Colin Harvey – author

I’m delighted to report that my short story ‘The Killing Streets’ finished a respectable joint 9th in the Interzone poll, out of  32 stories.

Cogratulations to Jason Sanford, whose ‘Sublimation Angels’ narrowly beat Eugie Foster’s ‘Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, etc.’

And thanks to everyone who voted for me.

The other day I received an e-mail announcing the formation of a new on-line review zine in the style of The Fix (which is, as far as I know, on hiatus) and asking if I would be prepared to submit reviews of short fiction.

Unfortunately, I’m unable to take any more on, but I agreed to post a call for other existing and aspiring reviewers to drop a line to Val Grimm at the Portal.

To reduce the risk of spamming, drop me a line off-blog, and I’ll put you in touch with her. Please title your mail ‘Call for Reviewers: The Portal’ so my spam filter doesn’t eat it! It’s only reviewing short fiction, but the world needs more short fiction review zines.

And later on, I’m off to the Clarke Ceremony, where I’ll see Niall Harrison, Gareth L Powell and Cheryl Morgan — and other assorted luminaries.  Later!

The news is that Peter Watts has been fined, not imprisoned; hardly good news, but far, far better than things looked 36 hours ago, and at least he can now (hopefully) get on with his life.

Meanwhile, I’ve reviewed Gareth L Powell’s debut novel over at Suite101.

And the second part of the memory thread that formed such a serendipitous moment, given Damage Time’s imminent publication, is here. This is specifically about deleting memories, the parallel to the novel’s ripping them.

If this all seems a little breathless, it is; this Tuesday seems especially frantic as the Uni timetable is all over the place and I have to be out of the door in about five minutes…

I’ll start with the latest worrying news about Pete Watts, for those of you who haven’t heard it already — he has heard that the prosecutor is pressing for a custodial sentence. We await news, but the silence is worrying…let’s just hope that it’s good news and that the silence means he’s celebrating.

Meanwhile, the review machine rolls on at Suite101 — this morning’s target is Rhys Hughes’ new novel Twisthorn Bellow.

And over at the Vector blog (that’s the review journal of the BSFA) they’ve started a discussion on Winter Song. If you want to join in, feel free to join in — I don’t think that it’s limited to BSFA members.

Various bits of Odds and Sods-ery for your erm, pleasure today.

First of all, I’m pleased to see that I’m not the only person who was pissed off at the BBC for allowing a cartoon Graham Norton to clamber across the screen at the supposed climax of Doctor Who last night. What were they thinking of when they decided to do that? Were they thinking at all? Seriously, Beeb, WTF?

It’s enough that we have to cope with a new Doctor (jury still out, but generally OK) a new assistant (thumbs up) and the most intrusive music and background noise since 1972 (thumbs very much down) but now this? What’s the point of making drama programmes if you throw the audience out of the drama at key moments?  If you want to complain, here’s the link.  I urge you to do so, or we’ll have no quality of programming at all.

And I’ve posted the latest review at Suite101; in line with my continuing fascination with Children’s Literature I borrowed The Wolves of Willoughby Chase from Newton Park Library. It’s a good-ish book, marred somewhat by the moron who borrowed it before me deciding that they were an editor, and that they could ‘improve’ on Aiken’s prose. So many, many passages have been pencilled through and ‘alternative text substituted in the margins or over other text.

Are you sensing a theme this morning?

Well, if so, here’s something completely different. The launch of Silversands yesterday included Gareth L Powell reading a chapter of his debut novel and free vino. What more could you want? Certainly not me desperately improv-ing a 30-second interview on AudioBoo…

The Saturday review at Suite101 this week is Black Static 16, but before you click on the link –or not– I want to add a coda.

I mentioned that it’s the first full colour Black Static, but Suite’s policies preclude me from saying that the whole magazine is jaw-droppingly fucking gorgeous.  I had my doubts about a full colour edition, simply because  it’s a magazine of dark fiction, which just goes to show that

a. sometimes bright colours can enhance the darkness

b. I know nothing, absolutely nada, about artwork. Except what I like.

Oddly, the Lynda E. Rucker artwork, which is among the strongest in the issue, seems to be uncredited.

On another point, space precluded me commenting in more detail on Stephen Volk’s ‘Electric Darkness,’ which was like a shot in the arm. This is how it starts:

There’s this story. This guy went to live in the wilderness with grizzly bears… He admired their grace and ever since he was a kid he adored them. He thought, if I treat them well, they’ll have no reason…to attack me.  On the contrary, they’ll love me like I love them and we’ll all live happily in the forest together. Well, one day the fucking grizzlies turned on him and ate him.

I know the feeling.

Volk recounts the series of setbacks and the periodic depression that plagues him (and sometimes the two are linked, and sometimes they’re not) — and wonders why he bothers.

It touched a chord because I’m slightly melancholic by nature, and also lately because I’ve begun to note the switchback nature of writing for a living.

Possibly every beginning writer dreaming of the first sale thinks that after they’ve made the breakthrough, it’s happily ever after. In fact, given long enough a writer’s career seems increasingly to me to be like a game of Snakes ‘n’ Ladders. Volk’s article nails it absolutely, and in the process outlines how he copes. Anyone who suffers from depression, or whose career is going through a rough patch should read it.

Black Static is a great magazine, and 16 is an exemplary issue, but in any case this month’s Electric Darkness alone is worth the cover price.

I’m going to be particularly busy over this next week. Kate and I went to see Wilde’s Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime in Bath last night, so this morning I posted a quick review at the usual place.

Tomorrow I’m in Bristol at the Shakespeare (down on Princes Street) for the launch of Gareth L Powell’s debut novel Silversands — I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy.

Monday night I’m in Bristol again, for the monthly meeting of the Bristol SF & Fantasy Society, where doubtless talk will turn to Bristolcon. Although there will be other subjects discussed -such as whose round is it?– and Doctor Who and…the meeting is at 8pm at the King William on King Street, and as well as yours truly, Jim Mortimore and Jo Hall will be there, plus assorted others.

On Wednesday I’ll be attending the Arthur C. Clarke Awards presentation ceremony in London, and staying overnight. The next morning I might just take a stroll into one or two of the local bookshops, and maybe even sign a few copies of Damage Time…

If you’re at any of the upcoming events, feel free to come over and say ‘Hi.’

Yesterday’s Media Communications Lecture turned out to be the most interesting yet, not least because we all got the distinct feeling that James wasn’t supposed to be taking the lecture, but if that’s the case, he did a terrific job of improvisation.

Another reason it worked was it’s brevity. Probably about 45 minutes long.

But the subject matter helped. As background to ‘Media Studies 2.0’ James taked about the rise of certain social networks.

He took a hand count yesterday, and based on this admittedly imprecise poll surmised that while Facebook has far more users (maybe twenty fold) than Twitter, the latter has far more influence.

It seems that many of the opinion formers (and James quoted Stephen Fry’s response to the repugnant Jan Moir piece on Stephen Gately) prefer to use Twitter over Facebook, and according to his presentation –which I’d love to see supporting or disproving data– it’s because many journalists in particular follow Twitter.

What he hasn’t followed through on to on is why they have embraced Twitter despite Facebook having maybe twenty times as many users; he suggests that journalists have embraced social networking in a desperate attempt to find easy news stories.

He concluded that because journalists tend to use Twitter, part of the reason is the ‘I’m twittering’ becomes a message in itself — so they are creating the story, rather than reporting it.

I agree with that, but his implication that they seem to have picked Twitter almost at random over Facebook falls short of reality.

Given that most old-style journos are reluctant to embrace the new media at all, where they do they tend to stick to one network. With Twitter limiting its character count, it’s much easier to write ‘pieces’ to export from Twitter than to import into it — a url, or title and url don’t have the same impact as a self-contained phrase.

and I suggest that Twitter lends itself more to snappy headlines through the discipline of an upper limit of one hundred and forty characters. This more closely replicates the snappy headlines favoured by tabloid newspapers — and to an extent by our soundbite society….

This will only be a short post, as it’s just before 9.15 am, and I have to be out of the door by 10 o’clock, to get to uni for the first lecture of term.

At the end of last term I was faced with the prospect of handing in five assignments in eight calendar days, from Monday the 10th to Monday the 17th of May. It’s clearly do-able, but needed planning and to get ahead.

I’ve at least made a start on four of them, although all will still need further polishing. But on the back of 1400 words written this morning, I’ve posted over at Suite101 about one of them. It’s a children’s novel about a boy with the (deliberately) unfortunate name of Brian Brain, and which contains a single element of fantasy to what is otherwise a mainstream novel.

The clamour of the alarm at 05.30 announced that the Easter holidays are officially over.

Not that it was –the middle week aside– ever a holiday in the proper sense; all writers know that there’s always something that needs to be done, and there were still assessments to be worked on.

So I wrote the first 1100 words of my Creative Writing assessment, which one day may become a Middle-Years novel tentatively titled Brian;  submitted a 1500 word proposal for an anthology to the Arts Council; and wrote a 2500 word article on spec on SF. Plus there are always books and magazines to be reviewed and blog posts to be written.

But I also had a lovely week off with Kate, and last weekend we went down to Poole and Wimborne (in Dorset) for a charity pub quiz (we raised £537 for a bursary in memory of our late nephew), and the next day it was our great-niece’s 1st birthday, which called for a big family party.

But now the alarm’s gone off and it’s back to work…officially.