COGNITIVE RESONANCE

2012-01-25T20:21:00.001Z

FIGHTING FIT FOR 2012

Seasoned gym users are feeling more optimistic round about now: the influx of this-year-I'll-do-it new members is abating. Soon the newbies will be mostly gone. Hopefully, that's not you.

(Apologies if you don't care for fitness-related posts. There's a technical reason I don't use topic tags.)

Anyhow, it's well known that gyms take on far more members in January than they can cope with, because some huge percentage (80 or more, I think) will only last a few weeks. So if you're making a new start, be one of the winning twenty percent. Back off from the intensity if it's too much, and concentrate on coordination and technique. That applies to running, lifting weights, or whatever. Smooth action and settling into the training habit will get you there.

I like this book, by someone who knows what he's talking about. (Gentle folk tend to be surprised if they actually look inside military fitness books. There's no macho talk, not from the genuine tough guys.)

As for me, my conditioning training is in my back-garden gym, so there's no overcrowding. Just a need for a tiny motivation and energy boost to get me out of the door and running in the cold and dark. Easy.

2012-01-25T18:56:00.000Z

IN THE MOOD
Actually, not in the mood for SF. Funny how that goes. Picked up a thriller by a writer I'd normally read, and I'm not in the mood for that, either.

See, I'm rewriting and polishing something, which means I care about the language, the taste and rhythm, while a book that's strong on stortytelling but without style somehow trips me up. Luckily, the last book I read was Don Winslow's The Gentlemen's Hour, which scores on all counts, and Amazon should be bringing me another of his books tomorrow. At times like this in the past, I've re-read James Lee Burke books, or the more recent le Carrés.

Interesting how storytelling and poetic language are orthogonal to each other, as we computer types like to say. Interesting also how writing novels affects what you read. Walter Jon Williams has said that he reads hardly any fiction, never mind other people's SF.

Oh, well. What I've been having difficulty reading lately is fantasy. It's all personal taste, and nothing objective. I started a book by a well-regarded writer, got to the part about how magic works in that world, shook my head and put the thing down. I'm not sure whether it's the use of magic or its particular manifestation, but I'm finding it all rather silly. Or is it my angst about the Enlightenment being reversed under a tidal wave of rampant superstition? And it's the second fantasy I've put aside recently.

It's not as if Harry Potter readers think magic is really real; and if they ask JKR, she'll tell them it isn't. Plus, I wrote Paradox and its two sequels knowing full well how much I was pulling fantasy tropes into hard SF.

The latest fantasy books I really enjoyed were those of Scott Lynch and good old Joe Applecrumble, so I know the genre's OK.

So here's a question: is it possible to write fantasy without magic?

Or maybe... here's a secret... this is what's bugging me. I've been told by professionals in the field over the past five years or so that I could make loadsamoney by writing fantasy, and every time I mull over the notion, I go... No. Don't think so.

(OK, I know Bone Song and Black Blood-aka-Dark Blood are called dark fantasy in the US. But renowned bookseller Alan Beatts, of San Francisco's Borderlands Books, once said that Bone Song disproves the urban fantasy tropes: if vampires or equivalents were real, cities would be like Tristopolis, not the ones in urban fantasies. And the setting is really an alternate Earth due to history's taking a different tack several billion years ago - the clue is at the beginning of the second book, inside the Police Commissioner's office.)

Speaking of taste, I confess to never being a fan of Philip K. Dick or Jack Kerouac. More broadly, I realize that books written by people out of their heads on booze or drugs have never worked for me. (Not a pre-judgement: I learned about the people after reading their work.) I read the opposite in the excellent words of either Nanny Ogg or Granny Weatherwax in one of Sir Terry's books, expressing the notion that people who build castles in the air need to have their feet on the ground.

I have read Snuff, and liked it loads.

Well, enough of that. All I need to revitalize my mood is a sandwich and a cup of coffee. [There. Done. It worked.] Tonight's training will be a run, body-weight exercises and weights. Had a good sesh in the dojo last night, and hopefully another one tomorrow.

Keep on truckin'...

2012-01-19T07:18:00.001Z

TRANSMISSION!
My new book, Transmission, is out today! Not only that, but the SFX review links to a picture of my cats, at http://ly.bit.SFXcats

2012-01-18T15:59:00.001Z

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I'm currently being interviewed (in an asynchronous, email-mediated fashion) by Bob Neilson for Albedo One, the Irish SF magazine. I don't know if it's because I know Bob via the McCaffreys, or because of my Irish roots or a matter of sentimental timing, but it's turning into a detailed autobiography. Which reminds me that I should link from here to the various online interviews I've done over the years.

And that reminds me that next month is the 20th anniversary of my first fiction sale. Oh, my giddy aunt...

In honour of which, I've just decided I will make that first story available here on the website for free, along with one other. Does anyone have a preference for the other choice? Let me know via comments or email, please. Anything that appeared before 2010, let's say.

In domestic-trivia news, I watched The Karate Kid last night. I was already an adult when the first version was made, and this is the quarter-century-later remake with Jackie Chan as the Miyagi figure. I enjoyed it far more than expected, surprised by the emotional depth of one scene: JC's mourning his dead family.

I approvingly note something that Steve Barnes picked up on when the movie was first released, but which wouldn't have occurred to me, namely that the kid in question isn't white. Speaking of which, note the lack of white characters in Al Reynolds' Blue Remembered Earth, which I've already recommended, and am happy to do again.

My reading in the past few weeks has been non-SF. Lee Child was an unknown name to a panel audience in last year's Eastercon, but his Jack Reacher thrillers are huge in that genre, with a very compelling impetus to the narratives. There's a current controversy in the casting of Tom Cruise as the physically distinctive protagonist of the books, but as an author, what could one say? Cruise's involvement means that top professionals will be engaged in the making of the movie, so while it might differ from the book they're filming, at least it should be of decent quality.

Poor old Barry Eisler was not well served by the movie of Rain Fall, despite Gary Oldman's presence. Read the John Rain books, ignore the movie.

I'm quite the fan of the excellent, idiosnycratic Don Winslow. The Winter Of Frankie Machine and The Dawn Patrol are terrific, and my favourites of the handful of his books I've read so far. They include Satori, the prequel-by-another-hand to Shibumi - and if you've never heard of it, that may simply mean that you're younger than me. (It was written by the guy who wrote the Eiger Sanction - another mismatch between movie and book.)

Having taken a two-week hiatus from writing - deliberately, to do Computer Stuff - I'm getting back into the swing of things. A couple of days rehashing a book proposal, then back to Resonance, aka Ragnarok book 3.

In other entropy-related news, besides marking two decades of my being a published writer, this year features my 30th wedding anniversary and my 40th stepping-into-a-dojo anniversary. I'm really not sure how to celebrate that last. Maybe run up a mountain (no preliminary travel necessary, now I live in a Welsh valley), meditate under a waterfall, and fight off 100 consecutive attackers with my Zimmer frame. Or curl up with a cup of hot cocoa and watch Enter the Dragon.

May everything you do this year make you a better person. Wax on, wax off...

2011-12-06T01:09:00.000Z

WHO'S BEEN EATING MY PORRIDGE?

NASA confirms a Goldilocks-zone planet around a G-type star. Blimey. Kepler-22b is the first confirmed planet in the right kind of place, though its composition isn't known yet. I'd like to think it marks another decisive shift away from irrational, parochial, we're-the-centre-of-everything thinking. Great news, anyhow.

2011-12-04T01:15:00.000Z

TRUCKIN' ALONG

Been under the weather a little, better over the last few days. A couple of good dojo sessions this week, and tonight's 90-minute strength workout went like this:

Hindu push-ups: 100
Hindu squats: 200
Neck bridge: 120 seconds
KB one-arm snatch: 4 x 10 each hand
KB two-hand swing: 4 x 25
Superset: 4 x (10 x DB bench press; 10 x DB squat)
One-arm DB row: 4 x 10 each hand
Triset: 4 x (25 x ab crunch; 10 x lying DB triceps press; 10 x EZ-curl bar biceps curl)
Triset: 4 x (10 x DB calf raise; 10 x DB wrist curl; 10 x DB reverse wrist curl)
1 x Tabata interval on stationary bike
Stretch

(where KB = kettlebell and DB = dumbbell)

Much better now. Will post intellectually coherent stuff soon, like a long-overdue report on just how stupendously enjoyable Novacon was for me.

Brain. Will. Reintegrate. Soon.

2011-11-26T16:42:00.000Z

ANNE McCAFFREY R.I.P.

Anne McCaffrey was the finest, most accomplished and brightest human being I ever met, or could meet in any universe. She had the biggest heart of all, touching and helping so many people.
      My first memory of Anne: in the elegant bar-with-indoor-swimming-pool of the Novacon hotel in '78, a charismatic, silver-haired vision in a deep-turquoise gown strode into sight; and I asked the nearest person: "Is that Anne McCaffrey?"
      After hearing yes, I said: "I have to meet her."
      By two o'clock in the morning, it was just the two of us in the bar, and I was captivated by her warmth and intellect; and my life was altered forever. Her final gift to me came floating across the decades, when I was guest of honour at Novacon ten days before her death. Our mutual friend Rog Peyton related something Anne told him that weekend in 1978: a message I will carry always.
      To visit Dragonhold (both the second and third incarnations) was to experience a near-mystical air of peacefulness permeating a busy hold filled with people, horses, cats and love.
      And books, of course.
      My debt to Anne is surpassed only by my love and admiration. She touched so many hearts because she employed emotion in her stories; and she accomplished that because she felt for other people: sympathy and empathy beyond imagining.
      Her story The Ship Who Sang was a eulogy to her father. She could never read it without crying.
      Neither, now, can I.
      Bless you and thank you, Anne.

2011-11-09T20:02:00.000Z

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM

Novacon is almost here! I'm heading off tomorrow. My key contributions to the con as guest of honour, besides chatting to absolutely everybody, will be a GoH speech which I'm calling Stuff (as in, I will talk about Stuff, guaranteed), and a Paul McKenna-style workshop-with-a-difference called I Can Make You Write. (It'll just be for a short, entrancing spell...)

Haven't blogged recently, so I haven't mentioned how much fun I had at Bristolcon. Ta loads to Joanne, MEG and Cheryl, and the various friends I met up with, including Steve W, Justina Robson, Martin Sketchley, Michaela, Fluffy Mark, Mike, Jonathan W and Trish Sullivan, who was going to beat me up in the bar, but then took pity.

Next year, I'm Bristolcon's GoH, along with Gareth Powell. But for now, it's Novacon time! (Every attendee gets a chapbook containing a 13000-word novelette called Study In Shadow, written by me.) See you there...

2011-10-03T22:23:00.001Z

BLUE REMEMBERED EARTH

This is a book about humanity: family rivalries, competing corporations and political visions swirling around a major evolutionary jump for our species (and just possibly for elephants). And it is a very human story, nearer to us in time than Al's other novels, with nice extrapolations of cybertech, while retaining his spectacular perspective, and delivering the occasional shiver-inducing touches of SF noir that we've come to expect. The “inevitable” end wasn't what I foresaw, and that's a fine thing: we've two more volumes to come, and a lot more surprises.

Oh, and... no major character is white – possibly no characters are. Blue Remembered Earth expands the genre in gentle, unstoppable ways, like an elephant's nudge.

AND IN OTHER NEWS...

Massive thanks to the Jupiter-sized brains I hung out with last week. It was terrific.

I've just been asked to be Guest of Honour at a 2012 con, which is lovely – more when it's official.

While I'm not a huge TV watcher (sorry, guys!), Spooks is my guilty pleasure, and I'm hoping they end the final series on a high. Looking pretty good so far, but actual happy endings are rare in these stories. And on a really light note, I've just started watching the 4th season of The Big Bang Theory.

2011-09-24T14:49:00.001Z

IT AIN'T OVER

...till the fast neutrino sings (and exits faster than the speed of light - maybe). Taking a look at the CERN paper on the OPERA experiment, it's in the true spirit of discovery and sharing: listing everything they can think of for the world to look at. No bandwagons in sight; more like: "We've only got one explanation for these readings, and it's a nutty one. Anyone got a more mundane explanation?" Occam's Razor is still a handy tool.

From a quick glance, the maths is a little tricky - you don't actually know, when running the experiment, the exact time an individual neutrino starts and ends its journey. In fact, the neutrinos are created en route - the original emitter produces protons that produce pions or kaons (when I was lad, they were called π-mesons and K-mesons), which further decay into a muon (μ-meson) and a neutrino... but you don't know exactly where the neutrino was created. However, you can work out the probability distribution around the most-likely point.

The researchers have detailed the way they timestamp every event using GPS; they've even obtained and reproduced seismic studies showing how the ground might move (the overall distance being greater than 70 km, it's a significant factor).

Interesting stuff, eh?

Next step is to wait for Fermilab and others to reproduce the results - or not. If they do reproduce it, then this may just be some outlying piece of anomalous data that someone will explain in 30 or 50 years time, having noticed other phenomena that we might (or might not) be currently aware of. (Dark matter, anybody? The way galaxies rotate is an 80-year-old mystery.)

Sometimes the implications are only obvious later. For example, Maxwell added a mathematical foundation to Faraday's observations of electromagnetic phenomena (shortly before Faraday died). One of the side-effects of the basic equations is an expression for the propagation speed of an electromagnetic wave that depends only on two measurable properties of space, essentially being the ease of propagating electric and magnetic fields respectively. That's yer special relativity right there, or rather the starting observation that makes the rest inevitable.

