Pete Sutton's Blog, page 45

Winners of the Book giveaway - Open Waters by David Gullen & new book giveaway!

Congratulations to Ade Couper and Rakib Khan who were chosen by our randomiser as the winners of the Open Waters giveaway. Books will be sent out very soon to them.

You could also win in a new book giveaway:



Friendship dies in the face of cruelty; new loyalties are forged, blood merged into new life . . . In a single moment of defiance, driven by a rash act of compassion for a stranger, Rhodri turns his back on his unit, his country and his comrades in arms. Taken in by the Plains Hawk tribe, he finds compassion, love, and a new purpose for his unique memory. But just as he is beginning to accept his decision, an invasion from the east throws the tribe into chaos, and threatens to destroy the new life he has built. Rhodri must rally the tribes to take on his former comrades, his former friends, and fight the forces of the crown he swore to protect-and the sister he has never known. Thrust into the role of leader, he must use the very lessons he learned in the King's Third against his closest friends, and his most bitter enemy. To win a copy of The art of forgetting: Nomad please mail BRSBKBLOG@gmail.com with the answer to this simple question: What is the name of the first book in the Art of Forgetting series?Show More Show Less

Friday Flash - Werewolves are hairy on the inside

Werewolves are hairy on the inside
So why am I in detentionIt's because of Mr Rimmer. They say that Mr Rimmer, is a werewolf.
It’s because he’s really hairy with a great big bushy beard. He even has hair coming out of his ears and the neck of his shirt. And he growls when teaching us football.
Stephen King says that werewolves are hairy on the inside.  I tried to imagine what that’s like. Won’t the fur be all manky with blood, snot, brains and stuff?
I had a hair stuck in my throat once. Couldn’t swallow without feeling it. Perhaps that’s what being a werewolf is like?
Anyway I tried to see inside his mouth when he was talking. He asked me what I was doing and it’s wrong not to tell the truth isn’t it. That’s why I’m in detention.

Guest blog - Amy Morse

Amy Morse, a local writer, dropped into the blog to chat about crowdfunding.

Amy Morse is a writer, novelist and entrepreneur. She regularly writes on business matters and is a columnist for Prowess Women in Business (http://www.prowess.org.uk/author/amy-morse). Enabling start ups in the daytime and penning random acts of creativity by night, she is the author of The Bronze Box (writing as Amy C Fitzjohn) and is publishing the follow up Solomon's Secrets in the autumn.   Crowdfund:      http://bit.ly/1fvA0rq Twitter:        @TomCatDesigns Blog:           ideaism.blogsot.co.uk web:            www.AmyMorse.co.uk Author:         writing as - Amy C Fitzjohn - http://amzn.to/1jd0sDE
Over to Amy


Can crowdfunding help you to publish your next book? Nine tips for writers.
 
 
The Holy Grail for many writers is to get that publishing deal with one of the big presses such as; Harper Collins, Penguin, Pan MacMillan or Hodder & Stoughton. We’d get a fat cheque for a five figure advance and be laughing.
 
Unless you’re a celebrity or already have a track record of great book sales, the reality is that for 99% of us, it just won’t happen.
 
Does that mean you’ve failed? Does that mean you have no right to call yourself an author? Of course not! Millions of writers make a respectable career living by the pen (or keyboard!). They’re doing what they love and never getting near the best sellers list.
 
The book industry is undergoing a revolution that has opened up to independent writers like never before. Gone is the stigma of self-publishing, in fact, for many writers it offers the creative freedom they crave.
 
With platforms such as Create Space and Kindle Direct Publishing, offered by Amazon, it’s easier, and cheaper to publish your book than ever before.
 
But what if you wanted to do it a bit differently? You will need to front the costs, so how can you pay for it?
 
There is an increasingly popular way of raising funds for a creative project, and that’s crowdfunding.
 
The principle of crowdfunding is that a project is posted onto an online platform, a financial target and date is set and then anyone can back a project by pledging support. It isn’t money for nothing, crowdfunding is not begging for hand-outs. It can work in different ways.
 
The most popular model, and appropriate for creative projects, is that money pledged is exchanged for a reward of equivalent value. Effectively, customers are paying in advance for your book.
 
The risk is low because if the target isn’t reached, no one gets or pays out any money. To increase your chances of success you need to market your crowdfund pitch.
 
There are a couple of well-known crowdfunding sites, such as Kickstarter.com and Indiegogo.com that work in this way. There is also Unbound.co.uk that is specifically set up for books and there are new ones are popping up all the time.
 
One of the latest to start is a Bristol based team, Fundsurfer.com. Fundsurfer specialises in creative and social projects and it is the platform I have chosen for my own project. I chose this platform because I’m passionate about supporting businesses in my local area, it fits with my own ethos and is tailored for creative projects. As a new business, they are also going through a period of using every means at their disposable to publicise their venture and I can take advantage of that.
 
For an idea of how a live project works, here is my pitch for the publication of my next novel, Solomon’s Secrets: http://bit.ly/SolomonsSecrets_Fund
 
It has been a steep learning curve for me. Here are my 9 tips on accessing this route to finance for your book:
 
1.    Do your sums. First decide how much you need to get your project off the ground but allow for contingencies and factor in the charges. In the case of Fundsurfer, there is a 6% commission on funds raised.
 
2.    Be realistic. What is achievable? I had to alter my pitch part way through as I quickly realised I had bitten off more than I could chew by trying to do too much.
 
