Okay, my ‘thing’ here is coffee, aliens and light-hearted sci-fi escapism. So when I came across this story from the Ukraine, I just had to share it.
Please consider finding a charity to support that provides assistance to Ukraine, and have a wonderful day.
I’ll keep this short and to the point: As of today, I’ve removed all my books from Amazon. There’s a massive grassroots boycott of America, and in particular Amazon, Walmart and Tesla spreading through Canada, Europe and even America, and I’ve joined it.
The reasons are pretty straightforward, really. I won’t bother listing everything that’s wrong with Trump, Bezos and the Republicans – that would be an exceptionally long and tedious list. Besides, most of you will no doubt be as familiar as I am with Trump’s daily stupidities, so why repeat it here.
So I’ll just hit a few high points, especially as they relate to Canada and our friends:
Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, continues to support Trump. Bezos and his tech bros have clearly shown that they are more interested in kissing up to an authoritarian in order to get richer, than they are in the welfare of their own country and its people.
I’ve been an author for thirty years and first self-published “Aliens, Spaceships and the Occasional Latte” on Amazon in 2014. Since then I’ve published 9 titles on Amazon in both print and digital formats. In the spirit of #BoycottAmazon I’ve removed all my books from that platform.
Along with thousands of other Canadians, I’ve also cancelled my subscription to Amazon Prime and stopped all purchasing from that platform, as well as all ‘made in America’ products.
Jeff Bezos’ support for Trump is cowardly and unjustifiable. Hopefully America will regain it’s senses soon, before it’s too late. Until then, no more Amazon.
Here is a great article about Amazon, why Jeff Bezos deserves to be boycotted, and a list of his companies. At the end of this article are also lists of Zuckerberg’s and Musk’s companies and why they should be boycotted:
The Complete List of Jeff Bezos Companies.
Follow this link for more information on the Amazon Boycott:
I’m very pleased to make all of my books available on Kobo, Apple and Smashwords. I will be exploring other platforms as well in the future.
Thanks and have a great day!
~
That’s right. You’re doing it. Now.
Sorry, I can’t stay neutral any more. I can’t just write fun fan fiction about coffee loving aliens and remain silent about what’s happening. Because what’s going on is so extreme, so mind-boggling awful, that neutrality and lukewarmness is betrayal and cowardice.
This is not the time to be neutral or lukewarm.
Trump is threatening my country Canada, and attack other friendly allies like Denmark and Panama. And he’s attacking our NATO friends while cozying up to Russia who’s naked aggression against Ukraine is utterly disgusting and inhumane.
Many Germans in the 1930’s weren’t necessarily fanatical Nazi’s, they were just lukewarm and opted for a ‘neutral’ position on the political events of the day. They didn’t want to “get involved”, and thought they’d stay safe if they didn’t stick their necks out.
When dealing with fascists, that strategy doesn’t work, and it didn’t end so well for many of them …
From time to time I come across someone in my circle of friends, family, neighbours or church folk who are still sitting on the fence, or just otherwise lukewarm when it comes to politics, who haven’t yet grasped the gravity of the moment we are in.
So in this blog I’m offering a list of people who are doing a fantastic job of keeping us updated on the news of the day with informative and helpful insights on the day’s events. If you’re not sure what to make of today’s craziness, the best thing you can do is get informed.
I offer this list of recommendations to give those still on the fence, or who aren’t sure, a gentle nudge in the right direction. I’ve found these contributors to be extremely knowledgeable, informative, and well researched. They offer solid, useful information on today’s news and events, backed up with facts.
In the future I will be making updates to this list on substack here, rather than maintain this same list in two different places.
The Atlantic is excellent: https://www.theatlantic.com/
The Guardian is an independent paper, not owned by a billionaire: https://www.theguardian.com/world
The Kyiv Independent: https://bsky.app/profile/kyivindependent.com
Ground News: https://ground.news/ Based in Ontario Canada. Very balanced look at all the news around the world, reporting on what different news sources are saying about the same story to get a balanced looked between right, left, centre, liberal, conservative, etc.
MeidasTouch on BlueSky and YouTube is extremely good. Informative, fact-based coverage of the news, and they bring the receipts.
https://bsky.app/profile/meidastouch.com
https://www.youtube.com/@MeidasTouch
On Substack:
The Contrarian https://contrarian.substack.com/
Charlie Angus / The Resistance https://charlieangus.substack.com/
Du Mez CONNECTIONS https://kristindumez.substack.com/, By Kristen Kobe Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne
Robert Reich https://robertreich.substack.com/
Letters from an American https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/, She does a daily roundup of the days news that is excellent and informative.