Or you might think this is more like the way voltages vary during the photoelectric effect - an unexpected experimental result. In the 19th century, the expected result was that the more light you shine on a photoelectric material, the more electricity you get (the more electrons get kicked out of the material). But the real behaviour depends on the frequency of the light - if the frequency is too low (wrong colour!) then you can shine a massive spotlight on the material, but no electricity will be produced. Hence Einstein's realization that light interacts in a particle-like way, not a wave-like way, in this context. (A photon's energy is proportional to its frequency; if each individual photon has too little energy to create the effect, then it doesn't matter how many photons you have - it still won't happen.)

I just find it interesting that the culprit, of all the types of particle known to exist, turns out to be the neutrino. It's always been hard to pin down - for a long time, it was unclear whether neutrinos even had a rest mass. And now look... I hereby propose that we change its name from neutrino to ninja.

2011-08-28T18:33:00.000Z

COLIN HARVEY 1960-2011

I've only just heard the sad news. Colin was a lovely man, who had talent and perseverance and vast love of writing. He was also a good person. He passed away 12 days ago, but I hadn't realized until now... This isn't much of an obituary because I'm just too upset to write one.

RIP, my friend.

2011-08-27T12:16:00.001Z

EPHEMERAE

The one book on writing that I recommend without hesitation is Stephen King's On Writing. There's another book of the same title, rather older, by George V. Higgins. If you haven't heard of him, that may just be an indication of how old I am... or the types of books you read. He wrote crime thrillers, his first (published in 1972) being made into a movie starring Robert Mitchum. And if you haven't heard of Robert Mitchum, we really are from different generations. But that's part of what I'm talking about.

Except that I've just flicked through the book, which I've not read for, er, about 20 years, and I can't find the passage I was after. Heck. So, some divertissements...

Higgins said this about writers, and it's not entirely comfortable to read:

"Stupid people do not write good fiction. Arrogant, smart people write good fiction. Their arrogance is to demand center stage as the tellers of the stories. Their intelligence is what enables them to conceal that arrogance. If you are a good writer, you are a sneak."

He's more complimentary about readers than writers:

"Never tell your reader what your story is about. Reading is a participatory sport. People do it because they are intelligent and enjoying figuring things out for themselves."

The final paragraph of the book goes: "The secret remains that there is no secret... Those who do [write] can't help themselves. We do it for the hell of it, and those who raise a lot of hell, and then get very lucky, well, we make a living..."

I guess I'm going to have re-read the whole thing slowly. It contains long excerpts followed by discussions, much of it being mid-20th century lit'ry fiction. For a non-US reader, some of them suffer from the same thing as Stephen Jay Gould's Full House and Stephen King's Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon: what I described as "a surfeit of baseball" to one of my American friends.

But perhaps I've misremembered, and the passage I was looking for exists in some entirely different book. The excerpt in question features a telephone conversation between two characters. The non-fiction book's author then names the novel's title and author, and points out that you've probably never heard of them. (I hadn't.)

So what is the passage's distinction? It's the first appearance of a phone conversation in a published novel.

And the point is that no one cares, because putting in a clever leading-edge reference doesn't create a wonderful novel. It's one little sprinkle on the cake.

Robert B. Parker's early novels (which were terrific) often included details of what his characters were wearing. Generally, this is a no-no; but there was always (well, often) something socially telling about the choice of garments. To a young reader now, though, they're just bizarre discriptions of flares and platform shoes.

Writing novels set in the far future, you might avoid this danger. Perhaps an analogue, though, is to make use of some current literary motif in a way that will leave your novel eventually looking dated.

When I went up to Bill Gibson at the '87 Worldcon, I gushed fanboy-wise: "You've revitalized the entire genre! You're brilliant!"

And how dated do the lesser cyberpunk novels look now...?

Leaping further afield still (welcome to my mind), the notion of It From Bit - as I've previously mentioned - arouses my suspicion. Information might be a fundamental aspect of reality - or it might be as misleading as the clockwork universe that was most people's mental extrapolation of Newton's physics. Clocks were the cool, leading edge tech of his day. They became a metaphor for cosmic reality - a metaphor we no longer find exact or rivetting.

In an earlier age, in the Renaissance, the cool thing to have in your home was a map. I've not worked out how that might have affected intellectual worldviews in those days.

Perhaps this is preying on my mind because I've outlined a contemporary, non-SF book in which computer tech needs to be part of the background. Gulp.

On the other hand, the shelf-life of books on real bookstore shelves has been shorter and shorter for decades, so mulling over posterity is even less relevant now than it was. Or on the, er, third hand, ebooks never go out of print, so perhaps that's flipping back to the Old Days.

I remember the Three-Day Week of 1974. Here in Britain, commercial users of electricity - i.e. every business in the country - had power for only three days of every week, which therefore became their new working week. This was due to a massive coal shortage, which at that time was caused by the miners' industrial action... itself a fraught period of our social history.

So however much I like this interweb thingy, the idea of entrusting all my reading material to electronic devices that need a functioning power supply to recharge... Nah. Even though you get a portable library out of it.

2011-08-16T11:54:00.001Z

I AM ENTHUSED!!!

Back from my refreshing stay at Charlie's Diary, I shall attempt to beguile and amaze you with new, insightful posts.

But, er, I haven't done any real work today, apart from some admin. Not my usual routine, but today is a read-through-galley-proofs day. This is the writer's final involvement with their book - after submitting it to the publisher, making changes as suggested by the commissioning editor (these tend to be high level, as in, this part of the books needs to be tightened up, we need to see more of such-and-such, or I don't understand X's motivation for doing Y), then more detailed changes thrown up during the copy-editing stage... after all that, the Word document (standard format for the industry) has gone to the printers and been turned into a QuarkXPress file or similar, the printers have produced a properly set book and printed it on loose-leaf sheets, and that's the galley proof.

So I get to read through it and make corrections. I've identified about 20 corrections in Transmission. The printers have done a superb job, because I've done some tricky stuff. There are 2 digital pictures in the book! And the guys have typeset (if that's still the correct verb) the whole thing exquisitely.

So, the corrections. Half a dozen arise from errors in the file-format translation process: two instances of plain text, between blocks of italics, also rendered in italics. A mathematical subscript that didn't show as a subscript. That kind of thing. A couple of thing's I'd overlooked in my Old Norse words - two words needed to change their spelling, each in 2 or 3 places. One contextual thing - a throwaway remark about a person's dining preferences being slightly inconsistent with an earlier chapter (a one-word change). An infelicitous phrase - repetition from a couple of lines up on the same page, something I'd normally catch earlier, but didn't.

The galleys arrived on Friday, and I went through them in one sitting - if I hadn't, there's no way I'd have spotted that contextual continuity error. Then I decided to go through the whole thing again, slowly. The book's been a long time in gestation, so why rush now when it's the very last chance to get everything right? So I'm about to go through the last bit, then send the corrections off.

I'm working on hardcopy for the first time in the process, and as far as I'm concerned this is vital, because it is the exact look of the printed book. To correct it, I'm using standard proofreading symbols.

So, hint to you not-yet-published writers out there. At some point, maybe when you get your first book contract, learning these symbols will be useful. I refer to the appendix in the Oxford English Dictionary when working on manuscripts/galleys for UK publication, and for the in-text entry in my Webster's Dictionary for US publication. Yes, the symbols are different.

If you're really just starting off, you don't need that yet. Here's a tip: learn to touch type. Anne McCaffrey told me to do just that, and I've been grateful ever since. (Of course not all writers do, probably not even the majority; but those who do, all extol the benefits.)

Anyway, something else that's new for me is that the book contains a bibliography. It's not even complete - I did my homework for this... So, in case you're interested, here it is:

Barnes, M., A New Introduction to Old Norse, Viking Society for Northern Research, University College London, 3rd Edition, 2008
Copeland, B.J. et al., Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park's Codebreaking Computers, Oxford University Press, 2006
Crossley-Holland, K., The Norse Myths, Pantheon Books, 1980
Fairbairn, Capt. W.E., Get Tough!, Paladin Press, 1979 (original pub. 1942)
Fölsing, A., Albert Einstein, Penguin Books, 1998
Hawkins, J., On Intelligence, Holt, 2004
Hodges, A., Alan Turing: the Enigma, Vintage, 1992
Jeffery, K., MI6: The History of the Secret Intelligence Service, Bloomsbury, 2010
Kanigel, R., The Man Who Knew Infinity, Abacus, 1991
Laughlin, R.B., A Different Universe, Basic Books, 2005
Law, M., The Pyjama Game, Aurum, 2007
Navarro, J., What Every Body Is Saying, HarperCollins, 2008
Ornstein, R., The Right Mind, Harcourt Brace, 1997
Page, R.I., Chronicles of the Vikings, The British Museum Press, 1995
Page, R.I., Runes, The British Museum Press, 1987
Parker, A., Seven Deadly Colours, Free Press, 2005
Reid, J.M., The Atomic Nucleus, Penguin Books, 1972
Poundstone, W., Prisoner's Dilemma, Oxford University Press, 1993
Rhodes, R., The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Penguin Books, 1988
Sanmark, A., Sundman, F., The Vikings, Lyxo, 2008
Shirer, William L., The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Arrow Books, 1998
Strogatz, S., SYNC, Hyperion, 2003
Taylor, P.B., Auden, W.H., The Elder Edda, Faber and Faber, 1969
West, N., GCHQ: The Secret Wireless War 1900-86, Coronet, 1987
Yourgrau, P., A World Without Time, Basic Books, 2005

Articles on Telegraphy and on World War II in the 1956 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica were also helpful.

...oh, and... last week, in one immense sitting, I wrote a 10 - 12000 word first draft of a story that (if it stands up to the light of day when I revisit it) will form the contents of the free chapbook that every member of Novacon gets. It's a longstanding tradition that the guest of honour provides a story for the organizers, the Birmingham SF Group, to publish.

(I don't know the story's exact length because, on a whim, I wrote it using pen and paper: over 50 A4 sheets and four pens involved. These modern gel pens don't last long! I started with a part-used pen and used all its ink, went through two brand-new pens, then wrote the last chunk with a ballpoint.)

Sometimes the stories have been a bit throw-away, other times they've been serious pieces of work. I'm predisposed to take it seriously for several reasons, since Novacon 8 in 1978 was one of the pivotal events in my life, and because Birmingham has a special place in my heart. (Yes, I really said that.) The con venue might be Nottingham, but it's still the Brum Group who bring Novacon into existence every year, bless 'em.

2011-08-16T02:05:00.000Z

TECH NOTE:

Just increased the font size on the blog... Better this way? Should I use a black-on-white colour scheme for the posts? Might tweak my stylesheets soon...

2011-07-29T18:56:00.001Z

PICTURE TOUR

I've been posting big essay-style posts over at Charlie Stross's blog. Whew. I do go on, don't I?

Anyway, here on more homely matters, my broken rib is healing nicely. Day off training yesterday, previous day was 60 mins on the exercise bike, 10 mins calisthenics, 10 min shadow kickboxing, 10 mins stretching. Getting there. More importantly, I've slept in bed for the last three nights, instead of upright in the armchair. And no painkillers for a few days, either.

A propos of absolutely bugger all, here's a photo tour of my writing study, where the action is. Here's the shelf with the books I've specifically highlighted in the bibliography at the back of Transmission. My research homework, in other words:

Desk, complete with NASA coffee mug (made in China). This is my writing laptop, and it's the oldest and smallest of my computers. Suits me.

Cluttered bookcases. Clutter generally...

And my attempts at keeping track of a trilogy with a plethora of storylines:

And more...

Plus there's a few other bookcases including this one...

It's the smallest room in the house, too. Literally. (Although not counting the actual brick outhouse, which is luckily a backup feature...)

2011-07-21T17:59:00.001Z

BRUTE FORCE

So I've got some world-building/weird physics/neuropsychology-of-writing posts ready for Charlie's Diary (being the blog of the redoubtable Charlie Stross).

In contrast, I had considered writing another John's Workout Week type of thing here. Unfortunately, the week so far looks like this...

MONDAY: Hindu push-ups x 100; Hindu squats x 200; Neck bridge x 2 mins; Ab crunch x 100; DB Squat 5 x 5 then 5 x 20; DB Bench press 10 x 10; DB One-arm row 10 x 10/arm; 4 x triset(DB Military press x 10; DB Alternating hammer curl x 20; triceps pushdown x 10); stretch.

TUESDAY: dojo

TUESDAY NIGHT: 3 hours sleep on couch while nursing broken rib*, 3 hours sleep much later on, sitting at a dining table, with forehead on table.

WEDNESDAY: whimpering

WEDNESDAY NIGHT: slept in armchair. Strange to wake up from.

THURSDAY: walking on treadmill x 60 minutes, slow karate basics x 20 mins

Oh, well...

* Entirely my fault for upping the ante, going in hard.

2011-07-18T18:49:00.000Z

GIRDING UP

The renowned and redoubtable Charlie Stross is off on his travels - therefore offline. I'm honoured to be guest blogger, along with Karl Schroeder et al, at the fabulous Charlie's Diary. Join me there!

Here's how I'm going to be introduced, I think...

John Meaney is the author of ten SF novels - Paradox, Bone Song and Absorption among them - including one of the Daily Telegraph Books of the Year, and an Independent Publishers Novel of the Year. He has been shortlisted three times for the British Science Fiction Award.

In order to write full time, he lives in exile in a Welsh valley, surrounded by sheep.

His first degree was in physics and computer science, and he is belatedly completing graduate work at Oxford on a (very) part-time basis. His long IT career culminated in working as a trainer, often abroad, combining hard tech with applied psychology and stand-up comedy... making use of his training in hypnosis.

A black belt in shotokan karate and graduate of a world-famous dojo, Meaney has been training in martial arts for nearly four decades, and considers "thug" a compliment.

