Escaping Reality

Escaping Reality was my first published novel coming out in July 2005. I knew little about publishing, and apparently less than I should about the art of writing. I was soon given pages of typos, although I didn’t regard some of them as such. My wayward brain has a lot to answer for. Anyway, Adventure Books of Seattle have decided the story is adventurous enough for them to use and have released it today as a Kindle ebook.

The artwork is by John F Keane

The story is inspired by the 1960s TV series THE FUGITIVE starring David Janssen only set in Northern England and Amsterdam. It is a humorous thriller as the fugitive often has to rely on his wit and sense of humour to overcome adversity.
For US Kindle owners http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CWOU3YK
And in the UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/Escaping-Reality-ebook/dp/B00CWOU3YK/

When originally published the Cumbrian Police raided several public houses in Maryport because the drug underground scene there is outlined in the book, even though the characters and story is ficitonal!

I’ll add links to the book’s story and pictures when I’ve updated my webpage. A taste of it is here http://www.geoffnelder.com/ERinfo.htm

Acracknophobia by Mark Jackman

Acracknophobia: The Sid Tillsley Chronicles Book 3 by Mark Jackman

Sid, whose fist is its own vampire slayer, has gone soft for the sake of a woman. This is disastrous news for people and a relief for vampires, but how long will it last?

ISBN 978-1905091935

ASIM for Kindle B007IVM674

347 pages

LL-Publications 2012

Vampires and humans live in an uneasy peace, under an alliance called the Coalition – not that the public are aware, except those who are inadvertently taken as food. Some of the humans and vampire committee members get on well, but as in all such high-powered gatherings there is political infighting, human manoeuvring and subhuman shenanigans. In the previous two books, Sid and a few pals, living in the Northeast of England, drink Bolton Bitter beer and it seems this empowers their anti-vampire abilities. Book Three, in typical hilarity, sees a scientific analysis of the lowest order and we are ultimately treated to an explanation of how Bolton Bitter has such magical powers.

Before then the book opens with an unexpected first chapter. We have a rare creature – King – a half-breed vampire, who is more into music and burgers than arteries. He is as welcome a break from the usual vampire as Sid is to vampire slayers. The opening chapter, like all the chapters, leave the reader hooked, eager to devour the next. Shortly after we meet King, we are driving along the M56 with his hard-nosed dad, Borg, a ruthless vampire, whose very existence makes this book cold to the touch. I mention the M56 because I know it well, being my local road (when not cycling – I get shouted at otherwise) and Borg is going toMiddlesbrough, where my first publisher lives. So many connections to my own life in this book makes me nervous.

With Sid what you get is more than what you see. He’s a giant of an unpolitical uncouth man with a big heart and a vampire-deadly fist offering readers a continuation of his unique character. You can’t help liking him even if you’d cross the city to avoid meeting him on a dark night. Sid wouldn’t hurt a fly, unless it sucked blood. With King we have a completely new dimension in species-related literature. Fascinating.

In some ways this is a more thoughtful novel than the first two. Loose ends need to be tied up. Fear not you fans of Sid, your ribs will ache with mirth as he is obliged by his new fiancée to attend homophobic-adjustment sessions to modify his attitude to ‘them lot’, and alcoholics anonymous, which he understands not at all being as Bolton Bitter is not so much a problem as a solution. These counselling sessions go against Sid’s persona but without them there would be no ‘Howay the lads’ with Sheila Fishman and her alluring jugs. His feelings go deeper than mere looks. As she steps out of car ‘both of Sid’s cold feet warmed up’. What a great romantic line. Seriously.

Sid’s homophobia takes a hefty knock when the counsellor informs the group that even some penguins are gay. Sid eyes, suspiciously, the chocolate wrappers on the table and asks, ‘Is it catching?’ Sadly for Sid the Miner’s Arms is now The First Swallow of Spring and so he’s not wanting to grace an establishment of ‘them lot’.

The efforts of people to solve the mysteries in Book Three that were presented in the first two books takes us into partially familiar analysis. Arthur: ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbably, must be the truth.’

‘That’s deep, man. Is that some sort of quote?’

‘Aye…Colombo.’

Each chapter ends with a hook just as each starts with a pity media quote – a commentary to the whole gory story. It’s a mystery, a wonderment, how Jackman kept track of the twists and body count. Not even the most teeth-sharpened vampire aficionado will be able to guess how this one ends. I commend this book to all readers of both humour and vampire genres. Enjoy.

 

Purchase from the publisher. Or from Amazon and other book sites, or order from bookshops.

Snake Eyes by Joseph D’Lacey

The award-winning writer of that jaw-dropping horror book, Meat, has released two novellas in one book – ebook. Grab it today!

Snake Eyes by Joseph D’Lacey

Ebook and paperback

 

File Size: 552 KB

Print Length: 139 pages

Publisher: Crossroad Press & Bad Moon Books Digital Edition edition (April 12, 2012)

Sold by: Amazon Digital Services

Language: English

ASIN: B007TW8N60

ISBN-13: 978-0-9837799-7-1

If there is a New Wave science-horror-fiction sub-genre then Snake-Eyes would be its cutting edge. The reader is treated to a smorgasbord of hallucinatory ideas with a logical surprisingly sane spine. Joseph D’Lacey can write grisly horror as demonstrated in the acclaimed Meat novel but the tone, while horrific and nightmarish is more subtle. Robert Johnson is a family man, trying to be successful at his accountancy career, or is that his narcotics enforcer job, but then where has his family gone? Not to worry, they exist – in a fashion. Starting with giant spiders the arachnid theme travels either just behind or in front of Johnson through the tiers of his existence. Keeping with the spiders, this story is a web of ideas that will pull you along, screaming, puzzled but with an eventual resolution.

D’Lacey writes horror with a literary pen. I wish I’d thought of ‘a parting of minds’. He also is a master of sensory Show, using senses of smell and touch to excellent effect. Good to note too that his characters react to those sensory experiences.

Spoiler warning: I’ve read many generation ship stories, but none quite like this one. From Harry Harrison’s Captive Universe, Brian Aldis’ Non-Stop and many others are enjoyable takes on the theme and often you wonder how a contemporary writer can find a new angle. This story has. And for those collectors of zombie tales, this isn’t one. There are former humans that become animated known as revenants, but they learn to run after Johnson and we all know that zombies can’t run.

There’s a shorter bonus story bundled with Snake Eyes – A Trespasser in Long Lofting that explores what happens when a well-endowed demon crashlands in your neighbourhood. A tale of tremendous and lascivious fun.

Review of Alternative Reality News Service: Luna for the Lunies.

Alternate Reality News Service, Luna for the Lunies by Ira Nayman

The third in the Alternate Reality News Service books, and in which this reviewer’s LOL muscles were exercised in at least 11 dimensions and two universes.

Published by CreateSpace, 2012   274 pages

ISBN: 978-1470053734 for paperback

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/126271 for ebook of various formats.

Reviewed by Geoff Nelder

ARNS: Luna for the Lunies by Ira Nayman

In the spirit of alternate reality I am starting near the end. Bear in mind that this isn’t just a humorous book, it is absolutely hilarious in its own bizarro fashion. Each chapter is an alternate something. You might expect eco textbooks to have chapter headings as in this book such as Alternate Technology and Alternate Politics, but not an Alternate Glossary. How many other books have a glossary boasting that the words are NOT those you’d find in the book! Hilarious. One item to tickle your alternate eye might be – Parallelogramme (noun): a telegram from a parallel universe.

 

Between the ten chapters is a longer story – The Reality Threshold – which teases readers with insights into the manic workings of the Alternate Reality News Service office and its staff. I like this because one of the few problems with short story / article collections is the lack of a main character with whom the reader can connect. With this interwoven story we get to know Brenda Brundtland-Govanni, her six feet six height and pink sundress, and engage with her desires.

 

As fans of the earlier ARNS books would expect there are zany inventions and what-ifs that strangely are just an extension to the logic and practice of what happens already. So many times, I read something Nayman invents and think – so obvious, why hasn’t it already been done? Why haven’t I thought of it first? A few examples: a computer program that enacted via search engines trawls the world to erase everything about the target individual. Innocuous? Not in the hands of Ira Nayman – the holes in the internet grow… Then there are the alternate gadgets: the Teen Annoyance Reduction; Aural Confusinator; fridges that send messages not only to the authorities re: the unhealthy contents, but to fridges in other cities, for a natter.

 

As a climate aficionado and lover of stochastic phenomena, I am particularly fond of the international havoc caused by the discovery and attempts to capture in China (and sell) the individual butterfly whose effect will create a hurricane in the US.

 

There are many more incidents and phenomena in this book that challenge conventions, crease that smile and raise an eyebrow, but there is an academic piece that intrigued me. Theories on humour have interested me for years, as it has for philosophers, psychologists and comedians. Are all jokes based on someone’s misfortune as Bob Monkhouse claimed? So, my eyes pricked up when I read a reference to Aristotle, as I knew he had written on Comedy in his Poetics tomes. Did Ira Nayman elaborate on incongruity theory of comedy, superiority, or relief theories? Nearly. An intelligent argument explores why jokes lose their humour with time. He comes up with a formula: the half-life of a joke is proportionate to its relationship to popular culture. His exemplar is to quote a 2,300-year-old joke he found in one of Aristotle’s lost books on comedy. It isn’t funny anymore. Why? His ruminations take us into the latest science. No less than the Large Hadron Collider, which on smashing sub-atomic particles reveals an emission discovered to be humour. It degrades via black holes to another dimension. Hence some old jokes are no longer funny because their humour is rib-tickling people in another dimension, or a parallel universe. Makes sense to me. Or as Nayman has it, the universe has the last laugh. Just maybe not this universe.

 

There’s far more than I can mention in this review, such as when apostrophes go’’’’’’ berserk; and fly-through fast food outlets for witches leave pedestrians running for cover from litter falling at terminal velocity.

 

As always, Ira Nayman, crosses my reality threshold at 90 mph and leaves me laughing, thoughtful, inspired and enriched even if no wiser. I strongly recommend his Alternate Reality News Service to readers in all dimensions and universes.

 

A Fistful of Rubbers

A Fistful of Rubbers: The Sid Tilsley Chronicles – Book Two
Mark Jackman
Reviewed by Geoff Nelder

In an apparent contradiction of the title, there are surprising moments of philosophy and political intrigue here that no aficionado of vampire literature should ignore.

Paperback: 312 pages
Publisher: Logical-Lust (14 Nov 2010)
ISBN-13: 978-1905091584

I have been reading vampire stories for decades but it is only in more recent years that the genre has sprung a leak in conventions. New myths were generated by Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1897 followed meekly by many writers. For example he invented the notion that vampires have no reflections, can be killed by a crucifix, warded off by garlic, and have to sleep in soil or a coffin. Jackman’s vampires snub such stereotypes though for dramatic effect he keeps with Stoker’s concept that vampires burn in sunlight.

In Book One: The Great Right Hope, many new and invigorating ideas were introduced such as the acknowledgment of vampire existence by some ‘normal’ people in authority and a Coalition created to govern this uneasy co-existence. Of course the excitement comes when vampires and humans break with the Coalition. The politics of such a dichotomy, introduced in Book One, is explored further in Book Two, but don’t worry, there is no chance of you falling asleep. The action of Sid’s right fist, supported by his Middlesbrough pals, and fuelled by Bolton Bitter beer, drives the story on its drunken, bruising and hilarious journey.

As we come to expect from Mark Jackman, there are ingenious and disturbing vamp-lit innovations. We learnt in Book One that Sid’s fists can dispose of a vampire, while normally only decapitation can. In Book Two, one of Sid’s drinking buddies, Brian Garforth, discovers that shagging his one-night-stand vampire lover, the most beautiful female on Earth, turned her to ash, making his jizz a more hazardous substance than a wooden stake. A fact leading to the eponymous title, A Fistful of Rubbers after a scientist invented a kind of condom six-gun. Another surprise is that vampire fathers often die in childbirth. Yes, you heard me correctly, but I’ll let you read the rather touching reason when you read the book yourself. A bizarre yet intriguing novelty is when an uncontrollable beast of a vampire, Gunnar Ivansey, confesses his evil deeds to a priest. Fascinating.

In this sequel, Sid’s fist remains mighty but the man himself is troubled. The Miner’s Arms is closed (temporarily, don’t fret), forcing the lads to discover new drinking emporiums forcing them to encounter people of differing sexual preferences creating extreme discomfort and shame, Worse, the political factions impinge on Sid and his friend in ways obliging them to retaliate. There’s much more.

This sequel is more intellectual than Book One with its political and philosophical shenanigans, but fear not, Sid and his pals will always see you right.

Any fan of Sid Tilsley in The Great Right Hope will be uplifted and rightly beasted by A Fistful of Rubbers.
Purchase from Amazon UK