Something about the weather

Just in case you missed it, I thought I'd mention that the first episode of Philippa Ballantine's new podcast novel Weather Child is now available.

Reasons why you need to be listening:
1: It's set in New Zealand.
2: It's dark.
3: It's very, very good.

Check it out!

Why do blog posts need titles? Will I get in trouble if I don't put one in?

First of all, go listen to this recent Agony Column podcast: Jeffrey Ford reads his story "The Drowned Life" at SF in SF on March 16, 2008. I love this story. Not only because it's got a real Haruki Murakami logic to it, but because it shows how well fantasy can speak about modern politics and economics.

Holy Cory Doctorow! A Kiwi is part of the team creating anopen source 3D printer that can make copies of itself! If any of our future robot overlords read my blog, I was on the side of the computers all along. Please don't shoot me.

Excellent interview at The Fix with Sean Wallace: "Something that’s really lacking in our pages is material from overseas sources". I'm typing as fast as I can...

Tobias Buckell reckons Tor's recent ebook giveaway had the same impact on novel sales as getting nominated for a major award.

Go here and play the dust game. Waste lots of time.

Had my first coaching session with James George today. We talked about noir, new weird, magic realism and graphic novels and he gave me some truly spectacular writing advice. Weaving movement into description is my new mantra. Tomorrow I start a new piece of writing in preparation for the next session, which leaves, oh, about four stories uncompleted on my hard drive. I think this year is going to be the kind where it looks like I've done bugger all, then send out a bucketload of submissions in December. Forgive me father Heinlein, etc. Hey, does anyone else have the dream where Heinlein is dressed in a nun's habit and stands behind you with a ruler, ready to smack you on the knuckles when you don't finish a story before going on to the next one? No? Just me then.

Have some Sonny:

Sharks, eels & doctors

OK, so I didn't start a new story about happy ponies. But the new one has nothing more sinister in it so far than a busted up Honda Civic. And a couple of dead guys, but they're just regular working stiffs, more sweet than terrifying. Tonight, the writing goes very well indeed.

Over at Starship Sofa today, there's a recording of Jeff VanderMeer's story Shark God Versus Octopus God read in several outrageous accents, by me. I was aiming for a Ray Winstone hard man kind of thing, but it turned out more like the bloke below:

(warning - clip contains gratuitous Cockney urine)



Weird Tales has released their list of the 85 weirdest storytellers of the past 85 years and it's a corker! They've taken a very broad definition of storyteller. Opinion so far seems to be shock, followed by confusion, followed by a standing ovation. Any list that can include both Dr. Seuss and Warren Zevon is fine by me.


Via Behind The Sofa, an article about writing Doctor Who tie-in novels. If I ever end up writing a tie-in novel, I would be happy if it had a TARDIS in it.



Obligatory music video. Gotta be more Boosh:

I'm just not even going to try to come up with a title

Jay Lake talks about rejection. Be sure to check out his earlier entries on the subject as well.


Jonathan Strahan really likes what Garth Nix is doing with Sir Hereward & Mr. Fitz. And having read the first story in the series (follow the link to find it), I do too.

Why not have a chat with your friendly neighbourhood theoretical physicist? Hanselminutes is normally packed with .NET codey goodness, but this one covers quantum computers, time travel, and how teleportation is real right now. A great introduction to the freaky bits.

And on the same lines, In our time discuss the Multiverse. Although how you can talk for nearly an hour about the multiverse and not mention trans-dimensional space pirates even once, I have no idea.

Since this post has gotten all scientific, how's this for a video. If the comments on Youtube are to be believed, the song was based on this bloke.

in which several random things are combined to make a blog post

Liz and I spent the weekend at Hahei, the first time I've really been to the Coromandel. Yes, I know it's only a couple of hours from home. Shut up. Got some more work done on the story that is eating my life and had an epiphany. This isn't just a standalone story. It's all related, albiet tangentially, to a series I'm writing. Things are proceeding better now. Started reading the latest Peter F Hamilton, which seems to have about three chapters in 600 pages. I'm normally not a fan of singularity SF, but this is Peter F Hamilton - I'm in safe hands.


Black Gate remembers Gary Gygax. If it wasn't for this man, I would never have started reading (or writing) fantasy.

Billy Bragg has a podcast. And bloody good it is too.

Are you all subscribed to Starship Sofa yet? If not, now's a great time to start. Tony's taking the week of, so in place of a show he's podcasting one of the short stories up for this year's BSFA awards every day this week.

update: This arrived in my inbox this morning:

StarShipSofa will bring you, in conjunction with the British Science Fiction Association all five of the short stories that have been shortlisted for the BSFA Award for Best Short Story 2007 in audio narrated format for FREE. Starting Monday 10th March (tomorrow) StarShipSofa will upload one of the narrated stories each day. First off, to give you a heads up will be Chaz Brenchley narrating his own story Terminal.

Now this means they will all be up online for free for you to listen to, well in advance of voting time at Eastercon.

And yes.... I will not except....."Er I was too busy to read 'em excuses!"

So... if you haven't already... pop over to StarShipSofa and subscribe for free or you can subscribe via iTunes and get some of the very best in SF short stories, narrated and uploaded for free.

Get Ready,

Blast Off!

Tony

Obligatory video. How about this?