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Home again

I'm back home and more than a little jet-lagged: for some reason my regular strategy for kicking myself back onto UK time failed, and my biological clock thinks I'm in Sydney right now.

Things to do when you get home with jet lag: run the washing machine 24x7 until the mountain of dirty underwear goes away, collect the cats from the cat-sitter, stumble to the local grocery for some fresh food, and catch up on your reading.

One of the perks of this job is getting to read next year's SF novels in manuscript form. It's almost like having a time machine — a time machine that inserts typos. In my case, I've just finished "The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories" by Walter Jon Williams, for which I will shortly be writing a foreword and which I can highly recommend to you when it's published, and am now chewing on "The Restoration Game" by Ken MacLeod, ditto.

And while I'm recommending stuff you can't read yet: here's a plug for Moxyland (sorry 'bout the flash-ridden web page), a first novel by Lauren Beukes, due to be published in the UK in September by new HarperCollins outfit Angry Robot. It's what you get when you take your classic 80s deracinated corporate alienation sensibility, detonate about six kilos of semtex under it, and scatter the smoking wreckage across 21st century South Africa — full of unselfconscious spiky originality, the larval form of a new kind of SF munching its way out of the intestines of the wasp-paralysed caterpillar of cyberpunk.

39 Comments

1:

I've always found that staying awake as long as possible and setting my alarm clock for my normal home time zone wake-up time and then rigorously forcing myself back into home time works rather quickly. The only problem is when you end up staying awake for >36 hours because you're still awake when the alarm goes off. Thankfully I don't need to try that trick as often as I suppose you do.

2:

Haar: my problem is that I can't pull all-nighters. I've never been able to: after 18 hours awake I zone out, and after 24-28 hours my eyes will start to slam shut at random if I come in proximity to a surface upon which I can collapse. I've got friends who can stay awake for up to 5 days without ill-effects; but if anyone ever tries to interrogate me using sleep deprivation, I'll cave remarkably fast.

My normal technique when flying west-to-east is to go to bed on arrival, sleep for 3 hours (having set an alarm), then force myself to stay awake until a normal bedtime. If flying east-to-west, it's to try and tough it out without a nap.

Traveling west-to-east, as in US to UK, you lose 4-8 hours out of the day you travel, so that if you miss the sleep cycle you'll be up for 38-44 hours. I don't know about you, but I can't manage a 44 hour day. (East-to-west, UK to US, is easier: you add 4-8 hours to your travel day, so that unless you started at 4am it's just like staying up a few hours later than usual.)

3:

Will the publisher be using your larva/caterpillar quote as a blurb on the cover of the book?

4:

Wow. Screwing with your circadian rhythms results in some remarkable prose. Maybe a couple of short stories to capture that mood are in order, before you get back into the long haul business.

And now that you're back and (starting to be) settled into routine, just wanted to say it was really nice seeing you and Feòrag in Portland.

5:

Wow, Charlie, feeling a bit like a paralysed wasp myself after that six kilo semtex compliment. Thank you. It means a lot.

Apologies for the nasty flash-site. It is being updated in time for the July release, but in the meantime, I'd recommend visiting Angry Robot's much friendlier and unflashy site: http://angryrobotbooks.com/our-authors/laurenbeukes/moxyland/ where your quote has already displaced the blurb from that 3x Nobel Literature Prize nominee guy, Andre Brink.

6:

Lauren: you're welcome! But I'd keep the Nobel Prize winner blurb, if I were you; I'm not in that league.

(As for the web page, You might want to remind whoever came up with it that (a) flash is hostile to folks with disabilities -- screen readers for the blind won't work with it -- and (b) google can't index it. Either of which are sufficient reason for me to avoid the stuff, myself.)

7:

Gah! See, just see how one little compliment goes to my head - I meant wasp-paralysed caterpillar not paralysed wasp.

