09 March 2005
Joe Public
Thanks to Stuart (and indeed to Ken MacLeod, who makes the long-overdue "Joe Blogs" joke)for pointing out that Joe Gordon, famously sacked from Waterstones for writing about his working life on his blog, has been given a job -- not only working for Forbidden Planet in Edinburgh, but actually running their official weblog. There's still poetic justice in the world.
08 March 2005
Urban Cultural Dispatj
Ah, yes. Nathan Barley. A.K.S. trashbat.co.ck. Here's the credos.
I've always had a slight problem with Chris Morris. It isn't that I fail to find him funny, or even to recognise his vituperative, corrosive genius. Our modern world needs its own Swift, taking venomous delight in excoriating its faults, and rarely more so than now. No, my problem with Morris is simply that his works fulfil their purpose by making me, very often, profoundly uncomfortable. It generally takes a number of viewings before I can really appreciate the excellence of his work, whether it be the savagely contemptuous celebrity satire of Brass Eye or the heart-of-darkness sketch comedy of Jam.
(Despite numerous attempts, I don't think I'll ever manage to desensitise myself to the "Plumber Baby" sketch. I've taken to fast-forwarding through it on the DVD.)
So, when I heard that Morris and Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker were collaborating on a sitcom of London media life, I expected to find it difficult to get into. What I didn't expect was for it to be rather naff.
There are jokes -- at least, there is vicious (and occasionally powerful) irony, and there are characters it's possible to point at and laugh. Most of the actual funny stuff happens in the background, on posters or signage -- making Nathan Barley a DVD-era comedy as well as an internet-era one, but also one it's difficult to appreciate as a broadcast programme. Even these ephemera fail to achieve the joke-to-time density of Brass Eye, let alone The Day Today.
Nathan Barley suffers from a fundamental problem of identification. None of the central characters are ones with whom we can sympathise -- yet drama (even comedy) without sympathy is meaningless. If we find Basil Fawlty appalling, it's because we know we share many of his faults. We find ourselves cringing with every embarrassment he suffers. However morally dubious Edmund Blackadder's behaviour may be, he's charming enough that we're all rooting for him anyway. We loathe David Brent -- but then so do his employees. Without at least one character who affects us emotionally, situation comedy loses all its interest.
So, Nathan Barley is forced to manipulate us into throwing our lot in with one character or another, when none has done anything to deserve such respect. The eponymous Barley is an anti-hero in the Brentian grotesque mould (disconcertingly so, for of us who admire Morris for his originality) -- yet his embarassments and, on occasion, triumphs (as when he gets one over the snobbish couple in the restaurant) are events we are invited to care about. The Office never expected us to do the same with Brent.
The other supposed viewpoint character is Dan Ashcroft, a man with the wit to perceive that he is surrounded by idiots but lacking the moral impetus to do anything about it other than limply denounce them. Even his attempts to escape their milieu are doomed to failure by his own apathy. The episode which casts Dan as the "Preacher Man" seems to be suggesting that we are to consider him a Holy Fool, the jester to Barley's royal court of imbeciles -- with the twist that all of the other characters look up to him, and respect him for "telling it like it is" whilst never considering that any of it might apply to them. The idea has a certain power, but is ruined by the way the same episode unleashes upon Dan the series' one true moment (to date) of genuine Morrisian moral indignation, as we see him gambling on an online tramp-teeth-pulling contest. He is a man for whom, ultimately, we can have no more respect than we have for the unselfconscious Barley.
Even the third string, Dan's idealistic sister Claire, fails to engage our sympathy. Like the only other recurring female character, she's drawn as a conscious contrast to the male idiots she associates with, but -- unlike the receptionist at Dan's workplace -- she suffers from a chronic inability to see through even the limpidly transparent Barley, whose one motivation where she's concerned is to get inside her knickers.
There are other problems. The structure of the storytelling is poor, suffering at times -- despite such scenes as Nathan's attempt to combine the arts of rap and cunnilingus -- from plotting which would not have looked out of place on BBC2 in the 1970s. When Barley admires Ashcroft's hairstyle -- which Dan has accidentally created by sleeping with his head in a large quantity of paint -- and demands the same cut from his stylist, it's a comedic inevitability that the "geek pie" will become intensely fashionable by the end of the episode. However, this is stored up as a final punchline and -- in an almost offensively 70s touch -- attributed to the agency of a gullible Japanese fashion reporter.
Even the basic joke, of the complete cluelessness of everyone in Barley's environment, becomes strangely compromised in this episode. Nathan is proud of the "geek pie" when he thinks it is fashionable, but when he discovers his mistake he tries to hide it by wearing a handbag on his head -- which he knows full well isn't fashionable. If he's prepared to brazen it out with the handbag, why not with the geek pie? Why does his date, who accepted the bag without question, laugh her head off when the hairstyle is revealed? This relies, not only on attributing a degree of discrimination to people who, the script repeatedly insists, have no such thing, but on turning it on and off at the scriptwriters' whim.
Some reviewers have blamed the series' failure on Morris' collaborator (unlikely, since Brooker, formerly responsible for TV Go Home where the Barley character originated, is also very funny), or simply on the fact that he's collaborating at all (again unlikely -- see Jam, The Day Today, or indeed Why Bother?).
In fact, the problem is that Nathan Barley attempts to be a dystopian vision of a world run by cretins -- but it's a dystopia whose entire scope is that of a couple of square miles of London. The insular isolation of the media trendies who live and work here is one of the things we are supposed to laugh at, but the scripts themselves are guilty of a similar short-sightedness. The fact is that, while these may be the people whom Morris and Brooker have to deal with on a daily basis, they don't run the world -- they barely even impact on the lives of most people.
To someone living in, say, Hoxton, this is probably swingeing satire. To the 52 million or so Britons who live outside London but still receive Channel 4, it's meaningless. It's satire without target, statement without referent. With the single exception of that teeth-pulling scene, Nathan Barley hasn't made me feel uncomfortable once. (I'd like to say it makes me squirm in embarrassment, but actually it's not nearly that bad.)
Yes, these people are idiots -- that's perfectly clear. So what? They bear no relationship to anybody I know or care about.
I look forward to Morris' next project -- I can't imagine him ever ceasing to be a comedian whose work was worth seeking out -- but I do hope it makes me feel worse than this.
