Archive for the ‘ice shock’ Category

Posted on March 13, 2010 - by MG

The ZERO MOMENT blog tour

Here is the list of articles in the ZERO MOMENT blog tour which ran throughout May 2010, along with the kind blogs run by friends of mine who have kindly agreed to host a rant, ramble, book review or intelexshull think-piece.

Z is for Zany Orange Puffles and social networking sites for children here at mgharris.net

E is for Elektra Assassin – the baddest comic book grrl ever at bookzone4boys.blogspot.com

R is for Richmal Crompton and the genius of Just William at bartsbookshelf.co.uk

O is for Om nom nom – the nommity meme at chicklish.co.uk

M is for Mayan myths in popular culture (2012 and all that) at scribblecitycentral.blogspot.com

O is for One Hundred Years Of Solitude – a bluffers guide at viewfromheremagazine.co

M is for Motivating your characters – the secret to success? here at mgharris.net

E is for Everything I Know About Plotting I Learned From Aristotle at myfavouritebooks.blogspot.co

N is for Numbers in the Dark by Italo Calvino – a short story collection review at nextread.co.u

T is for Ten Things That Helped me Get Published at howpublishingreallyworks.com

Posted on August 7, 2009 - by MG

Interviewed!

I’ve finally gotten around to editing some of the audio and video files I’ve had on the hard drive for months.

There’s now a page of collected MG Harris interviews, audio and written, from BBC radio as well as a podcast, book blogs, writers’ blogs and The Oxford Times.

It’s strange being interviewed. I’m clearly vain enough to enjoy it. Most of all though I like talking about the books themselves. Even more vain! Me and some other person or people talking about a story wot I made up!

Crazy, hey? I used to be a scientist contributing to Important Work on cell biology and vaccines and stuff.  Never got interviewed then. Now I make up stories and people want to talk to me about them.

It may be topsy turvy but you know what? I LOVE IT!

Here are my favourite two interviews:

Posted on March 15, 2009 - by MG

Remembering the ICE SHOCK launch week

Thanks to staff and students at Oxford High School and St Gregory the Great, Oxford, especially librarians Elizabeth Sloan and Hilja Bassett, to staff at Blackwell’s Bookshop Oxford especially Natalia de la Ossa, to my publicist at Scholastic, Alex Richardson for supporting all these launch events and persuading the Oxford Mail and BBC Southeast News to cover the event at St Greg’s.

And to everyone who came along to all these events – over 600 people in total! I hope everyone had as much fun as I did.

Now…go out and buy ICE SHOCK and tell the world! Every little bit helps, honestly. Word of mouth is KEY.

Posted on March 9, 2009 - by MG

ICE SHOCK and a new refutation of time

I thought I’d start a series of posts about some of the themes in Ice Shock. My publicist Alex Richardson and I worked on this for the new author pack. In the next week or so I’ll drizzle bits of it onto the blog.

The book opens with a quotation from Jorge Luis Borges. It’s from a essay of his – A New Refutation of Time.

After taking issue with the very existence of time as anything other than a metaphysical construct, Borges writes:

“And yet, and yet . . . Denying temporal succession, denying the self, denying the astronomical universe, are apparent desperations and secret consolations. Our destiny is not frightful by being unreal; it is frightful because it is irreversible and iron-clad. Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire. The world, unfortunately, is real; I, unfortunately, am Borges.”

When I was writing Ice Shock – and indeed the sequel, Zero Moment (working title, pace Polly!), I became interested in re-reading writings about our human experience of time. I also read The Time-Traveller’s Wife – a novel which deals almost exclusively with the emotional possibilities of one man’s time travel within his own timeline and lifetime. Another old favourite was ‘Bid Time Return’ by the influential writer Richard Matheson, which was filmed as ‘Somewhere in Time’ – an old favourite of mine from the 1980s. If there’s going to be time-travel in Joshua Files then what interests me isn’t just the cool adventure possibilities (of course I have plans to use that!), but also the emotional impact.

Of meeting your parents before you were born, of meeting your loved ones after your own chronological death; all that. Time travel is too good to squander on mere adventure! There’s a deep philsophical aspect to it, too.

So, I dug out that quotation by Borges. Somewhere along the line I decided to include it as part of the story. A message from the enigmatic Arcadio to Josh – a warning about Josh’s destiny. And it won’t be the last…

Posted on March 4, 2009 - by MG

Ice Shock Cake at Blackwell’s, Oxford

Gorgeous party at Blackwell’s last night to celebrate the publication of ICE SHOCK. Children and adult friends, librarians and publishers my agent and fellow Litopian Richard Howse and the force of nature that is Bill Heine joined me and some wonderfully generous staff at Blackwell’s, Oxford to party.

Regular blog readers, FaceBook and Twitter friends will already be aware of my cake-fixation, so shouldn’t be surprised to see that I took the opportunity for a major baking session. Cup cakes and the biggest, fattest chocolate cake that I know how to make. With a filling made from melting Dairy Milk and Bourneville bars with a bar of unsalted Normandy butter. I had a piece this morning. Damn, it was good! That is the best recipe ever, ever, from a book that deserves its title: The Cake Bible.

Photos are now on Flickr.

Tomorrow, the Official Launch on World Book Day at St Gregory the Great School, Oxford. Where for the first time ever, I will read aloud from ICE SHOCK.