Through the Looking Glass (or Musings on Books)

Dangerous Worlds - Comments on Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

2007-01-11T12:33:00.000Z

I have a confession: I rarely read Pratchett. I used to but I felt it all went through a bit of a lull until recently in the adult books. My wife gave me Wee Free Men (and the other two but they will be the subject of later posts) and I sat and devoured it whilst actually laughing.

To my mind a Pratchett book works best when it isn't playing for laughs but getting to the nub of a matter. The heart of the book (and it appears the series from the other jacket blurbs) is the deconstruction of children's fantasy and how it operates. Sort of like Neil Gaiman's Coraline, especially in the use of the mirror eyes (button eyes in Coraline) and the grey edges to the undreamt world. Pratchett makes it very clear that the versions of fantasy dependent on the person - the Wee Free Men's heaven is somewhat different from Tiffany's. We live in the age of the Multiverse after all. This series of Discworld novels appears to be bent on rescuing fairy tales from middle class clutches and releasing it back to readers as a novel which meanings and levels can be read into.

Sometimes you need a sad side to the humour and so it is with the construct of the Witch. The way he uses Tiffany to pull apart the fairy tale image of the evil hag in the forest (made all together too popular by the Brothers Grimm (but more anon) or Andersen's Snow Queen) or at the edge of the village. Women's and folk knowledge are far too underrated really. Pratchett does deliver some laugh out loud lines though to lighten the atmosphere.

The Wee Free Men's war cry takes apart the rationale for having a monarchy (let's face it they tend to be arrogant so and so's) in fantasy. It frees up the world and gives the characters far more room as well as reflecting the real world. The queen very much comes across like Gaiman's Other Mother in her attempt to control everything, leaving Tiffany in her version of creation. It is up to her to find her own way through, like Alice in the forest. Tiffany has to develop her own sense of the world and perhaps this is what children's fiction from the 1990s onwards is really about.

More on the other books as I get around to reading them...

Rage against the Skin - The Black Tattoo by Sam Enthoven

2007-01-09T20:39:00.001Z

The Black Tattoo, Sam Enthoven's debut novel, is a book of fits and starts. But more anon.

Jack and Charlie are knocking around London when they are drawn into a dark battle which may involve the Earth. Crispy duck is an odd dish to have. In a mysterious room above a theatre, they are given a test, transforming Charlie and giving him a distinctive black tattoo on his back.

Finding a way to Hell (in an entrance slightly reminiscent of Pratchett), Charlie begins to lose himself and finds himself becming a Prince of Hell. As social climbers climb, those above must be displaced and the guardians of the peace (including some mad French men) call to aid restore the balance of power.

The Black Tattoo is a wonderful study of divorce and how some children deal with it - ultimately this is about the internal world falling apart and the rage that sometimes arises. The locales of London and Hell are well known but Enthoven doesn't come with his own take on them. Yet they reflect the inside. The two find their way around the strange cities but Charlie is completely lost.

Enthoven's major influence is Asian cinema (the real McCoy, I suspect, that rarely makes its way over here unless its in independent labels) and most of the action comes from martial arts. Sometimes this overshadows what is essentially a solid book.

There are great ideas and artefacts in the Black Tattoo but they do get a little lost. It might pay for the author to slow down a little and allow for the words to breathe rather than being frenetically busy. Just a thought. That's just the parts.

The whole is a book that injects itself under your skin, festering away and growing on you. He's certainly somebody to look out for in the future.

Sam Enthoven

technorati tags:sam, enthoven, children's, fantasy, martial, novels, arts

Celestial Arachnids - Thoughts on Philip Reeve's Larklight

2007-01-09T15:32:00.000Z

Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines series marked him as an outstanding author who could get his head around outlandish engineering and fantasy, bringing the two together in a wonderful state.

Larklight carries on the obsession with floating domestic spaces but this time he has a floating house in space.

There's a real feeling of Victoriana, mainly from the use of the Great Exhibition of 1851 as a climax, but also in the science fantasy which is reminiscent of HG Wells and Jules Verne. There is a real disquiet under the surface between the marvellous technology and the lack of the human in the face of encroaching technology. I'd need to think about it more but it comes across with the unease of Souvestre and Robida in the late nineteenth century.

The style is pleasantly varied, moving from third person narration to diaries, representing the different voices of the children who very much lead the story. Out of this comes a wonderful adventure sub-plot which reminds me of Treasure Island and to some extent Peter Pan.

Reeve captures a tension present in fiction - where do we go now with the conflict between science and religion? The gorgeous illustrations enhance the writing (which is mercifully pocket sized) which certainly caps Reeve's crown as one of the most inventive writers of children's fiction.

I'm not going to write too much more on this at the moment as I'm reviewing for an online publication but when I've written my piece, I'll link through to it.

Larklight

A smell so sweet yet so bitter

2006-12-29T12:51:00.001Z

Perfume by Patrick Suskind

Perfume is an odd novel, slight in length, but deep.

Jean-Pierre Grenouille is born into the ordure of Paris though lacking any smell himself. His peculiar sense of smell horrifies midwives and priests and he finds himself abandoned. Moving from menial job to job, he finds himself drawn to a particular scent carried on the breeze. Following it he finds young lady whom he kills for her perfection, thus beginning his secondary career as a murderer. He joins the establishment of a perfume creator by reverse engineering the scent of a rival. He builds both of their reputations, garnering fame and wealth until he leaves the city. Having spent seven years in the wilderness, he comes back to the wealth of a court of lord. Grenouille decides to further his perfume teaching by travelling to a town specialising in perfume making. Once again he apprentices himself to a teacher and learns the finer arts of scent, enhancing his own nasal capacities. In paradise a canker must eventually come and once again he scents a perfect scent, hidden from view, launching him onto his final murderous spree. His capture allows him one more, orgiastic climax before his demise.

The Gothic, certainly the classic form, shouldn't work post-Northanger Abbey but in Suskind's hands it does wonderfully. The atmosphere is claustrophobic, compressing the reader into the psychotic world of our protagonists, mainly using the sense of smell.

What does seem to be missing from the reviews that I've read is the wonderful critique of capitalism that mirrors Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities and Easton Ellis's American Pyscho (though in this the murders are not in his head). Grenouille's savage chase of the scent seems analogous to the pursuit of wealth and the killer deal at all costs, though with the European Gothic's gallows humour.

This cult classic deserves more attention and I hope that the film will get a few more people reading the book.

Perfume

technorati tags:films, gothic, perfume;fantasy

Of Infinite Attics and Rediscovered Time - Garry Kilworth interviewed

2006-10-04T07:27:00.000Z

Growing up, when did you first get interested in SF/Fantasy?

Since I first started to read. It was only the classic authors at first - Wells, Haggard, Poe, etc - only later did I get into sf, in my 20's - I just didn't know it was there before then. But one of my greatest influences were American comics, and especially a series called Classics Comics where they retold stories like The Black Tulip and The Fall of the House of Usher with pictures.

What do you read these days?

I read a lot of quirky history books now, about shipwrecks in the 1700s and a lot of non-fiction books about exploration in the 17th and 18th century. I still read sf and fantasy. Historical novels too, Patrick O'Brian - even Georgette Heyer, an author I love.

Were you a writer as a child? That is, did you make up your own stories?

Yes, I won a school competition when I was 12 - a fictional story about a woman pilot based on Amy Johnson.

Why do you write genre? Do you feel a stronger affinity for one genre or another?

It's not that I'm pinned down to a genre. I just love IMAGINATIVE tales set in exotic places (like Samarkand, or Mars). I don't enjoy stylistic literary novels - they leave me cold - as do crime novels or 'reality' novels set in places like the East End. I like the colourful swirl of magic and mayhem, of distant places, of weirdness and quirkyness, and anything strange. I am basically a storyteller. I believe the storyteller to be the high priest of fiction. The literary guys have got too prosy, too lost in erudition. Kipling and Stevenson would never have won the Booker today.

Who is your ideal reader?

Someone who likes something different from an author.

How do you write? Do you plan out your books before you start? Do you write every day?

My plans consist of five to ten page outlines. I write when I can these days, which is about four days a week, mostly in the mornings when I'm fresh. I sit down about 8.30 and stay there until I have 2000 words done. I revise as I write, then revise the piece again the next time I sit down, before the next 2000 words. I find my creative juices drying up after about four hours.

How did your first book sale come about?

I had won the Sunday Times/Gollancz short sf story competition and so attempted some novels. I still have four of them in my sock drawer, unpublished. I met Robert Holdstock who had just sold his first novel to Charles Montieth at Faber and Faber. He suggested I follow his lead. I did, with IN SOLITARY a short sf novel about Earth domination. Charles liked it and published it, to my enormous delight. Nothing equals that first sale. It was a tremendous feeling.

What's your most popular book? Why?

The Welkin Weasels double-trilogy - now up to about 70,000 each book and still selling. Why? Who knows? If I did, I'd do it again, but at a guess it's probably because they've got a lot of humour in them. Readers like to laugh, I guess.

Of your own books, do you have a favorite? Was it because of the idea, the characters, your life situation while you wrote it, the way it turned out, something else?

