An Urban Fantasy

Damnation for Beginners

2012-01-12T16:52:00.000Z

A novella I wrote for Subterranean a while back has now been announced. "Damnation for Beginners" is a revenge story set in the Deepgate world between Cog City and Hell.

http://www.subterraneanpress.com/index.php/2012/01/07/alan-campbell-announcing-damnation-for-beginners/

Free eBook of "Lye Street"

2011-12-16T15:18:00.000Z

In the face of recent eBook price fixing by Apple and five of the leading publishers, I have decided to temporarily offer my novella "Lye Street" for free to anyone who wants to read it. I'm doing this to promote my other books and to bring readers to my new Facebook page.

"Lye Street" is a stand-alone novella which acts as a prequel to the Deepgate books.

The kindle version is currently selling on Amazon for $0.99c (currently 86p), and also on Smashwords for the same amount.

The original limited edition hardback can be found here.

If you want a free copy of "Lye Street", please visit http://www.facebook.com/UrbanFantasy for details. And if you want to "like" the page, that would be great.

Merry Christmas folks.

Facebook Page

2011-12-16T14:13:00.001Z

A friends of mine has started a Facebook page to promote my work.

http://www.facebook.com/UrbanFantasy

If any fans would like to like it, then that would be cool.

Mercury UFO Photo Analysis Reveals Spacecraft

2011-12-07T17:13:00.000Z

A series of photos from a Nasa telescope shows what some people believe to be an enormous, planet-sized spacecraft in the sky next to Mercury. The mysterious object becomes visible as a solar flare passes over it, leading some ufologists to believe that it is actually a cloaked spaceship.

Nasa scientists claim that the object is merely an artefact of their image processing system, caused when subsequent images are superimposed on previous ones to improve clarity.

However, independent image processing reveals something far more difficult to explain.

If we start with the clearest of the Nasa images:

The object appears to show two parallel cylindrical structures.

Now, things become interesting when one adjusts the contrast levels, sets the CMYK gauss overlay into the ultra-range to compensate for the inevitable Doppler IR bleed out and micro-pascal quasi-interference. When these adjustments are made, it is just possible to make out more details in the craft structure.

A darker band is just visible towards the top of the structure. Further sharpening and image rectification using a Pascallian Callanetic Shunt algorithm reveals yet more detail.

Now we are about at the limit of recoverable detail. We can, however, reduce the contrast, quadra-filter for UV, and lighten the bromine quanta waves, to give a much clearer version:

The resulting image definitely appears to be a craft of some sort. One can clearly see what appears to be twin "nacelles" towards the stern (possibly a propulsion system?) and a disc like structure at the bow, possibly housing the bridge and/or tactical systems. Both appear to be connected to a central "body" or "lower hull" - perhaps housing an engine, sleeping quarters, or cargo space.

In light of this new evidence, it is apparent that Nasa's pathetic "image processing artefact" explanation is simply an ill thought out cover story for what many of us have suspected for years: that there is, in fact, a planet-sized invisible space ship sitting next to Mercury.

Paying too much for your eBook?

2011-12-07T13:28:00.001Z

So it turns out that Apple, along with five of the worlds biggest publishers are being investigated for fixing the price of eBooks. Often - bizarrely - the eBooks cost more than the paper copies. Ian Rankin's THE IMPOSSIBLE DEAD is £7.79 for the hardcover, and a smidgeon under a tenner if you simply want the words but are prepared to forego the paper.

In my case, the digital version of SEA OF GHOSTS cost slightly less than the hardcover, but even that seems far too much to me. After all, with digital copies, there are no production costs whatsoever and virtually no distribution costs to take into account (simply maintaining servers and software). When I self published LYE STREET several months back, I priced it at 99 cents (about 80p), which was the lowest Amazon would permit me to sell it at. They still take 70%.

So why do some books cost more in this format? The government is partly to blame. VAT is charged at 20% on eBooks, but not real books. Why? Presumably because it is a handy source of revenue until enough people complain, and they are forced to stop it. While publisher price fixing appears to partly responsible, they can only charge these prices if enough people are prepared to pay them. That requires a large fan base. Authors like Ian Rankin and Stephen King already have large enough fan bases to make this sort of pricing feasible. Most other authors don't.

Almost every book in the Amazon Kindle Bestseller list is 99p. Those few titles that cost more are all by big name writers with millions of fans. For the rest of us writers, it seems to me that publishers have to bring down the price of our eBooks to compete in a very crowded marketplace.

CHRISTMAS MARKUP

2011-11-22T14:07:00.000Z

I've been looking for Christmas presents. One which looked like a good deal was on Groupon here:

I know a few women who might like this sort of thing. And it was reduced from £56.25 to £12.99, which is an apparent saving of 77%.

Knowing nothing about this sort of thing, I Googled the product, to see if it was any good.

And the supplier came up, here:

It seems to be the same product. The ingredients match. But, surprisingly, the masks only cost 51p from the supplier, so £2.55 for five, before shipping. £2.55 to £56.25. Not a bad markup!

Jet2.com Free Flights Scam

2011-11-18T16:00:00.000Z

Today I received a nice email from Jet2.com, reminding me that I have gathered enough loyalty points for a free flight anywhere in Zone 1 (Europe). These loyalty points work as follows:

Hurrah. Great news. In fact, the loyalty scheme was the reason I previously booked all my flights with Jet2.com. Now I had enough for a free flight!

I went to the website to check it out. And sure enough, no mistake:

But then there's always catches with these things. I checked the email again and found this in the small print.

FREE applies to base fare only. Ok, what is the base fare?

I tried a few days in Prague, flying from Edinburgh.

The base fare is £26.99 each way. So if you had to buy this flight, instead of getting it free with your loyalty points, it would only cost £53.98. Not too shabby, really.

But of course that's just the base fare.

You must then add the other fees Jet2 insist upon charging you. They charge you to check in and charge you to take your luggage with you and charge you to select a seat (mandatory, as far as I can tell) and charge you to book the ticket and then charge you to pay for it. They will also give you a couple of microwaved ready meals for £12, if you can bear that. I couldn't. This was all getting out of hand.

They call this "drip pricing" and it puts the costs up a bit:

£103.53. Your cheap airfare has suddenly doubled, which would be annoying if you didn't have the loyalty points to get the flight for free.

Doesn't bother me, because I have a free zone one flight:

Except, hang on... didn't it say something about applying to the base fare only?

And the base fare is only 2 x £26.99 = £53.98. Annoying. My free flight doesn't seem to be free any more.

£103.53 - £53.98 = £49.55.

My free flight now costs £49.55.

*Big grump*

Well, I suppose half price is better than no loyalty discount. So with wild abandon I clicked on the "Spend my Points" tab. I'm going to Prague in March for less than £50! That's still a good deal, even if my loyalty points aren't worth as much as I was told they would be. Of course I choose exactly the same flight I've already priced.

