(This is going to be a slightly abbreviated discussion, because I discussed the book's ideas at length in the supplementary essay bundled with it, and answered a number of questions about it in the blog entry immediately preceding this one.)
So what's left to say ...?
I've been arm-wrestling with a story again, and it's running away from me; hence the lack of updates.
But as the story in question is set early-ish in the Laundry Files continuity (between "The Jennifer Morgue" and "The Fuller Memorandum"), I think it will make perfect sense if I blog about the gestation and germination of "The Atrocity Archive(s)" next. So that's on my to-do list — just as soon as I finish this novella (hopefully by the end of the week).
(If you have any questions about TAA, feel free to ask them here.)
I'm cheating here: if you want to understand "Singularity Sky" as published, you need to read this earlier piece I wrote (which uses it as a springboard for discussing why I killed off the Eschaton novels after book #2).
What I'm going to add here is merely the history of the project. Which, with 20/20 hindsight, was a nightmarish mire of despair ...
I periodically run out of ideas for blog entries—I've been doing this thing for about 13 years now—but when that happens, one of the best resources is thinking about other stuff I've written about. An idea occurred to me earlier this week that I'm going to explore over the next couple of months. Namely: every book is different! And they all deserve at the very least a small "making of ..." essay.
However, I've got a slight dilemma about how to tackle the subject.
Do I do it chronologically? If so, I'd have to start with "The Web Architect's Handbook" from 1996, or maybe "Toast, and other rusted futures" from 2000. But hang on, I wrote "Scratch Monkey" circa 1990-94, so doesn't that come first? And how do I deal with "Accelerando", which took 5 years to emerge, during which I wrote at least four other novels?
Alternatively, do I approach the problem by series? Not all my books are parts of a series, and — I'm somewhat alarmed to realize — not one of the actual series has an actual no-shit end (although "The Trade of Queens" comes close to ending the Merchant Princes; the next book, provisionally titled "Dark State", picks up the threads nearly 17 years later) ...
Then there's the question of what to write about. Do I discuss where the ideas and plot points emerged? The characters? Or do I discuss the methods I used to write the books, and the obstacles and encountered in the technical process? And what about possible spoilers or explanations of what I was trying to achieve when I wrote them, as opposed to what reviewers and regular readers thought they were about?
What would you like to know about my books, that isn't obvious from reading them? This is a serious question and I want answers, dammit. Because this project is going to be the main preoccupation of this blog for the next few months ...
Just a reminder: The Traders War is showing up in shops now, and although Amazon.co.uk think it's due out on the 9th, you can find it on some bookstore shelves right now.
(Small print: this is an omnibus edition — with extensive revisions — of "The Clan Corporate" and "The Merchants War", reassembled as the single book it was originally meant to be; in this case, the middle of a trilogy. It's published in the UK and Commonwealth territories. You can't buy the ebook in North America, but if you really want to, you can order the dead tree edition from amazon.co.uk if you're willing to pay the shipping fee. It will not be published in the USA in 2013, but will probably show up in 2014 or 2015.)
Every so often it amuses me to come up with ideas, conceits, and props upon which a story may hinge, even if I have no intention of ever writing such a story. Sometimes I have to brainstorm them, and sometimes they simply tap me on the shoulder politely.
Case in point: while out and about shopping with my spouse, we happened to pass an off-license (liquor store, to those of you in the US) which had a window display of amusing beverages. One of which was a bottle of vodka in the shape of a human skull. "Cool bottle!" Remarked herself; "I wonder if it tastes as good as it looks?" (Said with the cynical tone of one who recognizes marketing aimed at late-teen goths when she sees it.) "I doubt it," I began to reply. And then my muse grabbed me by the ear. (My muse is not a frail willowy thing; they're a bit like this (NSFW cartoon) when they're not AWOL and engaged on a massive bender. But I digress.) "Oi!" roared the Muse, "Get down and gimme an Iain Banks style black comedy plot trope, and do it now!"
"Got it," I said. "Opening chapter of novel: our protagonist has got hold of one of those skull-shaped bottles. He's a bit depressive and is considering suicide, so he fills it up with Polish 80% spirit and then adds mushrooms to make a liqueur. Using Death Cap—Amanita Phalloides. Then in the last chapter someone else drinks it by mistake."
"They misread the label as Liberty Cap!" Suggested she who can read my mind too damned well after all these years. (Psilocybe.)
