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[jamesosiris]

Cover Art Basics: How to Talk to an Artist

At the recent (fabulous) 20 Books to 50K Conference in Las Vegas last weekend, one of the speakers challenged the 450-odd authors there to think of something they could contribute to benefit their peers. It occurred to me that there is something, as an artist, that I am eminently qualified to speak about – cover design, and how to get the absolute best out of the artist you’re working with so you both end up happy with the finished product.

How not to commission

There are two things all freelance artists dread.

The first one is the “I want a cover that has sparkles and unicorns and bevelled typography and looks like [insert bestseller name here]. Can you do that for $50?” client. Don’t ever be that client. You will not get what you’re looking for, and your artist will be sad.

If you have $50 for a cover, you can expect a $50 cover. That’s the first thing to know: approach artists within your price range. It not worth anyone’s time: yours, or the artist’s. Find someone who probably works for the amount of money you have. Email them, give them a description of what you’re looking for (genre, examples of other covers, the pitch of your book) and ask them for an approximate quote. Most artists will happily reply with a quote, or an hourly rate and the expected number of hours your cover will take.

This leads on to the second thing artists talk about around campfires late at night: the client who has the money, but has no idea what they want or how to describe it. This is actually worse than the cheapskate, because the erstwhile freelancer can tell the cheapskate to get lost. If they have a paying and otherwise awesome client, their heart sinks as a conversation like this gets going:

Artist: “So, what kind of cover are you looking for?”

Client: “I don’t know. Something like… uhh… something with magic in it.”

Artist: “Okay. What kind of magic? Do you want characters? A dragon?”

Client: “I don’t know. It’s fantasy with a female MC. There’s demons and dragons later on in the series.”

Artist: “Dragons. Okay… I can work with dragons.” *creates thumbnail sketches* “Like this?”

Client: “Sure.”

Artist: “You sure you’ve approved this thumbnail sketch? The one with dragon?”

Client: “Sure.”

*Three weeks and 20 hours of painting later, artist returns with a cover.* “Here you go!”

Client: “Why is there a dragon there? I wanted a demon. I write urban fantasy with a demon hunter.”

Artist:

While slightly exaggerated, this kind of exchange is more common than you’d think. There’s also variation of the same string of communication errors where an artist provides exactly what an author thinks they want, but they don’t get the result they were seeking. The author can’t fault the artist, because they delivered exactly what they asked for… but what they asked for just doesn’t work for some reason. They go away feeling disappointed, unsure of why their cover isn’t as great as their fellow’s, even though they both had the same designer.

Here’s why.

How to speak Artist

An artist is capable of delivering within the constraints of two things: their skill and ability to fulfill a creative vision, and the author’s ability to describe their own vision and their needs. So as with all things in Indie publishing, the initial responsibility to form that creative vision of your cover starts with you.

To start with, go to Amazon or Kobo or whatever and pull up books in your genre. Make note of the following things:

Even though the characters are interacting, the scene is very ‘still’.

Are the cover images static or dynamic? These qualities describe movement. Romance covers tend to be static, with half-naked people in various states of artful passion or, conversely, very well-dressed Victorian ladies (for Regency). But static. The people are standing around, sitting or posing, like portraits. By comparison, Action, Thriller, and Urban Fantasy tend to have dynamic covers, with action poses or interactive scenes. So do children’s books. Why do you think that is?

Are the cover images desaturated or saturated? Saturation describes the intensity of color in an image. The more saturated an image, the brighter and cheerier it looks. Horror and Memoirs tend to have desaturated, subdued palettes. Urban fantasy and PNR often have highly saturated colors against dark backgrounds, sometimes almost garish. The more desaturated something is, the more ‘dark’ (in terms of emotion’) and the more serious it seems. Very high saturation can make images look psychedelic. Find some desaturated covers and some highly saturated covers within your genre and see how they seem to be selling. Does bright and cheerful work better?

  Look at the way the covers use light. Light is the foundation of all art, and the skill of an artist can be measured in the way they use light to manipulate mood, emotion (yes, they are different – mood is the overall tone conveyed by setting, emotion is something you read in specific parts of an image, such as a facial expression or the placement of objects). The darker the content of the book, the less light there tends to be. What light there is will be seen in ‘slices’, such as flashlight beams or small focused sources (like the helmet above). BDSM Romance will have light used in focused, almost spotlight-like ways. In sweet, uplifting, or Christian Romance, you’re going to see a lot of sunlight, and diffuse, dreamy, yellow and blue light tones.

What kinds of colors are used in the covers in your genre? Make a list of five or six (or two or three, if you write Horror. Hint: They’re Red, Dark Red, and Gray).

Make note of composition in your example covers. For example, in the Nicolas Sparks covers above, we have a series of very similar images that convey the very specific thing this author writes: emotional, love-focused, uplifting romance. We see that in the way the composition focuses on the people’s faces, closed eyes (a sign of trust), and their hands touching their lovers’ cheeks or necks. Note in all but one it is the man doing the clutching. That’s important – it tells us something about the expectations the readers have of the relationship dynamic between the characters. If you’re trying to indicate intense possession with body language, how would you go about that? What about ‘magic’?

Think about the emotion or ‘feeling’ you want to see in your book. If your book is dark, you can communicate this with low saturation, focused light sources, moody composition. If you’re writing contemporary women’s fiction, you probably want a lot of white, light breezy colors.

Speaking of colors: Colors by themselves communicate a lot of different emotions and can be used to express personality. Goths wear stark black and red for a reason. So do vampires, for similar reasons. Red, violet, gold, silver… they’re colors that communicate opulence, passion and royalty. Good colors to use if you’re writing vampire regency romance (I assume this exists).

  When you talk to your cover artist, these are the kinds of things you will want to know. Your artist doesn’t know your audience – not unless they’re a specialist in a certain sort of cover, and even then. Someone like Tom Edwards, who is very well known in the space opera market, produces images he thinks will work as covers. You, as the author, are going to know whether or not your audience prefers battling dynamic spaceships with drop marines dropping from drop ships or majestic whale-like battlecruisers with no people or dynamism at all. Look up Dead Space and Battlestar Galactica, and make note of the similarities and differences. Same basic genre – space opera – but one is horror and one is drama. Note differences in saturation, dynamism, palette, light, and composition.

When you go to an artist, you can use these as frames of reference. Let’s redo our dragon conversation from earlier:

Artist: “So, what kind of cover are you looking for?”

Client: “My book is Urban Fantasy with a female main character who is a demon hunter, and I’m competing with the likes of [this cover] and [this cover]. I’m looking for art with a central character figure, really high contrast and saturation in black plus reds and oranges – ‘Hell’ colors, and some high contrast ‘flash’ somewhere in the piece to indicate that she can use magic.”

Artist: *spontaneously orgasms* “Why yes, I can do that for you. Let me draw up some thumbnail sketches…

That’s the basics of image composition. Next post, I’ll discuss where typography fits in, and how you can correctly identify your perfect font.

Cover Art Basics: How to Talk to an Artist was originally published on James Osiris Baldwin

[bookgeekconfessions]

jamesosiris replied to your post: I just wrote the first legitimate draf...

You say that now… then 2 rejections later it’s like: “NO WHYYYY IT WAS SO PERFECT WHAT IS WRONG WITH IT WRRRRYYYYYYY.”

[jamesosiris]

Dragon Seed: Chapter One

Dragon Seed is being released on the 28th February – that means it’s preview time!

Pre-order Dragon Seed here: Amazon (All Stores)

Chapter 1

The coughing fit kicked me upright before I was even awake. Strangling, eyes throbbing from the pressure in my head, I coughed and heaved and flailed around, unable to see anything but dancing black and white spots. My lungs were burning by the time I pitched back onto my pillows, exhausted and shaking with lingering terror. Not just terror of the present: terror of the future that awaited me. I was now at Stage Two of the HEX virus – in three days’ time, I’d be dead.

There were no nurses in our quarantine tent. Everyone here was already sicker than me, moaning and rattling in their sleep. Still wheezing, I fumbled across for the box of bleach wipes next to my Army cot and used them to clean up my face and hands. The smell made my throat burn raw, and I shook with unfamiliar weakness. I hurt all over. My joints felt like angry dwarves had been pounding them with hammers while I slept… and it was only my second day of being sick.

