Hekla’s Children

Alchemy Press contributor James Brogden’s new novel Hekla’s Children has hit the bookshelves. It is a truly remarkable novel — you can read my review of it on the Piper at the Gates of Fantasy blog.

To celebrate the publication of the novel we are offering twelve copies of James’ short story collection Evocations (published by The Alchemy Press) free to the first six people who email by midnight today (Friday) and to another six who email us by midnight tomorrow (Saturday)  — UK time — and please use this contact form with the subject EVOCATIONS. Remember to specify if you want  MOBI or EPUB format.

 

 

 

Astrologica soon to go OOP

What’s your star sign? Is our fate pre-determined by the constellations and the position of the planets? Can astrology really present an alternative vision to the apparent certainties of science, politics, religion and celebrity culture? Or should its claims of determinism, fate, fortune and personality profiling perhaps be taken with a large pinch of salt?

Astrologica: Stories of the Zodiac edited by Allen Ashley is on its way to becoming out of print. If you want to lay your hands on Astrologica, copies are still available from Amazon and other online bookstores.

 

Pulp Heroes soon to go OOP

The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes, edited by Mike Chinn, is soon to be out of print. If you haven’t bagged yourself a copy now is the time to do so. You never know, used copies may be worth £££ or $$$ in future days.

Stories in the tradition of The Shadow, The Bat, Doc Savage, The Spider; Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Detective Agency; Dusty Ayers & His Battle Birds; Sheena and K-Zar. Hard-boiled detectives, sinister vigilantes, bizarre villains: the staples of the Pulp tradition. Two-fisted heroes – and heroines – fighting for right and justice in the midnight city, foetid jungles or exotic, far-flung lands. Deranged villains for whom the world is never enough.

Pulp Heroes is available from Amazon and other online bookshops.

 

Ancient Wonders soon to go OOP

The Alchemy Press Book of Ancient Wonders, edited by Jan Edwards and Jenny Barber, is soon to be out of print. If you haven’t bagged yourself a copy now is the time to do so. In a year used copies may be worth £££ or $$$.

“When we think of a wonder, our minds go most often to the great buildings of the past – the pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Stonehenge – but the human mind can make almost anything wondrous. We walk with wonders every day, through the power of curiosity and imagination and our human tendency to make stories about what we fear, what we desire, what we wish to understand. This collection offers new glimpses into the wonder we all feel.” – Kari Sperring

Discover standing stones, burial mounds, ruined castles or sunken cities: the ancient sites that litter our landscapes; the ancient wonders that possess a mysterious appeal that cannot be denied.

Check out the great contents via this link. The book is available via Amazon and other online dealers.

Surveillance in Britain

This was originally posted in 2013 — and it’s time for a repeat airing:

Rod Rees writes: In researching my book Invent-10n it quickly became apparent that it wasn’t the surveillance side of State intervention in our lives – the employing of cameras and digital-communication intercepts to collect data about us – that we should be worried about but the use that is made of that data. And this, in turn, led me to the belief that there are now seven truisms regarding the surveillance-pervasive Britain of 2013.

Truism 1: We’re being watched.

Although statistics on the subject are difficult to pin down, the consensus seems to be that, by some margin, the British are the most watched people on the planet, with there being one CCTV camera for every fourteen of us (a conservative estimate, by the way). Now that’s an awful lot of surveillance and as none of these cameras are regulated, there is no information regarding the data they collect, for how long it’s held or who has access to it. The reality is that no matter where we are, we’re being watched.

What this also signals is how obsessive the British authorities (be they police, security services or local councils) are with CCTV surveillance: they have become the most avaricious voyeurs in history. The British authorities like to watch.

The world is changing

The world is changing. Maybe this is so apt:

Greetings Gate, let’s Agitate. Look over your shoulder. Do you see the camera? Then dig that even as you read these words of sedition and denial you are being watched by the ever e-quisitive National Protection Agency. The National Protection Agency – omnipresent, omniscient and most ominous – which runs PanOptika, the spider at the centre of the Web.

PanOptika. What’s the slogan: watching out for the good guys by watching out for the bad guys. But what did that Roman word-slinger, Juvenal say? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes: who watches the watchers?

So dig this to the extremity, cats and kittens: if we do nothing soon we must kneel, digitally-dutiful, before National Protection, and then there will be no chance to zig when the ChumBots say zag, or to beep when they say bop. Realise thou that PanOptika triumphant means we will not be able to think, to act, to speak or to move without the spirit-sapping realisation that the badniks know everything … everything.

* We are circling the drain. This is my warning. *

A “freewheeling tour de force.” — James Lovegrove / Financial Times

Invent-10n by Rod Rees is available from Amazon and other online book dealers.

 

New Year

All at Alchemy Towers wishes you a happy New Year and a successful 2017.