The unusually clear and sunny weather (which would have been nice to see back in July and August) has been producing some rather spectacular apocalyptic sunsets.

I’m pretty sure that if I had a better grasp of how exposure compensation is supposed to be used, this shot (and the others I took on the same day) might be even more impressive …. but they still look pretty funky, IMHO, even if it’s because Mother Nature did all the really hard work for me.

Writing about music

Those of you who plough through the daily link dumps on VCTB cannot have failed to notice the huge backlog of reviews that were published this week. This week has seen me writing some pieces for The Dreaded Press (including some polish work on an interview with Arnaud Rebotini of French techno/rock/industrial band Black Strobe), as well as my assignments elsewhere.

But things have been comparatively calm, enabling a week of deck-clearing and getting other things sorted out; having no live shows to cover has made that easier, though I did go to the aptly-named Waster on Wednesday night, a local event where friends of mine were performing as both DJs and bands. After the way I felt Thursday morning, it’s not something I’ll be doing too often, I think. I just can’t bounce back from a midweek booze-up the way I could five years ago.

Writing about books

Well, the Brasyl piece still isn’t finished, but it’s far closer than it was, and probably only needs a few hours of pruning and buffing before I’m ready to send it off as a first draft. The problem has been one of excess, in that there’s so much to talk about in the novel that even with a wordcount of over 2000 it’s almost impossible to say everything that needs saying. For example, there’s enough material on the theme of identity in there to write a full-blown critical essay (which I am vaguely considering attempting).

So I’m going for a compromise with the review by cataloguing the broader themes with a few examples, and trying to sketch out how they interconnect. Trying to do a synopsis would be even more challenging, in some respects, and would certainly do the book a disservice. But anyway, that should be nailed and mailed by Sunday; then it’ll just be the rewrites …

But hey, I have actually had some book reviews published this week! Those of you who get Interzone may have noticed my review of Karl Schroeder’s Queen Of Candesce (which I can’t recommend highly enough as the best compromise possible between hard sf and a good intriguing adventure story, with steampunk nuggets on the side).

Also live just a few hours ago is my review of Human Is? - A Philip K Dick Reader at SF Site … I tried a different approach to reviewing with that piece, so any feedback would be more than welcome.

Other writing malarkey

There has been some, but that’s all I can say right now. I know, I’m such a tease.

Books and magazines seen

The Orbit gang seem to be on a major publicity offensive at the moment - either that, or a lot of parcels were held up by the local wing of the Post Office, which makes Communist Russia look like an efficient and well-oiled machine by comparison.*

In addition to a glut of fantasy doorsteps and vampire-detective-sex marathons, yesterday’s arrival of Matter, Iain M Banks’ new Culture novel, has made me the envy of a number of fellow sfnal blogospherists.

I feel a trifle guilty about boasting, naturally. But in this instance, the overwhelming OMG!! factor means that I’m not going to castigate myself too much. By the way, I’m already about ninety pages in, and it’s safe to say that Culture fans are not going to be disappointed in any way whatsoever.

A brace of magazines has appeared also; the latest Interzone (#213), as mentioned above, and the latest Apex Digest - yet another mag that I’d entirely forgotten I had a pending subscription for. So, a pleasant surprise there … finding time to read it may be quite a challenge, however.

Coda

After learning my lesson last week, I shall not be embedding any foolish snark in this final section of FPB. **

Probably the only exciting thing to happen this week occurred this afternoon - I managed to get a ticket to see My Bloody Valentine play one of their reunion shows next summer!

I thought I’d missed the boat, as they only announced one London show which had already sold out when I tried this morning. But apparently demand was so high that they announced two more dates immediately, which enabled yours truly to get a ticket to see a band he never got the chance to see when he was a teenager.

If you’re at the June 21st show at the Camden Roundhouse next year, I’ll be easy to spot - I’ll be the shabby hippy wearing earplugs and crying with joy in a seat on the front row.

So, there’s your weekly dose of Paul Raven - I hope you enjoyed the buzz, and that the comedown doesn’t linger. I’m off to fetch The Subcontinental Repast Of The Week’s Fifth Day, (as is customary) before doing the Friday Free Fiction round-up at Futurismic and trundling out to the pub (as is also customary).

So enjoy your weekend, boys and girls. Hasta luego.

[* - Paraphrased email conversation between me and one of my editors:

Ed: So when did this week's package turn up?

PR: Friday morning.

Ed: WTF! I posted that first class at lunchtime on Monday.

PR: Yeah, that figures. I told you everything was back to normal.

I'm not knocking posties per se, but the service provided by the company they work for is a bloody sham.]

[** - Speaking of which - Paul: yes, I know I've not yet provided 1000 words on the letter 'i' yet, but I've been busy. When you get a job that involves more than spending hours a day scouring eBay for dead drum machines, I will permit you to castigate me for failing to reach unpaid deadlines which were instigated by my own flippancy. Not that I think you'll ever wait for my permission, but hey. We know how this friendship has always worked, why break the chain now?]

