Write a Review

Posted on 2016-06-14 by arjaybe

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This is awkward, asking for help when you’ve already done so much. You’ve already helped me more than you know just by downloading my books, and even more by all the encouragement you’ve given me. Some of you have even gone to the trouble of dropping a comment on the Green Comet website. So, thank you, and you should feel no obligation to do any more.

Even so, it might be the case that some of you wanted to do more, but didn’t know how. Or it might not have occurred to you that there was anything you could do. If that is the case, then I should be letting you know that there is something. In the years I’ve been doing this experiment — writing stories and giving them away to see what happens — I’ve learned a few things. I’ve learned that people expect a nice cover. They expect some extra information around the story, like blurbs and synopses, and even something about the author. I’ve gradually done all that and it’s getting better all the time.

There’s one thing I can’t do for myself, though. I’ve learned that people also expect reviews. Of course, there is some of that on my own website, and there is one review on the Green Comet page at Internet Archive. But there’s nothing on the sites where the book was uploaded by Pronoun. (If you go there you will see that I was required to set a price for the book. I also made sure to point out that it’s Creative Commons, though.) So, if you want to help me even more, and you have the time and inclination, you could go to one or more of these sites and post a review. It will help the book look more legitimate. Even a one-liner would be enough.

Thank you for all you’ve done, and I certainly don’t expect any more. But if that is your wish, then here are the sites.

Amazon
iTunes
Barnes and Noble
Google Play
Kobo Books

rjb

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X Times More

Posted on 2016-06-08 by arjaybe

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Grammar of the Day – X Times More

Here’s another one that bothers me: people saying X times more when they mean X times as many/much. For instance, if I have ten cherries (Mmm. Cherries) and they have thirty cherries, they’ll say, “I have three times more than you.” No. They have two times more. If they had three times more then they’d have forty cherries. That would be ten plus three times more equals forty.

I understand the logic of the error. Thirty is more than ten and thirty is three times ten, therefore thirty is three times more than ten. It’s an easy mistake to make. But let’s change the numbers and see what happens. Let’s say I have ten cherries and they have fifteen. Do they have one and a half times more? What if I have ten and they have ten. Do they have one time more? How about if I have ten and they have five? Does that mean they have one half more? By their logic less would equal more. The language leads to confusion.

They have an out, though. They just change the language at equality. At ten they say “same as,” and below ten they say “less than.” But they have to do some mental gymnastics to do it. They might say that five is one half less than ten, but then why wouldn’t they say that fifteen is one half more? Or they might say that five is one half as much, but then why wouldn’t they say that fifteen is one and a half times as much?

The inconsistency and the potential for confusion bother me, but I don’t see much hope for a return to good language. It’s too ingrained by now. You see it everywhere. I’ll just have to adapt to stay out of trouble. When my bicycle tire is at twenty PSI and they say I need two times more, I’ll have to remember to pump it up to forty PSI and not sixty.

rjb

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Elgin’s Synesthesia

Posted on 2016-06-01 by arjaybe

Credit Filipe-Simões

Synesthesia of the Day – Elgin’s Synesthesia

Elgin, like the other inhabitants of Green Comet, is a synesthete. I refer to that fact a few times during the novel, and in the sequel, Parasite Puppeteers. I don’t go into a lot of detail about the types of synesthesia the individual characters have, although I do imply that they each have at least two types. Given the rudimentary stage synesthesia research is at now, and even more so when I was writing it, I didn’t think it was wise to nail it down too precisely in the story. And given that the characters have multiple strong synesthesias, I doubt that the interactions and synergies among them would lend themselves to the tentative, simplistic classifications we’re developing now. However, given all that, I think I should offer my idea, the thing I’m thinking of when I imagine Elgin’s synesthetic perceptions.

Elgin’s most obvious synesthetic trait is the way he feels in his body when he sees an example of good engineering or construction. For instance, when Minder takes him out and he sees the new corridors and how well they’re made, he has the sensation of all his bones being properly aligned in his body. A very comforting sense of rightness. I haven’t found one type of synesthesia that fits this perfectly, but it is somewhere in the vision to touch, proprioception and kinetics area. He feels what he sees on many levels: simple touch, deeper orientation and subtle movement.

This goes beyond a simple integration of physical sensations. When he looks at an engineering paper and immediately knows if it’s right, the role of vision is taken by concepts and ideas. Inner visions. But the principle is the same. What he “sees” is experienced as “feeling.” The same applies to more general situations. As long as he has enough data, enough information, he can tell if something is right. Not in any moralistic sense of right or wrong, just whether it’s right. For instance, when Frances and Buzzard explain to him how Green Comet is in danger from the Visitor, he instantly knows that they’re right, because it feels right.

So, for lack of anything better, let’s call Elgin’s synesthesia Seeing-Feeling Synesthesia. This web page doesn’t address it perfectly, but it provides some good food for thought. And here’s a pretty good site for exploring the types of synesthesia.

rjb

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