+Live Author Event+ Friday Chapter Series with Steampunk Author S.C. Barrus “Discovering Aberration”, Chapter One!

Posted Friday, 27 June, 2014 by jorielov , , , 2 Comments

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I have been wanting to listen to audiobooks for quite a long while now, and although this is technically not a traditional ‘audiobook’ per se, it is an author reading his novel aloud via live video feeds on YouTube! Therefore, its a non-traditional audiobook sequence of events! What drew me into wanting to listen to the story as it evolves each Friday, is the fact that one of his tweets about his book series caught my eye in my twitterverse feeds! I’m always searching for Steampunk authors & titles that I have not stumbled across as I have blogged about my sojourn into this realm previously; specifically my exploits at my local library!

I felt perhaps this might be an excellent way to get to know a new-to-me author & his story! Each Friday, I’m taking the chance on listening to a story I’ve only read the premise about and the author’s note on behalf of his novel on his book’s listing page. Perhaps on Fridays, you will join me!? I cannot be the only nightowl blogger!?

On a side note: I joined his newsletter as an “Adventurer” and cast my hat into the running to win a hardback copy of his novel! I did this the first time I saw his tweets, which was over a week ago!

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.comSpecifics:

Discovering Aberration by S.C. Barrus

Published By:  Away & Away Publishing (author owned), 26 March, 2014
Official Author Websites: Site | Twitter | Facebook
Available Formats: Hardcover Softcover, & Ebook Page Count: 434

Authors of Inspiration:

Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne, Arthur Conan Doyle, & H.P. Lovecraft

Converse on Twitter: #DiscoveringAberration

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

Prior to the Broadcast:

Considering the fact I am more or less going into listening each Friday night @ 10:30pm PST (technically, this is 1:30am Saturday morning!) a bit blind to knowing about the author, his writing style & voice, as much as his characters and narration makes this quite the exciting treat! In fact, it recollects to mind what it must have been like for generations who grew up listening to radio broadcasts of their favourite fictional heroes and characters! Instead of telecasting via radio signals & waves, we have the age of the internet and the ability to have an author set up live feeds on YouTube! What bookish bliss, eh!? Noting that his inspirational authors include one mutually respected author (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle); one deeply curious about author (Jules Verne); one on the fence about author (Robert Louis Stevenson); one author I’ve changed my opinion of (Edgar Allan Poe: Read my “Mrs. Poe” review); and one author I’m curious about due to what I have heard of his works (H.P. Lovecraft) you may already denote an itching of excitement growing inside me to hear his voice share the opening bits of his Steampunk novel!

The fact that he wrote an unorthodox novel which does not specifically fit within the perimeters of modern tales of his respective choices of genre, delights me to no end! I love it when authors give a rambling narrative voice to their stories, to where we have to read the whole of the novel and story in order to understand the exact heart of what they stitched into their character’s lives! I love character-centered stories as much as I like the deft hand of a wordsmith who has the eloquence to build a world that we want to absorb inside and spend time navigating the finer details and points he has etched into the atmosphere of the world itself. I like slow-moving stories which allow the words to flow through us rather than over us, and have the tangible glistening of an evolving picture emerge out of the well of what is inside the chapters.

I am nearly on the edge of my seat in full expectation of a narrative journey about to begin!

And, of course the mere fact that my dyslexic math skills projected the start time @ 7:30pm EST rather than 1:30am EST, clearly proves my dedication! The YouTube channel designated for tonight’s broadcast has been counting down the hours in earnest since it was a bit past 7 hours left to go! Laughs with mirth. Sometimes you just have to find the cheeky irony in your life!

