18 May Updates

This Week's Excerpt
Instead of a preview this week I have something different for you. For a long time I have been a fan of Russian literature. As a tribute I wrote Lacunashka some time ago but it has been languishing quietly on my computer. I think I may have published it briefly on Amazon or Smashwords but I withdrew it, probably because it is such a relentlessly dark tale. People who lived through the terror of Stalin's reign must have experienced such darkness and a bleak existence, so as a tribute to them I have placed it inside Vampire: Beneficence (Short Stories Volume III). Here is an excerpt:

Lacunashka

Copyright © 2010 by Lazlo Ferran
All Rights Reserved.

Lacuna: a blank gap or missing part.
-shka: Russian diminutive ending for male names.

For Comrade Ilya it was like any other day in the Ministry. At 9.30, after already working for two hours, they broke for coffee or a shot of vodka. Volodya, as usual, was holding forth in his loud voice, leaning back against the edge of his desk.
“Ilya! Have a shot of vodka. Just once?”
“No, Misha,” he said placing his hand over the dirty porcelain cup. “I have to work anyway.” He walked the short distance, past dirty mullioned windows to his office and started to check through the list of mail for the day.
Fourteen pieces on arrival list. Good. Now let's check yesterdays. Fifty-seven in, and now the receipts.. Fifty-six. Fifty-six Fifty-six! That's not right. That hasn't happened for years!
Ilya was proud of his system and for years now, it hadn't let him down. The 1930s hadn't been kind to Ilya Kuznetsov. Once considered a talented Clerk, one small mistake had mean that he was now just one of many thousands, and his ministry of Dudinka was in Siberia. It hadn't escaped his notice that he was not far from Comrade Stalin's gulags. Nevertheless Ilya hadn't given up and when it became apparent a large amount of mail was not reaching its destination desk, once it arrived at the reception of the Ministry, he introduced a system of receipts, to be signed and returned on arrival, and thefts had decreased to zero. Ilya stroked his neat, brown moustache with his forefinger, relishing the hunt. Okay, I will find you whoever you are.
Patiently he went through the receipts in the Tuesday slot of the rack behind his desk and checked them against the arrivals list. The one missing was for Ivan Dimatov.
Third floor, Detainment and Punishment Department.
Ilya put on his jacket, to ward against the cold in the corridors, He pulled on the gloves of leather, lined with reindeer fur that his parents-in-law had given one Christmas and headed for the stairs, his breath forming little clouds for his face to pass into as he panted, after two flights of stairs.
“Hello Vanya. Are you … busy?”
“No Comrade! What can I do for you?”
“I am missing a receipt from you for a letter yesterday. Did you receive one? It was from the Ministry of Justice in Moscow. “No Comrade Kuznetsov. If I had I most definitely would have signed the receipt!” Vanya spoke loud enough for those around to hear.
“Hmm. Of course. Sorry to have bothered you. If you find one, let me know.” “Of course! Immediately!”
So it didn't reach his desk. I know Vanya. Scare of his own shadow so even if it had something valuable inside like a pass or tokens for something, he wouldn't have taken it and hidden it. Anyway he couldn't because he would have to bribe whoever delivered it. I must find out who that was.
“Who delivered the mail to this department yesterday Vanya? Do you know?”
“No. I don't think I had any mail yesterday.”
A lot of blank faces stared back as Ilya cast his probing eye around the large office. He had no real power. It was only the usual fear that pervaded all offices.
“Tch. Alright then.” He resigned himself to a slow search, and headed for the small reception office on the 3rd floor landing. Yrgi, the bearlike guard, sodden with cheap vodka, slouched on his stool in the bay next to the postal rack. His rifle was propped against the door-frame.
“Comrade Yrgi,” said Ilya quietly, not wanting to shock the guard, who was probably asleep.
“Huh?”
“Comrade, do you know who collected the mail for the Detainment and Punishment Department yesterday?”
“Whaddaya want to know for?”
“Mail has gone missing Comrade. It is most important that I find out who delivered the mail. Think hard. Can you remember?”
“Hm. No. I don't remember. Wait! No, that was last week. I did remember Tomasov coming because he told me a joke about his wife. Haw! Haw! Very funny. Shall I tell you?”
“No Comrade. That will not be necessary. Please think one last time. It is very important. Who collected the mail yesterday?”
“Hm. No I don't know. Sorry. My memory is not what it was. The drink you know?” he said patting his vast jacket-pocket that chinked slightly against the side of the stool.
“Please may I check the rack for misplaced mail?”
“Sure boss. Go ahead!”
Ilya checked every cubbyhole for the missing envelope. Most were empty but a few still had a neat row of envelopes waiting to be collected. It wasn't there. He sighed.
“Thank you Yrgi. I will try the other floors.”
“Go ahead but you are wasting your time. Since your little revolution no mail ever goes missing.” “Even so...”
Ilya patiently climbed to the top floor, checked the mail cabinet there, and worked his way back down to the ground floor. He didn't find the missing envelope. He returned to his office.
“Uncle Ilya. This letter needs your signature.” Sasha, his nephew, stuck his hand out from behind the desk outside Ilya's office as he passed. “Where have you been?”
“Some mail has gone missing Sasha. Nothing to worry about,” he said through tight lips. Sasha was a good boy but he worried too much about his uncle. Ilya took the single sheet of type into his office, signed it and returned it to the waiting hand of his nephew.

