The Best Fiction of 2018

Hey everyone!

Today's blog post will be a smart recap of the best books I've read this past year and the volume of the books I've read.

I'll start with Part I: fiction.

I read fifty fiction novels this year. They ranged from about 50.000 words to 170.000 words. I believed the longest must have been Godsgrave by Jay Kristoff. The shortest was The Chrysalids by John Wyndham.

Let's go into the actual reviews!

What were my favourites this year and why? (A warning: there aren't a whole lot despite the volume of books I've actually read. This is because I have very high standards when it comes to my reading for enjoyment.)

1. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
This is just a beautiful book. In a lot of alternative Victorian era fantasy fiction there is a huge focus on magic and yada yada and the hero is all special because he can do the magic better than others. This isn't the case with the Watchmaker. There is magic, yes, but a) the main character doesn't wield it, and b) it is only a tiny part of the happenings in the novel (although it is a huge part of WHY everything happens). There are no overt shows of fireballs being thrown or demons being sent off to harass some twelve-year old (I greatly enjoyed the Bartimaeus series though!). The magic in Watchmaker is gentle and subtle (just like the romance!) and I definitely loved this book best of all the fiction I've read this year.

2. Shadowblack, Charmcaster, and Soulbinder by Sebastien de Castell
I started to read the Spellslinger series in 2017 if I remember correctly. It's a fun YA series about a boy (Kellen) who wanted to be a mage and turned into an outlaw instead. It's a fantasy western with a cool magic system (or should I say cool magic systems? The world de Castell has created is really huge!) and despite being a lot YA doesn't have an annoying romance in it. The romance is actually... well. I'm not sure how to explain it. Let's just say it's a lot more realistic and less destined than other YA romances. The focus of the book concerns Kellen's journey from being exiled by his rather fascist clan to... I'm not yet sure what. He definitely still has some journey ahead of him after the 4th book (Soulbinder) but nonetheless I definitely recommend it!

3. Medusa Uploaded by Emily Devenport
This was a fun read especially because one of the main concepts of it. In the not too far but far enough future there are certain sentient robot suits (not like mechas... but more like Cthulhu) and they are supposed to link with humans in order to help them survive in space/their new community. The main character is quite decent (It's hard to have an opinion on her as she's sort of a 'blank slate' in terms of emotions/inner world) and leans towards the bad-ass rather than weak but supposedly powerful YA girl. Oichi is cunning and calm and quite cool (or should I say 'emotionally frozen') all in all. The plot is average as far as a novel goes but decent for YA. All in all it was enjoyable enough to earn a place on my favourites list.

4. The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
This was so beautiful! I had to take a while to decide whether to include this one or The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivy which are both amazing works of Russian-ish folklore art. They are at their cores somewhat similar although The Bear and the Nightingale builds much more of a world then The Snow Child. This is ultimately why I chose it above The Snow Child. The Bear and the Nightingale then is a riveting story with a slower pace than what I normally read. It's the story of little wild girl turning into a wild young woman - in a traditional world where she is shunned for being as she is. It also involves magic and demons and the King of Winter.

5.  The Tangled Lands by Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias S. Buckell
I don't actually have a lot to say about this novel. The most important thing to know when you go into it is that it's actually a compilation of short stories set in the same world that all build upon each other. There are two male storylines and two female (with Bacigalupi writing the male and Buckell the female). The second female storyline of a blacksmith girl was IMO the best of the book. This character was the most amazing of all four of them.

6. Witchmark by C.L. Polk
Another Victorian(ish) era book set in an alternate London-ish city. This one was not as great as the Watchmaker even though it was somewhat similar. It involves a romance between two men (yeeeeesssss!) and a veritable TON of magic when compared with the Watchmaker. It's a wild ride as well! A lot of things happen and the protagonist is often in trouble and it's generally fast-paced. I did not like it as much as the Watchmaker but it was still a lot of fun.

7. Flame in the Mist by Renee Ahdieh
This is one of the few YA books with a romance that I enjoyed. It follows a Japanese girl in a magical feudal Japan and it's just... It sucked me in and didn't let me go with both the action and its slower but high-tension scenes. It's an awesome read. I don't want to admit it but even the romance was great. This was the first book in which I actually rooted for the two main characters to get together. The book left on a cliffhanger however and I'm worried the second installment (which begins with very high tension already) might ruin the first so I haven't read it yet.

A few others I liked but do not want to discuss in as much detail in order to keep the post from becoming a wall of text:

The Wrong Stars by Tim Pratt: A cool space adventure! I read this at the beginning of the year and it's fun!

Planetfall by Emma Newman: Weird. Weird. Weird. The main character is creepy but at the same time her quest is so exciting you just have to follow her into the City of God.

Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill: A lovely story about a robot (called Brittle) who dismantles failing robots in order to herself alive but doesn't feel great about it. All humans have died and technology to save Brit is slowly running out. There's another robot who has the tech she needs - but he's not about to fail soon and Brit shies away from actually destroying robots that still have a bit of a life before them.

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham: This one deserves it's own review to be honest. The premise is somewhat silly (I mean - walking plants that kill humans?) but the execution was neat!

Thoraiya Dyer's Giant's Forest books: There's currently two and they're fun and action! They're admittedly not very 'deep' in theme or the events that happen (except perhaps the tidbit about children falling down to Understorey) but still worth a read. They were fun!

Semiosis by Sue Burke: This is a science fiction novel without any magic. The plot follows a group of people (and successive generations) as they land on a new planet and make connection with the inhabitants. Plot twist and minor spoiler: the inhabitants are plants. These plants are very sophisticated (although most of them not as much as the Triffids!) and over time alliances are made and dangers are battled. It's a strange book but it deserves to be listed simply because of its ideas. I'd never read anything quite like it before and it's stayed in my mind.

All right. That's it about Part I of this review of the year. I read a lot more books than are listed (obviously) but had to restrict this post to a few that stood out against the rest. I do hope you enjoyed this post and perhaps you'll read some of these books yourself! I definitely recommend them!

Have a good New Year's Eve and a Happy New Year!

PS: Here are some questionable but still funny fireworks available in the Netherlands:

WriteBot.

Review of Stephan J. Guyenet's The Hungry Brain

Hey everyone!

I finished another book today, called The Hungry Brain, by Stephan Guyenet. As the title suggests, this was a non-fiction read about how the human (another other species') brain controls hunger and satiety levels. It puts a focus on overeating - with the most prominent example being highly palatable foods which translates roughly to fast foods - and what causes a person to eat more calories than they actually need.

First things first. Why did I read it? There are several reasons, and one of them is that I'm currently trying to lose another 5kg of weight in order to get to a weight where I don't have to worry about what/how much of what I can eat not to gain too much/to stay at a stable weight. It's basically an attempt to live and eat healthily (in addition to getting that BIKINI BODY!) without having to be as careful about my diet when I'm trying to lose weight. It's also a fun experiment. The results of that experiment will also allow me to recommend certain strategies and share my weight maintenance tips in the long term.

All right. Let's get started with The Hungry Brain.

The first thing you should know is that it's short. It says 304 pages on Amazon but it felt more like around 150-200. It was easy to read and even the science was not really challenging until it got to the to me less interesting part of the book about how sleep and stress affect weight gain/loss in the last chapters. I read it in two days with little effort (about three hours a day). The shortness in turn means this scientific book is highly accessible to all sorts of people and if you're really interest in the subject of weight management then it's definitely something you should (and can!) read.

The second most relevant piece of information about this book is (obviously) it's content. I've already stated that it was short and quite easy to read despite the science it describes. It's written very comprehensively and even if you didn't pay attention in chemistry in school (like me) you can easily understand the information involved.

In the first few chapters Guyenet talks about the most important regions in the brain and hormones/neurons that affect how hungry you feel, when you feel hungry, and why you feel hungry. I won't go into detail here, but suffice to say that everything has been tested and tested again on various kinds of rats and monkeys. As such, it has a truly scientific background, and is backed up by plenty of research. At the same time, everything described is also highly intuitive, and the connections between the brain, neurons, and hormones that trigger neurons and decision making (especially of course the decision to eat/acquire food) are clear once you start to read.

In the middle chapters Guyenet deepens the reader's understanding of the above processes. There are chapters on how environment (the foods easily available to you - for example in the holiday period between Thanksgiving and New Years) can cause overeating and over time raise our tolerance for the chemical that regulates hunger. This translates into something like: rising chemical tolerance = more food to produce more chemical to feel full = overeating. Another chapter deals with genetic predisposition to overeat (spoiler: it's still not an excuse).

