www.stephenjsweeney.com

22nd January 2012

2012-01-22T10:00:00.006Z

I completed booking up my trip to Australia this week: tour, flight, hotels, everything. I also remembered to apply for the ETA Visa thingy, to let me in! I'll have to check that I have everything else done before I fly out on 13th February!

I finished Resistance 3 last Sunday night. Verdict? This is quite possibly my candidate for Most Disappointing Game of 2012. Yes, already. What was my beef with the game? As already stated in last week's post, I was pretty annoyed that Nathan Hale was removed from the game at the end of R2. There was no reason for this, as far as I'm concerned. The story after that shifted over to another character, who I didn't care very much for. I also felt the story was ultimately nonsense, with nothing resolved by the very end. Ideally, the main Resistance trilogy should have started in England, shifted to America, and then finally to Russia, where the Chimera first appeared.

Oh well.

I'm now playing Saints Row, The Third. If you've never played these games, they're basically Grand Theft Auto, except a lot more fun. Think of the silliness that went on in the GTA 3 series and you get the idea. GTA4 tried to be too realistic and take itself too seriously, and I ultimately lost interest in the series.

I'm now about 90% done on the second draft of BFTSS3. There are scenes and sequences that need to be rewritten, which make up the remaining 10%, that I'm hoping to get done before I head away for a month. I took a break from it this weekend, to do other things, but will get back into it on Monday. The timing will be good, as I will get to distance myself from it for a good 4 or 5 weeks, and can then return to it with fresh eyes.

I finished reading Robert V S Redick's THE RIVER OF SHADOWS yesterday, too. I've very much enjoyed reading the story, and will be very interested to see how the entire thing ends. Robert's prose is astounding - he paints his scenes exceptionally well and really makes the reader feel as though they have been transported to another world. I've heard from a little bird that he will be at Eastercon 2012, so I will be looking forward to seeing him again and getting my copy of ROS signed (I first met Robert in 2010, along with Stephen Deas, author of THE ADAMANTINE PLACE).

Next up on my to-be-read pile is TWELVE by Jasper Kent, as well as THE ELECTRIC CHURCH by Jeff Somers. I expect I'll get both of those finished by the time I get back from Australia. After that, I'll be making a start on my first Angry Robot book - KELL'S LEGEND, by Andy Remic.

Till next time...

15th January 2011

2012-01-15T10:00:00.002Z

I've had quite a productive week with writing, this week.

As I'm not working, and am currently a free agent, I decided to this time put my freedom to good use and have embarked on a number of different projects: as well as writing the second draft of TBFTSS Book 3, I have also commenced work on a fantasy book about a messenger attempting to rid himself of a curse, and a thriller set at a boys' boarding school, in the 90s. I say thriller, it's more like a load of anecdotes and weird boarding school culture, with a bit of murder thrown in for good measure.

I have no idea what will happen with these books, whether they will be published or not, but I'm enjoying writing them none the less. Both involve a great deal of free writing (the fantasy book a whole lot more than the other), so it's interesting to see where the stories want to go. I have ideas for points I need to hit in each though, and have a good idea of where and how they must end.

My Australia trip planning is all over the shop right now: I had a choice between two different tours, both of which have their pros and cons. The first is a tour from Darwin to Sydney, that friends in Australia have cautioned me could result in a lot of dusty plains and not much else. The second is a tour along the east coast, starting at Cairns and ending in Sydney. This sounds fine, although I'm warned the east coast is largely frequented by 18-30s type holidays and I might not get the chance to soak up a lot of culture (beer being more likely).

Some have suggested that I fly into Cairns and then do the trip myself, but I've always been extremely bad at organising myself and would probably get no further than the end of the street in which the hotel was situated. I'm also not fond of travelling around new places on my own. I'm sure I'll come up with something.

Still playing Resistance 3. It's an enjoyable game, but not a great one. It feels like a paint-by-numbers shooter, that hasn't a thing on the first game; the atmosphere is missing and it doesn't feel like something that happened in World War 1, or the 1940s. The changes in the lore, as well as the removal of Hale as the protagonist, are also somewhat grating. I expect I will finish it sometime early next week, and will then form a more objective opinion of the whole package. One thing I will say is that I probably won't be playing any more FPSs from here on out. It's a tired genre, that needs to go away for a long, long time. Which is why I'm glad to see that a new X-COM game is in the works, one that is basically an HD makeover of the original 90s hit.

I saw that THE THIRD SIDE has been doing some good work on the UK Amazon Kindle chart, spending a few days as #1 space opera. Sales in January have been up considerably, compared to the rest of the year. I'm guessing this is because people are spending money they got at Christmas, and are also looking for books to read on their Kindles.

I hope you enjoy the book, all those who have bought it.

Till next time.

8th January 2012

2012-01-08T15:00:00.000Z

Happy New Year to you all, and welcome to my first Sunday Blogging of 2012!

I've been up to a few things this week. Those who read this blog regularly (or just occasionally tune into the waffle I spout on Twitter), will know that I finished working at HSBC just before Christmas. I'm now planning a couple of holidays, but am spending the time in between staying at home and attempting to write.

Right now, I write from 9 till 12, and then from 1:30 till 3. It's actually quite exhausting working such a schedule, but I'm not regretting having left the bank at all. I will, of course, have to look for a new job soon, but I don't plan on doing so until about March.

I also went to Forbidden Planet on Thursday, to attend Adam Christopher's signing of his début novel, EMPIRE STATE. Adam gave a reading, answered a number of questions on the World Builder project (an initiative by Angry Robot, that allows interested parties to create new stories set in the EMPIRE STATE world), and signed a good deal of books. The turnout was great, and after everything was wrapped up we headed off to the pub for a good catch up.

Game-wise, I've started playing Resistance 3, probably the last entry in the series. While I'm enjoying it, I've found it a little odd how Insomniac appeared to have contradicted their original plot, changing what was mostly established in the first game as a Russian super soldier virus gone wrong, to an alien invasion. Certain things in the game seem to have been lost or now brushed aside, such as that the Chimera favoured the cold to survive and were highly susceptible to fire, and that they had built the ice towers themselves, in order to create these environments. Now, it seems like the Chimera once lived on Earth and had hidden the towers deep within the planet.

Hmmmmmmmm.

Next week will involve much of the same: writing and redrafting and editing. I'm about 75% of the way through the second draft of BATTLE FOR THE SOLAR SYSTEM, Book 3. I have about 6 chapters left to redraft, and then a few scenes and put in and rewrite, and then I can give the book its first proper read through and see how it all hangs together. I'm hoping to have that all done within the next month or so.

Till next time...

