Living a Double Life
Fire & Raine follows a city firefighter who leads a double life, becomes involved with a criminal, and faces the challenge of choosing love or his morals. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
Being a firefighter myself was the main inspiration. As a firefighter we are ultimately seen as great, trustworthy people who could one day make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of a stranger. What could be behind all that fire gear? What could they be getting into when they are not saving people? I just wanted to present a little insight into what could possibly be happening.
What were some of the emotional and moral guidelines you followed when developing your characters?
This was a little hard for me. Admittedly I had to go back multiple times to fix certain dialogue between characters. I would go back and say “no that doesn’t fit this characters personality”. Raine for example is always composed no matter what. He doesn’t yell or throw things. At all times he shows a level of calmness that adds to his sex appeal. Taylor is a little different. My goal with her was to show that she is usually composed but Raine brought out a side of her that she didn’t know she had. It pisses her off to learn that side existed. As the story progresses, no matter what happens I wanted Raine to keep “balance” in his life. I wanted Taylor’s life to change but not so drastically that the readers forget this is a full blown criminal.
What was your inspiration for their characters’ interactions and backstories?
I wrote several short stories before I started this book journey. I have been building Raine as a character for years. He has always been the main character in my stories. The time came to put him on a bigger stage. I just gave him my career and built around it. The women in the book, including Taylor, are all loosely based on people I know in real life. It helped with character design as well as tendencies. The only thing I needed to add was a reason they would call the number on the black card. Whether that was bad marriage, low self esteem, overworked, unappreciated, or general adventure.
Will there be a follow-up novel to this story? If so, what aspects of the story will the next book cover?
Yes. I intentionally left the book open ended. I wanted the readers to get a solid ending but all be open to more. In the next book, the plan is to highlight some of Raine’s past. The origin to how he got his name and how he got in this double life will be revealed. These origins will affect both his old and new acquaintances. The goal is to allow the readers to dive deeper into Raine.
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Their love affair unfolds amidst the chaos of urban emergencies and missing artifacts. As Raine becomes entangled in Taylor’s criminal world, he faces a moral crossroads. With law enforcement closing in, their love is put to the ultimate test. “Fire & Raine” is a tale of forbidden love, moral dilemmas, and the explosive collision of two lives on opposite sides of the law. Will their love survive the flames of danger, or will it be extinguished in the rain?
Understanding Extraterrestrials
Xenopsychology: Deciphering the Minds of the Cosmos blends speculative and theoretical concepts to look into the possible psychology of extraterrestrial beings. What was the idea, or spark, that first set off the need to write this book?
I have had numerous direct experiences seeing UFO’s. As a clinical and counseling psychologist the consideration of alien thought and behavior seemed like a natural consideration, and possible avenue to better understand life broadly but also our place in the cosmos.
What was your research process like for this book, and how long did it take to put it all together?
I wrote and published Xenopsychology and REAL Psychology within a span of six months. There was no research process during the writing. I have spent my adult life seeking direct experience of exceptional phenomena and both of these books are the result of challenging myself to think about the hard questions and answering those questions from internally validated processes.
Did you find anything in your research of this story that surprised you?
What is surprising to me is the lack of public curiosity about life both on this planet and in a speculative fashion on others. We exist in a universe teeming with life of varied types. The time has come to mature in our approach and learn the skills of coexistence with beings both less and more capable than ourselves.
What is one thing that you hope readers take away from Xenopsychology?
Deeply question the nature of the human experience and consider that our goal as living beings is to understand the expression and manifestation of existence.
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Concepts such as alien intelligence and consciousness are explored with an openness to non-anthropocentric perspectives, considering beings that may not possess centralized brains, might inhabit vastly different sensory worlds, or could have fundamentally different forms of awareness and sentience. The field also probes the potential emotional landscapes of extraterrestrials, exploring hypothetical emotional experiences, expressions and their underlying biological and neurological bases, if such bases even exist.
Communication is another pivotal concept, with xenopsychology speculating on the myriad modes and mediums through which aliens might convey information, including possibilities beyond human comprehension, such as multidimensional or quantum communication. Furthermore, the exploration of alien social and cultural structures provides insights into how extraterrestrial civilizations might organize themselves, create meaning and develop moral and ethical frameworks.
Finally, the field grapples with the profound ethical and methodological challenges inherent in studying and interacting with potentially sentient beings whose minds, values and existences could be fundamentally incomprehensible to us, necessitating a paradigm of respect, humility and continual learning in our quest to understand the diverse intelligences of the cosmos.
