JOHN MEANEY

18.1.12

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I'm currently being interviewed (in an asynchronous, email-mediated fashion) by Bob Neilson for Albedo One, the Irish SF magazine. I don't know if it's because I know Bob via the McCaffreys, or because of my Irish roots or a matter of sentimental timing, but it's turning into a detailed autobiography. Which reminds me that I should link from here to the various online interviews I've done over the years.

And that reminds me that next month is the 20th anniversary of my first fiction sale. Oh, my giddy aunt...

In honour of which, I've just decided I will make that first story available here on the website for free, along with one other. Does anyone have a preference for the other choice? Let me know via comments or email, please. Anything that appeared before 2010, let's say.

In domestic-trivia news, I watched The Karate Kid last night. I was already an adult when the first version was made, and this is the quarter-century-later remake with Jackie Chan as the Miyagi figure. I enjoyed it far more than expected, surprised by the emotional depth of one scene: JC's mourning his dead family.

I approvingly note something that Steve Barnes picked up on when the movie was first released, but which wouldn't have occurred to me, namely that the kid in question isn't white. Speaking of which, note the lack of white characters in Al Reynolds' Blue Remembered Earth, which I've already recommended, and am happy to do again.

My reading in the past few weeks has been non-SF. Lee Child was an unknown name to a panel audience in last year's Eastercon, but his Jack Reacher thrillers are huge in that genre, with a very compelling impetus to the narratives. There's a current controversy in the casting of Tom Cruise as the physically distinctive protagonist of the books, but as an author, what could one say? Cruise's involvement means that top professionals will be engaged in the making of the movie, so while it might differ from the book they're filming, at least it should be of decent quality.

Poor old Barry Eisler was not well served by the movie of Rain Fall, despite Gary Oldman's presence. Read the John Rain books, ignore the movie.

I'm quite the fan of the excellent, idiosnycratic Don Winslow. The Winter Of Frankie Machine and The Dawn Patrol are terrific, and my favourites of the handful of his books I've read so far. They include Satori, the prequel-by-another-hand to Shibumi - and if you've never heard of it, that may simply mean that you're younger than me. (It was written by the guy who wrote the Eiger Sanction - another mismatch between movie and book.)

Having taken a two-week hiatus from writing - deliberately, to do Computer Stuff - I'm getting back into the swing of things. A couple of days rehashing a book proposal, then back to Resonance, aka Ragnarok book 3.

In other entropy-related news, besides marking two decades of my being a published writer, this year features my 30th wedding anniversary and my 40th stepping-into-a-dojo anniversary. I'm really not sure how to celebrate that last. Maybe run up a mountain (no preliminary travel necessary, now I live in a Welsh valley), meditate under a waterfall, and fight off 100 consecutive attackers with my Zimmer frame. Or curl up with a cup of hot cocoa and watch Enter the Dragon.

May everything you do this year make you a better person. Wax on, wax off...

1 Comments:

Blogger Michela said...

Happy new year John, happy anniversaries and congratulations for the release of Transmission :)

January 21, 2012 at 8:09 PM  

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