18th December 2011

2011-12-18T10:00:00.001Z

I finished Dark Souls last weekend, and though the ending was rather rushed, I consider the game to be one of my favourite of all time. I remember playing it one day for four hours (2.5 hours at one point, and then another 1.5 hours later). I've not done that for quite some time, but the experience was just so compelling that I couldn't stop. It really did have that "just a few more minutes, just a few more souls to gain a level" kind of draw.

Something very sweet happened to me this week. Every day I walk to work, around the same time. There's therefore quite a high chance that, after doing so for six months, you're going to start to recognise other people doing the same. One such person was a petite young lady, who would walk in the opposite direction to where I was going. We started to notice one another, smiling at one another on one occasion. I wouldn't see her every day, however. On Thursday, I was going about my afternoon constitutional (which is basically a term I use for, getting out of the bloody office and getting some fresh air!), when I saw that Gaucho had set up a tasting stand (steak and red wine!). I helped myself to a bite and a little bit of wine, and as I was enjoying it, turned to look at one of the staff...

"And now you know where I work!" beamed the young lady, standing next me and rocking an LBD.

At first, I wasn't sure who it was, or even if they had they right person. Being a twin, people often confuse me for my brother. I thought that this was one of those occasions. She then clarified that she was in fact the mysterious smiley girl who I walk past every day. We had a good laugh about that and chatted for a while longer. After talking each others ears off for a good ten minutes or so, I had to move on as my lunch break was almost over. I asked her out on a date before departing, but she sadly informed me she was seeing someone. Shame. How romantic would that've been?

Anyway... I'll stop boring you with descriptions of how I pick up women and bore you with something else... ;)

As far as the writing is concerned, I'm still chugging along with the second draft of BFTSS 3. I'm making tweaks and updates as I go along, but have yet to integrate a lot of the notes that I have prepared. I've also got to rewrite an entire chapter, as well as a few other bits and pieces.

This could all well mean that the book will take longer to show up, but hopefully it'll still make it for early 2013. This could've perhaps been avoided if I'd decided to shorten the novels - to about 80 - 90,000 words each - and then brought them out sooner. This would've meant that BFTSS would be a six book series, rather than a trilogy. However, since I am adamant that it should be a trilogy - and remain such - I've got a lot to work into the 3rd book. I am a strong believer in making a story stick to its original plan as much as possible, lest you wander off into that padding territory where you read an entire novel and wonder what the point of it was.

I was pleased to see that both HOTK:SE and THE THIRD SIDE are now available on Kobo books:

http://www.kobobooks.com/search/search.html?q=Stephen+Sweeney&t=none&f=author&p=1&s=averagerating&g=both

With Kobo now selling their own ebook reader, this means that those who prefer Kobo's store can get the books more easily.

Also, I've dropped the price of HOTK:SE to $0.99 on Amazon, from now until the end of January. That'll be a nice Christmas present for those who get Kindles on Christmas day and want to check out the rewrite of the first book.

I'm considering buying an ebook reader myself (probably a Kindle), but at the same time I'm not sure. I like having a bookshelf and a Kindle would mean that I wouldn't be able to decorate it with the books that I own. Having said that, I tend to buy albums and then just chuck them into a room somewhere. There again, I currently rent, so it's not like I have anywhere to put them, anyway..!

That's it for this year. Christmas falls on a Sunday this year, as does New Years Day, so there will be no Sunday Blogging until 8th January.

Merry Christmas, all, and a Happy New Year!

Till next time...

The Third Side and HOTK:SE now available from Kobo

2011-12-16T10:21:00.000Z

Just in time for Christmas, both THE THIRD SIDE and HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS (Second Edition) are now available from Kobo books!

Owners of Kobo's eReaders can now get copies of both books for around £2 / $3 each!

HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS (Second Edition)
http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/The-Honour-Knights-Second-Edition-Battle/book-bwBD80nXL0mUPFHlWO1PcQ/page1.html

THE THIRD SIDE
http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/The-Third-Side-Battle-Solar/book-53hdwtTB9kuP2Lbgyz44zw/page1.html

-- posted via http://www.battleforthesolarsystem.com

HOTK:SE gets December / January price drop

2011-12-15T15:15:00.000Z

From now until the end of January 2012, you will be able to get the second edition of HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS for Amazon Kindle for just $0.99, £0.99 and 0.99 EUR (down from $2.99 / £1.99 / 2.99 EUR).

If you're new to the trilogy, or have read both HOTK:FE and THE THIRD SIDE and are interested in reading the second edition, then this is a bargain not to be missed.

The book will return to its usual retail price in February 2012.

-- posted via http://www.battleforthesolarsystem.com

My Best and Worst of 2011

2011-12-11T10:00:00.031Z

Sunday Blogging today is all about my Best and Worst of 2011. This is basically a little list of my favourite and least favourite books, tunes, movies and games of the past year. With the exception of books, everything else is from 2011 (or, at least, on the cusp of it). Don't take this as any sort of definitive list, as it's basically just my opinion of that which I've sampled.

~~~

Best Book: The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss
Most Disappointing Book: Kraken - China Miéville
Honourable Mentions: A Matter of Blood - Sarah Pinborough, The King of the Crags - Stephen Deas, Surface Detail - Iain M Banks

I read THE NAME OF THE WIND after seeing the writers and publishers that I follow on Twitter going on and on about its sequel. Some had described it as "Harry Potter for adults". Sceptical, I decided to take the plunge, asking for it as a Christmas present, but not getting around to reading it until late in the year.

I was blown away by what I got. This is a character-lead fantasy book of the very highest calibre. There are enough reviews and other pieces of information scattered around the internet that I won't repeat here, suffice to say that I highly, highly recommend this book, as it's simply so well written, so engrossing and... well, it's just incredible.

My most disappointing novel of the year was KRAKEN by China Miéville. This was the first book of his that I had read, and I was intrigued by the premise. However, I only managed the first 150 pages or so before I gave in. It wasn't that the book was badly written or anything like that, it was just... weird. Also, some aspects of the characters were off putting, such as Kath Collingswood's continual and unapologetic swearing. It grew tiresome very, very fast. Oh well, perhaps I'll find another book by him that is more to my liking in the future.

You can purchase a copy of Name of the Wind here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Name-Wind-Kingkiller-Chonicle-ebook/dp/B003HV0TN2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1322393645&sr=8-2

~~~

Best Game: Dark Souls
Worst Game: Dead Rising 2
Honourable Mentions: Vanquish, Castle Crashers, Infamous 2

With a website called www.preparetodie.com, Dark Souls really does let you know that it won't be pulling its punches. It doesn't. And if anything, it hits far harder than expected.

