A Far Out Fantastic Site

Credit: Pixabay The last four or so weeks have been a time of making revisions suggested by beta readers to my upcoming short story collection, "Bad Apps". Those revisions are almost complete. This past week, specifically, has been a time of revising the book’s blurb. The most important change I made to the blurb has to do with genre classification. But first let me mention some of the notable changes to the book itself. Latest Revisions to 'Bad Apps' The most notable of the latest revisions I made to "Bad Apps" is actually a small one, yet a very important one. One of the beta readers had suggested that I mention AI in one of the stories. I had already referred to artificial intelligence in the book’s introduction and in a few of the other stories. In fact, in one it’s the deadly antagonist. However, I needed to reflect AI in another story because that one involves a search engine—one that can read the user's mind.  When I had first wrote this story a f...

(Credit for above image: Pixabay.com) You're probably surprised to see a post here after I had said that I'm taking today off from blogging and would be back with another post next week. Well, at the last minute, I switched my day off to next Monday. I knew you'd be expecting the print edition of "The Trespassers", my new short-read of alien terror, to release by the weekend. As you probably noticed, it didn't release. I wanted to explain the reason for the delay: I haven't released the print version yet because I had forgotten all about having to look over a proof of it.   Before I release "Trespassers" as a print book or paperback, I have to look at a proof, or unofficial sample copy, of it. I don't want to leave anybody with a badly printed and formatted book and so I want to look at it before making it available for purchase anywhere. I have to order the proof which will probably take at least three days to reach me by mail.  So, it may b...

  It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop ! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. I normally do the optional question for the month which this month’s is Do you use AI in your writing and if so how? Do you use it for your posts? Incorporate it into your stories? Use it for research? Audio? However, because it covers a topic I've gone over several times both in past IWSGs and in weekly posts, I couldn’t think of anything else to say about AI in time for today’s post. So, I’ll just give the short answer: I absolutely do not use generative AI, and any other type of Artificial Intelligence I do use is probably so imbedded in tools such as text editors’ spell checks that I don’t really think about it.  Here are some of the past posts where I cover the topic of AI:  https://faroutfantastic.blogspot.com...

Credit: the blogger My short-read science fiction book of  alien terror, "The Trespassers", is now available for purchase! But it's also free for some some people. Who are these lucky people who will be getting free ebook copies of "The Trespassers"? They are current subscribers to my author newsletter, "Night Creatures' Call"! I will be sending them their free e-copies in the next week. So, current subscribers, be sure to check your in-boxes!  For those of you who aren't subscribers to the newsletter, you don't have to miss out on the free deal! Simply subscribe  between now and August 19th 2024 and then you too can get a free ebook of "The Trespassers"! And that won't be the only thing that will be free if you subscribe--the newsletter subscription is free too as always! I do, however, ask that only US residents subscribe due to the differences in nations' anti-spam laws.  So, that's "The Trespassers" ebook...

Finally, I’ve received the final product of the cover art for my short-read book, "The Trespassers"! So, I have a cover reveal for you today! However, this is only the illustration, not the full cover. I have not added the title or author’s name yet. I’ll be doing that during the week. I'm trying to get this book out as soon as possible and so I didn’t add the text to the cover for today’s reveal. If several of you would prefer the full cover reveal with the text included, then let me know in the comments box below and I’ll try to provide that at my Facebook and Instagram pages. For now, here's the completed illustration for "The Trespassers" book cover along with the new synopsis (blurb) that I shared with you last week: “The Trespassers"  After crash-landing on a desert planet, astronaut and forensic anthropologist Gav Torres becomes separated from the rest of his expedition. He soon enough reunites with everybody except one person: his fiancé, Shelle...

  Credit: Pixabay I said last week that I may have to have a special blog post and so a post outside of the usual Monday posting schedule because I was running late with the cover reveal for my short-read book, “The Trespassers”. I had told the artist doing the illustration for the cover to make some changes. Then she began to run late on the changes and even seemed to, at one point, have forgotten about them altogether. So, I was hoping I could just go ahead and do the book cover reveal here today. Unfortunately, the illustrator has not sent me back anything and so it looks like I’m going to have to do a special blog post after all.  So, the best thing for you to do is to keep checking throughout the week here, at my Facebook page or my Instagram page .  In the meantime, I've been working with the tools at Draft 2 Digital which are new to me and in doing so I've uploaded the manuscript this past Friday. That's for the ebook version; I'll be working on uploading the ma...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) post! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. October is the month of Halloween and so when I saw the optional question for the month I knew it was perfect timing. At least for me whose one of two favourite genres is horror. The other is science fiction. So, the question of the month is What do you consider the best characteristics of your favorite genre? I’m going to divert a little in my answer to this question in that, as I’ve already named them, I have two favourite genres and there’s one characteristic that I like best about both of them: the monster character.  Of course, science fiction stories do not always have to have monsters in them, but a lot of them do and among these many have overlapped with horror. Not even horror stories have to have monsters in them, but mor...

Credit: Pixabay It's the fourth weekend of the month and so time for another Book-To-Movie review! In a Book-To-Movie, we review a work of prose fiction and its movie adaptation. Because Jeff Vandermeer's "Annihiliation" can be considered a science fiction horror book it was probably relatively easy to adapt into the 2018 film of the same name. That is, only when it came to mixing genres. Science fiction horror has tended to be more popular in movies than in books, especially during the present century. When it came to adapting specific scenes from “Annihilation” the novel, that was probably a big challenge for the movie’s producers. Many segments in the novel get so surreal to where they can only be perceived if read (or listened to on audio) rather than seen on screen. So, it’s perfectly understandable that director Alex Garland refined some of those scenes if not left them out altogether. What isn’t understandable are some of the scenes he added. The ones I have i...

Credit: Pixabay.com Last post I talked about Nightflyers , the new science fiction-horror TV miniseries based on George R.R. Martin’s novella of the same name. As much as I said I was looking forward to its premiere episode, I didn’t watch it. That is, I didn’t watch it on its premiere night which was last Sunday. It was on in my area at 10 and I normally try going to bed before that time on Sunday nights. So I taped it on my old TV-VCR-in-one and finally watched the debut episode last night. (No, I don’t have a DVR.) The debut episode came across well as the science fiction-horror that the novella was made to be. It would be a 100 percent slasher-in-space if violent gore was at the centre of this series in which so far it isn’t. What is at the centre is a power that kills people and is hiding on the spaceship. Like all great science fiction-horror, the setting is fitting. The series takes place on a colony ship called the Nightflyer which is dark and gigantic yet cl...

Credit: Pixabay.com I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and are looking forward to the holidays. Me? I had a great, but very busy Thanksgiving with the family and so had to skip a weekend of posting. As far as the holidays go--I’m getting there. What I’m looking forward to right now, though, is the new science fiction-horror series that premieres this Sunday night on the SyFy channel, Nightflyers ! George R.R. Martin’s Nightflyers Nightflyers is based on a novella by Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin. According to the LA Times , he novella actually had two versions , the shorter version which was published in 1980 and an expanded version published three years later.   Then in 1987 a movie based on it came out but, because it got so scant of an audience ,   it fell into oblivion. It fell into oblivion to everybody e xcept those who are into B-rated and cult films such as myself although I haven’t seen this one. Neither have I read ei...

Credit: Pixabay.com One of the things for us science fiction writers and fans to be thankful for this Thanksgiving is the greats of the genre’s golden age which was roughly from the 1930s to ‘50s. One of those greats is John W. Campbell. He had a big influence on science fiction and helped popularise the genre especially as editor of his Astounding magazine, now known as Analog Science Fiction and Science Fact . You can also say his novella, “Who Goes There?”, eventually influenced the mixed genre of science fiction horror when it was adapted into the 1950s film, The Thing from Another World , which in turn lead to two remakes: John Carpenter’s The Thing in 1982 and director Matthijs van Heijningen’s 2011 version (that some refer to as a “prequel”). So when Alec Nevala-Lee uncovered the manuscript of an earlier, unpublished, full-length novel version of Campbell’s story, it must had been as thrilling as it i s for the A ntarctic expedition in “Who Goes There?”/”The Thing...