How long’s it been since I did an FPB? Long enough that I know looking up the precise date isn’t worth doing, really, and I doubt it’ll ever go weekly again… but hey, never say never, right? Anyways, here’s Hilsea station at midnight or so, which is what I see while waiting for my train home after a late shift at my place of summer employment.

What else have I been up to? I’ve been up to ALL THE STUFF, most notably the 2011 SFF Masterclass, which – as always – was a weekend of pure high-grade literary brain-crack. I also got accepted onto the Masters degree in creative writing that I mentioned back in February, which I’m really looking forward to doing come October, around which time – all going well – I should have an interesting and stable new employment opportunity which will leave me enough time to study and write as well as leaving me enough money to pay the rent, buy food, all that jazz.

So, yeah, we’re in a far better place than we were last year, aren’t we? Mmm-hmm. Onwards, upwards, etcetera.

As far as residence is concerned, I’m still in the bay-windowed front room of a shared house in Southsea, which is suitably cheap for the summer’s scant income levels, but a bit tiny by comparison to my former domicile, a spacious if poorly-located Stockport garret. Half of my library (mostly the non-fic and special editions) is still at my mother’s place in deepest darkest East Yorkshire, but the other half is now out of the garage and back on the shelves in the middle room, which is a great relief; having all your books in boxes is a pretty similar sensation to being without a decent broadband connection, or at least it is for me.

But hey, the damn things just keep coming, thanks at least in part to Albert Road’s gaggle of second-hand book shops, but also to assorted publicists and publishers, and – most pleasurable of all – the arrival of my first ever contributor copies – Fables from the Fountain, remember? Course you do; they’re near the top right of this lot, which have gathered over the last couple of months:

That Masters course means I have reading lists to work on, of course, and this week has seen the first acquisitions of such, along with a few other goodies:

I’m too lazy to list and link ‘em all, I’m afraid, though even if I don’t revive FPB I intend to document new acquisitions on a more regular basis, if only so I can keep track of the damned things!

And I need to start posting reading notes here instead of letting them moulder in notebooks, too. Thinking up and writing down my “review” of The Universe Of Things, the latest Gwyneth Jones collection from Aqueduct (which I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest is more of a critique or analysis, especially given its 3,200 word length) took up an unprecedented amount of cognitive focus, and it’ll be nice to start attacking these piles with vigour… though I should really prioritise on reading Embassytown, as I’m writing a review of that as well. Worse problems to have, eh?

Right, anyway, enough of this – there’s stuff to be doing before the day is done. And then there’ll be the “go out, or stay in and try out that EVE trial account?” dilemma… oh Friday, how you embarrass us with your riches!

Have a good weekend yourselves, OK? Later.

Those nice folk at SF Signal occasionally ask me to pitch in on their “Mind Meld” collective-interview thingies, and I’m always happy to take part, usually because they ask me questions that I haven’t thought to ask myself. The latest example: What books/stories do you feel are just as good now as they were when you first read them?

Unusually for me, I didn’t take the opportunity to deconstruct the question (though I could have done – are the stories in question just as good in the same way, or is it that they always seem to have something newly satisfying to offer on each return visit? There’s a deep-seated nostalgia in genre fiction – and in culture in general – that I flich from instinctively, and I can’t think of any book that I return to as “comfort food”, but that’s a personal preference rather than an edict). I also decided to skip briefly over one of my biggest lasting favourites because I’ve mentioned it so many times before in previous Mind Melds… so go find out what I (and a number of other smarter and more erudite folk) picked out.

Emergent pattern of interest: Ursula LeGuin makes a very good showing, though with a selection of different titles. Maybe quality does matter after all, eh?

Epitaph for a wrecked and rapid decade

Well, there you have it: 2009 is running on the vapours, and the first year of the second decade of the third millenium is waiting in the wings. Of course, these are all arbitrary numbers, artefacts of happenstance… but one can’t help but get sucked in by the false sense of significance. It’s part of how we’re wired, I think – culturally, biologically. The world turns, and we turn with it, seemingly spinning on the spot but actually moving through space at unimaginable speeds. If we didn’t measure things, we’d go mad. Or maybe madder.

That said, I’m nowhere near as revved up on manufactured significance as I was ten years ago at the turn of the millennium. Despite what I earnestly believed to be a steely cynicism on my own part, the dawn of 2000 was the dampest squib of all… and also for many others, I suspect. This has been the decade when I started to feel like an adult (with all the sense of personal responsibility and existential confusion that implies), and this has been the year when, perhaps, I finally started to act like one. Fake it ’til you make it, as the saying goes.

But why dredge up the past? Forward is a better direction to watch, if only so you avoid bumping into the more visible unexpected obstacles. The changes I’ve made in the last year or two have laid out a route through the future for me… and while no plan ever survives contact with the enemy, it’s good to have a sense of direction, a slice of the compass arc to aim into. I’m looking forward to the coming year, the coming decade – it’s full of dreams to fulfil and promises to keep, and strange new things to learn about.

But looking forward is getting harder, at least in the predictive/speculative sense. It’s almost a cliché to talk about science fiction’s inability to see much further than the end of its own temporal nose, but I think that’s symptom of a more general problem that we have as a species. We’re so much more aware of The Now (and of the failed futures that were imagined in our childhoods, and our parents’ childhoods) than we ever have been. Blinded by the near-infinite array of possibilities before us, we can scarcely guess what’s around the next turn. Obvious guesses will turn out to be naive assumptions; improbable pipedreams and worst case scenarios will become obvious in retrospect. Ken MacLeod hits the nail on the head, saying:

Here in the last day of 2009, I have absolutely no idea what the world will be like in 2019, or what we can expect in the ten years ahead. All I know is that 2019 seems a lot farther in the future than 2009 seemed in 1999.

Yeah, that’s about right. Who knows what the future will hold? But no matter – it’s the sketching/building of the future (one’s own, and that of the whole species) that’s such a curious mix of fun and frustration. But as the late Doctor Thompson used to say, “buy the ticket, take the ride”. I hope you’ll all be along for the journey.

Books received

And to finish off the year, I’d be remiss not to mention an influx of books to the intray. Two of them were Xmas gifts,and they’re the two non-sf-related titles – namely Richard Wilson’s Can’t Be Arsed: 101 Things Not To Do Before You Die and the latest edition of the Lonely Planet guide to Morocco – but a bunch of other gubbins has tumbled through the letterbox in the last couple of weeks. Let’s see what we have…

Unplugged: The Web’s Best Sci-fi and Fantasy 2008 by Rich Horton (ed.) [Wyrm Publishing] – the first in what will hopefully be a long-running series, Rich Horton scours the genre webzines and beyond for great stories that were printed in pixels before ink. A very special book for me, as it reprints a story we published at Futurismic (Jason Stoddard’s “Willpower”), but there’s an interesting and well-rounded TOC that I’m looking forward to rattling through some time soon.

Realms 2: the Second Year of Clarkesworld Magazine by Nick Mamatas and Sean Wallace (eds.) [Wyrm Publishing] – does what it says on the tin, a collection of Clarkesworld‘s output from late 2007 to late 2008. Clarkesworld sets a benchmark for quality in web publishing that I dream of matching some day with Futurismic, and it’s great to see a TOC with lots of new names, including plenty of female and/or non-WASP writers included.

The Lights In The Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future by Martin Ford [Acculant Publishing] – a random email query from the publisher offered to send me a copy of this one, rightly assuming that Futurismic‘s editor would be interested to read it. Politics, technology, globalisation, communications, economics, outsoucing, automation… its topics are like a checklist of my geek triggers, and if it’s anywhere near as interesting as it promises to be, it’ll be time well spent.

Do Androids Sleep With Electric Sheep? Critical Perspectives on Sexuality and Pornography in Science and Social Fiction [RE/search Publications] – offered in the latest titles-for-review list from SF Site, I couldn’t pass up a title like that! A wild collection of essays seemingly rooted in fringe academia, geek and fetish subcultures and the territories of synthetic thinkers, I’m looking forward to seeing what new (or at least new-to-me) ideas this book has to share. To judge by some of the, er, illustrations, it isn’t going to leave many cavities unprobed, so to speak.

The Mindscape of Alan Moore [Shadowsnake Films] – yeah, OK, so it’s not a book. I very rarely buy or watch DVDs, but when I passed this documentary looking forlorn on the shelf of HMV during the Xmas shopping period, wearing a knock-down price-tag, I couldn’t pass it up. I’ve heard it praised highly by fans of Moore, and it features Moore himself explaining his worldview… and given that I had a pretty serious jones for the occult as a teenager (not to mention for conspiracy theory, mind control and other leftfield stuff as a twenty-something), this looks like a chance to drink direct from the fire-hydrant of weird. Maybe I’ll sit down and watch it tomorrow… after I’ve finished bagging up the rotting cardboard in the cellar, naturally.*

Coda

So, that’s VCTB done for the decade, and all my other duties discharged (at least until the sun rises on 2010). So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go to the fridge in search of a beer… here’s hoping your new year is whatever you want it to be. Take care, girls and boys, and I’ll see you on the other side.

[ * - There is probably no more damning indictment of my transition from twenty-something hedonist/nihilist to thirty-something cohabiting self-employed writer-nerd than the fact that I'm viewing New Year's Day as a date whose lack of regular work commitments makes it ideal for bingeing on unpleasant and lengthy household chores. How the mighty have fallen, eh? Happy new year, folks. ]

This time next week, I’ll no doubt be sound-checking in preparation for this:

Yup, Aeroplane Attack‘s first appearance at The Wedgewood Rooms, a former place of employment for three members of the band and the premier live music venue in Velcro City. And it’s a free gig on a Friday night – so if you’ve got no plans, head on down! Promises to be a night of goud loud tuneage, and I’m really looking forward to it… especially as I’ve borrowed a new echo box and am itching to deploy it over a large PA.

So, likely no FPB next week, much like last week (although my excuse last week was a train journey up to Manchester). It’s all go in my universe, as I do keep mentioning… so I’d best get on with it, eh?

Album of the week

Actually from last week, but easily good enough to carry over… it is, of course, The Eternal by Sonic Youth. If you’re a Sonic Youth fan already, you’ll be wanting to pick this up. If you’re not yet a fan, it’s accessible enough to be a good contemporary introduction to an utterly original band who’ve been gigging and recording almost as long as I’ve been alive. Go listen to ‘em.

Stuff

Yeah, look at me compressing a number of sections into one. Such is the manner of my life at the moment, and – during the scant seconds I get to sit and consider it – I’m quite enjoying it that way, thank you very much!

No review writing has been committed for a while, but I’ve been getting a decent amount of reading packed into the schedule; currently about a third of the way through China Mieville’s The City & The City, which is a good story whose premise is handled with subtlety, though I’m finding the narrative voice a bit odd at times – often enough, in fact, that I may shift to reading the published version rather than the ARC in case what I’m seeing is a pre-copyedit state.

Still plenty on my freelance plate, though the light is visible at the end of a few tunnels (even as another seems to stretch itself out further). Futurismic is rolling along nicely; we got linked to at MetaFilter the other day, and while it didn’t bring an avalanche of traffic I’m really chuffed to see us there, because I’ve been following the MeFi feed for almost as long as I’ve had an internet presence – and hence appearing there is a little like getting to have a drink in the Cheers bar would be for television fans of a certain age.