Other News
I am working with Amit Bobrov on the final draft of his Second Edition of The Journals of Raymond Brooks. I am also near to completing a fair copy of Attack Hitler's Bunker. I also had to contact Bombardier (who bought Short Brothers - manufacturers of the Short Stirling) and Michael J Bowyer, author of The Stirling Story for high-res images of the Stirling to be used on the cover of the book. So far I have not been able to find any. If anybody knows of any, please let me know.

Elsewhere
Good Luck to Valentino Rossi tomorrow. I really hope he can win a race or two: it would be a fitting tribute for Simoncelli. I missed the Formula 1 race last week because I was at the Punch & Judy Fair in Covent Garden (see my facebook page for pictures), but from what I have heard, I didn't miss much! Bring on 2014 when we have turbo engines again. Who can forget the awesome power of the Renault turbos of the 80s producing up to 1400 bhp from 1.5 litres?

11 May Updates

Sneak Preview
This week's is a unique (to date) look at a book I have been working on on and off for two years.It has no title as yet but for the purpose of this I will call it Escher's Staircase It's not easily categorized so I think I will just give you the excerpt and let it speak for itself.

Escher's Staircase
Copyright © 2012 by Lazlo Ferran
All Rights Reserved.

"I'm not fucking going down that! You gotta be crazy!"
I pulled away from the open hatch. "Don't anybody think about pushing me either! Six hundred and eighty bloody feet! That's ... that's like as high as a bloody sky-scraper!"
"Well, if you don't do it, you will never get beyond Cadet Helmsman. Up to you matey!"quipped Shorty, lifting the glass bottle's open neck to his scowling lips. Everything about Shorty was a tattoo - gaudy, colourful and in bad taste.
"Give me that!" I shouted, swiping the old bottle from his ham fist.
"Oh-ho! Way-hey! He's gonna do it lads!" said Shorty, before a noisome belch escaped from his gut.
"Now, you know what you gotta do," said Gooch, directly into my left ear, clutching my bicep. "Drink some of that and then do exactly like I say. Like I told you before... Brace yourself against this side of the hatch, push off with your strongest leg here." He tapped the lower right corner of the hatch - behind me, with the toe of his boot. "... Take a deep breath and go for it. As long as you make it to that panel there you'll be fine. Gravity will do the rest! Loads have done it and survived!" "Yeah.... and a few have died!"
"Not for years!" He looked hurt. His pale blue eyes in that steely face that perched on his six-foot plus frame peered down at me and a look of sad affection seemed to ooze from them.
This was one tradition I had been dreading. The Leviathan Class of ore-carriers were the biggest moveable objects man had every built. Much bigger even than the super-tankers of the late 20th Century. On Earth the only place they could be at rest was floating on the oceans. Too heavy to support themselves on land, and too expensive, to keep aloft in Earth's dense atmosphere, that was the only place they could be loaded. Measuring up to two miles long, and nearly one-thousand feet from the keel to the top of the bridge - or flight deck, depending on the mode at the time, they were awesome to behold, wherever they were. That's why I enlisted in the Merchant Service. Mainly used on the iron-ore run from Io to the newly rejuvenated Earth, the three biggest were most Ensign's dream assignment. And I had made it onto one! The Abraham Lincoln was about to leave, on my first voyage to Io, and the moment I had known would come, but had dreaded since the Academy First Year, had finally arrived. We had moored about twenty miles west of the Hawaian islands, an area that was popular with Laviathan crews for its seclusion and idyllic weather.
I pulled on the lip of the bottle, and a slug of the hot rice wine spurted down my dry throat. "Jeesh! Hate Saki! Why Saki anyway?"
"Kawasaki innit matey? Japanese ship - Japanese toast! Ha! Ha! Ha!" Go on Goochy. Get 'im out there!"
"Okay MacIntyre! You can do it!"
"Thanks Gooch!" I said sarcastically.
I stared at the Holy Grail- the panel five feet or more from the rear edge of the hatch. It had black scuff marks on it where the rubber of countless heels had wiped off on its shiny surface. Like an altar, it had been maintained in exactly this condition for the whole of the Abraham Lincoln's fifteen years in service. And I would be the thirty-ninth sacrifice. My heart was pounding so loud - now I had decided to do it, that I thought it might split open my ribs. If I wasn't so young I would be worrying about a heart-attack.
Shit! Gotta do this and then the easy life of a Oresman will be mine! Easy money, even easier women, drink... I braced myself with one hand - my weaker left hand on the frame behind me, my right gripping the frame just inside the rear edge. I had rehearsed this in my mind a thousand times. I didn't want to look down but I told myself one last time, "If you fall the curvature of the hull will take you to a vertical drop and you will fall to your death on the hull far below." Panic crawled up my spine and I wanted to scream. I forced my eyes open and sought for the Holy Grail panel.
If I reach that, it will be a joy-ride! Like the biggest slide in the park! Or pool! But I never went on a slide in a pool! And what the hell is a slide in the park anyway!

Other news
I am well into the last act of Iron III but I think I need a break from it. I have now arranged all the pieces on the chess board and I will have to watch the game unfold in my head to the end before writing it down. Now all the characters are in play, and their options limited, I shouldn't have to think anymore; it should just write itself. I will probably finish editing Attack Hitler's Bunker!, which incidentally, we have been working on a cover for.

Elsewhere
The press agent for Cliff Robertson, with whom I had a brief correspondence just before his death, is working to raise funds for a biographical film (biopic) of Cliff. I must say, I was disappointed at the time that there was no tribute season of films on TV and so far I haven't seen a biopic either. It will be nice if this can be completed. If you want to contribute, for as little as $25, you can get a t-shirt with a mention on the website, and if you have a spare couple of thousand dollars you can even be named as Executive Producer on the film! You can keep updated on it by following me on twitter or facebook. Details here: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cliff-robertson-documentary

4 May Updates

Sneak Preview
This week's sneak preview is from the soon-to-be-published Attack Hitler's Bunker! and features the gorgeous Anna meeting Richard, one of the two heroes she is having affairs with.

Attack Hitler's Bunker!
Copyright © 2013 by Lazlo Ferran
All Rights Reserved

Archibald led Richard out into the corridor and to the door of the next room. He fought off the pilot's questions." But Archie, how can I plan this if I don't know ..."
At that moment he saw Anna for the first time, and was silenced. She smelled of Pears soap.
"Richard, this is Anna Styles. Anna, this is Richard Earlgood."
"Hello," she said, smiling, and holding out a well-manicured hand. The man opposite clearly appreciated of her looks. Unimpressed by this, she looked beyond his stare. He had the lived-in good looks of a square-jawed film star, but there was something coy about his gaze. 'He slouches!' she also noted to herself, scoffing. However, his smile, which broke out as soon as she spoke to him, made her want to smile back.
"Hello," Richard finally replied. Er ... pleased to meet you."
Anna's mood of confusion was momentarily lifted and she smiled, appreciatively. All three sat at a small table and Archibald outlined the situation.
"This must be difficult for you. Are you still in love with him?"
"Richard ...? Archibald protested.
"Sorry ... I always was too direct. Born in the country, you know," he said to her.
"Oh, it's quite alright. As a matter of fact, I prefer a little directness. Just lately things have got so complicated. No ... I don't think I am."
"So what do you want me to do?" he asked.
"Well, actually this may be simpler than we all imagine. I think Michael wants to help. I don't think he any more considers himself a Nazi. If it were possible to secure his release ..."
"Yes?" asked Archibald.
"... I think he would tell you everything he knows about how the mission was planned and who was involved. In return for guaranteed safety of course - for him and me. That's what he said in my second meeting with him this morning. You see, there are German spies here, who might have him killed ..."
Richard looked at Archibald who replied, "Let's start with some simple things. Richard, if you were working with this Oberleutnant Dorfmann, what would be the first thing you would want to know?"
"Well, what did they practice on? How long did they practice and how do these ejector-seats work?"
"That's three. Let's just start with one. The first one: what did they practice on? Miss Styles, if Michael is willing to give us that answer, we would consider that the first step to his rehabilitation and possible release. How does that sound?"
"I will try," she replied.

