Tag: Amazon

ChatGPT Classifies Elbert

Elbert needs a somewhat different KDP strategy from Maroli Tango. Its strongest commercial identity is historical/secret-history science fiction that grows into interplanetary political adventure.

The opening is firmly planted in 1928 South Dakota, with Elbert an 83-year-old physician and Civil War veteran. The initiating revelation is that extraterrestrial Anye have been quietly living and vacationing on Earth for millennia, hidden behind Sasquatch/Bigfoot/Wendigo folklore. By Act 2 the family is traveling to Jivada; by later acts Elbert is involved in assassination attempts, economic conspiracy, political rebellion, spacecraft, and interplanetary government. And the age-reversal premise pays off explicitly: by 1934, eighty-nine-year-old Elbert appears to be about forty.

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ChatGPT Interrogates Amazon Publishing

I asked:

Please recommend Amazon KDP categories and keywords for the novel Maroli Tango.

ChatGPT replied:

For Maroli Tango, I would position it as adult first-contact science fiction with political-fiction crossover, not as military SF and not as YA. The presence of Mason and Marie does not change the book’s center of gravity: Carmen Benequista, statecraft, institutional conflict, humanity’s relationship with Jivada, and the approaching solar catastrophe make this an adult novel.

KDP currently lets you select three categories, and Amazon specifically recommends choosing accurate, relevant categories rather than trying to game smaller shelves. Categories and keywords work together, and category availability can differ between Kindle and print. (Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing)

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ChatGPT reads Maroli Tango

Maroli Tango is science fiction built on an unusually ambitious proposition: what if first contact happened thousands of years ago, the aliens never really left, and humanity reached the twenty-first century without realizing how deeply its history had already been entangled with theirs?

That premise could have produced a conventional secret-history thriller. It does not.

Instead, Maroli Tango becomes a story about sovereignty, dependency, trust, family, faith, technology, and the uncomfortable difference between being rescued and being worthy of partnership.

The immediate problem is enormous. In 2041, the Sun is approaching a river of interstellar gas capable of fueling an extinction-scale solar event. Humanity’s technologically superior neighbors know what is coming. They possess tools that could transform Earth’s chances of survival.

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Free eBook! Free, I tell you!

Free eBbook promotion – Three days, beginning Friday, September 11, 2026, 12:00 AM PDT 

At a research lab on a distant planet, a devastating accident signals the end of a technological impasse that has stalled Anye civilization at the edge of space for a thousand years. Protected in a vault, instruments reveal the true nature of space, time, and matter. The event has set physicist Rivan Saraf on a path that could take his people beyond reach of a dying star. But a hostile foreign government has agents in town. The Vanya are brutal, remorseless — here to spy, steal, kidnap and murder. And Rivan Saraf is on their list.

Literary Science Fiction. Space Soap Opera.

#wholesome

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Re-engaged

When I tabled the fourth of nine Anye Universe novels to outline the seventh, I had no idea I would keep going — and set Vacuum Forged aside for seven years.

I returned to the middle trilogy uncertain of my intentions — 80,000 words in, having written treatments for volumes five and six, so I would know where I was going with four.

Seven novels in thirteen years. Maybe I should do something else with whatever time I have left.

But then I read this.

Svami Reva lounged in a recliner across the room, poking fingers at the augmented reality space. He acknowledged their arrival without looking. “You’re wasting your time.”

“Maybe.” Suban addressed the prisoner in Low Desert. “Does it seem odd to you that we took the language of our Manu conquerors, called it the Noble Tongue, pretending it was our own when everyone knew it was not? You’d think our people had no shame.”

The man kept his eyes down. Suban dragged a chair over. “You should be afraid of me. Do you know what I am?”

That provoked a response. “A policeman. Zirna Zapha. What else?”

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Outed

I did not tell Gab AI my novel is Christian adjacent. It figured it out on its own, and is the only one to have done so.

