Chad Taylor par o’the day

I (me, not Chad) have been in Auckland all day working so have nothing to blog.

OK, not all day, as I had to drive there and back which takes three and a half hours altogether, i.e. 14.6% of the day but of course a much higher percentage of time awake, say 21.9% assuming eight hours’ sleep. Which is about right. Usually. But that still is not all day, is it.

Let’s try again.

I have been in Auckland today finishing work on my next book.

OK, not mine. I’m just the editor. Still, I get my name on it which is the main thing. It is the fifth in a series published by the NZ Architectural Publications Trust, and the fourth I have worked on with my friend Diana the Designer. The previous one was “produced to a very high standard. It is a must” it says here. The one before that was “seductive, stimulating”, it says here.

These books are quite fun to do because:
1. I get paid.
2. I get to work with Diana.
3. I like all of the architects. OK, I like some of them. OK, I quite like most of them.
4. I get to commission good writers to write interesting stuff, and they are all professional and deliver on time. OK, not Charles.
5. The finished books look great.

You see why God gave us editors? All I needed to say was: I’ve been in Auckland today so have nothing to blog. Instead here’s something from Chad.

He starts out talking about James Joyce but smoothly segues (though isn’t that what a segue is, smooth? OK, delete “smoothly”) to James Bond:

All You Need Is Kill has been adapted by Dante Harper. Dante Harper: where are all these brilliant names coming from all of a sudden? Dante Harper would be the name of Bond’s leggy antagonist and the villain of course would be Miss Zunshine. The novel would pick up in 2010 years after Bond’s death when a stranger claiming to be 007 turns up and starts picking off Bond’s associates from the old days. And the bad guys would be from MEME. That’s how I’d do it, anyway.

I so want to read that.

UPDATE: Chad issues a challenge addendum. Hmm. We’ll see.

UPDATE 2: Jeffrey Deaver got the gig. Jeff is a very nice man – we did a session together at the Auckland Writers’ Festival some years ago – and a really good genre writer but he is, how does one put this tactfully?, an American.