Did I predict Brexit?

A year last June the UK voted to break away from its long standing association with the European Union. It was the year the world, apparently, went mad, with our US cousins handing the keys to the White House to a guy who'd never shown any aptitude for politics while the UK threw away thirty percent of its value, give or take.

For the record, I voted to stay. I don't have a deep rooted love of the EU, and fully agree it has faults that need to be addressed, but I couldn't find any reasonable information regarding what leaving would entail, and sixteen months later still can't. But this isn't going to be a 'remoaner' post - there's plenty of them to read, not one of those posts is going to make a change to our future, so I'll save my breath.

However it occurred to me that I'd forecast the Brexit vote not once, but twice. In Parallel Lives, my first novel, the UK has clearly ceded with the EU and in fact had become isolated from the rest of the world, with the government becoming increasingly paranoid about anywhere that was not the UK. Then, in my latest novel, Assassin, the UK is again separated from the EU. In Assassin the government has suspended democracy as part of the fight against terror and not gotten around to reinstating it. Scotland is an independent nation and my own home country, Wales, is notionally independent but financially betrothed to England, dependent on English money and trade just to keep its head above subsistence.

Of course, the word Brexit doesn't appear in either novel - it didn't exist when I wrote both books ten or so years apart. Both books describe a UK many years down the line, wrapped so much up in itself that it's losing it's plot. Watching the progress of Brexit so far, neither book looks unreasonable right now.

Post Brexit the UK might be fine - I fully accept that the Leave campaign concept might work, indeed, given that we are sleepwalking that way anyway I really do hope they're right - but so far all I read, and I read a lot, I'm not brimming with confidence. Currently the government appears to be staggering from crisis to crisis, ironic given that the whole referendum was an attempt to stabilise the Conservative Party but will probably serve to destroy it given enough time. I doubt that my predictions in Parallel Lives and Assassin are correct. If you've read either book I'm sure you'll agree, however I can't eliminate the possibility that the UK, post Brexit, won't end up introverted instead of the outward facing country Leave supporters hope for.

If you haven't read either book then why not mosey over to your favourite bookseller and download a copy. Both are currently very reasonably priced (one is free on some sites, just don't include Amazon on that thanks to their marketing stance, but never forget they'll price match if you tell them - they will sell you paperback versions, but I can't help with the cost of them unfortunately).

Here's a link to where you can obtain copies from: http://raysullivanscifizone.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/accessing-my-books.html

or just click on the banner at the top of this page.

Accessing my books

Sometime last year I relinquished the domains to my websites - selling ebooks is far from lucrative and for the last few years my online presence was costing more than it was raising.  Consequently if you have been trying to use the links in any of the 500+ blog entries I've made you'll have found the websites don't exist anymore.

While it is clear some of you are still finding your way to my books, I fully understand the issues with searching the bookstores.  Consequently I'm going to list links to the books in this blog post and hopefully over time will embed it in the posts that still attract traffic.

Feel free to browse these books at your favourite store.  I'm focussing on US, UK, Australian and Canadian bookstores initially as these make up 99% of my sales, but if you'd like links to bookshops (and I'm thinking Amazon really) then email me and I'll update.

Smashwords (international - covers all regions)

Parallel Lives

The Journeymen

The Journeymen: Journeymen II - Day of Reckoning

Skin

Digital Life Form

The Last Simple

Project: Evil

Assassin

Amazon US

Parallel Lives

The Journeymen

The Journeymen: Journeymen II - Day of Reckoning

Skin

Digital Life Form

Project: Evil

Assassin

Amazon UK

Parallel Lives

The Journeymen

The Journeymen: Journeymen II - Day of Reckoning

Skin

Digital Life Form

The Last Simple

Project: Evil

Assassin

Amazon Australia

Parallel Lives

The Journeymen

The Journeymen: Journeymen II - Day of Reckoning

Skin

Digital Life Form

The Last Simple

Project: Evil

Assassin

Amazon Canada

Parallel Lives

The Journeymen

The Journeymen: Journeymen II - Day of Reckoning

Skin

Digital Life Form

The Last Simple

Project: Evil

Assassin

Barnes & Noble US

Parallel Lives

The Journeymen

The Journeymen: Journeymen II - Day of Reckoning

Skin

Digital Life Form

The Last Simple

Project: Evil

Assassin

Why I've stuck with Windows Phone

A couple of weeks ago Microsoft announced they were exiting from the mobile business.  It wasn't a huge surprise to many phone users - they had been thoroughly thrashed by Apple and Android for years, had lost huge amounts of money through their Nokia venture and the app store has never amounted to much.

However, over the last few years I've become a little attached to Microsoft products.  I bought a Surface RT when it was on offer and my Nexus 7 suffered a terminal crack while on holiday a few years ago.  Then, when it was time to renew my mobile contract I picked up a Nokia 830 running Windows 8.1 and found a system that seemed to join up in a way that worked for me.  Shortly after my wife bought me the original Microsoft Band.  It's no Apple Watch, but it complements the setup perfectly.  Then I replaced the RT with a Surface Pro 4, and 18 months later still enjoying it hugely.

My Nokia has been running out of steam a little in recent months, I'm sure the upgrade to Windows 10 was part of that, and has been looking a little tired around the edges.  However there have been continual rumours over the last two years that Microsoft were working on a Surface phone, a device that was supposed to break the mould of the mobile world.  In the last three months the rumours have died away and Microsoft announcing it wasn't going to update its mobile platform ever again pretty much suggests the Surface phone is off the table. When Bill Gates and the head of mobile at Microsoft ditched their Windows phones for Android models it was a pretty clear picture.

But Windows mobile does pretty much everything I need from a phone.  I'm not much of an app user, hardly ever downloaded any when I last used Android, unlikely to start now.  The build set that comes bundled with the phone is all I need and although MS have stated they won't develop anything new for the phone they will keep its security updated, at least for the time being.

So I got to thinking 'what's going to happen to all those Windows phones on the production line', and had a look around at the top end Windows phones.  The one that took my eye was the HP Elite X3 - a 64Gb RAM, quad core, dual sim phablet with B & O speakers that was selling for around £700 before the announcement (still is on Microsoft's UK website).  I picked up a brand new model for nearly half of that and that'll keep me going until I really do have to revert to Android.  Who knows - perhaps Microsoft will develop a Surface phone running on Google's OS by then?