Stop the Press! Occult Thriller Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate is being Translated into Chinese
Great news! Yes it’s true. I recently submitted half a dozen of my books to a publisher that specialises in translating books into Chinese and distributing within China and Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate has already been accepted and partially translated. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. I have made concerted efforts to reach the Far East Market as well as the Middle East (which Amazon ignores and in fact in which it positively blocks downloads) but I didn’t know how to reach any Chinese readers.
Timescales are hazy at this point but it looks like it will be available around the end of the year if all goes well. I will keep you posted if I get anything firmer.
I can also confirm that the next Neesletter will go out around the 15th March and in it you will find information on two different ways you can get any of my eBooks FREE! So sign up to the Newsletter today (no longer available).
Welcome to the last leg of the UK General Election Wacky Races! I am your host, commentator and reporter; Pedro Diamond.
Pedro Diamond: The last race was won by David Caravan when Ed Millipede crashed out while in the lead with grip problems. Here’s an interview I did with Ed earlier:
Ed Millipede: Yes Pedro; I had the wrong rubber on my brogues! The crowd were good and encouraged me so I managed to catch it before I hit the black stuff! It’s always difficult to choose the right rubber when the conditions are changeable. Dunlop have been great support, giving three different choices, but I understand David Caravan was on the hard compound on the day so he had an advantage. Lesson learned!
Pedro Diamond: All contestants are neck and neck as we come to the close of this competition. Only a few more days to go in this long-distance race. One thing that has got the crowd excited and commentators talking is the introduction of a new fuel; Liquid Intellectual Energy or LIE. Using the fuel is known as LIEING. It’s use is controversial but in a moment, you will hear the views of the four leading drivers on the new fuel. Continue reading “Cameron, Clegg, Miliband, Farage: Wacky Races?”→
If you voted on the Best Robot in Scifi or are just passing by, below you will find the winner. Make sure to leave you comments; whether you agree or disagree.
Rachael Tyrell from Blade Runner
Results of Best Robot in Scifi poll
1. Rachael – Blade Runner (Movie Blade Runner) played by Sean Young
2. R2D2 – (Movie Star Wars), T000 – (Movie Terminator 2 – Judgement Day) played by Robert Patrick, Ash – (Movie Alien) played by Ian Holm and Roy Batty (Movie Blade Runner) Played by Rutger Hauer, all tie for second.
I wrote about the idea of subscribers in my 2010 scifi book Too Bright the Sun. In the story, Army officers during wartime were required to create video podcasts for subscribers, as a way of raising income for the army. Somebody in the Tom Winton Authors Helping Authors group on Facebook recently posted an idea of a group of writers offering a subscription deal to read a chapter of their work each week in magazine form.
While the subscription services idea sounded great to me at first, I spent some time thinking on it and thought that while it is probably fine for non-creative industries and occupations like soldiering and construction, there are potential problems for creative industries.
The idea of publishing a chapter a week sounds great. I am very productive and just published 4 novels in 8 weeks but even I need a break now and then. I don’t foresee me doing anything but editing for the next few months (yes I have 2 more completed works). Nobody is going to want to subscribe to that! I think such a service would have to be either pay-as-you-go or you would need a large number of writers to guarantee that there is always content and if you did that, you would need admin staff running the thing, hence putting up the overheads. Continue reading “Would fiction subscription delivery work?”→
Just a friendly reminded to all you authors out there that I still edit books. Check my Editing Services page for my portfolio and charges. I look forward to hearing from any writers that need a good editor.
Testimony on Lazlo’s editing work by author Amit Bobrov:
“Lazlo’s the best editor I’ve worked with, and I’ve worked with a few. He took an already successful novel and found every imaginable flaw, corrected dialogues, fixed my grammar and altered key scenes to make them more exciting. He’s a fountain of creativity and knowledge. When I showed my Publisher his version of my novel they were speechless and this was a novel that three previous editor worked on.”
Ordo Lupus III is complete and goes to publishing agents in a few weeks time. While the process of bringing this to publication goes on, I wanted to give fans of the Ordo Lupus series something to keep them going so here it is: Vampire – Find my Grave.
I would like to introduce you to Zosimyache, vampire and one of the new stars in Ordo Lupus III. He begins the tale of John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester in the 1600s, the notorious poet and libertine, who has died and left us a small part of his treasure.
If you download the eBook (currently only FREE on Smashwords but hopefully soon on Amazon) you will have two of the clues to finding it! Solve them and you only have to wait for Ordo Lupus III to solve the mystery and win £500!
If vampire sex is your thing, this is for you!
Vampire – Find my Grave FREE! on Amazon
Vampire – Find my Grave FREE! on Books2Read
Vampire – Find my Grave FREE! on Google Play
Well, the day has finally arrived. The final installment of the Iron Series is here!
Mystery picture
Remember this? Now I can reveal the identity of the object. Below is the cover of Worlds Like Dust – Part 1. The ship with the yellow stripes in the background is the giant and formidably armed Ischian Battleship, the Lu-kshîa.
