 Look what's coming soon. Four Tiny Tales in one epic volume! What could be better than that?
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 About OCTAVIA GONE: Each Alex Benedict novel by Jack McDevitt is for me a long-anticipated homecoming. OCTAVIA GONE was no exception. Jack’s a grand-master of Science Fiction. Blue-Sky Science, intrigue, characters I’d love to share a meal with, mysteries that must be solved, and thoughtful explorations of what it means to be human...all that and more in each volume. Having finished Octavia, now I want to go back to the beginning, to A TALENT FOR WAR, which tells you all you need to know. Few novels are worth a second round. Jack’s are. About Jack: Jack is an American science fiction author. He has won multiple awards including the International UPC Science Fiction award for Ships in the Night, a Nebula for Seeker, a Campbell Award for Omega, and the Robert Heinlein Lifetime Achievement Award. He has over 20 novels available in print, ebook and audio. He resides in Georgia with his lovely wife, Maureen.   Heather and I have about had it with screens. iPads, tablets, TV, you name it. It's not that we're anti-technology. I move knowledge for a living, on a 19 inch wired to a Dell laptop and a docking station. The BlueJeans video conferencing software is my new best tech-friend. Heather prefers her Apple. Don't get us started on "are you a PC or a Mac." We've made peace. She chose Jobs over Gates. Meh. But the boys are another matter. Andrew, Nate, and Caleb have developed an unhealthy relationship with the screen. If you're a mom or boy-dad, perhaps you can relate.
"After your chores you can have thirty more minutes, okay?" "Finish your homework, and then you can play Pokemon Go." "Okay, just one more show, but make it a short one. Thirty minutes. Thirty. Minutes. Got that? Repeat what daddy said." (picture eye rolls and grumpy-little-men expressions) I'm embarrassed as I write this. Me, the conscientiousness dad who reads the parenting books, and does his best to put the advice into practice, the dad who's there at the games and concerts, who loves to detox with his guys after school with a ball in the backyard, or over dinner conversation. "How'd the day go? And don't tell me it was simply good. Tell me why?" Me, slave to a programs and pixels. My boys are evidencing early signs of what might be termed an addition. The root cause of the addiction? Excessive Screen Time. In some ways, EST may be as bad for the brain as doing drugs. No, I don't think that's putting things too strongly. Research on the effects of excessive screen time upon children should scare us all. It's frightening. Rushing chores to so they can "tech out" seems innocuous enough because, after all, they are only children. The results say otherwise. I've seen it with my own eyes, in my own children. Shoddy work, dissatisfaction, inability to be bored, lack of imaginative play, laziness, even depression. After play, when I cut the power for the night, bad attitudes often follow. Tell me what that sounds like? The disrespect has gotten out of hand. So here's a troubling question. If they have the beginnings of an addiction, what does that make me? The guy who purchased the platforms and games, and now hands out "tech time" in trade for grudging obedience. Have I become their dealer? "Do this and you can have thirty minutes. Come back tomorrow and we'll do it again." Time to stop dealing. Time to stop being the pusher. So, we're taking a fast from technology, a Techfast. Addictions die by starvation. You don't manage addictions. You kill them. There's no easy way and no other way. Every device my boys own is in a box, put away. Being transparent, my phone is still in my pocket. But, I'm putting it in the cupboard when I get home, and working to ignore it more often than not. I shut down all of my alerts. I'm not even sure why they were on to begin with? Why should my phone tell me when to pay attention to it? It's my digital servant, not the other way around. Two weeks of fasting is the current thought. Maybe more. How we reintroduce screen time to the boys after that remains to be seen. I guess we'll figure it out as we go along. I want my boys to be tech savvy, and tech smart, and tech aware. For that to happen, I have to learn how to mentor them in the wise use of technology, both for pleasure and more often for gainful pursuit. Less of the former, please. A bit of pleasure if fine. An overabundance of it is the danger. Ephesians 5:16 comes to mind. Time to redeem the time. Right now, we're four days into the fast. The most noteworthy thing is the marked decrease in disrespect toward Heather. I asked her to describe the change she's seen so far, in just 96 hours of screen-free life. "Sobering, eye-opening, revolutionary," were the first words out of her mouth. "The boys are more relaxed, not as volatile, and now they have calm, peaceful spirits." I believe we're on to something. Can you relate to any of this? I'd love to hear your story. Leave me a comment. Let me know. If you embark on your on #techfast, jot down your observations and be sure to share. Blessings, W. C.  “The true way to be humble is not to stoop until you are smaller than yourself but to stand at your real height against some higher nature that will show you what the real smallness of your greatest greatness is.”
