Alastair Reynolds's Blog, page 10

Possible issue with Kindle formatting on US edition of Eversion.

 I've seen a note on Amazon.com from a Mr Zimmerman stating that there appears to be a formatting issue with dialogue quotes in the US Kindle edition of Eversion. I'm not in a position to replicate the fault myself, but I've raised it with my US publishing team so hopefully there will be a resolution. If anyone else has seen the error, it might be worth mentioning it here. Thanks.

Linda Hoover featuring Fagen and Becker

 Linda Hoover recorded an album with Fagen, Becker and Gary Katz just before the formation of Steely Dan. It's been unreleased for fifty years, but is now available. I consider myself something of a Dan head and I knew nothing of this. It sounds brill.

Full story via The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/jul/07/linda-hoover-on-her-great-lost-lp-with-steely-dan-i-mean-to-shine

My Kate Bush moment

 Kate Bush is having a moment, and it's a wonderful thing. I first heard "Running up that Hill" in the late summer of 1985. I was nineteen and preparing to go to university (I'd missed a year due to failing my exams the previous time). I already liked KB so anticipation was high for her new material. Although it really wasn't that long compared to the gaps between releases now, it seemed an age since her last album, the gloriously bonkers The Dreaming. I was upstairs in my bedroom listening to R...

Down the Steely Aja/Gaucho outtake rabbit hole:

 How good is this? I mean, seriously. They rejected this?

A Star Trek thing, a Sparks thing and another Star Trek thing.

 Just a heads up to let you know that there's a nice, three-page interview with me in the current issue of Star Trek Explorer magazine (issue 2 of the relaunched mag), in which I talk about my love of classic Trek and some favorite episodes, among other things. Thanks to Nick and Mark for the interview, which I greatly enjoyed doing.

In other news, over the last few months I've found myself going down the Sparks rabbit hole. I've always liked Sparks as an idea, but haven't actually owned any of t...

Eversion approaches

 Eversion will be out in a couple of weeks in the UK, and I've already seen my author copies. It looks very nice, with a distinctly different design to my other titles.

Some early reviews have begun to appear. Writing in the Daily Mail, Jamie Buxton called it "gripping, exciting and clever, as well as a deeply moving story about truth, sacrifice and how to be human."

In New Scientist, Sally Adee wrote: "it isn't every day you get to experience a perfect collision of the Romantic macabre of Edgar A...

Notes and sketches for the Revenger books

 In the comments to the last post, it was asked if I had any more detailed information on the timeline for the Congregation, as featured in the Revenger series.

I do have some more information on various aspects of that universe, in the form of notes and drawings done for my benefit while writing the books. These were never intended for publication, just as memory aids, and in some respects represent earlier drafts of names and characters compared to how they eventually appeared. Now that the dus...

Pond life

 I haven't had much to report here the last few months, nor much inclination. It's been such a troubling, dispiriting time. Ukraine, of course, but also the death of Taylor Hawkins following so quickly on the heels of Mark Lanegan. I love drummers and I loved the Foo Fighters. I hope Dave Grohl and the rest of the band - not to mention Hawkins' family - have had the love and support they must need at this awful time.

On a more positive note, my wife and I went to see Simple Minds in Cardiff a cou...

RIP Mark Lanegan

 I'm getting sick of this shit. Cobain, Cornell, Lanegan. All gone.

Ornithologists wanted

I took this photo a week ago in wetland in the Cynon valley. The duck was swimming with a group of mallards but doesn't fit with any of the pictures in my books of immature or eclipse plumage for that species. The closest match I could find for it was a female Garganey but it would seem unusual to see one in January as they don't normally visit our shores until later in the year. I'm not very good on waterfowl so any assistance greatly appreciated. Whatever the duck was, it was a striking bird w...