Some nice new reviews for Tube Riders

Just like all writers, I love getting (nice) reviews.

Tube Riders had been a bit of a review black hole since June, but since the sampler of part one went perma-free at the beginning of September I've had a small clutch of them.

Tami H said -

This book had me reading until the sun came up and even then I did not want to put this book down. Amazing plot with new twists every five pages I would recommend this book to anyone

(five stars)

Margaret Falcon said -

I highly recommend this book. The characters are engaging and dynamic. The story line as lots of twists and turns. Very good read!

(five stars)

Everyones acritic said -

I gave this book 4 stars because it was original, entertaining to read, and gave me a new way to ride the subway! Crazy kids...they'll try anything just because the world is ending!

(four stars)

and Greg Strandberg posted one on the sampler itself -

 This book grabbed me right away with the fast and action-packed train sequence in the beginning. The dialogue and character interactions kept things moving after that. It's clear that Ward likes to put some off-putting dialogue to work, which adds a gritty realism to the world he's created. Looks like a good start to a fun series!

(four stars)


You guys are all awesome. Thanks so much.

I don't usually post anything about reviews because they're not for me but for other readers, and I believe that all readers are entitled to their opinion, good or bad. Provided the review is fair (and actually about my book) then I welcome all and any. Sometimes, though, on bad days when the books aren't selling, a few nice reviews can really cheer you up.

If anyone's wondering, I'm editing Exile. About halfway at the moment. Still hoping to have both Exile and Revenge out by Xmas. This weekend I spent Saturday cutting rice and Sunday concreting, so unfortunately I have a busy "real" life, but I'm doing my best. Bear with me!

Don't forget to sign up to the mailing list above to make sure you know as soon as the next book is out.

Chris Ward
September 29th 2013

Wool by Hugh Howey - My Review

Setting the world alight right now is this dystopian masterwork by indie turned international literary star Hugh Howey. Just like grunge and Brit pop, I got interested at the tail end of things, getting around to reading it long after everyone else had finished it and moved on. Next up, Harry Potter.

Mucking about aside, this was a fine read. I don't really know the history of its publication beyond that it was originally an indie novella that went interstellar and spawned four more novellas to continue the story, putting Hugh Howey on the map and no doubt making him a fortune in the process. Apparently it's on Ridley Scott's desk. I'd probably fork out for a ticket to see it.

While it was separated into five sections, it felt like three stories to me. Part one, Holston, tells the story of a disillusioned sheriff a few hundred years into the future who lives in this vast subterranean silo with five thousand other people. His wife has been put to "cleaning", meaning she committed a crime and was sent outside into the toxic air in a kind of space suit to slowly die. Like everyone else sent to cleaning before her, his wife wiped clean the little video cameras that show a view of the outside world. She said she wasn't going to, but she did. Holston wants to know why.

I thought Part One was really good. Holston was an interesting character and the slow mystery of his surroundings was very intriguing.

Part Two, Proper Gauge, focused on his superior, Mayor Jahns, as she travelled into the "down deep", the area at the very bottom of the silo, to look for (highlight to see spoiler) a new sheriff. I didn't find this part nearly as interesting. It was basically a visual exploration of the silo through Jahns' eyes. Not a lot happened until the last couple of chapters.

Parts Three, Four and Five felt like the main story. They concerned Juliette, the new sheriff, who was quickly put to cleaning for a vague crime to stop her getting too deep into the secrets of the silo and the world outside. Juliette, however, manages to break the chain of all the cleaners before her and (spoiler) survives.

The rest of the book centres around what happens to Juliette outside while inside the silo two rival factions clash.

Essentially Wool is a mystery story, as a group of characters try to discover the truth about their world and the secrets that have been hidden from them. It gets really good once Juliette gets outside, and we begin to discover what's going on. There were lots of little reveals to keep you interested and it was expertly done.

There were a few things that bothered me a little. I found the naivety of some of the characters trapped inside the silo to be a little far-fetched during the uprising. They just kind of walked into battle without any real plan. Also, of a silo full of thousands of people, only a few seemed to be involved.

There were one or two other plot holes, not least when Lukas received a strange radio transmission which appeared to have nothing to do with what was actually going on with Juliette, and the ending was way too upbeat. It fitted with the story but it felt a little off compared to the dark tone of the rest of the story.

Juliette was an excellent character and her story would make a good movie. Holston and Jahns were pretty much forgotten about by the end, and I think in any kind of adapation you could keep Holston in one of those little prologue segments while dropping Jahns altogether and getting to the meat of the story.

