Edmund Lester

Okay, if you read this blog (hey, someone might) you may hvae noticed a distinct lack of any activity whatsoever in recent times. Sorry! I'm afraid I've been a little unwell of late and really haven't been in the mood to type in blog entries - or to do much of anything to be totally honest. I finally gave in to the fact I was feeling like crap and went to see someone about it. Result is I was diagnosed with severe depressive disorder - clinical depression in old money. It's fun let me tell you. (Yes, I'm lying) So I was put on pills to alleviate the symptoms. First citalopram and then fluoxetine. Neither of which seemed to do me much positive good and both of which came with a whole host of side effects that made me feel crappier. I'm now off meds and trying to deal with things (unless doc advises I go on other meds - we'll see). I'm hoping to find enough strength to start getting my life back - and hopefully developing some new coping strategies for the...

My story Chicken will be posted to Eschatology on April 6th

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

My review of Harry Turtledove's Hitler's War has just been posted to sf website New Myths. If you want to check it out you can find it at http://63.64.44.120/index.pacq?id=278&tier=2

Dark Scribe Magazine has posted my review of Edward M Erdelac's novella Red Sails - a bit of a pirate adventure piece. You can find it at http://www.darkscribemagazine.com/reviews/

My review of Robin Becker's Brains: A Zombie Memoir has been posted on the horror website Dark Scribe Magazine. You can find them at - http://www.darkscribemagazine.com/ The reviews section is accessible from the link on the right hand side of the screen, or you can get to it direct by clicking - http://www.darkscribemagazine.com/reviews/

UK sf/horror site Murky Depths have posted another ten of my reviews Book Reviews Ray Garton's Scissors Stephen King's Blockade Billy Lavie Tidhar's The Bookman Film Reviews Alice in Wonderland Bikini Girls on Ice Daybreakers Resurrecting the Street Walker Vampire The Wolfman You can find all of these at - http://www.murkydepths.com/

Daily ezine Everyday Weirdness has bought my sf short story New Start. It's a bit dark - somehow everything I seem to write has a dark edge to it - unless it's silly. Anyway, they will be posting it to their site tomorrow. So go check it out http://everydayweirdness.com/

I'm rather happy to be able to let you know that Murky Depths have posted another two of my reviews on their website - for the new Sherlock Holmes film and for Ramsey Campbell's Creatures of the Pool. As always you can find their site at http://www.murkydepths.com/ That brings my total on their site to nine - three movie reviews and six book reviews. Not to mention the four reviews (three books, one movie) that I've had in the magazine itself. Just having a happy moment

Guess I should have waited another day (following last night's post about a sale to the Murky Depths print mag). today found out they have accepted two more film reviews and a book review for the Snack Reviews on their website. Films are Valhalla Rising and Mutants, book is Eoin Colfer's And Another Thing. If you want to read them, pop over to their site (URL below) and click the link top left. http://www.murkydepths.com/

The fourth of my reviews to appear on the Murky Depths website has just been posted - for Nate Kenyon's latest novel Sparrow Rock. If you want to read it pop over to their website (URL below) and click the link top right. You'll find the review of this book in the list... http://www.murkydepths.com/

My article "Ten Science Fiction Books to Give Your Father-in-Law" has been posted on sf website New Myths as part of their issue 11. Just click on the link below if you want to give it a read. http://www.newmyths.com/

Three more of my reviews are now live at Murky Depths website - in a new reviews section. You can find reviews of Stephen King's Under the Dome, Christopher Moore's Fool and Graham Masterton's Blind Panic by visiting their website (URL below) and clicking the link top left of the screen. http://www.murkydepths.com/ While you are there it might be worth checking out the magazine. It's a great publication.

US SF webzine New Myths has just posted another of my reviews - for Sir Patrick Moore's non-fiction book Legends of the Stars. You can find it by visiting their site at http://www.newmyths.com/ Just click on the section headed "Reviews of books recommended by our authors".

Two of my reviews went live at Dark Scribe Magazine (a horror ezine) recently. You can find their site (specifically their reviews section) at http://www.darkscribemagazine.com/reviews/ I have another review submitted to them - so fingers crossed

My short biography of Issac Asimov is now live in the December 2009 edition of New Myths. The article can be found at http://www.newmyths.com/index.pacq?id=174&tier=2 There are a couple of my book reviews on this site also - for Richard Satterlie's Imola and Brian Keene's Urban Gothic Urban Gothic http://www.newmyths.com/index.pacq?id=172&tier=2 Imola http://www.newmyths.com/index.pacq?id=173&tier=2

A little while back I posted news of the first half of an article I'd written on the Marquis de Sade - origin of the word sadism. It appeared on the adult website Lucrezia. Since then they've published the second part of the piece - on Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch, the man behind the word Masochism. Okay they posted it nearly two weeks ago I just forgot to update this site. Anyway, apologies for being late, here's the link in case you want to read it. As before I want to remind you that the site has a lot of sexual content if you choose to go exploring. If you do I hope you enjoy it, they've certainly got a fair amount of content. To do that you'll just need to remove all after the dot com in the address. The link I'm posting is stright to my article as a pdf. So no links back. http://www.lucreziamagazine.com/index.php/editorial/articles/542-the-original-sado-masochists-leopold-ritter-von-sacher-masoch.pdf

The first part of one of my articles has been posted to the Lucrezia ezine. The full piece is entitled "The Original Sado-Masochists" and is a double biography of the Marquis de Sade and Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch, the two men that the words Sadism and Masochism were named after. The second part will be posted shortly. The site is a bit of adult one - okay it's dedicated to erotica I admit it. But it's the perfect home for the article. You can find my piece at http://lucreziamagazine.com/index.php/editorial/articles/536-the-original-sado-masochists-marquis-de-sade.html It's up to you whether you read any more of the site. To be honest it's up to you whether you choose to read my article as well. I'm certainly not going to insist upon it. It's the first article I've sold based on eponyms. I've always had a fascination with the stories behind words and when you can track it to a specific person I find it all the better.

Two more of my reviews are now live on nossa morte. The reviews are a book review of Dean Koontz's Relentless (at http://nossamorte.com/nov09issue/relentless.html ) and a film review of Dead Girl (at http://nossamorte.com/nov09issue/deadgirl.html ) It keeps up my run with the magazine. I've had at least one review in every single issue of this magazine since it started two years ago.

Everyday Weirdness - the site that provides a new tale every single day of the year - has posted my short story "How May I Help You?" to their site as today's story. I have such a smile on my face as I've sold a Jeff the Flesh-Shredder tale. Basically he's a demon who's taken rather a fondness to life on Earth that I came up with a little while ago and I've written three comedic stories featuring him. I like him as a character, he's fun to write. My wife likes him as a character and wants me to write more of them but as the stories had been rejected and rejected and rejected I stopped. I couldn't see the point if no one else liked them. Okay it came close if my wife wanted more but she understands I'm trying to write things that sell. So anyone, one sold. And it can be found on their site which is at http://everydayweirdness.com/ If you don't go there today, you'll need to find October 23rd 2009 for my little tale. Hope you enjoy it... ...