I miss writing my columns on science fiction and faith for Surefish. They were a useful writing discipline and they allowed me to stretch my brain in a way I'm not doing so much these days. Plus they were a reliable source of monthly cash, which isn't trivial.
Partly because of this, and partly to help pay for the B&B accommodation we're inevitably going to need this year with a just-over-a-year-old-baby, I've put in a proposal to deliver two talks on SF-ish topics at Greenbelt this August. The 2010 Festival's theme is "The Art of Looking Sideways", which is as good a definition of speculative fiction as I've heard yet.
Both putative talks are the same kinds of thing I used to cover for Surefish (in fact I think I skimmed over both topics briefly in the course of the 25 columns), only obviously at rather greater length. (For a clue as to the subject-matter of one of them, read this post following last year's festival. You can even hear my spur-of-the-moment preparatory thinking during the questions at Kester Brewin's talk, if you pay to download it here. It's at exactly 50 minutes in, if you're bonkers enough.)
Assuming the organisers are interested in what I have to say -- and that they don't insist on exclusive rights to the material or anything -- I should be able to put up a transcript of both talks at some point, as I did with my earlier ones.
In the interest of appearing something vaguely resembling a competent professional when Greenbelt look into my credentials, I've updated my website so that the links to those columns actually work properly. Surefish changed all the indexing a while ago, and half the links fell off the map. (There's one I still can't find -- I think it may have been deleted, presumably by accident. I've put it up at the site instead, just to preserve it for that ever-hungry posterity who hound my every keystroke. In the long run I may do that with all of them -- I don't think Surefish are getting very much web-traffic that way any more.)
Showing posts with label surefish. Show all posts
Showing posts with label surefish. Show all posts
19 February 2010
28 January 2009
When I Survey...
I know that at least some of you have enjoyed the theoretically regular monthly columns on science fiction and faith which I've been writing for Christian Aid's webzine, Surefish, over the past couple of years.
At present new material from Surefish, including my column and those of various pals of mine, is on hold while Christian Aid considers the future of Surefish's authored content... the (perfectly reasonable) question being the extent to which commissioning said content serves the charity's ends, at a time when public giving to charities in general is inevitably in retreat.
As part of this review there's a reader survey currently in progress, inviting the opinions of regular readers on the material they read at the website. Without in any way wishing to skew the results of the survey, I would urge those of you who have been reading the site (even if it's just my column) just to pop across and register the fact. There may even be Divine chocolate in it for you.
Of course it would be unconscionable of me not to point out that this exercise, whatever its personal implications, is inestimably less important than Christian Aid's non-partisan, humanitarian Gaza Crisis Appeal, to which I naturally encourage you to give whatever money you might feel able to spare.
I don't believe in pressuring or guilt-tripping my readers, though, so follow the dictates of your conscience on that one. Just remember that a fairy dies every time you don't fill in that survey.
At present new material from Surefish, including my column and those of various pals of mine, is on hold while Christian Aid considers the future of Surefish's authored content... the (perfectly reasonable) question being the extent to which commissioning said content serves the charity's ends, at a time when public giving to charities in general is inevitably in retreat.
As part of this review there's a reader survey currently in progress, inviting the opinions of regular readers on the material they read at the website. Without in any way wishing to skew the results of the survey, I would urge those of you who have been reading the site (even if it's just my column) just to pop across and register the fact. There may even be Divine chocolate in it for you.
Of course it would be unconscionable of me not to point out that this exercise, whatever its personal implications, is inestimably less important than Christian Aid's non-partisan, humanitarian Gaza Crisis Appeal, to which I naturally encourage you to give whatever money you might feel able to spare.
I don't believe in pressuring or guilt-tripping my readers, though, so follow the dictates of your conscience on that one. Just remember that a fairy dies every time you don't fill in that survey.
08 January 2009
Matt's Myth Is the Doctor
My perhaps overly mystical response to the casting of the eleventh Doctor -- complete with musings on the heroes of British myth-cycles, the writings of Ian Fleming and Joseph Campbell, and world mythology ranging from Egyptian to Native American -- is now available online at Surefish. I hope you enjoy the reading as much as I enjoyed writing of it.
Surefish are having a bit of a reorganisation at present, and it's not perfectly clear what the long-term future of these columns will be. All I can say for now is that if they're discontinued I'll be archiving them at my website to make sure they remain available.
Surefish are having a bit of a reorganisation at present, and it's not perfectly clear what the long-term future of these columns will be. All I can say for now is that if they're discontinued I'll be archiving them at my website to make sure they remain available.
04 January 2009
...when the Doctor's younger than you are
Well, there's no getting away from it[1], it's 2009. And I said I'd be making a New Year's resolution to post here more. So let's give it a go.
I spent most of yesterday writing a Surefish column -- due up sometime this week, with any luck -- on the casting of the new Doctor Who. Although in fact it's less about the specific casting of young Matt Smith than about the recasting of the Doctor in general, and how it compares with the periodic renewals of Sherlock Holmes, Robin Hood and certain pagan fertility gods. Oh, and that Jesus chap. Actually, I don't think I've squeezed quite so many abstruse references into a column before, so that might be worth looking out for. (Or not. Your call.)
The casting itself is something I'm having trouble forming an opinion on. Some of my fellow Book of the War authors have jumped both ways on this, neither of them being directions I'm altogether inclined to leap in myself.
