Kate Kelly's Blog, page 6

The Arid Lands themes: A vast engineering project

In the 1920s the German architect Herman Sorgel came up with the concept for a vast Engineering project to build a hydroelectric dam across the Straits of Gibraltar. This project was known as Atlantropa and was promoted by Germany until Sorgel’s death in 1952.

The construction of this dam, along with several others at strategic locations, would have the effect of controlling the inflow into the Mediterranean from the Atlantic. It would have generated vast amounts of electricity as well as causing...

Review: Not By Sea by Paul Weston

The Book

The brief respite of the Peace of Amiens is over, and Britain is once again at war with France. Napoléon knows that if he is to win the war, he must invade England, but the Armée d’Angleterre is blockaded in Boulogne by the Royal Navy. Frustrated by British sea power, Napoléon entrusts an alternative scheme to the brilliant Captain Morlaix which if successful, could lead to the subjugation of Britain.

During the Peace, English visitors had flocked to France, among them Midshipmen Stone an...

Guest Post by Lydia Baker: Writing an apocalyptic world and the theme of family

 Writing an apocalyptic world and the theme of family

Thank you so much for having me on your blog, Kate. My sci-fi novel, AVA, takes place in a futuristic city that mirrors London but could be any big city. Ava and her fellow humans have been trapped under an electrical barrier that appeared fourteen years ago when Ava was a child visiting the city with her father and brother. As a young adult, her determination to escape the barrier and discover if her family has survived drives her. But the th...

The Arid Lands themes: Climate effects of a dried up sea.

As I have mentioned in a previous post, 6 million years ago (Ma) the Mediterranean Sea entered a phase of desiccation when it became cut off from the Atlantic, and almost completely dried up. This is the same scenario I have envisioned for the alternate future world of The Arid Lands, where Inez and her people struggle to survive, not knowing that everything is about to change.

The desiccation of the Mediterranean Sea would have a number of knock-on effects for the climate of the surrounding land...

Review: Hot Ash and the Oasis Defect by Philip Wyeth

The Book

Welcome to 2045. Automation has freed humanity from the drudgery and limitations of blue-collar labor. For twenty years, a remarkable group of female bureaucrats has overseen an ambitious construction program that is spreading equity, prosperity, and peace worldwide.

But Detective Ashley Westgard of the Jacksonville Police Corps senses that beneath all the glimmer and shine, a new malaise has taken root in society. From brazen acts of criminality and rampant party pill abuse, to her own i...

The Arid Lands themes: The Messinian Salinity Crisis

My newly released SF novel, The Arid Lands is set some 600 years from now, in an alternate future when the Mediterranean has almost completely dried out. It is in this inhospitable landscape of salt flats and occasional pools of hypersaline brine that Inez and her people struggle to survive. Inez knows no other existence. But all that is about to change.

You may think that the idea of a vast sea such as the Mediterranean almost completely evaporating is pure fiction, but let me tell you, it is no...

Review: Zen Dynamics – Putting Buddhist theory into practice by Andrew May

The Book

Buddhism can sometimes come across a s abstract and philosophical, but it has a strongly practical side too – and that’s what this book is all about. It focuses on four areas in particular:

– The analysis of personality types, both in Buddhism and traditional Chinese medicine, showing how this can enhance self-awareness and personal development.

– How “karma”, or the law of cause-and-effect applied on a personal scale, functions in an entirely non-mystical, non-supernatural way within the f...

Review: Embargo on Hope by Justin Doyle

The Book

Even gods have secrets...

On planet Vastire, worth is set by the sins of one's ancestors. Good families rise to the elite and the wicked fall into poverty. Unfortunately for sixteen-year-old Darynn Mark, his father incited a revolution. Now, Darynn scrounges his way through life in the slums. When Vastire is surrounded by an embargo, it gets even harder to survive.

That all changes when an alien ship slips through the embargo, seeking Darynn with an offer: finish the revolution and the emb...

The Arid Lands and Red Rock promotion update:

Here is my latest update on the various promotional activities I have undertaken to try to spread the word about my self-published books, and how successful or otherwise these activities have been.

1. Social Media

I continued to promote Red Rock and The Arid Lands on Twitter/X, IG, my Facebook/Meta page, Threads and Discord. I did pick up sales of The Arid Lands on preorder and downloads of Red Rock from my free promotions, as well as the occasional sale of both outside of promotion.

2. Red Rock fr...

Review: Arkhangelsk by Elizabeth Bonesteel

The Book

Head peace officer Anya Savelova believed her people, living on a hostile planet in the ice-bound city of Novayarkha, were the last of humanity.

Until the day she learned they weren’t.

When a starship from an Earth thought long dead appears in orbit over her world, Anya imagines an explosion of possible futures, offering her people the freedom to transcend the limiting environment of the planet they’d thought was their last refuge. In the starship’s crew, Anya finds creativity, diversity, ...