Chart / September

September 30, 2021

The sequel to Reality Testing is DONE.

I mean, I say ‘done’. The first draft is done. Which is like saying a house is done when all you’ve done is run out and buy a bag of cement and dig some holes in the ground. But whatever: this has been a trying year - more so than the last - so I’m pleased to have been able to steer book six in the Grant Price Pantheon of Published and Unpublished Novels to its conclusion. And now I can finally get back to book 5 and give it the attention it deserves.

Book of the month: Death’s End by Cixin Liu. When the first part is about working out how to accelerate a human brain to 1/10 the speed of light so that it’ll be intercepted by an alien armada, you know you’re on to some good nerd writing.

Album of the month: Not Senjutsu by Iron Maiden. Maybe Hey What by Low or The North Water by Tim Hecker.

Film of the month: I mean, Dune, obviously. One of the greatest things I’ve ever seen. If no sequel is made, it will be a travesty.

Music for leaves falling down:

1 Four Tet - She Moves She

2 Tom Waits - Hell Broke Luce

3 Alice in Chains - God Smack

4 Sleater-Kinney - God Is A Number

5 Shinedown - Fly From The Inside

6 The Upsetters - Super Ape

Chart / August

August 30, 2021

Well. Here we are. Train’s pulling in to the end of summer and we’re being kicked out onto the platform of sinking temperatures and insatiable rainclouds. That came quickly.

Still, you know what shit weather is good for? That’s right, skateboarding! I mean writing. I think I said last month that I was aiming to finish the sequel to Reality Testing by the end of August. Didn’t happen, but we are at 75,000 words and it will be done by the end of September. How’s about that. Book six in the bag.

Publications of the month! None, on account of not submitting to any.

Book of the month! Deliverance by James Dickey, the USA’s 18th poet laureate. Never have I read a more self-aware exploration of the boundary between male homosocial and homosexual relationships. The film is more immediate, but Dickey has a way with words that builds on the Hemingway archetype and makes it something even purer and more beautiful.

Film of the month! Promising Young Woman if we’re talking new movies; It Should Happen To You if we’re talking old ones. Judy Holliday was the best.

Swinging vines in the music jungle:

Reality Testing: The Cover: The Movie: The Videogame

August 17, 2021

I suppose there’s not all too much point in shouting this one from the rafters, what with it being on the landing page of this website, but here is the paperback cover of the cyberclimatepunkfi feast known as REALITY TESTING.

Nerds. Nerds everywhere.

It’s also available to PRE-ORDER RIGHT HERE from the reassuringly efficient people at Black Rose. And if you pre-order it before January 27, 2022 you can get 15% off the price using this wonderfully basic code: PREORDER2021. Probably a good idea seeing as the book is listed at the almost-a-joke price of $20.95, which I’m sure is going to prompt many people to jump at the chance to part with their cash.

Jump to it.

8 Indie Books To Read This Summer

July 26, 2021

The very wise people at Kirkus wrote an article last month titled ‘8 Indie Books To Read This Summer’. One of them was mine and I didn’t even notice.

Here’s what they said:

“Set in a future Germany, Reality Testing by Grant Price teems with cyborgs and machine-enhanced humans. Identity theft takes on new meaning when a woman awakens to find herself transplanted into another body. This inventive world, where sexism, climate devastation, and capitalism have run amok, is “a bracing blast of neo-cyberpunk.”

Cyborgs is a bit of a stretch, but whatever. I’m a Donna Haraway fan.

The whole “ramping Reality Testing up for its print release by Black Rose” will be starting soon. Stay tuned for that. It’s going to be a real treat.