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Yesterday afternoon, a UPS van rolled up outside my place, and a box of boxes was delivered to me. Inside it was the paperback of .

Nice, hey?

Of course, the question is, what do I need with all those copies of the book? The answer is: I don’t. They’ll sit in a box in the corner of my office, where they will take up space, and become part of the cat’s late night sprinting course through the house (we have young cats). It’s not the fate that shiny new books should be subjected to.

So, it’s time for a giveaway.

I have fifteen copies I’m going to send around to various people from various parts of the world. The box had twenty, but I’ll keep five for friends, family, and vague strangers that you have to thrust copies upon at random intervals (you’d be surprised), but the rest, I’m going to give to the people who drop me a line first or some other completely random reason like I liked the sound of their address. It appears the old livejournal redirect I was using has died � or at least isn’t working at the moment � so drop me a line at benjaminmichaelpeek at gmail dot com if you’re wanting one.

I’m not fussed where you live, or anything like that, so don’t stress it if you’re in Iceland or Mexico or wherever. However, once you have one, what you can do for me is, after you have read it, if you liked it, tell a friend about the book, or even buy one for them as a gift.

Thanks,

Ben.

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Ìý

I usually try to blog every Monday, but last Monday was Australia Day, and so I didn’t.

The older I get, the more difficult the day becomes, for me. It does for a lot of people, really. When I was a kid, I was taught that the day was the day that Australia was discovered, as if, somehow, it had not existed before. I didn’t question it at five or six. Most kids don’t. I didn’t grow up in a household that would, either. The last two decades, however, haven’t given me the excuse of being able to claim that it was simply what I was taught, and each year, I find myself thinking about how Australia Day seeks only to reinforce the concept of Terra Nullius. How, each year, on the 26th of January, Australia � and especially white Australia � sit around and celebrate a concept that denies the rights of first sovereignty to indigenous men and women, and continues to deny them this, despite the apology given to them years ago, now. More and more, I become convinced that the day is one that damages the necessary reparation that needs to take place in Australia, and one that further takes men and women of all colours and creeds away from the idea of making Australia something that we can all be proud in. Such is the damage of continually celebrating the acts of colonialism from an empire long gone.

So, yeah, I didn’t blog on Australia Day. I simply didn’t feel like it.

***

ÌýIn other news, will be released in paperback in a couple of weeks. Hopefully, I’ll have a short story set in the world that I can release on the day for everyone, but we’ll see. No promises on that kind of thing: sometimes it comes easy, sometimes it comes hard, and I just roll with it, as I normally do.

However, if you want an interview, or something similar, feel free to hit me up. Alternatively, if you’ve read the book and liked it, feel free to post a review somewhere, or tell a friend.

In other news, made t for fantasy fiction.

***

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the idea of an apolitical novel, and how I think it doesn’t exist.

Every now and then you see an author, or a reader, or someone from another art form, talking about how their work isn’t political, or how they don’t like politics in the work to be shoved at them. There’s nothing wrong with that: after all, there are works that are overtly political, and works that are not, and that’s fine. People, after all, read for a variety of reasons. But the truth is, I simply don’t believe that anything is free from politics. You may not notice politics in a certain work, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there. It can be a very simple concept, such as the idea that to sacrifice your life up for your friends, or your country, or it can be something that takes up a lot more space and is a lot more complex, such as the socio-political dynamics that you have built into or out of, your fantasy world. Indeed, it may be as simple as genre tropes: the monarch kingdom is a conservative political idea, and it’ll sit there as that, no matter if your characters engage in it or not.

An apolitical book is a myth, but not all books are about politics, or left and right divides. My first novel, Black Sheep, is a political novel. It set out to write about racism and, though the book is rough and, in places, not very well done, the political focus of the book was its purpose. The Godless, on the other hand, is not a political book. The issues of equality that have been at the centre of much of my writing over the last twenty or so years � yes, sadly, I’ve been at it that long � were changed into a world building guideline for the book. Simply put, the fantasy world that I made is a multicultural one, but around equality � and by that, I mean, anyone can be anyone. After that, however, none of the politics of equality become thematic, or plot driven. The plot is instead about armies, about dead gods, lost cities underground, and all the other bits and pieces that make up a novel, including, the politics of two cities. But it’s not a political book, not in the way that Black Sheep, or another dystopian novel, would be.