 Author's note: I wrote this piece in 2016 for Tor.com, and revisited it this morning. Loss, death, and tragedy have been on my mind. Considering the news from Florida, how could it be otherwise? So, I decided it was time to pull this over to my blog, and share with you today.
From Indomitable: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? At best that was a hollowed-out truth. What failed to kill you still exacted its own pound of flesh, and not even sleep offered an escape. The nightmares were definitely getting worse. Surely there was a gaping hole in her heart that must have turned black by now. Perhaps all that remained of it was a deathly hollow, carved out by the worst kind of flesh eater. Survivor’s guilt." Death and Mechsuited Marines. Nothing wreaks havoc like them. Indomitable is as much about the one as it is the other. My protagonist, a young Marine named Promise, has a habit of storming into trouble. With the help of a plucky AI assist, she cuts a wide swath. Death’s her second shadow. But the fallout haunts her. And the pain slowly fades. Charles Dickens christened death “Our Mutual Friend.” It has certainly been for me. I’ve buried a sister and a daughter, all the grands, and a cousin of mine named Jack. Death reaped each of them at inconvenient times. I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Absence has made a poor bedfellow. Promise is no stranger to loss either. Her full name suggests as much and, for good or bad, it’s a bit on-the-nose. Promise. Paen. I’ve caught flak for her name. Flak flak (like the shells thrown by the German Flugabwehrkanone, or anti-aircraft cannon). When I named her I was playing with words, sure. But I also meant to convey something deeper…that life is dualistic…both tragic and hope-filled, like yin and yang. We will all be wounded by something and probably by many somethings in this life. Many someones too. Loss is unavoidable. Death has a habit of being on the nose. But life is always ahead. Hope is out front, out there. It has to be. Promise first came to me at age seventeen. Orphaned. Jaded. Congenial like a rusty bayonet. She was mad at the universe. She enlisted to start over, to slake the pain, and to maybe dish out some cold-served retribution as a mechsuited Marine. But war had other plans. It kept taking the people she loved from her. The pain only grew worse and to continue she had to turn and face it. What Promise didn’t anticipate was that she’d learn, while pivoting toward mortality, to care again and to let the women and men she served with scale her walls. Turns out death’s sting is not something to be shouldered like a rucksack, on a solitary march through life’s tempest. Death is our mutual friend. We’re meant to greet the reaper together. Sometimes we write for our lives. For me that’s involved marring my love (truth be told my guilty pleasure) for military fiction and mil-speced battle scenes with a need to draw out the deep waters of my soul. I had to crank the well-wheel to find out what was down there. Up came a traumatized character who talked with her deceased mother on a regular basis, a centuries-old, semi-automatic GLOCK named Janie, a suit of interlocking armor that begs for a 3D printed cosplay, and a veritable band of sisters and brothers as real as any family. Up came the reaper too. He likes to howl and gnash his teeth. But I’ve seen the fear in his hollow point eyes. He has a spot at the table, over there, where he sulks while I share a meal with friends. The food is good. The company, better. Reap sulks because death doesn’t frighten me so much anymore. (article originally posted at Tor.com, July 25th 2016)  Yeah!! It's publication Day for "David & the Lost Lamb" and "Jonah & the Whale"!! Written by yours truly, illustrated by Marta Costa. Marta did a fantastic job. Please check them out and tell your friends. #TinyBibleTales #DavidandtheLostLamb #JonahandtheWhale
I try not to be political on this blog. That said, a few thoughts on the matter of the KKK, #Charlottesville, #Nazis, #monuments, and #racism.
