…or do all Hollywood trailers look the same? I’ve just watched the ones for the new Narnia and the new Pirates of the Carribbean, and was bored about halfway through.
(only positive point in Pirates looks to be the return of Geoffrey Rush, whom I’ve always loved. I hope they don’t bungle his part).

There’s an interesting discussion over at Torque Control on the future of the Clarke Award–most notably on whether the award should remain focused on the UK publishing scene. Head on over there if you feel like commenting.

I don’t like working with music in general–it distracts me when I’m fighting against code or complicated maths, and it just makes me miss the important bits when reading a set of technical specifications. However, when writing, it’s a whole other problem. I find music is helpful–only certain kinds of music, mind you, to get me in the proper mood.

Basically, I require anything that doesn’t require me to focus on the actual lyrics, or distract me with a strong, aggressive beat: either songs I know well, soft instrumentals I don’t know–or light pop, where the lyrics aren’t much of a problem… Songs in languages I don’t speak so well–Spanish or Vietnamese–are more of a hindrance because of that knee jerk reflex to try and understand every single word of the song. Songs in languages I don’t speak at all (say, Japanese or Chinese) are not a problem, and they’re generally a welcome change.

But I kind of like variety in my music, too; and recently I found that I knew by heart most of the songs in my itunes library, which was a little boring (even more so for the H, who I think was about ready to kill me because I listened to the same stuff over and over). I bought a few more CDs, but I was really looking for was a radio station that would have music I liked. I used to be a big fan of Pandora‘s system, which basically learnt what you liked over time and presented similar songs to you–but Pandora threw me out because I don’t live in the States (a common problem in my life, see ebooks).

Until a recent post by Tobias Buckell alerted me to the existence of Last.fm. Basically, download the Scrobbler app for Mac, which links to itunes and analyses your recent playing history–and then offers you a choice of “radio stations”: either the stuff by people you already love and listen to (the “library radio”), or mixes between the familiar and guesses as to what you’ll like (the “mix radio”). And, like Pandora, you can like songs or ban them in order to improve the accuracy of suggestions. So far, I haven’t had to do that: the mix radio has been pretty accurate (unlike Pandora, actually, which had a tendency to offer me metal out of nowhere, based on some weird association).

Consider me addicted 🙂

Yup, it’s paying. 3 euros per month, but at that price, given how often I listen to music, I’ll fork out gladly.

(for the record, the stuff I listen to tends to be Vienna Teng, Dar Williams, Emmylou Harris, the Innocence Mission–lots of singer-songwriters with a folk or classical vibe, and some classical/religious music)

Want to read the first three chapters?

You can see them here.

“A little white stone holding up quetzal feathers”=a spring onion
You have to admit there’s a certain resemblance…

Current Mood: amused

Some Servant of the Underworld mentions (sorry for the long list, I kind of haven’t updated in a long while on this):
–Windrose Meanderings (loved it)
–You Fight Like Anne Rice (didn’t care so much for the style or the main character)
–Solar Bridge (thought the milieu tended to overwhelm the novel)
–Jonathan McCalmont at the Zone (to say that he didn’t like it is an understatement. It’s the review with claws I was referring to earlier. I’ve skimmed through it but not really read it–I can deal with this kind of deconstruction, but only after book 3 is completed).
–Violin in the Void (thought the setting was great, but was worried some people might think the pace was laggy, and that Neutemoc was a pain)
–Miranda Suri (in a more general post about other mindsets, why we should write them and what are the pitfalls. In which I get mentioned next to Lord of Light, one of my all-time fave SF books. Wow).
–starlady38 (really liked it, thought Mihmatini was awesome)
–trollsmyth (thinks it would make an awesome tabletop RPG. I’d tend to agree–it would be extra fun to dump PC into Tenochtitlan. I’d GM that kind of thing myself, if GMing didn’t interfere with my creative processes).

%%% The snowpocalypse has struck.
Have I mentioned my workplace is up a series of two hills? Buses are failing to run that particular route (and about 80% of Parisian routes, in fact).
Luckily, I got some work documents and will peruse them at home.

Feeling down and gloomy in this month of December? Fear not. Steph Burgis and Patrick Samphire have put up the December Lights Project, a collection of light-hearted and feelgood stories for the holiday season. I’ve only read one so far, Steph’s “Undead Philosophy 101”, which was a hilarious tale about vampires teaching at East Lansing University. There’s other offerings from Sherwood Smith, Sarah Prineas and Patrick Samphire, with more familiar names coming up.

(they did ask me to contribute, but unfortunately I tend to go dark, or to put my characters through the wringer before they’re allowed to feel good…)

Meanwhile, I’ll go see if I can get to work, or if the black ice wins.

-Locus goes digital (pdf editions for sure, perhaps epub and kindle). Awesome. Probably the excuse I needed to resubscribe without having paper copies cluttering my house.
-Via Cheryl Morgan and the World SF blog, the fund raiser for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Award. Prizes include things donated by Neil Gaiman, and Jeff and Ann VanDerMeer. I’ve ranted quite often enough about the prevalence of Western Anglophone SF in the SF field–this award, which focuses on works translated into English (and reward both author and translator) is most definitely welcome.

And 1000 words on the novel, slowly getting back into the swing of things. Also working on an article (either for this blog or for SFnovelists) on some TV tropes that bug the heck out of me.

32,000 words. Beginning of chapter 9, which means I’m back on track wordcount-wise. Nezahual and Teomitl are back to their old habits. Fun. *sadistic author*