Congratulations to my friend, Gladys Hobson, whose latest romantic fiction is released to the world. Awakening Love is an extraordinary fiction, a literary gem. See it here >>>
http://www.mobipocket.com/en/eBooks/eBookDetails.asp?BookID=108672
Two men fall for an attractive young woman, but her boss, eager to keep her working skills, finds more than he bargains for.
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Dimensons cover
By a freak meandering through the web I came across a pod people review site and found my first anthology, Dimensions posted there last year. Isn’t it a funny feeling to find yourself like that when you didn’t even know you were missing! The review is
Title: Dimensions
Author: Robert Blevins and Geoff Nelder
Price: $9.98
Genre: Sci-fi/Anthology
ISBN: 978-1-4116-6087-8
Publisher: Adventure Books of Seattle
Point of Sale: http://www.lulu.com/content/185340
I just finished reading “Dimensions,” a science fiction short story collection by Robert Blevins and Geoff Nelder. The book is well-put together, with a small illustration for each of its 23 short stories. Like any collection of shorts, I like some stories more then others, but overall it was quite a readable book.
The first short story in the collection, Blevin’s “Cruel and Unusual,” was to me perhaps the weakest in the collection. It seemed to be a rift on the old “Twilight Zone” episode of a convict (in this case a mass murderer) marooned on a distant and hostile world. He spent over twenty years trying to get back to Earth, in the process becoming completely reformed, only to discover that he should have stayed where he was.
The strongest story, in my view, was Geoff Nelder’s “Prime Meridian.” Geoff is a Brit, and his story is set in London. The protagonist, a schoolteacher named John Forrister, inherits his grandfather’s house. John finds the whole setup lacking – the only bright spot in his life is that his neighbor likes to wash her hair at the kitchen sink sans shirt. Things become more interesting when meteorites start piercing his house every day at 3:15 PM. The ending is both unexpected and cute.
Blevin’s story “Hole Card” is another short story, and quite solid. It turns out that the aliens at Roswell, NM were from the future – and the surviving pilot was human. Also of note is Blevin’s story “A Smaller Step,” which puts an alternate-history spin on the death of Yuri Gagarin. When I finished it, I had a case of goose bumps.
Although there are 23 short stories, a number of them are more vignettes or episodes then full stories, covering a page or two. Still, considering that the book is available for just under $10 at Amazon.com, I have to recommend “Dimensions” for anybody seeking new science fiction.
Dimensions can be purchased at
http://www.adventurebooksofseattle.com/currenttitles.htm#93071219
Yesterday it didn’t rain. Perhaps only the third day of the summer that no drop of rain landed on my head in this northwestern area of Britain. Because my bike detests rain and has a habit of throwing me like a bucking horse in wet weather, my wife hides the bike lock key, but not yesterday. My hair was in need of shearing so off to Mold (Yr Wyddgrug) I cycled. It is a good 18 miles because I go along country lanes including steep climbs up through Higher Kinnerton to Hope Mountain. Other times I go via Pontybodkin, where I expect pixies to leap around with such a village name. I enjoy the solitary ride because it allows my imagination to wander over the hills too. Plot problems and character developments swirl around in time to my rotating legs. Unfortunately, another cyclist came up alongside me for a chat. Now I do enjoy nattering with other cyclists and the distance does fly faster, but my dodgy hearing means I only catch the drift of what they are saying and I often get it wrong. It is no good wearing hearing aids when on a bike: it’s like having your head in a tornado. Anyway, the fellow cyclists said:
Are you going to Bala?
No, Mold for a hair cut.
But eveyone is going to Bala this weekend?
Why, what do they know I don’t?
It’s the Wild Wales Challenge.
Then I remembered another cyclist last Sunday telling me the same thing. 600 cyclists converge on Bala for a 88 miles race from Bala to Barmouth and back via minor lanes. Sounds good although I don’t race and don’t like crowds! The route is appealing though and I’ll do it on my own one day in the autumn.
We parted near Penn-y-fford and after arriving in Mold climbed the stairs to my barber. I was fourth in line so looked for a magazine. As in many barbers they were all of motorbikes or cars. I can’t be that different from the average male – can I? I did find a copy of Escape Velocity magazine in the sedimentary layers of the magazine pile. It was one I had put there back in May. It looked as if at least one other longhair had glanced at it. Emerging with a colder head I hobbled (still wearing bike shoes) to the library and asked for a form for suggested new books. The book stamper said no one ever asks for such a form, so they don’t have one! However, she gave me a sheet of paper and a pen and so I retrieved a bookmark I made earlier and copied the ISBN for Exit, Pursued by a Bee and other details. I gave it to a different book receptionist, blonde, smiling and chatty. Terri said she’ll pass on my book information and she too is a writer! Small world. Not only a writer, but used to be in the British Fantasy Society, a speaker at FantasyCon and has ebooks to sell. She thought the BFS had closed so I did her a favout with the good news that it hadn’t and it is always good to chat to a fellow writer.