Overall I enjoyed this book a lot and would probably read the sequel. It was well written throughout and Howey had some really nice turns of phrase, particularly early on in the book. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes dystopian fiction.

Chris Ward
24th June 2013

The Road by Cormac McCarthy - My Review

If ever there was a book written for analysis in schools and universities then this is it. The Road is a bleak, desolate portrayal of one man's struggle in a post-apocalyptic world to protect his son.

In terms of plot, not a great deal actually happens. The man and the boy (they have no names) make their way slowly towards the coast for no apparent reason. Along the way they trust their luck to find food while avoiding bands of cannibals and other thieves looking to either rob them or eat them. We don't really know what happened, as it is never explained, but they live in a world where ash covers everything and nothing grows. The landscape is almost totally grey, and it is almost always either raining or snowing. The man is getting gradually sicker and sicker from some kind of lung problem, while the boy needs repeated convincing that they are the "good guys" who "carry the fire".

They meet several people along the way, from terrifying cannibals to desperate thieves and people who have given up just waiting for death to take them. The whole time the man forces them onwards, moving on even when they find places they could potentially hole up for a while, because nowhere is safe accept possibly the coast. He is resolute and resourceful but more than anything he burns with love for his son. He will not give up like the rest of humanity seems to have. He will do whatever it takes to keep his son alive.

This is a novel that will divide opinion. It is not beach reading nor action packed nor a thriller. It is bleak, miserable, at times frustrating and confusing. There's no romance. There's no happy ending (depending on how you analyse it). It's simply a powerful novel about love and struggle that also serves as a warning to mankind. So many dystopian-type books are utterly unrealistic, but The Road, in the same way as 1984, shows a future that is actually possible. There are powerful people around the world right now whose fingers hover over a button which could condemn us to the kind of struggle seen in The Road. It's a sobering thought.

A lot of the criticism of this book that I've seen concerns the writing style. I sometimes think that a lot of readers really can't handle anything more complicated that what they can find on the rack in the giftshop next to an airport boarding gate. There are no speech marks and rarely apostrophes for contractions. And the problem is ...? Who really cares whether he writes "didn't" or "didnt"? And it is never, at any point, difficult to tell when someone is speaking nor who is speaking. The effect is hypnotic. It gives the whole novel a dreamy - make that nightmarish - quality. People that can't read a book that has no speech marks should try reading something that is actually difficult to read, like this. Danielewski's House of Leaves makes The Road look like Spot Goes to Town. The kind of reader who doesn't understand everything that this book represents is exactly the type of person who should read it.

Same goes with the grammar. I've read a lot of reviews that complain about it being hard to read. McCarthy does stuff like put adjectives in the wrong place or link five or six clauses with "and". This is a guy who won a Pulitzer Prize for literature. Every single word in this book is in it's place because he chose to put it there. As someone who writes vastly inferior books to this it is something to be treasured, because every line is something to learn from. And really, it's not very hard to read at all, nor is it frustrating. I found it fascinating.

A lot of people are going to hate this book. I had my own frustrations with it - mainly not knowing what caused the world to turn into a burned wasteland, while the ending will divide opinion - but it is not always about what is said but what is not said, or what is implied. The Road isn't a book that is going to make you happy, it's a book that will likely haunt you. However, a little dark makes the light so much brighter, and we could all do with a little haunting sometimes.

A bleak, chilling masterpiece. And the film is damn good too.

Chris Ward

25th March 2012

The Passage - Justin Cronin (book review)

I just finished reading this book, which was recommended to me by a friend.

The Passage was an exceptionally written book which really transcends the whole virus-ends-the-world story and stands head and shoulders above anything else I've read in the genre. It's basically Stephen King's The Stand plus vampires as written by Michael Critchton. It's deep, layered, involving, and had enough plot twists (particularly near the end) to set it apart from the conventional storyline in these kind of books.

Click for Amazon page

A lot of reviewers have complained that there are too many characters. There are, and I almost docked it a star because of it.  Cronin has a habit of explaining many major events from multiple viewpoints, and while this can work, over such a long book it became a little wearing. A lot of characters, particularly those in the Colony, were entirely surplus to requirements. You invest an interest in a character or a group of characters only to have them die off screen. I understood that Cronin was going for a realistic world view and he completely achieved it, but there were instances where I found myself scowling at the screen, right up to the last chapter. However, it was obvious early on that you should never assume anyone is dead until you've seen their body in the ground.

