Category Archives: Musings

Assault or Attrition – An interview with Blake Northcott

24 Thursday Oct 2013

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Today we are VERY lucky to have an interview with Blake Northcott, who some may remember as @ComicBookGrrl on Twitter but who has now emerged as Canada’s hot new writing talent. Her previous novels – Vs reality, Relapse and Arena Mode – hit bestseller lists on Amazon in the US and UK and her latest offering, Assault or Attrition, is already fully funded through a Kickstarter campaign.blake-northcott-author

Assault or Attrition, another hybrid of the traditional novel format and the graphic novel like Arena Mode, has seen Northcott work with some promising collaborators such as Steve McNiven (Guardians  of the Galaxy, Civil War, Uncanny Avengers) and Mark McKenna (Star  Wars: Old Republic, Justice League, Combat Jacks) as well as COMICBOOKGIRL19 (The Comic Book Girl 19 Show) among others and is set in the same dystopian superhero continuity as Arena Mode. We talked to her about her work, the trend for self publishing via Kickstarter and the perils of online misogynism.

D.A Lascelles: You’ve done really well in the last few years, seeming to effortlessly hit bestseller lists on Amazon with your books (Arena Mode #1 in Amazon UK). How much of that was luck and how much was due to hard work?

Blake Northcott: That is a funny question. I don’t think anyone gets anywhere without hard work, but maybe there is an element of luck in there, too? Sometimes there is a ‘right place, right time’ event that kind of comes along, and maybe the people in the UK just really wanted to read a book about superheroes?

Either way I’m grateful!

blake-northcott-jon-roc-upchurchDL: Assault or Attrition is part of the same continuity as Arena Mode. What is the underlying story of these two novels?

BN: Arena Mode is more ‘world building’ – it sets up a universe in 2041 where the economy has kinda gone to hell, and superheroes just happen to exist. It follows a lifelong underachiever, Matthew Moxon, though some big challenges.

The story, if I had to sum it up, would be ‘Marvel and DC collides with The Hunger Games’, although that’s pretty simplistic. There’s more to it than that…at least I think there is?

Assault or Attrition deals with the fallout from the first book, and it’s heading in a completely different direction.

 DL: You talk about Arena Mode and Assault or Attrition being a blending of novels and graphic novels. Why did you choose to follow that route rather than opt for one or the other?

BN: Because I love both genres, and always wanted to do a hybrid of sorts – this was my happy medium. I get to write a novel, but have a comic book flavor by adding some artwork, without the need to make one person commit to an entire 22-page issue along with an inker, colorer and all that.

DL: Assault or Attrition has garnered a lot of support from some quite big names in comic art. Are you surprised at this? What was it like working with these people?

BN:  I’m surprised every day!

Working with some heavyweights from Marvel and DC is very humbling. They’re so talented and I’m learning so much from them. They’re all nice….well, one of them is a dick. You know who you are.

That was a joke. Sort of.

DL: Kickstarter seems to be the ‘in thing’ for self published writers looking to fund their writing.  Could you describe your experiences with this method? How do you see the use of this method developing in the future? 

BN: I see a lot of huge publishers elbowing their way into the space at the moment, but that was inevitable. I would like to see it stay kind of ‘indie’, for people who can’t find a home with a major publisher, but there’s no way to keep the sharks out the little pond, it seems – once they see the potential for profit they’ll jump in.

But overall, it’s still a pretty fair marketplace. My experience is that I can get exposure to a new audience that would not normally have seen my books, in a way that simply isn’t possible on Amazon, or anywhere else.

Plus selling a physical book on Amazon is so cost-prohibitive that there is almost no upside to it. Kickstarter allows me to produce a high-quality book, printed in America, and add all sorts of bells and whistles to the packages so people get more for their money.

DL: Self publishing: self inflicted modern vanity press or a way for talented writers to get unusual ideas with a niche market out there?logo2

BN: Self publishing is the ultimate raw material. It’s a lump of clay, and you make whatever you want out of it.

I’m a dorky Canadian woman who does sci-fi/superhero books with comic book art in them. That’s what I’ve made out of it so far, and every single writer does their own unique thing with the platform.

DL: There has been a lot of strife on social media over the ‘fake geek girl’ scandal and a whole host of issues surrounding the sexism in geekdom – specifically in the gaming industry. What is your stance on this? Is Geekdom becoming more enlightened over time or reverting back to more misogynistic roots? How do you think this issue can be tackled?

BN: I think that the trolls can be far more easily dealt with by ignoring them.

That sounds simplistic, but really, the whole ‘You’re a fake geek girl!’ thing can be crushed by just not letting the trolls voice their stupid opinions. There are a handful of dicks out there, but most people aren’t sexist or mean – they just want to engage and share what they love.

And I love debates and opposing opinions – that’s what an open discussion is all about – but when someone is being intentionally rude or aggressive, I block or unfriend  them, and delete their post immediately. It’s that easy. I don’t get all upset and make a big thing about it – I just get rid of them and move on.

Let’s face it – 99% of people are pretty cool. But there is always gonna be that one jackass who wants to screw up the party for everyone. Instead of letting that dick become the center of attention, let’s just move past him and discuss awesome stuff.

***

Assault or Attrition has, at the time of writing, exceeded its funding goal on Kickstarter and so should very soon be available to buy or download. However, the Kickstarter is still open so you can hop on and claim some of the rewards.