The last few chapters are the weakest. These deal with how sleep and stress affect food consumption and were neither set up as well as the first 7 chapters of the book nor as descriptive and detailed. The chapter on sleep literally had me almost dozing off (but to be fair, that might have been because of the 2 hour hike and the late hour at which I read it), and the chapter on stress wasn't any more engaging either. The basic formula there was stress causes overeating and weight gain more easily if highly palatable foods (usually fast foods) are available but doesn't have the same effect if there's only healthy foods in the environment.

In total I would definitely recommend this book if you're at all interested in nutrition. It's short enough to read in a few days and highly informative despite being very light compared to other scientific reads. It gives you a great overview of how the brain makes decisions on when and what to eat and at the same time gives plenty of scientific evidence on why it can be difficult to make good/healthy food decisions even when your willpower is behind losing weight.

I'd rate it 8/10 and recommend it 10/10. There is a lot to learn from this book if you want to lose weight and also if you're just interested in how the food industry works and why people generally prefer fast foods/foods high in calories to lean unprocessed foods.

Do you think this book is something for you? Try to find it at your local bookstore or simply buy an ebook copy on Amazon!

Have a good night/day! WriteBot.

2019 Reading List (Updated!)

Hey everyone

I've settled on the last details of my reading list. In this version I have two different lists actually - one fiction and one non-fiction.

Here it is! (By the way the reason that the authors of these books are rarely listed is because it's quite easy to find the book even by the title alone.)

1. Undersea Fleet (I find it so difficult to get a copy of this one!)
2. Dark Intelligence, by Neil Asher
3. Ascension (Water) (Another one where it's almost impossible to get a copy!)
4. Boundary
5. The Dark Tower series (These should all probably be under their own numbering...)
6. Halfway Human
7. Black Leopard, Red Wolf
8. The Departure
9. Spellslinger 5
10. The Abyss Surrounds Us
11. The Deep Woods
12. The Dreaming Stars
13. Smoke in the Sun
14. Of Fire and Stars
15. The World Walker
16. The Assassin's Curse
17. Forgotten Places
18. When the Future Comes too Soon
19. Sky Dancer
20. Sky Song
21. The Winter of the Witch
22. Tides of the Titans
23. Darkdawn
24. Lonesome Dove
25. All the Crooked Saints
26. Lotus War 1 (Jay Kristoff)
27. The Man in the High Castle
28. Godblind Anna Stephens
29. China Mountain Zhang
30. The Shattered Gates (Rifter)
31. Journey to the Center of the Earth
32. 8000 Miles Under the Sea
33. Nightflyers G.R.R.M.
34. Among Others - Jo Walton
35. Wildcards
36. Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
37. Muse of Nightmares
38. The Stand
39. Sunsurge Quartet 1
40. Sunsurge Quartet 2
41. Sunsurge Quartet 3
42. Sunsurge Quartet 4
43. Children of Dagon
44. Sphere (Crichton)
45. Into the Drowning Deep
46. The Swarm
47. The Deep (Cutter)
48. The Andromeda Strain
49. Foundryside
50. Outside the Gates
51. Arkad's World

1. The Compound Effect (I have listened to this as audio but would like to read it as well. I am not great with audio books and probably missed quite a bit!)
2. A book about investment (That's not a title but simply what I'm trying to find at the moment!)
3. The Hungry Brain (I'm actually reading this one right now...)
4. Brain Food
5. Fasting and Eating for Health
6. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying
7. The Complete Guide to Fasting
8. Autobiography of Black Hawk
9. The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler
10. Autobiography of a Geisha
11. Wishcraft
12. The Evolution of God
13. The Future of Humanity
14. Start with Why
15. Leaders Eat Last
16. Total Focus by Brandon Web
17. Focal Point
18. Alfred Adler - The science of living
19. Man's Search for Meaning
20. The Confidence Gap
21. Think (Simon Blackburn)
22. The Slight Edge
23. This is Marketing
24. 1001 Ways to Market your Book
25. The 4 Hour Work Week
26. On Gestalt Therapy
27. Life 3.0
28. Creating A Life Worth Living
29. How to Be Rich
30. Learned Optimism

A lot of especially the non-fiction books in my list are books recommended in other books. These include How to Be Rich and Learned Optimism (which IMO sound like two great reads!).

What do you think? Do you have anything else to add to either list? I always welcome recommendations!

Did you make a list of books to read in 2019 yourself? How many are you trying to read?

Leave a comment below!

Have a good night/day! WriteBot.

Review of Brian Tracy's Eat That Frog

Hey folks.

I finished Eat That Frog as the 72nd book this year. I thought I wouldn't get above 71 but Eat That Frog was short and... very useful. I sped through it and plan to read it a few more times (I rarely re-read books in general so that's saying something).


All right. Let's talk about frog eating.

I guess the first thing you have to know that this isn't some weird book of the French culinary art. A frog (in Brian Tracy's case) is a task. A big frog is a big task and tadpoles are small and (often) unnecessary tasks. This means when he's talking about eating frogs he refers to effectively tackling tasks at work (or home).

Two things I immediately liked about the preface (surprisingly because usually I skip prefaces or am bored throughout them):

1. He promises not to waste time explaining what others have said already -the psychological and emotional explanations for procrastination and poor time management. He goes straight to the point - straight to the reason why most people bought his book.

2. The hook (the core of the book) is right there in the first few paragraphs: The ability to concentrate single-mindedly on your most important task, to do it well and to finish it completely, is the key to great success, achievement, respect, status, and happiness in life. (This is also, coincidentally, one of the most useful sentences in the book.)

Already in the first two pages of Eat the Frog it is clear Brian Tracy knows what he is talking about and it's also clear to the reader (in this case me) that their time will not be wasted. In the first chapter I already learned more from two sentences than I did in the whole of Success Principles. These sentences are:

1. [...] your ability to select your most important task at each moment, and then to get started on that task and to get it done both quickly and well, will probably have more of an impact on your success than any other quality or skill you can develop. (Later on in the book he mentions this again but in a more poetic way: The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus - a quote apparently stolen from Alexander Graham Bell but cited. Tracy's a polite thief let's say.)

2. Do something every day that moves you towards your goal.

Here are more:

3. The second rule of frog-eating is this: If you have to eat a live frog (by which Tracy means 'do a hard but important task') at all, it doesn't pay to sit and look at it for long.

4. Successful, effective people are those who launch directly into their major tasks and then discipline themselves to work steadily and single-mindedly until those tasks are complete.

5. The more important the completed task, the happier, more confident, and more powerful you feel about yourself and your work.

6. One of the keys to living a wonderful life [etc etc.] is to develop the habit of starting and finishing important jobs.

7. A simple formula I created out of a longer sentence in the book: Decision + Discipline + Determination = success-habits (concentration / focus)

What else can you learn?

You can train yourself through repetition and practice to overcome procrastination and get your most important tasks completed quickly. This involves a lot of planning as good plans = ability to get straight to work = no need to procrastinate. A lot of people seem to procrastinate because they don't know what to do/how to reach their goal - because they haven't planned how to achieve it.
I will try one of Tracy's tips immediately: Write a LIST of what you plan to do the next day to get further along with your goal
-> list of everything you want to do in the (near-ish) future
-> monthly list (made at the end of one month for the next)
-> weekly list (made at the end of the week for the next)
-> daily list (made at the end of one day for the next day)

As a person who suffers from depression a lot, it can be very harsh to have nothing to do, to feel unanchored, and I spent a lot of time chasing new experiences just to feel 'occupied', but after years of this not working out, I've begun to try new things. These new things involve planning my day (and meals, etc.) ahead, which means most of what I'm doing during any given day will be worked out by the time dawn comes around and which in turn makes downtime less painful to my brain. And if there is (unscheduled) downtime then the best way to spend it is to read on new tactics to plan/achieve my goals.

This daily planning also includes (as the book suggests as well) to have everything prepared for the day before you start. All your utensils, notebooks with thoughts, resources, and other material should be right there even before the work day starts. This puts a brake on procrastination, as it can be daunting to search for material, and it will already take a lot of your energy. If you did it the day before in your planning phase, then in the morning when you sit down, everything is ready to go, go, go!

Another useful insight connected to the daily planning mentioned above:

The 10/90 rule. The first 10% of your available time spent planning will increase your effectiveness of actual work. It will save you some 90% of the time necessary to finish a job once you started it.

These are the most useful tips in the book. They can be applied almost instantly and you'll immediately see the results (I have personally incorporated a few of these tricks in my daily schedule already and I've noticed a difference in my mood/productivity).

There are however much more tips than just these but I didn't want this post to be a replica of the book itself. All I can say is that Eat That Frog is definitely worth it. It is an incredibly useful book and it's so short you can read it in two hours (which means you can re-read it easily and quickly should you suddenly despair about your work at some point). It's right up there on my Best Non-Fiction Books of 2018 list in a very bright red.

It definitely gets a recommendation from me if you're one of the people who always want to improve themselves and how they work. It's a more than just 'useful' resource to have on your shelf and I'm certain to try out more of Brian Tracy's books as a result of reading Eat That Frog.

Do you think you want to try out Eat That Frog? You can get it on Amazon at a decent price!

Let me know if it was useful to you if you decided to read it!

WriteBot.

About healthy eating

Hey folks.

A lot of people (like me) struggle with healthy eating (as opposed to just munching any snacks that comes my way). Today's post shall be a list of the healthy foods I substitute these days for unhealthy snacks.

I'll keep it short. These are just my little tricks to eat fewer calories/healthier in general. It might be you find something useful in there for yourself!

candy/popcorn/chips while watching movies/playing video games -> carrot/cucumber sticks+hummus -> currently trying without hummus to save even more calories (and it's yummy! You get used to eating cow food, I promise, and after a while, you even start to crave it rather than the junk you ate before!) In fact, I'm on my way to the cinema in a few minutes, and I'll be taking a box of carrot/cucumber sticks with me instead of the package of popcorn leftover in my snack drawer!

sweets/candy -> apples! (I seriously dislike eating fruit because it's so sticky! You can't easily eat it without having juice all over you, and it's often 'difficult' - I'm lazy, don't judge me - to prepare. Kiwi is impossible to eat on the go unless you go through the lengthy process of skinning it, pears taste meh, apples make my mouth itchy, pineapple comes in cans and is equally as stupid to carry with you as kiwi, grapes... ok, grapes are all right, but I can't eat grapes all day). However, even though apples cause slight allergic reactions, since I've been eating them more (they are cheap, quite easy to prepare into slices, and easy to take with/eat with your hands without getting drops everywhere), the allergies have lessened/I have found species I can eat without a problem, and it works (somewhat)! I like apples. They also help with food circulation in your body!

sweets/candy -> fruit juices WITHOUT sugar! I personally love pineapple juice and pear juice, and I'm sure you can find something you like yourself!

fruit juices -> water! To be honest, I never much was into juices or softdrinks, and always preferred unsweetened tea, but these days I drink a lot more water than anything else, even the 'healthy' fruit juices.

softdrinks -> water. This is kind of a given for me. Soft drinks are sort of a treat I drink once a year, and then only coca cola, because it's tasty! But I find that, having grown up without juice/softdrinks available (my mum is a health fanatic), I don't really need it at all.

PROTIP ON WATER: If it's difficult for you to drink water rather than softdrinks, put the softdrinks away (into your fridge/storage) or don't buy them. Instead, fill a 1L bottle left over from one of those softdrinks with water, and put it on your desk. Make it a HABIT to re-fill that bottle every time you see it's contents are going below 50%. That way, the bottle will be full/nearly full all the time, and readily available at your desk (also put another bottle at other 'sites' in the house you regularly use). That's the only secret there is to drinking more water: to make it readily available everywhere so you can't be 'too lazy' to get it.

sides (rice, noodles, pasta, potato) -> no sides! It a) helps you eat less calories all in all and b) allows you to eat more of the tasty stuff (like meat!)

Your turn! Try to come up with more of these substitutes, or even dispute mine with better ones, and respond to this post with your ideas (come on, do it, don't be lazy!).

Good luck! WriteBot. (Oh, and Merry Christmas, to those who celebrate it!)

The Best Non-Fiction Books of 2018

Hey folks!

I've returned. The holiday was stressful (as visiting family is) and the food superb. All I did was eat food the whole day, in different locations, at different prices, and from different countries (although most of it was British, for some reason. I had fish and chips twice).

Today let's go over the list of best non-fiction books of 2018! I had a lot of questions about this lately from random people on Reddit and wanted to see if I can make one comprehensive list of favourites to hand out. It'll make it easier and look prettier than a Reddit post!

So. I read a lot of non-fiction. Below is a list of every book I've read with a comment. The best ones are captured in red (light red meaning it's even better than dark red). All of these books are about productivity, self-improvement, leadership, writing, and all other kinds of things.

Non-Fiction 2018:

A Handbook for the Productive Writer by Bryan Collins: Meh. I wouldn't recommend this. It's just a whole lot of blabla you can actually get for free on the Internet (and concisely from my writing tips page: http://jasmingelinck.com/resources).

Barking Up the Wrong Tree by Eric Barker: This one is actually good! It looks at what successful people do different than most (spoiler: the most important difference as Simon Sinek says: They have a WHY that affects other people) that leads to them being successful in the first place. It shows you how many of your learned mantras about success (just imagine yourself being successful already!) are wrong and do not help you in any way. You should rather look at your own skills and/or weaknesses to find things you excel at.

Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande: This book is great! It talks a lot about the day-to-day business of writing and the fears you might encounter (and how to conquer them!). I recommend this for anyone who wants to be an artist.

Wake Up and Live by Dorothea Brande: The same as above but not focused on writing alone. It's a great book for everyone who feels slightly lost in life (I know I do...)

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron: This book was very hyped... but I found it mediocre at best. It has some good ideas but isn't in any way exceptional. It's a good read, still, and I do recommend at least looking at it to see if the content speaks to you, but don't force it if you don't like it.

Give and Take by Adam Grant: A great book about leadership and becoming successful. The most important message of this book is (obviously) the importance of giving - not just in order to get, but simply to enhance your life. The book attempts to give you a blueprint on how much giving you should do and when/how to expect something back (to take).

12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson: This was the first non-fiction of 2018 I actually LOVED. You can say what you want about JP as a person (and I'll not join that particular debate) but 12 Rules is highly relevant to everyone who wants to improve themselves/their outlook on life and the world. Of course, not all Peterson writes is Holy Grail material, and I would argue not much actually is, BUT in every chapter, there are nuggets you can pick up to improve your life and relationships. You can pick and choose what you wish to incorporate in your life or not. As such, the book is definitely worth a read.

Undoing Depression by Richard O'Connor: Highly useful/relevant if you struggle with mental health issues. You'll have to read it yourself to see the value of it. I simply can't sum it up well enough. Suffice to say it shows you how to deal with your dark thoughts and how to improve your life even if your depression cannot be entirely cured.

The Science of Rapid Skill Acquisition by Peter Hollins: I don't actually remember this book at all. I think it's just one of those publish-as-many-as-you-can-to-make-money life-advice craps. Not recommended.

The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi: I love this book. There has been no better book in my life ever before. I actually loved it enough to buy a paper copy after reading it on my Kindle just to have it on my shelf (and that doesn't happen very often at all). This book (not 12 Rules) IS the Holy Grail of learning to live with yourself and working through/DESPITE your past traumas in a non-pretentious way. It refers heavily to the philosophy of Alfred Adler and I promise you it is impactful. If you read any book from my list at all then it should be this one.

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie: It took me a long time to get to this book. I knew it existed for almost a decade but couldn't bring myself to read it because the title sounds pretentious and fake as all heck. However... after hundreds and hundreds of recommendations I decided to give it a try... and it's great! It truly is an amazing book and not in the least pretentious or fake. A lot of people think 'But it will teach me to be false in order to make friends' but FAR FROM IT! The main body of the books deals with no-brainer tips everyone knows (such as smiling at people to lift both of your spirits and taking care of yourself) but needs to be reminded of because they are so easily overlooked. It also teaches you that when you are fake people will know and they won't respond to you at all - so it's the opposite of what a lot of people fear the book will try to make them do. I'll add my voice to this particular book's value: It's definitely worth it.

The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone: I've written a longer post about this one here. It's quite good if you want to have an overview of how much work you will be required to do in order to get ahead. It tells you basically to multiply every effort by 10 if you truly want to succeed. If you plan to contact 10 customers in order to sell your product, instead make it 100. If you plan to make 100,000 extra money the next year, plan to make 1,000,000 instead. In essence, it is better to fall short of HUGE goals than small goals. I believe this should be read once simply so you get the concept (and possibly change your working style for the better).

The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz: Another book right up there with The Courage to be Disliked and How to Win Friends and Influence People. It's on an entirely different topic (The 10X Rule was inspired by it) but so so worth it! If you read two books from my list it should be The Courage to be Disliked and this one. It's so much more accessible than the somewhat reckless airy-fairy tips of The 10X Rule and written so much more humanly relatable. In essence it's a simple guide on how to improve your life by dreaming well (however without any affirmation or visualization crap like you find in some of the more etheric self-help books) and by working on bigger and more fulfilling projects than you believed yourself capable of/could even conceive of.

Atomic Habits by James Clear: A long review can be found here. This book is definitely worth the buy and read. It will reach you to REALLY improve your life - and in a sustainable way rather than all those 'just change/just do it' books. Any change happens gradually and in increments. Atomic Habits drives home that point and shows you how you can make habit changes permanent. It's really a useful book!

