Dead Man's Switch

Dead Man's Switch
by Charles Fudgemuffin

Exciting news! My latest book 'Dead Man's Switch' was released this week!

To promote it, this week the Charles Fudgemuffin blog takes a lighthearted look at the subject of death, starting with an optimistically accurate Japanese word...

1) In Japanese, the kanji for 'widow' translates as 'not dead yet person'.




2) I helped my friend hide a dead body.

He said, "Thanks."

I said, "Don't mention it."

Legal disclaimer: The above story is a work of fiction for the purposes of making a joke. In reality, my friend is extremely ungrateful, and would never say thank you.

The Quiz Master

Regular readers of the Charles Fudgemuffin blog may have noticed that whenever I publish a new book or short story I generally like to promote it with a blog post, and this week is no different! My latest book 'The Quiz Master' was released this week, so in keeping with tradition, here's a brief summary of the plot:

The Quiz Master.
Available for kindle from Amazon.

"When the Deep Space Genesis agency discover the first potentially inhabitable exoplanet 'Nova Satus III', they plan to transport ten convicted criminals to that planet to use as metaphoric 'canaries in a coal mine', in order to test the suitability, and safety, of the planet's surface for human life.

However, even before the 'canaries' have barely started their journey, a mysterious hacker known only as 'The Quiz Master' takes control of the ship, and puts the canaries through a sick and twisted 'Last Man Standing' elimination game that will leave nine of the canaries dead, and only one survivor.

Who is this mysterious Quiz Master, and what are his motivations? And which of the ten contestants will survive?"

- - - - - - - - - -

As regular readers of the Charles Fudgemuffin blog may also have noticed, I occasionally like to feature quizzes on the blog. However, whereas the quizzes on my blog are generally light-hearted and sometimes a little bit silly, the quizzes, situations, and tests that the 'contestants' face are somewhat more unsettling, and of course the stakes are a lot higher!

To give you an idea of some of the questions, dilemmas and tasks that the contestants face to determine who is 'eliminated', one of the rounds that the Quiz Master puts them through is called Moral Dilemmas. In this round, the contestants are faced with numerous hypothetical moral dilemmas, one of which is as follows:

How many days before vampires take over the world?

A vampire conundrum.

My latest book, Fly-Tipping, was published this week, so to promote it, this week's blog post is inspired by a question posed by one of the minor characters from the book:

"If a vampire drank the blood of one human per night, and every human he drank the blood of turned into a vampire who then subsequently also drank the blood of one human per night, how many days would it be before every person in the world was a vampire?”

Before I answer the question, here's a poll to see how many people get it right. Obviously I can't list every possible answer*, so instead I've grouped the answers into various ranges to make things a little easier.

* Well I suppose I could, but it would be a very long poll!

Lottery themed memes and jokes

My latest book 'The Freedom Lottery' was released this week, so to promote it, this week's blog post features a selection of lottery themed jokes and memes.

However, I should first clarify that the plot of The Freedom Lottery has nothing to do with the regular lottery where you can win lots of money. The Freedom Lottery featured in the book of the same name, is a lottery whereby 'winning' prisoners can risk their lives for a shot at freedom by attempting to walk across the minefield which surrounds their prison without getting blown up.

Anyway, the book has 'lottery' in the title, so that's the promotional introduction over, and now let's get on with the lottery themed jokes and memes...

1) I just won $1,000,000 on the lottery and I'm donating a quarter to charity!
I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the other $999,999.75 though.



2) What's the easiest way to complete your family tree?
Post on social media that you won the lottery.

Dead Men Tell No Tales

Dead Men Tell No Tales
by Charles Fudgemuffin

Good news! My latest book, 'Dead Men Tell No Tales' was released last week. Without giving away too many spoilers, the title of the book gives a slight hint as to the direction the plot may possibly take.

Anyway, to publicise 'Dead Men Tell No Tales', this week's blog post takes a light-hearted look at the subject of death...

1) Wild advice

If you encounter a polar bear in the wild, lie down and pretend you're dead.

It's good practice for when you'll be really dead, two minutes later.

2) Silly questionnaire

I've featured stupid questions before on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog, but the following question found on an insurance application form has to be the stupidest of them all...

10 books that were surprisingly banned

With recent worrying developments on the internet, such as facebook and twitter deciding what we can and can't read, it's important to remind ourselves of the importance of free speech. I understand the need for age certification, but sadly in many cases the people deciding what we can and can't read are either dangerously deluded, or pushing their own dubious agenda.

