Paul Kelly's Blog

Hello again, dear and constant readers! Today I reckoned for a change of pace we might have a look at the work of a writer I'm starting to hear more and more about, Hans Fisher. Now, most of Mr. Fisher's work seems to be sci - fi, not usually my kind of thing, but as you'll see if you're like me then it's well worth making an exception!

The particular book I'll be looking at here is The Ambassador, easily available from your local Amazon, priced at about a dollar or 77p, depending on your locality. From the start Fisher's style is strangely intriguing - it's difficult to explain, but somehow his style of writing keeps you reading, and his descriptions, although originally sparse when dealing with our own reality, become much more detailed and entrancing when the drama shifts to the alien world.

We writers are exhorted by many to write from what we know, and given terminology used I'd say that this is what Mr. Fisher has done. The narrative concerns itself in part with the differences in language, and this indeed forms a central part of the plot, though I'll reveal no more than that at this point. Needless to say, this makes for many humourous instances and situations, too.

The 'aliens' and alien world are described in verdant and captivating prose, and Fisher is adept at building up a mental image, so that the reader can actually have a third person view on proceedings. Of course, all of this is background to the main story itself. This is perhaps the one very minor complaint I can have about the whole experience, in that occasionally we are drawn into slightly lengthy discussions of the 'how it works' side of the universe - however I am going to put this down to my lack of experience with the genre, and also point out that these explanations draw the reader deeper into the world, so this can't really be seen as a failing of the work.

All in all, the Ambassador is an interesting story that will leave you pleased to have spent the money! 8/10

Morning all - this is a pre - work blog post, just for those who are interested in such things. If you're out there psychoanalysing me (And I reckon I'd make a good thesis or disseration subject in that area, altho it'd probably end with me in an asylum!) then maybe that's useful data for you...

First off - no more promises about when I'm going to post. I'm taking the alternative way of never breaking a promise here, by never making them...

There's been quite a bit going on to tell y'all (useful word there that I'd recommend even to people who don't live in the Deep South), none of it particularly shocking, terrible or awful, but there we go. Such is life, and while some excitement is good too much excitement lands you in the forementioned asylum...

Work's going pretty good (For those who don't know I work in education - frightening thought, isn't it?). Then again, being employed these days is pretty good going... 3 Million now out of work in this country, and the Prime Minister is overseas eating hotdogs and watching baseball... getting some praise and keeping busy, anyway, although on Tuesday (was it... yes it was...) I was late. The last couple of nights I've had trouble sleeping, really bad on Monday/Tuesday night, quite bad Tuesday/ Wednesday and not so bad last night, but on the morning of the really bad night I must have changed my alarm or rather meant to, and I woke up at about twenty to nine - not good when you're supposed to be in work in ten minutes and you live thirty minutes walk away. Still, I suppose the weight loss helped here (I've lost about four stone in the past six to seven months, and more and more people have noticed...); I remember rushing to my last job (A long long LONG time ago now) which was half the distance away, and being in a right state when I got there. Anyway... the restlessness in the night might have had something to do with the minor damp I found in the wall behind the bed, and now that that's dealt with we can hope that this 'waking up again at 1'o'clock' thing is going to go away...

If anyone who actually knows me is reading this (Please God no) then they might be able to confirm or deny this next item. Someone my Dad works with for some reason decided to tell him that I've got a very plummy (that'd be posh, people, not gay) sounding voice when I'm on the phone. Now, people who know me will confirm that, while not being the most broad or difficult to understand person in the world my accent has certainly got stronger in recent years, probably due to working where I do and being around this accent quite a bit (When I'm drunk it gets really bad, actually...). So it's pretty obvious what the problem is - I've got a telephone voice. I already knew this but I actually heard it recently - when I was ringing a company, I got aural feedback at my end and I could hear myself a few seconds later - and I hated myself by the sound of my voice, so I can only assume the other person on the line thought I was a real idiot. Although I never get asked to repeat numbers or letters or many words on the phone... unless I'm talking to someone in America for some reason. I think they think I'm some posh stuck up person and try to wind me up, personally...

