The website of fiction/non-fiction author Colin Harvey
OK, so it’s ofiicial: I’m an idiot.
I plugged the laptop in before coming away, and made sure that it was plugged in. What I didn’t check was that said battery was secure. It wasn’t, so when I took my 1.35kg paperweight with me, it had a battery with no charge.
Instead, you get some post-con ramblings here.
There is talk of making it a two-day event next year; whether or not it is one day or two, I’m really looking forward to it.
I’m packing before heading northwards for tomorrow’s Alt.fiction in Derby, so this will be one of the quicker posts, especially as I need to do some thinking about panels.
I’m on the 10am opener talking about classic SF, together with Tony Ballantyne and Paul Cornell; then at 3pm I’m being locked in a broom cupboard with Mike Cobley and That Man Ballantyne (again) to podcast on The Future of the Future.
Meanwhile, over at Suite101, I’ve scribbled a few words on Futurismic‘s newest columnist, the always fascinating Luc Reid.
Hopefully, I’ll have time to write a few words tomorrow from the evnt itself, but until then…
I was all set to write a blog post today with my schedule next Saturday for Alt.Fiction in Derby, but my publishers –bless ’em!– have saved a me a job, and probably put up a nicer post to boot.
So here’s the link showing all the Angry Robot-eers and their schedules.
In a stop press, I’ll also be in a panel titled ‘sci-fi’ with Tony Ballantyne and Paul Cornell at 10am. I’m not quite sure what we’re going to talk about, but I have a suspicion that that it may just have something to do with science fiction…
I was relieved this morning when I looked to learn that I have 0 (as in nought) new spam comments on the blog. It was getting a bit worrying when it hit 50 a day (yes, that was fifty). I don’t think I have an overly fierce spam filter, since most of the comments seemed to be in Cyrillic, but if you’ve posted a genuine comment and it hasn’t appeared, drop me a line.
I’m 850 words into a short-short story at the moment, and have a novel synopsis and third chapter to revise, but my main work today is to work on the links page, following up on my updating of my bibliography page. So I’d best get on.
Oh yes, and I’ll be at the Bristol SF&FS meeting tonight, and the BSFA meeting in London on Wednesday. If I don’t see you at one, maybe I’ll see you at the other…?
As part of my fearless crusade for the truth, I’ve managed to lay hold of a draft copy of an internal BBC Memo on last night’s final episode of Ashes to Ashes.* Be warned, there are spoilers there, as well as here.
Joking apart, it wasn’t the event we’d all been promised — but then again, nothing could match the hype. I had hoped for something a little more, rigorous, I suppose, and a bit less woolly headed. Probably the big revelation was a little too early in the episode, although learning the fate of Ray, Chris and Shaz was effective; Shaz especially carried the honours.
But it was all a bit too much like the shower sequence out of Dallas. If everything is in the mind of a dead man, even if it is a collective gestalt, then where are the consequences — so gunning down the villains was no more impactful than a video game. Or maybe that was the point of it? Bolly’s final parting was no more powerful than a ‘ta-ra then!’ as if she were going to the shops. When nothing is real, then nothing matters.
Although I did like the very last scene. Nicely wrapped up, Ashley. But next time, stick to cop shows and leave the metaphysics alone…
* For the humorously challenged, yes this was intended as a joke; no, there is no such Department — at least, I don’t think so…
I’ve just posted what may be either a one-off experiment, or the first of an occasional series at Suite101, in which I make my debut as an interviewer.
Black Static reviewer Peter Tennant is my first victim, and he did a series of fairly mundane questions proud, with some interesting and at times controversial answers (I may agree with Pete that Wembley should have been burned down, but not for his reasons!).
In the interest of full disclosure, most of the questions were adapted –or just pinched outright– from Angry Robot’s Lee Harris & Marc Gascoigne.
If you have a book or story coming out or if you have something to say in general about the genre, and you’re interested in being interviewed drop me a line, and we’ll see if this idea has legs.
I thought I ought to start getting back toward at least a semi-regular blog. Even though this morning’s lie-in to a decadent 7.30, plus (food) shopping and fitting the new TV rather rather blew that out of the water, I’m determined to say a few words about yesterday, which was hectic and hinged around two very different experiences of lectures.
The day was terrific but exhausting; Ashley Pharoah gave the 9am script lecture, then I spent the day with friends before heading back to uni to give the 5pm guest lecture with Gareth L Powell.
In the morning Pharoah talked about the bizaare genesis of Life on Mars, the rare pleasure of actually ending a series ( Spin-off Ashes to Ashes finishes on the 21st) rather than handing it over to someone else, as Russell T Davies did with Doctor Who, or just having it axed by the network. He also talked about his agent, and the fact that scripwriters cost their agencies an average of £10,000 per client. I’m sure that that’s less for literary agencies, and perhaps comes down the more clients an agency has, although conversely, the less they can do for an individual client, but it’s an interesting insight into the pressures on an agent. That’s something that most writers rarely think about.
Co-hosting the 5pm lecture with Gareth was a very, very different experience.
In actual terms there were only about 30 people there (Gareth estimated 20 to 30, I thought 30 to 40, so let’s go with the middle figure) but the shape of the auditorium, which rises away from one makes even that low number pretty formidable. I suspect that not all of the audience were SF fans, since attendance is theoretically mandatory — though it was the end of the academic year — so I wanted to give them a flavour of proper SF. Gareth went for a lighter approach, and read a short story which went down well, while I read an extract from Winter Song which is perhaps -with hindsight- a little tech heavy, although perfect for a con. There’s a moral there; think about the nature of your audience. But it showed them just how diverse SF is.
Gareth gave them some very tips on writing, which you can read about here, while I talked a little about a typical day, and both of us fielded the ‘where did that story come from?’ which is still a good question to ask.
The whole experience was pretty draining, and offered an insight how it feels to be a lecturer. Some of the questions were tough ones to answer on the hoof, and there were several occasions when I wished afterwards that I’d just had a few more seconds to think before answering — but I felt that I had to keep one eye on the time.
It would be profoundly interesting to go back in a year’s time and repeat the experience, to see whether the experience feels any less overwhelming, and whether any of the students have gotten into SF and/or fantasy.
As I observed over at Suite101, there is a certain degree of smugness in the air at Newton Park. Everyone’s turned in their assignments and the Easter holidays are looming. But my poetry tutor had to go and burst the bubble yesterday with a sharp verbal pinprick that didn’t immediately register…more here.
I fly out to Dublin later on today for the annual Phoenix Con, now in its seventh year. I have a pretty busy Saturday, with panels pretty much every other hour, so that if I’m lucky I’m on stage for an hour with an hour until the next one.
I’m unsure where my slot is in the ‘Meet the Author’ strand; if it’s Saturday, it could blow that nice steady routine out of the water — Sunday before or after lunch would be ideal, but I’ll take whatever crops up.
Sunday looks a little quieter, but here’s my timetable in full.
I was going to say ‘See you all tomorrow’ in Gaelic, but I can’t actually read Grace’s hand-writing…translation fail, Grace!
So I’ll see you all tomorrow…in English.
