Stardust movie trailer online

Neil Gaiman points us in the direction of an extended trailer for the forthcoming Stardust movie - based on his novel and original Charles Vess illustrated book (which Titan seem to be reissuing in the UK in May) - over at Yahoo! Movies UK, although the movie itself isn't actually out until October.

Ricky Gervais and Michelle Pfeiffer in a scene from Stardust

The film stars (among others) Robert DeNiro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sienna Miller, Peter O'Toole and Ricky Gervais who, judging by the trailer, seems to be playing... Ricky Gervais. In a hat.

Looks terrific, and there aren't too many plot spoilers in the trailer, either. Which makes rather a pleasant change...

March 28, 2007 | Filed Under Movies | 2 Comments

Quick reminder: March GCOTM noms still open

Nominations for the March '07 Genre Cover of the Month accolade are still open, folks.

It's the end of the month now, so we've probably seen most of this month's covers (and I'm gradually putting together the next Books Received post over on UKSFBN, so there might be a few there you haven't seen). But if you've seen anything new that you particularly like this month, then please do feel free to nominate it. Details of how to do so over on the main GCOTM page. If you could get your noms in by the weekend, that would be great.

And voting is still open for the February '07 inaugural GCOTM accolade, for the next couple of days at least. I'm actually going to close the poll on Friday 30th to allow me to prep a post declaring the winner over the weekend.

A quick glance at the current position suggests that Les Mensonges de Locke Lamora may well walk off with it, but that could still change...

March 27, 2007 | Filed Under Art, Books, Marketing, Publishing | Leave a Comment

Highly Recommended Viewing: 300

Jo and I went to see 300 on Saturday afternoon. At the Manchester Odeon IMAX. Screen the size of an 8-storey building, half a gazillion watts of stereo sound; all of that. It was undoubtedly the most intense cinematic experience of my life.

'Our arrows shall blot out the sun!' 'Then we shall fight in the shade.'

I'm delighted to report that the movie was everything I'd hoped it would be. Visually stunning, deeply visceral, an incredibly faithful re-envisioning of the original Frank Miller graphic novel and an intensely cathartic storyline that was complemented throughout by a quite superb musical score (which I must get hold of on CD).

It took me right back to the first time I read Legend, or the first time I read the Battle of Helm's Deep in The Lord of the Rings. Heroic last stands, undaunted courage in the face of insurmountable odds, a fight to the death to defend your homeland and loved ones... I think that sort of thing speaks to something deep in the psyche of most fantasy fiction fans. I'm not enough of a psychologist to say what, exactly, it might be, but it's probably something to do with chivalry, with honour, with doing the right thing, even if it means you won't necessarily live to reap the rewards.

I know; a bit old-fashioned in this day and age, perhaps. But you show me a fantasy fan who tells you they're not just a bit old-fashioned, and I'll show you someone who's fooling themselves ;)

Needless to say, I'll be buying the DVD as soon as it appears. And quite possibly a bigger TV screen to play it on. Don't think Jo would let me install an IMAX - we'd probably have trouble with the planning permission - but hell, you need something huge to really do the movie justice. If you're thinking of seeing 300 at any point, don't wait for it to come out in a small-screen format. Shell out the cash, go to the cinema, sit back, relax, enjoy the spectacle. You'll be glad you did.

Quick Edit: There's an interview with art director and effects designer Grant Freckleton over at the CG Society website if you're interested in how they came up with those aforementioned stunning visuals...

Quick Edit II: Film mag Empire Online has a set of video interviews with Zack Snyder, Gerard Butler, Lena Headey and Rodrigo Santoro.

Quick Edit III: I re-read the graphic novel this lunchtime. Apart from the addition of the side-plot with the slimy politico back in Sparta (there to give Queen Gorgo some more screen time, I reckon) the movie is an incredibly faithful adaptation of the original. I mean, right down to some of the frame layouts, the dialogue, the posture of Xerxes as he lounges on his throne and sneers down at the remnants of the Spartan force... everything... superb.

March 26, 2007 | Filed Under Movies | 7 Comments

Highly Recommended viewing: The Dresden Files

You know, I really wasn't convinced to begin with, but now I'm absolutely loving the SciFi Channel's adaptation of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files.

