Category: Sci-fi

Reminder of Free eBook Offers Dates

Don’t forget the 3 books that are going to be FREE on Amazon in less than a week now. Here are the dates again:

24-28 June: Iron I: Too Bright the Sun
29 June-3 July: Unknown Place, Unknown Universe
2 July-6 July: Vampire: Beneficence

Please tell your friends, your neighbour, your parents, your neighbour’s dog – and the cat and hamster if they have one, and retweet or post on facebook and anywhere else you can think of if you like my work. Thanks!

20 April Updates – Preview of Iron 3

Here is this week’s sneak preview: it’s from the forthcoming sci-fi Iron: Volume III, provisionally entitled Worlds Like Dust. As usual I make no apologies for typos.

Copyright © 2013 by Lazlo Ferran
All Rights Reserved

She heard heavy footsteps approaching. She took two grenades and pressed the sequence. Two red lights flashed at her. She waited until the counter said ‘1 second’, peered around the corner and threw them. The Ischians seemed surprised. Four of them stopped in their tracks, the rearmost already holding a wounded arm. They were all stooping to stop the top of their helmets scraping the ceiling. One of them dropped to his knees, as if praying. Then they were gone, in a mist of biomium spacesuit and fur-covered flesh.
Davidos had a momentary feeling of enuit. She shook her head, and ran past the body parts and bloody walls, towards the battle. She drew her laser and let the barrel lead her down the corridor. When she arrived, Dittmer and one other grunt were battling the last Ischian. It was kneeling in a pile of gore. Its normally grey suit was bright orange.
‘Sixteen grenades to a box – that’s twelve grenades. They can’t have used them all!’ Davidos thought. Dittmer and the grunt ignored her and pumped endless bursts of laser-fire into the suit of the alien, but the suit absorbed it all. They would be dead but for the alien having a blocked breach on his laser. ‘Probably overheated,’ Davidos thought. It heard her footsteps and heard her coming. It looked almost pitiable as she pressed the sequence and threw the last grenade. It raised its arms in surrender just before it disappeared into alien oblivion.
“What the fuck happened to the crate of grenades!” she said over the intercom.
“We were overwhelmed. There was at least twenty of them!” Dittmer retorted.
“Okay. Okay. Back to Dock 3.”
At the dock the two soldiers left guarding the hatch, were leaning against the wall. “They’re not coming out! Either they can’t. Or won’t!”
“Alright. What now Lieutenant Davidos?” asked Dittmer.

Other News
I have been very busy this week, editing a fantasy novel for another writer; The Journals of Raymond Brooks. It’s the first paid editing I have done. If anybody wants my editings skills on their own novel, my rates are on the page with a link to the right. I am making good progress on Iron III and work has also started on designing the cover for my forthcoming WWII action novel, called Attack Hitler’s Bunker!

12 April Updates -Another Sneak Preview

Sneak Preview
Here is this week’s sneak preview. Well, it’s not really a sneak preview, but a free excerpt from the newly reworked and published The Jesus Monster. It has a lot more tension now and a better twist at the end.

A hand grabbed my wrist. It was horrible tight. I looked, and it was the stranger.
‘Oh no! Not again’, I thought.
“You must leave! Just go … Any place!”
I pulled my arm free. “But I can’t! I have a sister!”
“It doesn’t matter. She probably has it already,” the stranger said, seeing my fear.
“It’s the bug, isn’t it? But what can we do?” I asked, desperate. “We don’t want to just die! And if we do, there will be nobody left!”
He looked me straight in the eye. “Kill me! You must. I don’t want to live anyway. As a priest, committing murder is the worst thing I could do.”
I shook my head and turned to leave.
“Wait!” he shouted. “You must do this. One of you might survive, and there will be others. Eventually two people who cannot bare to kill each other might survive! Or the virus might die, or leave!”
“No!” Continue reading “12 April Updates -Another Sneak Preview” →

Weekly Updates – Sneak Preview of Iron III

Each week I am going to be posting updates on my current projects. I am also going to try to post a sneak preview of one of the projects here. Copyright and IPR these days is complex so I will only be posting very short sections and I may have to delete them when the work is published. I make no mistake for any errors or typos: these are going to be first drafts. Below you will find the first sneak preview – from Iron III, provisionally entitled Worlds Like Dust.

Don’t forget the Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate puzzle competition in the post below.

Sneak Preview of Iron III: Worlds Like Dust

If you have read Iron II: Unknown Place, Unknown Universe, you will know the character of A-schian’bakî as the Captain of the Ischian space-battleship Lu-kshîa.

Worlds Like Dust
Copyright © 2013 by Lazlo Ferran
All Rights Reserved.

Commander of the Fleet and Commander of Earth, A-schian’bakî was not in a good mood. She left the bridge and as she stepped out of the lift onto the 53rd deck, she kicked a lowly corporal in the hind-legs, sending him sprawling across the biomium floor. This was one of the privileges of rank that she had rarely exercised, but now she found the sadistic pleasure somewhat made up for the loss in battle of her favourite sexual toy. Continue reading “Weekly Updates – Sneak Preview of Iron III” →

Latest project updates – Iron Book III

So What Have I Been Doing?

You are probably wondering what the lazy Lazlo geeza has been doin’. I haven’t posted for a while. There is the excuse that I have been writing furiously. As you will see below, it has been a very creative period. However, now that I am writing full-time, I will endeavor to post at least once per week. On this blog you will find information about the latest project developments, and even some sneak-previews of what is to come.

Current project updates:

Ordo Lupus Series – there are currently no plans for a Part 3

Iron Series: Part 3, now (still provionally) titled ‘Worlds Like Dust’:

I am about 1/3 through the first draft. As I will probably post here about in the near future, the focus of the plot is evolving as I evolve as a writer. I have left off it for a while while I settle on a plot line that will satisfy me, and hopefully the reader. Continue reading “Latest project updates – Iron Book III” →

The Sparrow, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I have been in Spain for almost 3 weeks – just soaking up the sun really and doing what I do best – philosophy. Okay, okay so I know the saying: a philosopher is someone who has abandoned (left?) their community. But I rarely get time to think properly so it was nice to have some time. Plus Spain at this time of year is gorgeous and …. NOT RAINING.

I did manage to squeeze in some reading: The Lost Road by Tolkien (well, by Chris Tolkien as much as John, but nevertheless an interesting take on Atlantis), A Spanish/English Dictionary and phrase book (yep- I plan to retire there so I have to learn), The Sparrow and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

Not sure if I will get both the latter reviews down tonight but I want to say something so I will give it a go.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson

I must admit, I have a big problem with this book. I have many smaller problems and I will start with those: first of all I found myself on page 5 and still not really engaged. I was no wiser what the premise of the story was until around page 100! I had to keep rereading the back cover to remind myself why I had got suckered into trying it. Basically loads of people had recommended and of course it sells very well, so being an author, I wanted to see what this guy had got. I soldiered on but when I came to a bit which said (and I am writing this from memory because I simply don’t want to open the book again): ‘She pulled him down to her breasts. Then she asked him if he wanted to stay the night.’ I threw the book down in disgust. “Women just don’t say that!” I shouted at my apartment walls. There was much worse to come and while the main protagonist’s mistress was a dominatrix editor and super-stunning (apparently) she seemed to be a docile sop in bed. I just couldn’t buy it. I had to literally force myself to read on because several times I felt sick at the stupid misogyny that seemed to fester within these dark pages. Every woman in the book seemed to either suffer an extremely unpleasant and violent death or cause one. I was nervous for Lisbeth – the eponymous character of the book’s title, thinking that she too would meet some awful, sticky end and I won’t give the plot away by revealing her fate. I also found that I guessed the main ‘twist’ in the tail of the story by page 120, although I was partly wrong. I was close enough to make reading the rest rather pointless but I soldiered on just so that I would qualify to write a review. How can I criticise if I haven’t read? Continue reading “The Sparrow, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” →

Sci-fi Author Ray Bradbury has Died. R.I.P.

Much loved Sci-fi author Ray Bradbury has died – probably best known for Farenheit 451.

From Wikipedia:

Bradbury is best known for his novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and his short-story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), and The October Country (1955). Other notable works include the coming of agenovel Dandelion Wine (1957), the dark fantasy Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) and the fictionalized memoir Green Shadows, White Whale (1992). He also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including Moby Dick and It Came from Outer Space. Many of his works were adapted into television and film productions as well as comic books. Bradbury also wrote poetry which has been published in several collections, such as They Have Not Seen the Stars (2001).