Hopeless, Maine

It is a rare pleasure to encounter a creation that is as fresh, invigorating, and quite so enticing as Hopeless, Maine. Which is why I want to share it with you here, point you in its direction. Watch out, though. Step foot there and you may never want to leave (even if you have that choice).

Hopeless is a strange, gothic island off the coast of Maine, cut off from the rest of reality for the greater part. Hopeless Maine is also a graphic novel series, the peculiar child of Tom and Nimue Brown. A taste of island life can be found at the Hopeless Maine website.

If this has cast its spell, why not take a look at the graphic novel. A sumptuous work of art that tells a captivating tale. You can buy it here, or order it from your local bookshop (ISBN 9781908830128)

And what can you expect of Hopeless? Here's a taster:

To most people on the island of Hopeless, a gnii is a strange little light in the sky, often seen flying over the island in flotillas. Older residents may remember the giant, oceanic gnii who were once hunted for their oil, but those creatures have not been seen in a long time. Common gnii are not unlike squid, aside from their habit of carrying bits of gravestones about with them. Nature has blessed the gnii with a silk balloon, but not the means to inflate it. They have learned to steal candle ends and affix them to stone fragments. They are also known to by shy and will generally put their stone between them and anything that might be looking, leaving only a few tentacles to give away their presence. The name ‘gnii’ is derived from the sound they make on hitting the ground. Cooking instructions: If fried at a very high temperature until crispy, gnii are just about edible. However, if the silk balloon isn’t properly removed it will cause choking and death.

This is not just worth it for yourself – a glorious adventure with which to haunt yourself – but consider what a wonderful gift this would be for others at this time of year. So why not push out the boat and see just what the island of Hopeless is like.

Interview

I have been interviewed on the lovely A.F.E. Smith's Barren Island Books. Take a look at this and all the other wonderful interviews.

Youthful Influences

This could be one of those gushing thank-you speeches accompanied by floods of tears… nah. Influences are rarely deliberate and not always for the best.

But it does no harm to look back and think a bit about the road you have travelled and where it started, what equipment you were given to help you along the way. Not only is it a thank you to those who bestowed the gifts, but it helps you to consider all the roads you might have travelled and all the ones that are still to be explored.

I grew up in a house with books. Not a huge number as we weren’t that well off. But books nonetheless. Reading was encouraged and with siblings seven years my senior I learned at an early age. I borrowed from the school library, I borrowed from the public library, and I read what was in the house – mostly my mother’s Companion Book Club volumes. By the time I was eleven I had an adult library ticket although I was only allowed to borrow non-fiction. Little did they know I was reading Simenon, Fleming, Greene, MacInnes, and others at home. Mix in with that all the normal fiction and non-fiction a boy would be reading along with his weekly Beano, TV21, and Look and Learn and you get a potent brew.

In those days I was fairly solitary with very few close friends. One of these, Gary Smith, introduced me to the books of Arthur Ransome, so he deserves a big thank you as I still read these with great pleasure. The few friends I did have all went to different secondary schools to me. In terms of education, that was two years of utter misery. And away from school it was balanced by the fun of becoming a young flâneur and of haunting museums and old buildings in the city where I lived. Although my walking days are done, museums are still places I enjoy, inspirational havens that are extraordinarily rich in stimuli.

Already there were threads here that wouldn’t become apparent to me until much later in life. Irrespective of my awareness of what was happening, this was preparing the seed bed. I was writing already. Making up stories, doing research for projects, and writing them up were all fun. It seemed as natural a thing to do as playing with my huge boxes full of Tallon Tek (a plastic, snap-together construction set based on Meccano). But it was playing at that stage and nothing more.

It was when we moved to Sussex that the light went on and the seeds began to germinate. I was moved from a school that wished it was Eton and where bullying was rife to a school that was much more relaxed yet had far fewer problems. And I made friends. And there were girls.

The boy given the task of making sure I didn’t get lost until I could find my own way round became well known in later life as Wreckless Eric. My other friends included Tom Morley, Pete Thomas, and other luminaries of the rock world. Surrounded by so much musical talent, I can only put my adherence to a literary path down to the fact I have stubby fingers and two left ears.

