# TRICKSTER by Steven Harper



## harfner (Jul 5, 2009)

I'm happy to announce that the third Silent Empire novel TRICKSTER (originally published by Penguin/Putnam) is now available for the Kindle. Price: $1.79.

From the back cover:
_
The Dream has been shattered, and the majority of the Silent who telepathically communicated through it have been cast out by the event known as the Despair, unable to reenter. Now the remaining Silent still capable of linking to the Dream have become a valuable commodity to those in power seeking to keep the lines of galactic communication open&#8230;_

In the midst of the Despair, Father Kendi Weaver and the crew of the Poltergeist have a limited window of opportunity to find the loved ones they have lost--including Kendi's parents and siblings, who were sold into slavery more than fifteen years ago.

But just as Kendi closes in on the whereabouts of his brother and sister, they are taken by a mysterious group intent on using them for their own secret agenda&#8230;

"Intelligent entertainment." --Booklist



Although TRICKSTER stands alone, you might also want to pick up DREAMER and NIGHTMARE, the first two books in the series.

--Steven Harper Piziks


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## liannallama (May 29, 2009)

yahoo!  I'm thrilled and I just got it!  Hooray for a long car drive to BFE this weekend so hopefully I can read while DH drives!  Ahhhh--how good it is to have a chauffeur, LOL!  We're going to see a family member play pro arena football--do you think it's rude to read while they play, LOL?


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## koland (Nov 24, 2008)

Why did you add a 5-device limitation to these books? Why not leave it at the default of six?

(ps. I bought it immediately! Despite the limitation, but that means one of my devices can't read it, nor the other two).


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

you have 8 devices?  WOW!!


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## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

Hi, Steve. Your books sounded interesting, so I picked up a sample of _Dreamer_. Unfortunately, there seem to have been some conversion issues. I can tolerate a few OCR issues if the story is good and the book is cheap, but there seemed to be several words missing at a time. It totally disrupted the story and made me feel that I had missed something important. I'm sure you would want to look into this.


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## Kevis Hendrickson (Feb 28, 2009)

koland said:


> Why did you add a 5-device limitation to these books? Why not leave it at the default of six?
> 
> (ps. I bought it immediately! Despite the limitation, but that means one of my devices can't read it, nor the other two).


In defense of Steven, the 5-device limitation is an Amazon instituted policy. Every DTP published author had this new restriction added to their books a couple of days ago. Maybe if enough customers alerts Amazon that they are dissatisfied with this new policy, they may change it.


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## r0b0d0c (Feb 16, 2009)

Kevis Hendrickson said:


> In defense of Steven, the 5-device limitation is an Amazon instituted policy. Every DTP published author had this new restriction added to their books a couple of days ago. Maybe if enough customers alerts Amazon that they are dissatisfied with this new policy, they may change it.


Are you certain of this? WHY in the world would Amazon do that? I could see publishers, or authors, wanting a stricter limit, but what's the upside for Amazon, if THEY are responsible for this? Also, NOT all Kindle books list this restriction, and the ones that do state: "Simultaneous Device Usage: Up to 5 simultaneous devices, per publisher limits" - they specifically state that this is *"per publisher."*

Since the debut of Kindle, they've touted the "6 Kindle" sharing of books, and to short-change Kindle buyers now, a few short months after bowing to publishers' demands to remove TTS in many Kindle books (ANOTHER feature that, while not guaranteed, was WIDELY touted as a compelling feature of Kindle 2!), seems foolish.

While not a "guarantee," the 6-Kindle sharing was widely touted, and has certainly been used to encourage multiple Kindle purchases within families (including my own!)

Not smart marketing...


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## koland (Nov 24, 2008)

Kevis Hendrickson said:


> In defense of Steven, the 5-device limitation is an Amazon instituted policy. Every DTP published author had this new restriction added to their books a couple of days ago. Maybe if enough customers alerts Amazon that they are dissatisfied with this new policy, they may change it.


I would encourage all to do so - I was sold a six-device limit device and all books with that limitation, not a five-device limit. It even says SIX on the FAQ page. It looks like ONLY indie/DTP authors have had this limit added to their books (and retroactively, at that).


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## harfner (Jul 5, 2009)

Absolutely not! 



liannallama said:


> yahoo! I'm thrilled and I just got it! Hooray for a long car drive to BFE this weekend so hopefully I can read while DH drives! Ahhhh--how good it is to have a chauffeur, LOL! We're going to see a family member play pro arena football--do you think it's rude to read while they play, LOL?


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## harfner (Jul 5, 2009)

I noticed that just now on the TRICKSTER page, and it wasn't me! It's on DREAMER and NIGHTMARE, too--I just checked. I wonder if it's a new Amazon thing? There was a kerfluffle a while ago about people discovering that you could only download a book so many times before you hit some sort of unstated limit. Maybe now they're stating it?



koland said:


> Why did you add a 5-device limitation to these books? Why not leave it at the default of six?
> 
> (ps. I bought it immediately! Despite the limitation, but that means one of my devices can't read it, nor the other two).


