Almost Human

 A new science fiction novel is always welcome, especially if one has a science fiction fan to buy a Christmas present for.

The new science fiction novel from author H. C. Denham, Almost Human, has been published (coincidentally) just in time for Christmas.

What would happen, what could happen, if scientists decide that they should start creating robots that are more than human? Robots that are fully rational (more so than humans) but which (who?) are smarter, better loooking and have empathy built in?

The Universal Robotics Corporation is working to use robots to green a desert area. 

UCR decides to it's time yo experiment with interactions between the robots and humans who are working on the greening project.

The male participants think that all is going well and have no problems. But an agronomist with the project, Stella Mayfield, is not so sure and she has misgivings about what is happening.

Seven years later  Stella has returned to the UK and she notices that these humanoid robots are apparently everywhere.

Her misgivings return to haunt her. What exactly were they up to? What were they capable of? Could they be trusted to interact with humans in ways that were always of benefit for the humans?

It's a well-written and very intelligent book that takes a deep look at what such a society might actually be like. Fans of Isaac Asimov's books featuring robots will really enjoy this book, too.  

It's published by Matador at £8.99.

Holiday Shorts

 

In Holiday Shorts author Garfield Collins presents his readers with a collection of stories that are very special because they are carefully crafted to provide the maximum amount of information and entertainment in the most compact amount of words possible, but without losing any of the zest of the plots and story ideas through the medium of what is called 'flash fiction.' Another term used is bite-sized fiction.

In 130 stories readers are introduced to the story of a girl and a pearl necklace (read more about the importance of this story in his preface to his book).

Learn what happened to Carol in Coffee Pacifica, what happened when Gerry met Shelley, how Felix was introduced to the concept of Serendipity by his walkabout uncle Jim.

Find out how an article in New Scientist caused a reversal in the smooth running of the space time continuum, but in a good way.

And learn about Rocco and how he established his Fiction Factory. And how his concepts came back to really give him a very factual boot up the rear.

It's described as being perfect for the busy reader, which is true. It's also perfect for the reader who loves good, entertaining and innovative fiction.

It's well over 330 pages of great fiction and will make the perfect Christmas present for the bookwork in your life.

It is published by Matador at £8.99.

Successful Key Account Management

Are you looking for an ideal and much-welcomed Christmas gift for the business to business (b2b) sales account person in your life? Or maybe you are in b2b sales and want a little bit of self-gifting this year?

Well, look no further, because David Hughes' book Successful Key Account Management is the book that you need.

David Hughes writes with all the knowledge and experience that four decades at the very top of being a Senior Key Account Manager in b2b sales, covering chemicals and plastics in industrial sales.

If you are a new accounts manager this book will be an absolutely outstanding primer for your career; and if you are somewhat of an old hand in the field you, too, will find much that is of value within the pages of this remarkable book.

It's a very well planned book and is nicely set out so that all the information that you will require is at your fingertips.

What will you learn? Why you need customers, best practices in Key Account Management, how to cope with and manage time, what exactly sales is, health and safety and why it is not just confined to people who work in dangerous factory environments but also covers sales professionals no matter where they are working. The author also raises the important but often misunderstood issue of mental health and stress.

There's one very important lesson that he states "Nothing we do at work is worth getting hurt for."

There's also a very workable and useful ten point plan, how appraisals should be handled and when they should occur, plus how to negotiate, talking about money and much, much more.

At £14.99 this book should be in the briefcase of every sales professional in the world.

It's published by Matador at £14.99.

No Way Home

In her novel No Way Home author and teacher M S James brings us a remarkable insight on what life was like in the Saudi Arabia of the 1980s.

Kate Thomas leaves the UK with her two children to join her husband who is living and working as an architect in Saudi Arabia.

She finds a job as a teacher in a private school that is intended for expatriate Muslims. To describe the school as "organised" to any degree would have been somewhat unfair as the school was anything but organised.

She finds that her attempts at teaching are somewhat stymied by lunatic administrators and a shortage of lesson materials. As a result she finds it necessary, if she is to actually do any teaching, to use her own imagination to teach her pupils.

There are also other issues for her to contend with, such as quickly learning how to cope with living in Saudi Arabia which, for all its controls, a far more potentially dangerous place than one might suppose.

An invitation to a Saudi wedding takes her by surprise and gives Kate a new insight into the life of the real people of Saudi Arabia.

However, things go disastrously wrong when Kate and her family venture out into the desert and a vicious sandstorm suddenly strikes and whips her tiny daughter away.

A frantic search is instigated. Will they find her, or has she been taken away from her family, buried in the desert sands, or has an even worse fate befallen her? Would they find her? And if so, when and where?

