Award potential? Quick

I’ve just returned from a cycling marathon puffing up Welsh mountains visiting names such as World’s End, Heol Offa, Horseshoe Pass and Llangollen. A non-writing friend  in Coedpoeth, Wales, I dropped in unannounced, for a cup of tea en route was keen to tell me how much he enjoyed Escape Velocity: the anthology I’d given him a few weeks ago. He’s been reading SF for over 40 years and pressed upon me that it was by far the very best collection he’d ever read. Wow. I know I’d spent two years going through thousands of submissions, selecting the best from our Escape Velocity mag included. One of mine is in there to lower the standard but he liked that too. Then he said why not enter it for the BFS best anthology? I said I don’t think as editor that I am allowed… but perhaps another member of the BFS could.

Details: Escape Velocity: The Anthology contains stories from 40 contributors including Jaine Fenn, Sonny Whitelaw, Ian Whates, the controversial Rebecca Latyntseva, TTA’s Roy Gray, Rob Harkess, Catherine Edmunds, and so on. A mix of hard SF, time travel, thoughtful ponderings, a cartoon…

Published 8 April 2011 by Adventure Books of Seattle, (owned by Robert Blevins) edited by Geoff Nelder and Robert Blevins ISBN-13: 978-0982327197

or Kindle on Amazon see http://amzn.to/H04ZqB

pub website http://adventurebooksofseattle.com/

Between you and me I’d hoped that by involving 40 writers that they would have bought copies for themselves and friends but few have done so. It really is an excellent collection and even though I plugged it here and there a lone voice isn’t enough. If you are a member of the BFS I would be very grateful if you would consider nominating our Escape Velocity: The Anthology (31 March 2012 deadline -  aaarrgh)  http://www.britishfantasysociety.co.uk/british-fantasy-awards/

for the category of best anthology collection of short stories.

A vegetarian bike

I collected a new spare cycle from a bike shop yesterday.
Mainly it will be my son riding it when he’s over from Nottingham. We can then
go for some all-day touring together. I’ve a Dawes Super Galaxy at home – great
but pricey to have a clone so I ordered its younger sister, a Dawes Vantage.
The man in the bike shop said, “I can swap the default saddle for a Brookes
quite cheaply.”

I said, “No thanks, the Brookes is made of leather and I’m a
veggie.”

“No problem,” he said, “but what about other stuff on the
bike that is made from animals?”

“There isn’t anything,” I said, wondering if maybe there was
some lanolin in a lubricant.

“Ah,” he said, pointing at the handlebars. “The tape.”

“But… but they’re cork.”

“Yes,” he said, with a smile showing he’d scored.

I waited a minute to see if the penny would drop by itself,
but when it didn’t I had to say, “Cork is tree.”

How do you refrain from smiling in such circumstances?

I rode the new bike home. Marvelous, it goes much faster than my 4-year-old and twice-as-expensive Super Galaxy. I’ll have to go back to that bike shop and ask him to make my older bike faster – even if the bike is a vegan!

***Update*** apparently  the stearic acid in tyres aren’t always vegetarian. However, all Michelin tyres are totaly vegan whether they are for cars or bikes. Well done, Michelin!

I’m looking forward to Brighton at the end of September. FantasyCon in on and I’m there for the weekend. I’ll be selling a few books – the Escape Velocity anthology, and Exit, Pursued by a Bee. Mainly I am there to meet so many writer friends such as Stephen Upham, and Sam Stone. I am hoping to arrive in time for the launch of Full Fathom Forty – an anniversary collection of off-beat fantasy stories that includes my own In Absentia. There is an information and PayPal link to buy the book here: http://www.britishfantasysociety.co.uk/news/full-fathom-forty/

The Amazon.co.uk page is here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Full-Fathom-Forty-David-Howe/dp/0953868133/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316592067&sr=8-1

And the Book Depository page is here: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Full-Fathom-Forty-David-Howe/9780953868131

Book Depository currently have it for £11.99, saving £4 on the cover price, plus FREE worldwide delivery

A handy way to display all my kindle books is here http://kindlegraph.com/authors/geoffnelder

Shame my Escaping Reality humorous thriller isn’t listed there but it available as a Kindle and other ebook formats at Smashwords here.

The Saturdays, and me

A good day, today. The Sugarbabes, Eliza Doolittle, The Saturdays, McFly and others are in Chester for the Chester Rocks festival, but I didn’t see any of them. Instead, I went to the beer garden of Alexanders in Rufus Court to enjoy a social event with fellow members of the Chester Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Group. In sunshine, we nattered about books, films, Rodney’s birthday, “The Cthulhuian Singularity,” and what we are currently reading.

At home I found an email from editor AJ French to point at a new review of the Monk Punk anthology in which I have a Don’t Point Your Finger… story. Here it is…

Pleasing comments in there from Jim, the blogger, on my
story.

Also today I heard that my short story, In Absentia, has been chosen for the British Fantasy Society’s 40^th anniversary anthology,  Full Fathom
Forty. In Absentia is about a man, who thought he was suffering from
amnesia but was really a little girl’s imaginary friend. It was awarded
Editor’s Pick for Horrorzine in January 2010, and was published in the Twice The
Terror collection edited by Jeani Rector in 2010. That anthology is
available here>>>

Fancy an ebook version  of my Hot Air thriller? Then whatever version of
ebook you want  it is  here. http://bramblingbooks.blogspot.com/2011/05/hot-air-geoff-nelder.html

Exit, Pursued by a Bee, my science fiction mystery novel  published by DDP is still selling. Get your print or ebook from links on my webpage here http://geoffnelder.com/exitbee.htm

British Fantasy Society

Hooray. thanks to Ally Bird and Stephen Theaker, there is a thread in the BFS forum – for writers and readers of fantasy and science fiction – for us authors to promo ourselves. In the past when a relatively unknown author tries to tell folk about their publications there are cries of spam and yahboo from jealous others. Now it is official and readers wanting to experience new authors and their works can do so.

The link is here to the BFS Ask an Author. If you are an author of speculative fiction I believe you can join in.

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.