I wasn't previously aware of Smith's work, not having seen any of the items on his disconcertingly brief TV CV. I know Party Animals got a certain amount of praise, but how much of that was due to Smith's performance I have no idea. Even if I had heard of him... well, there were plenty of names being touted around who would have excited me far more.
Chiwetel Ejiofor, for one. Paterson Joseph and Idris Elba, for two other ones. Excellent actors all, each with a degree of maturity and gravitas which it's very difficult to imagine emanating from a 26-year-old.
What I find baffling, really, is this: even if Smith is (as outgoing showrunner Russell T Davies and his successor Steven Moffat both seemed to be asserting on last night's Doctor Who Confidental), a brilliant, innovative actor who's perfect for the part -- why couldn't he have waited another 10 or 20 years before being given it? (It's not as if, with the best will in the world, his looks are going to spoil... although in fact that weird, otherworldly face is one of his best credentials for the role.)
The Smith Doctor may or may not be an outstanding interpretation, but I'd be a hell of a lot more excited to be looking forward to the Joseph, Ejiofor and Elba Doctors -- and then, if he was ready for it, the Smith one -- than the Smith one right now. Are the showrunners really that impatient? (And yes, I know Peter Davison was only 29 when he got the part... but for pity's sake, when William Hartnell was cast he was twice Smith's age. What's wrong with a happy medium?)
I can't entirely work out how to view the Eccleston-Tennant-Smith progression, either[2]. Consider a respected, globally recognised cinema and TV actor with an impeccable artistic pedigree, giving way to a rising star with a solid theatrical background... who's followed in turn by an unknown with a couple of TV credits.
One possible interpretation -- and I've seen it espoused online -- is that the series is doomed, and has been on the way out since Eccleston left. The other is that, as it's got bigger, it's become less reliant on the recognition of its star... and that, in fact, being cast as the new Doctor is now all the credentials an actor needs.
If nothing else, the sequence of Eccleston (40 years old at the time of casting), Tennant (34), Smith (26) rather suggests that the future twelfth Doctor is currently recuperating from a critically-lauded pre-Christmas stint as a Wise Man, or possibly a Sheep.
Anyway. Personally I'd have much preferred to see an older Doctor introduced as a contrast to Tennant's breezy laddishness... but the fact that the new Doctor is even younger doesn't necessarily mean more of the same. Moffat is (as his 2008 Children in Need mini-episode Time Crash amply demonstrated) a big fan of the aforementioned Peter Davison's interpretation of the character, often described as "an old man in a young man's body". Tennant, by contrast, rarely gives us any indication of the Doctor's great and venerable age, choosing instead to give us his best impersonation of a four-year-old on tartrazine.
If Smith's all Moffat cracks him up to be, he may well be capable of pulling off as effective a version of this character as Davison. That would certainly be something to see -- and, of course, it genuinely requires a young man in the part.
It's a hell of a gamble to have taken, though.
I spent most of yesterday writing a Surefish column -- due up sometime this week, with any luck -- on the casting of the new Doctor Who. Although in fact it's less about the specific casting of young Matt Smith than about the recasting of the Doctor in general, and how it compares with the periodic renewals of Sherlock Holmes, Robin Hood and certain pagan fertility gods. Oh, and that Jesus chap. Actually, I don't think I've squeezed quite so many abstruse references into a column before, so that might be worth looking out for. (Or not. Your call.)
The casting itself is something I'm having trouble forming an opinion on. Some of my fellow Book of the War authors have jumped both ways on this, neither of them being directions I'm altogether inclined to leap in myself.
I wasn't previously aware of Smith's work, not having seen any of the items on his disconcertingly brief TV CV. I know Party Animals got a certain amount of praise, but how much of that was due to Smith's performance I have no idea. Even if I had heard of him... well, there were plenty of names being touted around who would have excited me far more.
Chiwetel Ejiofor, for one. Paterson Joseph and Idris Elba, for two other ones. Excellent actors all, each with a degree of maturity and gravitas which it's very difficult to imagine emanating from a 26-year-old.
What I find baffling, really, is this: even if Smith is (as outgoing showrunner Russell T Davies and his successor Steven Moffat both seemed to be asserting on last night's Doctor Who Confidental), a brilliant, innovative actor who's perfect for the part -- why couldn't he have waited another 10 or 20 years before being given it? (It's not as if, with the best will in the world, his looks are going to spoil... although in fact that weird, otherworldly face is one of his best credentials for the role.)
The Smith Doctor may or may not be an outstanding interpretation, but I'd be a hell of a lot more excited to be looking forward to the Joseph, Ejiofor and Elba Doctors -- and then, if he was ready for it, the Smith one -- than the Smith one right now. Are the showrunners really that impatient? (And yes, I know Peter Davison was only 29 when he got the part... but for pity's sake, when William Hartnell was cast he was twice Smith's age. What's wrong with a happy medium?)
I can't entirely work out how to view the Eccleston-Tennant-Smith progression, either[2]. Consider a respected, globally recognised cinema and TV actor with an impeccable artistic pedigree, giving way to a rising star with a solid theatrical background... who's followed in turn by an unknown with a couple of TV credits.
One possible interpretation -- and I've seen it espoused online -- is that the series is doomed, and has been on the way out since Eccleston left. The other is that, as it's got bigger, it's become less reliant on the recognition of its star... and that, in fact, being cast as the new Doctor is now all the credentials an actor needs.
