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.