Huw Langridge

It's been a while since I've written, both here and any fiction. The real world took over in a big way, in the form of a conference our company ran in Trinidad, on a cruise ship, of all things. It was an adventure to say the least, but also the culmination of months of hard work. Though the event was successsful, I'm glad I'm on the Christmas side of it! Even being away from my little son Oliver for 2 weeks was tough. He's 6 months old now and such a joyful little person to be around. Right now it feels more important to hang out with him than trying to finish The Fourdrinier Operator or reworking the short stories I've got in the pipelines. That said, I'm really looking forward to seeing my next Axiom Few story in January's issue of Jupiter magazine. The Voidant Lance is inbound, and the team have a hell of a job ahead of them if they're to avert a global catastrophe. On the back of The Voidant Lance, I'll be uploading the very next Axi

Thanks for all your generally positive feedback on my previous post about whether to put up a serialised novel on this blog for Halloween. Most of you said you would read it. Events however have forced my hand on this, and I'm not going to be able to progress it in the way I had hoped. Real life intervened and sent me to Trinidad and Jamaica on a rather hectic work trip in advance of an event we are holding in November. I didn't have enough time to finish The Fourdrinier Operator, so I will have to go with Plan B... A short ghost story... which will hopefully give you the creeps when you read it this coming Saturday...

I'm thinking of trying a new thing. A serialised novel. I'm drawing near to the end of writing The Fourdrinier Operator, a supernatural/chicklit story I've been working on for a couple of years (it's a little like Spireclaw, with spooky twists and turns along the way), and I'm rather warming to the idea of serialising it on this blog; posting instalments of the story on a weekly basis, perhaps starting this coming Halloween. Perhaps unlike other serialised blog stories (though I can't say for sure, I've not actually read any, and am therefore prepared to be corrected), this story is almost complete and therefore has all the foreshadowing, red-herrings and clue-planting necessary to bring the story to a pre-defined conclusion. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. On that basis it won't ramble on, creating narrative problems for the writer who is then challenged with sowing all the disparate plot-lines together in some cack-handed way. So what do you

A friend of mine always listens to music when he reads books. A few years ago he told me he read the four Rendezvous with Rama books while listening to Vangelis, and that, like a cinematic experience, the two mediums merge to complement each other. Now, for him, listening to Vangelis reminds him of the awe he experienced when reading those books. Now, I studied Music and am compelled to listen to, and dissect melodies and lyrics, and to that end tend to give music my full concentration while I'm hearing it. I told my friend that I couldn't concentrate on music and read at the same time, that it would feel like I was doing a disservice to both the musician and the writer. And that would especially be so for any music with lyrics. However, the other day I decided to give it a go. As a lifelong fan of seminal synth band Tangerine Dream, but one who had gotten a little tired of their mid-to-late nineties output (for those who don't know, Tangerine Dream have released a staggeri

"...Looking along the side of the train, which curved slightly away from me I could see that I had been the very last person to get off the train. The platform was empty. Everyone else had gone. The station sign read Tassenmere. The train had not terminated at Farnham after all..." Supernatural Tales #15 is out now. My story "Last Train to Tassenmere" is nestled within its pages and I'm really looking forward to finding out what people think of it, as it's a story that's very close to my heart. Without wishing to give anything of the plot away, the idea for the story came from two different recurring nightmares I regularly had when I was in my twenties. Thinking about those nightmares even now brings a chill to my spine, and I was really pleased with how well the mood of those dreams translated across to the page. I really felt that I had nailed the weirdness I was trying to convey. It doesn't often happen, but when it does, you realise why you'r

For many years now I have been accidentally looking at the clock at 11:17am, nearly every day, and especially on weekdays. When I mention this to people, they find it quirky and funny and odd. In fact, so do I. This little quirk is even mentioned in a recent interview and in an older blog comment on here. I always wondered whether it signified that some monumental moment in my life would take place at 11:17am one day, and that I was aware of it on some deeper level of my subconcious. On Saturday morning, the day before yesterday, my wife gave birth to a beautful baby boy who we have called Oliver Thomas Langridge. We are absolutely over the moon with joy. What a rollercoaster of emotions this has been. We didn't know the sex of the baby before he arrived and my wife Alison and I had discussed many times that I would be the one to tell her what our baby had turned out to be. Oliver was born at 11:15am, depending on whose clock you look at. I told my wife the sex of the baby, and we

One of the "quirks" of my website is that, because it runs in Flash, I was having problems making the MP3 files of the Spireclaw audiobook downloadable. They seemed to only want to run in Quicktime in a browser, and were not right-clickable (to enable people to save it to their computer). This hasn't been much help because I want people to put the chapters onto their iPods and listen on the beach or in the garden. Anyway, I stumbled across a solution. Go here to see all the files listed directly. Here you can happily right-click and Save As to your heart's content. I hope you enjoy Spireclaw , and I look forward to hearing what you think of the ending (but please don't post spoilers here!)

The Web Fiction Guide is a really nicely presented site that lists and reviews online fiction of all types. They approached me through Twitter and I have now received news that my novels "The Daedalus Transfer" and "Spireclaw" are listed with them. Fingers crossed for some extra traffic to my stories. The Web Fiction Guide can be found here .

Yes it's true. After much waiting, Blackwell Bookshop is selling copies of my novel Schaefer's Integrity with the new cover for the great price of £6.99. To mark this memorable occasion, I have posted an article on my website that looks at the creative process behind Marvin Herbring's fab illustration, complete with a short interview with the artist, and some interesting and cool preliminary sketches that he put together prior to delivering the final version. You can read the article here . I always wanted Schaefer's Integrity to be a science fiction novel for people who have never read science fiction. Many non genre readers who have read the story say that it achieves that admirably. So, will this be the book that gets you into sci-fi? I hope so.

So science fiction is cool again. Thank God for that. But it's been a few years coming. I think there are a couple of reasons for its resurgence. The primary one being Mr JJ Abrams and his Star Trek reboot, and a very fine reboot it is too. Add to this James Cameron's upcoming Avatar, Peter Jackson dabbling with District 9, Sam Rockwell on the Moon, and Terminator Salvation, and we've got a busy and exciting horizon in the genre. When Arthur C Clarke passed away last year I was surprised that there wasn't a clamour in Hollywood to greenlight what could potentially be the next "2001" in memory of the visionary author (and I don't mean "2061"). So here's my tuppence-worth. The three Arthur C Clarke books I think should be made into films. Rendezvous with Rama: Being the first of 4 books, this has scope for a franchise. The story centres around a strange cylindrical spaceship some 40km across that drifts into our solar system. A team is sent to

The heading rather says it all. But here's the scoop. I would like to reformat my two online eBooks, "Spireclaw" and "The Daedalus Transfer" for the Amazon Kindle but my skills at HTML are pretty limited. So I thought I'd put it out to the wider world. Do you reformat ebooks for Kindle all the time? If not do you know someone who does? If you're up for the task please get in touch via the Contact Me page on my website and I will send you a Word version of either "Spireclaw" or "The Daedalus Transfer". The first successful reformatter of each eBook will receive a signed copy of my sci-fi novel "Schaefer's Integrity" with the new cover art by Marvin Herbring, sent to them anywhere in the world.

After much work, redesigns and repositionings, I am reliably informed by YouWriteOn, publishers of my novel Schaefer's Integrity, that the new cover will be on the book in about 7 days. I am hoping the image will change on the online bookseller's websites but that remains to be seen. I may end up making those amendments myself if I can. Anyway. I know a number of you have been holding back on your purchase until the new cover appears, so it looks like the wait will soon be over. I will post here if anything changes, or indeed if I get any specific indication that the cover has actually changed. In the meantime, please head over to my Facebook group for the book and join up, if you happen to be a Facebooky kind of person.

Rich Horton over at SFSite has reviewed Jupiter SF 23 , and says of my piece The Darken Loop that "... As with many time travel stories, paradoxes are a bit of a problem, not too badly navigated here. Interesting work, on the whole." Far be it for me to review a review, but here it seems the use of negative words to describe my story positively should still be viewed as a good write up, so I'm grateful for that. I think I fared well compared to some of the other stories in the magazine. Hmm, I'm beginning to wonder what he'll make of my upcoming Axiom Few story The Voidant Lance (Jupiter SF January 2010)

More great news for my ever-resourceful team of freelance techno-graduates The Axiom Few, who seem to ricochet from one high-tech problem to another. The next installment in their adventures is called The Voidant Lance. Those who were paying attention while reading The Darken Loop (Jupiter SF January 2009) will have seen the seeds of this story planted during Geek's conversations with Brenda. The Voidant Lance will be appearing in the January 2010 Issue of Jupiter SF. For more about their adventures go here . If you can't wait that long, check the back issues of Jupiter SF for The Ceres Configuration, or head over to my website to read the free installment in the canon, entitled The Detention Spore.

Allan Mayer is a fellow YouWriteOn published author, responsible for penning the #1 YWO book on Amazon "Tasting the Wind" (and a great book it is too). He is currently building a collection of author interviews over on his website. My interview is the first to be added. Thanks for that Allan. Head over to his website and have a read, and don't forget to order a copy of " Tasting the Wind " while you're at it.

I saw " Knowing " last night and was profoundly moved by it. Alex Proyas, the director (Dark City, The Crow, I-Robot) has a stellar visual flair and a clear idea of what makes good science fiction. I love all his films. What saddens me is that Knowing has been almost universally hated by critics, except for Roger Ebert, who gives it full marks, stating that "Knowing is among the best science-fiction films I've seen -- frightening, suspenseful, intelligent and, when it needs to be, rather awesome." Go here to read Eberts review. I fully agree with him. This is science fiction at it's best, among the best of the decade (Minority Report, AI, I-Robot, T3), and I recommend anyone who has a penchant for grand philosophical questions sees this film. But other critics rarely give Proyas any slack. Criticisms of I-Robot (that it wasn't true to Asimov's stories) don't wash with me. I think Proyas and his screenwriters distilled Asimov's Robot Laws per

Whilst indulging in that narcisstic habit of Googling myself (sometimes it's the only way of finding websites who have reviewed me...honest...), I stumbled across a blog aimed at teaching people advanced English, linking to my novels, among others, as examples. I'm not sure of the language it's aimed at, but I don't know whether to be honoured to be included in such a listing, or worried that my cobbled prose might be used as a method to teach people. Well, I shan't be too worried, it has all helped my site in attaining the lofty Google page-rank of 4.

I bet you're thinking I'm going to blog about a redraft of some story I've got on the go. If only. No, the revision I'm referring to here is actual, proper, study type revision, the likes I haven't indulged in for some 18 years. I'm filling my head with PRINCE2 Project Management methodology for my upcoming Foundation exam next week. That's why I've not done an awful lot to any of my stories lately, although, in the dead of night last night I did have the twinklings of a sci-fi story set in a skyscraper. But as is usual in the pre-dawn hours, it's more about the mood of a piece than any coherent plot or character elements. It may or may not come to something. Now, where was I? Ah yes, what's the bloody difference between an End Project Report and a Post Project Review Plan..?

Someone mentioned Twitter to me the other day and then it kept popping up in the periphery, so there's an inevitability about it, like when you think you want to buy something then you end up buying it, even though you hadn't fully decided to buy it when you first thought of it. Hope you're still with me! So my Twitter page is here and I'd be grateful if you would be so kind as to "follow" me so that I don't feel too lonely in there. I promise to write interesting things on it, rather than just use it to find out what Thomas Dolby is up to.

I've never managed to get Bit-Torrent to work, nor am I all that good at "leet speak", but for those that are even more geeky than me, my novel "The Daedalus Transfer" has been swept into a torrent file at www.h33t.com along with a load of other ebooks. In fact, looking at the esteemed company that I am in (Orson Scott Card, Nick Sagan), I have to speculate about the legitimacy of the enterprise. But my novel is free so the more that read it the better. In fact, I'm not endorsing that anyone actually downloads this torrent, I'm merely blowing my own trumpet.

When a box of syringes mysteriously appears on Davey's kitchen table, the team suspect a Darken Loop is in play. But how does it connect to the letter Geek receives from his father in prison, warning of a virus outbreak inside it's walls? The events in "The Detention Spore" take place six months after "The Darken Loop", and although there are references to the other stories in the Axiom Few canon, each works as a standalone piece. Click here to go to the Axiom Few page on my website, where "The Detention Spore" is available to read for free.

The awesome concept image that Marvin Herbring has produced is well on it's way to becoming the new replacement wraparound cover for my novel Schaefer's Integrity. I'm really excited about this as the image really brings the book to life. We should see it in the next couple of months. Also, in anticipation of this I have created a Facebook group for the book, so do head over there and join up if you can.

I associate science-fiction with music quite a lot and, perhaps like other writers, use music as a strong influence when dreaming up thoughts of space and time. I wanted to list for you the top 5 records that influence me. In no particular order: Vangelis - Direct : This album features the synthesizer sound that he used to such great effect in the compositions that formed the Blade Runner soundtrack, and although that soundtrack is excellent, the sounds in Direct are newer (1988) and are not tied to Ridley Scott's images, allowing the mind to wander in other directions. With track names like Intergalactic Radio Station, The Motion of Stars and First Approach, it really seems like Vangelis had his sci-fi cap on while sitting at the keyboard. BT - Movement in Still Life : When BT started getting really granular with his music, splicing it and chopping it around and doing genuinely amazing things with sound, it felt like the future of dance music had arrived. With a pair of great hea

The February issues of SFrevu and SFCrowsnest have appeared online with reviews of Jupiter SF 23 and I'm pleased to say that the reviews of "The Darken Loop" have been universally good. Thanks guys. Sam Tomaino at SFRevu calls it "... a nicely told story of alternate realities". Rod MacDonald at SFCrowsnest pays the story more extensive praise. He calls it "...exciting..." and says it's "An excellent story, one which has plenty of scope for development into other forms of media." And for those who are interested, the Axiom Few do have a number of new adventures in the pipeline. To read the full reviews, click the links above.

Thanks to Annie over at Random Thoughts for a very positive review of "The Darken Loop", calling it "Beautifully crafted". Click here to read. So far the overall feedback on the story has been great and I have a real desire to expand on the Axiom Few universe to learn even more about who these guys are, and why they got into the sort of fringe stuff they do.

Forgive me if I'm asking a silly question but is anyone able to tell me why The Fix doesn't review Jupiter SF?

Concept artist Marvin Herbring has produced a stunning illustration of the ten-kilometre wide Parts Yard station from my novel "Schaefer's Integrity". I think Marvin has done an incredible job of capturing the sheer size of the thing. It's really great to see my ideas come to life in an image like this. The illustration is available to download as a desktop wallpaper at 1600x1200 and 1280x800 resolutions. Click here to visit the page to get the wallpaper. Check out Marvin's other work here .

So I started writing this novel. Well, probably a novella. I come up with titles quite early and I decided to call this one "The Fourdrinier Operator". I'm 400 words in and I synchronise it to my Palm Pilot so that I can write it on the train, even when it's overcrowded on the morning commute. That was how I wrote "Spireclaw". I'm having a real burst of creativity on this one and I'm knocking out a respectable 2000 words a day. After just over a week I've written 16000 words and the juices were showing no signs of drying up. I think you might know where this is going. I'm thinking I ought to backup the file. So I sit down in front of my laptop on a Sunday afternoon and sync it back to the computer. Does it sync the right way? Does it buffalo! I'll never forget that moment, and the way I felt; the moment I overwrote a 16000 word document with a 400 word document. It was one of those moments like where you're trying to open a bag of ric

My short story "The Darken Loop" appears in the January 2009 issue of Jupiter SF which was released today. It is the second story involving the 3 members of the Axiom Few, and is a prequel to my earlier story The Ceres Configuration, which was published in Jupiter issue 4. Click here to purchase your copy, or subscribe.

I received my first 5 copies of the book through the post over Christmas and I'm very pleased with the result. It's quite special having a book in print. I'm hoping you'll buy a copy, as a substantial part of the royalities will go to charity (more on that later). If you're in the UK, go here to purchase your copy. If you're in the US, go here . And have a very Happy New Year!