Still, it isn’t without politics, but that is no different to all novels, in all genres, and fantasy is no different. An author may not wish to write about the rights of women, but by limiting them in the narrative, a political choice is made. It is not necessarily a bad one, either: there is nothing wrong with a book that explores the relationships of men with each other. There is a larger argument to be made against an literature in general and their treatment of women, but no one novel or author will bare that burden (we all do, no matter who we are) but there remains nothing wrong with such a good. Just as there is nothing wrong with books where women explore their relationships with each other, or homosexual men and women explore their relationships, and so on and so forth. Rather, my point is that a choice, even made for nothing more than narrative demands, still remains one with a political weight to it, and these, in combination with all the other choices that an author makes for his or her work, ultimately ensure that no book can ever be apolitical.

Anyhow, a thought for today, vaguely organised in a blog post.

Originally published at . You can comment here or .

Ìý

To start the week, here’s an interview I did over at .

***

The year is starting to move forward. Work on the third, still untitled book of the series, continues, and I’m about fifty thousand words done. The Godless, when I finished it, was just under a hundred and twenty when I finished it (it took on another twenty thousand in edits, give or take), so technically, I am about half way. Of course, this book will likely be a hundred and eighty when it is done, about the same Leviathan’s Blood is, so there’s still plenty of work, yet. But once I’ve tidied up this chapter, my girlfriend will read it, and I will move forward. For those of you who haven’t stopped reading this paragraph yet, yes, my girlfriend reads it as I write it. She tells me when things aren’t working. You should thank her, truthfully. She stops a lot of shit.

Not all partners are like that, of course. My previous partners didn’t read my work in drafts, though they occasionally did in its finished form. But regardless of if they did that or not, they were all supportive of the work and that is the most important part. When you start out producing art (I’m using the term broadly, meaning writing, painting, music, whatever) you are basically running on fumes. You are very rarely making money out of it. You are very rarely being told that you are a genius. It’s just you, the work, and the attempt to find someone to like it. If you’ve a partner, they’re support is pretty important. It’s easy to find people in your art who will tell you that you aren’t worth anything. Sometimes, they’re even right. But you’ll find it easier to walk through those people if you have a partner who as your back. Like I said, most of my previous partners weren’t reading my work and telling me I was a genius. My girlfriend would also, I suspect, drink poison than call me a genius. But they’ve always respected the time, and the importance of it to me, just as I respected what they were doing.

Nowadays, I am lucky that my girlfriend is interested in reading my work, and that she’s well read, quite often in a lot of ways that I am not. Of course, everything that I just said in the previous paragraph about my work is completely true about , and I try to be as supportive for her work as she is about mine. Which, lets face is, is basic relationship kind of shit, but I’m always surprised by how many people fail at its simplicity.

***

I read the first volume of Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples� Saga over the weekend and quite liked it. A sort of science fiction slash fantasy series in which men with horns marry women with wings and are then hunted by princes with TV heads, it starts with a Biblical reference, and then goes on from there. There was lots to enjoy but one of the things I enjoyed most was its diversity. It was built into the background of the comic so that the cast always seemed diverse and multicultural, much like the real world. The comic doesn’t make a big deal out of it, it just presents it in that fashion, much like Steve Erikson does in his Books of the Malazan Fallen series, for those of you who’d like another example. Anyhow: before I read it, I’d been reading about the need for diversity in fiction, which to me is a simple equality issue and why people get bent about it I’ll never understand, so I was nicely pleased to find it in a book that has been getting a lot of press and a lot of props from people.

Anyhow, as recommendations go, that’s today’s one, and I am now, of course, back to work.

