At The Bright Empire....

Supergirl, the new hit series on CBS, has been getting rave reviews in the mainstream media, and from superhero comics.movie fans. I wish I could share their enthusiasm in my own review, which I wrote last week after the premiere and have edited a bit for my 74th birthday update. But while I find the concept and the characters appealing, I think the way the story has been developed has been clumsy and unconvincing. I don't think my criticisms will win me any friends here or elsewhere in the superhero genre film and TV community. So be it.

www.brightempire.com/SupergirlTV.htm

I wouldn't want that review to be the only thing I have to show for myself on my birthday, so I've also put up another chapter of Walking Tall, the story begun a decade ago by Jordan Taylor about Patricia, the Velorian Legionnaire who has returned home to Alguna Parte after serving on Novo Recife – and discovers that all is not well. Her stepfather Teo, who has expanded his business with help from her, has since been murdered, after having been unknowingly drawn into a plot to manufacture alien weapons. Now the man who was her boyfriend before she joined the Legion and is now her step brother-in-law has more bad news for her – and a idea for how she can help his agency expose the magnate behind the conspiracy. But there are also family secrets and complications as Patricia's kinfolk prepare for the funeral of their father.

www.brightempire.com/Walking.htm

--Brantley Thompson Elkins

Happy BIrthday.

www.brightempire.com/Delphic.htm
www.brightempire.com/Justice.pdf
Off today to celebrate Thanksgiving with kin tomorrow, but I didn't want to leave before offering holiday "food" for entertainment.
“Delphic Obstacles” features a character we've met before, the Keslsorian Peter Durgin, who was introduced 12 years ago in “Alisa’s Story,” and whose career has had its ups and downs since then – as detailed in Shore Leave. It also features a locale we've met before, Delphi, a planet in the Reigellian system that was introduced by Shadar ten years ago in “Blind Justice.”
The story lines of Kelsor 7 and Reigel Five have never figured together before, but in "Moment of Truth," Naomi Kim'Vallara had advised Durgin to try to find a new life on Delphi – no longer a prison colony since the Revolution at the end of The High Cruel Years but still a source of high-grade ores that can bring prosperity back to Reigel Five – only the mining is still so dangerous that it has attracted expatriate Velorians and Aureans, and can offer a fresh chance to Durgin, enhanced in Shore Leave and thus made an alien on his own homeworld -- but he still has to make something of it.
To rationalize the background of "Delphic Obstacles," I have made some tweaks to "Blind Justice" that relate to the background and some of the characters in the new story. I have also gone through all three parts of The High Cruel Years to eliminate typos that I somehow missed when I first posted that serial back in 2005-6.

--Brantley Thompson Elkins

Have no idea why, but the number of clicks yesterday for the Bright Empire website suddenly jumped to 2,501 from 606 Saturday and a range of 497 to 892 over the month before that. Evelyn York's "Fit for a Supergirl" led as usual, with 31 (total 18,990), but second was Velvet's "Rocky Mountain High" at 21 (total 2,514 since Jan. 31, 2010) and third was "Walking Tall," the Jordan Taylor story I've recently been continuing, at 13 (2,870). Four other stories got at least 10 clicks, and 35 got seven to nine clicks. Is this just a fluke or have I finally been Discovered by a larger audience?

--Brantley

I've always wondered where to start wrt to the stories? Is there one particular one to start with or recommended?

My most popular novel is EMPRESS OF THE DAWN, which gets into the beginning of Velor's involvement with other worlds. Others that focus on pivotal characters include COMPANIONS, the HOMECOMING trilogy and THRONE OF THE GODS. How I got into the whole thing is related here:

www.brightempire.com/behind_stories.htm

And here's a rundown on my stories, which may give you an idea what else would appeal to you:

www.brightempire.com/behind_stories.htm

--Brantley

Thanks, I'll take a look,.

First link should actually be:

www.brightempire.com/True.htm

--Brantley

Getting ready to post another chapter of Walking Tall. But meanwhile, I have a query.

In my stats counter,. there'll often be a surge in hits, not only for new stories but foe stories dating back years. At times, I'll Google the titles, but there's no indication of any new reviews or links -- the references are all to The Bright Empire site or occasional swipes like Yumpu's. Maybe there are obscure social media or twitter accounts that mention them.

