"Police in Paris discovered a cinema-cum-restaurant in a large and previously uncharted cavern underneath the capital's chic 16th arrondissement...  A tunnel held a desk and a closed-circuit TV camera set to automatically record images of anyone passing.  The tunnel opened into a vast 400 sq metre cave some 18m underground, "like an underground amphitheatre, with terraces cut into the rock and chairs"...a full-sized cinema screen, projection equipment and a wide variety of films.  A smaller cave next door had been turned into an informal restaurant and bar. "There were bottles of whisky and other spirits behind a bar, tables and chairs, a pressure-cooker for making couscous," the spokesman said.   "The whole thing ran off a professionally installed electricity system and there were at least three phone lines." Source:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/08/filmnews.france?fb=optOut This article dates back to 2004; I recall ment...

"...We offer "singles" for 99 cents and five story collections for $2.99 (which brings the per story price down to 60 cents.) And we offer ten story collections of the singles for $4.99.  Think of albums in music. A single song is 99 cents usually, but albums with that song on it are more. Same thing in short stories and books. The story should be both ways to give readers choices." - Dean Wesley Smith This excellent interview with Dean Wesley Smith, Joe Konrath, Blake Crouch, Scott Nicholson and David Graughan explores the exanding market for ebooks, which type of ebooks sell well and why how to offer readers more choice. Read the interview:   http://www.fearnet.com/news/interviews/b23910_short_stories_ebooks_discussion_with.html   

"Archaeologist Alfonso Forgione, from L'Aquila University...said, 'I have never seen anything like this before. I'm convinced because of the nails found in the jaw and around the skeleton the woman was a witch.   S he was buried in bare earth, not in a coffin and she had no shroud around her either, intriguingly other nails were hammered around her to pin down her clothes.' " 'The second skeleton we have found was buried in a similar fashion but this time we found 17 dice around her - 17 is an unlucky number in Italy and also dice was a game that women were forbidden to play." Source: http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2011/09/800-year-old-witch-burial-found-in.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheArchaeologyNewsNetwork+%28The+Archaeology+News+Network%29   

Hot off the press - well, off the phone, actually - comes a date for the 3rd annual Fantasy, Science-Fiction and Horror fiction event.  Parallel Dimensions will take place on December 10th, 2011, at West Kirby Library, Wirral.  Doors open at 2pm. Participating authors have yet to be confirmed.  If you're an author whose work falls within the F/SF/H category and you'd like to take part, email me ASAP at ACBwrites@aol.com .  There is no payment for taking part but you are welcome to sell your own books and to hand out flyers.  The event gives people the chance to hear new, orginal fiction and to meet the authors.  Authors get the chance to read aloud some of their work before an audience. I'll post further news as things develop.   

"The notion of the "swerve" is taken from Lucretius, who lived in the first century B.C. and taught that the world, uncreated but infinite in extent, is composed of nothing but atoms and the void.... "The message of Lucretius' poem was subversive and liberating. Following his master Epicurus, the poet placed the highest value on pleasure (voluptas)...." Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904353504576566621864350318.html?mod=googlenews_wsj (From a review of a new book, The Swerve , by Stephen Greenblatt). And yet people today generally refer to people in the distant past as being ignorant.  Ironic, hmm?   

Penelope and Felicity are eighteen-weeks old silver laced wyandottes. They arrived this morning in a cat carrier, and are now pottering around in the chicken coup in my garden. Our older hen, Joyce, who's an ISA brown, is a bit stroppy right now - marching up and down the run and clucking loudly - but she'll settle down once the pecking order has been negotiated.   

CERN scientists have allegedly broken the speed of light by sixty nanoseconds.  It might not sound much, but if these claims are verified by further tests then this discovery could herald the final nail in the coffin of classical physics - much of which has been disproved already by quantum physics. News article:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8782895/CERN-scientists-break-the-speed-of-light.html The long-held theory is that if things can move faster than the speed of light, then time travel and inter-dimensional travel ought to be possible. Ideas about time travel and inter-dimensional travel were around long before the commercial success of Dr Who .  Actually, Dr Who was around long before the current commercial success of Dr Who...  UFOlogists have been debating the possibility of UFOs being inter-dimensional rather than interplanetary craft for decades, and HG Wells published The Time Machine back in 1895.  But tales of side-stepping i...

Dark Tides A Collection of Short Fantasy Fiction by Adele Cosgrove-Bray Nightmares from ancient myths glide through our thoroughly modern world. When selkies, faeries, old gods and young mortals rub shoulders, tensions quickly flare. Terrifying watchers, devious lovers, mischief makers, dangerous business partners - you will meet them all in Dark Tales. OUT TODAY! http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/90668  About the stories in Dark Tides … Liar : Can you separate fact from fantasy in these words from a born liar? New Year’s Day : Tom had always known that Louise would leave him. That’s what selkies do. So why did he marry her? Snack Time : A chance conversation has surprising consequences in this chilling tale which introduces Fabian, from the novel of the same name. Rebirth : After the closing of one door and before the opening of another, there is a dark journey to be made. Swap : Learn why the tidal River Dee never returned to ...

  

Are ebooks changing the way news and magazine articles are structured?  Some articles which are too big for traditional magazine print, but too small to make anything more than a booklet, are now finding a niche as ebooks.  This idea gives publishers another way of marketing their products.  They can create a virtual bookshelf of titles which relate to their main publication(s), and also attract new readership and revenue.  Their most popular columnists can make use of their existing readership to sell their ebooks, also.  It sounds a practical and, from the point of view of writers whose work doesn't always fit neatly into a fixed word-count, liberating concept.  Most writers are quite happy to earn a bit more, too. From the readers point of view, if they find themselves interested in an article or regular column and want more, they can buy the ebooks.  If they'd like easy access to archived material, buy the ebooks.  If the ...

"Lie-zee Sandai Arrffta-noon, Oi Got Nah Toym-tah Warree...!" Well it's all right for some, snoozing the day away.  Unlike the rest of this household, I've been wielding the red pen on what was a 5,000-word story; so far I've cut out 500 words.  That's a lot of editing by my usual standards, but this may be because I don't write much sci-fi and  School is (more or less) a sci-fi story.  It's a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid, really, destined for inclusion in Dark Tides .  I was reading the submission guidelines for an anthology yesterday.  The requested subject matter sounded like my kind of thing.  The editors did not accept email submissions, and planned to pay $0.01 USD a word if they used a story, (which is not unusual, unfortunately).  So for a 1,000-word story they'd pay $10 USD.  At today's exchange rate, that works out at £6.33.  Deduct a third for UK tax, and that leaves £4.22.  Postage for a ...

  Hattie Jacques Died in her sleep. 18th September 2011. And here are Hattie and Joyce (Grenfell) in the garden...   

Four schoolboys play truant in ancient woodland on Caldy Hill, Wirral, where they are taught a lesson they didn't bargain for. This modern faerie tale was recorded live on 7 Waves Radio in 2008, and is read by the author, Adele Cosgrove-Bray.   

More gifts for writers at Spooky Cute Designs:   http://www.zazzle.co.uk/AdeleCB I was asked, today (again),  how a person goes about writing novels.  My reply of, "It depends" probably wasn't all that helpful.  In my defence, at the time I was busy attaching a rebellious strand of millet to the inside of a budgie cage while dear ol' Archie was trying to discover if my fingers were edible.  How's that for gratitude.  And I'd given him fresh water, too... Over time, every writer develops their own way of working.  Otherwise, they tend to give up and do something else.  There's no right or wrong way; only the way which works for each individual.  Some people plan every chapter in great detail before they even consider starting work on the text.  Other people plan nothing at all; they just start writing and see where an idea takes them.  Others fall somewhere in between these two.  How do you find...

"...Robotic labor seems like a brilliant idea that will ultimately create more wealth, and open up more opportunity for humans to pursue enjoyable work ."  - Aaron Saenz Source:  http://singularityhub.com/2011/09/12/robotic-labor-taking-over-the-world-you-bet-here-are-the-details/ Following from  this post , when I wrote about the changing role of employment in the future, I now turn to the idea of robots.  The article linked to above offers a concise summary of the way things seem likely to go.  But I don't want to write about automated manufacturing or similar.  Much more fun is an idea I've touched on with Seth's Basement.  Artificial companions, in other words.  For around $6,000 USD it's possible to purchase a male or female life-sized doll from a company like Real Doll .  Dress 'em how you like and go play.  They're an excellent solution for some people's needs.  The first person to combine these with (imp...

Are literary agents and publishers dictating the sexuality of fictional characters?  Apparently, Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith were told to 'straighten' one of their characters in their YA novel, or not have him come out until at least the third novel.  The responses to their blog post echo their dismay. Read the post here:  http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/genreville/?p=1519 Teenaged readers will be totally aware of the existence of non-straight preferences.  Some of them will have non-straight preferences of their own.  So why, in the 21st Century, is this bigotry being perpetuated?  To me, it seems ridiculous. Any agent or publisher with a similar tunnel vision need not apply to represent me.  (Ok, the way things work in this business is that traditional agents and publishers hold up the hoops for writers to leap through...)   My characters include straight people, bisexuals, homosexuals and one happy trio....

Aleksander Iljaszewicz shared an interesting article with me today, in which the author pondered on how our idea of working for a living may change in the future.  Douglas Rushkoff wrote:- "The question we have to begin to ask ourselves is not how do we employ all the people who are rendered obsolete by technology, but how can we organize a society around something other than employment? Might the spirit of enterprise we currently associate with "career" be shifted to something entirely more collaborative, purposeful, and even meaningful?" Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/09/07/rushkoff.jobs.obsolete/index.html?hpt=hp_t1 How many of us would turn up for work each day if we didn't get paid, hmm?  Equally, don't most working people resent those who make a career out of living off state benefits which our taxes pay for?  And yet there are those who insist that if all unemployed people found jobs then this would immediately create more unem...

This is an idea for an ebook cover. The design needs to be simple and bold, and also clear when viewed in an online catalogue listing when the images are around the size of postage stamps. Likewise, the wording needs to be concise and to clearly tell people what the contents are. The photo is one of mine, of course, and shows West Kirby beach at sunset. The subject of the photo needs to relate to the contents of the book, and several of the stories include oceanic and local references. Comments are most welcome!   

"Scholars at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond have set out to leaf through eight million documents dating back to the 17th century, seeking the names of slaves." Source:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/arts/design/database-of-viginia-slave-names-goes-online.html It seems incredible, in this time when genealogy is so popular, that research into the identities of slaves hasn't been done already.  Liverpool was one point of the infamous slavery triangle, the other two being Africa and New York.  Ships from Africa would arrive at Liverpool to sell their human cargo and restock for the long haul to New York.  Ships from New York would arrive in Liverpool, sell cotton and similar crops raised on American plantations by slaves, then  to prepare to sail for Africa where they'd barter for more slaves to re-stock the workforce. Not all the slaves were black.  Many Scots and Irish people were sold as slaves by English magistrate...

Read live on Cath Bore's show on 7 Waves Radio, in December 2008; written in 2008. Enjoy!