Month: August 2023

Forward the Foundation!

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*** No spoilers in what follows – promise! ***

I very much enjoyed Season 1 of Foundation, the adaption of Isaac Asimov’s classic trilogy (and later, a series) of novels when it aired on AppleTV in 2021. (It was the main reason I took out a subscription). I’m enjoying Season 2 as much, if not more, now that I feel truly at home in this re-imagined universe.

I came to it with some trepidation. However I learnt a long while ago that you’re kidding no one but yourself expecting a film or television adaptation of any novel to align with what you remember (and enjoyed) from reading the book. With very few notable exceptions, strictly faithful reinterpretations of a novel usually fall flat. That should come as no great surprise because the reading experience and the visual experience are two quite separate things.

I remember some years back hearing someone complain that the TV adaptation of Stephen King’s Under the Dome had altered the plot line, introduced different characters and generally messed around with some core elements in the much beloved novel. Stephen King replied saying it was great how much that reader/viewer cherished the book version and a shame they hadn’t got into the TV series. But the good news was: the novel was still there! The book could be read any time you liked – and he could guarantee that no one would ever mess with its plot or characters or structure.

And I think that’s the key. Foundation the TV series is very different to the novels. They share some concepts and perhaps a broadly similar story arc (time will tell!) and many of the character names are retained – but that’s as far as it goes. This has allowed the show runners to do a quite brilliant job in reimagining the story whilst still playing in that universe. (I particularly like the reimagining of Empire and I’ve found the storylines featuring those characters really compelling). It’s not what Asimov wrote but it is adjacent to it (and pays homage to the big ideas) – and the TV series is all the stronger for it.

With that in mind, I’ve recently gone back for a re-read of Isaac Asimov’s original trilogy. I’m finding I can enjoy both the novels and the TV series simultaneously, appreciating the similarities and the nuanced differences. I’ve dug out a very old three-in-one volume I stumbled across in a used bookshop some years ago. I’m not sure if this is a first edition of the combined trilogy but it might well be. The copyright date inside is 1951 but it seems to predate the publishing practice of printing a publication date or print run information. Either way, I love the feel of those thick, rough-cut pages and who doesn’t love the smell of an old book. Ah…!

New(ish) fiction announcement

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I somehow managed not to put up a blog post when my story “To Love and Drive in L.A” was published in IZ Digital, although I did tweet about it. Well, now I’m putting that right.

The story is set in Los Angeles (you mean you didn’t guess?) and I’ve been fortunate to visit there twice, although those visits were several decades apart. Several of the locales that feature in the story were based on remembered places I had visited and then later researched with the aid of Google Maps. So I had a clear mental image to work from when I was writing the story.

I was fortunate that Gareth Jelley, editor and publisher of both Interzone and IZ Digital took the story. I was even more pleased when I saw the cover image Gareth had lined up to accompany my piece which perfectly fit with how I pictured the landscape in my imagination. Gareth is wonderful to work with and it’s great to see him continuing to take Interzone to new audiences.

Although the story was published a couple of months ago, it’s still available to purchase on the IZ Digital site here.

––It’s just another job for one of the taxis in the city’s fleet of autonomous vehicles. You see them everywhere, and they’ll take you anywhere you want to go. But late at night when the rides are scarce, have you ever wondered what they might get up to?

“There’s nothing to be afraid of. What harm can I do? What threat do I represent? I’m an autonomous vehicle. My purpose is limited and dictated by function.”

Switching my SF magazine subscriptions

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Prompted by an email from Amazon, I’m reminded that the Kindle September deadline is fast approaching and it’s time to get my SF magazine subscriptions sorted and seek out new vendors.

As many people know, Amazon announced last year it would stop providing monthly subscriptions for most (all?) magazines previously available via the Kindle store. The availability of new subscriptions ended some time ago I believe, but customers with existing magazine subscriptions have until September this year to find other places to fulfil their e-subscriptions. This is when Amazon finally turn out the lights on this section of its Kindle store.