--Brantley

Winter Solstice is upon us, and so is another chapter of Walking Tall, the Velorian Legion story begun by Jordan Taylor and continued by me. It's political, but it's also personal for Patricia, whose beloved Uncle Teo on her homeworld Alguna Parte has been murdered in what appears to be a conspiracy with an Aurean connection. But how can she and her family get the goods on the conspirators?

www.brightempire.com/Walking.htm

An d, appearing here at SWM tomorrow, will be "A Shot in the Light," my entry in the Winter Workshop. That too is a Velorian Legion story, but only by happenstance, and set on a different world.

--Brantley

An especially busy week at The Bright Empire yesterday, with 1,391 hits Monday and 1,009 yesterday.

And, as usual, without anything I can think of to account for it, especially yesterday. The last update to the Blog was way last March 15. But that entry related to SHORE LEAVE, PASSION PLAY, MCCLOUD'S DAUGHTERS and BIRD IN PARADISE, so most of the people who clicked on the Blog must have clicked on the links to those stories there (An old rant about Peril fiction frequently gets a rash of hits; no connection there.). But why did so many people click on the Blog in the first place?

--Brantley

File Name Number of requests Number of requests in the last 7 days [This is actually for the previous day, not the previous week] Percentage of bytes transferred in the last 7 days
1. /Blog.htm 7,256 42 6.77%
2. /Peril.htm 12,700 39 1.26%
3. /ShoreLeave1.htm 2,173 39 14.06%
4. /ShoreLeave3.htm 1,153 38 10.11%
5. /ShoreLeave2.htm 1,632 38 6.32%
6. /McCloud.htm 2,322 37 6.73%
7. /Passion.htm 1,679 37 4.71%
8. /electric.htm 3,374 36 1.60%
9. /Bird.htm 3,115 36 5.96%
10. /fit.htm 19,348 19 0.63%
11. /new.htm 48,585 16 2.82%
12. /Points.htm 2,038 10 0.74%
13. /Walking.htm 2,966 9 0.61%
14. /AFewReal.html 10,062 9 0.06%
15. /storyindex.htm 10,043 9 0.05%

---

Like yesterday, only more so. Good to see that "Walking Tall" is doing better, although nowhere near as well as SHORE LEAVE and related stories. Christmas Day totals:

File Name Number of requests Number of requests in [previous day] Percentage of bytes transferred in the [previous day]
1. /Blog.htm 7,301 45 7.15%
2. /ShoreLeave3.htm 1,195 42 11.00%
3. /ShoreLeave1.htm 2,215 42 14.92%
4. /Peril.htm 12,741 41 1.34%
5. /McCloud.htm 2,363 41 7.35%
6. /Bird.htm 3,156 41 6.69%
7. /Passion.htm 1,720 41 5.14%
8. /electric.htm 3,414 40 1.75%
9. /ShoreLeave2.htm 1,672 40 6.55%
10. /fit.htm 19,368 20 0.65%
11. /new.htm 48,603 18 3.20%
12. /Walking.htm 2,981 15 1.12%

--Brantley

Interesting twist, Brantely; it's nice the story's moving along.
One question though; does Patricia have any training as investigator? Having a Legionnaire is handy in a fight, but how's she going to help with a murder investigation?

Thanks

Her part will be indirect; in the last chapter she just got lucky. Reynaldo and his lawyer will have more experienced help to call on. But Patricia will be needed when the bad people try to retaliate.

--Brantley

Another hot day yesterday at TBE, but I think I have an explanation this time.The organization report indicates that 703 of the 1,336 requests came from 188.143, which seems to be a harvester based in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Don't know if they're doing translations and posting same under the Russian titles.

