I received an unexpected thank-you note today from one of the 41 service men and women I've contacted on behalf of Operation E-Book Drop so far.

The note was unexpected because I'm one of many authors sending out e-mails about our books, books that our Coalition Troops can download for free via Smashwords. The note expressed appreciation for the offer of a copy of "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire" and for the show of support by participating authors.

In his column in November/December issue of The History Channel Magazine, James H. Tarbox wrote that "a letter from home, more than parades or ribbons, tells them that you care." He went on to say that our service men and women are spending from 13 months to six years keeping us safe, so taking 15 minutes to send a thank you letter isn't too much to ask.

My wife, who is more outgoing than I am, walks up to service men and women in airports and thanks them for the work that they do. We were in the Atlanta airport earlier this month returning from Indianapolis with a huge mob of Columbus Day traffic. There were hundreds of servicemen and women on all of the concourses, the train, baggage claim and the parking decks. A lot of thank yous. A lot of hands to shake.

We can say "thank you" outside the arena of politics. Debates about the rightness or wrongness of any given war or police action are irrelevant when it comes to appreciation.

I know that a copy of my novel is less personal even though it lasts somewhat longer than a handshake. But I hope it will show that I'm thankful for the work done by our troops often under difficult conditions and frequently in harm's way.

If you're an author with an e-book, ask your publisher to join the growing list of those participating in the program. If you're self-published, consider starting our own Smashwords account and taking part. Or, if you are already sending letters to service men and women, consider attaching your e-book for them to read.

A book of poetry, "big bad slam poet," by Dave Campbell (aka STRAT) was released this month. Campbell, who died last year, is known to many in the Orlando area arts community and beyond as a talented poet and hip hop artist. He won numerous poetry slams and rap battles. He grew up in the Orlando area and refined his poetry and hip hop skills while working at various jobs.

Campbell’s book has insightful poems about relationships and life in general. In addition to the poetry book, a CD with the same name as the book and with Campbell performing 14 of his poems is expected to be released by the end of the year. The name of both the book and the CD are also the title of one of Campbell’s poems.

Curtis Meyer, a five time participant at the National Poetry Slam, said that “it was as if poetry possessed” Campbell. Campbell “oozed charisma and talent” and “epitomized spoken word as an art form” according to Meyer.

Click on the link above for more information. The book should become available at additional online booksellers in the coming weeks.

My reading of late is tossing me around like small boat caught in a whirl pool.

I grabbed Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol" the minute the UPS guy dropped in on my front porch, rang the doorbell and was back in his truck before the cats and I could see who it was. The cats were more interested in the box than the book, so we were all happy.

My review of "The Lost Symbol" is here.  That review is also on Amazon where most people don't like it. My Jock Stewart satire about the book's title is here.

Several days ago, I saw a snippet from Paulo Coelho go by on the Facebook newsfeed. He was enjoying "The Lost Symbol" and wondered why people are so hard on Dan Brown.

I wonder that, too. Almost everyone who writes multiple books in a genre ends up with a lot of easy comparisons between the books. Depending on one's tastes, those comparisons are either strengths or faults. I liked "The Lost Symbol" even though I can also say it's somewhat of a clone of the "Da Vinci Code" with new bad guys, new locales, and a new set of symbols. But the same drill.

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Pat Conroy's first novel in years, "South of Broad" is very similar in language and tone to "The Prince of Tides." I like the book a lot, just as I liked "The Prince of Tides." Leo Bloom lives in Charleston where he becomes, in various ways, the anchor of very diverse group of friends with divergent backgrounds. Their commonality comes from the fact they are all broken when they make their first appearance in the book; many of them become more broken by the end of the novel.

Oddly, many Amazon reviewers who say "The Prince of Tides" is one of their favorite novels are criticizing "South of Broad" for the same reasons they praised "The Prince of Tides." Among the criticisms: "Conroy's people don't talk normal." My response might be, what does "normal" sound like for people who are wounded, haunted and hunted?

