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Rob

I am here for Friends and Networking

About Me

In the year 2000 I was on the brink of getting my second novel "Harvest Moon" stocked in just about every bookshop in the UK by a leading publisher...but the plug was pulled at the last moment. Now I've stopped being permanently fed up by that and I'm hard at work again writing the third - "Iconostas", set in the year 2087, in a world with no more oil, gas or plastic and a khamsin roaring every April down Knightsbridge, and Russian is the first language. Also deals with the "sex slave" trade as practiced in the highest echelons of "society". Sorry for those of you who...well, just to say that its not an adult entertainment piece of work though.

I was previously represented by one of the world's major literary agents, based in Holland Park, London. While completing "Harvest Moon" I was approached by a second, London-based literary agent. This lady had succeeded in getting the first £1 million advance deal, with EMI, for a poet (the story of that was run on BBCs "Newsnight"). Having already committed myself to the Holland Park agent, I felt left with little alternative than to turn her down. Now we'll never know what might have happened. It was all a bit like winning the lottery and then losing the ticket...

I've had a life-long involvement with music - most recently with Wembley-based band Visible Groove , now under a freelance management agreement with Play Studios, Soho. A 3-track demo will soon be circulated around the industry, and gigs will follow. A video will soon be available too, watch ths site's bulletins for more info... I started playing bass at 14 years of age and guitar at 18. I did a first studio recording session (ICC Studios, Eastbourne) at 17, and started playing the Brighton pub circuit (if you could call it that then) at the same time (does the Alhambra even exist any more?). I did some eighties work with Steve Evans, in Swansea while I was studying for an Egyptology (yes) BA Honours at the University of Wales. Steve subsequently went on to work with stars like Sheena Easton (most recently I think doing a resident show in Las Vegas). I got distracted from music for a few years after that, but re-involved myself some time later. I did a few gigs as bassist on the London pub circuit (Islington, Clerkenwell, Hammersmith) with a pretty unremarkable band but it was good fun to play live again, and there was a recording session in Tooting produced by a member of the former punk band The Vibrators.

I run my own little software consultancy company (formidably populated with a rapidly expanding workforce comprising an accountant and a secretary) which has been doing well for a while and it gives me time to write and compose. I gained an MSc in Computer Science from the University of Wales in 1996.

My Interests

I'd like to meet:

Musicians

My Blog

Harvest Moon - prologue and chapter 1

Prologue Kathy May stopped dead on the sidewalk of East Bay Street, Charleston, South Carolina at around 10 a.m. She clasped the hand of her daughter tightly and instinctively. She could almost feel t...
Posted by on Mon, 29 Oct 2007 16:41:00 GMT

Harvest Moon - chapter fifty-two

Chapter Fifty-Two September 19, 1982 The sound of screeching metal momentarily distracted Sir Edward as the steel framework of his outdoor swimming pool's glass dome sections completed their encapsul...
Posted by on Mon, 22 Oct 2007 06:32:00 GMT

Harvest Moon - chapter fifty-one

Chapter Fifty-One The net curtains were drawn across the window of what only last week had been Cynth's 1st floor Second Street apartment. Beyond the opposite sidewalk the lawns of Garfield Park were ...
Posted by on Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:00:00 GMT

Harvest Moon - chapter fifty

Chapter Fifty 2nd Day, 1.05 P.M. "Will that piping really hold?" asked Adams, standing back from the spot where the thick ten-inch diameter conductor pipe now sprouted from the ground to run along th...
Posted by on Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:37:00 GMT

Harvest Moon - chapter forty-nine

Chapter Forty-Nine "Hey!" called out McKinney from the back of the Sea Stallion. "There's something wrong here! That ain't Stewart Island down there! That's somewhere else!" Schneider turned in his s...
Posted by on Thu, 11 Oct 2007 15:32:00 GMT

Harvest Moon - chapter forty-eight

Chapter Forty-Eight It felt to Schneider as if the winter of 1981 had stretched on without end, past even the first two days of April that each should have allowed him to demarcate the starting line o...
Posted by on Mon, 08 Oct 2007 15:40:00 GMT

Harvest Moon - chapter forty-seven

Chapter Forty-Seven              "These days, Leonid, you seem a great deal more comfortable inside yourself." Gettlin watched the profile of the ...
Posted by on Thu, 04 Oct 2007 15:35:00 GMT

Harvest Moon - chapter forty-six

Chapter Forty-Six RAF Chicksands, Norwich, England January 10, 1982 TOP SECRET Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars Operations Research Technical Manual TM-SW7905.1 Welcome Aboard This publication marks ...
Posted by on Mon, 01 Oct 2007 15:56:00 GMT

Harvest Moon - chapter forty-five

Chapter Forty-Five "I'll turn on the radio," said Rebecca, as she let herself out of her side of the wide double bed. Schneider watched her naked body slip through the late afternoon shadows already b...
Posted by on Thu, 27 Sep 2007 15:26:00 GMT

Harvest Moon - chapter 44

Chapter Forty-Four November 11, 1981              ULTRA's huge twin steel doors began to subside to an all-pervading bass resonance while Schiff ...
Posted by on Mon, 24 Sep 2007 15:42:00 GMT