Saw a piece the other day about the efforts ITV (Britain's main non-BBC terrestrial TV network, for anyone who doesn't know) are making to get our broadcasting rules changed so they can do product placement in their shows. I don't mind a bit of subtle product placement in my movies, or even non-subtle stuff when it's an accepted and loved tradition in a particular franchise - as the chap from ITV pointed out, a Bond movie wouldn't be quite a Bond movie if you didn't know precisely what make of car he was merrily thrashing around the streets of that European metropolis.
But product placement does bug me if it bounces me out of a movie's narrative thread, i.e. whenever I consciously think: 'Oh, look. They're trying to sell me something.' As it did, I regret to report, in Iron Man, when Tony Stark's most fervent wish upon returning from his Afghan captivity was to get an American burger down his neck. And not just any American burger. Oh no. They make sure you know who makes - in the opinion of one mega-wealthy arms dealer at least - the best American burgers.
But then it occured to me: perhaps I'm just jealous. I'm bitter because books don't offer quite the same scope for a lucrative sideline in product placement. Not fantasy, anyway. Quite aside for the pitifully small audience size compared to your average blockbuster movie, at first glance there's a distinct shortage of brands that could fit into your average tale of sword-and-sorcery hi-jinks in an imagined world. Never one to trust a first glance, though, I could try, if there were any companies out there willing to fund my descent into tawdry commercialism.
There are a few mentions of apples and orchards in the trilogy. Who's to say they couldn't be apples of a breed that coincidentally shares a name with those appearing on our own supermarket shelves? This is fantasy, after all. I can call my apples anything I like. In Bloodheir, Lheanor mentions to Orisian that he plans to plant some trees. This, I now realise, is a missed opportunity. He could have been much more specific: 'Apple trees, perhaps. Golden Delicious. Oh, how my beloved wife adores their sweet and crunchy charms.'
Or agricultural suppliers. I could have the invading host of the Black Road stumbling across an abandoned barn full of seedcorn bred by that famed farmer Monsanto, and falling into paroxysms of joy at their good fortune. Kanin: 'It yields twice the crop of old-fashioned varieties, you know.' Wain: 'Really? I heard thrice.'
The payments involved might be individually modest, but they'd add up if I could cram enough in. Of course, in hindsight what I should have done was approach the whole story with a much more science fictional bent. A few inter-dimensional rifts or trans-temporal ruptures would have opened up a host of possibilities:
"The flickering rift spat out a lean, sleek iron carriage that dropped down onto the grass with a satisfyingly well-crafted thump. It rocked, for a moment, on its fat black, strangely grooved wheels, then settled into elegant repose, its sweeping form speaking eloquently of leashed power.
Orisian leaned close and brushed aside some of the inter-dimensional dust that had accumulated upon its glittering metallic skin.
'What does this say?' he murmured, squinting at the words he had undercovered. 'Aston ... Aston Martin.' "
Works for me. If the price is right, of course.
NOTE: None of the above should be taken as my personal endorsement of any product or brand. As it happens, I feel Tony Stark could have made worse choices as far as burgers are concerned, but I'm not a particular advocate of Golden Delicious apples or Monsanto anything. I would, however, be simperingly grateful if any Aston Martin executive happens to read this and feels like offering me a free sample of their wares, in which unlikely event I can guarantee my endorsement would be unreserved and heartfelt to a frankly pathetic extent ...
It's a bit disconcerting when forgotten relics of your distant past unexpectedly resurface from the bottom of dusty drawers - stuff you'd forgotten, which abruptly reconnects you with the child you once were.
In this case, I got my hands on some stories I wrote in my pre-teen years. Clearly, I was doomed to plough the fantasy furrow from an early age, since I evidently had a thing about maps of imaginary places even then:
This is from The Tomb of Beledon (a title which I think only really works if you imagine it being spoken by James Earl Jones). The plot concerns a chap called Michael who survives a plane crash only to find himself on a strange island full of tunnels and villages, hostile and out of place wildlife, malign and possibly supernatural forces ... yes, if only I'd had some contacts in the TV industry at the age of 12 or 13 or however old I was, Lost could've been on your TV screens a whole lot sooner.