But then this happens:

Hang on, hang on...

Why is the base fare now 99p? It wasn't 99p a minute ago, when I checked the cost of the flight. Just to make sure, I went back and checked it again.

Yep. £53.98.
Some sort of weird glitch? Anyway, back to the "Spend my Points" tab.

Huh? There's definitely something funny going on here. If I want to pay in cash, the base fare is £26.99 each way. However, when I want to use my loyalty points to pay for the flight, the base fare drops to 99p each way.

*Bigger grump*

So how much is my free Jet2.com flight actually going to cost me now? Remember, it originally cost £103.53.

I went through the motions.

So, £103.53 if you pay by cash. But if you use your hard earned loyalty points to get the flight for free, it costs £101.48. A deduction of £2.05.

£101.48 for a FREE flight.

It seems I have been mislead. Jet2.com tell you you can save up your loyalty points and use them for free flights. They do this so that you will think it is a good deal and book through them. But by changing the base fare when you attempt to book your free flight, they ensure that your flight is not actually free at all.

GROTOX

2011-11-14T18:38:00.000Z

Quantum Levitation

2011-10-23T11:40:00.000+01:00

Tel-Aviv University demos quantum superconductors locked in a magnetic field (www.quantumlevitation.com). For an explanation of the physics behind this demonstration, visit www.quantumlevitation.com/levitation/The_physics.html.

It's Turner Prize Time Again.

2011-10-21T10:35:00.000+01:00

Movie Remakes

2011-10-05T13:44:00.000+01:00

In a recent article, film critic Barry Norman lamented the decline of creativity in the American film industry, which, he (quite rightly) states “hasn’t merely reached the bottom of the barrel, but has plunged right through it.” The problem? Hollywood is set to produce 30 remakes of 1980s films. Having exhausted most of the classics, and then the mediocre films, they now appear to be picking through whatever else is left: “Police Academy”, “Footloose”, “Cliffhanger”, “Drop Dead Fred” and “Porkys”.

Police Academy? Seriously?

Increasingly it seems that the American film industry operates on cycles of around 20 or 30 years. If you want to know what's going to be in the cinema next year, look back to find out whatever was showing three decades ago. At this rate we can look forward to revisiting “Avatar” and “Inception” in the twenty forties, along with the next batch of Trons, Clash of the Titans, Gladiators and Spidermans. Can you contain your excitement? I can.

Another disconcerting trend involves what Hollywood has taken to calling “reboots”. The “Hulk” reboot, the “Fantastic Four” reboot, the second “Planet of the Apes” reboot. A reboot appears to happen whenever a film doesn't generate the expected cash to justify making the numerous cash-generating sequels. Reboots are, essentially, remakes – except that they retain the concept or character (which they know is popular) and ditch the previous movie's story. That didn't translate to box office sales, so it never happened.

It's all about making safe money. There's an equation here. And there are people with calculators applying it to the back catalogue. “That one cost X million to make, and brought in Y million. We can remake it for this amount and it ought to bring in that amount. Those who haven't seen it will probably like it. And those who saw it 20 years ago might be tempted to see it again.” Y - X = Profit.

But doing this alienates half the viewing public. People might watch a remake of a film they fondly remember – but two, three, four of them? You get bored. What happens when there's nothing new at all, when a visit to the cinema means enduring one of “The Hollywood Hundred”, the set group of films that just cycle through remake after remake?

(With the exponential rise in computer power and the increasing complexity of computer graphics, we'll soon have digital Brad Pitts and Johnny Depps, indistinguishable from the real people, acting in the lead roles. Who do you want to see as the protagonist in “Alien: Reressurection”? Pick whoever you like, both versions of the film are showing in the same cinema, with digital Depp on screen three, digital Pitt on four.)

Like Mr Norman, I recently despaired. I don't go to the cinema nearly as often as I used to. Increasingly, there’s nothing worth watching. The last time I looked, my choice was “The Smurfs”, “The Smurfs 3D”, some animation about penguins, some other kids' films, and “Fright Night.” “Fright Night” had decent reviews, but is wasn't enough to tempt us. I've seen it before. I know the story. I might watch it on DVD, if there's nothing better available, but I'm sure as hell not driving into town and spending £20 to see it on the large screen.

It seems to me that the remake trend will continue for a while, but will ultimately dwindle. A lot of us are already fed up of remakes. As Hollywood films become increasingly repetitive – the same small clutch of ideas shown again and again – people will get bored, box office profits will slide, and the big studios will have to re-asses their business model. This is great news for Indie film makers, and for screenwriters. There's going to be a renaissance. The next big hits, the ones that make the most profit, aren't going to come from this slew of remakes, but will increasingly be low budget films that show viewers something they haven't seen before. At which point Hollywood will, hopefully, sit up and take notice.

M

2011-08-30T13:06:00.000+01:00

YARD SALE

2011-08-24T15:18:00.000+01:00

My partner's folks are having a yard sale on Saturday 27th August, 10am - 2pm. It's a huge clear out - acres of stuff from the house and several former businesses. Furniture, Kitchenware, Prints, Picture Frames, Boxes of Embroidery Supplies, Books, Toys, Games, Glassware, Bric-a-Brac, etc. It's on South Back Road in Biggar.

MAP HERE

#4

2011-08-18T17:21:00.000+01:00

#3

2011-08-17T16:07:00.002+01:00

#2

2011-08-16T02:32:00.000+01:00

Cartoons

2011-08-15T16:30:00.000+01:00

I've been working in my spare time with Canadian cartoonist, Ken Schotsch, creator of "Dingers". We are looking to find a home for these "one a day" cartoons. In the meantime, I'll post a few here.

We Own the Words

2011-08-10T13:34:00.001+01:00

Bethesda Softworks are suing the creators of a game called "Mineworks" over the title of thier new game. As Markus Persson explains on his blog, Bethesda, the software company behind the "Fallout" and "Morrowind" series, have taken exception to Mr Persson's plan to call his new game "Scrolls", which they say conflicts with their existing trademark "The Elder Scrolls".

So can you really own the rights to all the individual words used in a trademark? If Bethesda's lawyers are to believed, then presumably "The" and "Elder" are also out of bounds. That's going to cause a few problems, not least for Bethesda, who can't be the first company to trademark a title containing the word "The". What's going to happen if all media companies start suing each other in cases like this? Could I trademark the titles of my books? (Would I want to?) What about trademarking the entire texts?

Perhaps Bethesda's lawyers are touchy because the company has another "Elder Scrolls" game in development. Also in development is a game called "Rage". That's "Rage" - one word - and is presumably not based on the "Streets of Rage" trademark by Sega.

Name a Species

2011-07-20T17:26:00.000+01:00

A few months ago, the Guardian - along with Natural England - ran a "Name a Species Competition" in which they asked the public to come up with common names for 10 rare UK species. I'm delighted to discover that one of my suggestions was chosen.

