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Galaxy Games gets cross town treatment

Let’s take a look at all the things happening online for the launch of Tu’s first three books. First of all, see what our publisher Jason Low would do if we had a million dollars to promote our first three books. Too bad we’re not millionaires!

The Challengers

First up, The Challengers, book 1 of the Galaxy Games series. To celebrate, author Greg Fishbone is currently on a month-long blog tour that includes a game that readers can play along, finding puzzle pieces to fit together and win prizes. To find out more on how to play the game, go to http://galaxygam.es/tour/ and find out what puzzle piece they’re on. Note that there’s also a giveaway—poke around on the site to find more ways to enter!

You can also follow Greg on Twitter, like the Galaxy Games series on Facebook, or like Greg on Facebook for more news as it happens.

Here’s what Publishers Weekly had to say about Galaxy Games:

Complemented by Beavers’s comic book style artwork, Fishbone’s narrative is ripe with kid-friendly humor—i.e., Earth’s radio and TV transmissions are picked up by the toilets on the Mrendarian ship—and many of the plot twists could be straight from the ‘what if’ imaginings of a fourth-grade classroom. Though Fishbone clearly sets up the next book, he gives Tyler enough of a victory to leave readers satisfied. —Publishers Weekly

Wolf Mark

Joseph Bruchac, author of Wolf Mark, recently shared a video on YouTube talking about why he wrote the book, his inspiration, and other thoughts on this exciting suspense-filled paranormal thriller. Check it out!

Here’s what Publishers Weekly and Kirkus have to say about Wolf Mark, too:

Bruchac (Dragon Castle) delivers a fun twist on werewolf stories mixed with some mad science and espionage. . . . Bruchac adeptly incorporates characters of various heritages: Luke is Native American; his best friend/crush, Meena, is Pakistani; and the Sunglass Mafia a group of students who are more than they seem are from eastern Russia. Luke also possesses a hefty amount of cultural and political awareness to go with his combat and espionage expertise, which serve him well. . . . [T]he action and Luke’s narration carry the book nicely. —Publishers Weekly

A loner teen finds himself caught up in a paranormal paramilitary threat but he has both untapped personal resources and some unlikely allies to help him out. Ever since his mother died, his father-a sometime Special Ops-type agent who happens to be of Native American descent-has been worse than useless. Lucas just concentrates on doing well in school and mooning over the beautiful daughter of one of the Pakistani scientists working at the new Romanian-owned top-secret facility in town. He goes out of his way to avoid the Sunglass Mafia, a bunch of unusually pale Russian students. But when his father is kidnapped and gives him a coded message by

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I’m in the midst of a cold/sinus thing that has made my brain become enveloped in a big fog, so I’m afraid all my plans for incisive, witty (ha) posts here this week have been put off, reserving all my brainpower for cover copy and sell sheets and other fun things like that (perhaps a post may come of that in a week or so).

Instead, you get more book promotion. But hopefully you’ll either enjoy it or put up with it, because we’re very, very excited on this end that almost two years of work—actually, more than two years, given that my friend and I started talking about starting Tu way back in June or July of 2009—are finally coming to fruition. So bear with us, and make sure to share the good news with all your friends!

Last time we talked, it looked like the Google Books versions of Tu’s books were optimized for tablets—meaning that they were NOT auto-reflowing e-pubs. This was a mistake, and this has now been corrected. The Google Books versions ARE e-pubs, which means that they can be viewed on a very large number of platforms, including tablets but also cell phone apps, e-readers, and other e-book viewers. So you’ll note on the Galaxy Games page, for example, that platforms that used to have red Xs by them are now all green checkmarks—you’re good to go!

Also, Galaxy Games is now available on iTunes! Which means that Tankborn and Wolf Mark won’t be far behind. And I’ll let you know when they’re available for Nook—it shouldn’t be too long now.

Originally published at Stacy Whitman's Grimoire. Please leave any comments there.

Tu’s books are now also available on Google Books! These seem to be optimized for iPads/tablets.

Originally published at Stacy Whitman's Grimoire. Please leave any comments there.

