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.