February 2012 Archive

Leap Year

Ah, February the 29th, and I must say that this has been an excellent month for writing, round my way.  A grand total of 25,000 words extruded, and even partially reviewed as I’ve finished each chapter so they shouldn’t need a massive amount of work to sharpen up.  I mean to say, it ain’t no Brandon Sanderson level of productivity but for me it’s pretty darned good.  Certainly the best month I’ve had on this book, which has been something of a grind at times, I must admit.  If every month had been as good as this one I’d have finished in October.  But it wasn’t, and I didn’t.  Still, I’ve just three chapters left to finish my first draft, the last of which is already half written.  Well, actually I’ve got an additional chapter to write and two others near the start that need rewriting so heavily I might as well be starting from scratch but, hey, can we just worry about those later, please?

Please?

Read more | 45 comments | Posted in progress

The Heroes read by Steven Pacey

Just to let listeners to high quality audiobooks know, Steven Pacey’s unabridged recording of The Heroes is now available on Audible.co.uk.  Sorry to say, and due to circumstances entirely beyond my or anyone’s control, for the foreseeable future it won’t be available to US listeners, who will continue to get the previous version read by […]

Read more | 21 comments | Posted in news

Fantasy Faction Podcast

While at the SFX Weekender in Prestatyn, those two nice young men from Fantasy Faction interviewed me in a room full of snooker tables.  You may witness the results, largely consisting of me speaking very quickly, upon their podcast.  We talk of books past, books present, and books yet to come, among other things.  Quickly, in […]

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Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Hmmm.  I was very much looking forward to this, and I came out a little disappointed.  Perhaps disappointed is the wrong word – unaffected, maybe.  It just didn’t put much of a mark on me.  The whole thing was somehow a little opaque.  Oh so very English drabness in locations, grading, and hair, the cold […]

Read more | 20 comments | Posted in film and tv

Drive

Woah, great, great film.  Short, and tight, and all painted with the sparest brushstrokes.  In its one man against the mob structure it reminds me a lot of those hard-bitten, ruthless, shiny but brutal gangster movies of the seventies of which I am so fond – stuff like The Outfit, The Getaway, The Driver, Charlie […]

Read more | 26 comments | Posted in film and tv

SFX Weekender 3

Over the weekend I was up in Prestatyn, Wales, for SFX’s third Weekender which is, as I understand it, already the UK’s largest sci-fi and fantasy event.  Many, many UK authors, editors, and other publishing-related folk were in attendance, as were over 4,000 fans, many of them dressed up like all kinds of strangeness.  The […]

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Part IV

And you thought all I’d been doing was playing Skyrim and D&D with a selection of the world’s most bodacious fantasy authors, didn’t ya?  Admit it!  False!  For I can now reveal that I have finished a first draft of Part IV of my latest, which puts me about 80% of the way through.  Much […]

Read more | 186 comments | Posted in news, progress