Off-Topic On A Pilgrim’s Progress

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As it’s the Season of Good Cheer I thought I’d go off-topic today. I’ve been using the holiday to sort through my dad’s old books as I’m planning to arrange them on my new bookshelves. How wildly exciting – new bookshelves!

In fact many of these books were inherited from my great uncle, William Thwaites. Uncle Bill was a vicar in the North West of England, latterly in Lytham St Anne’s near Blackpool. Not surprisingly there’s a religious theme in a fair chunk of his reading material.

I’m fascinated by a miniature book in his collection, entitled The Pilgrim’s Progress, The Language of Scripture. It’s the cutest little thing. There’s no date or publisher name. Following a tiny two-page preface, the book comprises biblical quotations under headings relating to the full text of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, first published in 1678.

Uncle Bill bought an edition of The Pilgrim’s Progress published by The Book Society in London. Again, there’s no date but I’ve found a reference online that suggests it was published in 1874. So pretty old!

The little and large versions are pictured here. I expect he read the miniature while referring to the full volume.

Can anyone cast any light on this little book?

Fahrenheit 451: Midcentury Renway Bungalow

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via wowhaus.co.uk

I came across this quite by chance. My brother is visiting for Christmas and he showed me the wowhaus website for ‘interesting’ and retro properties. As I scrolled through the properties I was stunned to see Montag, hero of Fahrenheit 451. He’s shown walking out of his home – a midcentury Renway bungalow, recently for sale in Edgcumbe Park, Berkshire, UK.

This Renway bungalow must have been the last word in modernity when Francois Truffaut made his 1966 movie adaptation of Fahrenheit 451. Montag lived in a Type 60 property!

http://bit.ly/RUn829

Democracy Rules on Front Cover: Paperback Proof

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My paperback proofs were left at a neighbour’s house while I was at the dentist. I sprinted down the street and in the past 10 minutes I’ve ripped open the package and taken this photo! Read more

Have a Say: Paperback Cover Design

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One Final Decision is now needed before A Calculated Life goes to print. Yes, real ink on real paper. Almost quaint yet so thrilling! And I’m wondering which of these three designs to go for.

If you’d like a say in how my paperback looks then leave a comment, or tweet or send a message via facebook.

Front cover artwork by Mack Manning.

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Nassim N Taleb on the Source of All Blunders

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photo: Marcos Takamatsu

I’m so excited. Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s follow-up to The Black Swan is now available in the UK – entitled Antifragile: How to Live in a World We Don’t Understand. My hardback copy is winging its way to me. Hardback? Yes, I simply can’t wait for the paperback release. And I don’t want an eBook because I want to underline all the good bits (and the eBook costs more).

As I’ve mentioned before, The Black Swan – The Impact of the Highly Improbable was a goldmine resource when I wrote A Calculated Life. In a nutshell, if I dare, Taleb argues that people, corporations, financial institutions make serious blunders because they disregard highly improbable events. They concern themselves with the likely range of possibilities and make no allowance for so-called black swans – events they have not encountered before. Read more

Manchester: Climate Change Winner or Loser?

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Ah! It would be lovely, wouldn’t it – if Manchester and the north west of England emerged as the new Florence and Tuscany of Europe? Just imagine cypress trees and vineyards scattered among the Pennine foothills and the Cheshire Gap. In A Calculated Life, Mancunians have adapted to a hotter climate and the region’s agricultural patterns have shifted dramatically. Thus climate change forms a backdrop to the novel.

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What? Launch-day bestseller on Kindle?

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This was a surprise: A Calculated Life reached the Kindle Bestseller List for Science Fiction on Amazon’s UK store, on launch day.

So was it Flukey-Tuesday, or what? I’ve been mulling this over and . . . I suspect I’ll never know the reason. Read more

‘A Calculated Life’ is now available on Amazon

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I clicked the ‘Save and Publish’ button yesterday morning and just seven hours later A Calculated Life went live on Amazon’s websites as an eBook. To be precise, at 18:28:12 GMT on Monday 12 November. Read more

Manchester: the perfect setting for Science Fiction

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Baby at Manchester University

So why did I chose Manchester and the North West of England as the main setting for A Calculated Life? It’s not simply because I know this city and region (I could have chosen London, which I know well enough).

The fact is that Manchester shouted out as being totally appropriate. I couldn’t resist. You see, A Calculated Life is set later in the 21st Century. It’s Science Fiction or, as others might classify the novel, Speculative Fiction. It presents a dystopian view of the future – one in which humans have adopted many advances in neural implant technology and genetic engineering. As Ray Kurzweil argues in The Age of Spiritual Machines, once we discovered computation we reset our future evolutionary path.

So where better to locate this futuristic novel, than the city where the first commercial computer was developed. Read more

Why did I even begin to write this novel?

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It all began . . . at the turn of the millennium when, after I’d recovered from the celebrations, I read a long review in The Guardian‘s New Year edition of Ray Kurzweil’s book The Age of Spiritual Machines. His predictions were a wake-up call. He imagined a future when humans start to merge with technology, that is, when wealthier humans boost their brainpower by way of neural implants (welI, I can see the upside, who wouldn’t? Imagine being fluent in seven languages…).

Kurzweil argues that it’s absolutely inevitable that the next step in our evolution will involve cognitive implants. By the year 2099, he says humans with neural implants will be unable to hold a meaningful conversation with humans who do not have them; the divide will be too great.

This was seriously scary stuff, or I thought so at least. I was already looking at the dividing line between humans and machines in my art practice, but Kurzweil’s predictions really unnerved me. Read more