I've always had a slight problem with Chris Morris. It isn't that I fail to find him funny, or even to recognise his vituperative, corrosive genius. Our modern world needs its own Swift, taking venomous delight in excoriating its faults, and rarely more so than now. No, my problem with Morris is simply that his works fulfil their purpose by making me, very often, profoundly uncomfortable. It generally takes a number of viewings before I can really appreciate the excellence of his work, whether it be the savagely contemptuous celebrity satire of Brass Eye or the heart-of-darkness sketch comedy of Jam.
(Despite numerous attempts, I don't think I'll ever manage to desensitise myself to the "Plumber Baby" sketch. I've taken to fast-forwarding through it on the DVD.)
So, when I heard that Morris and Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker were collaborating on a sitcom of London media life, I expected to find it difficult to get into. What I didn't expect was for it to be rather naff.
There are jokes -- at least, there is vicious (and occasionally powerful) irony, and there are characters it's possible to point at and laugh. Most of the actual funny stuff happens in the background, on posters or signage -- making Nathan Barley a DVD-era comedy as well as an internet-era one, but also one it's difficult to appreciate as a broadcast programme. Even these ephemera fail to achieve the joke-to-time density of Brass Eye, let alone The Day Today.
Nathan Barley suffers from a fundamental problem of identification. None of the central characters are ones with whom we can sympathise -- yet drama (even comedy) without sympathy is meaningless. If we find Basil Fawlty appalling, it's because we know we share many of his faults. We find ourselves cringing with every embarrassment he suffers. However morally dubious Edmund Blackadder's behaviour may be, he's charming enough that we're all rooting for him anyway. We loathe David Brent -- but then so do his employees. Without at least one character who affects us emotionally, situation comedy loses all its interest.
So, Nathan Barley is forced to manipulate us into throwing our lot in with one character or another, when none has done anything to deserve such respect. The eponymous Barley is an anti-hero in the Brentian grotesque mould (disconcertingly so, for of us who admire Morris for his originality) -- yet his embarassments and, on occasion, triumphs (as when he gets one over the snobbish couple in the restaurant) are events we are invited to care about. The Office never expected us to do the same with Brent.
The other supposed viewpoint character is Dan Ashcroft, a man with the wit to perceive that he is surrounded by idiots but lacking the moral impetus to do anything about it other than limply denounce them. Even his attempts to escape their milieu are doomed to failure by his own apathy. The episode which casts Dan as the "Preacher Man" seems to be suggesting that we are to consider him a Holy Fool, the jester to Barley's royal court of imbeciles -- with the twist that all of the other characters look up to him, and respect him for "telling it like it is" whilst never considering that any of it might apply to them. The idea has a certain power, but is ruined by the way the same episode unleashes upon Dan the series' one true moment (to date) of genuine Morrisian moral indignation, as we see him gambling on an online tramp-teeth-pulling contest. He is a man for whom, ultimately, we can have no more respect than we have for the unselfconscious Barley.
Even the third string, Dan's idealistic sister Claire, fails to engage our sympathy. Like the only other recurring female character, she's drawn as a conscious contrast to the male idiots she associates with, but -- unlike the receptionist at Dan's workplace -- she suffers from a chronic inability to see through even the limpidly transparent Barley, whose one motivation where she's concerned is to get inside her knickers.
There are other problems. The structure of the storytelling is poor, suffering at times -- despite such scenes as Nathan's attempt to combine the arts of rap and cunnilingus -- from plotting which would not have looked out of place on BBC2 in the 1970s. When Barley admires Ashcroft's hairstyle -- which Dan has accidentally created by sleeping with his head in a large quantity of paint -- and demands the same cut from his stylist, it's a comedic inevitability that the "geek pie" will become intensely fashionable by the end of the episode. However, this is stored up as a final punchline and -- in an almost offensively 70s touch -- attributed to the agency of a gullible Japanese fashion reporter.
Even the basic joke, of the complete cluelessness of everyone in Barley's environment, becomes strangely compromised in this episode. Nathan is proud of the "geek pie" when he thinks it is fashionable, but when he discovers his mistake he tries to hide it by wearing a handbag on his head -- which he knows full well isn't fashionable. If he's prepared to brazen it out with the handbag, why not with the geek pie? Why does his date, who accepted the bag without question, laugh her head off when the hairstyle is revealed? This relies, not only on attributing a degree of discrimination to people who, the script repeatedly insists, have no such thing, but on turning it on and off at the scriptwriters' whim.
Some reviewers have blamed the series' failure on Morris' collaborator (unlikely, since Brooker, formerly responsible for TV Go Home where the Barley character originated, is also very funny), or simply on the fact that he's collaborating at all (again unlikely -- see Jam, The Day Today, or indeed Why Bother?).
In fact, the problem is that Nathan Barley attempts to be a dystopian vision of a world run by cretins -- but it's a dystopia whose entire scope is that of a couple of square miles of London. The insular isolation of the media trendies who live and work here is one of the things we are supposed to laugh at, but the scripts themselves are guilty of a similar short-sightedness. The fact is that, while these may be the people whom Morris and Brooker have to deal with on a daily basis, they don't run the world -- they barely even impact on the lives of most people.
To someone living in, say, Hoxton, this is probably swingeing satire. To the 52 million or so Britons who live outside London but still receive Channel 4, it's meaningless. It's satire without target, statement without referent. With the single exception of that teeth-pulling scene, Nathan Barley hasn't made me feel uncomfortable once. (I'd like to say it makes me squirm in embarrassment, but actually it's not nearly that bad.)
Yes, these people are idiots -- that's perfectly clear. So what? They bear no relationship to anybody I know or care about.
I look forward to Morris' next project -- I can't imagine him ever ceasing to be a comedian whose work was worth seeking out -- but I do hope it makes me feel worse than this.
03 March 2005
Gone Home? Good.
Isn't predictive text wonderful?
This morning I texted B. in an attempt to warn her that the roads were a bit icy. My phone informed her that she might find them "a bit gay".
This morning I texted B. in an attempt to warn her that the roads were a bit icy. My phone informed her that she might find them "a bit gay".
02 March 2005
Sleep Cycle
This morning I was caught in one of those nested dream-sequences which you sometimes enter when you're in the really deep sleep stage of your sleep cycle, but you nevertheless know that you have to get up very, very soon now: where you keep on waking up, seeing the time, going "Agh!", getting out of bed, experiencing stressful and / or surreal events for several minutes, and then waking up again going "Agh!" and starting the whole process off once more.
