Book of Lost Nights

So Saturday night was the T Party Winter Meal (calling it a Christmas Party in February just seems willfully perverse, somehow) at the Three Stags in Kennington.

In attendance were the usual T Party suspects  – Tom Pollock,  Gaie Sebold, Sarah Ellender,  Gary Couzens, Peter Colley, Denni Schnapp and her husband, Sara-Jayne Townsend, Martin Owton, Terry Edge, Mark McCann, Jack Calverley, newcomer Jim Siddle and Rosanne Rabinowitz (the organiser of the night) amongst others. We were also joined by Ben Okri, Booker winner, who was a very nice man. He urged Sara, our chairperson, to give a speech, which she did, and then Gaie said a few words as well. Gaie was fresh off a fabulous reception for Babylon Steel at the SFX Weekender, where the book sold out, so what with that and all the other good news about cover art and uncorrected proofs, it was a fairly upbeat do – except of course I’d missed the SFX Weekender, and had to listen to everyone’s stories about how great it was and how the disco was great and the panels were great and how it was great to be anyone but me. (*Sighs long-sufferingly*).

But in all seriousness, it does sound like it was fab and I was very sorry I missed it.

It’s been a good year for the T Party Writers Group (who will not be changing their name despite the bunch in the US, as apparently “we had it first”). They’ve been going for 18 years now, and in the last two years there have been a series of novel deals for people. And after years of running writing workshops at Eastercon there are now to be a slew of T Partiers moderating panels at Olympus 2012.

Global domination beckons.

So all in all, not bad. Here’s hoping for more good news this year.

No Comments | In: Books, Events, Writing | tags: authors, babylon steel, denni schnapp, eastercon, gaie sebold, gary couzens, jack calverley, london, mark mccann, martin owton, peter colley, rosanne rabinowitz, sara-jayne townsend, sarah ellender, sfx weekender, short fiction, sumit says, t party, terry edge, the city's son, tom pollock, workshop. | #

I’ve not vanished from the face of the earth – honestly. After sending Sleepwalker to my agent the feedback is this – seeing that the proof of concept is now a go, the book needs to be bigger.

And this suits me down to the ground, as I always wanted the book to be bigger, but was unsure if this was just self-indulgence on my part. At any rate, the new plan has my full backing, even if it is scaring the bejesus out of me.

The other news is that I’m going to Fantasycon in Brighton, which is going to be fantastic, as a whole bunch of the usual T Party suspects  – Tom Pollock, Dave Gullen, Gaie Sebold, Gary Couzens, Peter Colley, Sara-Jayne Townsend, Julia Knight, Caroline Hooton, Martin Owton, Terry Edge, Mark McCann and Rosanne Rabinowitz  are turning up too. Actually, it would have been quicker to list the members that aren’t going. 

I’m also going to be reading from Sleepwalker at the con, at 3pm on Friday in Bar Rogue (which I keep wanting to spell “Bar Rouge”, but the hotel seems quite adamant on its website that it’s Bar Rogue, and it’s got the mediocre ViewBrighton review to prove it).

Anyway, profoundly looking forward to the whole thing, which is shaping up to be awesome. I’ve signed up for three of the masterclasses on the Saturday, as well as the banquet, and Tom (fresh from lunch with his publisher and bearing their new catalogue showing his book and author photo) tells me that Quercus are throwing a party which I must attend, providing I tell people that I am Paul Cornell. This seems a small price to pay, and so long as some kind of costume is not required in order for me to keep the subterfuge afloat, I’m happy to do it.

But it’s ridiculous o’clock in the morning now, so must get to bed. I may have been quiet lately but have not been idle, and hope to get some more posts out between now and Fantasycon. Until then, goodnight!

No Comments | In: Events, Readings, Travel, Writing | tags: agents, authors, brighton, caroline hooton, dave gullen, fantasycon, gaie sebold, gary couzens, julia knight, mark mccann, martin owton, peter colley, quercus, rosanne rabinowitz, sara-jayne townsend, t party, terry edge, tom pollock. | #

This is just a flying entry, as so far I am up to my eyes carrying out the changes on the latest MS. It’s been an insanely busy six weeks, kicking off with a rather wonderful night at the theatre – we saw Frankenstein at the National (Jonny Lee Miller was the monster, Benedict Cumberpatch the creator).

Then it was Eastercon (the T Party contingent were there in force, in fact, including Tom Pollock, Gaie Sebold, Dave Gullen, Sarah Ellender, Julia Knight and Martin Owton, which was just the most enormous fun and at which I met a raft of cool people I’m now tweeting at more or less constantly and had a bunch of books pressed on me, most of which I’m still ploughing through. There’s a new job, a new car, and hopefully by the end of this month, a brand new MS, so it’s exciting times.

When I get the latest draft out of the way, I’m going to start talking about the research work for the next one – which I’m pretty sure is going to be set in Cambridge, though I’m not wholly decided yet. But I’m getting ahead of myself – all that’s for another post.

So since it’s 3am I’ll say goodnight and I’ll only say this before I go dark again – don’t bother with Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides, as it’s tripe, though you probably knew that already. The line in the credits was actually Suggested by the novel “On Stranger Tides” by Tim Powers. Suggested by? Really? It’s a bit like going out with someone, sleeping with them semi-regularly, and then overhearing them describe you as a “friend of a friend”. Suggested by, indeed. Someone wants a punch in the face.

But I did love Thor, so can’t complain too much about the movies lately.

Thor (2011)

I couldn’t get over how charming it was, which is a strange thing to say about a movie featuring a Norse god everyone’s mistaking for a homeless man.

Currently reading: The City and The City by China Mieville

No Comments | In: Events, Movies, Theatre, Travel, Writing | tags: authors, benedict cumberbatch, culture, danny boyle, dave gullen, eastercon, frankenstein, gaie sebold, jonny lee miller, julia knight, martin owton, national theatre, on stranger tides, pirates of the carribean on stranger tides, reviews, sarah ellender, t party, thor, tim powers, tom pollock. | #

T Party bud and fellow word-botherer Tom Pollock got in touch to see if I fancied watching a cagematch between Stephen Hawking, isaac Newton, and Paul Dirac. The point was to see which of these eminent Lucasian Professors, should they find themselves trapped in a balloon that desperately needed to lose some ballast, would need to be heaved over the side in case of emergency.

Since no reasonable person could possibly refuse such an offer, 6:30 on a cold Wednesday night found me settled in the very comfortable attic room of Foyles, where Manjit Kumar, Graham Farmelo, and JP McEvoy argued passionately but with tongue and cheek about the relative merits of Isaac Newton, Paul Dirac, and Stephen Hawking respectively. At the end, the audience voted by show of hands.

I got to thinking, while this went on, that this was an interesting but ultimately futile thought experiment. The thing being debated is the perception of utility, not the utility itself which is impossible to measure and historically contingent anyway.

So how do we perceive utility? And who, in fact, won?

Well, in ascending order, first out of the gondola was the unfortunate Professor Hawking. Though the only living professor (and everyone is always more famous after they’re dead – my guess is that had he expired before he hit the ground, he would have got second place) it seems that the act of popularising science is not what we look for in our scientists.

Which suggests that the virtue associated with scientists is not that they are educators.

Next to plunge to his doom, a victim of the force he discovered, was Isaac Newton. His case wasn’t helped by the fact that he was clearly an unpleasant character, and a lot of his work has been superseded by equally clever men with equally cool hair.

The winner was Paul Dirac; largely, I think, because most people in the room could grasp that the equations of quantum mechanics are in fact super-hard. And while I can only speak for myself, I voted for him because while all of the Lucasian Professors are clearly cleverer than me to an astonishing magnitude, his work seemed the most genuinely a) admired and b) incomprehensible to the layman.

So the value in the debate, as well as being a bit of fun, was discovering what people think of when they think of “scientist”, or what the popular idea of a scientific exemplar entails.

Which is what?

Well, all three were white male Cambridge men, but as Lucasian Professors that’s pre-selected in the sample to a certain extent. Tellingly, they all had issues relating to others – issues either intrinsic to their characters or forced upon them by circumstances. Their heads, as it were, were elsewhere. They all dealt in difficult conceptual maths backed up by practical experiment – applied and theoretical mathematical and physics, so the concrete objects of their research are everyday and tangible (things fall down, the night sky is black with twinkling stars) but the theoretical journey remains opaque and mysterious to the non-cognescenti. Or, at least to the likes of me. 

I think that’s the answer – the scientific hero inhabits a world where maths, a barrier to most, becomes a liberator to those who brave it. They leave the ordinary world behind and take to the stars. The tragic sacrifice is they make is that of human connection.

And while this in no way reflects the reality of lived experience amongst the people that do this for a living; crunching numbers, dozing through presentations, staying up late to write papers to raise their RA rating – this seems to be the popular dream of them.

And the dream of a thing has great power, or, at the very least, can spare you from getting chucked out of a balloon.

5 Comments | In: Books, Events, History, Technology, Writing | tags: authors, foyles, graham farmelo, isaac newton, jp mcevoy, manjit kumar, paul dirac, science, stephen hawking, t party. | #

Ookapalooza is over and was fabulous (I am now in love with the Aran Islands – thanks very much to Sumit for the lift over!). We stayed a week in Clifden, in an enormous and beautiful house. It was wildly productive for all involved -  has already posted on her progress,  has sent his opus on to his agent, and  I know produced a fair amount of short fiction. Everyone had a fabulous time! 

And of  course, Sleepwalker has gone off to Judith, and I am left clambering over the ruins of my life, which currently looks like the aftermath of the world’s wildest party. I stumble through it scratching my head, wondering where the hell I left the car keys.

Happily one thing I can now do is read, and I finally finished The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber, which I loved unreservedly. How I envied the endless, vigorous inventiveness of it all! The book of short stories set in that world, The Apple, is next on my reading list. My big favourite last year was Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, so I think my enchantment with big picaresque pastiches is here to stay.

I also finished According to Jane, by Marilyn Brant, which K D Grace lent me. In it, a modern girl finds that Jane Austen is living in her head and giving her love life advice, which was fun and all, but I would have expected a bit more culture clash comedy. Also, at the end, there is a section where the characters interview the author, which is the sort of thing I find teethgrindingly precious. I’m not sure that’s Marilyn Brant’s fault. When I was a teenager, I wrote unbelievably dreadful stories where I interacted with my own characters (being a lonely girl in want of friends – actually this is what According to Jane is about) and the memory is mortifying. The idea of doing this as an adult just freezes my blood.

In terms of movies, I saw Resident Evil: Afterlife last night. Please don’t ask me why I do these things to myself. Possibly I find horribly written, horribly acted movies reassuring, but I suspect that the more prosaic answer is that I arrived too late to catch a showing of The Runaways.

Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)

Somehow Milla Jovavich sails through the more car crashy moments, comparatively unaffected. My admiration for her was complete under the circumstances. The guy playing the villain appeared to have been specially chosen for his resemblance to a character in a terrible Capcom cut-scene. He looked CGI even before sprouting zombie mouth tentacles. He wore sunglasses in semi-darkness, which doesn’t make you seem sinister anymore, it just makes you resemble Bono. It was all there, the black leather, the Darth Vader-esque underling murder, the smirks…

The actress(?) playing Claire Redfield seemed breathless in all her dialogue, because she’s desperately holding her stomach in and pushing her chest out to look sexy. Watching it took me back to the days when I used to go nightclubbing at Legends and had to do that all the time. The mere memory of it was exhausting, but probably better for my core musculature than watching terrible Paul Anderson movies. Though they say laughter is good for you.

Still no idea of what to write next, though at some point when I’m less burned out I’ll collate some Sleepwalker sequel ideas. And I’m signed up for a burlesque lesson next week with K D Grace at Sh!, so wish us luck! Until then, it’s books and loafing and finding my damn car keys…

Currently Reading: One Day by David Nicholls

9 Comments | In: Books, Events, Movies, Theatre, Travel, Weird, Writing | tags: authors, burlesque, jane austen, k d grace, marilyn brant, michel faber, milla jovavich, million monkeys, ookapalooza, resident evil afterlife, reviews, t party. | #

Merry Christmas to me! I’m celebrating mine by being laid off from work, waxing too footsore to get any walking in, and indulging in seasonally-affected melancholia with only a hamster and a teapot for company. In short, I’m in the best possible psychological place to appreciate The Hell Of It All by Charlie Brooker, which I should have reviewed on Friday but didn’t because I chose to sit around in my dressing gown and snarl bitterly at the computer instead.*

I would have snarled bitterly at the TV, but happily, since I watch Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe on YouTube, I don’t have to. He demonstrates convincingly that it’s every bit as shit as you suspected, so you can move on with your life. He’s been performing this service since the late nineties. His website TV Go Home was a wonderfully surreal mock-up of the Radio Times, featuring shows such as Grief Digestion Theatre (where actors are told that a close relative has died suddenly 18 seconds before they’re due on stage), hallucinogenic synopses of Neighbours where “Toadfish rows a boat made of Disprin across a sea of piss”, and ultimately, and most memorably, Cunt, where Nathan Barley, worthless twenty something trustafarian media wannabee, is described in terms of such toe-curling contempt and spleen it can induce spontaneous eye-bleeding (“Nathan Barley visits an overpriced Soho shitstack to waste £350 on a selection of ironic Christmas gifts…and a Japanese digital camera that prints photographs on marzipan-scented recycled fucking toilet paper“).

The Hell of It All by Charlie Brooker

And Cunt is where we get off, because the rage engine that powered such eviscerating loathing for the smug meedja luvvie is the same one powering his column. Media itself is not so much reviewed as the series of lazy assumptions behind it (Heat magazine is described as the “tittering idiot’s lunchbreak reading of choice” while it invites readers to make fun of Jordan’s disabled son, the convenient appearance of sob story backgrounds from unlikeable Apprentice candidates is critiqued, the double barrelled titillation/empowerment nonsense of shows like “Credit Crunch Monty” where ordinary members of the public are stripped and reduced to tears to give them “confidence” is heaped with scorn).

Underneath it all though, there is a sense of unpleasant realisation. Someone, somewhere, is making this stuff and putting it out, and thinks that this is interesting to you. That they’re taking you in. That they know who you are, that they’ve got your number. And the reflections are all distorted and insulting, a kind of Hall of Mirrors of calumny. This is the thing that you suspect makes Charlie Brooker angry, and before very long, you’re pretty fucking angry yourself.

The book itself is a compilation of Brooker’s column in the Guardian, so obviously it has no particular ongoing theme other than the fact that everything in the universe is rubbish, but especially the media, politicians, relationships, and himself. Oh, and spiders. Or so he’d have you believe, except that every so often he will write lyrically about the legacy of Oliver Postgate (voicer and co-creator of Bagpuss and The Clangers), or on the TV dissection of elephants, or Heston Blumenthal’s Feast, and you realise that things aren’t hated on principle, just when they’re shit. Which is, unfortunately, fairly often.

But the best thing about it is the relentlessly sharp and vicious word portraits drawn in a single sentence: Alan Sugar “used to look like a water buffalo straining to shit into a lake”, Richard Dawkins is “god-hating Professor Yaffle impersonator”, William Hague a “cheery dot-eyed cueball”. Every article is a delight, containing some new phrase or surreal idea – something to love even while it spears the thing it describes in a display of audacious cruelty.