The important thing is that I was surrounded by people who were interested in the arts – dance, music, theatre, film, painting, sculpture, and writing. And this was the ‘60s. My immediate circle of friends was embedded in a culture of freedom and exploration, of sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. And books.

At school I had a succession of very good English teachers from Bill Euston who introduced me to T H White’s The Once and Future King, a book important to me on so many levels, through to Colin Silk who taught me at A Level and instilled not just a love of a broad range of literary fiction, but the skills to read it in both an analytical and synthetical way. Reading to understand the meaning that could be mined, reading to understand the techniques employed by the writer, reading for pleasure.

With money coming in from weekend work, I could buy records and I could buy books. I could get to London for the theatre. I could go to festivals and concerts. And yes, you really could do all that on what a teenager earned from stacking shelves in a supermarket, sweeping factory floors, working in a market garden. The endless summers of youth seemed like a long party. I could read for days on end, explore the countryside, leave a flower on the river bank where Virginia Woolf stepped into oblivion, or sit under the stars with friends and dream of what we thought would be a better world.

We made our own festivals at school, put on plays, trooped along to Phun City, went up to the Roundhouse and Hyde Park, were in and out of the Dome, tried to sink the Isle of Wight, spaced out to Hawkwind, cheered on the Deviants, and chanted along with Edgar Broughton. Yes. I was a hippy. An anarchist. A protestor. A demolisher. A creator.

When not out of my head on music, I read and read and read, buying books from the Unicorn Bookshop in Brighton and mixing there with all sorts of wonderful people. This is, perhaps, when I began to find my voice. I read New Worlds, Bananas, OZ, IT, and other underground magazines (I still have most of my copies of Nasty Tales). And I swallowed books whole – one a day, sometimes. On top of all that activity I still had the energy to pull all-nighters to finish a book. It didn’t exactly enhance my performance at school, but I seem to have done well enough to go on to become a teacher.

Those magazines opened up a world of writing that I hadn’t yet imagined existed and picked up some of those threads from earlier in my life. Michael Moorcock’s work became a firm favourite and I later discovered that he had written for Look and Learn as a Fleetway staff writer. And of course, if you read New Worlds your mind was being expanded by all sorts of wonderful writers – Ballard, Aldiss, Sladek, Zoline, Harrison, Spinrad, le Guin, Russ, and so on. All of these are writers who are invariably pushed into the science fiction ghetto in an attempt to neutralise them, yet they were writing the most powerful literature of its time, using sf to enable them to explore issues that were not getting an airing elsewhere as well as exploring different methods to get their message across. I was also reading those writers when they discussed their influences and explored those as well, stepping from world to world of an ever increasing literary multiverse.

And of course, I wrote and wrote and wrote.

And wrote.

And then I wrote a lot more.

[A condensed version of this will turn up elsewhere.]

It's here!

Publication day!

Today sees the publication of the ebook of Stealing into Winter with HarperVoyager.

It's a real bargain at £1.99.

Please give it a look.
Please give it a try.

Voyager Valentine

When events knock the door off its hinges and kick you out of bed, when you are being hunted but you don’t know why, when others look to you for help even though you told them you weren’t interested, there’s little time to form a lasting relationship.

All this and more confronted Jeniche of Antar and left her old life in ruins. What chance of happiness?

As part of a multi-author Valentine’s Day blog crossover, I asked Jeniche, the central character of my forthcoming novel Stealing into Winter, a few questions to see if the answers might attract a companion for her.

Perhaps Jeniche could even find love in another book? Feel free to suggest in the comments if there’s a character from one of the other authors’ books that you think would make a good match for them. I’m not in a position to offer a giveaway just yet (my book isn’t out until July), but some of the other authors are, so head to their blogs (listed below) if you’re interested in free stuff.

Jeniche of Antar

Name: Jeniche Lusor Remai, although I rarely use my last names.

Age: I’m not exactly sure. Early to mid twenties.

Place of birth: Jhilnagar, which is the closest thing that Antar has to a capital.

Job/career: I’m a thief. But don’t tell the City Guard.

Hobbies: Reading. Astronomy. The University library is easy to sneak into.

