But I Digress | The Transformer and I

So last week.

You might recall - I did go on about it a bit on Twitter - my internet died. It died at the very moment I needed it most... though if it'd died on another occasion, that would have been the worst possible time for it to go down too, sure enough. I brook no illusions otherwise.

But let's not get distracted. My tubes are in full working order again, and that's grand - thank you internet fairies! -  but my connection has never been the most reliable thing, and given how inextricable the work I do each day is from the internet, I decided - hell, I didn't need much of a push, if I'm honest - that it was time to sacrifice a few hundred first-born squids for a shiny new tablet.

Not an iPad. A tablet.

Because I'd thought about this. At length. I hate iTunes with a fiery, filthy passion - we'll not get into that today - and besides which, I don't believe the ability to make use of removable storage in addition to whatever mounted memory this or that model of iPad has should be in any sense a question. And yet.

So the part of me that's argued against every Apple product I've considered buying in the past - which is to say most of them - won out once again. And thank the lord for that. I've had almost a whole week now with my eee Pad Transformer, and if it's not quite the device that the new iPad is, nor was it anything like the price of that extortion-mongering machine - and as aforementioned, an iPad wasn't what I wanted anyway.

I wanted a tablet primarily so I'd have a practical way of staying connected when all else fails, as so often all else is wont to do. I wanted an Android tablet because the notion of slapping in a USB key or a Micro SD card stuffed full of books and movies and comics and music rather than having to filter everything through iTunes - and be forced perhaps to re-buy certain things, otherwise acquired - meant an iPad was quite out of the question, and would remain so (given Apple's well-documented aversion to surrendering control) however long I opted to wait.

Which I wasn't much for doing anyway. I'd been waiting for the right tablet for more than a year as was - since the iPad was first announced, I'd had the hankering. And before that, I'd waited an age for the right e-book reader; one with colour, so I could read all my old scanned comics on it too, and maybe - who knows? - a few new releases, too. So it was long past time to take the plunge. And then there was a sweet time-limited deal for the tablet sans dock . And now I'm rather poorer, but that's alright: whether I end up on the mean streets or not, I have my eee Pad Transformer now.

I'll always have my Transformer. :)

###

Now then. The scene's set. I've had my tablet for a week, and here are a few of the things I've accomplished with it in that time:

• I read two books from start to finish, which you'll be seeing full reviews of shortly
• I devoured maybe twenty comics, including some Conan and the first collected volume of Locke and Key, which may just have reignited an old (and expensive) passion in me
• I watched a film - Harry Potter, you so small! - and several episodes of South Park - when will it end?
• I managed to set up internet streaming for my entire mp3 library, for free, through the AudioGalaxy app
• and I've written an entire blog post. Well, I will have done once I've finished this!

And what I want to know is this: what do you want to know?

If any of you are on the fence about buying a tablet, wondering how viable these things are as e-book readers, or comic book viewers, or portable video players, or netbooks, or oversized iPods, well. I hereby invite you to ask me anything you please.

(And don't think I've forgotten the last time I did that - it's still coming. It is!)

So to what extent would you all be interested in hearing about the various e-book apps, their relative strengths and weaknesses? Does a blow-by-blow of the reading experience on a 10.1" IPS screen appeal? Would anyone care to read about the comic book viewers on offer in the app marketplace, for instance?

Because I'll gladly take the time to write up my impressions... if, that is, there are enough of you out there that give a monkey's. No sense in wasting your time or mine, after all.

Thus, I ask of you, fair readers: who has an ape to spare?

Ask Me Anything | Your Mission, Should You Choose To Accept It

So that's kind of how this thing's going to work. Questions, and answers. Obviously I wrote the exemplar questions you've been seeing yesterday and today, just so we were all thinking along the same lines. Next time, it's your turn.

You can send in your questions either by email, addressed to thespeculativescotsman [at] googlemail.com, marked with the subject header "Ask Me Anything," or I suppose, just this once, you could leave them in the comments.

But I'd really rather you sent them direct - and say how you'd prefer to be credited: by name, your chosen handle, or anonymously - because there will be prizes.


Did I not mention there'd be prizes? :D

The keyword here is irony, internets. That is unless someone
wants to take issue with my understanding of the application
of said (in which case leave off, you pedant).

Well, there will be. Prizes, I mean!

As those of you who follow The BoSS will know, I get sent quite a lot of books for review - not to too my own horn, you understand: just to explain that I simply don't have room for all the lovely books, lovely though they are. And there are lovely. But sometimes I'll get multiple copies of a thing from multiple publishers, and often enough when I've reviewed a proof I can realistically say, I'll never read that again, and short of sending these beauties along to a charity shop, there's not a lot else to do with them.

But I figure, some of you might enjoy a good free book.

Thus, the best question that comes in each time I run an Ask Me Anything - and how regularly I'll do so remains to be seen: the ball's in your court, folks - anyway, I'll declare the best question a Star Letter or some such silly thing, and personally post you a good book in need of a nice home.

Remember: nothing is off limits. Nothing is too silly or too serious, too specialist or too vague. This is just a bit of fun. God knows, it might even be interesting...

So please, by all means, if it isn't too much trouble - I'd really rather adore you if you did - Ask Me Anything, internet. Starting...

... now!

Ask Me Anything | On the Dubious Dignity of Paranormal Romance

To the Speculative schmuck.

I notice you don't seem to particularly dig paranormal romance. What's the dealio, Niallio? Do you need to get laid or something?

From "Team_Jacob97xxx"

Eh, not so much. Scotsmen are known the world over for their healthy sex drives.

We are, aren't we?

But to your other question, Team_Jacob97xxx: what an acute observation! As a rule, no, I'm not a fan of paranormal romance, nor do I have much sympathy with those readers who live for new Stephanie Meyer, say, or the next novel in Charlaine Harris' interminable Sookie Stackhouse series. Perhaps it's because I do get laid, as you say, that I simply can't grasp the appeal of such counter-counter-culture wish fulfilment, wherein a typical narrative tends to involve an innocent outcast girl falling for a sexy bad guy who's really a good guy - or perhaps even three of them - and a bunch of will they/won't they rubbish before inevitably, they do.

It certainly doesn't help matters that so many of the authors making a living writing such tosh really can't write very well. Let's face it: when you've got Stephen King making fun of your grammar, I'm of the mind that there's a rather serious problem.

Of course if there's good paranormal romance out there that I'm missing, I'd love to hear about it. I'm open to anything. So long as there's a good story to be told - and I don't mean as above but substituting in Bigfoot in place of a vampire - and the someone doing the telling can tell a story well enough, technically if not necessarily artistically speaking, then sure, I'll give it a shot and report back. It's not the genre of paranormal romance that I take issue with, so much as the badly-written boilerplate nonsense that makes up the larger part of it, so far as I can see.

Ask Me Anything | A Squabble of Squirrels

Ahoy there, Scotsman!

Is it true, then, that the squirrels are taking over?

From "NotLarryAtAll"

In a word: no.

Do not believe the squirrels, nor the puppets they pass off as men. Do not believe their lies. For instance I can exclusively reveal that at least one rather esteemed blogger - you may not know him, but many do - is in fact several thousand squirrels in a man-suit. Each squirrel operates a tiny lever connected to every conceivable motor function, and work on a shift system, with an economy and a culture all their own. And voracious reading appetites, each and every one.

In addition, I regret to report that it is true, that their technologies are far in advance of ours. And their numbers - though much reduced - still add up to a credible threat if they were to muster together as one body, and one mind. But the squirrels are a notoriously forgetful enemy, prone to distraction (to run off and never return at the slightest hint of a tree, it has been observed) and only in rare cases capable of such collectivism as aforementioned. As yet, therefore, we need not live in fear of them.

Or perhaps that's simply what they want us to think...

Ultimately, the squirrels seem a sort of phantom menace -- created, perhaps, by the actual enemy of the future. Too little spoken of given their far-reaching influence, their very existence is even refuted by some; but there will come a day, be it in our lives, or in the lives of our children or our children's children, when the terror upon everyone's lips will be... the highland Haggi!

Ask Me Anything | Matters Lucubracious

Dear Niall.

What is your favourite word? Mine is "lucubration," which means the act of studying by candlelight, at night. Pretty sweet, right?

And no, before you lambast me: it's entirely coincidental that "lucubration" so happens to be today's word of the day on dictionary.com.

Vouchsafing my regards, "vocabnazi"

That's what she said!

Uh, anyway. I had a favourite word, but then I saw your word, and it's pretty frickin' sweet, I'll give you that. You made me defensive. I'm sorry.

But a-ha! What with this being a blog about speculative fiction, I get to select from made-up fantasy terms too, so mines is "fuligin," which is to say a shade darker even than black. +10 blogger cred, right?

Right?

Ask Me Anything | Meet Mystic Mug

Perhaps you've heard already: as of tomorrow morning, I'm off.

On holiday, I mean -- not for keeps. The other half and I mean to steal a few idyllic days in the cottage up in Skye before Easter rolls around and and the full rate-paying guests start arriving in droves.

Oh my God, someone colour-balanced Skye!

The deal with the devil we've struck for this particular break means the weather might be piss poor while we take it easy - then again, it might not - but whatever the state of the heavens, at least we'll be able to keep saving for a proper trip abroad. Africa or something like that.

A guy can dream!

Anyway. I've squirrelled away a couple of reviews to go live in my absence - a couple of goodies, too - but I don't want to give you those, no. Not just yet. Instead, I wanted to leave something on the front page for a little while that might be a laugh: an invitation, in short, to Ask Me Anything.

See one of the things I've been thinking, this last little while, is that the blogosphere could totally do with a sort of agony aunt. Ridiculous, right? But so much fun! :D

Terrifying, but not an actual agony aunt.

So someone to tell your deepest, darkest secrets to, or just to take the piss out of; someone to come to when you're struggling to decide whether to read this book or that, or if you should give such-and-such a TV show a go even though it's in imminent danger of cancellation. Someone to ask advice from, or to trade pissy little quips with, if you fancy. And someone to share your idiosyncratic reading habits with - how you can't get through a page without a steaming cup of coffee in hand, or how you have musical themes for each of the fantasy sagas you follow - and ask, Am I a total weirdo, or what?

What I'm imagining is a cross between Mystic Meg, Matt Roush who writes a column for TV Guide each week, and me.

And there we have it: the three Ms of Ask Me Anything.

Actually, the first and only official rule of Ask Me Anything is that there are no rules, so scratch that. Seriously: be an asshole if you like. Disagree with a particularly disagreeable opinion of mine... tell me I suck... ask if it's true what they say about Scottish boxers being too tight. So long as your question either is or could lead to something that's funny, or interesting, pretty much anything goes.

But there's no better way to explain what this silly little thing is than to roll out a couple of exemplars - try before you buy and all that.

Thus...