Why Mystical Science Fiction? Part 1: It's a Big Universe

Why is Sleight of Mind a "mystical" science fiction series?  I could have done it as regular science fiction and probably tapped in to a wider audience.

There are three reasons:

1. It's a big universe.
2. I like a challenge.
3. I like to challenge others.

In this segment, I'll start by exploring the first reason.  Tomorrow, the second and, on Saturday, I'll deal with the last one.

I like technology.  I also like the idea that the universe works in ways we haven't even begun to perceive, let alone measure and understand.

Science fiction is often about a distant time in which one of the key species has garnered an understanding of the universe that allows them to do things we cannot do today.  Not always, but pretty frequently.  What if the advanced understanding ends up actually being that we cannot possibly understand the universe? What if there's another way of doing things that our fairly scientific minds just tune out?

It's not like I think nobody has ever had an idea like this before.  It's more probable that my non-fiction writings are original than these works of fiction and, even then, the chances that someone, somewhere hasn't already at least toyed with my ideas are pretty slim.  Ideas are only original a maximum of one times and the probability that said time was inside any given person's head is almost nil.

It's just that I think the idea of technology and mystical forces interacting is interesting for me to explore.  If it's interesting for me to explore as an author, it might be interesting for you to explore as a reader too.  So, even though the oddness of the story might be off-putting for a lot of readers at first, I'm hoping that it will ultimately develop into more of an appeal than a detractor.

Since I make a good living as a software developer, I can afford to wait and find out.

Stay tuned.  In part 2, I'll tell you how I think this is a more challenging subject for me than ordinary science fiction.

Why Is "Crashing the Party" Only 53 Pages Long?

There are a lot of e-books out there.  A lot.  There are Kindle books that are six-hundred pages long that only cost 99 cents.  So why do I think I can make it with a book one tenth as long for the same price?

I'd like to think that part of it is because I can write.  Maybe I'm full of shit on that.  If so, the market will tell me.  There's another, deeper meaning to this trial for me.

Anyone who knows me - who really knows me - knows that Lean Thinking is really important to me.  Some have even called it my religion.  The core principal in lean thinking, as far as I interpret it, is value.  Understanding what value is to your customer is absolutely critical to the success of a product.

A tool we use to zero in on value is market feedback and that's the first place that the structure of Sleight of Mind series and lean thinking tie together: by releasing part of the story and getting feedback, I'll have a chance to improve the product before I release subsequent portions.

Shaping the product this way also ties in with the flow and pull principles as well.  I'm sure a particular friend will tell me that, if I think about it long enough, I'll be able to stretch the value stream and perfection principles over this idea as well.

That doesn't mean I'm a total douche bag - although it doesn't mean I am not either.  I don't intend to let the market tell me how the story should go, who should live or die, who should win or lose, or which characters should change their nature.  I'm already pretty confident in my abilities to make those decisions on my own.

What I do want to learn from the market is the weight it places on the following things:

• Descriptions of people
• Descriptions of scenery
• Unveiling of motivations
• Connecting the plot dots for you
• Making you connect the dots on your own
• Etc.

This is an experiment.  Maybe it will work.  Maybe it won't.  It only costs my time for me to find out at this point.

Sleight of Mind #01: Crashing the Party

I've released my first work of fiction as a Kindle e-book.

Sleight of Mind is a series of short stories staring Daniel Vaughn.  In the first episode, he accompanies a group of soldiers on a mission to kill an enemy of the United States.  His role is to interpret cuneiform writings in which instructions on how to proceed are encoded.

As time passes, it becomes apparent that this is more than just a covert mission to kill a terrorist and the group realizes they are up against something they don't really understand.


The current plan is for it to be free every Saturday for the next five weeks and 0.99 USD the rest of the time.  It is also available for free to Amazon Prime users by way of the Kindle lending library.

Liberate Wall Street

Are you tired of the Occupy movement?  I am.  It looks to me like a bunch of dirty hippies whining about the fact that they bought houses they can't afford and created an economic meltdown.  How the hell is that Wall Street's fault?

Occupiers: You jackasses committed fraud and got away with it.  Or, at the very least, your mortgage brokers did.  Sure.  There was a little bit of economic fallout from your decisions and the Wall Street people definitely didn't do anything to arrest the downturn you created.  That hardly entitles you guys to bitch about them.  It's not their job to look out for you.

Here's what I think we should do.  We have a long history of liberating pansies who can't seem to take it upon themselves to fight back when occupied; most notably the French.  Why don't we get together as Americans and start liberating Occupied spaces?  We can start where it all began: Wall Street.

Liberate Wall Street!

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Christmas is approaching as rapidly as ever.  In fact, it's approaching at exactly the same pace it always have and probably always will.  I don't know what everyone wants but I do know what most people desperately need.  They need the thing that helps them get through life, cold and twisted a thing as it is.

Unfortunately, if you're in the ninety-nine percent who don't seem to have this, nobody can give it to you.  That is, nobody can give it to you but you.

This year, give yourself the gift that keeps on giving: a fucking sense of humor.