Most treasured possession: If you can call it a possession, I count my friendship with Trag as the most treasured thing in my life.

Favourite book: Observations of the Lunar Disc with Notes on the History of the Orb and its Use by the Ancients by Teague of the University of Makamba.

Pets: No. I am rather fond of cats, though.

Who was your childhood hero? I had no childhood.

Who was your first crush? Wedol, son of Bolmit the baker.

What’s your perfect holiday? The festival run by the Tunduri was fun. While it lasted. My abrupt removal from the streets rather put a sour end on it.

Favourite childhood memory? None. Unless you count the day I found the courage to run away. That would be the least worst day of my childhood.

If you came into money, which two people would you share it with? Trag and Shooly’s parents. Yes, I know that’s three people, but Shooly’s parents would spend it all on her, so that makes it two.

What do you think of children? I think they should be loved and play to their heart’s content. If that is, however, a sideways sort of question, then I have not the slightest maternal instinct.

What is your ideal home? The place I live now is just fine although I would prefer better ventilation. Late afternoons in the summer can be a bit overpowering. That’s why you’ll find me on the roof.

What is your perfect date day/night? Do I have to answer this? It’s nothing spectacular. Sitting out at night, beneath a clear sky, talking quietly.

What are you most afraid of? Getting caught.

What did your parents do? The only thing I know about them is the fact they must have produced me. I have no memory of them and was never told about them.

Other authors’ blogs

Katherine Harbour (Thorn Jack Available now)

A.F.E Smith (Darkhaven July 2015)

Bishop O’Connell (The Stolen Available now) 

Ingrid Seymour (Ignite the Shadows April 2015) 

Andy Livingstone (Hero Born April 2015) 

Christi Whitney (Grey Available 2015) 

Nancy Wallace (Among Wolves May 2015) 

Alison Stine (Supervision April 2015)

Jack Heckel (Once Upon A Rhyme Available now) 

Brooke Johnson (The Brass Giant May 2015)

John Ayliff (Belt Three June 2015) 

Running a little late...

...but I have been busy. What with all my news and getting manuscripts (why do we still use that and the equally redundant 'typescript'? who knows) ready and all the other stuff I'm doing in a massive deck clearing operation, I feel like I'm busier than ever.

And happy as a larrikin (although why a hooligan would be any happier than anyone else is as much a mystery as most of the rest of life has and continues to be to me).

Anyway, in case you are interested, the series of mine that HarperVoyager have acquired is to be known as 'Shadow in the Storm - the Chronicles of Jeniche of Antar'

The first book will be out in November of this year. Initially as an ebook and followed by a print run in May of next year.

Harper have acquired the first three titles (there are seven in total) and have first refusal on the rest.

Book 1 - Stealing into Winter (already published by Roundfire and reacquired so that HV could have the series from book one).
Book 2 - Exile and Pilgrim (the book that wowed Natasha Bardon at Harper and led to the offer).
Book 3 - Players of the Game
Book 4 - Thunder on the Mountain

Books 5, 6 and 7 are planned but have yet to be drafted. That's my next big task - hence the clearing of the decks so I can sit down and get all three books first drafted in a single session. Watch this space for more news as and when it becomes available.

All that work also explains why my reading rate has dropped a bit.

Books read in August

Any Old Iron – Anthony Burgess

Groaning Spinney – Gladys Mitchell

Late, Late In The Evening – Gladys Mitchell

The Dancer At The Gai-Moulin – Georges Simenon [new tr]

Black Dogs Circled – Mick Farren

Vic And Blood – Harlan Ellison

The Wave In The Mind – Ursula K Le Guin

Cheek By Jowl – Ursula K Le Guin

The Ferguson Affair – Ross Macdonald

NEWS!

I can finally announce my big news (on which I've been sitting since I first heard in February).

Not only do I now have a literary agent - the wonderful Leslie Gardner at Artellus, but HarperVoyager have finally announced my signing. I have a three book deal on a series (with first refusal on the rest).

More details will follow when I have them.

Another month...

...another... er.

Well. What do you expect. I'm a writer. I write. And I read. I rarely leave the house. Nothing much happens.

Which is not strictly true. Things are happening and I am hoping that if you come back next month, you'll be able to read all about it.

In the meantime...

Books read in July

The Word For World Is Forest – Ursula K Le Guin

Nest Of Vipers – Gladys Mitchell

Fault In The Structure – Gladys Mitchell

The Secret Commonwealth Of Elves, Fauns And Fairies – Rev Robert Kirk (Andrew Lang)

The Wild Girls – Ursula K Le Guin

Monkey Planet – Pierre Boulle

Linger Awhile – Russell Hoban

A Man’s Head – Georges Simenon [new tr]

Dance To Your Daddy – Gladys Mitchell

Unlocking The Air – Ursula K Le Guin

Not Just A Witch – Eva Ibbotson

(which list brings this year's reading to 101 books)

Time flies...

...buzzing around as time decays. The whole thing made worse by the fact that we are moving in a different time stream to everyone else. This has always been the case, but it seems worse when you are packed up and ready to go and the others are, metaphorically, still scratching their arses as they climb out of bed.

Still. At least I can write and read as I wait for my home to be torn apart and put back together (such joy).

With writing, I’m at the bitty stage. A bit like all the preparation you need to do for decoration (to stick with a theme). All the choosing and buying of stuff. Going back cos you forgot the right sort of glasspaper (not sure of the metaphorical value of that, but there you go). And then stripping everything down to the bare bones.

As for reading, that is also back to basics in a fashion. I am replacing all my worn out and falling apart Ursula Le Guin books and re-reading most of them as they arrive. It is an education (or re-education). Not least because some of these books are out of print and I’m scouring the world (courtesy of that interweb thingy) looking for pristine copies. They have to last me the rest of my life and whilst I am happy to have second hand copies of some things, these I want new.

It was a blow to realise that a writer of such talent should have work that is out of print in an era when no book need ever be out of print, but not altogether a surprise. It is that sort of a time.

And as I get older, I was thinking about what will happen to my books when I’m gone. I’d hate to think they ended up in bins or the collections I have built up over the decades are dispersed. Although I don’t suppose I’ll be unduly worried.

And on that cheerful note… I’ll buzz off.

Books read in June

Brazen Tongue – Gladys Mitchell

Enderby’s Dark Lady – Anthony Burgess

Dead Men’s Morris – Gladys Mitchell

The Abominables – Eva Ibbotson

The Grand Banks Café – Georges Simenon [new tr]

Rocannon’s World – Ursula K Le Guin

The Wind’s Twelve Quarters – Ursula K Le Guin

Hangman’s Curfew – Gladys Mitchell

Planet Of Exile – Ursula K Le Guin

The Compass Rose – Ursula K Le Guin

Buffalo Gals & Other Animal Presences – Ursula K Le Guin

City Of Illusions – Ursula K Le Guin

The Eye Of The Heron – Ursula K Le Guin

Little boxes...

Packing continues with minor interruptions along with bad news and good. Pretty much everyday life, in other words. It is an aspect of the paradox that is the writer’s life. Many people consider it a desirable life, yet I suspect that for many they have an unrealistic view of what goes on. Champagne for breakfast, chauffeur driven limos, long lunches with one’s agent and/or editor, literary soirées… Sorry. Not even for the successful ones (although they probably do see a bit of that, who knows there might even really be one out there who gets to hang out with the NYPD and solve cases). For the most part, however, the writing life means dragging your half-awake carcass from bed to keyboard, probably not changing along the way and then sitting in your spare room for hours on end suffering angst whilst fling irate birds at porcine adversaries (so I’ve heard).

All of which is just one side of the story. The other side is that you go places no one has ever been before, or if they have been there, the reports you bring back cast a whole new light (sometimes the eighth one in the spectrum) on things. Writers are explorers, adventurers, people who can, even if they are sitting in the middle of a huge pile of boxes that contain everything they own, create the most wonderful of places, characters, and events. And they conjure this out of the thinnest of air – true magicians.

Books read in May

The Longer Bodies – Gladys Mitchell

The Devil At Saxon Wall – Gladys Mitchell

I, Vampire – Jody Scott

A Crime In Holland – Georges Simenon [new tr]

A Delicate Truth – John le Carré

The Cat – Colette

Inside Mr Enderby – Anthony Burgess

Here Comes A Chopper – Gladys Mitchell

The Treasure Hunt – Andrea Camilleri

Enderby Outside – Anthony Burgess

The Clockwork Testament – Anthony Burgess

Moving along...

...slowly. 

Trying to work when you are packing everything away is difficult. Quite apart from living surrounded by boxes, it's the psychological disruption, knowing that any time you are going to want a particular book and having no idea which box it is in. And it's not even as if we were moving to a new place with more room and no neighbours walking overhead at six every morning. Still, we are getting a new kitchen, bathroom, and wiring out of it; and the new porch has already been fitted (just waiting for a storm now to give it a proper test).

I also managed to get out from behind the desk yesterday and zipped down to Wigtown. What a place. A book town. It's full of book shops. Stuffed with books. And the sun was shining. If I ever get to heaven (doubtful), that's what it will be like.

Surprisingly, I didn't go down there for the bookshops (although I may have wandered into one or two, judging by the little pile of fresh titles beside me here). I went to the 2nd Wigtown Writers' Gathering and met lots of writers and listened to lots of writers and had a day of nattering with writers. And we had a superb lunch laid on as well.

See. Told you it was heaven.

Books read in April

Chéri – Colette

The Last of Chéri – Colette

Gigi – Colette

echo’s Bones [short story] – Samuel Beckett

The Ripening Seed – Colette

The Carter of La Providence – Georges Simenon [new tr]

The Yellow Dog – Georges Simenon [new tr]

The Ides Of April – Lindsey Davis

Clochemerle – Gabriel Chevallier

Speedy Death – Gladys Mitchell

Night At The Crossroads – Georges Simenon [new tr]

Stuff goes on. I write (although not as much this month as I'd hoped). I read (although not as much this month as I'd hoped). Whole days get lost hanging around waiting for other people or putting right what they should have done correctly in the first place. Being lost in a sea of stuff that needs sorting out doesn't improve tempers. The refurb to the flat later this year will entail packing up most of our belongings and seeing them put in storage, which is good. Us humans, on the other hand, have to wander the streets for a couple of weeks. We have been told there is a portakabin (as if it were some luxurious pad that we should be grateful for). The portakabin is a steel container - no windows, no seating, no loo, no heating. The thought of hiring a caravan sprang to mind, but the refurb takes place during the height of the holiday season and we get four weeks notice. Not looking forward to that. Oh well. Onwards...

Books read this month

The Collected Short Stories – Colette

Exploits & Opinions Of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician – Alfred Jarry

Ubu Rex – Alfred Jarry

Ubu Cuckolded – Alfred Jarry

Ubu Enchained – Alfred Jarry

The Jagged Orbit – John Brunner

Pietr The Latvian – Georges Simenon [new tr]

Bonjour Tristesse – Françoise Sagan [new tr]

The Late Monsieur Gallet – Georges Simenon [new tr]

A Certain Smile – Françoise Sagan [new tr]

On The False Earths – Mézières & Christin

Retreat From Love – Colette

The Vagabond - Colette

The Hanged Man Of Saint-Pholien – Georges Simenon [new tr]

Duo - Colette

Le Toutounier – Colette

Slightly derailed

I meant to blog a bit earlier, but things happened. They were good things. However, they resulted in a slight derailment of ordered life [ordered? are you sure?]. The worst of it is, from the point of view of blogging is that I cannot, as yet, mention what the good things are. But I will. Oh yes. When the time is right, I will blog about it.

What with that and the monster biography of Colette (and very good it was as well), my reading has dropped. I tackled the biography because I went back to the Claudine novels. And from there I’ll probably revisit the rest of my Colette collection; maybe even fill in some of the gaps.

Future upheavals to look forward to this year include various refurbishments by the Council.

Future events to look forward to include our 25^th wedding anniversary (later this month) and Barbara’s tieth birthday.

And someone said we might get a summer this year, but I’m not holding my breath.

