No fresh photography this week, so I thought I’d share this little gem from the SFF Masterclass that has languished on my cameraphone ever since. Of all the things you could name a hairdressing salon, would you think of choosing…

We laughed like drains and took pictures. Then a passing lady laughed like a drain at us taking the pictures, and seemingly failed to realise why we found it so funny. Good times.

Writing about music

Things have been a little lumpy and sparse over at TDP this week, for reasons that will be apparent later on. However, I finally have a new reviewer on board (a friend of Gareth L Powell’s, no less), and I think he’s going to work out nicely.

Album of the week

It’s a tricky call this week, but on the basis of sheer bubblegum fun and exuberance I’m going to go for Ice Cream Spiritual by Ponytail, which is mad as a sack of badgers.

Honourable mention goes to Lower Definition for releasing The Greatest Of All Lost Arts - a post-hardcore album that didn’t cliché me into a coma.

Writing about books

Haha, no, not really. See further down.

Freelance

Things are hotting up in this department, as it happens. Those of you who read John Jarrold’s blog may have seen him announce that his client Stephen Deas has a new website up and running… designed and tweaked up by yours truly! Go see what you think; it’s pretty simple to look at, but it works just as requested.

More projects are in the pipeline, and will be announced as they arrive. In the meantime, if you or someone you know wants something similar doing, do drop me a line!

Futurismic

Everything is fairly smooth over at Futurismic, web technology notwithstanding (see later). I’ve just this morning paid for next month’s story, which I am really pleased with and expect you all to praise unanimously when it is published[1].

Still looking for more book reviewers, by the way - especially of pop-science non-fiction stuff. Drop me a line if you’re keen.

The great migration

As referenced a few times above, I’ve been steering Futurismic and The Dreaded Press through a change of hosting company this week, which is always a fraught and tense experience (as some of you probably already know).

As far as I can be sure, everything seems to be running from the new locations now, so the DNS change went through pretty swiftly. Unsurprisingly, server response and uptime are already looking a lot stronger than they were this time last week… all that remains now is to get NetPivotal to terminate my account completely[2].

The unpleasantness of these shenanigans has been amplified by what appears to be some mystery virus that is making me ache all over and feel generally rotten, to the extent that I had Thursday off work to lay in bed and hide under the duvet from the crazed ranting of the man in the flat upstairs… it’s been one of those weeks, basically. Which is why I’m hideously behind on a lot of things[3].

Books and magazines seen

Laugh, oh ye gods and men, at the latest episode in the seemingly endless F&SF subscription - the August issue has arrived! Not so sure about the cover this time:

Maybe it one got lost in the post… but they’ve stopped sending me renewal notices, so I’m positive my sub must be expired by now. Perhaps they just really like me?

In the postbox just this morning is the summer package from the BSFA containing the latest issues of Focus and Vector. In an act of unabashed self-aggrandisement I’ll point out that the former contains the second part of my guide to blogging for authors, and the latter my review of Adam Roberts’ Swiftly[4].

Books, also; I seem to have been sent a second copy of David Louis Edelman’s Multireal (which is good, because the first one is off with a reviewer already). And just off the slow boat from Canada is the VanderMeers’ Steampunk anthology, courtesy SF Site:

Some more non-fiction for Futurismic from Icon Books in the shape of Future Proof, co-authored by Nick Sagan:

So many books, so little time. What I could really do with is a huge block of time to myself…

Holiday!

… so it’s fortunate I’m going to have one, isn’t it, hmm?

Yes indeed - from the August bank holiday right through to 14th September, yours truly will be day-job free. This is what happens when - after a lifetime of shitty factory jobs wherein you grew accustomed to never having any paid holiday worth speaking of - you forget to use up your allowance until the point where your line manager suggests, firmly but kindly, that you should disappear for a few weeks.

I’ve blocked it out on my calendar; it’s an intimidatingly huge chunk of time. And I’ve decided I’m going to go on a proper holiday for some of it, too - a week in Berlin by train looks very much on the cards. Any suggestions from folk who’ve visited there before will be gratefully received.

But mostly that’s going to be a couple of weeks with which to blitz some projects which have been far too long half-finished (TDP’s layout and theme, anyone?), and get a metric shedload of reading done. Something to look forward to… I need to get me one of those blog countdown widgets, I’m thinking[5].

Coda

So, a train-wreck of week with a light at the end of the tunnel - that’s a rare combination, but I think I’ll take it!

For reasons of health and for reasons of tradition, I shall now venture forth to discover whether the restorative properties of cumin and chillies can banish this lingering sensation of illness; The Friday Curry is renowned for miraculous cures of this type, so the wise old pilgrims say.

I hope your journey to the far side of the weekend is as eventful (or eventless) as you would wish it to be - hasta luego, amigos.

