Adrian Tchaikovsky's Blog, page 5

The problem with putting off a post recommending good books is that you keep reading more good books and it all gets on top of you. I have, therefore, absolutely let some cracking books slip me mind, but I’m going to do my damndest to recommend some damn things here.

First, though, it is that time of year again! The Arthur C Clarke Award has released its shortlist, and I have some more reading ahead of me because I intend to do my usual review of the works on offer. I did actually write one for last year, praising the other shortlistees, but didn’t post it as that would, frankly, have been a bit weird. However I am delighted by this year’s shortlist, which gives us After Atlas by Emma Newman, Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee, Occupy Me by Tricia Sullivan, Central Station by Lavie Tidhar, Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead and A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers. Some I’ve read, some I’ve had on my list to read, several have been prominent on other shortlists. I’m looking forward to completing the set.

However, Things What I Have Actually Read, and recommend:

Firstly, I’ve read some further volumes in serieseses I’ve previously praised. I can very happily confirm, therefore, that Aliette de Bodard’s House of Binding Thorns is a worthy sequel to her phenomenal House of Shattered Wings. This volume picks up in House Hawthorne, the adversarial house from the first volume, and follows that house’s sinister leader, one of the leads of the first book and the Dragon kingdom within the Seine in its full Vietnamese mythic glory. This is a strong, bitter book, all about emotional love and loss and full of beautifully depicted characters.

I’ve also (finally) got to Paul Cornell’s Who Killed Sherlock Holmes, third of his Shadow Police series. Again, I’m a big fan of these, and book 3 doesn’t disappoint. The core mystery is particular fun this time round, as the title indicates. Holmes, of course, isn’t real, but he’s also the most iconic figure of London-based literature and the epitome of problem solving detective work. So when his apparent ghost is found magically murdered, what is someone up to, that they don’t want the great detective poking his beaky nose into?

Another sequel I’ve dipped into is Robert Jackson Bennett’s City of Blades. His City of Stairs was one of the most original fantasy works I’ve read, and the sequel takes us to another of the fallen divine cities that has its own problems – the same mix of realpolitik and divine skulduggery but in a very different direction. I love in particular Bennett’s evocation of the lost world of the dead gods – how he makes it simultaneously wondrous and awe-inspiring, whilst never covering up the fact that it was a horrible, horrible time for anyone who didn’t have a god backing them up.

Next up in the non-sequel territory, and courtesy of an advance copy, Cory Doctorow’s Walkaway. This is a fascinating book set in a near future where people are just opting out of mainstream society to become the titular walkaways, setting up in abandoned places and living communal lives to do their own thing. The backdrop to this is a capitalist society in simultaneous overdrive and meltdown, where the walkways are under constant threat of black ops attack for the crime of suggesting there’s another way to live than a slave to the man, so to speak. Two particular points of interest. Firstly, the villainy in this book does not come from governments or even corporations but from the individual super-rich, those for whom investment in the society that reserves 99% of everything for them alone is most important, and that seems a prescient way to pitch it. Secondly, there’s a fascinating plotline about experimental human uploading that presents a very plausible result of how that might work and how it might not (plausible to someone like me who knows basically jack about the tech side of it, admittedly).

Another book I had the pleasure of reading an advance copy of was Sue Burke’s Semiosis. On the basis that you’re reading this blog, frankly the best way I can pitch this one to you is: if you liked Children of Time, then this is for you. It’s a multigenerational story about a human exocolony that must come to terms with a very unusual ecology and sentience, and to go further than that would be to spoil the plot. I absolutely loved this book, and strongly recommend grabbing it when it hits the shelves.

Last of the previews, I was particularly honoured to get an early copy of A Man of Shadows by none other than Jeff Noon, who as far as I’m concerned is something of a legend of weird fiction after gems like Vurt and Automated Alice. His new book is a noir detective story begging to be filmed by David Lynch and/or Terry Gilliam, set in a city where time has been fractured into a thousand personal time zones and people commute from eternal night to everlasting day and back. It’s weird and creepy and very engaging. Also, and given the writer’s past history of playing games with his own name. a city divided into night and day by a man called Noon seems all part of the fun.

