CSFF Blog Tour vs Tuesday Tunes

Yes, two in a row, that makes me look a total slacker doesn't it! But it's not as bad as it looks, this is kind of a bonus tour as the tour timescale went a bit off earlier in the year.

Anyway, enough excuses: This week the CSFF Blog Tour is looking at Raven's Ladder by Jeffrey Overstreet, so without any further time wasting, put on your best DJ voice and dive into the Top Ten Raven songs...

10. DJ Pavo: Raven
It's the track the spotty oik down the road always plays too loud as he drives home at 3 in the morning.
9. Lou Reed: The Raven
Normally Mr Reed would rank higher, but this barely qualifies as a song, being more a recitation of Edgar Allen Poe with a little Lou Reed magic. And be warned, it goes on for about 10 minutes...
8. The Stranglers: The Raven
Nordic-inspired post-punk goodness.
7. Dan Fogelberg: As The Raven Flies
Sounds a bit Jefferson Airplane-esque to these ears...
6. The Alan Parsons Project: The Raven
Edgar Allen gets the full mid-70s prog-rock treatment here!
5. Runestone: The Raven And The Moon
Because every top ten needs at least eight minutes of weird New Age Celtic instrumental. Doesn't it?
4. Marion Raven: Here I Am
Norwegian pop-rock with a girl vocal, it's always good...
3. The Orb: Raven's Reprise
At least this week's obligatory (should that be Orbligatory?) piece of electronica comes from someone you've heard of.
2. The Tunnel Singer: Corvus
Ok, so maybe I'm being unusually clever with the title, but seriously, I love this music! This may be writing music, possibly even a soundtrack number for a future story...
1. The Alarm: The Day The Ravens Left The Tower
Should I be concerned about a Welsh alt rock band singing about the collapse of the kingdom? (This will be English mythology then! Hurrah!)

I'll linkify it later (maybe), in the meantime Spotify users can listen here: Raven Top Ten.
Everyone else will have to track them down elsewhere for your listening pleasure while browsing these blogs:

Brandon Barr
Rachel Briard (BooksForLife)
Keanan Brand
Beckie Burnham
Melissa Carswell
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Shane Deal
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Ryan Heart
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Nissa
John W. Otte
Donita K. Paul
Crista Richey
Chawna Schroeder
Andrea Schultz
James Somers
Robert Treskillard
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Phyllis Wheeler
KM Wilsher

CSFF Blog Tour vs Tuesday Tunes

This month the CSFF Blog Tour is looking at Lost Mission by Athol Dickson, so your Tuesday mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find ten songs vaguely related to the title, and form them into an entertaining blog post tenuously related to the Tour...

10. Gabriella Cilmi: On A Mission
I know, it came out like a month ago.... far too up to date and modern for a Top Nine place.
9. Lost at Last: Mission
That's better. Obscure electronica, this I understand.
8. Adem: Last Transmission From The Lost Mission
This I absolutely don't understand. But then, Adem is the bass guitarist in a band called Fridge, so maybe it doesn't matter.
7. Tricky: Mission Accomplished
Tricky was part of the alternative music scene in Bristol back in the day. This track is no Aftermath, but has a fitting title.
6. Queensryche: The Mission
Big-haired (probably) rock music from the 80s. Gotta love it!
5. Enigma: Endless Quest
Well basically I was running short, and a Quest is sort of like a Mission. What do you mean it wasn't that sort of a mission? It's got the panpipes from Sadeness and everything! Enjoy.
4. Farace: Mission Impossible
Nothing to do with Ethan Hunt, but eight (count 'em!) more minutes of obscure electronica for you to enjoy here.
3. The Sounds: Song With A Mission
Swedish retro-new wave! You couldn't make this stuff up could you?
2. Adam Clayton & Larry Mullen: Mission: Impossible
Mission: Inevitable more like, as this is in fact the theme from the 1996 Tom Cruise movie, by the other two out of U2.
1. The Mission: Mr. Pleasant
We had to include at least one track by The Mission (or The Mission UK if you're of the American persuasion), and by pointing you to this one I can introduce you to a lesser known Kinks song too.

Spotify users can listen here: Lost Mission Top Ten. Everyone else will have to track them down elsewhere for your listening pleasure while browsing these blogs:

Brandon Barr
Keanan Brand
Amy Browning
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Timothy Hicks
Jason Isbell
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Rebecca LuElla Miller
New Authors Fellowship
John W. Otte
Donita K. Paul
Crista Richey
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Phyllis Wheeler
KM Wilsher

CSFF Blog Tour: Lost Mission by Athol Dickson

Wow, are we here again already? It seems like only a couple of posts since the last tour.... Oh, right.

Anyway, this month my fellow bloggers and I have been reading, or at least thinking about reading, Lost Mission by Athol Dickson. Which isn't science fiction. Or fantasy. At least, not in the strictest, where-to-look-in-Waterstones sense.

Apparently, it's 'magical realism'. Which is towards the infra-red end of the fantasy spectrum. Is that a thing? It should be. High fantasy, sword and sorcery stuff way out in the UV end waiting to give you cancer if you're over exposed, and things like magical realism - the 'real' world with just one or two elements slightly askew - hidden in the infra-red, where you need a special camera to actually see that they are even fantasy.

That analogy needs a little work doesn't it? Anyway, my point, and I vaguely recall that I had one when I set out on this post, is that this 'almost, but not quite, entirely unlike fantasy' kind of sub-genre is actually the sort of thing I might read. Which is possibly why some of my tour mates didn't really get it.

To find out what they did think, you will need to get clicking:
Brandon Barr
Keanan Brand
Amy Browning
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Timothy Hicks
Jason Isbell
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Rebecca LuElla Miller
New Authors Fellowship
John W. Otte
Donita K. Paul
Crista Richey
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Phyllis Wheeler
KM Wilsher

Fish Custard

Somewhere on teh intarwebs, someone must have drawn a comparison between the Eleventh Doctor and his first post-regeneration meal. Something like how all the ingredients are great, but please, not all together! Only that doesn't work, because Eleven and Amy Pond seem to work well together. It's a little early to tell, of course, what with the Doctor still cooking and everything, but, well, the first episode with the new Doctor didn't suck.

And that is as far as I'm going to go on the subject at this point; I mean, I can't criticize too much a show with a Hitch-hikers homage and a real Mini in it, and I've read/heard too much of 'the assistant is too sexy' or 'the Doctor isn't sexy enough' to be bothered joining in, even on a more intelligent level. Oh OK, I'll join in a bit: she's alright for a redhead, but seriously, have you people not seen Billie?

Um, anyway..... I'm not too keen on the new opening credits, but that's incidental. If the opening episode is any indication, it seems the new team have got a good balance between scary and funny, and between fish and custard for that matter, and as long as Eleven turns out to be a half decent incarnation and the whole thing doesn't descend into a horrible teen drama in spacetime as the younger cast might suggest (oh dear, I came across prematurely middle-aged there, I do apologise. You know you're getting old when the Doctors are getting younger, etc. etc.)

I'll cast judgement on the new Doctor properly next week, once he's properly cooked. For now there's not much else to say, I'll just hit publish before I have that crisis of confidence that I miscounted and we're on Twelve now, or Ten....

Tuesday Tunes: Eowyn

Big hat-tip this week to Paeter Frandsen, a Christian sci-fi and fantasy geek whose blogs and podcast you really should check out if you don't already.

Anyway, the other day he pointed his blog toward some new music he was searching for, and found, well, a Christian rock chick, for want of a better description. Now, Paeter is musical, and says she's good. I'm not even slightly musical, but I know what I like, and I like loud guitars with a girly vocal, so we're all happy. :-)

I'm getting kind of an Evanescence vibe from Silent Screams, but with a much more overtly Christian lyric (and you know I like my Christian media to be overt!). I'm especially liking To My Surprise right now, for pretty much that reason.