I've recently been watching quite a bit of Rhett and Link on YouTube, who I was finally exposed to after seeing them on the recent Epic Rap Battle of History, and this has finally made me sign up to YouTube, something which seems to have got a lot less convoluted since the last time I tried it and gave up in disgust. Their Good Mythical Morning is now part of my daily morning routine (They'd probably be pleased to hear that, since their first show was about... daily morning routines). It's hillarious, but having looked into their background a little I couldn't help but be reminded of myself and a friend of mine, who fell out quite badly recently, but who, like them, had known each other since our first years at school. Ah well, I suppose if it jolts me to try and sort that out then it's a good thing.

Gaming wise I've been finishing a long game of Victoria (as Japan, I came seventh, flamin' Scandanavia pipped me for sixth place at the last minute; I mean SCANDANAVIA, it isn't even a proper country!) and I'm now looking around for something else to try out. It might be Galactic Civilisations 2, altho like me and a friend of mine have always said, nothing of that sort is ever going to beat Master of Orion 2, so it's probably time we all accepted that.

Book wise I've got back into Dilbert a little bit, with 'Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel. It took a bit of time but I'm now enjoying it like I used to, so much so that I've downloaded the Dilbert App for the iPhone. How far that goes we'll have to see, it might be getting deleted soon enough... speaking of which I was going to add it to my phone this morning... there we go. I've also finally given Audible a go, and so far I'm very pleased with it.

On the writing front things are still a bit stalled. I'm slowly editing what I've got for book one, while thinking of new ways to increase sales...

Hi all, and welcome back to the blog. Realise that I've not posted anything in a while, and I also realise I said I'd do something about that - well, I'm sorry, but I never said I'd stick to it... I try, and God loves a tryer, so they tell me. And they also tell me I'm very trying, and they're definitely right about that part.

A few things to talk about here - first off, Book Two in the War Beyond the Veil series just went live on create space, and here's the link in case you're interested. It's quite a bit cheaper, due to being a little bit shorter and also some sort of discount I get as a return customer, so check that out if you've not yet joined the Kindle revolution or whatever they're calling it right now! I think it's pretty good, but then of course, I would... I don't want to reveal too much, since I know there's at least one Book Club heading towards it at present, but I'll just say, if you think how the last one ended, and you thought there was something I didn't tie up, the chances are I probably do in this one. And if not, then I'll probably deal with it in the next...

Not content with releasing one book, I'm nearly finished on the edit of the third (and, hurrah, last) of the trilogy, The Unknown King. And the least said about that one for now the better I think! If you've read any of these by the way and you liked it please, please PLEASE recommend to someone else - only you can buy me my Californian Mansion where you know I belong... 20 cents at a time... ;)

In other news, I finally managed to get around to trying Red Faction Armageddon, which surprisingly I'm enjoying more that I expected (It goes to show, if you liked one game that the critics panned you should probably try the sequel, even if they do pan it too). As soon as I heard about the Aliens that were going to be the main part of the game I expected some sort of Dead Space clone, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out I was wrong. It's a bit of a return to the roots of the series (minus the First Person aspect). It's just a shame you can't blast through the walls like you could in the original, and as for the new features... the reconstruction thing reminds me of Singularity A LOT (Another game I really have to go back and finish...) and the magnet gun, well, it's ok but not amazing, at least not yet. Like Daggerfall with so many other RPGs I think I've just been spoiled here - oh for a free roaming sandbox in tunnels you can dig yourself... despite that, it was ten quid so well worth a go. If we can thank Modern Warfare 3 for nothing else it destroyed the price of most other games around Christmas...

Books wise, I finally (finally!) managed to slog through Citizens. This probably isn't fair, someone who was very interested in economic history would probably think it was a lot of fun, it's just not my sort of thing, but thankfully there are only really two big sections that deal with it, and it introduced me to the idea of 'Tax Farming' that I might make use of at some later date. Also I have to thank it for the idea of a penniless nobility little better than the peasantry that's going to get an airing in the upcoming series of books I'm currently working on. So, now that's out of the way I've also finished Metro 2033 - this was quite fun, but I'd only give it a try if you've read a few books translated from the Russian before it. I remember the first time I tried Blowing Up Russia and couldn't make head nor tail of what was going on after twenty pages, thanks to the seemingly uniquely Russian way of going off on a ten page tangent and then saying 'Anyway, back to what we were talking about before' and expecting you to be able to do so... still, the surroundings were very dark and interesting, there's quite a bit of exploration of the wreck that is the world and some really really good bits... and a largish twist at the end, so I'd recommend it if you like your sci fi dark and gritty and I suppose pretty realistic.

So now I'm currently reading Rebels and Redcoats by Hugh Bicheno. Another book that assumes you know what it's talking about before you start... obviously from the title we're talking about the American War of Independence, and the introduction touts it as something of a reply to Mel Gibson's The Patriot, which it is... but somehow 'A Few Bloody Noses' seems to do what Rebels and Redcoats does but better. Anyway, I'm veritably steaming through this one (Which means my concerns about the slowness of my reading can really be put down to the fact that Citizens just wasn't easy going), and have already discovered my little factoid that makes me glad I picked the book up - one of the British officers at the Battle of Saratoga (I think it was) was the Earl of Balcarres, one of whose other titles was the Baron of Wigan, so there's something of a local link there. So now I have somewhere else to visit if you all start buying my book like the clappers and I finally get to make some use out of that passport I paid for (Which has depressingly nearly expired).

Well, I think that's enough for now - hopefully I'll be back along with more news soon...

Hey all,

Last night I sat down to have another go at book four, that being the first of the prequels I'm hoping to turn out. As a bit of background, some of you might have already seen these in one form or another as short stories, or not so short stories, around the Maltav or somewhere similar. This is the really, really old stuff from about seven years back now that probably need a serious rewrite/ massive editing/ chucking out completely, but it's kind of what the first series was based on, and I reckoned it was only fair to tell you all how it all began.

The first problem is, it's a bit of a balancing act. There's some things that people who've read the first series will already know, but I want to make this series accessible to new readers as well. This means try to give both groups something new. At the moment I think I've pretty much got this thing sorted - followers of the series will at least get a look at Ancestors of some of the main characters from that, in particular a certain Lieutenant De Mharburg, and a certain Erajoz Ranger by the name of Sedemona to name just a couple. Newcomers should hopefully get a great story that will keep them interested enough to read the second one.

The second problem is getting it to flow. In some cases this is the third time I've had a go at this material, and making it fresh is proving tough in some parts. Still, I'm bringing in plenty of new ideas, and I've included some interesting sub plots to reflect the ground covered in the new book.

Rest assured though - book three of the first series is already written and just needs editing. Hopefully by the time that's done, I'll have the first part of this new, more traditional fantasy series for you to have a look at. When that's done, I think a return to old friends might be in order...

It seemed like a good time to start thing blog - first off it'll serve as one of my new year's resolutions, to keep posting here as I've failed to do on numerous blogs in the past, and second it'll be nice to keep people abreast of what's going on with the books, and me. (Dare I say also my 'fans', yes, you happy and individual bunch of people who actually like my work, I know there's not many of you out there, but this stuff is all for you, so I hope you do enjoy it!)

So, what's the story so far? How far have we got, and what is there still to do? Here's a brief rundown...

This whole thing started about ten years ago, growing out of a number of different ideas and projects. Foremost among these was a (very long, not very good) story called 'The Lords of War' (Which will thankfully never see the light of day) and a little place called the Mallorean Tavern, where I posted a number of different bits of fiction (Which, thanks to many crashes, deletions and other accidents, will also never be seen again). Soon after all of this I had my first go at writing a proper, planned out, full length story. At first this was something of a joint effort with Sophie Jarrell, but eventually that collaboration foundered and I was left with the parts of the story I'd written myself. I edited that, changed it, wrote quite a bit more, and then stuck it on the back burner and forgot about it.

Then came the dream/ nightmare/ divine inspiration or whatever it was. In a later post I'll tell you about the dream, and let any number of psychologists, both professional and amateur, have a go at psychoanalysing it if they choose to, but for now, let's say there WAS a dream. Suddenly I had an idea that I thought would make a wonderful story, but no background to go with it...

I put the dream together with what I'd written previously and hoped it would work out. Three books later (Nearly four, actually, at the time of writing), I'm hoping that it's worked. Quite a few people seem to think so, which has got to be a good sign.

The first book of a series of three, the Lost Brigade, was published by KDP in July 2011, and very recently it was joined by the second, The Silent Council. The third, The Unknown King, will bring all of this together in a final ending - after which I'm planning to write three prequels and one sequel. After that, well, I suppose I'd better hope that I have another dream...