Year: 2016 - Page 13 - Kairos – By Brian Niemeier

The Secret of the Universe

OK. I'm not actually going to reveal the secret of the universe. Instead, this post will be devoted to bringing you, my faithful readers, up to speed on recent developments in my self-publishing odyssey. And boy, have I got a lot to share! Up and Coming Cover by Holly Heisey…

March 6, 2016

Earth vs. Twitter: This Time It’s Personal

Twitter's suppression of conservative and libertarian users has incited an exodus of high profile figures from the embattled social network. It's been rightly said that Twitter, as a private sector corporation, is free to ostracize any user demographic it wants. Targeted users are just as free to leave the platform.…

February 27, 20162 Comments

Amazon Reviews and eBook Pricing

Authors and bibliophiles alike should read this post by Larry Correia in response to an Amazon review for Son of the Black Sword. Your time is valuable, so if you're disinclined to following the link, the short version is that a reviewer gave Larry's book one star for the sole…

February 20, 20162 Comments

Sad Puppies: Cognitive Dissonance Makes Our Enemies Oblivious

Predictably, my recent post about how advances in media technology are driving the Sad Puppies phenomenon--and the hostile reactions of its detractors--drew hostile reactions from SP's detractors. I argued that new tribes of science fiction fans are forming around movies, video games, and eBooks; leaving the New York publishing establishment ever…

February 14, 20166 Comments

Souldancer is Live on Amazon

It's my sincere pleasure to announce that Souldancer, the sequel to Nethereal, is now live on Amazon's Kindle Store. The release of this book marks the culmination of a work that's been years in the making. Though Souldancer is sequentially the second book of the Soul Cycle, I actually started writing…

February 10, 20164 Comments

Souldancer Update: Finished Cover Art

Earlier today, my extraordinary cover artist Marcelo Orsi Blanco sent me the detailed, colorized version of the front cover for Souldancer. As you might expect, I was overjoyed. But it was only a foretaste of the surprise he had in store for me a few hours later, when he sent the…

February 2, 20162 Comments

Sad Puppies: Lords Temporal and Spiritual

Last time, we talked about the drastic changes currently underway in sci-fi fandom, and the media that are driving those changes. People with their fingers on the pulse of fandom have observed that SF is becoming more tribalistic. They're right. Due to the dominance of movies, TV shows, video games,…

February 1, 20168 Comments

Fandom Is Dead. Long Live Fandom!

If you change the medium, you change the message. Philosopher of communication Marshall McLuhan argued persuasively that advances in media, regardless of content, can incite dramatic, culture-wide effects. A best selling print book can reach millions of people, but turn that book into a hit movie, and you increase its…

January 28, 2016

Sad Puppies 4 Update: My Readers Are Awesome!

Fans of Nethereal have been busy over on the Sad Puppies 4 Best Novel recommendations thread. Throughout all of its iterations, Sad Puppies has been dedicated to making SF fandom at large aware of books that would normally have gone unnoticed by the much smaller Worldcon membership. SP has been particularly…

January 26, 201610 Comments

Souldancer Character Study: Nahel

During the revision process for my new book Souldancer, my editor recommended a character-building exercise popularized by literary agent Donald Maass. I ran several of the book's principle characters through the exercise to help me figure out what made them tick, and thus portray them more three-dimensionally. Of all the new…

January 25, 2016