Good / Grief

Last night's episode of Channel 4's 'Astronauts: Living in Space' reminded me of two of my earlier posts, One Earth - Why are we Squabbling over it? and A Look at Conflict: How Long can you hold a Grudge?

Our world is a complete miracle, but one of contrasts - Hot. Cold. High. Low. Dry. Wet. Beautiful. Dangerous.  And, at the building block level, Positive and Negative - the analogies we also use to describe our outlook.

I naturally incline towards the positive - I don't like to think that it's a freaky coincidence that the moon, although much smaller and closer, happens to fit exactly the size of our giant sun during an eclipse.  Or that it influences the Earth's tides so that our oceans and rivers cleanse themselves.  I marvel at the sheer distances in the Universe ... it blows my mind that we talk in terms of millions of light years, when I can barely get my head around the sun's rays taking only 8 minutes to cover the nearly 100 million miles to get to us.

Pondering stuff like this transcends the suffocating humdrum of daily life and puts a toe in the waters of spirituality - something beyond ourselves.  Call it what you will - Consciousness. Faith. Awareness. One-ness.  But I'd rather believe that there's a purpose to our existence than accept it as a happy accident.  And, for me, that's worth preserving.

So give me Love & Peace over Hate & War any day.  Easy and sensible choice, right?  Yet why is the world in political turmoil?  Surely everyone would prefer to live in Utopian harmony?

This is where the intangibles kick in - like emotion and sentiment.  Because it's not about who's Right or Wrong - principles are only as valuable as the best orator.  It's about whether the intent is Good or Evil.

If you believe nothing else, know that these forces are real and as viable as anything physical.  History points to the evidence.  We're not just organisms - we have the capacity to grasp this concept of positive and negative and, in my view, are an integral part of the cosmic machinations of working it through.  Science confirms that there's a constant dance going on between the two - for every action, a reaction.  A state of flux.  But if one were ever to prevail over the other, there would be a fundamental shift in the order of things.  Maybe then the Unknown will manifest itself ...

You better get on your knees and pray that the victor is Good, folks - it's gonna be a trippy ride.  In the meantime, play nice and delight in our beautiful planet.

Indie Authors - Separating the Wheat from the Chaff

The world of books is changing.  The recession has seen publishing houses less willing to take a punt on new authors and instead choosing to stick with established names or prostituting themselves with the latest celebrity offerings.

No wonder so many writers are turning indie as, with the advent of Kindle and 'Print on Demand' tools, they're able to reach a vast audience without having to relinquish a slice of their income to either the publishers themselves or the increasingly irrelevant agents the industry still insists on using as go-betweens.

But the downside of this ease of DIY publishing is that the market is becoming flooded with dross, making it more difficult for real talent to rise to the surface.  Quality is being stifled by the sheer weight of titles a potential buyer has to trawl through, often leading to disappointment in the choices they make.

A case in point - this British chicklit author's three books all carry 5*star ratings/reviews but are currently languishing in Amazon bookstore's mid-division amidst a tide of free or have-a-go wannabe titles, due to Amazon's woefully inadequate classification system - amateur pornography sits incongruously next to legitimate romance novels and Amazon doesn't even have anything as straightforward as a 'chicklit' category.

So, while I can't offer advice on how to find that shiny needle in the Amazon haystack, I can at least offer you some tips on how to differentiate the good from the bad and the downright ugly before you commit to making a purchase you might regret:

- Try before you buy.  Most titles on Amazon will give you access to a preview by allowing you to click on the book icon to 'Look Inside'.

- Establish the writer's pedigree.  Look at their star rating, reviews and if they have more than one book in the stable or whether they're just one trick ponies (that said, all writers need to start somewhere, so don't be too dismissive of a debut novel).

- Use social media tools like Twitter or Facebook, or book forums, to seek recommendations from friends or like-minded readers.

- Look for writers with a coherent marketing strategy and read their blogs and web pages to get a further insight of the personality behind the book.

Happy reading!

Please feel free to comment or add your own suggestions.