It all started off rather horribly. The season pilot was - in this particular Dresden-fan's ever-so humble opinon - absolute dross.

Mind you, with the benefit of hindsight, I think I can see why. Imagine the scene at the production meeting, as the guys behind the show try to work out how to sell the series to the network...

"So, what are the major themes of this one again?"

"Let's see: black magic, horrific murder, ritual sacrifice, the occult, the undead rising..."

"A-ha. And the lead character?"

"Well, he's this guy who's an incredibly powerful wizard. He's a good guy at heart, but he's got a dark side, and he hides from his true nature on the grounds that if he unleashed the full force of his magical powers he could probably, like, destroy the world or something. So he's basically conflicted. Screwed up. Human."

"Aaa-ha. So, no clear-cut white hat, then?"

"Well, no. More kinda grey... and patchy... with scorch-marks..."

So, the guys behind the show make a special effort for the pilot. Harry becomes a good wizard, through-and-through. He works with the cops, he solves a mystery, he saves his cop-buddy from possession by a demonic body-snatcher (read: foreign hijacker) and an All-American kid from a really nasty kid-eating monster (read: paedophile) and comes out of it covered in glory, and in just enough of his own blood for a purple heart. Hoorah! Apple-pie for all! The network buys the series...

...at which point, thankfully, the script writers throw away all that crap and get on with telling the real story of Harry Dresden.

We're up to episode five (or six, I'd have to check the Sky+ box) in the UK and so far the rest of the series has been bloody fantastic. Elements of the back-story and plot from the books is gradually being introduced, with just enough of a twist here and there to keep things fresh and interesting. Bob is working really well as an all-English eccentric ex-sorceror. Which is good. I mean, Bob - this Bob, I wonder? - is meant to be several centuries old, so I'm glad they haven't given him a Brooklyn accent or something. And, most importantly, Harry and Lt. Murphy's relationship has been restored to its proper love-hate status, which has worked so well throughout the seven-book series to-date.

Having said all that, I can understand why someone coming fresh to the series without any prior knowledge of the books might find it a little inaccessible in places. The producers have made quite a few fan-nods in terms of back-story, so there are a few things that you know from reading the books that you might not immediately realise from watching the show. For instance, fan-viewers know that Morgan has the power and the authority to kill Harry if he so much as puts a black-magic flavoured footstep out of line... which adds a nice tension to their scenes, but might not come across so well if you're a newbie.

So, my advice if you're struggling: read the series, record the show. Then come back and see if your appreciation of its finer points isn't raised through the roof...

March 23, 2007 | Filed Under Books, TV | 2 Comments

Smart Thinking: Grab another Thresher's Wine Bargain

The Thresher's 40% discount wine offer is back on again - for one week only.

For those of you who missed it first time around, the original incarnation was a scheme dreamt up by Hugh MacLeod and his business partners at Stormhoek Wines. Simple idea: download a pdf voucher, take it into your local branch of Thresher's, get 40% off their entire wine range. Which really adds up if you're stocking up on £15 bottles of Chateau Neuf du Pape as a yuletide treat, I can tell you.

The rest is recent history: the voucher went viral, the media went into a frenzy - although a lot of papers and news progs for some reason insisted on reporting it as an 'error'; presumably they couldn't quite believe that anything doing so much good for all concerned could be planned and deliberate - and Thresher's reported that they'd notched up £15m in additional sales as well as clearing a lot of stock from their warehouse in the process.

And now it's back. As posted by Hugh last night on his gapingvoid blog, for a limited time only in the run up to Easter you can download the new voucher from the Stormhoek website, then march into your local Thresher's and get your 40% off all wines (champagne, sparkling and fortified wines excepted).

Jo and I will be going tonight on the way home from the gym, before they run out of Stormhoek Pinotage 2005, which is bloody marvellous stuff - goes with everything from a chicken shashlik to half a bar of Green & Black's dark & mint (and believe me, we've experimented with a fair few combinations...)

Edit 23.03.07: Did indeed call in to Thresher's on the way home last night. Sidled up to the counter and showed the chap behind the till the new voucher: "Are you taking... these?" I enquired. To which he replied:

"Oh, God, not again..."

