I'm Back

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen,

It is indeed I, your favorite neighborhood wacko foul mouthed, angry Scotsman.

It has been a good long while since I posted, there was the massive the massively drunken rant over the UK blackout of events on Fight Pass, I got over it since I get BT Sports for free and just record it, but apart from that there hasn't been anything since the Referendum, which I'm just going to say much other I'm bummed about, but come May hopefully the Westminster Establishment of theives, cunts, pedophiles and wankers are going to be kicked squarely in the arse by the rolling freight train of the renewed vigour of Scottish interest in how we are governed, and how badly we've been getting shafted by the Tories, the Red Tories and the Yellow Tories.

I passed two of my units for the first half of my Uni 3rd year, the one I failed was Unix and it was the exam that I failed miserably but it doesn't help when you the study materials you have don't even remotely match what's in your exam, you can't study the whole of Unix, it's frigging impossible. Hoping this half won't be as bad, doesn't seem like it (Helps that HTML and Javascript doesn't have an exam) and I get to resit in August so won't be repeating and wasting a whole year on it.

The Dystpian Wars extraveganza is rolling on, 6000 points strong of Prussians and 4000 points strong of Russians, and while we are fighting the Battle of Gibraltar at Carronade in very early May, the Rock itself is being crafted masterfully by the great George Dick, is rolling along quickly and not absolutley prepared for it, but I'll be orgainising that little bit in the ext few weeks, emails need to be sent and the delivery of members of the clubs who cant be there's ships needs to be arranged.

On the Wargaming front still and I just spent over £200 on a new World War II American army, with the required Sherman, in 28mm for Chain of Command by Two Fat Lardies and Bolt Action by Warlord. Pictures will be forthcoming when the painting is complete. Yes, I am a glutton for punishment and always give myself more work than I can handle but screw it.

Yet again staying with Wargaming, I will be taking part once again in the Scottish Battletech Championship this year at the Schiltron Wargaming tournament, hoping to make up for last years debacle with a top half finish this year. If you are interested I believe there are some places still available for Battletech so if you pop along to the website and have a look see

On the writing side of things, I am in the middle of working on the first draft of Warrior Rising, it is the new title of my first Caleb (originally Calibern) O'Hearn novel, it is actually a completely different book from Running out of Space which along with the several books that I started since I began that, got stopped because I couldn't take them anywhere at a certain point cause I didn't feel it (maybe because I'm an idiot and didn't have a plan for any of them). This was precipitated by a conversation I had in the Pub (oh, everyone has to be surprised by that) with my good friend Ferdinand, big crazy Dutch Philosopher in chief of Rufus T Firefly, about how I always start things and have great plans for them (or not really in my case) but they always go to shit, I started afresh with a brand new book but using the back story I had created for him and a number of the characters, sat down and went through all the backlog of stuff I had written and then made a plan of the novel section by section who the characters would be that were in the story. It'll be finished at the end of August this year, drafted, read by people I trust, drafted, read, drafted and then polished up and in September I  begin shopping it around publishers after that and if I don't get a bite I will be self publshing for this time next year.

In other writing news the Alliance of Worldbuilders is in the final stages of prep (I'm a lazy shit and only just wrote my Bio) the irrepresible and awesome Sammy HK Smith, author of In Search of Gods and Heroes, mother of Cats (seriously she has a whole fuck load of them), one of the head honchos of Grimbold Books is working her way to completing that, I have two short stories in there, Mr Gabriel of Alba, protagonist of my Urban Fantasy work is hacking away and shooting spells at people in there, so watch this space or my facebook or even my Google+ feed for that and if you haven't bought and read In Search of Gods and Heroes why the hell not?

This year also as part of my attempt to become healthy and fit once again, am seriously (aposed to fucking around with it for short periods) taking up  Muay Thai and Brazilian Jui-jitsu as part of an MMA orientated regime, it will encompasse eventually the whole spectrum of training in MMA but I'm starting with the hard bits first. Also I begin 352 days of no Booze, that's correct no more drunken ramblings for almost year, as of  the 16th of March, conveniently those 352 days land on the end of my birthday celebration period of one year and end at the beginning of the celebration period of another year, not really all that convinient since I sent the time limit. I reckon if I can go that long without booze after losing three stone over three months without it, I will be a lean mean and less angry machine by the end of the 352 days, that and I'l save a shitload of money.

That's about it for this particular blog, as I am about to eat dinner and head out to Falkirk for some Chain of Command, first outing of my new army.

Peace, love and all that good shit.

Shadow of the Wraith Blog and Review

Howdy Folks,

Just me with yet another Bandit Book Blog, this time it's a book I've actually read, enjoyed thoroughly and have read again since, which is a pretty good indicator of whether a book rates a thumbs up from me, I read it over and over again.

The Book is called Shadow of the Wraith, by an ever so nice gentleman who lives on the Emerald Isle, by the name of Ross Harrison, I reviewed it for my friend Sammy HK Smith, the publisher of my own work, for her blog when she interviewd Ross for her blog, and I'm going to put it up again along with everything else you need to know to purchase a copy of this fine piece of fiction.

Shadow of the Wraith (by Ross Harrison)

Review by David Muir

Right, Sammy asked me to do this review for her, maybe because she thinks I've got loads of free time (which I do, but don't needed reminded of) and I had only thus far read the Book in bits and pieces, Up on Authonomy and while not distracted by boobs and booze, I read a couple of the chapters after the parts on the site, but had enjoyed it so thoroughly I gave it a 4 star rating on good reads without actually reading the whole thing).

