The reason I’m posting this short, 1 minute video is because I’m thrilled with my new editor – the Videopad video editor. I’m only using the free version at the moment, but I will be getting the paid version very soon.
So what does this editor do? Well for starters, it allows me to:
create separate video and audio tracks,
add in still images,
do voice-overs after the fact,
add groovy transitions [I didn’t in this one, but I will next time],
add multiple tracks – e.g. video, music, narration etc,
and slow the audio and video down to an absolute crawl so I can cut stuff out at just the right moment!
Honestly, after just a few hours of concentrated play, I’m loving this editor! My thanks to Dawn for recommending it. 😀
Oh, and here’s the video I did all my learning on:
Comments are off coz I don’t want to push our friendship tooooo much. lol
The second and third books of a trilogy rarely get as many reviews as the first, partly because it’s really hard to talk about those books without mentioning events from the first book, and spoilers are a no-no. That is why reviews for those unloved children fill us authors with so much joy.
My thanks to L.M. Verna for reviewing all three books of my Innerscape trilogy. The first is for Miira :
First in a trilogy of books, this focuses primarily on Miira’s transition from being a terminally ill middle-aged cancer patient to a young avatar exploring her new life in a virtual reality resort for the wealthy called Innerscape. Acflory brings this process to life with vivid descriptions that engage all one’s senses. Parts of Miira’s transition were described in such a way that I found myself cringe. I like books that get me so involved that the real world dissolves; this series of books did that for me.
The trilogy is told primarily from Miira’s POV, but also includes POVs from other characters to round out the narrative. In this book, we also meet Kenneth Wu and Jamie Watson who figure prominently in the trilogy. Although the story is told from multiple points of view, the author manages to transition between them without jarring the reader. I especially enjoyed the character of Miira and was intrigued by what she had to endure to start a new life.
The author explored and described the physical and emotional aspects of Miira’s transformation, as well as a bit of the politics of Innerscape and the larger society where it exists. Thus, she managed to create a vivid, complex, and more believable world.
I also enjoyed the gaming worlds that are woven artfully into the fabric of the trilogy, and which contain events and characters that advance the overall story.
Once I finished the first book, I was intrigued enough to finish the trilogy.
The second book in Acflory’s Innerscape trilogy follows the story of three main characters. The first book introduced us to Miira, Kenneth Wu, and Jamie Watson, but primarily focused on Miira. Initially I found it easier to identify more with her, given her backstory and the emotional ups and downs she went through in transitioning from the real world into a virtual reality universe.
This book was fast paced with an intricately woven plot. I loved the suspense, the twists and turns and misdirection that also continued into the last book of the trilogy.
I particularly enjoyed the description of the game that took place in ancient Japan where Kenneth got the opportunity to save Miira and Jamie.
I appreciated the developing friendship between Miira and young Jamie. He became a bit of a mentor for Miira in the gaming world and also as she travelled in Innerscape. And I liked that Miira was a quick study who did her best to embrace the new experiences that were thrown her way.
I could hardly wait to read the next book to see whether the three protagonists would even survive, much less overcome the challenges that were thrown their way.
In the last book of the Innerscape trilogy, the author kept building the suspense, and then slowly revealed more and more answers to the mystery of what makes Kenneth Wu tick. In the end, all the loose ends got wrapped up in a satisfying way, although I still found myself wanting to spend more time with Miira, Kenneth and Jamie.
Overall, I found reading the three books to be quite a wild ride. The author did an excellent job of keeping me engaged in the story and concerned for the three protagonists.
These books are well written—free of typos, poor grammar and other artifacts of bad writing and careless proofreading.
With its well-developed world, its mysterious story, strong visual elements, and complex characters, I think this trilogy would make an excellent science fiction TV series.
Meantime, I’ll be reading the author’s other books.
The three books now have 24, 6 and 5 reviews respectively. I know it’s silly but I keep looking at those numbers and thinking how respectable they look. I really have to say a big ‘thank you’ to every single person who took the time to leave a review. You’ve made me a very happy woman.
Okay, I’d better climb down from cloud nine and get back to work learning how to edit [videos]. Take care and stay well.
I was going to introduce you to the Innerscape assassin today, but I decided that post would work better tomorrow, when the book is actually free. For now, I’m going to show you my favourite bit of ‘tech’ in the book. It’s a bit gruesome but there is a happy ending. 🙂
So here, without further ado, is the final stage of Miira Tahn’s physical induction into the virtual world of Innerscape:
Exactly one week after entering Innerscape, Miira Tahn was ready for the most delicate and invasive part of the whole Induction process – the creation of the neural network that would link her to her new, digital home.
Before that could happen, however, her entire skull would have to be removed, including all the soft tissue of her face. Only then could her naked brain be encased in the bath of proprietary biofluids that would lead to full transition.
In keeping with the morbid humour that had named the containment modules the Catacombs, most of the medical staff referred to the biofluid as the ‘embalming fluid’, but that was a misnomer. In reality, the biofluid was seeded with self-replicating nanoparticles that would not only preserve the brain, they would invade it.
The centres for sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, gross and fine motor skills, and the finer senses like spatial awareness, all would be invaded. Some of the nanoparticles would even make their way to the amygdala because the ability to fear was an integral part of being human.
As the nanoparticles grew, they would self-organize into a network of artificial neural pathways which would interface between Miira’s organic brain and the electronic ‘brain’ of the Innerscape AIs. Once that interface was complete, she would experience the most minute digital feedback as if it came from the real world, and in a very real sense, she would owe it all to Kenneth Wu.
Back when Innerscape first began, the neural interface had been little more than a net of microscopic sensors surgically implanted inside the skull of each Patient. The neural interface allowed them to enjoy a better quality of life than they would have done on the outside, but the experience had been less than perfect.
It had been Kenneth Wu’s idea to remove the skull completely, and it had been his ground-breaking work in nanotechnology that had been instrumental in the creation of the AI-neural interface Innerscape now used. No one alive knew more about Stage 3 of the process than he did, and even Charles McGragh deferred to him in this area.
“The team is ready to begin Stage 3, Dr. Wu,” Charles said evenly. “My instruments are ready to begin as well,” the surgical AI added.
Kenneth Wu looked up at the image of Miira in his faceplate, but superimposed over that image was the memory of her frightened brown eyes staring up at him as the anaesthetic took effect. She had been scared, very scared, but her last look had held nothing but trust. She trusted him. He would not let her down.
“Begin.” “Sealing external carotid arteries now,” the AI said as its tools cut through the skin with lightning speed. “External carotid arteries sealed. Initiating removal of skin.”
Even before the AI finished speaking, a fine mist began to form around Miira’s features. As the seconds ticked by it became progressively thicker until her whole head seemed to be encased in a swirling ball of white.
As Kenneth and the rest of the team watched, the mist gradually changed colour from white to a dirty pink. When the mist was sucked away a few minutes later, all the soft tissue of Miira’s face was gone, leaving her head looking like a halloween mask. Her eye sockets gaped empty, her nose was gone, and her jaw sagged open, exposing the emptiness where her tongue had been.
“Phase 2 of Stage 3 complete,” the AI said. “Commencing removal of skull.”
Once again, a ball of liquid nanoparticles encased Miira’s head, but this time their function was to eat away at the bone protecting her brain. Bone was much denser than muscle and cartilage, and the process took a full 30 minutes. At the end of that time, the ball of liquid bore a rather disturbing resemblance to oatmeal porridge.
As the team watched, one of the tools hovering outside the ball released three drops of pale blue liquid onto the surface. The outside of the ball quickly began to look more like dirty concrete than porridge. A few minutes later still, the concrete hardened and began to crack.
As the process accelerated, the cracks turned into shards, and the shards turned into even smaller fragments that lifted from the surface, and were drawn away like iron filings captured by a magnet. Once the hard crust was removed, the ball of liquid held in place by electromagnetic currents was perfectly clear once more. And nestled in the centre of it was Miira’s brain.
“Phase 3 of Stage 3 complete,” said the emotionless voice of the AI. “Commencing diagnostics.”
This was the moment at which Kenneth always held his breath. A great deal of computing power had gone into calculating the composition and number of nanoparticles to use, but there was always a slight element of uncertainty. If even a thin layer of unwanted cells remained around the patient’s brain, the embalming fluid would not work properly, and the team would have to take remedial action.
It could be done, but the results were not always optimal. The patients often suffered some small damage to the outer surface of the brain, or to one of the exposed blood vessels…
“Results are optimal,” the AI said.
Kenneth did not cheer like the rest of the team, but he did exhale on a very relieved sigh.
“Preparing to initiate Phase 4.”
This time, the AI inserted an array of needles into the ball of liquid cradling Miira’s brain. Each hollow needle was finer than a human hair, and dripped a measured dose of embalming fluid into the liquid. Over the next two days, the nanoparticles in the embalming fluid would grow to fill the entire ball.
Once that happened, the semi-solid surface of the ball would be sprayed with a different cocktail of nanoparticles which would grow into the interface connecting Miira’s mind to the digital world that awaited her.
“Phase 4 completed successfully.”
Now all we can do is wait, Kenneth thought with a familiar thrill of excitement mixed with trepidation. If he had done his job properly, the next time he saw Miira, it would be in Innerscape.
Anyone who’s followed my blog for any length of time will know that I love tech, and the life sciences, so I’m sure you’re not surprised by the technical detail that went into this part of the story. I do, however, apologise for the length of the excerpt. Miira’s induction into Innerscape is perhaps the most ‘scifi’ part of the entire story, and I wanted it to feel plausible. I believe that one day, this kind of technology, or something similar to it, will be commonplace. No more cutting through bone with a saw or making holes with a drill. Neurosurgeons will use very different tools to accomplish procedures that are currently impossible. I hope I’m around to see it.
Would I allow my body to become 100% dependent on an AI? Yes….with reservations. A digital world like Innerscape may one day provide terminal patients with a second chance at life, but wherever we ‘go’, we take our hopes, fears, strengths and weaknesses with us. That means no world will ever become a paradise, but with a little lot of good will, it could turn into a home…maybe.
Thank you for staying with me. I’ve had fun and hope you have too. Miira will become free tomorrow [my time] so I’ll post the third and last favourite for this book once the Amazon clock has ticked over. You can find the complete schedule of books coming up for free, here.
I think we all know by now that 2021 is not going to become a good year any time soon. Despite the rollout of vaccines in most countries, it will take a long time before enough people are vaccinated to provide herd immunity* to those who aren’t. For most diseases, that means at least 70% of a population have to be vaccinated before herd immunity can kick in. With Covid-19, no one’s sure how much of the population has to be immune. There’s also a great big question mark around what the current vaccines will actually accomplish. Will they simply stop the disease? Or will they also stop infected people from passing it on?
So…. 2021 is likely to get a lot worse before it gets better. For the Offspring and I, that means we’ll be in self-isolation for a long time yet. Because of that, I thought there was no point setting any goals for the coming year. I was wrong. There are things I can do, both for myself and for others; it just took a while for me to see it.
One thing I’ve always been bad at is marketing, but marketing these days is mostly digital, so I’ve decided that my goal for 2021 is to get one more review for Miira and Vokhtah. Both are sitting on 19 reviews, and I’d love to see that number change to 20. Not a big goal, I know, but it’s an achievable goal if I pull my finger out and actually do some marketing!
“But I hate marketing!”
I’m probably the world’s worst salesperson, but I discovered a long time ago that when I believe in a product, my enthusiasm accomplishes what my lack of skill cannot – I can make others want to see what has me so excited.
“But I hate marketing my own stuff!”
Sadly, women of my vintage were brought up to believe that ‘showing off’ was the worst thing a woman could do short of flashing her boobs in public. I recognize the conditioning. I acknowledge that it’s incredibly unfair – why should men be able to blow their own trumpet while we have to be demure and self-effacing? But this fear of being seen as a show-off is so deeply ingrained that I cannot shift it.
But I can trick it into shutting up. 🙂 And this is where my light bulb moment kicked in. If I give my books away for free, I’ll be getting eyes on my work AND I’ll be providing some escapism for those who are still in limbo. And that is exactly what I plan to do.
The first step of this grand plan is to drop the price of all my books to 0.99 cents. Then, once every two weeks, I’ll put one of the books up for free on Amazon. The book will remain free for 5 consecutive days before returning to the 0.99 cent price point. When the last book has had its turn at free, I’ll put all the books back to their original price points.
This is what my books cost now:
Prices shown are for Amazon.com as at January 15, 2021
I’m not sure how long it will take for the price change to register on Amazon, but I’ll post an update when the new prices are available.
So that’s my grand plan. If I achieve the two extra reviews I’ll be happy. If I don’t, I can still hope that my stories ease the strain of this weird point in time, at least a little, and…I’ve got a plan for the next twelve weeks.
much love, Meeks
…*… herd immunity works by surrounding infectious people with people who are already immune. To survive, the bacterium or virus needs new hosts to infect. With no new hosts available, the bacterium or virus runs its course and dies. Eventually, every infected person recovers and bingo, no more virus. To get to that point though, an awful lot of people have to be immunised at the same time, otherwise the virus just keeps ticking along.
