Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Hal reviewed on January in January

January Magazine just posted a glowing review of Hal Spacejock. Just what I needed to keep me motivated as I wrestle with rewrites for Hal III ;-)

Here's the review URL in full:
http://www.januarymagazine.com/SFF/halspacejock.html


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Simon Haynes is the author of the Hal Spacejock and Hal Junior series (Amazon / Smashwords / other formats)

7 comments:

David Forbes said...

Nice review, Simon! Congrats!

I'm about halfway through Hal and am very much enjoying it, especially after all of the big, dark fantasies I've been reading. It really is funny (and I do "get" British "humour"). :-)

David Forbes said...

Simon, I finished Hal last night and really enjoyed it. A Very entertaining read. (I was up until midnight reading, damn you for making it so interesting!)

Yes, while I would certainly have no problem giving you a blurb, I don't think our audiences overlap much.

Thanks again for sending it to me!

P.S. I read in the linked article that this version is about 11,000 words longer than the previous one. What, exactly, got added? I couldn't find any obvious "seams" in the story where it seemed like something might have been stitched in.

Loved the argument with the elevator, and the food that tastes like shit!

Simon Haynes said...

Off the top of my head, the following:

The scene where Jerling is opening the Sky Hockey stadium and returns to his office. (In the original you never met him - he was just a face on the other end of the screen.)

The scene where Farrell is typing passwords into the computer - in the original you met him when he was taking a call about the loan, and then he went into a product meeting with his brother, plus Mike and Carina (who have now been shifted to different jobs)

The whole scene where he asks Mike to create a simuloid.

The scene where he speaks to his brother about the plan.

The whole scene where Clunk is poking around the junkyard and discovers the truth. And his conversation with the owner.

The scene with Clunk underwater and emerging on the shore.

Actually there are heaps of places with changes and additions. I won't list them all in case they're spoilers.

I removed quite a bit from the original, so it's more than 11k rewritten. 11k is the net difference. I'm glad it doesn't show like a frankenbook though...

The elevator and food gags were from the original, as were many of the other bits in that vein (the parking attendants with their 'drink' bottles, the robot shop and cow dung - although I added more cow gags and then continued through book 2 with them. My favourite is where Clunk backs up to grind the landscape with cows under his heel.)

Book 4 also has a lot of cow gags. No bull.

David Forbes said...

Ah, so you've got a thing against cows.... :-)

It doesn't read like a Frankenbook at all. I have that worry about The Amber Wizard. It's been so dissected, cut apart, and restitched that I half expect the book to be released with two metal bolts on either side...

Simon Haynes said...

Ah, so you've got a thing against cows.... :-)

No, not at all! It's just a part of Clunk's character, something that springs from the incident with the cow pats. Originally that was the end of it, but I kept seeing ways of putting in cow-related jokes. E.g. his reaction when he discovers Hal's new boots are real leather. ("Good!")

Bernita said...

This is very satisfying news, Simon.

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