{"id":1002,"date":"2016-05-18T20:46:49","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T20:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/richardabbott.datascenesdev.com\/blog\/?p=1002"},"modified":"2016-05-18T20:46:49","modified_gmt":"2016-05-18T20:46:49","slug":"bits-and-pieces-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/richardabbott.datascenesdev.com\/blog\/index.php\/2016\/05\/18\/bits-and-pieces-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Bits and pieces"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure style=\"width: 303px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov\/browse\/PIA14293.jpg\" alt=\"Daybreak at Gale Crater (NASA\/JPL)\" width=\"303\" height=\"171\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Daybreak at Gale Crater (NASA\/JPL)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Several bits and pieces to talk about today. First, I was nominated in one of these\u00a0&#8220;post seven lines from page seven of your current Work in Progress&#8221; challenges. It&#8217;s always a bit tricky picking out where page seven is, since I write initially for Kindle. But what follows\u00a0is a fair guess. The story is (provisionally) called <em>Timing<\/em>. It opens with Mitnash and Slate back on the Scilly Isle asteroids, having just come in from a long and seemingly dull trip out to one of the moons of Jupiter. They are at Frag Rockers Bar with their friends, and one of them has just mentioned a leaflet which appeared recently, circulated by a group called Robin&#8217;s Rebels which Mitnash has never heard of.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span class=\"text_exposed_show\" style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Eibhlin took the leaflet from Rydal.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"text_exposed_show\">\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">&#8220;Here, listen. &#8216;We are the voice of the downtrodden poor. Financial oppression is slavery; deals and investments are today&#8217;s whips and chains. But we speak for freedom and justice, and we have the technical talent to fight back. We will strike again and again at these parasites until the entire system is destroyed, root and branch. We will force out those who grow rich from others by means of clever financial tricks, and make them work at honest labour. You do not know us yet, but you will know us soon.&#8217; Then there&#8217;s quite a bit more, all much the same.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Finn was reading over her shoulder.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">&#8220;Sounds like they&#8217;re up for a fight. Do you think they&#8217;re for real or just making noise?&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Robin&#8217;s Rebels feature prominently in <em>Timing<\/em>, along with\u00a0several other old friends and adversaries &#8211; and new ones. As well as on the Scilly Isle asteroids, some of the action takes place on Mars and one of its moons, Phobos. All being well, you will\u00a0find out more about all this towards the end of the summer&#8230;<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 60px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/-XuGuoFPeKuk\/AAAAAAAAAAI\/AAAAAAAABP8\/W-s1GHx3Hc8\/s60-p-rw-no\/photo.jpg\" alt=\"Sruti Nayani (Google+ photo)\" width=\"60\" height=\"60\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sruti Nayani (Google+ photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As well as that, <em>Far from the Spaceports<\/em> has appeared in several reviews and interviews, which has been very gratifying. There has been something of an international flavour here. Sruti&#8217;s Book Blog, over in India, carried a review and two-part interview, which can be found at:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/srutis.blogspot.in\/2016\/04\/book-review-far-from-spaceports-by.html\" target=\"_blank\">The review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/srutis.blogspot.in\/2016\/04\/author-interview-richard-abbott-author.html\" target=\"_blank\">The first part of the interview<\/a>, and<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/srutis.blogspot.co.uk\/2016\/05\/author-interview-richard-abbott-author.html\" target=\"_blank\">The second part of the interview<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">What was interesting about the book besides the awesome set up, and the background, was the author keeping in touch with the subtle ways of humans, way into the future.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Of course, there is fraud and there are people investigating it, but he manages to grab the reader\u2019s interest, right at the start. How do the two of them manage to solve the mystery? How does it all work, in an environment that is so different from ours?<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<figure style=\"width: 100px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ad2c6d3c9e02d374b7355cdb1ed7eeff?s=100&amp;r=pg&amp;d=mm\" alt=\"Arnis V\u0113veris (from his blog)\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Arnis V\u0113veris (from his blog)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Then we move to Latvia, where <a href=\"https:\/\/poseidons99.wordpress.com\/2016\/02\/25\/richard-abbott-far-from-the-spaceports\/\" target=\"_blank\">Arnis V\u0113veris reviewed <em>Far from the Spaceports<\/em> on his blog<\/a>. He kindly provides an English translation along with the Latvian. Among other things, he wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">&#8220;Wonderful atmosphere, great dynamics between characters and good mystery about the financial case&#8221;.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<figure style=\"width: 100px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/cf6ca0f2189b372d9cc47e34b2ee6687?s=100&amp;d=identicon&amp;r=g\" alt=\"Don Massenzio (from his blog)\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Don Massenzio (from his blog)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Then finally it was over to the US of A for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/donmassenzio.wordpress.com\/2016\/04\/25\/author-talk-richard-abbott\/\" target=\"_blank\">an author interview with Don Massenzio<\/a>, including an extract featuring the Frag Rockers Bar, my favourite hangout on the Scilly Isles. This starts with some easy questions like<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">DM: Can you summarise your book in one sentence?<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">RA: A human-AI partnership tackles hi-tech financial crime among the asteroids.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>and then moves through several other questions to finish with the extract I mentioned.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_694\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-694\" style=\"width: 450px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-694\" src=\"http:\/\/richardabbott.datascenesdev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Kindle-Cover-450x600.png\" alt=\"Far from the Spaceports cover\" width=\"450\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"http:\/\/richardabbott.datascenesdev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Kindle-Cover-450x600.png 450w, http:\/\/richardabbott.datascenesdev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Kindle-Cover-450x600-225x300.png 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-694\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Far from the Spaceports cover<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Several bits and pieces to talk about today. First, I was nominated in one of these\u00a0&#8220;post seven lines from page seven of your current Work in Progress&#8221; challenges. It&#8217;s always a bit tricky picking out where page seven is, since I write initially for Kindle. But what follows\u00a0is a fair guess. The story is (provisionally) &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/richardabbott.datascenesdev.com\/blog\/index.php\/2016\/05\/18\/bits-and-pieces-2\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Bits and pieces<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,14,18,20,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-far-from-the-spaceports","category-interview","category-review","category-science-fiction","category-timing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/richardabbott.datascenesdev.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/richardabbott.datascenesdev.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/richardabbott.datascenesdev.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/richardabbott.datascenesdev.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/richardabbott.datascenesdev.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1002"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/richardabbott.datascenesdev.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1005,"href":"http:\/\/richardabbott.datascenesdev.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1002\/revisions\/1005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/richardabbott.datascenesdev.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/richardabbott.datascenesdev.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/richardabbott.datascenesdev.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}