You can find out more about Blake on her Facebook and Twitter accounts or read more of her thoughts in one of her regular Man Cave Daily articles.

Assault or attrition cover

[AW Blog chain] Devil Child

05 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by in Film, Musings

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So, after a long absence I am finally back on the old AW blog chain gang, picking up litter from the highways and turning it into readable blogs while men with sunglasses, police uniforms and guns watch us… it’s a hard life. but someone has to do it.

This month the Blogchaintopicomogrifier (patent pending) has beeped and churned and made flashing lights to produce the title of ‘Devil Child’ on its little tickertape printer thing*. At least I think that is what it read. That tickertape font is hard to read sometime, what with all the +++++’s in the middle of everything.

So, ‘Devil Child’. It conjures up several images. The juxtaposition of the traditional root of all evil with something that is considered to be innocent is an intriguing one that does generate a lot of interest. Films have been known to play on the perceived innocence of children. The Omen franchise, for example, bases its entire horror premise on the fact that awful things happen to people, such as sheets of glass decapitating them, quite by accident while a cute, small child smiles happily and entirely innocently several miles away with a perfect alibi. Not to mention various ‘creepy doll’ concepts such as the Childs Play series in which the doll Chucky (coincidentally voiced by the same chap who played Grima Wormtongue in Lord of the Rings) becomes possessed of the devil and wreak murderous havoc.

One film in particular, however, really ramps up the creepy with this concept. Rosemary’s Baby. This film is the perfect example of sixties occult cinema***, filled with some very sinister satanic imagery and derives most of its horror from the psychological effects such things have on the protagonists. It is also filled with various not so subtle references to things linked to pregnancy – cravings, abdominal pains and so on – to the extent that it could be interpreted as a metaphor for the darker aspects of the pregnancy experience. You could also discuss the quite nasty rape implications inherent in the film. In a dream sequence after she faints, Rosemary is raped by the devil and this is bad enough but worse than that when she wakes up and finds she is pregnant her husband tells her that while she was unconscious he decided to have sex with her anyway because he did not want to waste the chance. That to me does not sound like the actions of a concerned husband. Or even a decent human being.

But differences between a ‘happy household’ in the 1960s and today aside, I really wanted to talk about the urban legend that allegedly inspired the book by Ira Levin which inspired Roman Polanski to make Rosemary’s Baby. The Devil Baby of Hull House.

Jane Addams

Hull House was opened by Jane Addams in 1889 as a Chicago based community to help provide social and educational opportunities for working class people. It achieved this by providing lessons in everything from academic subjects such as art and literature to domestic tasks such as sewing. They also provided free concerts, discussions on current affairs and clubs for children and adults. However, far from being known as a place of egalitarian and charitable education and social mobility, Hull house came to be known for something far more sinister. One story goes that the atheist husband of a Catholic wife refused to allow an icon of the Virgin Mary (some versions say Jesus Christ) to be hung on their wall, declaring that he would rather have the devil himself in residence. Another version, the Jewish version, claims that the husband, for want of a son, declared he would rather have the devil himself than another daughter. Whatever the husband declared, whether he cursed god or the prospect of a daughter, the wife gave birth to a creature that has been described as follows:

“The doctor stood and revealed the child cradled in his arms. A monster writhed within the scratched and bloodied arms of the terrified physician. It was larger then a one year old child, its skin like a reptile’s, both scaly and rough. Sharp horns jetted out of its head on either side and a thin, long object swayed in the air, the tip shaped like a two-pronged fork, swayed about the infants head.” (Daniel Cumerlato, founding partner of Haunted Hamilton).

And:

“No amount of denial convinced them that he was not there, for they knew exactly what he was like with his cloven hooves, his pointed ears and diminutive tail; the Devil Baby had, moreover, been able to speak as soon as he was born and was most shockingly profane” (Jane Addams, The Long Road of Women’s Memory, Chapter One, p3)

Jane Addams allegedly had the child locked in the attic of Hull House and made attempts at having it baptised and rumours about the child ran amok in Chicago. Addams strenuously denied the rumours, claiming (quite rightly) that there was no evidence for it other than hearsay. She did later talk at length about the incident in her book, The long Road of Woman’s Memory. Chapter one is subtitled ‘Women’s memories – Transmuting the past, as illustrated by the story of the Devil Baby’ and in it she talks about the ‘power of an Old Wives’ tale’, describing what we would now refer to as an Urban legend in the many visitors who had come to the house to see the baby, convinced that it existed. She gives a fairly involved memoir about her recollections of some of these, including a list of the phrases she had to repeat endlessly to throw off these sightseers and their bizarre counterarguments. However, it seemed as if the more she denied it, the more convinced her visitors were that she was hiding the baby somewhere in one of the many rooms of the house.

Addams makes a lot of good points in that chapter. This story is the perfect example of an Urban legend where a rumour spreads and so many are convinced of it they cannot be persuaded of the truth. The only variations noted by Addams are religious ones – she mentions there are slight differences between the Italian catholic versions of the story and the Jewish ones – so there is a lot of consistency in the legend which only adds to the veracity of it as more and more become convinced of its truth. There is also no way to tell how this story began – no real evidence of any of the variant origin stories.

So, the Devil Baby of Hull house is an example of the power of human imagination gone wild and stories like this have not only inspired films like Rosemary’s Baby, playing on the fears of potential parents over the nature of their offspring, but also such franchises as Hellboy. Can you think of any similar stories, maybe from your local area? Feel free to comment below.

