Cyberabad

Goats! In Cloaks!

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 07:57:00 GMT

I never blog, unless it's to contradict myself, or I have something of interest to report. This is the latter. Just (and by just, I mean, still getting over the travel angst, which, since it involved Ryanair, and a 2:00 am drive up from Dublin, fog and chip'n'pin cardreader failure at a gas station, is considerable) back from Pyrkon, at Poznan in Poland. This is the national Polish SFF convention. It takes place in two of the buildings of Poznan World Trace Center, and caters for film, TV, manga, comics, anime, gaming, cosplay and books --the usual 21st century mix. This is it's 12th year

Last year, Pyotr, the organiser, got 4000 people through the door. This year the sun shone and there were 6,200 attendees. I'll say that again because your blink may have meant that you did not read that properly. 6,200. Paying attendees at that.

I was the foreign guest writer -- I get the feeling I may have been the first. If not, please feel free to correct. The concom are keen to do it again and to get Pyrkon to register more prominently on the international convention scene.

It was great. The sun shone, I had well attended panels, did a load of interviews and had a book signing queue that extended out of the hall. People who asked questions had read my books. Which were widely available in very handsome editions. And sure there are lots of kids running around in neko cat-ears and tails, but if even ten percent --hell, five percent, buy a book and read it, that's a load of readers. I like festival-type conventions. They get people in. There is much to be said for the fan-run con, which is meeting old friends and being together in a convivial atmosphere, but the festivals seem to get the kids in, and that's the audience that interests me. I was talking at Pyrkon about how SF has become primarily a visual medium and that the appurtenances of SF have become divorced from the spirit of SF, which is science or technology at at the core of the story, hence my little tweetburst about 'hard sf' --a term I think damages the genre because it makes it seem unapproachable, 'difficult' and overly macho, in our general anti-science culture. I disagree, but that's another post, if I can be arsed.

But Pyrkon was exciting and felt fresh and encouraged me that potential readers are still coming to the genre. Books aren't the entry drug any more. Books are the hard stuff, the crystal meth of genre. Yoyu start off on a few tokes to visual media, maybe get into costuming (very taken with one dude who had a quick think about what to go as, found a fez and a tweed jacket and hey presto! The fact that he looked like Boris Johnson made it all the more glorious) and some day someone offers you the stuff that comes wrapped up in paper (or laid out in lines on the screen of an e-reader). I do believe that books offer something no other form of the genre can. Some will reach them and be happy ever after. Some won't. That's cool. SF has become a broad church and I think that is good. (At the same tinme, I do feel that tastes within that broad church are narrowing and hardening, which is the antithesis of what reading is about. But in general, I do not feel I have lived and fought in vain.

The people were wonderful and welcoming, the organisation was excellent, I am the proud recipient of the Polish Post-Apocalyptic Babes Calendar, Team Ireland narrowly beat Team Poland at drinking, the hotel bar had a two lane skittles alley in the basement bar and the local radio in the breakfast room played hits from the 80s with so much reverb the vocalists sounded like they were at the bottom of a well; our room overlooked an old socialist era zoo, with lemurs and petting ponies and an aura of such melancholy hopefulness that made me go back and walk around every day.

Poznan has secret delights --two hundred people gathering as clockwork goats on the town hall clock butt heads twelve times at noon! The same goats featured in the posters --in cloaks. Goats in Cloaks! Goats! In Cloaks! In this town priests still wear birettas. Everyone is impossibly young and good looking (this is Poland) except for me.

Pyrkon has ambitions. I salute them and wish them every success in acheiving them. Good con, people.

My Worldcon Schedule

Sun, 31 Jul 2011 12:31:51 GMT

...

• The Psychogeography of Ideals (Panel), Thu 11:00 - 12:00, A04 (RSCC)
• Pyr (Publisher Presentation), Thu 13:00 - 14:00, A11 (RSCC)
• Literary Beer: Thu 15:00 (Literary Beer), Thu 15:00 - 16:00, Hall 2 Bar (RSCC)
• Reading Jam (Activity), Fri 11:00 - 12:00, E1 (RSCC)
• Reading: Ian McDonald (Reading), Fri 15:00 - 15:30, A15 (RSCC)
• The Future of Cities (Panel) (M), Fri 17:00 - 18:00, A01+6 (RSCC)
• Autographing: Sat 13:00 (Autographing), Sat 13:00 - 14:00, Hall 2 Autographs (RSCC)

last minute shamless self promotion...

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 16:59:24 GMT

... since Hugo Nominations close tomorrow (March 26), my novel The Dervish House (Pyr/Gollancz) is eligible in the Novel category. Said it before, I'm saying it again. Thanks.

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:13:49 GMT

I've been persuaded by Cheryl Morgan at PCon to attempt twitter, so I'm at @iannmcdonald. It still won't be topical or interesting. Or regular.

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 09:18:00 GMT

Before I cruise down to Dublin for PCon, I'm delighted to announce to that I'm a finalist for the 2011 Arthur C Clarke Award --and it's a very strong list that shows the huge diversity of what's going on the genre at the moment. Great company --and congratulations to flister triciasullivan. And all the other nomimees, of course.

book delivered!

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 12:08:17 GMT

Instancing some champagne: Planesrunner (part one of the younger readers series I'm writing for Pyr) delivered by click yesterday. And John Picacio is doing the cover. You'll notice I'm not saying much about this series. It all starts to ramp up in book two, of course.

It's that time of year again.

Sun, 02 Jan 2011 16:33:29 GMT

Everyone's doing this, so though it feels hideously immodest, may I remind you that it's Hugo Nomination time again. I'm eligible for The Dervish House.
Also, Long form editors: the mighty Lou Anders at Pyr and our Dark Lord Simon (Darth) Spanton at Gollancz.
That is all.

Water Wars II

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 08:32:19 GMT

So, it was actually three burst pipes over Christmas, not two, which we got sorted (temporarily) with an end-cap on the pipe. Thank you Super Mario. We'll get the rest sorted out when NI Water clean up our stopcock in the street, which, given the state of things, may be some time. Now we have no water at all, due to the Great Northern Ireland Water Fail. People lining up at leisure centres to fill buckets and flagons. Some places haven't had water for over a week. We got off lightly, to be honest --off yesterday at 11:00, theoretically on today at 10:00, and our gym up the road is fine for showers and toilets. It's things like washing hands/dishes/floors where you have to catch yourself and say, 'ah, actually, that's not working'. The temperature has shot up 20 degrees almost overnight in the Mighty Thaw --from minus 10C to plus 10C.

Amd I forgot to mention, before Christmas, slimmeroftheyea's triumphal performance as Mrs Malaprop in Sheridan's The Rivals Only one of the best women's comic parts ever written. And she got big big laughs. And my Christmas prezzie to her --tickets to see Derek Jacobi in King Lear. We saw the live relay from the National Theatre of Rory Kinnear in Hamlet at the QFT and it got me all Shakespearean. But ... you know... Derek Jacobi. (I got allotmenteering gear and a Larousse Gastronomique, since you enquire)

wet wet wet

Sun, 26 Dec 2010 11:13:36 GMT

Two pipebursts in three days. First one, no problem. Fixed. Second one: four thirty on Christmas Eve. No chance of getting our Super Mario plumber out to that. Thankfully, it's an external pipe so it's spraying away outside and leaving a truly impressive ice slick down the street. Unthankfully, it's knocked out all our internal watrer except for one tap in the kitchen. Victo
rian Christmas, anyone? The bummer is that the previous owners, in their home improvment frenzy, concreted in the stop cock, so the only way to shut the water off is the mains valve in the street, which (1) is under ice and (2) takes out the houses on either side of us. Godammit! And how was your Christmas?

When the Moon is eclipsed by the earth...

Tue, 21 Dec 2010 09:08:38 GMT

because I was up early to do a bit on da book, I stepped out to see the lunar eclipse, which, viewed from the deck at the back of the house, was more or less directly over Knockagh across Belfast Lough. Totality at about 07:45. It went blood red. I tried to get a photograph but the light was too low and my fingers too chilled and thick. It's good to be drawn out (especially at this very internal time of year) to contemplate things that are not a product of human culture. Damn cold --we must have had a total of thirty centimetres of snow since last Thursday: it's bedded in some, but shows no sign of leaving us. The Google weather alert says -13 C in Tinseltown in the Rain last night, which is pretty mind-buggering, even if I do take it with a pinch of (road) salt. I do remember seeing the sea freeze in Bangor marina waaay back, it's getting to that kind of temperature here. I wish I could find it again, but last year, in February, the last big freeze, someone on my flist posted a singularly alarming picture, from NOAA: a satellite thermal image of the North Atlantic conveyor. The Gulf Stream, thermal red, instead of curving easttowards Europe, was diverting west between Baffin Island and Greenland. meaning: the Gulf Stream is shutting down. I wonder if there are any NOAA shots from the present freeze?

