Well, it seems a regular visitor here is climbing that rickety ladder into the publishing world. Congratulations to Bob Lock for getting his book Flames Of Herakleitos published by Screaming Dreams. Here’s the blurb: It’s 1969 and a four year old girl witnesses the terrifying death of her father, which is attributed to Spontaneous Human Combustion. The child is unable to explain what she saw, and shortly after the incident, whilst in hospital, almost suffers the same fate as her father when she is attacked by an unknown entity. But she survives. Thirty years pass, Lucy Fenton, has grown up to be a writer of horror stories and is the star of their film versions. She is haunted by the morbid feeling that her long-ago attacker has not yet finished with her. It turns out she is correct when once again it visits her. This time, however, she manages to not only fight it off but to pursue it – to a parallel world where everything she has ever known is turned on its head. Flames Of Herakleitos is a ‘YouWriteOn.com Top Ten Book’
Due to be published in paperback by Screaming Dreams in 2007 Cover artwork by Steve Upham
(for advance preview only and subject to change) Don’t forget to check out the author’s website.
Author: Neal Asher
Hair-shirt Environmentalists.
Charlie Stross has made a few pertinent observations about man-made global warming and the hair shirt environmental hysterics amongst us. His post is quite representative of what seems to be happening more and more across the Internet: people are getting sick of preachy environmentalists, they’re getting sick of the insanities of political correctness, they’re getting sick of the lies and spin of the lobby-ists and politicians. This attitude will take a while to reach snail-media like newspapers and television, and even longer to penetrate the thick skulls of the likes of Cameron and Blair, so don’t hold out too much hope of a swift return to sanity in public affairs.
All Skyped- up.
Y’know, the personal computer is a wonderful tool but, if you don’t exercise some self-control, it can also turn into an infinite sponge for sucking up time. I’ve had people ask me if I have ever played so-and-so on my computer – superb graphics and when you machinegun the orc its guts fall out. Well, yeah, I know so-and-so is an excellent game, which is precisely why I avoid it. Some years ago I sat down to write one morning and ended up playing patience all day. At the end of the day, in disgust, I deleted the program and have since never let another game near my computer. Others ask me if I’ve looked at You Tube, Google Earth, this website, that website, then it’s have you tried this program, that program, this bit of hardware, that bit of hardware? 
My approach to the pc and its growing list of applications and peripherals is ‘I’ll use what I need and try to ignore the rest’. Though I write SF and take a great deal of interest in science and technology, I do, in the end, have to keep my focus tight. I write books. I’m not an IT manager, I’m not a programmer (well, I was once – different story) and every hour I spend watching You Tube, or trying to get a radio modem to work, or trying to write html is another hour I haven’t spent writing science fiction, which pays the bills. So, by a rather roundabout route I come to why I started writing this. Summer Brooks of Dragon Page recently emailed me concerning an audio interview for ‘Cover to Cover’. I was interviewed on this program before, at about the time Cowl came out in America (podcast here), and said interview was conducted over the phone at international phone rates. This time round Summer asked me if I possessed a Skype ID. At that point I wouldn’t have recognised a Skype if it had bitten me on the bum. I therefore researched it on the Internet and discovered it to be a way to chat to someone – audibly – over a broadband connection. No extra cost there unless you use Skype to phone a landline, and you can chat to someone on other side of the world. 
I’m all Skyped up now – an incredibly simple process involving a few minutes downloading and the purchase of a microphone (well, I’ve got a Madonna headset). This is another useful tool for me, and for the convenience of anyone who wants to interview me from anywhere in the world. See, every new additions for my computer has to be justified by its relation to my writing and earning a living. Mmmm, in the shop where I got that headset I noticed some nice webcams…
Line War.