Speaking of Arthur C Clarke Award Shortlistee Emma Newman, Emma also has a new novella out from Tor, Brother’s Ruin, which is what I would call Thaumatopunk, in that it’s Victoriana where the Royal Society drives industry through the use of magic, and every magician is their rightful prey. Mages live well-rewarded lives where they can have everything except self determination, and the heroine finds herself caught between her own hidden talents and her brother’s belief that he’s the magician of the family, which brings the Society examiners down on her family. It’s very good, and fans of the Split Worlds series especially should grab a copy.

Finally finally, and as noted undoubtedly missing some that I will kick myself over and try to get to later, we have Azanian Bridges by Nick Wood, that was on the BSFA shortlist, and that I thought might make the Clarkes as well. This is set in an alternate history South Africa where, owing to a prolonged cold war, Apartheid South Africa never ended. A psychologist has devised a machine that allows the sharing of experience, memory and emotion. He intends it as a therapeutic tool, but it becomes an instant political hot potato in a society that cannot ever afford to admit that they are just like us… Again, very good, very thought-provoking, well worth a look.

And last, and just because it’s there, I give you a doodle I did to cheer up my good friend Jon Cole, Whovian extraordinaire.

 

 

 

And back from four days of a superb convention, in which I also got a load of editing done, so win-win all round there.

“Innominate” was, as I understand it, a late submission brought into being Easter 2016 when the incumbent 2017 convention ran into terminal difficulties. It was also returning to a town which, apparently, hadn’t gone down well the last time Eastercon went there – on the basis that the 2016 announcement was basically followed in the same breath with “butitwon’tbelikelasttime.” Which issues, I understand, revolved around the then-hotel.

The hotel, then (this time, not sure about last time) was the Hilton Birmingham Metropole. Con hotels vary a lot, and how welcoming the place is makes a huge difference to how pleasant the con experience is (see 2015 Nine Worlds at whichever godawful Heathrow hotel that was). Between them, the hotel staff and the convention organisers absolutely pulled out all the stops, insofar as my experience went. The staff were friendly and accomodating, the rooms were good, the breakfast was the finest at any con hotel I’ve tried and they had a pool and a spa. The hotel prices were on the high side, but there was affordable food in the fan lounge. It wasn’t overcrowded (last year’s EC at Manchester had a good hotel that just wasn’t big enough for the level of attendance) and everything seemed to tick along like clockwork.

The programme itself was extremely good. My own bits went well – the Kaffeeklatsch I did with Ed McDonald (Whose Blackwing is out in July from Gollancz) was very well attended, and I feel I acquitted myself quite admirably in the Ready Steady Flash fiction challenge, writing 4 tiny stories in 5 minutes each alongside Ian Whates, Pad Cadigan and Aliette de Bodard, to the whipcracking of Lee Harris. Beyond these, though. I got to sit in on some absolutely fascinating panel discussions including an incisive discussion of near-future AI with four actual professional experts in the field ably chaired by Penny Reeve of Angry Robot, and another chaired by Peter Harrow with artists discussing the uncanny valley, featuring Judith Clute, Fangorn, Smuzz and Robin Stevenson.

Overall, I think this was one of the most pleasant, most relaxed cons I’ve been to in a while (aside from the shaky sweat I was in before the flash fiction shenanigans). Next year’s is in Harrogate, for those interested in going.

I have been writing my little socks off over the last couple of months, with relatively little respite in sight to be honest. I’ve just finished a novella for Rebellion and a novel for Solaris, both of which should be announced some time soonish, but until then I can’t get into the details. I’ve also agreed to write two new SF novels for Pan Macmillan as announced here. Busy busy, in other words. Before that, I’m just finishing off my final piece for the third Shadows of the Apt anthology from Newcon press and then hopefully another novella for Newcon before cracking down on the Pan Mac work.

Upcoming publications include:

A Time for Grief – the second Shadows of the Apt anthology from Newcon, collecting stories old and new covering from immediately before Empire to shortly after Seal of the Worm, to be officially released at Eastercon in a week’s time.
Ironclads – a near future military SF novella coming out from Solaris around November this year.
Dogs of War – a SF novel about war, transhumanism and bioengineered animals coming out from Head of Zeus, also around November this year.
The Hyena and the Hawk – the third and final book of Echoes of the Fall, coming out from Pan Macmillan around Feb/March 2018.