*We could fit it to a proper printer and even a decent LCD screen. Frankly, we could even turn it into a smartphone app but if you are going to have something called a ‘Blogchaintopicomogrifier’ it has to have valves, and Jacobs ladders and switches and flashing lights and steam coming out of it and, yes, print any output onto a tiny slip of paper in a hard to read font that is destined to eventually be thrown at Astronauts coming home from space **

** Yeah, you see America only created NASA and the associated space program because it needed some method to dispose of all the waste tickertape that Wall Street was producing. Clearly the most environmentally friendly and efficient method was to spend billions of dollars to send men to the moon so you can then drive them through the streets of some city and throw waste paper at them. Note how there seems to be no money for a space program now that everything is ‘paperless’ and we have smartphones and LCD screens and decent printers? Coincidence? I think not…

*** And I really, really, really, hope that no one is planning a modern remake of this. They’d do something silly like use CGI and completely miss out the tension…

Now, this is a blogchain and there are rules. The rules are that you must go and look at the other articles in the chain. If you don’t, there will be dire consequences, possibly of a gynaecological nature… List of links to the other blogs is below:

Participants and posts:
ishtar’sgate – http://chickenscratchbc.blogspot.ca/ (link to post)
orion_mk3 – http://nonexistentbooks.wordpress.com (link to post)
BDavidHughes – http://bdavidhughes.com/
Ralph Pines – http://ralfast.wordpress.com/
articshark – http://www.drslaten.com/blog
pyrosama – http://matrix-hole.blogspot.com/
Anarchic Q – http://anarchicq.com/
meowzbark – http://www.lizzylessard.com/
MsLaylaCakes – http://www.taraquan.com/
grace elliot – http://graceelliot-author.blogspot.com/
milkweed – http://www.thistlequill.blogspot.com/

The truth is out there?

11 Thursday Jul 2013

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I used Grammarly to grammar check this post, because even primitive, prokaryotic parasites should display good grammar.

My trawlings of the internet brought this article to my attention:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/new-hunt-for-aliens-who-%E2%80%9Cmove-stars%E2%80%9D-150112482.html

It seems that the British version of the SETI project (UK SETI research network) is focusing its efforts on finding evidence of aliens capable of moving stars or building giant structures in space. This being in addition to SETI’s usual activities of eavesdropping on potential alien communications like some interstellar version of the NSA*.

This sort of research is great for reporters. It makes good copy and impresses the readers with lots of imaginative images of alien civilisations and the advanced technology their no doubt superior intelligence has created. As a society, modern humanity has been brought up on the Hollywood stories of E.T, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Independence Day. Aliens in these stories are intelligent with highly advanced technology including ships that are capable of achieving the near impossible (according to current human understanding of physics) speeds necessary to travel the vast interstellar distances needed to get here from our nearest neighbour. They also have some form of interest in Earth – whether as a target for conquest, often to mine for our plentiful resources, or as a potential ally (however junior) in some form of galactic federation (for example the Vulcans in Star Trek). They can also be obsessed with capturing and probing helpless humans either for scientific research or, according to Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams, as the alien equivalent to Cow Tipping. These are our common held beliefs about alien life, mired in stories of the fantastic that range back even so far as the tales of Spring Heeled Jack.

There are, however, a lot of assumptions in those images of aliens. They assume that not only are they sentient and civilised but that they are infinitely more intelligent and civilised than we are. Why should this be the case? Given that the greatest chance we have of identifying life on other planets might currently be finding bacteria or even just the remnants of bacteria deep in the oceans of Europa or hidden in the rocks of Io, why should we expect any other alien species to be any more than that? These alien bacteria are unlikely to blow up the Whitehouse or give us access to the secrets of eternal life or warp drives. Even if an alien race were more complex than our own earthborne prokaryoates**, to the extent of being multicellular and sentient, then why should they be necessarily more advanced? Could there not be a race of quiet, unassuming aliens out there somewhere in the universe, sitting in caves, drawing on walls and hitting rocks together in the vague hope of one day discovering fire? Given that our entire strategy for finding aliens is predicated on the assumption that they are at least as advanced as we are (to the extent of using EM radiation to communicate and entertain) there is very little chance we’d find any evidence of our extraterrestrial cavemen. Considering that there has been, to date, approximately two hundred thousand years of human existence on earth and we have only been transmitting EM waves from our televisions and radios for just over 100 of these, how likely do you think it is that some other civilisation is going to be producing such waves themselves or picking up on ours? Assuming, of course, that they do utilise EM radiation in the same way we do and don’t communicate using some other method that we have never considered. While the chance of alien life actually existing are a lot higher than previously believed, the universe is so vast in both time and space that the chances of us picking up on each other are very low indeed.

There are, of course, several reasons why we have these assumptions about alien life. The main practical ones revolve around the fact that we basically have no hope of finding any form of life more primitive than 20th century humans. Until we ourselves get to the point of being able to travel to other planets to look for ourselves, we are somewhat limited by our ability to detect things like EM waves and interpret them in some way. Sometimes we can’t even do that right and mistake something like a pulsar for evidence of alien life. There are potentially hundreds of thousands of years worth of alien development that lack such obvious signs but we cannot detect them unless there is a major shift in our technology. So we are limited to what we can detect and that assumes aliens with technology at least as advanced as our own. Also, any alien civilisation that came to visit us would be definitely more advanced because they would have to have developed the appropriate methods of interstellar travel.

