It seems you can now listen to audio book on your Kindle (or other device), So if you click the Audible link to your right you can go get the Spatterjay books. Alternatively you could got get The Parasite novella, or any of my other Kindle books like, I dunno, The Technician?
Tag: Science Fiction
Brain Implant
I snaffled this one from Io9. The woman is controlling a cursor with her mind so how long before the link between mind and computer is much closer than that? I’d like my aug in a nice brassy metal, with an Egyptian cartouch inset, but I’ll forgo the cobra eye-irrigator for now.
Helen Thomson – New Scientist — A paralysed woman was still able to control a computer cursor with her thoughts 1000 days after having a tiny electronic device implanted in her brain, say researchers who devised the system. The achievement demonstrates the longevity of brain-machine implants.
Interview with Jerry Pournelle.
Good interview with Jerry Pournelle here on Pyjamas TV.
Glenn Reynolds sits down with science-fiction master Jerry Pournelle to discuss the Japanese reactor meltdowns, atomic energy, the climate, and the future of artificial intelligence. How prepared is the United States for disaster? Pournelle wonders whether FEMA and the decline of civil defense has put America at even greater risk in the event of disaster.
Simon Kavanagh Interview
This is an old interview on the SFX site but still interesting for all that. Simon Kavanagh is a literary agent who works for Mic Cheetham’s. Before that job he also read some typescripts for Peter Lavery at Macmillan. One of the typescripts dumped on him, along with the question, ‘Is this any good?’ was from a little known SF author and bore the title Gridlinked…
SFX: What’s the most powerful lesson you’ve learned about the writing business?
“That plot is everything. I once heard an editor say that ‘character’ was the most important element of a novel. Tosh. Dickens creates great characters – but Oliver Twist would be a bloody short book if Oliver lived with his mum and dad. It’s a constant curiosity to me that this element of fiction is so ignored by literary critics. Stephen King and Peter F Hamilton, for example, are Paramount Grand Masters of plot – but that aspect of their work is never given the ‘literary’ credit it deserves. Then again – who cares? They sell well and the public get their money’s worth. So bear in mind that publishing exists in a world dominated by sales figures. It has to in order to survive and compete with film, TV and games. It’s not exactly ‘three strikes and you’re out’ but you have to sell copies in order to survive.”
SFX: What’s the biggest mistake that inexperienced writers make when trying to break into the SF scene?
“The biggest mistake is trying to be someone else. Don’t try to be Tolkien. Don’t try to be Neal Asher, JK Rowling or Ken MacLeod. All writers steal ideas, scenarios, inspiration, characters from each other – how could they not? But they have to find their own voice in which to tell their story. If I’m in a bookstore and want to read something like George RR Martin then I’ll buy George RR Martin and not the chap who’s like him. That’s easy advice to give, but incredibly hard to implement when you’re staring at a blank page.”
A Great Story Complimented by a Great Reader.
It seems like a guy called Paul enjoyed The Skinner, The Voyage of the Sable Keech and Orbus on Audible:
I’ve been a huge fan of Iain M Banks for a long time, loved the early works of Jon Courtenay Grimwood, and read the hardcopy of Neal Asher’s first full length published novel ‘Gridlinked’ years ago, not long after it’s publication.
Somehow I then lost track of Neal, but fortunately rediscovered him via Audible. I’ve listened to The Skinner (Book 1), The Voyage of The Sable Keech (Book 2) and am currently a few chapters into Orbus (Book 3). I’ve listened to these back to back, unremittingly, and with great relish.
Over the years I’ve always been excited to learn of a favorite author’s new work, and somehow ‘losing touch’ with Asher is great – all of a sudden I have a wealth of published material to enjoy en masse, rather then being drip-fed as novels are published. Of course now, as I’m engrossed in the third and final Spatterjay audiobook, I am hoping that Audible and Neal’s publisher get together and publish more of Neal’s back catalog in audio format.
So a few words about the series. Spatterjay is a very interesting place – from it’s ecology, to it’s early colonisation, to it’s present situation on the edge of the Polity – all of these diverse influences come together through rich characterisations of visiting Polity humans (both alive and dead), Polity AI, Prador with dirty secrets that need to be forgotten, 700 year old virally-modified superhumans who can handle a sailing boat and bend steel, and my personal favorite, drones with Attitude.
I’m not talking about snotty Culture drones, replete with sarcasm and irony. No, I’m talking about 700 year old Polity War Drones with secret upgrades and a Northern accent. The type of Drone that says ‘F*** me!’ when it sees a Prador, or ‘B******s!’ when it doesn’t believe a ship AI. If you thought Skaffen-Amtiskaw was cool, wait until you meet Sniper!
William Gaminara does a fabulous job on the reading, and has the characters down pat – he brings the books to life.
More Asher on Audible please!
The audble link is over to the right of this post between ‘followers’ and ‘uptweets’. If you go there you can listen to samples of the books being read by Mr Gaminara.
Orbus Review – Bob Lock
Bob has found a review of Orbus he didn’t get round to posting until now, which is pretty understandable considering the shit time he’s been having. I have to add, Bob, in reply to that ‘horrible slurry of blood, flesh and bones’ … ahem, that’s what you do get (or, alternatively, get your tongue out of your cheek!)…
Browsing Neal Asher’s blog I noticed a review he’d posted of his novel Orbus and remembered I had also done a review when it was first published but never posted it on my blog, so here it is.
Ok, get the following ingredients: someone who’s been an engineer, a barman, a skip lorry driver, a coalman, a boat window manufacturer, a contract grass cutter and a builder, then mix them all together and you should have… Neal Asher, science fiction novelist.
I gave it a try and all I ended up with was this horrible slurry of blood, flesh and bones, I must be doing it wrong…
Orbus on the Book Depository (free international shipping), Amazon and Kindle.
Gabble on Io9
And here’s a mention of The Gabble on Io9.
Asher’s monster-packed, politically-savvy novels mostly take place in “the Polity,” his interstellar civilization. He’s dealt with everything from time travel to AI in books like Gridlinked and Line War, and this new short story collection promises to bring you a satisfying dose of Polity monsters and machinations.
The Gabble on the Book Depository (free shipping), Amazon and Kindle.
Update: I also see that Jon Sullivan gets a deserved mention too.
Orbus – Review
Nice review of Orbus over here at Fantasy Book Review from Pippa Jay.
When I wrote my first Asher review on The Gabble, I said I wouldn’t swear to be an eternal fan of Neal Asher. I have to retract part of that statement, and until the advent of Polity golems for me to upload my brain to, that means I’m a fan. There, said it.
I really enjoyed Orbus. I’ve read reviews that say the main character is weak, but I can’t say I got that impression at all. Asher hooked me from the very beginning with this book, with the snippy dialogue between the two drones stowed away on an AI ship with a steampunk design to the sardonic interplay between Old Captain Orbus and his creepy but aptly named fellow crew member Drooble.
‘I don’t like your name … it sounds like a blend between dribble and droopy … it’s a silly name.’
Orbus on the Book Depository (free international shipping), Amazon and Kindle.
Line War Cover
And here’s the new Jon Sullivan cover for Line War:
The Polity is under attack from melded AI entity controlling the lethal Jain technology, but the attack seems to have no coherence. When one of Erebus’s wormships kills millions on the world of Klurhammon, a high-tech agricultural world of no real tactical significance, Cormac is sent to investigate, though he is struggling to control an ability no human being should possess, and beginning to question the motives of his AI masters.
Further attacks and seemingly indiscriminate slaughter ensue, but only serve to bring some of the most dangerous individuals in the Polity into the war. Mr Crane, the indefatigable brass killing machine sets out for vengeance. Orlandine, a vastly-augmented haiman who herself controls Jain technology, seeks a weapon of appalling power and finds allies from an ancient war.
Meanwhile Mika, scientist and Dragon expert, is again kidnapped by that alien entity and dragged to the heart of things; to wake the makers of Jain technology from their five million year slumber.
But Erebus’s attacks are not indiscriminate, and could spell the end of the Polity…
Line War on Amazon, Kindle and the Book Depository (free international shipping).
Hilldiggers Cover
Here’s the new cover produced by Jon Sullivan for Hilldiggers:
A terrible war once raged between the two rival planets within a distant solar system. Over the centuries their human inhabitants had ‘adapted’ themselves to the extremely different conditions of their new homes, far outside Polity influence.
In the midst of this merciless conflict, one side encountered a bizarre object suspected of being a cosmic superstring employed as a new weapon by the rival side. Their attack on it caused the object to collapse into four parts, each found to be packed either with alien technology or some unknown form of life. Pending further study, these were quickly encased inside four separate Ozark cylinders, and stored in a massively secure space station in orbit.
Sometime later, while conducting research on this alien entity they now call ‘the Worm’, a female scientist falls pregnant and subsequently gives birth to quads. She then inexplicably commits suicide by walking directly out into space…
The war was finally brought to an end by use of new weapons arising as a result of research of the Worm. These were employed by giant space dreadnoughts nicknamed ‘hilldiggers’ –– and their destructive power created new mountain ranges out of the vanquished planet’s terrain. Twenty years after the dust has settled, those four exceptionally talented orphans have grown up to assume varying degrees of power and influence within a post-war society.
And one of this exceptional breed now seems determined to gain total control over the deadly hilldiggers.
Hilldiggers on Amazon, Kindle and at the Book Depository (international free shipping).