Colin Harvey – author

I’ve posted some writing stuff over at Suite101, but not much time for anything else today. I’m off to Bath in ten minutes or so. First’s travel policy is that it’s cheaper for me to get a train into into Bath and get a bus from there to Newton Park than it is to get a bus to Corston roundabout. Go figure.

The bad news is that the Newton Park buses only run every hour in the holidays, and my train arrives about two minutes after one leaves. Go figure.

So to pick up assignments and drop a change sheet in, I need to be there before twelve, when the office closes. Fun fun fun…

This morning I passed 40k on the next novel, so it is now officially a novel, albeit an unfinished one.   🙂

I also posted up my full Angry Robot schedule at Suite101. Since the US and UK have different ordering and delivery cycles, there are four different dates, which makes it hard even for me to keep track of.

And I watched Misfits on Channel 4 last night. Brilliant. Heroes done properly — including a cheeky dig at the American series.

This week’s review at Suite101 is A.E Moorat’s Henry VIII: Wolfman. I didn’t much like it, not being a fan of monster mash-ups, and it’s nowhere near as good as the author’s Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter, which was far better written, and had some novelty that any follow-ups will inevitably lose.

So I was going to let Wolfman go by without a review.

But Hodder have a publicist, who’s even more annoyingly persistent than they usually are (though Tor have got a particularly odious specimen) and she wouldn’t let it go. Having spammed me with not one but TWO unsolicited hard copies* –stretching my poor elastic walls to their limit– she then e-mailed me asking whether I’d had a chance to read it. At which point I muttered “Okaaaaay…..” and took my gloves off.

Actually, I understand publicists are only doing their job, and maybe they regard even a negative review as being ‘any publicity is good publicity.’ Unfortunately, they never seem to publicize good books and anything that finds it’s way to me via a publicist always seems to be a pile of shite.

And I now look forward to receiving a really good book from a publicist that proves me wrong…

* I don’t mind getting review copies if the publicist has had the courtesy to ASK first. I may say no, but more likely than not I may say yes with the caveat that if I don’t like it, I won’t review it.

Over at Suite101.

I’ve posted a new review at Suite101, this time dissecting the latest edition of Albedo One. It’s another good issue.

Meanwhile, I’m off to London later today for the BSFA Meeting, which features an interview with Eric Brown, reviewer for the Guardian, contributor to Pringlezone, and author of Cosmopath and many other fine novels.

Anyone else going?

As I noted over at Suite 101, The Speculative Literature Foundation has announced that its seventh annual Older Writers Grant is to be awarded to Mario Milosevic, for his ‘Untied States of America’ which appeared in Interzone 228. It’s particularly interesting for three reasons:

First, this is the first time since 2007 that I’m familiar with the winning entry, and for all my reservations, it’s a worthy winner.

Secondly, I judge the awards myself in 2007, and it was a tough call then to pick just one winner, so I understand perfectly Malon Edwards comments of  “Honorable Mentions for the Older Writers Grant go to Michele Cashmore, April Grey, Lynne MacLean, Ada Milenkovic Brown, and J.A. Huets for their entertaining submissions, which made the selection of the winner a difficult but enjoyable process.”

Yep, not much has changed there, then.  Come the deadline, there’s usually much tearing of hair. 🙂

Lastly, and most selfishly, in five months time I’ll be eligible for the award myself. Not that I think that I have a prayer of winning it, but I have to have a go…it’s nice to see what benchmark’s been set.

It’s been a productive morning — I’m now 20% of the way through Ultramassive, 21000 words in, and I’ve critiqued a short story for Critters to keep membership of that that particular group ticking over.  Plus the review of Black Static 17 is posted.

So now –since it’s 23c in the shade and it feels criminal to be inddors on such a nice day, I’m going to sit under a tree and catch up on some z’s for an hour. There have to be some benefits to being a writer, after all….

Since those nice people at Alt.fiction gave us all a copy of The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy, the least I could do was read it. And having enjoyed it a lot, I ought to review it.  So I have.

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…