This chain lasted for a good dozen iterations, in the course of which I must have had a good couple of hours' worth of panic squeezed into the space of fifteen minutes. As a consequence, I've been suffering all day from the hazily uneasy expectation that at some point I'll realise that I've inadvertently driven my moped into the library, or be abruptly surrounded by bonobos.
At some point during the morning's antics I remember meeting Dawn from Buffy, who had a third nipple and twelve-year-old twins: they (the twins, not the nipples) were being read a bedtime story by Captain Jack Sparrow.
I also came up with a particularly good design for duckling-shaped cuddly toys which would be ideally suited to being held in bed. I may see if I can get someone to make them and sell them -- or at least to make me one. It might help me sleep properly.
This chain lasted for a good dozen iterations, in the course of which I must have had a good couple of hours' worth of panic squeezed into the space of fifteen minutes. As a consequence, I've been suffering all day from the hazily uneasy expectation that at some point I'll realise that I've inadvertently driven my moped into the library, or be abruptly surrounded by bonobos.
At some point during the morning's antics I remember meeting Dawn from Buffy, who had a third nipple and twelve-year-old twins: they (the twins, not the nipples) were being read a bedtime story by Captain Jack Sparrow.
I also came up with a particularly good design for duckling-shaped cuddly toys which would be ideally suited to being held in bed. I may see if I can get someone to make them and sell them -- or at least to make me one. It might help me sleep properly.
Experiment
I'm trying out the facility for creating free polls at Pollhost.com, so consider this to be something of an experiment.
On the other hand, I am feeling genuinely indecisive at present, so would welcome your opinions on the following:[Edit to add: Hmm. Not sure aboutthat huge blank space there. Or indeed the pop-up window when one views the results.]
On the other hand, I am feeling genuinely indecisive at present, so would welcome your opinions on the following:[Edit to add: Hmm. Not sure about
01 March 2005
33 1/3
I seem to be a third of a century old today.
Assuming that 100 years is a plausible life expectancy for someone of my generation -- a thesis which involves a large number of substantial assumptions about the progress of medical technology, the persistence of civilisation and its infrastructure, and my starting to lose weight and do some exercise at some point very soon now -- this means, among other things, that from now on it's going to be rather difficult to claim not to be middle-aged.
On the other hand, I've achieved a reasonable amount in the past few years, and it's not as if I have to go through all that tedious business of childhood, puberty and schooling again. So actually, I'm reasonably sanguine about this.
More so than my beloved seems to be about her imminent 30th birthday, anyway.
Assuming that 100 years is a plausible life expectancy for someone of my generation -- a thesis which involves a large number of substantial assumptions about the progress of medical technology, the persistence of civilisation and its infrastructure, and my starting to lose weight and do some exercise at some point very soon now -- this means, among other things, that from now on it's going to be rather difficult to claim not to be middle-aged.
On the other hand, I've achieved a reasonable amount in the past few years, and it's not as if I have to go through all that tedious business of childhood, puberty and schooling again. So actually, I'm reasonably sanguine about this.
More so than my beloved seems to be about her imminent 30th birthday, anyway.
24 February 2005
Demolishing Our Holmes
Congratulations to Kelly Hale, who's been signed up to write the fifth Faction Paradox novel, Erasing Sherlock.
Kelly's an excellent writer, visceral and funny by turns. She's one of the ten minds jointly responsible for The Book of the War, and co-wrote Grimm Reality with Simon Bucher-Jones (another author who I very much want to see a Faction novel from). She also produced one of the best stories in Walking in Eternity.
Erasing Sherlock is apparently a Holmes pastiche, which sounds like an excellent addition to the range (and ties in oddly well with Of the City of the Saved...). By all accounts it's shaping up to be a fine book, as it should be with such an author to its name. I'm really looking forward to it.
Kelly's an excellent writer, visceral and funny by turns. She's one of the ten minds jointly responsible for The Book of the War, and co-wrote Grimm Reality with Simon Bucher-Jones (another author who I very much want to see a Faction novel from). She also produced one of the best stories in Walking in Eternity.
Erasing Sherlock is apparently a Holmes pastiche, which sounds like an excellent addition to the range (and ties in oddly well with Of the City of the Saved...). By all accounts it's shaping up to be a fine book, as it should be with such an author to its name. I'm really looking forward to it.
23 February 2005
Greenbelt Talks Online
Finally, I have my talks from Greenbelt 2004 online at www.infinitarian.com: behold "Science Fiction as the Bible" and "The Bible as Science Fiction". Behold also the now fully hyperlinked Reading List which accompanies them.
The talks have been transcribed more or less directly from minidisc recordings, so don't expect polished prose (or even vaguely coherent diction, some of the time). Getting them written up has has taken me quite a while, largely because they amount to 15,000 words between them -- although I've also added roughly 250 hyperlinks across the three pages, for ease of access to footnotes, the reading list and other relevant sections.
When reading the talks, please do bear in mind that they were written for a Christian audience (albeit an unusually broad-minded and tolerant one – Greenbelt is the only large-scale Christian venue in the U.K. where I'd expect to get away with some of the things I say here). I hope that what I have to say is nevertheless of interest to secular readers, or those of other faiths. If that's you, though, you'll have to forgive the implicit assumption in the wording that most of the audience will be of a Christian persuasion.
Putting the talks online is all part of the plan to get myself a rather more high-profile speaker slot at Greenbelt this year, which in turn is just one more stage in my programme for world domination. So it's all in a good cause.
I've also pared down the text of the short story proposal for "Sex Secrets of the Robot Replicants", as mooted earlier today. I'm thinking of possibly setting up an account with a free online search engine, so that visitors to the site can search what now amounts to over 90 pages of stuff. Does anyone have any experience of using FreeFind?
The talks have been transcribed more or less directly from minidisc recordings, so don't expect polished prose (or even vaguely coherent diction, some of the time). Getting them written up has has taken me quite a while, largely because they amount to 15,000 words between them -- although I've also added roughly 250 hyperlinks across the three pages, for ease of access to footnotes, the reading list and other relevant sections.
