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Archive for Untimed

Untimed Bundle For Sale!

Apr15

StoryBundle has just launched a new collection of indie Fantasy and Science Fiction titles including my time travel novel Untimed and 8 other awesome books!

Is there a common theme to these masterpieces? Why yes, they all survived the ImmerseOrDie Challenge!

The premise of the ImmerseOrDie challenge is simple. Every morning, the host, Jefferson Smith, gets on his treadmill, opens a new indie fantasy or science fiction ebook, and starts his morning walk. Any book that holds his attention for the duration of that forty minute stroll gets labeled a survivor. But getting there isn’t easy. Every time he reads something that breaks his immersion in the story — bad grammar, inconsistent worldbuilding, illogical character behaviors, etc. — the book earns a red flag, called a WTF. If he finds three WTFs before he finishes his walk, the clock stops, the book closes, and he ruminates on what went wrong. Whether it survives or not though, he writes up a report about his reading experience and about what sorts of things he might have learned from it, and then share that with all the folks who follow his stream. (You can read more about the IOD and see all the archived reports here.)

How has that worked out so far? Well, as anyone who has tried to sample the firehose of indie publishing can confirm, few of the titles being released these days meet even basic professional production standards. So it should come as no surprise that by the time he was ready to submit this collection to StoryBundle, he had read 114 titles, of which only 13 had survived that basic probe.

But this StoryBundle is not just about being clean enough to squeak past his forty-minute guard dogs. After surviving the first round, those thirteen survivors were then run through a second gauntlet as well. To survive that round, they had to do more than simply avoid WTF triggers. They had to grab his attention and hold it, and then deliver a complete and satisfying story. Not just clean production, but an entertaining read. And not just for forty minutes either, but for the entire book.

What he had left with at the end of that second round was the collection of books you see here today, snatched right out of the fury of that indie firehose. These were not written by established writers who are diversifying their revenue streams, but by truly unknown writers who happen to have game. In his view, these are the writers waiting in the wings for their big breaks. And he (and I) are hoping this StoryBundle just might be the break they’ve been waiting for.

story-bundle-brand

So after all that, it is now my great pleasure to introduce the champions. But rather than just regurgitate the usual marketing blurbs to describe them, he’ll tell you both about the books and what it was in those first forty minutes that pulled him in.

iodcentury-sm
Century of Sand, by Christopher Ruz (Fantasy)

An old warrior rescues a young girl from the clutches of an evil wizard and then flees with her into exile. It’s a desperate bid to find something—anything—that can put the world right again, and hopefully, undo whatever darkness has been done to the girl. His daughter.

For Century, it was the setting. I was intrigued enough by the premise of an old warrior on the run with an uncooperative girl-mute in tow, but it was the oppressive landscape that captivated me. The heat and sand and dehydration were almost palpable—enough to make the drama of the army that pursued them almost secondary.

(Read the full IOD Report.)

Crimson Son
Crimson Son, by Russ Linton (SF)

In a world where government-manufactured super-heroes have replaced war and terrorism as the world’s greatest threats – and it’s only source of salvation – there’s only one thing that sucks worse than having no powers at all. And that’s being the powerless son of the greatest hero of them all, and a prisoner inside the family fortress of solitude. For his own protection, you understand. Well, Spencer Harrington, son of the Crimson Mask, has had enough. He’s tired of playing by dad’s rules, and this time, he’s going to do things his way.

Here it began with the premise. Lots of people have tackled superhero fiction before, but taking the POV of an un-super child in a dysfunctional super-family had me hooked from the beginning. What’s not to love when you first realize that the teen protagonist is being held prisoner—not by some archvillain, but by his own super-father, who has trapped him in the family fortress of solitude? But it takes more than just premise, and I was ultimately sold by Linton’s empathetic handling of the opening situation. Rather than focusing on heroics, this starts out in a very relatable way, hooking us with hints of the fraying family dynamic before anything super-powered even gets onto the stage.

(Read the full IOD Report.)

improb
The Improbable Rise of Singularity Girl, by Bryce Anderson (SF)

A scientist’s life is thrown into chaos when a grad student’s suicide turns out to be more than it seemed, and ends up triggering a singularity breakthrough in AI computing. What follows is a tour-de-force adventure in politics, technology, and human achievement, with some epic smack-down battles to top it all off.

Most AI stories make what I think is a mistake, having scientists set out to create something sentient that later gets away from them. As a computer scientist myself, however, I have never been able to buy that whole “sentience by intentional design” gambit. If we don’t understand how human consciousness works, how can we ever expect to build an artificial one on purpose? But Anderson’s approach seemed at once so brilliant and so obvious that I was immediately hooked. Why hadn’t anybody ever taken this angle before? I don’t want to ruin the story for you, so let me just say that the AI in Singularity Girl doesn’t begin with some hyper-clever act of scientific creation—it begins with a simple suicide.

(Read the full IOD Report.)

journeyman
The Journeyman, by Michael Alan Peck (Fantasy)

To Paul Reid, life as a homeless teen seems pretty bleak. But it turns out that was nothing compared to being dead. After an untimely accident takes him out of the world, Paul finds himself locked in a battle between the forces of light and dark – a battle that dark appears to be winning. And light seems too apathetic to care.

The first appeal for me with Journeyman was the absolute economy of scenes, and how brilliantly they supported each other to introduce a rich and believable cast of characters. As a result, Peck was able to get to the main crisis very quickly, but at no time did I ever feel that he was rushing. The second appeal was the premise. Lots of writers have tackled the “life after death” story, but this was something fresh. Not just a battle between the forces of Good and Evil, which Evil appears to be winning, but one in which Good doesn’t even seem to give a damn? Count me in.