Turns out this poor sod still bears the scars of the Xmas frenzy when, so he told me, he ended up holding the fort all-but single handed. "I'm not bloody going through that again..." he muttered as he picked up the phone to ring someone higher-up and check that the horrible rumours were true and that yes, indeed, that bastard MacLeod was about to ruin his life all over again...

I tried to win him over. "Hey, it's only for a week. And didn't Thresher's make an extra £15m in sales last time?"

"Oh, Aye!" this laced with an unspoken, yet quite distinct dose of 'yeah, but guess how much of it ended up in my pocket as a result, and after all the grief that I had to go through...'

His colleague who wandered in from the stock room at that point, seemed more sanguine about the whole thing when challenged about the return of voucher hell "Yeah, there was something about that on the memos for today." But then he tried to persuade me that their usual 'buy two, get one free' was actually a better deal. Immune to my counter-proposal that 33% off wasn't actually better than 40% off, he was on the verge of running through the calculations when I fled with my half dozen bottles of Stormhoek Shiraz (they didn't have the Pinotage, but the Shiraz is gorgeous so I was very happy indeed...)

"You'll need some more of these, I've cleaned the shelf out..." was my parting shot.

"Oh, Aye..."

I wonder. Is it a case of one staff member with a less-than-sunny disposition and bad memories of last time (the vouchers, the horrible vouchers!), or will Hugh's new deal not be quite as well-received by the front-line bottle-slingers as it will by the profit-counters at Head Office? A case of the joy not being spread far enough, goodwill bonus-wise, or just the usual "retail sucks, my job is crap, I wish I was dead" issues that you get almost everywhere..? Should Thresher's spend more time educating their staff on the joys of viral marketing, or should the guys and gals behind the counter just suck it up and get the heck on with it for the Good of the Company and, dammit, because it's their job to sell more wine?

Whatever. I'm six bottles of rather excellent wine at a very reasonable price to the good. My weekend's definitely looking up... :)

March 22, 2007 | Filed Under Drink, Marketing | 8 Comments

New Arrival: Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch

It's here. A UK proof copy of Red Seas Under Red Skies, the follow-up to one of my very favourite books of 2006, Scott Lynch's quite wonderful debut, The Lies of Locke Lamora.

So, the pressure is on. This has to be one of the most eagerly awaited and highly anticipated fantasy sequels of recent years, wouldn't you say? Fans will be drooling at the prospect of a second instalment of the saga of the Gentlemen Bastards. Anti-Lynch critics will be gnashing their theoretical fangs, eager for a chance to rip in and find fault with every teensy perceived flaw and possible instance of less-than-perfection.

Me? I'm enjoying it immensely. I'm about 75 pages in (a slow reading weekend, alas) and there's already a grin plastered on my face every time I turn the page. Having read the first two books in Joe Abercrombie's The First Law series, I've realised that dialogue plays a very big part in my enjoyment of a story; bigger than I was perhaps aware of previously. And both Abercrombie and Lynch (sounds like an Ambergris law firm...) provide absolutely superb dialogue - laced with wit, repartee and absolute character consistency - in bucketfuls.

So, whilst only time will tell whether Red Seas... will continue to live up to its early promise, it's certainly showing a great deal of early promise. I'll be sure to let you know once I've found out how it goes over the remaining 570 pages...

[N.B. That's not the finished artwork by the way, just a scan of the proof cover. Click on it to get full details from Amazon.co.uk... and place a pre-order while you're there, why don't you?]

March 20, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 2 Comments

In case you were wondering…

A quick progress round-up on a few past blog posts, for anyone whose curiosity has been piqued but not quite satiated (for some strange reason) by what went before...

