Zero Point Paperback

I just had to put up this picture of the paperback cover of Zero Point. What with the quote an all...

The Blackhouse - Peter May

Caroline’s gran used to say that she didn’t give up the booze and fags, they gave her up. I’m starting to understand how she felt. ‘Giving up’ in this case implies an effort of will to stop doing something you enjoy, whereas these things giving you up gets the sense of something you enjoyed becoming noxious; something that is no longer your friend. After consuming more red wine than was good for me yesterday, and enjoying it, I was quite prepared to accept the cost. This was presupposing that the cost would be me dropping into a coma, snoring like a pig all night, then waking up with gorilla pooh in my mouth, a mad dwarf making horseshoes in my skull and that general feeling of icky sickness. Unfortunately booze doesn’t do that to me any more. I did drop into the coma, but just for four hours. Waking at 2.00 I lay fidgeting, itching, feeling depressed and quite rough and by 2.30 knew that was the end of my sleep for the night. However, on the plus side, to distract myself from this malaise, I picked up the book I was reading and polished it off over the ensuing four hours.

The Blackhouse is a combination of a coming of age story and a murder mystery, and so much more than that. I was riveted to the end, fascinated by this glimpse into life on the Isle of Lewis, engaged with all the characters – liking and admiring some, hating others, and in one satisfying scene near the end all but cheering on one of them. If I have any negative criticism it is that a ‘reveal’ wasn’t sufficiently telegraphed earlier on so the reader could go, ‘Yes, of course’. This is an excellent book and well worth the cover price just for the guga hunt on An Sgeir. Highly recommended.  

Books, Update, Stuff...

Well the book sale went well. I’ve been packaging up books for the last couple of days and clearing a bit of space in my loft. The problem of course is that few people want the older cover Macmillan paperbacks that come later in the Cormac series. I’ve got plenty of copies of Brass Man, Polity Agent and Line War. I also have paperback editions of the Tor US releases. But then I guess the problem here is no one knows what is available. I guess I’ll have to go up into my loft again *sigh*.

Another thing I always forget to do is mention the translations. I’ve got a bookcase up there full of them. So, if you read German (plenty of those), Czech, Romanian, Russian, French, Japanese (just a few copies of Cowl) or Portuguese (and I’m sure there are others) and fancy buying a copy in those languages, then get in touch.

I was thinking back today about my first few books for Macmillan and how I was forever checking my Amazon ratings (well, that hasn’t changed) to check on my ‘success’. But of course a little thought about how people actually buy books and you realise that these things cannot be judged by those initial sales; that initial adrenalin rush when you are the new bright young writer (ho ho). People very infrequently walk into a book shop and pick up a hardback from a new writer; they tend to wander in a year later, perhaps five or ten years later and try a paperback. Hell, I’m only just starting to read Eric Brown and he’s done about 30 books since I read his short story Time Lapsed Man in Interzone back in 1988. It’s a long haul. Still, now, I get contact from people who have just discovered me, who have picked up a discounted paperback (or Kindle edition) and are going on to buy the rest.  

Moving on to other things: I was aiming to have done 80,000 words of Penny Royal III before we headed back to Crete. Since I’ve now done 77,000 it seems I’ll be hitting that target. Now I’m wondering if I can get it completed to first draft by then, which gives me plenty of time to iron out the kinks, and ensure all the plot threads are nicely woven together. However, another thought is now occurring … am I going to be able to complete this story in this third book? Could it be that this will be a trilogy (as per Douglas Adams) of four or five books?  

Books Sale

Having just carted a box containing 20 copies of Zero Point mass-market paperback up into the loft it occurred to me that it really is time for another sale of signed copies. I’ve got paperbacks of most of my books and hardbacks of a few of them. I was thinking of sticking another list here but since that would entail clambering up into the loft, pulling open boxes and counting for half the morning I’ll just say: get in contact and tell me what you want and I’ll see if it’s available. But let me get this out of the way first: copies of the paper version of Mindgames: Fool’s Mate, Mason’s Rats, Africa Zero, The Parasite & The Engineer (ReConditioned) are not available.

My email is on the right below my biography and you can find a list of all my books here. It’ll be full cover price plus postage and packing. However, since so many people are attracted to the Jon Sullivan covers, I’ll knock out the remaining paperbacks with the old covers for £4 each (that’s including the various Tor USA versions).

Xenopath - Eric Brown

Xenopath is the second in the Bengal Station series and another excellent novel. These books aren’t numbered and I had to go on the Internet to find out which one to read after Necropath (I have Cosmopath too) and now I’ve been trying to decide whether the order matters. If you were to pick up this one without having read the previous one there’s not much you’d fail to understand. In essence these are your hard-boiled detective book with an SF twist and reading them out of order would be like randomly picking up a Sue Grafton or Peter James. Reading in order enhances your enjoyment because you’re familiar with the main characters and their story, but each ‘investigation’ is self-contained. I can see how this could become formulaic with a whole series of ’paths after Cosmopath, but if it’s a formula you enjoy then there’s nothing wrong with that.

The Other Gun - Asimov's

It seems the April/May issue of Asimov's is out (which caught me by surprise since it seems a little early). The Other Gun, a story I put together from a plot thread removed from Penny Royal II is the cover story:

You can buy a subscription to Asimov's for your Kindle or order the paper version. Now, if you're interested, here's a taster of The Other Gun.

Sniper in Brighton

Just before Christmas we went down to Brighton to visit my erstwhile boss (and editor still) Peter Lavery. We did a lot of walking there – so much in fact that my legs were stiff for a couple of days afterwards – and saw some sights.

Digression: I reckon people who live in towns and cities get more in the way of healthy exercise than those who live in the country, and by that I mean walking. You would think that in the country you’d have more opportunity to go for long rambles, but that’s not generally the case. In my village we walk for five minutes before the paths run out. If we want to walk further we have to risk white van driver on the roads or clump through wet clay and waist-high weeds. If we want a longer and in any way pleasant walk it’s necessary to drive somewhere that’s possible. If we go to London, Brighton or Chester we can enjoy walking for miles.

Now, where was I, oh yeah, here’s one of those sights:

It seems Sniper’s old body shell has turned up with a dodgy paint job on Brighton beach. 

The Engineer ReConditioned Audio Book

A while back I agreed to The Engineer ReConditioned being turned into an audio book.

Well nobody informed me (I'm looking at you people over at Wildside Press) but while looking at the link here to my books on Audible I've discovered that it is out as an audio book. 

Samizdata Review of The Departure

Here's a review of The Departure from Rob Fisher over on Samizdata. Nice to read a review from someone who actually gets it!

Note on Samizdata from Wikipedia: In 2005, the Guardian claimed that it was 'by some measures the nation's most successful independent blog', with over 15,000 unique visitors a day, and 'arguably the grandfather of British political blogs'. In 2008, The Observer labelled it as one of the fifty most powerful blogs in the world.

The novel I chose was The Departure, the first of the Owner trilogy. If anything it had too much action for my taste. If Alastair Reynolds writes film noir, Neal Asher writes Bruce Willis and explosions. The science is sensible enough: there are no exotic physics and the technologies discussed are robots, giant space stations and brain-computer interfaces. The politics is very interesting. Asher seems to have perceived a slippery slope and extrapolated in the extreme. Something like the EU has, thanks to a complacent populace, taken over the whole planet. This is the Committee and it has long since stopped pretending to be democratic and gone outwardly Orwellian. Cigarettes are illegal; armed robots are used to control rioting crowds; selfish, individualistic dissidents are taken away for readjustment by pain inducer; and clever scientists are allowed to do research useful to the state but are considered a risk and kept under scrutiny or even lock and key. The protagonist is one such scientist who sets out to get revenge.

The Departure - Cheaper than Chips

The Departure is presently up on Kindle for the bargain price of 66 pence, but how long it will be up for I've no idea.

Get it while it's hot!

When the Eagle Hunts - Simon Scarrow

Possibly because I'm more invested in the characters now, but this series seems to be getting better and better. Recommended.

Update and a Steam Punk Robot

Penny Royal III is now past 60,000 words and progressing nicely. I’ve felt the need to do a Chandler-esque ‘walking in a man with a gun’ … well, sort of. I also decided to ramp up the weirdness and bring in some out-field elements. The man with the gun was the Brockle from my short story The Rhine’s World Incident and those other elements are a colony of piratical extremadapts and an Atheter starship. Not quite sure what I’m going to do with that starship, but I’ll think of something. I’m having fun here but perpetually having to go back and alter things. I guess a decent analogy of how things are running is the whole trilogy as a rope and I'm busily trying to weave together the frayed end.

Meanwhile I’m happy to see that my story The Other Gun is the cover story for Asimov’s April/May issue. I guess this means a cover picture for the story and it’ll be the second time that’s happened. Here’s was the first for Alien Archaeology in which Penny Royal and the Atheter mechanism first put in an appearance:

Today I also received a package from one Blaise Gauba who is a model maker. Here's his website for those of you who might be interested.

This sculpture is cast in solid white bronze and the original wax sculpture he made (obviously to make the mould around) took him a year an a half to make in his spare time.

Etsy Shop Page: http://www.etsy.com/shop/blaisegaubasculptor

Facebook Artist's Page: https://www.facebook.com/BlaiseGaubaSculptor

Personal Webportfolio Page: http://www.artbronzehardware.com/

This is the kind of thing you get for being someone's favourite writer. Mr Crane? Well, not quite. This looks like a steam punk version of the Borg.

Mindgames: Fool's Mate

Okay, I've gone and done it. You can find my very first published novella (about 45,000 words) for your Kindle now.

Jason Carroll, an ex SAS soldier and contract killer is convinced he will die in action. It is thus embarrassing when he is run over by a bus. It is even more embarrassing when he, and atheist, realises there is an afterlife…

Resurrected on a huge flat plain, he is forced to play a deadly game. Moved as a pawn to the whim of the Gods in a fight to the death with warriors from all ages of earth’s history. Killed again and again only to be resurrected.

The General, the Grim Reaper and Anubis are some of the strange beings who direct this grisly entertainment. Is it real or only in his decaying mind. Who is the Clown? It there anywhere to escape to?

To retain his sanity, he must believe there is an end; an escape; a purpose. A thought-provoking story leading to an action filled climax that challenges our accepted beliefs…

Cellweld TM

Being back in the Polity now, while reading lots of science articles on the internet, I’m finding that the Polity needs updating in detail. All here have doubtless read stuff about 3D printing of inert matter and even of cells, and this morning my first science article of the day was this over at Singularity Hub:

3D printing technology is hot and getting hotter. Whereas once 3D printers were limited to a few select materials, these days inputs include metal, plastic, glass, wood, and—human cells? Bet you didn’t see that coming. (Actually, if you’re a regular here, you probably did.) Bioprinting firm, Organovo, isn’t anywhere near 3D printing a hand or heart. But a recently announced partnership with 3D modeling software giant Autodesk (maker of AutoCAD) might speed things up a bit.

We first encountered Organovo in 2009. The firm introduced the NovoGen bioprinter in 2010—the first of its kind—and has since built ten more. At a cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and as yet only rudimentary capability, bioprinting technology is firmly in the developmental stages.

So, of course 3D printing was invented long before the Quiet War. It’s so common in the time of the Polity that it is hardly worth mentioning that it is precisely the 3D printing above that is used by cell-welders and bone-welders or, rather, I neglected to mention it in the previous books… And, of course, many maintenance robots use 3D printing to repair damaged ships but foolishly, being a 21^st century viewer of these activities, I took what they were doing to be welding or some other similar activity, so am now working to correct that:

Here a tic-shaped printer-bot was slowly and meticulously blocking off the tunnel, the numerous jointed printing heads sprouting from its foreparts steadily depositing layers of some white crystalline substance round and round its interior. Trent was reminded of a paper wasp building its nest, and as he eyed those busy printing heads he wondered if they were capable of doing any damage. Perhaps it would be better just hit the thing now… He raised his particle cannon, at which point the robot abruptly retreated out of sight.

‘I’ll go first,’ he said.

Nothing dates quite so fast as science fiction…

Courageous - Jack Campbell

This is the third book in the 'Lost Fleet' series and again like the other two was  an enjoyable read. These books are like some other series I've read in that you wouldn't want to read them one after the other. Then again, I know that some feel that way about my books. Anyway, these books are enjoyable, but they're too similar. I also get the feeling with this that I got from E C Tubb's Dumarest saga. For those of you that don't know it, this was an SF series that went on for 30+ books and concerned Earl Dumarest's search for Earth, which I gave up on just before he actually found it. It's a recurring theme - consider Battlestar Galactica. Recommended for those, like me, who need their SF hit. 

Best Served Cold - Joe Abercrombie

This is the fourth Joe Abercrombie book I've read and I'll certainly be reading more. Some excellent characters in here (I particularly like the number-obsessed 'Friendly') and it's what is best described as a thumping good read. If you're a little sensitive to gore and violence then perhaps this is best avoided. But then, if you're like that, it's hardly likely you'd be reading this blog. 

Crabs and Serpents

While I was drifting off to sleep the other night the title of a story popped into my head: The Sky Trees of Holdar. Now this isn’t a new title but one I made up many years ago. All I had for the story was a mental image of floating trees – spherical growths like mistletoe – between which people were cycling about on floating bicycles, one of the people looking very Victorian and wearing a stovepipe hat. This was a story that, so to speak, never got off the ground and I believe a piece of it resides in the depths of my ‘BitsSF’ file.

This got me to thinking about some other stuff that went through my mental processor and either got discarded or used in a different way. I remember, when I was maybe 16 or 17, starting to write something that was a mish-mash of hazy ideas and stuff swiped from books I’d read (as all such early writing is). I had a title for it: The Crab, the Serpent and the Carpenter. I liked this title but hadn’t got a great deal to fit it. The title, I suspect, took its form from books read in my early teens (or earlier – long time ago now) like The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

In this I visualized a world that consisted mostly of mud flats, which probably arose from the mud flats of the Essex coast and my experience of struggling through them for miles on fishing trips. It had giant glassy centipedes that skimmed across the surface and would of course kill any human they found. Here then was the serpent, which owed its genesis to a strange combination of the sandworms of Dune (because I’m sure a product of their life cycle was some kind of drug) and fishing again, well, bait digging. A character in it was Councillor Ebulan the Crab. I enjoyed describing him but thereafter had no idea what to do with him. The project died a death after a number of pages and disappeared, but the ideas didn’t. Ebulan the Crab was the start of the prador and put in an appearance in The Skinner. And over the years the ‘glass serpents’ transformed into hooders.

Penny Royal Spotted

Thanks to this guy/gal for letting me know that Penny Royal has been spotted visiting a Norman Mooney exhibition...

NYC based artist Norman Mooney makes works that are at once physical and metaphysical. His works explore the elemental and cyclical synergies of nature. Materiality, pattern, scale and experience are key concerns within his practice. Although he works in a wide array of materials his massive burst sculptures are completely jaw dropping. Radiating from every angle these incredible explosions shimmer and shine like a star far off in the galaxy. (via)

The Departure Unleashed.

This advert is now doing the rounds from Night Shade Books:

And (thank you AgentPants) it's up on Io9 too.

Here at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Indiebound.org 

The Departure in the USA

Okay, The Departure comes out in the USA on Feb 5th, but it seems you can already get the E-book here on Baen. 

The people at Night Shade Books are looking forward to bringing The Owner Trilogy to print in the US and have scheduled The Departure for publication Feb 5, 2013 with Zero Point following May 7, 2013 and Jupiter War September 3, 2013 (catching up with publication of that last book in Britain). Nicely keying into that my short story The Other Gun will be appearing in Asimov’s April/May issue that year with, of course, mention of these books in attached biog. It should be an interesting year with those three books slamming into the American market in rapid succession. In essence this should work as quite a profile-raising exercise.

Update:

Well, now it's been pointed out to me:

"British author Asher is rapidly becoming one of the major figures in 21st century SF" - Publishers Weekly.