My weekly foray into the world other than books.

I should imagine by now that the entire world knows about the riots that took place in some of the major cities of the UK. There is a lot of talk about the police tactics, but they quelled the riots reasonably quickly and are rapidly bringing the perpetrators to justice. If you can call some of the sentences handed out justice, particularly to the youngsters, ten year olds, etc.

The Prime Minister recalled parliament to discuss the riots and a lot was said, but like most things politicians say it is all probably hot air and now the rioting has stopped will be forgotten about in a week or so.

Questions have been asked why did it happen.

I and the vast majority of people in the UK can answer that easily. The liberal left wing has for the last twenty years or so eroded all sense of personal responsibility from the people. Everything is somebody else’s fault. One of the worst things the UK imported from the USA were the no win, no fee lawyers. TV adverts blare out “If you’ve had an accident at work, or out in the street etc, etc.” All forms of discipline have now disappeared or been outlawed. Parents can no-longer smack their kids for transgression; teachers can do little or nothing to disruptive kids. The police can do very little and the justice system in the UK has been weakened so much to be a joke. It is the case that more is thought of and done for the criminal than the victim.

Unfortunately our politicians are so far removed from reality of living in the real world that they just cannot understand what is wrong with society and until there is a radical change with the political system the three party politics in the UK will always ensure it remains the same.

God help us all.

A Review of THE DISQUIET SURVIVORS of The Nuclear Catastrophe by Barbara Billig

THE DISQUIET SURVIVORS of The Nuclear Catastrophe by Barbara Billig

Please note that the author is currently changing the name of this book from A Nuclear Catastrophe to that above. The print book is done and the eBook will follow shortly.

Every so often you come across a book that you can’t put down; you just want to know what happens over on the next page. I warn you, this is one of those. It is also a story that is very relevant today considering the events in Japan earlier this year.

The writing drags you into the pages as the characters fight to survive the aftermath of a massive explosion at the White Water Nuclear Plant in Southern California following a fairly minor earth tremor. Barbara has done what one of my favourite authors of all time, Leon Uris, has done, taken solid fact and cleverly crafted an excellent fictional story around it, faction as I call it. Leon Uris used history, Barbara science. By the way I checked out the science and worryingly it is all factual.

Not that the science gets in the way of this troubling story. It is used fleetingly to explain, in layman’s terms, the dangers that follow the release of massive amounts of radiation into the atmosphere following a blast. A modern nuclear facility can release fifty times more radiation into the atmosphere than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, at the end of WW II. That’s how serious this problem is.

As the reality of their situation dawns on the victims of the fallout then Barbara introduces ever more problems for the characters to face. You can’t drink the water, because it is radioactive. Hospitals close their doors to new patients for fear of contaminating those already in the facility. I won’t spoil it any more but the list goes on.

One of the worst aspects of their situation is the complete lack of a co-ordinated rescue plan by the authorities. Well why prepare for something that can never happen? Like all politicians and those in authority they never seem to learn from history. The likes of 3 Mile Island and Chernobyl immediately spring to mind and of course more recently the terrible disaster in Fukushima, Japan.

Looking at politicians and their lack of understanding of the importance of history you need look no further than the conflict in Afghanistan as a prime example. The British were fighting there over a hundred years ago, the Russians tried and now the USA and Britain again. Political expediency in the USA and Britain means the troops will pull out before the job is done and the Taliban will be back in power before too long. Why did we go there in the first place? Do the powers that be never learn?

This isn’t an easy read, but you know it was never going to be, the subject is far too important. For all that it is a very good story, one that needed telling and one that should be made compulsory reading for all political leaders who are considering building more nuclear power stations. Perhaps it should be compulsory reading for all our youth also, so they can become aware of the dangers and take up the fight against this menace.

Barbara Billig is obviously passionate about this subject and this comes across in her writing. You will be swept away from the first page. Barbara must also be a keen observer of people, throughout the story her characters come to life with subtle little flicks of the hand, a look in the mirror and much more.

This is a thoroughly good read, an important story, not to be missed.

My Rating 5 out of 5.

To buy a copy of the printed book click here. 

To buy the eBook click here. 

To buy the eBook in Pounds Sterling click here. 

To go to Barbara Billig's blog click here. 

U.S. Dollars and Pounds Sterling

I’ve started adding pound sterling prices from Amazon.co.uk to the books and novels from known British authors. However I don’t know you all. Please can you let me know if you are a British writer and I’ll update your book information as soon as possible.

If you are an author from the USA or anywhere else for that matter and would like your book listed with a UK pound sterling price let me know and it will be done.

It’s a big job and a bit complicated as I need to change a few lines of HTML coding for every book, but why alienate a potential reading audience of 70 million souls.

A review of my novel The Catalytic Programme

Please indulge me with this. Barbera Billig author of A Nuclear Catastrophe (shortly to be re-named following advice from my contacts) has kindly read and reviewed my first novel The Catalytic Programme. I am so thrilled with her review I just had to share it with you. I know it is self-indulgent but the review is so good I can’t help myself.

First here is the blurb from The Catalytic Programme:-

When international banker David Levy   becomes unwittingly involved in a global scheme to ruin the West's finances his   first reaction is to approach the authorities, that's when his troubles really   start. It sets off a chain of events that causes the body count to mount and   sends Levy along with Jackie Lean the widow of his best friend on a world wide   chase for self preservation and a search for answers. From the USA to Europe and then Asia   every cry for help leads to betrayal. In the end Levy realises that the answer   is back home where it all began. He must return to the USA to solve the puzzle.   There, in a terrifying climax he fights for his life in a final effort to   overcome The Catalytic Programme. Can David Levy live long enough to save himself, Jackie and the Free World's Economy?

And here is Barbera’s review, are you ready for this:-

REALIZING THE THREAT TO US ALL

Book Review by : Barbara Griffin Billig

THE CATALYTIC PROGRAMME – a fiction thriller, written by Terry Callister

Available in ebook form and paperback .

Indie novelist, Terry Callister, is an engrossing writer with his first novel. The tale he spins shows he himself to be a world traveler and a profound thinker.

Starting out in an American setting, he has woven his tale around the idea of Communism making an ideological terrorist comeback. His protaganist character, David Levy, is handsome, an educated banker, successful in his career, and in his past life, special forces in the military. His Japanese banker associate,Ki, informs him that he has seen a copy of a memo and has evidence that Peru's banking system is systematically being squeezed out of the credit market and set up to fail, bankrupting the country. Soon Ki is dead and as David investigates, he finds himself a target to be killed.

The story progresses to England, Hong Kong, the Phillipines, Canada, and finally back to the United States. David Levy's adventures are full of cultural nuggets of wisdom – why the far eastern dope trade is so successful, the standard greetings of the English versus the Americans – thoughts on the unfairness of democracy versus communism – media fairness and accuracy. But the action never stops in this adventure novel. David Levy and Jackie Lean, the widow of his best friend, twist and turn their way around the world, barely escaping asassination attempts as they try to unravel the plot against the United States and ultimately the world's freedom.

The publishing world today seems to only select those books they feel are “sure” things. One then becomes grateful for the independent publishing routes that have developed and the new books we are offered that would have been missed. As an aside, I read this book on my smart phone. It has Adobe Reader which opened the .pdf file and resized the text to my comfort level. Also, the phone is lit at night – no reading light required and it is quite light and comfortable to hold. The phone also has a kindle application to read books formatted thusly. And you always have your phone with you when you have a spare moment to read.

This book is a great read AND thought provoking. The plot is imaginative and refreshingly new. The writing is rich in texture and words. The .pdf format is annoyingly unstable, but that is not the fault of the author. I would highly recommend this book to enjoy and expand your world.

For further information on how to purchase this book please go to:-

http://www.booksandnovelstoread.com/mybooks.html

Thank you so much Barbera.

To purchase and upload a copy of A Nuclear Catastrophe with is currently on special offer for just $0.99 Click Here

Oh that we could all get this sort of free plug.

Chris Evans a DJ on national radio in the UK was so impressed with a story that he read to his two year old son about Pirate Pete's Potty, (it helps with potty training by the way), that he talked about it on his radio show. Next thing you know sales of the book went up by 700%. Putting the book up to No 3 on Amazon. This was reported in Saturday's Daily Mail a national newspaper in the UK.

Read the full article

Wouldn't it be wonderful if all of us could get such a great free plug for our books. Perhaps we should all start sending Chris and his peers free copies of our books to get some free advertising.

Those nice people at Createspace

I believe I already told you that I was turning my eBook A Lucky Break into a version suitable for printing. After a couple of weeks of checking, and editing, and thank you Lydia Lin for your input on typos and spelling errors I finally got it finished and ready for uploading to Createspace. I did it yesterday afternoon. First I totally forgot that the interior of the book had to be loaded as a PDF so it was straight onto www.freepdfconvert.com to change my Word file into a PDF. Ten minutes later (I have dial-up not ADSL, there is no ADSL where I live in Spain) I had a brand new PDF file uploading to Createspace. Go and make a cup of tea and wait patiently. Then it got to the cover. Now I had a cover picture that I used for the eBook and very pleased I was with it too so wanted that as the cover for the print version also. It was created in Paint, that’s right, the free version you get with Windows and very versatile it is, if you have the patience to find out how it works. Back to the plot. I chose Createspace’s THE SPRUCE from cover creator for my cover 5” x 8” with a Sky Blue back cover colour. The Spruce is the cover where you have your own picture, book title and Author all as one and they take care of the back and spine of the book. Their Sky Blue did not match in any way the blue I used for my cover. I went onto Google and looked up the Red, Green and Blue mix for Sky Blue, put that into Paint and guess what it didn’t match at all. Next I went onto the Createspace Forum for advice and quickly got some very good but complicated answers. In the end I sent a message to Customer Support and asked for the make-up of their Sky Blue and this morning I had an email with the numbers and hey presto I have a book cover that matched perfectly. They are nice people at Createspace.

So if you want to create your own book cover using a Createspace colour, I suggest you ask then first what is the Red, Green, Blue mix of your chosen background colour before you start. Incidently if you create your book cover in Paint it will not be big enough for Createspace. Just open the picture in Microsoft Picture Manager (free with Windows again) and enlarge it, there is no loss of definition or pixilation just keep going until your book’s cover is big enough.

Have a great weekend.

A gentle reminder

I just wanted to say to all my fellow self-published authors, that if you only have time or the inclination to only follow one blog then I'd suggest Joan Reeves blog is the one to follow. (After this one of course).

http://slingwords.blogspot.com/2011/08/ebook-success-ad-copy-part-2-categories.html

Joan never fails to deliver good advice, help and assistance for all us authors. She speaks with authority. Look at her latest blog for the proof.

Buen Suerte as they say here in Spain. (That's good luck).