When reading the talks, please do bear in mind that they were written for a Christian audience (albeit an unusually broad-minded and tolerant one – Greenbelt is the only large-scale Christian venue in the U.K. where I'd expect to get away with some of the things I say here). I hope that what I have to say is nevertheless of interest to secular readers, or those of other faiths. If that's you, though, you'll have to forgive the implicit assumption in the wording that most of the audience will be of a Christian persuasion.
Putting the talks online is all part of the plan to get myself a rather more high-profile speaker slot at Greenbelt this year, which in turn is just one more stage in my programme for world domination. So it's all in a good cause.
I've also pared down the text of the short story proposal for "Sex Secrets of the Robot Replicants", as mooted earlier today. I'm thinking of possibly setting up an account with a free online search engine, so that visitors to the site can search what now amounts to over 90 pages of stuff. Does anyone have any experience of using FreeFind?
Intellectual Propriety
So, copyright. Mm.
I am, of course, broadly in favour. This is to be expected, given that I make money from having my writing published: I naturally don't want other people pretending to have written what I've written myself, or passing off my concepts and characters as their own.
On the other hand, I'm not fanatical about it. I do, after all, write for shared-universe series; and the couple (so far) of times that other writers have written stuff which draws on my concepts for their own creative work have made me feel all warm and glowy inside. I imagine I'd get a similar feeling from being quoted (provided it wasn't, you know, whole paragraphs or chapters).
All of which means I have conflicting feelings about the cheque for £67.50 which I recently sent off to the agents of H.G. Wells' literary estate, in return for their permission to reproduce 100-odd words from The Time Machine. I am, I think, pretty much rock-solid behind the idea that a writer should keep control of the things that he or she has written during his or her lifetime. That seems only fair and reasonable, and the fact that in practice I might be prepared to be quite laid-back about this doesn't mean that other writers should have to be.
However, as things stand, works remain in copyright in the U.K. for 70 years after the death of their author, by which time it might be argued that it isn't going to do the writer in question an awful lot of good.
(I remember when this duration was upped from 50 to 70 years, in 1996. Controversially, and to the severe detriment of a number of academic publishers, the new law was made retrospective, so that the publishers of, for instance, critical editions of the works of James Joyce (d. 1941) found themselves suddenly forced to withdraw them or face substantial fees.)
Now, H.G. Wells died in 1946, meaning that his works won't come out of copyright until 2016. However, he was 80 years old at the time of his death, and The Time Machine was published in 1896 when he was 30 -- meaning that (barring another change in the law) it will have remained in copyright for 120 years before it enters the public domain.
An even more extreme example is George Bernard Shaw's early novel Cashel Byron's Profession -- published in 1886 when Shaw was 30, and remaining in copyright until 2020 thanks to Shaw's extreme longevity (1856-1950). That's 134 years, very nearly twice the nominal 70-year limit. Compare this with, to take a fairly random example, Portraits in Miniature and Other Essays (1931) by Lytton Strachey (1880-1932), which was published fully 45 years later, but is already up for grabs, having remained in copyright for only 71 years. [Addendum: Actually, I've just realised, only 57, as it would have initially fallen out of copyright in 1982 and only had it restored with the change to the law in 1996.]
All of which seems anomalous to me, to be honest. Franz Kafka (1883-1924, and therefore out of copyright) wanted his unpublished manuscripts (which, at the time, was all of them) burnt after his death: it was only because his most trusted friend refused to carry out his dying wish that we have The Trial or "Metamorphosis" at all. The cultural impoverishment that would have resulted from this suggests to me that an author does not have the moral right to control his or her works after death.
It seems to me that a far saner law would have a work remaining in copyright for 70 (or, more sensibly, something like 30) years after its first publication, or until its author's death if he or she lived longer than that. Authors would try to buck the system by producing revised and definitive editions on their deathbeds -- which is fair enough, but then the original edition would enter the public domain at the appropriate point.
Terry Pratchett (1948- ) said recently (although I can't find the quote online) that, although he loves his family very much, he doesn't see it as being particularly his job to ensure that his grandchildren are rich long after he's dead. Assuming that he has grandchildren already (and he's of an age to), if his novels were to continue to sell well under current copyright law, his descendants could be provided for down to the sixth or seventh generation. Which is frankly daft.
I am, of course, broadly in favour. This is to be expected, given that I make money from having my writing published: I naturally don't want other people pretending to have written what I've written myself, or passing off my concepts and characters as their own.
On the other hand, I'm not fanatical about it. I do, after all, write for shared-universe series; and the couple (so far) of times that other writers have written stuff which draws on my concepts for their own creative work have made me feel all warm and glowy inside. I imagine I'd get a similar feeling from being quoted (provided it wasn't, you know, whole paragraphs or chapters).
All of which means I have conflicting feelings about the cheque for £67.50 which I recently sent off to the agents of H.G. Wells' literary estate, in return for their permission to reproduce 100-odd words from The Time Machine. I am, I think, pretty much rock-solid behind the idea that a writer should keep control of the things that he or she has written during his or her lifetime. That seems only fair and reasonable, and the fact that in practice I might be prepared to be quite laid-back about this doesn't mean that other writers should have to be.
However, as things stand, works remain in copyright in the U.K. for 70 years after the death of their author, by which time it might be argued that it isn't going to do the writer in question an awful lot of good.
(I remember when this duration was upped from 50 to 70 years, in 1996. Controversially, and to the severe detriment of a number of academic publishers, the new law was made retrospective, so that the publishers of, for instance, critical editions of the works of James Joyce (d. 1941) found themselves suddenly forced to withdraw them or face substantial fees.)
Now, H.G. Wells died in 1946, meaning that his works won't come out of copyright until 2016. However, he was 80 years old at the time of his death, and The Time Machine was published in 1896 when he was 30 -- meaning that (barring another change in the law) it will have remained in copyright for 120 years before it enters the public domain.
An even more extreme example is George Bernard Shaw's early novel Cashel Byron's Profession -- published in 1886 when Shaw was 30, and remaining in copyright until 2020 thanks to Shaw's extreme longevity (1856-1950). That's 134 years, very nearly twice the nominal 70-year limit. Compare this with, to take a fairly random example, Portraits in Miniature and Other Essays (1931) by Lytton Strachey (1880-1932), which was published fully 45 years later, but is already up for grabs, having remained in copyright for only 71 years. [Addendum: Actually, I've just realised, only 57, as it would have initially fallen out of copyright in 1982 and only had it restored with the change to the law in 1996.]
All of which seems anomalous to me, to be honest. Franz Kafka (1883-1924, and therefore out of copyright) wanted his unpublished manuscripts (which, at the time, was all of them) burnt after his death: it was only because his most trusted friend refused to carry out his dying wish that we have The Trial or "Metamorphosis" at all. The cultural impoverishment that would have resulted from this suggests to me that an author does not have the moral right to control his or her works after death.
It seems to me that a far saner law would have a work remaining in copyright for 70 (or, more sensibly, something like 30) years after its first publication, or until its author's death if he or she lived longer than that. Authors would try to buck the system by producing revised and definitive editions on their deathbeds -- which is fair enough, but then the original edition would enter the public domain at the appropriate point.
Terry Pratchett (1948- ) said recently (although I can't find the quote online) that, although he loves his family very much, he doesn't see it as being particularly his job to ensure that his grandchildren are rich long after he's dead. Assuming that he has grandchildren already (and he's of an age to), if his novels were to continue to sell well under current copyright law, his descendants could be provided for down to the sixth or seventh generation. Which is frankly daft.
Back at Work...
...and very dull it is too.
Among the books we're withdrawing today so that the students won't be tempted to broaden their knowledge by reading them is Billion Year Spree -- Brian Aldiss's seminal history of science fiction, and the only work of S.F. criticism we stock, apart from interminable "Reading For Dummies" notes on The Handmaid's Tale.
Admittedly, this is the 1973 version rather than the 1986 update Trillion Year Spree (co-written with David Wingrove), but its out-of-dateness is not the reason we're withdrawing it. No, it's because the students haven't been using it, apparently, and because the style is too difficult for them. Perish the thought that one particular student might decide to buck the trend, as I did when I read the same book at roughly the same age; and perish in flames the thought that the rôle of an educational institution might include stretching its students, or expanding their reading range to prepare them for university.
God, I'm disillusioned with this job. If I'm not careful I'll start writing bad things about it on my blog, and get myself sacked. I should make it entirely clear at this point that I'm writing about an imaginary sixth form college called St Brad's which exists only inside my head, and not about any real institution located in Bristol which might have a similar name.
I'll be rescuing the book, even though I already own the update and therefore have nowhere to put it. It would be too upsetting to see it thrown away with all the others.
In other news, it's snowing like a bastard, although I'm not entirely convinced that the stuff is going to stick to the ground. Either way, I've foiled its nefarious plans: I came in by train and bus this morning, not on the scooter. I had to get up 40 minutes early, but it's worth it to avoid a repeat of this incident.
Among the books we're withdrawing today so that the students won't be tempted to broaden their knowledge by reading them is Billion Year Spree -- Brian Aldiss's seminal history of science fiction, and the only work of S.F. criticism we stock, apart from interminable "Reading For Dummies" notes on The Handmaid's Tale.
Admittedly, this is the 1973 version rather than the 1986 update Trillion Year Spree (co-written with David Wingrove), but its out-of-dateness is not the reason we're withdrawing it. No, it's because the students haven't been using it, apparently, and because the style is too difficult for them. Perish the thought that one particular student might decide to buck the trend, as I did when I read the same book at roughly the same age; and perish in flames the thought that the rôle of an educational institution might include stretching its students, or expanding their reading range to prepare them for university.
God, I'm disillusioned with this job. If I'm not careful I'll start writing bad things about it on my blog, and get myself sacked. I should make it entirely clear at this point that I'm writing about an imaginary sixth form college called St Brad's which exists only inside my head, and not about any real institution located in Bristol which might have a similar name.
I'll be rescuing the book, even though I already own the update and therefore have nowhere to put it. It would be too upsetting to see it thrown away with all the others.
In other news, it's snowing like a bastard, although I'm not entirely convinced that the stuff is going to stick to the ground. Either way, I've foiled its nefarious plans: I came in by train and bus this morning, not on the scooter. I had to get up 40 minutes early, but it's worth it to avoid a repeat of this incident.
Web Fiddling
Some of you may already have spotted that www.infinitarian.com was updated at the weekend with the original short story proposal for "Sex Secrets of the Robot Replicants" in A Life Worth Living. I'm actually having second thoughts about this now, as it's so close to the final product that a) I'm not sure it adds much, and b) it could actually substitute for reading the story, and therefore for buying the book. I may well be taking it down shortly, in fact (maybe cropping it down to the form of the prose extracts which didn't make it), so make the most of it while it's there.
Thank Heavens, I also now have the transcripts of my Greenbelt talks in a more or less usable form, together with a hyperlinked version of the current reading list. Pending final tweaking, I can probably have them up and running in the next day or so, which is nice. I'm also trying to come up with a paragraph blurb for my short story in Wildthyme on Top, but the nature of the story itself doesn't make that particularly easy.
I also have some smart new pages which are awaiting the official announcement of Peculiar Lives to go live.
Thank Heavens, I also now have the transcripts of my Greenbelt talks in a more or less usable form, together with a hyperlinked version of the current reading list. Pending final tweaking, I can probably have them up and running in the next day or so, which is nice. I'm also trying to come up with a paragraph blurb for my short story in Wildthyme on Top, but the nature of the story itself doesn't make that particularly easy.
I also have some smart new pages which are awaiting the official announcement of Peculiar Lives to go live.
18 February 2005
The Full Story...
OK, admittedly I feel a bit of a prat for causing the reports of Mulder's death to become exaggerated. But I honestly didn't think there was any real chance that he was still in the neighbourhood and alive. As it is, I'm very impressed (as well, of course, as desperately happy and relieved) that he managed to last out for so long -- there must at least have been some trickling of water into the place where he was trapped.
So, here's what happened. This morning, B. got up and went downstairs to feed Scully (who's never shown any signs of wandering off, thank God), and found that once again we had two cats. Mulder is, as I've said, looking really thin, seems rather weak, and he's certainly being clingier (and hungrier) than usual -- but he's still sleek, perky and obviously very happy to be home. He's emerged from the whole thing remarkably unscathed, in fact.
Half an hour after we'd made this discovery, we had a phone call from someone in the street which backs on to ours, who'd had one of our flyers through her door days ago. Being reasonably sure that her shed was impregnable to cats, and not having opened it recently, she hadn't checked it for Mulder's presence.