Dark Souls is the spiritual sequel to Demon's Souls, the unexpected PS3 hit of 2009, and one of my favourite games of all time. Dark Souls follows the established tradition of its predecessor, aiming for a high difficulty curve, that is just enough to present a genuine challenge, but not enough to be outright unfair (i.e. - when you die, it's 99% due to the fact that you screwed up!). I absolutely love this game and have enjoyed every heart pounding moment of it. This isn't just my favourite game of the year, but has also become one of my favourite games of all time.

The worst game I played this year was Dead Rising 2. The idea is solid, but the fact that the game forces you to start over from the beginning halfway through is the dumbest thing ever. Maybe I got it wrong, but I don't expect a game in this day and age to force me to return to the start after putting in 8 hours and playing the same damn sequences over and over. Capcom, this is just plain insulting.

You can purchase a copy of Dark Souls (PS3) here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Souls-Limited-Edition-PS3/dp/B00566SIBG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1322393683&sr=8-1

~~~

Best Movie: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2
Most Disappointing Movie: Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Honourable Mentions: Troll Hunter, Paul, Source Code, Thor

So, Harry Potter 7.2 was always going to be my favourite film. Nothing could or can tell me otherwise. There's not much else to add to this - it's Harry Potter. It's the last film in the series. It was awesome. That is all.

As for worst film... well, as much as it pains me - Transformers was. Why? Well, there was just simply too many missed opportunities in the film, and once again the focus was on the humans and not the robots. Why Shockwave was featured so prominently in the movie posters and promotional materials, I have no idea: he was only given about 10 minutes screen time in total. A terrible, terrible waste. One line from the film was: "That is one evil-looking Decepticon." Yes, guys, and that's why Shockwave's logic-driven and calculating nature should've been the main focal point of the movie and not Sam's attempts to find a bloody job.

You can purchase the entire entire Blu-Ray collection of Harry Potter here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Harry-Potter-Complete-Collection-Blu-ray/dp/B00543RC0Y/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1322393826&sr=8-4

~~~

Best TV Show: Game of Thrones
Worst TV Show: X-Fa... oh, you know me by now.
Honourable Mentions: Frozen Planet, How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, Not Going Out

George R R Martin's A GAME OF THRONES is a book that I had heard a great deal about over the last few years, though mainly for all the wrong reasons: people wondering where the next book is, Martin telling his fans to be patient, and even talk of death threats to the author if he didn't hurry the hell up.

Yeah, harsh!

That good, is it? Having not read the books, I approached the series with a little bit of trepidation. I'd heard it was a low fantasy novel - that is to say that there is little in the way of magic and monsters, and the cast are predominantly human. LORD OF THE RINGS, this is not. What I discovered is quite possibly one of the most astounding and well put together fantasy TV shows in years. The cast was spot on, the pacing, character and plot developed in just the right way to bring you back again and again to see how the story would progress. Probably one of the best things about it is that it is only 10 episodes long. No padding, no useless episodes, and the focus on all the right points.

Worst TV show? Well, X-Factor, of course. It wins this prize every year by default. Move on, nothing more to see here.

Game of Thrones isn't available to purchase yet, so you'll just have to wait. Which I'm sure is something that George Martin's fans are used to... ;)

~~~

Best Song: Black and Yellow - Wiz Khalifa
Worst Song: Swagger Jagger - Cher Lloyd / Collide - Leona Lewis
Honourable Mentions: Moves Like Jagger - Maroon 5, Post Break-up Sex - The Vaccines, Video Games - Lana Del Rey

I fell in love with Wiz Khalifa's Black and Yellow from the moment I first heard it. So much so that I tweeted him asking when it would be released in the UK. I've never done anything like that before, so I guess that seals this tune as my favourite song of 2011. Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5 comes in a very close second. I can't believe how long that song stayed at #2 in the UK for. There were something like 3 different numbers #1s as it hung on desperately to that second slot. Never scored a #1, which was a real pity. Top tunes, both of them.

As for worst song... well, Cher Lloyd steals it, by a mile! I figured that Leona Lewis' latest would win this prestigious award, but no such luck. To put it another way: Collide is better than Swagger Jagger, but so is diarrhoea.

You can download Black and Yellow from Amazon MP3: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-And-Yellow-Explicit/dp/B004P45GTW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1323514462&sr=1-1

~~~

Best Album: What did you expect from The Vaccines - The Vaccines
Worst Album: N/A
Honourable Mentions: Two Door Cinema Club (self titled), Ceremonials - Florence + The Machine

Post Break-up Sex was the first song that I heard by The Vaccines, and I knew at that moment that this was a band that had something very special to offer. I wasn't wrong - their album is sheer class. Only around 30 minutes long, it is short, but oh so very, very sweet. There are so many fantastic tracks on it, and many of those have now been released as singles. I urge you to buy this album right away.

I was very careful about buying albums this year. I didn't want to buy a bad album, and so skirted carefully around anything that I was certain wouldn't entirely agree with me, which is why there is no Worst or Disappointing album listed.

