March 5, 2024 at 12:46 pm (Uncategorized)
I saw the news that WordPress is going to allow AI to scrape data from people’s sites. I don’t like AI, which just seems to be a way to use other people’s work with no payment and no regard for copyright, so I’ve opted out of it.
As I don’t trust WordPress to keep its hand off my writing, I’ve deleted the Poltergeist: the Legacy fanfic from my site. Don’t think anyone was interested in it, so it’s small loss
October 17, 2019 at 11:08 am (my books)
Tags: Cathaven Press, paperback, SF, space opera, Warbird
I’ve been threatening you with my huge space opera, Warbird, for some time, but now it’s available in paperback, the first print offering from Cathaven Press.
It’s the story of the TSCV Vienna, an innovative space craft that can travel very rapidly across the galaxy, leaping through voidspace. On her maiden voyage the crew of the Vienna find a wrecked alien vessel and rescue its three occupants. First contact is going swimmingly, until Space Corps recall them to known space. A human colony has been attacked, leaving thousands dead, and Vienna’s crew find themselves on the wrong side of an interstellar war. The stakes are high as both races have terrible weapons that can devastate planets, so our heroes must find a way to stop the conflict before that happens.
The book is written in first person and is a head-hopping novel with chapters given to six different characters. Much of the book is told from the perspective of Rachel Murray, commander of the Vienna. She has flashes of precognition even though she’s sceptical of such outlandish psychic abilities. Quinn Gresham, captain of the starship, has other chapters, and we also hear from Dr Christopher Brennan, head of the team which designed and built the Vienna, Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Ede, Rachel’s boyfriend, Lieutenant Carla Villeneuve, communications officer on the Vienna’s Bridge, and Dr Lyn Sawyer, a linguist directed to compile a dictionary of the alien language. The aliens themselves are pretty neat – well, I would say that, wouldn’t I? After all, I created them.
Lurking behind the human characters is Warbird, the AI that runs the ship. It sees and hears everything and although it strenuously denies it, has a distinct sense of humour.
For those of you who are sensitive about such things there’s a fair bit of sex and a lot of swearing in this book. I wouldn’t recommend it for kids. Vienna’s Chief Engineer, Mark Wilder is particularly foul-mouthed. Sometimes characters do stuff that the author hadn’t intended, so you have to run with it!
Warbird is available from Amazon UK for £12.95 – we tried to keep the price down, but it’s almost 500 pages. Amazon US has it for around $16. The cover is by Adam Benet Shaw, who did several of my covers at Pro Se, and there’s a gorgeous frontispiece by the much acclaimed and award-winning artist, Jim Pitts. The e-book is in preparation and should be up in about a week.
April 25, 2019 at 10:51 am (my books)
Tags: Anna & Zenni, e-book, novel, paperback, Pro Se Press, SF
I have a new book out today from Pro Se Press, The Beauty of Our Weapons. It’s the fourth volume in the Anna & Zenni saga, an SF espionage thriller. Don’t let the fact that it’s mid-series put you off – there’s enough basic info on who Anna and Zenni are to let you enjoy the book and you can always catch up with their backstory in the previous three volumes if you like the fourth one.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FUTURISTIC SPIES, KILLER NUNS, CORPORATE ESPIONAGE AND MORE IN JILLY PADDOCK’S ‘THE BEAUTY OF OUR WEAPONS’!
Author Jilly Paddock has created one of the most unique pairs of spies ever to grace science fiction in her ZENITH ALPHA 4013 series. Now this unusual pair returns in their most dangerous and demanding mission yet in the fourth volume in the series-THE BEAUTY OF OUR WEAPONS.
Anna-Marie Delany and her computer partner, Zenni, are spies with psionic powers, agents for Earth Intelligence. When their boss at EI, Chandre Marteen, goes missing on the idyllic vacation world of Tambouret, their mission is to find her.
A child has also vanished, Angel Jansen, daughter of Anna’s dead enemy. Add to the mix an anti-technology cult whose leader may be possessed by a demon, a dark-sister from a sect of assassin nuns, an attempt to destroy EI and the Zenith project in a hostile takeover of Delany Corp and the help or perhaps hindrance of a pompous native detective-can Anna and Zenni rescue the hostages and survive unscathed?
Thrill to the fourth book in Jilly Paddock’s ZENITH ALPHA 4013 series, THE BEAUTY OF OUR WEAPONS. From Pro Se Productions.
It hasn’t appeared on my Author page yet, but you can find the e-book here in the UK and the print version here. It was uploaded to Amazon at the beginning of April and seemed to get lost in the upper reaches of the Big River, so it’s great that it’s finally available.
January 7, 2019 at 12:55 pm (life stuff, my books)
Tags: Anna & Zenni, paperback, Pro Se Press, Warbird, writing stuff
I hoped to have two books out in 2018.
Didn’t happen.
The Beauty of our Weapons, the fourth in the Anna and Zenni series, is still due to be published by ProSe Press, but has been delayed. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; StarChild, the third in the series, came out in the final days of 2017 and I think its sales suffered because it slipped under the radar. Beauty should be out soon, I hope.
