What I've been doing and what I plan to do...

I’ve been watching....

Torchwood: Miracle Day – great idea, what would happen if people stopped dying? But lousy story. There’s no villain, just a shady conspiracy theory with no particular direction and our band of heroes are just dithering around following spurious leads that don’t really reveal anything or go anywhere.

James Bond – every Saturday night, TVNZ have been showing all of the Bond movies, in order. Great Fun, even the rubbish ones. I was surprised at how good ‘On her majesty’s secret service” was – it being the one with George Lazenby. And ‘Live and Let Die’ shows just how cool the 70’s were, at least, the jet-setting, digital watch, coffee maker and pale blue flares side of it was.

Aliens Resurrection – nonsense, drivel, just plain bad. Though Winona Ryder was still very cute.

I’ve been reading....

Stranger in a strange land by Robert Heinlen – hard work, an awful lot of philosophy and not so much action, but great, sixties-style, tripped-out, free-lovin fun. I grok it is a goodness.

Dolores Clairborne by Stephen King – excellent stuff from the master. Gripping, quirky thriller.

Imajica by Clive Barker – I’ve just started it, and it’s intriguing so far. A big difference between Barker and King is that Barker’s characters aren’t really regular people – they are artists or aristocrats or dealers in forgeries; there’s no normal people with normal jobs like in King’s, largely, blue-collar world of domestic violence and alcohol abuse. This doesn’t make Barker any less engaging, he still manages to make his characters believable, and both Barker and King conjure up awesome fantasty.

The Spy who came in from the cold by John le Carre – very good, grim, grey and hard cold war thriller. Set in the early 1960’s but there is no sign of any swinging going on, just grimy bedsits, menial filing jobs and bleak weather. No really, it’s a cracking read!

 

I’ve been writing...

I did manage to complete the “prologue” of The Power, so I have a kind of “origin” story for the Man with a Billion Brains, and the groundwork for the bigger story to come.

I will be doing…in 2012

Write and publish in e-book form a couple of novellas, one for end of April, one for November...

Write The War on Mars.

Write The Power.
Find homes for those poor, unloved short stories, currently limping around on my hard drive.
Do a Triathlon.
Have mild 40^th birthday mid-life crisis (will have to be approved by my wife).

Right, and this month’s drabble....with apologies to my Reader in Carterton; Appendicitis is NOT funny.

The Intelligent Designer had a hangover. What had the party been about; something about the Boss’s son being born in a million years’ time.

The Boss never had hangovers. “Get the humans finished,” he’d shouted, “they’re made in my image so better be done right. Not like that platypus thing.”
The Designer groaned. The human was nearly done. Hang on, what was the appendix doing there? It was a leftover from a cow. A shameful memory surfaced.
“Is it done?” shouted the Boss.
Sod it. He sewed up the human. He was sure the appendix wouldn’t cause any trouble later.

So what have my vast army of followers been watching/ reading/ doing/ planning to do?