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Losing patience
Not everyone may know this, but I wrote my first four books (Das Obsidianherz, Salzträume, Jenseits des Karussells und Schwingen aus Stein) in English and then translated them into German. Of course, I would have liked them to appear in English, but the way things went is trite and frustrating. The first time I tried to tackle the English-speaking market…
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Sunshine and snow
Today, on my way to work, I drove right into a beautiful sunrise. Blood red sky and bright pink clouds from the heating plant chimney. I would have liked to take a picture. But of course: on other days I’m stuck at every traffic light and could just pull up my mobile phone. Today however: excellently phased traffic lgihts and…
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Annual Three Wise Men tale
Mrs. Melchior: You want to follow a star? A star? Shouldn’t stars be faster than you – on foot? Mr. Melchior: We have camels. Mrs. Melchior: Oh, and they are faster than stars? Hardly. Mr Melchior: This goes beyond your understanding, woman! Mrs. Melchior: Whenever you can’t think of a reasonable answer, this suddenly goes beyond my understanding. Beyond my…
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ADventBLOCKER
“What does Christmas mean?” asked Sven. “Father Christmas is coming” said the father without looking up from his cell phone. “No, Christ is born as a child,” Grandma said. “And which one of them is right, now?” asked Sven. “Then who is Santa?” Marie-Louise asked. She was only a little older than Sven but invariably thought she had to present…
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New Stories
So what’s new? I have done some readings, had a really great time at Feen Con in Bad Godesberg. I was at the FEST of Fantasy. There, too, I read from my stories. The FEST is always quite wonderful. Unfortunately, this year it was a bit rainy. A new book has just been published: an anthology of short stories, called…
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There and … ah … back again
I should be ashamed of myself. You had to go far too long without a blog of mine. I tended to be much more diligent there. But I seem to notice that the days are getting shorter. They used to be 24 hours long, but nowadays they seem to have gone down to some 17 hours per day. I’m lagging…
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(Deutsch) (keine) Feencon
FeenCon is on this weekend. Also this weekend: WetzCon. FeenCon is the annual roleplaying convention in Bad Godesberg, with a renaissance fair in the park, where I always had readings in recent years. It’s a great con. Wetzcon is the official con of the SFCD /, the German Science Fiction Club. I will not manage to visit either of the…
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RPC – Role Play Convention
Of course one should write reports right after an event and not months later. But with my two jobs and quite a few additional obligations this does not always work. I could, of course, quote John Wayne’s “Never apologize, it’s a sign of weakness.” But in fact, I never particularly liked John Wayne, and in any case I find the…
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Podcast Interview
A little more than a week ago, Andrea Diener came for a visit. When you reach my age, you can sometimes utter this dreaded sentence: “I already knew him/her when she they still went to school.” This is precisely and annoyingly true in Andrea’s case. I got to know Andrea shortly before her high school graduation. We were both active…
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Nominated!
The finalists for the Deutscher Phantastik Preis (German Award for Speculative Literature = the German “Hugo”) have been posted. Indirectly, I am among the finalists: I wrote one of the stories in “Exotische Welten” (Susanne & Sean O’Connell [Hg] – O’Connell Press), an anthology of short stories. My story combines steampunk elements with classical poetry. “Im Bilde (=In the picture)”…