His heart melts at the sight of a cat, and for a bar of dark chocolate, he is anybody's.

2011-07-07T11:55:00.000Z

THE EMPIRE'S SCIENCE

Just back from 2 days at Imperial College - a little science conference for writers organized by physicist/writer Dave Clements. Nice to hang with Molly Brown (really, despite all the things we say to each other), Pat Cadigan and Chris Fowler, Liz Counihan, Al, Rosanne, and my buddy Jaine Fenn. The lecturers were nice folk too, and much fun was had by all.

I spent the first night running around Hyde Park while the others were boozing, which of course is my idea of fun; the rest of the time it was nice to hang around with friends old, ancient and new...

After last year's event, it is no coincidence that certain pivotal events in Transmission (Ragnarok 2) take place in Imperial... but not until the year 2033.

2011-06-23T09:25:00.001Z

SIGNING TONIGHT

At the Forbidden Planet Megastore in London, 6pm till 7. See you there!

2011-06-15T14:55:00.000Z

WOT'S IN A NAME, INNIT?

Back in the day, one of my regular tasks while working for Big Software House was to accompany the salesman to potential clients for techie software products - things for which the users were software developers. The least technically interesting product was a version control system for IBM midrange kit. Nowadays, everyone uses version control software, but then, not a single company we visited had something like that in place - and I'm talking about the major retail banks!

Incidentally, when I worked for Skandia Life 30 years ago, we had version control software and code generators and lots of stuff that people take for granted now - it's just that we wrote the utilities in house.

So this wasn't all that interesting technically - it's just that whenever I set up the pilot, I'd begin by asking, "You do have source code for all your live production software, don't you?"

The answer was always yes, and I soon learned to snigger, but covertly. Not a single installation - in the banking sector - could find source code for every live program. Not one.

(They'd usually find a copy in a developer's environment that probably matched the compiled production program. But there would be some programs for which they had to create a dummy blank source file. Yikes. Your bank is running a program and they can't tell what it does... And before you say 'decompile' or 'run a trace', in that environment you couldn't: part of the proprietary security aspects of OS/400 and precursor OSs.)

Ah, the good old days...

So why the stroll down Memory Lane? I've noticed, by chance, geek wars between those who swear by a product called GIT, and those who would damn the former group to hell while pledging their allegiance to something called Subversion.

Now, I've never seen, touched or done anything else with either product. But. If you're going to flog a product in foreign markets, should you not do a little research regarding your product's name?

For non-Brits: in the UK, the word 'git' is normally preceded by the words: "You stupid..."

Ah, the weighty matters that I spend time pondering...

2011-06-14T19:43:00.000Z

FOR ART'S SAKE

Or you might say, for ****'s sake... but it's not serious! I've put an art page on the website (see the button on the banner at the top of this page), so you can see what I did during some idle moments in the 80s.

2011-06-14T18:21:00.000Z

FORBIDDEN PLANET SIGNING

Yes, it's Return to the Forbidden Planet. That's the megastore in London.

I'm signing books on Thursday 23rd June, next week. I'll have eight friends with me, too. At the moment the event page shows the Dark Blood cover, but it's cool... there should be lovely paperback copies of Absorption on hand.

The attending authors are:

• Ben Aaronovitch • James Barclay • Elspeth Cooper • Stephen Deas • Jaine Fenn • M D Lachlan • Tom Lloyd • John Meaney • Chris Wooding

The fun lasts for an hour, 6pm to 7pm. I'll be up for some socializing afterwards, but not for a huge amount of time - I'll be travelling back to Wales the same night.

Back in another reality, one of the above authors attended one of my object-oriented analysis and design courses, before they made their first novel sale. Can you guess which one?

2011-06-14T18:07:00.000Z

PRAISE = SHOT IN ARM

Amid the hard toil of solitary writing, it's nice when a highly regarded copy editor has something like this to say about your book, in this case Transmission: "What an extraordinarily adroit piece of storytelling! I'm in awe of someone who can control so much plot so well."

I've raised my game from volume 1 of the trilogy. All I have to do is (gulp) bring it all together in Resonance.

Here goes...

2011-06-14T12:47:00.003Z

COSMIC MYSTERY

Do you know about the TED talks? Those annual lectures YouTubed to the world? And besides the main event, there are self-organized similar events at various locations, including Cardiff.

Here, from April, is an up-to-the-minute revisiting of the Fermi Paradox from some guy called Alastair Reynolds. Don't I know him from someplace?

2011-06-10T12:17:00.000Z

FIGHT ~~NIGHT~~ MORNING

We took the Most Marvellous Cats In The Universe for a check-up on Wednesday - that's Nutmeg (aka Captain Bonkers) and Bonbon (aka Princess Bonbon, the most beautiful being of all time). And as with all check-ups, what you're waiting to discover is the results. So here they are:

Vet Nurse vs Nutmeg - winner Vet Nurse (submission, round 1)
Vet Nurse vs Bonbon - winner Bonbon (TKO, round 3)

Bonbon: You think you are going to take my blood? Really?

2011-06-01T20:14:00.001Z

A FINE WEDNESDAY

Well, a bit grey and misty round the mountains, but that's fine by me. Today's achievements: wrote (natch), read first 50 or so pages of Winslow's Satori, worked out...

40-minute run; stretch; 4 x 3-minute rounds on heavy bag; rest; 1 x Tabata interval set on heavy bag (hands only); 4 x superset(10 x DB* bench press, 20 x KB† sumo squat); 4 x 10/arm x one-arm DB row; 4 x superset(10 x DB military press, 25 x ab crunch); 4 x superset(10 x triceps pushdown; 10 x EZ-bar biceps curl); stretch.

I'm a bit tired now...

* DB = dumbbell
† KB = kettlebell

2011-05-31T22:24:00.002Z

BASIC STUFF

Late workout, aggravated injury from Saturday's training (and Sunday was a bit heavy-duty too), so I kept it simple tonight:

300 x Hindu Push-Ups; 600 x Hindu Squats; 5 minutes x Wrestler's Bridge; 100 x Ab Crunches; then 1 punch/kick combo set for each of the basic kicks (front, side, rear, reverse roundhouse, hook, roundhouse)* and blocks (rising, outer, inner, down, knife-hand)†. Finished with stretching.

Nothing fancy, all fast and hard. Job done.

* Or mae-geri, yoko-geri, ushiro-geri, ushiro-mawashi-geri, ura-mawashi-geri, mawashi-geri to be technical.

† That's age-uke, soto-uke, uchi-uke, gedan-berai, shuto-uke. And they're for disengaging attempted grappling and for striking as well, not just blocking.

2011-05-31T18:47:00.000Z

BIBLIOGRAPHIC TRIVIA

Doing some admin work today, I had to collate the publication dates (and so on) of my novels. Don't know if it's of interest, but these are all my UK novels, barring a couple of Kindle editions...

To Hold Infinity pub. Bantam (Transworld)
mass market paperback Apr 1998 ISBN 0 553 50588 23

Paradox pub. Bantam (Transworld)
hardcover Jun 2000 ISBN 0593 045734
mass market paperback Mar 2001 ISBN 0 553 50589 0

Context pub. Bantam (Transworld)
hardcover Nov 2002 ISBN 0593 047354
trade paperback Nov 2002 ISBN 0593 047362
mass market paperback Jun 2003 ISBN 0 553 81357 9

Resolution pub. Bantam (Transworld)
hardcover Jan 2005 ISBN 0593 047370
mass market paperback Jan 2006 ISBN 0 553 81358 7

Bone Song pub. Gollancz (Orion)
hardcover Mar 2007 ISBN 978 0 57507 955 7
trade paperback Mar 2007 ISBN 978 0 57507 954 0
mass market paperback Feb 2008 ISBN 978 0 57508 1 758

Dark Blood pub. Gollancz (Orion)
hardcover Mar 2008 ISBN 978 0 57507 9 601
trade paperback Mar 2008 ISBN 978 0 57507 9 618
mass market paperback Jan 2009 ISBN 978 0 575 08415 5

Absorption pub. Gollancz (Orion)
hardcover May 2010 ISBN 978 0 575 08533 6
trade paperback May 2010 ISBN 987 0 575 08532 9

Edge (as Thomas Blackthorne) pub. Angry Robot
mass market paperback Oct 2010 ISBN 978 0 00 734971 5

Point (as Thomas Blackthorne) pub. Angry Robot
mass market paperback Feb 2011 ISBN 978 0 85766 078 7

Blimey! Loadsa books. And the PAPERBACK OF ABSORPTION IS OUT IN JULY. Oops. Sorry. Didn't mean to shout. Shh...

2011-05-21T13:56:00.000Z

RUNNING OUT OF TIME

I'm most of the way through Charlie Stross's most excellent new book, Rule 34. It's not actually published, yet. Charlie showed me his, and I showed him mine, as it were - he's got Transmission, I've got Rule 34, and it's absolutely terrific.

Only problem is, apparently the Rapture is due to occur today.

Oh, wait... I've checked the official website again (and no, I'm not linking to it). So long as I get left behind, everything's fine. The world will continue to exist until sometime in October. Phew. I can get a whole bunch of reading done by then.

2011-05-18T13:08:00.000Z

FEELING OPTIMISTIC...

I've just emailed my agent a book proposal - the first five and a half thousand words of something new, and a ten and a half thousand word outline of the remainder. It feels exciting, as new things always do.

Back now to some final tweaks on Transmission (Ragnarok 2), and then all my concentration will be on Resonance (Ragnarok 3).

So why would I interrupt the process to work intensely on proposing something new? Because my current contract is for the Ragnarok trilogy, and it's always good to know what's going to happen after that. It's a weird part of being a writer. But if I get the timing right, then by the time I'm freed up and ready to work on the new project for real, my agent will have sold the rights to a publisher, so it's a concrete project and not speculative.

I'll be keeping mum about the new thing, though. You have to keep the psychological pressure built up inside, like a pressure cooker. The only successful writer I know of who can talk a lot about a story and still manage to write it is Larry Niven - for every other writer I know of, that kind of discussion would kill the story before it's written. The reason is that discussions feel like accomplishments, whereas the story needs to be aching for completion inside your mind, pulling you along until it really is finished.

Anyone interested in psychology might care to Google "Zeigarnik Effect" at this point.

2011-05-16T15:06:00.000Z

FUN TIME

I had a great time on Friday, talking to (entertaining) the Birmingham SF Group. Mixed lots of Birmingham-based reminiscing with determining the true nature of time and space. Mucho fun. I used small wooden hoops - actually Yvonne's embroidery frames - to represent the spacetime continuum at different sizes and times. Many thanks to the entire front row for helping out! Thanks to Rog, Vernon, Pat, Theresa, Dave, Martin, Anne, Stan, and the Novacon gang.

Over the last few days, by the way, Blogger had a malfunction, so I could not approve any comments or publish new posts. I know that at least one person commented on my Illustrious panel, but I'm afraid that's disappeared into another spacetime continuum...

More fun was had on Saturday with the Novacon gang round Tony's house. You won't believe what wonders we've planned for the big event...

2011-05-09T10:44:00.002Z

UPDATING

Since Absorption is coming out soon in paperback, I'll be updating the website's index page soon. While I'm at it, any special requests? Anything you'd particularly like to see on the website? Preferably not rude...

2011-05-06T14:19:00.000Z

SEVEN DAYS AND COUNTING...

Next Friday I shall be keeping the Birmingham Science Fiction Group entertained as I give this month's talk, or in my case, something more akin to stand-up comedy. I hope. Break out the Ansell's Mild and Pork Scratchings, cos here I come...

(Actually I'm a teetotal vegetarian these days, which is probably a result of the above.)

2011-05-01T11:31:00.003Z

SOFTWARE FOR WRITERS...

On Martin Sketchley's blog I noticed a discussion about Word and other word-processing software. A long time ago, a writer visiting me mentioned that her laptop had all the latest stuff on it, and she used it identically for other work as well as writing. That's very different from my approach, outlined below. Then I asked her a key question:

"Do you write every day?"

And the answer was no. She thought she was doing fine, but the point was that I deliberately used unconscious operant conditioning to put me in the correct neuropsychological state for writing every day. (Pavlovian conditioning often works with only a single shot - a single application of properly-timed stimulus, called anchoring by NLPers. It works better on humans and octopi than on dogs, and there's some evil film footage from Pavlov's experiments on children to prove it.)

What I most want from writing software is for it to be unobtrusive, so here's what I posted to Martin's blog:

As a full-time novelist, I find Word absolutely fine. (And if you want my tech credentials, I wrote my first program over 35 years ago.)

Here’s what I do:

Use full screen mode, with the get-out-of-full-screen-view icon deleted. Only text and background are visible, using a colour scheme which is totally different from what I use in any context other than writing fiction. This forms a deep mental association to the writing state, along with my choice of music.

I entirely disable any auto-correct or spell-check features, so there are no distractions on the screen, not even red or green underlines.

I perform spell-checking and suchlike only on completed drafts which my editors are going to receive. You can drop out of full-screen mode to do this – the Esc key is my friend – or simply remember that F7 kicks off the spell checker.

Beyond this, for writing I use my writing laptop – an old Thinkpad, the least glamorous computer I own – in my writing room (my study). This machine does not connect to the internet, ever. Besides forming the natural psychological trigger for writing every day, this has obvious security benefits. (Speaking of such practicalities, I back up my work daily, rotating through 3 different memory sticks.)

When I had to squeeze writing around a demanding full-time career that included four-and-a-half hours commuting on a good day, this approach was even more important, though the writing had to happen while I was on the move.

It’s about removing distractions and getting into the zone. Every day.

