Official blog of author and internet guy Mark Jeffrey
Who I Be
Bio
I am currently CTO of Mahalo.com, a human-powered search service and author of the Max Quick Series of novels. Previously, I co-founded ZeroDegrees, a business social network (sold to IAC/InterActiveCorp in 2004). I was CEO and co-founder of SuperSig in 1999. I also co-founded The Palace, Inc., an early (1995) avatar chat platform backed by Intel, Time Warner and Softbank with 10 million users (sold to Communities.com in 1998).
Mr. Jeffrey, last year I did Americorps NCCC, a disaster relief
organization. I made 11 dollars a day and did a lot of amazing and fun
things like fight wildfires, run shelters in the midst of hurricanes
and run operations centers where we got to order FEMA around. Often I
was stressed, anxious and worried that I would let people own or maybe
get set on fire. ince I'm a reader and didn't have much money, I
listened to audio books on a 30 dollar mp3 player that I filled with
the occassional library computer I came across. Max Quick was one of
those stories that I found that took the edge off my anxiety and let me
get back to my job the next morning so I could continue to help people.
Thank you,
Gatien
PS Good Luck with the third book, I can hardly wat.
Over the last few days while testing Mahalo 2.0 (which Teh Awesome, btw -- you should check it out: Mahalo.com) I have been building Max Quick - related pages. Any Mahalo page can now be embedded in a blog, website, whatever ... so ... have a look: (and -- interestingly enough, I included NEW INFORMATION on these pages that has never been in a Max Quick book before -- stuff from 'Bondsman', etc. -- exclusive Mahalo content!
Behold J.C. Hutchins new horror masterpiece, Personal Effects: Dark Art. Below is a 'supervlurb' video for the book by twelve podiobook authors, including myself (I do my bit of spooktification around 3:57). I will now wait while you watch it (advice: leave the lights on!!!!!!)
I read this book and I endorsed it because it is damned good. Besides being splash-ice-down-your-spine frightening, time and time again I found myself saying, Damn, that was one nice bit of mind-candy: this kid can write! Hutch chucks slab after slab of word-morsel at you throughout the read. Buy it, read it, become it: highly recommended (but it IS scary, so be warned! :) ) You can also get the source video here: http://media.libsyn.com/media/jchutchins/PersonalEffectsDarkArt_Vlurb11a.m4v
So three months ago, I recorded this video (below). Basically, it says that I have major publisher interest for the Max Quick Series, but a detailed rewrite was requested.
Now. I have finished said rewrite. It has been sent to my agent; she is dealing with the publishers.
So what changed? Well, it is still the same story. So in that sense, nothing has changed. But it is now around 55,000 words (more commercial) as opposed to the original 97,000 words. It is a LOT tighter. The grammar has been cleaned significantly (it needed that in a big way).
And .. I was able to add new scenes :) And new details to old scenes: things which relate to Max Quick 3: The Bane of the Bondsman (you'll know when you see it -- and scroll down for the first few pages of BoB) as well as some new bits in Pocket itself.
I know, I know. People don't like change. If you're used to the original version, this is definitely different in many ways. But I think it's better and much more readable to the new reader.
One change in particular that was requested was better characterization in the opening pages of both Max and Casey. So ... without further ado ... have a sneak peak at the first two chapters, and let me know what you think in the comments.
