A Small Request

Dear Readers,

Many of you have downloaded my books over the years, there are literally dozens of you! However, although I've had good feedback in person, by email, on forums and on Reddit, I don't have many reviews on Amazon and Smashwords.

If anyone has downloaded one of my books and enjoyed it, I would be eternally grateful to you for leaving a brief review of it on whichever site you purchased it from.

Gaining traction as an author is very difficult, and even more so when new readers can't tell if they would enjoy my work or not because there are no reviews from others who have read it. So if you are enjoying what I'm doing: let the world know.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Steve

Intergalactic Law Web Serial Part 3: Infiltration

The Alpha Bio Labs main building was made of a grey-blue metal that made it look as congruent to the scenery around it as a swimwear store in the middle of the desert. Flanking the entrance were two of the vast annexes attached to the main block. Each of them was about the size of a soccer stadium. The walls were constructed of the same opaque plastic fabric as the roof. Bing approached it and pressed his ear to the wall, which was pulled so taught that it barely moved under force. If the lawyer listened closely he could hear low snuffling noises and barely audible growls. The fabric sheeting was sealed at the joins and where it met the floor. There was no space for an ant to escape, never mind for a prying eye to see in. Bing headed towards the entrance, leaving Gunderson in the car and told him to wait for a blank text message on his wrist phone. That was the signal for him to make his entrance.

Inside the lobby Bing’s nostrils were met with a hospital-like smell. The cleansers used by the cleaning robots were strong enough to kill any germ, virus, dog, cat, primate or bear that had the misfortune to be on the floor when they started cleaning. The waiting area could be described as ‘functional’ if one was trying to be kind. The chairs were plastic and looked cheap and uncomfortable. They were arranged in perfectly aligned rows to maximise space. There were no artworks, televisions, or magazine racks to be seen as one might expect in the waiting area of a large facility such as this. On the opposite side of the room from the entrance was a plastic reception desk. Behind it was a robot with a CCTV camera for a head and thin, twig-like metal limbs. It was sitting to attention, like a broom standing perfectly balanced on its end.

“Hello, I’d like to speak to a manager,” said Bing. He hadn’t really considered what ‘pretense’ he was going to use to get a meeting with someone who he could interrogate about the attack on Dr Dorrit, but he knew he would think of something.

The robot had made no response. On its chest was a touchpad screen with text and some option buttons:

Welcome to Alpha Bio Labs

My Name is Alpha

Please select your preferred mode of communication:

1. Data entry by way of an external programming device

2. Oral programming language (please select language)

3. Oral conversation (please select language)

Bing sighed audibly and chose option 3, and then chose English, on the basis that he knew nothing of programming, or indeed any other language. The lawyer had come across this type of question when interacting with robots many times before. He couldn’t prove it, but he was highly suspicious that this question was designed to test the intelligence of the person wishing to speak to the robot, and that someone was judging him for having to have a conversation with the machine rather than programming it to give him answers. Another question appeared on the touch screen:

Activate artificial personality and communication-assist mode?

1. Yes

2. No

Another trick question, thought Bing. He chose no.

“Welcome to Alpha Bio Labs. My name is Alpha. Please state your query,” said the robot through a monotone voice synthesiser.

“I want to speak to a manager.”

“Syntax error. Please restate your query in the correct syntax.”

Bing raised an eyebrow at the machine. Its CCTV head was locked onto him. It was very difficult to tell if the robot was being sarcastic or not. He tried again:

“Manager. I wish to speak to one.”

The robot did not respond.

“Ma-na-ger.”

No response. Bing closed his eyes and counted to ten, taking deep breaths as he did so. He opened his eyes, tapped the ‘back’ button on the robot’s chest touchpad, and selected the option for the artificial personality and communication-assist mode.

The robot slouched and began to touch buttons on the desk in front of it. The computer screen and telephone system sprang to life. From a drawer under the desk it retrieved a little bottle of nail varnish. The robot unscrewed the bottle top and began applying the varnish to the top inch of its metal fingers. Its voice had changed from the monotone synthesised voice to that of a young sounding female. She was humming and tune to herself while ignoring Bing and concentrating completely on applying the nail varnish.

“Excuse me,” he said, patience wearing thin, “I’d like to speak to a manager.”

“Which manager?” said the robot without looking at Bing.

“Ideally the managing director of this facility, but I will settle for the operations manager.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No.”

“Do you know the name of the individual you wish to speak to?”

“No.”

“Hmmm, I don’t think you’ll be able to speak to anyone today. But leave me your name and number and I’ll get someone to call you.” Without looking away from her freshly painted fingertips, she tossed a clipboard onto the reception in front of Bing. He watched as she held her painted fingers in front of her lens; her voicebox made a noise that sounded as if she was blowing on the nail varnish to dry it, despite the fact that she didn’t have a mouth with which to do so. She inspected the still-wet varnish and repeated the blowing charade. The varnish had begun to run down her finger. She tutted loudly and removed a pack of cotton pads and acetone from the drawer. As she unscrewed the top of the bottle she aimed her lens at Bing.

“Was there anything else?”

Bing was becoming seriously irritated by the robot.

“Listen, I really need to speak to someone. Today. It’s an urgent matter.”

Bing could see Alpha’s lens moving behind the glass. He felt her zooming in close to his face and scrutinizing him.

“Fine,” she said with a sigh, “ your name?”

“Ebbington Mulholland.”

She tapped at her keyboard. “You’re a lawyer?”

“Did you just search for me on the ship’s directory?”

She didn’t answer.

“Yes, I’m a lawyer.”

“Hmm, no, I don’t think that anyone will be able to speak to you today. Good day, sir, and thank you for visiting Alpha Bio Labs.”

“Listen, this is extrem-“

He was cut off by Alpha putting up her index finger to him to shush him while she answered the phone. He noted that her telephone demeanour was infinitely more pleasant than her demeanour dealing with him so far had been. She finished her conversation and noticed that Bing was still standing there. She sighed and stood up, “listen Mr Mulholland. You should leave now. Someone will call you to arrange an appointment. You cannot speak to a manager today.”

Bing was quite taken aback by this. In all his years of being a lawyer, he had never come across a receptionist so efficient. Human or robot. He was actually somewhat jealous that he didn’t have a robot receptionist of his own like this. He did have a robot receptionist but it was a little… odd. That was besides the point. He had come here to find information, and he wanted to find it himself, without Ivan Gunderson coming in with his bull in a china shop routine. He would have vastly preferred to speak to a manager and tease the information out of him, but all was not lost.

“Alright then. I understand the managers are busy, but maybe you can help me: I’d like a tour of this facility.”

Alpha recoiled slightly. “You want what?”

“A tour.”

“We don’t do tours of this facility.” 

“I think you’ll find that you do. Under regulation 432.1.1.2 of the ship’s Scientific Undertakings Code, all scientific undertakings must provide a tour to any person or persons who request them. Of course, there is the provision that you only have to provide one tour per day, but since you didn’t seem to be aware that you even provided tours, I take it that you haven’t provided a tour yet today.”

Alpha tapped her fingers to the bottom of her lens. 

“It just so happens that Ivan Gunderson, the ship’s chief of security, is right outside. He was the one who drove me here. I would hate to have to go out to him and say that I’m being refused a tour in violation of ship regulations.”

Alpha snapped back into her chair and began rapidly tapping at her keyboard. She lifted the phone and pressed ‘0’. Bing heard a series of clicks from whoever was on the other end of the phone, Alpha responded with a string of panicked-sounding whistling noises of different lengths and frequencies. There was a further brief exchange of clicks and whistles. She put the phone down and stood facing Bing.

“Mr Mulholland, would you like to come this way?”

Intergalactic Law Web Serial Episode 2: Ivan

Ivan Gunderson was quite something to behold. Never before had Bing seen power go to a man’s head in such a disproportionate way. As they headed for the hospital main exit, Ivan loudly shouted ‘excuse me, official police business’ at every doctor, nurse, and orderly who crossed his path. Patients in wheelchairs and rolling beds alike were pushed out of his way when it became clear he had no intention of walking around them. As the hospital staff tried their hardest to clear the way for the ship’s chief of security, Gunderson huffed and checked his watch with the drama of a Shakespearian actor.

Bing didn’t apologise on behalf of Gunderson, even although he felt that he should, for fear of being linked in the minds of the hospital staff as a close associate of the chief’s. Things like that get remembered, and who knows when my life might depend on these people…

The lawyer followed the security chief at a cautious distance until they were outside. As one who knew anything about Ivan would expect: his hovercar was parked blocking the hospital’s ambulance bay. Several ambulances had to park in the street about a minute away from the emergency room entrance. An ambulance crew rushed past them carrying a stretcher with some unfortunate soul moaning in pain on top of it.

“In you get Mulholland.”

Bing entered the car, reluctantly, very aware of the numerous little crowds of people having hushed conversations and shaking their heads. As he dreaded, he heard from somewhere in one of the crowds:

“Isn’t that professor Mulholland’s husband?”

“Ex-husband you mean.”

Bing’s left eye twitched and he slammed the car door shut.

The sirens began to blare, and chief Gunderson shot out of the ambulance bay at the vehicle’s top speed. He was following signs towards the circumferential highway. It was the main road that ran to the opposite side of the cylinder, but it occurred to Bing that it would probably take them two hours to get there on the highway, even accounting for Gunderson’s borderline psychotic driving habits.

“Oh, you’re taking the highway? That’s alright. It gives you such a great view of the whole ship, and we’ll have such a long time to take it all in. The elevator is much quicker of course, but it just isn’t the same.”

He watched Gunderson’s lips curl and tighten as he silently cursed himself for not thinking of taking the elevator. He swerved across several lanes of high-speed traffic, lights and sirens still blaring, and pointed the car directly towards the elevator.

“Sorry Mulholland, but you’ll have to sightsee some other time, we don’t have time for that today.”

The chief veered through stop signs, intersections, and crosswalks without slowing. At the enormous pedestrian mall around the elevator, Gunderson began hollering through the vehicle’s loudspeaker system for people to get out of the way.

The elevator was a giant crystal tube with walls a foot thick linking the city of Galileo on one side of the cylinder to the Einstein Recreational Area on the opposite side across the diameter of the ship. From afar however, the elevator appeared to be an impossibly thin glass capillary tube which should be collapsing under its own weight. Along the whole length of the tube were millions of circular silver electromagnet discs. The chief bullied his way to the front of the elevator queue, ignoring the derisive honks of other motorists. 

The car shuddered as it entered the elevator and the electromagnets took hold. The car slowly began to rise into the air. The higher they rose the faster their speed became until they were traveling so fast that Bing could no longer make out the electromagnets as they sped by. His internal organs seemed desperate to cling to the surface of the cylinder they had just left for a few moments, then, as they entered the gravitational no-man’s land in the centre of the cylinder, his insides didn’t know whether they should be feeling immense joy, or sheer terror. In the end, each organ made its own mind up and acted accordingly. The car did a slow somersault as they passed the midway point and began to descend. Bing’s brain decided that it had quite liked that motion and decided to replay it for Bing over and over again. Gravity resumed its hold and the lawyer’s insides barged past each other to return to their starting positions. The car landed with an unsatisfying, slow descent towards the surface of the cylinder. There was no judder or bump to signify that their journey had ended, they simply stopped descending about a foot from the surface. While Bing was obviously thrilled that they hadn’t smashed into the ship’s hull at hundreds of miles per hour, he always felt that the end of the elevator journey was a total anticlimax.

As the elevator barrier lifted, Ivan Gunderson showed the signs marked ‘exit slowly’ how little authority they actually had. Several miles above them, the buildings of Galileo reached towards them like millions of tines on an overly-elaborate crown which twinkled in the artificial sunlight. In the centre was the giant glass spire of the Galileo Academy of Sciences, home of the Council of Scientists. Through the sunroof Bing could make out some of the larger parks and plazas of the city, of which there were many. His ex wife, who was a much better authority than he on such things, used to go on about how they were beautiful enough to rival those of any capital city on Earth. He stopped looking at them.

On either side of the road that Ivan was currently tearing along, green hills, forests, lakes and great plains of grass seemed to stretch out for miles and then rose up at a gentle gradient. The mysterious point where the internal surface of the ship became more vertical than horizontal always made Bing’s brain a little confused. The vast green was criss-crossed with roads and marked here and there with little collections of buildings conducting experiments which were better done outwith the hustle and bustle of the city. Eventually the green met with the suburbs of Galileo above them.

Gunderson was travelling in the direction of the opposite end of the ship, but their destination was much closer than that. Bing could see it about a mile ahead of them on their left, about an eighth of a turn around the circumference. The building complex was like a great flower. The road was the stem, leading up to the main building, which was surrounded by five giant petal-like strictures. The roofs were made of some form of plastic fabric sheeting that was slightly opaque as to let in sunlight, but obscuring whatever was within. As they neared the building, the car matched its orientation.

“Gunderson, have you had any thoughts about how this is going to go?”

“I’m going to go in and ask them if all of their animals are accounted for.”

Bing nodded. “Hmmm, alright. It’s a direct approach. But don’t you think that might put them on the defensive? Maybe make them more inclined to hide something?”

Gunderson gave him a few confused glances and sideways looks. His fingers danced nervously on the steering wheel.          
    “You’re right. Maybe you should go in first with some pretense. Feel them out a bit. Their guards are more likely to be down if it’s not a cop that’s questioning them. What do you think?”

“The good cop, bad cop routine. Brilliant idea Ivan.”

Ivan Gunderson smiled to himself, quite proud of the plan he’d come up with.

Intergalactic Law Web Serial

Dear Readers,

As part of a bold new experiment I'm introducing a new serial set in the same 'world' as my short story Intergalactic Law. Ebbington 'Bing' Mulholland is a lawyer on a giant space ark. The ark, the Isaac Newton, has two cities: Galileo, where the science crew live, and Copernicus, which is home to the crew of support staff, and Mr Mulholland himself. So, without further ado, let us begin with part 1:

1. Instruction

Bing sat next to the mauled scientist’s hospital bed. Dr Richard Dorrit had lost both arms, his right leg from the mid-shin down, an ear and the tip of his nose. He was in an induced coma and hooked up to an array of machines like 10-foot tall white marble tombstones, each standing silently. Tiny lights flashed occasionally. 

“How did this happen?” Bing asked the dismembered man’s wife.

“Something in the woods got him. We were hiking in the Einstein Memorial Recreation Area.“ She pointed out the window. Galileo General Hospital rose above all the other buildings in this district of the city. Bing could see down the whole length of the cylindrical living space of the ship. Bing had been told the exact measurements of the ship at one point, but hadn’t bothered to commit them to memory. Everytime he caught a view of the ship such as this, his mind had to search for the correct adjectives to describe how big the living space of the Sir Isaac Newton really was. On this day, his brain went for ‘really, massively, fucking gargantuan’. The other city on the ship, Copernicus, was just a dark grey patch at the other end of the cylinder. The woman was pointing at a spot 180 degrees around the cylinder. Einstein Park took up a full quarter of the ship’s inner surface. It was a hilly area of mainly light green grassy open plains, but there were deep green patches of forest, and dark green lakes. The hills were impressive, and were equipped with snow machines at their peaks to make them seem taller and allow for winter mountain sports. The lakes, however, were limited by the thickness of the ship’s hull. If a reasonably tall man were to wade in to the deepest point, his armpits would be perfectly dry.

“We were monitoring the bird populations in the forest, and something attacked us from the side. Something big.”

“What did it look like?”

“It was big, and grey. I thought it might have been a hippo, but it was so fast, and nimble, and too streamlined. The main thing I remember was its big, black, glassy eye staring at me as it tore Richard apart.”

“Are there hippos on the ship?” Asked Bing. He’d lived on the Isaac Newton for two years, and had never heard of there being any hippos.

“Yes, the ship was designed to be an ‘ark’ of sorts after all. I'm aware that one of the labs has a large populations of animals for observation and experiment.”

Interesting, thought Bing. He heard a door open behind them. Through it walked Ivan Gunderson, the chief of security aboard the ship. His uniform was crumpled and the top button was undone. Bing had called him several hours ago to attend urgently. Despite Bing explaining to him in several different ways that Dr Dorrit had suffered life-threatening injuries from a violent attack by an unknown source, Gunderson couldn’t see how this was anything to do with him. Ultimately he had agreed to attend. 

Bing needed him there because if any lawsuit was going to get off the ground he would have to do quite a bit of investigating to figure out who to sue. Since he was none too popular with the scientific community, and they had worked out that they didn’t need to speak to him, Bing found it helpful to team up with Gunderson from time to time. While the chief of security was equally unpopular, he had authority that Bing lacked. Also, although he didn’t realise it, he was quite open to following any suggestion Bing made, as long as Bing made it seem like the idea had been Gunderson’s in the first place.

“Well, I’m here. What seems to be the issue?” Gunderson asked the room at large. He walked over to inspect the victim somewhat indifferently, like an antique dealer inspecting an expensive chair that he was very interested in, but didn’t want to pay a lot of money for. 

“Chief Gunderson, this is Rosie Dorrit, the wife of Dr Richard Dorrit, with whom I see you have already become acquainted.”

“How do you do,” said the chief, without looking up from Dr Dorrit. “This was some sort of animal attack.”

Nothing gets past you, does it? Thought Bing. “I was just discussing with Mrs Dorrit here that I wasn’t aware of there being any animals on the ship that could cause this kind of injury.” Bing nudged the woman with his elbow and nodded to her.

“Yes, and I was saying to Mr Mulholland that there is in fact a large animal population on board the ship for study and potential breeding. That must be where the beast came from.”

“Well, it’s obvious that we should go speak to the persons in charge of this animal facility to find out what they have to say about it.”

   “Excellent idea Ivan,” said Bing.

FREE STUFF OMFG!!!

Intergalactic Law will be free on Amazon from 10th til 14th May 2016. Please download, read, enjoy, leave an honest (but 4/5 star) review, and then download everything else I've ever written (optional).

Steve

New Short Story

I've entered the exciting world of science fiction writing. Intergalactic Law is a short story about a lawyer on a space ark taking the best and the brightest of the human race from the ruins of Earth to Earth 2.0 somewhere among the stars.

Happiness is...

This post might be a bit existential and philosophical for some. If that sounds like something you'd hate (sure sounds like something I'd hate, but here I am), here is a nifty escape route. On you go, no-one would blame you...

For those who have stuck around, good for you, let's have a heart to heart.

This is a post about happiness, and what makes a person happy. Me specifically, because I'm not really bothered about whether anyone else is happy to be honest...

I write because it makes me happy. It's relaxing, fun, and it lets me get some stuff out of my brain that really shouldn't stay in there for too long.

Writing isn't a walk in the park. It's a challenge to sit one's arse down evening after evening and craft a novel. And then there's editing. I edit because I have to. Editing doesn't make me happy. But it's all part of the process to creating a piece of work.

So what else? The following list is not exhaustive, and I intend to expand on some of the points in separate blog posts.

Family. I have my awesome fiancee, who makes me happy every day, and in six weeks we will be married. We don't have any children, but we do have a fur baby, Dot, our 2 year old pug.

Climbing. I have a passion for climbing stuff. Much like writing, it's not easy, but topping a difficult route produces such a great sense of achievement.

Video games. Aside from writing and climbing this is the main thing I do to de-stress. Getting lost in the world of Fallout or The Witcher makes all of life's problems disappear for a little while.

Movies, TV, and books. Much like video games, other media also allows me to get lost in another world for a sense of contentment.

Money. Being a lawyer, y'all might understand that I have a certain fondness, bordering on a fetish, for money. Some say it's the route of all evil (not really something that bothers me), but having money allows people to have and do all sorts of things that broke folks just can't get. There is also the financial security element. Being in too much debt makes me nervous, which is counterproductive to being happy.

My job makes me happy from time to time. Whenever I am able to do something well, win or lose, I'm definitely filled with a sense of achievement, which is an undeniably good feeling.

Let's pause at this point for a moment: money essentially buys all of the things that make me happy (apart from my future-wife, but life is much less stressful when we aren't struggling to pay our bills, so it definitely enhances our home life). However, what do I do for money: work. Work can be enjoyable, but can also be stressful. Not every case goes my way. Some clients are massive pains in the arse. I have periods when I feel like I'm in a hole and don't even know how to begin getting myself out. So while work can be a source of happiness, it can also be a source of stress. In fact, it is probably the biggest source of stress in my life and the lives of everyone with a job.

So what's the point of this post? Being happy in life is important to me and everyone else. It would make sense to eliminate sources of unhappiness. But my main source of unhappiness is my job, which is the source of my money, which facilitates my happiness.

Well isn't that just fucking brilliant...

I'm nothing if not practical, so let's try to find a solution to this problem. I highly doubt there is such a thing as a job that doesn't have its downsides. Even if I did have a job which was less stressful, and required shorter hours, it would likely pay less, and less money = less capacity to do things that make me happy.

I could find some sources of happiness that require less money. Indeed there is a whole frugality movement online, led by this majestically moustached gentleman, but screw him and his hippie ways. I haven't been in a Starbucks in years since I started reading his blog, but I like the small comforts that remain too much to just give them up.

I think it would be fair to summarise my problem thusly: my job is stressful, but I need money.

Perhaps you're anticipating the conclusion to this article to be that I should pack in my job to become a full time writer and earn a living from that, but you would be wrong. Being dependent on my hobby for my income would ruin it, and would make it just as great a source of stress,  if not greater, than my current job. So that's out.

My current working plan to develop some systems of investment that produce enough wealth that I no-longer have to work have a timescale of 20+ years. While that's a painfully long timescale, unfortunately it's all I've really got. 20 years of reasonable happiness, peppered with the dreadful misery of work, is a lot of goddamn years. I don't think I have any millionaire relatives at death's door, and I don't play the lottery, so it looks like the 20 year plan is where it's at.

Fuck that.

Here begins my epic blog journey of trying to achieve fabulous wealth, and with it fabulous happiness, combined with fabulously low levels of work. How am I going to achieve it? Not a clue.

Kind regards,

Steve