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Lurking Musings

~ Musings of a newly published writer

Lurking Musings

Tag Archives: Russell A Smith

The Elementals: Russell A Smith interview.

06 Wednesday Jan 2021

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Guest posts, Interview

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Island Gardens, London, Russell A Smith, The Elementals


So, in the fugue of Christmas and New Year, you probably forgot all about The Elementals. So, being the helpful chap that I am. I thought it time to remind you…

Cover of The Elementals in the element of air (surrounded by clouds)

So, remember The Elementals is still available on ebook and paperback! You can get it from this Amazon Link!

RusseditToday we are interviewing Russell A Smith, author of the final story in the collection – the Social Contract. We’ve spoken to Russ before, way back when and he did of course get interviewed by F.D Lee at the same time I was for Super Relaxed Fantasy Club. As the only other UK author involved in this anthology, I could in theory have done this interview in person had the world been less virus ridden…

The anthology theme is ‘Elementals’, what does this mean to you and how did you interpret it in your story?

Growing up much in the known western tradition I often think first of earth, air, fire and water. I am pleased spirit is an addition to our options here and I spend far, far too long thinking through metaphysics and how understandings of each of these elements affects the practitioner in the first place. Which led me to how some of them work together, how some really shouldn’t, etc. I really didn’t have time to get into it all on my story here, but thinking about that gave me a whole world to play with, complete with current standings, alternate world histories and suchlike. In the universe I’ve got running, there are a number of options for the magically talented beyond elemental, but we have a specific focus here. My lead protagonist has a talent for manipulation of air and water in particular.

Where is your story set? Is it a real world location or one you made up? What drove you to set your story there?

My story is set in East London, and I’ve joked a few times that I know some friends who could see some of the first part of it from their house! I can’t remember exactly what order things came in, but there’s a particular event taking place that happens in that area which I wanted to include in the plot. I should make sense when you meet a couple of the characters. I may have slightly fudged a calendar date or two, but I’m fairly certain it’s not that important.

Are there any personal experiences in your story? Things you have done, people you have met etc.?Island Gardens - Wikipedia

I’ve been to every location featured in the tale bar one, which I’ll leave you to guess! The characters themselves are entirely fictional, though one of the characters is very loosely inspired by someone I know. Again, I shall leave you to speculate as to which. I also featured another character mostly after exchanging a very short prompt with another friend of mine, whose name I even riff off slightly.

[Editors note, the embedded video below is a clue as to one of the locations used…]

What drives the main characters of your story?

Honestly, I can tell you that the lead was just wanting to have a nice entertaining weekend, and that plan hits a barrier almost straight away. However, the title of my tale, The Social Contract, probably gives away a big theme of characters having numerous obligations within various communities. And they may not always have a universal understanding on this. This starts with some quite real-world issues which I don’t delve into heavily here because that’s not what I’m going for, but it still affects the supernatural in some ways, which will quickly become clear.

How would any of the characters in your story respond to the current world of 2020?

I’m fairly sure it’s not explicitly mentioned, but I set the tale in 2019 quite deliberately. Although there’s certainly peril, I very much wanted to ensure there was joy and light-heartedness on the page, which thankfully my lead lives for. She’ll certainly not be enjoying 2020 one bit, but would absolutely be sporting a Black Lives Matter badge and even though better equipped to handle matters of air transmission than most, will sport an array of geeky masks at all times.

What was your writing ‘method’ for this anthology? How did you progress from initial idea to the final, published story?

Embracing the chaos of my surrounding environment would be the short answer! I turned up quite late to the party so had to come up with something fast, was thinking about the starting location and reasons for the initial conflict first, knew I’d be keeping my end of the prompt I mentioned earlier up, then worked out how I was going to put it all together . I had to quite hastily get some more eyes on my initial draft, then go again!

Describe the premise of your story.

