Tag Archives: william gibson

Last 30 Days’ Book Recommendations

For those who don’t follow me on Twitter, on 23rd August I set myself the task of recommending a book a day until Christmas along with a short review on Goodreads. Here’s the list for the last 30 days for anyone who missed it:

Hyperion by Dan Simmons – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/245223816

The Darkness that Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/324718560

Speaks the Nightbird by Robert McCammon – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1035991441

Lord of the Silver Bow by David Gemmell – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1036810587

Crossed by Garth Ennis – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1037745731

The Blue Blazes by Chuck Wendig – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/725036643

All Hell Let Loose by Max Hastings – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/717366050

Vurt by Jeff Noon – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1040358888

Watching War Films with My Dad by Al Murray – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/918121939

Broken Angels by Richard Morgan – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/245223698

The Thousand Names by Django Wexler – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1043204778

The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F Hamilton – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1044115670

The Dead Zone by Stephen King – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/245223368

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/245223551

An Animated Life by Ray Harryhausen – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1047059554

Robin Ince’s Bad Book Club by Robin Ince – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/396745389

The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/987382048

Icon by Frank Frazetta – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1050037194

Neuromancer by William Gibson – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/245223673

Use of Weapons Iain M Banks – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/245223648

Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1052797420

Dune by Frank herbert – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/245223544

Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/245224264

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1055394174

The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1036354909

Voyage by Stephen Baxter – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1057330544

War of the Aeronauts by Charles M. Evans – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/711370188

Dark Fire by CJ Sansom – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1058921216

The Scar by China Mieville – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1059845898

The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander – https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1060416159


The Next Big Thing

Big thing

Thanks to Riyria Revalations author Michael J. Sullivan for tagging me in the Next Big Thing meme, a mechanism for authors to talk about future writing projects. Basically, each author answers ten questions about their next book and tags someone else to do the same. I’ll post links to whoever I tag when their own answers go up, in the meantime here’s mine:

1) What is the working title of your next book?
My next book is a novella entitled Slab City Blues: The Ballad of Bad Jack.

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?
My ideas normally take a long time to gestate. In this case the character name ‘Bad Jack’ popped into my head a long time ago. I knew he was some kind of criminal but it was several years before I formed a clear idea of who he was and what he did.

3) What genre does your book fall under?
It’s the fourth story in my Slab City Blues SF-noir series which takes place in an orbital society which has gained independence from Earth after a bloody revolution.

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
I wouldn’t. Writers are notoriously bad at casting and there’s a reason why movie producers pay lots of money to casting agents. Plus, as a reader, I like to formulate my own image of how characters look. That being said, Janet the gene-spliced vampire in A Hymn to Gods Long Dead (the third Slab City Blues story) is just crying out to be played by Olivia Wilde.

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
The Bourne Supremacy meets Firefly.

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I’ll be self-publishing this one via the usual outlets on February 1st. Novellas are a tricky thing to sell, being too short to justify the expense of a print run and too long for magazines. Plus, I’m keen to keep hold of the series as it gives me room to enjoy the writing without worrying about a deadline.

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
Longer than it should. I was hoping to get it down in a month, in fact it took three. I started not long after finishing Tower Lord (Book 2 of the Raven’s Shadow trilogy), and was frankly pretty exhausted after writing 2000+ words a day for six months whilst holding down a day job. Also, I ran into a few thorny plot-issues that took time to resolve.

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
I do owe a debt to William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy, but that’s true of pretty much everything I write. Richard Morgan’s Takeshi Kovacs books are also a major influence.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?
I wanted to explore the more of the world I’d created in earlier Slab City Blues stories, all of which had been set on the same orbiting slum. This one takes us to the Asteroid Belt and provides an expanded view of the solar system beyond Earth orbit. However, the main inspiration was simply need to keep writing. I’m a full-time author now and I’m realising the more content I can produce, the greater the chance of continuing as such.

10) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?
If you’re a fan of hard-boiled crime fiction, armoured power-suits and space battles, then there’s probably something in there for you.


Fantasy Book Critic Interview

My interview with Fantasy Book Critic is now up, check it out here:

http://fantasybookcritic.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/interview-with-anthony-ryan-interviewed.html

 

Thanks to Mihir and Liviu at FBC for sorting this out, and their Blood Song reviews, all greatly appreciated.

 


Stuff I Like: My Top Ten Sci-Fi Novels

The following list is likely to change by next week, but for now, my favourite ten sci-fi novels (in no particular order).

Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Or The Canterbury Tales – the Space Opera. A collection of linked stories related by disparate pilgrims to the mysterious, time-twisting planet Hyperion. This is the first volume in Simmons’ epic duology relating the cataclysmic fall of a galaxy-spanning human civilisation linked by a wormhole network. Themes of religion, war, colonialism and paternal love are explored via compelling characterisation and expert plotting. I just wish I knew what the Shrike is…

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Haldeman draws on his own experiences as a Vietnam veteran to imagine a memoir of humanity’s depressingly inevitable war with the first alien race it encounters on venturing into the stars. The time-dilation effects of faster-than-light travel make the experience of war a millennia-spanning nightmare of combat and continuous technological and social change for the narrator. A bleaker ending might have made this the All Quiet on the Western Front of Science Fiction, but still a remarkable achievement.

Neuromancer by William Gibson
Novel zero for what became known as Cyberpunk. The sheer amount of critical verbiage heaped upon this book over the years has somewhat obscured the fact that it is, in essence, a hugely enjoyable, fast paced, future-crime thriller (with ninjas). You do need to engage your brain to fully appreciate Gibson’s vision of a net- dominated dystopia, but that doesn’t make it any less fun.

Use of Weapons by lan M. Banks
Possibly the darkest of Banks’s Culture novels. Former rebel general Cheradenine Zakalwe is recruited by Special Circumstances to perform a variety of morally ambiguous interventions in the affairs of potential future member-worlds to the Culture. Bleak, entirely unsentimental and featuring a trade-mark Banks twist, this is a compelling read. Just don’t expect flowers and rainbows at the end.

Dune by Frank Herbert
Richly detailed and featuring one of the most compelling central characters in sci-fi history in the figure of the messianic Paul Atredies. Herbert’s hugely influential epic plays out on a grand scale as feuding noble houses vie for control of the all- important desert planet Dune. Political intrigue, war and religion in the far-future, what’s not to like?

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
If you thought Avatar was an original story (did anyone?), think again. American Civil-War veteran John Carter takes refuge from some injuns in a cave and finds himself transported to Mars where he falls for a martian princess and fights a desperate battle to save the planet from environmental catastrophe. Sound familiar? Burroughs’ elegantly efficient prose is a joy, although modern readers may find the commie-bashing allegory that is the Green Martians a little simplistic. Fingers crossed the movie doesn’t suck.

Broken Angels by Richard Morgan
Body-hopping secret agent Takeshi Kovacs traverses a less-than perfect pan- galactic future where identities can be recorded and transferred from one genetically engineered ‘sleeve’ to another. The second novel from the master of SF-noir is an intelligent high-tech actioner expanding the world first seen in Altered Carbon. High-tech weaponry, military jargon and firefights abound, but there is an important question arising from all the carnage: does identity have any meaning or even worth when it only exists as data?

Vurt by Jeff Noon
The book that generated an upsurge in US sales of the Manchester A to Z as American readers puzzled over the plethora of streetnames in Noon’s utterly compelling urban sci-fi. Noon presents a near-future society where gene-enhanced dogs are sentient and high-tech ‘feathers’ offer addictive virtual experiences. Featuring a cast of underclass youths feeding their feather addiction through crime, this could be seen as a sci-fi take on Trainspotting, if it wasn’t a hundred times better.

Voyage by Stephen Baxter

The only alternate history title on the list. Baxter draws on meticulous research to weave a convincing narrative of what would have happened if NASA had attempted to put on astronaut on Mars instead of building the great white elephant that was the Space Shuttle. A fascinating slice of speculative fiction for anyone still pining for the flying cars and moon-bases we were promised.

The Reality Dysfunction by Peter F. Hamilton

The first volume in the Night’s Dawn trilogy ensured Hamilton’s place in the first rank of space opera authors. As much a horror-novel as a fast paced action-filled saga, we are treated to a vision of an advanced human future where the ultimate question is finally answered: what happens when you die? The answer? Suffice to say, it’s not good.