Category: SCIENCE FICTION

This week’s Blog: Gone in 60 seconds

Nano-Short Story – or Flick-Story

11.25: This week I am trying something different: don’t say I don’t try and provide you with variety. I wanted to write a short story so short it would fit in one tweet (140 characters) and I intend to do that today. It’s 11.25 and so I am starting now, posting live the stages as I publish in real time.

11.38: Okay, we’re off! I first had the idea of writing a story shorter than flash-fiction or ultra-short stories when I was promoting Too Bright the Sun. I found that when translating into Chinese or Japanese, there were many characters spare after I had composed the tweet: oriental languages that use logograms depicting ideas (far more complex than in the west) are way more economic than Western ones. I wondered if it might be possible to squeeze a very short story into a tweet of 140 characters. I have had an idea floating around in my head for a short story during the last week and it seemed very suitable for the experiment. It’s basically the story of a Catholic Nun who believes the menstrual cycle is murder. So she becomes what some might call promiscuous but to her she is simply doing the work of God. Last night I wrote a very short draft and just now I found this interesting site talking about writing Flash Fiction. However ultra-short or Flash Fiction are stories of a few paragraphs. There are some very nice short ones like the following: Continue reading “This week’s Blog: Gone in 60 seconds” →

This week’s Blog – Mars Attacks!

Hot off the Press!

Hot of the press replaces previous ‘Excerpts’. It will be excerpts that I have just written; little tasters of what I am up to, but not too much. I think I can just about manage this final one from Iron III: Worlds Like Dust.

Worlds Like Dust

Copyright © 2011 by Lazlo Ferran

All right Reserved

“Good thinking, Caron. However that still doesn’t help much. I don’t think any of us would get far … wearing a suit outside the port is gonna look pretty strange … And I don’t even speak Ischian!” After half hour deliberating they still had no decent plan. “Anyways, I am gonna get some kip. Bryant, you are on watch. Wake me in one hour. I’ll sleep on it!”

When they drifted cautiously into Dock 422 in Mars Space Port, they still had no plan beyond the inchoate one suggested by Caron. Continue reading “This week’s Blog – Mars Attacks!” →

Too Bright the Sun – Progress in Promotions

BookCoverPreview

As you will see in the post below, I was very happy to find out today that Too Bright the Sun entered the Top 100 FREE Kindle books list on all three: Amazon US, UK and Canada on Monday. Promoting my work takes me away from writing so it’s really nice to get some reward for all the effort I have put in over the last few weeks. I only wish I knew exactly what number it reached. You can rest assured I am watching the progress of Vampire: Beneficence (Short Stories III) very closely. Below I will discuss the results of the Amazon KDP Free Promotion for my books so far.

Vampire: Beneficence (Short Stories III)

So far there have been 131 downloads, 17 of them in Germany. It seems to be taking longer to get people’s attention with this one although it’s doing much better in the US than here. Perhaps the UK market really isn’t so keen on Vampire stories. Then again it’s been my experience that lycanthropy stories do well here in winter and not summer whereas for Science Fiction it’s the other way round. Continue reading “Too Bright the Sun – Progress in Promotions” →

Too Bright the Sun in top 100 Free list!

BookCoverPreviewI was very happy to find  out today that Too Bright the Sun entered the Top 100 FREE Kindle books list on all three: Amazon US, UK and Canada on Monday. Unfortunately I wasn’t there to see it because I simply wasn’t expecting it to do that well! The book  has been in a Free promotion over the last week and so I was expecting high download volumes but what I didn’t realise is that there are not that many eBooks offered for free at any one time. Hence I was looking the wrong way. Thanks to @JessieBTyson (an author in the Facebook Group Authors Tweeting Authors for noticing. Only wish I had taken a screen grab but I will be watching closely during the next Free Book Promotion.

I have no idea what number I reached although I checked Amazon UK, US and Canada today and there were no Science Fiction books  in any of them so that in itself is a victory for Science Fiction.

Looking at the books in the #1 position for Free Kindle books on Amazon UK and Amazon US they generally rank first in their category and somewhere between 20 and 300 for all the Kindles on sale. The ones at the #100 position vary anywhere from 300 to 3000 in the sales ranks. Too Bright the Sun peaked at #17 (UK) and #38 (US) in the sales rank for its category and therefore it could have been anywhere really in the Top 100 Free kindle books.

There may be a very short blog this weekend – I will be sipping a margarita and reflecting on the success of Too Bright the Sun. It’s not just my success though but a team effort. Thanks to everybody who tweeted for me or posted, shared and commented on Facebook. It all helped a lot.

High resolution images of the MCS (Mobile Command Station) and SU 401 are available in the deluxe edition of The War for Iron: Element of  Civilization: Boxed Set.

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!

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” →