Well, okay. If I was planning on writing a noir Iain Banks mainstream novel, that bottle would find a way into it for sure, now. But anyway, this prompts me to suggest a blog game. To those of you who can be arsed playing: pick an everyday object you see in your day to day routine, be it shopping or cooking or at work or at play. Then try to come up with a grand guignol story idea anchored by it! C'mon. Show me what you can do ...
I'm a child of the 1970s and 1980s; I grew up under the shadow of the mushroom cloud. Prior to the end of the cold war in 1989-91, I don't believe I ever lived more than 10 kilometres from a strategic nuclear target. (I grew up down the road from the biggest tank factory in Europe; went to university in London: subsequently lived and worked within the blast radius of the M62/M1 motorway junction and a regional airport.)
Trying to explain the psychological effects of this period to the young is difficult—all I can do is point then at Threads. However, despite the Lovecraftian horror lurking in the background—the constant awareness that coolly calculating intellects in distant countries might at any time decide out of game-theoretic considerations to rain thunderbolts and earthquakes on my world, effectively destroying it—I was not a supporter of unilateral nuclear disarmament.
But times have changed and I'm reconsidering my position on that subject. Here's why.
I'm back home from a month on the road, with a whole lot of washing to do: in the meantime, I have an announcement which is, I hope, going to be welcome to some.
People periodically ask me about audiobooks—mostly in the UK (Audible do spoken editions of most of my books in the US). The UK is a smaller market than the USA, and it costs quite a bit to pay a voice actor and a sound engineer to go over an entire novel: consequently many of my books haven't been issued in audio editions so far. However, Orbit are doing a refresh of the covers of "The Atrocity Archives" and "The Jennifer Morgue" this summer, and to go with the reissue, they're planning a first UK/Commonwealth audiobook release of these titles! They'll be unabridged, and available as download-only releases from Audible.co.uk and iTunes in early July (sadly, demand for CD audiobooks is too low to make a CD release practical). I believe they'll also be available in Australia, New Zealand, and a few other places (but not the USA or Canada—where a different audiobook edition is already available).
I'll add links to the buy my books page as and when they become available for pre-order.
While wandering around the Internet I discovered an archived story from National Public Radio in the US called "Does Age Quash Our Spirit of Adventure?" The reporter referenced psychology professor Dean Keith Simonton of UC Davis, citing his idea that those who are "eminent"—defined as those who had been quite successful early in life—tended to be locked into the patterns of early life, while those who are, ahem, "late bloomers" tend to remain more open to new ideas in middle age.
This sounded like pop psychology to me, but interesting enough to send me scurrying around the Internet looking for more. I couldn't find any other mention of Professor Simonton's theory of eminence and a decline in creativity, but I did go on to read several articles on creativity and novelty-seeking in middle age.
When I was growing up, "middle aged" was a synonym for "boring." Looking ahead across the gulf of years it appeared to me to be a time of life inhabited by people content with a dull routine, with little interest in the new.
Having reached the respectable middle age of fifty-two, I'm happy to report the reality I've experienced is quite a bit different from that.
Just a brief reminder that news is bad for you. No, seriously: publicly available news media in the 21st century exist solely to get eyeballs on advertisements. That is its only real purpose. The real news consists of dull but informative reports circulated by consultancies giving in-depth insight into what's going on. The sort of stuff you find digested in the inside pages of The Economist. All else is comics. As there's an arms race going on between advertising sales departments, the major news outlets are constantly trying to make their product more addictive. And like most other addictive substance, news is a depressant, one fine-tuned to make you keep coming back for more.
When a particular incident like today's bombing of the Boston marathon kicks off a news cycle, a common pattern asserts itself. First, there's photographic evidence and rumour. Then there's some initial information—immediate numbers of dead and injured, scary photographs. But the amount of new information coming out tapers off rapidly after the first hour or two, and gives way to rumour and speculation. There probably won't be any meaningful updates for a couple of days: but the TV channels and newpapers have to fill the dead air somehow, to keep the eyeballs they've attracted on the advertisements, so they cobble together anything they can grab—usually talking heads speculating without benefit of actual information. Such speculation in turn increases anxiety levels and causes depression, bringing the onlookers back for more.
Which is why I am about to back away from the keyboard, stop looking for more updated news from Boston, and go swimming. Terrible though the bombings may be, we won't learn anything significant about the responsible parties for some time: and in the meantime I see no reason to allow my emotional state to be manipulated for the benefit of advertisers. (And neither should you, unless you're a Bostonian or a relative or friend of someone directly affected, in which case, you have my deepest sympathy. This goes for you, Dan.)
