Colin Harvey – author

I got back at about midnight from London, where the wonderful Lauren Beukes of Moxyland  fame continued her tour to promote her new novel, Zoo City with an evening at the BSFA. Not only does she write like a demon, she reads marvellously as well, putting real feeling into it. The room was packed, and the audience responded with some stretching questions.

But getting back at midnight, and rising at 5.30 does not make an ideal situation in which to put the novel aside, and to start working on a story for Dark Spires.

Still, it has to be done so I gritted my teeth and with the ease of giving birth, ground out 2250 words this morning. That’s actually about 50% more than I planned, but I found the first 1500 so tough that it was only when I passed target that the words began to flow with anything approaching ease.

And now they’ve started to slow again, so I shall put it aside, and maybe read some review material this afternoon. Paolo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker arrived this morning, and yea verily, it looks good.

After a weekend of ringing round the family and giving them the news about my stepfather, alternating with my wandering around restlessly, things are slowly returning to normal. Thank you to everyone who offered their condolences and support. It helped a lot.

Meanwhile, I’ve posted a review of the latest issue of the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction over at Suite101.

Lastly, I’ll be at the monthly meeting of the Bristol SFF Society tonight at the King William in Bristol, at 8pm onwards. See you there, if you can make it. If not, I’ll be at the monthly BSFA meeting in London on Wednesday, saying hello to Lauren Beukes, author of Moxyland.

Yesterday’s article for Suite101 mentioned the number of issues that each of the top seven or eight magazines have published, and noted (very) obliquely the question of publishing schedule; so Weird Tales has published on a quarterly basis on average since its launch, 87 years ago, whereas Analog has maintained an almost monthly schedule.

That diversity grew ever greater with the advent of the internet. Strange Horizons -soon to celebrate its tenth anniversary, publishes weekly.

And soon there will be Daily Science Fiction, coming in ‘late Summer, early Fall.’ Whether it publishes weekdays only, or is truly daily, it’s a formidable schedule. I wish them well. Markets paying pro rates are rare and precious commodoties, and need your support.

Good luck, and bon voyage.

One of the great things about the internet is that you can change your mind from one day to the next, and put it down to the fast-moving dynamic environment.  

So yesterday my Interzone piece was a blog post, today it’s an article. What changed? After I’d posted the first half I realized that there was more to say — much more. Since it’s now almost 900 words and has shedloads of stats, by my mind that’s an article. Blame that fast-moving, dynamic environment….

Regardless of whether it’s a blog or an article, what started it all off was a couple of conversations in which I voiced my frustration at the number of small presses and magazines and anthologies that spring up, take their subscriber’s money, and then never produce a second issue, or make it past the first subscription renewal.

Bob Nielson (one of the Albedo One team who have –to my surprise– produced the 13th longest running magazine* in SF history, and the next oldest magazine to Interzone) made the comment that it’s hard to find the time, the money and the enthusiasm to keep producing a magazine at all, let alone year after year. It seemed to me at the time that maybe we ought to acknowledge that effort.

And next September Strange Horizons is ten years old. It’s a damned fine achievement, but celebrated in total contrast to the way that IZ sneaked past its own tenth anniversary, and pretty much every other anniversary ever since.  We Brits don’t like to blow our own trumpets, so I thought I’d toot the TTA team’s horn for them….

* I’m counting magazines as those periodicals that pay to publish, as distinct from fanzines. No disrespect toward the latter, but it’s not in my purview.

What’s that bright light poking through the clouds? Why, I do believe it may be the sun…

Perfect timing — I’ve written my daily ration of words, answered some e-mails, and I’ve posted the first of a two part piece on Interzone over at Suite101.  More on that subject tomorrow.

But now I’m going to take myself off to the garden, and read some of this year’s Hugo nominees…

We who form the male half of the human race are often criticized for being unable to multi-task. However, we can focus. Boy can we focus, as I have demonstrated this morning. Despite the incessant sound of the house alarm across the road (now 2 hours and counting), I’ve finished this week’s Suite101 review, and have laid out Interzone 229  for your examination.

I think I may now go out, as the noise is starting to seriously hurt my ears, now that I have nothing to focus on.

And tomorrow -or the day after- if I get distracted by something shiny going past….

…sorry, where was I? Yes, tomorrow or the day after, I should have some more book news.

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.