1. Empire Star by Samuel R. Delany
What is there to say about this book, other than Read It! Multiple overlapping time streams, multiple characters developing at multiple periods, and the books that gave us the simplex, complex and multiplex view of the world. A book that tells its story off-screen and is no less gripping for that, the time travel mechanism is an area of space compression where anyone who enters may emerge at any point in their timestream. And right up until the closing words, if you think you know what is going on, you’re wrong.
Amazon UK – Read Sample

2. End of Eternity by Isacc Asimov
One of the original time agency stories, laying out exactly why time agencies and time police are such a bad idea. Notably far darker in its handling of cause and effect than the modern versions have dared to go, and a perfect example of the road to hell being lined with good intentions.
Amazon UK – Read Sample

3. Millenium by John Varley
Air crash investogators notice something very wrong about incidents, and that is as mucha s I can say without spoiling the story. The short story Millenium was based on, called “Air Raid”, was a Phillip K. Dick award nominee.

I first encountered this in its filmed version, which is not a very good: Kris Kristoffersen and Cheryl Ladd in a comparatively low budget sci-fi flick. However what makes it notable is the two lead characters, both on different timelines, and the shot-for-shot reuse of scenes as they occur in each character’s timeline, which gives the audience a very different persepective on them. The idea of timequakes and distortions caused by paradoxes is not explored as thoroughly on screen as it might be in text, but is still an intriguing concept.
Amazon UK – Read Sample or Amazon UK (DVD)

Honorable mention: “Beep” by James Blish
Now largely only available in its longer form, “The Quincunx of Time”, this story examines the complication of instaneous interstellar communication in terms of determinism, physics and the social effects. While not strictly speaking a time travel story, it has similar effects on paradox. I’m not going to spoil it by discussing it further, because it’s a very good read. I preferred the short story, but the long form is worth a read.
The Quincunx of Time: Amazon UK – Read Sample

For Doctor Who fans? The best one for time travel physics is to my mind still Day of the Daleks (Amazon UK DVD), which handles the concept of time actually rejecting changes and incorporating the causes into the timeline to prevent paradoxes, a concept sadly dropped by the new series. And if it reminds you of terminator, this serial was written twelve years earlier.

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Going Under – Chapter One

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Flying home from their display seems a perfect time for Jim to train his wife on radio procedures. An SOS on a non-aviation channel was the last thing he expected to hear. The laws of sea and air are clear: the person who receives a distress call is bound to assist.

Even if they are in a very old aircraft, over a very large ocean, looking for a very small boat.

Standing Guard is a short aviation story.

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Going Under

Karo did not even think before she dived in. The water in the canal was thick and greenish and she could hardly see the other woman below the surface. Drowning, the woman was flailing upwards, clawing frantically. Her head was still under the water. Karo bobbed up to snatch another breath, and then ducked under, swimming downwards. Her hand touched something sharp, jagged, and concrete, and she fumbled forward. Another touch – broken metal – and then, third time lucky, a leg. She pulled at it, running her hands lower in the water. Abruptly they touched metal, finding the tangle of chains that the woman was caught in. A hand brushed her head as the victim reached down, panicky, flailing, to yank at her trapped limb. Half drowning herself, Karo’s fingers slipped numbly in the cold water as she tried and failed to get a grip on the slick chain. Quickly she kicked off the bottom, breaking the surface and snatching another breath before she dived down again. The woman did not have that luxury.

She was bent over, tearing at her leg, but her struggles were getting weaker. With the woman’s head underwater Karo could not tell her to go limp, not to waste her remaining air. The victim would never hear. Reaching out, Karo caught hold of the struggling woman, blindly following the line of the woman’s body down to her trapped leg. The woman was clawing at her leg, at Karo’s arm, as her would-be rescuer fumbled with the entanglement. It was wrapped round her leg several times, tightly embedded in the flesh. Her struggles were weakening. Desperately Karo tried to grab whatever she was caught in, to lift it. If she could just get the woman up to the air…no use, it was too heavy. All she did was waste her own breath in the attempt, and had to resurface again. The effort had drained her and Karo was breathing too fast, using her air too fast, to consider options. Something hit the water by her head.