However, these prosaic reasons pale in comparison to those based on human nature and wish fulfilment. We have always looked to the

An artists idea of what a Dyson sphere may look like. For scale consider that the yellow thing in the middle is a star like our sun.

stars and wondered about them. In the past we made them the home of the gods, now we consider them the home of aliens. Some theories even conflate the two by stating that the aliens came to earth and became our gods. A number of science fiction franchises are even based on this theory including both the original and more recent Battlestar Galactica series. Psychologically, humanity appears to feel the need to have something bigger than it out there to look up to. Having risen to the top of the foodchain on earth, we offset our responsibility for the planet and all who live on it by deferring it ‘upstairs’ – to superior beings be they gods, aliens or even abstract ideals such as the Fates.

Also, aliens with vastly superior technology and intelligence make for far better stories than quiet ones who just want to get on with discovering fire or inventing the printing press. When we defeat the former we look like epic heroes valiantly battling against impossible odds and a superior foe***. Defeat the latter and we are colonialist dicks imposing our ‘superior’ ideals and technology on the poor defenceless natives and frankly we have done enough of that in our time. In the absence of any other concrete evidence at all about aliens, we will naturally tend to default to an assumption where they are bigger and better than we are. All in all, it is far better for our psychological well-being for aliens to be more advanced than we are.

So, while scientists are busy out there trying to eavesdrop on alien telephone conversations or looking for Dyson spheres, spare a thought for the simple prokaryoates potentially clinging to a semblance of organic life on some volcanic vent deep on an extrasolar planet or the spear wielding, eight armed, crocodile headed people of Arachnia who have not yet heard of Marconi or Alexander Graham Bell and wouldn’t even know how to build a Dyson vacuum cleaner never mind a Dyson Sphere.

* All this talk of the NSA eavesdropping on the internet and not one person thinks to stand up for the rights of aliens to their privacy. Typical humanocentric attitude. Someone should seek to regulate SETI’s privacy invading practises.

** Prokaryotes, for those without knowledge of A level Biology, is a posh science word for the group of organism that include bacteria. It refers to a Kingdom of living organisms that lack a nuclear membrane among other features I won’t go into here. Eukaryoates, which is what we are, do have a nuclear membrane. It is generally considered that Prokaryotes are a more primitive form of life in evolutionary terms. Certainly all the multicellular creatures on earth have nuclear membranes, though as this grouping includes several humans who believe in some very silly political ideas it may seem a little disingenuous to call them ‘advanced’.

*** Or at least having superior pathogens, as in the case of War of Worlds. We humans may not have interstellar travel or heat rays but we sure know how to cultivate a deadly cold virus.

Who will it be?

03 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by in Musings

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So, over the weekend Matt Smith announced that he was going to leave Doctor Who after the Christmas Special. Of course, speculation about this has been ripe for most of the past series with rumours going about that he was leaving long before it started (which were largely denied) and a rather strange speculation (that was hotly denied) about this being the last ever series of Doctor Who. Now that the cat of out of the bag regarding WHEN Matt Smith will be leaving, thoughts inevitably turn to WHO will take over as the eponymous Time Lord.

Now, I have lived through a number of time lord regenerations (I have vague memories of Tom Baker regenerating into Peter Davison at the end of Logopolis when I was very young) and have been through the media and fan speculations about the next actor to take on the role. It used to be a big event on Blue Peter when I was at school where they would bring on the new actor, complete with costume, and talk with him about how he intended to portray the character. Generally there would also be lavish tabloid reports of various famous people taking on the role – people who had claimed to have been approached or even just people who may have just happened to have been talking to the current showrunner for a completely seperate reason. Usually, these are just cases of wishful thinking. Sean Connery and John Cleese have been among those tagged in these articles, despite neither of them being likely to have the time or interest with the fairly big Hollywood careers they both had at the time of being suggested.

Often, it tends to be someone relatively unknown at the time of casting. They may have done some previous acting for which they got recognition (Tom Baker was Rasputin in Nicholas and Alexander in 1971 and Koura in The Golden Vioyage of Sinbad in 1973, before he became the Doctor,and David Tennant was in Casanova) but by and large the first time you hear their name as a child who watches Doctor Who is when the casting is announced. There have been exceptions to this, of course. Christopher Ecclestone had been in a couple of things (I think he’d done some films somewhere in Hollywood you might have heard of 🙂 ) and William Hartnell had a  remarkably robust film career (including several Carry On films) but by and large unknowns have taken the part over well known actors. So, perhaps the speculation needs to be looking not at well known actors but at those on the fringes – the up and coming talent rather than the established names? A couple of names that have popped up in this mould include Andrew Scott (who played Moriarty in Moffat’s Sherlock – not a bad choice as he fits the model of the relative unknown who has also happened to have worked with the current showrunner before) and Ben Whishaw whose main claim to fame is the role of ‘New Q’ in Bond.