The Polynesian mythology trilogy, The Navigator Kings. It got massively good reviews but sold pitifully. Fantasy readers wanted high fantasy I guess, not some saga set in the Pacific Ocean. Blood sweat and tears went into that trilogy and I think it's the best thing I've written, though few would agree with me.

What other writers do you feel you have something in common with? What writers did you read as a child and have you reread them since?

In answer to the first part of the question, Robert Sheckley and Larry Niven, to name but two. My natural length is the short story and I feel it's my forte. In answer to the second, Rudyard Kipling, Wells, Stevenson, Haggard, Richmal Crompton.

What does Fantasy offer younger readers and writers that realism doesn't? Why is gaining popularity among readers?

Not so much escape as a chance to fly imaginatively.

Does writing have a role in shaping people's worldview?

It does for me, so I guess it must do for others.

What are you currently working on?

Jigsaw, a fantasy novel set on an island off Borneo, where a peculiar experiment is going on.

Reading Attica, I had the distinct impression of having lost time and
the analogue sense of time in particular. Is this something that you feel we've done in the Internet age? (The irony of doing this via email is really not lost on
me)

In one sense time has been stretched - people are living longer, having fuller longer lives - yet in another sense everything is instant and time has lost meaning. A motorist will risk death to get one place up in a line of cars, save a few seconds, for what? A computer operator curses the internet for being nano-seconds too slow. Yet what do they do with those extra seconds they've saved? (Is this an old man talking?)

Why do you think secondary worlds are so popular in children's fantasy? I had the distinct feeling of the Borrowers as well as Narnia in reading Attica.

There's a sense that the children need to learn the rules and dangers of the world around them but they don't necessarily learn the rules. Is this an acceptance that modern children may not have the same understanding of the older world which they are thrown into?

I don't think things have changed that much. When I started school the World War Two had only been over 4 years, yet to me it was ancient history, way back along with the Romans invading Britain. I think the biggest impact on the world of children is the mobile phone. They never have the chance to be alone. They're always in contact with someone. I frequently got lost as a child, coming home along a country lane after picking potatoes, or out in a desert in Arabia, and those times were shaping times. I see young men out on a date, not talking to the girl they're with, but chatting on a phone to some mate or who knows, maybe another girl? I think kids are interested in worlds (like Attica or Narnia) where mobile phones don't work and people actually do get lost and are really alone.

Do you feel that we've begun to forget innocence? Do you think that the adult world has become too authoritarian on issues of how children should think, be it religiously or scientifically, rather than encouraging them to explore and learn that actions have consequences?

Wow, this getting hard! Well, they certainly don't have the innocence of an upper class Victorian family, but did a working class Victorian child have innocence? Did a Spartan child have innocence? Did a 17th century drummer boy of 10 years old, away at a foreign war have innocence? Again the Victorians were enormously authoritarian. I think it depends on which corner of society the child is raised in, but I do think we should give children the freedom to take risks and learn by experience rather than be cossetted and protected from the world. Yes, they will get hurt occasionally, physically, but in the long run I believe it's essential for them.

Attica

Fact and Fiction - Stephen Lawhead interviewed

2006-10-04T07:21:00.000Z

When did you first get interested in young adult SF/Fantasy? Was it a conscious decision to write Hood for a younger audience than your previous books?

Publishing Hood as a YA novel was a decision that was made by my editor at Atom/Orbit – his call, which I trust entirely. That said, in the US, it is being published as an adult novel, and I know for sure that in Germany it will be the same. Obviously, in recent years the line between YA and adult has become quite blurred – so, I was advised just to write the book as I saw fit. And that is what I did.

What do you read these days?
Oh, anything! Our family (my wife, sons, and daughter-in-law) have decided to do a book club. When we're together next, we’re going to discuss Carter Beats the Devil, by Glen David Gold. I'm really enjoying that one, and Zorro, by Isabelle Allende is just delicious. As you would expect, I have to read a fair amount of history by way of research, so exciting books like England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings: 1075 - 1225 also crowd the bedside table.

Were you a writer as a child? That is, did you make up your own stories?
I suspect many writers start out as I did: practicing on the neighbour kids. I told a lot of stories, and made up plays and movies and such, before I ever started writing down anything.

Why do you write genre? Do you feel a stronger affinity for one genre or another?
Basically, I enjoy stories that are plot-driven, whether I read them or write them -- and that invariably leads to genre fiction. I suppose that writing what one would like to read is a good place to start, creatively speaking. I don't know the reason why I'm drawn to SF over mystery, say, or fantasy over horror. Personal preference, I guess. Actually, on second thought, I probably do know why I prefer heroic fantasy over shock horror: I want a book to have some sort of vision, and for the story and characters to experience some sort of ultimate redemption.

Who is your ideal reader?
Anyone who buys hardbacks for themselves and their friends.

How do you write? Do you plan out your books before you start? Do you write every day?
I am a disciplined writer, and not precious about it. Because I've moved around a fair bit in the past few years, I've had to write wherever I am, under whatever circumstances. If I can slap on the earphones, I can create enough isolation to get on with the job. I just need some time. I do write most days, but never, never on a Sunday.

Of your own books, do you have a favorite? Was it because of the idea, the characters, your life situation while you wrote it, the way it turned out, something else?
The book I most enjoyed writing was Merlin. It flowed from the first sentence, and I had a lot of fun exploring such a mesmerizing character. Also, I am very proud of Byzantium, a book that I poured a great deal of energy into for a very long time, and it never wore out its welcome. Of course, the book I'm writing now -- Scarlet, the follow-up to Hood -- is my current favourite because it's what's in my head at the moment. And it is, by the way, a jolly good book.

What other writers do you feel you have something in common with?
Honestly, I have no idea. But if you ask me what writers inspire me, I’d say Dickens was a guiding light, and Sir Walter Scott, and Mark Twain. My wife thinks that Ian Fleming has had an unusually strong influence on my sentence structure and characterization.

What does Fantasy offer that other kinds of fiction can't? Why is it gaining popularity among readers?
It's the vision thing again. I came across this passage in Norman Davies' epic history, Europe, in a section analysing the ultimate collapse of European communism. He said: 'Artists and believers were often the only people who could imagine a world without communism.' To the extent that fantasy books paint a picture of a world that is in some way more heroic, more humane, more beautiful and hopeful than this one ... that is something that people really respond to, and I'm all for it. Perhaps the number of people who are willing to wade through a hopeless and depressing book is dwindling.

Does writing have a role in shaping people's worldview?
Absolutely. It's certainly shaped my worldview, and I have heard from many people saying that what I've written has shaped their lives in one way or another. This is either dangerous territory, or holy ground -- depending on what a person chooses to bring into his or her life and experience through reading. That being the case, I think that more writers need to be aware that once a book is 'out there', it may have human consequences.

How aware were you of the Matter of Britain as you wrote Hood? How aware
were you of different cultures between the English, French and Welsh?
I’m always very aware of the special place the Matter of Britain holds in these legendary tales. I enjoy working with it, and I respect it. As for the difference between the English, French, and Welsh – hey, I get it. Contrasting these cultures is the basis for much of the dramatic tension in my books.

Do you feel that the power of story telling has been forgotten?
Never. Not even for a minute.

There seems to be a critique of powerful people wielding religion as a tool. Is this a comment upon the current politicians? How far is faith an individual thing to you and should it be imposed in a young adult book or should it be explored?

Big questions. I'm not consciously trying to dis current politicians -- as tempting, and easy, as that may be. And I'm not trying to impose anything on anyone; that is, I’m not writing propaganda. On the other hand, it’s my book, so it’s going to come from my point of view. Like any writer, I naturally take up what I know or what I’m interested in. In Hood, for example, I liked exploring the distinction between these highly organised, politicised, corporate-type Norman priests ... and the more disorganized, unsophisticated but often more spiritual Celtic clerics.

How difficult was it to break fact and fiction and recreate the story of Robin Hood?
I wouldn’t call it difficult – I’d call it fun. I like weaving together the known threads of fact and the suppositions of fiction. The idea is to create a seamless whole out of the two. And the two elements – fact and fiction – aren’t really competing. In each case, it’s all about the story. Factual history is already a story – and creating a more personal story out of the mega-story of historical events seems a very natural thing to me.

What are you currently working on?
Scarlet, the second book in the King Raven series; where life in the greenwood gets increasingly dodgy. It’s bigger, bolder, and badder in every way, and all told from Will Scarlet’s unique point of view.

Hood

The Puppeteer of the Land - Steve Cockayne interviewed

2006-10-04T07:13:00.000Z

When did you first get interested in SF/Fantasy?
Ever since I started to read, I have enjoyed stories that take place in imaginary worlds. Alice in Wonderland, Winnie the Pooh, Henry the Green Engine, Swallows and Amazons – these were the books that were my earliest influences. I read a lot of SF in my teens, and I became interested in fantasy a little later.

What do you read these days?
I find that I have to read a lot of non-fiction for my research. I enjoy crime fiction for its plot structures. I don't read too much fantasy or SF, and that's really from a fear of unintentionally borrowing other people's ideas! I wish I could find more time to read for pleasure.

