Ah, and there’s another one I neglected to mention: Karl Schroeder. Try his ‘Sun of Suns’ http://www.kschroeder.com/
Tag: Books
Books Read
I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but I’ll do the same again here. This year has been pretty good (to me) for new SFF. The first is Blindsight by Peter Watts – a superb bit of SF. Check out his site here http://www.rifters.com/index.htm and his wonderful ‘Vampire Domestication’.
The next book, which I roared through in a very short time is Scar Night by Alan Campbell. This will be out next month from Macmillan and I believe is also being released in America. An excellent fantasy that’ll have many other writers of the same looking to their laurels. Alan has a blog here: http://anurbanfantasy.blogspot.com/
In their genres, both of these books are the best I’ve read in some years.
Here’s some more writers you might like to check out: http://www.hammerjack.net/ is the site of Marc D. Giller who is producing some excellent cyberpunkish stuff, http://www.markbudz.com/ is the site of Mark Budz whose leanings are much more biotech, then there’s Tobias S Buckell over here http://www.tobiasbuckell.com/wordpress/
To be frank, I’m not entirely sure why there’s this idea knocking about that the British are leading the SF field, unless of course it’s only a British idea…
Nice review of Prador Moon over here on Cheryl Morgan’s Emerald City: http://www.emcit.com/emcit130.php?a=18
Polity Timeline
Moving swiftly on, here, for reader interest is the Polity chronology I’m presently working with:
2050 – 2250 Expansion into the solar system. Corporate wars and many generation ships, or early U-space drive ships sent on their way. Also the AI takeover of human affairs, in the ‘Quiet War’. Colony ship to Cull in this time.
2130 – Hoop and crew arrive on Spatterjay (mutiny – stolen ship)
2150 – Establishing of Golem series and Cybercorp.
2151 – Algin Tenkian born on Mars.
2190 – Skaidon interfaces with AI and invents the technology leading to the runcible and more efficient U-space engines. Humanity expands into the galaxy.
2260 – First runcible goes online.
2260 – 2350 Massive human expansion into the galaxy.
2330 – Beginning of the Prador Third Kingdom
2339 – Ian Cormac born
2310 – Prador Moon
2310 – 2350 Prador/Human war
2350 – Polity police action on Spatterjay.
2356 – Keech is killed hunting Alphed Rimsc
2407 – Disappearance of Dragon from Aster Colora.
2432 – Destruction of the Samarkand runcible.
2434 – Arrival of Hubris at Samarkand (Gridlinked)
2437 – Destruction of Outlink station Miranda (Line of Polity)
2441 – Pursuit of Skellor (Brass Man)
2450 – Gosk Balem (Ambel) thrown into the sea – 100 years after war.
2500 – David McGrooger born
2550 – Keech finds Corbel Frane on Viridian – 500 years before
2803 – Polity arrives at Spatterjay to establish runcible base
2853 – Frisk hands herself in (apparently). – 200 years before
2878 – Bloc murdered by Aesop and Bones
3056 – Keech Janer and Erlin arrive on Spatterjay (The Skinner)
3078 – Taylor Bloc’s ship launches (The Voyage of the Sable Keech)
Check Elastic Before Jumping my ‘SF short’ is appearing in the 22 June issue of Nature. Funny, the envelope I received the magazine in was addressed to Dr. Neal Asher. I guess that’s a precaution the editorial staff take with all their contributors. I understand this magazine is a rather prestigious place in which to have your science articles published. My bit is a snapshot into the future that finishes it off. Very nicely presented. Now, can someone tell me what ‘The journal can now be accessed on some 8 million desktops worldwide through site licenses.’ means? It sounds bloody good to me.
I wandered up the pub yesterday to meet a chap who lives on the other side of Maldon. He was in at the start buying a first edition of Gridlinked and ever since buys my books when they first come out and gets them signed by me. It has become something of a tradition. This was also the first time for me to see a copy of this, and very nice it is too.
Neal Asher takes on first contact, Polity style. This original novel recounts the first contact between the aggressive Prador aliens, and the Polity Collective as it is forced to retool its society to a war footing. The overwhelming brute force of the Prador dreadnaughts causes several worlds and space stations to be overrun. Prador Moon follows the initial Polity defeats, to the first draws, and culminates in what might be the first Polity victory, told from the point of view of two unlikely heroes. Cover by Bob Eggleton.
Trade Paperback Here on amazon.
Oh dear, head poised on the edge of a really good throb, eyes feeling like I’ve spent too much time with a set of binoculars pressed against them, stomach feeling in need of a greasy breakfast… I finished the first draft of Hilldiggers yesterday and used this as an excuse to open a bottle of wine then follow that with some dark rum. Caroline sensibly stuck to the wine, but we still both found ourselves sprawled in the living room at gone midnight listening to Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here. Naughty person! Never drinking again!
Voyage of the Sable Keech
Okay, time for a pretty picture. This being an author’s blog I’ll start with my most recently published book.
And now the blurb:
It’s highly entertaining and brilliantly imagined stuff, and there can be few readers out there who will fail to enjoy this, and pretty much every other aspect of Asher’s writing. — John Berlyne (SFRevu)
I was ready for a break from real life, and Asher whisked me away without delay. — J. J. S. Boyce (Green Man Review).
No, once you’re plugged in to ‘The Voyage of the Sable Keech’, you’ll want to stay there as long as you can. — Rick Kleffel (The Agony Column)
hardback, trade paperback, mass-market paperback.
The reification Sable Keech, a walking dead man, is the only one to have been resurrected by nanochanger. Did he succeed because he was infected by the Spatterjay virus, or because he came late to resurrection in a tank of seawater? Tracing the man’s journey in a ship also named after him, Taylor Bloc wants to know. He also wants so much else – adulation, power, control – and will go to any lengths to get it. And he has brought the means.
An ancient hive mind, almost incomprehensible to the human race, has sent an agent to the world. Does it want to obtain the poison sprine – effective against those made virtually indestructible by the Spatterjay virus? Janer must find it and stop it.
Erlin, still faced with the ennui of immortality, has her solitude rudely interrupted by a very angry whelkus titanicus, and begins the strangest of journey’s. Captain Ambel’s own journey, from Olian’s – where the currency of death his kept in a vault – is equally as strange. But he must reap the harvest of Erlin’s mistake, and survive.
Deep in the ocean the virus has wrought a terrible change that will affect them all. Something dormant for ten years is breaking free, and once again the aftershocks of an ancient war will focus on this watery world. And Sniper, for ten years the Warden of Spatterjay, finally takes delivery of his new drone shell. It’s much better than his old one: powerful engines, more lethal weapons, thicker armour.
He’s going to need it.
Bear with me here … I’m learning.