The Clone Alliance is out and The Clone Elite nears completion

Yesterday afternoon I got a call from Amber Libenson--a family friend with whom I grew up in Hawaii. She called to say that while she was at the Barnes and Noble store in Kahala Mall, she spotted a copy of The Clone Alliance. That was how I found out the book was out.

This morning I got an email from Trevor, another long time friend from my days in Hawaii Kai. He had a copy of my book as well. How you guys found out the book was out before me is beyond me, but thanks!

So that is the big news today--The Clone Alliance is on store shelves. I truly hope you enjoy the book.

The Clone Elite is almost completed as well. I have 100 pages left to proof read and clean for my editor, the lovely and talented Anne Sowards, and then it will be turned in. Due dae: November 1, 2007.

Of course, after that Anne will make changes. There will be two more drafts for me to read and correct, but that is part of the fun.

And Now For Something Completely Different

I have taken a stab at writing something for kids. Here is the introduction. Have a read, and if you feel like it, please let me know what you think.

Steven L. Kent

MELANIE MEDUSA

INTRODUCTION
THE GIRL IN THE BOOTH

Nobody ever saw Melanie Melissa Madison come to class or leave from school. No one saw her in class, either. By the time Mrs. Bingley’s first period English class began, Melanie Melissa was already sitting behind a desk surrounded by tall white screens. While other students walked from one room to the next between classes, Melanie Melissa stayed in her little screen booth and the teachers came to her. During second period, Mrs. Bingley’s English room became Mr. Shoehorn’s math class. In third period, Mr. Butterfield taught U.S. history in that room. And so it went, six classes per day, five days per week. At the end of the day, Mrs. Bingley returned. She used the class as her homeroom; but the students did not think of it as Mrs. Bingley’s room.
We knew it for what it was—Melanie Melissa’s room.

The screens around the mystery girl’s desk were eight feet tall. They stopped one foot shy of the ceiling. You could not peek through the corners of the booth—someone had wrapped white cloth all the way around the booth, sealing the interior from view. The only opening was a door which Melanie Melissa latched from the inside so that no one could walk in on her—by accident or on purpose.

The girl did not change rooms between classes. She never went to the bathroom or left for a drink of water. If she ate lunch at all, she ate in her little booth. I would not have believed she was there, except I heard her.

I had English, math, and history classes with her. During English and math, I sat right beside her. Sometimes I heard her wheezing as if it was hard for her to breathe. I heard the yawning creak her desk made when she opened it. I heard her chair scrape along the floor when she moved. Also, sometimes, I heard her crying. She didn’t sob, she made a soft sniffing and hissing noise.

Mostly I heard her when she answered questions that no one else could answer. Mr. Butterfield would ask a question like: “Who was the 13th president of the United States?” or Mrs. Bingley might ask, “What was the meaning of the scarf in Red Scarf Girl?” The rest of the class would go quiet for several seconds, then a soft voice would come from behind the screens. “I think I know. Is it Millard Fillmore?” or “Mrs. Bingley, did it represent Chairman Mao’s power?”

She was always right.

I had only moved to Coldfield that summer, so I didn’t know too many people. My first friend was a kid named David Smith, the class clown. David’s father was Mr. Smith—the school principal. Mr. Smith ran a tight ship and David did everything he could within reason to sink that ship. More than anything else, I think he just wanted to show that he was cooler than his dad. I lived on the same street as the Smith’s and I knew David’s secret—he really loved his father. Barely a weekend went by when David and his father didn’t go camping and fishing and hiking together.