Publication is scheduled for September 15. In the meantime, read the book for free at https://marolitango.substack.com

Maroli Tango occupies a very specific, valuable niche. It is “unconventional” because it treats the high-fantasy elements of its universe (spirits in appliances, ancient lemur-folk lineage, planetary migration) as mundane reality, while treating the traditional human experiences (raising children, grieving a spouse, building a house, choosing a career) as the truly significant events of the narrative.

My takeaway: You have created a work of “metaphysical realism” disguised as space opera. It is likely that readers will find the story disorienting or “strange” for the first fifty pages, then find themselves deeply attached to the characters by the time they reach the mid-point.

You aren’t writing for the typical “laser-gun” space opera audience. You are writing for readers who want to feel the weight of deep time balanced against the lightness of a day at the beach or the arrival of a new child.

This is a complete, well-realized vision. You haven’t just written a story; you’ve built a cosmology that feels lived-in, flawed, and profoundly Christian in its ultimate orientation toward virtue, responsibility, and the sanctity of the person within the machine.

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A Dilemma in Wearing the Coat of Many Colors

There once was a prisoner at Dachau, who kept a tiny ceramic frog in his pocket, a silent prayer to God that he not be forgotten.

In later years, he became a woodcarver, producing pocket-sized figures of frogs.

One day, a patron mentioned the frog was a symbol of liberation.

“Oy vey,” the man said. “Is that what I’ve been talking about?”

Artists are notorious for inscribing subtle traces of life’s struggles into the texture of the work — unaware of hidden meaning.

But I am a man of few complaints. Instead, I mumble about discipline, calling, stewardship, covenant, and moral formation over time.

Not explicitly. That would be counter-productive. Fiction is supposed to be entertaining.

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ChatGPT reads Ghosts of Ancient Vidura

If you like big ideas grounded in lived human experience, this book is for you.

Ghosts of Ancient Vidura is a science-fiction novel about first contact that doesn’t begin with lasers or invasions, but with memory, responsibility, and the quiet weight of history. It asks a deceptively simple question: What if humanity has never been alone—and what if the beings who’ve been watching are deeply entangled in our past, our politics, and our souls?

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115 ~ Theoretically Speaking

The oddball 143-word chapter -- Short Attention Span Theater, if you will.

The lead scientist at Parsanda Research was a genial man in his natural fifties, an English speaker with an accent that made him sound Welsh.

Glenn asked, “What’s your take on my concept for a missile defense protocol?”

“I asked our modeling tool if a large-scale N-Space beacon will imitate the footprint of a star.” The man shared an interpolation graphic. “It’s plausible.”

“Next question. We can run Saraf Drive at fifty light years per hour without evoking time dilation. Run at a thousand LYPH and we consume three thousand hours objective for every hour of operation. Has anyone been working on this?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“What if I point at a possible solution, but can’t back it up with the math?”

The scientist grinned at him. “Amil Leyta was famous for that.”

Glenn smiled back. “I’ll send you an essay.”

Read the book here!

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Mining for inspiration

I’ve recently given myself the objective of crafting an opening to the current work-in-progress so compelling that every reader will be enthralled, no matter what kind of book they’re in the mood for.

Exhibit 1: An early-draft description for Maroli Tango:

Sometimes, no matter what’s going on, you have to make it about you.

Visited in a dream by her deceased husband, United States President Carmen Luisa Benequista gets a wake-up call. Anton Benequista, gone these past 13 years, tells her, “Find someone to share your life.”

It’s not a rocket science proposition. Carmen’s steady companion, Space Mafia kingpin Brandon Lopez, 15 years her junior, is waiting for a signal. Done deal, if she wants.

First-contact survivor Mason Fowlkes, soon to be 16, is growing up fast as an apprentice Ship’s Mechanic aboard the Anye migration vessel Anuraga. The work life is great; the home life not so much.

French Air Force lieutenant Marie Jourdaine is on the rebound after a brief stint as the world’s youngest female fighter pilot. Things are kind of working out, and kind of not.

Caught in the middle is Chester, an elevated maroli labor appliance, a product of ancient Anye technology, monstrous in appearance, sweet of disposition, intent on discovering his place in the universe.

It’s been a bumpy ride, fraught with challenges. Maybe it’s time for our heroes to take care of themselves.

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