The Sphere of Influence – Audio Excerpt.

Audio books are a brilliant way of keeping on top of your reading, while driving, gardening, doing DIY... waiting in A&E. 

My daily commute is history now that I have finished with the old 9 'til 5 job, but there are still plenty of opportunities for slotting a CD into the stereo and losing myself in a good book.

I thought it would be fun to share an audio excerpt from Deep Space Accountant. It comes with a health warning related to my non-thespian roots, but with that in mind here's a link to a reading taken from early on in Deep Space Accountant, where Elton D Philpotts is en route to an interview.

audio

It is an important interview for Elton. He doesn’t know it yet, but the outcome will also have repercussions for the whole Sphere of Influence. His journey is not going well. Elton is not having a very good day.

Deep Space Accountant is the first book in Mjke Wood's Sphere of Influence Series. Why not give the ebook a try? Check out mjkewood.com for links to Amazon Kindle, iBooks, Kobo and Nook, and also for the paperback edition. There's a free ebook up for grabs, too.

Dr Who Experience

Yeah, okay, the last blog post was a bit daft. Sorry, I couldn't help myself. I got carried away with the whole Dr Who thing.
We've been to Cardiff for a few days. Lovely city by the way. If you're thinking of visiting have a look over on Travelling in a Box for some of my impressions.

Anyway, this post is all about the Dr Who Experience, on Cardiff Bay. I've had mixed feelings about visiting the exhibit for a while, but this time I decided to go with it.

First, though: What did I expect? Well, I'll be honest I expected something a bit tacky, aimed at kids, kind of shoddy and rough around the edges. I expected plywood and gaffer tape and time-worn displays, all thrown together as bait to get the punters into the gift shop. I, of course, would not be compelled to buy overpriced merchandising. I expected to come out and have a bit of a rant about the cost. I expected to flap my arms about and sulk.
Well, boy did I get that wrong!
What I got from the Dr Who Experience was a full morning of wide-eyed wonder. An emotional experience. A delight. A return to childhood. I didn't rant about the cost because it was worth every penny, and then some, which I can prove because, okay yes, you are led into the gift shop at the end of the visit, but by the time I got there I was so immersed in the whole Dr Who thing that I spent a bomb in the shop. Couldn't help it. I wanted to take something home with me. I wanted a Dr Who carrier bag.

Right, so what do you get for your money? Why was it so good?
Well first of all, you can't go straight in, you are given a time slot and sent away. We settled in the Norwegian Church that is now a coffee shop (and is the church where Roald Dahl was christened) and waited, looking at all the other coffee drinkers and deciding which of them had a mad enough glint in the eye to be Dr Who fans. At eleven-twenty the answer to that question came: because it was all of them. We all rose from our seats at the same time and wandered back over to the Exhibition building for the 11:30 timed slot.

We waited in a queuing area for our allotted time to come. I still had doubts, but I was warming to it. And then...

Well, I'm not going to tell you. There are displays that say No Photographs, at least not for the first part of the visit, the Museum of Gallifrey. Our tour guide reinforced this.
"Please, Do not take photographs. We don't want to spoil the experience for others."
This seemed a bit mean, but then we went inside and... I'm not even going to speak about it, apart from, well, two things: there's a bit of role play – nothing alarming, and also... it's brilliant. So no, I'm not going to spoil it for anyone.

But then you come through into the exhibition area and here you are allowed to take photos so I took some. A lot. Here's some.

Sarah, trying very hard not to blink

One of the early Tardis interiors

Okay so I found this hard. There's still an urge to hide behind the sofa.

Hard to tell who's the most ugly.

A more recent Tardis interior

Sarah, trying out the role as the doctor's next assistant.

So I had to take the Tardis for a spin, too.

A detail from the Tardis dashboard. How many kitchen gadgets can you spot?

Yeah, okay, I'm a bit obsessed by Daleks. 

Vintage Radio

I did another interview this week for Will Redfearn's Community hour on vintage radio picking up where we left off round about the same time last year. We had a few technical hitches in the studio, so in the end Will decided to record the show rather than put it out live. It will be aired on Saturday29 Oct and repeated on Sunday 30th Oct at 9pm. True to the spirit of high definition radio, I wore my Deep Space Accountant T-shirt especially for the interview. If you listen carefully you'll see it.

Last year we finished the interview with my making vague references to some 'exciting news' that I couldn't talk about. That was, of course, the sale of the option for turning The Last Days of Dogger City into a film. It's  good that I'm able to talk about it this time round, and it got me fired up about it all over again. In fact I just saw a tweet, tonight, from one of the production team who mentions how she's working on the script right now, so yeah, it's still progressing.

At the moment I'm working in my caravan, camped out deep in the Cotswolds, near Cirencester. We're on our annual pilgrimage down to Bristolcon where we'll hear panels on all manner of sci-fi goodness. I'm typing this tethered to my phone that has an intermittent half a bar of minus one G internet. There's every chance I'll be home before this blog actually posts. I'll pass each solitary bit of data as it is released from the candle powered servers and sent vaguely north. If that turns out to be the case: Bristolcon was brilliant! Had a great time. (How's about that, a bit of time dilation thrown in for you. Our caravan is doing relativistic speeds up the M5.)

Untethered - 5 - The View from the Other Side

I'm now three full weeks on from the big life-changing event of retirement. How do I feel?

Well, in a word, knackered.

We decided to travel around to make the transition easier, so we had a few days in Cambridge. The photo (left) is taken just around the corner from the Cavendish Laboratories, where they probably ran out of wall space for all the blue plaques they needed. James Clerk Maxwell, the developer of electromagnetic theory, founded the lab, but then a further 29 Nobel Laureates have passed through the doors since. In the next street is the pub where Crick and Watson went to announce their discovery of the structure of DNA. To walk along this street and think about all the great minds of science that have gone before is an amazing thing.

Another amazing thing is to watch all the bicycles dodging in and out of the buses and wagons, and to think how many great minds of the future could so easily be ground to mush beneath the wheels of a juggernaut, all for want of a few proper cycle lanes. Yeah, there's a rant coming on, so I'll stay positive and move to Scarborough.

 The Grand Hotel in Scarborough was home to Fantasycon by the Sea. We went early, because the hotel rates were good and we thought Scarborough might make a good destination for a holiday.

It turns out we fell in love with Scarborough. I've always been a sucker for Victorian seaside towns, and Scarborough is up there amongst the best.

It helped that our hotel was also one of the major landmarks in the town. It stands huge and intimidating on the cliffs above the South Bay. Our room had a sea view, and we could sit in bed each morning and watch the sun rise over the North Sea. A bit of a novelty, this. We've always lived on the west coast and for us the sun is meant to set over the sea.

From the hotel it is a three minute walk to the centre of town, or, in the other direction, across the iron footbridge, there are cliff walks and gardens and coastline for miles.

This was meant to be a relaxing weekend, going to panels, chatting with friends, sitting in the bar... According to my Fitbit we walked ten miles each day, apart from the Saturday, the main day of the con, when we only managed five miles.

The con itself? One of the best I've been to. All the panels were good. Had the chance to chat with lots of interesting people from the Fantasy writing world, and even extended this on the train when we met a lovely couple heading out to catch a flight to take them on holiday, with whom we chatted most of the way home.

Here we are on the open top bus (I had to go on a bus) that runs all the way along the promenade between the South and North Bays.

So what next? Do I start taking it easy? Is it time, now, to break out the slippers? Not a chance. We arrived home on Sunday night and drove to Sussex the next morning (via a stop-off Banbury) This was an art-related mission for Sarah. I owed her this after three days of fantasy panels.

We stayed in Worthing. Another hotel. Another sea view. Another Victorian seaside town. The pier was fun, and we even won a few tuppences in the penny arcades.

So now the transition is over and it's time to produce some words. My writing schedule has been all over the place during the retirement rollercoaster, so I've been easing into the process with some short stories. My work in progress has the working title Cold Robots and Other Dead Animals, and I'm enjoying the buzz of getting some new words down.

Deep Space Accountant is now out in the world. I'm keeping the price low during this initial launch phase, and I'm cracking my knuckles ready to begin the first edit on the second in the series, The Lollipop of Influence.

Deep Space Accountant

That last item on my post retirement tick list probably needs some explanation. I didn't intend to time it this way, it's just how the pieces seemed to fall, but releasing Deep Space Accountant turned out to be a great way of taking my mind off the somewhat heavy weight life event that just happened. Here's the cover blurb:

Could this be the worst job interview in the history of the universe? Possibly. So when Elton D Philpotts lands his dream job he can’t help wondering how. And why.

Somebody in the Space Corps needs him, and they need him bad.

But the work is dull; nothing like the glamorous, planet-hopping lifestyle he expected. Then he sees things he should not have seen: A hidden ledger, dodgy accounting transactions, bogus gate receipts.

And when a whole starship disappears who are they going to blame?

