How Science Fiction should be read

The Chester (alternative) SF Book Group met in Alexanders’ pub garden  to  discuss China Mieville’s  Kraken. What a splendid bunch we look in the sunshine armed with pints and freshly squeezed drinks. I’m on the left third from the back.

We liked Kraken, its complex weaved plot, unforgettable characters, lateral thinking and the starting  premise- a body of a giant squid and its preserving tank has disappeared from a London Museum. To solve the mystery we are thrown in the  mystic magic as well as normal police work.  All the tropes  of  fantasy are there as  Mieville parodies them one by one. Most of have niggles over some plot contrivencies but enjoyed the  novel.

Full Fathom Forty

This year is the 40th anniversary of the BFS – British Fantasy Society. I was sufficiently fortunate to have a story, In Absentia, accepted for the commemorative anthology along with Graham Masterston, and Ramsey Campbell. Check out the TOC and details here.
http://bit.ly/negMef

 

Review: Finders Keepers by Russ Colchamiro

Finders Keepers by Russ Colchamiro

Paperback: 301 pages

Publisher: 3 Finger Prints (8 Oct 2010)

ISBN-13: 978-0979480140

I bought my wife a light jar the other month.  It gathers light
energy by day and  releases it as a soft glow at night. Sadly, it doesn’t appear to contain Cosmic Building Material as the jar the Eternitarians lost and Theo found. Maybe it does, but I don’t have the required harmonic key. I’ve tried whistling at it but nothing came of it except a fly past of crows. The notion of a lost and possibly errant jar of CBM appeals to me but sadly nothing came of it. It might just as well have been my wife’s light jar. Luckily, we are treated to a hilarious travelogue through European tourist hot spots and bed-hopping backpacker hostels. The antics of the designer of the Solar System and her morphed dog, Lex, arguing with each
other in their quest to recover the jar before others, are gutsy yet funny.

There’s no danger of taking this novel seriously even though we get to meet the Minder of the Universe, and it’s good to know comical science fiction with its running jokes – He reached for his crotch. Money belt check. Because you never know – can craft clever philosophies. Is this some? ‘If humans had telepathy they’d wipe themselves out thinking ‘I can read your mind faster than you can read mine…’
I like it. Could generate a whole new novel.

As a reviewer I kept notes on who was who and whether they were in the Cosmic eternal plane, on Earth as human, on Earth as an Eternalist, an English-speaking whale, transient characters and both names of the transsexual, or is he-she just a transvestite? I’m glad because I’d have been confused otherwise. I’m also pleased that Colchamiro gives us the dates and time for each chapter as the action
transpires six years apart, and, I presume before Earth and its Solar System
was invented by Emma – thanks!

There are cosmic, lateral ideas in this novel. Maybe the travelling to-ing and fro-ing slows the pace somewhat but it has just the right level of sexual activity to keep
promiscuous readers happy. I just wished the jar had opened in Theo’s rucksack
and we saw the whirlpool of  creation…

He reached for his crotch. Money belt check. Because you never know.

Author on Youtube talking about Finders Keepers here.

Russ Colchamiro website

Amazon link here.  Author’s facebook page here.

The Saturdays, and me

A good day, today. The Sugarbabes, Eliza Doolittle, The Saturdays, McFly and others are in Chester for the Chester Rocks festival, but I didn’t see any of them. Instead, I went to the beer garden of Alexanders in Rufus Court to enjoy a social event with fellow members of the Chester Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Group. In sunshine, we nattered about books, films, Rodney’s birthday, “The Cthulhuian Singularity,” and what we are currently reading.

At home I found an email from editor AJ French to point at a new review of the Monk Punk anthology in which I have a Don’t Point Your Finger… story. Here it is…

Pleasing comments in there from Jim, the blogger, on my
story.

Also today I heard that my short story, In Absentia, has been chosen for the British Fantasy Society’s 40^th anniversary anthology,  Full Fathom
Forty. In Absentia is about a man, who thought he was suffering from
amnesia but was really a little girl’s imaginary friend. It was awarded
Editor’s Pick for Horrorzine in January 2010, and was published in the Twice The
Terror collection edited by Jeani Rector in 2010. That anthology is
available here>>>

Fancy an ebook version  of my Hot Air thriller? Then whatever version of
ebook you want  it is  here. http://bramblingbooks.blogspot.com/2011/05/hot-air-geoff-nelder.html

Exit, Pursued by a Bee, my science fiction mystery novel  published by DDP is still selling. Get your print or ebook from links on my webpage here http://geoffnelder.com/exitbee.htm