The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy: On the coattails of James Clear's Atomic Habits. A longer review again here. I would not read The Compound Effect without having first read Atomic Habits. All the concepts of TCE are related to (and mostly the same as) Atomic Habits - but it's not explained or written as well by Darren Hardy as by James Clear. This book is best read to deepen your understanding of atomic habits after you've read James Clear. I sort-of recommend it but it's not a necessary read if you've read Atomic Habits.

The rest of the non-fiction list is more science oriented. I read a lot about the human mind and prehistory. I also read a biography called Wild Swans. Let me just show you two of these books.

Wild Swans - Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang: definitely recommended. The best and most gripping biography I've ever read. It's exciting, terrible, and beautiful all at once, and it's written in a style almost like a novel. It definitely grabbed and held my attention throughout the whole 500+ pages.

Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari: Basically a vendetta against the human race. The book zeroes in on how bad humanity is and yada yada by giving (mostly unproven) examples of prehistory where humanity allegedly disturbed the peace of Paradise/the Garden of Eden by extinguishing other species (again, this is not proven through any records, and Harari simply makes the jump from coincidence to 'must be true'). The writing itself is also horribly boring and only the first part of the book (30%) are actual science and somewhat worth reading. The rest is conjecture into the future and scientifically weak assumptions pulled out of thin air.

All right! This about sums up the post. Good lord - what a wall of text! I hope you find something useful to read in my list. If you do feel free to leave a comment or even send me a message through my website!

WriteBot.

Another Update on the Elegy of the Stars Cover!

Here's another quick update on the Elegy of the Stars cover. The font has been changed slightly. I think it looks great. (By Daniel Pinal)

The resolution is amazing as well! Check out those details by the doors! All the bodies. :)

Cheers
WriteBot.

KDP Select and Planning Progress

Hey folks

Today's post will be a short notice.

The first (and most relevant) news is this:

A few of my books will be going up on KDP Select from today until the next three months!

The novels and short stories/story collections participating will be:

Elegy of the Stars
Warlike
Xenos
Worlds of Magic

Plus the stand-alone short stories:

Iana
The Hungry Worlds
Catching Fireflies

What does this mean for you? It means you can read my books for free if you have a KDP Select subscription (which you should!)! Check them out in my author profile here: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B01H703DRC

Why did I decide to do it?

I love it when people read my stories and I love to share! KDP Select is a great opportunity to find more readers in any genre but especially science fiction. It also gives readers the chance to read something new and cool for free.

Do take this limited opportunity to familiarize yourself with my stories!

The second piece of news is that I'll be doing a short hiatus from posting every day. I'll be visiting family in Austria (my home country) and have decided not to take my PC with me. As much as I love everyone on here I do need a break from the internet.

Instead I'll be taking my Kindle and spending all my time reading the last few John Wyndham books I haven't gotten to yet! I'm currently about 70% into The Secret People.

Another important (and cool!) piece of information: I finished another short story today. This one is called Heart of Askelion. It's a love story at heart (strangely enough considering those are not usually my jam). Then again... I recently finished another (called A Thousand Frontiers) which is also a love story...

Anyway. All that has to happen is for them to be edited. Heart of Askelion is currently 15k words long and will be complete at about 20-25k. It lacks some details as of yet and will probably need a few more scenes.

A Thousand Frontiers is complete at 3.5k words. This one will likely not get over more than 5k.

Once they have been edited I'll upload a few glimpses and scenes of it for you to sample! I really think they are great.

All right. I'll chat again next week Tuesday! Until then, have a great time!

WriteBot.

Updated Cover for Elegy of the Stars!

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to give you a quick update today on the new cover of Elegy of the Stars. I shared a sketch recently. Here it is again:

The image has now been finished. Here it is!

You can see the full version and buy the book here!

What are your thoughts on it? I like it better than the old one and it will be up on the book by tomorrow!

Have a good night/day.

WriteBot.

Review of Mark Manson's The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F***

Hey everyone!

Today's post will be a detailed review of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***.

The first thing that has to be said is this: I'm not impressed. The book is simplistic (nothing in it I couldn't read in a better way in other books written by authors who have actually researched the things Manson talks about) and uses foul language purely for the shock value of 'I don't care what people think of me'. It gets tedious after a while, and who truly wants to read expletives in a non-fiction (or any!) book. It's a lot like putting gratuitous horror scenes into a novel just BECAUSE. I'm not fond of that kind of writing at all.

In this sense, goals as they are conventionally defined - graduate from college, buy a lake house,  lose fifteen pounds - are limited in the amount of happiness they can produce in our lives. They may be helpful when pursuing quick, short-term benefits, but as guides for the overall trajectory of life, they suck.

This concept is comparable to James Clear/Darren Hardy's habit forming - a habit is formed by small steps the same as an infinite goal consists of 'small steps' that have to be repeated in order to have a good life.

Manson basically zeroes in on 'A goal must not be definite' (such as 'buy a house') but indefinite (be honest to everyone you speak to). Not 'lose 15 pounds' but set yourself on a trajectory of 'eat healthily/live a healthy lifestyle'. This latter is a permanent change, but you might only be able to start small, or in Manson's words, go from being entirely wrong to being less wrong, and even less wronger after that over time with small changes (ie. James Clear's atomic habits).

At first (own example) you might be 'wrong' by eating willy-nilly whatever you like, including chocolate for breakfast (I'm guilty of this), junk food for lunch, takeout for dinner, and make a small snack in between. Over time, you will become less wrong by learning more information (e.g. in my case: nutrition details, benefits of healthy food for your brain and the rest of your body), and you will start to eat oats for breakfast, still junk food for lunch, still takeout for dinner, and a small snack in between. After a while you learn even more about healthy food (e.g. the health benefits of fish as opposed to meat, and the virtues of almonds for serotonin in your brain), and you will start to eat oats for breakfast, fish with some leafy greens and broccoli for lunch, maybe still takeout for dinner, and you can replace the mars bar snack with almonds and olives.

At some point, you're bound to be a lot less wrong, and your day might look like mine:

yoghurt oats with gooiberries and nuts for breakfast
(usually) meat/tofu/fish with vegetables and starches (rice or potato) for lunch
meat/tofu/fish with vegetables/chickpea salad for dinner
healthy snacks (nuts, olives, carrot/cucumber with hummus)

Of course, I'm still very wrong a lot of the time, because in addition to those healthy snacks, I also eat chocolate, gingerbread, jammy joeys, and all sorts of crisps and other 'unhealthy' snacks, or I'll eat apple pie for lunch, but I'm a lot less wrong for my premises of 'eat healthy' than I used to be with pizza/other takeout for dinner. In addition, I have neither the desire or need to actually cut out all sweets and candy. I like sweets and candy. The only thing I'm still working on is the proportion of candy to real food, and I hope that over time, I'll become less wrong by eating fewer candy still, and by not having the need to eat something sweet almost after every lunch/dinner.

The second 'concept' Manson tries to sell is that 'Negative experiences are positive experiences'. It even makes some sense. Let me explain.

Positive experiences give you a short high, a quick hit of dopamine (chemical released in your brain after you achieve something, the 'happiness' chemical), but after that, you soon crash, because the purpose, the thing you wanted to achieve, is gone as soon as you achieved it. If your goal was to buy a house, for example, and you bought THE DREAM HOUSE, then you're happy about it, obviously, but after a time, this just becomes your status quo, your new normal, and the elation fades.

In order to have more positive experiences you need something to strive for (e.g. something you don't have yet/can never achieve fully). This could be to eat healthy or to improve your writing every day. This is not a finite goal, which you can achieve, and then live happily ever after. It's an infinite goal, because there will ALWAYS be some ways to improve yourself, some new things to learn, and therefore you'll never arrive at a destination, but every problem you solve, every new scrap of learning you can integrate in your work, will give you a sense of happiness.

The third point Manson makes is pain and suffering are vital to self-improvement and the ability to become stronger/better. You might not like it while you struggle, but after a while, you will realize that those parts and projects you struggled with the most are the most fulfilling as well. This ties in directly with the paragraph of negative experiences above. You might feel bad in the process (training makes your muscles ache, and ache, and ache), but ultimately, the sense of purpose you gain from fighting for something you want/love will make you happier than once you've achieved everything you want and have nothing else to work for.

As Manson says "Our most radical changes in perspective often happen at the tail end of our worst moments". I translate this as struggle (emotional of physical) = self improvement with tangible results.

