Whatever happens, I want you to know that I didn’t just hop outside the library and take this picture this afternoon so I’d have something to post. Honestly^[1].

The crane moves along the dockside, so it’s not always so perfectly central as that; I liked the contrast between the dark and light sides, too. The Dockyard’s an interesting place to work, y’know. It would be even more so if I didn’t spend almost all my time stuck in one building. Selah.

Writing about music

I’ve been experimenting with reigning back the output on The Dreaded Press this week, and I like the way it has freed up more of my time for other things, so it may well become an ongoing change - at least until I find some more reviewers. And in that respect, I have a nefarious plan… mwah-ha-hah!

Album of the week

Hard to choose, really, as I’ve only reviewed two this week, and neither of them was astonishingly up my alley, so to speak.

But purely on the basis of full-bore weirdness I’m going to give it to the bizarrely- (yet appropriately-) named Turtle Nipple And The Toxic Shock by Heavy Heavy Low Low. Put it this way, they don’t call it “spazzcore” for nothing.

Writing about books

Cranked out the long-awaited Nightmare in Silicon review over the weekend, as you may have noticed. Got a couple of half-done pieces on the boil as well, at least one of which should be polished off this weekend, time allowing.

Oooh - on the subject of book reviews, remember the long agonising completion of the Brasyl review^[2]? Well, it’s finally out in the wild: see the books and mags section further down.

Freelance

I’ve been doing lots of behind-the-scenes stuff this week, including such exciting pastimes as triple-checking and printing off last year’s accounts, setting up SSH accounts on my websites and miscellaneous other administrivia.

It’s a case of paying things forward, though - for example, the SSH accounts should reduce my current Sunday backups routine from two hours to two clicks of a mouse. Well, once I’ve sussed out how to script all the processes automatically, that is… but even so, rsync is a lot more efficient than buggering about with FTP. Command line bash for the win!

I finally finished wading through the first monster manuscript - now all I have to do is think of a bunch of honest but encouraging things to say about it. And I thought the reading part was difficult going… still, there’s worse ways to earn money, and it’s teaching me a lot about how not to write. Silver linings ahoy!

Futurismic

Everything still ticking over nicely at Futurismic. Need to start planning for my absence at the end of the month, though.

Books and magazines seen

My first ever issue of Foundation (#102) arrived this morning, complete with my sprawling review of Ian McDonald’s Brasyl^[3]. w00t!

Orbit sent through a bunch more vampire-shagger paperbacks (seriously - how does anyone keep up with that genre’s output? Talk about making hay while the sun moon shines… ).

Under separate cover travelled the new K J Parker novel, The Company - complete with jacket blurb that plays on the “yes, it’s a pseudonym but no, we’re not telling you who it is” line. Way to dangle the carrot, guys… I may have to ask some of my insider contacts (hi, Darren!) for some clues^[4].

And naturally, having attended a rather superb book launch last week, I came back with autographed copies of Gareth L Powell’s short story collection The Last Reef and Chris Beckett’s The Turing Test^[5]. Great artwork for both, I think:

And bargains at £6 each. Go buy one - support talented authors and receive good fiction in return. How can you argue with that?

Coda

Another busy weekend beckons, so we’ll keep it brief here in the Coda. I’m off to see recently-reformed nineties alt-rock trio Kerbdog in Camden tomorrow night, and then on Sunday I’m spinning some tunes^[6] at the fifth anniversary bash for the pompeymusic.co.uk forum^[7], so masses of stuff to get done in a smaller space than usual. I may even forego a trip to the pub this evening, depending on how things pan out…

But I’ll not be forgoing The Hallowed Friday Curry Of Truth And Justice, however - because some things just can’t be skipped, no matter how busy you are. Have a great weekend, ladies and gents - hasta luego!

[ 1 - This is a blatant lie. But then you already knew that. ]

[ 2 - How could you forget? After all, I whined on about it for months. Which is, y'know, so out-of-character for me. ]

[ 3 - It's nowhere as bad as I remember it being, either. I can still see a number of glaring errata and bad paragraphs, though, which is a bit shoddy for one's début in a proper academic journal. Selah. ]

[ 4 - Anyone read any of the K J Parker novels, by the way? I seem to remember Farah speaking well of them, and they get a few mentions in her Rhetorics Of Fantasy , which - to my shame - I've still yet to finish... ]

[ 5 - The Turing Test blurb quotes a certain website with which you are doubtless somewhat familiar. Consider this a muffled grace note from my dusty trumpet. ]

[ 6 - Heh - time to deploy the Monster Magnet back catalogue, methinks! ]

[ 7 - Old time-sucks die hard. It's a den of foul humour and other iniquities, but I've made some great friends through it over the years, including my band-mates. ]

I pass this building every day on my ride to work, and over the past eight months I’ve watched it slowly grow a smooth skin over the concrete and steel skeleton beneath. As the weather was conducive, I managed to get a few shots this afternoon.

I think it’s supposed to look like a ship’s funnel. One thing is for certain, no matter how cutting edge it may be at the moment, within twenty-five years it’ll look horribly dated.

[Architecture never seems to learn from the mistakes of the past in that respect - which was always my argument for keeping the much-missed Tricorn. And yes, I know this is a nautical town, but is there really no other theme that ever leaps to mind? But that's enough local politics for now.]

Anyway - from that angle, it looks almost like some chunk of space-station in orbit over the Earth. Which is pretty cool as far as I’m concerned.

Writing about music

For an assortment of reasons, most of which are of little interest, this week has been a busy yet unremarkable one that involved chasing a lot of deadlines, which I have just about clambered on top of, giving me a clear start next week.

The moral of this story is that running up against one set of deadlines means it’ll be that much harder to meet the next ones. Yeah, I know - obvious in hindsight, but then what isn’t?

As another installment in my ongoing campaign to convince everyone that they’re the greatest band in Britain right now, I will direct your attention to my interview with Oceansize, which was published earlier this week (and which I’m rather chuffed with).

Writing about books

For the same reasons as those mentioned above, the Brasyl piece still isn’t finished, but is much closer to being so than it was this time last week; a concerted final push this weekend should clear that off the to-do list.

The problem has been one of communication on my part, in that I know what I want to say about the book, but have really struggled with saying it in a coherent manner … nearly sorted, though.

I’ve also been taking notes on Human Is? - A Philip K Dick Reader, which has been quite an enlightening read for someone who came to sf very late and largely missed out on the short story scene. And as is so often the case, thoughts I’ve had about this book have actually helped me clarify my thinking about Brasyl.

[Which probably says something about post-structuralism, or something like that ... but jargon will have to take second place to me actually being able to explain what I mean. As far as I can tell, post-structuralism is defined as being essentially indefinable, which makes things rather confusing from my perspective. Selah.]

Writing about other things

Hey, that lengthy piece I did on Second Life has finally been published! You can see it in the free-to-download third issue of D+PAD Magazine [PDF], starting on page 10.

Don’t ask me about the curious choice of layout design - even my sub-editor couldn’t explain the reasoning behind it. Still, it looks OK, and my actual writing is largely intact, so I’m a happy bunny - especially as they seem to want me to do some more in the future.

Freelance malarkey

I’m not going to tempt fate by announcing anything before it’s definitely in the bag, but I may have managed to land myself a pretty decent freelance contract. So wish me luck, if you’re so inclined.

Books and magazines seen

I had hopes that the latest Interzone might turn up this week, but as the Velcro City arm of the Post Office seem to still be recovering from the strike-induced back-log, I think I was chasing rainbows in that respect - suffice to say, it isn’t here yet.

However, Obsessed With Pipework has made an appearance, which is my fresh poetry fix for the next week or two sorted out.

The promo machine at Orbit continues to gather speed, sending me yet more fantasy doorsteps and some YA-looking mil-sf whose covers have probably set teeth to grinding impotently over at the Games Workshop offices …

… and also more Manga from their Yen Press side-line, which I may spare some time to leaf through over the weekend. I love the way that the plot premises seem so ridiculous in translation, but that the stories (once you start them) actually maintain a curious form of internal logic that puts most soap-operas to shame.

And, of course, the book titles themselves. For example:

Zombie Loan! Can’t argue with that … nor with a writer with the pen-name "Peach-Pit".

Coda

An even less interesting week than usual, at least from the perspective of the three of you who actually still read FPB*. But I’m beginning to form the opinion that me telling people how boring my week has been is marginally less boring than me saying nothing at all.

The logic of that last statement is quite plainly spurious, but I’m so confident that no one will actually read it that - should someone point it out in the comments - I will reward their sharp-eyed pedantry with a thousand-word post on a subject of their choosing to be published next week …

And with that out of the way, it’s time to collate the Friday Free Fiction post for Futurismic and quest forth for The Friday Curry Of Justice, Legend And Forthrightness. Have a good weekend, ladies and gents.

[* I admire your persistence, really - everyone else just looks at the picture!]