DOCTOR WHO THE MOVIE 

is getting the shiny 4K disc treatment

Paul McGann's outing as the Eighth Doctor was given short shrift when it was released in 1996. The television movie was a co-production with Universal Studios in the hope of catching a US and global audience, allowing the BBC's flagship science fiction show to be rebooted in a more spectacular fashion.

Sound familiar? The television movie presaged the show's eventual reboot under Russell T Davies years later, and in more ways than one.

In a prescient move, we reassessed the Eighth Doctor's main adventure only a week or so ago and now the BBC has announced that it will be getting a 4K spruce up and be available in the format soon. Hosting a tonne of new features and the original UK and US release versions, this will be the definitive release for this much-overlooked episode of the Time Lord's adventures.

SOUVENIRS FROM THE NIGHT GALLERY GIFT SHOP by Darren Humphries

This is the third short story collection I have produced based on a classic anthology series from my youth (or even before my youth, but watched on repeats). Rod Serling is one of my heroes for his writing on THE TWILIGHT ZONE and the much less well-known NIGHT GALLERY. 

It's very much my usual eclectic selection of tales of the fantastical, with all manner of styles and subjects and themes.

Now that this one's done, it's back to Man From U.N.D.E.A.D. 6.

The full blurb is:

"Souvenirs from the Night Gallery Gift Shop completes the trilogy of short story collections inspired by classic television anthology shows of the past, in this case the legendary Rod Serling's Night Gallery.

Like Sharing a Fence with the Twilight Zone, and Taking the Tube to the Outer Limits before it, this book brings together short tales of science fiction, fantasy and horror with some humour and darkness, along with occasional swearing and the odd bit you might not want to read to your grandmother.

These stories lie at the edge of map where the margins are marked 'Here there be monsters'. And monsters there are, as well as androids and witchcraft and fairies and possibly even miracles, but to say more would be to give too much away. The stories may make you gasp, may make you shudder, may make you cry and may even make you muffins for tea (though that last one is not very likely).

So enter the Night Gallery's gift shop and choose some souvenirs to take home with you to remind you of the time you spent admiring the canvases and the stories they told."

Available on Amazon kindle.

THE OUTSIDER by Stephen King

A child is horribly murdered by a man who was conclusively identified by multiple witnesses despite being irrefutably a hundred miles away at the time.

Stephen King's more recent output has been hit and miss and this starts off as a hit but descends into a miss. The early sections dealing with the identification and arrest of the clearly guilty party and then the discovery that however obviously guilty he is, he is just as obviously innocent, are very nicely handled and contain all of King's hallmark qualities of detail, character and atmosphere.

It is a shame, then, that after a significant event outside the courthouse, the whole genre of the book changes into a horror that has a very heavy sense of 'been there, done that'. His prose and writing style continue to impress, meaning that it is almost impossible for him to write a bad book (although some seem to be released on early drafts rather than finished polished articles (Joyland, Gwendy's Button Box, Elevation). That's not the case here, but the fact is that the second half is too reliant on characters explaining the plot to each other and the plot itself is too full of warmed over tropes from previous books (the dodgy detective is just Henry Bowers from IT under a different name in terms of how he is used).

Also the rules governing the creature in this feature seem to alter almost as much as the creature itself. The final showdown also fails to impress, which is ironic as I read it shortly after seeing the film IT:CHAPTER 2 in which there are several inside jokes about the author's problem with writing endings.

It's well worth a read, but ultimately does not satisfy.

Available on Amazon.co.uk

 

FALLEN KINGDOM by Darren Humphries

This book has been on Amazon for a while, but I haven't got around to announcing it on here because it's been one of those kinds of years and I was hard at work on the short story collection that has just become available and which you will be able to find in the subsequent blog post.

This one is a little bit different in tone for me. It's more of a slow burn adventure, a stranger in a strange land story in which a man returns to a country he thought he knew to find it changed beyond all recognition from the one he left.

As he travels in search of his wife, he learns how the oppressive regime came into power and what the secret of the shadowy police force known as the Hoods really is.

