Friend: Do you want to watch Michael?
Me: Michael, the 1996 Nora Ephron classic where John Travolta plays the eponymous archangel who has inexplicably come to Earth and he battles a bull and it ends with Van Morrison's 'Bright Side of the Road?' YES!
Friend: Uh....
Hans Zimmer's Dune Part Three Fremen war chant: LSD! LSD! LSD!
Me: Well, this tracks!
Story idea: Lovecraftian horror set in a small English town in the nineties but the eldritch horror is Mr. Blobby.
"In the House of No'el, the party is ever in a state of upheaval / As Bl'obby, He of the yellow pustules, spreads his Evil."
Finished 'The Spear Cuts Through Water' by Simon Jimenez. Love love loved it! Audacious premise, beautiful prose and really stuck the landing. This book is magical.
A really lovely review of THE REPUBLIC OF MEMORY from @princejvstin.com but more an interesting rumination on generation ship stories in general.
*record scratch*
*freeze frame*
Yep, that's me sitting at my desk translating Arabian poet Labid Ibn Rabi'ah into English for a science fiction novel. You're probably wondering how I got here. It all started when I read Frank Herbert's Dune aged 13 and thought, 'Maybe I could be a writer.'
English: Hell no, never, not even if pigs fly and hell freezes over!
Arabic: Inshallah
(3/3)
English: Maybe
Arabic: Inshallah
(2/3)
English: Yes
Arabic: Inshallah
(1/3)
Thanks, Hussain! So glad you enjoyed it.
Finished The Republic of Memory by @mahmudelsayed.bsky.social. What a great debut with excellent political and social commentary, exploration of language and memory, and many clever POV choices and experimental literary techniques.
Read it and loved it but maybe time for a re-read ! The time dilation stuff and the handling of hard sci-fi as if its fantasy is so clever.
I'm dreading finishing it tbh. Gorgeous prose and audacious premise.
I'm still reading The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jiminez or am I watching a ballet in a dream performed by the Moon's child or escorting the Moon herself through a fantasy world or listening to my Lola smoke and tell a story about the Old Country?
Congrats David. Can't wait to read. (Also, loving the Banksian addition of the middle initial!)
The structure is so complex (i can't even imagine how you would draft this) and yet the writing is so strong it just carries you along.
Finally reading 'The Spear Cuts Through Water' by Simon Jimenez and loving it so far. A story within a story within a story told variously in first, second and third person? YES!
Hey, that's a-me! I'm really looking for this.
100% this
It's a "mission impossible" Mew Monday.
“Translation is not a matter of words only; it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.” – Anthony Burgess
"Praise be to Allah." Has Trump finally said something I agree with? 🤔
😂😂😂
Oh Captain My Captain!
Best Star Trek crew, wrong answer only
Happy Nominal Birthday!
Really enjoyed Riz Ahmed's Bait on Prime. Funny and insightful about the British immigrant experience. I only have one criticism: The voice of the pig should obviously have been John Hamm or Kevin Bacon although Patrick Stewart is ofc always excellent.
There is no art without an artist.
Happy Book Birthday!!!
Finished Children of Strife by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Raced through it. What a great book and some excellent social commentary on the tech bros. Also very clever POVs doing some interesting (and literary) things. For me, the bleeding edge of experimental litfic remains SFF.