Chester Chronicle today, 30 May 2008 published a piece about me and my science fiction ebook, Exit, Pursued by a Bee. buy the ebook here!!

 

I’m back after a cycle tour from Chester to Gloucestershire. I took my Sony Vaio laptop so I could add words to stories overnight. I’m working on Auditory Crescendo, a short sci fi story based on my own digital hearing aid experiences. More later. The cycle ride went very well. The first leg was around 65 miles meandering through Cheshire and Shropshire and then climbing ever upwards into the range of hills south west of Shrewsbury. I had to dismount on the 1 in 7 sections that seemed more like 1 in 2. I had to walk behind my bike with both hands shoving overloaded panniers with the handlebars being steered by will power. At Bridges Youth Hostel. I enjoyed a hot shower and rested so I could cycle right over the summit of Stiperstones to visit my former school friend, Peter Gartell, at his pub, The Sun Inn at Marton. Click here for its website. Peter has awards for his cuisine cooking – a must visit. And I visited it, much to his surprise (we’d not seen each other for 42 years!) and hello to Jane his sister, who was my first love all those years ago), after an energetic ride over those hills. At least my cycle panniers were empty for that ride except for essentials such as tools, towel, food, cycle lamps, maps, first aid kit, notebook, laptop… Yes, all right, I know I carry too much. This was particularly brought home to me at the Youth Hostel because there were two groups of end-to-enders staying overnight too. Young folk cycling from Lands End in Cornwall to John O’Groats in Scotland – approximately 850 miles – carrying all their own gear. My round trip was less than half their journey yet my belongings weighed more than theirs even without the computer! Solution next para.

After leaving Bridges I called in on Peter Tomlinson, who writes the great series of fantasy books, the Petronicus Legacy series. Check them out at the Bewrite Books store here.  He took me to the Olive Tree cafe in Ludlow and I easily found a vegan buffet to scoff – thanks Peter – and enjoyed writerly nattering with the man himself. Excellent boost to energy and enthusiasm for climbing the hilly miles onto Leominster and Ledbury.

When I reached Ledbury, I met my daughter and her newly acquired husband, Gareth. They arrived in a car so took off me a big bag full of spare gear I decided I was better off without! We all travelled to Cheltenham and had a great reunion with my sister, Lin and her daughter, Shelley. Then back to Ledbury for lunch with my dad and stepmum, Rosemary. My visiting wasn’t over. Another former school friend is David Hargreaves. I knocked on his door and a strange woman answered. ‘You’re not David,’ I said. He’d moved a mile away but I tracked him down. One of the snags of having Exit, Pursued by a Bee, published as an ebook is that it’s not so easy to give copies to friends – especially signed copies. Oh well maybe DDP will bring it out as a paperback soon.

 

Exit, Pursued by a Bee

It’s been released!

Thanks to J Richard Jacobs, as patient editor, and Deron Douglas for cover art and publisher, my sci fi novel, Exit, Pursued by a Bee is now ready here

http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.php?ISBN=1-55404-577-0

What is it?
Suppose the smooth passing of time on Earth is chaotic in the rest of the Universe. Perhaps Earth time is kept continuous by something that absorbs time decoherences -  not for much longer. The Earth orbits the sun at 18 miles per second. If the mountain in front of you is thrown back a second, it slips 18 miles. Imagine such time-quakes happening all over the world.

As time-quakes cause chaos, a Mars mission is diverted to chase the departing time absorbing spheres. Arguing against hawkish military generals on Earth, the man and woman crew discover a means to communicate with the spheres, but will they listen and return to Earth?

Every purchase is rewarded by a virtual hug

Geoff

Escape Velocity escapes again

The third issue of our science fact & fiction magazine, Escape Velocity is now fully available in print and ebook from

http://www.escapevelocitymagazine.com

The legendary Arthur C Clarke is featured; Pinup Girls: women who led – and some who still lead – in Space and Aeronautics; a photo feature of the Norwescon convention in Seattle this year; my interview with famous scifi author Dan Simmons; excellent fiction stories; articles like one from me on curious facts and coincidences about Earth’s Moon; cartoons; poetry from Maggie Ball, and so much more.

You must know someone who would hug you for a copy, so why not give it a try? It costs less than a fast meal at MacQuacks, and lasts much longer.

If you’re a fan of ebooks we are giving those away at the same link.

 

It’s a weird but pleasant sensation to find your own words in a location you didn’t expect. There they were, though, my thoughts printed within quotes in an article written by someone else, Sally Quilford, in an article entitled Werewolf Not Included, inside The New Writer magazine. I’d written comments at the Cafe Doom critique forum about the problems Robert Blevins and I experience with submissions to Escape Velocity magazine. Comments such as that folk often don’t read the guidelines and send us stories with dragons, or love stories that have nothing to do with science fiction. Sally squeezed me into agreeing to let her quote me and now you have it.  She has her own blog here.

Hooray, the clouds evaporated and so I leapt on my bike and travelled partly on the North Cheshire route of the Cheshire Cycle way to reach Latchford in Warrington. After a cup of tea and peanut butter sandwich I pushed a mower around my in-laws’ lawn, swallowed another mug of tea and headed back before the school run. A round trip of 60 miles with only a few short hills such as Dunham, Frodsham and Preston Brook. The only worrying section is around Daresbury just south of Warrington. Workmen are widening a roundabout. it looks as if there maybe a cycle lane for it too, but currently all incoming traffic are funnelled into one lane – so I shared it with HUGE lorries, who sometimes cut back in too soon. I always brake when something carrying a supermarket overtakes me – let them go!

The illustrated booklet arrived today about my writers’ week in Bellapais, Northern Cyprus. Beautiful photographs and great short stories as well as information. Any writer planning to visit Northern Cyprus, especially in the lovely Kyrenia area should buy this cheap book

http://www.lulu.com/content/2431541

 

The incessant rain is getting me down. I have a bike expedition planned to take place in two weeks and the only trainiing I’ve been able to do in the dry is in the gym. Useless, because after 15 minutes with my legs going like egg-beaters is my max. I get bored too easily. Of course if a shapely woman is exercising in front of me then my boredom threshold is significantly stretched, but my other aim in cycling and hiking is lost. All those lonesome miles are marvelous for dreaming up plot nuances and new characters for my sci fi and other novels. How can I do that if I’m distracted? No win. Roll, on the dry summer. I think I might have to plan for fewer daily miles for my expedition, which is a nuisance.

If you open your window you can probably hear laughter from America. No, that isn’t a new comedy show as such, but HR people reading my resume for a writing job I applied for in Baltimore. My chances of getting it are astronomical – in more than one way. Do NASA really need me? Do I have the ‘right stuff’ to convert the science techie speak from their scientists and engineers into astronomy-made-easy? Well, I’ve kinda done it before, and it was great fun working with teachers, the Remote Sensing Centre in Reading, and with Keith Hilton at Chester University to produce the Cheshire from Space pack a decade or so ago. I’m not going into details about my application for this US job, unless you write to me privately. Enough to say that I have a friend on the inside, who knows my writing and background (so do you thanks to Wikipedia – hah) and thought of me.

I’ve been up early, and late, editing a friend’s thriller novel. He’s paid me to do a critique and copyedit of his ouevre, and it is interesting in several ways. He has used his own inside niche knowledge of the scaffolding industry to a great effect. I shouldn’t give anything away at this stage, suffice to say, John Goodwin, that I do enjoy my work!