Books in Waikele, Hawaii.

Thanks to Sean Price for sending this picture. He was a bit reluctant. I'll let him explain why.

I was hesitant to send you this picture but then I realized you're probably more interested to see how well you sell--or not--in various places instead of just getting pictures that give you an ego boost.
(Um, I quite like ego-boosts - Neal)



I'm not sure what to make of the meager selection except to attribute it to Border's financial woes. They've filed Chapter 11 and after visiting the store it's apparent that this was not a sudden decision. When I first discovered your books--several years ago--you had an entire row, hardback and paperbacks included. Now...not so much. However, this isn't just your books. The pickings are very slim--even for the pulp authors with numerous titles--so I'm guessing that Borders is just not replenishing their stock. Lots and lots of empty shelves...

A fair selection of books from the Best Seller lists but back stock for authors...? It's like crickets chirping on most of the aisles.

I rarely visit the store anymore since I do the majority of my book buying through Amazon (Kindle) so I hadn't realized how bad it's gotten.

I suppose I could visit the Barnes and Nobles store down in Waikiki, but that will have to wait as I rarely have the patience (or willpower) to deal with the traffic situation down that way. :)

Free-electron Laser.

Thanks Brent for directing me towards this article. Now, I've blogged about the US Navy's Mach 8 railgun and that is inked to in this article. That would be this weapon:

 DAHLGREN, Virginia — There wasn’t much left of the 23-pound bullet, just a scalded piece of squat metal. That’s what happens when an enormous electromagnetic gun sends its ammo rocketing 5,500 feet in a single second.

The gun that fired the bullet is the Navy’s experimental railgun. The gun has no moving parts or propellants — just a king-sized burst of energy that sends a projectile flying. And today its parents at the Office of Naval Research sent 33 megajoules through it, setting a new world record and making it the most powerful railgun ever developed.

I've also blogged before about this free-electron laser, but there's much more about it in this article. What I didn't realize is that it can operate at multiple wavelengths (the white lasers in Line War anyone?).

And I also didn't realize this, which almost reads like fantasy:

Currently, the free-electron laser project produces the most-powerful beam in the world, able to cut through 20 feet of steel per second. If it gets up to its ultimate goal, of generating a megawatt’s worth of laser power, it’ll be able to burn through 2,000 feet of steel per second. Just add electrons.

You have to wonder if, maybe in ten or so years time, naval power will rise to displace air power until such a time as such power and accuracy becomes  lighter. Beyond that there is only one suitable rational response to this. Fucking hell!

500 Million Planets.

Considering this we see that things are slowly firming up for some actual figures, rather than vague speculations, to go into the Drake Equation:

At least 500 million of those planets are in the not-too-hot, not-too-cold zone where life could exist. The numbers were extrapolated from the early results of NASA's planet-hunting Kepler telescope.

Kepler science chief William Borucki says scientists took the number of planets they found in the first year of searching a small part of the night sky and then made an estimate on how likely stars are to have planets. Kepler spots planets as they pass between Earth and the star it orbits.

Books in Singapore

Here's a couple from Graeme Dobson from a bookshop in Singapore.

 Location.

Waterstones Truro

Here's some pictures taken by Rob James:

Heres a couple of pictures of your books in waterstones Truro. I was getting alot of funny looks taking these, think they thought I was casing the joint! Not the best but all I could do.

BBC Bias.

Good post here over at Autonomous Mind. So when can we get rid of the licence fee? Or rather, as it should be correctly titled: the propaganda tax for the Labour Party.

When you look at these figures it is easy to see why the BBC should account for the disproportionate number of television and radio appearances by journalists from the Guardian. When given a choice of a national newspaper we can see that out of an average 10,197,331 copies sold each day during January 2011 (including bulk buys) less than 280,000 copies in the UK were the Guardian. That represents just under 2.74% of national circulation.

Additionally:
By far the most popular and widely read newspapers at the BBC are The Guardian and The Independent. ­Producers refer to them routinely for the line to take on ­running stories, and for inspiration on which items to cover. In the later stages of my career, I lost count of the number of times I asked a producer for a brief on a story, only to be handed a copy of The Guardian and told ‘it’s all in there’.
Peter Sissons.

And more here over at Biased BBC:

"The idea of a tax on the ownership of a television belongs in the 1950s. Why not tax people for owning a washing machine to fund the manufacture of Persil?" -- Jeremy Paxman

"People who know a lot more than I do may be right when they claim that [global warming] is the consequence of our own behaviour. I assume that this is why the BBC's coverage of the issue abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago" -- Jeremy Paxman

"I do remember... the corridors of Broadcasting House were strewn with empty champagne bottles. I'll always remember that" -- Jane Garvey, BBC Five Live, May 10th, 2007, recalling May 2nd, 1997.

Note: The date at the end here is when New Labour won the election.

On Writing: The Short Sentence.

The short sentence (or just one word with a full stop) is a useful tool that can be effective during action sequences or can drive a point home. One of my favourite examples of its power was in one of the Stephen Donaldson books of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. In the particular section I’m talking about he describes the opening of a door into the land of the dead. He describes the surroundings, the reactions of those present, the intense, powerful, terrifying atmosphere of it all, and how this character stepping out is recognized:

Kevin.

Those of you that haven’t read the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, or read the books and didn’t enjoy them, will probably emit a small titter at this point. However, when I was reading them I was utterly absorbed and so I knew that Kevin wasn’t a spotty geek with a bad dress sense and a problem with BO. He was Kevin Landwaster who performed the Ritual of Desecration to annihilate an entire land.

Effective.

Short sentences can be the choice of those who haven’t quite got to grips with double, multiple and complex sentences, or learned how to use co-ordinating conjunctions. They can be the choice of those aping Hemmingway or Chandler and failing to get what those writers were about. And they can be heavily over-used.

I’ve read published books where this over use is prevalent. The writer is driving his words into your head like nails into a block of wood: bammity bammity bam, de bam de bam de bam. After a while you get a headache. Yeah, I get it, stop with the hammering already. I’m got a brain here between my ears that can turn your words into images; that can model your story in my head. Your story doesn’t change just because you’re putting the words there with a literary machine gun.

To sum up, the short sentence is similar to the word ‘fuck’. If you use it occasionally it has an effect; use it a lot and you just become irritating. Light and shade, people. Light and shade.   

Use short sentences sparingly.

Anti-laser

And of course I'm thinking about Polity dreadnought defensive systems...