(Read the full IOD Report.)

tinker
Mad Tinker’s Daughter, by JS Morin (Fantasy)

In a dual reality, where people live free on one side, but are enslaved by aliens on the other, a young woman and her crew of renegades have formed a resistance of sorts. Armed with the bits of tech they can either steal or reverse-engineer, these few hope to change the world – both worlds – for the better. Or die trying.

Tinker is built on an unusual twist. I understood right from the outset that something odd was going on. Pairs of characters seemed to be “twinned” in some fashion, but the nature of how that worked was doled out slowly, and that worked as a lure that kept pulling me further and further into the adventure. It’s a delicate balancing act for an author to try keeping something as fundamental as “how reality works” as a mystery from the reader, and still not alienate them from the story, but Morin manages to do just that. And by the time things had slowly unfolded into not one, but two steampunk worlds, each with a rich and well-lived-in feel to it, I was hooked.

(Read the full IOD Report.)

pay
Pay Me, Bug!, by Christopher Wright (SF)

If you miss Firefly, this is the kind of book that’s gonna ease your goram aches and lamentations, for a spell. Join Grif Vindh and the space-faring crew of the Fool’s Errand as they try to pull off the greatest heist in history. Again.

One of the harder things to put into a story is a believable sense of history between the characters, but Wright makes it seem easy. I was immediately drawn to the sense of camaraderie between the captain and his crew in this rollicking space adventure. At once easy and familiar with each other, but also professional and competent at their jobs, I instantly wanted to be a part of the good natured banter that passed among these freelance rogues. Beginning on page one, I felt like I was back on board the Serenity, and that feeling never went away.

(Read the full IOD Report.)

analog-sm
Strictly Analog, by Richard Levesque (SF)

In a decaying world where even your pet ferret has a live-to-net video feed, some problems require a guy who couldn’t leave a bit-trace if he tried. In that case, you go to Lomax. Ex-military, tough as nails… And strictly analog.

The 1st person POV is something that I see over and over again on my treadmill, but it almost always ends up with a bad case of what I call “Galloping ‘I’ disease”—those interminable paragraphs full of “I did this,” “I did that,” “I went here,” and “I went there.” When every fifth word is “I,” it can be hard to hear the story for all the echoing that’s going on in your head. But not so here. Levesque skillfully avoided that “I”-trap. He then sold me completely on the reality of his future LA when it was revealed that he and all his neighbors lived in illegally converted We-Store storage lockers, putting a totally unexpected spin on the notion of the self-storage industry. Details like this are what raise an SF story up out of the usual mire of recycled tropes and convince me that the author has something new to offer. And when I got all that in the first five pages, I couldn’t wait to see what else was in store.

(Read the full IOD Report.)

Untimed-sm
Untimed, by Andy Gavin (SF)

Charlie is a young man who’s been entirely forgettable for as long as he can remember, but on his 16th birthday he suddenly learns the reason why: he and his family are unstuck in time. But before he learns what that means, his father disappears. In a desperate bid to find him and finally get some answers, Charlie follows a strange man into a dark alley. And emerges into 18th century London.

Some rare books can hook you with the very first line. Not just intrigue you, but hook you—convince you not only that the story will be interesting, but that the writer knows what he’s doing and that your precious spare time is in good hands. And that’s what happened for me here.

My mother loves me and all, it’s just that she can’t remember my name.

As soon as I read that one sentence, I knew this was going to be a good story. I didn’t know yet if it would be well edited, but story-wise, this was a writer’s opening, with an entire novella hiding behind it. So when the protagonist went on to reveal that his entire family was somehow “unstuck in time,” I was on board with both feet and my steamer trunk already packed for the journey.

(Read the full IOD Report.)

Untimed-sm
Brotherhood of Delinquents, by Jefferson Smith (Fantasy)

For me as a writer, premise is everything. If I can’t find an interesting situation to explore, I can’t stay interested in the project long enough to write it. But for Brotherhood, I wanted to do more than just tackle an intriguing premise. I also wanted to tackle a challenging audience—one that most authors have given up on as a focus: teenage boys.
When I was really young, I read things like The Hardy Boys, Tom Swift, Danny Dunn, and The Three Investigators. But once I’d reached my teens, it seemed that those sorts of buddy-based adventure stories had all dried up. There certainly weren’t any in the fantasy genre. What had happened to the stories full of mystery and sleuthing, secret tunnels, codes, and boys being smarter than the adults around them? Those had been the hallmarks of boyish fascination that had made a die-hard reader of me, but as a teen I couldn’t find them anywhere. Eventually I moved on to more grown-up stories, but in the back of my mind, that vacuum has always stood out as a beacon to me. Fantasy adventure buddy-fiction for teen boys. All I had to do was find a way to take all the stuff I’d loved as a kid, put it all together, and then flip the conventions upside down.
Thus was born the premise for Brotherhood of Delinquents. Take a group of boys who don’t know or like each other, and who are generally perceived as useless wastrels by the adults around them, and put them in the middle of a mystery that the adults aren’t even aware of yet. Add in a dash of secret clubs, hidden passages, and a sense of swash-buckling adventure, and we’re off to the races.
I can’t point you at what other people have said about it yet, because Brotherhood is making its publishing debut in this StoryBundle. But all the fancy punditry in the world means little to me on this one. If there’s a boy in your life who hasn’t been able to find books that hold his interest, show him Brotherhood of Delinquents. I’ll be happy to stand by his judgment. After all, I wrote it for him. – Jefferson Smith

Sounds like a great collection, right? Well it is, and I hope you’ll join us over at StoryBundle.com to show your support for indie writing. And can I ask for a favor? Please consider sharing this announcement. If you or your friends have ever complained about the tide of low-quality books that swamp the indie byways, this is your one-stop opportunity to set the record straight. There really are some great books out there in indie-land.

And here are nine of them to prove it.  Get it before May 10!