2011-05-01T10:39:00.002Z

OH, YEAH...

You might be interested in my writing rather than random observations on martials arts. On Friday I sent in the revised (after editorial feedback) Transmission, being book 2 of the Ragnarok trilogy - definitely my best-crafted work to date. Whether you'll like it is up to you, of course!

It's time for me to commence 10 days of being a dutiful (old if not mature) graduate student - minimal daily writing - since I've some work to complete by 10th May. I'm writing the software in Haskell, and fascinated by recursion though I am, I really haven't absorbed the functional programming mindset in the way I have object orientation.

(I take OO for granted now, but I wrote an awful lot of software before Java was invented - to pick an obvious landmark. Some clever folk worked out the concepts a long time earlier, as discussed in the OOPSLA conference of 1968, but it really wasn't mainstream.)

I shall now mumble to myself for a while about the disappearance of punched cards and how can anyone build a self-respecting computer without loads of flashing lights on the front?

2011-05-01T10:14:00.002Z

KARATE KID

At karate dojos, when I ask if people are into MMA (as spectators) I get blank looks and only occasional enthusiasm (invariably from the best fighters). Big contrast to yesterday, rolling with the BJJ/MMA guys from Gracie Barra Swansea. The imminent UFC 129 was the only topic of conversation after the training was over.

BTW, thanks for going easy on the old guy, fellas...

So while respecting the 2 headline fights - GSP and José Aldo are terrific, likewise their respective opponents - I was waiting for the Lyoto Machida vs. Randy Couture fight. Couture, aka Captain America, is 47, a gentleman and athlete, while Machida is shotokan karate's MMA icon. It was hard for me to take sides in advance.

Result: Machida won with a tobi mae geri (or mae tobi geri if you prefer). That's a flying front kick to the jaw, last seen on the (original) Karate Kid. Classy.

But his real weapon is his tai sabaki, loosely translated as footwork, more accurately as body evasion. Nice work. Respect.

2011-04-29T21:23:00.000Z

SATORI

Means mystical kick-in-the-head enlightenment, as you probably know. It's also the prequel to Shibumi - anyone remember that? Sort of up there with Shogun and (Gawd 'elp me) The Ninja among cult Japanese-themed novels. The new book is written by Don Winslow, keeping the "Trevanian" pseudonym of the earlier author.

...I was intrigued, but I picked up one of Winslow's other books instead, The Winter of Frankie Machine, and liked it loads.

In other non-SF, towards the end of last year I read John Le Carré's last few novels. All the verve and command of an old master, with all the rage of an angry young man. Probably the most impressive books I've read during the last 6 months at least. Gives me hope for the next few decades...

2011-04-28T00:51:00.001Z

ILLUSTRIOUS

Much fun was had at Eastercon. The martial arts demo went down a storm - the con chair, Nik, described it as the most inspiring con event she'd ever seen. Blimey. Thanks to the redoubtable author/aikidoka Juliet McKenna and the awesome Al Davison, who showed that being in a wheelchair is no barrier to being a warrior.

Then there was the greatest British martial artist ever, not part of the con but there in the lobby - Steve Morris, present because Tricia Sullivan is his other half. (And you wouldn't want to meet her in a dark alley, either.) Electrifying.

Lauren Beukes charmed everyone, but don't tell her I said so. I hung with Andy Remic, Dan Abnett, Mike Cobley, Ian Whates, Ian Watson (and Kris, Jess and Cristina), the lovely publishers from Angry Robot, the gorgeous publishers from Gollancz, Charlie Stross, Feòrag, Kari and Phil, and loadsa old friends from fandom: Rog Peyton, Steve Lawson, Alice Lawson, Sparks, Dave Clements, Amanda, MEG, Nige, Sabine... Blimey, they were all there.

I spent the entire con talking and laughing, seems like. I am, as we say where I come from, totally cream-crackered. Not enough to stop me finishing the revisions on Transmission, though.

2011-04-15T15:13:00.002Z

EXCLUSIVE PUBLIC APPEARANCES

Actually, I'm out in public quite a lot - shopping in Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury's, the occasional Starbucks, visiting the library, walking down the street, jogging along the cycle track. And I'll talk to anyone, me.

Still, I shall be officially in public during Eastercon, including a signing session at noon on Saturday 23rd in Waterstone's, New Street, in the centre of Birmingham, a signing at 4pm back in the convention hotel, and MY BIG MARTIAL ARTS DEMO with Juliet McKenna, like the Bristolcon thing (that apparently went down well) with added pain and screams. That's at 9pm on Saturday.

Next month, on 13th May, I shall be the guest speaker at the Birmingham SF Group. This is going to be riotous fun. Plus, I intend to talk about a dark, hidden, taboo subject: where I get my ideas from. They're going to be astounded.

And I'm girding up, well, whatever, in anticipation of being Guest of Honour at Novacon 41 in Nottingham. That's going to be amazing, for all sorts of reasons. Major socializing, major fun

2011-04-15T14:45:00.000Z

ANGRY BLOODSTAINED PYJAMAS...

Spent last weekend training with the shotokan karate legend that is Dave Hazard, and never was a man more aptly named. Brilliant and dangerous. Best time I've had in ages.

Prior to that, spent a week teaching, first time for a long while - came away having bought a DVD set and one of those crazy Powerballs, two excellent recommendations. Thanks, guys!

And before that, I was in Oxford, exercising my brain, except when Juliet McKenna and everyone else in her husband Steve's dojo used me as a bendy toy. That was fun.

2011-03-04T17:08:00.001Z

REVIEWED AGAIN...

Another nice Point review over at BiblioBuffet, which also nicely analyses the role of a reviewer and how personal taste and expertise intersect with responsible analysis. The reviewer is Australian writer Gillian Pollack, and the bibliographic description includes this: "She is the proud owner of some very pretty fans." But it doesn't mention which con she acquired them at...

She also writes: I absolutely don’t want to live in the world Blackthorne has created. I didn’t want to in Edge (the first book in the series) and I most certainly don’t want to now. I do, however, want to read about it. It’s relentless and gripping, with a brilliant balance between the personal and the political. She is clearly insightful and vastly intelligent, and her hobbies are her own affair.

2011-03-03T13:40:00.003Z

POINTERS

Point is on io9's "The Books We Can't Wait For This Spring" list. Ta loads.

Plus there's a most excellent review on The Eloquent Page. Point is described as "the perfect blend of action and science fiction", which is exactly what I was aiming for. Good-o! Or as the younger generation say, sick. Or mint. Or lush...

I'm gearing myself up to revamping the Amazon listing for my Kindle ebook, New Jerusalem, and actually, y'know, featuring it here on the website. Owning up to authorship, if you like. It's SF only if you insist that all alternate history forms an SFnal subset - a perfectly reasonable viewpoint that I subscribe to about 50% of the time.

The story is a cold-war espionage tale set in the 1960s of a world where the independent Jewish state is in... West Germany. (Yes, I worked on this between other projects, before Michael Chabon came out with his book.)

Even though Charlie Stross likes it, no British publisher is going to look at a book with a Jewish spy as a protagonist. (Not even a half-English, half-American, Jewish-atheist physicist-spy in a world where the Middle East is at peace.) So I self-published on Amazon. I am a decent copy-editor - I suspect most writers are either very good or rubbish at this - plus I was able to manually hack an intermediate file to improve the formatting... There are advantages to being an old programmer!

For tech-heads: my current software-related project, having rewired my brain years ago to become fully OO, is to absorb the functional programming way of thought, something I've been putting off for some time (though I'm fine with twisty XSLT, which is part-way there)... I have Haskell installed, and I'm raring to go.

Writing-wise, and more to the point: I'm brainstorming some new stuff at the moment, 2 or 3 new projects, not all of them SF. That's in the hiatus before immersing myself in Resonance, the final Ragnarok book, which is somewhat terrifying, because I so have to get the ending right...

Appearances-wise, I'm mentally preparing myself for being Guest of Honour at Novacon 41. Yvonne has just now dug up my 33-year-old membership badge from Novacon 8, being my very first con. (Her first con was also in '78 - she's rifling through a box right now, and saying: "There's three decades of badges in here.") Good grief.

2011-02-23T12:54:00.000Z

TRANSMISSION SENT

Whew! Last night I transmitted TRANSMISSION, the second Ragnarok book, to my editor Simon at Gollancz. A few days to catch my breath, perhaps dash off the one piece of short fiction I intend to write this year (the exclusive Novacon chapbook!) and then straight into book 3, which will be called RESONANCE.

This is also the time for me to brainstorm what's to follow Ragnarok...

2011-02-17T23:00:00.000Z

JET-SETTING

Tuesday was the annual Orion authors' party at the Royal Opera House, which was lots of fun, chatting to old friends like Jainne Fenn, Suzanne McLeod, Joe Abercrombie, Al Reynolds and loadsa others, including agents John Jarrold and Diana Tyler (who don't represent me) as well as John P and John B who do... Marvellous. Then I stayed at my London club (an overworn phrase from me this week), did some work at the Institute of Physics (oh, gawd, will he just get over himself?), popped into a couple of museums, and now I'm back home in the wilderness, with the big city a fading dream...

2011-02-04T17:30:00.000Z

ANOTHER POINT REVIEW

Five stars from Anthony reviewing POINT at sfbook.com.

2011-02-04T17:04:00.000Z

BLIMEY...

Two excellent reviews of POINT on Amazon UK already.

2011-02-04T16:24:00.000Z

GET THE POINT!

It's out now... POINT at a bookstore near you!

Meanwhile, I'm hammering away to finish TRANSMISSION, engaged in the Big Push. Scant blogging over the next 10 days would be a good thing...

2011-01-30T11:40:00.001Z

OOPS... A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE

Psychologists consider our subjective time sense to be an important part of our personality - some folk are great at immersing themselves in the moment while being poor at admin and planning, others are great at seeing the plan but not in sensually enjoying the moment. Actually, those are the two ends of a somewhat notional spectrum, and we can all learn to switch our perspective more or less consciously.

Said perspective is irrelevant to whether someone is successful in their career, but as a generalization, you'll find that writers (and musicians etc.) are in the live-now-plan-badly group.

Which is a long-winded preamble to an apology to anyone trying to email me at the account on the Contact page... My bad. No admin skills whatsoever. My lovely service provider will be enabling the account forthwith - within the next 24 hours for sure.

2011-01-21T01:42:00.000Z

POINT COUNTDOWN...

Two weeks to UK publication of Point. I've posted pictures of the cover before, but it's changed! As of now, the image on Amazon is not what the finished book is going to look like. It's gonna look like this.

2011-01-19T00:42:00.000Z

POINT PREVIEW!

I've made the new Audio page official - it's now on the header menu above. You've got me reading the first chapter of POINT, plus a longer extract of ABSORPTION, being the prologue and first two chapters.

These are better quality than the test file of EDGE that I put up before... That one's still there, but I'll do a better version with my new microphone soon.

Enjoy!

2011-01-08T14:08:00.001Z

OFFLINE

If you've been waiting for me to reply to an email, many apologies. I got knocked flat by a chest infection, and I've been in and out of hospital, not to mention causing a public health scare because of the particular strain in my lungs. However, thanks to antibiotics, socialized healthcare and Yvonne, I'm recovering fast. I've gone from being unable to stand on Tuesday to feeling quite perky today. When those first patients receiving penicillin at the Radcliffe Infirmary thought it was miraculous, they were right.

All will be back to normal in a few days.

2011-01-02T20:29:00.000Z

CUT AND THRUST

We saw in the New Year with what was intended to be a quiet celebration, with a couple of friends (Chris & Penny) and family. Being a highly coordinated, highly trained athlete with 100% awareness at all times... I managed to plunge a pointed kitchen knife into the back of my left hand.

Not so quiet, my reaction!

Luckily I missed the tendons, so it's a just a little stab wound that'll be healed in a week. I asked my brother whether there's a krav maga defence against a knife attack by yourself on yourself, but apparently that's one they never thought to put into the system...

It happened well before midnight, so I view it as an interesting end to 2010, with 2011 bound to be a fine year. Hopefully.

2010-12-31T16:54:00.003Z

THE DUCK-BILLED PLATYPUS RULE

It goes without saying but, er, let me say Happy New Year, hope you're having a wonderful holiday, and remember that optimism is a learned behaviour, and that humans can learn to do pretty much anything. (It's exactly when the going gets tough that optimism is the best tool in your mental toolbox.)

Now the part of me that teaches software engineering is spinning a bit due to, well, writing full time. So let's get philosophical...

I'm talking about categorizing the world.

One of the things that I mention when Class Diagrams pop up is what I call the Duck-Billed Platypus problem. You know what I mean - when Victorian zoologist types (and their predecessors) categorized living organisms, they created large categories defined by multiple shared characteristics. There was a group with spines, body temperatures controlled by negative feedback, and bringing babies to term inside their bodies, after which the babies were nourished via external maternal glands. There was a group with spines, scaly skin, lacking the thermostat mechanism, bringing their young to term inside external containers with thin calciferous shells.

And then the Duck-Billed Platypus came along...

Creating software systems involves modelling the Real World™ (the requirements) and the new system (which is also a Real Thing™). So we're talking about perceiving and making sense of the world...

And when it comes to designing a new system, one of John's Rules goes like this: every project contains a duck-billed platypus.

<geekTalk>
So what do I teach? In the context of UML and OO, I'll point out the benefits of holding back the use of inheritance, and using aggregation to add the various characteristics of classes. There are some useful design patterns here, like separating out behaviour with the Strategy Pattern, or even using the Decorator Pattern (usually used for plugging in varying, cumulative functionality, as in the Lego-like build-your-own-i/o-streams of the core Java i/o API). And most people's first pattern, the Composite, still makes me smile at its recursive simplicity.
</geekTalk>

Even if you think you've got the categorization nailed (for all time? really?), then polymorphism and inheritance contain subtleties. In a Formula One racing game, if your definition of Car allows a start() operation to run when it's (virtually) raining, then the race controller expects this behaviour. A developer should be able to add a new subtype of Car in version 2.0 (if we're using inheritance) without the controller component batting a (virtual) eyelid.

In other words, if you're a real software engineer, and you specify the pre-conditions of an operation (what must be true to allow it to execute) and the post-conditions (the results, including range of values) then any subtype must match the pre-conditions of the parent (or be more open, and be careful how you understand that), and produce a result that is within the range of results produced by the parent (a narrower or equal range). For example, try creating a new subtype of Car whose start() operation throws an exception of a kind not thrown by the parent. Good luck in getting that to compile....

As an aside, none of this captures the dynamic aspects, which you also need to model. Some people think only in static categories. I have a highly intelligent friend who looks at élite marathon runners and thinks (I believe): marathon running is for thin people; I am not thin; I am not a marathon runner. All of which is true, but not necessarily eternally. (Try adding the world 'yet' to the end of the previous sentence. Or better, think about dynamic processes. If you jog a little today, and carry on doing it 6 days a week for the rest of your life - increasing to the level appropriate for you - then if you get to the stage of running a hundred miles or more every week, just what kind of physique would you have then?)

(Aside the second: what if you thought of optimism as a process, defined by an erect spine, chin held up, a hint of smiling, a steady gaze...)

Now if I'm designing an ATM, I expect it to talk (via many layers of indirection) only to bank accounts. And a classification system of bank accounts is straightforward, surely. Or is it? In the US, having fed my card to the machine, I get asked whether I'm taking money from my checking account or savings account. Huh?

That's a choice of two accounts for one card, which is impossible in the UK, using terminology which I have to translate in order to understand (current account or deposit account, realizing that 'checking' relates to cheques, not monitoring).

Then my American friends come to visit, and they can't pay for goods in shops in the normal European way, by sliding their card into the chip reader and then entering their 4-digit PIN... which is why our machines also have to support reading the magnetic strip, an outmoded 20th-century technology.

Still, it's not too hard to make the technology forgiving of ill-defined categories... in such a small conceptual domain.

Now here's the thing. I teach techniques for categorizing reality when things get slippery, but there's a massive question: when should we stop trying?

Or, when do you sit back and let humans do the understanding - individually and cooperatively - instead of trying to build 'awareness' into the software?

That's the subject of the funny and insightful Ontology is Overrated by Clay Shirky. SFnal jokes included. Enjoy!

And enjoy the heck out of 2011...

2010-12-13T23:22:00.000Z

AUDIO FILE...

I've put a simple link to the audio file containing the beginning of Edge, as narrated by me. Check out the media page. The embedded media player may not behave, but the file link should be fine.

Let me know about the quality. I need to record it again with a better mic, I think. (Workmen, tools, etc.)

2010-12-13T20:22:00.001Z

REALITY™ BITES

Last Eastercon, I was on a panel discussing whether writers should blog and otherwise flaunt themselves in the virtual world. Besides revealing that I'd described Joe Abercrombie as bitter and twisted on his own blog, I also mentioned that full-time writing at home is a very unhealthy occupation. Certain prolific bloggers are not exactly the picture of good health - I'm not boasting, not after the snail-pace runs I've put in recently. Cost-benefit analysis might recommend going out for a long walk, if not to a gym, during those blogging hours.

Just to prove we're not post-Singularity yet, you can't shop online in Scotland now, because the weather's so bad the deliveries won't get through. You can sit in your cosy home with your cosy laptop, but you can't manipulate all of reality with your keyboard. (Although an attack on the power grid might have some effect, admittedly.)

On the other hand, there's no such thing as a true laptop computer yet. A true laptop computer goes away when you stand up. See? I'll be first in line when they hit the shops.

2010-12-02T13:16:00.001Z

OLD SCHOOL

Felt dreadful yesterday - simultaneous deadlines and poor planning kept me working long hours with not enough sleep. Two days in a row off training (one rest day a week is plenty), and I was feeling tired at the end of a third day with little physical movement. Unless you've been working on a building site all day, that tiredness might be real but it's symptomatic of stress more than physical exhaustion. So it was on with three shirts and the ancient ski-jacket I use for cold weather training, and never mind that it was 10:45pm. Up the garden to my below-freezing dojo/gym.

Padded up like the Michelin man, I'd planned on some light calisthenics to warm up, followed by a slow-tempo weights session. But once inside, I realized I needed speed and effort, so I made up a routine (just a variation on one of my usual routines), fixed it in my head, then got to work:

10* x (25 x Hindu push-ups; 50 x Hindu squats; 10 x burpees)
4 minutes static Wrestler's bridge (neck bridge)
5 x (25 x pulldowns^† ; 25 x ab crunches)
then I worked karate drills - 10 different combinations - followed by the single-set finisher:
50 x 2-hand kettlebell swing

Some stretching, and I was done, and not a cobweb in my head.

My new training motto: BUSTING YER ASS FEELS GREAT - AFTERWARDS

Low intensity exercise bores some people; high intensity work demanding full concentration is very different. And it doesn't require a big budget, only heart (and maybe a few square feet of floor space). As for running, the (rare) independent research on running shoes apparently indicates that expensive new shoes cause injury (by over-protecting the foot, making it weak and unable to cope with inevitable twists or other stress). Cheap battered shoes are better. Injuries were rare in the old days before hi-tech footwear.

Something else occurs to me about keeping things simple. Running routines are usually based on EITHER deciding in advance how far you're going to run OR how long you're going to run for. In other words, fix one number and don't bother about the other. (Or else measure it afterwards to determine the quality of the workout you've just had.) For the circuits above, I'd determined the numbers, so I didn't bother about the time - I used my judgement on rest times between circuits (practically zero for the first 5 circuits, and always resuming work before my breathing had calmed right down).

Right then. Back to work.

* - to keep count of circuits, I have laminated cards with numbers on: I move a card at the end of each circuit. In hotel rooms, I use coins or whatever else is in my pockets.

† - pulldowns done with a high-tension band fastened to a ceiling beam. Indoors in the house, a gi belt looped from a doorway chin-up bar (the "indoor gym" variety just fits in place without screws) would have let me do horizontal rows for a high-rep back-and-biceps exercise. Or I could have just opened a door, taken hold of the door handles, squatted and leaned back with my feet either side of the door, and performed doorknob rows: no equipment necessary.

2010-11-28T22:32:00.001Z

MISSED OPPORTUNITY

This will make sense only to television viewers in the UK - excluding those who confine themselves to properly intellectual programmes.

I seriously considered ringing in to the XFactor with a question for Louis Walsh, which would go like this: Louis, I'm 53 years old, I've got long hair, I've trained in karate since I was a teenager... and I can't sing a bloody note. Can you make me a star?

The bad news is my opportunity is history; the good news is, so is Wagner! No offence (especially since he's been missing his cats), but my money's on Matt all the way, with Cher in 2nd place.

I shall now resume my normal position of curmudgeonly disdain for populist telly...

2010-11-28T01:40:00.000Z

NOVACON 41

It's official: I'm to be Guest of Honour at next year's Novacon.

One cold Friday night in 1978, I wandered into my first con - Novacon 8, in the Holiday Inn, Birmingham. Anne McCaffrey was GoH. By 2a.m, it was just me'n'Annie propping up the bar: a turning point in my life.

Somehow 32 years have passed since then - 33 by next November. (Remind me to write faster.)

So you can understand that for me Novacon 41 will be hugely significant and an immense honour. I'll pull out all the stops to entertain everyone who's there. Please do come!

2010-11-27T01:54:00.000Z

DA BIG FREEZE

Snowfall. A Welsh valley looking like Switzerland. I jogged up to the mountains on a snow-covered track. And made a mental note to go shopping tomorrow and stock up on food - along with everyone else.

Brrr...

2010-11-20T14:37:00.000Z

THE AUTHOR'S DEATH IS GROSSLY EXAGGERATED

This article in New Scientist predicts the death of sole authorship as digital tech forces writing to become collaborative. Yes, there are experiments in that direction; but I disagree. My comment is below the original article, and also right here:

Letting the readers prioritise story threads? I don't think so. This means collaborating in the first draft - which is usually unreadable. Most writers require at least three drafts (often many more) to produce something worth submitting to their publishers, at which point the editorial process begins. I don't think technology leads to art-by-committee. In the long term, it will bring creative powers back to individuals. When a single person can create CGI movies on a handheld device (or ubiquitous processors in smart buildings) then the novel will truly become something new, different and exciting.

2010-11-18T00:59:00.002Z

TV NEWS & EDITORIAL

From today's financial news:

Representatives of the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank are attempting to persuade the Irish Government to accept a handout of tens of billions of euros. The Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen says, thanks a million, but no one needs a handout just now.

Editorial comment:

So look, Eurobanking-guys. If all that money's burning a hole in your pockets, just give it to me. I'll pop it in a savings account, earn interest and everything. Honest, you know... Just trying to help out.

Other news stories:

Scientists in CERN have succeeded in trapping 38 atoms of anti-matter, long considered mere science fiction, but now clearly serious enough for us to mention here in the studio. Physicists believe that holding on to anti-hydrogen [pause for graphic of flying billiard balls with no labels and definitely no, like, equations] for a sixth of a second will reveal the secrets of the creation of the universe. But now, back to the major news story of the day: Speculation is rife as to what colour tie Prince William will wear on his wedding day. Over now to our royal correspondent...

2010-11-07T00:46:00.001Z

BRISTOLCON

Just back from Bristolcon, in the early hours of the morning. The friendliest con in the world. Da committee wuz wunderful: huge thanks to MEG, Jo Hall and Cheryl Morgan for putting on such a great event.

It was great to meet Mark Robinson (who gave me an idea for something I should put up on the website), fellow writers Michaela, Gareth D. Jones, Mike Powell, and listen to the talented singing of Talis Kimberley. We caught up with a bunch of old friends, including Alastair Reynolds, Jon Weir, Joe Abercrombie, Vince Doherty, Simon S, Andy Biglow, said quick hellos to Colin Harvey and Eugene Byrne, and loads more.

Juliet McKenna and I did a fight demo thing, with poor Joe (GoH-cum-crash test dummy) Abercrombie manfully holding the impact pad for me to whack kicks into, and to be Juliet's bendy toy, which was a far more painful experience. Joe is my hero. Juliet could whup Stephen Seagal's bottom. And thanks to Kevin (also a 2nd dan black belt) for being the 'randomly chosen' audience member who just happened to be able to whip powerful roundhouse kicks into the pad at any height.

Also, a fantastic way to finish my seventh year of blogging. This means I'm no longer made of the same atoms that were me during that first post. Is that cool, or what?

2010-11-02T19:48:00.000Z

NOW YOU SEE ME!

Remember I'll be at Bristolcon this coming Saturday. Catch me any time, but in particular at these 3 times:

1) My first panel is at noon:

SPECIAL EFFECTS – FROM HARRYHAUSEN TO AVATAR: As little as five years ago, Empire Magazine predicted that James Cameron’s Avatar, then trapped in development hell, would never be realised because the technology to make it simply didn’t exist.

This year SFX guru Ray Harryhausen celebrated his 90th birthday and, in honour of these two events, Bristolcon is devoting a panel to the history of special effects in movies and TV, looking at how far they’ve come from the days of stop motion, wondering if more is actually better, and speculating on how far the art can be pushed in the future.

The other panellists are: Alex Keller, Mike Tucker, Terry Cooper, Gareth L Powell (Chair), Dave Golder.

2) At 13:50 I'll be doing a reading, possibly from Point.

3) And then another panel at 18:00, which will be the Big One:

WRITING FIGHT SCENES:
We've all got drunk. But very few of us have been involved in a tavern brawl, fought hand to hand combat, faced down a barrage of ray guns or led a cavalry charge. Maybe as a result of this, writers frequently cite fight scenes as one of the hardest things to write. So we have martial artists/authors John Meaney and Juliet McKenna on hand to guide you through the mechanics of writing fight scenes, and maybe, if you’re lucky, demonstrate some moves on our other unsuspecting panellists…

The other panellists are Juliet McKenna, Joe Abercrombie, Colin Harvey (Chair), Cheryl Morgan.

As mentioned 2 posts back, Mrs Abercrombie gave me express permission to perpetrate violence on her husband's person during the panel. Plus he's just finished the book he was working on (Heroes), so if something goes a bit awry and he has to spend time convalescing, it shouldn't affect his schedule. Too much.

2010-11-02T18:51:00.000Z

BACK IN TIME

During the summer, Dave Clements of Imperial College organized a Science for Writers conference, which I attended and blogged about. On the first evening, most of the group dined together in a restaurant. Alastair Reynolds and I talked about writing SF when we were schoolkids. I think it was Dave who suggested an anthology - but it's OK, we're not doing that...

In my first three years of grammar school (for US readers: high school for the brighter kids), my English teachers would accept stories in lieu of essays. I recalled, for our dinner group, writing about either My Garden or The Lawnmower (probably the latter), and having a guy with a lawnmower crush a pocket universe lying in the grass, while inside that pocket universe, another lawnmower destroyed another pocket universe... And my submission for "The Salad Bowl" involved an assassin in a botanical garden.

There were others I didn't mention, including another riff on infinite recursion, plus a Lunar exploration thing, and others. Unfortunately, decades ago, my Mum threw out my old exercise books while tidying the house. All those, er, precious relics lost...

But wait, what is this? A previously unpublished Alastair Reynolds story in not one but two colours of crayon! Check it out, you hard SF fans.

2010-10-25T15:23:00.001Z

GLITTERATI

So last Thursday was the Gollancz party, sort of a Halloween bash, where the male authors turned up in unfancy dress - with the blazing exception of Emperor Steve-Deas-Ming the Merciless - and the ladies looked gothically gorgeous. There were new authors to be introduced to us, but for me it was mainly about catching up with old friends - there were several people I've known for 14 or 15 years, among agents and editors as well as fellow writers. For me as a full-timer, such events have assumed a greater importance than they used to. A jolly fine time was had by all.

The lack of recent blogs is because of my big push to finish the first draft of Transmission - all quarter million words of it - which I managed the night before the party. Whew. I'm expecting the copy-edited Point soon, for final tweaks.

Point treads on new ground, as you can see from the cover.

And for anyone who's attending Bristolcon, where one of my panels is "Writing the Fight Scene", I gained permission from Mrs Abercrombie to beat up her husband by way of a demo. Joe's way taller than I am, so clearly the moral high ground is mine...

2010-10-07T12:32:00.002Z

DANGER, MADNESS...

For anyone with fond memories of Sooty and Sweep, this radio show (a short-lived link - the show starts 2 minutes 15 seconds into the audio clip) may be traumatic. It's one of A Series Of Psychotic Episodes by comedian Miriam Elia.
It had me sideways in my seat and weeping with laughter. Then I hauled myself upright with the steering-wheel, and no one died.

2010-10-05T15:54:00.000Z

IN A STATE...

Some of the weird physics in the Ragnarok trilogy comes from the pervasiveness of emergent phenomena throughout physics, in more than the obvious places. I'm currently re-reading Robert Laughlin's The Different Universe, which emphasises this. It's a Marmite book - the usual reactions are love or hatred, rarely neutrality - but Laughlin is a Nobel laureate, so you have to pay attention. Much of the book's attraction comes from exploring areas of solid state physics that most of us don't know about. (Personally I've always been bothered by the way sound quantizes (as phonons) identically to electromagnetism.)

That includes exploring different phases of matter. Solid/liquid/gas and maybe plasma... that's as far as most people get. But liquid crystals don't fit that simple categorization (while at a higher level, liquids and gases are treated identically as fluids when it comes to modelling flow and turbulence), and there are many other examples.

One of the newest examples is two-dimensional solids, exemplified by graphene. Two professors at Manchester University have today won the Nobel Prize for physics for discovering this new phase of matter - or if you prefer, a new class of materials with remarkable properties. (Need a material for your fictional starship's hull, anyone?) The Brits have won it again.

Mind you, these two Brits are called Geim and Novoselov, both hailing from Russia, but what the heck. Nice work, anyhow.

2010-09-28T00:01:00.001Z

TESTING, TESTING...

One, two, three... Currently in test mode, here's my multimedia page where you can hear me read the first chapter of Edge. It's not yet working on all browsers, and may need to you perform a manual plugin install (as directed by the browser) or to enable ActiveX controls (again as prompted). I'll tinker with it when I've time, before setting it live and maybe adding a few more files. Any requests? I've copies of all my German translations to hand...

2010-09-24T17:47:00.000Z

ON THE EDGE...

Edge appears on Tuesday 28th September in the US and Canada! Already there's a nice mini-review here. Editorial feedback on the sequel, Point, which I delivered a while back, is positive. (In my shy Brit way I'd blush if I said any more.)

2010-09-14T14:38:00.000Z

GOOD BOY...

In Moscow, homeless dogs are beggars - and some are smart enough to navigate the Metro system, and cross roads only when the green man shows on the signal. This blog post about dogs and evolution was one of the finalists in the 3 Quarks Daily Science Prize 2010 competition. I didn't see these dogs in Moscow in the mid-80s - but it was December and everywhere was covered in snow.

2010-09-12T21:37:00.000Z

BIG SHINY ROCKETS

You probably know that two Brits won Hugos at Worldcon... China Miéville - the Vin Diesel of fantasy - and Charlie Stross - the, er, Charles Stross of science fiction - won shiny rockets. Both very well deserved. One vast round of applause, gentlemen.

2010-09-05T11:33:00.003Z

CON APPEARANCE, WITH FIGHT

I'm attending BristonCon on 6th November. There'll be a panel on writing the fight scene, which I'll be on. The writer I've always emulated in this regard is Adam Hall, author of the outstanding Quiller novels, which produced physical tension in the reader in a way that no else could. (They didn't have the humour of Deighton or the literary fury of le Carré, so the books aren't quite as well known. But the same author, under his real name of Elleston Trevor, wrote a couple of the classic World War II novels, as well as Flight of the Phoenix.)

For unpublished writers looking to do research, I'll recommend either picking a fight outside the chip shop when the drunks spill out of the pubs on Saturday night, or reading Geoff Thompsons's and Marc McYoung's books on real violence, and engaging in something that's physically stressful though not necessarily violent. (The main thing being to experience adrenaline dump.)

Whether we'll talk about the physical training and techniques, I don't know. Fighters train hard. They usually don't look like bodybuilders, and here's why. Watch (if you can stand it) Buffy hitting the punch bag or a vampire. She flings out her arms and not her body. In fact, the arm is just the delivery system of a punch - its purpose is to be rigid enough and properly aligned for impact, but that's all. The force comes from the linear acceleration and the rotational torque of the entire body - the legs and core create the strike.

On the other hand, it's possible to be built like a terminator and be great at both karate and hardcore fighting.

A while back, I linked to a training video of Alain Ngalani. He's how I picture Hawk in Robert Parker's Spenser novels. (In the TV series Hawk was played by the guy who played Sisko, commander of Deep Space Nine.)

I still want to look like him when I grow up.

Anyway, he doesn't just lift massive weights and hit the heavy bag - he can do the business in the muay thai ring.

Here's Ngalani against a tougher opponent. This deliberate implacable destruction of his opponent's leg has to be taken in the context of professional muay thai fighters - they're conditioned to receive impact. Most people couldn't take a single one of these kicks.

He's aiming for the lower quadriceps, not the knee joint - it's not obvious from the camera angle, but the ref would have intervened otherwise. Plus I've seen him do this to other opponents. In other words, this is what Ngalani can do within sporting rules... Imagine what would happen on the street.

Anyway, I'm inspired. Big bagwork session coming up, then Sunday 'lunch' at 4pm.

2010-09-02T15:52:00.001Z

FISTS OF STEEL, FEET OF CLAY

(Warning: rant alert.)

I've moved in and out of the karate world, because I see merit but also disappointment in it. Traditional arts can be ritualistic to some extent, and if I'm going to have ritual in my life, that's the only place I want it - I'm not big on belief systems. If I were a real fighter, I probably wouldn't want it there either.

Ritual unconsciously triggers mental states, the question being whether they're useful states. For someone who did not come to karate as a natural fighter, this offers buffers and protection, but can also install poor movement patterns that negate the useful reflexes we're all born with. (See Tricia Sullivan's website - links from the bio page - for more on this, including insightful stuff I hadn't thought of.) I make no claims about my own abilities, you understand.

Or you can think of it this way. There are (supposedly) benefits other than fighting ability to be gained from training in a martial art - but 99% of students (if not 100%) have a desire to be able to defend themselves as a primary motivation. Later, it can get lost in the complexity of learning a system. The worst thing is that someone soon thinks the self-protection part is easy - dealt with by basic techniques - and that they've already got that part sorted.

Anyway, what's on my mind is the concept of 'sensei'. The master at the front of the class is the Big Cheese, the Real Deal, right?

Well, in the case of Enoeda-sensei, for me that was true. His charisma drove everyone to train hard, and I had an absolute sense of his uncompromising integrity. His notion of the right way to act in a given situation might be different from mine - he came from such a different culture, for one thing - but I was always sure he would act in what he thought was the right way, however hard. (Not that I knew him personally- I was the guy at the back of the class.) Incidentally, he was not one of those instructors who insisted on the correct Platonic form of every physical technique - when he threw a powerful gyaku tsuki punch, his head moved first, before his hips, and his rear ankle rose from the ground. (A boxer might wonder how else anyone would punch, but a karateka would be looking up the spelling of 'sacrilege' at this point.)

So once, when I'd just started training at a new dojo, I wandered close to the 4th and 5th dans who were chatting away in one corner, laughing about something. What could the great men be discussing? Well, the head of the association was talking about how he'd bonked some other bloke's wife in the front seat of her very posh sports car. Oh, dear.

Another time in another city, my instructor had a story to tell about his instructor - a guy I used to sometimes train with myself, and who is now a 7th dan. So my instructor and his mates turned up for training, went into the changing room, and found Senior Instructor and one of his lady brown belts working on their grappling techniques on the floor. And they'd forgotten to put their clothes on. It's not so much that they were both married to other people that's disappointing: it's the fact that this lady's husband was also a brown belt student at that dojo. Luckily, he wasn't one of the guys that stumbled into this scene. (Apparently Senior Instructor shouted: "Don't you buggers ever knock?" The natural reply would have been, "Not walking into a changing room, no." But they just went back out laughing.)

I think I'm lucky that my first training was in judo. I found it hard, because big people would just sit on me in sparring, but there was zero bullshit - no moral superiority, just hard training.

End of rant. End of work avoidance.

2010-08-26T13:32:00.001Z

A NEW BOOK ONLINE!

Like most writers, I've had a couple of unpublished novels tucked away. One is sort of recent, though begun seven years ago - while the other, my novel-written-aged-20, will stay hidden, thank you - and I've mentioned it here in the blog from time to time.

It's New Jerusalem - an alternate history cold war spy thriller.

Genre-wise, it's not SF by most people's standards. I began New Jerusalem in 2003 (I recall discussing it with my then-US agent at World Fantasy in Washington DC - he was excited, but this was before Chabon came out with The Yiddish Policemen's Union) and worked on it between other projects.

It being outside the purview of my normal publishers, and featuring a Jewish spy as a protagonist, I've not put any effort into getting it out there - not with geopolitical events of recent years. In the book, the Middle East is at peace, but that's not what marketing-minded folk would think of first.

Here's the blurb:
Half-American, half-English and belonging nowhere, David Wolf is an atheist Jewish spy, physicist and killer, driven by his need for life on the edge, drawn to the clandestine world.

The year is 1962, and this is the independent Jewish state founded after World War 2 - inside the borders of West Germany and Berlin. With the Middle East at peace, the western world faces both Soviet and neo-Nazi terrorist threats.

Wolf's hunt takes him through a different Germany, an oppressive Soviet Union and finally to New York, confronting enemies of the mind and physical mass destruction.

So I've published it on Amazon US and Amazon UK as a Kindle edition. You can read it on a PC or an iAnything by downloading free software from Amazon, as well as on an actual Kindle.

Here it is. Let's see if it'll fly...

2010-08-17T14:12:00.000Z

RANDOM THOUGHT

I'm in blog mode to do some minor admin, not intending to post, but I just glanced at a publisher's site with details of their latest fantasy books. So here's a question occurring to me for the zillionth time - why would people who believe in democracy want to read about kings and rightful heirs to thrones? Especially in the US - I mean, isn't that un-American? Ha!

2010-08-14T14:56:00.000Z

NORSE NAMES

Readers of Absorption will have noticed unusual spellings in the Norse timeline, particularly the names of two gods familiar to us all: Odin and Thor. In the book, they appear as Óthinn and Thórr, while a note at the beginning tells you how to pronounce the th for each name. It's ambiguous in English: consider THis and THing. (Or the one example I could think of where you get almost the same sound: thistle and this'll - as in this will.)

By the way, some readers will use written names as purely visual symbols, and not bother to sound them out. Others will be interested in the sounds. I've long believed this to be one of the distinctions we all make when choosing our favourite writers: if my primary mode of thought is visual, secondary tactile/somatic, and tertiary auditory, then a book giving similar emphasis to choice of words will resonate more with me than someone who perceives the world - and tells their stories - with different emphasis.

Anyway, back to Old Norse. When written, it would of course have been runic. When transcribed in modern texts, it's normally written in the modern Icelandic alphabet, which distinguishes between the soft th (as in THing), written as a sort of chopped-off phi symbol known as THORN, and the hard th (as in THis), written with the crossed-through 'd' called ETH (uppercase Ð, lowercase ð).

So Odin is in fact Óðinn, while Thor is Þórr.

Also, if anyone's read other books featuring Norse names, you might notice I've tacked an r on the end of names which is missing from the anglicized version, such as Brandr rather than Brand.

It turns out that Old Norse, like English, particularly the English of decades past, was forgiving of many different orderings of words in a sentence. The trailing (inflexion) r is a way of indicating the subject of the sentence.

So Brandr and Brand are both correct, depending on whether Brandr is taking action or something is being done to Brand. I've stuck with the first form throughout the book.

That's, er, in case you were wondering... (Or to put it another way, I have been a good boy and done lots and lots of research.)

2010-08-13T12:05:00.000Z

SHORT STORY

Necroflux Day has been reprinted in the Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy: 2010 edition, ed. Rich Horton.

Maybe when I've finished Transmission I can write some more short fiction, but finding the time is hard - plus I've got another writing project in the pipeline. Not to mention the computer science I continue to work on in my spare time (a reverse of my previous lifestyle). But seeing my copies of the anthology that arrived today, I really want to get some more short stories and novellas done.

2010-08-09T18:33:00.001Z

TRANSMISSION

...is clear. Jim Burns has painted the cover, so everything's done apart from, er, what was that little technical detail?

