Yesterday in the gym I saw someone who I’d not seen for several years and who I’d hoped never to see again—or anyway, I thought I saw this person. The resemblance was uncanny: the same, unusual body shape; the same facial structure; the same hair; the same mannerisms. The only two points of doubt from my observation post on the treadmill were that this person might have been a bit too tall and a bit too young. But I wasn’t sure. Only much later during my workout, when I happened to hear the subject speak, did I know for sure this was a different person.

For me, a voice can be a much more certain identifier.

Like a lot of people, I’m terrible at facial recognition. I admit that part of this is laziness. If I’m casually introduced to someone I don’t expect to meet again, the name and face will breeze right out of my memory as I walk away. But part of it is just an inherent problem with facial recognition. Take a person out of the context in which I casually know them, change their hair style or color, change their weight, dress them in different clothes—and odds are excellent I won’t recognize them. This is one reason Cloud Atlas was a total fail for me. Most of the time, the continuity of actors completely escaped me.

Some people have an astonishing ability to recognize and remember others. My husband is one. More than once I’ve been in the situation of demanding to know how in the world he recognized that-person-who-looked-totally-different-from-before and “how can you possibly remember that person you worked with for a few days fifteen years ago?”

Ah well, we all know that talent is not evenly distributed.

But this is one reason I find conventions very intimidating. I could be introduced to someone and an hour later be uncertain if that is a face I should know. Yes, everyone wears name tags, but things can still be difficult.

So bring on augmented reality! Google Glasses or better yet, contacts, with a facial recognition program running off of a personal database of who-is-who in my world, while also tapping into shared Internet resources with all the skill of the NSA and Facebook combined, to identify the people I encounter. Oh, and could we include a brief bio while we’re at it? And deliver the information via voice, since I don’t want my eyes looking shifty as I try to read names and bios.

Uh…privacy concerns? What do you mean privacy concerns? I just want to know if I know you!

Reviewer Stefan Raets offers his opinion of The Red: First Light in a review published yesterday at Tor.com.

“…an amazing novel… The Red: First Light is a dark, intelligent, cynical take on military SF. It’s an excellent novel that deserves a much larger audience.”

Read the full review here.

Ads from the ongoing
Clarkesworld campaign.
(size reduced)

I’ve run three online ad campaigns to try to get the word out on my newest novel, The Red: First Light, published last March. For those new to me or my website, the novel is a very near-future, high-tech, military science fiction thriller — and it’s indie-published, so I’m on my own for publicity.

I had a couple of good publicity opportunities when TRFL was released. This helped sales in the first six weeks, although the novel never got anywhere near qualifying as an “indie success story.” So, having no luck getting the book reviewed***, I decided to experiment with online ads.

(***Update: The Red: First Light has since been reviewed at both Tor.com and Locus Online.)

I’m going to guess that most of you reading this never click on online ads. I’ve clicked on a few, but it’s rare. So why would I even consider spending meaningful amounts of money on web ads? I had a few reasons:

1. I HAD TO DO SOMETHING –this was a big reason. “Something is better than nothing” & “Try stuff” — Right? Yes, it costs money. On the other hand I’ve already made a huge investment just in the time devoted to writing the book. What’s a few hundred dollars more?

2. I’m not entirely unknown in the field. In the mid-nineties through the early 2000s I had six hard science fiction novels published by Bantam and Tor. I have a couple of awards. I’ve had short fiction published recently in Asimov’s, Analog, Lightspeed, and Nightmare. My thought was that I might be able to capture the gaze of readers who’d enjoyed my books during my “first career” and were interested in what I was doing now, along with those who’d read some of my recent short fiction, and might be curious about what else I’m up to. This was the factor that really convinced me to try it.

3. I had some awesome blurbs from name writers that might help sell the book — but the value of those blurbs was limited if the only people who saw them were those who visited my website. So the possibility of putting those blurbs in front of a new audience was the third main factor in my decision to try advertising. (more…)

The September issue of Nightmare Magazine is just out, and it includes my newest story, “Halfway Home,” a dark fantasy with a here-and-now setting…or maybe it’s magic realism?

At any rate, it’s a story that wouldn’t have been written without the encouragement of one of my readers. Here’s a blog post on how it came to be.

You can purchase the September issue of Nightmare Magazine in ebook form for only $2.99 — I encourage you to do so, in support of short fiction!

But you can also read the story online at Nightmare Magazine‘s website. Find it here.

A few times a year I send out an email newsletter, usually to announce new publications, but occasionally with other news. If you haven’t already signed up to receive my newsletter, I encourage you to do so. It’s a great way to stay in touch, and it’s simple to do. I just need your email address and a name. You’ll have to click a link on a confirmation email, and then you’re in.

The next newsletter will go out in a couple of days, so please consider it.

Sign up using the “New Book Alert” form in the righthand column of this blog, or click here for a sign-up form, along with samples of past newsletters.

THANKS!