Niall Teasdale's Blog, page 17
July 28, 2018
American Politics
Please note: This is neither a rant nor a statement regarding my politics.
Okay, so I take a lunch break, like most folks, and I tend to watch YouTube videos while I have lunch. I generally start with the previous night’s clips from Late Night with Seth Meyers and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, because I find them funny. They’re gateway drugs (though, I was gated into them by John Oliver; the idea of such an obviously British guy hosting an American comedy show was too good to miss). I’ll end up watching clips from CNN, or Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, or The Young Turks. Occasionally, I get fooled into clicking on something I really, massively don’t agree with, and then YouTube thinks I want to see more of that kind of crap, but that’s beside the point.
The point, or the question I want to ask my American readers, is… Well, it seems like American politics only has extremes. I’m English and used to UK politics. We have such glories as The Monster Raving Loony Party (who have been known to beat some of the major parties in elections, if never enough to get a seat in Parliament). Our two main parties (technically it’s three, but the Liberals only count as an afterthought) tend to be middle-of-the-road. The are known as the Conservatives and Labour (the Liberals used to be the Wigs; don’t ask). The Conservatives have been most successful recently by being liberal. Labour are socialist, but tend to do much better when they don’t really enact socialist policies (which is why they’re currently not Her Majesty’s Government, but Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition). American politics only seems to have extremes, and you don’t even call them by recognisable names! The Republicans seem to be Conservative (capital C). Your Democrats seem more in the middle-ground, but their supporters, while not rabid Communists, seem to be utterly fanatical about their support.
I tend to steer clear of too much politics in my books because I don’t understand the nature of the thing in America (where a lot of my stuff is set). I tend to avoid major characters-of-colour (to coin a phrase) for similar reasons (or I engineer a setting where the prejudice I’m told about is somehow mitigated; in the Ultrahumans books, some of the racial prejudice which should be there has been mitigated by prejudice against Ultras, for example). In True Dark, the 2016 Presidential Election takes place, but it’s not the one that really happened (even if I couldn’t stop myself putting in some… Trump-related elements; okay, so I didn’t want to stop myself). I got to fictionalise things, so it’s more my universe’s version of American politics, based on what I see and hear.
So, the question is: is the American political environment really so polarised? What’s the experience of people who live in it? In the UK, most people don’t really care (which is why we ended up with Brexit), but do Americans feel this stuff more deeply?
If we’re going to do this, let’s remain civil, please. I’m looking for how Americans feel about politics, not how you feel about particular parties or people, so let’s avoid bating the trolls. Thanks.
July 19, 2018
Update
Quickie. I was reading through Guardian and spotted some errors I decided to fix. I’ve updated the manuscript on Amazon and Smashwords. Smashwords readers can definitely download an updated copy as they wish. Amazon… has a weird system for handling updates. If you check your account, you may find that you can download a new copy. Anyone buying after this point should get the updated version anyway.
July 15, 2018
Pricing
This is the bit where I give you the bad news first and the good news later. If you haven’t already guessed, I’m going to be charging more for some of my books. Basically, I’ve been charging $2.99 (or the equivalent in other currencies) since I started publishing my books. I think it’s a good price for a typical ebook, though I don’t usually argue with slightly higher prices when I’m buying. Anyway… Costs have gone up, cost of living has gone up, and I need to face the fact that I need to charge a little more.
For now, I’m sticking with $2.99 for the shorter books. Most of my recent ones have come in between 70k and 80k words. That’s likely to remain the average, so most of my books will stay at $2.99. The longer ones are going to go up to $3.99. I haven’t entirely decided where the threshold is, but over 100k is definitely over that threshold. Which means that I’ll be charging $3.99 for True Dark, but on the plus side, there’s more story to read.
In other news, I’ve started writing Liberty, which will be Ultrahumans 7. I seem to be in a super-human mode at the moment and I have no idea why. True Dark might not be called that by the time it’s released, though the darkness theme is likely to be maintained.
Hope you’re all having a good summer. I’m going to go back to melting now.
July 6, 2018
Enter the Guardian
July 2, 2018
Guardian Cover Image
Guardian will be coming out real soon now. This is the fifth Ultrahumans book and it’s kind of a pair with the sixth, True Dark, which will be out around the beginning of August.
Guardian will, perhaps unsurprisingly, reveal the truth behind the Guardians, of which Cygnus is one. I decided that the cover should feature Cygnus and feature her it does.
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There will be a bunch of new concept art going up once Guardian is out the door and I have True Dark thoroughly nailed down. I’ve got a cluster of new Ultras making their first appearance in True Dark. Things they are a changing.
As for what comes after these two… Well, right now all I’ve got a good fix on is another Ultrahumans book, tentatively titled Liberty, but three in a row is pushing my limits a little. We’ll see where I’m at once True Dark is finalised.
May 12, 2018
The Iron Princess
April 20, 2018
Friday is Relative
Okay, so this post is out of left field…
I’ve just been reading this week’s New Scientist. For those who don’t know it, it’s a weekly magazine featuring articles on science, all kind of science. I don’t get it every week, but I pick it up when I think an article has something interesting I might be able to twist into fiction and this week the cover story is “What is Time?” Interesting question and one for which there is no good answer at the moment. Plenty of theories which may or may not explain our experience of time passing. The article proposes various quantum theory elements which may explain where the time we experience comes from. Fascinating stuff.
One of the explanations involves the uncertainty inherent in quantum events. It seems our perception of time passing may have something to do with quantum uncertainty and the ‘quantum ignorance’ which results from it. I think it sounds like a good explanation since I’ve been absolutely convinced that today was Saturday since at least lunchtime. It’s nice to know that my uncertainty over the day is just a reflection of the origin of time. I think it’s a superposition thing: it was both Friday and Saturday, until I measured it and the probability equation collapsed.
April 19, 2018
Global Weirding
If anything suggests we’re seeing the effects of Global Warming, specifically a rise in unusual weather conditions, it’s the UK right about now. Last week, appropriate outdoor clothing involved a scarf. This week I am reconsidering my decision not to look into air conditioning for my office. It’s April and we have a minor heatwave. April is usually a wet, blah sort of month. It’s not really warm or cold. It just happens and we hope it’s nicer in May (and it often is because the one thing the British weather hates is being sunny when the kids are on holiday come summer!).
Not that this is really ‘extreme,’ but it is out of the ordinary. On a BBC science programme, Horizon, a few years back, the phenomenon of increasing instability in our ‘usual’ weather conditions was given the name ‘Global Weirding’ by a meteorologist working on the weather in the southern US region where long periods of drought were becoming more common. The programme was a big influence on the state of the planet in the Fox books.
Meanwhile, I’m busy writing the next Ultrahumans book (again). That’s a world where ‘Global Weirding’ takes on an entirely different meaning…
March 21, 2018
The Long Road She Took
Obscure title for a post… check![image error]
Character art… check!
Okay, this is Ayah. Or it’s one of her incarnations. If you click on the image it should take you to an ArtStation post which contains her rather elaborate history. I created her for one project and then liked the model so much that I had to find a story for her. It’s taken me at least three tries, but I think I’ve finally cracked it and you should see the results in May.
Initially she’s getting a trilogy which, incidentally, I’ve been trying to write in one form or another for several years. It was going to be sci-fi and it’s now become fantasy and, amazingly, I think it works better that way.
So, assuming I don’t freeze to death in the current ‘spring’ weather, you’ll get to find out what’s up with Ayah sometime fairly soon.
March 14, 2018
RIP Stephen Hawking
And that’s about all I have to say on the matter really. Gone is a great mind and a great character.
