The Front Cover

The Back Cover Blurb

Hello everyone, I'm pleased to bring you the book description for The Super Spud Trilogy.  I'll be uploading the front cover design shortly as well.  Only a few weeks to go until the release!

Genetic engineering has accomplished many things, one of which has been to create the Super Spud! The humble potato elevated to new heights, creating the most flavoursome crisps ever known to humankind! 

But that’s not all…  

A magical transformation occurs to all Super Spud crisps not eaten before their use-by date. They take on a life of their own. And so long as they remain undetected by humans, they enjoy life in their own Super Spud cities, take part in major Super Spud sporting events and even start the odd Super Spud war or two. 

Join Colin, Cougar, Hannibal Vector, Generals Rock, Jock and Strap and all the others in their rollicking adventures. You’ll never look at a packet of crisps in the same way again! 

Fun, quirky and totally original, Michael Diack’s debut is strictly for those who are still big kids at heart. 

The Super Spud Times:January Edition

New Year’s Eve celebrated around the world

Happy New Year to all our readers!  For our main story, this edition takes a look at some of the more unorthodox New Year’s Eve traditions which take place around the Super Spud world.

In cities across Denmark, Super Spuds welcomed in the New Year by jumping off their chairs.  Most Danish Super Spuds jumped for fun, in the hope of banishing bad-spirits; but others did it to compete for the highly lucrative, Medal of Highest Jumper.  This medal is only competed for on New Year’s Eve and is extremely dangerous because of the lethal heights involved.  The medal is awarded to the Super Spud who jumps off the highest chair and survives; however, nine out of ten Super Spuds do not survive a jump from a chair over 70 centimetres in height. The current world record stands at 1.10 metres and is held by General Lars  –  who broke both legs and ruptured all internal organs, but miraculously survived.  This year, 600 Danish Super Spuds died trying to beat the record.  Most of the casualties  –  as usual  –  were the egotistical salt and vinegar flavours trying to impress the female spectators.  General Niels almost survived after jumping 1.11 metres, but unfortunately died in the ambulance to the hospital.

The inhabitants of Mt Ash in Wales took part in a 5 kilometre run around their city to commemorate the achievements of General Guto  –  a legendary steak and spinach flavour who broke all the world running records in the March 2010 Super Spud Olympic games held in Mt Ash.  Due to the incredible distance involved, the race actually begins December 30th and involves the Super Spuds running nearly 10,000 circuit laps of the city.  General Quick won this year’s race in a record time of forty hours and ten minutes.

Across Spain and Mexico, Super Spuds welcomed the New Year by eating 12 grapes, one every chime of their respective town bell.  It is believed this tradition started because of an excess of grapes which needed to be eaten; however, this tradition is highly dangerous as many Super Spuds cannot cope with eating 12 large grapes in quick succession and often choke to death.  Two hundred Super Spuds died this time.  Organizers are considering breaking from tradition and switching to raisins next year to reduce the fatality rate.

Elsewhere, the usual festivities and street parties took place to welcome in 2012. At Mt Thames in London the Super Spuds gathered around Small Ben, the oldest and largest bell tower in the Super Spud world, to see the New Year in.

New television series announced

Following the massive ratings success of I’m a Super Spud, get me out of here, SSTV has announced details of a new TV show for 2012 entitled: Strictly Action-Packed Super Spud Dancing.  The show will see Super Spuds performing epic dance routines each week and flavours competing will include: steak and spinach, blueberry, blackcurrant, menthol mint and duck.  SSTV promises the show will be a spectacle of dance, guns, explosions, drama, romance and murder.

Generals prepare to occupy Mt Creepy

A brave group of generals have volunteered to enter the world’s scariest Super Spud city, Mt Creepy, in the early months of 2012.  The mission has been three months in the planning and only the most courageous generals from around the world have been selected.  Mt Creepy, which was once a prime tourist destination known as Mt Pleasant, is now an eerie, desolated place since the infamous ‘incident’ of March 2011.  General Hard, who is leading the mission, commented: “Mt Pleasant used to be a tourist haven and an economic powerhouse for the local Super Spud government.  The city is located on the banks of a river, and tourists used to flock to the golden sand beaches and long grass reeds.  It was like being on an exotic tropical island, except in England; but then everything changed.  From our intelligence gathered from satellite pictures, one morning in March last year a fog developed and shrouded the city.  The population vanished.  We sent General Max in one month ago with a walkie-talkie, but I’m afraid what he reported is too frightening to repeat.  If I did I fear your readers may never sleep again.  General Max never returned to us, the last we heard were the gunshots and then, I’m ashamed to say, his screams.  The noises we heard then before the battery ran out on the walkie-talkie were…unusual.  Fear not, Operation: Shoot First and Ask Later, will be a resounding success and the city shall once again become a thriving tourist hotspot”.    

