Colin Harvey – author

They’re like buses, interviews; nothing seems to happen for weeks, and then along come a whole clutch of them.

Virtually the last thing I did before falling into bed on Monday evening was to record December’s Angry Robot podcast with fellow Robot-eer Matt Forbeck and the humungously talented Mur Lafferty. I came away not completely happy with the interview since (I think) I sounded like a croaking frog and my brain kept short-circuiting, but that’s the whole point of podcasts — they’re live and (relatively) un-edited; what you hear is what was said.

More comfortable was the e-mail interview with The World’s Biggest Bookstore in Montreal. I’m to be their Featured December author, and they’ll blog the interview on November 29th. I’ll post a link nearer the time.

And a couple of of weeks ago Salon Futura editor Cheryl Morgan was kind enough to trek over to the wilds of Keynsham -where I live- and interview me for the third issue of the magazine. It’s online now here. 

Cheryl also has some nice things to say about Damage Time and several other new titles in the feature ‘Better Living Through Software.’

Bear in mind that Salon Futura is funded by donations and a few low-key adverts, so if you like what you read there and want to keep it going, throw that odd quid that you found down behind the couch into the donations pot, via the donate page.

Yes, full disclaimer time: Salon Futura editor Cheryl is the publisher of Dark Spires, which shares Andy Bigwood’s cover with this month’s issue. But even if she wasn’t, I’d have banged the drum for it anyway; I think that as a grown-up magazine -I initially used adult, but didn’t like the implication, which is in itself an interesting comment on the way that word’s been hi-jacked- as a grown-up magazine aimed at discourse about literate, grown-up SF, Salon is an important development.

So there. 🙂

Well, here we are; Sunday night is already falling on the first night of winter time, and I’m just about done.

Four reviews, five guest blogs and a post of my own on Suite101, culminating in a review of the third anniversary Black Static, which is maybe the best issue I’ve read yet.  The lowest I gave any story was one of the three Highly Recommendeds, an Outstanding, and a Year’s Best contender.

Plus a horror film blog over at Film Making Mumblings.

That’s about three hours work this afternoon. More on that later…

Tomorrow I’m going to start posting extracts from Dark Spires, if I get time, I’ll do two a day — if not, I’ll do one. So expect actual blogs to be thin on the ground for another week, at least until after Bristolcon. But next week is not only post-con, but it’s Reading Week as well, which gives me about fiften to seventeen hours extra to…well, read.

Have fun this Hallowe’en night….mwahahaha…

Since it  is out today, I felt I ought to write a few words –unfortunately, I don’ have a bottle to crack against its bows– but yea, verily, I declare this novel Damage Time to be out as of about…5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Actually, it’s probably been out for hours or days. These distinctions are entirely artificial, like birthdays, and Christmas. What actually changes, because a clock ticks over? This is what distinguishes from the animal kingdom, of course…that we can consciously note the time. But at times it can get a little out of hand…I’m thinking of the Millenium for example, but yes, today probably applies as well….

Anyway, enough waffle. There are two more flash extracts up on the site with experimental artwork by moi, based on Chris Moore’s stunning cover.

And since it’s still Halloween Week over at suite101, I’ve posted a review — this time Gary MacMahon’s fine but harrowing The Harm.

(it’s amazing how many variations on that you can get by omitting one letter from that title — I variously typed ‘he harm’ and ‘the ham’ and ‘the arm’ before finally getting it right…)

I don’t often post a blog this late in the day, but it’s been an unusual day; almost perfect weather from a working point of view. Sunshine this morning for us to walk Alice around the fields, when we got home it rained for most of the day.  While Kate has lurked in the kitchen making soup and Apple Almond Cake I’ve spent the day on the usual revision.

But unlike most of the week, once the revision is done I’ve left uni work to one side to concentrate on reviews. And then, having written a couple of thousand words, the sun came out again for us to walk Alice through the park. She repaid us by bringing a stick fully fifty per cent longer than she is. As the girl used to say on the Clio ad, “size matters.” It certainly does to a dog.

Blog posts next week are going to be limited. With Damage Time out in the US on Tuesday, I’ll be posting extracts from the novel. And I’ve four reviews to go up on Suite101, all horror, which I’ll be linking to on the day they’re posted;

Stephen King      — Carrie

Joe Hill                 — 20th Century Ghosts

Gary McMahon — The Harm

and

Black Static 19

Right, that’s it for now. Off to eat some pizza.

Have fun!

Definitely an in and out, black and white, up and down, good and bad kind of morning.

My old pc –not the Toshiba of Satan’s Arse, which is usually the cause of my tearing my hair out– which is normally pretty good, decided to lock up this morning. Nothing worked, so eventually I had to cut the power and reboot. And lo! The file which I’d been saving faithfully every ten minutes since creating it an hour earlier was blank, and I got a message which basically said ‘this file is corrupt; you’re stuffed, mate.’ Grrr.

Eventually re-wrote it, despite interruptions like the veg man coming, and being greeted in the usual shouty fashion by Tourette’s Dog. While I was outside bringin the veg, I photographed our crop of chillies which was nice (they would be those red things on the right, but for the fact that I’ve lost the connector cable with the phone – so you’ll have to make do with yet another look at Chris Moore’s cover for Damage Time) .

And the nice thing was finding another nice review or two. First there was Eric Brown’s review in Saturday’s Guardian, then an even better one in the Falcata Times. Actually that’s reverse order of writing, since the latter one was posted last Thursday, but it’s the order of writing.

So a mixed morning, which isn’t yet over — I have to go and read a script…

We got back from holiday yesterday, and I’ve gradually eased back into work, clearing e-mails and reviewing the latest Interzone here, while watching the Grand Prix.  It looks, sadly, as if Hamilton’s challenge is done for this year.  Whereas mine is just beginning…meanwhile, here’s a nice picture of the latest Interzone cover by Warwick Fraser-Coombe

Lots and lots of free on-line stuff happening at the moment, so I thought that I’d do a round-up. ‘Stuff’ is like London buses. You get nothing happening for months on end and then -wham!- the world goes mad.

First up on this not-so-sunny Monday morning, my publishers –Angry Robot– posted the first fifty-odd pages of Damage Time on-line over the weekend to read for free.  The whole novel is out in the UK on October on October 7th, and in the US on October 26th. Although US readers can order the electronic copy direct from the Angry Robot web shop on the earlier date.

Today my short story ‘Chameleon’ goes on-line to subscribers at Daily Science Fiction. Since subscription is free you might as well join, rather than waiting for a whole week…or you can wait a week, and it’ll be there waiting for you…

 Meanwhile the lovely Dark Fiction Review have posted a terrific review of Winter Song. It’s terrific not so much because it says nice things about the book –although that’s always nice– but because they picked up on some things that others missed.

And finally, I’ve reviewed Stephen Baxter’s Flood over at suite101.

That’s all for now!

I’ve been busy on admin stuff this morning, about which more tomorrow -or maybe Thursday, depending how quickly I get it done — so this morning’s blog post is a very quick one.

Quick, but nonetheless happy; the first new reviews are coming out for Winter Song, one in Sweden, where Cybermage describes it as ‘fun to read’ among other nice words. It was fun to write, too. 

The second is from the US, where Daniel Marcus says that ‘Winter Song is a great read.  Looking forward to more from Harvey and more from Angry Robot.’

So are we.

Thanks Ove and Daniel, it really is very much appreciated.

This month’s vic -interviewee is Ira Nayman, who runs the Alternate Reality News Service. Actually, Ira is so enthusiastic that we had to cut his interview in three to fit it into the tiny little boxes Suite101 allocates.  But it’s worth it to check out this fascinating man’s thoughts on reading, comedy and spec-fic.

I can’t think of too much else to say at the moment as I’m still reeling from the twitter feed covering the Hugo Awards. I’ll cover the results in more detail tomorrow; enough for the moment to say that I’m pleased and delighted that Peter Watts and Will McIntosh won deserved first Hugos, and I’m (pleasantly) gob-smacked that not only did Paolo Bacigalupi win the Hugo I never thought he’d for The  Wind-up Girl (too controversial, I thought — shows how much I know!) but that he had to wrestle China Mieville to a stand-still to tie with him for The City and The City.

Today is the second of the five big days that I have spread over the next two months or so, and it’s great everyone is making so much noise about Angry Robot’s US launch / UK re-launch.

And to add to the fun, nine of the titles (including Winter Song) can now be bought in e-book format.  For those readers with questions about DRM, etc, check out the comments at the link.

And there’s a terrific competition for US readers being run at the moment at Robot Towers, while over at the nascent Salon Futura Cheryl Morgan interviews Lauren Beukes.  Lauren’s new novel Zoo City has been reviewed at Dark Fiction Review by Adam Christopher. They published me in an interview and will be reviewing Winter Song in the next day or so.

I have a whole host of outstanding jobs to do, but am finding (in the nicest possible way) that I’m struggling to concentrate; I’d much rather be seeing what the next event unfolding is. So maybe I’ll just accept that the transmissions from me brain are going to be jammed for the rest of the day / week.

Especially since I’ll have even more news tomorrow.