Distractions from writing

I am to decorating as a fish is to riding a bike, but I am having to strip old woodchip wallpaper from a spare bedroom. Why? Because I’d like to have a summer house in my garden. My garden is small so I need to be rid of two old sheds. I can’t demolish the sheds until I move garden equipment into the garage. I can’t move anything more into the garage until I move stuff out — including a bed and furniture. Guess where they are going to go?

On my visit to family last weekend I spotted a copy of my science fiction mystery – Exit, Pursued by a Bee. Well thumbed and sitting on a shelf alongside Stephen King and Mark Billingham. My sister has an eclectic reading taste. It reminded me that I hadn’t reminded blog folk about getting their own copies of Exit. So click here!

If you have funds left over, you don’t need much to avail yourselves of splendid quality fiction from BeWrite Books, who have several new releases this season. There must be someone who will hug you for a copy of these. Note their cool new website design.

What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children’s Toys

What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children’s Toys

Ira Nayman

Reviewed by Geoff Nelder

 

This is the sequel to the excellent Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be by the same zany author. Stand by to be entertained by out-of-the-left-field hits on the news as you’ve never heard it before.

 

Paperback: 258 pages

Publisher: Eloquent Books (February 26, 2010)

ISBN-10: 1609112342

ISBN-13: 978-1609112349

Ira Nayman is the proprietor (author) of The Alternate Reality News Service. You’ve heard of alternative comedy; this is the same but applied to news reports. They are short, punchy and generally amusing and thought provoking. If anything this sequel is more subtle than the opening publication. I mentioned in the review of Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be that fiction story readers might miss a conventional story with a beginning, middle and end with dialogue between characters. Then along comes Miracles, etc., and lo, there is such a story. Of course Nayman being alternate, has the story sandwiched in multi-layers in between the news reports. The story is called The Weight of Information and is a clever multi-dimensional story in its own right told with humour and originality. Within the story is at least one of several keys. By that I mean a reference – words, numbers and concepts – that recur in other parts of the book. I found a couple but it would be wrong to divulge them in a review. What I can say it that it adds to the stimulus this book brings.

One of my favourite pieces in this collection is The Hills Are Alive. Nanobots released into the environment have led to objects becoming conscious. A mountain range argues that if humans engage in strip mining then it will lose a significant part of its identity. The mountain has ‘an unyielding nature and won’t move’. And why not have mountains with such feelings? They are not inanimate once infiltrated by nanobots creating a complex neural-brain-like structure within. We had smart clothes in the last book, tingling our senses, in this we have mountains.

What would you do if your photocopier spontaneously printed Who am I? What am I? Where am I? Is it possessed? The Haunting of 647233 explores the possibilities though it is a story that developed more in my head than in print. A good thing.

As a writer of horror stories I was delighted to find Twenty-first Century Torture at Twentieth Century Prices! A digital rack to stretch your suspects not your budgets. Juicy though I would have appreciated more in this vein.

Alternative Alternatives gives an example of a universe where consequences of actions are randomly passed onto strangers. I like that idea. For instance if you overate, somebody else gained weight! With a clever Kafka story smuggled in, the mix gives a feeling of homilies – philosophical nuances of life as it could be. This book is a kind of alternative Sufi wisdom such as a what-if version of anything written by Idries Shah. Whether you are seeking ideas or to be enriched by extending the normal into the bizarre and not-so-bizarre I can recommend What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children’s Toys.

Amazon.com link to buy is here

Ira Nayman’s books

As mentioned in an earlier blog post, I was sent a couple of Ira Nayman’s books to review. I’ve read one and now I can’t wait to read the other. His Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be is a humorous collection of bite-sized articles in the form of news items by the Alternate Reality News Service. It is lateral thinking with spiced original ideas – a must for anyone liking to think outside their envelope while pushing boxes – or something like that. My file of ideas for future SF /F stories has been nicely bulked thanks to this book. My full review is up at Compulsive Reader here.

There’s a link to Amazon.com at the end of the review

For Amazon.co.uk go here

A little known inventor passes away

A pastime of mine is to play online scrabble at http://www.itsyourturn.com with each move we can send messages to the other player.

There I meet many interesting people. In fact everyone I meet no matter what their education or background have aspects of their life that is unique. Much first hand knowledge to help me with my writing research has come from IYT players in Malta (thanks, Jimmy), Canada (thanks Susan and Nat), Saudi Arabia, Australia and all over. One such is Mary Frances who lives in Needville, Texas. She once told me that her husband, Bill, (William Paul Wasson) invented the red colouring used in the LED displays in the first hand held electronic calculator. An instrument I used to own and use by Texas Instruments. Bill, being a scientist – a chemist, loved science fiction and Mary Frances would buy him my books and he downloaded our Escape Velocity magazines.

Sadly, Bill passed away yesterday – an era passes with him. Apparently he was attacked by bees and died of anaphylactic shock. You are gone but certainly not forgotten, Bill. My dad died almost exactly a year ago – same name, but nearly two decades older. Dad was an engineer while Bill was a chemist but both worked with hand and brain and both loved science fiction. So much in common I feel I share a bond with Mary Frances. All the best to you in your grief.

A condolence page and guest book is here.

There was an old woman who swallowed a fly…

My wife found me stripping woodchip wallpaper in our spare bedroom. “Why are you doing this, you hate decorating and you are doing it all wrong?”

