Showing posts with label Confirmation: Investigations of the Unexplained. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Confirmation: Investigations of the Unexplained. Show all posts

Friday, December 3, 2021

At the Recent Philcon Conference




It was almost remiss of me to not mention my participation in the recent Philcon conference of the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society in Cherry Hill, New Jersey (close enough to Philly). After last year’s all-online conference, it was exciting to be able to talk to a full conference hall of people rather than just stare at a computer screen, and it was great walking through the dealers’ room browsing books.
 

 

And, of course, doing readings and book signings or THE CEDAR VALLEY COVENANT and CONFIRMATION: INVESTIGATIONS OF THE UNEXPLAINED was outstanding. The interactions with one’s readers, the fan communities that frequent literary conferences, are an experience all authors should take part in. 

 

Those same fans also let me know they will keep me on my toes if I want to writefiction about conspiracy theories…no theory in any book they have read, they told me, is as demented as the “real” ones so many people swear they believe in these days.

 

Well, it’s a good thing my books critique conspiracy theories!


Saturday, July 10, 2021

Win a FREE book this July!



Do you want a FREE book? The one that predicted last year's metal monolith mystery? The book Kirkus Reviews calls "A captivating examination of humanity's fear of the unknown, with hints of sci fi and fantasy"? The one that convinced conspiracy theorists that I’m a real-life James Bond villain plotting to brainwash the world on behalf on the New World Order? With the release of my new novel, FATAL POSE, just a little over two months away, this July and August you can win a signed edition of my first two novels! Until July 31, you can get a copy of "Confirmation: Investigations of the Unexplained," the book that rubbed so many conspiracy theorists the wrong way. Get it for free only on Goodreads.com. As Paul Levinson, author of “The Plot to Save Socrates” wrote, this book is “a media-savvy, X-Files-like, fast paced story that’s just dying to be made into a Netflix or Amazon series.”

 

Sign up for a chance to win right here:

https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/327328-confirmation-investigations-of-the-unexplained?fbclid=IwAR0NYtwKiZxiKTj0LusC3LThX6dgKUyYHtaBvVaTKLMCqQZxFYalRqImr-o


Friday, December 11, 2020

Your life is a book written by Barna Donovan!

Well, all right, kind of. I just had to mention that one of the oddest recent news stories involves a number of mysterious metal monoliths appearing all over the world. Now compare this phenomenon to the plot blurb on the back of my first novel, CONFIRMATION: INVESTIGATIONS OF THE UNEXPLAINED:

"In Mount Shasta City, California. In New Jersey. In San Diego. Then in Scotland, in Italy, and Cairo. In dozens of locations around the world, 20-ton granite globes suddenly appear. They usually turn up overnight, sometimes in remote locations and other times in the middle of cities in places no one could have put them without detection. For the first time, the world is witnessing a truly unexplainable phenomenon."

Uncanny, isn't it?

But if you want to find out where all of this will lead to...

You can go to your favorite bookseller and purchase your own handsome volume.

Sunday, February 3, 2019

Truth found!


I’m a huge fan of all of Josh Gates’ exploration/mystery/paranormal reality shows like “Destination Truth,” “Expedition Unknown,” and “Legendary Locations.” As I was working on CONFIRMATION: INVESTIGATIONS OF THE UNEXPLAINED, I would often refer to his shows as a shorthand for describing who my main characters are. “They’re the cast members of a paranormal reality show, kind of like Josh Gates’ “Destination Truth,” I would say. When I was watching a marathon of his old “Destination Truth” show (on the SyFy channel originally from 2007 to 2012) recently and spent some of the commercial breaks channel surfing to a couple of other paranormal shows, I was taken by something wonderfully ironic. I almost laughed out loud.

OK, so let me set the scene: “Destination Truth” was oriented much more toward the exploration of supposed paranormal phenomena, whereas his recent programs are about exploration and the examination of legends, historical figures like Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, and Billy the Kid, and historical mysteries like lost treasures. In “Destination Truth,” Gates and his team would specifically investigate claims of hauntings, monsters, alien encounters and such around the world. But the most entertaining aspect of each of each episode would be Gates’ droll, tongue-in-cheek presentation of the old myths and his interview with locals who told of their encounters with otherworldly entities with wide-eyed, stunned solemnity. 

