Shout-Out: The Tourist by Robert Dickinson

THE FUTURE HAS ALREADY HAPPENED.

It is expected to be an excursion like any other. There is nothing in the records to indicate that anything out of the ordinary will happen.

A bus will take them to the mall. They will have an hour or so to look around. Perhaps buy something, or try the food.

A minor traffic incident on the way back to the resort will provide some additional interest - but the tour rep has no reason to expect any trouble.

Until he notices that one of his party is missing.

Most disturbingly, she is a woman who, according to the records, did not go missing.
Now she is a woman whose disappearance could change the world.

With breathtaking plot twists that ricochet through time, this is the most original conspiracy thriller you will read this year.

Shout-Out: Tracer by Bob Boffard

Imagine The Bourne Identity meets Gravity and you'll get TRACER, the most exciting action thriller set in space you'll ever read.

A huge space station orbits the Earth, holding the last of humanity. It's broken, rusted, falling apart. We've wrecked our planet, and now we have to live with the consequences: a new home that's dirty, overcrowded and inescapable.

What's more, there's a madman hiding on the station. He's about to unleash chaos. And when he does, there'll be nowhere left to run.

In space, every second counts. Who said nobody could hear you scream?

Video: Michael Jackson's "Thriller"

Michael Jackson was huge in the 80s when I was a kid, but since we didn't have cable I never saw the music videos that aired on MTV.  My husband did though, and he's recently shown me some of them.  I've seen clips of "Thriller".  Indeed, the zombie dance in the middle is so famous - and copied - that I imagine most people have at least seen a version of it.  But if you've never seen the full video, I highly recommend it.  It's basically a mini horror movie, using a lot of fantastic film techniques and make-up.  According to my husband it was the most expensive music video made up to that point (1983), and the video that convinced other pop singers to create videos for their songs too.

Shout-Out: Wolves by Simon Ings

Augmented Reality uses computing power to overlay a digital imagined reality over the real world. Whether it be adverts or imagined buildings and imagined people, with Augmented Reality the world is no longer as it appears to you, it is as it is imagined by someone else.

Two friends are working at the cutting edge of this technology and when they are offered backing to take the idea and make it into the next global entertainment they realise that wolves hunt in this imagined world. And the wolves might be them.

A story about technology becomes a personal quest into a changed world and the pursuit of a secret from the past. A secret about a missing mother, a secret that could hide a murder. This is no dry analysis of how a technology might change us, it is a terrifying thriller, a picture of a dark tomorrow that is just around the corner. Ings takes the satire and mordant satirical view of J.G. Ballard and propels it into the 21st century.

Shout-Out: Gideon by Alex Gordon

When Lauren's father dies, she makes a shocking discovery. The man she knew as John Reardon was once a completely different person, with a different name. Now she's determined to find out who he really was, even though her only clues are an old photograph and the name of a town: Gideon.

But someone-or something-doesn't want her to discover the truth. A strange man is stalking her, appearing everywhere she turns, and those who try to help her end up dead. Neither a shadowy enemy nor her own fear will prevent her from solving the mystery of her father-and unlocking the secrets of her own life.

Making her way to Gideon, Lauren finds herself more confused than ever. Nothing in this small midwestern town is what it seems, including time itself. Residents start going missing, and Lauren is threatened by almost everyone she encounters. Two hundred years ago, a witch was burned at the stake, but in Gideon the past feels all too chillingly present. . . .

Shout-Out: Spark by John Twelve Hawks

THE MOST DANGEROUS ASSASSIN IS THE ONE WHO BELIEVES HE IS ALREADY DEAD.

Jacob Underwood is a contract employee of the Special Services Section, a small shadow department buried within the multinational corporation DBG, headquartered in New York City. Jacob is not a businessman . . . he is a hired assassin . . . and his job is to neutralize problems deemed unacceptable by the corporation. But Jacob is not like other employees, nor is he like other people. After a catastrophic motorcycle accident leaves him with Cotard's syndrome-an actual condition that causes those afflicted to believe they are dead-Jacob perceives himself as nothing but a "Shell," with no emotions and no tether to the concept of right and wrong.

Emily Buchanan is a bright young second-year associate for DBG, and she has disappeared without a trace. Suspecting that Emily has stolen either vast sums of money or valuable information from the company, Ms. Holquist, Jacob's handler at DBG, assigns him the task of tracking down the young woman and neutralizing her. Jacob's condition allows him to carry out assignments with ruthless, logical precision, devoid of guilt, fear, or dishonor. But as his new assignment draws him inside a labyrinthine network of dark dealings, Jacob finds himself up against something he is completely incapable of understanding.