Juno News – Canadian politics: https://www.junonews.com/
Tim Snyder, author of On Tyranny, an excellent summary of fascism: https://snyder.substack.com/
BlueSky:
I find the following extremely informative, helpful and well researched on BlueSky:
You can also find most of these folks on YouTube as well.
The Kyiv Independent: https://bsky.app/profile/kyivindependent.com
Kristen Du Mez: https://bsky.app/profile/kkdumez.bsky.social
Rachel Maddow: https://bsky.app/profile/maddow.msnbc.com
Russell Moore, senior editor of Christianity Today: https://bsky.app/profile/drmoore.bsky.social
Charlie Angus, NDP MP: https://bsky.app/profile/charlieangus104.bsky.social
CAN – senior editor at MeidasTouch. https://bsky.app/profile/acyn.bsky.social
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: https://bsky.app/profile/aoc.bsky.social
Anne Applebaum, author of several books on autocracy: https://bsky.app/profile/anneapplebaum.bsky.social
Get her books: Autocracy Inc. and The Twilight of Democracy https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/search?q=anne+applebaum&search-button=&lang=null
You can find me on BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/mikemanto.bsky.social and Substack https://michaelmanto.substack.com/.
I’ve also got a list of substack recommendations on my Substack blog: https://michaelmanto.substack.com/recommendations
The third in my Galactic Smuggler’s series, “A Spaceship for Hire” is now published and available in Ebook on all major Ebook sellers.
Book #3 picks up where “Coffee to Go, With a Spaceship” leaves off, continuing the story of Jack and Donna and their nice alien friends.
Exiled from Earth and unable to return home, Jack makes a living running a small cafe on a distant planet at the edge of the galaxy. But when marauding space pirates start raiding galactic trade routes, Jack and his alien friends find themselves cut-off from the rest of the galaxy.
It looks like Jack is soon to be out of business and out of money, and with war spreading he’s unable to go for help.
Help eventually comes from a very unlikely person: Donna, his ex-girlfriend. She’s learned how to fly an old alien spaceship that’s been abandoned in the woods behind her farm, and agrees to help Jack and his friends out.
Jack really, really, doesn’t want to go back into space, but he’s got no choice. Jack, Donna and a band of alien friends leave in Donna’s spaceship to go for help.
Along the way, the unlikely couple discover that they still have feelings for each other. But before they can start living their happily-ever-after, they first have to fight off space pirates, stop an inter-galactic war from spreading, and try to find their way back to Earth for another load of coffee.
This is a ride you don’t want to miss!
I think you’ll really enjoy “A Spaceship for Hire”. I’m really excited about it, and I think you’ll find that it’s a fun read.
Drop me a line and let me know what you think. Now, go find some friends and have a great day!
Edited February 27, 2025
Today I’d like to share some exciting news for my fans … the long-awaited 3rd book in my popular Galactic Smugglers series is on track to hit its planned release date June 28.
I’ve been writing like mad for a couple of months now, and recently finished a good clean final draft. The manuscript is currently being edited and reviewed by my editorial staff (full disclosure – as a indie author I don’t have staff, strictly speaking, but I do have lots of friends and a very patient wife). I really do work hard at publishing my books without typos and other errors, and I’ve paid for professional editing for ALL my books in the past. It really does pay off.
But I digress. The point is that I’m well ahead of schedule and right now it looks like I’ll be able to release “A Spaceship for Hire” early. Which is only fair because it’s been too long since the last book came out.
Way too long.
I first published “Coffee to Go, With a Spaceship” back in December of 2017, a little over six years ago. Kind of embarrassing, and I’ve had a lot of fans asking when the third installment was coming out because the end of the second book left things hanging – especially with regards to Jack and Donna’s relationship.
Some fans even noted that the book ends on a sad note because of that. Well, personally I hate sad and depressing endings. We’ve got the daily news for that, so when it comes to fiction – especially the mindless fluff I prefer to write – I’m a HUGE fan of happy endings.
The goal of my novels is to entertain. That’s it. I think writing light-hearted, mindless fluff is a high calling, because there are times when people need that. So all of my books end on an upbeat note and happy ending for the good guys eventually. If you don’t like that, or feel that’s too Pollyanna, feel free to read someone else to leave you sad and depressed. There are plenty of pretentious authors who feel they are being ‘serious’ and more ‘realistic’ by being depressing. Or better yet, don’t waste your money on those guys at all and just turn on the news or read CNN for free.
