And.... we're back!

Well, summer's over here at Pointless Philosophical Asides. The renovations are all finished for now - although "Posts of note" remains conspicuously empty - and we're all putting away our surf boards, dusting off our school blazers and contemplating the harvest of all the lovely seeds we planted before we went away.

First up, some comments I had on the subject of hype, inspired by reading The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi. It's no reflection on Mr Rajaniemi's fine book, but hype does rub me the wrong way and... well, just read the post to learn more.

Next up, probably on Friday, we'll finally serve up my much-delayed review of Robo-Hunter vol 1, which has been in the drying cupboard since before the end of July, and then further fine flowers such as China Miélville's Looking for Jake, a collection of the first six issues of Marvel's wonderful What If?, my first thoughts in the current issues of 2000AD and much more besides.

But what, I hear you cry, of short fiction Wednesday? Well, I'm keeping that one mothballed for the meantime until I've caught up with other matters. It'll be back towards the end of this month, probably as a fortnightly rather than weekly feature from now on - I do have a day job, you know.

I hope you've all had a nice summer (or winter, depending on the hemisphere) and look forward to the comments that surely going to come flooding in!

Back soon!

Well, August is nearly over and the summer holidays draw to a close. Writing time has been very disrupted for me, thanks to various holidays and summer events eating into to my time. Just to complicate things, after a week away I discover my desktop has mysteriously given up the ghost. So I've had to dust off the spare laptop and rely on that, wonky keyboard and all.

I've also wasted a good proportion of the day trying to get the old desktop working, and thus didn't get done get half of what I wanted to do today, including much needed updates here. I've had a pretty frustrating couple of months, productivity wise, and that's why I took this official break, to try and catch up with all the chores and re-focus what I wanted to do... God, it never frigging ends does it!

Ah well, I still plan to get cracking again in the beginning of September and there's all sorts of treats ahead, assuming I can get them out of the hard drive of my old PC. I've got a review of Robo Hunter Vol 1 coming up as part of my series of retro-reviews of 2000AD, plus I've started buying new progs again and I'll be casting my world-weary eye over them.

Book-related OCD is satisfied!

I've been busy buying and reading books, and you can expect reviews soon. My formal review of The Quantum Thief is live on the Zone, so you can check that out, and I may or may not provide some further commentary. There's more I wanted to say about the hype surrounding this one that didn't fit in the review (and I think it's unfair to criticise the book based on my dislike of hype), but is increasingly relevant, I think, in today's hyped up world.

I've also found a cool, second hand bookshop while I was away (in Much Wenlock) and will have a couple of reviews of the obscure treasures i found there. One treasure was a Coronet edition of The Brave Free Men by Jack Vance, to match with the vols one and two of the Durdane series I already owned. I can now chuck away the ugly Ballantine edition I've had to make do with  up to now and have lovely matching spines on the book shelf. Hooray!

So, come on back on 1 September when Pointless Philosophical Asides will ride out of the wildnerness and back into action... if the wobbly internet connection on this shitty laptop will allow. Grrr!

Still Working!

I've replaced the temporarily closed notice with my new header image, but I'm not quite done yet. I've updated the pages on My Fiction and Reviews, but About Me and Posts of note are both still waiting for that magical Patickal pixie dust.

I have a couple of posts nearly ready to go, and we'll be back in action in September, so hang in there chums!

Short fiction Wednesday summer time semi-hiatus

I'm kind of busy over August, and I'd like to get some other work done for a bit. I'll be keeping up my reading log, as and when (and there's a review for the Zone coming up, so stay tuned for more unforgiving forensic work) but short fiction Wednesday is taking a break for a few weeks.

Don't worry, short fiction fans, it'll be back in September. In the meantime, why not enjoy some stories from the archive?