Tim Arnot's Blog, page 8

I’m A.K. Trowelthing!

(and so’s my wife!) Just saying… A(UK): http://amzn.to/12DfOIg A(US): http://amzn.to/16SHvmm Nook: http://bit.ly/14OqOox Kobo: http://bit.ly/17MBGs4 iBooks: http://bit.ly/1bcArCW

Faringdon on the Radio

Faringdon House (one of my key locations) featured in yesterday’s BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Drama: As WW2 nears its conclusion, James Lees-Milne is sent to assess Faringdon House in Berkshire for the National Trust. Faringdon is home to the composer, artist and poet Gerald, Lord Berners, who has returned to England under a cloud, having [...]

Flick’s blog is back!

During a recent reorganisation of my site (I host several different domains from the one hosting package) I accidentally pressed the wrong button and Flick’s WordPress install went away. Now while I do have a backup of the whole directory structure, it seemed like too much hassle to try and recover individual posts and stuff [...]

More paperbacks!

The UPS man has just turned up with a big box of paperbacks (yay!)

Poetry

We had a poetry workshop at Abingdon Writers last night, so I just want to say a quick thank you to Elaine and Kathryn for what turned out to be a very interesting ant thought-provoking event. Anyhow, this is the short piece that I produced. I’m not claiming anything in terms of originality or style [...]

Omnis Speculamur

Vos Omnis Speculamur is the motto of the Kingsmen, and Omnis Speculamur is the mailing list to be on if you want to be notified when new books in the series come out.

It’s a no-spam list – the only emails you will receive are new release notifications at most, a few times each year. And of course you can unsubscribe at any time.

Sign up here.

Wanted on Audio

I’m almost halfway through recording an audio version of Wanted, which has been a very interesting experience. I’ve just finished reading Chapter 18, and the midpoint (based on page count) is about three quarters through Chapter 19. The big question is going to be whether I have any voice left by the time I’ve got to the end…

I don’t do ‘voices’. At least I’m not doing voices. I had a go at the first two chapters, and since more than half the characters are female… well, you can imagine the result. Put it this way, it wasn’t pretty.

Anyhow, once it’s all edited together, it’ll come out somewhere in the region of sixteen hours, which is ballpark for this length of audiobook. However you won’t be able to buy it as an audiobook. No, I’ll be releasing it as a podcast, in roughly thirty-something weekly instalments. For free.

Yes, you heard right: It’ll be free. Okay, you have to listen to my voice, and as I said, I’m not doing the voices, and it’ll be the best part of 9 months before you get to the end. But still, free. (And there might be the odd ad in there too.)

Keep an eye out here or on http://www.tim-arnot.com or on the Facebook page for further details.

After Earth

Certificate 12A, 100 minutes, ★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Will Smith, Jaden Smith, Sophie Okonedo and Zoe Kravitz star in this M Knight Shyamalan directed sci-fi movie.

For some reason, humanity has been forced to leave Earth and move to new digs on Nova Prime, where everything looks like it belongs to a cross between a sailboat and a Persil commercial (other detergents are available, and probably needed to keep all the white fabrics clean…). All well and good, apart from the alien bugs that  go around killing people and spiking them with extreme prejudice.

Daddy Smith plays a general in the interstellar space force, who is the only person that’s immune to these bugs, because he has no fear (it seems they hunt by detecting the pheromones produced by fear). Actually he has no real emotion of any sort. Diddy Smith plays his son, who idolises his father but has obedience issues after his older sister was killed by one of these bugs.

Anyhow, Daddy and Diddy wind up together on this spaceship which gets damaged in a meteor storm and crashes on a now-interdicted Earth. Daddy is badly injured and so is forced to sit in part of the wrecked spaceship, wearing a “who wrote this crap? Oh, it was me… what was I thinking?” pout, while Diddy wanders around the planet being chased by CG apes and giant eagles and being out acted by the trees. Of course this giant bug shows up, and the only way Diddy can survive to save the day is to show no fear. But since he hasn’t shown any other emotions up to this point, that shouldn’t be too difficult.

I’m still left wondering why Hollywood keeps letting Shyamalan back behind a camera, since he only demonstrates time and time again a talent for awfulness. And I have to say this film is just as bad as the rest.

Paperback Writer…

Okay, not quite, but the proof has now arrived for checking. Yay! Here’s, er, proof…

No doubt everyone will be more interested in what’s on the bookshelf behind me, such is life, ho hum etc. And yes that is Piglet.

While I have your attention, there is now an official Wanted Facebook page. Please ‘like’ it.

Paperback news

In addition to the news of being Indie Book Bargains author of the day today, I had news that the proofs are now ready for the paperback edition (360 pages, 5″ x 8″). That means, assuming everything is okay, it should start appearing on Amazon etc 2-3 weeks from giving the go ahead. Yay!!!

Let’s see if we can’t get my first month’s sales into triple figures! Buy it for only $3.99 (£2.71) from one of these sellers: