hank quense

About

Award-winning author Hank Quense lives in Bergenfield, NJ with his wife Pat. They have two daughters and five grandchildren. He writes humorous fantasy and scifi stories. On occasion, he also writes an article on fiction writing or book marketing but says that writing nonfiction is like work while writing fiction is fun. A member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, he refuses to write serious genre fiction saying there is enough of that on the front page of any daily newspaper and on the evening TV news.

He has three collections of short stories and four novels currently available. He has written a series of guides on fiction writing and another one on self-publishing and marketing a book. He also lectures on fiction writing and self-publishing.

Hank has initiated a series of lectures and workshops to share his expertise in creating fiction and publishing books. Create A Short Story is a 4-session workshop in which the participants design their own short story. He also gives a two-part seminar on Self-publishing & Marketing a self-published book.

He has a number of links where you can follow his work and his occasional rants:

Hank’s Blog:http://hank-quense.com/wp

Strange Worlds website:http://strangeworldsonline.com/wp

Follow him on twitter: http://twitter.com/hanque99

Facebook fan pages: https://www.facebook.com/StrangeWorldsOnline

The Magic Word

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Description

<p style="margin:0in 0in 10pt;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;font-size:12pt;">Elisabeth was rude and selfish and demanding, and therefore had very few friends.<span> </span>When she sent out invitations to her birthday party, no one accepted.<span> </span>Her mother warned her that she needed to improve her manners and to try to get along with people.<span> </span>She told Elisabeth that she needed to use the magic word “Please”.<span> </span>So when Elisabeth went to school the next day, she thought of her mother’s advice, “What is the magic word?” and she started saying “Please” and also “Thank You”.<span> </span>She tried to become more thoughtful of others, and discovered that she was a much happier person.<span> </span>Imagine her pleasure when she returned home to find out that her new friends were all coming to her birthday party!</span><span style="line-height:115%;font-family:Arial, 'sans-serif';font-size:10pt;"></span></p><p></p>

Story Behind The Book

I love rewriting literary works, legends and myths. I've rewritten (screwed up? Spoofed?) a number of Shakespeare's plays including Romeo and Juliet, Merchant of Venice, MacBeth, Hamlet and Othello. In Wotan's Dilemma, I took a story that takes place in the Dark Ages and moved it into the future. I also transformed the fantasy creatures into aliens. The central artifact in the Rhinegold myth is a magical ring made from the Rhinegold. I felt a ring of power has become a cliche. After all, Tolkien used one in The Lord of Rings (he took that idea from the Rhinegold myth). I struggled for quite a time to come up an alternative to a ring. Finally, I had an idea: take the magical gold, combine it with quantum electronic techniques capped off by super-sophisticated computer code and Voila! A Chip of Power! Once I had that idea, the rest of the story almost wrote itself.

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Reviews

<p style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13px;line-height:19px;"><i>Wotan’s Dilemma </i>is the latest book in <a href="http://adam-p-reviews.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Hank%20Quense">Hank Quense's</a> <i>Strange Worlds </i>series. Much like Hank’s <a href="http://adam-p-reviews.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/falstaffs-big-gamble-hank-quense.html"><i>Falstaff's Big Gamble</i></a>, <i>Wotan’s Dilemma</i>s eems at first to be quite a random book. However, with Hank’s humour and style, he manages to bring all this randomness into a really funny and unique novel!</p> <div style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13px;line-height:19px;">As I said, this was an entertaining, amusing and interesting book. I especially liked all of the Norse mythology and the link between Wotan and the composer Wagner. I also thought Hank left the ending open for another novel in the series, so it will be interesting to see if another book comes out of this story!</div> <div style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13px;line-height:19px;"> </div> <div style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13px;line-height:19px;">I would suggest this book to anyone who is a fan of sci-fi and fantasy, especially novels such as <i>The Colour of Magic </i>by Terry Pratchett as<i>Wotan’s Dilemma </i>has that same quirky, humorous feel. I’d also suggest it to anyone who would like to try something a little different as this book won’t disappoint!</div> <div style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif;font-size:13px;line-height:19px;">Adam-P reviews</div>

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