Jo and I finally got to the New Model Army exhibition back in February. My favourite exhibit was the original (a.f.a.i.k.) hand-written lyrics for one of NMA's signature songs: 'Vagabonds'. I did take a photo, but the glass case caused a double exposure (or something) so it came out blurry, which was a shame...
HBO are still talking about the forthcoming TV adaptation of Preacher but there are no definite details on their website yet.
So far my Year of the Short Story has gotten off to a slow start... too many great new must-read novels coming in, dammit.
The Test-Tube Alien eventually grew to fill its tube, becoming some sort of horrible, twisted, mutant alien in the process. Which is all to the good, I suppose. Eventually the light on its forehead stopped blinking. But that was a long time after I'd stopped caring...
And three months after my team, Bury FC, were kicked out of the F.A. Cup on a paperwork technicality, we're now 19th in League Two - having achieved the dizzy heights of 9th before this all happened - and haven't won a game in our last 16 outings. You tell me, do you think the team's morale was adversely affected by the F.A.'s decision at all? There's lots more I could say on the subject, but I suspect you'd rather not hear it. Maybe James Barclay will give me a guest slot on Barclay Talks Sport and I can vent my spleen there...
But hey, at least we've finally finished the decorating! Well, apart from a bit more snagging. But all the large areas of wall that need painting are painted. So tonight, after the gym, Jo and I will be girding our collective loins for a trip out to buy new bookcases for the dining room. From Ikea. Wish us luck...

March 20, 2007 | Filed Under Life | Leave a Comment

Fantasy casting: Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box

Let's face it, it's only a matter of time before Joe Hill's rather superb debut novel, Heart-Shaped Box, is made into the multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbuster it deserves to be.

So to help speed things along, a couple of weeks back Jo and I sat down and - after a few beers - sorted out the casting of the principle characters. No, no, don't thank us now, Hollywood. Just invite us to the L.A. Premiere or something. All expenses paid would be nice, it's a heck of a flight from Manchester.

Judas Coyne = Billy Bob Thornton - We both think he'd be prefect for the grizzled ex-rocker, especially if the photo on Jude's MySpace page is anything to go by.

Craddock = Gary Oldman. Who else could convey that sense of manic menace so well?

Georgia = Reese Witherspoon. We've seen her in Walk the Line, so we know she can do the accent, and I bet she'd goth up pretty durn good. Or Jo suggested Selma Blair, who wouldn't need to dye her hair or nuthin'.

Florida = Pick a random blonde. Heck, she'd only be on-screen for a few flashbacks and a cameo or two... there must be enough blondes in Hollywood to choose from, no? Suggest your own, if you feel strongly enough.

Comment away if you have better candidates in mind. No plot spoilers though, if you please!

March 16, 2007 | Filed Under Books, Movies | 9 Comments

Smart thinking: Cory Doctorow on e-novels

Cory Doctorow has some particularly interesting thoughts on issues such as the (long mooted) development of mass-market e-reader technology and its likely impact (or lack of it) on the future of paper-and-print novels, in his latest Locus Online feature.

"The problem ... isn't that screens aren't sharp enough to read novels off of. The problem is that novels aren't screeny enough to warrant protracted, regular reading on screens ... the numbers tell their own story - people who read off of screens all day long buy lots of print books and read them primarily on paper."

March 16, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 2 Comments

Forthcoming titles of note from Orbit UK

Orbit UK sent through their publication schedule for the next 12 months yesterday. A few titles of particular interest (personally speaking) leapt out at me from the list:

'Dead Men's Boots' by Mike Carey - Click for ordering info from Amazon.co.uk

The Execution Channel, Ken MacLeod's near-future uber-dystopia will be out any day now, with an official publication date of April 5th. [Amazon]
Dead Men's Boots, the new Felix Castor novel by Mike Carey is due on September 6th. [Amazon]
Escapement, part three of the Engineer Trilogy by K.J. Parker, will be published in early December. [Amazon]
And, currently scheduled for February '08: 'Untitled Iain M Banks sf'...

Looking forward to all of those (plus the merry hell that they'll be playing with my reading schedule). And I'm sure Orbit would like me to point out that all publication dates are provisional at this stage and may be subject to potential change etc.

March 15, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 6 Comments

Eastercon after all…

Having spent the last six months telling various folks that Jo and I won't be going to Eastercon this year for one reason or another, we've had a change of heart. Seeing as Chester is just an hour down the road from us on a good day, we've decided that we're going to invest in a day pass each and nip down for the Saturday session.

So if anyone is going to be around on the Saturday who particularly wants to say hello for any reason, do let me know and I'll make a point of keeping an eye out for you and we can sit and have a natter. And I'll be driving there and back on the day, so it would be a perfect time to offer to buy me a drink - should you have the strange urge to do so - safe in the knowledge that the worst I can do is ask for an orange juice...

Edit: Thanks to Eddie C for pointing out (within 20 mins of my posting) that I'd put the link to the old, defunct Eastercon. D'oh! More caffeine needed, I reckon...

March 15, 2007 | Filed Under Life | 5 Comments

A brief intermission: Assorted Amusement

I think I'm a bit blogged out at the moment following my marathon post on Friday, and I have a couple of really important project deadlines to meet this week. So here, by way of a short interlude, are some links to some amusing and / or just plain weird stuff that I've stumbled upon recently, one way or another:

Websurdity.com isn't afraid to ask uncomfortable questions about the things the Imperial Government doesn't want You to Know.
Meanwhile, the little green fella says: Watch pirate DVDs you should not!
RPG motivational posters. Takes me back...
Too much roleplaying: bad for your elf-esteem?
Worst Album Covers Ever. They're not kidding.
Odd sculpture from around the world. Some funny, some just... odd.
G3 Beer Machine. Is there nothing that a Mac can't do?
A damn good question for loonie fundies everywhere: Why Can't I own a Canadian?.
Heh. Don't look round...

Somebody had too much time on their hands... And finally, some Cat Stuff. As a good friend of mind once told us when Jo and I asked him whether we should think about getting a cat: "Cats make life better." If that sort of pro-feline thinking is likely to offend you for some bizarre reason, you might want to look away now:

Thank you for bearing with me during this short service interruption. More bookishness just as soon as my deadlines have been met and I have managed to gather the numerous thoughts that are currently rattling around in my head into some sort of bloggable order...

March 13, 2007 | Filed Under Humour | 2 Comments

Five Reasons Why I Blog

I was semi-tagged with this meme about three weeks ago by Paul Raven of the rather superb Velcro City Tourist Board. Three weeks? I know, I know. My excuse is that I've been gathering my thoughts ever since... <cough>

I realise this is now an Old Meme and there's a lot of it around, so I've made a point of not reading anyone else's answers on the topic so as to avoid picking up any of their threads. Paul's own answers can be found here and I'm sure a Technorati search (or two) on the subject will turn up dozens more (okay, about 471 in total...)

Right then, short version first, if you just want to read 'em and move on:

1) To Win Friends and Influence People - Make contact with like minded people and have conversations with them about the things we find mutually fascinating.

2) To Get Rich Quick - Well, no, but certainly to help sustain and develop my career as a freelance webguy by helping me to provide the best service I can to my existing client roster and hopefully put me in touch with potential new clients.

3) To Practice What I Preach - If I can set a decent blogging example for my author clients then more of them might be inspired to take up the blogging habit, which can only be good for them in the long run...

4) To Learn, and Go On Learning - Life's too short to ever stop learning new things, and the best way to find out about all the relevant interesting new things on offer is to let folks know what I'm interested in, then see what other people have to say about what's out there, and then help to spread the word.

5) I Just Can't Get Enough - I'm a frustrated (read: undisciplined, poorly motivated, lazy) wannabe novelist, but although I probably don't have the stones for the long haul it seems that I really, really have to be writing something and blogging gives me an outlet for the random pulses of creativity that wrack my system from time to time.

Long version, y'say? Well, I'm going to use the 'more' link on this one, because otherwise my entire homepage is going to be one huge wall of text until I find the energy to write and post something else...

So, if you're at all interested in the thought processes behind the answers, then please do read on.

Oh, wait! First I have to tag some other folks, right? Seems that 5 is the most popular number, so here goes... take it away:

Joe Gordon
Brian Ruckley - Brian's 5 here
Paul Cornell - Sorry, nothing from Paul. He's very busy and somewhat meme-averse...
John Jarrold
Iain Emsley

March 9, 2007 | Filed Under Life, Work | 10 Comments

Highly Recommended Reading: Black Man by Richard Morgan

I finished the latest novel from British writer Richard Morgan at about 11.30 last night. To say it was a gripping finalé would be understating things by just a tad; I've been absolutely hooked by this book since I started reading it a couple of weeks ago; if I'd had an uninterrupted slice of reading time then I reckon I would have finished it inside of a single sitting, no problem.

Black Man is set in the same milieu - as far as I can tell - as Morgan's various Takeshi Kovacs novels, albeit a good few centuries earlier; about a hundred years into our own future, in fact. Much of our own society is still recognisably extant in Morgan's vision of the future, but there are the three major changes that drive a great deal of the novel's back-story.

The first is that Mars has been colonised - and successfully atmospherically terraformed - by the Western Nations Colony Initiative (COLIN), a supra-governmental corporation with almost unlimited powers of jurisdiction and action. The second is the break-up of the United States of America into three areas: the UN-dominated North-Eastern states, the secessionist Pacific Rim, and the hard-core, ultra-conservative south and bible-belt, or 'Jesusland'.

And the third major change is that genetic engineering has been advanced to the stage where, for a number of years before the period in which the novel is set, governments and corporations have been experimenting with creating a number of human variants; such as the pliant, submissive, male-fantasy 'bonobo' sex-specials, and the regressive, aggressive, lone-wolf uber-warriors; the 'variant thirteens'.

Protagonist Carl Marsalis - the eponymous 'Black Man' - is one such 'thirteen'. Exiled to Mars along with a large number of his brethren, he won the return-ticket lottery and came back to Earth, where he was granted special dispensation as long as he agreeing to work as a bounty hunter for the UNGLA, tracking down rogue thirteens for execution or internment in the tracts; wilderness buffer zones on the fringes of civilised society.

At the start of the book he runs into some trouble with the authorities down in Jesusland, and it takes some COLIN influence to set him free, providing of course that he helps them out with some trouble they're having with a rogue thirteen who's made an unorthodox return from Mars of his own, and who has embarked on a seemingly-random killing spree across the North American continent since splashing down off the Rim States coast.

And that's pretty much where the first 150 pages or so takes us. From there the novel develops into a captivating mix of the sort of adrenaline-fuelled, high-octane action action sequences we've come to expect from Morgan - an author who's shown time and time again that he's never keen on pulling his punches - and some intense, detailed and incredibly effective characterisation.

One of the central premises of the book is that, in this future society, racism - on the basis of skin-colour, at least - has finally become a thing of the past just about everywhere, with the notable exception of the still-benighted and culturally retarded Jesusland territories, of course.

Instead, a new xenophobia has arisen that's based on genetic make-up: the bonobo's are despised as much as they are desired, and the world lives in abject terror of the thirteens. Their anti-social, hunter-gatherer, seemingly conscience-less genetic make-up means they are perfect killers, but at the same time their base-level inability to respect and obey the laws and strictures of civilised authority, or to follow any order that conflicts too highly with their own deeply-inbred instinct for survival, renders them far too dangerous to employ as soldiers; hence their extradition to Mars; hence the potential for panic should the rogue become public knowledge; hence the need to call in Carl Marsalis to finish him as quickly as possible.

Marsalis' ongoing investigation, in the company of COLIN operatives Sergi Ertekin and Tom Norton - both of whom have key roles to play in the unfolding of the Black Man's story - is a study in nature vs nurture, as Marsalis' instincts lead him in one direction, while his COLIN partners' civilised sciences and socially refined behavioural models suggest entirely different avenues of approach. It's a study that mirrors the conflict within Marsalis, as he constantly battles to keep his violent tendencies in check, partly because he has to in order to operate in human society, partly because he doesn't want to hand the victory in the battle for his soul to the scientists and governments that created him as a weapon and then discarded him when public opinion turned against such a weapon's use.

And throughout the novel we're given a great deal of insight into the past histories and psychological make-up of all the main characters, plus the supporting cast with whom they come into contact, and even the villains of the piece. These tend to take the form of - sometimes lengthy - anecdotal interludes which, whilst at times they may make you wish the author would hurry up and get on with the next gun battle or Tanindo fight sequence, are ultimately highly rewarding.

The result of all this character exposition and background detail is a novel whose themes go far deeper than those of the standard secret agent / near-future sf thriller. Morgan paints an entirely convincing and well-structured portrait of the world a century hence; one that takes on added significance in terms of his own over-arcing narrative if it does indeed demonstrate the building blocks of Takeshi Kovacs' environment (I'm sending over a few questions for a UKSFBN piece in a moment. I'll ask him...)

He also peoples that world with characters with whom you can't help but strike up a sense of empathy, whatever their genetic background. Even a stone-cold killer like Marsalis is portrayed as ultimately human (albeit throughout holding himself to be an entirely different species from the mass herd of 'socially feminised' humanity that surrounds him) with concerns and motivations that go back to the very roots of evolved civilisation. You can understand him, identify with him, even as he murders and massacres his way through an existence that the vast majority of us will never experience for ourselves.

And after all, isn't that the whole point of good fiction, whatever the variant?

Very highly recommended indeed.

March 7, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 2 Comments

Long weekend in Northern Ireland

Jo and I have spent the last three days in the always wonderful company of our very good friends Paul and Marie, as guests in their lovely home on the east coast of Northern Ireland.

The ancient province of Ulster is where you'll find of the most gloriously wild and unspoilt coastland in the UK. The more commonly tourist-trodden Giant's Causeway has been largely tamed, but is still quite literally breath-taking, particularly on a typically wind-swept spring day. Paul and Marie live a fair bit further south, where there are far fewer tourists, which means fewer cars, car-parks, visitor centres and litter-bins to mar the landscape.

They do get an awful lot of rain and wind though, and both Friday and Sunday were typical for the time of year: grey, lowering skies with squalls sweeping in from the Irish Sea and rattling the roof tiles. So we stayed in, enjoyed home-cooked chiken korma, chilli con carne and bacon & mushroom frittata, drank bottled Guinness and the Whitewater Brewery's Belfast Ale (thanks to Ed for the recommendation, Paul and I really enjoyed it), sipped snifters of Laphroig cask strength and played poker and Uno when we weren't whiling away the hours in conversation.

But on Saturday the weather lifted and the sun shone through, so we took the opportunity to go for a trek up along the coast for a couple of miles, following a short section of the Ulster Way. Here are a few snapshots I took with my old and un-fancy Fuji Finepix A203:

That water is a fair bit colder than it looks

They don't call it the Emerald Isle for nothing...

Quite lovely, no?

And of course, our destination was a fantastic country pub, where I enjoyed a remarkably fine sirloin steak (Jo had the lemon sole), washed down by a couple of delicious pints of Guinness. Have you noticed how they always taste better after a decent amount of exercise? Must be the lower guilt-content...

Ahhhh... Northern Ireland. Highly recommended.

March 5, 2007 | Filed Under Drink, Food, Life, Photography | 2 Comments

Genre Cover of the Month - Vote Feb '07, Noms open Mar '07

Okay then, here we go with the first selection of nominated covers for the inaugural Genre Files Genre Cover of the Month accolade...

A quick note before we start: Nominations are now open for the March '07 Genre Cover of the Month, so please do head on over to the GCoTM page of the site for details of how to nominate your favourite covers during the coming month.

The Nominees

This month I've selected six book covers for the shortlist, based on the nominations sent in by various people (many thanks to everyone who participated) plus one that I've included myself.

[Clicking on a cover will take you to the relevant Amazon info page, where you'll be able to see a slightly larger cover image...]

The Voting

Please remember, I'm asking you to vote for the strongest book cover, not the best book itself.

It doesn't matter whether you've read the book or not, or whether you liked it or not if you have. What I'm interested in is, in your opinion, which of the six covers is the most effective. Not necessarily the most eye-catching or the most aesthetically pleasing, although both of these factors are important.

In essence though, I'd like to know which of the six covers above would be most likely to persuade you to pick up the book in a bookstore, or to click on a link online, and either buy the book there and then, or at least want to find out more.

In short: which book cover does the job of selling that book the best?

Please use the Feb '07 Poll to register your vote, or send me an email instead and I'll register the vote on your behalf.

If you'd like to discuss the covers, or add a comment as to why you registered your vote for a particular title, then please do feel free to use the comments for this post.

The Winner...

Will be announced when voting closes on March 31st. I'll email the author, publisher, artist / designer to let them know, and ask for any comment they might have on the design of the cover, then post whatever responses I'm able to elicit.

Unnecessary Footnote

Please, don't bother voting dozens of times for your favourite cover. Ballot-stuffing isn't big, or clever, and it's not like we're deciding the fate of the world here or anything, y'know..?

March 1, 2007 | Filed Under Art, Books, Marketing, Publishing | 12 Comments