29th Street South – a story with a heart

Posted on April 11, 2021 by tkflor

“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.

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Muse Delusion – first ever promotion

Posted on April 5, 2021 by tkflor

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

Posted on March 17, 2021 by tkflor
“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.

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A woman who believed she was a muse

Posted on January 27, 2021 by tkflor

“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:

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How to get AI’s attention

Posted on August 10, 2020 by tkflor

“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

Posted on May 3, 2020 by tkflor

“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

Posted on April 21, 2020 by tkflor

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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Becoming Superman

Posted on February 2, 2020 by tkflor

“Style was the clothes; voice was the body.
The instant I hit that realization I felt a circuit close inside me, switching on an engine in my brain. Suddenly all the little unrelated things I knew about writing (or brashly thought I knew) arranged themselves into a pattern so clear and precise that it knocked the breath out of me.”
J. Michael Straczynski, Becoming Superman

Becoming Superman is an autobiography of a science fiction and comics writer, J. Michael Straczynski. It is also a page turner, a powerful story that amazingly enough, is real. As Neil Gaiman concluded in his introduction: “We follow him through several careers, and in each career he learns how to do it, how to set out and make something happen that ought, by any stretch of imagination, to have been impossible. It’s his willingness to learn, his quiet persistence, and his willingness to do the work that are his superpowers. He has become a diamond.”

Reading the book during a weekend, I found there another “superpower”: hate. Hatred for a father he describes as a monster formed the author’s worldview, sustained him physically at times he might otherwise crumble, and shaped his character when the closest he had to a “role-model” were comic book heroes like Superman. This is not, however, a hateful book. The author’s hate does not drip from every page. It is used like lampposts placed to illuminate bends on a road, so a passerby would see what he had experienced as a boy and while growing up, what he overcame, and what he still has to cope with. Continue reading →

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Jane Austen and the institution of Marriage

Posted on October 5, 2019 by tkflor

“…I am not romantic, you know. I never was. I ask only a comfortable home; and considering Mr. Collins’s character, connections, and situation in life, I am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state.”
Charlotte Lucas to Elizabeth Bennet, Pride and Prejudice.


A book cover using Thomas Lawrence’s
The Children of Sir Samuel Fludyer (1806).

One day a “lost” Jane Austen novel might be “rediscovered” in some attic. The news will spread across the world long before experts will have a chance to study the manuscript, and the few known facts will soon be drowned by speculations about its authenticity. Would it be deemed a forgery, even if the handwriting, the style and word usage are comparable with these found in Austen’s letters and previous works, but the story as a whole lacks the qualities that endeared Jane Austen’s novels to so many readers for such a long period?

One thing we can be sure about this hypothetical manuscript is that it will involve romantic relations and treat the institution of Marriage. Expectations from this institution have evolved considerably in the last couple of hundreds of years, and yet Austen’s treatment of the subject still appeals to modern readers. Or or at least so I thought until I read a recent article in The Atlantic that challenges this assumption. In a piece titled “What Jane Austen Thought Marriage Couldn’t Do”, S. Chamberlain makes claims based on evidence from Austen’s novels. In the following I will address some of those points.

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William Blake in the twenty first century

Posted on September 21, 2019 by tkflor

Reader! lover of books! lover of heaven,
And of that God from whom all books are given,
Who in mysterious Sinai’s awful cave
To Man the wondrous art of writing gave,
Again he speaks in thunder and in fire!
Thunder of Thought, & flames of fierce desire:
Even from the depths of Hell his voice I hear,
Within the unfathomed caverns of my Ear.
Therefore I print; nor vain my types shall be:
Heaven, Earth & Hell, henceforth shall live in harmony.

from the preface to Chapter I, Jerusalem, by William Blake

Twenty one decades separate between William Blake’s only solo exhibition and the retrospective exhibition, titled “William Blake”, that has recently opened at Tate Britain.
The first exhibition was at Blake’s brother’s hosiery shop in Soho. Sixteen pictures were displayed for show and sale, including “The Ancient Britons”, the largest picture Blake ever made. The price for admission was one shilling, the same as the much larger and more prestigious exhibitions at the Royal Academy and at the British Institution. Blake’s exhibition was attended by few, and the only review it received was from The Examiner. It was published anonymously in the issue for 17 September 1809:

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