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Pricing: The author has little control over this. The publishers offer distribution packages which eventually all my books may go through. When this option is taken, prices increase on 'Lulu'. This allows third party distributors such as Amazon to make a profit and offer discounts. This is why the paperback version of 'Many Shades of Evil', is so expensive from Lulu. The download price is set by the author, thus it is relatively cheap or free if possible. With regards to 'Axe', I do possess some of the first addition books and while they do not look half as grand as the second edition, they were and still are cheaper, or free from myself. The artwork for the second edition was done by Oliver Frey and quite frankly I couldn't have asked for a better quality picture. Back in the 80s when Axe was first released it was extremely difficult to produce a book and equally difficult to put them on bookshelves in shops. Today its a walk in the park to produce books but unless you have a large organisation behind you it will never be financially worth while but there are other benefits. The game 'Axe' a forerunner to 'Time Warrior, made N03 in the charts but the revenue wasn't a fraction of the effort involved. For me the entire project is now a hobby.

The story Shades of Evil was written as part of a story, album and game package. This Album was put together by Derrick Johnson, then sent to myself. I combined lyrics and instrumentals with a narration. I put them on disk to send back to Derrick for him to produce a professional album but it never happened, other commitments led us separate ways. I have recently tried to contact Derrick, sadly to find he is no longer with us. It was questionable what to do with the album but it is an integral part of the Shades of Evil story being intertwined with the preface and prologue. For anyone who likes the story, album, game experience I felt the album should be available.

The first edition of Axe carries a description of the book covers, front or rear, it is as follows:

The front cover symbolises the ruin of Isor, while the rear cover is a typical illustration of fully armoured battledress, which was adopted by the Gresians(Greeshans), many years after the fall of Isor and by other nations around the inauguration of the twenty-fifth king of Carthelion.

In the background stands the Tower of Fable situated on a high winding ridge amid many lofty spires overlooking all the worlds of fantasy. It is the tower of legend and myth whose deep timeless vault contains a Book of Ages, from which this story originates.

I would note that without the help of my wife, Shelagh and brother, Joseph Michael Axe would have never seen the light of day. It's a difficult job putting a book into print. For those budding authors who think a publisher will simply read their work and judge it on its merits, think again. They have to have a pretty good reason to even glance at your manuscript in the first place.

The Speccy version of 'TimeWarrior is on cd. It is the 'Plus D' floppy disk version. If you have a 'Plus D' system instructions are given on how to run it. There are several parts to the game but can be played as a single entity. This would also apply if the .tap files have been transferred to another device.

All the stories in 'Many Shades of Evil' are fictional.

Time Warrior game issues. From the simple perspective of playing the game on the computer it was programmed on there arn't any but converting it to a pc cd did change things. The old pc dos could only handle 8 characters and had problems with spaces thus there were negative effects. The original Amiga Files had more than 8 characters thus on the Amiga they are abbreviated, Time Warrior became Timewarp and the icons became bland because of the inf files. Don't try to load a game before one has been saved, that's to do with spaces. The main problem I found was the dream sequences thus dream 8 animation has been skipped because of the way some accelerator cards couldn't deal with it and the final one which would be encountered on day 29 if you rested every night should be avoided. The last one was not essential thus after 28 days rest in daylight. This doesn't apply to the .adf version. I would add that you do receive help and info in your dreams thus it is well to sleep on a night. The original tiime warrior exe file is still on disk and renamed 'reserve'.