Francis W Porretto: 15 books

There’s a new force abroad in the land: the independent writer of fiction: He who can create his own original stories; perform (or arrange for) editing, required artwork, and promotional blurbs; and promote his creations by himself. We have the conventional publishing world in terror. If you’re a fellow indie, perhaps you’ll enjoy this collection of thoughts on our common avocation.

Do you want to tell memorable, vivid, life-altering stories? With plots that embed real knowledge about the natures and ways of men? Do you want to create characters that will haunt your readers' dreams? Do you want to learn the discipline to unite all the above, without overdressing your plots...

Fireballing pitcher Conrad Bearing seemed to have come from nowhere. A rookie free-agent at 37, he was almost unhittable, mowing down the American League's best hitters as if they were scarecrows propped at the plate. But he was more publicity-averse and reporter-shy than Greta Garbo at her worst. One reporter was determined to crack Bearing's mystery, whatever it might take.

A Christmas gift to my readers and colleagues here at Smashwords. May the joy of His Nativity illuminate your Christmas season and be yours throughout the coming New Year.

Many independent writers need help, though not with their storytelling. Far too many indie writers are inept promoters. The fault reveals itself glaringly in their blurbs and Long Descriptions. A promotional blurb is a job interview for the writer. He has to make it sing sweetly to the potential reader....

Father Raymond Altomare has the toughest task of his ministry: bringing comfort to a man who knows he's about to die. But Del Nevins isn't sick; he's facing execution for mass murder...and he fears that the destiny that awaits him is eternal torment in Hell. How can the young priest convince the convict...

Richard Schiffers, divorced middle-aged telephone lineman, feels he's gotten a raw deal from the System. Get enough beer into him and he'll tell you about it without being asked. But Schiffers's notions about the System depart rather dramatically from its true nature...which becomes obvious, and very important, when the true Power behind the System decides to take a hand.

The anarchists of the Spooner Federation left Earth 1800 years ago, fleeing for their lives from the wrath of the States. A delegation has come to see how the mother world has fared since then...but the wrath that drove the Spoonerites across the black void has not abated, as exobiologist Richard Fiammare and paleolinguist Victoria Hallanson will soon discover.

In a little storefront on a side Manhattan street, a nameless old man keeps a shop. His customers don't pay him for the dusty, battered items on his shelves, but for the wonders he can do with them...not all of which are good. Into his shop wanders widower and corrupt retail inspector Carl Harris, wearing a wedding ring the shopkeeper will surely covet for the power stored within it...

Ryan and Melinda both have problems. He’s a man’s man, who disdains cheapness, in things or people; she’s a high-powered beauty, who’s deliberately made herself cheap in a foolish play for the acceptance of her male coworkers. But it’s Ryan she wants -- and as hard as she’s pursued him, he’s managed to keep her at arm’s length...until now.

By dint of her unprecedented genius, three centuries’ hard work, and many massive expenditures, polymath Althea Morelon, scion of the foremost family of Hope, has cracked the secret of superluminal travel. Her adventurer’s spirit has her eager to explore the space around Hope before heading off...

For intelligent, literate Christians who dislike the bombast and apocalypticism of most religious fiction, and for Amiable Agnostics who occasionally feel the urge: Ten journeys in faith, replete with miracles, mysteries, gentle preachments, and the occasional what-if. Unlike other establishments, the doors of the church are never locked. All are welcome. All ye that labor, come unto Him!

Most of us would like to have had more of a say about the stations in life we've come to occupy. We don't get to choose our parents, for example. But what of the man who finds himself assigned to perform a dreadful deed -- one he cannot, by any exertion of will or imagination, avert?

If a creature thinks, it will have a sense for right and wrong, and therefore for justice. But two thinking species are not guaranteed to have the same sense of justice, or the same way of arriving at a verdict. How, then, should one such species treat with the rights of another with whom it shares a world...when one regards the other as its food source, its rightful prey?