This is a diagram of the disks, the size of casino chips, which Paul Reece must rescue from the sphere, several miles below the Congo Ituri Forest.
Today marks the ending of this blog
14 years ago
Thursday, January 29, 2009
The colors of the rainbow
This is a diagram of the disks, the size of casino chips, which Paul Reece must rescue from the sphere, several miles below the Congo Ituri Forest.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Rolf Bender
The Rolf featured in the novel it’s based on a real person. Rolf Bender is a German polymer scientist, specialised in fluorescence. Over the past twenty-five years we’ve shared priceless moments. Like the night he dragged me into a private gay club, intent on testing on the patrons his new fluorescent nail polish.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Celtis
In a paragraph describing the Ituri jungle I mention “Celtis”.
Jennifer Williams, from Wisconsin, wrote to warn me that Celtis, the Common hackberry, is a tree native to North America and not Africa.
I remembered seeing Celtis everywhere in Congo and checked to ascertain I wasn't imagining things.
Celtis is a genus comprising more than fifty species of trees. In my book I was referring to Celtis africana, the African celtis. Celtis africana is commonly known as white stinkwood, because of the unpleasant smell of the freshly cut wood, and its pale colour.
VERDOORN, I.C. 1956. Celtis africana. The Flowering Plants of Africa 31: t. 1210.
Saved by the bell... this time. I bet there are countless gaffes in my novels, waiting for an eagle-eyes reader to point them out. Thank you, Jennifer.
Jennifer Williams, from Wisconsin, wrote to warn me that Celtis, the Common hackberry, is a tree native to North America and not Africa.
I remembered seeing Celtis everywhere in Congo and checked to ascertain I wasn't imagining things.
Celtis is a genus comprising more than fifty species of trees. In my book I was referring to Celtis africana, the African celtis. Celtis africana is commonly known as white stinkwood, because of the unpleasant smell of the freshly cut wood, and its pale colour.
VERDOORN, I.C. 1956. Celtis africana. The Flowering Plants of Africa 31: t. 1210.
Saved by the bell... this time. I bet there are countless gaffes in my novels, waiting for an eagle-eyes reader to point them out. Thank you, Jennifer.
Bookspotcentral interview with Carlos J Cortes
The interviewer opened with:
Carlos J. Cortes’s debut novel, Perfect Circle, is one that is so polished and exciting you might expect it to have been written by someone with many more novels under his belt. It’s a novel that, as the back of the book states, “asks if man and nature are fated to clash - or if the right man can break the cycle.”
I was impressed with the book’s tightly wrought narrative, the suspenseful fast pace of the plot, and the realistically motivated characters enough to ask Carlos if he would grant me the privilege of doing an interview with him, and I and the staff at BSC are pleased that he kindly agreed to my request. And now, on to the questions . . .
You can read the complete interview at:
http://www.bookspotcentral.com/2009/01/on-the-spot-at-bookspot-central-carlos-j-cortes-interview/
Carlos J. Cortes’s debut novel, Perfect Circle, is one that is so polished and exciting you might expect it to have been written by someone with many more novels under his belt. It’s a novel that, as the back of the book states, “asks if man and nature are fated to clash - or if the right man can break the cycle.”
I was impressed with the book’s tightly wrought narrative, the suspenseful fast pace of the plot, and the realistically motivated characters enough to ask Carlos if he would grant me the privilege of doing an interview with him, and I and the staff at BSC are pleased that he kindly agreed to my request. And now, on to the questions . . .
You can read the complete interview at:
http://www.bookspotcentral.com/2009/01/on-the-spot-at-bookspot-central-carlos-j-cortes-interview/
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Future review of Perfect Circle
I've just heard from Dell Magazines that PERFECT CIRCLE will be reviewed in June 2009 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction.
Sounds good, but I'm apprehensive. I thought Asimov's Science Fiction favored hard SF, and my cross-genre work doesn't fit into such a category. My writing is far closer to Lincoln & Child's. Still, we shall see.
I planned to advertise in the same issue, but after checking my depleted piggybank I shelved the idea until one of my novels hits The Times bestseller's list.
What do you mean by "Asimov Science Fiction will go broke if they have to wait that long"? Ye of little fath...
Sounds good, but I'm apprehensive. I thought Asimov's Science Fiction favored hard SF, and my cross-genre work doesn't fit into such a category. My writing is far closer to Lincoln & Child's. Still, we shall see.
I planned to advertise in the same issue, but after checking my depleted piggybank I shelved the idea until one of my novels hits The Times bestseller's list.
What do you mean by "Asimov Science Fiction will go broke if they have to wait that long"? Ye of little fath...
Saturday, January 24, 2009
How it all started
According to Darwin, evolution is a process that can be summarized as the survival of the fittest. Yet there are countless examples that seem to contradict that. Some of nature’s changes are too swift to be explained solely by linear evolution. I dreamed up a mechanism that could account for these leaps in evolution and the result was the Perfect Circle concept.
Writing it was another matter. From idea to proofread manuscript, it took eight years. But this is a little misleading. The original Perfect Circle was over half a million words. When I realized the impossibility of its publication in a single volume I separated the story into four parts and structured four novels:
Bad Water
This novel narrates the genesis of the International Mining Corporation in the Alaskan gold rush and tells the story of Hugh Reece,the corporation's owner, and his attempts to cover up a vast ecological disaster in Bangladesh. Paul Reece, a geologist and heir to the IMC empire, sides with the thousands dying from the Minamata disease caused by the corporation.
Moonshards
When at the end of WWII Patton searched the Mekkers mine for the III Reuich bank deposits he discovered that almost six tons of gems, spoils from the concentration camps, had dissappeared. In this adventure Paul Reece chases the gem's elusive trail.
Perfect Circle
Already published under the same title by Bantam.
Aftermath
The last novel explores the difficulties the survivors of a global cataclysm would face in an unstable world and the choices, sometimes harrowing, a group of humans must face to have a chance of surviving.
My agent spotted an opening for a SF work and, since Perfect Circle was the only part that could possibly slot into such a genre, offered it to Bantam and they eventually bought it.
The Prisoner is my next novel for this year and I'm hoping to have Light Bondage, on which Bantam has an option, ready for 2010. As to the remaining three novels that once were part of Perfect Circle... we shall see.
Writing it was another matter. From idea to proofread manuscript, it took eight years. But this is a little misleading. The original Perfect Circle was over half a million words. When I realized the impossibility of its publication in a single volume I separated the story into four parts and structured four novels:
Bad Water
This novel narrates the genesis of the International Mining Corporation in the Alaskan gold rush and tells the story of Hugh Reece,the corporation's owner, and his attempts to cover up a vast ecological disaster in Bangladesh. Paul Reece, a geologist and heir to the IMC empire, sides with the thousands dying from the Minamata disease caused by the corporation.
Moonshards
When at the end of WWII Patton searched the Mekkers mine for the III Reuich bank deposits he discovered that almost six tons of gems, spoils from the concentration camps, had dissappeared. In this adventure Paul Reece chases the gem's elusive trail.
Perfect Circle
Already published under the same title by Bantam.
Aftermath
The last novel explores the difficulties the survivors of a global cataclysm would face in an unstable world and the choices, sometimes harrowing, a group of humans must face to have a chance of surviving.
My agent spotted an opening for a SF work and, since Perfect Circle was the only part that could possibly slot into such a genre, offered it to Bantam and they eventually bought it.
The Prisoner is my next novel for this year and I'm hoping to have Light Bondage, on which Bantam has an option, ready for 2010. As to the remaining three novels that once were part of Perfect Circle... we shall see.
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