LATEST NEWS
from the word mines...
I've been shooting my mouth off again. (What a peculiar figure of speech that is. Makes me imagine a pair of lips flying off into the middle distance.)
I've been on CM Lowry's esteemed podcast, THIS BOOK I READ, in each episode of which a guest author talks about a book which has stuck with them for a long period of time.
My chosen book was Jerome K. Jerome's THREE MEN IN A BOAT, and if you think this was an excuse for me to talk about my own THREE MEN IN ORBIT, well, you're only partly right. Because it's no less than the truth that Jerome's book has delighted me, from when I first read it as a pre-teen, to the most recent re-read (in preparation for the podcast).
More -- much more -- in the episode, which you can listen to here:
https://beyondcataclysm.co.uk/podcast/three-men-in-a-boat-with-sandra-bond/
Now, Beyond Cataclysm are also bookdealers whom I can highly recommend, and following the recording, they came up with an idea so good that I'm cross with myself for not having it:
They're selling THREE MEN IN ORBIT in a nice little bundle along with a copy of THREE MEN IN A BOAT.
Of course, ORBIT is quite readable (and funny) without any knowledge of BOAT (I have this on authority from people who've read one but not the other); but you'll find more to appreciate in my homage if you are also familiar with the original.
So check out their deal here:
https://beyondcataclysm.co.uk/product/three-men-in-orbit/
In other news, I can now reveal that the title of my second poetry collection -- to come out toward the end of 2025 -- is THE GOBLIN MUSE. More on that soon! Likewise, more soon on my next novel, which I'm hoping will appear in 2026...
Writing is a disease
There is no known cure
Welcome to my website. There are many websites like it, but this one is mine. I am a writer.
My name is Sandra Bond. I'm the author of the novels THE PSYCHOPATH CLUB (in which a teenage wannabee serial killer, marooned in a tiny and cold town in the US Midwest, finds himself slipping between alternate universes, and visited by an enigmatic supernatural creature he names Horsehead), and THE DEVIL'S FINGER (in which an outspoken feminist comedian, her overworked PA, and her dope-addled ex-husband find themselves tangled up with a standing stone and a rather nervous shapeshifter).
I'm also a poet. I may regularly be found at live poetry events online, or around my home in the Midlands of England. My first collection of verse, POETRY SLUM, contains (as well as the title poem) five ballades, nods to poets as diverse as Wendy Cope, John Cooper Clarke, Emily Dickinson and Gil Scott-Heron, an explanation of why people prefer hamburgers to poetry, and one lone sestina.
All of these may be found on Amazon; or if you prefer to deal direct with the author, you can buy them direct from this site.
If you want to sample my wares before you plunge, you can also find here a short that's exclusive to this website -- "The Happiest Meal". You'll also find a few poems to lure you, including once again a couple not published anywhere other than my website.
​PREVIOUS NEWS BULLETINS
JULY 2024: Just three weeks to go before the launch of THREE MEN IN ORBIT -- available from August 2024 from Amazon or from me, and being formally launched at the World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow --and I'm now able to reveal the cover. Drawn especially by the celebrated zine and comix artist, Dan Steffan, I am overjoyed at the way in which he's covered so many of the themes of the book.
My aim in writing it -- other than to entertain -- has been to combine the peerless humour of Jerome K. Jerome, not only with the entertaining genre which is steampunk at its best, but with some more up-to-date themes of modern social issues and problems. Viewing them (so to speak) backward through a telescope has proved interesting to write, and I hope they'll be equally interesting to read.
JUNE 2024: "It is a most singular thing to relate, but everything that you are about to read -- the story of our trip to the Moon in a bathysphere, the story of how the bank was robbed at Oakapple Orbital, the story of how Selene City came within an ace of utter destruction -- occurred solely because Harris craved hot coffee."
STEAMPUNK SUFFRAGETTES IN SPACE! August 2024 will see the publication of my third novel, THREE MEN IN ORBIT. The trio of cheerful but accident-prone protagonists from Jerome K. Jerome's classic THREE MEN IN A BOAT decide, in an alternate Edwardian universe, to take a holiday in space. There, they promptly become entangled with a bank robbery, a party of women campaigning for universal suffrage, and a crew of shady fraudsters. They also discover (the hard way) that none of them are any good whatsoever at steering an anti-gravity sphere by use of a sextant. Watch for further revelations on the run-up to publication!
