Book Review: I Am John, I Am Paul by Mark Tedesco

October 23, 2013 Rob Steiner book reviews, books, ebooks, Kindle, novels

I Am John, I Am Paul by Mark Tedesco follows the lives of two real-life Roman soldiers in the fourth century, Ioannes (John) Fulvius Marcus Romanus and Paulus.  John and Paul form a strong bond of friendship during their days fighting on the German frontier, a bond that is never broken even when John is sent away to Alexandria by a sadistic centurion.

John spends years in Alexandria longing for home and corresponding with his family and Paul in Rome.  While in Alexandria, John is initiated into the Mithraic religion, but his faith in Mithras doesn’t seem to give him the peace he thought it would.

Political upheavals enable John to return to Rome, his family, and Paul.  John and Paul resume their duties in the Legion, and even volunteer to rescue a close family member of Emperor Constantine, who was kidnapped by a rival Roman general.  The mission succeeds, and the Emperor is so grateful that he gives them both farm lands and a house in Rome, ensuring they and their families will never again know poverty.

While in Rome, John and Paul discover the ‘Way,’ the nascent Christian movement that threatens the old Roman gods.  In the Way, John discovers the faith he always hoped would fill his heart, which strengthens both men when they suffer the inevitable persecution.

I’m a huge ancient Rome geek, so there were many things I liked about this book.

For one, it was well researched.  The author knew his history and provided illuminating details of the lives of average ancient Romans.  Tedesco had a clear understanding of Roman religions, including Roman pagan rituals, Mithraism, and the practices of the ‘christus followers’.  The book was beautifully written in a first-person narrative told primarily by John, with dialogue that had an ancient, almost biblical feel.

Now I offer the following as an observation and not a criticism, as it is more a warning about the book’s style.

I felt like I was reading John’s personal journal.  And like the journals of real-life people, you won’t find the standard fiction novel plot twists and character conflicts.  For the most part, things just happened to John—he doesn’t really do much (besides plan and execute the rescue mission, which was the best part of the book for me).  Most of the conflict is internal, with John searching for spiritual meaning in Alexandria and Rome.  Tension between characters was minimal.

In other words, read this book for the thoughtful writing about a man searching for his spiritual home, or to experience the lives of everyday Romans during the fourth century.  But skip it if you’re seeking a page-turning adventure story set on an ancient Roman battlefield.

I Am John, I Am Paul is available on Amazon.

Cross-posted on New Podler Review of Books.

Book Review: In Apple Blossom Time by Robert Wack

September 25, 2013 Rob Steiner book reviews, ebooks, Kindle, novels

In Apple Blossom Time by Robert Wack starts with an interesting Prologue—a time traveler jumps back and forth in time between different locations in World War II Europe tracking another man important to the time traveler’s mysterious mission. It’s a violent struggle, as the traveler sometimes kills his quarry and then sometimes loses him.

The Prologue promised a novel filled with paradoxes and alternate timelines. In my opinion, however, the novel did not deliver on that promise.

Dr. Willem von Stockum is an American mathematician who abandons a lucrative academic career to join the British Royal Air Force prior to the Pearl Harbor attack. He’s disgusted with America’s indifference to Nazi oppression in Europe and wants to do what he can to free his Dutch homeland from the Nazi invaders.

When his bomber is shot down over Normandy during the D-Day invasion, a group of lost American paratroopers rescue him from the wreckage. They hide from the German army in a French home with members of the French Resistance and two strangers who tell peculiar stories about the fantastical theories von Stockum will one day develop. Von Stockum ultimately has to choose between believing the absurd stories of these strangers, or doing the right thing in the here and now.

There were quite a few good things about this book that kept me reading.

The author knew his material; details of the Normandy invasion and the mathematics of quantum physics and the Theory of Relativity were all authentically presented within the narrative.

The dialogue was spot-on for the era and expertly rendered; whether it was Americans or British or even the French speaking, I could hear their accents without the author resorting to phonetically spelling them out (e.g., “ve have vays of making you talk!”).

