Terrence Zavecz's Blog: The Joys and Worlds of Fiction - Posts Tagged "review"

Novel: "Crucible of a Species"
Series: "The Crucible Series"
GoodReads: Crucible of a Species

As of this writing, February 2018, I received Aimee Ann’s published review of my novel “Crucible of a Species”.

A disclaimer: Aimee Ann's is a paid reviewer's service and, in spite of reading many of her previous reviews, I was pleasantly surprised by the level of praise lavished by her on the novel.

I immediately wrote back to her, questioning the validity of the review. After all, it’s not often that descriptions of one’s work include the accolade of ‘genius’ and ... well, let's just say I’ve known myself for a good number of years.

Aimee courteously replied by asking me to contribute a bit of the story’s background in the blog commentary.

“Crucible of a Series” is the first of a series and there is a fair amount of pain involved in its maturation. A little more about that shortly.

Personally, I love this story. It’s one of my favorites and various forms of it had been lurking in my mind for years mainly because I wanted to present a tale that was a true adventure about time-travel and the military but with solid science behind it. Most of all I wanted a positive, upbeat story line that brings out my optimistic view for the future of humanity, the wonders of science, and the magic of our universe rather than blaming them for the problems of the world.

I am fascinated with people, cultures, history, military history and science. My mother introduced me to literature and science fiction at a very young age. Because of this love I eventually received my bachelor’s degree from a great university and was lucky enough to work with the people of Bell Labs for thirteen years. These people, part of the crew that created Telstar, our first communications satellite, and Univac, an early computer, taught me real science and something else. The brought a level art and beauty to their work for every one of them was a skilled artisan as well as a researcher. After that I worked in science, marketing and business worldwide, met wonderful people and saw beauty as well as some things and people that I never would have believed could exist. (Great seeds for strange tales.)

Forty-two years of this life and I decided to slow down so I scaled back my company and relaxed. Three days later my spouse told me she had enough and said, “Do something besides working around the house. Write a novel, you always loved science fiction.”

I thought, why not? I like to write. I’d written papers, technical articles, books as well as articles for science magazines. Heck, I’d even written fiction -- after all any business proposal or DARPA grant must have a good story line behind it.

My favorite authors are Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Robert Silverberg, Asimov -- whom I met and had supper with one time -- and a few of the ‘modern’ authors such as David Drake, whom I'd love to meet. My first thought was how to bring what they brought to a market but with a twist to make the story stand out.

Now, I’m a great fan of military fiction and admire the style of Bernard Cornwell. The end of his books always included a summary of how his story of the Napoleonic Wars varied or correlated with real history. I thought I’d do something similar.

My first two novels, “Nodal Convergence” and “Hunter’s Moon” reflected my love for Paleontology so I wrote about time travel and dinosaurs. At the end of each chapter I put up a reference to background science and a summary of what was known science and what was enlightened fiction.

The books went over reasonably well but the greatest complaint was the presence of references and summaries.

In my heart I knew something else was lacking, drastic measures were needed.

I contracted Steve Alten, “The New York Times Best Selling Author of MEG …” and many other blockbusters to coach me. NOTE: Watch for Steve's MEG movie coming to the big screen this summer with Jason Statham in the lead role.

I must admit, this was a less than perfect fit. He liked monster novels, had a less optimistic view of the worth of humanity and preached politics that were completely out of phase with mine. We had one thing in common, a stubborn streak supported by a confrontational nature. Steve bludgeoned me along a path that I’m sure he found very frustrating. We fought, laughed and nearly broke off many times but three years and a few verbally delivered black eyes later, we parted ways and “Crucible of a Species” was born.

Steve taught be a lot. I will always be thankful for him and what he taught me about the art of writing true fiction. I'd do it again in a heartbeat and recommend his services to anyone.

My third novel in the ‘Crucible’ series, “Hailey Sharpe and the NullBot Swarm”, will go to a publisher soon (2Q/2018) although I just started looking for a taker. This story started out as hard Sci-Fi but changed along the way. Let me explain.

My granddaughter, Hailey, is the inspiration for the book’s heroine. Hailey is an avid, very critical reader and, when she took to the story and refused to return the draft copy, I decided to scale it over to YA for its final form. Hailey insists that YA and Hard Sci-Fi do indeed mix although I must admit there’s a lot more science in it than the YA I’ve read.

Time will tell me if Hailey is right, she usually is so I have high hopes.

I certainly hope you’ll read “Crucible” and draw as much from it as I have. I enjoy hearing from and working with my readers so please feel free to email me and stop by my website at Zavecz.net, read through some other writings, and leave a message.

One last thought

There's perhaps one thing I feel I should mention about my writing. Whether it be Sci-Fi or Historic Fiction, I attempt to stay as close to real science and true history as possible in my stories. My focus is to provide a good story that you will enjoy without being bored by a lecture on science or history. I'm a firm believer that we learn from life's experiences and that schooling only provides the tools needed to follow your goals in life. As a result, you will learn by living the story not from a dry explanation of science.

So, all of you who perhaps dread those days spent listening to dull lectures in science, mathematics and history class, fear not. My stories use the reality of science and history only to enhance the magic, beauty, and adventure of our universe. At the end of the tale, you may walk away from the world I took you to having learned nothing but if you enjoyed your visit to my world and want to go back to it, then I have accomplished my goal.