Recent things

Time for a minor update on a couple of projects. I delivered the sequel to Revenger at the end of 2017, but after taking a couple of months away from the book, I began to feel dissatisfied about the ending. It was not so much that there was anything badly wrong with what I'd written, but that the ending the book deserved lay a few chapters beyond the point where I'd stopped. So, with the agreement of my editor, I took the book back during February and re-delivered it with a revised and extended conclusion, while also making a few small alterations to the rest of the text. The book is now going through the usual editing process. We have a title, by the way - Shadow Captain.

In between delivering those two versions of the book, I also wrote a new story, Death's Door, which I am pleased to say will appear in Infinity's End, the last of Jonathan Strahan's "Infinity" series of original anthologies. My story (not connected to anything else I've done) is set in a hyper-connected solar system of the distant future, in which almost every conceivable niche has been colonised in some fashion. I really enjoyed writing it, and am delighted to have made the cut for the culmination of this series.

With the revised version of Shadow Captain off my desk, I spent the rest of March and April writing "Permafrost", a long novella about time travel, about which I'll have more to say when we finish the editing process. I've long regarded time travel as one of the central pillars of science fiction, but it's not one I'd ever really addressed in any depth, even though it does feature obliquely in one or two stories and books. With this piece, time travel was to be the heart of the story, and I wanted to attempt to find something fresh in this age-old theme.

Other than Permafrost, the rest of the year will be taken up with editing and preparing Shadow Captain, as well as drafting the follow-up to that book, for which the provisional title is Bone Silence. And doubtless, one or two other things.

What is there to report from the exciting world of music? I'm pleased to have picked up the second album from Blackpool's Rae Morris, new to me even though it came out in February. Morris's first record was an exceptional piece of work, and the new one is just as good, and perhaps even more sonically inventive. I hope it does well for her, as she seems to be a striking and unique talent, with a one of those once-in-a-lifetime voices. But is she loud and brash enough for these times, I wonder?

In something of a contrast, I also acquired the latest album from The Damned, long-time favorites of mine, and now pushing into their fifth decade as recording artists. The Damned are great. They tend to crop up on those "story of punk" type documentaries with their first single, New Rose, famously the first punk single in the UK, and thereby assuring them a snot-encrusted place in that particular strand of history. New Rose is still thrilling, no doubt about it. But there's rarely any consideration given to the rest of their career, which soon saw them bursting through all sorts of musical barriers, as well as practically inventing "goth rock". By the time of their fourth full-length record, The Black Album, they were displaying an astonishing musical and lyrical sophistication, culminating in the amazing Curtain Call, which references Rimsky-Korsakov, of all things, and on which David Vanian delivers one of the great vocal performances in the history of the world. The follow-up, Strawberries, is just as fantastic. They've had some ups and downs in the ensuing decades but the new album is exactly what you'd want, and I like it very much.

Finally, although it's not a 2018 release, I've been really enjoying the new War on Drugs album. I bought it soon after it came out, but I couldn't tear myself away from their last album long enough to do it justice. Few records have invaded my head-space as thoroughly as 2014's Lost in the Dream, and I count myself very lucky indeed that I stumbled on the record at all, largely because it was on of those in-flight entertainment systems one time. Anyway, whether or not the new one is as good is moot; few things ever will be, but it's certainly a very, very accomplished record. Approach if you like Springsteen, Kraut-rock, etc - an odd but effective juxtaposition.

That's it for now. More soon.

Al