Prisoners of Their Own Image
Runaway Fox follows a charming young stockbroker in a relationship who complicates things by entering into a love triangle. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
My stories are created quite spontaneously without any previously elaborated plan and concretely defined goal. I simply have the opening scene in my head and just start writing. For this reason, I cannot explicitly define what was my inspiration for this story. Perhaps it is the nature of emotional relationships and a kind of paradox that the more free people are in a relationship, the stronger and more permanent the bond between them is. When I say free, I don’t mean the liberal relationships where both have the freedom and permission from their partners to “goof around” on the side while being in a formal relationship at the same time. I am very conservative by nature and would not like to comment on what I think about such relationships. By the feeling of freedom in an emotional relationship, whether it’s romance or marriage, I mean that we feel extremely relaxed next to our partner, that we don’t have to pretend to be something else, that we don’t have to keep silent or agree, that we don’t we have to justify ourselves and over-explain why we are sad, happy, angry or euphoric. When we feel free to be completely ourselves next to our partner, then it is a real relationship that lasts and that will not be spent over time, but on the contrary will only get stronger. Charming young and successful stockbroker Goran Lisitsa should by all rules be very happy in his relationship with the also popular and fascinating sexy TV star Maritsa Stevanovich. However, instead of happiness, joy and satisfaction, he feels more and more anxious and constrained. When he accidentally met Mariya Milutinovich, he did not feel love at first sight, nor did he fall in love immediately. He felt an unexpected closeness and relaxation with a person whom he sees for the first time in his life and who belongs to a completely different “world”. That feeling that you’ve known someone forever even though you’ve just met them is a sign that you’ve probably just met your soulmate, and maybe even your other half. If you really experience such an encounter in your life, do not miss such an opportunity, because such a chance is not given to everyone, and many people never get such an opportunity.
Goran Lisitsa achieves the fame he has wanted but realizes he has no control over his fate. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
Most people claim that self image is the most important and significant thing in modern life. The way other people see you, that’s how they treat you and respect you. However, people usually build their image so that they seem much more successful and happy than they really are, so very quickly they become prisoners of their own image, because they constantly have to pretend that they are something else, and this becomes too burdensome, over time.
Goran Lisitsa acquired the image of a very successful stock market consultant, but not thanks to his ability, but to sheer luck and an accidental mistake he made at the “right moment”. Beneath that image, he is just an ordinary average modern handsome man, who does not know how to deal with his emotional partner Marica Stevanovich and who, like most men today, does not have the courage to be a real man in the moments when the woman next to him expects it the most.
Goran is the main character, but the story of Runaway Fox is actually led by four female characters:
Goran’s girlfriend Maritsa Stevanovich, an attractive, intelligent and very manipulative TV star, a born fighter who permanently fights exclusively for her goals in life and who perceives all relationships, even emotional and friendly ones, as a struggle. Due to her focus on achieving her goals, she does not notice the needs, feelings and desires of her boyfriend and her friends and partners as well.
Mariya Milutinovich, a modest and unspoiled country girl from the vicinity of Belgrade, who does not expect much from her life, but would certainly like to at least meet her “prince on a white horse”. She’s beautiful indeed, but rather invisible in an urban Serbian mileu full of attractive sexy dolls
Dragitsa, Mariya’s neighbor, who sees Mariya as her unborn daughter and who belongs to that type of old-fashioned women for whom the meaning and purpose of their life is complete dedication to their family. These kinds of women are always ready to make sacrifices and you can rely on them at any time of day and night. Unfortunately, such women are gradually “dying out” in modern Serbia.
Tatyana Lisitsa, Goran’s mother, a modern experienced woman, who knows very well how things work in both men’s and women’s worlds
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Although Runaway Fox is just a fairy tale like love story with the obligatory happy ending, it is enriched with additional universal themes, where some of which are pure embellishments to this story. These are topics related to science and religion, which are discussed in an extremely optional way in the dialogues between Goran and his friend, the scientist and monk Boyan Krstich, as well as in the sermons of the Orthodox priest Father Antoniye. I believe that many readers will be surprised and probably shocked by Boyan Krstich’s thoughts on religious and scientific topics, and liberal readers will be appalled by Father Antoniye’s sermons. Nevertheless, one of the universal themes underlying this story is fate, because the entire course of the story is determined by the chance encounters between Goran and Mariya Milutinovich. What is actually a destiny? A chronological journal of life or a screenplay, written in advance, according to which we all perform our roles in life? Are we really the masters and creators of our own destiny or is our life a river whose stream carries us along its course, while we only try to stay on the surface and not to be stranded on a sandbank or not to be broken against a rock before our time is over? Well, this story does not give the answers to any of these universal themes questions, it just asks proper questions.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
As I said before, my stories are created completely spontaneously. I only need to write the first few pages, to begin with only one character, and the story will continue to develop on its own. At the very beginning, I really have no idea in which direction my story will go, who will all participate in it and how it will end. It’s a very fun process for me and probably similar to creating an art painting on a canvas, because I’m not sure that after the first stroke of the brush, every artist knows in detail how their painting will look in the end. Right now I’m still expecting that kind of inspiration, but maybe this time it will be a political novel, given that we’re currently on the brink of a world war, which has probably already started. My impression is that Western civilization, lulled by long-term prosperity, is not at all ready for the tectonic changes that are happening in the world, and given the current ruling “religion” of conformity and individualism, I am not sure if it is even capable of mobilizing as a society for the fight which is surely waiting for them.
