All posts by Paul Raven

Blog

Spend your gift money at Apex Book Company

1 Comment

Michael Burstein - I Remember the FutureIf you’ve got some cash to hand after the seasonal blow-out, and if you fancy spending it on something worthwhile at the same time as helping out a small business that’s fallen on tough times, you could do a lot worse than pop on over to Apex Book Company (the people who put out the excellent Apex Online webzine) and buy a little something. Jason Sizemore explains:

… Apex Publications needs an influx of revenue. Quick.

What this means is that if you’ve ever thought of buying an Apex book, now would be a damn good time to do so.

The most effective, easiest and most fun way to pump some blood into Apex is to buy a book directly from our store. You get damn fine literature (and free media shipping if your order is $25 or more (applies to US orders only)).

If you’re strapped of cash, then blog about our books or authors and try to coerce people into giving us a try.

I figure we need about $2500 in revenue over the next two weeks.

So go buy a book, or a back issue of Apex Digest, the excellent print mag that has now morphed into Apex Online. You get something nice to read, and to rest assured that another small press survives to publish more quality fiction – sounds like a win-win deal to me.

Blog

Happy Holidays from Futurismic!

5 Comments

Hi folks; well, it’s Christmas Eve here in the dismal and overcast south coast of the UK, and I’m soon heading off to the train station to make my way to a family get-together, as I imagine many of you will be as well (if you haven’t already).

I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all for following Futurismic this year. I’ve not quite had a full twelve months in the driving seat, but it feels pretty close to it at the moment! This year has seen us crank up the fiction and non-fiction output, and seen lots of new readers and commenters arriving, all of which has been immensely satisfying for me – and Jason’s story being picked up for an anthology was the icing on the cake.

If all goes to plan, 2009 should be even better for Futurismic, and I very much hope you’ll all stick around to see it. But enough of that; I’m going to take a few days off from the site for the holidays, so I thought I’d stop by to wish you all whatever sort of end-of-year happiness fits your particular belief system. Have a great time, and look after yourselves!

All the best…

Paul Raven

Blog

Pope seeks to save humanity from gender theory

2 Comments

So, let’s see: a very rich man wearing a gaudy dress at the head of an organisation which shelters and hence implicitly condones child abuse says that saving humanity from transsexual or homosexual behaviour is as important as saving the environment. I guess that somewhere along the line my definitions of good and evil got a little mixed up… has anyone set up a website where we can send shoes to ol’ Benny?

Blog

The price of revenge – pranking speed cameras

UK-style GATSO traffic speed cameraYet again, the street finds its own use for things – even the things installed by The Man to make the street safe. Students in Maryland in the US have hit upon the idea of making up fake license plates for their cars which match those of someone on whom they wish to exact a bit of revenge, and then driving past the automatic speed cameras in the area at high speeds. End result? The unsuspecting victim is automatically sent a ticket for speeding, even though they didn’t do it. [via SlashDot]

Of course, we Brits have our own version of the same system, but over here people clone the plates of similar vehicles for the purpose of avoiding their own fines; they’re not so bothered about who ends up paying them, so long as it’s not them.

Remember, folks: state-owned automated surveillance systems. If you’ve done nothing wrong, then you’re perfectly safe.

Well, mostly. [image by 91RS]