James Essinger

Writing Fiction is a little pot of gold... "Screenplay" by Syd Field for film, "Writing Fiction" by James Essinger for fiction. It's that simple.' William Osborne, novelist and screenwriter 'Writing Fiction – a user-friendly guide' is a must-read if you want to write stories to a professional standard. It draws on the author's more than thirty years of experience as a professional writer, and on the work and ideas of writers including: - Anthony...

Wacky, outrageous, imaginative, bonkers, Rollercoaster is also really rather fun. Written by James Essinger in 1979 when he was a virgin, it tells the story of how warm-hearted would-be hippie Rod Coaster teams up with illustrious senior policeman Chief Superintendent Pickling Fox-Foetus, who has never made a mistake, to try to thwart a terrorist attack on one of West Germany's most pretentious hotels. After many adventures, Rod finally finds true...

Over 150 years after her death, a widely-used scientific computer program was named "Ada," after Ada Lovelace, the only legitimate daughter of the eighteenth century's version of a rock star, Lord Byron. Why? Because, after computer pioneers such as Alan Turing began to rediscover her, it slowly became apparent that she had been a key but overlooked figure in the invention of the computer. Essinger makes the case that the computer age could have started...

Ten million thalidomide pills had already been produced for distribution in the United States when it was first submitted to the FDA for approval. The morning sickness wonder drug had been approved for sale in Germany, Canada, and the UK, and the drug's distributors assumed that it would be no different in the United States. The answer they received was unexpected and firm: it needed more testing. It later came to light that thalidomide was causing...