Books read this month

Mary Poppins Comes Back – P L Travers

Three To Kill – Jean-Patrick Manchette

Mary Poppins Opens The Door – P L Travers

Claudine At School – Colette

Le Grand Meaulnes – Alain-Fournier (tr Davison)

Claudine in Paris – Colette

Claudine Married – Colette

Claudine And Annie – Colette

Dirty Snow – Georges Simenon

Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette – Judith Thurman

Money matters!

Please read this.

Shock of the new(ish)

One of my all time favourite books (which I re-read on a fairly regular basis) is Alain-Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes. I first read it as an impressionable adolescent and it has haunted me ever since. Anyone who has read my novel, Wealden Hill, will know that.

I grew up with the Frank Davison translation. I have struggled through a French edition, but my command of the language is nowhere near good enough to be able to enjoy the book as a pure read. So I always go back to my battered and falling-apart Penguin Modern Classic, the one with Sisley’s ‘Small Meadows in Spring’ on the cover, the one that cost me 30p, the one that replaced the previous one which did fall apart. And as always, when it gets to the point where Seurel finally gets to hold Yvonne in his arms, I choked up.

This time round I choked up for a different reason as well. I had a copy of the new(ish) translation by Robin Buss, published as a Penguin Classic in 2007. I thought I would try that version. So, when I had finished Colette’s Claudine at School as a kind of appetiser, I turned to this new Meaulnes.

It was like watching your best friend being knocked into the gutter and kicked in the head. The differences are subtle. It may well be a technically competent (and possibly more technically accurate) translation, but that’s all it was. I gave up on it before the end of part one as it was like reading someone’s homework and went back to the Davison translation. That older version reads like a novel written with passion, which is what the story deserves.

But there were other problems with the new version (and which a glance at the original French confirms). The first is the appalling level of proof reading. Penguin used to be a first rate publisher that produced quality. They have clearly dispensed with a lot of the backroom work that earned them their reputation. The result was me howling over basic errors – bits of text that hadn’t even been edited properly, let alone picked by a proof reader.

And then there was the Introduction. It was the sniffiest, snottiest, most dismissive piece about the book it was introducing whilst trying to display to all and sundry what a clever fellow the writer is. Well, sorry, but to me it made you look spiteful.

I know M. Fournier’s first (and only) novel is flawed, but if you are invited, for whatever reason, to write an introduction to a work, what I want to read is an introduction to the work, a discussion of its context (rather than all the American books it inspired), the writer’s potential, the wider resonance occasioned by the horror of the years that followed its publication and, yes, its flaws. That can all be done without a look-at-me parade of one’s own erudition.

That seems to be quite commonplace these days, and it is boring. I do not need people to show off about how clever they are; I can judge that for myself from what they offer in terms of illumination of the subject they discuss. In this case, it was very little beyond an absurd discussion about the difficulties of translation that Davison ably dealt with.

So that newer Penguin is going in the box with other stuff for the charity shop and I will treat myself to a hardback version of the Davison translation that was published last year on the centenary of the book’s first publication. That way, I know my favourite version of the book will last as long as I do.

2014

This blog has been neglected to a disgraceful degree - as were those who commented on the last entry seven months ago. Seven months!

I have no doubt it will get neglected in the future. I tend to moan a lot, and that doesn't make for edifying communication.

So. 2014. I'll be using this blog to post a list of books I have read each month (taking over from my other blog - Grumbooks - which has also been neglected). And if I have anything useful to say, I'll also post here.

Books read in January of 2014

The Shape of Water – Andrea Camilleri

The Terracotta Dog – Andrea Camilleri

The Snack Thief – Andrea Camilleri

The Voice of the Violin – Andrea Camilleri

Excursion to Tindari – Andrea Camilleri

The Scent of the Night – Andrea Camilleri

Rounding the Mark – Andrea Camilleri

The Patience of the Spider – Andrea Camilleri

The Paper Moon – Andrea Camilleri
August Heat – Andrea Camilleri

The Wings of the Sphinx – Andrea Camilleri

The Track of Sand – Andrea Camilleri

The Potter's Field – Andrea Camilleri

The Age of Doubt – Andrea Camilleri

The Dance of the Seagull – Andrea Camilleri

The Bull and the Spear – Michael Moorcock

The Oak and the Ram – Michael Moorcock

The Sword and the Stallion – Michael Moorcock

Eduardo Paolozzi at New Worlds – David Brittain

Shaman Pathways – Yvonne Ryves

Mary Poppins – P L Travers

The Jewel In The Skull – Michael Moorcock

The Mad God’s Amulet – Michael Moorcock

The Prone Gunman – Jean-Patrick Manchette

The Sword Of The Dawn – Michael Moorcock

The Runestaff – Michael Moorcock

Count Brass – Michael Moorcock

The Champion Of Garathorm – Michael Moorcock

The Quest For Tanelorn – Michael Moorcock

From this you might gather I got a set of the first ten Camilleri's for Christmas (and treated myself to the others). Excellent stuff. Not sure I'll keep that pace up all year, but 29 books is a good start.


At some stage I will also be updating my CV and other stuff.

What I Live For

Today I'm taking part in 'What I Live For', an online event organised by author Satya Robyn. People like me all over the world will be sharing what gives their lives meaning. In Satya Robyn's novel 'Thaw', Ruth gives herself three months to decide whether she can find a reason to carry on living. There's 75% off the kindle version today (99p / $1.49) - read more here.

So.

What do I live for?

What gets me out bed in the morning? Apart from having my head used as a trampoline by the cat.

One word.

Writing.

I am by nature a quite grumbly person (largely on account of poor health, constant pain, financial insecurity, and a world full of stupid), but when I cannot get my daily fix of writing, thunder clouds gather.

Writing is a safety valve, allowing the voices in my head a platform. It is a means of passing on what I have learned. It is the means by which I tell the stories through which I make sense of the world.

Writing is an act of magic (in which readers participate).

So the thing I get up for in the morning, the thing I live for, is performing magic.

Penguin and Author Solutions - an unholy alliance.

Read this, it's important. It says it all far better than I could manage.

The Drowning of Arthur Braxton by Caroline Smailes - A Review

I don’t take to much in the way of contemporary writing. It is often bland (even if full of pretty sentences), pre-occupied with middle-class, first world concerns, and largely a waste of even the tiny amount of intellect required to read it. This book had none of that. It was captivating from the first and clearly had things to say and ideas to explore. What is more, it was evident that it was going to say and explore those things in an interesting way.

Arthur Braxton is one of those kids that feral packs feed on. Consequently, he is one of those kids found lurking in out of the way places, exploring (whether willingly or not) the borderlands – between sanity and insanity, the upward climb and the downward fall, the outside world and the strange places inside their heads. Mostly, life grinds the poor sods down. Sometimes they shine. On rare occasions they escape into places we can barely dream of. Where Arthur goes you will have to find out for yourself, because his journey is the story and to start talking about that would be to give things away; save to say, one of the places in which the borders exist is where water meets the land. It is along that strand that Arthur’s journey proceeds.

So far I have perhaps made this sound like a YA fantasy book of some kind. Well, there are elements of that and it could, no doubt, be read on that level. You’d be missing 99% of the book if you tried it that way. Because there are many other such elements running through the book, nods to this and that. Yet it never becomes any one of those because it is unique. It is its own story acknowledging popular culture along the way (it would take someone who hadn’t been near a television in the last few years not to hear the echoes of the final words) without ever being trapped by any of it. That is down to two things, in the end. The first is a strong story. The second is a strong writer.

It is not just popular culture that feeds the book. Indeed, much more important is myth. Certain myths featuring water. They are common to all myth cycles. Water is such a fundamental part of our existence, and clean water so fundamental to our survival and the fertility of the land, that it is no wonder every tribe and every nation has stories about the origins of streams, wells, springs, and pools; has stories about the guardians of such places, of the beings that inhabit them, of the curative qualities, of the terrible consequences of misusing them. Our native mythology is replete with such references, none more so than the Arthurian stories. Ladies in the Lake, swords appearing from and disappearing into water, battles fought at the water’s edge, water as a source of healing and wisdom, and key to the Arthurian stories, the rape of the guardians of the wells that led to the wasteland and the quest to restore fertility to the land. As someone who has studied these tales for decades, it was a genuine thrill to see them explored so thoroughly in such a vibrant way that whilst paying all due respect to the source of such tales, made its own statement.