If nothing else, the sequence of Eccleston (40 years old at the time of casting), Tennant (34), Smith (26) rather suggests that the future twelfth Doctor is currently recuperating from a critically-lauded pre-Christmas stint as a Wise Man, or possibly a Sheep.
Anyway. Personally I'd have much preferred to see an older Doctor introduced as a contrast to Tennant's breezy laddishness... but the fact that the new Doctor is even younger doesn't necessarily mean more of the same. Moffat is (as his 2008 Children in Need mini-episode Time Crash amply demonstrated) a big fan of the aforementioned Peter Davison's interpretation of the character, often described as "an old man in a young man's body". Tennant, by contrast, rarely gives us any indication of the Doctor's great and venerable age, choosing instead to give us his best impersonation of a four-year-old on tartrazine.
If Smith's all Moffat cracks him up to be, he may well be capable of pulling off as effective a version of this character as Davison. That would certainly be something to see -- and, of course, it genuinely requires a young man in the part.
It's a hell of a gamble to have taken, though.
[1]Except possibly through extensive calendar reform. According to these chaps it's actually 02009, which I rather like.
03 December 2008
As Promised...
...the not-particularly-long-awaited DVD-style extras pertaining to my novella in The Vampire Curse are now online at www.infinitarian.com, along with a handful of other things I've had hanging around.
First of all, we have notes on my novella, "Predating the Predators". DO PLEASE READ The Vampire Curse first, though, as these notes contain SPOILERS for the novella. You don't in any sense need to read these in order to understand the novella -- they're just intended as background, including some explanations of authorial choices and a few deleted passages to tantalise yourselves with. ("Predating the Predators" is actually one of the more self-explanatory things I've written, so these are pretty limited compared with, say, my annotations to the considerably shorter "Minions of the Moon".)
Also containing SPOILERS -- for both "Predating the Predators" and Of the City of the Saved... -- is "Unification Theory", a supplementary short story, featuring characters from "Predating the Predators" in the City. It's the first of these website extras that's been a crossover between different series I've written for, and I now need to resist the temptation to do the same with the rest of them. If I stick at this one (which, as the notes reveal, there was a moderately good reason for), I think it just about stops short of being self-indulgent.
And speaking of self-indulgent... a week or so ago, as well as updating my About the Author and FAQ pages to reflect The Vampire Curse's existence, I also added all the "About the Author" or "About the Contributors" biogs I've had published in various books to date. This comes with the facility to jump forward from one to the next (starting, as luck would have it, with Of the City of the Saved... and finishing with The Vampire Curse), so you can see how my self-image and verbosity have varied down the years since, er, 2004.
Since I was revamping the Short Stories page anyway, I've added another story, "Dave @1I8Σπ: A Romance of the Year 2006", which was originally published here on this very blog. Come Christmas I'll be putting up another short story, "Polarity", which went out with my Christmas cards last year, just as "Sol Invictus" did the year before. (Mind you, I'll be posting that here as well, just as I did with "Sol Invictus" last year.)
Finally, my latest Surefish column is up, and I've remembered to update the Surefish index on the website to reflect the fact. This one gives my usual woolly-minded christian perspective on the aspect of the SF writing process which I call worldbuilding, and JRR Tolkien referred to as "sub-creation".
[ETA: Damn -- it's just been pointed out to me that there's a linking error in the column. The reference to unreadable utopian fiction is meant to link to Wikipedia's article on utopian fiction, and not to CS Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy...]
Right, then. Hope some of that that's vaguely interesting to some of you...
First of all, we have notes on my novella, "Predating the Predators". DO PLEASE READ The Vampire Curse first, though, as these notes contain SPOILERS for the novella. You don't in any sense need to read these in order to understand the novella -- they're just intended as background, including some explanations of authorial choices and a few deleted passages to tantalise yourselves with. ("Predating the Predators" is actually one of the more self-explanatory things I've written, so these are pretty limited compared with, say, my annotations to the considerably shorter "Minions of the Moon".)
Also containing SPOILERS -- for both "Predating the Predators" and Of the City of the Saved... -- is "Unification Theory", a supplementary short story, featuring characters from "Predating the Predators" in the City. It's the first of these website extras that's been a crossover between different series I've written for, and I now need to resist the temptation to do the same with the rest of them. If I stick at this one (which, as the notes reveal, there was a moderately good reason for), I think it just about stops short of being self-indulgent.
And speaking of self-indulgent... a week or so ago, as well as updating my About the Author and FAQ pages to reflect The Vampire Curse's existence, I also added all the "About the Author" or "About the Contributors" biogs I've had published in various books to date. This comes with the facility to jump forward from one to the next (starting, as luck would have it, with Of the City of the Saved... and finishing with The Vampire Curse), so you can see how my self-image and verbosity have varied down the years since, er, 2004.
Since I was revamping the Short Stories page anyway, I've added another story, "Dave @1I8Σπ: A Romance of the Year 2006", which was originally published here on this very blog. Come Christmas I'll be putting up another short story, "Polarity", which went out with my Christmas cards last year, just as "Sol Invictus" did the year before. (Mind you, I'll be posting that here as well, just as I did with "Sol Invictus" last year.)
Finally, my latest Surefish column is up, and I've remembered to update the Surefish index on the website to reflect the fact. This one gives my usual woolly-minded christian perspective on the aspect of the SF writing process which I call worldbuilding, and JRR Tolkien referred to as "sub-creation".
[ETA: Damn -- it's just been pointed out to me that there's a linking error in the column. The reference to unreadable utopian fiction is meant to link to Wikipedia's article on utopian fiction, and not to CS Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy...]
Right, then. Hope some of that that's vaguely interesting to some of you...
28 October 2008
Witterance
God, I'm insanely busy at the moment.
This isn't really an update, more an observation that my latest Surefish column is now up and you can read it if you want to. It's a bit of a departure, in that it's not so much a discussion of issues relating to faith and science fiction as, well, a parable. Feel free to like it or not, as you wish.
This isn't really an update, more an observation that my latest Surefish column is now up and you can read it if you want to. It's a bit of a departure, in that it's not so much a discussion of issues relating to faith and science fiction as, well, a parable. Feel free to like it or not, as you wish.
26 September 2008
Austen and Ostensibility
After the delay to my Surefish column last month, this month's is up with admirable alacrity. My title was the rather more Austenesque "Fandom and Fundamentalism", but Andy's variant works too.
I just ran a brief google for similarly Austenesque puns, and came up with this insanely wrong-headed blog post, by a freelance writer who subsidises his career with the money he won on a gameshow once -- and is, quite clearly, as wrong as a McCain supporter wearing a "We Love Noel Edmonds" T-shirt.
Not merely because Gillian Anderson is obviously an intensely cerebral, as well as a sublime, sexy, spiritual and deeply sensuous woman, who I'm sure would come in time to appreciate my complementary virtues if we ever met, but -- perhaps more importantly -- because Jane Austen's novels are saturated with economic necessity.
Anyone who thinks that Austen had a fluffy, woolly-headed view of matrimony as a romantic idyll separated from the sordid transactions of the real world, really hasn't been reading her novels properly, and has possibly never actually been in the same room as one.
All together now: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife..."
I just ran a brief google for similarly Austenesque puns, and came up with this insanely wrong-headed blog post, by a freelance writer who subsidises his career with the money he won on a gameshow once -- and is, quite clearly, as wrong as a McCain supporter wearing a "We Love Noel Edmonds" T-shirt.
Not merely because Gillian Anderson is obviously an intensely cerebral, as well as a sublime, sexy, spiritual and deeply sensuous woman, who I'm sure would come in time to appreciate my complementary virtues if we ever met, but -- perhaps more importantly -- because Jane Austen's novels are saturated with economic necessity.
Anyone who thinks that Austen had a fluffy, woolly-headed view of matrimony as a romantic idyll separated from the sordid transactions of the real world, really hasn't been reading her novels properly, and has possibly never actually been in the same room as one.
All together now: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife..."
19 September 2008
Aha...
...my most recent column's up at Surefish now. It's another summery collection of lists, which gives you some indication of how long ago I wrote it.
It's ended up a little less topical than I'd hoped it would be, particularly now the second X-Files movie's sunk without trace. Still, now it's there all I need to do is finish this month's.
It's ended up a little less topical than I'd hoped it would be, particularly now the second X-Files movie's sunk without trace. Still, now it's there all I need to do is finish this month's.
27 August 2008
A Quantum of Sol
Those of you intrigued by the first and last items in that previous post may be interested in this, the first publication of the full text painted on m'wife's sculpture A Quantum of Sol (Rising Sun). See here for some photographs of the structure (more detailed ones will hopefully come later) accompanying some reflections on the text.
I've broken the passages apart here for the sake of basic legibility: on the sculpture itself they run into one another, with only the solar symbol to separate them.
I've broken the passages apart here for the sake of basic legibility: on the sculpture itself they run into one another, with only the solar symbol to separate them.
A Quantum of Sol (Rising Sun)
– text-only version
...shall all ascend into the bright eternal apex of the enlightened and unconquered soul
the blinding helial light of conversion, h to he, exploding into a new clear sight, indiscriminate radiance corrupted by our polarising vision, everpresent effulgent distancy
sole potent parent to mother material, father to daughter spun also from that archane disc, the golden aten split into lead, ice, carbon, mercury, earth the filial and fecund, oval in her orbit, plump to receive the lightwarm seedflash of her father husband brother sun
lord of hours meting and mensurating dawndusk noonnight, nadir zenith, solstice equinox, years sidereal and cosmic, circling the milkblack core, spinning like a parasol while whirling aeroplanetary children, endlessly calendrical, infinitely stonehengible lord horus (lord graciously horus)
bright daybarge sailing the skyward ocean to the blue meridian, making its waves a tidal delta, cyclical waveform mounting in morn, declining in dusk, then passing into neutral harbour-mouth to weather the dark night of the soul
nightbarge setsailing for the netherworld, setting tonight to set-to with the night setspearing turtlesnake apep talk re your communication with the dead of twelvehoured chaos, anticipating your response by return, alimentary canal turned now to re birth
barging in, bursting from the skirts of night to rise with dayheat each dawn since the fourth to measure morning with the mercury
re treating winterly to arctic valley, re turning aestivally to easter vernal spring, an immillennial parousia of recirculation, re birth re curing with cyclic solemnity, in days, in years, in minutes of untimely dark devouring
son of mandala spread on cross, haloed by circle, spun on sunwheel in ecliptic pain, abandoned to mandated exocclusion, three hours dying, veiling and unveiling in the vale of the shade of the death of the son
dying into darkness (amon), graved in underworld (amun), doing nothing by thirds but arising on the first day (amen) a speedy mourning then an easterly ascent into heaven (ra ra ra!)