Warbird has also been delayed. Various household expenses meant that I couldn’t buy the ISBNs I need to self-publish print titles, but I hope to get them soon. Once I have them I’ll probably also bring out the e-books, No Earthly Shore and The Dragon, Fly in print.
Not having any books out in 2018 means that I don’t have anything that can be nominated for any awards. Ah, who am I kidding? I don’t write the kind of stuff that wins awards. I’ll never be a well-known or bestselling author. I have a few dedicated fans and I’m very glad of them, but I ain’t gonna be famous any time soon.
I went to two cons this year – Follycon, the SF Eastercon in Harrogate and Novacon in Nottingham. Both were enjoyable, but I didn’t do any panels or readings, or take a dealers table. I also did a signing event, The Darker Side of Fiction in Peterborough, which was a limited success. Nothing planned this year so far.
I didn’t write much in 2018. The news is so depressing that I’ve had to stop reading it – the world is in such a terrible state. It’s hard to maintain any level of creativity in the face of that, but I’ve started to dabble in prose again. There are several things I need to finish, notably Anna and Zenni volume five.
I’m sorry that this has been such a negative post. I did make one cheerful New Year’s resolution this year, that I’d go out for tea and a cake at least once a month, just to try and lift my spirits. Mmm, cake – think I might be able to keep that one.
Happy New Year to all of you.
August 6, 2018 at 2:24 pm (my books, Uncategorized)
Tags: novel, SF
I have two new books in the pipeline, which should arrive in the next couple of months.
The first is the next volume in the Anna & Zenni series, book 4 in the chronology, The Beauty of Our Weapons. Pro Se Press will be publishing this one. I’m waiting for the cover art to be done. It should be interesting as they’re using an artist who hasn’t worked on my stuff before.
The second is Warbird, my long space opera, which I’m self-publishing. I have a lovely cover done by the amazing Adam Shaw, and a black & white illustration of the alien by the wonderful Jim Pitts, which I’m going to use as a frontispiece. I’ll be doing some artwork reveals a little closer to the publication date. I still need to source an ISBN and get the final version of the book formatted. I’m guessing it’ll be ready by October.
Warbird is told from the viewpoints of six characters, but most of it centres on Rachel Murray, Commander of the Terran Space Corps Vessel, Vienna. Other people we get into the heads of are Dr Kit Brennan, leader of the team who built the Vienna, Lieutenant-Commander Benjamin Ede, Rachel’s boyfriend, Quinn Gresham, Captain of the Vienna, Lieutenant Carla Villeneuve, Comms Officer, and Dr Lyn Sawyer, a linguist on board the spaceship. There’s a first contact situation with a race of flying, eight-limbed aliens called arachnoids due to their superficial resemblance to spiders–they’re actually egg-laying mammals with hollow bones like birds.
The elevator pitch for Warbird is “a bit like Star Trek, with sex and swearing”. It’s unashamed space opera with touches of humour, romance and the supernatural. I’m sure you’ll like it and it should get here soon.
January 19, 2018 at 4:49 pm (my books)
Tags: Anna & Zenni, e-book, paperback, Pro Se Press, SF
Happy 2018!
I have a new book. It crept out in the last days of 2017, in that lost, liminal space between Xmas and the New Year. It’s published by Pro Se Press, has another gorgeous cover by Adam Shaw, and is the third volume in the Zenith Alpha 4013 series.
Meet StarChild.
Anna and Zenni are now working for Earth Intelligence and need to prove themselves to their masters. Ile Garoque is a world that closed its borders two decades ago, so when StarChild, a vastly successful group, are invited to play there, EI plan to place an agent in their entourage. Then the lead singer, Taheera, refuses to go and Anna gets to impersonate a rock star. It’s not a great time for Anna to leave Earth as her father, Lewis, is ill. He wants to include her in his will; as Anna-Marie Delany is officially missing, presumed dead, his lawyers need to bring her back to life.
Add in another attempt to kill her, a pair of dragon-storms (weird disturbances in hyperspace that can destroy a spacecraft) and a kidnapping by a group of predatory aliens with four arms and venomed claws – Anna and Zenni have to struggle to stay alive to complete their mission.
Available in print and e-book from Amazon UK and US. The fourth volume in the series, The Beauty of Our Weapons, should appear in May/June 2018.
To promote the new book, I’ve done an interview with the wonderful Derrick Ferguson, a fellow New Pulp author, writer of the Dillon Adventures. Thank you, Derrick, for taking the time to do this.
July 29, 2017 at 11:23 am (my books, Uncategorized)
Tags: Afton & Jerome, e-book, novella, paperback, Pro Se Press, SF, short stories
Well, sort of, as it’s a new version of one of my self-published e-books.
Pro Se Press have just brought out the first print edition of The Spook and the Spirit in the Stone, the prequel to Dead Men Rise Up Never. It has a lovely new cover by Adam Shaw, the artist who did the cover for Dead Men, plus an extra short story, the URLking. It’s available from Amazon UK and US. I’m waiting for my copies to arrive and will be doing a reading from it at Fiction Fix on August 6th.
April 3, 2017 at 9:58 am (my books, Uncategorized)
Tags: Afton & Jerome, Anna & Zenni, Eastercon, fanfic, Fiction Fix, Innominate, paperback, SF
Had a good evening at Fiction Fix last night. We had two new readers, Will Stebbings and Gary Francis-Williams. Will read from his novel, Off the Mark, a coming of age story set in the 1960s, and Gary read from The Mysterious 1 & 27, a tale of unpleasant relatives scrambling to solve clues and get their hands on a huge fortune left in the Colonel’s incomplete will. Gary said it was his first reading, but he gave an accomplished and most amusing performance. Morgan Fitzsimons treated us to the start of the tale of Betsy Butterfingers, an accident-prone witch – hopefully we’ll hear more about Betsy in the future. Ron Graves did a spooky mood piece and Helen read some more from her unpublished SF novel, the Zarduth Inperative.
For a laugh, I did a bit from my Poltergeist: the Legacy fanfic, The Harrowing of Hell (you can find all of it here on my blog). It went down pretty well, and Gary told me he’d enjoyed it even though he didn’t usually like horror. I must admit that I’d never thought of it as horror before. These genre categories are very blurred and slippery to pin down and I’m always interested when readers find something in my work that I didn’t realise was there.
Pro Se have announced that three of my books will be coming out this year – no firm dates yet. The first will be The Spook and the Spirit in the Stone, which will be in print for the first time along with a bonus Afton & Jerome story. I’ve seen the sketches for the cover, once again by Adam Shaw, and it looks very good. The other two 2017 book will be three and four in the Anna & Zenni series, StarChild and The Beauty of our Weapons. I’ll keep you posted on progress.
Dave and I are going to Eastercon for the first time, Innominate at Birmingham. I’ll be doing a reading and also appearing on a panel about Biohacking. Should be interesting!
October 18, 2016 at 4:51 pm (my books)
Tags: Afton & Jerome, Anna & Zenni, british fantasy society, e-book, Pro Se Press, space opera, Warbird
I went to Fantasycon by the Sea, which was in Scarborough at the end of September. I’d never been to the town before – it’s delightful. We stayed at the Grand Hotel, a slightly faded Victorian gem with wonderful views of the bay and harbour. Although the weather forecast was cloudy with some rain, we had a very sunny weekend. We met up with a lot of old friends and found some new ones. I was particularly glad to see Irene Soldatos and Harriet Goodchild, who I’ve known since the old Authonomy days but had never met before in the flesh. They were there promoting their books, Irene’s Bad Bishop, and Harriet’s The Crooked Path, which had only just come out.
I went to some panels, the Elizabeth Bear and Frances Hardinge interviews, and even did a reading from Dead Men. As usual, the reading venue was tucked well away from most of the con, and I only got an audience of eight. We did sell a few books over the weekend, so that was a bonus.
I’m trying to do more readings. Like most authors I suspect, I’m not a natural performer and I find it hard to read my stuff out loud in public. I used to hate reading around the class at school (we even had to do it in French once!) and I was usually several chapters ahead, and so had to stumble back to the right place when my turn came, but these are my stories, so I ought to be able to tell them. A friend has organised a monthly reading evening in a local pub – it’s called Fiction Fix. Here’s a link to a report on her website from the first one, with incriminating photos! I’ve done two readings there so far, and although the venue isn’t ideal and I struggle with using a microphone, it’s good practice. I found that the Anna and Zenni books are difficult to read from, due to the telepathic conversations that make much more sense on the page. Last time I read from The Third Worst Thing That Can Happen On Mars, and I found Vonnie’s voice was much easier to do.
The next date is November 6th, so if you’re near Peterborough, drop into the Draper’s Arms at about 8 pm. I plan to read something from my unpublished space opera, Warbird, which is waiting for a cover and will probably appear next year.
In other news, The Spook and the Spirit in the Stone is due to come out in print and e-book from Pro Se Press soon. I’m waiting for the galleys and to see the cover. I’ll post updates here.
December 23, 2015 at 3:21 pm (Other Books)
Tags: Afton & Jerome, Airship27, charity anthology, e-book, Morgan Fitzsimons, New Pulp, short stories
The charity anthology to benefit my publisher, Tommy Hancock, and his family has just launched from Airship 27. Legends of New Pulp Fiction is a massive book, 776 pages in all, the work of 62 writers and 36 artists, edited by Ron Fortier, assisted by Todd Jones and Jaime Ramos.
I have a story in it, a short, sweet Afton & Jerome tale, and Morgan Fitzsimons, who did the cover for With Amber Tears, did three new black and white illustrations for it. You can get it in paperback and on Kindle from Amazon US and Amazon UK
It’s also available as a .pdf and will be produced as an audiobook, which will be 42 hours long.
Here’s the front cover, by Douglas Klauba –
and here’s the back, with the list of contributors.
I really hope this sells well. It’s a wonderful sampler for those who want to dip their toes into the sea of New Pulp.
little cat feet 