For those of you who prefer your books in e-book form: we have some exciting news for Kindle people. Nook and iPad people, your day is coming soon in e-pub form. I’ll let you know as soon as I know!

Here are the Kindle versions!

Read them right away! And then let me know what you think.

Originally published at Stacy Whitman's Grimoire. Please leave any comments there.

You might not be aware that when this blog was created, the original group of posters agreed to keep it going for 843 days exactly. We had done some pretty complicated calculations on the shelf-life of a blog about speculative fiction for teens and pre-teens, with some assistance from several persons (and a robot) who arrived from the future to warn us about impending utopian conditions.

So here we are at Day 843, feeling compelled to say goodbye so that we can enjoy the sudden utopia we have been informed is about to be created on Earth. (We’ve been told there will be free iced coffee and several Harry Potter sequels for everyone.) We’d like to thank you, blog readers, for following us for so long (two and a half years! over 500 posts!). We’ve appreciated your comments and silent visits alike. We feel this has been a great opportunity to explore our thoughts on various topics important to us science fiction- and fantasy-lovers, and to chat with people we otherwise would never had known existed.

We hope that you will continue to visit us on other places on the web so that we can chat about books and hear your recommendations for what we should be reading and share thoughts about writing and publishing. You can find links to our websites here. Thanks, lovely blog readers, and Happy Reading!

Recently in China, there have been a glut of popular time travel television shows and movies. Typically, a character from modern China goes back in time and discovers that the past was a great place to live: lots of unpolluted air and water; horseback rides instead of traffic jams; epic battles for a noble cause; and romance everywhere.

"OMG! This picture will rock my Facebook page!"

This seems like a fun idea, but the Chinese government has taken a hard line and banned the entire time travel genre until further notice, as well as historical dramas based on certain works of classical literature. From the Chinese General Bureau of Radio, Film and Television (via Boing-Boing):

“The time-travel drama is becoming a hot theme for TV and films. But its content and the exaggerated performance style are questionable. Many stories are totally made-up and are made to strain for an effect of novelty. The producers and writers are treating the serious history in a frivolous way, which should by no means be encouraged anymore.”

If the pretext is that time travel stories are frivolous and inaccurate…well, duh! Here in the United States, cartoons about Mr. Peabody and his boy, Sherman, debuted in the 1950s as part of The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Mr. Peabody was a Gallifreyan Time Lord whose botched regeneration had given him the form of a talking dog. Sherman was Mr. Peabody’s companion, whose sole purpose was to wander around asking, “Where are we, Mr. Peabody? What’s this, Mr. Peabody? And who is that, Mr. Peabody?”

Also, Mr. Peabody needed Sherman's opposable thumbs.

According to Wikipedia, 91 segments of “Peabody’s Improbable History” were aired, with each containing a silly plot that ended in a horrible pun. Did the writers “treat serious history in a frivolous way?” Heck, yeah! But that didn’t make anyone want to ban Mr. Peabody’s WABAC machine, Doc Brown’s DeLorean, the Doctor’s TARDIS, and all other depictions of time travel on TV and in the movies. There’s got to be something else going on in Beijing.

Time travel stories often include a political message or cultural commentary by nature. By making a purposeful connection with the past, or by projecting current trends into the future, an author can make a powerful statement about the present. This goes all the way back to H.G. Wells’s 1885 novel, The Time Machine, which took a stab at class warfare in Victorian England by journeying to a future where the upper and lower classes had evolved into two separate and exaggerated species.

Behold the future of the lower classes!

Sometimes the subtext is open to interpretation, or may be an unintentional consequence of some throwaway joke in the script. Like when Robert Zemeckis gave us an alternate take on the origins of rock and roll music in the first Back to the Future movie.

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By: Stacy Whitman, on 3/17/2011
Blog: Stacy Whitman's Grimoire (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  science fiction, young adult literature, fantasy, geekiness, children's literature, joseph bruchac, genealogy, tu, greg fishbone, fall 2011, karen sandler, Add a tag

Actually, I don’t know whether or not Justin Bieber has an advance copy of Galaxy Games: The Challengers, but how else can you explain what we all saw on the Grammy Awards ceremony this weekend?

