The keys to babies’ happiness

Although there are downsides to children using computers, such as spending too long on them, repetitive strain injury, addiction, obesity, learning the wrong things, web abuse, but there are jolly good things too. Supervised, children from one onwards can avoid all the above and be enriched. They can enjoy learning via colours, sounds, and touch by everlasting patient software. They get used to manipulating technology as if it’s an extension of themselves and develop skills in addition to the conventional learning and playing methods. You didn’t have to persuade me. I wrote colour, shape and sound simulation programs for my children’s infant school way back in the 1980s on the BBC Microcomputer. Both our kids grew up being used to computers and Robert makes his living programming them.

Then thirty years later along came our grandchildren. None of my programs work on the new computers. Actually they would by running BBC BASIC or RM BASIC emulators, but they have a tendency to crash the PCs and show their decrepit age compared to today’s software. I searched the web for kid friendly software and found quite a lot. However, one stood out because it disabled normal functions of the keyboard such that the children couldn’t get out of the program and on into other software even accidentally. Giggles Baby did all that and more. Our grandkids, even those under one, really did giggle and shake with excitement when they made sounds and colours and funny creatures dance on screen with each key press.

 

Giggles Baby was installed via CD but the programmer, Tim Leverett, saw his future for the business in making the software run online. He calls it Club Toddler. There is a token cost for the full package but you can use the basics for free by registering at http://www.clubtoddler.com/

 

Now here’s the funny thing. To register, you have to download the ‘engine’ of the suite of programs – fine. Then register with an email address and password. Oops. The software wouldn’t let me enter the @ in my email. I thought maybe it was something I’d done wrong. Tried number lock, caps lock, etc. I rebooted the computer but the problem was stubborn. I tried other keys. Nope. So I emailed Tim Leverett who promptly replied saying only one other person had reported a problem but had been quiet since. He tried fixes. Then Tim mentioned that the @ was above the 2 on his keyboard. It’s above the ‘ on mine with “ above the 2. We knew that continental Europe had Zwerty instead of Qwerty keyboards but didn’t know that US keyboards were subtly different from those in the UK. No problem, he engineered a fix so that UK folk can register Club Toddler. Yeay.

 

It gets better. Tim is an aspiring writer of science fiction. He’d browsed through my website at http://geoffnelder.com and came up with a mutual benefit plan. Would I give him an assessment of a film treatment he’d written for a science fiction story in exchange for me having premium membership of Club Toddler for life? Yes! I can’t wait to both read through Tim’s oeuvre and show his software to my grandkids.

 

Other news

Free giveaway of ARIA and an ARIA T-shirt in an easy competition draw! Just hop along to the front page of http://bibliophilia.org with its link to the video trailer and buying links.

 

I learnt that my short story, Accident Waiting to Happen, was not only accepted by eFantasy magazine but published in their February edition. You can grab a copy from their website here. The story is set in the Madrid National library but the idea came from my wife while we were driving along the M56. She saw a badly listing lorry and said, ‘There’s an accident waiting to happen.’ I said, ‘That’s a good title for a story.’ It turns out to be a romance and a mild horror at the same time. I once needed a large book on the Bindweed plant in Widnes library and another large book teeetered on a top shelf… Such are the musings that result in stories being written. (the Bindweed research comes into ARIA: Returning Left Luggage).

Sales of How to Win Short Story Competitions are steady. Get yours here.

Exit, Pursued by a Bee is at http://geoffnelder.com/exitbee.htm Several readers have pointed out recently that a principle notion in that book is being proved true. Ie that the universe might be chaotic but that the Earth is in a kind of bubble of stability. In Exit that stability is shaken when alien artifacts leave. Just shows that fiction might not be so unbelievable after all.

Join me on twitter at http://twitter.com/geoffnelder

 

What is thing called Life?

Gridlinked by Neal Asher was chosen to be read by the citizens of Chester for discussion at the Chester Library Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Group in February. For those that enjoy a James Bond meets Space Cowboys shoot ‘em action book then this will suit them. The plot isn’t superficial, there are complexities and twists and the gadgetry, while not original to SF readers, has novel approaches to their use. Some complained that the characters are two-dimensional and many are. Ian Cormac, the special agent protagonist has speech and behavioural mannerisms too similar to one of the antagonists, John Stanton. The latter, although a villain is possibly the most likeable character and displays tangible grief and emotion.

Rather than deconstruct Gridlinked, I want to discuss the real question in the book. How human can a robot be? Cormac has his intricate connection to Gridlink removed because the instant access to the powerful future internet in his head was dehumanising him. He was becoming cold, frigid in the way he treated people. On the other hand, Artificial Intelligence androids in the book were remarkably human in looks and behaviour even though they were stronger and were made to survive in environments that would kill humans. Yet, their brains were computers and so not human. What is it that makes us human? Philosophers have asked this for millennia but now with androids just around the corner it becomes more relevant. Humans have self-awareness, it is said. One test to see if animals have self-awareness is to place a mirror before them. Cats have been seen to preen themselves while looking in a mirror so that’s a positive indication. Dogs either ignore mirrors or go round the back of them to see where the rest of the ‘other’ dog is. So maybe canines lack as much self-awareness as cats. Tricky to know for sure. With a robot or sentient Artificial Intelligence gadget (even a sentient space suit as in my short story The Judgement Rock, published in Screaming Dreams in 2008 Download for free here) displays behaviour beyond mere pre-programmed activity, might they have a right to life? Many humans would insist such AI should have emotions and those are an animal attribute. Perhaps, but my training in cognitive psychology as a young trainee teacher taught me that emotions might be an outcome of our complex neuron web, and something learned as an interaction between memories and reactions from other beings. Like love then? Who knows. Then the religious will argue humans – but not our canine pals – have souls and so are superior to future androids. Even if you could identify the existence of a soul as separate from a self-aware emotional state, would that give humans the moral right to end the existence of a sentient being? I’d say not and that’s the main reason I am a veggie but there might be situations for survival in which in self-defence another being might have to be extinguished.

All thought-provoking stuff but sadly not argued through and only whispered at in Gridlinked.

As said, the book is a shoot ‘em up. In the right mood I can enjoy gung-ho action movies like the James Bond series this book is too much like. On the other hand I don’t enjoy reading them. Reading takes longer than watching a film and it gives me time to reflect more. What I think about then troubles me. When many beings die for superficial reasons such as vengeance, theft, King-of-the-castle behaviour eg extending one’s borders, it irks me and I stop enjoying it. I worry about other people being indoctrinated into thinking such mass killing of men, women, children, and sentient others, is okay for trivial reasons. Books take time to read and digest and in my opinion should be more responsible for making ethical statements than a quick adventure entertainment film. Am I being too high-horsey? Probably. Have I written violence and morbid death scenes? Yes, here and there but not have a whole novel with shootings and space cowboy killings. Oh, but I’m in trouble. ARIA: Left Luggage kills six billion people from infectious amnesia. Oh dear. Like all apocalyptic stories it is more than the sum of those deaths. I can justify it because it is a logical conclusion from the premise of the virus and the focus in the story is on survival rather than the horrible deaths from forgetting everything including medications, reading, writing, and talking.

Speaks of ARIA; I am doing a reading, chat and signing as part of the Wigan & Leigh Literary Festival. Monday April 8th 2-4pm in Wigan Library if you are around. Failing that maybe you have family and friends up in the vicinity for me to meet and greet.

Plug

ARIA is on the front page of http://bibliophilia.org with link to trailer and buying links.

Sales of How to Win Short Story Competitions are steady. Get yours here.

Exit, Pursued by a Bee is at http://geoffnelder.com/exitbee.htm Several readers have pointed out recently that a principle notion in that book is being proved true. Ie that the universe might be chaotic but that the Earth is in a kind of bubble of stability. In Exit that stability is shaken when alien artifacts leave. Just shows that fiction might not be so unbelievable after all.

Join me on twitter at http://twitter.com/geoffnelder

Suspending my disbelief

I rarely have sufficient time to read the Guardian newspaper even though it is my paper of choice for content and style. On long train journeys and Saturdays, however, I make time. This Saturday – 16^th February 2013 – there was an article by Ian McEwan in the Review section entitled ‘Am I Really A Believer’ that struck a chord. It was about how when reading fiction there are occasions when you suddenly realize you can’t suspend your disbelief and so the story is spoilt.

This used to happen to me a lot as a youngster and visits me quite often especially when reading the swashbuckling type of science fiction. There am I immersed in the head of the main character, believing in his or her motives and feeling their angst when suddenly I stop and think – someone has made this up! Damn. The plague of disbelief then spreads to other books I’m reading and worse, to my own writing.

