This enjoyable collection of short stories that the author refers to as “dark fantasy tales” which I have just read at the author’s request, turned out to be very enjoyable. Generally I am not fond of the Gothic genre, vampires and similar do not really engage my interest to be honest, so I approached this collection with some doubts. In the event I was very pleasantly surprised by the stories though.

The stories in this ebook cover the entire range of this genre, we have vampires, ghosts galore, mysterious creatures going bump in the night, murders, elves who create mayhem in a garden and so on. But all written with a strangely gentle approach, so whilst I read a number of these tales at night, I wasn’t frightened by them, or felt the need to check under my bed for long legged beasties or any such things. Somehow they were not scary.

At Smashwords it is described as follows:
An unsolved murder on a seductive resort island with brooding secrets….a mechanical movie prop intended to help create a dream on film, but instead becomes part of a nightmare for those involved….an odd alliance between a priest and a vampire….a modern day meeting with the Phantom of the Opera….tales of ghosts and monsters and otherworldly encounters. This collection of stories by science fiction, fantasy and mystery author Gary Alan Ruse explores fantasy realms and the dark side of human…and non-human…nature with thrills and chills, and in some cases a touch of humor.

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Revision3, A strange website that hosts the very successful Podcast Scam School have issued an amusing and informative highly interactive ebook for Apple devices that shows you how to perform a vast number of magic tricks. Armed with what you can learn in this strange ebook, you will be able to perform enough tricks to guarantee that you will never have to pay for another drink in your life, at the very least.

As they describe it on iTunes, this ebook is truly interactive, including as it does hundreds of photos, over 40 videos, and 70+ audio commentaries, all aimed at showing you not only how to perform a wide range of conjuring tricks, but also teaching you how to actually structure your “performances” to ensure the best results. How to start slowly and relatively simply, and build to an amazing finale.

Note: I have checked both the site and the ebook, and in spite of the use of the word “scam“, it is OK, no nasties lurking in the undergrowth.

As this ebook will work on any Apple divice, or Smart Phone with an iTunes App on it, you do not even have to remember how all the tricks work, you can simply remind yourself by checking on your Smartphone before doing the tricks… They have thought of everything.

Or as they put it:

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Artfinder in partnership with The Estate of Francis Bacon have produced a rather wonderful interactive ebook for all Apple devices on the life and work of this extraordinary British painter.

In its 70 pages it shows us 17 of his most significant paintings, which cover the whole body of his work, so that his development as an artist can be followed easily. Having downloaded and read this ebook, I can vouch for the high quality of these images, as you can see in the photos I have here to give you a feel for this ebook.

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Warner Bros. Digital Distribution have just announced the launch of “Inside The Script” A series of screenplays of film classics as ebooks. They have started by giving us the shooting scripts of “Casablanca,” “Ben-Hur,” “An American in Paris” and “North by Northwest” for iPads, Kindles and Nooks.

Screen shot of page from Casablanca Script

Not just the scripts:

These ebooks will contain not only the actual scripts of these films,but also a range of extra goodies, such as Director’s notes, Actor’s notes, photos and other relevant material from the archives at Warner Brother’s Studios.

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A story for young adults and adults based on the weird concept of Honour Killing (Blood feuds) in contemporary Albania.

I have just finished reading this dark and very dense tale of what happens to a family recently arrived in a small Albanian town when one of them inadvertently kills the son of their neighbour.

Here is how it is described in Smashwords:

Long listed for the Dylan Thomas/Sony Reader Award 2010, Dead Dogs is a darkly humorous tale from award-winning author [UK Authors Prize 2010] Chris Barraclough.

Mikael’s relocation to Albania becomes a life imprisonment, after his cousin kills a neighbouring boy. Victim of a Blood Feud, Mikael finds himself hunted by the enraged family who are desperate for revenge.

You probably do not know much about this curious law in Albania, called Gjakmarrja (Yes, I have no idea how you pronounce it either), which basically says, that if someone kills one of your family, for whatever reason, you have a legal right to merrily kill all male members of the killer’s family, except when they are in their own land or house. In other words, if they leave their property, you have an absolute right to shoot them dead, and the law can do nothing to you. And as I said, this “sentence”  extends to all male members of the family of the killer, including any male children, whatever their ages.

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I have just finished reading Is For Good Men To Do Nothing; Chris Verrill’s account of his attempt to set up a training school for Afghan refugee women in Pakistan to teach them useful skills so that they can return to Afghanistan able to earn a living and thus achieve a degree of economic and social independence.

Declaration of interest:

Chris is a good friend of mine as we worked together whilst I was in Beijing on his current project, The Beijing Playhouse, an English language Community Theatre (what we Brits call an Amateur Dramatic Society). I helped out on a variety of technical levels as stage lighting and sound was my work while I was in Beijing, and we keep in touch now that I have moved to the Philippines.

Chris never gives up!

One thing I learned about Chris whilst in Beijing was that he never gives up, he is a real fighter for anything he believes in, and this rather wonderful book reflects this quality in him remarkably well.

The attack on the twin towers did it:

On the morning of 11^th September 2001 of horrid memory, he was by chance with some of his Rotary Club friends at a Rotary meeting when the news of the attacks began to filter through, and like all of us he was brought up sharp by the events as they unfolded.

For Chris, this event made him determined to do something to change the culture of hate and incomprehension between the USA and the Muslim world, in his case a determination to help bring educational chances and economic security to at least some of the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Economic security and education are the answer:

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