I wonder what the me of all those years ago would think if I could reach back and say 'Keep at it, kid. All this scribbling will pay off one day. Maybe hold off on the exclamation marks a bit, though.' (The thing's got a rash of exclamations all through it, like some unfortunate skin condition. Even some of the chapter titles are exclamation marked.)
The thing is, I suspect mini-me would not be particularly surprised to hear he was going to get stuff published one day. At that tender age we - those of us lucky enough to have safe and stable and comfortable upbringings, anyway - tend to live in worlds of possibilities and imagination; the barriers and the obstacles and limitations and difficulties, not just in writing but life as a whole, tend only to become apparent as we climb the ladder of years. Still, it'd be nice to whisper a few words of encouragement in the junior me's ear. It's all you can say, really, to any aspiring writer, whatever their age: Keep at it. Get better. Try. And go easy on the exclamation marks.
Alt.Fiction is a one day spec fic jamboree in Derby on Saturday, April 26th. Sort of a mini-convention. I will be there, but fortunately so will a whole host of much more interesting and famous folk. Those who have been in previous years tell me it's a good day. If you like the look of that list of attendees, why not come along?
Here's one of the most deserved blog-to-book deals I've ever heard of: Strange Maps is to be immortalised in print. I predict a big success, especially if the publisher's got the muscle to get some offline publicity going.
Advance notice of a potentially cool addition to the podcasting world: the long-delayed PodCastle will finally be starting April. If the quality matches that of its stablemates PseudoPod and Escape Pod, it should be good.
I mentioned Public Lending Right a few posts ago, and Lo! It is under attack. Not life-threatening attack, but erosive 'if we make lots of little cuts maybe they won't notice' kind of attack. In government terms the amounts of money involved are microscopic, but for many authors and illustrators (not me at the moment, but one day who knows?) PLR income is a big chunk of their total earnings from their creative work. If you're a UK citizen, and happen to think PLR cuts are a bad idea, there's an online petition you could sign. Only if you feel like it, obviously.
I know 2007 feels like a long time ago already, but here's Locus' summary of the sf/f books that appeared on the most Best of 2007 lists. That'll be the 'best of the best ofs' or something, then. I have read precisely one of the books mentioned, which is clearly a pathetic effort of which I should be ashamed, but hopefully it doesn't make me a bad person. The one I have read is The Terror, which is very good in all sorts of ways.
Chances are, things will be quiet around here for the next week or more (not that they're exactly a hive of frenzied activity the rest of the time), while I concentrate on eating, drinking, caressing the many books I'll no doubt be given on the 25th (people know how to please me), wishing it would snow, and - because you can't let a little thing like a festive season get in the way - writing.
In the meantime, a little selection of treats and trifles:
For Movie Fans, the newly-arrived Hellboy II trailer:
I was a big fan of the first movie - plain old fun almost from beginning to end, I thought, and that's something not many movies can claim - and this one looks like it might be a worthy successor. For Zombie Comic Fans (that's fans of zombie comics, rather than comic fans who are zombies), a tip: I'm way behind on this, since it's been going for ages, but this year I discovered The Walking Dead. I've only read the first collected volume so far, but it was up there amongst my favourite reading experiences of 2007.
It's the homely tale of a small group of ordinary people trying to survive in a world over-run by flesh-eating zombies. Good writing, good characters and the occasional gory zombie attack: what more could you ask? Recommended for those with post-Christmas book tokens to spend and an affection for quality comics. Or for zombies.
For Aspiring Writers, this is pretty old stuff, but it's well worth a read if you haven't seen it before: from the Australian fantasy author Ian Irvine, who's sold enough books to know what he's talking about, Writing Tips, Guide to Success, and easily the best of the lot, The Truth About Publishing. Not everything in there accords perfectly with my own experience, but that's no surprise as (a) Ian's writing from an Australian perspective, and (b) these things are bound to vary on a case-by-case basis. The important thing is that in broad terms there's a huge amount of good advice, truth and common sense in there.
For Anyone who ever wondered what a nuclear detonation at sunset looks like (likely a small subset of the global population, I realise):
Okay, so it's actually just the Sun going down behind a power station just outside Edinburgh, but it looked a bit like the Apocalypse to me.
For Those Who Care About Such Things, the latest version of the Bloodheir cover. It makes me feel cold just looking at it, which in this case is a good thing.