3.    Have a ‘crowd’. Following on from being realistic, do you have enough of a fan base yet? 70% of pledges come from your immediate network so make sure you have a good sized one.
 
4.    Do your research. There are several platforms out there, do some due diligence about how reputable they are before you commit to anything. Be wary of any that ask you for money up front, most don’t do that.
 
5.    Spend plenty of time crafting an excellent pitch. It’s a competitive marketplace and you want to be noticed, especially if you choose one of the better known platforms. A video is an essential component of the pitch, always include one.
 
6.    Ask for help. If you’re no good at making and editing videos or not sure about what rewards you should offer, ask. 
 
7.    Have a good range of rewards, starting small and going up in increments. Have a couple of rewards that are relatively expensive, even if you think people won’t pay. The chances are they won’t, but people tend to gravitate to the middle of the list of rewards, so if you make the top of your list higher, then the middle of your list will be higher too. And if someone does buy that expensive reward – bonus!
 
8.    Have a plan. For both the marketing of your pitch and the distribution of your rewards if it is successful. Be realistic about what you can achieve alone and be prepared to call in reinforcements if necessary.
 
9.    Keep up the momentum. Choose a sensible pledge period and keep plugging away at it, doing something every day to increase awareness of your project
 
And finally, enjoy the process and good luck!
 
Have you ever backed a crowdfunded project or had you own campaign?

some reviews

Pure Julianna Baggott




This was a book club read, I would never have chosen to read this otherwise. As you know I’m not a fan of YA. Although this has less YA tropes than I feared I did have large issues with it. However didn’t hate it & some of the imagery and ideas were very nice. So perhaps if you’re a YA fan you’ll enjoy it, several of the guys at the book club did. My main issues were with passive characters, a plot that relied on coincidence (and unbelievable contrivance), a very vague grasp of worldbuilding and weak understanding of science. The author seems to only be able to think of one way to put her characters into peril by using the dusts (see below)

In the future (?) there is a pseudo-nuclear war(?) called the detonations (a weirdly awkward word for everyone to call the event) which destroyed all the infrastructure of the cities, apart from “The Dome” and caused changes to the people left outside. Now there are the “pure” who live in the dome and the mutated “wretches” that live outside. The wretches have been scarred and fused to things: some to inanimate objects, our heroine has a dolls head instead of a hand, her grandfather has an electric fan in his throat, others are bonded to animals (one of the characters has birds fused to his back) and others are fused to people forming groupies and yet others are fully fused to the ground forming “dusts”. This grotesquery is, by far, the best thing about the book. When one of the pure escapes the dome everything changes.

Overall – Not for me, but didn’t hate it as much as some YA I’ve read
Godwhale by T. J. Bass


Apparently this guy only wrote two books and this is the sequel to his first one, which I haven’t read. I bought this on the strength of it being an SF Masterworks and the blurb on the back, which made it sound right up my street, plus it was also recommended by Jeff VanderMeer. Covering several thousand years’ worth of history this is a bit of a mess structurally; new characters are thrown into the mix (seemingly at random) throughout the book, even towards the end. There are many lurches in time and sometimes these are confusing plot wise, although to be honest there isn’t much of a plot either. I’ve struggled to think how to summarise. In the future the seas are dead, most of humanity live underground in the hive, mechs farm the land, the Godwhale of the title comes back to life when the seas are re-seeded, the hive comes into conflict with the “Benthics”, outsiders who live under the ocean.

And yet, it’s never dull, it’s full of crazy interesting ideas and I enjoyed it a lot. It shouldn’t work, but somehow it does. I wish I’d read the first book, as potentially some of the mysteries wouldn’t be so mysterious?

Overall – some structural problems but an interesting read nevertheless

Reading in public - out loud

Last night I was at the rather splendid Small Stories Bristol - @smallstorybris with a pretty eclectic line up


I read out my story - Roadkill and it seemed to go down well, although i perhaps should have saved my Lassie gag until the end!

Tomorrow I'll be at the wonderful Word of Mouth at the Thunderbolt reading with Joanne Hall & Scott Lewis.

http://www.thethunderbolt.net/whatson.ihtml

And on 16th June I'll be appearing at BristolCon Fringe reading with David J. Rodger

http://www.bristolcon.org/?page_id=2074

I'm reading stories at all three events that are linked and I aim to bring out these stories in an anthology.

Later in the month I'll be appearing on the bill at NFFD Bristol where I'll be reading two stories that will not in the anthology.