And the index is a thing of beauty. Be sure to look up the phrase “might as well…” in it.

It may be Hell. But it is also passionate and enormous fun.

*In the interests of full disclosure, this is in fact a lie employed for dramatic effect. Actually, on Friday I went out to my friend K D Grace’s book signing at Sh! Women’s Erotic Emporium, and had a really fabulous time drinking pink Cava with friends, listening to erotic short stories, and eating dinky little cupcakes while giggling at vibrators. All of which was enormous fun, but not really in keeping with the tone I wanted to set here. These erotic adventures will be described in more detail anon. With pictures, no less. Stay tuned.

Currently Reading: The Girl With Glass Feet by Ali Shaw

2 Comments | In: Books, Events, Readings, Weird, Writing | tags: ali shaw, authors, charlie brooker, erotica, reviews, television, the girl with glass feet, the hell of it all, tv go home. | #

Hey there! On 11/12/09 Marcus Chown, popular science author of We Need To Talk About Kelvin, will be guest blogging on these humble pages. He’s agreed to answer science questions from SF writers, so if you’ve got a plot issue or setpiece that’s bugging you, or you ever wondered what would happen if a certain scenario came true, here’s your chance to get an expert opinion!

You can start asking questions now and posting them in the comments, and the answers will be posted on the 11th!

Have fun!

11 Comments | In: Books, Events, Guests, Research, Writing | tags: authors, faber and faber, marcus chown, new scientist, science, we need to talk about kelvin. | #

So I never *got* Twitter when I opened my account in June.

As you probably realise by now, I’m not really a 140 character girl. When I write, I tend to write everything – the characters get in the car, they drive, they have a little lunch, they infodump, they meet some random character who just seemed to wander in out of my subconscious, they have some UST, they contemplate the plot… you get the picture.

But lately I decided to revisit it, and it really is a rather fabulous tool for finding out what people are interested in. I was blown away by how quickly the shenanigans involving Trafigura were exposed; such a brilliant application for the technology. I’m constantly checking out new sites, new cool stuff, hearing from new people. It’s awesome. But very, very addictive.

The other fab thing about Twitter is that occasionally publishers and so forth that I follow have competitions and bizarrely, I have won some things. I am not naturally lucky, so this was pretty thrilling to me.

One of the things I went in for was Belle du Jour’s Guide To Men. Orion Books (@orionbooks on Twitter, always doing a lot of fun stuff) were doing a giveaway, and very kindly sent me a copy. I was ever so pleased. You’ve got to admit the concept is intriguing – a prostitute meets a lot of guys, and in a fairly privileged role, like a doctor or an undertaker. Presumably she sees them behaving in ways that I’m not likely to see, for instance. And it’s a gender-specific thing, so it would be difficult for me to tease out in my own personal observations and use. So her views would be interesting to know, and indeed, so it proves.

What was more revelatory, at least for me who isn’t familiar with her blog, was how witty she was. She struck me as someone it would be fairly fun to get pissed with. I was less convinced by her classification of women and their needs – none of her three major categories described me in any way – but then you’re not buying this as serious dating advice, as evidenced by the wonderfully random Index and flowchart at the back. You’re having a good laugh and picking up a few piquant observations along the way.

Recommendation: Would make a great Christmas present for a girly mate. I’m thinking of getting one for JJ.

The other thing I won was a bit more hardcore and came in two parts – I got a pair of tickets to see Audrey Niffenegger talk and won a copy of the hardback, Her Fearful Symmetry, which the lovely people at Vintage Books (@vintageboooks – follow them, for they are cool and friendly) are sending me.

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

I can’t wait to read it, actually, because at the talk Niffenegger was saying she was influenced by Wilkie Collins’ The Woman In White, and I have always loved that book. The twins at the centre of Niffenegger’s book are on the cover in white outfits, and knowing the Collins book, I’ve an inkling of what is going to happen.