Were you a writer as a child? That is, did you make up your own stories?
I started making up stories at the age of three. My mother wrote them down in a little book which I still have. One early piece, Peter Rabbit Breaks the Plates, won me a certificate from the National Book League. And, in my teens, I produced strip cartoons about a secret agent called Herbert Wilkinson. Later, I discovered film and television, and didn't start writing again for many years.

Why do you write genre? Do you feel a stronger affinity for one genre or
another?
I never set out to write genre, and I never set out to write in a particular style. For my early books, I developed a format that conveyed what I was trying to say, and it just seemed natural to set the stories in an imaginary world. It was my publishers who decided that I was writing fantasy fiction.

Who is your ideal reader?
Someone who loves wonder and mystery and excitement and humour. Someone with imagination. Someone who doesn't want everything spelled out for them. Perhaps someone a bit like me….

How do you write? Do you plan out your books before you start? Do you
write every day?
Each book is written from a detailed plan that takes me several months to develop. This means that, when I'm doing the actual writing, I don't have to worry about the key plot points, but I can still find enough space for inspiration and improvisation as I go along. I work on my books every day, but I'm not always writing – sometimes I'm planning, researching or just thinking.

Of your own books, do you have a favourite? Was it because of the idea, the characters, your life situation while you wrote it, the way it turned out, something else?
My first book, Wanderers and Islanders, was written with the most passion, because the story and the characters reflected what was happening to me at the time. But some of the later ones are probably easier to read. It would be wonderful to recapture that first tidal wave of creativity, but to be able to express it with the more elegant technique that I like to think I've developed subsequently.

What other writers do you feel you have something in common with? Which authors did you read as a child? Have you come back and re-read them recently?
There are a handful of authors that I have read at intervals throughout my life without ever becoming bored. CS Lewis, Ursula Le Guin, Mervyn Peake. And I love The Once and Future King by TH White.

What does Fantasy offer to younger readers? Why is it gaining popularity?
I think that in an age that is increasingly governed by technology, people are starting to rediscover the value of magic. And perhaps, with the decline of religious values, we are all searching for something that touches us spiritually.

Does writing have a role in shaping people's worldview?
Yes, of course. Every single thing that we see or hear or experience surely has some influence, whether positive or negative, on the way we think and feel. But writing is especially powerful because the writer can speak directly to the reader without anything getting in the way.

Reading The Good People, there's a certain feeling of a lost paradise,
that children need to be reminded about a time of more innocent play. Do you feel that this is so, that we've begun to forget innocence? Do you think that the adult world has become too authoritarian on issues of how children should think, be it religiously or scientifically, rather than encouraging them to explore and learn that actions have consequences?
In The Good People, I have been exploring the consequences of trying to hang on to your innocence for longer than you should! Every character except for Kenneth eventually stops believing in Arboria, but Kenneth never abandons his belief. I am sure that, if there had been any adults around, things would have turned out differently. But the best children's stories don't seem to have too many adults in them, and perhaps this is because adults have always tended to be authoritarian where children are concerned and, in stories at least, the children need more space to explore. Perhaps the healthiest option in the real world would be exploration with a little guidance.

I kept wondering whether the world was real or not, whether the armies were entirely happening or being imagined by the children. Was this deliberate, to keep the reader constantly questioning the reality/sanity of the narrator?
Absolutely! The question that I am asking in this book is "How real are our fantasy worlds?" And I've deliberately not provided a firm answer, so that each reader can work out their own. Does Kenneth find his Arboria, or has he gone raving mad? I've scattered plenty of clues through the book. The truth is there for each reader to discover.

What are you currently working on?
I am planning another fantasy for young readers. It uses some of the same settings as The Good People, and it explores many of the same themes, but this time it takes place in the 1960s. There is an outline for another Legends of the Land book in my bottom drawer. And I'm just finishing a biography of the great English puppeteer Waldo Lanchester. (Are there any publishers reading this?)

The Good People

David Gemmell's death

2006-07-28T14:33:00.000Z

The BBC have just reported David Gemmell's death at 57. Apparently he had had heart bypass surgery two weeks ago and was thought to be making agood recovery.
Source: BBC

The end of Harry Potter

2006-06-27T09:46:00.000Z

I missed the actual show (as I forgot that it was even on) but I'm kind of glad that Rowling has said enough Harry Potter when number 7 comes out. Expect two more deaths of characters (I still think the whole Dumbledore episode smacks of the Resurrected Man which we find in children's literature) and wrist strain from even carrying the book (if previous size increases are to be continued).

Source: BBC

New online sf magazine and news of Jim Baen

2006-06-16T07:52:00.000Z

Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing has just posted news of a new free online sf magazine, Helix, run by Lawrence Watt-Evans and William Sanders. It joins Baen's new one, Baen Universe, though hat one isn't free.

Talking of Baen, Jim Baen has been taken to hospital following a stroke. The company is running under an emergency plan detailed by him. More details on the Neilsen Hayden blog. Please don't send flowers but rather prayers of what ever faith/appropriateness.

Update: Jim Baen died on 28th June.
Source: David Drake's blog and Boing Boing

Mundane-SF: Ian McDonald

2006-06-15T13:52:00.000Z

Mundane-SF: Ian McDonald asks whether, in part, sf can be set in the US and whether this is all right. Of course it is and must be but there also need to be one eye to the edges as 'twere, like Ryman's Air or Ian McDonald's River of Gods. Perhaps it is a misreading of the Mundane SF manifesto as well. Sf does seem a little parochial at the moment but perhaps that comes from folk trying to understand the world that we live in from a variety of angles and get lost in the US/UK focus.

Glasshouse

2006-06-15T09:57:00.000Z

Finished Glasshouse by Charles Stross last night and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Its intriguing that he has placed the posthuman back into the "Dark Ages" (placed around now) and has come up with the same scenario as we have now. Basic human urges don't change though the form does radically (think multi-armed and changing gender largely on a whim). Couples still come together as best they can. Some are abusive and are correctly censured and punished for doing so. Some folk just rub along before finding out their real identity. Perhaps it is his most human book to date in terms of characters and the polity he creates.

One comes away with the feeling that this is less polemic than Singularity Sky, less rushed certainly. He takes more time to develop the world and the society, twisting the Desperate Housewives scenario ever so sweetly on its head.

More soon.

Glasshouse - Aust Gate

Glasshouse - Amazon UK

The New World Order according to Ben Jeapes

2006-05-26T06:15:00.000Z

Growing up, when did you first get interested in SF/Fantasy?

I used to think it was an over-abundance of Trek, Dr Who and Thunderbirds, and that’s what I told everyone. Then eBay came along and I bought some old Countdowns out of curiosity. Countdown was a weekly comic that inherited the mantle of TV21, which published original stories set in the Gerry Anderson universe. Most of its stories were TV21 reprints, meatier and grittier than the TV versions but still flawed by overall Andersonian optimism. But there was also the title story, straight space opera about the crew of the eponymous starship Countdown. The spaceship designs were cribbed (with acknowledgment) from 2001, but the story – eight years before Blake’s 7 – was of a crew of heroes using a starship and advanced alien technology to fight an oppressive Earth government. The political sophistication, for a strip aimed at small children, was quite astonishing; the good guys didn’t always win; and the chief baddy, Controller Costra, could be randomly cruel and bore an uncanny resemblance to the late Robin Cook. Even now, reading it 35 years older and wiser, it astounds me.

Countdown – the comic – also ran weekly science fact columns, which included regular updates on the then-current Apollo missions, and it had what I would now regard as an unhealthy interest in UFO stories. It hooked me.

So, Gerry Anderson for the technophilia. Dr Who for the humanity. Countdown for the space opera and the possibilities. Then and only then did I discover novels.

What do you read these days?

Not nearly enough as I would like. I tend to read the staples – the latest Pratchett, the latest Mieville etc etc. Since I seem fated to be officially a children’s writer, I enjoy submissions from that field – Michael Morpurgo, Anthony Horowitz, Philip Reeve. I also feel it’s about time I extended my reach beyond genre, so on the shelf is a collection of essays by Jerome K. Jerome and the next volume of Vilhelm Moberg’s Emigrants series, about Swedish emigrants to the US in the nineteenth century. I was introduced to the latter by my Swedish wife-to-be, along with Jan Guillou’s quite excellent Knights Templar trilogy, though volume 3 is taking an annoying length of time to become available in English.

Were you a writer as a child? That is, did you make up your own stories?

Never happier than when doing so! And yes, they were all science fiction. This lasted until 16 when creative composition was no longer required in English – a sad loss, replaced by having to analyse hacks like Shakespeare, Dickens and Milton instead.

Why write children's fiction? Why do you write genre? Do you feel a stronger affinity for one genre or another? How do you feel about the critical attention that is now being placed onto the literature?

Children’s fiction: since you’re blogging this, I’ll be lazy and put in a link to “How I became a children's writer (technically)” at http://www.sff.net/people/ben%2Djeapes/kidwrit.htm. Suffice it to say it wasn’t planned or expected, but once it happened it seemed a good idea.

Genre: because it was what I knew best. If I think of a story, it’s science fictional. If I try to imagine a crime plot, it ends up in a science fiction setting. Ditto romance or whatever. I probably could write a crime story that wasn’t SF, but I would be afraid of rediscovering the wheel the same way that non-SF writers do when they try to write in the field. But I can’t imagine writing outside any genre at all.