In am at Eastercon, at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole, this weekend coming. I’ve got the following shenanigans afoot, specifically:

Friday 14.30 Ready Steady Flash. With sinking heart I recall I volunteered for Lee Harris’s fiendish literary meatgrinder where I will compete with the vastly talented Aliette de Bodard, Ian Whates and Pad Cadigan to write on the spot stories in five minutes, God have mercy on my soul.
Friday 18.30 Newcon Press book launch, including A Time for Grief as above, plus lots of other good stuff.
Saturday 11.30 Panel “Fantastic Lessons for Scientists”. (with Aliette de Bodard, TJ Berg, Christianne Wakeham and Dr Justin Newland).
Saturday 19.00 Kaffeeklatsch – with Ed McDonald.
Sunday 10.00 – Signing books.

Apologies for the bare bones post. I hope to do a book recommendation piece shortly as I have been reading a whole load of very good stuff.

 

Coming out of a year that was something of a personal triumph and a global disaster it’s hard to know how to summarise. Books were perpetrated, and both Spiderlight and The Tiger and the Wolf have turned up on some best-of lists, which is always nice, as well as more love for Children of Time, Guns of the Dawn and Shadows of the Apt.

And, as an especially nice touch, the superb Blasphemous Tomes website posted an extra-complimentary review of The Private Life of Elder Things here which was followed by a spot in the podcast The Good Friends of Jackson Elias (episode 95 where they also talk about the Mythos as SF). I’ve been a regular listener to this podcast since fellow author Adam Gauntlett put me onto it, which makes the mention particularly nice.

This is mostly a post about What’s Transpiring in 2017, which is looking like an interesting and complicated year. There’s actually a bit more going on than I can talk about, as some Dread Revelations are reserved for the relevant publisher but…

Books out soon

The sequel to The Tiger and the Wolf, being Book 2 of Echoes of the Fall, is coming out in February. This is The Bear and the Serpent, which will give readers of the first book an idea of where the focus of the story will be. The third book is just in self-editing, and about to be submitted.

Also out early in the year, in this case around Easter, is the second Shadows of the Apt story collection, following on from last year’s Spoils of War. This one will be A Time for Grief and will include the same mix of stories – some collected from elsewhere, some entirely new. As Spoils‘ focus was the 12-Year War, Grief‘s will be events in the Lowlands (mostly) immediately before and during the time of the novels, including a private detective on the mean streets of Helleron, the founding of Princep Salma and a follow-up for some of the characters featured in the first collection.

Future projects

I have some more SF on the horizon (1), written and submitted but currently unsure of a release date. Solaris will be printing my military SF piece Ironclads (not to be confused with the SotA short), about a hapless band of American servicemen in a corporate-driven war, where the board-members of the big corporations take to the battlefield in invulnerable armoured suits – the continuation of business by other means. Look forward to killer robots, giant mechs, Finnish werewolves and an absolute denial of any giant crabs whatsoever.

For full-length SF, I have sold a new novel with the working title War Dogs to Head of Zeus. This is another near-future piece focusing on bioengineered animal soldiers, and what happens when they get off the leash. Rex is a good dog. For him, being a good dog means doing what his master tells him. Then Rex and his squad of monstrous killers, (Honey, Dragon and Bees) lose touch with HQ and have to start making their own judgment calls. While in no ways connected to Children of Time, Dogs follows some of the same themes, especially the emergence of non-human intelligence (and not just the Dogs themselves) and the challenges that raises for the humans who encounter it.

Children of Time news

A lot of people have asked if there will be a sequel, and the answer is maaaaayebe. I am currently putting together some ideas, and it’s just recently shifted from a probably-not to an -actually-this-could-work, and so watch this space. I probably won’t call it Children of Width, Book 2 of the Dimensions Quartet though.

What is happening, however, is a Children of Time audiobook, which will be my first actual proper Audiobook, from Audible. As audiobooks are another thing I get asked about a lot, this is cracking news and I’m delighted about it.

Conventions and Things

Currently I am looking to be at the following events in 2017, God help me.

18th February – I will be at Lindum Books in Lincoln for the release of The Bear and the Serpent. Presumably signing and not just lurking about the stacks.

