Today I am delighted to kick off the John Smith Tour!

About Roland Hughes:

Roland Hughes is the president ofLogikal Solutions, a business applications consulting firm specializing in VMS platforms. Hughes serves as a lead consultant with over two decades of experience using computers and operating systems originally created by Digital Equipment Corporation (now owned by Hewlett-Packard).

He is the recipient of the 2008 Best Books Award Winner in the category Business: Computers/Technology/Internet for his book, ” The Minimum You Need to Know About Service Oriented Architecture” and a 2009 Finalist Eric Hoffer Awards.

Website: http://www.johnsmith-book.com

Please welcome the author, Roland Hughs to Teddyrose Book Reviews!

Earth That Was 

As a fan of science fiction and to some extend dystopian fiction the concept of “Earth that was” is something I’ve been exposed to most of my reading and viewing life.  During my childhood years Star Trek re-runs occupied much of my viewing.  It wasn’t until much later in life that I learned why so many adults of that era watched it.  I wasn’t old enough to understand this “peace and love” the flower children talked about or why it was so important to them.  Later, in one of those anniversary specials I heard someone commenting about the time of “duck and cover” exercises I vaguely remembered.  This got my attention.  During that interview the person went on to say most people of that time old enough to understand the world around them honestly believed Russia and the United States of America were poised to nuke each other out of existence taking much of the world with them.  Star Trek, in their opinion, reached such a massive fan base because it presented hope.  A small hope that the human race would somehow survive this great storm and on the other side peoples of all nationalities would be flying around space in tin cans relying on each other, not some fuzzily defined an inaccessible “government,” but each other.

While there are many examples of successful dystopian works which focus on the darker side of survival, the ones which really reach people seem to focus on one word, hope.  “The Handmaid’s Tale,” while rather captivating to watch, tends to focus on the darkness with only a thin thread of hope.  By contrast, Kevin Costner’s “The Postman” tends to focus more on that universal story about how a bad man can do a very good thing, however inadvertently.  One thing seems universally true, people will cling to hope beyond all reason.  By some accounts hope was the most evil thing released from Pandora’s box as it makes humans endure untold amounts of suffering when lesser species simply give up.

I didn’t set out to write dystopian fiction.  In truth I didn’t set out to write fiction.  All of my early work was in the realm of “geek books” for computer programmers and those who manage them.  It was natural since that was my chosen profession.  Reading, and in this case, advertising, really can change a person’s mind.  I have subscribed to “the Writer” magazine for some time now.  There seemed to regularly be an ad in it from a company making novelty products for writers.  One of the products was a T-shirt with a phrase like “Be careful or you will end up in my novel” on it.  Truer words were never spoken.

This ad was seen during the time when the push to off-shore IT jobs and data centers had turned into a landslide.  The economy was poised for tanking and nobody was doing anything to fix it.  Then fate dealt a card.  Fate always deals such interesting cards, most of them don’t even seem to come from the deck.  Someone at Citi Bank honked me off.  The collision of all these things resulted in not only Citi losing another customer, but a novel, “Infinite Exposure.”  Many of you may be shocked, outraged, or victims of the recent mega identity theft in the news.  At least given the last count I heard roughly 60 million of you should be.  That theft was a drop in the bucket compared to what is coming.  Read “Infinite Exposure” not only to find out the what, why, and how of it, but so you can begin thinking about how to best protect yourself and family from it.

If a novel or book series reaches a person it leaves them not just wanting more, but a specific more they can put into words.  Some of them become bold enough to send these questions/requests to the author.  When you are a technical worker whose career has been considering and planning for the most outlandish of “what if” scenarios, these questions percolate in your mind.  Eventually they find a person who knows the answer and that person refuses to leave your mind until you write their story down.

What many readers don’t understand about writers is that it is not “our” story.  For most of us the character decides to tell their story and we are little more than stenographers in the room.  Yes, we do research, but in many cases we know not why.  These characters live inside of us for some amount of time.  If the character needs information to fill in the gaps they find ways of making us do that research for them.  While that may sound which needs lots of drugs and therapy to get rid of, you have all had it happen to you in varying degrees.  It’s that search you did on the Internet not knowing why.  The link you clicked on a whim.  The documentary you watched claiming there was “nothing else on” though you had hundreds of channels to choose from.

John Smith was the character who claimed to have the answers, not to the questions being asked, but the questions which needed asking.  He needed someone to hear his story and Susan Krowley stepped forward to listen.  If you’ve ever wondered “what if” you should step forward too.

Thanks so much for that Roland!  I am really looking forward to Reading John Smith!  Hey everyone, watch for my review on March 21st!

Description of John Smith: Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars:

Publisher: Logikal Solutions, May 30, 2013
ISBN-13: 978-1-939732-00-2
Category: Dystopian, Science Fiction
Tour Dates: January, 2014
Available in: Print, ebook & Audio, 272 pages

What if the Mayans got the start of the end correct because they had survived it once before? What if our written history was just as accurate as the old tale about three blind men describing an elephant? What if classic science fiction writing and television shows each got a piece of it correct, would you know which ones? If your eyes can only see a tiny portion of a collage do you know it is a collage?

Many might jump to the knee-jerk assumption that this book is a sequel to “Infinite Exposure” but they would be wrong.  This book does occur after that book and will make reference to the outcome of the prior book, but it is definitely not a sequel.

“John Smith” ties together Atlantis, cell phones, the Mayans, God, the Egyptians, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”, and the outcome of the terrorist attack yet to come all in the form of an interview between the last known survivor of the war and a reporter for the largest newspaper of its day, serving 5000 people twice monthly.

During the course of this interview the reporter and reader will learn what did and did not survive, both this time and the previous times.  Throughout the course of this interview both blatant and subtle nods are made to such works as “1984”, “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”, “Peter Pan”, “Battlestar Galactica” (the new one), “Star Trek TNG”, and “Babylon 5” because one must both acknowledge greatness and build on what the fans already know.

To steal a line from the Rolling Stones, “but what was-in you is the nature of this game.”  When one finishes reading this book they should fall into exactly two categories:  The morally offended and those who sit around for days questioning their beliefs and the true meaning of life.

The book should be incredibly easy for an organization like the SyFy channel to turn into a film or made for TV movie, interspersing clips from old movies and shows, with or without sound, where their topics are being discussed and where they are being directly referenced.

Buy John Smith: Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars:

Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Kobo

Thanks to Roland Hughes, I am giving away one copy of John Smith.  This giveaway is open internationally.  If the winner is in the U.S. or Canada, there is the choice of print or ebook.  An international winner will receive ebook.  Please use Rafflecopter to enter.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Follow the Tour:

So Many Precious Books Mar 3 Guest Post & Giveaway
Serendipity Mar 3 Review
Voracious Reader Mar 6 Review
Reading for Sanity Mar 7 Review
Sweeps4Bloggers Mar 10 Valerie Review & Giveaway
Joystory Mar 11 Review
Readers Muse Mar 12 Review
Readers Muse Mar 13 Guest Post
My Readers Block Mar 17 Review
Cassandra M’s Place Mar 18 Review & Giveaway
Tracy Riva Mar 20 Review
Tracy Riva Mar 21 Interview
So Many Precious Books Mar 21 Review