Author Archives: James - Page 20
A Hundred Years Before [Poetry]
War Memorial in Boubers-sur-Canche, France (photo: James Kemp) I wrote the first draft of A Hundred Years Before after visiting a cemetery in France in Boubers sur Canche near Arras. It wasn't one of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries, it was an ordinary French commune cemetery, but it had over a hundred graves of French soldiers killed in action during August 1914. On reflection I realised that British soldiers, and before that the constituent nations fielded soldiers in the same place as the legions of WW1 we're currently remembering publicly. Let's not forget their forebears. A Hundred Years Before Here I stand now, near the border of France and Belgium. The cockpit of Europe. A hundred years before, others stood here. British soldiers who fought, and died, with the French against the Germans on this soil. Le sale Boche.…
Themself Giveaway Evaluation
Chocolate teapot. What is better, this or a kindle giveaway? I promised to do some evaluation of my Goodreads Giveaway. Before the Themself Giveaway on Goodreads there were six reviews averaging four stars (1 x 2, 3 x 4 & 2 x 5 stars). Another 28 people had it on their 'to read' shelf. Overall I doubt there were 100 copies already out there. I know for sure that I'd sent out 10 paperbacks for review, as well as emailing some ebook versions. Evaluation of the Goodreads Giveaway The Goodreads Giveaway offered up to 100 ebooks to people with a Kindle registered to I also offered anyone that commented on the announcement post an ebook. As at midnight on 21 March 192 people had requested a copy. 174 of those added it to their shelves. The Costs There's two ways…
What if? Building an alternate history
Photograph of Lord Halifax, British Ambassador to the United States, with an unidentified officer, at the - NARA - 199243 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Last week I had dinner with a friend who asked me a "what if?" question that set me thinking about building an alternate history for a game and a story. We were talking about SOE in the spring and summer of 1944. The period is rich in possibilities and decisions for players on a game. However there's an awful lot of hindsight getting in the way of being able to properly game the period. The Problem with Hindsight The invasion is inevitable, and even when previous games have given the allies latitude over where and when the German players don't act the way the Germans did. It's impossible to create the same uncertainty in the German High…
German Penetration of SOE by Jean Overton Fuller [Book Review]
English: Hon. Assistant Section Officer Noor Inayat Khan (code name Madeleine), George Cross, MiD, Croix de Guerre avec Etoile de Vermeil. Noor Inayat Khan served as a wireless operator with F Section, Special Operations Executive. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) The German Penetration of SOE by Jean Overton Fuller My rating: 4 of 5 stars I've been reading about SOE for more than three decades. This is the third book about SOE that I've read so far this year, and it is one of the earliest to point to the man behind the curtain. There is a carefully cultivated view of plucky heroism fighting thuggish Nazis, and prevailing eventually. The reality is clearly quite different. Each of the three books I've read this year has pointed that out (see my reviews of books about Vera Atkins & Nancy Wake). That we know…
Telepathy (and super powers) in Stories
English: Example of a subject in a Ganzfeld telepathy experiment. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) Following on from declaring Telepaths as hard science fiction I thought I would write about using Telepathy in stories and how to solve the problems. Telepathy is a super power, and with all super powers it brings a reduction in challenge for characters endowed with it. Writing a Story featuring Telepathy I mentioned two things I did in passing in the earlier post, but there's also a third. Set universal limits on super powers Give characters moral limits that stop them abusing their super powers Give the opposite side a (temporary) counter to the super powers Taken together these let you put the conflict and challenges back into the situations your characters find themselves in. We all know the equation: Conflict + characters = plot So this…