What else has been happening? Well, adventures Northward, band practices and meetings (and plain old hang-outs), live shows (like the mighty Clutch), hunting down cardboard boxes so as to ship seventy-odd kilos (SRSLY) of unwanted books to a buyer… from the sublime to the mundane, it’s all go, basically.

So there’s just time to trumpet happily about the arrival of Charlie Stross‘s new short fiction collection, Wireless, which arrived in the mail this week (and will be shouldering its way up the TBR array in the days to come).

Lovely!

Now, I’ve got stuff to be doing, so I’ll bid you all a good weekend. Take care!

Nor is it a drill – my review of Walter Jon Williams‘ This Is Not a Game went up at Strange Horizons yesterday, so you can go read my attempts to taxonomise a genuine (and really pretty decent) hybrid of near-future sf and technothriller.

In some respects I’m kind of grateful it hasn’t generated the same degree of fierce controversy as the review preceding it (or, indeed, any feedback at all)… though the mean little voice at the back of my head likes to tell me that’s probably because my opinions are pedestrian and equivocal.

Shut up, mean little voice.

[In case you were wondering, I've used the US editon cover art here because I was distinctly underwhelmed by the UK version. YMMV.]

It’s not quite a Little Red Corvette, but I’m a sucker for old British cars from the bottom end of the scale – and the Morris Minor is a classic example. You don’t see many of ‘em any more, let alone ones that have been modded up in a hotrod style:

Photography output has suffered from technical difficulties of late; for some reason my proper camera’s memory card refuses to mount on my computer, and the camera on my phone keeps telling me that “zoom is not available in this mode” – no matter which mode it’s in. Something to fix when I get a moment… which may not be for a little while, given the current state of my schedule. Which is why this’ll be a brief FPB, too!

Album of the week

I can be unequivocal with this week’s recommendation: you need to go and listen to the music of one Willem Maker. His new album New Moon Hand is quite simply amazing; as I put it in my review for Outshine:

Non-ironic roots Americana blues from a gravel-throated angel; the most beautiful and soulful record I’ve heard so far this year. Buy it.

Seriously.

Writing about books

Oh, don’t make me laugh! I’ve got no pending review commissions at the moment, so I’ve been dipping into my growing pile of read-for-pleasure titles, including a fair few from my lovely clients at PS Publishing. I keep meaning to do some Reading Journal stuff about ‘em, but priorities are – by necessity – currently focussed elsewhere.

Freelance

This is a crunch month – two small projects to complete, and a developmental section of another to wrap up. Which – combined with all the other more regular tasks I have to do on a daily basis and my desire to take next weekend off for a trip up North – means I’m working twelve hour days at the moment. It’s tough, but it’s good. It’s also a reminder to my future self that scheduling is an integral part of this freelance gig. One that I really need to get better at… :-S

Futurismic

It’s been a busy week over at Futurismic, as is often the case at the start of a new month. Karen M Roberts’ “Awakening in Six Parts” went up on Monday, and I strongly suggest you read it – it’s a great story, and something quite different to what we’ve published before. It stuck with me for days after the first time I read it, and that’s got to be a sign of a strong story. Go see what you think, leave a comment.

New columnist Brenda Cooper has kicked off a good discussion with her debut column on artificial intelligence, as well. I love running Futurismic when we get some good comment traffic; it’s a joy to see people engaging with what we publish.

Books and magazines seen

None to speak of; been a quiet few weeks again, with the exception of a PS care package that included a copy of the trade edition of Powers: Secret Histories.

I quite deliberately hold off talking up PS books here at VCTB – not because I don’t think they’re good, but because I don’t think it’s appropriate given that it’s my job to do it elsewhere – I’m no shill. But I have to mention that Secret Histories really is a book of staggering scope (not to mention arm-straining size); I’ve never read a Tim Powers novel in my life, but I’ve still found myself utterly entranced by it.

I think it appeals to the same geeky part of me that adored technology catalogues and Haynes manuals as a kid, and the part of me that loved learning about cataloguing and bibliographical work when I was a library employee. It’s a taxonomical study, fanboy wig-out and DVD-extras in one package, beautifully laid out and full of commentary from Powers himself. Bloody fascinating.

Coda

Well, that’s more than I expected to write, which is often the way with FPB. But time waits for no scruff-bag, and I’m hoping to get enough work doen tonight to pop out to a gig later in the evening. As such, I’m going to bid you all a good weekend and get back to real work – take care!

Gonna be a pretty brief FPB this week; it’s a friend’s birthday bash this evening, and I’m well behind on my daily duties thanks to the ongoing mangling of my body-clock. I think I need to get out of the house in the daytime much more than I have; my diurnal cycle is offset from consensus reality by about five hours at the moment, and I doubt it’s doing me much good.

I did make it out of the house on Wednesday, though; I took a brisk stroll down to the seafront in the early evening. This is probably the best time of year to be in Velcro City; the days are long and the weather is clear, but the students are still busy wrapping up their years and the tourists have yet to descend like Asda-clad locusts. The city is fresh, bright and full of space. There is time to sit and watch, and think.

Even so, seeing a banana boat rolling in from the Caribbean triggers thoughts of places warmer, brighter and less familiar… I need to get out on the road again some time soon, I reckon.

Album of the Week

It’s a mark of how busy I’ve been doing other stuff that I’ve not reviewed much new music this week, and that which I have isn’t worthy of due props. So I’ll do another recommendation from the most-played lists on my Last FM account: far and away, my most-played band are Idlewild, and much as most fans will tell you they got progressively less interesting as their career continued, I’m very fond of the later stuff. Warnings / Promises is probably my favourite; it’s folky post-punk (or is it punky post-folk?) style is bolstered by a simple production job that eschews fancy effects and frippery, and Roddy Woomble’s lyrics speak to me in a way that never fails to inspire. Great album; go listen.

Writing about books

The This is Not a Game review has returned with editorial comments and suggestions; gonna nail that sucker over the weekend.

Freelance

Yup, hella busy on a couple of website projects still, hence my cave-mole lifestyle this week. Learning lots about MODx, though, which is good stuff.

Futurismic

Business as usual over at Futurismic; I got to talk about what the site means to me and what I try to achieve with it during yesterday’s recording of another Sofanauts podcast, which should be out on Sunday if you fancy listening to me blather on about teaching people the joys of thinking science fictionally about the non-fictional world we live in, and a lengthy but incoherent defence of the Mundane SF movement. Don’t worry, the other guests say plenty of interesting stuff; think of me as the comic relief.

Aeroplane Attack

Less than a week until gig number three; turns out that it’s now only a two-band line-up, which gives us a little more stage time in which to try out a work-in-progress tune and switch the set around a little. So lots of stuff to work on when we practice on Sunday…

Books and magazines seen

The drought has broken! Interzone #222 continues TTA’s run of gorgeous and genuinely sf-nal cover art:

A couple of interesting titles from Tor UK, also: item the first is a paperback of John Scalzi‘s Zoe’s Tale, which is tempting primarily because I’ve never read any of his fiction despite following the guy’s internet presence for a few years, and I’m curious to know what he’s like on the page.

Item the second is Winterstrike by the lovely Liz Williams. I’ve read a few books of hers before, but none of her ‘pure’ sf – a situation that needs rectifying.

And there was also a care package from my lovely clients PS Publishing, meaning that I’ve got (literally) piles of beautifully-printed books begging me to read them. There are worse problems to have, I think.

Coda

Right, that’s your lot – I’ve got stuff to do! Have yourselves a good long weekend, whatever you choose to do with it. Hasta luego!

This week’s photo comes at two removes from myself; it was taken with the camera of the one and only Rusty Sheriff (Aeroplane Attack’s drummer), taken by Spikey Mark (barman, soundman, DJ, tour manager, Transit van pilot extraordinaire and long-term good buddy), and taken of us (Aeroplane Attack) battering out the riffage at our show on Monday:

Yes, I am in there; look in the dark patch at the right. They keep me there to prevent me scaring women and small children away from the front of the crowd.

