[link salad] Watch out for the Monkey Police!

My, the past two weeks were busy, with writerly stuff – Steve and I recently finished revising the manuscript of The Tears of Eridanus (sent off to our editor last week), and then we worked on the What’s Past galleys. There was some other stuff, too, including website translations for my brother, but now I can relax for a bit.

So, here’s some linkery:

The aforementioned monkey police, consisting of one pig-tailed macaque, on patrol in Thailand — via treehugger.com

The Last Supper portions have gradually become bigger and bigger over the past centuries, as sufficient food became more easily available — via Mother Jones

Having fun with toy stormtroopers — via Dark Roasted Blend

The Hypothecial Library – actual covers for nonexisting books

 

Saying it again, with a vengeance

I’d originally planned to post something else, but then I found something more important:

Ari Marmell, author of a number of Magic: The Gathering and Ravenloft novels (among others), on the advantages of writing tie-in fiction.

(via Colleen Lindsay)

 

[video] For those who have lost faith in humanity

The biologist Willie Smits explains how he was able to regrow the rainforest in a part of Borneo, saving orangutans and helping the local population. (20 min)

 

The Secret Pact of SF Writers and Readers

Recently, as I was reading some of the comments regarding the forthcoming The Tears of Eridanus Steve and I received from a group of beta readers, I was reminded of one of Jo Walton’s posts on tor.com. It’s entitled “SF Reading Protocols” and is about how we who have been reading science fiction for years have developed a certain skillset that enables us to enjoy the stories instead of being puzzled or even put off by them.

Things don’t always have to be spelled out to make sense. If they’re important, they’ll be explained. If not, they’re there simply to liven up the background. Walton uses a friend of her ex-husband as an example. He’d read The Forever War (or tried to, at least) and was confused by the reference to a tachyon drive. In the story, the drive is important because it makes FTL travel possible, but its exact workings are not.

This tachyon drive guy, who has stuck in my mind for years and years, got hung up on that detail because he didn’t know how to take in what was and what wasn’t important. How do I know it wasn’t important? The way it was signalled in the story. How did I learn how to recognise that? By reading half a ton of SF. How did I read half a ton of SF before I knew how to do it? I was twelve years old and used to a lot of stuff going over my head, I picked it up as I went along. That’s how we all did it. Why couldn’t this guy do that? He could have, but it would have been work, not fun.

This brings me back to tToE. Some of the beta readers haven’t read much (or any) SF before, and so their reaction to the story is naturally going to be different to that of people who are intimately familiar with it. We now have the difficult task of deciding when to address their complaints about unexplained things and when to leave the references in question as they are.

I don’t have a problem with not immediately understanding some of the references in a new story. But then, I started reading SF and fantasy at almost the same age as Jo Walton: thirteen. I’ve had seventeen years to build up a vast dictionary/encyclopedia in my head, and sometimes it is difficult to remember that other people might not share that experience.

On the other hand, it’s unlikely that there will be many people unfamiliar with both SF in general and Star Trek in particular who’ll be reading the third volume of Myriad Universes come December. Somehow it doesn’t strike me as the most newcomer-friendly material available. But what do I know? I only write the darned things, I don’t sell them.

 

I love research

About a week ago, I mentioned that I had an idea for a multi-novel series and that I’d found many good and informative sites. Now it’s progressed to the stage where I ordered books about the subject I want the first novel to be about.

Subjects, actually. The more I think about the setting and the timeframe, the more interrelated topics I discover. The story will be based on Earth in the middle of this century, and so I’ll have to think about how Earth will look like then. This means I’ll have to consider everything, from climate to politics to society to technology … the list is endless.

I have the feeling I’ll have a hard time deciding when to stop the research and actually write the darned thing, hopefully with Steve (unless he’s busy … or not interested).

 

A Doctor Who Dream

Last night I dreamt the entire first episode of the upcoming series of Doctor Who.

It was a good episode. The details are a bit fuzzy now, but I remember the main things: Amy Pond wasn’t in it, nor was the TARDIS. There was a lot of running around in rooms and corridors. Matt Smith was acting the heck out of everything. And he had a hammer, for some reason. There were two Doctors, actually – or at least one Doctor and one person who thought he was the Doctor, similar to The Next Doctor and Minuet in Hell.

There were monsters. Great monsters, at that. Monsters with a spider’s lower body and legs and an upper body like an angel. This sounds like I was mixing up two Christmas specials, but the effect in the dream was much better than just a cross between the Racnoss and the Heavenly Host.

And then there was the new theme. My goodness, it was a great theme! Not as bombastic as the latest versions, but more subdued like Delia Derbyshire’s, with an underlying line of ticking clocks. I want to hear this theme again!

 

The Doomsday Can of Worms

Oh boy. That Asimov’s article by Norman Spinrad provoked quite a reaction from the blogosphere (gosh, what a silly word that is).

In cases like this, Ian McDonald’s right: it’s more interesting to listen than to opine.

 

Well, that’s just great (no, really)

While I should be working on a project (hello, Steve!), my mind keeps coming back to a novel idea I had some time ago, only now it’s an idea for a multi-novel series, at least four books long. It doesn’t help that I’ve found a few amazing sites online that I know I need for that project. And also of course, these sites have dozens of links to other interesting sites that need to be explored fully to examine their potential.

Sigh. I could have done without this right now, but I’ll take what I get.

 

Spreading the word about World SF

On his blog, Jeff VanderMeer asked his readers to spread the word about the recent article he wrote for Locus Online. It is an overview of World SF, featuring recommendations by international writers, editors, and publishers. All of these works could do with a bit more exposure, to say the least.

Do check it out; if it proves popular enough, it may become a regular feature. World SF needs all the attention it can get. (You might also want to check out the World SF blog.)

I want to pay closer attention to the international SFF field, starting with my own country. There’s still a lot I need to discover, even about Austrian fantastic fiction. Thankfully, there’s at least one eminent expert, namely Franz Rottensteiner (Stanislaw Lem’s former agent), who has compiled a number of books about Austrian (and German) science fiction. He’s also had an article in a recent Locus issue, about the state of German fantastic fiction. I have to start somewhere, so I think I’ll start with him, in particular with his book The Black Mirror and Other Stories.

At some point, I want to write my own Austria-based SF novel. After all, why shouldn’t I write about stuff I know? I have a few ideas already, but nothing concrete.

 

Way to go, BBC

Bugger.

 

BBC, you know I love you …

… but don’t you dare shut down 6 Music!

Finding out about this today made for a bad start to the week. I’m very grumpy right now.

 

A Timesink I Don’t Want to Miss

My goodness, I could spend days on TED, watching interesting people talk. A lot of mindblowing stuff, and idea-inducing, too.

 

Books I can recommend unreservedly

Emissaries from the Dead by Adam-Troy Castro. If you want to read a mystery novel that fully utilizes the possibilities inherent in SF, then this is it. And the good thing is, it’s the start of a series (two, so far) of books featuring the thoroughly intruiging Andrea Cort.

 

Because it can’t be said often enough

I was going to post something else, but then I saw an interesting post on BSCReview: Being a Hack: Writing A Shared-World Novel by Erin M. Evans. On the off chance that there’s somebody reading this who doesn’t know already about the process involved, I recommend this as an introduction to the wonderful world of tie-in writing.

 

[Writing] Progress

There’s a short story that Steve and I are working on, on spec. Today I had one of the best writing days in weeks, with almost 1,400 words more than I started out with. Not bad, if I do say so myself.

Tomorrow, I’ll add the missing half (at least; possibly more like two-thirds) of the final section, give it a good read-through, and cut it into shape.

And now, to bed.

 

2010, eh?

I hear we’re supposed to have entered a new decade. Not that it matters much either way, but I think we have to wait another year for that.

I decided not to do any New Year’s resolutions, simply because they’re useless anyway–apart from one: self-discipline. I could do with a large dollop of that, to be honest.

I can do it, it’s just a matter of forcing myself to stick to something and not give up. Last November was a disaster with regard to writing, because I gave up on NaNoWriMo early on. I am sure I could have continued, despite the considerable translation work I had.

However, in December, I started taking brisk walks after lunch, and indeed did so almost every day, unless there wasn’t enough time or the weather was too bad. This serves a dual purpose: I get some exercise, and my lungs get some respite from the dry air inside (my nose especially benefits from that, which makes my ENT doctor happy–and myself, of course).

I hope I can apply that fledgling self-discipline to other areas as well. Tonight I’ll write some more on that short story Steve and I are doing. We’re in a bit of a hurry, so some considerable progress wouldn’t go amiss.

 

[Cooking] Jambalaya

I must warn you: this is very much my own version of it, so it’s bound to be anything but authentic. It’s cobbled together from three different recipes I found online.

Ingredients:

• 1 chicken, in 8 pieces
• 2 onions
• 2-3 garlic cloves
• 300 g cooked/smoked sausage (i.e. pepperoni, Milano salami), cut into 0.5 cm slices or cubes
• 3 bell peppers
• 1 can of peeled tomatoes
• 750 ml chicken broth
• 3-4 bay leaves
• 3 cups of long-grain rice
• chili powder
• cayenne pepper
• pepper
• thyme
• salt
• parsley (fresh or dried)
• paprika

Preparation:

Wash chicken and pat dry; rub with the paprika. Heat olive oil in a large skillet; add chicken and brown on all sides. Remove chicken from skillet and transfer to platter. Reduce heat to medium-high; add onion, bell peppers, parsley and garlic to pot. Sauté until onions are tender, about 5 minutes. Add sausage, bay leaves, chili powder, thyme, cayenne pepper and cloves; sauté until spices are fragrant and flavors blend, about 5 minutes. Add rice; stir to coat. Pour broth over rice mixture in pot. Add chicken; press to submerge in liquid. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook until liquid is absorbed, rice is tender and chicken is cooked through, about 35 minutes. Remove bay leaves. Season with salt, pepper and more cayenne pepper, if desired. Serve hot.

 

[Link Salad] Fun with Star Wars

I admit I’m not the world’s biggest SW fan, but I like it well enough to appreciate what other people do with it in their creative endeavours.

Such as this, for example. Dark Roasted Blend has become a must-see site recently, and I pop by there regularly. They collect the weird, the wacky, and the wonderful. Their SW collection is all that, and more. Make sure to check out all three parts.

But even better is this here (and I think Allyn will like this): LEGO Hoth – photos taken of LEGO figures in the snow. Absolute perfection, this is.

 

[Mediocre Photography] The Beginning

Let’s try something new. I have a number of pictures on my hard drive, and I keep taking them, albeit with my mobile’s mediocre camera. No guarantees are made as to the quality of the pictures, although I strive to pick only the best. We’ll see how that works out …

Anyhoo. Here’s picture #1 to start things off: a view of the United Nations’ Vienna International Centre, as seen from the Danube Tower nearby, taken  during a trip to Vienna in 2008.

 

Random Thoughts

• Writing-wise, my Secret Writing Partner and I have done some work over the past few months, but mostly we’ve been collecting rejections. I mind them much less than I thought I would.

• Due to me having less money available for my hobbies, I’ve finally begun to reduce the size of my library’s unread section. Of course, the number of the books I want to buy continues to increase unabated. On Sunday I finished Jon Courtenay Grimwood‘s Arabesk trilogy and, while I have one of his other books, I want to read more of his work. The same thing is true for Lois McMaster Bujold – I’ve read her three Chalion books and have picked Barrayar as the next book I read, so the rest of the Vorkosigan series might well end up on my wish list.

• I’m not the first person to say this (Warren Ellis got there first), but it bears repeating: this show needs to get made. I love everything about it!

• I want to have BBC 6Music‘s babies.