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Sean Williams
one last thing... 
19th-Nov-2006 10:50 am
It, HC Headshot, copernicus 2, outhouse, magic dirt, fly, saucer men, grattis, flight to mars, unleashed logo, Orphans head, gedosenki A, man from planet X, WOTF 23, saturn returns, crab monsters, fingers, cenotaxis, saturn title, psycho, changeling close, red moon, destination moon, zombie, boot, Movember 1, suicide pistol, squid, haiku, energy dome, inflatable dalek, beach, silent p, dalek & madonna, dog collar, earth ascendant, dalek & kylie, squid fancy, Movember 3, dirt 1, Movember - FZ wallpaper, city painting, south park, seth bullock, askew, aurealis head, Movember 2, glitter negative, trouvelot mars, Washington, destination: prague, gedosenki C, pink pills, Movember - FZ water, bert, Wig, bear, Mischevious, kev07, Lodo, tux, movember - wolfman, cosmic monsters, denied a voice, trouvelot nebula, russian egghead, sorry, kittens, blob, tubeway, glitter - not, unleashed, pirate, kb's party, gedosenki B, berserker, Movember - FZ black, hanging mountains, quantum lolcat, beast with 10000 eyes, Gazza, cenotaxis - audible, killers from space, destroy all monster, cosmic man, wedding 1, magritte, invaders from mars, robot, fringe ticket, in the name of the law, gary numan ticket, goldfrapp A&E, copernicus, giant claw, numan's eye, green sun, trouvelot jupiter, simpsons, Imre, PEN, saturn returns - audible
Earlier this year I performed a reading at the launch of a new Adelaide "literary salon" called Wordfire. I decided to read from Saturn Returns, as I had in Brisbane while high on painkillers. Scott Westerfeld commented after that reading that I had balls, and I'm still not sure if he was referring to the drugs or the content of the piece...

Anyway, here it is, out on the web for the first time. Enjoy.

(PS. This bit comes from the very start of the novel, when I'm still setting things up--both the world the story's set in and the general tone--and I was trying to find new ways to infodump. I sincerely hope it works for readers, on every level.)
Comments 
19th-Nov-2006 02:40 am (UTC)
Awesome! I just preordered a copy from Amazon.
19th-Nov-2006 03:52 am (UTC)
Anonymous
Here's (http://www.spacearchaeology.org/tiki-index.php?page=Saturn+Returns) my notes on what I've read so far ...

One question: if the protagonist was encoded in the spiral inside the Drum, then how could his DNA have contaminated the Background?
19th-Nov-2006 03:53 am (UTC)
Oops. That was me. For some reason LJ logged me off.
19th-Nov-2006 05:21 am (UTC)
That's fantastic. Thanks heaps for the feedback. You're absolutely right that Imre's DNA won't have any effect on the Background, since all that's being dispersed is the remains of the Drum. Imre's mistake in that instance leads him away from the truth, which is that the Jinc have other reasons for "resurrecting" him...
19th-Nov-2006 02:31 pm (UTC)
Ah hah ... the plot thickens ... I'm as keen as Imre to see what discoveries the Jinc has made ...

Heh ... I notice you said "the Jinc have" in your comment here ... was that a pain when writing the book?

I just had to make some corrections in my analysis.
19th-Nov-2006 10:45 pm (UTC)
I notice you said "the Jinc have" in your comment here ...

Gah! Yes. Nicely spotted. I had to make a lot of corrections to the final ms, and I've been working on other projects since so the habit has slipped. That's my mistake for making the gaff this time, but it won't hold water again. :-)
19th-Nov-2006 03:16 am (UTC)
Looking forward to it a lot!
19th-Nov-2006 05:24 am (UTC)
:-)

I feel strangely nervous about this book, even though at the same time I feel very confident about it. Maybe I'm missing my Shane Dix security blanket/safety net.
19th-Nov-2006 05:35 am (UTC)
A large part of the reason I am so looking forward to it is because it is a little outside your comfort zone.
19th-Nov-2006 07:00 am (UTC)
Yeah, what you said. He's nervous = bodes well.
19th-Nov-2006 07:37 am (UTC)
I hope so. Otherwise I've been nervous for nothing. :-)
19th-Nov-2006 05:28 am (UTC)
Awesome! Can't wait.
19th-Nov-2006 11:08 pm (UTC)
Hey, I got me one of those South Park icons too, but couldn't figure out how to do the background. I look like a ghost, which perhaps isn't entirely a bad thing. :-)
19th-Nov-2006 11:44 pm (UTC)
The button marked "back" stands for background, not "go back".
19th-Nov-2006 11:57 pm (UTC)
Got it. :-)
20th-Nov-2006 01:04 am (UTC)
Aha. Heh.
20th-Nov-2006 01:04 am (UTC)
That's quite a cute icon! Mine came via [info]jaylake in fact. I made it with this thing:
http://www.sp-studio.de/
and did a Prnt Scrn (on a PC) to get it into the clipboard and paste it into an image editor to make the icon...

You know, I've had that excerpt of Saturn Returns going round my head since I read it. I've been reading the excellent stories in Forbidden Planets (you know, people like Mr Lake, Paul McAuley, Al Reynolds and others), along with Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion (lots of fun!), yet as I lay in bed I was thinking of the fate of our Hungarian-named protagonist, thrust 150,000 years into the future. Cool.
20th-Nov-2006 01:44 am (UTC)
Thanks, Peter. I got there in the end. :-)

You know, you're the second person I know reading and enjoying Dawkins' book. Think I'm going to have grab a copy...
20th-Nov-2006 01:53 am (UTC)
I mean, on the one hand I don't really see any practising priests giving up their religion as a result of reading it; and on the other hand, it's not necessarily going to teach us atheists anything we don't already know. But Dawkins writes very well, and there is so much in there that there is plenty of fodder for atheists, and there are some great stories too.
It's worth having on the shelf I guess. I did also enjoy Dennett's Breaking The Spell, although I haven't finished it yet. Again, as polemic I doubt it will convince the believers. The reviews of both have displayed a distressing willingness to pull up the same old crap that gets well rubbished by the authors in the text, but the reviewers clearly haven't really read the books. Which is kinda funny, and it's kinda sad.
21st-Nov-2006 12:26 am (UTC)
Ohhh ... I get it!

A spiral on the inside of a cylinder is a helix ... which is very appropriate considering that the helix in the Drum contains Imre's genetic code.

All grist for exoarchaeologists to argue over.

e.g. Was the symbolism intentional, or is a spiral the most efficient way to inscribe information on the inside of a cylinder?
21st-Nov-2006 12:53 am (UTC)
Anonymous
This is great, Sean. I really like it and I want the rest of the novel immediately!

Garth Nix
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