Tag: scifi

Diary Entries: The Hole Inside the Earth

From Green, Chapter 3
Tuma came to a decision:
“I will let you go Llanka. On one condition.”
“Yes, brother?”
“Each time you visit the City you will bring me some of your blood, either in a pot, or fresh, as it were.”
He smiled. Llanka knew exactly what he meant. She stripped and raised her thigh to him. Tuma drew a knife he kept for the purpose, a knife with a thin, crescent blade, and drew it across her thigh, sucking up the blood that dripped from the wound while she moaned in ecstasy. After taking what he wanted, Tuma handed her a jar of paste, made from the foliage of the Dragon fruit. Llanka rubbed the green paste into the wound and pressed the crushed leaves against it until the bleeding had stopped.
“Go,” Tuma told her. “And do not tell a soul about our agreement.”

Introduction – 1 February, 2019
I don’t know when I first conceived of The Hole Inside the Earth, but the idea to write something that spanned the whole of man’s existence from early times to the far future has been around for a long time. I think I first started writing Green and then the other colours in the Autumn of 2015, and I remember needing one more thread, as I only had 6, so I started Indigo on a very cold day in Jan or early Feb 2016. Until now, I often thought I would abandon it. In fact, in the early days, it was just an experiment, and I don’t think I or anybody else thought I would finish it. But now I am through the worst. There have been times over the last year when I just had to make a huge effort to keep going, and I think it affected me physically. I only started this diary in 2019, but then again, it’s the first time I felt that I could see light at the end of the tunnel.
nb: HITE is my acronym for The Hole Inside the Earth.

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Explore the world of Atalan T’ea

The Hole Inside the Earth – epic quest from the far past to the far future!

Only the Vampire Priests understand the Blood Moon Prophecy: “A drop of His blood fills the cup and brings the Blood Moon Dawn.”

“Lots of cool action and drew me well in.” – AHF Magazine.

Both men, distracted, stepped back. She knew they would be unbalanced, so she executed the estoc, her sword strike entering one man’s exposed right armpit. He fell.

I, Zosimyache, mercenary of ancient Greece, wrote this.
I once asked Omacron what time seemed like for one who had survived for so long in a tumultuous world.
“Time is meaningless,” he said.
“Then, what does have meaning?” I asked.
“Memory.”
This, then, is the story, as recalled by me and those Rememberers, few in number, who survived the last war on Earth. I wasn’t there at the beginning, but I am here now in the tale that continues.
– from The Garden, final chapter of Volume 15: The Sea of Lost Intentions

Take a sneak preview of a map of Atalan T’ea Llantu here

Introduction

A cup wrought at Earth’s birth, the Holy Grail is brought to Atlantis but lost.

Continue reading “Explore the world of Atalan T’ea” →

How to Write a Good Vampire Book – 5. Varying Pace

pen5 So you have your plot of Vampire Rudolph’s adventures all worked out and you know where the climax and twist will be. Now you are considering writing the climax and want to know how to show tension when Rudolph can’t get the tractor down a narrow alleyway, or gets stuck in a snowdrift. So how do you show the tension?

It’s not as easy as you might think!

Action Words and Expletives

The first rule is to use more action words when you are writing action sequences. These are words like ‘ripped,’ ‘spun,’ ‘yelled,’ ‘wrenched,’ and ‘panted.’ Continue reading “How to Write a Good Vampire Book – 5. Varying Pace” →

Coming Soon! The Hole Inside the Earth!

Now you are considering writing the climax and want to know how to show tension when Rudolph can’t get the tractor down a narrow alleyway, or gets stuck in a snowdrift. So how do you show the tension?

Two spirits, joined by the dream of a world that might break out of a cycle of progress and destruction, seek each other out, again and again. Omah is a man with a key, but he knows not what it will open. Bri is an empath of outstanding ability. Together they will find a way to open up the RIP and find man’s destiny.

Subscriptions will be for $0.99 for 2 chapters per month (HITE Prime), or $0.49 for one chapter per month (HITE Stream 1 or 2), of a story that will build into seven novels of up to a million words and take years to complete.

You will be able to get all chapters or choose your genres from two streams:

Stream 1: Mostly Alternative History and War thriller, with some Romance

Stream 2: Mostly Science Fiction and Romance, with some Alternative History

The first two chapters will be FREE! And you will get one month free after you subscribe and a further month’s trial subscription after that.

Be the first to hear of the start of this new story by subscribing to the Lazlo newsletter:

[ Link no longer active ]

Map of Atalan T’ea Llantu in the 1st and 2nd Ages

Below is a map of Atalan T’ea Llantu in 1st and 2nd Ages. You will find a map of Atalan T’ea Llantu in the 7th Age in the appendix of The Hole Inside the Earth.

Map of Atalan T'ea in 1st and 2nd Ages — Map of Atalan T’ea in the 1st and 2nd Ages

Find out more about Atalan T’ea Llantu in the Appendix of The Hole Inside the Earth

Electric car found in pyramid!

Do you remember reading those wonderful books in the 70s by authors like Erich von Daniken and the like, all about aliens visiting Earth milienia ago? How I miss the simple optimism of those books. But now, somebody has actually discovered something strange in the great pyramid:

Remember a few years ago, scientists and engineers managed to get a small wheeled-vehicle up one of those two narrow shafts that lead from the King’s Chamber (tomb) to the exterior of the pyramid in the direction of certain stars? They came up against a tiny wall and although the little robotic vehicle could peer over it, nothing could be seen in the small chamber opposite. They ran out of funding.

Well, they have funding again and last month managed to break through the wall. They found what looks like a robotic vehicle from ancient Egypt! Imagine that! It is battery powered.

You can find out more about ancient pyramids and how they might have originated in my book Unknown Place, Unknown Universe. BOOK 3 in the series, Worlds Like Dust, will be published some time in the next two months. Watch the trailer for Unknown Place, Unknown Universe below. I hope you like it, and if you do, or have anything else to say about this post, please leave a comment.

Continue reading “Electric car found in pyramid!” →

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” →

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?” →

Planet Stories magazine – Cover Art

I love old 50s sci-fi movies!

Caption+Share: Need a name for my alien laser in my book Too Bright the Sun: FREE on Amazon NOW!! (Link no longer available) 😀 #reading #sci-fi #science fiction #kindle #ebook

11 May Updates – Preview of Lotus

Sneak Preview
This week’s is a unique (to date) look at a book I have been working on on and off for two years. It has no title as yet, but for the purpose of this I will call it Escher’s Staircase. It’s not easily categorized, so I think I will just give you the excerpt and let it speak for itself.

“I’m not fucking going down that! You gotta be crazy!”
I pulled away from the open hatch. “Don’t anybody think about pushing me either! Six hundred and eighty bloody feet! That’s … that’s like as high as a bloody sky-scraper!”
“Well, if you don’t do it, you will never get beyond Cadet Helmsman. Up to you matey!”quipped Shorty, lifting the glass bottle’s open neck to his scowling lips. Everything about Shorty was a tattoo – gaudy, colourful and in bad taste. Continue reading “11 May Updates – Preview of Lotus” →

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!