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Juli Zeh's The Method is a very believable dystopian, science-fiction thriller. It is a different take of themes explored in novels like 1984 and Brave New World . The novel is set in a future Germany, not too different from the current version, except society is controlled by a strict set of rules known as “The Method”. The Method is an all-encompassing health regime that every member of society is legally obliged to follow. Every person must eat the right foods, excluding those deemed unhealthy. Everyone must do the right amount of exercise. People are only allowed to mate with those who have compatible immune systems. Anyone who fails to follow the rules is arrested and rehabilitated. An individual’s commitment to The Method is tracked by microchips embedded in them, and by their toilets that automatically examine their urine. Each member of society has an exercise bike on which they must complete a certain amount of kilometres per week. The novel revolves ...

I’ve been doing a bit of research into ebook piracy, and I have come to the conclusion that any author who is worried about their book being pirated should worry about something they can actually do something about. It seems just about every published ebook is being pirated on multiple sites right now. Spending time trying to track down all those illegal download avenues will just waste an author’s time. An author might have success having their book taken down from one website, just as it pops up for free on another website. Warning on Google+ My initial research into this topic was prompted by a post I saw on Google+. The post had a link to a website and said something along the lines, “my ebook is illegally posted here for free, check if yours is.” I have not published any ebooks but I was curious, so I went to the site and searched for books from a few local authors who are yet to become big names. In all cases, the search provided links to free copies of their book...

No Limit is a book about hip young things doing hip things and wanting the world to know about their hipness via social media. The novella is set in Auckland, New Zealand, in December 2012, which is important because the world was supposed to end then due to the Mayan calendar running out. To add to the apocalyptic feel of the novella, a volcano is erupting. Its ash causes the cancellation of Ash’s plane to Australia. With no idea how long she will have to wait, Ash decides to look up a cousin in Auckland. She spends much of the novella searching for him, meeting a few strange people along the way. The novel is full of references to pop culture. For example, Tom, everyone’s first Myspace friend, makes an appearance. And many words are spent describing the clothes the characters wear. Labels, labels everywhere. The characters all seem to suffer from attention deficit disorder as their thoughts flick from observations of the world around them to desires, to how they a...

In an attempt at motivation, I decided at the start of this year to do a monthly blog post on my writing efforts for the previous month.   Novel Writing.   I am still writing Branded , a science fiction, young adult novel. In February I added 4841 words, 25 words more than for January, and in three less days. So I averaged 173 words a day for the month as compared to 155 words a day in January. The novel is now just under 65,000 words. It has five parts and I am probably a quarter of the way into the forth. It still looks like the novel will be somewhere between 90,000 and 100,000 words. I am still very much enjoying writing it. The dysfunctional group of characters are barely getting on at the moment, but not for much longer.   Non-Fiction Writing.   I wrote two articles for Divine in February and both went up on the website during the month. Both were reviews of films whose central character has a disability. One was a review of Still Alic...