[ 1 - Yes, I mentioned this last week. I'll probably mention it next week too. It's that good a story. ]

[ 2 - Which may be a mission in and of itself. The usual procedure (with almost any hosting outfit) is to be told your account has been closed and then still be recharged and invoiced at the renewal date... I shall be asking for written confirmation, I think. ]

[ 3 - Astute readers probably realised long before I did that I mention all this stuff as a way of keeping myself honest to myself as a self-employed person. I'm my own boss, but you - the largely silent readers of FPB - are like my shadowy HR department. How's that for an extra weight on your conscience, eh? ]

[ 4 - That review was written before the good Professor Roberts became one of my clients. It remains to be seen whether he will still be one after he reads it... ]

[ 5 - If only so criminal webstalker types have a good idea of when to attempt to burgle my flat. ]

After a lengthy dry patch, the gigging season is picking up again… which makes for less embarrassing FPBs, if nothing else! Here’s a superb progressive post-metal band called Brenda, playing last Saturday in a tiny venue by Southsea seafront:

Truly awesome in every way, and I’m not just saying that. Imagine Jeff Buckley fronting Oceansize… that’s as close as you’ll get, but still not close enough.[1]

Writing about music

A relatively placid week, as fortune would have it; means I’m a little ahead of myself for next week already, which is always a great place to be. Especially considering that it’s Showcase season, which means I’ll be called upon in my judging capacity (as well as my “keeping an eye on the scene” capacity). Good old summer… well, all but the weather, anyway.

Album of the week

Technically it’s an EP, but it’s still the best of the week - the Nightmares of the Ocean EP by The Arusha Accord. Very intense UK progressive metalcore, great stuff.

Writing about books

Some notes and frameworking toward the Snow Crash piece have been laid to paper, but that’s about it. I’ve had my brain occupied by the first half of Farah Mendlesohn’s Rhetorics of Fantasy, which is extremely interesting so far - not necessarily as a prescriptive document, but more as a useful toolkit, as well as a chance to see the more academically-rooted form of criticism[2] being done. Learning a lot, which is good.

Freelance

Well, the first website redesign project is all but finished; just waiting on some final feedback on functionality before I can whisk an invoice off into the aether for it and show it to the world. Feels good, I tell ya.

Another source of work has been confirmed as well, in that I’ll be reporting on novel manuscripts for an organisation that shall remain nameless. It’s not great money, and I expect much of the reading will be pretty dire… but hey, income is income. Just call me Mr Can-Do![3]

Futurismic

We’re in the process of email-exchanging contracts for next month’s Futurismic story, which is another corker, and something a bit different - a dark corporate satire, with death rays!

Otherwise, all rolls on much as usual - up to and including the increasingly prevalent downtime problems. This, coupled with the fact that I’ll need more hosting space as my client base grows, has led me to setting up with a new hosting company; I’m currently waiting for the transfer of the domain names to finish, and then I’ll be upping sticks and leaving NetPivotal long behind.

It’s kinda sad, because they’ve given the best customer service I’ve yet had from a hosting outfit… but as I remarked to Darren a while ago, the best customer service in the world is no use whatsoever if you can’t actually connect to the server where your site is supposed to be located. Another internet company that expanded too fast, I’m guessing. Selah.

Books and magazines seen

This week we have a soupçon of poetry in the form of the latest issue of Obsessed With Pipework.

Also in this week’s mail from Orbit (along with a bunch of fantasy titles that’ll be put aside for my mother, who is threatening to start some sort of reading group in her village up north with all the freebies I’ve been bunging her way) is a very nicely made hardback ARC of Ken MacLeod’s forthcoming title, The Night Sessions:

As a youth I never thought I’d hear myself say it, but in the last few years I’ve said it nearly every week: I have too many good books to read.[4]

Apologia

It’s been pretty dead here but for links posts, hasn’t it? And there’s me above describing a relatively calm-seeming week… well, suffice to say there is a degree of turmoil beneath the surface, and I’ve had a slew of unglamorous things to do that are part of the lot of the freelance[5]. I can’t promise an immediate return to greater VCTB output, but I hope I’ll not be quite so quiet in weeks to come as I have been of late.

Coda

And that’s your fix of FPB from PGR for this week. I’m spoiled for choice this evening - the pub as usual, or perhaps a bunch of local bands at The Wedgewood Rooms? Friday being Friday, I shall play it as it comes, I think… though you can rest safe in the assumption that right now I’m going to go fetch The Friday Curry, as is right, proper and preordained.

Have a great weekend, ladies and gents, and here’s hoping the weather isn’t as crap as the Met Office is promising. Hasta luego, amigos!

[ 1 - Play close attention to the guitarist on the right, who is slapping the strings instead of strumming. Sounds great through a delay modeller, y'know, especially on a solid-bridge special edition Fender Jaguar. ]

[ 2 - As opposed to the seat-of-the-pants bootstap bluffing type of which yours truly is a proponent. ]

[ 3 - Actually, please never call me that ever. At least not when I'm there to hear it. ]

[ 4 - There are worse afflictions, though, eh? ]

[ 5 - Accounting! Administrivia! And other stuff you can't bill anyone else for! ]

Ah, Saturday night at a rock show - it’s what your weekend was made for, y’know. This rather camp gentleman is Joel Gion, tambourine-and-denim dude for California psychedelic explorers The Brian Jonestown Massacre:

T’was a fine show, if you discount the beered-up fools in the audience who only came in the hope of goading mercurial frontman Anton Newcombe into having a strop. Which he did, but instead of storming off he just ranted some killer put-downs. Job done.

Writing about music

Two live reviews (one with an interview spliced in) on top of the usual gubbins has made for a hectic week. I’m expecting my first outsourced review imminently, too… hopefully the first of many.

Album of the week

Kind of a shoo-in, being as it’s the only proper full-length album I’ve covered this week, but Rhymes for the Hated by Hexagram is not the sort of album you’d expect from an unsigned local act.

