Category: ATLANTIS

1 July Updates – Risky Business

No Excerpt this week
Instead, I am asking for feedback on the following four synopses. Please have a read and let me know how I can improve them. There will be a free e-book copy of each book for any synopsis that I accept. This can include any book I publish this year.

Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate
His teenage daughter is viciously murdered in Lyon by a long-forgotten biblical monster. A former WWII MI6 agent, our hero is suspected of her murder by the police and his divorcing wife.

With supernatural powers of foresight he goes on the run to clear his name. He has only one friend – a historian and member of the modern Knights Hospitaller but with his help he embarks on a white-knuckle ride to salvation. Continue reading “1 July Updates – Risky Business” →

18 May Updates – Preview of Lacunashka

This Week’s Excerpt
Instead of a preview this week I have something different for you. For a long time I have been a fan of Russian literature. As a tribute I wrote Lacunashka some time ago, but it has been languishing quietly on my computer. I think I may have published it briefly on Amazon or Books2Read but I withdrew it, probably because it is such a relentlessly dark tale. People who lived through the terror of Stalin’s reign must have experienced such darkness and a bleak existence, so as a tribute to them I have placed it inside Vampire: Beneficence (Short Stories Volume III). Here is an excerpt:

Lacunashka

Lacuna: a blank gap or missing part.
-shka: Russian diminutive ending for male names.

For Comrade Ilya it was like any other day in the Ministry. At 9.30, after already working for two hours, they broke for coffee or a shot of vodka. Volodya, as usual, was holding forth in his loud voice, leaning back against the edge of his desk.
“Ilya! Have a shot of vodka. Just once?”
“No, Misha,” he said placing his hand over the dirty porcelain cup. “I have to work anyway.” He walked the short distance, past dirty mullioned windows to his office and started to check through the list of mail for the day. Continue reading “18 May Updates – Preview of Lacunashka” →

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.

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!