Solaris

Guest Post: And Now For Something a Little Different – James Lovegrove on AGE OF GODPUNK

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Lovegrove-AgeOfGodpunkMy latest Pantheon book, Age Of Godpunk, is not like the others. For a start, it’s an omnibus of three novellas, not a novel. But it isn’t military-SF either. If anything, the three tales are urban fantasy. The themes are the same, though: gods and men and the interaction between them; the nature of belief; acceptance of and/or rebellion against divine authority.

I have to say that all three novellas are pretty personal, too.

They have a setting in common: the city of London. Now, London is a place about which I am more than a little ambivalent. On the one hand, I love to visit our capital and avail myself of the many cultural, culinary, retail and social amenities it has to offer. On the other hand, I’ve lived there at various periods of my life and never felt truly at home or comfortable. I’m from East Sussex. I belong near the south coast, in a county with hills and trees. After any trip up to the Big Smoke, I’m always happy – relieved, even – to return to fresh air and vistas.

So the Age Of Godpunk novellas reflect my mixed feelings about London. They also reflect my mixed feelings about belief, faith and religion. Each of them can be read on two levels. You can take the appearance of the various deities in them at face value, the metaphysical manifesting as real, literal beings. Or you can view them rationally and empirically, with the gods existing only in the minds of the protagonists, phantoms, fantasies, delusions.

More specifically, each novella touches on themes drawn directly from my own life. These are the most personal stories I’ve written in ages, if not ever.

Lovegrove-AgeOfAnansiThe first of them, Age Of Anansi, is about storytelling, which is the thing I try to do for a living. Anansi is the spider god of African tradition, a liar and a trickster, a woefully inept would-be adulterer, and more often than not the hapless victim of his own schemes – ensnared by his own webs. The tales told about him crossed the Atlantic in slave ships and came to America, where they mutated over time and metamorphosed into the Br’er Rabbit fables.

In Age Of Anansi, his spirit apparently possesses a stuffy London-based barrister who is then cajoled into attending a once-every-generation contest among trickster gods in California. In many ways the contest is like an SF convention, but with every attendee attempting to outsmart and outshine the others. So, just like an SF convention, in fact.

Lovegrove-AgeOfSatan2Age Of Satan sketches the life of a young man from school in the late 1960s to the present day. He believes he has sold his soul to the Devil, sort of by accident, but gradually learns that there’s more to the Lord of the Flies than the Bible would have us think. Although the character, Guy, is born about a decade and a half before I was, he attends an all-male boarding school, as I did, and he travels to Thailand, as I did. He’s kind of an avatar for my younger self, sharing many of the passions and anxieties I had while growing up.

As for the third novella, Age Of Gaia, it may be regarded as a sequel of sorts to my 1999 novella How The Other Half Lives, which was one of the first titles to be published by the wonderful boutique imprint PS Publishing. That tale was about a plutocrat who keeps a man locked in his cellar and brutally abuses him in order to ensure himself continued good fortune and enhance his already obscene wealth. Gaia features another plutocrat, Barnaby Pollard, who has made his billions from oil and coal, heedless of the environmental damage that fossil fuels cause. He meets a woman and develops a relationship with her that directly affects both his business and his attitude towards Mother Nature.

There’s a scene in the story which reimagines an event from my own childhood. I was perhaps twelve years old when a bypass was built, circumventing my hometown. The road was driven straight through a patch of countryside where I and my friends regularly played. We had regarded this place as ours, a rural sanctuary, a wild spot where we, too, could be wild. The people of the Highways Agency (or whatever it was called back then) didn’t know that, nor would they have cared if they had.

I took the road building as a personal insult and mourned the fact that fields and woods had been bulldozed and two lanes of tarmac laid down in their place. When something similar happens to the young Barnaby Pollard, however, I show him celebrating the event, applauding the arrival of speed and progress and not giving a damn about any lost greenery. It’s a formative moment in his life, a pivotal experience, which has ironic echoes later on in the story.

As a rule I try to avoid bringing myself into my fiction. I don’t consider my life to be that interesting, and anyway I prefer to write about the unreal and the fantastic, the things that aren’t as opposed to the things that are. Somehow, though, with these three novellas I just couldn’t help it. The personal crept in, almost without my realising. With hindsight, I think that’s one of their great strengths.

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Pantheon Series (Novels): Age of Ra, Age of Zeus, Age of Odin, Age of Aztec, Age of Voodoo

Age of Gaia will be published on September 12th 2013, by Solaris. For those of you in reach of London, Blackwells on Charing Cross Road is holding a launch event a week earlier, on September 5th. Jared Shurin, of the cult genre website Pornokitsch, will hold an evening in conversation with the author.

Be sure to check out James Lovegrove’s website for more information on his novels and so forth.

Guest Post: “The Details in the Devil” by Lou Morgan

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MorganL-Blood&FeathersFinalThere is one really, really stupid thing you can do as a writer. Monumentally, head-thumpingly stupid.

And that’s to put the Devil in your book.

Where do you start? Whatever name you give him, whatever face, Old Nick comes with some pretty hefty baggage. Trickster, manipulator, tyrant, victim, former angel or demon… he’s still the Devil. You can race with him; you can be caught between him and the deep blue sea. You can have sympathy for him (or not) and he’s even been known to wear Prada.

All this, and we’ve barely even scratched the surface… So why would anyone be crazy or arrogant enough to go ahead and write one of the most (in)famous characters in all of literature into their own book?

The answer’s simple. It’s because he’s fun. And he’s fun because he’s a challenge. Everybody’s Devil is different. The scariest one I’ve ever seen on film is Viggo Mortensen in The Prophecy. He’s scary because he talks, and it’s not just his voice but his words which are seductive; they ebb and flow as he sits there, fiddling with a rose… and then you realise what he’s saying, and suddenly he’s a thing worth fearing…

He should be seductive, in his own way – it’s what he does best, isn’t it? It’s why those pitchfork-wielding dragon-types they were so fond of in medieval art always look so strange to us. The idea of devil-as-serpent we can understand – there’s something compelling about the way a snake moves, isn’t there? – but none of us could imagine being taken in by a gargoyle.

The Devil stands for evil, after all (just look at those two words… Coincidence? Nah.) and how many of us could ever see ourselves as being deliberately evil? Not many. We use words like “seduced” and “corrupted” when we talk about people going to the dark side. To believe that anyone could simply wake up one day and decide to be truly bad, to become any of our modern definitions of evil is unthinkable – not to mention very frightening indeed – and this is where the “Father of Lies” comes in.

And that’s precisely where a writer’s headache starts.

Every writer’s Devil differs. Of course they do: just like every writer differs, and everything they’re scared of differs. There’s a good chance you’ll find an overlap (how can you not with a character like this?), but there will always be something fresh – even if it’s just the pieces of a jigsaw arranged in a new pattern; the whole being re-lit to cast unfamiliar shadows.

I imprisoned my Lucifer in a block of ice at the heart of hell… but then if you do that, doesn’t it rather take him out of the game? It depends how smart you think he is – and I wouldn’t bet against his being able to think his way around that one. If he were stupid, he wouldn’t be nearly so much trouble, would he?

MorganL-Blood&Feathers-RebellionGoing back to medieval paintings of devils and demons, it’s not unusual to see them being pulled out of peoples’ mouths, because this was a time when possession was not only feared, it was absolutely believed in. And what could be more frightening than speaking to someone you know and realising that they aren’t themselves? What could be more seductive than hearing half-truths – carefully phrased and selected to do the maximum damage possible – from the lips of someone you think you know…?

What if his mind could wander at will? What if he could hop into your head, your mother’s, your wife’s, your brother’s, your child’s? What if he could settle down like a toad in a mind that isn’t his, spitting out words that didn’t come from there and planting thoughts that don’t belong?

What’s his deal, anyway? What’s his agenda? Is he angry? Vengeful? Spiteful? Petty? Sadistic? Is he flat-out monstrous or just misunderstood? Just the same as any character, he needs his motivations and his pressure-points; it’s just that his tend to be bigger, scarier and more nerve-wracking than others.

And after all that: the knowing he’s smarter than you and more vicious than you (which is why he’s locked up, after all: he’s officially A Bad Dude) with nothing to lose and everything to gain, you’re left with one very alarming question.

What will he do to get what he wants?

Answer that, and you’ve got a Devil of your own.

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Author Bio:

Lou Morgan lives in the south west of England with her family. She studied medieval literature at university and loves cathedrals and pizza (but probably not together). Her short stories have appeared in anthologies from Solaris Books, PS Publishing and Jurassic. Her first novel, Blood and Feathers has been shortlisted for the 2013 British Fantasy Awards in both the best newcomer and best fantasy novel categories. She spends far too much time on Twitter.

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This post should really be read while listening to this song…

Guest Post: “Why I Didn’t Write My Book in an Elevator” by Jack Skillingstead

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Skillingstead-LifeOnThePreservationUSHere’s the so-called elevator pitch for my new novel, Life On The Preservation.

