Friday, December 17, 2010

You Can Contribute.

Here’s just a little reminder for everyone, and some information for new members here: If you delve into the history of this blog you’ll find a number of ways you can contribute.


The bookmarks competition finishes on New Year’s Day. Design me some bookmarks that use the Jon Sullivan artwork and display the eddress of this blog and you could be the winner of some signed copies. The winner gets the Cormac series and the Spatterjay series (new covers), second place gets the Spatterjay series, whilst the top three additionally get copies of my books that they haven't got in their collection ... oh, and when I say that, I mean any of the Macmillan books - all signed of course.

I’ve been running a series of profiles and still want contributions. The title was ‘Who Reads My Books?’ For anyone who is interested, I’d like a short biography and some photographs of you. Tell me about yourself, advertise if you want, if you have a blog or a website of your own then let me know. Thus far (if my recollection is right) we have plenty of IT guys, a pilot, a geneticist, writers, a composer, jewellery maker and much more besides. But don’t be intimidated by these – I want to know about YOU and your interests. Remember, before I got where I am now I used to cut grass for a living.

It’s also interesting to see photos of people’s SFF collections. I enjoy having a look at them and so do many of those who come here. Let’s have a look!

Send your photographs etc here ndotasheratvirgindotnet

Finally, I’ll shortly be doing another video clip to post up here so I would like some more questions. I’ll answer as many of these as I can within the 10 minutes allowed (You Tube) then carry over what’s left to the next clip. Post your questions in the comments section here.

19 comments:

Grim's Reality said...

I used to cut the grass on London City Airports runway edge.

Jebel Krong said...

keep meaning to post a shot of my books now i actually have a bookcase for some of my books... :p

btw you can turn on "mobile preview" for your blog in the settings menu -> email&mobile, neal - seems to work pretty well and looks nice on my android phone.

Neal Asher said...

Graeme, with me it was council work (football fields, greens, verges and graveyards etc) along with a fair bit of private stuff. I ran my own machinery. I'm guessing I got out just before I would have had to start paying for all sorts of HSE and enviro bullshit.

Jebel, I would do if I bothered with a mobile phone. Never felt the need for one here in Britain.

Friso said...

Well, here's a question for you:
Orbus is written in the present tense; did you have an artistic reason for that, or was it just a one-time experiment?

I'll also try to find the time to cook up one of those "who reads my books" contributions (as, in fact, I do).

Hitch said...

I have a question, forgive me if its been done on previous sessions.

I write short stories. I have even entered some competitions for them and (nearly) won. However I really want to write something bigger, 80 thousand words etc. I have the start, a middle and often the end in my head before I start writing but the bits inbetween those often fail to appear.

As a writer of worth and one that isn't scared of a decent sized novel what advice can you give someone like me on how to extend the plots, fill in those gaps, that turn a perhaps compelling short into something far far longer and complete?

What do you do, or perhaps better, what did you do when you first started to turn those great shorts you wrote into something truley book worthy?

Jebel Krong said...

sorry neal, should have clarified - the mobile preview is so that people on mobiles can load your blog on their phone for easier reading! i know i do it all the time when my computers aren't handy...

Neal Asher said...

Jebel, that's what I first assumed, but I can't find anything about turning on 'mobile preview'.

vaudeviewgalor raandisisraisins said...

sent a pic of most of the sf book collection maybe a year ago after sending a bare glimpse thing a few years ago. its all over the place in a very convoluted system, might have been a little too disjointed, blurry, "ive already seen these covers" and laboriously heavy in scope to post back then.

here's most of the boxes:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y274/agenerak/Western%20Ringo%20Gdoisueso/storagespaceeeeeeeee.jpg

most of the Anderson:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y274/agenerak/Western%20Ringo%20Gdoisueso/P1000608-1.jpg

Hitch said...

Hogdamn vaude, Anderson was prolific!

Afraid all we have is Tau Zero. Perhaps we should invest in some more...

Neal Asher said...

Sorry Vaude, sometimes these things get by me. Those weird boxes contain your collection?

Phil M said...

Here's something I've been wondering about. How many copies of book do you have to sell before the publisher classes it as a success and signs you to another deal and what is your highest seller so far.
By the way the older I get the less patience I have so I get the hardcovers now and when we've finished the decorating I might even manage a photo of the bookcase!

vaudeviewgalor raandisisraisins said...

yes, all those boxes have science fiction books in them.

i dont have wall space for all my books and sf zines.

billd said...

I've got a load of Lem books I collected at some point. The covers are weird but distinctive like this one: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5045/5269584951_9be877b9f1_z.jpg

I could get them all together and do a photo some time. This one, The Cyberiad and Tales of Pirx the Pilot are the ones I remember enjoying the most.

Another video would be great. I'm curious did you grow up in Essex as a kid and do any childhood antics reflect what comes in the books? I only ask because I grew up in Chelmsford but we moved when I was 9 - still have memories of Southend Pier, Burnham on Crouch and some weird mansion house at a place called Hylands that used to give me the creeps.

brent said...

Here's my collection... used to have probably around 200 more... but decided to sell off everything I had no intention of reading a few years ago when I used to run an Amazon marketplace store.

http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/2373/booksf.jpg

Unknown said...

Hello, I have a question: Cormac is my favorite character and I was wondering if you have any plans to continue his story?

Hitch said...

If we are doing book collections: http://mycompanioncube.com/content/uploads/2010/12/DSC00459.jpg

That's just under half of ours. its all over the place with books behind books. The rest is still in boxes and we need at least one more bookcase to show them all.

Also, can I have a second question? :)

Just to extend on Athenas question about Cormack.

He has essentialy entered Superhero status now, once he took down Earth Central. We never really discovered what happenned to him, unless I missed a book. He seems to fight the fight into the future and becomes almost Highlanderish in immortatlity with his threat percieved down the generations (least this was how I read it). Where is he now? I knwo you might not be able to answer this but I've wondered for a while now. Does he sleep till needed like some avenging angel, or did he live out his life?

Neal Asher said...

billd, I get nothing on that link.

Thanks for all those collections, guys.

Fader209 said...

Thanks for the spoilers Hitch.

Hitch said...

@Fader209

The books like over a year old. Not far off two according to copyright.

All that I asked was conjecture on my part and stated as such and gives virtualy nothing away.

Sorry if I did spoil anything for you but with its age and the fact that this site is the authors, possibly the worst site in the world to come to if you do not want information on an old book wrote by him, I find it hard to believe you find such information unexpected.