You can see the schedule of posts on the HWA Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/events/343214352507365/?ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular.
Monday, 13 October 2014
Halloween Haunts
Monday, 6 October 2014
The Infinity Program: A Guest Post by Richard H. Hardy
We're pleased to participate in a Tribute Books mini blog tour for The Infinity Program by Richard H. Hardy.
We asked Mr. Hardy what challenges he faced in writing a novel that blends elements of the supernatural, romance, and the high-tech world.
Guest Post
The Infinity Program blends the Techno-Thriller and the Science Fiction genres. It also features a romance as well as a mainstream approach to both character and setting. My goal was to create an interesting mix that readers would find fresh and unique.
The unfolding romance of Jon Graeme and Lettie Olsen wasn’t planned from the beginning— it just happened as I wrote the book. It provides a subplot, a backdrop to the main action and opens windows into the inner lives of the characters. Their evolving relationship also serves as an interesting contrast to Harry Sale, the brilliant but isolated programming genius.
The blend of High-Tech with a fantastic alien technology presented its own unique challenges. In order to be true to the high-tech setting, I had to use some computer terminology. I used it sparingly and focused on building a narrative where the technicalities disappeared behind the story. With the alien technology, I used a different approach, emphasizing the fantastic and minimizing the explanations. More than anything, I wanted the reader to have fun.
My 26 years in the IT field gave me lots of raw material for office life in a high tech-company. I saw firsthand how stressful and demanding it can be. The Infinity Program gives the reader an inside view of this intense, quirky, and sometimes Dilbertesque environment. The IT setting provides the base for the reader to leap into the high-tech world of the future.
Our lives are such a mix of different elements. One day we do difficult things with ease, the next we trip up over the simple things; a day of joy is followed by a day of sadness; an act of kindness is followed by an act of selfishness; thoughtfulness is followed by a lack of attention. We never know quite what to expect. Mixing genres in fiction is a natural way to capture something of this heady blend. When it’s done well, it transcends genre and the book stands on its own.
Jon Graeme and Harry Sale are unlikely friends. Harry is a world-class programmer, but his abrasive personality alienates co-workers. In contrast, Jon is a handsome and easy-going technical writer, the low man on the IT totem pole.
Sharing a love of nature, the men set out together, planning to go their separate ways--Jon on a hike and Harry, fly fishing. Three days later, Jon arrives at the rendezvous point, but his friend is nowhere in sight. When Jon finds Harry unconscious on the floor of a cave, Harry claims to have been lying there the entire time. But he is neither cold nor hungry. What Jon doesn't know is that Harry fell into an underground cavern, where he came into contact with an alien quantum computer.
Back at work, Harry jettisons his regular tasks and concentrates exclusively on inventing new operating language to access the alien system. In the process he crashes his office's Super Computer and is fired. Jon convinces the company to give Harry a second chance, arguing that the system he has invented will make them millions.
Jon has no idea what havoc Harry is about to unleash.
http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/the-infinity-program
Author's Biography
Richard H. Hardy was born in Glasgow,
Scotland, during a week of relentless bombing raids just before
the close of World War II. The day he was born an incendiary bomb
fell on the church across the street from where he lived, so he is
fond of saying that he entered the world with a big adrenaline
rush.His family later moved to England and then on to America.
After college Richard bounced through a series of temporary jobs as he traveled around the country, wanting nothing more than to write fiction. A job driving a library van allowed him free time to write several short stories and work on a novel.
He and his wife moved to New Hampshire, where he took an entry level job at a software company. He was soon promoted to the technical writing department and ended up producing over 500,000 words of online documentation. After a few years he was promoted to the programming department and ended up as the Senior EDI Programmer, creating EDI maps and writing UNIX scripts and troubleshooting on AIX systems throughout the U.S. and Canada.
After he retired, he started writing fiction again. The Infinity Program is his first published novel.
Related Sites
Rafflecopter GIVEAWAY ($25 Amazon gift card or PayPal cash):
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Scribd EXCERPT :
The Infinity Program GoodReads page:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20794011-the-infinity-program
Richard H. Hardy's Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/richard.hardy.31924
Richard H. Hardy's Twitter:
https://twitter.com/rhfh944
Richard H. Hardy's GoodReads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7844267.Richard_H_Hardy
Richard H. Hardy's blog:
http://richard-hardy.com/blog/
Richard H. Hardy's website:
http://richard-hardy.com/
Tribute Books Blog Tours Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tribute-Books-Blog-Tours/242431245775186
The Infinity Program tour site:
http://theinfinityprogram.blogspot.com/
Monday, 29 September 2014
The True North Strong and Free
 |
| Notice from Canada Post |
Recently, a bear was roaming a Vancouver neighborhood, causing a delay in mail delivery. The postman left a notice in a communal mailbox explaining that he had not delivered a parcel because there was a "bear at door".
The postman also took a picture of the bear.
 |
| The Bear at the Door |
Canada Post is said to be investigating the incident.
Monday, 22 September 2014
Recommended Halloween Reading
The Telegraph is already getting into the spirit of October with its list of fifteen scary books to terrify you this Halloween.
The masters of horror are cited, including Bram Stoker and Edgar Allan Poe.
Also included are two of the best psychological horror stories, Henry James's The Turn of the Screw and Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.
There is a nod to various contemporary horror writers with the inclusion of Stephen King's Pet Sematary and Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box. Peter Straub's Ghost Story also makes the list, as does British writer Susan Hill's The Woman in Black. (You may have seen the film version with Daniel Radcliffe.)
To view the full list and see how it compares with your own list of all-time favorites, please click here.
The masters of horror are cited, including Bram Stoker and Edgar Allan Poe.
Also included are two of the best psychological horror stories, Henry James's The Turn of the Screw and Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House.
There is a nod to various contemporary horror writers with the inclusion of Stephen King's Pet Sematary and Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box. Peter Straub's Ghost Story also makes the list, as does British writer Susan Hill's The Woman in Black. (You may have seen the film version with Daniel Radcliffe.)
To view the full list and see how it compares with your own list of all-time favorites, please click here.
Monday, 15 September 2014
Vampires Revisited
If you're a fan of Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles, you'll be pleased to know that her eleventh novel in the series, Prince Lestat, will be released on October 28, 2014. It's been eleven years since the last Chronicles novel, so the new book is creating lots of buzz. It is a sequel to the first five books of the series, and it reprises many of her most memorable characters, as well as introducing new vampires to the mix. She is already working on a follow-up novel tentatively entitled Blood Paradise. On the movie front, it was announced in August that Universal Studios has acquired the motion picture rights to The Vampire Chronicles. Hard to believe, but it's been twenty years since the film version of Interview with the Vampire with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt was released. According to an article in The Guardian, the purchase of the motion picture rights by Universal Studios is part of their plans "to reanimate old-school movie monsters". For the full text of the article, including a film vampire quiz, please see http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/aug/08/universal-anne-rice-vampire-chronicles-book-series.
Monday, 8 September 2014
What's up for Horror in September and October?
First up, it's Resident Evil week at http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3307615/pack-jill-sandwich-next-week-resident-evil-week/.
Fans of The Walking Dead should mark October 12 on their calendar so they won't miss the first episode of the show's fifth season on AMC. You'll recall that Season 4 ended with the revelation that Terminus wasn't much of a refuge after all. It will be interesting to see who survives this season. The show seems to have a particularly high character mortality rate. If you'd like to see a trailer for the new season, please visit http://www.hypable.com/2014/07/25/walking-dead-season-5-air-date-trailer/.
And the Horror Writers Association will once again host a month-long Halloween Haunts event in October on its Dark Whispers blog site. Stay tuned for more information on this annual event.
In the meantime, please feel free to share news of your favorite horror novels, films, television series, and websites as we start the countdown to Halloween 2014.
Monday, 1 September 2014
I'm Back!
Thanks, everyone, for sticking with me while I took the summer off to
write. I'm pleased to say that I have finished the first of my new
crime fiction series set in Canada. It was quite a learning curve for me
because there are so many differences between U.S. and Canadian
criminal investigation procedures. At the same time, I enjoyed
developing two new characters, Kevin Walker and Ellie March of the
Ontario Provincial Police. The draft of the novel is with an OPP subject
matter expert who so kindly agreed to allow me to pick his brain for
this new series. Stay tuned for more information on the new novel, and
rest assured that you also haven't seen the last of Donaghue and
Stainer.
Now that Behind the Walls of Nightmare is up and running again, I will be talking about the latest supernatural and horror news. If you have a particular topic that you'd like to see covered in the blog, please be sure to let me know.
Now that Behind the Walls of Nightmare is up and running again, I will be talking about the latest supernatural and horror news. If you have a particular topic that you'd like to see covered in the blog, please be sure to let me know.
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