New Haven, Conn. — More than 50 years after the invention of the laser, scientists at Yale University have built the world's first anti-laser, in which incoming beams of light interfere with one another in such a way as to perfectly cancel each other out. The discovery could pave the way for a number of novel technologies with applications in everything from optical computing to radiology.

Conventional lasers, which were first invented in 1960, use a so-called "gain medium," usually a semiconductor like gallium arsenide, to produce a focused beam of coherent light-light waves with the same frequency and amplitude that are in step with one another.

Last summer, Yale physicist A. Douglas Stone and his team published a study explaining the theory behind an anti-laser, demonstrating that such a device could be built using silicon, the most common semiconductor material. But it wasn't until now, after joining forces with the experimental group of his colleague Hui Cao, that the team actually built a functioning anti-laser, which they call a coherent perfect absorber (CPA).

Oops, get back to those copy-edits Neal!

Bluewater Waterstones.

They were probably wondering why this mad woman was taking pictures in their shop. Little did they know that Caroline keeps a creature in her house, and that creature has a big fat ego that needs regular feeding.

I note that I'm encroaching on Asimov's territory in the last picture.

Those Wicked Tory Cuts.

I'd quite forgotten how much I enjoy reading Richard Littlejohn. Here's a sample or two from his recent article:

"For the past 20-odd years, this column has made a decent living documenting the insanity and waste in Britain’s Town Halls.

If all else failed, there was always the Guardian jobs pages on a Wednesday to dig me out of a hole.
The recruitment of five-a-day enforcers, lesbian bereavement counsellors and assorted real nappy outreach co-ordinators was guaranteed to raise a giggle."
...
"So they cynically close libraries, day centres and swimming pools and give P45s to school dinner ladies and lollipop men. When it comes to the pain, it’s women and children first.

Meanwhile their lavishly-remunerated public relations departments synchronise the campaign against the ‘Tory cuts’ — aided and abetted by the Labour Party and the BBC, which pumps out a relentless bombardment of anti-Government doomsday propaganda.
This was, of course, exactly what Gordon Brown intended when he beggared the British economy to create a giant client state.
He set a bear trap for any incoming Conservative government, just as he did with the 50p top tax rate. Brown knew he could rely on the BBC to blame the ‘cuts’ on his successors. And he gambled that most people are so stupid they would fall for it. The indications are that he was right, up to a point."

Header Picture

You'll see the header picture has changed (as has the link which will now take you through to my virgin website). However, the row of books there are my old covers. Does anyone fancies creating another header picture using my new covers? The advantage for me in someone doing it is that I don't have to spend time playing about in paintbrush to do it. The advantage for any reader that does it is that I'll spend more time writing the next book or post about writing...

Neal Asher Video Clip 17/2/11 Part Two

Okay, here's the second part.

Neal Asher Video Clip 17/2/11 Part One

This one is in two parts since I was interrupted by a phonecall, so I'll put the next part up shortly. As before: further questions in the comments please!

On Writing: The Contents File

Every so often I will take a look at the work of writers who want to get their feet on the first rungs of the ladder leading to publication. But first let me make a distinction here. These are not wannabe writers since they are actually writing. They are not those who say, ‘I always wanted to write a book about so-and-so,’ to which the reply must always be, ‘Then why aren’t you writing it?’

Sometimes those who contact me are those in love with being a writer more than writing itself, though that is no barrier, just so long as they actually do write. Sometimes they are those trying to learn the secret handshakes and arcane rituals that will lead to publication. There aren’t any – you have to be stubborn, persistent, prepared to learn and take a lot of knocks, and in the end you have to write something a publisher thinks will make money.

I will look at a sample of the work these people produce if I am not right in the middle of something, if I happen to feel so inclined, if they are not rude and pushy and if I get some sense that they’re actually looking for advice, rather than praise. Sometimes I get that last one wrong, tear someone’s work apart, and know by the affronted response that they have learned nothing.

So what am I waffling about here? Having recently taken a look at someone’s work (Hi Khaled) and tried to ape the Peter Lavery scary pencil with a red pen, I thought it might be a good idea to start doing some posts here on what I see as the nuts-and-bolts of writing. As and when something occurs to me on that subject I’ll do a post here under the label ‘Writing’ to slowly build up what I hope will be a useful resource.

Today I’ll ramble on about a contents file:

A book is a large chunk of text. Now I know I’m stating the obvious but how, unless you have an eidetic memory, do you keep track of it all? Here’s my method. Generally my books are about twenty chapters long, each chapter broken into sections that can be just one or as many as six pages long. Each of these sections is written from the point of view of just one character. Let me digress for a moment:

To my mind a common mistake I see is the switching of POVs sometimes from one paragraph to the next. This is confusing for the reader. It can also cause the reader to fail to engage with the characters.

Continuing… I keep track of a book by first bookmarking each of my chapters as I write them. After I’ve written a couple, I then open another file with the pages (usually about two) switched to two-column mode. In the case of Gridlinked, for example, this file is called 'gridcontents'. In this I list the chapter number followed by a very short description of each section in that chapter. If required I’ll add timings. This is useful for keeping track but it’s also handy because I am writing down what happens in each section. If I can’t sum up ‘what happens’ this probably means I’m waffling and the section might be better cut, or the useful elements of it distributed elsewhere. Here’s a sample from 'orbuscontents':

Chapter 7.
U-space Missiles
Vrell hunts mutations.
Prador kamikazi
Orbus to hunt Vrell
Golgoloth to Oberon
Jain starts to wake

There's something further to add here. As many of you know, I don’t particularly do a lot of planning before writing a book, so I don't produce a summary or synopsis beforehand. However, after I've handed the book in and as it heads towards publication, my publisher wants to get people interested and give them some idea of what it’s all about. At this point, with the book finished, the contents sheet comes in useful for writing the synopses. I copy the contents sheet, get rid of column mode, then work through turning each short description into a paragraph or so. Next I take that and begin melding it; losing some of the straight-line chronology to focus on the story, on what it is all about. This usually results in about six pages of single-spaced text. After that I’ll make a couple of abstracts – one at about half the length and one summing it all up on a page.

The art of précis is well worth learning.

Here endeth today’s lesson.

German Prador Moon

I've just received copies of the German translation of Prador Moon. Very nice, but I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with them. I need more German friends I guess!

Had Enough

Here is an excellent letter to an MP from someone who is rather disgruntled with the present state of affairs in this country. I thoroughly agree. It is, of course, the case that he is lucky to even be able to opt out. Most people are firmly nailed to the treadmill of debt, high taxes and a political class that delights in butt-fucking them at every opportunity:

We have both chucked our jobs. I made three people redundant and myself and my wife will no longer be paying taxes at anywhere near the rate we did before. We will both be seeking part time jobs and don’t really care about the salary levels.

Why would two professional people like us both dump our professions, the very things that as young adults we strove to achieve?

Simple. It just isn’t worth the effort anymore in a world where a significant minority leech off of the rest of us and where the government spends over 50% of what we earn and takes that money on pain of imprisonment...

Singularity Stuff.

Thanks to David Regan for sending me a link to this article about the ‘singularity’. I agree with a lot of what is being said here, like, for example, that technological development is exponential and that Moore’s Law doesn’t just apply to the number of transistors on a microchip. However, this all smells of science-as-religion.

Don’t worry, look at these graphs, everything is going to get all better. Or, Jesus will return and sort everything out.

Our technology is also developing in all sorts of areas, whilst in others nothing has changed and in some cases things are regressing. Yes, we have nuclear reactors and fusion cannot be so far in the future, but all around me people are building fucking windmills. Yes, we can create high-producing GM crops, we have powerful specific insecticides and herbicides and machines that can do the work of hundreds of farm workers of a previous age, whilst lunatics are advocating organic farming that couldn’t feed more than a third of the population we presently have. Yes, we have every kind of contraception possible, even long-lasting implants, but the world population is still heading for seven billion. Yes, we are coming to understand what happened in first few seconds of the big bang, but billions on this planet think some beardy fella in the sky is in charge.

I shan’t belabour the point.

Yes, technological development is fast, but the impact of it is subverted by politics, by religion, and it is undermined by fear and subjected to the drag of human stupidity.

All that being said, I found this very interesting:

For example, it's well known that one cause of the physical degeneration associated with aging involves telomeres, which are segments of DNA found at the ends of chromosomes. Every time a cell divides, its telomeres get shorter, and once a cell runs out of telomeres, it can't reproduce anymore and dies. But there's an enzyme called telomerase that reverses this process; it's one of the reasons cancer cells live so long. So why not treat regular non-cancerous cells with telomerase? In November, researchers at Harvard Medical School announced in Nature that they had done just that. They administered telomerase to a group of mice suffering from age-related degeneration. The damage went away. The mice didn't just get better; they got younger.

Listening to The Skinner.

I have just a few chapters more to listen to of The Skinner audio book. It’s been an interesting and enjoyable experience. I wasn’t entirely sure about the precise old man’s voice Gaminara used for Sable Keech but it’s grown on me and I now think it’s the best of all. I noticed how when Captain Ron first appeared, his first words were flat but, directly after the description of him, Gaminara turned him into a Glaswegian, which made me laugh out loud. Other highlights are the South African Batian mercenaries, a Welsh Golem and a slightly crazy Irish Olian Tay. Of course what he is doing here is trying to make them distinct beyond the ‘he said, she said and it said’ and, in the end, how does a centuries-old hooper speak, or a walking corpse, or a lobster-shaped war drone?

Throughout the reading I’ve picked up on a few mistakes e.g. the first reference to the ‘Spatterjay viral form A1’ came up as ‘AI’, but only once and understandable in the context. More noticeable to me is how by listening to the book I’m hearing more of my mistakes. In the later chapters, when Sable Keech, Boris, Roach and SM13 are limping across the sea on Keech’s AG scooter I’ve written ‘the probe SM13’ rather than the ‘drone’.

Noticeable too has been just how much I remember – knowing precisely what’s coming as each section starts. I also wish there had been a further beat in the breaks between sections.

I’ve also been picking up a lot on where the writing obviously doesn’t flow well enough – often where it’s too abrupt and staccato. I did wonder too if the change in my writing over the years is reflected in the reading time of the books. My copies of them list The Skinner at 16 hours 2 minutes, The Voyage of the Sable Keech at 16 hours 46 minutes and Orbus at 14 hours 45 minutes. Word counts respectively are 149,879, 158,775 & 135,525, which again respectively give word rates per minute of 156, 158 & 153. Um, no definite trend there. Maybe the lower figure for Orbus is simply due to the tense change?

All of this also brings home to me something I read in one of the numerous ‘How To’ writing books I’ve gone through: reading out your writing is a good idea, because if it doesn’t flow easily off the tongue then it isn’t flowing easily off the page into the reader’s brain. I must start doing a bit more of this reading out loud myself.

Gaiman on Copyright Piracy and the Web

I picked up this Neil Gaiman clip via an SF Signal twitter. Rather similar to an earlier speculation of mine that book piracy might be an electronic version of the second-hand book shop. I'm not entirely sure I agree. Does this apply outside SF? How does it apply for lesser known authors? How does it apply to authors who aren't regularly publishing books?

The Skinner from Audible

Oops, I got a bit distracted downloading my books from Audible and am now listening to The Skinner. I am absolutely loving the accents Gaminara is using for the characters. I laughed out loud when Captain Ron started talking. Excellent stuff!

Recording at Audible

So, yesterday we took the 11.05 train from Althorne to Wickford then went from there to Liverpool Street. Whilst we were travelling I kept adjusting my short introduction to the Spatterjay novels and was looking over the lists of questions I’d put together for this interview/conversation with William Gaminara. The questions for him to ask me I’d taken from various interviews I’ve had, whilst those for him to answer were from the surprising lack of information about him on the Internet. I’m guessing that despite being a well-known actor in Britain he’s probably a very private individual.

As it was I had even less time to fret. Initially we’d agreed to meet Stacy Patton Anderson (Acquisitions Manager for Audible) for lunch near Liverpool Street, whereupon we were going to go for a wander about, then head at 5.00 to the studio being used for the recordings. However, it turned out that Mr Gaminara was going for an audition (he still has to audition?) so the recording time was moved to 3.00.

We met Stacy, a pleasant American lady, in ‘Canteen’ in Spitalfields at 1.00. This seemed to be a slightly trendy place i.e. it had acoustics that severely hampered conversation, communal tables, uncomfortable backless chairs and expensive but average food. I’d brought along a selection of books for her that I handed over, and then, after eating, she took a further look at my intro and suggested some changes, which we made. After that we took a tube to Edgeware Road whereupon Stacy tracked down the Lisson Street studio with some sort of app on her phone.

Approaching the glass doors we immediately recognized Mr Gaminara inside – it’s that thing about actors: you recognize them like people you’ve known for years, but of course you don’t know them at all. On about three occasions whilst in London I’ve turned to say hello to someone I know, then stopped myself because I only knew that person as Inspector Burden from Wexford, Neil from the Young Ones or Prunella Scales from Fawlty Towers. You feel such a fool but, of course, they are used to it, and are immediately aware that they’ve been clocked.

I said hello to William, thanked him for his reading of my books, said hello to Vicky Bennett (Assistant Producer) and the sound editor John Moreland, whereupon we all trooped upstairs to the studio and generally had a chat. Apparently William hadn’t read any SF since Asimov many years ago. Still, I handed over some books – if not to lure him in then hopefully so he can start thinking about how he would read the Cormac series! Anyway, he seemed like a nice guy: professional and intelligent, paying attention to everyone around him and not in the least egotistical.

Just a note here: funny how though the people in the studio kept referring to him as ‘Willy’ I can’t bring myself to use that name here. Just goes to show how, maybe unconsciously, we so associate the actors with the roles they play. Damn it, he’s not Professor Leo Dalton!

We both went into the recording room which was a bit like a radio studio with spectators, producer and sound guy on the other side of a viewing window (In the picture Gaminara is the guy with only one chin and a face undamaged by acne rosacea). Whilst they were sorting out the sound levels I tried one of my questions to him and immediately made a cock-up, saying he’d written the scripts for The Lakes, and being corrected by him. In fact the series was created by and mostly written by Jimmy McGovern, with co-writers of some episodes being William Gaminara and others. Shows you how you can go wrong on the Internet.

When we got into the interview/conversation we hardly referenced the questions at all. Vicky Bennett occasionally asked us to focus on this and that and, at one point, according to Caroline, gave up because she couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Afterwards I was told it all went well, but I always take that with a pinch of salt nowadays. William then went off to do his audition – and will be back in the studio recording the audio version of the John Christopher Tripods series today. It might be interesting to get hold of that since, as I recollect, the TV version was never completed. Stacy also went off to some sort of meeting. In both cases, because studio time was limited and they wanted me in to record the intro, I forgot to sign their books. I went through the intro, repeating the bits I screwed up so it could be edited together later. As I stepped out it amused me to hear Vicky say (the first time anyone has said this to me in my life), ‘That’s a wrap’.

Leaving the studio we wandered around for a bit looking for somewhere to get a drink – I was wired – then got fed up with that and headed home. Caroline immediately brought me down to earth by getting me to take the rubbish out, then I made a dent in a bottle of Edradour I got for my birthday whilst we watched Taggart and some more episodes of The Shield.

Interesting interlude, but now back to the day job.

W & Y for Wolfe and Warrington Mostly.

I just remembered that I haven't finished putting all of my collection up here...

FREDA WARRINGTON:

THE BLACKBIRD IN SILVER

THE BLACKBIRD IN DARKNESS
THE BLACKBIRD IN AMBER
THE BLACKBIRD IN DARKNESS

IAN WATSON:
THE BOOK OF THE RIVER
THE BOOK OF THE STARS

WEISS & HICKMAN:
TIME OF THE TWINS
WAR OF THE TWINS
TEST OF THE TWINS

KATE WILHELM:
THE KILLING THING

F. PAUL WILSON:
THE KEEP

GENE WOLFE:
SOLDIER IN THE MIST
FREE LIVE FREE
THE SHADOW OF THE TORTURER
THE CLAW OF THE CONCILIATOR
THE SWORD OF THE LICTOR
THE CITADEL OF THE AUTARCH
THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS
BOOK OF DAYS

CHELSEA QUINN YARBRO:
FALSE DAWN

Patrick Moore Interview on The Register.

Thanks, Shiraz, for directing me to this excellent interview with Patrick Moore -- one of the founders of Greenpeace.

Particular highlights:

We're in an interglacial, but we're in a longer-term Ice Age. If we look at local temperatures, we're still in an Ice Age. It's 14.5°C , peak 12°C, but in the greenhouse period ice ages are short and sharp; Greenhouse Ages are long and steady and last 10 million or 100 million years. The Earth's averaged 22°C in these periods. So when people say global temperature is going to go up 2°C, and we're going to die, I just laugh. We're a tropical species. We haven't adapted to cold and ice, except we have fires.

...

For example, the latest scare is ocean acidification – it's totally made-up and ridiculous. Tomato growers inject CO2 to make the tomatoes grow; salt water aquarists inject CO2 to increase photosynthesis; and yet with coral we're told the opposite is true.

Apocalyptic scenarios are just that – our fear of death. When you add self-loathing, and you have the apocalypse being externalised, this is what you get. We have to stop this self-defeating approach: that – "we're going to die and we're to blame". That is enough to make you sick to your stomach. Much of this is collective neurosis. We should celebrate life.

Bit of Recording.

Righto, giving me less time to fret about the matter it seems I’m going into London tomorrow to record a little introduction for the Spatterjay books for Audible, then have some sort of recorded informal interview/chat with William Gaminara.

...

This has come up rather unexpectedly because Mr Gaminara is at Audible recording the Tripod books (John Christopher). I guess it’s useful for me because it gives me less time to fret.

Outcasts (Yawn)

Well, I watched the first episode of Outcasts and I’m finding it difficult to summon up the will to make a coherent criticism of it, but I will strive to do so. It was dreadful and dull. I was reminded of some of the dry history tomes I’ve tried reading. In the past I’ve really wanted to find out more about the Roman Empire, the Aztecs, the Saxon Kings whatever, and on just about every occasion I’ve been defeated by how the historian concerned managed to turn an exciting and interesting subject into something as dry as dust. Here in Outcasts we have the colonization of a new world, the landing of an interstellar spacecraft, intrigue, murder, weird things in the woods, and it grabbed me about as tightly as a dead octopus.


The sets were dull, the clothing is dull, the story is dull, the extrapolation is dull etc.

But I guess those history books were different. Boring they might have been but they never made me cringe.

But why was it so bad? It spent far too much time having people emoting and sobbing at their computer screens; it spent far too much time ‘character building’ but not in a good way; it is obviously getting wrapped up in right-on human issues, man. The entire plot can be summed up as: having a bad time, latest spacecraft crashes. And it was obviously another spacecraft coming direct from planet North London.

Oh yeah, and apparently they’re on a world with a breathable atmosphere where parallel evolution has produced pine trees and grass. Apparently Earth has been rendered uninhabitable, though meanwhile they managed to put together an interstellar space drive and colony ships.

Nice replacement here for the awful Survivors, and it’ll probably get dumped just as quickly.

Ach! I give up.

Line War Review -- Walker of Worlds

Mark Chitty finally got to the last in the Cormac series:

Finally I've come to the last Agent Cormac book, Line War, and up to now it's been a ride of ups and downs. The first two books, Gridlinked and The Line of Polity, were rather enjoyable, but they did have their issues. After that came Brass Man and Polity Agent, both of which upped the stakes and delivered some really great sci-fi. Now with Line War the story comes to a conclusion, and while it ends the series as a whole I always had that niggle of a doubt in my mind that it might not be as spectacular as I hoped. All totally unfounded of course, as Line War not only closes the series in style, it is one of the best books I've read in quite a while.

Line war on Amazon and on the Book depository.

Update (I just have to add his summing up):

On a final note, the Cormac series is perhaps one of the best overall examples of sci-fi I've had the pleasure to read. It's got action, adventure, intrigue, alien menaces and a whole host of other things that just hit the spot for me as a reader. Neal Asher: without a doubt the most entertaining science fiction author writing today. Well done, sir!


10/10

Neal Asher Video Clip 5/2/11

Here we go again. Not much to say this time and a big pause in the middle while I realized that the next bit in the comments section under the last clip was a discussion and not further questions for me.

As before, if you have some questions, stick them in the comments here.

Forbidden Planet etc.

I am somewhat hung over today, which is wrong really, since it's my 50th today and the hangover should be tomorrow. However, we got invited to a gathering last night in remembrance of Victoria Petrie-Hay who, along with her husband Howard Chadwick, was someone we used to meet on our yearly visits to Peter Lavery in Hastings. Victoria died of lung cancer recently. We went along.

Every time I go into London I always check up with Forbidden Planet to see if they want any stock signed, and they usually do. They'll maybe be appearing on these pages or, if you're in the area you can pop in. Here I am signing their stock, followed by a picture of a couple of the reprobates who work there.

After that we wandered around London trying to find the Phoenix Artist's Club, finally locating it after a phone call to Peter. This was followed by a meal then an hour or so wait in a local pub before we went to the club. A good if slightly drunken time was had by all. Caroline told me that Richard Arnold was in the place, but my eyesight wasn't so great by then so I'm not sure if I saw him. Meanwhile here we both are hobnobbing with fantasy royalty in the form of Tanith Lee and John Kaiine.

That's all for now. I just want to doss about and sleep now.

Urbock Shabber Gurble Thoughts/Review

Here are the thoughts of Chris W on various reviews of The Gabble. Hobbesian, me? Then again, I can't think of any SF story or novel to which the 'Hobbesian' label cannot be pasted. I would generally go for a less high-falutin description and use the words 'realistic cynicism'.

And because I'm putting these up every time I write something about one of my books in this blog: here's the Amazon link and here's the Book Depository one.

Top 10 Fantasy Downloads on Audible.

And The Skinner is in there at number three.

Polity Agent Review -- Walker of Worlds.

Here's another review from Mark Chitty as he steadily works his way through his backlog of my books:

Polity Agent is the fourth book in the Agent Cormac series, a series I've been catching up with and thoroughly enjoying. The second and third books in the series, The Line of Polity and Brass Man, dealt with the emergence of Jain tech and Skellor's use of it and was a fairly self-contained duology within the main story. Of course, just because that sub-story concluded it doesn't mean everything is fine, far from it - Jain tech is still out there and Polity Agent hits the ground running.

As a runcible opens from 800 years in the future the team that were sent to return the Maker to its civilisation in the Small Magellanic cloud comes through in a panic, the Makers overrun by Jain tech. With runcible time-travel not recommended by the AI's of the Polity due to the huge power requirements and dangers it involves, this situation is used solely to destroy the Jain infested Maker civilisation and most of the Small Magellanic cloud. This event raises many questions, most prominent of them being the purpose of Dragon, the huge bio-construct that the Makers created and sent to the Polity. Meanwhile an entity called Legate is distributing Jain nodes to certain people within the Polity, one of these being Orlandine, a haiman who takes a whole different approach to studying the Jain technology she has in her possession, while another is a dangerous separatist leader on the planet of Coloron. Meanwhile Horace Blegg, the infamous immortal of legend, is slowly learning more and more about jain tech and of himself, while Cormac continues to discover more about Dragon while trying to limit and eradicate the spread of Jain tech. And then there is the King of Hearts, a renegade AI whose journey out of the Polity leads him to discover something very dangerous indeed.

Polity Agent can be found here on Amazon and here on The Book Depository (free international shipping).

Thirty Days of Night

I read the Twilight series and I enjoyed it. Even though there are those reading those words who will sneer, I write them because long ago I decided I would not go the route of the literary snob or the pretentious twits who choose to associate themselves with books and films they feel enhance their literary cred. I chose to be honest about my likes and dislikes. I don’t like lies.

I also enjoy films like Interview with a Vampire and From Dusk Till Dawn because I love the ideas of immortality and the superhuman, especially with the added spice of those concerned being somewhat amoral, or immoral. Until now, my favourite vampire has always been Mr Barlow from the film of Salem’s Lot – the scene locked in my mind being the one where we first see him in a prison cell – but now he’s been knocked into second place.

Last night I watched Thirty Days of Night which in atmosphere was a bit like John Carpenter’s The Thing, what with the dogs, the cold and the desperation. It’s set in a small Alaskan town in the dead of winter, when they lose the sun for a month. It’s a town that gets cut off from the rest of the world. It becomes a feeding ground, and there you’ll find the best vampires ever, but not in a good way. If you want an antidote to the pretty, angst-ridden vampires of recent times, get this film and watch it.

Energy Catalyser.

More on that reactor I posted about previously. Apparently it's not 'cold fusion'. Full interview is here.

[The following interview of Andrea Rossi by blogger Daniele Passerini was originally published on Jan. 25 and is reprinted courtesy of Ventidue Passi D'amore e Dintorni. The English translation is provided courtesy of Shirakawa Akira. Passerini also prefaced the interview with his own comments (not translated here) in a short introduction titled "Toward Infinite Energy and Beyond." Rossi and Passerini have confirmed to New Energy Times that this English translation is factually and linguistically correct.]

...

PASSERINI. Good day Engineer Rossi, I thank you for accepting this interview. Everybody is asking themselves how you managed to perfect your Energy Catalyzer? Somebody even suspects that you stole the idea, for example, from Professor [Francesco] Piantelli from the University of Siena, who in the 1990s worked together with Professor [Sergio] Focardi on "cold fusion" research. Could you explain us where, why, how and when you started working on this project?

ROSSI. I started in 1987. As the facts show, my process strongly differs from previous efforts: Nobody has managed to manufacture a working device so far. Facts count, not words.

PASSERINI. 1987 would mean two years before the strongly disputed Pons-Fleischmann experiment. Recently, you stated that it's not proper to define the reaction occurring in your catalyzer as "cold fusion" and that it's more correct, at the moment, to generically define it as a weak [force] nuclear reaction – in other words, low energy, or LENR. Are you telling us that you went on a different road, parallel to that of "cold fusion" research?

ROSSI. Exactly. In fact, mine is not "cold fusion" but weak [force] nuclear reactions. Pons and Fleischmann did heavy-water electrolysis with a palladium cathode and a platinum anode. I don't do electrolysis, I don't use either platinum or palladium and I use temperatures that manage to melt nickel.

Outcasts.

So, the BBC is starting a major new drama series.

Set in space with the future of earth looking increasingly precarious, the race is on in Outcasts to find an alternative home in the universe.

Apparently, to get to this alternative home the outcasts travel through some kind of tranporter, but,

Outcasts is a tense and fast-paced series about co-operation and conflict, idealism and power, sexual competition and love. Most of all it is about our life's big imperatives – cheating death, seeking suitable mates and surviving as a species.

And it is definitely not science fiction. According to the designer, James North, who previously spent 5 years designing sets for Dr Who, '...the BBC doesn't want to give the impression it's putting out a sci-fi show on prime-time BBC1. This is a futuristic drama with the focus on pioneering humans who, out of necessity, just happen to be living on a planet that is not Earth.'

Let me give my deeply considered opinion on the above statement: what a wanker.

New Fuel

I noted this on the Internet a little while ago and now the snail-media newspapers have caught up with it. You can find articles here at Popsci and gizmag:

...

UK-based Cella Energy has developed a synthetic fuel that could lead to US$1.50 per gallon gasoline. Apart from promising a future transportation fuel with a stable price regardless of oil prices, the fuel is hydrogen based and produces no carbon emissions when burned. The technology is based on complex hydrides, and has been developed over a four year top secret program at the prestigious Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford. Early indications are that the fuel can be used in existing internal combustion engined vehicles without engine modification.

Cella Energy have developed a method using a low-cost process called coaxial electrospinning or electrospraying that can trap a complex chemical hydride inside a nano-porous polymer that speeds up the kinetics of hydrogen desorption, reduces the temperature at which the desorption occurs and filters out many if not all of the damaging chemicals. It also protects the hydrides from oxygen and water, making it possible to handle it in air.

In the papers I've seen the price as 90 pence a gallon and 19 pence a litre. This all sound incredible, wonderful and just the sort of thing we need. And I have huge reservations. We're told in the articles that present day car engines will not need to be modified, but go to the Cella website and we get, 'it is possible to convert a conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) to run on hydrogen with minimal engine modifications' which is not quite the same really. Fuel tanks and exhaust systems are not mentioned. I'm presuming that the micro-beads themselves are not burnt, that the hydrogen evaporates from them, so fuel tanks will have to be emptied as well as filled. Think of the infrastructure involved.
 
But for fuel of that price, surely we could set this in motion? Yeah, right, it's going to be that price. Ho ho. Lest we forget, if we bought petrol at the pump without government taxes it would cost 47 pence a litre. If you go here you'll see that not only do we pay 59 pence duty, the government then taxes us on the tax we pay on fuel, that is, VAT is charged on the actual fuel price + delivery charge + duty. Does anyone reading this think for one moment that our government would give up on such a lucrative way of screwing the population? Do you think for one moment it would give up on 20 billion in tax? If some cheap new fuel came in the government would just look upon it as a way of increasing its tax take. This basically defines the attitude of all governments to tax.

Is SF Getting More Conservative?

Interesting article here at Pyjama's Media, and a very interesting mass of comments ensuing. This is mostly American-centric so definitions of conservative, left, liberal etc are slightly different from the British version. I'd also submit that the question in the title is one that wouldn't even be asked here. 'One swallow does not a summer make' would be the relevant proverb.

I am a complete science fiction geek.

It started when I was little more than a toddler. One of my earliest memories: sitting in the basement with my parents as they watched Walter Cronkite narrate one of the Apollo missions as it rounded the moon. (Which one? I couldn’t have been more than three or four, and I was born in 1971. You do the math.) It left an impression. I’ve been a fan ever since.

In the last few years, I’ve noticed more and more that science fiction has taken a bit of a turn to the right. I’ve also seen more than a few reviews lambasting those authors for their views — which seems to matter not a whit to their sales.

So I emailed four of them — two relative newcomers and two legends — and asked why.

The legends, Dr. Jerry Pournelle and Orson Scott Card, need no introduction. But it bears mention that Ender’s Game, Card’s best-known work, is on the Commandant of the Marine Corps recommended reading list as a treatise on what it means to be a leader. The newcomers, Lt. Col Tom Kratman (Ret.) and Larry Correia, both write for Baen.

Audible Mailshot.

A mail shot from Audible here with my name at the top of the list. Tasty.

The Blade Itself -- Joe Abercrombie

When, on the first page of The Blade Itself, a major character went ‘Eeek!’ as he avoided a spear thrust, I nearly put it aside. My feeling was one of, ‘Oh FFS, not another fantasy with a central silly character who bumbles through the plot tripping over his magic sword squealing and running away then managing to destroy the [insert relevant baddy] through pure luck.’ But the writing was engaging and I carried on. This particular character developed into one who really wouldn’t go ‘Eeek!’ so I wish an editor had had the presence of mind to strike a line through it. The other subsequently introduced protagonists were also well-developed in this character-driven fantasy, which reminds me of some enjoyable stuff I’ve read in the past. If you want comparisons I’d say about 70% Eddings and 30% Gemmel – a sword-swinging romp. The book did seem to terminate rather abruptly, but then it is the first book of a trilogy, which I think is well worth a look for fantasy fans. I just apply my usual rules whilst reading: Am I bored? No. Am I enjoying myself? Yes. Will I buy the next two books? Yes.

Before They Are Hanged

The Last Argument of Kings

Update (From The Man Himself):

Hey Neal,

Eeek.

The irony is, that eek isn’t in the published book, only in the proof. My editor did indeed strike her line prior to publication...

But many thanks for the review. Be interested to hear what you think of the rest of the trilogy if you do get round to it. I reckon it gets better and better.

But then I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Best,

Joe Abercrombie

The Wire

Oh dear, what a disappointment. We’ve watched about four episodes of The Wire so far and, since seasons 2, 3, 4 & 5 of The Shield are on their way to us, I doubt we’ll be watching any more. The first episode was a chaotic mess but we stuck with it in the hope of improvement and did begin to get a handle on what was going on, but that chaos was but a minor problem amidst many larger ones.

Let’s start with the language of this, which is a big downside for the English viewer. Not only is American English sometimes difficult (how often have I given up on the mumblings of Brad Pitt) but the gang and police slang in this is nigh incomprehensible. It took me three episodes to realize they were saying ‘terraces’ and not ‘terrorists’, and generally I understood about half of what was said.

The next problem is that if I’d wanted to watch a show that was 80% office politics I wouldn’t have bought a cop show. Frankly it is fucking boring. The paper shuffling and dick waving contests of bureaucrats is not something I find entertaining. It’s depressing.

Then there are the characters. Okay, if there was just one person here who I was pulling for, that might have made a difference. However, they are all wounded, damaged screw-ups, all detestable twats, and if someone were to napalm the lot of them I’d shrug and actually consider watching the next episode. I’m guessing this is all supposed to be realistic depiction of life on the street, man, right-on with the social ‘issues’ etc. If I want realism I watch a documentary.

In The Shield I had identified and had some empathy for every major character within the first episode, which was an entertaining story in itself. Four episodes of The Wire have left me annoyed at having taken any notice of the hype, wishing I could get my money back, and considering whether to bother handing it in to a charity shop or binning it. Life is too short for shit, really.

The End.

Ah, there’s nothing quite like writing the two words above. They mean I’ve finished the first draft of the latest book, in this case, Zero Point. However, by no means has the work ended, only word-counts have ended. While writing a book I aim for 2000 words a day five days a week (a target I often miss), and I record the number of words to drive myself. That’s no longer necessary.

Zero Point is at 152,000 words and will probably grow as I have yet to write my characteristic chapter starts. It will be, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, about the size of The Skinner. Hereafter I’ll probably be deleting as many words as I write as I apply a number of rules. If I’m waffling I delete it, if it’s not relevant to the plot, or to character or world building, I delete it. Time lines and timings have to work. Polemic, while fun, should be either discarded, or consigned to one of those chapter starts where the reader has the liberty to either read and enjoy it or ignore it. Mostly it will be discarded. The English will need tidying up. Lots.

It may be the case that during this process I’ll chop out some large chunks because they add nothing or need completely rewriting. These I’ll consign to the file with the title Jupiter War, where I may use bits of them. Time for a celebration now? No, because I’m still in temperance January. I’ll save up this thirst for next month.

Homeopathic DNA

Okay, enough already! Who drugged me into a coma for three months last January? And why did they think it funny to wake me up on April 1st? This is silly ... or is it?

A Nobel Prize winning biologist has ignited controversy after publishing details of an experiment in which a fragment of DNA appeared to 'teleport' or imprint itself between test tubes.

According to a team headed by Luc Montagnier, previously known for his work on HIV and AIDS, two test tubes, one of which contained a tiny piece of bacterial DNA, the other pure water, were surrounded by a weak electromagnetic field of 7Hz.

Eighteen hours later, after DNA amplification using a polymerase chain reaction, as if by magic the DNA was detectable in the test tube containing pure water.

Oddly, the original DNA sample had to be diluted many times over for the experiment to work, which might explain why the phenomenon has not been detected before, assuming that this is what has happened.

Cold Fusion?

I really don't know what to make of this. Is it a load of bullshit or is it true? If it is true it is a major game-changer. It's the kind of thing that could utterly transform the world. Go and read the article over on WUWT and the ensuing comments.

Cold fusion isn’t usual fare for WUWT, at best it’s not a focus here, at worst it’s sorry science, and we talk about that enough already. However, it never has died, and this week there’s news about it going commercial. Well, it won’t be available for a couple years or so, but the excitement comes from a device that takes 400 watts of electrical power in and produces 12,000 watts of heat out.

Most people regard cold fusion as a black eye on science. It’s credited with the advent of science by press release and its extraordinary claims were hard to reproduce. Yet, unlike the polywater fiasco of the 1970s, cold fusion has never been explained away and several experiments have been successfully reproduced. Neutrons, tritium, and other products kept some researchers working long after others had given up. Even muons (from Svensmark’s Chilling Stars) have been suggested as a catalyst. Everyone agrees that theoretical help would provide a lot of guidance, but for something that flies in the face of accepted theory, little help has come from that.

Bubble Metal

I've been using bubble metals in my books ever since Gridlinked, and since I read an article concerning foamed metals. The basic idea was predicated on what could be produced in zero gravity manufacturing. If you foam a metal with an inert gas on Earth the bubbles will rise to the top so the distribution will be uneven. Do it in zero gravity and you have much more control over the process. Here's a new take on the idea:

A new material is tested to cut the weight of ships by 30 percent. For an average sized freight vessel with a capacity of 7000 m³ this corresponds to a weight reduction of more than 1000 tons. Researchers from Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology in Chemnitz, Germany, have experimented with an aluminum powder that foams when heated up (Jan '11)


The new material is lighter than water and has a high stiffness. Within seconds a cube made from aluminum starts to inflate into the shape of a sponge under the impact of heat. The secret of this reaction lies in the compounds of the new material. The metal is a mixture of aluminum and titanium hydride powder, which acts as a blowing agent just like yeast makes dough rise.

The aim of the researchers from the EU research project CREATING was to find a processing method to build large aluminum foam sandwich plates. These compounds could eventually replace steel plates of a vessel. To form such sandwich compounds, the powder is initially pressed into bars. The bars are then placed between two steel sheets and heated in an oven. At a temperature of more than 650° Celsius the new material expands and bonds with the steel sheets without the help of any adhesives.

Consider the implications for aero industries too. I wonder about the possibilities of foaming a metal with helium...

BBC Biased.

Gosh, I'm so surprised about this article from Peter Sissons. There was me thinking the BBC was the home of unbiased reporting and excellence...

Peter Sissons tell us:
By far the most popular and widely read newspapers at the BBC are The Guardian and The Independent. ­Producers refer to them routinely for the line to take on ­running stories, and for inspiration on which items to cover. In the later stages of my career, I lost count of the number of times I asked a producer for a brief on a story, only to be handed a copy of The Guardian and told ‘it’s all in there’.

