Postmodern life is a confusing experience; certainties are fleeting, if indeed they can said to exist at all. This may go some way to explaining the utility of maxims, mottoes and totemic utterances; the enduring (some might say increasing) ubiquity of prayer and of song.

When the maelstrom of meaning and identity becomes to much for me to bear, I repeat a short simple sentence, a sentence which revealed to me the one deep truth at the centre of all the shallow lies of life:

Mister Cheap is the cheapest.*

Writing about music

I seem to be having a run of bad luck with interviews of late; I was supposed to have a chat with Ginger Wildheart on Wednesday afternoon, but his phone was switched off. Hoping for a reschedule on that one … which will arguably be a reschedule of the one that went horribly wrong back in December. Rock’n'roll, kids!

Manic punk-metallers Cancer Bats are playing in Brighton next Saturday, so I’ll be heading along to that with fellow Fictioneer and Easterconner (and all-round top chap and good buddy) Shaun C Green.

I’ve heard great things about Cancer Bats’ live skillz0rz, so if you’re in the area why not drop by the show as well? It’s a matinee (midday till 4), so public transport will be fine.

Album of the Week

Hands down, no contest – the sludge-pop-stoner-rock of Meanderthal by Torche; if you like your music heavy and hook-laden with a side-salad of fun, this one’s for you.

Writing about books

[Please insert your own have-you-hired-a-parrot joke here. Suffice to say that I haven't managed my free time as well as I might have liked in the last week.]

Freelance

It’s been a busy week for me over at PS Publishing, with lots of fresh cover art to post on the blog as well as the production and delivery of my first e-bulletin newsletter thingy (which you should have received already if you are on the PS mailing list).

The learning curve isn’t too savage so far; the only shock to the system is another burden on my time management skills – which, as can be seen above, are still in need of the equivalent of a bodybuilding crash-course, which is exactly what they’re getting.

Maybe one day I’ll write one of those self-help books about time management for self-made businesspersons:

How I Made My Career And Learned To Prioritise By Taking On Way More Work Than Made Sense To Anyone!

Hell, I’d buy a book with that title.

Futurismic

We’re about to buy our first story with me as Ed-in-Chief at Futurismic, which means I have to get the contract and payment arrangements in place – tricky, but very exciting stuff!

It’s also high time I hired some new bloggers; one of the last batch has drifted away completely due to having things to do beyond the internet (hah! I mean, what’s that all about?), and the other two have real world commitments that mean they can’t post every day. I reckon I’ve got room for two or three more smart folk …

… so if you or someone you know might be interested in becoming one of the Futurismic blogging team, drop me a line via the Contact form on Futurismic itself. Cheers!

Books and magazines seen

The seemingly-perpetual F&SF subscription rolls relentlessly onward with the arrival of the June 2008 issue … which has one of the most uninspiring covers I’ve seen in a long while.

Held up against Murky Depths #4 (which slipped into the post-box mere minutes ago), I know which one I’d grab off the shelves first:

No new books this week, though a parcel is pending from Royal Mail** which I suspect may be my first care package from Pete at PS … boutique literary goodies await!

The Symposium

I took notes through the Gresham College “Science Fiction as a Literary Genre” symposium yesterday, which was an edifying event - as well as a chance to hang out with the critical wing of UK fandom. But thankfully Niall has a full report, which saves me the embarrassment of trying to make other people’s ideas more coherent by processing them through my own brain***.

[ Stop the press! This just in - Chris Roberson is jealous of us all for going, but makes some interesting points comparing Stephenson's talk to the recent Clay Shirky "cognitive surplus" presentation. Worth checking out. ]

Although arranged by Gresham College, the event was held at the Royal College Of Surgeons in a very posh part of London (suits and ties a-go-go). They have a skeletal sloth in the hallway, which made me think of playing AD&D with a rather irreverent DM:

Dinner afterwards with many lovely people who I hardly ever get to see in meatspace. I drank too much wine; put it this way, it’s a good thing I didn’t have to go to the day-job today, as I’ve been paying the price. But it was worth it; a great day out.

[fanboy]Oh, yeah – you know your ARC of the Subterranean Press reissue of Stephenson’s Snow Crash? Is it, er, signed by the author? Hmmmm? No?

BECAUSE MINE TOTALLY IS!!!1! [/fanboy]

Coda

And so it goes; I’ve had a two-day working week at the day-job, but I’ve not gained that safety margin on my to-do list I had hoped for. More discipline required, perhaps … after a concerted binge of just not doing anything but writing review for a day or two. I want a week’s headway; that’ll mean I’m able to get my weekends back to myself and restore that “work-life balance” thing people keep telling me about.

Speaking of discipline, a certain lady of note at the post-Symposium dinner last night recommended gym-work and weight lifting in response to last week’s exercise question; the lady in question can apparently bench-press a surprising mass.

As mentioned before, a public gym is pretty much out of the question for me, but I may take her advice and speak to someone whose job it is to answer such questions. Luckily my circle of friends includes a personal trainer****, saving me the embarrassment of phoning around until I find one who doesn’t intimidate me.

So, hopefully by this time next year I’ll be a slim well-organised freelance superhero! Or something like that … I’ll settle for a busy freelancer who still gets to have days off for Symposiums without having to panic about his schedule, and who can tuck into The Friday Curry without remorse thanks to a sensible moderate exercise regime.

And speaking of The Friday Curry … would you look at the time! Hasta luego, amigos.

And even though I was quite looking forward to scouring piles of junk for hidden gems, I can't get too upset about the withering away of an industry entirely predicated on misery. Sure, something else will replace it - but even so. ]

[ ** I couldn't pick it up from the depot because it doesn't have my name on it, only the ridiculous name of my domicile [[The Hall Of Mirrors]], so I have to settle for redelivery sometime tomorrow between 7am and midday … which, Sod’s Law states, will occur at 11:45am, with me having waited around the house unable to do my Saturday chores and shopping. Selah. ]

[ *** Like that's ever going to work; even my “what I've been up to” blog posts have footnotes. Oh, snap! ]

[ **** Guy in question has biceps bigger than my thighs. This isn't something I have any wish to emulate; I mention it merely for the OMFG factor. ]

So, the Clarke Award ceremony was the opening event of the Sci-Fi London film festival, which is why we had Darth Vader and an assortment of other Star Wars cosplay types hanging around as we made busy with chicken-on-a-stick and alarmingly strong (free) Russian lager:

Jokes were, naturally, plentiful.

‘Twas a fine night out, as I have mentioned already; when the podcast featuring myself and the good Professor Roberts being interviewed by Graham Sleight emerges, I’ll give it a listen and link to it provided I don’t sound too gormless.*

Writing about music

The Dreaded Press rattles on; CDs continue to arrive, reviews continue to be written. Every time I think I’ve managed to get well ahead of schedule something happens to knock me back again. It’s kinda Sisyphean … just with albums, and not a big stone.**

Album of the week

Another week with two strong contenders. HORSE the Band come very close with the Nintendo/metalcore mash-up of A Natural Death, but the prize goes to the fuzzy lo-fi LA pop of Nouns by No Age.

Writing about books

Hahhhahhahhahhha! Hah ha ha. Er.

So - none, then.

I know it’s a familiar refrain, but I’m scheduled to finish some reviews this weekend; the extra length of said weekend should hopefully make it more probable that I do so.

Freelance

Things are gearing up to cruise velocity for me with PS Publishing, which is good. There’s a lot to take in, and it’ll be a while before the routines settle for me, but I’m pretty confident I can get things running smoothly and then work on enhancements before too long. So, yay me!

Y’all are subscribed to the PS Newsroom feed, right? Of course you are!

Next on the agenda will be contacting my individual clients and working out the minutia of our working relationships … in other words, doing our best to minimise paperwork and other tedium on both sides. It’s all fun and games, this freelance stuff, y’know.

Books and magazines seen

The latest Obsessed With Pipework magazine arrived this week, as regular as the turn of the seasons. For high-quality home-grown contemporary poetry without the excess of middle-class angst and handwringing that can plague the form, this should be your first stop.

One fiction title, but it’s not genre - the Little Brown people*** have purloined my address from the Orbit gang and sent me James Miller’s Lost Boys. It looks intriguing, but I doubt I’ll find time for it any time soon.

And one non-fiction title from Prometheus Books: The Coming Convergence by Stanley Schmidt, which looks like it could be pretty interesting.

Again, the time caveat applies here, but I’m considering farming out Futurismic reviews to other people … if you’re interested, please drop me a line.

Out and about

Another literary engagement appears on the calendar next week in the form of a symposium at Gresham College featuring none other than Neal Stephenson as keynote speaker - “Science fiction as a literary genre”.

They’ve sent out proper paper invitations and everything! This promises to be a super day out in the Big Smoke, and a nice preliminary to the getting-ever-closer Masterclass2.0. Genre lit-crit FTW!

Mobile computing corner

So, I just have to take this opportunity to say how awesome my new Asus Eee PC is.

It’s totally freaking awesome.

It does everything I’ve ever needed a laptop to do, and is no bigger or heavier than a hardback book; it has no moving internal parts, and can thus survive being toted in a normal bag.

It’s small, it’s black, it’s pimped out with extra RAM and it’s running Ubuntu. I’m likely to go on about it for weeks to come, frankly. This is what mobile computing is all about … and seeing as how I can read PDF files on there quite easily, I think I’ve found my ebook solution.

So you can shove your iPhone in your pipe and smoke it, frankly … I sure hope that proprietary operating system tastes nice!

Oh, and if you’re thinking of getting one yourself, EfficientPC is the place to go for one all tricked out to your personal specifications. Good personal service and prices from a small ethical company. Recommended! I’ll be getting my next desktop from them too, I reckon.

Coda

Seven days done, yet again. This relentless acceleration shows little sign of abating, but that’s all good. To use an athletic metaphor, I think I’m getting past that pain barrier that running enthusiasts talk about - settling into my stride, as it were.

On the subject of athletics, though, some advice would be appreciated. By way of explanation, a snippet of dialogue between myself and Amiable Drunkard From Downstairs:

Me: Hey, man.

ADFD: Awroit, me old … gor, int you put on weight since you stopped smokin’, mush!

Me: Ha ha. Yes. THANKS, then.

Now, this coming from a man who is hard pressed to notice when he’s left the building without remembering to put a shirt on in the middle of winter suggests that my fears are quite correct - quitting smoking has lowed my metabolism, and I’m gathering some extra around the middle at a frightening rate.

I don’t eat badly; I cook for myself a lot, don’t eat a lot of meat, rarely get a takeaway more than once a week. My diet is not a problem (though I might want to look at aiming for smaller portions). No - what I have to face is that it’s time for me to get a proper exercise regime.

This is, quite frankly, a horrifying thought.

