Adrian Tchaikovsky's Blog, page 27

News roundup

Some Things.

I've had the Alt Fiction schedule through (first draft anyway) — this is 25–26 June 2011 at the Derby Quad. I'll put up a dedicated post to it, but the schedule looks interesting enough that I will hopefully be in the audience for most of it, and I have a couple of nice panels myself — one on "is there fantasy after Tolkien?" — one wonders by now if it should be "is there fantasy after after Tolkien".

Point the second: Last Monday was China Mieville's launch party for his phenomenal new book Embassytown, which comes highly recommended. Mr M is doing his usual trick of writing something brilliant and at the same time covering completely new ground — in this case a proper piece of very thoughtful hard SF.

Thirdly, my dear lord but Neil Gaiman's Doctor Who episode was good! "The Doctor's Wife" is right up there with the best episodes they've ever done — Paul Cornell's "Human Nature" for example, or Moffat's "Blink"

Finally, for now, and on a wholly more sombre note: at the end of March this year, Dianne Wynne Jones died. Objectively, she was one of the most influential fantasy authors, her beautifully written, highly original and easily accessible work becoming the gateway into the genre for countless young readers. Subjectively, she was perhaps the very strongest influence shaping my own appreciation of fantasy when I was a teenager. Her writing taught me a great deal of what stories could do, and how to effortless move past the barriers that seemed to limit fantasy fiction. I have most of her books still on my shelves, and still re-read them. My favourite, "Power of Three" was my very first encounter with the idea of relative standards of good and evil, the moral ambiguity that is perhaps one of the biggest memes in current fantasy writing.

She leaves the genre and the literary world a good deal poorer in her passing.

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What goes on tour…

So:

Camber Sands — London — Reading — Leeds — also Leeds — Poznan — Wroclaw — Oxford.

Probably not the weirdest signing tour anyone's ever done, but fun nonetheless.

Thank you to everyone who turned up at any of the above (1) especially those who made it to the Q&A and talk at Pyrkon, and the Q&A at Empik in Wroclaw (2). Most especially thanks to everyone at Rebis for inviting me over to Poland again.

Developments in the pipeline: I have got the first draft of book 8 finished early, and am getting some short stories done. The first one won't be for this site as currently planned, as Tor are apparently putting together an ebook compilation of short stories from various of their authors, and that's my entry. However I will hopefully get at least one and maybe more for this site before I have to knuckle down and start book 9, for which I currently have a plot but no title.

I also intend to set myself up on Twitter, but the Luddite in me has been putting it off. Watch this space(3).

There should be some new art up shortly as well, courtesy of Jaroslaw Ribski, who was my interpreter in Poznan and Wroclaw, and also the translator of Scarab Path and Sea Watch into Polish.

Anyone else who would like to submit art can pitch it to me at theinsectman (at) gmail (dot) com and I'd be glad to receive it. I am toying with the idea of posting some of my own concept art up as well, but frankly, it's awful, so I will probably spare the world.

(1) For those that turned up at other venues, I apologise for not being there.

(2) the black and gold deco on the outside of the building was sadly not followed in the Empik store, denying me a weak pun.

(3) Or, more realistically, the Twitter site.

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Pyrkon schedule — first look

Here is first blush at what I'm doing for Pyrkon next weekend:

On Saturday 26th:

2:00 pm — Adrian Tchaikovsky — meeting with the author

place: Aula

4:00 pm — Creation of TRULY Original Fantasy World — utopia or a matter of

imagination. Adrian Tchaikovsky

place: Aula

After that there is a 'signing time'.

On Monday,  one more meeting with readers in Wroclaw (at 5.00 pm)

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Events update again.

Very brief post to confirm the Oxford Waterstones signing on the 9th April will be a 2pm.

Tomorrow for the Leeds Waterstone alongside Robson, Remic & McMahon, please do come along if you can.

End of the month is Pyrkon over in Wroclaw, Poland. I'm doing a talk. Apparently. This is a bit new, and it will also be kind of through-translated. Not sure how that's gonna turn out. We'll see. Possibly I'll be touring the after-dinner fantasy/entomology circuit before you know it.

On a completely separate note, Adam Gauntlett, whose work graces the story section of this site, has written a very interesting (not to say mind-boggling if you haven't seen the film in question) article over at Escapist concerning Role-playing games, and reactions to them — find it here.

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Events update

A little jig around but:

12th March — 11am-1pm signing at Leeds Waterstones in excellent company, vis Justina Robson (last book of her Quantum Gravity series just out!), and Gary McMahon and Andy Remic who write for Angry Robot.