Remember when Miira was inducted into Innerscape and basically lost her whole skull so Kenneth Wu’s nano interface could connect the AI to her brain? Not quite there yet but…this article shows that it’s coming. And I actually forecast it…
Okay, okay, probably not that hard to do if you read sci-fi, but I’m still proud as punch.
During this Covid-19 crisis I want to help in any way I can, so I’ve turned my sci-fi trilogy, Innerscape, into an omnibus edition. In the coming weeks, I’ll be offering the omnibus edition up for free in as many formats as I can manage.
The Innerscape Omnibus includes:
Book 1, Miira
Book 2, The Godsend
Book 3, Nabatea
Just a whisker under 1000 pages so it should keep people going for a while. 😀
For those without dedicated reading devices, I’ve started with the PDF format because all you will need is a free copy of Acrobat Reader and a computer of some sort.
Click the image below, or the sync.com link. to download the PDF version of the omnibus:
Alternately, click ‘as PDF’ in the sidebar to the right to be taken to the same link.
You will not need to sign up or do anything at all to download the omnibus. Just click the link and then follow the on-screen instructions. Feel free to share the omnibus with family and friends. All I ask is that you don’t try to sell it or use it in any commercial way.
I’ll be working to get the next version up and tested asap. Until then, stay well and #StayHome
This is the third video adapted from Miira, i.e. book 1 of Innerscape.
Chronologically, this video should have come before the Battle of Osaka Castle, but my subconscious has a mind of its own. 🙂
How many more videos I do for book 1 will depend on how well the pre-made backgrounds [in Plotagon] lend themselves to scenes in the book. I’m learning more and more with each video, but Plotagon does have limitations, and scenes that require ‘action’ are almost impossible to do. Still having fun though.
I did start the account creation process with Google [so I could upload my videos to Youtube], but when I was asked to verify both my email address and my phone, I started to get goosebumps, and not in a good way. This is a small part of Google’s privacy [sic] statement:
It was about this point that my survival instincts kicked in again and I aborted the process, or at least I tried to. I very much fear that my phone number is forever in Google’s possession. Given that it’s an Android phone I’m very glad I have GPS turned off. 😦
Anyway, with Youtube no longer an option, I went looking for alternatives and discovered that WordPress.com allows Vimeo videos! Yay and double yay. 🙂
So here is my rather ambitious Plotagon video entitled ‘Prepare for Induction’:
I haven’t seen The Irishman, but the video detailing how it was made has me absolutely enthralled. Watch, and see for yourself:
Cool tech, right? But it’s not just the tech that has me jiggling up and down in my chair. It’s the fact that another piece of Innerscape is becoming a reality! -dance-
If you read book 1 of the Innerscape trilogy, you may remember the scene, early in the story, in which Miira finally gets to see the ‘avatar’ she will use once she has been inducted into Innerscape. That avatar is based on her 29 year old self. In other words, her avatar has to be ‘de-aged’.
To make the story work, the Innerscape AI had to be sophisticated enough to create avatars so real looking that none of the Residents can tell the difference. That was one of the key pieces of tech in the story, and now I know that it’s possible, actually possible.
December 5, 2018 Update….I am officially an idiot. I was so excited to have Miira permafree on Amazon, I totally forgot to include the link for the book. Can I plead old age as an excuse?
A huge thank you to Cage Dunn for giving me a gentle nudge in the right direction. As Bluebottle would say: ‘I feel a proper fool’. 😦
Okay, here are the urls for Miira I should have included in the post, all of them:
I’m so excited, I don’t know what to do with myself. I finally got up the courage to ask Amazon to make Miira [book 1 of Innerscape] permafree to match B&N, Kobo et al,… and it’s happening!
So far, I’ve checked amazon.com and amazon.com.au, and the ebook is $0.00 on both! Sadly, amazon.co.uk hasn’t gone to permafree yet, but I’m sure it’s on the way. This has literally just happened, or at least I’ve only just noticed. If anyone sees Miira going permafree somewhere else, please let me know.
It’s odd, this feels like an early Christmas present. At least now I have the hope that more people will give Innerscape a try. And to celebrate, we’re getting pizza tonight.
-thinks- I might just indulge in some Cabernet Sauvignon as well. 🙂
December 5, 2018 Update….I am officially an idiot. I was so excited to have Miira permafree on Amazon, I totally forgot to include the link for the book. Can I plead old age as an excuse?
Meeka's Mind 