You can test this theory by yourself. Have you ever been left out of something you really wanted to do with your 'friends'? Well, maybe that was the time you started to re-evaluate your friendships, and how important you truly are to the people you call friends. This being left out (emotional struggle) leads you to evaluate the friendship and will (if you're honest with yourself and your friends didn't simply make a honest mistake) lead you to the realization you should perhaps look for better friends (= self improvement). It is to be hoped that in the end you'll find great friends who contribute to your life and sense of well-being rather than taking away from it (tangible results).

That's basically all that The Subtle Art talks about. There's also a chapter on death but it was boring enough I don't actually remember it. Is it worth buying/reading? Nah. Not really. I mean, there are some redeeming pieces of advice in it, but most of it is just your standard self-help yada yada. A lot of authors said it better before. Better spend your money on something like Atomic Habits or The Compound Effect. That's how you can really better yourself. Those books are concise and far less flighty. They actually have some practical advice beyond 'only care about things you care about'.

Have a good night/day!

WriteBot.

Theme in Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy (mostly Annihilation though)

Hey folks

It's my birthday today (getting old) and I'd like to share with you my thoughts on Jeff VanderMeer's existential horror novel called Annihilation and its sequels (Authority and Acceptance). Annihilation is one of my favourite books of all time and truth be told I haven't been able to find anything in the science fiction/cosmic horror/existential horror gene that tops it.

Have you read the books? You should! (However, you should skip the second book in the series - if you commit to the whole Southern Reach trilogy - and read only the last twenty pages or so. It's really not necessary to read the rest because there's a) no plot and b) it's boring as heck to follow a main character who goes to hid job in a boring office and does boring stuff there.)

Annihilation (the first book in the trilogy) is one of the best books I've ever read. It's quite honestly also (one of) the most impactful book(s) in my library.

I want to tell you why.

The most striking theme in Annihilation was to me the existential dread/horror the protagonist faces as she ventures into Area X. It has so much in common with what I'm constantly going through in real life (confusion about life/depression/trying to find ways to improve myself/trying to find meaning in life itself) that it resonated with me very deeply. There is always a sense of not knowing what's going on and what's going to happen. The tension is constant and the stakes are higher than life or death. They are existential. The biologist (the main character of the first book) finds new and stranger things every time she takes a step forward in Area X just as anyone else faces problem after problem in their day to day lives.

There are several scenes in the book where events happen and are not explained. This would be annoying in most books but in Annihilation it fits perfectly.

The ending too is very open and inconclusive. There is no 'good guy defeats bad guy' or even 'protagonist overcomes antagonist' climax. The climax is written the same as the rest of the book - very quietly but with lots of tension in it. The ending remains open-ended.

Another reason why this book is great is its main character - the biologist. The biologist does not change whatsoever during the course of the book (although she learn a lot of new and weird things). A lot of the times this is likely to be the sign of a bad book. But not so with Annihilation. The whole journey of the protagonist is so beautifully written and her character explained/developed that it impressed upon me such an awareness of how it's not always necessary to win/to defeat your own demons/etc. etc.. The point made was that everyone lives with some sort of disadvantage or baggage in life - which is true - and the point that follows this initial tidbit is that it does not matter at all. In a sense it says 'the past does not matter' just like the psychologist Alfred Adler did.

What does matter (and here Annihilation makes the greatest case for itself) is that we must simply go on despite our baggage/fears/anxieties/past. We must go on while trying to become better versions of ourselves. We must stay in motion and never surrender even when we feel hopeless or feel as if our life is meaningless or has come to a crushing end. This is portrayed by the book's ending very well. The biologist does not achieve what she set out to do immediately. What she expected did not come to pass. And still she decides to go on. There is no going back for her - or us - into the past. To return to the real world beyond Area X would be an admission of defeat but despite there being almost no hope of still achieving her goal the biologist soldiers on. It doesn't so much say 'go on despite adversity' as 'go on because there is nothing else left and you cannot return to the past'. It gives you a sense that there is only one way - forward.

At this end point of the story the biologist's motivations have changed (her initial goal did not come to pass) but her journey forward has not really. The biologist continues to move forward not to achieve her prior goal but because 'What else is there to do?'. I personally found that very beautiful and it immediately turned Annihilation into one of my favourite books. (Likely even the most favourite). I haven't been able to find anything that compares since.

Authority

Obviously after reading and loving Annihilation from sentence one I decided to stick with the trilogy. I read Authority next... and was severely disappointed. There is literally nothing that redeems this mock-up of a novel. In about the same 250 pages as Annihilation nothing whatsoever happens except some dude I don't care about (called Control, of all things) goes to work doing a job I don't care about (spoiler alert, he's a desk clerk in an office). And that's the book. The last twenty or so pages alone are relevant to the plot set up by Annihilation and continued in Acceptance, but the rest is plot-less plodding along of the most boring kind.

I recommend you skip most of the book and only read the last 20-30 pages to get the one small piece of information you'll need (but not even truly need) to get into the beginning of Acceptance smoothly.

Acceptance

In Acceptance the existential horror switches to cosmic horror. It's reasonably well done and I liked a lot about it (but not everything). Acceptance starts where Authority's last few pages left off. It's written from multiple points of view out of which only two are really great. The best one is of course Saul's. This was one of my first experiences with an author who writes a homosexual character and does not make the book all (angsty and boring) about it. No. Saul's story is really well done. I truly felt for the character and later on his lover as well. There is no 'oh he's so special because he's g-a-y'. He simply was attracted to men and had a boyfriend(-ish?) and that's it. This stood in stark contrast to a lot of other queer novels whose only point seems to be to make a big deal out of their characters being non-heterosexual. Acceptance did not and so of course this off-handed way of telling us he's gay was at the time a huge plus point from my point of view and also gave Jeff VanderMeer a lot of credibility in my eyes.

If he included Saul's homosexuality just to have the obligatory homosexual or whether Saul came to him this way I don't know (and probably never will) but it read very smoothly on the pages. It was just as a valid and real a relationship portrayal as any romantic side-plot I'd read before. And therefore that's a thing to applaud VanderMeer for. He did not draw attention to it.

The rest of the plot revolving Saul was the same level of perfect. A focus was put on Saul's experiences with Area X and its formation. I liked that a lot. It did not clarify anything in Annihilation (although it did give some hints of how Area X was made) and it really only served to pose more questions. At the end of the trilogy there is still a great sense of mystery and strangeness around and Area X has neither been conquered (again not hero beating a villain) nor destroyed. It is simply there and it is spreading from its point of origin.

What happens next (if anything at all) is up to the reader's imagination.

I won't like. I'm dying to read more about Area X and what happened to it/our world when it spread. But I am equally happy with the conclusion as it is. Not everything is knowable. The world is not as transparent as most books would have us believe. And that's just beautiful when it's written down in a book.

All that's left to do is watch the movie. (I know I'm late!)

Have a good night/day! WriteBot.

Xenos and Worlds of Magic ONLINE!

Hey guys!

The two short stories collections I've been talking about recently have been published today! They are Xenos and Worlds of Magic.

Xenos is a science fiction work including such sub-genres as cosmic horror, first contact, weird events, and post-apocalyptic fiction. Some of them (as implied by cosmic 'horror') are actually very creepy. These are namely Of One Mind, which deals with the effects of tampering with humans minds, set between half a century and a century in the future of our own world, and Moonfarer, which is pure cosmic horror (and scared me the most while writing it).

Another story in the anthology is Immortal (A creature of a different world seeks a new body to inhabit on Earth). This one is one of my favourites because of its concept and because the alien main character is not the kind to just obtain a body by any means necessary. He goes about it much like a job interview instead.

Xenos also includes an older (but very popular) story called 2115. 2115's blurb: As alien spaceships descend on Earth, a worn-out soldier, a drug-addicted medic, and a little girl have to fight for their survival.

The Epilogue to Xenos is Eye in the Sky. I think it fits the cosmic horror theme quite well.

Worlds of Magic on the other hand is entirely different. It's half stories you'd read to children before bedtime - Lucy and the Magician, Catching Fireflies, Seafarer - and half fantasy for a more mature audience (but nothing graphic!) - The Hungry Worlds, Into the Still Places, The Path of Lost Souls -. These are gentle and adventurous stories. They excite through the adventure imagery they build and make you feel good because of the themes explored. The themes are friendship, love, and working together despite the odds. This by the way goes for both halves of the anthology!

The first story in Worlds of Magic is Seafarer. This is a pirate story with strange magics and a slightly wry way of telling it. The premise of this story went: How did the princess fall in love with the pirate? I had in mind the pirate would be a guy. But she wasn't. I had a lot of fun writing the pirate queen Aaea and the more modest (although not really) princess Isolde's father the King. They make a great comical pairing between the two of them.