Although perhaps that cyberpunk caterpillar has a few tricks left in the old carapace, like, say, ingesting highly contagious killer attack brain worms just before the wasp made its move. We'll have to keep a close eye on the fictional hatchlings.

And all very good points on the evils of flash - I'll beat my web munki (who admittedly did it as a freebie favour after we blew my original South African publisher's marketing budget on hosting a mini-ARG-style launch in Cape Town)

8:

Lauren, how did that ARG launch work out? As far as I can tell most of the ones over here in the States have not been as wildly successful as the marketing people expected.

9:

It was a very, very limited ARG, one night only. More of an immersive experience event, I guess, where we tried to bring the book to life, transmuting fiction into a semblance of reality (rather than the other way round like normal writers do).

We had a corporate and non-corporate entrance (previously mentioned Nobel-prize nominee and giant of SA literature Andre Brink was mercilessly harassed by the shirty bouncer at the non-corporate entrance - he handled it with very good humour) while animal rights protesters harangued people in the queue, handing out flyers against genetically modified police dogs.

All guests were given specimen test-tubes at the door and warned that they might be infected and advised to report to the lab downstairs - stat.

Also a find-the-evidence game, which ranged from a police file on one of the characters through to application forms for brilliant young creatives to apply for sponsorship from the soft-drink company Ghost (yes, that's a shout-out to Jeff Noon's Spook)

Photo essay here: http://mybrandedlife.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/moxyland-book-launch-the-photo-story/

10:

Cool.

(I've never had a launch party. Or an ARG for one of my books. Maybe when I'm famous ... :)

11:

That's because you spend your time actually writing books as opposed to wasting good typing time running around getting collectible toys made or doing a soundtrack collaboration or hosting an ARG.

If it's any consolation, I had to organise the whole thing myself on a practically non-existent budget, bribing, blackmailing or conning friends into playing mad-dog protesters and mad-scientist doctors and bad-ass door bitches and trying to explain to the local chemical supplies company EXACTLY what I was intending to do with the reactive chemicals and 200 test-tubes I had on order.

Actually, it was fun. You should try it.

12:

That sounds exhausting.

(The jet lag is sending me to sleep, though, so it may just be me projecting a bit too far ...)

13:

Well, Charlie's quote likely just sold Lauren's book to me. And I congenially hate Charlie for getting the early reads, considering the 'stare at the bookshelf hoping for the urge to re-read something' situation I've been in for two days now. Too bad libraries are not open during my typical non-working/sleeping hours.

Lauren, sounds like the ARG was very interesting - and a great idea for a bit of a launch. But I have to agree with Bruce, most of those launched in the United States haven't quite taken off. Though I've seen some pretty decent 'alternate reality' experiential parties/events in the Bay Area, so it may largely depend on how the event is marketed.

Charlie, good luck with the jetlag recovery. I usually deal with mine via melatonin and creative scheduling, aka blocks of sleep arranged at both ends. But its never pleasant.

14:

ARGs and launch parties? Please please please? Just imagine doing one for the next Laundry novel.... (I know the guys who founded Perplex City. And they're fans of yours...)

15:

WOW, I CHECKED OUT HER SITE, HAS ANYONE HEARD OF TOTORO???? A JAPANESE ANIMATION CHARACTER? THATS WHAT THAT THING LOOKS LIKE, I WAS ACTUALLY A TOTORO, CHARACTER AT A BOOK CONVENTION YEARS AGO, AND DR. RUTH WESTHEIMER, WOULDN'T TAKE A PICTURE WITH TOTORO FOR WHATEVER REASON. ANOTHER TRUE STORIE.

16:

M.MALLOY: STOP SHOUTING. (You have a "shift" key on your keyboard, yes?)

NB: We are familiar with the work of Hayao Miyazaki.

17:

ok, whats NB stand for? (real question).

18:

Your comment about time travel and spotty writing ("It's almost like having a time machine — a time machine that inserts typos") reminded me of Primer (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390384/), which is certainly worth your while.

