Ilona's World

One of my poems appeared in a charity anthology, Wolf Warriors 4.: Wolves of Light and Darkness.   This is an English-language anthology containing poems and short stories about wolves. The cover image is beautiful. ( Purchase link .)

- One of my poems will soon appear in a charity anthology. (It will be included in an English-language anthology containing poems and short stories about wolves.) - A short short story of mine was accepted and will appear in print, in Spanish, some time next year. (I submitted it in English, then it was translated into Spanish.) - Stay tuned. There will be more. ;)

After a longer break, I started to write again in Spring, 2017.       Since then, I've had two poems published. I've been writing a lot, quite often in English.

The Wild Cats of Piran: Chronicle One is the first part of a series of children's books by Scott Alexander Young , who is also known as the creator of the TV series Max's Midnight Movies . The book includes charming illustrations by Moreno Christe and it is about the adventures of a group of wild cats and their clever, beautiful, and somewhat mysterious leader, Queen Felicia . Her best friends, Dragan and Magyar, all have very different personalities and these cats are able to use magic on certain occasions. They live in a nice seaside town in Slovenia, which is a great place for them, except for when they meet some of their enemies, including local rats and certain local humans. The book is also enjoyable for adults because of the story, the humour and because it is also beautifully written . Unfortunately, the story ends too early and the other parts in the series have not been published yet. The Wild Cats of Piran is highly recommended for cat lovers everywhere.

Extraterrestrial ( Extraterrestre , 2011) is a funny Spanish sci-fi movie by Nacho Vigalondo , who also created one of the most original sci-fi movies of recent years, Timescrimes . In this story, a man and a woman, Julio and Julia, wake up after a one-night stand, just to find that the city has been evacuated because of an alien invasion. Luckily, the imminent danger is a good excuse for Julio to stay with the the beautiful girl a little longer . The situation becomes even more absurd with the arrival of the creepy neighbour, who also did not leave because he was hoping to be able to get closer to the pretty girl. Soon the woman's boyfriend also turns up, and continuously more and more lies are told in order to avoid suspicion. The movie is not about the alien attack ifself, it just shows us a couple of people and their interactions as they get into more and more comic situations . The actors were chosen well. Michelle Jenner (Julia) and Julián Villagrán (Julio) were a perfect ...

2012 was a good year for me in every respects. As for my writing, I became busy writing only towards the end of the year, but it felt great. I had more poems published in English and I also wrote an urban fantasy story , and I managed to submit it to the publisher in time. This also means that I learnt to handle deadlines . I was also learning more about screenwriting and I would really like to learn more about it later. In 2012, I also became brave enough to perform in front of people, so I was reading poetry at the Write Like Bukowski contest and I also did stand up for the first time, in a pub , at a charity event. The latter was a so-called open-mic event. (I'd like to do this again some time.) I also made lots of new friends and got a lot of new ideas that still need to be put on paper. The year 2012 was a better one for me than the ones before, and I was able to start the next one as an optimist .

Transfer (2010) is an exciting, romantic and thought-provoking German sci-fi drama , directed by Damir Lukacevic . The story reminds you of Freejack at the beginning, but it is different in many ways. In this story, t he mysterious Menzana Corporation offers the possibility for old rich people to transfer their personalities into the bodies of young and beautiful Africans who need the money to support their families and who accept that they can only use their own bodies for four hours each night . A German couple in their 70s, Anna and Hermann , have doubts about the procedure at first, but after Anna becomes terminally ill, they end up taking this path. The young Africans whose bodies they get, Apolain and Sarah, both accept their fate at the beginning, but the first pregnancy gradually changes the situation and both couples want the baby for themselves. In addition to this, Anna starts to suffer from the feeling of guilt for ruining these young people's lives. The acting is gr...

Title: The White Death and Other Ghastly Ghost Stories Author: Debbie Kuhn Genre(s) / Subgenre(s):  speculative fiction / dark fantasy, horror Copyright: October 17, 2012 Formats: electronic: Kindle edition Rating: 10 URL: at Amazon Those who like good horror fiction should certainly become familiar with Debbie Kuhn 's work, even though she writes in several genres. The White Death is a collection which includes ten dark tales and it is definitely worth reading. Whether they are humans or ghosts, the main characters are all motivated by basic human fears and desires , and this makes it very easy for the reader to care about them. No matter how scary the story is, you will want to know what is going to happen to them. The ghosts are not always the evil, vengeful ghosts of the typical B movies either. Some just want company, others warn you of imminent danger, and one simply just stays until she can finish her memoirs that she writes using other people's bodies. Al...