Related posts:

  1. Untimed but not Unbundled
  2. Untimed officially for Sale!
  3. Untimed for sale at B&N and iTunes
  4. Untimed – Two Novels, Two Drafts!
  5. Book Review: XVI (read sexteen)
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: bundle, Fantasy, ImmerseOrDie, Science Fiction, StoryBundle, Untimed

Untimed but not Unbundled

Mar13

I’ve been sitting on this for a long time, but at last I can finally announce that on April 15, StoryBundle will be launching a new collection of indie Fantasy and Science Fiction titles. And what’s going to be in that bundle, you might ask? Only my time travel novel Untimed and 7 other awesome Indie SciFi/Fantasy titles that passed the ImmerseOrDie Treadmill Gauntlet.

What is that?

For those who don’t know about ImmerseOrDie, it’s simple. Every morning, the host, Jefferson Smith, gets on his treadmill, opens a new indie ebook, and starts walking. Any book that holds his attention for the duration of that 40:00 minute stroll gets labeled a survivor. But getting there is not easy. Every time he reads something that breaks his immersion in the story— bad grammar, inconsistent worldbuilding, illlogical character behaviors, etc. — that book earns a red flag, called a WTF. If he finds three WTFs, the clock stops, the book closes, and he goes off to write up the report of what went wrong.

But this upcoming StoryBundle is not just a random grab-bag of some books that managed to squeak past the 40:00-minute guard-dogs. Those survivors were all run through a second gauntlet and these eight champions are the ones that came out of that round unscathed as well. See, unbeknownst to any of the authors, every title that joined the IOD Survivor’s club was then entered into a secret Round 2. To survive that round, Jeff reads the entire book and they would have to do more than simply avoid WTF triggers. They had to grab his attention and hold it, and then deliver a complete and satisfying story. Not just clean, but entertaining, as well.

So that’s exactly what these 8 books have done, and I’ll stack these up against any collection, anywhere—indie or otherwise. So on Apr 15, when the doors open on this collection, you’ll be able to get all 8 of the winners (plus a surprise or two that will be announced later) for the low, low price of “whatever you want to pay.” That’s right. Just decide how much you want to tip the authors, type that number into the box, and then download the entire set. And as an added bonus, every StoryBundle has a designated charity that will receive a portion of the proceeds.

story-bundle-brand

But you probably want to know what books are in the collection. So here they are, your 2015 ImmerseOrDie Double-Champions, in alphabetical order:

iodcentury-sm
Century of Sand, by Christopher Ruz (Fantasy)

An old warrior rescues a young girl from the clutches of an evil wizard and then flees with her into exile. It’s a desperate bid to find something—anything—that can put the world right again, and hopefully, undo whatever darkness has been done to the girl. His daughter. (Read the full IOD Report.)

Crimson Son
Crimson Son, by Russ Linton (SF)

In a world where government-manufactured super-heroes have replaced war and terrorism as the world’s greatest threats – and it’s only source of salvation – there’s only one thing that sucks worse than having no powers at all. And that’s being the powerless son of the greatest hero of them all, and a prisoner inside the family fortress of solitude. For his own protection, you understand. Well, Spencer Harrington, son of the Crimson Mask, has had enough. He’s tired of playing by dad’s rules, and this time, he’s going to do things his way. (Read the full IOD Report.)

improb
The Improbable Rise of Singularity Girl, by Bryce Anderson (SF)

A scientist’s life is thrown into chaos when a grad student’s suicide turns out to be more than it seemed, and ends up triggering a singularity breakthrough in AI computing. What follows is a tour-de-force adventure in politics, technology, and human achievement, with some epic smack-down battles to top it all off. (Read the full IOD Report.)

journeyman
The Journeyman, by Michael Alan Peck (Fantasy)

To Paul Reid, life as a homeless teen seems pretty bleak. But it turns out that was nothing compared to being dead. After an untimely accident takes him out of the world, Paul finds himself locked in a battle between the forces of light and dark – a battle that dark appears to be winning. And light seems too apathetic to care. (Read the full IOD Report.)

tinker
Mad Tinker’s Daughter, by JS Morin (Fantasy)

In a dual reality, where people live free on one side, but are enslaved by aliens on the other, a young woman and her crew of renegades have formed a resistance of sorts. Armed with the bits of tech they can either steal or reverse-engineer, these few hope to change the world – both worlds – for the better. Or die trying. (Read the full IOD Report.)

pay
Pay Me, Bug!, by Christopher Wright (SF)

If you miss Firefly, this is the kind of book that’s gonna ease your goram aches and lamentations, for a spell. Join Grif Vindh and the space-faring crew of the Fool’s Errand as they try to pull off the greatest heist in history. Again. (Read the full IOD Report.)

analog-sm
Strictly Analog, by Richard Levesque (SF)

In a decaying world where even your pet ferret has a live-to-net video feed, some problems require a guy who couldn’t leave a bit-trace if he tried. In that case, you go to Lomax. Ex-military, tough as nails… And strictly analog. (Read the full IOD Report.)

Untimed-sm
Untimed, by Andy Gavin (SF)

Charlie is a young man who’s been entirely forgettable for as long as he can remember, but on his 16th birthday he suddenly learns the reason why: he and his family are unstuck in time. But before he learns what that means, his father disappears. In a desperate bid to find him and finally get some answers, Charlie follows a strange man into a dark alley. And emerges into 18th century London. (Read the full IOD Report.)

Sounds like a great collection, right? Well it is, and I hope you’ll join us over at StoryBundle.com on Apr. 15 to show your support for indie writing. And can I ask for a favor? Please consider sharing this announcement. If you or your friends have ever complained about the tide of low-quality books that swamp the indie byways, this is your one-stop opportunity to set the record straight. There really are some great books out there in indie-land.

And here are eight of them to prove it.