1. The United States of America has a storied history with race and equality. These 50 states have not always been on the same page about the matter, or the history of the matter, and I daresay, they aren't now. It should come as no surprise, to anyone, that some US monuments are controversial in nature. Let's be honest about the past while advancing liberty and justice for all. We should defend freedom of speech while condemning the doctrine of #whitesupremacy in the strongest, clearest terms. I pray that one day and soon, the vile notion that one skin color is better than another will at last be buried in history's grave of forgotten lies. 2. The offending monuments in question are older than I am. Why are they so controversial now, and not two years ago? Or twelve years ago? I suppose we could say that things change, culture changes, causes mature. A car-turned-weapon, a deplorable rally, and a tragic death raised a national outcry and rightly so. But is that the whole story? Maybe. I wonder. It's a question worth serious consideration. This issue is far more important than anything Trump did or didn't say. Trump needs to be clear about his position. The "both sides" comment is repugnant and beneath the office of the Presidency. Trump needs to remove all ambiguity about where he stands. Trump needs to get his act together. Trump, let's face it, is way in over his head. Most importantly, we should not trivialize the issue of race and equality by making it about one man. This issue deserves better than Donald Trump. 3. #Nazis are bad. Evil. Wicked. (And virtually all of them, except for a few very old men in hiding, are now dead) Nazis butchered seven million Jews. Nazis should be called Nazis. What we see today are pathetic imitators of bygone fascist mass murderers. Today's white supremacists have said and done vile things, evil things, and a young woman lost her life. I hope justice is served, hard and cold. But Nazis? Today's culture has too little regard for that word. By the way, the father of the woman that died has chosen to forgive her killers. We should follow his example. A bit of context about this...a fraction of a friend's family escaped Nazi Germany. Most of his ancestors were killed by the Third Reich. His family lost generations to the Nazis. Decades later they saw some small measure of compensation from the German government for the horrors inflicted by the Nazis. His family's wealth was confiscated, dozens were killed, and for that some recompense was given. This story is by no means unique. Money for shed blood is an insult, part of the murderous legacy of the Nazis. The term "Nazi" should be applied only with great fear and trembling. To label today's white supremacists as Nazis is to do the real Nazis of the 1930s and 1940s a favor. I will not diminish the evil perpetrated by the Nazis by equating them to today's white-first thugs. 4. Part of me would like to break a few jaws. I'd enjoy it. A lot. My family is multi-cultural: all manner of European ancestry, and Korean and Latino heritages swirled together. My nephew is half Korean, half white, with a Latino last name. My nephew's daddy, my BIL, was adopted by a beautiful man named Jesus (hay-zoos). Solomon Garcia is my nephew, my guy. (Jewish first name, Hispanic last name, half Korean - I love that) He's MINE. So, yes, I'd like to break some jaws. But my Christian faith dictates otherwise. So, I'll break bread instead and say this: I will pray for the racist/KKK/angry-white-men to become overwhelmed by the enormity of their sins, repent, and find Jesus. After all, the Bible is clear on the matter of human fallibility. "All have sinned." It also says that God is not a respecter of persons...in other words, all are created equal in the eyes of the creator. So says the good book and that's good enough for me. I won't start a fist fight with a racist. But I'll finish it if necessary. Remember, soft targets and open palms: groin; nose, throat; ears; eyes; joints. Smile. 5. Hate is not righteous indignation. Righteousness indignation should not lead to hate. I fear the two are being confused and that doesn't bode well for the future of this country. This country needs to think a second time.  Hey, folks.
I'm at Denver Comic Con 2017 this coming Saturday, July 1st. My friend and fellow science fiction author, Jason Kent, put together a fabulous DCC17 panel about happy endings in Science Fiction. Frankly, I'm tired of the dystopian mire the genre has fallen into. Why can't our favorite characters win in the end? (without killing them off in the process...well, at least not all of them). Let the Wookiee Win should be a blazing good time, and a healthy dose of literary optimism. Stop by and sell hello. - W. C. More about the panel: Location: DCC17 Panel, Keystone City Room, Saturday July 1st Panel: Let the Wookiee Win Summary: Save our favorite characters! No one else needs to die! Have we seen the end of the happy ending? In a world where every other author and screen-writer feels the need to kill off our favorite characters, is there still a place for the happy ending? Explore this and other plot choices in your favorite science fiction stories. Can you still have a good story if the main character survives? Does culture require a tragic story and ending to be considered a success? Show of hands, who wants to see a happy ending and who wants to watch an unavoidable plunge into dystopian chaos? Writers will share the driving forces behind their stories. See what influences tales across the spectrum as authors explore their own nightmares or seek to inspire their readers to a brighter future. Even when facing the demons conjured up late at night, just remember, sometimes it's okay to have a positive, uplifting ending. Sometimes, you need to let the Wookiee live...er, win!  NEW IN PAPERBACK - 4/12/2017 INDOMITABLE is finally out in paperback! It's a new book for new readers. The ebook is under $10. It's a new price point for budget-conscious buyers. Easter is this Sunday. Its a new beginning for weary souls. My lawn is green. The eggs are coming. It's a new season. It's a new day folks. I'm excited. When you order your copy of INDOMITABLE (or UNBREAKABLE if you need to catch up), or if you already have, please tell your friends. When you do, whether it's a purchase or a post, email me at write(dot)wcbauers@gmail(dot)com with the subject line "RELEASE DAY!" and I'll throw your name in the hat for one of five Starbucks gift cards...so you can drink hot caf while you join Promise in her next adventure.
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