Title: Seriously...I'm Kidding Author:  Ellen Degeneres Category: Humor Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (Hachette Book Group) Copyright: June 2011 Formats: paperback, hardcover, electronic, audio Rating: 7 Seriously...I'm Kidding is the latest book by the much loved stand-up comedian and talk show host, Ellen Degeneres. This book is a collection of random thoughts and ideas and it includes stories both from everyday life and from the life of a celebrity. There are a lot of really quotable lines in it about success, beauty, marriage, manners , politiness, and some even about gift-giving. The author also keeps giving advice to the readers on all these issues. It seems she has become both a great comedian and a fine motivational speaker. However, at places I felt that the text was far too simplistic for my liking . I suppose this is because the book was written for a talk show audience. English-learners might find this a great advantage. This book is reco...

Title: Slights Author: Kaaron Warren Genre / Subgenre: Horror/ psychological Publisher: Angry Robot Copyright: July 1, 2009 Formats: paperback , electronic (Kindle Edition) Rating: 9 Slights is a very strong debut novel by Australian writer, Kaaron Warren . It is a creepy, highly distubing and excellent horror novel which was awarded the Ditmar Award and the Shadows Award for Best Fiction. The main character, a young girl called Stevie, has a near-death experience, and when she comes back she remembers that she was in a dark room full of people. Everyone she ever pissed off was there and these people were torturing her. Later her main goal becomes finding out if this is really the place where everyone must go one day. The girl who had a troubled childhood gradually becomes obsessed with death, becomes suicidal, then starts to kill others in order to find the answers . The book is a very well-written piece, it really manages to draw the reader in , but it is too gloomy, too depre...

The Best Planet in the World appeared in the Spring 2012 issue of the magazine. Illumen is a print magazine of speculative poetry, published biannually by Sam's Dot Publishing . It contains poetry, illustrations, articles and reviews. The featured poet for this issue is Marge Simon and the cover art is by Joshua Gage. You can order a copy via the publisher's bookstore .

Yesterday, I visited the International Book Festival at Millenearis in Budapest. The festival is big enough to be held in several huge buildings, and in the park in front of them. Nowadays, it is quite commonplace to say that 'people have given up on reading completely'. There might be times when you even start to believe this, but this is obviously an over-generalization. I saw huge crowds at Millenearis wanting to buy books, and people who were queueing to get signatures from the authors who were present. So there is still hope. I also saw some ebook readers on sale and there were also a few publishers who started selling the electronic versions of some their books. This is a huge development here. I guess we will see much more of this later. Not much of the contemporary genre writing gets published in Hungarian, but there are now also some big developments on this field, too. Even those who only read books in their mother-tongue can now buy some new and intriguing specu...

Blind Faith (2007) is a dsytopian novel and it is also dealing with a great variety of issues that are of interest to today’s reader. The book was written by the brilliant comedy writer and stand up comedian, Ben Elton, who is also the author of The Thin Blue Line and Black Adder . In this didactic but very well-written book he is sharing his views with us on consumer society, trends in the media, in the world of community websites etc , while also telling a great story set in a near future England. Elton has always been a very good observer of the typical, the suprising, and the alaming and presented his observations in a funny and thought-provoking way. Blind Faith is definitly one of his most serious works. In this book, he describes a world where it is compulsory to share all details of your life online, even the smallest and the most intimate details have to be shown on photos and videos. Citizens of this state live their lives in front of webcams and are obliged to show...

