I’ve been away for a while

It’s been almost a year since my last blog post. (I feel like I’m writing a confession!).

Life has unfortunately gotten in the way of writing. I didn’t write anything at all during the whole of 2019. I posted some reviews, but that’s it.

I also stopped working on the small press that I helped found, Morpheus Tales, to concentrate on my writing, would you believe!

Morpheus Tales is unfortunately on pause at the moment.

But now, during lockdown, I’ve started to write again (it only takes a pandemic!). Not the horror, fantasy or SF I usually write to escape the horrors of the real world, but a book about life. And how to win at it.

It’s called (third title change):

Think Rich, Get Rich: 5 Steps To Financial Independence

Or How The Rich Get Richer And The Poor Get Poorer

And is now available on Amazon UK and Amazon.com

13: Tales of Dark Fiction – 15% Discount on 13th of May

Morpheus Tales Publishing is so proud to print a story of mine in their first original anthology (alongside such heroes of mine as Joseph D’Lacey, Gary McMahon, Eric S. Brown, Shaun Jeffrey, Tommy B. Smith, Alan Spencer, Matt Leyshon, and a handful of other great writers [Andrew Hook, William R. D. Wood, Gary Fry, and Fred Venturini] I was less familiar with but equally pleased to be published alongside) , that on the 13th are every month they offer the book at a 15% discount!

Go and get your copy now and read one of my favourite stories, inspired by using the women’s toilets at work when the men was out of action. Post-apocalyptic dystopian misery…

http://www.lulu.com/shop/adam-bradley-and-tommy-b-smith-and-eric-s-brown-and-joseph-dlacey/13-tales-of-dark-fiction/paperback/product-18720432.html

The ebook is also available on amazon for kindle, and through smashwords in multiple formats.

Morpheus Tales: The Best Weird Fiction, Volume 2!

I know, I’ve been slacking on the reviews recently, but I have a good excuse! I’ve been reading Peter F. Hamilton’s Great North Road, an 1100 page epic SF novel. It’s taken me the last seven weeks to read, in which time I would normally read about seven books! It was huge, and mildly exhausting! I finally finished the book on Monday, and have managed to acquire a copy of Morpheus Tales: The Best Weird Fiction, Volume 2 for review, so that will be appearing shortly.

This is a limited (1000 copies) first edition, and features some of my favourite stories from the second year of Morpheus Tales Magazine, including stories by Ray Garton and Joe R. Lansdale.

The printed version of the book is available to buy now from lulu.com, and will soon be available on Amazon:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/adam-bradley-and-fred-venturini-and-joe-r-lansdale-and-ray-garton/morpheus-tales-the-best-weird-fiction-volume-2/paperback/product-20218078.html

The ebook versions are available from smash words:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/175324?ref=morpheustales

The kindle version of the book is available on amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Morpheus-Tales-Fiction-Volume-ebook/dp/B008EDXWA0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1340734223&sr=8-1&keywords=morpheus+tales+volume+2

Go get yourself a copy right now, and we can compare notes when the review finally appears!

 

ONE CLICK: Jeff Bezos and the rise of amazon.com By Richard L. Brandt – Reviewed

I buy 99.9% of my books through amazon, and have done for many years. Most of my friends and family use amazon for most of their book purchases. It’s amazing to think that such a huge and pervasive company is less than twenty years old.

This short book charts the history of amazon and its founded Jeff Bezos, from his work for a hedge-fund in New York to his starting the company with two programmers in a house in Seattle, and his determination and optimism that his company would be the biggest in the world by doing one simple thing: giving the customers a good service.

At two hundred pages the book doesn’t have room to go into a mass of detail, it charts the company’s rapid rise amid the dot-com bubble, its brief profit to appease investors and its massive investments in future growth and expansion which see profits shrink every year, despite vast sales. Investors in amazon have had a rough time, despite it being the biggest online retailer in the world.

Brandt doesn’t offer much insight, and a Bloomberg Game Changers Special gives you almost as much information, but the book is interesting. Brandt’s crisp journalistic style makes for easy reading, but as the Kindle and ebooks begin to revolutionise the publishing industry, amazon’s major competitor’s in books fall by the wayside, and as the company continues to plough new fields, you can’t help but think the story is far from over.

An interesting book, but without the personal insight into Bezos or the financial and business management insight into the company.

DEATH’S HEAD By David Gunn – Reviewed

Amazon suggested this book to me because of a previous purchase of one of Andy Remic’s books. Andy Remic writes the kind of fast-paced, action-packed SF and fantasy stories that thrill and entertain in equal measure, so I was looking forward to this one.

For once amazon got it pretty much spot on.

Sven is an ex-sergeant Legionnaire who is about to be lashed to death for insubordination, until a group of Ferox (unfriendly Wookie-type creatures) attack the out-post he’s stationed at, killing everyone but him. One of the massive alien beasts talks to Sven using telepathy and Sven is taken back to their camp where he lives with them as a kind of pet.

This is the beginning of Sven’s adventures.

When the cave system the Ferox live in is attacked and Sven is saved, he becomes a tool of the General, given mission where the army needs deniability. Sven’s unique abilities and his tougher than shit attitude not only get him into trouble, but also out of it, as he tackles prison, treason, war and command.

Ok, so Sven’s adventures feel very much organic, the plotting for the novel seems to have happened during the writing process and each episode doesn’t connect too much with what follows or what came before other than occasional details, but that doesn’t matter.

The haphazard plotting makes it feel like a real adventure, and you can’t help but enjoy Sven’s “fuck you” attitude. This guys got huge balls and isn’t afraid to display them for all to see. You want Sven to win, whatever it is he’s doing. He’s one of those grumpy bastards, like Kell, Conan and Druss, that we’re used to seeing in fantasy fiction, but a lot less so in SF. Here we have a true hero, who knows the difference between right and wrong, but does things he own ways, whether it gets him into trouble or not.

So the aliens involved in the final battle all become a bit confused, and you’re not sure quite who’s fighting who, but who cares!

Sven is what carries the story on, and Gunn gives us a great helping of action to keep things speeding along nicely so we don’t get too worried about the details. Great fun, the kind of book that puts a grin on your face. A boy’s own adventure in space.

A Pint of Bloody Fiction – Featuring MY story!

A couple of months ago I hadn’t written anything for ages. A couple of months, I thought, but when I checked it turned out to be almost a year. When I saw a call for submissions of 200 words by House of Horror for their new anthology A Pint of Bloody Fiction, the urge was irresistible. I whipped up a 200 word story in half an hour, and then spending twice that long editing it!

I sent it in, and the acceptance wasn’t long coming. Why isn’t it always that simple? The grin on my face stayed for over a week; anyone who know what a miserably bugger I normally am can testify this is an extremely rare event.

So my story “The Blade Bites Deep” appears in the collection, alongside some other stuff by some other writers. (Who are actually pretty good too!)

This burst of confidence also unleashed a six week write-fest, where I wrote something every couple of days. About twelve stories were produced in that time, and now the inspiration seems to have taken a backseat I better get to editing and submitting the buggers before my own version of writers block (life in general, grrr!) starts getting in the way again. So wish me luck!

And go get yourself a copy of  A Pint of Bloody Fiction and tell them I sent you!

Within the pages of this book of nightmares you will find horror stories in small doses, just enough to quench your bloody thirst. From an insomniac vampire to a library filled with human skin bound books, this collection will take you on a wild ride of chills and thrills without you even having to leave your seat. With each story being no more than 200 words, this collection is only a fraction of what these writers can do. Forty-Two chilling tales from many talented authors, trust me you will not want to put this book down.

Available now from House of Horror, Lulu.com and coming soon to Amazon.

Audio books

If Stephen King tells you to do something you do it. And Stephen King told me to read a lot, well in his book On Writing he says if you want to be a writer you have to read a lot, and I want to be a writer. Every day I slog to work and back, every day I am abused and mistreated, every day I read: I want to be a writer.

So I bought a few audio books off Ebay, thought I’d catch up on some classics, so H. G. Wells and Jules Verne to start off my collection.

I listened to The Invisible Man and was impressed. The cheap CD I got from Ebay was basically a collection of downloaded audio books from Librivox. I visited the website and found there were loads of books waiting for me to listen to, so obviously I’ve filled up my ipod with Dante’s The Divine Comedy.

Audio books take a bit of getting used to, it takes a little more concentration than listening to 30 Seconds to Mars and Papa Roach. But once you get your head in gear it’s off you go.

Librivox hasn’t got everything available, but it is free. Amazon do a range and so does Apple at their download store, I bet your local bookshop does too.

Think I might download Justineby de Sade next!

Reading had never been so easy!