This is Ophiura albida, the "Serpents' Table Brittle Star".

Congratulations to the other winners. Some great names there, particularly "Hotlips fungus", the overall winner. (The fungi belong to group called discomycetes, or "discos" for short, so you can actually have a "Hotlips disco".)

POETRY

2011-07-05T19:51:00.000+01:00

I'm told these were entries to a Washington Post Competition asking for a two line rhyme with the most romantic first line and least romantic second line.

1. My darling, my lover, my beautiful wife:
Marrying you has screwed up my life.

2. I see your face when I am dreaming.
That's why I always wake up screaming.

3. Kind, intelligent, loving and hot;
This describes everything you are not.

4. Love may be beautiful, love may be bliss,
But I only slept with you 'cause I was pissed.

5. I thought that I could love no other
-- that is until I met your brother...

6. Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you.
But the roses are wilting, the violets are dead, the sugar bowl's empty, and so is your head.

7. I want to feel your sweet embrace;
But don't take that paper bag off your face.

8. I love your smile, your face, and your eyes.
Damn, I'm good at telling lies!

9. My love, you take my breath away.
What have you stepped in to smell this way?

10. My feelings for you no words can tell,
Except for maybe 'Go to hell.'

11. What inspired this amorous rhyme?
Two parts vodka, one part lime.

Japan's New Supercomputer

2011-06-22T18:22:00.000+01:00

Japan's new "K" supercomputer has just taken the title of the world's fastest computer. It uses nearly 70,000 processors, occupies 672 cabinets, and consumes about six million pounds worth of electricity each year. Currently, it can handle 8.16 quadrillion operations per second, which will rise to 10 quadrillion operations when it's finished next year -- at which point scientists believe it will be capable of running Windows Vista smoothly.

Think of the Freedom it will give us.

2011-06-10T14:16:00.000+01:00

LYE STREET - ePub

2011-05-14T12:50:00.001+01:00

The ePub version of Lye Street is available on Smashwords, but I'd like people to please read this blog post before they think about downloading the novella.

I've had all sorts of problems with the Smashwords automatic conversion software. My first attempt to upload resulted in a Table of Contents that did not function. I reworked the source document and tried again. This time the ToC worked, but there were a few odd formatting problems (extra blank lines and so on). So I tried a third time. Now all seems correct except for one bizarre extra entry in the ToC - a second non-functioning link to Chapter One. This does not exist in the original doc, so I can't delete it. Frankly, I'm at a loss.

The problem is that every time I make a change, I have to reupload, and the file is put in a queue to be processed. This takes 2-3 days each time.

My problem might be that I don't use Microsoft Word. I use Open Office, which I find to be much more stable. This choice isn't even a question of cost, since I could buy MS Word and write it off as a tax deduction. I just happen to thoroughly dislike that word processor. But the Smashwords software is designed to work with MS Word documents, and the Open Office equivalent might be subtly different.

This time around, I have decided to leave LYE STREET up on Smashwords until I rectify this one tiny problem. The novella seems to me to be perfectly fine otherwise. So, if you don't mind one spurious link in the Table of Contents, then it is available for download. In the meantime, I will download a trial version of word and see if I can remove this extra link.

UPDATE - There are no hidden bookmarks in the word doc, nor anything that accounts for the replication of this Chapter One link. I can only assume it is an error in my ePub reader software.

Free Electricity from your Phone Line

2011-05-10T18:16:00.002+01:00

While researching the last book, I became interested in electronics and built a few simple projects in my spare time. This one in particular might be of use to folks out there, and is worth mentioning.

One of our relations lives off the grid and I've been helping him install a solar PV panel system. It occurred to me that while he had no grid electricity, he does have a phone line. Phone lines carry their own power. It's not much, about 1 watt, but that's better than nothing. I measured 48volts at about 20 milliamps. It's AC, so you need to rectify it. The following simple circuit works well enough.

You'll need to buy a phone extension cable. I got mine for £1. Then strip the wires. Black and Yellow carry the power, so connect those to your bridge rectifier, and you're set. 48V is good for 12 LEDS, which use about 3.8V each. The larger the resistor, the less light you'll get from your LEDs. But if your resistor is too small, the phone won't work. So you'll need to strike a balance. A 1k resistor worked for me. The phone sounds odd, but it still works.

My picture here really doesn't do the light justice. It's easily bright enough to read by, and dimly lights up the whole room at night.

But this isn't a very efficient circuit. LEDs don't need a constant supply. You can use a transistor to quickly pulse the DC current and get more light output for less amps. I think the next step would be to build a little transformer to step the 48v AC down to say 5 or 6 volts and then split the current between a series of mini Tesla coil circuits and use those to power CFLs wirelessly. I'll see how that goes, but in the meantime, I have a cool wee light - for free.

As far as I know, there's no law against using the power from your phone line.

Lye Street Epub Version

2011-05-10T11:09:00.000+01:00

I've followed all the advice (thanks guys) and used Calibre to produce an ePub Version of LYE STREET. I've also uploaded the novella to Smashwords, which itself creates an ePub version, among other formats. This will take a couple of days to come through, and it seems easiest just to sell it through them. I have to trust that their "Meatgrinder" software produces properly formatted versions, but I've followed their formatting procedure to the letter, so it should be fine.

I have tried to link this eBook to my others on Amazon, but it hasn't worked at all. So right now, Amazon customers can't find the novella from my page on their website.

Ok, now to send out those review copies.

LYE STREET is now available

2011-04-29T14:13:00.000+01:00

Ok, so the Kindle version of my novella is now up on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lye-Street/dp/B004YEXUMI/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304082334&sr=1-3

The Amazon website seems to have resized the cover, thereby losing part of the border, which I will try to rectify as soon as I can. If anyone would like a free review copy, please email me at alanmcampbell at gmail dot com, and I'll send you one.

I'll now see about creating an ePub version.

Thanks to everyone who offered advice and help. And congratulations to Will and Kate!

LYE STREET - Ready to go.

2011-04-28T14:41:00.001+01:00

Thanks to some advice from a friend, I have finally managed to get the Table of Contents working. In the end, it involved going through the HTML file and manually adding tags. Still, it seems to work well in the Kindle Previewer. The .prc file opens on the Prologue rather than the Copyright or Acknowledgement pages, but that's probably a good thing, since most people skip those anyway.

I have gone through the text three times now since the original publication, and I hope I've caught any typos. If anyone spots one, please let me know and I'll correct it (provided Amazon lets me do that).

Stefan, I'll take your advice and mention that this novella includes an excerpt from SEA OF GHOSTS. Aahzmandius, thanks for the tips. I'll look into using Sigil and Calibre for producing an ePub version, although this might take me a bit longer. I'll get the Kindle version up first.

All that remains now is to upload it and publish it, which is rather nerve-wracking I have to say. Normally there's a publisher between the work and the readers.