Album of the week

Actually not an album; it’s more of an EP, and I’m not entirely sure if it’s on release as anything other than a demo. But nonetheless I commend unto you the self-titled EP by Wraptors, who play something like a combination of The Hellacopters, King Crimson and Fugazi. Post-prog’n'roll – you heard it here first, kids.

Writing about books

You’ll note how I include this section every week, just to make myself feel bad for not having done any reviewing^[1]. That said, I have actually been getting some reading in; it’s not like I’m short of stuff to talk about. Time^[2], on the other hand…

Freelance

Connecting neatly to that previous statement, everything’s still hellishly busy here in the office. This is a good thing; if there hadn’t been so many gigs to watch (and play) this week I’d probably be further ahead than I am, but next week is looking pretty sparse for extracurricular stuff, and hence ripe for some long evenings of deck-clearing. If the weather stays like it is, it’s not as if I’ll have many other options!

Futurismic

All is well at Futurismic; a good week for traffic again, and a sudden spate of posts about computer games. One of the things I like most about blogging is being in a position to see these themes bubble up out of the Zeitgeist; reminds me that the world’s just one big emergent system. Synchronicity is meaningless, but all the more beautiful and fascinating for that.

Books and magazines seen

Nothing new for a second week running. Then again, it’s been a slow week for new music arriving, as well… the music and publishing industries have their own little biorhythms, too. All part of that Zeitgeist, y’see.

Coda

As I did an Aeroplane Attack update separately, I think I’ve pretty much said my piece for the week, except to point out that playing one gig and going to watch two more in the same week is as tiring as it is fun, and it would be nice to be paid to do nothing else but make loud music or watch other people doing so. But if we were to start listing all the things that it would be nice to do for a living, we’d be here for hours! So I’ll spare us all the tedium and just wish you a good weekend – look after yourselves, OK?

[ ¹ - You'll probably also note that it doesn't seem to have any effect, unless you're of a more forgiving nature than myself. ]
[ ² - Stop me if you've heard this one before, yeah? ]

There’s always been some graffiti and randomness in Velcro City, but it seems that this year everything’s kicking up a notch. Lots of people doing weird new guerrilla stuff like this, for example:

The Free Art Friday meme is picking  up pace as well, with a number of people I know suddenly getting into making stuff and giving it away anonymously; it’s like street art in style (well, it can be, sometimes), but it’s made to be portable, not static, and its reappropriation by the public is not only assumed but desired. I love this sort of stuff, people breaking down barriers of participation and consumption, and the wall between artist and viewer, gallery and public space. If I had the time, I’d do more of it myself^[1].

Album of the Week

I’m gonna get all retro on your asses with AotW this time; Sub Pop have just released Enter The Vaselines, which is a deluxe repackaged version of 1992′s The Way Of The Vaselines, which in turn was a career retrospective that collected their two EPs and lone album recorded between 1986 and 1989. Kurt Cobain stimulated interest in this little-known Scottish indie-pop-proto-grunge band by covering “Molly’s Lips” and declaring them his favourite songwriters of all time; find out why, and indulge in a little bit of pop-cultural history. Quirky, faux-dumb clever and full of teenage sexual tension. A fascinating document (and a pleasant reminder of being fifteen, which is a rarity).

Writing about books

Well, I got the bulk of the This is Not a Game review done, and it’s now under the laser-eyes of Niall, who will doubtless point out some minor corrections and tweaks which will transform said review from the rambling thesis it is to something that people will actually be interested in reading.  The man has a talent, I tell yah.

Which leaves me with (I think) no standing deadlines on reviews… which theoretically means I have time to catch up on reading journal entries here^[2].

Currently reading the Clarke Award-winning Song of Time from Ian R MacLeod, and I have to say I’m more impressed than I expected to be; I’m about half way through and he’s still throwing in new levels of weirdness and estrangement to the story.

Freelance

Yep, still busy, still loads of balls in the air, none of which are close enough to completion to be worth mentioning separately. Hoping to get some of them nailed down into a final trajectory within the next couple of weeks.

The server is now up and running properly, locked up safe and secure from predatory Russian botnets and port-scanning scriptkids, serving DNS information and HTML and behaving like something close to usable. It’s been quite the learning curve, but well worth the time investment – I think it’ll pay off quite well over the course of a few years, in fact. Now it’s time to get a first few production/live sites up on there and see how she holds up to some traffic.

Futurismic

It’s been a good brisk week for Futurismic, traffic-wise and comments-wise, which is always good to see. I’ve also announced the forthcoming column by author and futurist Brenda Cooper; Today’s Tomorrows will be doing the same sort of thing that I do when I blog at Futurismic, but going into greater depth on single subjects. It’s going to be good, so come along for the ride, why don’tcha?

Aeroplane Attack

Little to report on this front; second gig is this coming Monday, we’ve got a practice session the night before, everyone’s feeling good about it. We’re trying not to think about the logistical nightmare of getting all our kit to the venue and back without being able to borrow a buddy with a van and a few spare hours…

Oh, and also: I can haz nu gitarr:

Nope; can’t play it well, can’t afford it, don’t deserve it. Don’t care, either; it’s a proper Gibson Les Paul Standard, and I’m currently very much in lust with it.

Books and magazines seen

None, nada, nil, zilch, zippo. I’ve been very good, too; I’ve passed the 50p bookstore in Albert Rodeo many times this week, and manfully resisted the siren song of old damp-bent Ace and DAW paperbacks lurking among Michael Crichton and Dan Brown titles…

Coda

That’s about your lot for this week; after last week’s barrage of excitement and big news, that’s probably a sign of the universe balancing itself, if only momentarily. More weirdness will doubtless arrive, sooner rather than later, but for now I’m going to get the day’s tasks done and head out for a beer. And as it’s been a good while since the last one, I might just go grab me a Friday Curry beforehand…

Have a good weekend, people. Hasta luego!

[ ¹ - Or, more likely, do a little of it and then blame it for not having the time to write fiction. Can't say I don't know my failings, right? ]

[ ² - Please note my use of the word "theoretically". ]

I have the same love/hate relationship with the country I live in as I have with Velcro City itself. On a day like today, with clear blues skies and a gentle breeze, I’m pleased to be sat here calmly, typing to the sound of traffic and birdsong with a long weekend approaching me; how could one find fault with England this afternoon?

Well, sometimes the bad things are literally too big to ignore:

Vermin and shysters; the BNP, only with better tailors and their mouths stuffed with plums. British-grown plums, of course. Wankers.

“Why worry about them,” people tell me. “No one takes them seriously.” Well, plenty of people take these seriously:

Graaaaaaaarrrrrgggghh.

Sorry, just needed to vent; it’s a common response to having left the building during the daytime. We now return you to our scheduled programmes.

Album of the week

One for the serious metal-heads this week: Daath are supposedly into Kabballah (the Hebrew mystical malarkey, rather than the wackadoo cult based upon it from which Madonna buys blessed mineral water) and all sorts of other stuff, but exactly how that affects their music I have no idea. Suffice to say that their new album The Concealers is that rarest of birds – a consistently powerful and heavy modern metal album with no filler and no gimmick-of-the-day. Go ahead, give your neck a workout.