A young witch has plans for a nice chilled weekend break hanging out with her cousin. Would it surprise you to know this does not go according to plan? She starts her perilous night in East London with the police getting in her way by arresting her cousin, but that’s soon interrupted there’s the unknown demonic thing terrorising the local park nearby. So her cuz doesn’t even get to be the first rescue attempt she has to make. After that, she might be able to begin to work out what all of that is really about. Oh yeah, there’s also a really special dog.

Release day tomorrow!

27 Friday Nov 2020

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Publicity

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C.M Kane, D.A Lascelles, Heather Young Nichols, knox publishing, Russell A Smith, The Elementals, Timber Phillips


Tomorrow is the long anticipated release day of The Elementals!

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Those of you who have pre-ordered (and still time to do so!) should be getting their copies delivered to your Kindles on the day. The rest of you can just order it and get it straight away.

This week I have been doing interviews with some of the authors. We have already had Timber Philips and C.M Kane answer questions, next week we will see answers from others including Heather Young Nichols, Russell A Smith and myself!

Yes, I am going to be interviewing myself… and trust me, it is going to be an indepth and brutal interrogation. You see, I know all my secrets…

If you have pre-ordered or plan to order, feel free to comment here to tell me. Also, any and all reviews of this book would be very welcomed.

Get your copy here:

SRFC – Interview with Russell Smith and F.D Lee

23 Monday Nov 2020

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Publicity, Releases

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Elemental magic, F.D Lee, Heather Young Nichols, knox publishing, Liz Knox, Russell A Smith, Super Relaxed Fantasy club, The Elementals, Timber Phillips


So, on Friday, 20th November the Super Relaxed Fantasy club (a London based group that used to meet in physical space but during the Pandemic has been doing virtual events instead) played host to myself, Russell Smith and F.D Lee while we promoted The Elementals and discussed random stuff about Urban Fantasy and History. The video is above for you to watch.

I had great fun doing this but it was very nerve wracking. I much prefer doing things like readings and Q&As in person and this was the first time I had done anything like it on video. Turned out it wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be…

The Elementals is released this coming Saturday on the 28th November. You can pre-order the Kindle edition now by following this link:

It includes a selection of 13 stories by different authors, all on the theme of ‘Elemental magic’. It includes my entry – ‘Transgressions’ – and Russell’s ‘The Social Contract’ as well as stories by Liz Knox, Timber Phillips, Heather Young Nichols and others.

Starting this week I am going to be hosting interviews with some of the authors so keep an eye out for those…

Cover reveal: The Elementals

04 Sunday Oct 2020

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Releases

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Cover reveal, Elementals, knox publishing, Lurking Miscellany, new release, Russell A Smith, Transitions


Way back in January 2019, long before the pandemic, I was involved in an anthology called ‘Out of this World Alphas’ for Knox publishing. This was a collection of novellas about dominant men and my entry for this (Gods of Diplomacy, in which Rachel Drake from Gods of the Deep pulls off a James Bond) managed to get some good reviews. So, on the back of the success of that, I jumped into another anthology from the same publisher called ‘The Elementals’. Not only that, but I dragged Russell A Smith along for the ride too…

The bulk of the work for this has now been completed. We are just waiting on final edits and have a release set for sometime in November, 2020 so not long to wait. Until then, you may have a cover to look at…

 

The brief for The Elementals was to create a story that involved someone who could manipulate the elements in some way. I don’t (yet) know how some of the other authors have done this (though I did get the chance to read through Russell’s entry before submission) but I can tell you how I did it.

My story is called ‘Transgressions’ and is the third in the series that began with Transitions and was continued with Transformations in Lurking Miscellany. I have brought Helen, Tina and Ash back together for more supernatural shenenighans, this time set in Manchester rather than Birmingham, and thrown in a character who may be familiar from another story in Lurking Miscellany – Simon the elementalist.

I will be announcing more about this anthology as and when they happen so stay tuned for more! Release announcements coming!

My Worldcon experience: Day 4

05 Thursday Sep 2019

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Conventions

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Archive of our Own, Astounding Award, Brian Smith, Dublin 2019, F.D Lee, Fangorn, Former Campbell Award, Ginjer Buchanan, Hugos, Hugos Losers party, Jeanette Ng, Literary beer, Logistics in Fantasy, Paedar O'Guilian, Russell A Smith, worldcon, Yoon Ha Lee


After the relative relaxation of Saturday, Sunday was back to full steam ahead with a packed schedule. It was also the day of the now notorious Hugo award ceremony but more on that later…

I started out the day over at the Point where (at her request) I photographed the second show of Death Ingloria. This one, unlike the show of the previous day, was ‘unplugged’ and an excellent performance. I talked with them afterwards (while waiting to be interviewed for a Podcast) and we discussed the concept of ‘interactive comics’ and the use of QR tags in a printed media to add audiovisual elements. Their comic, issued free to the audience, included such tags that linked to concert performances when scanned with a smart phone.

Death Ingloria, musical artist, sat in chair with guitar

Death Ingloria plays unplugged in Warehouse 2

After that concert, I headed back to the CCD where I had agreed to meet with Robin Shantz of the Invaders from Planet 3 podcast. There I was interviewed alongside Galina Rin of Death Ingloria for an episode that will be available on the linked website soon (I guess…). Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to hang around and socialise after that because I was moderating a panel and needed to get to the Green room in order to prep for it.

In the Green room I met one of the panellists. Yoon Ha LeeYoon Ha Lee, author of Ninefox Gambit, and we had a chat about the panel and other things. They said they were practising drawing people and so asked if they could sketch me, which I agreed to, meaning I got the honour of being sketched by a Hugo award nominee!

After a short while, Brian Smith turned up. He was our ‘logistics expert’ for this panel and also got his portrait done. At that point, we were only lacking our GoH panelist – Ginjer Buchanan and my anxiety by that point was already thinking she was standing us up (she wasn’t… but you know paranoia…). We headed down to the room without her and got as far as my announcing the start of the panel and apologising for her absence when she turned up.

20190818_132432.jpg

The sketch of me…

Apparently, she had been at a previous item and had turned up at the door to the panel to be told it was full. Luckily, she was recognised and allowed in and the panel could start with a full complement.

The discussion was another good one with a lot of references to Star Trek: Voyager and the infamous shuttle replicator (for some reason). Yoon Ha Lee introduced themselves as someone who ‘always does it wrong’  with logistics and gave an amusing anecdote about their mother sending them beef jerky from South Korea to the US ‘as a special treat’ despite beef being very easy to obtain in the US. A variant on the coals to Newcastle analogy. Brian Smith commented on various examples of authors not really understanding what logistics is. The Romans were mentioned too. There was also a discussion about ‘going too far’ and obsessing on the ‘little details’ too much. Though Ginjer did point out that the examples given (usually the sort of military/tech thriller/spy thriller adventures in which they take a whole page to describe the technical specifications of a gun) were considered ‘didactic* fiction’ which is, apparently, very popular. Finally there was also reference to the infamous Game of Thrones (TV Series) ‘teleporting characters’ situation – which I have blogged about elsewhere.

A particular sticking point for the panel was when I asked a question about whether there was a SFF story where the logistics issue was the story. We all drew a blank on that one (even me since it was an off the cuff question so I hadn’t even prepared any answers of my own). However, the audience were full of wonderful ideas. If any of you are reading this and want to comment with your suggestions, please feel free (I’m afraid I did not write them down).