----

Update: I've uploaded it to Amazon now, so it should appear in 24 hours.

LYE STREET - An Experiment in Self Publishing

2011-04-27T16:47:00.001+01:00

A lot of people have asked me how they can get hold of my novella, LYE STREET, which was published by Subterranean Press as a limited edition. The simple answer is, unfortunately, that you can't unless you spend a lot of money. Copies of this little book are now selling for crazy prices.

So I had a thought. I'm going to try to publish LYE STREET myself, as an eBook through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing. I think it will be an interesting project. It will allow those fans who have eBook readers to get hold of the novella, and because LYE STREET is a prequel to the DEEPGATE CODEX it might also be a way to promote my other books.

The Amazon Kindle publishing process is a tad confusing, especially regarding formatting. So far, I've used an application called "Mobipocket Creator" to, well, create the required format from the original .doc file. After a few hours fiddling with paragraph spacing, it now looks fine in the Kindle Previewer. I've also edited the original manuscript to make things a little clearer for those who are new to the DEEPGATE CODEX. This version of LYE STREET will be the "writer's cut", if you like. In addition to this, I've included an excerpt from SEA OF GHOSTS, although this worries me slightly since it adds 30 pages to a 130 page novella. I'm concerned that readers might think LYE STREET is longer than it actually is. Perhaps I can clarify this in the blurb? Or should the excerpt be shorter? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

The cover was designed by Ian McQue. We opted for something simple, a design we hope will stand out as a thumbnail. I also wanted to make it clear that this is a novella rather than a novel. It looks like this:

Lacking a Kindle myself, I'm not sure if all eBooks require a Table of Contents. Can anyone help me out there? Should I put a Table of Contents at the beginning? It seems odd to include this for a single work of fiction, but then it might make it easier to navigate. I found an article which explains how it is possible to accomplish such a thing in MICROSOFT WORD, but I don't use MICROSOFT WORD, so it's left me baffled.

Then there's the issue of price. Amazon gives a 70% royalty rate for eBooks priced between $2.99 and $9.99, and 35% for those priced lower. $2.99 seems too high to me, so I think I'll opt for an initial price of $0.99, and see how that goes. I'm keen to see how pricing affects sales.

Anyhoo, I expect to publish the book in the next couple of days, so I'll keep you updated.

HBO's Adaption of Game of Thrones, and that NYT Review

2011-04-26T16:48:00.004+01:00

Critic Ginia Bellafante, who writes in the New York Times, has angered fantasy fans by suggesting that HBO's adaptation of George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones is 'is boy fiction patronizingly turned out to reach the population’s other half.'

She explains:

'The true perversion, though, is the sense you get that all of this illicitness has been tossed in as a little something for the ladies, out of a justifiable fear, perhaps, that no woman alive would watch otherwise.'

In other words: Action and gore for the boys, some sex for the girls. Stereotypes aside, this strikes me as odd, given that there has been – to date – far more bonking than bloodshed in Game of Thrones. Using this warped logic, it would make more sense to describe the series as 'girl fiction patronizingly turned out to reach the population's other half.' However, both these statements are naïve and condescending. Game of Thrones is so much better than that.

The overall tone of Bellafante's review is one of vaguely sneering condescension:

'The series claims as one of its executive producers the screenwriter and best-selling author David Benioff,' she writes, “whose excellent script for Spike Lee's post-9/11 meditation, “25th Hour,” did not suggest a writer with Middle Earth proclivities.'

'If you are not averse to the Dungeons & Dragons aesthetic, the series might be worth the effort.'

Such comments suggest different reasons for this critic's dismissal of HBO's production. What she is really saying is that no woman alive would watch this because it is fantasy. But what, exactly, is wrong with fantasy? Ms Bellafante explains:

'Since the arrival of “The Sopranos” more than a decade ago, HBO has distinguished itself as a corporate auteur committed, when it is as its most intelligent and dazzling, to examining the way that institutions are made and how they are upheld or fall apart: the Mafia, municipal government (“The Wire”), the Roman empire (“Rome”), the American West (“Deadwood”), religious fundamentalism (“Big Love”).
When the network ventures away from its instincts for real-world sociology, as it has with the vampire saga “True Blood,” things start to feel cheap, and we feel as though we have been placed in the hands of cheaters. “Game of Thrones” serves up a lot of confusion in the name of no larger or really relevant idea beyond sketchily fleshed-out notions that war is ugly, families are insidious and power is hot.'

Since all institutions are made, and then are either upheld or fall apart, then Ms Bellafante is saying that HBO is at its most intelligent and dazzling when it examines institutions. But only real world institutions. When those institutions are fictional, then it's somehow “cheating”.

This same attitude explains why so many publishers declined Orwell's Animal Farm. Talking pigs? Getoutahere! It seems to me that there are many people (often those with leanings towards literary fiction) who dislike, or have trouble accepting, fantasy because rather than simply holding up a mirror to human conflict, fantasy takes that conflict and applies to it a process of abstraction, whereupon the real world is often viewed through the lenses of metaphor, analogy, allegory or satire. These are lenses of the imagination. Some people have no trouble peering through them, but others struggle. They see no worth in examining human conflict or human institutions if they are presented outside recognisable real-world parameters. What's the point of imagining anything beyond our own experience? Dragons?Fairies? Minotaurs? Gods? Giant Beanstalks? Talking wolves and magical glass slippers? Getoutahere! Such foolishness, they seem to snigger, has no real value. I disagree, of course. But then, I, like all fantasy readers, have this odd ability to suspend disbelief, to let myself wander happily through places that I know don't exist. It's one of the benefits of having an imagination.

Game of Thrones, like all stories, is about people. It's about conflict, power and love. It does have dragons in it. And it is superb.

And the Best Scary Book Cover From the 1960s Goes to...

2011-04-21T15:16:00.004+01:00

I love these pulpy horror and fantasy covers from the 60s and 70s. This one is a classic. I actually bought this book on the strength of that cover. Genius.

Teleporting Breakthrough as Scientists Transport Light Particles.

2011-04-16T13:50:00.001+01:00

Scientist Noriyuki Lee and his team at the University of Tokyo have teleported the information associated with a packet of light, as Clara Moskowitz from livescience.com explains:

“Lee and his team accomplished this by linking a packet of light to one half of a pair of entangled particles. They then destroyed the light and the particle it was linked to, leaving only the lone particle of the entangled pair. The remaining particle retains the link with its entangled partner, though, including information about the light, which enabled the researchers to rebuild the light in the exact configuration at the other location.”

Read the full article here.

I mention this because quantum entanglement is, of course, one of those odd quirks of nature utilised by the Unmer in SEA OF GHOSTS – as several readers have been quick to notice and point out to me. One school of Unmer sorcery involves the actual transference of matter, but more commonly the information associated with matter (feelings, perceptions), across gulfs of space.

One of the things I love about writing fantasy is that you can bend reality to suit the world you want to create. In the novel, a treasure hunter postulates that Unmer sorcery is only possible if Space itself is redefined. As a writer, it's easy enough for me to do exactly that if the story requires it. So, in SEA OF GHOSTS Space becomes a measure of both the distance and the difference over time between any two particles (Space is waveform), which is handy because it means that all sorts of Unmer magic is suddenly possible – if there's no difference between two things, there is no space between them (giving us quantum entanglement, the transmission of perceptions between people, and perhaps even the summoning of demons or other god-like creatures from strange realms). Very handy indeed.

However, in the book I have tried my very best to ground this definition, so that it isn't so far removed from what we as readers actually know about our own cosmos. Otherwise it simply becomes too implausible. It therefore seemed important to me that the character who comes up with this theory uses it to understand not just sorcery, but the workings of his own universe (and by association, our universe). So readers will, I hope, recognise his references to black holes, cosmic inflation, the theories of Sir Roger Penrose, the formation of singularities, and so on. The latter was a particularly useful aspect of this character's definition, because it means that the heat death of the universe forms a singularity, since when isolated bits of matter stop fluctuating they suddenly occupy the same space. Kaboom. Hopefully, all of this is enough to make the reader think, Ok, I can just about buy that.

It is all pre-Einstein, of course, which – thankfully – allows me to get away with a lot. Gravitons? What Gravitons? X and Y bosons? Sorry, buddy, I'm writing Fantasy, not SF. Physics only has to act as the springboard from which we jump into the pool – which is all the more important, it seems to me, if that pool contains dragons.

GRRM on Fantasy Series and Genre Boundaries.

2011-04-15T14:36:00.001+01:00

There's a nice interview with George R. R. Martin in the Guardian today (oh, how I wish the interviewer had been given more space; I could happily listen to Mr Martin all day).

Oddly enough, someone mentions my name in the comments section (it's weird when that happens, but that's beside the point).

George R. R. Martin is, in my opinion, one of the three pillars of contemporary fantasy. The other two are Steven Erikson and Stephen Donaldson. I had the opportunity to tell Steven Erikson this myself, when I met him at a conference in Poland last year. (I'm a huge fan.) The series these three writers have created – the Malazan, Thomas Covenant, and Fire and Ice tales – are some of the best I've ever read. As good as Tolkien or your money back.

It's interesting to read GRRM's approach to writing such a long series. He describes writers as either architects or gardeners – those who have everything planned beforehand, and those who know what they've planted, but aren't entirely sure how it's going to turn out. GRRM explains that he's a gardener – which, given the complexity and quality of the work he produces, is an enormous relief to those of us who write in a similar “let the story go where the characters take it” way. It shows what is possible.

It's also heartening to discover that a writer who has been at this game so long has witnessed a change in the fantasy genre. The snobbery surrounding it is lifting. Genre boundaries continue to be broken down – something that GRRM himself continues to strive for (music to my ears, of course). Great writers like Tolkien have carved such deep grooves into the landscape of fantasy, that it seems to me to be all too easy to slide into them and simply follow their well-worn courses. After all, lesser imitations can often flourish within such channels, provided they are competently written.

But is that really fantasy?

George R. R. Martin once said, “The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams."

I've said before that writing fantasy is akin to dreaming, which is why I dislike genre boundaries. Dreams are, after all, unrestrained. Fantasy has to startle and amaze, and so I try my very best to write about people and places that startle and amaze me. That's really all I can do. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any point in me writing fantasy at all.

Kindle Post

2011-04-07T13:57:00.002+01:00

I was asked to contribute to Amazon's Kindle Blog, and I see they've put it up. As usual, I wish I could edit it, but it's too late now.

http://www.kindlepost.co.uk/

But I would also like to direct readers to a post by Justin Cartwright below it, where he talks about being a realist, and thus unable and unwilling to write in a genre such as fantasy. He doesn't decry the genre, but merely states that his writing needs a tangible starting point - a place he knows, people he understands, language he is familiar with - and is therefore ill-suited to the genre.

As a fantasist myself, I find this extremely interesting, not least because I feel exactly the same way about my writing as Justin Cartwright does about his. I couldn't write fantasy without those very same tangible starting points. However, writing fantasy - at least in my opinion - involves taking real world experiences and then putting them through a process which is akin to dreaming. You end up with a story that has hoovered up the everyday world and produced a series of metaphors that you, as the writer, recognise because they are personal to you. All you've done is added some colour. It's a process that, for reasons I can't explain, greatly appeals to me (as it must do to other writers in my genre).

So it's got me thinking again about why writers are drawn to certain genres, and what really lies behind the choices we make. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to one day sit down with a realist (in the literary sense) and discuss this.

A Note to Junk Mail Senders

2011-04-06T11:51:00.006+01:00

[edit]
I just had thought. Please feel free to print this letter out and mail it to any company sending you junk mail. I'm sure it's probably legal.

---

[YOUR NAME]
[YOUR ADDRESS]

Dear [COMPANY NAME],

Great news! I have decided to start an "Advertising Mail Review Service". Do you want to find out what consumers really think of your unsolicited mails? Well, now you can! At a bargain cost of only £999 per mailing*, I will produce a one page report telling you exactly what I, as a weary consumer, think of it. The report will cover every aspect of your communication, including impact and spelling.

So how do you become eligible for this amazing offer?

It's easy! You don't have to do a thing. All unsolicited junk mail I receive after [TODAY'S DATE], will be eligible. Indeed, to make the process as simple as possible for you, I will consider every single piece of unsolicited junk mail that I receive from you after the 10th April 2011 to be a formal request to engage my services. Please remember only to send me advertising mail if you agree to pay the £999* report fee. You can opt out of this service at any time -- simply stop sending me endless mounds of flipping junk.

Thank you,

[YOUR NAME].

*excluding VAT.

---

(If this fails, the alternative might be to see if its possible to get your name on every junk mailing list in the country, thereby receiving enough paper to fuel a wood burning stove for the entire winter. Just a thought.)

Seeing Yet More Ghosts

2011-04-01T12:03:00.002+01:00

Ok, it's now April Fool's Day, which means it's the official release date for SEA OF GHOSTS and I will have a glass of wine later tonight to celebrate. I've promised that I'll blog more, which is going to be difficult, because I hate blogging and I'm rubbish at it. And the idea of Tweeting or Twittering or whatever you call it just makes me want to bang my head against my desk and cry "oh god, no."

Last weeks Sunday Times had a Viz Top Tip about tweeting, which read:

Twitter: every year reduce by one the permitted number of characters. That way, by 2151, the nightmare will have ended.

That sums up how I feel.

I should talk about the new book. It's the start of a new series, which is very (and I do mean *very*) loosely based on the Deepgate stuff. Blink and you'll miss the connection. All this means is that you don't need to have read the Deepgate series first (but you should buy it anyway).