For an assortment of reasons (mostly psycho-social) I am pathologically allergic to all team and/or competition sports, and the thought of going to a gym is utterly repulsive. This narrows my options considerably.

So, what can I do? Your suggestions would be appreciated. Running doesn’t appeal, because it’s a dull thing to do in a city and takes too much time. Comments from Gareth P have made me consider swimming - something I was lucky enough to do a lot of as a child, thanks to living overseas in a hot country - but there must be more options. Please share!

Of course, the cessation of a certain weekly tradition would probably help curb my weight-gain, but as I said earlier in the year I’m not becoming a puritan. If I can’t balance eating food I enjoy with staying fairly healthy, then I’m afraid I’m going to opt for just becoming a fat bastard. I remain convinced, however, that compromise is more than possible.

And it is in that spirit of gastronomic endeavour that I shall venture forth to fetch the afore-mentioned Friday Curry Of Justice. Though I might ask them if they can make it a little drier than usual … every little helps, I guess.

So, have a good long weekend, folks - hasta luego!

[ * So, don't hold your breath. ]

[ ** I'm not immortal, either. But other than that, the similarities are uncanny. ]

[ *** How imperialist does that sound? lol ]

Set the controls for the heart of the stash! Here’s the keyboard guy of wig-out psych-rock space-cadets Pilgrim Fathers. He’s evidently not down with the whole “standing-up” thing:

T’was a good show on Wednesday night, with Pilgrim Fathers and the oh-so-controversial-no-really Gay For Johnny Depp* supporting the staggeringly good 65daysofstatic.

However, it seems that when I get sent to interview an act something bad happens to them - Pilgrim Fathers caught a flat tyre on the motorway that afternoon, and only arrived at the venue an hour before doors. Needless to say, the interview is being rescheduled …

Writing about music

The second week of full-time day-job mania has meant keeping up with The Dreaded Press has been a strain once again, but here we are at another Friday and I seem to have survived with deadlines and sanity (marginally) intact.

Album of the week was probably the audio insanity of iots by flu.ID - be warned, it’s not for the faint-hearted.

Writing about books

I have, somehow, managed to crowbar a first draft of the Severian Of The Guild review into my schedule this week**. The challenge will lie in making it plain that, while I personally found the crescendo of Biblical allegory to be incredibly wearisome and off-putting, I’m not the sort of person who thinks religious themes have no place in literature at all. Hoping to go over it a second time this weekend.

Finished reading Walter Jon Williams’ Implied Spaces last weekend; will be squeezing a VCTB review out as soon as schedule permits.

Freelance stuff

As some of you may have already noticed, the other aspect of my expanding freelance duties has been announced - I’m the new webgeek and online publicity personage for PS Publishing! Thanks to everyone who has already sent their congratulations, it’s very kind of you. I have an awful lot to live up to as I step into Darren’s shoes.

Of course, I’ll feel a lot more like I’m actually doing these jobs once I get back to having the time to get started on them*** … but still, yay me! More details on this when (a) I have them and (b) I can think straight.

Books and magazines seen

The Yen Press manga imprint continues to baffle with their polar-opposite themes; one book on raising an autistic child, the other a sniggering smutfest of obvious gags about a demon and a sexually-stereotyped Japanese schoolgirl who have accidentally swapped bodies. Go figure.

Also from Orbit comes a new Jeff Somers novel, The Digital Plague, as well as cookie-cutter vampire-shagger number fourteen from the high queen of vampire-shaggers … fourteen books? Empirical proof that quality and popularity are completely unrelated properties, if such were needed. Will nobody think of the trees?

I’ve been given an interesting non-fiction title for a long-deadline Vector review: Love And Sex With Robots by David Levy.

Promises to be an interesting read, that’s for certain. Robot-shaggers > vampire-shaggers.

Coda

Well, I’m exhausted. A fortnight of full-time work plus all my other commitments has worn me out thoroughly, and if it weren’t for the amazing ability of caffeine to prop up the otherwise unconscious, I’d not have made it through at all.

I was under the (sadly erroneous) impression that I had this coming Monday off work, but it turns out that isn’t the case - it will in fact be my final full day before my colleague returns from her holiday. Still, I can manage just one more day … though I feel I’ll be doing a whole lot of sleeping this weekend.

It’s either that or have some sort of breakdown; much like the ILLUMINATIONS episode, I’ve been gamely skating along the cliff-edge of my ability to cope under pressure, but I know that I need to rest properly or risk the consequences. I’m aware that learning (and testing) your limits is a good thing, but from where I’m sat right now I could do without it … at least for the next six months or so while I settle into the new regime of the freelance****.

But I’ll not complain - things seem to be going pretty well, and if hecticness is a symptom of positive change then I guess I can live with it. It’s just that I’ll live with it a bit better once I’ve had a long lay down in a dark room.

Anyway, enough of my jabber - I can’t think of anything entertaining or interesting to say. I’m going to take my aching shoulders and itchy eyes around the corner to fetch another Hard-earned And Much-anticipated Friday Curry Of Justice before steeling myself for a weekend of catching up with all the little things I’ve had to let slide this last fortnight.

I hope that you have a good weekend yourself … hopefully one blessed with weather somewhat less rotten than today’s, too.

Hasta luego, amigos.

[ ** I honestly can't remember writing any of it, which is quite scary ... but there it is in my Google Docs account. Home espresso makers are dangerous things, kids. ]

[ *** SRSLY. Sixteen hour days have been killing me. ]

[ **** So why do I still crank out a few pages of blather for FPB every week? Because routine is an anchor for sanity, basically. This actually relaxes me, and I can do it piecemeal. ]

It wasn’t what I expected to see on Sunday morning, that’s for certain.