Related posts:

  1. Untimed, Unheard no More
  2. Untimed – Two Novels, Two Drafts!
  3. Untimed officially for Sale!
  4. Untimed nearly here!
  5. Untimed Fourth Draft Finished
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Fantasy, Immerse or Die, Science Fiction, Story Bundle, Untimed

Untimed Free!

Aug25

The Kindle E-Book versions of Untimed will be FREE Monday, August 25 and Tuesday the 26th! Take the plunge, hey, it won’t cost you a cent.

Free on Amazon!

Tweet, share, like, follow, blog and grab a copy of my book. The trailer can be found here.

About Untimed

Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, his own mother can’t remember his name. So when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously. Still, this isn’t all bad. Who needs school when you can learn about history first hand, like from Ben Franklin himself. And there’s this girl… Yvaine… another time traveler. All good. Except for the rules: boys only travel into the past and girls only into the future. And the baggage: Yvaine’s got a baby boy and more than her share of ex-boyfriends. Still, even if they screw up history — like accidentally let the founding father be killed — they can just time travel and fix it, right? But the future they return to is nothing like Charlie remembers. To set things right, he and his scrappy new girlfriend will have to race across the centuries, battling murderous machines from the future, jealous lovers, reluctant parents, and time itself.

“A masterful storyteller, Gavin builds a solid plot with believable characters.” — Kirkus
_
“Adventure, chemistry… and roller coaster plot are sure to appeal.” — Publishers Weekly
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“Like science class in Las Vegas!” — FantasyLiterature.com

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

01-GhostHouse

Related posts:

  1. Untimed on the Cheap
  2. Untimed for Cheap!
  3. Untimed starred in Publishers Weekly!
  4. Untimed – $1.99 this week!
  5. Untimed Book Trailer
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Amazon, Andy Gavin, Kindle, sale, Untimed

Untimed, Unheard no More

Jun25

Seventeen months in the making, the Untimed audiobook is finally ready!

The complete unabridged book is available on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes for MP3 download to your phone or ipod. It’s narrated by producer Steven Barnett.

A bit about the production

ACX_Logo

I started way back in January 2013, and like most Independent authors considering an audiobook edition, decided to use Amazon’s ACX service. This is a marketplace for connecting authors with voice and production talent as well as an automated mechanism for delivering the finished books to the big online markets (Audible, Amazon, and iTunes). This makes it  easy to post descriptions of what your looking for and a section of the book to read. I listed both The Darkening Dream and Untimed. Lo and behold, over the next couple of weeks a pile of auditions started to come in.

Untimed  is a tricky novel from a recording standpoint. Like all my books it features a lot of accents. The two most important characters are Charlie, a modern 15 year-old boy from Philadelphia, and Yvaine a 16 year-old girl from 16-18th century Scotland. It’s also a first person narrative, so it needed to be read in Charlie’s voice. Therefore, I wanted to cast a man who sounded fifteen, but also could pull off a passable falsetto. Steven Barnett’s audition was the one that fit the bill. He sounded young, and he proved great with accents.

Steven B

Steven Barnett in the studio

It important to prepare detailed notes on all your characters. Untimed doesn’t have the biggest cast, but the characters are from all over the world (and time!) with varied accents and histories. Given my lean prose style and my use of whitespace to delineate dialog instead of extensive tagging (see below), the voices needed to be distinct enough for the listener to distinguish who is talking. After Steven studied my character sheets and we discussed them on the phone, we created a number of voice tests for the major parts. I listened and then gave feedback. This is a broad pattern that continues through the process. Prep -> Record -> Listen -> Feedback -> Repeat.

As I’ve experimented in many mediums: video games, novels, screenplays, and now audiobooks, it’s worth noting some of the differences. The physical placement on the page (as dictated by white space) is useful in novels. I separate dialog spoken by different people on different lines, and I make sure to place tags (he said, she said) and beats (small action queues like “Yvaine shifted in place” or “Donnie smirked” in the same paragraph as the speaker’s dialog. In an audiobook, you can’t hear the white space, but differences in voicing can make up for who is speaking. Still, you lose this spatial grouping. The tags also stand out more when spoken, as the eye tends to ignore them.

Another thing I hadn’t thought about is how long it actually takes to listen repeatedly to an entire novel. Untimed is over ten hours and every few weeks I’d get an hour or two of recordings, need to listen — usually twice (paying attention!) — and write up notes. And my side of the work was a lot easier than Steven’s. I can only imagine how long it took to record multiple takes, audition them, edit, then proof.

A final thing I decided to do was to add sound effects (sfx) to Untimed for the time travel aspects. I wanted the mysterious Tick-Tocks to have a creepy otherworld quality, so I thought to underscore them with an antique ticking noise. They never talk, but they do CHIME. In the books, I just write it like that, but having Steven read out the word “chime” sounded lame, so I replaced it with the sound of a deep resonant clock tower. Likewise, to help sell the mechanics of the time holes and the frequent (and complex) travel, I engineered unique sounds. This harkened back to my days as “assistant” sound engineer on Crash Bandicoot (I process and installed all the sounds that the real engineer, Mike Gollom, made for me). I found a source of royalty free sfx and combined and pitch shifted various ones until I got what I wanted. For example, the Tock ticking is a layered sample combining 4-5 different clocks and watches to reach suitable complexity.

Then, as the months rolled by, chapter by chapter, the book came together brilliantly. I’ve listened to it 2-3 times — although not all together at once. I’m curious at the psychological effect, but after reading various drafts countless times and a couple listens, I’ll leave that to you guys!

Listen to a free sample if you like:

http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/untimed_excerpt_v2-acx.mp3

Or buy the Audiobook at:

Amazon, Audible, or iTunes

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

_

Related posts:

  1. Dream a Little Dream
  2. Hark, I hear The Darkening Dream
  3. Untimed for sale at B&N and iTunes
  4. Untimed officially for Sale!
  5. Untimed – $1.99 this week!
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Amazon.com, Andy Gavin, Audible, audiobook, iTunes, Philadelphia, Scotland, Steven Barnett, Untimed

Untimed on the Cheap

Sep02

The E-Book versions of Untimed will be only $0.99 cents from Monday, September 2 through Friday the 13th! Take the plunge, it’s certainly a great deal.

