Tempus giveaway / Bridge in America / Technology: Threat or Menace?
TEMPUS PROJECT AUDIBLE GIVEAWAY
THE TEMPUS PROJECT, the second Brigitte Sharp novel, is now out on Audible UK with narration by the excellent Lucy Brownhill.
https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/B084QGL2Z1
Audible were also kind enough to give me some freebie codes to give away. To get one, send an email to antony.johnston@gmail.com telling me BRIGITTE’S FULL NAME. The FIRST THREE people to answer correctly will get a giveaway code.
(NB this is specifically an Audible UK release. If you’re registered with Audible anywhere else, please don’t enter as it won’t work for you.)
NOT YET BREAKING
If you’re wondering why it’s been a while since the last newsletter… well, I still can’t actually tell you. I’ve been holding off in the hope of being able to share some Very Exciting News™, but I still can’t, so to hell with it.
Of course, now that I’ve actually sent this thing out it’ll probably be announced tomorrow. Hey ho.
So, what am I up to? Well.
Project Gojira, the big video game I’d been working on for a couple of years, is done and dusted. Still can’t say what it is, but you’ll find out early next year.
In its place I’ve begun work on Project Speedfreak, which will keep me busy in game for at least a few months, and possibly a year or so depending on how things go. No idea if there’ll be a public announcement about my involvement, but suffice to say it’s a big triple-A project for which I’m leading a writing team.
Projects Bomber and Mean Machine, being movie/TV things, are in holding patterns. Will anything ever come of them? Your guess is as good as mine. C’est Hollywood, and all that.
Project Snaggletooth, a novel I wrote during lockdown earlier this year, is in the notes/revision stage. The Project Damage Case novel, meanwhile, hit a roadblock about halfway through. I need to give that some deeper thought before continuing.
I’ve completed a rough outline for Project Overkill, which is the third Brigitte Sharp thriller. Hoping to get typing away on that soon – to be frank I didn’t dare start before the US election was over, and then it turned out people couldn’t even agree on the definition of “over” for a couple of weeks…!
And while all that is going on, I’ve been delivering talks and arranging workshops around THE ORGANISED WRITER, which is lots of fun. If you’re interested in taking part in one, I’m doing two classes in the new year, for Arvon and Pen To Print. Keep an eye on those, and my Twitter feed, for more info.
I also spoke to the CWA’s London chapter about THE ORGANISED WRITER, for one of their ‘In Conversation With’ evenings, and that’s now on YouTube:
(Bonus for the nerds: the person interviewing me is none other than Bonnie MacBird, who was one of the writers of TRON! I’m hoping to get her on Writing And Breathing soon)
STATES OF EXPHORIA
The North American edition of THE EXPHORIA CODE was released last month by Pegasus Books. It was featured in The Big Thrill, the newsletter of the International Thriller Writers org, where I was interviewed:
https://www.thebigthrill.org/2020/09/up-close-antony-johnston/
There’s also a Q&A with me at Marshal Zeringue’s Writer Interviews:
https://writerinterviews.blogspot.com/2020/10/antony-johnston.html
And finally, I did an event for Brookline Booksmith with my old friend and thriller writer extraordinaire Greg Rucka about the book, Brigitte, writing, my obsession with technology, and more. It was a really good chat, and the whole event is now on YouTube:
MEANWHILE, TECHNOLOGY
As always, it’s how people use tech that makes such a big difference. So first, some bad: a pilot program to give police livestream access to Amazon’s Ring doorbell cameras.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/police-will-pilot-program-live-stream-amazon-ring-cameras
(This is a good example of what my friend futurist Jamais Cascio calls the Participatory Panopticon, as we willingly partake in our own constant surveillance.)
Then, some good: using a Boston Dynamics ‘Spot’ robot dog to help monitor the still-incredibly-dangerous Chernobyl site.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/boston-dynamics-spot-chernobyl
And finally, some middling, where once again reality draws ever closer to the fiction of THE EXPHORIA CODE: in a simulation demo, an AI-controlled fighter plane absolutely demolishes a veteran human pilot.
https://breakingdefense.com/2020/08/ai-slays-top-f-16-pilot-in-darpa-dogfight-simulation/
WRITING AND BREATHING
There have been quite a few episodes since last time, so I won’t clog up your inbox with all the graphics! Suffice to say the show is going strong and my guests continue to be fascinating people 😊 Such as…
Greg Rucka (him again)
Fonda Lee (neo-fantasy author)
James Moran (screenwriter)
Stephen Graham Jones (figured I’d get a horror writer for the Halloween episode!)
Zoë Sharp (no relation)
THAT SURE WAS THE ’80s
Finally, I’ll leave you with this insane video by Jean-Michel Jarre, for the track ZOOLOOKOLOGIE from his excellent and unhinged album ZOOLOOK. As one friend pointed out, the only thing that could make this more ’80s would be a filofax.
INSIDE THE MORAL KIOSK:
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