Influenzers

You've no doubt seen or heard of social media users prominent enough that others follow them.  These users have enough reach that companies seek to have them promote their products.  I shouldn't say reach.  I should say influence.

You've also no doubt heard of some of them promoting health misinformation, including about vaccination.  They'll unfortunately try to influence you not to get vaccinated, when vaccines are our best defense against disease.

In their lack of understanding, they just might get you sick.  I call these people influenzers.

It's one thing, of course, when someone gets you to buy beauty products or some such.  It's another when it's life or death.  And people are dying from failing to vaccinate.

An estimated 675,000 people in the US died from the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was a little over .6% of the population.  Meanwhile, Covid-19 has killed over 700,000 so far, per Google, about .21% of the population.

That might look favorable—about 1/3 the 1918 percentage—until you consider that we are a century more advanced in medical technology, and have a vaccine for this pandemic's cause, which they didn't in 1919.  All they could do then was treat symptoms, where we can prevent the disease outright.  Which makes the comparison atrocious.

So to anyone looking online for health advice, go to people who might not be flashy or exciting, but know what they're talking about.  The CDC, Mayo Clinic, someone like that.

Someone who's earned their reputation by what they've done, not who they've drawn in.  We don't need to return to the days of smallpox, scarlet fever, yellow fever, polio, mumps, whooping cough, and all that.

Influence is a form of power.  "You must use this power only for good."  "With great power comes great responsibility."

Even comic books know what to promote.

End of the Line

A world where enchanters put their long-ago efforts into living creatures, not swords and such.  And those creatures were mostly human beings.  And the result is that there are seven magical bloodlines, seven different magical talents, where, if the breeding comes out right, a baby is born who in adolescence will show his clan's magical ability.

His clan's.

Because, with almost no exceptions, only the boys become blood warriors.  Women can only be breeders, and, if they excel at that, leaders.

The seven clans are obsessed with breeding for talent.  Since blood warriors are the might of the clans, and the clans don't just compete but raid and skirmish against each other, breeding is all that anyone cares about.  How many blood warriors has she given birth to?  How many has he sired?

Hauke shows all the signs of being a blood warrior.  Unfortunately for him, none of his father's or mother's other progeny do.  Which means he might be good at the warrior part, but the women who lead the clan have no reason to keep him around for the bloodline.  Do they?

If you're interested in this 106k-word fantasy novel, it's a free ebook, available here.  See my entry Ebooks Update for a full list.

Faker

Homeless in a space habitat, in the warren of tunnels dug into an asteroid, is hard enough.  What's harder is Gray isn't just homeless, but is a hermaphrodite, shunned or worse by everyone.

But in learning to stay alive, Gray learned to read people's body language, to study and remember.  Will those skills be enough to make it?  Or will Gray have to fake it?

A science fiction novel of coming into one's own, of overcoming oppression and exclusion, of using skills and wits for survival and even self-fulfillment.

See my entry Ebooks Update for a full list of my free-to-download or share works.

In Solstice and in Peril—Free Ebook

In Solstice and in Peril is now on Gutenberg as a free ebook.

All my books on Gutenberg are now here, and this is the blog entry I keep updated on my self-publications.

A young man already promising to grow to great size and athleticism, a budding warrior.  Once he leaves the failing inn on the edge of the Wastes, he has to make his way in the world.  But how?  Becoming a mercenary soldier is a good first step, but does he want to follow orders his whole life?  Or give them?  When Bear meets the mysterious youth called Mouse, he realizes that the two of them together might be able to call their own shots, and live an independent life.  He doesn't hesitate...

What might their life be like?  What might it be like to make a living in their world?  Come see, as they find work in Solstice, in Blackwood, and all over their world.

If you've wondered which of my works might be the easiest introduction, this might be it.  I mess with genre restrictions less here than elsewhere, and, of all my novels, it might be the most that's the most purely entertaining.  

And if you want to get a feel for it beyond the description and excerpt on Gutenberg, Chapter 12 is here.

Ice Cold and Other Stories - Expanded Edition

I wondered for a long time what to do with my first self-published work, Ice Cold and Other Stories.  When I was still on Amazon, and reduced the ebook price of all my 100k-word novels to 99₵, there was Ice Cold still sitting there, two short stories and a novelette…for 99₵.  A price I couldn't reduce further.

I wanted to add a bunch of the other short fiction I'd written and do an expanded edition…but would that be fair to the people who'd already bought it?

Well, now that all my ebooks are free, it was a no-brainer.  Add in almost all the short fiction I've published in this blog, plus a number of stories never before published, and there we go.

* * *

Expanded from 3 stories to 65, almost 150k words, ranging from my first real effort at a story, to more recent works of humor, horror, fantasy, parallel worlds, time travel, science fiction on libertarian worlds, a superhero tale, a couple of young adult stories, and holiday tales too.

These stories were written between 1982 and 2020, and in the course of them I wanted to try a lot of different things.  So they range from the very violent You've Seen the Video, Now Read the Story to the spooky Half Seen to the minimalist Princess Katana to the uplifting The Enchanted Treehouse to the bleak Doctor.

Which is to say, I think anyone can find some stories in here they'll love…but maybe no one will love every story.

All my ebooks - free: http://self.gutenberg.org/Authors/KevinWadeJohnson, or see my entry Ebooks Update for a full list.

Table of Contents

Ghost Mode - Free Ebook

I had a tremendous burst of creativity back around 2007, in response to unfortunate events at work.  Unfortunate for me that is, but not for my readers, because I ended up with an overpowering urge to speak up, to assert myself as worth attention.  And so I wrote.

Are those experiences related here?  Of course not, a guy behind a desk is nothing to write about.  Are those experiences reflected here?  Of course, just like with all fiction.

The first seven of these connected stories were written between 2007 and 2011, and the other two in 2011 and 2013, but all were put aside eventually.  I'd come up with the title for this volume in an attempt at a novel all the way back in 1991.  But I wasn't good enough then…and even in 2007 I still wasn't quite there.

Well, I'm not as good as I want to be even now; then again, I never will be.  But I hope I'm good enough, and so I finally got back to these stories, mainly because pandemic stress has kept me from drafting as much new, and instead has me revising what I already wrote.

The stories (chapters) are set between 1934 and the early 2010s, and explore a common idea, with technology and society changing along the way.  But I'll let you discover that for yourself.

Meanwhile, I have a world for you.  Worlds:

"[I]f the scientists are correct, the worlds out there are parallel to ours.  Well, not parallel, but branches from the same tree, from the same history. …

"Worlds where Tesla never heard about Yellowstone while visiting Colorado in 1903, never had his imagination fired by descriptions of 'Coulter's Hell,' never had the fundamental inspiration for the Tesla Field."

The 1991 version of this volume started from the idea of a character with the power of Nikola Tesla's invention arriving in a parallel Earth and running around getting into and out of trouble.  The climax of the story would involve getting out of trouble, finally, and settling down with the girl he met on the way.  I hadn't thought it through, though, and the story predictably went nowhere.

When I got a little more life experience I realized that the power of that invention was the crux.  What did power like that entail?  What are its ramifications?  Where does it lead?

Hence the novella.  See what you think.

All my ebooks free: http://self.gutenberg.org/Authors/KevinWadeJohnson.  You can also see my entry Ebooks Update for a full list.