Buy it on Amazon!

Tweet, share, like, follow, blog and grab a copy of my book. The trailer can be found here.

About Untimed

Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, his own mother can’t remember his name. So when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously. Still, this isn’t all bad. Who needs school when you can learn about history first hand, like from Ben Franklin himself. And there’s this girl… Yvaine… another time traveler. All good. Except for the rules: boys only travel into the past and girls only into the future. And the baggage: Yvaine’s got a baby boy and more than her share of ex-boyfriends. Still, even if they screw up history — like accidentally let the founding father be killed — they can just time travel and fix it, right? But the future they return to is nothing like Charlie remembers. To set things right, he and his scrappy new girlfriend will have to race across the centuries, battling murderous machines from the future, jealous lovers, reluctant parents, and time itself.

“A masterful storyteller, Gavin builds a solid plot with believable characters.” — Kirkus
_
“Adventure, chemistry… and roller coaster plot are sure to appeal.” — Publishers Weekly
_
“Like science class in Las Vegas!” — FantasyLiterature.com

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

20-Tyburn

Related posts:

  1. Untimed for Cheap!
  2. Untimed – $1.99 this week!
  3. Untimed starred in Publishers Weekly!
  4. Untimed Book Trailer
  5. Untimed officially for Sale!
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, E-book, sale, Time travel, Untimed

Jabbering about Untimed

May02

On Tuesday I went on Journal Jabber, a segment of BlogTalkRadio for an hour long interview about Untimed, writing, and all sorts of other stuff. It was a lot of fun and if you missed it live you can find it here at BlogTalkRadio or below directly.

[audio http://all-things-andy-gavin.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/show_4776303.mp3]

JournalJabberText

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By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: interview, Journal Jabber, Untimed

Untimed for Cheap!

Apr16

The E-Book versions of Untimed will be only $0.99 cents from Monday, April 15 until Friday the 19th! Take the plunge, it’s certainly a great deal.

Buy it on Amazon!

Tweet, share, like, follow, blog and grab a copy of my book. The trailer can be found here.

About Untimed

Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, his own mother can’t remember his name. So when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously. Still, this isn’t all bad. Who needs school when you can learn about history first hand, like from Ben Franklin himself. And there’s this girl… Yvaine… another time traveler. All good. Except for the rules: boys only travel into the past and girls only into the future. And the baggage: Yvaine’s got a baby boy and more than her share of ex-boyfriends. Still, even if they screw up history — like accidentally let the founding father be killed — they can just time travel and fix it, right? But the future they return to is nothing like Charlie remembers. To set things right, he and his scrappy new girlfriend will have to race across the centuries, battling murderous machines from the future, jealous lovers, reluctant parents, and time itself.

“A masterful storyteller, Gavin builds a solid plot with believable characters.” — Kirkus
_
“Adventure, chemistry… and roller coaster plot are sure to appeal.” — Publishers Weekly
_
“Like science class in Las Vegas!” — FantasyLiterature.com

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info20-Tyburn

Related posts:

  1. Untimed – $1.99 this week!
  2. Untimed for sale at B&N and iTunes
  3. Untimed starred in Publishers Weekly!
  4. Untimed officially for Sale!
  5. Unbendable Untimed
By: agavin
Comments (5)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Book Sale, bookbub, Untimed

Untimed Book Trailer

Mar20

This awesome Trailer for Untimed was made for me by The Other House, a LA based firm specializing in book trailers. They’re one of the few houses with consistently classy output. I went with an animation style because I’m bothered by live action or straight up photography (in a book context). Maybe it’s because I grew up in the 70s and 80s when only cheesy Tie-In novels had photos on the cover, who knows?

In any case, I also had to keep my trailer short (mostly for budget reasons) and so it was also an interesting exercise to squeeze the basic concept into about 15 seconds of storytelling.

Let me know how we did! And make sure to watch it in 720p!

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

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By: agavin
Comments (25)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Book Trailer, Short Narrative, The Other House, Trailer, Untimed

Untimed starred in Publishers Weekly!

Feb22

The latest issue of Publishers Weekly just came out, and Untimed earned a starred review! I’m 2/2 on this, as The Darkening Dream also earned a star — and they are quite rare, usually only 1-2 books per issue. The review is good enough that I’ll quote it in entirety, although you can find it on the PW site too:

Gavin (The Darkening Dream), perhaps best known for his work in the video game industry as the creator of Crash Bandicoot, kicks off an exciting series with an intriguing take on time travel. Fifteen-year-old Charlie, so forgettable that his own mother can’t remember his name, is inadvertently thrown back in time when he enters a portal created by a strange clockwork man Stranded in 1725 London, Charlie joins a gang of urchins, meets lively fellow time traveler Yvaine, and accidentally gets Benjamin Franklin killed, totally wrecking the course of history. Charlie and Yvaine must brave the hazards of unfamiliar eras (and the sinister mechanical Tick-Tocks) to restore the proper course of events. Gavin doesn’t sugarcoat the perils of times past, instead exposing his heroes to all sorts of experiences, and Phillips’s dramatically lit spot illustrations amplify the mystery and menace of the setting. The sense of adventure, chemistry between Charlie and Yvaine, and roller coaster plot are sure to appeal to a wide range of readers, who may cry foul at the cliffhanger ending before demanding more.

You can also find all the Untimed reviews (which are pretty uniformly stellar) here.

