D.W. Wilkin's Blog, page 56
May 6, 2016
Releasing this weekend
Coming most likely this week the next Regency Romance tale by D.W. Wilkin:
You Ought to Trust Your Mother
Beauty has said to be in the eye of the Beholder, or is the Beholden.
The tale of Baron Fallion Lancelot Stafford, a gentleman of perhaps too much leisure who has served in the wars of some few years before. He now has decided that all this leisure is perhaps a waste and he should be doing something. He was just very unsure what that was.
We also find Lady Beatrice Cavendish, the daughter of the Earl of Hoare who is famed for her beauty, yet cannot find any man who has more to speak to her beyond that one subject. And yet far too many think they should offer for her with only the ardent praise to her looks to recommend them. Perhaps there exists one suitor who could speak on a subject beyond that?
In the rush of a Season where their most intimate friends have all come to the conclusion that they should marry, can Beatrice put aside her willful ways and hear sound thoughts that her mama has said?
Regency Personalities Series-Hatchards
Regency Personalities Series
In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.
Hatchards
1797 to Present
Hatchards
Hatchards bookshop was founded at 173 Piccadilly, London, by John Hatchard in 1797. It moved within Piccadilly in 1801, to No.189–190; the site of the first shop was cleared in 1810 for the Egyptian Hall to be built. The second shop had a numbering change to 187, in 1820. It still trades today from the same address, and Hatchard’s portrait can be seen on the staircase of the shop.
It was founded with a collection of merchandise bought from Simon Vandenbergh, a bookseller of the 18th century.
It has a reputation for attracting high-profile authors and holds three Royal Warrants.
An Unofficial Guide to how to win the Scenarios of Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 Soaked and Wild
An Unofficial Guide to how to win the Scenarios of Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, Soaked! and WILD!
I have been a fan of this series of computer games since early in its release of the very first game. That game was done by one programmer, Chris Sawyer, and it was the first I recall of an internet hit. Websites were put up in dedication to this game where people showed off their creations, based on real amusement parks. These sites were funded by individuals, an expense that was not necessarily as cheap then as it is now. Nor as easy to program then as it might be to build a web page now.
Prima Books released game guides for each iteration of the game, Rollercoaster Tycoon 1, Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 and Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 (RCT3) but not for the expansion sets. And unlike the first two works, the third guide was riddled with incorrect solutions. As I played the game that frustrated me. And I took to the forums that Atari, the game publisher hosted to see if I could find a way to solve those scenarios that the Prima Guide had written up in error. Not finding any good advice, I created my own for the scenarios that the “Official” Guide had gotten wrong.
Solutions that if you followed my advice you would win the scenario and move on. But if you followed the
“Official” version you would fail and not be able to complete the game. My style and format being different than the folks at Prima, I continued for all the Scenarios that they had gotten right as well, though my solutions cut to the chase and got you to the winner’s circle more quickly, more directly.
My contributions to the “Official” Forum, got me a place as a playtester for both expansions to the game, Soaked and Wild. And for each of these games, I wrote the guides during the play testing phase so all the play testers could solve the scenarios, and then once again after the official release to make changes in the formula in case our aiding to perfect the game had changed matters. For this, Atari and Frontier (the actual programmers of the game) placed me within the game itself.
And for the longest time, these have been free at the “Official” Forums, as well as my own website dedicated to the game. But a short time ago, I noticed that Atari, after one of its bankruptcies had deleted their forums. So now I am releasing the Guide for one and all. I have added new material and it is over 150 pages, for all three games. It is available for the Kindle at present for $7.99. It is also available as a trade paperback for just a little bit more.
You can also find this at Smashwords, iBooks, Kobo and Barnes and Noble
(Click on the picture to purchase)
Not only are all 39 Scenarios covered, but there are sections covering every Cheat Code, Custom Scenery, the famous Small Park Competition, the Advanced Fireworks Editor, the Flying Camera Route Editor which are all the techniques every amusement park designer needs to make a fantastic park in Rollercoaster Tycoon 3.
