realthog | Entries tagged with cone zero

The ebook of my Qinmeartha and the Girl-Child LoChi is now available from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk, and jolly pleased I am about this!

The e-edition is incredibly cheap -- I'm cutting me own throat even telling yer about it, I am -- so hurry along and buy, BUY, BUY!!!

(If you would be interested in reviewing the book, please lemme know either in a comment or, if you have my e-address, by email.)

In other ebook news, PS Publishing is planning (no date as yet) to issue an e-edition of the novella of mine they published in 2008, The City in These Pages; the "value added" bonus feature is, I think, going to be my novelette "Always More Than You Know", which first appeared in the same year in Des Lewis's anthology Cone Zero.

There are also moves afoot to create ebook versions of my nonfiction books Discarded Science, Corrupted Science and Bogus Science. Exactly how this will be effected is not yet certain -- by the books' original publisher (AAPPL) either solo or in some sort of collaboration. I should know a bit more after the London International Book Fair.

Hm. It seems that I'm finally extracting a digital . . .

I discovered over the weekend that my novella The City in These Pages has made it to the British Fantasy Award longlist. There are 18 others on the longlist in this category so I'm not getting too excited at the moment; I am, nevertheless, extremely chuffed . . . and Pam's eyes are getting further exercise in rolling.

Numerous pals have likewise made it to the award's longlists; for fear of offending by omission (or could this be just stark laziness on my part?) I'll not recite all the names, although I should definitely mention that D.F. Lewis's Nemonymous 8: Cone Zero, which contains my story "Always More Than You Know", is there in the anthology section -- yay! -- while a couple of its stories are likewise recognized, including

neilhudson's excellent "The Point of Oswald Masters". (The other, by Kek-W, is every bit as excellent, but I don't think he's on LJ.)

Elsewhere in life, I (yet again!) read extremely late last night (must get round to doing another bukes roundup) so, so far this morning, everything's a bit . . . tentative. Perhaps a vigorous twenty minutes on the elliptical will clear away the cobwebs, and I will have side two of Bread Love & Dreams's The Strange Tale of Captain Shannon and the Hunchback from Ghiza to keep me company as I gasp and sweat (side one was yesterday's treat). Ever since I concluded, in perhaps mid-February or so, that I'd recovered sufficiently from the scissors-and-paste work of the fall to start getting serious about exercise, I've been rampaging through stacks of records/CDs in my collection that ordinarily I don't play often enough, plus some old favourites. I was thinking of perhaps a rafter-raising Cherubini Week sometime soon, because I've been discovering lately that he did more, much more than the D-minor Missa Solemnis and Requiem #2. A bit of Yer Klassical might raise the ton in the exercise room . . .

Current Music: Zazie - Totem

D.F. Lewis has just now released the "denemonizations" of the stories in his anthology Cone Zero (Nemonymous 8), and here they are:

"The Fathomless World" by Colleen Anderson
"The Point of Oswald Masters" by Neil James Hudson
"Cone Zero" (page 23) by Sean Parker
"Cone Zero" (page 33) by Kek-W
"Cone Zero, Sphere Zero" by David M. Fitzpatrick
"An Oddly Quiet Street" by Scott Tullis
"Always More Than You Know" by John Grant
"Cone Zero" (page 129) by Grant Wamack
"Going Back For What Got Left Behind" by Eric Schaller
"Cone Zero" (page 147) by Stephen Bacon
"The Cone Zero Ultimatum" by Bob Lock
"Angel Zero" by Dominy Clements
"How To Kill An Hour" by A.J. Kirby
"To Let" by Jeff Holland

I can now reveal some of the reviews my own humble story in the anthology has been getting:

Saying any more about this one would be to give to much away, but it’s another story which bridges the SF/horror genres, written in the style of a hard-boiled detective thriller. As well as technical knowledge of film history, there’s a nod to Raymond Chandler with a description of a house “about the size of the Capitol but with a few extra domes”. Likeable and highly readable, this one’s a real page-turner. (Calenture, The Workshop of Filthy Creation)

"Always More Than You Know" . . . has a little bit of everything: humor, strong characterization, a solid sci-fi concept, and touches of horror. (Charles A. Tan, Bibliophile Stalker)

"Always More Than You Know" is narrated by a Hollywood stuntman who bears a striking resemblance to the actor for whom he stands in. Though set in a subtly different sideways/future world, the story is relatively mundane for most of its length; only towards the end does reality start to slip, and the author offers a clear explanation for why this might be so. It's a fascinating idea to chew over; and the run-up to it is also highly engaging. (David Hebblethwaite, Serendipity)

"Always More Than You Know" is a captivating story . . . extraordinary storytelling ability. (Mario Guslandi, Horror World)

Identity and the dream that is the Hollywood Dream are up for grabs in 'Always More Than You Know' when a stunt man tries to find out just who the star he doubles for actually is. This is a corker; I loved it. (Terry Grimwood, The Future Fire)

Current Music: Jennifer Warnes - Live at The Bottom Line, 1977

Three fairly pleasing reviews have arrived in the past 24 hours or less, covering three very different pieces of work. I'm beginning to wish things came in fives rather than threes. Sevens or nines would be good, too. Elevens even better . . .