What bothered me, however, was that the book felt like the author expanded a beautiful short story into novel length by adding flashbacks, reveries, and information dumps. The first third of the book was filled with von Stockum thinking about his past, reminiscing with fellow pilots, or reading letters from home. He didn’t do much. I found myself skipping pages of von Stockum reveries just so I could get back to the American paratrooper story lines, which were quite exciting.

The second thing that bothered me was that the time travel element was not as important to the story as I had hoped. The paratroopers and von Stockum simply thought of the time traveling strangers as either German spies or lunatics, and the strangers didn’t seem to impact the decisions of the main characters in any significant way; if they did, it was way too subtle for a promised ‘time travel’ novel.

Still, if most of von Stockum’s ruminations were cut out and a more impactful role given the time travelers, I think In Apple Blossom Time would have made a marvelous short story or novella. But as a novel, I can only give it 3 of 5 stars.

In Apple Blossom Time is available on Amazon.

Cross-posted on New Podler Review of Books.

Book Review: Black Book, Volume 1, by Dylan Jones

Published: July 11, 2013 / Updated: July 11, 2013 Rob Steiner book reviews, serial fiction

Black Book, Volume 1, has the first three episodes of the genre-bending Black Book series. It’s a story that mixes Western, science fiction, and fantasy into a quest that spans centuries.

In Part 1: The Devil’s Blood, we find Sheriff Jack trying to keep the peace in a small, American West town during the 1860s. But Jack is no ordinary Sheriff. He has almost supernatural skills that help him survive a bloody encounter with bandits that shoot up his town and kill many of its citizens. He’s quick on the draw, knows how to use his fists…and can time-travel out of town when a powerful adversary leaves him no choice but to retreat.

In Part 2: Out of Time, we meet Benjamin Freeman, President of the United States in the year 2308. Ben has directed his time-travel corps to locate Jack, an old military comrade who has gone missing in the distant past. When Ben personally oversees the operation, he walks into a trap orchestrated by a deadly faction that also wants to find Jack for its own ruthless purposes.

In Part 3: The Wall, Jack arrives in 1862 California. He meets up with a six-year-old boy and his guardian, a mysterious old man who has met Jack before, though Jack has no recollection. The old man guides Jack to a hidden object that Jack knows will change his life and the course of humanity.

First the good:

Jones’ scenes in the Wild West were so awesome that I thought I was reading a Zane Grey novel. In Part 1, I could taste the dust on my lips and smell the body odor of the gamblers in the saloon. The Western dialogue was spot-on and I could feel the bullets zip past my ear during the gunfights.

Sheriff Jack is an interesting character because he understands the stakes of his mission, yet cannot help himself when he goes out of his way to protect the innocent, even if it threatens the success of his mission.

Most of Volume 1 was about Jack, but Ben Freeman, who appears in Part 2, proved to be an interesting character as well. Through him, we get a glimpse of the 24th century and how time travel becomes a truly devastating weapon. Volume 1 only hints at Ben’s military background and his relationship with Jack, so there is still plenty of ground to cover there in future volumes.

And in the Black Book world, lets just say time travel is not for those who fear pain or swimming.

Now for the warning:

I went into Black Book, Volume 1, thinking I’d get three episodes of good serial fiction. What I got instead were three chapters of a great novel.

Let me explain.

A single episode of serial fiction should be like an hour-long episode of a TV drama — the characters encounter a situation that they take action to resolve within that one hour. While there may be an over-arching storyline that ties the episodes together, each one should have a clear beginning, middle, and end.

For me, the three episodes of Black Book, Volume 1, did not have that clear beginning, middle, and end. They had scenes that felt like set-up for a coming situation…but that situation never materialized, which made the scenes feel pointless within that episode.

But Volume 1’s three episodes were what I’d expect from the opening chapters of an exciting sci-fi novel with an intriguing mystery. Those “pointless” scenes would work well in a complete novel that is a single story with a clear beginning, middle, and end.

The Black Book series promises to be a wonderfully engaging story that I look forward to reading and buying. I highly recommend it for the storytelling, world building, and quality of writing.

I’m just going to wait for the omnibus version so I can read it all at once.

Black Book, Volume 1, is available on Amazon.

