You won’t see top ten book lists from me scattered with worthy titles by German philosophers, nor will you see lists of favourite films including those that are noir, French and subtitled. Generally, such lists are more about a writer trying to demonstrate his intellectual credentials, whilst shameful favourites like Lord of the Rings, which is of course no longer de rigueur, or Terminator, which is far too much fun, are carefully edged to one side.
I won’t write deeply intellectual essays on futurology. I haven’t got a clue what’s going to happen, though I suspect it might be boring and dismal. I’m more concerned with honesty than appearances, which may sound strange coming from a writer of quite bizarre science fiction. Truth is important to me, even when it hurts me or others.
This is why I’m going to ’fess up that I had an extreme ‘oh shit’ moment yesterday when I realised how close I’d come to making a huge mistake with the book The Departure and the ensuing book Zero Point. It was one of those that would have resulted in me being beaten with anoraks until blood started oozing out of my ears. I actually felt quite sick when I finally saw the mistake, but luckily The Departure has yet to be published and just a little further editorial work will sort it out:
So, on its way back from Mars, the Traveller VI spacecraft stopped at the Asteroid Belt where its fusion engine, a thing the size of a cathedral, was removed. This engine was then attached to an asteroid loaded with metals, which was then blasted back into Earth orbit.
Okay, I now leave it to all of you reading this to point out my extreme fuck up here...
9 comments:
Hm, where is the spaceship heading? in or out system?
I assume the asteroid belt you mention is the one between Mars and Jupiter... So if the spaceship was heading outwards from Mars it would still be all good :).
You nailed it. Remember I said 'on its way back from Mars'.
Had to read it twice, but yes that would have been irksome for you, forever.
Just get some alien to move Mars...problem solved
Ha ha ha. God yeah, you definitly needed to fix that one. I can imagine the next book signing....
we can put some major debris up in there over the next 500 yrs to make up for the void, glitch.
Yep "back from Mars". But I don't know the context, for all I know the ship could be heading back to a colony on one of Jupiter's moons.
By the way, I like your "Watts" reference in Shadow of the Scorpion :)
You could have left it in and performed a gravity well manoeuvre at Jupiter.
Earth CEO of Mining company:
"While you're out there anyway, pick up some metal in the Belt on your way home."
fixed.
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