science42fiction

Meet R.B. Harkess

geoffnelder — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:48:19 +0000

Today, my blog is open to a guest blogger: fellow BSFA Orbiter and SF writer friend, R.B. Harkess. I’ve met Rob and his wife at FantasyCon and NewCon as well as on facebook and of course as a critiquer. He writes fine science fiction and has just had a Young Adult novel published by Proxima – Aphrodite’s Dawn. Here is his blog. Feel free to click on his links and say hello.

Guest blogger – R.B. Harkess, science fiction writer.

When I first got into writing the internet didn’t exist. OK, so I’ve now established myself as either way older than you thought, or a liar. Seriously, though, back then we had bulletin board systems and modems, and they worked pretty much the same as forums do on websites today.

I was even a member of a writers group. We called ourselves ‘Writer’s Block’ and we lived in awe of the only two members who were published writers, Steve Harris (a horror writer) and a bloke named Pan Pantziarka. It was a great place to hang out, but the support was emotional and social, rather than practical or technical.

I gave up writing after a couple of years; there seemed to be so little opportunity, and the only resource we had to find markets was the trusty Writers and Artists Yearbook.

I got bitten by the bug again two years ago, after getting into podcasts. I started on short stories, which I still love to write, and was absolutely astonished at how things had changed; social media, online databases, and the number of anthologies and e-zines that were out there to help you showcase your work.

I met Geoff through a crit group, one run by the British Science Fiction Association. We don’t share that group any more, and I greatly miss his wisdom and skill. It was also Geoff who gave me my first real break in the industry, publishing one of my short stories in “Escape Velocity: The Anthology”.

And now, to my ongoing surprise, my first novel, “Aphrodite’s Dawn”, has been published as an e-book by Proxima, which is why I am creeping around on other people’s blogs. It’s a refreshing diversion in the YA market, involving no sparkly vampires or other objects of paranormal romance, and tells the story of three young people who find the tiny world they thought they lived in was actually a huge asteroid, kitted out as a rescue ship. The ship has 300,000 sleepers on board, but is out of control, and Garret, Pitr and Alyssa have to puzzle, and sometimes fight, their way through to the other end of the ship to give the engines the commands to save them all.

I’m not saying couldn’t have written it without the support and encouragement of the wonderful community of writers I’ve met since I sat in front of a keyboard and stared at that terrifying blank screen again. I am saying it wouldn’t have been as good, and it certainly wouldn’t have been as much fun.

R B Harkess was born in Bristol but now lives just outside London. Writing is constantly complicated by a real-world job in IT and two cats – one of which likes to lie on the printer whilst the other prefers to sprawl on the laptop. A blog can be found at www.rbharkess.com, where such wonders as links to facebook, twitter and email can be found.

New and New

geoffnelder — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 18:07:03 +0000

On the 20th January my daughter popped out a new baby boy. Hello to Nathan Robert Monk. He’s the spitting image of his big brother (nearly 3), Oliver, who has to be prised off from cuddling Nathan to give others a chance.

Today I received another book to review. It is a collection of short stories by Tony Rauch – “eyeballs growing all over me… again”. I’m looking forward to making time to read these amusing and no doubt lateral-thinking tales. His blog is at http://trauch.wordpress.com/

I’ve now reached chapter 33 in writing ARIA volume 3 – about two thirds of the way through. Volume one – Left Luggage – has had two edits by LL-Publications editor and is now being finely proofread. In the meantime artist Andy Bigwood has produced this marvelous image for the cover. This also is in its third draft.

ARIA endorsements

geoffnelder — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 01:29:45 +0000

It is always a tricky thing to ask professional and famous authors to endorse the work of an unknown writer even if published. However, I am bowed with humility by the graciousness of the greats who have responded to my request for a publishable comment on the science fiction book, ARIA – volume one: Left Luggage – being published by LL-Publications this year. So far I have had positive endorsements from

Brad Lineweaver: Geoff Nelder asks all the right questions (He refers to the issues in the novel where people have difficult decisions to make about what aspects of life is most critical).

Jon Courtenay Grimwood: Geoff Nelder wears science fiction like other people wear clothes.

Robert J Sawyer commented that Left Luggage is a fascinating project.

Mike Resnick: ARIA has an intriguing premise, and is written in a very accessible style.

Dan Simmons wishes me luck and success with ARIA but was too busy to read the manuscript – no problem, I quite understand.

Years ago I would not have dreamed of talking to and writing to the best and admired SF writers in the world and yet they are real people and remarkably accessible. The warmth is tangible. Thanks too to the Chester SF/F rebel book group meeting tonight. We discussed Greg Bear’s Hull Zero Three and although we disagreed in many ways, we are glued by a common admiration of the genre.

Then back home to write more paragraphs on ARIA volume three.

