Sounds cool, Phil! Can't wait for my copy! Thanks!

First post! Woot!

And can I not say anything else here without exclamation points? No! Oh, wait! I just did!

It's kinda ironic that Phil's name is misspelled on the cover...seeing he's the Chief of the Nitpicker's Guild. (I guess the publishers wanted to see if we were paying attention)

John, how is it mispelled on the cover? It's mispelled on the link to the right of the cover's image, but assuming that the Nitpicker Guides have it right, then the novel does too.

OOPS! You're right. D'OH! The cover is right & the websites got it wrong on their pages.

I've read the sample pages. Very chilling and thought-provoking, but non-judgemental...the essence of good science fiction. I hope some of Phil's trademark humour that we all enjoyed from the Guides makes its appearance, too.

Greetings All!

Actually there is *one* place where my name is misspelled on the cover but I'll get to that in a moment.

A bit of explanation: Somewhere along the line, my name was entered wrong in Xlibris' database as "Philip F Ferrand" and when I saw it on the book, I put in for a correction--not thinking that I needed to tell them "Oh, by the way please go through your database and make the change there as well". ;-)

So...if you look on the Xlibris bookstore you'll see they have me listed incorrectly...and amazon.com has me listed incorrectly...and...and...I'm working on that!

Thande: Glad you enjoyed the pages! I really have worked very hard not to push the book from any particular viewpoint. It was important to me--because the novel is about belief--to allow every reader to find their own reactions somewhere in the text.

As for humor...um...there's a bit but this one is pretty serious. (Now my second novel...which is set in an entirely different universe...that's funny! It's a black comedy about time travel where the lead characters end up either dead, deranged or destitute. Trouble is...it's only about two-thirds complete--and already 570 pages in manuscript--and my writing skills are really rusty so I doubt that one is going to see the light of day until I get back to writing!)

Oh! and as for where my name is misspelled on the book. On the hard back, if you take off the dust jacket the gold lettering on the actual cover says "Ferrand" (Oh, well, maybe that will help identify it as a first edition!)

Have a great day!

Yes, first editions are always worth the most for collector's, and even moreso with some typos, such as with the author's name, that could actually help increase that edition's worth! So, you see, Phil, Xlibris may have actually helped turn your book into a possible goldmine!

And where the heck does the name "Xlibris" come from anyway? And exactly how do you pronounce it?

From the latin phrase ex libris, or "from the library of".

You often see labels inside books that say "ex libris..." with the owner's name in it.

Thanks, Scott.

Thanks, Phil. As a writer of Christian-based science fiction myself (and I thought I had that market cornered! ) I can sympathise with that: my first manuscript, Xenotaph, has just kept getting longer and shows no sign of completion for the foreseeable future.

I'm also considering self-publishing, being in touch with a Singaporean firm.

Thande!

Self-publishing wasn't too bad! A bit frustrating at times but mostly it worked okay. Of course, the big problem is not getting published, it's getting above the ground noise of all the other books that are out there. But, I finally got to the place where I had decided that I needed to put the thing out the door!

And...not to split hairs...but I really don't consider this novel to be Christian-based science fiction. It's just science-fiction that happens to use a set of predictions in the Bible to craft a setting that allows me to explore the mechanisms of belief.

Obviously, each of us exist in an environment where we are surrounded by individuals who may or may not share our belief system and that belief system leads us to interprete our experiences in a specific manner which may or not may be the same interpretation as that reached by those who surround us.

This is a fascinating thing to me! That we as humans can look at the exact same set of "facts" and reach complete different conclusions. ;-)

And what better way to explore this than to find a setting that would so polarize humans that they would exhibit strong reactions no matter what viewpoint they held. The predictions at the end of the Bible portray just such a setting and it was simply too good to not use in a novel that explores belief.

Oh! And the copies of the book for the moderators came last night! Now I just have to get them signed and sent!

Phil

By the way, I didn't correspond with Xlibris and they have changed my last name in their database but it's going to take several weeks to get the distributors updated. ;-)

Slightly off-topic, but also slightly on: Apparnetly, at Amazon.com, people who searched for the Cheif's book, are apparnetly also huge CSI fans (or at least the CSI novels by Max Allen Collins).

Brian!

Who knew!? ;-) Life takes strange turns at times.

Phil

Yeah, I just love looking at the "People Who Bought This item Also Searched For..." area. It gets so wacky. For example;

People who bought season 1 of Gilmore Girls DVD also bought Hp 1900 Laser Printers.

People who bought Season 14 of Law & Order DVD also bought a waffle iron.



People are funny.

Brian!

Funny stuff! ;-)

Phil