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While I've been gone ...

... I have been finishing the first draft of "The Apocalypse Codex", Laundry #4, due for publication in July 2012. It weighs in at 111,000 words, a tad longer than "The Fuller Memorandum", and I will confess to being slightly tired now.

But there's no rest for the wicked. So to celebrate the royal wedding I'm going to spend tomorrow doing my tax for 2010/11, then get steaming drunk before I turn the page and get working on "The Rapture of the Nerds" next week.

(Just in case you wondered where I was.)

34 Comments

1:

Just so you know, UK tech news site The Register is running a poll of their readers favourite sci-fi films that were never made.

The Atrocity Archives is in the running, although it's quite a long way down the list... Here, not that I'm suggesting readers of this blog go and rig the voting or anything...

2:

I've voted for AA and, also, A Fire Upon The Deep. Chronicles of Amber might be next

3:

Congratulations! I can't wait to read it. As much as I love the Merchant Princes and the stand-alones, the Laundry novels are my favorite. (and I breathed a sigh of relief when I found out that the Fuller Memorandum wasn't the last in the series)

And I hope you'll do a little celebrating.

4:

I've voted for A-A too, but I must admit that I do not think any movie could ever deliver visuals comparable to what Charles' words in my head.

5:

Congrats on finishing TAC , I can't wait to read it either. The laundry universe is by far the most fun world you play in. I'm a government contractor in the US, you description of the bureauocracy is scary spot on. I also put my vote in for Atrocity archives, but if they make a Mote in Gods movie I'm totally there as well. :)

6:

I was expecting the most recent vote to be the one counted, but it looks from here to be whatever one's first vote went to.

(Checks with a second browser)

My guess is it leaves a cookie on the first vote, since switching browsers then permitted me to cast a vote for Cities in Flight.

7:

Living the life. You rockstar, you.

8:

Aghhh. Too many good choices on that list.
Sorry Charlie, I had to vote for A.C. Clark's Rendezvous With Rama.

That said, I am very surprised that Glasshouse hasn't been optioned yet. It would make a perfect made for TV mini-series. What seems on the surface an ordinary everyday idyllic mid 20th century American suburb setting (cheap to film) with significant story and character development opportunities as the full extent of the screwed-up setting is explored. The anachronisms inherent in filming this type of setting are actually part of the plot! It's the type of setting that could recreate the inherent mystery plot that drove Lost to success.

9:

"So to celebrate the royal wedding I'm going to spend tomorrow doing my tax for 2010/11, then get steaming drunk before I turn the page and get working on "The Rapture of the Nerds" next week."

Not throwing rose petals before the happy couple? :)

10:

I don't have anything intelligent to say today, so I'm just going to squee.

11:

Bonjourno :) Speaking of the laundry and it's big brother mythos, have you seen this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3gNQ2KYCb4 It's a short film called Late Bloomer, combining lovecraft and a sex education class in a way that had me in stitches. Enjoy avoiding the royal wedding and getting rat arsed :)

12:

Kinda late for the 'interview', but remembered a question I had while reading "The Revolution Business" last month. It's relatively on-topic, so here goes:

Is there a reason that in your two series there are characters who fill similar roles, and have names starting with the same syllable: Angleton and Angbard?

13:

I have nothing against them as people. But I wish the saturation media wank-fest would fuck right off, and I have no time whatsoever for the institution of Monarchy.

(Incidentally, saying so in public -- calling for the abolition of the monarchy -- theoretically carries a maximum prison sentence of life imprisonment, under a late 19th century statute rammed through during a fit of hysterical jingoism (the Treason Felony Act (1848), Section 3a). However, The Guardian has been actively trying and failing to goad the Director of Public Prosecutions into prosecuting them under it. So, barring actual assassination attempts, calling for abolition is probably the safest serious felony one can commit in the UK today.)

14:

A: No. (And if you think Angbard and Angleton fill roughly similar roles, you are mistaken.)

15:

Dang.

The U.S. of A. got into the suppression-of-sedition business twice, and the laws were later repealed (or non-renewed after sunset-provision kicked in).

First time around was under Pres. Adams (the elder), second shot was under Pres. Wilson.

It's not too surprising that Britain had such laws also; it is surprising that they're still on the books.

(And I wish the same for the U.S. analogue to royalty: Entertainment Professionals and Ivy-League Grads. They think that their position makes them better-and-smarter than the hoi polloi.)

16:

I was thinking of them as similar in that they fill a sort of mentor-ish role to their respective charges. Though Bob and Miriam have different reactions to their prospective mentors, she rejecting and trying to bring Angbard down, but not in possession of all the facts.

My memory or impressions from the earlier books may be off a bit. I just recently got the paperback of TTOQ, so haven't read it yet. I'm looking forward to having most of my questions answered. So far every time I wonder about something in the series, I get an answer in the next installment. I assume there will be new ones though.

17:

I suppose in contemplating what in the way of SciFi literature one would like to see translated to film, one should keep in mind the rarity of 3 1/2-hour, $500 million USD films.

18:

Ringworld would be awesome as a movie or series of movies. Either shoot it as one very long movie or split it up into a trilogy- Flatlander Earth> The Fleet of Worlds> The Ringworld

Current movie tech could pull off Niven's aliens (Kzinti and Puppeteers) in ways guys in rubber suits and/or puppets couldn't.

19:

I was thinking of them as similar in that they fill a sort of mentor-ish role to their respective charges.

Angbard was a mentor to Miriam in the same sense that a poker player is a mentor to one of the cards he holds in his hand and plays or discards as he sees fit.

20:

A slickly cut down screenplay of KSR's Mars Trilogy might end up better films than novels, provided one had at least 1 billion USD to spend on three, 3-hour films.

Ringworld? Well, Halo almost got made. ;-) ...I kid.

Any thoughts on the most impossible SciFi novels --> film? The Book of the News Sun comes to mind. For very different reasons, Accelerando is also probably impossible to translate.

21:

My local pub has a much better idea for today (being an extra holiday) A mini-BEER-FESTIVAL!

22:

"get steaming drunk before I turn the page and get working on "The Rapture of the Nerds" next week"

That reminds me of something I was going to ask you when you were conducting your interview here a week or so back, but forgot to when I sobered up the next morning (but I believe you did give me another "cookie").

So, if you don't mind, other than for the usual enjoyment factor, do you find that a good buzz is at all conductive to your writing (creative inspiration before starting a new project, say)? Or is it just a way to drown out life's irritations (like the media frenzy my wife will shortly be making me watch)?

23:

Well, yes. My intended emphasis being on the sort of & -ish. How 'bout this take: Bob and Miriam intended as pawns by their respective chess masters?

24:

Getting a contact high by being around other creative people and brainstorming ideas is always fun and, sometimes, helpful.

Getting a buzz from use of alcohol or drugs is less so, but: when I get drunk, first I get talkative, then I get thoughtful, then I get sleepy. Which is a great way to relax and wind down after a hard day's creative slogging. But it's something to do after the work, not before it.

25:

Bob isn't a pawn. Or rather, he started out as a private in someone's army. By book #4 (due out next summer) he's rather clearly been promoted to junior officer rank and has been tapped for advancement -- if he lives long enough.

Miriam's response to discovering she's a pawn is to kick the chess board over and pull out a game of Monopoly instead.

26:

Exactly. You, of course, express better than I what was a vague notion that I couldn't quite explain properly.

27:

ALL SF MOVIES SUCK. YOU KEEP THINKING ABOUT THE BOOK. AND WONDERING WHAT EVERYBODY IS SO DUMB. But I hate Doctor Who, so what do I know. If they had the time to set it up, one of the old GILL THE ARM short stories would be good. Anything long would be lost in the time a movie has. One in Nivens time of very high overpopulation could fly on TV. More that one of them in fact. The U.S. of A. got out of the suppression-of-sedition business. They learned from THE GREAT CHAIRMAN. Now they let a thousand flowers bloom, and watch them all. Your in worse shape, with a Labor government? Who was Orwell thinking of to start Big Brother. FOR YOU OWN GOOD!

29:

@ 27 D. brown What are you on?

@ 28 Fascinating link. Almost no true facts or statements in the piece though! The PO tube was closed because the GPO had a (temporary, as it turned out) new boss who was hugely pro-raod-haulage. The GPO mail-train contracts were terminated, [note]and the GOP London tube was closed, rather than being extended to the Willesden distribution depot, as had been proposed only 5 years previously. THEN it turned out that this crook had "contacts" inside the haulage industry, and he left. But the railway had closed, and remains closed.

As an example of corporate/state greed. corruption and supiodity, you'd have to go to the USSA to beat it.

[Note] Most of the GPO mail-trains are running again, as using thousands of lorries, and aircraft just isn't as efficient as overnight trains, or as cheap. Oops

30:

Allow me to retort: 2001

Movie was better the short story.

31:

It was real late at night.

32:

David Drakes "Lacey and His Friends" is short horror stories of very high overpopulation. What's just over the horizon. I think they would be very good as a TV shows. I don't know how well they are known over there. After many years I still think of them at night.

33:

'Use of Weapons' is way way ahead, and, I am afraid, quite right too.

Although how they'd do the complicated structure thing within the framework of Space Opera is left as an exercise for the director...

34:

I think that short stories in general work better then novels for movies, and agree that the Gil the ARM stories would work well. As long as the fashions were updated (thinking of Jackson Bera :-)

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This page contains a single entry by Charlie Stross published on April 28, 2011 3:59 PM.

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