Colin Harvey – author

Although I’ve dully completed my 1400 words this morning, focusing on the wip has been quite tricky, as a lot of stories seem to be breaking at the same time. I’m not the only one who’s been busy…

First of all, the inaugural Angry Robot podcast is up at their website. It sounds as if Marco and Leeeeeëe are having way too much fun in their padded cell, and Mrs H and I chortled at the note of bemusement that host Mur Lafferty tried -and failed- to keep from her voice as she tried to bring some sanity to the proceedings.  Joking apart, there are some great insights on the state of publishing and some of its possible futures.

Secondly, huge congratulations to fellow author Gareth L Powell, who has been equally busy in a less obtrusive way; yesterday he announced the sale of his novel The Recollection to Solaris Books, who had this to say. The beers are on you on Monday week, Gareth…

And lastly, Cheryl Morgan has also been busy. She’s announced a new venture, Wizard’s Tower Press. The new company will publish a new non-fiction magazine, Salon Futura, as well as a number of out-of-print works, and a small number of new books. The first of those new books will be Dark Spires, edited by Yours Truly. More details are here and will follow as we get a ToC. 

As well as blogging, interviewing and pimping cons like Bristolcon and London 2014, Cheryl does a huge amount of work behind the scenes, and Wizard’s Tower Press deserves to succeed. Good luck, Cheryl.

I said in yesterday’s blog that I was torn about my loyalties before last night’s World Cup final. That lasted all of twenty-eight minutes – when Xabi Alonso got a chest full of studs at high velocity propelled by umpteen stone of Nigel de Jong. By that time I was seeing red, much as the Dutch players seemed to be, individually and collectively. Only they were seeing it front of their minds, not waved in front of their faces.

Referee Howard Webb is being pilloried for not sending off one, perhaps two Dutch players in the first half. But had he done so, doubtless many of those complaining would instead by whining about how he ruined the match as a competitive spectacle.  And he must have had the nightmare thought flash through his head that if he sent off too many players (I believe that the minimum on the pitch is seven) the match might have to be abandoned, which would have been the end of his career. I thought that he did as well as any one official could have in the circumstances.

Because ultimately the referee is there to arbitrate on a match not to act as peacemaker in a war, or to be the players’ moral compass.

It is the players, not the officials who are responsibile for their actions. They are supposedly grown men, paid vast amounts of money — they seem happy to take the money while behaving without any kind of responsibility or morality, as both Maradona and Henry have show in the past. 

But on a lighter note, it was good to see Spain change into their trademark red for the award presentation. That was the enjoyable part of seeing red.  A fitting end to a great month of armchair sport.

In about six or seven hours time there will be new world champions.

Holland or Spain? Spain or Holland? I can’t decide who I want to win.

It should be Spain; I’ve worked with the Spanish for years and I love the country and the people. Torres is still a Liverpool player (though for how long no one knows) and there’s Xabi Alonso, a former red, and of course Pepe Reina, who I had hoped would play.

But then Holland have a red in the form of Dirk Kuyt, and they’ve been losers twice so my sympathy’s with them. To be honest they’ve played probably the better football throughout the whole tournament, and I’ve almost forgiven the charmless cloggies that I used to have to work with.

But whoever wins this final night, I shall miss not having to make a decision about what to watch in the evenings. Having the football on has meant a rest for the remote control.

It’s Saturday afternoon, and I’m trying to justify watching football on the tv by writing a blog — after all, if I’m writing a blog, it’s not really goofing off is it?

I’ve spent the morning writing my daily 1400 words, which I finished by about 12 o’clock, before settling down with Henning Mankell’s Firewall, which may or may not be his last Kurt Wallender novel. For those of you who only know the dyspeptic, diabetic detective by the anaemic BBC adaptations featuring Kenneth Branagh, which are not a patch on the original Swedish episodes often shown on BBC4, the cycle of ten or a dozen novels are perhaps the most grounded narratives in the detective genre. At the risk of sounding pretentious, they chart the moral disintegration of Swedish society in the 1990s through the brutal and often irrational murders that Wallander has to investigate.

Before Firewall, I read Sidetracked, which justifiably won the Crime Writer’s Assosciation’s Gold Dagger Award for Best Novel. Mankell interweaves real world events with the storyline by featuring Sweden’s matches in the 1994 World Cup as part of the sub-plot and setting. It’s part of a complex set of plot threads that at times sidetrack the reader as effectively as they do Wallander’s investigation.  

Reading Mankell teaches one that it’s the little touches that give a narrative its sense of reality. Years ago, Brian Aldiss began to work himself, his friends and family into the narrative, blurring the lines between fiction and reality. I’m tempted to try the same technique in future, maybe featuring a writer who blogs during the 2010 World Cup as part of the sub-plot….

But for now it’s back to the real World Cup. I’ll finish Firewall between the two matches.

Here’s a thought; as I type this, it’s 12.07 on the 183rd day of the year. We are seven minutes past the mid-point of the year — from now on, we’re closer to 2011 than we are 2009. As someone who spends a lot of time thinking about the future, that has a certain satisfaction to it. And of sourse we’ll be even closer to 2011 when you read this.

But looking back 36 hours, I had a thoroughly good time chatting to Eric Brown before and after the BSFA meeting in London on Wednesday night. It seems incredible that he’s been writing for over 20 years, but he has, and had some interesting points to make about Haworth in Yorkshire, SF, reviewing and writing for readers who have difficulty reading.

It was also nice to get to chat to Ian Whates, since we both of us always seem to be busy at cons. I’m not sure where he finds the energy to write, edit, publish and find time for the BSFA. Long may he continue.

And after over 30 years, it was good to say hello again to Geoff Ryman.

More on that another time, when we’ll be even closer to 2011…

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?

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…?