Shifting with riveting precision from New York to London, Paris to New Delhi, Spark is a thriller that delves into the surveillance state we prognosticate today . . . and will live in tomorrow. In the hands of master storyteller John Twelve Hawks, a unique character's startling transformation comes to life, making Spark a thriller that resonates and satisfies on many levels.

Shout-Out: The Eidolon by Libby McGugan

Here's another book that's come out recently that sounds interesting.

A contemporary SF thriller. The divide between science and the human spirit is the setting for a battle for the future.

When physicist Robert Strong loses his job at the Dark Matter research lab and his relationship falls apart, he returns home to Scotland. Then the dead start appearing to him, and Robert begins to question his own sanity. Victor Amos, an enigmatic businessman, arrives and recruits Robert to sabotage CERN'S Large Hadron Collider, convincing him the next step in the collider's research will bring about disaster. Everything Robert once understood about reality, and the boundaries between life and death, is about to change forever. And the biggest change will be to Robert himself... Mixing science, philosophy and espionage, Libby McGugan's stunning debut is a thriller like no other.

Audiobook Review: The Thirteen Hallows by: Michael Scott and Colette Freedman

Read by: Kate Reading

Pros: fantastic narration, interesting interpretation of British and Christian mythology, good pacing, suitably evil bad guys

Cons: minor character and plot problems, lots of repetition

Judith Walker is aware that the other Keepers of the thirteen Hallows are being killed and her turn is coming.  So she's not too surprised when she's accosted one afternoon.  She is surprised that a young woman comes to her rescue.  

Sarah Miller's life changes forever when she helps an old lady.  Her kindness leads shady characters to her home who later threaten her life, asking for what Judith Walker gave her.  Sarah must figure out what they want and honour a dying woman's wish to pass on and protect an ancient artifact.

The narrator, Kate Reading, did a fantastic job.  Her reading is crisp with different voices for each character, including accents.  And you don't understand just how jarring curses can be until you hear a woman playing a man, swear.  

The book has good pacing, alternating between chase scenes, attacks and down time where you got to know the characters - both good and bad - as well as, eventually, more about the Hallows themselves.  I would have loved to learn more about each individual Hallow, but thought their background blended British mythology and Christian religion together in a fascinating way.  Perhaps the next book will explain more about the various holy objects and their powers.

A few things about the characters and the plot bothered me.  They weren't inconsistencies per say, but they did come accross as strange.  Sarah's actions with the sword for one, and her lack of care concerning the damage she does with it.  This is partly explained but I imagine she would still have a stronger reaction, given her character and the seriousness of her actions.

Another regarded the Dark Man.  He's been searching for the Hallows for years, slowly killing the keepers.  And yet, he plans his finale when he still has several Hallows left to acquire.  Seemed to me he should have waited a bit and secured the last ones before starting his final plans.

Given how fascinating the mythology of the book was, I was disappointed it took so long to dole out some of that information.  While the chases and attacks were interesting, if often gorey, I found the history of the Hallows a lot more compelling with regards to finishing the book.

I probably noticed this more because I listened to an audiobook rather than read the text, but the authors repeated information a lot.  It made it easier to pick up the story after a week, but it was also a bit irritating when I listened to long stretches at once to hear basic information repeated several times.

If you liked The Da Vinci Code, this is the book for you.

Lockout Movie Trailer

This was already on my list of films to see this year. Looks like quite the thrill ride. :)

* Note the release date has moved to April 13th.

Author Interview: Rod Rees

Novel: Demi-Monde: Winter

Website: www.thedemi-monde.com

Blog: thedemi-monde.blogspot.com

> What is Demi-Monde: Winter about?

The publisher’s blurb says:

‘The Demi-Monde: Winter is the first of a four book series. The eponymous Demi-Monde is the most advanced computer simulation ever devised. Created to prepare soldiers for the nightmarish reality of urban warfare, it is a virtual world locked in eternal civil war. Its thirty million digital inhabitants are ruled by duplicates of some of history’s cruellest tyrants: Reinhard Heydrich, the architect of the Holocaust; Beria, Stalin’s arch executioner; and Aleister Crowley, black magician and ‘the wickedest man in the whole world’. But something has gone badly wrong inside the Demi-Monde, and the US President’s daughter has become trapped in this terrible world. It falls to Ella Thomas to rescue her, yet once Ella has entered the Demi-Monde she finds that everything is not as it seems, that its cyber-walls are struggling to contain the evil within and that the Real World is in more danger than anyone realises.’