And critical attention – well, make hay while the sun shines. I’m sure it will soon turn somewhere else. The extra sales are nice, but I actually think the best literature in any field comes when the critics are looking the other way. If you’re under constant critical review then you turn into Martin Amis.

Who is your ideal reader?

One who buys at least 10 copies of every one of my books and gives them to his friends on condition that each they tell at least 20 different people about them ... On a less ideal note, if this isn’t too snobbish, I try to write intelligently so I want to be read intelligently. I want readers to enjoy the read, first and foremost, but I also want them to get the points I’m trying to make.

In The New World Order, for instance, I dropped every clue I could think of to indicate that my heroes were Neanderthals from a parallel version of Earth, up to and including an author’s afterword that mentions skeletons of their kind being found “in a cave in the Neander valley (in German, Neander Thal) near Dusseldorf”. An ideal reader would finish The New World Order knowing they were Neanderthals, and preferably having had an inkling before then. Which makes the number of reviews that plainly didn’t get it, or even talked about “aliens from outer space”, quite dispiriting.

And the less said about the reader whose Amazon review complained that the characterisation in His Majesty’s Starship wasn’t quite as good as Rama 2, the better. I mean, Rama ... TWO???

How do you write? Do you plan out your books before you start? Do you write every day?

I let a few Neat Ideas pile up in my head, often combined with one or two key scenes. Then I have to work out a way of linking them all up. Sometimes I find the easiest route means discarding one or two items that thought they were safe and secure within my heart. I learn to be brutal. This process tends to last at least two or three years, mostly because I’m busy writing something else.

Once I start writing then I try to write every day – well, certainly every weekday. Since I also have a full-time job, weekdays are the days I’m accustomed to working. I’ll do some in the morning before work, and usually at lunchtime, and most often in the evenings too. (Yes, yes, I know, it would make a lot of sense to write at weekends when I’m not tired out from the job ... but this is me.)

The latest book tells the stories of two brothers in parallel. I was getting quite blocked on one brother’s story so I spent most of last year writing the other’s. Which worked, but unfortunately now I’m coming to the end of his strand and have to go back to the first. Damn.

How did your first book sale come about?

Oh, the usual sort of thing – rise early, work late, strike oil. Several colleagues in my writers’ group were already represented by an agent, and they talked the rest of us up to him, and he asked if he could get first refusal if any of the rest of us wrote something. So I wrote His Majesty’s Starship and sent it to him. Whereupon, to my surprise and bafflement, he successfully sold it to Scholastic. Suddenly, apparently, this novel about a middle aged divorcee from a group marriage qualified me as a children’s writer. I still don’t quite get that.

What's your most popular book? Why?

In terms of sales and coverage, I suppose that would be the most recent, The New World Order. It’s my second book with Random House, which means their marketing can build on the foundations laid by the first. (My novels with Scholastic, His Majesty’s Starship and Wingèd Chariot, really didn’t build up much of a market presence mostly due to Scholastic’s idiosyncratic marketing methods, which as far as I can see rely heavily on telepathy.) Also, as it’s ostensibly a historical novel – at least until you start reading – people are picking it up and starting to read it more than they ever would with The Xenocide Mission.

Annoyingly, yet inevitably, my most popular book in terms of library loans is a volume I wrote for hire: The Vampire Plagues: London by Sebastian Rook.

Of your own books, do you have a favorite? Was it because of the idea, the characters, your life situation while you wrote it, the way it turned out, something else?

Now, that would have to be Wingèd Chariot, my drowned (or drownèd) kitten,. Although I say it myself, it featured a pretty novel take on time travel and answering various questions like the grandfather paradox. Then it was published with the crappiest cover imaginable, shortly before I left Scholastic anyway, so their telepathists didn’t even both to think hard about it at the book trade. Vanished without trace, poor soul. But the reviews it got were good, feedback I’ve received has been good and I’m very fond of it myself. It’s currently out with a publisher that specialises in reprints and I’m hoping ...

What other writers do you feel you have something in common with?

I think I would get on well with Orson Scott Card if were in the same room. We would probably agree to disagree on the nature of the Trinity and the Nicene Creed, but on the other hand, when it came to matters like suffering, sin and redemption I think we’d be pretty well eye to eye ... Plus, this is a man who was late for his wedding because he was handing in a manuscript.

Does writing have a role in shaping people's world view? How does sf act as an alienation technique to talk about the contemporary world?

Writing has a vital role in shaping world views, which is why so many regimes like to keep their writers under wraps. It beams signals straight into the mind. I’ve no doubt that a heady mixture of Asimov, Clarke and Dr Who in my growing years helped me develop as a moral person long before I began to consider codes of morality per se. You don’t, unless you’re a bad writer, say This Is Right and This Is Wrong. You have characters live it out by example. If you’re more intelligent than the censor then you can slip all kinds of things past, which is why Soviet SF was such a potent force.

I have ... absolutely no idea how sf acts as an alienation technique to talk about the contemporary world. Not even completely sure I understand the question ... I’ll have a go. Consider the matter of, say, humanity – which is on my mind at the moment because I’m reading Keith Brooke’s Genetopia for Vector review. Two thousand years ago, the parable of the Good Samaritan was shocking stuff. Nowadays, hopefully (but only hopefully) its message that we’re all neighbours under the skin isn’t quite so revolutionary. We probably don’t even think too hard about it, though God knows we still need to. So to reiterate the same message today you have to step it up to the next level, take it up and out of the contemporary world, which is where sf comes in. Genetopia uses a very different story to the Good Samaritan to deliver a similar message but scaled up – your humanity is in your heart, not your genetic make-up.

Does that answer the question? If not, it’s because I redefined what you were asking ...

Has 9/11 changed the way we write/think about alien cultures?

Well, it got the astonishingly bad Seven Days off our screens, since it proved to everyone’s satisfaction that there isn’t a time travel agency dedicated to undoing that kind of thing ... Go Osama!

Sorry, bad taste, and you asked about alien cultures rather than crap time travel. I think we can all safely say that dislike of the unlike has increased vastly amongst the unbrained since that particular date. But otherwise ... no, not really. In this country, at least, we have Northern Ireland and we’re used to the idea that the notional followers of a peaceful religion can do terrible things, without tarring their co-religionists with the same brush. (Though while the IRA had their faults, suicide bombing wasn’t one of them.) Anyone who came through the eighties is also used to the idea that from time to time a pea-brain can take charge of the White House and make his country do very silly things. So 9/11 probably did away with a lot of complacency, forced some heavy rethinking ... and ultimately we got back to living normally, knowing what we always knew but holding it more freshly in our minds.

It’s had a big effect on day-to-day lives, of course – but you asked about how we write/think, not what our governments do.

It also pricked a lot of utopian bubbles in making us realise how alien an alien culture can be. These people come from the same planet, era and genetic stock as the rest of us, yet look what they can do. And how many of them there are! Science won’t solve this. So, no one can be a Trekkie after 9/11. Another unexpected spin-off benefit.

What are you currently working on?

Back into space with the brothers book, though a different setting to His Majesty’s Starship and The Xenocide Mission. No title or publication date yet planned ... Also, my publisher has what will hopefully be the first of a series of slightly skiffy adventures in the contemporary world, for slightly younger readers – hopefully the Artemis Fowl sort of slot. Watch this space, or even better, watch www.sff.net-people/ben-jeapes.

Borrowing Time: Attica by Garry Kilworth

2006-05-11T07:38:00.000Z

Garry Kilworth really ought to be better known rather than being the open secret in fandom. Why? I suggest you read Attica. It is very good and wonderfully old fashioned.

Jordy, Alex and Chloe are ever so slightly bored in that way only children can have in holidays. Chloe gets talking to the strange elderly gentleman who spends his time snoozing in the garden and manages to get him to talk about his memories and his lost love. Inadvertently he sets the children on a quest to find a missing watch in the Attic.

As happens in Fantasyland, the Attic soon outgrows the roof that it is in and the world becomes very strange and eerily dangerous. Some of the commentary that I've come across has mentioned that it is reminiscent of The Lion , the Witch and the Wardrobe but to my mind it is closely linked the often forgotten Magician's Nephew and Eustace's way into Narnia.

Its inhabitants live in a world cobbled together from other peoples possessions - items popped into the attic for safe keeping and a rainy day which never arrives and is forgotten and replaced. The world is one made up of lost memories, perhaps waiting to be re-discovered like the watch, perhaps merely lost as time moves on. Kilworth makes an intriguing point - in this time of the Internet and relatively instant communication, we've lost the ability to take pleasure in our own lives, we've lost the sense of time that the analogue world delivers. (I speak as somebody who has no watch and rarely uses his mobile and is reliant upon clocks and computers for a sense of time. ) Its a Gibsonian moment - the analogue clearly punches through the ennui of the holiday, the Quest gives the children a purpose and makes them appreciate what they have in friendship.

Danger lurks ever near though. The Shadow Tangles and the cleaners (vicious creatures hell bent on keeping fire out of the Attic) hunt them but more insidiously there is always the danger that a Quester may go "native" and become lost in the weave of time, accreting layers of borrowed memories and becoming unable to leave.

