Neal Asher's Blog, page 22
October 11, 2017
Blade Runner 2049
Here's what I wrote the day after seeing this film:
"Okay, I watched Blade Runner 2049 last night. Well, you know when you go to a nightclub, and it's a bit crap, so they crank the volume up to try and make it exciting. That. The original Blade Runner was understated - the sounds meant something - here they were akin to the bangs and crashes in a cheap horror movie to make you jump out of your seat. Scenes dragged on for too long to try and impart atmosphere and meaning that wasn't there. I didn't care about anyone. Loose threads dangled. It was boring and it dragged. About an hour and a half in I felt I'd fallen into an episode of the Twilight Zone where I would be forced to watch a naff movie forever."
It is interesting to read reviews from others who feel that this is the best thing they have ever seen, or it is a great effort, or it is a suitable sequel. This is a salutary reminder that people's experience of art is mostly subjective. I then begin to wonder if my experience would have been different if the sound hadn't been so high that the crash bangs and music hurt my ears, but no, then I wouldn't have been able to hear what they were saying. Perhaps I wasn't in the right frame of mind? No - good films always grab me and in fact I use them to escape any bad state of mind. Perhaps I just didn't 'get' it? No. The last time I didn't 'get' an sfnal entertainment was when I was learning to walk.
In retrospect: The sound needed to be lower and unnecessary loud shit needed to go. Scenes needed to be much shorter because, hey, I get it now so move on. The attempts at arty mystery, seemingly tossed in at random, were a distraction. I mean, what were those bees about and who cares? What was the point of the 'unresolved' bad guy with the blank eyes? The next film? Why did I care nothing for any of the characters except, just a little bit, for Deckard?
No, my opinion still hasn't changed.
"Okay, I watched Blade Runner 2049 last night. Well, you know when you go to a nightclub, and it's a bit crap, so they crank the volume up to try and make it exciting. That. The original Blade Runner was understated - the sounds meant something - here they were akin to the bangs and crashes in a cheap horror movie to make you jump out of your seat. Scenes dragged on for too long to try and impart atmosphere and meaning that wasn't there. I didn't care about anyone. Loose threads dangled. It was boring and it dragged. About an hour and a half in I felt I'd fallen into an episode of the Twilight Zone where I would be forced to watch a naff movie forever."
It is interesting to read reviews from others who feel that this is the best thing they have ever seen, or it is a great effort, or it is a suitable sequel. This is a salutary reminder that people's experience of art is mostly subjective. I then begin to wonder if my experience would have been different if the sound hadn't been so high that the crash bangs and music hurt my ears, but no, then I wouldn't have been able to hear what they were saying. Perhaps I wasn't in the right frame of mind? No - good films always grab me and in fact I use them to escape any bad state of mind. Perhaps I just didn't 'get' it? No. The last time I didn't 'get' an sfnal entertainment was when I was learning to walk.
In retrospect: The sound needed to be lower and unnecessary loud shit needed to go. Scenes needed to be much shorter because, hey, I get it now so move on. The attempts at arty mystery, seemingly tossed in at random, were a distraction. I mean, what were those bees about and who cares? What was the point of the 'unresolved' bad guy with the blank eyes? The next film? Why did I care nothing for any of the characters except, just a little bit, for Deckard?
No, my opinion still hasn't changed.
October 4, 2017
Who Reads my Books: Andrew ten Broek
At a young tender age, living in the south of the Netherlands in Tilburg, my dad installed my love for stories. Even if he himself was more of a music kind of person. I vividly remember mostly watching Jim Henson productions with him, like The Storyteller and the film The Dark Crystal. Even though the Skeksis scared me as a child, I was fascinated by the tale. Reading stories however, I pretty much stopped doing for years because in high school here they tend to force students to read a brand of stories that didn´t gel well with me. Because of this I for years considered myself to be more of a visual kind of person, in that I'd rather watch TV shows and films than read novels.
