Celebration Time!

WOOHOO! Nearly three years after its original publication in electronic format (it's also available in print), Acts of the Saints, my black sheep, is in the black! That means it's finally earned back its $100 advance (yeah, yeah, I know -- pathetic, isn't it?) and, in spite of not being an erotic romance, has crept into the red.

To the tune of $2.20. (Hey, at least I no longer owe Samhain!)

Big thanks are in order.

So, to Mrs. Giggles for her generous review . . .

And to Book Utopia Mom, for having the kindness, and guts, to resurrect this novel long after its publication date . . .

And to the elite group of readers who actually risked buying the book . . .

My boundless appreciation for taking a chance on something a little controversial, a lot heavy, and not loaded with smexxin'.

(I think I'll go out and buy me a couple of packs of gum to celebrate. Oh yeah, life is good!)

Click on the post title if you're wondering what all the fuss is about.

A Stunning Review from Book Utopia

Acts of the Saints, my near-dead Samhain black sheep, was generously resurrected by Book Utopia, one of the most impressive review sites for (often, but not exclusively) GLBT fiction. B.U. told me this was one of the longest reviews she'd ever written. Click on the post title to see it.

Honestly, I can't begin to say how much I respect a critique of this nature. The depth and detail of it--hell, the sheer intelligence behind it--leave me nearly awestruck. This is "textbook" reviewing. I'm enormously grateful for the time spent on a novel that's pretty much languished in oblivion for three years.

(Yes, this is the same book reviewed by Mrs. Giggles and mentioned in the June 2 post below.)

An 87 Review by Mrs. Giggles I Never Knew I Had

The book on the left was published shortly after Samhain opened its virtual doors for business. Acts of the Saints tanked pretty badly -- very badly, actually -- because the authors who helped kickstart the then-new epub were primarily from Ellora's Cave. Ergo, the readers who flocked to SP were fans of EC-style fiction.

Believe me, this book is not EC-style fiction.

(That's an Anne Cain cover, by the way. I've been her fangirl since I first laid eyes on it. Not original art, granted, but gorgeous composition. She was a real joy to work with, too!)

At the time of this novel's acceptance, Samhain's vision was to be a broad-spectrum publisher that focused on quality fiction in a variety of genres. It wasn't their intent to be just an erotic romance publisher, although one could hardly tell from their initial crop of offerings. I saw the writing on the wall fairly quickly (how could I not?) and gritted my teeth for the nosedive my book was bound to take.

And dive it did.

Now fast forward. Two days ago I was cruising Mrs. Giggles' archives, looking for Scott & Scott books, when -- lo and behold! -- I came upon my old author name. Knock me over with a limp dick. But the biggest surprise was yet to come.

Although Acts of the Saints is light years away from being a standard romance, Mrs. G. gave it an 87 and said the prose was "alternately beautiful and blasphemous" and the story had hooked her completely. My first reaction was profound embarrassment over the fact I had no idea this review existed -- I believe in thanking reviewers, just because it's the courteous thing to do -- and still don't know when it first appeared. So I can only shamefully extend my sincerest apologies.

Anyway, regardless of the age of the review, I'm deeply grateful to Mrs. Giggles for taking a chance on this book. As she points out, it definitely isn't for everyone's taste. The lady has balls.

Inquiring minds want to know.

Some people have expressed curiosity about how I got my ideas for Acts of the Saints. Since I fully understand how maddening unsatisfied curiosity can be (like, how the hell did those quick-change artists on "America’s Got Talent" DO that?), I decided to provide some insights into the novel.

Television is responsible for the birth of Acts, the original title of which was Acta Sanctorum, a Latin phrase not many people would have understood. Waaaaay back in the mid-1980s, I occasionally caught the broadcasts of televangelists. At first, although I was somewhat entertained by their antics, I tended to dismiss them all as hucksters and/or laughable fanatics. Then I started paying closer attention. What I heard and saw I found both riveting and disturbing.

Right around that same time, Bill Moyers--one of my journalistic idols--did a two-part special for PBS that explored the beliefs and practices of fundamentalist Christians. I believe these shows were titled "Thy Kingdom Come" and "Thy Will Be Done." PBS also aired a special called "The Sword of Islam" about Muslim fundamentalists.

Yikes! thought I...and started doing some serious research.

These programs implied, whether intentionally or inadvertently, a strong likelihood of some very frightening fallout from such religious extremes. End-spectrum Christianity and Islam both embrace dominion-grounded theologies that are obviously at odds with each other. Throw expansionistic Zionism into the mix (or don’t, for that matter) and you’ve got a recipe for world war.
Just imagine what would happen if one of these religions, driven by its radical element, tried to claim the whole of Jerusalem. Oh boy. Here, again, come the Crusades...nuclear style.

Mind you, I’m not talking about reasonable, tolerant, ecumenically-minded Christians, Muslims, and Jews. I’m not talking about people who espouse a live-and-let-live philosophy. I’m talking about militant "We want the whole planet to be populated only by those who share our beliefs" ideologues. And they’re out there.

So that’s how Acts of the Saints came to be. It’s simply a theoretical, imaginative extension of current realities.

I initially wrote it out long-hand, on a yellow legal pad with a batch of sharpened, No. 2 pencils at the ready, then typed it, chapter by chapter, on my Olympia manual portable typewriter. (Remember, kids, this was in the late 1980s. However, I still write this way when I’m sick of sitting in front of my freakin’ monitor, although the Olympia--God bless it, RIP--has long since found its way into some landfill.) I distinctly remember carrying the manuscript around in a leather briefcase my ex-husband had bought me. Why? Because, hell, I didn’t want the novel to be lost if fire or a tornado or undiscriminating burglars swept through my house while I was gone. (Again, I need to remind you I had no computer at the time, so I couldn’t make back-up copies. That painstakingly typed-out manuscript was the only version I had.)

I eventually did make more copies, but that process, too, was a major pain in the ass. Twenty years ago, especially in America’s outback, there were very few print shops--especially ones with collating copiers. I remember standing at some machines and doing one page at a time. Finally, I got a computer...well, a kind of computer. It was a monstrous IBM word processor with an equally monstrous (and noisy) thunka-thunka printer.

In the 1990s, I secured agent representation for the book. A New York agent--WOW!

Not. The submission process turned out to be a case of bad timing. Y2K was fast approaching, and publishing houses were apparently being flooded with what they called "millennial fiction." (Honest, that’s a term they dreamt up!) If they thought a work even remotely fit their definition of this invented genre, it was summarily brushed aside. The pigeonhole was just too crowded, and crap predominated.

I was flabbergasted. I’d never thought of Acts as a 2000-specific novel and certainly hadn’t intended it to be viewed as such...but that’s how it was seen. One editor even flat-out said it was too much like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (which he obviously considered THE definitive work of millennial fiction)--even though I hadn’t even heard of The Handmaid’s Tale until he mentioned it, and the two novels in fact have few similarities. After sending Acts to maybe six different houses, my agent finally gave up. There was no getting around the millennial-fiction prejudice.

So I shelved the manuscript.

Years later, I accidentally discovered the brave new world of e-publishing while surfing the ‘net looking for editing work. Acts was the first novel I submitted. It was immediately accepted by a serialized-fiction site that offered edgy stories in conjunction with stunning original art. However, the site folded when Acts was maybe a third of the way through the editing process.

This was probably for the best, at least as far as my book is concerned. The artist who was working on the illustrations was monumentally talented...but he either didn’t bother reading the manuscript or didn’t take instruction very well. Scenes were continually misrepresented. The character Catherine looked vastly different every time she appeared: first, like a young and sullen crack-head Latina (huh?); then, like a haggard and flabby old whore (huh?); finally, somewhat the way she was supposed to be--an unconventionally pretty but weary, 42-year-old blond woman with a mind and heart. But her depiction still wasn’t quite right. She looked flabby and frowzy. Martin was wrong the first time and way-too-much resembled Yanni after that, and the Summoner--I shit you not--looked exactly like Alice Cooper. Exactly. Even my editor’s husband noticed it. WTF?

So, I’m very glad a class operation like Samhain ultimately accepted the book. I don’t know where/how the cover artist found that stunning sculpture of St. Sebastian, but it’s perfect.

Why is the hero a Catholic priest? Because a.) Roman Catholicism has always taken serious knocks from fundamentalist Christians and b.) I have enormous respect for all the Catholic orders and for Jesuits in particular. (No, I’m not a practicing Catholic--I have some major issues with that church, as well--but the respect is still there.)

If you have other questions about the novel, feel free to ask. If you’d like to review it, please do. (Contact Samhain's Review Coordinator, http://marty@samhainpublishing.com.) Promotion is going to end up being a bitch for me, since this is both an e-book, which most reviewers scorn and/or shun, and not easily categorized. And I sure as hell can't afford to place ads for it.

In the meantime I'll keep tackling the edits for my Cerridwen and Ellora's Cave books and keep working on the next volume in my proposed paranormal series for EC.

Talk to you again soon!

Out of the Comfort Zone: excerpt from ACTS OF THE SAINTS

I've been promising to post this, so here it is. Acts of the Saints was released September 12, 2006 by Samhain Publishing. Before proceeding, however, you MUST read the introductory blurb posted at the publisher's site: http://www.samhainpublishing.com/actsofthesaints.shtml. If you don't, you won't have much of a clue what this excerpt is about.

Catherine, housewife-turned-resister, is ultimately the true hero in this work of speculative fiction set in a Brave New World quite different from Huxley's. The following excerpt takes place after her and Theodore’s car breaks down in Iowa. They’re put up for the night by a young couple who, although Heeders, are sweetly naive and quite charitable. Jenny, one of these good Samaritans, takes Catherine to a chapter meeting of CWEEN, the Christian Wives’ Excellence-through-Enlightenment Network. The attendees are discussing the fate of a fellow member--a married woman who’s suspected of getting too close to a man other than her husband (even though her husband is, from what Catherine can infer, "an ignorant and abusive shit").

What Catherine sees and hears at this gathering ultimately, and literally, makes her ill.

**********

Ramona opened her Bible. "I've asked you all," she said, "to pray for Sister Muriel Raney while she's on retreat, so she might find deliverance. And to pray for our guidance, should she not let herself be delivered and we must then decide what to do."

Jenny raised her hand and was recognized. "I think it would be polite," she said, "to fill Cathy in."

Catherine wanted to curl against the wall but the group's attention forced her to sit forward. "Don't feel you have to. It's none of my business."

Most of the women, beneath their madonna smiles, seemed to agree, but they could hardly ignore an appeal to their courtesy. Ramona glanced around the room to read their faces. Finally she sighed, folding her hands on the open Bible. She looked at Catherine with opaque, no-nonsense brown eyes.

"Sister Raney is plagued by a checkered past. She accepted, or claims she accepted, Jesus Christ as her personal savior nearly a year ago. She joined CWEEN shortly afterward. But it didn't take us long to notice aspects of her thinking that clashed with these inspired words"--Ramona held up the Bible--"and the modern application given them by our Church."

"She reads hell-spawned trash, for one thing," Denice said.

"She’s a teacher," Jenny piped in.

"No matter," Ramona said. "She tried to justify her interest in that garbage by claiming a divine sanction of human curiosity. But we as one-hundred-percent pure Christians know better."

"The Devil is a cunning deceiver," Belle offered.

There were murmured amens.

"And then she began to denigrate her husband," Ramona went on. "Which is a snubbing of God's word--"

Louder amens.

"--bordering on heresy."

"Yes, Jesus."

"Tom has his burdens," Denice said, nodding and swaying.

Ramona snapped her a brief, censorious look. "Sister Raney has a hard time realizing that femininity's strength lies in submission and service . . . to God, to country, to family."

The women were all beginning to nod and sway, as if this were a familiar refrain, evocative of both noble and erotic purpose. Catherine tried to appear in concord, but she could feel her eyelids stretching in disbelief.

"Tell her about the dark-haired man," Lori Schmidt whispered.

For more reasons than she could immediately grasp, Catherine looked at CWEEN’s newest and youngest member. Lori's eyes, too, were wide . . . with fascination.

Catherine wanted to take her away. The girl had some imagination left, and Catherine wanted to protect it from further invasion by blank, sanctimonious nay-sayers. Suddenly, and more strongly than since Philip's disappearance, she felt like a mother again.

She wanted to reverse the trend set by this pallid coven and school Lori in whatever carnival of mysteries the girl had been banned from exploring. She wanted to tell her about the dark-haired men in every woman's life, and the books and music and private dances that kept the memory of these men unfading. She wanted to warn her about a god and country and family that demanded all the wrong things of a woman, or only small parts of the right things, and warn her about the curlicues of femininity that, left unchecked, tatted themselves into inescapable seines, their beauty as false as that of any symmetry in any engine of destruction.

Catherine thought about Philip and wished he'd been a girl. Then, guiltily, she recanted, and wished instead she'd had him without the dubious benefit of marriage to Gene. And she wished fiercely that she'd met Marty before she married Gene.

What the hell was she doing here, with these people?

~~~~~


Acts of the Saints by K. A. Schuster
© Copyright by K. A. Schuster
Available from Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
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