The Frome Writers Collective

Thanks to David Lassman for this guest postwww.davidlassman.comwriter, consultant, teacher Press & PR Officer for Frome Writers Collectivehttp://fromewriterscollective.co.uk/Launch event: http://www.fromestandard.co.uk/Writers-group-magic-formula/story-21097849-detail/story.html  Frome basks in collective success  If you happen to have been in Frome or the surrounding areas lately it is more than likely you crossed paths with rumblings about a new initiative that has already received several column inches worth of positive media coverage and has the local creative writing scene buzzing with anticipation.The Frome Writers Collective is a recently formed, not-for-profit organisation which has as its remit the sharing of information and resources in order to help and support the local community of aspiring and established writers and associated professionals; the latter comprising of such groups as illustrators, editors, proof-readers and publishers.And, as if to offer proof the wider creative communities there have instantly given their stamp of approval to the enterprise and taken it to their hearts, one of the most celebrated names in publishing has agreed to speak at the FWC’s official launch next month. Perhaps best known locally as the man behind Chicken House, the Frome-based publisher of children’s books that has more best-sellers to its name than most publishing houses in the south-west put together, Barry Cunningham is also, to anyone with more than a passing interest in the publishing world, the man who discovered J.K. Rowling.It is hardly surprising then, as I write this blog, the event at Frome Library where Barry will be appearing as one of a quartet of speakers is rapidly selling-out and becoming one of the ‘must attend’ soirees of the town’s summer creative diary.Add to this a rapidly expanding FWC membership base that already includes the town’s mayor, a self-published author himself, long-listed novelists, short-listed poets, award-winning writers and even an internationally-acclaimed steampunk aficionado, and it becomes very hard to predicate a limit to the group’s ascendancy. But just in case you want to witness this phenomenon for yourself, with the proviso there are still tickets left to be had of course, details of the launch are: Publishing in the 21st Century / Frome Writers’Collective Official launch Frome Library, June 8, 2-4pm. Tickets cost £7.50 and are available from the Cheese and Grain box office, tel: 01373 455420 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting [image error]01373 455420 FREE end_of_the_skype_highlighting. For more information on the Frome Writers Collective in general, see www.fromewriterscollective.co.uk/.

Zero Alternative by Luca Pesaro - Review

Zero Alternative by Luca Pesaro http://threeharespublishing.com/project/zero-alternative/#book 
 
Scott Walker is a city trader nicknamed “Yours” (which to be honest is a bit confusing in the first half of the book) who is working with a friendly mathematician and programmer to create a set of algorithms called Deepshare. Deepshare is an Oracle of formidable power and is coveted by a rival bank for the fact it can unerringly read the market. Walker is thrust into a world of espionage, conspiracy and betrayal with a cast of billionaires, hitmen and hackers.
 
This is a punchy thriller that just fizzes with energy and bowls you along. It’s an interesting premise and one that should now be familiar to all of us, The murky world of international trading, secret cabals of billionaires etc & pondering the question - when are banks too big to fail?. But in Pesaro’s hands this feels fresh and exciting and very relevant. Some of the trading went over my head (or I wasn’t paying enough information perhaps) and when Pesaro takes his foot off the accelerator and we pause from breakneck action and go to character development it is hard to feel any sympathy with the main character, who is pretty superficial, or in fact most of the characters if truth be known. Although the characters were mostly well drawn there’s not exactly a lot of women characters (and they may all be beautiful and attracted to our MC too). There’s some really nice set pieces and I really liked the part set in a crumbling mansion which felt very “Uncharted.”
 
Overall – Enjoyable thriller

NYC Midnight short story challenge 2014

So it's all over - and how did I do? I got an honourable mention. I'm happy with that, maybe next year I can make my way onto the Top Ten?

I'll present my musings on the experience and then post my three stories below warts and all, as they were sent to the competition - typos, missing punctuation and all....


http://www.nycmidnight.com/competitions/ssc/challenge.htm

The 8th Annual Short Story Challenge is a creative writing competition open to writers around the world. There are 3 rounds of competition. In the 1st Round (February 7-15, 2014) , writers are placed randomly in heats and are assigned a genre, subject, and character assignment. Writers have 8 days to write an original story no longer than 2,500 words. The judges choose a top 5 in each heat to advance to the 2nd Round (March 27-30, 2014) where writers receive new assignments, only this time they have just 3 days to write a 2,000 word (maximum) short story. Judges choose finalists from the 2nd Round to advance to the 3rd and final round of the competition where writers are challenged to write a 1,500 word(maximum) story in just 24 hours (May 2-3, 2014). A panel of judges review the final round stories and overall winners are selected. 

My thoughts?

I never had enough time to write but did manage to hit all 3 deadlines, the last one by the skin of my teeth. First round I got comedy, that was a bit depressing because I don't really do comedy (should a writer should be able to turn their hand to anything?). Also in the NYC Flash Fiction challenge I went out on the round that asked me to write comedy. Also, as it's mostly folk from the States that take part would my humour translate? Anyway wasn't totally happy with the first round story and thought it would get nowhere, so was pleasently surprised when I got through to the second round. I came 5th in my group, so barely scraped in.

Then the second round was also comedy, what a nightmare, and I had less time to do it too. We had friends staying that weekend and it was the Airship Ball at which I was doing a reading, so that one was written in a bit of a rush. I was happier with it though and that showed in being 2nd in my Group I guess.

The third round I had even less time and had to be out most of the day at a birthday celebration so I got up early, wrote for a couple of hours, went to the birthday celebration, got back late and wrote for a couple of hours and just about hit the deadline. Unlike the previous round I didn't try anything clever with the prompt, which I guess is what they're looking for. Anyway I'm very happy that I got an honourable mention.

----------------------------------------------------------------------


Round One Story -

Genre - Comedy
Subject - A bakery
Character - A newly divorced woman


Almond and bitter tears

“You know that bit in the Gerard Depardieu’s  Cyrano De Bergerac film where the bakery starts wrapping cakes in poetry?”
I looked at Steve and wondered what sort of tangent he’d gone off on now.
“I think so” I said, knowing it was best to let him come back from wherever his daydreams had taken him this time.
“We can do that” he smiles and looks eagerly at me, like a puppy expecting a treat.
“Wrap cakes in poetry?” I ask, wondering if it wasn’t better to head this off after all.
“Open a bakery for poets”
“Didn’t they go bankrupt in the film?”
“Did they? I think it’s a great idea” he smiles again, his ‘I’m going to convince you to do something against your better nature’ smile, “we could call it Claire’s Éclairs”
“Well that is a good name” I admitted reluctantly.
“OK so what did you want to talk about” he said in that quick leap to a new subject way he had. I wasn’t fooled though, I knew the bakery idea was going to resurface again.
#
Ten years later I had three daughters by Steve and we were running the bakery, although we never really did the poetry part. He was always a dreamer and schemer, not very good at practical things so it was a mystery when he started going to plumbing lessons. Little did I know that he was having ‘thoughts’ about another one of the attendees until it all blew up in my face. Turns out he had always had a thing for burly men, not that I had any clue of that. Queue messy divorce and waving Steve off as he embarked on his new life with Bruce on a cruise ship.
Turns out though that running a bakery, although it is a lot of hard work, is fun and something I’m actually good at. It was tricky juggling the work with the three little ones but I hired an assistant and made a go of it. For a while after the divorce my almond and bitter tear cakes and rueful rye bread didn’t do so well but my loyal customer base rallied round and eventually I got on with my life.
#
Wednesday started normally, I opened the bakery at the crack of dawn and started the ovens. The boy who helped out was late, as usual, and lazy, as usual so I ended up doing most of the work, as usual. Since the divorce I had taken to wearing “day Jammies” for comfort. My usual outfit now was a shapeless but comfortable and warm top and jogging bottoms. My hair I generally just tied back and now wore no makeup. So not expecting company I was in comfortable mode. When the blinds went up at the front of the shop I wasn’t expecting to see the small crowd that had gathered. They were all looking in the opposite direction though. Intrigued I opened the door, the tinkling of the small brass bell causing a few of the nearest in the crowd glance round. It was a grey and miserable day but there seemed to be a glow from the opposite row of shops. Intrigued I pushed through the crowd to be confronted with a new shop, all lights blazing with large letters in gold and neon: “The Magical Sweet Emporium”. Outside were a band of chimps in butler uniforms holding silver platters holding a variety of patisserie. At the door, waving people in and out, was a jolly looking fellow in a costume that looked like the wrapper of a particularly expensive chocolate.
I pushed my way to the front, to the annoyance and mutters of some of the crowd.
“What’s all this?” I asked, in a bit of a screechy tone, I cleared my throat as the jolly man turned to look at me.
“This? This is my shop, it has just opened, would you like a piece of baklava? Gerald? Gerald, give this lady a piece of baklava” This last command was barked at one of the chimps who walked over with a surprising amount of dignity and proffered the tray.
I found myself taking a piece and popping it into my mouth, well you wouldn’t want to offend a chimp would you?
“Can I look inside?” I asked innocently and the man that would soon become my bitterest nemesis waved me inside as my nose came alive to the warm enticement of sugar, butter, chocolate and almond that wafted under it as the latest customer walked out.
Inside I knew I was in trouble as the shelves groaned under the tons of cakes of all shapes, sizes and compositions from angel cake to Yokan. How was I going to compete with this? This was all shiny and new, and he had chimps, in butler uniforms. People love butlers and chimps. The majority of my sales were from cakes, although this shop didn’t do bread so I would still get some trade I supposed. Feeling glum I slinked out of the shop, barely grunting in reply to the Jolly Man, whose “have a nice day” whilst sounding sincere also seemed like a stab in the back to me. As I trudged through the door to Claire’s Éclairs I was too dispirited to wake the boy who was supposed to helping out but who was dozing in the only chair in the shop.
#
Our battle lines were drawn, we took to standing outside our respective shops and haranguing passers-by. I started to take care of my appearance again and was surprised to be wooed by a customer or two. I tried to keep my loyal customers by doing deals but I had started to lose money anyway, much of the passing trade was drawn in by the chimps, did I mention they were dressed like butlers? The jolly bastard opposite never seemed to be in trouble though. I wondered how much he paid the chimps, peanuts no doubt. On  Mondays he did a special on madeira so I did one on marble cake. On Tuesdays he put tiramisu on the chimps silver platters so I got the boy to hand out teacakes. On Wednesday, well you see where this is going I’m sure. It was a patisserie stand-off. When he paid someone to come in and hang around my shop subtly putting off my customers I knew that  nice guys were going to finish last in this cake war. When I got the boy to substitute salt for sugar in the emporium’s stores the war stepped up a notch. When the police were called after we had a shouting match that silenced the dawn chorus things came to a head.
#
I know what you’re thinking. Eventually there is going to be a food fight. But we don’t all live in a Bugsy Malone film. Although if I could splurge that jolly fucker I really would. Nope I got the animal welfare people out. He retaliated with child protection services, seems the youngster I’d been employing was under age.  People preferred his shop for cakes, mine for pastries, his for sweets, mine for bread, his for confection mine for wheaty comestibles.  Bills were starting to hurt, unexpected costs, like springing a leak in rainy weather started to really smart and without the boy the job started getting on top of me. Seems he was actually useful after all.
It was a postcard from Steve that changed things, a card from somewhere exotic like Cuba or Mauritius turned up occasionally with him invariably apologising for not phoning or missing one of the girl’s birthdays or similar. This particular one was from Monaco and written in faux French which reminded me of his dream and why we opened a bakery in the first place. The bakery for poets. I started advertising and offered the bakery free for poetry reading events with free cakes to the poets. Soon my ‘Victoria sponge and verse’ evening was causing a buzz. When I spotted a chimp in the crowd I feared the worse but it appears that they were off duty, dressed in stripy shirts with berets and hungry for rhythm and rum baba. The evening was a great success and I was set up for a series of sonnets and soufflés when I received the bombshell. The Magical Sweet Emporium was holding a closing down sale. Turns out Mr Oh So Jolly had also been losing money and cutting corners, not paying some of his creditors, some of his bills had been overdue and eventually he had to admit that he didn’t have what it takes to run a shop.  I took the chimps on out of a sense of responsibility, seems you can pay them peanuts as long as they’re allowed the nights of the poetry readings off.----------------------------------------------------------------Yeah, just re-read it. Hilarious! Still surprised it scraped through ... Mixed feedback from the judges too, points knocked off for missing punctuation around dialogue (my bugbear - happens a lot when I write, usually pick it up on one of the editing sweeps, missed it on this one)Second Round StoryGenre: ComedySubject: Learning to driveCharacter: A Butcher Vehicular EducationThe car whooshes down the country lane. At the wheel, a boy barely old enough to be in charge of such a vehicle. It is on automatic, following a pre-determined route, controlled via satellite.            The young lady passenger takes two glasses and pours the champagne. They are celebrating end of term. They are young, in love, in transit and indefatigable.             Neither, in the grip of hormones and alcohol, see the chimpanzee. It rushes onto the road in front of the car. It has spent its entire life in a cage, in a laboratory, a subject of nanotechnology research into uplifting intelligence. It is scared, it has run a long way, it can hear the dogs. It has never seen a car, or even a road before. It really hasn’t got the slightest idea what hits it.            The couple barely pause when they feel the bump. Probably just a pot hole they assume. The car’s self-repair unit will fix the damage before they get to their destination. The red flashing collision light will puzzle the boy later. But it will be easily dismissed as a glitch.#            The chimp lies in a shallow, sluggishly moving brook. Its blood, with a payload of nanobots, seeps slowly and steadily into the stream. When the dogs, with their hard-faced masters, turn up, the chimp is dead and going cold. The two men look at each other and shrug. At least no-one found it. They heft the carcass between them and start the long walk back to the bio-research laboratory.            Downstream, a family of badgers are taking a drink. The Alpha male is grizzled and going grey. It has survived many a battle and there is a great pink patch on one flank where scars criss-cross it after a very close shave with a car. The nanobots proliferate and patch the small animals’ brains. The badgers chitter to each other as another car zooms by on the nearby road. The Alpha stands briefly on its hind legs and its head follows the direction the car has gone as new thoughts blossom. The other badgers stop and watch it with a new gleam of intelligence in their eyes.#            “Mirror, Signal, Manoeuvre”  the small grey man, in the smart grey suit, says in his sad grey voice. “Remember what we discussed last time? Put it in gear, let out the clutch slowly, find the bite.” The driving instructor’s name is Smith. A dull, safe name.            Sandy is a big man, easily dwarfing the driving instructor. His powerful upper body has been obtained from years of carrying hogs and sides of beef and chopping through carcasses. His well-developed muscles bunch as his hands, which are the size of grapefruits, with fingers the size of sausages, grip the wheel like a strangler grips his victims. His face is an intense study of concentration. He is a little scared of the grey driving instructor if truth be told. Desperate for the small man’s approval. During the first lesson he had offered to give the instructor free meat. Smith, who reads a lot of science fiction, had commented “If this were a story I’d find that the meat came from road kill, or human, or aliens!” Sandy, who didn’t read much at all, was nonplussed, the conversation petered out and the two men had been awkward with each other since.            “Today, we’ll go out of town again. Until your clutch control is better, we’d do well to avoid other vehicles. Hmmm?”         Sandy nods eagerly, silently voicing thanks that he has another lesson to get used to the car before he has to brave city roads. He is already sweating profusely, his face is bright red, ready for embarrassment as anxiety takes him in a death grip. He puts the car in first gear, with difficulty. There is a crunch, Smith winces, Sandy goes a more intense red. He lets out the clutch and kangaroos down the road for a short distance before smoothing out.            “Gently. Gently!” Smith says as Sandy finds second and stomps on the gas hard so that the car jerks forward throwing both men back in their seats.            Sandy is only learning how to drive a manual as his wife insists that a butcher marketing himself as ‘traditional’ really should not turn up for a delivery in a modern car. He’d purchased a small white half van. Emblazoned the name of his business on the side. Then realised that although he had a license, he had absolutely no idea how to drive one of these last century monstrosities.#As promised Smith’s directions take them out into the countryside. As they turn onto a narrow country lane neither man notices that the large neon sign, indicating winding roads ahead, is blinking. The light goes off as they go past.The badger, at the bottom of the pole holding the sign, has chewed through the power cable. As the light cuts off, smoke and an unpleasant burnt fur smell drift on the wind.            The Alpha silently salutes the sacrifice its kin has just made. It chitters commands at the others who start running to their apportioned tasks. They would pay, oh they would pay dearly, it thinks. Whilst Sandy and Smith are oblivious to the furious activity on just the other side of the hedge to them.             Long grass, bits of  hedgerow, ancient abandoned cables, broken bottles, discarded Bar-B-Q detritus, old rusty cans, and the other flotsam and jetsam that collects on the side of roads, was slowly being woven by clever paws and cunning mouths. #            The car is returning the way it came. “Well I’d say that as far as hill starts go that could have been better. It’s a good job there was nothing behind us. For a long way.”            Sandy grinds his teeth whilst his hands move on the steering wheel as if they are trying to wring out a wet rag. He is concentrating so hard he feels he will burst a blood vessel in his head. It takes him a second of thinking ‘what the’ as he sees the pyramid of badgers at the side of the road, with one holding a cable in its mouth and leaping from the top. As the car slams over the improvised stinger all four tyres are explosively shredded and the car immediately becomes unmanageable. Sandy panics. He flails at the steering wheel counter-productively, the car slides sideways and flips once, flips again and then flips for a final time coming to rest upon its roof, with much squealing and grinding. The road is strewn with glass and other debris as the scene is lit by one remaining working headlight and one of the indicators patiently signalling a right turn that will never be taken.#            The badgers set up an excited noise, cheering their victory in this, their first successful hunt. They rush forward to within feet of the car, then slow and eventually stop. The creature is obviously injured but may not yet be slain. The Alpha, needing to prove his bravery above all others, goes and climbs upon it, standing upon the belly of the beast and letting out a great, full throated roar of badger victory. They will daub pictures of this victory in the set this night. They will teach their cubs of this. This was history in the making.            Inside, Smith is out cold, a great gash across his forehead bleeding copiously. Sandy groans and moves against the restraint of the seat belt feebly. He is beginning to regain consciousness. A couple of the younger, braver badgers are at the smashed in windscreen and give voice to questioning cheeps and squeaks as the man starts making noise. When he starts moving they exchange glances. What could it mean, was the Two-legs food? A hostage? A Symbiote? Small sharp teeth chew through the seat belt, small furry bodies pull the semi-conscious Sandy out of the car and slowly, patiently, drag him off the road, through the hedge backwards and lay him finally, gently, on the grass.            Sandy tries to open his eyes, the world is fuzzy, one eye only partially opens, being already hugely swollen. Why was he surrounded by badgers? Is this a dream? What is happening? The Alpha steps close to him and makes a noise like a dolphin with laryngitis. Sandy says “Huh?” His brain can’t process this information.             The badger is frustrated. Why can’t the Two-legs understand? It must be because of a singular lack of intelligence. Like the huge black and white creature with large udders it had encountered earlier, there was a communication issue. It wanted to convey ‘We saved you, you are now free, we go to liberate more creatures now.’ But the Two-legs was hurt, confused, didn’t seem to understand plain language. Perhaps if it is left for others of its kind to find then in the future they could open a conversation, once it is better. On the road another car flashes past and as one the badgers turn to look. They must reset their trap!            Twenty minutes later an angry piercing noise and a strange blue flashing come closer as the badgers prepare to do battle. The leader can see that it is a much bigger creature this time. The badgers make ready. They are surprised when Sandy bursts out onto the road waving his arms about causing the emergency vehicle to screech to a halt before it can enter the badgers’ trap. A quick command sees the badgers melt into the darkness, their trap rapidly pulled out of sight behind the hedge. The Alpha watches the Two-legs and, as Sandy calls out to the men in the car and they come out to catch his stumbling form, it wonders if their unintelligible grunting could possibly be some form of rudimentary language. What they need is information, to learn more about the Two-legs and their relationship to the fast creatures that kill.            Sandy is bundled into the car. They call it in. One of the uniformed men walks over to the abandoned wreck to see if Smith is still alive. The badgers watch, and wait, and plan. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Still not really comedy, but a better story I think. Again mixed feedback from the judges with the usual "perhaps tries to do too much" that I seem to get a lot. Third Round story Genre - OpenSubject - JealousyCharacter - A Fisherman The Hungry SpearWe are fishing, Abu and I. The sea is calm, the sun makes diamonds on the water. We are in the usual spot. Bobbing gently up and down in time with the swell. Opposite is the river, from which all things of the land eventually wash out into the open, ever-hungry, maw of the sea. We are not the only fishermen, but the sea is wide and we rarely see the others. I am keeping the canoe still. Abu is perfectly balanced, his strong golden toes gripping, relaxing, gripping. He stares into the sea, a study of anatomy, the spear-thrower. He is the better fisherman, more athletic than I,  tall where I am short, graceful where I am clumsy, still where I am animated.             