Incredibly busy week. As I mentioned a while back, MJ put together a press release for me and sent it out to most of the local newspapers, which resulted in myself, Hal Duncan (first book out next year from Tor UK), and Mike Cobley, being interviewed by Sheila Hamilton, a journalist for the Evening Times.

What happened next: she arranged to give me a call about a photo shoot for the three of us, at the Science Centre across the river from the SECC. I heard nothing from her, and assumed the interview had been permanently spiked. Monday morning I get a call from a photographer, who says he's been waiting at the Centre for half an hour, myself having received absolutely no word of this from Hamilton. So various phone calls were made, and the shoot was rescheduled for Wednesday afternoon, which turned out to be one of the extremely rare sunny days of the year.

I've mentioned before that the south side of the Clyde is changing rapidly. Not only are the BBC building a brand-new state of the art facility a short walk from my house, so are several other media companies, as a result of which certain nearby areas - such as Govan, practically a ghost town in parts, over the past couple of decades - are seen as prime real-estate-in-waiting, something I'm hoping and at least partly expecting will have a knock-on positive effect on the value of my place. The Science Centre, next to the BBC's building site, looks like it should, like an artefact of the new century. So naturally they chose it as a backdrop to the shoot, which was enjoyable, but exhausting in the blazing sun.

I haven't seen the piece in the papers yet, which leads me to suspect it might have been temporarily spiked for future reference, or perhaps it'll be in the paper sometime this week. Or perhaps not until Worldcon next year: I'll just have to wait and see.

Thursday, I did a reading and question-and-answer for a good-sized crowd at Ottakar's, a small chain bookstore located in a large and busy shopping centre almost dead smack in the centre of town. This was marginally nerve-wracking, as you might expect, but all my fears were allayed and it went very well indeed. Most of the audience, big surprise, were people I knew, but there were a good few pleasantly unfamiliar faces there as well. It was nice getting to sit there, with a big, attractive-looking pile of the books next to me on the table.

Afterwards I signed a shedload of copies, and although I didn't count, it felt like a good number were purchased as a result of the reading. Some of the Edinburgh writers were also present, particularly Andrew Wilson who writes for The Scotsman. Phil did me an intro, I read a couple of passages from the book, answered some questions, and then a crowd of us continued the night at the Counting House, which is a large city-centre bar just off George Square.

I also got an excellent review of the book in The List, which is the Scottish equivalent of London's Time Out, a combination of events, theatre and cinema listings, along with arts, music, film and drama reviews and interviews - whatever your local equivalent happens to be. I'd specifically asked the publicist at Pan Macmillan/Tor UK to send a review copy to them, since I knew it had a better chance of being reviewed there, and a better chance of being picked up on by potential readers. You'll note this review is now quoted up on the right hand bar.

At some point I'm going to have to hit one or two of the other local bookshops and sign some of their copies for sale. I already signed some spare copies for Ottakars, so that's at least one out of the way.

Angel Stations is out today!

I found it on the shelves in Glasgow’s Waterstones, although it wasn’t on the ‘new books’ display shelves. There were several, however, faced out on the regular shelves. I did what every writer does in these circumstances; I picked up a couple of copies, and carefully placed them, face out, on the ‘new books’ shelves. You could say I had a sense of quiet satisfaction, seeing it there on the shelves.

More good reviews, particularly one in ‘Dreamwatch’ magazine: "a strong debut novel that promises well for the future and a serious contender for the shelf space currently occupied by Greg Egan and Richard Morgan". This will, of course, be up on the right-hand bar of the blog within the next few days, if not the next few hours. There’s also a mini (very mini) interview with me next to the review, along with a, frankly, slightly rough-looking picture of me. Well, it looks rough to me. And reminds me I’ve been meaning for ages to get a better digital shot, maybe in the garden, for the Pan Macmillan publicity people to use. They did ask for one before, but I didn’t have a digital camera at the time. I do now (or rather, MJ does).

Hal Duncan has already spoken about it at length on his own blog, but he, myself and another Glasgow-based author Mike Cobley met a journalist from the Evening Times the other afternoon. MJ put together a press release for me a couple of weeks ago and sent it out to a good few of the local rags, and on this occasion it looks like she hit paydirt. The journalist was as interested in hearing about the writer’s circle, so it seemed like a good idea to get a couple of other writers along to get involved. One writer having a book out is one thing, but demonstrating that there’s a remarkable contribution to the genre as a whole originating from north of the border, particularly if you include Edinburgh - that’s a whole other level.

