on amazon my new book has just appeared from Altair Books in Australia. This is COALS & ASH, (Australian setting) the second in what will (I hope) eventually be a loose set of four disaster novels. Each set in a different country, each with mostly different characters, but with the same plague background. VESTIGES OF FLAMES (set in New Zealand) appeared in 2015 from Lethe in the USA. And IF all goes well, I plan to write SOME OTHER TRAVELLER, (UK) and ANOTHER FIRE, (USA) next year.
SCIENCE FICTION TRAILS 13 – Editor David B. Riley
yup, the mixture as before, and as good as ever. Karl the dinosaur sheriff is back with his column, (discussing the origin of cooking in his time) and the cover is – by the ever reliable Laura Givens – striking and original. Layout and presentation are excellent, and the stories carefully chosen. My particular favourites were
Six Guns of the Sierra Nevada (Cynthia Ward. A very neat tale of the biter – well bitten. A long Way from Name Pending, (Henry Ram. In which is confirmed that too many people wanting the same thing tend to destroy the prize. A Better Place to Die (Sam Knight,) A story which reads somthing like the tale of John Henry, only with a much better ending, and Moon of the Iron Eagle, (Sam S. Kepfield.) Another biter well bitten, and something that amused me solidly both in the reading and at the ending. Nothing wrong with the others, I just felt a stronger connection to these tales. David has a knack of picking good stories, and I have never failed to enjoy any magazine or anthology he’s put together.
All encompassing Ads. 1.
I have been irked recently by one of these ads that says if you suffer from motion-sickness all you have to do is take one of their tablets. Yes, well, there’s a couple of problems with that. One is that in small print, it says – right down at the bottom of the page where most won’t notice it – that you shouldn’t be driving after using the stuff, as it may cause drowsiness. VERY helpful if you are a driver.And some people who DO read that, are going to assume that if you are doing something else, it won’t affect you. IT WILL! But that isn’t mentioned.
Then there’s the other problem – If, like me, there is a physical reason for motion sickness then all the fancy tablets in the world won’t help. But does this ad suggest that you see a doctor? A specialist? Noooo, why would they do something so commonsense as that? Yes, I can get very badly sick, (On one occasion when I was about 11 and put on a train from Palmerston North to Auckland, I had to be carried off, too weak to stand or walk.) in my case I have motion-sickness from a physical reason that was established in the 1970s, when I took part in a study.
The fluid in my inner ear is thinner than is usual, hence on a winding road if the vehicle is moving fast, the fluid ‘sloshes’, causing nausea. (I am not affected by air travel, or in a boat since the motion, being at a different angle, doesn’t seem to provide the same reaction.) And how may you diagnose this problem very easily? Ask if the person has very good hearing too. If so, then that may be the problem. Can you do anything about it? Nope, although I find that growing older has improved it. I no longer get sick in cars or trains, but I still can during a long-distance bus trip. (And yes, my hearing is still far better than most my age) So this ad which promises to fix all forms of motion-sickness, is both wrong and misleading. And, IMHO, dangerous too.
And the other good news was –
The Certificates of Excellence are out for the (International) Cat Writers Association Awards.Each entry was independently judged by 3 Professional CWA members. Winning a Certificate of Excellence means that the average of those three judges’ scores for the entry is 90 or above.
As may be guessed from all that. My Ancient Egypt alternate history fantasy, Bastet’s Daughters, collected a Certificate of Excellence. The Muse Medallions for the Award for Best Fiction Book will be out in June.
New Book Out.
just had an email from Wildside to say that SHERLOCK HOLMES:STRANGE EVENTS has made it to the public arena. Nice timing, as it was a return email, I’d just sent them the next completed Holmes double. Strange Events is a double comprising THE MYSTERY OF THE MISPLACED MOTHER, and THE CASE OF THE VANISHING OMNIBUS. And I look forward to my author copies.
The Gaggle
At the end of last year the gaggle produced six goslings. Four have gone to a friend, but two have remained with the family. I keep meaning to do something about finding them a new home, but they seem to have fitted in, their father, aunts and mother don’t seem to mind being seven instead of five, and I don’t mind either. I’m not making any definite decision as yet, but I have a feeling I now have seven geese. And when I say everyone seems happy, I exclude the last caller who got halfway up the lawn this morning to ask me if I wanted to buy something – or so I assume. He was carrying some item which he never got a chance to reveal. The gaggle didn’t know him, didn’t want to know him, he was barred, banned, and backed up, and he should leave now. He did – which suited me since I didn’t know him either, and I’ve started the new book. So if you plan to drop in on me, remember, you need to be known, if not, call ahead.
Busy Year, I suspect
Last year I ultimately sold six books and did the revision for most. This year I plan to write three books, offer four, (and I’ll be stuck with the revision for those and one left from last year’s sales.) IF all that comes true and everything is sold and published, I’m going to hit the big 50 sometime in 2019 if not before. That’s fifty books published not years lived. Frankly I find the books more important. I love creating backgrounds, characters, and plots. I enjoy the convolutions and complications of their lives, and I enjoy seeing good win – usually. Who wouldn’t want to be a writer? I create worlds and lives, and it’s great.
My Musings on Old Age 42
The bible says that the years of our lives are three score and ten. I’m pleased to say that as of April 2016 I’m now ahead of the game!
Guilty until proven Innocent.
And that is what it appears to be lately. Stand up, make a claim of historic sexual harassment or assault, and destroy someone’s life on the spot. It’s possible every single claim is genuine, but somehow I don’t quite believe it, AND that ISN’T THE POINT ANYHOW! What IS the point is that the names of those accused on such counts should be suppressed until after a conviction. Look at the possibilities. In the 60s, I worked a host of different jobs, in some of them, while i WAS NOT sexually harassed, I had reason to really dislike either my boss or one of my fellow male workers. So what if now, some fifty years later I stood up and worked off a sense of injustice by announcing that I had been harassed?
I go to the police. I say that he did this, that, and the other, I give chapter and verse. He is arrested, changed, and his name is out there. His family, his wife, his children, and his grandchildren are devastated. There is a trial, if I am sufficiently convincing, (and being a writer of over 40 published books I know how to tell a believable story)
this man against whom I have held a grudge for 50+ years is convicted and I have justice. Or do I?
What if all I had was that originally I was ill-treated and over-worked and have never forgiven that. If I took such a complaint to the police, store management, or the employment tribunal, after 50 years, I’d be laughed out of the room. Why is a claim of sexual harassment different? Why is it that if I complained of ordinary wrongful treatment a sort of law of ‘too old a complaint’ operates, it is said that I have no proof, it’s my word against his, I should have complained at the time, and I have no witnesses. And because it IS only my word against his, I can gain no redress. Yet if I say he harassed me, I am instantly believed. His life is ruined whether or not he is even charged. And even if he isn’t charged, I’ve won, and he’s paid. The entire process these days bothers me. I can’t help but feel in some cases people are motivated more by revenge for something other than sexual assault or harassment, or by a possible settlement, or by a desire for publicity. What can a person so accused say, but that it isn’t true. And find they are automatically disbelieved in the current climate. How fair is that?
And as an aside. In one of the many jobs I held while I was in my teens, in one I WAS sexually harassed. I worked in a large chain store in Wellington’s Courtney Place. The manager there was about 23, and I was about 17 and stacked the shelves out back when the new merchandise arrived. I usually worked alone, and one afternoon he came in, stood by my ladder and started to run his hand up my leg. He passed my knee and I took down a wooden pencil case from the shelf I was filling and hit him solidly over the head. His “You’re fired,” and my “I quit” where pretty much simultaneous. I’ve never felt the need to go to the police after so many years, why should I? The memory of that loud thump, the feeling of impact on my hand, and his yelp of pain, is balm enough.
But even knowing of my own case, of other cases friends endured, and how often there was casual sexism fifty years ago in the workplace, I still wonder, as yet more claims are made and people pilloried, if what we’re seeing is honest justice… or a lynch mob’s vengeance?
@#$%^& Weather!
21 May 2018
Very little sleep last night. In bed at 9.30pm since I’m working on a new book and do my work early morning. Woken abruptly by a massive wind gust at 12.30am, put in ear plugs – to no avail. The wind was ramping up until by about 6am it was screaming in around 150kph. I got up about then, but wasn’t comfortable sitting down to write in case a tree landed on power lines. By now – 9.30am – it’s cut back to about 130-135kph, but I’m leaving things until this afternoon when according to the met service, winds should die away.
(On the other hand they also said winds should have died down by 2am, and they actually became worse and worse through to around 7am. Had they warned the area I think roads would have been closed, and as around 7am our siren for Fire Brigade went, I suspect there was an RTA because of the wind. I emailed Met Services around 6.30am pointing out that their “falling winds” weren’t occurring and that it was now really dangerous, but so far as I know, they did nothing to warn this area.)
All annoying to the max, as I was nicely into the swing of writing WITH SHOT AND SHELL, and wanted to power on this week. However IF the met service is right on that bit, we’ll be getting a lot more of this all week. Sigh. Guess I may be doing my writing other way around in the afternoons for that period, and as I have less energy then, I may do less writing. Weather has no right to interfere with my writing!