I’ll say a bit more about her talk when I’ve read the book, hopefully by next Friday.

Finally, and awesomely, I have caught up on all my critting, with the exception of one Livejournal user who will be hearing from me in short order!

No Comments | In: Books, Events, Readings, Technology | tags: audrey niffenegger, authors, belle du jour, her fearful symmetry, orion books, reviews, the woman in white, twitter, vintage books, wilkie collins. | #

I’m not really a space opera kind of a gal. I don’t really *do* hard SF. That said, I can see its appeal. I love a good Culture novel, for instance, and I did enjoy Red Mars when I read it back in the day. In my own work, I’m more interested in commenting on things that are happening right now and then displacing them into a new context. Well, that and fights and romance and ‘splosions, of course. I don’t have a mission to predict things, as such, though I admire people that can do it and freely acknowledge that it is very cool.

So when I heard that the New Scientist were doing a Science-Fiction-themed event and I could come down to the Yorkshire Grey on Friday night, and meet Kim Stanley Robinson, I was more tempted by the presence of Geoff Ryman (I had, in all fairness, already met Kim Stanley Robinson and he is a really nice guy - he had a post signing dinner with the staff when he came to Dillons in St Anne’s Square, for the release of Red Mars). Additionally, Paul McAuley was there, and he is supposed to be very good, though I’ve never got around to reading any of the work (people who do like hard SF in my writing group rate him enormously, though).

Geoff Ryman, however, I had never met. He’d done a signing for his book Was in Manchester, but for some retarded reason I cannot now remember, I wasn’t there that night. The only thing I do remember was that Was was a revelation in terms of exploring what fantasy actually means, how it’s generated and why we need it.

The book’s about three characters – Dorothy, a troubled and abused little girl in the class of substitute teacher Frank L. Baum, who includes her in his childrens book The Wizard of Oz; Judy Garland, who plays Dorothy in the movie, and Jonathan, a gay actor who loves the characters in the book and has become famous playing a kind of Boogeyman in a popular horror movie franchise. I’ve never gotten over how affecting I found it, and this seemed a great opportunity to tell the author this, which I’m pleased to say I did.

Though I forgot to express my love for 253 also, which was essentially the proto-flash fiction novel with a deliriously high concept theme – a Tube train, with every seat full and nobody standing, carries 253 people along with the driver. Each of these people merit their own description, in 253 words each. Through these words, the movement of the novel becomes apparent.

Geoff Ryman was a) very nice and funny, b) astonishingly tall, and c) gives good, dramatic reading. Seriously, I recommend it. And he’s said he’ll consider giving us a talk at the writing group, so what a star. He told me to read Air, so that’s going right in the Amazon shopping basket.

Apparently he teaches now at Manchester University along with Martin Amis. When I were a lass, the only creative writing course going was at the UEA. How I envy the young writers of today, who have so many more choices than I did!

I was really pleased by the calibre of the questions asked too, and met some very cool people, including Liz and Rob from the Future Conscience blog and Joy Chamberlain – Kim’s editor at HarperCollins.

Peter, Rosanne, Mark and Sumit out of the T Party were also there. I see them all the time, of course, but they are still cool.

2 Comments | In: Books, Events, Readings, Technology, Writing | tags: 253, authors, geoff ryman, iain banks, kim stanley robinson, london, manchester, new scientist, paul mcauley, red mars, reviews, science, t party, was. | #

Wish me luck. I’m off to read an extract of my magnum opus at Guildford Book Festival tonight, along with the Guildford Writers. Perhaps I’ll be discovered! Who knows?

I’m reading the first meeting of Danny and M-Delta. I’m 400 words over the count. So what are they going to do, sue me?

See you later!

8 Comments | In: Books, Events, Readings, Writing | tags: authors, guildford, guildford book festival, guildford writers. | #