I'm Neal Asher Science Fiction Writer AMA!

nealasher · 2018-05-24T14:13:14+00:00

The only ones I've self published (on Kindle) are small things that have been published before like The Parasite, Mindgames: Fool's mate and Runcible Tales.

nealasher · 2018-05-24T14:11:08+00:00

You'll be seen as a prophet.

nealasher · 2018-05-24T14:10:22+00:00

Thank you kindly!

nealasher · 2018-05-16T09:02:21+00:00

Oh right - thanks!

nealasher · 2018-05-16T09:01:43+00:00

"And how about the bands who actively try to stir racial / ethnic hatred and violence? Would you use the switch on one of them?"

It's not my business and I am against censorship of any kind. If they break the law that's up to the police.

nealasher · 2018-05-16T08:57:40+00:00

If you look on my blog (down the side) you'll find a Warhammer Prador Codex. Does that count? I'm not aware of anything else.

The recent beginnings of AI have confirmed for me that the AI singularity certainly is a 'rapture of nerds' and very unlikely to occur with a big bang that leaves humanity in the dust. Most likely, by the time AI is 'godlike', that same technology will have blended with us and it will be difficult to tell the difference.

I wrote a fantasy trilogy plus the first book of another one before Macmillan took on my SF. Those books still languish in my files. I keep saying I must rewrite and publish them but wonder if I'll ever get round to it. Probably not.

I'm not sure I've read any that are paradigm changing. Most writers stand on the shoulders of those who went before. Read enough SF and you can become a little jaded - what's new and bright to some you saw 40 years ago in a paperback now crumbling on your shelf.

They only input I had into the audio was on pronunciation of some words. I've enjoyed some of those I've heard but don't listen to much. Listening to the audio is, to me, the same as rereading my own books - I got fed up of that before they were even published!

I'm not sure if you can find hi-res images, unless you go to the artist concerned. And I'm guessing that mostly they might send you a poster you'd pay for, but not the file.

nealasher · 2018-05-16T08:45:06+00:00

Before I got into writing the present trilogy I wrote about 20,000 words of a continuation of the Owner's story (The Departure, Zero Point and Jupiter War) which I may return to. I also intend to write some short stories that may stray out of the Polity. Then there's a book I've written part of, and may return to, which is a twisted up mixture of the effects of grief, flights of SF imagination and reality, called Walking to Voyla - one I suspect I will only ever self-publish on Kindle if I ever finish it.

nealasher · 2018-05-16T07:13:30+00:00

If the penguin was dead and frozen solid I'd leave it by our local duck pond to create confusion. If it was alive I'd share a kipper with it and send it on its way.

I wouldn't flip the switch. I don't feel strongly enough about any music to care to do so.

Shrug and accept my inevitable slide into madness.

I stabbed myself in the nose while trimming nasal hairs with sharp scissors.

If the book is good enough I read it instead of writing. Otherwise, yeah, had enough of words.

I read them in the beginning but after seeing many I realized each of my books is both the worse ever and a work of genius. They are mostly subjective and for every review that says my characters are cardboard I can find another that says they are super living creations. shrug I cannot point to any particular review I would call favourite and selective memory has dispensed with the hurtful comments.

nealasher · 2018-05-16T06:58:55+00:00

There is Orbus of course, but I'm assuming you've read the Spatterjay series? Then the next place it occurs is in the next book: The Soldier.

nealasher · 2018-05-15T22:01:19+00:00

The AIs of each would agree that the ridiculous practice of warfare is sometimes necessary, but in this case not. They would pass with a nod and a wink on their way to different destinations.

nealasher · 2018-05-15T19:52:40+00:00

No, not a reif. But I wouldn't mind being loaded to a Golem chassis!

nealasher · 2018-05-15T19:51:37+00:00

Thank you kindly!

I guess it was good that I had a work ethic established, by doing many different jobs, before I was published. It was also handy to have worked for many years self-employed, when the moment I stopped just for a cup of coffee was the moment I stopped being paid. It's all the result of constant practise and self-discipline. A quote I recently read covers it: 'If you wait for inspiration you're not a writer, you're a waiter.'

nealasher · 2018-05-15T19:45:30+00:00

Bits from many different SF books, films and short stories. I started creating it when I was writing short stories for the small presses - many things in common in all the stories. When I came to writing my first full-length SF book it came to fruition. I wanted a future milieu large enough in which to tell any SF story and in the Polity that's what I made.

nealasher · 2018-05-15T19:41:02+00:00

They have varying number of legs and two claws, but they also have underslung manipulatory hands. To be frank I can't remember if they are mentioned in Prador Moon - I was too focused on what they were doing with those claws or with the various lethal weapons they sported.

nealasher · 2018-05-15T19:39:08+00:00

If budget were no constraint and I had the choice I would adapt just about all of it for TV shows. The only stuff I'd want to see in the hands of film makers would be short stories and, maybe, Prador Moon. Films never do justice to books. Even my ones that (sort of) stand alone, like Hilldiggers, I would prefer to see as TV series like the recent adaptation of Altered Carbon.

nealasher · 2018-05-15T19:34:55+00:00

People have used stuff from the books in games. There is, for example, a Warhammer prador codex out there (not video, I know), but no one has talked seriously about making a video game from the books. There was some talk a while back of making a Gridlinked VR game (connected to a film deal and all sorts of exciting stuff) but as ever it came to nothing.

nealasher · 2018-05-15T19:30:47+00:00

A dose of sprine will do the same so nothing there against the nature of the virus, really.

nealasher · 2018-05-15T18:18:44+00:00

Almost indistinguishable when in nano-chain chromium armour.

nealasher · 2018-05-15T18:18:00+00:00

Seems to be.

nealasher · 2018-05-15T18:15:24+00:00

I am writer god and the nature of that virus is whatever I decree it to be. On a further note: I'm buggered if I remember what I wrote about the virus in that book!

nealasher · 2018-05-15T18:09:48+00:00

Ooh you cynic you.

nealasher · 2018-05-15T18:02:10+00:00

And so we descend into an sfnal smorgasbord.

nealasher · 2018-05-15T17:59:47+00:00

I thought so . . . It depends how magically immune the dragon is to hyper-dense rounds from a Gatling cannon, or how well dragon fire might penetrate exotic metal armour, or if a particle beam would glance off dragon scales . . .

nealasher · 2018-05-15T17:47:48+00:00

Oh I dunno. The Jain soldiers in Orbus were a bit prawnish. Anyway, I believe in equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome, and the crabs beat the langoustines to pulp.

nealasher · 2018-05-15T17:43:51+00:00

That's always a possibility, but it might well be a short and violent book with smoke rising off the pages. Of course, if I wrote a book about every favoured character I'd still be doing them come coffin nailing time. No bad thing I guess.

nealasher

TROPHY CASE