Though we are still traversing the final length of 2020, the new year will begin with Machinia being chosen as my publisher's kickoff to Pandamonium's International Book Club 2021. I am both humbled and honoured with the choice. In other news Boston Robotics just previewed the advances to their robotic design with an entertaining dance video featuring three of their advanced bots. I am pasting the link to the video featured on the December 30, 2020 Global News article by Josh K. Elliot: ​https://globalnews.ca/news/7547565/dancing-robots-do-you-love-me-video/ I continually post news in the robotics and artificial intelligence field on my Machinia group page on Facebook. Those of you with a Facebook account are welcome to join and comment on the posts. I am opening the group page to outside posts as long as they are in harmony with the theme of the group and promote the novel.  In addition to this website and Facebook I also have a Twitter account: @MoscarellaPaul and an Instagram account PaulMoscarella.  I do contribute reviews to Goodreads and participate on Reddit when I can. Currently I have 13 short stories submitted to various publications and will be editing my second completed novel in the new year.  I will share details about the story at some point in the new year. ** For those of you who would like a preview of the novel please use the Amazon Kindle link to Machinia and use the "Look Inside" feature.**

Machinia is now available trough many major and independent bookstores.  However, spreading the word is an ongoing process especially in this era of COVID limitations. On the plus side Mike Glyer of the Hugo award winning science fiction website File 770 graciously posted a guest blog of mine entitled "Data Determines Destiny". I will attach the link at the end of this post. In the piece I look at two aspects of Machinia: the ongoing expansion of big data and the inevitable rise of robots.  Given that the novel was a thirty year edit many of the ideas that were highly speculative in the 90's are now becoming more mainstream.  Artificial intelligence is maneuvering its way into our daily lives and robot capabilities are expanding to include services that were once only possible by human beings. In effect we are building the foundation of Machinia's robot empire with every advance by Boston Dynamics, Panasonic, Microsoft, Google, and Apple.  It won't be too long before a humanoid robot becomes something akin to a home computer or microwave oven. Exotic at first, commonplace as time goes on. And with Musk shooting his private rockets into the sky what is truly exotic anymore?  I wouldn't be surprised if he or one of his science fiction obsessed wealthy friends has the first home-friendly robot ready for mass production in a year or two from now. By the time our protagonist sets foot in Machinia it is 2156.  I wondered if a fully established robot society in the 22nd century was a little extreme.  Now I see that my timing was fairly accurate.
"Data Determines Destiny" file770.com/data-determines-destiny-guest-post-by-paul-a-moscarella/?fbclid=IwAR3spWG-aHAixRu7l_NsC2nL5JhhB63A5sXGyEqTjDdq4EeO2eG2O4UtoGY

My novel Machinia began life in the 80's and was finished in the 90's.  From that point it was shopped and edited for thirty years until finally being selected by Pandamonium Publishing House in Southern Ontario, Canada. Many things changed over the decades: publishing houses merged or went out of business, submissions to publishers/agents went from strictly snail mail to electronic only. As a writer, my ability to send out material became a smoother process thanks to the speed of these transformations. Where I once had to wait months for a reply to a submission, I was now able to hear back within a matter of weeks. The sweet acceptance of a contract made me believe that the long awaited moment in the sun had arrived. I couldn't wait to participate in book signings, art crawls, comic-cons and all the events associated with publication! All of that got shut down and postponed indefinitely into some vague future called "TBD 2021".  What that means is that most of the effort to get Machinia seen by the reading public has been online, a vast sea of endless wilderness.  Granted, positive reviews have been encouraging and heartwarming. But without my physical book sitting face forward on a bookstore's shelf getting it "seen" is an ongoing effort.  So I promote with this site, Facebook, LinkedIn, my publisher's website, Amazon and Barnes & Noble and many online independent book stores..  But to me these are the "Also available at..." choices.  Like my work (I currently teach for Brant Skills Centre in Brantford) everything has become channeled through the Internet, a peculiar experience in which the tactile world of direct interaction is now replaced with a screen and speakers.  I make do (as we all must) with the technology utilizing its features as a temporary solution to the restrictions placed upon me by COVID.  And while it has shown to be exceptional in certain ways it can only go so far.  I look forward to "TBD 2021" when I can finally sit at a table in a bookstore with a stack of books and a pen, signing books and talking to people without needing microprocessors and telecommunication infrastructure to do so. PM-12/15/2020

After months of false starts my author's website is finally up. It was something that I had debated getting off the ground since I began promoting Machinia (my debut novel) on Facebook.  But, unlike Facebook, I needed to research the steps required to actually create a dedicated website.  Fortunately, there were many options and my ultimate choice was to secure my domain with Godaddy and create my website through Weebly.  I cannot say this was done with thought and care so much as through fast Google searches and skimmed reviews of what other authors recommended. So here it is, a platform that will be used to highlight events related to my publications.  To date I have a novel, published by Pandamonium Publishing house.Thanks to COVID-19, many of the events scheduled to highlight the release of the novel were cancelled. Adding to my frustration our local Canadian bookstore, Indigo, won't carry the paper copies of the book unless I do an in-store signing.  They won't allow in-store signings due to COVID restrictions. When challenged with this fact they acknowledged the paradox and left it unresolved. Getting them to stock my book online is another challenge that will hopefully be fixed before 2021.  But, on the bright side the reviews have been good and a YouTube event hosted by Pandamonium Publishing was a big success.  I will post a link to the video when it is ready.  Considering how long it took to finally get Machinia published these are good problems to have.  But to you writers who aspire to greatness and see publication as the finish line understand that it is but a stop on a long journey. Perhaps we can travel this land together.