A man discovers his city is caught in a time loop. He fears he may be losing his mind. Then a girl from outside the loop arrives. They find each other and solve the mystery. It’s Dark City meets Groundhog Day.

I never actually delivered this pitch. In fact, I only wrote it just now. One time I did find myself in an elevator with David Hartwell, who is the senior editor at Tor Books. I wasn’t even tempted to blurt a pitch at him. All I said was, “Nice tie.” David is famous for his ties. After that, we did what most people do on elevators. We stared at the doors and waited.

On publication day, which was May 28th, I did a public reading from, Life On The Preservation. The reading took place at the University Bookstore in Seattle, Washington. Duane Wilkins, who runs the excellent science fiction section of the store and who is probably as well-read as anyone ever has been in our genre, had this to say in his introduction:

“I don’t know how to explain this book.”

Then he stared into space for a while, repeated himself, and suggested I might do better at describing Life On The Preservation. Presumably, he believed I could describe my own novel because, after all, I’d written it. But I couldn’t, even though I’m a fairly articulate person. If I’d had my elevator pitch handy I might have recited the thing, but I doubt it. Besides, I only wrote the elevator pitch five minutes ago.

People who like to give writing advice will often tell you that if you can’t describe your book in one paragraph you probably don’t have a saleable idea. If that’s true, I’m living in the wrong universe. Though I have described both of my novels in one or two paragraphs, I did it only after the books were finished and sold and the publishers asked me to do it, so they would have some copy to put on the back of the book and to advertise it in catalogues and around the internet.

Skillingstead-LifeOnThePreservationUKThe truth is, you don’t know what your book is about until you’ve written it, and if the book is any good it lives in the details – details that you discover along the way. At my University Bookstore reading I could have described LOTP as a story of alien destruction, time loops, transhuman survival in an environment of outlaw art, paranoid estrangement and redemption. I could even have said its secret theme concerned living in the world you create – whether you acknowledge you’ve created it or not.

But, while true enough, that description isn’t anything but a laundry list of related generalities. And I must say that, generally, I distrust generalities. Before I wrote LOTP I took several stabs at the one-paragraph description. I even tried to outline chapters. It felt a little like looking at a slide show from a vacation I hadn’t yet enjoyed. Here’s a pretty picture of a beach with random people lying around! Yes, the people are strangers, ciphers, and the beach looks like any other beach. But there it is! And I’m going!

My early efforts of transforming Life On The Preservation from a short story to a novel looked something like a generic beach with sun-bathing ciphers. This is because I was desperate to get organized and write a novel that pushed all the right buttons – you know, the buttons that would make people love the book and shower me with contracts and money. Of course, those first attempts to expand Preservation turned out to be abysmal failures. I learned that – for me, at least – there is only one way to discover whatever it is that might be original within myself. I had to go there and document the journey every inch of the way. Only then could I begin to organize my fancy slide show.

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Life on the Preservation was published by Solaris Books on June 6th. Here’s the synopsis…

Inside the Seattle Preservation Dome it’s always the Fifth of October, the city caught in an endless time loop. “Reformed” graffiti artist Ian Palmer is the only one who knows the truth, and he is desperate to wake up the rest of the city before the alien Curator of this human museum erases Ian’s identity forever. Outside the Dome, the world lies in apocalyptic ruin. Small town teenager Kylie is one of the few survivors to escape both the initial shock wave and the effects of the poison rains that follow. Now she must make her way across the blasted lands pursued by a mad priest and menaced by skin-and-bone things that might once have been human. Her destination is the Preservation, and her mission is to destroy it. But once inside, she meets Ian, and together they discover that Preservation reality is even stranger than it already appears.

Guest Post: “On Editing & Writing…” by Jonathan Strahan

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FearsomeJourneys-2013On writing tips for new writers from someone who has never written a story, but has read a few

Many thanks to Civilian Reader for letting me stop by and chat about editing and writing. I’ve been thinking about what you might say to a new writer who wanted to write a short story, a great one (who’d want to write anything else?) When I first started to work on a list of tips on how to write a terrific short story I drew a blank. I’ve not written a short story since high school, so I’m no expert. I’ve not even thought about writing a short story myself. But then I realized that, like you, I read. I read a lot. And what I mostly read is short fiction. So, it’s possible I might have picked up an idea or two.

1. Write

This might seem obvious, but no one has ever finished a short story without sitting down and actually writing. I have a folder full of stops and starts on a handful of short stories and novels, but none of them are finished. So, do that. Write. Write every day and finish what you start.