Yesterday evening, however (and this is the remarkable bit), a white cat started behaving oddly in this woman's back garden -- miaowing outside her back door and, when it had her attention, walking over to her shed. It did this several times, until eventually the woman decided to investigate. She found her shed door blocked by a fallen pile of magazines (which very likely explain why someone who had been able to get into the shed might then have found himself unable to leave), and couldn't open it more than a few inches. On the offchance, though, she left a plate of tuna and a bowl of water inside.
This morning, at around the time we were delighted to see Mulder, she checked again, and found the tuna gone and the water depleted. (Whether she's been able to get into her shed properly yet, history does not relate.)
The lady didn't know the white cat, and nor do we (very possibly Mulder does -- I don't know). But, whoever this feline hero was, he or she deserves many, many cat-treats.
Mulder is now recovering, sitting in his favourite places and being stroked and fed (a little at a time, though, to give his system time to get used to it). B. and I (and probably Scully as well) feel very, very lucky to have him back.
So, here's what happened. This morning, B. got up and went downstairs to feed Scully (who's never shown any signs of wandering off, thank God), and found that once again we had two cats. Mulder is, as I've said, looking really thin, seems rather weak, and he's certainly being clingier (and hungrier) than usual -- but he's still sleek, perky and obviously very happy to be home. He's emerged from the whole thing remarkably unscathed, in fact.
Half an hour after we'd made this discovery, we had a phone call from someone in the street which backs on to ours, who'd had one of our flyers through her door days ago. Being reasonably sure that her shed was impregnable to cats, and not having opened it recently, she hadn't checked it for Mulder's presence.
Yesterday evening, however (and this is the remarkable bit), a white cat started behaving oddly in this woman's back garden -- miaowing outside her back door and, when it had her attention, walking over to her shed. It did this several times, until eventually the woman decided to investigate. She found her shed door blocked by a fallen pile of magazines (which very likely explain why someone who had been able to get into the shed might then have found himself unable to leave), and couldn't open it more than a few inches. On the offchance, though, she left a plate of tuna and a bowl of water inside.
This morning, at around the time we were delighted to see Mulder, she checked again, and found the tuna gone and the water depleted. (Whether she's been able to get into her shed properly yet, history does not relate.)
The lady didn't know the white cat, and nor do we (very possibly Mulder does -- I don't know). But, whoever this feline hero was, he or she deserves many, many cat-treats.
Mulder is now recovering, sitting in his favourite places and being stroked and fed (a little at a time, though, to give his system time to get used to it). B. and I (and probably Scully as well) feel very, very lucky to have him back.
Massive Relief
Mulder is back. The poor little sod's been shut in someone's shed for eleven days. He's very thin, but otherwise fine.
More later. Right now, someone needs stroking.
More later. Right now, someone needs stroking.
17 February 2005
Pottering Around Update
Today I sent off three short story ideas for the follow-up anthology to A Life Worth Living. I can't go into any more detail at present, either about the stories or about the collection itself, but I am hoping one of them gets picked up, as I think any of the three would be quite fun to write (and, hopefully, read).
I've also had a friend contact me with the suggestion that I might want to co-author a critical book on S.F., which (after some initial reservations) I find I'm getting rather enthusiastic about. It's been some time since I did any proper academic criticism -- I haven't even kept up the fan reviewing of late -- and I did wonder if I'd be able to summon up any enthusiasm after the lengthy drawn-out slog that was my thesis. The proposal is a really fascinating one, though, and since reading it I keep finding myself thinking of things to add to it. (What's more, the friend in question already has a publisher seriously interested, which from my point of view cuts out a great deal of the work at a stroke.) Er, I probably shouldn't say any more about that, either.
Finally, I'm trying to put together some more stuff for my webpage -- primarily some Extras relating to Wildthyme on Top for after it's published, including at least one piece which should prove of interest to fans of Of the City of the Saved.... I'm also trying to think of some extra material for A Life Worth Living, as well as getting round to finishing off the bloody transcripts of my Greenbelt talks. It's getting to the time of year when I need to pitch something for Greenbelt 2005, as well, if I'm hoping to benefit from a free ticket again.
It is, in short, all go here... I may have mentioned below that half term has been mostly quiet. This is clearly only because I've been ignoring everything which ought to have been calling urgently on my time.
I've also had a friend contact me with the suggestion that I might want to co-author a critical book on S.F., which (after some initial reservations) I find I'm getting rather enthusiastic about. It's been some time since I did any proper academic criticism -- I haven't even kept up the fan reviewing of late -- and I did wonder if I'd be able to summon up any enthusiasm after the lengthy drawn-out slog that was my thesis. The proposal is a really fascinating one, though, and since reading it I keep finding myself thinking of things to add to it. (What's more, the friend in question already has a publisher seriously interested, which from my point of view cuts out a great deal of the work at a stroke.) Er, I probably shouldn't say any more about that, either.
Finally, I'm trying to put together some more stuff for my webpage -- primarily some Extras relating to Wildthyme on Top for after it's published, including at least one piece which should prove of interest to fans of Of the City of the Saved.... I'm also trying to think of some extra material for A Life Worth Living, as well as getting round to finishing off the bloody transcripts of my Greenbelt talks. It's getting to the time of year when I need to pitch something for Greenbelt 2005, as well, if I'm hoping to benefit from a free ticket again.
It is, in short, all go here... I may have mentioned below that half term has been mostly quiet. This is clearly only because I've been ignoring everything which ought to have been calling urgently on my time.
Factioneering
I want to write about some non-upsetting stuff, so as to try and steer this blog back to its normal, relatively cheery, self. I've got a rant about intellectual property and copyright which I've been meaning to get around to for a couple of weeks now.
First, though... half term has (apart from the obvious) been reasonably relaxing, and I've managed to get a fair amount of reading done. I'm nearly 2/3 of the way through Lance Parkin's Warlords of Utopia, the follow-up book to Of the City of the Saved... in Mad Norwegian's Faction Paradox range. It's not the first time I've read it -- I saw it in various draft formats -- but it's the first time I've read the final version, bound as a book, with a spine and everything. It's kind of short, relatively speaking -- 180 pages as opposed to City's 248, or This Town Will Never Let Us Go's mammoth 282 (and don't forget that these are big books, in terms of sheer page size and text density). It is, however, utterly fantastic.