With this series I wanted to do something a bit different. A few people have pointed out that Deepgate was a pretty dark place. Not the sort of town you'd want to be stuck in without specialist training. With The Gravedigger Chronicles, I wanted to lighten things up. First and foremost, I wanted it to be an adventure story. I also wanted to focus on fewer viewpoint characters. So this time round there are, I think, only four.

Furthermore, I've opted to include magic in a more overt way. But I have a problem with this. Magic in fantasy is colourful, powerful, awe-inspiring, yes, and yet it I always find it just a little frustrating. There's always a voice in the back my mind saying "How does this actually work? Everyone's learning it, but why isn't anyone actually trying to figure out the nuts and bolts of it?" The magic in Deepgate stemmed from Hell, which was, more often than not, simply the manifestation of subconscious fears and desires. At least I think that's what it was, but I haven't read those books in a while, so please do feel free to buy them, read them, and correct me.

We have magic in the real world, but we call it science. Electricity, magnetism, quantum physics - beautiful, jaw-droppingly awe-inspiring stuff. And yet we spend billions and devote lifetimes to trying to unravel the secrets of the cosmos around us. So why do characters in Fantasy so often accept magic without question? Why does Frodo never ask, "Cool ring, but how exactly does it make you invisible?" To me that's akin to never wondering why the big yellow ball goes away at night.

In SEA OF GHOSTS, the treasure hunter and metaphysicist Ethan Maskelyne (named after the Reverend Dr Neville Maskelyne) takes on this burden. It's a small part of the book, and possibly inconsequential to the main story. The point is, it doesn't really matter if he does manage to figure out how his particular cosmos works, the important thing - to me at least - is that he's trying.

Oh, and to celebrate April Fools Day, I will give one million pounds to whoever buys the next copy of SEA OF GHOSTS.

SEA OF GHOSTS

2011-03-29T15:07:00.003+01:00

After a minor glitch with the supply, the hardcover is now available to buy on Amazon. I noticed there's a quote from a bookseller review, which I haven't seen. Did I put a metallic dragon in the book? I'm trying to think of where and when I might have slipped such a thing in, but it's leaving me scratching my head.

Now all that remains is to see if anyone buys it. Personally, I'm very pleased with this book. And Larry Rostant's cover is just sublime. If I didn't already know how the story ends, I'd buy it myself on the strength of that cover. Heck, maybe I will.

I've been very lucky with covers. I absolutely loved Dominic Harman's work, too.

Anyhow, now the book is out, I'll do my usual and avoid returning to the amazon page. I just can't read reviews. I worry too much. Reading a bad review is like finding out they're going to open a Methadone clinic next to the house you've just built and put up for sale.

That said, I'm aware that there are reviews out there already, and I'd like to thank those of you who have taken the time to read the book and let others know what you thought of it. I genuinely mean that, whether you gave the book a good review or a good review.

For anyone thinking about buying Sea of Ghosts, how about going through a nice indie bookshop? We need to support these guys. Without indie bookshops, the world would be like ITV. Imagine the horror.

http://www.atkinson-pryce.co.uk/
http://www.transreal.co.uk/

Back to work now.

p.s

If you run an indie bookshop and want to put a link in the comments here, please do so. Although, since I haven't updated this blog since September, and nobody reads it anymore, it isn't going to do a sodding thing for advertising.

p.p.s

If this book doesn't sell, I shall be tempted to ask Katie Price to ghostwrite the next one, which will either be about baking, Simon Cowell, or a cartoon rat.

Sea of Ghosts

2010-09-12T17:25:00.002+01:00

Today I noticed that "Sea of Ghosts" is available for pre-order on the interweb. This is the first in a new fantasy series, which I've had the luxury of planning in advance. I have actually finished writing it, but it's not available until April next year, so you'd have to be a utterly mad to order it now. The story begins with a man compelled to imprison his own family, and then heads off on a high-seas adventure, dipping a toe into dragon territory, with a quick nod to Nikola Tesla. The wonderful cover art is by Larry Rostant.

I'm not in the best of moods, which is why I shouldn't be blogging, but is almost always the only reason why I end up blogging. I'm laid up at home right now, recovering from some minor surgery, and the constant day long, night long pain is starting to make me want to hit things. The television, mostly. After you've had bits cut out of you, the nurse asks you to describe pain on a scale of one to ten, ten being the most excruciating torment you can imagine, and one being – I don't know, stubbing your toe. Having come away from the ward with a box of paracetamol, I now really, really wish I hadn't said "four" at the time. If I'd said "eleven" they might have given me morphine. But here's the thing – everyone has a different experience of pain, so how do you quantify it? And if, like me, you're stupid enough to give the wrong answer, do you actually miss out on the really juicy drugs? I'm plagued by images of patients who came away with bags of Vicodin after barking out "ten". In my head, these are the same people who watch Jeremy Kyle.

My only real encounter with severe pain prior to this was a trapped nerve in my spine, which was such an absolute bastard of agony that I passed out. But that's not a ten. I've seen the footage of wounded soldiers flown back from Afghanistan. That's a ten. Being simultaneous roasted over an open flame, flogged, and electrocuted is a ten. That's the sort of thing I was thinking of, during my post anaesthetic haze, when I said "four".

I can't move very far without assistance, and I find it difficult to concentrate on reading or writing at the moment, so I've been watching more TV in the last few days than is good for the brain. During this time, I've somehow managed to develop a very real and profound hatred of confused.com. Adverts are created by evil people who think you are a moron. Usually they try to hide this fact as carefully as BT tries to hide the price of whatever product it is currently flogging. I find it bizarre, for an industry that is supposed to be creative, that so many adverts display a complete lack of imagination. How do the people who come up with them keep their jobs?

The thing that gets me about the particular assault from confused.com is that it is so utterly unimaginative it becomes patronising. What was the design meeting like?

"So, how do we sell this car insurance comparison product? It's not exactly exciting stuff. Let's have some blue-sky thinking, people."

The creative types are sitting around a table. They are wearing scruffy-chic, unconventional clothing, the odd burst of colour against a beige cardigan, striking print dresses. This sort of attire is encouraged, as is using terms like "blue sky". The men have short, quirky trimmed beards and thick-framed narrow rectangular glasses. The women wear identical glasses. There is a white board, a push-button coffee machine, and a funky red beanbag in the corner for when you just have to flop. On the wall are a series of black and white photographs of puddles.

"I've got it!" Florence says. "We can show people having fun, smiling and dancing in ecstasy as they celebrate the product."

Gareth looks up. He's trembling slightly. "Yes," he says. "Yes, yes, yes.. that will make the product appear exciting and, simultaneously, accessible to people. Get it on the white board."

Nods all round.

"Is that lunch, then?"

I don't know I despair more about the lack of creativity, or the fact that there are enough morons in this country who don't feel patronised and are actually persuaded to buy or use these products. Then again, maybe it's just the pain speaking. I have to stop watching TV.

