Author Interview – Jemahl Evans
This week's interview is with Jemahl Evans, author of The Last Roundhead, the edited memoirs of Blandford Candy, the last surviving Roundhead. Laid out like Flashman's memoirs it tells the story of the early days of the First of the Civil Wars in the mid seventeenth century. I've just finished reading the ARC and will write a review next week. How long have you been writing for and what made you start writing? I have always scribbled bits and bobs, ever since I as a child, but I kept it to myself mainly. The opening to The Last Roundhead came to me one afternoon when I was teaching in Hounslow, but then it sat on my laptop untouched. I came back to Wales in 2010, after my father died and Mum was diagnosed with Breast Cancer and COPD, and started to…
Self Driving Cars
I've written over the last couple of weeks about advances in police technology, but one of the other technology changes that has a major societal impact is self driving cars. People have been talking about this for years, and recently both Google and Elon Musk are seriously working on self driving cars. Other companies are too, but not to the same extent. Progress Report on Self Driving Cars Last week Google released a report on where they'd got to with self driving cars. They plan to report monthly from now on. Their self driving cars have clocked up million miles in autonomous mode, and have been involved in 12 accidents. None of those accidents have been the fault of the self driving cars, in fact for 8 of the 12 the vehicle was stationary. If you ignore the five accidents…
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Book Review – Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link
Pretty Monsters: Stories by Kelly Link My rating: 4 of 5 stars A collection of nine short stories with a sort of urban fantasy/horror theme, although low key theme horror rather than scare you into changing your pants horror. What they do is make you think about things. Almost all of the stories could be very normal, with a slightly mentally off kilter protagonist, or there could be something else there that you cannot quite see. A couple are straight fantasy, the Wizards of Perfil, being a good fantasy story about wizards that buy children for a nefarious hidden purpose. All of the stories are well crafted, and they all have a good premise that is well executed. I didn't feel that any of them were there just to make up the numbers. There was a level of variety about them…
Author Interview – Matt Abraham
Today's author interview is with Matt Abraham, his novel is superhero noir, a supervillain turned PI. How long have you been writing for and what made you start writing? I’ve been writing for about ten years, but most of that time I was producing a lot of “blah blah”. It was only in the last three that I’ve produced what I consider well-crafted fiction. I started again because I was tired of stories that were either a redo, sequel, or reboot. I crave originality, like most people I imagine, so I set out to make my own world. Do you write for a living, or do you also do other work? I write for a living, but my lifestyle is heavily subsidized by my wife. See next question for a more extensive response. How did you get into being a…
More on 21st Century Policing
Police Technology Greater Manchester Police officers in Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester, England. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Last week I wrote about some general trends in the future of policing and touched a little on the use of drones to help enforcemnet and make it easier for the police to catch fleeing criminals. This week I'm going to look at some of the personal kit that police officers are likely to come equipped with as standard. First some key assumptions stupid criminals will still try to stab/shoot/injure police officers, so armour is here to stay British policing by consent will require our police to have faces, to interact with the public and to walk the beat in busy public places Regulations on evidence will remain, possibly updated in light of new technology and possibilities (although the fact that PACE has lasted thirty years…