Good news for a good friend

I am absolutely delighted to be able (finally) to announce that my goof friend and mentor, Terry Jackman, has landed a book deal for her novel 'Ashamet'

Terry runs the Orbit writers groups, organised by the BSFA, and has been instrumental in getting my writing to the point where it does not look like the output of a gifted four-year-old. I first read her book about four years ago, and thought then it needed to be published.

Well done, Terry :D

Matt Smith to Leave Doctor Who

Or so it was announced yesterday by the BBC. Now some will think I am going to be bouncing up and down with glee at this, as I've been a little vocal in my lack of support for the current era, but I'm not. I'm actually disappointed.

See, in my humble (stop laughing) opinion, Matt Smith could have been one of the Great Doctors, but he's been let down by poor choice of companions, poor scripts, and this utterly abysmal thing that's crept in about short, broken up series.

One of the things I really cant get my head around is how Moffat and Gatiss can do such a jaw-droppingly great job on 'Sherlock', yet consistently get it so wrong with Doctor Who. It is almost as though they had too much on and didn't concentrate on it. Wonderful sidekicks have been shockingly ignored - I would love to have seen a spin-off Steampunk-esque series with our favourite Victorian crime-fighting trio :) - and there has been a constant theme of ending through the last series, as well as a very poor choice of companion in Jenna-Louise Coleman.

What I am now afraid of is that we have entered another period of terminal decline (if that makes any sense) in Doctor Who, much as we did with Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy.

I hope not.

Review: Urban Occult(ed Colin F Barnes)

Horror is not my bag, yet. I’m still learning. I know enough to realise I don’t like spatter-gore, or horror that involves detailed explanation of the removal of body parts. Fortunately – for me -  Urban Occult, edited by Colin F Barnes and published by Anachron Press, has no truck with this type of horror.

Urban Occult is focused very much more on what I call (probably erroneously)  psychological horror, or Hitchcockian horror. It’s less blatant, less in your face, and more situational, suggestive.

I won’t pretend that I liked every story. I questioned the inclusion of a couple, and simply didn’t get a couple more, and some I thought were well written, but not particularly horrific. The majority, though, are snappy, compelling, and thought-provoking.

The anthology covers everything from creepy golem-children, through a people eating house, to moving tattoo jigsaw. In fact, Pieces by Julie Travis, for which the latter is the subject, is one of the outstanding stories of the collection. 

Other specific mentions are hereby awarded to James Brogden for The Remover of Obstacles  and The Strange Case of Mrs West and the Dead by Sarah Anne Langton

For me, though, Wonderland by K T Davies was the scream of the crop. Yes – I did mean to just that word. Wonderland skirts the edges of insanity and fantasy, both urban and classic, and kept me up far too late finishing it off.

Whilst I reviewed this anthology in return for an e-book copy provided by the editor, my comments are fair and impartial, Even so, I still recommend this book as a fine read.

Craft Fair in Solihull Wednesday May 1st

This is a bit out of my normal patch, but a very good friend of mine will be in the craft market so anybody who is in the area should drop along and keep and eye out for 'Crafty Miss Kitty'

Long time no post

Its been an interesting few weeks. Seems my partner's coping strategy for me no longer being in gainful employ is to find massive home improvement jobs for me to do on top of being a House Husband :) I'm not bitter. It all needs doing and I've probably been avoiding it.

Also, I've been working on a secret project, which has just come to a very successful and satisfactory conclusion - but I can't tell you anything about it. Well then it wouldn't be secret, would it :)

One thing I would like to tell you about is 'Human.4' by Mike A Lancaster, which I finished reading last night.

There seem to be fewer books that I feel stand out from the crowd, but there is something about 'Human.4'. It might be that its a really good 'boy book'. That's not to say that it wouldn't appeal to girl readers, but its unusually short, ultra-fast paced, and very well laid out. I had to fight not to read it in one sitting. Indeed, YALSA recommended it as a 'Quick Pick for Reulctant Young Adult Readers', and I wholeheartedly agree.

As usual, I'm not going to tell you anything about the book. Very difficult to do so without letting out a spoiler when a story is as compact as this.

I gave it five stars on Goodreads - which I haven't awarded for some time - and thoroughly recommend it, especially for boys 12 and up.

All change, please

A huge change is sailing resolutely towards the iceberg of my life. All right, its not like I didn't know it was coming - I was told I was being made redundant more than three months ago. Its just that its happening on Thursday (the day before Good Friday)

Now, I freely admit I am in a much better place than most in such a situation. My wife is still working, and we can continue to function on what she brings in for some time. So this leaves me with a decision I'm not sure I've made yet. What do I do now?

The traditional solution is, obviously, get a job. But the job market in IT is quiet, especially in mid-low management, and the last job kind of beat the enthusiasm for IT out of  me for a while. So it would be nice to take a break - if it weren't for the received wisdom that taking too long a sabbatical between role makes you more difficult to employ.

Change jobs? At my age the prospect of going back to being little more than an intern doesn't hold much charm.

Write? Full Time? [You'll have to imagine the pregnant pause, and the speculative look on the face]

Heck, its what I want to do. Right now I even have an interesting secret project in progress, and some cracking ideas that are begging to be outlined. I have two sequels I would like to right, and outlines for a 5-book Urban Fantasy series. I have enough 'work' to keep me writing for two years, even without a day job to get in the way.

I guess time will tell.

I know this is a very 'internal' post, but hey, isnt blogging all about sharing your thoughts? :)

New Short Story

Hi folks

Just a quick shout to tell everybody that my evil twin's short story "Eyes of the Child" is in SQ Mag, published  on Friday March 1.

The mag is free, so spin over to SQ Mag and register for your free Kindle or ePub copy now, or drop by any time Friday onwards to read this and other great stories online.