Unlike a lot of other places, it was almost all over by lunchtime around these parts, and the majority of it had melted by mid-afternoon. But nonetheless a strange little bout of weather - especially for Velcro City, whose location and microclimate means it rarely sees snow at all, let alone snow that lays in early April. I have been finding it hard to deal politely with climate change denialists this week.

Writing about music

No gigs to report on this week; the schedule has not permitted me to go to any, as I’m currently covering full-time hours at the day job due to the other half of my job share being on holiday. Some good albums have passed through at The Dreaded Press, though - I particularly enjoyed The Alchemy Archives Vols III & IV by Thrice

.

Writing about books

Not a great deal of lit-crit action, for the reason stated above and a reason yet to be stated. Still subconsciously stewing the Book Of The New Sun piece, to some extent.

Other freelance-type gubbins

OK, so I can finally break some genuine news here. Many regular readers will already be aware that fellow sf-nal blogonaut Darren “Ariel” Turpin has been snapped up by Orbit to be their new web ubermensch. What may not be such common knowledge is that, thanks to Darren’s great generosity, yours truly has taken over much of his pre-existing portfolio of managed author websites, and another somewhat bigger client at the same time.

Yeah, you read that right. Proper paid freelance work on a regular basis! I am totally stoked.

Of course, Sod’s Law dictates that this would inevitably arrive in the same window of time as my full-time stint at the day-job and last week’s major computer failure* … so things have been completely batshit mental in this neck of the woods, and promise to remain so for the next week or thereabouts while I get myself up to speed with everything.

I’ll be introducing my new clients here at VCTB over the next few weeks, so I’ll not just rattle off a big list of them here and now. I’m all about the individual attention, y’see.

Books and magazines seen

No books worthy of mention this week. The trade paperback of Jeff Somer’s The Electric Church turned up from Orbit, but I’ve not read a single review of it that suggests I’d enjoy it, so that’ll be winging its way to the local library at some point (along with the vampire boffers, and the fantasy doorstops** my mother doesn’t want).

I did, however, receive the latest Talebones magazine - a publication which never fails to delight visually and will doubtless taunt me from the to-read pile over the coming weeks (as will pretty much everything, to be honest - that damned stack never gets any smaller).

Also, some poetry in the form of South Magazine (for which I must renew my subscription). Good stuff, though a little bit away from the material I tend to produce myself***.

And last but not least, the saga of the seemingly endless F&SF subscription rolls relentlessly forward with the arrival of the May 2008 issue. I’ve given up wondering now; as far as I’m concerned, they’re gifts from a confused universe to a man too busy to appreciate his good fortune.

Coda

So, hecticness and genuine revelations for you in this week’s FPB. Just to reiterate - I’m absolutely freaking chuffed at taking on my new roster of clients, as it’s going to give me a chance to show I can walk the walk as well as talk the talk.

And it’s only taken a year since going part-time-freelance to get here … which to be fair is longer than I originally expected, but at that time I was operating from a position of exceptional naivete. I’ve learned a lot - about writing, about website maintenance and building, and about business - since then.

On the subject of business, though, that one-year anniversary means it’s time for me to start doing my accounts for the past twelve months. *cringe* Luckily it’s mostly going to be a big list of outgoings … but hey, that’ll all change this time next year!

So that’s about your lot for this week; there’s been no Friday Flash from me because I’ve simply not had the time to work on any. I kinda feel bad about breaking the routine, but given the circumstances I think it’s fair enough for me to accept that, while I have done some creative writing this week, I’ve not had the opportunity to work it up to a point where I’m willing to share it. Once the dust settles a bit I’ll be back in the saddle, mark my words.

Right - it’s not going to be much of a weekend as far as rest is concerned, but Friday night is Friday night, and there are traditions that even us hard-graftin’ freelance types are obliged - nay, required - to observe. So I shall venture forth so as to procure The Friday Curry Of Justice … though not before bidding you all a thoroughly excellent weekend of your own.

[ * Note for geek types - Ubuntu really is as user-friendly as they say. I've had virtually no problems with it at all; certainly nothing that can't be served by a thorough search on the Ubuntu User Forums. The command line is a bit of a learning curve, but what's life without some challenge and development, eh? ]

[ ** To clarify, after receiving an email on the matter - I use "doorstops" as a literal term in this case, because the titles I receive that I know I won't read end up in an ever-growing pile that really does hold my living-room door open. I have no axe to grind about the length and size of novels, fantasy or otherwise. ]

[ *** This seems to be the case with most poetry mags I've encountered, leading me to conclude the fault lies with my work rather than the magazines. Bah. ]

Crikey, what a week. But first, meet JD Cronise - spectacularly-monikered and hirsute frontman of George R R Martin-inspired Texan thrash metallers The Sword:

The Sword played at The Wedgewood Rooms on Wednesday night, and it was an excellent gig … excellent if you like ridiculously downtuned thrash riffs and lyrics that make HP Lovecraft turn in his grave, that is.

You can read my review of their new album Gods Of The Earth, which was released this week (and is streaming in full on their MySpace, too), but unfortunately I can’t share the live review with you just yet …

… because, as you may already know, I lost pretty much the entirety of yesterday as far as productivity is concerned, thanks to one of my hard drives dying on me.

The good news is that I’m up and running on an all-Linux system (Ubuntu, as you asked), and that I managed to rescue almost all of my important documents (bar a few reviews and what was to be this week’s Friday Flash, which I haven’t had the time to rewrite yet - hence the lack thereof).

Also, the magic of cloud computing means that all my emails and contacts (and certain completely irreplaceable documents) are floating out in the aether where I can retrieve them at will, just as they should be … which just goes to show I learned from the last time my hardware conspired to destroy me.

The bad news is that the drive that died appears to be definitively dead beyond any form of resurrection, so it’s time to invest in a USB external drive for backups, and to look at signing up for the ultimate security of Jungle Disk. Soon.

Writing about music

As mentioned above, saw The Sword on Wednesday and they were totally thrashtastic. Hardware death has meant I missed a scheduled article on TDP last night, but I managed to get up early enough to make this morning’s self-imposed deadline. Go me!

Writing about books

Finished and review the Solaris Book of New Science Fiction Vol 2, which I thought was on the whole a pretty decent little anthology.

Have yet to approach the Book Of The New Sun review; still stewing over how to say what I want to say. Next in the queue will almost certainly have to be Walter Jon Williams’ Implied Spaces, because everyone seems to be going nuts for it, and I loved a few of his short pieces.

Writing about other stuff

Pipeline, pipeline, pipeline; I’m too harried and hurried to go into details this week, I’m afraid.

Books and magazines seen

A double-thick issue #12 of Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest.

An ARC of Subterranean’s reprint of Stephenson’s Snow Crash (though before you get too jealous, it’s not a production-grade copy, just a bound proof).

Coda

As you can see, I’m wrapping it up quickly today; the last 36 hours have been more than hectic enough, and I have yet to compile and post Friday Free Fiction at Futurismic … having lost the use of Windows Live Writer is probably the only serious regret I have about my computer dying …

… well, that and the prospect of having to re-rip a 400+ strong CD collection. Still, it’ll be fun hearing some old albums I’ve not listened to in a while.

And so, with a distinct (or at least comparative) minimum of blather, I shall bid you all a good weekend and head off for a hard-earned Friday Curry Of Justice.

Hasta luego, amigos.

We return to the original meaning of FPB because hey, look - one of my cacti has started to flower!

Looks like it’s the only one that will do so this year (my Christmas cacti haven’t even hinted at a late budding, worse luck), but one is better than none.

The weird bit is that this particular cactus is the one that has suffered the most from being knocked over and generally battered by bad circumstance, and came to me after having been sat in a Fratton garden for an entire British winter … the bad-boy just keeps on ticking. Respect, innit?

A bonus photo for those of you of the opinion that plants aren’t a sufficiently manly subject (even spiny phallic plants): here’s my growing collection of sound-mangling boxes through which I run my guitar.

I think the collection should cease growing for now, because the overdraft has suffered terribly. That said, I still need a delay pedal … hmmm.

Eastercon

So, if you’re wondering “why no pictures from Eastercon?”, the answer is simple - I just didn’t take any. I was far too busy watching or appearing on panels and hanging out with great people, and I’m afraid I don’t feel a jot guilty*.

Even listing just the highlights of the weekend would take a considerable amount of time, but it would be remiss to not mention:

• celebrating The Friday Curry with the Third Row Fandom crew, plus Shaun C Green and Paul “twice Hugo nominee for a Doctor Who script” Cornell
• China Mieville’s staggeringly good Guest of Honour speech
• Neil Gaiman’s relentless aura of nice-blokeness
• the Friday Flash Fiction workshop, and meeting all my fellow Fictioneers
• the embarrassing yet hilarious Sex & The Singularity panel
• Ian Sales falling off a chair
• Ian Watson telling me a story about kidney stones that will stay with me for life
• drinking, talking and getting lost in hallucinogenically similar corridors

Great stuff - many thanks to everyone who helped make it such a great event, both those I met and those I didn’t.

Writing about music

The Dreaded Press rolls on, with a bit of a gap for the bank holiday weekend. No live reviews or interviews lately, though I’m off to do one of each with Brit rockers Brigade this very evening.

The inward flow of albums has seemingly levelled out at a pace I can stay on top of without too much panic, and I’m gradually integrating TDP tasks into my daily regime.

I was very chuffed to find I got a link-back from Wikipedia for my review of the spectacular album Board Up The House by Genghis Tron - Wikipedia links give great SEO justice, and they’re like gold dust in the early stages of a site’s life.

Hopefully that’ll nudge me up a PageRank next time the updates go through.

Writing about books

As I explained at great length to a few people at Eastercon, the final phases of Book Of The New Sun became progressively more infuriating to read.

The biblical mirroring is a lot easier to stomach in the earlier stages, but the fourth book cranks the proselytising up to eleven without the benefit of the story moving well to keep it interesting.

Still not completely finished, but once I’m done I’ll not run short of things to say in the review, that’s for certain.

Meanwhile, roaring my way through the Solaris Book of New Science Fiction Vol. 2, which isn’t a bad selection at all, from my perspective.

For those who’ve read it already, I can say that I’m about two thirds through, and my favourite piece (as well as the one that has stuck with me constantly since reading it) is the shortest one.

The book needs to be finished and reviewed with the pending batch of print reviews for Interzone - by the end of this week, in other words.

I loves me a good deadline, I does.

Futurismic

I’ve got the next new piece of fiction for Futurismic in hand, ready to be polished and unleashed next week. I’ve also got a second non-fiction piece ready to roll, a one-shot guest column in the pipeline and a potential new columnist in the offing as well; all great news there.

