Books Worth Reading
Create image for chapter illustration. Carmen and Marie having a heart to heart talk in the galley section of a motor-home-size spaceship.
can you make the ladies seem more cheerful
that's too cheerful. try to strike a balance
Close enough! Read the chapter here!
Following a series of chats with three artificial intelligence engines on the topic of whether my current novel-in-progress is worth reading, I asked where the hook is — a reasonable question at this juncture because …
On one hand, it’s too early to draw conclusions — the serial novel experiment has not attracted enough readers for statistical evaluation. On the other hand, I want readers to keep reading, right now.
Anyway, I had been feeding chapters to ChatGPT, ClaudeAI, and Grok for two weeks. Yesterday I asked, “Where’s the hook”, and all three said “Chapter 97”.
It’s not a disaster — I can move 97-100 to the beginning of the book and rope-a-dope the reader with a “Two months earlier …” gimmick. It’s legit. Famous authors do it all the time.
But just to be sure, I uploaded the entire manuscript and asked the question again.
NOW, ChatGPT and ClaudeAI say the book is perfect the way it is. Grok, however, is sticking to its guns.
If you don’t mind, vote now! See Chapter 1 + on Substack here.
Chapter 97 follows.Continue reading “The Hook in the Book, or Lack Thereof”
From Maroli Tango ~ A Serial Novel ~ On Substack
https://marolitango.substack.com/
Vasa State Wilderness Preserve, Northern Reach
The west coast of Jivada’s large continent from Pulina Nava south was fifth-pass reclaimed land mass, less than 5,000 years old.
In contrast, much of the Northern Reach was nearly as old as the Anye migration’s arrival in-system. There, California redwood trees poked at the sky, branches laden with eagle nests, roots drilled into manufactured soil that was, even given an extra 20,000 years, barely knit together well enough to support them.
Which was why Jivada was buying all its lumber on Earth, and a good reason not to park your space yacht next to a tall tree on a windy day.
Continue reading “On Ziva Lake”
Motivated by belated news of my brother’s passing, a cousin who I have not seen in 20 years tracked me down via LinkedIn, a rare benefit of my participation on that platform, but here we are on the first paragraph and already I digress.
That’s what reconnecting with distant family is all about, isn’t it. Lots of digressing, an exchange of photographs, an opportunity to re-tell stories to folks who haven’t heard them before.
I learned that one of my relations was a figure in the The Tri-State Crematory scandal in Noble, Georgia in 2002, and immediately thought, “Oh, no. Aunt Alice was an embezzler” only to find out she was an improperly disposed corpse, which might be a better tale, depending on the audience.
Cousins Joan and Jean ordered one of my novels, which they promised to read. We started planning a get-together in Texas. Jean says I can have an heirloom coffee table, built by my natural father, who died when I was a baby.
I’m up at 4:00 AM with Bruno, who acted like he needed to go out. We went downstairs, after which he showed zero interest in making a wee-wee.
He’s sitting on my feet. I’m grateful. I have family.
John Dyer Writes 
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