I don't think I need say any more, as Eowyn has a perfectly serviceable website and myspace page where you can sample her wares for yourselves. Which you should do now. She's also on Spotify, which is a bonus for me until I can get my hands on some CDs, which I'm sure to be doing soon.

Sci-fi song of the week? Well, stretch a point and pick anything by Eowyn, since she was, apparently, named after a dwarf from Lord of the Rings or something. I don't know, it's fantasy, means nothing to me.

The Friday Review: And Another Thing...

This is something I should have posted about months ago, when I first heard that Eoin Colfer was writing an official Volume Six in the Hitch-Hiker Trilogy. Obviously I didn't get around to it, and the reason for this is that, having listened to it in audiobook format, I am distinctly underwhelmed.

It is, to paraphrase Douglas Adams, almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a Hitch-hiker novel. In Mr Colfer's defence, he doesn't go out of his way to copy DNA's style, which would quite possibly have made a bad book worse. I also laughed once.

But my main problem with this book is that it just misses the point by a country light year. I can't even remember what Arthur Dent did in this book. I'm pretty sure he was there, but far from being the continuing misadventure of an everyday bloke from Earth, And Another Thing seemed to be more interested in the (now single-headed) Zaphod having a little jolly around the afterlife.

I got the impression (as I did with the film) that this was a bunch of DNA's previously discarded ideas retrieved from under his desk and thrown together by someone who probably didn't know exactly where his towel was at the time. There's even a recycling of some of DNA's good ideas, like naming a character Hillman Hunter.

Nope, for me, the Hitch-hiker story ended with the Quintessential Phase. And Another Thing... is, to paraphrase Ford Prefect, mostly pointless.

CSFF Blog Tour vs Tuesday Tunes

Come on, admit it, you all missed this!

This month the CSFF Blog Tour is looking at Knife by R J Anderson, and, as it's Tuesday, it's time to revive a time-honoured tour tradition - the Top Ten Songs, picked at random by a couple of suitably rebellious faery folk.

Now as it turns out, there are less knife-related songs than you might expect. Even after throwing in my favourite tracks by The Young Knives and Cutting Crew, I was struggling to find more than, well, two decent ones, really. So it seems I will have to rebel instead by presenting the Top Ten Rebel Songs....

10. Ozzy Osbourne: Rock 'n' Roll Rebel
Obviously Mr Osbourne needs no introduction. This is the token not-actually-that-good song that sneaks in because Top Nines sound a bit naff.
9. Bonnie Tyler: Rebel Without A Clue
It's a Bonnie Tyler song. That's really all you need to know....
8. The Corrs: Rebel Heart
You know, I don't think we've had any Celtic instrumentals in a top ten before. I guess we have now. Tin whistle and all. I must still have some Guiness in my system from St Patrick's Day.
7. Asian Dub Foundation: Rebel Warrior
Now we're back in familiar territory, with a bit of electronica of the shouty anti-colonialist rap variety. OK, so maybe not that familiar....
6.Public Enemy: Rebel Without A Pause
More shouty rappers... I can't tell you what I like about these guys, but I like something. Yeeeeaahhh Boyyyyy! OK, white guys shouldn't do that, even in text.
5. Wyclef Jean featuring Prodigy: Rebel Music
Rappers are a rebellious bunch aren't they?
4. Dropkick Murphys: You're A Rebel
Carrying on the Irish vibe here... Celtic punk rock all the way from, er, Quincy, Massachusetts.
3. Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel: Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)
According to Professor Wikipedia, there are more than 120 cover versions of this song. You know I love an obscure cover version, but, well, that wouldn't fit the theme would it? Plus, I love the original.
2. Billy Idol: Rebel Yell
The English new wave rocker who based his look on Spike from out of Buffy.
1. David Bowie: Rebel Rebel
We have to finish with a classic, and there is no better rebel song than this.

I don't believe Spotify works in the US, but for those in more civilised places who have access to Spotify, you can play the Rebel Top Ten there.

Now while you're listening to that little lot, it's time to continue the tour:
Sally Apokedak
Brandon Barr
Amy Browning
Melissa Carswell
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Timothy Hicks
Jason Isbell
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Rebecca LuElla Miller
New Authors Fellowship
Nissa
John W. Otte
Donita K. Paul
Crista Richey
Chawna Schroeder
Andrea Schultz
James Somers
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Phyllis Wheeler
KM Wilsher

CSFF Blog Tour - Knife

I'm rebelling.

I come back to the CSFF blog tour after a few months away, only to find that, not only are they still droning on a fantasy (yawn) but now they've started on general market fantasy to boot. (R. J. Anderson’s Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter, if you must know.) They really have lost the plot in my absence haven't they? So, until they return to good old-fashioned space-faring fundamentalists, I'm rebelling.

For this month's tour I will be featuring Knife, by R. J. Anderson. It's sort of a fairies at the bottom of the garden type story, with a rebellious teenage protagonist, and an underlying thread of self-sacrifice and being excellent to one another, which may or may not be conceived as a Christian theme.

And if that all seems a bit familiar, well, it's because I'm rebelling by featuring the British version of whatever everyone else has been calling it. Confused? Yes, that's the problem with having two completely different names for the exact same book, and I mention it mainly for the benefit of any UK based readers who happen through the tour... both versions are on sale at amazon UK, with no clear indication that they are one and the same (unless you read the reviews of the people who bought Spell Hunter having enjoyed Knife so much).

Given that these books are marketed at kids, and presumably parents who want to encourage them to read, is this an innocent mistake, a foolish error of judgment, or an evil marketing ploy? Discuss....

Discussing either Knife or Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter elsewhere are my tourmates:

Sally Apokedak
Brandon Barr
Amy Browning
Melissa Carswell
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Timothy Hicks
Jason Isbell
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Dawn King
Rebecca LuElla Miller
New Authors Fellowship
Nissa
John W. Otte
Donita K. Paul
Crista Richey
Chawna Schroeder
Andrea Schultz
James Somers
Steve Trower
Fred Warren
Phyllis Wheeler
KM Wilsher

Reading, writing, etc for 2010

So, assuming this here blog takes off again, we are at least going to have a few reviews in due course; currently in the holding pattern are most of the sci-fi books featured in the CSFF Blog Tour over the last year or so, among others - these might take a while to filter through the system though, as at my current pace I have enough of Neal Stephenson's Anathem to keep me going until some time in May. Thereafter, in no particular order, my reading list consists of:

Also, when my Sky+ box stops being full of Lost, Fringe, Heroes, Sanctuary, Stargate Universe, Caprica and (soon) Doctor Who, the Red Dwarf Bodysnatcher collection is waiting for a few nights when the DVD player is feeling co-operative.

As far as writing goes, well, I have a few interesting short story ideas to play with, and then I think I'm going to adopt the NaNoWriMo approach for my next big project, as that at least seems to get things finished for me. No time limit, no wordage goals, but the same gung-ho approach to writing, just dive in, and keep going forwards, no looking back, and absolutely no editing until a climax of sorts is on the page. Again, no particular order, but I'll probably start on one of my existing works in progress:

1. A cyberspace allegory, shelved because it seemed a bit cheesy, and extremely derivative as soon as The Matrix arrived;
2. An epic time travel story reaching back to Christ's life on Earth. If I have an 'opus magnum', I guess this would be it;
3. An alternate history of WW2, currently waiting until either (a) I come up with an unusual enough angle, or (b) I become famous enough ;) for this to stand out among the countless books already written in this genre/time period;
4. I have always wondered what happened after the end of The Italian Job (the real one, you know, the one in Italy) and have toyed with a novelisation of the movie and/or a sequel (not a remake, or an homage, or the flippin' Brazilian Job);
5. The repeatedly delayed non-sf 'Project Seven'
   

And alongside these I might find time to cut the excess wordage from my two completed Nanos, Children of the Stars (2008), the sequel to Countless as the Stars; and DragonQuest (2009), one of several comic fantasies that have at least been started.

Um, do I actually have time to blog?

Slight return

Yes, it's been a while.

And at the moment I'm trying to figure out whether I have the time, inclination and subject matter to start posting here properly.

But, before I do, this is just a quick postlet to make sure everyone knows the NaNoWriMo spectacular at stevetrower.co.uk must end this weekend. No, you can't buy a sofa on interest free credit, but you can get a copy of Countless as the Stars for £4.50 including UK p&p, or read the unedited NaNoWriMo original draft of the sequel, Children of the Stars. Seriously, if you think Left Behind was bad, you should read Children of the Stars. It makes those guys look like professionals.

So please feel welcome to stop by there, something new will (possibly) go up there during March if you happen to be late; and in the meantime, if you happen to have enjoyed this blog back in its glory days (?) go ahead and leave a comment on what you would like to see more of. By which I mean any of at all.

Friday Review: Paradox

Paradox, for the uninitiated, is Auntie Beeb's latest off-the-wall time travelling Mancunian cop show. Sort of. The paradox is, in fact, that despite being utterly rubbish in any way that matters, Paradox is great telly.

Much has been said about the stereotypical nature of the main characters: the tough, career focused female Inspector; the rebellious, sceptical-unless-it-suits-him-not-to-be one (who just happens to have been sharing the Inspector’s bed to boot); the Christian one who, obviously, is prepared to believe anything he can vaguely attribute to God; the mad scientist of the slightly sinister, wouldn’t-like-to-meet-him-in-a-castle-dungeon variety; and of course the usual cast of extras headed inexorably toward the unfortunate demise our heroes can see coming. So I won’t dwell on them any longer.

More interesting is the Paradox, that which our heroes are called upon to believe, whether they like it or not. Essentially, some entity or mechanism is sending images of a crime to the mad scientist a few hours before it occurs. Our heroes have to figure out what the images represent, and from that where and how the incident occurs in time to, hopefully, stop it. All of which is of course as ludicrous as it sounds, but surprisingly good edge of the seat telly if you’re prepared to ignore the bit of your brain that says ‘that wouldn’t happen’. And since we’re all sci-fi fans here, that part of our brain is pretty much permanently bypassed anyway.

On the other hand, if you do stop and think about it – and it seems the writer has, at least briefly – there is plenty of existential philosophising to be done. For instance, the rebellious, sceptical one, having discovered that he should have died in episode two, is given to wonder whether, given that there are an infinite number of him in all these parallel universes, it matters a dingo's kidney what he does here, and proceeds to become more rebellious and reckless.
Meanwhile the Christian one first has his faith challenged, then decides that God is giving him a message through the images and turns into a slightly sinister and stalkery guardian angel.
Apart from such philosophical meanderings - and the more obvious questions of who and where these images are coming from, not to mention how and why - two things occur to me which may come as close to being the point of this ramble as anything.

First, the images from the future are snapshots, glimpses, not the whole story, but enough to guide our heroes in the right direction, provided they can interpret them correctly and quickly enough. All of which parallels the kind of vague-but-obvious-with-hindsight way that we so often perceive God as using to communicate with us. (Well, that could just be me, but still, that’s the point I’m going to leave for more theologically inclined bloggers to dissect.)

The second thing that occurs to me (and I’m sure has occurred to many working in the Christian fiction field) is what if, rather than a mad scientist, these images were received by a religious nutter? A street corner prophet manages to foretell a gruesome murder on his patch, for instance? How would the authorities react if they head about this? What would become of the prophet? In fact, throwing prophecy in to any kind of time travel related scenario give it a little spiritual twist which, followed up in a suitably unusual way, could end up in some good Christian sci-fi.

And with that, the blog seems to have finally returned to its intended course…

Final NaNoWriMo report...

I actually got that at about 2.30 on Saturday morning... for some reason, at bedtime 4,000 words just didn't seem that much, so I kept going...

Now I have to catch up with real life before I can write a more detailed post about the Nano experience...

NaNoWriDayTwentyFour

The 30,000 word mark passed today. That means I'm only 6 days behind. Hmmmm.

On top of which, I had to reboot the whole novel at the weekend when it suddenly occurred to me who my characters should have been all along, how they met, and why they would, in the revision process, become funny. Obviously one of them is a character who, for reasons as yet unexplained, believes that the entire universe has been created by a supreme being known mysteriously as 'The Author', who, for reasons ineffable, has to make the important sections of the life of his creation tellable in tales of at least 50,000 words, and this slightly eccentric belief causes him, on occasion, to break the fourth wall or speak in unnecessarily long and complicated sentences, not unlike the writing style this blog entry has adopted. You know you're a NaNite when your blog posts are twice as long as they need to be...

And speaking of unnecessarily long things, I managed to force a single sentence up to 100 words today, for no other reason than that of word count. The entire sentence is unnecessary, as are the ones either side of it, so enjoy it here, it won't make the revisions:

I mean, eight years ferrying incontinent old fools to and from the seaside, a semi competent restoration at the end of it, augmented by some heavy pimping and the addition of more 1980s computer hardware than Knight Rider would have been enough for even the hardiest product of the Rootes Group and its successors, but this poor example, not only had it been nick named, rather ruthlessly, The Ambivalence (a humourous reference to its prior calling in life), but it had then been thrown unwillingly into some kind of parallel dimension, not to mention twenty five years back in time.

NaNoWriMo: a license to write really, really badly.

CSFF Blog Tour: Curse of the Spider King

Despite not being on the list, and despite having a novel to finish (still languishing at 20,000 words), I thought it might be fun to join the Tour again. Or rather, to have the characters from my NaNo, DragonQuest, give their brief thoughts on Curse of the Spider King. So here they are, in approximate order of importance:

Ken Brown says:

Spider King? Sounds like fantasy. Look, there's a castle on the cover. Prophecies, elves... Can’t bear elves. Sounds like a fantasy novel to me. I hate fantasy.

Unlike me, Ken has good reason for hating fantasy, which is revealed in the pages of DragonQuest.

Dexy says:

THIS NOVEL CONSISTS OF 384 PAGES. I DO NOT CURRENTLY HAVE ACCESS TO SUFFICIENT MEMORY TO PROPERLY ANALYSE A WORK OF THIS LENGTH.

Charlotte Myles says:

Ugh! Spider!

George Franklin says:

Fantasy. Mystery. Action. Humor. Parents, teachers, and librarians will no longer have to push kids to read – The Berinfell Prophecies will engage intermediate readers and leave them clamoring for more.

But I think he may have cheated and just looked at the blurb on amazon.

Rod Serling says:

Hopper and Batson: two men lost. They shared a common dream – to create a world where creepy crawlies may achieve a better, richer and happier life; live the American dream; maybe even become as kings. And fate, a laughing fate, a practical jokester with a smile that stretched across the stars, saw to it that they got their wish, with just one reservation; the wish came true, but only in the Twilight Zone…

Eleanor Rigby says:

The Magical Mystery Tour is waiting to take you away.

Donita K Paul says:

What am I doing in your NaNo?

I think part of you must have been absorbed by osmosis when I nicked your title. Don't worry, you haven't appeared in it (yet), but I'm sure you're lurking in the background, making sure I don't tarnish your work's reputation too much...

The Magical Mystery Tour - sorry, the CSFF Blog Tour - continues unabated here:
Brandon Barr Justin Boyer Amy Browning Valerie Comer Amy Cruson CSFF Blog Tour Stacey Dale D. G. D. Davidson Shane Deal Jeff Draper Emmalyn Edwards April Erwin Karina Fabian Todd Michael Greene Ryan Heart Timothy Hicks Becky Jesse Cris Jesse Jason Joyner Julie Carol Keen Krystine Kercher Tina Kulesa Melissa Lockcuff Rebecca LuElla Miller Mirtika Nissa John W. Otte Donita K Paul Cara Powers Chawna Schroeder James Somers Speculative Faith Robert Treskillard Fred Warren Jason Waguespac Phyllis Wheeler Jill Williamson KM Wilsher

CSFF Blog Tour vs Tuesday Tunes

This month the CSFF Blog Tour is looking at The Curse of the Spider King by Christopher Hopper and Wayne Thomas Batson.

And, as it's Tuesday... it is, of course, time for the Top Ten Spider Songs, chosen at great personal expense by a friendly arachnophobic:

10. Barenaked Ladies: Spider In My Room
There are surprisingly few well known songs about spiders. Well, there's the Spiderman theme, and Incy Wincy Spider, but we needn't sink that low when there are obscure album tracks like this one to start off with.
9. The Mission: Spider And The Fly
It wouldn't be a Spidery Top Ten without some nice goth rock now, would it?
8. Hawkwind: Web Weaver
I may have mentioned before that I like Hawkwind's brand of psychadelic space rock. This is from the brilliantly titled album Hall of the Mountain Grill.
7. Cylob: Spider Report
Time for a change of pace, and today's dose of electronica, which has R2-D2 on guest vocals. Probably.
6. The Who: Boris The Spider
Apparently this as Jimi Hendrix's favourite Who song. It must be true, it's on the internet.
5. Alice Cooper: I am the Spider
He's not The Spider, he's a very naughty boy.
4. David Bowie: Glass Spider
WARNING: Contains extreme weirdness.
3. Mogwai: Black Spider
Mmmmm, mellow. It's from a film about a French footballer you know.
2. Brian Eno: Spider And I
Before and After Science was Eno's last (loosely) rock album before becoming the Godfather of Ambient, and it's a brilliant album. Spider and I is the last track, and nicely foreshadows some of his ambient work. I recommend a listen to the whole album.
1. Primal Scream: Insect Royalty
OK, I know spiders aren't insects, but the extra two legs make them like royalty to all the ants and such. But it was too close not to top the charts, especially as the album, XTRMNTR, is one of the Scream's best efforts.

Now while you're listening to that little lot, it's time to continue the tour:
Brandon Barr Justin Boyer Amy Browning Valerie Comer Amy Cruson CSFF Blog Tour Stacey Dale D. G. D. Davidson Shane Deal Jeff Draper Emmalyn Edwards April Erwin Karina Fabian Todd Michael Greene Ryan Heart Timothy Hicks Becky Jesse Cris Jesse Jason Joyner Julie Carol Keen Krystine Kercher Tina Kulesa Melissa Lockcuff Rebecca LuElla Miller Mirtika Nissa John W. Otte Cara Powers Chawna Schroeder James Somers Speculative Faith Robert Treskillard Fred Warren Jason Waguespac Phyllis Wheeler Jill Williamson KM Wilsher

NaNoWriMo vs CSFF Blog Tour

This is a terrible week. I’m lagging behind in the production of a comic fantasy novel that is, currently, neither comic nor fantastic, and suddenly I have to drop everything and write a review of a finished novel, which may be one or both of those things. I’ve missed a couple of blog tours lately, and because Christopher Hopper is such a nice bloke (not so sure about Wayne Thomas Batson. I suspect he may be the slightly sinister member of the team. Possibly a super villain in disguise or something) I didn’t want to miss this one. Actually, I've just realised I'm not on the list, but what the heck, I'm wearing shoes, I'm sure they'll let me in.

So naturally, to keep the word count up, I will probably have to give one of my characters the task of writing an introductory blog on the subject. From a ZX81. In the back of a Dodge Spacevan. In Herne Hill. In 1984.

And that blog would probably say something like: This week the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour (word count is everything, remember!) is featuring The Curse of the Spider King, book one of The Berinfall Prophecies by Wayne Thomas Batson and Christopher Hopper. Being, as it is, a young adult fantasy novel, The Curse of the Spider King is bound to have plenty of both humour and fantasy, two things sadly lacking in my life right now, and probably lots of action, plucky teenage heroes and heroesses, epic battles between good and evil on which the fate of the world depends, and some elves. It wouldn’t be a huge leap of logic to assume that there are spiders of some sort in there as well, possibly led by some kind of monarch.

What do you mean, it sounds like I haven’t read it? Of course I haven’t read it, I’ve been too busy working on DragonQuest (a NaNovel) to read, well, anything, really. Lucky for you then, that there is a whole blog tour dedicated to The Curse of the Spider King this week, most of which has probably been written from the 21st Century. By people who have at least read some of the book. There’s the signpost up ahead, you’re next stop…

Brandon Barr
Justin Boyer
Amy Browning
Valerie Comer
Amy Cruson
CSFF Blog Tour
Stacey Dale
D. G. D. Davidson
Shane Deal
Jeff Draper
Emmalyn Edwards
April Erwin
Karina Fabian
Todd Michael Greene
Ryan Heart
Timothy Hicks
Becky Jesse
Cris Jesse
Jason Joyner
Julie
Carol Keen
Krystine Kercher
Tina Kulesa
Melissa Lockcuff
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika
Nissa
John W. Otte
Cara Powers
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Speculative Faith
Robert Treskillard
Fred Warren
Jason Waguespac
Phyllis Wheeler
Jill Williamson
KM Wilsher

NaNoWriWeekTwo

Week Two has been a bit of a bust. I did pass the 25% mark a week ago, but then Monday was a zero word day due to Her Babyship having a spontaneous nose bleed that just wouldn’t quit until we arrived at the hospital...
And the next few days were a bit slow, with an expected interruption at the weekend but even after spell this afternoon I have only reached 15,000 words...
Things, it seems, could be going better.

NaNoWriDaySeven

When I was going to stop this evening, it was so close to the 10k mark, that I just had to push on. The last few days have been slow, largely due to them being work days, but I managed to pull a 2000 word day today, so I'm not too far behind. I still need to be topping 1700 a day, but that's not so bad.

It is, unfortunately, depressingly bad. The plot is incoherent, the cast is completely wrong, the jokes are missing in action, and the whole thing sucks on several other levels. I managed to drag 2000 words out today by hammering an old idea, involving Rod Serling from out of the Twilight Zone, into more or less the right shape to fit my NaNo story. Still, there should be some comic potential there if I can ever bring myself to edit this rubbish.

NaNoProMo

I'm over a day behind target now. But that's ok, because I've struck upon a brilliant idea: have a half price sale at www.stevetrower.co.uk, and spend valuable writing time packing books and running to and from the Post Office!

So, for the duration of NaNoWriMo (aka November), you can pick up a copy of Countless as the Stars for £4.50 including UK p&p, or £6.99 including worldwide p&p.

Stock up for Christmas. Please, if I don't need to keep going out to buy Jiffy bags I will be forced to continue writing the utter drivel that is DragonQuest....

NaNoWriDayThree

I thought it was going to be a disaster.

I thought I was getting off to such an abysmal slow start that there would be no coming back.

But, incredibly, it picked up. Late at night on November 1st I got some kind of inspiration and started banging words out. At a quarter to midnight I got Chapter One finished, at a length of 1,666 words. (NaNites will realise the significance of that immediately; for anyone else, the clue is that I'm aiming to write 50,000 words in 30 days.)

Day two went off similarly well, such that I am now a few dozen words ahead of target, and only marginally more sleep-deprived than I otherwise would have been.

There is, however, a problem. This much is inevitable. The problem is one I knew I would come up against: my comic novel isn't funny. Still, I think it's a fun premise, and hopefully once I get to know my characters and figure out where the plot should be going, I'll be able to edit the funny in later.