Thank You!

Heyyyy, you!  Yes you!  Thanks for reading this and, in case you bought it and are now reading The Last Changeling, a hearty 'thank you' for making The Last Changeling....
....wait for it...

 Amazon #1 Bestseller in Folklore in the UK!

... And a great night was had by all...

Last Thursday I did a 'soft launch' for the new paperback version of The Last Changeling... it was a good excuse to have a bit of a party and celebrate with good friends, old and new.

The venue was perfect.  A quirky vintage tearooms in Llangollen, in Oak Street, the very street where one of the main characters, Watkin, uncovered yet more secrets about the mysterious D9.  Indeed the armourer Aled may well have been there, but it was hard to see him -must be something about his meta blood!

These are all gone, sold and bearing my scribbled name...

 

 and these are all gone too... and they were delicious!

The next signing will be in a bookshop... and I bet it won't be half as much fun!

The Mysterious Case of The Black Ring

Leamingston Spa features in Book 2 of The Enigma Wars, the sequel to The Last Changeling - so I was intrigued when I saw this strange feature in the Leamington skies: 

I looked for more reports: it seems 'The Black Ring of Leamington' - as it's now being called - happened near Warwick Castle... which just so happens to feature in Chapter 2 of The Last Changeling:

‘It may have stood for centuries, repelling many invaders and even making kings of men, but Mr. Butterworth wasn’t sure if Warwick Castle was ready for its latest onslaught.  As his party headed for the dungeons and torture chambers, he tried to keep any happy thoughts of vengeance well hidden from his face.

The afternoon passed remarkably without incident. Picnics had been eaten on Ethelfleda’s mound, the unbelievably high and winding stairway of Guy’s tower had been climbed and the state rooms viewed.  Year Seven had loved the armour, the swords, the birds of prey, the cakes, the ice creams and the horrific instruments of torture.  So far no one had been sick or fainted, or even dropped a water bomb from the ramparts onto the unsuspecting head of an elderly tourist.

All Butterworth had to do was get the little stinkers back to school and he was home and dry for another term.  He lined them up again by the coach and repeated the head count.  No, wrong number.  He tried again.

‘WILL YOU ALL KEEP STILL!’

Fidgeting children stopped playing with their souvenir trinkets and lined up sulkily.  Butterworth counted again - fast.  Heart sink.  There was still one missing.’

                                                                          THE LAST CHANGELING   

http://io9.com/why-is-this-mysterious-black-ring-hovering-in-the-sky-o-1564721873

Interesting... the ring is being described as a swarm of insects...  VERY interesting if you've read The Last Changeling...

‘A decade or so after Myxomatosis had been introduced into the barrows, as if in answer, Varroa Destructor had first appeared on honey bees.  Not properly identified until years later, the deadly parasitic mite had continued spreading through the bee colonies of the world.                                       

Some years ago, at a covert meeting of representatives from the nine governments signatory to the secret Reykjavik Accord, Shiraishi had posited that the timing indicated that Varroa was a counter weapon that had been deliberately deployed by the metahominids.

The creatures lived close to nature and, to a degree, appeared quite capable of manipulating other species to their own advantage.   Many of the signatories listening that day considered Shiraishi’s theory on Varroa to have some foundation. Without any bees to pollinate them, crops would fail causing worldwide starvation.  Then the vast edifice of human civilisation would be all but wiped from the face of the earth, in a little less than four years.  Only the insects would remain.  Making up an astonishing twenty percent of the planet’s biomass, following any catastrophe that might befall planet Earth, the last creatures standing, or crawling would be certain varieties of insect.  After the second world war, at Auschwitz where even the grass refused to grow, where no birds were seen to fly overhead for many years, only the cockroaches flourished..  Shiraishi had answered his critics, including D, agreeing it was a very high risk strategy for the metahominids.  Then he had pointed out that the metas were just insectlike enough to probably survive.  They would be free to re-colonise a world cleansed of humankind.'                                                                             THE LAST CHANGELING

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/04/15/black-ring-of-leamington-spa-_n_5150871.html

’Then, rather clumsily, a second explanation of this eerie event appeared and it is now being ascribed as 'experimental fireworks.'

The eventual answer came in the middle of Tuesday afternoon when a statement from Warwick Castle confirmed that they had been testing fireworks.

A Warwick Castle spokesman said they had been trying out "fire effects" to go with the daily firing of the Trebuchet Fireball - a giant catapult.

Even this echoes The Last Changeling...

'The conspiracy theorists had so much grist for their rumour mills that their multiple contradictions quickly ground any grains of pure truth down into useless dust.'

                                                                      THE LAST CHANGELING

It'S ALL very PECULIAR, and VERY D9!!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-27037579

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2604240/What-Black-Ring-Leamington-Spa-Mysterious-object-sky-captured-girl-16-iPhone.html

April 22nd 2014...

Yes... this is it!!!

This is the date when the paperback version of The Last Changeling becomes available...

April 22nd.

Got that?

Good....

Go to Amazon and grab a first edition!

The Strange Case of the Rossendale Fairies and the Stolen Cards...

These photographs are just wonderful.  Untouched - and completely open to personal interpretation - they have been travelling the world and bringing out the very best, and worst in people.

They were taken in a secret location in the Rossendale Valley by a local Professor, definite shades of 'The Cottingley Fairies' here.  Lots of people have responded by saying they believe the pictures are of true fairies, some say they 'wish fairies were true', but it's the 'grounded', 'rational' people who have surprised me.  Never have I witnessed such a visceral response to a group of seemingly harmless photographs.  One facebooker I know, who posted the photographs on his own timeline, has had to ask commentators to moderate their speech in case his children go online - and read all the swear words these commentators have written.  All in the name of rational science.
I don't get it.
I have seen religious types get affronted and upset when their faith is brought into question, which always makes me wonder... does the offended believer think his, or her, god isn't big enough to fend off a few doubting commentators?  However, when the person throwing a blue fit is doing so in the cause of cold science, then the absurdity of that situation just makes me want to laugh.
Science is big enough.  Believe me.  It's also a lot weirder than a lot of small minded people can imagine.  As Albert Einstein once said, 'If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy stories.  If you want them to be even MORE intelligent, read them MORE fairy stories!
I have met the photographer John Hyatt and he's a very interesting chap.  If you are anywhere near the North West of England in the next couple of months, please go and have a look at his exhibition of his fairy photographs at The Whitaker Museum and Gallery in Rossendale.
Now, things are getting even stranger here.
Okay... it's taken me a while to post this because I wasn't sure...
Now I am sure and it's all a bit strange and eerie...
My car was broken into on Friday night.  The back window was smashed in and a few things disturbed...
Now this is a car full to the gunnels with all sorts of interesting stuff - an arrow, silver spray,(I kid you not, read my book as to why!), lots of clothes, craft materials and finished craft products, then there's the usual sat-nav, C.D's, C.D player etc... so, amongst all that lot, it's taken me ages to establish exactly what was stolen out of my car full of goodies.... and this is where it gets properly odd in the light of all the problems I've been having with my book... (have a look at the older posts)... okay, so, ready for this....?
All they took, out of all that lot was a couple of boxes of business cards.

Business cards with no telephone number or personal details on them, they were printed just to advertise the paperback edition of my book, The Last Changeling, which is coming out on the 22nd. of April.
These cards were in different locations in the car, one box in the passenger foot-well, one box buried in craft fabric on the back seat.
Now they are gone.  It's hard not to get paranoid when things like this just 'happen' to keep happening...

....Drum roll please....

.... and here it is!

You lose some... You win some!

I am waiting for the proof copy of The Last Changeling to arrive.  At over 600 pages, it's a hefty brick of a book, but I'm not sure what to think about the pricing.

In the UK on Amazon.co.uk it will retail at £11.99 including postage, (I'll get a whopping 25p royalty per copy - which is about the same as if I had a huge publisher behind me),  but, in the USA it will be $20.83!  EEK!  This is a lot for the average American to pay for a paperback.  It will give me $4 royalty too, but I would much rather cut the royalty down to 50 cents, and offer a competitively priced book.  But, amazingly, it's not allowed!  Even if I buy wholesale and self distribute I have the problem of shipping costs.  So although I can offer face to face discounts at signings the UK, I'm annoyed I cannot offer them in home of Amazon, the USA.
Yet again Amazon.com seek to squish me! :(

On the plus side, this is the SECOND time in a month Amazon.co.uk have attempted to sell my own book to me!  So at least they are telling people about it! :)