Tim Maughan's Blog, page 4

Paintwork LE – SOLD OUT

UPDATE: The LE edition is now SOLD OUT. Thanks to everyone that bought a copy!

The LE Set includes:

*A signed paperback copy of Paintwork, with personalised message if required

*A 1GB Paintwork USB memory stick, containing:

-Over 3 hours of exclusive DJ mixes by me, featuring music that inspired Paintwork

-eBook versions of Paintwork for all major devices (Kindle, Nook, iPad, iPhone, PDF etc)

-Exclusive desktop and mobile device wallpapers

-Exclusive author's notes

-Audio of interviews and podcast appearances

*Limited edition Paintwork Graf and QR Code stickers

*FREE postage worldwide

Any questions? Ask away in the comments.

Paintwork LE – more copies available

Many thanks to everyone that bought the Limited Edition Paintwork set – hopefully you've all received yours by now. And good news for those of you that wanted one but missed out – I've got a few more copies left to sell. Numbers are strictly limited – in fact I only have 15 this time – so be quick and hit the button below. At just $15 it's the Winterval perfect gift for the discerning scifi fan in your life/yourself!

The LE Set includes:

*A signed paperback copy of Paintwork, with personalised message if required

*A 1GB Paintwork USB memory stick, containing:

-Over 3 hours of exclusive DJ mixes by me, featuring music that inspired Paintwork

-eBook versions of Paintwork for all major devices (Kindle, Nook, iPad, iPhone, PDF etc)

-Exclusive desktop and mobile device wallpapers

-Exclusive author's notes

-Audio of interviews and podcast appearances

*Limited edition Paintwork Graf and QR Code stickers

*FREE postage worldwide

Any questions? Ask away in the comments.

Urban Fantasy

Woke up this morning with a story idea. Don't know if it'll go anywhere, but scribbled down a few lines as a test. Thoughts?

"Urban fantasy? Really miss? Urban fantasy?"

"That's what you write miss?"

"Yes Jess, that's-"

"Miss, do you even live in the urb-" Liam paused, to correct himself. "Do you even live in the city, miss?"

"Not now, no." Fiona felt her cheeks blush. "But when I was at uni-"

"Uni? Now THAT'S an urban fantasy for us!" said Kelvin, leaning back on his chair.

"Yeah! Urban fantasy for us is leaving here and getting a job!" said Sam.

"Urban fantasy for me is going down the shop at night and not getting my phone jacked innit" said Bricksy.

"Urban fantasy for Tyrone is his mum coming home and remembering who his dad actually was" said Kelvin.

"Shut up." It was the first time Fiona had heard Tyrone speak. His tone was quiet, yet purposeful. He fixed Kelvin with a cold, disturbing stare. "Shut the fuck up."

The whole class was laughing now. Fiona felt control slipping away again. "Okay everyone, that's enough. Quieten down please."

"Seriously though miss." Jess again. "It's scary enough out there. We don't need no vampires or demons, you get me?"

Bristolcon – more details

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As I've mentioned previously I'll be at Bristolcon later this month – and over on their site this week they've posted the official programme. It looks great – an amazing line up of authors and panelists – and I thought I'd take a few minutes here to highlight what I'll be doing:

10.00 – When Did Science Become The Bad Guy?

Science seems to have become unfashionable and is now suffering from funding cuts. When and how did science lose its cool?

With Dev Agarwal (Mod), Eugene Byrne, Simon Breeze, Tim Maughan, Raven Dane & Jonathan Wright

13.00 – Copyright or Wrong?

Until recent changes in the law, copyright in the UK was regarded as being decades out of date, struggling to keep up with advances in technology. It's clear copyright law must change and adapt in order to survive the impact of technology and remain relevant to new media. Copying is easy, affordable and everybody does it – what options does the creator have to combat copyright infringement? Or is it time to offer everything for free?

With Jonathan Wright (Mod), Juliet E McKenna, Mike Shevdon, Tim Maughan, Raven Dane & Bob Neilson

18.00 – Sci-Fi Now!

Sliding doors, tricorders, communicators, space stations, and exploration of Mars. What have we achieved that was only science fiction fifty years ago? What happened to teleporters, jetpacks and flying cars? Will we ever get our base on the moon for our vacations? If so, when?

With Gareth L Powell (Mod), John Meaney, Eugene Byrne, Dev Agarwal, Paul McAuley & Tim Maughan

I'll also be doing a reading from Paintwork at 10.50 – straight after the 'When Did Science Become The Bad Guy?' panel.

Hopefully see you there!

BSFA Awards nominations now open…#justsayin

Just a quick heads-up that the nominations for the 2011 British Science Fiction Association awards are now open, and if you're a member (and if you're not you can sign up here) it's time to start thinking about your favourite works from 2011. You've got until 13th January 2012 so there's no real rush, and you can find all the details over on the BSFA website.

Looking for something to nominate? Well, the first two stories from Paintwork – Paintwork and Paparazzi – are both eligible. Havana Augmented isn't, as it was first published in 2010 and was nominated last year.

You could also – and I have no immodesty in saying this – nominate the superb Paintwork cover by Bobi Richardson for best art. Yeah, yeah – I'm biased, as she's my wife – but c'mon, have you seen a more original, fresher looking cover on a genre book this year? No, I'm guessing not.

Bristol Festival of Literature, Bristolcon and more Paintwork reviews

Apologies for being quiet over the last few weeks, but I have been kind of busy. I was off making my inaugural visit to the Great American Empire, and I can report on my return that our colonial cousins – despite poisoning themselves with excessive use of corn syrup – seem to be doing jolly well. In fact I was so taken with this new nation that I decided to get wed there, in the virtual reality gaming and entertainment construct known as 'Las Vegas', followed by an enjoyably relaxing honeymoon on the delightfully terraformed orbital spa 'Hawaii'. It was quite splendid.

Anyway, having got back, cleaned the airliner grime from my frame, and started to recover from a severe case of desynchronosis – it's clear I have a few bits of news to get you guys up to speed on. First off I'm very pleased to report that Paintwork is continuing to pick up glowing reviews:

"Havana Augmented is the third short story in Tim Maughan's excellent Paintwork (2011), a collection that focuses on the meaning of artistry in a near-future cyberpunk landscape…(it) follows two streams of conflict. Paul and Kim battle with enormous robots which is, frankly, awesome. Mr. Maughan knows how to write an action sequence without letting it take over. The battles are short, streamlined, vicious and very, very fun…this is the crown jewel of an excellent collection. I'm a sucker for sports movies, especially when the game or match has some sort of Great Significance. Mr. Maughan tugs at my heartstrings with Havana Augmented – a giant robot smackdown with a country's future on the line." – Pornokitsch

"The title story Paintwork is an interesting examination of the lives and work of graffiti artists in the near future, trying to keep their art relevant in a world whose environments can become virtual with the blink of an eye. This is a Bristol story through and through, and Tim has done a great job of taking our landmarks and weaving them into a world that is very futuristic while remaining completely familiar to residents of the city…anyone who has an interest in urban art will draw much from this story. I loved Paintwork. All three stories show a writer with a real gift for accelerating the world we know into a believable future, with a deft local touch that adds an extra something for us Bristol folk…(it's) a great read, that pinches a few ingredients from the SF greats and blends them with a unique flavour all of its own." – Guide2Bristol

"Tim writes in a small subgenre that could loosely be called cyberpunk, but perhaps would be more accurately described as virtual reality fiction. He brings his near future VR fiction to life in a gritty and believable subculture, and he is very good at it…All three are excellent stories that transport the reader to the action…Tim's work is a hidden gem. I'm very excited that a story I selected was nominated for the BSFA short fiction award, and I was excited to read this small collection. It is well worth your time." – Rick Novy

As Rick mentions in that review, he was responsible for my first ever fiction sale, for which I am forever grateful. He's got a book out himself at the moment – Neanderthal Swan Song – which I heartily recommend you go and check out.

In other – just as exciting – news I've got a couple of appearances coming up. First up is The Bristol Festival of Literature, where I'll be taking apart in a panel looking at politics in sci-fi with the brilliant title "Should David Cameron read more Science Fiction?" It's on Friday 21 October at Hamilton House in Stokes Croft at 6pm. Tickets are £5 and can be ordered here.

And then the very next day is Bristol's own sci-fi and fantasy convention Bristolcon, where I've officially been announced as a guest. Not sure quite yet what I'll be up to exactly there – more details as I get them – but with an impressive line-up of authors and artists I'm very honoured to have been invited. If you're in the area it looks like an unmissable event, so come down and say hi.

Paintwork is out now – you can get Kindle versions from Amazon US and Amazon UK, and versions for all other popular e-readers (including iPad and Nook) at Smashwords.

Print versions are now available from Createspace or Amazon US and Amazon UK.

See No Evil – thanks and updates

Quick post – just wanted to say thanks to everyone that came and checked out the See No Evil post last week, the response was phenomenal. Thanks especially to Cory Doctorow over at Boing Boing for picking it up, and to all his readers that swung by.

So many people checked it out in fact that I ended up being interviewed about it for The Times, in this great article (paywall, sadly) by Simon de Bruxelles – extract below:

Tim Maughan, the Bristol-based science fiction author whose latest book Paintwork is about a graffiti art, disagrees. He said: "Does the art form loose some of it's meaning and energy by not being an illegal form of rebellion? I think it's pretty obvious the answer is no when you come down here and experience it.

"The backing of Bristol City Council raises really interesting questions – it's almost like a state sponsorship of a protest against a past regime. How much money the council must have spent in the past two decades trying to stamp this art out? At the same time it's a great, positive and inclusive PR event for the city.

"Hopefully it is opening doors for the people involved, and stimulating the economy and creative industries, like Weapon of Choice and the other galleries, that have grown up around Bristol's international graffiti reputation."

Mr Maughan, who says he always felt the "neo-Brutalist" concrete architecture of Nelson Street was the vision of some dystopian future, added: "The scale of some of the pieces have just blown me away."

I can't empthasise that last point enough. See No Evil is very special, and you need to see it yourself if you can. if you don't live in Bristol its worth making the trip. It should be up for a good few months yet – but Bristol City Council tell me that 'no-one can say definitively – depends mainly on sale and redevelopment of old Magistrates' Courts'. So don't sleep on this, come and check it out.

Paintwork is out now – you can get Kindle versions from Amazon US and Amazon UK, and versions for all other popular e-readers (including iPad and Nook) at Smashwords.

Print versions are now available from Createspace or Amazon US and Amazon UK.

From utopia to dystopia and back again – See No Evil, Bristol

This weekend saw the final unveiling of the the See No Evil project in Bristol; Europe's largest street art exhibition. It is, to say the very least, an extraordinary, breathtaking achievement. Graffiti artists not just from Bristol but around the globe descended on Nelson Street, transforming the whole area from drab, urban decay into what feels like a new – almost virtual – space. It is truly something that needs to be experienced, but hopefully some of the photos I grabbed (along with the many on the official Flickr page) will give you some idea of its scale and raw beauty.

My own interest in graffiti art dates back to my first introduction to hip-hop culture in the mid 1980s, when the first images of New York subway art started to make their way over the pond. Apart from their raw visceral energy, both art-forms struck me as intensely science-fictional. Both are about the appropriation of technology to create something new – hip-hop taking samplers and turntables to generate new sounds they weren't designed to make, and graf taking car repair paint and the very architecture of cities to create new visual spaces and canvases. They are, perhaps, the most literal expression of William Gibson's famous cyberpunk-defining phrase 'the street finds it own use for things'.

Even before cyberpunk, the city has long been one of the defining settings of science fiction for those that dare to look beyond the standard tropes of spaceships and alien worlds. Science fiction frequently views the city as a machine, with those of us that live within it variably as components, parasites or even unwilling prisoners. Graffiti becomes one of the most visceral, immediate statements of rebellion for us urban inmates; a bold, organic riot of colour against our drab, sterile prison.

The science fictional aspect of See No Evil becomes even more heightened when you consider the history of Nelson Street. It is yet another example, amongst the hundreds that dot the urban landscape of Britain, of 1950/60s post war planning and architecture that aimed to herald a new, futuristic, technology-driven utopia. But of course the future's greatest strength is that it can never be predicted and tamed, let alone designed or planned. The town planners and architects failed, and as the decades passed they watched their dreams descend into decay, shunned by popular taste and left to become associated with poverty, depravation and failure. And to add the ultimate insult to their injuries, they saw their utopian designs become the defining science fiction image of a dystopian future.