The climax of the series is called Worlds Like Dust and is published in 2 parts. The first part is published today:
I have just returned from a two-week holiday. I had a lovely time and I see that not only is Running selling well but that Amazon have price-matched Books2Read and made it Free, which is great, so grab your copy today:
The other news is that I am very close to finishing the cover design for Iron III: Worlds Like Dust: part 1 so get ready for the climax of Jake Nanden’s adventures!
15% off for Tourists Billboard in Mauritian shopping mall
Finally, a friend sent me this photo of a sign in a Mauritius shopping mall which beggars belief. Seems that, in that gorgeous country, local people have to pay more for goods than tourists. What blatant discrimination! What sort of way is that to treat your own citizens?
Illuminati, assassins and Templar knights all come together in the terrifying, violent climax to the thrilling series!
The Synchronicity Code is book 4 in the Ordo Lupus and the Blood Moon Prophecy series, which precedes the Grail of the Secret Sun, part one of The Hole Inside the Earth – quest for the the Holy Grail.
An immortal Greek mercenary abandons his quest to meet Christ in Jerusalem so he can rescue a dying archaeologist.
The mercenary, Zosimyache, is a libertine vampire who travels through time, aloof from mankind. He is looking for absolution but things become more complicated when he finds out that the archaeologist is a werewolf.
With only three days to live, the werewolf persuades Zosimyache to help him rescue his lover, the beautiful but treacherous witch, Georgina, from Hell.
But Zosimyache will get a bigger surprise than he could ever have imagined in the struggle to save Georgina.
A cosmological thriller that will open your eyes and close the book on the Ex Secret Agent trilogy, but Zosimyache’s story will go on…
If sexy witches, vampires and werewolves are your thing, this book is for you!
Mara bar ‘Serapion Mara bar ‘Serapion, (Classical Syriac: ܡܪܐ ܒܪ ܣܪܦܝܘܢ), sometimes spelled Mara bar Sarapion, was an Assyrian Stoic philosopher in the Roman province of Syria. He is only known from a letter he wrote in Syriac to his son, who was also named Serapion, which allegedly refers to him seeing Jesus Christ in Jerusalem (possibly the only eye-witness account of Jesus Christ).
Place de la Révolution The Place de la Concorde (French pronunciation: [plas də la kɔ̃kɔʁd]) is one of the major public squares in Paris.
During the French Revolution the statue of Louis XV of France was torn down and the area renamed Place de la Révolution. The new revolutionary government erected the guillotine in the square, and it was here that King Louis XVI was executed on 21 January 1793.
Knights Templar The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Latin: Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici), commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of Solomon’s Temple (French: Ordre du Temple or Templiers) or simply as Templars, were among the most wealthy and powerful of the Western Christian military orders and were prominent actors in Christian finance. The organization existed for nearly two centuries during the Middle Ages.
Officially endorsed by the Roman Catholic Church around 1129, the Order became a favoured charity throughout Christendom and grew rapidly in membership and power. Templar knights, in their distinctive white mantles with a red cross, were among the most skilled fighting units of the Crusades. Non-combatant members of the Order managed a large economic infrastructure throughout Christendom, innovating financial techniques that were an early form of banking, and building fortifications across Europe and as far as Jerusalem in the Holy Land.
The Templars’ existence was tied closely to the Crusades; when the Holy Land was lost, support for the Order faded. Rumours about the Templars’ secret initiation ceremony created distrust and King Philip IV of France, deeply in debt to the Order, took advantage of the situation. In 1307, many of the Order’s members in France were arrested, tortured into giving false confessions, and then burned at the stake. Under pressure from King Philip, Pope Clement V disbanded the Order in 1312. The abrupt disappearance of a major part of the European infrastructure gave rise to speculation and legends, which have kept the “Templar” name alive into the modern day.
Ophites The Ophites or Ophians (Greek Ὀφιανοί Ophianoi, from ὄφις ophis “snake”) were members of a Christian Gnostic sect depicted by Hippolytus of Rome (170–235) in a lost work, the Syntagma (“arrangement”). It is now thought that later accounts of these “Ophites” by Pseudo-Tertullian, Philastrius and Epiphanius of Salamis are all dependent on the lost Syntagma of Hippolytus. It is possible that rather than an actual sectarian name Hippolytus may have invented “Ophite” as a generic term for what he considered heretical speculations concerning the serpent of Genesis or Moses.
Apart from the sources directly dependent on Hippolytus (Pseudo-Tertullian, Philastrius and Epiphanius), Origen and Clement of Alexandria also mention the group. The group is mentioned by Irenaeus in Against Heresies (1:30).
Fire and Stone Cut in kenjutsu “Fire and Stone’s Cut” refers to when your swords clash together. Without raising your sword, you cut as strongly as possible. This means cutting quickly with hands, body, and legs.
Unfinished Cologne cathedral, 1856 with ancient crane on south tower
The foundation stone of Cologne Cathedral was laid on 15 August 1248, by Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden. The eastern arm was completed under the direction of Master Gerhard, was consecrated in 1322 and sealed off by a temporary wall so it could be in use as the work proceeded. Eighty four misericords in the choir date from this building phase. In the mid 14th century work on the west front commenced under Master Michael. This work halted in 1473, leaving the south tower complete up to the belfry level and crowned with a huge crane that remained in place as a landmark of the Cologne skyline for 400 years.
Occult, Sci-fi & Military 