Indiana Jones and the Golden Monkey.

Indiana Jones and the Golden Monkey by Joseph Remic, age 5.

Indiana Jones was looking for treasure. He had to jump down into the caves.

In the caves it was dark like night.

Indiana was looking for a golden monkey.

In the caves there were snakes! Indiana used his whip to get the monkey.

He ran away jumping over the traps.

www.tor.com

Over at Tor.com this week they're featuring the fabulous Dave Seeley artwork for War Machine in a variety of downloadable sizes to use as your computer backdrop. Sweet :-).

John Martyn.

I'm currently reading, and thoroughly enjoying, "Some People Are Crazy" about the legendary singer/songwriter/drunk and downright awesome guitarist John Martyn. I definitely recommend this fine piece of literature, which gives a valuable insight into what makes the genius tick, along with some of Martyn's superb and mellow recordings like On the Cobbles and Solid Air.

Check it [them!] out.

Soothing music to write SF horror zombie novels to.....

Match it Pratchett!

Just thought I'd link to the very noble Match It For Pratchett site, over at http://static.forbiddenplanet.com/promo/monqee/ and put in place by Forbidden Planet.

It's a "unique project to raise money for and awareness of the Alzheimer's Research Trust", all a very good cause.

Please support the Monqee!!
Sign up now!!

Facebook!

Finally took the plunge, and opened a Facebook account. Everyone seemed to be doing it, so I thought I would too. So, you can contact me and ask to be my friend. I might smile, and say "Yes! I'll be your friend" or I might be grumpy :-( and say "No, I don't want to be your friend." Whatever, it's better than watching the eternally rubbish Big Brother!!

Search for Andy Remic in Manchester :-)

Helvellyn #2.

Had a blast up Helvellyn in the Lakes yesterday, and can heartily recommend this to anybody who wants to heave their bulks out of their armchairs. Go on, switch off Big Brother/ Lost/ Heroes and drive to Glenridding. There's a bit of work involved, but the views when you stand on Striding Edge are truly spectacular... just be careful not to fall off!!


Much credit must be given to the fat man in orange who followed me and Jake across Striding; he was an amateur, bumbling along, and filled his pants when he came to the chimney descent. But credit to him, he was fat, unfit, and scared to hell, but he gave it a go and was victorius. Well done that fat man in orange!!



After Helvellyn, we blasted on and climbed Catstye Cam (an easy second addition) with the idea we'd eat lunch up there (salted tuna sandwiches, yum), but the unusually humid conditions meant a plague of midgies wanted to share our food, no matter how unappetising, and chased us down the flanks so we had to eat on the move. Then it was me and Jake down to a local hostelry for some grand Old Speckled Hen beer, and jumbo sausage and chips, just to, y'know, keep the blood flowing after 4 hours of tabbing.


As for the pictures:

First, here's me on Striding Edge. And secondly, here's me on Striding Edge. The third photo is of, um, me, stood on, um, Striding Edge. So, two concurrent themes running, that of me, and that of Striding Edge. Vain? Moi? Ha!

And there's me, that's Rem, and Jake, my droog, coming down Swirrel. Some kindly bloke and his Scottish missus took the photo. Hats on!!

Dave Seeley Update.

The absolutely superb multi-talented artist Dave Seeley dropped me a line to let me know he's updated his website http://www.daveseeley.com/ with all his current artwork, which also includes the two covers designs he's created for my novels War Machine and Biohell.

Here, also, are examples of his Luke Skywalker for Del Rey, and an Alien and Predalien. Cool stuff, I think you'll agree.

To see the full range of Dave's artwork, check out his new improved website.

DAN WALSH.

'I get my bum pinched by a tranny, my pocket picked by a grifter and a gun pulled on me by a one-eyed, one-armed midget who’s upset cause I winked at him. These are the days that must happen to you.'

OK. Dan Walsh- the best writer in the world. Period. He has a new book out in July 2008. Buy it. You WILL NOT regret it, I promise, having read his escapades in BIKE magazine for years.

Amazon seem to have the best deal, but you can log on to http://www.dan-walsh.co.uk/ and input the promotional code WALSH. So there.

'Riding a bike removes the need for clutter, toys, rubbish that other men have to take on holiday. If I want adrenaline, I’ll rush a giddy overtake, not rent a jet ski.' The world through the eyes of Dan Walsh is never less than Technicolor, and always uninhibited, rebellious and on the edge. Not since the days of Jupiter's Travels has one man embarked on such an angry, narcotic-fuelled bike trek around the world. 'For me, Chile will always be South America’s supermodel sister – very beautiful but too long, too skinny, and too expensive to ride, and despite the groovy exterior, unpleasantly right-wing underneath.'Dan has travelled the length and breadth of the world; in Africa, on his XT Desert Rat; across the American continent, on a BMW F650 GS Dakar. Along the way he's visited Buenos Aires, where ‘revolutionary’ means the angry poor invading the presidential palace, not a really small phone that’s also a camera. He's crossed the dry sub-Saharan savannah, which is like riding across a piece of toast with a mouthful of crackers. He's been mistaken for a bum in New York, bashed by deadly tequila in Mexico, contracted typhoid in a dilapidated Bolivian hotel, visited The Most Beautiful Road in the World in Peru, been kidnapped in Kenya and finds that downtown Soweto is about as threatening as Stockport. 'I get my bum pinched by a tranny, my pocket picked by a grifter and get a gun pulled on me by a one-eyed, one-armed midget who’s upset cause I winked at him. These are the days that must happen to you.' Soaked in adrenaline and coruscatingly funny, Dan Walsh is the rightful heir to Ted Simon as the pre-eminent biker-rebel of our generation.

HARDCORE.

After much deliberation and consultation with Solaris, the new, official title of my next novel (working title Sick World) is...... HARDCORE. So there. And, yeah, if I get any more butch I'll be joining the Village People... ;-) Patrick.

Brmm brmm.

Thought I'd share with you my new bike. It's pretty low powered, only a Suzuki 650 v-twin, but tuned with a sports can it puts out about 80BHP which is not bad for something that weighs in at 162KG. It'll do 0-60 in about 3.5 seconds, so Ferrari speed, then. I've done the Big Bike Thing, I had a Ducati Monster 900, a 750SS, a Bandit 1200 and an Aprilia RSV-R 1000. However, they just end up sat in the garage costing me money whilst I write bookles. So I went for summat a bit lighter on the crocodile-skin wallet. This bugger only cost me £77 to insure!!, and yet gets to 100MPH 5 times faster than my 1.9TDi Passat. Big GRIN times are a-coming. Knee down, cruise the backstreet bends, take out sportsbike riding monkeys. Hoho.

Liverpool University.

I've been invited to speak to the MA Science Fiction group (+others) tomorrow at Liverpool University, and am very much looking forward to the experience. Andy Sawyer, the MA course leader, also runs/ collates an incredible resource known as The Science Fiction Foundation Collection, and the website is http://www.liv.ac.uk/~asawyer/sffc1.html. I recommend you check it out this minute!!

I have been promised the fee of beer and pizza. Ha! If only they knew how much I can drink (and indeed, eat). I have not been continually referred to as "fat chump" for nothing.

Mind Meld.

I was recently asked to contribute to SF Signal's Mind Meld series. This episode deals with underrated authors... It can be found here http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/006576.html.

Alt Fiction 2008

Ach, have been struck down by Ebola. Or maybe Man Flu. Or certainly something highly toxic to the human organism (that's organism right?!). So the upshot is I won't be attending. But then, I wasn't doing anything, so it doesn't matter. Yeah? And Stross talks enough for 10, nay, 20 SF writers. So that's OK then. :-)

REM of the DEAD

Andy Remic, after a recent infusion of NANOBOTS. See what vanity can do to you? See? See!? I leave you to make your own comments...

GHOSTS.

In recent years I've been a big fan of Nine Inch Nails. Like every other musician with which I engage, I go through phases, and sadly, my NIN phase was killed when I saw them live. £20 to see a stage of dry-ice for 90 minutes is not my idea of fun. However.......

My nephew directed me back to NIN's website recently. Trent Reznor has released a 4-album instrumental work, and you can dowload the first 9 tracks free. Yes! FREE! Cheap as chips!! Then, the next 27 tracks are only $5. Cheaper than a pint of Wife-Beater, my friend.

And... GHOSTS is absolutely ace!! Not some cast-off crap sub-B side recording; but pure genius, and very good to write to (which is unusual for me).

Anyway, check out http://www.nin.com/, and click on GHOSTS.

'Nine Inch Nails presents Ghosts I - IV, a brand new 36 track instrumental collection available right now. Almost two hours of new music composed and recorded over an intense ten week period last fall, Ghosts I - IV sprawls Nine Inch Nails across a variety of new terrain.
Trent Reznor explains, "I've been considering and wanting to make this kind of record for years, but by its very nature it wouldn't have made sense until this point. This collection of music is the result of working from a very visual perspective - dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture; a soundtrack for daydreams. I'm very pleased with the result and the ability to present it directly to you without interference. I hope you enjoy the first four volumes of Ghosts.'

Hope you enjoy!!

Another Good War Machine Review

Got a friendly email from my mate Ian Watson [author of Orgasmachine and Mockymen, amongst many, many others] telling me about another great review of War Machine, this time in Prism, The Newsletter of the British Fantasy Society, March 2008 http://www.britishfantasysociety.org/. This makes about the eleventh or twelth good review of my book (the only bad one being Saxon Bullock's SFX diatribe), so this made me feel happy in a warm, gooey kind of way. It uses phrases like "The whole is inventive and original, particularly the final showdown" and "Definitely one for fans of Warhammer type stuff, but with more brains (in the writing, not on the floor!".

Thank you very much, Mr Steve Dean!!

Donnie Darko.

Yes yes, I know, I'm late getting round to seeing this movie. But wow, it was worth it. An incredible film, complex, intelligent, beautifuly shot, and with a superb series of twists. Did Donnie really travel the path of his own future and then decide to travel a portal back, thus righting the wrongs he had unintentionally created, whilst at the same time causing those who suffered to glimpse the possibility of their own futures and thus adapt their lifestyles because of this? Or was he simply mad as a silver-headed rabbit? Was Sparrow checking her mail box for Donnie's letter, having seen this in her own future episode? Did she stand in the road continually because she knew she was the catalyst which would cause Donnie's girlfriend's death, and thus send him on a path of redemption, seeking to alter his own past with self-sacrifice and thus spare those around him? Or was he simply an alien-infused human operating at a completely different level to the human shells surrounding him? And what of God? And we have the corruption of our time/space construct by an object from the future which needs to be returned to the future to stop the present ending! Wow wow. What an ace film!!

In contrast, I'm spending quite a bit of time with my mom, who's been released after a 6 month stint in the hospital. Unfortunately, this also meant I had to sit through an episode of Coronation Street yesterday. I haven't seen this crap for about 10 years and- guess what? It has got, if you can believe this, even worse. Never have I seen such appaling acting outside a Big Brother event. Never have I seen such badly concocted dialogue. And the acting! Did I mention the acting? Baboons in wigs would have done better.

So, when offered the gift of laying something memorable down on film, the genius Richard Kelly offers Donnie Darko and.... some muppets waste precious seconds of my life with Coronation Street. Never again, y'hear? Never!!

The Snow Queen Cometh.

I picked up my new Suzuki SV (I'm a sucker for v-twins) yesterday. Need to do 600 miles before I can hammer the f*** out of it to that 11000 redline. Yeah, I thought, I'll stick down a few hundred miles on Sunday... then, WTF! Snow! You're joking! It's damn April... I'm sure our year is out by a few hours. Every year, winter seems to shuffle forward a bit. I'll have to wait till the kids are in school next week now before I put down some mileage- I can feel a trip to Glasgow coming on. What an ace city.

Chronicles of the Necromancer.

I've been invited to do a podcast chat with Gail Z. Martin, author of The Summoner and The Blood King. It's on the subject of censorship, which should be interesting because the stuff I write is subversive and horrific and (in the words of Christian Dunn, sick sick sick), and yet when I was an English teacher I was active in stopping the kiddies writing anything subversive and horrific and sick sick sick... we'll see what happens, anyway. It's also interesting to note that I was recently censored (sob!) in my latest novel BIOHELL, which is currently "in-edit". They took out my zombie sex scene. The heathens! What's the matter with you people? Can't you handle some funky human on zombie action??

Gail's website is at http://www.chroniclesofthenecromancer.com/page/page/3827767.htm and the podcast should be published there shortly after Tuesday 8th April.

Blue Monday.

I’ve been reading Jeffrey Thomas’ Blue War recently, and I’m very impressed. Tightly written, intricately plotted, and moodily evocative with brooding blue jungle and the expanding threat of the cloned city, I’m enjoying this fine piece of SF thoroughly. Jeremy Stake is as gritty and tough as usual, and a fine character with which to empathise/ sympathise (although, bizarrely, he reminds me of ol’ rubber face himself, Rowan Atkinson). I’ll give you my full verdict when I’ve finished the text, but I’m a slow reader (I like to absorb, baby, absorb!!).

I’d also like to point out that I’m not a critic, and certainly not arrogant enough to presume my point of view is worthwhile in the public domain. Hey, I leave that to the professional critics. And I only highlight works I’ve enjoyed; after all, and plagiarising the words of Stephen King, if there’s something I don’t like then my mamma gave me the good grace to keep my damn mouth shut.

But… if you haven’t yet, then check out Blue War. Recommended!!