Potted bookshelf, episode 1.2

The Callahan Touch by Spider Robinson

How best to describe Spider Robinson's Callahan books to someone who hasn't discovered them yet? Okay, try this: imagine the best bar in the world. It serves the best beer, has the best ambience, is run by the best bar staff and entertains the best clientele. And then imagine being a regular at that bar. Not to go all Cheers on you, but imagine if everyone there really did know your name, and your life story, and your faults and foibles, and even some of your deepest, darkest secrets... but still loved you, unconditionally, and wanted to help you whenever you had a problem, or were feeling blue, or just needed to laugh out long and loud. Does that bring a bit of a mist to your eye? If so, then Spider Robinson's Callahan books are probably the closest you can get, without being incredibly, exceptionally lucky with your local watering hole.

Me, I absolutely love these books and Robinson's Lady Sally books, too. They're one of the very few series I've actually gone back and re-read in the past few years, and I know I'll do so again, at least a couple of times, before I turn 40-something. But I've still got two or three of the later volumes on the 'to-be-read' shelf, and I'm saving them - hoarding them - for a special occasion, or for when I particularly need cheering up. Can't remember quite why I decided to treat myself to The Callahan Touch this time around but, as always, I was very glad I did.

And oh, for five minutes alone with the God's Blessing machine...

Now You See It by Richard Matheson

This one was a rather interesting novella / novelette-length book from the author of the classic I Am Legend [Amazon]. The narrator of this tale is a former stage-magician who has now lost just about all of his physical faculties - to the point of total paralysis - although his mind is still as sharp as it ever was. He becomes the unwitting focus of an unfolding drama as his son - also a famous stage magician - becomes the victim of a fatal crime of passion... or does he?

It's a cleverly constructed piece, is well written and moves along at a fair old clip. I think the narrator's predicament - at the epicentre of events, yet cursed with an inability to directly influence the unfolding of events - is intended to mirror the relationship between the reader and the narrative. If so, then it's a clever device that works particularly well in this instance. Throw in plenty of intrigue, trickery and sleight-of-hand and it adds up to a story that's relatively short, but intense and well crafted. Good stuff.

The Gypsy by Megan Lindholm and Steven Brust

Megan Lidnholm also writes as Robin Hobb. In her Hobb guise she's written some of the finest character-driven fantasy I've read to-date (her Farseer, Liveship Traders and Tawny Man sagas were superb, although I have to confess that to my great disappointment, I found it hard to get into her latest series, The Soldier Son). Prior to developing that persona, she wrote some intriguingly original fantasy material, including this title another that I read a few years back, The Wizard of the Pigeons. Both stories are similarly themed, in that their protagonists are practitioners of 'urban magic'; modern-day magicians with genuine powers and abilities.

I have to confess, I read this one a while ago (quite possibly whilst on holiday, so there may have been a quantity of alcohol involved) and so I'm a little hazy on the details, but I do remember coming away with the impression that it was a good story, well-written and well-told. Good characterisation as well, heavy on the folklore. And enough to make me want to track down the rest of Lindholm's earlier work, and to read more by Steven Brust as well.

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Potted Bookself, episode 1.1

January 31, 2007 | Filed Under Books | Leave a Comment

Highly Recommended Reading - Joe Abercrombie and Joe Hill

I've read two books so far this year* and they've both been quite wonderfully enjoyable, in quite distinct and different ways. Here are a couple of mini-reviews** to whet your appetite.

Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie

This is the sequel to my fantasy read of 2006, The Blade Itself [Amazon], and what a bloody marvellous sequel it is too. There's a rather unfortunate phenomenon that can strike a new author - something like 'second book syndrome' - whereby said author spends years honing their debut novel, a publisher buys it, then the publisher points out that the sequel really ought to be churned out in months rather than years, the eager-to-please new author complies, standards plummet as a result and the second book iend up a bit of a dog compared to the first.

But I'm delighted to report that there's not so much as a whiff of it in evidence here as Abercrombie successfully builds on the firm foundation of his debut to deliver a second installment that's equally entertaining, if not even more so. In the process he treats us to the same levels of superbly rich prose, desert-dry wit, excellent characterisation and effortless dialogue, all topped off with lashings of action, adventure, drama, conflict, politics, intrigue, love, laughter... you name it.

Admittedly, it won't be to absolutely everyone's taste; those who insist on the cut-and-dried, pre-meditated plotting of a bog-standard kiddie quest or lacklustre dragon-taming saga will be sorely disappointed... which is reason enough for celebration of its own accord, if you ask me. Instead, Abercrombie seems to take great delight in subverting some of the most seemingly-sacred of fantasy tropes and twisting our expectations wherever feasible. And I'll tell you for nowt, there's nothing I like more than a story that can take me by surprise.

Worth reading for one particular scene alone (I won't say which one exactly, but suffice to say it involves Jezal dan Luthar in the role of distinctly embarassed eaves-dropper), the whole book is a refreshingly delightful antidote to the painfully trite, staid and predictable fare that the bulk of the fantasy genre is so often guilty of delivering (and there be any greater crime in fantasy writing than predictability?)

So anyway, if you're a fan of any sort of fantasy fiction - but especially the sort of dark, gritty, character-driven fantasy fiction written by the likes of George R.R. Martin, Steven Erikson, David Gemmell, Paul Kearney, Glen Cook, Grey Keyes and co. - then you should definitely be reading this series. Pick up The Blade Itself first, or you'll miss out on a whole lot of essential story development, but go on... treat yourself.

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

This is one of the most enjoyable novels - never mind most enjoyable horror novels - that I've read in a very long time. It's about an ageing rock star by the name of Judas Coyne and a girl Georgia - the latest in his string of young goth-girlfriends - and what happens to them when Judas decides he's going to buy a dead man's suit on eBay... which comes complete (unbeknown to him) with the dead man's vengeful spirit, and a whole truckload of trouble.

As plot foundations go, it isn't a blindingly original one, but then it doesn't particularly need to be; because on top of this simple but effective premise, Hill builds a novel of superb characterisation and rising tension that builds to a denouement of highly cathartic power. Judas Coyne is haunted and his story will end up haunting you; it's packed full of imagery that's so rich, so vividly cinematic that it'll be almost impossible to shift from your head... as much as you might actually want to in some instances, because let's not forget that this is a horror novel, and bad things do happen to the people in it. Not one for the squeamishly faint-hearted.

Something else I genuinely enjoyed and appreciated was that Heart-Shaped Box is a straight-up, out-and-out supernatural horror story. Not one of those tales in which the ghost might be real, but then again might just be a figment of the protagonist's deranged imagination and hey, you decide, dear reader.

No, Joe Hill makes it damn clear that what's haunting Judas Coyne is not merely the psychotic summation of his past mistakes, internalised guilt and existential fear of losing his hair; it's a fucking ghost. A spectre, a spook, the immortal essence of a dead man; one that's now hell-bent on seeking revenge for... well, I'll not say, for fear of giving away too much too soon. But suffice to say, the bad thing in this story is something that's come back from beyond the veil of death, and it isn't going to go be sent packing with some sprinkled holy water and a few mumbled homilies.

In a comment on an earlier post John Berlyne said that he thinks this book is "...the best candidate in a long time to reinvigorate the novel length horror market". I do hope he's right and that the book's future success - I predict awards by the shelf-load - doesn't just spawn the usual raft of pale imitators, the same sort of schmaltz that dragged the same horror market down and almost knocked it right out in the mid-'90s.

And I just hope that when the movie version inevitably appears they do full justice to a story that's just crying out to be put right up there on the big screen. One of the worst things I've ever seen on television was a guy who looked like '80s TV comedian Russ Abbot playing the supposedly anti-Christ-like Flagg in Stephen King's The Stand. If some numpty studio exec signs the likes of Tom "the nutter" Cruise or Keanu "the plank" Reeves up to play Judas Coyne, I think I might have to top myself and then sell them my suit on eBay...

.
*Yeah, I know, but I get far less leisure reading time now than when I had to make a 40-min each way commute to and from work...

** Making them the first I've written in, oooh, must be eighteen months... about time I got back in that particular saddle, I reckon.

January 25, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 10 Comments

Ann & Jeff Vandermeer announce New Weird anthology

File the following under 'Eagerly Anticipated'; heads-up via the ever-vigilant Joe Gordon (who, dammit, gets paid to surf t'Internet and find post new stuff on the FP Blog all day, which is why he always seems to find this stuff out first...)

'The New Weird' ed. by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer The New Weird is a forthcoming anthology to be edited by Ann and Ann Vandermeer, is tentatively scheduled for publication in Spring 2008 by Tachyon Publications, and has cover art from the folks at Insect Lab. It brings together the cream of the writers whose work - often through no fault of its own it should probably be noted - have come to be labelled as 'New Weird' since the terms started being bandied around in 2001 or so.

Feast your eyes on the contributors' list: Michael Moorcock, China Miéville, Clive Barker, Jeffrey Ford, Hal Duncan, Jay Lake, K.J. Bishop, Kathe Koja, Leena Krohn, Felix Gilman, Sarah Monette, Steph Swainston and Conrad Williams... and those are just the names (that you can't quite make out on the cover image there) that have been announced so far. There's more to come...

More info on the genesis of the project (plus a handy mini-FAQ to head off the automatic nay-sayers) over at Jeff's blog. And I've dropped the man himself a line to see if he and / or Ann might have time for a few questions for a UKSFBN news piece, so hopefully I'll be able to post that later on.

January 25, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 2 Comments

Youtube oddness III - Star Wars, silent-movie style

Thanks to Ed Ashby for the heads-up on this rather entertaining piece. Turn the sound on for this one (yes, I know it's silent-movie style, but you still need to hear the sound-track...)

January 23, 2007 | Filed Under Humour, Odd | Leave a Comment

Quick link-o-rama…

Just a few links of potential interest today, because I've got my head deep in an e-commerce implementation for PS Publishing and haven't got time to get into anything too serious right now...

They sent around my favourite Calvin and Hobbes strip in the gocomics.com daily email on Saturday... which was nice.
Posted on Locus Online a couple of weeks ago, but still well worth checking over: Jeff Vandermeer's Twelve Overlooked Books of 2006.

And it's definitely Award Season again:

Something a bit more substantial when my head's not quite so full of currency conversions and template layout amendments...

January 22, 2007 | Filed Under Books, Comics & GNs | Leave a Comment

New Arrivals - mid Jan '07

A couple of items of particular interest turned up this week, which I reckon are well worth bringing to your attention:

Albion by Moore, Moore, Reppion, Oakley and Freeman

Ever wondered what happened to all those classic British comics characters when their publications went under, merged, or just gradually faded away? Well, this is your chance to find out. A real cornucopia for the Brit-comics fan-boy and fan-girl, and a good, old-fashioned jailbreak romp for anyone else.

And I do rather have to admit that I was stuck firmly in the second camp; my childhood comics reading was pretty much limited to The Beano, a dash of Whizzer and Chips and a smattering of The Dandy, with a foray into the re-launched version of Eagle in the '80s, then Battle / Action Force and finally 2000AD (I'm still a subscriber to the latter, as it happens). As a result, I can't count myself amongst the lucky few who will be able to pick up on the majority of the character references and cameo appearances in Albion. And I'm sure there must have been dozens here.

Still, it was an enjoyable read and one I'm glad I made time for. I just wish I'd spent more of my childhood leisure time with my nose stuck in a comic book...

Bone Song by John Meaney

Now this is an intriguing little number, and no mistake. Simon Spanton of UK publishing house Gollancz has sent me this 'ere proof in a quite deliberate, pre-meditated attempt to disrupt my 'to-be read' list... and I do believe he may have succeeded, too.

With Bone Song John Meaney takes a tangent away from his previous space-opera-esque outings to present a crime / horror cross-over... or a baroque future-fantasy... or maybe a space-grand-guignol (I'm not sure quite which it is yet, but I'm itching to find out...) set in Tristopolis, a city powered by its own dead, who lies neatly stacked in necroflux generators in vast catacombs below ground.

It seems to be a mystery tale, anyhow; possibly even a police procedural. Not too much given away in the blurb (which makes a change...) so I think the only way to discover more will be to give it a go. I'll report back when I know what's what...

