Do muses exist?

   “Any medical facility can verify that I have regular vision, hearing, blood type, and every other organ and bodily function. But what does it prove? A hundred years ago, the best doctors and brightest scientists had no clue about DNA. Your society doesn’t have the tools to distinguish between us and what you might call normal people, but only fools will believe that this deficiency can, by itself, rule out our existence.”
Lisa was enjoying herself, Jack observed. And she was quite a good opponent, substituting for a lack of common sense with charm and zeal.
   “Okay, let’s assume that biology and the neural sciences have not yet reached the stage at which they can tell apart a person from a deity assuming human shape. How do you explain the fact that a large complex on Mount Olympus was never detected by any satellite or space station?”
   “I’m a muse, not a NASA engineer.”

So, who Lisa really is?
What does she want?
And how does she intend to achieve it?
Join Jack as he finds more about this disruptive woman, about the people he thought he knew, and also about himself.

Muse Delusion promotion, until October 12, 2021: 0.99 USD, CND, GBP, EURO, AUD
Amazon US, UK, CA, AU | Apple Books | kobo | nook

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Did Thomas Young perform his most famous experiment?

“phenomena of nature resemble the scattered leaves of the Sibylline prophecies; a word only, or a single syllable, is written on each leaf, which, when separately considered, conveys no instruction to the mind; but when, by the labor of patient investigation, every fragment is replaced in its appropriate connection, the whole begins at once to speak a perspicuous and harmonious language.”
Thomas Young, Introduction to A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and Mechanical Arts, 1807
(cited from
The Last Man Who Knew Everything, by Andrew Robinson.)

Thomas Young (1773 – 1829) sought these clues throughout his life. A child prodigy with interest in classics and mathematics, he was, according to Wikipedia, a British polymath who made notable contributions to the fields of physics, physiology and Egyptology. As Young himself attested, these discoveries did not happen randomly, nor were they results of some “lucky guess.” In The Last Man Who Knew Everything, Young’s biographer pieces together how Young’s scientific ideas were developed, communicated and treated by his contemporaries, by later scientists and by biographers. Continue reading

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Muse Delusion – musing about book promotion

“How can publishers influence the books AISA picks?” she asked.
Scott grinned, finding Lisa’s cluelessness funny.
Answer the dumb question, Daphne told Scott in her mind. She did not like women who looked glamorous without making any visible effort, especially if they were silly and ignorant. But neither Lisa’s enviable appearance nor her questionable intelligence justified Scott’s leering smile.
“Advertisement,” Daphne said when she concluded that no one else would bother to reply.
From Muse Delusion
(AISA stands for Artificial Intelligence Shopping Assistant.)

In April, I tried to wear a publisher’s hat and promote Muse Delusion by making the ebook free for five days on Amazon. The promotional “push” started with an announcement on this blog. Nothing happened at first, but a few hours later Muse Delusion was among the six thousand highest-ranked free ebooks on Amazon. Certainly not impressive, but at least a proof that everything worked as intended. Paid promotions on the second and third days (Fussy Librarian on April 6 and Freebooksy on April 7) made all the difference. Muse Delusion made its debut in various bestsellers charts. I watched in disbelief as it gradually climbed up in the “sales” ranking (it was free).

Well, watched is an understatement. A more realistic description is: click, refresh, check another country, click, refresh, see no change, disconnect and try to focus on something more productive; repeat the sequence. When I noticed a change, it was documented with a screenshot. This craziness started early in the morning and continued after midnight. Luckily, it ended after two days. The screenshots remain.

Ranked 137 among free books on Kindle Store in the US
Ranked #9 on Kindle Top Free books in the US, in the Fantasy category
Ranked #2 on Kindle Top Free books in the US, in the Mythology category
Ranked #1 on Kindle Top Free books in the UK, in the Contemporary Literary Fiction category

Muse Delusion is no longer enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, so I cannot make another free promotion. On the plus side, the ebook is now available on Kobo, Apple Books, and Barnes & Noble in addition to Amazon.

Enjoy!

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29th Street South – a story with a heart

“God damn the man who shot President Kennedy!” Robbie Doyle said out loud without thinking.
The class turned as one and stared at Robbie. Miss Rodgers actually dropped the book she was holding.
From 29th Street South by Nicholas Rogers.