Other News
I have almost finished editing The Journals of Raymond Brooks and have completed quite a lot more of the first draft of Iron III. I have also been making some final adjustments to Attack Hitler's Bunker! ahead of another round of proof-reading and then I am on to copy-setting before publishing. I have just created a page for my biography to the right of this post.

Elsewhere
MotoGP: Valentino Rossi needs to deliver this weekend. If he doesn't questions should be asked about his position in a top team like Yamaha.

I saw a lovely little film the other day: Season of the Witch with Nicolas Cage. It's only 2 years old but must have gone straight to DVD because I had never heard of it. It's a modest plot: two crusader deserters have to transport a young witch to a monastery where a demon is waiting. Good cgi and Cage managed passably to drop the US accent. Ron Perlman has proved himself an adequate actor over the years and now he has been in 2 of my favourite medieval films: this one and Name of the Rose. Anyway I liked it so don't know why it went straight to DVD. I can't even remember posters.

27 April Updates

I am getting very close to a final draft of the WWII drama Attack Hitler's Bunker! so hopefully there will be an excerpt from that here next week. For now, however, another excerpt from Worlds Like Dust, this time an amusing one.

Worlds Like Dust
Copyright © 2012 by Lazlo Ferran
All Rights Reserved

The four Ischians made a comical sight, squeezing their huge bodies into the small Maintenance POD. With two minutes to go, Luxmi Davidos had just finished rigging the main Nitrogen and Oxygen tanks to explode when she heard a tapping sound beside her. She has just sent the last grunt back with some tools, and grabbed her laser to defend herself.
There was a small grubber tank - filled half way with liquid around a rocky island, next to her. “Oh God, I had forgotten about you. Why the hell did you have to emerge right now! Now I will have to take you too!”
She grabbed an old oily towel, hanging next to a disfunctional diesel engine, and lifted the lid of the tank. Scooping the cat sized, grub-like, wriggling creature, she wrapped it in the towel and stuffed it under her arm.
“Who knows? You may be the only life-form from Earth alive, besides us, when this is all over! Time to go!”
The cruiser hatch was shut behind her, right on the fifteen minute mark.
“Hold this!” she said, handing one of the grunts the wriggling bundle.
“What the hell is it?”
“A grubber. ‘Genetically-engineered Recycling Utility Bio-organism’ – a creature that can live in air, water, gasoline – just about anything. Used to keep pipes clear and clean. It’s a recent addition to the Station.”
“What do I do with it?”
“It’ll be okay in air for a while but we need to put it in water soon. Don’t worry, it will clean the water for us: it will clean anything.”
“Genetically engineered from what?” Dittmer asked.
“God only knows. Anyway, no time to explain now, We gotta go. Where we goin’?”
“J5, you said.”

Other News
I am still hard at work editing. But that hasn't stopped me continuing with Worlds Like Dust. I am about half way through - more than half way through in fact, because I have had to consider and plan out Act III. This point in a novel's growth is always one for much thought. It's at this balance point that you realise the potential of a story; all the possible ways it could develop, and one feels the challenge most keenly of making the best climax.

20 April Updates

Here is this week's sneak preview: it's from the forthcoming sci-fi Iron: Volume III, provisionally entitled Worlds Like Dust. As usual I make no apologies for typos.

Copyright © 2013 by Lazlo Ferran
All Rights Reserved

She heard heavy footsteps approaching. She took two grenades and pressed the sequence. Two red lights flashed at her. She waited until the counter said ‘1 second’, peered around the corner and threw them. The Ischians seemed surprised. Four of them stopped in their tracks, the rearmost already holding a wounded arm. They were all stooping to stop the top of their helmets scraping the ceiling. One of them dropped to his knees, as if praying. Then they were gone, in a mist of biomium spacesuit and fur-covered flesh.
Davidos had a momentary feeling of enuit. She shook her head, and ran past the body parts and bloody walls, towards the battle. She drew her laser and let the barrel lead her down the corridor. When she arrived, Dittmer and one other grunt were battling the last Ischian. It was kneeling in a pile of gore. Its normally grey suit was bright orange.
‘Sixteen grenades to a box – that’s twelve grenades. They can’t have used them all!’ Davidos thought. Dittmer and the grunt ignored her and pumped endless bursts of laser-fire into the suit of the alien, but the suit absorbed it all. They would be dead but for the alien having a blocked breach on his laser. ‘Probably overheated,’ Davidos thought. It heard her footsteps and heard her coming. It looked almost pitiable as she pressed the sequence and threw the last grenade. It raised its arms in surrender just before it disappeared into alien oblivion.
“What the fuck happened to the crate of grenades!” she said over the intercom.
“We were overwhelmed. There was at least twenty of them!” Dittmer retorted.
“Okay. Okay. Back to Dock 3.”
At the dock the two soldiers left guarding the hatch, were leaning against the wall. “They’re not coming out! Either they can’t. Or won’t!”
“Alright. What now Lieutenant Davidos?” asked Dittmer.