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## harfner (Jul 5, 2009)

Uh oh. The version I uploaded was the copyedited version from my publisher, and I'm currently re-reading it on my Kindle without trouble. Message me what sections you're seeing problems with and I'll go look!



marianner said:


> Hi, Steve. Your books sounded interesting, so I picked up a sample of _Dreamer_. Unfortunately, there seem to have been some conversion issues. I can tolerate a few OCR issues if the story is good and the book is cheap, but there seemed to be several words missing at a time. It totally disrupted the story and made me feel that I had missed something important. I'm sure you would want to look into this.


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## harfner (Jul 5, 2009)

Here's a snippet from _Trickster_:

The groundcar abruptly emerged into bright sunlight. Kendi blinked until the windshield darkened itself to compensate. Harenn continued to sit rigid. A line of slaves stood at an outdoor conveyer belt loaded with lumpy brown cacao pods.
"If you look to your left," said the computer cheerfully, "you will see the L.L. Venus hands processing the ripe seed pods. First the pods are split in two with a machete." As if on cue, several of the slaves chopped the pods neatly down the middle as they passed by on the belt. "Next, our hands scoop out the mucilage and cocoa beans inside and put it into wooden boxes, which are then covered with leaves." The car passed stacks of leaf-covered crates. "Once the beans have fermented, they are removed and spread in the sun to dry. Each pod will produce between forty and fifty cocoa beans, but it takes more than seven hundred beans to make a single kilogram of - "
Kendi tapped the screen's red button. When Harenn raised her eyebrows at him, he said, "I can't stand that syrupy tone anymore."
"What number of slaves do you suppose this farm owns?"
Kendi looked out at a group of slave children who were using long-handled hoes to spread cocoa beans on screen-bottomed drying racks in the hot sun. Several of them were barely tall enough to see over the racks.
"Lots," he muttered. "Suddenly the idea of having a candy bar makes me sick to my stomach."
The driveway ended in at an enormous mansion, complete with cupolas and gingerbread trim. Beyond the house lay a series of low, metal-sided buildings. Kendi assumed they were warehouses, equipment storage areas, and slave quarters. He guided the car into a parking lot near the house. The sun hit him like a hammer when he exited the air-conditioned interior of the car. Harenn didn't seem to notice, and instead headed straight for the mansion's front porch. Before they had reached the top step, the door opened and a man in a red tunic and brown trousers emerged. The L.L. Venus logo was embroidered in gold on the shoulder of the tunic. Kendi took Harenn's arm.
"Let me do the talking," he muttered.
Harenn gave a curt nod of acquiescence.
"Welcome to Sunnytree Farm," the man said. "How may I help you?"
Kendi repeated his request to see Douglas Markovi. "It's extremely important, and I'm afraid we really can't talk to anyone but him."
"Mr. Markovi is very busy," the man said doubtfully.
"I realize that, and I apologize for dropping in with no notice, but it's very important."
"What company did you say you were with?"
"I didn't," was Kendi's only reply.
The man wasn't daunted. "What company are you with?"
"A large private concern," Kendi said. "I'm sorry, but I can't be more specific than that except with Mr. Markovi himself."
Kendi could almost feel the waves of controlled impatience radiating off Harenn. He ground his teeth. In the days before the Despair, another Child of Irfan would have entered the Dream to whisper into this man's mind. If the man had any inclination toward granting Kendi and Harenn an audience with his managerial majesty, the whisper would magnify it and make Kendi's job easy. But nowadays very few Silent could even enter the Dream, let alone reach out of from it. Kendi would have to rely on his own powers of persuasion.
The man resisted, and Kendi went to work on him. His instincts told him offering a bribe wouldn't be effective, so he continued with a non-stop flow of persuasive talk while Harenn looked on. Eventually the man reluctantly led them to a tastefully-furnished waiting room with the curt promise that he would check with Mr. Markovi.
They waited over an hour. Harenn sat like a statue the entire time. Kendi knew she was in agony, but he didn't dare speak to her - the waiting area was probably bugged. Finally the man returned.
"Mr. Markovi has agreed to see you," he said with a certain amount of surprise in his voice.
He ushered them into a large, airy office. A blond man with a prominent chin waited behind a castle-sized desk against a bank of windows. A potted cacao tree blocked some of the sunshine streaming in through the glass. The man's tunic was edged with silver, and he forced Harenn and Kendi to reach across the huge expanse of his desk to shake hands. His grip was iron-hard. Kendi gave a mental sigh. The negotiations were going to be rough.
"I'm Douglas Markovi," said the blond man. "What's this about? The computer said you were asking about one of my hands."
"Hands," not "slaves," Kendi noted. As if those people - those children - out there were interviewed and hired. He decided to try the direct approach.
"My name is Kendi Weaver and this is my associate Harenn Mashib," he said. "We have a problem that I'm hoping you can help us solve."
Douglas Markovi sat in a tall leather chair behind his desk. He did not offer seats to Kendi and Harenn, though there were smaller chairs behind them. Kendi decided to remain standing for the moment. Although it made him look like an inferior, it did give him and Harenn a height advantage.
"What problem would that be?"
"You have a - a hand on your farm named Jerry," Kendi said. "According to public record, you bought him two weeks ago."
"I may have," Markovi said. "We acquired several hands recently, but I don't know all of them."
_Despite the fact that you give all of them your last name,_ Kendi growled silently. "Unfortunately," he said aloud, "Jerry is not actually a slave."
"He is my son," Harenn blurted out.


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## koland (Nov 24, 2008)

Steven,

Amazon has now posted (in their DTP forums), that this limit is a "mistake" and they are "working" to rectify the issue (hey, I'm only a programmer, but I'd bet that all it requires is for someone to edit the "publisher" record for "amazon.com," which is used for all DTP titles (since all are affected) to have 6 copies instead of 5, instantly fixing all of them at once (just as they added the limit to all of them at once - which is how you can tell a simple global edit would fix it).

Still no corrections, yet.


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## harfner (Jul 5, 2009)

It seems like it only takes a second to make a mistake but weeks to fix, you know?


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## cheerio (May 16, 2009)

Chad Winters (#102) said:


> you have 8 devices? WOW!!


probably firends and/or family


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## koland (Nov 24, 2008)

cheerio said:


> probably firends and/or family


I only have three (kindle, dx, iphone). Family, however, does add up.


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## liannallama (May 29, 2009)

Ah!  thanks for feeding me need to read!

About the OCR issues another reader mentioned.  I don't think there were missing words; only missing spacing.

I noticed several instances of a "B" and one "C" where it seemed the text should break.  I'm wondering if it's something where someone was trying to type "alt-b" and didn't hit the alt or something.  That was the only major annoyance I noticed while reading.


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## liannallama (May 29, 2009)

PS-- (sorry I'm typing at work and I get distracted, LOL!) I really enjoyed this one too!  Thanks!
:>


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## harfner (Jul 5, 2009)

I'll pull the files and check. Kindle sometimes converts an em dash to a capital B, for some weirdo reason. Thanks for letting me know!



liannallama said:


> Ah! thanks for feeding me need to read!
> 
> About the OCR issues another reader mentioned. I don't think there were missing words; only missing spacing.
> 
> I noticed several instances of a "B" and one "C" where it seemed the text should break. I'm wondering if it's something where someone was trying to type "alt-b" and didn't hit the alt or something. That was the only major annoyance I noticed while reading.


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## harfner (Jul 5, 2009)

Yep--I was right. Kindle changed some em dashes into odd code. Fixed now, and working its way through Amazon's publishing computer.



liannallama said:


> Ah! thanks for feeding me need to read!
> 
> About the OCR issues another reader mentioned. I don't think there were missing words; only missing spacing.
> 
> I noticed several instances of a "B" and one "C" where it seemed the text should break. I'm wondering if it's something where someone was trying to type "alt-b" and didn't hit the alt or something. That was the only major annoyance I noticed while reading.


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## koland (Nov 24, 2008)

Thanks, Steven, for the fixes.

Sadly, those of us that have already purchased can't get the updated files.


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## liannallama (May 29, 2009)

Won't it update if we archive and then re-download?  I haven't tried that yet but I was assuming it would work.  (And thanks for caring enough to fix the little problems!)


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

One would think.  But folks have tried it before with other books and it didn't.  They could have fixed/changed that functionality though, so it wouldn't hurt to try again.  But don't be surprised if you have the same book back.  To be sure. . .find a page that has typos or whatever and make note of it before you delete and re-download.


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## harfner (Jul 5, 2009)

That bites. Amazon must be copying the original purchased file to individual Kindle accounts instead of setting up a link to the main file. That must take up a _lot_ of hard drive space.


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## koland (Nov 24, 2008)

harfner said:


> That bites. Amazon must be copying the original purchased file to individual Kindle accounts instead of setting up a link to the main file. That must take up a _lot_ of hard drive space.


I don't think they are quite that primitive - but they do archive every EDITION you upload and have that exact version linked to sales (perhaps if an edition has no sales, it doesn't get archived, but I sort of doubt it).

In order to get the new version, you must play the "return and rebuy dance", which requires talking to someone at Customer Service. On the phone is best and I've never had a problem doing, even outside the 7 day time period, if you explain that you want a corrected edition (they'll often even give you a credit, if the price has gone up, so it doesn't cost you extra to update). I generally don't bother, but some books have had massive updates (Clutter diet had complete format changes, to look better on K1, plus a linked TOC added, Tolkien had many instances of a section of characters missing after every accent mark that was used, Dune had a number of fixes, etc), I have done a swap.


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

I could have sworn one of Amazon's early selling points was how they could update the books for us...guess that fell through


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## harfner (Jul 5, 2009)

It doesn't help that it often takes two days or more to re-upload a book from the author end.  Yeesh!


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