Mark Cantrell's Blog, page 45

FICTION: There's No Place Like Home For Those Who Are Poor

There's No Place Like HomeFlash Fiction By Mark CantrellCopyright © February 2015

“AFFORDABLE housing? Affordable housing! Are you taking the piss?”

 

I rolled my eyes. Phil was off on one again.

 

“A fucking palace is affordable if you’ve got the fucking money, but you don’t get that by working for it. Working class folk like us aren’t allowed on the property market. We can barely manage to rent. We’ll be lucky if they let us live in shant...

PROSE: The Words Are Out There, Screaming

Breached Horizons
A Kind Of Prose Poem
By Mark Cantrell

THE words are out there somewhere. They hide like sinister malignancies in the shades of the mind, lurking, until the moment comes to strike.

 

Then, after the months of hunting and searching, when the author has finally given up in despair, they gush screaming from the void to bore into the victim's brain.

 

And in that terrible moment, the author realises they are not the divine graces of imagination, but mutant and snarling th...

COMMENT: Charlie Hebdo Lives

The forces of silence must not prevail
The men with guns can't take away our press freedoms, only harden our resolve, but if we're not careful they might distract our attention away from the real culprits threatening freedom of speech, writes Mark Cantrell

 

WEDNESDAY'S attack on the office of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is a chilling illustration of the murderous extremes some are prepared to take in their efforts to silence a free press, but in the long run it's not the...

#SilasMorlock: Dare You Venture Where Bradbury Feared To Tread?

[image error]Silas Morlock presents a dark story of redemption in homage to the power of literature
Mark Cantrell explores some of the themes contained in his macabre urban fantasy novel, Silas Morlock, published in paperback and digital editions by Inspired Quill...

IMAGINE a future where the printed word is dead. It shouldn't be too difficult – we often hear it's on the edge of obsolescence, after all – but dare we envision a world where print's digital successor has also met its demise?

 ...

UPDATE: Now With Added Value (Tax)

But still a wicked set of reads

 

TAX laws mean a change in the way that Amazon handles the pricing of my digital works listed for sale on its site from the 1 January 2015.

 

For those of us in the UK, VAT has long been charged on ebooks – as opposed to print books – and now some new EU legislation is to change the way pricing is handled throughout Europe.

 

For a self-publishing author, I'll confess, it's an added layer of confusion. For one thing, there's been the bra...

NEWS: Inspired Quill offers BitLit bundling on Silas Morlock

Bundle up for a great deal on fiction

 [image error]

HERE'S a nifty bit of news from the publisher of my novel, Silas Morlock. Inspired Quill (IQ) has teamed up with the makers of the mobile app BitLit to bundle its print and digital titles.

 

Basically, if you've bought one of IQ's print titles (it doesn’t have to be my novel) then you can buy the digital edition of said book at a cut-down price to read out and about on your phone, tablet, or ereader – wherever it's not quite convenient...

ESSAY: "That Sounds Like Science Fiction"

"My God, Dave, it's full of literary stars…"

Mark Cantrell is an avid reader of science fiction. When it comes to being a writer he's not so sure he's earned his place among the genre's stargazers, but in pondering his 'credentials' he does at least get to wax lyrical

 

OVER the years I’ve given up trying to explain why I am not – strictly speaking – a science fiction author. These days, I tend to shrug and accept the label whenever it's pinned to my name; it’s...

POEM: Something Stinks

Cerebral Eructation
By Mark Cantrell

Bubbles of thought

Arise

Burbling, from the murky

Depths of my stagnant Mind.

Fermented, deep, in the vats and tangled threads

Of a foetid brain,

The matter, compressed like old peat,

Stews in a cauldron

Of old experience,

Forgotten dreams,

Shredded memory,

The tangled, mangled weeds,

Of lost and mouldered hopes.

In that dank sewer,

All stirs turgid

In the currents of gurgling Time,

Mixing putrid, slime exhaling

The mental halitosis of fuming memes.

Sometimes, as...

POEM: The Same Book Forever

The Book Of All Things
By Mark Cantrell

 

In the future

There is a book, as yet

Unwritten. It has no author

Whatsoever,

But all the same, it will in time

Be published, this book,

Reiterated,

Time and time and time

Again,

In the circularity of perpetuity.

We shall buy this book,

And marvel,

We, and those yet to come,

Unborn.

We shall buy the book

Again and again and again,

In the cycling of repetition forgotten,

Each time relishing

Its newest resurrection,

With the same intensity as that ever first...

BLOG: Sounding Off

Say my piece and eat itBy Mark Cantrell

 

Sorry to disappoint, but social comment and political polemic is part of the brand (excuse me while I spit out the bad taste that word leaves in my mouth), so if you're looking to just tune out to some 'mind muzak' you might want to slip away before the mouth starts to foam.

 

I'm given to understand that passing comment about world affairs is generally not the done thing; never talk football, politics or religion down the pub, as the old adage...