Alastair Reynolds's Blog, page 24

Paternoster elevators

My previous post was picked up on File 777 where the discussion drifted onto the topic of paternoster elevators.

http://file770.com/pixel-scroll-10-23-2018-if-youre-filing-to-scrollfrancisco-be-sure-to-wear-some-pixels-in-your-hair/#comments

I've never used one, to the best of my recollection, but for a few years I did have the option, as the Claremont Tower in Newcastle - where I studied - featured a paternoster elevator. There was almost certainly a normal lift (as well as stairs) as although...

Oh, Atlanta

In January 1992 I made my first trip to the United States. I was 25 and had been consumed with the idea of visiting America for most of my life, a desire that had only hardened as I grew into my teens and twenties. It had begun, I think, with an almost indecent fascination with American cars - the big gas-guzzlers of the sixties and seventies - as featured in such period cop shows as Cannon, Columbo, McMillan and Wife, McCloud, The Streets of San Francisco and so on.  Toy models of Briti...

Artist shreds unique work of art

Permafrost

Earlier this year I wrote a new novella about time travel, which I'm pleased to say will appear from Tor books in March 2019.


Cho reached into a pouch behind the pilot’s position. He drew out a document and passed it to me. It was a scarlet brochure, with a translucent plastic cover. On the front was the World Health logo, followed by a statement in several languages to the effect that the contents were of the highest security rating.
I looked at him doubtfully, before I opened the document.
“Go...

Swansea and Cardiff with Peter Hamilton

On Monday September 3rd, Peter Hamilton and I will be doing two joint events in the Swansea and Cardiff branches of Waterstones.

The Swansea event (which appears not to be ticketed) takes place at noon:

https://www.waterstones.com/events/meet-peter-f-hamilton-and-alastair-reynolds/swansea


The Cardiff event (ticketed) takes place in the evening, beginning at 6.30.

https://www.waterstones.com/events/titans-of-sci-fi-an-evening-with-peter-f-hamilton-and-alastair-reynolds/cardiff

I'm between new books...

Recent-er things

Three new stories have squeaked out into the world, or are in the process of squeaking out, in recent weeks.

"Different Seas" appears in Twelve Tomorrows, edited by Wade Rush, from MIT Press:

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/twelve-tomorrows




"Providence" appears in 2001: An Odyssey in Words, edited by Ian Whates and Tom Hunter, and published by Newcon press:

http://www.newconpress.co.uk/info/book.asp?id=108&referer=Hp




While "Death's Door" appears in Infinity's End, edited by Jonathan Strahan, fr...

Gardner Dozois

I was saddened to learn that Gardner Dozois had passed away over the weekend.

Gardner was enormously kind to me as an editor, supporting and encouraging me over nearly twenty years, from the point when he began to take an interest in my work near the end of the 1990s.

I'd been aware of him for a good deal longer than that, though. Back in the mid 1980s, I was excited to read as much of the new American SF as I could get my hands on. Interzone carried stories and articles by and about some of th...

Recent things

Time for a minor update on a couple of projects. I delivered the sequel to Revenger at the end of 2017, but after taking a couple of months away from the book, I began to feel dissatisfied about the ending. It was not so much that there was anything badly wrong with what I'd written, but that the ending the book deserved lay a few chapters beyond the point where I'd stopped. So, with the agreement of my editor, I took the book back during February and re-delivered it with a revised and extend...

Wrexham Carnival of Words - an apology

At very short notice I had to pull out of my intended appearance at the Wrexham Carnival of Words. This was disappointing to the organisers, and deeply embarrassing to myself, especially because the reason for my cancellation was a mistake of my own making. When entering dates into my appointment diary (and more than likely when transcribing last year's diary to this one) I marked Wrexham down for the wrong date (27 instead of 22), and inadvertently double-booked myself on the correct day, wh...

Orion redux

Here is another go at M42, taken two nights later. In this case I dropped the exposure of the individual frames down to 5 seconds, which has helped reduce the over-exposure in the core of the nebula. However, I would still need to drop it a bit further. Here I took 29 sub-frames and again combined them using Nebulosity. There are still a few bits of electronic noise in the final image. It was a race against clouds again last night, or else I would have taken substantially more sub-frames.