Alastair Reynolds's Blog, page 21

Alasdair Gray 1934-2019

My dog-eared but much loved copy of Lanark:


I first encountered this marvellous, undefinable book around thirty years ago, while living in Scotland. It's a wonder - part fantasy, part realist novel, part metatextual experiment - an entity like no other book I'd ever read. Told in four parts, it begins with Book Three.

I wish I could put my hands on my hardcover of Poor Things, because then I could show off the gorgeous design worked into the inner covers. My immediate thought was: if they can...

Eat my dust, Hamilton.

Looking for an Estonian translator

Recently I took part in a very enjoyable long-form interview with Reidar Andreson, on behalf of the well-established Estonian SF magazine Reaktor. In the course of our communication, Reidar mentioned that my short story "Pandora's Box" had been translated into Estonian in 2011, and wondered if the story had gone on to be translated into any other languages.

The background here is that in 2009 I wrote a short story, the aforementioned "Pandora's Box", which was then translated into Finnish in...

Tales of Known Space

Early on in my writing career, and inspired by the likes of Larry Niven and others, I began to make up invented planets and locations around actual stars in our neighborhood of the galaxy. Since my stories were based around the idea of slower-than-light travel, I did what everyone else did at the time: looked up a list of moderately nearby stars and cherry-picked the ones I wanted for my fictional universe. It's for this reason that Chasm City is on a planet orbiting Epsilon Eridani, which is...

Except it's no joke

Lost Doctor Who episodes uncovered

Tardis interior still from "The Two Masters", originally transmitted 5/12/72. Unlike most of the lost recordings, this one was deliberately wiped because it was depressing and shit.

In other news, I have a short piece in The Guardian today, on interstellar visitors:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/07/space-invaders-best-books-interstellar-arrivals

A couple of errors crept into the text during sub-editing - Oumuamua is most likely an asteroid, not a comet, and solar systems have...

Enjoy the Silence

My third "Revenger" novel, BONE SILENCE, is now in production for an intended publication in the UK on January 30th. I'm pleased to say that an American edition will follow in April. It's a much longer novel than its predecessors, I have to say, but there's a lot in it and it does round off this particular set of adventures in the lives of the Ness sisters. Some, but not all, of the mysteries hinted at in the first two novels are resolved. I have greatly enjoyed exploring this setting, with...

Science Cafe - BBC Radio Wales

Here's a link to a radio discussion I took part in a month or so ago, but which has only now gone live. It was very enjoyable, and I hope you agree that the conversation got into some interesting depth about science fiction and genre boundaries, given the time available. Listen to the piece to find out about our choices for personal favorite SF films - one each from the 50s, 80s and 90s.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000b0l8

"From urban dystopias to alien invasions, Adam Walton talks science fiction cinema...

Coming soon to a post-Brexit dystopia near you:

Look out for this next year.

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Ad Astra

As a piece of cinematic spectacle, I found Ad Astra to be very impressive, with convincing effects and some gorgeously rendered space vistas, underpinned by a powerful Max Richter score. The acting is good, even if some of the cast are under-used, and the film has to be admired for its relative sense of restraint.

From a scientific point of view, though, it was incredibly frustrating. I wouldn't quibble if this was a Star Wars or Guardians of the Galaxy film, but at every step Ad Astra seemed...