Final Thoughts on POSSESSION Launch Week

Holy mother of parties. Launching a book is akin to building an arc and setting sail around the world. For the official record and all that.

And what a week it's been! I'll give you a quick run-down.

Monday: the calm before the storm. Monday is cleaning day at my house, so I cleaned. Exciting, no? Uh...no.

Tuesday: Launch day! I detailed it fully in pictures on my blog, but this day was more amazing than words can express. So many tweets. So many facebook messages. So many emails. So much excitement.

Wednesday: Launch party! I haven't posted these pictures on my blog, but they are on Facebook. You can see most of them on the fanpage. My favorites:

A group of devoted POSSESSION fans. <3

About half the crowd, packed into the art gallery next to The King's English bookstore. 

Me, third one from left at the top, with a flock of writing pals.

Thursday: The Day After. You know this day. Sort of the let-down day. I went to the movies with my kids, and lunch with writing friends.

Friday: That's today, and I have only one item on the agenda: Sleep.

Saturday: Tomorrow! I'll be doing another signing at my local Barnes & Noble. Guess I better go write my speech so I don't sound like I'm winging it.

I also wrote a thank you post on my blog on Tuesday, and I'm going to pull a bit of that to end with today.

I want to say thank you.

The words feel inadequate, weak, unable to hold how much I really appreciate the friendships and emails and camaraderie I've felt from you, my lovely blog readers.

But they'll have to do.

Thank you.

Teleport Me

In Possession, technology plays a huge supporting role, both in the Goodgrounds and the Badlands.  Vi’s father invented a lot of it, mostly having to do with security and mind control. However, the one technology that’s always fascinated me (and would be the most handy to have) is the teleporter.Violet says she was lucky to grow up with one in her home. (Imagine that?)

What is teleportation? Well, the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (yes, there is such a thing, and yes, I own one) defines teleportation as:

…as the ability to move people or objects from one place to another by MATTER TRANSMISSION; ie, using scientific equipment to transmit items in the form of information-carrying waves, which at the destination are reconstituted into matter.

(There’s also a definition for moving yourself around by the power of mind alone, but we’ll stick with the tech approach today.)

The Encyclopedia cites the transporter on Star Trek as a “particularly implausible version” of teleportation because there’s no transmitting equipment at the destination end.  That is, there’s nothing to rescramble the information into solid objects.  However, science doesn't always dictate storytelling (especially on TV). Gene Roddenberry (the creator of Star Trek) had the character used transporters to get around because he didn’t have the budget for Enterprise to land on every planet.

So, like faster-than-light starships and time machines, teleportation often serves as a narrative short cut to overcome the real limitations of time and space so you can tell a story. 

In actuality, human teleportation may be implausible because (a) traveling at the speed of light (which this would require) breaks the laws of physics as we know them, (b) copying a living body might be extremely tricky (a few molecules out of place and you're a turnip, brain-wise), and (c) transmitting your mind / soul is a whole 'nuther metaphysical can of worms.  These problems make good stories, though. (Maybe I'll do another blog post on all the ways science fiction writers have worked with / around these issues.)

But, is teleportation itself truly implausible?  Could we jump objects from point A to B? (Ok, there's still that speed of light thing.) In the past twenty years or so, scientists have working on quantum teleportation. It's not really the same thing (by a long shot), though. This type of teleportation only moves information--sometimes over several miles.  Here’s a better explanation, courtesy of the movie, Jumper:





Long story short: no human or object teleportation--for now. (However, it might mean big things for computing in the near future.) 

Still, I want one. A teleporter, that is.  What future technology (improbable or not) do you covet?

All I Want for Christmas...Possession Style

Okay, so there's quite a bit of tech in my upcoming novel Possession. Everything from iris recognizers (which are in development today) to barcode implants (no, thank you) to teleportation.

And that's what I want. There's nothing worse (to me) than wasting time in a car, driving the boy kidlet to school or the girl to dance or the boy to basketball or piano or scouts or... yeah. I swear I spend hours of my day in the car. And the best Christmas present EVER would be to say to the kidlets: "Hurry! Get to the teleport pad!" and then watch them blink away to their destination.

*bliss*

So I wrote that into my book. It's by far the best tech (to me) in Possession. Of course, tech comes with rules. Here's an excerpt from Possession detailing how the teleporters work:

I moved across the room and stood in front of terminal seven. Now for the sticky part. The password. Laboratory. Ranger. Zenn. Ty. Schoenfeld. Thane. What would it take to get into the lab?

I knew I’d only get one chance. Tech doesn’t accept mistakes. “What’s the password for laboratory four?”

No answer. They were personalized. Just great.

Several minutes passed, my heart thumping more wildly with each one. I made a decision, took a deep breath, and stepped into the teleporter.

So yeah. Insta-travel by blitzing into a million+one particles and then reassembling at your destination. I wantz it.

What about you? Is teleportation a little too Galaxy Quest for you? (Have you seen that? I mean, that pig gets reassembled inside out...) Or is this a futuristic wave you could ride?

Click to visit Elana's website

Holy Possession Prizes!

Okay, so we've been giving away book-related swag all week. Up today, some sweet (I think) stuff to go along with my YA dystopian, POSSESSION, coming out next June.

In the book, Vi doesn't want anyone telling her what to do. But she's caged, trapped, inside her society and all their rules.

Thus, the iconic butterfly frozen in ice cover image. So today, I'm giving away a keychain made by the lovely Christina Lee, complete with butterfly charm and icy blue bead. In addition to that, you'll get a couple of temporary tattoos that say "TAGGED," another nod toward the book, when Vi gets tagged with a barcode around her wrist. (I ordered them; they're not quite here yet. But click here and you can see what I mean. Yours will say TAGGED underneath.)

On top of that, I'll throw in some signed and watercolored bookmarks, and a bag of my favorite: Dove dark. (Okay, this has nothing to do with my book, but doesn't everyone need love chocolate?)

You must leave a comment on this post to win all this Possession-related stuff.

But that's not all, my feathered friends. All of us here at The League are also giving away a prize package of our books! To enter the grand prize drawing for all five books, fill out the form below, including a link to your post. You only need to fill out the form once this week (chances are, you've already done this) for the drawing. Winner will be announced on December 20th.