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11/11/11 Moonsteed, science-fiction adventure novel with some explicit sexual scenes, is now available in paperback.
The shops haven't caught up yet, but you should be able to order it now to be delivered when they have it in stock.
The shops haven't caught up yet, but you should be able to order it now to be delivered when they have it in stock.
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My YA technothriller Pilgrennon's Beacon features on The Indie Spotlight. Click to read.
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Here's an interview with SF and urban fantasy author GL Drummond on her blog. In it, we discuss Moonsteed, tarantulas, and in what circumstances people have the right to be offended by other people. Also, there are two free copies of Pilgrennon's Beacon available for people commenting on the post.
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Dark Tempest is now available in paperback from the usual places. 
It has been slightly updated from the Lyrical Press version. The most obvious change is the return to the inclusion of thee and thou in the speech of the genetic elite when addressing the genetic underclass. Thou was originally used as the informal way of addressing someone in English, much the same as the French still use vous formally and tu informally. See here for more information. Originally I chose to write it this way to express the contempt between the castes, and my editor at Lyrical suggested I change it when I sold them the book, fearing it might alienate some of the audience. While this is wholly understandable, I see the paperback as more of an enthusiast's item and thought some people might prefer to read it the way I'd originally intended it. If you prefer to read it with you instead, the electronic version published by Lyrical Press remains unchanged. :-)
A few copies with a typesetting error accidentally escaped into the wild. They are still perfectly legible, but a few passages inside them are in a similar but different font to the rest of the book. If you've ended up with one of these books and would prefer a correct one, we are happy to replace it free of charge. Please contact us using the address at the bottom of the main page.
It has been slightly updated from the Lyrical Press version. The most obvious change is the return to the inclusion of thee and thou in the speech of the genetic elite when addressing the genetic underclass. Thou was originally used as the informal way of addressing someone in English, much the same as the French still use vous formally and tu informally. See here for more information. Originally I chose to write it this way to express the contempt between the castes, and my editor at Lyrical suggested I change it when I sold them the book, fearing it might alienate some of the audience. While this is wholly understandable, I see the paperback as more of an enthusiast's item and thought some people might prefer to read it the way I'd originally intended it. If you prefer to read it with you instead, the electronic version published by Lyrical Press remains unchanged. :-)
A few copies with a typesetting error accidentally escaped into the wild. They are still perfectly legible, but a few passages inside them are in a similar but different font to the rest of the book. If you've ended up with one of these books and would prefer a correct one, we are happy to replace it free of charge. Please contact us using the address at the bottom of the main page.
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Moonsteed, published by Lyrical Press, is now available in numerous electronic formats from Amazon and various other vendors. I'm hoping to have a paperback out in the next few months through Tangentrine. This is an erotic romance book, so if you've come here because you're more familiar with my children's books, be aware this might not be your cup of tea. :-) Heather Massey of The Galaxy Express has also commented on the book, praising it for its unconventional approach to erotic romance in a hard SF setting.
SHE KILLED A MAN DESERVING LIFE
AND LET LIVE A MAN WHO DESERVED TO DIE
Now Sergeant Zeta Verity has until next morning, or 16.7 Earth days, to stop him and bring justice to Callisto.
Born to be the best but living in the shadow of her auspicious ancestors, Verity has been posted to the newly terraformed Callisto by the Meritocracy’s pseudomilitary research arm to work with specially bred horses. Killing a spy in possession of stolen data is just another day’s work. She’s not impressed by timid and scholarly Vladimir Bolokhovski, who arrives at the research base with a beautiful stallion he has genetically engineered.
But when her superiors start disappearing and an arrest warrant is issued on Verity herself for spying, she discovers the spy was not what he appeared, and that someone is playing games with all of them. She’s going to need the help of both Vladimir and the dead spy to find and stop the mastermind behind it all.
SHE KILLED A MAN DESERVING LIFE
AND LET LIVE A MAN WHO DESERVED TO DIE
Now Sergeant Zeta Verity has until next morning, or 16.7 Earth days, to stop him and bring justice to Callisto.
Born to be the best but living in the shadow of her auspicious ancestors, Verity has been posted to the newly terraformed Callisto by the Meritocracy’s pseudomilitary research arm to work with specially bred horses. Killing a spy in possession of stolen data is just another day’s work. She’s not impressed by timid and scholarly Vladimir Bolokhovski, who arrives at the research base with a beautiful stallion he has genetically engineered.
But when her superiors start disappearing and an arrest warrant is issued on Verity herself for spying, she discovers the spy was not what he appeared, and that someone is playing games with all of them. She’s going to need the help of both Vladimir and the dead spy to find and stop the mastermind behind it all.
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Two good reviews of my forthcoming SF-romance-erotica novel Moonsteed. Sizzling Hot Book Reviews 4/5 and Ghostwriter Reviews 5/5.
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Pilgrennon's Beacon features on Tic Toc Reviews
Posted by DoctorMandaBenson on Sun, Apr 24, 2011 20:18
Posted by DoctorMandaBenson on Sun, Apr 24, 2011 20:18
Leslie of Tic Toc Reviews has posted a review of Pilgrennon's Beacon, rating it as 4/5 stars. Pilgrennon's Beacon is available from the usual places in electronic and paperback format.
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In some of my books (the Pilgrennon’s Children series and related) I describe a fictitious near future with a method of governance radically different from the one we have at present. When I first began to explore the idea, I came up with an idealised ‘true democracy’ in which public referenda as nominated by the public themselves and regarding any aspect of how the country was run would be held every week or so. The votes would be processed and the results calculated by a phenomenally powerful national network of computers. There would be no Parliament, no politics, and no politicians.
Mainly due to my horror at some surveys of public opinion I read, I decided to change my envisioned system to use a ‘tiered’ voting model. The idea was that people earned the rights to greater vote ratings through various distinctions, such as earning a degree in an approved subject from a suitable university, reaching certain ranks in the military, or donating money to the public coffers (an optional taxation system). This seems to be the most controversial part of the idea, but the intention is to fortify the system to a degree against what I would call uninformed opinions — people with insufficient experience or education reacting emotionally to issues without researching or fully understanding the pros and cons. It also seems only fair that those who contribute the most to public funds should be entitled to slightly more of an influence about how those funds are spent.
The Meritocracy, as it’s called in the books, isn’t intended to be a solution to the ills of our current political system, but an alternative idea to encourage people to think more about this sort of thing. I personally think coming up with a system that will allow millions of very different people to live in the same country isn’t straightforward and there probably is no perfect answer. The supposed democracy we have in place at the moment is certainly better than vast majorities of dictatorships and monarchies, but the people themselves have little more than a choice of ‘three monkeys’ and no real direct influence on how the country is run. The three monkeys are concerned mainly with appealing to the aesthetics of the voters rather than the actual running of the country.
Of course, even if there were circumstances in place that would make this kind of meritocratic governance an option, there is as yet no infrastructure capable of supporting it. We haven’t yet built computers that powerful, or that reliable. Having a referendum is costly and time consuming, involving a national holiday so people can vote, printing a vast number of voting slips, sending a letter to everyone in the country eligible to vote, and finally delivering, counting, and processing all the votes. (For those interested in the Meritocracy, it will feature prominently in the forthcoming Pilgrennon's Children novel.) Which brings me to the topic of this post: the ‘Alternative Vote’ referendum.
In the current method of voting, everyone selects one candidate as the one they’d like to win. In the proposed alternative method, the voter numbers the candidates starting with 1 (most prefer) and descending. If one candidate gets more than 50% of the votes, that candidate wins outright. Otherwise, the votes from each of the candidates receiving the lowest number of votes are recounted and distributed according to their lower preferences, until one candidate has achieved 50% of the votes. That candidate is then declared the winner.
I believe if this alternative system were to be implemented, it would have very little effect on the actual outcome of general elections. I’ve heard it argued that this system would allow people to use their first vote to support a minority party, and then vote for the major party they considered the lesser of two evils as their second choice, but I can’t see this working, mainly because of the ridiculous way general elections are run. The electorate is divided up into regions, and in a large number of regions it’s not actually possible to vote for a minority party, because the minority party isn’t actually represented there because it doesn’t have the funds to pay for it, and you only have the choice of those that are available to your region. Judging by the ballots I’ve seen in the areas I’ve lived, people are going to vote for a minority party first, if there happens to be one with policies that interest them running in their area, then the major party they would have voted for anyway under the old system. Those who don’t have the option of a suitable minor party are simply going to choose the lesser of three evils and probably not bother to use their second and third choices.
