June bursts in

1) NEWS in 2013: The second volume of the ARIA trilogy is within hours of being released. The ebook versions will come out first then the paperback. The publishers LL-Publications have just moved house from Scotland to Texas and in spite of the upheaval that entails have done sterling work on ARIA: RETURNING LEFT LUGGAGE.
2) The first in the trilogy was voted best Science fiction of 2012 at P&E Readers Poll. Suppose amnesia was infectious? Thank goodness it isn’t but imagine the ramifications if it was. ARIA: LEFT LUGGAGE is the personal story of people, the breakdown of society and yet hope for the few who escaped.
Watch the publishers page for when ARIA 2 is released here http://www.ll-publications.com/returnluggage.html

ARIA is endorsed by luminaries such as Mike Resnick and Jon C Grimwood. I’d like more likes on its youtube video trailer at http://youtu.be/oh0AAXIe8VU
And its facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/AriaTrilogy

3) 5 * reviews for the ebook HOW TO WIN SHORT STORY COMPETITIONS. Co-authored by two experienced judges in a dialogue form and has great reviews (not written by us or our friends!) at

http://www.ideas4writers.co.uk/books/storycomps.php

4) For something completely different try HOT AIR, an award-winning thriller based in England and the Mediterranean. A feisty woman witnesses a heinous crime from a hot air balloon. She’s abducted and kept in a watchtower on Mallorca until she escapes. A page turner on your Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/Hot-Air-ebook/dp/B0084OZL9E/
5) SF mystery EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEE is exciting interest. Several unique concepts written in an accessible style with a feisty woman main character and with a beginning and end on Glastonbury Tor – festival and all. Paperback and now Kindle at

Exit, Pursued by a Bee

6) NEW for May 2013 Escaping Reality, a humorous thriller of the fugitive kind, is out on Kindle at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CWOU3YK and in the UK.
“Nelder achieves love in a rocking chair and sex on bubble-wrap in this hilarious caper.”

A message from my writing nephew, Ben Bamber:
Hi all – I have just launched a Kickstarter project aimed at getting a trailer done for an animated feature film, based on The Vast and Gruesome Clutch of Our Law. If you feel like contributing that would be great, but if not please Tweet, Facebook etc, the link below, and help me hit my target of £10,000!

All the relevant info is at that link.

My friend and self-awareness guru, Les Floyd is helping me to promote ARIA and other books by increasing my twitter followship. There is now an acceleration in the number of readers, writers and other real people who are in my twitter family. If you want to join in then go to http://twitter.com/geoffnelder

Really this is far too many links for one blog post but at least its over now for a while! I leave you with this picture I took. Enjoy your June!
NB. I notice this is my 501st blog post on this science42fiction wordpress. If I write an average of 500 words per blog post then that’s 250,000 words. Hey that is two novels worth! Ah, but many of these words are reviews of my worthy author friends’ work, and other words are to promote the books I have already written or musings on life and other potential stories. It’s like all the words many of us writers expend on forums, emails, twitter, facebook and as guest posts on other blogs. I could have written a whole new series!

Reading legs

Two years ago this summer I cycled home from the UK Authors Away Week in South Wales in pouring rain, and it didn’t matter. My head was full of story ideas, and it was warm rain. This last week I cycled from Chester to Cheltenham and back to visit my sister and to enjoy the experience again of day-after-day cycling, stopping overnight in youth hostels and guest houses. My rotating legs seem to pump fresh blood up to my head and it generates ideas – mostly good. I can recommend the Springhill B&B in Coalbrookdale near Ironbridge – food and accommodation are marvellous value for money. I had a four-poster bed and a giant bath – me! I don’t think I was supposed to, but I relished cycling over the world’s first cast iron bridge. Designed and built by Abraham Darby, it was opened in 1781 and is breathtaking in its beauty and provenance.

The cycle track along the Ironbridge Gorge, has refreshing views of the River Severn through the trees, but sadly the horses and mountain bikes, combined with the extraordinary wet weather this summer led to my bike doubling its weight in mud! Luckily, the Severn Valley Visitors’ Centre was en route near Bridgeford and my order was in two parts – one bucket of soapy water, and one mug of hot tea thank you very much. I also bought an orange stretchy plastic lizard for grandson, Oliver. He’ll discover in my cardy pocket next week J

I can also recommend the St Lawrence Hotel in Worcester as a bike stop. My bike had the most luxurious cycle shed in the form of their large conservatory housing large oriental vases and the biggest jade plant I’ve seen. Handy too to have a hose pipe within reach – thanks!