Scenarios for RCT 3
1) Vanilla Hills
2) Goldrush
3) Checkered Flag
4) Box Office
5) Fright Night
6) Go With The Flow
7) Broom Lake
8) Valley of Kings
9) Gunslinger
10) Ghost Town
11) National Treasure
12) New Blood
13) Island Hopping
14) Cosmic Crags
15) La La Land
16) Mountain Rescue
17) The Money Pit
18) Paradise Island
Scenarios for Soaked!
1) Captain Blackheart’s Cove
2) Oasis of Fun
3) Lost Atlantis
4) Monster Lake
5) Fountain of Youth
6) World of the Sea
7) Treasure Island
8) Mountain Spring
9) Castaway Getaway
Scenarios for WILD!
1) Scrub Gardens
2) Ostrich Farms Plains
3) Egyptian Sand Dance
4) A Rollercoaster Odyssey
5) Zoo Rescue
6) Mine Mountain
7) Insect World
8) Rocky Coasters
9) Lost Land of the Dinosaurs
10) Tiger Forest
11) Raiders of the Lost Coaster
12) Saxon Farms
May 5, 2016
Coming Soon, as soon as tomorrow????
Coming most likely this week the next Regency Romance tale by D.W. Wilkin:
You Ought to Trust Your Mother
Beauty has been said to be in the eye of the Beholder, or is it the Beholden.
The tale of Baron Fallion Lancelot Stafford, a gentleman of perhaps too much leisure who had served in the wars of some few years before, has decided that all that leisure was perhaps a waste and he should be doing something. He was just very unsure what that was.
We also find Lady Beatrice Cavendish, the daughter of the Earl of Hoare who is famed for her beauty, yet can not find any man who has more to speak to her beyond that one subject. And yet far too many think they should offer for her with only the ardent praise to her looks to recommend them. Perhaps there exists one suitor who could speak on a subject beyond that?
Regency Personalities Series-Sir James Edward Smith
Regency Personalities Series
In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.
Sir James Edward Smith
2 December 1759 – 17 March 1828
James Edward Smith
Sir James Edward Smith was born in Norwich in 1759, the son of a wealthy wool merchant. He displayed a precocious interest in the natural world. During the early 1780s he enrolled in the medical course at the University of Edinburgh where he studied chemistry under Joseph Black and natural history under John Walker. He then moved to London in 1783 to continue his studies. Smith was a friend of Sir Joseph Banks who was offered the entire collection of books, manuscripts and specimens of the Swedish natural historian and botanist Carl Linnaeus, following the death of his son Carolus Linnaeus the Younger. Banks declined the purchase but Smith bought the collection for the bargain price of £1,000. The collection arrived in London in 1784 and in 1786 Smith was elected Fellow of the Royal Society.
Between 1786 and 1788 Smith made the grand tour through the Netherlands, France, Italy and Switzerland visiting botanists, picture galleries and herbaria. He founded the Linnean Society of London in 1788, becoming its first President, a post he held until his death. He returned to live in Norwich in 1796 bringing with him the entire Linnean Collection. His library and botanical collections acquired European fame and were visited by numerous entomologists and botanists from the entire Continent. In 1792, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Smith spent the remaining thirty years of his life writing books and articles on botany. His books included Flora Britannica and The English Flora (4 volumes, 1824 – 1828). He contributed 3,348 botanical articles to Rees’s Cyclopædia between 1808 and 1819, following the death of Rev. William Wood, who had started the work. In addition, he contributed 57 biographies of botanists. He contributed seven volumes to the only major botanical publication of the eighteenth century, Flora Graeca, the publications begun by John Sibthorp. A fruitful collaboration was found through descriptions Smith supplied to publisher and illustrator, James Sowerby. Depiction of flora in England had previously only found patronage for aesthetic concerns, but an interest in gardening and natural history saw illustrated publications, such as the exotic A Specimen of the Botany of New Holland and the 36-volume English Botany, reaching new audiences.
In 1797 Smith published The Natural History of the Rarer Lepidopterous Insects of Georgia, the earliest book on American insects. It included the illustrations and notes of John Abbot, with descriptions of new species by Smith based on Abbot’s drawings.
Smith’s friendship with William Roscoe (after whom he named the genus Roscoea) saw him contribute 5000 plants between 1806 and 1817 to supplement the Roylean Herbarium. This was to become the Smith Herbarium held by the Liverpool Botanic Garden. After Smith’s death the Linnean Collection, together with Smith’s own collections, were bought by the Linnean Society for £3,150.
He was married to Pleasance Reeve (1773–1877). She survived her husband by 49 years and edited his memoirs and correspondence. They are buried together at St Margaret’s, Lowestoft.
Icones pictae plantarum rariorum descriptionibus et observationibus illustratae. London, 1790–93
Linnaeus, Carl von, Disquisitio de sexu plantarum. (1786) – (English) A dissertation on the sexes of plants translated from the Latin of Linnaeus by James Edward Smith. London : Printed for the author, and sold by George Nicol …
“Tentamen Botanicum de Filicum Generibus Dorsiferarum”, Mém. Acad. Roy. Sci. Turin, vol. 5 (1793) 401-422; one of the earliest scientific papers on fern taxonomy.
English Botany: Or, Coloured Figures of British Plants, with their Essential Characters, Synonyms and Places of Growth, descriptions supplied by Smith, was issued as a part work over 23 years until its completion in 1813. This work was issued in 36 volumes with 2,592 hand-colored plates of British plants. Published and illustrated by James Sowerby.
Linné, Carl von, Lachesis Lapponica or A Tour In Lapland, Translated by James Edward Smith (1811). London: White and Cochrane In two volumes.
Space Opera Books presents ECO Agents:Save The Planet a Young Adult Adventure
First ECO Agents book available
Those who follow me for a long time know that I also write in other fields aside from Regency Romance and the historical novels I do.
A few months ago, before the end of last year and after 2011 NaNoWriMo, (where I wrote the first draft of another Regency) I started work on a project with my younger brother Douglas (All three of my brothers are younger brothers.)
The premise, as he is now an educator but once was a full on scientist at the NHI and FBI (Very cloak and dagger chemistry.) was that with the world having become green, and more green aware every week, why not have a group of prodigies, studying at a higher learning educational facility tackle the ills that have now begun to beset the world.
So it is now released. We are trickling it out to the major online channels and through Amazon it will be available in trade paperback. Available at Amazon for your Kindle, or your Kindle apps and other online bookstores. For $5.99 you can get this collaboration between the brothers Wilkin. Or get it for every teenager you know who has access to a Kindle or other eReader.
Barnes and Noble for your Nook Smashwords iBookstore for your Apple iDevices Amazon for your Kindle
Five young people are all that stands between a better world and corporate destruction. Parker, Priya, JCubed, Guillermo and Jennifer are not just your average high school students. They are ECOAgents, trusted the world over with protecting the planet.
Our Earth is in trouble. Humanity has damaged our home. Billionaire scientist turned educator, Dr. Daniel Phillips-Lee, is using his vast resources to reverse this situation. Zedadiah Carter, leader of the Earth’s most powerful company, is only getting richer, harvesting resources, with the aid of not so trustworthy employees.
When the company threatens part of the world’s water supply, covering up their involvement is business as usual. The Ecological Conservation Organization’s Academy of Higher Learning and Scientific Achievement, or simply the ECO Academy, high in the hills of Malibu, California overlooking the Pacific Ocean, is the envy of educational institutions worldwide.
The teenage students of the ECO Academy, among the best and brightest the planet has to offer, have decided they cannot just watch the world self-destruct. They will meet this challenge head on as they begin to heal the planet.
Feedback
If you have any commentary, thoughts, ideas about the book (especially if you buy it, read it and like it
May 4, 2016
Regency Personalities Series-Sir Thomas Andrew Lumisden Strange
Regency Personalities Series
In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.