9th April — signing at Oxford Waterstones — time to be confirmed. This is the 5th March event that's been rescheduled.

I am just finishing the first round of edits on Heirs of the Blade (1), which has probably seen more reworking than any previous book. Mind you, I could have said the same about Sea Watch at the time. I suspect it's something endemic to late-series books.

(1) trips off the tongue. You'd never know just how much brainstorming went into getting that title. Original working title was Broken Threads, and we went through dozens of ideas and permutations before we got something everyone was happy with. But 'heirs', plural? you ask? Why yes indeed…

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SFX Weekender 2 was the Weekend that Was

Essentially my second Big Big Con, the first being SFX Weekender 1 last year. I am still in awe of Tor's continued hospitality, in putting its writer contingent (1) up in a very civilized little cottage by the sea (2). Official duties came down to a mass Tor signing for which the Forbidden Planet people had to entirely remodel their stand to fit us all in, and a good fun panel on classics of the genre, at which I got a very interesting audience reaction when I fielded a question on whether we would count Twilight as a classic because of it's (undeniable) huge influence at the moment. I came back with, basically, "come back in 10 years and we'll see if it's still exerting influence," and a block of people stage right didn't like that at all. I'd thought it was a creditably open and neutral comment, along the lines of some books can be unjustly forgotten, none are unjustly remembered, sort of thing, but even now I'm not sure whether they were Twilight fans aggrieved that the answer wasn't an automatic 'yes' or anti-Twilight protesters outraged at the very possibility that Meyer's series might have longevity. I guess I'll find out in 10 years.

I got to exchange backslappery with Jon Courtnay Grimwood, whose work I love and who has read some of mine as well, and got to meet John Gwynne as well, a new fantasy signing from Tor whose work should be on the shelves some time next year I'd guess. I got the crap scared out of me by the floor show before the SFX awards ceremony (3) and ended up playing Apples to Apples with Paul Cornell. These last two things are not related.

Of my good intentions, where I was going to sneak off to work on the first draft of the Air War (which is nearing its completion but needs a lot of retconning), let's just say that didn't go according to plan. In fact I'll go so far as to say none of that actually got done at all save for a single paragraph. I kid you not, the entire Tor contingent decided to go for a walk on the beach in gale force winds and intermittent rain, and I said, no, I shall be sensible and decadent and stay indoors, and get that writing done so I can feel terribly good about myself. The result: half of them are back in five minutes because it was a bit parky out.

(1) I am shameless enough and indeed fanboy enough to name drop: China Mieville, Peter F Hamilton, Mark Charan Newton, Gary Gibson, Paul Cornell. And me. I am told that in olden days the writer scene was far more cliquey and frosty to a newcomer, but as a new writer (4) in that company (and indeed in the company of the convention generally) the atmosphere was instantly welcoming. I even got a lift most of the way home with Peter Hamilton in his Car Of The Future. (5)

(2) The sea, mind you, was not civilized. Nor was the weather.

(3) It was not the girls with the LED bikinis. As a professional writer one takes such things in one's stride. I'm somewhat at a loss to say what it was, to be honest. They had what I think were stiltwalking guys in enormous robot suits, all picked out with LEDs against pitch black, and thundering about in time to some very heavy bass, and something to do with the sound of it, and the sight of these huge things charging around set off a weird fight-or-flight thing in me. Baffling.

(4) Published 2008, and still a new writer. I'm not sure when I should stop feeling like the FNG. Going to be a while I suspect.

(5) One of the perks of writing SF I suppose.

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My Life for the Forseeable Future: Events

The next few months have suddenly turned busy, as a number of threatened signings and events have materialised. So, here's the social calendar:

4th-5th February — SFX Weekender convention at Camber Sands.

11th February — signing stock for Forbidden Planet and Blackwells bookshop in London — not an actual signing but there will be signed books kicking about from then.

12th February 11am - signing at Waterstones, Broad Street, Reading.

19th February 2pm — signing at Travelling Man games shop, Leeds

5th March — time to be confirmed — signing at Waterstones Oxford (1)

12th March — time to be confirmed — signing alongside Justina Robson, Gary McMahon and Andy Remic at Waterstones, Leeds

25th-28th March — Pyrkon in Posnan, Poland, plus possible some sort of signing or similar in Wroclaw, thanks to Rebis for making the arrangements!

25th-26th June — Alt Fiction in Derby, more details to come.

(1) if there is more than one Waterstones in Oxford then I don't know which one.

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Soundtracks for an Insect Age — Salute the Dark

Somewhat late, but here we are. Again, if you haven't read the book yet, moderate to high spoiler warnings.