My blurb says:

‘It’s a rumbustious SF/Fantasy thriller that examines the duality of human existence … and has fun while it’s doing it.’

Booklist (December 15. 2011) says:

'elegantly constructed, skillfully written, and absolutely impossible to stop reading. It ends with a beauty of a cliffhanger too ...'

> Several reviews have mentioned the steampunk elements of your book. What drew you to steampunk?

I don’t think the Demi-Monde is steampunk! Sure the Demi-Monde is technologically constrained to the technology extant in the year 1870 but that’s about it. I would prefer to call it a near-future fantasy thriller; the near future of the world that created the Demi-Monde, the Real World. This is set in the year 2018 … a very neurotic and suspicious 2018.

> How long did it take you to create the virtual world you use in the book?

Months, and piles and piles of research. If you go to www.thedemi-monde.com you’ll get an idea of the background work I did. But in creating a fantasy world it’s necessary to get it right otherwise it’s impossible for the reader to suspend disbelief. For example, writing the briefing documents for the religions rife in the Demi-Monde (UnFunDaMentalism, ImPuritanism, HerEticalism, HimPerialism, RaTionalism, nuJuism and Confusionism) was a real challenge: they might just be the religions of our world stretched and distorted to breaking point but they took an age to finesse. Reductio ad absurdum and all that.

> What made you want to be a writer?

Watching the TV series ‘Jekyll’ and thinking, ‘I can write better crap than that’.

> Who is you favourite character in the Demi-Monde world and why?

I like ‘em all but I suppose my favourite has to be Vanka Maykov, the Russian conman and faux psychic. Everyone loves a rascal. Unfortunately any attempt by me to identify myself with Vanka (the best-looking man in the book) has been torpedoed by my wife Nelli who says I’m too hard-hearted to be Vanka. She thinks I’m more like Burlesque Bandstand – crook, sneak, pimp and general low-life. Great!

> If you could, would you change places with any of your characters?

Nah. One of my characters describes the Demi-Monde as "the most extreme and pernicious of dystopias". A holiday destination it ain’t.

> What was the first novel (published or unpublished) that you wrote and how long did it take to write it?

A book called ‘Dark Charismatic’ which was my re-imagining of the Jekyll and Hyde tale. It took me three months to research and six months to write. It must have had something because it got me an agent but that ‘something’ wasn’t enough to entice a publisher into taking it. Fools!

> What was the hardest scene for you to write?

The next one.

> If you still have one, what’s your day job?

I write full time (and I mean full time).

> What is your university degree in and does it help with your writing?

I’m a qualified accountant, so I’m used to horror stories.

> When and where do you write?

I write in my office (a tony word for a desk in a spare room). I start at 08:30 and I go on until … well, I’m writing this at 21:50.

> What’s the best/worst thing about writing?

The Best is writing the words ‘THE END’.

The Worst is editing. Publishing contracts should come with a health warning. Just like cigarettes there should be a sticker on them somewhere which says something like:

SIGN THIS AND THE REST OF YOUR LIFE WILL BE SPENT EDITING YOUR BOOKS

The Rees Coefficient of Editing states that for every hour you spend writing, you'll spend at least six editing.

Now I ain't moaning (I'm just so pleased that I've won the Great Prize in Life that is getting a publishing contract) but it's something every novice writer should be prepared for. You write your book (and by the time it's finished I bet it's gone thru at least four iterations: edits #1, 2, 3 & 4) and you've had your beta-readers plough thru it (it's a great book but ...) and given their two-pennyworth (which you've dutifully incorporated as edit # 5). Then your agent gives his opinion (which you listen to 'cos he/she will be selling the bloody thing) and so you do another edit (that's # 6). Then a publisher buys the thing and you think ... phew ... great ... that's it ... what am I gonna write next. That's when the publisher comes back and says something like 'great book, but wouldn't it be better if this character was a woman and you brought this chapter to the beginning and what do you think about flashbacks and could we crop it by 20,000 words and, by the way, how to you feel about a new title ...'

 

That's edits # 7, 8 & 9. And they're BIG edits, BIG time-consuming edits, edits you take MONTHS over. But you do them and then the book goes off and you think ... phew ... great ... what am I gonna write next. And that's when you get the copy edit where the publisher lets the Copy Proof editor (whose sole purpose in life is to protect the English language from philistines like you) have a go at your book and he corrects the grammar/spelling/impression you had that you were literate, covering your opus in Rain Forest destroying quantities of red ink in the process. That's edit # 10.