Sir Thomas Andrew Lumisden Strange
November 30, 1756 – July 16, 1841
Thomas Andrew Lumisden Strange
Sir Thomas Andrew Lumisden Strange was the son of Sir Robert Strange, a Scottish artist, and his wife Isabella Lumisden. He was born in England, studied law at Lincoln’s Inn, and was called to the bar in 1785.
After practicing law for four years, he was appointed Chief Justice of Nova Scotia in 1790, likely helped by his mother’s friendship with Lord Mansfield, a cabinet minister. He was sent to Halifax where he served for seven years until 1797. He found many of the cases had to do with relatively small property claims.
He was instrumental in freeing slaves from their owners in the colony. His successor said that “in cases involving runaway slaves Strange required “the fullest proof of the master’s claim” and that since this was difficult to produce “it was found generally very easy to succeed in favour of the Negro.” Blowers, as attorney general, and Strange frequently discussed how to proceed in such matters, and Strange decided to move slowly rather than “throw so much property as it is called into the air at once.”
Strange supported the development of Kings College from his position on the board of governors. He donated his law library to the lawyers in Nova Scotia, which laid the foundation for the present library of the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society. Benjamin West painted Strange’s full-length portrait, which hangs in the Nova Scotia court.
He moved back to England in July 1796. Strange was knighted on 14 March 1798 and the same year was appointed as Recorder of Fort St. George (Madras), British India. In 1800, consequent to the Regulating Act of 1797, the Recorder’s Court was superseded by the Supreme Court, and Strange was appointed Chief Justice. He commanded two of the four companies of Madras Militia and played an important role in suppressing the Vellore Mutiny of the soldiers of the East India Company in 1806.
After his retirement from service in India in 1817, he returned to England. In 1825 he published the book, Elements of Hindu Law.
A huge portrait of Sir Thomas Strange adorns the gallery of the Chief Justice’s Court in the Madras High Court.
He died at Kempshot Rd, Lower Streatham on 16 July 1841 and was buried in West Norwood Cemetery.
Space Opera Books Presents A Trolling We Will Go Omnibus:The Latter Years
A Trolling We Will Go Omnibus:The Latter Years
Not only do I write Regency and Romance, but I also have delved into Fantasy.
The Trolling series, is the story of a man, Humphrey. We meet him as he has left youth and become a man with a man’s responsibilities. He is a woodcutter for a small village. It is a living, but it is not necessarily a great living. It does give him strength, muscles.
We follow him in a series of stories that encompass the stages of life. We see him when he starts his family, when he has older sons and the father son dynamic is tested.
We see him when his children begin to marry and have children, and at the end of his life when those he has loved, and those who were his friends proceed him over the threshold into death.
All this while he serves a kingdom troubled by monsters. Troubles that he and his friends will learn to deal with and rectify.
Here are the last two books together as one longer novel.
Trolling, Trolling, Trolling Fly Hides! and We’ll All Go a Trolling.
Available in a variety of formats.
For $5.99 you can get this fantasy adventure.
Barnes and Noble for your Nook
The stories of Humphrey and Gwendolyn. Published separately in: Trolling, Trolling, Trolling Fly Hides! and We’ll All Go a Trolling. These are the tales of how a simple Woodcutter who became a king and an overly educated girl who became his queen helped save the kingdom of Torahn from an ancient evil. Now with the aid of their children and their grandchildren.
Long forgotten is the way to fight the Trolls. Beasts that breed faster than rabbits it seems, and when they decide to migrate to the lands of humans, their seeming invulnerability spell doom for all in the kingdom of Torahn. Not only Torahn but all the human kingdoms that border the great mountains that divide the continent.
The Kingdom of Torahn has settled down to peace, but the many years of war to acheive that peace has seen to changes in the nearby Teantellen Mountains. Always when you think the Trolls have also sought peace, you are fooled for now, forced by Dragons at the highest peaks, the Trolls are marching again.
Now Humphrey is old, too old to lead and must pass these cares to his sons. Will they be as able as he always has been. He can advise, but he does not have the strength he used to have. Nor does Gwendolyn back in the Capital. Here are tales of how leaders we know and are familiar with must learn to trust the next generation to come.