19:

Malloy @17: NB = 'nota bene', Latin for 'note well', but perhaps better read 'please note'.

(Google is your friend. Trust Google.)

@Charlie - Also very jealous of your preview reading, and glad to hear you're back in the country. Best of luck with sleep cycles.

20:

Christ almighty MALLOY, don't you have a search engine?

Charlie, I currently have the opposite sleep problem to you - the Sun and the dawn f*ing chorus conspire to wake me at about 4.30 every morning. I need double glazing and some blackout curtains I think.

I don't have the luxury of manuscripts but the nice people at Bloomsbury just sent me an uncorrected proof copy of Margaret Atwood's new novel 'Year of the Flood' due in September. The blurb indicates pure sci-fi. I'm going to have a crack at it over the weekend and will let you know what I think.

21:

Charlie, Completely off topic but while you were on your way home on Tuesday Radio 4 broadcast a short programme/tribute to Len Deighton on the occasion of his 80th birthday. It’s on the website at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00kjh8g

22:

@Bruce & TechSlave, I think it's really hard to create a commercial ARG with mass appeal. I'm no expert, but I did some research when the production company I work for was approached to look into developing a branded game last year.

It's one thing to watch twisty epics such as Lost / Battlestar Galactica / Carnivale from the comfort of your couch, quite another to play them, especially when it takes hours and hours and hours of time invested in unravelling mysteries, searching wikis, connecting with other people, running around answering payphones (although its the real-world stuff that appeals most to me) and role-playing.

I love the idea of ARGs but every time I've looked into games, even ones just starting out like World Without Oil or the Olympics/McDonalds one, The Lost Ring (?), it just seemed so much of a mission to get involved. And I'm target market.

Perplex City seemed much more accessible from what I read about it, but practically impossible to try and buy the cards in South Africa.

I think we'll see ARGs develop in interesting ways that can reach bigger audiences. From the weeks of research and development we did (that ultimately didn't go anywhere because our client wanted a huge complicated Illuminati-New Alchemy plot that would somehow appeal to mainstream brands), my gut says the way forward is with games that operate on different levels.

There should be a fun, easy, accessible entrypoint, say basic missions, spy games, tag games in nightclubs using something like shotcode.com and cell phone cameras, and for those who want to get into the mythology and the complex relationships between NPCs, you can go deeper too. More like 24 or CSI.

I picked up a great article via Wonderland on what's wrong with ARGs right now, which you might find interesting reading. http://www.sixtostart.com/onetoread/2008/everything-you-know-about-args-is-wrong/

And amazingly, Channel 4 in the UK is commissioning smart, cool educational ARGs for kids, which really makes me excited (and makes me wish I lived in the UK so I could pitch on some). More at www.wonderlandblog.com

23:

@GJM - curse you! Insanely jealous that you have your paws on advance Atwood proof. Oryx and Crake was amazing. It nearly put me off writing Moxyland, actually.

@Techslave & others who want in on this uncorrected proof business, it just so happens that Angry Robot sends out advance copies and/or e-books for review to members of its Robot Army (which is a bit of a misleading misnomer because they just send you free books, not photon blasters or mean android-drill-sergeants-in-a-box or anything cool like that)

24:

Glad you made it back home safely.

25:

To do that for one of Charlie's, though, you'd need to borrow an Alcatel-Lucent GMSP5130 Mobile Enhanced Reality service platform...

(yes, it's a real product as of this spring; we're living in Halting State)

26:

When flying US->UK, I have had decent success getting a flight that lands me at home "before noon" and having as much kip as I can on the plane. Of course, if you can't sleep on the plane, that is of no help, at all.

When I've flown UK->US, I've been on an 11 am flight out, then staying up "until bed time", that usually ends up with a 22-24 hour wake period, but I can just about manage that (last time, there was a dying mother-in-law, putting another 4 hours on that, but thankfully food and caffeine saw me through that).

27:

Ingvar: I can't sleep in economy class (i.e. on my back in a chair) and I'm not rich enough to fly business class more than about once a year, on serious intercontinental trips. SO GIVE ME ALL YOUR -- ahem.

28:

Charlie: I'm buying your books as fast as I can, but I have the demanding habits of other authors to support, too. Plus, the book-case habit gets expensive over time.

In some ways, I am actually quite happy for getting real good "sleep anytime, anywhere" training, though I would not, definitely not, want to do that again. I don't think that really is an option for you, though. Has come in handy during long detachements to server rooms, though. "Oh, crap, this will take a few hours. Ah, a corner, I'll get some kip!"

29:

@Lauren re:ARGs

I agree with your comments about the state of ARGs. Every time I go to start one via Unfiction I get lost before I can actually start. And then there are the puppet masters who don't reward and call it viral marketing - Aladygym comes to mind.

Your idea about different levels is interesting - something for the people who want to be at home and something for those who what to actually participate in the real world.

The real world stuff can be a little daunting for both the creators and the participants. Creators need to keep gameplay smooth and participants have to get over that hurdle of meeting up with a bunch of strangers to basically go on a treasure hunt.

Thanks for the sixtostart link.

30:

Help! I'm trapped in a Ken MacLeod ARG and I can't get out!

31:

Lauren@21: Thanks for the link. I think a commercial, mass appeal ARG will be less infotech-centric, but they ARE hard. Heck, you'd be better off starting with something that will pull a wider base. Take a look at the prevalence in the US of the "Fantasy" sports games - football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer. Heck, NASCAR and F1 have their own fantasy leagues. Generating systems to pull these into a more ARG-like framework would be difficult (largely licensing!) but you'd be able to tap into existing name recognition, fan-bases, etc.

There are plenty of other time/money investment to reward and satisfaction ratio issues, as well as the myriad complexities of the storytelling angles. But in brief, I think people need to look a bit outside of the established 'base' and possibly re-brand as something not an ARG, both for PR/Marketing purposes and to open the possibilities.

32:

Lauren @ 21:

Interesting article. It gave me a horrible sense of deja vu. I have a long (almost 3 decade) love/hate affair with adventure games and interactive fiction. And I see all the same issues with ARGs, but with not a lot of recognition among the practitioners that someone fell through this floor before so maybe we should avoid this part of the dungeon.

There's been an understanding for a long while in interactive fiction that the essence of the work has to be storytelling; problem is it's hella hard to tell a story in a nonlinear way, where the storyteller doesn't get to tell the reader what the order of things is. The cheap shot is to try to build the story around the puzzles of an adventure game; this gives the writer some control over order. But just as with an ARG, using puzzles limits the audience to people who like to solve puzzles, and aren't daunted by spending a lot of time in places that really don't advance the story any.

One use of ARG-like techniques that does seem to work is adding additional information and sidebar stories to online fiction; character blogs, for instance. Shadow Unit does this nicely, with the conceit that the main stories are episodes in a network TV series, and the sidebars are deleted scenes and other extras from the current season DVD package.

Yes, it's a game. It doesn't always need to be called a game, but that should be the default. Only change the default if the story-telling is enhanced by doing so. And for Ghu's sake, never forget you're meant to be telling a story.

33:

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

34:

The net present value of not being eaten by a grue, however, is considerable.

35:

@33:

Surely there's some way I can reduce the risk with some sort of aggregate grue insurance instrument, like a Grue Default Option?

36:

I'm looking forward to seeing what you think of MacLeod's new book. I just finished "Night Sessions", which was a good read even if the larger world was a little vague. His ideas about robots & space reminded me of yours in "Saturn's Children"...

37:

Speaking of book promos, the WashPost has an interesting article about blogger PixelVixen707 who turns out to be a character in a book.

38:

I'm trapped in a Ken MacLeod ARG

Aren't we all?

39:

Re: Angry Robot - I'm pleased to see that Marco's outfit has come up trumps. I'll look out or Moxyland.

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