Apparently so, to Ian McEwan. His prescriptive palliative is to reread short stories that always takes him back into that world inside someone else’s head. One such for him is Nabakov’s Symbols and Signs. I understand that. It’s been more than a decade since I’d read that short story about an elderly couple whose deranged and suicidal son is in an asylum. Sounds grim but the emotion and setting grips you profoundly. It’s also an example of the semiotics of zero: ie the main focus is actually absent. You can read it for free here. It was first published in 1947 and so I have an affinity being I was born that year. However, I cannot help but read a story as if it had been submitted to me as a submissions editor or a competition judge. Hence I find myself wanting less passive voice and pleonasms in the first third of the story. Then it takes over. Such imagery and emotion. I can see why it shakes McEwan into believing again. I get the same reaction when I read any of AL Kennedy’s short stories, or Tibor Fischer’s The Thought Gang. Ironically, knowing there is a cure for not being able to suspend disbelief, is a cure in itself although it might take a day or two for it to work.

In Nabakov’s Symbols and Signs the son suffers from Referential Mania in which everything around him is a veiled reference to his personality and existence. I can empathise with that. The boy’s attempted suicides are not to end his life and put an end to misery as it might be for others but to tear a hole in the fabric of his existence and escape to another, better one. I can see that too. As a life long lover of the skies – both academically and emotionally – I get this line in which “clouds transmit to each other, by means of slow signs…” wonderful.

Speaking of wonderment. Oliver (four years old plus a little) was in the library with mum (our daughter) choosing dinosaur books. As they were about to leave he rushed to another stack and picked out a book. Mum said You wouldn’t like that one. Oliver said, It’s not for me – it’s for Pop. (I am Pop).  Mum said It’s good of you to think of choosing a book for Pop but why this one? (It’s a Mills & Boon

Oliver and me

Romance – Captain and the Wallflower by Lyn Stone) Pop mostly likes Science Fiction like those over there. Oliver – No, Pop will like this book. It’s full of words. Look!

Last note:

Funny how twitter followers to me go down by handful each week. Is it something I said, not said? Or do those numbers represent those who give up on using Twitter altogether? If you are on twitter and would like to follow me I am at http://twitter.com/geoffnelder

About time I plugged some of my stuff on this blog thing and so

ARIA is on the front page of http://bibliophilia.org with link to trailer and buying links.

Sales of How to Win Short Story Competitions are steady. Get yours here.

Exit, Pursued by a Bee is at http://geoffnelder.com/exitbee.htm Several readers have pointed out recently that a principle notion in that book is being proved true. Ie that the universe might be chaotic but that the Earth is in a kind of bubble of stability. In Exit that stability is shaken when alien artefacts leave. Just shows that fiction might not be so unbelievable after all.

Voted a winner, now you can win too

The writers website and forum, Bibliophilia is hosting a competition for its members to win a print or e-book copy of ARIA: Left Luggage and a T-shirt! The site’s front page has a link to the video trailer too. See http://www.bibliophilia.org/

The second book in the trilogy has been edited and is undergoing its final proofread as we speak. Hopefully it will be ready for publication this spring. Andy Bigwood has been working on the cover art and I can show you the latest version here.

ARIA: Returning Left Luggage cover art by Andy Bigwood

Wham BAM into the Future

My Wednesday turned out quite unusual this week. I spent four hours on a Virgin train and seven hours in a meeting. I rarely spend more than two hours at a time sitting these days – eager to leap on my bike, or speed walk somewhere. This occasion was special. I was reading my Auditory Crescendo short story to a group of experts interested in whether science fiction could play a part in predicting aspects of the future. Four of us there were science fiction writers – although wore other hats too – while the others were captains of industry, academia and researchers in future-casting. We were treated to an inspirational talk and discussion from Intel’s leading futurist, Brian Johnson via Skype from his pre-breakfast laptop in California.

The issue for me is can science fiction be helpful in predicting the future? It seems to me it can but that it shouldn’t be its main aim. I write stories for entertainment: mine and my readers. I explore ideas and push boundaries in my stories, which is what all SF writers do. The readers enjoy the escapism in SF (and in other genres) and most don’t expect our fiction to be a serious attempt to test the future. However, it’s possible that when our stories envisage a new development, whether it is in politics, social structure, technology or a what-if situation, then the fiction could be a useful exploratory tool.

Sadly, one of our SF writers must have thought it would be cool to downplay the role of SF in predictions. Paul Raven of the Pennine Water Group insisted several times that SF cannot predict the future. He is wrong and his examples were mostly wrong. For instance he said it is widely assumed Arthur C Clarke predicted three geosynchronous satellites could relay telecommunications. He didn’t do that as a SF writer but as a researcher in radar communications, and his ideas was predated by Hermann Oberth‘s 1923 book Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket into Interplanetary Space). I’m sorry, Paul, but a scientist would never try to prove a hypothesis by stating a handful of cherry-picked opposites. You can disprove a theory that way. There are many gadgets envisaged in early SF – eg flip-phones in Star Trek, robots in the 1927 film Metropolis by Fritz Lang and his wife, invisibility and cloaking devices in many films and in fiction all the way back to Plato. Science can now cloak tiny objects. This is missing the point, though. Even Paul Raven encouraged the use of SF as a sandbox for its narratives to test ideas. Good.

Fascinating to me was a talk on Smart Cities by Rashid Mehmood from the University of Huddersfield. It struck me as he outlined in many diagrams and equations how future cities need to be ‘smart’ with respect to its occupants, environment, transport, infrastructure, impact, etc how these ideas really are already in many SF cities of the future. Not all successful.

My turn came and with the use of Powerpoint slides and being demonstrative with my hearing aids, I read and excerpt and explained how I was inspired to write Auditory Crescendo (available on Kindle and paperback in Escape Velocity: The Anthology) [Free download at the moment) because of my own hearing aids. For example, setting my aid to the T-switch for the telecoil, I could hear a neighbour’s TV when near a radiator! I could also hear the eulogy of another neighbour but only when I stood in the church. As soon as we were told to be seated my hearing aid was out of range of the loop system’s induction field! Auditory Crescendo involves a Gulf War veteran who was fitted with an experimental cochlear implant enabling him to hear conversations four miles away while everything in between was filtered out. Problems emerged when he heard conversations he didn’t want to hear, but he was fascinated by being able to hear electricity in cables in the walls. There, see what I did? Explore the social and emotional consequences of potential new technology. That’s what SF can do.

There are pundits who claim SF isn’t changing, or is already dead, but I detect a shift at the so-called bleeding edge. Mainstream SF readers still enjoy the space operas and the Paul Asher type action futures but the more thought-provoking novels from the likes of China Mieville, M John Harrison, Hannu Rajaniemi, Lauren Beukes et al are creating a more literary niche in the genre. Of course there have always been the occasional literati there including the excellent Times Arrow by Martin Amis that was even shortlisted for the Booker. Damien Walter on “Why Science Fiction is the literature of change“? asserts that SF is gaining a place in mainstream literature at last. I agree – in spite of Charles Stross’s denial on his website: “… around 1900-1920, the nascent modernists in literature came to a fork in the road: they could choose to document the existing human condition in photographic detail, or they could choose to explore the human condition via metaphor, confabulation, and extrapolation (the tools of SF and fantasy). They took the former path; thus defining SF/F, by virtue of having taken the other route, as a refutation of the literary virtues.”

The Futures meeting on Wednesday was at BAM – the British Academy of Management and gloried in the fancypants title of ‘Strategic Visions and Future Business Models: Exploring Future Technology, Smartness, Creative Science Prototyping and Consumer Technological Landscapes.’ Phew! A mouthful and yet accurate. My SF story is a Creative Science Prototype you see. As Dr Gary Graham said, the meeting was inspirational and as with many gatherings one of the best aspects was for people to meet face to face who’d only known each other online. I like that too. After missing her at BristolCon, it was particularly good to meet up with fellow BSFA Orbiter, Rosie Oliver. It was fascinating for me to have a completely novel audience for my stories. I hope they enjoyed the experience as much as I did.

Infectious Amnesia Wins Award

Yeay – and huge thanks and e-hugs to all my readers and strangers alike who voted for ARIA: Left Luggage to be the best science fiction novel 2012 in the P&E Award.

The fancypants emblem is above. I might have it tattoed on my … erm forehead? Backside? Hey not a bad idea, it would hide my scoliosis.

Now I need to send press releases and trust local and national press will print more than a square inch. The few newspapers for North Wales have already said they are not covering it because I live in Chester and at 40 minutes drive it is too far to count as local. They won’t listen to the fact that half of ARIA: Left Luggage is set in North Wales. Ho hum. Please someone… lean on them!

For your amusement here is my press release. If you like you can send it to … anywhere!

A British author, Geoff Nelder, won an American award in the world of science fiction this January. His book, ARIA, has won the coveted Readers’ Poll run annually by the Preditors & Editors organisation in the US. The first volume of the trilogy, ARIA: Left Luggage, published by LL-Publications, came first out of 85 novels in the category of science fiction and fantasy. ARIA has caught the imagination of readers worldwide as it is the only book to have used the idea of amnesia being infectious. In the story, no one is immune from the infectious amnesia and people lose memory backwards at an alarming rate forgetting where they live, their jobs and eventually how to write, read and speak. A few isolate themselves in a North Wales valley hoping to survive and fight back at the perpetrators of the virus.

There are some chapters based on the apocalyptic nature of the Alien Retrograde Infectious Amnesia (ARIA) and its effects on social, emotional and other aspects such as what happens when the gorilla’s keeper at Chester Zoo succumbs to the infectious amnesia.

Geoff was a teacher at Queen’s Park High School, Chester for over 20 years and still lives within the school catchment in Westminster Park. He became a writer and editor since leaving the school and now three of his novels have won awards. They, including ARIA, are for sale at the Bluecoat Bookshop 1, City Walls, Northgate as well as on Amazon. Links are:

Kindle – Amazon.com  http://www.amazon.com/ARIA-Left-Luggage-ebook/dp/B008RADGYC/

Paperback Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/ARIA-Left-Luggage-Volume-1/dp/1905091958/

Kindle – UK – http://www.amazon.co.uk/ARIA-Left-Luggage-ebook/dp/B008RADGYC/

Paperback UK  http://www.amazon.co.uk/ARIA-Left-Luggage-Geoff-Nelder/dp/1905091958/

Publisher’s website with more details and formats. http://www.ll-publications.com/leftluggage.html

—–

I’ve just spotted the final entry in my blog tour is up and running at http://lesism.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/my-friend-mentor-geoff-nelder.html  Thanks Les!!

I am mystery jam

A short science fiction story of mine called Colloidal Suspension was accepted for an anthology last year but only now have I permssion to brag about it. Colloidal Suspension is about a man and woman, former lovers (plus wishful thinking on the man’s part) who crashland on a liquid planet. I love survival scenarios in what appears to be impossible situations like this. They argue, plan for rescue, and head for what they hope is the only bit of land. Luckily the sea is as nourishing as a thick pea soup. Do they make it? Yes and no. You’ll have to wait… Press release from the editor:

EXTREME PLANETS

A Science Fiction Anthology of Alien Worlds

Extreme Planet cover art

Introduced by Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author David Brin

Featuring stories from David Brin and Gregory Benford, Brian Stableford, Peter Watts, G. David Nordley, Jay Caselberg and many more

“A stellar line-up of writers presenting the most exotic worlds imaginable—prepare to have your mind blown!” — Sean Williams, Author of Saturn Returns and Twinmaker

Two decades ago astronomers confirmed the existence of planets orbiting stars other than our Sun. Today more than 800 such worlds have been identified, and scientists now estimate that at least 160 billion star-bound planets are to be found in the Milky Way Galaxy alone. But more surprising is just how diverse and bizarre those worlds are.

Extreme Planets is a science fiction anthology of stories set on alien worlds that push the limits of what we once believed possible in a planetary environment. Visit the bizarre moons, dwarf planets and asteroids of our own Solar Systems, and in the deeper reaches of space encounter super-Earths with extreme gravity fields, carbon planets featuring mountain ranges of pure diamond, and ocean worlds shrouded by seas hundreds of kilometres thick. The challenges these environments present to the humans that explore and colonise them are many, and are the subject matter of these tales.

The anthology features 15 tales from leading science fiction authors and rising stars in the genre:

·        “Banner of the Angels” by David Brin and Gregory Benford

·        “Brood” by Stephen Gaskell

·        “Haumea” by G. David Nordley

·        “A Perfect Day off the Farm” by Patty Jansen

·        “Daybreak” by Jeff Hecht

·        “Giants” by Peter Watts

·        “Maelstrom” by Kevin Ikenberry

·        “Murder on Centauri” by Robert J. Mendenhall

·        “The Flight of the Salamander” by Violet Addison and David Smith

·        “Petrochemical Skies” by David Conyers and David Kernot

·        “The Hyphal Layer” by Meryl Ferguson

·        “Colloidal Suspension” by Geoff Nelder

·        “Super-Earth Mother” by Guy Immega

·        “Lightime” by Jay Caselberg

·        “The Seventh Generation” by Brian Stableford 

Extreme Planets is scheduled for release in late 2013 in both trade paperback and online e-reader formats. Edited by David Conyers, David Kernot and Jeff Harris with cover illustration by Paul Drummond.

—

The story Colloidal Suspension was critiqued at the BSFA Orbiter crit group and at Cafe Doom. And a colloidal chemist, John Rennie, in the Chester SF book group read through the story for me and gave me encouragement and tips – including the immortal line: This thing you have as colloidal suspension, Geoff, isn’t really colloidal.” Haha. Thanks guys and gals for your input.