But that’s exactly what they are, and Rhymes… demonstrates why they came a close second in last year’s battle-o’-the-bands. If old-school Pantera/Crowbar/Corrosion Of Conformity is your bag, give ‘em a listen. Very solid stuff.

Writing about books

No concrete writing has been committed, but a great deal more thinking has taken place. I’ve also been reading Snake Agent by Liz Williams, which is really rather good. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it anywhere near as much as I have done, and there’s plenty of scope for an essay there.

Freelance

I’m halfway through doing the HTML mark-up for the next PS Publishing newsletter, and nearing completion on the first full website redevelopment job, so results should be around and about soon.

Also sent out my first batch of quarterly invoices to some clients at the beginning of the week - it feels good to tell other people they owe me money, as it always used to happen the other way around.

An unexpected bonus to working freelance with genre authors: some of them send your cheque inside genre-friendly greetings cards - you made my morning, Mr Lovegrove, thank you!

Futurismic

Bloody hell, what a week Futurismic has had. On the bad side, it was hacked by Turkish skr1p+ k1dd13z (as was VCTB, though for a much briefer period) and suffered astonishingly unreasonable levels of downtime (as my Twitter followers are probably more aware than they’d like to be). It looks like it’s host migration season again…

On the good side, however, Tom’s vaguely controversial[1] blog post on battlefield photography using quantum entanglement got picked up on Reddit, bringing us the sort of traffic we usually rack up over a month crammed into the space of just one day (along with about 200 new RSS subscribers, from the looks of it).

Plus my interview with Nancy Kress got linked to by none other than my hero and idol, Commandante Bruce Sterling[2]!

All of which unfortunately overshadowed this month’s new piece of fiction, “Maquech” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia - which I really really like, and not just because I spent some time in Mexico City or because I’m the E-i-C. I really like it because I think it’s an excellent story. Please go read, then tell me (and Silvia) what you think.

Books and magazines seen

No magazines this week, but another couple of titles have arrived from Night Shade Press: the Stateside editions of Greg Egan’s Incandescence, and Shadow of the Scorpion by Neal Asher[3].

Coda

Well, there we go - how’s that for a busy week? It’s been fun seeing money turn up for work I’ve done, which has kept me going in a period rather devoid of breathing space. Next week is looking more sane… at the moment, anyway, and provided I clear the decks as planned tomorrow.

I’ll need to be all done by Sunday lunchtime, whatever happens- because it’s an early practice for Aeroplane Attack this week before we head off to see a band called Brenda (and, not entirely coincidentally, meet up with the man who may well become our drummer) in the evening.

So why am I still sat here typing bollocks to the three of you with sufficient stamina and free time to slog through my weekly drivel? That’s a good question - let me know if you think of an answer. I’ll be at The Goa fetching The Friday Curry if you need me …

Hasta luego, amigos.

[ 1 - 'Controversial' in that some people - who don't show any signs of being scientists - saw fit to call it a fake story. I have no idea either way, to be honest; this postmodernism thing can be a handy get-out, eh? ]

[ 2 - OK, so he makes fun of my question a little, but I still hold it's valid in the context on the interview. ]

[ 3 - I found this immensely amusing after reading a certain gentleman at the Asimov's forums accusing Night Shade of being a bastion of conspiracist homosexuals and feminazis acting in league to make genre fiction sanitized and rubbish.

Because after all, Neal Asher is many things, but radically to the left is not one of them - he's not the kind of guy that a publisher with a leftist axe to grind would publish[4]. I don’t know if there’s some sort of award for mentioning not just Nazism in the opening post of a thread but Communism too, both as criticisms of people committing the heinous crime of appeasing minority interests and attempting to not be sexist…

… but if there is, that gentleman has surely earned it. I suspect the award should have the phrase “Repeatedly Rejected and Wondering Why” somewhere in the title. ]

[ 4 - OMG cunning communofeminista red-herring double-blind plot! We never saw it coming! Must... flee... privilege... eroding... aieeee! ]

I went to interview and review Enochian Theory on Tuesday night, and I was packin’ a camera …

Ben (frontman, pictured) has been a friend for quite some time. The band are attempting to go the fully-independent route (no label, no management, treating it as a proper business), and the show was to demo their new album’s-worth of material. Despite a few minor technical hitches, it was bloody good stuff. If you like dark progressive metal, that is.

Writing about music

It’s all been a bit close to the wire this week, as the Masterclass took a big bite out of my headway. But everything that needed nailing for release date of next Monday is done, so yay me.

Still a notable lack of response from volunteer reviewers … with one exception, and she’ll be getting her first job when I see her down the pub this evening. More prodding required, perhaps.

Album of the week

Life … The Best Game In Town by Harvey Milk. Thinking man’s southern sludge, featuring Joe Preston on bass.

Honorable mention - Nephu Huzzband’s single “Nurse Nurse!” is very promising. Fugazi-era post-hardcore meets the more abstract and interesting end of the current indie sound. Ones to watch.

Writing about books

Much like my fellow travellers, I still have a head full of swirling ideas and concepts after the excellent second SFF Masterclass, and I’ve been too busy with other stuff this week to do anything coherent. But I’ve been thinking a lot about what to say in my re-examination of Snow Crash; I have many potential angles of attack, so to speak.

