A message from Charlie Cornelius...

...who would like you to go here for a sneak preview of the cover of Thin Reflections.

Low

I had written a long diatribe about the state of the arts, but it came across as the rant of a miserable old git. So I'm not going to post it in the spirit of not wishing to sound like a stuck recording.

That is all.

Still at it...

Living. Reading. Writing. All that stuff. Keeps me out of trouble.

Of note is the fact that today I took delivery of a copy The Man Who Knew Too Much (Sexton Blake Library 350). This completes my collection of Sexton Blake's known to have been written in whole or in part by Jack Trevor Story.

If you know nothing about Sexton Blake (shame on you), then a visit here will enlighten you.

If you know nothing about Jack Trevor Story (double shame on you), a visit here will open your eyes to one of the best comic and social realist writers of the twentieth century.

I am chuffed to bits (which is gruesomely appropriate as the cover shows a man falling from a bridge into the path of a steam train).

It's not much to write home about, but there you go.

Dance Your Way To Psychic Sex

Anyone who has been here before will know that I’m not above the odd grumble about the state of the publishing industry. There’s a lot good about it. Still. Despite everything it seems to have done to drive itself into the ground.

But here is a perfect example of what it gets so wrong.

Read this review.

Go to this site.

This is a wonderful book. It is well-written, well-crafted, entertaining, humorous, quirky, and has a lot to say about human nature without shoving it down your throat in portentous fashion. Ideal if you ask me. But could it find a home with one of the big publishing houses? No. Did it deserve to be picked up by one of them? Yes. Unreservedly so.

So why was it not snapped up and subjected to a massive marketing drive? Not commercial enough, apparently. A bit too out of the ordinary.

Bollocks.

It is true it isn’t a run-of-the-mill clone of six dozen other books. But frankly, and obviously, if you have read one of those, you have read them all.

Now I like my comfort zone. But only because it is a great base from which to explore. I want books to offer me something new each time I read. This doesn’t mean they have to be out-and-out genre-busting, taboo-busting, experimental works. I like those as well, but they need a context, and readers in general need a wide range.

And what this book manages is a superb balance between the familiar and the unusual.

So come on, people in publishing. Wake up. Go run barefoot in the grass. Live dangerously. Start thinking about what you are publishing and think of other factors up there beyond the bottom line. Yes, running profitably is important, but stop acting like a narrow-minded old boy’s club. We readers will buy what is published because we are hungry for stuff to read, but frankly the diet is getting beyond boring. Spice it up, boys before we all get literary malnutrition and start looking elsewhere for sustenance.

And you could do a damned site worse than buying yourself a copy of Dance Your Way To Psychic Sex, seeing what a great book is really like, and beating a path to the author’s door.

Four Rings of Light

Bloody hell it's dusty in here. And the cobwebs. And mouse shit.

I've been busy. Not looked in for a while.

But just to let my reader know that my story Four Rings of Light has now been published in the latest edition of Exterminating Angel.

Er...

That is all.

[Wanders off looking for a broom and duster]

Still...

...down the word mine hacking away at the ink face.

Some good news. I finally got a copy of the Jack Trevor Story I had been after. One of the missing copies turned up after having been round the country several times (or maybe just stuck down the back of a sorting office trolley for a few months). Anyway, worth the wait.

Then I got my copy of Into The Media Web (as a reward for lots of typing). This is what books should be like. Superb content. Top class design.

I also managed to pick up an 'as new' copy of Colin Greenland's The Entropy Exhibition.

I detect a theme.

As well as slaving away at the non-fiction, I've managed another couple of Charlie Cornelius short stories (one of which will be appearing in Exterminating Angel in the near future - watch this space) and I'm getting itchy to get back to the novels.

OK. That's enough leisure time for today. Back to editing.

Fated

Three times this year I have tracked down an affordable copy of a book by Jack Trevor Story that I do not own. And for the third time this year I have just given up on seeing it delivered. Who or what is out there making sure that I never get to see this book? Very strange.