Limoncello!

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 11:23:44 GMT

A word that seems to demand an exclamation mark. Made some last night for Christmas, using the mighty Sarah Raven's recipe, below:

This is quick and easy to make – it will take about 10 minutes – but then needs to be left for a couple of weeks at least before you drink it. Then the lemon zest and lemon grass really infuse the vodka to give a delicious sharp but rich taste.
Makes 750ml bottle

8 unwaxed lemons
2 lemon grass stems
700ml bottle of good quality vodka
220g caster sugar

Zest the lemons and crush the lemon grass and put them into a large sterilised kilner or preserving jar and pour over the vodka.

Put the sugar into a saucepan with 350ml water, bring to the boil, turn down the heat and simmer for 3-4 minutes. Leave the syrup to cool, then add it to the lemon zest mixture.

Seal the preserving jar and leave for a couple of weeks in a cupboard, shaking and turning every so often. Then strain the limoncello into bottles. This is best served ice cold, straight from the freezer.

Now, doesn't that sound the dog's? The kitchen smells fantastic. Limoncello!

Taiwan news versus Celtic Tiger

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:19:37 GMT

Father Ted fans take note at 2:01

Floyd/Bee Gees: together againat last

Sat, 27 Nov 2010 15:07:20 GMT

Ganked from Jonathan Strahan, this superlative mash-up of Stayin' Alive with Another Brick in the Wall manages to be greater than the sum of its parts.

Nano-ing

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 10:31:44 GMT

Been asked to point out that I'm doing something re NaNoWriMo at Blick studios Malone Road at 7:00 pm this very night. Don't let the weather scare you...

back to porridge

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 09:46:55 GMT

returned Monday from France, where, courtesy of my estimable French publishers Denoel (no handy diaresis shortcut on LJ, alas), and the even more estimable Gilles Dumay, my editor, I did an appearance (which sounds more exciting than it was) at Paris bookstore Scylla --this is a great shop, --20 sq metres, and books to the very ceiling. It smells beautiful. Shoppers have to shuffle round, which makes signings upclose and personal. Talked to great people many of whom I recalled from Utopiales last year.
(This was after the Scariest. Flight Evah --LHR-CDG on Air France. It suddenly seemed to run out of sky just over the channel --I saw a light attendant leave the cabin floor. Funnythe kinds of decisions that seem ovbvious --either spill my red wine all over the floor, or go down in screaming terror with a decent Bordeaux inside me... Well darlings, what else would you think I'd do?)
We were staying on the Left Bank, a part of Paris I'd never stayed in before (though I've been many times) --just off the Boulevard St Germain de Pres, which was central and very very walkable. slimmeroftheyea was with me (she was on a different, direct flight from BFS-CDG).
Then on to Utopiales in Nantes, which was excellent as ever --met China Mieville, chatted with Peter Watts and Caitlin (with much hilarity), shared a signing space with Larry Niven --all his books are still in print in France. Good signings --and many of them--, seeing much love for Le Fleuve des dieux. I ended up on panels about robotics, for some reason, but at least I did learn of the robot that eats slugs and digests them for motive power. Everyone instantly said, 'I want one of those.' Saw the big machines at les Machines de l'ile --including the replica of the Sultan's Elepehant, fondly remembered --and finally got to dinner in La Cigalle. Marvellous tilework and high-ceilinged ambience --and on a Sunday in November, all we had to do was dander in to get a table. slimmeroftheyea's French is more confident than mine (I understand a lot more than I can speak), so like a cowardly male I left her to do the talking. I do love Utopiales very much, because it feels like a festival --something I'm coming round to more and more as the way to go. At the games stand, the Kinect provided the biggest crowd and the most hilarity -- it's the fact that everything is done in mime that makes it much more entertaining to watch that the Wii. That has some degree of agency --this is Marcel Marceau. Masquerade: best costume, among all the cosplay stuff, which to be honest, is staring to feel a bit old and stale, was a marvellous costume for the Diva from the Fifth Element.