Cross-posted on New Podler Review of Books.

Book Review: We’ll Watch the Sun Rise from the Bottom of the Sea

May 28, 2013 Rob Steiner book reviews, short stories

As the father of a 7-year-old, I can relate to many of the short stories in David Drazul’s sci-fi/horror collection, We’ll Watch the Sunrise from the Bottom of the Sea. The overarching theme to this collection is that parents are often clueless when it comes to raising their kids. Sometimes we get it right; sometimes we fail miserably. But we always try to do the right thing.

We start with “Emily’s Star.” While little Emily’s parents are renovating her room, they discover a strange point of light hovering near her ceiling. Her dad George decides to tinker with it, unleashing a sinister force none of them could imagine. I found the role reversal in this one humorous because the parents do exactly what most children would do if they found something strange in their room–they poke at it.

“Collection Notice” is part science-fiction, part political satire. A man from the future visits Senator Bartleby demanding payback for all the money Bartleby’s generation borrowed from the future. Drazul’s biting critique of both major political parties in the US–how neither one seems serious about America’s out-of-control debt–is timely, and I enjoyed this one a lot (of course, you may not like it if you disagree with Drazul). It conformed to the theme of trying to do the right thing, but failing miserably. I’m an optimist, so I like to think Republicans and Democrats thought they were helping people when they ran up the debt; the hard part now is to fix this mistake before it crushes us.

“Tile” is straight-up horror with no parenting theme. Silvio Gisardi is a tile-maker hired by a wealthy, eccentric, old man to tile a bathtub with the image of an ancient Illyrian lake god. “The Tile” is a clear homage to Lovecraft, with its evil gods and creepy mansions. My take-away? Never take a job from a wealthy, eccentric, old man who’s into ancient lake gods.

The book’s title story, “We’ll Watch the Sunrise from the Bottom of the Sea,” gets back to the parenting theme. While visiting an exotic hotel built forty feet beneath the South Pacific, Bryce and his wife Stephanie discover the true nature of Bryce’s family. He tries to avoid becoming like them, but the story implies that parental ties and traditions–even the ones we disagree with–are sometimes too strong to resist.

“The Recruiter” demonstrates a parental nightmare. A young teenaged boy buys a slick recruiter’s promises of glory and runs away from home to join a Holy War on Earth. While most parents don’t have to deal with their children becoming suicide bombers, the story made me ponder how I’d react if my daughter engaged in more mundane teen behavior that I knew to be self-destructive.

For me, “Maybe the Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow” was the most gut-wrenching. In a dystopian world where winter has mysteriously lingered, a father is forced to take his young daughter into a deserted town to scavenge for food and supplies. But his one moment of selfishness puts his daughter in terrible danger. Drazul comments in the story’s afterwords that he had originally written it with a more paranormal villan, rather than the natural threat he ended up writing. I think natural threats are more plausible and therefore more fearsome, so the story would’ve been much less powerful if Drazul had gone paranormal.

“She Cries at Midnight” combines parental instinct with a dash of horror and a whole lot of science-fiction. A mother is awakened every night when her twenty-month-old daughter cries out at exactly midnight. When the mother and father discover the truth, their attempts to protect their daughter cause a terrible misunderstanding with interstellar implications. This story was compelling because it showed what all parents would do in that situation, which makes the events all the more inevitable and tragic.

The final story, “Neptune’s Diamonds,” was about three friends who win a stake in an abandoned diamond mine in Neptune’s atmosphere. They think it’s an easy pay-day, but retrieving the diamonds turns out to be more difficult than they thought. This was the weakest of the collection for me because it was more predictable than the others; but I can still recommend it because it taught me a few things about Neptune that I never knew. And ultimately, learning something knew is why I read science-fiction.

Overall, We’ll Watch the Sunrise from the Bottom of the Sea was a strong collection of sci-fi/horror short stories that packs an emotional punch with deeply affecting parental themes. Highly recommended.

We’ll Watch the Sunrise from the Bottom of the Sea is available on Amazon. Learn more about David Drazul at DEDzone.net.

AmWriting: Worldbuilding

May 21, 2013 Rob Steiner amwriting, MUSES OF ROMA, novels, Rome, writing

Worldbuilding is the process of creating a novel’s exotic setting — its history, geography, cultures, religions, etc. For the purposes of this post, I’m referring to made-up worlds in science-fiction and fantasy novels.

So which is better to create first: the world or the story? Well it’s different for every writer and every story.

For me, it started with the world.

A Strange Old World

“What if the Roman Empire had interstellar travel?” That was the germ of the idea that became MUSES OF ROMA. I wrote down most of my ideas in long brainstorming sessions–and created a 50-page encyclopedia–before I ever decided on a particular story or set of characters. So in my case, the worldbuilding came first, and then the story.

Except that’s not exactly accurate.

World Inspires Story

I did a lot of brainstorming on where we are, but not so much on how we got there. How did the Romans establish interstellar colonies? What was the one event in Roman history that diverged from our timeline and enabled such an outlandish, science-fictional situation to occur? I wanted that “terrifying secret” to be the core of my novel.

That’s when my story began building my world. I updated some of my initial worldbuilding so that my universe conformed to the event that changed Roman history. I abandoned most of my brainstorming because my story was more important than adhering to my original encyclopedia.

Story Builds World

Once I settled on the “terrifying secret” my heroes had to discover, I began adding more nooks and crannies to my world that I had not thought of during my initial brainstorming. What were the implications of this secret? How would real people–specifically ancient Romans–accept it, and then how would their culture evolve because of it?

Even while writing the first draft, when I thought I had all the big questions answered, the story forced me to ask more and more questions, which only added to the richness of the MUSES universe. At that point, the story was in firm control of my worldbuilding.

The Third Degree

Whether you build your world and then write your story, or vice versa, always ask, “How?” Every bit of history, culture, religion, etc., has to be a logical progression of what came before it. This is what I call giving my world the Third Degree–I must be able to answer the how at least three questions deep before a piece of worldbuilding goes into my novel.

For example, the Romans in my universe have interstellar colonies, so my Degree questions would go:

First Degree: How do they travel to those colonies?
Answer: They use wormholes that they call “waylines.”

Second Degree: How did they discover the “waylines?”
Answer: The gods told them.

Third Degree: How did the gods tell them?
Answer: The gods talk to the priests and College of Pontiffs, who relay the information to the people.

Leave the questioning to three degrees unless more questions/answers will impact the story; otherwise, if you’re like me, you’ll end up with a 50-page encyclopedia loaded with info you’ll never use!

I once read a fantasy novel where the heroes encountered a group of nomads “famous for their winemaking.” But the author never explained how these nomads made their wine. I was left to wonder if the nomads stored their vineyards and fermentation barrels in their horse-drawn wagons. 😉

So the author’s winemaking nomads failed the First Degree of questioning–how do nomads make wine? If he had asked at least that question, he would have noticed the problem and solved it by offering a plausible explanation for the nomads’ winemaking fame (or would’ve removed the reference altogether).

Step Away from the Encyclopedia

It’s very tempting to lose yourself in worldbuilding and research (“Hello, my name is Rob, and I’m a chronic worldbuilder….”), especially when it’s a topic you love. Remember that the story is the most important thing–build your world until it passes that Third Degree of questioning. After that, let it go and move on.

When book bloggers hit the wall

May 7, 2013 Rob Steiner book reviews, novels, writing

Tobias Buckell writes about a book blogger who struggles with how to keep his reviews original after reading huge volumes of books. I write reviews for The New Podler Review of Books, so Buckell’s piece hit home for me.

1) When you get to a point where you’ve read an amazing number of books, you change. You’ve read so much that what may seem new or interesting to most (and even to the writer of the book you’re reading) is just a variation to you. Your expectations regarding the work change.

…

2) If you’re able to either unconsciously or consciously navigate the above, what you’re left with isn’t a raw, initial passion for reviewing what you love, but a more craftman’s-like examination of the book for an audience you may no longer really be a part of, but can remember being a part of. It’s easy to slip into this vein, by will or luck, because it does allow you to keep reading a ton while reporting back on the basics of what you read.