Freelance

Chuntering on with PS Publishing duties, which have settled neatly into a daily routine. A trifle behind schedule on a website project, but I have a catch-up binge scheduled for tomorrow.

Also on the horizon is another potential source of work and income, but I’m still in the process of sounding it all out. It’s quite strange - for my first year of putative freelancing I could hardly find any work whatsoever, but if this year carries on delivering new avenues of work at this rate I could be considering quitting the day-job come 2009.

Still, that’s a best-case scenario, and I’m not going to be too hasty. But things are definitely getting lively.

Futurismic

It affected all my sites (as some of you may have noticed), but a major FUBAR at my hosting company hit Futurismic the hardest and cost me the best part of Tuesday morning to unproductive panic and teeth-grinding*.

Anyway, the new team have pretty much bedded down now, though posting is a little less regular than I’d have liked. Plus we now have ads in the RSS feed - which part of me hates doing, and the other part of me figures is a necessity.

Oh, and new fiction early next week - keep ‘em peeled!

Books and magazines seen

The Masterclass had Convention-like properties, in that I came back with far more books than I went with. Best of all, none of them cost me a penny, as all-round good egg Graham Sleight was having a clear-out that included a number of titles I was only too happy to relieve him of. I shan’t list them all, but they include books of poetry, textbooks on alchemy and occultism, and Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow.

I’ve also been added to the Gollancz mailing list (that dastardly Spanton doesn’t miss an opportunity for merciless and underhanded hype, after all), which sees me supplied with ARCs of:

• The Quiet War by Paul McAuley
• Going Under by Justina Robson
• City At The End Of Time by Greg Bear

It’s all go in this household, y’know.

Masterclass

In lieu of a more complete summary (which will need to wait for the comparative calm of next week), allow me to say that the SFF Masterclass was even better this year than before. I say this not as a disservice to the organisers, attendees and lecturers who took part in the first iteration, but to emphasise the fact that the slightly larger group size seemed to work really well, with a great sense of camaraderie and community arising (as has been noted by others, so I didn’t just imagine it) and lots of quality discussion.

From my personal perspective it was much nicer having it happen in London as opposed to Liverpool, which made the entire business vastly more affordable, but I think I’ll continue to apply to attend any year when I can spare the time and money, wherever it takes place. Recommended to any hardcore genre book geek - be they writer, critic or both.

My Bloody Valentine

Saturday night, Camden Roundhouse. So loud you could feel it in your guts and bones. A new contender in my Best Gigs Ever list, so brilliant that I’ve decided not to write a proper review because I don’t want to spoil the memory with over-analysis. I nearly cried a couple of times thanks to a bizarre combination of bliss and bludgeon.

And Bilinda Butcher is still one of the most lovely women on the planet**. So there.

Coda

Crikey, wrapping-up time already. And the rollercoaster doesn’t stop here - tomorrow night it’s The Brian Jonestown Massacre at The Wedgewood Rooms, and then Sunday sees me tripping along the coast a bit for a family get-together in honour of my mother’s birthday before returning to Velcro City for poetry at Tongues & Grooves in the evening …

… business as usual, then! So I hope you’ll excuse me for keeping the coda brief***, and simply bidding you a good weekend before rolling out in search of The Friday Curry. Hasta luego, amigos!

[ * Two valuable lessons were learned: the first being a website-specific version of the eggs-in-one-basket aphorism, the second being a reiteration of the self-knowledge that I don't deal well with obstacles over which I have no control. I need to work out a better strategy for dealing with downtime, methinks - perhaps a list of tasks that don't require my sites to be live would be worth putting together. Not to mention less reliance on caffeine. ]

[ ** Her collection of classic guitars is merely a supplementary bonus to her natural awesomeness and beauty. Yes. ]

[ *** Because I was worried some of you might complain. Yeah, really. Napoleon who? ]

OK, so this is going to be a pretty compact version of FPB, principally because it’s been compiled on Thursday prior to me trundling off to the Big Smoke for the Foundation Masterclass taking place over the weekend. Hence, no photo (gasp!).

However, because I know you guys thrive on living my life vicariously at one remove*, here are some select highlights …

Album of the week

Holographic Universe by Scar Symmetry. Apparently an example of “melodic death metal”, but I’d classify it as accessible heavy metal with a strong pop edge in the choruses - everything, in fact, that Bullet For My Valentine reach for but fail to achieve.

Books and magazines seen

Yet another instalment in the seemingly-endless F&SF subscription** arrived in the form of the July 2008 issue, complete with Ballard-on-acid cover art (which I rather like).

The Orbit gang have punted me Charlie Stross‘ new one, Saturn’s Children - with its much-more-agreeable UK edition artwork, thankfully.

And a couple from the good people at Pyr to be reviewed at Futurismic (if you’re interested in taking them on, do get in touch): Multireal, the second book of David Louis Edelman’s Jump 225 trilogy, and Alan Dean Foster’s Sagramanda (which looks very tempting, and which I may have to make a point of reading for myself).

Coda

Well, by the time this goes live we’ll have wrapped up day one of the Masterclass, and will doubtless be deciding on a suitable venue for supper. Naturally I’ll be lobbying for some sort of Indian establishment (one must try to uphold one’s traditions, even when in foreign climes, wot?), but given I’ll be in the company of generally super and interesting folks, I’ll be going with the flow this week as far as my Friday evening meal is concerned.

I’ll leave with the parting shot that tomorrow evening I’ll be seeing My Bloody Valentine play live - which is something I’ve wanted to do since about 1991. Never let it be said that I don’t achieve my goals … though admittedly it takes me a while sometimes.

Hasta luego, amigos. Suerte!

[ * Oh, don't try to kid me, I know how it works. I can see my click-through stats, you know. I only maintain FPB to keep you all sane***. SRSLY. ]

[ ** A final subscription ending warning note came this week, too, so I must just have had my dates mixed up. Selah. I've still got about six full issues that I've not had time to read yet. ]

[ *** This is quite possibly not true. ]

No, Mr Brown. You are a weasel, a fearmonger, a small man in a big man’s expensive suit, and - like your predecessor, and many others - a panderer to corporate interests and waning governments with imperial ambitions which mirror that collapsed edifice which Daily Mail readers still feel should stretch around the globe by dint of nothing more than divine grace, stiff upper lips and unbridled paranoid bigotry based in a fundamental fear of otherness.

No one in the world ever has nor ever will do as much to curtail the freedoms I was fortunate enough to born with, Mr Brown, as you and others of your ilk. You wield fear like a whip, but you turn it on those you claim you are elected to serve.

What have you ever suffered or lost through the choices made by others on your behalf, Mr Brown? What have you given up to defend what you believe? What do you really know of fear, beyond the thought of losing the privilege you have amassed? Evidently not enough; as it has always been, the people will reap what the suits have sown. I hope that one day we will all turn around and feed it to you until you choke.

“Whoever lays his hand on me to govern me is a usurper and a tyrant and I declare him my enemy.” - Proudhon

We now return you to what passes for regular programming on this channel.

Writing about music

Another slowish week, but that’s not at all unwelcome. Festival season means the PRs are all tied up promoting things I’m not yet a big enough wheel to be of assistance with*. I can deal with that.

Album of the week

Not a great deal to choose from, really, so The Offspring take the crown easily with their eighth album Rise And Fall, Rage And Grace.

Writing about books

The Love & Sex With Robots piece is all but finished; last few paragraphs and a brisk polish, and that badboy should be ready to roll out of the warehouse, so to speak.

I’m about a fifth of the way into Schmidt’s The Coming Convergence; it should be a swift read, because I seem to be a lot more technoliterate than the reader it is designed for (so I can skip a lot of the passages telling me stuff I already know).

Futurismic

The new Futurismic bloggers are settling in nicely, and by the end of this evening I should have fixed over 380 dead incoming links that got broken when the old Moveable Type installation collapsed on us - which I hope will boost our PageRank and SERPS somewhat, and bring with it a boost in passing traffic.

The other good news is it seems the Project Wonderful ad slots are starting to mature nicely, in that advertisers are recognising their worth and bidding competitively on them. I’m hoping for more growth in this area over the next six months - especially if the dead link fixin’ mentioned above has some effect.

Freelance

The tweaking of websites and the publicising of publishers continues at a steady pace; nothing substantial to show off yet, but there’ll be solid results by the close of business this month.

Books and magazines seen

It’s a lit-crit double whammy this week!

First off we have my long-awaited copy of Farah Mendlesohn’s Rhetorics Of Fantasy - courtesy the author herself at last weekend’s AGM meet-up - which I have been looking forward to reading since hearing the framework of its taxonomy explained by Brian Stableford at last year’s Masterclass - bloody hell, a year ago.

Secondly I have my second review job for Foundation, namely The New Utopian Politics of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed (eds. Laurence Davis and Peter Stillman) - which, as far as Amazon is concerned, has been out in the States since 2005. So either it’s getting a relaunch on this side of the pond, or Foundation’s reviews department makes me look like a paragon of organisation and productivity**.

I couldn’t resist it, basically, though I wonder if maybe I haven’t bitten off a little more than I can chew - I’m even less qualified to talk politics than I am lit-crit***.

But Ms Le Guin’s blurb praises the book as not just a good and valuable examination of her famous novel, but refreshingly jargon-free, so maybe I’ll be OK. One thing’s for sure, there’s gonna be plenty of food for thought in there.

Aside from those two heavy-hitters, some fantasy titles from Orbit are all for which we have to thank the deities of the postbox this week.

Coda

So, on the surface of it - and by any metric of meaningful use beyond the confines of my own emotional landscape - it’s been a pretty good week, if not as productive as I’d have liked.

However, things haven’t been entirely peachy; I shan’t go into details (because this isn’t LJ or MySpace) but I’ve been an emotional wreck for no clearly discernible reason, and have consequently been shitty to people who didn’t deserve it - so there’s a nice nugget of guilt for me to chew over the weekend. Mmm, tasty guilt.

Couple that with a growing panic about next weekend’s impending Masterclass (for which I’ve still yet to read anything from the reading list that I hadn’t read before receiving it), and a certain degree of riding herd on my new bloggers at Futurismic****, and it’s obvious with hindsight why I’ve been sleeping badly and unable to concentrate on anything. Hence nearly being assassinated by a blind taxi driver while cycling to the day job this morning tipped me into a state verging on hysteria.

