Alan Baxter's Blog, page 113

District 9 – review

I'm behind the times on this one, but I missed District 9 when it went round the cinema circuit. However, having picked up the DVD recently, I finally got to see it and find out what all the prawn fuss was over. There'll be spoilers later, but I'll give you fair warning.

District 9 is a very imaginative and original sci-fi movie. A massive spaceship breaks down over Johannesburg in 1985 and nothing happens. After three months of wondering, the humans finally fly up there in choppers and cut...

By the power of the Plastic Fork Dragon

This has very little to do with this blog, other than there are dragons in many of my stories. And the spec fic stories of others. Fuck it, that's all the excuse I need. Frankly, I just want this totally awesome dragon on my website.

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Print version of A 'Verse Full Of Scum

I'm planning to make a print version of my novella Ghost Of The Black: A 'Verse Full Of Scum available through Blade Red Press. The novella is free online here at The Word and it's currently free as an ebook over at Smashwords.

I'm going to add a price to that ebook at Smashwords, probably just US$1 or something like that, and the print version will be POD via Amazon for under US$10. This is as much for my own benefit as anyone else's – I want to have a hard copy of the story on my shelf...

Wheel of fail

Sometimes words just like to mess with your head.

Great Australian Booklist

Colour me seriously impressed. Sometimes the evil internet is used for good, even when it's used by the Access Of Evil. I know, I'm making no sense.

Chuck McKenzie threw out an idea to the interwebz about getting US and UK books into Australia which are otherwise unavailable due to parallel importation restrictions, or getting Australian small press books into bookstores that don't have great distribution channels. Chuck runs a book store, so things like this are very real for him. And as...

Independent grocer branches out into prostitution

I went up to the local IGA independent grocer this morning to get some milk and bread. I was quite surprised when I saw this van parked outside delivering. I thought, 'Well, that's some thinking outside the box right there.':

(Yes, of course it was actually "Mitchell's Wholesale Provedores.)

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Suspended animation is not sci-fi any more

I found this TED Talk via m1k3y over at grinding and it blew me away. Basically, suspended animation (the reduction of metabolic rate to near death for extended periods of time) is not just science fiction any more. It's real, and they're busy with human trials.

As the guy says at the start of the talk, they're not designing things to send people on long space flights or anything like that right now; they're developing technology to put someone into a suspended state to buy them time to...

Miscellaneous Voices: Australian Blog Writing #1

I got a nice little gift in the mail this morning. My contributor's copy of Miscellaneous Voices: Australian Blog Writing #1.

There's my name on the cover, fourth one down. Of course, that's alphabetical, not in order of importance or anything like that. I do love to see my name on the cover of books though, I'm kinda vain like that. This is an anthology of blog writing, put together by Miscellaneous Press. As they describe it:

Inside Miscellaneous Voices: Australian Blog Writing you will find...

Australian Spec Fic blog carnival, March 2010

It's my turn to host the Australian Spec Fic blog carnival for this month, so following is a round up of all kinds of interesting spec fic related interwebby goodness. If I've missed anything, add a link in the comments or email me and I'll update the post.

First off, Eneit Press interviews Gillian Polack as part of Women In Horror Month.

That segues nicely to Gillian Polak's own LiveJournal entries which include some thoughts on characters and Good books and equal opportunity neglect. A...

Oh, the crushing irony