One thing I will say about this time, however, is that something is different. As Colin Baker said in his first appearance as the Doctor at the end of The Caves of Androzani: ‘Change, my dear, and not a moment too soon.’ Amongst the fairly predictable speculations for the role – the typical white middle class male archetype that the Doctor is often portrayed as – there are calls for some variety. There has long been interest in the Doctor being a woman, of course. I even commented on an article which speculated on who would play the role in all 11 incarnations if the Doctor had begun as female. This time, however, it seems to have become more urgent, with calls for Helen Mirren, Miranda Hart or Joanna Lumley to be appointed to the part. There is also another interesting request – that for the Doctor to change his ethnicity. One barrier in the way of this has been the simple fact that, so far, it has not happened – Time Lords by and large kept the same baisc gender and ethnicity. Though this has not stopped some considering the series to be racist because it has never changed the ethnicity of the lead character. However, that changed dramatically in ‘let’s Kill Hitler’ when River Song showed that it is perfectly possible for a young, black Time Lord to regenerate into a middle aged, white woman and has led me to wonder if Moffat was not setting things up for just such a change. Suggestions in this vein  have included Patterson Joseph (famous for Neverwhere and Hyperdrive), Chiwetel Ejiofor (famous for being the Operative in Serenity), Richard Ayoade (Moss from IT Crowd) and Slumdog Millionaire’s Dev Patel. It seems that Geekdom may actually be ready for a gender or ethnically diverse character to step into the TARDIS. After all, Christopher Ecclestone has already transcended the North/South and class divides in the character and was seen to dabble in sexuality a little with his flirtations with Captain Jack. Can we break even more barriers with number 12*?

Of course, there could also be potential for a double whammy. Change the ethnicity AND the gender in one fell swoop… A name that has been cropping up in a few places is Lenora Crichlow, Annie from Being Human. Not only has she the geek credentials, she has also been in Doctor Who before (a fact which never stopped Colin Baker taking the part). There are even facebook pages dedicated to this.

I think it will certainly be interesting to see how this pans out. Internet and tabloid speculations have a habit of being wrong, especially when you consider the aforementioned tendency for a relative unknown to be given the job – that generally precludes anyone the media considers unless they are keeping a very careful eye on up and coming talent. Personally, I am unfortunately predicting a situation of no change – a white male. It may be a white male with some interesting other feature – an accent. an eccentricity, some new approach to the character – but it will be, by and large, the same basic character. I do not think that those involved in the series yet have the impetus to make such a radical change as to colour the Doctor’s skin or give him ladyparts save in jest (as happened in Curse of the Fatal Death which was interestingly written by Moffat indicating that he has at least considered a woman in the part). However, I do consider it a welcome sight that a large number of fans are seriously considering ethnic or gender diversity in a positive light. It is, I feel, a sign of the times, evidence that we do indeed live in an enlightened age where considerations such as race, gender and sexuality are less of an issue. Well, at least for those of us who are not hard core conservatives…

As for my own preference… if Patterson Joseph, Richard Ayoade or Lenora Chrichlow are not options then I would like to see Moffat’s old pal from Coupling, Richard Coyle, take up the role. I don’t think I have a lot of popular support in this one, I’ve not even seen anyone else mention him and I have been pushing for him ever since David Tennant left the role. However, for all that it is probably a lost cause, I think it would be nice to see him on TV again.

*Or is that number 13 if John Hurt as the forgotten Doctor is actually Doctor number 9, pushing all the subsequent ones up a number?

Six Gun Apocalypse

15 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in Musings

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America loves cowboys. Maybe not enough for certain television executives to damned well do the decent thing and commission a second series of Firefly but enough that there are references to the genre everywhere you look. Especially on television. OK, you don’t see the likes of Clint Eastwood or John Wayne or even Emilio Estevez riding around on horseback and firing six shooters left, right and centre as much as you used to. We don’t even get to see Nathan Fillion in anything other than a smart suit, unless it is halloween, and this is something which makes women the world over lament. However, America still seems to have an inherent tendency to revert to the ideals and concepts of the old West in a crisis.

Case in point, look at the two recent American TV shows that have come over to the UK – Revolution and Defiance. Both are post apocalyptic science fiction and both are so heavily flavoured with cowboy you can almost smell that campfire bean eating scene from Blazing Saddles.

Let’s take Revolution first. Ignoring the blatant Hunger Games reference of a cute young girl with a bow, the whole look and feel of the Militia reeks of the American Civil War. The uniforms (especially the caps), the attitude, the liking for large canvas tents that are usually only seen in re-enactment events in this day and age… Ok, American Civil war is not really ‘Wild West’ but there are also Saloons, fist fights, gun fights and all sorts of Wild West cliches inherent in the world building. And horses. It is, I suppose, natural that in a society where cars and planes no longer work (and ships are apparently all but rusted or rotted to scrap), people will revert to the next most reliable means of transport – the Horse – but that does add significantly to the whole western feel.

Defiance also has a wild west thing going on. The blatant imagry of the Castithan in this show is clearly Victorian in style, for example, but that is only one of the many references. Small towns with a troublesome population and the need for a strong sherrif is a common wild west cliche and in many westerns the hero comes from outside the town to take on that difficult job. In Defiance, a tough outsider comes to a town with a troublesome population, mostly comprised of squabbling aliens, and ends up with the job of lawman.