But it ain't over. Once this is done it goes off to be typeset, which is the process that takes your gibberish and makes it look like a book. And you've got to edit that - CAREFULLY - 'cos this is absolutely the last chance you'll have to make sure that you haven't done something stupid (and you have, betcha money on it!), so that's edit # 11.

You do that and then you think, phew ...great ... what am I gonna write next. And then your agent phones and says 'Great news, the book's sold to the Americans'. And you think 'WOW' and then you get an e-mail from New York which starts 'great book but ...'

> What is something you didn’t know about the publishing industry before you had your first book published?

How fickle it is.

> Do you have any advice for hopeful authors?

Just remember if your book doesn’t offend/infuriate/perplex at least some of your readers, you ain’t writing a book, you’re writing a brochure.

> Any tips against writer’s block?

Stop being a wuss and write!

> How do you discipline yourself to write?

The thought of starvation.

> How many rejection letters did you get for your first novel or story?

I sent ‘Dark Charismatic’ to three agents, two rejected it (one saying on the basis of three chapters that ‘he knew how it would end’ … well, as it was meant to be the first book of a trilogy, even I didn’t know how the bloody thing would end) but one accepted it (and me). The book went out to loads of publishers and they all turned it down, so then I started to write ‘The Demi-Monde’ and the rest, as they say is alternate history.

Japanese Monsters do Thriller

I love Japan! ^_^

A. J. Hartley - Author Interview

Novels: Act of Will
What Time Devours
Mask of Atreus
On the Fifth Day

Website: www.ajhartley.net

> Pitch your newest novel?

ACT OF WILL is about Will Hawthorne, a young actor/playwright in a vaguely Elizabethan world, who falls foul of the authorities and winds up taking refuge with a group of principled adventurers who are trying to identify and defeat and mysterious army of murderous horsemen. Will is a wry, cynical guy with none of the usual hero skills, a smart mouth, a deep skepticism concnerning unselfish virtue, self-sacrifice and magic. The book is his journey into meeting some of these things head on in situation which, I hope, readers will find both funny and thrilling. From what I'm hearing back, it particularly appeals to readers of Terry Prachett.

> What are your favourite three books?

Hmmm. Tricky. My favorite "books" are probably all Shakespeare plays, and I would probably want to add Philip Larkin's poetry collection The Whitsun Weddings, but I'm guessing you want novels so I'll say (somewhat arbitrarily) Neil Gaiman's NEVERWHERE, J.K. Rowling's HARRY
POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS and Kingsley Amis's LUCKY JIM. I know that's a pretty random list...

> In the books you’ve written, who is you favourite character and why? Or what character is most like you?

Hmmm. I like Deborah Miller a lot (MASK OF ATREUS) but I have to admit that Will Hawthorne (ACT OF WILL) is probably more like me. In fact I suspect, if readers were honest, he's like a lot of us... sarcastic, self-involved, cynical, even a little cowardly, but with a kind of moral compas burried inside somewhere deep down. Very deep down...

> What was the first novel (published or unpublished) that you wrote and how long did it take to write it?

My first novel was an Agatha Christie style murder mysery with literary pretensions. I started it when I was 19 and finished it in about a year. It was terrible. I revised it a few years later and made it less terrible but just as unsellable.

> If you still have one, what’s your day job? If you don’t, how long did it take before you could support yourself only on your writing?

I still have (by choice) a day job. I'm a Shakespeare professor, specifically a performance theorist and critic. I work as a theatre director and dramaturg and most of my scholarly publications are about modern performance issues concerning Renaissance drama.

> What is your university degree in?

BA, MA and Ph.D all in English literature though I'm now in a theatre dept.

> When and where do you write?

Mornings, as soon as I can get the house to myself. I need privacy and total silence, and I have a dedicated study for the purpose.

> What is something you didn’t know about the publishing industry before you had your first book published?

Lots of things, most of them depressing. I didn't know that the vast majority of books get no real marketing budget at all, the tiny number of massive names getting the bulk of the promotional resources. Not that I'm bitter.

> Do you have any advice for hopeful authors?

Never quit, but take the word of people you trust seriously.

> How many rejection letters did you get for your fist novel or story?

Too many to remember. I wrote 8 novels over 20 years before one was
published.