Wow! What a month. First, the UK’s annual Easter Sci-Fi and Fantasy convention in Birmingham, where I met old friends and made new ones. (KLM’s failure to provide the flights I’d pre-booked and my interaction with a bullying security guard are another story.) I finally arrived home bearing Covid (just a sore throat and a …
Category: Uncategorized
Pre-Easter Treats
As we look at rising prices around the world, it's good to know you can at least save on your reading costs this month! Keep reading to learn how. First, a quick update My latest release, EXODUS!, will be available in paperback in late March. The sequel, REVOLT!, will hit the shelves mid-year. I'll be …
Coincidences?
My wife and I were watching the news a few weeks ago when the terrible USA arctic blasts hit the country. The announcer said it was minus forty degrees. My condolences to those affected. My wife asked if that was the American report in Fahrenheit or a European translation into Celcius. I did a quick …
A Merry Christmas!!
Here we are again, snow on the roof in the north and beachside barbeques in the south. But it's Christmas everywhere!(Also Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Mid-Winter Fest, Yule, and belated Rohatsu.) Have a wonderful time... feasting, family and friends, not to mention gifts! Many of you will be getting Kindles, notepads, or gift vouchers in your stockings. …
Apples?
I was describing a futuristic device in my upcoming novel "EXODUS!" and tried, "the size of a small apple". Hmmm... It occurred to me how often apples appear in fiction and myth, a veritable harvest:- Garden of Eden (probably not an apple, but apples get the blame) Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (poisoned apple) …
Long Covid Years
Hi! Back again! I know some of you have missed me these past few months. Apologies. Heard of Long Covid? It's a long-term after-effect of Covid-19 infection. For about a year, I suffered apathy, lethargy, head-and-eye pain, and brain-fog. Not good for a writer. I came to a dead stop. During that year I lost …
To the Moon – edited
(Due to interface changes by WordPress, the email version of my previous post got scrambled. Apologies. Here is the unscrambled, image-free version.) I shelved my planned blog post due to amazing news. I'm going to the moon! Not me in person, but... "Fly me to the moon..." Yes, there'll be traces of McKell on the …
SPACE: The next frontier!
Space exploration. Space settlement. Space empires. What’s the fascination? It's in our bones, or rather our genes. Our ancestors and their precursors were not satisfied with the place they grew up in. Sub-Saharan dwellers spread out to occupy every habitable place in Africa. Their cousins headed north into Arabia, then Europe (where the Atlantic Ocean …
Ch-ch-changes
Hi again! 2020 Hindsight I love sitting on my garden patio in the sunshine tapping away at my laptop, letting my subconscious pour my characters' surprising adventures onto the screen. (Yes, I'm a "discovery writer", or "pantser".) But no more sunshine. After a long, dry, blazing summer in Luxembourg, the autumn equinox arrived. Within days, …
About a Story, Maybe
Let me tell you a story... about a story. Or maybe it's about a writer. Seven years ago I started to write a story. It grew like topsy. I was squeezing an epic series spanning thousands of years into a single novel. So I found break-points and spread the tale over three, then four, books with yet …
Andy McKell, Speculative Fiction Author 
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