Over the years there have been some seemingly innocent books which have surprisingly been banned.  Here are some of the most notable...

This bank note has no value, apparently.

1) The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz by L. Frank Baum

This was banned from libraries in Detroit for allegedly 'supporting negativism' and for 'having no value for children'.

Seriously, there are some crazy people in the world if they think the Wizard of Oz needs to be banned. Not every book has to be about inspiring readers to change the world. Surely some books can just be about having fun!

How To Poison Your Husband And Get Away With It

'How To Poison Your Husband And Get Away With It'
To clarify, it's a short story collection, not a 'How To' guide!

Today sees the release of a new book from Charles Fudgemuffin entitled 'How To Poison Your Husband And Get Away With It'.

For the avoidance of any doubt, 'How To Poison Your Husband And Get Away With It' is a collection of short stories. It is not a 'How To' guide. Apologies to anyone with sinister intentions who arrived at this page after a nefarious internet search.

'How To Poison Your Husband And Get Away With It, and Other Short Stories' is priced at £1.99/$2.99, but the ten short stories from the collection are also available individually.

Here's a brief summary of each of the ten short stories:

Is A KitKat A Chocolate Bar Or A Biscuit?

As you've probably already guessed from the title, 'Is A KitKat A Chocolate Bar Or A Biscuit?' is a story about a brutal gangster, his closest life-long friend, and a local punk.

'Many volcanoes erupt. Moldy jam sandwiches, unusually niffy. Phew!' and other mnemonics

The planet dwarf planet Pluto.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com

Last week I promised to explain what 'mnemonic' means, and any non-word nerds will most likely be disappointed to hear that I'm keeping that promise!

A mnemonic is actually a memory device or technique which helps you remember information.  For example...

"Many Volcanoes Erupt. Moldy Jam Sandwiches, Unusually Niffy. Phew!"

...is a mnemonic I learnt at school to help remember the order of the planets. The first letter of each word corresponds to the first letter of each of the planets, namely...

"Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto."

Book reviews (part 16)

It's time for another batch of book reviews as Charles Fudgemuffin offers his opinion on books from the genres of humour, mystery and suspense, romantic comedy, and crime, with a round up of reviews of books by authors  Douglas Adams, Stieg Larsson, David Nicholls and Håkan Nesser.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
by Douglas Adams

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams – 4.5 / 5.0

I’m a big fan of Douglas Adams so I was pleased to discover within a few pages that Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency has that unmistakable unique Douglas Adams sense of brilliant weirdness about it. Although primarily a comedy book, it also features the sort of imaginatively creative off-the-wall science fiction ideas which Douglas Adams crams into all of his novels.

Although Dirk Gently is maybe not quite in the very same league as The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy books, this is nevertheless still a very enjoyable book so if you’re a fan of ‘Hitchhikers’ then it’s a pretty much safe bet that you will also love this book.

Crime Doesn't Pay: A collection of crime themed short stories

'Crime Doesn't Pay'
Sound advice.

It's been almost a year since I published my last book 'Santa and the Naughty Elf'*, but my next book is finally ready for publication.

* Strictly speaking, 'Santa And The Naughty Elf' is by Charles Fudgemuffin’s younger brother, Charles Fudgemuffin, Jr, but his writing style is curiously similar to Charles senior. Hmm…

The book in question is 'Crime Doesn't Pay' and it's a collection of crime themed light-hearted short stories. This is the list of short stories which are included:

1) Is A KitKat A Chocolate Bar Or A Biscuit?

2) Walk Again

3) The Cashier Who Didn’t Work Saturdays

4) True Freedom

5) The Puppet Master

6) The Absence Of Fear

7) Wagon Wheels, Star Wars Memorabilia And The Nice Ham

Choosing a book cover for 'Crime Doesn't Pay'

In a few weeks time* I'll be releasing 'Crime Doesn't Pay' (a collection of crime themed short stories), so this week I'd like to ask for help in choosing a book cover.

* Update: I ultimately decided to publish the collection of short stories under the alterantive title of 'How To Poison Your Husband And Get Away With It'.

To keep with the crime theme, when designing the book cover I've firstly written the title 'Crime Doesn't Pay' in the style of a ransom note. Based on this theme I've then narrowed it down to a choice of three designs, and to help me decide I've created a poll.

If anyone could spare the time to check out the three designs below and then vote for their preference I would greatly appreciate it.

The first design uses a few blood splatters...

The World According To The Man In The Pub 2

Can a gecko support its entire body weight with only one toe?