January 19, 2007 | Filed Under Books, Comics & GNs | 2 Comments

Daft Personality Quiz: Which Supervillain am I?

Always fancied myself as a bit of a supervillain. I used to practice my "Mwahahahahaaaa!"s until my throat bled. Even bought a Super Doomsday Device once, but when I got it home I found it needed batteries and the 24 hour supermarket was shut. So I guess I'll just have to live my dreams vicariously, through the medium of a handy DPQ (via Ramblings in Space and Time) instead.

This week, it turns out I am mostly being this guy:

[Take the Supervillain Personality Quiz]

'Apocalypse'. Nope, never heard of him. Anyone?

And to think, I missed out on being Lex Luthor by a lousy 2%...

January 18, 2007 | Filed Under Comics & GNs, Odd | 7 Comments

Smart thinking: Hugh MacLeod on Blogging

Hugh MacLeod is another smart cookie, and a bookmark for his gapingvoid blog, which I've been reading for about two years now, is one of only a very few that I keep in a folder marked 'READ EVERY DAY'.

© Hugh MacLeod He started out putting his cartoons online, then started talking about marketing, selling and so forth (he used to be in advertising) and he's been a pro-blogger and marketing-thinker for the past few years now.

In that relatively short space of time he's notched up a number of blog-related successes, such as turning Stormhoek Wines into an internationally-recognised brand (well, certainly among the geek-classes anyhow) and doing astounding things to the turnover of a Saville Row tailor via English Cut.

But perhaps most impressively - unless I've gotten hold of entirely the wrong end of the stick, which I admit is entrely possible - he played a deeply significant part in creating the pre-Xmas Thresher's wine voucher frenzy that enabled them to almost completely sell out of wine and champagne across their chain (thereby massively reducing their over-stock levels) on the back of an offer that was actually only 7% more than their standard '3 for 2' discount, and gaining massive national media coverage into the bargain. And all at practically zero cost, bandwidth charges notwithstanding.

And he still draws his cartoons as well... they're often extremely funny, very dry, very well observed.

So again, when someone like Hugh posts a collection of his distilled random thoughts on blogging then it's worth tuning in and paying attention.

I reckon anyone out there who is more than slightly serious about using their blog to do more than just think out loud online should pay particular attention to points #1, #3, #6, #18, #19 and #33. But read the rest as well, of course. Food for thought.

January 16, 2007 | Filed Under Marketing, Work | Leave a Comment

Reading List - Mid Jan '07

I've just finished Joe Abercrombie's Before They Are Hanged - which was wonderful by the way, more on that later - and so it's decision-time again.

I've already decided on Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box as my next read - I love his short fiction and I'm just too intrigued to see what he can do when he's got the larger canvas of a novel to play with to put it off for too long - but after that I'll be open to suggestions again.

So, here are my next twelve most likely 'to-be-read' items. Please feel free to shout out if you've read something on the list and would like to add your vote of confidence: no plot spoilers, please, but do feel free to suggest other authors and / or titles it reminded you of, that sort of thing.

Evil For Evil by K.J. Parker [Amazon] (most likely candidate at the moment)
The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction ed. by George Mann [Amazon]
The Summoner by Gail Martin [Amazon]
The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes [Amazon]
The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt [Amazon]
Nocturnes (short fiction collection) by John Connolly [Amazon]
Unbecoming: And Other Tales of Horror by Mike O'Driscoll [Amazon]
Coalescent by Stephen Baxter [Amazon]
Stamping Butterflies by Jon Courtenay Grimwood [Amazon]
The Memory of Whiteness by Kim Stanley Robinson [Amazon]
Indigo by Graham Joyce [Amazon]
No Dominion by Charlie Huston [Amazon]

Of course, the final decision will rest on my mood at the point of finishing Heart-Shaped Box... but please feel free leave whatever comments you feel are appropriate...

January 15, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 7 Comments

New feature: Snap Previews

I've installed the Snap Previews feature on the site (which I first spotted in action at M.H. Ayinde's Ramblings in Space and Time).

So now when you roll-over any external link (like the link to UKSFBN, below, or the one in the paragraph before this one) a pop-up preview of the site the link is set to take you to will appear, until you move the mouse away again. It's seems to provide an archived screenshot, by the looks of things, so the real test of its utility will be how soon those images are refreshed and updated.

Anyhow, I think it's a useful feature - pictures speaking a thousand words and all - but do feel free to leave comments and let me know what you think; good idea? bad idea? annoying? intrusive? informative? useful? I'm thinking of using it on UKSFBN as well, but I thought I'd garner some user-opinion on it first.

January 13, 2007 | Filed Under Work | 7 Comments

Smart thinking: Cory Doctorow on author websites

Cory Doctorow: One smart cookie Cory Doctorow is one general, all-round smart cookie.

Years ago, long before the whole blogging-thing had achieved anything like the reach or mainstream acceptance it has today, he set up boingboing, which for a long, long time was reckoned to be the most popular blog on the planet (according to Technorati's Top 100) and is still going strong at number #3.

In 2003, he released the entire text of his novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom [Amazon] as a free pdf download, under a Creative Commons license. Many thousands of copies were downloaded (and presumably read) completely for free, and yet the dead-tree edition of the book still sold (in Cory's own words) "fantastically well", as Charlie Stross also found when he repeated the experiment with one of his own titles a year or so later.

These days, as well as writing for boingboing and blogging at his own Craphound.com site, Doctorow writes novels, short fiction, columns, articles, you name it. So when he pens something on D.I.Y. author websites, then it rather behoves a freelance author-website-builder like me to sit up and pay attention.

At first glance, it doesn't appear to bode too well for yours truly. The gist of the article rather seems to be that authors should take their online presence into their own hands, dispense with the services of their webmaster / webmistress / webAriel - particularly in terms of updating the site by means of laborious HTML and CSS editing with manual FTP upload - and go it alone by means of one of many freely available, open source CMS systems out there, such as Wordpress, Drupal et. al.

But even though that rather sounds like it might be doing me out of a hard-earned crust, I (almost) completely agree with him. In fact it's methodology that I'm actively encouraging as many of my own author clients as possible to adopt. I've already helped set up blog-based 'news and views' pages for Tim Lebbon, Brian Ruckley, Mark Morris, Michael Marshall Smith and James Barclay, as well as full-blown, theme-blogs for Mark Chadbourn and James Barclay (again) at Jack of Ravens and Barclay Talks Sport, respectively.

Why? Because it's a damn good idea. Because if my clients have something to say to their fans and readers then of course they should be able to say it immediately. The shouldn't have to wait around for a few hours, or a day or two (hopefully not much longer these days) for a window to appear in my update-schedule.

And quite frankly, from my point of view, the less time I have spend on those laborious HTML / FTP uploads then the more time I can spend working with my clients on far more interesting online activity: blogging for a start, but also podcasting, social-networking, search engine keyword-advertising, word-of-mouth campaigns, general marketing stuff... everything I'm familiar with, or have read about, and am just itching to put into practice. So yeah, more power to the author-bloggers, says I!

Although I do have one small caveat: there is a flip-side to the D.I.Y. approach. What if the author in question isn't particularly keen, or confident enough, or simply hasn't enough time to learn the necessary basics of HTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, RSS, SEO, content tagging and so forth? Not to mention graphic design and the rudiments of professional-standard layout. And then there's the accessibility issue, and the European directive on e-communication... I mean, there's a fair bit more to it than updating your news page, if you want to do it properly.

After all, the principle activity of a writer is surely to write, no? So any time spent away from that activity really ought to be justifiable. You ought to be able to prove (to yourself at least) that it's of greater added value to your career than if you'd actually got on with writing something new instead.

In which case, it seems to me that the smart / busy / technologically shy author will still want to employ their friendly, neighbourhood webguy / webgal to sort out all the aforementioned fiddly stuff - as well as things like domain name registration, website hosting, email accounts, Amazon affiliate links, mailing lists etc. - while they get on with the actual business of creating new content, whether it's for their forthcoming blog entries, their novels, their magazine columns... whatever it might be.

So yes, I wholeheartedly agree that there are definite advantages to taking control of key elements of your own online presence. But there are also advantages in getting a professional to help you through the tricky bits and get everything running smoothly before you dive on in.

Now, Cory does drop heavy hints in that sort of direction in his article. At one point he says: "It's the kind of thing you can pay someone a couple hundred dollars to do, and it's a near-sure thing that your current webmaster is already maintaining one or more blogs and is familiar with the basics," so fair's fair. And I think that what he also means by that is that you certainly shouldn't have to pay top-whack multimedia agency rates for the job. Not when a competent freelancer will be able to sort everything out for you for a fraction of the price.

And I'd like to point out one more distinct advantage to the employ-a-freelancer route that Cory doesn't really touch on: namely the ongoing benefits that you should be able to derive from being client-affiliated with a professional; particularly in terms of the propagation and implementation of new ideas.

So for instance, let's say a member of my (currently 16-strong but hopefully soon-to-be-expanding) client group comes up with an idea for a new website feature that they'd like to implement. If it's a good idea, a generic technique or tool that my other clients would also benefit from, then it's very easy for me to pass that idea on to the rest of the group. I can then perform the necessary installation on everyone's site, or set up the relevant third-party software across the board, and everyone wins.

And I do try to make a point of keeping my ear as close to the technology news ground as I reasonably can. So again, if I hear that there's a new Google tool about to become available, or a new social networking phenomena about to break, or just a new way of doing things online that I think my clients can benefit from, then I'm in a good position to let them all know what's what. Everyone wins again.

Whereas if the individual author in question doesn't have the time to read the same marketing and tech blogs, or isn't subscribed to the same mailing lists that I am (or doesn't happen to write for one of the world's most popular technology / tech-lifestyle blogs and so get to hear about everything anyhow) then they might never get to hear of a particularly useful concept or technique.

So, this afternoon I've sent an email to all my author clients to point them in the direction of Cory's article and tell them that, yes, he's quite right: they can - and should - update their own websites as frequently as they like using a blog-based platform, and that -furthermore, I'd be delighted to help them set that up, as I've already done for the aforementioned author-bloggers on my books.

And hey [utterly blatant self-plug warning: look away now if this sort of thing offends you, if it's not too late already...], if there are any authors, writers, artists or independent publishers reading this post who think they might be interested in doing something similar, then please do feel free to drop me a line. Tell me what sort of thing you have in mind, and I'll be happy to let you know if I can help out, and how much I usually charge...

January 12, 2007 | Filed Under Marketing, Work | Leave a Comment

New musical discoveries of 2006

Here's a quick selection of some of the new musical discoveries I made last year. All new to me, anyhow...

Bruce Springsteen, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions

My album of the year, definitely. I've been a Springsteen fan since I was 12. While the cool kids at school were bopping their little brains out to Madonna and whatever else was around in the mid-80s, I was listening to songs about the decay of the American dream, the day-to-day struggle of the under-privileged working classes and the role of love as an all-redeeming force for change. (No, I didn't have many friends at school...)

Anyhoo, fast-forward to 2006 and Springsteen's latest album. A collection of cover versions or songs made popular by, or generally associated with, the legendary American folk singer Pete Seeger. Sounds a bit twee and mellow? Not a chance, not with The Boss in charge. Bruce selects his favourite songs, then goes out and recruits an 18 piece country / gospel / bluegrass band to belt them out with gusto aplenty. An absolutely huge sound from one of the living legends of rock music. A real eye-opener, and almost impossibly catchy once the songs are stuck in your head.

And Jo and I were lucky enough to get hold of tickets to see the Seeger Sessions band live at the Manchester Evening News Arena as well. Absolutely brilliant, best gig of the year. Three hours of solid playing (as is the norm from Bruce) and a whole host of re-envisioned rootsy cover versions of some of Springsteen's classic material as well. His delta-blues-style version of 'Cadillac Ranch'? Had to be heard to be believed...

The Divine Comedy, Victory for the Comic Muse

The other close contender for my album of the year, just pipped at the post in the final analysis. James Lovegrove switched me on to the Divine Comedy a couple of years back and I haven't looked back since.

I just love Neil Hannon's music: it's intelligent, quirky, funny, heart-warming, heart-breaking, all at once. His last two albums, this one and 2005's Absent Friends have both been masterpieces of virtuoso story-telling as well (check out 'Our Mutual Friend' on Absent Friends, and 'A Lady of a Certain Age' on the latest). Definitely worth checking out, especially if you appreciate music made at the more cerebral end of the scale.

Josh Ritter

A singer-songwriter in the classic Americana story-telling mode - think Ray Lamontange, Jim White, Jeff Tweedy and the impossible-to-avoid shades of Dylan and Springsteen - with an interesting, tuneful voice and a great turn of phrase. Ritter's music covers a wide range of styles and topics with all the classic themes thrown in.

I bought 'The Animal Years' and within three or four tracks I was on eBay looking for the rest of his back-catalogue. I think I've tracked most of it down by now, but The Animal Years is still the one I come back to; there's something about the opener, 'Girl in the War' that keeps me coming back, and the last track on the album, 'Here at the Right Time' is just lovely.

And - as I discovered after double-checking the URL for Ritter's homepage - it turns out that a certain Mr King was quite impressed as well...

Cat Power

I'll admit I have something of a weakness for lady singer-songwriters, just so long as they have interesting voices and interesting things to say. At one point Tori Amos was my number one addiction, but since she got happily married and became a mum her music seems to have become a lot less interesting, so I've been looking for new ladies to fill the gap in my musical affections.

Chan Marshall, a.k.a. Cat Power, is definitely one of them. She's got a smoky, sultry voice, a good vocal range, and sings great songs about... well, life. Check out her most recent album, The Greatest, recorded with three Memphis soul musicians who used to do the honours for Al Green. Great for long, wine and whisky evenings in front of a roaring log fire, I reckon. Haven't got a log fire, but I'm happy to test the other half of the theory...

Cara Dillon

An Irish singer-songwriter with an incredibly pure voice; most commonly described as 'angelic'. She's married to (or partnered with) Sam Lakeman, brother of that current darling of the folk scene, Seth. She's also a past winner of two BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards both in 2001, for 'best newcomer' and 'best traditional track'.

Both the Lakeman boys guest on her albums, providing backing vocals and instrumental support (she used to play with the two of them in a folk group called Equation, included Kathryn Roberts and another Lakeman: Sean). Dillon's albums are a mix of new interpretations of old Irish tunes and her own (and Sam's) new compositions, many of which nevertheless have a quality that makes them sound as if they're as old as the Donegal hills.

Jo and I nearly got to see her perform twice last year, but on both occasions something else cropped up and we missed out. This year, if she plays anywhere near North Manchester, I'm going to go along and lose myself in her voice for a while.

Black Mountain

I think these guys might have had a track on The Cover Mount CD That Changed My Life (the subject of a future blog entry) or maybe I just found them in a random eBay sweep. In any case, I picked up their eponymous debut album at some point last year, and it was a stonker.

They've got a blues-y, roots-y Americana feel to them, but with quite a heavy rhythm section, lots of bass, lots of noise. Two singers; male and female, which makes for some nicely contrasting vocals. They sound a bit like Wolfmother (but not quite so Deep Purple). Anyway, one to try, if you're feeling in the mood for something dark and tuneful. The band - or one or two members of it, anyhow - also performs as The Pink Mountaintops, with material that's a little more light and ethereal, or so I understand. One for my 'track-down and listen-to' list.

The Raconteurs

Take Jack White, of The White Stripes fame, plus his old pal, singer-songwriter Brendan Benson, plus a couple more friends of theirs - Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler from a band called The Greenhornes - and you get The Raconteurs, who play everything from jingly-jangly indie guitar pop through to distortion-fuelled psychedelia, covering quite a few bases in-between in the process.

The full four-piece makes for a much more rounded sound than the Stripes, which I think is the whole point. A good solid rock album from a new group of old friends. I think I must have listened to this one five or six times back-to-back when I first got it. And check out their website - tres retro-chic!

Baxter Dury

Another random eBay discovery and one I'm very glad I made. Baxter Dury is the son of the late Ian Dury, of The Blockheads. There are certainly elements of the elder Dury's cockney snarl in Baxter's vocals, but it strikes me that there seems to be more variety to his music than in most of the Blockheads tunes I'm familiar with (although I'm more than likely doing them a terrible injustice there as I've probably only heard their immediately obvious hits).

'Francesca's Party' is the stand-out track on his 'Floorshow' album, the whole of which I must have played at least a dozen times since I got hold of it mid last year.

The Black Keys

My mate Howard - who knows more than a thing or three about good music and has introduced me to a number of shelf-fuls of it in the past couple of years - really rates these guys. They're a two-piece from Ohio who play seriously lo-fi blues rock on guitar and drumkit. They record and mix their own tunes; shunning technological trickery in favour of a much more stripped-back, laid-back, down and dirty, grungy sound. Crank up the volume, break out the sipping whisky and you're in for a damn good evening.

Their latest, Magic Potion is the third album of theirs that I bought in '06, along with their debut, The Big Come Up and their six-track Chulahoma: The Songs of Junior Kimbrough e.p. and they're all great stuff. Damn good call, Howard mate. Wish I'd gone with you to see them live last October, but I think they're back in Manchester this coming February, so there's time yet...

deadboy & the Elephantmen

Another two-piece, who are on the same label - Fat Possum - as The Black Keys were until their last album. Another band with a lo-fi, grunged-up rock sound. Singer-songwriter Dax Riggs plays a mean guitar whilst Tessie Brunet handles the drums and backing-vocals, and they sound great. We Are Night Sky is their debut album, and it's a damn fine piece of work.

My favourite track on there is the yell-along toe-tapper 'Stop, I'm Already Dead', which would have been a guaranteed dancefloor-filler back in my Salford University Student Union alternative night DJing days, and no mistake. If you're a Black Keys fan already, you should definitely check these guys out.

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So there you go. The pick of the stuff I discovered in 2006. Please do feel free to use the comments section to let me know if there's anyone or anything else you think I'd really like on the basis of this lot, yeah? A link to a relevant website would be great...

Oh, and for further recommendations in a simiar vein, check out Gabe Chouinard's blog, where he posted his top ten of 2006 a while back. He also highlighted the Black Keys' latest, plus the Springsteen and Raconteurs albums as well. Looks like we ought to swap play-lists some time.

January 12, 2007 | Filed Under Music | 2 Comments

New Arrivals - end Dec '06, early Jan '07

Three new items came in recently that have particularly caught my eye. All proof copies of forthcoming UK titles:

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

I'm going to have to fight Jo for first-reading rights to this one. We both loved Joe Hill's debut short fiction collection, Twentieth Century Ghosts and have been looking forward to getting our hands on his debut novel ever since it was announced.

Heart-Shaped Box promises to be "...the best debut horror novel since Clive Barker's Damnation Game twenty years ago... A genuinely scary novel filled with people you care about; the kind of book that still stays in your mind when you turn over the final page." And those are Neil Gaiman's words, not mine.

Published by Gollancz in the UK in March, folks. More information on Amazon.co.uk.

The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt

Mr Hunt is the webmeister of the long-running and highly popular genre 'zine SF Crow's Nest, and The Court of the Air is not his first novel to be published. His debut was For the Crown and the Dragon, which won the WH Smith New Talent Prize way back in 1994 (I'll be dropping Mr Hunt a few interview questions for UKSFBN a bit closer to publication date, so I'll see if we can find out about the hiatus).

The Court of the Air looks to be as a quasi-Victorian adventure / melodrama - so it should appeal to fans of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell et. al. - starring Molly Templar and Oliver Brooks; two orphaned children who must flee from ruthless enemies in the company of outlaws, thieves and spies.

It sounds like a rollicking adventure yarn and a thoroughly good read; the only thing that's making me slightly wary is the rather hefty page-count (582 in the proof), although the page margins and font-size are both generous. One for the list and see if the mood takes me, I reckon...

Ink by Hal Duncan

This is the follow-up to Hal Duncan's much talked-about 2005 debut, Vellum [Amazon]. I have to confess that I was one of the weak-willed, lilly-livered, namby-pamby types who gave up halfway through the first volume, so it's unlikely that Ink will be troubling my 'must read' list anytime soon, not until I've had the chance to gird my loins and re-tackle Vellum with renewed determination.

But I did read enough first time around to recognise that Hal Duncan is an intelligent and intriguing writer with the potential to produce a great deal of very fine work in the future. I'll be keeping an eye on the reaction to this second volume; I'm interested to see what folks make of it, now they think they might have an idea what to expect (although somehow I doubt that it will turn out to be quite what anyone expects...)

There's a good interview with the author over at Fantasybookspot in which he talks about the relationship between the two books, which might give you a couple of clues.

January 10, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 2 Comments

File under: "Are we done yet..?"

Blimey. Apologies for recent radio silence, but I've been tied up for the last few days and no mistake. Last Wednesday, Mark Chadbourn's forum was hacked by a gang of ~~script kiddies~~ l33t hak0rz. Damn, etc.

Mind you, they were actually surprisingly polite about it - just left a sort of "your forum isn't very secure, you know..." message, and changed the colour scheme. I don't know, maybe they felt a bit guilty because it was such an easy system to break into. Which, whilst obviously rather irritating, actually turned out to be just the kick up the arse I needed to get the forum upgraded to a better software platform; something I've been trying to find time to do for a good six months or so. So I suppose they actually did me a favour, of sorts, when you think about it.

Anyway, net result: shiny new forum.

However, installing the new software did take up the best part of the two afternoons that I had originally ear-marked for clearing out my massively over-stuffed inbox and generally sorting out the office; something else that was long overdue and marked 'urgent' on the to-do list. So there went the weekend...

Won't be sorry to see the back of these things... At least, there went whatever was left of the weekend after Jo and I had spent the bulk of it feverishly slapping paint on the remaining few dozen square metres of upstairs walls and woodwork, in preparation for the remaining carpets being fitted yesterday. Not to mention all the dusting, vacuuming, shifting-of-furniture, rearranging of piles of dusty boxes etc. that went with it.

Still, the Evil Decorating is 95% done now - just the porch and hall to finish off, plus snagging (a builder-standard technical term for going round and doing all the odd bits that are always left at the end of a job, and one that I'm going to adopt for website work henceforth) - and just in time for Jo's folks to visit on Thursday. They're staying for the weekend, which means that I get to cook for Jo's Mum, for a change. Quite daunting, actually...

Oh, and just in case there are any doubters out there who don't believe we've really spent the last two years of our lives planning for, working on and generally living through this extension project - that it's all been an elaborate hoax for me to use as an excuse for not doing tonnes of constructive and productive stuff with my time - here are the before and after shots...

...oh, hang on, no. They're on the old PC. Which reminds me, I'll have to rescue those before it goes to the recyclers... maybe I'll post them another time, unless enough of you beg me not to... but they do exist, honest.

Right, that's that. Something more bookish to follow shortly, I promise - more New Arrivals to tell you about, and the start of a new (maybe even regular) feature: the 'Where Are They Now?' Files.

January 9, 2007 | Filed Under Life, Work | 2 Comments

Vandermeer on Writing

Author, blogger, raconteur and international playboy buccaneer Jeff Vandermeer has blogged the introduction to what I assume will be his forthcoming bestseller on the art of turning the mere written word into good, publishable, hard-cash earning prose: The Evil Monkey Guide to Creative Writing.

The Vandermeer. Would you buy a used galleon from this man? I wonder though... in amongst the pearls of wisdom on the craft of writing, will The Vandermeer also reveal the true secret of his success? For as well as being a superbly skilled writer, and one blessed with a truly warped and endlessly fascinating imagination to boot, Mr V-- is also a world-class self-publicist. And in an entirely good way, too.

Some folks, who shall remain nameless, seem to think that "Hey, look at me! No, me! Over here! I'm great, you must read my stuff, I demand that you do!" is the way to go. They inevitably fail. Jeff's approach is more along the lines of: "Well, here's what I write, I hope you like it. Oh, and here's a whole bunch of really entertaining and interesting stuff to go along with it. Come along for the ride. But hey, only if you want to. You do? Great! Come on in..."

