Category: SCIENCE FICTION

Too Bright the Sun, Caption Competition

Just a reminder: Love Blade Runner? Download the 5★ Science Fiction novel FREE NOW on Amazon until 7 May: https://bit.ly/102Xt92. It’s currently #845 in Amazon Free kindles and #10 in Science Fiction (see screen grab below). If you don’t have one already, make sure you download a copy!

Too Bright the Sun is now in the goodread lists: Best Military Science Fiction Books (listed #65) Can’t Wait Sci-Fi/Fantasy of 2014 (#96) and Best Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Fiction so if you have time, please vote for it here: https://www.goodreads.com/list/book/17664602 by clicking on the list name at bottom of page and then clicking on the ‘vote’ button beside the book title!

Competition
I am soon to release World Like Dust, the next part of the Iron Series. In this episode, the Stamford Torus space station, J5 (looking something like the illustration below) has to leave the Solar System under it’s own power as a final refuge of mankind. I think it should have a new name for this voyage so I want you to choose one. All you have to do is download a FREE copy of Too Bright the Sun, comment here AND share a Facebook post or a Twitter tweet to win the prize of a free copy of Worlds Like Dust. It will be published as two, novel length books so it is a prize worth winning! in addition, your name will be used in the published book and you will also get an acknowledgement at the beginning of the book. Continue reading “Too Bright the Sun, Caption Competition” →

Too Bright the Sun – FREE this weekend!

Love Blade Runner? Download the 5★ Science Fiction novel FREE on Amazon from Saturday 3 May until Wednesday 7 May: https://bit.ly/102Xt92. If you don’t have one already, make sure you download a copy!

Too Bright the Sun is now in the goodread lists: Can’t Wait Sci-Fi/Fantasy of 2014 and Best Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Fiction so if you have time, please vote for it here: https://www.goodreads.com/list/book/17664602 by clicking on the list name at bottom of page and then clicking on the ‘vote’ button beside the book title!

Too Bright the Sun: “Engaging” “Thought provoking” “A good sci-fi battle romp” “The writing style is unusual”
This book has been compared with the work of Phillip K Dick, who wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the book that became the film Blade Runner.

You will find a link to my main page about Too Bright the Sun in the menu at the top of this blog. Continue reading “Too Bright the Sun – FREE this weekend!” →

Will replicants inherit the Earth?

This week: OCD update and Hot off the Press: an extract from my forthcoming sci-fi novel Worlds like Dust, about replicants in a battle to save Earth.

OCD Update
I finished my course of therapy over a month ago but that is not where the treament ends. My therapist recommended a great book for me – The OCD Workbook: Your Guide to Breaking Free from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. There is a scheme in the USA and now in the UK to get copies of this from your library. It’s called Books on Prescription so go to your library and find out about the scheme, if you need the book. I can recommend it. A link to this book will be available from now on if you go to my OCD page.

I managed the first few chapters without difficulty over the last 2 weeks but when it came to ERP (Exposure and Response Prevention) I hit a barrier. My belief that something bad will happen is way higher than the book accepts as practical for this exercise. Too bad they only told me that after I did the exercise. Ha! Ha! The book recommends a limit of 70% and I am 90%. Continue reading “Will replicants inherit the Earth?” →

Interview: replicant in Too Bright the Sun

There is an interview with Jake Nanden from the Iron Series here today:

http://libraryoferana.wordpress.com/2014/02/01/character-interview-number-seven-jake-nanden-sci-fi/

If you want to read more about Jake Nanden, read the page for Too Bright the Sun or its sequel, Unknown Place, Unknown Universe.

And don’t forget to subscribe to the Newsletter for Chapter One of Too Bright the Sun for FREE!

What keeps you writing?

This week: sneak preview and what keeps you writing?

Sneak Preview
This week it’s from the new project provisonally entitled December Radio a sci-fi World War II story.

The following scene takes place in an aeronautical centrifuge in Cologne. Remember those? I seem to remember they featured in a few 60s films and as a very young boy, one of these left a lasting impression on me. In fact the scene has such a powerful effect on me personally – it almost disturbs me in the same way OCD does sometimes – that I would love to pin down the film I originally watched and see it again. The Gerry Anderson film Doppelganger, sometimes called Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, may well have been the one. It is reputed to have a centrifuge scene in it and the only other film I know if is the Roger Moor Bond film Moonraker, but this would have been too late for it to have affected me so powerfully and yet be a vague memory. If anybody knows of any other film where a man has trouble surviving a centrifuge, please get in touch. Continue reading “What keeps you writing?” →

Most effective promotion for Sci-Fi books?

This week: What is the most effective way to promote a Sci-Fi book launch? Also Lazlo Friend Newsletter, Hinduism and HAL 9000

What is the most effective way to promote a Sci-Fi book launch?

Two beta readers have now completed Iron III: Worlds like dust and it is getting nearer to publication. Science Fiction books are always hard to promote: sci-fi simply doesn’t get the attention of other genres, which is a shame, because it allows you to develop characters and explore elements of human nature in ways that no other genre allows. So I am faced with the problem: how do I promote this book? Continue reading “Most effective promotion for Sci-Fi books?” →

Blog: Playing for Keeps – by Lazlo Ferran

This week: Sneak Preview, Free offer results, Short Stirlings, philosophy.

Sneak Preview is back!
Yes, I am writing again! It’s taken a few weeks but here is an excerpt from the forthcoming (in the next few years!) novel with the working title December Radio.

December Radio

“Scary the first time but don’t look too long; you’ll be fine,” said Max Schickert, coiling the blue nylon safety line around the taut muscles in his forearm.
It was Davis Connaughy’s first trip to ‘The Telescope’. He looked at the innocent-looking gap between the two boulders with distrust. The noon-day heat of Peru in October was making him sweat slightly after the long hike up the hill above San Ramon. He glanced at the blonde Apollo in front of him and grinned. He turned to look back out across the vast valley of refulgent green, ruffled nearby by the gentle east-north east breeze.
“No problemo. I have done The Cave of Swallows twice!”
“You do realise how privileged you are to be here? Don’t fuck up! And pay attention.” Continue reading “Blog: Playing for Keeps – by Lazlo Ferran” →

Carnival of Souls and Hammer Movie Review

This week: a story’s soul, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, Strunk & White: The Elements of Style.

A Story’s Soul
This week I have returned to another incomplete work, December Radio. The story is a sci-fi WWII whodunnit of sorts. So far I haven’t written much, although I have spent many hours thinking about it. The problem is that the story’s soul as I last envisaged it may be too obvious. The problem has been compounded by the recommendation by a friend, based on my description, to read Gravity’s Rainbow. I am on page 50, and so far I have very little idea what is going on; a British Agent is investigating V2 rockets amidst a chaotic kaleidoscope of disjointed feelings, weird characters and disparate locations. What is clear is that the main story is uncomfortably close to mine. A battle has begun for the soul of my story. Attack Hitler’s Bunker was a simple story; men fighting against immense odds for Good. Its soul was born without hiccups on page one. The Ordo Lupus series have their origins in my own private obsessions with the darker side of Religion and more specifically, Faith, God, the Devil and luck. However, both Escher’s Staircase and December Radio have been born of the nebulous (to quote William Shatner) inspiration of a relationship; they have neither a beginning or end. I think the former title has now settled into a comfortable childhood, but the latter may lack something to distinguish it from its distinguished competition. Once I have the soul, the story will tell me what to write. This probably probably sounds kinda whimsy and not a little bit pretentious, but I believe it! If a book doesn’t have a soul it can’t live. Continue reading “Carnival of Souls and Hammer Movie Review” →

Blog: Adolf Hitler – My Part in His Downfall

This week: Attack Hitler’s Bunker released and a sneak preview.

Attack Hitler’s Bunker
This book is now available as a kindle book on Amazon and will be available as a paperback in the next 6 days. Response has been good so far, plenty of people have responded to my posts and tweets: 190 people read the first post on Facebook which is a higher figure than in the past.

Sneak Preview
This week’s is from a story which I am provisionally calling December Radio (I might have referred to it in the past as September Radio but it’s just a working title). I am back working on this now and I will attempt to complete this before December. This book can best be described as WWII/sci-fi and is about a whole number of characters in the War gradually discovering a secret plot by some unknown enemy. They do this through evidence from a series of supernatural events. It’s quite an existential project. Continue reading “Blog: Adolf Hitler – My Part in His Downfall” →

Blog: How to Model a Life

ORDO LUPUS AND THE TEMPLE GATE IS FREE FROM TODAY – 30 AUGUST UNTIL 3 SEPTEMBER ON AMAZON SO TELL EVERYONE, THEIR DOGS, THEIR DOGS AND THEIR DOG’S BEST FRIENDS!

This week’s subject is modelling but I simply couldn’t find a well-known movie with the word ‘Model’ in the title. Hence the break in tradition for the blog’s title.

Sneak Preview
This week it is from a section called Monk in Lotus. This is the penultimate chapter of the book so I am not far from completing the first draft.

At the eleventh hour of the day, my duties in the dairy being completed for the morning, I was, as usual, in contemplation. Kneeling in the third pew back of the main Abbey Chapel, I watched the glossed back of the black ant. Reflecting the pillar of holy light shafting through the stained-glass window, the tiny ant’s carapace dipped up and down as it negotiated the uneven surface of the bible rail. This was my favourite time of day. Continue reading “Blog: How to Model a Life” →