Back to Paris Monday for an interview for France Culturelle (spelling almost certainly wrong), the main culture radio station --and then back, with a hideous transfer through Heathrow, and WTF do they need do a biometric scan for at Flight Connections in T1? I had my identity checked eight times between Paris and bagagge reclaim at BFS (WTF do they need to check your ID entering bagagge reclaim?)

Anyway, just bloggin this to avoid going in to the office...

The only good teenage boy...

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 12:48:10 GMT

... is a dead teenage boy, according to research reported in this article in the Indie. I excerpt:

The portrayal of teenage boys as "yobs" in the media has made the boys wary of other teenagers, according to new research.

Figures show more than half of the stories about teenage boys in national and regional newspapers in the past year (4,374 out of 8,629) were about crime. The word most commonly used to describe them was "yobs" (591 times), followed by "thugs" (254 times), "sick" (119 times) and "feral" (96 times).

Other terms often used included "hoodie", "louts", "heartless", "evil" "frightening", "scum", "monsters", "inhuman" and "threatening".

The research – commissioned by Women in Journalism – showed the best chance a teenager had of receiving sympathetic coverage was if they died.

"We found some news coverage where teen boys were described in glowing terms – 'model student', 'angel', 'altar boy' or 'every mother's perfect son'," the research concluded, "but sadly these were reserved for teenage boys who met a violent and untimely death."

What a Godawful, preachy, fear-filled nation we've become (and I'm paraphrasing an old Kate Wilhelm introduction to a story in Again, Dangerous Vision Can't remember the title of the story, alas, but her introduction seethed with righteous rage.

Post Belgrade.

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:25:09 GMT

Back from Belgrade (actually, Sunday night, and I was in dayjob yesterday). Lavishly entertained by our host Goran and his wife Dragana --and daughters sax-playing and non-sax playing. Your hospitality is overwhelming.
I was there as guest of my publisher Paladin, partly to promote the story collection (which is kind of a Best Of and features a lot of uncollected work). Signings, media, the Belgrade Book fair. The scale of the publishing industry in Serbia is quite amazing --four halls at the Belgrade fairgounds, full of publishers, book sellers, independent retailers. Books books books. And thousands of people, many of them buying (though I'm told that it's the only time of the year that many people buy books). Drinking with the Belgrade SF writers --there is a pretty vibrant local Sf and fantasy writing scene (I did note, a tad low on the oestrogen). Interesting things happening: I was talking to three writers (Goran among them) who all, independently, were pushing at the edges of the mainstream audience -- one alternate history, one dark urban fantasy (not Kick-ass grrrl with ass-antlers, fantasy in a contemporary urban setting) and horror/noir --that will appeal tot he general reading audience. Interesting approach, and one that chimes with me. One thing we all agree on: marketing. When you need it you can't get it, when you get it you don't need it. If I can ever remember my Flickr log-in, I may post up some photos.
Belgrade is a deeply fascinating place, probably one of the most interesting cities I've been to. Everything is layered and nuanced --and I got a feeling of a city and a nation not quite at ease with itself. There's an edge --and the population is very young and energetic. Most of the time I was just looking around and listening. No, I'm not going to McDonald it. Moving on from that.
I am in the middle of polishing an outline for the next Grownup novel Hopeland--agents are excited after the first version of the outline, I'm excited. It's like nothing else I've ever done. It's like nothing else out there. I'm deliberately trying to find out if there's another gear in the box to shift up --I think there may be.

Simply smashing Pumpkins

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 20:41:13 GMT

Festivate yourself on, from the Torygraph, fantabulosa carved pumpkins

Went the day well?

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 11:33:00 GMT

...verily, having wasted much of the morning noodling with my spanky new HTC Desire phone-thing, just arrived.

Morning chortle....

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 07:17:41 GMT

....as heard oi Today. The prospect of Watyne Rooney crossing to the blue half of Manchester is just too delicious. I'm sure Sheikh Mansour thinks so too.

State of Me

Sun, 17 Oct 2010 10:20:16 GMT

I've been too too long away from here (not long enough, do I hear?). So, what's happening?

