Geoff Nelder's Blog, page 20

Abandoned Luggage is coming!

Publisher Jim Brown of LL-Publications tells me that the final and third book of the ARIA Trilogy entitled Abandoned Luggage is to be released on July 1st 2014.

If you want to place an advance order just let me know but I’ll be telling EVERYONE at the time too.

A reminder of what happened in the first two books follows.

ENCAPSULATION OF THE FIRST TWO VOLUMES OF THE ARIA TRILOGY.

In 2015, a case found in the struts of the International Space Station is brought to Earth. It releases a virus, giving people amnesia. They lose their memory at the rate of a year’s worth every week. No one is immune. Infectious amnesia is unheard of. Industry breaks down as people forget where they work and how to perform their duties. People die as they forget their medication and production ceases along with food, water supply and energy. A few small groups realise what is happening in time and find isolated refuges. Ryder takes a group to a secluded Welsh valley. Biologists call the virus ARIA: Alien Retrograde Infectious Amnesia. He communicates with orbiting astronauts, who find a second case and bring it with them to Wales. The second case has a counter-virus that stops the amnesia. Unfortunately, it turns the astronaut doctor, Antonio, into a sociopath. Ryder’s group fly possibly the world’s last operating airplane to a larger, uninfected group on a South Pacific island. As if hypnotised, a few humans with ARIA assemble large domes in France and Canada. Antonio is used by telepathic aliens to coordinate the Canadian construction—he becomes more egotistical. Alien prisoners are brought from a distant star system, Zadok, and are put to work cultivating a strange plant. A third case is robotically brought from orbit to a French group, who plant it with explosives on an alien ship returning to Zadok. Antonio believes he’s thwarted the French and hides on a different ship returning to Zadok.

Cover art is by the talented award-winning Andy Bigwood

Cover art for ARIA: Abandoned Luggage

And an advance peep at the acknowledgments and dedication pages too:

Acknowledgements for ARIA: Abandoned Luggage

Once again, I have enjoyed the combined literary wisdom of the Orbiter 7 novel critique group of the British Science Fiction Association. In particular, Mark Iles, James Odell, Chris Riley and the overall Orbiter coordinator, Terry Jackman, have nit-picked, brow-beaten, lacerated and improved my manuscript no end. Even so, any faults are all down to my wackiness and not theirs’.

I am the first person I know who has received an email from space when Leroy Chiao gave me technical help and a 17,000 miles-per-hour wish of good luck – while he orbited Earth on the International Space Station!

My friend, Robert Blevins of Adventure Books of Seattle, gave me moral support as did Gladys Hobson, a fine British writer from Cumbria. The world expert on pleonasms and tight narrative, crime writer and agent, Allan Guthrie, gaveme valuable advice and encouragement.

During this time other novels and over fifty short stories had fled my fingers onto the world, so my style evolved, and is still developing. Perhaps it is in the bronze age now.

Bec Zugor for ensuring the mad Doctor Antonio Menzies curses and woos in appropriate Italian.

Thanks to those many wise readers who voted the first book, ARIA: Left Luggage as the best science fiction novel of 2012 in the Preditors & Editors Readers Poll.

My wife for putting up with looking at my back while I write, and the Chester Science Fiction Book Groups – yes there are two including The Esoteric Bibliophilia Society (TEBS). John Rennie of both groups offers me sound advice on aspects of the science in my stories (as does my physicist wife) and he, along with Professor Courtney Seligman, suggested ways in which a moon such as Zadik could be cooler than it should be.

The Chester Fantasy Writing Group meets monthly in the library and are brave writers who critique my experiments including a short piece of fan fiction of my own from ARIA where the flying creatures, Toks, have a story of their own.

International online game players like Paul Goodspeed, Steven Whitener, Professor Drucilla Ronchen, Marianne Boehlert, Mary Frances, Kerry Kaufman, and international entertainer, Martin Lamberti, have all bought my works and boosted my ego.

Now for something completely different. I have twitter friends not met elsewhere who actively support the ARIA Trilogy. It would take over 50 pages to mention them all but special thanks to Olga in Moscow @OllyGuseva and Chani @chani_isaacs in South Africa. Cynthia Denny @cgrendy3, Lisa Gillis @LiGillis, Paul J Rega @paulregabooks and Les Floyd @Lesism. Les Floyd is always an inspiration with his wit, philosophy and in boosting my twitter followship. Partly as a homage to him, a cat appears in books two and three of ARIA. He’ll understand.

Find them on my twitter @geoffnelder

My writer friend in Malta, John Bonello, is an inspiration with his own marvellous award-winning fantasy trilogy written in Maltese:Il-Logħba tal-Allat. (A Game Gods Play) Also my Irish pal, Aidan Lucid of the Zargothian Tales.

Award-winning artist, Andy Bigwood, conjures ARIA’s artistic covers. We traded ideas at FantasyCon and BristolCon and exchanged emails to come up with the stunning images you see.

I also acknowledge Jim and Zetta Brown of LL-Publications including editor, Billye Johnson, proofreaders and publicists for their support and encouragement.

Really, ARIA wasn’t written by me. I was merely a large cog in its creation machine.

Dedication

Gaynor, my wife, will not read ARIA, she says, in case she finds herself as a character. She isn’t and yet in some ways she is ARIA, for without her support and bemused tolerance this trilogy would not have been written. Dedicated also to son, Rob and daughter, Eleanor and to both their marvellous families.

Foreword

Not everyone has read ARIA: Left Luggage, the first in the trilogy. Logically, fewer have read its sequel, ARIA: Returning Left Luggage and yet it is mainly those readers who have urged me to finish writing the final volume – this one, Abandoned Luggage. Is it finished now? The sequence of events and lives of the survivors have, by the end of book 3, reached a conclusion beyond which the original and unique premise of infectious amnesia has been left behind. The perpetrators of the ARIA virus were not met until book 2, and in the final book we see their home – or at least what they called home until… you’ll see. It’s no spoiler to say that the universe has not been snuffed out by the end of this series but the infectious amnesia of the first changed Earth forever.

 

Quotes

Annette Gisby: With a thrilling plot and characters you really care about this book is an excellent read. Another surefire winner from Mr. Nelder.

Paul Goodspeed: Nelder’s dialogue is witty, snarky and fun.

Martin Lamberti (International circus entertainer): The plot thickens, of course. This is expected from an excellent author like Geoff Nelder. “Humor delightful, and drama suspenseful.” 5* review

Magdalena Ball (Owner of Compulsive Reader): ARIA mingles the most optimistic calculations from the Drake Equation with a distopian outcome, creating a read that is as intriguing as it is fun.

Kenyon Charboneaux: “If you like your scifi offbeat, original, and backed by science, you’re going to love ARIA.”

Ira Nayman at #Goodreads ARIA: a smart, entertaining gem.

“Without our memories, who are we?”: Kim McDougall of Blazing Trailers.

 

Now all you need to do is hold your breath until July 1st for your Kindle, Nook, paperback or whatever medium device you like!

Time is human

Is Time’s Arrow Science Fiction?

By Geoff Nelder

I knew this question would be raised at TEBS* last night. Time’s Arrow by Martin Amis was my choice of book for the May book group meeting. The novel is about a former Nazi doctor, who’d heinously assisted Josef Mengele in experimenting and killing in the Auschwitz II-Birkenau extermination camp during the second world war. Jews, political prisoners, trade union leaders, the mentally-deficient and gypsies were mass murdered there. You’d expect such a novel to be full of the horrors of that holocaust and of the efforts and guilt trips (maybe) of the doctor as he made a new life for himself after fleeing Poland to the Americas. What makes this novel different, however, is that the narrator is the consciousness, the soul of the doctor and is told BACKWARDS. The story begins on the death bed of the doctor, but the reader only knows what his consiouscness hears and sees. The time travels backwards including speech and people walking, etc but the brain adapts, and it is all that the narrator knows so it is ‘normal’ although he has a feeling it isn’t right.

Amis employs reverse dialogue, reverse narrative, and reverse explanation in many places. As a writer I find this more amusing than Amis intended. His use of these techniques is likely to be aimed at creating abnormality and disruption for the reader. A recurrent themes in the novel is the narrator’s frequent misinterpretation of events. He accepts that people wait for an hour in a physician’s waiting room after being examined, although at some points he has doubts about this tradition. Relationships are portrayed with stormy beginnings that slowly fade into pleasant romances.

As another reviewer (Wikipedia) pointed out, “In the reversed version of reality, not only is simple chronology reversed (people become younger, and eventually become children, then babies, and then re-enter their mothers’ wombs, where they finally cease to exist) but so is morality. Blows heal injuries, doctors cause them. Theft becomes donation, and vice versa. In a passage about prostitutes, doctors harm them while pimps give them money and heal them. When the protagonist reaches Auschwitz, however, the world starts to make sense. A whole new race is created.”

 

Consider this example of reversed dialogue: “You could run them any way you liked – and still get no further forward”.

“‘You’re very special to me.’

‘Like hell.’

‘But I love you.’

‘I can’t look you in the eye.’

‘Please. You can sleep over.’

‘This is goodbye, Tod.’”

 

Is this forwards, or backwards? It’s both and I love this kind of wordplay. However, not everyone in the book group appreciates it. Obviously it takes the reader out of the fictive dream, where the author is supposed to be invisible. Yes, for those handful of examples you need to read the page then flick your eyes back up to re-read in order to get the most out of it. Many readers either won’t do that or resent it but it is often the case with literary novels to gain optimum appreciation. I am reminded of Pincher Martin by William Golding not just because it requires several readings to absorb all the nuances but, like Time’s Arrow, the whole narrative takes place in the dying moments of the main character.

 

One of the best aspects of science fiction is its defiance of rigid definitions. Early works were hard science fiction where robots, rockets and flying saucers invaded Earth or used to explore space. Time travel, faster-than-light and aliens were all around in H.G. Wells and Jules Verne and considered as science fiction. Where we have giant and miniature humans as in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1725) then we are in fantasy. Not that he thought much about genre. If anything Swift considered his masterpiece to be a parody of the growing middle-class fashion of reading travellers’ tales as well as a satire on people’s foibles. Vampire tales kicked off by Bram Stoker in Dracula (1897) are fantasy because no amount of reasonable projection of current knowledge would create a vampire. It’s easy to classify pixies, dungeons & dragons, and goblins as fantasy – beyond scientific knowledge. Many tales are borderline. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818 / 1831) is well within current knowledge, give or take a transplant and a defibrillator; hence it is science fiction.