After this I went along to sit with Russell Smith on his literary beer and managed to drag Fangorn along for the ride too. Much was discussed…

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Fangorn and F.D Lee

After dinner I went along to Martin’s bar to watch the live feed of the Hugo awards. Much has already been said about this – about the issues with closed captions, the too loud music in the bar that detracted from the events on screen, the controversial speech by Jeannette Ng and the issues with the Loser’s party. I won’t spend too long reiterating those issues other than to say that I totally agree with Jeanette’s comments and am pleased they later agreed to change the name of the Campbell Award to the Astounding Award. I also would say that I quite liked the rowdy nature of the Hugo watching in the bar. OK, we could not see nor hear the speeches but the atmosphere was very jovial and energetic with popular winners (especially ‘Archive of our own‘) getting cheered. It felt very convivial and I think we all knew that we could, if we wanted to, watch the ceremony again at a later date with full sound. I also did not disagree with any of the winners and heartily endorse many of them. Though, I still feel Peadar was robbed…

The evening ended with more Barconning…

*In case you were not aware, didactic refers to a teaching method where you tell the student what they need to know (traditional, old fashioned lecturing) as opposed to more modern methods. Obviously, in writing it refers to a similar idea – the author is explicitly describing an object rather than giving vague details and expecting them to fill in the gaps with imagination.,

My Worldcon experience: Day 3

03 Tuesday Sep 2019

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Conventions

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Tags

Dublin, Iain J Clark, Point Square, Roz Kaveney, Russell A Smith, worldcon


Saturday was more of a working day for me. As a member of the listener team at the Con, I had a number of shifts I had to be available for – either as a roaming Listener (keeping being available for anyone who wants to approach for help or being called in to deal with issues) or at one of the listener desks (these being in the foyer of the CCD, the main con area, or the information desk at Point Square).

6C1A4662

The Beckett Bridge over the Liffey, taken from the CCD

This day I was scheduled to be at the Point information desk at 9am until lunch time. Which would have been fine, still not an early start for me even with the slightly longer trek to Point square from my accomodation, had it not been for the Great Breakfast Crisis.

You see, Dublin apparently does not wake up before 930 on a Saturday. Or at least the part of Dublin the conference was in doesn’t. I guess because it is mostly university and conference facilities and no sensible student is up before midday on a weekend and any conference attendee is, of course, safely in a hotel with a breakfast bar. Apart from me, that is…

So the cafe I had breakfast in on Friday (that did lovely GF bacon sandwiches) was not open when I walked past not long after 8, nor was the restaurant that promised Omlettes I spotted on Friday night and wanted to try out. Even the Starbucks at the cinema was closed. So I had to sit at the info desk breakfast and coffee free until Ed Fortune (SF journalist, Podcaster and old friend from university) came to rescue bringing coffee. Thus saving the universe (or at least Dublin) from the evil that is uncaffeinated me. Actually, this was part of some strange, mystic confluence thing where several of my old friends from university just happened to turn up at that location. Iain and Janet Clark (both exhibiting in the art room that was located in Point), Ed, Russell Smith and me. I knew there was something story based about to happen when Iain walked up to the desk and said “We’re putting the band back together.”

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One journalist, two writers and two artists… it’s early in the morning, none of them smoke, they’re out of booze, it’s light and they don’t have sunglasses…

You’d think we were all there for the same conference or something…

Most of my morning was spent dealing with info desk enquiries rather than actually being a Listener, which was fine because, to be honest, like First Aiders, Listeners at events are people you really prefer to be not doing much because it means nothing bad is happening.

After lunch, I headed to a Kaffeeklatsch hosted by Roz Kaveney, having been thoroughly impressed by her during our Thursday Panel. There followed an entertaining conversation (during which, yes, Pennyworth was mentioned again…) that covered a lot of UK SFF literary history and during which I found myself wishing I knew what had happened to my copies of Temps and Eurotemps (long ago lost, likely in some appropriate bureaucratic mess of a house move) as I would have loved to have had a signature. I may have to buy them again…

By some miracle, I actually managed to have an early night. Mostly because many of the people I usually hang out with at the bar had gone to the Masquerade and I was too lazy to bother going to get a wristband for it. Though I did spoil my early night by staying up late editing photos instead…

 

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