"The group of architects who put (the plan) forward combined super highways with dreaming notions of pedestrian decks to create squares of Venetian splendour where Bristolians would gather in their thousands on election nights six metres above the smoothly uninterrupted flow of traffic.

"The dream seemed so achievable. Perhaps part of it, at least, should have been done. The centre deck might have worked; noise and fumes might not have made it unusable. Often the wrong parts were carried out.

"The major central area civic contribution of the sixties was the complex of pedestrian decks that survive in truncated form above the street at Lewins Mead and beyond and which virtually nobody uses. This was to be the essential link between the Centre – or even Forum's great piazza above it – and the Broadmead shopping centre and beyond."

The Fight for Bristol (ed. by Gordon Priest and Pamela Cobb; Redcliffe Press, 1980)

It's this idea that was the driving force behind the story that leads my collection Paintwork; the use of graffiti to reclaim the space in which we live from corporate control. The technology that is subverted in Paintwork may be far more exotic – augmented reality, nanotechnology and QR Codes – but walking around Nelson Street made me feel that somehow I had actually managed to catch a little taste of Bristol's zeitgeist with that story. That part of town usually feels dead and deserted, but on Saturday it was rammed with bodies – Bristol residents that had come out to be enthralled and entertained; to reclaim this urban decay for their own expression and enjoyment. And the fact that this was an officially organised event, done with the guidance and support of the same city that once made the mistake of trying to guess and plan the future is not only exciting in itself, but perhaps shows us a fleeting glimpse of a real, achievable urban utopia.

Paintwork is out now – you can get Kindle versions from Amazon US and Amazon UK, and versions for all other popular e-readers (including iPad and Nook) at Smashwords.

Print versions are now available from Createspace or Amazon US and Amazon UK.

Paintwork – updates

Paintwork has been out for nearly two months now, so time for a little round-up of what has been happening recently…

Reviews are starting to trickle in:

"…an interesting, cool urban read. Like graffiti condensed into prose. If you're already a fan of works like Neuromancer or Snow Crash, then it's a pretty safe bet that you'll probably enjoy Paintwork…either way, it will be a unique experience to say the least." – Comic Attack

"A set of three short novellas set in the not-too distant future, Maughan's debut work gleans much of its literary influence and style from that burning start of science fiction, William Gibson, but has enough punch to suggest that more interesting ideas could be on the way." – What Froth

To my delight Paintwork has been doing pretty well in the Amazon bestseller lists – including a spell in the Science Fiction Short Stories top ten last month:

And right now – as I type away – the print copy is doing well in the Amazon US 4 for 3 promotion. Time to pick up a bargain:

And it's not just Amazon where you can grab a copy – both electronic and print versions are available all over the internets now:

*In print at Amazon and Barnes and Noble

*For the iPad and iPhone from Apple eBooks/iTunes

*For the Nook from Barnes and Noble

*For the Kindle from Amazon US, Amazon UK and Amazon Germany

*And for all major eReaders from Smashwords

So there you go – no excuses to pick up a copy!

Paintwork available now in print, pre-order for LE version CLOSED

I'm very pleased to announce that the print version of Paintwork is finally available to order from Createspace now, and with Amazon to follow in just a few days. I received a proof copy earlier this week, and have to say it looks great. This is by far the best way to enjoy that fantastic Bobi Richardson designed cover.

It can be yours right away for $5.99, or if you can wait and feel like blowing some cash the Limited Edition Paintwork set is available for pre-order.

UPDATE: The LE set is now SOLD OUT. Thanks to everyone that bought one! I will hopefully be doing another run of these later in the year, so stay tuned.

The LE Set includes:

*A signed paperback copy of Paintwork, with personalised message if required

*A 1GB USB memory stick, containing:

-Over 3 hours of exclusive DJ mixes by me, featuring music that inspired Paintwork

-eBook versions of Paintwork for all major devices (Kindle, Nook, iPad, iPhone, PDF etc)

-Exclusive desktop and mobile device wallpapers

-Exclusive author's notes

-Audio of interviews and podcast appearances

*Limited edition Paintwork Graf and QR Code stickers

*FREE postage worldwide

Any questions? Ask away in the comments.