Blurb – Help needed!

So I'm re-releasing Bardo and I'm also putting out a book of short stories. I think they're not too bad. However, I really need help with the blurbs. They're a big part of selling a book and I think it's a skill in itself to write them - a skill I just don't have.  Here's what I've got so far, any suggestions would be a big help:



The PM
It should have been the Prime Minister's first day in office. He should have been leading the country out of environmental disaster, but he’s not the only one who thinks he’s in charge.
The PM is a collection of short sci-fi and fantasy stories. It’s an eclectic mix of engaging fiction, inspiring ideas, humorous tales and daring adventure. In these fourteen stories, find out who’s really in charge in “The PM”, learn about the secret life of teaching in “Teacher without portfolio” and discover what dangers await in the depths, in the powder fantasy “Hold the line.”




Bardo
Nikki finds herself in a world between realms, the Bardo, and time is running out. Soon her essence will be scattered forever. Can she pull herself together?
Bardo, follows Nikki, a young schoolgirl who has an unfortunate accident and finds herself trapped in the Bardo. It won’t be long before she'll be scattered across the realms. With only a dog to guide her, can she re-unite herself in time to escape? Fun, fast and humorous, Bardo asks questions about some deep issues, including who we really are, the nature of life and death and why schools insist on students wearing school uniforms when there are much more fashionable options available.

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Common Themes

I do think that even with science fiction and fantasy a lot of the stories play into idea that are active in our world today. I was thinking a bit about some of the most common themes that have been about in films, books and games recently. Here's my thought on what some of them could be:

The apocalypse: There seems to be more and more of this around recently, I'm thinking of things like the Road, the Book of Eli, Hunger games, Fallout and even my first book Paradigms.

For me the symbolizes a fear that a lot of people have in the west about the current state of affairs. In many ways it seems we've already peaked and are now on the way out to be replaced by something else from the East with very different values from our own. Is it the end of of our would as we know it? Maybe not quite in the way that some people are portraying it, but it certainly feels sometimes that we are at the end of one “section” of history and at the start of another.

The return of Dragons/Elder Gods/Insert other thing here: There have also been plenty of stories around recently about the return of some former ruler race that come back to enslave mankind and put it back in it's place. Most recent things that come to mind are:Prometheus, Skyrim, Risen maybe to some extent the Avengers.

These types of stories for me make me think about a certain fear about religions – in the old style. A lot of people in the world have become secular and have given up on the old ways or at least have become accepting of other culture and beliefs. But there's been revivals in certain parts of the world and signs that religion is not as gone as many of us thought it was. In fact in some places it's coming back and taking over again, finding it's way in to politics and race relations. Maybe some of us are afraid of being put in our place again.

Zombies: We've had loads of zombie stuff of late. The walking dead would be the vanguard for sure, but there's been plenty of other things in other places. I used Zombies in Bardo as a way or portraying the hungry ghosts and it seems to be something that become a minor theme in many books and films. Think of what Loki does in the Avengers, or the zombie type things in Fallout.

Zombies are classic and I think they're still the same deal as what they were when they first came out, but in the generation of the Iphone, they seem even more pertinent than they were in certain shopping malls. You only have to see a bunch of kids shambling down the street with their smart phones to know what's going on there. Never before have we been so connected and yet disconnected at the same time. Have we lost our brains and been reduced to comments in certain number of characters? Can we no longer think for ourselves, but simply consume RSS feeds, podcasts and youtube videos (well not if you have an Iphone but you get the point.)

Vampires: Another classic that's been revived thanks to Twilight, True Blood, Underworld and the amazing number of Vamptasic ebooks that have been published.

Lust, as it ever was, seems to be the name of the game here with vampires. Although it seems to have taken on the form of angsty teen development in modern cases. Are we worried that our kids are growing up too fast? Are we worried about the not so modern, but much more out spoken obsession with sex? To be honest I'm a bit old for this one, so better to ask a teenager, but there something going on with blood suckers for sure.

Now I'm sure there are load of interpretations as to what all these things could mean and there are a lot more recurring themes than the ones I'm pointing out. In fact, the ones that I've picked probably say a lot more about me than anything else. Still I always think it's interesting to look at what's possibly going on in our collective cultures/consciousness/media – however you want to look at it.

Caricatures

The debate with Mitt Romney made me rather surprised. I had this image of this guy in my head – a typical Republican, big business and burning down the ecosystem, and what not. In truth I ended up agreeing with a lot of what the guy said – though not all for sure, but he seemed normal, even reasonable.

In addition I've been watching the Daily show and while it is comedy focused with some international issues they've really been going into some depth. Again it's totally counter to what I've heard about the American media. It's supposed to be vapid and only skimming the surface. What's going on here?

It is funny how you end up making these pictures of people in your head. People who you've never even heard talk, all based on propaganda, hearsay and jingoism. I guess this is the biggest problem on both sides of the left right debate – on the sides of all debates. Is that we have this set image of what the other person is like. “All Christians are right wing … bla bla ”, “All gays are camp cavorting fellows who.... etc”. It makes it really hard to listen to what people are actually saying, because we've already decided what they are going to say. 

I've seen a lot of the same in books and films. Two dimensional characters that we instantly know who they are: the geek with no social skills, the burly hero who stands against authority, the sasy love interest. I wonder how much I've done this with my own work - I hope not too much.  I don't think I've done it with main characters, but maybe with "extras", but then I had hoped the same with politics and see how well that turned out. 

It's something I'm really going to pay attention to in future stories - assuming there are any. I'm going to try and avoid using template characters and makes sure there is a back story to everyone. Likewise I'm going to try and do the same thing in real life and try and see the people that are really there and not just the image that I've been told to see.