Now, mind you, Gates’ winking presentation of these eyewitnesses never came across as condescension or disrespect for the simpleminded yokels who still believe in witchcraft, vampires, and demons in the twenty first century. But it is a lighthearted acknowledgement of how unbelievable this may sound in our rational modern world. “Destination Truth” had a fascinating subtext about old cultural traditions and folk beliefs colliding with a modernizing world. It is interesting to consider the comfort of old belief systems, especially superstitions and mystical belief systems, in a world where science has disproven the existence of the supernatural. 

And then it came to my channel surfing where I would run into the rest of the paranormal reality fare like “Paranormal Lockdown” or “Most Haunted Towns” or other Travel Channel shows like “Ghost Adventures” and “The Dead Files.” The straight-faced, humorless discussions of everything supposedly otherworldly on these shows, the recollections of encounters with ghosts and demons by “average Americans,” looks astoundingly like Gates’ interviewees in the back country of Guam recounting their experiences with blood-sucking hellhounds. Except, again, the people on these other shows are Average American Folks! They are the citizenry of perhaps the most technologically and scientifically developed nation on Earth. 

And, then again, they are the citizens of a country that has an ever-growing number of people who believe the Earth is flat, that Hollywood is run by devil-worshipping Illuminati cultists if you follow lunatic YouTube channels like A Call for an Uprising, or that a vast conspiracy is faking mass shootings. 

We sure are an advanced culture today, aren’t we? And we keep getting smarter and smarter by the day!

Monday, December 10, 2018

Book sale!



For about the price of a medium cup of coffee at Starbuck's, you can get the electronic version of my novel, CONFIRMATION: INVESTIGATIONS OF THE UNEXPLAINED at the World Castle Bookstore. Check out this link to my publisher's bookstore page! Because there's nothing like treating yourself to the gift of a book!

Monday, November 19, 2018

All good things...


Well, the Philcon 2018 science fiction convention might have come to an end, but I’m still impressed by how much benefit can be gained for writers starting out in fiction, those working on staying in touch with their fans or establishing their fan base, or just networking with other writers, editors, an people in various positions in the publishing industry. As one of the panels on the marketing of one’s work – no matter how big or how small one’s publishing house is, a writer today MUST be ready to do a lot of selling – some 80% of book purchases are made by people based on the recommendation of their friends. So writers really do need to get out among the fans, make a good impression, sign autographs, and tell some good stories and give good advice on panels.

And yup, that’s yours truly, signing an autograph for someone who will hopefully become a devoted fan.

And she did say that the “dark side of conspiracism” premise of CONFIRMATION was indeed intriguing!

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

Yes, the threat is real! From conspiracy theorists!



OK, so the time I had to devote to posting on this blog might have been limited over the last couple of weeks, but the recent feedback I have been getting keeps proving the point I have been making and the point in my new novel. And yes, I have been keeping an eye on the constant, downward-spiraling insanity that is the current phase of conspiracy theorizing in America.

And please, go ahead and scroll through the feedback my last couple of posts have been receiving to understand what I am talking about. Please look at the astonishingly repulsive, asinine, and cruel comments about the Catherine Oxenberg book in the previous post.  

I don’t delete any comments from this blog, even if I don’t have the time to always reply and even if I don’t agree with what they have to say. But I will criticize as loudly as I can.

Conspiracy theories are among the biggest threats this culture is facing today. It is time for intellectuals, for academics, for the sciences to start pushing back. The conspiracy community today are NOT alternative thinkers who dare to be critical. They are not offering legitimate challenges to the status quo. They are malignant, dangerous threat to rationality, the downward slide of society into the new dark ages where superstition and unprovable claims demand (and often get) as much credence as empirical facts. 

As an educator in communication and media studies, I am able to do my part in combating this by teaching skills in the true critical analysis of media messages. Are the claims being made in the mass media, in the alternative media like the various social media and Internet forums, provable beyond a shadow of a doubt or not? If they are not, they are true fake news.

Plus, when I teach my course on conspiracy theories and entertainment, I do my damnedest to make sure that no one leaves that class ever again thinking that Alex Jones is a reliable source of information, that the Illuminati might be working on setting up a new world order, that lizard aliens are running the world and keeping everyone asleep with chemtrails spread by Devil-worshipping airline pilots flying out of Denver International Airport.

In a world where people still argue that the world is flat and put children’s lives at risk by refusing to vaccinate, it might be the most important thing I am doing.

And hey, here’s a bit of not so hidden knowledge…the Illuminati, this oh-so dangerous secret society our conspiracy-obsessed subculture of paranoia is so frightened of believed in such threatening ideas as the separation of church and state, representative government, equal rights for women, and the primacy of reason and rationality in life. 

That sounds pretty good to me!

Seriously! I think I’d like to join the Illuminati if they really exist. Where I can get a get a hold of the application paperwork? Can I download it from a website?

Seriously! If the Illuminati admissions department is reading this, let’s talk…

I can totally keep any secrets about where Hitler’s cloned brain is hidden in the Bohemian Grove! For reals!!!

Sunday, September 9, 2018

Unfortunate, but not surprising...


I ran across this fascinating article from National Geographic about Tangier Island in the Chesapeake Bay. Not to be too self-serving, but my immediate reaction was that it's a real-world example of the theme I was trying to deal with in my new novel, CONFIRMATION. People will believe what they want to believe, what is the most convenient to maintain their preexisting belief systems so as never to have to admit they might have been wrong or that they need to change their world views. And they will keep believing no matter what they see right in front of their faces. This phenomenon, of course, has been demonstrated over and over again in decades' wroth of research in psychology as well as in media studies and analyses of people's reactions to persuasive messages.

These unfortunate folks on Tangier Island are watching their home slowly being claimed by the ocean. Some day, perhaps within the next 50 years, the island will no longer exist due to the rising ocean levels and the global climate change that's behind it. Nonetheless, they still cling to the belief that climate change is a hoax and believe in Donald Trump's conspiracy theories about climate science being fraudulent and the handiwork of the Chinese. These people will, no doubt, stick to their belief that climate change is not real until the moment the last of them will be evacuating the island. Then they will probably claim that the rising tides were a punishment from God because of the gays.

So when we scratch out heads at how people can so adamantly believe that the Earth is flat, that we never went to the Moon, that Bush family members blew up the Twin Towers, that crisis actors pretended to get shot in Las Vegas and Parkland, or any number of utterly implausible conspiracy theories, let's take a look at the people of Tangier Island.

Belief, no matter how it might fly in the face of tangible, empirical evidence, is a mighty powerful thing. And it can be incredibly destructive when manipulated by the opportunistic and unscrupulous.

Thursday, August 30, 2018

My Appearance on "One on One With Steve Adubato."


The August 20th episode of the "On on One With Steve Adubato" show is available online right here. 

We discuss the dark side of the conspiracy culture and why all the Alex Joneses and "crisis actor" conspiracy fanatics have crossed way over he line of all human decency today. As I make the point in my novel, CONFIRMATION: INVESTIGATIONS OF THE UNEXPLAINED, people like that can hardly be cast as heroes any more.

And the antidote to all this madness where people who want to believe too much and want to live inside their self-constructed fantasy worlds of chem-trails and shadow governments, run by the New World Order, the Illuminati, and time-traveling Nazis commanded by Elvis Presley? Education! As I discuss the fantastic opportunity I get to teach about the conspiracy culture and its destructiveness, education must now become the bulwark against the modern Dark Ages we are slipping into faster and faster.

And you can be sure that absolutely no student will ever walk out of any of my classes believing in crisis actors or how the Freemasons coordinated the attacks of 9/11 from Denver International Airport.

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

My interview on the Projection Booth podcast


I recently got the chance to talk about the classic 1974 conspiracy thriller "The Parallax View" on The Projection Booth podcast. You can check it out here. The entire show is a fantastic series of discussions about the film - and it includes an interview with William Daniels, one of the stars of the film - but my segment starts at 1:46:00.

The film really is one of the best examples of the political conspiracy theory genre, very tense and unnerving because it is plausible. The film is a product of a time, after all, when conspiracy theories themselves were plausible, well before they spun off into the realm of the false flag, crisis actor, flat Earth and chemtrail absurdity that's putting piles of money into the coffers of all the Alex Joneses out there.

We discuss the impact of the film on the genre and the evolution of "real" conspiracy theories themselves, the way these theories always need to grow, to top themselves, to make claims that are more outrageous and outlandish than before.

I also got to talk about my new novel, CONFIRMATION: INVESTIGATIONS OF THE UNEXPLAINED, and how conspiracy theorists should seldom be seen as heroes these days. Conspiracy theories have mutated from critical warnings about how power can be abused, turning instead into a demented, social-constructionist fantasy world where anyone can claim belief in anything and the lack of any evidence to back up their beliefs can always be blamed on the machinations of a big, evil, shadowy conspiracy.