What’s not so great is that it’s high time I started going through the old posts that were created on the previous CMS and adding tags to them. One of those “a little bit every day” jobs, I guess - you have to take the rough with the smooth in this publishing business, y’know.

Other freelance type stuff

Waiting on some details and confirmations, but there could be some great news in the pipeline in this respect. Watch this space.

Books and magazines seen

Well that’s it, I’m officially baffled. April’s F&SF has arrived, after I’ve ignored any number of renewal slips.

I think maybe their database has me down as a life subscriber or something, becasue I’m positive my sub must be over by now. Still, free fiction isn’t something to complain about. *shrug*

Nice apocalyptic cover, BTW:

No books have come in the post, but it would be churlish not to mention the titles I picked up at Eastercon**. I came away with:

• A Good Old-fashioned Future - Bruce Sterling (short story collection; I have most of these titles in other volumes, but I seem to be veering toward the idea of becoming a Sterling completist. Fanboy is as fanboy does, I guess.)
• Deconstructing The Starships - Gwyneth Jones (Cons are a great place to buy critical works, because you’ll rarely find them cheaper, even second hand. This has been recommended to me often, so I’m pleased to have a shiny new copy of my own for the bargain price of £11)
• Tourniquet - Kim Lakin-Smith (by the much-better-looking other half of the BSFA webmaster … )
• Roadside Picnic - Strugatsky Brothers (keep hearing people bigging this book up, and there it was in old-school paperback for just £1 …)
• Appleseed - John Clute (a novel by the critical legend, highly recommended by Shaun)

ILLUMINATIONS

Still pig-in-mud happy about the Friday Flash anthology. My mother’s copy arrived by post at her house yesterday, so she phoned me and squee’d a bit, which was a lovely moment.

I still have hard-copy versions available and will gladly sign them for purchasers; don’t forget you can get the PDF version for a donation of your choice at the Odd Two Out website. I can’t sign those, though, and they’re just not as totemic …

Coda

Well, that’s more than enough blather to make up for a missing week, I think. And anyway, I’d best get on - I need to grab and eat The Friday Curry (regrettably minus the Third Row gang and other fandom types this time) before trundling off to The Pyramids to do this interview.

And so with little extra ceremony I shall bid you all a good weekend - hasta luego, amigos.

[ * The absence of last week's FPB should make it plain that I didn't make much use of the laptop either. As it happens, I'm going to sell the thing and swap it for an Asus Eee, so if you're in the market for a laptop with a decent spec and one careful owner, give me a shout. ]

[ ** I'm actually rather proud of my restraint - as anyone who's been can attest, the Dealer's Room at a con is like a finely tuned machine for extracting money from sf/f fans. ]

The lighting at the super little Brighton venue The Freebutt isn’t very conducive to photography of bands in action.

Well, it would be more truthful to say that the combination of my low-end equipment and beginner shutterbug skills weren’t up to the task of capturing Dead Meadow performing without using the Auto Mode.

But unmoving objects are easier to deal with, and Dead Meadow’s silver-finished Ludwig drumkit (with psychedelic oilwheel projections on the kick skin) made a rather charming subject, if I do say so myself. I really must get around to buying a faster lens, though.

Writing about music

As seen above, I had the Dead Meadow show to write about, which also featured local psych-out heroes (and lovely chaps) You’re Smiling Now But We’ll All Turn Into Demons.

All in all, a great gig and night out with friends, and The Freebutt is now on my list of fantastically non-corporate venues that I wish were on the end of my street.

Writing about books

I’m still wrestling with the Wolfe; I got to a stage where it felt like I was reading fifty pages and fining myself closer to the front than I had been before, but I’m now into the last quarter.

It’s not that it’s bad, it’s that it’s colossal - and I’ve not had many chances to just sit down and blitz the bugger. I will defeat it this weekend, one way or the other**.

Futurismic

Everything seems to be ticking over fairly well at Futurismic at the moment; last time I checked we’d had 2000 click-throughs on “Uxo, Bomb Dog”, and I expect there’ll be more in a long tail (arf!) to come.

Next Monday sees the return of our non-fiction columns, or at least the first of them; I’ll keep you posted.

ILLUMINATIONS

Well, the cat’s out of the bag now, isn’t it?

Editing ILLUMINATIONS in a tiny timeframe was one hell of a task, but strangely exhilarating - not to mention further proof that I tend to perform at my best (or at least at my most focused) when under pressure.

There was very little corrective editing to be done - except a few massages and tweaks of punctuation - as we decided to leave the stories essentially the same as they had been when first published on our respective sites.

However, getting everything into the same format and typographical layout was quite a mission for someone who’d never had to do such a thing before. And then there was the real challenge - deciding on the order for the stories.

We decided to go with a sort-of thematic ordering rather than the obvious chronological alternative (or the clunky grouped-by-author option), which mean yours truly had to read them all through, tag them with themes and tropes, and attempt to assemble them into a sequence that made sense.

I can now reveal to the world the incredibly high-tech manner in which I handled this process:

Yup. Whole lotta index cards.

Anyway, as this didn’t happen this week, I shouldn’t be talking about it in FPB, should I? I’ve just been itching to waffle on about it, though, and it’s hard to stop now that I actually can. Eastercon attendees, beware!

Books and magazines seen

Thanks to the charming and erudite John Joseph Adams, I’m now receiving books from Night Shade Books - these made up part of my bumper post day from earlier in the week.

There are two of Liz Williams’ “Inspector Chen” novels, which I sincerely hope to make time for; Liz Williams being one of those authors who I was utterly uninterested in until I heard her talk about her work, and in whom I become more interested with each successive encounter***.

The other Night Shade title is the lushly-jacketed Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams:

“A novel of the singularity”, according to the front cover. So many intriguing books, so little time - I demand my Modafinil, damn you!

Also in the postbox this very morning was Interzone #215, featuring my reviewing team’s round-up of 2007 (ooooh, the controversy), as well as fiction from Greg Egan and personal favourite Rudy Rucker. Not to mention the big bug-critter on the front:

Coda

Bloody hell, this year’s flying past. This time next week, I’ll be at Heathrow for Eastercon … in fact, only two more days of work and a career development course in London to go before my long weekend starts. Just goes to show that keeping busy seems to be the best cure for mopiness and general winter blues, at least in my case.

Easter is turning into one of those nexus points in life, actually; the con makes it a landmark point in my fandom social calendar, of course, but this year there’s been the additional crescendo of putting together ILLUMINATIONS with the same target date, and this week my boss at the day job departs for maternity leave.

I’m slightly amazed I’ve survived, to be honest; there was a point about a month back that I seriously thought I’d bitten off more than I could chew and would end up paying the price. But here I am, still sane and still working. That said, I think I now know where my limits lie.

And speaking of limits, this seems like a good place to define one for this week’s FPB. It’s high time for a cold refreshing pint of lager while I wait for The Friday Curry Of Reward … which will be all the more solemn an occasion due to having to suspend the tradition for Eastercon next week …

… unless anyone can recommend a good curry house in Heathrow and has no other plans for the Friday evening, that is?

Anyway, enough blather. Have a good weekend, folks. Hasta luego.

[ * Auto Mode gets the job done, but results in photographs which [unsurprisingly] look as if their subject has just had a very bright light go off in front of them, which isn’t ideal. It annoys the performers too, natch. ]

[ ** I'm serious this time; I'm gonna nail that sucker. ]

[ *** In other words, I suspect she may be able to write fantasy that doesn't make me want to break things, and I really should give her the opportunity to prove me right. She was interesting at Eastercon last year, and at Picocon the other week. ]

Yes.

Yes, I can.

I have been spending money I don’t have on things that make loud noises.

You may tell me this is unwise. You may tell me this will not endear me to my neighbours. You will be ignored on both counts, oh yes.

Writing about music:

Work continues apace at The Dreaded Press; this week’s recommended listen is I Am The Golden Gate Bridge by Creature With The Atom Brain.

Scuzzy whacked-out junkie rock’n'roll with a big helping of weird - think Butthole Surfers on a bong-binge.

Writing about books:

Still ploughing through the Book of the New Sun, meaning I’m falling behind on the Great Baroque Cycle Reading Project (not to mention other titles to be reviewed).

Some sort of concerted binge effort may have to occur this weekend; I’ve already had to concede that if I continue analysing the book as I read it, it’ll be well after Eastercon before I finish.

There’s just too much symbolism, and I’m getting hung up on trying to decode it all. Time to treat it like a normal* reader, I think.

Writing about other stuff:

In addition to today’s Friday Flash piece, I sent another one (a New Southsea story, as it happens) off to a magazine called Pseudonym.

It’s not a paying market, nor a science fiction market, but it’s one of those labour-of-love arty/designy type of magazines run by a friend of a friend, and they asked really nicely for something, and they said I could send fiction rather than non-fiction, so … I figured why not.

I quite like the resulting story, and will probably post it here in weeks to come.

Futurismic:

I’ve been really chuffed with the responses to “Uxo, Bomb Dog”, and with the resulting traffic at Futurismic.

I’m also pleased to have discovered Project Wonderful, an ad network that lives up to its name and which will be discussed in greater detail here some time soon.

Books and magazines seen:

Just the one this week: Murky Depths #3 has arrived, like some spectre of guilt intent on reminding me that (surprise surprise) I still haven’t read the first two.

Still, things should settle down at the end of the month**, so I can get some backlog-clearing done on the reading front.

Coda:

This week has been mercifully relaxed by comparison to the last. While the above may not seem a catalogue of triumph on the achievements front, I’m quietly happy with the fact that I’ve done everything that needed doing.

I’ve also succeeded in getting up early every day - which really does wonders for the old productivity, with the side effect of making you almost physically incapable of typing by 10pm.

The universe giveth, the universe taketh away … still, I feel like I’m making progress with things, and that’s good enough for me, thank you very much.

There’s been no gig-going this past week, but I’m off to Brighton tomorrow night to see the superb stoner-bluesmen Dead Meadow supported by local wig-out psych-rockers You’re Smiling Now But We’ll All Turn Into Demons, which promises to be a great night out … provided there are no embarrassing invisible guestlist incidents, of course, so fingers crossed.

But those are bridges to be crossed when arrived at; the current span stands between my empty stomach and The Friday Curry Of Self-congratulation And Righteousness, and so I shall step forth on the path to culinary adventure!

Have a great weekend, folks. Hasta luego.

[ * For 'normal', substitute 'sensible'. ]

[ ** How many times have we heard this one before? ]

Well, I was hoping to have photographs from two different gigs to pick from this week. Unfortunately I was denied a photopass at the first one, and the second one was cancelled.

So, no gig photos; instead, here’s a demonstration of how PicoCon’s organisers ensured no one got lost between the tube station and the venue:

Who says science fiction fans can’t keep it lo-fi, eh?

Writing about music:

Less gig reviewing than initially expected - see above.

Been battling to keep up the one-album-review-per-day regime at TDP, and have just kept my head above the water; I need to play catch-up over the weekend to give myself a buffer zone again.

I had the opportunity to revisit Gary Numan’s Replicas - how groundbreaking was that album? And I don’t care how dated the synth patches are, the signature riff from “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” still stirs the neck-hairs every time.

Writing about books:

Technically zilch. Have hardly read more than a chapter of Wolfe, either.

Futurismic:

Various behind-the-scenes stuff continues apace at Futurismic, though at a somewhat reduced rate over the last week.

Just a few final adjustments to make over the weekend, and then it’s the return of original fiction to Futurismic on Monday! wh00t!

YACP*:

Despite the sparseness of the above, this week has been absolute bedlam and panic in Velcro City Towers. But the deadline was met; the task completed; the dragon slain.

What was I doing? Oh, you’re just going to have to wait to find out, I’m afraid …

Books and magazines seen:

Nowt of note.

Coda:

If this all seems a little sparse and disappointing to FPB fans, I must apologise; this week has essentially been a game of survival against the odds.

The afore-mentioned deadline of doom (combined with a mild bug I picked up at PicoCon) meant all my efforts have been devoted to not dropping any of the metaphorical balls.

Frankly, I’m proud to have made it to Friday having achieved exactly that, even if it meant skipping out on FFF for this week.

So while there’s plenty to be done over the weekend, I’m feeling pretty relaxed right now, safe in the knowledge that I don’t need to be sat at this here keyboard until past my bedtime just to avoid calamity.

I think I even have enough flex in my schedule to pop out for a beer or two with the gang before coming home and sitting down to an hour or so buried in a book before bedtime - ah, decadence! But first things first - yesterday’s (comparatively) healthy repast must be counteracted with The Friday Curry Of Tradition And Merit.

And d’you know what? This week, I really feel I’ve earned the damned thing.

Have a great weekend, folks. Hasta luego!

[ * Yet Another Clandestine Project. ]

Digging in the crates yet again, I’m afraid.

Here’s four foot of iguana watching the sunrise over the Caribbean at Tulum in Mexico, where I’d much rather have been based for most of this chilly week*:

I don’t even need to explain, do I? That lizard knew the score, I tell you. I could see it in his eyes, and his disdainful demeanour.

Writing about music:

Plenty of music hackery has taken place, though nothing of particularly majestic note in the last seven days; I assume those of you with a keen interest in such things are already subscribed to The Dreaded Press**!

With the exception of the Munroe Effect show last Friday (which was a rare gig-for-pleasure), I’ve not been out reviewing or interviewing this week.

However, this Sunday sees me off the Brighton to review The Dillinger Escape Plan, and next week Gallows and F*cked Up (and others) are playing just down the road from me. Busy, busy, busy!

Writing about books:

My critical facilities (as concerned with literature) remain unexercised.

Futurismic:

This has been the main time drain once again, though things are starting to settle - watch out for the brand new site layout and theme to come over the weekend! The first new piece of fiction is ready to roll out of the door, and things are shaping up on the non-fiction front as well.

I will (as I keep threatening) talk more about my plans for Futurismic, but at the moment time is of the essence, and I at the moment feel it’s better to execute plans rather than talk about them***.

Books and magazines seen:

A care package came from Orbit with a bunch of fantasy titles and the paperback edition of Ken MacLeod’s The Execution Channel; I have no need of the latter, as I already have the hardback (and an A4 typescript from when I was sent it to review for Interzone ages back).

I may think up some crafty contest in which I can give it away to some lucky reader. Hmmm …

PicoCon!

For them what ain’t aware, ’tis PicoCon at Imperial College London all day tomorrow. Guests of honour are the legendary Cory Doctorow, the charming and erudite Liz Williams and the endearingly geeky Paul Cornell - further details at the ICLU website.

The most it’ll cost you to get in is £8, and there promises to be a good showing from the Third Row Fandom crew and certain of their auxiliary and ancillary members (including myself), so if you’re at a loose end you could do far worse than turn up.

If you are already going (or decide to after reading this verbose yet highly persuasive exhortation), please look out for me and say hello. I’ll be easily identified as the tall shabby hippie who tries to force a flyer for Futurismic into your hand**** …

Completely unrelated-to-anything announcement:

I’m very seriously contemplating selling my laptop and getting an ASUS Eee instead, as the latter can do everything I use my laptop for in a smaller and more efficient package. That is all.

Coda:

Another swift and sweet FPB this week. As I have to be up and about at ZOMFG o’clock tomorrow to catch a train, and will have little time for writing-type work during the day, I’ve got lots to sort out this evening - including (but not limited to) an interview for TDP, and Friday Free Fiction at Futurismic.

And of course there is the Sacred And Virtuous Curry Of Fridayness to be crammed into the schedule (and my stomach) … so I’ll thank you all for reading and bid you a good weekend.

Hasta luego, amigos y amigas. Suerte!

[ * That said, the place I stayed in when I was there was a terrible sh*thole full of drunk Italian teenagers, but there are some awesome beach huts for hire. ]

[ ** When VCTB's subscriber count is matched by TDP's, I promise to stop hustling like this. In other words, subscribe and save yourself the agony. Capiche? ]

[ *** Those who have known me for a long time will probably find this sentence hilariously funny. ]

[ **** Or possibly Cory Doctorow's hand. Most likely both, though. ]