Written Products


Spinneyhead Shorts 2- Fast Fictions is now available for the Kindle

Spinneyhead Shorts 2 - Fast Fictions coverSpinneyhead Shorts 2 – Fast Fictions is now available for the Amazon Kindle. (That’s the Amazon UK link, you can also get it at Amazon US).

“Thirteen tales- from flash fiction to short stories- from Ian Pattinson. Encounter battling aliens, creepy graffiti, combat rats and the US Navy’s least popular ship, amongst others. What they lack in words, these stories make up for in ideas.”


Spinneyhead Shorts 2 – Fast Fictions

Spinneyhead Shorts 2 - Fast Fictions coverThe second Spinneyhead Shorts collection is now available through Smashwords.

Thirteen tales- from flash fiction to short stories- from Ian Pattinson. Encounter battling aliens, creepy graffiti, combat rats and the US Navy’s least popular ship, amongst others. What they lack in words, these stories make up for in ideas.


Boyfriend Season at Smashwords

Spinneyhead Shorts 1- Boyfriend Season is available through Smashwords in multiple ebook formats.

‘“Autumn is boyfriend season. With the nights drawing in and the weather getting worse it’s the right time to have a man to keep you warm and stuff.”

I was with Lauren and Vanessa, a few pints into the night somewhere in Didsbury, when Lauren had dropped this concept into the conversation.

“And in Spring you can dump them because there’s so much else to do.” Vanessa added.

I think I did a guppy impersonation for a while. It was only later that I thought that men are at their horniest in Spring. It’s all sunny and the serotonin levels are rising again. I’d probably have been told that that’s just the way it goes.’

James is looking for love, so it’s good that the season’s turned and the girls are hunting boyfriends. A short romantic comedy about speed dating, blogging and drinking after work.

Also includes How Deep Is Your Love? Find out what happened to James next.


So Much To Answer For at Smashwords

So Much To Answer For is now available through Smashwords, in formats to suit just about every ebook reader out there.

Tommy Hill walked back into Manchester on the tail of a thunderstorm, promising easy money and atonement for his former sins. Joe Wilkinson doesn’t want anything to do with his former friend, but it’s not going to work out that way. Once again the Police think he’s involved, and some want revenge for Hill’s escape last time, and there are some dangerous characters who already think he’s Hill’s bag man. Can Joe stay out of jail and alive long enough to keep his name clean? And who is the mystery blonde who wants to buy his art?


Sale! Get Sounds of Soldiers half price from Smashwords

As I’ve only just started publishing at Smashwords I’d like to get things going with a sale. You can get Sounds of Soldiers for half price if you use the coupon code KA58W on checkout.

Tiger is also available for $1.00 if you use the coupon code UQ93B.

Both offers are valid until March 15th.


Sounds of Soldiers is now available in various formats through Smashwords

You can now get Sounds of Soldiers for ereaders other than the Kindle. Smashwords have it in Epub and other formats, including rich and plain text for those of you who like to just dump a text file onto your phone and read it. The price is $2.99.

Get Sounds of Soldiers at Smashwords.

Here’s the extended blurb I recently wrote-

Five years ago the United States began to self destruct. As momentum toward a nuclear civil war grew at home, US covert kill teams- and then the military- rampaged through Europe attacking imaginary enemies. The USA found itself at war with former allies. Great Britain closed its borders and stayed mostly neutral.

Robert Jones didn’t get on the train out of Paris after it was bombed. He chose to stay on the continent and make a name for himself covering the conflict with reports on his blog. He saw the first blows, witnessed nuclear explosions lighting up the Mediterranean and was present for the final acts.

Now the borders have been reopened and Robert Jones is back from the war. He has returned to Manchester to reconnect with friends and family, to investigate the changes the city has gone through and to find out what life was like away from the warzone. He’s striving for a new, peaceful life, but there are still some ghosts and secrets from his time on the continent which are ready to come back and shake it up.

A novella about what happens when a technothriller goes horribly wrong, Sounds of Soldiers is part travelogue from the future, part war story satire, and takes a look at how the civilians usually ignored by the big war fantasies cope and survive.


Did Santa bring you an ebook reader? Then I have some books just for you

I reckon one of this year’s breakout presents is going to be ebook readers. Amazon’s Kindle will most likely lead the pack, being cheaper than the competition and tied to the world’s biggest bookseller, but there are also Nooks and other readers.

May I recommend, for your reading pleasure, the books which I have published for the Kindle. The books are all DRM free, so you will be able to convert them for other readers using software such as Calibre. I’m still learning how subscription to the blog (Ian Pattinson’s Facts and Fictions) works, but I’m fairly certain it can only be delivered to Kindles, sorry everyone else. However, I have reduced the prices of Ruby Red and So Much To Answer For. And this price drop isn’t just for Christmas.


Ian Pattinson’s Facts and Fictions is now available for the Kindle

Ian Pattinson’s Facts and Fictions is a regularly updated blog to read on your Kindle. You’ll get everything from Spinneyhead’s “Facts and Fictions” category, straight to your ebook reader. Content includes short stories, very short “fast fiction”, serialised snippets from works in progress and articles on writing. It gives you an insight into what I’m working on and details of the research I’m doing, methods I use and subjects which inspire me.

You can sign up for a 14 day free trial before committing to subscribe and then it’s a very low rate (99p in the UK, I don’t know exactly what in the US, but not much.)


Will Amazon ban Switzerland?

Amazon is suffering from user fury again, but on a smaller scale than over their behaviour towards Wikileaks. They have recently been deleting books from their Kindle store without giving a reason beyond a generic statement that “these books were removed from sale for violating our content guidelines.” The content guidelines are very vague about what subject matter would be in violation, but the books removed have been primarily about adult incest fantasies. Not a subject that many people are comfortable with but not one which is explicitly barred from their site. What’s more, the banning of books has the appearance of being arbitrary, as other books with similar, or even more bizarre, subjects have not been banned.

Most likely, after a furore about a self-described paedophiles’ handbook a few weeks ago, Amazon have become more nervous about complaints and are knee-jerk jumping to ban almost anything which is complained about. They’re a commercial entity, they have every right to run their business this way. But it could harm them in the long run if they are seen to be doing the censors’ work for them and harming free speech. If the banning net is cast any wider every one of the independent authors publishing through Amazon would have reasons to be nervous. Sounds of Soldiers could be viewed as anti-American (to paraphrase one of the Dilbert collections, I’m not anti-American, I’m anti-idiot), and goodness knows there’s a lot of very loud, very dim Americans who’d gladly complain about that if they were told to. I reckon I’d be safe, but you never know. The best solution would be for Amazon to either include a list of subjects they will not sell (eg. incest, paedophilia, bestiality, biographies of talent show contestants etc.) and stick to it (not the preferred method, even if it would clear Jedward and SuBo from their shelves) or be more open, and more open to counter persuasion, with the people whose books they do ban.

On the subject of incest, the upper house of the Swiss parliament has drafted a law which would decriminalise consenting sex between adult family members.

Daniel Vischer, a Green party MP, said he saw nothing wrong with two consenting adults having sex, even if they were related.

“Incest is a difficult moral question, but not one that is answered by penal law,” he said.

There are some obvious jokes about a certain bunch of castaways, but does this also put a whole country in danger of being delisted by the world’s biggest bookseller?


Dear sir or madam, would you read my book? It took me years to write, would you take a look

Dear sir or madam, would you read my book? It took me years to write, won't you take a look

Eleven copies of Sounds of Soldiers arrived on Wednesday. I am a paperback writer. The copy on the back cover is much too big- I’ll do a revision to change that at some point- but I’m happy with the rest of the package. You can buy the paperback from Lulu.com or you can get a signed copy direct from me for the same price. See the ordering details below. Most of this batch is earmarked already, so I’m initially only offering two. Be quick if you want your signed copy. (More signed copies will be available in the future, never fear.)


The Sounds of Soldiers cover competition is cancelled

Due to poor take up the competition to win the original cover art from Sounds of Soldiers has been cancelled. I shall be using the artwork to generate publicity in other ways, if I can, but this one just wasn’t working.

You can buy Sounds of Soldiers as a paperback or pdf download from Lulu.com or for Amazon’s Kindle ebook reader from Amazon UK or Amazon US.


Press release: Manchester author creates a dark Green future for the city

Manchester based author Ian Pattinson imagines a Green future for Manchester after a cataclysmic war rips apart Europe and destroys the United States in Sounds of Soldiers. Returning to the city after five years on the continent reporting on the war, Robert Jones sets out to reconnect with friends and family and find out how life has changed away from the front line. Presented as a travelogue with flashbacks to the war, Robert finds recycling projects, a new sense of community and shadows and ghosts reaching across the Channel for him.

The novella was written as a reaction to the narrow focus of technothrillers and the overblown rhetoric coming from the United States since the 2008 election. “There are a lot of books which create ludicrous wars to make a, usually rightwing, political point. They always concentrate on the politicians and military personnel, the USA always wins and everything returns to normal afterwards. I used
to read a lot of them, but they often left me unsatisfied. I wanted to create a story which looked at the effect on civilians, where there was an aftermath and where the USA didn’t win. Some of the wilder commentary coming out of the States before and since the election of Barack Obama gave me a basis for the war- what if a US government believed some of this stuff and went overboard in reacting to it?”

Sounds of Soldiers is available as a paperback and ebook and can be purchased online at Amazon. Details of all the formats it is available in can be found at http://www.spinneyhead.co.uk/books/

High resolution copies of the book cover image can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/spinneyhead/5123539218/


Sounds of Soldiers

SoundsofSoldiers-cover_thumb

Five years ago the United States began to self destruct. As momentum toward a nuclear civil war grew at home, US covert kill teams- and then the military- rampaged through Europe attacking imaginary enemies. The USA found itself at war with former allies. Great Britain closed its borders and stayed mostly neutral.

Robert Jones didn’t get on the train out of Paris after it was bombed. He chose to stay on the continent and make a name for himself covering the conflict with reports on his blog. He saw the first blows, witnessed nuclear explosions lighting up the Mediterranean and was present for the final acts.

Now the borders have been reopened and Robert Jones is back from the war. He has returned to Manchester to reconnect with friends and family, to investigate the changes the city has gone through and to find out what life was like away from the warzone. He’s striving for a new, peaceful life, but there are still some ghosts and secrets from his time on the continent which are ready to come back and shake it up.

A novella about what happens when a technothriller goes horribly wrong, Sounds of Soldiers is part travelogue from the future, part war story satire, and takes a look at how the civilians usually ignored by the big war fantasies cope and survive.

Sounds of Soldiers is available from Amazon and Smashwords.


Creating the cover for Sounds of Soldiers

When I first published Sounds of Soldiers, as a print on demand book available through Lulu.com, I created a cover for it that I just wasn’t happy with. I’m not sure why. I did do some planning, which I then went and threw away when I did the artwork. A couple of days ago I found some of the sketches I did when casting about for ideas.

Roughs

Take note of the fourth image on the top row, we’ll be returning to it.

This idea appealed enough for me to get the coloured pens and do some shading.

Rough2

So when I decided I was going to do a Kindle version I vowed to create a new cover for it. The image of death after a battle appealed, and knowing I couldn’t possibly do the idea justice in a drawing or painting I fell upon the idea of building a diorama to depict the scene. Initially I was thinking of the tank graveyard or post ambush sequences in the book, but the gun as a grave marker came back as an idea after a while. After a bit of Googling, but no more sketching, I had a good idea of what I wanted to do. I ordered 1:6th scale action figure accessories from EBay (a quick shout out to cbtoycollectables and qqmodels, the two merchants I used), ordered a display case from Hobby’s and picked up most of the other stuff I needed from my local model shop.

The components

The wooden stake was weathered by hitting it with a hammer and then holding it over one of the rings on the cooker (it’s good to be on gas). The ground was roughed out using polystyrene packaging from the ever growing pile in the corner of the room. With stake and base glued down I set about building up the ground. The first layer was Woodland Scenics flex paste, which I painted with first their earth undercoat and then Tamiya’s diorama texture paint. Ground cover is real leaves. I spotted a load of these tiny leaves on the ground one day and just scooped them up. I don’t know what they’re from, but they work. Much careful fixing with wood glue later I had a good looking earth mound covered with autumn leaves. Further detail was added using more Woodland Scenics stuff.

Basic set up After adding flex paste A coat of Earth Undercoat With Tamiya diorama texture paint Dead leaves added

I painted some bare metal onto the gun, and weathered it, the boots and the helmet, but the photos I took of that are all quite blurry. The only one that came out is of the smashed lens I put into the lamp on the gun. I lost the lens which came with the gun, so I cut out bits of clear plastic and glued them into the lamp.

Smashed lamp

Put everything together and, after a bit more weathering, I had this-

The finished piece

After a little resizing, and with another shot of blue sky to put on the back cover, I dropped the image into the template I’d used for the original cover. I failed to do any images of the various steps I took in Photoshop, so straight to the finished cover image-

Sounds of Soldiers full wrap cover

I put more effort into the lettering than I have in the past, and I’m much happier with the result. The title and my name on the front cover have an aluminium pole texture under them courtesy of photoshoptextures.com.

Sounds of Soldiers will be available for the Kindle, and with its new cover from Lulu, from next week. I shall be running a competition to win the model used in the original cover artwork. Check out spinneyhead.co.uk/books for details in the next few days.

My gun as grave marker idea puts me in very good company.

This is Peace and War, the omnibus collection of Joe Haldeman’s Forever War, Forever Peace and Forever Free. I haven’t read Free and Peace, but I have read War. It’s a very good book, using relativist effects as a metaphor for soldiers in a distant war become ever more alienated from the people they are supposedly fighting for.


Boyfriend Season now available on the Kindle

‘”Autumn is boyfriend season. With the nights drawing in and the weather getting worse it’s the right time to have a man to keep you warm and stuff.”

I was with Lauren and Vanessa, a few pints into the night somewhere in Didsbury, when Lauren had dropped this concept into the conversation.

“And in Spring you can dump them because there’s so much else to do.” Vanessa added.

I think I did a guppy impersonation for a while. It was only later that I thought that men are at their horniest in Spring. It’s all sunny and the serotonin levels are rising again. I’d probably have been told that that’s just the way it goes.’

James is looking for love, so it’s good that the season’s turned and the girls are hunting boyfriends. A short romantic comedy about speed dating, blogging and drinking after work. Also includes How Deep Is Your Love? Find out what happened to James next.

Boyfriend Season, with How Deep Is Your Love? as its B-side, is now available for the Kindle. Buy it in the UK Kindle shop or the US Kindle shop.

I’m going to collect a load of short stories soon. However, Boyfriend Season/How Deep Is Your Love? are very different to all the other shorts I’ve written, so it seemed right to publish them separately. Also, as BS is set in Autumn, I thought it would be a good idea to get it out there just after the seasons turned.


Buy Tiger for the Kindle from today

Today is the official launch of Tiger for the Kindle ebook. You can buy it from Amazon UK or Amazon US. And don’t worry if you don’t have a Kindle, there’s software to let you read the format on PC, iPod/iPad/iPhone and Android phones.

A PDF version, available through different outlets, should be out in the next week and then I shall be learning how to format EPUB files, which should put it in the iBookshop. Finally there’s a service from Smashwords which should convert it to all remaining ebook formats. World domination shall ensue.

The next release for Kindle shall be Sounds Of Soldiers. I’m scheduling this for the start of next month because I’m going to redo the cover. I’ve got the concept sorted, I just need to collect the bits and pieces I shall need. The art will involve a diorama, photographed and lightly photoshopped. The original art- the model- will be offered as a prize in a competition to promote the book launch. More details on that as it develops.

The next Irwin story will probably be A Death In Didsbury, which I have started working on. When I know the shape of the story better I’ll be able to set a publishing deadline, but I’m aiming for December at the moment. Depending upon how one of the plot strands works out I already have a strong idea of what I want to do for the cover. If I go with my current concept there’ll be another win-the-cover-art competition.

My final publishing project at the moment is Heavensent, the part dieselpunk (I called it propellerpunk, but that didn’t catch on), part space opera tale I wrote a few years ago. I need to clear up the geography of the various strands of the tale, possibly shuffle scenes around and write more of it. I may drop it all into a program called yWriter to make this all easier.

I’ve got a lot of stuff to keep me busy over the next few months. Guess I’d better go and do some of it.