Grade This Essay!

I’ve been using Grok AI to refine a book description. It’s helpful, but the robot has no appreciation for artistic prose if that is, in fact, what I can call my versions.

Write it for 4th graders, write to the target audience, or write better? What say you, readers and writers?

I wrote ... 
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Blurb 3.4

Are you bored with this yet? Sorry, but I'm not.

Nobody expects the Sasquatch Intervention.

Furry migrants from outer space. A shaggy ambassador sporting an Alabama accent. Homestead claims going back to the Ice Age.

Not the alien invasion we imagined, not by a long shot. Earth geopolitics are in an uproar. U.S. President Carmen Benequista is juggling red-hot pokers with little help, and she’s tired of it.

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Blurb 3.3

It was not a surprise to learn about visitors from another planet, but the Sasquatch angle — furry migrants with birth rights going back to the Ice Age — that was a showstopper.

The average Earth native is excited. The global elite are freaking out. In Washington DC, U.S. President Carmen Benequista is juggling red-hot pokers, and she’s tired of it.

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Prologued!

In some circles, the prologue is apostasy. However, in the case of Maroli Tango, this might be essential. Comments welcome.

Previously …

The effective date of the Anye Disclosure was arguable, conceivably pointing back to 1928, when the executive host of an off-world-patronized South Dakota tourist destination revealed herself to Doctor Elbert Holland Harrison, a rural physician of the human persuasion who, up until then, had not been in on ‘the big secret’.

“Good evening”, she had said, lemur fangs concealed behind a demure smile. “We’re from the Sasquatch chamber of commerce.”

The proposition was not as risky as one might think. Doc Harrison, an 83-year-old veteran of the American Civil War, was a person made stoic by a lifetime of experience with suffering.

Confronted by a furry foxlike princess wearing a tailored western-cut maternity blouse, culotte skirt and cowboy boots, he thought to himself, ‘Aren’t you the prettiest little thing?’

Earth’s secret history was explained — 25,000 years as a backwater campground, and yet for all the opportunity presented, humans had not become the unwitting subjects of a celestial master race.

The lady told him, “It’s like having a rich uncle who stopped returning your phone calls.”

Jivada, an Anye colony world, was one-hour-forty-five-minutes away via Saraf Drive. A third of Jivada’s citizens (AjJivadi) were human, welcomed into Anye clans since the Migration.

The AjJivadi possessed homestead claims on Earth, anchored by business enterprise, dual citizenships, voluntary submission to taxation, and so forth.

Their engagement from the shadows, a practice formalized around the time of Jesus, was not a sign of consent to be marginalized.

Evidence two artifacts of Jivada’s agency on Earth:

The ancient and noble order of Zirna Zapha, a custodian of Anye civilization, formed on pre-industrial Vidura (the home planet) by militant SagGha priests. Sanskrit – The Broken Claw. Colloquial – Zeze; The Space Mafia.

CH Banks International, a private security firm and, some would say, a Zirna Zapha storefront. Incorporated 1929, Black Rock, South Dakota.

In 2025, nearly a hundred years after Doc Harrison received a lesson in clandestine symbiotic co-occupancy, an approaching cyclical catastrophe shifted the Disclosure into high gear.

Jivada dispatched an emissary to offer intervention, the very same Doc Harrison, now 180 years old, although he didn’t look it.

The mission culminated in a shootout at a taco joint near Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, an exploit by the U.S. military to hijack a space yacht, ransom the owner, and ship the proceeds to defense contractors in exchange for lucrative kickbacks.

The USAF suffered grave casualties. Doc Harrison departed the scene on a Triumph Speed Triple motorcycle in the company of a shapely 26-year-old social media skydiving celebrity, to rendezvous with the space yacht Skeezix in the parking lot of a local Wal-Mart.

A filmic spectacle, captured in Super 3D UltraVision by a covey of Anye-tech fighting drones, even and especially while engaged in shooting the enemy.

Both Wal-Mart and the Triumph Motorcycle Company were grateful for the publicity, but it was a crushing defeat for the military-industrial complex, an object lesson, an opportunity to change course.

Which they ignored in favor of a mutiny against the President of the United States, a guerrilla war against Jivada, and a worldwide pogrom against AjJivadi constituents on Earth.

None of it worked to their advantage. The Anye Disclosure and its benign intentions gained more than enough traction to persuade the general public, despite opposition.

On a side note: the nomenclature ‘First Contact’ was preposterously out of date. The Disclosure was a ‘Gazillionth Contact’ event; except this time, it was meant to stick.

And regrettably, Earth’s global elite were nowhere near being ready to go along.

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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WIP it good!

Approaching 2 years into what will be my seventh published novel, I am still in the process of discovering what the book is about.

Life, certainly; but what else? The manuscript is currently 85,000 words, the ‘excised’ document 70,000.

The conclusion is envisioned but not written down. I’ve now gone back to the opening chapters, seeking to clarify the theme, motivate the reader, apply craft, say something important, break new ground.

This is not a complaint. I’m reporting on the process. It’s a form of therapy, common to the activity.

In other news, I’ve been told my stand-in cover design (a concept, composed to accompany WIP essays) elicits comparison to Japanese tentacle erotica.

First off, my audience isn’t supposed to know such things exist.

Also, dang.

This Old Flying House

Previously: Blendered. Ship in a Bottle. Run, robot, run. Also, if you REALLY want to get into backstory, buy the book! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSR3SDFT

But today, I have a real estate problem!

Yes, I can see foliage poking through walls and windows. It’s been fixed. My point is: Loyal House is 122 meters long, 27 meters wide overall, 45 meters wide in the sanctuary, center section ceiling height 35 meters.

Draw an imaginary line bridging tops of columns — a new floor deck will be installed, making part of the layout two-story. However, the issue of scaling an interior to fit available volume will not be solved by this tactic alone.

But look at how cool it is.

Loyal House fly-through
Yep. There's a lot of work to do. Does anyone want to draw up floor plans?
Where do you think elevator(s) should go? Shall I publish the WIP on Epic Games for all to see? Tell us in the comments.

Essayed!

The assignment was entitled: Shepherd’s template for “5 great books centered around a topic, theme, or mood.”

The abstract was 11 pages long. Every aspect of the task, right down to the whys and wherefores, with examples. And then the admin critiqued my work, thoughtfully, inciting a rewrite — which turned out objectively a lot better than the draft.

Here’s what I delivered: https://shepherd.com/best-books/speculative-fiction-books-for-mainstream-readers

Enjoy!

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