There were a few things that I was dubious about, for example after a hundred years would canned food still be edible? Or, judging by my own clothing after just four or five years, would stuff just lying around in shops not just fall apart the moment you pulled it on? However, the depth of Cronin's research was obvious so I'll just trust him on it, and enjoy the story for what it was.

The virals, I have to say, were awesome. Insect-like vampires with more in common with I Am Legend than Dracula, they were frightening and deadly. And Babcock has to be the coolest uncool name for a vampire ever.

If you like vampire apocalypse type books you will love this. However, it's a massive time and emotional investment. I read the entire Hunger Games trilogy in half the time it took me to read this one book, and while I enjoyed that series, in comparison to The Passage it was like some kiddie playground sandbox stuff.  This is a big, bad, hardcore apocalypse novel for adults. I will definitely be reading the second book in the series but I'm going to take a break now and read some lighter stuff because it left me emotionally drained.

Overall, an excellent book, if extremely long.

Last thing - apparently Ridley Scott has optioned the movie rights, which is great news. I'd be at the cinema in a second if this came out as a movie. However, it's so damn long than I think it would work far better as a TV series.

Easy five out of five.

C.W. March 5th 2013

Beat Down 3 - Badassaur now available

I'd just like to give a big up to my nine-foot tall alter-ego, the most badass action/comedy writer on the planet, Michael S. Hunter, who released a new novella today.  Entited Badassaur!, it's possibly his finest book yet, with more bizarre twists and turns in the name of awesomeness than you can poke a whole DIY store's worth of sticks at.  It rocks, it's badass, and it's just $1.49.

Michael also his his own blog at http://beatdownonline.blogspot.jp/ where you can go and hang out.

CW

7th Jan 2012

Great Review for Tube Riders

My first British review for Tube Riders came in and I'm pretty pleased with it.  I've submitted the book to a lot of bloggers but The Future Fire is also a well-respected small press magazine.  After I subbed it there for review back in June I read through a few of their previous reviews.  It became quite apparently that they wouldn't take any crap and would call a spade a spade.  I hear a lot of reviewers giving it the "well, I feel bad if I have to give less than four stars" line and while I understand the desire to be nice on the other hand this keeps a lot of junk afloat when some writers really need to be told, "Sorry, you suck.  Go away for five years and practice and then come back."  As a result, a lot of good books get drowned out by the noise given off by all the crap.

So I was a little nervous.  Would I get a good one, or would I get canned?

Here's what they said -

http://reviews.futurefire.net/2012/09/ward-tube-riders-2012.html

The Tube Riders, written by Chris Ward and available through Amazon Digital Services, is a gritty dystopian novel set in future Britain, known as Mega Britain. Now a corrupt, deliberately isolated and socially devastated island, the government rules oppressively and the poor scavenge for food under a persistent threat of suspicion by the Department of Civil Affairs—almost like an Orwellian Thought Police outfit.

The novel’s focus is a gang known as The Tube Riders. Walled within a devastated London—now called ‘London Greater Urban Area’—the group have developed a high-risk game that involves leaping onto the side of moving trains from underground platforms and hanging on for as long as they can. The head of this gang is Marta, who took over leadership from her missing brother. She is supported by the experienced and friendly Paul, the dangerous yet highly loyal Switch and Simon, who is soon joined by his girlfriend Jess. Part way into the book, Paul’s 12 year-old brother, Owen completes the group. Despite most of the gang being relatively friendly—misfits who desperately try and keep their heads down in the civil dystopia that otherwise envelopes them—The Tube Riders appear to have a notorious reputation which is rarely challenged.

This changes dramatically however when they are betrayed by Dan, who leaves the gang in the first chapter after an argument with Switch. Dan approaches rival gang The Cross Jumpers (who jump across tracks in front of oncoming trains)—and tells them of the underground station where The Tube Riders are located in order to curry favour. The Cross Jumpers, led by the deranged Deggo, move to attack but The Tube Riders manage to escape by jumping onto the side of a train and heading down a tunnel. They jump off in unfamiliar territory, only to witness a brutal crime at the hands of government agents. The Tube Riders, as witnesses, subsequently become wanted individuals. Their survival is threatened further by the Huntsmen, biologically-altered, government-bred killing machines who track their prey like dogs. The story delves into The Tube Riders escape and beyond as they carry devastating evidence, film footage captured on camera, and ultimately seek to expose the corrupt authorities.