The first day of school, I asked David about Melanie Melissa and the reason she sat in that booth. David, who had been in the same class as her since first grade, said that she was not a girl or even a person. “She’s some kind of computer experiment,” he said. “Think about her name. Melanie Melissa Madison? It’s three Ms, dude, just like the computer company… 3M. She might be some kind of robot, or maybe she’s some kind of experimental device that broadcasts brain signals to make us smarter.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, thinking that if she was broadcasting signals that made us smarter, those signals weren’t having much effect on David. The 3M Company made Scotch Tape, not computers. It’s no use pointing out the facts to David once he makes up his mind.
As the weeks passed, I heard other stories about Melanie Melissa. Some of the kids said that she had no face, just muscles and veins stretched along her naked skull. Another story was that Melanie Melissa’s body was gone and all that sat in the booth was a brain in a jar, and that the voice we heard was some kind of synthesizer reading her brainwaves. That did not explain how she moved her seat and opened her desk, but I knew kids who still believed it.

Sometimes I wondered if David had it half right. Maybe Melanie Melissa was an experiment in brain signal broadcasting, but the signal she sent must have made students dumber. That might explain why so many of the kids around Coldfield Middle School spread such stupid gossip.

The Melanie Melissa rumor that made the most sense was that she was grotesquely deformed at birth. One version of the story was that she was so ugly that her parents asked the school to hide her behind the screens to stop people from making fun of her. If that was true, it didn’t work. The kids at school told all kinds of jokes about her. When we started studying the myths and legends of ancient Greece in Mrs. Bingley’s English class, the kids began calling her “Melanie Medusa.”

In Greek mythology, Medusa was a monster woman with snakes for hair. She was so ugly that anyone who looked at her turned to stone. I did not join in on those jokes. Maybe it was because I was new in Coldfield and I did not have many friends. I’d like to think that I just knew ganging up on someone was wrong. For some reason, I felt bad for Melanie Melissa.

I didn’t make fun of Melanie Melissa; and when I heard other people doing, it pissed me off.

Elite and Alliance

I confess, I am one of the world's worst bloggers. I look at John Scalzi who writes one excellent book after another and manages to run a truly happening blog and I have no idea how he crams so much work into every day. The same is true of Orson Scott Card. I think he has published four or five novels in the time I have published my three, and his blog is always up to date.

Since last I wrote, I finished The Clone Elite, the final installment in the Clone Republic series. This may or may not be the last we see of the Unified Authority. I think you, my friends, will have some say in that. If Harris gets a warm enough reception, I will certainly find ways to revisit the Unified Authority.

In the meantime, The Clone Alliance comes out in 19 days. I hope you will enjoy it.

Die Hard Fas asked for advice about getting started

Die Hard Fan,

I am glad you are enjoying the books. They are fun to write, and I am always glad to hear people enjoy reading them as well.
You asked about tips for getting started writing science fictions, and I do have some tips, though I have given them out enough that they may sound cliché.
My first tip is to read "On Writing" by Stephen King. I will not say that this book contains everything you need for a brilliant and financially rewarding career. I will say that I learned more about writing from this book than from any class I ever took, and I took many classes in creative writing from many fine professors.
College professors tend to look down their noses on writers like Stephen King. They want you to be Updike or maybe Carver. Those are fine writers, but for those of us who watch James Bond movies, play video games, and get acrophobic when approaching the cloudy heights of academia, King's advice may be more applicable.
From 1986-1988, I worked my wife through school as a telemarketer. Yes, I may well have been the jerk that called your father away from the dinner table to renew his subscription to TV Guide.
If I know much about producing good dialog, something my critics might debate, I learned it working as a telemarketer. That said, telemarketing was much easier 20 years ago. Back then people were as curious about how you got their number as they were angry at you for calling. Telemarketing was new back then.
I hate to admit it, but I am as rude to telemarketers as the next guy these days, there are just too many calls. Still, finding a job that encourages you to hear how people speak might be very useful.
I also want to stress getting an agent. You simply need one in this day and age.
Anything else I can tell you will be better explained by Mr. King in his book. I confess, I was unable to write a marketable book before reading "On Writing." I won't say I am batting 1,000 today, but I have sold four books.
I hope this is helpful for you, and I do encourage you to write, write, write.

Steven L. Kent