The Kindle magazine subscription service has mostly worked well for me over the past decade. I’ve found it convenient, reliable and cheap, although I came to it with some trepidation. Initially, I was reluctant to trade my paper copies of publications such as Asimov’s Science Fiction and Analog for electronic versions. But distribution to the UK was becoming increasingly erratic with long delays and numerous missing or damaged issues. Add to that pricing considerations (the ePub version could be as much as a half to a third the price of the paper copy once overseas postage was included) and it made sense to switch. Neverthless I did so with considerable reluctance. Until then I had an unbroken run of Asimov’s, right from the very first issue, and a decade or two of Analog and F & SF. It still pains me that my collection had to end—or at least transition to ebook versions.

I imagine the widespread availability of SF and fantasy magazines on the Kindle store was welcomed by their publishers who were seeing physical magazine sales slowly decline. I know that guaranteed income from subscribers makes a big difference to small press publishers operating on a shoestring. Subscriptions—even ones where Amazon takes a hefty slice of the purchase price—is really important for a publication’s financial stability.

All that is gone now, of course. I’ve read that many (if not all) of the well known SF magazines face considerable uncertainty as a large slice of subscriber revenue is chopped. No one knows how many subscribers will bother finding alternative outlets and taking out new subscriptions. I hope they do––but it seems inevitable publishers are going to face a major hurdle in the coming months to build back their subscriber numbers.

For me, there are four publications I need to source from alternative suppliers: Asimov’s Science Fiction, Analog, Fantasy and Science Fiction and Clarkesworld. I read a range of other online magazines as well but these are either direct subscriptions with the publisher or regular one-off purchases, neither of which go through Amazon. (And not forgetting Interzone which is the only magazine I consume as a paper-and-ink).

When I first researched it earlier in the year, I feared it wouldn’t be straightforward. Several options for US subscribers (particularly for the Big 3) aren’t available in the UK. However, Clarkesworld has been wonderfully easy. The website offers direct subsciptions for both print and ebook versions. I’ve gone with a direct subscription option, currently $2.99/month increasing to $3.99/month from September, but there are plenty of other options to choose from including Patreon or purchase via Weightless Books.

Luckily for me, Asimov’s and Analog have recently put in place a new e-subscription option which is my obvious choice as other third party options looked problematic. F&SF is available through Weightless Books which I think is open to UK-based purchasers–– although I haven’t tried it yet, so can’t be sure. I haven’t seen other e-subscription options, so I’m hoping it is.

So I think I will soon be sorted. If you’ve previously had a Kindle subscription to these (or any other) digital SF magazines I do urge you to subscribe directly to your chosen magazines. It’s going to be tough for publishers to lose a chunk of their subscribers otherwise. And if you haven’t subscribed before, now would be the perfect time to take out a subscription.

New story! “Blue shift, Passing By” (Andromeda Spaceways Magazine #91)

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I’ve been a bit remiss at posting here when I have new fiction published – something I intend to rectify starting right now! So I’m pleased to announce that the latest issue of the wonderful Andromeda Spaceways Magazine (issue 91, in fact) carries my story Blue Shift, Passing By in its hallowed pages, together with a whole host of other fictional gems. Why not purchase a copy here and see for yourself?

Blue Shift, Passing By tells the story of Mac, an ambitious but over-worked, middle-manager trying to make his way up the corporate hierarchy so that he can provide for his disabled wife. When he’s offered the chance to take part in his company’s pioneering blue-shift programme, he jumps at it. Blue-shifting means drug-induced enhanced time perception which makes it possible to cram several days’ worth of mental activity into a single business day. Naturally, it comes at a cost, and it soon puts a strain on the relationship with his wife, who has a different perspective on the things that matter. As the company ramps the team up to ever more compressed working sessions, their relationship is pushed to its limits.

This is my second appearance in ASM. (He Who Stands and Waits in which a refugee in a post-apocalyptic world befriends a lone, robotic sentinel still guarding an isolated strip of beach long after all threats have receded – was published in issue 80). As ever, my whole-hearted thanks go to Tom Dullemond and his wonderful crew at ASM for the chance to fly Andromeda Spaceways once more.