Feeling lightheaded and nimble, I chanced a steep return up Leeswood hill and now my legs refuse to cooperate for Saturday.
An interesting promo website is carrying my humorous thriller, Escaping Reality >>> http://www.sleuthedit.com/GeoffNelder/EscapingReality.html
It is for mystery novels, and so as it is a mystery why Escaping Reality has only sold 1500 or so copies instead of the 200 million expected, they have included it.
Every Saturday The Guardian’s supplement magazine carries a short piece of fiction called: A Million Tiny Plays About Britain. Sometimes they are good, but occasionally they seem… erm, less so. I fancied I could improve on those latter and so sent in a few samples. I’d just been reading a how-to guide on writing that urged dialogue to sometimes be oblique. That is for one of the participants to take no notice of what the other person is saying. Well, I’ve had a lot of practice with oblique dialogue with my wife so I wrote and submitted the following playlet:
Radio script flash
FADE IN:
Alan: Hello, I’ve not seen you here before, have I?
Bess: Raining, isn’t it?
Alan: You popped in here to avoid getting wet?
Bess; It’s nearly a mile away.
Alan: What, your home?
Bess: My feet ache..
Alan: Would you like a drink? I’m having vodka orange.
Bess: I need the washroom..
Alan: Round there. I’ll get you one like mine.
(PAUSE UNTIL SHE RETURNS)
I bought you vodka orange.
Bess: It must be a shower.
Alan: I’ve an umbrella. I could walk you home.
Bess: You have impudence – oh go on then.
(EXTERIOR)
Alan: I like the way wet pavements glisten, don’t you?
Bess: I can’t wait to get out of these clothes – all of them.
Alan: Really? They don’t seem that wet and it was only a single vodka.
Bess: There’s no stopping me.
Alan: I’m not the best looking…
Bess: One good turn deserves another.
Alan: I’ve hardly done anything that worthy, but I’m willing if you are. Is this it – up these steps?
Bess: Get the door open will you? I can’t find my keys…
Alan: Pardon? Oh, something’s fallen from your ear – hey, it’s a phone…
FADE OUT:
No, it has not been published in The Guardian. One reason is that I’d not noticed the author of Million Tiny Plays – Craig Taylor. I’d assumed it was a different writer each week and so open to submissions, but no. It is Craig Taylor every week. He must have done something really cool a whle back to gain a monopoly like that. I still read his tiny plays, and enjoy them, even though I’d like mine to be there instead.
More of my time each day is spent on promo than in writing. This isn’t good. To be fair much of the promo is in email and forum chatting to efriends and real friends so it isn’t unpleasant but still reduces the progress in the writing of Xaghra’s Revenge. I spent a couple of hours travelling out to the nearest Borders with a copy of Exit, Pursued by a Bee. They have copies of my Escaping Reality on sale or return so I hoped to persuade the buyer to order Exit. Really I needed them to place the order with their wholesalers because otherwise the price would have to be too high. The buyer was in but too busy so I have to make an appointment tomorrow. I’ve packaged a copy of Exit, press cuttings to show I can do promo and a sheet of information such as ISBN and contact information.
The promo workload is going to worsen. I was sent a copy of the contract for my Hot Air thriller last night. Wuacademia, an arts academy in the Netherlands, are publishing it with a launch date in December. Excellent. I recall with exhiliration the party in Groningen when I accepted the Silver award for best unpublished novel, and my daughter came along to make sure at least one person was there in the audience to applause. There will be a launch party not just for my book but for other writers, artists, poets, singers, drummers and dancers.
Another blogger popped into the Escape Velocity forum today. Seaserpent otherwise known as Kate – or is it the other way around? Congratulations, Kate, on having your story accepted for publication in issue #4 of Escape Velocity. Kate’s bright and cheerful blog is http://www.scribblingseaserpent.blogspot.com/
I’ve been interviewed (again) this time by Ambrose Musiyiwa, and it is at Oh My News today.
It is also scheduled to appear on Conversations with Writers and New Writing International. The latter is where my favourite excerpt from Exit, Pursued by a Bee waits for readers. excerpt here
I’ve nearly finished a new short story, Most Unwanted. Based on the FBI Most Wanted list of fugitives and inspired by a woman who turned in a man on the list, this is based on another planet in the future and with trust, betrayal, eroticism and all sorts built in. I wanted it to be ready for the Cafe Doom crit week starting this monday. I thought I’d finished it two days ago because I’d read the max word limit for a scifi competition was 800 words. I’d lacerated dead text, then sliced off barely alive settings and killed off characters to pare it to 800. Now I find it is actually 8000 words max! Arrgh. 800 is far too short for a comp asking for 8k as max, so back in go resurrected characters. It’s hard doing that without it feeling artificial so I’m glad I have the Cafe Doom crit group to be hard on it first.