The feeling I got from the journalist was that she didn’t really know what to expect (her slightly bewildered words to me on the phone: "what … kind of people are you exactly?". Part of me suspects she anticipated a couple of deeply socially challenged anoraks with a complete set of Battlestar Galactica dvd’s, and this feeling arises from what struck me as some confusion/surprise on her part that we were interested in talking about literature, not even necessarily restricted to science fiction.

The good thing about having Hal along on these things is he knows his classical mythology, and is well-informed on the role that stories of the fantastic have played in dozens of cultures over the span of recorded human history. So, we talked about writing, and books, and some fairly complex subjects, all really far too deep and involved for the newspaper she was writing for - the Evening Times. I’d say about 99% of what we said would never make it into the pages of what is, after all, a Scottish tabloid, but I was hoping we got across that we were serious about our craft, both in terms of execution and of our attitude towards it. If that impression comes across in any subsequent news piece, then we’ll have done okay.

If the article does go ahead, we can expect to do some kind of photo-shoot involving the three of us some time early next week, following which I suspect the piece would appear in the following weekend’s edition. But, like Hal says, there’s a pretty good chance they’ll still call us ‘sci fi’ writers.

Just a reminder in my kind-hearted way that there are only four - four - days to go before Angel Stations is published in the United Kingdom. The price is £10.99 for the trade paperback; the regular mass market paperback will be out in June next year. I don't know if any of the big bookshop chains like Waterstones will be selling it any of their three-for-two deals. You might be interested to know the book is £7.69 on Amazon UK, bar the postage. So if you've got some stuff racked up on a wishlist and you're looking for something to tip you over the £25/free postage limit, well ...

If you're living in the US, then as far as I know (if you know different, tell me) the trade paperback will set you back about twenty dollars, including postage, ordered over Amazon UK. I suspect the book will wind up in US specialist bookshops, and possibly also US-specific online specialist retailers as well, but I don't really know how that side of it works. If you do know where it might be readily available outside of the UK, let me know, and I could always post the information up here.

To my mild amazement, Al has now set up a blog. Colour me flabbergasted. You can find it at http://notesfromthegeekshow.blogspot.com/, and I will of course be adding it to the list in the sidebar soon.

Just to clear up a point - apparently the reason he writes as 'Hal' rather than Al, is because there's already a well-known Scottish writer called Al Duncan (though I'll have to admit I've never heard of him, and I can't be arsed googling him).

I got a delivery the other day from Pan Macmillan of twenty copies of Angel Stations, so I've been writing up a list of all the people who'll get a copy. Out of those twenty (twenty-one, if you count the copy I'd already received), I'm keeping maybe three for myself. One reading copy, two to get stored.

In the meantime, I've also been given a nice (very nice) review at trashotron: "'Angel Stations' is dense and involving, puzzling and perplexing. It's unabashed science fiction, with an almost "Golden Age" feel to it, but a very modern density, the culture-shock that makes science fiction so enjoyable. It does require a soupcon of patience, but that patience is rewarded with surprise after surprise, amongst them, surprising sympathy for and understanding of a large cast of characters, not all of them human. Yes, Gibson does ignore advice from the original stone tablets handed down by the publishing deities. Readers will feel themselves fortunate to reap the rewards of Gibson's acts of literary heresy."

Curiously enough, I was browsing the web the other day, and googled Shipbuilding, the anthology I was involved in putting together that was distributed as a freebie at the '95 Worldcon in Glasgow. It's a proper book, meaning a web-printed paperback with full colour art cover and spine. I found it listed on Abebooks, the second-hand online bookshop, for twenty dollars. That's quite an appreciation.

Last week, I got a proper, finished copy of Angel Stations through in the post. It looks and feels even better than I'd expected. As of writing, there's just under two weeks to go before it's out on the shelves. I suspect I'll go and sign copies in at least some of the bookshops in town. To be honest, I'm not that big on signing books. Why spoil a perfectly good book by scribbling all over it? And if you're not a well-known author, what difference could it possibly make to your sales?

But, I might as well play follow-the-leader since everyone else seems to do it without compunction, whether famous or not-so-famous. If there's one advantage to it, it means you get those 'signed by the author' stickers on the front in the bigger shops, which means you might get an extra picosecond of attention paid to your book by casual browsers. This is a good thing, since book covers are generally designed to catch your eye, in the context of a bookshop where there are literally thousands of the things all trying just as hard to achieve the same effect. Half a second is all it takes to grab your attention just for that extra tiny instant it takes to make you walk over, pick the thing up, and at the very least contemplate buying it.

I spent Saturday in Edinburgh with MJ, wandering around in the middle of the Edinburgh Festival. We didn't do any shows though, since they're kind of expensive, and given MJ's lack of funds unaffordable, given the cot of just getting there from Glasgow and back again. But we did go and check out - again - Greyfriar's Kirk, which is in certain respects gloriously creepy. The church, plus the graveyard that surrounds it, are right off a busy main road, but it's surprisingly quiet once you're in there. Directly behind Bobby's gravestone, there's a large, partially damaged and very old mural on the front wall of the church, featuring an enormous, dancing skeleton. The Covenanters Prison, where 'thousands of Scot Presbyterians who signed a "National Covenant with God" in 1637, and were held at the Covenanter's Prison, a walled-off section of the cemetery' (from the BBC website) is directly behind. It's also permanently locked up for some reason.

Later, we wandered around the Book Festival for a bit. They do charge a hell of a lot of money for their author's appearances/talks. There wasn't anyone or anything on this year that struck me as something I really wanted to check out, or if there was, I couldn't find a way to justify the cost of travelling to Edinburgh as well as buying the ticket. Cheap dinner in a basement bar, then home.

Since he now has a message board on Nightshade Books forum, I think it's safe to name the newest pro writer from Glasgow. He's Al Duncan, and writes as Hal Duncan. Maybe. Or that might change. He's been offered a two-book deal with Tor UK, my own publishing company. The two books are Vellum and Ink, both linked, both clockin in at about 200k each. They're fantasy, but not of the traditional type. Sort of a 'war of the angels' kind of thing, set in the very near future. I wasn't going to go down to the Eastercon next year - it is the same year as the Worldcon here in Glasgow, after all - but with Al's sale, it sort of makes sense for both of us to go. Plus, Richard Morgan - not Glaswegian, but based in Glasgow - is the guest of honour, and Mike will almost certainly be there - so there'll be a fairly good Glasgwegian contingent. And if you add in Ken McLeod and Charlie Stross from Edinburgh, and Miller Lau from a little ways farther north, you have quite a strong Scottish contingent altogether.

Nice, as they say in Jazz Club.

This is just too good to be true, but apparently it's from Reuters, so ... (link).

"Addressing what the Sept. 11 commission said was one of the main failures of government -- imagination -- a senior CIA official said Wednesday the spy agency was willing to "push beyond the traditional boundaries of intelligence."

The article goes on to say that "It was an attempt to see beyond the intelligence report, and into a world of plot development," she (Jami Miscik, CIA's deputy director for intelligence) told a House Intelligence Committee hearing on the Sept. 11 commission's recommendations about analysis and the need for imagination and creativity. The CIA also ran a round-table discussion with 10 science-fiction authors so intelligence analysts could see how the writers spun possible scenarios. (italics mine).

I suspect this article is going to be all over the genre message boards over the next few days, but if not, what I want to know is: how much do they pay, and do they have my phone number?

On a side note, I tripped over the above while browsing the Fortean Times site doing a little research. I've gone off the thing I was working on - The Fracture - and started thinking of other ideas. One is another space opera, maybe a bit lighter than some of the other stuff I've done. Besides, Tor UK took me on to fill out the sf part of their list, which is otherwise stacked with fantasy and 'new weird' authors, o I feel a little obliged in that area. But for a long time I've been playing around with the idea of a cold war thriller, involving remote viewing. If anyone happens to know of any, I'd be very happy to hear about them. I'm reading Declare by Tim Powers at the moment, but what I'm thinking of is (hopefully) a lot different to that.

I've got that fishwife feeling - you know something, you want to tell people, but you can't, because the person who's about to sign the contract (not me!) has asked you not to mention it. At all. Nosirree. Gah. So all I can tell you is, that person (not me, already) is about to sign a contract for ... ack!

More details later.

I got talking to the events manager at Ottakar's Books here in Glasgow today. He said, 'you look familiar'.

I said, 'yeah, I was here for that thing a couple of weeks ago - Grant Morrison, Mike Cobley, Miller Lau and Richard Morgan.'

He shakes his head. 'No ... weren't you at Caledonian University?'

I said, 'yeah ...?'

So it turns out, right, that back when I was just about ready to admit defeat and give up my postgrad computing course, that I did a couple of reviews for the university newspaper (and if there's a clearer sign my interests lay in something other than programming, what?). I did a review of Jewel, an American singer/songwriter who played at the Mitchell. Turns out the events guy had been the music editor. I have no memory for faces or names, but clearly he doesn't have that problem.

Apparently I have a review in Vector, one of the BSFA publications. Craig is going to bring it to the next writer's group for me. Apparently it's pretty decent.

The edits on  Against Gravity are pretty much done, apart from some bits and pieces I want to drop in here and there - mostly descriptive, scene-building stuff I'd been intentionally leaving to the end.  I'm expecting to have this draft done and dusted by the end of the week. After that, I wait for editorial comments, and then line-edits.
 
I'm feeling poor (ish) at the moment. The roof of the tenement block I live in is in bad disrepair, something which will probably cost myself and my neighbours a fair whack of money. The previous owners of my flat didn't mention the problem when I bought it from them, and as it turns out, nobody's insurance will cover the cost of repair, since it falls under 'expected wear and tear'. The company who factor the building screwed up with their initial estimate for repairs, so it looks like it'll be more than originally anticipated. At the moment, it's going to cost me half a grand (that's my one-eighth share with my neighbours to fix, but once the re-estimate is carried out, I can easily expect it to jump by maybe a couple hundred.
 
All this wouldn't be a major worry if I had a full-time job, but that's something I'd rather avoid since I want to concentrate more on the writing - so that the writing's at the core of what I do, with the occasional daytime paid work supplementing the income I currently get from the writing. I know there are people out there who hold down full-time jobs and have no problem writing when they come home, but for me, it feels like it reduces the writing to little more than a potentially lucrative evening hobby - something that's fun to do, but not really serious.
 
Apart from the writing and the daytime graphic design/quark layout stuff, I also supplement my income by renting out a room in my flat, which bumps my income up by a couple of tons per month. So maybe it's not so bad. But the roof repairs mean that I've had to put to one side  my intention to buy a decent, new laptop (preferably Apple which, although more expensive, would allow me to maybe go out there a bit more and do more freelance work) until, maybe, next year. Until then, I'm sticking with the Compaq 166mhz laptop, knackered screen and all. It works - usually - but it's getting decrepit.

I saw Fahrenheit 911 last night, and it pretty much knocked my socks off. It's a long movie, though, and there were times when I caught my attention drifting from the continual onslaught of details, since the whole farrago makes for a fairly complicated web of deceit. It's a documentary which, I suspect, bears repeated viewings to get the full gist.

The thing people have mostly commented on about this movie is its sensationalist slant. This is true, but - perhaps simpy because I agree with the great majority of what Moore says - I don't mind. Unlike some, I found it quite refreshing to see someonefrom the liberal left using techniques far more frequently associated with the strident rightwing press. I still recall with some distaste a poster campaign run by the Tories some years ago, titled something like 'Labour Defense Policy': it was a picture of a British soldier with his hands in the air. Low, very low. But effective, in its way.

People from the political left are generally seen as preferring carefully reasoned discourse over emotionally driven histrionics and easy sound/image combinations, but given that in the US the media is apparently so heavily slanted towards the right (the movie features Fox News journalists saying things like 'Am I biased? Hell, yes!" and "I'd just like to say that Navy Seals rock" during an interview, if I recall, with someone on active service in Iraq), it makes sense to use exactly the same techniques against those who've used them to such clear effect for decades.

I had some success over the missing blurb in Amazon.co.uk. I got an email back from them, and they're attributing it to 'a temporary problem in our database' which they're apparently sorting out. It wasn't only myself that was affected; so were a couple of other Tor UK authors.

They also sent this link, www.amazon.co.uk/add-content-books, which you can use to actually enter the book's details yourself (as opposed to just dumping it online via the 'reviews' option). Useful, particularly if you're, say, a small publisher. There are, as you'd expect, plenty of warnings about precisely where your information is going to go if they have any reason you're a)not really the author, or b)not the publisher.

So I'll give it a couple of days, and see if anything appears. If you end up duplicating the information - ie you manually post something and then their database repeats that information, which can apparently happen - they'll sort it on request. Nice.