Feedback
If you have any commentary, thoughts, ideas about the book (especially if you buy it, read it and like it
May 3, 2016
Coming Soon…
Coming most likely this week the next Regency Romance tale by D.W. Wilkin:
You Ought to Trust Your Mother
Beauty has said to be in the eye of the Beholder, or is the Beholden.
The tale of Baron Fallion Lancelot Stafford, a gentleman of perhaps too much leisure who had served in the wars of some few years before, has decided that all that leisure was perhaps a waste and he should be doing something. He was just very unsure what that was.
We also find Lady Beatrice Cavendish, the daughter of the Earl of Hoare who is famed for her beauty, yet can not find any man who has more to speak to her beyond that one subject. And yet far too many think they should offer for her with only the ardent praise to her looks to recommend them. Perhaps there exists one suitor who could speak on a subject beyond that?
Regency Personalities Series-William Marsden (Orientalist)
Regency Personalities Series
In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.
William Marsden (Orientalist)
16 November 1754 – 6 October 1836
William Marsden
William Marsden was the son of a Dublin merchant. He was born in Verval, County Wicklow, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. Upon obtaining a civil service appointment with the East India Company at sixteen years of age, he was sent to Benkulen, Sumatra, in 1771. He was promoted to the position of principal secretary to the government, and acquired a knowledge of the Malay language and the country. After returning to England in 1779, he was awarded the Doctor of Civil Law (D.C.L.) degree by Oxford University in 1780 and published his History of Sumatra in (1783).
Marsden was elected to membership in the Royal Society in 1783. He had been recommended by James Rennell, Edward Whitaker Gray, John Topham, Alexander Dalrymple, and Charles Blagden.
In 1795, Marsden was appointed second secretary to the admiralty, later rising to the position of first secretary with a salary of £4,000 per annum. It was in this capacity in 1805 that he received the news of victory in the Battle of Trafalgar and of the death of Admiral Horatio Nelson in the battle. He retired in 1807 with a lifetime pension of £1,500 per annum which he subsequently relinquished in 1831. In 1812, he published Grammar and Dictionary of the Malay Language. This was followed by a translation of the Travels of Marco Polo in 1818.
Marsden was a member of many learned societies, and treasurer and vice-president of the Royal Society. In 1834 he presented his collection of oriental coins to the British Museum and his library of books and Oriental manuscripts to King’s College London. His other works are Catalogue of Dictionaries, Vocabularies, Grammars and Alphabets (1796), Numismata orientalia (London, 1823–1825), and several papers on Eastern topics in the Philosophical Transactions and the Archaeologia.
He married Elizabeth, the daughter of his friend Sir Charles Wilkins FRS, but there was no issue to this marriage. He died on 6 October 1836 from an apoplexy attack and was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery. He left his estate to his kinsman Rev. Canon John Howard Marsden. Elizabeth subsequently married Colonel William Leake FRS on 17 September 1838.
1784 — The history of Sumatra: containing an account of the government, laws, customs and manners of the native inhabitants, with a description of the natural productions, and a relation of the ancient political state of that island. London: Printed for the author.
1802 — “Observations on the language of Siwah; in a letter to the Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Banks; by William Marsden, Esq., F.R.S.” in The Journal of Frederick Horneman’s Travels: From Cairo to Mourzouk, the Capital of the Kingdom of Fezzan, in Africa, by Friedrich Hornemann, James Rennell, William Marsden and William Young. London: G. and W. Nicol.
1796 — Catalogue of Dictionaries, Vocabularies, Grammars and Alphabets
1812 — Grammar and Dictionary of the Malay Language single edition, Dutch & French translation of the Grammar (C. P. J. Elout based on Marsden), Dutch-Malay & French-Malay Dictionary (C. P. J. Elout based on Marsden)
1818 — Travels of Marco Polo
1823 — Numismata orientalia
1830 — Memoirs of a Malayan Family by ‘La-uddı̄n Nakhoda Muda (translated by William Marsden). London: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland.