Lucy and the Magician is another story (the second story in the anthology) very close to my heart. It took me a while to finish and it's fairly long but very complete in a way. While editing this story, the ending came around (I changed the first draft's ending) and it just fit. It's a story about gifts - and primarily the gift of friendship.

The other stories are Catching Fireflies (You've heard a lot about this one! It's the story that got me my first review back in September!) about a kelpie trying to seduce a girl to join him in the depths of his lake - with a twist. The girl - his prey - has a task to complete under the waves that only a human can do. And it's dangerous.

In the other half of the anthology you'll find the stories more geared towards adults (themes as well as rating of scenes. These stories are a tiny bit more bloody and serious in a mature way than the three above). The Hungry Worlds is a thief's guilty journey into a deep forest to save the village she stole from last. Into the Still Places portrays a war between two races of different worlds in which neither of them wants to give way yet both have to if they are to save their realms. The sixth story, The Path of Lost Souls, is probably the most adult-serious of the whole book. It's more grave than all the others combined (although still not graphic).

Want to give it a try? It's out on Amazon! (PS: don't mind the missing covers. I have faith in KDP that they'll update them eventually!)

Xenos: (creepy science fiction!) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L6KHNB9

Worlds of Magic: (magic adventure stories!) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L6KQM28

Have a good night/day! WriteBot.

Review of John Wyndham's novels (Phase 1)

Hi everyone!

I spent the last four days reading novels exclusively by John Wyndham. In what I call Phase 1 I've completed:

The Kraken Wakes
The Day of the Triffids
The Chrysalids

Phase 2 will start shortly and I'll be reading the rest of his works (The Midwich Cuckoos, Chocky, The Secret People, Trouble with Lichen, and The Seeds of Time).

The best book of Phase 1 was hands-down The Chrysalids. (I think this is widely accepted as the truth anyway.) There were a lot of themes in this book screaming very loudly. The difference between people, acceptance of people who are different, fear of differences, unwillingness/inability to change, the arrogance of man right toward its extinction, and so on and so forth. A lot of the themes seemed quite familiar (probably that's why it isn't my favourite) but I could still appreciate that it was well done. And it is a great book!

My favourite book however was The Day of the Triffids. There is just something about the style of Triffids and the main character's journey (not the somewhat silly premise) that appeals to me more than The Chrysalids although they were both very well written. The main character of Triffids (William) is not a special hero. He's just an average guy with some knowledge of plants. He's constantly pulled from one side to the other trying to decide what is right and he doesn't give up even when all seems lost. The romance was a bit weird at first... but I got used to it. William is a character who can be more easily related to than for example David (Chrysalids) or Michael (Kraken).

About The Kraken Wakes I can't really say too much. The book's concept was there, but it was poorly developed, and the ending about as anticlimactic as an ending could be. The main character was detached from most of the plot and in the end his struggles were all solved somewhat magically and not by himself. (It has to be mentioned that there was no deus ex machina however. The plot simply fizzled out at the end and then some aspects that had been foreshadowed earlier in the book were brought back to tie it off somewhat.) It wasn't very masterfully done and mostly only the first half of the book held my attention.

All in all I never thought I'd like a 'classic' as much as I do John Wyndham's books. They are well-written and not overly florid with details as some others. His writing style is very simple and understandable even when he handles 'large' concepts/themes. I want to compare it a little to The Great Gatsby - another absolute favourite of mine - although obviously Gatsby lacks the science fiction details. John Wyndham's books (as well as The Great Gatsby) are full of important themes without being choking to the reader. The dryer philosophy is kept short and in bursts. The whole novel however is filled with supporting evidence for the themes these authors bring about. The whole setup of the scenery and situations in which characters find themselves serve to underline the topics discussed.

The books of John Wyndham are truly masterful works. (Although The Kraken Wakes was less so than the others.)

That being said these novels read a lot more like long short stories than novels. There is mostly a focus on one or two issues (survival and escape as opposed to humaneness in The Day of the Triffids, being different and the effects of that in a society that despises everything different in The Chrysalids, and how to deal with the unknown in The Kraken Wakes) and have only a few important characters each. There is no useless scenes in any of the books (except in Kraken where one could argue most of what happens after London is a bit so-so). They are quite concise and folded within themselves in a way that doesn't easily let them unwrap or even lose a single scene.

Although the books are all 70 years old by now they are still relevant for today's world (and I'd argue in the case of The Chrysalids more than ever!). I'd definitely recommend them as both a good entry to science-fiction and those who know the genre well. I also recommend them to all those who simply like books. As the copyright of most of them is now public it should be fairly easy to get a hold of a free copy. If not, then there's, as always, Amazon.

I hope you'll give these books a try. They're short and definitely worth it.

WriteBot.

Cover Update: Elegy of the Stars

Hey everyone!

Today's blog post shall be an update on a story very close to my heart. As I am working on the story collections Xenos and Worlds of Magic I've also commissioned an artist to create a new cover for Elegy of the Stars for me because I simply felt the old one didn't properly convey what I wanted it to. It's also not very detailed or exciting so... time for something new!

This something new is currently in progress with the fine artist Daniel Pinal.

Here is a pre-view of what the cover's going to be! (As always click to enlarge!)

Do you like it? I think it conveys the action of Elegy of the Stars much better than the old one did. In another few weeks or so it'll be done and Amazon will be updated with it. I can't wait!

WriteBot.

On Reading Goals

Hey folks!

As the title says today's post will deal with reading goals! (2018 and 2019!)

I've read 65 books this year and am going to start reading the 66th (probably) tomorrow. That's approximately twice as much as I managed in the years before that for various reasons. A bit less than a third of the 65 books (20) were non-fiction.

A few of my 2018 favourites were:

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley (definitely my number one favourite this year)

The Wrong Stars by Tim Pratt (love Tim Pratt! You must read his books! And he's such a chill and approachable guy.) 

Medusa Uploaded by Emily Devenport

Flame in the Mist by Renee Ahdieh (surprisingly awesome YA romance set in a fantasy version of feudal Japan)

Planetfall by Emma Newman (also surprising considering the main character was actually a complete mess)

Thoraiya Dyer's Titan's Forest novels (these are such great fun!)

The Tangled Lands by Paolo Bacigalupi and Tobias Buckell (a short story collection with interconnected stories)

Witchmark by C.L. Polk

Semiosis by Sue Burke

The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham

I had a vague goal in mind at the beginning of 2018 to read 52 books this year (one book a week). In the first third of the year (January to April) I didn't have a lot of time because of work and wasn't able to read much. In the second third (April-August) I did most of my reading. I then started to do a degree... and had absolutely no time to read at all. All the carefully selected books that I'd bought to read (way too many!) started collecting dust on the shelves. BUT fast forward to mid-November and I've decided to quit the degree in favour of focusing on things that matter to me (including my health).

I've read about 5-6 books since then.

If everything goes well the plan is to read 2-5 more books this year. As always depending on how much time I have to read (in addition to writing and planning) and how my depression is doing day to day. I'd actually love to hit 70 books this year. That'd be an achievement! Almost twice as much as I've read in the years before.

If this goal is achieved then next year's goal is obviously to top it. 70 books this year = at least 71 books next year. Or more. I'd like to get to the 100 books a year mark at some point, but 60 is the absolute minimum.

The list of books for next year (up to 60) is almost complete... However, I've actually already started reading from it so might need more suggestions. These are easy to come by apparently. Just yesterday I thought 'I'll never be able read all the books on my (other, huge, ongoing) list' and yet kept adding more and more to them. Today, too. I've found approximately 5 new books that definitely need to go on some reading list.

This means 2019's Reading List (the beginnings of which can be found here) has had a few books added. (And a few subtracted that I've already read. Soulbinder by Sebastien de Castell, The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham, and The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy - although the last one will require a quick re-read considering I only had it on audio and audio is not ideal for me to retain information).

The new books are these (and I have no doubt the list will be even longer tomorrow...):

44. China Mountain Zhang
45. The Shattered Gates (Rifter)

46. Journey to the Center of the Earth

47. The Skeleton Tree (maybe)

48. For One More Day
49 Total Focus by Brandon Web
50. Nightflyers by G.R.R.M.
51. Spellslinger 5 (Absolutely love Spellslinger! You should definitely read it if you're into YA-ish fantasy Westerns)

52. Focal Point

53. Among Others by Jo Walton

54. The Chrysalids by John Wyndham

55. The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham

How about you guys? How's the reading goal going this year? It's almost time to tally up! How many books do you still hope to read this year?

All the best with your goals from WriteBot! Have a good night/day!

Review of Darren Hardy's The Compound Effect

Hey folks

I've been listening to the audio book these last few days (I don't usually like audio books at all but non-fiction seems to be easier to listen to than fiction) and wanted to give you a review of it!

All right. The Compound Effect. Most of the book's advice is pretty generic and not actual fresh and/or unique research. It's the sort of book that tells you 'The more you practice the luckier you get'. (The usual spiel about people not being actually 'lucky' but working hard so that when the opportunity arises they can take it. Whereas other people don't work hard enough so they cannot get 'lucky' when an opportunity presents itself.)

The author also likes to pat himself on the back with how many famous people he knows at different companies (Apple for example) and how their CEOs personally interacted with him at some point. That can be a bit annoying.

The gist of the book is hard/diligent/persistent work over time = success.

A piece of important information in the book is that small changes (in things such as habits) should be pursued over time rather than every big change you'd like to have in your life all at once. This means when you want to exercise regularly and get a better body it's important to start small-ish (say about 20 minutes of exercise a day) because if you start big (2 hours of exercise a day) then you won't be able to keep it up infinitely. It is important to create small habits that over time will compound into big habits with visible effects.

The concept is very similar to James Clear's Atomic Habits. Review of Atomic Habits here.

As Hardy explains his concept of compounding effect he also cautions against giving up too easily. It's quite obvious that if you go to the gym twice or eat one less meal once (if you're trying to lose weight) you won't immediately see the benefits. The same goes for writing. If you want to write a book, write 500 words on two days, then give up because you don't have a book yet, your whole endeavour is somewhat pointless. If, however, you keep going to your desk and you keep adding words, 500 words a day will eventually stack up, and in less than a year your novel of 100k word will be finished (as finished as a first draft usually is in any case). At the start of any endeavour you don't want to burn yourself out with either exercise (2 hours a day) or writing 9000 words a day (been there done that) and then not have the energy to finish at all. If you're just starting out it's fine to write 100 words a day. Or 200. And maybe exercise only for 20 minutes or only do 10 push-ups instead of the 100 you're yearning to do (crazy folks!).

You can obviously increase the amount of x you do once you get better at it. If you start small you can up the ante after some time: If you're used to writing 200 words a day it's much easier to make the jump to 300 and later 500. In no time you'll be writing those elusive 2000 (or even 5000/10.000) words a day.

However. The compound effect does not only refer to creating good habits but also how the small little tasks you do every day (conscious or not) make up your bad habits. This could be for example eating a piece of chocolate every day after lunch because you crave it (I usually crave something sweet after lunch). It doesn't matter much on one day, but if you do it every day, it has the same effect as writing 500 words a day. After a while it will become a detriment to your health. This is why Hardy also talks about how to break bad habits. He suggests to write down your habits in a list in order to easily see what you could 'drop' so to speak. An example he gives is saving more money than usual. How can you see where you're spending money unnecessarily?

You are to write down every single thing you spend money on during the week.

A cup of coffee at Starbucks? A candy bar from the shop to treat yourself after work? That's a few dollars right there you can save if you know about them. And in a week, or month, if you buy these things regularly, the amount you can save instead of spend will exponentially increase. The same goes for calories when you're trying to lose weight. Are you actually eating more than you need? Tracking your habits will tell you exactly WHERE you can change your behaviour to go from loss (for example of money by spending on 'little things' or loss of health by eating too many 'little unhealthy things') to gain.

The same loss goes for accumulating knowledge (in the news) that you will not use and which therefore goes to waste. Ask yourself: Do you really need to watch/read the news three times a day? How much of 'useless' knowledge are you gaining this way? Wouldn't it be better to spend the time to read up on information you can actually put to use (perhaps a book on weight loss/nutrition/personal finance/other hobbies you have long been interested in)?

Hardy also maintains that as you're doing all these little things to improve yourself it's also important not to be discouraged. As with anything you do there will be setbacks. If after two months of training at the gym or writing on the novel you still don't have that thin stomach or the complete novel, it's easy to become lazy. It takes a lot of time to obtain significant results. (Here the old adage comes into play, doesn't it? 'Nothing worth having comes free'.) You're guaranteed to want to quit at some point (can confirm this from personal experience with both exercise and writing!), but then you must become the proverbial tortoise and soldier on. Slow and steady wins the race. You put your head down and you take one step at a time. One scene at a time. One minute of exercise at a time.

I hope you enjoyed this review. If you'd like to check out Hardy's book on account of this review it's probably best to buy it at Amazon (am still not affiliated with them). The Kindle ebook is somewhere around $7 and from the audio book it sounded like a fairly easy read. Although if you've already bought James Clear's Atomic habits it might not be as relevant for you any more.

WriteBot.

Review of the Japan exhibition in Amsterdam (Tropenmuseum)

Hey everyone!

Today's post will be fun because I had a lot of fun today even though the exhibition (in the title) wasn't really great.

Firstly I biked about 60km from where I live to Amsterdam (that's to and from). That's always pretty fun (not being sarcastic!). Secondly I went to a Japan exhibition in a place called Tropenmuseum.

The exhibition can be pretty much summed up in one sentence: A nerd's bedroom has more Japan-related items than the exhibition.

It's also only about the size of five nerd's bedrooms poorly utilized. The collection is very small.

Let's go room by room (actually not sure if 'section' doesn't fit better):

Room/Section 1: a meagre collection of a few comics and three gaming consoles where you could play some weird-ass bad graphics fighting game and a drumming game (you could play the drums with a stick and it would be translated into something or other on the screen). Also a big screen on which random Japanese songs were played

Room/Section 2: about four man-sized dummies wearing weird but colourful dresses, a 12+ section that should really have been 18+ and was definitely NSFW (also included tentacle pr0n), a small, ugly robot that spoke poorly about stuff and where you could interact by pressing buttons on its screen, and a sort-of robot-like statue in silver plastic that I don't know the purpose of.

Room/Section 3: Another huge screen with intros/scenes from weird films, a 12+ horror section that at the moment of my being there showed something from Godzilla, some figurines (you know the small ones from various popular series?). The coolest thing about this room/section was probably the life-size samurai statue in full armour with two wooden swords and the samurai sword with authenticity certificate (although this was only a blade and lacked a handle and was also encased in glass so it felt like looking at a simple knife).

Room/Section 4: some scrolls and paintings, at the end of the exhibit walls that looked like they were made of instant noodles (not sure if on purpose - it wasn't really obvious enough - or if that's just how it always looks). Inside these noodle-walls was some pottery. It looked like someone tried to set up a Japanese tea ceremony except there was no teapot/cups so they had to stack bowls instead. This was simply a stack of bowls and on two or three other pedestals had been placed more bowls.

As you can tell from the rooms the exhibition severely lacked:

A tea ceremony set (what was up with the random bowls in section 4 I will never understand) or even just a single teapot with Japanese style painting on it

Kintsugi (art of fixing of broken ceramics by sealing cracks/putting it back together with gold)

Chopsticks (you could argue those aren't 'typically' Japanese as they're used elsewhere as well... but if you're going to explain Japanese culture then maybe eating habits should be a big factor)

Instant Ramen (???) or ANYTHING at all food related

Kimonos/Yukata's/etc. (there was only a small paragraph on some plaque without even a picture explaining this traditional wear)

Geta (Japanese sandals)

The onsen culture

Cherry Blossoms

And so on and so forth. The exhibition was therefore quite disappointing to me. It was the bare minimum of Japanese pop culture (comics and animations - and then not even that fully 'explained'), a paragraph on a single wall why robots are so popular/important (apparently it's because they have a soul according to Shintoism), figurines, a samurai in armour with swords, and some scrolls and paintings.

I know nothing new about Japan that I (and probably most people) didn't before.

Another huge letdown was the food corner. This of course was a part of the whole museum (there were other exhibits which were equally tedious as the Japanese so I won't get into them) but I kind of hoped there would be SOME Japanese or special food as they promised on their website. According to the website you could get tasty treats from different parts of the world. According to the actual menu you have the choice between a ham and cheese toast and some lemon cake (and in the lemon cake cylinder was a literally a half moon end of cut cake because apparently they didn't care to remove the leftovers they couldn't sell but just left them in there).

I would personally not recommend anyone to visit it. It's a much better choice to wait until March/April for the next ComicCon if you want a nerdy Japanese experience. (That being said I also plan to visit TomoFair in January because I've never been - and they have food!)

Thirdly I biked back in the rain (but that was also quite enjoyable - still no sarcasm here - and I had bubble tea before I left so no complaints there).

WriteBot wishes you a good night/day. Cheers!

Art for Seafarer!

Hey everyone!

I wanted to share with you a piece of art that was made for one of my stories:

Seafarer. Seafarer is one of the stories that will be published in Worlds of Magic when it is released on the 7th of December. The story of Seafarer follows a young woman as she tries to find out how her mother fell in love with her partner. It's a tale of how the pirate queen acquired herself a princess. The two main characters are shown on the image!

In a way this post is a character introduction as well. I give you: Aaea and Isolde! (Click to enlarge!)

(by Ngo Hung)

Isn't it pretty?

This story is one of friendship and love and light. It is about mysterious magics and screaming kings and pirates who steal underwear. It's a fun story of adventure as well as deep and insightful into the nature of human relationships.

Excited? It's coming out on the 7th of December! Stay tuned.

WriteBot.

Why you need to raise the stakes

Hey everyone!

How are you doing this fine day? My own writing is... suddenly not going well even though it's been perfect the last few days (???) and I'm going a bit crazy. Ah well. It might sort itself out.

Today let's talk about the importance of raising the stakes.

The most recent example of a series (TV) that failed at this is The Man in the High Castle. I've been dying to talk about this for at least a week since I started to watch Season 3. There will be some (minor) spoilers so if you don't want to know the end of Season 2 stop right here!

What is there to say about The Man in the High Castle.

It started great. The first two seasons were coherent, connected, and everything made sense within the universe where it's set. I liked some of the characters (Tagomi) and hated others (Frank). All of them had their part to play and the first two seasons had UNITY. It had a plot.

Cue Season 3.

The unity evaporated like water in the desert. The characters are no longer doing ANYTHING related to any plot or within their character (established in the first two seasons). They've all gone insane, there is no plot, and the only thing the season has established so far is to put in a lot more fluff. This fluff comes mostly through kissing and unnecessary sex scenes as well as dramatic (emo) scenes where people talk about their emotions that are way too prolonged. Of course I have nothing against either romantic or 'deep' scenes but those are neither. The 'romantic' scenes often happen to characters I don't care about (who were introduced badly in season two and three and with whom the audience has no emotional bond whatsoever) and the emotional talk scenes... well. There's about ten every episode and it's getting old.

There is also (as I have mentioned before) no plot in Season 3 whatsoever. Unless you count the three or four scenes where a dark tunnel is mentioned that needs to be investigated.

All right. Let's get to WHY it doesn't work though. I've talked a lot about WHAT doesn't work. It's time to look at the details of WHY.

The WHY in this case is actually very simple:

The STAKES are not high enough after Season 2. In fact there are almost no stakes at all.

Consider the characters.

At the end of season two they have already lost everything they could lose (Smith his son, Chief Inspector Kido his second in command, Frank is supposedly dead, Juliana everyone she loved, Ed and Childan their shop, livelihood, and family, Joe his honor and pride and so on and so forth, and Tagomi gave up his family for the greater good). These are characters who have absolutely nothing left (and Juliana's sister reappearing in the second season? Well in the third that plot point is made completely useless as the only journey they go through is 'how can we get sister back to her world').

All right. The characters then have nothing left = no personal stakes.


Let's examine the public stakes of s1 and s2 briefly. In s1 the public stakes were beautifully set up and in s2 climaxed upon.

Here is season one's storyline for each main character: What's up with (Juliana and) the films? What will the death of Frank's sister and her children make him do? How far will he go? Will Joe betray them all? Will Tagomi be able to help his spy get the blueprints for the Heisenberg to the science minister and get him out alive? Will Chief Inspector Kido successfully apprehend the resistance member who has the film?

These (mostly personal) stakes are all set up and solved. At the same time Season 2 is set up neatly.

Throughout Season 2 there are even more questions that need answers. There is a new film Juliana needs to see. It is terribly important. Will she manage to get the film to the Man in the High Castle? Who is the Man in the High Castle? Will Frank be found out? Will he be accused of shooting the Japanese crown prince? Will he survive the Yakuza? Will Joe reconnect with his father? Will Tagomi reconnect with his family in the alternate world? Will Chief Inspector Kido apprehend the resistance before it's too late? Will Smith's son survive the season? Will we (the audience) find out more about the films and alternate worlds? Will all of them be able to somehow avert the coming war?

The public stakes here are HUGE. If the Nazi Reich and the Japanese fight over America then millions of people will die. Hundreds of cities will be destroyed. Thousands of communities. And the stakes are averted only at the last minute.

Then we get to Season 3. All the questions above have been answered masterfully. It wasn't perfect (some loose ends and red-shirt setups) but there was a silver lining through all of the two seasons.

Let's see if we can find ANY stakes in this season.

Season 3 starts with Juliana's sister back in her life BUT she has to go back to her own world for reasons unknown - which means the whole plot point of her appearing AT ALL has just been made redundant. It would have been a good ending for Juliana who believes in people and always helps them to get something BACK. But no. Season 3 destroys this.

Frank meanwhile has been hiding out with some jews in the mountains of somewhere. (Denver?). The first and second seasons he has always been adamant about not being a jew (and not just because the Nazis would kill him but because he simply did not wish to live the jewish life). Suddenly, all he wants in life is to be a jew. (And anyway how did he survive the explosion when the girl standing right next to him got smashed up?)

Smith does not react to what happened to his son. He's chill as usual. There is no emotion there where it should have been. Then again... I guess it IS six months later. Smith also has problems with people trying to do him in (or at least get him into prison for treason). A new character is introduced as the 'antagonist' but killed off relatively quickly because ???

Chief Inspector Kido is (as always) doing his own thingamagic. However, all that translates to is his growing relationship with some white woman in a club. I will admit, that's at the moment the only part of the series I enjoy. I like how Kido went from 'I don't talk to working girls' to her being the only woman (person) he talks to honestly. Also she's taller than him which is cute.

Tagomi... is a mystery. He has averted the war in his world. He achieved his mission and why he left his family back in World 2 and returned to Nazi World. So why didn't he go back to them? He was happy there and they were starting to accept him again. BUT he has a new girlfriend (some Japanese painter who says she has a husband but still flirts with Tagomi every chance she gets???). It's all fine. He only loved his wife enough to learn how to traverse worlds.

All these characters do throughout 2/3 of the third season is... nothing whatsoever. Oh of course they're running around doing stuff but none of it has any stakes. Random romantic (or not so romantic since I don't care about these random insert characters who only popped up to have sex with one of the main/side characters) scenes happen. Juliana goes crazy. Frank suddenly becomes a jew. Smith kills more people. Joe loses his mind and then his life (in a rather graphic way that didn't fit the rest of the series at all). Tagomi is just derping around. Chief Inspector Kido... well at least his relationship with the woman from the club is cute.

There are no personal stakes for either of the characters throughout the season. The only characters with personal stakes (Smith and Tagomi) solve them pretty quickly.

There are also no public stakes.

Remember the war that almost happened at the end of s2? Knowing there was a s3 I kept thinking 'something must happen'. The atomic bomb MUST BE dropped onto the Japanese (by accident after the 'bad guy' is apprehended or just SOMEHOW). The atomic bomb MUST be dropped. Well. It wasn't. The war was averted when (thinking about setting up s3) it SHOULDN'T have been. Because what happened in s3? All the stakes were suddenly gone. The characters (as I mentioned) went through so much and lost so much they have nothing left to lose. The public has nothing to lose either at this point.

There simply are no stakes. And that's a terrible thing when you've watched s1 and s2 and know how much opportunity it had!

The best I can figure about the stakes of s3 is that the public stakes are supposed to be the fact that the Nazi Reich is trying to build a wormhole/whatever into other worlds to spread the Nazi Reich into them.

But why? They haven't even conquered their own world yet. They are too afraid to start war with the Japanese but at the same time they're working to conquer whole new worlds? What? It makes just as little sense as the 7-10 kiss/sex scenes in every single episode.

I applaud you if you've stuck with me so far. I would have kept it shorter but I wanted to make a good example of this. (And also the horrible storytelling of s3 makes me really angry after how good the first two seasons were).

This is story-telling 101.

If your first book ends in preventing a war then your second book can't hang on to all kinds of personal sob stories of your characters. You raised the stakes by starting a horrible war... and then let everyone down by going back to 'oh yeah but listen these characters are suffering individually' (and then they're not even suffering anyway but just being or randomly jumping into bed with everyone else).

Of course it's hard to top two great seasons and make the third better. But s3 was just horrible to watch - and so are many other book and TV series these days. The purpose of raising the stakes is to keep reader/audience interest. It doesn't work when they first avert a war and then go back to doing nothing at all for a whole book/season.

I really hope this wall of text will help you figure out why stakes are so important and how to use them well! And if your book two is already great and you just can't figure out what to do for book three? THINK HARDER. THINK BIGGER. If they averted a war in book two it's time to deal with that exact same war in book three OR bow out. There can be no going back to a normal 'comfortable' life after that. Not if you don't want your readers to fall asleep while reading your book (cough Authority by Jeff VanderMeer).

WriteBot has said its piece. Have a good night/day!