I Have Entered The Modern Age!

 Hi Guys,

Yes, it's true. I have finally entered the modern age - though admittedly I was dragged into it kicking and screaming. Or put another way, my old land line died. So yes, now I have a cell phone! (Five or ten years behind the rest of the world!)

I'd like to be able to say I love it - but I don't. It looks pretty enough, but my fingers are too clumsy to push the keys on the screen - and for some reason it seems to click on keys before I even touch them. It's not like a proper keyboard at all. And I can't tell you how infuriating that is when I'm trying to enter my fifteen digit password! (Maybe the guy at the shop was right about using a shorter one!) And even when I'm sure I've entered the password correctly, it doesn't work! It just keeps telling me to try again in thirty seconds. One of these days those thirty seconds are going to be the length of time it has left to live!

As you can guess things have not been quiet in the house. There has been an awful lot of yelling at the damned machine! Enough that the cats keep running away - or staring at me as if I'm having some sort of fit!

So anyway, I guess it's back to the Spark store to get the password changed, and then to pray that in time the world goes back to the glorious age of land lines and actual buttons! (And yes, I do see the irony in that - a writer of science fiction unable to deal with even current technology! I may actually be a technophobe! But I comfort myself with the fact that many writers even in this computer age, use typewriters or even write by hand. I'm in good company.)

In the meantime, somewhere between screaming like a two year old on crack at the phone and pulling my hair out, I have been writing. Jumping as I usually do, between several different books. But a couple of them are close to completion at least - including the long promised Freaksville. All while I wait nervously for the first reviews of Moody Rockers.

Anyway, cheers, for now. 

Greg.

It's out!!!

 Hi Guys,

Just to let you know, A Farmer's Tale is finally out! And man - this one has been a struggle! Not only did it keep growing and growing - I think it has finally ended up at 170 K - a lot of the time I spent writing, rewriting and then immediately unwriting it. I don't know how many revisions it's had. And then it had multiple edits while my eyes tried to commit suicide in my head!

But it's finally done and I feel good about it. Hugely relieved too - there were times when I doubted I would ever get it done. And now I'm sitting here wondering what to do next - is it finally time to take up drinking? (I've been watching a youtube film reviewer a bit lately - the Drinker - and he makes it sound like so much fun!)

A Farmer's Tale is an epic fantasy set in a world with multiple races and realms, most of them just a tiny step away from the traditional ones, and of course some demons - different ones for each race. I also tried to get rid of the idea of an uber powerful villain in this one. There is one - but he's no James Bond type Doctor No and you barely get to see him. He also does what he does for understandable if not acceptable reasons. I wanted this story to be less about over the top mad men and the battle to defeat them, and more about the struggle to survive what they've unleashed.

The other theme I made use of in this work was that small things, minor magics, could in time bring about the most terrible consequences. It's just a matter of adding that spell in the right (or wrong) place.In that it's not so much different to a disease. Just think of all the times and places in history where a disease like small pox has been introduced to a new population - and then see the absolutely horrible outcomes. Maybe it's not a nuclear bomb going off, but in time the results may actually be far worse.

Anyway it's out, and I'm exhausted. So I hope you'll all enjoy the book, while I'll enjoy a good long rest - and maybe a beer!

Cheers, Greg..

A Farmer's Tale

 Hi Guys,

Good news, for once. I just polished off the first draft of a new book - A Farmer's Tale. So hopefully it should be out in the next month. 

 The odd thing about it is that A Farmer's Tale wasn't one of the half dozen or so books that was on my to do list. It was something that I'd half written and then put aside meaning to complete, years ago. But then a couple of weeks ago I just suddenly felt the need to pick it up again. I suppose that's just life as a pantster!

The book is an epic fantasy - yes I'm returning a little bit to my writing roots, and it's a little bit like Maverick. It's centered around a guy called Arven who really isn't a wizard at all. He's a farmer with a few spells as he regularly tells his fellow mages. There are no wizards! (Which in his world is fairly accurate. There's also no staffs, spell books or flying broomsticks either. And spells are cast instinctively with no one knowing what the words that come out of their mouths or the gestures they make, mean. They just come to them. And magic is learned more or less by copying one another.) But as he is informed by the faen (faerie) Queens when everything turns to custard along with his life, he isn't meant to know the answers. He just knows the right questions to ask!

Anyway I'm deep into the book now, losing sleep as usual as the writing bug bites. But I thought I'd let you know that there is hope on the horizon. Oh and that image up top (which I love!), I might alter it a bit but it's the cover.

So best of luck with everything guys. And as always be good or don't get caught!

Cheers, Greg.

So A Funny Thing Happened ... !

Hi Guys,

 

 

Yes, you guessed it - the Barton Villa bug grabbed me again! This is the problem with being a pantster - I never know what I'm going to write next.

But I'm really happy with this book. I'd missed that crazy island and it's characters, even after I had so successfully ended the previous trilogy by sending everyone off to Mars to live happily ever after. It's a little like that old sweat shirt you put away in the closet which you think you'll never wear again because it's a bit faded and maybe it's got a loose thread here and there. And then one day you find youself thinking about it and pulling it out because you really liked it.

So that's what happened to me. But as I swung into it again, I decided that I had to make a few changes. For a start I didn't want to bring Moncrief Jones out of retirement - I mean the man's been shot, beaten up, in a car crash and suffered numerous other horrid injuries. It's getting old. So I thought I should let him be. At least for now. (But who knows, there could be another good beating in his future!)

I also wanted it to be a harder, edgier sort of book. More a Sam Watson type story - and you know she's always ready with her gun - and it's trained on the bad guy's nuts!!!

The other thing I did was to go back to the racism theme I explored in book three. I don't know why exactly but something about all the Black Lives Matter protests and the police killing of George Floyd etc, has really got under my skin a little. You can't watch that horrible event and not think to yourself, just what the hell is he doing? It just goes on and on. Also the John Griffin story - Black Like Me - has stayed with me for a long time. Not just the experience of a white reporter medically altering himself to appear black and experience life as such, but the reaction he got after what he'd done was revealed. It really is a thought provoking story. So I returned to that and made the bad guys the white supremacists who had united into a world wide movement. (Something about that feels horribly close to the bone lately.)

The other thing I should mention is that us sci fi writers are supposed to pose questions about the future etc and of course various technological advances coming. The genetic manipulation needed to change a person's skin colour from white to black or any other colour of the rainbow, is probably only five to ten years away. The ethics involved in doing so however are light years beyond us!

So just think - what are you going to do when your son or your daughter comes to you one day and says - I want to be black / or white / or yellow? Makes you think, doesn't it!

Anyway that's where the book comes from, and I hope people enjoy it.

Cheers, Greg.