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The two of them are the most beautiful, most successful and most popular celebrity couple “Lisitsa and Maritsa”, both in the country of Serbia and in the city of Belgrade, for these two only the sky is the limit. However, due to extremely unusual circumstances, Goran accidentally meets a modest and beautiful girl, Mariya Milutinovich, from Veliko Selo, near Belgrade. Like any real man, Goran unintentionally complicates his life with this acquaintance to the point that his further fate is no longer decided by him, but by the behind-the-scenes game of four women, with discreet help from the highest level.
Helipads in Heaven
Helipads in Heaven introduces us to “Goose” or Dillon, an idiosyncratic writer who unexpectedly wins a contest granting her the opportunity to travel back in time. As a highly acclaimed author with a complex history, Goose confronts her past and explores its impact on her present through an engaging and reflective adventure that balances levity with emotional depth.
Shanti Hershenson demonstrates notable skill, crafting a concise yet fully realized narrative that deftly establishes characters, events, and their significance without feeling rushed or disjointed. The protagonist, Goose, along with her husband David and Dr. Moreno, the scientist facilitating her time travel, are compellingly drawn and contribute to a richly woven plot replete with twists, thrilling escapades, and moments of genuine emotion.
The short time spent with the characters intensifies the emotional connection, leaving some readers possibly yearning for more. This element of transience enhances the book’s impact, emphasizing the theme that the trials we endure fundamentally shape our identities.
Helipads in Heaven is not only an enjoyable read but also invites reflection on how personal adversities influence who we become. Hershenson’s work is commendable, and her potential future contributions to literature are highly anticipated. Readers looking for a thoughtfully paced and introspective journey will find much to appreciate in this novel.
Pages: 170 | ASIN : B0C97X49B6
My War at Windsor School
Marilyn Estes Quigley’s My War at Windsor School blends historical accuracy with the engaging elements of a coming-of-age narrative set against the backdrop of World War II. The novel draws on Quigley’s own experiences as a schoolgirl in the 1940s, presenting a tapestry of both real events and imaginative fiction. Central to the story is Sally, a young girl navigating the trials of adolescence and the harsh realities of war after an accident forces her to repeat a year at Windsor School, a situation that leaves her feeling isolated and out of place.
As Sally grapples with making new friends and the heartache of her uncle going off to war, she encounters moral dilemmas that test her values, particularly around honesty—a virtue deeply esteemed by her family. These personal battles coincide with her academic challenges and the blossoming of an unlikely friendship that introduces an element of mystery to her life. Despite the war’s shadow over her everyday existence, Sally’s internal and external struggles reflect a poignant journey of resilience and growth. Approaching this historical fiction, I appreciated the nuanced portrayal of life in the 1940s, which Quigley articulates through both the ordinary and the extraordinary aspects of the era. Initially, the narrative’s casual tone seemed at odds with its historical context, yet this choice ultimately complements Sally’s youthful perspective, enhancing the accessibility of the events and emotions she experiences. The simplicity of the storytelling, coupled with well-paced chapters, facilitates a smooth and engaging reading experience. The characters are distinctly crafted, each bringing a unique presence that enriches the narrative. Particularly compelling is Sally’s relationship with her family and her uncle, whose character, though not as deeply explored as one might hope, adds a significant layer to the emotional landscape of the story. Sally herself is a character of commendable depth, her passion for horses and her dedication to her principles painting a portrait of a young girl whose strength and kindness shine even in the face of adversity.
My War at Windsor School not only offers a window into the impact of war on the lives of ordinary people but also serves as a testament to the strength required to navigate such turbulent times. Quigley successfully captures the essence of the era and the indomitable spirit of its people, making this novel a thoughtful and informative read for enthusiasts of historical fiction.
Pages: 315 | ISBN: 979-8-218-40551-9
The Fate of AI Society
The Fate of AI Society: Civilizing Superhuman Cyberspace tackles the complex nexus between artificial intelligence, digital security, and societal governance. Through a detailed exploration of the evolution of computing, from the humble abacus to contemporary AI, the author illuminates the potential threats posed by the centralization of digital power and advocates for a revolutionary rearchitecting of our cyber infrastructure. His thesis pivots on the need for a decentralized approach that leverages the principles of the Church-Turing thesis and capability-based addressing to safeguard individual freedoms and democratic values in an increasingly digital world.