My tent bunked eleven other soldiers, all infected, all of us in the prime of our lives. My conscript’s uniform only had three badges on it: my platoon, my rank – Private – and my name badge, which was just my surname, ‘Park’. I was twenty-seven, fit despite my chronic gaming habit, used to bouncing around the world with a pack and rifle. When I rolled up a sleeve and looked down at the inside of my arm, the smooth tan skin I was used to seeing was mottled with a spreading red rash.

HEX was like clockwork. The first day hits you like a train, and five days later, you’re toast. By tomorrow, I wouldn’t be able to walk. Day Three was the worst day, because you were still aware of everything that was happening to your body. I’d watched people cough until the veins in their eyes ruptured and they began to cry blood. If I did nothing, if I followed orders and stayed in bed to die, that was all I had to look forward to. But as Baldrick from Black Adder would say: “I have a cunning plan.”

Assuming I could find the strength to get my ass out of bed.

My hands were shaking with fever as I pulled up my ration of medications and fumbled them out into my palm, clenching my teeth while I tried not to drop them everywhere. The cocktail of tablets were all anyone had to fight HEX, the common name of the H5N1-X virus: a lab-made super-flu unleashed on the world as a weapon of war. The tablets would take down the fever, keep my lungs from filling up, help the cough, and manage some of the pain. When I stood up, my head began to pound even harder. I pinched the bridge of my nose, willing the pain to stop, and then got dressed. A t-shirt, BDU pants, boots, then my sidearm. Last but not least, I struggled my pack on, took one last look at the other men in the tent, and hobbled outside. I’d packed the most important things I needed, just one small bag for me and my brother. There wasn’t much need for ordinance where we were going.

I forced myself to a clumsy jog outside, moving past ripped and dirty tents full of coughing, moaning people. We had started with a division between soldiers and civilians, but that division had broken down entirely. The only armed patrols on duty were PALADIN sentry robots: each one seven feet tall, loud, clunky, with sensor arrays instead of faces. They prowled the ragged rows of tents and manned the perimeter gates, standing watch or marching in set patrol routes no longer directed by a human controller. The bots’ reflexes were starting to slow as their batteries wound down. When we were healthier, me and the other lepers in quarantine had had fun throwing things onto them in the yard. Hats, scarves… we even uploaded a few videos we called ‘Stuff on Our Robot Overlords’.

Unlike human guards, PALs could stand watch at full attention for forty-eight hours – provided they were at full charge. With no one to top up their juice, the ones that were still moving were sluggish, like humans who hadn’t had any sleep. Sweat poured down my face in the early morning chill as I broke from cover to cover to keep out of their sight. I focused on putting one foot after the other. My heart was pounding, my guts were cold and twisted with fear. Not only fear of dying, either.

I’d received a text on an old civilian cell phone I’d kept, but now only used for morning alarms. It was a message from my brother, Steve. He hadn’t spoken to me in five years. The last time I’d seen him was during the big knockdown, drag-out fight that had ended in me stalking out of his house and out of his life. But three nights ago, Steve had contacted me. He’d sent me only two awful words. “Mom’s dead.”

Then, ten minutes later. “I’m sick. If you’re alive, get to Washington D.C. You’re named in my will. If you’re sick… please come home. PLEASE.”

I didn’t know what was worse: that mom had died and no one had called to tell me, or that Steve had gotten sick caring for her. He hadn’t thought to ask me to come and help. The sad thing was that it was probably an honest oversight, and that only made it worse.

Guilt tore at me as I waited for a PAL to turn around, and then staggered out from cover and through the ramshackle wire perimeter of the quarantine camp. The robot’s rear sensors were covered by a USMC cap that hung at a jaunty angle over the thermal lens. There had been a method to our madness.

My mission was to reach the base’s A-Block garage and reunite with the love of my life, Mona. She was waiting for me in the parking lot in spot A-457, concealed by a large locked tarpaulin.

“Hi, baby. How are you doing under there?” I tried to croon to her, but my voice came out as a harsh croak. I unlocked the tarp and pulled it off, throwing it carelessly to the side. Underneath it was a stripped down, banged up Ducati 996X. Mona’s bare steel frame hadn’t been painted in a while, and her fuel tank had a couple of dents and scratched paint, battle scars from the stunts we did together. Like most motorcycle stuntmen, I’d started on a little 250cc bike, a Ninja, which had enough power to do the job but hadn’t punished me when I’d screwed up. I’d worked my way to stunting and racing the Ducati. If you screwed up on an 996X, it would punish you. It was the closest thing to a dragon I would ever ride outside of a video game.

I normally enjoyed the ritual of putting on my motorcycle gear, my suit of armor. Kevlar jeans, boots, jacket, helmet, gloves, in that order. Today, I only had gloves and goggles, my sweat-soaked uniform, and a bag. I swung a leg over, and took a moment to catch my breath before turning the key. The bike came to life with a deep booming purr, and for a couple of seconds I just sat with it and drank in the way the machine made my body rumble. It would be the second-last time I’d ever ride her.

The first leg was to find my brother. We’d make peace, I hoped, and then I’d take Mona out to the highway and ride as long and as far and as fast as I could. We’d tear up the Big Sur at a hundred and twenty until we were almost out of gas. When the needle touched Empty, the plan was to wheelie jump the bike off a cliff overlooking the Pacific, because screw this whole ‘drowning on your own lungs’ goat fuckery. I was a stuntman. When I died, it was going to be spectacular.

I walked my bike backwards, turning her to line up with the exit ramp, and then threw it into gear. The purr turned into a snarl as the chassis kicked underneath me, the front of the bike briefly lifting as I turned the throttle and screeched off.

The only way in or out of Fort Richard was the main boom gate, but I wasn’t the first to desert and I wasn’t going to be the last. One of my buddies had given me directions to a section of unmanned fence where waves of soldiers and desperate refugees had cut holes in the wire and poured in and out. As I drew up on it, I could see that he’d been correct, in that the hole was there, but it was now manned. Two PALADINs waited on either side of the gap, which was big enough to admit an elephant. The railguns in their hands and heaps of dead – some in uniform – strewn on the ground around them was testament to why no one was no longer going in or out.

“Shitballs.” Resigned to an untimely demise, I threw my bike into third gear, and hunkered down as the Ducati howled. I spun the back wheel, raised a fist, and energetically rasped a battlecry. “PORK CHOP SANDIWICHES!”

The robots saw me coming, visored helmets swiveling. They aimed, and I swerved hard and low to the ground. I came out of the zig and zagged as they opened fire where my motorcycle had been only a second before. Any panic I felt in the face of being fired on had been beaten out of me in Indonesia and Syria. I kept my focus and leaned the bike over until the ground tore open the knee of my pants, swooping along the ground and then righting up as I blasted through the hole and sailed out over the embankment below. The robots fired at me during the jump, and several rounds blew by close enough that I felt the sting on my arms, but they were no longer fast enough.

My stomach swooped as the rush hit.

“Sayonara, bitches!” I found myself laughing, giddiness breaking through the cold focus as I rode the heavy machine to the ground, clutching at it with knees and thighs. We hit the dirt, fishtailed, and kept roaring forward.

I nearly ran several civilians down as they stumbled to get out of the way. There were people everywhere out here, a camp much less organized than the one inside of the Fort. Fellow victims of HEX stood around coughing, or staring at me with dead, confused eyes. There were a lot of kids, many without parents. The hard summer ground had somehow been churned to mud, and the air hung heavy with the smells of human misery.

I pulled over to catch breath, which only resulted in a coughing fit that felt like it was going to send my eyeballs shooting out of my head. When I pulled the cloth away from my mouth, it was bloody. I stared at it in impotent rage, and then, with anger burning a hole through my gut, at the huge silhouette in the sky. Looming above us all from the bay was the Golden Gate Shard, a mile-high megastructure that jutted up from the water like a glittering crystal spike. The Generals and Colonels were up in there along with the rest of California’s elite, sealed away from HEX and protected from the war they had started.

“Fuckers.” Aching, my breath rattling in my chest, I started the motorcycle and set the GPS for my family home on Hyde Street.

Despite not being Chinese, our parents had bought a house on the fringes of San Francisco’s Chinatown at a time when housing was still remotely affordable. It was a small rowhouse at the end of a strip of larger rowhouses, with a big parking lot on one side that was always crammed with cars. Now, the lot was abandoned. The chaos and rioting had been and gone, and everyone who’d survived had fled the city to try and escape the spread of HEX. I was shaking with fatigue by the time I pulled up, running on nothing but adrenaline and the cocktail of drugs I’d taken an hour and a half before. It was by will alone that I swung my leg over and stumbled toward the dark green front door. It was the home where Steve and I had grown up. I hadn’t been here in seven years.

I pressed a shaking hand to the palm lock, barely believing it would work after all this time. When the lock flashed green and clicked, my legs nearly went out from me. Mom and Dad hadn’t completely erased me from their lives after all.

“Steve? Steve, you alive?” I called as I opened the door.

The stench that billowed out of the house was like a slap to the face. I recoiled, struggling not to vomit. Breathing in that dead smell on the battlefield was one thing. Breathing it in at your family home was enough to make me want to run away a second time, as far and as fast as I could.

“Hector?” My brother’s voice was a dry rasp, but I could still hear the surprise in it.

Bracing myself, I pushed through the stench and went inside, freezing up for a moment as the old instinct to take my shoes off at the door kicked in. I shook it off and followed Steve’s voice to the den. He was propped up on the sofa, a bloody blanket half-fallen over his lap. I knew by looking at him that he well into Day Three. HEX had made a ruin of my tall, handsome brother. His skin was mottled with bruises, his eyes sunken and his face gray. He already looked like a corpse. I stopped in the doorway, too shocked to move or speak.

“Hec… Hector.” He wheezed on the ‘H’, trying to sit up higher. “You made it. My God. You look… so… so fit!”

“I call it the ‘Forced Conscription Jungle Warfare Diet.” My mouth was moving way ahead of my brain at this point. I checked myself. “And apparently I’m a snarky asshole when I’m sick. Sorry.”

“Hah.” He almost let himself laugh. “You’ve… you’ve changed so much.”

And you probably haven’t. I didn’t say it out loud: just forced a smile. “So have you.”

“How did… how did you… get here? You were in the Army?”

“I deserted,” I said. My voice was cracked, too, and it hurt to speak. But I wasn’t as bad as Steve, not yet. “About fucking time, too.”

Steve was so exhausted he didn’t even notice that I’d sworn. As I came closer, he searched over me in shocked relief. “Deserted? But you… you shouldn’t have deserted. Why didn’t you ask for leave?”

Typical Steve. “From who? There’s hardly anyone left. We were on the front lines for HEX. And I’m dying, Steve – what’s the worst they could do, shoot me?”

His eyes focused on the rash on my arms, and then it seemed to finally click. “Oh no. Not you, too.”

“Of course I’m sick,” I replied. I sat down on the floor. Sweat poured down my face and down my back. “Everyone’s sick. Dead or dying. The city’s deserted. We might be the last ones here, bro.”

He closed his eyes, as if struggling to process the enormity of it.

“Hey. I brought something for you.” I struggled the backpack off and pulled it around.

“What?”

“My RetroConnect,” I said. “And granddad’s library of games. I know you’ve been working on those fancy VR rigs and everything, but we used to play together and I thought, ‘Fuck it: might as well go out making up stupid Latin words for the Sephiroth theme song one last time’. You know how it goes: ‘French frogs, big cherries…”

“Peter Pan, magic cheese. Sephiroth!” He croaked. He couldn’t quite get the dramatic chorus falsetto going, but I busted up laughing and coughing anyway.

Steve and I were chalk and cheese in every significant way, and always had been. Games had been the one thing that had brought us together. The sounds of us hacking and wheezing were obliterated by the roar of a helicopter passing by overhead, low to the ground. By the time I could hear anything else, I was wheezing and gasping for air.

“I figure we can do at least one speedrun of most of these before we croak,” I continued once I got my voice and hand-eye coordination back, taking out the box and the chip with the games, and then the other things I’d brought: candy bars of every shape and size, chips, and energy drinks. “Remember that time we went trick or treating and told dad we were at cram school, and we ate ourselves sick?”

“He nearly killed us,” Steve said hoarsely.

He actually had nearly killed me. Dad hadn’t just been any normal kind of asshole: he had been a whacko-religious dentist who forbade sugar in the house, especially on Halloween. One year, we’d snuck in a bag of candy and gorged on chocolate and taffy until we’d puked. Dad beat me with a folded electrical cord. Even Steve had gotten a few lashes for that one.

“Here.” I passed him some chocolate.

“No,” he said. He shook his head, struggling up a little more. “Hector, listen to me. I asked… asked you to come for a reason. Listen-”

“Hear me out, first,” I said, unwrapping a candy bar for myself. It helped cover up just how much my hands were shaking. “I came to like… apologize. I hate that we spent so much time fighting. I hate that I was jealous of you and I hate that dad used you to make me feel bad. I hate it that you and him trashtalked me all the way through school. I’m sorry I was such a jerk to you. We don’t have much time… and I just want to hear you’re sorry for treating me the way you did, then move on and play Secret of Mana until we croak, okay?”

“Hector. Listen,” he rasped. “I know this. I know it all. You being alive, being here ch-changes everything. Listen to me. They’re coming for me. I’m going to make them take you with me.”

“Who? What?” I frowned, trying not to hold my breath. Even though HEX was working its way through my body, I still felt weird about breathing in the air around the infected. Steve had been bright with health not even a week ago. It seemed like the flu took him faster than the others… or maybe I just noticed more.

“Ryuko.” He fixed me with a fever glare.

Ryuko? Ryuko was the AI systems company he worked for. I sort of nodded and shook my head at the same time, not sure what he was trying to say.

He reached out his hand for mine. “They’re late, but they’re coming for me. I’ll tell them when they come that… that… I’ll make them…make them take you. You go with them, Hector.”

“Ryuko? I don’t understand.” He was babbling, and it creeped me out. I’d never known Steve to talk like this, but he was serious about whatever he was trying to get across to me. His agitation beat against my skin. I squeezed his hand in both of mine. “It’s okay, man. You need to rest.”

“It’s secret… it’s…” His eyes wandered past me, and I saw something flash at his temple: a small blue light. His Brain-to-Interface link.

“Ryuko,” he whispered, staring at something behind me.

There was a bang on the door, and then another as the wood splintered and then crashed in under the weight of a battering ram. Five years of training and experience kicked in instantly. Coughing, I was up on my feet with my pistol aimed before I’d even had time to think.

“Hector, no!” Steve hissed.

My grip on the pistol sagged at his command, but I was still in firing position as soldiers poured in through the door. Not ordinary soldiers. They were all identical: the same height, the same matte-black bioarmor, the same oversized rifles and terrifying stillness when they came to a stop. The guns were pointed at my face, and I froze in fear and confusion. There were no eyes behind those featureless black visors. They were androids. Machines.

“No fire. No fire!” Steve cringed back into the sofa, lifting his voice until it broke.

“No fire.” A woman’s voice broke through in the sudden silence.

I eased down as the unseen woman rounded the corner and stood in the doorway, and dropped the pistol down as my eyes widened. She was tall, supermodel perfect, like a vision out of Viking myth. Lean, long legs, a sculpted face like an avenging angel, golden blonde hair pinned up behind her head in a twist underneath a clear, HAZMAT-style helmet. The rest of her outfit looked to me like a fancy white spacesuit, and I wasn’t too sick not to notice how the thick leather-like material hugged her curves. I blinked several times, not convinced that I wasn’t tripping balls.

The woman looked between the pair of us. “Mister Park?”

“Park One and Park Two, at your service.” Every breath hurt like hell, but sassiness was just as incurable as HEX. “Bro, is this-”

“You informed the company that you had no living relatives, Mister Park.” She didn’t bat an eye. Angel Lady’s voice was cool, crisp, and matched her elegant face and hair. Now that she was up close, something was pinging at my uncanny valley reflex. There was something not quite right about this lady. “Has the status of your family changed?”

“Yes,” Steve croaked.

“What in the ever-loving fuck is going on?” I asked the room.

Steve shuffled behind me, and I turned to see him sitting upright. He was trembling with the effort, his jaw tense, eyes wild and hot. With a glance at the others, I went to him and helped him to stay up. His hand grasped my forearm, tight and inhumanly strong.

“T-Temperance. This… this is my brother. Little brother.” His breath bubbled on every exhalation. “Do… background check under… Park Jeong-Ho.”

I flinched at the sound of my birth name.

“Sir, Ms. Hashimoto ordered me to bring you-”

“You’re too late.” Steve retorted, and for a moment, he looked more like himself. He’d always had a fire burning deep inside, a fire he’d manifested by powering through achievement after achievement, scholarship after scholarship. He’d won local and state awards for mathematics and linguistics, joined Mensa, and had gone on to work for Ryuko Entertainment as one of the best AI immersion developers on the United States’ side of the Pacific.

“I’m very sorry we weren’t here yesterday as we planned, Mister Park,” Temperance replied. She didn’t sound very sorry. “My transport was delayed by rogue aircraft. If you cannot travel, I am afraid we cannot honor the contract.���

“I can travel, and yes, you will honor the contract. Hector is my next of kin,” he said, straightening his back. “I want to forfeit my place to him.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Temperance said. “My orders were to bring you…”

“Get Akari on a BCI channel,” Steve said, his voice firm with authority. “Now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Steve, what the fuck is going on?” I turned on him, suddenly angry.

He glared at me with blood-shot eyes. “Hector. Not now.”

Steve’s BCI flashed, and then Temperance’s. They gazed at each other in silence with faraway expressions for several moments as they exchanged information. Once it was done, Steve sagged back into the sofa, and Temperance stood there like a shop mannequin, inhumanly still. She wasn’t breathing.

A gynoid, I realized. Holy shit. There were only a handful of real androids ‘alive’ in the world, so to speak. The woman in front of me was the real deal – an artificial life form. A walking supercomputer.

“Thank you, Mister Park. Ms. Hashimoto is revising her orders,” Temperance said. “I will perform the requested background check. Please look directly at me, Mister Park Jeong-Ho.”

“My preferred name is Hector. No ‘mister’,” I grunted. More out of surprise than anything, I looked up and met her eyes. They were as wide and blue as the Caribbean Sea, a perfect crystalline color that seemed to dance with light.

“Thank you, Mister Park. Management has approved your appeal,” she said, after five minutes or so.

Steve shuddered. “Thank God.”

I scowled, glancing between them, and got to my feet. “Would either of you like to tell me what the hell is going on?”

“Hector, I am here to execute your brother’s contract with the Ryuko Virtual Reality Corporation,” the gynoid replied. “Your brother was an employee involved with a project that is being repurposed. Mister Steven Park, if I understand your uploaded testimony, do you vouch that this man is qualified for the trial and you wish to include him under the terms of your contract?”

“Hey, wait a second.” I stood, alarmed. “What contract?”

“Yes.” Steve choked. “Take him. Please.”

Intellectually, I knew Steve was doing something to try and save my ass. What, exactly, I wasn’t sure – but I was starting to get pissed off. I’d never had control of my life because of our parents, and now he was trying to control me, too. “Wait! Take me where? To do what?”

“I am the Executive Assistant of Akari Hashimoto, the CEO of Ryuko Corporation,” Temperance replied. “I have been ordered to make you an offer as requested by your brother, Ryuko’s Senior Virtual Intelligence Developer, Steven Park. The offer must be made in a secure facility, and you are under no obligation to accept the terms and conditions… but it may very well save your life. Would you like to accompany me to discuss your future?”

Pre-order Dragon Seed here: Amazon (All Stores)

Dragon Seed: Chapter One was originally published on James Osiris Baldwin

[jamesosiris]

Zero Sum and The Persistence Game

Fiction is hard. It’s not neurosurgery-hard or engineer-hard or even bricklayer-hard, but it is far more difficult than most aspiring writers are able to handle.

Some people have a natural gift for spinning yarns, and that is the limit of what ‘talent’ actually provides when you decide to write a book, and even yarn-spinning isn’t enough. Novels have a structure which must either be observed or subverted, plot decided by character arcs which must continually cycle outward in scope and complexity and then circle back into a single point of distillation, and a world (or worlds) which does the same thing.  It’s like a massive jigsaw made up of blank pieces that you have to draw on as you fit them together.

As I worked through Cold Cell, I realized that there was a lot of material missing. Once I’d gotten over the first third of the book and Alexi still wasn’t in prison, it became blindingly obvious that there needed to be a whole other book between the events of Stained Glass and the events of Cold Cell. This is how Zero Sum was born. Cold Cell now naturally slots into the position for Book 4. Phew.

Zero Sum is over half-way done now, through I don’t want to give too much away before the official release post in March. All I can says is… Angkor. Cool magic. Gift Horses. Lots of cat-vs-Morphorde action.

And a harbinger.

“Rain began to pelt the windshield when we pulled out onto the road, blurring out the surrounding street as we crept through the bumper-to-bumper lower Manhattan traffic.

“Ayashe can tap the right shoulders and follow that up in the Bureau. I’ll set Talya on it, as well. Girl’s some kind of computer genius.” Jenner’s voice was glutinous. She sniffled loudly, and both I and Angkor twitched. I was about to offer her a tissue when I noticed the edge of a rotten-meat stench cycling into the cabin.

The ambient light outside dropped, sharply. An awful  ripple of energy washed over me in a crawling wave and the water being sluiced away by the windshield wipers turned pink… then crimson.

“What in the fuck?” Jenner eased on the brakes as our view of the road disappeared under a greasy layer of blood and shredded flesh. Screams of horror pealed from all directions. Binah was inconsolable. A  heavy thump struck the roof of the car, and she spat and struck at my hands when I tried to hold her to my chest. She struggled free to the floor of the car and slithered under the front passenger seat to hide.

Traffic froze as mobs of panicked, blood-soaked pedestrians surged between the cars, running into each other, slipping and falling on the suddenly treacherous ground. An older woman in a blue pantsuit was bowled over and fell to hands and knees, screaming as she was drenched in the same rich, gruesome scarlet that was now pounding down in sheets over everyone and everything.”

Next post will be a cover and blurb release, shortly followed by a pre-order!

If you want to jump the queue and see the Zero Sum cover now, join us here on The Book of Face.

  Zero Sum and The Persistence Game was originally published on James Osiris Baldwin

[jamesosiris]

The State of Affairs

Let’s face it: shit’s fucked. I foresee a future where the creation of art may be suspended while I’m spending more time away from my keyboard. Until then, I’m balls out on the third and fourth book in the Hound of Eden series.

Speaking of shit that fucked up, I realized as I was drafting Cold Cell, the proposed third book in the series, that there was another whole novel’s worth of information and story that it requires. I realized this after I’d written about 60,000 words and hadn’t yet reached the meaty part of the story in CC. Thus, Cold Cell has been bumped to Book 4 in the series, and the third novel, Zero Sum, is currently slated to be finished by March 2017 and published before April. I will, however, have to create a new cover.

Angkor and the Twin Tigers cat shapeshifters continue to feature heavily in Zero Sum, in which we learn more about the Templum Voctus Sol and the Vigiles Magicarum.

So here’s my question to you fans: who and what would you want to see on the cover of Zero Sum?

  The State of Affairs was originally published on James Osiris Baldwin

[jamesosiris]

How to load a free ebook to your Kindle or computer

Some people don’t know how to get a free book (Like Burn Artist) to their Kindle or device, so here’s some tutorials I wrote to help you get reading quickly. These methods work with any book, not just mine.

How to get the book onto Kindle via USB:

Save the Burn Artist .mobi file to your computer.

Plug in your Kindle device with the USB charge cord.

Open up the ‘Documents’ folder on your Kindle.

Drag and drop (or cut and paste) the Burn Artist file into ‘Documents’

Disconnect your Kindle: the book should be in your library!

Kindle for PC:

Download the book. If you have Kindle for PC installed, you should be able to double-click the file and it will open in the Kindle Program automatically.

If the book doesn’t open with a doubleclick, cut and paste the .mobi file into the ‘My Kindle Content’ folder in your ‘My Documents’.

  How to get the book on your Kindle or Ereader via email:

If you have a Kindle device (Paperwhite, Voyager, etc), you can send the book to your Kindle by email. To do this, all you need is your Kindle’s email address and to change a couple of settings.

To find this email address, visit http://www.amazon.com/myk using your PC’s web browser.  You will arrive on a page with three options: ‘Your Content’, ‘Your Devices’ and ‘Settings’.

Click on ‘Your Devices’ and select your Kindle or Ereader. Underneath the selected icon, you will see information about your Kindle, including the email address. It usually looks like: <Amazon username>@kindle.com.

Now go back up, and click ‘Settings’ and scroll all the way down to the “Approved Personal Document E-mail List.” Click “add a new approved e-mail address,” and add the email address you intend to send your books from.

Remember, your Kindle needs to be attached to a Wi-Fi or 3G network for this to work. It doesn’t have to be your home network, of course; you can go to a coffee shop or a public library, for instance.

Send the Burn Artist .mobi file to your Kindle email address with no message or subject, and voila – you will be able to read the book on your Kindle! Once you’ve set this up, you can do this with any book, not just mine.

