Category: Literary

Lotus: Can you escape from the Labyrinth?

This week: my new book, Lotus, a rant about Formula 1 and Who Killed JFK?

As promised, the title announces a new book, to be published in the next 2 weeks. If you receive the free newsletter, you will know what that book is.

My new book, Lotus
We have all seen the impossible staircase of M.C Escher; you know, the one where you go round and round but never go up or down? Escher’s Staircase was the working title of my new book. Here is my first stab at the blurb:

“Robert Lath dies in the trenches of World War One. But he wakes to find himself on a never-ending flight of stone steps. No matter how hard he tries, he cannot reach the top or bottom. Then a face appears and offers him a choice; a choice that might damn his soul.

A friar, helping a time-traveling werewolf, a merchant spaceman, a painter, a monk, a private detective and a Medieval knight all battle against illness, seemingly the result of a game with Satan, and human frailty to find salvation but are they all the same man? Continue reading “Lotus: Can you escape from the Labyrinth?” →

The Ice Boat FREE this weekend!

FREE! @ Amazon 14/6-16/6 The Ice Boat http://bit.ly/OqGsCT

The only reason anyone went out was to buy drinks in town. The tide of cans was always in on the studio floor.

With plenty of drugs, sex and rock and roll; The Ice Boat is a modern pop-culture odyssey. But more than this, it’s a serious book that doesn’t avoid the messy subjects of identity, sex and eroticism.

“I was absolutely engaged” “Surreal and engrossing story telling style.”

GRAB YOURS TODAY!

Inchoate available in Egypt and it’s FREE!

Short Stories Series (all use same cover)

Egypt or any part of Africa through Kobobooks.com, I am told. I need somebody in Egypt to test this.
https://store.kobobooks.com/en-gb/Search?Query=lazlo+ferran
nb: you will have to convert the book to .mobi using a free software programme called Calibra if you want to read them using a Kindle device.
If you have problems let me know by commenting or emailing me so that I can send you a workaround.

You can always find details of availability and updates on the Catalogue page of this website.

If you live in Egypt please can you test the Kobobooks source and get back to me?

What is the back-story behind your books?

This week: Here is the back-story behind my newly published volumes of The Ice Boat Volume II and The Ice Boat – 2 in 1. What is your back-story?

The Ice Boat
In the Lazlo Ferran Newsletter which went out to my friends last weekend, I announced the publication of the last volume of The Ice Boat and a 2 in 1 version, which includes both volumes in one book.

I published Volume I back in 2009. It is semi-autobiographical, largely anecdotal, and was the first novel I wrote, even further back, in 2003.

The Ice Boat is largely autobiographical, although certainly not for most of the erotic passages, which are many. It was written at a time in my life when I was frustrated by my own lack of wisdom; in particular my inability to be neither totally cynical nor optimistic. Perhaps because I had just moved from a life as a full-time musician to an IT professional within the science sector, I felt a little bit ‘dislocated’. Continue reading “What is the back-story behind your books?” →

How to get my stories into Arabic or Urdu?

I am becoming increasingly frustrated by the lack of translation services on the internet and the quality of those that do exist. For some time I have been gaining a disproportionately large number of fans in Egypt and India. I don’t know why this is, but that’s hardly the point. If these people are interested in me, then I want to publish something that is easy for them to read. In other words I want to publish in their languages: Urdu and Arabic.

You are probably thinking; what’s the point? If they understand English then they can read it and if not, why bother? Well, I just feel that they deserve it!

Until now I have used Google Translate – http://translate.google.com for twitter and Facebook posts. It’s okay for short posts but as everyone probably knows by now, it’s not great. If you have ever received spam from a fake Russian girl looking for a boyfriend you will know what I mean. The result is a sort of gobble-de-gook; a soup of phrases that overlap each other and mean little. I recently tried to translate a tweet into Chinese and then translate it back to see how good/bad it was. I had to make several attempts before I could get anything that retained even the basic meaning of what I was saying! Continue reading “How to get my stories into Arabic or Urdu?” →

Should your main character have flaws?

This week: Sneak Preview, news about an Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate promotion and: Why should your main character have flaws?

Why should your main character have flaws?
All of my main character (and thus protagonists) have flaws. In my earlier books I think it was just instinct that led me to this. In fact you could argue that for James Brennan in The Man Who Recreated Himself and King Vaslav in Infinite Blue Heaven the question of whether they are flawed or not is the main theme examined in the novels. James is perhaps naive and Vaslav is perhaps sexually weak, being a willing participant in incest, something not uncommon in the 17th century. In The Ice Boat, which is my first novel completed, it’s very obvious that David Dee is flawed; naive and confused by life. Physically he is in good health however, as are the other two characters mentioned. Continue reading “Should your main character have flaws?” →

Do your characters drive the story?

This week: 1. Do your characters drive the story? 2. Sneak Preview from The Ice Boat II.

Do your characters drive the story?

I am really enjoying writing my latest novel now (provisionally entitled December Radio) because I have reached the part where the story is writing itself. I no longer have to spend hours thinking about plot. I suppose you could say that I am at the beginning of the final act but it isn’t always this easy. Stories only write themselves – I think – when the characters are so well developed, that they make the decisions for you. Continue reading “Do your characters drive the story?” →

Romania and some of its Vampires Part 2

A great article on Romanian vampires and their names, by Mari Wells.

Abstract
”Moloi are Romanian vampire spirits. These vampires can only life if it eats human hearts. It’s created when one of its parents kills an illegitimate child. A girl is called Moloica.”

Mari Wells

Moloi

Moloi are Romanian vampire spirits. These vampires can only life if it eats human hearts. It’s created when one of its parents kills an illegitimate child. A girl is called Moloica.

Necurat

The Necurat or Orgoi means “accursed or “dishonest” in Romania. Romanians call all of their vampire creatures this. It’s believed using this name instead of a specific name will keep from calling the vampire to them.

Another name for Vampires in Romania is Baboana for females and Babon for males.

Baba Coajo

A vampire forest spirit in Romania is a bloodthirsty monster.
She’s described as half bear and half woman. Baba Coajo pronounced Baba Co-ya means the Old Woman of the Tree Bark. She’s also called “Queen of the Forest” and has total control over the evil within the woods.

She is very dangerous evil entity. She catches children who wander into the forest alone, or those…

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Expectation & Desire-Cultivating Fans, Not Just Readers

Great post from Kristen – any new writers should pay close attention.

Abstract
“Readers expect a good book. They expect proper grammar, punctuation and formatting that doesn’t look like it was performed by a sloth with a severe Valium addiction. These are basic, fundamental expectations…and they no longer impress people all that much.”

Kristen Lamb's Blog

We talked about this earlier in the week, but when I first approached agents with the idea of a social media book for authors, I was nearly stoned. All readers want is a good book, was their cry. Yes, that was true before our world inalterably shifted with The Digital Age.

In 1993, we didn’t expect an instant reply to a phone call. In 1996, we knew to just go make a cup of coffee while we waited for our dial-up Internet to load a page, because we didn’t expect for a page to appear in a fraction of a second.

In 1999, we didn’t expect our cell phones (the few who owned them) to take brilliant pictures, play music and offer us high-speed access to the Internet so we could make reservations for dinner, buy movie tickets, or do some Christmas shopping while stranded at the doctor’s office.

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