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Over Narita
"Sometimes I can hear the jets, laced into holding patterns over Narita."- William Gibson, New Rose HotelSo I'm off to Japan, where I'll be attending Hal-Con. I'll be in Japan for six days - five...
View ArticleIn Yokohama
I promised updates during my Japan first so here's the first. Unfortunately there won't be any pictures as I don't presently have a means of downloading the images from my camera. You'll just have to...
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Saturn's Return
My adventures in astrophotography have been hampered by poor weather and (to be fair) a measure of lethargy on the part of your correspondent. But tonight some clear skies heralded this first attempt...
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All stacked up in the rain
I don't mind spending days, weeks or even months on a piece of art, but sometimes it's good to cut loose and work quickly. When I was a student I went on a two week residential art course in South...
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Pushing Ice Timeline (significant spoilers)
Reader Clay Hunt produced this fantastic schematic of the timelines in Pushing Ice. In Clay's words: "When I got to the point where Bella touches the Memorial Cube and starts figuring out JUST HOW FAR...
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The PI files (contains significant spoilers)
Clay's excellent timelime prompted me to dig out this material, which is all that remains of the notes I kept during the writing of Pushing Ice. (To be honest, there wasn't much more - a few back of...
View ArticleESA
On the admittedly slight chance that you're already working at ESA/ESTEC in Holland, I'll be doing a talk...
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Cheeky chappie
I posted this picture and linked to it from twitter, forgetting to put an explanation here. It's an unusual bird I photographed in Holland. Obviously a corvid of some sort, and probably immature, but...
View ArticleRedditch public library
Apologies for the lack of activity here since July - busy, busy, busy. Just dropping by to say that I'll be talking at Redditch Public Library this coming saturday (August 25th) in connection with...
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Mystery house
While I get my act in gear for a proper series of posts, here's a quiz for you. I recently photographed this property. It's the fictional home of a long-running British TV character - anyone recognise...
View ArticleTwo things
Couple of items worth mentioning - I've just done a lengthy podcast interview with Wired.com, which is available here, together with a useful transcript:...
View ArticleGoogle+ event, 27th September
While I surface from work on ON THE STEEL BREEZE, just a word to say that I'll be participating in a three-way Google+ hangout with Iain M Banks and Peter F Hamilton. The event takes place next week,...
View ArticleBreaking cover
A few brief things ... I'm deep in novel work at the moment, and will remain so for some while, so I'd like to apologise for my continued tardiness in responding to emails. I know I say this all the...
View ArticleExhaust gases
As I mentioned in the previous post, the critic Paul Kincaid has recently ignited a debate about the perceived state of exhaustion of science fiction. It's worth reading PK's original review, and the...
View ArticleIt was twenty years ago today
Well, not quite. But we are now in the autumn of 2012 and in the autumn of 1992 - rather astonishingly, twenty years ago - I started writing Revelation Space. Not some remote ancestor of that book,...
View ArticleOn Mediocrity
It's been said, with some truth, that SF writers have given up thinking seriously about the near future. The problem, so the commonplace wisdom goes, is that so many elements of the real world are now...
View ArticleGlasnost
You might not think it, and some of my critics will be laughing into their cornflakes at this point, but I spend quite a bit of time thinking about prose. It's fair to say that a sizable proportion of...
View ArticleEngagement
The debate sparked by Paul Kincaid's essay on SF's state of exhaustion rolls on. Here, for instance, is PK's latest statement - it's well worth reading, and also includes a handy set of links to some...
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