If you want to read one of the few copies of the Daily Mail that find their way into the BBC newsroom, they are difficult to track down, and you would be advised not to make too much of a show of reading them. Wrap them in brown paper or a copy of The Guardian, would be my advice.
...
Whatever the United Nations is associated with is good — it is heresy to question any of its activities. The EU is also a good thing, but not quite as good as the UN. Soaking the rich is good, despite well-founded economic arguments that the more you tax, the less you get. And Government spending is a good thing, although most BBC ­people prefer to call it investment, in line with New Labour’s terminology.
...
All green and environmental groups are very good things. Al Gore is a saint. George Bush was a bad thing, and thick into the bargain. Obama was not just the Democratic Party’s candidate for the White House, he was the BBC’s. Blair was good, Brown bad, but the BBC has now lost interest in both.
...
But whatever your talent, sex or ethnicity, there’s one sure-fire way at a BBC promotions board to ensure you don’t get the job, indeed to bring your career to a grinding halt. And that’s if, when asked which post-war politician you most admire, you reply: ‘Margaret Thatcher’.

Brass Man Review -- Walker of Worlds

Mark Chitty is now catching up with the row of my books stacked on his shelf. You can find his review of Brass Man here.

Brass Man continues my reading (and catch-up) of Neal Asher's Ian Cormac series. I'm a big fan of Neal's work and my one reading resolution for this year was to get up-to-date on his releases. I'm in the fortunate position of having the whole series sitting on my shelf ready for back-to-back reads so I can fully appreciate the overall story he's telling, and after reading the both the second in the series, The Line of Polity, and now Brass Man I'm still gobsmacked that I haven't read them sooner. Brass Man is the third book in the series and picks up the characters following the conclusion of the previous book, with all the headaches that entails for Cormac and company!


...'after reading both the second' I think was meant to be 'after reading the two books that I class as the second part of the series'

Now, noting one reaction to the links I included for The Technician, here's the Amazon link for Brass Man, and here's the Book Depository one (free shipping to the US).

Audio Books

As Jonathan pointed out to me in the previous post, the Spatterjay books are now available on Audible. Click the link below to go through to them and play a sample read by William Gaminara.

The Technician.

Sixteen days before the paperback version goes on sale, but I'm told (on Twitter) that some copies are already being dispatched. You can get the paperback here on Amazon, or the hardback if you still want that.

The paperback is here on the Book Depository, and the hardback is here. The Book Depository is the best place to go if you live in the USA, since shipping is free.

Congruence.

You know I got this really odd feeling whilst I watched the film Lemony Snicket (which came out in 2004) upon viewing the scene with the leeches. My initial reaction was, did the film-makers read The Skinner, which was published in 2002? I mean, the boat, the sea, water you just can’t swim in, carnivorous leeches? Well, no, because the book in A Series of Unfortunate Events that has the leeches in it, called The Wide Window, was published in 2000. The congruence of some ideas amidst writers can sometimes be quite astounding, and I think it all comes about because though people might be writing something they think of as new, they are all always standing on the shoulders of giants (especially in SFF), who are the source of their inspiration.

Recently, whilst sitting down to watch the fourth season of Primeval, I realized I’d missed Season Three so bought a box set of One, Two & Three. I didn’t know what Season Three was about but, catching a hint of the storyline (not sure where) I looked up a review of it and got a feeling similar to that I experienced while watching the leech scene in Lemony Snicket:

…you can really see where most of the budget of the series went as Conner, Danny and Abby jump from anomaly to anomaly following Helen through a series of times, encountering creatures and dinosaurs in each time period they visit…

Eventually tracking Helen down, the team confronts her and finds out that her plan is a lot more insane than first thought. Having figured out what the artefact is and what it does (it's a sort of future hard drive for anomalies), it's then revealed that it can be used to go back to a specific point in time, namely 333 (a specific code used by archaeologists when describing the first ‘dig' where hominids - or proto-humans - were found). The team find that it's Helen's intent to go back to the site in Rift Valley and poison the first settlement of hominids, which would mean that humans would not evolve and as such never exist.

Did the writers of Primeval read Cowl? If they were into time-travel it would have been an good choice since there aren’t many modern time-travel books out there and it was shortlisted for the PKD Award.

But no, I think not. It’s that congruence again showing us that there’s nothing new under the sun. The idea in Primeval was just putting a spin on and ramping up of the idea implicit in the time-travel paradox of, ‘What happen if I go back in time and shoot my grandfather?’ which is what I did in Cowl. Though I must admit the future monster on this car could (at a big stretch) be Cowl himself!

The Departure Cover (small)

Another image of the cover for linking elsewhere.

The Departure Cover.

Here is the cover of The Departure along with a couple of blurbs:

Like Wellsian war machines the shepherds stride into riots to grab up the ringleaders and drag them off to Inspectorate HQ for adjustment, unless they are in shredding mode, in which case their captives visit community digesters, or rather whatever of them has not been washed down the street drains.

Pain inducers are used for adjustment, and soon the Committee will have the power to edit human minds, but not yet, twelve billion human beings need to die before Earth can be stabilized, but by turning large portions of Earth into concentration camps this is achievable, especially when the Argus satellite laser network comes fully online…

Alan Saul has taken a different route to disposal, waking as he does inside a crate on the conveyor into the Calais incinerator. How he got there he does not know, but he does remember the pain and the face of his interrogator. Janus speaks to Saul through the hardware implanted in his skull, sketching the nightmare world for him. And Saul decides to bring it all crashing down…

There are no more wars, just police actions, though sometimes the truncheon used weighs in at about a kilotonne and the undertakers have to wear hazmat suits. Nobody goes hungry, so there certainly aren’t any food riots – just ‘dissident actions’ which end abruptly when the Inspectorate reduces the crowd to a writhing screaming mess using pain inducers.

And didn’t Chairman Alessandro Messina himself say that we are more free than ever before; community political officers conducted a survey only last year to prove this point. The Press has greater freedom too, now being government run and unburdened by financial concerns. People don’t disappear, see, they always come back from Inspectorate cells, ready to sing the praises of the Committee.

But Alan Saul knows that twelve billion are due to die, that the Committee has decided the Safe Departure clinics, the ‘sectoring’ of zero asset communities, the reader guns, razor birds and nightmarish shepherds will not be enough. The Argus satellite laser network is their answer, and he intends to take it away from them.

New Releases.

I've just received a paperback version of The Technician which comes out on February 4th (my birthday).
The Departure will be published in September of this year and Macmillan will also be publishing the rejacketed backlist of The Gabble & Other Stories, Hilldiggers and Line War.