Thankfully my line manager is a good person, and listened to me gibber for a bit before recommending I use some of my vast backlog of annual leave allowance and take some extra time off next week. End result: I’m working a two day week from Monday, giving me two clear days to attack the Masterclass material while clearing down all my other work; then I return to work the following Tuesday. Signing the leave sheet was such a tension-release that I almost wept. I suspect I’ve been letting things get on top of me a little.

But hey, it’s the weekend! And there are few ills that The Friday Curry doesn’t at least provide the illusion of healing. After which I may go and listen to hideously loud rock music in a side-street pub, if I haven’t already fallen asleep. Enjoy your weekends, folks - hasta luego.

[ ** Under-qualified like a toddler with dentist's tools, then. ]

[ *** Only kidding, Andy. ]

[ **** No discredit to them, by the way, they're doing great; it's just one of those jobs that eats waaaay more time than you ever expect it to before you start. ]

There was me, thinking the blog-meme meme (is that a meta-meme?) had died … but how wrong I was. I’ve been tagged by Sterling Camden, and as he’s been a long-term reader of VCTB since waaaaay before it was vaguely worth reading*, I cannot refuse him. Plus, he’s a really decent bloke, as far as I can tell of someone I only know blogospherically.

So, the instructions:

“To participate, you grab any book, go to page 123, find the fifth sentence, and blog it. Then tag five people.”

Simple enough … the only problem in my house is choosing a book, for there are many. So, like Sterling, I’ll do you one non-fiction and one fiction.

“Quite likely the problems experienced with early cloning efforts are just that: problems that can and will be solved.”

That’s from The Coming Convergence by Analog editor Dr Stanley Schmidt; think of it as a book on The Singularity (as statistical rate-of-change phenomenon rather than metaphorical techno-Rapture) for older folk who aren’t too clued up about where technology is actually at, where it’s going, and how it got there. With baked-in subconscious Western cultural imperialism, too - but that’s par for the course considering Schmidt’s demographic, and he’s not being nasty about it; just those same old assumptions.

Now, some fiction. Let’s see …

“As Hiro and Vitaly approach the vast freeway overpass where tonight’s concert is to take place, the solid ferrous quality of the Vanagon attracts MagnaPoons like a Twinkie draws cockroaches.”

I’m sure there are few among my readership who can’t guess the book that’s from; I really need to start my re-read so I can do an essay on it for SF Site as I promised. But I still haven’t touched the Masterclass reading list … life is full of tasks and time is, as always, more precious than anything. And here I am blogging a meme. Selah.

But what are memes for, if not for sharing the timesuck? So let’s tag some people who’ll give good results: Niall, Liz, Jonathan, Shaun, Justin, Dr Bloomer and Dr Hocking**. Feel free to pitch in even if you’re not tagged, though.

Ladies and gentlemen, consider yourself smacked up with a selfish gene. Bam!

[ * Seriously, I cringe at my own archives. I only leave them up through a combination of intellectual masochism and an irrational obsession over PageRank. Sad, huh? ]

[ ** Yeah, more than five; but there's always attrition in these things, y'know? ]

Whoa - Paul Raven in “actually got out of the house with a camera recently” shocker!

Not the most exciting of photographs, I’ll grant you, but better than me digging in the archives or showing you some other dust-coated relic from my hovel.

The weather’s been good enough for me to do some supplementary cycling, and yesterday evening I was quite taken by the bank of cloud looming over South Parade Pier - so that’s what you have above. Mmmm - moody.

Writing about music

The one major upside of having a frantically busy week is that a normal week seems easy by comparison, so this week’s mere five reviews have been a relative breeze to cope with after last week’s bedlam.

As hinted at last week, the initial enthusiasm of potential reviewers has yet to coalesce into concrete samples of writing, so I need to do some prodding forthwith.

Album of the week

Got to be Station by Russian Circles. It’s not prog, it’s not post-rock, it’s not post-metal … but it’s all brilliant.

Neither obtained nor reviewed this week, but an extra mention goes to Vantage Point by dEUS, which has been on my stereo or headphones at pretty much every point I’ve had free in the last week. It’s a great album, people; SRSLY.

Writing about books

Well, look at that - I actually got some material out of the door and published, here and elsewhere, as noted earlier in the week.

Nearly finished reading Love And Sex With Robots, which I plan to review on the train tomorrow; after that it’s a binge to try to cover as much of the Masterclass reading list as possible before the damned thing actually starts*.

Futurismic

Well, just look at those new bloggers go! A few teething problems with formatting, but that’s down to my fussiness more than their skills, and we’re getting pretty close to sorted - especially considering they’ve come up with more interesting stuff in a week than I usually find in a month.

Who knows - we may soon reach a point where I can miss a day blogging at Futurismic and (gasp!) not get all panicked about it!

And hey - what did you think of Kristin Janz’s story, “Veritas Nos Liberabit“?

Interzone

As noted yesterday, I’m stepping down from my editorial post at Interzone. As far as FPB is concerned, the most obvious result of this will be to slightly reduce the number of times I go on about being hideously busy**; that said, I’m going to miss it. End of an era, folks … but the start of a new one, too.

Freelance

I’m rollin’, rollin’, rollin’, as Fred Durst once jabbered. Looks like I’ve got a website project tentatively booked to be done by the end of the month. Just waiting for confirmation and a few access passwords, and I’m good to go.