A frantic race across the Sphere of Influence takes Elton and his friends into adventure and dangers he could never have imagined.

Deep Space Accountant is the first sci-fi comedy adventure in the Sphere of Influence series.

You can find Deep Space Accountant as a paperback and an ebook on Amazon. It's also on iTunes and Kobo.

Untethered 2

Four weeks to go to freedom. I was always under the impression I’d be in full-on winding down mode by now. Putting my feet up. Gazing out of the office window and thinking up book plots.

The slice of cheese is getting smaller. Not long to go now.

Instead the workload has gone insane – covering for two others who are on holiday, doing my own day-job, trying to self-manage my succession and knowledge transfer (a thirty-two-second task, that one, ha ha!) I’m even scrambling up something of a steep and greasy learning curve, doing the holiday cover, delving into areas I’ve never been before. Why? Come on. I’ll be retired in four weeks!

So in the studious world of writing, my timetable and master plan made the most of the thought space I’d have from my gradual escape from workday pressure. I have my novel, Deep Space Accountant, completed, edited and crying out for a cover and release date. I have my short story collection awaiting a final tranche of editorial suggestions, due back from my editor at the end of this week. Oh, and that one needs a cover, too, not to mention a synchronised launch with DSA. Then I seem to have taken this uber relaxed moment to undertake a new program of marketing for Travelling in a Box, my nothing-to-do-with-Scifi travel book.

There we go, then. If you think I’m nuts you’re only wrong in terms of timing. I’m not gaga yet but I’m heading down the steep road to the padded cell with rocket skates on my feet.

Strange Angel

It’s funny the different ways you can stumble upon a good book. Last week I was in Liverpool library. I’d done the work I needed to do, so I was hanging about in the botany section, waiting for my wife to finish researching lichens. I picked a random book from the shelf, called Strange Angel, by George Pendle. It had nothing at all to do with Botany, someone had replaced it on the wrong shelf.

The book was a biography of Jack Parsons, one of the early pioneers of rocketry in the US. I’d never heard of him. I looked at page one, just to get an overview, and...  I couldn’t put it down. I checked the book out of the library and carried on reading on the bus home. I’m now just over three-quarters of the way through.

Parsons was an odd sort of rocket scientist, because he led the field, even though he wasn’t a scientist, and he mixed his enthusiasm for rocketry with a disturbing fascination for the occult. It’s a compelling brew.

Parson’s other passion was science fiction, and his biography documents the birth of the golden age of SF, the first edition of Hugo Gernsback's Amazing Stories, and Parson’s connection with Robert Heinlein and other members of the LASFS, the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society.

I’ve just read a chapter about the first ever World Science Fiction Convention, which took place in 1939 at the World Fair in New York. The narrative tells about the deep political rift amongst the 200 or so members, split between the Futurians and New Fandom. The Futurians (a young Isaac Asimov was one) believed in SF being a medium to promote all that is good in science and learning. The New Fandom group thought Science Fiction should focus only on entertainment, and that the Futorians were dangerously Red. These were not just scholarly debates over a meal; the arguments had passion. Scuffles broke out, and some members were ejected from the Worldcon for fighting. It all sounds kind of familiar.

At the moment I’m fascinated by accounts of the early days of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, how it grew from a collection of tin huts located in the Aroyo Seco in Pasadena, a remote, dry river bed, where rockets could be fired without bothering anybody. I love how they adopted the term 'Jet Propulsion', just to obscure the truth that it was all about rockets, because the term ‘rockets’ had a stigma at the time. Rocketry was not considered proper science, it was grown-up boys playing with things that went bang.

A highly entertaining read. For anyone interested in the dawn of rocket science in the US, and in the early days of the Science Fiction genre, it is well worth tracking a copy down.

The Last Days of Dogger City

I have some news. I've been sitting on this for a couple of weeks, waiting until the contracts have been signed, and that has been a very hard thing to do, but now I can talk about it.
A few months ago I had a story published in Analog called The Last Days of Dogger City. That was just about as big a thrill as I could imagine, but now the story has now been optioned, to be made into a film script, by Carylanna Taylor and Jacob Okada at First Encounter Productions.
I am giddy with excitement.
I'm one of those people who sit in the cinema reading the credits right up until the last ones have rolled by and waiting for the lights to go up. This week I've been doing it and comparing font sizes between the screen writers and the other contributors... and dreaming of the day.