Track 1 — Uctebri has the Shadow Box (The Daleks, from Dr Who series 1 by Murray Gold)

Track 2 — The Merchant Companies depart (Farewells, the Storm, from Rome by Jeff Beal)

Track 3 — The Flower of the Felyal (God Breathed, from The Virgin Queen by Martin Phipps)

Track 4 — Tisamon and Felise Reunited (Roslin and Adama, from Battlestar Galactica season 2 by Bear McCreary)

Track 5 — Salma's Charge (Best of Times, from World of Goo soundtrack by Kyle Gabler (1) )

Track 6 — Grief and Malkan (Shooting Star, from Stardust by Ilan Eshkeri)

Track 7 — Drephos' Irresistible Logic (Jelly. from World of Goo soundtrack by Kyle Gabler)

Track 8 — Totho (Threadcutter, from World of Goo soundtrack by Kyle Gabler)

Track 9 — Ritual of Moths (Justin at Mr Chin's, from Carnivale by Jeff Beal)

Track 10 — Battle for Solarno (Prelude to War, from Battlestar Galactica season 2 by Bear McCreary)

Track 11 — At Collegium's Gates (Miraz Crowned, from Prince Caspian by Harry Gregson-Williams)

Track 12 - Last Fight Before the Emperor (Departure of Boromir, from Fellowship of the Ring complete soundtrack by Howard Shore)

Track 13 — Tynisa Watches (Ascension, from Moulin Rouge soundtrack by Craig Armstrong)

Track 14 — Signing the Treaty (Madam de Pompadour, from Doctor Who series 1 by Murray Gold)

Track 15 — Trailer for The Scarab Path (A Distant Sadness, from Battlestar Galactica season 3 by Bear McCreary)

(1) I did all four of these soundtracks at around the same time, so it's not a case of having discovered Gabler's music late on, just that the trakcs seemed to fit here.  The music has very kindly been made available by the composer/game designer/all round renaissance man here but, while you're there, you could do considerably worse than paying the very modest price for the game which, franky, is fantastic.

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Unexpected gifts of the new year

Another very brief post, but some odd and welcome flowers of end 2010/start 2011:

Michael Moorcock has written a Dr Who novel. Not only that but the jacket text of The Coming of the Terraphiles suggests that it involves both LRP(/re-enactment) and the Eternal Champion (Arrow of Law, a certain Captain Cornelius…). Haven't read it yet but the simple combination is surely pushing for weirdest & neatest juxtaposition ever.

Primeval series 4 debut'd a few days ago (presumably still watchable on whatever ITV has instead of the BBC iplayer). Given that, last I heard, they'd cancelled the thing entirely, this caught me utterly by surprise. Whether it's good news depends on your feelings about the show, but I confess to a strong fondness for it in those moments when it remembers its palaeontology and physics and, you know, stuff. I was particularly keen on the 3rd series, where they seemed to draw together the strong story-driven approach of 2 with the logical consistency of 1 (1) for the best of both worlds. And giant insects, but that couldn't possibly influence my reaction to it. Difficult to know where series 4 is taking us, but I'm more than happy to give it time to get there.

On a personal note, Barnes and Noble, noted US book chain, popped Empire in Black and Gold in at number 10 on its best fantasy and SF of 2010 (from context, as a marker for the series as a whole) which is very nice indeed.

I've also been informed that rights for the the Polish and Czech translations of the series have been bought up to book 6 (Sea Watch), which book is of course due out here in the UK next month.

(1) The first series was very good, and gave more of a nod to actual science than one might expect. The second series rather disregarded both the historical and the possible (a whip scorpion the size of a buick and the shape of a frisbee cannot burrow faster than a running man, sorry. Even if the (modern-looking) thing had existed back then, the simple physics of moving a non-streamlined object through a dense medium conspires against you). Also the second series suffered from sub-par villain mentality. If you have access to that futuristic technology there are perfectly legitimate ways to get very very rich indeed from it, and using it at great expense  to control monsters is a plan that even Bond villains, or indeed Wiley Coyote, would reject. The third series, although plagued by changes of cast, had a good plot and reasonable science.

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Rough Signing Schedule for February

This is about as rough as things get, and may be only inside my own head, but:

1st weekend of February, 4-6th, is the SFX Weekender, so I'll be there doing stuff, and probably also signing.

2nd weekend, 12-13th should see me in Reading or Oxford or both, or something like that, probably on the Saturday, probably at a Waterstones or similar.

3rd weekend, 19th, will see me at the Travelling Man in Leeds, and probably Garforth library or bookshop too.

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