JoZebwrites

FIRST ROLL OF THE DIE             "Wait for me!" Averrine ran round the battlement, hair falling into her eyes, but stopped to catch her breath. Simon had hidden and it wasn’t fair.                 "Slow snake!"   His words echoed around the red-stone courtyard, the walls bloody where struck by the low sunlight of the dying day. She straightened, each breath burning her chest, and cast her eyes over the courtyard. She wished there was someone else to play with. The pilots’ kids, over by Bendau’s space port, had let her join their shoot-‘em-ups until Mama had found out and stopped the game, claiming the children were Space Roamers and dirty, and odd. She stamped her foot; for now, she was stuck with Simon. “Where are you?”             "Got to find me!" He wasn't being nice. She was only six to ...

Here I am a couple of days before Christmas and am I wrapping, or shopping, or singing carols? No, I've got a shiny new facebook page - thanks, Gary! - and I thought I'd write about Christmas in the world of Abendau. Then I had an oh-no moment when I realised there was no mention of a Christmas in that world. No Winter solstice. And it came to me that, by and large, in all my books the matter of religion isn't cut and dried. Don't get me wrong; religion features. When I'm not writing Abendau I write a lot about Ulster and there are many things you can get away without mentioning, but religion isn't one of them. It's never a main theme, though. So, is there religion in my Abendauii world? Yes. The main characters aren't believers - they grew up on a rebel base with no defined religion. In the marriage ceremony I show, the prayer is to a non-named force. It was written, as it happens, with the help of a sf loving Parson of my acquaintance and I hope ...