#BookADayUK; A Reader Event For October. Day 19

For today, in the Books Are My Bag.com promotion of independent bookshops, our idea is, 'Made me cry in public'. I've read hundreds of books that have brought me to tears: I don't mind admitting that I am moved by the written word, when it is well presented and reveals a depth of humanity that illustrates emotion rather than sentiment.

It's difficult to choose just one book to represent the experience of crying whilst reading in public, so I'll go for the most recent I can recall. Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things was full of joy, humour, different cultural references, and, of course, sorrow. It made me cry. So, there you have it.

As writers of fiction, we all hope to expose our readers to the full spectrum of emotion. I've been told by readers that my own work does that. It's always good to know when you've succeeded in your endeavours. So, if you do read, please spend a few moments to review the book afterwards. You'll help the author, by adding to the reviews held, and you'll help fellow readers to make a selection from the many thousands of books published each year.

Related articles

• #BookADayUK; A Reader Event For October. Day 7
• News: Books Are My Bag 2014
• October is #BookADayUK - Enjoy!
• My Favourite Bookshop

#BookADayUK; A Reader Event For October. Day 18

The theme for today is, 'Made me laugh in public'. And, although this is true of many of the books I've read (Tom Sharpe's novels come to mind), the one that stands out for me is Seers by Karen Wolfe. A comic tale of a community existing within a normal social stratum but with the advantage of telepathy and other magical skills, it uses humour to examine certain human traits. Entertaining and full of earthy humour, it's a book I thoroughly enjoyed at the time. If you haven't read it, give it a go. You can find a link here, by clicking these words.

Don't forget to use the #tag, #bookadayUK if you're going to share this post by Twitter, will you?

Related articles

• October is #BookADayUK - Enjoy!
• #BookADayUK; A Reader Event For October.
• News: Books Are My Bag 2014

#BookADayUK; A Reader Event For October.

Books Are My Bag.com are running a campaign to celebrate bookshops. What author could resist

getting involved, in whatever way he might? The event is a collaboration between publishers, bookshops and authors and is the biggest ever promotion for bookshops. All readers love bookshops, of course, but do they promote their local store, assuming they have one? Well, this is your chance to do just that.

The idea behind this campaign is to keep those precious havens of learning, entertainment and fun on the go. If we, the readers and writers, don’t do something to keep these stalwarts of literature afloat, who else will?

So, reader or writer, get into town and take a picture of yourself outside your favourite book buying place on 11^th October, and then post it to Twitter, using the #bookadayuk. And follow @booksaremybag.

For a little more fun, you can always get involved with the suggested events for the whole month. I intend to. See the picture above for details.

Today, we nominate a book to curl up in front of the fire with. The idea is you give the title and author and attach the #bookadayuk with a tweet to your friends. You can use other social networks as well. This way, we’ll get loads more people interested in books and reading. Game?

So, a book to curl up with in front of the fire? I’ll avoid the obvious temptation to promote my own work; hardly in the spirit of the event.

Curl up in front of the fire with Silver Bay by Jojo Moyes, a tale of love, loss and betrayal. #bookadayuk

Related articles

• October is #BookADayUK - Enjoy!
• Join Us - Do You Own A Bookshop?
• #bookaday 2014: week 1
• #Bookaday, volume the third

The Proof of the Pudding...

For months, I’ve been keeping daily records of my time usage, entering the start and stop times of each task as I undertake it.  At the end of each month, I add up the times for each type of work and produce a pie chart showing the percentages spent on each. It’s been a singularly informative and productive process.

For July through September, I failed to do this for all sorts of reasons (read ‘excuses’). The result?

Well, I’ve done a lot less actual writing. I’ve probably spent a great deal more time on social networks and other ancillary stuff and a number of domestic and personal issues have eaten up my time. But I come back to the bottom line: I’m a writer, and I’ve done a lot less writing during the period I’ve neglected my time record. So, from October, I will reinstate it.

Why am I telling you this? Most writers suffer from the plague of procrastination. We find all sorts of reasons why we shouldn’t be writing, some of them actually legitimate. Most of the things that stop us writing, however, are inessential. It’s an oddity of the craft that many of us do this, even though most of us actually enjoy the creative process of writing.

And the reason we avoid spending time in creating written works? It’s tiring, demanding, hard. And most of us are lazy. Yes, I hear you: ‘Speak for yourself!’, but I’m addressing those writers who allow procrastination to rule their lives.

Have a real, honest, look at what you spend your time doing and then ask yourself: ‘What do I want to do? What’s most important to me?’ If it isn’t writing, then you might just be in the wrong job.

Related articles

• Pre-Defined Procrastination
• #justimagine Author Stuart Aken on Fusion, alien gastronomy and other delights
• 7 Ways To Stop Procrastinating Right After This
• Zemanta Power User - Stuart Aken

Coming Closer, the New Book in the Series!

A copy of my publisher's latest enewspaper, with some more news about Partings, and other things of interest. 

Enjoy

Congratulations to our Short SF Competition cash winners, Stuart Aken’s 2nd is here and exciting Kickstarter news!

This week we are celebrating the closing of the Fantastic Books Short Science Fiction Competition 2014. The cash winners have been notified and the editorial process has begun!

After many months, our judges have finally finished battling with the longlist and have awarded the following people the 5 cash prizes;

First prize: Dying Star by Marko Susimetsa
Second Prize: Steampunk Striker by Pierre Le Gue
Third prize: If We Start Killing by Ulla Susimetsa
Fourth Prize: Three Second War by Darren Grey
Fifth Prize: The Moon a Balloon by Rose Thurlbeck

The judging is done completely anonymously and it came as a very nice surprise to see no less than 4 Fantastic Elite Fiction authors in the top 5!

Our heartiest congratulations to everyone who made it to the longlist and we really must stress how impressed we were with the high quality of all the entries. It was a very hard job to decide who was in the anthology and who didn’t make it. Well done to everyone who entered, you are all Fantastic.

We have now opened our next competition. It is a horror story competition asking for stories of EXACTLY 666 words. It is a tough challenge but after seeing the quality of the entries for our competitions over the last two years, we know you can do it. We look forward to you scaring the pants off us!

Now, to other news. Stuart Aken has released the second novel in his ‘A Seared Sky‘ series. Partings continues from where Joinings left off and has a shiny new cover to ensure the final trilogy looks amazing. Our cover designer Heather Murphy has done a wonderful job integrating Stuart’s hand drawn maps into the cover and we couldn’t be more pleased.

Stuart’s books are available from ourFantastic Bookstore and also on Amazon.

And now to our next exciting project. Although lots of our own Kickstarter gifts are still to be sent out (the boxed sets are in production, the special edition boxed sets won’t begin production until October and the audio books will be ready by December at the earliest), there are still lots of folks who would love to see another Fantastic Books Kickstarter based in the universe of Elite: Dangerous.

Thanks to our friend Anthony Olver, who runs the Elite Archives, we are very proud to announce that a brand new Kickstarter will be launching on the 20th September to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original Elite computer game!

The Elite Archives Kickstarter will use your pledges to fund the creation of a beautiful hardback book detailing the 30 year journey this game has taken including interviews, artwork, game tips and tricks, reviews, archive pictures and lots more. Anthony’s passion for the game shines through in everything he does and he has decided that the world needs to know about this amazing game and share his collection that he has painstakingly built up over the years.

This will be the first ever book detailing the history, lore, releases and more of this seminal space trading computer game. As massive fans ourselves, we felt very privileged to be approached by Anthony to publish this book and we are prepared to throw everything we have at making this Kickstarter a success. With us on board as publisher the book will benefit from professional editing, proofing, typesetting and cover design as well as joining the other 5 official Elite titles in our bookstore and on Amazon and other retailers.

The project goes live on the 20th September and will run for only 48 days. With the help of the Elite Community, Science Fiction fans, Gamers and Collectors alike we hope to push this project over the line quickly and have already formulated some great ideas for stretch goals. And for those of you who still remember our own Kickstarter project, Commander Dan has promised to make an appearance on video too!

So when the project goes live in two days time, look out for ‘The Elite Archives Book: A 30 Year History of Elite’ on Kickstarter and make sure you spread the word by liking and sharing all our posts about it. Thanks!

By working together on projects that people are genuinely passionate about we can create anything. Just imagine.

Come join the family, you’re welcome!

Just imagine,

The Fantastic Books Team

Related articles

• After FantastiCon 2014, What Next?
• Elite:Dangerous Tales from the Frontier by 15 authors

Apologies for Absence, And a 5 Star Review!

Regular readers will be aware I've been a bit spasmodic with my posts recently. There are reasons.
Mostly domestic.
My wife's beloved sister died recently. I'm undergoing some minor, but disruptive, medical treatment, my daughter has returned from a lengthy spell of adventure overseas and is now seeking work here, our house is up for sale and attracting viewers, my brother is scheduled for heart surgery, and I'm attempting to end a 10 year spell of relative physical inactivity by making myself fit again (amazing how you discover muscles you never knew were there!).

So, things have been a little disconnected here for a while and will probably remain so for a while longer! Nevertheless, I've kept up with many of the things that keep contact with the wider world, and even done a bit of writing. For the future, I shall attempt to make my posts here a little more regular once more.

In the meantime, here's a 5 Star review of 'Joinings', that I came across by accident whilst searching on Amazon. I thought I'd share it because it's from a complete stranger who has clearly enjoyed the work.

5 stars

ONE OF THE BEST FANTASY NOVELS IN A LONG TIME!, April 20, 2014

By 

Online Book Reviews "A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies... The man who never reads lives only one | George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons"

This review is from: A Seared Sky - Joinings (Paperback)

Joinings by Stuart Aken is the opening book in the projected A Seared Sky trilogy. This science fiction, romance, action and fantasy-adventure novel of epic proportions spanning over 800 pages will delight lovers of the genres as this is one in which they can afford to really bury their heads in. It is also a testimony of the creativity of this British author who through this book loudly proclaimed that he has much to write and share. The beautiful prose, delectable style of writing and the sharpness of the story is enough to keep one absorbed to the last page.

But what really is inside this tome of a novel? To put it simply, it is the story of Tumalind and her betrothed, Okkyntalah, and the precarious situation in which Tumalind lands when she is deceitfully chosen as a Virgin Gift instead of another with important connections. In a world ravaged by superstitious beliefs, fanaticism and hierarchal corruption of the highest order, nothing ever really stands the test of the ordinary, and nothing is what it seems. Dagla Kaz is no ordinary leader either. As the high priest, he is feared and adored, and he is determined to exchange the virgin gifts before the scorched skies returned to normal.

Stuart Aken crafted an extraordinary story populated by extraordinary characters. Aklon, a renegade and the son of Dagla Kaz, is one fascinating character who readers will root for as he walks the path of redemption. Aglydron, the father of Tumalind, is on the most important mission of his life. Aken beautifully spins a tale that is both complex and riveting, as stunning as the world the characters inhabited.

Will you be stiff bored by this mammoth novel? If you are seeking my advice, here’s my answer: Anyone on the lookout for a mesmerizing read will really enjoy this tome. Though set in a fantasy world, Aken created relatable characters with relatable teething troubles which most readers will be able to identify with.

It is a story driven by false prophecy, recklessness and the desire to right a wrong. Joinings: A Seared Sky by Stuart Aken is one of the most enjoyable fantasy novels that I have read in a long, long time. It is incredibly intriguing, gratifying, gripping and spellbinding.

###

There are buying links here on the blog, but, for your convenience, one click here will take you to your local Amazon page. And a click here will take you to the publisher's store, where UK readers can obtain the print book post free, and may even get a signed copy, if there are any of those left!

Related articles

• Launching a Novel: How it *should* be done!
• Romancing the Fantasy - Stuart Aken
• After FantastiCon 2014, What Next?
• A Seared Sky: Partings. Launch of Book 2 of the Trilogy