At The Yorkshire Grey pub just south of Worcester, I met my old school friends, Trevor, Nancy, Chris, and Kate with their spouses. The hours flew past and Trevor took this photo of me with my cycling shirt, Nancy and Kate.

I was made welcome in Cheltenham by Lin Bamber, my sister and her granddaughter, Jasmine, who was delighted with my bright yellow plastic banana guard. Cavendish House – part of the House of Fraser – has a large café and I met up with nephew Ben Bamber – a writer of alternative eco-friendly towns and living. His website – wait for it to load. I always enjoy chatting books and family with Ben and he filled me in with interesting stuff about the Doughnut (not so secret building in the town. In Charles Stross’s Atrocity Archives he perpetuates the myth that GCHQ is blank on maps. I’ve printed the maps ready for the book group meeting on the book next month in Chester. Ben had designed aspects of the building and presented them to Tarmac, who kind of admitted they used designs just like his – umm, they owe him IMO.) Lin and I watched Prometheus, the Alien prequel, at the flicks, and I spent time in Cheltenham’s only internet café downloading stories. I am this year’s short-fiction judge of the Helen Whittaker Prize and the first of six rounds came in.

I can only find the time to write this because I have now finished reading all the first round stories of the Whittaker. I take great pleasure (and a fee) for judging this competition. Most of the writers are in The Write Idea forum and are all very good. It wouldn’t be fair to discuss details here but although it takes a lot of time to score their stories and write a critique for each one, it is worth the effort. I try to be as objective as possible and there is a scoring grid, but even so another person would likely come to different numbers. Best of luck with the other rounds to all of them.

update among other things

So much is happening: final proofreading ARIA; finding images and working with Kim McDougall of Blaziing Trailers, to create a video trailer for ARIA; working on final proof with Dave Haslett of ideas4writers of a 50 page booklet on how to win short story competitions; reading like mad for the Chestesr SF Book Group in the library today; and and and.

One of the pleasurable ‘ands’ is to mention Ben Bamber’s new novella, Super Red. It’s target is teen to adult readers of science fiction and thrillers with a message. Ben is philosphical and so his books and story make you think. Fair enough. Buy his Super Red from the link on the book’s page at http://www.vagabond-unlimited.co.uk/#!super-red Just imagine the sun going nova before it should. Suppose you have a year or so before the Earth becomes subsumed by the sun’s expansion. What would you do? Apocaluyptic and yet there is positive thinking in there too.

Two calls

Ben Bamber has many talents. Remember he has a  story in the Escape Velocity anthology. For many years Ben has been intellectually involved in the need for our society to be more self-sufficient and environmentally  aware. He has contributed articles and reviews to architect journals on the topic.  Now he has started a website devoted to not only raising awareness but to prepare us for action in the event of  possible  futures.  You just might  have the right stuff to contribute to Ben’s  website to help with this mission. Check out http://www.futuretowns.com/

On a similar theme, the journal Futures is seeking science fiction short stories that help us to consider possible scenarios for business and society. Dr Gary Graham sent me the following:

FUTURES

Special Issue:

Exploring
Future Business Visions Using Creative Fictional Prototypes

Edited:                        Dr. Gary Graham, Leeds University
Business School

Prof.
Vic Callaghan, Essex University School of Computer Science and Electronic
Engineering