Things changed when I decided to start listening to some novels in audio format and from then on I was able to pick up novels and actually read them. I became a very avid reader and mostly enjoy the science fiction genre, with a particular love for space opera. I started out with the more easily accessible novels such as Ender´s Game by Orson Scott Card and Ringworld by Larry Niven, then later on started to take in the very thorough world-building and storytelling of Peter F. Hamilton, Neal Asher and Alastair Reynolds. I started reading Neal Asher with Prador Moon and enjoyed it so much that I decided to continue with the Agent Cormac prequel Shadow of the Scorpion. After that I started the original series with Gridlinked and Neal Asher became one of my favourite writers. The main reasons being that I enjoy the relationship that is there in the novels between man and technology, the xenobiology that is part of the world-building and the artificial intelligences that are present within basically all universes that Neal has created.
In my daily life I also run into the interaction between man and technology, although it is more on the financial side because of the pragmatism I was taught at home when choosing my profession. I graduated from Fontys University in Eindhoven in 2006 in Business Informatics. I´m currently an application engineer for bookkeeping and logistics software, working for a construction company that is part of VolkerWessels. Although they mostly build locally in the Netherlands, they have some projects in the UK and Canada as well. The work varies from implementing invoice recognition systems called OCR, to asphalt tracking systems and regular financial management reporting tools.
I´ve an Indonesian mother and, because of that, I love traveling a lot as well and have been in my mother´s birth country a couple of times. This picture was taken when I was a bit younger and riding a foal in Malang, a village near the mountain Bromo on Java. Because of the conservative upbringing I´ve had, I´ve also been to odd places such as Jerusalem, the city of the three monotheistic religions. My interest in mostly British writers and Doctor Who has also lead me to visit different places in the UK from London to Cardiff, and from Nottingham to most recently Edinburgh. I was able to get some hard covers signed in person by Peter F. Hamilton, Alastair Reynold, Stephen Baxter and Ken MacLeod so far. Hopefully I get that chance to do so for some of Neal´s novels some time.
Which brings me to the specific hobby I have in collecting hard covers, which I´m often on the hunt for. I collect both of classic science fiction writers as well as modern ones. My favourite classic writer is Robert Heinlein, who doesn´t seem to have lost its poignancy to me. And as mentioned before Neal Asher is among my most favorite ones of the modern writers. Whether he writes from the viewpoint of a human, crab-like species such as the Pradors, an ambigious entity such as Dragon or androids such as the Golems (especially in Brass Man) he has the power to find the core essence of the beings he´s writing about.
So I want to join the other readers into thanking Neal for the great stories he´s been able to put on paper so far, as well as hoping there are many, many years ahead of us in which he´ll add many more books to our shelves!
Andrew
Things changed when I decided to start listening to some novels in audio format and from then on I was able to pick up novels and actually read them. I became a very avid reader and mostly enjoy the science fiction genre, with a particular love for space opera. I started out with the more easily accessible novels such as Ender´s Game by Orson Scott Card and Ringworld by Larry Niven, then later on started to take in the very thorough world-building and storytelling of Peter F. Hamilton, Neal Asher and Alastair Reynolds. I started reading Neal Asher with Prador Moon and enjoyed it so much that I decided to continue with the Agent Cormac prequel Shadow of the Scorpion. After that I started the original series with Gridlinked and Neal Asher became one of my favourite writers. The main reasons being that I enjoy the relationship that is there in the novels between man and technology, the xenobiology that is part of the world-building and the artificial intelligences that are present within basically all universes that Neal has created.
In my daily life I also run into the interaction between man and technology, although it is more on the financial side because of the pragmatism I was taught at home when choosing my profession. I graduated from Fontys University in Eindhoven in 2006 in Business Informatics. I´m currently an application engineer for bookkeeping and logistics software, working for a construction company that is part of VolkerWessels. Although they mostly build locally in the Netherlands, they have some projects in the UK and Canada as well. The work varies from implementing invoice recognition systems called OCR, to asphalt tracking systems and regular financial management reporting tools.
