The Early Days of a Better Nation

Saturday, January 24, 2009



Publicity material

I'm on BBC1's Sunday morning discussion programme The Big Questions tomorrow (Sunday 24 January) at 10.00 a.m. I don't mind admitting I'm a little nervous, not having been on anything like this before ... then again, I may be overestimating the size of a Sunday morning audience.

In the less demanding medium of cold print, there's an interview with me by long-time SF editor, fan, writer, panelist and gent Andrew J. Wilson in the current issue of ONE magazine, published in Edinburgh and available (it says here) from Stockholm to Selangor, via Prague.

(Two of the three pictures at the top, by the way, are photographic evidence of me glorifying terrorism at Edinburgh radical bookshop Word Power a couple of years ago. Mind you, this glorification included my saying: 'If you're thinking of becoming a terrorist, don't. If you are a terrorist, betray your organization's plans to the police as soon as possible.' But still.)

Very gratifyingly, The Night Sessions has been listed in the SF and fantasy section of the Guardian's list of 1000 novels everyone must read. It has also been shortlisted in the Best Novel category for this year's BSFA Award.

Colour me chuffed.


12 Comments:

Saw The Big Questions on iPlayer.

As ever with drug policy it seems like small potatoes compared with the scale of the problem, taking in Afghanistan, the Taleban, Columbia, FARC, the War on Drugs, and the whole global criminal industrial complex...

Also nice to see a strong Pastafarian contingent in the audience. ;)

Good work, Ken. I saw the BSFA listing a few days ago, the Guardian one by chance, late last night.

Congrats on the Guardian Listing--I've not got around to the Night Sessions yet but bought the hardback for my friend's birthday as he is getting into your fiction (my budget that month could only stretch to two books, and it was Anathem for me, Night Sessions for him).

BTW, is there an RSS feed for the blog--I missed the radio prog, might try an retrieve it on the nonline service, though;-)

Oh yes --- congratulations on the Guardian listing!

Well done on the listing and nomination! I missed the broadcast due to the previous night's excesses but hope all went well. Did anything interesting crop up?

Love your books. Especially Newton's Wake and Learning the World.

Seems like it takes forever for your work to be published in the US. I can't even find a proposed date for a US edition to The Night Sessions.

Any plans? Or do I need to get it shipped across the pond.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone! Nothing very interesting cropped up, but it was an interesting experience of what things look like on the other side of the screen.

Jason, I don't have a date for US publication of The Night Sessions.

well done re Guardian listing and BSFA!

Thanks, Pippa.

So what were the discussions about, and how did it go? We underprivileged Norwegians don't have BBC1.

Solan, the discussions were: about anti-English sentiment, about the adulation of bad lads, and about whether addicts should have benefits made conditional on treatment. I didn't have enough practice in getting a word in edgeways to say all I wanted to. We live and learn.

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