Tuesday, August 7, 2018

August 20: My appearance on "One on One with Steve Adubato"


The date is set! On August 20 my interview on the "One on One with Steve Adubato" show will air. Check out the program schedule right here.

We will be discussing my new novel, CONFIRMATION: INVESTIGATIONS OF THE UNEXPLAINED, along with the corrosive and downright sleazy impact of conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones on American society. Very timely, I think, especially with all the bizarre new headlines about the QAnon conspiracy theory and Jones getting the book off of social media sites like Facebook, Apple, and Spotify.

Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Book release!


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And CONFIRMATION has arrived! My first novel is now available in hardcover, paperback, and electronic versions. Whatever your preference, you can get the book from any of your favorite booksellers.

As Kirkus Reviews wrote, the book is “A captivating examination of humanity’s fear of the unknown, with hints of sci-fi and fantasy.” You can read their full excellent review right here!

Paul Levinson, Fordham University professor of communication and media studies, former president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and the author of such acclaimed science fiction novels as “The Plot to Save Socrates,” “The Silk Code,” and “The Consciousness Plague” calls the book “A media-savvy, X-Files-like, fast-paced story that’s just dying to be made into a Netflix or Amazon series.”

Monday, July 2, 2018

Will be appearing soon on "One-on-One With Steve Adubato."


I had a fantastic time a couple of days ago being interviewed by Steve Adubato, Emmy-winning anchor and host of PBS's "One-on-One." We got to talk about my forthcoming novel, CONFIRMATION: INVESTIGATIONS OF THE UNEXPLAINED, and the dangerous, damaging impact of conspiracy theorizing on American culture. The episode should air near the end of July or early August. Keep an eye on this spot for the exact date!

Monday, June 18, 2018

CONFIRMATION COVER REVEAL!


7/16/18 The time of...CONFIRMATION. Less than one month now and my new novel is available!

Saturday, May 12, 2018

Where I Answer Questions About CONFIRMATION: INVESTIGATIONS OF THE UNEXPLAINED


Last week I had the fantastic opportunity to answer questions about my upcoming novel, my writing process, and how my academic work informed what will be my first published work of fiction. This link to the Ask Me Anything web page has all the answers to the questions I had a chance to reply to. I was able to answer some excellent questions about the culture of conspiracy theories and their dangers and the way the issue provides a major theme for my new book.

Sunday, April 29, 2018

My first novel to be released on July 16

While this is something that has been in the works for a while, I now wanted to announce that my first novel, CONFIRMATION: INVESTIGATIONS OF THE UNEXPLAINED, will be released this July 16 by World Castle Publishing. It will be available in both print and electronic formats from all booksellers.

This is a project that I am particularly excited by because World Castle Publishing gave me the opportunity to combine several of my main interests from fictional entertainment to concerns I have written about as an academic and media commentator. A science fiction/suspense hybrid, the story focuses on an unexplainable event that shocks the world and the chaotic ripple effects it sends through societies everywhere. Much of the chaos is caused by the fear-mongering of unscrupulous conspiracy theorists.

So keep an eye open for more updates on the book, a cover-reveal coming soon, excerpts, and more cool things.

But as the jacket copy will read:

THE EVIDENCE OF ANOTHER WORLD IS HERE...

In Mount Shasta City, California. In San Francisco. In New Jersey. In San Diego. Then in Scotland, in Italy, and Cairo. In dozens of locations around the world, 20-ton granite globes suddenly appear. They usually turn up overnight, sometimes in remote locations and other times in the middle of cities in places no one could have put them without detection. For the first time, the world is witnessing a truly unexplainable phenomenon.

AND THE THREAT IS REAL...

As Rick Ballantine and Cornelia Oxenburg, cast members of the low-rent supernatural reality show "Confirmation: Investigations of the Unexplained," quickly realize, the globes' greatest effect is the way they make people speculate about their origins and purpose. Some think the globes are placed by aliens. Others think it's all a hoax. Many more fear sinister government conspiracies behind it all. But each of these points of view believes they're absolutely right...and others who disagree are dead wrong...and dangerous...and must be dealt with by any means necessary! Before the true, incredible origins of the globes is finally revealed, the "Confirmation" cast comes to see the extremes people are capable of when their beliefs are challenged and threatened...even in their own group.