A.B. Shepherd's Blog, page 17

The Final Winter: An Apacolyptic Horror Novel by Iain Rob Wright

Book Blurb:On the night where it begins snowing in every country of the world, a group of ordinary people gather at an old English pub. At first they assume the weather is just a random occurrence, but as the night goes on, and weird things happen, they start to realize something far more sinister is occurring.

And that someone amongst them may be the cause of it all.

By the end of the night, not everyone will make it, and those that do may wish they hadn’t.
My review:This is a tough book for me to review. I'm not a huge fan of horror but every once in awhile I like to read a little scary book here and there. 
This did have a Stephen King-esque type feel to it, but I was a bit let down by the story itself. Not that it is a bad story. The story is fine, but I kind of feel like it was a bit of a bait and switch. I was looking to read a horror tale about the end of the world, and instead I feel like I got a book about morality and religion. Not that morality and religion can't play a role in a horror tale, and often do. I don't know. I'm confusing myself, and probably you too. And honestly, when the sub-title is "An Apocalyptic Horror Novel" well I guess religion and morality should be a given as far as themes go, so I think maybe I'm the problem.
I'm just so conflicted here.


There were a couple of nice quirky twists to the morality tale with regard to the character of Lucas, but overall - well, I'm not a religious person and I don't like reading Christian fiction. While this isn't your typical Christian fiction I was left feeling that Christian Fiction, or maybe even the book of Revelation from the bible, was exactly what I'd read. 
Someone, please read this book and tell me if you feel the same way, or if you really got the horror vibe it was intended to give.
About the author:Iain Rob Wright was born in 1984 and lives in Redditch, a small town in the West Midlands, UK, with his cocker spaniels, Daisy and Oscar, his fat old cat, Jess, his many tropical fish, and the love of his life, Sally. Writing is the passion that fills his life during the small periods of time when he isn't cleaning up after his pets.

Horror is his beloved genre and his next gruesome novel, Animal Kingdom, will be released later this year. His inspirations range from Brian Keene, Stephen King, and Richard Laymon, to J A Konrath and Terry Pratchett.

If you read his work then please leave a review. Every one helps!

You can speak to him at: iain.robert.wright@hotmail.co.uk

or read his regular blog at:http://iainrobwright.blogspot.com/

His official website is: http://iainrobwright.com

Devoted book tour - Guest post & Giveaway by Kathryn Palillo!

As part of her tour for her new book Devoted, Kathryn Polillo, author of The Watcher's Trilogy, stops by today to share her top six reasons we love YA fiction.  





Check them out, then take a peek below and enter the Rafflecopter for your chance to win! 


Top Six Reasons we love YA Fiction.   by Kathryn Palillo Because 5 just isn’t enough  


#6- Ain’t Nobody Got Time  Let’s face it we are busy people.  None of us have time for War and Peace and if you do, than welcome to the Internet, leave now while you still have a chance.  Anyway, between jobs, kids, significant others, friends, errands, and keeping the pets alive who has the time or energy to commit to a long, drawn out dissertation?  YA is there for us when we need it in all its simple, undemanding, non-judgmental glory.   


#5- Because nobody likes Happily Never After We are a generation raised on fairy tales.  Blame Walt Disney or The Brother’s Grim, but we were raised on fairy tales and happily ever afters.  We want the nice “and they rode off into the sunset” stories.  Not to over generalize, but YA Fiction gets that.  It may not be perfect, it may not happen in one book, but rarely does a YA book end in divorce, bankruptcy, or your in-laws moving in.  You know… happily ever after.   

#4- When pigs fly…  Sure!  And when werewolves walk the earth and vampires sneak in windows and angels walk among us and ghosts are our best friends.  Want it to happen?  Wish it could happen?  Wonder what would happen if it did happen?  Welcome to YA Fiction!  
#3- Feel misunderstood?   Was high school riddled with awkward moments and unfortunate fashion choices?  What a coincidence, welcome to almost every YA Fiction female protagonist.  Not only are you not alone in your awkwardness, but these characters are just like you, experiencing what you experienced, battling the “popular girls” with the wit and vengeance you wished you possessed, and all while maintaining their loner-outlier status.  These characters provide a second chance for us to slice cruel high school higherarchy with our razor sharp intellect, and snub our nose at anyone who made us feel unworthy or unwanted.    
#2- The hot guy secretly sees you’re awesome.   Sure we weren’t all popular, but we have evolved into some kick ass adults.  So where was this awesomeness in high school?  Hidden under layers of self-doubt and silent anarchy, but fear not YA Fiction gives us amazing leading men who see past our less than conventional social behaviors and embrace all that makes us awkward.  Clumsy is cute, sarcasm is sexy, anger issues are a turn on, and the over sized sweater is just downright hot.  
#1-We want to believe!   Most of all we love YA Fiction because it gives us hope that all this crap life has piled on top of us is just part of the plot that will lead to our eventual climax where life makes sense, you fall in love, your future opens up.  YA Fiction lets us be teenagers again living in a world of opportunities, what ifs, and wide-open spaces.  YA Fiction reminds us what those butterflies in our stomach use to feel like and how excited we felt when we thought of everything that could be.   

Yes Kathryn, I DO want to believe. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. Now tell us about Devoted. :)


Now available Devoted (The Watcher's Trilogy #2) by Katherine Polillo







Can love conqueror all? 
Michelle has managed to survive high school against all odds, but now she finds herself floating adrift in “the real world”. With two horsemen defeated, there are still two unaccounted for, and surely they are plotting her immediate demise. Michelle leaves her small New Jersey town behind to venture off west.

Barely able to comprehend her role as humanity’s savior she now has to grapple with some new roles and identities. With her Watcher, Gabriel, by her side she must again face the evils of Hell and attempt to keep her family safe. Will love conquer all or will till death do us part come too soon? 

Buy Devoted at Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords






a Rafflecopter giveaway


A GWR Publicity event paid for by Anchor Group Publishing. Giveaway is sponsored the author who responsible for delivery of prize pack.

Do extra-terrestrial beings truly exist? This ignorant person's opinion.

In my novel, Lifeboat, Cass is rescued by an Alien spaceship when the Earth experiences a series of natural disasters that make it no longer inhabitable.

When Dan Thompson so graciously hosted me on his blog a few weeks ago he asked me - do aliens really exist?


I told him this (Yes, I am quoting myself - how tacky is that?):

"I will say that I am 99.9% sure aliens exist – in some form. The Universe is far too big and we are far too small to rule that out. Whether they exist in a form we would recognize, or whether they might have the technology to visit our world I can’t say. I am far too ignorant. 

We haven’t even explored 100% of the Earth yet. All the UFOs seen by Earthlings could actually be created by unknown Earthlings. How cool would that be? Feel free to steal that story idea. You are welcome."

But then I thought - you know what? Maybe I should expand on that a little bit.

You may not know this about me but I LOVE possibilities. I love knowing that I don't know everything. I love knowing that no person on this Earth knows everything (although I certainly know some people who think they do). 

I watch a lot of TV shows about the paranormal, ghosts, big foot, the Loch Ness monster, aliens, and UFOs and yes, I even recently admitted to watching Ancient Aliens on The History Channel. What I find hilarious are all these scientists who feel they can categorically state ghosts don't exist, big foot doesn't exist, the Loch Ness monster doesn't exist, UFOs do not exist, aliens have never visited our planet, and blah blah blah.

How do they know that? Because they haven't experienced it. Because it doesn't fit in their mathematical calculations. Because what they DO know doesn't make allowance for it.

What a crock! How arrogant and close-minded can you possibly be to state categorically that something does NOT exist?

Mathematics are cool. I'm no mathematician, but I know that physics is awesome and so are the other sciences, all of which have mathematics as their base. Mathematics are precise and orderly. But they are also rigid.

Life isn't rigid. It ebbs and it flows and it recycles. Sure there is birth and there is guaranteed death, but even after death our bodies return to dust which becomes soil, which nourishes plants, which becomes life. The Earth isn't rigid. It has peaks and it has valleys and it has oceans, and it also has a WHOLE lot of stuff we've never seen and know absolutely nothing about. We are still discovering new plants and new species of animals all the time.

While it has norms there are places on Earth where things don't react in expected ways according to the laws of physics. Magnetic fields that are stronger or weaker than normal.  We think we know about storms and weather, but one man claims while flying during a storm he actually time traveled through some type of storm-created portal. Others dispute it, but they can not prove he didn't. They can only theorize it.

My point is that while we think we know so much about physics, and science and all that good stuff, there is far more we DON'T know.

Maybe ghosts aren't real. Maybe what some people think are ghosts are actually beings in a parallel universe that touches ours in some way. Maybe when our Earthly bodies die our spirits inhabit a parallel universe. There actually COULD be parallel universes. Some scientists think so.

Maybe grey aliens really are humans from the future (as was theorized in the episode of Ancient Aliens I watched last night). Or maybe they really are extra-terrestrial beings. Or maybe they are Earth creatures we haven't met yet who live in remote, or even underwater locations. Maybe they are the descendents of the inhabitants of Atlantis who survived and now live under the ocean.

The possibilities are endless.

Does that mean that I'm so gullible you can sell me an ocean front house in Alice Springs? Nope. Not even close.

But what I'm trying to say is, how can we be so quick to judge what is and isn't real? What is and isn't possible?

Maybe I'm not real at all. Maybe I'm just a figment of someone else's imagination or a character in someone else's story?

Reality is subjective, and possibilities are infinite.  I love keeping my mind and my imagination wide open.

What do you think? Am I nuts?

Curse of Ancient Shadows by Rod Tyson

Book Blurb:
Curse of Ancient Shadows. Part 1 of the 'Ancient Shadows' series.
A fanatical evil has lain in wait for six hundred years.
Cat Celeste has no idea of the dark events surrounding her family’s ancient history. Her mum and dad tried to protect her by moving to London shortly after she was born. Thirteen years later, the family curse has followed them, and her parents have disappeared in strange circumstances.
Now, with the help of her estranged grand-father Phillip, and her best friend Hetty, she must fight for her life to discover the bizarre truth, in a supernatural struggle that is a legacy of her ancient ancestors’ fallen kingdom. 
Time is short. There can be only one winner in the deadly game.
The Dance of Fear has begun.
A novel for 10 to 13 year olds and adults who love adventure, fairy tales and fantasy.
My review:Parts of this book were really well written.
I have to say though, that there were some things that seemed odd. The children in the book didn't seem like normal children. There were no giggles or sounds of disgust when Ben picked his nose or someone farted. They just seemed to accepted that really strange creatures and weird things were happening without finding it really weird or scary.
One thing that bugged me a bit was that every mechanical vehicle in this novel belches black smoke. Motor cycle, van, moped - every single one.
Another thing I found really odd as a parent (even though my kids are grown) is that Hetty's parents shipped her off to stay with Cat in a strange place which was not Cat's home without ever even speaking to an adult.
And lastly in the way of criticism, the ending when Cat was trying to rescue her parents made no sense to me at all.
Now for the things I did like: There were lots of fantasy elements. This is an epic adventure and there is lots of action. And you know what? Maybe for some of you those things I am nitpicking about won't make a whit of difference. They might even add to your enjoyment.
What are your favorite fantasy books for kids aged 10 to 13?
About the author: Rod Tyson is an aspiring author of young adult fantasy and horror novels as well as a sculptor, computer geek, road warrior, mega-dad, father of a notorious ninja and ex new-age traveller. Living in rural Suffolk, UK with his wife, daughter and a nameless moggy, when he’s not repairing computers or seeking inspiration while hiking out in the countryside he’s writing novels.
He has just released his second novel – The Orphan Stone, a young adult dark fantasy.
Find him on Twitter @rodtyson100
Check out his blog – www.rodtysonblog.blogspot.com
www.ancientshadows.co.uk

#Bookreview Zero Hour by Clive Cussler & Graham Brown

Book Blurb:Zero Hour (Numa Files #11)It is called zero point energy, and it really exists—a state of energy contained in all matter everywhere, and thus all but unlimited. Nobody has ever found a way to tap into it, however—until one scientist discovers a way.

Or at least he thinks he has. The problem is, his machines also cause great earthquakes, even fissures in tectonic plates. One machine is buried deep underground; the other is submerged in a vast ocean trench. If Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala and the rest of the NUMA team aren’t able to find and destroy them, and soon, the world will be on the threshold of a new era of earth tremors and unchecked volcanism.

Now, that can’t be good.
My review:Although Clive Cussler is a prolific author I've not read one of his works before. I picked this one up not realizing it was the 11th book in a series. It was on the NY Times Best Seller list and I thought I'd check out what some other people were reading.
So now that I've explained that I had no preconceived notions going into this book here are my thoughts.
Kurt Austin is like a modern day James Bond type character only without all the "I need to sleep with all the pretty girls" vibe. He is a brilliant, athletic, politically savvy, "never-say-die" kind of guy. He's good looking too but that isn't emphasized here.
But unlike James Bond, Kurt is a team player. He's got a buddy, Joe Zavala, who is a similar type of guy, and they make a great team. They are also part of a bigger team - the NUMA team - and they all work for Dirk Pitt (who just happens to be the focus of some other books in this series from what I understand now). 
This is a pretty clean, action-adventure story. There is a ton of violence but it isn't super graphic. There is no sex, although there is a pretty girl and some romantic vibes going on. There is a lot of action, suspense and a satisfying conclusion. The book is pretty formulaic, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. You know what you are getting, but there is still a ton to read about and I admit to finding the idea of zero point energy intriguing. 
Although I didn't love it enough to want to go out immediately and get all the rest of the books in the series, I really did enjoy it. I'd give it four out of five stars.
What are your favorite action-adventure books?
About the author: Clive Cussler - Cussler began writing novels in 1965 and published his first work featuring his continuous series hero, Dirk Pitt, in 1973. His first non-fiction, The Sea Hunters, was released in 1996. The Board of Governors of the Maritime College, State University of New York, considered The Sea Hunters in lieu of a Ph.D. thesis and awarded Cussler a Doctor of Letters degree in May, 1997. It was the first time since the College was founded in 1874 that such a degree was bestowed.

Cussler is an internationally recognized authority on shipwrecks and the founder of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, (NUMA) a 501C3 non-profit organization (named after the fictional Federal agency in his novels) that dedicates itself to preserving American maritime and naval history. He and his crew of marine experts and NUMA volunteers have discovered more than 60 historically significant underwater wreck sites including the first submarine to sink a ship in battle, the Confederacy's Hunley, and its victim, the Union's Housatonic; the U-20, the U-boat that sank the Lusitania; the Cumberland, which was sunk by the famous ironclad, Merrimack; the renowned Confederate raider Florida; the Navy airship, Akron, the Republic of Texas Navy warship, Zavala, found under a parking lot in Galveston, and the Carpathia, which sank almost six years to-the-day after plucking Titanic's survivors from the sea.

In September, 1998, NUMA - which turns over all artifacts to state and Federal authorities, or donates them to museums and universities - launched its own web site for those wishing more information about maritime history or wishing to make donations to the organization. (www.numa.net).

In addition to being the Chairman of NUMA, Cussler is also a fellow in both the Explorers Club of New York and the Royal Geographic Society in London. He has been honored with the Lowell Thomas Award for outstanding underwater exploration.

Cussler's books have been published in more than 40 languages in more than 100 countries. His past international bestsellers include Pacific Vortex, Mediterranean Caper, Iceberg, Raise the Titanic, Vixen 03, Night Probe, Deep Six, Cyclops, Treasure, Dragon, Sahara, Inca Gold, Shock Wave, Flood Tide, Atlantis Found, Valhalla Rising, Trojan Odyssey and Black Wind (this last with his son, Dirk Cussler); the nonfiction books The Sea Hunters, The Sea Hunters II and Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt r Revealed; the NUMA® Files novels Serpent, Blue Gold, Fire Ice, White Death and Lost City (written with Paul Kemprecos); and the Oregon Files novels Sacred Stone and Golden Buddha (written with Craig Dirgo) and Dark Watch (written with Jack Du Brul).

Clive Cussler lives in Arizona. 
No information was found about author Graham Brown. 

Confession - I watch Ancient Aliens on The History Channel

So I mentioned in a previous post that I've recently discovered the History Channel TV show Ancient Aliens.

In that post I spoke about the Serpent Mound in Ohio which I find intriguing, because similarly to the Nasca lines in Peru it is best seen from space and we can only speculate on its true purpose. 

Last night I watched an episode where the Ancient Alien Theorists posited that the ancient myths and legends of creatures like the Leviathan and Chimera and many more human/animal hybrids of legend were actually real creatures that were created by aliens experimenting with human DNA.

I laughed so hard I nearly wet my pants. 

Honestly. This show is so full of wild ideas and while some of them have a shred of validity and do make me ponder possibilities, many others border on the ridiculous and absurd.

The Theorists speculated that because our technology is reaching the point where such medical feats could be possible, we are merely recreating lost technology now.  The aliens who would have reached our world so long ago would have had that technology and used it. What would be more natural than to experiment with Earthly animal life?

One of the other theories mentioned in this episode was the theory that humans only evolved from primates due to the genetic intervention from aliens who visited our planet so many years ago.

Centaurs would have been the perfect pack animals with the brains of man so they could understand directions. The Theorists even speculated that dragons were created by aliens from lizards - why not give them wings and the ability to breath fire?

While I find much of this show to be complete hocum, I have to admit that it sparks my imagination in ways that I might someday find useful in my writing and that is precisely why I enjoy it.

Do you watch this kind of thing? What sparks your imagination? What makes you think?

Book review: A Wrinkle in Time by Margaret L'Engle

Book blurb:
It was a dark and stormy night; Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger.

"Wild nights are my glory," the unearthly stranger told them. "I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course. Let me be on my way. Speaking of way, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract".

Meg's father had been experimenting with this fifth dimension of time travel when he mysteriously disappeared. Now the time has come for Meg, her friend Calvin, and Charles Wallace to rescue him. But can they outwit the forces of evil they will encounter on their heart-stopping journey through space?

My review:
As you may have noticed, I have been making a concerted effort to step away from what is new and hot in the way of fiction and focus on some of the classics, especially science fiction. When I was talking to others about my quest for the classics, this is a book that was recommended time and time again.

I don't know anything about this author, other than what is listed below in her bio, and that she passed away in 2007. Although the primary setting for her book is the Carolinas, when reading it you get the feeling that it is a British novel and I couldn't help picturing the English countryside. I think much of that has to do with the author's writing style, which was likely influenced by her years an English boarding school. 

The scientific facts she imbues into this novel are still relevant today. I enjoyed this book, but it did feel dated to me. I couldn't appreciate it for the classic that it is. Maybe I'm just not literary enough.

Have you read this book, or this series? How did you feel about it?

About the author:

Madeleine L'Engle was an American writer best known for her Young Adult fiction, particularly the Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and Many Waters. Her works reflect her strong interest in modern science: tesseracts, for example, are featured prominently in A Wrinkle in Time, mitochondrial DNA in A Wind in the Door, organ regeneration in The Arm of the Starfish, and so forth.

"Madeleine was born on November 29th, 1918, and spent her formative years in New York City. Instead of her school work, she found that she would much rather be writing stories, poems and journals for herself, which was reflected in her grades (not the best). However, she was not discouraged.

At age 12, she moved to the French Alps with her parents and went to an English boarding school where, thankfully, her passion for writing continued to grow. She flourished during her high school years back in the United States at Ashley Hall in Charleston, South Carolina, vacationing with her mother in a rambling old beach cottage on a beautiful stretch of Florida Beach.

She went to Smith College and studied English with some wonderful teachers as she read the classics and continued her own creative writing. She graduated with honors and moved into a Greenwich Village apartment in New York. She worked in the theater, where Equity union pay and a flexible schedule afforded her the time to write! She published her first two novels during these years--A Small Rain and Ilsa--before meeting Hugh Franklin, her future husband, when she was an understudy in Anton Chekov's The Cherry Orchard. They married during The Joyous Season.

She had a baby girl and kept on writing, eventually moving to Connecticut to raise the family away from the city in a small dairy farm village with more cows than people. They bought a dead general store, and brought it to life for 9 years. They moved back to the city with three children, and Hugh revitalized his professional acting career. The family has kept the country house, Crosswicks, and continues to spend summers there.

As the years passed and the children grew, Madeleine continued to write and Hugh to act, and they to enjoy each other and life. Madeleine began her association with the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, where she has been the librarian and maintained an office for more than thirty years. After Hugh's death in 1986, it was her writing and lecturing that kept her going. She has now lived through the 20th century and into the 21st and has written over 60 books and keeps writing. She enjoys being with her friends, her children, her grandchildren, and her great grandchildren."http://us.macmillan.com/author/madele...
Copyright © 2007 Crosswicks, Ltd. (Madeleine L'Engle, President)(less)

What inspires you? What has it led you to create?

Dingley Dell, South AustraliaAre you an artist? A crafter? A writer? Where do you find inspiration? What has your inspiration led you to create?

If you have read my About Me page, you know that in addition to being a writer/blogger, I am also a novice fiber crafter. When it comes to inspiration for both writing and crafting I find it everywhere.

My husband and I live about thirty minutes from the Southern Ocean and we like to travel down there often just to sit seaside and watch the waves and the ships. That is inspiration in itself for me and I just find it incredibly relaxing and restorative. But on the way down we pass a turn off to a place called Dingley Dell. I just love the sound of those two words together - Dingley Dell. 

Those words inspire me. For a time I thought Dingley Dell was actually a town. I would love to have an address that said I lived in Dingley Dell. Sadly, it is not. It is a cottage where Adam Lindsay Gordon, a 19th century poet, lived. Still pretty cool though, right?

Someday I will find a way to use Dingley Dell in one of my books. 

I also find a lot of inspiration for my writing in television shows. Lifeboat, was loosely inspired by the (horrible) TV show UFO Chasers and Cass was going to be a free-spirited UFO Chaser off on adventures. While the story didn't quite go that way, that is where the inspiration for it derived.

I recently watched an episode of Ancient Aliens that also got my creative juices flowing with ideas about the Serpent Mound in Ohio, and how they could be related to the Nazca lines in Peru. Not sure if and when I'll write about these, but my imagination went into high gear and inspired I certainly was. Does that mean I believe everything I watch? Hell no. But it makes me think and that is where inspiration comes from. New ideas and ruminating on them.

My needle felted projectEven in my amateurish attempts at fiber crafting, I must be inspired. I recently attempted my first needle felted project. This particular project was inspired by (but not intended to resemble) some of the beautiful Aboriginal art pieces I've seen recently, but I've also just realized that it too was loosely inspired by the Serpent Mound episode of Ancient Aliens. Do I think this is high art? No - I see it for what it is. But is something I created and I happen to like it.

So now that I've shared with you some of my sources of inspiration and what has resulted from them, tell me - where do YOU find inspiration? What inspires you and what have you created based on that inspiration?

Book review: Thumb by John Guy Collick

Book Blurb:The universe is empty. The stars are dead. The worlds are no more. The last humans struggle to create a god to save them from the utter end. In the shadow of this colossus Max Ocel rescues a beautiful stranger from the clutches of an insane giant, and sets in motion a chain of events that threatens to wipe out mankind itself. Invincible battleships bear down on the ancient city of Metacarpi. Assassins stalk the stone tower of his childhood. Alien creatures gather in the darkness. Max faces the realization that he must sacrifice everything he holds dear to save humanity. Thumb - the first volume in The Book of the Colossus, a gripping fast-paced science fantasy series of incredible imagination.
My review:I was provided an ebook version of Thumb in exchange for a fair and honest review.I've never been one to judge a book by it's cover, which I think is a good thing because there a many covers that don't turn me on. Like Thumb's cover. It is a representation of a scene in the book, but it doesn't draw me in or make me want to read it. 
I was intrigued by the blurb though, so I thought I would give it a go. In the beginning I started to wonder what I'd gotten myself into. I started to think the book was going to be religious fiction disguised as science fiction - it is not. I was also initially put off by the long and repeated names of places and titles of some of the characters which is common to a lot of fantasy books. 
But I persevered. I'm really glad I did. Honestly, at this moment I can't tell you exactly what did draw me in - actually maybe I can. I think it started for me when the giant got inside Max's head but that wasn't really enough for me, yet I kept reading anyway. I was about half way through the book when I realized I now needed to read it. I needed to know what was happening. 
There is so much going on in this story! There is the relationship between Max and his distant and autocratic father. Max's unresolved issues over his mother's death when he was very young. The relationship between Max and his best friend Abbey that might just be more than friendship. The cruelty that men (not males in particular - man - humans - in general) can inflict on each other out of ignorance - even the smartest of men. Betrayal by those you trust most. And in the end, hope that dreams for the future are not completely shattered.
This is an epic fantasy and when I finished it I felt ever so satisfied, yet wanting for more. What else could you ask for?
What is your favorite epic fantasy novel? Why do you recommend it?
About John Guy Collick:
I was born in Yorkshire, England. When I was 10 years old my grandfather gave me a copy of A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and from then on I was hooked on science fiction and fantasy. I worked for Scotland Yard before moving to Japan for ten years to lecture in literature and philosophy. To date my writing has included nonfiction work on literature and cinema, and movie and TV scripts. I co-produced in the Japanese film industry for a while, when I lived in Tokyo.

My secret burning passion has always been to writ the kind of imaginative and experimental Science Fiction and Fantasy I loved as a kid in the 1970s - so that's the path I've set myself on now. My favourite authors include (in no particular order) Michael Moorcock, Jack Vance, Gene Wolfe and Mervyn Peake. Thumb is the first in a Science Fantasy series set at the end of time. 

The book is available from the following

Paperback & Kindle; Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Thumb-Book-Colossus-John-Collick/dp/0957643918/ref=la_B001HPM3O8_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1370970629&sr=1-1
Other e-formats: Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/314024
You can find out more about me on my blog johnguycollick.com

Lifeboat print cover reveal!

I am so excited. Lifeboat is one step closer to being available in paperback! Today I am revealing to you my gorgeous print cover prepared by Anastasia Creatives. Paperback is coming soon. Don't you just love this?