I'm paraphrasing, yes, but you see the difference?

It's something that any writer who's truly interested in developing more than just a minor presence on the bookshelf (it's amazing how many debut authors seem to think that as soon as they've got that first title in the bookstores that's it, they've made it; it's amazing how many of them are wrong) would be well-advised to observer closely and learn from.

It's really not just about the writing these days, you know. Whether you like it or not, you have to have the marketing (and by that I don't just mean a bit of advertising, a few proofs / ARCs and a couple of press releases; that is such a twentieth-century attitude) to back it up. And who better to spend their valuable, scare time being genuinely enthusiastic and endlessly eager to talk about the good stuff that you do than... you?

But more on that later. In the meantime, go read that intro. Then go read some Jeff Vandermeer. You know you want to.

[Heads-up via the always informative FP Blog]

January 5, 2007 | Filed Under Books, Marketing, Work | Leave a Comment

Best books of 2006 - a personal selection

Every January, I open a brand new spreadsheet and start making a list - one that I faithfully promise myself I will update both regularly and diligently - of all the books I've read over the course of that year. Every March or so I start forgetting to keep track. And then every December I sit down to have a think about writing some sort of 'review of the year' piece, and end up wishing I'd bloody remembered to keep the damn list up-to-date for a change...

2006 was no exception, but I'm going to gamely have a stab at remembering my personal 'best of' without the benefit of an electronic aide-memoire. I'm working on the theory that if a book made a strong enough impression on me that I still remember it by now, then it must have been a good 'un.

So here, in no particular order, are the seven titles that made the biggest impression on me over the course of '06. Bear in mind, these are books I read in '06, not necessarily books published in '06. And as usual, you can click the cover images to obtain ordering information etc. from Amazon.co.uk, should you feel so inclined.

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie

I read some damn good fantasy fiction last year - including Brian Ruckley's Winterbirth, K.J. Parker's Devices and Desires, Sarah Ash's Children of the Serpent Gate, Paul Kearney's This Forsaken Earth and Scott Lynch's quite fabulous The Lies of Locke Lamora (see below) - and Joe Abercormbie's The Blade Itself was right up there with the very best of them, definitely.

Abercrombie's plotting is tight and fast-paced, his settings are vivid without being fussy or over-detailed, his characterisation is excellent (Logen Ninefingers and Glokta the Inquisitor, in particular, are both a joy to read) and he really has hit the dialogue-nail right on the head. He's a freelance film editor by trade, so maybe it's the skills he uses on a daily basis that have helped him to craft this good a story; one that reads as well as something that you might reasonably expect an author to take at least four or five outings to achieve. Or maybe he's just a natural-born story-teller. Or maybe he's been to the crossroads at midnight, with a laptop in his hand instead of a six-string...

Whatever the reason, he's bloody good. Give him those four or five book's worth of development, and I reckon he'll be frequently spoken of in the same glowing terms that most folks use when discussing (those perennial personal favourites of mine) George R.R. Martin and Steven Erikson. Seriously, if you're a fan of those two - and / or the likes of Paul Kearney, K.J. Parker, James Barclay, Fritz Leiber, Greg Keyes, Robin Hobb, David Gemmell, and so forth - then you should add this to your 'must read' list. Oh, yes.

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

Quite, quite wonderful stuff here from debut author Scott Lynch. The Lies of Locke Lamora received huge amounts of attention, both before and after publication. The majority has been in the form of extremely well-earned praise; a few nay-sayers have mistaken the praise of others for the fall-out from publisher-generated hype (believe me, most publishers can only dream of being anywhere near that effective). On balance though, the genuine plaudits have won out, and with good reason: this is a cracking read, and one that I'd take no hesitation in recommending to anyone with more than a modicum of taste for the finer things in fantasy literature.

Quite frankly, what's not to like? The eponymous Locke Lamora is the ringleader of a gang of intelligent, witty, charming and imaginative con-men who dub themselves 'the Gentlemen Bastards'. They dwell in the city of Camorr; a blend of medieval Venice, Leiber's Lankhmar and Miéville's New Crobuzon. Said burg is dominated by the shadowy bulk of Capa Barsavi; an old-school gangster with an iron grip on Camorr's criminal underworld, including that segment occupied by Lamora and the other Bastards. Lamora is intimately acquainted with Barsavi's daughter, or has been in the past, and when a challenger to Barsavi's crown arises, he finds himself caught slap-bang in the middle of the ensuing turf-war.

Action, adventure, betrayal and retribution all run riot throughout this extremely well-written, gleefully unpretentious saga; The Lies of Locke Lamora aspired to be a piece of highly entertaining fiction first and foremost, and in that it succeeds more than admirably. Given such a high standard of debut, I predict this author will be going on to even bigger and better things in volumes to come.

What can I say? Heed the praise. Or, if you prefer, believe the hype...

Black Juice by Margo Lanagan

My first exposure to Margo Lanagan's fiction came in the form of a publisher's promotional blad containing the story 'Singing My Sister Down'. I thought I'd give it a go - why not? - and I'm very glad I did, because it turned out to be one of the most memorable pieces of short fiction I've ever read. I'll say no more here. Just pick up a copy of Black Juice in your local bookstore and give this one story a go while you wander around and pretend to browse. You'll see what I mean.

The other highlights, for me, of a very strong collection overall were 'My Lord's Man' (which I think might just be is a prose version of the Irish ballad 'The Raggle-Taggle Gypsy') and 'Red Nose Day', (guaranteed catharsis for anyone who ever suffered a modicum of Coulrophobia; maybe after reading Stephen King's It?) The rest of the collection is highly readable, intelligent and thought-provoking as well, but these two were my particular stand-out picks.

Lanagan's subject matter covers a wide range of themes and tropes and she is not only a superb story-teller but also an incredibly skillful prose crafter. She has a wonderfully economical way with words - hardly a syllable is wasted - and seems to have pretty much perfected the principle of 'show, don't tell'. If you watch carefully, you'll barely detect more than a hint of narrator-delivered exposition; her characters reveal their back-story through dialogue and interaction; there's a bare minimum of unnecessary background detail to get in the way of the focus of the tale. It's perhaps not a technique that will appeal to every reader, but it is one that I particularly like.

In any case, if there are any would-be short fiction writers out there, my advice to you would be: read Black Juice, and learn.

Use Once, Then Destroy by Conrad Williams

Another very strong collection indeed, from one of my favourite British short fiction writers. Conrad Williams might not be quite as big a name as some of his contemporaries, but that's nothing short of a grave injustice if you ask me. I think Williams' prose is just as lyrical, just as compact and spare and emotive as work by the likes of Michael Marshall Smith, Graham Joyce, Nicholas Royle or Geoff Ryman, and it's well worth sampling.

Only, don't do it if you're feeling particularly miserable, because Williams really doesn't do cheerful all that often. In fact, 'bleak' would be a good way of describing the atmosphere that suffuses the majority of his work - dark, disturbed psychology and broken relationships of all sorts seem to be pretty much par for the course.

My favourites (if that isn't too jolly a sentiment in this case) from Use Once, Then Destroy are the sort-of Lovecraftian tale 'The Windmill', along with 'Nest of Salt', which echoes London Revenant; Williams' eerie novel of the lost and dispossessed. This volume also contains his PS Publishing novella, Nearly People, another one well worth taking the time to track down, and is only £12.43 on Amazon at the moment for the Night Shade Books trade hardcover edition: bargain!

Three Days to Never by Tim Powers

A new Tim Powers novel is always a treat to look forward to. The thing is, you never know quite what you're going to get when you dive between the covers; it could be anything from baroque time travel fantasies to voudoun pirate magic, secret agents and desert-dwelling djinn, to far-flung dystopian futures. In this case it's a tale of father and daughter Frank and Daphne Marrity, and the bizarre treasure that his mother - her grandmother - has kept in her garden shed for the past forty years or so.

Of course, very little that you find in a Tim Powers novel is ever as simple or as straightforward as it first seems and Three Days to Never is no exception. Before too many chapters have elapsed, Frank and Daphne find themselves being visited by long-lost relatives, pursued by Israeli secret agents and haunted by spectral creatures and occultists bent on extracting - or retrieving - secret knowledge from them... at all costs.

But as you do rather expect from Powers, it's superbly written throughout and in places is frankly quite astonishing. Never one for playing a straight trope, Powers seems to delight in subverting the reader's expectations and opening up strange new avenues of idea and concept. Add this one to your list as well, and then if you haven't already read them, go buy copies of On Stranger Tides, Dinner at Deviants Palace, The Anubis Gates and Declare as well. Seriously, you've got some catching up to do...

Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge

I've already given this one a mention in my first potted bookshelf entry, but I'll just reiterate a bit here: great storytelling, lively characters, setting, well worth a read whatever your age or literary inclination. A young orphan girl escapes from her dull, boring village after (accidentally!) burning down her uncle and aunt's mill. Armed with nothing but a homicidal goose and a rare ability to read, she is swept up in a bewildering whirlwind of intrigue, revolution, murder and espionage.

Yes, it's a 'young adult' book, but one with plenty of sly word-play nudges in directions that adult readers will appreciate. Yes, it's a fantasy, but it's far from your average, mundane, kiddie-quest, dragon-taming, coming-of-age shtick. It's interesting, it's entertaining, it's well written. It's the best young adult book I read last year (no, I didn't read all that many, but that's beside the point...) and I'll be keeping an eye out for the sequel, definitely.

Every Dead Thing by John Connolly

I'm including this one on the grounds that, yes it might be an oldie-but-goodie, but it's always great to discover a new author, particularly one with a decent amount of back-list to work through.

Connolly's fiction blends elements of crime with slivers of the supernatural; in this, his debut novel, ex-cop turned p.i. and gun-for-hire Charlie Parker re-lives the brutal slaying of his wife and child when similar atrocities raise the spectre of a serial killer on the loose. Parker becomes drawn into a web of sinister mind-games as he desperately tries to bring the loose strands together and somehow double-guess the intentions of a sick and twisted killer. It's a dark and gritty narrative; emotionally brutal in places, somewhat gory but not unnecessarily gratuitous. Just my sort of crime / horror cross-over tale.

And stylistically, Connolly's first novel has a very similar feel to Michael Marshall (Smith)'s Straw Men series, which is no bad thing at all in my book. It's dynamically written, with great pace, action sequences that will have you on the edge of your seat, and a cast of colourful characters that wouldn't be out of place in a well-filmed Hollywood blockbuster. Great stuff, and I'm definitely looking forward to the rest of the series.

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So, there you go. My personal picks for '06, and I've already got a fave for '07 lined up in the shape of Joe Abercrombie's follow-up, Before They Are Hanged.

Now, where did I save that spreadsheet..?

January 4, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 5 Comments

File under: Food, glorious Food!

EU expansion - great for the taste buds...

Bulgaria. A while ago. Two new countries joined the EU this week: Romania and Bulgaria. Quite apart from all the political debate and economic issues (haven't read up on them, not going to comment on them) there's something to be celebrated in the accession of these two former Eastern Bloc nations to our proud European Community.

As an enthusiastic - if strictly amateur - gourmand I'm more than a little intrigued by the culinary possibilities inherent in the expansion and extension of Europe's national family, as highlighted in this BBC news item.

You know, I reckon a dollop of Lyutenitsa on Mititei would go down a treat...

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Let ~~them~~ us eat cake!

I'm a bit of a failure in the 'living up to the British male stereotye ' stakes. Well, except for the whole 'thoroughly enjoying watching grown men run around a field kicking a spherical object' thing. But still.

The clincher is that I'm actually rather fond of my mother-in-law. It helps that she's probably one of the best proper cooks (in the traditional, stick-to-yer-ribs, 'here have a fifth helping you're looking skinny' sense) in Britain. Seriously, her roast beef dinners are the stuff of legend, I kid ye not.

And every Xmas, she bakes us a proper, traditional Xmas cake. It's dark, sweet, succulent, rich, packed with fruit and booze, reinforced with about a tonne and a half of marzipan and finished with crisp, sharp and pointy royal icing. And totally gluten-free (Jo and I both have a wheat-thing...)

Perfection: