Happy Cthulumas!

My guaranteed-best-of-the-year seasonal greetings card arrived early this year, and it's another corker from Les Edwards (in his Edward Miller guise), which manages to skillfully combine his love of Lovecraftian horror with the seasonal tradition of pantomine...

All together now: "It's behiiiind yoooouuuu!"

Nearly back on an even keel…

The last few weeks have been a bit intense, both work-wise and otherwise. Following the recent launch of the all-new PS Publishing webstore, as well as the Wordpress-enabled re-launch of John Berylne's Works of Tim Powers fan-site and the re-vamped version of Richard Morgan's homepage, Jo and I promptly jetted off on holiday for a week, to the quite fantastic Mediterranean island of Malta.

We had a fantastic time, but alas, we also received some sad news on our last day there; suffice to say that a family funeral ensued, which we both attended this week just gone. All of which has resulted in something of a backlog - as you'd imagine - although I think I'm pretty much back on top of things now. So much so that I managed to make time today to put together my new, personal blog site at www.darrenturpin.me.uk.

So from now on, that's where I'll be posting all my music, humour, movie and life etc. related posts, leaving The Genre Files free for more bookish material; like the pile of recommended reading that I want to post at some point. I'm also looking at my work schedule in order to free up more time to work on UKSFBN each day, which should result in more regular posts, or at least fewer content gaps. And of course, any work-related material will be posted to www.darrenturpin.co.uk.

Oh, and the eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that I've started signing posts as 'Darren' rather than 'Ariel', both here and over at UKSFBN. The reason? Well, 'Ariel' is an old nick-name from high school that stuck through University and my early days in bookselling. I always liked it, because it was quirky and memorable for folks on the other end of a phone; especially when I rang up busy publicists to blag review copies and author interviews for 'The Alien Has Landed'. But now I'm working freelance I think that using my given name is more professional. And something else happened recently to convince me that 'quirky' isn't always best.

My post on the Long Tail economics of genre fiction got a bit of blogosphere coverage; it was even picked up on by Lou Anders, a US-based editor whose work I have an enormous amount of respect for, which was naturally most gratifying... until Lou made the (not entirely unreasonable) assumption that I was a lady.

Not a problem, easily remedied, and indeed, Paul Cornell actually point out the gender-switch in the comment thread to Lou's post and Lou made the correction. But along the way, he replied to Paul's comment, saying: "next you'll be telling me Ariel doesn't have a tail and live under da sea..."

Ba-dum, tish!

You know what? When someone you respect - and whose opinion of you could potentially be quite important from a work-related point-of-view - makes 'Little Mermaid' jokes about your current nom-de-nick then that's probably a signal that it's time to stop being quite so quirky and focus on the professional instead.

So, 'Ariel' is being phased out, at least on anything that carries a public profile that could reflect on me professionally. Although of course I will still answer to my nick-name when talking to anyone that knows me (Jo won't call me anything else...), and I'll probably still sign emails as 'Ariel' from force of habit. But there you go. A lesson learned.

Genre fiction marketing follow-up - Lou Anders and Mark Chadbourn

Sorry folks, another long, train-of-thought essay of exactly the sort I promised myself I wasn't going to get overly involved in any more. But then, there have been a couple of very interesting follow-up posts to my last post on George Mann's original thoughts about the apparently essential dilemma of marketing genre fiction to either the masses or the hardcore fans, which I felt I had to add to.

Firstly, 'The Big Book Cover Post: Wizards and Spaceships' from Lou Anders of Pyr Books; another specialist genre imprint that I have a huge amount of respect for.

Lou makes a number of good points, a couple of which I'd particularly like to comment on:

"Personally, I do not like the move away from illustration to design that I see coming out from a lot of houses (though it has its place for individual books - I'm talking about a general trend). I think to forgo illustration is to sacrifice one of the core strengths of SF&F and one of its unique selling points."

Generally, I prefer well-illustrated genre fiction book covers to ones that are produced with a strictly 'graphic design' aesthetic in mind. But that's just a personal preference, and doesn't hold true 100% of the time; I've seen some striking and well-designed 'graphic' covers as well. And as fantasy author Joe Abercrombie points out in the comments section of Lou's post: "I don't know that the wider audience ... are necessarily put off by genre covers, but they certainly are put off by REALLY BAD covers."

Absolutely right. It applies to hardcore genre fans and probably tenfold to the general reader. Genre fiction book covers ought to be a demonstration of self-confidence and celebration, yes. They should unashamedly wear their genre hearts on their sleeves, absolutely. If you're selling a book about dragons and want to attract the attention dragon-fans, then a dragon on the cover is a good idea? Just make sure it's a stylish, well-illustrated dragon that has a measure of genuine artistic merit in its own right, not some cartoonish, lumpen sketch, or even the dragon-fans might say no.

And what if the book has some genre elements, but has the potential to appeal to a wider audience - through the exceptional quality of the prose, or the range of themes, concepts and sub-texts the author explores, or the incredible catharsis inherent in the principle character's life story or situation, etc. - what if it's a whole lot more than a simple scion quest / space war adventure story? How do you strike the balance; ensure you don't cross that oh, so tricky invisible line? Lou Anders has an answer:

"...you do so neither by hiding / omitting your genre elements nor presenting them in an off-putting, garish manor, but by presenting them in a mature, intriguing, attractive, inclusive, compelling 21st century light."

Which, by the way, I think applies equally to everything from the cover blurb to the author photo on the inside sleeve to the content of the accompanying press release that's sent out with review copies, as much as it does to the cover art itself.

Returning to cover art, specifically, Lou also quotes from an off-thread conversation with illustrator / artist / designer John Picacio who sums up the reason why the genre really does need to give itself a shot in the arm when it comes to self-confidence and belief:

"The field must visually celebrate itself, rather than run away from itself ... When sf/fantasy publishing shows an insecurity about its visual strengths, that insecurity rubs off negatively not only on our audiences, but in the broader media, and we push ourselves backwards every time we do that."

If we, as genre readers and genre fans, stopped worrying so much about what the wider mainstream media thought about our books - taking it to the extreme: ignoring the mainstream media completely and focusing almost entirely on the specialist genre presses, blogs, webzines, print 'zines - then the mainstream media will soon get bored and leave us the hell alone to enjoy ourselves in peace, right?

Well, fantasy / horror author Mark Chadbourn thinks this could be a dangerous road to go down, and says so in 'Selling Fantasy by the Pound' on his JackofRavens.com blog.

Mark was a journalist for many years before he became a full-time fiction writer and also writes for TV here in the UK, so he's seen the impact of the aforementioned Long Tail economics on three media channels: music, print and television.

Mark's main argument against a policy of appealing to the core genre fiction fans centres on his experience of the music industry:

"...if it [the fan-focused approach] was applied to the whole industry I would have real problems. In the music industry, where I worked for a while, the marketeers have struggled. By focusing on the tribalist music fan that has emerged over the last twenty years, they have had trouble gaining breakout hits from genres. Attention shifted to marketing bland fare that would appeal to all tastes to gain those mainstream hits, and sales have fallen dramatically (yes, I know there are many other factors, but this is a core concern)."

Which brings in an earlier discussion on 'quality fantasy', which was actually sparked by another Chadbourn post, 'Are RPGs killing fantasy?', in which he called for fantasy writers to embrace their weird side and distance themselves from the clichés and standardised fantasy tropes made overly familiar by a plethora of fantasy-themed computer games.

Can you achieve all those aims at once? Can you write high-quality, literary genre fiction that's successfully marketed to a core audience of fans, yet still has enough break-out potential to escape the genre-ghetto and achieve mass-market sales?

Mark thinks you can:

"I love fantasy, science fiction and horror. I believe these three genres are appealing to mainstream tastes, if some way can be found to communicate their values to the casual browser. I'm afraid that an across-the-board retreat to the 'core fan model' will ghettoize them even further and lead to a long-term decline. The best way for the industry, I think is - to use music industry analogy - hardcore labels for the purist, and general labels to attract new users."

Well, surely this model already exists within the publishing industry, and has for years? If you'll excuse the lengthy aside and apologies to anyone not specifically mentioned by name:

At one extreme you have the very definite 'hardcore' independent presses - such as the UK's Tartarus Press, who cater for very specialist niches. Moving up the scale you find successful niche-indies like Pendragon (horror fiction in all its guises), Telos (TV guides and genre novellas) and Elastic (genre short fiction collections and anthologies). Then there are larger indies - PS Publishing in the UK, Subterranean Press, Cemetery Dance et. al. in the US - who produce a wider range of authors and formats across the whole spectrum of genres, and also larger specialists such as Titan (UK graphic novels).

Crossing to the 'corporate' ladder we start with smaller imprints, whose publication range may actually be narrower than the larger indies, but whose financial backing means they can usually spend more on advertising, marketing and online promotion and so reach a wider audience. Solaris are one such: self-declared as a midlist imprint, still relatively small but growing strongly and with the financial muscle of Games Workshop and the Black Library publishing operation behind them, backing up their online know-how.

Around about the same level are the genre titles that are published by major corporates who don't have a specific genre imprint - Penguin, Transworld, Hodder, Headline and co. all put out titles with varying degrees of blatant genre-ness as part of their overall fiction lists.

Finally, we get to the larger, longer-established, specific genre imprints of major corporate publishing houses, including HarperCollins' Voyager, Orion's Gollancz Books and Little Brown's Orbit. The latter, with the recent launch of Orbit US and Orbit Australia, now serves the three major English-speaking markets (four, including Canada via the US), giving it immense reach and influence. And they all bring a highly effective mix of established bestsellers and innovative new talent to the market.

Thanks to Gollancz and Orbit in particular, a number of new genre authors have been published for the first time in the past couple of years, and others who have established themselves in their local markets (Australian author Margo Lanagan) or via the independent presses (Joe Hill with his debut collection 20th Century Ghosts from PS, now a Gollancz author) have subsequently been introduced to a much wider audience; some of those authors even making national bestseller lists in the process (Trudi Canavan, for instance).

So surely, with that sort of established mix of 'hardcore' and 'general' labels, it's just a question of the writer deciding which audience their work is most likely to appeal to and then approaching a publisher who is geared towards publishing for that audience?

Well, of course it's nowhere near as simple as that, and Mark Chadbourn has a few further words of warning for the genre writer:

"But that is a fiendish and crippling trap for the writer. Once you establish yourself in one pool or the other it will be very hard to crossover and gain, on the one hand, the new readers and wider sales that sustain your career, and, on the other, credibility that is just as valuable a commodity in the internet-empowered world."

So it sounds like you can either - as a genre author - choose to write specialised, credibility-rich, literary fiction, knowing full well that you'll probably end up appealing to a much smaller pool of potential readers (writing for the Long Tail audience), or narrow your horizons; dumbing-down in the process, in order to appeal to the RPG-influenced, bland-fare consuming mass market and (hopefully) laugh all the way to the bank (moving your work away from the 'long tail' and into the 'short head', where the bestsellers feed).

Of course, you could try do both at the same time. Many authors do, either openly or - I'm sure - pseudonymously.

Or you could try to find another way: by helping the readership to raise its standards; to expect, to want, to demand much more from their genre fiction, and thereby move the mainstream audience closer to the credible, literary end of the spectrum. In other words, expanding the middle ground between 'long tail' and 'short head' (it would help if I had time to draw the graph, I'll try to add one at a later date) and creating greater potential for higher quality fiction to thrive.

If the readership demands richer, better quality genre fiction, and the readership then votes with its credit cards and buys more of it, then the publishers of the world will respond by publishing more of it. And I know for a fact that this would make a lot of genre fiction publishers immensely happy.

Anyhow, I'm going to go away and ruminate some more, see if I can pull a few thoughts together into something resembling a reasonably coherent framework. Or a polemic. Or another rambling essay (most likely). Won't happen for a while yet though... far too much interesting work happening right now, and an imminent and much-needed holiday to enjoy as well.

Feel free to comment away if the urge takes you. I'll try to keep track, but can't promise anything like a coherent response for a couple of weeks or so...

Essential reading: George Mann on packaging the SF & Fantasy genres

George Mann of Solaris Books has posted an insightful piece on the Solaris approach towards the design, packaging and presentation of their genre fiction book covers, in a feature called 'Marrying Authors to their Market: a Genre Perspective', over on the Solaris Books main website.

He opens with a couple of paragraphs that neatly explain the two principle strategies that are open to genre publishers when it comes to choosing a cover design, along with the primary risks associated with each:

1) Attempt to reach as wide an audience as theoretically possible - primarily by 'neutralising' the cover in order to avoid scaring away potential mainstream book-buyers - which runs the risk that the book might get lost in a no-mans'-land somewhere between the two.

2) Target the 'core' genre fiction audience - by making it blatantly obvious through the design of the book cover that this is a genre title with little or no pretensions to mainstream appeal whatsoever - which runs the risk of limiting the sales potential to a relatively small segment of the overall market.

Solaris Books, since their inception and launch earlier this year, have stuck determinedly to option 2) and it's an approach which has paid handsome dividends, as George tells us:

"For Solaris, this approach has so far served us proud. The list is defiantly midlist, aimed at a core readership, and as both individuals and publishers we revel in the genre, in all its aspects and forms – novels, movies, manga, comics. We celebrate our inner geeks. Although we recognise there are other successful ways to package books and appeal to readers, we've chosen to go in this direction. Our books look like science fiction and fantasy novels, with all the stereotypical trappings, and we've received a great deal of praise from both critics and readers for our celebration and support of the genre. Our lists – both Solaris and The Black Library – go from strength-to-strength, and for now, our strategy remains steadfast: we publish books for SF/F fans, for the SF/F section of the bookshop."

Of course, just sticking any old space ship or dragon on a book cover won't guarantee success. You still have to come up with a design that's striking, appeals to the right audience, and yet isn't so crushingly, embarrassingly awful that even the most die-hard genre fiction fan will be too embarrassed to be seen reading the book on public transport. Which is something else that Solaris have managed quite brilliantly to-date, with a selection of (imho) extremely good covers, like these:

I think this is absolutely the right approach to take, and the roaring success of Solaris is something that every genre publisher should be paying attention to. But the 'packaging and cover design' riff only tells half the story.

We live in an age of increasingly influential Long Tail economics (see Wikipedia for a useful summary: "products that are in low demand or have low sales volume can collectively make up a market share that rivals or exceeds the relatively few current bestsellers and blockbusters, if the store or distribution channel is large enough"), and genre fiction is a product area that's massively impacted by the principles of the theory.

As students of the Long Tail know and as Chris Anderson makes clear in his book of the same title (which, incidentally, every publisher and author working in genre fiction needs to read): in this Internet-enabled information age, data on the variety and wide availability of a range of products in a given product area is - for practical purposes - both limitless and free.

From the point of view of the Long Tail audience for a particular product, the most pressing task is therefore to filter that vast flood of data in order to select the products that offer the best fit for the customer's needs. In short: they need to boost the signal-to-noise ratio to the point where they can reach an informed purchasing decision. Similarly, from the point of view of the producer, the trick is to somehow rise above the vast sea of info-noise; to make their product stand out and be noticed, yet to do so in a manner that emphasises its authentic appeal to the potential customer.

One of the best ways to accomplish both these tasks is via the medium of key, relevant information aggregators; those processes and processors who cut through the noise, pick out the best products on offer and then tell other people about them. Customers need to find trusted aggregators whose taste coincides with their own and who can be relied upon to tell it to them straight. Producers need to develop strong relationships with those same aggregators, in order to keep their products in focus and secure as much quality, targeted coverage as possible.

In the case of genre fiction, the aggregators take the shape of genre news websites, regular bloggers, knowledgeable booksellers, reputable critics and reviewers. Publishers and authors who understand the theories and forces involved are already tapping the ability of these aggregators to filter, disseminate and broadcast their knowledge-backed recommendations to a targeted, relevant, interested audience, and as a result they are driving forward sales of their titles.

George and the Solaris crew understand the Long Tail principle (along with a whole bunch of others to do with permission-based marketing, inherent remarkability and concepts like the ideavirus) which is why you'll always see them at genre conventions and gatherings of fans, why they maintain a regularly-updated and interesting blog (When Gravity Fails) and why if you're a reviewer, or a blogger, or a web 'zine editor, and you drop them a line, there's a good chance - if your site is professionally presented, or well enough regarded in terms of its Technorati authority, or if your enthusiasm is just incredibly obvious and obviously genuine - that they'll get right back to you with whatever information you need, perhaps a review copy of the book you're interested in, maybe even a promise to pass on your questions to one of their authors for an email interview.

All this is because at Solaris they know that by reaching out to those key aggregators they're potentially talking to many more (two, or three, or a dozen, or a few thousand) interested, enthusiastic, switched-on potential book-buyers. As a result, you'll find reviews and general coverage of Solaris titles all over the blogosphere and wider genre-flavoured corners of the Internet: 40,600+ hits on Google for "Solaris Books", and counting...

The Solaris crew aren't alone out there, either: there are publishers and business managers and publicists at many other independent presses - and even some of the larger genre imprints - who have an equal eye for and appreciation of the possibilities on offer. But alas, some of those guys are hamstrung by the corporate rule-book; locked into dictated, old-school ways of doing business which haven't changed much since Amazon appeared on the scene; which is why they might not seem quite so active (although dammit, they're doing their best).

And then there are those guys who, for whatever reason - sheer disinterest, the corporate grind, a genuine lack of time to read and re-train, higher-ups who don't give a shit about genre fiction and don't care who knows it, whatever - just don't seem to get it. If you're a genre author who's stuck with one of those guys as your publisher / editor / publicist, then all is not lost; but you probably are going to have to roll your sleeves up and get stuck in yourself. But then, that's no bad thing either, providing you do it well and do it with enthusiasm and genuine interest.

Anyhow, to return (at last) to the original topic of cover-design and offer a quick summary:

As a matter of policy, Solaris Books have declared that they're very firmly targeted at the 'core' genre market, and the 'core' genre market has responsed well, by buying Solaris titles. But I think the essential 'genre-ness' - and high quality - of their cover design is just one key ingredient of their overall recipe for success; their aesthetic excellence is backed up by the whole gestalt attitude of everyone at Solaris Books, one that says: "We're genre fiction fans, and we're publishing for genre fiction fans, which is why we want to talk to them and find out about the sort of books they want to read; so we can make sure that those are the books we publish..."

I think it's a great policy, indeed quite possibly the only one that really makes any sort of Long Tail sense. After all, why waste money, effort and a book's increasingly limited and precious exposure-time (one senior genre fiction editor revealed at a panel at this year's Fantasycon that most UK bookstores now only give titles a six week lead-time before they insist on returning them to the publisher for full credit) on a scatter-shot approach that you hope will result in increased sales and market-share, when instead you could focus all your energy on a key segment of the overall audience; one that's that's already receptive and ready to hear what you have to say?

In short: until you know you've talked to as many fans and regular readers of a given book's relevant genre(s) as you can possibly reach - as many interested, excited, purchase-pre-disposed, potential book-buyers as you can find - then why on Earth would you want to take the gamble of trying to talk to just anyone? Especially when it ought to be painfully obvious by now that most non genre-fiction readers and fans just aren't listening...

So, yes, I look forward to seeing many more fine and very definite genre fiction titles with well-designed, eye-catching genre-fiction artwork on their covers, from Solaris and all the other publishers with a similarly switched-on outlook. I hope those same books will continue to fly off the bookstore shelves and online catalogues. And, speaking as one of those aforementioned information aggregators, I hope to continue to play my own small part in that process...

A short pause to reflect and reorganise

With the launch of the long-awaited PS Publishing webstore this week I ought to be able to find a bit more room in my head for other things (although there's still plenty of work to be done for PS and I certainly won't be slacking). As a result, I think the time has come for me to put a long-pondered blog reorganisation into effect.

Here's the plan:

The Genre Files from now on will be all about the books [resists the urge to add 'baby!'] and the graphic novels, and the authors, and anything interesting that that's going on in the world of genre publishing and book marketing that particularly grabs my attention. I might even hold forth on the subject of effective book marketing from time to time and, who knows, maybe even post a link round-up or two... oh, and what do you think of the new decor? Stylish, no?

www.DarrenTurpin.co.uk is my recently set-up (but not yet fully functional) work-related blogfolio (if I can get away with that) and that's where I'll be talking about the work I'm doing with all my clients: authors, publishers, SMEs, the lot. I'll be adding a number of short case studies as I go along as well.

UK SF Book News is just over a year old and is ticking over nicely at the moment, with what seems to be a pretty good mix of shorter news-bite length announcement / press release / what's on items interspersed with longer mini-interview and featurette pieces, and I hope the situation will be able to continue pretty much indefinitely.

And finally... at some point I'll be setting up a new blog at www.darrenturpin.me.uk (unless I can think of a more interesting - and available - domain name in the meantime; one that isn't quite so narcissistic and navel-gazey, perhaps). But anyhow, that's where I'll be talking about all the other stuff I find interesting: music, food & drink, football, photography, art, gardening, nature... ah, hell, whatever I feel like. I'll be thinking of it more as an aide-memoire and extended memo-to-self than any sort of broadcast piece and if nobody else ends up reading it then I really won't mind.

So that's the plan. Still very busy at the moment though, and with a week's holiday coming up fast, so it might be a month or so before all the pieces are in place. But so be it.

All together now: "Dis place (aaah-ah!) is comin' like a ghost town…"

Bit quiet around here lately, I know, but I'm afraid it's a situation that's quite likely to continue for a little while yet...

The thing is, I had a cunning plan, way back when. I was going to finish the new, full content version of Richard Morgan's website (almost done, hopefully it'll be live by the end of the week) and then spend most of September working on a few side-projects of my own, catching up with long overdue blog content, running a few admin tasks that have been on the to-do list for a good while, that sort of thing.

But the Morgan site has been taking a little longer than I planned, if only for all the usual miscellaneous reasons (note to any other would-be or relatively new-start freelancers: when estimating the length of time a job will take, always double it, then add a bit...) And then I got a full schedule data update through from Pete at PS Publishing late last week, which means that I can now crack on with finishing the long-awaited new e-commerce version of the PS website, which is what I've been doing - along with a few other update jobs - pretty much solidly since then.

Having said that, I did manage to get a basic blog setup started for my own work-related info / promo / portfolio site, which is now live at www.darrenturpin.co.uk, although it definitely needs some more work, particularly round about the Portfolio and with regard to contact details etc.

But yes, anyhow, the PS job should take up most of September, which means that my other plans will have to return to the back-burner for a while. October is booked pretty much solid already, and I'm hoping that I'll get chatting about websites to a few folks at Fantasycon the weekend after next, so hopefully I'll end up busy through November. Which means I might have to wait until December to get everything sorted out properly. C'est la vie, and I'm certainly not complaining about being busy.

Although having said that, if I can sneak some schedule space in the meantime, then what I'm hoping to do is: finish DT.co.uk and expand the range of content I'm posting there (marketing, productivity, GTD, freelance working, that sort of thing), then re-template The Genre Files (it's looking a little dark and dingy in here, compared to a few of the cleaner templates I've seen online recently) and re-focus the content on books, bookishness, publishing and related topics, whilst moving out the more general, chatty and / or personal stuff into a new blog. Possibly at darrenturpin.me.uk, possibly at lessordinary.me.uk ("aiming to live a life less ordinary..." yes? no? good? okay? crap?) which I registered a while back on whim and haven't done anything with yet. And of course, I'll be keeping things ticking over on UKSFBN and I will try to pick up the pace again here, pending the re-design...

Phew. Wish me luck!

YouTube music: Divine Comedy, Seasick Steve, deadboy & the Elephantmen, Black Keys

Ended up on YouTube earlier, following a link that James Lovegrove sent me (to The Divine Comedy's stab at the perfect Eurovision song - very funny indeed), and I ended up sniffing around for a few minutes to see what I could find by a few of my favourite artists. Here are the first few I came across:

The Divine Comedy perform an acoustic version of their haunting song 'A Lady of a Certain Age' live on the streets of Paris:

Seasick Steve, who plays better blues-rock on three strings than most bands manage with twelve or more, gives it his all, live on Jools Holland's 2006 Hootenanny show:

The video for 'Stop, I'm Already Dead', by deadboy & the Elephantmen:

The video for 'Your Touch' by The Black Keys. Doesn't quite capture the sheer intensity of their live shows, but it's still a damn good track:

Booktour.com now open to UK registrations

BookTour.com is a new website - that's been launched by The Long Tail author Chris Anderson and co. - that lists details of authors' promotional tours.

It's simple and effective, easy to grasp, easy to use. Admittedly their homepage is a bit sparse and minimalist and they could do with a few usability enhancements here and there, but they have been adding-on plenty of new features recently (is their blog is anything to go by) and apparently a whole raft of further improvements are on the way.

And they've just opened the site to UK authors, readers and publishers: readers can now search for author events taking place in their immediate locality (or anywhere else, for that matter), whilst authors can upload information about their books to their profile page, and authors or publicists can post details of forthcoming book tour information.

There's not much UK info on there at the moment, which means it's a great time for any authors out there who are on tour in the near future to get on there and post their info. It's very easy to stand out in a small crowd and I think the sheer usefulness of a site like this will mean that its popularity will inevitably grow as word spreads, so it'll get busier and noisier as time goes on.

By which point they'll hopefully have launched customised search options (cross-referencing particular genres with UK-specific locations, for instance, so users can search for all sf / fantasy / horror events taking place in their hometown, or across the UK), customisable RSS feeds (it would be great if the feeds were based on the results of the aforementioned searches, but I don't know how technically feasible that might be) and some of the other useful-sounding enhancements that they're working on at the moment.

Anyway, if you're an author or a publicist, check the site out and get your data listed. And if you're a reader or a fan, start running those searches now, just in case you do find something. I'll bet the site's development team will be watching the traffic logs pretty closely to see where the activity is, and the more UK users they spot the faster they'll push through the UK-specific content sections of the site...

Son of Scalpel rising from the ashes..?

I'm very glad to see that following the recent and rather ignominious collapse of what looked to be an exceedingly promising review outlet, one half of the Scalpel editorial team - Jonathan McCalmont - has declared that he's contemplating starting over and trying again with a similar concept and framework.

This information should be filed under Good News, and I for one welcome our new online genre fiction reviewing overlords.

And on a similar, review-related note, Paul Raven points anyone interested in the subject in the direction of Paul Kincaid's thoughts on the topic. Well worth a read if you're a reviewer, a reviews editor, or rely on book reviews when contemplating your book purchases.

Meme-Tagged: 10 Blogging Tips

James over at Big Dumb Object has tagged me with the Blogging Tips meme that's doing the rounds... let's see... I have to copy and past such-and-such then add a thingummy... okay:

-Start Copy-

It's very simple. When this is passed on to you, copy the whole thing, skim the list and put a * star beside those that you like. (Check out especially the * starred ones.)

Add the next number (1. 2. 3. 4. 5., etc.) and write your own blogging tip for other bloggers. Try to make your tip general.

After that, tag 10 other people. Link love some friends!

Just think- if 10 people start this, the 10 people pass it onto another 10 people, you have 100 links already!

1. Look, read, and learn. ****
-http://www.neonscent.com

2. Be, EXCELLENT to each other. ******
-http://www.bushmackel.com

3. Don't let money change ya! ***
-http://www.therandomforest.info

4. Always reply to your comments. ****
-http://chattiekat.com

5. Link liberally -- it keeps you and your friends afloat in the Sea of Technorati. ***
-http://chipsquips.com

6. Don't give up - persistance is fertile. **
-http://www.velcro-city.co.uk

7. Give link credit where credit is due.**
-http://www.sfsignal.com

8. Follow your own path. Do anything you want to, it's your blog. *
-http://www.bigdumbobject.co.uk

9. Don't put off until tomorrow what you can blog today. Backlogs are the primary cause of Bloggers' Block.
-http://www.thegenrefiles.com

-End Copy-

My own addition may give you an idea of my current state of mind, vis-a-vis blogging... :(

Now then, ten people to tag in turn? Right then:

Joe Gordon
George Walkley
Iain Emsley
Andrew Wheeler
Niall Harrison
Brian Ruckley
Mark Chadbourn
Mark Morris
Philip Palmer
Steve Wilson

Go to it, chaps!

[Edit 26.07.07] Andrew Wheeler quite rightly points out that this sort of exercise is a blatant bit of self-promotion on the part of the original blogger and is tantamount to chain-letter spam, which is perfectly true. But then, he still joined in... ;)

Hopefully I haven't lost whatever credibility I might have had in Andrew's eyes as a result. And hey, just for the record, if it hadn't been something vaguely useful, like actual blogging tips, then I'd most probably have ignored it as well... before anyone tags me with anything too similar.

Feed Control: seven highly recommended genre aggregator blogs

I was forced to take drastic action a couple of weeks ago: having realised that there was just no way I was ever going to be able to keep up with the vast output from the 150+ RSS feeds that I'd merrily subscribed to over the past year or so, I took a deep breath, reached for the 'unsubscribe' check-box, and instigated a full-scale cull.

It was tough, but in the end I managed to unsubscribe from over a hundred. I started with anything just too prolific for me to have a hope in hell of keeping up with (Boing! Boing! was the first to go) and then moved onto the bulk of the expendables: Marketing / Web 2.0 themed blogs that I'd read one or two interesting posts on a while back and had subscribed to out of habit, before I knew any better...

Then there were a few that I was genuinely reluctant to let go: really interesting blogs written by authors, editors and publishers whose work I've read and enjoyed, or whose blogs I know of by their deservedly high repute: Neil Gaiman, Lou Anders, Ken MacLeod, Charlie Stross, John Scalzi, Jeff Vandermeer, Tobias Buckell, to name but a few...

Why did I drop their feeds? Simple time-availability issues: these guys all tend to post regularly on a wide range of topics; too regularly and too widely for me to keep proper tabs on it all. Don't get me wrong, it's the sort of material that's great to sit and read and ponder if you have the time; the sort of material I'd love to be able to keep up with, if I could.

Besides which, it actually occurred to me, about half-way through the process, that if I really wanted to keep a weather-eye on the most pertinent debates of the day, or to be alerted whenever the aforementioned authors, editors and publishers post something particularly fascinating, then it's actually quite easy to arrange. All I really need to do is make sure I was subscribed to the best aggregator sites that I could find; the ones that regularly pull together and present all the best material from around the genre-flavoured bits of the web.

And so here - in no particular order and for the benefit of several readers - is my personal selection of seven highly-recommended genre aggregator blogs; the pick of the crop that I've found to-date. Some of these guys write opinion pieces as well (which is great) but in general, I keep them in a Google Reader tag-group called 'Genre - Essential' because they can be relied upon to aggregate regularly and aggregate well...

• Joe Gordon - The Forbidden Planet Blog Log. Joe is a pro-blogger in the truest sense of the phrase; he actually gets paid by his employer, UK genre-specialist retailer Forbidden Planet International, to write entries for the FP Blog. As a result, you can expect several entries per day from Joe, mainly with a general books and comics them, but encompassing a wide range of diverse sf-ish or graphic art -esque sub-topics: everything from previews of the latest Doctor Who merchandise to reports on Iranian political cartooning. He's also usually first out of the traps with the latest press releases from UK publishers, and isn't afraid to speak his mind when the occasion warrants, either.
• Niall Harrison - Torque Control. Niall is the current editor of the British Science Fiction Association's Vector magazine. He's often outspoken (he isn't afraid to chuck stones around his own glass house either), always eloquent, and produces regular Links round-ups (complete with pun-based titles).
• Iain Emsley - Yatterings. Iain used to run the online bookstore The Aust Gate until he decided to focus his energies on blogging instead. The results are great: Yatterings is regularly updated with interesting news snippets and he regularly takes the time to conduct in-depth author interviews.
• Paul Raven - Velcro-City Tourist Board. Velcro-City is definitely one of the most rich and diverse sf / culture / science / tech blogs around. Paul brings all his interests to the table, so there's always a great mix of content, and his 'Fresh from teh intarwebs' round-ups are a great way of catching up.
• James Bloomer - Big Dumb Object. James is another regular, nay prolific, poster; he usually manages several updates a day on a wide variety of topics, with plenty of Doctor Who content to explore, if you're a fellow fan. Again, another great site for keeping up to date with the most important news and current events.
• JP Frantz and John DeNardo - SF Signal. Online since July 2003, SF Signal is a team-produced blog/zine with regularly updated content that ranges from news snippets and round-ups to book reviews, competitions, readers polls and more. (It's pretty much the sort of thing I always aspired to with The Alien Online, but had to give up on when it all got to be too much on the admin side of things.)
• Andrew Wheeler - The Antick Musings of GBH Hornswoggler, Gent. Andrew Wheeler used to blog professionally for The SF Bookclub of America, before they decided (for reasons best known only to themselves) to let him go. At that point he started using Antick Musings as a Blog in Exile, putting out the same extremely regular round-ups of interviews, reviews, podcasts, news and links, until recently when he was taken on by the far more far-sighted ComicMix, so check out his posts there as well. This guy is the uber-blogger's uber-blogger. Seriously, I have no idea where he finds the time...

So, there you have it. My current list of the seven best genre fiction-themed aggregator blogs. Not that these are the only feeds I read, of course. There are several other close-call candidates in the 'Genre - Important' tag folder, including British Fantasy Society News, the aforementioned ComicMix, Irish Sci-Fi News, SFScope, Neth Space and, of course, Locus Online. Then there are a bunch of genre publisher blogs: Orbit, Solaris, Pyr, Subterranean, TTA and some general publisher / book news / bookish blogs as well.

But hey, this is by no means intended to be an exhaustive list and I'm always open to new sources of news and hard fact, so please feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments. If anyone suggests anything I find particularly fascinating, I'll run an update in a week or three.

Facebooked

I've finally succumbed and joined that-there Facebook thing, after receiving a friend request from Paul Cornell this morning. Paul's such a lovely chap (as well as writing some of the very best Doctor Who scripts of the last three series) that I just felt it would have been supremely churlish of me to refuse. And besides, he's going to be turning 40 very soon, and I'd hate to upset him this close to the big day... >:)

So, anyhow, I'm on there now - under my nom-de-RL, Darren Turpin (not to be confused with the other Darren Turpin on there, who may or may not be the other other Darren Turpin, the one who writes video game reviews for several publications; he isn't me either, in case you were wondering...) - if anyone wants to, you know, be my friend. Hey, I promise to share my sweets and swap my bestest star wars cards and not tell tales on you and let you use my tree-house, and everything. Can't say fairer than that.

Seriously, though, does anyone know if Facebook has a genuinely practical application, or is it just yet another dangerous, time-consuming, life-sucking fad? No, please, do let me know, I'm genuinely interested in whether or not I ought to be talking to my clients about developing a presence on there...

Recent radio silence…

Spent the best part of last week in the picturesque seaside town of Tenby, down in Pembrokeshire, South Wales. I was there on family business: my Nanna - who'll be 91 years old in just a few weeks - decided a few months back that she probably wasn't going to be able to cope through another winter on her own (my Grandad having passed away a couple of summers ago) so it was high time she relocated to a bungalow in Leeds.

A very good decision, if you ask me: her old house, was horribly inaccessible for someone of her advanced years (halfway up a hill, with steep steps at the front and back) and she's now much closer to most of my family and only an hour from Jo and I in Manchester. And it was a very brave decision, too: leaving the home she's lived in for the past 56 years to start a new life at 91 is just an incredible thing to do (and it was her decision, too; nobody pressured her into it) and I have nothing but admiration for her.

So, being the dutiful type and eager to assist in any way I could, I went on down to help out with the move: packing up the last few boxes, waving Mum, Dad and Nanna off on their car journey back to Leeds, then coordinating with the removal guys at the tail-end of the week, before making my own way back home by train on Friday.

The thing about Tenby: lovely place to visit, nice place to live if you fancy a bit of peace & quiet (except for the summer season, which can get a bit hairy), but not exactly what you'd call a wi-fi hot-spot. Hence my complete lack of T'Internet access all week, and the subsequent mad scramble to sort through my email backlog mountain and catch up with various work-related tasks (and resulting lack of blogging here) since I've been back at the weekend.

Of course, a week to myself with no WWW access - plus a six-hour train journey at the end of it - meant that I was able to read a whole two books (Charlie Huston's second Joe Pitt novel, No Dominion, the second of John Connolly's Charlie Parker novels, Dark Hollow) and make a good start on a third (K.J. Parker's Evil For Evil - finally!). And this, sadly, is something of a personal best since I knocked the daily commute on the head, not counting holiday reading...

And here - just in case you're contemplating a holiday, or even retiring to the coast (I know where you can buy a very nice semi - in need of redecoration, true, but in a great location) - are a few scenic shots of Tenby that I snapped off with my trusty old Fuji Finepix on the Monday evening. This was the last spell of sunshine that I was able to enjoy before the rain-clouds set in for the rest of the week.

The subject matter: St Catherine's Island (complete with largely-derelict C18th fort), the approach to Castle Hill (with a section of the old town walls), and the old lifeboat house (now replaced by a shiny, modern one, from where this last photo was taken).

Back to the regular genre-fiction-stuff next time I find a spare moment to put fingers to keyboard...

New Music: Broooooooce! Live in Dublin

I'm really quite unfeasibly excited right now. My 2CD + DVD copy of the new Bruce Springsteen live album - Live in Dublin with the Sessions Band - has just arrived from Play.com, (where it's a few quid cheaper than either Amazon.co.uk or CD-Wow, folks!)

I've been a Springsteen fan since I was 12, and two of the best gigs I've ever been to were three-hour Springsteen spectaculars. One of those was at the MEN Arena, when Bruce and the 20-odd-piece Sessions band raised the roof with everything from tracks from the Seeger Sessions album to gospel sing-alongs (say one thing for those Christian types, they do know how to organise a good sing-along) to bluegrass / roots versions of some of his classic tracks. I loved the version of 'Cadillac Ranch' that he played that night; unfortunately he didn't repeat that one in Dublin, but then there are a whole bunch of new renditions for me to hear now, so that'll do me nicely. Wonder if Jo will let me watch the DVD tonight..?

And yes, I know what you might be thinking. But then if Born in the USA is the only Springsteen album you've ever heard, you're missing out on a whole career's worth of quite fantastic music. That was his most commercial and radio-friendly album, but he's been writing and playing great songs since the early '70s, and his latest outing takes him into the realms of Amerciana / roots music, with a collection of traditional bluegrass, blues and gospel tunes with a huge sound that really does have to be heard to be believed.

So if you're a fan of Bob Dylan, or just know how to appreciate a damn good singer / songwriter when you hear one, then do give Mr S another go. I really think you might be rather pleasantly surprised.

Oh, and if anyone needs me this afternoon, I'll be in my headphones...

Sergeant Pepper turns 40

From Joe Gordon's always-excellent and informative Forbidden Planet blog, a timely reminder that today is the 40th anniversary of an album that is widely regarded as being one of the most influential, the most revolutionary, simply the greatest, of all time:

I've become very fond of this particular collection of tunes in quite a short space of time. Although I've been familiar with a number of the album's more famous tracks ('With a Little Help From my Friends', 'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds', 'When I'm Sixty-Four') for years, I hadn't actually heard it in its entirety until, believe it or not, March of this year...

The thing is, I've been listening to various collections of the Beatles' singles for a while, but for some reason I hadn't really taken the time to get to know their music better. But then, back in February, I picked up that month's issue of Mojo, with a cover CD of cover versions of the album, and - more importantly - a lengthy article on the making of the original.

It wasn't until I read this piece that I fully appreciated the depth of Sergeant Pepper's importance or the very real pinnacle of creative accomplishment that it represents. I'd always assumed it was a fairly typical piece of work for the time; but not so.

The Beatles, aided and abetted by legendary producer George Martin, managed to create - with nothing more than the Abbey Road Studio's ageing four-track recording equipment and a couple of slaved-together tape machines - the sort of sonic landscapes and effect-laden musical interludes that most bands today routinely take for granted. But this was back in 1967, and - especially according to the views of some of the other musicians who were around at the time - it was a truly revolutionary piece of work.

So obviously, I had to buy a copy. Take my chances on eBay, maybe? Or just splurge the full amount on Amazon (I'd never seen so much as a single Beatles CD in a reduced-price offer for years). But then, serendipitously, Jo and I were passing through Manchester Airport on the way to Northern Ireland, and it just so happened that the CD shop in the terminal had a three-for-two offer... which included Sergeant Pepper, as well as Revolver and about four or five others, by varying artists (well, it would've been rude not to, and Jo was buying them for my birthday...)

Fast-forward through the next couple of months, during which time I must have listened to the album about fourteen, fifteen times. Made quite an impression on me, I can tell you, particularly some of the tracks I hadn't heard before, like the achingly cathartic 'She's Leaving Home' and especially the concluding 'A Day in the Life'.

And I can tell you that if ever an album was made to be played loud and most definitely through headphones then this is it. Even if you think you're familiar with the Sergeant, if you haven't listened to it through a good pair of headphones before now, then you've probably only heard about half of what's going on...

So, there you go. My music recommendation for the year so far (hardly original, but most assuredly heart-felt): Grab a copy of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, settle back in your comfiest armchair with the best pair of ear-cans you can get your hands on, switch off your mobile phone, press play on your hi-fi equipment of choice... and away you will go...

Break.com Oddness: United 300

What with all the deep, serious conversation around here this week, I reckon it's about time for a few minutes' light relief. Big thumbs-up to Ed Ashby for the heads-up on this one:

Laugh? I nearly bought the loincloth... :)

Chouinard & McCalmont's Scalpel launches

Gabe Chouinard & Jonathan McCalmont's brand new genre review 'zine Scalpel officially launches today. Their Reviewerfesto proclaims that the 'zine is aiming "to serve as an outlet for what they have come to term 'street-level criticism', a style of reviewing that serves to bridge the gap between academic criticism and standardized reviews."

This sounds, to me, like a Good Idea. In these days of Amazon-fuelled review-lite, in which pretty much anyone, anywhere, can dash off a poorly-considered opinion in but a few moments and yet still be granted a public forum to air their half-baked views - what's more, a public forum that very directly and immediately affects a potential book-buyer's decision-making process - I think it's going to become increasingly important to develop increasingly sophisticated, trusted filters to help tune out the crap.

Come to think of it, this is pretty much what always I vaguely aimed to do with the old Alien Online project; admittedly with mixed results and without anything like Scalpel's explicit statement of intent. The problem with the TAO project was that it was just too broad-brushed, too admin-heavy, far too time- (and life-) consuming. Hopefully by focusing in on a specific content stream - reviews - the Scalpel boys will be able to avoid many of the pitfalls that put paid to the original TAO (although the process did result in a more tightly news-focused UK SF Book News site instead, so all's well etc.)

Anyway, here's hoping that Scalpel will quickly become one of those aforementioned trusted filters and do much to help lovers of the more refined arc of the genre fiction spectrum pluck the titles with true potential from amidst the dross of the same-old, same-old.

Launch-day content includes an editorial by Pat Cadigan, reviews of Adam Roberts' Gradisil, Hal Duncan's Ink and The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate by Ted Chiang, as well as a wide-ranging interview with Charlie Stross. So that should give you a pretty good idea of the tone they're keen to develop.

Last call for BFS 2007 nominations

If you're a British Fantasy Society member, you have until the end of the day to send in your nominations for this year's British Fantasy Awards for work published or produced during 2006. The voting will then open sometime in the next couple of months and the winners will be announced at this year's Fantasycon in September.

There are two new categories this year: 'Best non-fiction' (I'll go out on a limb and predict that Cinema Macabre is a good prospect for that one) and the rather nebulous-sounding 'Best Newcomer' (for a specific title first published in 2006? A specific project or venture first launched in 2006? A writer first published, anywhere, in 2006?); for which recommendations are sought, but which will be decided by a panel of judges.

Slightly annoyingly, the BFS still haven't addressed the issue of the 'Best Small Press' category, which I've been muttering about for years. In recent years the shortlist has included a number of small presses (as you'd most likely understand the term to apply: independent amateur and / or semi-pro publishers, in other words) as well as small press publications (one year both PS Publishing and its magazine publication Postscripts were both short-listed, which most probably split the vote) and even websites; our own UKSFBN-precursor site, The Alien Online, was short-listed a couple of times in recent years. Which was very gratifying, of course, but also extremely wrong, as none of us (myself, Sandy Auden and our fellow contributors) would ever have considered ourselves to be a 'small press' per se.

Hence my minor agitation towards re-naming the category something like 'Best Independent Press or Publication', which I think could conceivably cover a multitude of sins and also be a lot more comprehensible to the BFS voters. I suggested it when I was on the committee a few years back, then brought it up at a couple of AGMs, but was told I had to send some sort of official letter of request to the committee. Never quite got round to doing that (so I suppose I can't have been that bothered, really...) but partly also because I didn't want it to sound like sour grapes on my part.

The committee has, however, finally combined the 'Best Anthology' and 'Best Collection' awards (presumably to free up enough in the kitty for the new, 'Best non-fiction' statuette) so fair play to them. Hey, I wonder if websites could be nominated for that new 'Best non-fiction' category? Hmmm. It doesn't specifically say so on the voting info page. Too late, anyhow. I sent in my recommendations a week ago.

And now, all you BFS members should do the same.

I am Jack's complete lack of blog time…

A wise blogger once said blogged words to the effect of:

1) Don't blog if you're too insanely busy to blog (which I most definitely am - head down on my major project, making good progress though...)

2) Don't blog if you're feeling blue (which I'm not, I'm actually really enjoying being this busy, as odd as that might sound... but it's still sage advice)

3) Don't blog if you haven't got anything worthwhile to say (but I have, I've got loads to stuff to talk about - new arrivals, recommended reading, recommended tunes, links to here, there and everywhere - just no time to talk in... no time dammit!)

Back as soon as I can be...

Busy, y'say..?

Absolutely run off my feet at the moment; mostly with work-related projects, which is absolutely great.

In brief:

Jo and I were guests of Pete and Nicky Crowther (of PS Publishing fame) last weekend, at their absolutely wonderful home on the East Yorkshire coast. Their house is one of our very favourite places on the entire planet: partly because it contains a veritable cornucopia of sf stuff - books, toys, DVDs, memorabilia; decades worth, and it would take a decade to read / watch / play with it all - but mostly because it's home to Pete and Nicky, who are two of our very favourite people (an opinion widely shared in genre fiction circles, I know) and spending time with them is always an absolute joy. We ate, we drank, we laughed. A lot. Of all three. And we watched Hollywoodland, which was... interesting. Dark, and definitely... interesting.

We also thrashed out a last few remaining issues on the PS website re-build, which means I'll now be able to crack on with that project as soon as possible. Got another few jobs to finish as well, all of which are tantalisingly close to completion, as well as a few new ones in the pipeline. Plus, I'm off down to London on Thursday to have lunch with a few of the fine folks from Gollancz Books and meet with a certain Mssr. Lynch, a word-smith whose acquaintance I'm absolutely dying to make. Will tell you all about it later next week, all being well.

Then on Friday afternoon Jo and I are heading down to Derby for Saturday's Alt.Fiction event, which I'm also thoroughly looking forward to. It'll be a great chance for us to catch up with a whole load of fantastic people that we haven't seen since last year's Fantasycon (or perhaps last month's Eastercon, or even last weekend...) and hopefully we'll get a chance to talk to everyone I've been saying "catch you at Alt.Fiction!" to for the past few weeks. Packed panel programme allowing.

So, yes, incredibly hectic schedule just now, absolutely loads going on. And I'm afraid that it does all rather mean that I might not be posting properly until after the weekend. I'll do my best to prep a couple of bookish entries sooner rather than later. Six hours of quite, quite wonderful reading time on the train to and from London on Thursday should help no end with that. Luxury!

Genre Cover of the Month - Hmmm…

Sorry folks, but I haven't quite managed to get my act together and post the second GCOTM poll just yet. As a result, I think I might need to have a bit of a re-think about the general concept...

The first poll went well, with 97 votes registered before I closed it (which, I believe, means it was actually statistically relevant) and I got some very good email feedback in terms of how useful this sort of thing could be for publishers and booksellers alike. The trouble is, it obviously requires a timely commitment from me, in terms of performing the necessary post-writing and image-manipulation admin, in order to get the new item out for the beginning of a given month. And I obviously missed the boat for March (apologies to everyone who sent in suggestions, but please see yesterday's post on work scheduling for possible reasons why...)

So, what do you folks think? I could make it a quarterly thing rather than monthly to begin with, and then if interest really does take off I could increase the frequency. Or I could just post individual examples of what I - or anyone else who cares to nominate a cover - thinks is a great bit of effective cover design, and we could then discuss individual cases on their relative merits. Or should I focus on comparing and contrasting - editions prepared for different markets, similarly themed / targeted titles, that sort of thing - instead? Or do a bit of all of the above?

Lots of possibilities, and it is a subject area I'm definitely interested in exploring further. I'm just wondering what the most effective way forward might be and what you folks might be interested in reading about. Answers on a comment-shaped postcard would be most welcome...

One day in Chester - Eastercon Highlights

Jo and I thoroughly enjoyed our day at Eastercon on Saturday. The sun was shining down on Chester when we arrived, and we were very nearly diverted by the Chester Food & Drink Festival, which was going on in a large marquee next to the car park where we dropped off the motor. But instead we girded our loins, tightened our belts and plunged bravely into the gloom of the Chester Crowne Plaza, handing over our brace of one-day membership fees on the door.

At this point, we were both handed name-badges emblazoned with the word 'Saturday'; laminated to within an inch of their lives and - in the absence of permanent marker pens - with no chance to say anything else. Possibly the least-useful con-badge in history (there were a lot of anonymous "Saturdays" - I am not a day of the week! I am a free fan! - around), but you can see the appeal to the organisers of the mass-printing, and hey, if we'd bothered to register in advance, we could have had our moniker-of-choice included as well (as we later discovered). No matter.

The dealer's room was healthily populated, and I finally got a chance to say hello to Niall Harrison (pron. Neil, btw, in case like me you had no idea) who was manning a friend's bookstall. Niall is one of those unfortunate people who is even taller than I am (I'm 6'2" and trying to get a comfortable bus / theatre / 'plane seat is murder, so for Niall it must be pure hell) and alas, I was so stunned by this relative rarity that I made an inadvertent, knee-jerk, tall-joke gaff (with the emphasis on 'jerk'). Niall, I apologise, you must be heartily sick of hearing that sort of thing... and after he'd said I looked a lot younger than he expected, as well. For shame. And then he gave us a whole pile of the BSFA's Vector and Focus magazines (Niall is the editor of the former) to peruse as well. Gaah! Another classy foot+mouth combo from Ariel there...

Our trip to the dealer's room also resulted in a canny purchase of a hardback copy of Adam Roberts' collection of 'stories that never were and might never be', Swiftly (published by Night Shade Books), for a very reasonable tenner (from Niall's friend's stall, as it happened). Bargain!

Mind you, I was later trumped by John 'smug shopper' Berlyne, who found a pristine proof copy of Joe Abercrombie's debut The Blade Itself for a paltry three quid! Gaaaah! If you're interested, it'll probably be on eBay shortly, although you can expect the asking price to be a fair bit steeper...

On the way to the bar I made a point of saying hello to Paul Raven - better known as 'Armchair Anarchist' of Velcro City fame - who was looking none the worse for wear after an apparently quite titanic session the night (and most of the morning) before. Last to leave the bar on the first night of the Con: kudos. Also said hi to Andy Sawyer, of Liverpool University's Science Fiction Collection and repeated my oft-stated intention to get my arse over there one day for a visit. Honestly, I will. One day, just as soon as I'm not quite so darned busy...

Lunch followed, in the quite delightful company of Simon Spanton and Gillian Redfearn of Gollancz Books, plus the equally charming Stéphane Marsan, of France's top genre publisher Bragelonne, as well as the aforementioned Berlyne, and the inestimably wonderful Sandy Auden, my regular TAO / UKSFBN partner in crime.

Simon steered us to a very nice little Thai place he'd discovered / heard of / passed on the way into Chester, and a very good time was had by all. Pre-lunch, Gillian committed a wanton act of reading-list sabotage by thrusting a proof copy of Gollancz's Next Big Thing - the UK edition of The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, which a lot of people are getting very excited about - into my convention bag. Which was most excellent of her (thank you, Gillian!) although now I have another 896 pages of must-read fantasy fiction to cram into my over-loaded queuing system. Woe is me... ;)

And on the way to the restaurant, an odd thing happened. We were wandering along one of Chester's main streets and I heard the sound of an electric violin. It was just starting to sweep into what sounded a whole lot like the opening bars of Ed Alleyne Johnson's 'Purple Electric Violin Concerto'. And sure enough, there he was, busking (and not for the first time) just a few feet from where I was standing...

I'm a big EA-J fan, ever since his work with New Model Army back in their Thunder and Consolation and Impurity days, and I've got a couple of his early CD's. I didn't realise that he had a new album out - a collection of cover versions of some of his favourite classic rock tracks from the '70s - so that was another tenner well-spent... and there are another couple of albums I haven't got yet, by the looks of things.

After lunch, the rest of the afternoon was spent back at the hotel, engaged in pleasant and entertaining conversation with John 'I'm a raconteur extraordinaire, me, luvvie' Berlyne, Sandy, and the occasional passer-by who sought rest at our table: shouts out to Paul Cornell, John Jarrold and Geoff Ryman, all of whom stopped by at some point, for varying lengths of time (some having the good sense to escape sooner than others...)

All in all, a damn fine day out. Looking forward immensely to Alt-Fiction in Derby at the end of the month, when we can do it all over again.

Alt.Fiction mission control, we may have a problem…

Damn, this could be tricky and then some. I've just seen the programme for the Alt.Fiction event in Derby on April 28th. And frankly, it's rather superb...

I mean, just look at that line-up: top-name authors, publishers, editors... panel discussions, workshops, readings, interviews... and all going on at the same frickin' time.

I reckon a certain event organiser - one Mr Alex Davis esq. - has genuinely out-done himself this year. Considering it's a follow-up to last year's hugely impressive event this is some achievement, but it is going to leave me with quite a few 'who to go see?' dilemmas.

Seriously, there's enough in the way of programme items here to last an entire convention weekend, never mind the one day that Alt-Fiction actually occupies. Alex mate, please tell me you're going to be taping the sessions so I can check 'em out after the fact? I hate to think what I might be missing here...

Anyway, if you're not already booked in, sort it out! You'll be kicking yourself afterwards if you miss it (or the quarter of it you'll physically be able to see, anyhow...) Hey, here's a thought: book in with a friend, then you can go to alternate sessions and swap notes. It might be the best way forward.

Court of the Air promo movie

I do like a book promo when it's well-designed, well-executed and, above all, intriguing. In a comment on my recent post about my reading list backlog, Brian Edwards of SciFind.co.uk points me in the direction of the Flash promo for Stephen Hunt's The Court of the Air - hosted by SciFind - which meets all three criteria quite nicely.

It's stylish: smoothly animated and sound-tracked with mood music and sound effect rather than any sort of cheesy author's voice-over. It also introduces the main characters and their situation - chock full of deadly peril and drama-inducing conflict - without giving away any more information than you'd expect from the publishers' blurb, so no major spoilers.

So overall I'd say it had a generally beneficial effect; on balance I for one would be more likely to pick up the book having seen the trailer. Job done.

Okay, some folks might be put off by the stylised, comics-esque animation, but I don't think that would be too much of a problem among the book's likely core, genre reading audience. So it's targeted as well, which is all to the good.

Check it out: www.scifind.co.uk/courtoftheair/.

What really happened when the Death Star blew up…

Via When Gravity Fails, the Solaris Books editors' blog...

Love it :)

Manchester physicist consults on Sunshine

It's not often that I'd expect to find myself linking out to Manchester University's website, but one story popped up in my RSS reader this week and caught my eye:

"A new $45m British-made science fiction film [Sunshine] is being unveiled this week and a physicist from The University of Manchester has played an important role in bringing it to the big screen.

"Dr Brian Cox, who can usually be found investigating how the universe was formed at the Centre for European Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland, has been working with Sunshine scriptwriter and University of Manchester old boy Alex Garland (The Beach) and director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting and 28 Days Later)."

Good article, quite a bit of background info on the movie, not too many spoilers: www.manchester.ac.uk.

Neil Jordan to write & direct the Heart-Shaped Box movie

My good buddy Joe Gordon has just emailed to point me at an articles posted on Empire Online yesterday, which reports that Irish director Neil Jordan has signed up to sort out the movie version of Heart-Shaped Box (Joe's blogged it on the FP Blog already, naturally).

Anyway, the director is question has a track record (of sorts) in the horror genre at least, being the man behind The Company of Wolves. And hey, he can't really be blamed for Interview With the Vampire; with Tom 'least convincing vampire ever' Cruise in the lead role it was pretty much doomed to ignominious failure from the word 'go', despite anyone else's best efforts to rescue it.

And at least Mr Jordan needn't worry too much about the casting for HSB, seeing as we've already got that covered. But if he wants to drop me a line and talk through the finer points of the selection process, then I'd be happy to help out, naturally... :)

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.

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...

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.

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.

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...

Next Page →

• Welcome

  New to The Genre Files? Please read the About page and my Standard Disclaimer, thanks.

• Latest Posts

  • Fantastic Art: An Interview with Vincent Chong
  • CGI Society 'Steampunk Myths & Legends' winners
  • Fantastic Art: An Interview with Alex CF
  • SF/F/H RSS News Digest via Alltop.com
  • Books of 2008, reading plan 2009
  • David Gemmell Legend Award - Voting is Open
  • Congratulations, Sir Terry!
  • New Genre Webzine: Three Crow Press
  • A penny for the droid?
  • On Monarchy in Fantasy Fiction

• Categories

  Books and Reading
  Fantastic Art
  Online Finds
  TV and Movies
  Tweets
  Vault (pre-December 2008)

• Monthly Archives

  Pick a Month October 2009  (4) September 2009  (22) August 2009  (9) June 2009  (1) May 2009  (9) April 2009  (20) March 2009  (2) February 2009  (1) January 2009  (3) December 2008  (11) May 2008  (1) March 2008  (4) February 2008  (4) January 2008  (4) December 2007  (6) November 2007  (5) October 2007  (7) September 2007  (1) August 2007  (9) July 2007  (11) June 2007  (6) May 2007  (12) April 2007  (20) March 2007  (17) February 2007  (24) January 2007  (17) December 2006  (19) November 2006  (11)

• Socialising

  Follow TheGenreFiles on Twitter:
  

  Recent Tweets:

  • L, B to expand Atom imprint - http://bit.ly/1NGnXv (theBookseller.com) HUGE congrats to new editorial director @SamAnnSmith 2009-10-08
  • RT @Chadbourn (via @disrepdog) SF Site interview (by @SandyHelen) on writing, Age of Misrule et al - http://bit.ly/nLRip 2009-10-02
  • RT @Sceptrebooks ( via @SamAnnSmith) Title for the new David Mitchell: THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET 2009-10-02
  • RT @Salavaria (Conrad Williams) via @timlebbon I'm reading tonight at 8 at the Didsbury pub. Free copies of LONDON REVENANT for attendees. 2009-10-01
  • RT @disrepdog + @TheBookseller: 'New' Solaris acquires two titles by Paul Kearney - http://bit.ly/A2kyC - Great news for a great author! 2009-09-29
  • More updates...

  Powered by Twitter Tools

• 
  

Subscribe via RSS Feed






Links & Blogroll

• • 1. Genre Fiction

    • A Dribble of Ink
    • Adam Roberts
    • Adam Whitehead - The Wertzone
    • Andrew Wheeler - The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent
    • Big Dumb Object
    • Bookgasm
    • British Fantasy Society News
    • British Science Fiction Association
    • Colleen Lindsay - The Swivet
    • Dark Party Review
    • Dark Wolf’s Fantasy Reviews
    • Dave Brendon’s Fantasy & SciFi weblog
    • David Hebblethwaite - Follow the Thread
    • Ed Ashby - Peripheral Vision
    • Fantasy Book Critic
    • Forbidden Planet International Blog
    • Gareth L Powell
    • Graeme’s Fantasy Book Review
    • Hub Magazine
    • Iain Emsley - Yatterings
    • Jay Tomio - The Boddhisatva
    • Jeff Vandermeer - Ecstatic Days
    • Joe Abercrombie - Hangin’ Like a Wizard’s Sleeve
    • John Jarrold - Deep, Deep Thoughts
    • John Scalzi - Whatever
    • Lou Anders - Bowing to the Future
    • M. John Harrison - Ambient Hotel
    • Mark Chadbourn - Jack of Ravens
    • Mark Charan Newton
    • Matt Cheney - The Mumpsimus
    • Neil Gaiman’s Journal
    • Neth Space
    • NextRead
    • Nicholas Whyte - From the Heart of Europe
    • Omnivoracious (Amazon US)
    • Pádraig Ó Méalóid
    • Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist
    • Paul Cornell’s House of Awkwardness
    • Paula Guran - Juno Books
    • Philip Palmer’s Debatable Spaces
    • PS Publishing
    • Realms of Speculative Fiction
    • Residential Aliens
    • Richard [K] Morgan
    • Scholar’s Blog
    • Sci Fi Chick
    • Science Fiction Awards Watch
    • SF Signal
    • SF/F/H Twitter List
    • SFF World
    • The Website @ the End of the Universe
    • Three Crow Press
    • Tim Lebbon
    • Tobias Buckell
    • Torque Control
    • TTA Press
    • Velcro City Tourist Board

  • 2. Fantastic Art

    • Alex CF’s Cryptozoological Art
    • CG Society
    • Edward Miller
    • Eye Candy for Bibliophiles
    • Gorilla Artfare
    • Les Edwards
    • Lines and Colors
    • Strange Maps

  • 3. Tech, Futurism

    • Futurismic

  • 4. Miscellaneous

    • Barclay Talks Sport
    • Woolamaloo Gazette

  • My Other Blogs & Projects

    • Blog o’ Beer
    • Darren Turpin dot Me dot UK
    • Facebook Profile
    • Last FM Profile
    • Orbit Books

• Admin

  • Log in
  • WordPress
  • XHTML

Technorati

Miscellania