Imagination Factory

Geoff Nelder’s Imagination Factory is found at the top of my headed note paper. I laugh each time I see it because it is kind of a steampunk image of an engine driving cogs and wheels in my head generating ideas. I think I must have been lucky that I day dreamed throughout much of my school life and so the usual stamping out of creativity didn’t work on me. Perhaps the same happened to other artists and writers too. Naturally, schools have a job to get their young prisoners through external examinations to qualify for their real factory jobs, offices, be killing machines, retail operatives, people-patcher-uppers, and go go getters. My promotion beyond head of department was cooked when the head took VIPs and chair of governors into my surprisingly well-behaved class and saw my copy of Teaching As A Subversive Activity by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner on my desk. My main teaching aim was not dissimilar to the crudely-put ‘to teach ‘em to be good crap detectors’ from Ernest Hemmingway. More politely, I wanted my pupils to mature into people who could adapt to changing ideas, rationalise without losing what’s worthy and to use lateral thinking. Not easy to put those on an exam paper. My first year at teaching was exhilirating as it was illuminating at Jordanthorpe Junior School, Sheffield in 1969. The kids were full of ideas for their art and in finding solutions for problems I set them as a student teacher.

Yesterday I was reminded of the creativity of young minds while I was struggling to keep dignity and body together on the top floor of the Trafford Centre soft play centre. You know, those buildings within a building designed for little ones to hurtle through tunnels, up ramps, over obstacles and down spiral slides. Up there with my 3-year-old grandson, Oliver, doing his favourite hide and seeking, he found me and yelled: There’s a fire! I listened but that was a waste of time because with my wonky hearing I’ve not heard an alarm for years. Looked, but no one around mid-afternoon. It could be true then. I said: Where? He turned to run and said: Follow me. So there’s me trying to keep up while crouched to stop further headbanging on the foam-wrapped scaffolding and crossing a rope bridge. He looked back, pointed at my feet and said: Mind the crocodiles!

If only the education system can keep that creativity.

Huge thanks for all those pals and readers who have voted in the Preditors and Editors poll for my ARIA: Left Luggage. As I write my book is in the top three but I’m expecting a big push from the others so I need every weeny vote please. The poll closes on the 15th January. If you have yet to vote and would like to support me please go to

http://critters.org/predpoll/novelsf.shtml

scroll down to ARIA: Left Luggage and click the button to its left. Then scroll down and after filling in the antirobot information press the submit vote button. BIG e-hugs to all.

Hey, my short horror story, Her Battle of Trafalgar is Editor’s Pick (editor Jeani Rector) at The Horror Zine just out. This delightful picture is on the front cover but could be the woman in my story. Read my story here.

I am a guest with the supernatural

Actually, Christina St. Clair is a delectable author of the supernatural and much more as you can see on her website after reading my As to her Qs here.

She sent me ten questions from informative to cheeky to elucidate my character and spread more the word on ARIA. Thanks, Christina!

 

Breaking news. ARIA: Left Luggage is holding up well in the Preditors & Editors poll but still requires votes if you have a moment. Please visit

http://critters.org/predpoll/novelsf.shtml

and click on ARIA: Left Luggage a little down the page.

Hugs galore – and that goes for Christina too.

BTW there now is a wikipedia page on ARIA created by Jolie du Pre at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARIA_(novel)

Help please!

I’ll e-hug you if you would kindly vote for ARIA: Left Luggage in the

current P&E Readers’ Poll at http://critters.org/predpoll/novelsf.shtml

If you do so, you will be contacted by critters at P&E (Preditors and

Editors – a respected writers’ organisation) to click on a verification link. It is well established and very safe.

I appreciate you might not have read all of ARIA but you might have seen

extracts on the publisher’s web or on Amazon at (click on the look inside) http://www.amazon.co.uk/ARIA-Left-Luggage-ebook/dp/B008RADGYC/ or for non-UK http://www.amazon.com/ARIA-Left-Luggage-ebook/dp/B008RADGYC/

paperback available too at Amazon and the publishers at http://www.ll-publications.com/leftluggage.html

In other news I am January 2013 Editor’s Pick of the Month in The Horror Zine with my short story Her Battle of Trafalgar in which a young woman wakes up on top of Nelson’s Column. The photograph was provided by gifted poet, artist and story teller, Catherine Edmunds. See our work here