Keith Stevenson's Blog, page 19

Argo Dark Thirty

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Humans --> Mars

It’s not every morning you wake up and hear some news that
thrills you down to the bone level. Dennis Tito did that for me today with his
simply phrased announcement that he plans to send two people on a fly-by 500
day mission to Mars.



I don’t know about you, but the 21st Century
future I dreamt of growing up in 60s Glasgow
hasn’t really paid off. Robot missions to space and other planets

Lobster alien rising

For those who came in late, I have upwards of 470 A4 pages of manuscript, which is getting up to 2 books' worth, about everyone's favourite (okay, my favourite) lobster alien Jeldon. I have a bit more to write, mainly the END, which I haven't done yet because I want to make sure everything that's gone before ties together, as well as a secondary protagonist string which needs to be incorporated.

Summer reading had me a blast...

Finally the summer holidays beckon, the novel is laid aside with a minimum of guilt till 2013, and the last mentorships for the year are finishing up. Time for some summer reading.
I've already started the first book on my list. Well, how could I resist the next Culture novel? Anyway here's what's on my virtual bedside table:
The Hydrogen Sonata - Iain M Banks
The Fractal Prince - Hannu

Disturbing children's television

Talking to author Louise Katz the other night, I was reminded of some really disturbing kid's TV shows I watched as a child which have stayed with me all these years. The show we were talking about was based on a novel called Marianne Dreamsby Catherine Storr. Louise remembered the 1988 movie Paperhousebut I remembered the earlier ATV show Escape Into Night (from - dare I say - 1972). This

The Next Big Thing - The Way of The Kresh

The next big thing is a series of tag team blog posts by writers about their next novel, whether about to be published or 'in development'. Horror/ Fantasy/ YA/ Steampunk author extraordinaire Richard Harland graciously tagged me, so here's my contribution to the great Next Big Thing chain letter.



1) What is the [working] title of your next book?

The next book is actually two books, and an

Writers: want to be next up in The Next Big Thing?

The Next Big Thing is a kind of tag team blog post by authors about their next novel, whether close to completion or just a twinkle in the eye. It's been going for a while now and each new blog post by an author links to 5 other author blogs who blog about their work the week after, which then link to 5 more... You get the picture.

It's a chance to add your own particular spice to the

He *is* the law

I've been anticipating the Dredd movie for over a year now and I'm happy to say that unlike Prometheus, and the Stallone Dredd movie yonks ago, this one was entirely satisfying.

As a Judge Dredd fanboy, I won't bore you with all the ways that this Dredd movie beautifully reflects the style and flavour of the Dredd comics. But that apart I was struck with how much the movie reminded me of a

Prometheus DVD — Did Scott stuff up a good story? Spoilers

From the many, many blog posts I read after the release of
the eagerly anticipated movie Prometheus,
it’s pretty obvious that most of the viewing public were underwhelmed by the
movie’s opacity. Having now watched the DVD with deleted and alternate scenes,
it strikes me that while overtelling is a bad thing, what Scott ended up doing
was undertelling which is much worse because it leaves the

Back to the daily grind... and loving it

The dust has settled on Pyrotechnicon over at the coeur de lion site, so I'm now back into writing the sweeping crab-centric space opera that is The Way of The Kresh. And really enjoying things. With the main story already comfortably filling two books, I've gone back to write the secondary protagonist's story thread, which will intersperse most of book one until he meets up with Jeldon (my main