Dr.
Anita Greenhill, Manchester Business School

Call for Papers

Although the guest
editors share the premise of legendary Science Fiction (SF) writer Isaac Asimov
(In Joy Still Felt, 1980, Doubleday) that predicting the future is a losing game,
Brian David Johnson’s books (Science Fiction
Prototyping: Designing the Future with Science Fiction[1] (Morgan & Claypool,
2011)) & Screen Futures (Intel Press, 2010) offer a revised vision of the
future of management theory/practice in which fictional creations shape
tomorrow’s world of technological innovation. Johnson introduced the concept of
science fiction prototyping in CS’10 “The
1^st International Workshop on Creative Science: Science Fiction
Prototyping for Engineering and Product Innovation” (Kuala Lumpar, 19 July
2010). The SF prototyping process creates science fiction based on science fact
with two main goals. First SF prototypes advance the development of business by
envisioning the impact of future science or technology on people, culture and
wider systems. The second goal of SF prototypes is to offer a possible
management vision for the future that is based on science and reason. This idea
of creating art from science (and vice versa) is not new to the Futures
readership, but there is a need for management theorists to begin directing
their intellectual focus away from predicting the future and to start
developing business visions for all our futures. Therefore the purpose of this
special issue is to invite high quality papers which explore the use of
fictional creations to motivate and direct research into new business visions
and applications (e.g. new products, designs, concepts, identities, brands,
business models, value chains, strategic environments and lifestyles). In
particular we call for science fiction prototyping articles which first,
develop a fictional short story or a series of short vignettes based on an
existing business concept(s) and second, present future theoretical
propositions and applications. Some examples of Science-Fiction Prototypes
(mainly from the science and engineering domain) can be found at
http://www.creative-science.org. It is our intention that the peer-reviewed SFPs
published in this special issue of Futures will consist of futuristic scenarios
written by authors drawn from a diverse set of disciplines including: business,
architecture, humanities, creative arts, media production (films & games)
plus science and engineering. We aim to make the special issue a central
imaginative interdisciplinary facility in exploring potential managerial
futures.

Topics:

We welcome
contributions from a diverse set of disciplines ranging, for example, from business,
through humanities to the sciences. Our only proviso is that the stories should
have an obvious connection between the subject matter and how it shapes future
business models. We are less interested in evolutionary changes and more
interested in ideas than may radically transform the business vista. However,
that said, we also are looking for stories that are plausible, and grounded in
rationality.

Submission guidelines:

Deadline for
submission: 29^th February 2012.

Please email your
submissions to g.graham@leeds.ac.uk; vic@essex.ac.uk; a.greenhill@mbs.ac.uk

Clearly mark on your
email subject “FUTURES SUBMISSION”

Author guidelines for
your manuscript presentation can be found at the following web address:

http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/30422/authorinstructions

---

[1] Refer to the Graham
forthcoming review in the Times Higher Education Supplement, August 12, 2011.

UPDATE**  article on the BBC News site about the above Intel Tomorrow Project – still use the contact via Gary Graham

The Bridport Reject Collective

My nephew, Ben Bamber, has published a new ebook, which is available to download  here:   There is a free 20% sample and then it costs $2.00 (about a quid), so please go  and check it out. You can read it on pretty much any format, including a Kindle,  or if you don’t have an e-reader then you can read it online as an HTML document  or even download as a word file and then print it off! Please add the above link  to any of your facebook, linkedin, or blogs etc. The more links the  better.

His intriguing short story on alien abduction, Caitlin Invisible, told from the point of view of a young girl, is in there. It was the best story of that category submitted to us at Adventure Books of Seattle for the Escape Velocity anthology – see here.

In this anthology of Ben’s, my favourite is Dark Day in which a kind of black hole appears in a UK town. Far from being a science fiction story, the truth unravels to be darker, and again features a child. Ben is emminently qualified to create noir yet meaningful tales relating to childhood and the mysterious. Well worth a pound, worth more.

Escape Velocity: The Anthology

The anthology of best and new stories submitted to Adventure Books of Seattle’s Escape Velocity magazine is nearing fruition. Last night I finished proofreading 35 stories for the anthology. Not all will be used in it because some are now rather dated and we want the publication to excite readers with its brilliance. Names you might know that are in it are in random order:

Rebecca Latyntseva, Ian Whates, Rosie Oliver, Robert Harkess, William C McCall, Clyde Andrews, Gayle Applegate, David Tallerman, Brian Koscienski and Chris Pisano, Mark Lewis, Gareth D Jones, Joshua Blanc, Gavin J Carr, David Wallace Fleming, Karl Bunker, Sheila Crosby, Ben Bamber, Branden Johnson, Barbara Krasnoff, Ian Smith, Tina M Crone, Bec Zugor, Barry Pomeroy, Lawrence Buentello, Richard Jay Goldstein, Paul Freeman, Adam Colston, Kaolin Fire, Derek Rutherford, and a couple of stories from me and Robert Blevins. Hopefully, we can squeeze in a cartoon by Roberta Gregory too.

We have March 17th as a release date. That may be optimistic but best to have goals. The stories range from edgy noir near future, to struggling on a space rock, weird stuff in future in-ear audio devices to how can a child-bride save herself, both from a violent husband and the psychiatrist. I am exuberant over this anthology. It’s taken a lot of time and work – the nearest an editor gets to giving birth – in a literary sense!

New pals at NewCon5

I’ve just returned from NewCon5 in Northampton – a convention for lovers of science fiction. I had a nice long chat at what in many conventions are called Kaffeeklatsche (German – sort of – for a coffee chat about almost anything with Paul Cornell: author of many SF books and graphic comics including Dr Who novels, Captain Britain, and the recent Young Avengers series. I had a good chat with Jaine Fenn, successful author of Principles of Angels. We discussed the possibility of Adventure Books of Seattle (I am the British branch) being a distributor of Sam Stone’s books. Also with Juliet McKenna, who has graciously accepted to read my Xaghra’s Revenge novel with a view to endorsing it. I have an endorsement for it already from Jon Courtenay Grimwood, who was born in the Maltese Islands where the novel is set.

While there it was a pleasure to meet up with old friends such as Ian Whates. who organised the successful NewCon, and with others such as Sam Stone, her publisher, Terry Martin, and with my old friend, Terry Jackman of the BSFA Orbiters. It was my pleasure to read and review a pre-published version of Sam Stone’s Demon Dance. Also from BSFA (British Science Fiction Association) Orbiters but whom I’d not met in person before, was Robert Harkess and his wife. Robert is a skillful writer and has helped me with critiques of many of my short stories. At the con was Northampton’s jester, Kevin Burke, on his modern bendy stilts. Always a friendly chap – remember he was with me at NewCon4 helping me sell Exit, Pursued by a Bee. Which reminds me that it was a pleasure to hear Robert Harkess say he’d just finished reading Exit on his Kindle. Excellent!

On my train homeward journey I’ve been planning the science fiction workshop session I am doing with the Llandudno Writers’ group. I did a session with them earlier in the year on how to win short story competitions. A creative and appreciative bunch they are too. Brian Lux, writer of excellent children’s stories, is my contact with them.

My nephew, Ben Bamber, is in the papers again. His dystopic novella, The Vast and Gruesome Clutch of Our Law is now out as an ebook at the innovative site, Smashwords, and an article about it has appeared in the Gloucestershire Echo.  The text of the piece is on the Echo’s site here.

Another link for you is my review of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale at Compulsive Reader. Is it Science Fiction? I don’t think so: just because a story is set in the future it doesn’t make it SF automatically unless the change in the future features intrinsically. Nevertheless. I enjoyed reading the book. My review.

Pleasurable busy-ness

Besides the enormous gratification of helping my wife to look after our grandson every Tuesday, I’ve had my nose to the keyboard so much I have a permanent smell of plastic in my head. This month I’ve somehow managed to: Finish another edit of the second volume of my SF trilogy, Left Luggage. It’s with Rebecca Pratt, my US agent to tease publishers.

I’ve written a new short story, The Future and Up One, and had it critiqued at the BSFA Orbiters – thanks guys and gals for tough, fair and favoured notes. In return I’ve been critiquing their stories — inspirational, every one.

I’ve started content-editing a fascinating novel based in China and New Zealand by Michael S Fletcher.  Michael, like me was a former client of the sham literary agent, Christopher Hill. We Beyond Hill writers like to help each other out.

My nephew, Ben Bamber, wrote an insightful futuristic thriller a few years ago and available on the web – The Vast And Gruesome Clutch of Our Law. Great title, and now he’s transposed it into a screenplay, and I’ve been editing that. Brian Withecombe, another former Hill agent, has also given advice on it based on his own experience of writiing screenplays. 

I’ve read and advised on a synopsis and first three chapters of a hilarious chicklit novel, Babes and Balls by Kate McCann  – another survivor of shamed literary agent, Christopher Hill. Kate isn’t the same woman whose daughter was tragically abducted in Portugal, but a writer living in the Wirral, not far from me in Chester.

Now I have a small window to write an article for Kalkion, an online SF and horror ezine who have been serializing my SF novel – Exit, Pursued by a Bee at http://kalkion.com/node/645

Good job it’s quiet Friday!