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.comTweets Leading Up to the Reading:

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

During the Broadcast: 

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.comChapter 1 Notes:

a professor is in the middle of class, relaying bits of a book and reading to his class when the story begins. given a degree, a grant, and a residency on publication of a book based on the character’s journey to the Orient. bored beyond repair. the status que was found wanting rather than exciting as the opportunity had felt when given. ms. Olivia Newton is a cheeky student with questions that test the Professor’s patience. taxidermy ensembles attached to the clothes in the gathered crowd of students. a curious attention to elephants. survival of the fittest and cunning independence. a battle of classes. (“Gangs of New York” flashed through my mind, which made sense lateron!)

missed a bit when his voice went mechanised. (as i wrote ‘mech’ all I could think of was Midsummer!)

an interruption when someone interrupts the class. protesters are in the background in the streets. atmospheric setting. an urgency to know something that is most important. a humble home of a Professor in a mixed neighbourhood of residences.

missed a bit more when he read the words too quickly for me to hear them properly. the quicker he reads the more the mechanised effect happens.

pitched to write a book about his friend. crime lords & black markets. antiques. money to be had. an out of print book. parchment which was actually a map with writing which was particularly precise. an intricacy of details. an island. a key. a lost civilisation. a dead language. a mathematical connection of origin. a gypsy spirit of adventure pulls at the heart of the lead character. an adventure begging for him to embrace. a tempestuous proposition. an implorous consideration. a stolen map from a sailor who was dying & whose belongings thus belonged to a beguiling and foul man.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.comChapter 2 Notes:

a back-story history of a particular place. a broad stroke of how one particular country and area progressed forward and slid backwards through time of it’s people. a particular empathsis on how violence threaded through the young persons and grew from there. this chapter is to explain a history of who the Professor’s friend stole the map from and to draw the reader into an understanding of the larger scope of the evolving picture being painted into full view. describing the hierarchy of the gangs and who became the crime lord to be feared by all.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.comConcluding Takeaway Thoughts:

Sharp and crisp descriptions are given to purport his imagery and connective tissues of his novel, allowing the reader to be placed directly into the scene at hand. Sharp as glass, cuttingly convincing, and precise, his narrative voice is glistening with a bluntness and an honesty of where his characters are taking the reader on the journey about to be taken as his narrative bespeaks of a clarity of a writer’s pen for detail oriented story-craft. The manner in which he opens the novel and of which it is thus told, gives me the impression that the blunt strokes are mindful of a bloke’s approach towards relying a particular turbulent slice of history, whereas a lass might soften the edges a bit. The story eludes to being set within the perimeters of an adventurous historical fiction, half fantasy, and equal measures psychological suspense. As I have not yet heard where the dialogue nor the narrative broaches into horror. He does have an eloquent descriptive voice, and for the rougher characters and rougher bits of prose delves into stronger language as it is warranted, but not overtly so, nor unnecessary.

Despite the fact this novel is clearly outside the scope of what I regularly read, I cannot deny that it has me curious to hear more bits and bobbles of its full essence! I am most surely marking down the next ‘Friday Chapter Series’ event, in order to partake of another rousing night of wickedness, rebels, rogues, and the lot most likely found in Captain Jack Sparrow’s crew! I might be a lass who is bent more on the cosier side of literature, but even I found a heap of joy in the revelry of Sparrow & the crew in which boggled the mind half the time of their exploits!

I appreciate the notations he gives to clue the reader in on his classical literature roots of inspiration, and how he attempts to pay homage to the story-tellers that most likely will eventually knit together on my tCC List! I always knew Oliver Twist would be an interesting novel for me to read, and perhaps between now & a fortnight thence when we recommence to listen to Chapters 3 & 4, I can make a bit of headway into the story! I’d learn a bit more about the gangs of the street & the layout of power, and perhaps get my head to wrap around the gist of the story without asking too many elementary questions! I was most appreciative of his kindness and attention to his ‘readers & listeners’!

I do suppose its a sign, that I happen to have a pocket edition of Oliver Twist staring at me from my bookshelf?

