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Lurking Musings

~ Musings of a newly published writer

Lurking Musings

Tag Archives: Agatha Christie

Exit pursued by a Dalek… A tale of a fashionably late World Book Night

27 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

After the Funeral, Agatha Christie, Anna Percy, Ben Aaronovitch, books, Dalek, Dermot Glennon, Doctor Who, Ed Fortune, Fab Cafe, Flapjack Press, Frances Hardinge, free books, Jackie O'Hagan, Manchester, Manchester Museum, Ninfa Hayes, Poetry, R.A Smith, Rivers of London, Sarah Grace Logan, Starburst Magazine, TARDIS, Tony Curry, Transitions, World Book, World Book Night, Zach Roddis


Myself and Ed Fortune sat in front of a TARDIS. Picture taken by Frances Hardinge

Myself and Ed Fortune sat in front of a TARDIS. Picture taken by Frances Hardinge

World Book Night happens annually on the same day as Shakespeare’s Death, the 23rd April. On this day, volunteers give out free books in order to encourage reading in those who do not read much. Being a World Book Night giver I was of course giving out books on that night…

Except I wasn’t. Because I was giving them away on the 24th April. A day late… Damned temporal distortions again.

That was the base concept behind the Fashionably Late World Book Night party at the Fab Café in the city centre of Manchester. To be fashionably late in giving away our books. So, I turned up at a Geek themed basement bar with a bag full of books and author Frances Hardinge in tow for a night of poetry, prose and free books.

And there were a lot of free books:

freebooks6

Not only were there the 18 copies of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London and the 36 copies of Agatha Christie’s After the Funeral provided to our givers by the World Book Night charity but also a large collection of ex review copies of books that had been sent to the Starburst offices and which were now no longer needed. This meant that any SF or fantasy fan could walk out with quite a haul if they so chose and the murder mystery fans were not ignored either. The books proved very popular with the crowd in the venue. Some of them had come here just for the books, some of them had been drawn by the promise of readings by local writers and poets and the chance to hob nob with them. Many more had come because it was a Thursday night and they always went to Fab on a Thursday.

The readings and guest writers were also popular. Everywhere you went there were conversations between writers, poets and their fans in topics ranging from their latest books to why it is not possible to do a decent film version of Lovecraftian horror. The bar was doing a roaring trade and the atmosphere was friendly and open. The SF theme decorations added to the unique nature of the venue and had at least one contributor (who shall remain nameless) running around gleefully with a camera taking shots of Daleks, Cybermen and TARDIS’s left right and centre. I was also taking photos, of course, but in my case it was, um, for professional reasons.

 

hobnobbing7interview2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even the presence of some of TVs most intimidating and scary villains did little to dampen the mood.

 

There was only one critic present at the event but he was notoriously brutal...

There was only one critic present at the event but he was notoriously brutal…

Though they did seem to lurk menacingly off stage whenever a writer was up doing their reading…

reading6

reading3However, the presence of the resident critic from the Skaro evening Chronicle (tagline ‘News to exterminate to’) did little to deter the performers. We opened with R.A Smith who read an extract from his debut novel, Oblivion Storm. It went down well, he got applause and was not exterminated.

This was followed by, um, me… reading an extract from Transitions. This was my first ever public reading and I was petrified. Yeah, I know, I’m a teacher as well as a writer and yes speaking in public (sometimes in front of very hostile audiences) is part of the job. It’s practically all the job (well, apart from the planning, marking, admin and occasional public appearances for publicity) so I shouldn’t have been so scared. Shouldn’t but I was. You see, there is a difference between standing there and talking freely about a topic you know a lot about and reading something out loud. With the former there is room for improvisation and the chance to have discussions and take questions from the audience – to get them involved and active in the process. Reading aloud is more static and you have to stick to the script. It is not the time to start subconsciously editing your own work and reading out this new edited version instead of the published one (which I may have done a little bit). Also, the lack of light made reading difficult (thankfully the representative of Flapjack Press was able to supply a reading light to those who came after me to solve this problem). Despite all these issues I managed to struggle through the section where Gaius Lucius meets the mad old man in the cave and got my own round of applause and absence of extermination.

The poets and writers of Flapjack Press then took the stage in turns and wowed the audience with their poetry and prose. They included Tony Curry who read out poems relating to what it was like to be a man and Sarah Grace Logan whose poetry contrasted nicely with its more feminist vibe and her works based on the objects she sees daily in her work at the Manchester Museum.

reading10 reading11This was followed by Frances Hardinge who read out a chilling extract from her latest and as yet unreleased novel, Cuckoo Song. It was unfortunate that due to a postal service snafu there were no copies of this book available for sale or signing. If the expected parcel from her publisher had actually arrived that night would have been the first time and place that book would have been on sale in the reading15world – a true exclusive.

There was then a short break before the second half of the evening, this compered by another local poet, Anna Percy who also performed her own poetry. She was joined by Dermot Glennon, Zach reading25Roddis and the wonderfully anarchic comedy poetry of Jackie O’Hagan making this night a truly North Western literary occasion. All performers were well received by the audience and did sterling sets that ended in applause. More importantly, none of them were exterminated by the resident critic, for which I am sure they were all grateful.

Unfortunately we had to leave before the end, though I hear that the evening ended with dancing to nineties classics which I am sorry we missed. On the free book table as we left there were no more copies of Rivers of London and only a handful of copies of After the Funeral. The Starburst review copies were also much reduced, presumably meaning that there is now much more room in their offices for future ARCs. I grabbed a handful of the Agatha Christies as we said our final goodbyes to Anna Percy and the other contributors. Those copies were offered to students at my college the next morning and one was gifted to the college library.

Shown here are only a handful of the photographs I took that evening. I’d try to cram more in but I fear this blog post would be an endless sea of photography. If you want to seem more of them, you can go and look at my Flickr account. If any of the poets or writers who were there wish to  make use of any of these for their own web pages or blogs you may feel free. Contact me and I can send you the original copies. I’d appreciate an acknowledgement in return.

With such a successful night I am not sure how we can beat it next year but I am sure we will have a damn good try. There may have to be ballet dancing elephants.

 

 

[AW Blog Chain] Thirteen

11 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings

≈ 29 Comments

Tags

Absolute Write, action roleplay, Agatha Christie, aliens, Babylon 5, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, classical cultures, Doctor Who, Farscape, Featherstone Castle, Jane Austen, Joss Whedon, Masquerades and Massacres, Mayan Prophesy, Odyssey LRP, Photography, Predator, Roleplaying games, roman priest, Serenity LRP, Star Trek, Stargate, Steampunk, Strange and Norrell, Temeraire, Thirteen, Victoriana LRP, Waypoint LRP


With the year we are just starting having a ’13’ in it it is probably of no surprise that January’s Blog chain topic would link to this rather maligned number. It occured to me that every single article in the chain will mention Triskaidekaphobia so I thought I would get that out of the way now and not mention it again. There would also likely be many many discussions on bad luck, evil spirits and maybe even a Mayan prophesy or two (apparently, this is also the 13th Baktun which contributed to the recent ‘end of Mayan calandar means end of the world’ debacle). With this in mind, I decided not to go with the obvious topics.

Instead, I would like to celebrate the number 13 by posting here 13 photographs of something I love… Live Action Roleplay. Some of these are photos I have taken, others are taken by other more talented people. Full credit will be given where needed.

dying in the arena

First up is this shot I took at a Mythic Age LRP game called Odyssey in summer 2012. The concept behind that game is that there are a number of classical cultures (Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Persians and Carthiginians initially but there is another one now) who coexist and in order to maintain peace on earth, the gods have restored the sunken city of Atlantis to act as a place where territory disputes can be settled in an arena rather than on the battlefield. Before each contest, the priests of each nation perform a blessing, dedicating the fight to one of their gods. Here we have the wonderful Lizy Townsend as a Roman priest sacrficing herself as she screams out a dying curse on the enemy.

side by side

From the same system, here we have two Romans fighting side by side against some Carthiginians and finally for Odyssey we have a photo that gives you some indication of how large some of the arena battles can be.

