Trouble Magnet: Free Ebook

It's here.  (Also, all my (free) ebooks are linked here.)

Cowboys!  Flying saucers!  Gangsters!  A weird space creature!

Rustlers!  Outlaws!  Dames in trouble!  The mob!  Space Amazons!  Space gladiators!

And one man is the key to it all…

How can this be?

Trouble Magnet – A rare condition wherein the afflicted individual attracts frequent trouble of a serious nature.  This has manifested most recently in the form of a starship captain whose five-year mission was plagued on a weekly basis with every imaginable complication.  Earlier cases include ranches that were rustled, attacked by outlaws, and worse, also weekly, as well as a number of private detectives hired, once again every week, for murders, kidnappings, and other felonies rather than the usual missing persons and divorce cases.

Most often a Trouble Magnet merely draws in drama and danger.  But in the most extreme case ever recorded…
- Unusual Conditions in Space and Time, Mark Ayrata, ed., Proxima University Press, 2263, p. 1186

* * *

Back in 2006, I was thinking about the concept of a "chick magnet," someone who is supposed to be so attractive to women that they are continually attracted.

Creativity for me often takes the form of putting two concepts together that might not seem to fit, and coming up with something interesting, imaginative…or sometimes just loony.

Because I'd had idle thoughts before about what the lower ranks on Star Trek (especially the Original Series) must have thought.  "Hey, I just got a subspace from my buddy on the USS Whatever, and she says they mostly just have to dodge a meteor once in a while, or bicker with Klingons.  Nothing like what we have here!"

I mean, if every vessel in Starfleet faced ship-destroying, sun-eating, cosmos-wrecking threats every Thursday night at 8 pm, there wouldn't be a galaxy.

Then it struck me that real private detectives mostly gather evidence of infidelity or search for missing persons.  They don't get blackmail attempts, murders, and kidnappings to solve every week.  Doesn't happen.

For that matter, all those westerns that ran for years, where the same ranch has every imaginable disaster, crime and calamity hit on a weekly basis…well, a place like that wouldn't last long.

So in 2006, I thought how unique it would be if each of the above wasn't a coincidence, but a common condition.

And then this year I put that together with the idea of a good-hearted but just a little dim cowboy, who has all of those things happen to him, and how I could play it for laughs…

That's the genesis of Trouble Magnet.  I had a ball writing it.  Hope you have even half the fun reading it.

Souls Between Worlds (Free Ebook)

A parallel world where some of the Anglo-Saxon tribes traveled north into Scandinavia, and later the Viking colony of Vinland expanded, and left a legacy of an Anglo-Saxon tongue being spoken in North America, among a people who were very largely of indigenous ancestry.

But those cultures are not the focus, individuals are.

A professor who isn't totally tightly wrapped in Scandinavia develops portals: matter transmission, or teleportation.  One frightful accident later, and a man from Vinland and a woman from Scandinavia find that they can travel to parallel worlds.  Or rather their spirits can.

Trolls.  Skookums.  Jotunn.  Kigatlik.

They find frightening creatures from legend, or who long ago inspired legend, learn their own natures, and build something bigger than they are.

A full-size novel and free ebook, available here.  Join their journey, and enjoy.

See my entry Ebooks Update for a full list of my free novels, novellas and collections.

* * *

Behind the scenes for a moment, does this novel have a history of its own!

All the way back in 1988, I came up with the "souls between worlds" travel featured in this novel.  But I didn't go forward with it.

I wrote Rivers Between Worlds in 2019, and got the kernel of an idea for this one at that time.  But I'd already written the opening scene for this one in 2016, putting it aside till later.

In July 2019, I put the two together, and did a bit more, then settled down in September to write the novel.  Six months and 60,000 words later, I realized I'd taken the wrong tack.  I know I can get too focused on ideas and theme, and so work hard to ensure I have quality characterizations.  But I'd overcompensated, and produced something a little too light on ideas and too close to soap opera.

I put the novel aside again.

I eventually figured out how to fix it all, and started all over in July of 2022, and finished in August.  A full novel in three months is really fast for me, but I had the advantage of salvaging several chapters from the previous effort.

So here it is, an idea from thirty-four years ago, a first stab six years ago, and finally done and ready for you now.

The Adventures of Princess Onesie and Fairy Friend (Free Ebook)

A human princess who just wants to go and have some fun meets a mysterious flute player from Faerie Forest.  She leaves behind council meetings and tutoring sessions for adventures!

Soon Princess Onesie and Fairy Friend meet Unspeakably Gruel, Robyn Redcap, Boglin, broggarts, and more.  In a mix of seriousness and silliness, along with some conscious anachronisms, the princess makes new friends, helps some people, and learns some basic truths about life, the fae, and maybe even herself.

 A free ebook, novella length, which I hope children of any age can enjoy, available here.

(I keep an entry updated with all of my free ebooks, here.)

The Supreme Court vs. the Will of the People

This being a democracy, the majority is supposed to rule.  So when, for example, polls show that 75% of the country supports an existing ruling, the Supreme Court has no business overturning it.  Do they?

Yes.  And no.

Let me pick a couple of related, unpopular cases (which I've summed up in the past).
https://kevinwadejohnson.blogspot.com/2020/09/only-somewhat-supreme.html

One is the infamous Dred Scott decision.  In language I would consider much more intemperate that a court should use, that Supreme Court majority opinion referred to people of African origin as "an inferior class of beings."  That went over so well that we ended up with a civil war and three constitutional amendments to stop such nonsense.

Only the second case showed it would take a lot of stopping.  Plessy vs. Ferguson resulted in the court declaring that one of those amendments, the Fourteenth, was only meant to enforce racial equality, not erase racial distinctions.  It went on to declare segregation constitutional, and let Jim Crow laws stand.  It's considered another of the most atrocious decisions.

Even though, racism being even more prevalent then than now, I have little doubt that a majority was okay with them,* particularly Plessy.  (Note to oppressors: Pick a gender, skin color, etc., then deny those people educations and opportunities.  Voila, many people will find them inferior.  The fact that the oppressed were given no chance to demonstrate equality will not generally register.)

*Just among abolitionists, some opposed slavery as morally wrong.  Some opposed it because of the way it was splitting the north and south.  Some opposed it for what it was doing to the slaves.  Some opposed it for what it was doing to the slave owners.  And so on.  How many of the population then thought blacks and whites should be treated equally?  I doubt a majority.

So, that's two.  Here's two more, on the other side:

Loving vs. Virginia struck down state laws against being allowed to choose a spouse from another race.  Roe vs. Wade, as we all know, made state laws against a woman's choice to terminate a pregnancy unconstitutional.

Those last two verdicts are well-regarded, and certainly a majority supports them.  Dred Scott and Plessy, on the other hand, probably were the will of a majority at the time, but are rightly condemned today.

What's the difference?

The difference is that the United States was founded on freedom: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  We hold those truths to be self-evident, we said so.

So when the Supreme Court puts forth an unpopular verdict that affirms freedoms, then despite unpopularity those verdicts last at least for decades, and remain well-regarded even longer.  When the court takes freedom of choice away, that court is consigned to ignominy.

Because the majority in this democracy may not agree on an issue, but freedom is the foundation our forefathers made.  Build up from it, and you build something lasting.  Take away from that foundation, and watch our constitutional edifice totter.  Sometimes fracture.

Support Your Local Author

Does it entertain?  Does my writing only work for me?  Am I any good?

Those are the kinds of questions I suspect every writer has to work out, early on.  We all think we have what it takes or we wouldn't try—but are we right, or just deluding ourselves.

And we all need some kind of indication that we can do it.  For me, more than anything else, it's the contest response pictured above.  Not the creative writing class, that didn't help.  And having family read it, likewise.  "Death of a Captain" (see this recent entry) had and has its points, and I still had a long way to go, but this letter was the first sign I might get there.

If you are ever in the position to answer any of those first three questions for a budding writer, take the time, and give the most constructive answers you can.  Tell them what they did right.  Tell them what troubled you.