My poem, The Fairy's Granddaughter has appeared in the special fantasy issue of Tales of The Talisman magazine (Volume 7, Issue 3). I am very proud of this one. It is great to see something that I wrote in a magazine with such an awesome cover and which has contributors such as Carol Hightshoe, Simon Bleaken, F. T. McKinstry, Jim Chandler and  David C. Kopaska-Merkel and is edited by David Lee Summers. You can get a copy of it at Amazon . Product details:     Paperback: 100 pages     Publisher: Hadrosaur Productions (January 31, 2012)     Language: English     ISBN-10: 1885093616,  ISBN-13: 978-1885093615     Price:     $8.00

  Title: Casting Shadows Author: J. Kelley Anderson Genre(s) / Subgenre(s):  Fantasy/ Urban Fantasy Publisher: World Castle Publishing (January 31, 2012) Formats: paperback (232 pages) or electronic (Kindle Edition) I’ve always liked stories that are a bit different from the average. Casting Shadows by J. Kelley Anderson is definitely a book that tells a story like that. At the beginning, the main character Edward performs a magic ritual in a cemetery to summon an undead servant. He only does this because he is under a spell and a demon is trying to influence his deeds. However, the new servant, Vincent  will not be the merciless evil being that one could expect. He will be more like a friend, who always has Edward’s best interests at heart, but he also has his own will and his own views about things. He does his best to protect him from himself and from the evil forces that are at work in the ususally quiet little town of Hurst, Ohio.  A very powerful ...

Timecrimes ( Los cronocrímene s, 2007) is a quite original Spanish sci-fi movie by Nacho Vigalondo. At the beginning of the movie, the main character Hector, who has just moved to the countryside with his wife, notices, via using his binoculars, a woman getting naked somewhere nearby. As soon as his wife leaves the house, he goes for a walk, looking for the naked beauty. However, a man with bandages on his head attacks him and chases him through the woods. Hector takes refuge at a nearby science lab, and he unwillingly becomes the subject of a time-travel experiment. Apart from a few less logical scenes, this is quite an exciting movie, which has aquired international success.   There is going to be an American remake of Timecrimes, in all probability by David Cronenberg. The multiple award winnning movie was written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo, whose latest  sci-fi movie, Extraterrestrial (Extraterrestre, 2011), is about a couple witnessing an alien invasion. I w...

In 2011: - I restarted my English blog, - blogging in Hungarian, - reading & reviewing, - more SF poems published (One in Aoife's Kiss and one in SOTN.) - started tweeting, - got some more poems accepted, - wrote a short story,  - and got a lot of story ideas for later use. Plans for 2012: More writing and more reviewing. Improving my German. Hopefully, some travelling, too. There are going to be much more blog posts here about books, movies, etc. As for my writing, I have much more story ideas now, than ever before.

Title: Cinderella's Secret Diary (Book 1: Lost) Author: Ron Vitale Genre(s) / Subgenre(s): speculative fiction / dark fantasy/ YA Copyright: August, 2011 Formats: ebook (Kindle Edition), Paperback Ron Vitale's novel about Cinderella is a young adult gothic version of the well-known fairy-tale. At the beginning of the story the main character is a typical naive young girl , to such an extent that she is also a bit irritating at times, but soon she has to learn a bit more about life. Her marriage with the prince is not a very good one, and the queen is a frightening mother-in-law. The kingdom, which turns out to be England during the Napoleonic wars, is in great danger. Cinderella has lessons to learn about people, politics and love, while dark forces are also at work. As she gradually becomes a stronger, more mature and a much more independent woman , the story is also becoming darker and darker. This is a novel about growing up, and also about magic, adventures, wi...

I have recently spent some time exploring the archives of Lightspeed Magazine, which is an excellent magazine of speculative fiction and it also includes podcasted stories. I decided to share my best of list with you . (URLs added. All of this is free content.). Check these out if you still haven't. These short stories will give you a very nice outlook on contemporary speculative-fiction literature. The selection is completely arbitrary and only reflects my personal taste. I only selected stories that give the reader something different form the classic (hard) sci-fi themes, as I like my sci-fi new and fresh. These are the best 15 stories that I have found at the Lightspeed website : - Transcript of Interaction Between Astronaut Mike Scudderman and the OnStar Hands-Free A.I. Crash Advisor by Grady Hendrix A hilarious story about the sci-fi clichés about landing on alien planets and also about the extiction of humanity. It is worth listening to the audio (12:46 minutes), th...

Smaller Than Most is a short collection of flash fiction, with some very bizarre and surreal sci-fi and fantasy stories by a very talented author, Kristine Ong Muslim .  You can download the ebook from the Smashwords website .