It's a complex and very moving story and is based in part on the experiences of M S James when she lived in Saudi Arabia.

It's published by Matador and costs £9.99. It's going to be in many Christmas stockings this year, I think.

The Woodcarver of Krakow

In her second novel, The Woodcarver of Krakow, Rachel Clare brings to her readers the story of two brothers.

Tadeusz and Jacek Lewandowski are two brother who are bound together by a very firm bond of brotherly affection. 

Their life is disrupted when their father is away with the Polish Army and they lose their mother under tragic circumstances.

As a result they must go and live with their highly skilled woodcarver grandfather in the Tatra Mountains. Their childhood their is idyllic and they are safe and content in the knowledge that they are together and will always be their, one for another.

But that certainty and their idyllic life is brutally smashed to pieces by the arrival of the 1939 alliance of Nazi German and Soviet Union soldiers as they both march into Poland.

Tad has to abandon his studies at university and he must flee for his life across enemy occupied Europe. The passage across Europe is a perilous one, but the lessons of his brother Jacek help him to succeed. Eventually he finds himself in the Lancashire coastal town of Blackpool, where there was a large number of Poles at the Polish Air Force Training Centre, who were loyal to the cause of freeing Poland from Nazi and Soviet occupation.

He joins the Polish Air Force and helps fight against the might of the German armed forces. 

One brother would return, one would not.

This is a remarkably well-research and beautifully written novel that captures in intimate detail the harrowing and sadly true stories of so many families who gave so much and suffered so much during the war to free Poland.

It's published by The Book Guild at £8.99. 

It needs to be in the Christmas stocking of anyone who loves a good, well-written piece of historical fiction with a hint of romance.

The Forbidden Zone

In The Forbidden Zone retired mining engineer and author Jon Gliddon bring his readers a story of African diamonds, Nazi smugglers and bloody, violent revenge.

It's set at the very start of World War 2, in the August of 1939, in the diamond-rich Republic of Namibia, previously the German colony of German South West Africa.

In the build-up to the looming conflict, diamonds were in very high demand for the precision manufacture of high tech military equipment. 

The nations of Europe including Britain and Nazi Germany and America and Japan were desperate for diamonds, but due to the previous decade's Great Depression many diamond mines had closed down and diamonds as a consequence were in short supply.

Theft of diamonds and diamond smuggling became more and more prevalent and Great Britain and the Union of South Africa were working to protect their mines and smashing the Nazi smuggling rings who were attempting to supply their Nazi masters with diamonds for the Nazi war effort.

A Cornish mining engineer by the name of Harvey Tremayne is an employee of the largest diamond mining company in the world in South West Africa. He is given the job of stopping a planned attack by Nazi thieves to steal diamonds.

But Harvey has a larger and more personal goal. He seeks revenge against the person who murdered his wife. His search takes him to some extremely dangerous locations and he finds himself drawn into the ambit of the British Secret Service. For they, too, are seeking the same target as Harvey, but for entirely unrelated reasons.

Who was Sidewinder? Had he killed his wife? And what was Sidewinder? What was he hoping to achieve? Could Harvey and his colleagues defeat him and thwart his intentions?

It's a rip-roaring exciting adventure novel with more twists and turns than on Nurburgring's  Nordschleife race track. It's an ideal Christmas gift for lovers of well-written and well researched old school hard-bitten adventure yarns. So, add this to your Christmas gift list!

It's published by The Choir Press at £7.99.

Algernon Arbuthnot Arrives

 

Algernon Arbuthnot Arrives is a wonderful story for children. 

P. G. Bogle tells what happens when a suitcase is opened after their family has arrived back from a cruise on an ocean liner and Luke and Lexi meet Algernon Arbuthnot, who has arrived at their home, with them.

The remarkable thing? Algernon Arbuthnot is a small white mouse who can talk.

He reveals that he has descended from a popular Hollywood movie star, who had been on a Grand Tour of Europe.

The children convince their parents to allow  Algernon Arbuthnot to stay with them (as their pet white mouse) after an interesting first night Luke and Lexi introduce Algernon to their Aunt Rita who has a background in fashion and is able to turn her skills to creating an absolutely stunning wardrobe of clothing for his trip.

So, what on earth could go wrong? Unfortunately quite a lot. In fact, a great deal, because Algernon has the ability to bring chaos and confusion when there was none!

The family join him on the Grand Tour. Algernon boasts about the great and daring deeds of his ancestors, but are they really what happened? 

This is a fantastic present for any child of nine and above, or younger if they are an advanced reader.

It's from Matador at £6.99 and will be ideal for family reading sessions and bedtime stories.