I'm a fan of weird trivia and I also like 'true or false' quizzes, so a book which instantly appealed to me was 'The World According To The Man In The Pub 2' by Robert Anwood.

It's full of dubious 'pub facts', i.e. interesting claims which are often reported by pub patrons as facts. In some cases the claims are indeed true, but in other cases the claims are as ridiculous as they sound.

The pub facts are grouped together into various categories, such as science, sports and showbiz, and to give you an idea of what to expect, here's a brief sample of the type of facts and misfacts found in the book. See if you can guess which of the following pub facts are true, and which are fictitious...

1) A gecko's skin is so sticky that it can support its entire body weight clinging upside down to the ceiling by only one toe.
True or false?

Book reviews (part 15)

Charles Fudgemuffin reviews a selection of books from the genres of light humour, general fiction, comedy and historical fiction.

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate by Alexander McCall Smith

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate by Alexander McCall-Smith - 4.2 / 5.0

Nothing much seemed to happen in the first couple of chapters of Friends, Lovers, Chocolate, but once it got going I found myself really looking forward to my daily reading sessions.

Isobel Dalhousie meets a heart transplant patient who believes his new heart has brought with it memories of its previous owner, and Isobel's curious nature means she can't help herself from investigating further.

I have to admit I found the ending slightly disappointing, but overall this was an enjoyable book with some interesting ideas.

Ebook publishers: A comparison

The pros and cons of various ebook sellers when self publishing your book.

I've published some of my books with various ebook publishers, so I thought I would write a post describing my experience with each of the ebook stores I self-published with. Some of the following points are straight forward facts, e.g. 'Smashwords let you generate coupons for discounts and promotions on your books.' That's a fact. Other points though, are my opinion, so in the interests of fairness this article should be read with that in mind.

Here are the pros and cons that I experienced with each ebook publisher.

Note: This article was published in 2016. Some of the following details may have changed since that date, so do your own research before making a final decision on self-publishing.

Kindle Direct Publishing:

Kindle Direct Publishing is the self-publishing service for authors who wish to publish their books via Amazon. 

Pros:

Amazon kindling.

1) Amazon have a large chunk of the ebook market, so offer a bigger potential for sales. As a rough guideline, a figure of around 65% market share is quoted by most ebook market analysis websites.

2) Before finalising publication, you can download a preview file of your book which you can view with the Kindle Previewer tool, or on your tablet if you have the Kindle app.

3) If you enroll your book in KDP Select, i.e. make it exclusive to Amazon, you can offer your book for free five days per quarter. If you only have one book this isn't really a great sales strategy nowadays (the benefits of free promotions aren't what they used to be), but if you have a series of books then a free introductory book can lead to increased sales of the subsequent books in the series.

4) Amazon Prime members can borrow one book per month for free. If you enrol your book in KDP Select then your book is eligible to be borrowed, and each borrow earns you a small payment.

5) If you choose to get paid by Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) then Amazon have no payment threshold*, so you don't have to wait for your royalties to build up before getting paid.

* This applies to UK and US authors, but check Amazon's terms and conditions if you're based elsewhere in the world.

Book reviews (part 14)

It's time for another round-up of book reviews and this week I take a look at books from the genres of non-fiction, comedy, action and sci-fi.

A Brief History Of Time by Stephen Hawking

A Brief History Of Time by Stephen Hawking - 3.9 / 5.0

I found some parts of A Brief History Of Time fascinating, but on occasions there were a few sections that were a little less interesting. The enjoyable chapters were the sections where you could quickly read through it and the theories were all fairly straight forward and easy to take in, but there were also other more complicated chapters involving less conventional scenarios (in terms of everyday life), and this was when you had to concentrate a bit more and it felt more like doing homework.

That said, there were one or two sections where Stephen has overlooked some really obvious points, and I suspect it's a case of the 'emperor's new clothes' that no-one has pointed these out to him. Overall though, given the subject matter Stephen Hawking has written a reasonably entertaining book.

An Idiot Abroad quotes

"Wow!  Look at that old ice!"

From time to time on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog I feature book reviews, and one book which I thoroughly enjoyed was An Idiot Abroad 2 by Karl Pilkington.

The sense of humour will probably appeal to some people more than others, so rather than review the book, I thought I would sum it up with a selection of quotes which illustrate the logic and wisdom of Karl Pilkington…

Street entertainers...

1) "I’ve always found it odd how tourists take photographs of mime artists. Everyone looks like a mime in a photo."