There are echoes of the Borrowers and the post-War children's which appears to shift the present, alter the real, into a need to recover the Land from danger and to find a way of dealing with a time that is irrecoverably lost. It made do with what it could find, eaking out a living in rationing. There are also echoes of more recent novels, like Neil Gaiman's Coraline with the strange Lovecraftian disturbances to the architecture and the cat. This book is well worth a read on a Saturday afternoon.

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How Arabian are the Nights?

2006-05-10T07:30:00.000Z

I've been reading the Arabian Nights recently (well, in fact slightly more skimming to parts that I need) but a quick comparison of the Sindbad cycle and the Aladdin story reveals an interesting problem. Is the Arabian Nights truly Orientalist? According to Edward Said's Orientalism, the series of tales sets the Orient as as place of the Other, as a theatre onto which Western mores and visions are projected.

Superficially this works. Aladdin can be comfortably read as a tale which uses China and Africa as places of magic and decidedly dodgy dealings with a lamp. Sindbad can be comfortably read as a tale of foreigners recalling tall tales as to why they return with a completely different cargo that they were supposed to have.

However the textual history of the sequence throws this view of the West using the East as a way of dealing with their own short comings. Aladdin was not in fact one of the tales in the manuscripts that Galland translated, rather he invented the tale (confusingly it was later translated back into Arabic and accorded the status of being an original tale until the textual history of the Arabian Nights was uncovered). It is clearly a European tale in its construction and characters. It does not have the subtlety of the Sindbad sequence or its structure. Galland, like the proponents of the fairy tale craze in late seventeenth and early eighteenth century France, draws from the source material and creates his own satirical commentary on the French court of the day.

The structures of the tale reveal that Aladdin is European in that is in fact a linear narrative rather than the nested stories of the translated tales. So why use China and Africa rather than the countries with which there were trading links? In Fabulous Orients, Ros Ballaster demonstrates how the trading relations between the West and the Middle East had encouraged Western scholars to explore the culture, art and literature of those nations with whom they were doing business, leading to the whole scale importing and adaptation of literatures to the tastes of a home audience. At the time, China and Africa had hardly been touched by expansionist Europe so they were mysterious and afforded tale tellers a space in which they could clearly critique home rule and relations without endangering their liberty.

So are the Arabian Nights Arabian at all? Well yes and no. The original cycles come from all over the Middle East, Persia and India where the stories were circulated. However arguably Galland makes the change by adding in new tales of his own devising and so continues the exchange of narrative ideas that had been going on since the Middle Ages (as Robert Irwin's studies, For Lust of Knowing and the essential Arabian Nights Companion show as well as reading Chaucer and the Decameron amongst other works) where Eastern coutries had been used as marvellous locations or fabulous orients.

The fantasies of the two tales are similar but different and some of this comes from the modes of telling - oral and literate. Sindbad has the hallmarks of being an oral tale in that it delays gratification for the reader for seven tales, whilst Aladdin follows a more literate linear narrative from rise to fall to rise.

Aladdin's use of the Orient follows in the tradition laid down from the Middle Ages and complements Sindbad's own use of foreign lands (though these are carefully never described). So is it an Orientalist tale? I don't think so given the similar use of foreign lands and the underlying structures of mercantilism and the marvellous. It does however show the distance between the two expectations of story telling and the audience.

Geoff Ryman talks Cambodian

2006-04-08T16:24:00.000Z

In addition to his wonderful novel, King's Last Song, Geoff Ryman has just written this intriguing article and set of links to Cambodian literature in the Guardian.
Source: The Guardian (oddly).

Four and Twenty Blackbrids gives Priest an award?

2006-04-04T13:14:00.000Z

Just got this from Boing Boing. Cherie Priest's book, Four and Twenty Blackbirds, has won a Blooker award. I saw it mentioned in the main section of The Observer on Sunday but it ignored the fiction and only spoke about the cookbook. Go figure.

Harry Potter and the British Book Awards

2006-03-30T11:18:00.000Z

The latest Harry Potter has been named book of the year at the British Book Awards. She commented that first time she had won it, she had been wearing cheaper shoes. Audrey Niffenegger's Time Traveller's wife won the popular fiction category.

Source: BBC

Superheros? Certainly not super companies

2006-03-20T18:04:00.000Z

Cory Doctorow ran a story on Boing Boing on Marvel and DC's ridiculous trademarking of the word superhero in comics. Well, Will Shetterley's just gone one better and set up a (probably) temporary blog parodying this. [Warning: includes correct use of the word pants]. Hopefully it'll run for a while.

Buddha

2006-03-19T08:44:00.000Z

Manga continues to sweep across the English publishing world with Harper Collins being the latest to jump on the bandwagon. The lynch pin to their programme must be Osama Tezuka's re-visioning of the Buddha story in 8 volumes.

Told with reverence and wit, he develops what could be dry thesis into an engaging series. There are anachronisms thrown in to the mix and they do jar but perhaps this is a good thing. It stops one blindly following the narrative and makes the Buddhist principles readily accessible to everyday life. Tezuka's narrative bounces along with a wry humour, often expressed in little touches like the animal's expressions.

Equally appealing (though at time incredibly annoying) is the range of characters. (Perhaps its just me but I keep on hearing an American twang on anime overdubs. Sigh.) Each one takes his or her own part and develops it for the duration, usually it seems only over one book. The series looks like it is going to develop in a set of cyclical arcs, each gradually adding to the wider narrative.

Some of the art is cutesy and stylised. One expects it but there are some wonderful little touches that mean it is not cloying. However, it would be nice if the women werent always topless – it gets wearing quite quickly.

I'll certainly be reading more volumes with an eagerness that surprised me. I came to the books with a curiosity about them but have been left sated, though it is the type of satedness which comes after sucking lemons. Refreshing but wanting more.

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Notes heard on the wind: The King's Last Song by Geoff Ryman

2006-03-19T08:41:00.000Z

Memories are curious things, especially cultural ones. They create strange echoes which have decreasing coherence the longer they carry on, the less coherence they have to the listener, creating greater space for interpretation of the original message. Yet they linger, often tantalisingly, awaiting some body to re-discover them and give them a new lease of life.

Cambodia's memories, a shadow play depicting its former glory, are accidentally dug up by Luc Andrade, himself a fish out of water as a French man born in Cambodia but still very much part of the West, when he discovers a book made of gold leaves. The book depicts the life of Jayavarman, the last king to fully unify Cambodia and give it its sense of self worth. Before being a great king, he learned about the servants and became close friends with one and travelled through the country. He learned about his land whilst discovering how to gain its sense of pride and not be a pawn in regional superpower games.

Luc is kidnaped by an ex-Khmer Rouge who asks him to begin translating the book into vernacular so that it can be understood. Meanwhile he is given a heartbreaking riddle which he understands immediately. Its answer is perhaps part of the wider problem: everybody concerned, barring one or two transgressors, wants the book buried, claiming it is the Cambodian way. The past is a foreign land but travellers need to step into it to understand its relevance.

Luc's friend and guide, Map, works on rescuing him but to do so he needs to atone for his own actions in his land's recent past. As a former soldier he has killed people and taken part in the wars which have left his country vulnerable to the West. He shows hope though, knowing the such atonement may well leave him in jail or worse, as he rebuilds his life and tries to make small changes to his own environment. His use of a mobile phone shows how technology can be used to improve lives in the developing nations by enabling them to carry out their tasks and trades. It is nowhere near as strange and potentially catastrophic as Air, leaving behind small networks of users. It has less to do with giving aid than aiding development through the tools of the trade.

There is a network of voices that develops, each with its own vision of the country, from the recent destructive past to the seemingly distant peace and prosperity. Those who look to listen to each narrative are doomed to the fate of the golden book. Ryman calmly keeps the reader interested in the tapestries even though we know the outcome in all its frustrations.

The echo has been heard but few take time to listen it properly.

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Black Juice is always sweet as is the King's Last Song

2006-03-18T16:48:00.000Z

To add to the general hubbub about Black Juice, Colin Greenland has just reviewed it for the Guardian.

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A bit late but Geoff Ryman's latest was reviewed in the Independent yesterday. This is a book that I'll come back to in a future post but, quite seriously, read it.

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Talking Heads - David Marusek interviewed about Counting Heads

2006-03-05T12:23:00.000Z

Growing up, when did you first get interested in SF/Fantasy?

I wasn't really aware of the genre until already an adult (which is probably the reverse order for most people). As a child I avidly read stories about knights, battles, the Crusades. It was only many years later when I tried my hand at writing fiction did I discover that SF is an open playground for my imagination. Conversely, contemporary mainstream fiction--serious fiction--strikes me as being overly concerned with the achingly trivial ephemera of life. SF, on the other hand, allows me to deal in a matter-of-fact way with issues of monstrous proportions and outrageous consequences.

What do you read these days?

I don't have much time or patience for fiction. I mostly read non-fiction on science, sociology, politics, and current affairs. At the moment I'm reading The Big Bang by Simon Singh, The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney, Ammonite by Nicola Griffith, The Other Bible edited by Willis Barnstone, and Fundamentalism Comprehended edited by Martin E. Marty.

Why do you write genre? Do you feel a stronger affinity for one genre or another?

