Writing Update July 2017

by | Leave a comment

It’s hard to write and edit when the sun is shining (and maybe we shouldn’t).  Having enjoyed the experience of my first photography exhibition Lost in the Graveyards of Ireland, it’s back to writing.  Working on a teleplay with a friend of mine (working title: Peter Saint) and trying to finish off a new poetry collection (more on that later this month).

Guner Zoon (adult comedy sci-fi novel) is in the proof reading stage, and as you may know Murder on the Alpha Centauri Express is out in print and eBook (reviews welcomed).  It’s the planning stage for what novel/book to do next, plenty of options in my Ideas file, so watch this space and thanks for your readership.

Steve  

Photography Exhibition Details

by | Leave a comment

LOST IN THE GRAVEYARDS OF IRELAND

Novelist and Historian Steve Downes presents his first exhibition of photography, Lost in the Graveyards of Ireland, open to the public in Edenderry Library for the month of July 2017.  For the last four years Steve and his wife Niamh have travelled the length and breadth of Ireland visiting historical sites which have been abandoned or neglected, documenting them for future generations.

Many of these lost sites are old churches and graveyards and Steve soon began to record the iconography, architecture and epitaphs of the gravestones and monuments.  From Pyramids in Laois, Cork and Wexford to the touching words of a grieving father in the 19th Century, Steve and his wife have rediscovered much that was lost or is being lost.

Steve Downes has amassed over 30,000 historical photographs and this exhibition is just a fraction of his collection.  The graveyards and stones are a vital heritage source for all the people of Ireland and Steve will continue to battle weather, nettles and ghosts (if he ever meets one) to document these fading jewels of Ireland’s Gregorian and Victorian past.

Lost in the Graveyards of Ireland features thirty framed, signed and dated pictures from all over Ireland (including several from sites in Offaly and nearby counties) and will be open to visitors in Edenderry Library during all normal library hours.

The Launch of the exhibition is on the 5th of July 7pm, where Steve will give a short talk, and all are welcome.

Poster #1

Writing Update May 2017

by | Leave a comment
 
First of all, many thanks to everyone involved in getting Murder on the Alpha Centauri Express out in print and eBook on Amazon, hope you enjoy the story and reviews are very welcomed.
 
 
My sci-fi adventure/comedy Novel The Deaths of Guner Zoon is finished and in editing at the moment, more on that later in the year, right now I’m working on short stories and a children’s book for Xmas 2017 called Gross Gary and the Slug and Slime Pie (should be fun). Also watch out for details of my first photography exhibition, Lost in the Graveyards of Ireland.
Happy reading
 
Steve

What’s it all about

by | Leave a comment

Murder on the Alpha Centauri Express

BookCover#2 kindle

By Steve Downes

Thomas Wozinak is a Lower, one of tens of billions of humans who have been designated as unfit to live among the Highers of planet Earth, now a planet reserved for the upper class of society.   Thomas is one of the lucky Lowers, he has become a police detective and can live on the surface of the Earth, but, after a failed case against a high ranking family, he has found himself sent on a meaningless babysitting job with an alien ambassador.  His career is in tatters and his bitterness against the Highers is eating away at him.

The Alpha Centauri Express is Earth’s oldest False Time Drive ship, allowing it to instantly travel across the known galaxy while passengers experience a set amount of perceived time, its expense and luxury is legendary.  Thomas finds, that like the passengers he is about to travel with, the ship itself is built on reputation and deceptions.  Thomas meets the ambassador, a representative of the Galaxy’s most powerful and mysterious Race, Ketteridge was once the head of an interplanetary homicide force. The two of them have an immediate bond, both outsiders looking in on a stratified and stagnant culture.

Their fellow passengers on the Express are a strange mix; two Higher women travelling alone, a powerful colonial politician with a suspect past, a roving alien reporter on the trail of a con-artist, a rock superstar who was murdered and reanimated as a cyborg and his slimy agent.  Also on-board is Milford Steadway (aka Gos Feen) secretly a half-alien assassin known for his violence.  When Steadway is found by a crewman in his staterooms bludgeoned to death, Thomas and Ketteridge take it upon themselves to try and solve the murder.  Their investigation is complicated by the web of previous relationships between fellow passengers, including the pervious murder of Jos J. Jones, the galaxy’s most famous rockstar.  They only have limited time to find the killer(s) before they arrive at Alpha Centauri and the killer(s) can walk away free, having committed the crime outside of any planetary jurisdiction.

Thomas and Ketteridge find plots within plots.  They must unravel: revenge, blackmail, greed and a crime of passion to find not one, but two killers.  Add to that, a dangerous and armed crewman on-board, hell-bent on murdering an old enemy and these two very different detectives are in a race against time for the truth, in a Galaxy where justice appears to be only for the rich and powerful.