Sci-Fi
Surprise Sale – UK
Boneyards & Badlands – The complete FTW series in one book on sale at Amazon.co.uk for only £0.99!
Free eBooks Bonanza!
For the next few days I’m running a free book promotion with Amazon, which means you can read a selection of six of my ebooks for nothing!
Why? Well, mainly because I’d like to get more people reading what I’ve written, and what better way to do it than to give out a heap of freebies.
From now until about Tuesday next week you’ll be able to grab these six books from Amazon for nothing.
So what are the books? They’re a selection of five of my short stories as well as Boneyards – book 1 of the FTW series. Follow the links below to Amazon.com, and happy reading!
Hot Tip | Victor Boone Will Save Us
I’d like to share something I nominated over at KindleScout. The book is Victor Boone Will Save Us by David Joel Stevenson, and it had me hooked from the moment I read the sample.
At the time of writing this it has 14 days left in its campaign, so you should check it out before it’s too late. Of course, you could always buy it later on, but if you nominate it and it is successful, you can snag a free copy.
So what’s it about? The blurb:
Robby does the saving, Victor takes credit.
Victor Boone is a handsome jerk who uses incredible powers to fly around in spandex and save his city’s citizens from evil doers – especially the busty ones. But he’s not a superhero.
In truth, an invisible, insecure and overweight Robby Willis has the powers, but he’s so terrified of anyone knowing he exists that he’s not comfortable with a cliché disguise. The two men form a partnership: Robby does the saving and Victor takes the credit.
Problem is, Victor’s been murdered.
From the opening paragraphs of the first chapter you’re in the thick of the action, and by the end of the first chapter the “hero” is dead. No spoilers there since it says as much in the blurb. After which comes the fallout, with Robby dealing with the death of Victor and the potential new love interest in his life who knows more about him than he’d like. Read the rest of this entry »
Maze Quest – A Text-Adventure Short Story
A short story this time (just shy of 5,000 words) from a Reddit Writing Prompt. Written as 2nd person (a perspective I rarely read and up to now haven’t written in)… but it suited the “game” theme as many old point-and-click and text-adventure type games would employ this style. It’s written as if they’re scenes in a game.
The Prompt:
[WP] You are the protagonist of a point-and-click game.
The Story: Maze Quest
Standing South of the Mansion
You are standing in the once manicured grounds to the south of a white stately mansion, but what have now overgrown from neglect. The mansion has stood abandoned since the former owner died many years ago and now, as the sole heir to the Stackson family fortune, the mansion and the acres she stands on are now all yours.
As you survey the lands to the west, the legendary hedge maze that has formed part of the scenery for over four-hundred years fills your view. To the east stand the burial grounds with mausoleums and monuments to the long dead.
Knowing that every window and door were padlocked and boarded over to deter thieves, you brought along with a rucksack which contains: Read the rest of this entry »
Book Review | The Big Sleep by Meaghan Gray
I very nearly passed this one by but now that I’ve finished it I’m glad that I didn’t. I say I almost passed it by because the way the opening chapters are written didn’t appeal to me. The quick chopping and jumping around between dreams was off-putting, but I skipped past them to where the real story starts. The opening is basically prologue and, thinking back on it now, could be dropped all together.
I get that we need to know the origins of what is happening, but I think it could be worked into the story much easier than how this book opens. Not all styles appeal to all people of course, so you might be different, but I found it difficult.
That said, once the real story starts just before the second Big Sleep, the plot takes off at a fast clip and barely slows down. It was this that kept me reading and why ultimately I enjoyed the book, even if I didn’t like the opening.
Mostly set inside the dream world, Ms Gray does an excellent job of keeping believability alive while injecting plenty of fantasy elements that could only be conjured up in a dream. The concept of the Greymen and the world they inhabit and what they do was a new one for me and were one of the things that piqued my curiosity about this novel in the first place.
A nice fat twist towards the end of the novel makes me want to read the next one, so I’ll be keeping my eyes open for the next book in this series.
The only other notes I made while reading this was Read the rest of this entry »
Book Review | Dinosaurs and Prime Numbers by Tom Moran
Another suggestion by Goodreads and another home run. My profile over there is obviously tweaked to perfection because it’s been recommending a lot of winners recently, and Dinosaurs and Prime Numbers by Tom Moran was no exception.
If you were to merge Arthur Dent with Mister Bean and add them to a Sherlock Holmes mystery, you’d get something similar to this book. Walton Cumberfield is a character you can’t help but laugh at and with as he struggles on through his adventure. Read the rest of this entry »
Book Review | To Cure The Humans by Douglas Lewis
To Cure the Humans by Douglas Lewis popped up on Goodreads as a suggestion for something I might like. I’ve said it before, but the machines are getting closer to taking over, because they were spot on. I did like it!
The story is well paced and filled with a cast of well-developed characters, this rather long novel (456 pages) kept me entertained from beginning to end. It’s funny without trying too hard (for the most part). The length took me by surprise (I didn’t look at how long it was before I grabbed it), so I was about half-way through when I thought the plot was wrapping up, only for it to take off in a direction I wasn’t expecting. Read the rest of this entry »
Book Review | Hard Luck Hank by Steve Campbell
Life is funny sometimes. I’ve been writing short stories on and off for many years, but only started publishing them in 2016. The first short I published was Storm View. I wrote the first draft a few years ago now, almost a full year (based on the timestamp of the draft) before I ever read the first book in the Hard Luck Hank series by Steven Campbell. Why am I bringing this up?
Well, because purely by chance my short shares a lot in common with the Hard Luck Hank series. Both have a hard-to-kill thug as the main character, both live on a space station, both are mutants, and a number of other startling coincidences. It’s weird but I swear it’s the truth.
Anyway, enough about Storm View (which I’m sure you’re fully familiar with, being an avid reader of my work 😉 ). You’re here for the Hard Luck Hank review! As usual I’ll mostly only review the first book in the series, mainly so not to spoil anything from further along. I will give recommendations for those at the end though. Read the rest of this entry »
Book Review | Ansible 15715 by Stant Litore
Had this little gem float through my twitter feed yesterday because it’s available for free on Amazon (at the time of writing this). Judging the book entirely by it’s cover I went and checked it out.
It’s the first in a series of shorts, collectively known as The Ansible Stories by Stant Litore.
It’s a quick 19 pages and sounded interesting, so I took a break from what I was reading to read this.
The Blurb: Read the rest of this entry »
Book Review | The God Complex by Michael Suskind
Over the weekend I bought and read “The God Complex: My Adventures in a 300 Year Last Man Standing Competition” by Michael Suskind, based on Amazon’s suggestion.
Turns out the machines are getting closer to taking over because they were spot on with this suggestion.
So what’s it all about. That’s a tricky one. We’ll start with author’s blurb and then I’ll give you my opinions. Read the rest of this entry »