Peace.

Originally published at . You can comment here or .

Ìý

And so, we’re back.

I hope you had a good holiday, wherever you were, and that it was easy, and chill. It was, thankfully, that for myself and my girlfriend. Over the break, I got given a record player after fussing around and not buying one for a number of years, so at the end of the year, we sat round, played records, read books, and drank. It was a nice way to finish 2014, and I won’t miss that year, for all the good it held, because of all the sadness it held. A new year, a new start. Until, of course, it is no longer that.

***

In Febuary, the paperback edition of The Godless will be released, and the book will be truly out and about. Later, in the early part of August, Leviathan’s Blood will be released in hardcover.

Hardcovers are, by and large, considered editions for collectors these days. Personally, I prefer them to paperbacks, but a lot of people like the small editions, for price, size, and simple safety, one assumes. Still, for all the collectors, we have done pretty decently so far. The book could do with more people talking about it and writing their favourable comments about it for all to see. Even if it’s your first time dropping a few lines on Amazon or Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ, it helps me out (Amazon, for example, gives a bit more promotion to a book for every twenty five five star reviews). A lot more of you have read the book than who have written there, and to judge from the feedback I get, a lot of you like it and dig it. If you want to help other people to be see it and spread your love, you’ll need to lend your voice a little. You’ll have my thanks, and I’ll keep thanking you, likely, until I surpass some huge number and own some country, somewhere.

Occasionally, I feel like it’s an endless noise promoting books. I feel like you’re always shouting to make yourself heard over all the other authors who have other books they want you to buy. I think back to last year, and all the blog pieces I wrote about Dead Americans and the Godless, all the pieces that I wrote that weren’t about them (but which were, because I wanted you to buy them), all the interviews, and so on and so forth. I have no idea how the broader reading public decides upon one over the other. But I guess the noise continues, really, and I’ll do the same this year, and keep doing it next year, because at the end of the day, that’s how the gig works.

Could be worse, I suppose. I could be in in film.

***

I like this record player, though of course, I have only a few records. Most of them are old jazz albums my grandfather had, as well as old 75s, and a few classics, here and there. My first record purchased was a Tom Waits performance from the seventies, for those of you curious. But regardless, there’s something very different to listening to a record, and I am not talking about the sound. No, rather it is the experience, the tacticle sensation of placing the record onto the table, and lowering the needle, and letting it play the entire side, song after song, until it reaches the centre, and then you turn it over. I had never stopped listening to albums that way, but in the last few weeks, I have gained a renewed appreciation of it, I believe. Listening to the music, the way the songs fall, the organisation of the album, and sequence of it, until the very end of both sides.

The new year begins, everyone.

Ìý

Originally published at . You can comment here or .

Ìý

This is the last blog post for 2014. Settle in.

***

Yesterday, the Prime Minister of Australia, Tony Abbott, announced a cabinet reshuffle. Of particular interest to me was the shift of the now former Immigration Minister, Scott Morrison, to the Social Services portfolio. Morrison, for those who do not know, is the politician responsible for implementing the government’s ‘Stop the Boats� slogan. On the surface of it, the policy was aimed to stop the arrival of asylum seekers by boat, traveling over dangerous waters in risky conditions to seek aslyum in Australia, as was their humanitarian right. Beneath the surface, and not very far beneath the surface, it was about the portrayal of human beings who cannot defend themself in Australia as selfish, rich men and women who may or may not be terrorists, but who are definately not real refugees to insight racism, fear, and hatred. It is done without self reflection in a country that was colonised by white men and women who arrived on boats, and proceeded, in the name of King and Queen, to committ genoicide.

Over the last year, Morrison, in his role as Immigration Minister, has been the figurehead for the Australian Government in a string of new crimes against humanity. He has placed the Australian military in charge of asylum seekers who arrive by boat, hidden their actions behind a screen of secrecy, and refused to answer all questions about who has arrived and who has not, except to claim victory. On Manus Island and Naura, where aslyum seekers are taken to be ‘processed�, we have been told repeatedly by doctors and psychiatrists and Aid workers that the conditions are awful, inhumane, and will only lead to suffering and self harm. Reports of rising incidents of self harm, miscarriage, and death have supported this. As have reports of women having been forced to queue for sanitary items, men being left with a bottle of water for a whole day, and children have been molested and self harmed themselves. It goes on, but to show just how disgusting it has become, most recently a law was been passed that allows women who do not disclose rape experiences immediately to be denied aslyum. The conditions that asylum seekers have been subjected to have seen some agree to be sent back to the country they fled from. Many have � and will � die there.

It has been awful.

And it has been done, in public, and with public support, because the people who Scott Morrison and the Australian Government could treat so inhumanely, are not white.

***

I am white. My mother’s side of my family came from England, after World War II. My father’s side came from Germany, I think, before that war. Beyond that, I’m a pretty mongrel white. Absent fathers, lost mothers, people from here and there in the great expanse of Europe. You couldn’t find a pure bloodline in me if you tried, really.

Myself, I grew up poor, in a single parent household, living from week to week. I understand how sometimes white people get tired of hearing that they’re are born into privilege when they’re born into lower working class households that feel like everything is a struggle, day in, day out. After all, it is a struggle, no matter what race you are when you’re poor. But for that I was raised in a poor household, I am now an international novelist, a guy with so much education that I can put the word doctor in my title, and someone who claims to be an artist. No one, not once, has stopped to tell me I have achieved great things for my race, that I have gone against the trend of my demographic, or any of the other things that they may tell a person of colour who has achieved the things that I have achieved. I stepped out of a cycle of poverty with all the ease that government funded education, available role models, and society support allowed me to do so. Some people I know didn’t, of course. Some of them were white. Some of them died from drug overdoses before they were thirty. But no one ever said of them, either, that that happens all the time in that white community.

Race is important. Maybe you don’t like to hear it. Maybe you get tired of hearing it. But it is important. Its acknowledgment of it, its discussion of it, its fight for it � all of it is important. I have spent a large part of my adult life writing, researching, and discussing racial representation. My views on it are not the same as they were when I was twenty-eight, or when I was eighteen. The nauances of it have changed. They always change. But one overriding thing has never, ever changed, and that is my belief that the fight against racism is valuable, important, and necessary in our global community.

After all, the goal of our society is to create one of equality, is it not?

***

Last week, the Lindt Cafe in Sydney was the scene of violence and tragedy. A mentally ill man by the name of Man Haron Monis held seventeen people hostage and two, Tori Johnson, and Katrina Dawson, were killed at the end.

It made international news, but more importantly, the hashtag #illridewithyou made international news with it. It arose in response to one woman telling a Muslim woman to not take off her hijab, and that she would sit beside her in solidarity to this decision, and to stand against any who targeted her because of her race and religion. In the face of such a terrible incident, the tag took off, and men and women throughout Australia of all colour, religion, and sexuality, took to it and stood against the racism and hatred that tried to rise from the tragedy of the Lindt Cafe. It made me proud to be an Australian in a year where it has been difficult to be proud to be an Australian. Perhaps I had more pride than I might have normally had because of Tessa Kum’s part in it. Perhaps, but it is neither here nor there, right now. Because it was a way in which men and women took a stand against racism. Because it showed the world that Australia is not the racist country our Government would have us appear to be.

A fight is not won by one thing, or lost by one defeat. A fight against racism is certainly not. It is continual. It is endless. And I hope, next year, the fights will be more like the one that #illridewithyou fought, and less like the one that Scott Morrison and the Australian Government fought.

***

That brings us to the end of the year, everyone. Thanks for reading. Thanks for returning. Thanks, and more, really. I will see you all again in 2015.

Peace.

Originally published at . You can comment here or .

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Over the last few years, I have noticed that I struggle to read, watch, or hear anything in a timely manner, anymore. I used to, but now, nah. I gave up even pretending years ago.

With that said, what follows is a mix of things I’ve enjoyed through the year. Maybe some of them came out this year, but most likely, they didn’t. For example, two of the novels I enjoyed this year, E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India and Eleanor Catton’s the Luminaries, did not. Both were very different books: Forster’s well known classic was a study of manners within colonialism, and beautifully written in dense, tight prose. An excellent book that I reckon you should read, if you haven’t. Catton’s, set in the New Zealand goldfields, was a big, sprawling book about murder, and star crossed lovers, and the zodiac. Excellent, really. A bit repetitious in places, but overall, excellent. My other novel not published this year but which I thought really excellent was Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat’s Table, which followed a character named Michael as he sails from Colombo to England. The title refers to the table where the poor and unconnected sit. I thought this novel had an almost bittersweet, coming of age story to it, in which the promise of youth and the regrets of adulthood seeped into each other at the end.

For books published this year, I also enjoyed Brendan Connell’s the Metanatural Adventures of Dr. Black quite a lot. It is the type of book that I think will slip beneath the radar of a lot of people, which is unfortunate, because it is his best, and a fine object of a book as well. For books that I read last year but were published this year that I think you ought to check out, I recommend Rjurik Davidson’s Unwrapped Sky, a book about revolutions, and the cost of revolutions in a finely made world. Buy the American edition of the book and you even get to see the blurb that I gave it a year or so ago. Oh yeah.

Film wise, my favourite of the year was Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive, which was a film that completely focused on the potential that vampires have, and a return to form for Jarmusch, at least as far as I was concerned. There were other films that I saw, some in cinemas, some not, but that’s the one I liked the most. I also enjoyed Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood and Sidney Lumet’s Serpico. Both are quite different films � the first is about an oil man in the late 19th century and the second about a cop who speaks out against corruption in the 60s � but I thought that they were all pretty cool.

For music, my albums of the year were the Swans� To Be Kind and A Silver Mt. Zion’s Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything.

Comic wise, I enjoyed Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century, which I read in its collected form, and Matt Kindt’s Mind MGMT which remains excellent and does what few comic books do with its use of the page. My favourite in terms of monthly series remains James Roberts and Alex Milne’s Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye, and the on going B.R.P.D. title managed by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi, and a roster of artists. a special mention should go to Sharon Stone’s art in Transformers: Windblade and some of the various Transformer titles � sweet, stylish stuff. I hope to see more of her in various places.

To be fair, I am sure there are things I have missed here and there. I’ve lost track of a lot during the year, to be fair (and I don’t watch a lot of TV � I always drift away from things from episode to episode) so the list is just the stuff that has sort of stuck with me by the end. I consumed a whole lot less, just in general, which I’m not too pleased about, but that was the nature of my year. Hopefully, next year will be better, and more consistant.

Originally published at . You can comment here or .

Ìý

I usually try to post on a Monday, but yesterday was a bit busy. My partner and I were out at my grandparents place: we were donating the last of their stuff to an organisation called and we had a few things to clean up before that. It wasn’t until around lunch that the driver came to pick the stuff up, and he was a skinny, tanned white guy with a huge beard, and he looked a lot like the graphic novel author Alan Moore.

***

For much of the year, I suppose, the death of my grandparents has been the centre of it. I would like to be able to say to you that it was books, that it was my fiction, but it wasn’t, not really. My grandmother died in Febuary quite suddenly, and my grandfather six months later, in August. We had had to move my grandfather to a high care facility in the intervening six months � he was legally blind, mostly deaf, and suffering from dementia, though he still knew who his family was, and where he was, mostly � and he missed my grandmother terribly. After his death, one of the nurses in the home told me that she thought it was alright for people to let go at a certain point in their lives, and I thought perhaps it summed up the old man’s passing well. It was alright for him to go. He had always envisoned himself reaching a hundred, but when he did, his wife was there with him, and without her, it did not matter greatly. In one of his more lucid moments, he told me exactly that, in fact.