For those of you who haven't encountered Lance's glorious S.F. premise, it's sheer high-concept spectacle: the countless parallel worlds where the Roman empire never fell discover the countless parallel worlds where the Nazis won World War Two, and they all have a great big fight! It's written as a work of idiosyncratic military history (by Marcus Americanius Scriptor, the character who turns up in the City of the Saved in Lance's Prologue to Warlords), and is somewhat in the style of I, Claudius, which seems to be emerging as something of an influence on the Faction line. Despite this being the second or third time I've read the novel, I'm finding severe difficulty in putting it down. Highly recommended.
I've recently finished Justina Robson's Natural History, which was (although through no fault of Ms Robson's I got distracted for a few weeks in the middle) also fab. I bought it on the basis of this review in The Guardian, which is quite correct in praising it highly. I may get round to reviewing it here sometime soon. (Alternatively, as ever, I may not.)
Oh, and back on the topic of the Faction... the cover for the fourth book in the series, Mags Halliday's Warring States, is now up at the Mad Norwegian website -- click on the small cover image to see a big one. Splendid, isn't it?
First, though... half term has (apart from the obvious) been reasonably relaxing, and I've managed to get a fair amount of reading done. I'm nearly 2/3 of the way through Lance Parkin's Warlords of Utopia, the follow-up book to Of the City of the Saved... in Mad Norwegian's Faction Paradox range. It's not the first time I've read it -- I saw it in various draft formats -- but it's the first time I've read the final version, bound as a book, with a spine and everything. It's kind of short, relatively speaking -- 180 pages as opposed to City's 248, or This Town Will Never Let Us Go's mammoth 282 (and don't forget that these are big books, in terms of sheer page size and text density). It is, however, utterly fantastic.
For those of you who haven't encountered Lance's glorious S.F. premise, it's sheer high-concept spectacle: the countless parallel worlds where the Roman empire never fell discover the countless parallel worlds where the Nazis won World War Two, and they all have a great big fight! It's written as a work of idiosyncratic military history (by Marcus Americanius Scriptor, the character who turns up in the City of the Saved in Lance's Prologue to Warlords), and is somewhat in the style of I, Claudius, which seems to be emerging as something of an influence on the Faction line. Despite this being the second or third time I've read the novel, I'm finding severe difficulty in putting it down. Highly recommended.
I've recently finished Justina Robson's Natural History, which was (although through no fault of Ms Robson's I got distracted for a few weeks in the middle) also fab. I bought it on the basis of this review in The Guardian, which is quite correct in praising it highly. I may get round to reviewing it here sometime soon. (Alternatively, as ever, I may not.)
Oh, and back on the topic of the Faction... the cover for the fourth book in the series, Mags Halliday's Warring States, is now up at the Mad Norwegian website -- click on the small cover image to see a big one. Splendid, isn't it?
15 February 2005
Mulder
It's been over a week now since anybody saw our cat, Mulder. We've been doing everything in our power to find him -- ringing around all the voluntary organisations we can identify, flyering and postering, even going back to search at our last addresss (although honestly, even if he did head back in that direction, to have made it back across the river and through the city centre would be pretty astonishing). It's seeming unlikely, though, that he'll ever be coming back.
As I've said already, Mulder had never even stayed out overnight before last week -- tonight will be the ninth night he's been absent. We know he hasn't been taken in to a vet or shelter, or found by the council, as he has a subcutaneous ID-chip and we'd have been informed. It doesn't seem likely that he's been shut inside all that time, especially since we've distributed flyers asking our neighbours to check their sheds and similar. I can't honestly believe he decided to leave us of his own free will, either -- it would just be so out of character for him.
There is a chance that he somehow found his way into a car boot or something and was taken elsewhere, but that seems slim as well.
Of course we'll carry on doing all we can to find him, but I'm afraid it's looking increasingly as if something dreadful has happened to him -- either an urban predator (there are patches of waste ground nearby where I wouldn't be at all surprised to find foxes, and some of our neighbours have bloody big dogs as well), or an accident (we live near to several large roads and a train line)... and that his body is either somewhere inaccessible, where it won't be found for months or years, or else has already been found by someone who doesn't understand how much people love their cats, and has disposed of it without informing anyone.
It's upsetting to be writing this, but I can't honestly believe any more that another outcome is at all likely.
Mulder was a lovely cat -- so affectionate and loyal. He jingled and chirrupped when he ran to greet us, and would chew the finger of anybody who let him. He panicked easily, especially at the sight of things larger than himself, and would run madly ahead of anyone moving from one room to another, usually running back the other way a few seconds later. He would stand on top of us while we were watching television and assiduously knead at us with his claws, in the hope that doing this might provide him with a source of milk. At other times he would sit quietly on a chair or a shelf, or curl up asleep, cuddling his back legs with his front paws. I have rarely felt more content than those few times when I took a nap on the sofa, and Mulder slept too, warm and heavy on my stomach.
He will be very sadly missed.
As I've said already, Mulder had never even stayed out overnight before last week -- tonight will be the ninth night he's been absent. We know he hasn't been taken in to a vet or shelter, or found by the council, as he has a subcutaneous ID-chip and we'd have been informed. It doesn't seem likely that he's been shut inside all that time, especially since we've distributed flyers asking our neighbours to check their sheds and similar. I can't honestly believe he decided to leave us of his own free will, either -- it would just be so out of character for him.
There is a chance that he somehow found his way into a car boot or something and was taken elsewhere, but that seems slim as well.
Of course we'll carry on doing all we can to find him, but I'm afraid it's looking increasingly as if something dreadful has happened to him -- either an urban predator (there are patches of waste ground nearby where I wouldn't be at all surprised to find foxes, and some of our neighbours have bloody big dogs as well), or an accident (we live near to several large roads and a train line)... and that his body is either somewhere inaccessible, where it won't be found for months or years, or else has already been found by someone who doesn't understand how much people love their cats, and has disposed of it without informing anyone.
It's upsetting to be writing this, but I can't honestly believe any more that another outcome is at all likely.
Mulder was a lovely cat -- so affectionate and loyal. He jingled and chirrupped when he ran to greet us, and would chew the finger of anybody who let him. He panicked easily, especially at the sight of things larger than himself, and would run madly ahead of anyone moving from one room to another, usually running back the other way a few seconds later. He would stand on top of us while we were watching television and assiduously knead at us with his claws, in the hope that doing this might provide him with a source of milk. At other times he would sit quietly on a chair or a shelf, or curl up asleep, cuddling his back legs with his front paws. I have rarely felt more content than those few times when I took a nap on the sofa, and Mulder slept too, warm and heavy on my stomach.
He will be very sadly missed.
09 February 2005
Missing Cat
As some of you will have read on B.'s LiveJournal, we have a missing cat crisis. Mulder was last seen early on Monday evening, which doesn't sound like a long time ago but he's a very home-loving cat who's never stayed out all night during the six years we've known him. We're both very worried -- frankly, I'm finding it difficult to concentrate on work at present, let alone write any of the stuff I've been meaning to add to this blog.
The chances are that he's OK, but shut into a neighbour's shed, or else hurt in a particularly bad fight and recovering before he comes home. There's no reason yet to assume that anything terrible has happened (although of course it might have). And we've done everything we can, by way of flyering our neighbours, adding him to the RSPCA missing cats database and so on. Still, it's bloody upsetting.
So if I seem quiet at the moment, that's why.
The chances are that he's OK, but shut into a neighbour's shed, or else hurt in a particularly bad fight and recovering before he comes home. There's no reason yet to assume that anything terrible has happened (although of course it might have). And we've done everything we can, by way of flyering our neighbours, adding him to the RSPCA missing cats database and so on. Still, it's bloody upsetting.
So if I seem quiet at the moment, that's why.
05 February 2005
Wildthyme Update
Big Finish have confirmed the announcement of the anthology Wildthyme on Top, to be published later in 2005. The collection features time-traveller, raconteuse and occasional nightclub singer Miss Iris Wildthyme, as created by Paul Magrs. Paul himself has edited the volume, and the contributors are Jonathan Blum, Stephen Cole, Jake Elliot, Craig Hinton, Kate Orman, Lance Parkin, Jacqueline Rayner, Justin Richards, Stewart Sheargold and me.
My short story's entitled "Minions of the Moon", and I'm particularly proud of it.
As yet there's no sign of a cover image or blurb for the book, so the information available is still rather minimal. Nevertheless, I've set up a rather spartan webpage here.
My short story's entitled "Minions of the Moon", and I'm particularly proud of it.
As yet there's no sign of a cover image or blurb for the book, so the information available is still rather minimal. Nevertheless, I've set up a rather spartan webpage here.
I'd Like to Thank My Cats...
Some pleasing news this morning: Of the City of the Saved... has come first in a number of categories in the 2004 Jade Pagoda Awards, organised by the redoubtable Will Salmon and voted for by members of the Jade Pagoda Doctor Who books mailing list.
As a perusal of this post will reveal, OtCotS won both "Best Doctor Who Related Book" and "Best Book"[1], while the concept of the City itself was awarded "Best Returning Character or Concept" after its previous appearance in The Book of the War. I was awarded "Best New Author" and "Best Author" (the former slightly unfair as I'm a first-time novelist rather than actually a new author, but there you go), and even www.infinitarian.com received (again rather inaccurately) "Best Doctor Who Author's Website".
Admittedly not all of the Jade Pagoda's 460 members will have voted in the awards. I'm also a long-term member of the list, so there may well have been some bias in operation. But even so, I'm pleased and flattered, and very slightly embarassed.
(In the Acknowledgements to the novel, I do actually thank my cats for their contribution. This may have been overkill.)
[1] Some elaboration is probably required here: "Best Doctor Who Related Book" covers all Doctor Who-related books not covered by the other categories, including spin-offs like the Faction Paradox novels. "Best Book" in this context covers all the categories, and therefore means... well, best Doctor Who-related book. Er, clear now?
As a perusal of this post will reveal, OtCotS won both "Best Doctor Who Related Book" and "Best Book"[1], while the concept of the City itself was awarded "Best Returning Character or Concept" after its previous appearance in The Book of the War. I was awarded "Best New Author" and "Best Author" (the former slightly unfair as I'm a first-time novelist rather than actually a new author, but there you go), and even www.infinitarian.com received (again rather inaccurately) "Best Doctor Who Author's Website".
Admittedly not all of the Jade Pagoda's 460 members will have voted in the awards. I'm also a long-term member of the list, so there may well have been some bias in operation. But even so, I'm pleased and flattered, and very slightly embarassed.
(In the Acknowledgements to the novel, I do actually thank my cats for their contribution. This may have been overkill.)
[1] Some elaboration is probably required here: "Best Doctor Who Related Book" covers all Doctor Who-related books not covered by the other categories, including spin-offs like the Faction Paradox novels. "Best Book" in this context covers all the categories, and therefore means... well, best Doctor Who-related book. Er, clear now?
04 February 2005
Finally Friday
Well, the week's relaxing hasn't gone as well as I expected. What with skiving (or, if you insist, legitimately absent) workmates, a puncture to the back tire of the scooter and a Wedesday evening spent subjected to furniture shopping at the Pestilent Vatican of Beelzebub, things have actually been appallingly busy. Still, I do now get a weekend off, rather than a weekend of work, and the week after next is half term, so with luck I might get a chance to relax a bit then.
Today at work I have been mostly withdrawing books from stock and updating the library catalogue with links to websites, which tells you all you need to know about the state of library provision in education at present.
There has now been a rather minimalist official announcement of the anthology in which my short story "Minions of the Moon" is appearing. It's called Wildthyme on Top, will be published by Big Finish (who put out A Life Worth Living), and is edited by the respected novelist Paul Magrs: see Stuart Douglas's Iris Wildthyme website for (currently rather sketchy) details. I'll be updating my own site once the publishers have updated theirs.
Today at work I have been mostly withdrawing books from stock and updating the library catalogue with links to websites, which tells you all you need to know about the state of library provision in education at present.
There has now been a rather minimalist official announcement of the anthology in which my short story "Minions of the Moon" is appearing. It's called Wildthyme on Top, will be published by Big Finish (who put out A Life Worth Living), and is edited by the respected novelist Paul Magrs: see Stuart Douglas's Iris Wildthyme website for (currently rather sketchy) details. I'll be updating my own site once the publishers have updated theirs.
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