Alan Baxter's Blog, page 111

What a great name

The recent volcanic eruption in Iceland is awesome in so many ways, but it seems to me that no one is drawing enough attention to the coolest thing about it. The name of the volcano is Eyjafjallajokul. Seriously, how cool is that? If I wrote a name like that into a fictional fantasy people would roll their eyes and go, "Oh, look at the wanker author trying to be all clever with whacky sounding names."

The name is in fact that of a glacier – Eyjafjallajokul means "(the) island-fells glacier" –...

It's not much to ask

It's my birthday tomorrow and I want robot ninja monkeys as my minions.

Don't disappoint me now, it's really not too much to ask, is it?

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Friday Flash – Death Of A Taxi Driver

It's been a while since I've had a chance to post a Friday Flash story. It's my birthday tomorrow (April 17th) so I thought I'd use that as an excuse to do one. I hope you like it. It's a little sci-fi detective thing, with a touch of noir.

Death of a Taxi Driver

by Alan Baxter

Inspector Grey squinted up into a cold, gusting rain. He pulled the collar of his heavy coat tighter, shivering. The last cup of lukewarm coffee he had managed to grab before leaving the station was doing little to warm ...

Ooh, right in the brand

So yeah, this does nothing for my personal branding. But it's a very kind gesture nonetheless, and I'll take it in the spirit it was intended. Maybe it can be beautiful in the way that arterial spray from a swiftly rent throat is beautiful.

These things are little more than glorified chain letters, morphed into a digital disguise, but I'll put aside the cynicism and try to be all gracious and shit. The lovely Ganymeder awarded me with this, saying:

~Alan is a very talented horror writer with a...

My little yarn at Flashes In The Dark

I completely forgot to mention this one. I got a piece of flash fiction published at Flashes In The Dark recently. It's a reprint of one of my Friday Flash pieces, so I was pleased to see it get an airing again somewhere else.

You can find it here. I've also added the link to my Dark Shorts page.

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Great review of MageSign

"Being the second book in a set, I expect more from the story and the author…and I got both."

That's a nice start to a very good review of MageSign that's just been posted over Karen Lee Field's website. She reviewed RealmShift a while back and gave it three out of five, now she's reviewed MageSign and given it four out of five. That's what I call moving in the right direction.

EDIT: The reviews are coming thick and fast. This one's just been posted at Amazon, which includes:

"It builds in...

Dark Pages cover art released

My independent press has released the cover art for the Dark Pages anthology of dark speculative fiction. It's awesome and uses one of my wife's paintings. See more at her website halinka.com.au.

See the official announcement and the cover art here.

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Australian Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers' Association

The Australian Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers' Association. Sounds pretty cool, huh? You'd think there would be one. I'm a member of the AHWA – Australian Horror Writers' Association. That group is awesome; they promote and protect the Australian horror genre, have a website with loads of information, including help finding markets for your work, mentorship programs, crit groups, their own publication (Midnight Echo) and so on. The idea is that the Science Fiction & Fantasy version would d...

That's Facebook all wrapped up

I read this on Lamebook today and realised that I technically no longer need to use Facebook at all. Here it is in a nutshell:

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Procrastilaxing is my new favourite word

Procrastilaxing is my new favourite word. Yes indeed, I love this word so much I want to punch it in the face.

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