Time to talk about someone else’s books for a change. I’ve read a few really good novels recently, here’s three of the best… Zer0es by Chuck Wendig Chuck Wendig has been making waves (good and bad) recently with his new Star Wars novel, Aftermath but a few weeks ago he released a technothriller called Zer0es and it’s very cool. I’d pitch it as Hackers meets Terminator or maybe Hackers meets Transcendence. Or Hackers meets The Lawnmower Man. Or Hackers meets some other film where there’s a sinister AI. Anyway, whatever shorthand you settle on it’s a compelling story of a team of misfit hackers vs dubious government agencies. The Martian by Andy Weir This recommendation is probably redundant at this point. With a big budget movie on the way, the self-publishing success story that is The Martian is riding high in the charts. It’s unashamedly nerdy and I’m not sure how that will translate into a movie – I suspect they’ll focus on the action rather than the detailed descriptions of how to survive on Mars – but nevertheless I’m looking forward to seeing it on the big screen. I wanted to read the book before then though and opted for the audiobook. I wasn’t disappointed. R.C. Bray’s … Read More
What I did on my Holiday – Part Two
As I mentioned yesterday, I did quite a bit of reading on my recent trip to the UK. First up was Pwned (Lexy Cooper Book 2) by Christa Charter. I don’t read a lot of mystery books (and I’m not really sure what the difference is between a mystery novel and a crime novel) but the Lexy Cooper books are set in the world of videogames and that was enough to tempt me into trying them. I read the first Lexy book, Schooled, the week before I left for the UK. Schooled has Lexy working with detective Mike Malick to solve the murder of one of Lexy’s coworkers. Lexy works as a community manager at Xenon, a very thinly veiled version of Microsoft. Coincidentally, Christa Charter used to work as a community manager for Microsoft’s XBox console and she’s used that experience to create a fun “world” for Lexy to play in. Schooled was a quick, fun read so I picked Pwned as my first “holiday read”. I didn’t enjoy Pwned quite as much. There’s two separate plots in the book – Mike’s murder mystery and Lexy’s personal life. The two barely intersect and the Lexy plot veered dangerously close to cheesy afternoon TV territory. That said, I still enjoyed it enough to buy the rest … Read More
Still Alive, Still Writing
It’s been a while since my last post. I guess time flies when you’re having fun. Or in my case – time flies when you’re having a root canal retreatment. My day job, a running injury, the aforementioned root canal and a whole load of editing of Leah may have curtailed my blogging but the writing streak continues. Although my daily word count numbers have dropped significantly because I’ve been revising and editing, I’m currently at 533 days with no plans to stop. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve made the last few revisions to Leah, wrapped up the first draft of Reg vs the Martians and started a couple of new chapters that will replace a chapter in Glitch that I’ve never been happy with. I’m not convinced this new stuff is much of an improvement but it’s definitely a step in the right direction. I’ll probably rewrite it again next year. I also outlined the sequel to The Zombie Book (working title). I’m heading off to England next week and I had originally planned to spend some time on the final revisions of Glitch. But I’ve come to the conclusion that editing on the road doesn’t really work … Read More