File Name Number of requests Number of requests in the last 7 days Percentage of bytes transferred in the last 7 days
1. /Links.htm 11,707 68 0.59%
2. /Walking.htm 3,154 67 4.08%
3. /Peril.htm 12,910 66 1.74%
4. /Blog.htm 7,469 65 8.47%
5. /ShoreLeave1.htm 2,372 64 18.54%
6. /Passion.htm 1,884 64 6.54%
7. /McCloud.htm 2,512 63 9.21%
8. /ShoreLeave3.htm 1,350 63 13.46%
9. /electric.htm 3,557 63 2.22%
10. /ShoreLeave2.htm 1,815 62 8.28%
11. /Bird.htm 3,301 62 8.25%
12. /fit.htm 19,601 21 0.51%
13. /new.htm 48,718 15 1.89%

--Brantley

brantley wrote: Another hot day yesterday at TBE, but I think I have an explanation this time.The organization report indicates that 703 of the 1,336 requests came from 188.143, which seems to be a harvester based in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Don't know if they're doing translations and posting same under the Russian titles.

File Name Number of requests Number of requests in the last 7 days Percentage of bytes transferred in the last 7 days
1. /Links.htm 11,707 68 0.59%
2. /Walking.htm 3,154 67 4.08%
3. /Peril.htm 12,910 66 1.74%
4. /Blog.htm 7,469 65 8.47%
5. /ShoreLeave1.htm 2,372 64 18.54%
6. /Passion.htm 1,884 64 6.54%
7. /McCloud.htm 2,512 63 9.21%
8. /ShoreLeave3.htm 1,350 63 13.46%
9. /electric.htm 3,557 63 2.22%
10. /ShoreLeave2.htm 1,815 62 8.28%
11. /Bird.htm 3,301 62 8.25%
12. /fit.htm 19,601 21 0.51%
13. /new.htm 48,718 15 1.89%

--Brantley

As I found back when I used to track statistics on the AU sites, the robots can generate all kinds of false hit counts. I manually edited the code to place "no robots" commands on the most frequent entry pages, but bad robots don't play nice and ignore the rules.

By the way, good robots include Google and all the other search engines, and bad robots are involved in stealing material for their own uses. I'm sure its more complex than that, but I haven't paid too much attention to such things over the last ten years. But as the Ad people figured out quickly enough, you have to get very clever to decide when a live person is actually viewing your content. Raw hits can be massively deceptive.

So if nobody's actually reading the stories getting hit by the robots, why do the people who own 188,143 keep sending robots after them?

--Brantley

My server, Hostway, puts up the stats, and they use a combination of Analog 6.0 and Report Magic 2.21. I don't know why those two, or which supplies which figures, and their web links aren't illuminating. Maybe I should try to sign up for Google Analytics; I gather I'd have to have an account address there rather than a link from my home page.

--Brantley

brantley wrote: So if nobody's actually reading the stories getting hit by the robots, why do the people who own 188,143 keep sending robots after them?

--Brantley

I don' t think anyone "sends" the robots in the sense of a human deciding. They code up algorithms and parameters to search for and perhaps gather up. But the algorithm's can be anything.

The key is that the Web consists of just a bit less than a million distinct websites. You can get a live count here:

www.internetlivestats.com/total-number-of-websites/

So no human can keep track of all that, given that many sites are changing frequently. Enter search engines (or more generally robots), of which there are perhaps thousands, which roam around and look at things to phone home about or like a prospector, to pick up pieces of stuff to analyze. They range from the aforementioned search engines to spy bots working for whomever to bots who want to steal and redistribute material or impersonate, etc. Pretty much anything you can imagine.

It is estimated that between 63% and 80% of all traffic on a website is due to bots (with the small, less than a 1000 visitors a day, sites being at the 80% level). Most of these bots are considered "bad bots". Basically, the lower the human visit rate, the higher percentage the bots consume.

Here's a link to an interesting page that talks about this:

www.incapsula.com/blog/bot-traffic-report-2014.html

I assume sophisticated packages like Google Analytics can figure out a lot of it.

Adding to the mystery. Traffic yesterday was almost the same as Tuesdays, but the number of hits coming from that Russian outfit fell below that of two U.S. companies:

1. serverloft.com 200 13.21%
2. optonline.net 126 10.94%
3. 188.143 112 12.62%

--Brantley

And now I'm getting requests from Digital Ocean and wedmeup.com. Just removed the blog links that are attracting these robots.

--Brantley

Working on a revised version of my workshop story for website. Hopefully, people will like it, and I'll have an idea how many actually do, with the robots turned off.

--J.J.