Welcome to the year of the Rat (nearly)

Christmas is over, New Year is done with - until February 7th that is! After much fafing about I have finally got down to editing more of TI, (episode 25 is now available through Podiobooks or my web site here) and should be getting episodes 26 to 29 finalised this week.

We're now (temporarily) without a DVD play - the surround sound DVD play we have decided on New Year's Day that it didn't want to play any DVDs - and only two weeks out of warranty... Luckily the X-Box 360 isn't so bloody minded ;-) Should find out on Tuesday how much the DVD player will cost to repair, just what's needed in January - an unexpected bill!

Mentioning the X-Box, I've been spending a huge amount of time since Christmas playing Bioshock, Halo 3, Prey, PGR 4, Forza Motorsport 2 and most recently Sega Rally and I've come to the conclusion I need more time and a force feed-back steering wheel (for the driving games)

I'm hoping that the Writer's Strike in America is resolved soon - they are holding up the production of the last series of Battlestar Galactica! Although, I completely agree with their point ;-)

In the mean time, I have a few books to read - thanks to Christmas...


I'm not sure which one will be read first...

Jeremy Clarkson can be very funny, and I do have a tendency to agree with a lot of what he says...
...especially when he was in Grumpy Old Men.


Terry Pratchett has been (and is) one of my favourite authors, so it may be Making Money before the dry wit and observations of Mr Clarkson...





Then there's always Robert Rankin - the man who has written such wonderful books as Armaggeddon The Musical, Nostrodarmus Ate My Hamster and Raiders Of The Lost Car Park...














So many choices, and so little time! Terra Incognita takes priority, of course, but I have a couple of weeks free at the end of this month, so I may yet catch up with my reading! Add to that, the StarShip Sofa boys are ploughing ahead with episodes - this week we have an episode about Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes. It's an exceptionally good read and well worth the time :-) Peter Watts, author of Blindsight, has also recorded one of his short stories (The Second Coming Of Jasmine Fitzgerald, a PDF of the story may be downloaded here) for Starship Sofa; and that should be released in the next few weeks - it is a rather good and thought provoking story :-)

Cheers,

Gary

Books, writing, recording, editing and reading

Hi,

I've now gone the best part of a month without producing a new episode of Terra Incognita for Podiobooks.com and I'm feeling exceptionally bad about it. In my defense, there's not a great deal I can actually do at the moment. Kevin (the Narrator) has returned from his travels in the US - that accounts for the bulk of the last month. Unfortunately as he has been away from work for so long, he's now in greater demand than ever before and he needs an extra twelve of fourteen hours a day just to keep up with everything.

That means that he hasn't had the chance to record anything for me since he's been back in home. On the upside, I'm going to be getting a shiny new PC this week - specifically for doing the audio work required for Terra Incognita. So that should help with the processing and editing of audio for each episode; when Kevin gets the narrative recorded.

I've also asked a few friends to read through the XXth draft of Terra Incognita and be as harsh as they want to be with the syntax and spelling - and it really does need it! I've also been in email contact with John Jarrold, who is a rather good editor and Lit Agent. We have come to terms and I'll be emailing him the XX+1th draft of Terra Incognita to him as soon as I am able; and I'll sit here, exceptionally nervous until he has finished his work on the mss.

I read Blindsight by Peter Watts over the weekend, it is a very, very, very good book and I couldn't recommend it highly enough to anyone who's considering buying it. The story deals broadly with a first contact between humans and an alien species, as well as the nature of consciousness and evolution. It is an interesting story and definitely worth the time to find, buy and read. I enjoyed Peter Watts' work so much, that I've asked the local book shop to order the other four of his published books for me.

I've just started re-reading The State Of The Art by Iain M Banks, another of my favourite authors. It was actually whilst starting this book, today, that I was reminded of John Jarrold; with whom I was in email contact at the end of last year when the Christopher Hill Literary Agency evaporated - but that's a story for another day, if ever. Iain M Banks has a wonderful flare for naming conventions for the star ships in his Culture stories. A full list can be found here.

With winter drawing in, I'm looking forward to the return of Doctor Who, Torchwood and Battlestar Galactica to our TV screens. All three are exceptionally good and (thankfully) have escaped the normal fate of TV programs I enjoy: Farscape, Firefly, Invasion, Threshold - all axed far too soon...

I've had a few conversations this week with both Tony and Ciaran from Starship Sofa, which have both been kind of fun. The Good Ship Sofa rolls ever onwards into the celestial firmament of the Science Fiction genre. This week, we were treated to the first of a multi-part Podcast about Walter M Miller.

Cheers,

Gary