Need something more specific?  How about:

• Did the plot make sense?
• Did you care about the characters?  Can you say why?
• Did the dialog seem believable?  Was it witty, profound, or maybe sparkling?
• Was the world interesting?  What interested you about it?
• Was the story compelling?

 Once they know they won't fall to the ground, landing flat on their face, they can spread those authorial wings and soar.  But not till then.  Help them out from the constrictions of the nest.  Let them know they've made it.  Let them fly.

Shadowed: Something I Haven't Seen Before

I've never seen anyone else do this with a novel before, and neither has anyone I asked.  Have you seen anyone do something like I did with the chapter headings for Shadowed, to add depth, flavor, and unity to a story?

One: When We Take a Step
Two: Our Shadow Walks Behind
Three: On the Day We're Born
Four: A Darkness Assigned
Five: Our Eyes Turn from Darkness
Six: We Try to Walk Away
Seven: Its Presence Always With Us
Eight: Absence Must Stay
Nine: As Time Strides On
Ten: Our Steps May Slow
Eleven: Shadowed Closer
Twelve: We Onward Go
Thirteen: Wish We To Be Followed
Fourteen: Yearn To Tread Alone
Fifteen: Feelings Frustrated
Sixteen: Reaping, We've Sown
Seventeen: A Journey Shadowed
Eighteen: Can Leave Us in Dread
Nineteen: Leading Our Lives
Twenty: But Secretly Led
Twenty-One: We Walk—Run—We're Fleeing
Twenty-Two: We Try, It Matters Not
Twenty-Three: The Light We're Never Seeing
Twenty-Four: The Fate We've Never Sought

(If you're asking, the answer is yes, each chapter title does have something to do with that chapter's contents, and is reflected within it, too.)

P.S. As always, all my fiction is free.  See my entry Ebooks Update for a full list.

New Novel/Free Ebook: Shadowed

It's called the Next World.  Everyone there either disappeared from Earth, or is descended from earlier Arrivals.  People, teratorns, great auks, sleuth hounds, short-faced bears, you name it.

There are six peoples, or if you prefer nations, in the Next World.  Dares who can heal, Aranhas/Simarabos with spirit connections, Bathursts who can turn you temporarily into ghosts.  Not to mention "Reapers," like a young man named March.  Or the Everetts, aka Shadows, five of whom are determined to end a feud they'd started—by killing him.

And they'll pursue him to do so.  Follow him.  To the ends of the earth Next World.

* * *

Some of my best world-building, interesting characterizations, and, as always, a tale as original as I can manage.  A young man and friends, discovering their world, discovering themselves, and striving to stay alive.  All building to a confrontation-style climax.  Plus it's free.

If that sounds good to you, then download it here (edit: you'll need to create an account).  It can be read, downloaded, and shared for free, like all my work these days.  See my entry Ebooks Update for a full list.

Let Me Help You with the Covid-19 Risk Assessment

Back before I retired I did risk assessments all the time, although they were highly specialized and unrelated to health issues.  Still, I'm familiar with the techniques.  What are the odds of various outcomes, what are the stakes of those outcomes.  Then balance the numbers.

Feel free to skip to the conclusions.

Covid Percentages

What's the percentage of the (US) population who's been infected?  (I'm generally going with US numbers here.)
⦁    31% estimated as of about a year ago
⦁    Source: https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/one-three-americans-already-had-covid-19-end-2020
⦁    Also: https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2021/09/07/covid-19-infected-many-more-americans-in-2020-than-official-tallies-show/
⦁    As of the end of last month, 57,898,239 cases reported from a population of 333,961,250 = about 17% (asymptomatic and mild cases won't always be reported)
⦁    Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/index.html
⦁    And: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/

Of those infected, what's the percentage chance of severe symptoms?
⦁    1 in 6, around 17%
⦁    Source: https://www.webmd.com/lung/covid-19-symptoms#:~:text=Most%20people%20will%20have%20mild,diabetes%20or%20heart%20disease

What's the percentage chance of dying from Covid-19?
⦁    859,356 dead in a population of 333,961,250, or just over 2.5%
⦁    Source: https://www.statista.com/topics/6084/coronavirus-covid-19-in-the-us/
⦁    And: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/

Vaccination Percentages

What percentage of those receiving vaccines had a reaction?
⦁    2.5% had an allergic reaction
⦁    Source: https://www.massgeneral.org/news/press-release/Real-world-data-reveal-risks-of-allergic-reactions-after-receiving-covid-19-mrna-vaccines
⦁    0.6% in the vaccine group and 0.5% in the placebo group had a severe response.  (Serious adverse events were defined as any untoward medical occurrence that resulted in death, was life-threatening, required inpatient hospitalization or prolongation of existing hospitalization, or resulted in persistent disability/incapacity.)
⦁    Source: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/info-by-product/pfizer/reactogenicity.html
⦁    Thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS) after the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was 57 out of 17,200,000 doses (.0003%)
⦁    The chance of Guilain-Barre Syndrome may be (based on preliminary reports) higher, 283 of 17.2m (.0016%)
⦁    Source for both: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html
⦁    Myocarditis and pericarditis (heart inflammation): 518 cases as of about six months ago out of (at that time) 158m fully vaccinated: .0032%
⦁    Source: https://www.healthline.com/health-news/vaccine-side-effects-vs-covid-19-damage-theres-no-comparison

What percentage of those vaccinated will get sick from Covid-19 anyway?
⦁    1 in 5,000 = .02%
⦁    Source: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/breakthrough-infections-coronavirus-after-vaccination

What percentage of those vaccinated have died from the vaccine?
⦁    3 out of 187,200,000 vaccinated (.00000016%)
⦁    Source: https://covid-101.org/science/how-many-people-have-died-from-the-vaccine-in-the-u-s/
⦁    Note: 187.2m vaccinated out of 333,961,250 population = 56%

Infection by Status

For the population of Washington state, at least:
⦁    People ages 12-34 are 2x more likely to be infected if unvaccinated, 10x more likely to be hospitalized
⦁    People ages 35-64 are 3x more likely to be infected if unvaccinated, 14x more likely to be hospitalized
⦁    People age 65+ are 6x more likely to be infected if unvaccinated, 13x more likely to be hospitalized
⦁    Source: https://www.doh.wa.gov/Portals/1/Documents/1600/coronavirus/data-tables/421-010-CasesInNotFullyVaccinated.pdf

Conclusion I

Assessing risk means balancing the various odds against the stakes.  Here are your stakes, which are straightforward: death or severe illness/reaction.

Here's your odds:
⦁    You're 2 to 6 times likely to be infected if unvaccinated
⦁    Of those infected, about 17% have gotten severe symptoms, 2.5% died
⦁    You're 10 to 14 times more likely to be hospitalized if you do catch it and you aren't vaccinated
⦁    Of those vaccinated, .6% had a severe response to the vaccine, compared with .5% of those given a placebo.
⦁    Of those vaccinated, .00000016% have died
⦁    2.5% dead from Covid is 15,625,000 times more likely than .00000016% from vaccination

For an alternate perspective:
⦁    3 dead from vaccination, as noted above
⦁    11 or so people die every year from spider bites (Source: https://faunafacts.com/spiders/yearly-deaths-from-spider-bites/)

There's your risk, and it's not that hard to assess.

Do the math.  Get vaccinated.

Conclusion II

No numbers here, just the way infections work and how this one works.

Very young children still can't be vaccinated, vaccines are less effective for those with aging immune systems, and may do very little for people with compromised immune systems (like cancer patients, or people with organ transplants or autoimmune disorders such as lupus or Crohn's disease).

You may like your chances because you're young and healthy.  But are you willing to risk infecting those less fortunate?  Are you going to throw your grandparents and all those preschoolers under the Covid bus?

Worse, keep in mind that viruses are always mutating, but generally only when they reproduce.  The bigger a pool of infected people, the more they're reproducing, and the more mutations we will get.

Delta was deadlier, omicron more everpresent.  Heaven knows what the next will be like.

Even if you figure you won't get severe symptoms or die, do you want to help the next Covid variant come along?

Do the right thing.  Get vaccinated.