2. Re-write

I know you think you’re finished when you write “The End” at the end of your newly minted short story. You probably are. But it’s possible, just possible, that there’s still a little bit of work left to do. Put it in a drawer for a week, and come back to it fresh. Suddenly you’ll see, if you’re at all like me when I write anything, all sorts of problems with it. You might also let a trusted reader see it. Get their feedback, try to listen to it with an open mind, and be willing to re-write.

3. Read

The only way to learn how to write a great short story is to read great short stories. Read them a lot and think about them. Try to work out how they work and why. Pick a writer whose work you love and see how their stories work. If you love fantasy stories, try the work of Fritz Leiber or Ursula Le Guin, and see if you can unpick their stories. They knew what they were doing.

4. Keep it short

We are talking about writing short stories after all, so keep it short. You probably only want a single plot line (the story) and a single point of view character (the person whose eyes we’re seeing the story though). Longer stories, novellas and short novels, can sometimes have subplots and more than one point of view character, but basically you only need one.

5. Make your story work

I don’t mean make it great. Of course you’re going to do that. What I mean is make your words count. Everything you write in a short story should do more than one thing. Setting builds character, voice advances plot, and so on. Look very carefully at each scene in your story. You won’t have many of them – this is short after all – so make sure each scene does more than one thing. Each scene should build setting, develop character and move the story forward. Avoid scenes that only do one thing. You want to avoid your story being dull (which it was never going to be, but you know what I mean) and making sure your scenes are doing the heavy lifting helps.

If you’ve already written a great short story you probably know all of this stuff, and possibly far more. If you’re just starting out, though, it might help. And if you are starting out keep going. You’ll probably write some stinkers. You’ll possibly write some stories that are almost exactly like stories written by people whose work you love. That’s fine. That’s what you should be doing. You have to write through that so you can get to the stories that only you can tell, the ones that are definitely going to be great. And when you do, send them to me. I love great short stories.

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Fearsome Journeys is out now, published by Solaris Books.

Joey Hi-Fi brings Tony Ballantyne’s “DREAM LONDON” to life… (Solaris)

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Hot on the heels of Joey Hi-Fi’s two awesome covers for Charlie Human’s Apocalypse Now Now (Century), Solaris has unveiled the artist’s superb cover for Tony Ballantyne’s next novel, Dream London. The novel will be published in October 2013. In the meantime, here’s the synopsis:

Captain Jim Wedderburn has looks, style and courage by the bucketful. He’s adored by women, respected by men and feared by his enemies. He’s the man to find out who has twisted London into this strange new world, and he knows it.

But in Dream London the city changes a little every night and the people change a little every day. The towers are growing taller, the parks have hidden themselves away and the streets form themselves into strange new patterns. There are people sailing in from new lands down the river, new criminals emerging in the East End and a path spiraling down to another world.

Everyone is changing, no one is who they seem to be.

Interview with AL EWING

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Al Ewing has been writing some interesting British SF and Comics for many years now. With the upcoming release of his latest novel, I thought it would be a good time to ask him about his work, practices and so forth.

Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Al Ewing?

Ewing-Zombo-CanIEatYouPleaseAl Ewing is a writer of comics and novels, predominately SF, and he feels odd talking about himself in the third person so he’ll stop… I’m likely best known for my 2000AD work – I’ve written a few well-received Judge Dredd strips, and I’m the co-creator of Zombo, a dark slapstick satire of whatever’s within reach that’s been running for a few years to critical acclaim. In terms of novels, I’ve up until now mostly done work for hire in other people’s fictional universes – not that I’m complaining; it was a lot of fun. Probably my best-known work in that direction is the El Sombra trilogy for the Pax Britannia line from Abaddon Books.

I thought we’d start with your fiction: Your latest novel, The Fictional Man, was recently published by Solaris. How would you introduce the novel to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?

It’s a stand-alone novel – you don’t have to worry about picking up any others, and I don’t think I’m going to be writing any sequels. I suppose I’d try and sell it to a new reader by saying it’s a conversation on the nature of reality and fiction that’s wrapped up in a bunch of funny business, heartfelt tragedy and, occasionally, hot kinky sex. Ordinarily I wouldn’t mention that last bit but judging by recent blockbuster runaway successes in the prose field there’s a huge audience for it.

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What inspired you to write the novel? And where do you draw your inspiration from in general?

It spun out of a small-press comic strip I did years ago – literally over a decade ago – and I thought the concept of fictional characters being brought into the real world as Hollywood celebrities was interesting enough for a longer-form piece. It was just a matter of when I’d get the chance to do that. So when Solaris approached me and asked if I had any ideas, that was the first one I went to.