14-17 April – Eastercon (Innominate) Birmingham

12 May – Birmingham SF Group

16-18 June – Fantasmasuria, Ostrosa, Poland

15 July – Edge-Lit, Derby

4-7 August – Nine Worlds, London

9-13 August – Worldcon 75, Helsinki, Finland

22-24 September – Fantasycon (Escape to Fantasycon) Daventry

10-12 November – Novacon 47, Nottingham (Guest of Honour, no less!)

So, you know, my resolutions about Doing Less Stuff died on their arse again, but hey…

 

(1) I was going to do an event horizon joke, but that would mean the books would never actually get into print. Also, cheesy.

Well crap, I did not get to see many films this year, owing to authorial and familial commitments, and so this is of a necessity a bit of a shotgun review.

I did get to see a couple of Marvel films, about which I’ve been positive, and positive I remain. I speak of course of Captain America: Civil War and Doctor Strange.

I agree wholeheartedly with the common comment that CA:CW was really Avengers 3, and in fact made a better Avengers sequel than Age of Ultron. In fact, CW pulled off a neat piece of juggling because while AoU felt (to me) cluttered with too many characters and too many plot turns, leaving a film that charged blindly about without having much of a shape, CW pulled out a larger cast and yet gave everyone their moment, allowed a new character (the superb Black Panther) a good share of the spotlight and an arc of his own, and managed to tell a generally coherent story with it. Marvel films have suffered from weak villains in the past, but here the weakness of the villain was built into the logic of the film. The midway set piece Big Fight was absolutely bloody marvellous, and they managed to get a very likeable Spiderman in without him seeming overly shoehorned.

Doctor Strange I think suffered in comparison to other recent Marvel films by being an origin piece. When the main plot is sharing precious screen time with the hero’s journey, it tends to get a bit elbowed out, and the overall macro-plot of Dr S came out as very by the numbers. However the details were superb, and most especially the denouement, which was an extremely intelligent take on “How do we deal with the villain of ultimate power” not involving a magic mcguffin of villain-depowerment. Of the debate over the casting of Tilda Swinton in a traditionally Asian role, I don’t feel qualified to comment, but it’s definitely an unfortunate addition to a whole lot of that sort of thing going on in films this year.

I also caught Zootopia with son, which was a well-written, very funny film about prejudice and stereotyping that put in some fairly solid punches. It also had a shot at how twisted media representation goes a long way towards creating hate, which is a hell of a thing for a kids cartoon to take on. Made me think back to Inside Out, which at least has a go at a model for depression and dealing with (embodied) emotions. You can do this heavyweight stuff with cartoons without preaching. I’m reminded of something I saw on FB recently and now maddeningly can’t pin down, about artists being in a position to, and having a responsibility to, put out a message even (/especially) when the rest of the world is going to crap. If bigotry can be discussed in a cartoon about talking animals, then good for that.

And I saw The Lobster. I… do not know what it was necessarily about. It was very funny, in that socially awkward pause way many comedies are, set in a world where, if you end up out of a relationship for to long, you get (surgically and implicitly horribly) turned into an animal. The lead character ends up at a sort of last chance resort where people are encouraged to find their one true soulmate, meaning someone who has some characteristic similar to you. It’s all a metaphor, and yet at the same time the guy is going to get turned into a lobster (his choice) if he doesn’t find The One. Except of course there isn’t A One, there never is. It’s a weird film, but very good.

Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them is next up, Potterverse without the Potter. I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one, but I enjoyed it immensely. Well cast and acted with a complex storyline that – again – went deliberately to some uncomfortable places. The magical world of the 21st century is actually a pretty nasty place when you get down to it, the magical world of the 20s-30s is worse, and that nastiness is showcased and then emphatically not solved by the plot’s resolution. The wizarding world mirrors the NoMaj’s world in intolerance and segregation, just on different grounds. There’s a decent amount of complexity in what’s going on, the characters are well presented (Eddie Redmayne’s Scamander is weirdly like Matt Smith’s Dr Who, down to the magical box he travels around with, which threw me somewhat) and the effects are top notch.

