SF writer Gary Gibson

I have this impulsive need to go out on a Saturday night no matter what. I just have to be out. Somewhere. Even just a friend's house for an hour, I don't care. I normally meet a group of people largely comprised of ex and current members of the local sf writer's circle plus various associated friends in a bar not far from where I live. It was quiet - unsurprisingly - being just past new year. It wound up with just myself and Phil Raines chatting about writing. He's written this enormous 200,000 word urban fantasy about rock n'roll somewhere between China Mieville and James Kessell and he's on the agent hunt. It was a nice talk, and I told him the outline for Against Gravity, which is starting to come together.

My current game plan is this. I should hopefully know one way or the other what's happening with Angel Stations by March. If it doesn't sell, I can either find more fulltime work so I at least have some money while I'm writing, or, if I think I can manage it and the idea for Against Gravity seems sound enough, I can stick to where I am just now, keep on working part-time and spend the rest of the year writing the next book and see if that sells.

I've been a bit reluctant to go too much into the detail of what actually constitutes the plot of Against Gravity as I currently see it, which is probably a bit silly. You should know that a large part of the motivation for keeping this blog is reading Rudy Rucker's page about his book Spaceland at this address. Being able to read what a well-established author goes through to write a book is strangely heartening. So I figured I'd give you some idea of who the cast is.

Pasquale is now Peter McCowan, Scots-American, unwilling recipient of biotech implants.
Max Draeger is a vaguely Bill Gates-like figure involved in the development of that same biotech.
The Scattered Minds are rogue artificial intelligences capable of bootstrapping themselves to higher intelligence.
The US Government in Exile constitutes the remains of a brief right-wing military dictatorship of the US who wish access to the zero point field technology they believe the Scattered Minds have developed, in order to reconquer the United States under their ultra-nationalist flag.
Alvara Sieracki is now the head of the US Government in Exile (some South American country, I suspect, though I haven't really researched it yet), and was the man responsible for beginning the biotech program in the first place.
Kendrick Gallmon is a drug dealer and general shady character with links to both Draeger and Sieracki.
Caroline Vincenzo is McCowan's girlfriend, also an unwilling recipient of untested military biotechnology.