"Different Seas" appears in Twelve Tomorrows, edited by Wade Rush, from MIT Press:
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/twelve-tomorrows
"Providence" appears in 2001: An Odyssey in Words, edited by Ian Whates and Tom Hunter, and published by Newcon press:
http://www.newconpress.co.uk/info/book.asp?id=108&referer=Hp
While "Death's Door" appears in Infinity's End, edited by Jonathan Strahan, from Solaris Press:
http://www.rebellionstore.com/products/infinitys_end
All three stories contain spaceships. All three books also contain lots of other writers who are worth your time and money.
In other news ... well, there isn't much. I'm just plugging on with this and that, as one does. I've completed a major round of editorial revisions on Shadow Captain, and while I'm awaiting the next set of queries on that book, I'm making grindingly slow progress on the start of the next one. In recent weeks I've read and very much enjoyed Hannu Rajaniemi's new novel Summerland, which is a fascinating departure from his earlier work and very much up my street, with its mingling of Wells, Lovecraft and the classic British espionage novel. I also finished The Foreign Correspondent, another of Alan Furst's reliably brilliant historical thrillers, merely one chapter in a sort of meta-novel covering the events immediately before and during the second world war from a variety of perspectives. And in music, I'm enjoying new purchases by Lissie, Tune-Yards, Eleanor Friedberger and Fatoumata Diawara.
That is all.
Al
Hey, thanks for the update, hope to check all this out eventually!
ReplyDeleteGlad to see that "Infinity's End" is almost out. I've been excited to read "Death's Door" ever since you mentioned that it's set in a solar system in which every possible surface was colonized/utilized; that seems like an awesome premise.
ReplyDeleteThis post gave me incentive to finally listen to the new Tune Yards record. I liked their last release, but for some reason I kept putting off listening to the new one. I’m glad I finally gave it a shot, I think it's quite a worthy successor. I find it to be an exhilarating listen from start to finish.
Another fairly new record that I’ve been getting into is Loma's self-titled debut. They’ve got this song called “Joy” that has completely captivated me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMUApFRVfRw
A technical matter: Someone posted about this on your Facebook fan group, and I just confirmed it for myself- www.alastairreynolds.com is being redirected to mens-health-ph.com. I did a little experimenting it looks like it only redirects when being clicked from a search engine. If I enter the URL directly, it goes straight to your website.
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to make sure you were aware of this.
Hi Steve - I was notified about this just before I had to dash off for a few days, and I haven't yet had a chance to get to the bottom of it. As you say, it doesn't happen if you put in the URL directly. Hopefully it can be rectified, but thanks for letting me know in any case.
DeleteI am sure you get asked about sequels all the time - and understand if you don’t reply.
ReplyDeleteHouse of Suns - it was such an immersive story and had the ultimate cliff hanger. It was such an enjoyable book that I bought it twice for myself and another paper copy for a friend, who now also raves about it.
I am sure I can’t be the only person that wants to know what’s happens to them.
I think I've said on a number of occasions that I would like to revisit that universe at novel length, but I'm also wary about getting sucked into sequels for sequels' sake, so it will only happen when I come up with a story and a theme that work well as an additional standalone book that just happens to be set in the same locale. The same applies to Pushing Ice!
ReplyDeleteVery excited for the new books! Just wanted to say I'm very inspired by your writing, as a Concept Artist there is nothing better than listening to a brilliant science fiction book as you work! I developed this alien language while listening to Revelation Space, and would love your opinion! http://alienglyph.tools/archive/view/lascaille
ReplyDeleteLooks good to me, Benjamin, not that I'm any sort of an expert on alien languages. Glad the books provided some suitable inspiration.
DeleteThanks for keeping us updated on the short stories and Shadow Captain. When the latter comes out it will go right to the top of my reading queue, as usual. I loved Revenger's world-building and can't wait to spend time in that universe again.
ReplyDeleteKind of off topic, but I've been reading and listening to some Chomsky, re: artificial intelligence and why we're not getting anywhere, and I think I better understand what you were saying with the Watchkeepers in Poseidon's Children. There's been so much talk about AI and machine learning lately, but Chomsky appears to be one of the few talking about exploring internal mental processes instead of creating machines that only appear to think.
The whole conversation is eerily reminiscent of the behaviorism vs cognition argument with regard to animals back in the first half of the 20th century, when the prevailing opinion was Skinner's contention that animals don't actually think. Of course Chomsky himself famously deflated that line of thinking and modern research has validated him many times over, but I find it interesting that the whole debate is being repeated with regard to AI.
Same deal with the beta simulations in Revelation Space. My understanding, based on your descriptions, is that they are simulations based on observed behavior, not conscious entities with internal mental processes in their own right. But I know that Dreyfus was struggling with the perception of that in Elysium Fire, especially with the beta of that one kindly woman who seemed to help him with the investigation during their talks in Necropolis.
Anyway, thanks for exploring that stuff in your novels. It may not be discussed as much as other aspects of your work, but I do appreciate it and I'm sure a lot of other readers do too.
Cheers
Ta, Nik. Yes, I get interested in certain things, you can usually tell. When I started writing Revelation Space things like uploaded personalities and simulations were very in vogue in science fiction, so it seemed natural to think about a sort of taxonomy. You're right about the betas; they're (supposedly) just clever algorithms based on exhaustive life-logging, the sort of thing that's just about possible already.
DeleteSeeing as people are putting in requests for sequels, I'd like to request a novel featuring Merlin. Just one will do me. :)
ReplyDeleteHi, couldn’t find another way to contact you so sorry for being off topic on this blog! I’m Caragh, an 18 years old bio student and artist, I’ve been a massive fan of revelation space for years and I thought you’d care to see two works I’ve done inspired by it - an interpretation of the Sun Stealer, and the scene on page 312 of Absolution Gap, respectively.
ReplyDeletehttps://orig00.deviantart.net/f107/f/2016/224/1/d/voice_like_the_radio_crackle_of_distant_quasars_by_ametat-dadnlle.jpg
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/WwXxv
They’ve really been a labour of love, thank you for providing such wonderful books.
Those are fantastic, Caragh - thanks so much for sharing them! I'll try to remember to put a link into them from the "art" page over on the main website.
ReplyDeleteOh wow I didn’t know you had an art page, thank you, I’m honoured!
DeleteImpressive work, Caragh.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Hannu Rajaniemi, I just finished the Quantum Thief trilogy and basically have no idea what it was about, but enjoyed it thus.
ReplyDelete