Somewhat late, but I only finished editing 10 minutes before having to catch the train to head up to visit my parents for Christmas. So, here it is, Un:Bound Video Editions episode 2 - Zombies:

 

A competition associated to the show is up and running on the official blog until January 5th 2012.

UBVE #2: Zombies Trailer

UBVE #2 Teaser...

Me, reading

The sound is quiet, so you might need to turn your volume up, and, well, it's me reading, so you might want to turn the picture down, but this is my performance in my 11am slot at FantasyCon 2011.

Some photos from Venezia

Incantus Printiamus!

Okay, I'm a little late to the party with this (and what a party it is, what with the balloon and the candle and the second-hand party-popper), but 'The Office of Lost and Found' is now available in print!

It's still available digitally as well, which means you can now choose between the following flavours:

eBook:

• Amazon US
• Amazon UK
• Anarchy Books

pBook:

• Paperback with Artwork Cover at Lulu
• Hardback with Logo Cover at Lulu

The print versions also include 'Extra Bonus Feature Easter Eggs':

• Artwork never before seen unless you've looked at my Flickr pages
• The Office of Lost and Found short story I posted on this very blog for Christmas
• Scans of some of my hand-written notes scrawled during the writing process

And because I have been tardy with this news, I shall hereby post an exclusive extra bonus feature to those bonus features - the first page of those hand-written notes with some extra notes added to offer some insight into what the first set of notes was going on about! Hurrah!

Suffice to say, this will include spoilers for anyone who hasn't read the book. If you dare brave the spoilers or have read the book, then by all means click the pic below for an enbiggened version.

Sampling Writers

A brief on-line conversation around lunchtime today set me wondering if there was any relationship between the kind of fiction people write and their professional background. I have a vague notion that crime-writers are somewhat more likely to have a background in journalism or law, while SF/F/H seem to be drawn more from the ranks of the teaching and IT professions. Is that backed up by the facts though?

This led me to look at setting up a quick survey*. Two simple questions:

- What is / was your primary occupation? (Maybe allow selection of two or three)

- What genre do you predominantly write in? (Again, maybe allow selection of two or three)

Simple enough until I started thinking about the best way of characterising what it is that people write. The standard genres are fine - crime, horror, romance, science fiction, fantasy - until you start thinking about whether 'thrillers' fit into crime, if 'adventure' counts as genre and whether it's necessary to delve into sub-genres like paranormal romance or alternate history.

So, I decided to take a different tack. What if I covered all these bases by using a different breakdown?

Setting in time:

- Historical

- Contemporary

- Futuristic

Setting in place:

- 'Real' Earth (fits within generally held notions of history and physics)

- 'Alternate' Earth (allows alternate time-lines or existence of magic, for example)

- Beyond Earth (outer space or other planets)

- Fantasy Realm (no relation to our Earth required)

Primary Conflict/Drama:

- Comedy

- Crime

- Romance

- Adventure

- War

- Horror

- Mystery

- Social

- None (a.k.a. Literary - arf)

- Etc.

Okay, as may be obvious, this third category was tricky. I couldn't even think of a good name for it, given I was trying to avoid 'genre'. But that aside, it made clear something that has no doubt been commented on countless times in the past - lumping crime and fantasy, for example, into a bucket called 'genre', is the taxonomic equivalent of mixing metaphors. 'Crime' tells you about the central drama, but nothing about the setting. On the other hand, 'Fantasy' tells you nothing about the central drama, but rather more about the setting. Of course, in both cases assumptions are made about the flip-side of the coin - crime is typically contemporary and set on an Earth recognisable as our own - while fantasy can be stereotyped as elves and orcs going to war over some costume jewellery.

Now I've finished stating the obvious, I'll open up the question I struggled with so I can stop thinking about it and go cook some dinner:

- For the purposes of the survey outlined, how would you categorise the kind of fiction people write? It needs to be simple enough to be manageable (i.e. not every sub-genre and cross-over under the sun), but also detailed enough to highlight if there is a difference between those who write space opera and those who write hard SF.

* - At this stage me actually creating the survey in this version of reality is still an entirely hypothetical happenstance.