Edmund Lester

Dark Scribe Magazine has posted my review of Justni Cronin's The Passage You can find it at http://www.darkscribemagazine.com/reviews/ Just have to scroll down a bit. Sorry for the short posting - have promised the family that we will start a film shortly so have to rush

Thought before I log this machine off for the evening it might be an idea to post the ful contents list for the DemonMinds antho I mentioned in the last post. So here it is Daniel Robichaud - Jacket Ne Saie Quoe (Poem) Suzanne Sykora - Dandelion Seed (Poem) Jenna M. Pitman - A Girl and a Dog Walk Into A Bar (Story) Gustavo Bondoni - Happy Hour at Lilu's (Story) Kenneth Whitfield - Addictions (Story) April Grey - At the End of Day (Story) Chris Morey - Schism (Poem) Joyce Frohn - Little Coffins (Poem) Bernard J. Schaffer - The Kyoshi Scrolls (Story) MZ Hoosen - The Sleeper (Story) Bruce Memblatt - Bottle in Bordeaux (Story) C. S. Johnson - Seven Circles (Story) Gary McCluskey - Patches (Art) Zac Mauer - Good Grief (Art) David Pickering - Elegance (Story) KC Wilder - an unsuccessful writer relaxing at home (Poem) Tom Thornton - Dow Jones (Poem) I. E. Lester - Acting's A Hell of A Job (Story) John Grey - It's Not Like the Old Days (Poem) Michael Shell - I Have Seen A Gargoyle...

In amongst a few weeks of assorted craziness (I might blog about it later) I have had a couple of nice writing related moments. I received a copy of DemonMinds Halloween 2010 anthology magazine. It's a whopper - I think the format size is US Letter although being a Brit I might be wrong about that. And much more importantly to my writing ego, it contains a story of mine - Acting's a Hell of a Game. As well as lots of other short stories and poems from authors like Jeffrey Scott Sims, Daniel Robichaud and loads more. And I also received a copy of Murky Depths issue 14 which contains three of my short reviews - for Lavie Tidhar's Cloud Permutations, W. D. Gagliani's Wolf's Bluff and the film Defendor. And I have started writing again - sent in another review to Murky Depths this afternoon and will hopefully get some more done later...

Forget all the drawings, paintings, models and computer generated imagery of what an alien race should look like. All you have to do is look up this creature - the giant isopod or Bathynomus giganteus. It is a very weird looking animal and you can find them in the deep waters of the Atlantic Ocean. You don't need to go traveling to other worlds (of the imagination or otherwise) to see strange creatures.

I'm supposed to be reading all kinds of books at the moment. I think I must have about 20 or so review copies sitting on my to read pile. The only problem is that Stephen Fry has a new book out - his second volume of autobiography - and I simply have to read it. You see like a number of other English people (I can't claim this to be so for other nationalities - I've never asked) I like Stephen Fry. I like his cleverness. I like his word use. I like his geeky enthusiasms. I could go on. He would. He's not the most modest of people - and I have to admit I can appreciate that. There are few things that annoy me more than false modesty. If you have a talent, an ability, why the hell not be proud of it and promote it, and hence yourself, as best you can. Equally I like honesty. And in this book, The Fry Chronicles - I'd noticed I'd not mentioned the title earlier, Stephen Fry discusses his University life and early career in TV, radio, journalism, playwriting and all...

Just received my copy of Murky Depths #13 in today's post. It's a really good looking magazine and I'm looking forward to giving the stories a read later. But I wanted to post a quick little blog entry about it as the issue contains three of my short (c. 250 word) reviews. There are two book reviews (for Dean Koontz's Relentless and Ronald Malfi's Snow) as well as a film review (for Stag Night). If you feel like taking a look at their site - and preferably considering buying a copy of this fine mag (and I'm not just saying that because it features me) - then their website can be found at http://www.murkydepths.com/ Oh and the site currently has the cover for #14 (really great cover too) which is available for pre-order and which I will also have reviews in. You could go buy both. Enjoy!

I've not been blogging much of late. Holidays and new bookcases have taken up a lot of my time. I spent a week based in Belgium and managed to go exploring in Holland, Germany, France and Luxembourg (in addition to Belgium itself). I still love Belgium. I think I may have to go back there many more times. As for the book cases. Well we had a little bit of building work done earlier this year and some of the extra space was devoted to storing my books. And book cases arrived this last week. So I had the happy task of going through the boxes which have contained many of my books for the past couple of years and give them shelf space. Oh it was fun. I have managed to find time to watch some movies too - so I thought I'd spend a few minutes giving some short comments. 1. Night of the Demons. I liked the original of this back in the 80s. It was a fairly tasteless, silly little horror comedy. It had all the elements you'd expect for a straight to video (remember pre-DVD age) rele...