PODCASTS!

I've been working for the last couple of weeks on the opening podcast episodes of SPIRAL (2003) and WAR MACHINE (2007). I thought it was about time I said a few thankyous because, what I thought would be a happy little jaunt of crooning into a mic turned into damn hard work and a steep learning curve. I'm a writer, a teacher, but not an audio engineer. Now I know the difference between 64kbps and 128kbps, between 44100 kHz and 48000 kHz, I know about lame encoders, about over-modulation and the wonder that is levelling software. Anyway, none of the podcasts would have happened without the following people, and I offer thanks:
1] Evo Terra, main guy at podiobooks.com - for his patience with an idiot author.
2] The podiobooks.com community - for consistently telling me my machine gun effects were too loud.
3] Mark Newton and the guys at Solaris - for permission to podcast War Machine.
4] Darren Nash (and legal people) at Orbit Books - for permission to podcast Spiral.

Thank you all!!

Popdcasts will be appearing soon on www.podiobooks.com, which will also be linked via my website.

BIOHELL... at last!!

An lo! so a package arrived from Mark Charan Newton at Solaris, and inside it did verily contain BIOHELL, the US trade paperback edition, and lo! ... it was good.

It's that time of the year, when you finally get to hold your freshly printed novel and it all suddenly starts to feel real. No more paper scripts and PDF files... here it is, the real book in print and in your hands and looking damn fine!! (if I say so myself).

New BIOHELL book blurb:

The City: an entire planet teeming with corruption, guns, sex, and designer drugs. Humans are upgraded by the injection of microscopic nanobots, courtesy of a new technology from the Nano-Tek corporation, but when this highly desirable technology heads onto the black market, millions of people inject themselves with pirated biomods - and transform into zombies. Now they roam the streets, out for blood, packing shotguns and bombs. The Combat K squad are dropped into this warzone to uncover what's turned the planet into a wasteland of murder and mutations, and soon their focus is on the darkness at the Nano-Tek corporation itself...

Can't wait to see it on the shelves :-)

Podcasts and Th3M1ss1ng.

For a long, long time I've been toying with the idea of recording a scene from one of my novels and releasing in on the website. Then, recently, I stumbled across Scott Sigler's website and he podcasts all his own work...... right, I thought. Time to put in a bit of effort, you lazy monkey, so after buying a decent microphone and contacting my good friends, Th3 M1ss1ng, hardcore indie junkie rock horror metal band, who kindly offered to provide intro, outro and backing music for my rabid musings, things started to - finally - come together.

It's surprising the work involved in podcasting. It surprised the hell out of me!! However, I've done a couple of samples and the good folks at podiobooks are giving me handy advice. Soon, I'll be ready to release....

Hopefully, I'm going to podcast SPIRAL and WAR MACHINE in weekly episodes, via my own website and podiobooks and any other damn website who'll have me. Not that I'm an audio whore or anything. Just awaiting permission :-)

Also, check out Th3 M1ss1ng's website.... they're a cross between Nine Inch Nails and Portishead. Mellow and harsh at the same time, and very, very cool. Check out http://www.myspace.com/th3m1ss1ng for some cool vibes.

And watch out for Andy Remic's attack on the world of the podcast.......

Updated Website.

I've finally got round to doing a few updates to my website, after a reasonable sloth-like hiatus. So if you want to know when I'm out and about, or download a fine high resolution desktop image of the War Machine artwork (courtesy of Dave Seeley and Tor.com) then that's the place to look.

I'll also be appearing at Fantasycon in Nottingham, on the Saturday (20th September). I'll probably be at the bar. I'll probably have a pint. Come and say "Hello" and we can argue the finer points of Blade Runner and motorbikes.