Below are the 25 most recent journal entries.

	2012.01.04  22.16 An interesting early interplanetary voyage. Someone recently brought an 1847 pamphlet to my attention: ORRIN LINDSAY'S PLAN OF AERIAL NAVIGATION, WITH A NARRATIVE OF HIS EXPLORATIONS IN THE HIGHER REGIONS OF THE ATMOSPHERE, AND HIS WONDERFUL VOYAGE ROUND THE MOON! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Edited by J. L. RIDDELL, M.D. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Which is basically a "serious scientific paper" about experiments with something that sounds a lot like Cavorite, which pre-dates Wells by 54 years. I've put it on line here. http://www.forgottenfutures.co.uk/lindsay/moon.htm

	2011.12.21  00.12 Season's Greetings My online card is... err... on line here: Version for double-sided printing, fold in two Version for single-sided printing, fold in four Illustration only You will probably want to open these in separate tabs or windows.

	2011.11.01  23.37 Dragonmeet Games These are the games I'm planning to run at Dragonmeet 2011 on November 26th Forgotten Futures XII - Empire of Earth Playtest of a new setting Frog Day Afternoon 2240 AD - With the 450th anniversary of Bastille Day approaching, and the Anglo-Saxon Empire still recovering from its war with Sirius, the government fears that French terrorists will take advantage of perceived weaknesses to make another attempt to revive the "glories" of their long-dead nation. Your mission, should you choose to accept... 4-6 players, 3 hours(ish) Fanfic The Role Playing Game Diana Warrior Princess rules, Playtest Jellystone! The season's premiere of an exciting new action-adventure series: when poachers kill Jellystone Park's mascot and several park rangers, an elite team must be found to replace them. But there may be bigger problems than poachers... 4-6 players, 3 hours(ish) Hope I'll see some of you there

	2011.10.14  23.22 Science Fiction Encyclopaedia on Line in Beta Text The third (web) edition of the Encyclopaedia of Science Fiction (Clute etc.), possibly the most authoritative general-purpose source on SF, went on line in beta text earlier this week. Currently roughly 3.2 out of 4.2 million words are accessible, the rest is being uploaded as it's completed. For example, I'm referenced in a few entries, most notably one about Forgotten Futures, but there isn't an article called "Marcus Rowland" yet, and there are still a lot of articles that haven't yet been updated from the second edition, acting as place-holders for their eventual replacements. http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/ Estimated completion date is the end of next year, but enough is already on line to be VERY useful, and the gaming content has been expanded immensely. At the moment what they mainly need is bug reports; not so much omissions, which are only to be expected at this stage, but things like links that go to the wrong entry, weird behaviour, etc. But before sending anything in. PLEASE read the information on the news page etc. so that you know what the current issues are.

	2011.10.06  22.14 Maps of London Pointed out by Ben Goldacre in his non-medical blog (the other is his Bad Science site which I thoroughly recommend), a very large collection of maps of London of various eras: http://mapco.net/london.htm And a similar collection of maps for Scotland http://maps.nls.uk/index.html

	2011.08.09  20.08 More Victorian SF I've added another Victorian story to my web site. Within an Ace of the End of the World By Robert Barr is another exciting story of the end of the world, this time a man-made disaster. This story will be added to the next release of the FF CD-ROM. This one is heavily illustrated, and is best viewed in a separate browser window.

	2011.07.24  22.14 Farewell NTLworld Over the next few weeks I will be changing my personal ISP; this means, amongst other things, that my current NTLworld email address will no longer work. The address I will be using for most things can be found on this page (Open in a separate window) http://forgottenfutures.co.uk/resume.htm Please note that to deter spambots the mailto link is obfuscated and can only be read if you have javascript enabled. This will eventually mean that the online collection of pages from the Army and Navy Stores Catalogue currently hosted on a Virgin site (see previous entries) will be closed - I'll try to find a home for it on my main site, but this probably means I won't be able to add many more pages.