PWLogo

Related posts:

  1. The Darkening Dream in Publishers Weekly
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  5. Whelping Characters
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Book Reviews, Publishers Weekly, starred review, Untimed, Untimed review

Untimed – $1.99 this week!

Jan20

To help kick off the launch, the E-Book versions of Untimed will be only $1.99 cents from Sunday, January 20 until Friday the 25th! Take the plunge, it’s certainly a great deal.

Buy it on Amazon!

Tweet, share, like, follow, blog and grab a copy of my book.

About Untimed

Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, his own mother can’t remember his name. So when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously. Still, this isn’t all bad. Who needs school when you can learn about history first hand, like from Ben Franklin himself. And there’s this girl… Yvaine… another time traveler. All good. Except for the rules: boys only travel into the past and girls only into the future. And the baggage: Yvaine’s got a baby boy and more than her share of ex-boyfriends. Still, even if they screw up history — like accidentally let the founding father be killed — they can just time travel and fix it, right? But the future they return to is nothing like Charlie remembers. To set things right, he and his scrappy new girlfriend will have to race across the centuries, battling murderous machines from the future, jealous lovers, reluctant parents, and time itself.

“A masterful storyteller, Gavin builds a solid plot with believable characters.” — Kirkus
_
“Like science class in Las Vegas!” — FantasyLiterature.com

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

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  5. Big Giveaway!
By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, sale, Time travel, Untimed

Unbendable Untimed

Jan18

132c5675I debated about publishing a hardcover edition of Untimed, as paper sales on The Darkening Dream leaned heavily to the paperback (presumably for cost reasons). In the end, I just had too, as they look so good.

This time around I did the entire mechanical (the print ready PDF) and layout myself, as I did with the paperback. Good professionals charge around $1000 per mechanical (so usually over $2000 for both paperback and hardcover). If you have a good eye and substantial Photoshop skills, it’s doable by yourself. I did every element on both paperback and hardcover exteriors except for the actual cover illustration (Cliff Nielsen did that, and that is way beyond my artistic abilities).

The hardcover mechanical would have only taken me about four hours, but I ran into a nasty bug with photoshop PDF output that cost me an extra eight. I hate that kind of thing, but it happens.

If you are interested in making a hardcover edition yourself through Lightning Source, you can read about how I did it here.

Here is what the mechanical looks like

Here is what the mechanical looks like

In case you’re curious about the book behind the pretty cover:

Untimed: A YA time travel novel by Andy Gavin.

Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, his own mother can’t remember his name. So when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously. Still, this isn’t all bad. Who needs school when you can learn about history first hand, like from Ben Franklin himself. And there’s this girl… Yvaine… another time traveler. All good. Except for the rules: boys only travel into the past and girls only into the future. And the baggage: Yvaine’s got a baby boy and more than her share of ex-boyfriends. Still, even if they screw up history — like accidentally let the founding father be killed — they can just time travel and fix it, right? But the future they return to is nothing like Charlie remembers. To set things right, he and his scrappy new girlfriend will have to race across the centuries, battling murderous machines from the future, jealous lovers, reluctant parents, and time itself.

Find the Hardcover here on Amazon!

(even if it says “out of stock” you can still order it and it’ll ship in a couple of days)

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

The back cover. It has the usual cloth jacket and flaps inside.

Related posts:

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By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Amazon.com, Andy Gavin, Hardcover, Publishing, Untimed

Untimed for sale at B&N and iTunes

Jan04

My novel, Untimed, is now for sale at Barnes and Noble and iTunes. Well, B&N at least, as iTunes (finally up as of morning 1/7/13) is still reviewing/processing, but will post shortly.

Buy it Now!

With my previous novel, Amazon had over 90% of the sales, and B&N probably did 90% of the remaining. This time around I may skip the Google Bookstore as it barely sold anything and provides a highly inferior customer experience. The Google formatting even mangled the images, which Untimed has in spades. Maybe I’ll take a look at Kobo too.

Find out more Untimed book here.

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

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By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, EPUB, iTunes, Nook, Untimed

Whelping Characters

Dec24

My novel Untimed was conceived as a fusion of ideas. Lingering in my mind for over twenty years was a time travel story about people from the future who fell “downtime” to relive exciting moments in history (until things go wrong). I’d worked out a time travel system but had no plot or characters. Separately, in 2010, as a break from editing The Darkening Dream, I experimented with new voice techniques, especially first person present. I also read various “competition.” One of these was The Lightning Thief (the first Percy Jackson novel), which has an amazing series concept (if a slightly limp execution). I love mythology and history, and liked the notion of something with a rich body of material to mine. I wanted an open ended high concept that drew on my strengths, which brought me back to time travel.
Some of the mechanics from my earlier concept merged well with a younger protagonist, voiced in a visceral first person present style. I started thinking about it, and his voice popped into my head. I pounded out a chapter not too dissimilar from the first chapter of the final novel. Then the most awesome villain teleported into the situation. I can’t remember how or why, but it happened quickly and spontaneously. Tick-Tocks were born (or forged).

Rapier: So bad he's cool

Rapier: So bad he’s cool

The Tick-Tocks are supposed to be mysterious, and I really wanted to reveal their secrets layer by layer. It was even important that by the end of the book, while you understand a lot more about them, you don’t really know exactly where they come from or what their up to. A great nemesis needs this. Think Darth Vader or Professor Moriarty. Their secrets aren’t all on the table to begin with. Additionally, one of my favorite emotions to play with is “creep.” My first novel, The Darkening Dream, is all about creepiness, and I think it’s much more effective and scary than plain horror. So the Tocks are supposed to be creepy. Not exactly horrific, but just mysterious and creepy. That’s one of the reasons they don’t talk. Creepy.

Charlie: Not even his mother remembers his name

Charlie: Not even his mother remembers his name

Charlie’s character derived automatically from his voice, which I tried to make authentically 15. And while he’s sweet, and fundamentally optimistic and good natured, realism demanded a bit of an edge. Teen boys think about shit and sex. Sorry, but it’s true. I rub up on issues that make some squirm, even if I deal with the lightly: teen pregnancy, drinking, slavery, etc. But to sweep these under the carpet wouldn’t do justice to the 18th century – or our own.

Yvaine: Comes with serious baggage

Yvaine: Comes with serious baggage

As to Yvaine. Well, she’s based in part on the kind of girl I wanted to meet when I was a teenager. This seems odd, considering how messed up she is, but like Charlie, I didn’t have much luck with girls in High School. In the 80s, being a “computer guy” and even worse, into video games, was pretty much the kiss of death (see 16 Candles for reference). Yvaine is smart, capable, and in charge, but she’s also damaged and emotionally needy. I thought the combination worked.

Donnie: If you think the wig is impressive, wait until you see his sword

Donnie: If you think the wig is impressive, wait until you see his sword

Lastly, I’ll talk about Donnie. I’ve noticed that the most effective jerks tend to have some real charisma. Because of Yvaine, Charlie never really likes Donnie, but he maybe could have briefly. Donnie holds his little band together throw a mixture of intimidation, generosity, camaraderie and loyalty. He may be mostly out for himself, but he really sees himself as the protector and leader of his gang, and he acts this way to hold up his own self image. Even in the end, his loyalty to Stump is his own undoing, which is kinda sad – but that’s life. Real villains are heroes in their own stories.

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

Related posts:

  1. Untimed Art Finished!
  2. Untimed nearly here!
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  5. Untimed Characters
By: agavin
Comments (2)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Characters, Charlie, Creepy, Lightning Thief, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Sixteen Candles, Time travel, Untimed, Yvaine

Untimed officially for Sale!

Dec20

Both the paperback and Kindle versions are available. If your stocking is stuffed with a brand new Kindle, or you already have one, or you read on the Kindle app anywhere (iPad, Android, etc.)…

Buy it now!

The e-book launches at the low, low price of $5.99, certainly a bargain given that it took me a year to write. Plus the book is lavishly produced with a cover by award winning fantasy artist Cliff Nielsen and there are twenty-one gorgeous interior illustrations by Dave Phillips.

For those of you that aren’t Kindle people, in the next couple of weeks I’ll try to get all the other E-Book variants up (B&N, iTunes, etc.). Also, I’m also working on a stunning hardcover edition — just because I can.

About the book:

Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, his own mother can’t remember his name. So when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously. Still, this isn’t all bad. Who needs school when you can learn about history first hand, like from Ben Franklin himself. And there’s this girl… Yvaine… another time traveler. All good. Except for the rules: boys only travel into the past and girls only into the future. And the baggage: Yvaine’s got a baby boy and more than her share of ex-boyfriends. Still, even if they screw up history — like accidentally let the founding father be killed — they can just time travel and fix it, right? But the future they return to is nothing like Charlie remembers. To set things right, he and his scrappy new girlfriend will have to race across the centuries, battling murderous machines from the future, jealous lovers, reluctant parents, and time itself.

So try it out and see what you think. Afterward, please review the book on Amazon. Reviews matter!

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

_

EndGame2_cropped

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By: agavin
Comments (1)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Amazon Kindle, Amazon.com, Andy Gavin, Cliff Nielsen, E-book, Fantasy art, iTunes, Time travel, Untimed

Untimed nearly here!

Dec10

Prepared yourself to launch yourself back (and forward) into history! My new time travel novel, Untimed, is launching on December 19!

Charlie’s the kind of boy that no one notices. Hell, even his own mother can’t remember his name. And girls? The invisible man gets more dates.

As if that weren’t enough, when a mysterious clockwork man tries to kill him in modern day Philadelphia, and they tumble through a hole into 1725 London, Charlie realizes even the laws of time don’t take him seriously.

Still, this isn’t all bad. In fact, there’s this girl, another time traveler, who not only remembers his name, but might even like him! Unfortunately, Yvaine carries more than her share of baggage: like a baby boy and at least two ex-boyfriends! One’s famous, the other’s murderous, and Charlie doesn’t know who is the bigger problem.

When one kills the other — and the other is nineteen year-old Ben Franklin — things get really crazy. Can their relationship survive? Can the future? Charlie and Yvaine are time travelers, they can fix this — theoretically — but the rules are complicated and the stakes are history as we know it.

And there’s one more wrinkle: he can only travel into the past, and she can only travel into the future!

The paperback and Kindle versions will be available at launch, with hardcover and other ebook adaptions to follow. The cover is by award winning fantasy artist Cliff Nielsen and there are twenty-one gorgeous interior illustrations by Dave Phillips.

Meanwhile, read the first two chapters here, free!

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  5. Untimed – Two Novels, Check!
By: agavin
Comments (7)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, London, Philadelphia, Time travel, Untimed

Untimed Goodies

Nov12

My latest Advanced Reader Copy of Untimed. NOTE: the white balance leans overly orange in this photo

This was a busy week for Untimed swag. The proof came for the latest ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) and it looks fantastic. Not only the outside, but the interior has a new properly done layout  that includes all the illustrations and near print ready formatting.

Swag bookmarks

I also received a run of bookmarks. These look pretty cool but I wish there was an easy way to get proofs before printing a big run. The way they price these things on the online printshops (I used overnightprints.com for these) it only makes sense to order 1000-2000+, but there are no (physical) proofs. The text on the back is a little close to the trim for my taste, even though it was well inside the safety zone. They also have a 2-3mm variance in the cutting, which is typical but annoying. They aren’t all centered perfectly an I’m a perfectionist. Still, they look cool. For those of you curious about the process, below are the print ready versions.

