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 Biopunk Special Issue – 31st July Deadline for Submissions

Oh bugger me! Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fu… well, when you’re busy. It also flies when you have a deadline approaching, it seems much more quickly than when there’s no deadline. I really wanted to submit to this Biopunk Special.

With just a week to go until the issue closes I’m not sure if I have enough time to get something written, edited and submitted. I’ve been fortunate enough to have been published (fiction-wise) by Morpheus Tales a couple of times, by different editors.

When the issue was first announced earlier this year I was flooded with ideas, now, a week before the deadline, and having written no fiction yet this year, I am bereft. No idea, no time, no story.

Three thousand words can seem like a daunting challenge, but with the right story and the imaginative flow going, it’s difficulty to contain it within that amount of words.  But staring at a blank screen, nothing is coming to me.

One week. That’s all I have left. Will I even manage to submit something? I know the issue is almost complete, I’ve even had a sneaky peak, but didn’t get a chance to read any of the stories. It’s being edited by proof-reader extraordinaire Samuel Diamond, who is one of those responsible for polishing the Morpheus Tales Supplement until it shines.

Ok, enough with this procrastination. I haven’t got time for it. One week. To write a story, edit and submit. I can do it. Or can I? Well, I should at least try. Otherwise I’ve already failed, haven’t I. Bring it on!

Guidelines can be found here:

http://www.morpheustales.com/guidelines.htm

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY By Ian Fleming – Reviewed

I love James Bond, he’s my hero, a womanising action man, with a license to kill and an adventurous lifestyle. I love Ian Fleming too. Bond’s creator lived almost as exciting a life, although he was incredibly human in his weaknesses and failures, whereas Bond is the perfection of Fleming’s misdeeds.

What gets me every time I pick up a Bond book is the writing, the richness, the sheer imaginative grace that exudes from every sentence. There is a vibrancy in Fleming’s work that makes you forget about some of the ridiculous plots, the super villains, and the vehicles turned into dragons (Dr. No).

I still consider the Bond books the essential step away from pulp and into the modern thriller, they are the (not so) missing-link between the pulp action crime thrillers such as The Spider, and the cold-war heroes of the seventies and eighties, Bourne et al. The not quite perfect combination of action, hi-jink, over-the-top entertainment, and that essential ingredient, realism.

The eighth book in the series, For Your Eyes Only is the first short story collection, featuring some familiar titles such as the title story, and “Quantum of Solace” and “A View To A Kill”, and two other less familiar titles. Although the stories contained in the books will be much less familiar, having little or nothing to do with the films that followed.

An incredible collection of tales, diverse and entertaining in their own ways, each of the stories stands out as individual and unique. Bond works so well in short fiction, but only rarely do you get the full character of Bond, sometimes he is there merely as background such as in “Quantum of Solace”, a story told to Bond by a senior civil servant.

A nice little book at just over two hundred pages, I finished it in a couple of days and hankered for more. Not necessarily Bond at his best, but Fleming’s writing here is not as overwhelmed with fabulous plotting, and some of these stories are perfectly, brilliantly exciting. Another Bond fix that delivers.