Robert Holdstock, Hail And Farewell

Posted on November 30, 2009 by Michael Cobley

This post was going to be about the various kinds of crappyness assailing the body p0litic, both here and in the USA (where our masters dwell). But then I got word from Dave Wingrove about Rob Holdstock, that he had passed away the day before yesterday.

Which is awful beyond words. I knew that he’d been taken ill from E.coli poisoning, but this? – that it would lead to his dying from a heart attack? I’m stunned, and bereft. It was Rob Holdstock and Chris Evans, as editors of the Other Edens anthology, who gave me my first pro short story sale. Since then, on the occasional times that we`ve met at this or that con, both Rob and Chris were never less than kind and encouraging. Back in 1988, when the 1st Other Edens anthology came out, I was invited to come along to World Fantasycon in London to read my story, and Rob was kind enough to put me up for the night.

Suffice to say that I have long been a fan of his writing too, from Mythago Wood to the Celtika saga. British and world fantasy has lost a truly individual, inspiring writer, but it will be the man that I’ll miss most.

Filed under: Buddies, Fantasy, on writing | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

Edward Woodward RIP

Posted on November 16, 2009 by Michael Cobley

Sad to relate, Edward Woodward has died, aged 79. Like most of my peers (born in the 50s, like) I first encountered him in the series, Callan, where he played the eponymous, hard-bitten intelligence agent. For me, though, his most outstanding role was that of Jim Kyle, dissident journalist in the BBC series, 1990, which depicted a bleak, recession-clobbered Britain ruled over by a authoritarian government. The mailed fist of this government was the PCD, the Public Control Department, who were given carte blanche to use any jackbooted method to cow the population (including torture, brainwashing, and all manner of Gestapo-like techniques). It was practically a premonition of America’s descent into the National Security State (not to mention whats taken place in the UK under Thatcher and Blair).

In retrospect, and in the context of subsequent governments, 1990’s prescience has proved unsettlingly accurate. If it were screened today it might be somewhat incendiary (or it might just look naff). What is certain is that, beyond a brief release on VHS, the BBC has never put it out on DVD. Wonder why?

Filed under: history, Politics | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

Orphaned Worlds: The Copy-Edit Two-Step

Posted on November 14, 2009 by Michael Cobley

Got the  copyedit through from the litpixies at Orbit, and as always eye-openers come thick and fast. With emphasis on the word thick. Just goes to show – you really do need other eyes to look over that great mound of words and make sure that infelicities are hounded to their lairs and dragged out into the pitiless glare of daylight. To be sure, a lot of the necessary corrections are of the inexplicable words type, requiring clarification; occasionally, however, weird sentences turn up where clearly several words have just vanished, leaving the copy editor going ‘Wuh?’ Luckily, I still have my original longhand draft to refer to – and I was on the point of trashing it too. Mebbe I should keep it for some SF archive someplace.

Or put it on Ebay. Whaddyathink?

Filed under: on writing | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

Set Phasers Tae Malky!

Posted on November 5, 2009 by Michael Cobley

As some of you may know, the Humanitys Fire books feature (drum roll)….Scots In Space! Not that I would need any prompting to do such a thing, but the BBC Scotland comedy series, Chewin The Fat, certainly played its part with an inspired sketch from the 2002 Hogmanay special, which you can download from this page at the Weehowff –

http://www.weehowff.com/downloads.htm

Its the 1st in the video section, with a choice of 8mb or 3 mb, ken!

Filed under: humour, science fiction | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

Blog Oddity

Posted on November 3, 2009 by Michael Cobley

As you can see, this blog comes out courtesy of the WordPress outfit, and the controls and dashboard provide me, the blog owner, with interesting stats and figures. Including search engine terms that people use to find this blog. Among these is someone who just keys in my name – only they misspell it every time. Instead of ‘Michael Cobley’ they put in ‘Micahael Cobley’. I`m not being judgemental about this, its just that its curiously consistent. Still, so long as its gets them here its fine by me!

Filed under: cyber, humour | Tagged: | 7 Comments »

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