At one point in my book, a young girl with a questionable hairstyle is plucked from obscurity and thrust into the international spotlight. On stage, in front of a huge crowd of adoring fans, she is suddenly attacked by ninjas!

In real life, a young boy with a questionable hairstyle has been plucked from obscurity and thrust into the international spotlight. On stage, in front of a huge crowd of adoring fans, he was suddenly attacked by ninjas!

The difference is that Tomoko Tomizawa has judo skills sufficient to defeat her attackers. Lacking that, Justin Bieber had to dodge the ninjas using only slick dance moves and pyrotechnics until Usher could come to his defense. A well-choreographed duet with Usher apparently has ninja-repelling effects–who knew?

But Justin, using Galaxy Games: The Challengers as his guidebook, knew that Usher wouldn’t be able to close the deal. For that he’d need a young martial arts champion on his side to scare his attackers away for good. And Tomoko, being fictional, was unavailable.

Enter Jaden Smith, a.k.a. “The Karate Kid.” Jaden’s father played Muhammad Ali in one movie and has been known to punch zombies, aliens, and robots right in the face in others. The ninjas took one look at Jaden and said, “It’s Fresh Prince Junior! And he’s been trained by Jackie Chan! Let’s get out of here!”

And speaking of punching aliens right in the face, why couldn’t Wil Smith do anything to stop Lady Gaga from emerging from her glowing green pod? Just sayin’.

Later in my book, Tomoko Tomizawa loses a Best New Artist award to Esperanza Spalding. It’s almost like she and Justin Bieber are the same person!

What Grammy moment do you think could have been taken from a speculative fiction novel?

—Greg R. Fishbone, Gramtastic

Greg R. Fishbone

Filed under: Greg Fishbone Tagged: bieber, life imitates art, ninjas 1 Comments on Justin Bieber has read an advance copy of my book!, last added: 2/15/2011

As a science-fiction writer, I try to stay current with major developments in scientific fields that touch on my work. Since my current work is a first-contact story, I’ve become particularly interested in xenobiology, exoplanets, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. I can’t put myself out there as an expert, but I have a basic grounding to keep in mind while I’m writing–and when there’s big news in the scientific community, I tend to get swept up in it.

Six times the fun!

Despite the lack of evidence, I’m fairly confident that extraterrestrial life must have popped up elsewhere in creation, given the mind-boggling size and age of our universe. Imagine trying to figure out whether there are other people living in your house by taking a quick glance at a cubic inch of space under your own bed. That would be more than the human race has been able to do so far, even with all of our telescopes and instruments.

So how many advanced alien civilizations are out there? About six times more of them than we would have thought just a few weeks ago!

I’m basing this number on two major announcements from earlier this month. First, there may be three times as many stars in the universe than we previously thought, according to Pieter van Dokkum, a Yale University astronomer who led a research project at the super-powerful Keck Observatory in Hawaii. The extra stars are red dwarfs with long lifetimes and stable conditions that make them especially good places for life to develop. Three times as many habitable stars means three times as many habitable planets, which is like buying three times as many lottery tickets in the sweepstakes of abiogenesis. Whatever the odds turn out to be, you will have about three times as many winners. The one caveat is that these extra stars are all in other galaxies, so this discovery changes nothing about the odds of finding aliens in our own Milky Way neighborhood where we might actually be able to meet them.

Not recommended

The second announcement came from NASA, where geomicrobiologist Felisa Wolfe-Simon may have found a bacteria with arsenic in its DNA, RNA, lipids, and proteins (although there’s been some post-announcement buzz that this study may have been half-baked). You may remember arsenic as the murder weapon of choice in about a zillion murder mystery novels, or from news reports of arsenic compounds leeching into some community’s drinking water with devastating health effects. Organisms that ingest arsenic tend to become very sick or very dead.