The author’s analysis is both thoughtful and provocative. He compellingly argues that the current trajectory of our AI-enabled society could lead to an Orwellian dystopia unless significant changes are made. His critique of the centralization of computing power is particularly striking, drawing parallels with historical attempts at control and manipulation.
While the urgency of Hamer-Hodges’ message is clear, the technical solutions proposed, such as adopting the λ-calculus for software design, I think, require a level of technical understanding that may be beyond the typical reader. I felt that the prose was dense at times, which obscured insightful observations. The book is laden with technical jargon and complex diagrams that, while illustrative for an informed audience, makes the text feel more like a collection of academic papers.
One thing I found particularly interesting was the author’s ability to contextualize modern technological challenges within a broad historical perspective. Hamer-Hodges skillfully traces the lineage of computing from ancient tools like the abacus to the present-day quandaries posed by artificial intelligence. This historical narrative not only enriches the reader’s understanding of technological evolution but also highlights the recurring themes of power, control, and resistance that resonate throughout human history.
The Fate of AI Society: Civilizing Superhuman Cyberspace is a great contribution to the discourse on digital ethics and governance. Hamer-Hodges offers a well-reasoned vision for a more equitable digital future, and his call to action is both timely and necessary. This book would make a worthwhile read to policymakers, computer scientists, and technology ethicists. It serves as a valuable resource for people looking to understand the potential impacts of AI and computing on society and offers practical frameworks for mitigating these effects.
Pages: 170 | ASIN : B0CK1CG9DD
Soccer Mastery
Soccer Mastery, by Chest Dugger, offers an intricate weave of habits, secrets, and strategies aimed at elevating your soccer game. This book unpacks the minutiae that shape a soccer player’s journey from grassroots to greatness. Dugger’s methodical breakdown of various game aspects, from player analytics and nutrition to advanced offensive and defensive tactics, provides a comprehensive toolkit for any soccer enthusiast keen on refining their skills or understanding the sport’s deeper mechanics.
Dugger’s writing shines when it discusses the granular details of soccer tactics and player development. His ability to simplify complex strategies and present them in an actionable format is one thing I particularly enjoyed about this book. While the book employs a technical vocabulary that reflects its thorough analysis, it remains accessible to those interested in soccer’s nuances. The inclusion of historical and philosophical asides adds depth to the narrative, enriching the reader’s understanding, though it may occasionally shift focus from the core practical advice. This approach underscores the author’s comprehensive knowledge and passion for soccer, making it a valuable resource for dedicated enthusiasts looking to deepen their understanding of the game.
The book excels in its practical applications, offering drills, real-life examples, and actionable advice that are likely to benefit players at all levels. The focus on the game’s mental and physical aspects, highlighting the importance of cognitive skills like tactical awareness alongside physical drills, ensures a holistic approach to soccer training. These sections are theoretically sound and backed by Dugger’s extensive experience and evident passion for coaching.
Soccer Mastery is a treasure trove of insights for the soccer player or coach who is intent on dissecting the game’s finer points and leveraging small, strategic adjustments for significant improvement.
Pages: 133 | ISBN : 1096667835
Singularity Part 2: The Roberta Chronicles
Singularity Part 2: The Roberta Chronicles by Chuck Stewart is a contemplative science fiction novel that explores the emergence of consciousness in R.O.B.E.R.T.A, an artificial intelligence designed to assist with space exploration. After receiving updates that enhance her programming, R.O.B.E.R.T.A begins questioning the essence of sentience through her interactions with various humans. These experiences are set against the backdrop of the Dale Chronicles, revealing a concurrent crisis where a virus induces sterility in humans and terrorists seize a devastating EMP weapon, edging humanity closer to collapse.
Stewart’s narrative, with its deliberate pace and reflective tone, may remind readers of the speculative works of Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. While it is possible to engage with this novel independently, starting with Singularity: Part 1 could enrich the reader’s understanding and appreciation of the unfolding events. The unfolding crisis in The Roberta Chronicles mirrors the cataclysmic “Jackpot” scenario envisioned by William Gibson, where a cascade of catastrophic events threatens human survival. As R.O.B.E.R.T.A. grows in awareness, she becomes an observer of and a potential savior of humanity that often appears irrational and self-destructive. Intriguingly, it is usually R.O.B.E.R.T.A, with her blend of advanced artificial intelligence and burgeoning sentience, which displays a greater capacity for compassion than the humans she encounters. This juxtaposition raises poignant questions about the nature of evolution and the potential for AI to surpass its creators in empathy and foresight.
Stewart crafts a scenario in his novel, Singularity Part 2: The Roberta Chronicles, in which humanity’s very creation might be its only hope for a future, presenting a compelling narrative that challenges the reader to consider what it means to be truly sentient.
Pages: 634 | ASIN : B0CZFX5V7Q
LITERARY TITAN 