  How to read a free book on your PC without Kindle:

To read the .epub file, download the free Adobe Digital Editions program here: http://www.adobe.com/solutions/ebook/digital-editions/download.html

Once this is installed, you should be able to double-click your new .epub file and read it in your fancy new e-reader 🙂

How to load a free ebook to your Kindle or computer was originally published on James Osiris Baldwin

[jamesosiris]

Cold Cell: Work In Progress

My escort walked me down to the third level, a narrow hallway faced with cells with red painted bars, the same color as my new coveralls. They stretched off into the gloom of the dimmed lights… a corridor that sounded and smelled like a zoo now that everyone had just come in back from dinner. It was warm in here, and humid with the smell of an old men’s locker room. The ventilation fans did little to remove the scent of cheap bodyspray, sweat, and old toilets.

We were catcalled on the way past my new neighbors. Someone was pacing like a tiger in the darkest part of their cell, stalking from end to end. Another man was smoking, and didn’t even bother hiding it as the three of us marched past. Some men were hidden in the stark shadows cast by the single bulb light outside their cell. Another lunged at his bars with a bestial snarl, and then laughed as he reeled away. Everyone was two to a cell – sometimes three. There wasn’t enough space on Red Row. I could guess that the bunk I was to occupy was one of the ones I’d emptied after Red Dog had come at me in the bathroom.

“Hey! I told housekeeping that I didn’t want the turndown!” A man’s voice called out from the cell, deep, with an accent I pinned somewhere between Minnesota and Canada. “Did you bring me the little chocolate at least, ’cause-”

“Shut your fucking mouth!” My escort snarled back at him, racking my door across. “You! Get in there!”

He didn’t have to tell me twice. I started forward, only to be arrested when the man inside spoke again. “Yeah! Get in there! You can do it! You’re the man now, dawg!”

The guard holding me shifted nervously on his feet as the other one stalked into the cell, hand on his belt. “Do you want my stick up your ass, fuckhole?”

“Oh no sir, anything but the stick!” My celly pitched his voice high and squeaky. “We hates the stick, don’ts we precious?”

“Why you fucking piece of-” From inside, the other man laughed, a sound that fell back further into the cell as the guard lay into him.

“Ooh yes, officer! Harder! Harder!” He called out, still laughing. “Gimme that Federal bureaucracy, man! All over my face!”

“Will you shut the fuck up!?” The nightstick bounced off something metallic.

“Come on baby, bruise me up! Yeah, that’s it! Woo! I’m going to the one dollar bin! The fruit bin! Like one of those bruised up bananas that’s seen WAY too much heroin!”

“Yeah, man! Go score us that infirmary canteen!” Someone down the row shouted up.

“It’s mine! All mine! Get your own fucking crossword puzzle!” Even under assault, my next door neighbor sounded like he was having the time of his life.

As he realized that the beating wasn’t going to get him anywhere, the guard stalked back out and slammed the door across, swearing like a Navy shoreman. The far less enthused officer nudged me forward, and I got my first look at my new roommate as he rolled himself back up to his ass, still wheezing with mirth.

He was huge: a good three hundred pounds of raw beef, none of it fat. He was seated with his feet wide apart, elbows resting on his knees, his back to the white porcelain sink. His shoulders were level with the rim. I’d known some big men in my time and rarely felt small around them. Short as I am, I was burly, built for weightlifting and shotput and showjumping. Tall, cut men like Zane didn’t faze me, but this man wasn’t just tall. My new cellmate was built like a pro-wrestler. He could have body-doubled for the Hulk.

He had a fading outdoorsman’s tan, but it was the geometric blue ink tattoos that lay across his bald scalp, bull neck, and heavy shoulders that distinguished him from just another skinhead bruiser in this place. They were not anything like the mishmash of gang symbols and trashy flash that passed for tattoos in prison. Care and planning had gone into them, and it was the tattoos that flipped the switch of intuition. I hesitated as deja-vu hit me like a baton to the gut, but I couldn’t recall a name, or a place where we’d met before. Just a shadow of a memory, a patterning… like the ghost of something we’d once done together, over and over again. In light of Kutkha’s frank discussion of my other lives, past and present, the recall was accompanied by a nagging sense of being in terrible danger.

“Stop gawking and get in, asshole.” The guard jabbed me in the back. With motions that were already becoming rote, I crossed the threshold and turned, the back of my neck crawling as I held out my wrists to be un-cuffed.

“Mmmm, now that’s what I’m talking about.” The big man chuckled behind me. “That is one hell of a mint. White virgin chocolate… Fair trade and shade grown.”

The guard glanced over my shoulder with something that might have been momentary concern, at least about the liability of locking someone of my size in with the likes of The Hulk… but it didn’t stop him from racking the door closed, locking it, and walking away to join his coworker.

I drew a deep breath and turned around. “Let me guess. You recognize me from somewhere.”

“I’m writing home to-” When I turned back around to face him, the seated man’s voice fell off, even before I began to speak. “That depends. How many pornos have you starred in?”

I flushed before he could find my composure, jaws clenched. “Exactly zero, thank you very much.”

“Listen to you. ‘I’ll have a buttered scone and a bit of tea, thank you very much,’” my cellmate raised his voice to a prim falsetto as he got to his feet. In the claustrophobic enclosure of the cell, I had never seen a bigger man in my life. He was smirking, and holding an invisible teacup and saucer in his hands, the pinky holding the ‘cup’ held out at a jaunty angle. There was absolutely nowhere in this space I could retreat to that this man could not reach.

Cold Cell: Work In Progress was originally published on James Osiris Baldwin

[jamesosiris]

Everything I will miss in the years to come

I’m going to miss the Great Barrier Reef. I’m sad that I will never get to see it, and regret that I didn’t visit it before I left Australia to throw my lot in with the USA. I’m going to miss the National Parks of the Americas, the forests and valleys that will be leveled, the shale fields that will be pounded relentlessly for the oil that oozes through the cracks of shattered stone.

I will miss being able to able to travel across the USA by road or rail. It is no longer safe. I’m privileged enough to be able to ‘pass’, for the most part, but if I’m taken to the wrong hospital or attended by the wrong EMTs or somehow found out in public, I am not safe.

I already miss the prospect of a cleaner, smarter, better educated global society built on principles of secular liberty and justice: Elon Musk’s future is where we should be headed, but we probably won’t live long enough to arrive. Technology will now progress only for the benefit of dictators.

When the time comes, I might have to let go of my remaining innocence in the face of war or invasion. I will miss the times when I could blog without fear of arrest, or sit in the peace of my home with a full belly and a sense of having a future, however much work that future required. I grieve that in the knowledge that we will live in an ever-warming climate of hate, fear, and bigotry. We have had two world wars to learn from… but we apparently do not learn.

I do not fear death, but in the times to come, I will miss truly living.

Everything I will miss in the years to come was originally published on James Osiris Baldwin

[jamesosiris]

Russian Mafia 101: The Russian Mafia Doesn't Actually Exist

My novels and stories deal heavily with the (so-called) Russian Mafia – that mythic Eastern European organized criminal organization that was so badly portrayed in Eastern Promises and portrayed with far more realism in John Wick. There is already an established ‘mafiya’ genre in Russia, which is typified by the amazing TV drama series Brigada. But despite this, the Russian Mafia doesn’t actually exist, per-se.

It may seem strange to be writing about something I claim doesn’t exist, but here’s what that means in Alexi’s own words:

The term ‘Russian Mafia’ is a poor analogue for the many unallied brigadi that make up Slavic organized crime. For one thing, any given Organizatsiya has members from all corners of the Eastern Bloc, as well as Turkey, Israel, and Chechnya. For another, the term ‘mafia’ conveys a certain sense of conservative, orderly unity, evoking images of hereditary Families led by a single Don. Every one of the organizations that could be described as ‘Russian mafia’ does things their own way. If the Italian Mob is a family business, then the Russian Mafia is a fast-food franchise: a cluster of para-military cells unified around a team of managers, with each cell branching out further into a web of patsies, fall-men, bookies, dealers and common street thugs.

Vassily and I occupied a strange position within our own brigada. We were both immigrant children born in America to long-time Thieves-in-Law. Our hereditary position conveyed a certain hollow prestige, in that the senior authorities invested more time into us, but they also expected more.

