Books: December 2004 Archives
I've finished reading Flying Solo:Tales of a Bounty Hunter by Jeremy Bulloch.
Short Review
I enjoyed it.
Long(er) Review
Flying Solo is Jeremy Bulloch's autobiography. The book intertwines stories of Jeremy's past with his hectic convention going life of post 1997.
The convention stories are often very funny, and Star Wars fans will probably be impressed by how much Jeremy cares about the whole experience. There's some great anecdotes, my imagination is still struggling to erase the image of Jeremy, Kenny Baker and Peter Mayhew walking together through an airport. He also reveals how he got the part of Boba Fett and what the filming was like.
What surprised me however was how interesting his pre-StarWars life is. Jeremy has been a jobbing actor for years, which means he has been in all sorts of things, with all sorts of people, in all sorts of places. For instance he has been in Doctor Who and Robin of Sherwood. Although after reading I would recommend any taking up acting as a career it does some provide some nice stories.
So although the first thought would be to buy this book for the Star Wars geek in your life, it will undoubtedly have a far greater appeal.
I arrived in the office this morning to find a package on my desk. It was a book wrapped in bubble wrap. I opened it to discover it was Flying Solo:Tales of a Bounty Hunter by Jeremy Bulloch. For those of you who don't know Jeremy Bulloch played Boba Fett in the Star Wars movies. The book is in hardback in a slip case (picture), I opened it up and it's a limited edition, one of 2000 and my number matches the day and month of my birthday. On top of that it is signed to me. How incredibly cool.
Now this sort of thing doesn't happen everyday so I'll explain. It was a present from my boss Dickie who's brother-in-law is the son of Jeremy Bulloch. He had mentioned this fact to me ages ago and asked if I'd like something signed. Actually the first question was are you a Star Wars fan, to which the people around the table who knew me groaned. So there we go a brilliant surprise present.
The book is really well made, one of those books that remind you why books are so great. It's got a selection of pages full of glossy photos too. And the chapter titles sound intriguing. I want to get started now. I shall report back with a review when I've read it.
Following a link from that Mundane SF blog I got to Geoff Ryman interviewed on infinity plus by Kit Reed and it's a pretty interesting interview.
Following this discussion on The Mumpsimus I read the Mundane SF web site and came away a bit non-plussed. If you look at the list of authors on their blog that they reckon have written Mundane SF, well, they're some of my favourites. But why? Why bother having a manifesto? Why bother with a web site? Why why why?
Personally, according to their manifesto, I write mainly Mundane SF. But I don't do it on purpose, I just write what I write and read what I like. Yes I like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling and Kim Stanley Robinson. But er...I've run out of words in a blur of confusion...
Charlie Stross floats the idea (via Warren Ellis) of only marketing to "blue" states in the USA. Iteresting idea, but I'd want some good statistics before I ignored potentially half of my readers. Not sure the same thing would work in the UK, get a book in a display in WHSmiths or Waterstones and you're sorted. Plus everyone is used to writers only touring in cities and the nearest city is never that far away (unless you live in an outlying island (Isle of Wight? ;-) )
