Saturday, August 31, 2013
Foggy London
Lovely black-and-white photos of London in the fog. Lovely, but deadly. (Sometimes I love the Daily Mail...)
Friday, August 30, 2013
Free Promotion for To Save the Realm
Free promotion on the Kindle edition of To Save the Realm at Amazon today and tomorrow. Download to your heart's content!
Thursday, August 29, 2013
One of my least favorite things...
I'm in Old City Java coffee shop at the moment (where I wrote most of To Save the Realm). A guy is pacing around behind me practically shouting into his phone. I really consider this to be disgusting behavior, a type of narcissism peculiar to the postmodern world. I don't really care to hear someone arguing with his wife or girlfriend or doing real-estate deals or loudly uttering banalities in a public place.
People You May Never Have Heard Of...Gil Taylor
From the Isle of Wight County Press:
Gil Taylor who just passed away at the age of 99 on the Isle of Wight, began working as a cameraman in the 1930's. He worked on an amazing list of films: Brighton Rock (1947), Ice Cold in Alex (1958), The Avengers TV series (1961), Dr. Strangelove (1964), A Hard Day's Night (1964), and Star Wars (1977). He was in the RAF in WWII, filming bomb damage from a Lancaster bomber. This article is from 2006 (just now available online).
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Monday, August 26, 2013
Sunday, August 25, 2013
To Save the Realm, First Two Paras, Chapter 6: A Bookshop on Bury Place
Brock stood unsteadily on the cobblestones of Bury Place, a narrow byway near the British Museum. He was still in his cups from his meeting in the pub with Bertie. How many drinks had they had? He looked up and down the street. No cars were moving in either direction. A green Spitfire was nestled close to the curb up toward Great Russell Street. It was getting on to five o'clock.
There were no popular boutiques or trendy restaurants on Bury Place. It was not a destination of the young and fabulous. It was peopled, instead, almost wholly with second-hand bookshops. Some of these were dusty, cluttered emporia of remaindered books and tattered paperbacks. Others specialized in rare antiquarian tomes with gorgeous rough-edged paper and beautifully tooled leather bindings. The street's only concession to the overt enjoyment of life was a patisserie with a couple of small round tables on the sidewalk.
Saturday, August 24, 2013
And Speaking of the Battle of Britain
Command bunker of No. 11 Fighter Group restored and open to the public.
From the Salisbury Journal
The only pilot to have won the Victoria Cross in the Battle of Britain. The standards must have been very high...
Friday, August 23, 2013
Dyatlov Pass Incident
From the Daily Mail. This is a real mystery and I've become somewhat obsessed with it. It happened in the same year that my book is set in, 1959.
A better and more detailed description of the incident can be found at Ermak Travel.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Monday, August 19, 2013
To Save the Realm, First 10 Lines, Chapter 5, A Pub on Goodge Street
When Brock returned to his hotel, the clerk handed him a message in a tattered, ink-smudged envelope. Brock thanked him and trudged up the narrow five flights of stairs to his room. The hotel looked perhaps a little more down-at-the-heel to him now than when he had left it that morning. the paint was peeling in a couple of places on the ceiling, and the runners on the stairs were somewhat threadbare. It had sure seemed nice enough to him when he'd checked in. This money of Marcy's may truly end up being a curse.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Canned Concerts
Next time you shell out $100+ to see your fave band, you should be aware that you just might be listening to a file on a laptop... And maybe it doesn't matter?
Saturday, August 17, 2013
To Save the Realm Free Promotion
I'm offering free Kindle copies of To Save the Realm from 8/19 thru 8/21!
From the BBC: Snakes in Bins
Keeping exotic animals (especially snakes) as pets is enormously ignorant, and should be highly illegal. One can see a future where cobras and kraits become native species of North America. Snakes are even loose in Ireland where people have been blessedly free of the things for all of their history.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Sunday, August 11, 2013
A free copy of To Save the Realm
I'm sending a free copy of TStR (signed) to the first person who comments on this thread. Hey, it might be a collector's item one day!
To Save the Realm, First 10 Lines, Chapter 4: Sitting in the Park
Brock walked down the steps of Wyvern's office, stunned, and found the nearest pub, The Red Cap. The pub sign showed a tall red mushroom with white speckles. He sat down and drank a pint. What now? A long walk to anywhere, that will do. He went northward toward the neutral light. What there was of it in the dim sky. Go now among these crowds of people with heads down. Nice buildings. Solid stone, black steel railings. Not too tall, no more than five or six stories. Like the Commerce Bank building at home. Except it's the tallest building in Mycenae. And some of these have chunks torn out by bomb shrapnel.
Something from Nothing
How did it happen? I'm currently reading Before the Beginning, a book on astronomy and cosmology by Martin Rees. Fascinating read!
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Big Wednesday
Spent the afternoon watching the film Big Wednesday, directed by John Milius. It's the story of three surfer friends (Jan-Michael Vincent, William Katt, and Gary Busey), going from 1962 through 1974. Great film!
End of the High Street?
Planning minister says turn boarded-up shops into housing. This would seem to be a bad thing for societal cohesion. People in villages and towns need to have places where they shop, talk, and see their fellow citizens in public. Also, this shows that it is impossible for local small-business people to compete with the big boxes.
Friday, August 2, 2013
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Old, But Fascinating, News
In 2007, researchers from MIT, while looking for the Loch Ness monster with an unmanned submersible, observed a common toad (bufo bufo) hopping along the bottom at a depth of 324 feet.