On top of this, because the system is not as intuitive and straightforward by far as the existing one, there are a lot of people who are not going to understand it. People are going to be putting their hedged bet first and the ideal choice second because they don’t grasp how it works. In my opinion, the new system being proposed will make very little difference to the outcome of elections, other than wasting more time and money and spoiling more ballot papers.
There are real controversial issues that the public care about, that would benefit from a national referendum: what types of powerstations need to be built to deal with the incoming electricity deficit we’re going to end up with in a few years’ time after the current nuclear generators are decommissioned; genetic engineering; whether to leave the European Union; what to spend tax money on. Instead, the government has insulted the electorate by wasting the opportunity to have a referendum on something meaningful, and used the resources instead to have one on something gimmicky that will likely make very little difference in the real world. It’s not surprising that nobody seems particularly interested.
Mainly due to my horror at some surveys of public opinion I read, I decided to change my envisioned system to use a ‘tiered’ voting model. The idea was that people earned the rights to greater vote ratings through various distinctions, such as earning a degree in an approved subject from a suitable university, reaching certain ranks in the military, or donating money to the public coffers (an optional taxation system). This seems to be the most controversial part of the idea, but the intention is to fortify the system to a degree against what I would call uninformed opinions — people with insufficient experience or education reacting emotionally to issues without researching or fully understanding the pros and cons. It also seems only fair that those who contribute the most to public funds should be entitled to slightly more of an influence about how those funds are spent.
The Meritocracy, as it’s called in the books, isn’t intended to be a solution to the ills of our current political system, but an alternative idea to encourage people to think more about this sort of thing. I personally think coming up with a system that will allow millions of very different people to live in the same country isn’t straightforward and there probably is no perfect answer. The supposed democracy we have in place at the moment is certainly better than vast majorities of dictatorships and monarchies, but the people themselves have little more than a choice of ‘three monkeys’ and no real direct influence on how the country is run. The three monkeys are concerned mainly with appealing to the aesthetics of the voters rather than the actual running of the country.
Of course, even if there were circumstances in place that would make this kind of meritocratic governance an option, there is as yet no infrastructure capable of supporting it. We haven’t yet built computers that powerful, or that reliable. Having a referendum is costly and time consuming, involving a national holiday so people can vote, printing a vast number of voting slips, sending a letter to everyone in the country eligible to vote, and finally delivering, counting, and processing all the votes. (For those interested in the Meritocracy, it will feature prominently in the forthcoming Pilgrennon's Children novel.) Which brings me to the topic of this post: the ‘Alternative Vote’ referendum.
In the current method of voting, everyone selects one candidate as the one they’d like to win. In the proposed alternative method, the voter numbers the candidates starting with 1 (most prefer) and descending. If one candidate gets more than 50% of the votes, that candidate wins outright. Otherwise, the votes from each of the candidates receiving the lowest number of votes are recounted and distributed according to their lower preferences, until one candidate has achieved 50% of the votes. That candidate is then declared the winner.
I believe if this alternative system were to be implemented, it would have very little effect on the actual outcome of general elections. I’ve heard it argued that this system would allow people to use their first vote to support a minority party, and then vote for the major party they considered the lesser of two evils as their second choice, but I can’t see this working, mainly because of the ridiculous way general elections are run. The electorate is divided up into regions, and in a large number of regions it’s not actually possible to vote for a minority party, because the minority party isn’t actually represented there because it doesn’t have the funds to pay for it, and you only have the choice of those that are available to your region. Judging by the ballots I’ve seen in the areas I’ve lived, people are going to vote for a minority party first, if there happens to be one with policies that interest them running in their area, then the major party they would have voted for anyway under the old system. Those who don’t have the option of a suitable minor party are simply going to choose the lesser of three evils and probably not bother to use their second and third choices.