I suppose that someday I'll try my hand again at writing non-genre fiction, but for the foreseeable future SF readers seem willing to follow my musings, and I feel lucky and pretty much free to write about anything I want. It would be hard to give that up. I really have no desire to dabble in the other genres: fantasy, horror, mystery. Naturally, my ideal is to write fiction that transcends all genres.

Who is your ideal reader?

Someone who is intelligent, curious, capable and willing to entertain absurd notions of reality. Someone who is optimistic about the future, or at least open to a future unlike the present. Someone not suicidal, not too prissy, not on anabolic steroids. Someone who is willing to buy my books with real money so I can survive. Someone who loves wordplay and has an appreciation for dry, ironic humor.

How do you write? Do you plan out your books before you start? Do you write every day?

I put in about four hours a day, six days a week. Then I do my day jobs. It's not a bad schedule, and I've managed to keep to it for twenty years now. I write the first three drafts in longhand and only then keystroke the manuscript.

I'm a very slow writer. I seem to rewrite and rewrite. Fortunately, I seem to sense when a piece is finished. Counting Heads took me over five years of daily work, during which time I didn't start any other pieces. Of course, a few of those years were due to the incredible learning curve of how to write a novel. But a lot of it probably has to do with the "organic" process I employ. That is, I write whole chapters worth of stuff and then prune it back, hacking away thousands of words, to find the story.

For my next book I am trying to shorten the process by outlining. In fact, I sent a 15-page synopsis to my editor, David Hartwell, at Tor for his input. He sent back a number of insightful comments. Because the book is still in its early stages, I am able to revise without having to throw away a lot of hard work.

However, I find the outlining to be sheer drudgery. Also, I've discovered that it's in the writing, not the outlining, that the story and characters are revealed to me. So, it looks like I'll be alternating writing and re-outlining as the story veers in unexpected directions.

Also, I am keystroking the second draft, instead of the fourth. This also means I'll be giving my first readers (a dedicated half-dozen folks who have read everything I've ever published in manuscript format) a much less polished piece to critique.

Of your own books, do you have a favorite? Was it because of the idea, the characters, your life situation while you wrote it, the way it turned out, something else? Counting Heads seems to be partly a novel of dispossession. Was there a nod to cyberpunk or does this come from your own experience?

Since Counting Heads is my debut novel, I assume you're asking about my short fiction. Of my short fiction, I think my favorites are "Yurek Rutz, Yurek Rutz, Yurek Rutz" and "Listen to Me." Neither of these seemed to bring me much notice, but I like them because they seem to me to exemplify the pure short story form. In addition, "YR, YR, YR" is humorous, is written in epistolary form (as a cover letter to editor Gardner Dozois), and is set in my home town of Fairbanks, Alaska.

"Listen to Me" is a creepy story. It's a short short, that is, only about 1500 words. What I like about it is how each line implies whole paragraphs. It's very dense. Short shorts are a particular favorite of mine to write. I thoroughly enjoy dense writing, and short shorts provide the opportunity to wind every single word like a spring. In a perfect world I think I might write only short shorts and long novels.

What other writers do you feel you have something in common with?

I really don't have any idea how to answer this. It seems to me something to ask readers. People have compared my writing to a wide range of writers, and must not see the same things they do. Too close to it or something. Ask me again in fifty years.

Counting Heads has the feel of being self-contained novellas as well as being a novel. Is the short story an underrated form in your view? Should writers spend time writing shorts before attempting a novel?

In my case, I pretty much taught myself how to write by writing. I always considered myself a "novelist," but I spent over six years working on a novel called Longs Ha which just seemed to meander all over the place with no goal or ending in mind. Finally, a fellow writer pointed me to the Clarion workshops, a sort of boot camp for writing short SF and fantasy. I didn't really enjoy reading short fiction at the time. Don't know that I do now. The problem with short fiction, in my opinion, is all the work the reader must do at the beginning. It seems that stories these days start in medias res, right in the middle of some stirring dialog or action, and the reader must try to figure out who's who and what's going on. I hate that--too much heavy lifting. If I have to work, I'd rather invest my effort in a novel and stay with it for the week or so it takes me to finish.

But I was getting nowhere on my own, so I applied to and attended Clarion West in Seattle. What an education! It turned out that it was exactly what I needed. If reading a short story is hard work, writing one is twice as hard. You can't muck around in a short story finding your way. Plotting, characterization, theme, voice--it's all there all at once. And as it turned out, I was good at it. I sold my first short story on the spot to Asimov's. A second story I wrote at Clarion West sold to Playboy a month later.

In addition to learning the craft, publishing short fiction can get you noticed by writers, publishers, and agents. You can win awards. You're building a fan base, creating a list of publication credits. All things an aspiring novelist needs.

How do you feel about the future? What makes you the most hopeful and the most fearful?

I moved to Alaska in the 1970s with the view of establishing myself somewhere likely to be spared the nuclear Armageddon that I was sure was imminent. Somewhere I could live a self-reliant subsistence lifestyle. Three decades later, I live in Fairbanks, just up the road from the missile silos of the neocons' Star Wars initiative. In other words, at ground zero. And the land here in the Alaskan Interior is too hungry to support even a small population. All of our food and goods are trucked thousands of miles to our big box stores.

On the other hand, I feel more optimistic these days about the durability of civilization. Somehow we'll muck through, no matter what.

That said, what I find that the most hopeful and the most threatening influences today are the same thing--the transcendent power of technology. The more we understand the laws of Nature, the more we will be able to stand outside them. Eventually, given our current ever-increasing progress, we'll become demi-gods. We'll conquer death, disease, space, and time. We won't need Jesus or the Prophet to act as our agents; we humans will do it ourselves.

There are a lot of people in the world today who don't want to be gods and will do everything to stop anyone else from becoming a god. There are a lot of other people who want to become gods but are determined to keep godhood to themselves and their own groups. Whatever you call it--racism, fundamentalism, tribalism, corporatism, elitism--the heart of conflict today is human progress.

Does writing have a role in shaping people's world view?

Absolutely. Artists, in general, apprehend the future and expose the public to it. Writers, especially SF writers, catalog society's options and create a working vocabulary for public discussion.

What are you currently working on?

Two short short stories and two novels. Both novels are on the Counting Heads story arc. One of them, Day of the Oship, takes up right after the first book ends. The second, The Slow Lounge, takes place 600 years later.

Does some contemporary SF reflect a Rich Reader Experience in its use of ready technologies, like the grey water recycling mentioned as well as the Internet, or contemporary society, like the celebrity share system?

If I understand the question, I'd say yes, but no more so than good narrative always has.

This could be the subject of a whole semester's discussion, but in brief, I'd say that the prerequisite of storytelling, something that is hardwired into our DNA, is a person's ability to construct a whole world model in their inner eye through the medium of language. This ability to model outside realities internally through the medium of language must have a strong adaptive value, because we do it from infancy (bedtime stories).

The language needed to invoke this response naturally changes through time and culture. For example, it has jumped from spoken words to written. Technological innovation has further worked on our imaging and ideation faculties. For example, in the 19th century, readers valued the author's skill in painting word pictures, voluble descriptions of the story's settings. We have much less tolerance of that today. It makes the story drag. We don't need it.

I think the art of description started to change in the late 19th Century with the use of, first, graven images and subsequently photos in the popular media. Mark Twain's writing style reflected this. In the foreword to The Unabridged Mark Twain, he boldly declares:

"No weather will be found in this book. This is an attempt to pull a book through without weather. It being the first attempt of the kind in fictitious literature, it may prove a failure, but it seemed worth the while of some dare-devil person to try it, and the author was in just the mood.'

Many a reader who wanted to read a tale through was not able to do it because of delays on account of the weather. Nothing breaks up an author's progress like having to stop every few pages to fuss up the weather. Thus it is plain that persistent intrusions of weather are bad for both reader and author."

The point he was trying to make, I think, was not about weather but about Victorian word pictures.

With print, film, photos, and TV, we swim in images constantly. The average person collects a staggering inventory of images in a lifetime. Images of things he may or may not have personally witnessed in reality. Images of actual and imaginary things. The savvy writer can tap into this inventory. I can write, for example, "The captain steps onto the bridge of the starship," and instantly a dozen possible sets, complete in every detail, spring to mind: Enterprise, Battlestar Galactica, Serenity, etc. My job as writer is not to duplicate the work of hundreds of set designers but to provide the essential details that fix in the reader's imagination the unique qualities of my starship.

In a similar manner, we acquire an inventory of ideas. I think the invention of magazines, which are essentially "idea digests" has started the process and that blogs are a natural extension. Our cultural knowledge base is expanding so fast these days that no one can keep up completely. At best we do a daily scan of all the ideas floating around and pursue only a few in any deeper or comprehensive way. Ideas take longer to apprehend than images; they take effort.

Since SF is purportedly a fiction of ideas, the SF writer must decide whose idea inventory to tap into--the early adopter's or the traditionalist's. As I implied in an earlier question above, there is a portion of society (better than half of the US population, IMO) who actively resist new ideas and the progress they foretell. I read an explanation by Michael Crichton's agent once about commercially successful SF--it never extrapolates technology beyond six years from the present. Anything further out exceeds the comfort level of the mainstream reader. I believe that, even though I ostensibly place my fiction a hundred years out, most of the ideas in my work adhere to this rule.