Last I heard, UK, US and Australian publication remains on schedule for June 2008, by the way.
And since it's the season for Giving Gifts, go test your vocabulary - and marvel at the plethora of obscurities lurking like unexploded bombs in the dark recesses of the English language - while simultaneously donating (at no cost to you!) rice to those who need it: FreeRice, which I found via Patrick Rothfuss' blog.
Finally, For Music Fans, especially those who like a bit of acoustic guitar action, what I think is one of the nicest sounds to be found on YouTube:
There're plenty of other clips of him on YouTube, all equally pleasing, and his website's here: Andy McKee. Sadly, no signs of any plans to play in Scotland as far as I can see, otherwise I'd probably be busy buying tickets instead of writing this post ...
And that's it. Whatever festivities you're engaged in over the next week or two, I hope you have an outrageously happy time of it.
So, today is Blog Action Day, meaning that in theory bloggers around the world are talking about environmental stuff. Here comes my token gesture in that direction: a bit of a ramble about writing, influences and wildlife.
Every writer's a stew of conscious and unconscious influences that shape what they write. They're like a host of semi-visible fingerprints that the author leaves all over the text, some of which only he or she can see, some of which he or she will probably be the last one to recognise. In its own small way, the natural environment is one of the very faint, smudged fingerprints I left on Winterbirth. My preoccupation with natural landscapes and wildlife just kind of crept into the book along the way. I imagine it's not something that most readers register, and nor should they since it's mostly just minor background details, although one or two have mentioned it in reviews or suchlike.
Behind all the in-focus stuff in Winterbirth to do with battles, conspiracies and general strife, there are buzzards circling above forests, bears snuffling around in the undergrowth, geese flying south for the winter. It's just the way my mind works: the sound and sight of vast flocks of geese overhead is as much a sign of impending winter to me as are the shortening days and the increasing prevalence of miserable weather (mind you, this year the weather actually improved once September got going, which tells you something about the damp squib that was summer). So you get geese flying down the Glas Valley as winter closes in, just as they're flying south over my house this month.
The natural world that features in Winterbirth and the rest of the trilogy isn't really drawn from the present day, though. It's based on a long lost Britain of hundreds or even thousands of years ago: it's a richer, wilder and more dangerous kind of Nature than what we've got now. There are still bears and wolves, both long gone in the real world; there are even - to judge by the names I gave the Kyrinin clans - wild boar, wild horses, and gigantic wild cattle, all of which were once British citizens but no longer. (Although to be strictly accurate there are wild boar lurking in some corners of the island again, much to the consternation of some observers.)
I can't really have the kind of wilderness experience that the Godless World would offer to a visitor here in the UK any more, but there's still plenty of stuff that gives me great pleasure and enriches my life, some of which has turned up on this blog. Since we're in Blog Action Day mode, it's worth remembering how fragile these things are. I posted some photos from the Isle of Maya few months ago - a place that possesses a kind of natural magic. But all the hundreds of thousands of seabirds that throng that island, and the rest of the Scottish coastline, are facing potential disasteras the food chain collapses under the influence of overfishing and warming seas. I also posted photos from the Isle of Mull, but unfortunately didn't have one of the golden eagle that we watched patiently quartering the slopes in search of prey. Every time that eagle swoops down on some carrion, it's running the risk of being poisoned. I posted a photo of a poplar hawk moth, a chance discovery in the Edinburgh grass. And ... you're probably detecting a pattern by now ... sure enough, Britain's moths are in trouble, too. Many of them seem to be spiralling towards rarity, or even extinction.
Sometimes I kind of regret that I can't share this island with the wolves and bears I populated the Godless World with, but there'd be no 'sometimes' about the regret I'd feel if we lost what we've managed to hang on to by way of wildlife. My life will be that tiny little bit poorer if one year there are no more puffins nesting on the Isle of May: it might sound silly, but it's true. And in this modern, crowded world, the only way we're going to hang on to it is if at least some of us are paying attention, and making an effort to keep it. All it takes to lose a species nowadays is indifference. So for that reason if for no other, seeing thousands of bloggers take the trouble to talk about environmental issues is kind of cool.
Okay, so it's actually just the Sun going down behind a power station just outside Edinburgh, but it looked a bit like the Apocalypse to me.
