An entirely pointless and idle detour into the backstreets of randomville. Further to my last post, I was vaguely curious about what googling 'crushing the frantic penguins' would reveal. (I've no idea why. Just because I can, I suppose. Which could be the defining slogan of our internet-enabled world, I suppose).
Not a lot, is the answer, but as always where the internet's concerned, a couple of interesting snippets. Especially the last one, though I'm not sure 'interesting' is really quite the right word for it.
With merry inevitability, Festival seasonhas descended upon Edinburgh once more. A month or so of arty (and not so arty) madness is underway. (And lo, with almost equal inevitability, the heavens did open and they did rain at considerable, if intermittent, length upon all the multitudes of tourists. I suspect no one benefits more from the Festival than Edinburgh's umbrella sellers.)
My sole dipping of toe into Festival waters so far has been two bookish things:
At the National Library of Scotland, they're marking the 500th anniversaryof the first book to be printed in Scotland. It's an interesting little exhibition, but it took a little while for the causative fact to really sink in. Half a millennium of printing books.
And they actually have that first book sitting there in a glass case: someone speaking to you through the printed word from 500 years ago. It's not all that easy to read, since the language has changed a fair bit since then and, funnily enough, legibility doesn't seem to have been the most immediate priority of the first font designers. But even so, it's a nice moment to lean over and read something printed that long ago. Kind of wonderful, even. In the most literal sense of wonderful.
And that transformative, revolutionary technology of 1508 connects beautifully to our very own current transformative revolution-in-progress, because anyone anywhere in the world can, if they can access the internet, also read the very first book to be printed in Scotland, because it's online, every single page of it, here. Might not make much sense to most, since it's in pretty heavily Scottished and archaic English, but even so: that is also kind of wonderful, still in the literal sense, when you stop to think about it.
And at Edinburgh's specialist sf bookshop, Transreal Fiction, they do Festival stuff too: a rather cool little exhibition of semi-abstract images by Madeleine Shepherd, each one inspired by an sf book. The series is called 'Alien Surfaces', and there's an online gallery where you can see (and buy, for that matter) most of them. Click on an individual image there to see the passage of text that inspired it.
It's good fun. They're pleasing on the eye, particularly when paired with the relevant quotation:
'...a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and unforming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind had swept so evilly free of litter.' - HP Lovecraft, At The Mountains of Madness.
That Lovercraft text made me think three things, by the way:
1. the guy really was remarkably good at what he did; 2. is it actually possible for a tunnel to be evilly free of litter?; and 3. if I was thinking of starting a blog about 20th century horror fiction I would totally call it 'Crushing the Frantic Penguins'.
To be honest, there are already enough short fiction podcasts to make it tough to keep up with them, but the latest addition is far too cool to ignore: TTA Press, the publishers of the UK's major sf/fantasyand horror fiction magazines, as well as a rather good (if excessively infrequent) crime one, have launched Transmissions from Beyond, podcasting selected stories from their huge, multi-genre back catalogue. I'll be listening.
Another new podcast: Reality Breakis putting out interviews with authors, most of them originally done for radio in the 1990s. Some notably big guns have already been deployed: Will Eisner, Cory Doctorow and the late Robert Jordan.
Free Fantasy Reading: you can download a free pdf of Black Gate magazine no. 12. Got to admit I haven't actually read it, but the magazine's got a pretty good reputation, and there's certainly a lot of content: 224 pages of it.
Since Watchmen featured in the last post here, thought I'd mention an interesting transcript of a 1988 round table discussion about the series. But first: BEWARE! This is as SPOILERIFIC a discussion as could possibly be contrived by the wit of Man. If you have not yet read Watchmen, or if you want to see the upcoming movie without actually knowing every last detail of the plot in advance (and, believe me, you really do), FLEE! The imminent link will utterly and completely ruin the whole thing, including all of the many surprises the story has up its sleeves. Seriously. For those who have already read Watchmen, it's a fascinating discussion, because Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons are involved, and it unpicks in great detail a lot of the story's many layers, influences and concerns. It can be found here.
Thanks to everyone who's e-mailed asking about a release date for Fall of Thanes. It's nice that people care enough to be interested! I wish I had a more definitive answer to offer, but at the moment I don't. It's taken longer than I hoped and intended to finish the thing off, for a mixture of writing and non-writing related reasons, but it is almost done. Should be going to the publisher for consideration in the next few weeks. In the past, it's taken about a year to get from that point to publication. Sorry I can't be any more specific than that yet. More news as and when it's available. It has been raining all day. Raining hard, for a lot of it. Frankly, it's all a bit disappointing, as the weather has been for weeks and weeks. So I thought I'd post a photo, grabbed in one of the few sunny interludes I remember from the last couple of months. It commemorates the chance discovery of a wonderful country lane, thick with wildflowers, bees and butterflies. As I sit here listening to the rain gurgling along the gutters and down the drainpipes, perhaps it will provide a little remembered warmth, and remind me that we do still notionally have things called summers, even if these last couple of years the only possible description of that season has been 'damp squib'.
EDIT to add: the youtube clip may get yanked at any time, I guess, so here's a link to the official trailer, which unsurprisingly is vastly better quality and really rather pretty. (Still got slight reservations about how well this is going to work as a movie, though ...)
Is it cheating to turn an exchange in the comments on a previous post into a new post? No, I say, and what I say goes around here.
Anyway, some chap/chapess called Anonymous chimed in on the recent post about books that arrived too soon to benefit from online buzz with some welcome additional recommendations. Two in particular caught my eye: one because I very nearly included it in the original post, and have ever since been feeling vaguely guilty about not doing so, as if the book itself now watches me from the shelf with an accusatory and faintly disappointed eye; the other because ... well, just because I think it's interesting really. So here we (briefly) go again:
Stand on Zanzibarby John Brunner. This is one of my favourite sf books, and was within a gnat's whisker of appearing on the previous post. A picture of a crowded, complex 21st century Earth, written in a very distinctive non-linear style, with multiple storylines, numerous contextual snippets, oh just a ton of stuff going on. It was written in the 1960s and feels like it: innovative, eruptive, engaged, playful. It's quite long, so you do need a bit of stamina, but that's obviously not a problem if you're enjoying the ride. A lot of its concerns - over-population, corporate power, media saturation, the rise of computers etc. etc. - still strike a chord now that we're actually living in the century Brunner anticipated, even if events haven't followed exactly the course he suggested.
Dracula by Bram Stoker. As it happens, I don't think Dracula is as remarkable as Frankenstein, but I do think it's good. Why do I prefer Frankenstein? Basically, I guess I just find it the more interesting of the two books. Its premise (Man is undone by his Creation) is both more potent and more succinctly and imaginatively explored. Dracula is much, much longer, and I don't think it quite has the narrative or thematic legs to sustain it all the way through. And, for me, Frankenstein has a certain timeless quality: it's a vision complete and coherent and somehow separate in itself, whereas Dracula has always felt to me more clearly rooted in and constrained by its time (the late Victorian era) and context. But I don't want to seem like I'm knocking Dracula too much. I do like it. It's got an interesting and largely successful structure, telling its story through letters and diary extracts, and it definitely has a certain Gothic, melodramatic, power. Worth a try, if you haven't yet read the original, and arguably still the best, vampire tale.
So, the great big signedBloodheir giveaway on Facebook has drawn to a close. To be honest, until I actually signed up for Facebook I was a bit of a sceptic about the whole social networking thing. I still don't think I'm really quite on the right wavelength, but I'm starting to 'get it' a bit more. I'm prepared to concede that they do actually offer a new kind of dynamic and structure to the whole internet thing that nothing else does in quite the same way. Anyway, now that the giveaway's done, I should mention, as I traditionally and predictably do at such moments, that signed and dedicated Bloodheirs are available to all sundry - socially networked or not - from Transreal Fiction. I quite like stopping by to sign them, so don't you worry about putting me to any trouble. It's a pleasure, really. So you're buying yourself a signed book, and me a little bit of pleasure. Everybody wins.
The latest must-read blog for sf/f bibliophiles: Enter the Octopus. Lots of good content, most significantly the huge, more-or-less daily, round ups of book-related links.
Pre-release reviews and rumours about this suggest that something interesting is on the way, and I'm gradually allowing my expectations to get high enough that I'm virtually inviting disappointment to come and stomp all over me:
Rumours abound that this chapis being lined up to be the new Dr. Who. Like him very much indeed as an actor, but Dr. Who? Maybe, so long as they went the not-too-manic route. Guess we'll see in due course. Or not, these being rumours of the plausible but entirely unconfirmed sort.
Strange Maps, which is one of those sites that pretty much justifies the invention of blogging software all by its lonesome if you ask me, has an interesting post on a wildly silly proposal to drain the North Sea, put forward in 1930. It kind of sums up everything I like about the blog: fun maps and loads of semi-obscure geographical and historical info.
Funny/Clever (via SF Signal, which unlike Enter the Octopus is a long-established must-read site for sf bibliophiles):
In my recent interview at A Dribble of Ink, I mentioned that I quite like it when sf/f book bloggers shift their attention away from new releases and try to tempt their audience into giving some older books a try. Figured I might as well put a little of my blogging time where my mouth is, so herewith - selected semi-randomly by staring blankly at the bookshelf nearest my desk and seeing which titles telepathically suggested themselves - some books that first saw the light of day long before 'online buzz' was anything other than what might happen if you trod carelessly while crossing an electrified railway line. They're hardly what you'd call obscure, but there might be one or two readers out there just waiting to be persuaded to try them.