There are elements of Brexit in the UK shutting itself off from the rest of world, but that just provides the backdrop and isn't what the book is about. The book it about one man's journey to find that which is precious to him. That's a story I've wanted to write for a while and it's finally down and available on the kindle.

The full blurb is as follows:

"On V-Day, Great Britain removed itself from the world in an unprecedented act of isolationism. All foreign nationals were expelled and the borders were sealed. All trade stopped. All communications ceased. Anyone trying to leave by air was shot down by the RAF. Anyone trying to get in by sea was sunk by the Royal Navy. The Channel Tunnel was filled with concrete. The United Nations established an exclusion zone, preventing anyone from attempting to enter for their own protection.

Craig Benton, though, was not just anyone. Ex-special forces and trapped abroad whilst in deep undercover action, he is determined to evade the blockade, get into Britain and back to his wife, no matter what it takes.

What he finds on his return is a country greatly changed from the one he left, a country living in fear and ruled by a secret police force known only as the Hoods.

How was this possible? How could the home of modern democracy have fallen so low as to become a police state cut off from the rest of the world in self-imposed exile?

He was to find that the answer was much stranger than he could ever have guessed."

Available on Amazon kindle

BLOWING THE BLOODY DOORS OFF and other lessons in life by Michael Caine

The man himself

Michael Caine dragged himself up from almost cliched humble beginnings to become an oscar winning, restaurant owning national treasure, not to mention Batman's butler. His decades in the business have had highs and lows and a longevity that means what he has to say about the movie business (and by extension all business) ought to be worth listening to as he presents the lessons that he has learned in his life and times.

Those lessons turn out to be 'show up on time', 'know your lines', 'grab your opportunities', 'be kind' and 'be lucky' (plus a few others that I don't recall). Considering that I summed those up in a single line and don't even recall the others after a few hours suggest that they weren't really that much to hang a book on all by themselves. Certainly, quite a few of them got repeated several times.

That said, Mr Caine knows how to tell a story and be thoroughly entertaining whilst doing so. He also knows that a film star's autobiography (even a sort of autobiography like this) works best when it is filled with anecdotes about other film stars and Michael Caine seems to have met them all. He kicks of with a story about John Wayne and never looks back.

Michael Caine seems like an all-round good bloke, both from the stories that he tells and the tone in which he tells them. He seems to have maintained a sense of himself and his past despite the heights to which he has risen. He would certainly be someone to have in your list of fantasy dinner party guests. The time that you spend with him in this book may not profoundly change your life, or even tell you much that you don't already know about how to live it, but it will be time well spent as the book is as engaging and entertaining as the man seems to be and that should be enough for everyone.

ELEVATION by Stephen King

We have reached the point where anything that Stephen King writes will be published. I generally don't have a problem with that, but this 'novella' is a thin tome with what looks suspiciously like double spacing. If it took me two hours to read then I'm surprised.

It also felt like some reheated old ideas thrown together. The central conceit of Thinner was a man who got thinner no matter what he did. The central conceit here is that a man is getting lighter no matter what he does. Gravity is losing its hold. Does this cause anyone great concern? No not really.

The main concern is that there's a married lesbian couple running a restaurant and people don't approve. The local seasonal running race should take care of that. Really? In Trump's America, one photograph is all it takes to change conservative views?

It is a slight tale that doesn't last long or think deep, both of which are surprising for King.

That said, the man does know how to write and you breeze through it pleasurably enough, though by the end of the this snack you're left far from satisfied.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER FAQ

We've been a bit sniffy in the past about the FAQ books because they don't answer frequently asked questions and they don't address the subtitle of "everything that's left to know" about their subjects, but it's time to just accept that this is the marketing line and nothing is going to change that.

So here it is, the latest potted history of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of television's finest fantasy shows, with chapters on the major characters, each season's plots, the 'big bads', the spin off show ANGEL and more. 

It's written by people who clearly know the show and clearly love the show and contains interviews new and old, but it is not (as has been the case with the other books in the series that we have seen) revelatory. There is little here that the hardcore fan won't already know and the there is too much here for anyone who is going into the show for the first time. There are spoilers indeed here.

That said, the book succeeds in its primary function, which is to remind you just how wonderful BUFFY VAMPIRE SLAYER was and, after reading it, you'll be bringing down those DVDs and plunging back into the world of the Slayerettes once again.

NORRIS GOES WEST is released on Amazon

NORRIS GOES WEST, the sequel to SPENSER GOES NORTH has just been released onto Amazon sites around the world for anyone with one of those Kindle reading thingies to enjoy (or not, their choice). 

The street urchin of that first book takes centre stage this time as he investigates missing children on the streets of Liverpool and ends up in an adventure that will uncover a deadly threat to the British Imperial Commonwealth.

Yes, another one.

He'll find his street smarts tested, his courage stretched and his horizons forcibly expanded, but he will also face his greatest challenge yet - girls.

The hardback will be available on lulu.com as soon as I can get it formatted for that and checked.

The Art of Horror - An illustrated history

Of all the genres of movies there are, none has produced movie posters that are as colourful and lurid as those created to sell the humble horror movie. In fact, the more humble the horror movie, the more lurid the cover. Some of history's greatest movie posters are reprinted in this sumptuous coffee table book that spans from the earliest silents right through to Resident Evils and Underworlds that were around and about at the cinema in recent times.

Considering the length of the publishing process, no book can ever hope to be completely up to date, but considering that the art of the movie poster is dying on its feet with the advent of photoshop and video screen advertising, this may the last book to celebrate the art of the nasty poster for nasty movies.

It's not just filled with posters for the likes of Nosferatu, The Curse of the Werewolf and (ahem) The Human Centipede, there are some original pieces that celebrate the likes of The Masque of the Red Death, The Mummy and Pan's Labyrinth.

There are words as well, though they rarely amount to half the page and don't really tell any hardcore horror or movie poster fan anything that they didn't already know about or didn't really need to know about. The words, though, are not what books like this are about. The pictures are the thing and it's unlikely that you're going to find a more comprehensive and visually appealing collection of horror movie poster art anywhere.

Horror art is always going to be something of an acquired taste and certainly this book's audience is going to be limited by the subject matter, but if you've acquired that taste then there is plenty here to enjoy.

So, with Halloween just over and Christmas on the horizon, treat the gore-lover in your life to this hefty tome of bright, black and red-drenched cinematic horror delights, the like of which we are unlikely to see again.

AN ORC LIKE BALREK is released onto Amazon Kindle.

I am finally able to announce the arrival of the sequel to one of my earliest books, An Orc Not Like Others.

An Orc Like Balrek picks up sometime after the previous book and continues the story, catching up with old characters and introducing some new ones. The blurb goes something like this

"Balrek is not like other orcs.

For one thing, he is now the ruler of an entire City-kingdom, something that has not endeared him to many people of power and led to regular assassination attempts.

All of which makes securing his legacy and creating the first orc homeland all the more difficult.

And that was before what happened at the theatre.

This return to the City-kingdoms of An Orc Not Like Others brings together characters old and new to continue the story of the orc who truly is different from others."

This sequel has genuinely been decades in the making since it has been the back of my mind since the first one was written, though it is hardly the sequel that I had in mind way back then.

It's still a fantasy novel, it still has its tongue lodged in its cheek at times and still contains scenes of gratuitous orcery.

No orcs were hurt in the writing of this book (which really annoyed most of them).

Game of Thrones Journals - the second coming

So, you're innocently going about your business when you are struck by the greatest story idea ever (TM). You know that you're never going to remember it, so you reach into your backpack/ briefcase/ handbag (delete as appropriate), whip out your pen and your trusty journal and jot it down.

That's what should happen, but let's be honest, what really happens is you scrabble around looking for anything that you can write with and write on. Well, one of those problems has been solved with style with the arrival of these new Game of Thrones journals.

The first four in the series were embossed with the crests of the Great Houses, but this second set has gone for other symbols that are hugely important in the world of Westeros in George RR Martin's fantasy behemoth. The first is the Iron Throne, the thing that all the fuss is about and that everyone's fighting over in the first place. Next up is the seal of the King's Hand, bestowed on the most trusted advisor to the King and therefore making them the second most powerful person in the whole of the political mess. Following that is Night's Watch, denoted by the bulk of the giant wall that they defend against the Winter and the terrible things that it brings with them.  Last, but far from least, is Valar Morghulis, represented by the most famous white door in the whole of written fantasy.

That's all well and good, but a notebook's a notebook's a notebook I hear you say.

I don't hear you say that? I could have sworn I heard you say that. Well, these aren't your common or garden notebooks. The covers are not just attractively embossed in silver and gold (and yes, white) colour on faux leather jackets, but they come with inner covers bearing scenes from the show itself (Tyrion graces the Hand of the King insert whilst Arya turns up in the Valar Morghulis edition.

That's not enough, you cry. My, you are a demanding bunch aren't you? OK, so how about the fact that the paper is pretty good quality, thick and lined and not likely to bleed your ink through to the next page. How about the fact that the ribbon page marker comes as standard and an elastic band holds it shut when you're not frantically writing down your own thoughts and ideas that are so much better than that George RR Martin could ever come up with (if in fact he ever comes up with anything more anyway, since he doesn't seem to be all that on time.  Just to finalise the deal, there's a nifty little document pocket at the back for you to stash useful and interesting snippets for future reference.

 Suffice to say that they're just a bit classier than your usual 99p efforts from the newsagent and might be just the thing to inspire you to George RR Martin levels of success with the most famous fantasy series on the planet, the most successful TV show on the planet and a shedful of deadlines that you just don't seem to be able to get around to meeting.

Or you can just sit there running your hands lovingly over those oh so attractive covers crooning "Who's a pretty book then?" Your choice of course.

LONDON DARK cover is revealed

Now that the book is out with my trusty group of beta readers for the necessary grammar bashing and clumsy word structure identification, it is time to reveal the cover.

I've working on, and talking about, this book for so long, I've almost forgotten what life was like before I started it.

I wanted something that was simple and stark, using the words of the title to set the tone rather than using imagery. Since it's a horror book, there was plenty of scope for using blood and gore and all kinds of red images of the city to make a statement, but instead I wanted to go for something a little more mysterious.

I'm very pleased with the final outcome. I'm also quite pleased with the byline - The lights are out, but something's home. The use of red in the final word just takes the starkness off it a little. I did consider that 'something' should be in red, but that didn't look right somehow.

The blurb for the book isn't finished yet, but it's going to read something like this:

"The lights are out, but something's home.

A daring, co-ordinated act of eco-terrorism plunges London into darkness. As the night progresses, it becomes clear that there are reasons why the city is kept lit at all hours, reasons that have nothing to do with the night-time economy or the fight against crime.

There are good reasons to be afraid of the dark and tonight, in London, the darkness has teeth."


All comments are welcome and the book should be out sometime soon.

MODERN SCI-FI FILMS FAQ by Tom DeMichael

Another book in the FAQ series addresses one of my favourite subjects, science fiction movies. Considering I work on the Sci Fi Freak Site, that shouldn't come as any great surprise to anyone.

Also not coming as a surprise to anyone will be the reservations I have over the title and subtitle. There are still no frequently asked questions in this book and I still don't know what they mean by 'all that's left to know about...', in this case time travel, alien, robot and out-of-this-world movies since 1970.

With this book, though, I also have larger reservations about the content than the previous entries I've tried (Doctor Who and Stephen King Films). It's not that it's hard to read; the writer's style is clean and easy to read and doesn't distract from the content at all. It's the construction that I don't understand.

Each film starts with a synopsis and then has some afterwords, analysis, box office and anecdotes. Nothing wrong with that, but it's the amount of room devoted to each that confuses. Take the entry for INCEPTION for example - the plot synopsis runs to seven pages whilst the rest runs to two. That seems to me to be entirely the wrong way around. Admittedly, INCEPTION is a film with a dense and twisting plot, but does anyone really need every twist and turn to be laid out for them? And that's the problem. If you've seen (and loved in most cases) the films then you'll know them well enough to not need to read a detailed synopsis of what happens. If you're going to see the film then you're not going to want to know all the twists and plot spoilers that are included. I found myself skipping the synopses altogether and reading only the 'afterwords'. Since these are the smaller sections and seemingly obsessed with box office receipts and not a lot else, the 380 page count gets a lot, lot less.

More interesting are the opening section on the literary roots of the genre (i.e. some important sci fi writers whose work has been recently adapted), science fiction movie spaceships and notable sci fi movie personages. Since these are not simply regurgitating plots, they have more interest.

It's hard to know who this book can be aimed that who won't be disappointed by it, and that's a big problem.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA VAULT by Paul Ruditis

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is one of the most lauded television shows of recent years. Notice that we left out the qualifier 'science fiction' in that? That's because the redefined version of a camp 70's STAR WARS wannabe was a genuine phenomenon that crossed the critical divide from genre into the mainstream. That might not be such a big thing nowadays with the success of the likes of GAME OF THRONES and other HBO shows, but it was big at the time.

So, if you were one of the people who loved the show (and if not, why not?) then you could do a lot worse than getting your hands on this lavishly illustrated book that starts with that camp 70's wannabe and goes right through to the doomed spin-off CAPRICA and the tv movies that tried to extend the magic.

There's only a couple of hours' reading time here and the devoted fan won't learn a lot that they didn't already know, but the words aren't what books like this are all about. The production art and set designs are crammed onto every page and there's more than enough to satisfy even the most hardened Galactica buff. And just in case you weren't convinced that this is all about the images, there are a couple of envelopes inside the front and back cover stuffed with pull out images like Ralph McQuarrie's poster, comparisons of ships of the fleet and the development of the cylon warrior.

The design of the book and the gatefold cover make the £20 cover price seem like a bargain. It's coming up to Christmas, so if you have a frakkin' Galactica fan in your life your present problems could just have been solved.

Latest Man From U.N.D.E.A.D. short story cover revealed.

The latest of the Man From U.N.D.E.A.D short stories takes Agent Ward back to his very first case for the United Nations Department for the Enforcement and Apprehension of Demons.

Entitled THE SILENCE OF THE MIMES, it involves Ward in a case involving some mimes, the Moulin Rouge, the Orient Express and some cutlery.

Whilst the story itself goes through the rigours of beta reading, the cover has been through the rigours of, well, being argued about mostly. The naysayers, though, have been defeated and put to death in the underground piranha lake and so I can reveal the cover that will grace Agent Ward's first case.

As for a release date, well these things are trickier than a Skipper Imp, but all being well it should be out sometime within the next twenty years.

I'll be sure to put a note on the blog about it at the time, just in case anyone wants to know.


The cover's locked, by the way, so there won't be any changes made as a result of people not liking it as there were to SPENSER GOES NORTH and THEY CAME FROM BEYOND PULP. That won't stop some people not liking it, though.

SCI-FI CHRONICLES - Aurum Press - Out October 2nd.

It's not often that I open something that I've been sent to review and let out very unmanly fanboy squeals, but that is exactly what happened when I opened the packaging on SCI-FI CHRONICLES. My very first impression was 'Oh my God, it's beautiful'. The cover is a lush patterned black with a rendering of Hal 9000's eye lens and some very shiny lettering that just isn't done justice by the image alongside.

But, the beauty of this book doesn't just stop at the cover. It is lavishly illustrated throughout with glorious colour images. They're not huge, but there are so many of them. Each entry is illustrated with small icon images with some of the larger subjects getting two or four pages devoted purely to the pictures.

You need a lot of pages to get all of that onto and SCI-FI CHRONICLES has more than 570 of them (though admittedly 40 of those are dedicated to the index and the credits).

With so much information now readily available on our electronic devices at the swipe of a finger, encyclopedias like this one are much harder to come by, so it's to Aurum's credit that they are willing to even produce the book, let alone do such a good job on it. There are 27 listed contributors, all of whom seem to have a passion for the subject.

And it's a wide-ranging subject too, since the book doesn't restrict itself to just one medium. There are landmark books, films, TV shows, comics, video games and even characters and personalities all contained within. Isaac Asimov shares space with The Day The Earth Stood Still and Jack Kirby. Steven Spielberg jostles elbows with King Kong and Halo. Even with half a thousand pages, it can't be all-encompassing, but I've yet to come up with one entry that I thought ought to be featured that wasn't. The detail is more of a sketch, an introduction to each subject, but you'll know whether you're interested in finding out more about each by the time that you reach the end of the page.

It's not perfect, though, surely? Very nearly. The chronological structure makes it a little harder than necessary to find your subject of choice if you're not interested in reading it as a narrative and the index is a touch fiddly to find the main article of choice. The chronology also stops in 2009, which suggests that there has not been one single book, film, video game, graphic novel, character or creator who has emerged in the genre in the past five years. That seems a little hard to believe.

The space devoted to each entry can be a little obscure as well. Blade Runner, visually the second most influential film of all time, shares its page with the book Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep and mention isn't even given to the excellent video game version and the not quite so excellent KW Jeter sequels. This means that the most influential movie in the genre since Metropolis actually gets less page space that soggy submarine series Seaquest DSV!

Also, any book that states as fact that Tom Baker was the third Doctor has to lose some credibility points.

All of which is nit-picking. The fact is that I have lost hours to this book already and I've had it for less than two days. It has become my favoured reference book of choice and has pride of place on my shelves. That is seriously not bad going.

The £25 price tag might seem a little steep, but take a look inside and you'll probably fall as instantly in love as I did. Also, it's a book that you will go back to time and time again. And it's the kind of gift that your science-loving significant other would thank you for and mean it.

The lovely folks at Aurum have promised one lucky winner a copy of this book absolutely free, so trot on over to www.scififreaksite.com and take part in the giveaway there.

DOCTOR WHO FAQ - All That's Left To Know About The Most Famous Time Lord In the Universe by Dave Thompson

It may have escaped your attention, but the BBC TV series DOCTOR WHO celebrated its fiftieth birthday recently. This was as good a reason for a few million more words to be written about what must be one the most written about television series of all time. What, indeed, can there be left to know?

Quibbles first - title and subtitle. This is not a book of frequently asked questions. And as for its claim that it contains 'all that's left to know' about the Doctor, well that's just nonsense. 'All that's left to know' after what?

Don't get me wrong, author Dave Thompson knows his stuff and certainly has opinions on his stuff, but there is very little here that even a semi-knowledgeable viewer like me didn't already know, or certainly couldn't have found out pretty quickly on the internet. True enough, the chapters on the Big Finish audio productions and the music inspired by Doctor Who were news to me, but then I did say that I was only semi-knowledgeable.

What this book really is, is a comprehensive overview of the show for someone who knows a little and wants to know a lot  more. This is for people who are new to the series in its modern incarnation and want to be indoctrinated in the history.

It is also, make no bones about it, for Americans. The opening chapter is entitled 'The TARDIS in America'.

It is also out of date, containing nothing of the fiftieth year's celebrations, but that's a minor point since any book like this is out of date as soon as it's printed (if it's lucky).

So, what's good about it? Well, if you don't already have an overview of the show then you could certainly do worse than this and it does cover those Big Finish audio productions and books and music as well. There's a comprehensive listing of TV episodes, audio productions, original books and even comic books featuring the 'most famous time lord in the universe'.

It's also pretty easy to read. Thompson has a clean style and isn't shy about coming forward with what he thinks. That he didn't like Adric or Mel is no surprise to any right-thinking individual, but his views on the Moffat era might not go down so well with some others.