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.comAfterthoughts from the Author:

Scuttlters (All I could envision were the pirates from ALL the Caribbean films I adore so much!) were based on Victorian gangs & were based on historical facts, including the crime lord in the story. He showed to camera a deck of cards, which looked most curious! I missed a bit about why the deck was being shown to camera as I was attempting to compose my thoughts; going back and forth between YouTube & my blog! All I could think of in that moment is what a conversation piece that deck would be! I love playing board games & card games; like Hand & Foot or Shanghai Rummy? I’m most definitely a ‘vintage gamer’ both for traditional games and for video games alike! And, technically speaking I’ve been collecting ‘card decks’ since I was quite young! I always wanted to collect & gather interesting decks of cards because I felt that they would help open a conversation when you sit down to play!

Two of my favourite decks are an American flag deck, and a Mayan ruin deck I brought back from Mexico after climbing pyramids! I even have a deck with the Mt. Dew logo on it as I used to guzzle that curious green drink by the bottle attempting to ‘win’ a skateboard!

He answered my Qs first:

Fictitious country in a real world: (artistic license) Franklin P. Fitzgerald (Freddie) and his sidekick friend Thadeus Lumpkin. Early Victorian Era as advanced technology is beginning. (for me, this sort of felt Neo-Victorian rather than straight-up Steampunk, as it has a curious alter-history feel to the world.)

Originally wrote the story without the crime lords, and turnt into a quick story full of satire. Shelved the novel and re-wrote the novel. Twenty pages turned into sixty pages, with research into the time period. Fell in love with the characters and wanted to expand the story. Developed the criminal underworld into the story, and fleshed out a bit too much, to where it had to be cut out. Based on “The Gangs of London” a non-fiction book out of print where the scuttlers were based upon in the story.

Other listeners had trouble tuning in to the broadcast.

Another reader asked about how the first book ties into the second: a complex story he doesn’t want to discuss the plot if we haven’t read the first book as it would be a spoiler for us. PC (I need to ask how to proper have that title spelt!) takes place in the same world, but ten years before the first story. The Scarlets are a gang featured in “Discovering Aberration”, and goes into how the structure of their gang works. A mixture of “Oliver Twist” and “Ocean’s Eleven”. Freddie is not a protagonist, but the sequel after PC has Freddie return.

He gave me an ‘on air’ thank you note of gratitude for tweeting out the word leading through the countdown. He appreciated my tweet about his voice. He listens to more audiobooks than he reads books, and always felt he did not have the voice for it. He’s listening to Harry Potter (Order of the Phoenix, I believe!) at the moment and felt that the voice on there is better than his. (I disagree!) He is going to take a break from next Friday, and join up again the following Friday instead. He’s going to a convention – will note be able to return for a fortnight. If its the convention where we purchased the bowler hat for then I can only hope he looks as dapper as the hat he’s wearing in his author’s photograph! (via his website biography) I personally fell into the Steampunk genre by way of the artwork & fashion long before I entered the fictional worlds set around them! Laughs.

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.comMy goodness! I cannot wait for the next installments of this live author event! I am hopeful that if I made any grievous errors, the author will be kind to let me know either through PM or in the comment threads! I am so happy that I ‘caught’ sight of that tweet about “Discovering Aberration” on Twitter the other week! IF I had not seen it, and I might not have, as I’ve been taking a break again from hitting the ‘Home!’ button! (your aghast I can tell!) There enters a bit of a kismet factor to reading & the discovery of authors & their works. There is a season for everything in life, and I always felt that the timing of stories has a particular curiosity about when they are revealed! For me, I am properly full of gratitude for being caught up in this unique event and for being the winner of a giveaway I did not even know was happening! How delightful! And, may this post inspire you, dear hearts to stay up later than late and listen to the next chapters of this tale that simply bewitches you to listen! Please share your thoughts!

Discovering Aberration Kickstarter Intro via S.C. Barrus

I decided to share this because I should have known to scope out his previously uploaded videos to find out more information about his novel once I had read it originated by a Kickstarter Project! Whoopsie! He mentions a bit about the plot and how it evolves forward! I can say, that listening to his first two chapters was an adventure in of itself, and I do not regret going in ‘blind’ without understanding a few of the finer points ahead of time! Enjoy!