What those reviews are basically covering is “If you like X sort of thing, this hits X okay, with some additional Y and Z, if you also are into that.” Do they feel sucked dry of a bit of the reviewer’s authorial voice? Yeah, probably, because the reviewer has had to step back out of necessity in order to report back to a larger audience.

I see lots of queries at New Podler for well-written books. But lately I find myself passing over queries that I may have once grabbed simply because they sound like books I’ve already read. And when I do take a book, I feel like my reviews are “craftman’s-like” as Buckell described.

I still love discovering new authors and reviewing books. But how do I learn to see the unique wonder in each book I review, rather than its similarities to other books I’ve read? Buckell touches on the answer:

At a workshop not too many years ago a newer writer began to condemn a best selling novel, pointing out all its flaws and jagged edges. I listened for a long time, nodding.

“All those things are true,” I said. […] “But until you learn what the good parts were that excited the reader, you’re always going to be bitterly upset about what is wrong with that bestseller. Learn to spot what worked in that book, and you’ll be able to move forward. And you’ll be a lot less upset all the time as well.”

Good advice.

AmWriting: Seven simple steps for writing a novel

May 2, 2013 Rob Steiner amwriting, books, writing

I love books on writing. I have over three dozen on my bookshelf right now, and I’ve checked out numerous writing books from the library over the years.

My writing process is a mish-mash of the techniques I’ve learned from all those books, so I in no way claim the following is original. It sits atop the shoulders of giants, so to speak.

1. The Question

I start with the Question — what is my novel’s core conflict in one or two sentences? Jim Butcher wrote an invaluable template that helps me find that conflict:

*WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS*, *YOUR PROTAGONIST* *PURSUES A GOAL*. But will he succeed when *ANTAGONIST PROVIDES OPPOSITION*?

For example, the Question for MUSES OF ROMA would go like this:

When a high-ranking Roman official wants to defect to Libertus, former Liberti security agent Kaeso Aemelius infiltrates Roma to help the official escape. But can Kaeso succeed when Roman and Liberti agents want to stop the defector from revealing how the last thousand years of human history were built on a lie?

For me, it’s much easier to write this before I start my book than after I finish — while writing queries or cover copy — because I don’t have all the other plot threads I developed bouncing around in my head.

2. Who gets screwed?

The book’s main characters should be the people who get screwed the worst. I mean, who wants to read about characters where everything goes right in their lives?

My Question in step 1 comes with characters built in — Kaeso Aemilius, the defector, and Roman and Liberti agents. Kaeso is the protagonist and “Roman and Liberti agents” are nebulous antagonists (for now). I use a Character Sheet to detail their backgrounds, wants, inner conflicts, and traits.

3. Plot Points

I spend one to three pages outlining the book’s major plot points. Many of my plot ideas come from the Character Sheets, especially the “Conflicts” and “Change” sections. These plot points typically change as I write, but I like to get them down so I have some idea where the book is going before I start my main outline:

  1. Inciting Event — The event that gets the story rolling.
  2. End of Act 1 / Start Act 2 — The hero accepts the story’s “call to adventure” and makes a decision that turns his world upside down.
  3. Big Middle — Another suggestion from Jim Butcher – have something explosive happen in the middle of the book, something that turns the plot on its head and forces the hero to make decisions that further complicate matters.
  4. End of Act 2 / Start Act 3 — The hero figures out what he needs to do to resolve the book’s main conflict (see the Question) and sets out to do it.
  5. End of Act 3 — The hero resolves the conflict and is changed because of it (i.e., “I learned something today…”).

4. Scenes and Sequels

Many authors shudder at what I’m about to describe, but trust me — this technique changed my writing. This is another Jim Butcher suggestion, but I also found similar suggestions in Dwight Swain’s classic Techniques of the Selling Writer.

A well-constructed story is made up of Scenes and Sequels:

  • A Scene is where a character has a specific goal, he engages in some sort of conflict while trying to achieve that goal, but then fails to achieve the goal (or he succeeds, but his success creates a new problem that he needs to solve).
  • A Sequel is where the hero has an emotional reaction to the failure, reviews what happened, wonders what his options are, and then decides on a new goal.