It seems that an entire generation can recall what they were doing when they heard about Kennedy’s assassination, but Robbie’s response drew me to read on. The sheer absurdity of being sent to the principal by the teacher, the conversations and the people Robbie met that day, created an illusion that I was there, watching and listening to real people. This uncanny immersion continued as the story progressed, and news headlines entwined with Robbie’s private life. I cannot say that I liked everything I read – the hatred during the civil rights demonstrations, Robbie’s friend almost raped – but the bad things did not spoil the story. It has dark moments in a rich canvas with many bright episodes.

Continue reading

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Muse Delusion – first ever promotion

For the first time, my book is free on Kindle. Promotion lasts from April 5 to April 9, 2021.

eBook: Amazon.com | Amazon.uk | Amazon.ca | Amazon.au

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A clever cat, two unusual kids and a clan of intelligent rats

“You pretend that rats can think, and I’ll promise to pretend that humans can think, too.”
A rat to a man, from The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents by Sir Terry Pratchett

The Changelings – a clan of educated rats – know a lot about people. People know little about rats except that they steal food and cause plagues. When the Changelings arrive to a town that suffers from a shortage of food, they find, as expected, townspeople who hate rats and want to see them gone, by whatever means that takes. But no one is prepared for what else they’ll find in the town.

On one level, “The Pied Piper of … Discworld” is a humorous take on famous fairy-tales. Both sides assume that their opponents will react like they do in fairy-tales, and the “fun” is that nothing happens as prescribed. On another level, the story deals with animal cruelty and its consequences. Survival is tricky when the bad guys do more than getting rid of rats with poison and traps.

Continue reading
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A woman who believed she was a muse

“I’m a muse, not a NASA engineer.”
Lisa to Jack, in Muse Delusion by T.K. Flor

Finally, the long anticipated novel, Muse Delusion, is published!!!
(OK, long-anticipated, and written, by me).

The initial idea for the novel emerged during a family vacation in the spring break of 2015. I could practically see in my mind’s eye the members of the Hopeville Murder Club finding an unresponsive woman in an empty house, what they dreaded, and how they responded. The guy this novel is dedicated to liked the idea. He suggested that I write a lighthearted story. I wanted it to be a love story about two people who seemingly have nothing in common, a contemporary tale with a touch of Greek mythology. Five years later, the story can be distilled to this:

Continue reading

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How to get AI’s attention

“This approach of Visibility Marketing is not a new way of reaching readers per se, but a way of positioning yourself and your books for maximum impact.”
David Gaughran, Amazon Decoded: A Marketing Guide to the Kindle Store

Theoretically, anyone who writes a book can publish it on Amazon. Practically, it’s much easier (and cheaper) to send a copy to those who want to read the book than to go through the process of publishing it. Even if one doesn’t intend to make any money off of it (e.g. by offering it for free), when an author makes their book available for the public, they probably want to it be read. Amazon’s Kindle store, with its millions of readers, sounds like the ideal venue. But with millions of books available, the odds that strangers will find a book by an unknown writer (indie or not) are dishearteningly small.

The book Amazon Decoded tackles this problem and provides indie authors with tools which increase the odds that their books will be discovered by readers. A hint – getting the “giant recommendation engine powering the Kindle Store” (the AI, for short) to put one’s book in front of potential readers is neither simple nor cheap. Nevertheless, David Gaughran argues that this is possible, and shows the pieces of puzzle involved in the process. Continue reading

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Perseverance and stamina – a lesson 40 years after The Empire Strikes Back

“Do. Or do not. There is no try.”
-Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back

One of the things that distinguishes a classic from a random highly successful book or movie is that one can return to a classic decades after it was created and still find it engaging and relevant. The Empire Strikes Back (TESB) was a huge success when it was released in May 1980. According to Wikipedia, “The Empire Strikes Back had a significant impact on filmmaking and popular culture, being regarded as a rare example of a sequel that transcends the original. The climax, in which Vader reveals to Luke that he is his father, is often cited as one of the greatest plot twists in cinematic history.”
In retrospect, TESB turned out to be a classic. Continue reading

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Moving the needle – 200 years since Ørsted experiment

The first connection between electricity and magnetism was found by Ørsted on 21 April 1820. Hans Christian Ørsted (14 August 1777 – 9 March 1851) was a Danish scientist. He became a professor at the University of Copenhagen in 1806. His famous discovery, known as Ørsted’s law, states that an electric current creates a magnetic field.

An illustrated demonstration of the experiment:

Opinions vary on whether the discovery was accidental or not. Continue reading

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