Free SF Short 'To sleep, perchance to dream...'

Here's a free SF short of mine called:
To sleep, perchance to dream...
it's about brane theory and the large hadron collider

Open publication - Free publishing - More short story

Peter Tennant @ Black Static

Just had this remark made about my little robot story, 'The Cone Zero Ultimatum' which features in Cone Zero (currently still in the running for best anthology of 2008 over at The British Fantasy Society), by Peter Tennant the editor of Black Static:

Stories by Bob Lock and Stephen Bacon in Cone Zero were among the very best I read last year

Wow that is such a great accolade to receive from someone as accomplished as Pete. Many thanks Pete! And congrats to Stephen too!
The full review can be found here: Peter Tennant Case Notes

Neal Asher's 'Orbus'

I've been fortunate enough to receive a few Neal Asher books, courtesy of Chris Teague of The British Fantasy Society on the understanding that I will write reviews on each one. As one of the books was a limited edition of only 240 uncorrected proof copies of 'Orbus' his new Spatterjay novel you can imagine how pleased I was!
I was even more pleased when I started reading it and more than satisfied. much more, when I finally finished it (in almost one sitting!) as it is a great romp of a book and a must-have for any Asher fan.

A more comprehensive review should be over on the BFS site shortly but if you like nasty giant crab-like aliens, that are particularly prone to eating humans for lunch, quirky battle-drones, space battles and a SF tale with twists and turns aplenty then watch out for September 4th for that's when Orbus should be in the shops.

Review at Sfcrowsnest of Cone Zero

Geoff Willmetts over at Sfcrowsnest (one of the biggest and best SF sites on the web) has done a great review of Cone Zero and even better than that he's picked out a few stories from the anthology which he thinks works for him and one of them is my own The Cone Zero Ultimatum. Here's the link to the review: LINK

But basically here is what he said:

'Cone Zero Ultimatum' is a future where the AIs of future household appliances seek their own freedom in something resembling 'Watership Down'. It was only towards the end that I noticed the similarity. Most of the time, though, this story speeds along with some funny dialogue and funny AIs as they seek release from oppression from their flesh owners. The ending could have been sharper but its author shows great promise.

Cool! Thanks Geoff!

Black Static interview of D.F.Lewis and Cone Zero

That great teddy-bear wrestler and wrangler, Peter Tennant, has interviewed Des Lewis about his feelings on having Cone Zero in the shortlist for The British Fantasy Society's award for best anthology of 2008. Slightly unsual interview this (as befits something regarding Des!) as Des has elected to have contributors to CZ (I am one of them) to ask him questions which he answers on the Black Static site. Some very astute and informative questions were asked and one which warmed the cockles of my heart was this:


A.J. Kirby ('How To Kill An Hour'): Some of the stories in Cone Zero are obviously filmic - and I'm thinking a Dreamworks adaptation of 'The Cone Zero Ultimatum' here or a Kubrick-esque version of 'The Point of Oswald Masters'. With this in mind, would you ever consider a future Nemonymous anthology which contains short films as well as short stories? Perhaps a Nemonymous gallery, with real or imagined installations and films showing all over the place... A Nemonymous world, if you will?


DFL: Your story in Cone Zero would make a good film, too. I'm not an expert on the cinema and rarely watch films these days (except Death in Venice) but your ideas sound wonderful. I'd need help, though.



The cockle warming is due to me being the author of The Cone Zero Ultimatum :)

Oh, and Dreamworks, I am open to considering my story being made into a film, by the way...



Another interesting thing was Des's answer to a question about an author that even now remains anonymous... go take a look at Black Static and the TTA Forum thread for more on this mystery!

Here is the Black Static interview.

Here is the TTA Forum thread



Don't forget that voting on the BFS Awards closes on 1st August 2009 and YOUR vote is needed!



Also, a little reminder that Des is still open to receiving entries to guess the writer to the story of this years Cern Zoo anthology and the winner will be immortalised in the next Nemonymous book due out in 2010.

Fibonacci Poetry @ Fib Review

Some time a go I mentioned a type of poetry that I'd turned my hand to and that was the Fib or Fibonacci poetry. Well two Fibs of mine are now on
The Fib Review's 4th Issue
and can be found here: Fib Review
For an in-depth explanation of how Fibs work here's a link to the Wikipedia page explaining them.

There can be only one!

IMMORTALITY!

Do you want to live forever?
(well, within a book at least)
Do you want your name immortalized like that of Connor MaCleod of
the clan MaCleod who was
born in the year 1518
"in the village of Glenfinnan on the shores of Loch Shiel?"

The Highlander

Well Des Lewis is offering everyone a chance. Cern Zoo, Nemonymous Nine is now out and as usual the authors in this fine anthology are anonymous (I'm one!) and every year Des holds a competition where readers are challenged to put the authors' names to the correct stories in the book. The winner of this year's competition will have his/her/its name featured in every one of the short stories in the 2010 Nemonymous edition. It might even be included in the title (this has yet to be decided)
However, here is your chance to be famous and all you have to do is enter the competition and Des doesn't even require you to buy a copy of Cern Zoo (you could borrow one from your library!) to enter, it's all free!
Just follow this link to win THE PRIZE!
and remember, there can be only one (winner)
Just...
Don't lose your head...



First review of Cern Zoo here:

quote:-

Cern Zoo is a banquet. A cornucopia of flavour and texture, of many courses and layers. Just beware of the cockroaches lurking in the salad.

Order it here.

We kicked our way through autumn leaves

As a birthday treat my daughter took me to see Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds on Wed 24th June 2009 at the Cardiff CIA and it was a brilliant performance and night. Can it really be thirty years since we came back from Italy (where I worked for three years) and sat in the dark in the evenings listening to this iconic musical rendition of one of the best SF stories ever told? It only seems like a few weeks ago. Time and the human memory are strange things indeed. My children must have sat through dozens and dozens of performances of this double LP set until the records became so scratched I finally superseded them with CDs. The cast did an admirable job, including the stand-in Parson Nathaniel who took over the role at short notice as Shannon Noll had a family emergency I understand. Justin Hayward's voice was just as I remembered and as he sang 'Forever Autumn' the air was filled with multi-coloured paper tissue leaves as they dropped from the ceiling onto the crowd below, a nice touch! We managed to scrabble a few away for posterity. Then later on in the night when the Artilleryman had finished singing about 'A Brave New World' and he realised that his digging tunnels for the future of Mankind was futile, he threw a handleful of playing cards out into the audience and we both had one each. Jennifer Ellison impressed me with her singing and she played the part of Beth very well indeed. Chris Thompson (The voice of Humanity) gave a powerful performance too and on checking up on him I found that he used to be in Manfred Mann's Earthband. The musicians were spot on, especially the soloists and Jeff Wayne's conducting showed what energy the guy has. Finally, hearing Burton's voice and seeing the enhanced computer projection of his face just seemed to confirm what every Welshman knows, there'll never be a voice like his again. His opening lines never failed to send a shiver down my spine 30 years ago and I have to say that they did again the other night...
bwyso i mewn dangnefedd, Richard.

I'm a Guest Writer on Wilywriters.Com

Some time ago I was invited to join and write on an American writers' site called Wilywriters.Com which is a speculative fiction site that has both free and donation-enabled stories in text and audio. You cannot send in submissions to them, it's invite only.

My story is available for free in both versions and can be found here:-

'But Everyone Is Different!'

It is well worth listening to the audio version!

The site has been set up by Angel Leigh McCoy who is a writer and games developer (Guild Wars™ 2). Thanks again for the invite, Angel.

The narrator is Nathan Crowder who has done a superb job and to say I'm extremely pleased is an understatement! Many thanks Nathan.

The cat-girl graphic (Dasha) was done by none other than Steve Upham, thanks Steve.


I hope you enjoy it.

I AM PHARTICUS! .... No! I am Pharticus, No I am Pharticus!

Tomorrow, 13th June will be my birthday and as a surprise present my brother-in-law Tony Harwood, has made a model of my character in World of Warcraft which stands about three inches high and guards my computer desk with his might axe. His name is Pharticus and he is a Death Knight. Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm much too old to be playing games like this but even though on the outside I might resemble a shrivelled prune I can assure you all that inside I am like a fresh grape (all green and full of pips)...

Thanks Tony!

British Fantasy Awards Shortlist

The BFA has announced it shortlist for this year and I'm very pleased to say that Cone Zero is up there with five other books fighting for Best Anthology. As you all probably know, I have a story of mine in this fine anthology called - (The Cone Zero Ultimatum) which is about the revolt of sentient household appliances against their 'Flesh' masters - this is what Peter Tennant (famous writer, editor and teddy-bear fancier) of Black Static said (in haiku form!)

longest and the best

chock full of fun and a treat

from first word to last

Thanks Pete!

Steve Upham's Screamingdreams is also shortlisted, as is one of his writers, Allyson Bird who is in both Best Collection and Best Short Story - Good Lucky Ally!

Chris Teague's Pendragon Press is also well represented in the shortlist too in various categories, nice one Chris!

An exciting time for all involved, now get over to the BFA site and vote, vote, vote! :)

(no expenses were claimed in the writing of this blog...)

Estronomicon Spring/Summer 2009 Edition

Steve Upham of Screamingdreams has uploaded his newest edition of Estronomicon and it can either be found on his website here: LINK or you can read it in the full flip-book version over on the excellent Issuu site by clicking on the magazine below:

Open publication - Free publishing - More stories

You'll find something of mine in this issue too. It's called 'The Devil Went Down To Swansea' and is a change from my normal fantasy or sf in that it is a factual piece. I hope you enjoy.

I have been and always shall be your friend...

... especially if you read everything I write !

Stumbled upon this ST thingy and just had to mess around with it :)

The Guardian Poetry Anthology

The Guardian has decided to publish an anthology of poems chosen from a number sent into them by readers over the last year or so. Billy Mills, who instigated Poster Poems on The Guardian site, and Sarah Crown who is the editor of Guardian.co.uk Books are the motivating forces behind this venture. Sarah also reviews poetry regularly for the Guardian Review. Anyway, I've always enjoyed sending in some of my poetry to this particular venue, and low and behold, two of my poems have been chosen to go into the new book!
The first is called 'Home thoughts from another planet.' and, as you can probably guess is a SF-based poem! Woohoo! The other is called 'Celsius reaches double figures' and is about spring and the promise of summer (that's the couple of days a year we get when a big yellow thing appears in the sky!)

I Boldy Went To The Cinema!

Last night I bit the bullet and forked out to see 'Star Trek' in The Vue in Swansea. Between us (myself, wife and brother-in-law) we spent about £30 for a couple of hours sitting in the luxury seats drinking a couple of Cokes and eating sweets, but I have to say, I'm glad I went to the cinema to see it.
The large screen and great sound set-up is what this film needs, the scenery and effects would probably be lost on anything other than a big screen.
The storyline was very well done and I won't go into details as I wouldn't want to spoil any surprises for those who haven't seen the film but will just say this, it has opened a whole new future for the ST franchise and I could easily see this film spawning yet more films or even a new series.
I thought Chris Pine did a fine job portraying the young James T. Kirk but I would have liked to have seen him mimic Shatner's weird phrasing of sentences just once or twice. Someone who did seem to capture his previous character well was Karl Urban who played 'Bones', even managing to get in a 'I'm a doctor not a...'

I was disappointed with John Cho who played Sulu and Anton Yelchin who played Chekov and thought Simon Pegg could have done better with his attempt at being Montgomery Scott.

However, hats off to Zachary Quinto who played the young Spock, he was excellent and for me was the one who not only resembled his character the best but was what I imagined a young Spock to look like and also captured his characteristics the best. I did think I wouldn't be able to get Silar from Heroes out of my mind but within a minute or two Quinto had me convinced he really was the young Spock.

Zoe Saldana played Uhura and yet again I didn't think she captured the essence of the part but I did enjoy her performance all the same and considering the way the story goes thought that in the end she made the part her own.

Leonard Nimoy made a guest appearance and when I saw him amongst the young and vibrant new cast it just made me realise how long Star Trek has been around and how time waits for no man or Vulcan...

Cern Zoo Cover

Des Lewis has released a graphic of the cover for the upcoming anthology CERN ZOO and here it is:

There's also a list on the reverse of all contributors, oh wait, who is that at number five?

:)

We're all going to the Zoo...zoo we're all going to the zoo (Cern Zoo) Nemo Nine

Had a great bit of news last night from D.F.Lewis that he wanted to publish the story I sent him in his next Nemonymous Edition which is number Nine and will be called Cern Zoo and hopefully will be hot off the press in July 2009. Des had hundreds of submissions sent in and out of those he has chosen 24 authors to feature in the anthology. As with all Nemonymous books the authors will be named but you will not know who wrote which story until some future date. So, everyone sing a long please- *We're all going to the Zoo..zoo.. we're all going to the zoo!*
This has to be the anthology to get this year, any dis cern ing reader will know that...

British Fantasy Society Long List

The long list for the 2009 British Fantasy Society Awards are out and I'm pleased to say that Cone Zero has made its way into it as a candidate for best Anthology and also has two stories in it on the list for best short. The authors are Kek-W and Neil James Hudson, good luck to them both.

Steve Upham of Screamingdreams has a couple of nominations as Best Small Press and Magazine.

More details of the long list can be found here: BFS Long List

Oh... and BTW, should you think my own, The Cone Zero Ultimatum deserves a vote you can always write it in *cough* <- damn flu...

SF Short 'The Hundred Year Climax' on SciFi Uk Review

Richard Hawkins of SciFi Uk Review has published a SF short of mine entitled 'The Hundred Year Climax' If you'd like to read it for free then follow the link. Be aware however, that it contains a lot of swear words and the subject matter is risqué.

Here's the link:

The Hundred Year Climax

Hope you enjoy!

Review of 'Flames' over on SciFi UK Review

I've had quite a good review over on the SF site SciFi UK Review of 'Flames of Herakleitos'. Here is a link should you want to see what Richard, the site's owner thinks: REVIEW