The novel, as with any traditional dystopia, is a satirically critical perspective that relates to contemporary society. Mega Britain is a grotesque corporate monstrosity that seems like the result of staunch right-wing capitalism and authorities drunk on maintaining a pedantic level order and control, regardless of costs. The class system is polarised more than ever, the poverty is both stark and foreboding and the iron fisted authority often seems to have it’s roots in contemporary right-wing governmentality. In many ways it’s an even bleaker society than that of Moore’s V for Vendetta, and just as striking in written word than animation.

I enjoy analysing these kind of novels from a feminist perspective and The Tube Riders is an interesting study. The gang leaders Marta and Deggo—both powerful characters in very different ways—make the story interesting in that the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ sides are represented by strong female characters. The sinister government authorities, led by the Governor (think of a very hands-on Prime Minister!) are resoundingly ‘male’ and yet seemingly peripheral to the main character development. It is, by no means, a feminist novel and yet I saw little that differentiated women in a discriminatory way. Society has a distinct phallocentric hegemony and so any perceived sexism is more a factor of the dystopic society, rather than any casual subconscious implication by the author. In many respects the fact that characters are or are not female becomes mostly invisible; you have those which are strong, sensitive, violent, caring and determined—gender is not a label that is associated by default with any. If a reader considers the caring mentality of Paul, the fierce loyalty of Switch and the strength of Marta, such qualities are actually interchangeable regardless of biological sex.

While many dystopian novels export a moral of some kind, a classic message or a political pamphlet of some kind, I felt that The Tube Riders was just a very good adventure story. The pace is as relentless as the trains themselves and the narrative physically throws characters around like puppets. The story is very much a work of popular fiction, a text that takes the reader to the dark and scarily recognisable Mega Britain and yet lets it’s characters shine through brightly in spite of it. It’s perhaps then a tale of raw human determination overcoming adversity more than anything grander.

In conclusion, The Tube Riders is a tense, gritty and enthralling thrill of a dystopian novel, the break-neck speed of which is the kind that refuses to warn you of upcoming bumps and denies you the breath to secure your seat belt. You often feel jolted, shocked and yet sometimes deeply touched by the very humanistic adventure it describes. If you enjoy solid British sci-fi, or like me, are a sucker for terribly bleak yet well written dystopia, the book is a joy to read and something that really does stay with you long after you turn the final page."

I'll take that.  In fact, I'll quite happily take that every time.  It's certainly given me a lot to think about, especially as the sequel is now being written.

Just a shame hardly anyone else as read it, but I can live in hope that with a few more reviews like that people might start to pay attention.

CW

14 Sept 2012

How Much is a Short Story Worth?

How much is a short story worth?

I recently ran a free promotion for my short story, The Cold Pools, giving away 2041 copies in three days after it was picked up by the popular free ebook website Ereader News Today.

A couple of days later I received this comment as part of a generally positive 4-star review:

“This little story is very good and certainly worth borrowing, but not I think given its brevity, paying 99 cents for...”

Don't get me wrong, I was happy to receive the review and pleased that the reader took the time to write it, but it got me thinking.  So, this reviewer doesn’t think my story is worth 99 cents.  In that case, what is it worth? And what is 99 cents worth?

There seems to be a growing attitude that just because something is digital and can't be held in your hand then it has no value.  Hence the proliferation of music/movie/ebook piracy, which is effectively theft from the comfort of one's own home.  I have no problem at all with listening or watching something on Youtube, which I consider to be a form of borrowing, but downloading pirated music or movies is stealing, so I don't do it.  I don't care what other people do, but I know I'd be mighty pissed off if there were 30,000 copies of my writing being passed around without my authorization.


Anyway, back to the main thread, the value of a short story.

At the time of writing, The Cold Pools has sold 8 copies, for each of which I made 35 cents. In addition to this it was originally published in 2009 in an online magazine which paid me $15. I paid $3 for the cover image for the ebook, so currently it breaks down like this –

Paid sales + $15

Amazon sales 8 at 35c = + $2.80

Cover art - $3

Equals $14.80 total profit.

So, not counting the ezine sale, I’m currently making a loss on Cold Pools.

However. 

The reviewer’s concern was that the story wasn’t worth paying 99 cents for. Cold Pools is 3500 words long, which is admittedly short for an ebook, although it was packaged with the first chapter of a novel as a bonus (and not a shameless form of self-promotion, honest ... ;-) ). I write at roughly 1000 words an hour, plus these things always take a couple of hours to edit and format. Even saying it took me six total hours to write Cold Pools (which is probably pretty conservative, it’s likely double that at least) it still works out at a pretty measly hourly wage.

