Jim Keen's Blog

Hello from Brooklyn!

So, we’re almost done with the hell-hole that was 2021. What an awful year it’s been for us Brooklyn peeps. But things are on the up! Yes indeed! There’s been a whole bunch of good stuff going on since my last video, so I made a new one to explain why I have a new writing space (yay!) and why I’m writing a fiction book (yay!!), COVID (boooo) and how I wish you all a fantastic holidays. Check it out below!

(And I you don’t have time, let me just wish you a healthy, fun holidays and new year. Thanks so much for being with me though this crazy ride. Your support and feedback keep me going!)

JIM.

The post New Space | New Books | New Year! first appeared on Jim Keen, Author..

Hello from Brooklyn!

So today’s quite the day, and not in the way I expected! I was in a Manhattan restaurant last night and got a voice mail that changed my life … wait, what?

It’s easier to explain in person, so I made a video while I’m sat in a gorgeous park trying to absorb it all (It’s the last one for a while so I wanted to explain everything. It’s at the bottom of this email.)  But first …

THE GENESIS ENGINE IS HERE

Today is the day – ‘The Genesis Engine’ is now, out world wide. 

After the events of ‘This Automatic Eden’ this book takes Alice Yu from New York, to Europe, South American and then … well I don’t want to say more. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done, and early reviews have been fantastic – I think you’re going to love it. I’m so excited for you to read it, so please let me know what you think! Here’s some store links for you:

AMAZON US

AMAZON UK

ALL OTHER AMAZON STORES

(It also comes with a free 10,000 word / 35 page novella “These Automatic Horizons” that concludes this phase of the Alice Yu story.)

And finally, yes, in the video below my huge head explains life, work, the past and future. It’s the last video (and book) for a while so check it out! I love hearing from readers and fans, so if you have any questions or comments just email me back and lets chat… until next time, have fun!

Jim, Brooklyn, 2021.

The post NEW YORK 2059 first appeared on Jim Keen, Author..

Hello from Brooklyn! It’s a bumper week here at Keen castle, with less than seven days to go until “The Genesis Engine” is released, PLUS I have an exclusive, all new novella for you, for free! First up … The Genesis Engine:

If you shop at Amazon and you haven’t pre-ordered, you can do so at the link below. The book will then be delivered to your device first thing on Friday morning!

ORDER “THE GENESIS ENGINE” NOW

The book has been a blast to write, and early feedback from my expert readers has said this is the best Alice Yu novel yet. Alice finds her self forced to defend New York from a secretive power-hungry monster intent on destroying the decaying metropolis, while a growing AI threat endangers the entire planet. I think you’re going to enjoy it…

Can’t wait for the release day? You can get a sneak peak of the first 4 chapters right here!

THE FIRST 4 CHAPTERS OF THE GENESIS ENGINE

But there was more to tell. As I was finishing the final draft of The Genesis Engine, I realized there was one more Alice Yu story I had to write before her extended hiatus (That’s right, she’s going away for a while). That story, “These Artificial Horizons” occurs directly after the Genesis Engine, and is packed with spoilers so it’s not standalone novella (unlike my previous free ones.) That’s why the link to get it is at the back of the book and not here—if you read it now it would spoil too much! Think of it as a little treat waiting for you …

THESE ARTIFICIAL HORIZONS

They made a murderous compromise.

T hey overcame a lethal enemy. N ow can they defeat death itself?

It’s taken eighteen months to get here, but I’m so excited and can’t wait for you to read these two books. I love hearing from readers and fans, so if you have any questions or comments just email me back and lets chat… until next time, have fun!

Jim.

The post ‘The Genesis Engine’ + ‘These Artificial Horizons’ are here … first appeared on Jim Keen, Author..

Hello from Brooklyn!

It’s a big week here in Keen Towers—I have the final copy edit of “The Genesis Engine” right here in my sweaty grip Now I just need to read though and confirm the revisions, then get a physical copy printed to double check the formatting and we’re done!

As you’ve all been so amazingly patient I’m giving away the prologue and first 3 chapters right now as an ebook sneak-peak.

These chapters go from the icy moon of Europa, to the Australian outback and then a mile high Blade Tower in New York. They’re some of the best writing I’ve ever done, and I think you’re going love them.