The canoe rises, and falls. There is a silence here I crave, all sea and birds and wide open sky. Unlike the raucous village. I live apart, seeking the quiet solitude of remoteness. A foible the village tolerates. Abu accepts my difference, has always done so, I hope for tacit approval. He lives in the village but is one of the few who will bother to visit my remote haven. Recently Abu has started to talk about proud, subtle, lithe Femi. He has always been the one to draw the admiring glances. Until now he has never returned them. Now he, and Femi, draw envious looks.Abu’s whole body tenses and fast as a striking snake his hips pivot, muscles bunch and his arm comes down with swift inevitability. The spear is the shark’s razor jaw, the seagull’s stabbing beak, the cat’s pouncing claw. A hungry predator, yearning for blood with cruel necessity. Abu flips the large fish into the boat where it makes shapes - c, l, c, l. It takes me several blows to finally kill it, I have introduced inefficiency into Abu’s beautiful equation. Abu grins at me, boyishly delighted with his catch. “Your turn”. We swap places, shuffling and holding on to each other in a ritual dance. My turn to stand sentinel, strive to become still, to investigate the water with my gaze.             Later, as we paddle back, a decent enough catch aboard making us mellow companions, Abu casually shatters my world. “I am going to ask Femi’s father for her hand.” I mumble some mealy-mouthed congratulation. He doesn’t notice, lost as he is in some reverie of Femi. Our daily routine is broken. Usually we talk about the catch, or the village. Sometimes, he lets me tell him tales of the bronze heroes of the early legends. I have never confessed that my imagination paints him into those stories, a hero. Today he becomes loquacious, expanding on the many, oh so many, wonders and delights of Femi.#            In the following days and weeks his fishing suffers, his thoughts always with her, spending his hours in the village mooning over her. I spend more and more time alone, in my hut, away from the village. Gradually we drift apart. I cannot help but resent her and it is obvious, when we are together, that my dislike is reciprocated. We hide it from Abu, for his sake.             I try to turn it into a problem of arithmetic, rather than emotion. Two plus one, one plus two, four minus one. It doesn’t work. I have to spend ever more time alone. We still fish most days, sometimes lately I catch more than him. We seldom talk after a day’s fishing now. I tell him no more tales of the early heroes. The joy has been stolen from them, as he has been stolen from me.#            Today we caught little, as I walk back to my hut I am thinking of asking one of the others to come fishing with me. I am rehearsing what to say to Abu when Femi steps out onto the sandy path. I groan a little, I am tired, I smell of the sea, I carry my spear limply. “What do you want Femi?”“What do you talk about when you are fishing?”“The usual.”“Women?”“We don’t talk that much about you.”“Other women?”“No.”“Don’t deny it Keva, there is someone else, you must tell me.”“There is no-one else Femi, Abu loves you. Now I am tired and I wish to go to my hut.”“I should have known that you’d hide things for him. He tells me he is spending time with you. If you weren’t here he’d have to tell me the truth.”I am about to ask her what she means when she moves her arm and I belatedly spot the knife. My knife, she has been in my hut! I leap back and her slash goes wide. “Stop this madness Femi!” I shout. She thrusts again, catches my arm with a stinging slash. We circle warily. I gesture with my spear “Don’t make me…” She rushes forward, leaping onto the blade, a fish desperate to be caught. There is a sickening crunch, the shock of which knocks the spear from my hand. I try to catch her, I will always be trying to catch her. Her dead weight drags me down with her. Blood runs down my arm and mingles with hers as the sand thirstily sucks it up. Her eyes are shockingly, accusingly wide. I am undone.            In the following hours, as darkness conceals the forest, I hide her. Staccato flashes haunt my waking nightmare. Rocks, twine, river, cleansing, digging, crying. Did anyone see? Should I run? I am numb, cannot think. In the morning I don’t know what to do. I sleepwalk into routine. I meet Abu at the canoe as normal. He is distracted, he doesn’t mention Femi, but then he hasn’t done for a while. I think I should say something but cannot bring myself to start. We mutter rote greetings, worn smooth by our time together upon the sea. Has he been with another woman? Does he even know Femi is missing?            We paddle out in silence. This is usual, but today I imagine there is a tension. I watch the river mouth. Avid with secret dread. My guilt like a beacon I must hide. I watch Abu stare with a peculiar intensity at the water and speculate on what he sees. Is it her hair, like silky seaweed, combed by the waves? Her hands perhaps, inexpertly lashed to the rock, now come loose, beckoning, come close my love, come close. Her eyes wide with the secret she cannot help but tell him.            Eyes the colour of the sea turn to look at me. “I know.” He says. My guilt is as clear as the water he has been contemplating.“Abu, wait.”“There has always been something between you. You were always awkward together when I was around. Then I saw her go to your hut. I have been stupid. It should have been obvious.” Salt water streaks his face.“What? No, it’s not that, it’s not what you think!” But he doesn’t wait. He doesn’t want explanation. He has all the information and details he requires to tell himself a story about our lives. His is the knowledge of painful veracity. Although it is not the truth. The spear is a hungry predator. He is economic in form. I am caught. Eternal silence rushes to greet me.-------------------------------------------------------------------------This is more my normal style I think, although there is no speculative element. It also hinges on the fact that after accidently killing someone our narrator would still go fishing, which is a bit implausible, maybe if I had some more time I could have fixed that. Still happy it got an honourable mention. I await the judges' feedback with interest.... 

The age of misinformation

Lies, Damn Lies & Statistics



If the vote of 2014, the reporting of that vote and the Michael Gove killing the mockingbird meme have taught us anything it is this. We are now living in the age of misinformation. Social media, the internet and traditional media all now collude to misinform, mislead and misadvise us.

Last week we saw justification narratives - "Immigration has ruined this country" swallowed whole by large swathes of the gullible electorate. And it now continues with all parties thinking of making a jump to the right (against the advice of Rocky Horror's Timewarp). When in fact the majority did not vote for the toxic Kippers. But our political class must forever chase voters, none of them would be brave enough (except perhaps the LibDems - but look what's happened to them!) to turn the rabid little Englanders away.

Perhaps the worst thing about the "Vote2014" was the misrepresentation of what the results meant by many media outlets, including the BBC. For a good analysis of this see: http://anotherangryvoice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/local-election-results-2014-aav.html

There is even a campaign by the Greens basically "why is no-one talking about us?" sadly it's because they don't fit into the narrative most media outlets want to promulgate.

At the same time as the Vote narrative was rumbling along, convincing us all of a major earthquake in British politics, we were hit by a Sunday Times article about Gove. Gove is such a hated figure that the report was very plausible, despite some folk piping up that perhaps we should fact check this - http://robinince.wordpress.com/2014/05/25/grinding-my-teeth-to-the-gums-i-wanted-to-wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee-but-i-was-too-worried-it-wasnt-fair-trade/everyone jumped straight into lambasting the sorry excuse for a human being that is Gove. Including me, I helped boost the signal too. Today Gove has answered the criticisms - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10857079/Michael-Gove-attacks-ficticious-claims-he-has-banned-US-books-from-schools.html

It is interesting to note that if you do a search for Gove and Mockingbird today you see that the narrative has changed from the Sunday Times breaking the news via a whistle-blower to “Education secretary, Michael Gove, has announced American authors will be dropped from English literature GCSEs in favour of British writers.” – ‘announced’?

Meanwhile privately, due to yet more shootings in the States, I had a conversation with a relative of an American acquaintance about gun control. Basically said acquaintance posted a pro-gun control link, said relative posted an anti-gun control message. I stated that the anti-gun control position was very strange to me, living in a society with stringent gun control that has (according to stats I looked up on that ever reliable internet) 669 times less “intentional homicides committed with a firearm” than the USA. (Uk is number 40 USA is number 4 – more people are shot to death in Thailand and Colombia who have double the number of deaths than the States and South Africa which scarily has 4 times as many deaths by firearms than the States). I mistakenly thought that the numbers would speak for themselves – UK with gun control 14 deaths, USA with less gun control 9,369 deaths.

Mr Gun Lobby (as I now choose to call him) basically said that guns reduce crime and prevent dictatorships from forming. Both of which claims he could not back up with evidence. I spent a fruitful couple of hours googling and found plenty of opinion on both sides. In essence it’s not a black and white issue but my simplistic cost benefit analysis is that I am 669 times more likely to die by being shot in a country such as the United States than I am in my own country & therefore I’m in favour of gun control.

Finally, for more evidence of information rot, a friend of mine boosted the signal for the 9/11 conspiracy theorists by reposting pictures saying “where are the planes?” When challenged his opinion was “I am yet to be convinced” and “Not all conspiracy theories are false”. That particular conspiracy is noxious and a poor memorial to all the people who died in the States on that day. However the misinformation narrative appears, to some people, to be more compelling than the truth.

In 2007, six years from that infamous day, Zogby International ran a poll to investigate the falsely labeled “9/11 Truth Movement.” They found that a whopping 30 percent of U.S. citizens believed that the federal government either planned or allowed the terrorist attacks for political and economic reasons. That means almost 100 million Americans believe their own government is guilty of mass-murdering its own people. (source: http://www.collegiatetimes.com/opinion/columnists/article_1e3f23d7-ddc4-56ec-8f08-66e4dc72a834.html) I'm guessing that a lot of these are the folk in the gun lobby who believe that owning guns is a protection against a corrupt or despotic government.

Why are such things more compelling than the truth though? Basically because of logical fallacies, justification narratives and confirmation biases. Despite all evidence to the contrary few people believe that they can be misled by the media, the political class and most importantly by their friends. People see something, get indignant and pass it on. To quote Gove (and by no means do I endorse him): “When emotion triumphs over reason, and when members of a crowd encourage each other’s righteous indignation, then the truth gets trampled underfoot.”

Welcome to the age of misinformation.

What can we do about misinformation? Apply critical thinking (why isn’t it taught in schools?), educate ourselves by logical fallacies and such things as confirmation bias, and hold up information to scrutiny. It’s time to stop taking a person’s word at face value, no matter how much you trust them, as they perhaps are just repeating misinformation they have heard elsewhere. Fact check & fight back. Try to not fall for such things, which is difficult and a constant battle I admit. Try not to spread lies. Point out where people have bought into erroneous narratives.

As this is a book blog here are a few books on my shelf that I'll be reading to help myself combat the age of misinformation:



Classic text on what Propoganda is.




and -



 

As ever, reviews will follow.....
 

Take it cool review

Take it cool by Jonathan Pinnock
 
Jonathan Pinnock goes through that “where did I come from?” moment that many of us get. Wondering about the family history, the origin of his last name etc. At the same time he is intrigued as to why there is a black reggae singer with the same surname and the fact that there are a lot of Pinnocks from Jamaica. Being a fan, and becoming slightly obsessed with Dennis Pinnock, the reggae singer, Jonathan goes off in search of the history behind the name and attempts to meet  with Dennis and interview him about his career. However how do you go about tracking down an obscure reggae singer anyway? Obviously Facebook will come into it, and email, but how do you get people you don’t know to speak to you about this sort of stuff?
 
Pinnock writes with verve and humour and gently leads you through his somewhat odd quest, blending information about the records themselves (all singles), the musicians, the producers, the reggae scene and the history of the Pinnocks in Jamaica. The format of the book will be familiar to fans of Dave Gorman or Tony Hawkes perhaps but still feels fresh in Pinnock’s hands. There are plenty of footnotes, a discography and the descriptions of the singles were great. If anything, and this is a only very minor niggle, there was a bit too much information about the records in the main text which maybe could just have been put in the discography. For some people this may break the narrative perhaps. This is recommended for fans of UK reggae, music lovers, record collectors, family history aficionados and people interested in Jamaican history and the history of slavery.
 
Overall – Entertaining and informative, well worth checking out.