Wednesday 2 August 2017

Update

So life got in the way of blogging.

Since my last post, The Science Thieves has been followed by another three books, which complete the story I was telling.

I haven't written another novel since ending the sequence. In part because I've been too busy with other things, but mainly it's a combination of not prioritising the writing and not being able to settle on something new to write.

Hopefully that will be changing soon - we'll see.

In the meantime, I've switched to another blog. This one is not about writing (at least not yet), but rather my place to review films and other things that I find of interest. So you can now find me at https://esmisc.blogspot.co.uk/.

Sunday 5 February 2012

Book Sale

Amazon have Grandma's House available for free for the next couple of days.

Monday 30 January 2012

The Science Thieves

This has been the work of several years (mostly procrastinating), so it's something of a relief to finally make it available on Kindle. And it has a cover that I didn't make by taking a close-up photo of a wooden fence (sorry Grandma's House, your secret's out).

Anyway, assuming I've managed to do this correctly, here's the cover.



Copies are available on the various Amazon sites (I'm too lazy to put in a link to every single one, but here's the UK one) The Science Thieves on Amazon UK

And the US one Amazon US

Sunday 19 June 2011

Comments

So I've turned moderation on for comments to this blog - too many spam comments. Just so you spammers know that you're wasting your time (although as all the comments seem to be in Japanese, I'm not sure that you'll understand this).

Anyway, while I was deleting them all (it's been a while since I was last using this blog, so there's been a bit of a backlog), I did come across one comment that was actually in English. Insulting, really not the sort of thing I want to read, but in English.

While I was tempted to censor it - I wouldn't have let it through if it had been referring to anyone else - I thought I'd let this one pass. It's the only one that will though - anyone else who wants to call me a moron can do it on their own blog. I have no problem with people wanting to disagree with me (although at least read what I write first before doing so (which dear Charlabrady seems to have failed to do (feel free to read and make up your own mind on that one though))) - but they can at least be polite about it.

The comment is under my post on The Road. I have to admit I did look up the user's blogger account - mainly because I wanted to check that it wasn't Cormac McCarthy's mother having a go at me for being less than effusive about her son's work. Judging by the time the account was set up, it looks as if it may have been set up purely to insult me. Maybe I should feel flattered.

First Kindle Book

So I decided to publish a book on Kindle.

Well to so much a book, it's five short stories. Not convinced it's worth the price (couldn't figure out how to get it on there for less than 70p ($0.99), but I suppose I spend about as much on a bag of crisps (potato chips (I'm in UK-US translation mode this evening (afternoon)) and I can finish those in less time than it takes to read even the shortest of the stories. So maybe it's not too much (and a lot less calories too).

A full-length novel will follow. Once I'm happy that I'm not going to completely embarrass myself by putting it out there.

Sunday 18 October 2009

Child of Fire

The front cover of Harry Connolly's Child of Fire has a recommendation by Jim Butcher and superficially it does read a bit like Butcher's Dresden files crossed with a Dean Koontz small town (not weird enough for one of Stephen King's Maine townships) and with a bit of F Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack thrown in for good measure.

I'd say describing that way perhaps does it a disservice, but I'd consider that a pretty decent mix - and rather than being a pale imitation of those writers, Connolly manages to put together a nicely crafted tale that, despite the comparisons, definitely feels like its own entity. Combining the urban fantasy genre with the small-town-America-horror genre gives Child of Fire a fairly unique flavour.

In terms of where it sits on the scale of urban fantasy, it's not up to the standards of Butcher - but I'd say there's little that is. It is better than most of the rest of the market though and considering it's a first novel, that's no mean feat. I've already recommended without reservation to one friend and have no hesitation in doing so again. I'm also looking forward to the follow-up novel and hope that we're going to get more of a glimpse into the world that's being set up in CoF as so far there's only been a fairly limited introduction to it - but what has been shown is certainly enough to peak my interest.

Definitely a series worth watching.