Alan Kemister's writing blog

Alan Kemister is the pen name of Dr. Phil Yeats, a research scientist who began writing fiction after retirement. He chooses to write under a pen name to keep the fictional science in stories dealing with environmental issues separate from the real science in reports of the results of his oceanographic and environmental studies. Hopefully, the science described in these stories will have a 'ring of truth' to it, but it may, in fact, be entirely fictional.

Saturday, 25 June 2016

The Golden Age of Dystopias
So Brexit has happened. Now if the Donald can win the Presidential election in the US, he and Boris Johnson, two tow-headed examples of humanity's future, can unite to form the core of Oceania. Then if Vladimir Putin (another tow-head?) can use his military might to force the Europeans to replace Britain with Russia in the European Union, we will be two-thirds of the way to Nineteen Eighty-Four.
A glorious example, it will be, not of history repeating itself, but of the world striving to live up to the imaginings of authors of dystopian fiction. The golden age of dystopias could be upon us.

Thursday, 2 June 2016

Short story I was actually paid for!

Yesterday, I received a huge double digit payment for short story I submitted to teen suspense/horror anthology to be published by a nanoscopic publisher (nanoscopic is a thousand times smaller than microscopic, but, hey, everyone knows smaller is better). It's the first time I've been paid for a story. I've received free copies of the books before, but never cold hard cash.
The story is titled Bearing Witness and will be appear in Out of the Cave in a month or two. The publisher is MacKenzie Publishing, a local NS publishing venture. Their website is mackenziepublishing.wordpress.com for anyone who is interested.
I'll post another message when the book is finished and shows up for sale on Amazon, etc.