How has 9/11 affected how one writes about society, in particular the interface between the individual and the state? Has there been a freeing up of genre post-Seattle, as some writers have suggested?

I really don't think there's been much change in how one writes about society or that there's been a freeing up of SF. If anything, these and other recent events have only helped identify who the major players are. The tragedy of 9/11 has emboldened the power elite to emerge from behind their curtains, and the WTO-type demonstrations in Seattle and elsewhere have convinced them to increase their domestic spying.

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Sable Keech - The Computer Game

2006-02-21T13:26:00.000Z

Just came across this computer game version of the latest Neal Asher book. A fun way to promote a book by an author who I think is rahter good (in a splattery kind of way).

SF Reviews

2006-01-14T17:01:00.000Z

Jon Courtenay Grimwood has just reviewed the following for the Guardian.
Richard Paul Russo's Rosetta Codex
Jeff Vandermeer's Shriek
Naomi Novik's Temeraire
Fiona McIntosh's Bridge of Souls

Jan Mark enjoyed Hardinge's Fly By Night.

It all follows up nicely to the Ursula Le Guin interview that recently ran.

Breaking the Siege

2006-01-02T21:24:00.000Z

New World Order by Ben Jeapes (Corgi, £5.99, pb)

Ben Jeapes's latest paperback, New World Order, is a counterfactual history set in the Civil War and yet it is more.

John Donder , a Holekhor general, arrives at the siege of Newbury to find the Parliamentarian side armed with machine guns. As he travels to find his son and friends from his earlier visit, he discovers the remnants of the opposing forces from the civil war on his own planet who are arming the troops with machine guns instead of flint lock rifles. In the break between the Wars the Holekhor launch a fullscale invasion of Earth, leasing a piece of England as their own, whilst King Charles is allowed to sit on the throne apparently in power. Donder's commander then initiates a full scale invasion through increasing settlers in the rest of England and allowing the Congregation to root out heretics. Whilst this invasion is happening, Oliver Cromwell launches a resistance to the invaders and the new technology.

New World Order uses its fractured history to comment upon the present. Rather than bending the natural order of facts, Jeapes merrily shatters them but in doing so delivers a wonderfully modern clash of cultures which asks the reader to think about their own position. There is a running commentary upon the nature of immigration and each cultures response to the other. He has his own position through with which he begins to rejoin the histories and he derides the extremist positions of both sides.

The thrust of his argument comes from the use of exegesis by parties on both sides. Both the Holekhor (especially for the Congregation) and Cromwell use their religious texts to justify their actions. Can one live one's life by this? Perhaps but one cannot justify important actions or events by religious text. In keeping with the rest of the book, Jeapes allows the reader to see the insanity of devoting an outlook merely to the text without navigating its meaning for onself. It is seen as dubly insane when the troops are given the weapons for the first time and decides, since they are using them, that are not evil, yet later in the book, they charge Daniel, Donder's son, with being in collusion with consorting with demons.

The title can apply in many situations and is a summation of where each culture lives but it resists simple Western or Orientalist readings. What really keeps this novel going is the spritely writing which weaves fictions amidst the facts. It is an exhilarating book that has fun in its seriousness.

A dragon to remember

2006-01-02T20:59:00.000Z

Temeraire by Naomi Novik (Harper Collins, £12.99)

Temeraire is a novel of expectations, especially from the reader, as the hype has been building. As such it is a little difficult to come to this novel cold, without exectation.

During the Napoleonic Wars, Laurence captures an egg, which later hatches into the Dragon Temeraire, during a naval engagement with Napoleon's fleet. Laurence is then put in charge of the hatchling, loses his commission and moves to the training school in Scotland. In due course, they hear of Villeneuve's breakout acoss the Atlantic and give chase after the Dragons. In so doing, the truth about Temeraire – that he was a present for Napoleon himself from the Chinese.

Novik delivers a well-built world which enthralls the reader. It is reminsicent of Patrick O'Brian and Susanna Clarke but I do think that there are shades of C S Forester's Hornblower. Novik is obviously happy with the eighteenth century but once she is on sea though, Novik is most certainly at home and delivers some fantastic description and action. It seems thinner once on land and outside of social engagement. The dragon flying lessons remind me of Quidditch.

Does this mark a beginning to the notion of historical fantasy? Not really since authors like Stephen Lawhead use the Crusades quite adeptly as does Emma Bull and Stephen Brust's Freedom and Necessity the eighteenth century for some time. It does mark, by chance more than anything, use of the nineteenth century and the social contexts which afford the action as well. This seems to be gaining popularity in the US with writers such as Jacqueline Carey and Sarah Monette making good use of language as combat arena. This is definitely a plus side. It allows her room to develop Laurence and his supporting cast as real characters rather than cyphers. They have foibles and weaknesses as well as strengths and these are rarely lost sight of in the book. She takes her time in building each voice and giving it room to develop with promises of more.

The character of Temeraire though does present some problems. She explains how the dragon learns languages but it is never fully explained how he talks with Laurence. The dragons represent a different technology, a certain science, to the world and there is a whole raft of changes to the world which are never explained, in contrast to Clarke who offers some back story to her novel of revived magic. It asks the reader to believe implicitly in these creatures, yet nothing is offered to fully bind them to the century.

No doubt these will come up in the later novels in the series for this is the first in a trilogy. What she delivers is a fast-paced and largly thrilling book and the perfect start to a series. The plot is largely taken with developing the core relationships which suggests that we may be in this world for a while. If she can develop its a series of plots and linking narratives, we may be in for fun for some time to come.

Cyberpunk 2.0

2005-12-15T16:17:00.000Z

A thought. I my last post I posited the idea of cyberpunk 2.0 and linked it to web 2.0. Its something that I'd like to explore and will do when I've a little more time. I only link the two because of the Rich User experience in Web 2.0. I'm not a believer in this whole cyberpunk - to postcyberpunk to postpostcyberpunk (The Overclockers?) but something is happening in more than one writer in different places. A conversation appears to be starting in the review pages and between the published books.

It is not to say that I'm trying to arbitrarily call some thing already named the Overclockers by Bruce Sterling something else. In my mind, at least at the moment, there is a link from writers such as Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow back to what Gibson and Sterling were doing back in the day (and still do well now - just in a different fashion) and it probably goes back to Bester and so on. (Chasing the hall of mirrors of author influences is not something I intend to do right now but if it happens...).

What we seem to be seeing is ideas being used to gauge or posit how technology affects society and the inverse, how people can affect technology. Stross and Docotorow (the two most noticeable writers at the moment) are writing neat things in neat ways with panache. Does David Marusek do this? I don't know as I haven't finished Counting Heads yet but hope to soon. Perhaps there is a certain amount of reinventing the wheel going but with newer toys. It happens, certainly.

There are only two stories

2005-12-15T08:21:00.000Z

People are strange when you're a stranger. I'll stop with the reference there but it, to my mind encapsulates, the essential truth about Cory Doctorow's latest, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town.

It is perhaps his strangest, yet most true, novel to date.

When Alan comes to town, he decides to renovate his home and kit the place out in shelving (a man after my heart here) for his books. He meets the neighbours, a house of students, dropouts and the displaced, and begins to make friends with them. Well almost. Alan is a true geek - whilst looking for something to do with his time, he gets involved with Kurt's plan to blanket Toronto in free broadband, starting with the market. Kurt, an anarchist with a heart, goes dumpster diving and constructs kit out of what he finds tossed away and sells any kit he cannot use on eBay with a network of runners to help him.

Perhaps we find here a sort of cyberpunk 2.0. In the same way that Web 2.0 is being vaunted as the new way of enhancing/developing an existing technology, making it a Rich User experience, Doctorow (and I need to finish the book but I suspect also David Marusek) is taking the base of cyberpunk and sf and reimagining it as a place where readers gain a Rich Reading Experience as the plot lines and mcguffins seem eerily familiar. Sf doesn't have to project itself into the future to carve out its own niche; all it needs is the confidence to get on with telling the story. After reading Stephenson's Baroque Cycle and his spelunking (to paraphrase Clute) through the workings of the Network Society, Alan and Kurt's networks are lighthearted practical demonstrations of the phenomenon at work. Cyberpunk tended to be the interface of science and technology and how they afftect each other in terms of use and abuse and Docotorow does this with aplomb running backwards and forwards with ideas that are just in the corner of the eye. part of this comes from the fact that he is more aware of the technologies than Gibson claims he was at the time of Neuromancer (I only have the introduction to the twentieth anniversary edition to base this on though).

Yet what really makes this novel stand out for me is Alan's relationship with the Mimi, the Winged Lady. This screamed Fevvers from Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus, to me and really brought out the essential wierdness of human relationships. Under all the clothes and what not we all have our own personal hang-ups and strangeness, though perhaps with out the avian architecture on our backs. It would be a huge misreading to see her as a fallen angel. She isn't but, as with Fevvers, she is a hyperreal character who reminds Alan of his own wierd background and he in turn helps her to accept herself. In its own magically real way, this relationship brings out the human side to Cory's novels which I've felt was slightly lacking. It is always there but they get swamped by the barrage of ideas. Even Alan and Kurt are familiar to us in their entrepreneurial escapades and their very human successes and failures.

