Okay, my story Alien Archaeology is being published in the June 2007 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction. In that story you’ll find a gabbleduck, as depicted on the cover here, prador and homicidal humans – some of them working for the Polity – and what I hope is a ripsnortingly enjoyable tale. In my opinion Asimov’s is one of the very few magazines that delivers a good proportion of the same (but then I would say that). Get over onto their website and take out a subscription!
Tag: Books
French Cowl
Excellent, Pocket/Fleuve Noir of the UNIVERS POCHE Group are buying Cowl to publish in France next year. They’ve already bought Gridlinked and The Skinner, the latter of which they’ve already published, but they’re missing Gridlinked to do Cowl, then intend to go with the Polity series afterwards. I look forward to seeing what they do with the covers, since the French cover image for The Skinner – by Stephan Martiniere — is the best yet, I think you’ll agree.
Asimov's Science Fiction.
Here’s some of the blurb from the Asimov’s Science Fiction site for the June issue of the magazine. I’ve yet to see the cover with it’s picture of a gabbleduck, but certainly I’ll post it here the moment it appears!
Popular and prolific British writer Neal Asher gives us a ringside seat for a fast-paced, suspenseful, and violent game of intrigue, double-cross, and double-double-cross, as a hunt for a stolen alien artifact of immense value forces a former agent out of retirement and into a tense chase across interstellar space into hostile landscapes where wiser humans would never dare to venture, with life or death hanging in the balance at every turn, for some hard lessons in “Alien Archeology.” This one is a full-blown, flat-out, unabashed Space Opera, and a thriller of the first water, so don’t miss it! http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0704/nextissue.shtml
Galactic Empires
Couple of bits here: Over the last year or so I’ve only written two short stories … or rather novelettes. One of these is called Alien Archaeology which is to be published in Asimov’s sometime hence. I look forward to that one especially, because Brian Beiniowski of that magazine was asking me for a description of a gabbleduck. Apparently they were looking at using the image of one for the front cover, though whether that will happen I don’t know yet. The other story was called Owner Space. This is set in a future covered by none of my full-length novels, but will be familiar to those who have read The Engineer or The Engineer ReConditioned, for it is the same setting for stories there called Proctors, The Owner and (only in the latter collection) Tiger Tiger. Owner Space has now been accepted by Gardner Dozois for his anthology titled Galactic Empires. Excellent stuff. And finally, there’s now an interview with me up on fantasybookcritic.
Macmillan Prador Moon.
Time for a pretty picture, which I had hell’s own trouble converting from and adobe file. Here then is the cover of the Macmillan British version of Prador Moon. Not sure yet whether it’ll be in hardback, but it certainly looks cool!
Update:
What a silly sod I am. The picture here was taken from a picture of a full dust jacket, so of course there’s going to be a hard back. Damn, I must drink less wine – brain cells dribbling out of my ears.
Ian M Banks.
Along with Caroline and my mother I went to see and hear an all time favorite author of mine at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester. As one event in the Essex Book Festival, Ian M Banks was there to do a reading from his latest non-M book, be interviewed, then take questions from the audience. I was surprised to see that he seemed quite nervous to begin with, but in retrospect I shouldn’t have been, since I doubt that the feeling ever goes away. Once he’d got into his stride, however, he was entertaining, amusing and came across as a likeable chap. One fly in the ointment was the assumption by the interviewer that since we were all there to see Mr Banks then we all had to be lefty liberals. Mr Banks claims to be a committed socialist who when given a chance always votes for the most left-wing candidate. I was stifling my cynicism since only a few minutes before he’d been telling us about the two Porsches and the Landrover Discovery he’d sold now he was going ‘green’. Mmm, right.
That aside it was still an enjoyable evening. At one point I was tempted to fire off a question at him after he said he hates and avoids research. I was going to ask if that avoidance of research extended to his book about whisky: Raw Spirit. I somewhat doubt that, since it certainly seems to be a passion with him. After he finished talking he sat at a table in the theatre lobby signing numerous books – the queue certainly looked satisfyingly long.
Deservedly so.
Adjustments.
Couple of things I need to update here. A while back I slammed the latest series of Battlestar Galactica and that criticism now needs to be balanced. After the first few crappy episodes set on New Caprica, the series improved hugely with only one or two turds in the punch bowl (‘punch’ being the operative word here with an episode I can only describe as ‘boxing and relationships’ – one of those marking time episodes). Certainly I’ve been enjoying Battlestar lately, though I do feel the Gaius Baltar/ Number Six thread is flapping in the wind and the behaviour of the zylons has descended into the ridiculous. Where will it all end? Will it end? Smoking. Well, I’m still off the cigarettes, though I did lapse yesterday and have about three puffs on one. I have to say that the graph of cigarette cravings I put on here is complete bullshit. It’s claimed on the website that came from, and others, that cravings last only a few minutes and the worst of them are over after the first 72 hours. I got through the those first three days quite easily and it is now that I’m having difficulties. The few puffs I had yesterday (along with some nicotine gum) where the consequence of a craving that lasted hours. Writing and so forth. Been a bit of a struggle lately what with the outfall of a death in the family and this attempt at stopping smoking (maybe, like the guy in Airplane, I just chose the wrong time) but I’m still putting down those words. Line War is now approaching 100,000 words with the endgame building to its climax. Nothing much else to add to that really, since the writing life is hardly romantic and consists of sitting staring at a screen for hours on end until beads of blood appear on the forehead (bit too dramatic that, but I couldn’t resist it).
First Class at Last.
Every time a new one of my books comes out a guy who lives over the other side of Maldon from me calls me up and arranges for us to meet in a local pub so he can buy me a pint and get my signature on my latest book. I don’t know how long Patrick Forsythe has been doing this, but I’m fairly certain he now owns signed copies of each of my books. Patrick is a writer of numerous business books (about fifty or so) but now he’s moved on to writing travel books, starting with First Class at Last. When I read in the local paper that he was signing copies in a local bookshop I felt beholden to go along. I paid my money, got my signed book, but then came the dread of reading work by someone I know, because it’s a right bastard having to turn round and say (if asked), “Well, it was a load of rubbish really.” Fortunately I won’t need to say that with this book since I motored through it in no time and very much enjoyed it. It was almost Brysonish in places. Nice one.
Solaris Science Fiction.
Well, enough doom and gloom. Here’s the excellent cover of The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction edited by George Mann. Cool cover and, of course, a cool collection of short stories. To quote: This is an eclectic collection of all-original science fiction stories from some of the foremost luminaries in the genre. Featuring new tales of far future murder, first contact, love and war from such well-regarded and award winning authors as Peter F. Hamilton, Stephen Baxter, Adam Roberts, Jeffrey Thomas, Eric Brown, Paul Di Filippo, Neal Asher, Jay Lake and Ian Watson, this collection is sure to delight all fans of good science fiction.
Book Club Prador Moon.
I just received this from Jonathan K Stephens:
I’ll hand you over to him now: I’ve just received the new SF Bookclub catalogue and what do you think I saw? Prador Moon, in a full page spread on the back cover! Great big header “This Time, Crabs Eat Humans“. Also nicely blurbed by senior bookclub editor Andrew Wheeler: “This short, zippy novel is the prose equivalent of a great Saturday-afternoon monster movie, so just sit back and munch some popcorn as the killer Prador launch their assault on mankind. Trust me: you won’t regret it.” Very nice.