Primary Fault Reviews, September 2012

The month is progressing well. I've three very nice reviews this week for my debut novel, Primary Fault.

The first was from Martha Hubbard writing for The Future Fire Reviews.  I liked her description of the book and her take on the Celtic mythology aspects. The Future Fire is per their manifesto: an e-published magazine showcasing new writing in Social-Political Speculative Fiction, with a special interest in Feminist SF, Queer SF, Eco SF, Postcolonial SF and Cyberpunk.

The second review was from Annette Gisby at her Books and Tales blog. I also liked her take on the story and the characters. Annette writes thrillers as well as erotica, therefore the adult content warning when you enter the blog. But don't let that stop you. Go on in and have a look around the site and check out her published works as well. I am sure that I'll enjoy her writing as well and look forward to reading it.

The Midwest Book Review, overseen by James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief, is a sprawling enterprise, with several different categories of review catalogues that, according to their website, are specifically designed for community and academic librarians, booksellers, and the general reading public. They are very supportive of Indie publishers. One of their reviewiers, Willis Buhle, also gave Primary Fault a favorable review in Reviewer's Bookwatch.

I'd like to thank these reviewers for their honesty and thoughtfulness.

Onward!

Heracles : Report from Tiryns, Week 1

HERACLES, our archaeoseismological (big word, eight syllables, wooh) project in the ruins of the Mycanean Palace in Tiryns started last week. I won't be joining the crew for another week, but I do have pictures!

The gravimeter that has my name on it. He's waiting patiently for my arrival.

Not a field of flowers, but a field of seismometers. With their own sun.

Every dig needs its own dog. He has a Greek name (Dida) and a German one (Wurst).

Archeologists and Geoscientists of all sizes and nationalities working together. Yes, it can be done.

Archeoseismic study of damage in Roman and Medieval structures in the center of Cologne, Germany

I am proud of all the authors of the above-named paper (Klaus-G. Hinzen, Stephan Schreiber, Claus Fleischer, myself, and Isabel Wiosna; see link below), the culmination of three years of research, one doctor title (Stephan Schreiber), a master's degree (Isabel Wiosna), and much groundbreaking research. The original research proposal, funded by the German Science Foundation, heavily influenced scenarios in the first two books of my fantasy series. (N.B. None of the researchers can be blamed for the parts about the Druids; I came up with that on my own, or indeed any of the facts I may have misrepresented on purpose or accidentally.)

The 3D laserscans form the meaty portion of the paper, used by Dr. Schreiber in his dissertation for documenting the damage to and creating a comprehensive virtual model (CVM) of the ruins, samples of which are shown below:

Perspective views towards the virtual model of the (town hall) apse, before and after the start of the excavations, respectively. In between d and e an orthographic view from south to the Roman well is shown.

The Roman well caught my fancy. Wells were sacred places to the Celts, and I thought it would make a great place to hide something. ('Hide what?' you ask. Stay tuned for Shaky Ground, book 2 of the Schattenreich series, due out in late Fall, 2012). Although many of the facts warped into something different in my series (as fiction is wont to do and for which I make no apologies), it was an honor to work with everyone on the project.
 
The above-named paper, out in the August 2012 issue of Journal of Seismology is an Open Access paper. The pdf can be freely downloaded or read online at this link: http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10950-012-9327-2.