About this ebook
About the author
After the fantastic wave of apathy at the recent publication of THE SOLARIS SAGA we are grateful for an interview with the astonishing new author Mr Jim Ore.
Interviewer
Good morning Mr Ore, or may I call you Jim?
Mr Ore
Did you bring the cash son?
Interviewer
In my pocket Sir ready to hand over if you say something interesting.
Mr Ore
Then call me what you like son, Jim’ll do, I’ve been called worse I can tell you !
Interviewer
Thank you - Jim.
Jim
You’re the man with the money four eyes, have a seat.
Interviewer
Could we start with a few personal details. Our readers like to know about their authors
Jim
No.
Interviewer
Really, it would help.
Jim
I ain’t interesting son, I bore myself most of the time; there are a few interesting moments, granted. But nothing you could print in your rag.
Interviewer
Just a few basic facts, please, our readers like a mental picture.
Jim
Ok, I’m a three metre tall nymphomaic alien from the planet Buxx and my hobby is sheep rustling using sugar tongs.
Interviewer
Lovely, and what made you write the Saga?
Jim
The hope of money.
Interviewer
I can’t really put that; our readers like to think you write because you have a story to tell or something similarly intellectual and fulfilling.
Jim
OK, seriously, I fell in love with a map. I’ve always liked maps and I’ve always thought there would be just one, and then there it was and I was given it free ! Bloody fantastic ! So I thought I’d write something that might make Frugal laugh to show my gratitude. It’s a jokey bit about William Doors and his wage packet but it was a bit short so I wrote more about them and it sort of growed into the Saga.
Interviewer
You lost me boss.
Jim
Frugal Space View mate, Frugal Space View and all the other stuff they give away, fantastic ! As is all their stuff, they’re going to fall flat on their gobs with the noddy car but the rest is great.
Interviewer
Oh yes, I like all that too, good isn’t it !
Jim
What do you mean good? Bloody fantastic you mean and it’s going to change the world; that’s the thing you see, everything’s changing, ‘we live in interesting times’ the bloke said, and he was right too ! That’s why I write proper SF predicting the future.
Interviewer
I was going to ask about that, you lable it SF for blokes.
Jim
That’s right, or I should say ‘write’ as we’re going on about books.
Interviewer
Yes boss nice one - but SF for Blokes. What’s that all about?
Jim
Well, when you’re publishing you have to pick your genre from the lists they give you - romance, adult fiction, Whodunnits, Whodidtheheroines, etc and you can have Steam Punk and Willie Washing but you can’t have straight SF, it’s lumped in with fantasy and it shouldn’t be. The important thing is SF which is a tool for telling the punters what’s coming down the track to boot them up the backside into the future.
Interviewer
So you’re trying to predict the future then, is that it?
Jim
No, mate not trying, I am. Take this scientist Johnny with the creepy computer voice for instance, he’s just having a little panic about artificial intelligences taking over? Been there, done that, got the tee shirt years back. Ep1 is about life in the Luna base and there’s one little scene about a diagnostic machine getting a bit uppety and making a move for independence which isn’t even noticed by the people all round it. This causes harm to a human being and the machine goes crazy trying to put it right. And all through the series what appears to be one of the heroines is actually a world computer growing fantastically ever more powerful and it’s a central character in the whole story. The crack there is it still worships the main heroine because she’s human. Or in Ep11 there’s a group of intelligent androids who are more than happy to be alive to work the nine to five and like poetry only they can’t tell what’s poetry and what’s a dirty limerick.
Interviewer
So it’s scientific prediction then and you’re not worried about the future?
Jim
Worried, I’m bloody terrified mate ! You read the bits about how I predict Western Civilisation can be brought down with one match or the next financial collapse of the whole world’s economy in a couple of years time and tell me it can’t happen like that - that'll worry that Canadian money chappy and get him off his golf course I can tell you ! But then that’s obvious to everyone but it’s the rapid growth of space flight due to sex in low gravity being very interesting which a lot of people haven’t realised, or why SETI is wasting its time which may be new. It’s all in there chap and loads more.
Interviewer
So what’s the bit about for blokes then?
Jim
Ah well that’s all down to women being very sexiest. They’re taking over the writing market and flooding it with Mumsymush and Ladyporn but all they only ever have is female heroines trying to get blokes, or taking revenge on blokes after they’ve got them and think they’ve been ruined by them. The shelves are full of it so us poor blokes ain’t got a lot to choose from when we're away from the telly, and a bloke only wants good solid adventure with a fair amount of humour and a good dollop of sex thrown in, so there’s a fair bit in those 12 episodes for him to go at I can tell you. There's a couple of sex scenes I have to laugh at every time I read them - and I know what's coming. Tooting Percy’s clarinet may even make a lady laugh, no, probably not.
Interviewer
Well I think I've got enough now to go on Jim, thanks.
Jim
Can you take this Doors bit and stick it in please kid? It will save me a stamp sending it to Frugal and I don't know what their address is anyway - ah, the cash? Ta ! You don’t want a receipt do you?
Interviewer
A pleasure Jim, I’ll put it at the end of the interview.
______________________________
After recent developments in motor vehicles we are grateful for an interview with W. Doors of Majorhard.
Interviewer - Good afternoon Mr Doors, or may I call you William?
Mr Doors - Call me what you fudging like old pal, as long as there's a drink in it for me.
Interviewer - Thank you, Mr Doors, er, William. - How are things ?
Mr Doors - It's not me pal, it's the rest of them bankers, I'm just rolling along sweet like.
Interviewer - With a new development in cars I mean.
Mr Doors - Oh, right! I thought you meant the fudging psychiatrist job. He set my mind at rest thank
heavens. Said I wasn't fudging paranoid at all, that the rest of the world really is against me.
B*st*rds.
Interviewer - Er, Good, good. But what I really meant was what's the latest with the autodriving?
Mr Doors - Oh, right. Forget the trick cyclist bit, just kidding like. Don't put that bit in. No, I'm keeping my hand in, still doing a bit, leaving a bit, just hope the wife don't find out. Ha Ha! No! Don't put that in either. It's them b*st*rds over the road with all their new stuff that's giving us the squits like. B*st*rds. But the driverless car job. We're fudging miles ahead on that one Claude, I can fudging assure you, they ain't going to get a fudging look in there, no way! B*st*rds. Do you know every time they give something away that I could have sold for a fortune they come round here in the firm’s charabanc and moon my kitchen window, b*st*rds.
Interviewer - I haven't heard you were in that area, and I thought they were driving their cars remotely by looking through the cameras in their Nexus phones. Can you give me any details about what you're developing?
Mr Doors - We got past that stage bleedin years back Pancho, and now we're way ahead of them. Had loads of our development fudgers on the roads for ages, rocking and rolling round everywhere. Still 2 bleedin’ probs left but we're confident we can get them ironed out fudging soon.
Interviewer Problems? What, with the cars? What sort of cars?
Mr Doors Yeah Cisco, two problems. One is getting hardware done which always a fudging pain in the backside, trying to find someone who can solder and whistle at the same fudging time. But the software has been a pain in the derrière for years and as soon as we start a new fudging apprentice with a fresh outlook to sort it we'll all be in the fudging clover side of more folding in the wage packets all fudging round. And I can tell you I need xtra the way the Trouble and Strife can find new fudging ways of giving it away. I can't fudging believe it. I go home on the bus every Friday night, she’s waiting at the stop and takes the wage packet off me, keeps most of it, gives me a few million in small change for spending money for the fudging weekend, to get the fudging car washed and so on, and the rest, bleedin’ hell! It's gone by Tuesday and she wants more. Strewth! I thought I had it cracked, the money job like, and bang! Suddenly it's all going. Same for all us fudging working Joes, I suppose.
Interviewer What cars are you talking about? And you were saying about hardware?
Mr Doors - Look, I'll give it to you fudging straight, I do pride myself on plain fudging speaking, it's the doors. Fudging things! Can't get them to fudging open.
Interviewer - Doors? Open? I don't understand. Could you explain?
Mr Doors - Them bankers over the road think they're onto something fudging new with their automatic, driverless, whatever, soft fronted noddy car. But we, me old mate, we’ve had them on every street for ages. Robot driven fudging taxis all over the sodding place. Driven by our tame robots, and fudging working well my fudging opinion.
Interviewer - Really? But I've never noticed, never would have thought . . .
Mr Doors - No. You wouldn't would you? but I can tell you how you can tell ours from the originals,
fudging obvious when you know - If between every job the driver gets out and chain smokes 3
rollups - that's a normal taxi. But if, no matter fudging what, the driver does not move from
behind the fudging steering wheel to open the door for a passenger - no matter what poor
crippled granny is fudging struggling to stay upright, hold her shopping and zimmer frame and
breaking her fudging fingers on the handle trying to get in, that's one of our fudging robot
jobs. We just need to develop legs for it and doors that open so it can fudging get out and
save fudging granny from going *rse over tit like. But the way the wife's spending that ain't
going to be this fudging week.
Interviewer - I think I see, but you also mentioned software?
Mr Doors` - No s*gar Sherlock! Tick and a star for you! The fudging software. Bleedin’ problem is we can't get them to drive with any consideration for other cars on the road. The fudgers act like they're pig fudging ignorant, crowding the car in front, etc.. I sure hope we can give an apprentice a start soon to do some more programming. I'm fudging tired of being tail gated by my own fudging inventions.
Interviewer - Thank you so much Kermi-, sorry, sorry Mr Doors, sorry, sorry, William. Perhaps we can talk again?
Mr Doors - No sweat Pancho – er, did you mention some folding stuff for my back pocket? Don't like to beg, but it's Tuesday and I need sandwich money or I'll be fudging starving by Friday otherwise . . . lovely jubbly. You don’t need a receipt of course?
