Out On Top

Bob’s Books: Out On Top by: Steve Morris

There are books and then there are books.  If you look on any “bestseller” list in the world you’ll usually find books that were published by some huge publisher with an enormous advertising budget written by (or ghost written for) some celebrity.  But the people just reading these books are missing out.  There are some really incredible books out there written by fantastically talented writers who don’t get much notice.  Well today I’m going to do what I can by telling you about a book by one of my favorite authors!

Out On Top is a book of short stories by author Steve Morris.  He has published two other books full of short stories called In All Probability and Jumble Tales.  Steve’s stories always seemed to have some kind of twist to the ending.  I loved reading his stuff!  Now with Out On Top the stories have good endings.  Don’t get me wrong, there are still some dark themes here, but the main characters in these stories always come Out On Top in the end. 

Though the stories may have good endings, they aren’t your typical “feel good” type of thing.  The stories range from a man who can see into other people’s past and know their dark secrets, to another man who has stalked a girl he had feelings for decades before in high school and plans a “surprise” meeting with her, to a story about a two headed puppy.  I have two favorite stories in the book, the story about the two headed puppy called Better Than One (The puppy’s heads were named Holmes and Watson.  *chuckle*).  The puppy story needs to be read and not described.  My second favorite story though, is called Score To Settle. 

Score To Settle is a story about a lower league English Soccer player who is in the late stages of his career.  Sadly, his wife had cheated with another soccer player who is also in the late stages of his career.  During a match where the two teams play, the man decides to get physical revenge on the other man who had cheated with his wife.  He’s looking to take this guy out and more than likely end his walking around.  A very good story with tension right up to what happens at the end.  Does it have a good ending?  Of course it does!  The main character comes Out On Top, but in a way I hadn’t seen coming.  It was a fantastic story that really made me smile.  It ranks as one of the best sports stories I’ve ever read.

     All the stories in Out On Top were well written and once you start reading one, you want to see it to the end to find out what happens.  Even after finishing one story, I was anxious to start the next one.  Steve has a writing style that almost seems musical to me.  He does such a great job describing everything in his stories.

Now would be a good time to put up an excerpt one story to get you interested.  Instead, I think I’ll post the link to the Bob’s Books episode and you can listen to me read an excerpt from Score To Settle.  Once you’re hooked, pick the book up yourself to find out what happens!

When you're ready to help support this great author, follow the link below and order a copy of this great book!  (Click and paste if you have to!  Sometimes Blogger wants to be troublesome.  *chuckle*)

http://www.amazon.com/Out-Top-Collection-Upbeat-Stories-ebook/dp/B00IQ8PF44/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398048668&sr=8-1&keywords=steve+Morris+out+on+top

Making English Football

Making English Football

A couple of my last blog posts were about working my way through a season of video game English football with a team from Liverpool, England.  I guess people were interested in my little career!  *chuckle*  Well making a few transfer moves and working my way through the season was fun, even though I don't think I even really made it half way through the season.  But now I've decided that instead of using Liverpool, I would create my own English football team and see how I could do with them.  Now to do this, I had to create everything from the ground up!  I found the stadium type I wanted the team to play in, created the uniforms and all the players for the team, and then even put them into a league to start the season.  I did have to remove a real team to insert my created team, but to be honest I can't even remember what team I replaced!  Shows how much I really know about soccer.  *chuckle*  But I'm learning fast!

Now...English football teams aren't like American sports teams.  Sponsors put their names and sometimes logos or designs on the English football team uniforms.  Seeing this, and realizing I could have my own sponsor, I decided to ask a friend who is a very successful romance author if I could use her as a sponsor.  She didn't have to do anything but give me her permission.  After she said yes, I put part of a book by author Sable Hunter on my team's uniforms!  And personally, I think they look great! I decided to have the team play out of "West London" because it's an English Football team, and the video game recognizes (Sorry, "recognizes" for my English friends!) the city name of London and will use it during some of the commentary.

I hadn't played the game for a while, but have returned to it and want to see at least one season through!  I started the team out in the NPower league and my goal for the season is to gain promotion to the next league!  Now keep in mind, I didn't design a bunch of super powered players for this team.  These are average players.  There are some pretty good guys, but they aren't "top of the league" type players.  Just working class guys!  I did manage to buy myself some game capture equipment and can actually now post a few of my highlights from matches on Youtube or Facebook!  This does take not only playing the game, but a lot of editing work, too!  *chuckle*  Now before you watch some highlights from the first game, let me tell you about two of the players:

My two favorite strikers are Robert Wacaster (ME!) and another friend, author Steve Morris.  Neither player looks anything at all like the real us.  *chuckle*  (And I'm actually a bit older than 19, the age of the player who shares my name!)  So when you see Steve scoring a couple goals, keep in mind he's a real writer and has some spectacular books out for purchase! Ok then, here are the highlights from our first match!

Yes, we're the boys in purple!  And so I'm going to continue playing through the season with Sable's boys!  I've played through a couple other matches so far, but haven't captured any of the highlights from them.  I'll get to doing that again soon, though!  So keep a watch and help support Sable's boys!  Oh, and go and buy a copy of books by Sable Hunter (Fantastic romance books), Steve Morris (Incredible short stories, and a really well written book about what happens when all the electronic stuff fails, Playing Havoc!), or Robert Wacaster (Romance stories, humorous Las Vegas casino stories, and even a dark book or two!) from Amazon.com, or where ever you can find them!