March 2014 archive

Lambs

Yes, the ewes lambed and now the babies have all been brought in and the stuff done for them that happens at that time of the year. Rubber rings on the tails, and vaccinations. It wasn’t well received – it never is – but better that than flystrike or tetanus. So they’re back out in …

Continue reading

Story Appeared

It’s been a year for story sales and appearances to date. The other week I got two ‘author copies’ of a very well presented and attractive hardcover. These are of an anthology from Guideposts in the USA – Best Angel Stories of 2014, and contain my story, A Still Small Voice. (I note that they …

Continue reading

CASINO INFERNALE by Simon Green.

Hardcover, ROC, June 2013. Also a Christmas present and received with cries of joy. I like much of what this author produces, (he lost me partway through his Deathstalker series) and while I don’t like the Drood series (of which this is the 7th ) quite as much as other series like the Nightside, Haven, …

Continue reading

Public Speaking and Panic

After an email recently it occurred to me just how lucky I am. I’m one of the Guests of Honour at Conclave 2, the National SF Convention in Auckland over Anzac weekend. And as such I’ll be doing a seminar or two, the odd talk, and I could be grabbed for a panel if someone’s …

Continue reading

How Dry It Is.

Looking at the TV news on the recent floods in Christchurch I’m very grateful that we don’t flood up here. We do get ferocious gales however so I suppose it’s always something. And currently the last three months have been too dry as well. I guess with a farmer the weather is rarely perfect. However …

Continue reading

MODESTY BLAISE-The Green-Eyed Monster, by Peter O’Donnell, (art by Enric Romero.)

large-size soft cover, Titan Books, September 2005. The author produced only 13 volumes of the Modesty Blaise full-length books and short stories collections that weren’t comic strip, I loved all of them, (see the entry – Modesty Blaise in my Have You Overlooked – ? section. So I finally decided to buy one of the …

Continue reading

More Articles out

In addition to stories, in case no one has guessed, I also write articles for a number of venues. Last couple of weeks there’s been a spate of them appearing. From Freelance Writers has come, ABUSING HISTORY, FACTS AND COMMONSENSE. The SPCA quarterly, Animals’ Voice published, BEWARE OF HEAT, and PROPERTY OF A YELLOWHAMMER, while …

Continue reading

HAVE YOU OVERLOOKED – Simon Hawke?

Simon Hawke (born September 30, 1951) is a USA author of mainly SF/F novels. He was born Nicholas Valentin Yermakov, but began writing as Simon Hawke in 1984 and later changed his legal name to Hawke. He has also written near future adventure novels under the penname “J. D. Masters” and a series of humorous …

Continue reading

If Aliens Arrive –

Over the past couple of days I’ve been re-reading my Garfield books and it occurred to me to wonder, if aliens arrived on earth and read those, what are they going to think of them? (why do cat lovers read Garfield? Because Jim Davis knows a thing or two about cats, and it also reminds …

Continue reading

How Dry It Is.

And it certainly does seem to be less rainy than usual. I had my suspicions that this could be so coming into January and so far they’re being confirmed. Unusually we seem to be getting not only less less rain than usual but also less than the nearest larger town 20K away, which has had …

Continue reading