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By: agavin
Comments (6)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, books, Novel, online printing, Paperback, swag, Time travel, Untimed, Writing

Untimed Characters

Sep19

My upcoming novel, Untimed, features an amusing cast of characters, so I gathered up their likenesses into a rather oddball “family” album which can be found here.

Longshot: Shoot first, ask questions later

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By: agavin
Comments (0)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Art, Dave Phillips, Fiction, Illustration, novels, Untimed

Untimed Cover Reveal!

Sep05

I just received the final version of the Untimed cover painting by Cliff Nielsen. I’d thought Cliff knocked The Darkening Dream cover out of the park (it’s even won a number of awards) but this one is on fire.

The art above, cool as it is, isn’t intended to be a complete composition. This is a book cover painting, and so there is extra space to work with around the central figure as well as fairly monochromatic areas for the titles and to the left for the back cover (paper edition). I crop different sections out of it as needed for different uses, such as the banner above or the current front cover composition to the left. The logo and text composition aren’t set in stone yet, either, I’m still noodling on them.

You’re probably wondering who the hell the clockwork man is. Meet Rapier. He’s nearly indestructible, dresses in time appropriate blue uniforms, carries a sword, and kills time travelers on sight. History is his playground. He can be anywhere or anywhen. And no one has a clue what he or the other Tick-Tocks want. Which is all a bit of a bummer for our time traveling protagonist, Charlie.

The scene above is inside the church of St. Bartholomew the Great, London, in the year 1725. At the time, a young Ben Franklin worked there (oddly enough, the building was used as a print shop). When Rapier gets in on the action, the paper is literally hot off the presses!

Be sure to leave your thoughts on the new cover in the comments!

Vote on logo options here, check out some interior illustrations, or

read more about the story of Untimed.

End Game: Tick-Tock TLC

Interior illustrator Dave Phillip’s version of the same scene about two minutes later – when things go from bad to worse!

The old stock photography cover I did myself

Related posts:

  1. Untimed – The Second Cover
  2. Untimed – Logo Faceoff
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  5. Cover Commission
By: agavin
Comments (11)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Art, Cliff Nielsen, Cover, Cover art, layout, London, Stock photography, Time travel, Untimed

Untimed – Logo Faceoff

Aug29

A while back, Cliff Nielsen, the amazing artist who created the cover for The Darkening Dream, finished the amazing new cover painting for my second novel, Untimed. This is going to replace the stock photography clock cover to the left, but I’m not ready to reveal it (I will in a week or three) but I’ve been experimenting with logos and wanted to collect your opinions. As a side note, I’ve been doing my mechanicals myself. Not only is it cheaper, but my photoshop skillz have gotten moderately elite — at least for a programmer/author.

Below are three takes on the logo. You can even see just a hint of the cover illustration here, but I cut it tight to be a tease (and content aware filled out a bit of someone’s head!).

A fairly heavily “styled” version where the text is inspired by antique clock parts (this is after all a time travel novel with clockwork killer machines). Thanks to longtime friend Jason Rubin for help on an earlier variant of this logo.

A similar brass treatment, but using a more strait forward lowercase type treatment. The font is modeled after an 18th century typeface.

Same deal as above, but all uppercase.

Similar to the top-most one, but with arabesque tooling in the metal instead of brushing. This new variant was added 9/12/12, after most of the comments. Since people liked #1, I wanted to work in that direction.

So, dear readers, which version do you like? Let me know in the comments. None of the above is a viable opinion, but please give reasons.

The back of a Breguet watch, I was going for a similar sort of vibe with the arabesque tooling.

Related posts:

  1. Untimed – The Second Cover
  2. Untimed – Meet the Tocks
  3. Untimed – Two Novels, Check!
  4. Untimed – Two Novels, Two Drafts!
  5. Untimed – Out on Submission!
By: agavin
Comments (26)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Art Design, Book, Cliff Nielsen, Cover art, Fiction, Logos, Time travel, Untimed

Untimed Art Finished!

Aug13

All twenty-one interior illustrations for my time travel novel, Untimed, are now finished! These are painted by Dave Phillips, an awesome artist I commissioned earlier this year. I thought I’d use the occasion to show two new images. And because I love process, I’m posting both the rough and final versions. To get a close up look at this, click one of the images and it will bring up a Smugmug lightbox. You can use the arrow keys to flip back and forth between the rough and the final to see the differences.

Donnie: Two's company, three's a crowdDonnie: Two's company, three's a crowd

Above is is “Two’s Company, Three’s a Crowd.” Our protagonist Charlie has to go all the way from contemporary Philadelphia to 1725 London to meet a girl, but she has more than her share of baggage!

For those of you who are curious, Donnie, the guy in the middle with the crazy wig, is actually nineteen and dressed as a “Macaroni.” Remember the line from Yankee Doodle Dandy: “He stuck a feather in his hat, and called it macaroni”? In the early 18th century it was in vogue for trendy young men to dress in outlandish colors (Italian Style) and they were called Macaronis. Tim Roth also plays a fantastic and similar dandy in the excellent 1995 film Rob Roy.

Sideways: This is Philadelphia?Sideways: This is Philadelphia?

Time travel isn’t just about competing for girls, sometimes tiny changes can have big consequences. Well, maybe letting Ben Franklin get killed and leaving the clockwork men to run amuck doesn’t qualify as “tiny.” When Charlie gets back home to modern day Philadelphia (above), things look a bit different then he expects!

Previously released images can be found here and here and stay tuned for more.

Find out more about Untimed here.

Related posts:

  1. Untimed Fourth Draft Finished
  2. Untimed – Out on Submission!
  3. From Sketch to Final
  4. Untimed – Two Novels, Two Drafts!
  5. Untimed – The Second Cover
By: agavin
Comments (10)
Posted in: Untimed
Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Dandy, London, Macaroni, Philadelphia, Rob Roy, Tavern, Tim Roth, Time travel, Untimed, Yankee Doodle Dandy
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