“Because I want a summer house to write and read in down in the shady part of the garden. Before I can put up a summer house I have to get rid of both the dilapidated shed. Before I can dispose of the sheds I need to make room in the garage to house the lawnmower, spare bikes and essential (maybe) bric-a-brac. To make room in the garage I have to dispose of its largest incumbent – dissembled bunk beds. To put those bunk beds in the spare room, it needs to be decorated first.

I was doing it wrong. I should have paid a professional.

Great news for the publishing company, Adventure Books of Seattle, for whom I do editing. The true-life account of DB Cooper who skyjacked an airplane in 1972, jumped out with the money over the Rockies and never caught is called Into The Blast see here. A TV programme company is working with Robert Blevins and PI Skipp Porteous to make a programme about the book and the research that went into it. I only edited the book so I don’t expect to be involved but I’m chuffed to bits for Robert, who did and still does an enormous amount of research (including travelling up and down the Rockies in winter snows).

Intrigued and British? Then you can buy Into the Blast on the UK Amazon site here.

Exciting update on Ira Nayman

A few days ago I received two books by the unique humorist, Ira Nayman. As soon as the critque weeks are done at Cafe Doom and I’ve satisfied myself over writing a significant chunk of Left Luggage 3, I’ll read and review his What Once Were Miracles Are Now Children’s Toys and Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be. I’ve random sampled a few pages and liked the zany humour I saw so far.

Ira sent me an exciting update on his writing career today

I WON! I WON! I WON! I WON! I WON! I WON! I WON! I WON! I am being completely unprofessional. Perhaps if I switched to the third person.

Torontonian Ira Nayman has won first place in the 2010 Swift Satire Competition (http://michaelfarry.blogspot.com/2010/07/swift-satire-competition-results.html). The winning entry is a poem set in images called “Love Amid the Construction.” The poem is about a couple who can only find sexual satisfaction on construction sites. Can their love survive a slow-down in construction brought on by the economic downturn?

“Love Amid the Construction” will shortly be posted to the Swift Satire Web site (http://www.boynewriters.com/swift_satire_2010.html) without its images. It will appear on the author’s Web site, Les pages aux Folles, complete with images in three to four weeks.

This is the third year of the Swift Satire Competition. The number of entries accepted into the competition is a closely guarded secret. What we can tell you is that entries came from Ireland , UK , USA , Costa Rica , Nicaragua and, of course, Canada . Oh, and first prize was 500 Euros.

Ira Nayman’s response to the announcement of his victory was: “I won! I won! I won! I won! I won! I won! I won! I won!” But, you probably knew that. 

ABOUT LES PAGES AUX FOLLES: begun in 2002 (which makes it positively paleolithic in Internet terms), Les Pages aux Folles is a Web site primarily made up of political and social satirical writing. Over the years, it has also accreted cartoons (currently rotating between My Toronto and Delicate Negotiations). Writing and cartoons are updated weekly. Three collections of articles from the Web site have been published in print. No Political Figure Too Big, No Personal Foible Too Small is a general collection of satire. Alternate Reality Ain’t What It Used To Be and What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children’s Toys are collections of comic science fiction journalism featuring the Alternate Reality News Service. The Alternate Reality News Service Café on Facebook contains original writing and allows fans to have input into the fictional universe of the books. The pilot for a radio series based on “The Weight of Information,” a story in What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children’s Toys, is currently in post-production.

FOR MORE INFORMATION (INCLUDING A COPY OF THE WINNING POEM), CONTACT:

Ira Nayman (416) 630-7331 aardvarkseyes@hotmail.com

 CONGRATULATIONS Ira Nayman!

Saved: the Spotted Medick

A quarter of a century ago, as a geography teacher, I used to take students in Chester to a local open land known as Edgar’s Field. It has a Roman provenance in the form of an old sandstone quarry and a shrine to one of their Goddesses, Minerva. A favourite spot was near the River Dee where an Old Red Sandstone outcrop displayed wonderful current bedding from when it was laid down hundreds of millions of years ago. Chester, like the rest of Europe was further south in those days and a desert.

One day at the rocky face I noticed a plant at my feet. It was like clover but as if some vandal had dripped creosote into the middle of each one. That was before the internet so I took a sample to the Queen’s Park High School library and found it was a Spotted Medick. The Romans had used it for medicinal (hence Medick) purposes – probably as a soothing tonic for it has antibacterial properties. The Spotted Medick isn’t rare but is quite uncommon in Cheshire and the North West of England.

Imagine my wonder when I realized the patch at my feet might be from herbal plantings of the Romans.

Imagine my dismay earlier this year when I found it had been cleared away. The Friends of Edgar’s Field committee thought it would cheer folk up to plant narcissi there instead. To be fair the area had become overgrown and the haunt of the greater spotted drug user, so the committee did well to change the field for the good. Grants came their way and with the council a new playground has been developed. I can’t wait to take my grandkids to play there.

I contacted Steve Rogers the chair of the Friends of Edgar’s Field and he said my alert to the plight of the Spotted Medick is welcome and timely. They will endeavor to protect the remaining patches.

The patch in the photo comes from a transplanted group in my garden. Just in case the grass is cut too short in Edgar’s Field.