3D Flyover

geoffnelder — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 09:05:04 +0000

For an article on the cycle ride I did in Spain in October, I logged on to map my ride. It’s a bit fiddly for the free version and I had to start over twice, however, the route follows the roads I took pretty accurately now. In the 75 km I’d cycled an accumulated height gain of over 1000 metres. Then I discovered the little 3D button on the right of the map. It is a small window but gives a great feel of a helicopter ride over my route. It revealed a few wriggles through housing estates I don’t remember doing but overall it is faithful. It takes 14 minutes from start to finish. This is faster than the 6 hours it took me even on a carbon fibre race bike! Give it a go, it’s free!

http://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/62830076/

I might use this resource again.

Ultimate Adventure Magazine is out!

geoffnelder — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:17:46 +0000

ULTIMATE ADVENTURE MAGAZINE

Issue #1 – Jan/Feb 2012

In this first bumper-packed 190 PAGE 60,000 WORD issue, we have an interview with CLAUDIO VON PLANTA, famous for filming Long Way Round and Long Way Down with EWAN MCGREGOR and CHARLIE BOORMAN, where he talks about his adventures behind the camera in places like Afghanistan and Africa, and tracking down Osama Bin Laden…

We have interviews with best-selling horror novelist GUY N. SMITH, New Zealand rock-singer and recent Glastonbury performer JORDAN REYNE, ultra-marathon runner ANDREW MURRAY and top SFF artist VINCENT CHONG.

We have features on climbing in Scotland, crossing Australia on a postie’s moped, Geoff Nelder cycling in the Akamas mountains in Cyprus, making a short horror medical zombie film, and heading to Mexico in search of buried secrets.

All this, along with news, letters, competitions, the ANTI-CLARKSON column, Whackjob Jim Column and The Horror, The Horror Column, reviews of kit, motorbikes, caravans, restaurants, books, video games, albums and sports fuel, short fiction by Garry Charles, a serialised graphic novel by Martyn Pick, your favourite Grumpy Old Man — and Ultimate Kids Adventure, something for the kids (and their parents!) to do at weekends.

Available as:

• a PDF (suitable for PC, MAC, iPAD etc) at www.uamag.co.uk

• a text-only version for your EPUB and Kindle (MOBI) readers at www.uamag.co.uk

• an online readable magazine at ISSUU: www.issuu.com/ultimateadventuremagazine/docs/issue1

• a print version, which can be purchased at www.lulu.com

Alternative digital versions are also available at Amazon, Lulu, iTunes and Barnes & Noble.

All UAMAG digital versions are FREE! We must be mad…

We hope you enjoy!

Andy Remic

Editor

Please note: NOBODY has been paid for anything in Ultimate Adventure Magazine. Every little bit has been done out of our love of biking, climbing, hiking and travel. So please please please help us by tweeting, facebooking, spreading the word to your friends and on forums – our continued existence will depend on our download figures!

First contact novel – again

geoffnelder — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 22:02:10 +0000

I had a long train journey today so I took Carl Sagan’s Contact – sucker for meeting aliens – and I wanted to see how the book differed from the 1997 film. I was never happy with that ending – cop out, over-religious, etc. Sagan’s prose is intelligent but far too much info dump and very slow action. Then I get to the end. The same. Then I turn to the very end – it was written from the script of the film – aaarrggggh!

Sparrowhawk by Paul Finch

geoffnelder — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 00:50:08 +0000

Sparrowhawk by Paul Finch

Reviewed by Geoff Nelder

Pendragon Press 2010

Reviewed the Kindle version via Brentwood Press 2011

ASIN: B006FORSP0

The paradox of conflicts between what you see and know.

Once freed from a vile debtor’s prison Captain Sparrowhawk of the 16^th Light Dragoons had to pay for his freedom with a strange guarding mission. Four aspects of Paul Finch’s novella drew me in: authenticity of geography and history; the exquisite writing style; personal coincidences; and most of all the grim storyline fascination of apparitional ghouls from the past, and the satisfaction of finally solving the puzzle.

1843 was an interesting time in England for social contrasts and political awakening. Add this to one of the coldest winters on record and we have terrific conflict and tension. As a climatologist I know about that winter, so I was mightily impressed by the research Finch did to make the narrative real. Same with other details. He refers to toppers. My granddad was nicknamed Topper because he regularly wore one at the weekends and as a joke in the pub even though he had risen no further than master plasterer as an artisan. Later in the story, our hero was battling suicidal odds in Afghanistan (so topical). My other granddad was wounded there during the third Anglo-Afghan war in the 1920s. How did Finch know my family connections so well – hah.

Sparrowhawk is paid and instructed by the enigmatic and beautiful Mss Evangeline, who knows an uncomfortable amount of information about him. She is the key to the puzzle in this story and turns the lock iteratively with each chapter. Clever.

