Spaceships, The Apocalypse and Blood Meridian
Oh, boy there are too many things that are going on right now!
I’m going to start with the really amazing one:
Spaceships!
In just over seven days, the Kickstarter for my novel got fully funded! SUNWARD SKY is going to be a real life book, and the special editions will be sent to the printers in early November once the Kickstarter is complete!
I’m super excited about this. This project was one that just stuck in my head and wouldn’t get out until I went back and “fixed” it (i.e: rewrite a whole heap of it and make the story better because it was irritating me that I’d left it in a first-draft kind of state). I was hopeful that the Kickstarter would go off, but also extremely nervous that I’d put all the energy into the project for naught. The first couple of days after publishing the Kickstarter in particular were quite nerve-wracking!
Anyway, it’s funded now and that’s awesome and I am SO grateful to everyone who got on board.
If you’re interested in this novel either in ebook or paperback, feel free to back the project by going to https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/henryneilsen/sunward-sky-a-novel . If you back it, you’ll get your name in the acknowledgements and the blue and red special limited release version of the book! Plus, you’ll be helping an indie author who’s just starting out to get his name out there. Which is a nice thing to do.
The Apocalypse!
In other news, I’ve been on a bit of a bender regarding post-apocalyptic content right now. Maybe part of it is just the *gestures vaguely at everything*, but it’s also just a side of sci-fi I’ve not explored much before. I am very much a dystopian/speculative/cyberpunk girly (except, yknow, a guy) and I hadn’t really seen much of it. That all changed when I saw Noah Caldwell-Gervais’ excellent (and epic) Youtube video about the Fallout game series, and I decided to read A Canticle For Liebowitz after its mention by Gervais.
And god damn did that open the floodgates. Liebowitz was a type of science fiction satire like I’d never seen before. At once hilarious, brutal, nihilistic and incredibly angry. If you haven’t read it, do yourself a favour.
I’ve been bingeing post-apoc stuff ever since. I have been playing Fallout: New Vegas myself, as well as watching all of the Mad Max films (though I admit, Furiosa didn’t do much for me, but damn it’s stylish). I’m also reading a contemporary Aussie author’s take on a post-climate crisis world: I’m about halfway through The Faithless and the Damned by Sev Romero and I’m having a whale of a time. I knew we were in for something good when an early part of the book features a shock jock radio host getting his comeuppance at the hand of some climate vigilantes. Also, there’s a boxing kangaroo and and angry man with a flamethrower on the cover. Hell yes.
All this is in aid of a project I’m hoping to start once SUNWARD SKY finishes up - a new novel set in regional Victoria in a post apocalypse with a twist. A slightly different vibe, with my usual but what if technology was bad, actually? angle, so keep an eye out for that next year some time I hope.
In the meantime, grab Sev’s book. It’s great: https://books2read.com/thefaithlessandthedamned
And if you have any suggestions for more post-apocalyptic science fiction, please let me know! Shout it out in the comments!
Blood Meridian!
Finally, I’m still trying to work on putting out some more Youtube content. I went way too hard too early with my video essay about architecture and cyberpunk, but I think it’s easier now I have at least a rudimentary understanding of how to edit videos.
The next one I want to release is a discussion about Blood Meridian, the absolute nightmare of a novel released by Cormac McCarthy. I had to sit with it a little while to process it, because it’s an extremely brutal read. I have a script for that video mostly written now, and I’ll have that out in early December, I reckon. If you want to read one of the most horrific but also most brilliant novels ever put to paper, definitely check that book out, because god damn.
Anyway, that’s all from me for the moment. Thanks for reading! I’ll catch you in the next one.