Voice Recognition Elevator

2010-08-23T11:12:00.000+01:00

This is great.

Eurocon 2010

2010-08-22T12:16:00.004+01:00

I'm off to Eurocon this week courtesy of my Czech publishers. The convention takes place in Cieszyn and Český Těšín, two sister towns straddling the Czech-Polish border. On Saturday I'll be joining Orson Scott Card, Andrzej Sapkowski, Michał Wnuk, Steven Erikson, and Piotr W. Cholewa on a panel exploring "how to handle a saga". Given some of the names in attendance, I suspect I'll be the quiet one at the end of the table, taking notes.

The Next Book

2010-06-08T14:23:00.004+01:00

I finished the next book, which, after many late nights, fingernail biting, and moments of white-screen despair, is finally with my editor. This is part of a new fantasy series. My original title for the book doesn't really seem to fit any more, so that's out of the window. Now I just have to think of a new one.

Of course the book still has to go through the editing process. But that's the best part of writing. There are no more blank pages to fill, only characters to tweak, plot elements to adjust, and prose to improve.

And then I need to take a holiday.

2010

2010-01-06T12:07:00.002Z

Happy New Year to you all. It's been snowing here in the Scottish Borders for about three weeks, off and on, and we currently have about a foot and a half of the white stuff lying on the ground. All very picturesque. All the usual traffic chaos. The BBC is devoting all its news time to "Frozen Britain." The country seems to have ground to a halt. If only people living in places like Canada or Scandinavia could see our news reports. I think they'd laugh.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T13:03:00.002Z

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday, and a great New Year.

Best Wishes,

Alan.

Another Story Competition

2009-12-21T16:10:00.002Z

It's the BBC again, this time looking for extraordinary true stories. Fifteen of the best will feature in a new TV series. Five people "win the chance to have their stories turned into books with an advance of £20,000." I'm not sure what they mean by "win the chance", or how many of the five will actually be turned into books, but £20,000 isn't bad.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mystory/

Anyone with a current publishing contract is not allowed to enter -- which rules me out. Not that I have the time to spare anyway (or much in the way of extraordinary true stories that anyone would be remotely interested in).

Christmas Story Competition

2009-12-19T12:15:00.004Z

BBC's The One Show are holding a Christmas story competition. Entries must be 200 words or less, and reach them by noon on Monday. You can enter online. The winning story will be read out live on air by the great Bernard Cribbins.

I had a go myself, but my story is too long at 300 words. So I thought I'd post it here. I'm not convinced it really captures the spirit of Christmas anyway.

-- Jason and Cressilda --

Once upon a time a little boy and a little girl were wandering through a forest at night. The air was crisp and clear and the snow lay in soft white hummocks beneath the pines. The two children were named Jason and Cressilda, and they each carried a present they had wrapped carefully in bright paper.

"We can't give him two scarves," said Jason.

Little Cressilda ran to catch up with her big brother, who was so much taller than she. "I made mine specially. You just bought yours in a shop."

"At least mine is red," Jason said. "He only wears red, you know."

"I didn't have any red wool," Cressilda replied glumly.

Jason just laughed and marched ahead.

At last they came to glittering clearing among the trees. All was dark and silent. Jason strode on out into the centre and gazed up at the stars. "We'll be able to spot him from here."

But then he heard a sudden cracking sound under his feet. The snow had been hiding a frozen pool. The ice broke and he fell through into freezing water. He tried to climb out, but his hands kept slipping.

Cressilda tore open her parcel and threw the end of her scarf to her brother, who held on tightly and managed to pull himself out. He sat on the ice for a long moment, shivering and gasping for breath. Finally he hung his head and moaned. "I lost my present."

"We can still give him mine," Cressilda said, "it can be from both of us."

Jason picked up the wet, miserable clod of wool that had been Cressilda's scarf. "You can't give him this thing now," he said. "Look at the state of it." He tossed it into the water.

Cressilda began to sob quietly.

Three years later she died of leukaemia.

Life as a Writer

2009-12-17T17:57:00.005Z

My brother Neil phoned me from the SFF section of a bookshop in Brighton, asking for any recommendations. Someone standing nearby overhead him and said, "The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss."

Neil asked me my opinion.

"I haven't read it," I replied. "But I've heard it's really good."

And then the passer-by asked Neil if he could recommend a book in turn.

Neil picked a copy of Scar Night from the shelf and handed it to him. "The author's on the phone," he said, "if you want to speak to him."

I remember feeling suddenly uneasy. He's going to feel obliged to buy my book now. What if he hates it?

---

My phone woke me at 3am. Groggily, I answered. It was Neil.

"I'm at a party," he said. "Ian Rankin is here. Do you want to talk to him?"

"Eh?" Before I had a chance to figure out what was happening, a new voice came over the phone. Now, I've never spoken to Ian Rankin, but I know that he's Scottish. And the accent in my ear was about about as far from being Scottish as the White Cliffs of Dover.

Neil, the bastard, had woken me up at 3am to speak to some random dude at a party who – for some unfathomable reason – was pretending to be Ian Rankin. They were probably all pissed, and I was not happy. I can't remember exactly what I said to – or possibly shouted at – the unfortunate guy, but I think I made it clear that I thought his accent was ridiculous and he wasn't fooling anyone. Then I hung up.

Flipping cheek.

But as I calmed down, I realised that Neil hadn't said "Ian Rankin" at all. He'd said "Robert Rankin", the very successful Brighton-based Fantasy author.

I met Robert a few months later and apologised.

---

I played Monopoly with my agent, Simon, and my partner, Caragh. It was an ancient Monopoly set and most of the money had been replaced by bits of paper with the denominations scrawled across them. I knew Simon was cheating, and he knew I was cheating. At every opportunity we snatched street cards and notes from the bank, completing sets by subterfuge.

As the game went on, the cheating became more blatant and outrageous. Whole sets vanished into our hands. Mortgaged properties mysteriously flipped round again. Hotels sprung up when nobody was looking.

Caragh refused to play with us any more.

We finished the evening by pinging little green Monopoly houses into the fire.

---

A friend I've not seen for a while emailed me. He'd been given the task of looking after an independent assessor assigned to his workplace. Chatting with the guy, my friend discovered that he was an avid SFF fan and was currently halfway through Scar Night. So he asked him what he thought of it. The guy said he was really enjoying it, and planned to buy the second book.

These are the little things that make this job worthwhile.

---

Another friend emailed me from Canada to say he'd seen a couple of my books in a shop over there. I didn't know you could buy them in Canada. Little things again.

---

When Simon phoned to tell me that Bantam had bought the US rights to Scar Night, I was on holiday in Paris, standing on top of the Eiffel Tower.

