Hello

Hello & Welcome
ugh face

I’m currently rebuilding the website as the old one got totally messed up when i was playing around with things (no idea what happened).

So i thought that while it was a total clusterfuck mess of SQL, i would take the opportunity to give it a whole new life and everything.

So if you go clicking on things you might find that very strange things happen. Don’t moan, i know a lot of things are broken, i’m working on it, it takes time.

I’ve got tons of old posts and pages from three websites that i’m working through and will be gradually posting all the stuff i want to keep on here while fixing all the broken things as i go through, one post, one page, at a time.

On top of doing all that, i will, of course, be continuing to add more new content and my latest posts will always appear directly below.

Or, if you prefer, you can also follow me on Twitter and Pinterest where i put a link to all new posts.

Enjoy


A Tale of Woe — P. Djèlí Clark

A Tale of Woe -- P. Djèlí ClarkYou can read this for free or buy the issue over at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

A wonderful short story following a Sister of the Order of Soothers as she attempts to get to the Grand Benevolence of the Holy City of Aurth.   Fantasy at its best.

And . . .

. . . it’s free to read as well: what more can you ever possibly desire?   Perhaps a super big mug of cocoa while you read it, made the way you really like it?

Next up in my P. Djèlí Clark reading journey is The Black God’s Drums.

P. Djèlí Clark’s Page

#fantasy #pdjeliclark

Byrd Land Six — Alastair Reynolds

Byrd Land Six -- Alastair ReynoldsYou’ll find this in the anthology, Deep Navigation.

In this short we’re off to an Antartic research station, in Marie Byrd Land: oh yeah, you get to learn about real stuff with Alastair.

Anyway, someone’s been playing with quantum entanglement and has totally messed all kinds of things up for the people at “Byrd Land Six”, and also on the Moon, where the other half of the entangled pair is residing.

Once again, super good sci-fi from a real physicist: we like!

Next up in the Alastair Reynolds timeline is Spirey and the Queen.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

The Ringworld Engineers — Larry Niven

The Ringworld Engineers -- Larry NivenOnce again, we’re treated to more Seventies kitsch sci-fi with bizarre humanoids added to the mix of bizarre non-humanoids: there’s even vampires in this one.

On top of the bizarre creatures we are now treated to a never ending list of utterly unpronounceable names, obviously to make sure that you understand that this is real sci-fi, not some lame sci-fi with easy names that humans can pronounce.   To be honest Larry finds all kinds of ways to ruin a really good story and concept, and if it wasn’t for the fact that this is such a good story with such a good concept i would have stopped reading long ago.

But instead of stopping i’m going to carry on with the next book, The Ringworld Throne, just because it is such a good story, and i’m already bracing myself for even more jibbledy babbledy names and even more fucked up Seventies kitsch sci-fi creatures.

Ho hum, the trials and tribulations of the sci-fi reader.   To be honest, i’ll be glad when this Ringworld series thing is over and i won’t ever be reading Larry Niven ever again.

Larry’s Page

#scifi #larryniven

Ghost Marriage — P. Djèlí Clark

Ghost Marriage -- P. Djèlí ClarkYou can read this for free, or buy the issue, over at Apex Magazine.

So i’m continuing on my journey of Djèlí’s wonderfully refreshing fantasy.   In this story, Ayen’s husband has died and he won’t leave her, and as a poltergeist he causes her to be driven out of her tribe.   So off she goes in search of someone to help her exorcise his ghost from her mind.

But all is not as Ayen first believes it to be.

Really, really good.

Next up in the Djèlí timeline is A Tale of Woe, from 2018.

P. Djèlí Clark’s Page

#fantasy #pdjeliclark

Digital to Analogue — Alastair Reynolds

Digital to Analogue -- Alastair ReynoldsYou’ll find this in the collection, Zima Blue and Other Stories, and the anthology In Dreams.

A rather different take on why the dance music craze spread like wildfire in the 90’s.   As someone who was totally into the London acid techno scene in the 90’s this was right up my alley.

A fun little short with a nice touch of nostalgia for some of us.

Next up in the Alastair Reynolds timeline is Byrd Land Six.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Tokyo Ueno Station — Miri Yu

Tokyo Ueno Station -- Miri YuThis is quite a strange story, in that our protagonist/narrator, Kazu, is dead.   Before Kazu died, he was homeless and living in a cardboard and tarpaulin hut in Ueno Park, right next to Tokyo Ueno Station.

All too often we are shown the shiny-shiny capitalist face of Tokyo that those in power wish us to see, the Olympics, etc., but never do we see, or hear, those who are cast aside, unwanted and unneeded by a system that some just can’t keep up with.   Tokyo Ueno Station is their story, told by a ghost of one of the many people that society has no place for any more.

I know it sounds all rather depressing, but i didn’t find it so because it’s a view of Tokyo that is told in such a unique and interesting way, keeping our attention when most writers would have lost it, making us realise, consider and re-revaluate.   How many homeless people die on the streets every year and no one ever gets to hear their story, or realise the truth as to why they were homeless in the first place, this book makes you think about those things: they are important.

It’s certainly a fact in the UK, where i live, that the government deliberately maintains a homeless population in order to keep the threat in front of people of what will happen to them if they don’t comply with society’s demands.   I presume this is the same in Japan:   “Do you want to end up like them, Salaryman?   Well you’d best work hard, do lots of overtime, and do as you’re told — or else you’ll be living in Ueno Park too!”

Yu’s Page

#japan #miriyu

Nunivak Snowflakes — Alastair Reynolds

Nunivak Snowflakes -- Alastair ReynoldsYou’ll find this in the anthology, Deep Navigation.

Messages from the future found inside fish falling from the sky landing in front of the person the message was meant for.

Basically, someone from the future is being naughty and messing with the past in an indigenous community in Alaska.

Other than The Big Hello, of which i have no idea when published, this is Alastair’s first published story.   So it’s very early Alastair Reynolds, so don’t be expecting Revelation Space or anything like it.

But it’s a reasonable, quirky, little read that’ll keep you happily ensconced in you favourite reading pit for a while.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect — Roger Williams

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect -- Roger WilliamsSo what if we humans suddenly find ourselves immortal, with the ability to have anything whatsoever that we desire other than real death?   That’s essentially the basis of this book.

A super computer AI, Prime Intellect, has taken over and zapped everything into a virtual reality that is ruled over by Prime Intellect.   Prime Intellect has done this because of the three laws of robotics and it computes that the only way of preventing humans from dying, which it can’t allow, is to essentially upload everything into one galactic sized cyberspace and make all humans immortal.   Within this new reality, as long as the humans don’t do anything, or ask for anything, that contravenes the three laws of robotics, they can do and have anything they want.

Sound good?   Or does it sound like your worse nightmare?

Enter the realm of the death jockey.   People who want to ratchet up the suffering and get as close to death as Prime Intellect will allow.

Yes folks, this book is really fucking twisted.   If you’ve read the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy and thought some of the scenes in those books were extremely brutal and twisted, then you’ll be glad to know that you can put this book on the same bookshelf right next to them.   If you haven’t read them and enjoyed this book then i really suggest you do give them a go: they’ll be right up your twisted alley.

I would say that, at its core, this book is a critique of the three laws of robotics, and how they may be interpreted by any AI governed by them.   The critical pieces of the jigsaw being: what the AI decides it is going to label as human, what is therefore governed by the three laws of robotics and how, therefore, it then treats everything else.

I thought the ending was really good too.

So yeah, the future is bright my friends, rush out and buy your virtual reality gear today.

Me thinks i shall be looking forward to having a read of more of Roger’s books in the future if this is anything to go by.

Roger’s Page

#scifi #rogerwilliams

The Big Hello — Alastair Reynolds

The Big Hello -- Alastair ReynoldsIt’s listed on Wikipedia without a date, but it’s first in the queue of Alastair’s uncollected short fiction, and it is The Big Hello, afterall, so you may as well read it first if you’re reading all of Alastair’s books: me thinks.

You’ll have to hunt around the internet for this, it was originally published in German translation in a convention program.   But, like most rare things, it’s well worth a bit of a hunt around.

Basically, it’s a greeting from the rest of the galaxy informing us stupid Homo sapiens of a bit of etiquette, manners and how to go about things outside of out little insular bubble.   But, let’s be honest, we all know people like Musk & Co. are going to ignore everything Alastair says and totally fuck it up for the rest of us.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds



Currently

Fiction

Prelude to Foundation -- Isaac Asimov With the rise of the machines on the horizon . . .
 
. . .me thinks it’s a good time to re-read Asimov.

Fiction

Four Seasons in Japan -- Nick Bradley The Cat and The City was excellent, let’s hope this is too.

Nonfiction

Why Work? -- Collection Yeah, why?

Nonfiction

More Zen.