Tabloid headline seekrits OMG; printing buildings; Kincaid on why reviewers and critics do it … Continue reading “Links for 11-06-2008″

Yet again, neuroscience validates something I’ve been telling people since I was about fourteen. Via io9, we discover “that achieving a tight control over viewers’ brains during a movie requires, in most cases, intentional construction of the film’s sequence through aesthetic means.”

In other words, terrible trashy films make your mind switch off. This will be a familiar theory to fellow scholars of the world as a harmonious interlaced system; indeed, you may have observed the “Bullshit In, Bullshit Out” effect in other spheres of human creative endeavour.

To balance that outburst of smug curmudgeonliness, allow me to share an example of human creative endeavour from the other end of the scale. This piece of music is called “Never Loose That Feeling” by Swervedriver - and if you’ve had a fairly decent sunny day today, and harbour a lingering penchant for early nineties alt-rock, I recommend you turn it up extremely loud.

Bumper crop: short fiction markets! age-marketing fiction! music festival overstretch! Plus masses more good stuff … Continue reading “Links for 10-06-2008″

Multi-browser site scanning; 10 reasons Wordpress rules … Continue reading “Links for 09-06-2008″

Seratonin research … Continue reading “Links for 07-06-2008″

Richard Morgan’s recently-posted essay about the bitchiness and infighting of the sf/f fiction scene caused a flurry of reactions, some sympathetic, others less so.

Gary Gibson’s response chimes best with my own feelings on the matter, though:

“To me, I’d say all the bitchiness is a sign that things aren’t nearly so moribund within the genre as some have claimed. I’m not saying the arguments and fighting are always healthy, or necessarily mature; but I am saying it feels more alive than some genteel, mannered alternative. At least the way things are, it feels like people give a damn.”

Indeed. I mean, sure, sf people can get pretty entrenched in things, and rather more emotionally attached or opposed to certain words and definitions than really makes much sense (cough *mundane-sf* cough).

But if I’d stumbled into fandom as I did and found it to be an echo chamber … well, I’d probably be more focused on writing about music, I guess. The ability to debate the merits of a piece of art without resorting to fists, name-calling and hissy-fits is rare enough in my daily life that I’d rather not lose it.

That said - live and let live, eh? Maybe it’s just my nature as supreme wishy-washy diplomat of compromise, but I’ve always found the best way to get anyone to respect my opinion (even if they don’t agree with it) is to respect theirs. As my mother used to remind me at the end of every school sports day - it’s not the winning, it’s the taking-part.

[Disclosure- Richard Morgan is one of my clients.]

Phototerrorism - The Movie; modern news consumption patterns; a future of famine … Continue reading “Links for 06-06-2008″

Well, all but one of the reviews for Interzone #217 are in. All that remains to be done now is give them a thorough editing sweep and email them off to TTA Towers …

… and then step out of the driving seat. Yup - thanks to the pressures of actually having lots of proper paid work coming at me from various angles, as well as all the other as-yet-non-lucrative stuff I’m entangled in, plus the fact that a lot of my new work puts me in the direct employment by authors and/or publishers, I’m stepping down as Interzone’s Reviews editor as of the forthcoming issue.

Hard to believe I’ve been doing it for a year. In some ways it feels like much longer, in other ways it feels like I only just started. One thing’s for certain: if time were no object, I’d not be leaving the post, as I’ve had a lot of fun doing it and worked with some great people in the process. But time is the one resource that no amount of mining, outright theft or invading other countries can secure for you; as I’ve just said in an email to my team of reviewers, the Interzone gig is the easiest thing to disentangle myself from - not easy, by any means, but easiest.

In addition to being vaguely informative to the blogosphere at large, this post is to thank all the people I’ve worked with indirectly as a result of being IZ’s Reviews Editor - the publishers, authors and website types who form part of the network of genre. Thanks for going easy on a neophyte, and for teaching me a lot in the process!

I’m looking forward to using that knowledge (and gathering more) in my various other posts - as PS Publishing’s PR guy, as website-manager to various stars of the genre firmament, as Futurismic’s editor-in-chief, and as a critic and writer in my own right (time permitting, natch, especially regarding the latter). Meanwhile, my Interzone post will be taken on by the eminently capable Jim Steel, who I’m positive will do a job far superior to my own.

All change!

Three excellent webdev resources … Continue reading “Links for 05-06-2008″

Oh yeah - in all the excitement*, I forgot to mention that my review of Gene Wolfe’s Severian Of The GuildSF Site omnibus went up at a few days back**. I haven’t dared re-read it yet, to be honest. The review, I mean. Though I haven’t re-read the book, either. I might one day, though. Maybe.

And hey - new fiction at Futurismic! “Veritas Nos Liberabit” by Kristin Janz, in fact - please go read, leave feedback, and let me know what you think. Lots of new blogger action over there, also. Good times!

And finally, your headline-of-the-day:

“Zombie caterpillars controlled by voodoo wasps“

Ribofunk meets the Hammer House Of Horror. Ain’t nature awesome?

[ * By 'excitement' I quite obviously mean the gripping twelve hours a day I spend sat at a computer keyboard. Just by way of clarification, you see. ]

[ ** I've had no emails from angry theists, so I guess I didn't offend anyone; this is the result I was aiming for. ]