I´ve an Indonesian mother and, because of that, I love traveling a lot as well and have been in my mother´s birth country a couple of times. This picture was taken when I was a bit younger and riding a foal in Malang, a village near the mountain Bromo on Java. Because of the conservative upbringing I´ve had, I´ve also been to odd places such as Jerusalem, the city of the three monotheistic religions. My interest in mostly British writers and Doctor Who has also lead me to visit different places in the UK from London to Cardiff, and from Nottingham to most recently Edinburgh. I was able to get some hard covers signed in person by Peter F. Hamilton, Alastair Reynold, Stephen Baxter and Ken MacLeod so far. Hopefully I get that chance to do so for some of Neal´s novels some time.
Which brings me to the specific hobby I have in collecting hard covers, which I´m often on the hunt for. I collect both of classic science fiction writers as well as modern ones. My favourite classic writer is Robert Heinlein, who doesn´t seem to have lost its poignancy to me. And as mentioned before Neal Asher is among my most favorite ones of the modern writers. Whether he writes from the viewpoint of a human, crab-like species such as the Pradors, an ambigious entity such as Dragon or androids such as the Golems (especially in Brass Man) he has the power to find the core essence of the beings he´s writing about.
So I want to join the other readers into thanking Neal for the great stories he´s been able to put on paper so far, as well as hoping there are many, many years ahead of us in which he´ll add many more books to our shelves!
Andrew
October 3, 2017
PicRights.com
It’s not been a highly productive few weeks for me. Lots of life stuff getting in the way of writing including a cold that has just been clinging on, followed by a nice finger infection and constant tiredness. I am determined to do better tomorrow!
One nasty thing that came along out of the blue, and used up a lot of my time, was a couple of emails from an organization called PicRights.com informing me that I was in breach of copyright for three images I used on my blog some time ago. Two of these were Press Association Images and one was from Science Photo Library. My immediate response, seeing as this was a demand for money was, ‘Is this a scam?’ I took advice on it and meanwhile received the same from this organization through the post. I emailed the two image libraries concerned and received confirmation that PicRights represented them.
The time drain for me was then to go onto my blogs and delete every image that might be dodgy. Mea culpa here because I did use those images in a blog without crediting their source, though, I have to add that I almost certainly did not get them from the libraries concerned. Probably I got them from Facebook or Twitter. Also, me complaining about this would be a case of cognitive dissonance since I am the first to complain about the torrent sites where people steal my books. One particular post high-lighted this for me. This was from a photographer detailing his expenses and time in obtaining certain images. But I was also annoyed by the fact that I was being hit for long ago blog posts whose visits weren’t above twenty or so, and that this was likely a money spinner along the lines of those used by ambulance-chasing lawyers. I was in a situation where I could have gone to court but it could have cost me thousands, so I paid up.
Those three images cost me £383 for past usage, a deal of stress and many hours of time that would have been better spent writing. I guess this is a salutary lesson to us all.
One nasty thing that came along out of the blue, and used up a lot of my time, was a couple of emails from an organization called PicRights.com informing me that I was in breach of copyright for three images I used on my blog some time ago. Two of these were Press Association Images and one was from Science Photo Library. My immediate response, seeing as this was a demand for money was, ‘Is this a scam?’ I took advice on it and meanwhile received the same from this organization through the post. I emailed the two image libraries concerned and received confirmation that PicRights represented them.
The time drain for me was then to go onto my blogs and delete every image that might be dodgy. Mea culpa here because I did use those images in a blog without crediting their source, though, I have to add that I almost certainly did not get them from the libraries concerned. Probably I got them from Facebook or Twitter. Also, me complaining about this would be a case of cognitive dissonance since I am the first to complain about the torrent sites where people steal my books. One particular post high-lighted this for me. This was from a photographer detailing his expenses and time in obtaining certain images. But I was also annoyed by the fact that I was being hit for long ago blog posts whose visits weren’t above twenty or so, and that this was likely a money spinner along the lines of those used by ambulance-chasing lawyers. I was in a situation where I could have gone to court but it could have cost me thousands, so I paid up.
Those three images cost me £383 for past usage, a deal of stress and many hours of time that would have been better spent writing. I guess this is a salutary lesson to us all.
September 29, 2017
The Soldier - UK Cover
Here's the cover for the UK version of The Soldier - first books of Rise of the Jain. There's more about this here over on Macmillan Tor.
September 23, 2017
Macmillan Doing Stuff
So anyway, here's a thing: Macmillan are doing all sorts of good stuff. First there are my books appearing on Audible UK. Second, the one you don't know about till right now, is they're doing new covers for my backlist for another push on them. I've seen these covers and they are pretty damned cool. First up will be the Cormac books...
And here, for your listening pleasure, are soundcloud links to those books that are now up on Audible UK:
https://soundcloud.com/pan-macmillan/infinity-engine-by-neal-asher
https://soundcloud.com/pan-macmillan/the-departure-by-neal-asher
https://soundcloud.com/pan-macmillan/prador-moon-by-neal-asher
https://soundcloud.com/pan-macmillan/zero-point-by-neal-asher
https://soundcloud.com/pan-macmillan/shadow-of-the-scorpion-by-neal-asher
Thanks Macmillan!
And here, for your listening pleasure, are soundcloud links to those books that are now up on Audible UK:
https://soundcloud.com/pan-macmillan/infinity-engine-by-neal-asher
https://soundcloud.com/pan-macmillan/the-departure-by-neal-asher
https://soundcloud.com/pan-macmillan/prador-moon-by-neal-asher
https://soundcloud.com/pan-macmillan/zero-point-by-neal-asher
https://soundcloud.com/pan-macmillan/shadow-of-the-scorpion-by-neal-asher
Thanks Macmillan!
September 20, 2017
Who Reads my Books: David Chapman
Hi,
I started the whole Sci-Fi/Fantasy thing as a spotty nerdy teenager. Managed to lose the spots and teens, still a nerd! Cut my teeth as many of us do on Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein. Flirted slightly with the extremely misogynist John Norman and his planet Gor (I was a teenager!) and the “esteemed” Ron Hubbard. I later diversified to Sci Fantasy and remember devouring the Belgarion series by Mr and Mrs Eddings. I had an open order for every book as it came out. I still have quite a collection of hard copy books but nowadays most books are “Kindled” on the Ipad.
I got into Richard Morgan’s early books a few years ago and while waiting for the next in the series looked around for similar genre, found the Polity, and was converted! I love the whole Polity universe as it is painted on such a large canvas, there’s blood, gore and hydraulic fluid aplenty but generally Neal’s tone is one of optimism (As long as you don’t let the humans control anything critical). I also find listening to the audio versions an excellent way of covering large distances in the car without being bored to insensibility. Neal, thanks for the mental pictures, whether it’s C or Si based, you flesh (HiCr) out a character superbly. While waiting on the next polity instalment, I’m revisiting Gemmell and Pratchett, both sorely missed.
As for myself, I trained as a foundry engineer at college, left knowing everything and that I was the pinnacle of evolution. One week on the shop floor in a heavy steel foundry soon sorted that out! I started as a technician and worked myself up through production and then into sales. Covered steel, iron, aluminium and nonferrous alloys, die casting, moulding, investment casting and MIM before moving into the black art of metal powder manufacturing.
Anybody who has been associated with foundries will know our aversion to extremely hot metals combined with water. So when it was first explained to me during the factory tour that they atomise a 1650 C metal stream with high pressure cold water, my first instinct was to run!
Fortunately I stayed and moved into the position of Sales Director and got to learn so much about pressing metals, filtered metals and my favourite the spraying of metal powders. Who cannot be impressed watching a -53µm superalloy powder being sprayed through a miniature jet engine at multiple Mach!
I worked within the engineering group for over 10 years before it was sold to an “Entrepreneur” who wanted to take us all back to “grass roots” Translation, stop trying to stay on the leading edge and make lots of simple things that can be copied and made cheaper in other countries. Ah, the foresight!