And how good a feeling was it to have my first proper invoice to PS Publishing paid off last weekend? Awesome, frankly. Onwards and upwards, wot?

Books and magazines seen

Would you believe nothing again? Most unusual to go a few weeks without anything more than a trio of vampire-shagger paperbacks from Orbit.

Then again, the music industry seems to slow down come mid-June, so maybe publishing works the same way. So much to learn! Not like I’m short of stuff to read, anyway. Selah.

Out and about: BSFA & SFF AGMs

OK, so I’ve determined I’m definitely going to the AGMs tomorrow - having even taken the drastic measure of dropping off my laundry for a service wash one day early***.

Hope to see some of you there - if we’ve not met before, come and say hello. I may look like some ludicrous caricature of a sysadmin crossed with a failed hippie-biker, but I’m told I’m moderately charming in spite of it****.

Coda

Well, there’s something to be said for actually getting a bit of home-turf blogging done during the week, in that there’s less need to say things here in the FPB Coda. This is good for me, as it frees up some Friday evening time, and good for you, as you have less irrelevant guff to scroll through. Bilateral result - a career in the diplomatic service surely beckons!

So, in the spirit of moving fast and staying light - like a hobo on a skateboard, maybe - I’ll bid you all a good weekend before heading out for The Friday Curry Which Is Verily Regulated By Ritual And Tradition. Hasta luego, amigos.

[ * Seeing that's in about two week's time, good luck to me - though if I read any of it, I'll be more prepared than last year, and I've already read one of the non-fic titles on the list of my own accord. ]

[ ** Yeah, like I'm ever going to stop saying that, until the day I have a gorgeous Mexican professor of literature and philosophy paid a CEO's salary to bring me nachos and Coronas with lime as I write, in between her own research into the intersection of indigenous culture and modern urban mythology. Not that I'm planning ahead or anything. ]

[ *** Rock'n'f*ckin'roll, huh? Yawp. ]

[ **** By my mother, since you asked. ]

So, hah, yes. No photography got done this week. I’ll add the craptastic weather to my traditional temporal excuses, and dig in the archives from Mexico again … of which I have very few left, because the majority never made it off my old hard-drive and onto Flickr before the recent Hardware Death Incident.

But hey, I still have the memories, and a few gems like this:

A ruined mine-building tower out in the hinterlands beyond the faded former silver town of Real de Catorce*.

If I get rained on again (or wake up to another overcast morning or two) in the next week, I will seriously consider immigrating to Mexico and going on the run. Velcro City is not the cheeriest of places when it’s raining.

And besides, I can’t get a decent taco anywhere.

Writing about music

Ten album reviews in one week. That’s some sort of personal record – quite possibly the sort that gets made with a crayon by your psychiatric practitioner as he furrows his brow slightly.

So, I’ve started recruiting willing victims reviewers for TDP; lots of people seem keen, but I know from prior experience that I may not receive as many sample reviews as I get expressions of interest. We shall see.

Album of the week

It’s a shoo-in: Bulbul 6 by Austrian oddballs, er, Bulbul. Imagine The Melvins locked in a European disco with a few analogue synths and a collection of surrealist cinema classics. They’re weirder than that.

Honourable mention goes to grunge progenitors Mudhoney for re-releasing the classic Superfuzz Bigmuff with loads of extras in the same week as The Lucky Ones, a brand new album that’s just as good, twenty years into their career.

Noisy garage rock’n’roll will never die, kids.

Writing about books

Concrete output is lacking, but there’s a first draft of the oft-delayed Implied Space review … and a lot of irate scribblings being collated re: the Love And Sex With Robots book, which is disturbing me not by its speculations but by the root assumptions that lead to them. Should be a lively review, let’s say.

Rumours abound that the issue of Foundation containing my epic Brasyl review may be in the wild fairly soon, for those who remember the tortuous and protracted birthing of that particular piece**.

Futurismic

Those of you who follow Futurismic (which is all of you, naturally – amirite?) may have noticed another new blogger poke their head over the parapet yesterday. Well, keep watching – there are three more to come! Once Tomas and Edward return from the land of Having Other Important Stuff To Do, we’re going to have quite the output level over there, I’m thinking. Yes, sir.

Oh yes, and it’s nearly the start of another month – which means another new piece of fiction is imminent! Keep ‘em peeled, future-fans. Arf!

Freelance

Things are motoring on fairly well with PS Publishing; this week has been a little calmer, thanks to a lack of newsletters to format and send (those things take longer than you’d think). I get to send off my first invoice tomorrow, too!

Cheerfully blocking out other freelance webby tasks for the months ahead; thinking conservatively, I’ve probably got enough to keep me busy until the end of August already. Then again, I may have overestimated how long things will take me to do them; if I have, that’ll be great, but I figure safety margins are a good thing to have right now.

Books and magazines seen

None. Not a sausage. There’s some things on their way from various places (or so I believe) but nothing has materialised as yet.

Speaking of books, though, I need to get myself on the Del Rey mailing list sooner rather than later. Charlie Stross has got an ARC of the forthcoming Bruce Sterling novel, and that’s a book I need to possess as soon as is practically possible …

BSFA AGM

Acronym-tastic! Yeah, it’s the BSFA AGM next weekend, and I’m trying to determine whether I can afford the time and the train fare, seeing as it’s in the same month as the Foundation Masterclass (which I still haven’t so much as broached the reading list for) and my mother’s birthday.

I should probably make a showing, though. Any VCTB readers heading up from the South coast?

Coda

For want of anything particularly exciting to say (and in the interests of - perhaps and just for a change - not sitting at a computer keyboard until 9pm on a Friday evening, I’m going to keep it brief and forgo the usual “bloody hell, another week just flew past” stuff. I’m not expecting any complaints – though if you have them, do pipe up, won’t you***?

In the interim, I’ll bid you a good weekend before I trundle off to fetch The Most Righteous Friday Curry Of Great Justice, Valour and Haberdashery****. Hasta luego, amigos.

[ *** Seriously, you need to get out more. And if I'm telling you that, you've surely got a problem. ]

[ **** I know; it's just one of those great words that doesn't get used enough. ]

In which I display yet another piece of recently-acquired musical kit that I can’t realistically afford and yet which I could not let pass me by. Because what aspiring rock guitarist – even one who knows he isn’t very good and never will be – hasn’t always wanted a valve-powered amp stack?

And yes, it is very loud. Which means that now the whole street can hear how much I suck, as opposed to just the houses to either side.

Who knows – maybe next week we’ll have a picture of something from (gasp!) outside my flat.*

Writing about music

It’s been a hectic week in music, because the pre-festival season sees the industry knocking out lots of new material. Next week promises to be even busier – I have ten albums to review for 2nd June, which means my usual one-per-weekday regime would be insufficient even were I completely clear of albums released on 25th May (which I’m not, yet).

Still, in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter too much if I review stuff in its week of release rather than before. Better that than punishing my eyes and ears by trying to do two or three reviews a day to the detriment of other stuff, AMIRITE?

Album of the week

Hail Destroyer by Cancer Bats, no contest.

Good enough, in fact, to somewhat cool my disappointment that I had my guestlist for the gig revoked at the eleventh hour last weekend (literally about an hour after I posted FPB).

Writing about books

No solid writing, but I’m reading and taking notes on David Levy’s Love and Sex With Robots for a Vector review. I think I’m safe in saying that anyone widely read in sf isn’t going to find his core idea as shocking as the average person might. However, it’s still an interesting read (though I think I can see exactly where he’s going, and something about his writing style really bugs me beyond his heavy reliance on stats and psychology studies, both of which can be made to sing like canaries).

Futurismic

Fellow Fictioneer Justin Pickard has started blogging over at Futurismic this week (and how!), and the call for volunteers still stands until Sunday – so if you or someone you know fancies a crack at contributing to one of the genre scene’s most vibrant and cutting-edge webzines, jump to it!

Also finalised my first story contract and payment as Ed-in-Chief, which feels both weird and cool at once. Now, if I can just put some of Jeremy’s ideas into action …

Freelance

So, masses of work for PS Publishing. I think I’m going to be able to do it quicker in future once I know the routines, but the learning curve is significant – though it’s not so much steep as it is long. Still, my legs could do with the exercise, to overextend the analogy.

And hey, I get to invoice Pete for it at the end of the month – and that’s a damn good feeling, let me tell you.

Books and magazines seen

Speaking of PS Publishing as we were, my only incomings this week have been a lovely box of titles from that esteemed establishment. And not wishing to lay it on too thick (lest I stand accused of grandstanding), anyone who has bought a PS title will back me up in saying that, as examples of books-as-desire-objects, they are very lovely indeed**.

Coda – the four-day weekend

Those of you who have been following closely may remember a false alert a little while ago when I thought I was getting a four-day weekend (thanks to the Dockyard being the nominal property of some old bird called Liz who lives up in London).

It turns out that’s this weekend – so yours truly isn’t back at the day-job until midday next Wednesday. A survey of those currently present seems to suggest that this is widely considered to be a Good Thing***.

All the more so when you consider I’ve spent most of the week with my nose to the grindstone, as it were. And that’s not a complaint - it’s great to have productive (and lucrative) things to do. But it’ll be nice to have a little breathing room in which to play catch-up (and sit-down).

And so - as is often the way - a busy week makes for a skinny FPB Coda. What can I say here?

Oh, yes – the new Red Bull cola is frighteningly addictive, allegedly contains genuine coca leaf (though only as a flavouring) and makes you feel like Henry Case after he scores the engineered amphetamine analogue on Straylight. It also appears to wreck my sleep, even when consumed around lunchtime; for this reason I may have to forbid myself from drinking it any more****.

And on the tail of that earth-shattering revelation, I guess it’s time to bring this to a close … after all, it’s time to fulfil that most sacred of rituals and genuflect with cutlery toward the Most Venerable And Esteemed Friday Curry For Great Justice And Virtuosity. And so, I bid you farewell for now.

Have a great weekend, folks – however long it may turn out to be.

[ * That sound I just heard was you all collectively holding your breath, right? No, didn’t think so. ]

[ ** Which, of course, will mean nothing to you freaks who don't obsess about book-as-artefact. Selah; your blessing is also your curse. ]

[ *** Though given the acquisition of the amplifier, my neighbours may not be in complete concordance on this matter. ]

[**** This public service announcement has been brought to you by the British Dentistry Association – because, contrary to popular and justifiable belief, we are not sadists, and we don’t enjoy fixing molars that have been ground down to bloody stumps any more than you enjoy bringing them to us. ]