Finally (and no, haven’t seen Rogue One yet, eagerly awaited) I saw Arrival. It is hard to say much about this without spoiling it, but this is my Film Of The Year, hands down. I almost didn’t go see it because the posters seemed very underwhelming (not the poster to the right, but the one with someone wearing a space helmet, which seemed a bit generic but was all over the busses over my way), but by God am I glad I did. It’s an alien first contact film, it’s very intelligent SF and it’s based on a short story by Ted Chiang, one of the absolute masters of short SF prose. If you can catch this on the big screen, you should – both for the visuals and the use of sound. And the aliens themselves are fantastic.

Coming up: not only Rogue One, for which I have high hopes, but having seen the trailer for Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls, that looks like it’s going to be amazing and also utterly heart-rending, just like the book.

Well crap, I did not get to see many films this year, owing to authorial and familial commitments, and so this is of a necessity a bit of a shotgun review.

I did get to see a couple of Marvel films, about which I’ve been positive, and positive I remain. I speak of course of Captain America: Civil War and Doctor Strange.

I agree wholeheartedly with the common comment that CA:CW was really Avengers 3, and in fact made a better Avengers sequel than Age of Ultron. In fact, CW pulled off a neat piece of juggling because while AoU felt (to me) cluttered with too many characters and too many plot turns, leaving a film that charged blindly about without having much of a shape, CW pulled out a larger cast and yet gave everyone their moment, allowed a new character (the superb Black Panther) a good share of the spotlight and an arc of his own, and managed to tell a generally coherent story with it. Marvel films have suffered from weak villains in the past, but here the weakness of the villain was built into the logic of the film. The midway set piece Big Fight was absolutely bloody marvellous, and they managed to get a very likeable Spiderman in without him seeming overly shoehorned.

Doctor Strange I think suffered in comparison to other recent Marvel films by being an origin piece. When the main plot is sharing precious screen time with the hero’s journey, it tends to get a bit elbowed out, and the overall macro-plot of Dr S came out as very by the numbers. However the details were superb, and most especially the denouement, which was an extremely intelligent take on “How do we deal with the villain of ultimate power” not involving a magic mcguffin of villain-depowerment. Of the debate over the casting of Tilda Swinton in a traditionally Asian role, I don’t feel qualified to comment, but it’s definitely an unfortunate addition to a whole lot of that sort of thing going on in films this year.

I also caught Zootopia with son, which was a well-written, very funny film about prejudice and stereotyping that put in some fairly solid punches. It also had a shot at how twisted media representation goes a long way towards creating hate, which is a hell of a thing for a kids cartoon to take on. Made me think back to Inside Out, which at least has a go at a model for depression and dealing with (embodied) emotions. You can do this heavyweight stuff with cartoons without preaching. I’m reminded of something I saw on FB recently and now maddeningly can’t pin down, about artists being in a position to, and having a responsibility to, put out a message even (/especially) when the rest of the world is going to crap. If bigotry can be discussed in a cartoon about talking animals, then good for that.

And I saw The Lobster. I… do not know what it was necessarily about. It was very funny, in that socially awkward pause way many comedies are, set in a world where, if you end up out of a relationship for to long, you get (surgically and implicitly horribly) turned into an animal. The lead character ends up at a sort of last chance resort where people are encouraged to find their one true soulmate, meaning someone who has some characteristic similar to you. It’s all a metaphor, and yet at the same time the guy is going to get turned into a lobster (his choice) if he doesn’t find The One. Except of course there isn’t A One, there never is. It’s a weird film, but very good.

Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them is next up, Potterverse without the Potter. I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one, but I enjoyed it immensely. Well cast and acted with a complex storyline that – again – went deliberately to some uncomfortable places. The magical world of the 21st century is actually a pretty nasty place when you get down to it, the magical world of the 20s-30s is worse, and that nastiness is showcased and then emphatically not solved by the plot’s resolution. The wizarding world mirrors the NoMaj’s world in intolerance and segregation, just on different grounds. There’s a decent amount of complexity in what’s going on, the characters are well presented (Eddie Redmayne’s Scamander is weirdly like Matt Smith’s Dr Who, down to the magical box he travels around with, which threw me somewhat) and the effects are top notch.

Finally (and no, haven’t seen Rogue One yet, eagerly awaited) I saw Arrival. It is hard to say much about this without spoiling it, but this is my Film Of The Year, hands down. I almost didn’t go see it because the posters seemed very underwhelming (not the poster to the right, but the one with someone wearing a space helmet, which seemed a bit generic but was all over the busses over my way), but by God am I glad I did. It’s an alien first contact film, it’s very intelligent SF and it’s based on a short story by Ted Chiang, one of the absolute masters of short SF prose. If you can catch this on the big screen, you should – both for the visuals and the use of sound. And the aliens themselves are fantastic.

Coming up: not only Rogue One, for which I have high hopes, but having seen the trailer for Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls, that looks like it’s going to be amazing and also utterly heart-rending, just like the book.

So I am the bear who walks into a bar, which is to say, apologies for the long pause. Mostly I have been finishing off the first draft of the Hyena and the Hawk*, book 3 of Echoes of the Fall (book 2 of which, The Bear and the Serpent, is coming out in February. Also I have been playing Warcraft, so there’s that.

I wanted to bung a few books at you in case you were looking for some late festive gifts – these are just books I’ve read in the last few months and greatly enjoyed, and which deserve to be enjoyed by a wide audience.

I’m going to start with a continuation of a favourite series, in A Little Knowledge, book 4 of Emma Newman’s Split Worlds series. The series as a whole is absolutely cracking, but has been on hiatus for a while and is now back on the road, and with some spiffy new covers as well. For those who don’t know it, the series is an urban/portal fantasy where a society of people live in the Nether, a magical world alongside our own that resembles Georgian England and is run by families under the patronage of cruel and arbitrary faerie lords. There are also a number of other factions and powers, but the main thrust of the book is the struggle of the heroine to break out of the restrictive and unfair society of the Nether, and then, when she does take a part in it, to fight for its reform. The odds stacked against her and the other characters are immense, and never more so than in this volume, where the sheer weight of all that oppressive tradition constantly seems to be on the point of stamping out her hopes and dreams. This is a society that perpetuates itself generation after generation, and Emma shows precisely how even its oppressors are its victims, too scared to speak out, isolated from support and forced into their roles by the expectations of those around them.

 

 

Next up, a handful more of Tor novellas, which have been an excellent line all round. I really enjoyed Seanan McGuire’s Every Heart a Doorway (which I read long enough ago that I really should have written about it before now) – set in a school for children who have been through portals into magical worlds and then been forced back into our own rather unsatisfactory one. It’s a book about displacement and not fitting in, as expressed both in the places the characters want to return to, and their own diverse natures. It’s also a bit of a heartbreaker. After that we have Laurie Penny’s Everything Belongs to the Future – I know Laurie as a writer of social commentary (her Unspeakable Things is a very thought-provoking piece about misogyny and social expectation) and Everything is a hard-hitting piece of future-punk in a society where the rich can buy long life. And yes, that topic is a common SF trope, and yet Penny gives us a real razor’s edge ride through the worlds of rich and poor with a very clear eye as to how things would work, and what would fall apart. One of the first things I remember stopping at was that suddenly every government was all about saving the environment and renewable power, because those holding the reins realised they would be around to see the results of not sorting things out. Finally, I will put in a word for The Lost Child of Lychford, Paul Cornell’s sequel to The Witches of Lychford, which pits the three heroines of the latter against a new and particularly insidious supernatural threat – Witches was on every novella shortlist in 2016, and this is another great offering.

China Mieville’s Last Days of New Paris is next: a remarkable novella presenting itself as a piecemeal account of a sideways occupied Paris where Nazi sorcerers and their unwilling demon slaves battle magical surrealists in a landscape haunted by surrealist art come to life in a variety of disturbing and life-threatening ways. It’s a weird, twisty narrative of heroism, duplicity and wheels within wheels, and if (like me) you’re not up on the art, there are notes at the back.

Another writer I’ve praised in the past is the very fine Mr Peadar Ó Guilín. Last year at a convention I had the pleasure of hearing him read from his work in progress, and since then I have been eagerly awaiting the finished work, which is now here in the form of The Call, a very nice (which is to say exceptionally nasty) YA horror novel. Basically, back in the mists of Irish myth, the incoming ancestors of the modern day Irish made a deal with the Sidhe to split the land 50/50, except they pulled a fast one and condemned the Sidhe to the half of the land below the ground. Now the faerie chickens are coming home to roost because Ireland has been sealed off from the world and its children are being taken one by one – only for a few minutes, except that few minutes is a whole day in the faerie realm, where the Sidhe will hunt them through a nightmare landscape until the day is up or – more likely – until they’re caught to be horribly tortured and changed. Now Ireland is devoted to trying to train and prepare its youth for their inevitable moment of testing. Which sounds bad enough until you find the heroine has had polio and can barely walk unassisted, let alone run… It’s a brilliant, gripping book, well worth the wait.

For the next recommendation I have to thank the podcast The Writer and the Critic, which is an incisive, if sometimes brutal, book review show by Kirsten McDermott and Ian Mond which gives genre fiction a thorough going-over. From their recommendation I picked up Sourdough and The Bitterwood Bible by Angela Slatter, two collections of linked short stories (or are the “mosaic novels”?) set in a fairy tale world and focusing on the sort of people fairy tales don’t generally cover. I say “fairy tale” advisedly, because that’s very much the feel – not specific tales from Grimm or Anderson, but a world full of little magics, where anyone can have a special talent, or encounter something strange. The writing is gorgeous, the sort of elegant, lush prose where every word has plainly been chosen with exquisite care. The stories stand alone, but as you read, you pick up recurring threads and characters so that an over-story is there to be pieced together. Bitterwood is something of a prequel to the earlier-written Sourdough and relies more on connections between the stories.

Finally, I will bring this full circle by taking up the cause of After Atlas by, again, Emma Newman. I loved last year’s Planetfall, in which Emma debuted as an author of very intelligent SF as well as exceptional fantasy. Atlas is a semi-sequel – taking place in the same world and springing from the same source events as the earlier book, though readable on its own. It is a cyberpunk detective story set in a grim future of deprivation and corporate intrusion, and also one of the best visualisations of how a future information technology will inform how people talk to each other, and how a murder, for example, might be investigated. The hero is a kind of force-grown cyber-detective all but owned by the state, who was formerly a member of the cult that launched the colony ship Atlas  (which gave rise to the colony in Planetfall). Now the head of that cult’s earthbound remainder has been murdered, and he is the only man trusted by all sides to investigate. Atlas is extremely dark, and gives a view of the near-future that is horribly plausible.

That’s all for now. I am going to try my damndest to get at least one more post out before the end of the year, if only to blow my own trumpet a bit. I have a lot I would like to talk about, but most of it is fussing about the contract stage, and so must remain locked in its hamper for now.

 

 

 

 

*Titles may be substituted with one of equal or greater value.

Firstly, apologies for leaving a whole load of posts pending that should have been approved. Let me know if there were any I missed. Thank you to everyone for all the congratulations.

I have also just finished recording a guest slot for Paul Cornell’s The Cornell Collective podcast which I imagine will be up soon.

Now, onto the main business: I am in Scarborough next weekend (23-25 September 2016) for the last con of the season, Fantasycon, so fish and chips all round.

I am perpetrating the following authorisms over the course of the convention:

Friday 23rd – 10-10.30 Reading, alongside Andrew Hook. I will probably read something from Spoils of War or The Private Life of Elder Things, not decided yet.

Saturday 24th 12 noon – Book launch for The Private Life of Elder Things from Alchemy Press. This is the Lovecraftish anthology split between Keris McDonald (writer of horror and erotica) and Adam Gauntlett (award winning RPG writer). Possibly there will also be readings here.

Saturday 24th 1pm – Book launch for, inter alia, This Twisted Earth, in which I have a story ‘The Electric Eye of the Silver God’ (or possibly The Silver Eye of the Electric God, either works and I don’t have it to hand to check). Also readings.

Saturday 24th 7pm – I’m not on the shortlist but the Gemmell Awards are at FCon this year, and this is when. Particularly interested in the Morningstar list for new authors, which has a cracking shortlist this year – Stephen Aryan (Battlemage), Seth Dickinson (The Traitor – which is The Traitor Baru Cormorant, I think, outside the UK?), Francesca Haig (The Fire Sermon), Lucy Hounsom (Starborn), Peter Newman (The Vagrant) and Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes). It’s a marvellous and diverse list and I’ll definitely be along to see how things fall out.

Sunday 25th 10am – “Say My Name” panel on genre, what is it, do we need it, and why am I always on the graveyard shift on a Sunday morning. All these questions and more will be answered with sufficient caffeine.

Sunday 25th 3.30pm – The British Fantasy Awards! The shortlists are up here, and my own Guns of the Dawn is a nominee for the Holdstock award for best fantasy. It is a formidable field, though, and I don’t remotely fancy my chances. The lists overall are excellent (again) this year, with lots of deserving names, old and new, being put forwards.

 

So, it appears to be inarguable now that this happened:

My very own beautiful Children of Time has won the Clarkes this year.

Please do tune in to those stalwarts Barry and Dave at Geek Syndicate, here, for a skipthrough of the ceremony itself, including my horribly garbled acceptance speech and a spectacularly rabbit-in-headlamps interview after.

It’s probably useful to get an insight into my psychology here. The next morning I woke up not thinking “OMG I won the Clarke” but:

Oh God the “talking spiders from outer space” line in my speech will sound like a slur on Margaret Attwood (you know, the actual first winner of the Clarkes) when it really wasn’t.
Oh God I didn’t thank anybody that needed to be thanked (except for the actual judges and award administrators, thankfully).

I said in the interview (I think) that I didn’t have any words for this sort of thing. It’s not just a figure of speech. My life strategy to date has been very much “expect the worst”, and that very British thing of shrugging off all attempts at praise or compliment because then it’s easier to weather the bad stuff. Confronted with something definitively and inescapably good, I found that I simply don’t have the language to deal with it. So right now, after some reflection and de-British-izing (1), I can say:

I really should thank, in no particular order, my wife, Annie; my editor, Bella; my nonpareil of an agent, Simon; and Chris Beckett, author of Dark Eden, the reading of which rekindled my desire to write a hard SF book about an alien society.
I am actually pretty happy with this development and to hell with understatement.

I will also say that it was a tough field, and all the other shortlistees are a cracking read and well worth picking up. I particularly enjoyed Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and Hutchinson’s Europe At Midnight but they are all extremely good (as one would expect).

 

(1) using the ‘z’ makes it even less British

The paperback edition of The Tiger and the Wolf is now on the shelves, and so I’m following my own recent tradition of dream-casting the not-at-all-happening movie of the film.Shadows of the Apt and Children of Time, would have difficulty translating to screen, I think – the former because of the high-concept axioms of the fantasy work, Art, Aptitude and the like, the latter because half the action takes place amongst giant spiders who communicate via interpretive dance. Tiger & Wolf, however, like Guns of the Dawn, feels more screen-ready. With sufficient budget to cover the transformations it could actually be a thing.

I’ll be doing a Spiderlight casting call soon enough, so any suggestions welcome.

Here we go, anyway: on with the casting.

Maniye – Devery Jacobs, Hesprec Essen Skese – Sidney Poitier, Akrit Stone River – Rodney A Grant

Kalameshli Takes Iron – Wes Studi, Broken Axe – Martin Sensmeier, Aritchaka – Purva Bedi

Asmander – Raleigh Ritchie, Shyri – Priyanka Chopra, Venat – Lawrence Makoare

Loud Thunder – Branscombe Richmond, Mother – Elaine Miles, Lone Mountain – Gil Birmingham

Amiyen Shatters Oak – Alex Rice, Smiles Without Teeth – Michael Horse, Alladai – Riz Ahmed

Two Heads Talking – Zahn McClarnon, Quiet When Loud – LisaRaye McCoy, Joalpey – Sakina Jaffrey

Serpent Girl –  Quvenzhané Wallis, Yellow Claw – David Midthunder, Grey Herald – Lou Diamond Philips

Thanks to contributors on Facebook, especially Femke Giesolf.

For your ease of reference, if you want to compare and contrast, my previous casting calls are here:

Empire in Black and Gold

Dragonfly Falling, Blood of the Mantis, Salute the Dark

Scarab Path, Sea Watch, Heirs of the Blade, Air War, War Master’s Gate, Seal of the Worm

Guns of the Dawn

Children of Time.