Tag Archives: Indie Authors

The Slippery Complexities of Human Behavior on Display in Ivy Ngeow’s Novel Masterpiece Overboard

“A stranger. She is trying to show you a grain of kindness but it turns into a beach of bitterness.”

A stranger…tossed overboard from a burning yacht in a raging storm that claims the lives of all onboard…except him.

He wakes up, battered, burned, unrecognizable…an amnesiac…in a Thai hospital…with amazing food.

From the intoxicating smell of homecooked cuisine in a foreign hospital…to the way non-native speakers of a language have their feelings often misinterpreted…it’s these types of sharp, evocative details that litter and bloom in Ivy Ngeow’s smart, witty, satirical, dark, complex, twisting globe-hopping psychological thriller.

The amnesiac’s point of view is boldly done in second person narration, and it’s one of the few times I’ve found this to work well. But it’s not just his story, there are other POVs (like a philosophical Polish plumber with a pet Burmese python living in London, and a rich widow caught up in legal disputes) done in third person limited, and all circumnavigate each other in startling ways leading to a shocking denoument.

Apart from the perceptive details, there are sardonic notes on materialism and obsessions with brands. Many of the characters walk through their carefully curated lives like amnesiacs who can only remember their identity by the brands they wear or procure.

Like Christian Petzold’s film Phoenix and Michael Ondaatje’s novel The English Patient, identity, amnesia, and transforming oneself hang over the proceedings like a pall. Ngeow’s spin on the themes, however, are decidedly modern and channeled through technology and interior design. Her characters foolishly build protective walls around themselves with their possessions and hobbies, often unaware of their true selves and how others perceive them through the veils of technology and language. Ngeow’s sardonic wit and voice echo back to the best of Graham Greene. And much like Greene’s work, Overboard, finds that delicate balance between thrilling entertainment and keenly observant literature inundated with the slippery complexities of human behavior.

Overboard is a modern, novel masterpiece. An absolute must-read.

Review by D. H. Schleicher

Before the Darkness: Thoughts on Earlier Writing

Don’t ever let them tell you life is short, Ty. Life is long and people do lots of things. Some of them good. Some of them bad. And sometimes these things catch up to people. And sometimes that takes a long time.  – Evelyn Kydd, from Then Came Darkness

The arc of a writer’s life is long, too. You have to write a lot of bad stuff (and read a lot of good stuff) before you learn how to write well.

I’ve been writing since I was seven years-old (my first story was a melodrama about a jewel heist) and I’ve shoveled my fair share of crap, including countless twisted tales during middle and high school, and three highly questionable and amateur novels I rushed to market during the infancy of the self-publishing craze right after college before I finally wrote some good stuff, The Thief Maker. I’d like to think my latest, Then Came Darkness, is good stuff, too. It laid dormant for a number of years as my favorite unpublished work, and then on a delirious whim fueled by exhaustion and inspiration while on parental leave last year, I thought to myself, “What the heck, let’s dust this off and publish this thing!” It was equal parts a lark, and a test of the new waters.

A lot has changed in the twelve years since I self-published my first bit of good stuff, The Thief Maker. In the years between that and Then Came Darkness I’ve been busy with blogging and short stories (some which have been published), and big life stuff like advancing in my corporate career, multiple trips to Europe, getting married, buying a house, and having a baby. It’s easier now than ever before to self-publish thanks in large part to Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing program, but it’s probably ten times as hard to find an audience as it was twelve years ago (not that I was very successful then either, though the small audience I did find for The Thief Maker seemed to like it).

I was honestly lost this time around until I found the #WritingCommunity on Twitter and started making use of my neighborhood Little Free Libraries, which I have tirelessly stocked with autographed copies. The one at the end of my street has been restocked at least five times…so thanks, neighbors, or whoever you are out there reading Then Came Darkness!

The early reviews from fellow indie authors, book bloggers, and readers have been slow to come, but mostly positive. People seem to love the characters (which brings up a feeling of pride second only to having my actual child praised by strangers), and my favorite blurb thus far has come from C. D. Tavenor, who stated “the rising conflict and relationships between characters reminded me of one of the classics I read in high school, but this time, I was reading it for pleasure!” He also loved the cover designed by my wife (thanks, hun!)

All of this made me want to take a little trip up to my attic full of boxes which store much of my earlier writing, which as terrible as most of it is, was fun as hell as to write at the time. I fondly remember the days of middle school friends fighting over who got a character named after them, and furious scribblings in notebooks during torturously boring high school classes that got passed around like gossip. Many of the techniques used, character types birthed, and themes explored later were present there from the start: fractured non-linear timelines, unreliable narrators, feisty women, tortured men, and resourceful orphans all trying to survive personal tragedies amidst larger chaotic (often apocalyptic) events.

So here, for fun, are some delicious tidbits from all that crap I had to write then to get to where I am now. Continue reading →

The Future of the Science Fiction Genre and First of Their Kind

Science fiction is a genre I have a love-hate relationship with. It so often has been co-opted by fantasy and rarely focuses on the science half anymore. Even my once beloved Star Trek, which used to explore alien lands and space exploration through the veil of politics and philosophy, has devolved into action-based space opera nonsense. Sometimes when co-opted by horror (see Alien) it can be fun as hell, but more often than not schlock. And when it’s just one of the flavors of something more satirical and speculative, ala the works of Kurt Vonnegut or Margaret Atwood in novel-form and Black Mirror in streaming serialized form, it reaches my preferred heights. Then, of course, there’s the guilty pleasure of something like Verhoeven’s film adaptation of Starship Troopers (action! satire! fascism! horror! gore!)

But it’s been a long, long time since we had something like 2001: A Space Odyssey – Kubrick’s seminal film which turned science-fiction into a religious experience. Let’s not forget though, it was based on a dry, very serious-minded short story by legendary science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke. Which brings us to First of Their Kind…a novel I discovered while promoting my own during #IndieApril. I was nervous to approach it, as it was science fiction, and the last science fiction novel I read (Artemis by Andy Weir) was a huge disappointment. Thankfully, I took the gamble…

C. D. Tavenor’s debut novel, First of Their Kind, harkens back to the best work of Arthur C. Clarke. This is serious science fiction that focuses on well thought-out and researched science and its potential future applications. Continue reading →

Down Gallow’s Way Published in Underground Voices’ 2013 Anthology: Red Moon District

Underground Voices Red Mood District CoverUnderground Voices Red Mood District Back Cover

Just in time for last-minute holiday shopping, Underground Voices has released their 2013 Anthology featuring a selection of potent tales including my very own short story, “Down Gallow’s Way”.

The anthology, titled Red Moon District, can be purchased online through Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.

Pick up a copy and support indie authors, an indie publisher, and most importantly, your ol’ pal Dave.

Here’s an excerpt from “Down Gallow’s Way” to wet your whistle…

So when I moved into Clementine’s house just off the pike, the little blue rancher with the overgrown lawn and rusted metal fence that stood in the center of a clusterfuck of lesser homes and doublewides nestled at a fork in the road, we were in the middle of that blasted April heat wave. After the wretched winter of the snowpocalypse where we were hit with record snowfall amounts and left to trudge through mountains of the stuff that seemed like it wouldn’t melt until May (it was gone by March), it seemed a welcome slap in the face to be hit with record heat just after Easter. Clem’s AC didn’t work, and I was no handyman. So we spent those nights in Saundra’s chilled-to-the-bone doublewide drinking beers and watching the Phillies’ games, passing Lil’ Bibbs from knee to knee, bouncing all the way until he was as Clem liked to say, “right tuckered out.” Bibbs was, of course, always out on the road working. He was probably doing more laying of pipe than driving I imagined, but Saundra seemed blissfully oblivious.

Underground Voices started as an online literary magazine in 2004 publishing hard-hitting, raw, dark fiction, flash fiction and poetry. In 2006, it started publishing an annual print edition, alongside the monthly online issues. In 2009, they expanded into a small press. And finally, in 2013, they decided to become an independent book publisher only, publishing 1-5 books a year.

Novelist Rebecca Lerwill on Independent Publishing

The following is the 1st in my new Guest Blogger Series.

Introduction from David H. Schleicher:

Independent filmmakers who finance their own projects are often praised as innovative, creative, and edgy and seem to get instant street-cred when they buck the studio system.  Independent filmmaking has long been celebrated, and virtually no one would question the rite of a filmmaker taking the indie route.  Sadly, the moniker of independent novelist doesn’t carry the same goodwill and those who finance their own writing projects outside the system are often regarded as not credible, second-rate and find it nearly impossible to compete with the traditional publishing houses.  Yet one can still find success in self-publishing and Rebecca Lerwill, a purveyor of romantic suspense novels, is one such author who has brushed off the stigma of being an indie author with style and class.

Having shared my own experiences as an independent novelist on my blog in the past (in The Verdict on Self-Publishing and My Trials and Tribulations with Self-Publishing), I thought fellow writers and bloggers might be interested in someone else’s views on independent publishing – someone who writes stories vastly different from my own and who has taken some different approaches to publishing and promotion but nevertheless has words of wisdom, advice and tips for writers from any walk of life.  Therefore I asked Rebecca Lerwill to be my first ever guest blogger and invited her to share her experiences as an indie author. 

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Here’s what Rebecca Lerwill had to say:

Dave – thank you so much for inviting me to be a guest on your blog. As a subscriber of your blog page, I always look forward to your honest book and film reviews and goofy drinking games. The latter are a welcomed break from the dry and dreary business of book promotion which is mostly done during lonely hours online.You sent me a few questions regarding my books, my publisher, and what I do to promote. Before I get into those questions, please let me introduce myself to your readers.

I was born and raised in Germany and moved to the United States in 1996. As a horse trainer by trade, I lived in Michigan and California. After meeting my husband Troy, a professional rodeo clown and entertainer, I spent a few years ‘on the road’ as his traveling partner. Those long hours eating blacktop gave me the opportunity to read case loads of books, and after finishing my all-time favorite, Julie Garwood’s Killjoy, I was so intrigued by the story’s plot that I decided to become an author myself. That’s right; the most-asked question, “Did you always wanted to be a writer?” gets a shake of the head for an answer.

I’ve always been an avid reader but besides a few halfway decent essays in school I never thought about being a writer — until the summer of 2006. Fifteen months later my debut in romantic suspense, Relocating Mia, was honored with its first award; Finalist in the Indie Excellence Book Awards. The sequel to Relocating Mia, The Acronym, was published in April 2009 and has received very promising reviews. Continue reading →