	2011.06.19  23.33 Consternation Adventures These are the adventures I should be running at Consternation, the RPG etc. convention at New Hall Cambridge on August 19th-21st. Fanfic The Role Playing Game (Diana Warrior Princess rules, Playtest) They Saved Milton Keynes When disaster threatens, the Hacker government calls in a top team of experts to save Britain (and just possibly the world). After all, how hard can it be? Please note - this is the same adventure I ran at Dragonmeet, with some rules modifications, and I've discussed it on Livejournal (and written the fanfic!) - please don't sign up if you know the plot! Forgotten Futures XII - Empire of Earth (Playtest of a new setting) Manifest Destiny 2150 AD - As the Anglo-Saxon Empire expands into space, a group of patriotic Americans decides that it's time to restore the full glory of the Stars and Stripes on another world. As the "Wagon train to the stars" assembles, will the Empire be supportive - or try to ensure that their brave new world never gets off the ground? Forgotten Futures XII - Empire of Earth (Playtest of a new setting) Frog Day Afternoon 2240 AD - With the 450th anniversary of Bastille Day approaching, and the Anglo-Saxon Empire still recovering from its war with Sirius, the government fears that French terrorists will take advantage of perceived weaknesses to make another attempt to revive the "glories" of their long-dead nation. Your mission, should you choose to accept...

	2011.05.08  07.49 Empire of Earth This is a talk I gave at the UK national SF convention this Easter I recommend opening it in a new window or tab since some of the illustrations are fairly big. Empire of Earth Victorian and Edwardian Military SF

	2011.04.19  08.41 Old web site A reminder - If you're seeing this at homepage.ntlworld.com/forgottenfutures/ that site is already badly out of date. I can no longer make changes and it's going to be stuck as it is until Virgin delete it, but for some reason they haven't done so yet. This news is up to date, everything else there is old. For the latest updates see forgottenfutures.com and forgottenfutures.co.uk

	2011.04.01  01.54 Postal prices Just to clarify - postal rates go up on Monday, I'll be making the price changes mentioned in previous posts on Sunday night. To simplify things a little, I haven't set different rates for the Charity CD-ROM for different areas; however, I have raised the minimum postal price to £3 and set a broader range of suggested donations. All proceeds after postage and Paypal fees will be donated to Cancer Research UK.

	2011.03.15  00.26 Postal prices revisited Royal Mail prices will be rising on April 4th. For several years the extra price I've charged for customers overseas (£1.00) has been well below the actual cost of postage. Unfortunately this is now reaching a point where I must either raise prices or reduce the contribution I give to charity. As of April I'll be applying the following charges for postal customers. Forgotten Futures first registration or FF CD-ROM (two mailings) UK - no change Europe - £1.50 (up £0.50) USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, etc. - £2.00 (up £1.00) FF Charity CD-ROM or FF registration renewal (one mailing) UK - no change Europe - £1.00 (no change) USA - £1.50 (up 50p) Please note that none of these charges apply to downloads, which are cheaper for everyone!

	2011.02.24  17.59 Another Charity Games Bundle Drivethru RPG are selling another charity games bundle in aid of Doctors Without Borders and the New Zealand earthquake. I'm not in this one since I don't currently have any products that haven't been included in previous charity bundles, but it's a worthy cause and they're offering $320 worth of games PDFs for a $20 purchase. Last time they raised $178,900.00 - The total for this one is already nearly $11,000! it'd be nice if this time they raised even more, so buy it before the offer ends on February 28th. https://www.drivethrustuff.com Later: Apologies - this is for the Red Cross, not Doctors Without Borders.

	2011.01.10  21.51 Final charity update - Doctors Without Borders I've now sorted out my accounts on the Flatland RPG; after taking off the percentage that goes to e23 and Drivethru RPG I've ended up with just over £50, which I've rounded up to £55. There will be gift aid on that, which ought to take the final total to £68.75. Ignoring gift aid, this takes the total amount raised for Doctors Without Borders from this project to date to £215; this is less than I'd hoped, but not as bad as I'd feared.

	2011.01.06  21.33 Charity Update and US Postal Problems Over the last couple of days I've been sorting out Forgotten Futures payments etc. for the last few months, and working out how much to give to charity. I'm pleased to say that with the help of several purchasers who added extra money for charity I was able to give £110 to Cancer Research UK today. There's an additional gift aid tax refund that goes to the charity on top of that, taking the total to £137.50, and the total amount I've raised for charity from Forgotten Futures registrations, sales at cons, and other odds and ends to £2000.70 (ignoring Gift Aid) as of 7/11/01. It's actually considerably more if you factor in gift aid, stuff I gave to convention auctions, etc. I should sort out the donation I'll be giving to Doctors Without Borders for Flatland RPG purchases over the weekend - probably about another £40 - £50, which was less than I'd hoped, but I won't know until I crunch the numbers. Meanwhile, I've just been reminded that due to heightened security measures all mail to the USA has been flown by cargo plane since the end of November, which is leading to lengthy delays - I normally assume a week to ten days for US customers, at least 2-3 weeks is now more likely. I would really urge customers to go for a download if at all possible, it's cheaper (for you and for me) and a lot faster. It's likely that I will have to raise prices for overseas postal customers in April, the extra I charge lags far behind the prices I'm paying, so please think twice before you order. Any customer who still hasn't received disks sent before Christmas should contact me for download details - given the current situation I'm not able to send replacement disks, since they will just be stuck in the queue.

