Now on Kindle

The Probonid is now available on Kindle for £1.99

See it here



Warning

A phishing website is claiming that they have my novel amongst others, available as a free download.

The website ( fulvialombardo-dot-tk ) is thoroughly fraudulent, they don't have the book on their site, they are just trying to draw you in. If you do, you are in for a whole heap of trouble.

If you click on the link, you will get an enticing enlargement of the book in what appears to be an online reader, but it will only show you the cover. This is because all it is doing is linking through to google's cover rip from the amazon page. Before you can click for the next page, a message will popup which says you will need to register (free) to download.

If you click on the 'continue' button, you will be taken to a fancy looking registration page, which is chosen at random from domains such as Jetplays, Cullgame etc.,

It will then ask you for an email and a password, following which, it will verify your email. If you are idiotic enough to go through this process, they will have an email which has a human recipient that they can sell on their list to spammers. Following which you will be bombarded with rubbish until you change your email address.

Next, they will ask you to enter credit card details, just to prove you are human, above 18 years old, or a whole host of other plausible excuses, but they will promise you that they won't actually use it. Once they have the card details, you will get continual random small amounts that they hope you won't notice, being taken from your card, even after you 'unsubscribe' or 'cancel the service'. The only way you will be able to stop them from taking money will be to have you bank change your card number.

Finally, during this process they will also load your browser with malware which will redirect your google searches to a google-like page filled with other scams, popup adverts, change your homepage etc., and you will need a malware removal tool to get rid of it.

The Phishing website is registered to owners who appear to be in Holland, though I doubt this:

   Domain name:
      FULVIALOMBARDO.TK
   Organisation:
      BV Dot TK
      Dot TK administrator
      P.O. Box 11774
      1001 GT  Amsterdam
      Netherlands
      Phone: +31 20 5315725
      Fax: +31 20 5315721
      E-mail: abuse: abuse@freenom.com, copyright infringement: copyright@freenom.com
   Domain Nameservers:
      MIMI.NS.CLOUDFLARE.COM
      MARIO.NS.CLOUDFLARE.COM

The actual scamming sites Jetplays, Cullgame etc., are all registered through GODADDY:

   Domain Name: JETPLAYZ.COM
   Registry Domain ID: 2063835312_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
   Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com
   Registrar URL: http://www.godaddy.com
   Updated Date: 2017-05-01T16:50:04Z
   Creation Date: 2016-10-05T16:13:19Z
   Registry Expiry Date: 2019-10-05T16:13:19Z
   Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC
   Registrar IANA ID: 146
   Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@godaddy.com
   Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: 480-624-2505
   Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientDeleteProhibited
   Domain Status: clientRenewProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientRenewProhibited
   Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
   Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientUpdateProhibited
   Name Server: NS51.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
   Name Server: NS52.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
   DNSSEC: unsigned

"All the while the public want harmless products on their shelves, it will go on and there is nothing you can do about it."

Chawbury is a pleasant English market town; medieval cathedral, seventeenth and eighteenth century town houses surrounded by satellite estates, and  to the east, a gleaming, ultra-modern biotech laboratory.

But the beauty of Chawbury was of little consequence to C16, a synthetic hominid designed for experimentation. Death by slow torture seemed to be her inevitable fate... That is until schoolboy Michael Gowland gets a summer job in the animal pens.

Science Fiction for Young Adults

Arriving on Amazon December 2017

Aaghh!

I have been wrestling with my computer for the last couple of months. Libreoffice kept on crashing every time I pulled up my proof to do some edits. After trying everything I could think of, I eventually reinstalled the PC and as soon as I opened the file, it crashed again.

I eventually found that there was a hidden file in the directory with the suffix .loc. Once deleted, everything worked fine... I wish I had known that before I reinstalled the computer.

My Uncle's Typewriter

Since I put a picture of my typewriter up last week, I thought I would put up a picture of my uncle's typewriter.

It is a Corona which dates back to 1913, so it is now 104 years old, and after I had it overhauled by George Blackman at Bexhill on Sea, it works a treat, though the letters are now so worn as to be nearly indistinguishable. 

My Uncle was a pulp fiction author from the 'Golden Age' and all of his books were published under 'House Pseudonyms' such as Gil Hunt, Berl Cameron and Brad Kent. 

We don't know exactly how many books he wrote because there are no records for the publisher and our records are flimsy. The titles we do know, were "Spatial Ray", "Station 7", "Hostile Worlds", "Catalyst" and "The Fatal Law", none of which we have ever managed to acquire.

According to my aunt, he was paid twenty seven pounds and three shillings for each book and each one took roughly a fortnight of evenings to write after he had returned home from his day job in the city. She thinks that over a period of two years, he wrote around thirty books and it is a shame that other than the ones we know about (listed above), we will probably never identify those that were written by him.

New Back Blurb

This is my edited text for the back blurb:

Chawbury is a pleasant English market town in the heart of the English countryside. It has a medieval cathedral, Georgian town houses, the ubiquitous range of satellite estates and to the east, a gleaming, ultra-modern biotech laboratory.

But the beauty of Chawbury was of little consequence to C16, a synthetic hominid designed for experimentation. Death by slow torture seemed to be her inevitable fate... That is until local schoolboy Michael Gowland gets a summer job in the animal pens. 

Science Fiction for Young Adults

Does that look better?

My Original Word Processor...

Dad purchased one for me and one for my brother in a Rymans sale back in the 1970s. At full price, they would have been £30 each at the time but dad got them for us for £5 each. He thought they would be a five minute toy for us and for my brother, it was, but I used mine until I purchased my first computer.

I wrote my first short story on it in  1974, aged 9, it was called "Albert Hall's Adventure in Wilderland". I have used it for every story until 2005, when I got my first PC, but I still make a point of typing my poetry on it.

I had it completely overhauled by the excellent George Blackman at Bexhill on Sea. It is amazing to think that I have been using it continually for 46 years!

The Probonid was originally typed up on this and it took me three months of evenings to type it up in electronic format so that I could get it ready for Createspace and Kindle.

I love the modern convenience of my laptop and desktop, but I miss the therapeutic clack clack of typing with this and the swing of the keys.

The Probonid

Just uploaded my book to Createspace and ordered copies for proofing. They are going to take a while to arrive though as they are printed in the USA. Apart from proofing the book myself, I am going to pass around a couple of the proof copies for feedback.

Here is the proof blurb from the pack of the book:

Chawbury is a pleasant English market town; medieval cathedral, seventeenth and eighteenth century town houses surrounded by satellite estates, and to the east, a gleaming, ultra-modern biotech laboratory.

But the beauty of Chawbury was of little consequence to C16, a synthetic hominid designed for experimentation. Death by slow torture seemed to be her inevitable fate... That is until schoolboy Michael Gowland gets a summer job in the animal pens.

Farcebook

 I have never used Farcebook before and it looks like I will continue to not use it. I set up an account, and it got instantly locked because they think I am not a genuine person... Ho Hum.

Prelude

Back in 2002-3, I wrote a novel...

It was intended to be part of a trilogy and by the time I had finished writing book one, I had completely planned book two and had mapped out book three.

Unfortunately for me, also by the time I had finished book one, a film had been released that had so many similarities that if I hawked it around, it would only have been viewed as a pastiche of the film. So for the last fourteen years, the novel has sat on a shelf in my office, gathering dust, while I got on with other projects.

Then a few months ago, I decided that perhaps enough water had passed under the bridge that it might now be read. And with the advent of Createspace and Kindle, I thought I would self-publish the book and see if anyone likes it.

It is called "The Probonid" and I suppose would fit into the genre of BioPunk, but I aimed the book at an early to mid teen audience.