Warren Ellis

Collecting Stray Thoughts - 2008-08-18

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 08:17:00 GMT

Disturbingly, have rediscovered a taste for Manhattans. I blame my daughter (who orders Safe Sex On The Beach in cocktail bars). #

(Automatically crossposted from warrenellis.com. Feel free to comment here or at my internet church at Whitechapel. If anything in this post looks weird, it's because LJ is run on steampipes and rubber bands -- please click through to the main site.)

Collecting Stray Thoughts - 2008-08-17

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 08:13:30 GMT

Ah, Sauternes, my old enemy. We meet again. #

Gareth Lyn Powell’s THE LAST REEF

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 08:52:26 GMT

The excellent short fiction of Gareth Powell, collected for the first time, from Elastic Press. I wrote a back cover blurb for this: "Just the way sf should work."

’

Links for 2008-08-16

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 17:57:15 GMT

‘Laser jumbo’ testing moves ahead
A US military plane equipped with a powerful laser has moved a step closer to becoming a viable weapon
(tags:war tech )

Spotted In My Hotel In Rosemont IL The Other Month

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 13:27:19 GMT

Stratosphere Messenger

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 23:49:36 GMT

The first t-shirt by Zoetica Ebb with Plastik Wrap, available now at Etsy:

The FREAKANGELS Books

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 15:48:11 GMT

And five minutes after I put up the post two entries down, Ariana put the covers for the softcover and hardcover editions of FREAKANGELS 1 up. So, in that order, here they are in all their glory:

Links for 2008-08-14

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:57:24 GMT

druunatic.dk
My Danish pervert friend Druuna finally gets a store of her photographic work up.
(tags:photography )

FREAKANGELS 0024

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:18:03 GMT

The end of Book One.

Book One will be released as a nice cleaned-up print edition from Avatar Press in time for Xmas, in three flavours: hardback, paperback, and, as seen below, the special limited signed edition.

Next week, Book Two starts.

Collecting Stray Thoughts - 2008-08-14

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 08:05:05 GMT

Absolutely pissing down out here. Abandoning the pub. Fashioning ark. #
Okay. Obviously, nothing less than human adrenochrome is going to fully awaken me today. Give up your adrenal glands to me. My need is MOAR #
This just in: Ben @templesmith uses moisturisers daily, wears dresses #

Links for 2008-08-13

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:57:34 GMT

Lady Genius - San Francisco, California - Indie - www.myspace.com/ladygeniusmusic
The EP ain't bad at all. Particularly amused by their "Christmas Song."
(tags:music )
KoldCast.tv - IT’S ON!
A new internet.tv site.
(tags:webtv )

Yoda’s House

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 01:59:40 GMT

Yoda’s House, as featured on a couple of 4am broadcasts, have released their first album into the wild as a free download. I’ve described them before as "a sort of thumping, organic postrock," heavily rhythmic, sprawling and explorative but never losing the plot. Everything they do sounds like a soundtrack for the end of the world to me. I love them.

Also, their pieces have titles like DER ROBOTERGEIST.

Links for 2008-08-12

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:57:41 GMT

Userplane.com - Boards
new messageboard system
(tags:web )

BAD SIGNAL: Notes From The Day

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:51:02 GMT

BAD SIGNAL

* The Cure are doing an interesting marketing thing. "Their brand
new studio album will be released worldwide on 13th September,
with 4 consecutive, different single releases preceding the album
on the 13th of each month: 13th May, 13th June, 13th July and
13th August."

* How is it that those boring Scottish knobs Travis could spend
so long telling people "et’s aal aboot songgwriteng" and yet never
make a record that had an actual tune?

* Katy Perry = Avril Lavigne. Why does anyone care?

* Siege, at http://claytoncubitt.tumblr.com , uses a tumblelog
as a working notebook. It’s not just a dumping ground for his
links — as a photographer, he stuffs it with test images,
reference work, scans, video, pieces of text with meaning to
him and jotted thoughts. It’s an interesting approach for a
blog — an online notebook. You could almost consider it a
backchannel or shoebox to an actual blog. Getting a bunch
of creative people to do their notebooks, rather than their
blogs, would be interesting, and it wouldn’t just be linkblogging.

* I try to keep paper notebooks, but I always lose them.

* POD publishing is very interesting to me — or, more
correctly, POD-and-fulfilment. MagCloud, for instance, will
print your magazine and sell it and post it on demand.
It’s still too expensive, I think — especially since MagCloud
is Hewlett Packard who make the POD printing machines.
But it’s essentially virtual-office print publishing.

* And, you’ve got to admit, the idea of making a magazine
at home and then having someone else print and sell it
for you is pretty nice.

* Or is that just me?

– W

Links for 2008-08-11

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 02:57:55 GMT

Extinction ‘by man not climate’
Large prehistoric animals in Tasmania may have been wiped out by human hunting and not temperature changes
(tags: history eco)
Skinner to release one more album
"I did a five-album deal and I don't think it would be right to be making Streets albums after that." (Stopping after the first one wouldn't have been so bad, either)
(tags: music)

I Don’t Usually Do Requests

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:38:55 GMT

But what the hell. A guy called Robert writes to say:

My girlfriend, Becky, recently gave birth to my one-and-only
daughter on August 2nd. Her pregnancy was blissful, for all of the first
three weeks. After that, she was dealing with hyper-emesis (much puking,
not able to eat, had an intravenous Pikline installed), gestational
diabetes (hard to exercise when you’re hooked up to a Pikline, and not
eating…) and then she had chest pains. Which she went into the ER for,
a few days before the 2nd.

She had a pulmonary embolism. The words the staff used were that
she was VERY lucky she came in when she did. Lydia Grace was born at
11:27pm on the 2nd. She weighed 8.5#, and measured nearly 19".
Thankfully, as hellacious as Becky’s pregnancy was, Lydia is as beautiful
and healthy as we could hope.

Now the small/LARGE favour: I would love it if you could post the
picture of Lydia on your site, as a delightful surprise for Becky, who
could use some perking up. She’s been a real trooper, and I know she’d
get a huge kick out of it.

Lydia’s a good name. Welcome to Earth, little darling.

ANACHROTECHNOFETISHISM

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 23:30:32 GMT

On Whitechapel Today (11 Aug 08)

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:58:35 GMT

On my internet shithole today:

* The band Double Helix are offering their debut album free to Whitechapel.

* Thrown up an Events thread for people looking to advise an internet cave full of freaks about their upcoming gigs, exhibitions, tours, shows, classes, talks, extended drinking sessions, crackhouses, whatever.

* Whitechapel has an active community of artists who share their pieces, works in progress etc.

* How do you define journalism?

* Was anyone here at the COILHOUSE launch party?

* The latest on Anonymous vs Scientology.

* "Magick For Dummies."

And, you know… other stuff.

Collecting Stray Thoughts - 2008-08-10

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 08:18:41 GMT

Isaac Hayes: Xenu awaits. #

The Shambling Mess That Started It All

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 02:33:29 GMT

Forthcoming: DOKTOR SLEEPLESS #12

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 14:56:25 GMT

Collecting Stray Thoughts - 2008-08-08

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 08:02:18 GMT

@spiraltwist when a child hugs you and says they love you, you say “I love you too.” Don’t cost a thing, and sometimes it goes a long way. #
Because being a child can be weird and scary, & sometimes loving and being loved is all that makes sense to them, & not all of them get it. #
And now I return you to your regularly scheduled programming: how to turn kittens into cocksocks! #
All you need is love (and metal darts): FREAKANGELS 23 - http://www.freakangels.com/?p=49 #

DEAD SPACE

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:46:06 GMT

I guess word got around when I dropped a mention into Bad Signal yesterday, so I may as well reprint it here:

Oh, I got released from an NDA the other day, so I can finally say that I wrote a bunch of the groundwork, backstory and structure on the forthcoming EA videogame DEAD SPACE, which recently got a comic prequel from the hands of Antony Johnston and Ben Templesmith. I believe there was at least one other writer on the project, but I’m sure there’s some of me in there somewhere.

The EA team were a lot of fun to work with. I wrote all my DEAD SPACE documents…god, a long time ago, I don’t even remember… 18 months back? Two years? A long time ago. Game-making is a slow old business.

This is the third game I’ve been employed as writer on: the others were HOSTILE WATERS (known in the US as ANTAEUS RISING, I believe) and COLD WINTER.

FREAKANGELS 0023

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 11:49:26 GMT

All you need is love (and hundreds of flying steel darts).

It’s On Its Way

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 00:56:27 GMT

The cover to the September 2008 PREVIEWS Catalog order form: