brexit Archives - Mark Lord's - Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Science Fiction

One of my favourite podcasts is The Geeks Guide to the Galaxy – it mostly features interviews with Science Fiction and Fantasy authors, or non-fiction authors writing about Geeky subjects – the history of D&D – that kind of thing. I recommend having a listen – if you don’t like it then at least fast forward to the end for the outro credits which encourage the listener to leave good feedback about the podcast and if they have anything bad to say, to say nothing – Tell No One!

It’s a bit of fun and a tongue in cheek way of encouraging listeners to leave reviews on iTunes, but it also illustrates the importance of reviews on social media and websites for today’s content creators. All podcasters want lots of 5 star reviews on iTunes, and all authors want 5 star reviews on Amazon. To such an extent even that some are prepared to cheat and pay for them. Recently Amazon has had to crack down on what amounted to fake reviews.

But why the stress about customer reviews? Well Amazon has created an ecosystem that is really driven by reviews and has encouraged customers to rely on reviews of other customers when making purchase decisions. Many people of course don’t bother leaving a review, so whether Amazon reviews reflect accurately the quality of a product is debatable. But in the world of Amazon, iTunes et al reviews are all important and drive products to the top of search lists and determine whether books get noticed and promoted or not.

So as The Geeks Guide to the Galaxy would say, “If You Liked One of My Books, Write a Review on Amazon – If You Didn’t Like Them, Tell No One”!!!

The last time England withdrew in a big way from the continent of Europe – there was a Civil War!

What am I talking about? Well England’s defeat in the Hundred Year’s War lead pretty much directly to the Wars of Roses. With the UK now split almost evenly on the issue is there a danger of strong divisions appearing again in our society? There are strong emotions on both sides–anger at the result of the referendum and fear of uncertainty over what will happen next? These are dangerous times I feel – we’ve had for the first time popular leaders in the UK stirring up tensions. What’s next? It feels like we’ve taken a massive step back in terms of tolerance and a rational approach to politics and society.

Looking at a map of the referendum results – you can see how further resentment and division will bubble along in the future – the richest city in the UK, London, voted overwhelmingly to leave – but will now suffer because of the economic downturn. Whereas Scotland and even Northern Ireland may leave the union together over this. This is a new civil war – fought through the media, ballot box and via words, rather than with swords and arrows – but it feels like a war nevertheless.