The link to get your copy is below, but first here’s a little look inside:

THE GENESIS ENGINE: PROLOGUE

The great warship cycled down its engines and slipped into an elliptical orbit around Jupiter. The surveillance systems out here were Earth’s best, and the latest satellites could track its fusion drives, hence this slow, secret path. It arced out toward Europa, then swung back and past Io’s rotten landscape, camouflage engaged.

Relentless logic drove its design—two fifty-foot-wide spheres connected by a three-hundred-foot-long truss. The rear sphere housed twin fusion drives, the front a series of industrial-scale printers capable of manufacturing anything from a fork to a skyscraper. Silver skin encased this form making it resemble an old airship, while vast heat exchangers chilled its surface to match the frozen void.

Near invisible, but not quite.

On its first circuit the ship did nothing but watch and listen, seeking the surveillance machinery clustered around Jupiter’s many moons. Then, sure of their locations, it built lethal viruses to seduce and co-opt them.

In its next pass the ship attacked, injecting information warfare into each satellite it passed. Some were tough and resisted for hours, most collapsed in minutes. Satisfied, the ship ramped its engines to maximum and came to rest at the Lagrange point between Europa and Jupiter. That burst of light would be noticed and analyzed on Earth, but far too late to stop the attack.

The ship had consumed most of Europa’s easily accessible raw materials during self-construction. The leftovers had been fashioned into two crude drones capable of maneuvering small loads. Still, it was patient, and the drones reliable; they shuttled away, searching for mineral-rich asteroids. Jupiter’s solar orbit was passing through the vast Trojan cloud, a debris field that matched the asteroid belt in scale, and they soon returned with supplies.

A circular mouth opened to swallow the rocks. Once inside, the printers crushed and consumed them. It built new drones. These were bigger, more complex, and came with an array of grappling hooks and claws.

Those brought back tons of material.

It wasn’t enough.

The ship fed frantically, mouth open, printers ramped to maximum. Small, agile ships emerged from its gaping maw; a black dart, a silver cylinder, a wedged shaped vessel. More, on and on, the variety and number growing. These new craft had clear instructions, select a region of the solar system and settle there. Forget Earth, that planet’s rule was over.

Finally, sated, the ship switched to the next part of its plan: weaponry. That meant tungsten, an element hard to find out here, but as days passed its armory filled. Some of its targets were small and in densely populated areas, others vast island-sized military installations. All in, the ship built 317 kinetic-strike missiles and fired them in four waves at Earth.

The first would arrive in under a week, and after that, nothing would be the same.

SEND ME MY FREE 4 CHAPTERS NOW!

I do hope you like this book and I love hearing from readers and fans, so if you have any questions or comments just email me back and lets chat … until next time, have fun!

Jim. 

The post Get the first 4 chapters of “The Genesis Engine” right here! first appeared on Jim Keen, Author..

Hello from Brooklyn!

The release of the third Alice Yu novel is getting closer, and today I’d like to share the amazing cover art with you. It’s by the Sci-Fi artist David Dura. David did the artwork for ‘This Automatic Eden’ as well, and you can really see the world of 2050’s NY emerge in his drawings.

This cover has something very different in it—a lake, a boat and a forest. Wait, a lake? A park? Yup—a large part of The Genesis Engine is set inside New York’s mile high Blade Towers, where Alice discovers a very different world than the one she’s used to …

The book was a blast to write, and early feedback from my advance readers is that it brings a fantastic ending to the Alice Yu trilogy.

In The Genesis Engine Alice tries to pick up the pieces of her life after the events of This Automatic Eden, only to find in some things you can never go back. The story starts in New York, where she partners with a UN special agent to hunt down Barlow, the insane crime-boss intent on taking over New York. Their pursuit takes them to Paris, out into the solar system, then back for a thunderous conclusion in Chile’s Atacama desert. I think you’re going to enjoy it …

Due to getting such great feedback I’ve put the ebook up for pre-release orders. Yup, you can reserve your copy right now and read the full blurb along with it. The pre-order says it won’t be released until December, but that date is just a place holder. Due to Amazon fun, you can move the release date forward anytime you want, but it’s really hard to push it back.

Why? I explain it in more detail, and discuss the cover from an artist’s POV, on my latest YouTube video (link at the top of this post )

 

GLOBAL AMAZON PRE-ORDER LINK IS HERE: RESERVE MY COPY NOW!

The post The Genesis Engine’s sci-fi artwork and awesome cover design 🚀 first appeared on Jim Keen, Author..

Hello from Brooklyn!
It’s been another crazy few weeks working towards “The Genesis Engine” release, and just to make my life more complicated I ended up doing a major rewrite of “This Automatic Eden”
Wait, what?
It’s easier to explain in a video so here you go! (And yes I have a gimpy eye hehe, I took a frisbee to the face which left some damage. I really should get an eye patch for an authentic pirate experience )

If you don’t have 4 mins to spare to watch this, here’s a quick summary:
After editing “The Genesis Engine,” I took what I’d learned from that and applied it to my two published books. “The Paradise Factory” was in good shape, but I found parts of ‘Eden’ didn’t work so well. Specifically, the start was too slow, and a meeting with Charles Takamatsu too ‘philosophical.’ What Alice and Charles discussed was interesting to me, but it slowed down the middle of the book too much. So out that all went!
All in all, Version 2.0 is 17,000 words shorter (around 55 pages) while maintaining the same plot. All that came out was ‘unnecessary’ world building and character studies that are best used elsewhere.
The new version is much tighter and faster paced, and bridges books 1 and 3 far better. If you read it a long time ago, or gave up on it, please check out the new version!
If you’ve already bought it, then email me for an update
(Amazon does NOT revise the eBook version you have. You have to manually reload it.)

I love hearing from readers and fans, so if you have any questions or comments just email me back and lets chat. Until next time – have fun and stay safe

Hello from Brooklyn! This week’s video looks at the last fortnight’s progress, all the things I got wrong, and what happens next * Do you have any suggestions for things I should talk about? Let me know! And stay tuned for upcoming cover reveals and publication dates etc.. * As always, hearing from you is the best part of my job, so please email me or leave a comment on the video, I read every one!

I had originally planned to complete Book 3 ‘The Genesis Engine’ by January 2021. It’s now April, so what happened? It seemed easier to explain in a video … so I made one. Yes, do not adjust your sets, this is really what I look like!

I’m thinking of doing these more regularly, maybe a weekly or monthly update? What do you think? Do you have any suggestions for things I should talk about? Let me know! (And stay tuned for upcoming cover reveals and publication dates etc…)

As always, hearing from you is the best part of my job, so please email me or leave a comment on the video, I read every one!

Here’s a quick video of the home office where I write my ‘Cortex’ Sci-Fi novels, in Brooklyn, NYC, April 2021 Enjoy!

The Palio di Siena, Siena, Italy

Hello from Brooklyn,

Well 2020 is quite the year. Whoever is in charge of this AI simulation must be getting some great feedback by now; fingers crossed we can all revert to normal as soon as possible!

My last eight months have been an intense ride—I published my first two novels at the start of a pandemic (hey I never said I was cleverrrrr ) It’s a decision that has been both wonderful and insanely hard. To publish after five years’ work, and then to get such great feedback, has been life changing. So a huge thank you, I really couldn’t have done it without your help.

With the New York schools being closed since March (and now only open one day a week), and all summer camps being canceled my free time has been shredded by my kids. That has meant progress on the next Alice Yu book, ‘The Genesis Engine,’ has slowed. But today was a big milestone—I passed the halfway mark! Always the most difficult part for me. From here on in it’s an ever-increasing rush downward to the ending, and I can’t wait for you to read it.

I tried to keep The Paradise Factory’s story simple so I could introduce the complex world building without making the book too dense. Then, for This Automatic Eden, I looked to build out that world, but still concentrating on life at street level. Well, for The Genesis Engine, Alice—at last—gets to go inside New York’s mile-high blade towers and meet the 0.1%.

From there Alice leaves New York far behind to visit the Palio di Siena horse race in Sienna; attend a masked ball in Paris, and—

Well, I shall leave it there. The plot is intricate yet fast paced, with a story that travels the world, while spending more time with those devious MIs. There’s also a great new character, John Risk, a UN Special Agent who I think you’re going to love.

There’s a long way to go to finish it it though. I had hoped to get it out early next year, and I may still make it, but a lot depends upon how Covid affects the NY school system over the winter. I will, of course, let you know how it goes!

Once again, thanks so much for all of your support, means so much…

All the best, look after yourself and see you soon!