Four Days To Zero Hour!

On March 4th 2009 Des Lewis (DF.Lewis) will be announcing who the anonymous contributors to Cone Zero are. His competition is still ongoing for whoever can guess who-wrote-what and the first prize is a nice crispy fifty quid! Can't be bad even if you just write the names and stories on pieces of paper and draw them out like a lottery. Won't cost you a thing, only an email to: COMPETITION

The authors in a random order:

Neil James Hudson

Colleen Anderson

Jeff Holland

John Grant

A.J. Kirby

Eric Schaller

Kek-W

S.D. Tullis

Stephen Bacon

Sean Parker

Dominy Clements

Bob Lock

Grant Wamack

David M Fitzpatrick

The story titles:

"The Fathomless World"

"The Point of Oswald Masters"

"Cone Zero" (page 23)

"Cone Zero" (page 33)

"Cone Zero, Sphere Zero"

"An Oddly Quiet Street"

"Always More Than You Know"

"Cone Zero" (page 129)

"Going Back For What Got Left Behind"

"Cone Zero" (page 147)

"The Cone Zero Ultimatum"

"Angel Zero"

"How To Kill An Hour"

"To Let"

Got to be worth a go, or don't you need fifty quid?

Flipping Estronomicon!

After uploading a novella of mine (A Cloud Of Madness) onto the new page-flipping website Issuu, I mentioned it to Steve Upham my publisher (Screamingdreams Publishing) and he took a look and was impressed, so much so that he has uploaded his 2008 issues of Estronomicon to the site and you should see them, they look very good indeed.

I have an example here, it is his 2008 Halloween issue (which also includes a story by me). I really like this format and it is so easy to use and much kinder on the eyes.



Steve will also be uploading a number of Ebooks in this format and all new Estronomicons as they are published. Look out for his next one which is due out soon and has a stoy of mine in it entitled 'The Finiteness Of Anagrams' If you like creepy, bloody stories - this this one for you!

Time is running out for voting on The Dead Of Night Award on Steve's site too, this is a vote for the best author and artist of the year, needless to say, a vote for me as author would be appreciated :)

Car Fanatic

I've always enjoyed tinkering with cars and since being married have had quite an amount of various vehicles. The other night Anna and I were trying to work out exactly how many we've had. If we've remembered them all then this is the list in more or less order of ownership etc, makes and colours.

Ford Anglia Green
Ford Prefect Turquoise
Morris 1000 Green
BMC J4 Camper Green
Vauxhall Viva HA Van No1 (work) Brown and Orange
Vauxhall Viva HA Van No2 (work) Brown and Orange
Fiat 850 Blue
Autobianchi Bianchina White
Triumph Herald Green
Morris Marina Van (work) White
Mini 850 Beige
Mini 1000 Blue
Austin 1100 Blue
Ford Escort Mk2 Estate White (work)
Ford Escort Mk3 Estate White (work)
Vauxhall Astra Estate Blue (work)
Vauxhall Astra Estate White (work)
Triumph TR4 Red
Triumph TR4 Green
Porche 914 Red
Swallow Doretti Green
Fiat 126 Red
Triumph Toledo Brown
Alfa Romeo 33 Brown
Austin Mini Ritz Silver
VW Polo Silver
Ford Fiesta Blue
Vauxhall Nova Brown
VW Jetta Red
Rover 25 Green
Honda Civic 2 door Coupe Silver
Honda Civic 4 Door Saloon Silver
Austin Metro Blue
Mazda 626 Silver
Kia Sportage 4X4 Maroon
Freelander Sport 4X4 Gold
Mazda 6 Silver
Vauxhall Corsa Silver
Renault Modus Fiji Green
Volvo V50 Geko Green

Can anyone beat that? In total I make it forty vehicles so far and that's if we've remembered them all!
Some photos are our own cars some are stock photos:

Conundrum

Here's a conundrum for you SF fans and any astrophysicists out there. I'm writing a SF novel in which my method of travel is by folding space. For example, you want to go from A to B; both points are at opposite ends of say, a piece of A4 paper. Instead of traversing the whole paper you fold it until the A and B points meet and then you step across.

Right, say this method is feasible, how about this:

Messier 87 which was discovered by Charles Messier in 1781 is a large elliptical galaxy about 55 million light years from Earth. If 'something' happened there which was observable from Earth and it happened now then we wouldn't be able to see it for 55 million years because of the time it would take for the light to reach us from that 'something'. However, imagine we could fold space as described and between us and the event we had the equivalent of a string of Hubble-like telescopes which folded the information received in series, one to another, across the galaxy until it reached Earth, almost instantaneously. So, would we be able to witness the event in more or less the same time as it was happening by using this folding network?

Answers in less than a thousand sentences please :)

Snowy Daze

Woke up this morning to all this white weird stuff!
Looks like global warming is on hold....

And for all you UFO hunters out there,
take a look at the picture 'My Drive'
is that a fleet of UFOs in the top left-hand corner?
I hope if the come to visit me tonight
they'll warm up their a**l probes first...