“Grab it!” There was a guy on the bank, holding the rope of the life belt he had thrown.

“There’s a woman trapped under here! She’s caught. Help me!” No time to think. Karo took another breath and, as she tried to dive, screamed as the woman grabbed her. The victim’s distorted face was under the water looking up, and there was nothing sane in her eyes. Her hands dug into Karo’s shoulders, pulling the teenager down as she tried to claw her way up to get to the air just inches out of reach. Water splashed Karo’s face as she was pulled under. Desperately the teenager kicked out, pulling away as her sleeve tore. If Karo did not get free, she knew they were both going to die. With the strength of panic, the trapped victim clung on. Karo grabbed her shoulders, forcing her away as she lifted her own knee, getting it between them, and used her legs to break the deathgrip. Dizzily she surfaced, drawing in air in a gulp.

Two hands broke the surface, floating, not moving. Horrified, Karo realised that when she kicked out the woman must have inhaled water. She was out of time. She filled her lungs and dived again, pulling herself down using the victim’s limp body as a ladder and guide in the dark water. Her frozen fingers jarred painfully against the metal wrapped round the woman’s leg. Karo gripped it, turning herself in the water to brace her legs against the bottom. She pulled at the metal, trying to get her fingers inside it for a better grip. Now the woman was limp there was a little more slack but, wound round her ankle, the chain was not coming off. Fighting to hold her breath, Karo forced the foot straight, pointed it like a ballet dancer, and wedged it under her arm. It gave her a little play to get her fingers between the chain and skin and, braced against the concrete, she yanked the chain downwards. Mercy of mercies, it began to move. A second hard pull, and suddenly the victim was floating upwards as her leg slithered free. Something knocked against Karo’s head and for a moment she reeled, disorientated, choking water, before sanity came back and she kicked upwards.

She broke the surface and turned over, looking round for the victim. The woman was floating limply, face down. Gripping an outflung arm, Karo got her onto her back, trying to keep the woman afloat, and her mouth above the water. With difficulty she tried to claw strands of hair out of the woman’s slack mouth. Her fingers touched dirt and leaves, but she could not hook it out and support them both. The woman’s limp weight and their sodden clothes threatened to drag them both down and Karo was beginning to tire.

Something hit the water by them, and Karo grabbed it on reflex, letting the life belt take their weight as she gasped for air. Suddenly the victim’s weight was supported as another arm looped under her back, The woman was lifted free, as Karo clung to the ring dragging in grateful breaths as her frozen legs hung in the water. She heard heard splashing as the other woman was lifted clear of the water. and then she found herself moving as the life belt was pulled smoothly in. At the edge of the canal she reached upwards, too spent to get a hand over the edge.

From the path, a policeman reached down to her, pulling her out, while a hefty shove from behind got her onto the grass. As she looked round another officer climbed out, dripping and exhausted. There was an eerie tint of blue lights flashing, and she could see people running. As she reached up to wipe her eyes she saw the filthy, bloodied, state of her hands and stopped. If she was in that state, the woman she had dived in to save must be worse. Slowly Karo clambered to her feet and made her way towards the bustle on the path, shaking her head to get the water out of her hair. There was no more she could do to help, but she wanted to know if the woman had made it. From the tone of their voices, the ambulance men did not hold out much hope.

“Crack the chest? Direct cardiac massage?” Karo stood clear and watched the ambulance men at work, shivering as she dripped dry. Her first clear look at the stranger she had saved made her shudder. Under the grime of the canal water and smeared makeup, the victim’s skin was pallid. Karo could not even guess her age.