So the order goes Scene/Sequel/Scene/Sequel/Scene/Sequel…until the final Scene where the hero resolves the story Question.

This is a gross oversimplification of the Scene/Sequel concept, so I urge you to read Jim’s web site and pick up Dwight Swain’s book for more details. Feel free to use my own Scene/Sequel template.

5. Write the first draft

The first draft is the easiest part for me because I’ve already done my “thinking” in the Scene/Sequel phase. I know exactly what’s going to happen; all I have to do is write it down. Some writers can’t imagine doing it this way (“I’d get bored if I already knew what was going to happen!”), but for me it is comforting and essential to have that Scene/Sequel map.

I typically average 1,000 words per day, which takes me about an hour (an hour is usually all I have!). To accomplish my word quota, I keep in mind Anne Lamott’s liberating advice from Bird by Bird — accept the fact that first drafts are shit. Your goal in the first draft is to just write it down and then fix it later.

6. Later

After celebrating my novel’s completion with an expensive steak dinner, I move on to the “fix it later” phase. This is where I fix plot holes, reign in and/or eliminate characters who don’t serve the story, and just ensure the whole thing makes sense. I tend to read the entire book out loud in this step.

7. Beautify and tighten the prose

There are actually two phases in this step: language edits and copy edits.

The language edit is where I read through the book again and make the writing as powerful, beautiful, and cliche-less as I can make it. I only focus on the language and not plot/character/etc. (which should have been addressed in step 6).

Copy edits are next. For this phase, I use another little book that transformed my writing: Ken Rand’s The 10% Solution. Rand provides a list of keywords and letters that tend to weaken prose, such as “of” or “-ly”. I search for those keywords and, in most cases, rewrite the sentences where I find them. The goal is to eliminate unnecessary words from the manuscript and reduce the word count by at least 10% (in my case, it’s usually 15%-20%). I never realized how bloated my writing was until I used Rand’s techniques.

And that’s it!

Simple, but certainly not easy.

What’s your writing process? If you’re not a writer, what’s your process for your favorite creative passion?

Marcus Antonius?

April 29, 2013 Rob Steiner Rome

I like Tor.com’s explanation best for the giant styrofoam head found floating in the Hudson River last week:

This past Thursday a giant styrofoam head turned up in the Hudson River. Our suspicion is that it fell through from an alternate 2013 timeline where the Roman Empire never fell.

My second favorite explanation: it fell off a Mardi Gras float in New Orleans and made it’s way up the East Coast via the Gulf Stream. I guess that’s more likely.

AmWriting: Research is writing, too!

April 24, 2013 Rob Steiner amwriting, MUSES OF ROMA, novels, writing

It helps that I love all things ancient Rome; I’ve spent almost as much time researching my MUSES OF ROMA series as I have writing it. From books to web sites to pod casts to multiple viewings of the HBO series Rome (both seasons), I’ve covered a lot.

Obviously I’ve barely scratched the surface of all the available material, but here are some of the resources I found helpful and/or interesting during my research.

The Rise of Rome by Anthony Everitt
Concise and entertaining history of how Rome went from a backwater trading post in 800 BCE to the world’s greatest empire in 1 AD.

Ancient Rome by Simon Baker
Looking for an overview of Rome’s entire history? This book covers the entire history of the Roman Empire, from its mythical origens to the abdication of the last Emperor in 476 AD.

Roma by Steven Saylor
It’s Everitt’s Rise of Rome meets a John Jakes novel. Roma follows two Roman families from the founding to the rise of Octavian Caesar Augustus. I took a lot of inspiration from this one.

A Gladiator Only Dies Once by Steven Saylor
Short stories about Gordianus the Finder, an ancient Roman private investigator. Great look at life in everyday ancient Rome.

History of Rome Podcasts by Mike Duncan
Better than the college history courses I took on the subject! Mike is passionate about Rome and he knows his stuff.

Nova Roma: Choosing a Roman Name
Lots of Roman names in my books, of course, and I would’ve been lost without this web site’s explanations of Roman naming customs and lists of common Roman family names, first names, and nicknames.