Okay, enough of the ranting and back to some writerly stuff. I’ve been wracking my brains with Line War looking for a satisfactory conclusion. Every story, every novel, should, in my opinion adhere to the beginning>middle>end structure (the beginning, the middle, where tension escalates, the end or resolution phase, which consists of a climax which resolves the tension). This is not always an easy thing to do and, to be frank, I’m not entirely sure I’ve managed with every one of my books – probably because I’m a seat-of-the-pants writer who has never really planned any book nor stuck a post-it note anywhere near my screen. And things get even more difficult when, really, every series should adhere to this structure as well. One of the things I’ve been working hard to avoid is that good old deus ex machina, which has been the downfall of a few space opera series in recent years. It is a difficult option to avoid because it’s such an easy option to take, especially if you’ve written yourself into a corner by making your villains too powerful (ulp!). I also think it’s a cop-out and betrayal of your readership. Now I’m beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel (though it may be a train) and I should be able to bring the Cormac series to an end without lowering Zeus onto the stage from the clouds. Line War just cleared 60,000 words yesterday and I’ve realised I must keep myself utterly focused on it to achieve the above aims. Seven-day working week from now on.
Funny Commercials II
Bye Max.
Fuck shit cunt bollocks and buggeration gets the swearing out of the way. In the weeks before christmas Max started having epileptic fits again and the only solution to this was to up the dosage of his medication (£40 a month that costs). A few days before christmas we took him for a walk, but he was weak and his back legs kept giving way. He only managed a circuit of a nearby sports field and three times I had to lift him from a sitting position back onto his feet. A subsequent examination by the vet showed him to have a healthy heart and to apparently be quite fit, so the vet gave him an injection to help out with his back legs and was going to supply anti-inflammatories for the problem. However, on christmas eve he could hardly manage to get up and seeing him anxious to go for his walk yet his legs giving way on the slipper floor of the home’s front hall was heart-breaking. He went quickly downhill from then and further blood tests have revealed that his liver is failing. This is one of the penalties of his spending the best part of his life on anti-epileptics. Because of this failure the drugs are no longer as effective and giving him anti-inflammatories would only worsen his health. The vet has advised the only option remaining to him and is calling round to the old people’s home to put him down this afternoon. It’s horrible, but stepping back it’s easy to see that Max is a luckier resident of that home, since he has a final option that the others there don’t. Merry christmas and a happy new year.
Neural Darwinism.
Now, I’ve always ascribed to the dictum ‘use it or lose it’. If you don’t use your muscles they become weaker and if you don’t use them at all, as in the case of someone wheelchair bound, they atrophy. Getting yourself out of breath expands the capacity of your lungs. Swimming, and particulary swimming underwater is especially good in this respect. Putting stress on your bones strengthens them. Those whose bones remain unstressed for a length of time, like astronauts, rapidly lose bone mass. I’ve always thought that the same rules apply to the brain. If you don’t make any mental effort, your ability to make mental effort declines. I feel that this equally applies to those rather vague cognitive functions like imagination. And this article lays it all out very neatly.
Books thus far.
Okay, Maynard1977 has asked me if I’ve got any more books coming out, so I’ll sum up where things are so far. My (available) books thus far published are: Agent Cormac Series: 1.Gridlinked, 2.The Line of Polity, 3.Brass Man, 4.Polity Agent, Stand alone: Cowl, Africa Zero, The Engineer ReConditioned, Prador Moon, Runcible Tales (chapbook of 6 short stories) On Spatterjay: 1.The Skinner, 2.The Voyage of the Sable Keech. Books of mine due to be published are: Hilldiggers – a standalone set in the Polity, Line War – number 5 in the agent Cormac series (the last one, I think), Prador Moon (British edition) and an as yet untitled collection of Polity short stories. I think that’s about it.
Snippet.
I found this on the Dawkin’s website courtesy of a comment by one Sancus: “The association of modern atheism with Stalin and Mao has long got out of hand. I plead with anyone reading this to loudly stand against this association by revealing that Stalin and Mao are closer to religious figures than they are to modern atheists not just because of dogmatism, but because they share rejection of self-ownership.
It is the denial of the right for an individual to own herself that is the common and shared cause of both religious and Marxist injustices.” Damned right.
