Hello from London,

Lots of free stuff for you this week, but first...

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: You couldn't write a dystopian story any better than the current news cycle on the coronavirus.

As Europe's and the USA's lack of discipline results in recurring waves of infection, many asian countries seem to have wrestled the virus into submission. Meanwhile, our governments find themselves in the unenviable position of having to curtail basic freedoms (9pm curfews in France!) in order to get a handle on infection rates.

Meanwhile, the lack of trust that has been building in society for the past decade - driven by social media, shitty leadership, poor education or diminishing attention spans - combined with some of the worst communications ever employed by governments - has resulted in a society that disagrees on the definition of the problem, latches onto memes with more confidence than official communications, defies laws and incessantly debates every detail of the cause, severity and reponse to the pandemic.

If you wanted to paint a picture of a society getting ready to fall apart, it would be hard to do better. It's a good thing that in the real world, we bounce back from such things.

Back to fiction, a good place to take refuge in times of crisis...

A Quick Update on Emily Voss

It turns out publishing a book on a budget is tricky, and I've had a little setback.

I've found it very difficult to get a cover designer. That said, it looks like the problem is now solved and I should be in a position to publish around the end of November.

In the meantime, and to compensate for this small delay, I'm going to two two things. First, in the next section you will find a complete compendium of the free stories I've written that you can download - both on the subject of Emily Voss, and lots of other stories that I've made available here previously. I've never listed them all in one place before.

Second: I'm going to write another short, much like A First Time for Everything, and make it available here for you, sometime before publication. I tried to do this once already, but the story took on too much significance and it ended up being the main body of episode 4.

Free Stories - A Complete List

Here's a complete list of the free stuff I've written, as well as a couple of things that are reasonably inexpensive to get through Amazon. My bibliography, if you like.

Remember, episode one of the Emily Voss series, Past Mistakes, is free and you can read it by clicking on the image above, or on the link right here below.

Emily Voss

• Past Mistakes - Episode one of the Emily Voss stories (free)
• A First Time For Everything - A free side-story from the Emily Voss universe
• My website has a dedicated page to the Emily Voss series , if you want to keep up-to-date

World of Skills

• Only the Wicked - Episode one of World of Skills (free)
• Anger's Reflection - Episode two of World of Skills (patreon subscribers only)
• My website has a dedicated page for World of Skills for more frequent updates, they're scheduled to be released monthly on Patreon.

Short Stories

• Machine Man (science fiction)
• Rare Gifts (horror)
• In-Flight Magic (contemporary fantasy / witchcraft)
• What You Might Find - (fiction)

For my Patreon subscribers, I wrote a long note on the process of writing Rare Gifts, and how the story evolved from initial idea to something completely different.

I have two novellas out on Amazon, if you're interested in looking at my older work. They are:

• Snow

Corporations provide dysfunctional geniuses capable of calculating faster-than-light trajectories that enable human colonization of distant stars, but at what cost are the Navigators trained? As the Ortholan's crew fight for survival after crashing in a distant moon, they must also manage their Navigator's increasingly erratic behavior. All the while, the air grows stale and their ship lies crippled beneath the icy surface.

• Eternal Child

Suzie has long treasured the book her mother offered her as a child. It always seems to have something more to offer her. It never runs out of stories, and she never wonders why.

As her behavior becomes ever more influenced by what she reads within its pages, it becomes unclear whether the knowledge, experience and wisdom she gains from it are worth the eventual price.

A reimagining of the story of the Jinn, and the cost to those who bind themselves to it.

Hopefully, all that ensures that you have something to read while I work on getting the first volume of Emily Voss stories out into the world!

La Revolution: A Netflix Recommendation

I don't recommend stuff to watch very often, although I am a huge consumer of science fiction and fantasy TV (when it's any good). When I saw this advertised on Netflix, I thought Oh no, another spin on Les Miserables, how boring. I ignored it.

That was a mistake.

When it came out, some of the blogs and websites I follow, which are focused on speculative fiction, mentioned it. My curiosity piqued, I took a closer look.

Let me preface this next part with the following: I am a difficult customer when it comes to TV series. If the pacing is off, the dialogue or acting wooden, or the story insufficiently engaging, I start clicking the 'skip forward' button or I just stop watching. I'm hard to please.

La Revolution is fantastic. I'm not being paid a single penny to say that.

The cinematography is spectacular, with shots so full of ambiance you want them to go on forever. The opening sequence alone is so gripping and visually engaging that I was worried they'd never be able to keep up that standard for the season, but they do.

Set in pre-revolution France, the nobles hold all the power, and the population is not happy about it. Against this background, a contagion appears. The infected's blood turns blue, and they become violent, and strong, and aggressive, with heightened senses. The infection appears to be part of a plot.

I speak French, which perhaps puts me at an advantage when watching a series written and performed in French. La Revolution, however, stands equal with the very best of English-language entertainment, and less than a week after it's initial release, people are already asking if there will be a second season.

I cannot recommend it enough. Go watch it now!

Book Promotion

This week, I'm promoting a book called The Eternal Agarthians by Sherif Guirguis.

This is easy to answer, he went back to his world.

Deep beneath the earth's crust, lies Agartha, Hollow earth orInner Earth.

The civilization of Agartha is at least five hundred years ahead of us, but our world's events occasionaly affect theirs.

This book is about the stories of those Agarthans meddling with our history, and the minor changes they made that led to how we live our lives today.

In this collection, there are eleven stories from different eras of earth's history, from the ice age, to Atlantis, the black plague, Alexander the great, and even Jack the Ripper, and they all star those unsung heroes, the eternal Agarthans.

Click to Visit the Amazon Page for "The Eternal Agarthians"

Thank you for reading..

Nick

PS. If you have questions, feedback, etc, feel free to get in touch by replying to this message. I do my utmost to read and reply to every message I receive.

FOLLOW ME ON

My Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon | Patreon