roman line up

Another system I played this year was called Masquerades and Massacres or M&M (or, fairly often, Jane Austen and Aliens). This game is set in the Regency period (1820’s to be precise) and incorporates elements of Jane Austen, Strange and Norrell, Naomi Novak’s Temeraire stories, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Alien/Predator universe among others (seriously, there was a character who was an industrialist arms manufacturer by the name of Sir Anthony Stark, recently escaped from a Turkish prison…). It is a bizarre mix but it strangely seems to work and allows a lot of ballgowning… Here are some photographs from several events taken by the inestimable Oliver Facey

RnR-1154

wounded

Waypoint was a LRP game I ran for a good few years, up until 2008 when I stopped because I needed time for other things. It was a Sci Fi system which largely riffed off a lot of things like Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape and similar and also inserted some elements of Doctor Who and Stargate.

DSC00657 Gate 1 assassination

The top photo shows some sci fi post apocalyptic gangsters apeing the Reservoir Dogs walk. The middle one show some techie types trying to repair a hyperspatial gate while defending themselves from attakc and the bottom one shows an assassination attempt on one of the characters…

Another game I am involed in is called Victoriana LRP which is, predictably enough, set in a Steampunk world. Here are two photos from that game:

IMG_4281

This shows the aftermath of a fight with various injured characters being patched up with bandages.

This next one shows a scientist demonstrating a steampunk weapon….

194

The patch of dust on the ground is actually not the remains of someone who has been shot by the big gun. That was there for an entirely different purpose.

The next two photos are from a system based on Joss Whedon’s Firefly universe – Serenity LRP. These are all taken by the talented Ali Hancock, who was able to take them because she was playing a journalist in the game. All done in glorious black and white.

serenity medical

This first one is me helping to perform surgery. The second shows some players stalking through the woods looking for trouble.

serenity soldiers

Finally, a few years ago we went to a 1930’s themed event called An Uncommon Affair. There was intrigue, Egyptian Archeology, an Agatha Christie style murder (which we had to cover up for the good of the crown) and Nazis (who had the audacity to disturb dinner). There was also a photographer with a modern digital camera subtly hidden inside the body of a box brownie. This is their portrait of my character from that game…

doctor benton and dog

Of course, for this game it was possible to take our dog along. He even had a character. He was a dog. It was a bit of a stretch for his thespian talents to play this character. The location, by the way, is a Youth Hostel called Featherstone Castle which is a gorgeous building set in the wonderful wilds of Northumberland.

So, there you have it. Thirteen photographs of Live Action Roleplay to celebrate the thirteen in this year… And at no point did i mention bad luck or the day Friday… Feel free to check out the sites I have showcased above as there are more photographs to be seen on all of them…

The usual rules of the blog chain are in force. So, you have to go check out the other members of the chain or else I will send copies of those photographs we discussed on the phone last week to you know who… you do not want anyone to find out about *that* do you?

Participants and posts:
orion_mk3 – http://nonexistentbooks.wordpress.com (link to post)
Ralph Pines – http://ralfast.wordpress.com (link to post)
SRHowen – http://srhowen1.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
areteus – https://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/ (link to post)
bmadsen
– http://hospitaloflife.wordpress.com/ (link to
post)
pyrosama – http://matrix-hole.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
angyl78 –
http://jelyzabeth.wordpress.com/ (link to post)
gell214 –
http://gelliswriting.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
randi.lee
– http://emotionalnovel.blogspot.com/ (link to
post)
ConnieBDowell – http://bookechoes.com/ (link to post)
writingismypassion –
http://charityfaye.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
Araevno –
http://www.simonpclark.com/ (link to post)
Briony-zisaya –
http://fantasywriterwannabe.blogspot.com/ (link to
post)
Kewii – http://kellyneeson.blogspot.com/ (link to post)
katci13 –
http://www.krystalsquared.net/ (link to
post)
MsLaylaCakes: http://www.taraquan.com/ (link to post) [Jan 9-10,
24-]
Amanda R.: http://www.twoamericansinchina.com/ (link to post) [Jan
14-]

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