy of my new book! So you may be able to say to your friends, family and the later generations that you were the first in history (besides the author, of course) to own a copy of The Fool's Illusion! Wouldn't that be just so out'a sight? For contest rules and other details, please see last week's post. The date for announcing the winner will be any time between Tuesday the 16th and Saturday the 20th of April.

Come on! Bring on some fool's laughs with those April Fool's stories! If you're shy about posting, maybe I'll post one of my best April Fool's pranks just to help you get started (although I disqualify for the prize, of course).

Until next time . . .

--Steven Rose, Jr.

The April "Fool's Illusion" Sweepstakes

Joker's Wild

Photo Credit: SSGT Roach Photographer/Wikimedia Commons

It's April Fool's Day, and there's no better time to hold a giveaway for my upcoming book, The Fool's Illusion! Read on to find out how you can win a free Fool's Illusion collector's set which will consist of two full colour Fool's Illusion book marks, one full colour poster of The Fool's Illusion book cover, and, best of all, one print copy of The Fool's Illusion short story collection itself signed by the author himself!

Qualifications, Rules, Conditions and Deadline
To participate post a one to two paragraph story of your best, funniest or weirdest April Fool's prank either played on you or that you played on somebody else. You are asked to post text only; no images please. One story per participant only. Please post your stories in the comments box below. You do not need to provide your full or real name, but please do not post as "Anonymous" since it may cause problems in identifying the winner. Deadline to post is 11:59 PM, Friday 5 April 2013 Pacific Standard Time. The contest is restricted to continental U.S. users for reasons of budgetary constraints on shipping and handling of the prize. However, users outside the continental U.S. may post April Fool's prank stories for fun but they will not be considered as potential winners. Family/relatives of contest sponsor (yours truly) are disqualified from participating due to potential favouritism issues. However, as with users outside the continental U.S., they may post stories for fun but will not be considered pontential winners. Contest sponsor has the right to remove any entry he deems unsafe or that infringes on other people's rights.

Procedure for Selecting Winning Entry
One winner will be selected based on the story that the contest sponsor likes best. The winner will be announced by 11:59 PM, Monday 8 April 2013 PST here at the Far Out Fantastic Site. When announced, winner will be given three (3) days to respond and provide his/her email address and postal mailing address at the email contact they will be provided with. Winner's email and postal mailing addresses will be used for purpose of delivering the prize only (to be delivered either by U.S. Postal Service or UPS); they will not be shared with anybody, including any third party sites. If the winner does not respond within the time frame stated above or it is discovered that the winner did not play by the above mentioned rules and/or conditions, an alternative winner will be selected and the prize will go to the alternative winner instead. The alternative winning entry will be based on the story the contest sponsor selects as second best.

This contest and its prize are for real; no fooling!

May the best entry win.

Until next week . . .

--Steven Rose, Jr.