jeriendhal: (Ali)
Summary:Trying to get back into the habit of monthly reporting for the start of the year.

Sales were definitely down in 2015 compared to the previous year. Total before tax profit from KDP, ACX, and Smashwords was $280.51, compared to about $600 the year before. Blame for that is squarely on me, since I didn’t publish anything new to support sales of my back catalog. Also the sales of CotRV audiobook have been pretty disappointing, coming to about eleven units since October of 2014 after subtracting the complimentary copies given out to my Kickastarter supporters.

Comparatively speaking sales picked up towards the middle of January, fueled I think by one of my unpublished FYS stories being chosen as a Daily Deviation on DeviantArt. Still down compared to the same time the year before, but an improvement compared to previous months.

Things to Do: Still working on Shadow of History Doubt and The Red Vixen at Sea. The former is much closer to completion, and I’m hoping to have it out in the next couple of months. I’ve also restarted Prisoners of History, a non-salacious follow-up to Prisoners of War, tying it more firmly in the RVA universe.

Also in progress are various shorts set in the FYS. At the urging of Ryk Spoor, AKA [livejournal.com profile] seawasp, I’m trying to put together a pair of short story collections, one for stories set during the Groupmind’s rebellion and takeover of the Earth, the second during the era of the Ring. Ryk seems to think the latter period would be a unique setting for science fiction, given the Groupmind’s lack of malicious intent compared to universes like Jack Williamson’s The Humanoids.


Sales Report: KDP/Pages Read


Captive of the Red Vixen: 3/1 (1/0 DE)

For Your Safety: 4/0

I Fought the Claw & the Claw Won: 3/0 (1 UK, 1 DE)

Mimsey's Tale: 1/0

Prisoners of War: 1/0 (1 UK)

Shadow of Her Sins: 3/170 (1 UK, 1 DE)

Shadow of the Red Vixen: 3/0 (1 UK, 1 DE)

Total Sales: 18/171
jeriendhal: (Muppets)
Summary: The magical land of Oz has fallen, destroyed by two evil wizards who escaped their punishments inflicted on them by Princess Ozma, combining forces in an uneasy alliance to conquer all. Only the sky kingdom of King Iris Mirabillis, Lord of Rainbows, remains free. And from there he sends his daughter, Polychrome Glory, to the Mortal World to find the champion they need to free the Land of Oz.

What they get is Erik Medon, an asthmatic, overweight fan of L. Frank Baum's famous series, who just found his dreams have come true. And is willing to fight for those dreams even at the cost of his own life.


Review: Okay, this book is unabashed wish fulfillment by Ryk Spoor. It's a Portal Fantasy with a stereotypical fannish geek who gets to live out an adventure in the Magical Land of Oz (at least the portions that are out of copyright). Nevertheless it's well-written wish fulfillment. Erik is painfully aware of his limitations as a Hero, even though he gets a fair set of Mighty Thews (not to mention 20-20 eyesight) after a year of intense training up in the Rainbow Kingdom. And Oz is not entirely the happy-go-lucky land of adventure from the books. Wisely, Spoor makes the assumption that Baum simplified and softened the retelling of Dorothy and her companion's adventures when he published them. This allows Spoor to attach more complex motivations and characterizations to both the heroes and villains in his tale, and enriches the narrative.

If I have an objection to this story, it's that Ozma had to be very deliberately and specifically Nerfed to allow Erik his moment to shine at the end. But “Ozma wakes up and makes everything instantly better” doesn't work in a modern narrative, so I'll give Spoor a pass on that one, and the active female characters are strong enough to make up for the loss.

The final battle does get marvelously loony though, as Erik uses his knowledge of sci-fi, fantasy and Japanese anime to fight the villians. It reminded me strongly of Jim Hine's Libromancer books, and that's not a bad thing.

Strongly Recommended.
jeriendhal: (Wazagan)
Just thinking about [livejournal.com profile] seawasp's Grand Central Arena books.

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One of the background details is that some decades past a very ethically questionable genetic/social engineering project was begun by a group of intelligent yet remarkably clueless science fiction fans, trying to create Real World versions of classic characters from sci-fi and fantasy literature. Most of the end results were various levels of crazy by the time things broke down, but one of the more remarkable successes was Marc DuQuense, based off the classic supervillain from E.E. Smith's Skylark series.

Now most of the characters from the project seem to be from myth (like the Monkey King) or Golden Age sci-fi. Likely if only to avoid Ryk Spoor from treading on living author's copyrights. But if the Hyperion Project managers went a little further forward I can see one character they'd almost have to try and recreate....

Except I think their version of Miles Vorkosigan would likely be more even nuts than his fictional brother Mark...

October 2024

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