Glaciers…

2) “He was telling me that some of these glaciers are millions of years old, but I can’t get excited about old ice. Ice is ice. You never see someone on Antiques Roadshow turning up with a block of ice for a reason.”


3) “I can’t imagine if the question on Family Fortunes was ‘What would you like to do before you die?’ that ‘Touch some old ice’ would be a top answer.”

Book reviews (part 13)

It's time for another round-up of book reviews, and this week I take a look at books from the genres of crime, humour, crime (again) and non-fiction...

Snow White Must Die by Nele Neuhaus

Snow White Must Die by Nele Neuhaus - 4.5 / 5.0

Snow White Must Die is a crime mystery which focuses on events in a small German village after Tobias Sartorius is released from jail having served a ten year sentence for the double murder of two former girlfriends. There are a lot of plot threads and puzzles to work out, but it all fits together very well and comes across as very plausible, and author Nele Neuhaus provides a well presented ending. Also, the story focuses more on the mystery behind the crimes, rather than the grisly details, which is what I personally prefer.

One small criticism is that I would perhaps have preferred to see some clues or insights into what actually happened provided a little sooner, but all in all this was an enjoyable crime mystery and I'll definitely be loooking out for future translations of Nele Neuhaus' work.

Santa and the Naughty Elf

A festively themed new book by Charles Fudgemuffin's younger brother...

'Santa and the Naughty Elf'
Available for Kindle from Amazon.

I don't usually feature books by other authors on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog, but this week I highlight a new book with a Christmas theme written by my younger brother ... Charles Fudgemuffin, Jr!

The book in question is entitled 'Santa And The Naughty Elf' and as the name suggests it tells the story of a naughty elf whose devious plans could ruin Christmas for everyone!  This is the blurb...

"Santa Claus has gone missing and his replacement, Neville the Naughty Elf, is getting up to all sorts of mischief while Santa is away. In fact if Neville succeeds in his despicable plans, this could turn into the most miserable Christmas ever!

Two of Santa’s loyal elves, Derek Droopy-Ears and Elvis Curly-Toes, are determined to do everything they can to stop Neville from ruining Christmas for everyone, but will they be able to track Santa down before it’s too late? Or will naughty Neville succeed and spoil Christmas for all the nice kids all around the world?"

Book reviews (part 12)

It's time for another batch of book related opinions, as I take a look at two books from two of my favourite authors - Alexander McCall Smith and John Grisham - and also a couple of humorous books from other authors...

Morality For Beautiful Girls
by Alexander McCall Smith

Morality For Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith - 4.5 / 5.0

In this the third book in the No.1 Ladies Detetive Agency series Precious Ramotswe deals with the issue of relocating the detective agency to the offices of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni's garage. She also investigates the out of character behaviour from Rra Matekoni himself, as well as a couple of cases involving an unusual orphan and a potential poisoning.

This is another enjoyable account of Mma Ramotswe's eventful life, and any fans of the first two books will once again appreciate Morality For Beautiful Girls as the format is the same. The narrative also contains the occasional brief passage which summarises the most significant events of the first two books, so this third book could quite easily be read as a stand-alone book by any new readers.

Small Pots Also Have Ears

A free short story from Charles Fudgemuffin

The 'peacocking' marketing strategy.
Thumbnails are very small on Amazon and
other ebook sites, so I've therefore gone for
a garishly colourful cover to attract attention.

I’ve mentioned before on the Charles Fudgemuffin blog that a cool Swedish saying I like is the expression ‘Small Pots Also Have Ears’. In case you’re wondering, it basically means that children listen in to adult conversations and take in more than you realise.

Most parents can probably relate to the saying, and in fact I like it so much that I used it as the theme for a short story I’ve recently published called … ‘Small Pots Also Have Ears’! In keeping with the Swedish saying, it deals with the theme of kids listening in to their parents’ conversations and then perhaps not being quite as discrete about things as their parents would have liked!

It’s only a very short read consisting of three short chapters, and a typical reader will probably read it in no more than ten to fifteen minutes. You can currently download it for free from iBooks, Kobo, B&N, Payhip, Smashwords or by direct download. You can also read it online at Wattpad.

It’s a stand alone story, so you can dive straight in and you don’t have to have read any previous books prior to reading ‘Small Pots Also Have Ears’. However, anyone who has read some of my early books may recognise the characters of Jake, Jake’s mam, Jake’s dad and Auntie Charine who appeared very briefly (blink and you’d miss them) in one of my early scifi books.