Finally Freaksville!

 Hi Guys,

Yes - it has finally happened! After an entire year of failed promises, Freaksville has finally gone to Amazon! And I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am! (Or is that relieved?)

The book as you know has been a struggle. I've written and re-written it so many times that I can't even remember what it looked like at the start. There have been multiple attempts at a cover - I'm really pleased with the one that I finally got out of Deep Dream. And the blurb actually had me pulling my hair out!

But it's finally done. A 136 K of science fiction, genetic engineering and urban fantasy, all set in the fictional town of Freaksville (Arundale) where witches do battle with one another in the streets and humans stay clear of them if they know what's good for them! Where the mist rises and falls and people arrive and leave. And of course where there are soldiers patrolling the streets, making sure no one escapes the quarantine zone. Meanwhile on the horizon there are sea monsters and six legged cats and battle!

And standing in the middle of it are Frank Fischer - a mechanical engineer trapped in the town - and Rina Crofter, a faerie and orchardist from the other side of the mist. And as their romance blossoms, while all around chaos rages and war looms, the conflicting plans of all the different factions slowly come into focus.

Anyway it's written and my eyeballs are trying to burn their way out of their sockets. Most of all I need coffee. And so I wish you all a great time and hope you enjoy the book.

And of course, be good or don't get caught!

Cheers, Greg.

Happy New Year!

 Hi Guys,

So new year - old problems!

As you may have noticed another book got published right at the end of last year - and strangely enough it wasn't Druid! Those of you who read my posts will know that this is nothing out of the ordinary. I get side tracked and things happen. Which is more or less exactly what happened to me, yet again.

So "The Hunt" is out. Another Detective / Police Procedural / Mystery which follows some well-worn themes - like someone needing to use extreme plastic surgery to escape her would be killers, but handles them in a new way. But it also has some new plot points, new locales, and a much more hard-bitten hero. (The only one who comes with his own armored car and an arsenal!) He also has a somewhat more jaundiced view of the world. And yes - this time I let the bad guys destroy the world! (Just a little bit! But you know - the bad guys just lose so much - they need a little reward every now and then!)

Oh, and the cover as you can probably guess comes from Deep Dream. (Long may our AI overlords rule over us!)

So here's the blurb:

Once she had been Chrissy Fuller – cover model. Then she had become Chrissy Gordon – abused wife. And now she was Brittany Holder – terrified. Fleeing for her life after shooting her husband. Desperate enough to take any risk.

Icarus West meanwhile had always been a soldier. Now he just used his skills as a private detective to recover what was missing. People and property. But little could he know when he was asked to find Harry Gordon's missing wife, that it would lead to disaster. He just knew the guy was bad. That he meant to do his runaway wife harm. And that he couldn't take the case.

But actions have consequences. So does inaction. And sometimes those consequences were completely unpredictable!

Both Brittany and West were stepping into a world they just didn't understand! Where nothing was as it seemed! But one that could kill them both if they made a single mistake!

Hope you enjoy and have a great new year.

Cheers, Greg.

Our Continuing Retreat from Greatness

Hi Guys,

Bit of a different post today. Recently as many of you will know, Alan Bean, the fourth man to walk on the moon, passed away. He was 86. And while that's a sad thing in itself, it's also sad for a second, more profound reason. Twelve men in total have walked on the moon. Eight of them are dead. And the last men to walk on the moon, Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt of Apollo 17, did so in 1972. It's now 2018. 

That's forty six years ago!

When I was a kid, looking forwards to the future - say the year 2000 - we should have had moon bases and regular travel by then. Possibly also alien encounters and flying cars, but that's by the by. But really the question for me is, why haven't we at least been back? And will we even go back before the last of the men who walked on the moon passes away? Somehow I don't think we will.

By now we should all be flying around at supersonic speeds. But we did that. Now Concord's gone and there are no plans to replace it. We should be eating dinner on space stations. But guess what - the shuttle's gone and all there are to replace it are plans and drawings.

We talk about going to Mars. But even as we talk, the current president slashes NASA's budget. We're not going to Mars. Not unless one of the billionaires like Musk does it.

It almost seems to me some days, that something has died in us. Our will to achieve greatness. To explore. To risk everything in the name of discovery. What was it that Kennedy said - we to go to the moon not because it's easy but because it's hard? It seems to me that we don't want to do hard any more. We want to do cell phones and computer games. Have a beer and put our feet up. Get a head start on that middle aged spread!

Look, I freely admit it, I am definitely not the right stuff! In fact I am so far into being the wrong stuff that they need a new word for me! (Hell, they'd need a whole new class of rocket just to get me off the ground!) But I'm still someone who can dream and hope, sometimes even type a few words about it. So if I can do that where are all the people out there who are willing to do the rest? To commit their efforts, their hearts and souls to these great goals? Where are the leaders who will take these visions and start trying to make them a reality?

Isn't it about time that we started trying to reclaim our greatness instead of retreating from it?

Cheers, Greg.