As a rough guide, science fiction could be said to be fiction, which stretches current knowledge. Fantasy is pure imagination.

I confess to kick against prescriptive definitions. There is Sturgeon’s Law: “Ninety percent of science fiction is crud, but then, ninety percent of everything is crud.” No arguments there.

Robert Blevins publisher of Adventure Books of Seattle favours Rod Serling of Twilight Zone fame, who once said: ‘Fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science fiction is the improbable made possible…’ Science Fiction derived its name from the early days of the genre when the stories involved rockets, fantastic machinery, robots, astronomy, new phenomenon and lots more science. Now it can still have those and be very enjoyable too, but more so we relish the improbable coming to credibility in stories, and still label it as science fiction.

I also like Tom Shippey’s definition of science fiction: “Science fiction is hard to define because it is the literature of change and it changes while you are trying to define it.” That bit about change is significant. The huge element of ‘what if’ makes exciting fiction. What if gravity was random in strength and direction? What if time travelled backwards in the consciousness of a dying man? I rest my case that Time’s Arrow is science fiction.

*TEBS = The Esoteric Bibliophilia Society: or booze and science fiction / fantasy book group in Chester.

Geoff Nelder is the British co-editor at Adventure Books of Seattle – a small press publisher of science fiction, true life, and adventurous fiction.

Nelder News

ARIA (winner of the P&E Readers’ Poll for best SF novel) on wikia http://nelderaria.wikia.com/wiki/NelderAria_Wiki

Another web database here http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/nelder_geoff

Geoff’s UK Amazon author page http://www.amazon.co.uk/Geoff-Nelder/e/B002BMB2XY

And for US readers http://www.amazon.com/Geoff-Nelder/e/B002BMB2XY

You tube video trailer for ARIA http://youtu.be/oh0AAXIe8VU

Like if you will, the ARIA facebook page at http://on.fb.me/12vz7IW

http://geoffnelder.com

BookBuster – a new bookshop in Hastings

geoffnelder:

My award-winning science fiction novels in the ARIA TRILOGY as well as EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEE are now in this Hastings Bookshop. Please support it. Thanks RJ Dent for your blog post and I hope it is okay for me to reblog it.

*************

Originally posted on R J Dent:

BookBuster, a new bookshop, has opened in Hastings.

 

 

The proprietor of BookBuster is Tim Barton, a St. Leonards-based cultural entrepreneur with many years experience in the book trade.

Tim has opened his new, cheekily-named bookshop, BookBuster, in premises formerly occupied by a gone-bust Blockbuster DVD rental store.

Tim believes in bookshops and what bookshops offer customers: “I don’t think you can beat a physical bookstore, where you are free to browse,” he says.

BookBuster is generating a lot of interest among book-lovers. Tim says: “The fact that there has been so much interest so far is fantastic.”

Although the shelves offer mainly new titles, the shop has an extensive and eclectic range of books that seem to appeal to all ages and interests.

With new stock arriving daily, a planned series of author signings, readings and other literary events, and an ambient soundtrack playing to ensure customers linger longer…

View original 113 more words

Hopping on a Blog hop

This week is a hop on a bloghop and I thank Neil Stenton for inviting me to be part of this ride, please see his post at http://www.koobug.com/NeilStenton?p1583

The previous link is that of exciting science fiction writer, Mark Iles, at

http://markiles.co.uk/the-blog

1)    What am I working on?

I am toying with a prequel to science fiction trilogy, ARIA based on the unique concept of infectious amnesia. I love shorts and I am working on The Chaos of Mokii based on a city formed entirely in the consciousness of its inhabitants. It’s an entirely telepathic city and yet there is murder, mayhem, love gained and lost.

Xaghra’s Revenge is written and in the hands of literary agent, Rebecca Pratt. A friend in Malta suggests to me that a sequel could go along the lines of an alternate history fantasy where the Knights of Malta loses the Great Siege of 1565. That battle was deemed to have stemmed the tide of Islamic influences in Europe. Suppose the Ottoman corsairs won that battle? Perhaps Europe would have become Islamic leaving only the Americas as Christian. Would that have generated an Atlantic war? How would our culture be different? In spite of biased reporting in the popular press, there are many aspects of Islamic – sharia law that are more tolerant and reasonable than Vatican / Church of England traditions. Of course there are other differences that either side would find less palatable, but hey ho. And nowadays there are many Muslims in so-called Christian countries contributing positive aspects of multicultural lifestyles, but for me the alternate history consequences would make a fascinating story.

2)    How does my work differ from others in its genre?

Ah, this question is like that job interview where you have to say why you are better than all the other candidates. My fantasy stories tend to be about normal people to whom extraordinary things happen, (magic realism) such as the man who thought he was an amnesiac until he realizes he is a little girl’s imaginary friend. The science fiction I write is more unmagic realism verging on the improbable.

 

3)    Why do I write what I do?

The compulsion to write is so that others can share my madness, it would be a shame, otherwise, for it to go to waste. Yes, there’s plenty of weird stuff on Earth to base our fiction on – hence writing thrillers, but outside normality the scope is infinite.

 

4)    How does your writing process work?

I have a writing process? I have a warped mind, it becomes freshly oxygenated on steep hill cycle rides when ideas inveigle, ferment and cry. In a notebook, the germ is mindmapped, followed by a first chapter, maybe the last. The dribs are drabbed, lacerated and smartened in the BSFA critique group before being sent to my ‘oh no not Nelder again’ agent. It’s not over then. When a publisher accepts either a short story or a novel their editor works on it and suggests amendments on a copy of the document using MS Word’s Comment feature. After a little bat and ball it goes to the proofreader who generates more suggestions until we are all happy.

 

Links to my work

Some of my novels are listed on the international database of science fiction at http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/nelder_geoff

 

Geoff’s UK Amazon author page http://www.amazon.co.uk/Geoff-Nelder/e/B002BMB2XY

And for US readers http://www.amazon.com/Geoff-Nelder/e/B002BMB2XY

Website for Geoff Nelder is at http://geoffnelder.com

Twitter is http://www.twitter.com/geoffnelder

Facebook is http://www.facebook.com/AriaTrilogy

 

For the next leap in the blog hop pop along to the blog of Irish writer of fantasy especially The Zargothian Tales, Aidan Lucid, http://www.thezargothiantales.com/aidanlucidblog.html

And here is Aidan’s review blog http://thelucidfilmreview.blogspot.ie/

Linghams has my books

From a bus passing Parkgate, Wirral looking west across the Dee to Wales

I like this view. It’s not much to look at: a wide muddy estuary, a wide River Dee is there but out of sight, and the outline of the North Wales mountains. It is desolate yet majestic in its beauty – calming to the eye. Mist obscures details as does the bus windows. When my 5-year-old grandson observed mist through a window in Manchester yesterday, he asked me why the sky was dusty. Marvellous. This view in the photograph was taken as the number 22 from Chester to Hoylake passed through Parkgate on the Wirral. Parkgate is where Handel set off from in 1742 for the first performance in Ireland of his Messiah. In a tiny way I too passed through Parkgate today on an artist’s mission. In my case I carried a bag of books for the unique bookshop, Linghams, in nearby Heswall. Unlike most independent bookshops, this one is well-stocked and there’s an unrushed family atmosphere.

Immediately, I relaxed. The contents of the adult fiction shelves displayed those fine examples of the Man-Booker although even there I spotted the works of Margaret Atwood, who insists Oryx and Crake (2003) is not science fiction in spite of its futuristic setting and human GM fun and games. Then I found a section for science fiction and fantasy. Marvellous. There sat the works of authors I have sat next to at book signings such as Ian M Banks (RIP) and Joseph D’ Lacey with his republished sanguineous Meat which I reviewed favourably here. I was at home in a bookshop. Handshakes and information exchanges later, Linghams took copies of Exit, Pursued by a Bee, ARIA: Left Luggage and ARIA: Returning Left Luggage.

If you live in the Northwest of England then visit quaint Heswall and pop into Linghams. Their website is at http://www.linghamsbooksellers.co.uk/

Twitter @LinghamsBooks Facebook

Neil Marr – a personal tribute

A tale of inspiration and tragedy

Neil Marr 23 June 1949 to 17 April 2014

Neil Marr to right of Peter Tomlinson 2009

Decades ago while still a journalist for a major newspaper, Neil had an out-of-body experience after five heart attacks in a Manchester hospital – the one my grandson, Oliver, was born in. Neil woke up and was able to tell of how his synapses played tricks on his subconscious mind. Many heart attacks later, small amputations, near misses (once when stepping on to the road outside his Menton home (France) a peleton of cyclists nearly took him out. He loved to tell me as he knew I’m a keen cyclist) he finally hasn’t woken up. Neil was more than an internet friend to me, and many hundreds of other writers. He could be irascible and angry but mainly he was an inspiration and an encourager. There were times he encouraged a tad too much and where he maybe should have suggested an aspiring writer should give up, he wouldn’t – at least not to their online face. In that he was in opposition to Alex Keegan, famous for his tough Boot Camp writing courses where the weak are left on the mountainside to wither and die. Having said that, when I edit stories from survivors of a Keegan writing course I have an easy task, and many of his students go on to win competitions. Nor did Fay Weldon agree with Neil’s encouraging approach, I remember the laughter at the Winchester Writers’ Conference when as GOH she said if a woman sends her an unpromising story indicative of the need for a lifetime of editing, she’d send them a note: Are you any good at knitting?

