Keith Caserta's Blog: Topics of Interest for Current and Future Books

Read what agrees with you, but read the disagreeable stuff - times two. Either you will be reinforced or, perhaps, persuaded.

This applies to news in particular, but also to books, when you're looking for something new.

Love scifi, but tired of the nerd image? Read my novels, for example. They are anti-nerd, and balanced with real ideas and romance, experienced by real people.

How long does it take to write scifi? Here’s an example. In order to get it absolutely right, I just spent AN HOUR AND 5 MINUTES to write the following passage:

The Centro per il Calcolo Avanzato, also known as CCA, was a seven story, perfectly square bunker, with a ground floor at street level, and three floors above and below it. There were no windows. Above ground, the otherwise-featureless three floors were encircled by continuous panels of one-meter-high frieze work. The artistry depicted the history of computational science, from its birth with the invention of the abacus in 2700 BCE, to the latest [known] Sib, the history repository, preservation, evaluation, prediction, and alert machine, Sib Seldon. Sib Seldon was named for the psychohistorian in the timeless, distinguished science fiction series, Foundation, which had been written by Isaac Asimov, 112 years earlier.

Much of the third floor frieze work of the CCA was unfinished, to accommodate advances from the current year onward. By and large, a 3-meter by 3-meter panel was allocated to each year, though any year might have more than one panel, if it were a particularly productive and historic year for computational science development.

At night, the frieze work was illuminated from behind by cleverly-positioned, holographic projectors. To the passerby looking at the building, the entire chronicle of computational history appeared in 3D in the air before them, with the oldest, first-floor frieze work at knee-level, the next floor at chest level, and the third floor at eye level.
Three circuits around the building would display the entire history.

I had to look up time, dates, read articles with various opinions, translate English into Italian, look up authors and works I’ve actually read to get names, characters, titles, and timing right, spell-check, picture a visitor looking at my scene, and conclude the event – WHICH WAS THERE TO CREATE COLOR, BACKGROUND, AND DEPTH TO THE STORY!

What you see in bold is 231 words.

I once asked a friend, who wrote romance novels, how long it took her to write 5000 words in that genre.

She said that when she was most productive, she could write 5500 words in 8 hours, or 688 words/hour.

I am not a slow writer but I pay attention to details, because that’s what scifi readers expect. Like my friend, I also work 8 hours per day when I’m productive. In the time she or I could write 5500 words of a brainless genre like romance, I can write 1700 words of scifi.

For every 3.25, full-length, romance novels you write, you might be able to create be only 1 scifi novel. They sell for about the same per word.

Those of us who write science fiction, do it because we love the genre, not to make money.

Galactic Shadows

My newest science fiction novel, Galactic Shadows is now available at Barnes & Noble in the US, UK and Europe.

Galactic Shadows is the sequel to the well-received, hard science fiction novel, Soul Searching, and is book #2 in the Nodes of God Series.

Its introductory price is only $2.99, for a 368 page, hard science fiction novel. I hope you'll pick it up! Let me know what you think of it!

Galactic Shadows

My newest science fiction novel, Galactic Shadows is now available at Amazon sites worldwide. It will be available at Barnes & Noble in a few days.

Galactic Shadows is the sequel to the well-received, hard science fiction novel, Soul Searching, and is book #2 in the Nodes of God Series.

Its introductory price is only $2.99, for a 368 page, hard science fiction novel. I hope you'll pick it up! Let me know what you think of it!

In preparation for the launch of my latest scifi novel, Galactic Shadows, my first novel, Soul Searching, is now on sale for just over half price, from Amazon worldwide and Barnes and Noble. Here's the Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Searching-...

If you haven't read it, you can now get it for only $2.99! Take a chance, be bold, order it today! Then be ready for the sequel in about two weeks!

Most recent praise for Soul Searching: This was an amazing read! The story is really well thought out and makes you think about A.I., virtual reality and the human soul in ways you may never have before. Ali and Dee are great characters that will make you laugh out loud at certain times as well as bring a normal person's point of view into a world of wild technology and concepts. Without any spoilers, the plot has a nice "accidental" twist which really takes the story to a new level and where, in my opinion, it really takes off.

Dr. Caserta please consider writing some sort of follow up to this! This particular story begs for a sequel. It would be a day one purchase for me. I for one would absolutely love to hear more of Ali and Dee's story and possibly find out if a certain A.I. ever makes a comeback.

Thanks for a great ride, you have an amazing gift for writing and I'm looking forward to your next book.

For two weeks only, through February 5, 2012, "Soul Searching" will be on-sale on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble websites for only $2.99. Here's your chance to pick up a really fun, thought-provoking, innovative and well-written novel at a 45% discount! Buy a copy for your Kindle, Nook, or other ePUB reader right away! Here are the links:

http://www.amazon.com/Soul-Searching-...

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/soul-...

What happens [really] when space expands (as it seems to be doing increasingly rapidly).
If space is quantized, at something like the Planck length, what happens when it expands? Do the space quanta move farther apart? Are additional space quanta created? If so, does that mean that space expands in discrete "jumps" (quanta) corresponding to the Plank length? What do you think? This has big implications for FTL (faster than light travel).

I'd like your thoughts on free will.
My newest book, Galactic Shadows, attempts to answer questions about free will. Given the multiverse (or any other) model of existence, do we have free will? I'm particularly interested in your arguments for free will, but I want to know what you think, either way