Hello, friends and fans!
Welcome to another “Peek At My Week”, the first one for the new year – January 01, 2024! Here are some things that happened this past week! But first…
Firstly, it’s a little bit late, but so what? I slept in this morning – and why not? It is NYD after all!
News About Writing & Publishing: This Is The Current State Of Things
- Writing: For once, I’m happy to say: NONE! That’s right, I haven’t written a single word in a story since late November! Right now I’m enjoying a well-earned break from writing! In fact, I’m keeping myself occupied with hobbies and other activities that can be more accurately described as “AFK” – or “away from keyboard”. More about that later.
- Publishing: In the past few days after my last reported rant about why I love being indie, the publisher in question got in touch with me and mended the bridges. I was asked to not withdraw my stories, and they promised to include them without making any edits – and I agreed. I know I can be a bit difficult sometimes – but it’s mainly just about highly important things, like my writing, honest! The new anthology “The Science Fiction Novelists 2024 SciFI Anthology” contains two of my short stories (“The Storming Of Area 51” and “It Happened In Late October”) and will be released on 20 February 2024, and here’s an early look at the cover below:
- What Readers Say: I know I can’t please everybody (so I’m not trying to!). That said, it really pleases me when I see that I’ve managed to do it anyway! Drop me a line and let me know how you think I’m doing – or leave me a review on Amazon or Audible!Last week I showed you the first critical review for “The Last Hurrah“, and in the absence of any new ones – and because I think this was such a nice review, I thought I’d leave it up again this week!
The epic Quantum Sci-Fi series concludes with a perfect ending
“Having been an avid reader of Christina Engela’s works for some years I’ve found myself enjoyably immersed in the setting and planet of ‘Deanna’ over 9 books. The Quantum Series and Engela’s writing represents lots of themes with some that are on the lighter side while others contain an important inclusive message but all of them merge together in telling a fantastic story.
This final entry into the series captures the end of an era for the planet as the ‘Deannan Uncivil War’ comes to a close alongside the stories of many colourful inhabitants that make up recurring characters throughout the books. Some have evolved over that time while others have been deeply effected by their path and recent political regime that attempted to take over, either way character development sits at the forefront of this series and its enjoyable to see. Every action has a reaction and this is especially so when it comes to the concept of time which is one of the many pillars that holds up the series. We see the series favourites such as ‘Fred The Arborian’ and of course ‘Mark Grauffis’ who finds his place alongside ‘Cindy Mei Winter’ and ‘Gary Beck’ but even the smaller players in this composition contribute to a story well told.
For anyone who enjoys space sci-fi set on distant planets that are alive with variety, inclusion and diversity while being told with some humour and power (of the right kind) then the Quantum Series is definitely for you! 5 Stars – A fantastic close to an awesome sci-fi journey.” – Lee Hall, review of The Last Hurrah, December 12, 2023.
- Latest Releases: “Freedom Inc” (book 1 in my new sci-fi adventure series, “Threaders“) is now available in eBook and paperback formats via Amazon, my Shop – BUT you can get the whole 100,180 word tome for FREE if you sign up to be my patron on OR on !
Bibliography – A listing of all my books so far:
You can find them at and my shop page on .
Other Stuff
In the past few weeks I’ve been exploring one of my old hobbies – computers and customizing! You probably don’t know this, but for many years I was a computer support technician. For a time I even ran my own IT sideline called “Ghost PCs” , building and selling systems to customers and also trying to figure out what the problem between the chair and keyboard was! Things change over time though, and I moved on to other things in my work environment, and around 2006 when I underwent several life-changing surgeries, I sort of fell out of touch with that environment. Then between 2009 and 2011 I became heavily invested in human rights advocacy, and Ghost PCs sorta went to the light.
In the meantime however, I’ve long been tempted to get back into IT again, but this time exclusively for my own benefit – and things have move on so much since then that for a little while it felt intimidating to consider all the new tech that’s evolved from the old stuff I used to know like the back of my hand so to speak – but I’ve rapidly begun to catch up again. You see, back in the day, I could only operate my tech workshop out of a tiny decrepit 5×4 foot garden shed – whereas now I have full access to the entire house! That said, at the start of my holiday, I’ve set up an electronics workstation in the library/art/sewing/everything room, and dug out the trove of massively outdated hardware I’d put away for a rainy day – organized it into two piles (donate/sell and keep) and set up an IT workbench.
Whether or not I will be setting up a sideline business again is still not decided, but as a hobby, I’ve started by doing a few things – two of which I’ll show you here:
The first is the old server tower case I customized in the first week of my holiday. I plan on using this one for gaming and media applications in the near future:
As always, I’ll keep you posted about any further developments, so until then, I wish you all a pleasant week! For me, as I’m wrapping this up, I’m still on vacation – so I’ll be getting back to whatever I’m keeping myself busy with, and catch you later!
Again, whatever you may be celebrating this festive season, happy whatever – spend quality time with the quality people in your life, and just remember to be safe out there – it is the ‘silly season’ after all!
In spite of some of my books having been on Amazon since 2005, not one of them has yet reached the magical 51 reader reviews yet! (The highest number any of them has, is 10 – which is a pretty good number compared to many others, but it’s still not high enough for the almighty Amazon!) I would really appreciate your help on this! Come on, leave a review – it’s free!