Other News
I have been very busy this week, editing a fantasy novel for another writer; The Journals of Raymond Brooks. It's the first paid editing I have done. If anybody wants my editings skills on their own novel, my rates are on the page with a link to the right. I am making good progress on Iron III and work has also started on designing the cover for my forthcoming WWII action novel, called Attack Hitler's Bunker!

12 April Updates

Sneak Preview
Here is this week's sneak preview. Well, it's not really a sneak preview, but a free excerpt from the newly reworked and puplished The Jesus Monster. It has a lot more tension now and a better twist at the end.

A hand grabbed my wrist. It was horrible tight. I looked, and it was the stranger.
'Oh no! Not again', I thought.
"You must leave! Just go … Any place!"
I pulled my arm free. "But I can't! I have a sister!"
"It doesn't matter. She probably has it already," the stranger said, seeing my fear.
"It's the bug, isn't it? But what can we do?" I asked, desperate. "We don't want to just die! And if we do, there will be nobody left!"
He looked me straight in the eye. "Kill me! You must. I don't want to live anyway. As a priest, committing murder is the worst thing I could do."
I shook my head and turned to leave.
"Wait!" he shouted. "You must do this. One of you might survive, and there will be others. Eventually two people who cannot bare to kill each other might survive! Or the virus might die, or leave!"
"No!"
"It's all in my journal! You … you must read it, son." He tapped his chest pocket with his hand. He spoke quiet, like but then there was a fire in his eyes. It looked like he was looking up to heaven. Then his hand let go and he slumped, dead.

Other News
I published the third in my series of short stories this week: Vampire: Beneficence (Short Stories III). As usual, it includes the first chapters of both Ordo Lupus I and Iron I: Too Bright the Sun for free. I had my first review of the volume yesterday. I will be starting some work as editor this week so this may slow down my pace of writing a bit.

Elsewhere - Review of The Hobbit: Part I
I know just about everybody has had their ha'penny's worth on this subject, so why not give mine? I watched it in HD on my tv so bear in mind , I would have missed the grandeur of a the large screen and better audio you get in a decent cinema.
On the whole, stepping out of my role as Tolkien Fanatic, it was good entertaimnent, although if you haven't seen Lord of the Rings Parts I, II and III, you might miss some of the encoded messages which are now the Jackson staple; Gandalf psychically communing with Galadriel with expressions of childish guilt on his face being one (bad acting Ian).
But as a Tolkien Fanatic, I was disappointed. I was fine with the length - I even enjoined the scenery and I thought they made good use of backstory to fill out the almost three hours of screen time. My problem is Mr Jackson playing fast and loose - and even in places belittling the whole vision of Tolkien.

Two cases in point. The first was the rabbit-mobile of Radagast. Now, let's face it, it is highly improbably that it would work anyway: I once worked out you would need 100,000 hamsters to pull a plough. I think you would need a least one hundred rabbits to pull even the lightest sled with a malnourished wizard on board. But having a modern concept like this in a medieval tale just makes fun of the whole thing. It mixes up history in the worst possibly revisionist way. I don't think we are being fair to youngsters showing them these sort of scenes. Some of them will believe it and those that don't will just feel insulted. It's patronising.
The second example is not so bad: its the bit where they 'toboggan' down a series of precipices inside the goblin cave on a bridge-structure which has become detached. Its the same joke he used in Lord of the Rings at the seige of Helm's deep when Legolas toboggans on a shield. It's not so belittling, just silly.

I also think it's perhaps a shame that the original simplicity and 'lightness' of the original tale is lost, but there are compensations. The tale is generally much darker here, and I think that works - sort of. I really love the characterisations of the Great Goblin (a joke missed here, though - Tolkien's was better, too) and Azog and it was nice to see Chris Lee back; in early interviews he said he probably wouldn't be involved because of the travelling.I also loved the dwarf song in Bag End and Martin Freeman is great as Bilbo.