I left and the group was bust in 12 months
As many do when we can’t fall back to a real job immediately, I became a consultant! One contract involved doing due diligence on an obscure metal powder company in the middle of Slovakia. I had an option of this or a similar company in Oslo. I had spent most of my commercial life working in Asia and West Coast USA. I hate the cold! Due to an incredible lack of geographical knowledge, I presumed the town in Slovakia with the same latitude as Paris would be a better option in December than Norway. Brilliant deduction, I arrived in Zilina "International" (2 flights a week only to Prague!) Airport on the 19th December 2005 to find out that the temperature of -27C did exist outside the polar regions, f***king Oslo was +6C!!
At this time, Slovakia was still very “Socialistic” - grey concrete buildings, no colours aside from the candle lit cemeteries, and of course a metre of bloody snow everywhere. I was slightly surprised therefore to find that my source of more appropriate hat and gloves was a bloody big white building with Tesco writ large on the side. Despite this, the people were lovely even if the factory was tired, unkempt and downright dangerous in areas. I did the due diligence, I reported back and the German company I was working for, purchased the complete site.
A couple of months later I was tasked with going there as a technical consultant for a 3 month contract, 11 years later I’m still here (must cancel that return flight!) now a Managing Director and have never been so content.
I have a lovely house in the village with my very own mountain! The people are still lovely although the language is an utter bastard (Slovaks are SO proud of this), we now have a modern, productive and profitable company and a management team second to none.
I’m still a nerd, and as I’m a totally selfish bastard I live on my own. I still enjoy messing around with computers and playing with the latest available tech. In the UK I was heavily into car restoration and car building but nowadays the idea of a 5 speed gearbox crushing my nagers whilst laying on a cold concrete floor doesn’t have the appeal, I’m getting soft.
One of my first projects during the house reconstruction was to convert one of the garages into a model railway room, if it’s good enough for Rod Stewart it’s good enough for me. Always wanted one as a kid and as I now have the space, money and total selfish indulgence, I can allow my inner child to run free. Of course I tie it in to computer / tablet control / remote access etc.
Holidays in Asia and/or South France are still enjoyable, weekends working on small trains or in the garden, life is good!
Oh and the liking for warm climates? It got down to -30C in the village this Winter! ;-)
David Chapman
Dolny Kubin
Slovakia
I started the whole Sci-Fi/Fantasy thing as a spotty nerdy teenager. Managed to lose the spots and teens, still a nerd! Cut my teeth as many of us do on Asimov, Clarke and Heinlein. Flirted slightly with the extremely misogynist John Norman and his planet Gor (I was a teenager!) and the “esteemed” Ron Hubbard. I later diversified to Sci Fantasy and remember devouring the Belgarion series by Mr and Mrs Eddings. I had an open order for every book as it came out. I still have quite a collection of hard copy books but nowadays most books are “Kindled” on the Ipad.
I got into Richard Morgan’s early books a few years ago and while waiting for the next in the series looked around for similar genre, found the Polity, and was converted! I love the whole Polity universe as it is painted on such a large canvas, there’s blood, gore and hydraulic fluid aplenty but generally Neal’s tone is one of optimism (As long as you don’t let the humans control anything critical). I also find listening to the audio versions an excellent way of covering large distances in the car without being bored to insensibility. Neal, thanks for the mental pictures, whether it’s C or Si based, you flesh (HiCr) out a character superbly. While waiting on the next polity instalment, I’m revisiting Gemmell and Pratchett, both sorely missed.
As for myself, I trained as a foundry engineer at college, left knowing everything and that I was the pinnacle of evolution. One week on the shop floor in a heavy steel foundry soon sorted that out! I started as a technician and worked myself up through production and then into sales. Covered steel, iron, aluminium and nonferrous alloys, die casting, moulding, investment casting and MIM before moving into the black art of metal powder manufacturing.
Anybody who has been associated with foundries will know our aversion to extremely hot metals combined with water. So when it was first explained to me during the factory tour that they atomise a 1650 C metal stream with high pressure cold water, my first instinct was to run!
Fortunately I stayed and moved into the position of Sales Director and got to learn so much about pressing metals, filtered metals and my favourite the spraying of metal powders. Who cannot be impressed watching a -53µm superalloy powder being sprayed through a miniature jet engine at multiple Mach!