Writing about books

The This is Not a Game review is half-written, as I managed to bash out one and a half thousand words on the train to London on Wednesday night. This is progress, not to mention the worst part of the process completed; now I just need to edit it up, supplement with quotes and digressions, polish and send. So, that’s an afternoon of the coming weekend taken care of…

Futurismic

Hey hey hey – it’s the first of May! Which is something to celebrate even if you disregard revitalised pagan festivals and political holidays spawned by a dying metanarrative, because it means there’s new fiction at Futurismic. This month I got to publish someone who lives little more than a stone’s throw away from me by comparison to our Stateside contributors; Stephen Gaskell’s “Under an Arctic Sky” is a geopolitical action-escape story done right, and you should go read it before leaving a comment to say what you thought of it. G’waaaaan.

PS Publishing

So, as most of you who’ll be interested will already know, I was up in the Big Smoke on Wednesday night, watching Ian R MacLeod take the 2009 Arthur C Clarke Award for Song of Time, a book published by PS Publishing, for whom I am contractor-publicist. It was quite a moment, and even more so for Pete and Nicky (and Ian, obviously) than myself. It’s a very prestigious title for a small press like PS to accrue, and for it to happen in the company’s tenth year of business seems fitting, somehow.

I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to work with people who care deeply about what they do. Seeing Pete’s face as the winner was read out has pretty much made my month.

Freelance

Work, work, work… there’s been a lot of catch-up this week as I recover from the setbacks of the beginning of April, but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, I think. My server is up and running, and I’ve pretty much sussed the essential basics of running the thing, so now I can start using it properly as both a hosting and development environment. Some minor projects and tasks have been cleared off; some larger ones have mutated (mostly for the better), and a few more are looming on the horizon like braking supertankers. LIVING THE DREAM, YO.

[high-grade-geekery]I’ve finally abandoned all hope of learning to do anything with Drupal before the next ice age happens (if even that soon), and am defecting my loyalties to MODx, as recommended by good buddy Adam at Mallmus Media. In a nutshell, MODx looks to be a CMS that does everything all the others can do, but actually makes it possible for you to find all of the relevant options in one place without referring to a degree in database architectural philosophy that you don’t have. Plus it has a moderately revolutionary approach to theming and templates that fits much better with my personal design methodologies for larger projects… or, in other words, it makes more intuitive sense to me than the others I’ve tried before, and I think I’m going to enjoy development jobs much more as a result. Yay![/high-grade-geekery]

Aeroplane Attack

People tell us that our first gig went pretty well, despite some sound issues. The problem in a nutshell: the girl running the sound desk has never encountered a band who request that they not bother mic’ing up the amplifiers and simply run the kick, snare and vocals through the PA. End result: we didn’t sound quite right, but we still put in a decent showing and had a lot of fun. In case you were wondering how we sound, well, here’s a video recorded on a mobile phone. Horrible sound quality, but you’ll get an idea of where we’re coming from (and how loud we play); the tune is called “Song for Joseph”.

See? We don’t use the Vulcan bomber as our logo for nothing.

The next show is Monday 11th, and the sound guy will be someone we know a little better, so those debut issues should be sorted. We’re really looking forward to it; if you’re in the area, come along. I have tickets, if you’d like to buy one at the super-cheap advance rate of £2…

Books and magazines seen

No time for sourcing images today, but there’s a fresh hardback copy of China Mieville‘s The City & The City sat on my sofa alongside a trade paperback of Sean Williams‘ latest Astropolis novel, The Grand Conjunction.

A more unusual score comes in the form of How to Build Your Own Spaceship, a pop-sci book by Piers Bizony about “the science of personal space travel”, which the publisher was nice enough to send me after I emailed them about it[1]. Nice Jetsons vibe to the cover art:

Lovely. Now all I need is the time to read it…

Coda

Well, there you have it – it’s been a busy few weeks, but then I always say that, don’t I? But hey, the weekend’s here, and that’s got to be a good thing. I think I’ll wrap this up, finish the Futurismic free fiction round-up and spend a few well-earned hours sat on my arse with my nose in a book… I hope you find something nice to do as well. Laters!

[ 1 - And many thanks to the man DT for the tip-off on that one, too. ]