Two Reviews by my Peers

Review from Amazon

Two authors have reviewed Bad Dog, which is a great compliment. Neither of them were sent complimentary copies, which means they bought it on their own dime, and neither did I ask them to write me a blurb to promote my novel.

The review above is from Blaine Pardoe, who has written some of the core canon novels for the BattleTech universe, and is currently writing the Land & Sea SF series that runs to eight novels covering the invasion of Earth's ocean by underwater aliens.

The review below is from Tim Taylor who has written a whole bunch of great Mil-SF books.

Tim Taylor

Excellently handled, this novel of near(ish) future mech combat starts off as a gritty military sf tale with plenty of realism and dark humor. It carries that through to the end too, but also slices it through with something completely different: the holographic multiverse and a day that won't let the main character complete. I didn't know how this was going to finish until the last pages. Recommended for fans of Cole & Anspach's Galaxy's Edge and the Four Horsemen Universe. 

Consider this post proof of life, as Real Life (TM) has diverted me from blogging. I'm working on my next post reviewing the books I've read this year which I'll publish over the Christmas period. 

That's all for now. Catch you all on the bounce.

Contact: Sagan Addresses Fermi

Enrico Fermi  asked, why haven't we seen signs of alien civilizations at a conference in the summer of 1950. This led to the so called, The Fermi paradox, which really isn't a’ a paradox in the traditional sense of the word.

In Contact, Jodie Foster plays Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway who Carl Sagan based on the real life astronomer Dr. Jill Tarter, gives one answer: we're not ready yet.

SF as a Proper Name

 

This video discusses Proper Names by John Searle. My reason for posting this is to ask the question should SF or science fiction be considered a proper name?

Searle's Theory

1. Names can be a single word, or a cluster of words, that define the name

2. When descriptive names no longer describe the original thing they're still valid

3. Names don't have to be statements, or necessarily true; they're contingent facts

4. Names have a unique and plausible use within language

5. Names can describe non-existent objects or persons

6. Objects or persons can have more than one name and be the same object or person

TL;DW:  Or in this case, does the name science fiction make science fiction, science fiction?

The Games Behind Your Government's Next War

The YouTube channel People Make Games just released this piece presented by Quinn called, The Games Behind Your Government's Next War. I'm sharing because it is both entertaining, and educational.

My opinion, for what it's worth, know what you can control, and know what you can't.

It's fine to have ideals, hold oneself to a moral standard, or examine the ethics of what we do, but without an understanding of human nature, the evolutionary pressures that drive our behaviours. Arguably, everything we do is determined by a combination nature and nurture.

So, my take away... a renewal of enthusiasm to work on my wargame.

Mil-SF with Mecha!

Some recent acquisitions that I acquired. The Partlow books are highly recommended as being for being so very moreish. The stories grip you by the throat and won't let go.

Splashdown is the first novel for the Land & Sea series, which is a new mecha based tabletop wargame coming soon. More info here, miniatures and more are coming too.

Pardoe starts the story very much in the style of Tom Clancy. Then about halfway into the first book he takes the story up to the next level, making you feel the hurt and pain that the characters are going through.

Book three, chapter twenty-eight really moved me. I'll say no more. I will leave reviews when I have time on Amazon and Goodreads. Again, recommended.

Spammers Gonna Spam

It seems my blog has become a popular site to spam. God only knows why, I'm hardly a high profile site. Of course I've always had some spam, along with spam of course, but in recent weeks there has been more than usual.

Must be spammer time on the internet. Cue for a ditty...

Spam time for Hackers everywhere

Spamming links makes them happy and gay

They're spamming to a faster pace

Look out, here come the spammer race

Or it's just spammer time! Do the dance.

Anyway, the point of this post is to report that I not only found the spammers that got through, who I then reported to Google for spamming –because service brings citizenship – but I also found a whole lot of posts marked as spam in a spam folder that I didn't know I had.

I should add, Google changes things around, and I knew I could no longer see a tag for spam and wondered where it had gone, but I couldn't be arsed to search for it. 

What can I say? 

Life's too short to be chasing irritating as fuck nonsense when I can be doing other stuff. Also, I've allowed all the non spam through, just because. Be rude not to..

To add some value to this infodump.

I've started a new draft of Two Moons (the next Gate Walker story). That's it. Catch you on the bounce.

Dark Places

Okay, I have an old scenario of mine, Body & Soul, featured in Dark Places published by John Curry.

You can get your copy from Amazon. 

What can I say, go buy a copy.

Who The Hell Is Lovecraft?

Moid does a great job of discussing and explaining Lovecraft. The best summary of Lovecraft I've ever encountered.

Second Order Consequences

The title 'Generative A.I - We Aren’t Ready' just about sums up the possible problems with AI generated work. The possibility that it will make the internet a thing full of trivia and or affidavits for stuff is no big stretch given what we've seen so far, just with the volume turned up to eleven.

Oh well, if something is too good to be true it probably is.

Still, grist for the mill, and in my case why AI is not the thing we imagine it will be in my Gate Walker setting, where it's very much constrained by law from widespread use.

No Excuses, Just Busy

The title says it all. So, no excuse needed.

You can see all the stuff I've been doing on my other blog.

I've also been helping a friend edit their first novel. And I've been slowly editing 'The Bureau' going through and deleting filter words. So busy.

Doctor Who 60th anniversary

We have just passed the 60th anniversary of Dr Who. I found this upload by @Wearerofthecheese, which uses the 'Soon I'll be 60 years old' song. It made me cry so, you can probably label me a fan of Dr. Who. I'll own it.

I have a deep fondness for this show that started when I was a child, and have many happy memories of watching it on TV. It's hard to describe the impact of Dr Who and or the Daleks when it first appeared on TV.

So, when people dump on the show I tend to bristle.

Edited highlights. Link to full comments.

So. I’ve been watching Doctor Who lately…

And despite its popularity and acclaim. The writing is kind of atrocious?

The show is constantly changing its own established rules.

The Doctor can’t change fixed points in time until he can.

He can’t visit a point in time twice until he can.

The level of technobabble is off the fucking charts.

Speaking of the doctor talking. God does he fucking love to talk and the bad guys just let him do it.

Speaking of the villains. The show clearly wants us to take them seriously. But also makes them really silly at the same time.

The Doctor himself is such an uninteresting protagonist.

Not saying the show is not creative.

What do you guys think?

My Reply

Arguably, one can make a case that a show with time travel, and the nature of the Doctor (an entity that can feel time), can remake the rules just because every-time he gets out of the TARDIS he's in a new time-line.

Some time-lines have fixed points, some do not. Some you can visit the same point twice, or arguably the second time you visit is not actually the same place, because it's a different time-line.

As for the Doctor's non-stop talking, words have power. It's the equivalent of knowing the secret name trope in stories with magic.

As for the scariness of any monster, the point is that Doctor Who shows us that overcoming fear is the way you beat monsters.

The show is all metaphors.

I got a lot of positive feedback for the post, so again sharing just because I can, and because I like Dr Who.

Here's to the New Year

Resolutions, I've had a few, cues song, but nowadays it's more like guidelines for goals I'd like to achieve, because hope ever springs eternal.

I have one goal. Bring one novel to market. It's written, but needs a damn good thrashing – I mean a solid copy/developmental edit – to be ready.

That's it. My only goal.

Oh, and read a few more books. Go shoot some arrows. Paint some miniatures. The usual suspects. The things I know I can do, and keep doing because they're fun things I enjoy doing.

So, Happy New Year.