I do not imagine for a moment that I am pointing out anything here that you have not already noticed for yourself. Neither show really goes to great lengths to hide what they are doing. However, these observations led me to wonder what it is about the American psyche that means it reverts to the Old West as soon as any disaster happens that collapses society. What is it about the tropes inherent in the genre that makes writers of other genres fall back on them so often? Is it some nostalgic harking back to the good old days? Something to do with the lone gunman defeating evil? Maybe it is the idea of spunky, independent women eking out an existence in the bleak wilderness with nothing but a Gingham dress and a shotgun to defend them from all the rapacious lone gunmen who seem to be wandering everywhere? Personally, my theory revolves around the old West being seen as an idealistic time for many born in the US. It was a time and place when the population was smaller outside of the big East Coast cities, people gathered in small communities and there was endless space for expansion. America was truly a land of opportunity because land and gold and whatever else you wanted was simply there for the taking. This translates well into a post apocalyptic setting as most of those features are also present then – low populations, resources such as land less tied up by governments and laws and a need for people to work together to survive.

Whatever it is, it seems irresistable for writers to fall back on these ideas. The question I feel needs to be asked, however, is whether or not this can be considered lazy writing or inspired reimagining of common themes? This is not a new thing, either. You could argue Firefly as being another interpretation of the Post Apocalypse Wild West (Earth that was being somewhat uninhabitable when they left) and David Gemmel’s Jon Shannow novels are also along this sort of theme. So what is it about this period of American history that so appeals? Feel free to comment below…

And before anyone says anything… No, we Brits are not immune to similar things in our writing. Ignoring for the moment the obsession Doctor Who seems to have with Cowboys at the moment, British Apocalypses tend to come in Crusty flavour – raggedy, dreadlocked punks in lumberjack shirts throwing petrol bombs. However, that may be a topic for another occasion…

A tale of World Book Night

26 Friday Apr 2013

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So, this Tuesday gone was World Book Night and yours truly was there in Costa Coffee Prestwich for a night of books.

The lucky recipients show off their acquisitions

The lucky recipients show off their acquisitions

It was actually quite a while ago, on one of our regular writers’ group meetings that R.A Smith suggested that we do something for World Book Night. The plan: All five of us apply to be Givers on the WBN webpage and we organise an event together in a local library in order to give them away. At the same time we would do readings and give aways and other things to keep the punters amused. We support the cause of spreading the love of reading, get some local community kudos and maybe a bit pf publicity for our own projects as an added bonus side effect.

So, with alacrity we set this plan in motion by us all logging into the WBN website and submitting our applications. We each applied for different books as our first choices and enough variation in second and third choices in order to hopefully avoid any overlaps and began to discuss the event itself.

Our initial plan of using libraries fell a little flat. We got no response from any of the libraries in Stockport, where a good number of our members lived, so at a quite late stage we had to expand our search to other areas. Being selfish and lazy and not wanting to travel more than a short distance, I offered to check out the possible venues in Prestwich, all of which are only a short walk from my house. Prestwich library were very helpful when I visited them and told me that they were closed on Tuesday afternoon (insert rant about local council budget cuts and their impact on local services here…) which was why they could not host (unless they could find a member of staff willing to work overtime for no pay) but suggested that I talked to the Coffee shop just over the plaza from them as they sometimes hosted events for them. I did just that and very soon we had a venue set. All that remained then was publicity…

The books laid out ready

The books laid out ready

Another problem was when we got the notification of what books we had got. We found that only three of us had been appointed givers (myself, Joy Phillips and Ed Fortune) which was more than 50% which was good. However, despite our careful planning, we got two batches of the same book. This meant we had 40 copies of John Wagner’s The Dark Judges and only 20 of Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses. Nevertheless, this gave us the challenge of having 60 books in total to give away to anyone who wanted them…

On the day itself, we got to the coffee shop by 530pm to be ready for a 6pm start. We laid our books out on one table and on another we put all our publicity stuff – bookmarks and leaflets and so on. Ninfa Hayes had thought to provide a double sided A4 sheet with extracts from two of her stories on it which I thought was a nice touch and we’d also each thought to bring along copies of all our in print books for guests to browse through. Since Transitions is not (yet) in print, I had a copy of Pirates and Swashbucklers for this.

I had been concerned that we had not done enough publicity, that no one would bother to show up. However, these concerns were soon dispelled as people began to filter in. Some people we already knew, friends of ours who lived locally, but there were also a good few who were not known to us who had been drawn here by the leaflets and posters. There were discussions, with each of us drawn off into small groups to talk about the books or our books or publishing in general and while there was an initial mistrust of the ‘free books’ (a number of people asked how much they cost…) they were soon snapped up by all there. The ‘demo’ books were also much read, being passed around from person to person. It is to be noticed that Oblivion Storm is not shown in the photograph of the ‘swag table’ This was because it was at the time being ardently read by someone. Ninfa was even nice enough to let one of the guests take one of her paperback copies of Bites away with them – signing it for her too.

We ended the event with two readings, both done by R.A Smith. One was from Oblivion Storm the other from Bites. I had intended to do a reading from Transitions but realised that the only copy of it I had on my Kindle was actually a pre-edit copy and so not the best for a reading.

By 8pm, the official end of the event, the pile of 60 books had been reduced to a much smaller pile. We had only a couple of copies of

The swag

The swag

Noughts and Crosses and about 15 of The Dark Judges. Several of these were snapped up by the event guests as they left. One copy of each was taken to be put into the library of a local school (which I personally consider a win) and several of the rest were grabbed by some friends of ours to give out to random people they saw on their way home (at least one copy was given to the staff of the chip shop we all stopped at for dinner). At the end, we were left with 8 copies of the Dark Judges and none at all of Noughts and Crosses.