But now there’s GFAJ-1. This little microbe seems to shift between a phosphorous metabolism, like the rest of life on Earth, and a weird alien-like arsenic metabolism. Early reports speculated that GFAJ-1 may have descended from a “second genesis” of life on Earth or a “shadow ecosystem” existing alongside our own–very cool science fictiony ideas. CNN’s Ali Velshi tried three times to put these words into the mouth of SETI researcher Jill Tarter, but she wasn’t taking the bait. These seemingly alien buggies belong to the same family tree as we do, they’ve just picked up some extra tricks that

There was an interesting announcement recently from Sterling, the book-publishing wing of Barnes & Noble. They will be launching a YA imprint called Splinter that will debut in January with at least one fantasy title, Tiger’s Curse by Colleen Houck, followed by four more books in the Tiger’s series.

New fantasy imprints are worth watching. Books published by a retailer are a trendy topic. But here’s what really raised my eyebrow:

“…all books will be released simultaneously in hardcover and e-book formats, and the print editions will be imbedded with TAG codes that will enable readers with smartphones to scan the codes to access Web-only material.”

The commitment to publish an e-book edition of every book simultaneously with the hardcover edition shows how legitimate the digital format has become. But what in blazes is a TAG code? Could they mean that those ugly QR Code blocks will be plastered throughout the book?

Obviously this is just a rough mock-up but it’s fun to imagine a book with web-content footnotes using a technology that’s becoming more and more common.

There could be links to interesting facts about the setting, video of the author explaining how a scene came to be, references to other books or movies that the reader might be interested in, pictures, recipes, or whatever. It would be just like an HTML-based book with hyperlinks!

We’re now seeing the first printed books that incorporate some of the capabilities of digital books. Only time will tell whether readers will come to expect hyperlinked content in all formats or if this is just the kind of weird experiment we see when people go a little nuts with a new technology.

3 Comments on TAG, You’re It!, last added: 10/30/2010

These are some of the answers I came up with for my friend Kate Messner, who is writing a book on revision for students, using input and examples from different authors with different methods of work. I’d been thinking a lot about revision anyway, because the first book of the Galaxy Games series has been through many revision cycles over the past year, and will be revised at least once more before being put in its final form. I’m looking forward to Kate’s book and I will be posting my whole set of revision Q&A on my website.

Are there times during the revision process when you need to step back and do more brainstorming?

There are lots of times when additional brainstorming is necessary in the revision process. For me, this might start with asking a “what if” question. “What if a character did this instead of that?” or “How can this other character come back into the book later on?” or “Wouldn’t this chapter be better if I added some clowns?”

A seemingly small change might ripple through the entire book so you really need to think about all the consequences before you commit to doing it!

How do you brainstorm titles?

Brainstorming titles is especially challenging for me. I use working titles to avoid committing myself until the last possible moment. Sometimes the working title becomes the final title, but sometimes not.

For the brainstorming part, I think about what the book is about and make a list of words that might fit into a title. For a book about playing sports, my list might start with game, team, goal, field, champion, pitcher’s mound, and so on. If my book is a giant mutant squid, the list might be squid, tentacle, calamari, mollusk, etc. So if a story is about playing sports against a team of giant mutant squid, I might end up with a title like

What kinds of outlines and organizers do you use? Do you ever use maps, timelines, calendars, or other specialized planning strategies that you can describe?

I rely heavily on chapter maps and timelines but every book has its own challenges.

In the first book of the Galaxy Games series, I cut between events happening in the United States, in Japan, and in outer space. It was important to keep track of the passage of time, since it might be the middle of the night for one set of characters while others were awake and eating lunch. I picked one event that had to happen at a certain time on a certain day, and set every other scene as became “X hours before” or “X days after.”

How do you deal with the theme or central issue of your book during the revision process?

Part of the revision process is identifying the theme and making sure it’s presented in a balanced and natural way that doesn’t come off as preachy. The best is when an issue can be presented from multiple viewpoints, with nobody being entirely right or entirely wrong. I want readers to explore the topic and make up their own minds. The characters might also change their minds or struggle to find the best among a bunch of imperfect solutions, which is a good model for how a reader might consider that theme as well.