I worked within the engineering group for over 10 years before it was sold to an “Entrepreneur” who wanted to take us all back to “grass roots” Translation, stop trying to stay on the leading edge and make lots of simple things that can be copied and made cheaper in other countries. Ah, the foresight!
I left and the group was bust in 12 months
As many do when we can’t fall back to a real job immediately, I became a consultant! One contract involved doing due diligence on an obscure metal powder company in the middle of Slovakia. I had an option of this or a similar company in Oslo. I had spent most of my commercial life working in Asia and West Coast USA. I hate the cold! Due to an incredible lack of geographical knowledge, I presumed the town in Slovakia with the same latitude as Paris would be a better option in December than Norway. Brilliant deduction, I arrived in Zilina "International" (2 flights a week only to Prague!) Airport on the 19th December 2005 to find out that the temperature of -27C did exist outside the polar regions, f***king Oslo was +6C!!
At this time, Slovakia was still very “Socialistic” - grey concrete buildings, no colours aside from the candle lit cemeteries, and of course a metre of bloody snow everywhere. I was slightly surprised therefore to find that my source of more appropriate hat and gloves was a bloody big white building with Tesco writ large on the side. Despite this, the people were lovely even if the factory was tired, unkempt and downright dangerous in areas. I did the due diligence, I reported back and the German company I was working for, purchased the complete site.
A couple of months later I was tasked with going there as a technical consultant for a 3 month contract, 11 years later I’m still here (must cancel that return flight!) now a Managing Director and have never been so content.
I have a lovely house in the village with my very own mountain! The people are still lovely although the language is an utter bastard (Slovaks are SO proud of this), we now have a modern, productive and profitable company and a management team second to none.
I’m still a nerd, and as I’m a totally selfish bastard I live on my own. I still enjoy messing around with computers and playing with the latest available tech. In the UK I was heavily into car restoration and car building but nowadays the idea of a 5 speed gearbox crushing my nagers whilst laying on a cold concrete floor doesn’t have the appeal, I’m getting soft.
One of my first projects during the house reconstruction was to convert one of the garages into a model railway room, if it’s good enough for Rod Stewart it’s good enough for me. Always wanted one as a kid and as I now have the space, money and total selfish indulgence, I can allow my inner child to run free. Of course I tie it in to computer / tablet control / remote access etc.
Holidays in Asia and/or South France are still enjoyable, weekends working on small trains or in the garden, life is good!
Oh and the liking for warm climates? It got down to -30C in the village this Winter! ;-)
David Chapman
Dolny Kubin
Slovakia
September 19, 2017
The Soldier - US Cover
I've just received this image of The Soldier, first book of Rise of the Jain from Night Shade Books. Very nice indeed.
September 18, 2017
Book Sale: Transformation Trilogy
I'm clearing out some books in my loft so therefore selling some signed copies. Since there's a right mixture up there I cannot be arsed to sort them all out and list them so will be putting batches up for sale like these. Okay, I have UK mass-market paperback editions of the Transformation trilogy to go. Those are Dark Intelligence, War Factory and Infinity Engine. The cost is cover price plus postage - the books are £9 each while p&p in the UK is £4 and to the US is £11 (for example). These can be just signed or signed to you. I can be tracked down on Facebook and Twitter or you can leave a message here.
September 15, 2017
Who Reads my Books: Paul LaFontaine
I’m Paul LaFontaine, currently living in Breckenridge, Colorado. Love the mountains, skiing, hiking and the outdoors.
I grew up on classic science fiction that had been written 20 years earlier - Heinlein, A.C. Clark, Asimov. Even went really old school E.E. Doc Smith and the Lensman series. Ursula K. LeGuin’s the Lathe of Heaven. The Forever War. Consumed books on nuclear war, mutants, plagues. Always military themes. Fleets, dropship troopers, Mega-tanks, mushroom clouds.
In 1980 I read a novelette in Omni magazine by a then little known writer named George R.R. Martin called Sandkings. My love of bio-based science fiction, kindled by the Bugs in Starship Troopers, was stoked into a roaring inferno by Martin’s Sandkings that would inevitably lead me to a bunch of crabby characters on a certain moon in the future.
