Future Classics

Nice Gollancz have sent me seven paperbacks (though they list eight in this series) with very snazzy covers. I've got them all already. I've read them all already, except for Paul McAuley's (I beg your pardon - having been declared a future classic, he's now Paul J McAuley) Fairyland. I'm ashamed of that, because Mr McAuley is a very nice man indeed, who has bought me several pints. The least I can do is read his books. His very good new book is called Cowboy Angels. Multidimensional Americas. But I will review it properly. So now I will read Fairyland.

But from the standard of the other titles, Gollancz may be on to something with this rebranding exercise. Evolution features a flock wallpaper ape. The Separation has classy brown paper aeroplanes (if you've got the original Scribner paperback, you'd be horrified at how much it's worth; they only printed about five of them, being bastards and idiots. Mr Priest got the last laugh there). I don't understand the Dan Simmonds cover, but it's one of the most in your face first sentences in sf. Revelation Space is appropriately shiny. And so on.

My doubt is Altered Carbon. Entertaining, yes. Successful, undoubtedly. Classic... well, maybe. Perhaps Ryman and Harrison and Banks and Mieville and Grimwood and Roberts and MacLeod and lots of those other folk don't need pushing as future classics. The list is (in no order):

Hyperion, Dan Simmonds
Evolution, Stephen Baxter
Fairyland, Paul J McAuley
Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds
The Separation, Christopher Priest
Blood Music, Greg Bear
Altered Carbon, Richard Morgan

The missing one - listed inside - is Schild's Ladder by Greg Egan. He has strong views on quotations on book jackets (he's agin the idea), and I wonder if that has caused some difficulty with it. I will ask people who might know.

Bratislava

Last night, I ate goulash while a trio of old men (violin, cello, piano) played Misty in a cellar restaurant in the old town in Bratislava. It is very disorientating to be somewhere where you recognize nothing at all of the language; with the exception of "suveniry" and a very few other words, I couldn't even begin to guess what anything was. But the apartment I was staying in was beneath an sf bookshop, with Jon Courtney Grimwood's neoAddix in the middle of the window,
the churches were wonderful (and it was Good Friday), cigarettes cost less than a pound, they have lovely trams, the people are friendly and the historic centre is beautiful. Unfortunately, it looks out on to more Communist-era tower blocks than you can possibly imagine, and there is now a gigantic Tesco.
But I loved it there. And I believe they have flat rate income tax at 19 per cent, so I expect they will prosper, especially if they don't join the euro (as they plan to in a year or two).

I read Stephen King's Night Shift, which I didn't know (he is, unsurprisingly enough, a very good short story writer), Richard Morgan's Black Man (I shall probably review it) and have just started Timothy Mo's Sour Sweet, which I like a lot so far. I watched The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, which I thought pretty disappointing.
today's neglected book is Mr Friend Mr Leakey by JBS Haldane.
got back home, ate prawns with noodles and chinese greens.

I am going to bed now in the hope that I can get up in time for the 5.30am service tomorrow. Happy Easter.