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News (if there is some, it's rarely good)
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I've completed the next novel, which is set in 1833 in the decaying Russian city of Novgorod the Great, and is a passionate and desperate love-story. (Aye right. No, truly. Aye well - we'll see...). It is now scheduled for publication sometime late in 2009 or early 2010, assuming all interested parties survive Swine Flu and Economic Meltdown. Meanwhile, I busy myself with other stuff - eight different projects are being tried out in my head and on [the computer equivalent of] paper. One novel is complete in draft form; it is very different in style and period from anything else - it is, in fact, contemporary (hush!)... I am half-way through another one of similar persuasion. Thereafter, the year 1742 beckons, and then 1919, and then 1780. | ||
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My mentor, Mr Kininmonth (the elder) ... 
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...politely requests that you leave this site - and the rest of our fragile planet - as tidy as (or tidier than) you found it; but, as in the matters of the rising price of snuff and the declining standard of pickled herring, is resigned to disappointment... Alas! Mr. Kininmonth, you look how I sometimes feel - why? Click here to find out more, if you dare..
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This novel was short-listed for the 2004 Saltire Prize for the First Book of the Year. |
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This tells, for the first and last time, the story of the construction of a railway-line between Garve and Ullapool in the north of Scotland. The hero, Alexander Auchmuty Seth Kininmonth, has dreams of finding personal happiness, fame and fortune on this project. Alas, he finds that the combined forces of a Scottish climate, ignoble finance-capital and an assortment of feuding millennarians conspire against him. Read more ... | |
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| I am delighted to learn from a respected linguist in the Netherlands that an article has been created about me in the Volapük version of Wikipedia: click here to read it... |
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In April 1891, two matters greatly excite the inhabitants of Edinburgh: the decennial Population Census; and the Annual General Meeting of the Edinburgh Society for the Propagation of a Universal Language. The General Secretary of this Society, Mr. Justice, is a militant champion of the highly-popular language "Volapük"; but he is locked in a battle for ascendancy with Dr. Bosman, shameless apologist for "Esperanto". Read more ... | |
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| I was interviewed by the Dundee Courier at the time of publication (May 2008) of this short novel. The full-page spread was printed under the banner headline The Elephant Man... |
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Just outside Dundee, in April 1706, an elephant sighs forlornly, topples over, and drowns in a ditch by the side of the road from Broughty Ferry. Foiling almost all the energetic attempts of the citizenry to make off with large chunks of meat and other elephantine trophies, local surgeon, botanist and anatomist Dr Patrick Blair embarks on a mission to be the first in Britain to dissect an elephant and to complete a pioneering scientific study of the dead animal's internal organs and skeleton. Read more ... | |
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| The original idea for my story about Big Horace and his tie collection came from a stray email from Belgium; now, however, the most excellent Museum of Corporate Neckties in California has adopted Big Horace: their site rewards a visit... We hope for further sponsorship in these straitened times! |
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Take a few minutes to read some of my unpublished stories. They have been accumulating for several decades. Some are well past their use-by date, others should never have had a use-by date in the first place. But - what do I care? - there's space here, so why not?
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Copyrights:
All stories and book extracts appearing on this site © Andrew Drummond 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009. Photos of the author taken by Graham Clark. |
The usual Disclaimers:
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