It was a difficult time, as anyone who has had relatives in the situation will know. Both had lived through the second world war, and in the last few years, the horrors of what they had witnessed had begun to bleed out of them, revealing stories none of us had heard before. It highlighted how little the pair of them were given support after the war, how they were expected, as people were then, to simply live with what they had seen, and to deal with it in a quiet dignity that is perhaps impossible to fashion after such events.

It is fitting that the year is ending with the finalisation of their estate, really. It was a year defined by their illnesses and, in the end, their absences, and I suspect the holidays will be quiet because of it. That will be fine. I think it is even fitting, in its own way. You should feel the absences of those that meant something in your life. And in a year defined by their loss, and the loss of other friends, I’ll be alright with a quiet finish to the year.

***

The other half of the year was, of course, books.

I have had no other year like 2014 for publication. Lately, stories such as ‘� and ‘� would have constituted a big year for me, but this year saw me in print in a big way with my first collection, , released in Febuary. About six months later, the first novel in my big, fat fantasy series, , was released. Sadly, you’ll not the similarities in time frames, but regardless of that, I was still totally pleased, and very grateful for my publishers (ChiZine Publications, Tor UK, St. Thomas Dunne, and Piper) for taking the chance with the work, and the support.

The Godless was the most surreal of the two books to be sure. As I left London, I saw loads and loads of the book in the bookstores in Gatwick airport, and people send me pictures of it in other airports, and in train stations and bookstores not connected to international modes of transport, and holy fuck, you know? For the first time in my life, people in my friends and family came across copies of the book in their normal shopping routine and took a photo of it. And, then, for all that, there would be strange moments of people being toldÌý a store didn’t have it because it was in hardcover, and I wasn’t famous enough. It wasn’t often, thankfully, but as a reminder of humility, it was there. Of course, now I imagine that they are all involved in building statues from solid gold in my likeness, so all will be forgiven.

In fact, I have a small story of the Godless to share, just briefly. The of the book was released this week and Audible, who did it, send me a bunch of comp codes, one of which I could use for myself, if I felt like it. I couldn’t imagine a worse fate that listening to my own novel read for sixteen hours, but I thought, well, I ought to have a copy of it anyhow, right? Right. So I went to the site and entered the code, and discovered, because I live in Australia, I am legally not allowed to own a copy of the work. It made me laugh, because in Australia, one of the world’s biggest populations of illegal downloads due to various copyright laws and gouges in costs, I had seen this before. A lot, actually.

(Before you ask: I don’t have any problems with downloading. My publishers probably do, however, and that’s entirely fine. But, myself, I don’t mind. It would be hypocritical of me to say that I did. My only request is if you like it, please go and buy a copy afterwards, and either give it as a gift, or keep it for yourself. Doing that helps me, and it helps me pay the bills and buy groceries, and it ensures that there will be a next book. As much as I would like to tell you otherwise, if you want a next book and a next book and so on and so forth, you have to support the first book with your wallet. That’s just the reality of the situation.)

And, of course, leaving the parenthesis behind, both my books make excellent gifts for Xmas. If you’re wondering what to buy that disillusioned relative, or believer of the birth of christ, my books have you covered, in that neither deal with the holiday at all.

***

At any rate, the day kicks on, and I have things to write, and things to do. I’ll leave on a happy note and say that, while our beloved cat, Lily, died in March, we have had two new cats come to live with us since September, while they are upon occasion too curious, and too demanding at four in the morning, they are, of course, totally and utterly adorable.

Originally published at . You can comment here or .

Ìý

On the weekend, my partner and I drove up to the Entrace for my cousin’s wedding. It’s an hour and half out of Sydney, so nothing huge in terms of travel. But at the same time the wedding was taking place, a fifties festival was taking place in the surrounding streets and beside the beach. Muscle cars and vintage cars lined the streets. You could hear music everywhere you went. People wore the dresses and the shirts and the pants. For some of us, it was hard to tell who was there for a wedding, and who was there because they loved the past, in all its sanitised reproduction.

***

Earlier this year, my short story collection, , was published.

I always liked short fiction and its collections and it is a shame, I think, that not more of it is published in big mainstream presses, for big money. It had decent money, back a hundred years ago, in the time of the pulps, so everything has its time and place. But it’s always been surprising that it hasn’t continued. A short story fits between a lot of things: a train ride, a dinner preparation, an hour here, and do forth. But I guess it’s not how we read, anymore. Big immersive things are what people like (and indeed, I like that as well � and there’s nothing to say you need one or the other). But I like the calling card nature of a short story, the pop song time frame, the shortness of it, as well.

For my blog post this morning, I thought I’d talk a little about the collection, but also find the pieces I have online. The first of them, , is in Dead Americans. It’s one of my Red Sun stories, which will appeal to those of you who have enjoyed the Godless. It’s all red skylines, ash falling from the sky, and giant holes that run through the earth. What surprises me, as I sit here, is actually that I have been writing Red Sun stories for eight years, now. My most recent one was a piece entitled ‘�, and which appeared a few months ago in Nightmare Magazine. It’s a bit strange to think of, really.

The other story of mine that is online is what I call my hard science fiction mixed with Australian colonial history story, ‘�. The opening is a reference to a real outbreak and the death of a technician � my partner, who was once an infectious disease researcher, told me it. But this is about as close to hard science fiction as I’ll ever get, I think. Real hard science fiction authors are probably chuckling right now.

***

Here’s a review of at :

The Godless is nothing but epic, and as the first book in the CHILDREN series, with a world and history much larger than can be put into 400 pages, it feels like a book whose purpose is to set up the events that are to come in the sequels. It could be said that more important than the besieging army story are the characters that Peek introduces here, as more words are spent establishing each character’s backstory than on advancing the main story forward. However, the strategy’s purpose is made clear as you progress through the story, and it is sure to pay dividends in the proceeding installments when all the threads are knitted back together.

Slow and steady in terms of reviews.

I’ve been pleased, actually, to see people talking about the concept of time within the book. Eira, the reviewer, struggled with it, but others haven’t, and if you follow the Amazon link at the top, you can see people talking about it conceptually in the reviews there (which, lets face it, is always a dangerous prospect). But it’s nice to see it being noticed, really. The concept of time that runs through the book was one that took a reasonable amount of time to shape into the book, and to let it exists and explore the ramifications of. Also, when others talk about it, it makes me look much more intelligent than I am (unless they didn’t like it, in which case, you know, I’m not).

But anyhow, we’re continuing along, and thanks to everyone who is discussing the book, and telling people it’s cool. Big thanks for that.

Originally published at . You can comment here or .

Ìý

Here’s a review of :

I must admit that this has been one of myÌýmost enjoyable, refreshing reads for 2014.

I loved the premise, and in general the concepts behind the writing.ÌýIt could just be me bringing my own biases into the reading, but I took a lot of parallels between Peek’s post-Gods world and our own slow move out of the shadow of historical religions. The explorationÌýof what it means for society to stand on its own, without reference to supernatural entities. The taking on of power that has been historically seen as the province of the divine. The need to take responsibility to chart our own path forward. The power of even remnants of religion to inspire terrible deeds in the name of holy mandate. I found Peek’s interrogationÌýof these concepts to be quite powerful and thought provoking. If nothing else, the concepts behind this story would have been enough to hook me in.

But this is no worthy but dry tome, meant to educate rather than entertain. I found the work utterly engaging, and it was only in reflecting on it later than some of these themes came through (and as I say, I could be ascribing my own biases to the work). The use of language in this work is delightful, the pacing superb. I found the characters to be vividly drawn and compelling in their motivations. In short it was an excellent read.

You can read . It’s pretty nice, and I was glad to see someone who enjoyed the time slippage structure, and the diversity.

Also, because it’s referenced in the post, I totally adore Joseph Heller’s Catch 22. I think it’s closest to being one of the most complete and best books I’ve read and, perhaps a bit oddly, I read it while writing the Godless. I found a nice, old hardback of it in a book store in Arkansas, and read it while I was there and on the flight back. I wouldn’t say it had any real influence on me, but any excuse to mention it now to you, if you haven’t read it.

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on the Guardian has been doing the rounds.

You might have read it, already. It’s about an author who confronts her book blogger critic, or perhaps more accurately, stalks her blogger nemesis. It’s all kinds of bad, but it could have been, ‘Someone on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ gave me a bad review and I lived with it.â€� It would have been a shorter article, it’s true, and it would not have had time to introduce the idea of a book blogger using a fake identity to get away with what she/he does, a concept that, lets be honest, isn’t new on the internet, or indeed life. Sadly, I think the thing to take away from the article is just how desperate authors become to have their work read, and to create a successful narrative about it in the reviews, to help propel it along.

But still, it’s easier just to live with a bad review. The truth is, the more people who read your work, the more people you are going to encounter who dislike your work, and from that pool, there will be people who have an axe to grind over you, for something you did (or didn’t do) in your book. You’ll have to deal with it if it’s someone with a fake identity out to bully you, or if it is someone out there who just honestly disliked your book.

But I’m also the guy who once promoted a book by selling badges that said, I Hate Ben Peek, so what do I know?

***

At any rate, that’s enough for today. I have writing that needs to be done, and books that need to be read. In the latter, I am way behind in where I would like to be, and I suspect this year I will fall much lower than my desired book a week plan. There’s a lot of reasons, and I understand that, but still, I want to make an effort to push as far as I can by the end of the year.

After all, in a lifetime, you can only read so much.

Ìý

Originally published at . You can comment here or .

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For my birthday, my girlfriend gave me slipcased, hardcover copies of Fritz Leiber’s Rime Isle and Heroes and Horrors. Both were printed in the late 70s by Whispers Press and were illustrated by Tim Kirk � both very cool, and continue my slow collection of Leiber books by presses long gone. Whispers Press was the publishing arm of Stuart David Schiff’s Whispers magazine, which, according to a quick search, won the first World Fantasy Award for Best Non-Professional Publishing in �75.

I doubt many people remember Whispers, now. I doubt many people know about the press. Sadly, a lot of people do not know about Leiber’s fine and excellent work.

I wonder what Leiber would make of the current debate among the World Fantasy Awards to change the statue from H.P. Lovecraft to something else. Leiber had � if I remember right � a small correspondence with Lovecraft early in his career, but if he was alive today, he’d be a hundred and four, and because of that, perhaps less inclined to want change, as a lot of older men and women do. But then again, perhaps not. Perhaps he would agree that Lovecraft was an awful racist and that it was reasonable that some people might be offended by receiving a statue of him. Perhaps he’d simply say that all things change. Perhaps he’d say that for a modern writers who were receiving the award, the statue ought to perhaps represent someone that they respected, rather than someone they did not. Who knows. I personally ask why the award doesn’t have a cash prize attached to it, but that’s me.

***

A couple of months out from the publication of the Godless and I think it is fair to say the book hasn’t picked up a lot of reviews. A couple of official ones, a handful or two of blog ones, and largely positive.

It is often why I make a point of saying, in these little blog posts, that you should talk about it, drop reviews, and so forth, because for all the frankly excellent store presence it has had, the other side, the talk of it, is part of letting other people know about it as well. Similarly, Dead Americans and Other Stories, sits in the same boat � though it does not have the store presence to support it (short story collections rarely do). For me, there’s a lot invested, but that is no real different to any other author.

Still, that’s why I prod people who have liked it to speak about it, in case you’re curious. It helps all editions, in all countries, and in 2014, I’m shockingly in a few.

***

I watched Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood recently. He is, I think, one of the best film makers to emerge from America in the last two decades. Daniel Day-Lewis is excellent, as well.

I saw the trailer for his new film, Inherent Vice, during the week, and I’m pretty keen to see that.

Anyhow, enough for today.

Ìý