THE TWICE -A-WEEK BLOG SHEET                                       From the desk of  author Herbert Howard Jones


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9th March 2009

My book may well have a significant carbon signature!

And not only if you attempted to burn it either!  Indeed, those of you who were kind enough to purchase my science fiction fantasy book, The Pyewiz and The Amazing Mobile Phone, will know that the planet where all the action is taking place, is in the process of being terraformed.  Charon is a bitterly cold place which desperately needs to be warmed up, and so the Pyewiz is trying to do this by pumping millions of litres of carbon dioxide into its atmosphere.

So don't breathe in the pages when you read them! 

But what you can do is breathe a sigh of relief at the news that the carbon concentrations in our earth's own atmosphere have a good chance of being significantly decreased!

An incredible scheme devised by engineers in Australia, have found a way to
(a) Get rid of urban rubbish mountains, (b) Generate electricity, (c)Create a carbon rich fertiliser which increases crop yields by 50% and (d) Reduce carbon dioxide concentrations in the air by 21%. --- ALL IN ONE HIT!

And it's all based around a substance called Bio-Char, which is what you get when you burn rubbish in an anerobic furnace.

You end up with electricity from the release of heat, and black carbon fertiliser chips, which when plowed into the ground greatly increases crop yields.  But amazingly, the crops that grow, release much less carbon dioxide at night compared to your average plants. Somehow the carbon gets locked into the ground instead of being diffused into the atmosphere! (They call it sequestered carbon).

Result: lowering of global CO2 levels by as much as a fifth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And remember this is all from rubbish.  So it's more useful than we think!

THE PYEWIZ Art by HHJones. C.2009.P.Ross


First sailor: I don't like the look of the Captain's footprints.
Second sailor:  Nor do I. Very carbon coloured if you ask me!


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Strange happenings in Pyewiz land

3rd March 2009

Actually, there's no such thing as Pyewiz land, but he does live somewhere, apart from in my fetid imagination - Charon.  That's the moon which  whizzes round Pluto (which incidently isn't a planet. I read it somewhere in a science fiction book).

No, the strangeness I refer to are the strange typos which suddenly appear on my blogsheet when I'm not looking.  It's very odd because I do edit my stuff at least three times before it's approved.

But then, I'm no stranger to typos.  Some are so well orchestrated that you'd think there was an active intelligence behind it.  Take the other month when I was writing at the computer, turned my face away from the screen for perhaps 15 seconds, looked back, and  was confronted by a list  of consecutive numbers which had just appeared on the screen from nowhere. Something like,

Dear Neighbour,

I would strongly suggest that you do not have noisy parties in the middle of ...

1
12
123
1234
12345
123456
1234567
12345678
123456789   etc

I was astounded, but couldn't find the ctrl+key which was responsible for it.  Perhaps there isn't one, eh? So how do you figure that?

If I had pulled a stunt like that in my book, readers would have been less than impressed by my creative ingenuity.  But when stuff like this actually happens in the real world, they are as opened mouthed as the next geek!

At one point, I did actually think that the Pyewiz himself was  trying to communicate with me.  I mean in the sense that he was reaching out to me via my subconscious.  Because there is no doubt that a writer's characters do become individuated with their authors.  So what was I trying to tell myself?

I'm still trying to figure this out.  Any suggestions on a post card please.  Oh, and if you're curious to read the first chapter of my book click this link here.....

About the Pyewiz


THE PYEWIZ Art by HHJones. C.2009. P.Ross


Your special fried rice order, sir!  Yes, the lunar surface was a bit of a stretch, but  in future if you could bear in mind that  our deliveries are normally within a two mile radius of the shop, we would be very grateful! Thank you.


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Introducing The Pyewiz and the Amazing Mobile Phone

28th February 2009.

Hi, and welcome to the first edition, ok, first page, of my twice-a-week blog sheet.  My name is Herbert Howard Jones and I am the author of a 400 page science fiction/fantasy book for young adults which took absolutely ages to write and definitely was responsible for at least some hair loss, (if not some greying at the edges). 

People tell me that grey hair makes me look distinguished.  Don't you believe it, the only thing distinguished about it, is that it distinguishes you from young people!  But so far, at the great age of 53, I've been lucky, although at the rate I've been going recently, I'll be heading for that blue rinse any day soon.

But getting back to the book, people have asked me why I have chosen such an ungainly title, (The Pyewiz and the Amazing Mobile Phone)  Well the reason is because it occured to me that the age of the vague and mysterious title is nearly over.  People want to know what a book is about in the shortest possible time.  They want this information literally in nano-seconds, faster than that even.

It's all part of the culture of instant gratification. It springs from the same psychology that's behind fast foods.  It's an encouragement to not only cook them faster, but eat them faster, which is partly why people in the West are obese, have health problems and suffer from vitamin deficiencies! 

But where books are concerned this works in reverse.  The slower you present information to people, the more bored and stressed readers become.  So when you have a title like 'The green grass mysteries', it either makes you think of chlorophyl stains on your trousers, or you don't even give it the time of day!

So, I thought why not just say what the book is about in the title as directly as possible. Get it over and done with. So let's take a look at the title one word at a time, with the subtext in parenthesis:

'The' (Oh the times I wished I could copyright this word.)
'Pyewiz' (a pirate wizard who lives on Charon, near Pluto and makes it his  business to  press gang children into service aboard his ships on the other side of the solar system)
'and' (an excellent word to have in a title!)

The Amazing mobile Phone   (speaks volumes, doesn't it?)

So there you are, virtually  the whole story in the title alone.  Obviously there are complications.  I mean the main character is this kid called Terry and he has a  best friend called Will, and one day they learn a terrible secret, that Terry once had a twin brother who was kidnapped by the Pyewiz (remember him from our title?), and so Terry sets out to get his brother back.  And he does this with the aid of an amazing mobile phone.  But how did he get this, you ask.  Now that is a very good question.  Well done for paying attention!  I shall tell you more in my next blog.
Stay tuned!

THE PYEWIZ art by HHJones C.2009 P.Ross

'Now where did I put those milk tokens?'


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About the Pyewiz
Science fiction fantasy
Chapter One
Shopping page