Anyway did finally read the whole thing and did most of it today, in fact I read 75% of the book today, and while there were bits missing from the draft that I had seen part of and bits added, it still holds on to it's essence. Which is frankly, (stealing a Castleism) is So Awesome! Great characters, most of them completely looney tunes. There's a main character who is more than he seems (which by the way I never saw coming and I normally see these things coming, until it was right in my face), who seems to live half in the real world half in the movies, hero complex much, along with his trusty sidekick, a relationship much like a certain Mr Reynolds and Mr Cobb, it has a wisecracking Android who throws off one liners that even Bender would be proud of (but sadly not as rude) along with the odd movie quoute (though the Arnie one was wrong), an assassin that learns to play nice with others, a bad guy who isn't a guy at all, intrigue and plot twists that makes your head spin a bit.

Anyway the story starts with Travis Archer, the focal character of the story, former Terran Alliance military operative, now bounty hunter who is chasing a mark he's been after for a bit, he finds him only for his bounty to be nicked by the Krathan Assasin Juni Lien. Mr Archer not so happy about this so when he goes looking for her on the ethernet (galactic internet) he finds his old team mate Jay Miller, has a bounty on his head, Archer feeling nothing but a sense of loyalty, and probably a good dose of his hero complex. This precipitates into an investigation for the alliance to find the Star Wraith, big honking ship that's been running around the stars knocking ships off left right and centre for years. They get the old team back together and add a number of aliens, including the Krathan Assasin eventually the aforementioned wisecracking Android.

There is intrigue abound as they are ordered to blow the Star Wraith, find out that it's actually built by the alliance, and basically steal the ship until they find out what is really going on. Now I'm sure I could reveal the whole plot to you, but that would be a waste, because you wouldn't get the enjoyment out of reading the book, so hopefully this should wet your appetite.

I did find the book awesome but there were also not so awesome parts to it, while the wisecracking robot was great at times it did feel as if some of the earlier witty spark between Archer and Miller which I found quiet interesting was transferred between the android and the guy who now owns him, and the too and fro between the team-mates wasn't used as well after that pint, and it felt like sometimes his jokes and one-liners were there just for the sake of it.

I felt that possibly it was a little too short. I think that sometimes it was too easy to get from a to b, the end hook was a little contrived and the author will know which bit I'm talking about, but maybe that particular character is the hook for the second because I understand the book is meant meant to be part of a series and while a lot of authors do that leave a hook (I do) so you know there's more to come and also leave it with a proper ending (which there is), I felt that the book itself is that hook and there wasn't any need for it to be that easy to get the information they needed to get to the end bit. I felt at times the author wanted to get his story out on the page (digital as mine may have been it's still a page) it maybe just felt a little too fast, though nominally the first book in a series is the shortest one.

I liked the way the parts of the book were broken up with the headings, but sometimes and I don't know if this is just the way it was formatted on my Kindle but on the same page without any spacing you had two different perspectives for characters in the same bit, but again maybe the formatting on my kindle.

All in all I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes Science Fiction, Space Opera or as Ross put it Space Fantasy. It is all in all a good first book, and the fact that it is self-published shouldn't put you off because I have seen writers who actually got a book deal nowhere good as this.

Purchase Links:

Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007ZBK6QA

ePub: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/210824

Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0957592906

Also available from a variety of other retailers.

 

Blurb:

It sounds like a simple assignment: track down the mysterious Star Wraith and put an end to its rampage. But when Travis Archer and his team of inept soldiers find themselves the most wanted people in the galaxy - hounded by assassins, terrorists and their own military - they realise the Wraith is just a symptom of a much larger problem... Finding war raging between one army intent on destroying an entire species, and another that will destroy the galaxy, Travis must put aside his fears and his past to uncover the truth behind it all. To become the hero he's always imagined.

Shadow of the Wraith is the first book in the NEXUS series.

Kindle ASIN: B007ZBK6QA

£2.49 $3.79

ePub ISBN: 9781476390390

£2.49 $3.82

Paperback ISBN-13: 978-0957592902

£7.99 $12.10

About the Author:

Ross Harrison has been writing since childhood without thought of publication. When the idea was planted by his grandmother to do so, it grew rapidly, and after a bumpy ten years or so, here sits the fruit. Ross lives on the UK/Eire border in Ireland, hoping the rain will help his hair grow back.

Links:

http://www.ross-harrison.com

http://www.facebook.com/StarWraith

http://www.twitter.com/AuthoRoss

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ross-Harrison/e/B007ZSUY06/

Submit I tell you

Okay, it's been ten days since I last posted and I've submitted stories to two places that pay for submissions, and a horror Anthology Burial Day's Gothic Blue Book for 2013 and I've had one rejection back, but funny that it didn't really bother me at all for some reason, but I worked it out after some deep thought, I realized I really don't care where something get's published as long as it eventually does which has spurred my writing on just a little bit.

It might just be because I've only ever before submitted one piece for professional publishing before in Strange Tales from the Scriptorian Vaults which means I'm on a 50% for pro-publishing, I'm sure after dozens of rejections from all over the place I'll feel differently, what I'm wondering is, what if I don't give a even after that possoibility.

I have as big an ego as anyone and I like to know my writing is good or bad or in the middle but when i saw the rejection all I thought was, maybe the next person I submit the story to will like and if not maybe the next, it freaked me out a little that I wasn't freaked out by it. And when I submitted Mississipi Mayhem to Burial Days all I thought was on to the next one which you don't really need to worry about it cause it's half done already. It's only just when I've stopped and thought about it  started to worry where the hell was the guy who was worried sick about his submission to Strange Tales.

All in all I've come to one conclusion.

I'm just weird.