Floodland
Radka put up some more very impressive pictures of the recent Prague floods here. Go take a look. I think they explain the semi-Apocalyptic tone of my last post rather well. The rain has stopped now and I have temporarily suspended building the ark on our roof. I think the State of Emergency is over, in the city at least. The Metro is still not working, lots of parks are still closed off. I feel a strange urge to go and listen to the Sisters of Mercy now. And why not? It’s been a while since I heard This Corrosion.
A Cosy Catastrophe
It’s been raining a lot here in Prague recently, to the point where I have been making my usual dumb joke about how if I had wanted weather like this I would have stayed in Scotland. The rain has gone on for well over a week now, sometimes a light drizzle, often a monsoonal downpour, pretty much always there. You can hear the quiet roar of it in the courtyard of our building at night. It’s like being caught beneath a very small waterfall. Whenever you go out for a walk there is always a faint hissing noise in the Read more…
The Great Gatsby
I confess that I approached Baz Lurhmann’s The Great Gatsby with a feeling of dread. It has taken a terrible panning at the hands of many critics. The most common critique I have read is that somehow Luhrmann’s crass, lurid tale has not done justice to the delicacy of Fitzgerald’s masterwork. Even the most casual familiarity with the book will show that this is simply not quite true. Don’t misunderstand me — the movie version of Gatsby is crass and lurid, but then so, taken at face value, is the narrative of the book. Luhrmann’s version is pretty much true Read more…
Kindle Worlds: A Very Clever Idea
Amazon seems to be on the verge of doing something really clever with its new Kindle Worlds program. It looks as if it has found a genuinely new way of developing, creating and marketing tie-in fiction, and also a method of making fan fiction profitable, not only for Amazon, but for the fans and the creators of the worlds those fans write in. It’s early days yet, of course, and we have not really seen any of the final product but what it appears to be is a system similar to Kindle Direct Publishing which will allow fans to upload their Read more…
Back in the Saddle
Once again weeks have passed without a blog post. I can only blame a particularly nasty flu, compounded by travelling while sick. It put me flat on my back for a couple of weeks and I only really started feeling vaguely normal again this week. But enough snivelling, it’s time to thank Father Nurgle for his gifts and move on. I recently started carrying my Windows laptop into work. There were a number of reasons for this. The trackpad on my MacBook Air has gone on the blink. (I have the ungodly power to ruin trackpads on Apple machines after Read more…
And The Winner Is…
I have once again been struck down by Nurgle who has visited upon me yet another of his plagues. Overwhelmed by wheezing, sniffling and feverishness I decided to let the Writing Fantasy Heroes contest run another day. I have risen from my sickbed and with the aid of the D&D random die roller, chosen a winner. All of the entries were excellent and I’d like to thank everybody who took part. And now, without further ado, I fumble with the envelope while the orchestra performs a drum roll, and then I reveal that the winner is Damon Richard. Congratulations, sir!
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