Mythago Woodby Robert Holdstock. Was very well known when it first came out (1984, I think), yet over at Neth Space it was recently mentionedas a book that isn't as widely read now as it deserves. I was shocked. Shocked, I was. I would have assumed that everyone had heard of Mythago Wood and its (even better, in some ways, I think) sequels. Shows how much I know. The basic concept is brilliant: a wood in southern England is, to an extent that would shame the Tardis, bigger on the inside than the outside, and has the power to give physical form to the mythic and folkloric concepts lurking in visitors' brains. I'd be willing to cut off my little finger for an idea as good and rich in story potential as that. Well, maybe not cut it off. I'd be prepared to lightly bruise it, though.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Okay, everybody's heard of this one, but not everybody's read it, which is a bit of a shame, I think. Since it's a product of the 19th century, the style and pacing can be a bit off-putting for the modern reader, but I've found that there's a certain unquantifiable proportion of people who, if they can get past that stumbling block, find it an extraordinary book. It might not work for you, but if it is does, there's a good chance it'll really work. Personally, I think it's got a sort of deranged clarity of theme and vision that marks it out as a genre high point (and maybe, as you sometimes hear people say, the beginning of the sf genre too) even after all these years .
Earth Abidesby George Stewart. Possibly my favourite post-apocalyptic novel, certainly in the top two or three. Was written around 60 years ago, and its style and attitudes might seem a little dated now, but despite that, I love it. It's an evocative and ultimately rather moving look at what might happen if (in the mid-20th century) you came home from a solo wilderness trip to discover that almost everyone else in the world had died during your absence. There's relatively little action (though I do think there's a certain kind of heroism going on), so it's one for those who like their sf, at least occasionally, thoughtful and cumulative in its effect. It also, as it happens, has one of my favourite endings of any book, which resolves everything and nothing simultaneously.
The Helliconia Trilogyby Brian Aldiss. The fact that I can't immediately find this, or any of its three constituent volumes - Helliconia Spring, Helliconia Summer and Helliconia Winter - in stock at any of the big UK online bookstores leads me to consider the mildly distressing possibility that it might be out of print. I'd be surprised if so, but life's full of surprises. It's got some fantasy trappings but is actually sf through and through. Loads of stuff happens (some of it a bit weird, this being an Aldiss story), but the real star of the series is the planet Helliconia itself, with seasons that last centuries and whole societies and cultures that rise and fall as the climate changes. Visionary stuff, painted on a huge canvas. And it also contains one of my favourite of all non-human races in sf/f: the bipedal, goat-like phagors, who trade dominance of the planet with humans depending on the season.
It's a double dose of interview action this week, as I have also been answering questions over at the website of fellow Orbit author Jennifer Rardin (author of the Jaz Parks series, which involves the CIA, assassins, vampires, demons, witches and - in a future instalment - Scotland. Excellent location choice there, Jen.) It's a fun little number, covering such never-before discussed topics as why I think Aeglyss might enjoy talking to dogs, and which planet I'd like to visit.
I've been interviewed at mighty length over at A Dribble of Ink. Go have a look, if you like.
Plus, we're now in the final week of the great big Bloodheir giveaway on Facebook. Three lucky winners have already been picked out of the hat (actually, rumour has it they're being selected using an old set of D&D dice, but I don't know how credible such rumours are ...). One more chance to win, this Friday, so if you like the idea of getting your hands on a signed, dedicated hardback of Bloodheir, go sign up as a fan at the Winterbirth page on Facebook. You've got to be in it to win it. Or something like that.
A dip into the pond of my podcast subscriptions to see if anything of any interest to someone else might turn up. Nothing in here that podcast veterans won't already know about, I suspect, but you never know ...
PodCastle: the fantasy sibling of the long(ish) established EscapePod (sf) and PseudoPod (horror) fiction podcasts. Haven't managed to listen to more than a handful of the stories they've put out, but there's been some good stuff. I liked, for example, The Osteomancer's Sonby Greg van Eekhout, partly from a technical point of view: takes a clever writer to effectively sketch in as much context and backstory as you'd expect in a modest novel without crippling a short story. Plus, the central idea of doing magic with bones is nicely spun, I thought.
Adventures in SciFi Publishing: lots of author interviews, sf/f publishing news etc. etc. For some reason I can't quite pin down, I just find this one really, really easy and relaxing to listen to. Possibly something to do with having aurally personable hosts and a tone that's enthusiastic without becoming over-excited or feverishly fannish.
In Our Time: the heavy duty end of the podcasting spectrum. This is a BBC radio programme which basically consists of academics discussing their specialist subjects. Covers a huge range of stuff: history, science, philosophy, literature. Often more accessible than it sounds, though it does rattle along at a fair pace, and you have to been in the right kind mood. If it's on a subject you're curious about, worth checking out. Recent ones I've listened to: The Library of Nineveh, The Black Death, Lysenko. (None of which I seem to be able to link to directly, unfortunately - past episodes seem to get scrubbed from the website, so I guess you need to subscribe to the feed and grab anything you want as it shows up.)
Starship Sofa: the long-running podcast on sf writers has gone through big changes in recent months. It's now putting out a mid-week sf 'audio magazine' with one or two bits of fiction, some non-fiction, even poetry. An interesting venture - I'm flabbergasted by the amount of effort various people must be putting into this podcast, and others, for basically zero financial reward. It's a real 'for the love' thing, and more power to their audio elbows, I say.
