Archive for March, 2009
Star blogger Ariel, aka Darren Turpin the marketing wizard at Orbit, has now given this website a revamp...check out The Books section and see what happens when you click those covers.
Last year I had a very enjoyable trip to Alt.Fiction in Derby...and during the train journey back I was smitten with the idea for a short story about a very very strange man (not a bit like me! I'm not strange! Hardly at all!)
The story has now been published online, by those splendid people at the Hub (thanks Lee!) If you don't already subscribe, click here to get the link, then go to the pdf. (The mag doesn't charge, but donations are highly welcome.)
There's a chance too that there will be a Hub-connected anthology publication of the story later this year, which would be great.
Red Claw, my follow up to Debatable Space, is now on its way to a bookshop near you....well actually, not till later this year (October I believe). But there's an account of the book on the Orbit website written by someone even crazier than I am...
Red Claw is very like Debatable Space, except for the fact that it's completely different in every respect. It's not set in space, it doesn't have antimatter bombs and black holes, or space battles, or Flanagan and Lena. What it does have aliens. Many many aliens. Very very very many aliens. And Doppelganger Robots.
With this book, I set out to write a reflective, analytical study of scientific method and the joy of discovery.
Then I thought, what the hell! and wrote Red Claw, which is a reflective, analytical study of scientific method and the joy of discovery combined with relentless KICK-ASS ACTION and a ticking clock narrative in which the end of the world is increasingly, and alarmingly, nigh.
Check out the cover too. This was the subject of great debate between myself and the Orbit guys and (in my opinion!) what they've come up with is wildly audacious and vivid. It evokes all those SF pulp covers I used to love so much, but in a very modern way. The toy spacemen, by the way, were borrowed from the extensive collection of toy action figures that I keep in my attic, next to my Airfix spaceships (sigh...I'm so sad.)
I hope to publish an excerpt from the book on this site in due course; watch this space.
Phew! These last few months have been crazy busy, and I've been badly neglecting my blogging and my internet time-wasting.
I've been keeping up to date with stories and news by reading my favourite e-zines, SF Crowsnest and the Hub. But I've only just realised that Concept Sci-Fi has been going from strength to strength, with some very beautifully designed cybermags for download, with great covers and first rate stories.
Hey, why bother writing that radio play when I can spend my time reading other people's work....