Currently, assuming it took just six hours, I’ve made $2.46 per hour from Cold Pools. I’ve sold 8 copies in three months. Let’s say I sell 1000, which at this stage looks pretty unlikely to happen within twenty years. That would be $350, or $58/hour. Much better, although considering I can easily earn $50/hour teaching English it really isn’t that much.

Moving on, I’d like to consider just what 99 cents is worth. I live in Japan, so I’ve done a conversion in order to investigate. 99 cents is 78 yen, which, frankly, is hardly anything.  We have 100 yen shops for a reason, and that is because very little is valued at less.  With this knowledge in hand, I decided to visit my local 7Eleven to see just what was worth less than my story, and what was worth more.

Here it is, the winner.  My story is worth exactly the same amount as this boiled egg, which comes in a kind of soy sauce and is designed to be put into a bowl of ramen noodles.  Now, I know you get a physical product, whereas my story is just a bunch of words on a screen, but its not like the egg and the packaging it comes in is designed fresh each time - it is just replicated on the production line, just like my story.  You see what I'm getting at?  78 yen is probably worth it for the hours it took someone to design that product, even if the number of potential sales is as many as there are chickens.

This packet of sliced, processed ham is worth slightly less, at 75yen.  It was one of only perhaps four items that actually cost less than my story.  Among the others were a cheap single meal tub of catfood and a single disposable razor.  There wasn't a single chocolate bar that was cheaper than my story.  Believe me, 99 cents is not a lot.

And this bottle of Pom orange juice, at 157yen, is worth almost exactly twice as much as my short story.

Interesting.

I guess it all comes down to how you perceive value.  I welcome all reviews on my work and if people think my writing sucks, then so be it.  It's all up to you.  What does concern me is that a lot of readers don't consider our work to have any value at all.  Do plumbers put in pipes for free?  Do bank managers hand out free mortgages?  Do teachers give free lessons?  Only if they're idiots.

Of course services are products aren't free.  Generally, when something is free it falls into two categories - charity or promotional.  It is the second that directly effects me so I'll focus on that.  Incidentally, on my visit to the 7Eleven I was given this bottle for Lemon Volvic as a service, because I'm pretty much in there every day spending money.

It was a nice gesture, and it was appreciated.  But does it mean that I now expect to get all my bottles of water free every time I go into 7Eleven?  Of course not.  The only point of giving me a free bottle of water was to encourage me to go back and shop there again.  Which of course I will, not just because it is the closest shop to my house but because the staff are nice to me and they stock stuff that I want.  It's no different to when I give my short stories away on Amazon, it's not out of the kindness of my heart, it is with the hope that readers will enjoy them and want to visit my "shop" again.

There are many, many writers out there who are nowhere near as good as me who are making far more money, and there are many far better making even less.  A lot of it comes down to marketing and how good you are at it.  I suck at marketing.  I'm not good at networking.  I'm not particularly prolific at making friends, let alone charismatic enough to make people I meet buy stuff I have written.  I have one novel out at the moment, The Tube Riders.  Everyone who has read it and reviewed it has said it's exciting, original, a great read.  These are not people I have paid or people I know, these are complete strangers.  It's got to the semi-final shortlist of a minor award, and I'm pretty confident it'll make the final five.  It took me three months just to write the first draft, and its currently priced at $2.99, which is less than a 500ml can of beer in my local 7Eleven (beer is pricey in Japan...!).  It's the cost of three boiled eggs, and about half the price of a Starbucks Coffee.  I've sold about 20 copies.  Is it worth this price?  Personally I think it's worth a lot more, but potential customers don't seem to agree.

It is a dangerous world we live in where creative media is considered of less and less value.  Art enriches life, especially good art, and while Amazon in particular is clogged with junk passing itself off as literature, there is still a lot of great writing to be found.  The famous indie writer Joe Konrath talks about a future where the only revenue from ebooks comes from internal advertising, but this is something that fills me with dread.  How far will we go to devalue something that so many people consider an enriching experience?  Something that entertains you or makes you think should have a value, be it music, art, film, literature.  People should be happy to pay for an experience that makes them happy, the same way that they'd pay to go on a rollercoaster or take a parachute jump.

So criticise all you like, but never say my work or the work of all the thousands of other writers, artists, film-makers, musicians and other creative types has no value, because you're wrong, it does.

CW