Richard [K] Morgan's News and Views


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Friday, 1 May 2009

Way out West (WoW)


Hmmm......time for an update, perhaps. Let me just get out of my bathers here and find a terminal....

Okay, first things first; here's an up-to-date list of the gigs I'll be doing on the eastern side of Australia this month, starting with Melbourne, next week:

Guest speaker at Melbourne Science Fiction Club, Friday 7 May @ 9pm Address: St David's West Brunswick Uniting Church, 74 Melville Rd, Brunswick West, VIC http://msfc.sf.org.au/index.php

Guest speaker at Nova Mob, Saturday 8 May @ 12pm Address: Community Room, Northcote Library, 32-38 Separation St, Northcote, Melbourne, VIC

Book signing at Galaxy Books, Thursday 21 May @ 17:30pm Address: 143 York Street, Sydney www.galaxybooks.com.au

Book signing at Gaslight, Saturday 23 May @ 3pm Address: Unit 10, 83 Wollongong St, Fyshwick, Canberra www.gaslightbooks.com.au

Event/Book signing at Pulp Fiction, Tuesday 26 May @ 6:30pm Address: Queensland Writer's Centre, 109 Edward St, Brisbane, QLD http://www.qwc.asn.au/
http://www.pulpfictionpress.com.au/Contact.htm

If anything last minute gets added to these, I'll try to post it as soon as I know. Meantime, hope one of these gigs is close enough for you to make it. See you there.

And meantime, there's western Australia. WoW.

Where do I start?

Whale sharks? Kangaroos? The sun melting molten into the Indian ocean? These weird crows with a little knot on their throat and a croak that starts out all macho and then tails off into a little whinge? Pelicans chasing toddlers for fish? Dolphins rolling on their backs and turning pink coz they're pregnant and happy? The best damn Vietnamese food I've ever tasted? A river canyon with striated multiple stripes of beige and red rock like someone kidnapped Ellsworth Kelly and transported him back to the days of cave-painting? Lethal, snake-swift aikido done with real and really fucking sharp blades, seasoned through with equal grindings of humour and humility before the form? Giant clams gaping sky blue and black, the swirling colours of a really mellow acid trip framed between massive coral-crusted corrugated jaws? Soft rose light at sunset spearing horizontal across endless brush? A highway right out of Mad Max 2, painted gunshot straight onto the soft rise and fall of the landscape ahead, all the way to the horizon and beyond?

Man, I seen all that and more, these last few weeks. All that and more. My head is full.

So. Some pretty massive thanks are in order, then: to the illustrious Perky, aka PRK, aka Paul Raj Khangure and the whole SwanCon 09 committee for bringing me out here in the first place, treating me like royalty throughout my time with them, and launching me and Virginia northwards with all the good advice and best wishes anyone could wish for. I'm having a blast guys, and it's all down to you!

To be continued.....


Item 'Way out West (WoW)' posted by Richard Morgan at 11:06

18 Comments:

Thanks for taking time to update us about your fantastic experiences in The Land Down Under. Looks like you've plenty of fodder for a new world in your a future novel.

Linda

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 02 May 2009 14:21  

Very much looking forward to hearing more about your impressions of Swancon and the rest of the trip. We can point you at various con reports if you need reminders. It was a pretty action-packed few days!

By OpenID stephbg, at 02 May 2009 16:03  

This is great. Thanks so much for the inspiring descriptions, almost feels like I'm there. Travel safe.

By Blogger lander, at 02 May 2009 18:08  

Glad you've had a blast in WA both of you :)

*sending best wishes to you and your lovely wife* Hope very much you enjoy the rest of your trip - and hoping that we see you both back here in WA sometime :)

Any of us in the Swancon 2009 committee would jump at having you back :)

By OpenID mynxii, at 03 May 2009 06:23  

What a perfect beginning for the 4th Kovac's book! ;-)
Enjoy.

By Blogger Francesco Troccoli, at 06 May 2009 07:39  

You sound frustrated,like
A man who doesn't know
whether he wants whips
or chains.

By Anonymous Evalin, at 09 May 2009 08:05  

I just started reading Steel Remains, ok, and I am wondering what the intentions of an atheist would be in discussing the spirit realm. You seem to vacilate from book to book on your convictions. One minute your bobbing your head to MAOist music the next your scorning communist sympathizers as over simplifying their message.
Sometimes you slaughter the fundementalists who violently insist on the veil, the next your creating fear and a religious revival with your talk of the demon world. Satan offered us enlightenment. God created hell and abused his son. Blood is not required for forgiveness in my inner circle of friends. Irregardless, I am hoping that at some point in the book you analyze spirits in connection with compuer systems. On a ground level our bodies die and energy possibly remains. Energy does not equal brain or feeling though. To call into light demons without clarification of how they exist is destroying your own movement. Don't misunderstand me. I believe in a virtual hell and virtual pain. But who do you want running this world, Pat Robertson or the terrorits in Sadr City? I haven't yet read all your books and I am hoping somewhere in your work you wake the public up, though it doesn't appear it's going to happen in Altered Carbon either because you speak of a deteriorated San Francisco, which once again suggests a real reality with "normal" rules.

Loved Black Widow by the way! The costume went over really well last Hallaween.

By Anonymous Lucifer's Lover, at 09 May 2009 11:25  

^ Drugs are bad, folks.

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12 May 2009 03:57  

An unholy veil that was momentary.
I shrug. My brain and body are intact for my work.

I still wonder if you aren't fondling a rosemary while saying hail mary.

Drugs are great by the way. Just ask my boyfriend Jim Morrison.

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 14 May 2009 15:26  

One more comment: Sci Fi as a genera is littered with Fun With Dick and Jane books that require no real mastication.



You're books delve deeper into psychology, hold conversation, and use words that aren't always definable in my dictionary, leaving me to make my best in a genre that is new to me. Glossary perhaps?


So I am the veiled woman. In more ways that one. He gave a serious proposal and I will be the scarlet clad bejeweled woman very soon. We may settle in the more conservative regions of California. His world is my world, he says. And I am very happy to have a man so supportive of my life's work. So cheers to infinity and enduring love.

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 14 May 2009 21:45  

Hallo Richard,

Many thanks for your recent visit to the Melbourne Science Fiction Club in W. Brunswick. I'm the guy from New England w/ the Boston baseball cap who possibly asked a few too many Q's, but you were absolutely graceful in respect w/ all of your answers, witty anecdotes, interesting theories on a few odd gunshot elements, the generous book signings, and so forth. Thank you for recommending Steven Pinker to me (I went out & bought 'The Language Instinct' as I am quite fascinated w/ that facet of the human mind, the pathologies, the production of perceptions in speech from Babylonia to Now, the amazing idea that every "brand-new combination of words" spoken or written are done so for the "first time in the history of the universe"!). An interesting coincidence, earlier that same day I bought the April/May issue of Cosmos (a brilliant science Aussie magazine I hope you had the chance to get while you were down here). In the issue Pinker speaks his mind on the subject of Singularity; basically stating: "No. Never". I'm not as skeptical as he is on the theory as I think anything is possible, considering what I have seen in science over the past 30 odd years (the exponential leaps, yes, of course, the stuff our minds can barely grasp and yet they happen). But will AI ever reach the point of the Singularity? I have not read Black Man (Thirteen) yet, but when I re-read the Acknowledgments page and saw Pinker's name, again, along w/ the two books you specifically mentioned I should read, I am very curious where your ideas in BM/13 will engineer my thinking on the Human Mind (I plan to read thru 'Blank Slate' & 'How the Mind Works' when I begin BM/13). Incidentally, I finished "The Steel Remains" last night: Brutally brilliant! Possibly just a coincidence, but I really like the connection of 'Gleaming steel, gleaming steel...' to The Steel Remains in your crossover from Noir SciFi to Brutal Fantasy. I've never read a fantasy book like Steel before, & look forward to your next venture in that realm/genre. It's groundbreaking, to say the least. & I love your little blog Part 1 on your Aussie adventures... One thing I meant to ask you: do you ever write short-stories & if so, is there a potential collection in the future...? All-n-all it was most pleasant to have met you, and we all are very glad you made the time in your schedule to visit our little street corner in this universe. Sláinte Mhath! ~jon Lyndon

By Blogger jon Lyndon, at 15 May 2009 10:27  

You might want to have a look at Wolfram Alpha, if you've not heard of it already. I think you'll like what you see.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/

Kerris

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 16 May 2009 11:05  

Glad to read that you're having a good time Richard! Enjoy, stay safe and watch out for the redbacks!

best

Ravi (of the map).

By Anonymous Anonymous, at 22 May 2009 15:15  

Just wanted to say thanks for making the effort to come to Canberra, and for staying extra time. It was my first time at one of these author affairs, and your chat with me made it a lot less impersonal than I thought it would be.

Hope you get to visit Canberra again, and next time get to see more of it than the road between the airport and Fyshwick. By the way, that has to be the worst scenic route you could take of Canberra. Unless you like looking at adult shops and car yards. Wait, hang on, maybe you do...

By Anonymous Shaanti, at 23 May 2009 12:23  

I probably should have prefaced the last comment by saying I just started reading Market Forces, which opens with a (minor) sex scene and then moves on to a car chase...

By Anonymous Shaanti, at 23 May 2009 12:32  

I'm a fan of yours who is a decipherer of cryptograms. I thought I'd bring to your attention an article in NY Times. It involves not so simple addition as well as an analysis of Mickey/Donald types, which to the first commenter, included the rage between the proletariat and powerful elite.

I thought you might like to check it out... especially since you use the name Mickey in Woken Furies.

Here it is:

http://judson.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/guest-column-loves-me-loves-me-not-do-the-math/

p.s. Did kids play rough on blue towers on your play ground too?

By Anonymous Girl of Blue Tower, at 27 May 2009 10:53  

Fucking McFucky McFuck FUCK! You were 3 blocks from my home in Brunswick and I never knew you were here. I need to check your blog more often.

By Blogger Jebus, at 17 June 2009 00:17  

Jebus - My FUCKING ABSENT BELIF IN A CREATOR - He was a Couple of blocks from Mine in Sydeny and I didnt even fucking realise.... I Swear if this Fucking Happens again i am going to Lobby to get gun laws over-turned just so I CAN FUCKING SHOOT ANYTHING IN SIGHT!!!

By Anonymous Freeman, at 18 November 2009 14:01  

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