Category Archives: Reviews

Great Review For Unison

  By Eleni | October 17, 2013 - 09:51 | ,
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I received feedback for Unison by a judge from the Writer’s Digest Self-Pulished Book Awards. I didn’t win this one, but it’s rewarding to be a contender!

“Unison’s first impression is quite good, with a cover design that may be a bit heavy on the “New Age” feel but is, in fact, appropriate to this fascinating hybrid’s content. The interior design is exceptional and of a quality that even the bigger publishing houses don’t usually meet. Proving that beauty is not just skin deep, author Eleni Papanou has created a unique story that’s equal parts post-apocalyptic science fiction, fantasy, magic realism, and New Age spiritualism with neither of these often competing or mutually exclusive genres overwhelming the others. This is an author with something to say and both the writing and design chops to say it well. The evocative writing has a poetic quality appropriate to the content but remains readable and welcoming, aided by a clean edit. The worldbuilding includes some fresh ideas, including the concept of “faith design,” but that worldbuilding is, as it should be, there to serve the characters, not the other way around. Unison is definitely a contender!”  “Judge, Writer’s Digest 21st Annual Self-Published Book Awards”

Thanks Writer’s Digest!

Spirituality, Madness and Valis

  By Eleni | June 19, 2013 - 09:11 | , ,
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I became intrigued by Philip K. Dick after hearing Dr. Jeff Kripal discuss his book Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal. It inspired a post and my fascination with finding other creatives who’ve had mystical experiences. I recently completed reading Philip K. Dick’s book, Valis, a semi-autobiographical account of his own spiritual experience. Dick’s terminology is different, but our experiences were similar. While reading the book, I felt as if  I were having a conversation with someone who understood me.

In Valis, we follow Horselover Fat, Dick’s alter ego that he calls his theophany. He describes it as being struck by a pink beam of light that downloaded information into his brain. He came to the realization that the entirety of the universe is, in essence, information. Afterward, he experiences a precognitive awareness about his son being sick, and it turns out to be true. PKD spends most of the book attempting to figure out the meaning of what had happened to him. Further complicating matters is that he has difficulty comprehending why he can save his son but can do nothing to save a friend who has terminal cancer. During his quest towards enlightenment, friends view him as having gone mad.

Spiritual insights pepper the story and flow through both the narration and entries in Horselover Fat’s exegesis. PDK’s use of both first and third-person narrative gives the narrator distance, allowing a more objective view about his spiritual experience. The inner dialogue between the two voices creates a Socratic feel, an odyssey about self-inquiry that forces out questions about previously held beliefs.

Birds of a Feather

Like Philip K. Dick, I spent years trying to understand what had happened to me. At times, I felt as though I were going crazy. After my kundalini awakening, a psychological torrent of fears and past hurts flooded my consciousness, forcing me to deal with them. I had to eventually accept that everything I held as truth my whole life was a myth. I then wondered what the point of life was.

Here are some of the questions I asked:

What does it mean? 

Was it God?

What is God? 

Are we living in a live organism?

Am I plugged into a giant hologram?

Is what I see every day reality?

Is this part of some clandestine psychological operation?

I had my kundalini awakening when I was thirty. I’m now forty-six. I haven’t answered any of the above questions with any certainty. This self-inquiry eventually led me to becoming a spiritual agnostic. Getting caught up in trying to find absolute answers to questions can drive you insane if you let it!

At first, Philip K. Dick believed that what had happened to him resulted from medication he’d taken for an impacted wisdom tooth. However, when his visions persisted, he knew the explanation was implausible. I don’t take drugs, and my experience happened while I was meditating, so I knew my experience wasn’t a reaction to any drug!

“I experienced an invasion of my mind by a transcendentally rational mind, as if I had been insane all my life and suddenly I had become sane.” Philip K. Dick

Looking back, it seems as though I’d lived my first thirty years in a delusional state. I now have clarity of mind, something I never had before as I suffered from clinical depression and a host of other psychological disturbances. Today, I’m no longer depressed and those other conditions that have plagued me have also faded. Meditation keeps me in balance.

“Alike and equal are not the same thing, you have to find your own beat.” Meg from Wrinkle In Time

I would’ve either been dead or on antidepressants if it weren’t for seeing the proverbial light. So dealing with a little madness along the way to spiritual recovery was worth it!

“Many claim to speak for god, but there is only one god and that god is man himself.” Phillip K. Dick

We can all connect to a greater reality without a guru to assist us. U.G. Krishnamurti made similar statements, which is why he referred to himself as an anti-guru. Through my own journey, I’ve reached a similar state of mind and don’t follow any gurus or religion.

“You are the authority.” Philip K. Dick

Being a skeptic is actually the safest way to experience life as I’m not easily led astray or manipulated. I emerged as a stronger person from my experience and that’s one statement I can make absolutely.

Love and light,

Eleni

Jessie’s Song is Ready to Go Live and Gets 5 Stars!

  By Eleni | June 5, 2013 - 09:37 | , , , ,
4 Comments

Before I begin the post, I wanted to mention that Unison has been reviewed by Fiction For A New Age.  You can read the review here.

As of this week, I’ve completed the final proof of Jessie’s Song, and I’m happy to announce that it will be published on June 20th in eBook format at Amazon. The paperback version will be released in the fall. If you’d like to read the first chapter, you can do so here. I had so much fun working with the protagonist, Markos Adams, that I decided to start a new series with him. I ended up deleting the prologue and epilogue, which I liked immensely. Nevertheless, I’m truly excited to keep Markos’s story going. I’ve already started to plot out the next book.

Jessie’s Song is completely different in setting and tone than Unison. It’s still visionary fiction but told with an urban fantasy flavor. My lead characters always tend to interact with some humor and with urban fantasy, it felt organic to the storytelling style.

The protagonist, Markos Adams, is a Greek-American jazz guitarist and poet who also happens to make a killer baklava. I had fun using my culture in this book, particularly with coffee ground reading. I’ve also included some of Markos’s poetry at the end of the book, some of which has his sense of humor and some that also depict his love for his ex-wife and first love. It was a surreal experience to write love poetry from a male perspective, but we women know what we’d love to hear written about us in a poem! One of the poems from the book is here, and it’s going to be part of a charity anthology, Twist of Fate, to benefit the victims of the tornados that recently ravaged Oklahoma. As soon as the book becomes available, I’ll post the information on where to purchase the book. Being a part of the project inspired me to write more poems, and I plan on releasing a poetry book in the future.

Jessie’s Song Gets 5 Stars!

When I woke up this morning, I got my first review back from Jessie’s Song. It’s always great to get a glowing review before publishing.

Markos Adams, a well-known Jazz musician, has just committed yet another suicide attempt and it is all over the news. A year later, he is back on stage while struggling to shape up, trying to straighten out his life. Through his ordeals to keep his sanity, he spends time with his daughter Jessie, and still loves his ex-wife Stella, although they are no longer together. A day after his return to the spotlight, his daughter is abducted and things go out of hand. He must determine the identity of his daughter’s kidnapper; otherwise he feels he must kill himself and he must do so within the next twenty-four hours. Will this finally be Markos’s last day on earth, and will he face death without seeing his daughter?

“Jessie’s Song” is a wonderfully crafted mystery novel that explores themes of life, love, art, sanity and death, in rather unusual ways. When reading the book, it is as if various items were neatly packed in a box for us to enjoy unraveling and perusing piece by piece. Many portions of the book give us insights into art, what with the author also being a songwriter, among others. Fast-paced and action-packed, it is a most uncommon, yet exciting case of abduction to read about, written with thrilling passages and sequences. Moreover, the love that Markos shares with his daughter, and the strong emotions he still holds for his wife are absolutely heart-wrenching, especially as Markos struggles with his possibly impending death to save his daughter. “Jessie’s Song” is definitely worth keeping in one’s collection. I really enjoyed reading this book! – Maria Beltran  of Reader’s Favorite

First review for Unison – 4.0 Stars

  By Eleni | June 18, 2012 - 12:12 | ,
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Unison

Rating: 4.0 stars

Reviewed by Trudi LoPreto for Readers Favorite

Unison by Eleni Papanou is a well-written science fiction book. It is told by Damon, the leading character of the story, in great detail. The time is after the Great Cataclysm and the city is Unity. Home is a very large dome offering protection from the contamination of the Outsiders and their world. Damon advances to a high level in Unity and is responsible for creating the technology that is wrongly used on the people. Damon believes the time is right and that it has become necessary to escape and explore the real world. We travel with Damon as he is reincarnated over and over and re-lives his life remembering the errors of his way and always trying to make the changes that would correct his mistake. With each reincarnation Damon finds himself outside of Unity, in the same cabin, being faced with the same horrors, trying to go back and fix the wrongs. As he awakens from each reincarnation he is faced with the same doubts: Flora the woman he loves trying to bring him back to Unity, leaders chasing him and meeting the same people again and again. Each reincarnation brings him closer to the truth and he is able to handle the situations differently. Upon his final awakening, Damon and we learn the truth of his journey.

Unison is written for the science fiction reader. Eleni Papanou presents the story in a believable way with characters that are strong and well defined. The last chapter of the book does a great job of answering all of the readers’ questions and it also includes a great ending that I didn’t see coming. If you are a science fiction fan then I recommend you pick up a copy of “Unison”.