Giant Squid Creations

I'm about halfway through the second issue of Astounding (February 1930) and there's been an interesting common thread in a three of the stories so far. While vastly different in approach and atmosphere, they all feature the discovery of a 'Life' ray at their heart. There are some spoilers ahead so if you want to read the stories first they can be found here . The first was Harl Vincent's Old Crompton's Secret . This story didn't go anything like I expected. The blurb describes a rejuvenated old man with the memory of a crime, the illustration is of a fight scene between Old Crompton and a younger man. Then the story opens with a description of the enigmatic town hermit - Crompton - who has been there so long even the old folk can't remember when he arrived or why he's such a grouch. So at this point I was assuming his dark secret/remembered crime was why he was a hermit. But no, the crime happens three-quarters of the way through the story and tur

So this is just a quick blog to open the year. 2015 is going to be a big year for me and my writing, at least that's the plan. I'm pushing my copywriting/editing service for small businesses too, there are a lot of small businesses out there who could really use some better website content and I can do that easily and at prices they can afford. Promo over :) My submission to the Blackguards anthology via Ragnarok Publishing was unsuccessful so I'm going to make it the first of a series of prequel stories to The Scarlet Ring . It was about one of the side characters in the novel and what he was doing immediately prior to the beginning of the book. In fact, some of it probably overlaps if I think about it. I'm looking forward to getting Blackguards anyway, it has some great authors in it I haven't seen much of. I've also just finished a submission for the Black Library 's call for Deathwatch short stories. I haven't finished the story but they only wa