Alastair Reynolds's Blog, page 7

Carol MacLeod

 We were devastated to hear that our wonderful friend Carol, lovely wife of Ken MacLeod, passed away shortly after attending the Glasgow Worldcon.

Carol was a delight and we considered ourselves very lucky to have Ken and Carol as friends, even as distance and circumstances meant that we hadn't seen as much of them in recent years. We had hit it off as friends since meeting properly for the first time at a convention in Sweden.

Carol's sparkle comes through beautifully in this photo of the four of...

Post-Worldcon, Cardiff Half-marathon update and a new novella.

 Just over a week ago I set off for Glasgow and the 2024 World Science Fiction Convention. This was only my second time in Glasgow - the other was for the 2005 Worldcon. It's a great, friendly city and my only regret was that I overcommitted myself with program events to the point where I didn't get to see any part of Glasgow besides the event venue and our hotel. My wife didn't have a con membership but we managed to catch up once or twice in the day in the "public" areas of the SEC, and then m...

Toumani Diabate (1965-2024)

 It's not been a good week or so, has it?

Together with a few friends, I had the pleasure of seeing and hearing the master of the kora on the Africa Express tour a decade or so back.

ps - thanks for the latest donations to my fundraising effort, much appreciated.

The Chills

 Saddened to hear about the passing of Martin Phillips of The Chills, one of the really great guitar bands to come out of NZ, or indeed anywhere. I saw them only once, in the mid-90s (I'd hazard a guess at 1995) in either The Melkweg or The Paradiso in Amsterdam. Brilliant, as you'd expect. Wish I still had the t-shirt.

RIP, Martin.

Oh, and while I'm here, I'm still looking for donations for my half-marathon in support of Alzheimer's UK!

https://www.justgiving.com/page/alastair-reynolds-17139714499...

Extra, extra

 I've posted another modest update over on my Just Giving page for the Cardiff Half Marathon:

https://www.justgiving.com/page/alastair-reynolds-1713971449990

All donations contributed so far have been very gratefully received, but I still hope to keep pushing.

An article in The Guardian this week talked about the positive consequences of "civic engagement", which can be as simple as joining a club.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/jul/23/join-or-die-documentary-review

This got me thinkin...

Much Ado About Nothing

I'm part of a community theatre group based in South Wales. We're putting on Much Ado About Nothing on the evenings of July 11, 12 and 13 up at the lovely Dare Valley country park. Come along and see our friendly production! Although not in the picture above (I was away when we did the photo-shoot) I'll be playing the incompetent Dogberry, alongside Liam (sitting on the ground on the right) as Dogberry's put-upon sidekick Verges. We've all put a lot of work into our parts (even going up to Londo...

To the Stars and Back is out, and more

 Newcon Press's anthology in honour of Eric Brown, "To The Stars And Back", is out in the world and contains a very nice selection of stories. Here's an early review of the book:

https://ww.runalongtheshelves.net/blog/2024/6/1/to-the-stars-and-back-stories-in-honour-of-eric-brown-edited-by-ian-whates

All of the authors offered to waive their contributor fees, which I think indicates the high esteem Eric was held in by his friends and colleagues, and the desire to lend a little support to his wife ...

Brum Group and Cardiff Half Marathon fundraiser

 A couple of updates - I was extremely flattered to be asked to take on the role of Honorary President of the Birmingham SF Group, following the passing of Chris Priest. I've had a warm association with the Brum Group since my first time as a published novelist. A talk for the group was the first bit of public promotion I did for Revelation Space, back in early 2000, and although I was extremely nervous about the whole thing, I was made to feel very welcome. I'd done plenty of public speaking as...

CP, Gollanczfest, Eric, new book etc

 Now that a month has gone by since Locus published a number of appreciations of Chris Priest, I think it's safe to offer up my own contribution. I could have said a great deal more, of course, but that would still only scratch the surface of the times I spent with Chris over almost a quarter of a century, on and off. His friendship meant a great deal and while our tastes in science fiction were not always aligned (but sometimes were) I took every chance to learn from him as a writer. I think hi...

First newt of 2024

 I mean to say something about Chris Priest, but in the meantime, I did a bit of pond-dipping for the first time this year (it's remarkably mild and a friend turned up a frog yesterday) and found one of the resident newts doing well.