“Wait.” The paramedic doing CPR gasped, between breaths. For a moment no one else spoke and then, with a sputtering heave, the body on the dock convulsed. As she threw up into the paramedic’s face, he ignored it, turning the casualty sideways with practised ease as the green, stinking, water soaked the concrete. His firm pat on the back may not have been best practice but it worked. With a few more convulsions, she expelled the rest. Her face was too pale and her mouth gaped, finally gasping in air instead of water. Suddenly, surreally, the situation went from talking about cracking rib cages to blankets and warming packs.

“Are you alright Miss?” Fully focused on the resuscitation, it took Karo a moment to realise the policeman was speaking to her. “Did you fall in?”

“Yes, I er…I saw her in there and jumped…take care of her. ” As her head began to clear, the implications of talking to a policeman began to sink in. She had to get away.

“She is being looked after, Miss, but you’d better head to hospital too. The canal water’s not the cleanest.” Looking down at her blackened work clothes and the mud, oil and algae that caked them, Karo shook her head, trying to think of an excuse to leave before they could start asking questions. Then she remembered that a few minutes earlier the woman had been breathing this stuff, and that the odd taste in her mouth meant Karo herself had swallowed it. Looking at the greenish stain on the docks, her own stomach heaved. As she was violently, horribly, sick, she could hear the officer calling for assistance, but she could not stop choking long enough to tell him she would be alright.

Somewhere she heard a door slam and the sound of an engine. By the time she had got herself under control and looked up, the ambulance had gone.

“Don’t worry, there’s another one on the way. Here. Rinse your mouth out.” A glass of water was pushed in front of her. Obediently she gulped and spat, trying to clear the taste.

“I have to head home. I have work tomorrow.” Despite her protests, she could not stop shivering. The police officer fiddled with the zip on her jacket, bundling it off and dropping it. It squelched on the dock. The cold cut straight through her sodden blouse but, a moment later, a blanket was wrapped over her and the chill faded. Karo huddled down, feeling like a refugee.

“I think you’d better wait for the ambulance.” The officer suggested, not unkindly. She wanted to protest, but her teeth were chattering too much. Wrapping her hands inside the blanket for shelter, she gave up. At least the ambulance would be warm.

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It’s an old story, so why am I posting about it now? Well, with a few more recent stories, this is now back in the news.  Fake or commercially placed reviews are a hot topic at the moment. Forbes Magazine did a piece back in July. There are calls for reviews to require a guaranteed purchase, or vetting, or preventing authors reviewing other authors books, but unfortunately these are likely to be ineffective, for reasons explained below.

And then, surprisingly, it affected me personally. Another author I know on a non-writing board announced what an excellent review they had received, to floods of congratulations. I abstained from the discussion, and wasn’t sure how to respond to a PM asking why I hadn’t said anything, as another author. I did not know how to answer. The truth is that the reviewer in question charges for reviews, and is absolutely notorious for writing puff pieces rather than critiques. 

Why do people do this? You may think that all an author has to do is give away books to get reviews, but unfortunately it’s not that simple. To be fair, getting reviews is the bane of the indie author’s life. Usually people will suggest sending out copies to bloggers and reviewers or readers, the route I took:

• With Fire Season I contacted over 500 blogs that did reviews. I got 5-6 reviews. I sent out over  fifty books – all paperbacks.
• With The Docks, I sent out a lot of free copies to readers. I got nine reviews. Out of nearly two hundred free books.

From talking to other indie authors, this is a fairly normal copy-to-review ratio. Most readers are not reviewers, and want to enjoy a book rather than review it. This presents another problem for authors however.

Catch-22
Reviews are what sell books, but the catch 22 is that many of the main blogs will not feature or review books unless they already have over a set number of reviews already, usually ten, and above a certain star-rating. Unless you have the reviews to drive the sales, you can’t get the sales to drive the reviews to get the reviews…

In this climate is it surprising that authors are desperate for reviews, and pay-for-review services pop-up?