I directed my first play-reading last Wednesday. We read Sunday Morning at the Centre of the World Louis de Berniers' play for voice (heavily under the influence of Dylan Thomas) of a few inconsequential weekend hours in the life of Earlsfield. 45 parts read by eight voices and a narrator, and it was lovely. I tried to recreate the radio play experience, so the audience brought duvets and pillows and had a nice Sunday morning cuppa while the players were scattered among them and read. Might try it as a one-act --it's mercifully short, and an intellectual challenge to stage.

We're off travelling again. This Thursday I'm in That London for the Gollancz autumn bash, where I shall try not to be the drunkest person in the room. Last year's was the last time I saw Rob Holdstock. That's a dark thought. Then, week after, we're in Belgrade, courtesy of my publisher in Serbia, Goran Skrobonja. Looks like a lot of fun. Two weeks after that, Paris for a Le Fleuve des Dieux feature, then back to Nantes for Utopiales. It's a bit later this year, so there'll be no biking around the Loire, alas. Pedalling in to the Bon Laboureur hotel at Chenonceaux, after a miserable drizzly day and fixing a puncture by the side of a back road (with which the Loire is very generously provided, which makes for great near-traffic-free biking) was unforgettable --and the dinner very very good. The cheese-board looked like an art department model of Mos Eisley. Tours, Chenonceaux, Chambord (right by the chateau, I mean, right by the chateau) Blois, Chaumont, back to Tours. Buns of steel, darling! Buns of friggin' steel. Not this year, alas.

In February, in fulfillment of 50th birthday self-promise, we're going to New York. I've never been. Hence the promise. Two flights ex-Dublin (via AMS out, LHR back) for £580 seemed pretty damned reasonable. So, Collective Mind of LJ: what's indispensable in New York if you have four and a half days (and we like the quirky and quintessential and the hidden histories of cities)?

Writing-wise, I'm rattling through Planesrunner (that 'YA' book you may have heard about.) Momentarily ran into a sandbar looking for a patois for airship families, and then hit on it. Polari! Yes, this young person's book features a secret gay slanguage. I'm a huge fan of Polari. Bonaroo, and fantabulosa. I'm also putting together a new proposal that, I think, sends me off in a new direction; as I've said before, I don't want to become self-parody.

And I'm laying a wood floor in the attic. We're rearranging the furniture at McDonald Acres because slimmeroftheyea can have a music room for practising the viola da gamba. So everything is being booted up a floor.

Fun, if you like that sort of thing...

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 13:07:30 GMT

...Teh Grauniad's 'Name the 26 films in 85 seconds' contest. (You may have to endure rubbish advertising.) Have I just flushed the rest of your day down the toilet of triviality?

It's Good News Week

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 22:00:50 GMT

First of all, Tricia Sullivan offers a free copy of Lightborn to random commenter on her blog. Go! Do!
Elsewhere, Catherine Valente announces an an all Arab/Muslim issue of Apex (November). Spontaneous outbreaks of random sanity. (see my previous post and its attendant comments)

One final Islamophobia piece

Sun, 19 Sep 2010 12:45:34 GMT

.... and the last and best word is left to The Onion: Man Already Knows All He Needs to Know About Muslims

"I learned all that really matters about the Muslim faith on 9/11," Gentries said in reference to the terrorist attacks on the United States undertaken by 19 of Islam's approximately 1.6 billion practitioners. "What more do I need to know to stigmatize Muslims everywhere as inherently violent radicals?"

"And now they want to build a mosque at Ground Zero," continued Gentries, eliminating any distinction between the 9/11 hijackers and Muslims in general. "No, I won't examine the accuracy of that statement, but yes, I will allow myself to be outraged by it and use it as evidence of these people's universal callousness toward Americans who lost loved ones when the Twin Towers fell."

"Even though I am not one of those people," he added.

I still think this was the best version

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 20:55:46 GMT

I stumbled on all this while looking for something totally unrelated (doing a book outline, oddly): a montage from the old BBC 'Chronicles of Narnia'. The music is infinitely better than the Disney version. Not sure how it would stand up now, but it had the genuine sense of magic that the new ones sadly lack.

That Geoffrey Burgon could write a tune... (thought I think this not the original). Ah, the days when ITV (well Granada) could do drama --and kick the BBC's ass.