Just because I’m a lame photographer doesn’t mean I can’t have a go at the photography clichés … so here is a shot from sunset last Sunday:

If someone reading has the m4d-1337 sk1llz0rz with GIMPshop (not Pshop, I can’t justify that sort of expense), and can tell me how to adjust for overexposure after the fact, please make use of the comments field at the bottom (or email if you’re shy).

Justifying the silence

So, no FPB last week due to the (as yet unexplained) server failure. Personally, it was a very weird experience; this weekly download of my life has become quite a ritual, and it felt very odd not doing it. One less load of waffle for y’all to scroll through, though, so the karmic balance probably works out quite neatly.

Nose to the editorial grindstone

I’ve also been pretty quiet between then and yesterday as far as this blog is concerned, because I’ve been fully engaged in the administrative end of my first stint as fully-fledged reviews editor for Interzone. Sandy Auden has stepped aside (with what sounded suspiciously like a sigh of relief), the training wheels are off, and from now on I have to keep my balance if I want to avoid breaking my nose (or overextending a metaphor).

So I’ve been sorting through the huge list of books that get sent to TTA Press over a two month period, working out which ones to offer to my team. This is less a science than a combination of gut feeling and arcane calculation. We only have so much space to work with, after all. The whittled list is with the reviewers, so now I wait for responses and divvy the titles out next week. It’s a lot more work than it sounds like (honestly, it is), but quite satisfying nonetheless.

(Plus I get to exercise my editorial privilege once again and cherrypick a title I really want to cover … Karl Schroeder’s Queen of Candesce should do nicely, methinks.)

Andy (Ed-in-Chief) also asked me to write an editorial for the next issue, which I have done. I think that’s what’s made the reality of the position sink in - it’s quite scary to think that my opinion on book reviews will be the first thing that people see when they open up Interzone #212. I hope I’ve managed not to sound like a total arse.

Books and magazines seen

OK, a fortnight’s worth of incoming materials. So, magazines first:

• F&SF August 2007 -  (About a fortnight after the last one. I’ve totally given up trying to predict when these will arrive; the vagueries of the transAtlantic postal system are utterly opaque to me.) I’ve actually read most of it, too; very heavy on the ‘funny’ stories, which aren’t necessarily bad as such, just not really my thing. I enjoyed the Gwyneth Jones, though.
• Murky Depths #1 - I’d totally forgotten about subscribing to this until it turned up in my letterbox. It’s an interesting idea; a genre fiction mag that takes a mixed media approach. Comic-book size, heavily illustrated, leaning more toward the shorter stories. A bold experiment, from the flick-through I’ve had so far, and I wish it the best of luck.
• Locus August 2007 - my last issue, I think, as I’m not renewing my subscription. I simply don’t get enough out of it for the money, especially now the prices are higher for postage. Would that I were richer, but so it goes.
• Vector and Matrix from the BSFA - the former featuring, among a number of far more qualified and erudite commentators, yours truly waffling on about Glorifying Terrorism (the book, not the practice), and my favourite short and long fiction of 2006.

And the books:

• Dagger Key and Other Stories by Lucius Shepard (ARC) - a bit of a change of pace for me with this latest assignment from Vector. As regular readers will know, I don’t read much fantasy, so Shepard’s work will be an interesting expedition into new pastures. I often read high praise of his work, though, so I’m hoping to be impressed.
• Halting State by Charles Stross (ARC) - George Walkley at Orbit knows me too well already, I feel! It’s all I can do to not drop my current books-in-progress and tear straight into this title immediately … if I find myself with a spare afternoon, that shred of discipline may dissolve. I get the impression from other reviews that this is the book I’ve been waiting for someone to write.

Coda

So, there we are, and here I am. It’s the end of the week, the sun is shining, and my stomach is growling, which by the calculations of any sane person surely means it’s time for The Friday Curry.

So, I’ll bid all and sundry a good weekend - I’m hoping the unusually seasonal weather holds out, myself. Whatever you have planned, I hope it works out well for you. Peace.

This will be a brief FPB, because I have to get my train home fairly soon. So here’s a shot of a street in Liverpool from when we were heading to Chinatown for a meal on Wednesday night:

Colourful sunset, I thought.

Well, you already know what I’ve been doing all week, and I have no incoming materials to report … or rather, I expect I have a mailbox brimming with those red cards the postman leaves when you’re not in to receive stuff, but what they relate to will remain to be seen.

I’ll say it again though - I’ve had a super week, met some great people and learned loads of good stuff. I’m looking forward to getting home, though, and hoping that I’ve not battered my immune system too badly with latenights and restaurant meals. What the hell - even if I have, it’s been a more than worthy sacrifice.

One hanging point is - how the hell will I have The Friday Curry? I’ve got a six hour journey home on the train, and probably won’t get in to Velcro City until well past 9pm … which isn’t too late, of course, but whether I’ll be in the mood for a takeaway after a long tenure in the vagueries of the UK rail networks remains to be seen.

Still, that’s my problem, not yours. Your problem is to have yourselves a good weekend. Everything here at VCTB should be back to normal by Monday. Until then, take care.

Well, just to prove that Scalzi doesn’t have the monopoly on nice sunsets (even if he does have a far better camera):

Continue reading “Sunsets, plus the unexpected consequences of 1337-speak and search engines”