I can see why the book has divided some readers into loving or loathing it (or just being plain mystified by it). In its wierdness (and wiredness), it is a fine relationship novel. Its not what you expect from him and this is a Good Thing. People (and times are strange ), just deal with it.

Remaking the God of Love

2005-10-31T08:27:00.000Z

I'm not sure what to make of Justina Robson's latest novel, Living Next Door to the God of Love . It is undeniably a fantastic read and stylish. It is undoubtedly true. The problem for me was that I needed to be around a quarter the way through before the universe fell into place for me. Perhaps it is just me.

It is a profoundly human novel in its intent, a delicate dissection of human relationships at its core. In the city of Metropolis you can be who you want to be. Join the carnivalesque parade of characters and redefinitions of the self. Lose yourself in the city. Its a familiar theme really to sf and (arguably) strains of literature (Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities and M. John Harrison's writing) and it speaks of an urban truth, grounding the reader in the grittiness of life whilst promising and, to a certain extent, delivering the promises made like pillow kisses.

This speaks to our need to identify ourselves in relation to other beings and genres. We rarely allow ourselves to just be and exist. Rather it is comforting to place ourselves into the hierarchy and so when the Splinter arrives, the Unity (the post-human consciousness which translates people into its way of existing/thing/being) is threatened as it allows difference and very human emotions - love, lust, desire. Robson allows politics in since the Splinter cannot recognise its own frailties and weaknesses. It is splintering itself, creating shards around the universe. Robson joins in the conversation of hard sf's desire for uplift, that a singularity will give humans a better life. Unity cannot deal with the Splinter, or even converse with it, because it is allows for human emotion. Indeed, it thrives on it.

Francine is out to find love but wanders into the world of fairytale. Not the Disney you'll immediately know but the maerchen. Bluebeard is indeed dangerous in this world as are the vampires. (Robson updates the nineteenth century mode of the fantastic into the twenty first century with aplomb.) Jalaeka is busy remaking himself as well. He's been many things in his time but is sure to be more as he searches for his own path to Enlightenment.

Part of the book, I believe is about language. One of the things about sf is that it hasn't really explored how other beings, mainly animals, communicate and the consequence this has for language. Consider bees and their dances which communicate the location of the honey or ants and their various chemical languages. None of these are experienced in the same way as speach and this underlies part of Unity's problem with the Splinter. It cannot find a way to converse with it since it has no common ground on which it can experience communication. Unity needs to change, or adapt, at a fundamental level and this is what the Splinter offers. The book has a joyous way of suddenly stopping the narrative to allow the reader fully into the experiental world of its characters and this really brings them alive.

Justina is a great stylist, just look at Natural History - to my mind a wonderfully succinct novel which told a strong story and read very well. I found the easiest way into the book was to access it through the various character's names and then work from that point upwards. Perhaps in this new novel she was trying too hard on how to say it and somewhere the story got slightly lost.

It needs a reread and no doubt I'll rediscover stuff in it and rethink my experiences. I'm still of the opinion that Justina is one of our finest stylists, in any genre, but this one may not be her best.

An incurably odd world

2005-10-26T17:51:00.000Z

We meet Mosca, the heroine of Fly by Night, when she kicks a dove. Her criminal career is then spent breaking into the local jail and stealing the keys to release a prisoner in the stocks, named Eponymous Clent.

It is an enjoyable start to Francis Hardinge's debut novel. [An aside: I'll get this over and done with now – if you care about children's fantasy, read this book and remember her name.] Mosca and Clent leave the small village where her father has hidden for many years, afraid of
the authorities since he is considered a heretic, though how much so remains to be seen. She has not had a sheltered life and is a thoroughly morally dubious character in the best tradition – a pragmatist. Her father taught her how to read and opened her life to a world of ideas
and discussion.

The world of Fly by Night is late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, one realised with historical accuracy and suitable archaicisms but with cunning artifice and invention. It breathes and comes alive as the two characters come together and fully explore the byways, highways
and waterways as well as the floating coffee houses. Rather than dump us into a secondary world and expect the reader to adjust or be thrown out, Hardinge allows the reader in gently. It could be taken (barring invention) as a historical novel. It works admirably well on this level
but it also has a touch of the John Masefields about it. The world is, in her words, "incurably odd" and it is this that tells us it is fantasy. The real world functions but it has areas of thinning and Hardinge plays with this to throw in delicate oddities and words which tell us that we are somewhere else. We can breathe the subtle aroma of coffee beans and beer, whilst avoiding the ordure.

As the reader comes to know this world, so does Mosca. She is from a small village but she learns the ways of the world with its courtesies and manners, an equally challenging battleground, especially for a neophyte. More importantly, she moves from being a recipient of stories, a passive player to taking control of the way her story is told. She becomes aware of the very grammar and language and decides to control it. It is an organic world and one that we can either grow with or not. One of the threads of the book is laid bare when she comments upon the
Bird Catcher's use of language and how they ensnare the reader within the beauty of the language.Yet language is also a problem. The Stationer's Guild and the Locksmiths are tied up in a battle to control the rebel press and thus the dissemination of ideas to the population. Mosca's father, Quilliam, was one of the free thinkers who are being repressed by the state and so these ideas come out via pamphleteering.

Instead of falling for her own pamphleteering, Hardinge shows how even the Dissenters are victims of their own charade, subtly moving within their own propaganda. It becomes apparent that Quilliam was an atheist, an even more dangerous form of thought than Dissension. Many of his followers are unaware of this since he covered it by propagandizing for the Bird Catchers. Does Mosca crumble under these startling truths? Well no, she's too pragmatic but it makes her aware of the true nature of the rebellion and Interregnum. This helps her with her court dealings as she takes all the characters in her stride and learns about their true strengths and weaknesses.

There is so much in this book and I hope to be rereading it very shortly at some leisure. Suffice it to say, its one of my finds of the year and I am keen to read more by her in the future. It is a salutary reminder that children's fantasy is not all about magic and secondary worlds. Fantasy needs to be more of the imagination and discussion of the ideas rather than propaganda and this is what Fly by Night does so well. It explores the methods of spreading ideas and it gives them room to exist within the pages of a novel, encouraging the reader to discover and learn their own language of the world . It may be incurably odd but it is necessary and vital.

A Critics in Wolfe's Clothing

2005-08-10T18:11:00.000Z

Gary Wolfe's collection of reviews, Soundings, has just been published
by Beccon press in the UK. Although John Clute is probably the best
known genre critic, Wolfe is definitely worth a read. There is a
refreshing honesty to this collection. It has not been collected to
justify a position and altered (much if at all - I'm still reading the
book) to fit a new world view.

Wolfe, for those who may not know who he is, is a reviewer for Locus
magazine as well as being a professor at Roosevelt University. Soundings
is not a dry book, rather it is a lively trip through some of the best
and most interesting novels published between 1992 and 1996.

Damn Hogwarts

2005-08-03T11:59:00.000Z

I'll come clean. Like a few people, I bought the new Harry Potter and spent the (next) day reading it - I had other things to read and do on Saturday. I found it to be like Spiderman 1, setting matters up for the next installment but still enjoyable (despite the correct rumours flying about various websites).

I've just come out of reading the Time magazine interview with JK Rowling which has had writers such as Terry Pratchett muttering wildly. What has not been commented upon (mainly because the commentators are in the same boat) is that she comes from the idea that fantasy is Narnia and Middle Earth (which she gave up on according to the piece). Her point of reference is the genre as symbolic and an analogy for religion.

Fantasy is a broader field than that and, unfortunately, the perception is not always solved by the often poor ranges in the shops.

The interview does give an twist of spin with the oh-so casual mention of Rowling's church membership and Dumbedore. Does this mean that he will rise again? I doubt and fervently hope not but there is the phoenix who may well come back in book 7.

Rowling sees herself as a subverter of the genre, a task that, as any fule kno, has already been done - several times. In fact, she is reinforcing not only the fantasy genres but also the boarding school dramas and pushing Enid Blyton's worlds back a little further. Will we know what her intentions for the closing of the world are? Not for another few years.

An introduction of sorts

2005-07-29T12:32:00.000Z

I'm currently reasearching a history of fantasy in children's literature. Why? Quite simply, I'm curious. I read it as a child and still read it in between other novels.

I want to get my hands under the bonnet as 'twere and try to look at the relationships and conversations that lie therein, such as the argument regarding the using literature as a vehicle (allegorical or otherwise) for religious comment that rages between GP Taylor and Philip Pullman. It comfortably stretches back to CS Lewis and George MacDonald. But are these writers simply being bold in their intent? Is the literature a format for this debate and, if yeah or nay, how has it developed?

I'm also very curious about fantasy. Is it a bunch of Hobbit-lovers with little imagination bastardising a genre or are there other things happening therein that most critics and reviewers tend to ignore? No doubt there will be book reviews and random thoughts posted to the blog in due course.

Post-prandial thought

2005-07-29T12:16:00.000Z

I've posted a link to Farah Mendlesohn's blog in the links as she is currently researching children's sf. She also has a questionnaire on the subject (accesible through her blog or my website) if you are interested. It all goes to a good cause.