Geoff Nelder's Blog, page 37

Abolisher of Roses by Gary Fry

 Abolisher of Roses by Gary Fry

From The Spectral Press Volume II due out in May 2011

Reviewed by Geoff Nelder

If you go down to the woods today…  make sure you are not an adulterer, unless visceral art of such a personal nature is your noir passion. As Peter reluctantly helps his wife participate in an avant-garde woodland art-trail he experiences a moment of epiphany. They and their marriage are "knee-deep in the middle period of their lives" with no surprises left – except this one. She had a zest for life with these arty-crafty types that he didn't see at home. He led a duplicitous life, but didn't expect her to. He is shaken to have his ideas tested by his subservient wife – firstly by her 'hobby': "…we go to art to be challenged, to have our . . . our sedimented habits shaken up." Peter is shaken up and so is the reader in this modern morality tale.

Fry's writing style is subtly misleading in that the slow paced start is in danger of allowing you to relax, then a paragraph makes you sit up. The story has no arc, it is an exponential curve of a rocket taking off. If you have a mistress, then you might have to read Gary Fry's Abolisher of Roses through your fingers.

22pg A5 print booklet with card covers, signed and numbered, 100 only – published May 2011.

Available from the publishers – Spectral Press, 5 Serjeants Green, Neath Hill, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK14 6HA, UK for £3 (plus 50p P+P) either through Paypal (spectralpress@gmail.com) or cheque (made payable to 'Simon Marshall-Jones') to the address above. Subscriptions for 4 issues available for £13.50UK/£16EU/$30US/$40RoW – payment details as above.

Web: http://www.spectralpress.wordpress.com

Malta 2011

There are so many reasons luring me to the Maltese archipelago this year: Malta and Gozo, even with its mad traffic, and speed-walking fitness people on the promenades, is wonderfully relaxing; Gozo is the setting for my Xaghra's Revenge fantasy (being considered for publication by a publisher); I have a Maltese writer friend, John Bonello, who met me in Sliema; Jimmy and his wife, Mary Rose, offered us the use of their Xlendi flat in Gozo; we love the Preluna hotel in Sliema – like being on a cruise ship but without sailing.   The photo is of Dingli, the town of John Bonello and Jimmy. Built of limestone and surrounded by vineyards and an old world charm.

I'll do a separate blog entry for John and his fiction.

While there I learnt that my Monk Punk fantasy story, Don't Bite My Finger... has been published in the Black Static anthology. Link to it and great pictures and explanation  is here.

Olympic Dreams

As if from a bookseller's dream a terrorist plot to plant explosives at the London Olympic stadium is exposed happens just as a book comes out recently with that as a theme. John Goodwin's The Last Olympiad is better than the facts though. Of course it is: I helped edit one of its early drafts. I met John in Cyprus on a UK Authors UKAway writing week in 2008 and again in 2009. I can recommend it as an action-packed read – and topical!

See details here.

The Dead Detective Agency by Peg Herring

What a splendid book title!

The Dead Detective Agency by Peg Herring

Reviewed by Geoff Nelder

Published by LL-Publications April 2011

ISBN: 978-1905091706

A vibrant easy-going twenty-five-year-old woman, Tori, with not a single enemy in this world, is shot dead in her apartment for no apparent reason. The apparent lack of motive narks her so much she refuses to go to Heaven. Instead, she finds herself in a kind of Paradise cruise ship among others in limbo. She is being coached to accept her lot but when she learns there is an elite able to cross back she argues with the high and mighty and wins.

As a consequence we have a unique novel, in both senses of the word, where there are not only two detectives trying to solve a puzzling murder, but one of them is dead. In fact Tori is with her mentor dead detective, Seamus. The two demised sleuths can only exist back on their former world by inhabiting the living, sometimes the same one. They can jump between people but only in extreme circumstances may they make their presence felt. Readers are used to following a story through the eyes of a protagonist. However, in this tale, they are engaging the action through the eyes of a 'ghost' through their inhabited live person! And yet you don't get lost. The narrative is an easy read belying the complexity of the issues.

There are light moments. For example when alive Tori tried to match-make two of her colleagues. Carmon lacks confidence and though she is enamoured with Abe, needed a shove. That came from Tori, finally, after she died. Brilliant.

There is sadness here too. Tori's death was a tragic error, as her investigation uncovers. So much life for her that she really anticipated living, cruelly robbed. At least she is assured of an even better after-life.

Because the two dead detectives can switch hosts if in sufficient close proximity, and with the story style carrying a kind of hard-boiled gumshoe feel, this novel could rightly be called Sam Spade meets Quantum Leap. The action in the book is contemporary even though the feel is of an earlier era. The cover art, by Helen E.H. Madden, reinforces the 30s style beautifully with the depiction of Tori – her wistfulness as a limbo cruiseship passenger.

I remain a pecuniary ignoramus about how an investment bank works but in one respect I am at least up to conversationalist level. Thanks to Peg Herring, I am now informed on 'selling away', the underhand practise of cheating both the firm and client to the profit of a swindler. It is this practice that ultimately led to Tori's death, and that of others in this action novel. In an interesting way this is Financial Swindling for Dummies. Thanks!

On another level I felt Tori and Seamus could have treated the reader to a more exciting time in their voyeuristic travelling inside other people. I ask myself: would I resist the temptation to learn more about women by being inside the head of one – seeing through her eyes and experiencing all her senses? No, I'd go all the way and I feel a lack of the sexual frisson and intellectual gender differences that could have been explored.

Even so, there is much novelty here to commend to the reader. Seamus, as an experienced dead detective, leaps from a man to a rat, then to a dog. Wow. Cross-species sensory travelling and Herring doesn't disappoint. Now I know why some dogs bark all the time – they are possessed!

A line I'm sure many of us on Earth can relate to is when the policeman 'used his remote as a weapon against commercials'. I wish I'd written that.

Overall, in spite of Earthly tragedies, we have the joyful theme that all good people make it to 'Heaven', whatever that is. This limbo novel has much to recommend it.  See purchasing details here.

Something big to shout about

At last year's NewCon5 in Northampton I met a gifted artist, Andy Bigwood. He was looking for writers to be inspired by his art, and create flash stories to be in his forthcoming book, The Sixty. It has a launch date with Ian Whates' anthology 'Further Conflicts' at 6pm on 22nd April at EasterCON, National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham UK. This won't be the first time I have written fiction inspired and accompanied by art. One of my favourites where I had time changing with altitude was What Kept You? published in Ultraverse here. The Sixty is something special in that my fiction is not only in a wonderful book of art, but alongside favourite writers such as Bec Zugor, who was with me in M is for Monster, and in Escape Velocity. Also the creative genius, Liz Williams, who has my Exit, Pursued by a Bee on sale in her witchcraft shop in Glastonbury.

Of course all the authors involved cannot grace the cover so I am one of 'the many more' , of which I am proud. For in that many more are superb writers I am honoured to be with. Jon Pinnock and Bec included.

Andy Bigwood's art can be found in his online gallery here.

An Indefinite Article

My first attempt at a literary science fiction story, An Indefinite Article, was sold to Sounds of the Night print magazine. It is published by Sam's Dot Publishing. Sometimes, when I am on my own on a long walk along a beach, or even on an ancient footpath up in the Snowdonia hills, I play a game. I pretend I'm an ancient Roman suddenly catapulted into this future. What artefacts would I see to give me clues that I wasn't now back in Roman times? How puzzled would I be to see a cola can, or a plastic carrier bag – the litter of today? Hence the title of my story. Not that it is an ancient Roman but the inverse – a near future man, who crashlands on a planet, maybe this one, but finds no clues, no artefacts as to era and place. I hope I wrote it with mystique and with sufficient dreamlike Show to imbue a literary feel yet maintain the conflict and tension we like to have in our science fiction. A listing of the writers in Sounds of the Night are here.

The story was critiqued in the UKAuthors a group when we stayed a week in Carmarthenshire. It was also hacked around in the BSFA Orbiters critique group – thanks to all those writers who helped hone the story.

Escape Velocity: the Anthology

It's coming soon. I've been kept busy reading hundreds of excellent science fiction short stories for months and at the eleventh hour this weekend came more. Writers have spurned family outings to hone their tales of wonder and hidden dimensions to slip them under my nose. Just in the last few days I've had my imagination spun by Jon Pinnock, Catherine Edmunds, Mark Iles and Roy Gray. All the stories and one cartoon and a poem are now in. There are 40 pieces from over 30 contributors – it is a hell of a starry brilliant read. Watch this space.

Illustration is from the first issue of Escape Velocity – probably we'll use the same image for the anthology. Olympus Mons on Mars.

Also hoping to make a million – all right, a few bob – from the ebook of my Escaping Reality humorous thriller. Less than 2 dollars at Smashwords here.  I've seen blogs and articles about how Amanda Hocking has sold hundreds of thousands of her bloody fantasy books. "They are no where near as fun to read as Nelder's Escaping Reality." Quote from a drunken friend – yes, I bought her the drinks.

Back to my little world of writing – must get the third book of my Left Luggage trilogy done. I can't wait to see how it ends.

These Trespasses – book review

These Trespasses by Kenneth W. Cain 

 Paperback: 206 pages

Publisher: Post Mortem Press (February 10, 2011)

ISBN-13: 978-0615444147

Kindle: ASIN B004MDLTYC

Reviewed by Geoff Nelder

 This novel is a cross-genre science fiction / horror though leaning more to the latter. Unlike most dystopian apocalyptic stories in which the whole planet suffers, the action here is limited to a rural area of Illinois. We are, thankfully, not bombarded with presidential speeches, and global infodumps, but experience a strange phenomenon through the eyes of a handful of people, who could be your neighbours. In fact those people feel so real, the reader can forgive aspects of the plot that would otherwise stretch credulity to breaking point.

 Although, Martin, the lead character, has doubts about why the army lay waste the towns in his State, and is troubled to the point of trauma over the transmogrification of his brother, he is extraordinarily solid. He's the kind of man people are drawn to in a crisis, and they are. Even though he had to shoot his own brother, and witness toe-curling horrors caused by both alien-changed-human creatures, and the army, he has an instinct to make the right decisions for his little group of survivors. All the more puzzling then why he leaves a paper trail: a kind of diary and instructions, on their escape route. Yes, other survivors, such as Sheila, who yearns to be Martin's woman – love at first sight, though desperation to be loved is the attractive force – needed to find directional clues. But then so could the soldiers and I don't buy the explanation that none of them read anything.* There are other plot puzzles, but I don't mind. They are not too inconsistent with the bizarre situation the characters are in, and even normal life is rather baffling, at least to me.

 My favourite character is an ornery brute of a man, Ike. Many readers find themselves being attracted to an evil character, but those ogres are usually intelligent (think of Hannibal Lecter, and Lex Luthor); antagonists whose wit matches even out-performs the protagonist. Not Ike. He is dumber than an Illinois hog; his specialities being cussing, lewdness and misunderstanding. Yet every time a chapter came along told through Ike's point of view, my pleasure zone buzzed. It's rare to be so entertained while reading a horror story. Following poor Ike's intellectually-challenged interpretations of the bizarre happenings first hand is a treat. His sections are well-written too:

'Ike felt the smile… then he was able to find enough air in his lungs to get out the next words. "Fuck you and yer Goddamned hive." … Ike smiled and it sent a surge of pain into his head. He let the smile subside, but it was too late. Everything began to swim in pain. His world spun out of control and Ike began to feel a pull to the darkness. With that feeling Ike passed out.'

Hive? Yes, the aliens have built at least one and their human captives occupy it. Weird and yet it works, mainly because of what I said at the beginning. I would go so far as to say that in spite of several typos, and head-hopping point-of-view flips, These Trespasses is a master class in characterization.  An easy read, horror readers of all types will find scenes to salivate over in this page turner.

* Footnote. US combatants are issued with memory sticks containing novels. I only knew this after my publisher's inbox bulged with emails from US soldiers in the Middle East asking for the sequel to his book, The Ardly Effect that had been made freely available.

buy Kindle  paperback

Escape Velocity: The Anthology

The anthology of best and new stories submitted to Adventure Books of Seattle's Escape Velocity magazine is nearing fruition. Last night I finished proofreading 35 stories for the anthology. Not all will be used in it because some are now rather dated and we want the publication to excite readers with its brilliance. Names you might know that are in it are in random order:

Rebecca Latyntseva, Ian Whates, Rosie Oliver, Robert Harkness, William C McCall, Clyde Andrews, Gayle Applegate, David Tallerman, Brian Koscienski and Chris Pisano, Mark Lewis, Gareth D Jones, Joshua Blanc, Gavin J Carr, David Wallace Fleming, Karl Bunker, Sheila Crosby, Ben Bamber, Branden Johnson, Barbara Krasnoff, Ian Smith, Tina M Crowe, Bec Zugor, Barry Pomeroy, Lawrence Buentello, Richard Jay Goldstein, Paul Freeman, Kaolin Fire, Derek Rutherford, and a couple of stories from me and Robert Blevins. Hopefully, we can squeeze in a cartoon by Roberta Gregory too.

We have March 17th as a release date. That may be optimistic but best to have goals. The stories range from edgy noir near future, to struggling on a space rock, weird stuff in future in-ear audio devices to how can a child-bride save herself, both from a violent husband and the psychiatrist. I am exuberant over this anthology. It's taken a lot of time and work – the nearest an editor gets to giving birth – in a literary sense!

Exit on Kindle, etc

My science fiction mystery – Exit, Pursued by a Bee – looks great on Kindle – even on my PC version buy it here  I need the sales!

Over the weekend I was kindly informed by someone who recently worked in the editorial offices of a SF publishing house that I should play down the original premise aspect of my Left Luggage trilogy when my agent queries to publishers. They are businesses and as such prefer to not gamble with the market, but take on tried and tested formulae. Shame. At least Left Luggage is the story of an apocalyptic Earth. The reader doesn't know why the aliens left a pandora's box with the virus (that's the original bit: a disease not thought of before) that wipes out everyone eventually unless you can run and hide. It's a story of survival, retaliation, coping and much more. Funny though, that publishers of the most creative people and ideas don't really want to take chances on new ideas.