My first human science fiction hero was Bel Riose, the hapless General in the failing Empire of Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy. Unstoppable when in command of his legendary 20th Fleet, the politicians ended his career. Aware of the thematic similarities only dimly as a teenager, I applied to and attended the United States Military Academy to become an officer in the Army of another empire in its twilight.
After deploying and participating in the First Gulf War and seeing how grimy and random war can be, I got out and tried business. Not particularly lucky or skilled, I was swept up into a bit of momentum when the internet happened. I got my first taste of the new capabilities that made Artificial Intelligence conceivable. I saw things at scale. Fast forward past a bunch of boring business stuff and I find myself sent to the UK to help build out the internet arm of the benevolent and beloved Ticketmaster. And it all began to come together - love of bio based science fiction, interest in AI and located in the UK where I was one short visit to a Waterstone’s away from crossing paths with Neal Asher’s work.
My first of Neal’s books was Gridlinked. I was blown away. Ian Cormac was a character I really connected with. The Polity had it all. AI, Golems, Sparkind, battle wagons, weird tech and critters of all types. Bless the Prador and the little children. Beware the Brass Man. Enjoy the creepy belly feel of picturing the reified Sable Keech.
I’ve read every book of Neal’s I can download. And that makes for some good reading.
I had a proud papa moment when my 24 year old son sent me a photo as he was deploying to the Middle East to participate in operations there. He took a pic of two books he had picked up for his trip. One was Dan Simmon’s Hyperion (a good one), and the other was Neal’s War Factory. A staple. I have taught him well.
Thanks Neal for your work!
I grew up on classic science fiction that had been written 20 years earlier - Heinlein, A.C. Clark, Asimov. Even went really old school E.E. Doc Smith and the Lensman series. Ursula K. LeGuin’s the Lathe of Heaven. The Forever War. Consumed books on nuclear war, mutants, plagues. Always military themes. Fleets, dropship troopers, Mega-tanks, mushroom clouds.
In 1980 I read a novelette in Omni magazine by a then little known writer named George R.R. Martin called Sandkings. My love of bio-based science fiction, kindled by the Bugs in Starship Troopers, was stoked into a roaring inferno by Martin’s Sandkings that would inevitably lead me to a bunch of crabby characters on a certain moon in the future.
My first human science fiction hero was Bel Riose, the hapless General in the failing Empire of Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy. Unstoppable when in command of his legendary 20th Fleet, the politicians ended his career. Aware of the thematic similarities only dimly as a teenager, I applied to and attended the United States Military Academy to become an officer in the Army of another empire in its twilight.
After deploying and participating in the First Gulf War and seeing how grimy and random war can be, I got out and tried business. Not particularly lucky or skilled, I was swept up into a bit of momentum when the internet happened. I got my first taste of the new capabilities that made Artificial Intelligence conceivable. I saw things at scale. Fast forward past a bunch of boring business stuff and I find myself sent to the UK to help build out the internet arm of the benevolent and beloved Ticketmaster. And it all began to come together - love of bio based science fiction, interest in AI and located in the UK where I was one short visit to a Waterstone’s away from crossing paths with Neal Asher’s work.
My first of Neal’s books was Gridlinked. I was blown away. Ian Cormac was a character I really connected with. The Polity had it all. AI, Golems, Sparkind, battle wagons, weird tech and critters of all types. Bless the Prador and the little children. Beware the Brass Man. Enjoy the creepy belly feel of picturing the reified Sable Keech.
I’ve read every book of Neal’s I can download. And that makes for some good reading.
I had a proud papa moment when my 24 year old son sent me a photo as he was deploying to the Middle East to participate in operations there. He took a pic of two books he had picked up for his trip. One was Dan Simmon’s Hyperion (a good one), and the other was Neal’s War Factory. A staple. I have taught him well.
Thanks Neal for your work!
September 12, 2017
Transformation Trilogy on Audible UK
It seems that the first two books of the Transformation trilogy are now available on Audible UK read by Peter Noble. Infinity Engine will be there on October 5th.