I must say a final word about the 'three movie' debate. Yes, why three movies? The original nove is thin anyway. It is barely enough for one movie. Yes, here there is lots of backstory added that had to be left out of Lord of the Rings. But stil we have no Tom Bombadil and would have fitted in here just fine. My view is that perhaps two movies would have been the best format. Greed possibly took over here and I think a trick was missed. The money for the third movie could have been used to make an episode from The Silmarillion - perhaps The Children of Hurin, which is already a separate book. Yes, this would have been a big risk, but even if it had lost money, this would be more than compensated for by the other two. And if it had worked, even after only a few years, think of the possibilities! Warner Bros, MGM and New Line Cinemas would have had a franchise that could last forty years!

6 April Updates

Here is this week's sneak preview - a short story provionally entitled Vampires, to be published as the first story in the new Short Stories Volume III along with The Jesus Monster. The punctuation may seem a little strange without the paragraphs before this excerpt but it is correct.

Vampires

Copyright © 2013 by Lazlo Ferran
All Rights Reserved

From an original idea by Luxmi Kiran

On a warm evening at the end of the 2010 summer, I was stalking the Vicar of St James Church in Clerkenwell. I am what is commonly called a vampire, d’you see ...?
“Let me get one thing straight, though. We have been around forever. Homo Sapiens wouldn’t be Home Sapiens without us. We are the more evolved manifestation of the species. I know all this because I was once a writer, and have spent many lifetimes researching the subject. I have even visited the far-past … but that is another story …
“I was lurking in the shadows beneath the trees in Clerkenwell Close at about 10 pm when the present Vicar stepped out of the Church, and locked the doors. It was a fine evening, inky black in the shadows, cool, midnight blue in the sky apart from an exquisite halo around the full moon. The Vicar, quite understandably, stood there for a few moments, enjoying the sounds and smells of a summer evening. I too listened to a moment to the whispering of the trees in the gentle waft of air that flickered around my face. I cannot smell earthly smells as well as the Vicar but the resinous smell of the pine behind me was divine.
“The tall, elegant man in a dark suit at the top of the stone steps, descended and walked towards me. I stepped out of the shadows.
‘You! I … I wasn’t expecting you …’ he exclaimed, stopped in his tracks.
‘I wanted to talk to you. Let’s go somewhere quiet.’
‘Yes. It’s not safe here. We can sit in my car.’
‘You have a car? Hm! How times change!’
‘I have been told you are warming to our idea?’ I asked cautiously, once he had closed the door of his gleaming white car.
‘Yes. I have thought about it a lot. I would need something from you, though … for it to work, in my view.’
‘What is that?’
‘A large supply …of manna. Can you get it? If you can … regularly … enough for the Church’s use, I would be on-board.’
“I smiled at the nautical term. I delight in such linguistic niceties. ‘Perhaps. Perhaps, yes! When would you want the first … delivery?’
‘Before Sunday? Early Sunday morning would be best. Fresh!’
‘Very well. Sunday it is.’ I noticed a photograph of an attractive, natural red-haired girl stuck to the dashboard. ‘Yours?’ He nodded.
‘Sad’ I thought.

Other Updates
As mentioned I am finally publishing The Jesus Monster for sale as part of Short Stories Volume III. I will also include the first chapters of Ordo Lupus and the Temple Gate, and Too Bright the Sun, for free for those that want to try them. The Jesus Monster will be slightly edited from the original - first published live on Twitter as I wrote, in April 2011 (I think). I will be incorporating some changes based on feedback from readers. Pubishing live on Twitter as you write is fun, but it does tend to make the story more linear than one would like.

Elsewhere
The MotoGp season is here at last! I can't wait for the race tomorrow. I have been watching every practice. I really hope that Valentino Rossi can deliver; win at least one race. It would be such a shame for a career such as his to be curtailed by the sad death of his friend Simoncelli, which I am sure must have affected him. Besides, there is still the all-time record of wins by Agostini to chase. His is probably past his best now, but only Rossi has a chance of doing this.

Cyborg II
I also saw Cyborg II on TV. Not a great film although better than I expected for a cheap sequel. As I did expect, Jack Palance completely stole the picture. And you could only see his mouth! In negative! That's real acting for you. Angelina Jolie was okay and looked very young. Still had amazing lips. She also looked suprisingly alluring - before her enhancement. Makes you wonder why she did it ...