In general… I spend a lot of time on magical thinking, which isn’t much good when it comes to practical issues – in fact it’s actively harmful when you apply it to, say, the economy or whether the rights of your fellow humans should be dictated by imaginary beings – but it is good for writing. I suppose if I had to give advice to a new writer it would be to let your mind wander as much as possible. (Try and spend some time actually writing as well, mind. In fact, if you can do both at once you’ll know you’ve made it.)

How were you introduced to genre fiction?

Ewing-JudgeDreddWhen I was a small boy, my brother introduced me to a comic called 2000AD, which I might have mentioned earlier. It was obviously brilliant – this was during the hot streak of the mid-eighties – and I quickly graduated to the American comics, and I’ve been in love with the comics medium ever since. Much as I enjoy playing with the prose format, you can do a lot more with comics, I find.

How do you enjoy being a writer and working within the publishing industry? Do you have any specific working, writing, researching practices?

I like it! It’s nice work if you can get it. As for specific working practices… I always make sure to write lots of things at the plotting stage that won’t let me get bored at the actual writing stage. With The Fictional Man, I put in a lot of differing formats – nested texts within the central text – so I could change my style up a little. For example, there’s one chapter which breaks into screenplay format for a while, and then another that takes the form of a review similar to what you might find on the Onion AV Club. It’s little things like that that help keep everything fresh.

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More of Al’s novels from Abaddon Books

When did you realize you wanted to be an author, and what was your first foray into writing? Do you still look back on it fondly?

I used to write a lot as a kid – little columns for school newsletters, short stories, short plays. I used to spend hours writing things just for my own pleasure, without any thought of getting paid or making a living. These days, everything has a deadline attached, and while everything I write is still first and foremost for myself – you can’t write otherwise – I don’t really dive into something purely for its own sake anymore. I’m always writing to a brief, even if that brief is “pitch us something, anything”. Maybe that’s why I end up putting all these formal diversions and side-roads into the professional work I do, to scratch that old itch.

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For Dynamite Comics, Al also wrote Ninjettes (#1-6) and Jennifer Blood (#7-24)

What’s your opinion of the genre today, and where do you see your work fitting into it?

I have no real opinion of the modern SF genre, to be honest. I don’t really read any – most of my book-reading time is spent either on non-fiction or crime fiction – the solid, tough noirs and procedurals of Richard Stark, Ed McBain and, most recently, Chester Himes. I read a lot of comics too – if you asked me where I fit into the comics world I’d probably say that I was trying to push the boundaries of what could be done, in terms of the form, where I could, and the rest of the time just trying to give the readers some value for money so they didn’t feel disappointed when they put the issue down. I have the same approach to my novel work, except I don’t really keep up on the SF ‘scene’, so I have no idea if I’m pushing against open doors. Buy the book and find out!

What are you reading at the moment (fiction, non-fiction)?

I’m in the middle of All Shot Up by Chester Himes, and then I’ve got The Deportees by Roddy Doyle waiting for me after that. Bossypants by Tina Fey is the current non-fiction book, though I just recently finished Marvel: The Untold Story by Sean Howe and I’d recommend that, with the caveat that it becomes a very different book in its final quarter.

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What’s something readers might be surprised to learn about you?

I’ve never taken LSD. Or anything psychoactive. Me and Magic Roundabout.

What are you most looking forward to in the next twelve months?

I just had a very tasty opportunity from a comics company who should probably remain nameless for now. And I’ll likely pitch something else for Solaris, though I tend to leave plenty of time between prose novels to let myself forget how hard they are to write.

Upcoming: “The Eidolon” by Libby McGugan (Solaris)

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McGuganL-EidolonI stumbled across this book completely by accident, but it looked kind of interesting (which makes me wonder why it hasn’t been mentioned more often, elsewhere…). The Eidolon is Libby McGugan’s debut novel, and here is the synopsis:

When physicist Robert Strong loses his job at the Dark Matter research lab and his relationship falls apart, he returns home to Scotland. Then the dead start appearing to him, and Robert begins to question his own sanity.

Vincent Amos, an enigmatic businessman, arrives and recruits Robert to sabotage CERN’S Large Hadron Collider, convincing him the next step in the collider’s research will bring about disaster. Everything Robert once understood about reality, and the boundaries between life and death, is about to change forever. And the biggest change will be to Robert himself…

The Eidolon will be published by Solaris Books in October 2013.