Alan Baxter's Blog, page 110
April 26, 2010
A little interview at A Writer Goes On A Journey
You may remember that I recently hosted the Australian Spec Fic blog carnival. Following that, the lovely Nyssa from A Writer Goes On A Journey ran a few quick interview questions by me. You can read the interview here if you're interested.
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Short film – The Raven
This is an excellent sci-fi short film making good use of special effects. It's by Ricardo de Montreuil and is described thusly:
Chris Black possesses a power that could lead to the destruction of the current regime, and they will stop at nothing to destroy him. The chase is on as Chris runs for his life in this sci-fi thriller set in an alternate and futuristic Los Angeles.
Hat tip S F Signal.
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April 24, 2010
What's in a name?
Check this out from Lamebook.com:
420, pronounced four-twenty, is an American counter culture holiday. It's the day you're supposed to get stoned. According to lore (wikipedia), the term was coined from a group of teenagers at San Rafael High School in San Rafael, California in 1971. The teens would meet after school at 4:20 pm to smoke marijuana.
I guess there's nothing like getting baked before going home to do homework and watch Blue Peter. Anyway, the date 4/20, which is April 20th in...
April 23, 2010
Good show, sir
My brother-in-law put me onto this great site (thanks Adrian!) It's called Good Show Sir and it's all about showcasing the worst book covers in sci-fi and fantasy. Their explanation is this:
Because sometimes, a book cover is so bad that all you can do is step back in wonder and say "Good show, sir, good show".
The truth is that these days there's been a considerable improvement in book cover design. Some covers of recent spec-fic releases are truly outstanding. But there was a time when any...
April 22, 2010
Spam comment of the week
I get a lot of spam comments here. It's inevitable, I suppose. Once you've been blogging for a while a certain amount of robots and fuckwits are naturally drawn to the comments section where they shit their rubbish all over the place, telling me what a great blog this is or what an interesting post I wrote while desperately trying to get their link to Viagra or cheaper home loans approved.
The thing that pisses me off is that there are enough absolute idiots out there clikcing on these spam...
April 20, 2010
Doctor Who the 11th
I admit that I was cautious in my excitement about the new series of Doctor Who. When the series rebooted with Christopher Eccleston back in 2005 I was very excited and the series took off with just the right blend of old school cheesiness and modern technology (in the form of CGI and so on) that my love for Dr Who was both nostalgic and reinvigorated. When Eccelston took an early bow after so little time in the role I wondered if that would be the end of it. Was it a moment of magic and Dr W...
April 19, 2010
Facebook at last
I've been on Facebook for a long while, but I've always tried to keep it on a semi-personal level. Basically, I only accept friend requests on Facebook from people I actually know. I may not have ever met them, but in this internet age there are some people that I know really well even though we've never met "IRL".
With that in mind my Facebook friends are people that I know personally or have had some interaction with on some level, be it physically or virtually. Given that my books are due o...
What a great name
The recent volcanic eruption in Iceland is awesome in so many ways, but it seems to me that no one is drawing enough attention to the coolest thing about it. The name of the volcano is Eyjafjallajokul. Seriously, how cool is that? If I wrote a name like that into a fictional fantasy people would roll their eyes and go, "Oh, look at the wanker author trying to be all clever with whacky sounding names."
The name is in fact that of a glacier – Eyjafjallajokul means "(the) island-fells glacier" –...
April 16, 2010
It's not much to ask
It's my birthday tomorrow and I want robot ninja monkeys as my minions.
Don't disappoint me now, it's really not too much to ask, is it?
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April 15, 2010
Friday Flash – Death Of A Taxi Driver
It's been a while since I've had a chance to post a Friday Flash story. It's my birthday tomorrow (April 17th) so I thought I'd use that as an excuse to do one. I hope you like it. It's a little sci-fi detective thing, with a touch of noir.
Death of a Taxi Driver
by Alan Baxter
Inspector Grey squinted up into a cold, gusting rain. He pulled the collar of his heavy coat tighter, shivering. The last cup of lukewarm coffee he had managed to grab before leaving the station was doing little to warm ...