the closest I'll ever get to a concept album

Gary Reynolds of the excellent Concept Sc-fi blog has just posted a conversation we had before I left for the US, in which we discuss (among other things) Star Wars, the process of writing a novel, and the worst thing I've ever written. As part of the interview, I posted a link to a never-before-released piece of music I wrote on my trusty old Amiga, way back in 1991. Check it out, and forgive that younger version of me his musical crimes!

Here is an excerpt from the text of the interview, just because:

"There's a giddy kind of joy that comes from cutting a page from a draft, consigning to the dustbin words that took so much effort to write, but I know that at [the point of editing] it's not really about the words: it's about the book as a whole, and words are just dots on the back of the leopard. You wouldn't have one without the other, but we all know which one has the teeth.

In other news, I'm still in the US, post-Worldcon and the Writers of the Future bash (at which Australia, for the first time ever, took home the gold--go Ian McHugh!). Tomorrow evening I'll be launching The Force Unleashed in Malibu and then heading straight home. It's been a wonderful trip, as these things always are. Not even the nasty strep infection I picked up in Denver could dent it. Thanks to everyone who talked to me, kept me company in bars or restaurants, organised underground adventures in NORAD, and put up with the occasional sleep-deprived rant. I love youse all.