JF Dubeau · Author · added over 9 years ago · 7 likes

Today is launch day... more importantly; today is Rate & Review day.

So why should you take your precious time and write a review for The Life Engineered on Amazon? Because reviews are incredibly important to the visibility of a book and visibility is what helps a novel get into the hands of readers who will appreciate it and thus increase the chances that it will be a success.

Amazon’s system relies on certain milestones being reached before including certain books onto various levels of their platform. What the numbers are and how they impact visibility is a moving target, but what we’re aiming for is between 50 and 70 reviews. You can read more about why reviews are important in this awesome blog post on the subject, but trust me; reviews are extremely important. YOUR review is extremely important.

Here’s what you need to do:

  1. Read the book
  2. Go to the Amazon page for The Life Engineered
  3. Scroll down to Customer Reviews and click on the ’Write a customer review’ button
  4. Pick a rating between 1 and 5 stars (preferably 5, but I’m biased)
  5. Write a review. This can be as in depth as you want, but if you don’t have the time or inclination, even just writing "I liked it!" is enough.
  6. Submit the review and bask in the satisfaction of a job well done.

That’s it. That’s all you need to do. Congratulations; you’ve changed my life.

Oh! Hey, today’s the day of my Sword & Laser interview. You might want to leave me a question about The Life Engineered on their Goodreads thread for that very purpose!

Thank you.

J-F Dubeau


JF Dubeau · Author · added over 9 years ago · 5 likes

Greetings sentients,

This is the very last day before the official release of The Life Engineered. It’s an exciting but important time for the book’s release and would like to recruit you in helping make this as good an event as possible.

However, as your time is precious and you likely receive several of these updates every week, I’m compiled all you need to know in a tidy bullet list:

  1. Most of you should have received your copies of the The Life Engineered by now and, if you’ve read it and enjoyed it, then it would be of tremendous help to the success of the book if you could write a short review and rate it on Amazon and/or Goodreads. Even something as simple as “I liked it.” with a five star rating can do wonders to get The Life Engineered in front of more readers.
  2. Tomorrow, I will be a guest on the Sword & Laser podcast with Tom and Veronica and YOU can participate by submitting questions for the interview on the Sword & Laser Goodreads forum.
  3. So far I’ve received three photos of copies of The Life Engineered in the ‘wild’. If you see The Life Engineered at your local book store, take a photo and tweet it to me @jfdubeau. Add the hashtag #scifiBook.
  4. Keep an eye on my Facebook page for information on the various media mentioning The Life Engineered as well as any appearances and interviews I might be doing in the following day (including an interview on Beyond the Playlist with J. Hammond C, a review on Examiner.com, an interview on Examiner.com, etc.)
  5. If you live in the Montreal area, you can join me for the official book launch party at Argo Bookshop at 7PM EST on March 3rd. I’d love to see you there.

As always, thank you for your support. This has been a great ride so far and I hope it can keep going for a long while. Next step: the sequel!

Regards, JF

JF Dubeau · Author · added over 9 years ago · 4 likes

Greetings sentiments!

Great news today, but first allow me to apologize if this post lacks the panache of my normal communiqués, I have to do this through my iPad while on the high seas.

So what’s this great news? It’s a gift to you my readers! I wrote a short story as a spoiler-free prequel to The Life Engineered! It’s published on SF Signal and you can find it here: http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2016/02/sacrifice-by-jf-dubeau-the-prequel-story-to-the-life-engineered/

(See? No hyperlink. Truly these are the dark ages.)

Do me a favor and spread this story and link far and wide. It’s a free story! How cool is that? Read it, share it, comment on it. Let’s show SF Signal we want more of this kind of content!

Thanks for your support my friends. I hope to have the opportunity to do more things like this for you in the future.

JF

Paul Inman · Author · added over 9 years ago
Here’s my official review. I know you were all waiting patiently. 

JF Dubeau doesn’t want to be a writer - the man wants to WRITE. He wants to create worlds, or in this case galaxies, for his imagination to explore unimpeded. He has an overwhelming need to create something worthy of his science fiction heroes while still being entertaining.

With The Life Engineered, he does that and he does it well. Dare I say amazingly? I dare.

The Life Engineered, at its core, is a story about love. Don’t confuse what I mean; there’s no making out and holding hands here. It could be akin to what the ancient Greeks called Agápe or Storge. It’s the deeper love given to other living things. The love of how precious a life truly is. The love of family, the desire to remain true to ones beliefs; all courageously explored within these pages. Dubeau deftly navigates not only through the stars but also through the human condition in the guise of sentient robots called Capeks.

The Capeks have existed for millennia with one goal; usher in the return of mankind. Dubeau creates a rich, believable reality in which the Capeks have thrived in the absence of their human creators. The world building in the story is fascinating and multilayered, so much in fact, that in the confines of the story, the surface is barely scratched. A plethora of Capek designs and personalities exists from the mundane (think laborer) to the incredible (we’re talking about literal world building here) with each character touched upon at least long enough to pique your curiosity. Hopefully the planned sequel, Arch-Android, which we are teased with at the end of the book, will shed some more light upon the history of this amazing race of AI.

I won’t go into the plot much because a synopsis can be found here, as well as other places online, but I will say that the story keeps moving forward to its satisfying, if slightly hurried, conclusion.

This brings me to the critical part of this review (I will be grasping at straws here to find a few things). I feel that the first person POV is limiting to this type of story where there are so many new things to be explored, however, I will be the first to admit this is a personal preference and Dubeau handled the POV beautifully by letting the reader experience the galaxy for the first time through the “eyes” of a newborn Capek. Also, I found myself so immersed in the culture of the Capek society that I longed for more input, more information about the how’s and why’s of what these AI’s are capable of becoming. Some expansion surely must show up in Arch-Android in order to complete the minimal dangling threads that Dubeau has skillfully weaved into his yarn. With that said, I believe everything is here to make this story complete, worthwhile, and satisfying.

Finally, and this was the biggest issue for me, I feel that the scope of a story like this needs more time to simmer. There are a handful of times throughout the novel where I want to sit with the feelings presented and let them tear me down for a while before the next onslaught. The book moved along at a brisk pace, which is great, but it could have used a few more of those reflective moments. For instance, I will try to stay spoiler free here, there is a scene where we see the sacrificial death of a character and then we are rushed away to another part of the galaxy where we don’t get a chance to deal with the feelings sufficiently. In a society where death is almost unheard of, I would think it would take more time to processes, but then again…robots. During times of conflict there may not be the reflective time I am suggesting, but traveling interstellar distances takes time; time which could be used to further dive into the Capek condition. These are all small grips that I had to put serious consideration into. Truly, this is a great tale with minuscule flaws that most won’t notice.

The Life Engineered is a fantastic novel and a terrific debut for author JF Dubeau that is sure to open many doors for this up and coming talent. I know that I will be supporting his next effort, A God in the Shed, on Inkshares.com. You should too.

JF Dubeau · Author · added over 9 years ago · 1 like

In my excitement of the previous message I set the date for February 3rd.

The actual date is March 3rd, 19h00. At Argo Bookshop.

1915 Saint Catherine street West, Montreal, QC H3H 1M3

I apologize for the confusion.

JF

JF Dubeau · Author · added over 9 years ago
Yes.. March 3rd. I’m stupid. This is why I’m not allowed to light the fireplace or use the microwave unsupervised anymore.

A.C. Weston · Author · added over 9 years ago
Do you mean March 3rd? Asking for time travel reasons.
JF Dubeau · Author · added over 9 years ago · 3 likes

Yes!

Dear sentients, the time has come. The venue is secured, the day is chosen. If you live in or around Montreal and are so inclined, I would like to invite you to join me in launching The Life Engineered officially this coming February 3rd at 19h00 at Argo Bookshop in downtown Montreal.

Located near Guy-Concordia Metro, Argo is an adorable little hole in the wall and independent book store that goes hand-in-hand with the Inkshares spirit of finding and promoting indie authors.

Come say hello and meet the other wonderful people who helped make this book a reality. I’ll do a Q&A, maybe read from the book if you guys are into that. There will be refreshment (early organization talk that means ’some food and some drink but I don’t know what yet’).

This night is going to be about YOU guys, because this might be my book, but it’s as much your accomplishment as it is mine. I’m only sorry I can’t have every single backer and supporter there.

No ’need’ to RSVP, but if you’re planning to come and want to let me know, I’d appreciate it.

I hope to see you guys there.

JF

Argo Bookshop: 1915 Saint Catherine street West, Montreal, QC H3H 1M3

JF Dubeau · Author · added over 9 years ago · 9 likes

Dear Sentients,

The rollercoaster rides on.

We are a little over a week from the official launch date for The Life Engineered. Already, many of you are receiving your copies and a few of you have already devoured the book. I’m seeing so many photos of my book in your hands and receiving so many positive comments that I’m at a loss for words. Which is a terrible predicament for an author.

As we get every closer to the launch date for The Life Engineered there are a few points I want to address with you, my friends:

  1. If you’ve received and read your copy of The Life Engineered and you enjoyed it (I know you did), take a trip down to Amazon and leave a review. If you’re on Goodreads, leave a review there too. Reviews are crucial to rankings and rankings are important to sales and sales are what allow me to publish a sequel.
  2. I’m still working on preparing a launch party. If you’re local to Montreal, stay tuned. The moment I have a venue confirmed, I will be making an announcement. I’d love to see as many of you there as possible. I have a mailing list! Because not every one of my readers are on Inkshares, I’ve started an independent mailing list. You can sign up here. If you’d rather just receive these updates however, don’t worry, all information about The Life Engineered and it’s sequels will be posted on Inkshares too.
  3. I’m going on a trip! I’m not bragging, I’m just pointing it out because I might be difficult to reach for the next week. I’ll try to receive my emails and respond as best as I can but I’ll be on a boat, so internet access will be difficult.

These are exciting times my friends and none of it would be possible without you.

As always: Thank you so much for your support. I hope you’ll stay with me for the duration of this ride. There’s some cool stuff on the way.

JF

Joanna Lynn Brosius Chaplin · Reader · added over 9 years ago
Got my digital copy!  And I got a notice that my physical version is en route.  
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