Thank you.Nice title reference.
For those who don't like looking at screens, A Man and a Plane is now available in (huge) paperback:
https://www.amazon.com/Man-Plane-Jo...59588&ref_=la_B01BMIC4MU_1_10&s=books&sr=1-10
Thank you.Nice title reference.
Read the first two and they were awesome. I'm glad someone got Enoch Powell right, after what Sansom tried to do to him. And without spoiling an English Word, all of it was wonderful. Including the main character's reaction to learning why exactly he was summoned.Four new books from Sea Lion Press, including Agent Lavender, Not An English Word and a version of Arose From Out The Azure Main as well as an all-new story about a successful Jacobite rebellion.
This on the other hand was not awesome. Look, I really appreciate thought provoking social themes as much as the next man, but this was a bit too preachy and veered got a little too cute with its generalizations. It is well written as a novel. It makes an interesting case for how race-based slavery could have survived as an economic institution into the 21st century despite crumbling piece by piece (and state by state). It has a compelling central character. But...Underground Airlines, new book coming out this summer. Set in present day, when ACW never happened.
AHF Magazine which I am publishing under the Wolfian Press marque should be out this week. The final proof is with the contributors to check the appearance of their pieces, and reconfirm their approval for inclusion. I need @Malta to do so too, if you can people on this board?
This on the other hand was not awesome. Look, I really appreciate thought provoking social themes as much as the next man, but this was a bit too preachy and veered got a little too cute with its generalizations. It is well written as a novel. It makes an interesting case for how race-based slavery could have survived as an economic institution into the 21st century despite crumbling piece by piece (and state by state). It has a compelling central character. But...
It tries to be too familiar by naming the same celebrities and events we have only in a different light. James Brown the entertainer defector to Canada. Jesse Owens the man who defected to the Soviet Union. There was the Soviet Union. There was a WWII. There were Nazis. There is a Denzel Washington James Woods in an-universe movie. There was President LBJ. And all this jars with the serious tone of the book.
And then are the other characters. It starts off strong, if broad. White ignorant crackers being all racist and terrible. Well meaning Catholic priest on the side of good. And then starts to subtly tweak it. The priest is not that good. Some of the heroes on his side have ulterior motives. Some of the Underground people are described as well meaning white liberals who try to help an African-American persons out of guilt and need to be loved and to be seen enlightened next to the uncouth crackers. It was going well. And then comes the love interest. A white girl with a biracial child. Why yes her father is a runaway slave and yes she fell in love with him at first sight. Why yes the slave was recaptured and she seeks him. And suddenly the deft touch of mocking the impotent do-gooders falls by the way side and this woman is elevated to imperfect sainthood and...
I learned about this book due to some flamewar on Twitter regarding a reviewer calling the author "brave" for writing this book. The author is white and as was the reviewer and suddenly the Internet Outrage Machine produced Outrage. I won't comment on the bravery of anyone writing a book in a first world nation with no libel laws or history of locking up authors for writing, but I will say this... this book is not bad, just not good.
My AH thriller, "Payback," is due to appear on 21 October from Moonshine Cove Press. My full author name on the cover is Michael FitzGerald
I'll upload a cover image and ISBN as soon as I have them.
It's about a successful assassination attempt on Hitler in 1938 and its consequences.
Due out in January 2018, the novel will travel between two periods: one in present-day San Francisco, where Clinton’s White House ambitions are realised; and the other in a post-apocalyptic London, 200 years into the future after 80% of the world population has been killed.
In the present-day strand of Gibson’s story, a shadowy military organisation develops and tests artificial intelligence on a young woman named Verity. The parts set in the distant future show that time travel has been discovered and used to create a “stub”, a way of interfering to create an alternative future, starting in 2017.
I wonder if Verity is a stealth reference to To Say Nothing of the Dog's character Verity Kindle. That's the only other time I've ever seen Verity as a given name.William Gibson's forthcoming novel Agency is set in a world where Hillary Clinton won the presidential election.
Book is due out early next year. Guardian feature here.
I haven't read any of the series, but there was a well-known person of that name in the UK - Verity Lambert, the first producer of Dr Who, and much else besides.I wonder if Verity is a stealth reference to To Say Nothing of the Dog's character Verity Kindle. That's the only other time I've ever seen Verity as a given name.