 

Neil was brilliant at knitting people together, pearls a plenty fell from his pen as he gathered a few editors like myself, Sally Quilford and Donna Gagnon in the BeWrite Books Community Forum 14 years ago to help thousands of writers to hone their craft. Sadly, like with all forums, there are those who only sneak in when off their heads, to barb each other. Writers are barely-contained bombs of frustration, worked up to boiling point with agents, publishers, readers and each other. I used to have a standing order to wake up in the morning, put the coffee on, log on to the forum and delete, delete, delete certain members’ posts. We rarely banned members although I’d come close to calling the police when threats to kill others, or themselves came perilously close. Neil had had enough of the bickering even though he recognised the forum’s worthiness. It should have been a flagship forum to help sell BeWrite Books, which by then was the largest e-book publisher on the planet. However, few of the authors visited the forum to promote their novels and fewer of the forumifera ever put their hands in their pocket to buy them. Neil cited the reason for closing the BeWrite forum as the cost of maintaining it but I didn’t buy that. None of the moderators were paid and I know we and several members actually bought BeWrite books and that should have covered the few pounds necessary to cover web domain costs.

All was not lost for the hundreds of BeWrite forum members. Many of us remained friends in real face-to-face life, meeting at conventions, London Book Fair, and on the BeWrite table at the Wigan Words Literary Festival. I’m one of those nutters who cycle the country calling in on e-friends. Hence I met many in person that live near me in Cheshire, en route to my sister in Gloucestershire, up to Carlisle and abroad. The photo shows BeWrite author, Peter Tomlinson from Shropshire on one of his visits to Neil Marr near Monaco to discuss Peter’s books such The Petronicus Legacy. Perhaps as a sign of regret Neil encouraged a new kind of writers forum to be set up by Transylvanian Anton Szmuk, who’d moved to Canada and among other things set up Bibliophilia. It is still alive today here. Other BeWriters reformed in other places such as Café Doom for the fantasy genre, and the Write Idea.

Marketing BeWrite books then became limited to its website, which was in need of a overhaul. Neil confided in me that money from sales was very low and that he and the administrator, Cait, took maybe £2 a week (!!!) as wages, in addition to expenses. I’m sure if it wasn’t for Neil’s engaging personality, family support and his vast experience as an international journalist, BeWrite Books would have sunk at that time. His contacts from his life as a journalist for the Daily Mirror and other newspapers led him to live in New York, his homeland in Scotland, Ireland, London, Merseyside and finally settled with Skovia in the Mediterranean.

His international journalist press card came in handy to save a mutual friend’s life. BeWrite forum user and friend, LF, possessed many marvellous qualities but sadly also suffered various mental issues. He emailed me and Neil with a goodbye. I’d contacted the police in LF’s town and they told me to ring the local Samaritans. I phoned their 24-hour hotline only to find an answer machine telling me it’s closed and to call again the next day. You could have heard my ironic laughter all over Chester. I was about to call the police again when Neil phoned me. Within minutes he’d used his press card credentials to convince the police to call on LF’s home. They did and he recovered in hospital.

Stories like that of Neil are legion, but this isn’t a biography. In 2009, the administrator of BeWrite Books, after a relationship change, needed a life away from BeWrite and so understandably stepped down. Why I ever thought I’d be suitable to step into her shoes baffles me to this day. I hate admin tasks. I tell lies to amuse readers, a writer of fiction and occasionally non-fiction. Perhaps it was the urge to discover the workings of a small press, the promise of expenses-paid trips to the New York, Frankfurt and London Book Fairs, but mainly the need to help Neil that I stepped in as administrator of BeWrite Books. Neil wrote glowing introductions about me, but he overestimated my abilities. After several weeks of handling spreadsheet files of royalties, re-formatting manuscripts, rewording and sending out contracts to authors and artists, and many other tasks, which took much longer than the two hours daily I was promised, I sadly quit. BeWrite needed better than me.

I was astonished when going over those spreadsheets how few sales are made by highly talented authors. Howard Waldman’s Back There is one of my most favourite literary novels. He’s an American living in Paris. I found that from its publication in 2005 to 2008 it had sold 9 copies! I’d edited his cunning science fiction novel, Time Travail, and asked him if he’d like to do some promo. No, he would not thank you. He was a writer not a salesman. Nevertheless, I mentioned his book on blogs and sales went up in 2009 but still only a handful. Other good books go unnoticed by the great reading public too.

Being in daily contact with Neil at that time revealed those life coincidences we all share. I mentioned how I helped my dad move to Berwick-upon-Tweed: Neil bought his kilts from there. I live in Chester – so did Neil’s former partner of 10 years splitting from her when they lived in New York. I told him I cycle to Warrington often, to see my father-in-law so Neil tells me how he and another Daily Mirror reporter once took a TV to George Formby’s mother in Warrington so she could watch his films. I told him of my Xaghra’s Revenge novel-in-progress and he tells me Anthony Burgess (Clockwork Orange) lived there and had his house sold by the government when he’d stayed too long out of the country. Burgess moved to Monaco where he became a regular drinking buddy with Neil. Near Malta my novel is based on when all the population of Gozo were abducted by pirates in 1551. Neil referred me to a pal, Revel Barker. “Revel goes back for yonks as well. He was Robert Maxwell’s number two at the Mirror Group. The only thing found on Maxwell’s desk after his mysterious death was the last thing he’d signed before leaving for the long boat trip … the agreement to Revel’s resignation payoff and pension.” It’s like that six degrees of separation except with Neil it is only 2!

Then we have the curious tale of BeWrite’s best seller. Jay Mandal is the pseudonym of the publisher’s highest ranking gay literature. They filled an early genre niche and sold thousands. Jay’s novels helped to keep BeWrite afloat and yet Neil hated them. He wasn’t homophobic but couldn’t read beyond a few pages of those novels because they didn’t reach his standards of literary quality. Another editor worked on them. Jay was often on the BeWrite forum and from replies and discussions we all assumed Jay was a man, but I saw the contract. Well done mrs!

Neil published other books he didn’t like, and even loathed. Although he was the co-author of Bullycide, Neil sometimes felt bullied into publishing collections of short stories and novels that he didn’t like. I won’t mention real names because those writers continue to believe Neil liked their work. He would be the first to agree that reading and liking what you read is as subjective as editing, more so.

Neil’s son took over the administration of BeWrite after I left but he had another job, so Neil shortly announced a new administrator, the same Tony Szmuk, mentioned above. Within months, Tony had crafted a new blog – it still exists, here is Peter Tomlinson’s page. Tony also created a hugely improved website and started the mammoth task of reformatting and arranging Smashwords to sell the titles. Sadly, a few years later I received emails from BeWrite authors asking why they had not received royalties for a while. Some thought I still worked for them and knew I’d calculated royalties and sent out statements. After asking around I made some surprising discoveries. Many authors were so happy to see their books published they didn’t ask for royalties and don’t recall seeing a contract. (Cait and I sent every author a contract – something Neil insisted on after a potential author had his long novel edited for free by Neil and then ran off with the polished doc and found a different publisher). Many cover artists such as the marvellous Steve Upham never received payments. Most authors were only owed a small amount but at least one artist and one author were owed hundreds of dollars – and still are.

Neil phoned me not long before he wound up the business to say that Lightning Source Inc was owed thousands of dollars by BeWrite, that he regretted allowing the company to be transferred to Canada and experienced terrible stress when he thought of the authors who were angry and frustrated with the company. It wasn’t his fault that the new administrator “borrowed” the coffers. A large-hearted editor and journalist was having his heart broken by the very vehicle he’d created. Such a shame. On the plus side, he’d inspired so many aspiring writers and even those owed the most, have gushed with his praises.

Besides work and the forum, Neil and I met regularly on an online scrabble and games site, ItsYourTurn. I’m still there. We could leave messages to each other with each move and many times he made me laugh, and I hope the mirth was reciprocated. He’d like to hear of my bike riding misadventures and the topic came up in his illness tales. For an example this shows how fragile his health was even 5 years ago. “Just waiting for the doc to arrive. Managed a short walk on Saturday in new shoes and got a wee blister on my little toe. Nothing, eh? Och well, it seems to have become infected and — with my problems — the last time this happened, they had to amputate the blistered toe and part of my foot. Wouldn’t have happened had I had a bike.

Trouble is with my wee hassle that — having no real blood circulation from the waist down — antibiotics and antiseptics don’t reach the parts. A tiny thing like an infected blister can very easily cost me a leg. Better to lose another toe than a leg, I guess. Seems crazy for a darned blister on the little toe, eh, Geoff? N.”

Health problems extended to his pets too. “Just had to make an emergency dash to the vet’s with Norman the cat. He had an injection for an eye infection and is all stocked up with medicine now. He’s OK. I, of course, am scratched to shreds after struggling to hold him while the needle went in. I’ve left hospitals after major surgery in better shape. Luckily, there was a handy bar next door (a kind of recovery room) where a couple of large brandies restored me to health as we waited for the taxi home. Neil.”

Neil knew the end was coming from a long way off. After one scrabble game during which we discussed the folly of spending our lives hoping to make it big with writing (he was more successful than he realised) and after I’d resigned from BeWrite Books, he wrote: “You’ve got it right, Geoff. And if I could bring myself to do so, I’d never read a book with a pencil in my hand ever again. And I’d chuck books away that didn’t prove within two pages that I wasn’t wasting precious reading time. N” Life’s too short to read something you are not enjoying.

I’ll end this tribute with a quote from Neil on how much he enjoyed his young man’s job as a journalist. This was spurred by him realising I lived in Chester. “There used to be an orang-utan at Chester Zoo that liked wearing newspapers on his head. I spent two or three days once with every newspaper I could lay hands on, tossing them to him one at a time. My snapper was good and the idea was to catch the orang-utan as he was raising the papers to his head just as they reached the position where he might be reading them and with the title masthead in clear view. The pix then went out to the relative newspapers and magazines. A ridiculously profitable lark was that.”

Anyone like to step into Neil’s shoes and make a few bob the same way?

Here’s to you, Neil.

—–

Nelder News

ARIA on wikia http://nelderaria.wikia.com/wiki/NelderAria_Wiki

Another web database here http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/nelder_geoff

Geoff’s UK Amazon author page http://www.amazon.co.uk/Geoff-Nelder/e/B002BMB2XY

And for US readers http://www.amazon.com/Geoff-Nelder/e/B002BMB2XY

You tube video trailer for ARIA http://youtu.be/oh0AAXIe8VU

Like if you will, the ARIA facebook page at http://on.fb.me/12vz7IW

Malta – you teaser

Fort St Angelo, Malta from the sea.

Meeting a Maltese prize-winner

I know some Brits say Malta has become too urbanised. It might be true. There are 53 towns with a council on an area of only 316 square kilometres. Its population density of 1321 persons per square kilometre makes it the eighth most densely populated country in the world. Yet, earlier this week, Mrs N and I strolled along empty lanes and sparsely-populated seafront promenades. Yes, we had to choose them carefully. The seaside walk was by accident the first time. On Sundays there is a popular market at Marsaxlokk but the queue for the bus was so long we looked for the nearest bus with no passengers and jumped on it – no matter where it went. That was the similarly-named Marsaskala. What a quaint port with nearly empty, wide promenades and cafes. Yes! We’d discovered a closely guarded Maltese secret: their own resort, hidden from the brochures. There’s more – an even cuter bay, but hey, I’m not giving it all away in a blog. I will say that I remain astonished every time I visit Malta’s sister island, Gozo, that I can walk around a small rocky field with no security, no fences, no people on a site known to be nearly as ancient as the so-called temples – ie older than Stonehenge and the pyramids. At least the most famous site, Ggantija, has upped its security with a higher fence and fancypants shop and ticket entrance.

In hilly Valetta there are many quaint views such as this British postbox.

Gozo and the temples that might not have religious origins, no one knows, has a special place in my heart. I always hug or at least fondle the ancient stones and get a buzz in return. No doubt in the future they will all be encased in clear plastic so hug while you can. I use a kind of spirit of Gozo in my urban fantasy, Xaghra’s Revenge. The entire population of the island were abducted by pirates in 1551. Really! Their spirits cry out for revenge and they get it in my novel – in the hands of my agent Rebecca Pratt – sell it, girl! A few details here with photos. While on Gozo my wife and I met Tina from Toronto, and by chance in several other places too. Amazing how once you see someone you keep seeing them – another story there.

Another reason for visiting Malta for me is another chance meeting. I play scrabble and other games on http://www.itsyourturn.com and met Jimmy from Malta there. He knew a writer, John Bonello, who lives in Jimmy’s town Ħad-Dingli, where he lives with his young family. In 2008 John was awarded Ġieħ Ħad-Dingli for his first book ‘It-Tielet Qamar’. In 2011 he won 1st prize in the National Book Awards for his second book ‘L-Aħħar Ħolma’. We’ve met a few times now and can spend hours discussing writing and publishing. Anyone out there who can read Maltese and enjoy a clever science fiction dimension-themed story grab it from Merlin Publishers here.

Nelder News

ARIA on wikia http://nelderaria.wikia.com/wiki/NelderAria_Wiki

Another web database here http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/nelder_geoff

Geoff’s UK Amazon author page http://www.amazon.co.uk/Geoff-Nelder/e/B002BMB2XY

And for US readers http://www.amazon.com/Geoff-Nelder/e/B002BMB2XY

You tube video trailer for ARIA http://youtu.be/oh0AAXIe8VU

Like if you will, the ARIA facebook page at http://on.fb.me/12vz7IW

First to be top in 2nd hand books

Update on City Walls Books, Chester.

City Walls Books, Chester

They have agreed to stock my books. These are NEW not second-hand paperbacks of quality literature. I know because I wrote them. Haha. Escaping Reality is a humorous thriller based in northern Britain and Amsterdam. See below for details. They are also selling Exit, Pursued by a Bee and my ARIA Trilogy. All at hug-them prices below normal retail and Amazon.

a secondhand bookshop – and a good one too. City Walls Books, 2 City Walls, Chester CH1 2JG They have a website here. However good they are, authors like me or even those unlike me, don’t receive any royalties or payments for our books sold there. Having said that, the unknown writers (hands up and waving again) can gain branding, awareness and a tad of recognition by browsing readers finding us on secondhand shelves.

The shop owner is a writer too. I loved his story, The Is Shop, in which a store only sells what the previous customer ordered. It’s based on the concept of fractal so there are cusps and bifurcations of intrigue in the story. Perhaps City Walls Books could be subtitled as The Alternative ‘IS Shop’?  When you go or email the shop as for a copy.

 

Links

Escaping Reality is now out of print but I have a few that I will keep supplying to City Walls Books as they are needed. It is also available as a Kindle – see the page and slide show at

http://geoffnelder.com/ERinfo.htm

Exit, Pursued by a Bee is a science fiction mystery published by Double Dragon Publishing in Canada. See its page at http://geoffnelder.com/exitbee.htm

ARIA Trilogy is the award-winning science fiction medical mystery based on the unique idea of infectious amnesia. Also as ebook from Amazon Amazon US  http://amzn.to/1h4DIaI

Kindle UK – http://amzn.to/1gn3iHI and the publisher details http://bit.ly/HNYyq4 where you can see the video trailer and blurbs.

How to review a book

In several other blogs (with particular thanks to Jonathan Gunson here, and sites I’ve seen variants of the following guide a book reviewer could use.  A good idea, after all I’ve seen reviews of my books range from “Eh?” to ten pages of philosophy all because that reader was inspired by my aliens who totally ignored humans on Earth –  in Exit, Pursued by a Bee. All too often reviews on Amazon are mere descriptions of the plot, slightly reworded from the back page blurb. Then we have what are becoming known as the Amazon bullies – people, maybe rival authors or publishers, who write nasty things in an attempt to discredit the author and bring his or her average ratings plummeting down.  Luckily, most reviewers are being honest but often don’t know what to look for in a book when writing their review. So here is my helpful guide. So as to be even more helpful I put in italics quotes from reviewers relating to my science fiction and medical mystery novel ARIA: Left Luggage.

Did you enjoy or dislike the story? “ARIA enthralled me because I know someone who lost their memory slowly, and I could imagine how the characters feel.”
Was it exciting? “Fast paced with a hook at the end of each chapter. Sorry, Geoff I read it in only two days!”
Extremely romantic? “I didn’t think Ryder and Teresa were right for each other then along came that hot-blooded Jena. Wow. Not only did she take him off her but the rivalry triggered a whole new ball game – so to speak.”
Did it hold your attention? “I wasn’t going to read it one go because I had to go out, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen if amnesia really was infectious! What an imagination in this book.” “It asks the important question of life itself – what’s so important to us we have to write it down everyday?”
Did it provoke emotions? “I hate you Geoff Nelder – I can’t get the scene in the supermarket out of my mind!!!” “More scary than zombies and vampires. How am I going to get to sleep now?
Did you care about the main character? “Ryder was so-so at first but he grew on me. How did you do that?
Did you like the writing style? “Inimical style and yet with touches of M R James.”
Would you recommend it to a friend? “I’m compelled to laud it on my blog.”

 Quotes are taken from the various Amazon sites, blogs, Compulsive Reader, SF Signal, Facebook, twitter, SF Crowsnest, Ideas4writers forum, and by such readers, some of whom are excellent writers, as Gladys Hobson, Annette Gibson, Kyle from the Chester SF Book Group, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Brad Lineweaver.

 Links

Geoff’s UK Amazon author page http://www.amazon.co.uk/Geoff-Nelder/e/B002BMB2XY

And for US readers http://www.amazon.com/Geoff-Nelder/e/B002BMB2XY

You tube video trailer http://youtu.be/oh0AAXIe8VU

There are reviews of ARIA on the Goodreads site at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15784860-aria

It made me laugh to see a 2* review of ARIA: Left Luggage when the moaner said it should warn that the book is aimed at ‘mature’ readers. See it at http://amzn.to/1h4DIaI

On the other hand, I agree with him!

More than books

It’s a sad era for independent bookshops and yet a time for opportunities. Ironically, the end-of-days farewell party at Bluecoat Books in Chester with the marvellous address of 1 City Walls, bulged with people many buying more books than they could carry. However, it wasn’t the lack of business that has led to the closure of the last independent bookshop in Chester but the retirement of its owner. I tried to persuade the beautiful assistant to take it on but she couldn’t afford the lease and was looking forward to working in the shop’s parent shop in Liverpool – also called Bluecoat Books – here is their website.

What drew me to the Chester Bluecoat Books since their opening in 2003 was that they were good to me as a local author and always stocked my books – thriller Escaping Reality, science fiction Exit, Pursued by a Bee, ARIA books one and two, and Escape Velocity magazine. Sometimes I would take books in lieu of cash payment, which was fine.  I wonder if any of my books made it into the bookshop next door, which is a secondhand bookshop – and a good one too. City Walls Books, 2 City Walls, Chester CH1 2JG They have a website too here. However good they are, authors like me or even those unlike me, don’t receive any royalties or payments for our books sold there. Having said that, the unknown writers (hands up and waving again) can gain branding, awareness and a tad of recognition by browsing readers finding us on secondhand shelves.

Urmston Bookshop

So where can readers who like paper books find my tomes other than online? Sadly, Waterstones won’t stock many small indie books especially if they are not offered a huge discount. The next nearest bookshop to buy my books is where my daughter’s young family live – Urmston, in Trafford, Manchester. Urmston Books sell a range of gifts, cards and offer a tingling atmosphere of friendly service. Here is their website. Frances and Peter Hopkins there kindly have my science fiction books on their

My books on the shelves at Urmston Bookshop

shelves – see photo although by now those are back on the N shelf at floor level! I believe mine are the only science fiction books for grownups in the shop. I urge all Urmstonians and others nearby to journey to 72 Flixton Road M41 5AB and buy books there!

I will be travelling to Heswall on the Wirral soon to visit another great independent bookshop, Linghams.

All these small bookshops sell more than books, and I don’t mean gifts. They are brilliant at imparting knowledge and a love of books. Some develop a small café on the premises if there’s room, hold author readings, signings and events. Most of them also sell books online. Indeed I know that Bluecoat Books sell my books through their Amazon Associate links.

I am loving the ebook reader apps on my tablet but enjoy the tactile experience of a real paper book too. Don’t walk past those small, energetic bundles of fun that are independent bookshops, get in there and buy something.

Nelder News

My trilogy’s page at Wikia http://nelderaria.wikia.com/wiki/NelderAria_Wiki

Geoff’s UK Amazon author page http://www.amazon.co.uk/Geoff-Nelder/e/B002BMB2XY

And for US readers http://www.amazon.com/Geoff-Nelder/e/B002BMB2XY