Mat Bowles

So, right then, never did get around to that 'what I've been up to' post that LJ kept eating during the DDOS thing did I. So, a summary post, but first, a poll!
[Poll #1003180]
( Thursday May 31st - Last day at work, lunch in Portcullis House, the Houses of Parliament )
( Friday 1st June - Jennie visits, the Tate Late panel discussion ) ( Adrian Searle on State Britain - very luvvy )( Pubs and wandering late around Soho )
( Saturday 2nd June - Pirates, Disney and comic fangirls )
( Sunday 3rd - Wednesday 6th - Relax + job hunting )
( Thursday 7th June - Book signing at Waterstones with )( Jon Courtenay Grimwood,  )( Steph Swainston  )( and a BBC camera crew )
( Wondering home chatting, and putting names to usernames )
( Friday 8th June - A family visit and a meeting with friends )
( Saturday 9th June - Ballet - the Three Musketeers )
( Sunday June 10th - Wandering Wimbledon )
( Tuesday June 12th - Hyde Park with a friend )
( Wednesday June 13th - Yorkshire bound and zombie avoidance )( Rik Mayall - The New Statesman )
( Today? )
( Upcoming )

Did I say summary? That's a summary? Oops, probably good job I didn't go for the long version isn't it...

tyrell gives us an interesting quote:

When asked about the quality of television today he made a comment that "Nothing on TV has ever been as good as (the new) Battlestar Galactica."!

Who said that, you ask? Joss Whedon. The guy who made Buffy, Angel, Firefly. The one that Uncle Rusty is trying to copy, rather than learn from and build upon.

Joss Whedon thinks BSG is better than anything he's ever done for TV. And I agree with him. Re watched a fnumber of episodes over the weekend with snapesbabe, and it was great to remember how good some of them really are.

Back home from Yorkshire, knackered, had a great weekend, spending time with snapesbabe is of course going to be good, meeting burkesworks was cool, trying many many beers at the beer festival was interesting, and I even found a few I actually liked as well, although disappointingly, the cider named Strawberry Fields was far too sweet. Finished reading Macleod's Newton's Wake on the bus up, and am now about half way through steph_swainston's The Modern World, loved the former, any Charles Stross fans not already reading Ken should do so, and the latter is proving to be interesting up unitl this point.

Have backread my "people I actually have met" filter, but not really commenting much, far too knackered and incoherent, so I shall simply turn in, work tomorrow.

So, steph_swainston's new book is out today. And I'm tying to save money. Given that there are three books out this month I really want, well, patience is a virtue, I'd decided to switch to paperbacks only way before I ran out of money. Then she posted a link to a really good interview and a follow uppost about modern fantasy / New Weird writing. Got me all excited it did (plus, faeriecween had texted me to say she'd bought her copy and I was all jealous, I'm supposed to be the one that gets the books first). And Steph had also posted a link to the Amazon page. So I went to look. Y'see that bit that says "nearly half price", and the bit that says "free delivery for orders over X". Yeah, I thought I'd see if I could find something. So a little bit further down the page? A "Perfect Partner". At the top of the post, I mention there are three books I'm excited about them coming out? Swainston, Reynolds and, well, Miéville's Un Lun Dun. The Reynolds will wait, but those two came to £16.77.

They're, um, in the post now. Oops. So much for waiting for the paperbacks.

On the subject of Miéville's Un Lun Dun, podcast of him doing a reading from it, so very cool. Many thanks to Iain of tsitsoss_rss (formerly daweaver of this parish) for mailing me that link.

Um, yeah. Life = very busy. Job = fun, well, dull, but great atmosphere and company. Location = Westminster, I'm still loving it. Mat = busy little bee. Need to sort out my friends list and viewing filters soon, but in the meantime, time to turn in, another long day tomorrow.

Well, this is nice timing. My reading for the journey to Yorkshire and back was steph_swainston's^[2] The Year of Our War, I've mentioned it more than a few times before, I've just now switched on to the follow up, No Present Like Time, partially because the third book, The Modern World, is due out later this month, and I've just had them returned to me after faeriecween returned them; a long loan to herself, jantshira^[1] and others. Today, first entry on my friends page is the announcement that she's signed up to write two more books set in the same background. If'n you haven't read her stuff yet, there are previews of the first chapter of each on her site. My first reread yesterday, was struck by some of the little details I'd missed before; rope-drawn trams powered by waterwheels, Jant's normally wearing jeans and a t-shirt, etc. Seriously, a fantasy novel about fighting Insects in which the main character is a drug addict immortal and the only living man who can fly. Very very good.

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[1] Lucinda created her LJ just over a year ago, her username is that of the main character/narrator, Jant Shira. That she did this after reading the books, which she got after Christy had had them from me, shows how long the loan was, n'est ce pas?

[2]ETA: tyrell's description: (who, judging from her writing, is incredibly sexy yet scary as fuck), which is something I concur with.

Bibliophiles

nhw writes book reviews, amongst other things. He's also got a vote in the Hugo awards (Swainston for the Campbell Nick, you know it, the world knows it). I don't recall now which one of us friended the other first, I've been aquiring 'politics' LJ a lot last few months. So. Why do we care?

This is an interesting (and negative) review of John Scalzi's Old Man's War which is nominated. I read it soon after it was posted. Thing is, Mr Scalzi is also scalzi. He wrote a rather long, and very civil, rebuttal on a number of points of the review in the comments, and also on his blog here. Based on Nick's review, I'd have possibly actually picked the book up, because the premise intrigued me. Now I definately want to read it, because, well, that sort of debate between reviewer, author, publisher (see comments on Scalzi's blog entry) and assorted fans is simply very very cool.

Constructive, involving, civil and useful. Nick's written a follow up here. Spoiler warnings throughout, but spoilers never really bother me.

Now, if we can get politicians to properly engage in such a manner, then democracy still has hope. Yup, Mat the hopeless idealist strikes again. I love the Internet.

Addenda: jantshira? Swainston is up for the John W. Campbell 'best newcomer' award. Just in case you didn't know. Also, do you still have either/both of Year of our War/No Present like Time? Only my father managed to donate a pile of books to charity, including some of the ones I'd loaned him. Yup, that's right, my father gave books away without first asking me if I wanted them. He didn't realise he had any of my books. This included my copy of Jennifer Government and 2 (unknown) others. Not a happy boy when I found out.