Self-Publishing Finds Commercial Niche In Digital Age
22/05/09 13:07 Filed in: Independent
Publishing
Here is a VERY
interesting article on self-publishing finding a
niche as the traditional publishers fall on hard
times.
Self-Publishing Finds Commercial Niche In Digital Age
Kelly Jane Torrance writing for The Washington Times
Self-Publishing Finds Commercial Niche In Digital Age
Kelly Jane Torrance writing for The Washington Times
The Didymus Contingency by Jeremy Robinson
02/05/09 19:00 Filed in: Fiction
289 pages, Lulu. $18.00
Review by Stephanie Attebery
Our latest review tackles the #1 fiction title published through Lulu.
“Tom’s head ached as he thought that Megan was killed because he went back in time…but he only went back in time because Megan had been killed!”
This is the kind of mind-bending twist readers encounter throughout Jeremy Robinson’s novel, The Didymus Contingency.
The story starts with a sweeping rush, in the remote African brush. We are introduced to Tom, the protagonist, who witnesses his wife’s murder by a band of lawless Zambian men because of her religious convictions. Then we quickly flash forward 20 years to present-day Tom, never-remarried, bitter and fiercely agnostic. His longtime research partner is David, a Christian who shares Toms’ Jewish-Isreali upbringing, but not his lack of belief in God. The two men are scientists who work on a top-secret project at the high-tech research company LightTech in an underground lab beneath the Arizona desert. And they have just secretly cracked the code to time-travel.
David and Tom take advantage of their discovery by orchestrating a controlled event which will enable their future selves to send high tech devices back in time... to themselves, thereby allowing their earlier selves to use devices they have perfected since their current research breakthrough. Those devices are watches that can dial the wearer (plus one carry-on item) back to virtually any time and location with just a few easy button taps.
Shortly after their discovery, and during a drunken rage-filled discussion about Megan’s murder, Tom impulsively decides to disprove the notion of Jesus, son of God, and jumps back in time to witness the death of Jesus, believing that Jesus will not rise after a few days as the story goes. Actually, Tom arrives in the past, around 2 years before the persecution of Christ, in order to befriend him and his disciples and travel with him to observe his “trickery”. Following close on Tom’s heels into the distant past is David, who fears that Tom’s poor choice will cause the very fabric of humanity to unravel.
What makes this story so interesting is the fact that David knows the Bible in and out, and Tom knows virtually nothing of the story, so while David sits back and observes the events that occur through a spoiler’s eyes, Tom is constantly unsure of what will happen next. The differing but parallel vantage points allow both Bible-buffs and the Bible-ignorant to be engaged readers.
At least one of the characters in every time period in this story is troubled by the same band of demons, know as “Legion,” who jumps from one victim to the next. Legion weaves in and out of the story, at various times possessing a role in the actions of the characters, from the lawless Zambian men who “murder” Megan, to the biblical troubles of Samuel, a man who is sentenced to death by the Romans for some recent strange behavior, to the bootlicking toady researcher, Spencer, who attempts to turn the scientists’ urgent travels into a ladder-stepping career move for himself. Robinson illustrates Legion creatively by writing Legion’s dialog as that of a gaggle of arguing demons competing for speaking-time in whatever body they are possessing at the moment.
The romance between David and Sally, his hard-ass boss, could have been cut out of the story all together. It would have been nice to get to know more about Megan, Tom’s first wife, and the catalyst for all adventure travels in this book, but Robinson is interested in keeping the reader’s heart rate up and there just is no time for that kind of “warm-up” development.
Some nice touches: Robinson’s descriptions of the un-potable water in ancient times and the citizens’ obvious preference for wine. The health of a diet without preservatives, along with plenty of walking, eventually finds the two middle-aged men in the best shape of their lives! But the characters still crave their modern American diet, and make occasional trips back to their present time to consume American beer and BBQ at their favorite desert haunt.
Didymus is an entertaining, thought provoking work that encourages the reader to think about the affect that some individuals have on the world, and the importance of religion, whether you possess faith in it or not, on every life and culture. The writing is exciting, though there are a few mistakes in the text (This was Robinson’s first published book.), but overall, this is an entertaining, enlightening read, one that readers will no doubt compare quite favorably to Michael Crichton’s classic tech-thrillers.
The book is also available in a variety of others editions on Amazon.
Coming Soon
01/03/09 18:00 Filed in: Fiction
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Gaining readers for the writer's who really deserve them!
If you would like to have your book reviewed by Digital Dust Jacket, please send an email to
crypticbindings at gmail dot com
with the subject line "DIGITAL DUST JACKET TITLE SUBMISSION" and we'll contact you for further information on your book and directions on where to mail a reader's copy. We can't guarantee that a submitted book will be reviewed, but we'll do our best to highlight the titles that grab our interest.