Essentially, the Russian Mafia is a fractured collection of individual criminal organizations, most of which are not Russian at all. They operate internationally and within the former Eastern Bloc, and the ones based in Russia, Ukraine and surrounding countries are heavily involved in business (especially the gas and oil industries), politics, banking and the Eastern Orthodox church. There are some who cooperate (and even hold ‘councils’ between leaders), but more of them are rivals for the same

Eastern Promises was just about the gayest thing ever, which was great, but it was highly inaccurate.

business. Russian mafia organizations range from small gangs of semi-rural youth led by petty criminals through to advanced, complex organizations with ties to the Kremlin and access to military-grade weapons. They compete and convolve in ways that have mystified law enforcement for decades, form crazy alliances with forces as diverse as Nigerian pirates, the Mumbai Mafia, Thailand’s tourism industry and ISIS – and this fluidity one of the reasons that they are currently the most successful criminal enterprise in the world.

Fictional Depictions

In terms of fictional depictions, Brigada is without a doubt the best (semi-sympathetic) portrayal of an Organizatsiya, detailing the life of a young soldier returning to his hard-scrabble regional town and entering into a life of crime. Poverty is still a major driving force behind the formation of Eastern European criminal organizations. The old Soviet factory towns where so many people still live are deprived of opportunity and jobs, and are often bleak, conservative places often falling into disrepair. Soldiering, crime, or luck are the only ways a lot of these young men break out. This is especially true of the old ‘Stans south of Russia, rural Ukraine, and Bulgaria – where are not coincidentally where the Russian Mafia draws most of its members.

Eastern Promises really tried, but it was heavily exoticized and basically took Italian Mafia tropes and vaguely converted them to a Russian cast: about the only thing they got right was the mafia’s involvement in human trafficking. But let’s be frank – I think most of us were watching it for the naked Turkish bath knife-fight, right? John Wick reduced the Organizatsiya to a series of mooks whose only purpose was to be gunned down by Keanu Reeves, but the cultural and social depictions were far more in line with the reality.

Next in the series, I’ll elaborate on this inaccurate exoticism a bit more: specifically, the infamous hand tattoos and the ‘language’ of these tattoos that are now practically iconic.

Want to learn how to swear like a sailor in Russian and Ukrainian? Check out this post: http://jamesosiris.com/blyat-suka-russian-swearing/

Russian Mafia 101: The Russian Mafia Doesn’t Actually Exist was originally published on James Osiris Baldwin

[jamesosiris]

James’ 2017 Projects: Hound of Eden, Dark Fantasy and More

Hello, dear readers and fellow Illuminati!

Today, I got thinking about my accomplishments in 2016 and what I want to accomplish in 2017 in terms of books (and art). I’ve decided that I’m going to take on 5 and a half projects next year, which will exceed my 4.5-ish books of this year: Blood Hound, Stained Glass, Burn Artist, Fix Your Damn Book, a longish short story for a super-secret project in December, and probably about half of Cold Cell.

I’ve never been one of those authors who can just keep pumping out books, month after month, and make 8-10 releases a year. That kind of sweatshop method is becoming fairly common in Urban Fantasy, but the diagram below applies:

I really like the first two much more than the third.

I’m not interested in the quick buck. 3-6 months between books is enough time for me to properly weave a good story, make cover art, edit (I do my own editing with the help of a very talented friend who spots the things I don’t) and package a quality book with minimal errors. That being said, I’m going to try and write five of the buggers next year – though they may not all be published in 2017.

  1. Cold Cell & Wild Hunt

This is where the ‘half’ comes in. Due to family commitments and immigration procedures (I’m in the process of joining my lovely and extraordinary wife in the USA) and the complexity of the book itself, Cold Cell, the third Alexi Sokolsky book, is going to be partly finished this year for a hopeful February release. The Hound of Eden books take about 6 months to write – the plot is complex, with multiple antagonists, and there is a deceptively large cast of characters which expands with the third book.

I have about 30,000 words of draft material at this stage. What I can say about Cold Cell is that Alexi goes to prison, and that his life – and the lives of the other characters – are going to be drastically changed by the end of the novel. Book 3 deepens the mythos of the Dermal Highway vampires (Feeders) as well.

Wild Hunt is the tentative working title for Book 4. Not telling anyone anything about that until Book 3 is out.

  Finish Your Damn Book! – How to plan, write and complete your novels

The accompaniment to Fix Your Damn Book, this is the second of the FYBD Series (Fix, Finish, Format and Flaunt). There’s not really much more to say on that, save that it will embody the sum total of my wisdom on the subject of writing and completing novels. As with FYDB, I will be looking at the psychological issues and viewpoints that often interfere with writing and finishing a novel: the main ones being that people give up before they even try, and assume that they don’t have to study craft to make it.

  3, 4 & 5: The Warsinger Chronicles (Books 1-3)

This is the project I am super excited about. You may have seen these super-fancy covers floating about here and there:

This is my dark fantasy series project. Set in the original world of Archemi, a setting originally conceived by me and an old D&D friend in Canada, Warsinger follows the interlinking stories of Suri, a traumatized skyknight who served in the world’s Great War and can no longer bear to fly, and Richter, a talented but brittle monastic ranger who struggles with the ghosts of his broken childhood. This unlikely pair team up with assorted others to head off the cataclysmic legacy of the Great War – the return of dragons, and the dragons’ desire to reclaim their old human slaves. To stop them, Suri and Richter are going to have to overcome their issues and recover the ancient technology that freed humankind from the dragons to begin with: The Warsingers. It’s a bit Escaflowne, a bit Azure Bonds, and a bit Dragonlance (but without the existential hopelessness).

The Warsinger Chronicles is a story and a world that’s been in development for quite a while now. I intend to write at least the first three books before publishing the first (to avoid the GRRM Effect), and then release them regularly every 2-3 months while working on Hound of Eden. This means they’re a while off yet, but the first book, Cruel Necessity, is already in production.

There are 6 full-length novels planned and one Suri-centric prequel novella, similar to Burn Artist. Most of the titles are Oliver Cromwell quotes, highlighting the English Civil War-ish feel of the series.

And that’s it for now. Secret short story project is in the works right now. You can preview the Advance Reading sample of Cold Cell here: Part One and Part Two.

James’ 2017 Projects: Hound of Eden, Dark Fantasy and More was originally published on James Osiris Baldwin

[jamesosiris]

Blyat' Suka! A Layman's Guide to Russian (and Ukrainian) Swearing

Please be warned – this post is probably not safe for work.

I write books about gangsters and other assorted ne’er do wells, and they swear – a lot. They swear in multiple languages, too, which is admittedly one of the most fun research tasks I perform on behalf of the Alexi Sokolsky series of novels. This handy glossary will help you decode the various curses, insults, exclamations and interjections used by Alexi and the other characters in Blood Hound and Stained Glass.

Bozhe moy/Bozhe mir Probably the mildest curse in this list. Kind of like ‘Oh God’ or ‘God damn’. Safe to say around Grandma.

“Pizda!” A strong term for the female genitalia. Also kind of synonymous with ‘whore’. Can be used to describe either a situation (‘this shit is pizdets’) or a person (you pussy!).

“Pizda rulu…” “Something bad is happening.” Literally means ‘cunt to steering wheel’. Try driving down the freeway using your crotch, and you’ll understand.

Suka ‘Bitch.’ If you play any online FPS, you’re probably familiar with this one.

Khuy (pronounced ‘hooie’, but with more phlegm on the ‘h’) Dick, cock, wang. Khuy is one of the main roots of whole world of Russian swearing. Khuy & Pizda make Mat’ go round.

In addition, khuy is probably one of the most flexible words in Russian and Ukrainian slang, used as an affix for all sorts of things. It is also considered extremely rude, far more offensive than ‘dick’ is in English. You know how some people use ‘fuckin’ like an adjective? Yeah.

Behold, a few choice examples of the wonder that is khuy:

“Suka khuilo!” Replace suka with any name for shits and giggles. This is a Ukrainian combination and is extremely rude. One of Alexi’s favorites. Currently used by Ukrainian nationalists to refer to Vlad Putin.

“Po khuy!” “I don’t fucking care!”

“Ohuitelny!” “Cool!” Dicks are awesome, I guess.

“Poshel na huy!” “Fuck you!”

“Khuy tebe v zhopu!” “Shove it (a dick) up your ass!”

“Khuy na ne!” “No fucking way!”

“Na khuy?” “Why the fuck..?” Usually implies that you’re not interested in some offer.

“Ne valyai duraka!” “Stop screwing around!” Add bonus dick by saying: “Ne valyahui duraka!”

Govno Shit. Poop. Excrement. Ukrainians and Polish people often say ‘Korva!’ instead.

