March 8, 2012
Truly we live in a Sci-Fi age. I’m surprised by how good this Vox mini preamp sounds through headphones – but I’m astonished and delighted by the satisfyingly nasty racket I can make with it through portable speakers!
This afternoon I’m going back to Japan. And this time I’m taking an electric guitar. 😀
Meanwhile, this week on TBM a T-Rex nails the central challenge in writing thrilling fiction.
March 1, 2012
This week on Trapped By Monsters I recommend Embassytown by China Mieville.
March 1, 2012
On Tuesday I was invited to a very special occasion, namely the official opening of the all-new Dalston C.L.R. James Library in my home borough of Hackney, London.
It was a packed and glittering affair.
A big crowd had turned out to celebrate, for two reasons. First, because the library is a wonderful, beautifully-designed building providing facilities including public computers, meeting rooms, study areas and community-accessible archives (the latter with space for a projected twenty-five years’ worth of expansion!) Second, because this library was opening when so many all over the rest of the UK are being forced to close.
Hackney Council deserves a lot of credit for Dalston C.L.R. James Library – and a lot of other local authorities deserve blame for the closures. But today, World Book Day 2012, the biggest burden of guilt for the sorry state of so much of the rest of the country’s public library services should be laid on the shoulders of the UK’s current government.
Libraries are centres for knowledge, thought and self-development. If this country is ever going to recover economically – into something other than just a City of London-dominated, tax-dodger-friendly clearing-house for shady deals by the world’s super-rich – then we need libraries. Public libraries are as important as schools: perhaps, given their power to help whole populations and not “just” school-age people and their carers, they’re even more important. The people of Hackney know this, as is obvious from Dalston C.L.R. James’ massive popularity since it opened its doors, even before it was opened officially.
Now: will the politicians of our Parliament be able to overcome their shortsighted, nest-feathering, bickering, self-aggrandizing ways enough to recognise the importance of public libraries too, and act accordingly? Or will the so-called ‘Culture Secretary’ and his ilk continue to stand by making excuses and blaming others while so many of these vital facilities all over the UK are being forced to close their doors?
March 1, 2012
From the library opening party I headed straight off to see this:
The Fantasist tackles its subject – mental illness – with music, puppetry and physical theatre, plus great writing, enormous imagination, sensitivity and style. It’s at Blue Elephant Theatre until March 17th. It’s touching, funny and terrifying and it’s the best thing on stage in London right now. Do yourself a favour and catch it if you can.
February 23, 2012
The tickets are booked. We’re almost set. In a couple of weeks’ time I’ll be back in Japan.
I’ve had a lovely time in London – launching O, catching up with friends and family, doing fun stuff – but as the day of my return to Tokyo gets closer I can’t help but get very, very excited. My first trip to Japan left me fascinated, rabid to discover more. But as well as new experiences to look forward to, there are people I met there and things I saw that I can hardly wait to see again. Like these dudes…
In the Shibuya branch of Mandarake…
…by the cabinets of collectible figurines…
…there are big signs telling you not to take photos.
I didn’t use flash…
…and tried (and probably failed) to be subtle…
…but I couldn’t resist. I mean, look at this:
Here’s to new friends and new adventures.
On a related note, this week on Trapped By Monsters: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.
February 14, 2012
The twinkling lights of the city spread out below me, as far as I can see. Between the lights are great black shadows where the buildings are. Inside the buildings I imagine the people – eight million humans, most of them asleep.
Do you ever get the feeling that your life isn’t your own? Do you ever feel like everything you do, or everything you ever can do, has been chosen for you already? That it was all planned out before you were born, so all you can do is go along with it? Have you felt that way?
I have news for you. It’s true.
I work for the people who mapped out your life for you. They rule you and they rule me too. Every second of my life has belonged to them. But that will end tonight – one way or another.
My name is O. Not zero. It’s O like the letter that comes after N in the alphabet. My parents are called M and K. We were bred for our… talents.
Our masters call us the Blanks. We spy, steal, kill – whatever our masters need us to do. Apart from our masters (and now, I guess, you) no one knows we exist.
We are trained to have no identity – to be nothing, a void. We are like clay, for our masters to shape as they wish. That’s the lesson I was to learn.
But they failed to teach me it.
Alone, in secret, I learned the hardest skill of all: to make myself. I built a personality, a me, from whatever scraps I could snatch when no one was looking.
My name is O. Not zero: O. I am not nothing. I am fabulous and spectacular. And tonight, at last, is when I get to prove it.
February 14, 2012
The one thing I didn’t like about being in Japan was that I missed my old friends. Then I discovered one living in Tokyo.
This giant monster looming over Tokyo Tower is Maman, by Louise Bourgeois. I’d last seen Maman at a wonderful exhibition of Bourgeois’ work at London’s Tate Modern on the day of the launch of my second published book, Tim, Defender of the Earth. Here’s that entry on the Tim News Page, and here’s a pic I took of her attacking St Paul’s Cathedral.
As you might be able to guess, Louise Bourgeois’ viscerally sinister oeuvre was a massive influence on Crawlers, which I’d just begun writing at the time. So with the Crawlers News Page soon to come to an end and the My Name Is O one about to begin, the timing of my second meeting with Maman was eerily perfect.
I wasn’t totally convinced by her current setting in Roppongi. Surrounded by trees and skyscrapers and Christmas trappings I felt that Maman didn’t look quite as imposing as she should.
…But the angles were there if you looked for them.
February 7, 2012
The MY NAME IS O launch party was a HOOT. 😀
Here, below, is a video I just uploaded of the two-minute reading I did from the book.
An ENORMOUS THANK YOU to everyone who braved a very cold night to come out and help me celebrate, and to Tim and Simon for hosting the do at their brilliant shop.
If you, reading this, are visiting this all-new My Name Is O website for the very first time, a hearty HEE HEE HEE! to you, and welcome to my ongoing sinister masterplan to conquer the universe!
February 6, 2012
Note: What follows below first appeared on my previous blog, just a couple of days ago. My feelings haven’t changed. 😉
LOOK! SHINY!
…Ahem, sorry, rather excited. What I mean is, these are finished copies of my new novella for Barrington Stoke, MY NAME IS O.I knew about the stickers, which (NB) are fully removable and come off without leaving a mark. What I didn’t know was how the mirror effect on the cover was going to turn out. The answer is, very nicely indeed.
Signed copies of MY NAME IS O (and my other books!) are available to order from The Big Green Bookshop (here’s their website). The book’s cover price is £6.99. Samurai booksellers Simon and Tim will gladly arrange delivery to anywhere in the world, and postage inside the UK is free.
Now another pic. Look at the middle one, so shiny that in the right light / right angle almost everything disappears except the O…
…Mmm. SHINY! 
February 6, 2012
Sam here. Welcome to the News Page on the new website for my new book, MY NAME IS O.
As may be apparent from the photo above, I’m very excited!
Thanks for being in at the start of this thing. 😀
More soon,
Sam