Vintage Radio

Here's an image taken from the studio cam at Vintage Radio this morning. I had the pleasure of  being interviewed by Will Redfearn for the Community Hour. A very enjoyable morning. The show ran from 10 until 11, then afterwards we continued our chat for nearly an hour because we had so many shared interests: books, caravanning vs motor caravanning, big band music...
I love what Vintage Radio are doing. They are all volunteers, and are providing a connection, not just for Wirral residents, but for ex-pat Wirral people all over the world. I was delighted to be asked to do this. How often does a person get the chance to talk about themselves for a whole hour, and choose the music to play in between interview segments. It was a great opportunity to give a plug to Travelling in a Box, too, and also Wirral Writers, who are always on the lookout to welcome new members.
The fun doesn't end here, either. Tomorrow I'm off to Nottingham, for Fantasycon, where I hope to meet up with writer friends from around the country, and then come home buzzing with a head full of ideas and even more hyper-enthusiasm than I have today.

Oh, and PS. The interview will be repeated on Saturday 31st October, times not announced yet, but they'll be up on the Vintage Radio website soon. It will give me a chance to listen to it, relive the moment, and cringe at all the things I should have, and shouldn't have said. 

Science Fiction Prototyping - Making it Real

I spent a day, last month, at Leeds University, participating in a joint FCCR Network and Creative Science Foundation Innovation Workshop. I have been associated with the FCCR network for a just over a year, now, and I always look forward to the buzz I get from their meetings. This is doing Science Fiction with a difference. Science Fiction Prototyping is not just fiction. SFP can, and does, make a difference in the real world.

The Future City Community Resilience Network (FCCR) was founded in 2013 by Dr Gary Graham, an academic at Leeds University, and has a mission to open up a conversation about smart cities, community resilience, and change, and I’m very proud to have been asked to play a part. Front and centre in their methodology is the use of SFP to understand the changing needs and problems facing communities as cities evolve in response to technological change.

Part of the workshop day was a live Skype presentation by Brian David Johnson, who has pioneered the use of SFP to design an open source 21^st century robot, the Jimmy Project, that can be 3D printed and uses rudimentary AI code. Brian David Johnson is a Futurist with Intel, and his job is to look ten to fifteen years into the future and envision the problems and opportunities associated with tech that has yet to be fully realised. For this he uses SFP, whereby Science Fiction narratives are used to explore and work through the issues so the solutions may be in place in time for when the technology catches up. It is heady stuff.

In the afternoon session my role was to help guide and focus the workshop’s delegates through a short session of Science Fiction story outlining so that new future projects might be identified and developed before a follow-up session later in the year, where projects will be assessed by a panel of entrepreneurs, academics, political leaders and fund managers, and a small seed fund might be allocated to develop some of the ideas.

I love Science Fiction. I love writing, but when it starts to get real; when there is an opportunity to help drive change through ideas that might be little more than fantasy today, then it is hard to imagine being involved in anything so rewarding. Perhaps in a year or two some of the crazy, off-the-wall, but brilliant ideas the teams workshopped in Leeds might become as familiar as other mad ideas like Facebook, Twitter and Smart Phones. I can’t wait to find out.

Why I don't get depressed by a three-year rejection

I got a rejection on Monday that is three years since submission. I'm fine with it. In fact I'm happy. Why?
The rejection is for a novel, so okay they can take a while to read. It was from a major publisher - a major publisher, and by and large they liked it. I got the idea they'd been thinking about it. There was advice on how to fix the few problems they had found, and from this it was obvious that somebody had read through to at least the three-quarter mark, if not the end. For a slush reader to get beyond page one is, I think, a really big deal. They didn't have to read so much of it, so there might be something of a hook in there? They also said they didn't like British humour (it was a US publisher) and yet they read most of it and told me some of the bits they thought were especially funny.

So what do I take from this is:

• The novel must have some merit.
• They cared enough to give me more than a form rejection.
• They gave me enough of a crit to fix the creaky stuff.

So before rolling out Plan B I now have the tools, for free, to make it a better read. And I have validation. Plan B involves getting it professionally edited then publishing it on Kindle.

So watch out for Elton D Philpotts: Deep Space Accountant at an e-reader near you. Coming soon (ish) 

Science Fiction: New Death

This is one for the diary, ‘‘a major contemporary science fiction exhibition’’ being held at the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT) in Liverpool, from March 27 to June 22, 2014.

"Science Fiction: New Death seeks to provoke the question – have the Sci Fi visions we once imagined of the future since become a reality? The exhibition presents works of art that explore these questions and considerhow technology has created new ways of living, fashioning new identities, forms of intimacy and desire."

Here's theweb site. http://www.fact.co.uk/projects/science-fiction-new-death/