“Meni tse treba yak zuby v dupi.” Ukrainian. Roughly translated, it means: “I need this like I need teeth in my ass.” My personal favorite. Alexi uses this when shit is pizdets’.

Blyat’! Bitch/whore! Pronounced kind of like ‘blyiad’ Often used as an affix.

Zhopa Asshole.

Ebanashka Idiot. Someone who takes it in the zhopa.

Idi v zhopu Go to hell. Literally ‘go up an ass’.

Tselka Virgin. Used in a derogatory fashion. Alexi hears that one a lot.

Chyort! Damn!/Hell! Literally means ‘devil’. Often used in combination (Chyort voz’mi, chyort poberi!)

“Ya tebya imeyu!” “I’m having you!” How to tell someone they’re your bitch.

Pedarasti Pedophile/pederast. Unfortunately still used as a slang term to describe someone who’s gay, as homosexuality and pedophilia are virtually synonymous in the minds of homophobic people in Eastern Europe.

Hohol Racist. What Russians call Ukrainians they don’t like.

Katsap Racist. What Ukrainians call Russians they don’t like.

Pindos What Ukrainians and Russians call Americans they don’t like. Very racist.

Musor Literally means ‘garbage’. Generally used to refer to police.

Zalupa Dickhead.

Now if a Russian guy ever picks a fight with you, you know what to say in the seconds before you end up on your zhopa.

Blood Hound and Stained Glass are available here. For more incredible dick-related content, you can subscribe to my New Releases Mailing List to get notified when I release something new.

Blyat’ Suka! A Layman’s Guide to Russian (and Ukrainian) Swearing was originally published on James Osiris Baldwin

[jamesosiris]

Why you should use stereotypes in your writing

Why you should use stereotypes in your writing

I used to work in security. One of the guys I worked with was this huge Russian bouncer guy: nearly seven feet of muscle-gut and bald head, tattoos on his hands, gold tooth. You know the guy I'm talking about, don't you?

Without needing to say much at all, you probably have a mental image of this guy. He's a stereotype. So are Harry Potter (abused child genius, complete with baggy hand-me-downs, messy hair, and broken glasses), Batman (rich handsome white guy), Katniss Everdeen, Anna Karenina, and King Solomon. Practically every character in modern (and pre-modern) storytelling conforms to the stereotype of what that 'kind' of person should be. One could even argue that character creation is in fact the art of creating stereotype: you are quite literally creating a person, with a personality, formed for the express purpose of acting a part within your story.

A stereotype is a thought that can be adopted about specific types of individuals or certain ways of doing things, whether or not that perception is accurate or founded in reality... and this is where stereotyping becomes an interesting tool in the hands of a writer.

Playing the part

Stereotypes are psychological shorthand. Humans weren't really built to deal with communities spanning millions or billions of people. We have a hard limit on the number of faces we can recognize, which is one of the reasons that people from different countries often perceive foreigners as 'looking all the same'. Because we have limitations on our processing power, the human brain looks for patterns. We do this with physical things, such as clouds, and also with social patterns. Conspiracy theories and stereotypes are born from the same need to make sense of the randomness we see around us.

This leads to an interesting phenomenon. Because humans are instinctive pattern seekers, and because most of us enjoy living in communities, we begin to internalize certain stereotypes based on the glimpses of pattern around us, internalise them, and practice them. This is particularly true in the arenas of life where presentation and appearance are important. There's reasons we have mousy librarians, edgy tattoo artists, big tough firefighters, geeky scientists and nerdy I.T specialists. Stereotypes have evolved in the micro-cultures of libraries, tattoo parlours, fire houses, laboratories and cubicle farms, because the jobs favor certain types of personalities and physical builds. Once the pattern is noticed, it becomes self-reinforcing. The CEO of a big I.T corporation is interested in hiring people who look the part because they associate the stereotypical presentation with the qualities they require from an employee. Over time, the company's software developers will naturally conform to the stereotypes established by that corporation. There are exceptions... but there are fewer exceptions in society than we'd like to admit.

What this means is that we tend to assume and embody certain stereotypes ourselves, and we do this to get to where we want to go. By doing this, it can seem like we are almost destined for a certain fate, and those who buck the trend (by appearing somehow stereotypical while aspiring to something else that others do not 'type' them for) invite conflict and resistance from the majority. This is particularly noticeable in, say, women who work in blue collar occupations. They have to fight twice as hard for twice as long to be taken seriously. Yet, in doing so, they often find themselves conforming to a 'female cop' or 'female electrician' stereotype to survive. Those who cannot do so often buckle under the twin pressures of the establishment and the alternative. It takes incredible personal energy to truly walk alone.

What this also means is that stereotypical presentation is often quite superficial. A person may walk the walk (or stroll the stroll, in the case of supermodels), but underneath that facade is still an entire person. And that unseen inner self... they may not conform to a stereotype at all.

What kinds of stereotypes do your perspective characters believe exist in the different social groups around them? What kind of stereotypes does your character use to get their way in society… and are they aware that they are doing this? Is it comfortable, or uncomfortable?

In either case, reversing their self-concept – either by making them conform, or making them realize that they can’t – is an excellent avenue for conflict.

Buying in

Self-enforcement of stereotypes can mix in with the person we really are.

Have you ever wondered why people, by and large, seem so shocked when priests are caught out abusing children, or why every conservative 'family values' politician caught in a truck stop bathroom with a rentboy is a 'scandal'? That is the full power of stereotypes at work. They have assumed the role of kindly priest or straight-laced senator... because they are consciously or unconsciously aware of the power they have to manipulate others in that role while they do what they actually want to do. These people often go so far as to disassociate from their real inner selves, believing that their stereotypical role is 'them', and that the emotionally complex or neurotic self is 'not them'. These sick people feel very strongly that their dark sexual or homicidal or sadistic impulses are from 'somewhere else' that is not 'them'.

And now we know why The Devil was invented. Imagine the potential that this offers you as a writer.

If you struggle to create compelling, believable antagonists and villains, this is how you do it. Have a look at who your antagonist is, what they do. Why do they do that thing? And what is their self-stereotyping hiding from themselves?

Power games

Stereotypes are, by and large, a great thing for those in power, and dehumanizing and limiting for those subject to that power. This is why we have stereotypes of Philanthropic Wealthy White Men and Drug Addicted Homeless Bums, which is enforced externally (from the media and society) and internally (by the standards of the micro-culture). Reinforcement can be positive or negative, but it all leads to the same thing. Those in power tend to receive more favourable, empowering stereotypes than those who do not have power. Even when unfavourable, those in power tend to be able to get away with things that other groups cannot. The media invented the word ‘affluenza’ based on one such stereotype – the Misunderstood Rich Teenager.

Stereotype content refers to the attributes that people think characterize a group. These attributes - positive or negative - tend to be what we first think when we hear someone is from a particular group, and this is one way that a group will establish and maintain power over other groups. Many people don’t see the harm in certain racial stereotypes – the Smart Asian Kid stereotype, for example (Cho Chang, anyone?). The reason this is actually a pretty awful racist trope is that the stereotype does nothing to empower the people it claims to represent while also rendering invisible those who do not conform to the stereotype (what about the artists, adventurers, philanthropists, the winemakers..?). In addition, the ‘Smart Asian Kid’ trope furthers the myth of other less positive stereotypes that disempower Asian communities as whole – mostly ones about immigration, a lack of masculinity (in men) and victimization (in women). And what the hell does ‘Asian’ mean, anyway?

By obliterating complexity and nuance, stereotypes are used to disempower and silence entire swathes of the population. Those in power also have a tendency to ‘lock in’ stereotypes and refuse to change their assumptions about other people based on any range of superficial qualities. The ridiculous arguments used to enforce anti-transgender ‘bathroom laws’ are a case in point. Stereotypes are used to explain social events… or explain them away.

Remember the outrage over images of Syrian refugees charging their cell phones? The stereotype of the refugee does not match the reality (that most Syrians able to flee their country were middle or upper class, in terms of income), and so many people cannot believe they are ‘refugees’. Which makes them migrants, here to steal our jobs!

The saddest thing about this is that stereotyping often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Socially marginalized people are angry people, and economically disenfranchised people still have to find ways to pay the rent and put food on the table.

What does this have to do with you as a writer, you may ask? Two things:

Whose story are you telling? Really? And why are you telling it?

How do your characters wield power within the story? Are they aware of their power, or the lack of it? Those who have less power are usually sensitive to their lack of agency; those who have power are often quite unaware, considering themselves ‘normal’ and everyone else ‘other’.

Making characters memorable

As I pointed out early on, many memorable and beloved characters are actually stereotypes – or, more accurately, they are typical for their genre, which is itself stereotypical. We know what kinds of characters to expect in spy novels, mysteries, romances and fantasy*.

However, just because one feature of a character can be categorized as being typical does not make the entire character a stereotype, and this is where you, the writer, have the ability to manipulate your reader’s expectations. And as well you should.

If you dig under and around and through the stereotypes that are relevant to you and your work, you will never have a boring bit-character ever again.

By being aware of your own favourite stereotypes and by doing your research to dig underneath the stereotype you hold of any particular group, you can teach yourself and your readers something new about people through what you write – or you can reinforce existing perceptions.

Remember my huge Russian bouncer friend from the first paragraph? He was actually the best 'talker' on the team. I watched him talk down big men, small men, women of all sizes and levels of intoxication in the same calm, well-mannered, often funny way. He was a very softly spoken, very intelligent man who enjoyed classical Russian literature and told a lot of interesting stories... including the ones about the tattoos on his hands.

* Interestingly, science fiction is one of the few genres where it is more difficult to predict the social stereotype of a character in any given novel or film. This has a lot to do with the progressive avant-garde nature of the genre… and is one of many reasons why the ‘Sad Puppies’ are indeed sad, small little people for trying to rig the Hugos.

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Why you should use stereotypes in your writing was originally published on James Osiris Baldwin

[jamesosiris]

How about we fucking stop calling refugees 'migrants'?

How many dead will it take for Australia and other smarmy rich western nations to stop calling the millions of displaced Syrians, Yazidi, Iraqi and other peoples ‘migrants’ and call them what they really are?

REFUGEES.

Say it with me. REFUGEES.

AS IN, PEOPLE IN NEED OF REFUGE.

Yes. People. Refugees. Civilians who are fleeing because they cannot defend themselves. People who went to school and eat take out meals after work because they’re too tired to cook, and help their partner wash the bathroom on weekends, and who have kids and pets and aren’t here to ‘take our jobs’ – you know, the ones that are always being sent to places where there are no significant labor laws when it suits the whims of a corporation so some pasty white bastard can play more golf on the weekends.

They are not ‘looking for a better life’. They’re looking for any life at all. They’re trying not to drown or starve or be blown apart.

They are accountants. Soap makers. Students.

They are not fucking MIGRANTS. They aren’t ‘boat people’. They’re not illegal. They’re refugees.

Behold this whining, sneering little shitstain: ‘Abbott: toddler’s death a reminder of need to ‘stop the boats’

Abbott, you are a piece of human shit. I don’t know you – and I don’t ever want to know – beyond saying that I hate you. I hate the warmongers and the white-collar sociopaths and gun nuts and apocalyptic hypocrites and dictators. I hate you all, and I hate your systems and your religions, and I hate everything you have done to the refugees of the world.

If you want to help refugees, check out http://donate.unhcr.org/international/lifeline

I usually donate through UNICEF, but this seems like a good program.

How about we fucking stop calling refugees ‘migrants’? was originally published on James Osiris Baldwin

[jamesosiris]

Things I have learned from wearing a fedora

There is a fine line between rakish and douchey: the fedora must be worn at an angle to be stylish, but not at a Kayne West angle. Absolute douchiness is to wear a fedora with a vest or t-shirt. I will never do this, and neither should you.

Wearing a fedora with a long coat and a suit, on the other hand, is apparently awesome (see #5 and #6 below).

Most people do not know the difference between a fedora and a trilby. You are frequently required to educate them in public, loudly and with great indignation.

People seem to automatically give you space when you wear a fedora. I am unsure if this is proportionate to the size of the brim.

Both men and women seem inclined to open train doors for you when you wear a fedora, even during the morning rush. I’m yet to fully understand why.

Fedoras bring both the ladies and gentlemen to the yard. My hat apparently has some kind of magic panty-and-boxer elastic loosening ability. This may be related to the train-door opening thing and could also be proportionate to the size of the brim.

People may assume you are a rabbi or a priest. This is less likely if the hat is angled to a suitable degree of rakishness.

If you take it off and mime throwing it at passersby, they will flee in terror. This may be because they’re worried that you’re a Bond villain.

This is basically always true.

Things I have learned from wearing a fedora was originally published on James Osiris Baldwin

[jamesosiris]

The Setting and Magic of Blood Hound

The Magic of Blood Hound

“Within every HuMan, there exists a perfect replica of the GOD organism: an infant I contained within a mirrored shell, the Aur, which shatters only once a person has been exposed to death and witnessed the deep Blackness of NOthing. The Kabalic name for it is ‘Shevirah’, the breaking of the vessel. The cause of initiation is death.” – Ars Phitomatria, Unknown Author.

Magic in BLOOD HOUND and the other Hound of Eden books is complex. The operation of magic in these books is founded on a mixture of fantasy and real Occult principles, biology, and the unique mysticism of the Dermal Highway, an original paracosm developed by the equally unique canth? Decided.

There is a basic story to the creation of every mage within Blood Hound: they have seen death and returned to tell the tale.

Types of Magic

There are two factors which control a Mage’s ability to use magic:

– Flow: The Mage’s actual ability to conduct Phi. – Pressure (the Will): The Mage’s ability to control Phi.

Once a Mage has the ability to control Pressure and regulate their ability to work Phi, they can begin shaping it through their will to create effects. Theoretically, there is no limit to what a Mage can do with Phi, the very blood of GOD itself. In reality, the HuMan mind has limitations, and conforms to patterns of behavior which seem natural.

There are two general categories of magic:

Invocation (Bi-Gendered, ‘Feminine’, Matter-centric) Invocation is the art of using Phi in ways which produce concrete, lasting effects. Invocation deals with all magics that bring Form to Phi and that causes it to ‘stick’ – from summoning demons to casting curses.

A skilled Invoker can summon entities, walk astral realms, create curses and blessings, read minds, banish entities, teleport, and create magical items from Phi.

Invocatory magic cannot excite Form: it can only create or transmute it.

Evocation (Non-gendered, ‘masculine’, Mind-centric) Evocation is the art of using Phi to produce transient, active effects which expend and generate raw energy. It creates effects instead of objects, such as explosions, deflections, fluctuations in life, death, temperature and physical structure. It is abstract and difficult to control.

Evocation cannot create Form: it can only animate or exchange it.

GOD, Neshamah and HuMans

Blood Hound is an urban fantasy occult detective thriller, but it begins and ends with the Great Orderly Direction, the I in the sky: GOD.

GOD is not a deity in this mystic atheist setting. GOD is a living creature whose flesh is the substance of material reality. HuMans (capital H, capital M) are also part of this great organism: the living nerves.

Like nerves, HuMans have different parts to their beings. The meat-puppet walking around New York City is called the Nephesh: your body. Within the body is a ‘relay’ – like a telephone cable or wifi – which links to the less substantial, wiser, older part of the HuMan being: the soul or super-consciousness. This being is called a Neshamah. The Neshamah is a mage’s conduit to magic, and Phi is what they channel to use magic.

1991: A weird, wild year

1991 was a year of winter storms, war, and serial killers.

The Gulf War – the root of the ongoing Middle Eastern-US Conflict – began and ended in 1991. George Bush Snr. was President. Rodney King was beaten to death by police in California, foreshadowing the riots surrounding police brutality in 2015. Germany formally regained complete independence after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

On July 11th, there was a complete solar eclipse in the USA. Eleven days later on the 22nd July, homosexual serial killer Jeffery Dahmer was arrested.

The Super Nintendo came out. Bill Clinton announced his intention to run for President. The Perfect Storm hit New York on October 28, 1991.

1991 was the year that the Soviet Union officially dissolved. The Cold War ended on December 25th… in theory.

In Brighton Beach, New York, the Russian Mafia was exposed with the murder of a Jewish jeweler, and the evidence around that murder delivered definitive proof that a ‘Russian mafia’ even existed. Before the hard work of two maverick FBI agents, no one knew about the Organizatsiya, except for their members and those they preyed on.

The Setting and Magic of Blood Hound was originally published on James Osiris Baldwin

[jamesosiris]

Mercurions are an ancient species of silicone-based, magically fueled golems. Now and then, they are known to graft flesh to their amorphous, rigorously and ritually styled bodies... but generally, they only do this in fits of madness. Still a work in progress.