The Small Print

A short short entitled 'Pastoral Effect' is out in this months copy of New Horizons which I believe can be purchased from The British Fantasy Society. I've got two short stories ('Heart of Glass' and 'The Museum of Human Experience') plus a poem ('Singing the Low Down Geek Blues') in the book The Small Print which should be out in August and available from the British Heart Foundation. 

'Pick-up 57' (which I now think is completely the wrong name for the book), is coming on slowly. It's a complex work as I'm trying to strike a balance between what the narrator knows and what is really going on. I have about thirty pages done so far but that should increase rapidly once I get back from holidays at the end of June.

****

Mind the Gap is the first in a series of novels called 'The Hidden Cities' written by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon. The story follows Jazz who is on the run from the mysterious 'Uncles' who have just killed her mother. Racing across London she enters the underground and then disappears further into the abandon tunnels and secret place deep below the city. Taken in by a 'family' of petty thieves Jazz must learn her about her own past if she is to deal with her future.

Drawing influences from Neverwhere, the novel is magical, but it's a very mundane magic, rooted as it is in the history of London. The underside of London is seen as somewhere dark and foreboding, holding hidden secrets and a violent history. The story itself is a little weak and could have done with more interesting characters particularly the bad guys who come across as enigmas and not really that threatening. That said, it's a good book and one that further enhances the sub-sub-genre of Subterranean fiction.

My second recommendation this week is the book that started Subterranean fiction off. A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne has a professor and his future son in law following the guidance of an old parchment written by a Viking that leads them deep into Mount Sneffels and a world hidden below ground. Unlike all the film versions, the book is more interested in the journey than the hidden world, and though it is a world of palaeontology, lumbering dinosaurs such as the Tyrannosaurus Rex do not make an appearance. 

By today's standards the book is slow, and being told by a character recounting the story as if to a diary, feels old fashioned. But this is where it starts. The world is opened up and the hollow Earth theories are turned into fiction.

Read this week:

Mind the Gap by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon

Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

Leaving the Woods Behind

Just a quick post.

I'm on to rewrites of the Gap novel (which I have decided not to call 'Mind the Gap' because I've heard on the grape vine that another author is using that title for a soon to be published book). There are quite a few changes I want to make, things that will make the story more resonant and cohesive.

A few of the things I'm doing are starting to make their way out of 'the dark woods'. It's nice when things are getting noticed including this blog which is now being quoted elsewhere http://crimealwayspays.blogspot.com/2007_12_30_archive.html .

A review I did for the BFS has also surfaced as a review on YouTube. It's a bit strange to hear something I wrote read out by a voice that is not my own.

Gloriously Bloody

Finished the new Clive Barker last week, one of the many books I received for Xmas. His new book moves him away from his roots (horror) and more towards the mythic literature his stories have displayed over the last few years. It's a good read, short but precise the narrator speaking directly to the reader. It is also very funny.

****

Saw Sweeney Todd last night. Gloriously bloody in the Hammer Horror style with a fine cast and some wonderful over the top acting. London looked great, dark, brooding and nasty. Depp and Carter are slowly being turned into one of Burton's own character drawings, with the darkness under the eyes becoming more pronounced and the hair becoming a living entity.
The only thing I couldn't get to grips with was the singing. It was often quite distracting and fell slightly flat, only the acting keeping it on target for me.

****

Finished the first draft of what I am currently calling 'Mind the Gap' (though this will probably change). I'm taking a week off as I need to send out a few short stories and want to do a rewrite of the the script for 'The Park'.

Read this week: Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker