An excerpt from one of Mickey's games

Excerpt from my newest novel - CUBEBALL

"Incredible," said Johnnie. His eyes were wide. Filled with awe for Mickey's skills and expectation with how much he could earn from it.
Mickey didn't hear his appreciative manager. He didn't see the small tear that had formed in his kid sister's admiring eye. His gaze remained on Jules. She brushed her hair back on to her shoulders before resting her slender hands on her hips. Her mouth was wide open, breathing in her excitement for what she had just seen. Then her eyes revealed there was more to her feelings than that of an adoring fan. Her gaze began to fill with a stirring hunger. Fate was beginning to move into Mickey's life like an evening moon tide.

Cubeball - Now released in paperback and digital

Cubeball is the snooker game of the future! Using technology, teams of three comprising of the player, the strategist and the comtech, compete in a ‘high stakes’ world game. Viewers are linked via a global media and interactive computer network, making it the biggest gaming event in the world with literally billions of dollars at stake every week. Mickey, a gifted ‘Cubeball’ player is struggling to come to terms with his failed past. He teams up with his estranged sister, and a savant with a unique gift, to compete against the best ‘Cubeball’ teams in the world. The scene is set for a Samson and Goliath battle as the unlikely trio take on the biggest corporations on the planet to win the crown of best in the world.
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To my delight, Hollywood produced a sequel to The Hustler a quarter of a century later - The Colour of Money. I remember waiting for its release to see how it compared with Paul Newman's earlier classic. I wasn't disappointed. Another quarter of a century on, I pay homage to these two classic sports movies with the release of my new novel - CUBEBALL - in 2015.

The game of snooker, pool and billiards loomed large in my life as a young boy growing up in Melbourne. I remember watching The Hustler as a young teenager and idolising the two main characters, Jackie Gleeson and Paul Newman as they battled for supremacy of the pool hall. My new novel - CUBEBALL - pays homage to the sport.

Write drunk, edit sober - Ernest Hemingway

I have at times heeded that advice! I'm not a big drinker, so drunk may be an exaggerated description of my state of mind when creating a first draft. I can say that I try to write my first draft quickly, on paper and with little care for grammatical accuracy. I rarely create on my computer. Technology is a marvel and a tremendous weapon in my writers armoury, but it saps my creative juices dry, if I overly use it. I have spent too many hours editing on a computer to see it as anything more than a check and balance for my developing work of art. So Hemmingway was right. Wear two hats. One is colourful and frayed at the edges from too much sun. I explore the world wearing my creative hat, searching for new places to inspire and nurture my imagination. My second hat is an open cap, worn by many of the newspaper editors of the 1950s, as they rushed to get their final copy to the printers. Remember this advice and you will write novels you care about and believe in and you may even write them quicker!

Writing is like a gym workout

Writing is like a gym workout. Your writing muscle needs to be exercised to get stronger. Write your words as if they are reps. Write paragraphs as if they are the sets of your different words. Remember to practice sets that exercise all the muscles. Sets on character development. Sets on world building. Sets on dialogue. Sets on...well you get the picture. Combine all of these sets so that your pages become the daily workouts. Take that mind set and use your laptop as a machine, like the one at the gym. Exercise steadily and on occasion push the boundaries. Write a little more than you usually do, write about new interests, write on issues that challenge you. At the end of your workout rest, reward and recover. Like the body, your mind needs time to recuperate and rebuild.

Better writing tips

This is very good advice. I have a number of manuscripts that I wrote in the last year and I refuse to send them to publishers before I have carried out a number of reviews/edits. It is true that a writer gets too close to their work, often missing the most obvious errors. But if the work is left for a month or more, you will read it with 'fresh eyes', freed from the natural bias all writers have for their newly written novel.

Looking Back

Autumn is here, my favourite season yet I feel sick to the stomach, stressed and have this nameless dread hanging over me. My body, and in particular my bowels, are fractious. After thirty plus years in education, the last twelve as a principal, retirement is looming, just six weeks away. Retirement is the end of my vocation, the end of meaning, the end of my life as I know it. A great void beckons. No dreams. No hope. Just a hedonistic life - me, me, me. Solitary existence, solitary pursuits. Then the voice of reason takes over. I talk to myself sternly. Stop moaning, Chrissie and do something about it. I enrol in a new Writing course at Box Hill TAFE. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to write a book. This morning I start a journal, an Autumn Journal, for the autumn of my life. I must try to give voice to my fears and where better than my journal. Chrissie Anthony

Encore Career Writers

The aging population are rapidly growing in numbers due to the post-war ‘baby boom’ in the late 1940s and 1950s. This group is looking for new lifestyle opportunities in their retirement. Many are looking for more than retirement. They wish to remain engaged and vital to society. As a result ‘Encore Career’ is finding its way into the vocabulary. Many are choosing writing, which has led to the strong growth in two categories of writers. There are legacy writers (writing a one-off book about their family tree or life) and encore career writers (taking up a career as a writer instead of retiring). Our blog is dedicated to this new category of emerging writers.

Listen to Writers

I attended A.C. Grayling's launch of his latest book. He eloquently communicated difficult ideas in an entertaining way. I left with a new found motivation to write and communicate my own "interpretation of the times we live in." If you want your encore career to be in writing, I do recommend you see as many author book launches as you can, then read their work. A good writers habit incorporates a mix of researching, writing, reading and editing.

Emissary

Do we have an infinite number of lives? Michael Leon’s haunting  novel, EMISSARY, explores the possibility we live in a multiverse made up of infinite universes. 

The novels main protagonist, Vincent, is haunted by strange nightmares about an alien force in his youth. He believes a shadowy, crawling mass is invading his body. Ultimately institutionalised, he recovers, helped by a distant relative, to lead a normal adult life. But a decade later, the nightmarish shadows return, very real and in pursuit of him and his two close friends (Constantine and Ella). But Vincent soon discovers his friends too are not of this earth. They are Odorphins from Titan with the capability to use complex light holographs to pose as humans. Vincent becomes the unwitting pawn in an alien confrontation spanning many universes as he and his friends are pursued across Europe by a dark force – the Entity. Whilst travelling, Constantine and Ella share their tales of Odorphin culture and their ‘voyages’ across universes, all the while preparing Vincent for the looming confrontation.

Odorphins, a more evolved species, possess light webs, allowing them super human capabilities. They can change shape to suit their surrounds – from soaring bird like in the Earth’s skies to swimming fish like in its ocean depths. They also enhance Vincent’s powers to see hidden dimensions, so that the three may face the Entity in a battle that will influence the course of inter-universe travel. They are drawn to Vincent, believing he holds special powers, but he doubts their faith in him. His disbelief changes when he experiences unearthly powers through immersants, developed by Constanine. He travels at the speed of sound then light, exploring the solar system and the moon of Titan, slowly gaining access to the wonders of other dimensions and ultimately gaining a new perception of his place in the cosmos. 

EMISSARY is a poetic novel spanning the romantic cities of Europe, yet only a step removed from the limitless worlds of the multiverse (infinite universes).

"A wonderful blend of physics and poetry." Chrissie Anthony, author of Quiver.

Another take on the multiverse

My readers have developed an interest in some of the theories that have been described in my novel Emissary. It surprises some that the subject of multiverses has been written about in many science fiction novels of the past. For example, the classic 'Tiers series' written by Philip Jose Farmer chronicles the adventures of two men from our world transported through space-time to a cosmos with dimensions and laws different from our own. Separately and together, the two heroes contend against the Lords who rule the separate universes, of which the marvelous many-levelled world of Tiers is the center. Mythological and legendary creatures and characters abound in this series of novels that spans four decades of writing.

Thanks to all my readers!

Thank you to all my readers for your positive feedback! It's very encouraging for a newly published author to finally hear feedback from those who matter - the reader! In answer to the most common question - Yes there will be an update! 

EMISSARY will be available in October 2016. The book touches on some big issues in physics, but don't let that put you off. It's an enjoyable journey around Europe, our solar system and the multiverse.

New findings about Titan

An analysis of gravity and topography data from the Saturnian moon Titan obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft suggests there could be something unexpected about the moon's outer ice shell. The findings, published on Aug. 28, suggest that Titan's ice shell could be rigid, and that relatively small topographic features on the surface could be associated with large ice "roots" extending into the underlying ocean. The study was led by planetary scientists Douglas Hemingway and Francis Nimmo. The researchers were surprised to find a counterintuitive relationship between gravity and topography.

"Normally, if you fly over a mountain, you expect to see an increase in gravity due to the extra mass of the mountain, on Titan, when you fly over a mountain, the gravity gets lower. That's a very odd observation," said Nimmo.

One potential explanation is that each bump in the topography on the surface of Titan is offset by a deeper "root" that is big enough to overwhelm the gravitational effect of the bump on the surface. The root could act like an iceberg extending below the ice shell into the ocean underneath it. In this model, Cassini would detect less gravity wherever there is a big chunk of ice rather than water because ice is less dense than water.

"It's like a big beach ball under the ice sheet pushing up on it, and the only way to keep it submerged is if the ice sheet is strong," said Hemingway. "If large roots under the ice shell are the explanation, this means that Titan's ice shell must have a very thick rigid layer."

If these findings are correct, a thick rigid ice shell makes it very difficult to have ice volcanoes, which some scientists have proposed to explain other features seen on the surface. They also suggest that convection or plate tectonics are not recycling Titan's ice shell, as they do with Earth's geologically active crust.

Is there finally proof that we live in a multiverse?

The first 'hard evidence' that other universes exist has been found by scientists. Cosmologists studying a map of the universe from data gathered by the Planck spacecraft have concluded that it shows anomalies that can only have been caused by the gravitational pull of other universes. The map shows radiation from the Big Bang 13.8billion years ago that is still detectable in the universe - known as cosmic microwave radiation. Scientists had predicted that it should be evenly distributed, but the map shows a stronger concentration in the south half of the sky and a 'cold spot' that cannot be explained by current understanding of physics. Laura Mersini-Houghton, theoretical physicist and Professor Richard Holman, predicted that anomalies in radiation existed and were caused by the pull from other universes in 2005. Now that she has studied the Planck data, Dr Mersini-Houghton believes her hypothesis has been proven. Her findings imply there could be an infinite number of universes outside of our own. She said: 'These anomalies were caused by other universes pulling on our universe as it formed during the Big Bang. 'They are the first hard evidence for the existence of other universes that we have seen. Although some scientists remain sceptical about the theory of other universes, these findings may be a step towards changing views on physics. The European Space Agency, which runs the Planck telescope, said: 'Because precision of Planck’s map is so high, it made it possible to reveal some peculiar unexplained features that may well require new physics to be understood.' Cambridge professor of theoretical physics Malcolm Perry said that the findings could be real evidence of the existence of other universes. While George Efstathiou, professor of astrophysics at the university, told the newspaper: 'Such ideas may sound wacky now, just like the Big Bang theory did three generations ago. But then we got evidence and now it has changed the whole way we think about the universe.

Do we live in a multiverse made up of infinite universes?

My fourth novel EMISSARY deals with the possibility that we live in a multiverse made up of an infinite number of universes. For most of its history, the idea of a multiverse was the domain of science fiction and some rare speculation from physicists. In recent years, though, the idea that our Universe may be just one among many has gained traction in two different areas. The string theorists think it may help explain why, if there are a huge number of possible universes, we ended up in one with the properties we see around us. Meanwhile, cosmologists are realising that inflation, which is the only way we know of to get from the Big Bang to our Universe, necessarily implies the creation of other universes.

I'm returning to Bordeaux in 2016 to write my next novel!

Writing novels is a challenging occupation, so I promise myself regular rewards! Travel is my second love, so for writing five manuscripts in the last decade, I am returning to Europe for the third time. One of my favourite European cities is Bordeaux, so I will be living in that beautiful city for two months, writing my next novel while I explore Bordeaux's many hidden gems. As seasoned travellers have said, "it's better to travel than be a tourist." So, whilst a weekend luxuriating in 5-star opulence is relaxing, it can also be alienating. I prefer to live in a city, as if a local, so that I may feel in touch with the culture of the place. Prior research also provides me greater insights into its history and literature. I'm even studying French, in the hope that I will be able to read Le Figaro over my morning espressos!