Guest Post and Giveaway: c3 by Sherrie Cronin

Published: January 31st, 2014

Description:

Teddie’s life as a sixteen year old hasn’t always been easy, but nothing has prepared her for the unexpected dangers she encounters as an exchange student in Darjeeling. A frightening world in which young girls are bartered and sold stretches its icy fingers into the beautiful resort town and touches her friends one by one. 

Terrified, Teddie finds that her own mind develops a unique ability for locating her friends and that an ancient group of mind travelers is willing to train her to use her new skill to save these girls. It will require trust in ideas she barely believes, and more courage than has ever been expected of her. When it becomes clear that the alternative is her friends’ deaths and the unchecked growth of an evil crime lord’s empire, Teddie accepts the challenge and shows those guilty of unspeakable crimes just how powerful a young woman can be.

About the 46. Ascending: c3 is part of 46. 

Ascending, a collection of loosely interrelated novels about five very different family members who each discover that they can do the extraordinary when circumstances require it. 

These books are designed to be read as stand alone stories or in any order. 

If you enjoy c3, consider z2, the tale of Teddie’s father as he learns to use his ability to warp time to protect Teddie and her friends against a threat from a violent white supremacy movement at Teddie’s high school. You may also enjoy y1, the story of Teddie’s brother Zane as he develops an odd ability to alter his appearance, and x0, the story of Teddie’s telepathic mother as she finds herself the unlikely hero in a rescue mission in Nigeria. c

It will be out in paperback and in other electronic bookstores early this summer. The other books in the collection can be purchased now in all formats. Watch for d4, the story of Teddie’s older sister, in late 2014.

GUEST POST

Fan Faction

A reader recently asked me how I would feel if someone decided to write fan fiction based on one of my books. I honestly hadn’t considered it. Fan fiction is inspired by very popular works, and as a relatively new and unknown author my first reaction was that it would be so flattering to have someone become engrossed enough in one of my stories to be compelled to tell their own tale with my characters. 

This reader was writing a paper on the subject for a college class, however, and she was hoping for a more well-thought-out response, so I did a little research before I wrote her back. Many well known authors have no problem with fan fiction, but others worry about losing potential ideas for stories because a fan invents a similar story first, and even hopes to be compensated for the idea. Some authors make a public point of not reading their own fan fiction for that reason, and that concern makes sense to me. 

Others, like Sharon Lee, co-author of the science fiction book “Agent of Change” object outright to the very idea. She said “We built our universes, and our characters; they are our intellectual property; and they are not toys lying about some virtual sandbox for other kids to pick up and modify at their whim.” I have to say that I see her point, too. 

I was surprised at how much fan fiction apparently involves introducing sex (or more sex) into the original story lines, sometimes with gender changes, new same-sex-relationships, and sex of all kinds between characters from totally unrelated books and movies. Now that I think about it, I guess this shouldn’t have surprised me. I consider of myself open minded, but I am attached to the characters that I have created, and I can imagine a line beyond which I would be offended.

It turns out that my initial reaction of “oh wouldn’t that be wonderful, I should be so lucky” was only the easy answer. My final response to her was that fan fiction that is reasonably respectful of the original work is flattering, and a wise author ought to appreciated and even encourage it. Parodies have to be tolerated, and fans hoping to supply new story ideas have to be dealt with fairly and carefully. In the end, however, with fan fiction you are allowing all of humanity to come play in the world that you’ve made, and you may well not like the way that everyone plays with your toys.

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About the author:

Sherrie Roth grew up in Western Kansas thinking that there was no place in the universe more fascinating than outer space. After her mother vetoed astronaut as a career ambition, she went on to study journalism and physics in hopes of becoming a science writer. 

She published her first science fiction short story pretty easily, and then waited a lot of tables while she looked for inspiration for the next story. When it finally came, it declared to her that it had to be whole book, nothing less. One night, while digesting this disturbing piece of news, she drank way too many shots of ouzo with her boyfriend. She woke up thirty-one years later demanding to know what was going on. 

The boyfriend, who she had apparently long since married, asked her to calm down and explained that in a fit of practicality she had gone back to school and gotten a degree in geophysics and had spent the last 28 years interpreting seismic data in the oil industry. The good news, according to Mr. Cronin, was that she had found it at least mildly entertaining and ridiculously well-paying The bad news was that the two of them had still managed to spend almost all of the money. 

Apparently she was now Mrs. Cronin, and the further good news was that they had produced three wonderful children whom they loved dearly, even though to be honest that is where a lot of the money had gone. Even better news was that Mr. Cronin turned out to be a warm-hearted, encouraging sort who was happy to see her awake and ready to write. "It's about time," were his exact words. 

Sherrie Cronin discovered that over the ensuing decades Sally Ride had already managed to become the first woman in space and apparently had done a fine job of it. No one, however, had written the book that had been in Sherrie's head for decades. The only problem was, the book informed her sternly that it had now grown into a six book series. Sherrie decided that she better start writing it before it got any longer. She's been wide awake ever since, and writing away. 

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