Anyway, the second book did leave things hanging on a sad note for our two heroes, as I’ve mentioned, and I feel bad that’s it’s taken so long to write the next in the series. But I’m in good company: it took Harper Lee, the author of the world famous novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird”, forty-five years to come out with a follow-up. So maybe I don’t need to feel all that bad.
So why’d it take six years? many of my fans have been asking. What follows is my numbered list of excuses, in no particular order:
That’s it. These are all my excuses to date, but as I think of more I’ll add to the list.
I think you’ll be really happy with “A Spaceship for Hire”. I’m really excited about it; it’s a fun read. It’s available for pre-order now at a special price of 99 cents. I strongly encourage you to go ahead and reserve your copy today, because the price will go up to somewhere between 3.99 and 5.99 when it’s released. I do have to make some money on this, after all.
When the book is released, it will be automatically downloaded to your device if you’ve pre-ordered.
Thanks for reading my blog today. Feel free to contact me with any questions you might have.
I’m excited to announce the release of my latest sci-fi thriller, The Tolerance Bureau, about a social media skip chaser.
What if in the future you could get dislike‘s, not just like‘s, on your social media posts and comments? Now imagine a cancel culture that’s taking things too far, and getting too many dislikes will get you arrested for cerebral offenses and insensitivity.
That’s where the Tolerance Bureau comes in.
Think you can just say whatever you want on social media and get away with it? Think again! The Tolerance Bureau is watching everything you post. The Bureau is the new federal agency responsible for monitoring the internet to make sure it is kept clean from offensive postings so that no one’s feelings ever get hurt.
Offending too many people makes you a Cerebral Terrorist, and the Bureau will bring you in for mandatory psychological therapy. Try to run, and bounty hunters will track you down and lock you up in one of the Bureau’s re-education camps.
That’s Jim Rogan’s job, and he’s one of the best at it.
Hillary Wells, famous astrophysicist, made a few controversial comments on social media – and offended too many people. Now she’s wanted for Intellectual Terrorism and there’s a warrant for her arrest. And the Tolerance Bureau has assigned Special Agent Jim Rogan to track her down and bring her in.
Rogan thinks it’ll be a piece of cake. What could possibly go wrong? As it turns out, pretty much everything…
The Tolerance Bureau is set in a near future that is all too plausible…
Published on Amazon, February 20, 2023
Available now on Amazon, for your Kindle and in print
The girl from the future…
What does a girl do when she can’t tell anyone where she’s really from?
I’m excited about my latest novel – a fun blend of love, romance, dystopian future and time travel. It’s about Octavia, a woman from a dystopian future who has traveled back in time to our own day. She’s here on a mission: study us and learn how we lived prior to a deadly plague that almost destroys human life and brings on the dystopian world she grew up in.
Octavia never had a family, never knew a mother or father – she was raised on a eugenics farm by robots and impersonal guardians. She arrives in our time and meets Jake, the loving single father of an 11-year old girl, and it’s not long before they fall in love. For the first time in her life, Octavia becomes part of a real family. But she can never tell Jake that she’s from the future – how could he possibly believe it? And that’s not the only secret she has to keep from him.
But falling in love was not part of her mission plan, and the secrets she carries about herself and the terrible future awaiting them soon threaten to tear them apart.
I actually started writing this in 2016, thinking it would be fun to write a story about a world-wide pandemic and time-travel. I finished it prior to 2020 under a different title, and then covid-19 broke out. When covid-19 hit, I no longer felt like promoting a novel about a plague. Reading and writing stories about an apocalypse is fun until it starts to feel like you are really in one. So I shelved the project for a while.
In early 2021 I dusted it off and re-read it, and sent it to an editor for professional proof reading. I like the story and now that it looks like we are getting to the end of the covid-19 pandemic I feel good about publishing it.
It’s a fun, clean read with a feel-good ending. I’m a huge believer in happy endings… I mean, why read a book that leaves you depressed. I can go to CNN for that.
I hope you like reading the book as much as I liked writing it. Drop me a line and let me know what you think.
Some of my favorite books over the years have been: Lucifer’s Hammer, Alas, Babylon, Childhood’s End, and One Second After. And who will ever forget great classics like The Day of the Triffids, On the Beach and A Canticle for Lebowitz. I loved these post-apocalyptic books. I’ve read them all more than once. I even wrote one myself about 4 years ago: The Girl With No Shoes, about time travel and a civilization ending plague.
