Web Sites Back Up

Just checked and both web sites are back up. I blogged the blog I was going to blog last night this morning, if that makes sense.  Compila are not in my good books.

EDIT: The first blog about the Websites going down appears to have disappeared. Was it Google or me? In my anger at my web host did I forget to post it?

A Wreath Of Stars, Gollancz, Hardback, ISBN 0-575-02134-9

A Wreath of Stars is still vivid in my memory, years after first reading it. It was among of the first Bob Shaw novels I read, probably third or fourth, and had an interesting concept; that of a universe of anti-neutrinos. I'd never even heard about neutrinos before I read the book, never mind anti-neutrinos.

The book is a pretty slim one compared to the novels on offer today, not even reaching two hundred pages in the Pan paperback edition – bought for 70p - I read, and probably runs around sixty to sixty five thousand words.

But again Bob Shaw's writing, characterisation and plotting keep the reader engrossed. The science in the science fiction keeps the interest of the reader too. Shaw spends the first chapter setting up the story, delivering background information and kicking the whole story off with the arrival and departure of Thornton’s planet, which can only been seen through magniluct lenses.

Of course the arrival of Thornton’s planet causes trouble and unrest, particularly where the protagonist, Gilbert Snook, is working: as an engineer he is working in a Middle East state keeping the fighter planes of a small air force ticking over. Snook considers himself the human equivalent of a neutrino. Neutrinos are amongst the smallest particles known, and don’t interact much with other matter. Snook considers himself to be the same, going through life avoiding contact with other people as much as possible. All that changes when Thornton’s planet fills the sky.

Quickly the story jumps forward a few years. Snook, now in the republic of Barandi and effectively a prisoner, is informed of the sightings of ghosts in the local diamond mines. Snook himself not only sees the ghosts but takes photos of them; this is his opportunity to make an international story and perhaps get out of the country that is keeping him prisoner.

The discovery of the ‘ghosts’ brings in new characters: Boyce Ambrose, an astronomer who has worked out the truth of the situation concerning the ghosts and Prudence Devonland who was working on behalf of an Economic Commission for Africa and there to investigate African states who had applied for UN membership.

Snook’s actions had upset the leaders of the country and they plot to engineer the situation in their favour. Colonel Freeborn, a military leader, had been introduced earlier in the novel and given the role of an antagonist against Snook. The President of the country, Ogilvie, is cast in the role of instigator; he decides to exclude further foreigners from the country and wait until the media has lost interest in Barandi before dealing with Snook.

A scientific group is formed to attempt to make contact with the newly named Avernians, and Snook and the others go into the mines with a machine in an attempt to make themselves visible to the Avernians. They are immediately successful and discover that the Avernians are aware of what is happening. And Ambrose believes Snook has telepathic abilities.

Pretty soon contact with the Avernians is established and things, for me, start to get interesting. It’s when Shaw develops aliens and their culture and has them interact with our own that his work takes on a greater quality. The aliens in Bob Shaw books are always unique, inventive and imaginative.

The Avernians are unaware that Thornton’s planet passed them by and the news brings a shocking conclusion to the Avernians. A Wreath of Stars is an engrossing novel. I found the Avernians to be an exciting and alien species. The world they live in, described by Shaw, is distinctive and different, the character of the people shown clearly in a few pages and several simple sentences. He describes quickly and succinctly a world totally different from our own, yet so close.

Released in 1976 A Wreath of Stars still reads well; it hasn’t dated (if one ignores that Shaw set it in the 1990s and even names a couple of years) and is still a cracking read. Shaw’s pacing is again excellent, although some of the characters aren’t as well drawn as in most of his other novels, and the premise of the novel, along with the depiction of the Avernians and their world, kept me engrossed from beginning to end. Brushing up on it again for this post I re read most of the book; parts coming back to me from memory. Thematically it may be one of his most underrated novels; that of worlds within worlds, based on scientific possibility. But then he has written the Orbitsville novels and they tower over all of his other works, justifiably or not.

Problem with blogs 2

The problem is via Compila. I tried to log in to my cpanel on both of the domains I have and both give the same error pertaining to disc space. I know for a fact that there is enough disc space available on both domains; one of the blogs hasn’t had an entry for a long time. Three separate blogs giving the same problem, all running different versions of WordPress: highly unlikely they would give the same error. I can’t log into either of my domains via the cpanel but I can get into them via ftp. I have emailed Compila about this and hope to have it resolved asap. I should have gone to another hosting company. I’ve recently renewed both my domains for another year, and I’ve had some glitches with Compila before but this is more serious. 24/7 support it is not. One problem I can put down to WordPress, but not three separate blogs and the both the cpanels for two separate domains.