Also smart is the writing. Just listen to this description of Angus. ‘Here, an attendant was waiting, a big, raw-boned fellow with thick, red whispers and braces over his linen undershirt. The tattoos on his brawny arms indicated a military background. When he spoke, it was with a Highlands accent.’ You are there with Sparrowhawk. Not only is there superb Show (as writers and editors urge on their writers) but the language is of the 1840s. We have costermongers –street sellers, ‘haranguing the public from their barrows, selling everything from eel soup to pigs’ trotters, from lemonade to kitchen grease, from frogs, lizards and snails to rare and exotic birds, most of which would be sparrows and finches done up with colourful paint.’ Finch’s research is beautifully revealed in words such as that lovely harridan and breveted, right down to knowing popular tunes of the day as constables would whistle In Dulci Jubilo on their beat. Trust Finch to be aware, unlike Hollywood directors that you don’t fire guns from the same place twice. I think Paul Finch must have been in the SAS, and have a time machine.

Sparrowhawk questions the veracity of what he experiences, but his brought-to-life father denies him a right to question it and to face the existing reality. Interesting philosophical stance, but it is whimsical and the probable hallucination vanishes, yet stays as a torment.

Some readers may feel that some of the narrative detail is infodump eg about the Peterloo massacre of 1819 but it is well done, and relevant to the plot. It is forgiven when a man-lion creature is described inside the terror, as having eyes that are ‘pits of molten gold’ – I wish I’d written that.

This novella is unmissable for any aficionado of ghost, horror, and historical fiction.

Link to Amazon.co.uk Kindle

I don’t believe it

geoffnelder — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 23:18:32 +0000

So I say to a room full of my family, “You’ve all heard of Dan Simmons, right?” None had. “Come on, the Hyperion series, Hugo winner blah blah.” I am blanked. I’m chuffed because Dan has accepted my facebook friendship and sent me a personal message, not that he knows me from a speck of interstellar dust but my opportunity to brag falls on deaf ears. Do other SF writers and readers have this problem with family and friends?

Retreat and advance

geoffnelder — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 22:12:32 +0000

Although I’d booked a weekend break away in a Derbyshire country cottage as a holiday, with the laptop packed, it was bound to be a writer’s retreat too. For both of us – wife came too – because she had Masters ‘crap’ (her words) to do while I worked on critiques and volume 3 of ARIA. We nearly didn’t go because the forecast was for snow, and Gaynor confided she’d rather had gone to a nice warm hotel, preferably in London. Aarggh. Justification then of my comment in a short story that holidays for wives is shopping in another place. Don’t shoot me down; it is true! Well, nearly so. In the end although we encountered snow and sleet enroute, and the police blocked the road between Macclesfield and Buxton because of an accident, we made it to a converted farm barn in the village of Hulme End between Leek and Matlock. Why is it that in the evenings away from home, even with the TV on in a corner, I chisel away far more words than at home? And that’s what happened. 2, 000 words on Friday, another on Saturday night and more early this morning. That and a critique of some of the short science fiction stories in the BSFA’s Orbiter group.

Oh, and I read the whole of The Holy Machine by Chris Beckett. I spent the first half of the book not liking it then I slowly warmed to the theme but without reaching red hot. I have an inbuilt distrust of science fiction books with a religious angle and this one had several. In the future an atheist enclave are surrounded by extreme religious bigoted communities of all the major religions. They hate the atheists, fair enough, but also their robots, calling them ungodly, manifestations of the devil. No one argues that if God existed he might have made Man clever enough to make robots to do the chores and work that humans find difficult or distasteful. The atheists’ rulers fall into the cliched trap of corruption and so end up having to accept religions after all. In fact they developed robots in order to cut down on the number of religious people allowed into the enclave to work. Sounds rather like the Israeli situation only read atheism for Judaism. Our protagonist hero smuggles a beautiful robot sex-worker into the outlands but is too stupid to make her wear a burka or a headscarf so the bigots kind of spot her beauty and become very curious. Too many silly things, and typos, to make me endorse this one I’m afraid. Never mind, just enjoy the pictures taken on Saturday Dec 10th in Derbyshire. Cold but dry and a terrific 7 miles walk in the Manifold valley back to the cottage. Near the village of Wetton, after a pub lunch in Ye Olde Royal Oak (been a pub open there for nearly 300 years) we walked up the Manifold Valley past a cave known as Thor’s Cave. Next time I’m taking a torch and find out what Thor had for dinner.

Near Hulme End in Derbyshire. Out on a walk between writing and reading stints.

Professional Writing Academy

geoffnelder — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 16:27:31 +0000

Mark Iles is a friend who is also in the BSFA Orbiters for critiquing each others science fiction stories. Mark also is a professional writer and one of his missions was to interview me. It appears here. My mugshot is there but hey ho.