...the little bugger will start getting ideas!!

What’s this? SF/F has ethics? Aside from wondering where they came from – and how they snuck in without anyone seeing – one looks around suspiciously to point an accusing finger.

In fact, SFFEthics is a new blog on the launch-pad, piloted (perhaps ironically) by an author infamous for his hardcore sex and violence. Proving you should never judge a man by his prose, Andy Remic has gathered together a gaggle of authors who want to celebrate the best about the genre. Why we love it, why we’re compelled to read and write it, why we want to celebrate everything that’s good about sf, fantasy and horror.

I’m faintly alarmed to find Andy enthusing, “If we can get all the associated writers together at a convention and suitably drunk on a cocktail of cheap Scandinavian meths, Stella and absinthe, we can also expect a movie! Watch this space!”


I don’t know which worries me more, the fact that such a thing could quite possibly happen at a Convention near you… or the fact that (yes, you guessed it) my name is a part of that above-mentioned gaggle.

(What was the collective noun for authors, again?)

Seriously, though, I’m flattered to be asked; to be a part of something with a mission statement that’s hand-in-gauntlet with everything I keep ranting about – that change is good, that forward is the way to go and that some parts of this industry need to seriously shake the dust!

Check out SFFEthics for the full mission statement and the list of the authors involved.

I guess this means I’m an Ethics Girl?

There is just WAY too much cool stuff about this morning.

Try sex, drugs, guns and zombies on an old skool ZX speccie for the best Friday timewaster EVER - thank you, Mister Remic!

An interview with Dril One on Forces of Geek with some of the best art toy customs I've seen (gimme!!)



And, after a wonderfully successful signing with China Mieville at the London Megastore last night, a bit of experimental AudioBoo-ing!



Footage of said signing will be coming soon.

Just been sent a *serious* sf scoop - check out the cover art for Andy Remic's forthcoming Combat-K novel 'Hardcore'!!



Looking forward to this one - the Combat-K dynamic back together - only with 'more hate'.

Yowzer!!

I had a hunch that introducing the Multi-Talented Genius Party Man (TM) david_devereux  to the New Master of Rock-HaRd Military Science Fiction Andy Remic would either be a very good idea or a very, very bad one.

After three hours in a Covent Garden pub, listening to wondrous tales of mysoginystic torture porn and the finer, explosive details of a zombie sex addiciton, you know what? I'm none the wiser.

Seeing two of my mates hit it off that well was absolutely great.

But I can't help wondering where in the name of every God and his Weapons Closet this is going to end... !!

Last April, I was sitting on my morning cattletruck, reading a book that caused three people (count 'em) to glance at me horrified, then get up and move.

The book was War Machine, the author Andy Remic and the reactions of the shuffling South London sheep sold both to me in twenty minutes flat. I'm a big believer in challenging perceptions - and a suited, high-heeled, PR bird reading hardcore military ultra-violence? Hell, works for me.

Seems Mister Remic is something of a ground-breaker himself - War Machine is destined for audiobook status in the near future. Currently, he's posting Spiral, and I was listening to the prologue last night - AK-47s and all.

It's hot stuff, looking forward to the next instalment. Makes me wish I could play his reading aloud - that should get a reaction out of the shambling, work-bound hordes.

I mean: what should I be reading? Fucking 'Shopaholic' novels?

Okay, so I’m a relative latecomer to this round of blog-tag, but as I’ve been poked by blue_knitter, it seems only righteous to enter into the spirit of things. (And hell, who doesn’t love writing about themselves?)

Some of the following many lead you to believe I’m as mad as an old cat woman, but I assure you, I’m just a classic English eccentric…

1: I went to a boys’ public school

Ardingly College took nine girls into its Shell year in 1983. There were so few of us, we bought our school uniform from Harrod’s and played hockey with the Junior School boys. In terror at the beginnings of modern co-education, the Headmaster placed our ‘study’ directly under his house – best way to keep an eye on us. We didn’t board, but we were there from 8:15 in the morning ‘til 9:45 at night – we were pioneers, hacking a contemporary path into one of the last bastions of classic English 'tradition'. Today, Ardingly is completely co-ed... seems like we did a good job!

2: I flunked Uni at the end of my second year

At the end of my first year, I was doing wonderfully… then I changed boyfriend (to this day I don’t know why) and discovered two things that were to be my undoing: dope and computer games. For anyone who remembers the original ZX Speccie ‘Bard’s Tale’ or the ultimate classic ‘Dungeon Master’, well, that’s where it all went wrong. By the end of my second year, I was living in a squat and a term behind on my coursework. I was very fortunate that said boyfriend’s mother was fond enough of me to slap me up the side of the head.

3: There is a man who genuinely believes I’m destined to bear the new King Arthur.

When I joined the Norwich Viking re-enactors, I had a brief affair with a man many years my senior. I say brief, because he believed he was the new Uther Pendragon – as well as being Merlin, a direct descendent of Thor, England’s senior Godi and the cause of the ’87 hurricane – and that I should bear his child to Save The World. When I refused, he later told me that the Gulf War was my fault (as it presaged Ragnarok) and so on…  Twenty years later, he still calls me. I don’t answer.

4: My fiancé vanished in a cliff climbing accident

With fabulous irony, my fiancé Bones (biker, hence the nickname) vanished at a Viking show in Tintagel in 1992. After the battle was over, a bunch of us went down to Rocky Valley for a few beers; Bones went climbing around the cliff-edge and was never seen again. To this day, we don’t actually know what happened to him. I rather like to think he found a willing mermaid and a cave full of Pirate brandy.

5: I used to do kiss-a-grams

Not much I can add to that really – I donned lingerie and giggled, wriggled and squiggled for retirement parties, office leaving dos and stag nights. Bit long in the tooth for it now, but I keep the chain mail bikini out of pure sentimentality.

6: I have two completed novels sitting on my USB drive

I used to write. I used to write like a mad thing. Two 250,000-word novels plus the beginning of a third, all part of the same sequence, still take up memory space in both microchip and grey matter. I hadn’t looked at them in aeons – until my PC crashed and I didn’t have them backed up. Losing ten years of your life is a cold and scary thing… when I got them back (relief!!) I blew the virtual dust off them and read them through. And, y’know? They’re actually pretty good!

7: My partner is one of my oldest friends

Devin and I met at the Battle of Hastings. No, not that Battle, I mean the re-enactment in 1990. For nine years, we flirted and fenced and danced round each other – until we sorted it out. This flat belonged to his previous girlfriend; he lived here with her for five years (I came down to visit them more than once). When she left for Australia, he moved back in and brought me too. Surreal? The word doesn’t begin to cover it!

8: Isaac was a star-struck baby

While still in the womb, Isaac had breakfast with Neil Gaiman, lunch with Clive Barker and tea with Andy Serkis. He was offered names (several of which I can’t repeat) by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. I figure the celebs must’ve gone to his head – because at three, he’s already gunning for that Oscar!

Anyway, that's the line of skeletons clattering out of my closet. In turn, I'm going to tag lproven, dennyd, kegzilla and johnnybadd here on LJ - and John Rivers and Den Patrick on blogspot... go on, spill 'em boys!