I hope that all those out there who took books will enjoy them… I do feel proud of what we achieved on that day and I think a number of the event guests enjoyed the event a great deal. Next year we plan to do the same again and this time make it bigger and better!

As for the 8 books we have left… well, they are there to be given away and we *could* just give them away to people we meet in the street or leave them in a pub or on a train or something like that. However, we have discussed it and decided to run a competition to decide who gets the books. Therefore, myself, R.A Smith and Ninfa Hayes will be taking at least two of the books each and will be announcing how you can win them very soon…

The Name of the Doctor

19 Friday Apr 2013

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A recent announcement has stated that the final episode of season* seven of Doctor Who will be called ‘The Name of the Doctor’. Of course, the hints have been building for a while that this is one secret which may be revealed. The prophesy of the Silence – ‘Silence will fall when the question is answered’ – is a pretty big telegraphing clue as to what is going on and as more and more is revealed about that plotline it becomes even more obvious that, at some point, the Doctor will be put in a position where he will have to reveal his truethe name of the doctor name.

At least that is what Steve Moffat wants us to think…

You see, I am not convinced it is going to be as easy as that. Moffat is a master of the double bluff and especially the double meaning and the prophesy as stated is full of potential double meanings and misunderstandings. What exact definition of ‘fall’ is meant here? Does ‘Silence’ actually refer to ‘the Silence’ or something else entirely? Their self centered interpretation has led to the belief that the Doctor is their enemy and so, as a result of this, they have acted to try to prevent this and, in the course of events, made the Doctor their enemy… It is an excellent example of a Cassandra paradox – by paying attention to the prediction you cause the events in the prediction to come to pass. The Doctor is only their enemy because they paid attention to the prophesy, got scared and tried to kill him. The lesson here being, of course, never trust prophesy. Especially not when dealing with immortal or long lived beings. More so if they can Time Travel. Because the chances are they were probably there when the prophesy was written. They may even have written it themselves, AFTER the events that ensued from you following it. After all, even Bill and Ted managed to work out that particular munchkin flange of access to a Time Machine and they were dumb stoners. Just think what an ancient alien intelligence with centuries of surviving in the universe against every hostile alien that has ever existed could do given the motivation. The Doctor has in the past been shown to be a manipulative person who plays chess with people across the centuries, I personally do not see him having any issues with him setting up a nice little fake prophesy to send his enemies off in the wrong direction… even if all he manages to do is edit the original rather than simply delete it from history to make sure none of this can ever happen.

So, I am not sure what to expect on the final episide of Doctor Who this year. I am hoping for something epic. I am also hoping for something clever and emotional. If it comes to the final confrontation and the question is asked and it turns out his name is Bob I think there will be disappointment. It’s a fairly major anticlimax. A secret that has been kept so long is not a secret to give up lightly and maybe it would be better if that particular one is kept secret. Secrets are more fun when they are kept, the frission of knowing there is something you do not know and the endless speculations can be an addictive mix. I am hoping that the way the prophesy is worded will work to add a surprise to this plotline and cannot wait to see what that surprise might be.

 

*Season? Season! Dammit, we’re English, it should be series. Americans call them Seasons, we call them series… *grumble, mumble, moan*

A few things here and there

05 Friday Apr 2013

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Well, Vampire Month is finally over and I have just got back from a brief holiday during which I had my birthday. It’s been a rather successful month with some great vampire writers contributing some really good articles on a range of subjects. In this first week of april, however, there have been a few things cropping up here and there which need to be shared.bookmarks

First of all, I was interviewed by Michael Brookes over at The Cult of Me blog. The interview went live yesterday and in it you can find out all sorts of things about me. Go over there and check it out. I talk about the first book I ever wrote which, thankfully, no longer exists save as a bad memory and a few other things.

Secondly, I have signed up for Authorgraph. This is a system which allows signatures to be added to ebooks. You can find Transitions on there by following this link: http://www.authorgraph.com/authors/areteus. Basically, you can click the ‘request authorgraph’ button and I will get a notification telling me you are wanting a signature. I can then choose to do this freehand (using a touchscreen or mousepad but be warned my ‘handwriting’ is terrible using a mouse…) or using a font. I can also add an inscription. You basically get a pdf of this with a picture of the book cover sent to you. This app seems to be a good way to fill a niche caused by the ebook revolution. I have heard many say that one thing you cannot do with an ebook is sign it. Now, I will not say that this is going to replace ‘signed copies’ in any way (I am not convinced, for example, that you will be able to sell the signed ebook copies for a greater value) but it is a step in that direction. It will be interesting to see how it works out over the next few years.

Scan this using your mobile phone and an appreopriate tagging app...

Scan this using your mobile phone and an appreopriate tagging app…

Finally, preparations for World Book Night are progressing. Myself, Ninfa Hayes (author of Bites), R.A Smith (author of Oblivion Storm), Ed Fortune (columnist for Starburst magazine) and Joy Phillips (upcoming debut novelist and organiser of innovative new LRP Fall of Vusoria) are getting together to give away free books to anyone in the Manchester area who wants to come and get them. We will be announcing a venue sometime soon (hopefully). It should be a good night and we have around 60 books between us to giveaway. As part of this I have decided to have some bookmarks made up and I have also sorted out a couple of QR tags so that people with mobile phones can scan them and quickly and easily buy a copy of my books in any ebook format. I am rather proud of the bookmarks, which I designed myself using elements of the cover for Transitions.

So, if you fancy meeting any one of us, getting any of our work signed or just want a free book, feel free to pop along on the 23rd of April and all of this will be possible…

Old Memories…

01 Friday Mar 2013

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Before we launch into the fangfest that will be Vampire month tomorrow, I wanted to share this:

 

Between 2002 and 2008 I ran a Live Action Roleplaying game called Waypoint. It was a sci fi setting and involved the various different races who were part of a Galactic Empire coming together after millenia of seperation following a galaxy wide disaster that destroyed the hyperspatial gate network that once united them.

The campaign ended after 6 years with the player characters desperately seeking a way to defeat a threat from another galaxy by searching through the archives of the Empire for clues. Finally, while the invaders were attacking all over the galaxy, they found the clues they needed and put into effect their plan. Part of this plan involved taking an ancient technological artifact into gatespace and using it to do clever things with physics that would destroy the alien threat. The players who went to achieve this (while the rest remained outside defending them from attack) were played the audio file that is attached to this video which contained some clues as to what they had to do mixed in with many, many red herrings.

Several of the voices on the video were those of player characters who had been asked to contribute an audio file in which they talk about their personal theories of the gates. None of them knew what they were doing this for until they heard the file.

The photographs cover the entire six year run of the game and show many of the awesome costumes and props that were made by players. I hope you enjoy the video…

What might have been…

25 Monday Feb 2013

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Not too long ago, this article was flashing about the internet.sue perkins

http://www.scifind.com/features/the-other-11-doctors/

It is an article with a single premise – what if the Doctor was female? It essentially takes each of the 11 incarnations of the Doctor and considers the most likely actor who might have played them based on who was around at the time and had approximately the same CV as the male version in our universe.

It is an interesting read and throws up a number of interesting choices. I would never, for example, have considered Hattie Jacques in the role. Her fame being largely based on her involvement with the Carry On franchise it never seemed to fit in my mind that she would be good for the role. However, the article gives a good argument for why she would have made a superlative second Doctor. Ditto Penelope Keith – I had never considered the star of To The Manor Born and The Good Life stepping into Tom Baker’s emormously large scarf but here again the article is convincing as to why she would be perfect.

It is unfair in other ways, I have to say. To tar Miriam Margoyles with the position as the sixth Doctor is unfortunate. Based on her other performances, I would have thought she would have done far better in the role regardless of script and production issues than is intimated here. Then again, I suppose that she can do loud and brash rather well so this may have been a way she would have taken the character.

I am, however, especially impressed with some of the casting. Honour Blackman as the third Doctor is a rather obvious one and Joanna Lumley was always one who was under consideration for the role should the Doctor ever have regenerated into a woman (and indeed was in Curse of the Fatal Death which also had Johnathon Pryce as one of the best Masters I have seen – watch the interviews on the DVD for true ‘method acting’) though putting her in the position of the sensitive and caring fifth Doctor rather than a more action oriented one is a stroke of genius. Sue Perkins wearing David Tennant’s ‘brainy specs’ is also absolutely spot on casting and part of me loves the idea of the love story between the Doctor and Rose still being there in that circumstance – an excellent piece of pro LGBT casting. Though I would also have liked to have seen the reversal in genders go further than that to the extent of more of the companions being male instead of remaining female.

In fact, this article has affected me so much that I have actually begun to re-imagine some of the stories with these actors in play. I rewatched the more recent Christmas special not long ago* and I could totally see Miranda Hart prancing around the big snow globe thing pretending to be Sherlock Holmes and Sue Perkins as a School Mistress** in 1913 or being grim and fatalistic with Bernard Cribbens.*** Obviously, the idea has legs and those legs are kicking.

So, the question has to be, can something be done with this concept? Yes, this is another ‘somebody make this happen’ post. Obviously, until the advent of safe and effective time travel we cannot go back in time and film new episiodes of Doctor Who only with the female counterpart, but there could be other ways. For example, I would love to see an anthology of short stories in the style of the old Doctor Who Short Trips series with a story per Doctor. I would also love some audio adventures and, maybe, in a universe where all my dreams came true, Steve Moffat might make a couple of shorts in the style of the Comic Relief/Children in Need sketches and the recent ‘Pond life’ web broadcast teasers. Were I a less lazy author, I’d get proactive and troll fan fic sites or lobby writers I know who are involved in Who in some manner to do something about it. I’d campaign Miranda Hart and Sue Perkins to agree to star in something linked to this, stand outside Steve Moffat’s house with placards, demand my MP did something about it and so on. However, I am lazy so none of this is going to happen. If any of you out there wish to do something about it, though, I’ve totally got your back. I might even submit a short story to an anthology or something. I can probably summon up enough proactivity to achieve that.

So, some questions…

What do you think about the selection of actors chosen here for a female Doctor?

Would you change any of them?

What already filmed Who story would you like to see redone with a female Doctor and do you think the story would be significantly changed by it?

Feel free to answer these in the comments….

* How many times has Richard E Grant been in Who now? Quite a few, I think. He played the Doctor in Curse of the Fatal Death, was also the Doctor in at least one online animation and now is here as a villain…

** And no, not in THAT way…

*** Another actor who seems to have been in Who multiple times.