Giving Books to Reviewers
Now, giving reviewers a copy of the book is fairly standard. None of the book reviewers in mainstream press pay for the titles they review, no matter the size of the publisher. Then there are the grey areas: paying for a fast review, or for access to reviewers. Then you get the downright ethically doubtful areas:

• Paying for a review
• Paying for a specific star rating
• Paying for sales
• Trading reviews with other authors
• Trading guaranteed 5-star reviews

Giving Books to Readers:
There are places to get reviews which don’t require reviews or payment, but finding these places takes a lot of time.  Some options are Goodreads – either through giveaways or the Creative Reviews group which links reviewers with authors who are seeking reviews.  Ebooks can be given away through giveaways on Librarything. There are also IndieView and Bookblogs.ning but I haven’t used these recently.

The downside is that it can take time to find the reviewers, time and money to send the books out, and the review return rate is, as stated, very low.  I’ve heard less than 10% for librarything and goodreads. While Amazon Select means that authors can simply make books free, hoping that among the readers who pick them up  some will write reviews, the return rate on review here is actually lower than the giveaways. A lot of people who grab free books from Select simply don’t read them.

Paying for Services extra to the Review
This is where money starts changing hands, usually not for the review but for the services around it. This may still raise ethics questions for some readers,  since any exchange of money for review services may raise questions about bias.

Some like Readers Favorite allow author to get free reviews but pay for packages including advertising and a critique, with the caveat that bad books (1 or 2 star) don’t get their review featured but still get the crit.

Some sites that provide honest reviews allow users to pay for a fast-track review.  Since queues can be six months or a year long, this may occassionally be the only way to get a book featured near its launch date.  Since the reviews are honest and can be negative, an author is paying for the timing of the review, not the review itself and good reviews are not guaranteed.

Services like Bookrooster  allow authors to pay to have their book sent straight to reviewers. While this is an ethical grey area, they guarantee honest reviews and there are cases mentioned on Kindleboards where all the reviewers have declined to review the book, or it has received entirely negative ratings.

BookRooster is an interesting gray area. Authors pay simply to get the book distributed to reveiwers, who may then review or not. This may sound simple but the sheer amount of time taken to find willing reviewers can be surprising. On the other hand, they may skew towards good reviews for several good reasons: first, the book is sent out with a description, and to reviewers who had stated they enjoy that genre, so the only people who will pick it up to review it are those who enjoy that type of book. Second, because reviewers who don’t enjoy it may simply return it without leaving a review. Third, the fee. It will discourage anyone who isn’t prepared to put funding and work into their books e.g. if someone just threw an unedited word doc on Amazon fee, they probably won’t be prepared to use the service, or even put the work in to find it.  However, to counter this I am aware of at least one author who complained on Kboards he got universal bad reviews from them, so paying does not guarantee a good review.

Indies pay, only
Some sites specifically ask for indie authors, and indie authors only, to pay a fee to have their books read and get the same service as large publishers. (BookBag, Kirkus Indies, Publishers Weekly Select) Again this raises the question of whether paying for reviews is ethical, and whether the fee increases chances of a good review.

This can be interesting when the site make no distinction between self-published, vanity press and small-press publishers/e-publishers, and effectively charge for anything that’s not a big-6 book. Having worked for a publisher who was founded in the 1800′s, one of whose books was reviewed unsolicited by just such a site (we learned of the review when we were sent a bill for being ‘self-publishers’, and the department head’s irate response was audible across the office)  I am always wary of sites that do this.

The Ethics of Review Trading
Asking family and friends to review it is a fairly standard thing for authors with co-operative friends and family. Usually, as long as they state their affiliation, there should not be an ethics issue here e.g.  one review for another author I love started paraphrased “I could not put my sister’s book down when she handed it to me. I was in the bath”. If they don’t mention a connection to the author, that’s more of a problem.

However something that comes up very frequently is the author-review swap, usually suggested by a new author with their first book out, because otherwise they’d know exactly how often this gets brought up… The idea is that the authors buy each others book and leave reviews for it. Some specific the reviews must be favourable, some that they must be honest. In practice these are the same thing, since an honest but negative review is likely to attract retaliation.  There is an excellent article by Jade Varden which covers the pitfalls and why it should be avoided, so I’m just going to link to the article here: Jade Varden.

Amazon’s new restriction on authors reviewing books may be aimed at stopping these swaps, as well as the more obvious benefit of preventing authors from down-rating competitors’ books.  The relevant T&Cs: “Sentiments by or on behalf of a person, company or web site with a financial interest in the product or a directly competing product (including reviews by authors, artists, publishers, manufacturers, or third-party merchants selling the product)”
Unfortunately this does seem to be causing problems, with legitimate reviews being removed instead of fake or purchased ones, as Forbes Magazine explored in its article here. There is a full definition of the new T&Cs here which also bans family member reviews, paid or compensated reviews, and reviewing competing products.  Notably it does not ban getting a free copy to review.

Buying Reviews and Ratings
By comparison with the grey areas above, there are the outright don’ts, that most people will agree are misleading.  There are the places on Fiverr and Craigslist where an author can purchase a review, arrange for someone to purchase their book so it’s verified, and give it a high rating, or even for an author to write their own revew of their book and have another user submit it. I feel fairly safe in saying these aren’t ethical. I’m not putting links in, but a quick search brings these up – I was surprised at how easy it was to find them.

In same cases, it is even pay-per-star-given which to my mind is just wrong.

Why do people do this?
The problem is that people wouldn’t use these if they didn’t think it worked. John Locke was revealed as one of the users of the site, to the dismay of people who bought his book on how to sell a million ebooks. It’s not just Indies doing it: Stephen Leather  has been mentioned in association with the  friends-and-family method in an article on Forbes.

It’s desperation largely: with so many ebooks coming out each year, it’s hard to find a way to get noticed so some authors will do anything to get a head start.

Spotting the fakes
As a reader, the problem is that you can’t, not easily. Fake accounts are easy to set up and fund, particularly judging from the jobs on Fiverr.  If the only thing a reviewer gives out are 5-stars it can mean they are fake, or that they only review things they really like.

Verified Purchases aren’t an indicator either:  Many of the fake reviews will actually have purchased the book, while legitimate reviewers like bloggers and newspapers will not. Authors outside the US can’t gift review copies to Kindle users through Amazon, while US-based authors can and do, which slants the system. For example, I gave away a lot of books through Smashwords, which aren’t verified purchases on Amazon but the reviews are on both sites.

Even a Vine rating or well-known reviewer may not guarantee an honest review.

What can authors and readers do about this?
For authors it’s a lose-lose situation. The sad truth is that people wouldn’t do this if it didn’t work. Act unethically and be noticed immediately, or be ethical and it will take a lot longer, if at all.  Sales provide ranking and reviews provide ranking, which is an immediate incentive. If you can get your reviews from blogs, groups and giveaways, that avoids the problem, but takes time and effort that could be spent writing. It’s not a trivial time commitment either: the Fire Season giveaway involved contacting over five hundred book blogs to get the reviews I have now, which took over three weeks.  Each author needs to decide for themselves what parts of the grey area, or even the outright dodgy stuff, they are willing to take part in.

As a reader, check where the reviews come from – if it’s a reviewer who has posted from a blog or media outlet it’s more likely to be a valid review.  If it’s detailed and useful, then they probably have actually read the book.  When you find a review like that on Amazon, vote it up.

And finally the single most important thing you can do as a reader? Review books. It doesn’t have to be detailed or complicated, even something as basic as “I like this ‘cos I like this type of book.” is a valid review but the more valid reviews there are, the less use ‘fake’ ones are.

I have a second piece to follow shortly. Meanwhile comments are open below: