Wonders of the Solar System

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I’ve been enjoying ‘Wonders of the Solar System’ because of Professor Brain Cox’s enthusiasm for science, for his relish of the great things we have achieved in throwing spacecraft millions of miles out to expand the frontier of human knowledge. It’s been good to see some of the newer pictures from that frontier and of course to see the superb graphics created. The program hasn’t really told me anything I don’t know – it’s really a Solar System basics class for those unaware of things like the order of the planets or how many planet Earths you could drop into Jupiter’s red spot, or generally what conditions pertain on each world. But it has seemed to be a return to the good BBC science program untainted by political ideology.

I mean, at one time I used to love Attenborough’s Life on Earth programs, but now I cannot watch them without feeling the urge to throw something at the TV when he delivers his regular-as-clockwork homilies about how we are destroying the planet with our profligate globally warming ways.

The first few episodes of Wonders of the Solar System remained pure enthusiasm and science so I watched with some trepidation when I realised this latest episode was about the ‘thin blue line’ – about planetary atmospheres. I enjoyed the stuff about Mercury’s lack of atmosphere leaving it open to direct meteorite collisions  and vast temperature changes, the stuff about Earth’s magnetosphere protecting it from the solar wind and how deep in Jupiter the pressure turns hydrogen into a metallized liquid. But then, with the inevitability of tax rises on petrol, booze and cigarettes, we got to the greenhouse effect, and Venus.

Cox gave a brief description of how the greenhouse effect works, perhaps annoying the faithful by pointing out how without it we would be freezing our butts of in temperatures 30 degrees lower than they are now. He then went on to say that the temperature on the surface of that world is hot enough to melt lead, apparently because of its CO2-laden atmosphere. I was there rooting for Cox because he did seem a little embarrassed to be mentioning this, and I was hoping he would also go on to point out some of the rather large elephants in the room.. But no, all we got was some nonsense about Venus being in the same ‘region’ of space as Earth. Rather disappointing really.

No mention then of how Venus being 26 million miles closer to a giant fusion reactor called the sun might have some bearing on its temperature. No mention how a ground level pressure of 93 times that of Earth’s might have an effect too, or that Venus receives over a thousand Watts per square metre more solar radiation than Earth. Nope, it’s all those Venusian coal-fired power stations.

I like to think that this was the minimum deal with the Devil Cox could make to ensure he would present the program. I like to think this was the minimum he could say to calm the political demagogues at the BBC so as to enable him to zip off to Africa to experience an English Electric Lightning jet flight straight up at 5 gees to the limits of the atmosphere to observe that ‘thin blue line’, or race across the Namib in a 4x4 to do a small piece about the sands of Mars, or race a speed boat across a lake to gather up some methane whilst talking about Saturn’s moon, Titan.

Anyway, I’ll continue watching the program, and just hope that the homilies are out of the way…  

More Banners...

These are from Walker of Worlds (I'll sort out how to get one of these on here, Mark).

Prador on Earth

I small colony of prador was discovered in a Victorian apartment block in St. Leonards on Sea. The owner of the flat in which they were found, one Peter Lavery, said, "Ah, they're just a bit of fun," but failed to explain why so many neighbouring flats now seem to be vacant.

P is for ... on the Wrong Part of the Shelf!

It also occurs to me that as well as Philip Pullman's excellent fantasy (doing to God what SF writers have been doing for decades) I've also got just about every one of Terry Pratchett's books. However, since my mother likes them so much they're not in my collection but reside at her house.

Polity Games

Jeff Johnson here has been pondering how to occupy his time between reading my books:


After having read a number of Asher’s books about the Polity Universe, it occurred to me that this would be an excellent backdrop for a massive online game. Much like how World of Warcraft brings people together online to interact and battle monsters, I think a similar game could be fashioned for the Polity Universe, albeit much larger.


The first place to start is the character that the player would use throughout the game. One could choose between playing the game as a human, golem or war drone, with different advantages depending upon which was selected. Then select a few specialized skills and place personal touches on the appearance of their character. Once in the game, the player will have to rely on those skills to survive, gain additional points to increase their current skills or gain new ones, and of course earn credits to purchase equipment.

During game play, the player could travel to any number of planets within the polity, primarily through runcible gates. Once there they could interact with local inhabitants or deal with the local fauna. Depending on the location, a number of different scenarios could be open to the player. On some worlds, the player could engage in battling the Prador, while on other worlds they could hunt down separatists. For example, the player could opt to travel to Masada and help the rebels fight against the Theocracy government, all while dodging hooders and gabble ducks.

As mentioned before, it would be a large universe within which the player could explore, preferably a large number of planets with vast areas to explore and interact with fauna. Among those, the planets of Spatterjay, Cull and Masada would be an absolute must. Space stations such as Elysium, Miranda and Ruby Eye could be destinations.

Throughout their travels and battles, the player’s character will gain experience that will help boost their skills to higher levels. Should they choose to join a faction, their exploits can earn them a higher rank. While not required to join a faction upon first entering the game, the player will have the chance to work for ECS, one of the Hive minds or even become a separatist.

Of course there is one problem I can foresee should such a game become available. When would I ever sleep again?

N and P for Niven and Pournelle

LARRY NIVEN	THE WORLD OF THE PTAVVS TALES OF KNOWN SPACE NEUTRON STAR THE PATCHWORK GIRL A GIFT FROM EARTH THE FLIGHT OF THE HORSE COVERGENT SERIES A WORLD OUT OF TIME LIMITS THE LONG ARM OF GIL HAMILTON A HOLE IN SPACE
LARRY NIVEN & JERRY POURNELLE	OATH OF FEALTY FOOTFALL
EDGAR PANGBORN	DAVY
PAUL PARK	SUGAR RAIN SOLDIERS OF PARADISE
JERRY POURNELLE	BLACK HOLE
TIM POWERS	THE ANUBIS GATES
CHRISTOPHER PRIEST	INDOCTRINAIRE

Who Reads My Books? Daniel Ware.

Ok so I finally got my thumb out of my bum and wrote something coherent (well almost) for you, Neal...

My name is Dan and I am 31 years old, married with a 2 1/2 year old son who I named Gaius after Gaius Baltar in new Battlestar Galactica (hopefully he won't grow up and destroy our society, though)

I am currently an Export Manager at a small fuel company, after doing stints working in IT for HSBC and then the MET/Essex Police as a project manager, before coming to my senses and getting out of the latter before the bureaucracy and political meddling drove me completely insane. I did actually come from a science background, my youthful obsession with dinosaurs turning into a Degree in Palaeobiology and Evolution after University, but sadly there are no jobs in hard science fields these days not already taken by entrenched minds and beings...

I guess I have my mother to thanks for my interest in Science Fiction - she is a big Alan Dean Foster fan - so I read a lot of his stuff from a young age (Cachalot and Sentenced to Prism being ones I remember). I never really left science fiction, though my continued interest in hard science meant most of my time was spent reading journals throughout my teens and 20s, so I dropped a lot of literature, coming back to it eventually several years ago.

I am also a keen gamer - rarely watching TV these days (since BSG went down the tube in season 3 I haven't watched anything except The Shield and the odd Fringe episode), but thankfully there are plenty of science fiction games to be had these days - Mass Effect 2 being a standout for any science fiction nut.

As for Neal's stuff, well I often looked at the cover of Line of Polity in my local Waterstones not long after it came out, but it was actually after I read Peter Hamilton's awesome Pandora's Star that I actually snatched up Gridlinked looking in desperation for something similar, and never looked back. Reading Gridlinked I was blown away by the quality of the writing and science fiction and I immediately went back and bought as many as I could in the same shop (including that copy of Line of Polity which I enjoyed even more).

After that, well there's no looking back I guess - found Neal's site, went to his signing in Lakeside (which he probably remembers as I dragged my wife and son along and we were the first ones there) and then went out for beers with the man himself at the next signing in London.

To date my favourite book is still probably Prador Moon, closely followed by all of the Polity series - it really defines how I think about science fiction now, the fact that I've met Neal and discussed it all in person is the absolute awesome sauce on top.

Well finally I guess, I do run a blog: http://jebelkrong.blogspot.com/ which focuses a lot on gaming, but I do post the occasional bit of Asher news and the odd review (but nothing like Walker of Worlds site, which is awesome, btw) - just something to keep me sane at work more than anything, but I like it!

If anyone games on XBL, my gamertag is, yep: Jebel Krong; and you will currently find me playing the hell out of Mass effect 2 most nights!

Regards

Dan

p.s. I can't submit a photo of my book collection because I still don't have a bookcase. I keep them all in boxes, as between kids and life, a nice bookcase is always at the bottom of the priority list... *sigh* maybe this year...

Neal Asher Video Clip 14/3/10

And another video clip. Further questions in the comments section please!

Gardening Ahead

Here's a recent picture of our Crete house courtesy of Richard Graves. It looks like our first week back there will be spent weeding!

Library Thing

I've just joined up on The Library Thing, which seems pretty lively. Masses of reviews on there from the readers and lots of handy book suggestions. I rather like one comment I got there from a poster called 'andyl' (emphasis mine):

Yeah apart from Cowl Neal's books fall into two broad camps

1) Fast-paced super-spy secret agent types.
2) Very visceral novels about the alien environment of Spatterjay which someone summed up as "Blood, guts, and hundred-ton-sentient-mollusc rape." and which if I was Neal I would insist appear on the covers of all the Spatterjay novels.

However apart from those I really like the Mason's Rats short stories which are completely divorced from the Spatterjay / Polity setting.

Editor Interview

Here's Mark Charan Newton interviewing Julie Crisp - his editor and mine.

You’ve been on the throne at Tor UK for over a year now, and have inherited an established author list from the legendary Peter Lavery. What was that like for an introduction to Science Fiction and Fantasy publishing?

I did work on some SFF books previously – the Dune books by Kevin J Anderson and Brian Herbert, and Ben Bova’s novels when I worked at Hodder and Stoughton many years ago. So the Tor list wasn’t really my first introduction to SFF publishing.
However, taking over from the ‘legend in his own lunchtime and he of the terrifying red pencil’ Mr Lavery was, admittedly, rather intimidating. He’d been working in publishing for years and knew pretty much everything there was to know about the genre, so he left some big shoes to fill and they’re still feeling rather loose around the ankles a year on. But I think I’m getting there…

Where's My Banner?

 
Now let's play a game of 'Where's My Banner?'

The first place I find it is at Mark Chitty's Walker of Worlds.

The next place is at Gecko Mines, Railguns and Crab-Paste the website belonging to the poster here Jebel Krong (where does he get these outlandish names?)

I'm told it should be appearing at Civilian Reader, but it hasn't yet.

Anywhere else?

Update: now on http://www.sffnews.com/
 

Living on Mars.

I can see the future. One day (after the flags have been planted, and after the Readymix lorries have departed and the property developers have set up shop) we will live on Mars. I see a future version of me trudging out across the Martian peneplain for a first look at my new home, whereupon, out from behind a boulder, will step a man clad in improbable shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. “Neal Asher?” he’ll enquire whilst consulting a clipboard. “Yes…” I’ll reply, worried that my instinct for avoiding time-share salesmen has deserted me. “So can I sign you up for the darts night, or the karaoke?” You’ll hear my screams long before I reach and tumble over the cliff edge of Coprates Chasma.

Lesley Pearse

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One day when I was scrabbling around for something to read, Caroline handed me a book and told me I might enjoy it. Looking at the design of the cover I thought, ‘Mmm, a woman’s book’ but nevertheless gave it a go. It was Remember Me by Lesley Pearse, and I enjoyed it very much. This was the story of Mary Broad, a woman who survived transportation to Australia and a life it would be an understatement to call grim -- a story turned into a TV production you might have seen (but not based on the book).    

Recently Caroline picked up on the fact that, through the Essex Book Festival, Lesley Pearse would be giving a talk at South Woodham Ferrers library, which is just a ten minute drive away from us. She wanted to go and so did her mother, Myrtle, who is also a fan.

I’ve enjoyed these things before like, for example, when we went to listen to Martina Cole at Maldon library and she entertained us with stories about her work for Social Services. One other highlight of that visit was the righteous frown one of the staff gave us because we wanted to go outside for a cigarette, where we were joined by another smoker in the room, a blond-haired lady by the name of Martina Cole. So, even though I’d only read one Lesley Pearse book, I signed up too.

The talk she gave was good, kept us welded to our seats for an hour and could have continued for longer with no objection. I had to chuckle at some of the anecdotes. How, as a wannabe writer, would you feel about presenting a book to the agent Darley Anderson, having a meal with him and then, afterwards, him dropping the manuscript on the table and saying, “This is rubbish, but you can write – go away and write another one.” She did, book after book, and just like me had a number of books completed before she was ever published. In fact there were a lot of things she said whose familiarity I had a wry chuckle at.

If you get a chance to hear her speak she’s definitely worth the ticket price. 

Straylight Interview

Via Skype I recently did an interview (voice only) with some people at the University of Wisconsin. Here's the link to it. I think I babbled a lot -- too much coffee and too many cigarettes!

This week we bring you our third installment of our podcast series. This week we’ve interviewed novelist Neal Asher. The interview runs about 43 minutes and in it we discuss Mr. Asher’s writing process, his love of science fiction, as well as some of his upcoming works.

Banner

Chloe Healy just supplied me with this banner produced by their web team for panmacmillan.com. It should also be appearing here http://www.walkerofworlds.com/ and here http://civilian-reader.blogspot.com/ shortly.

Crete House

I recently tried to send some pictures of our Cretan house to Julie Crisp and Chloe Healy at Macmillan, but got blocked by their email security. So, for when someone asks me about that place, I'm putting a few here to direct them to. The dates on these vary so, for example, the shot below of the spare room is from when we first went to look at the place.


1) The front of the house. Pergola yet to be put up.

2) The front of the house, repointed and pergola and grape arbour now visible.

3) Front garden, looking towards the front terrace.

4) View from the front terrace.

5) Side gate.

6) View from the roof.

7) Ruin around the back -- at some point to be turned into a guest room with double bed, shower and a little kitchen.

8) Central heating system.

9) Main room.

10) Main room (other direction).

12) Main bedroom.

13) Spare room.

Heavy Metal Movie

Interesting stuff here from the Heavy Metal Magazine Fan Page:

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Pre-release Information - A $50 million budget 3D CG animated movie based on the magazine.   This probably won't have any stories from the first 1981 movie, however like the first one, it will feature around seven or eight different stories.  Each segment will be directed by a different person.  The title to this movie hasn't been chosen yet.  This current title is just a placeholder. 
Main Crew:
Executive Producer - David Fincher and James Cameron
Producer - Kevin Eastman and Tim Miller
Director - David Fincher (1 segment)
Director - James Cameron (1 segment)
Director - Zack Snyder (1 segment, a story that Kevin Eastman wrote)
Director - Gore Verbinski (1 segment)
Director - Mark Osborne (1 segment, a comedy with Jack Black)
Director - Tim Miller (1 segment)
Director - Jeff Fowler (1 segment)
Director - Kevin Eastman (tentatively 1 segment)
Director - Guillermo del Toro (tentatively 1 segment)
Director - Rob Zombie (tentatively 1 segment)
Writer - Marc Laidlaw (1 segment)
Writer - Steve Niles (1 segment)
Writer - Joe Haldeman (1 segment)
Writer - Neal Asher (1 segment)
Writer - Kevin Eastman (1 segment, a story that Zack Snyder will direct)
? - Jack Black (a comedy segment that Mark Osborne will direct.  No details on how he's involved, but most likely will be an actor)
? - Jhonen Vasquez (no details on how he's involved, but most likely will be a writer)

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I have to wonder about that 'seven or eight' different stories - which ones will be kept and which dumped - since they were working with five of mine...

Bloom Box

Now this seems too good to be true, but is it?

In the world of energy, the Holy Grail is a power source that's inexpensive and clean, with no emissions. Well over 100 start-ups in Silicon Valley are working on it, and one of them, Bloom Energy, is about to make public its invention: a little power plant-in-a-box they want to put literally in your backyard.

Who Reads My Books? Cameron Mackay.

My brother got me into SCI-FI by passing a pile of books on to me after he had read them. Amongst the pile was a few by Neal. Gridlinked made a special impression with me and I was hungry for more. I would eagerly await notification of the latest release from my brother but now I am linked (gridlinked?) through the medium of the internet to Neal’s blogs and facebook pages, the notification is almost instant.

So who am I?. My name is Cameron Mackay. Born in 1968 and a complete geek. Living in Tewkesbury with my Wife Sue and my right hand man in the shape of a hyperactive but obedient Border Collie called “Trouble”. I joined the RAF in 1986 and flew fighters in the ground attack and reconnaissance role for 10 years and now earn my keep as an airline pilot flying the Boeing 777. In my spare time I am studying for an Open University degree in Physics and Astronomy. Mostly that keeps me from sloping off to the pub of an evening but essentially, my studies are borne of an interest in all things related to space travel and the very nature of our existence; and where we all came from. So far I have discovered we all started in relatively young stars that were large enough to produce heavy elements in their core. The next stage in our existence is a little less clear, but Neal’s books give us all some food for thought on the nature of our consciousness and where we fit in to the universe we inhabit. Maybe one day we will see Reifs, Golems and subminds. but either way, I know when on I’m on my deathbed and expecting “lights out” I will be seriously disappointed they haven’t been invented yet!

So that’s about it. An amateur at SCI-FI but enjoying the glimpse into a possible future that I will never get to see.

You Gotta Laugh.

It is hilarious to read some of the sniping from that wankland occupied by many critics and wannabe academics of SF world. In that place it is possible to get away with the most egregious left-wing fuckwittery but, if you do not agree with their common purpose, you are first described as a clumsy and generally bad writer, then farcically branded ‘too political’! If an author writes the most grotesque Marxist diatribe dressed up as SF, the critics from this region will be fulsome in their praise, their literati masturbation frenetic as they mount his leg like over-excited terriers.

The above is my brief reaction to some shite I’ve read on the Internet about my stuff. Some while ago an American SF writer was in contact with me. With a degree of disbelief he said, “You’ve actually admitted to being Conservative … and you write science fiction?” Actually, I disagree. Since you’d have difficulty slotting a fag paper between the British Conservative and Labour parties, and since they are equally undemocratic and authoritarian, I style myself Libertarian i.e. I’m for small government, less interference and hey, let’s stop the growth of the thought-police right now. But I knew precisely what that writer meant by his comment, and am relatively unsurprised by the reaction I get from some quarters.

Damn but it must peeve these people to know that despite my not buying the party line I’m simply not failing and fading away into obscurity.

No, I’m not paranoid, though I’m sure the guy following me is.

Oscars

Mmmm, The Hurt Locker, female director, low budget, about the Iraq war, bombs and Muslims vs SF epic with biggest budget ever and biggest taking ever. Cameron didn't stand a chance. C'mon, they gave one of these to Al Gore...

Julie Crisp Twitter

Just to let you all know. Various competitions to enter and all sorts of prizes to be won if you sign up for Julie Crisp's twitters 'julieacrisp', including signed books etc. You'll also get a fair bit of inside gen on the publishing world from the perspective of the senior commissioning editor at Tor Macmillan

Cretan Things

Since the sun is starting to put in an appearance and I am presently typing all my Crete journals into a file, I'm thinking more and more about Crete. Now, is my table still okay? I found it in a village dump, stripped it, re-glued it and stained and varnished it. It now resides in Nectarius and Elly's house next door where it served during their 'kazanis', which is a name attributable to a raki still, the place where a raki still can be found or the party they have whilst stilling the raki - I haven't made my mind up about that just yet.

Sci-Fi London Interview

Neal Asher
Uploaded by SFLTV. - Arts and animation videos.

Off to London today for Lunch with Julie Crisp and Chloe Healy and, hopefully, a book raid on Macmillan. So I'll leave you with the above that I found on Daily Motion. 

French The Skinner

Fantasy au Petit-Déjeuner 15
Uploaded by Yourrisungod. - 
Discover more animation and arts videos.

Now what is this guy saying? "This is really great," or "Don't buy this crap." ???

Neal Asher Video Clip 7/3/10

Here we go again. Questions for a future clip in the comments here please!

Graphic of the Polity Timeline.

Here's the updated version.

Thanks for this, Afront.

Tanith Lee

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When, after over a quarter of a century of scrabbling up the writing ladder I was finally taken on my Macmillan, I started to get invites to ‘author events’. At these I met various authors, but generally they were fairly new ones who I didn’t really know. At one such event (I believe it was the launch of Cecelia Dart-Thornton’s ‘The Ill-Mad Mute’, but I could be wrong) Caroline and I installed ourselves in an upstairs room of the pub The Princess Louise (nice history there – it was, so I was told, Dennis Neilson’s hunting ground).

We were quite new at this game and quite nervous of it all. We sat chatting to some people, but I couldn’t help but notice one guy who sat up at the bar by himself: very slim, looked to be about seven feet tall, long black hair down his back – if you wanted to get contemporary about it he could have been a member of the Jacob’s gang in Twilight.

After a little while, he came over with my boss at the time, Peter Lavery. We chatted and he was very pleasant and all I learned at the time was that his name was John. Peter later informed me that his full name was John Kaiine and that he was Tanith’s Lee’s husband. He’d come over to chat to us because we seemed to be some of the few people in the room not disappearing up their own bottoms.

Subsequently, when invited to Peter Lavery’s Victorian abode on the South coast I got to again meet John and to meet Tanith for the first time. Extreme fan-boy moment. Tanith Lee is a writer whose work I’ve enjoyed for most of my reading life. Here was a giant of fantasy fiction, a quick glance at her Wikipedia entry gives you some idea of what I’m talking about:

She is the author of over 70 novels and 250 short stories, a children's picture book (Animal Castle) and many poems. She has also written two episodes of BBC science fiction series Blake’s 7.

I got hooked into her writing by The Birthgrave, probably not so long after it was published in 1975, and I read her stuff constantly ever since. I list Volkhavaar as one of my top ten fantasy books (on the Guardian website I think) and really, I don’t see it ever dropping out of that list. Her books are ones I’ve returned to in later years and found have lost nothing by either them aging or me aging. I recommend you check some of them out. All of her Tales From The Flat Earth are good, I can also recommend books like Elephantasm, Vivia, The Storm Lord, East of Midnight, Heartbeast … actually I’ll stop there. Better to say that I haven’t read one that I haven’t enjoyed.

An enjoyable time was had by all, involving copious quantities of alcohol and then a curry. All the time I still could not dispel that ‘Wow, that’s Tanith Lee sitting there.’ At later events I’ve met and briefly chatted to Harry Harrison and Michael Moorcock and, even though those too were fan-boy moments, they weren’t quite like the first time.

Anyway, John and Tanith could not have been nicer, despite what they were going through at the time and which she’s now revealed on her website. It seems even the immortals cannot avoid cancer, though it has been knocked back.

Skype Interview

I just did a voice-only Skype interview with (I think) an English lecturer and a few of this students at the University of Wisconsin. They are the producers of this (please correct me if I'm wrong on any of these points - if you check here Wisconsin people). As usual I babbled as I tried to get my points across (if I had any) and was noticing a tendency to forget the question before I'd finished speaking. Ah, the depredations of age. Anyway, I'll let you know when the interview becomes available.

Graphic of the Polity Timeline

Afront kindly twittered this one. Thank you! Here's his Pansentient League.

Order of the Books

Since this is a question I'm frequently asked and since there are new visitors here all the time, I thought it might be a good idea to put this up again:

Order of the books.

The Cormac series:

1.Gridlinked 2. The Line of Polity 3. Brass Man 4. Polity Agent 5. Line War

The Spatterjay series:

1. The Skinner 2. The Voyage of the Sable Keech 3. Orbus

Stand alones:

Prador Moon – the start of the Prador-human war and set before the above two series.
Shadow of the Scorpion – Cormac’s early years just after the Prador-human war.
Hilldiggers – a novel set after all the above
The Gabble – a collection of stories in the above future
The Engineer ReConditioned – a collection of short stories.
Runcible Tales – six short stories in a chapbook
Cowl – time-travel novel (completely separate from the above)
The Technician – book set after the rebellion on Masada (The Line of Polity)

M is for Moorcock

MICHAEL MOORCOCK

THE MAD GOD’S AMULET THE KING OF SWORDS THE BANE OF THE BLACK SWORD THE RUNESTAFF THE VANISHING TOWER THE FORTRESS OF THE PEARL THE STEALER OF SOULS PHOENIX IN OBSIDIAN THE QUEEN OF SWORDS THE STEEL TSAR THE JEWEL IN THE SKULL THE OAK AND THE RAM THE SWORD AND THE STALLION THE KNIGHT OF SWORDS THE QUEST FOR TANELORN THE CHAMPION OF GARATHORM COUNT BRASS THE ETERNAL CHAMPION ELRIC AT THE END OF TIME ELRIC OF MELNIBONE STORMBRINGER THE JADE MAN’S EYES THE SWORD AT DAWN THE WARLORD OF THE AIR THE BLACK CORRIDOR THE WEIRD OF THE WHITE WOLF THE TIME DWELLER THE ICE SCHOONER THE FINAL PROGRAMME THE SHORES OF DEATH THE RITUALS OF INFINITY THE DRAGON IN THE SWORD THE BLOOD RED GAME THE BULL AND THE SPEAR THE WINDS OF LIMBO THE LAND LEVIATHAN THE GOLDEN BARGE

Five Days

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Have any of you seen this Five Days thing with Suranne Jones? It certainly seems to be one of those dramas to get you on the edge of your seat, the tension is nerve racking as, whilst you trim your toe nails you wonder if anything is going to happen in the next half an hour. Will it? Anything?

In this (I’m not sure we can really call it a drama) the tools from the BBC ‘social issues’ toolbox are being slowly unpacked and unwrapped. We have the strong female lead (divorced and a carer), tick, the nasty white male authority figures, tick, British Moslems, tick, dementia, tick, African immigrant, tick, caring metro sexual male, tick – yawn – and a touch of risque smoking to spice it up. And going by the first episode I wonder if even a ‘transgender’ has also been used, though that’s too early to judge and I may be being too cynical. Since I never bothered to watch episode two I wonder if they’ve yet managed to pull out the token homosexual and the paraplegic, or the wise and friendly Imam to tell us about the religion of peace, or everybody’s favourite: the white bigot to be held up in contrast to our diverse and wonderfully multicultural society.

Is there any chance, do you think, after they’ve made their 600 million in cutbacks, of the BBC being a bit less ‘socially relevant’ and a bit more entertaining? Part of the BBC’s remit was to be educational, but it seems, over the last 13 years, the word ‘educate’ has been confused with ‘indoctrinate’. Another part of their remit is to be unbiased and representative, which program producers seem to have interpreted as ‘do it like Harriet Harman is peering over your shoulder’. Time for pay for view, on everything, and time for the licence fee to be dumped.  

On Expenses

This really should have been on prime time TV, but was put out on BBC4. It wouldn't surprise me if pressure was brought to bear to not broadcast it on BBC1.

ON EXPENSES.

This is a program about about the exposing of those fraudulent bastards who run this country. It's on I-player for another five days only, then it'll probably be buried for the next ten years.

Who Reads My Books? Will Basset.

G'day Neal,

My name is Will Bassett and I'm a 25 year old Sci Fi fan from down under. I've been a big reader ever since my early teens when my father found a box of his old books and let me take a look through them. I grew up reading through the works of Richard Adams and Aldous Huxley and as I grew older I continued reading and stumbled across an expanding range of genres and really started to enjoy science fiction after coming across some Philip K Dick collections in my local library.

I left my small coastal town in the Australian state of Victoria after graduating high school in 2002 to join the Army and a few years in I was sent to Sydney on a mine warfare course where on the few days we were granted leave from base I went in search of an author I had heard great things about from a fellow digger. "You should really give it a go, if you like your cyperpunkish space opera." Cyberpunk? Space Opera? How intriguing. So off I went and searched the city bookstores to no avail. Being Australia, often when you go looking for something even in the larger bookstores all that meets your questions are blank looks and "how do you spell the authors name again?". Eventually I was able to pry the copy of Brass Man from my friend, and looking back at that moment he did me a great favour by introducing me to the world of the Polity. After reading Brass Man over the course of about a week in my spare time at base I was captivated. Being Australia though, I did have to wait a few weeks until I was off base and back in my home city, then another few weeks patiently waiting for Gridlinked and the Line of Polity to arrive in my local bookstore from overseas.

In the last few years since leaving the Army I have read many authors, many due to stumbling across them in anthologies such as The New Space Opera, and the New Space Opera 2 which I was very pleased to see an Asher appearance in. I now work in Air Traffic Control training, helping run the simulator that students are trained on at Melbourne International Airport, and I can safely say that I am always prepared for any downtime at work, with no less that two Neal Asher books sitting in my locker, just waiting for a re-reading.

Living in Melbourne is an experience of it's own, a typical day here contains all four seasons, waking up to frost on the grass and ice on the car windows, to a hot and dry 36 degrees Celsius after lunch, only to be followed by high winds and rain. Luckily for those of us not too adverse to sitting down with a good book, we live in a city where even though you can be sunning yourself at the beach in the early afternoon, you'll be rugged up with some great space opera as it pours down outside with the wind roaring. That's if your local bookstore hasn't forgotten to order in that Orbus book you keep ringing up about!

Orbus Review -- Alex Cull

Nice review here of Orbus from Alex Cull.
Ever since reading Neal Asher’s The Skinner back in 2003, I have thought that the Prador (a race of enjoyably nasty and warlike crustacean-analogues from deep space) are among some of the best SF baddies to emerge since Terry Nation invented the Daleks. Furthermore I have believed it was high time that they had a whole novel to themselves, more or less, without any danger of the planet Spatterjay’s entertainingly horrible and ruthless oceanic fauna stealing the show. Asher’s 2006 novel Prador Moon came close to accomplishing this, the one caveat being that it was all too short, but at 438 pages, Orbus hits the bull’s-eye.

Eclipse -- Stephenie Meyer.

Once again an enjoyable read, but much less so now. Yeah, okay I get that she loves him and he loves her, get on with it now please. I found myself starting to skip bits near the end out of either boredom or irritation. When that starts happening the illusion created starts to break down, the critical faculties begin kicking in again and you lose that vital ‘suspension of disbelief’. So this ninety-year-old vampire is profoundly in love with a selfish brattish teenager too stupid to realise that the “but we can still be friends” line doesn’t really work on someone who wants to get her bent over doggy style. The whole toing and froing with her werewolf love interest was thoroughly wearing. It also occurs to me that perhaps Edward is not only a vampire but a pervert? This would explain many decades of always going to school when he could have said, “Really, I’m twenty – I just look young.” It also seems to me that Meyer has fallen into the ‘I made my heroes too powerful and now I’ve really got to contrive dangers to have a story’ trap. Really, much of the writing and story-telling grabs, but when you step back, you see it for what it is. The whole thing is one of those American high school flicks with a wash of supernatural to give it some glamour, all wrapped round a rather prudish romance. I’ll read the next one, but rather suspect I’ll be skipping a lot of that too.

Cargo Cult Science

Some remarks on science, pseudoscience and learning how not to fool yourself. Caltech's commencement address in 1974 from Richard P Feynman (PDF).

Now in what branches of 'science' might this approach be applicable nowadays? One specific example springs to mind but, really, the answer is 'all of them'.

Update: And in the spirit of Feynman (or should I say the bloody obvious), the Institute of Physics has come out of the closet.

These are the traits of groupthink (Janis, 1977). Where do we see them?

1. Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
2. Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions.
3. Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
4. Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, disfigured, impotent, or stupid.
5. Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of “disloyalty”.
6. Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
7. Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
8. Mind guards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.

Incidentally, a 'flat-earther' is he or she who did not question the general consensus.

Interesting Post Chain

I just had a look at Whatever, John Scalzi's blog which often has interesting stuff about the business of writing. I read this and was intrigued, so went over to the post by Charlie Stross. This then led me to further interesting posts. You can learn a lot here about the processes involved in getting a book into your hands.

About rejection.

Becoming an Editor

Marketing.

Ansible

I've been meaning to say something about this for some time. Many of you may know about Dave Langford's Ansible - you've maybe read some of his articles in various magazines. I get this newsletter by email and get filled in on the various doings in the SF world. Particularly enjoyable are 'How Others See us' in which he records the ludicrous statements of those who don't want to be accused of science fiction, and 'Thog', in which he points out some of the silly errors many fiction writers make (still waiting to be thogged). Dave Langford is an erstwhile weapons physicist, fan and fiction writer and recipient of an embarrassing number of Hugos.

Update: You can subscribe to the email newsletter or get the RSS feed up in the top lefthand corner here.

Anagrams

For those who have too much time on their hands.

I'm apparently: 'a laser hen', or maybe I 'share elan', whilst Caroline is a 'rascal heroine'.

Meanwhile 'A future fair for all' = 'Our fearful fat liar' who happens to be 'born dog worn'.

M is for May and Morgan

BARRY N MALZBERG	GUERNICA NIGHT THE FALLING ASTRONAUTS THE MEN INSIDE HEROVIT’S WORLD
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN	A SONG FOR LYA
JULIAN MAY	THE GOLDEN TORC THE NON-BORN KING THE ADVERSARY INTERVENTION JACK THE BODILESS MAGNIFICAT
JOHN MEANEY	TO HOLD INFINITY
R. M. MELUCH	JERUSALEM FIRE
CHINA MIEVILLE	KING RAT PERDIDO STREET STATION THE SCAR THE IRON COUNCIL
RICHARD MORGAN	ALTERED CARBON BROKEN ANGELS WOKEN FURIES BLACK MAN
PETER MOORWOOD	THE HORSE LORD THE DEMON LORD THE DRAGON LORD THE WARLORD’S DOMAIN

Blood Music -- Greg Bear

As expected I did very much enjoy this. I love the idea of transformations like the ones in this (telegraphed right from the start) and wasn't disappointed with them. The book went from a bit of genetic manipulation to quantum mechanics and rewriting the laws of physics, with an interesting spin on how those laws are formed. It also dealt with immortality, and I'm a sucker for that. One teensy little problem, however. This book suffers from what I'll call 'the slide rule effect'. Some of the older readers here will know exactly what I'm talking about: those old SF books with grand-scale sensawunda in which the astrogator works out the course of the superluminal starship using a slide rule - some anachronism that takes that vital 'suspension of disbelief' a step further away. All the way-out (or not particularly way-out) science in this is fine, but that a large part of the story takes place in the Twin Towers does bugger it up a bit.

Wikipedia

It seems I don't need to write an encyclopedia of the Polity. Here's the start of a piece on the Prador over at Wikipedia:

Physical description

Prador are amphibious crustaceans with flattened pear-shaped shells with scalloped rims and a raised visual turret at the broad end that houses several pairs of red spider-like eyes, some of which are on movable stalks. Prador move about on six long legs, each terminating in a wicked spike. The rear pair of legs fall off when adolescent Prador make the transition to adults, exposing their sexual organs in the process.

Along their underside Prador have four manipulatory arms, each ending in a hand described as "a complex arrangement of hooks and fingers". These hands are highly dexterous and capable of fine manipulation, just like a human hand. It appears Prador can use all four hands to perform different tasks simultaneously, such as drawing and firing four different weapons at separate targets. Above these are the two heavy "working claws"; large crab-claw limbs that can easily cut through tough materials and crush human bones.

Prador feed with a set of dangerous mandibles, capable of grasping, cutting and chewing flesh. Prador are carnivorous, and mostly feed on decaying flesh, primarily harvested from giant mudskippers farmed on their homeworld. Adult Prador are very fond of human flesh, however, and many humans are bred just for this purpose, although by the end of the book The Skinner, this practice has begun to decline.

Prador shells are particularly tough, able to withstand impacts and small arms fire, but they seem quite vulnerable to energy weapons and heat, which can cause the shells to burst open.

And here's their entry about me.

Neal Asher Video Clip 23/2/10

Here we go again.

Tulip Gardens

Tulip Gardens Holland from Neal Asher on Vimeo.

Just trying out Vimeo since You Tube is being a pain.

What Now?

So, last year I finished The Departure, second book of my last three-book contract with Macmillan and at the time due to be published this year. I immediately got on with the last book of the contract, which then had the provisional title Gabbleducks, and polished off quite a lot of it. Once I was back here in Britain, Julie Crisp (senior commissioning editor for Tor UK) told me she really liked The Departure and, since it was the first book of a new series (The Owner series), she would like to publish that series consecutively. This was a break from my usual  habit of books from a series alternated with something else i.e. the order of publication from the start with Macmillan has been: Gridlinked, The Skinner, The Line of Polity, Cowl, Brass Man, The Voyage of the Sable Keech, Polity Agent, Hilldiggers, Line War, with Prador Moon, Shadow of the Scorpion and The Gabble coming in through a route separate to my main contracts. I said okay, let's give it a try.

This now meant that I had to get Gabbleducks ready for publication this year, which I've done. It transformed somewhat in the telling and has now turned into The Technician. Julie now has that book and I'm chewing my fingernails waiting for a response on it. But this also means I've hit a bit of a hiatus. I am, effectively, a year ahead of schedule, so what do I do now?

Here are the choices I've considered: I could begin the next book in The Owner series, I could produce some short stories, I could pull that fantasy trilogy out of my files and start work on that, or I could set to work on writing a book about mine and Caroline's adventures in Crete - based on my journal entries - for which I already have the title: Cicada Scream.

I recently got an email from Jeremy Lassen at Night Shade Books in which he wondered if I might consider having a crack at something else for them: a new series, maybe a fantasy - something different to help me penetrate the American market. The fantasy, which I've always wanted to rework but have never got round to, falls into that category. So, if I set to work on that I've got a target market, though frankly I wouldn't expect difficulties selling it elsewhere.

So, right now I'm typing into my computer all my Crete journal entries in preparation for writing Cicada Scream. This will be a project I'll work on with no finish date in mind. This evening I'll print up the first book of the fantasy, The Staff of Sorrows, read it through and begin working on it with a pencil. More needs to be done than tidying up the English. The whole thing needs to lose its hackneyed fantasy clothing and there's some big structural changes that need to be made too.

 These I'll work on until the time comes for me to edit The Technician. After that I'm not sure how I'll proceed, just a case of wait and see.

You see, I can make plans.