(2009)
JOURNAL
LATEST ENTRY: 10th December 2009
A few people have reported difficulties ordering "Half Discovered Wings" from Amazon, advising of delays or order cancellations. I have been assured that this is only a temporary problem and should be sorted very soon, with the link to Amazon being restored as soon as possible. Unfortunately it's unlikely that Amazon will contact you to say that the book has become available again, so we will be relying on your continued interest to re-place your orders as soon as possible!
More news to follow as it comes in. As the author, I can only apologise for this and hope it hasn't put you off taking a look at the book. I suggest anyone who has had their order cancelled let me know via the forum on the thread I will set up specially, and I will contact you just as soon as the book is available again.
Yours sincerely,
David Brookes
26th November 2009
Anyone following the LittleBigPlanet story develop will have already seen Parts 3 and 4 available to play, completing the set. I've tried not to include any major spoilers, but highly recommend reading the book first to avoid any disappointments! Remember, LittleBigPlanet is for fun and platforming, not dark fantasy and drama!
Keep a close eye on the site in the coming weeks, because you'll not only see the animated trailer for Half Discovered Wings, but perhaps news on new short publications - for now pick up your copy of Delivered for a short snippet of Kafka-esque weirdness in "A Creature of Substance", appearing in the December issue.
As always, any comments on the site, the stories, the book or anything else are greatly appreciated!
2nd November 2009
Part 2 of the LittleBigPlanet adaptation out now! "Half Discovered Wings - Crux Lual" is already online and ready to play on your PS3!
Also, I'm now on Twitter as well as Facebook and Myspace, so check it out if you have nothing better to do!
24th October 2009
There's a special treat for those who are lucky enough to own a PlayStation 3 games console and a copy of the hit do-it-yourself platformer LittleBigPlanet ... As of today, the first part of the LBP adaptation of Half Discovered Wings is now available to play! Explore chapters 1 to 8 (abridged!) of the book, meet Rowan, Teague and the Magus, and visit Pirene's sacred site! Don't forget to heart the level or add a comment if you liked it!
'Half-Discovered Wings - Blood and Blades" by DavidBrookesUK is now available for play!
The remaining three parts are already completed, and will be uploaded to the LBP community every two weeks. Part Two will be coming November 1st, so keep an eye out!
A big, hearty thank-you must go out to those of you who have thus far supported the book and/or purchased copies. There's no indication yet of how well the book is selling other than constantly updated Amazon rankings, but during the first week the data showed that several copies were pre-ordered or purchased upon release, so thank you all!
13th October 2009
Many of the visitors to the site have been kind enough to enquire after the progress of my first novel during the long wait since it was contracted two years ago. It's been a bit of a bumpy road full of plenty of worries, not least of which the concern that the book might not get published at all. I've taken the approach of "I'll believe it when I see it" until now.
I'm sure they will all be as thrilled as I am to learn that I have seen it (but still don't quite believe it!): "Half Discovered Wings" is finally available on Amazon!
As many of you know, Libros is a fairly new publishing house and does not have the easy life of somewhere like Random House etc.. For those of you who love to curl up with a book and are generous enough to pick up a copy, please please support our ailing industry by buying new from Amazon. Once the publisher's site is finished with its current overhaul, you'll be able to purchase directly from the Libros International store via the website.
I hope you'll enjoy reading about the unusual characters and scope of scenery as much as I enjoyed writing them six years ago. Thank you all so much for your support and kind words!
Enjoy the book.
3rd September 2009
My short sci-fi story Touching the Foam is now available to read at Bewildering Stories. One of my personal favourites - enjoy!
29th August 2009
A small update on the progress of Half Discovered Wings, which thankfully is still moving forward: the Chief Editor has her hands on the finished product and is almost through checking it for typing errors etc.. The next step, once finished, is only to send the corrections back to the printer and then ... hopefully ... we will have a release date for the publication of the book!
26th July 2009
Whilst waiting for word on Half Discovered Wings' proof copy, I came across a few dodgy looking adverts on the net. To fill the time, I thought I'd take a look and see if I could get any straight answers out of a company making some very big promises. Their website boasted 24/7 Live Chat with real live operators! But no other contact details. So I had a rather interesting chat, which I will be putting on the forum for safety's sake. Apparently the conversation was to be referred to the operator's "management", so hopefully I will be hearing something soon...! Check out the full and enlightening "live chat" at the forum, here.
28th June 2009
So, the site is finally up and running again after almost two weeks of getting nowhere with Pipex, who seem to have disabled the site for no reason. Foreign call centres and script-based assistance are only the tip of their customer service iceberg, with so many hours of frustration that to catalogue their problems here would full up the whole of my netspace.
After switching netspace providers from Pipex to 123-Reg, from whom I rent my domain name, things are running smoothly again and in no time at all. It took me a day to alter the links on every page though, so please let me know if you find any broken links heading back to the dead Pipex space!
Now I guess we can all get back to talking about Michael Jackson.
1st June 2009
The Summer's finally arrived in little old England! Sunshine, barbecues and very loud music from every open window on the street - this all means that our little planet has swooped tentatively closer to Ol' Sol on its rounds and blessed us with a bit of sunshine for once. Everybody enjoy!
I'm back on reviews at Pantechnicon magazine: check in periodically for my humble thoughts on the latest books, comics and video games! I'll also be writing a special article on narrative in video games to appear in Pantechnicon's tenth issue in a few weeks' time, so keep an eye out for it!
For reasons not for the public domain, I've chosen to end my three-year relationship with The Inspira Group Literary Agency. Needless to say, I'm in the market for representation and will be making some rounds in the coming months, and will keep the good people posted. For those of you who have humbled me with your friendship on MySpace and Facebook, expect announcements on the release of Half Discovered Wings ASAP as requested!
7th May 2009
As May's monthly Jaragua Competition topic goes up, so does this month's winner at the Jaragua frontpage. As things progress, if the competition is successful the winners will go here, at the Jaragua Winner's page. Both are accessible from the Shorts page.
That quirky new sci-fi by the name of 'Providence' is now available to read at the mighty Cynic magazine.
The proof copy of 'Half Discovered Wings' is being put together as I write this! Hopefully within a few weeks, we'll finally be ready to put a bow on it and get it into Amazon and, if I'm lucky, onto some highstreet shelves as well.
25th April 2009
Well, we finally have a cover for 'Half Discovered Wings'! A wonderful image based on one of my suggestions was painted by artist Mischa Fulljames, who managed to capture the duality of Gabel's character. Libros allowed me a great deal of input in terms of fiddling with this original image by means of Photoshop, and experimenting with text fonts and graphology. Soon enough I agreed that one of Mischa's latest had not only much improved my input on detail, but that some of my own choices in terms of font type and layout were simply not as effective as Mischa's. The final result, hopefully soon to be approved by Head of Design and Illustration Kelly Walsh, is the last step on the long haul from story conception to publication - only the printing remains!
In less thrilling news, Libros has closed the doors to new submissions, even from existing authors. This is as a result of the economic downturn that's hampered even large businesses globally since '07 - the impact on me is that my second novel 'Faith in Chrome' has been dropped by Libros, despite being approved for publication and awaiting an editor. Since the contract never made it to me, I'm not in a position to object - mightily frustrating, but the stop on submissions will presumably be temporary, unless any further disasters strike, and I might still consider returning to Libros when this silly crunch thing blows over. In the meantime, 'Faith in Chrome' will be looking for a home elsewhere. I already have a publisher in mind - watch this space. I also intend to push past the less commercial 'Ifrit Town' (which is a rather hefty 200,000 words, and less easily classified in terms of genre than my others) and have my agent take a look at 'Substantial' if he's willing, now that I've a published novel and an ever-increasing list of shorts in circulation.
Speaking of shorts, another of mine has been accepted for print. 'Providence', a sci-fi story with a twist, was picked up by The Cynic Online and should be available in May. I should also give a shout out to the illustrious editing team of Pantechnicon, who has proven that old agage about the headless snake wrong and still fought to get the latest issue available online and in .pdf format! Well done!
Also take a jaunt to the Spinning Lizard forum, which is now host to the monthly Jaragua Flash Fiction Competition - you'll have missed the tail end of April's competition, but check back in a few days for May's!
So, although Moira of 'FiC' has taken a kick in the face, things still move forward from my little home in real life.
14th March 2009
The briefest of updates: a new short entitled "The Colours Behind the World" has been accepted for the magnificent Morpheus Tales magazine, the site for which I suggest everyone checks out. It's a quarterly magazine, so don't expect to see the story in print until January 2010, which sounds eons away! That will be issue 8 - check out issues 1-3 at the official site.
8th March 2009
It's been a slow start to the year with short stories on hold while I plan the next big fantasy novel, sequel to Half Discovered Wings, Shadow of the Revenant.
Having said that, the final part of the Gas Giant short story sequence has been accepted for 2009's first bumper issue of Pantechnicon: Tulpa draws the mystery of the Jupiter problem to a close in a spectacular denoument worthy of cinema (if I do say so myself!), the culmination of a near-novel-length sequence beginning with Krill and continuing with Split and Tranquil Sea.
To celebrate, the original opening to Tulpa is now available to read, for free, on the Spinning Lizard short story page, entitled Re-Entry: Prelude to Tulpa. Enjoy this tantalising introduction to the final piece of the puzzle!
That's all for now - keep an eye on the novels page for the synopsis to Shadow of the Revenant, and as always feel free to discuss, speculate or critisize on the forum, free for all!
...........................................................................................previous