It was a Bank Holiday Monday here in the UK yesterday, one taken up mostly by a celebratory lunch somewhere in the North Welsh countryside and the final amendments to Empire State. Empire State, my dimension-hopping noir detective novel, is now done and is ready for beta reading!
But the celebratory lunch was for the Sir Julius Vogel Awards, New Zealand’s highest science fiction honours handed out each year at their national science fiction convention. This year it was Au Contraire, held in Wellington, and when I checked my email on Monday morning I discovered that I’d won the award for Best Fan Publication for Time/Space Visualiser, the fanzine of the New Zealand Doctor Who Fan Club that I edited from 2003 to 2009. The award was shared with Phoenixine, edited by John and Lynelle Howell.
I must say I was surprised and delighted to win the award, and my Weta Workshop-designed trophy thing is heading my way. Editing and designing TSV was a lot of work, supported by founding and co-editor Paul Scoones, who has posted some more cogent thoughts about the awards over at his blog.
And you know what? Being recognised for that is pretty gosh-darned cool.
Anyway, more details and a full list of all the winners is available at Tor.com and Science Fiction Awards Watch, and an archive of the awards ceremony live blog can be read here. For those interested in seeing the issue of TSV (#76) that qualified for the award and won the prize, it is available as a free PDF here.
Some new fiction for you this week – my horror flash-fiction short story, The Nightmare of You and Death in the Room is out today in Hub magazine #126. Please take a look and I welcome feedback – I’ve already had some interesting interpretations of it on Twitter!
It’s old news now, but Amazon opened the UK Kindle store on 5th August. Prior to this, you could buy Kindle ebooks from Amazon.com, but due to the addition of VAT and other mysterious charges, prices were often a little high. My voodoo steampunk novella, The Devil in Chains, for example was set at a price of 99 cents (the minimum, as you can’t give away free Kindle books), but UK customers had to pay something rather more (I think it was between $4 and $5, although I don’t remember).
The UK Kindle store is good news, then, and you can grab The Devil in Chains for just 72p. I’ve tried it out on the iPad’s Kindle app, and I have to say it looks pretty gosh-darned cool. I’d be interested to see it on an actual Kindle – hopefully I’ll be able to hijack one down at FantasyCon in September and take a look. I must admit the new Kindle, in smexy graphite grey, looks pretty cool and the price is terrific (£109 for the WiFi model, £149 for the WiFi + free 3G model)… but it’s a mono-functional eink device. Hmm. I carry too much stuff as it is.
As well as being “in print” this week, you can marvel at my mumbling half-New Zealand, half-British accent over at WordPunk. A couple of weeks ago I was a guest host on their Genre, Movies and TV, and Tech and Gadgets episodes, all of which are now online and available at their website or via iTunes. I had a great time on the show and my thanks to Del, Simon and James for having me on!
I’m not a book blogger and this isn’t a book news site, but some of my favourite authors have been busy this week and there are some things worth shouting about. So, in no particular order:
Boneshakerauthor and Seattle steampunk supremo Cherie Priest revealed the full, new cover for Clementine. Clementine is a novella sort-of sequel to Boneshaker, set within the same Clockwork Century universe, and is out this month from Subterranean Press. I was lucky enough to snag one of the signed limited editions, and I can’t wait to receive it. This cover is what I would technically describe as “smokin’ hawt”.
New York Times bestselling author and would-be benevolent dictator Scott Sigler has a book coming out this month called Ancestor. His last volume from Crown Publishing, Contagious, pushed him into the sales charts, and Ancestor is set to propel him up even further. Personally, I’ve already ordered five copies – one for myself, and four to give away to people who haven’t read Scott before (which I’ll be giving away via Twitter).
I was surprised earlier this year at EasterCon (the national British science fiction convention) by the number of people who had never heard of Scott, and clearly, this will not do. Scott may be a legend and pioneer among podcasters, but his fame – and the reason why YOU should be reading his books – is due entirely to him being a damn fine writer. There are a lot of people who put their material out for free (whether as text or audio), and a lot of it is not so solid. But Scott has the goods, and this is why he’s a New York Times bestselling author. He also appears in his own book trailer as the mean-looking bald guy (the first one, without the knives and guns!). Watch your back.
Speaking of book trailers, Lauren Beukes, one of Angry Robot’s finest, released one for her forthcoming novel Zoo City. It’s in a completely different style to Scott’s trailer for Ancestor, but is moody and effective. Check it:
There’s good news for UK-based fans of Lauren too, for she’s making a trip from her native South Africa at the end of July to attend three events in London – more details over at Angry Robot.
At her signing at Forbidden Planet, you’ll have the opportunity to buy a very, VERY limited edition hardcover of Zoo City… which means, by my count, that Lauren has at least five different editions of the book to collect: the South African paperback from Jacana, the Forbidden Planet limited hardcover, the Angry Robot UK paperback (September 2010; cover by Joey Hi-Fi), the Angry Robot US paperback (January 2011; cover by John Picacio), plus an ebook of some description.
And this is actually a good example of my new digital library policy. I’m now trying to read exclusively on my iPad, and so far it’s been a real dream. So I’ll be buying the ebook of Zoo City to read. But I’ll also be buying the four print editions as collectables, and I hope to get at least two of those signed. This is what I was talking about back on the Angry Robot blog – ebooks and print books can and will co-exist, because they will start to fulfil different functions. Reading on the iPad is a very pleasurable and immensely convenient experience, and at the same time I can enjoy the set of Lauren’s print books as collectable objects.
Finally, J. Robert King, author of Angel of Death (among many other titles) and all-round top bloke has posted an excellent blog about why he uses Twitter. This is an argument I’m sure most Twitter users have encountered, probably many, many times. Rob’s summation of Twitter, its use and (importantly) its value, is about the best I have read and encapsulates everything very neatly indeed. For those of you who read this blog but are not on Twitter, perhaps you’d like to consider it now!
That’s it for this week. More writing-related posts next! This weekend I’m off to Alt Fiction, a one-day SF con with a heavy literary focus being held in Derby. It seems that about twenty thousand people are going, so I hope the venue is big enough. But it should be a great day, and I’m really looking forward to it!
I try to keep this blog writing-related, but here’s a brief interlude.
Last Thursday I went to see one of my favourite bands, Quasi, play Manchester’s Deaf Institute. It was nothing short of amazing – tiny venue with perfect sound, small crowd, good support band (I know, I’m still in shock). One of the benefits of being a fan of small indie bands who play small venues is the opportunity to actually meet them. All three members of Quasi were either chatting in the audience beforehand, or manning their t-shirt stand, and when they came off stage I grabbed a moment to chat to Janet, the drummer, who also plays with Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, and was one third of Sleater-Kinney.
Anyway, there were a lot of photographers there, and by chance someone captured a pic of me and guitarist/singer Sam Coomes, which I’m pretty chuffed with. Hint, I’m not playing guitar:
Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find any video of the show, although there are some good recordings on You Tube from earlier in the same tour. Here’s one from Chicago:
In other news, slightly more writing-related, I’ve got my iPad. It’s absolutely beautiful. I may only have had it since Thursday (it was delivered a day before the official UK launch too), but every day it still surprises me. It is slightly smaller than I thought it would be, but is very comfortable to use. I’ve already been reading comics and eBooks on it, and I have to say, I’m now a total convert to digital reading. iBooks is a terrific e-reader.
It’s not all about passive consumption of content though. I’ve done some beta-reading and critiquing (with notes) in Pages, and I’ve started Corkulous planning boards for Ludmila, My Love and The Gospel of the Godless Stars. When I can figure out how to take screenshots, I’ll post some up.
You might have guessed I’m something of a gadget freak. Well, that’s not quite right. I don’t collect gear or spend hours reading Engadget. However, I am a fan of tech that makes my life easier. I’ve talked about the iPad before – and I’m literally counting the hours until my very own 64GB WiFi model arrives this Friday – and I’m a proponent of all things digital, be it music, or films and TV, or books.
This week I was a guest of Angry Robot books, and I took the opportunity to make a case for switching from print books to ebooks. I’ve had numerous interesting comments about this via Twitter, and my writing pal Jennifer Williams has posted a response on her own blog. I hope you’ll take the time to read both my take and hers, and join the debate!
Writing wise, I’m finally – FINALLY – back on track with Ludmila, My Love. At 2,000 words a day, I should be done in about three weeks, which means I can let that one ferment in the draw and get straight into The Gospel of the Godless Stars, the horror Western I’m co-writing with Kate Sherrod.
This is my first collaboration, but so far I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the process. We’re currently working out the plot and synopsis, and have been swapping and expanding scene chronologies back and forth. I must admit, I was nervous at the start of all this – having spent a few days nutting out some plot points, what if Kate hated them? What if Kate’s sections completely turned my precious ideas upside down and inside out?
But of course, it’s not my story. Nor is it her story. It’s our story. We both realise and understand this, and actually it results in a much freer creative experience. Kate even wrote a short prologue at the same time as I was working on mine – and having seen hers, it’s not only a terrific piece of writing, it actually leads almost directly into my own. I suspect this project will go well.
With all this writing work on, one thing that will hopefully keep the pressure up is the brand new Manchester SpecFic Writing Group, which met for the first time a couple of weeks ago at the MadLab in central Manchester. All are welcome, and our next meeting is June 2nd, where we will hopefully have some critiques to give out. I just need to give the first chapter of Empire State another going over before I drop it into our shared folder.
Nervous? You bet. We’re using Turkey City rules. But I’m hoping it’s going to be a valuable experience. I’ll keep you posted.
And so the reigns of power are handed over and a new coalition is formed… Angry Robot Books, my favouritist of genre imprints have partedcompany with Harper Collins and are now backed by independent publisher Osprey.
Wait, what did you think I was talking about?
I think it’s fair to say that this move has surprised a lot of people, even shocked some, but I’d heard rumblings here and there of changes over the past few weeks. While a shift from a large, multinational corporate publisher like Harper Collins to a smaller, independent house like Osprey may sound like bad news, I think it’s actually a very good move. I think, perhaps, Harper were finding Angry Robot a difficult proposition. Their cross-genre sensibility, which is precisely its strength, could easily make a more traditional publisher – with their traditional marketing departments and traditional sales staff – a touch nervous. The legend of King Arthur retold as an urban gangland novel in black Indianapolis? A supernatural murder mystery set among the Aztecs of Mexico? What shelf do you put those books on?
But that’s what makes Angry Robot Books what they are. Their mission is to publish damn good books, regardless. Having said that, while cross-genre defines them, it’s also not the only thing they do – there’s urban fantasy, there’s streampunk, and there’s science fiction as well. Really, a more accurate statement would be that the genre doesn’t matter, so long as it is genre.
Whatever. This is good news. It will allow Angry Robot to grow and develop as a key, important independent genre publishing house. They’re established, they have a great brand, a terrific and incredibly diverse collection of authors and books, and a new set of owners who have promised business as usual and seem to be as excited about this (at least going by their Twitterfeeds today!) as I am. I’m totally behind this move, and I’m quite happy to restate my position:
I trust Angry Robot Books to deliver the best genre storytelling around, and I would happily take all of their titles, on spec, as a standing order.
Also, as they’re now officially an independent publisher, I’m fully expecting to see publishing director Marc Gascoigne and editor Lee Harris to show up in their skinny jeans and narrow ties at FantasyCon in September. And look, they’ve even got their own brand of Chuck Taylors.
I suppose blowing your own trumpet is just part of being a writer, even though it’s not something I’m good at (and I’m not really sure you can be good at it) or used to. So here goes. I’m throwing caution to the wind and am just going to type it.
This year has been good so far. Writing is progressing well, with my fourth novel hitting the 35% mark (more on that later). I went to my first UK science fiction convention at Easter and had a blast, meeting a great number of terrific people and forging some great new friendships.
But perhaps more importantly I achieved a personal goal and sold my first short story to one of the best online SF fiction magazines, The Hub. This is very, very cool.
This week brings some more news in the very, very cool department – I’ve won a competition! A month or so ago, Angry Robot Books ran a competition to write a 13-sentence short story, the initial letter of each sentence spelling “The World House”, the title of the new novel by Guy Adams, who judged the competition.
And I won. Which is a rather odd feeling. Well, actually it’s a frackin’ amazing feeling, but really I’m just very glad that Guy liked it. Us writers love validation!
I’m very pleased to announce that my Lovecraftian weird tale, The Unpopular Opinion of Reverend Tobias Thackery, appears in this week’s issue of The Hub, a pre-eminent online science fiction and fantasy magazine that delivers some cracking content nearly every week, entirely for free. I’ve already had some very kind comments, in particular one from HeikeM on Twitter that said it was not only “so well written” but that it was “so deliciously evil and dark”. This kind of reaction is exactly what keeps writers going – a heck of a lot of hard work, performed in near solitary confinement, over a prolonged period of time, finally reaches an audience and entertains them. That, my friends, is a perfect result, and makes it all worth it.
The Hub issue 114 can be found here, and you can download a PDF here. This issue also features two great book reviews and the first part of a very interesting interview with author Joe R. Lansdale. My thanks go to the managing editor Alisdair Stuart and publisher Lee Harris. Incidentally, both Alisdair and Lee can be found on Twitter, and they are very much worth a follow!
I’ve blogged about Tobias Thackery before here and here, so check out those entries for some of the background on this story. I like to think that Robert Bloch himself would have enjoyed the story, smirking perhaps at my choice of name for the Cornish village in which it is set, nodding in appreciation as the evil of Egypt once more rises beneath the peaceful English countryside.
Week one of the new decade draws to a close (no, I’m not getting into an argument about whether the decade starts in 2010 or 2011. Get. Over. It), and after a bit of heaving and swearing (lots of swearing), I’m finally dragging Empire State back on track. After about two months in the doldrums, it’s a bit like that old metaphor of turning a cruise liner around. It takes a bit of coaxing, and it’s not a fast process. Anyway, one million words, here I come.
And this I dig, a lot. Reader ediFanoB, whom I randomly bumped into on Twitter due to our shared love of steampunk, has a few words to say about my novella, The Devil in Chains, on his website. Now, The Devil in Chains isn’t a new release, and one of great mysteries of the publishing world is how books are all hot news on the week of release, then everyone forgets about them. I mean, Coke advertise several times a day on TV, and you can go to the store and buy a can. But I can also go to my local bookstore and buy, say, Salem’s Lot, but you don’t see Salem’s Lot advertised anywhere. Although writing is an art and a craft, publishing is about building name and brand. With that in mind, I’m pretty chuffed that ediFanoB enjoyed The Devil in Chains enough to not only blog about it, but demand I get on with the rest of the series and get Dark Heart (the first novel in the series, for which The Devil in Chains is a stand-alone prequel) edited and, heck, published even!
Well, that’s why I do it. I write stuff that I hope people enjoy. And if they do, that’s my job done. Thanks, edi!
This weekend I’m off to the UK’s best comic con, Thought Bubble, held every November in Leeds. Some of my favourite writers and artists will be there, the hotel we’re staying in is right next to the convention centre, and it’s a great chance to take two days off and relax and recuperate and collect sketches and generally have Good Times.
Because November has hammered me a little, I must say.
It started off well. Harper Voyager – the science fiction/fantasy imprint of major publisher Harper Collins – named me “Tweeter of the Month”, which meant not only did I get a wee blurb in their monthly e-newsletter, I got a swag of books from them including some George R. R. Martin and Rad Bradbury.
And then my good friend Mark Nelson (zardoz67) won the Stephen King hidden text competition – and was even interviewed by The Guardian – and, amazingly, I came in second. The prize is a limited, numbered, advance reading copy of King’s new novel Under the Dome, and although that hasn’t arrived yet, they sent me a regular store hardcover in the meantime. I must say I’m completely chuffed to be one of the two runners up, considering more than 5,000 people entered. My hidden text entry is here.
Rad Bradbury: Empire State is also going well – I’m not writing every day, which is a problem, but the book is currently at 30,207 and on track for completion. The reason for not writing every day, and indeed not updating this blog, is because suddenly the day gig went mental. And not in a good way either, which means it has been a significant drain on not only time but energy, which for a writer who needs to write out of office hours, is really bloody annoying.
However, here’s the plan. Two days off enjoying Thought Bubble, plus I have Monday off for some writing catch-up. Then just two weeks of the day gig and I’m on holiday for a month, and then after that (fingers-crossed) I’ll be my own boss.
