So this week I’ve mostly been busy doing a blog tour which included some extracts, and interview and a couole of reviews:

PainPals here

Ramblings of a writer here

I also had a #smallpressbighstories review over on Fantasy Faction

I have submitted a new short story for an anthology (fingers crossed on that). Am working through the edits on another (which means it’s been accepted) and there has been a “things are happening” update on a third anthology. So the short story machine is still occasionally spitting out writing despite the fact the novel has languished a little over the last few months.

Talking of anthologies Tales from the Graveyard will be launching in February (date and venue are still TBC) so watch out for that and if you’e in Bristol please do come along to say hi and buy a book.

In other news I’ll be appearing at Penned Up to talk about Seven Deadly Swords which will be interesting… On the subject of Seven Swords I am after reviews – so if you’ve read it please do leave a review on Amazon, it’s looking a bit bare there at the moment!

I’ll be doing a blog tour for Swords very soon so look out for links and details as they become available.

 

After the Fesival of Literature came a vacation and after the vacation came Christmas and New Year and my birthday and suddenly it’s 2019 and I haven’t updated the blog for almost 4 months!

I’m busy reading through all the stories we got for Forgotten Sidekicks (a little patience is required from submitters but we’ll soon be trying to narrow them down and will be in touch soon)

I’m working slowly on Certainty of Dust – the shape of it is in my head & I have scribbled through a journal (trying to write this one by hand – seems slower, in every way) and will need to soon commit to electronic copy and Draft One (am on zero, or ‘vomit’ draft right now)

And a few stories either commissioned or aimed at specific anthologies.

I have yet to find the time to do a book wrap up post – I read 155 books last year which probably shows that I’ve not been writing enough.

I’m doing a blog tour soon for Seven Deadly Swords that, if you’re a book blogger, you can sign up for here

I aim to write more regular blog posts – but going to be very busy in day job and trying to finish “the damned book” that aim and reality may vary…

 

The Fantasycon programme has been published.

I’ll be on two panels on the Friday:

4.30pm – The Role of Class in Science
Fiction and Fantasy
Kevin McVeigh (m), Rosanne Rabinowitz, Peter
Sutton, Laura Mauro, Alison Baker

9.30pm – Occult and Supernatural
Adventures
Peter Sutton (m), Mike Chinn, Sue Tingey, Sara
Jayne Townsend, Georgina Bruce

Sadly my later panel coincides with Dungeons and Disorderly which looks like it’ll be a lot of fun.

and a panel and a reading on the Saturday

11.30am – Organising Events and
Awards
Steven Poore (m), Leila Abu el Hawa, Jan
Edwards, Peter Sutton

10pm: Readings:
Fantasy
Peter Sutton, Andy
Remic, Anna Smith
Spark, Jeanette Ng

You’ll have to drag yourself away from the Karaoke to come and see my reading…

I’m also helping Peter Coleborn launch Alchemy Press’s latest anthology which I have a story in:

3pm – Launch: Alchemy Press
Peter Coleborn

So looks like it’ll be a busy and fun FantasyCon!

 

 

Timon Singh loves action films, specifically 1980’s action films. He loves the vilains in those action films. So he set out to interview as many as he could – from Superman 2 to Die Hard, from Time Bandits to Indiana Jones Singh has tracked down a host of bad guys, and 1 gal.

The book is split into sections: The heavies, Superman 2, The Terrorists of Die Hard, The Outsiders, and the final boss. And includes such people as David Warner, Steven Birkoff, Julian Glover, William Atherton, Vernon Wells and many more

Singh is interested in what it takes to play a good baddie, the psychology of bad guys and gossip about the heroes and other co-stars as well as stories about the films these men, and it is almost 100% men, have been in. The interviews are entertaining and often enlightening and it’s great to spot a bad guy you may have seen in a few films but not know much about.

The book also has a great cover.

I hope Singh has more interviews up his sleeve -maybe some good guys next or the femme fatales of 80’s cinema?

Recommended to film lovers.

If you’ve been following my blog for a while you’ll know that a couple of years ago I had a copyright battle with someone who wanted to use my work for his profit without my permission, without attributing the work as mine and without paying me a penny. After a long and acrimonious battle, in which I had to threaten legal action, we eventually came to an agreement that I’d be able to scrutinise the work he was producing and veto anything that was ‘proved’ to be mine.

The reason this copyright battle happened was basically because Kickstarter had very lax rules at the time (they’ve since been tightened up. A bit) and it is now easy for anyone to be a publisher.

To update that previous post. The kickstarter eventually produced one book (out of the 4 people had pledged for). There were several chapters that I asked them to change -which they did, although their “rewriting” was pretty damn poor (where, for example I’d written – ‘they were never numerous.’ they’d written ‘there were never very many of them’ – that sort of ‘rewriting’. However by the time they sent me this the whole sorry debacle had been dragging on for ages and I really couldn’t be bothered to argue any more so I let them publish, and be damned…

Anyway that’s all preamble.

I received a mail from the Society of Authors requesting me to mail my MEP and ask them to support the new forthcoming Copyright Directive 

The Copyright Directive seeks to modernise copyright for the digital age. As well as forcing platforms such as YouTube and Facebook (and Kickstarter) to take greater responsibility for the creative content they host, it contains the following much-needed provisions which would strengthen the rights of authors:

• A transparency obligation, which would force publishers to be more transparent when reporting information to authors related to accounting and the exploitation of their works.
• A contract adjustment mechanism (or “bestseller clause”) allowing authors to claim additional remuneration when sales are much better than expected.
• A dispute resolution mechanism, enabling disputes over these two issues to be submitted to an alternative resolution procedure.

So as I’ve had some interaction with my MEP on Twitter I Tweeted her:

to which her reply was:

so I mailed her. She’s yet to reply…