goldnaturedly doling out the wisdom luck and cancer, sole leonine pharaoh of the fifth house, mane sequence helionhearted millionmile yellowgold dwarf, far distanter than icarus may fly, winged eye melting featherwax and numbing nerve
feeding all, filling all, fuelling all, sustaining all, yet one day mere trillennia hence devouring all, re absorbing all earth’s sunstuff, if never first devoured by dragon monkey wolf serpent or blackholy goddess of galactic night
food of algae, idol of flowers, boss of roosters, sauna of lizards, lamp of lovers, garment of nudists, blight of deserts, torment of vampires, scourge of snowmen, wellspring of moonlight, yoke of oceans, pivot of planets, wheel of seasons, father of pharaoh, aim of archer, mango of monkey, spoil of scarab, dinner of direwolf, eye of heaven, light of vision and vision of light, seen now through dark glasses but one day eye to eye, unblinkingly unblinding
for this light of the world, epitome of glory, sun of heaven blazing with conversion light, the monad, carrion kissing, darkness lightening, nightperil delivering and all sustaining, is a mere lamp to light the way
a type, a symbol, font of wisdom, all seeing icon, sign to lead us, cycling now but soon to dismount, to the axle of all, samsaran wheels halting near vantage point to view the bright empyrion
circling sun and earth, comet and cluster, light and dark matter, stars and humanity, a joy to end soul enmity, the love that moves the son
and day is grey now, light is night now, fire is liar now, shown unknown now yet when dawn comes...
© P. and B. Purser-Hallard 2008
25 August 2008
Greenbelt Updates 2008
Sorry -- been a bit busy to put these up so far.
A Quantum of Sol (Rising Sun): Reflections
Greenbelt Blog: Monday
Greenbelt Blog: Sunday
Greenbelt Blog: Saturday
A Quantum of Sol (Rising Sun): Reflections
Greenbelt Blog: Monday
Greenbelt Blog: Sunday
Greenbelt Blog: Saturday
21 August 2008
Lifting the Curse
I finally sent off my vampire story today, and I'm bloody exhausted. Now I just have to wait to find out whether Eddie the Editor likes it, and how much he minds that it's a third as long again as it should be.
This has been one of many things which I haven't, what with one thing and another, had the time to mention recently... but tomorrow I'm off to the Greenbelt Festival in Cheltenham. B.'s been there for several days already, building a sculpture to which I contributed a chunk of text (the thing with the puns on Egyptian gods' names which I was mentioning earlier).
I'm not speaking this year, having once again failed to get organised. I'm also camping for the whole weekend, for the first time since... erm, I think it might be 1992. With good reason, because I loathe tents and everything that goes with, in on and around them. Especially the mud.
I will, however, be blogging for Surefish, as has by now become traditional. As in previous years, I'll post links to my Surefish entries here. (All of those links are broken now, such being the transitory nature of internet journalism. I don't know whether the entries themselves are still floating around the web somewhere.)
If you're very lucky, there may also be some photos of the sculpture.
This has been one of many things which I haven't, what with one thing and another, had the time to mention recently... but tomorrow I'm off to the Greenbelt Festival in Cheltenham. B.'s been there for several days already, building a sculpture to which I contributed a chunk of text (the thing with the puns on Egyptian gods' names which I was mentioning earlier).
I'm not speaking this year, having once again failed to get organised. I'm also camping for the whole weekend, for the first time since... erm, I think it might be 1992. With good reason, because I loathe tents and everything that goes with, in on and around them. Especially the mud.
I will, however, be blogging for Surefish, as has by now become traditional. As in previous years, I'll post links to my Surefish entries here. (All of those links are broken now, such being the transitory nature of internet journalism. I don't know whether the entries themselves are still floating around the web somewhere.)
If you're very lucky, there may also be some photos of the sculpture.
22 July 2008
Planet Carefully
My latest column, about solar and planetary religion, is now up at Surefish.
Reading it back, I'm startled by how incoherent it is. At the time I could have sworn I was more or less making sense. Sorry about that...
Reading it back, I'm startled by how incoherent it is. At the time I could have sworn I was more or less making sense. Sorry about that...
19 July 2008
Dr Acula, Ph.D.
The reason it's been three weeks since I last updated this blog thing is that I've been up to my throat in writing this vampire novella, the day job's been really busy and B. and I have been away every weekend and faffing about with stuff most evenings. Some of these are perfectly pleasant things in themselves, but taken together they've tended to engender a large amount of stress and busytude.
Life's been so hectic recently I've barely had time to update my Facebook status, let alone write a blog post. Sadly, B. and I have had to turn down a party in London tonight as being just that one thing too many for the maintenance of sanity.
The novella's coming along nicely, though, you'll be pleased to hear -- I now have around two-thirds of it written, at a little over 20,000 words.
I realise that I've not said much about Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Vampire's Curse here, except to praise my co-authors and to drone on about writing the thing. At this stage I know little of Mags' and Kelly's stories, and they're not mine to talk about anyway. My third of the book (originally entitled The Predator Principle, which proved to be rubbish, and now called, still rather tentatively, Predating the Predators) is about the First Interdisciplinary Conference on Vampirology, which is first infiltrated and then gatecrashed by a coven of vampires.
It's a blending of genres -- as a vampire novella, it's obviously a horror story, and as the umbrella title suggests it has a certain schlocky Hammer vibe. I also decided to go for the authentic Gothic flavour of Dracula and its ilk, by building the narrative out of letters, journal entries and excerpts from secondary documents. It's also inevitably a campus novel[la], and equally inevitably (given that it's part of the Bernice Summerfield range) it's S.F., taking place in Benny's space-operatic galactic milieu.
Being me, I felt that those weren't really enough genre referents, so I've also introduced a Jesuit priest wrestling with an apparently intractable theological problem on a remote planet, thus tying nicely in with the rarefied but venerable S.F. subgenre of "Jesuit priest wrestling with an apparently intractable theological problem on a remote planet" stories[1]. In a revolutionary twist, mine's called Imogen.
In short, it's an allegorical-epistolary-gothic-horror-pastiche-campus-space-opera -- not quite on the scale of a a detective-ghost-horror-whodunnit-time-travel-romantic-musical-comedy-epic, but not bad at only a little over 30,000 words.
I've also written my monthly column for Surefish, gone on a training course which may entitle me to do some Thought for the Day slots on BBC Radio Bristol, and am now working on a short piece for a kind of collaboration which is altogether new for me, though sadly neither earth-shakingly high-profile or notably paid (come back in late August for more on this).
Coincidentally, it's about something vampires are afraid of, although admittedly there seem to be quite a lot of objects that applies to.
Life's been so hectic recently I've barely had time to update my Facebook status, let alone write a blog post. Sadly, B. and I have had to turn down a party in London tonight as being just that one thing too many for the maintenance of sanity.
The novella's coming along nicely, though, you'll be pleased to hear -- I now have around two-thirds of it written, at a little over 20,000 words.
I realise that I've not said much about Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Vampire's Curse here, except to praise my co-authors and to drone on about writing the thing. At this stage I know little of Mags' and Kelly's stories, and they're not mine to talk about anyway. My third of the book (originally entitled The Predator Principle, which proved to be rubbish, and now called, still rather tentatively, Predating the Predators) is about the First Interdisciplinary Conference on Vampirology, which is first infiltrated and then gatecrashed by a coven of vampires.
It's a blending of genres -- as a vampire novella, it's obviously a horror story, and as the umbrella title suggests it has a certain schlocky Hammer vibe. I also decided to go for the authentic Gothic flavour of Dracula and its ilk, by building the narrative out of letters, journal entries and excerpts from secondary documents. It's also inevitably a campus novel[la], and equally inevitably (given that it's part of the Bernice Summerfield range) it's S.F., taking place in Benny's space-operatic galactic milieu.
Being me, I felt that those weren't really enough genre referents, so I've also introduced a Jesuit priest wrestling with an apparently intractable theological problem on a remote planet, thus tying nicely in with the rarefied but venerable S.F. subgenre of "Jesuit priest wrestling with an apparently intractable theological problem on a remote planet" stories[1]. In a revolutionary twist, mine's called Imogen.
In short, it's an allegorical-epistolary-gothic-horror-pastiche-campus-space-opera -- not quite on the scale of a a detective-ghost-horror-whodunnit-time-travel-romantic-musical-comedy-epic, but not bad at only a little over 30,000 words.
I've also written my monthly column for Surefish, gone on a training course which may entitle me to do some Thought for the Day slots on BBC Radio Bristol, and am now working on a short piece for a kind of collaboration which is altogether new for me, though sadly neither earth-shakingly high-profile or notably paid (come back in late August for more on this).
Coincidentally, it's about something vampires are afraid of, although admittedly there seem to be quite a lot of objects that applies to.
[1] S.F. novices who feel disinclined to believe in this as a bona fide subgenre may wish to investigate Anthony Boucher's "Balaam", Arthur C. Clarke's "The Star", James Blish's A Case of Conscience, Philip José Farmer's Father John Carmody stories, the 80-page segment "The Priest's Tale" in Dan Simmons' Hyperion and Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow and Children of God. S.F. initiates who can spot any I've missed should feel free to chip in.
26 June 2008
Discuss
Ah. My latest column's up at Surefish. It's a bit meandery and mentions vampires, which accurately reflects my state of mind recently.
A point of discussion which you may find it interesting to comment on here:
Or do you think the question's a meaningless one?
A point of discussion which you may find it interesting to comment on here:
I sometimes try to imagine a scientific discovery which would persuade me that my faith was spurious. As yet I’ve come up with nothing.What do we (and by "we" I mean "you", given that I wrote it) think of this? If you have a religious faith, can you think of a potential scientific revelation about the universe which would convince you to become an atheist? If you're an atheist, what revelations (actual or hypothetical) do you think should so persuade me?
Or do you think the question's a meaningless one?
19 June 2008
Patagonia of Tiny Feet
OK. I'm not going to make a habit of this, you understand, but while I'm slavishly copying other people's ideas, Simon Guerrier has rather eccentrically requested me to select an S.F. book of my choice, turn to p123 and record the fifth sentence here.
Predictably perhaps, but also because I can reach it without getting up, I've chosen Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men, which says:
Because I don't really do "memes", I'm not going to oblige anybody to continue this. If you think it would be fun, feel free to link to this post and say I told you to.
I'm still trying to write vampires today, although I've also sent off another Surefish column. As usual I'll mention here when it's been put up.
I'd normally be writing tomorrow as well, but I seem to be obliged to turn up here and learn to cook tapas instead. Saturday I'll be attending festive Midsummer nuptials in Oxford, which will be fun.
Predictably perhaps, but also because I can reach it without getting up, I've chosen Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men, which says:
"It became the party's most sacred object, for it kindled in every mind the strong parental disposition so characteristic of Patagonians."So there you go -- Patagonians like having babies. You heard it here first, unless of course you've read Last and First Men at any point during the past 78 years.
Because I don't really do "memes", I'm not going to oblige anybody to continue this. If you think it would be fun, feel free to link to this post and say I told you to.
I'm still trying to write vampires today, although I've also sent off another Surefish column. As usual I'll mention here when it's been put up.
I'd normally be writing tomorrow as well, but I seem to be obliged to turn up here and learn to cook tapas instead. Saturday I'll be attending festive Midsummer nuptials in Oxford, which will be fun.
20 May 2008
Planetary Romance
That review I mentioned of that book about these books is now up at Surefish. It may be more informative and persuasive than my earlier witterings, or of course it may not. Ignore the big pull-quote about feminism [ETA: now fixed], which appears to be from another review altogether.
In theory I should be having a column up this week as well. I'm not sure whether Andy's going to hold off on that one.
[ETA: Yes, the column's up too. It's about vampires.]
In theory I should be having a column up this week as well. I'm not sure whether Andy's going to hold off on that one.
[ETA: Yes, the column's up too. It's about vampires.]
26 April 2008
"Well, Narnia and barmier don't rhyme, to begin with."
I've only just noticed that my column for this month is now up at Surefish. In retrospect, I may have got a little carried away with the S.F. theology towards the end.
This is slightly unfortunate, as I'm now writing a review for Surefish endorsing this book, which claims to have discovered a "secret imaginative key" to C.S. Lewis's Narnia septet, based around the tenets of medieval astrology.
And yes, I know how that sounds, but in point of fact Michael Ward's argument is so well-informed, persuasive and -- if you actually know anything about Lewis's thought -- downright reasonable, that I can't imagine not endorsing it. And as someone who reads Fortean Times religiously every month, I have some experience of evaluating dodgy arguments. (Actually, "religiously" sounds wrong in that sentence. In fact I probably read Fortean Times secularly every month.)
If you don't believe me, that's probably fair enough, but if you find Lewis's work interesting enough to be open to new perspectives on it, do give the book (or even this summary) a read before dismissing it. Perhaps you'll decide I'm less insane than the readers at Surefish are now likely to believe.
Otherwise, I've been grindly slowly onwards on the reading front. River of Gods is still huge and difficult to fathom -- I'm perhaps two-thirds of the way through now, but it's slow going. I'm finding that McDonald's use of local (Indian) vocabulary goes way beyond scene-setting and into the realms of deliberate obscurity. The book has an "If I know this, why don't you?" air, which might seem reasonable (if smug) if its target readership consisted of Indians and indologists, but is only going to irritate the average western reader. There's a glossary, admittedly, but it's hopelessly sketchy.
In other respects it's a pretty good character-driven S.F. novel, although there are a hell of a lot of characters. Perhaps a cast list would have been more useful than the glossary.
I think the only other things I've read are a couple of Doctor Who books, The Pirate Loop (mindless fluff, nothing like as good as the author's capable of) and The Many Hands (immensely better, but still suffering from its curtailed length).
I'm also halfway through Reginald Hill's A Cure for All Diseases, which as a police procedural set in modern Yorkshire suffers rather from being closely based on an unfinished Jane Austen comedy of manners set in 18th-century Sussex. Crime writers are weird.
This is slightly unfortunate, as I'm now writing a review for Surefish endorsing this book, which claims to have discovered a "secret imaginative key" to C.S. Lewis's Narnia septet, based around the tenets of medieval astrology.
And yes, I know how that sounds, but in point of fact Michael Ward's argument is so well-informed, persuasive and -- if you actually know anything about Lewis's thought -- downright reasonable, that I can't imagine not endorsing it. And as someone who reads Fortean Times religiously every month, I have some experience of evaluating dodgy arguments. (Actually, "religiously" sounds wrong in that sentence. In fact I probably read Fortean Times secularly every month.)
If you don't believe me, that's probably fair enough, but if you find Lewis's work interesting enough to be open to new perspectives on it, do give the book (or even this summary) a read before dismissing it. Perhaps you'll decide I'm less insane than the readers at Surefish are now likely to believe.
Otherwise, I've been grindly slowly onwards on the reading front. River of Gods is still huge and difficult to fathom -- I'm perhaps two-thirds of the way through now, but it's slow going. I'm finding that McDonald's use of local (Indian) vocabulary goes way beyond scene-setting and into the realms of deliberate obscurity. The book has an "If I know this, why don't you?" air, which might seem reasonable (if smug) if its target readership consisted of Indians and indologists, but is only going to irritate the average western reader. There's a glossary, admittedly, but it's hopelessly sketchy.
In other respects it's a pretty good character-driven S.F. novel, although there are a hell of a lot of characters. Perhaps a cast list would have been more useful than the glossary.
I think the only other things I've read are a couple of Doctor Who books, The Pirate Loop (mindless fluff, nothing like as good as the author's capable of) and The Many Hands (immensely better, but still suffering from its curtailed length).
I'm also halfway through Reginald Hill's A Cure for All Diseases, which as a police procedural set in modern Yorkshire suffers rather from being closely based on an unfinished Jane Austen comedy of manners set in 18th-century Sussex. Crime writers are weird.
01 April 2008
Do Ordinands Dream of Electric Priests? ...etc.
To accompany today's (ahem) fortuitously-timed news story about the first automated church minister package, my latest column on the spiritual dimensions of artificial intelligence is up at Surefish.
20 March 2008
21 February 2008
Goodness, has it really?
As long as that? Blimey.
I'm actually having grave trouble writing anything at all at the moment, not just posting here. Possible reasons for this might include:
This is why I'm rather glad I've managed to spend today writing a column for Surefish (and on only three coffees, too), even if it does retread some rather familiar ground for anyone who's heard me witter on about my thesis. It isn't this one about TV's Heroes, which as it happens has just gone up today -- some editorial rescheduling at Surefish has meant that that one's been waiting in the pipeline a little while. (I didn't really need to write the next column today at all, in fact, but since I seemed to be making actual progress with it I thought I ought to press on.)
So what else have I been doing recently? Well, consuming various bits of culture, pop- and otherwise, in diverse media. There'll be too many to list, but they include:
I also, last weekend, met up with a cluster of friends whom I love a great deal and get far too sentimental about, together with assorted partners and a baby, to eat food, drink too much and talk random nonsense. Sadly B. was working at the weekend and couldn't come. The whole thing was thoroughly lovely, though, and put me in a far mellower mood after the weekend than I was at the end of last week. Or, unfortunately, this one.
I've also been listening to the Walkman I acquired at (though not for) Christmas. Now I've got over the "My god, it's the soundtrack to my life!" response which comes from stalking about the place with non-diegetic music sounding in your ears, I'm finding it's a good way of consuming the CDs of random audio drama I have lying about the place, as well as discovering quite how limited my music collection is. Recommended.
I'm actually having grave trouble writing anything at all at the moment, not just posting here. Possible reasons for this might include:
- natural idleness
- extended post-Christmas lassitude
- busyness at work
- mild depression
- my caffeine dependency reaching the point where coffee no longer has any actual stimulant effect.
This is why I'm rather glad I've managed to spend today writing a column for Surefish (and on only three coffees, too), even if it does retread some rather familiar ground for anyone who's heard me witter on about my thesis. It isn't this one about TV's Heroes, which as it happens has just gone up today -- some editorial rescheduling at Surefish has meant that that one's been waiting in the pipeline a little while. (I didn't really need to write the next column today at all, in fact, but since I seemed to be making actual progress with it I thought I ought to press on.)
So what else have I been doing recently? Well, consuming various bits of culture, pop- and otherwise, in diverse media. There'll be too many to list, but they include:
- Alan Moore's brilliant and hilarious The Black Dossier -- the latest in his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series -- which is about multiple characters from different fictional universes, including that of Dracula, spying in post-Big-Brother Britain in the 1950s.
- Kim Newman's clever and mildly disturbing Andy Warhol's Dracula -- a a follow-up, though not a particularly recent one, to his Anno Dracula series -- about multiple characters from different fictional universes, including that of Dracula, hanging out with Andy Warhol in New York in the 1970s.
- Paul Magrs' very fine and splendid Something Borrowed -- the sequel to the equally fine and splendid Never the Bride -- about multiple characters from different fictional universes, including that of Dracula, meeting up at a B&B in Whitby in the present day.
- Newtons Sleep, the sixth (or seventh, or eighth, depending how you're counting) Faction Paradox novel and the first from new publishers Random Static. Which is just great, and which I should probably also say more about here soon.
- Iain M. Banks's Matter, which is fun so far, although if you've read the previous Culture novels it's rather noticeably more of the same. Still, there's a lot of incredibly detailed and imaginative worldbuilding, which it's always worth reading Banks-the-S.F.-writer for.
- Cloverfield, which is very clever and interestingly done, but not actually all that entertaining to watch, which is a bit of an oversight. It's rather lucky that they do keep the monster offscreen for most of the time, because when you actually see it it's a bit rubbish. (It also gave me terrible motion sickness, which has been happening more recently. I suspect this is the current cinematic trend towards low-tech verisimilitude, rather than my advancing age, but if it carries on I'm going to have to take travel-sickness pills before going to the cinema, which is silly.)
- Penelope. Christina Ricci -- whom the plot requires to be repulsively ugly -- is sexier as a pig-faced woman than I'd have imagined possible.
- Ashes to Ashes. That Keeley Hawes really isn't John Simm, is she?
- Torchwood, which, while more consistent this season, will have to do an awful lot of arse-gearing before I start feeling it's actually worth my while watching it. (That said, and presumably just to keep me paying attention, the episode Adam was blindingly good.)
I also, last weekend, met up with a cluster of friends whom I love a great deal and get far too sentimental about, together with assorted partners and a baby, to eat food, drink too much and talk random nonsense. Sadly B. was working at the weekend and couldn't come. The whole thing was thoroughly lovely, though, and put me in a far mellower mood after the weekend than I was at the end of last week. Or, unfortunately, this one.
I've also been listening to the Walkman I acquired at (though not for) Christmas. Now I've got over the "My god, it's the soundtrack to my life!" response which comes from stalking about the place with non-diegetic music sounding in your ears, I'm finding it's a good way of consuming the CDs of random audio drama I have lying about the place, as well as discovering quite how limited my music collection is. Recommended.
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