It should not be taken from this that we have some kind of dull thesis, some rewriting of ancient myths. They are the source and the story drinks deeply of them in a way that displays a deep understanding of the archetypes. But what emerges as a result is a new story, a new myth for today, sung with a voice every bit as mesmerising as the bards of old. And if you still can’t quite figure what kind of book this is, the film should be made by Terry Gilliam or by Jeunet and Caro.

You can probably gather I like this book. I have a jaded opinion of modern writing, but this has restored my faith. Because for all that stuff about mythology, for all the fact that author here is doing for myth what Angela Carter did for fairy tales, at the heart of it all is a solid and heartbreaking story about ordinary folk and the truly shitty lives some of them lead. A story told with eloquence and sympathy. Buy it. The author deserves your support.

The next big thing...

Last week Susan Murray tagged me for The Next Big Thing. This is a tag chain which, if it remains unbroken, will swiftly fill the web-o-verse with everything you wanted to know about the latest projects of writers (which is preferable to a lot else that can be found swilling around out there).

The idea is simple. There are ten questions about the latest project you are working on. You answer them, tag five people who will answer them, and so on. No money changes hands (damn!), but it is a good way of letting writers talk about what they are doing at the moment (between sessions of Angry Birds).

So, away we go...

What is the working title of your next book?

I’m actually three books ahead of my next book, if you see what I mean. The next one to see print (I hope) will be called Exile and Pilgrim and is the first sequel to Stealing into Winter which was published in September of this year (and which would make an excellent Christmas present for anyone you know who enjoys fantasy). The third book (Players of the Game) has also been drafted and I am currently drafting the fourth book in the series. So the other answer to this question is Retorsion, which is the fourth book about Jeniche of Antar. There may be more, but that’s as far as I’ve travelled.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

I have my ideas shipped in from Fortnum & Mason – nothing but the best. They come in hampers...

If only it was that easy. In a sense it is about logical progression. After I had finished the first book, there were so many characters and events that needed exploring and expanding, that I simply let them loose, asked for reports, and created a narrative from the letters they sent back to me.

The series began life with the desire to write a straightforward fantasy that had pace and a central character whose only desire was to stay alive, have enough to eat, and somewhere safe to sleep. No great house to restore to the throne, no magic quest to complete, no elves or dwarfs, no dragons.

What genre does your book fall under?

I hope it doesn’t fall. I have bills to pay. If it keeps on its feet, it will be found on the fantasy shelf of the book store. If you are interested in sub-genres, this one is future fantasy (post apocalyptic).

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Sharifah Amani has exactly the look for Jeniche...

...and Rufus Sewell would be just right for Alltud.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

A young thief discovers that you don’t always get what you want.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

That depends on sales of the first in the series. So why are you still here? Shouldn’t you be looking for it on an online bookstore?

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Each of the books has taken just over a month to draft – that’s a chapter a day (about 2,200 words)

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

This harks back to the days when typewriters roamed the earth and fantasy meant Michael Moorcock; the days before a fantasy novel had to be in twelve volumes and have a prologue longer than most of my novels. Most mainstream publishers don’t touch anything this short (70,000 words) any more. Apparently people don’t read it. Which makes me wonder who the hell is buying my books.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Michael Moorcock. Fritz Leiber. I wanted to get back to those basics. Well-written, pacy, lively, character-driven works that didn’t rely on a conservative view of the world in which everything would be well if we could just get the right sort of ruler back on the throne. It doesn’t happen. Yeah, I know this is fantasy, but that doesn’t mean it can’t reflect the real world.

What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

Well, it concludes a four book arc, but leaves the way open for more stories. And, like the others, it won’t give you a hernia carrying it around, you can read it in a fairly short time, and there is absolutely no guff, waffle, or padding of any kind.

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So, there you go. And now all that's left is for me to tag some writers who will answer the same questions next week - over to you chaps:

Carmilla Voiez

Rachel Green (who was tagged by someone else first, but is worth visiting twice)

Nimue Brown