          Conspiracy theories concerning what happened during the ‘incident’ are abundant, the most popular one: the fog carried with it a virus, which turned the Super Spuds into zombies.  This paper wishes General Hard and his courageous squad all the best.    

2011 Statistics

The data statistics for 2011 have just been released.  These figures, compiled by tuna flavours, are a valuable insight into the leading cause of Super Spud deaths.  Tuna flavours hope that by assessing the statistics they can hope to reduce Super Spud fatality rates in the future.  Here is the data:

Total Super Spud deaths in 2011: 3,256,133.

Top 10 causes of death:

1.     Humans

2.     Punctures to packaging

3.     Cats/dogs/seagulls

4.     Super Spud Olympics

5.     Super Spud World Wars

6.     Showing-off

7.     Extreme weather events

8.     Evil Super Spuds

9.     Choking on food

10. Slips, trips and falls

Have a safe and enjoyable 2012!

Happy Holidays

Just a quick message to say Happy Christmas to all the readers and wishing you a great 2012. Enjoy your holidays wherever you are.  The book cover for the Super Spud Trilogy is currently being designed, so watch this space for developments in January.  Once the release date is official I shall post that here as well.   

The Super Spud Times: December Edition

Super Spud cities decorate for Christmas

It's that time of the year once again and Super Spuds across the world are decorating their homes and cities in tinsel, silly string, acorns, mistletoe and baubles, hoping to win the coveted Medal of Best Christmas Decoration for their city. This highly esteemed medal grants the inhabitants of the winning city unlimited mince pies for life and a free trip to Lapland. As all Super Spuds are aware, fairy lights and flashing neon signs are banned by the Fifteenth Amendment of the Super Spud Constitution as they attract too much human attention. Mt Pinewood are the initial leaders, after an unorthodox approach decorating the city in a blanket of used human Christmas cards from previous years. The judges, a group of turkey flavours, scored the city highly on creativity.

         On an end note, Super Spuds are warned to watch out for the hazards associated with the colder, winter weather.  Grit and salt supplies are at all time low this winter, after an unsuccessful operation by the generals to steal fresh supplies from the humans. Be careful out there!

Double tragedy strikes Mt Viking, Norway

The 3,000-strong population of Mt Viking was decimated to only double figures yesterday after a polar bear attack and a vicious hailstorm. It is believed the inhabitants of Mt Viking were cooking a reindeer on an open fire, which lured the hungry polar bear into the city. Generals attempted to kill the polar bear by attacking it with pencils, machetes, flamethrowers and nailguns. From CCTV footage, it appears this brave defence only acted to anger the polar bear who then ignored the reindeer meat and went after Super Spuds. Hours after the attack, the Super Spuds were cleaning up the city and burying the dead when a freak hailstorm showered deadly ice pellets down on the city. The remaining Super Spuds were killed by the hail, which punctured their packages and collapsed fragile infrastructure. Super Spuds are warned not to cook meat openly within a city, as it will only suffice to attract wild animals or curious humans. After this deadly event, along with similar weather-related incidents around the world, tuna flavours have now decided to develop an early warning weather system to warn Super Spuds against imminent hailstorms, tornadoes, and flash floods.  This paper has been asked, once again, by the tuna flavours that Super Spuds should not go leaving the safety of their city to chase the end of a rainbow and that there is no pot of gold. Every week at least a dozen inquisitive and gold-seeking Super Spuds are killed due to rainbows.

Sport

It was announced today that the Super Spud Winter Olympics will be held in Mt Ice Cream in Finland early next year. Although this annual event is a less popular attraction than the monthly Super Spud Olympics, the games still prove a worthy challenge for those brave enough to take part and withstand the freezing conditions. All Super Spuds are invited to travel to Mt Ice Cream and compete for the chance to win medals, money and respect. Unlike the normal Olympics, strength and fitness does not necessarily mean victory as the majority of events rely on a Super Spud sliding down ice slopes on their packaging. The smoother the package, the faster the Super Spud will travel. New events this year include: suicide ski jump, bobspud and mince pie curling.

Super Spud cities

Once a Super Spud is able to walk and move their natural survival instinct is to, as quickly as possible, locate and hide forever in the nearest human rubbish tip. 

Why rubbish tips?  Simple: there are hardly any humans around.  One of the three fundamental magic rules states: “If a human sees or hears a Super Spud, that Super Spud shall die instantly”.  So avoiding humans at all cost is always priority number one for a Super Spud.  But even then, nearly every animal in the world also wants to eat them, so you can’t blame a Super Spud for wanting to reach the relative safety of the rubbish tip and its confines.

Super Spuds have been alive now for nearly two years, so almost every rubbish tip in the world has been extensively developed into a Super Spud city.  To the untrained eye, these Super Spud cities just look like a disorganized jumble of, well, rubbish. But search deep within the rubbish and you’ll find networks of streets, rows of houses, stadiums, cinema complexes and, depending on the size of the rubbish tip, even a theme park or water park!  In circumstances where a rubbish tip has used all the available land and the humans have covered it with grass - to make it seem like a natural hill - the Super Spud city is simply built underground and carved out of the compacted rubbish.  Generally though, despite the protection against seagull attacks an underground city provides, Super Spuds prefer an open-plan rubbish tip and the feel of fresh air on their faces.  Defence is always a number one priority in any Super Spud city, as each city regularly faces attacks from seagulls, foxes, evil bands of rogue Brussels sprouts flavours and methane gas explosions.  Most cities are equipped with surface-to-air pencil launchers (SAP) to take down seagulls; and usually there are a large volume of heroic steak and spinach flavours to protect the inhabitants of each city.

The lifespan of a Super Spud outside of a city is roughly three to four hours.  Inside of a city though, they can potentially live forever as the only way a Super Spud can die is through a puncture of its package or being seen by a human.  The picture below is a rubbish tip.  That’s the opinion of any human looking at it, except it’s actually Mt Jago – a Super Spud city with a population of 800 Super Spuds.  Mt Jago is actually quite a dangerous city for a Super Spud to live in, due to the large volume of jagged scrap metal that can easily puncture a Super Spud’s packaging; however, many Super Spuds choose to live there for the year long blue skies and warm temperatures.

As you can see from the picture above, appearances can be deceiving.  Super Spuds are masters of disguise and extremely capable at turning human waste to their advantage.  Next time you pass by a rubbish tip or landfill think about the hundreds of Super Spuds who call it their home, and if you happen to see thousands of seagulls circling overhead, pray that the Super Spuds are able to defend against them!

The Super Spud Times: November Edition

NEWS

General Ganadalf vows not to let evil Brussels sprouts pass

General Ganadalf declared today that he would not let any evil Brussels sprouts walk across the bridge leading into Mount Oasis.  A recently born Super Spud, General Ganadalf appeared in Mt Oasis two days ago and took it upon himself to personally guard the magnificent, narrow bridge leading into the city.  Armed with only a sharpened HB pencil, General Ganadalf shouts every top of the hour the sentence: “You will not pass!” while slamming the rubber end of his pencil down firmly into the bridge.  Inhabitants of Mt Oasis are relieved that a general is now guarding the bridge, after numerous and deadly attacks by bands of marauding Brussels sprouts on the city in recent weeks.

Bonfire night claims many casualties

This year’s bonfire celebrations to remember the legend of General Fawkes were as deadly as ever.  Officially, 400 Super Spuds lost their lives after playing with toffee apples.  As every Super Spud is aware fireworks, sparklers and bonfires are banned by the Tenth Amendment of the Super Spud Constitution because they attract too much unwanted attention from curious humans. Once again, unsupervised Super Spuds foolishly took part in notoriously dangerous toffee apple related games.  This year, however, the biggest mass casualty arose in Mount Rima, when a 100 litre molten cauldron of toffee accidentally fell over at an organized event.  The resulting tidal wave of toffee blistered and drowned 30 Super Spuds.  Super Spuds are once again warned that toffee apple games can be lethal and should be conducted under supervision only by tuna flavours.

Sports

The Mount Haima grand prix was won by Jet – a salt and vinegar flavour – who set a new fastest lap in the process.  The racetrack, uniquely square shaped, is traditionally one of the more boring races on the circuit as it lacks a loop-the-loop or even a crossroads.  Yet the race this time threw up many incidents and dramas.  Jet now leads the driver standings, 2 points ahead of Jenson.

Mount Thames has declared it is ready to host next month’s Super Spud Olympic Games.  New events this year are as follows: holly leaf hurdles, quicksand escape, no blinking stare-off, and one armed chin-ups. Doubts have been raised about the size of Mt Thames and its ability to transport and accommodate the huge influx of Super Spuds expected for the games, but a spokesperson stated they would simply “cram” Super Spuds into the trains and hotel rooms, and anyone who complained would receive a Medal of Being a Whinging Pom.

Obituaries

It is with great sadness that we announce the death of General Bane.  At only the age of three months, General Bane already had 50 Medals of Heroism to his name. Today, this paper is proud to officially announce that a Medal of Absolutely Ridiculous Heroism has posthumously been awarded for his courageous last moments.  Fighting alone against 40 attacking Brussels sprouts flavours and armed only with a drawing pin and a tin foil shield, General Bane defended the besieged hospital with all of his strength and skill.  Holding out until reinforcements arrived, General Bane was then attacked by a seagull and died instantly.