Update: And here's Bruce Schneier with some words of sense.
Additional update: The comments on this blog entry are not intended for wild speculation about the identity and motivation of the bombers; comments on those lines may be deleted, especially if I think they amount to hate speech directed against minorities.
Aloha again, everyone. While Charlie's off on vacation in the tropics, I thought I'd talk a little about my own near-tropical home of Hawaii, looking at it from a writer's point of view. I've lived in Hawaii since I was ten years old and, while I can safely say it's no utopia, overall, things are pretty decent here and as a general rule, people are helpful and friendly. We've been designated the happiest state in the USA for the fourth year running, for good reason.
But is Hawaii a good place to grow a science fiction career? The lack of working SFF novelists here seems to indicate otherwise. The two that I know of are myself and Kate Elliott, and we're on different islands.
Another negative indicator—as much as I hate to say it—is that there isn't a big fan base here, especially for the kind of extrapolative SF I like best. When was the last time you attended a science fiction convention in Hawaii, right? (For those interested, there is a big and growing anime convention called Kawaii-kon... but that isn't quite what I'm talking about.)
So Hawaii lacks SFF writers as well as active fans, and traveling anywhere else to meet them requires at minimum a five-hour plane flight, because we are a long way from anywhere. Professionally then, it's an isolated existence. Still, there are advantages to living here. Metaphorically speaking, Hawaii has a multitude of worlds.
You couldn't make this shit up:
Margaret Thatcher's funeral will have a Falklands War theme, Downing Street reveals: The Independent break the news that 700 armed forces personnel from units which served in the Falklands conflict will take part in the funeral.
Family veto Argentine officials at funeral.
Police ask Margaret Thatcher protesters to identify themselves (according to The Independent, so that their "right to protest can be upheld".)
I'm very glad to be overseas for the next week and a half. I fully expected Cameron et al to use the Maggon's funeral as a rallying point for their clan, but I wasn't expecting a full-blown Nuremberg Rally. Disgraceful.
Just a brief note: I'll be hanging out this evening (that's Wednesday 10th) again on the evening of Wednesday 17th in Taps beer bar in Kuala Lumpur from 7pm; all welcome. They've got a good range of craft beers, food, and are about fifty metres from Raja Chulan monorail station, at ground level in One Residency on Jalan Nagasari. (If you're not sure what I look like, look for the table with a large plush Cthulhu holding court.)
Update: For those who couldn't make it at short notice, there will be a repeat: same time, same place, on Wednesday 17th.
Aloha, everyone. When Charlie gave me this opportunity to guest-blog, I asked him if it'd be okay if I did a counter-post to his March 21 entry Why I Don't Self-Publish. Charlie readily agreed.
First, it feels necessary to say that there is no best path in this business of writing fiction and every author's career is different. I started in the usual way, with traditional publishing, and had six science fiction novels published by New York houses between '95 and 2003. My work garnered good reviews and there were a couple of awards, but despite my best efforts no meaningful amount of money was going into the family coffers. Economically, I was wasting my time. Emotionally I was inhabited by a deep, dark sense of failure, with no viable means to turn things around. So circa 2000 I more or less walked away from the field for almost ten years. I did not stop writing entirely, but it was close.
In 2009 I woke up to the ebook revolution.
My background and situation let me jump right into self-publishing. I'd worked in web development for nine years, so I knew how to handle the HTML behind ebooks, I was familiar with Photoshop, I'd learned the basics of InDesign, I had the rights back to all my novels, and I had time to devote, since the recession had ended my programming job. So I became my own publisher and reissued the novels, first as ebooks and then in print-on-demand editions.
I found that I loved this new business, because I was in control.
Okay, it's all over the news; no point in ignoring it.
I'm on vacation and I am not going to waste a valuable tourism day venting a third of a century of bile at a person who is, in any case, no longer present. But I'd like to draw your attention to Hugo Young's epitaph; as Thatcher's biographer and sometime interviewer he gives a fairly balanced appraisal. (And I'd like to remind non-Brits that strong leaders are more popular abroad than in their home land, because foreigners don't get to see the skulls that were smashed in the process of building that reputation for "strength".)
Besides, I'm in a contemplative, listening frame of mind right now. So if you have any particular memories of Thatcher, feel free to tell me about it in the comments.
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