Hi, R Lefler!
And thank you for such a long comment
Long comments/questions make me happy
(They do, however, take a bit more time than usual to respond to, which is why my reply's a bit later than I intended
)
R Lefler wrote: ↑12 Aug 2020, 12:10 I thought initially, if it was a good book, it'd be roped off for the people with more experience, right?
You'd be surprised. I read some high-reviewer-level books when I was a reviewer here at OBC that I rated 1/4, and probably the best book I ever read was one where the reviewer was only offered $5. (I wasn't intending to review another book so soon after the last one, but I saw the blurb on that $5 request and my one thought was to snatch it up before someone beat me to it
Like I say, it was one of the best books I've read, both on the site and off it).
R Lefler wrote: ↑12 Aug 2020, 12:10But this book is a thrilling page-turner and I could totally see it becoming a movie, too!
Thank you so much!
Project Tau has actually been entered into the Pipeline Adaptation Contest. If it wins, there's a
very good chance it could be picked up by a streaming site like Netflix or Hulu for adaptation into a drama! Or a movie, but personally I favor the drama approach...not that I'll be given any say in it, of course
R Lefler wrote: ↑12 Aug 2020, 12:10And many groups today struggle to escape torture disguised as training, such as LGBT+ youth and autistic children being trained with behavioral modification techniques used to train animals, disguised as "therapy".
I learned about the shock treatment that was used to "train" autistic children a couple of years after
Project Tau was published, but I didn't realize it extended to LGBT+ youth as well. That's truly terrible
R Lefler wrote: ↑12 Aug 2020, 12:10It made me think about slavery too, because literacy was a threat to Dennison in the book as much as it was to slave owners in the past. And some slaves, ex-slaves, and abolitionists did teach other slaves how to read as part of helping them plan to escape, and when caught doing so would obviously be terribly, severely punished.
Well, to be fair, Dennison isn't bothered by literacy itself; if a Project is taught to read, that's just fine with him and GenTech. Every single Project up until Tau's predecessor, Sigma, has been incapable of learning (and believe me, GenTech tried!) The
threat is that Kalin/Kata isn't just doing things behind his back, but now Tau's started to deceive Dennison as well. In other words, he realizes that he doesn't have nearly the amount of control over them - particularly Tau - as he thought, and that terrifies him.
R Lefler wrote: ↑12 Aug 2020, 12:10That's what I mean when I say this book surpasses my expectations, they were set low, because the last time I got a book to do a review of in a similar manner, it was a pain to read and I couldn't get through it! Maybe this site is better. I do like that they give you so much information on which to base your decision to review the book. I appreciate it, because no book is for everyone.
Very true! I've seen a couple of posts from people elsewhere on this site saying that they're not interested in reading either
Project Tau or
Homecoming because of the profanity, and that's absolutely fine with me. I've read another post saying that the reader (not sure if they were actually a reviewer) stopped reading
Project Tau very quickly, and I'm fine with that too. Like I said in one of my interviews: my job is purely to entertain, nothing more. If my work doesn't entertain readers or reviewers, I'd much rather they just put it aside and moved onto the next book
I don't object to getting 1/4 reviews, but in the case where the reviewer talks about how much they hated the book, I
do wonder why they kept reading it
Luckily, most people seem to enjoy my stuff, so low scores don't come up all that often. When they do, I just shrug it off as a, "you can't please everyone" situation
R Lefler wrote: ↑12 Aug 2020, 12:10But I think this one does offer something new and fresh to sci-fi fans!
It's "sci-fi realism!"
R Lefler wrote: ↑12 Aug 2020, 12:10I'm probably in the top 10 people in the world for Star Trek trivia.
Yay,
Star Trek! I have to confess, I shied away from it for a long while, purely because there were so many series and movies that it was difficult to know where to begin. Then I found the original series on Netflix, watched a couple episodes, and my reaction was basically, "How have I not discovered this AWESOMENESS before!?" I'm halfway through the original series 2 now and plan to keep watching
R Lefler wrote: ↑12 Aug 2020, 12:10I'm a writer too, but the novel I'm working on is fantasy. But similarly, I hope that my current work will exhibit similar levels of freshness and originality, in a genre that, like sci-fi, has many well-worn tropes and settings people are getting tired of.
Ooh, neat! You'll have to let me know when it's published; I'd definitely like to buy a copy!
I'm also working on the first book in a brand-new fantasy series (think Terry Pratchett rather than Tolkien, not that I'm comparing myself to either of those, of course!) that's starting to shape up nicely.