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Lurking Musings

~ Musings of a newly published writer

Lurking Musings

Tag Archives: Neil Gaiman

[Vampire Month] Alex Campbell Interview

24 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Vampire Month

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Durham, Gail Carriger, Lampton Worm, Lampton Wyrm, Neil Gaiman, Northumbria, Sunderland, Terry Pratchett, Vampire


redhairOur final entry into the Vampire Month interrogation suite (four interrogators, no waiting) is Alex Campbell. I’ve known Alex for a few years now but was not aware until I did this interview one thing we had in common – the region we were both born in.

Alex is currently working on her debut novel, Wyrm’s Reckoning which is due out in the summer. We’ll be seeing more of her when that happens.

Oh and if you are wondering where you may have seen Alex before… well, look back at our past fantasy photoshoots with Quattrofoto where she modelled as a psychotic elven Empress and an undead sorcerer. In real life she is not anywhere near as evil.

  •  What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?

I actually still have my first “book”. I wrote it when I was about 3 – probably a little older, but the writing is about one sentence to a page, so not much older. It was a very twee little story about woodland animals going on a picnic. It was genuinely awful.

  • When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?

I’ve always wanted to be a writer – I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write, and it’s always made me happy being able to share that writing with other people. Even from the days of GCSE physics class, which I mostly spent writing Pratchett pastiches and passing them round the bench. I made several attempts down the years to go pro, but it wasn’t until last August that I finally managed to find a publisher. I think, in my heart I’ve always been a professional writer, but it’s probably still going to be some time before I’m making enough money from writing for it to be my only career.

  • What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?
Photo courtesy of Quattrofoto

Photo courtesy of Quattrofoto

Greatest strength… probably the fact that I’m an avid reader and always have been. It’s left me with an extensive vocabulary, and also a good sense of the flow of prose, so I can instinctively tell if something feels natural, which helps a lot. As to my weaknesses – an inability to judge subtlety. I either tend to make things glaringly obvious or completely overlooked, and finding a happy medium is a challenge. Overcoming it is basically all about practice.

  • Tell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?

My current novel is actually set where I grew up, in Northumbria and Tyne and Wear. It’s inspired by a folk-tale from those parts – the tale of the Lampton Worm – and I’ve tried very hard to root the story in the area. Sense of place is very important to me, and almost every scene in the book features, or is inspired by locations from Up North – Penshaw Monument, Belsay Castle, the beach by Tynemouth Priory… it’s a beautiful part of the world, and it’s one that doesn’t get a lot of press. People think of Newcastle as a very grey city, full of football supporters and flat-caps and an unintelligible accent, but like anywhere, there’s far more to it than the stereotype suggests.

  • Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. For this particular book at least.

  • What drove you to write about Vampires?

They’re such a staple really. I wanted to include a lot of fantasy elements to the novel, and I couldn’t leave them out. I’ve always found them interesting, and you can do just about anything with them. In my case, that translated to East-European gun-runners, but I’m looking forward to playing even further with the tropes in later books.

  • What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?

Lots of reasons. Vampires allow us to talk about the big questions of what it means to be human, what it is to be evil, and how the two collide. But I think a lot of it comes down to sex. Vampires (well, the good ones at least) are suave and charismatic and dangerous, and there’s something very primal about them. They look just like us, but they’re not, they’re other. They’re predators, and yet so very seductive and compelling… in a lot of ways they’re a metaphor for the allure of the opposite or sometimes the same sex. They’re forbidden fruit, and so they’re always going to be popular.

The Lampton Worm, a popular North East legend

  • In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?

The Old Count Magpyr from Pratchett’s Carpe Jugulum. He might not actually win in a physical fight, but he’d make sure he’d win the war, through patience and knowing how to play the game.

  • What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?

Sexiness is all about personal preference, but for dress sense I’d go for Lord Akeldama from Gail Carriger’s books.

  • How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?

Probably quite badly. They’re currently taking time out from a war, so they’re not in any condition to take anyone on in a fight, and dress sense… well unless refugee chic is a thing…

  • Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

It’s a modern-day urban fantasy set in the North East. At his uncle’s funeral, Richard Lampton suddenly finds himself heir to a deadly curse; he is being hunted by the Lampton Wyrm, a monster from the Dark Ages set on annihilating his bloodline. He has a week to shape up and become a hero, with a little help from a packed cast of weird and wonderful characters he meets from myth and legend, and a fledgling Jackdaw called Bobble.

 Bio

Alex Campbell was born in the wilds of Northumbria, and from an early age cut her teeth on legends like that of the Lampton Worm, which formed the inspiration for her first book, Wyrm’s Reckoning, out later this year..

She obtained a degree in English and Creative Writing at the University of Warwick, then in a shameless attempt to avoid Real Life, followed this up with two Masters Degrees in Science Fiction and in Writing from the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores respectively.

Now, she lives in Portsmouth, at what she insists on referring to as the “wrong” end of the country, with her fiance and a number of dead house-plants. She is a keen gamer and LARPer, for which she makes many of her own costumes. She is not ashamed of being a geek

You can find her on her blog:  https://galacticavoice.wordpress.com/ and also on her facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/AJ-Campbell/1525096601059912

Review: Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge

03 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Review

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2014, amazon link, books, Centenary, Cuckoo Song, Downton Abbey, First World War, Flappers, Frances Hardinge, Jazz, Neil Gaiman, Oxfordshire, Self Publishing, The Great War, writing


You may recall way back in April that I went to the Fashionably Late World Book Night party with author Frances Hardinge in tow? Well, there was talk of there being copies of her latest book, Cuckoo Song, available for buying and signing but due to a post office snafu those books never appeared.

Of course every author wants Eddie to pose with their book now...

Of course every author wants Eddie to pose with their book now…

Well, not long after this I was contacted by her publisher and asked if I wanted a copy for review. Of course I said yes…

Unfortunately, being a very busy person, I have lately been very slow to get reviews out so here we are in September and I am only just getting round to putting my thoughts on this book down in a readable form.

Cuckoo Song is set in the fictitious English town of Ellchester, somewhere in Oxfordshire during the early 1920s. The post Great war vibe portrayed here is perfect for release in a year that sees the centenary of that war and the setting is vividly portrayed. Triss is a young girl who lives with her father (a famous architect credited with designing much of the town they live in), mother and younger sister (Penny). Her brother, Sebastian, died in the Great War leaving a fiancée and a grieving family behind.

The story begins with Triss having been rescued from almost drowning in a lake while the family are away on holiday. Following this incident, strange things begin to happen to her. She has gaps in her memory and a bizarre hunger that can only be satisfied by devouring her own toys and clothes. As time goes on, this strangeness tests her relationship with her parents and sister and her investigations into what has happened to her lead her to discover that there is more to her brother’s death than she had been told. She also delves into a hidden underbelly of the town ruled by a sinister being known as ‘The Architect’ and encounters the strangeness of that world, learning its secrets and dangers.

Hardinge deftly presents both the setting and the plot in a skilful manner, peeling back layers of world building and mystery in a way which has the reader slowly become aware of what is going on. This approach maintains the mystery as subtle clues you did not consider relevant slot into place and trigger small ‘ah ha’ moments at intervals. The setting starts out with a Downton Abby feel, all stiff gentlemen and upper middle class pomposity overlaid with a quaint olde worlde children’s book vibe, but soon develops hints of a world beneath that which is related more to Neil Gaiman’s Coraline – a dark, fey world of hidden evil and whimsy. The characters are also mostly well drawn and some, particularly Sebastian’s fiancée Violet and the Tailor Mr. Grace, are striking in their presence – the bold and adventurous, jazz loving  Flapper with the hidden sorrow and the quirky, friendly tailor with a sinister undertone. You come to care for Triss and the other characters, though Triss in her early appearances seems selfish and whiny she soon gains a backbone that turns her in to a true hero.

In all this was a very enjoyable read and one which I am sure children of all ages will enjoy.

D.A Lascelles is the author of Lurking Miscellany, Transitions (Mundania Press) and Gods of the Sea (Pulp Empires). He lives in Manchester UK. You can sometimes see him writing about Zombie porn on https://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/ but he mostly blogs about books, vampires, science fiction and Terry Pratchett. He is inordinately proud of the fact that one of his Pratchett articles was referenced on the French version of the author’s Wikipedia page.

He would like to point out that having Eddie pose with a copy of your book is a special privilege reserved for those who have met Eddie and given him a stroke.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaLascelles

Twitter: @areteus

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Death and taxes

10 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Wierdness

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Benzene, Christopher Lee, Danny DeVito, Death, DNA, inspiration, Neil Gaiman, Ouroborous, Taxes, Taxi, utter rubbish.


It is sometimes strange where inspiration might come from. For example, today I got a letter from the tax office. I happened to be musing on that letter (mainly confused thoughts about what the hell they were talking about and what particular confused comments I would make when I rang them to say ‘Eh?’ a lot) when a funeral crawled slowly by. This, of course, made me think of Benjamin Franklin and triggered the following inspiration in me:

Death and Taxes – he’s an accountant working out of an office above a funeral home, she’s a mortuary assistant single mother. Together they fight crime…

I got as far as working out characterisations for the main characters and some concepts of how plot would develop before common sense kicked in and told me it was a stupid idea. Besides, the one that followed it was even better:

Death and Taxis. Starring Danny Devito and Christopher Lee. He’s the manager of a New York cab company, his partner’s the anthropomorphological manifestation of the end of life. Together they fight crime.

I, of course, blame Neil Gaiman entirely for the whole ‘they fight crime’ trope. I still find it hilarious even many years after he used it in the Kindly Ones. This is probably why I am not likely to ever be a writer of sit coms or TV drama.

This incident did make me wonder about inspiration and what can cause it. It is basically what happens when our brains make connections between things which might not normally be connected and derive from them some epiphany – often a clue as to how to progress something that was causing problems. Whether it be a difficult scene in a story or cracking the structure of benzene, as humans we pay attention to external stimuli and if we see something inspiring we often interpret it in light of whatever problem we are currently working on. It’s a symptom of our ability to pay attention to things. Sometimes it is not an obvious inspiration, the universe can be subtle and a number of small stimuli add up to one great idea. Other times it is a blinding flash – a road to Damascus moment. You see the spiral staircase and think about the structure of DNA or dream about Ourobouros and wonder if Benzene might be a ring structure or see a funeral procession and think up a crap TV Sit com concept.

Sometimes I wonder if the key to being a good writer is understanding this process of inspiration and learning how to use it effectively. But then, I am a scientist and my first impulse is always to try to analyse everything…

If you feel like commenting, feel free to share any experiences or thoughts you have had with inspiration…

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