	2011.01.03  22.46 Tooth and Claw now available as e-text. Jo Walton's novel Tooth and Claw, the source for Forgotten Futures X, is now available as an etext from various sources, most notably Macmillan, at $2.99 An absolute bargain!

	2010.12.28  22.06 Untitled mail Apologies if you just received an untitled email from me via Drivethru RPG, advertising Forgotten Futures XI - due to a problem generally known as being an idiot I fouled up my first attempt to send it, and somehow deleted the title the second time. This is NOT going to be a frequent occurrence - I don't plan to send any more advertising mail until I launch another new product.

	2010.12.28  10.21 Postal Price Rises - April 2011 Postal prices are going to rise again in April, and it's likely that I will finally be forced to raise prices for overseas customers. Prices for UK customers should not change. Please note that any price changes will apply to postal sales only - download prices will remain unchanged. If you're planning to register or re-register, please think about switching to downloads; it's faster, cheaper, and better for the environment.

	2010.12.26  13.46 Army and Navy Stores Catalogue I've obtained a copy of the 1939-40 Army and Navy Stores catalogue, a comprehensive listing of consumer goods available in the UK at the time, and will be scanning selected pages from it and putting them on line as time and web space permit. For now this material is archived at this site: http://www.forgottenfutures1.webspace.virginmedia.com/army_navy/

	2010.12.20  10.50 FF XI On Line Forgotten Futures XI is now on line http://www.forgottenfutures.com/game/ff11/index.htm

	2010.12.20  00.58 Site updates I'm updating my sites in preparation for the upload of Forgotten Futures XI tomorrow. You may notice dead links tonight but I should have FF XI on line by ten or so tomorrow morning. A reminder - I can no longer make changes to my old NTLworld web page - it's going to be stuck as it is until Virgin delete it. For the latest updates see forgottenfutures.com and forgottenfutures.co.uk

	2010.12.12  21.33 Domain move! Rather than mess around with the Virgin site I mentioned in a previous post, I've changed forgottenfutures.co.uk to point to a secondary domain on the web hosting server that currently handles forgottenfutures.com This should now be working properly, apart from some minor tweaks, but if you run into problems the old page is still working - I can't access it to mess it up! http://homepage.ntlworld.com/forgottenfutures Sorry for any inconvenience.

	2010.12.09  23.21 Xmas Card 2010 Here's my Xmas Card for 2010 - this one uses a picture and verse from Cassell's Magazine, December 1887 ( Small image and verse ) The PDF version, which has large and small versions of the image, is here (1.92mb), or you can see just the image here (1.9mb) Open in new tabs!

	2010.12.06  20.28 Opera and the FF CD-ROM If you use a recent version of the Opera web browser and set its "Blocked Content" feature to exclude advertising sites, you may find that some of the FF CD-ROM content, most notably the library of Victorian advertising, will no longer work. The ready-made list of sites I've seen for this blocks them completely, because directory and file names meet the parameters of some of the entries on its black list. There are also many other files with names beginning "ad" that might be affected, but I haven't tried them yet. I'd recommend using a proxy file server instead, since most will only block external sites unless you set them to examine local files. There isn't really much I can do about this without renaming several hundred files - I'm reluctant to do this since so far as I know I'm the only user to come across this problem!

	2010.12.04  22.11 More website problems Something weird has happened to my ntlworld website, which you may have bookmarked as www.forgottenfutures.co.uk - it's still there, but I can't access it via FTP to make changes. It appears that this is a legacy site that isn't very well supported any more (as in I had endless problems when I spoke to technical support about it) and it may not be possible to solve the problem. Since NTLworld are owned by Virgin it turns out that I can have a bigger Virgin site as part of my account. As a temporary measure I'm setting up this account now - it's simply a backup of the ntlworld webpage, but has the advantage that I will at least be able to update it, and I think it may load a bit faster and with fewer problems http://www.forgottenfutures1.webspace.virginmedia.com/ For now forgottenfutures.co.uk points to the old ntlworld site - In the long term I may move it to the hosting site I use for my other sites, which has VERY good technical support, and will avoid problems if I eventually change my ISP. Please note that I will NOT be reading mail sent to the Virgin account associated with this web site, it will bounce automatically.