Oh, right... I have to actually write the thing, don't I? All's going well, luckily. Must've written 5000 words today.

And in domestic news, the lovely Mr and Mrs Reynolds came to visit at the weekend. Alastair told me about his new trilogy in progress, which sounds excellent, and we had a nice time all round.

2010-08-02T19:22:00.003Z

GETTING THERE (part 2)

To celebrate my blood pressure-back-to-normal training regime, here's what I did in a week-and-a-bit of training... (DB stands for dumbbell and KB stands for kettlebell.)

Friday (late at night c. 11 pm)
======

Hindu Push-ups x 100; Hindu Squats x 200; Neck Bridge x 2 mins; Forward Neck Bridge x 1 min.
4 x Superset: DB Bench Press and DB One-Arm row for 10 reps, then 12, 14, 16
2 x Superset: DB Incline Flye x 20 reps and KB One-Arm Swing x 15 reps each side
4 x Superset: DB Squats x 12 reps and DB Military Press x 12 reps
4 x Superset: DB Alterating Lunges x 24 reps and Dummbbel Lateral Raise x 12 reps
4 x Superset: DB Stiff-Legged Deadlift x 12 reps and DB Calf Raises x 12 reps
4 x Superset: EZ-bar curl and EZ-bar close-grip bench press for 12 reps, 14, 16, 18
4 x Superset: DB Reverse Curl x 12 reps and DB Triceps Press x 12 reps
Box splits x 2 mins.; overall light stretch

Saturday (night c. 9 pm )
========
Run x 35 mins.; Karate kata x 26 (the whole shotokan syllabus, takes an hour);
Hindu Push-ups x 100; Hindu Squats x 200; Neck Bridge x 2 mins; Forward Neck Bridge x 1 min.; Ab crunches x 100; Side bend x 10/side; Box splits x 2 mins.; overall light stretch

Sunday: rest

Monday: (night 10 pm)
=======
Karate kata x 4
10 x Superset: Hindu Push-ups x 25; Hindu Squats x 50; kick-punch combo x 1 min.
(different kick each set: lead-leg front kick; rear-leg front kick; lead-leg side kick; rear leg back kick; step-up back kick; lead-leg hook kick; spinning reverse roundhouse; lead-leg round kick; rear-leg round kick... all combos done from orthodox and southpaw stances equally)
Burpees x 100 (slight pause after each 10); Neck Bridge x 250 seconds; Box splits x 2 mins; Calf and Quad stretch
4 x Superset: DB Bench Press x 20 and Ab crunch x 25
4 x One-arm DB Row x 20 reps per side
4 x Triset: DB Shoulder Press x 20 and DB Alternating Hammer Curl x 20 and DB Behind-neck Triceps Press x 20
Upper body stretch

Tuesday (night c. 9:30 pm)
======
Karate kata x 4; "Iron Jacket" x 2 mins. (i.e. martial masochism - hitting oneself with a stick on forearms, shins and torso);
Hindu Push-ups x 250; Hindu Squats x 500; Neck Bridge x 250 seconds; Ab crunch x 200; Box splits x 2 mins; Calf and Quad stretch
Shadowboxing x 15 mins (kicks, knees, elbows, punches, takedown entries and sprawls)

Wednesday (night c. 9 pm)
=========
Run x 35 mins.; Box splits x 2 mins.; Heavy bag 4 x 3-min. rounds; Rolling breakfalls x 5 mins.; Quad switch groundfighting manoeuvre x 5 mins.
(Bagwork - round 3 start with Olympic punch-out x 30 secs.; round 4 start with pumping round kicks x 20 each leg)

Thursday (light day - mini workout, after midnight)
=======
Hindu Push-ups x 100; Hindu Squats x 200; Neck Bridge x 2 mins; Ab crunch x 100; Side-bends x 10/side; light stretch

Friday (morning)
=====
5 x Superset: Knuckle Push-up x 20 and Ab crunch x 20
Run x 35 mins.; Box splits x 2 mins.; overall stretch

Saturday (morning)
======
Hindu Push-ups x 100; Hindu Squats x 200; Neck Bridge x 2 mins; Ab crunch x 100;
Heavy bag 3 x 3-min. rounds; Box splits x 2 mins.; overall stretch
(Bagwork - round 3 start with Olympic punch-out x 40 secs. then pumping round kicks x 20 each leg)

Sunday: rest

Monday
======
... Haven't trained yet. Just as soon as I finish this blog. Big bagwork sesh coming up... Or I might alternate weights and shadowboxing, similar to the alternating bodyweight exercises and kick combos I did last Monday. (I like this: it gives power training and simulates real fight stress for the technique training.) Maybe I'll do both.

In other news... Had visitors this weekend: Mark and Rita Williamson along with sons Matt and Tom. Yvonne and I have only known Mark and Rita for three decades. Wow... Great to catch up, talk about space technology with Mark (he won “Best Space Submission” in the Aerospace Journalist of the Year Awards 2010, his second time winning - here he is interviewed in Physics World) and all sorts of nonsense with everyone.

On Sunday (after the Williamsons had departed for the Dr Who Exhibition in Cardiff) we played host to nephew Lloyd, neice Emily and hubby-of-neice Michael. All fight fans, so we spent an afternoon watching UFC 98 (the Machida-Evans fight and the Serra-Hughes fight) and a Chuck Liddell documentary. Marvellous way to spend an afternoon/evening.

2010-07-26T17:59:00.000Z

WOW

Having just finished The Lacuna, here's my considered in-depth analysis:

Holy crap. Now that's how to write a book. A bloody excellent book.

2010-07-25T22:24:00.000Z

SHERLOCK WHO?

So, a strange day today. Writing work consisted entirely of staring into space and hallucinating what happens next. It's rare for me to do that and not actually write words, but I know I can trust myself only to pause when it's right. (Sometimes I have to put a book aside for a few weeks before returning - that's happened on two, maybe three books. I only trust these feelings because they come so rarely.) It's Sunday, of course, but why would I take a day off entirely?

I've a read a bunch of books over the last couple of weeks - a lit'ry piece, a horror-thriller hybrid, a thriller, and one of Christopher Moore's insane, funny offerings: Island of the Sequined Love Nun. But the real prizes were this week. First, Al Reynolds' Terminal World, which is most excellently vivid, with gritty, bizarre and noir elements, a very unlikely love story, and a quest across a world that's not only weird, it's a genuine puzzle. Secondly, Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna, which I read to the midpoint this evening, and put down so I don't finish it too fast. Sumptuous writing, a delicious, spicy, hearty mix of words to create a story-feast.

And then Yvonne switched on the TV just as Sherlock was starting. Sherlock Holmes in a slick contemporary setting, written by Steve Moffat, and using a new television technique to illustrate his thought processes. Played as the sociopath the character always was, and, er, just like Dr Who...

2010-07-23T21:57:00.001Z

GETTING THERE

So what's doing the trick - giving up caffeine, drinking soya milk, or just the increase in cardio training? Anyhow, my blood pressure has dropped from oh bloody hell to normal, and 5 kilos of excess weight has disappeared from my waist.

Penny Hill asked how my willpower was, when she wanted to make coffee, when we visited chez Hill a couple of weeks back. I almost answered that it wasn't relevant, then realized that wasn't quite right, then found more interesting things to talk about. Thing is, willpower allied with imagination might have helped me make the change - to kick my decades-old habit - but as a one-off behaviour-change thingy. After that, coffee is just something I ignore. No willpower required from that point onwards.

One of the best-known NLP gurus appeared sociopathic every time I've seen him in social interactions, possesses some abilities I associate with far-spectrum autism, and is not a pleasant individual. Where I would agree with him is that if a change requires ongoing courage, there might be better ways of doing it.

Crap. I am so not becoming a life-coach guru. I've got better things to do.

Anyhow, I'm feeling leaner and meaner. My muscular weightlifting/rugby playing/boxing nephews are also using my home dojo/gym and lifting massive weights. Great to have 'em around.

2010-07-14T01:14:00.000Z

REVIEW

An excellent review of Absorption from the Times.

2010-07-12T16:40:00.000Z

PENNY FROM HEAVEN

Spent yesterday morning in the Hampshire sunshine (or maybe we were in Oxfordshire) supporting Penny Hill as she took part in a Race For Life and came in with a 5K PB. (That's Personal Best in runnerspeak.) Chris, Yvonne and I supported by, er, eating ice cream and watching the runners.

In other news - I've not blogged for a couple of weeks, mea culpa - the very end of June was spent at Imperial College, London (that's the UK's premier science university) attending an event called Science for Fiction, organized by physicist and writer Dave Clements. Al Reynolds, Pippa Goldschmidt, Geoff Ryman, Molly Brown and Pat Cadigan all attended. There were 8 lectures on string theory, cosmology, bioinformatics and loadsa good stuff. Had a great time. If it happens again next year as planned, we could do with more writers there!

I ended the event by having lunch with Pippa, Molly and Geoff, where I had a Jaffa Cake milkshake. Mmm.

My gym/dojo in the back garden has seen a lot of use, and I'm getting back to what I consider a decent level of fitness. Every time I go out for a run (bearing in mind the valley slopes) my hamstrings talk to me. Things like: Hey, remember us? See how useful we are? Never neglect us again...

The 6ft punch bag is humbling and excellent. I've always done bagwork in shoes - my old garage dojo had a concrete floor, the kickboxing gym I trained in required everyone to wear taekwondo-style shoes, and karate clubs don't come equipped with punch bags in this country. (They use space in sports centres, school gyms and church halls - full-time dojos are rare.) I'm only doing one round barefoot and barefist per workout for now - after the 1st round I slip on the shoes and gloves, cos I iz delicate, innit?

In writing news... Well, I'm working on Transmission every day. One day at a time.

2010-06-24T23:40:00.000Z

THOUGHTS/JUST READ

I'm too tired to think, but thanks to books, I can think other people's thoughts. Here's E.O. Wilson: The best of science doesn't consist of mathematical models and experiments, as textbooks make it seem. Those come later. It springs fresh from a more primitive mode of thought, wherein the hunter's mind weaves ideas from old facts and fresh metaphors and the scrambled crazy images of things recently seen.

Next week I'm going to be spending time with some working astrophysicists. Do I have time to re-read all my old physics texts? Reload actual real physics into my brain?

Today is the first day in fifteen years or so without a drink of coffee (apart from some decaf, which I know has a wee bit of caffeine in). And that short break fifteen years ago was an abberation. I mean, I've been drinking a couple of dozen coffees a day - or more - for 25 or 30 years. Anyway, right now I feel fine. The exhaustion is from tramping around on the mountain (after a run, as well). Trying to get properly fit, it's hard to judge my running progress against previous environs, because the first half of every run is entirely uphill. I realized I had to forgive myself for being slow.

My new gym/dojo now stands fully built in the back garden. My new 6ft heavy bag is in place, along with mats, stationary bike and weights. Three workouts in it so far. I've been without a decent punchbag for 6 months! You have no idea how much I missed it...

BOOKS RECENTLY READ

(No in-depth reviews here. Also, nothing very recent. Plus, these are the ones I really liked. I just gave up on a slow-moving book by Big Name Author, and a fast-moving but Dan-Brown-silly book from another writer whose previous books were superb.)

Just finished THE CITY & THE CITY. Firmly crafted, beautiful depiction of the inhabitants' mindsets, all very intricate, and a superb metaphor of living in the spaces *between*. Terrific book. China Miéville's a great writer a great guy.

SOUND MIND (see, I'm way behind in my reading) deals with a differently fractured reality, with an uncompromising matter-of-factness behind the splitting-off of parts of the world, and characters who face their weaknesses while not giving in to ordinariness. Tricia Sullivan does the biz again.

MOTHERS AND SONS. Colm Tóibín's collection of short stories. The two stories highlighted inside the cover were not my favourites. (They happen to be the gay-love stories, one porn-explicit, crossing my personal good-taste boundary. Considering the number of sympathetic gay characters in my novels, you see, it's interesting to find where the boundaries lie.) Two stories stood out for me. 1) The Use of Reason. As I read it, the real ending takes place after the final full stop, and you know what's going to happen to the main character, and why he's on a self-destructive path that he's not admitting to himself. None of it's explicit; all is psychological subtlety. 2) A Priest in the Family. A very nasty story underneath, and an absolute masterpiece in understated writing. The near-silence and everything-as-usual actions of a mother who 'ought' to be hysterical in fact screams volumes, and eloquently.

APPALOOSA. The first western I've read since, I don't know, the early 70s. (As a genre, it hasn't existed in the UK for about 35 years.) I liked its sparse writing, reading it with sadness due to Robert Parker's death earlier in the year. I read his first book, The Godwulf Manuscript, in 1980, and the early Spenser books were and remain among my favourites of all time.

2010-06-18T11:15:00.000Z

A PARADOX

So I'm supposed to be a) fit and b) a coffee addict. I'm heavier than I ought to be and my blood pressure is way too high for someone with my supposedly healthy lifestyle. So cutting the coffee intake by over 90% still leaves me drinking 2 cups a day for now. No withdrawal symptoms. But as I write this, I'm sipping a decaf espresso.

You might wonder why, but decaf espresso has to be an oxymoronic paradox, and you know me. Bizarrely, the first sip gave me the nice shudder that the real thing delivers. Perhaps it's the bitterness and not the caffeine jolt.

I'm not writing at the moment (but don't tell my editor at Gollancz, the most wonderful Simon Spanton). Having sent in Point (to Marc Gascoigne at Angry Robot) I've been not exactly chilling - I've homework to do for my studies at Oxford. I thought I was going to miss the deadline totally, then everyone got given a week's extension. I might still miss it, but with less justification... Oh, well.

Some time next week, Transmission (vol 2 of Ragnarok) will draw me into it.

I've been blasé about writing 2 books a year and interleaving the process (which is one of the subjects of my software engineeering thing - precise mathematical descriptions of interwoven processes that may be partially indeterminate) but in fact I have felt woefully overcommitted to the publishing schedule. (Next time I have multiple contracts on the go at the same time, I'll be very careful about the proposed delivery dates.) Every moment spent on Point has been a moment not spent on Transmission, hence a continuing background stress. It's been hard to see the creation of Point in five-and-a-bit months as a triumph, although it kinda is.

No formal feedback yet, but I'm sure it's better than Edge.

I'm pondering deeply before diving back into Transmission. Absorption is challenging because of the disparate timelines - I always knew this was going to be a challenge to write and possibly read. Compare this to, say, Barbara Kingwood's Poisonwood Bible. The different viewpoints (not timelines) give different accounts of the same family's story. (To be fair, although it's her most famous work, I prefer some of the others.) Or think of the Godfather, whose protagonist is not one person but the Corleone family.

Getting that unity when your characters don't meet or interact so much (on the basis of living centuries apart on different worlds) is the challenge.

But that's not really what I'm thinking about.

Some people prefer Paradox to Absorption. I knew what I was doing (as Norman Spinrad surmised) when I wrote Paradox: writing in a hang-on-or-fall-off style without allowances. In an earlier blog entry, a nice person commented that he had in fact noticed my combining symbolic logic (Z notation) with Sun Tzu's Art of War in one of the throwaway snippets about strategy planning. And there's a genuine hypothesis about the nature of time underpinning the book, which is why several reviewers said they could not tell where the real science left off and the made-up stuff began. In a sense, it's because only the wackiest of engineering was fictional - the spookiness of time as it persists in physics is still there.

So one reviewer, looking at Absorption, liked it while considering Paradox to be (allow me a blush here) perhaps one of the best SF books ever. A couple of reviewers, when Paradox appeared, compared it to Dune.

Perhaps a writer should ignore reviews totally.

Maybe there's a dilemma here. Or maybe there isn't. Some people might like Paradox as much as Dune, but, like, here's where the sales figures come in. Not as many people have read Paradox, not by a very long shot.

But I'm feeling that a bit of impenetrable physics and bilingual puns in several languages and logic games and related stuff might start infesting Transmission and Resonance to a larger extent than I'd intended. (You thought I'd sorted out the nature of time? I haven't even started.)

I'm also thinking that Thomas Blackthorne might be writing some very different stuff in the next years.

2010-06-15T11:37:00.000Z

I IS A CITY BOY, INNIT?

So my two-hour jog-and-walk through the forest turned into a three-and-a-half hour trek - due to my being one valley out in my estimate of where I was - which was actually great fun. Spectacular views and fresh air, plus a long hike through a near tunnel in spooky forest: mud track, green moss that almost glowed, coating everything and hanging in wisps from branches on either side. Luckily I heard no footsteps behind me...

And no, I didn't have my phone with me. Or my wrist Garmin with its GPS capability. Or a map. Or compass. But an actual indigenous Welshman would know exactly where he was because of which way the sheep were pointing. Or something.

2010-06-05T18:03:00.000Z

BON VOYAGE

At Worldcon, Brighton, in 1979, I was privileged to sit among a small group of unpublished writers while the great Alfred Bester dispensed his wisdom. (He looked somewhat like Edward G. Robinson in Soylent Green.) One of the things he talked about was the necessity of sending your stories out into the world. Like kicking your children out of the house when they're grown up, he said. It hurts but you have to do it.

The context was mostly about sending unsolicited work into the publishing world - when you're delivering to a contract, it's more like relief.

I just emailed POINT to superstar editor Marc Gascoigne. Whew!

2010-06-02T15:41:00.000Z

PROGRESS REPORT

Just finished the 3rd draft of POINT. Time to make some backups, then breathe calmly for a bit. 4th and final draft should be ready to go before the weekend.

Blimey. Another one down. And it's better than EDGE.

2010-06-01T17:47:00.000Z

IT'S AN INTERVIEW

Check out me talking with the lovely Sandy Auden of SF Site.

2010-05-25T22:12:00.000Z

IN PROGRESS

Just doing the 3rd draft of POINT. How I work (mostly) is this:

1) Plough through a first draft without looking back.

2) Do a total rewrite for the second draft. By this I mean that I avoid amending existing text. Instead, I have a demarcation line between 2nd and 1st draft: as I rewrite a passage (mostly without reading the older version) I delete the older version.

3) Polish/tighten up as a 3rd draft. This time I do edit existing text.

4) Print it out, read it aloud, and make corrections on the hardcopy before changing it on the laptop to create a 4th draft.

5) Email 4th draft to anxious publisher. (Deadline? What deadline?)

Over the past year and a half, the little twist has been that I've been working on 2 books at once (ABSORPTION and EDGE were interleaved in writing time; now it's TRANSMISSION and POINT).

Depending on how much I outlined the book before writing it (for the purpose of getting a publishing contract beforehand) the first draft can either be long and meandering or immense and weaving drunkenly across the storyscape. I've twice written books whose 1st draft was nearly double the length of the printed book - ABSORPTION and PARADOX. (That's tended to mean an extra draft, so that the 3rd draft is the big rewrite.)

Enough of writing. How about some politics?

EDGE and POINT are near-future novels. The two main political parties in the future UK are the LabCon party and the TechnoDemocrats. A reasonable extrapolation from our current lot? Let's hope. I'm expecting no miracles from the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, but maybe some decent measures in the current clime.

Whoda thunkit, tho', about Nick Clegg as deputy PM?

I know some people thought the political satire in PARADOX was a bit dated - I mean, who cares about aristocracy, since we don't really have one anymore, right? And yet the Liberal Democrats are the only party to believe in abolishing the House of Lords. (You might have thought the Labour party would have destroyed that institution during their past 13 years in power, but it didn't happen, did it?)

For US and other non-UK readers: you do know that the upper house in Parliament consists entirely of people who have never been voted into office, right? Imagine a US Senate with hereditary membership. (Plus new members sliding in through some covert process not open to public gaze - a retirement present for old politicos.)

Maybe I'll stop leaving the blog a politics-free zone, eh?

2010-05-17T19:58:00.000Z

TRIVIA

The builders are in their 3rd week of renovating our house. Working really fast, doing multiple rooms in parallel. New outer wall and roof (with skylights) on the kitchen (which is single-storey). Excellent group of guys, but writing with dust falling around my head wasn't working. Starbucks to the rescue. All hail the mighty coffee empire.

2010-05-13T09:06:00.001Z

SIGNING TONIGHT

I'm doing that signing thing again tonight, at the lovely Forbidden Planet Megastore on Shaftesbury Avenue in London. Gotta go leave my valley shortly to catch a train. London's farther from me than it used to be.

They will have copies of ABSORPTION!!!! I received my own copies and they're gorgeous.

It's 6pm to 7 pm and Stephen Deas, Adam Roberts, Sarah Pinborough, and M.D. Lachlan will be signing their books also.

Last time I was there, a couple of months back, it was in my Thomas Blackthorne guise to sign EDGE. How schizoid can I get? On the Blackthorne front, my publishers for EDGE, Angry Robot, have gone through some changes - they've moved from being a HarperCollins imprint to a new home at Osprey. This means new publishing dates for EDGE and POINT.

In the UK, POINT will appear in February 2011. A new edition of EDGE will appear at the same time.

In the US, EDGE will appear in October this year, and POINT will appear in March 2011.

I'm hoping this will mean a bigger push for the books.

See you tonight if you can make it to Forbidden Planet!

2010-05-10T22:06:00.001Z

HYPERDIMENSIONS

I've a short article (within a larger report) on extra dimensions of spacetime in the current issue of Focus, the science magazine produced by the BBC. Nice graphic, too.

2010-05-04T19:30:00.000Z

SIGNING AT FORBIDDEN PLANET

Along with four of my friends (two of whom I don't know), I'm signing books here on Thursday 13th May at the Forbidden Planet megastore in London. See you there!

The other writers are Stephen Deas, Adam Roberts, Sarah Pinborough, and M.D. Lachlan. It looks as if Forbidden Planet will have copies of ABSORPTION for sale (a week before the official publication date).

See you there, I hope!

2010-04-29T21:08:00.000Z

AXIOMATIC DEFINITION

Something I've said often in Reality ® but not online until just now, when I left comments on Charlie Stross's blog. So back here in the Labyrinth, here's my definition for the day:

Writing is not a profession, it's a psychiatric condition.

2010-04-29T20:38:00.000Z

SECRET AGENTS

Literary agents, I mean. (Though, belatedly, I have only just got round to reading Charlie Stross's JENNIFER MORGUE, and what a hoot it is. In case you didn't know, it's got spies, Lovecraftian demons and geek humour galore.) I mentioned this on an Eastercon panel that was of interest to unpublished writers. Although it was a little off-topic, it was one of several things I talked about because of the specific audience.

A friend of mine, eager to have some poetry published - poetry for kids in fact - sent me an email to say that she had found herself an agent. What she gave me was essentially a URL, something like www.dodgy-agents-r-us.com

So I popped on to the website and alarm bells rang in my head. Everything looked/felt/smelled/tasted wrong. (I wasn't licking the screen, just experiencing synesthaesia.) The point is that it was an immediate reaction, so it took a while to analyse what was wrong. And it began with what was missing.

First off, most reputable agencies - though NOT all - have a name like Joe Braun Agency. Joe may be the only agent, or the main agent with several experienced colleagues or more junior protégés, or was a founder of a long-established agency in which he is no longer the most active participant. In any case, the agency bears Joe's name because editors and other publishing professionals know his name. As a newbie writer, you probably don't know many folk in the publishing industry, so all the face-to-face conversations have to be conducted by an agent on your behalf. That's what they're for.

Regardless of the name, the agency will surely list its personnel. And none of that was on this particular website.

So who else is involved in a reputable setup?

Well, one clue was dodgy-agents' own page that asked: Who are our clients? ~~Mugs~~ People just like you!

Hmmm... Or maybe a reputable agency would list the authors they represent. Since my agents are there to promote my work (and their other writers' work) to our mutual advantage, they will be giving me publicity because, again, that's their job... and how else can an agency be creditable? The list of writers and the books they've written, well, that's the agency's credentials right there.

Since dodgy-agents clearly don't sell the publishing rights to books, they have no way to earn commission. Therefore they charge money to read your stuff which they have no way of selling. Hmmm again. Real agents' earnings come ONE HUNDRED PERCENT from commission. Therefore they can not waste time on books that won't sell. Therefore it's hard to get a real agent.

Is that a barrier to success? Well, ask yourself this question: Has any other unpublished writer been faced with this situation and still succeeded? And of course the answer is yes, and the proof is on the shelves around you whenever you step into your favourite bookstore.

For both psychological and mathematical reasons, your quest is uncertain, yet there is a near-certainty: everyone who succeeds in getting published is in it for the long haul, is prepared to spend 15 years learning their craft, to write four unpublished novels and still press ahead with the fifth...

Just go for it, and keep on going...

Postscript:
==========
Incidentally, getting that first book published is the beginning of the hard work, not the end. But that's for another post, I guess. Hard work but the best thing in life, or why would you want to do it?

Likewise, for me to justify what I'm saying not just from experience but also psychology and maths, that'd take a while, and might be worthwhile doing later. For now, if you're interested, check The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt (for the psychology) and The Drunkard's Walk by Leonard Mlodinow.

Oh, a practical thing... How do you know who the reputable agents are? In the UK, buy the Writers & Artists Yearbook. (My agents, Zeno Agency, are not in there only because the company came into being some months ago. But John Parker was for decades a director of MBA, who certainly are in there.) In the US, I believe that Writer's Digest publish something.

Per ardua ad astra!

2010-04-23T22:00:00.000Z

THROUGH OTHER EYES

I've been trawling around other writers' websites again. From Peter Hamilton, here's a snippet of his account of the SFX Weekender:

"Got to talk to a lot of people, sign books, do panels, did a reading and Q&A, jumped up on stage during John Meaney’s session and nearly had a fight with him, but he started it, so there."

I so did not... Well, maybe.

2010-04-23T17:52:00.001Z

WE'RE BACK

The website's back online. And now that people are flying home through the diminishing ash cloud, perhaps I'm allowed a smirk? Politicians doing their thing in realtime, and volcanic ash in the skies - sounds like a book called EDGE to me.

So for everyone following the election debates in the UK... No, I'm not going to get all political here. Having seen only the first one, though, I can tell you on a neurolinguistic basis exactly why Nick Clegg leaped from obscurity to stardom.

Every hypnotist uses tonal marking. It's powerful, because emphasis by change of tonality normally bypasses conscious awareness. For example, when a therapist is getting a client settled, she might say (as part of an extended process): "Before you go into trance just take a deep breath and...."

The first clause contains an inbuilt assumption that the client will enter trance, plus the subtle frequency shift marks out "go into trance" as an instruction.

Some people refer to these as embedded commands, but the truth is you can use the same technique to emphasise any statement, not just instructions.

Here's a near-verbatim example from Nick Clegg during the TV debate: "It seems as if I'm the only leader here who has a policy of..."

He demonstrated such expertise throughout the debate. So you might ask, does this qualify him to be prime minister, or at least hold the balance of power in a hung Parliament? Well, these abilities mean that he's bound to be good at negotiating and persuading.

Or you might just want to vote according to the parties' policies...

2010-04-23T17:34:00.000Z

OOPS...

Normal service on the main website will be resumed shortly. Mea culpa for not taking action on helpful warning messages.