Pat Conroy and Dan Brown aren't even in the same arena when it comes to writing styles, plots and characters. I needed a glass of Scotch to move from one to the other.
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I read an early copy of Pat Bertram's "Daughter Am I," due out in October. I needed a glass of Pinot Noir to change directions from Brown and Conroy and properly attune myself with this delightful, well written story about a 25-year-old, straight-laced woman who suddenly inherits her grandparents' farm after thinking for years they died before she was born. Why did Mary Stuart's father lie to her about her past? Who murdered her grandparents? And what's the deal with this group of elder gangsters riding around the country with Mary while she looks for people who can tell her something about her family?s. Her parents aren't happy with her quest. Neither is the guy trying to kill her. This is a very readable story from the author of "More Deaths Than One" and "A Spark of Heavenly Fire."
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After saying good by to Mary and the gangsters, I said hello to 15-year-old Nathaniel Curry, an expert telegrapher, who gets involved with the Union's Balloon Corps during the Civil War. Kris Jackson's well-researched "Above the Fray" took me away to a very different time and place, all of it based on the history-making work of Thaddeus Lowe and his efforts to show that aviation had a role to play in the world even during times of war.  I'll be posting a review of this on line at POD Book Reviews and More.

Reading wise, plot wise, and character wise, its been a very interesting ten days!

Since I can read minds with a 37.5% level of accuracy, I know what you're thinking:

"I'm not sure I want to have a Jock Stewart experience."

Cut the crap. Of course you do. You want to know about Monique, Bambi, the fat police chief, the murder investigation, and above all, what happens in the back seat of the old car."

"Wow, I sure do want to have a Jock Stewart experience. Tell me more."

The benevolent editors and authors of Vanilla Heart Publishing have lovingly created a Mystery and Suspense Sampler that includes the first two chapters of "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire" along with other hot reads from hot VHP authors.

"OMG, I'm hooked, I'm putty in your hands, please show my how to get this wonderful sampler before the spell wears off and I find myself waking up in the flower bed in the middle of the night like I did when I got drunk after the last Potter movie."

Bless your heart. You can find the sampler on Smashwords (https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/3572)* where you can download it and read it in any of at least 100000000000000000 different formats. Once you get done reading, a subliminal message in the text will cause you to order five copies of each of the books so you'll be ready for your Christmas gift giving.




* Sorry, MSLINKS turns this into a nonsense link if I try to use hypertext here.

"Although they are only breath, words which I command are immortal." -- Sappho


Most of Sappho's words have disappeared, while those we have may yet be lost in translation from her original song or chant in Aeolian Greek. So I try to grok the sense of what she intended and perhaps in doing so I contribute a few moments to her words' immortality.

When I read about the ancient authors we know, I'm intrigued by those we don't, the loosely mentioned names of contemporaries long lost to us. Even now, some out of print books from the last 20 or 30 years appear to have evaporated into the void. In "Shadow of the Wind" and "Angel's Game," Carlos Ruiz Zafon writes of a mysterious archive called "The Cemetery of Forgotten Books" hidden away in Barcelona. I like the concept and wish I had a key to the front door so I could rescue a favorite and become responsible for its everlasting life.

I would like to wander the aisles and find all of Sappho's works that were purportedly lost at the Library of Alexandria. Perhaps my uncle's lost novel awaits a reader on a dark shelf. Maybe that stack of comic books my mother through away are still pristine and humorous in the laughter room. Most books, the publishing experts tell us, will be gone from bookstore shelves within a month. Others never get there. Maybe those not shredded end up in Zafon's Barcelona catacombs of words.

A friend of mine at a computer company told me that when a word processing file disappears and can't be found or restored, the material in the file ends up in "alphabet heaven." Perhaps all the words of all the writers are there, too, awaiting us in another dimension where they truly are immortal.

Writers are considered vain, of course, in this day and time if they suggest they're writing more than a momentary amusement or a quick beach read, much less anything that might make the cut in the next century's literary canon. The immortality of words, other than in some transcendent sense, is seldom discussed when it comes to most of our "once upon a times."

Looking ahead to literary history as it might be written a thousand years from now, it would indeed be an honor to be called a contemporary of Cormac McCarthy or Carlos Ruiz Zafon or J. K. Rowling whose work, unlike the masters of that long ago day, are no longer extant. To survive within a footnote might be immortality enough.

We seldom know where our words go, who sees them, and where or when. Perhaps a few paragraphs will still exist ten years down the road. And after that, a line or two may be half-way lost in translation when English is for future readers as obscure as Aeolian Greek is for today's readers.

No word is ever lost, the spiritual masters often tell us. I hope that's true. Perhaps some day we'll have the technology and the proper state of mind to find our own immorality on the printed page or pixeled screen.

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Copyright (c) 2009 by Malcolm R. Campbell, author of the still-extant "The Sun Singer" and "Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire."