The Blighted City “Keep your blade sharp, but your wit sharper.” – Proverb of the Freeblades Guild The Blighted City is a dark epic fantasy novel with a sprinkling of character humour and a splash of horror mixed with adventure and drama, set in a richly-detailed secondary world. It is an entrant in SPFBO 4 […]
This is the German version of my short story, Bleak ’93. Translation by Linda Vogel. Callum Fishers Leben mit seinen Eltern bedeutete Überleben, von einem trostlosen Jahr zum nächsten, und das muss sich ändern. Ein bestimmter Tag im Jahr 1993 scheint wie jeder Tag in Callums elendem Leben, aber bald wird er feststellen, dass die […]
I did this one back in 2014. For those who don’t know about The Video Dead, it was a 1987 American B-movie zomcom which scared the living dead out of me when I watched it at the age of 9 but I appreciated the originality of some of the zombies and I loved the cover […]
Happy book birthday! It’s The Blighted City’s 1st birthday today. Aww. It has been a tough year for the novel, with a very slow start, understandable for a self-published no-name author’s debut. But things did begin to improve in the last half of 2018 when I entered The Blighted City into SPFBO4. The contest kicked […]
I originally intended for this poem to be the first of three parts which would come under the umbrella title of “Dissident’s Crossing” (with this first part being titled “Infidel’s Ire”). The chance of the second and third parts being completed is unlikely now that my focus is almost entirely on writing my epic fantasy. […]
In the Twilight Before Tomorrow When I hear you whisper your visions, promising a million vivid memories in a finally-unfettered future, I feel a completeness, a release as of the dawn peering between mountains, while behind us the gulls cry their morning songs of freedom. I don’t remember ever saying hello, but I know I […]
This poem comes with an EXTREME TRIGGER WARNING. Trust your instincts from the title alone and DON’T read the poem if you think the warning may apply to you. For anyone “testing the water” with the first stanza, I can assure you that things escalate from there on. You have been warned. This 590-word poem […]
Along with the poems Black Horizon, Do You Remember Those Words?, Hollow, and You Don’t Know I’m Leaving, this poem was written in May 2015. The significance of the frogs is personal and is the last psychological scar of that time which I still feel slightly, but which, I’m sure, will eventually fade to nothing. […]