On top of this, because the system is not as intuitive and straightforward by far as the existing one, there are a lot of people who are not going to understand it. People are going to be putting their hedged bet first and the ideal choice second because they don’t grasp how it works. In my opinion, the new system being proposed will make very little difference to the outcome of elections, other than wasting more time and money and spoiling more ballot papers.
There are real controversial issues that the public care about, that would benefit from a national referendum: what types of powerstations need to be built to deal with the incoming electricity deficit we’re going to end up with in a few years’ time after the current nuclear generators are decommissioned; genetic engineering; whether to leave the European Union; what to spend tax money on. Instead, the government has insulted the electorate by wasting the opportunity to have a referendum on something meaningful, and used the resources instead to have one on something gimmicky that will likely make very little difference in the real world. It’s not surprising that nobody seems particularly interested.
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This is a post in memoriam of Johan Poot, Auntie Jo's husband and father to their two children, whose funeral was today. Not long ago, Johan was diagnosed with advanced cancer after a long period of unexplained illness. He underwent surgery to clear a tumour that was blocking his intestines, but sadly the disease had weakened his body too much and he died last week. Although I did not know him particularly closely, I have known him for a long time, almost as long as I can remember. He was a kind person who loved working with computers, and once helped me out with the site when I was having problems with a server transfer. Johan liked riding his bike and eating hot curries from the Rajah's Kitchen. He also participated in the Great North Run on several occasions. He was the tallest person I ever met, and he was a good father and he loved his family. I thank him for the nice memories he leaves behind. My thoughts and sympathies are with Jo, Tom, and Ellen at this difficult time.
Yamaha Bike from Wikimedia Commons
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My short story, 'Running For the Embassy' is now available in the March issue of Aoife's Kiss. Click the cover image to visit their site.
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Special offer: The Tangentrine Guide to Motoring (46 pages of cartoons) is a spoof of The Highway Code. Its RRP is five quid, but I'm offering it at £3.50 inclusive of P&P to the UK. If you live somewhere other than the UK and you want one, email for a quote. I also have a few copies of Pilgrennon's Beacon (370-page novel, RRP 8.50, £7.50 P&P inclusive). Please Paypal the amount to publisher@tangentrine.com with what you want, where you want it, and any instructions (eg. if you want it signed and to whom) in the message box.
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Good news everyone!(Yes, I stole that from Futurama)
Tangentrine.com should now load faster than ever, I've rewrote the back end code that runs the whole site, fixed even more bugs, removed some useless code that stops browsers from caching pages and finally got around to implementing a simple cache system! :D
Another Update
Fixed news post rendering after upgrade caused a few issues.
Tangentrine.com should now load faster than ever, I've rewrote the back end code that runs the whole site, fixed even more bugs, removed some useless code that stops browsers from caching pages and finally got around to implementing a simple cache system! :D
Another Update
Fixed news post rendering after upgrade caused a few issues.
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In the Shadow of Lazarus is now available on Fictionwise! This is a new SF-horror novella sharing a setting with Dark Tempest and published by Lyrical Press. It's about a (space) ship whose crew becomes infected with a disease that affects their minds with strange religious experiences and causes them to turn on one another.
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You Gotta Read review site reviews Dark Tempest, rating it as 'Gotta Read'!
~ Fixed link
~ Fixed link
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A new Best Of anthology from the Aurora Wolf online magazine, featuring my story 'The Plains of Fire'. Get a $2 USD discount when you order by using the code 9RWWE4QP
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Typesetting tutorial here on my blog, for those interested in it. Interview about Pilgrennon's Beacon with Nerine Dorman here, for those who aren't. ;-)
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Pilgrennon's Beacon is the subject of my interview with Annette Bowman on her blog.
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Happy New Year!
Pilgrennon's Beacon is now available in paperback. UK Amazon US Amazon. Also see the book's page on the site for more information.
Pilgrennon's Beacon is now available in paperback. UK Amazon US Amazon. Also see the book's page on the site for more information.
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Pilgrennon's Beacon is now available for preorder on the American Amazon site. This book will release on the 1st January. It's also preorderable in the UK and the electronic version is slowly finding its way onto various vendor sites.
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My climate change children's novel, The Weatherman's Niece, is now available!
UK Amazon
US Amazon
UK Amazon
US Amazon
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