Anyway:

Dave, on Dave Does the Blog, has largely complimentary things to say about Corrupted Science, although he feels -- and I think this is a very fair comment -- I should have made it into three or fours books rather than just one. (Let's hope someone responds by buying him Discarded Science and an advance order of Bogus Science!)

. . . it makes for some interesting contrasts. Some anti-science True Believers will be most tickled by the first few chapters, where we see scientist successfully (for a time) getting away with faked or delusional results, and the not-infrequent resistance of the scientific community to turn on them when the perpetrators are important or have powerful supporters. Those same gleeful readers will in turn pitch a fit when it comes to Grant’s resounding dismissal of Creationism/Intelligent Design and lambasting of the Dubya years when science was repeated distorted or disregarded to deny global warming, condemn abortion, and support abstinence education, along with other business- and/or conservative-friendly results.

Meanwhile, over on The Workshop of Filthy Creation Calenture is continuing the serialized review of D.F. Lewis's anthology Nemonymous 8: Cone Zero, in which I have a story. Because of the rules of the Nemonymous game, I can't tell you which story is mine, but I can say that Calenture has given it an exceptionally friendly review!

Talking of Nemonymous's required temporary anonymity, in the case of Cone Zero this anonymity is coming to an end in just a few days' time, on March 4, when Des Lewis reveals to a pantingly anticipatory world who the author is for each of the anthology's stories. That means you still have a few days to enter the big-bux Identify the Cone Zero Authors Contest. Writing about the contest entries to date, Des says: "The best so far is 4 guesses. Even a lottery-type guess could bag the winnings!" So why not try your chances? I think part of the prize is eternal fame and glory, although I could be wrong on this.

The third "review" came to me via the Project Aon site. Project Aon is the major mouthpiece for the fans of Joe Dever's Lone Wolf multiple-choice adventure gamebooks, which sold about a billion copies back in the days of yore. I was lucky enough to be commissioned to write the dozen novels (strictly, eleven novels and one story collection) that went alongside Joe's gamebooks; although I'd published I think a couple of novels (and a bucketload of nonfiction books) before then, I still regard the writing of The Legends of Lone Wolf as somehow my apprenticeship, and with great fondness.

Whatever, this isn't so much a review as a query, containing a bunch of kind stuff, that came out of the blue to Project Aon, whose Jonathan Blake was kind enough to forward it on:

I read a book when I was a teen that I seem to have misplaced or lost in the house somewhere . . . I got it at a used book store for like $1. But it was one of the most incredible books I've read. I think it was Sword of the Sun, and I can't find any information about this book ANYWHERE!

What a fine and excellent critic their correspondent is!

Current Music: Leonard Cohen: Live at Beacon Theatre, NYC, the other day

Des (D.F.) Lewis has put online here a list of the reviews so far of his anthology/magazine Nemonymous 8: Cone Zero -- which book came out a few months ago and contains a contribution from MOI that I'm not allowed to identify because them's the rules of the compilation. The list makes very good reading with which to while away the time until midnight . . .

Current Music: the sound beyond silence that is snow falling

The online magazine dedicated to reviewing short fiction, The Fix, has posted a review by Janice Clark of D.F. Lewis's anthology/magazine instalment Nemonymous 8: Cone Zero, in which I'm lucky enough to have a story (alongside some very distinguished company, I might add).

Unfortunately, it's not a review out of which can easily be plucked a snappy few sentences of rave. Instead, it goes through the book story by story, with each being given a couple of paras or sometimes more; the overall message is very, very favourable. Go see for yourself!

Oh, and, um, *unconvincing blush*, my own contribution to the book gets a thumb's up.

Current Music: The Lost Trailers - Holler Back

D.F. Lewis's anthology Cone Zero, in which I have a story, has been reviewed by David Hebblethwaite (

thisplacehere) over on the Serendipity site. His conclusion:

What difference does it make not knowing who wrote which of these stories? Speaking personally, I'm not sure, because I'm unfamiliar with the work of all the listed authors (bar one) anyway. However, the stories in the book are what really count, and... Well, I'm usually wary of saying things like this, but I expect to see Cone Zero on the lists of this year's best anthologies. It will richly deserve any such place.

Current Music: Connie Kaldor: Moonlight Grocery

And here's the cover for Des Lewis's imminently forthcoming (July) anthology Cone Zero, otherwise known as Nemonymous 8 -- it being the eighth in Des's highly distinguished Nemonymous series. It's also the first to have a story of mine, which may or may not be a good sign.

As a reminder, the Nemonymous principle is that, although there's a random-order list of their names on the back, the authors of individual stories aren't identified in the book, so that the work is left to speak for itself sans reader preconceptions based on the author's name and/or repute. The listing of stories-with-authors for Nemonymous 8 will be given in Nemonymous 9 and, around the time of publication of the latter, in various places online.

Current Music: Mark Knopfler - Kill to Get Crimson

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