M.H. Thaung's Blog: Musings, page 10

New releases

It’s been a busy week for writing. The highlight was the release of the #VSS365 Anthology: Volume One, edited by Mark King and with around 400 contributions by members of the Twitter writing community, including a couple of pieces by myself. Royalties from the charity go to The Book Bus, a children’s literacy charity. If you enjoy tiny stories, I hope you’ll consider buying the book.

I’ve also released A Friendly Rivalry, a short story set in the world of my A Quiet Rebellion books. It featur...

Very short stories #12

The sweltering London summer seems to be calming down, which hopefully means I can sleep (and think!) better. I’m not a big fan of heat, and when the temperature’s high, I find it really difficult to concentrate on anything. Fortunately, I was still able to read (just about), and I’ve posted a few book reviews.

A couple of SPFBO entries:
Broken Crossroads (Knights of the Shadows, #1) by Patrick LeClerc
Kalanon’s Rising (Agents of Kalanon #1) by Darian Smith

And a short story collection by an...

Very short stories #11

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I entered this year’s Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off (SPFBO) contest with A Quiet Rebellion:Guilt. In the spirit of the contest, I’m reading (some of) the other entries and posting reviews on Goodreads as well as LibraryThing.

Books I’ve reviewed so far are:
Strings of Chance by Jeff Pryor
Taika Town by Drew Montgomery
The Lore of Prometheus by Graham Austin-King
The Lord of Stariel by A. J. Lancaster
Magpie’s Song by Allison Pang
Sea of Lost Souls by E...

Review: A Trio of Mozart Operas

This evening, we attended a performance by Felici Opera of the three Mozart/Da Ponte operas: The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi Fan Tutte.

The open-air performance was held at St Paul’s Walden Bury, which is a Grade II listed house set in Grade I listed gardens. Before the event, there was time to have a picnic, or simply to stroll around the grounds.

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They have an interesting mix of formal and wild elements.

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Fitting three operas into one evening, including time for set changes,...

Very short stories #10

I’ve been on holiday this week, with the luxury of not booking to go on any trips. My only major outing was a day spent in Central London at a flash fiction workshop run by Christopher Allen and Helen Rye of Smokelong Quarterly. I had a great time, met lots of interesting people and came away with a head overflowing with new ideas for stories.

The rest of the week hasn’t been quite so productive, as I am trying to get a chunk of my next project written. In contrast to the steampunk/mannerpunk...

Very short stories #9

Last weekend, I entered A Quiet Rebellion: Guilt into the Self-Published Fantasy Blog Off. This is an annual competition, and the 300 entry slots fill up quickly, so I felt pretty lucky to have got in.

You can see the list of books in the contest here along with the 10 blogs that are responsible for the shortlisting and judging. Maybe you’ll find some new books and authors to your tastes—my TBR (to be read) list is certainly growing!

My own entry (AQR1) is £/$/€0.99 in the Kindle store, but y...

Author interview: Stephen Briggs

For this post, I’m excited to feature an interview with Stephen Briggs. Stephen needs little introduction, but here’s a quick run-down on who he is: writer, narrator, playwright and actor, best known for his extensive work on plays, maps and books pertaining to Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. Stephen’s won awards for several of his recordings of Terry’s books and was on the BAFTA-winning team which created the online PR for Sky’s ‘Hogfather’. He’s also actively involved in amdram, and has direct...

Very short stories #8

After the excitement of releasing A Quiet Rebellion: Posterity last week, I’ve been concentrating on promotional activities*. Of course, my daily very short story (#vss365) on Twitter didn’t get neglected. Here’s a selection.

victim

“Doc! Drawer 3’s rattling!”
Sigh. Newbies. “Being declared dead wrongly is an urban myth.”
A bang sounded next door.
“Uh, but I’ll take a look. To reassure you.”
Hanging off its hinges, the mortuary fridge door was the vampire’s first victim. Richer pickings foll...

A Quiet Rebellion: Posterity is out!

I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve just released the final book in the Numoeath trilogy. Here’s the Amazon link (available as an ebook or in print), and the book is available in other online stores here. (I’m going via Smashwords, so the list of stores will increase over the next couple of weeks).

[image error]This is the paperback cover and blurb Where does it start?

As a quick catch up (trying to minimise spoilers if you’ve not read the first two books):
After his trial for murder, telekinetic convoy ca...

Bits and pieces

Quite a few things going on at the moment. First of all, you can read my thoughts on errors and decision making in fiction writing on Cat Rambo’s blog. Cat’s blog is full of excellent advice and information for writers, and I’m delighted I had the chance to write a guest blog post there.

Here are the reviews I’ve put up on Goodreads recently. They’re also posted on LibraryThing, which is a site you might want to check out if you’re looking for book recommendations based on books you’ve alread...