sunday round-up
Sep. 9th, 2007 02:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adelaideseanI've had a fun week coming up with new ideas and making the odd public appearance (including one with Fiona McIntosh on Thursday night--hi ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gumnut!) and both the Royal Adelaide Show and SA Writers' Festival are looming large on my immediate horizon. In the meantime, a number of things have accrued that I need to post here, since they relate to books I'm very proud of and am keen for people to buy. :-)
First up, fans of Saturn Returns will be pleased to know that they won't have to wait until March to find out what happens next. MonkeyBrain Books is publishing a stand-alone novella that also happens to sit between books one and two of Astropolis. Cenotaxis might be the best SF (below 100,000 words) that I've written for a very long time, and it's coming out next month. Here's the final cover and blurb. Gaze upon it in awe. Chris, Allison and Sparth have done a wonderful job; I am completely chuffed.
Another piece of short SF that has done well for me is "The Seventh Letter". The latest leg it has grown concerns Robert Drewe's Best Australian Stories 2007, which will be coming out in November this year from Black Inc Books. I'm very proud that my little effort has been included. That's mainstream attention no story of mine has ever generated before.
Reviewers have been kind to me in recent days, also:
SF Crowsnest on The Blood Debt: "Sean Williams has produced that rare of gems, a fantasy book that really feels like you're visiting a new world, rather than a rehashed version of somebody else's milieu. The easy style and likeable banter between protagonists makes the book an enjoyable read and the plot keeps you wanting to come back for more."
SFRevue on The Hanging Mountains: "This book moves fast and it quickly swept me into the complex, beautiful and deadly work that Williams has so artfully crafted."
SF Crowsnest again, also on The Hanging Mountains: "Sean Williams is writing an important series here that does a great service to the fantasy genre by encouraging it to break tradition. His powerfully creative world-building should stand as a call to arms for fantasy writers to leave the world of Tolkien-aping lands behind and really start being adventurous. "
The wonderful Donna Hanson at the Specusphere on Saturn Returns: "You have to be on your toes as Williams leads you around the galaxy in the search of the truth and the search for self. It is well worth it."
There's more on the way, but I figure that's enough ego-stroking for one day.
To close, here's a post I wrote a couple of weeks back but didn't post for fear of putting even my most ardent readers to sleep. I'm tacking it onto the end to prove (if there was any doubt) that I need to get out more...
"pointless stats #23: itunes play count data"
I've been using iTunes for about a year now, so I thought it was high time to see what kind of information it had accrued about my listening habits.
My most played artist is Biosphere, particularly the album Shenzou, at 70+ spins. That comes as no surprise, as I think I've written two whole books listening to that album alone. So far.
General ambient music fills the list down to 13, where AC/DC's "TNT" puts in a surprise appearance. I added that song to the playlist for Amanda's boys and have never selected it myself, I swear.
The next track is "Burning" by The Whitest Boy Alive, which I might have been able to predict. They are, after all, my favourite band at the moment. This is followed by an ELO track, Imogen Heap's "Hide & Seek", and some snippets of the Lain, Ghost in the Shell and BSG soundtracks. Sven Väth appears the next rung down, next to Kiss and Robin Guthrie. Then it's a horrible mess of Green Day/Dean Grey, Peter Gabriel, Barry White, and Frankie Goes to Hollywood all the way down to the bottom of the 1s, which happened to be a track by Vidna Obmana.
My iPod is a whole different story. Two of Amanda's favourites take the top two (including, of all things, Mel C's "Never Be the Same Again"), followed by some Philip Glass and Imogen Heap (again). The Whitest Boy Alive gets the next two spots, then the BSG OST again, then Everything but the Girl and Weird Al Yankovic, and from there on it’s a random mix of songs from our wedding playlist and Stars of the Lid.
Riveting stuff, isn’t it? Next week: a binary listing of the coat-hangers in our walk-in robe (0 for in, 1 for out) plus the contents of my Recycle Bin translated into Klingon. Hurrah!
gumnut!) and both the Royal Adelaide Show and SA Writers' Festival are looming large on my immediate horizon. In the meantime, a number of things have accrued that I need to post here, since they relate to books I'm very proud of and am keen for people to buy. :-)First up, fans of Saturn Returns will be pleased to know that they won't have to wait until March to find out what happens next. MonkeyBrain Books is publishing a stand-alone novella that also happens to sit between books one and two of Astropolis. Cenotaxis might be the best SF (below 100,000 words) that I've written for a very long time, and it's coming out next month. Here's the final cover and blurb. Gaze upon it in awe. Chris, Allison and Sparth have done a wonderful job; I am completely chuffed.
Another piece of short SF that has done well for me is "The Seventh Letter". The latest leg it has grown concerns Robert Drewe's Best Australian Stories 2007, which will be coming out in November this year from Black Inc Books. I'm very proud that my little effort has been included. That's mainstream attention no story of mine has ever generated before.
Reviewers have been kind to me in recent days, also:
SF Crowsnest on The Blood Debt: "Sean Williams has produced that rare of gems, a fantasy book that really feels like you're visiting a new world, rather than a rehashed version of somebody else's milieu. The easy style and likeable banter between protagonists makes the book an enjoyable read and the plot keeps you wanting to come back for more."
SFRevue on The Hanging Mountains: "This book moves fast and it quickly swept me into the complex, beautiful and deadly work that Williams has so artfully crafted."
SF Crowsnest again, also on The Hanging Mountains: "Sean Williams is writing an important series here that does a great service to the fantasy genre by encouraging it to break tradition. His powerfully creative world-building should stand as a call to arms for fantasy writers to leave the world of Tolkien-aping lands behind and really start being adventurous. "
The wonderful Donna Hanson at the Specusphere on Saturn Returns: "You have to be on your toes as Williams leads you around the galaxy in the search of the truth and the search for self. It is well worth it."
There's more on the way, but I figure that's enough ego-stroking for one day.
To close, here's a post I wrote a couple of weeks back but didn't post for fear of putting even my most ardent readers to sleep. I'm tacking it onto the end to prove (if there was any doubt) that I need to get out more...
"pointless stats #23: itunes play count data"
I've been using iTunes for about a year now, so I thought it was high time to see what kind of information it had accrued about my listening habits.
My most played artist is Biosphere, particularly the album Shenzou, at 70+ spins. That comes as no surprise, as I think I've written two whole books listening to that album alone. So far.
General ambient music fills the list down to 13, where AC/DC's "TNT" puts in a surprise appearance. I added that song to the playlist for Amanda's boys and have never selected it myself, I swear.
The next track is "Burning" by The Whitest Boy Alive, which I might have been able to predict. They are, after all, my favourite band at the moment. This is followed by an ELO track, Imogen Heap's "Hide & Seek", and some snippets of the Lain, Ghost in the Shell and BSG soundtracks. Sven Väth appears the next rung down, next to Kiss and Robin Guthrie. Then it's a horrible mess of Green Day/Dean Grey, Peter Gabriel, Barry White, and Frankie Goes to Hollywood all the way down to the bottom of the 1s, which happened to be a track by Vidna Obmana.
My iPod is a whole different story. Two of Amanda's favourites take the top two (including, of all things, Mel C's "Never Be the Same Again"), followed by some Philip Glass and Imogen Heap (again). The Whitest Boy Alive gets the next two spots, then the BSG OST again, then Everything but the Girl and Weird Al Yankovic, and from there on it’s a random mix of songs from our wedding playlist and Stars of the Lid.
Riveting stuff, isn’t it? Next week: a binary listing of the coat-hangers in our walk-in robe (0 for in, 1 for out) plus the contents of my Recycle Bin translated into Klingon. Hurrah!