You can buy The Vaccines' début album here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Did-Expect-Vaccines-Explicit/dp/B004P7FTIW/ref=sr_shvl_album_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323514496&sr=301-1

~~~

So, there you have it - my best and worst of 2011. I'm looking forward to seeing what 2012 brings, as this is a feature that I'm certain I will be repeating for many years to come.

Till next time.

4th December 2011

2011-12-04T10:00:00.010Z

I did my Christmas shopping this week. And I did it the way that increasing numbers of people are: online.

I didn't want to, because I wanted to buy from the shops and help out with the whole high street business thing. However, when I got to both Waterstone's and HMV, I found that they only had half of what I was looking for. I could've bought half there and then half online, but instead I decided to have a look online and see if there were any deals going.

And, of course, it's online, so there are always deals going. It's always cheaper. The three CDs I would've bought from HMV would've set me back £30. I ended up buying 3 CDs and 4 books from Amazon for £32. Wow.

Amazon truly is becoming larger and more powerful with every passing year. The trouble is, they've yet to wrong me, so I can't really fault them. Hmmmm.

I became the proud recipient of this the other day:

As a long-term Harry Potter fan, it's great to have all of the films on Blu-Ray. I was number 1,400 out of 25,000 to get a copy! heh!

My boss at work asked me this week if I write books. I hesitated for a moment, before saying no. I don't know why, but it wasn't something I wanted to talk about at work. Sometimes I've encountered rather strange reactions from people I work with, along the lines of: "oh, you'll not be doing any work here, because you'll be writing your books all the time" and weird stuff like that. Hmmmm.

Work on TBFTSS 3 is continuing as always. I work on it for about an hour a day, most days. I'm up to chapter 11 in the second draft, starting chapter 12 next week. Chapter 12 is a beast of a chapter! Currently entitled "The Spider and the Fly" it is 12,000 words long and has a few incomplete sequences within. The entire book is around 155,000 words and will definitely expand up to 160,000 by the very end.

Yes, that's a pretty long book. I'm certain that a lot of commercial sci-fi novels fall a lot shorter than that: maybe around 90,000 - 100,000 words. BFTSS 3 will need me to go over it a great number of times when it comes to the final proofing stage.

I've also learned that both THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS (Second Edition) and THE THIRD SIDE will soon be available to buy on the Kobo store! I will post details on and update www.battleforthesolarsystem.com when they arrive.

Other than that, just chugging along and getting on with it. Still not beaten Dark Souls yet... ;)

Next week, I'll be doing my Best and Worst of the year, a little feature that I've decided I will be doing annually. Tune in next Sunday to find out just what I thought was good and bad in my 2011.

27th November 2011

2011-11-27T11:08:00.000Z

Wow, it's nearly the end of the year! How did that happen?! It sort of snuck up on me yesterday, when I realised that I have to start Christmas shopping!

HSBC let me know last week that they were cutting their workforce by 10% and also cutting contractors' rates by 10%. I wasn't in the 90% that they would be keeping on, but with the 10% rate cut, I wouldn't have renewed my contract anyway (and, of course, there are other reasons for me not continuing there too...)

In the new year, I plan to take a break for a couple of months and then look at moving into something like insurance. I'm done with working for banks now, so I won't be returning to any, no matter how much money they offer.
My focus for this week, as with last week, has been working on TBFTSS 3 and playing Dark Souls. Yes, I'm still playing it. I'm staggered by the sheer scale of this game. The other day I thought I'd finished it, only to be told that I was the One the good guys had been waiting for and now I need to start dealing with the real problem.

Pardon?

Dear god, I've put 75+ hours into this..! And I'm probably... 3/4 of the way through it..? I've not played a game this lengthy in a very, very long time. And this is all the main game so far, not side quests..!

Anyway, the second draft of TBFTSS 3 continues. Right now, I'm about 1/3 of the way though and finding inconsistencies, missing scenes and contradictions, all of which will need to be fixed before I can begin a proper readthrough. I'm hoping by the time that I finish this I will have what will be resembling a finished novel.

I've also been updating www.battleforthesolarsystem.com, with some new profiles and information, and other bits and pieces. This is something that I really enjoy doing, and I'm sure that it's something that fans and those interested in the trilogy will appreciate.

(a list of all the recent updates to the site)

It also serves as a useful resource for myself, if ever I want to check a fact in the trilogy. I found, for example, that in the rough draft of book 3 I had been referring to Zackaria as Justin Zackaria, instead of Jason Zackaria. I corrected this by using the website as a reference point.

Right, that's enough of that. I need to get my skates on and buy some presents!

Till next time...

Reading by Candlelight review of HOTK:FE

2011-11-20T20:37:00.001Z

Book review website Reading By Candlelight has put up a positive write up of HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS (First Edition) over the weekend, saying:

"This book is what a book part of any series should be, which is to have good pace, interesting characters and plot, throw up a handful of questions and leave you wanting more."

You can read the entire review here:

http://www.readingbycandlelight.com/book-review-the-honour-of-the-knights-first-edition-stephen-j-sweeney/

-- posted via http://www.battleforthesolarsystem.com

20th November 2011

2011-11-20T10:00:00.000Z

Not a lot of talk about this week: I've mostly been heading to work, and then coming home and working on the second draft of BFTSS 3.

On the work front, I was told today that HSBC IB - that's the investment bank arm of HSBC, my current client - is planning on axing 10% of its workforce over the next 18 months, in an attempt to save costs. Of those that are staying, the contractors (such as myself) would be forced to accept a 10% cut in their wages. I, however, was not on the list of those that the bank wished to keep, so I won't be staying there past December 22nd.

Not that anyone who reads this blog regularly will realise that I'm too bothered about, as I wasn't planning on renewing my contract anyway. HSBC effectively beat me to the punch. No worries.

Amazon UK decided earlier in the week (or perhaps last week, I don't remember) to once again start charging for HOTK:FE. I'm not entirely sure why they do this, as the book is available for free everywhere else. I'm guessing they only make it free for a short period and then let the pricing bot work out if it's still part of a free promotion (as they call it) elsewhere. Sometime on Thursday, I noticed that the book had become free once more, and was happily making its way back up the chart (where it usually hovers somewhere around the top 90 books).

I'm still participating in the November Goodread Amazon UK Kindle forum, that you can find here:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/711814-the-honour-of-the-knights-discussions-and-reviews-spoilers-here

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/699255-the-honour-of-the-knights-stephen-sweeney-how-are-you-getting-on

HOTK:FE is one of the selected reads for the months and most readers have enjoyed the story. Which is good.

My progress on BFTSS3 is moving along steadily, although I know I will have to redraft once again, since the battle sequences will require a lot of work. I'm sort of out of touch with how to write them (or rather, how I generally write them), as I've not played a space sim for quite a while and therefore feel I can't do proper justice to the sequences if I have nothing to "experience" them with. I'll need to dig up a copy of Colony Wars or something like that in order to get back into how to draw out the action in those sequences.

Other than that, I am simply surviving..!

Till next time.

THE THIRD SIDE now available from Sony Reader Store

2011-11-13T13:43:00.002Z

After a very, very long delay, THE THIRD SIDE, book two in the BATTLE FOR THE SOLAR SYSTEM trilogy, is now available from the Sony Reader Store.

Those with Sony eBook readers can now purchase copies of the book for $2.99.

http://ebookstore.sony.com/ebook/stephen-sweeney/the-third-side-battle-for-the-solar-system-2/_/R-400000000000000494441

The books have yet to make their way to Kobo. News will be posted as soon as they are available.

-- posted via http://www.battleforthesolarsystem.com

13th November 2011

2011-11-13T10:00:00.004Z

I saw Tintin this week. I was initially going to avoid it, as I'd heard that the CGI characters had crossed that threshold to becoming too realistic to look at and something about it made them seem too dead inside. Even so, the film has been getting good reviews: 85% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time. So, I went along on Wednesday and was blown away by the CGI. It's probably the best I've ever seen in my life: the characters are truly incredible to look at. As to the film itself... the plot was okay (I've never read a Tintin book ever), but nothing special. I'd rate the film a 7/10, and probably suggest it as one of those Sunday afternoon films you watch with friends and family. It was funny though, and I laughed quite a lot during it. Snowy in particular was very well handled.

As for Tintin himself... Hmmmm, he's a bit of a Gary Stu, wouldn't you say? He was TOO smart, TOO witty, TOO good at everything he did. He had zero flaws as far as I could tell. One scene that highlighted this more than at any other point in the movie was when he fired a gun at a plane to knock it out of the air, and then, having never flown a plane before (as it seemed from his leafing through the flight manual), goes on to do so.

Wow.

Come on, guys. Characters need flaws to make them realistic and more human. Tintin couldn't put a foot wrong. Snowy and Haddock were far more realistic in this regard. I especially enjoyed when Tintin asked Snowy to help him attempt to get a set of keys. If you've seen the film, you'll know what I mean. Typical dog!

The second draft of the TBFTSS book 3 is continuing at a steady pace. I've now reached the fifth chapter and have encountered a sequence that needs to be totally rewritten, in order for it to better fit in with how I want the story to continue. The red pen has been out in force on that chapter, with several paragraphs at a time getting the chop. I'm going to see what I can keep from it, since I know how the scene needs to flow. I've also been trying to come up with chapter names, which is proving a little trickier than I first thought. Still, I'm getting there. Two chapter names that I've come up with so far are "Finding the Needle" and "The Ghost in the Machine".

Without giving anything away (as I hate spoilers, myself!), the first of the chapters eludes to Elliott Parks' attempts to... well, locate something that which doesn't want to be found (needle in a haystack). I'm still considering "How to Find a Needle" as the chapter title, but I'll see how it goes. The second chapter refers to Dodds boarding an enemy vessel and uncovering something within. The name of the ship was originally "The Majesty of Silk", but since I wanted "the machine" to refer to that which contains said "ghost", I've now changed it to "La Machine Infernale 1800". You can Google that to find out what that's all about if you want. Dodds and Enrique will hazard a guess, but not know.

This week, I've also been participating in the Goodreads Amazon UK Kindle Forum, where HOTK has been selected as part of their November Book Selection. I've been discussing parts of the book with the readers there, and getting their reaction (the first edition of HOTK is a free eBook). If you're interested in having your say, or reading what has been said, you can find the group here:

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/699255-the-honour-of-the-knights-stephen-sweeney-how-are-you-getting-on

Other than that, it's been the same old week: job, writing, Dark Souls, blah blah blah. Actually, I'm planning my Australia trip a little more carefully now, as I was told by one of the tour organisers than February / March time in Darwin and the northern territories is monsoon season! I already experienced that when I was in a town in Panama called David, many years ago and would prefer to avoid it if possible. We'd get these great big thunderstorms at about midday, that would dump rain everywhere for a good few hours. I like to steer clear, but I think that the beginning of March might be the latest that I can go (in order to get back to the UK to look for a new job and also attend Eastercon).

Right, I've waffled on enough ...

(Mmmmm, waffles)

for one Sunday. Till next time...

6th November 2011

2011-11-06T10:00:00.001Z

So, something that I did last Sunday was to dissolve back into my geek state. Given that HTC has almost given up supporting the original Desire, I decided to have a go at rooting the phone and installing Cyanogenmod on it. Like all good geeks do. There were three reasons for this: 1) I wanted to get all the OEM crapware off the phone. 2) I wanted to free up space from the Desire's pitiful internal memory (see point 1), and finally I wanted to upgrade past Android 2.2.

Given that this is a phone, I read the instructions for how to do this very, very carefully. I followed some instructions here (which are very, very good!):

http://onusprobandy.blogspot.com/2011/10/installing-cyanogenmod-on-htc-desire.html

For the most part, the upgrade went well and there were only two points where I thought things had gone wrong. The first was when I made the initial attempt to root, using UnRevoked. The software was unable to gain root access, which blocked the entire attempt from the very start. Not willing to quite give up, I found that the devs keep older (unlinked, as far as I can tell) versions on their website. I therefore downloaded one and ran it. Worked first time. One step closer to upgrading. Then came the heart stopping moment. After wiping the ROM and the data cache, the phone went into an endless reboot cycle. It wasn't until I thought carefully about what I'd actually done did it make sense: I'd wiped the ROM. There was nothing for the phone to boot into..! So of course it would do that. I then just went ahead an installed Cyanogenmod (holding Power and Volume Down while it was attempting to boot).

And there you have it. One instance of quite unnecessary panic and I have an HTC Desire with Android 2.3.7 on it (as opposed to 2.2). The benefits are clear to me already: the UI is faster, the phone has more memory (both RAM and internal), apps perform better, and there are a bunch of other great improvements - the reminder LED will flash indefinitely to notify of missed calls, texts and other events, instead of switching off after just 5 or 15 minutes, or whatever it is. Also, the video camera on the phone actually works! Yes, I had to hack my own phone with software I downloaded off the internet to make something work that the vendor couldn't be bothered with..!

Anyway, that's my geek stuff done for now. I think in future I'll only be buying phones that are supported by Cyanogenmod, as I can't be bothered to wait for the Google > OEM (Crapware install) > Carrier (Extra crapware install) comedy that they somehow believe is acceptable. I spoke to a few Apple fans at work (who have found the TV Off effect on Android 2.3 very amusing) and they were of the opinion that Google needs to slap these OEMs and carriers into place. I quite agree. After all, I waited 6 months for HTC to ship a fix for a nasty Android exploit to my phone, and then I found that thanks to all their crapware I couldn't actually install the thing without losing apps I WANTED!

Anyway, I'll stop boring you with all that now.

I managed to contract the horrible sore throat virus that is currently doing the rounds. It only lasted a day, however, so I just took lots of Lockets and tea, and carried on. Cleared up on its own by Friday night. Which was good, because I was going to see the Christmas Lights (yes, they've switched them on already..!) and have a tasty curry. Here's a pic:

(that's the Christmas lights, not the curry..!)

Yeah, it was a little bit of a let down, to be honest. Oh well.

I've commenced the second draft of BFTSS3, reading my way through the printout that I got from Lulu and making judicious use of a red pen (as you can see below):

The opening chapters are quite good so far, but need some tweaks to help them to read better. I'm focusing on spending an hour a day on reading through and then I'll start typing up on the weekends. I think that's a good strategy, although I'm not sure of what everyone else does. I'm not sure if I'll hit my deadline of November 2012, but I'll see what happens. I have a feeling that the book will probably grow in size by about 5,000 words, which means it'll hit 160,000 at the very end of the day. Yes, that'll be a weighty book indeed. Still, it'll be appropriate for the end of the trilogy, I think.

I'm contemplating my next cinema trip. Tintin seems to actually be getting some good reviews, despite the initial negative reaction. I will have to consider seeing that. I was planning on also seeing the prequel to The Thing. I figured that if they did it right, it would be a very good film (hey, if anything is done right it usually works out well..!). Sadly, the monsters are apparently all CGI and there isn't much going for it as far as I've read. A quote from IGN pretty much says it: "This incarnation of The Thing is much like the creature it depicts: An insidious, defective mimic of the real, er, thing." Hmmm. Maybe I'll watch it when it comes on TV then...

Oh, and I'm still playing Dark Souls. TV and controller are so far intact.

Till next time.

30th October 2011

2011-10-30T10:00:00.001Z

This week has once again been largely devoted to updating www.battleforthesolarsystem.com and playing Dark Souls. However, I also ordered a print out of the current WIP of BFTSS book 3 from Lulu.com, which arrived on Tuesday.

Since it was the first print out of a new project, Lulu gave me a voucher for £15 off my first order, so I effectively got it for free (had to pay for P&P, but no worries there!) It currently stands at 152,500 words, over 347 pages of A4, which I will start reading and tweaking next week. Oh, that title is a working title - it's one of the things that Dodds thinks at the end of The Third Side, when contemplating what the Senate did and how their actions will affect everyone's futures. So, reading that is something to look forward to. I'll of course be posting my progress.

Last night, I went to the Old Queen's Head Pub in Angel to see a band called Kill It Kid. I'd never heard of them, but they played a cracking set. It's always awesome to hear a live band in a pub, it feels so intimate and stuff. Kill It Kid were actually preceded by a band called Gaoler's Daughter, who were absolutely amazing! I loved their set! The vocalist was out of this world and the drumming... well, he was the shit!

You can hear one of their tracks on YouTube. Not sure if this is the track that they opened with, but it's pretty damn good:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAF1LML1O-Q

It was quite late (well, for me) when I eventually started to wend my way home. I had to get on a night bus... ugh, I hate them with a passion - they tend to be full of very strange people and I try to largely just ignore everyone. Sadly, the bus didn't quite take me where I was going, so I had to get out and grab a taxi the rest of the way (I was somewhere in East London, so probably not the best place to be wandering around at 2am, on your own, drunk). Luckily, I knew I was quite near home thanks to Google Maps, so the taxi only took me for about 3 or 4 minutes! heh!

Oh... and I have no idea why I took a photo of this. Still, it's tres amusing:

Till next time.

23rd October 2011

2011-10-23T10:37:00.000+01:00

Writing-wise, my month off has been quite relaxing. This weekend I've ordered a print out of the first draft of Book 3, so I can commence work on the second draft. I find it easier to do it this way, using a red pen on a hard copy to read and edit. I'll probably be very boring and upload a photo of the print out and the results of attacking it with the pen.

I uploaded a good 50 or so THIRD SIDE questions to www.battleforthesolarsystem.com this week. I've only got two more chapter left to do questions for and then I'm done on it. Will start on questions for KNIGHTS (Second) after that.

Other than that, my time has been completely consumed by Dark Souls. Having managed to complete Demon's Souls, I've found the game fairly easy to get into. The key to success is simple: moving slow, keep your shield raised and favour ranged weapons against more powerful enemies. Charging headlong into a group of enemies is the quickest way to die in this game (other than hurling yourself off the roof of a building). Bosses? Yeah, they might have a very big axe/sword/spear/whatever, but you can still block them most of the time...

I'm still considering what my next novel should be after BFTSS is done. But at the same time, I'm giving some consideration to creating a BFTSS turn-based strategy game, set in space. I'd probably pop it on Android and make the game auto-generate some missions to play. But we'll see. If I can't quite work it out, then I'll probably begin working on a novel called THE RED ROAD, a thriller set in a boy's boarding school in the 90s. The other idea I have is for a zombie novel (I think I've mentioned this before), so we'll see how those work out. I might do the zombie novel first and pitch it out to agents and publishers, to see if they're interested.

Till next time.

16 October 2011

2011-10-16T10:00:00.000+01:00

Haven't been up to a lot this week, as work has been going batshit crazy and I'm taking a break from the writing. Mostly, I've just been making tweaks to the website and doing some quiz questions. But other than that I've been largely taking it easy. We all need a break now and then ;)

My Australia and New Zealand trip sort of hit the buffers this week, as I've been finding it too hard to coordinate both tours. I'm crap at doing stuff on my own, so I'd need to be on a tour, really. So, instead of doing 14 days in Australia and then 14 days in New Zealand, I'll just be doing 28 years around Australia. I'll probably pop back over that way in a couple of years to do New Zealand on its own. That's if I can stomach the flights..!

One thing I have been doing is playing a lot of Dark Souls. As expected, the game is pretty damn challenging, but I'm getting there. It's sad to see that some people are exploiting a glitch in the game to get infinite souls, so I'll be staying away from playing online. I'd rather not be invaded (as it is) by someone who has exploited a bug to max out all their stats for no reason other than to grief players.

Oh... and I've nearly finished reading THE NAME OF THE WIND. Next on my list is this little item:

Well, I say "little". It's 600 pages..! I read GRIDLINKED back in 2009 and loved it. I'll be looking forward to getting stuck into this next Agent Cormac novel.

Till next time.

Third Side quiz questions now available

2011-10-09T11:32:00.001+01:00

An initial batch of quiz questions for THE THIRD SIDE are now available for both the Android BFTSS Quiz App:

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.parallelrealities.bftssquiz

as well as here on the website itself:

http://www.battleforthesolarsystem.com/quiz/thirdside/en/

Right now, there are at least three questions per chapter, with some of the earlier chapters having a great deal more. More questions will be added in the coming weeks. Check back regularly for updates. If you have the BFTSS Quiz App, then new questions will be automatically downloaded onto it the next time the app refreshes itself (although you may need to do this manually if you have elected to do so in the options screen).

-- posted via http://www.battleforthesolarsystem.com

9th October 2011

2011-10-09T10:00:00.004+01:00

I found myself taking a break from my writing sooner than planned this week. I had originally intended on tweaking in all the notes to TBFTSS book 3 and then taking a break next week, but found I was unable to face doing so right now. I found myself somewhat overwhelmed by what I was looking at and what I needed to read. I'm clearly too close to the text and the story right now, as all I can see is a wall of letters that have been chucked together to form words..!

So, I decided that from now until the end of October will be time for a break. Right now, I'm planning on doing little else but working on the questions for book 2 and the second edition of book 1, as well as updating the trilogy's website.

As with most people, I was saddened to hear about the passing of Steve Jobs this week. He was perhaps the last of the original innovators (geeks, if you will), who enjoyed technology and working with it. I've never bought an Apple product and the way the company has been acting of late, I'm not sure I will, either. It seems that after Jobs stepped down, Apple went on a suing rampage, hoping to maintain their dominance in the market place. I may be wrong, but I don't remember this sort of thing happening with Steve at the helm. And if it did, it wasn't nearly as pronounced as it is now. Oh well, this is what happens when you get the business men, the suits and the stockholders to steer the ship...

I had to make a decision this week that I didn't want to do, and that involved the removal of HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS (First Edition) from the Amazon Kindle store. If you're here looking for it and are wondering why I've removed it, the answer is simple: Amazon started to once more play silly buggers with the price. Everywhere else, the book is free. However, Amazon decided to revert it back to a paid-for novel. After I produced the second edition of the book, I decide to list HOTK:FE (as it then became known) as a free novel under Creative Commons (by-nc-nd). Amazon didn't want to list it for free, but I eventually managed to convince them to do so. Sadly, at the start of October they began charging for it again and it lead to some bewilderment from customers. After two emails asking which edition they should buy, I decided to simply pull the first edition from sale. It will remain on www.battleforthesolarsystem.com and all the other stores for the foreseeable future (although it may well vanish after a few years).

And besides, the second edition is better (and only £2 or $3).

I was excited to get home from work on Friday and see this sitting in my letterbox:

For those unfamiliar with Dark Souls, it is the spiritual successor to a 2009 PS3 game known as Demon Souls, which is notorious for it's genuine challenging gameplay (translation: it's very, very hard!). Now.... let me get something straight here - the reason both these games are so popular isn't because of the sheer difficulty of them (after all, that would actually be absurd), but because of the fact that the games present a genuine challenge. However, what drives you onward is the reward and the feeling of satisfaction you get from progressing past that part of the game that was holding you back. It's also not unfair in its challenge, just... well, challenge.

... and that's what I'll be doing for the next few weeks ;)

Till next time...

Don't you hate it when this happens...

2011-10-08T16:16:00.000+01:00

1. You hear that *someone* in the UK has won £100M on the Euromillions.

2. You receive THIS email on Saturday afternoon:

3. You log into your National Lottery account.

4. You see this:

5. You cry, and return to cleaning your shoes for Monday's trip to the office...

HOTK:FE reaches 200!

2011-10-07T07:56:00.001+01:00

THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS (First Edition) has now passed 200 ratings on the UK iBookstore, retaining an average of 4.5 out of 5!

Thank you to all those who downloaded, read and rated the book!

-- posted via http://www.battleforthesolarsystem.com

2nd October 2011

2011-10-02T10:00:00.004+01:00

It was FantasyCon 2011 this weekend in Brighton, but I wasn't there as I have decided to attend Eastercon 2012, instead. I was speaking to a fellow indie writer, Ian Hocking (author of DEJA VU and FLASHBACK, books #1 and #2 in the Saskia Brandt series), about attending the Con (I met Ian there in 2010, after talking to him online for a year or so). Sadly, he's unable to make it to the 2012 meeting, but he did suggest to me that I attempt to get onto one of the self publishing panels. I'm giving it some consideration, if only to share my thoughts and my experiences of it so far. I'm of course leaning (very, very strongly) towards telling people that it's far, far better to get an agent and publisher, and do it the traditional way... but there are exceptions to the rule, like Amanda Hocking and John Locke. However, the keyword here is exceptions. Don't expect to see many such others emerge.

On Wednesday, I went along to an interview with publishing and editor legend Jo Fletcher. I don't know why I got the impression, but when I turned up I expected her to be something of a school headmistress - quite stern and possibly a little brash. I have no idea where this came from, as she was quite the opposite: witty, very friendly and approachable. She was talking mostly about her new imprint for Quercus Books: Jo Fletcher Books. Her first title is THE VAMPIRE SHRINK, which I had seen debuting at #1 in the iBooks science fiction and fantasy in the UK for a few days. I intended the morning after the interview to send her a screenshot, but sadly the book had fallen out of the top 10 by that point (yes, the iBookstore chart is VERY flakey). I was lucky enough to get to go for dinner with her and two other members of the BSFA, where I dispensed some advice of my own - that authors should avoid having websites that are coded entirely in Adobe Flash. I'm not sure if it is true of any other writers, but I have noticed a marked increase in the number of visitors to www.battleforthesolarsystem.com that are doing so on iPhones and iPads. Flash is banned by Apple on these devices (as they say it consumes too much battery and favour HTML5, instead). If you therefore have a website that is presented all in Flash and offers no HTML alternative, then you are potentially driving away readers. It's also a shame that you may have spent a lot of time and money on having a stonking website created, only for a great number of visitors to be turned away at the gates.

Personally, I tend to avoid pure-Flash websites, as I find them somewhat annoying and find that many are all about style over substance (usually just a collection of five or six pages, which take a year and day to transition between as some over long animation plays out). But that's probably just me.

I was informed of a few typos in THE THIRD SIDE this week, which I've updated and pushed out to Kindle, iBookstore, etc. Interestingly, the typos revolved around words such as "excepted" instead of "expected", and "inwards" instead of "innards". You've probably noticed already how those words are very similar in composition. The first two characters and last two characters are identical, which is why they were missed so easily. There will be others, but hopefully not too many more and hopefully not enough to break the flow of the story too much for readers. Keep the reports coming, people!

http://www.battleforthesolarsystem.com/help/typos.php

Funnily enough, I expect there are a good few readers out there who had come across the typos in the story, but have pressed on regardless. I know that I hardly ever report typos I find to the authors (in fact, I've only ever done so once). Whenever I come across I typo, I read the sentence again, work out what the author actually meant, and carry on. A page later, it's forgotten about. I probably come across one typo per book I read, but there are likely several in there that I simply don't notice. Still, it's good to report them and get them taken care of.

Something that has dismayed me this week is the discovery that Stephen King is planning a sequel to THE SHINING. As one of my favourite Stephen King books (probably his most famous?), I find this extremely unneccessary. Along with JK Rowling and Terry Pratchett, Stephen King rates as one of my all-time favourite authors. I can't help but feel that this is a book that doesn't need to be written, and (more importantly) SHOULDN'T be written. What are you doing, Stephen? Unless you can execute this is in a way to improves upon the original (sir, even with your skills, Good Luck!) I really feel that this is a bad, bad idea.

I'm thinking about my next cinema trip and what that should be. I have a feeling that I'll be wanting to see The Lion King. I've never seen it, and since it's getting a cinema re-release I may take the opportunity to go see it. It's a 3D re-release though, so maybe I should actually just pick up the DVD or BluRay, instead.

I completed the main text of the first draft of TBFTSS Book 3 this week (including the epilogue). The final word count at this stage is just under 152,500 words, so about 4,000 words over how long TTS is.

I suspect it'll grow, though. Next week will focus on tweaking in the notes I made while I was writing it and then I intend on taking a break for a good few weeks. I'll likely concentrate on updating www.battleforthesolarsystem.com with character profiles and extended world information. I'll also get the quiz questions sorted out for early next year. I expect my break will last all of about 3 or 4 weeks, before the hunger to continue on with the 2nd draft seizes me. I'll be needing to buy paper and ink cartridges for my printer, so I can start with the red pen edits.

However, the timing of my break will be perfect, as it will coincide with the release of Dark Souls. Gotta love that domain name: www.preparetodie.com. Yes, I will. Lots, I expect.

Till next time.

HOTK:FE no longer free on Amazon..!

2011-10-02T08:31:00.000+01:00

Yesterday morning, I woke up to discover that Amazon had decided to remove HONOUR OF THE KNIGHT (First Edition) from their free Kindle promotions.

I'm not sure why this has happened, but I'm assuming it's just a temporary thing while the pricing bots go and check up on free promotions in other places. It happened to be the first of October and I think HOTK:FE has been on Kindle for about a year now, so maybe it's an annual check. Somewhat annoying, but you can still download HOTK:FE for free from:

www.battleforthesolarsystem.com/downloads/#knightsFirst

If Amazon do decide to permanently remove it from their free Kindle offerings and the book returns to being £0.86, then I will likely pull it from the store completely. There will be no point in having both HOTK:FE and HOTK:SE for sale.

Watch this space!

25th September 2011

2011-09-25T10:00:00.005+01:00

First off: this is my 300th Blog Post! Wahoo!! Not sure that that means anything, but there you go. Anyway, on with the show...

So, after over 10 years Parallel Realities has closed down. Sort of. It'll now just become a blog where tutorials and the like will be posted. That largely depends on how often Richard and I will continue to do so. I have some Android tutorials and a handful of other things that could be uploaded, but, as everyone will realise, my focus is on TBFTSS. That focus will continue until sometime around the end of 2012, but could easily extend into 2013, as I update the website, the quiz app and do all sorts of other things. My future writing will probably keep me away from PR for a while, too. I'll likely find time to finally start work on Blob Wars 3 in 2013. Maybe.

This week, THE THIRD SIDE became Amazon UK's best-selling space opera novel:

This is one of those funny things, as the chart updates once an hour and so you can be in pole position at 4pm and find yourself back in 3rd by 5pm (as indeed happened!). Still, as soon as I noticed I decided to quickly grab myself a screenshot, if for nothing else but to say the book made it. The first edition of HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS was the UK's best-selling space opera for an entire month back in 2010. I'm not sure the same will happen to TTS, but it would be nice. Competition is fierce, as there are some great indie sci-fi writers out there, so readers have quite a lot of choice as to what to read. With any luck, Book 3 will also find the same reception when it's eventually released.

Something that was also great is the reception that both TTS and HOTK:SE have been receiving on the UK iBookstore:

Number #1 and #2 in science fiction! This really made my day when I saw it! TTS is also up to 10 ratings on the iBookstore too, which is absolutely wonderful!

And if all that wasn't good enough, Ant from sfbook.com has also reviewed TTS, giving the book 4/5 and recommending it. A couple of choice quotes from the review:

"I was again impressed with not only the quality of the writing but the confident voice and clear sense of style that is projected from the pages. Characterisation is again handled very well indeed with well fleshed out protagonists that you can't help but like."

"The narrative is both gripping and fast paced and the descriptive action sequences are really top notch - which highlights the strong style an clear voice that feels very much like a classic street level war novel."

You can read the full review here:

http://sfbook.com/the-third-side.htm

I'm thinking of now updating the cover of TTS to add a quote from the review. I just need to find space! I guess it could go somewhere in the middle.

No cinema trip for me this week, as I had other things going on. I try and limit my nights out to 2 a week when I'm writing. The only time I get to do it is in the evenings, after work, and so a night out will mean that it doesn't get done. To some (actually, probably quite a lot) that must sound a little bit sad (as in pathetic and deplorable), but something you need to remember is that writing is basically like having a second job. The task of writing a book can take anything from 6 months (if you've got a lot of time on your hands), to several years, so it's best to make use of all the time you can get.

This week in the UK, it was revealed that the number of complaints about spam text messages is on the rise, with one poor guy ending up having to ditch his phone number after being bombarded with them.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/14971377

Luckily, for users of GoSMS (Android) there is a simple solution - message filtering. This setting allows one to say which messages are delivered to the inbox and notified about and which ones are binned (so, sort of a like a spam filter, really). You can filter by keywords, by number prefix (spammers might favour premium rate number extensions) or, Stranger. Filtering by Stranger means that any text that you receive that isn't in your contacts will be filtered. Stranger filtering is basically a white list and is the most extreme and effective filter, but also has the greatest drawbacks as it could end up filtering alerts from your bank or other system that you might want to check (although, if this is a 3am support call from your place of work, it might not be such a bad thing..!) I tested it with Orange's 2-for-1 cinema offer and, although the text arrived, I was never informed about it. It was found sitting in the filter box some time later. Prefix filtering might therefore be the best filter to use.

To activate filtering in GoSMS (actually, this will depend on what version of on GoSMS you have):

Menu >>> Settings >>> Security Settings

and then scroll down to Message Filtering Settings.

Right, on to the standard Book 3 update: I'm now fast approaching the end of the first draft, with just a few chapters and the epilogue to go.

95%

I can already tell that the space battle sequences are going to require the most attention during the redrafting and the tweaking. I'll have plenty of time in January to do this, as I'll be taking time out from work after my current contract ends (Dec 25th). I've done nothing but work straight through since April 2010, so a break will be very welcoming indeed. November 2012 for Book 3 might be possible, but I'll have to take the view of getting it out when it's ready. I'll not want to rush this. If it ends up having to be a 2013 release, so be it.

Till next time.

21st September 2011

2011-09-21T10:39:00.001+01:00

SFBook.com has reviewed THE THIRD SIDE, awarding it 4 out of 5, and calling it gripping and fast-paced, as well as praising the fleshed out characterisation. You can read the full review here:

http://sfbook.com/the-third-side.htm

Thanks very much to Ant for the review.

-- posted via http://www.battleforthesolarsystem.com