Fun Stuff for Your Blog via pureimaginationblog.com

This post is part of:

Friday Night Reading Series badge created by Jorie in Canva

{SOURCES: Audiobook Review badge provided by Parajunkee to give book bloggers definition on their blogs. Post dividers & My Thoughts badge by Fun Stuff for Your Blog via Pure Imagination. Tweets embedded due to codes provided by Twitter. The intro video for “Discovering Aberration” via S.C. Barrus had either URL share links or coding which made it possible to embed this media portal to this post, and I thank them for the opportunity to share more about this novel and the author who penned it. The Friday Night Reading Series badge created by Jorie in Canva.}

Copyright © Jorie Loves A Story, 2014.

About jorielov

I am self-educated through local libraries and alternative education opportunities. I am a writer by trade and I cured a ten-year writer’s block by the discovery of Nanowrimo in November 2008. The event changed my life by re-establishing my muse and solidifying my path. Five years later whilst exploring the bookish blogosphere I decided to become a book blogger. I am a champion of wordsmiths who evoke a visceral experience in narrative. I write comprehensive book showcases electing to get into the heart of my reading observations. I dance through genres seeking literary enlightenment and enchantment. Starting in Autumn 2013 I became a blog book tour hostess featuring books and authors. I joined The Classics Club in January 2014 to seek out appreciators of the timeless works of literature whose breadth of scope and voice resonate with us all.

"I write my heart out and own my writing after it has spilt out of the pen." - self quote (Jorie of Jorie Loves A Story)

read more >> | Visit my Story Vault of Book Reviews | Policies & Review Requests | Contact Jorie

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Posted Friday, 27 June, 2014 by jorielov in 19th Century, Audiobook, Bookish Discussions, Classic Adventure, Classic Horror, Classic Mystery, Classic Science Fiction, Debut Author, Debut Novel, Friday Night Reading Series, Genre-bender, Indie Author, Indie Book Trade, Inspired by Stories, Jorie Loves A Story Features, Kickstarter Project, Live Author Event, Self-Published Author, the Victorian era, The Writers Life, Vulgarity in Literature, Writing Style & Voice

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2 responses to “+Live Author Event+ Friday Chapter Series with Steampunk Author S.C. Barrus “Discovering Aberration”, Chapter One!”

  1. writersideup

    Wow, S.C. I give you SO much credit for doing all this, from Kickstarter to the undertaking of actually reading your book this way! And that looks like a nice, hefty tome there :)

    Jorie, I know I will always be impressed by the effort you put into your blogs. Your passion shows, my dear! Also, I don’t know if you mentioned that June was “Audiobook Month”! You may want to check out a lot of “behind the scenes” with narrators on Sheila’s blog, starting with this post (http :// bookjourney. net/2014/06/09/ intro-to-audiobook-month-narrators-reviews-and-giveaways/), then on through the month. She put stuff up all month.

    Great blog post, Jorie and S.C.! Love your title and cover, btw :) Thank you!!!

    Reply
  2. S.C. Barrus

    Thanks so much for your great summery of my reading. I finally had the chance to read this tonight, and I’m delighted that your sharing my readings with your readers.

    Here are some notes that might clear a couple of things up.

    Next Event: Fri 7/11 @ 9:30 PST. I originally chose 10:30 so that I could let my family go to sleep so i wouldn’t bug them while I read, but I forgot that I’m the only night person here, so I had an hour to kill between the time they crashed and the event. So we’ll try 9:30 next time. i hope I’m not over-correcting with this.

    PT: My next novel is currently untitled, but my readers and I are calling it The Putrid Corpse for now. The title refers to a priceless bottle of gin called The Putrid Corpse Extra Special Reserve Gin. That was going to be the title proper, but then readers started asking me how my zombie novel was coming, so I thought a name change was in order. Haven’t settled on a final title yet.

    I think those were the only two things that needed clearing up, but it was a long post and i can’t quite remember. Anyway, I’m happy to answer any questions here as well if you or any of your readers have any.

    Thanks for listening, I’m looking forward to the next reading.
    -S.C. Barrus

    Reply

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