There's an eclectic mix of illustrations (black and white) to break up the text and at 258 pages of history and opinions, there ought to be something for everyone to find of interest.

We're back, though, to that thorny question of who exactly this book is for. Completists will want it for, well, completeness, but there's very little in it to make it indispensable. Then again, after so much has been written about the show, what on earth could there be left to know?

THEY CAME FROM BEYOND PULP - now available for the kindle on all flavours of Amazon

Finally, after ages of agonising over cover design and the hours of formatting that these things require (for me, at least) THEY CAME FROM BEYOND PULP has finally hit Amazon stores worldwide.

Here comes the blurb

Pulp fiction (n) - tawdry tales trapped between bright and lurid covers.

In They Came From Beyond Pulp, Darren Humphries takes a stroll down the shadier side of the street in these stories of murder, mayhem and madness, all presented with an added dash of mischief that combines the two strands of pulp fiction - crime and sci-fi/fantasy.

Warning: slightly darker than my usual stuff and contains occasional bad language.

The Return of the Cover Dilemma

 Since people weren't necessarily impressed with the cover concept that I had come up with for the forthcoming THEY CAME FROM BEYOND PULP,  I decided to give it a total overhaul to see if I could make it work better for people. The result is on the right and I actually prefer the original that I had, so I don't think that I'll be using this one.

Since I wasn't happy with the one that I had, I went back to the drawing board and came up with the new concept that you can see below. Since the stories in the collection are meant to be based around murder and crime and punishment and various dark-themed things like that, the blood motif has to stay and I really liked the bright yellow background for making a bold statement. It certainly catches the attention.

The question is whether it does enough to make people want to read the blurb and decide whether or not they want to read the book. That is, after all the main purpose of the cover.

The stories are finished, the beta readers are working on cleaning up the text of all the errors that I failed to spot and hopefully I'll be able to release it soon.

If I can get the cover right.

There are times when not being able to afford to hire people to do this stuff is a real pain.

Anyway, the images are here. Give me some hints on whether it's a complete failure on my Goodreads thread.

The good news is that I have so many story ideas rattling around inside my head that I don't think I'll be running out of projects any time soon. Of course, they'll need covers too!

JOSS WHEDON - Geek King Of The Universe by Amy Pascale

 

Anyone who knows me knows that I love Joss Whedon and will watch anything that he is involved in (even if that is AGENTS OF SHIELD), but before you start worrying, this is not another long-winded speech about my love for the Geek King of the Universe that is Joss Whedon. Someone else has already got there.

Sort of.

For those who don't know Joss Whedon is a writer of TV shows, films and comic books. Up until recently, his work was known to a smallish audience who made up for their lack of huge numbers with passion.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, ANGEL and FIREFLY are considered (by their fans at least) as some of the finest science fiction and fantasy shows ever put on television. They never broke into the mainstream, though, and DOLLHOUSE barely made a dent on the popular culture.

Marvel's AVENGERS ASSEMBLE, however, really put the man on the map by becoming one of the biggest moneymaking movies of all time. Taking time off to relax from making that blockbuster, he made a film version of Shakespeare's MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING in his house!

As a lover of all the above shows/films it was no hardship to read this biography. Amy Pascale's chronological retelling is carried out in a clean and clear style that never puts the writing ahead of the story that it is telling. The author certainly knows her subject, with input from Whedon's family, friends and co-workers on almost all subjects, whether it is his work, his Shakespeare readings with friends, his support of the writers' union or his rocky relationships with various TV companies and movie producers. Whilst his private life is kept private (he's married, he has children, that's about all you're getting), his professional life is laid bare and whilst his early life might not raise too much interest, the moment that we get into the stuff we really want to know about, the book becomes unputdownable.

If there is a negative to be found then it is that a book about a man who is described by almost everyone as the wittiest man they have ever met could have done with a bit more itself.

If you're interested in Joss Whedon's work, then this biography gives a great insight into his history and his methods.

It's available now.