And some of my all-time favorite movies have been The Quiet Place, The Bird Box, Signs, and I Am Legend, to name just a few. I own the DVD of Signs and binge-watched The Bird Box three times one week on Netflix about a year ago. I loved it.
But now that I feel like I’m in one, I no longer find them quite so entertaining.
I’ve had a few co-workers make comments along these lines (over the phone, of course, while on con-calls). One said that he “feels like he’s a supporting cast member in a sci-fi movie.” Another one said that she “feels like she’s been dropped into a sci-fi plot.” These comments all came unprompted, without a leading question. I found it interesting because I was feeling the same way. When I commented on this to my brother, he quipped: “What took you so long? I’ve felt like I’ve been in a dystopian nightmare ever since Trump got elected.”
I was really looking forward to the release of The Quiet Place II this March in movie theaters. But I never got the chance. All the theaters closed due to the virus the same week it was released. (Does anyone else see the irony in that?) Maybe Netflix will stream it, but I no longer care. It’s going to be a very long time before I’ll be in the mood to watch it.
In the past I’ve had to watch these movies alone or with a friend or one of my adult kids, because my wife doesn’t like them and will leave the room if one is on. She much prefers stuff like Call the Midwife, Doc Martin and Downton Abbey. At Christmas time she binge watches cheesy Hallmark holiday romances. Shows that usually put me to sleep before the opening credits are done.
Like everyone else around the world, my wife and I are in self-isolation at home. Fortunately we both have jobs that are suitable for work from home. My work sent us all home with our laptops two weeks ago and told us not to come back until further notice. My wife’s employer sent them home with their computers and telephones last week. She’s setup in the dining room and my ‘office’ is now in the living room.
We won’t be going out anytime soon, and there is suddenly a lot of time after work to read books and watch TV. And I have absolutely no interest in apocalyptic books and end of the world movies. My wife found out that Julian Fellowes, the creator of Downton Abbey, has a new series on Netflix: The English Game, about soccer in the 1870’s. She wants to watch that.
Sounds good to me Honey. I’ll make the popcorn. And after that’s over, I’ll even watch Call the Midwife with you.
Everything, it seems, is being cancelled. When hockey gets cancelled in Canada, and football is cancelled in the UK, you know things are getting serious.
But the cancellations are for a good reason. Social distancing is the best way to curb the spread of this virus. Social distancing and self-isolation is the responsible thing to do. I saw a thing on FB yesterday that made me laugh so hard it brought tears to my eyes. It went like this:
“Our grandfathers were called to storm the beaches of Normandy. We are being called to sit on the couch. You can do this.”
Yes, we can. The isolation won’t be fun, but it is the socially responsible thing to do. Even if you are not in a high risk category, you can still become contagious – so this is about protecting other people as well.
The good news is that reading hasn’t been cancelled. And with the entire world going into quarantine, restaurants, bars and all public events closing, there is going to be a lot of time to read.
This week, from March 16 to March 19, 2020, I am giving away for free the Kindle version of “Aliens, Spaceships and the Occasional Latte”. Available on Amazon now. It is a fun, escapist read that is by no means serious SF and has nothing to do with viruses, so I hope people will find it a refreshing and enjoyable diversion.
This is the first book in my Jack Winters series, about a detective and a group of alien smugglers who come to Earth for our coffee and have all kinds of adventures around the galaxy.
The second book in the series is also available now – “Coffee To Go, With a Spaceship.” The 3rd book is planned, and I hope to have that ready later this year.
Various promotions will continue after the free giveaway ends March 19. After March 19, I will raise the price up to 0.99 in both the US, Canadian and UK markets. (0.99 Euro for UK, and 0.99 USD for the States and something like 1.35 in Canada – whatever the conversation rate works out to.)
The book will be featured in a series of online promotions and email blasts between now and April 5, with BooksGoSocial, Bargain Booksy and BookSends. The price will remain at 0.99 throughout this time and to the end of April.
Please drop me a line and let me know what you think!
Stay safe and stay healthy… and don’t forget to wash your hands!
In response to the overwhelming demand from my readers, I’m planning the 3rd book in the Jack Winters series. Actually, truth be told, I’d planned on continuing the series from the very beginning. Readers have been asking me when the next is coming, and I expect to have it out in the first half of next year – by spring of 2020.
Thanks to my readers, the first two novels, Aliens, Spaceships and the Occasional Latte and Coffee to Go, With a Spaceship have been a tremendous success and I’m excited about continuing the series.
I will keep readers updated with news and progress. Keep an eye out for future posts on my website!
Thanks!
Mike