The Evil in Pemberley House 2

This book, which I pre-ordered in February and which has just been published, has arrived here, avoiding major postal strikes. It came all the way from America in about a week or so. The Bob Shaw book I ordered from South Africa – a stone’s throw away compared to America – has yet to arrive, and isn’t expected for another couple of weeks. And I think I paid more in postage for the South African book than the Philip Jose Farmer/Win Scott Eckert book. That’s postal systems for you I suppose.

I bought the limited edition of The Evil in Pemberley House and it arrived with an accompanying chapbook, also limited edition. I’m looking forward to starting to read the novel over the weekend. The limited edition is still available on Subterranean Press and other sites, but I doubt if there are many left: I have number 141. That’s over seventy percent of the number available -  unless they’re posting copies out and not bothering to use the numbering on the 200 limited editions, but I can’t see any reason for doing that.

Both arrived in wrapping and I’m half tempted to leave them unread and pristine.

The book itself is an excellent printing, and as Win Scott Eckert points out the binding on the limited edition is different to the binding on the normal hard back. The novel itself runs to a couple of hundred pages, which is a bit light nowadays but I’m not complaining: I’m not too keen on really long books. (It took me months to wade through David Simon’s Homicide and its’ companion The Corner.)

I did have a brief look through the chapbook. It’s closer to a booklet, running at 50 pages, and has a piece about the Wildman coat of arms, the outline of the novel, a chronology of events relating to the novel and a short piece by Win Scott Eckert.

The Evil in Pemberley House

I was just over to the website of Subterranean Press and noticed that The Evil in Pemberley House is now shipping and for sale. I actually bought the signed version of this way back in February and it’s great to see it finally released. Let’s hope there aren’t any problems shipping my copy over the Atlantic. I bought a Theodore Sturgeon book that took ages to come across the Atlantic, but that was due to the bookseller going with a specific courier.

I made the order on hearing of the passing of Philip Jose Farmer at the beginning of this year. I only have a handful of his works but what I did read impressed me greatly; he was a fine and vivid writer.

I’m really looking forward to reading this book. It is about the daughter of ‘Doc Savage’ and how she visits a house she has inherited. Going from titbits on the official blog it’s a work that Farmer started way back in the seventies but never finished.

I loved the Doc Savage novels too, although I gave away as many as I’ve kept. They’re great fun to read and show a breadth of imagination from the original (main) author Lester Dent. In fact – assuming reasonable prices – I might pick up a few more Doc novels for reading. There are one hundred and eighty of them and I’ve read perhaps twenty to thirty.

Have A Break

As the advertising slogan goes. I haven’t been online much this week either. I really should log into the social network sites I’ve signed up for. It’s been a while since I logged into any of them. I suppose if I’m online more there’s a better chance I’ll get round to logging into them.

The title of this post is in reference to a chocolate snack available in the UK, of which I have been partaking quite a bit this week, mainly because there are now special packs available that have codes inside them giving free music downloads. I’ve signed up and snaffled a few tracks. There is a five song limit but that is restricted to per email address. It has also caused me to nip over to 7digital and buy some more tracks from said artists and others.

I still haven’t got around to reading Iain Bank’s Matter, and I couldn’t get into the Bruno Lipshitz novel, but I did buy a couple of books of short stories and read most of the Robert Silverberg one, Sunrise on Mercury. I devoured Robert Silverberg years ago. I would read anything from him and enjoyed most of what I read.

Another Book On The Way

I ordered Tomorrow Lies In Ambush via biblio dot com at a reasonable price. Under £20 including postage. In the UK this book is on sale for three figures.  Speaking of threes, the postage was about (exactly; I just used a calculator) three times the book price. I was expecting it to arrive in around two weeks but the receipt says 42 to 56 days. It’s coming from South Africa and that’s not as far away as US. I’ve order a few books from the US and they normally arrive within a couple of weeks.

I didn’t even look at the special delivery option – if the standard option was three times the price of the book. …

So I can look forward to an addition to my hardback collection sometime in October, assuming it’s on track and not delivered before the due date.