---

We had the launch for Scar Night in Edinburgh. Iain Banks came along, and then very kindly took us all out to his favourite Indian restaurant for a curry. Between courses, a few of us nipped out for a sly cigarette with Iain.

After Iain went back inside, my partner's dad Jim, said, "I've been reading his book about whisky. The strange thing is, I'd just last night finished the part where he talks about nipping outside this restaurant for a sly cigarette."

---

The day after the book launch, I drove Hal Duncan, my editor Peter Lavery, and my agent Simon Kavanagh back to my place, which is out in the country. The sun was shining and Hal and Simon sang "Road to Amarillo" in ridiculously loud voices.

Whenever I hear that song now, it makes me smile.

---

I travelled to London once to have my photo taken for a magazine. The photographer was one of the most interesting people I've ever met. He'd photographed Mother Teresa, Donald Trump and Kylie Minogue, and, while I could have listened to his stories for hours, I felt like I owed him an apology for him having to travel across London to take a picture of me.

I dislike having my picture taken at the best of times, but its worse when the photographer is a professional and they have all the Paparazzi-style flashes and lenses, and it's out in public somewhere. The passers-by are all thinking "Who is that idiot? I don't recognise him."

At moments like these you are very aware of your cheap suit jacket.

---

Ghosts have been seen at my editor's villa in Italy. It's an old, old house, but very beautiful. One guest claims to have seen a whole family standing around his bed in the dead of night.

Simon and I were sitting in the living room one evening, drinking wine, when I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye – a shadow seemed to have just darted across the hallway. A short while later, it happened again. I couldn't tell you what shape it was, just that it was dark and moved quickly. But whenever I'd turned to look, there was nothing there.

I mentioned this to Simon, who claimed to have seen it himself.

We decided to have a séance.

The Scrabble board supplied the letters. We upturned a glass to use as a planchette.

"Is there anybody there?"

The glass under our fingers began nudging letters. YES.

"Where are you?"

SHEOL.

This is the abode of the dead. (I Googled it). Now this meant that spirits really do exist, or that Simon had been steering the glass. Therefore, it had to be Simon. He denied it vigorously. I persisted. He continued to deny it. I had another think about this. Spirits of the dead? No, it had to be Simon.

Okay. Finally he admitted it.

The next day I sneaked up to his room while he was out. I took a piece of string and threaded it through the gap between the door and the frame, and then ran it across the front of one of the bookshelves next to the door. Finally I looped the string behind a tatty old paperback and sandwiched the end between two other books. In this way, one could pull on the string from outside the door, thus causing the paperback to leap from the shelf.

My trap set, I waited until dark.

After Simon went to bed, I crept out into the hall and yanked the string.

From the other side of the door came the satisfying thud of the book landing on the floor.

The next day we got to speaking about ghosts again. Simon told me what had happened. Frustratingly, he wasn't the nervous wreck I'd been hoping for. All these things have a rational explanation, after all.

If you're reading this Simon, sorry about that.

The Literary Taliban

2009-12-13T15:06:00.004Z

Fellow Tor writer Anthony Huso emailed me the other day to let me know his website was up and running. Anthony is a newly-published fantasy author with whom I've been corresponding. As I looked at his website, these thoughts went through my head:

Hmm... Nice graphics... What does the blog say...? Uh huh... Woah.

His post about rejection stopped me dead.

Here Anthony talks briefly about his efforts to find an agent. One of the agents he approached sent him this reply:

"Seeing as how I find fantasy to be ridiculous and genre writing wholly without merit, I don’t think I’d be the right person to represent you."

Ridiculous? Without merit?

Okay.

All fiction is fantasy, because it is made up, but let's not go there. This agent clearly means fantasy in the sense of fiction that is – in some major way – unconstrained by reality: works that utilise settings, creatures or even natural laws that are plainly not, never have been, and – crucially – never could be, part of the real world. If you remove that last proviso, you get Science Fiction. The worlds depicted in Iain M Banks's Culture novels or Cormac McCarthy's The Road are entirely fictional. For a reader to accept either of these settings enough to enjoy the story requires a degree of trust in the author, and some imagination. Just how much imagination depends on both the strangeness of the world and the author's ability to paint it.

Of all the genres, fantasy seems to me to represent the greatest departure from reality. Yes, it requires the reader to suspend disbelief and use his imagination. And, yes, there's a lot of crap out there, just as there is in any other corner of the bookshop. But to dismiss fantasy outright is narrow minded and snobbish. What do we gain by restricting our literature to what we can perceive, rather than what we can imagine? Impossible worlds? Monsters and magic? Milton, Homer, and Shakespeare did not find them too ridiculous to write about. The Literary Taliban might look down on Fantasy with a vague air of contempt, but I think our culture would be so much poorer without Beowulf, without dragons, Titans, Oberon and Puck, vampires, hellfire and Quidditch.

Anyhoo, I urge you to have a look an Anthony's site. There's no Quidditch to be found, but there are other ideas to fire the imagination, which is, after all, what fantasy is all about.

WRITERS UNBLOCKED

2009-10-20T12:35:00.002+01:00

As part of the Biggar Little Festival, Edinburgh-based Writers' Bloc (of which I am a part-time member) join forces with Biggar Writers tonight for an evening of radical readings, hubris and hilarity.

If you're in the area, we hope to see you there.

Talking Piano

2009-10-11T14:17:00.001+01:00

This is pretty cool.

Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe

2009-09-30T00:51:00.002+01:00

I don't watch much TV, and I never know what's on, but when a programme about Video Games came on tonight – and I realised I'd worked on a couple of these games – I decided to watch. Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe covered the history of video games, from Pong and Jet Set Willy to the latest 3D slaughterfests. I found myself watching footage of a US news anchorman lambasting GTA, because you could "pick up a prostitute, have sex with her, and then beat her to death with a baseball bat."

Here's the original video from youtube.

It was odd listening to that, because I remember the afternoon I added the "sex with a prostitute" element to GTA. (It first appeared in GTA 3, not GTA IV, which I had nothing to do with). I was coding the pedestrians: the bystanders, cops, gang members, hookers and so on. Our producer, Les, had asked me to increase the health of the player and deduct some cash when a hooker got into the car. I thought it would be funnier (and remember GTA was supposed to be funny) to add a bit more action, to imply that the player was actually getting something for his money.

The problem was, we didn't have any animations for that sort of thing. And because sex wasn't in the design document or schedule, I wasn't likely to get an artist to create the necessary animations for me. Instead, I went to our sound guy, Stuart, and asked him to make a squeaking sound, the sort of noise that would be made by a car's suspension bouncing up and down. I think it took him about 15 minutes. Armed with my squeaking sound, I wrote a piece of code that, under certain circumstances, applied a force repeatedly to one corner of the car. So whenever you had a hooker in a car, and the car had stopped, and the car wasn't on a road or pavement (meaning you had to be somewhere quiet, such as an alley or a park), and the car wasn't a convertible (there was no animation, and I didn't want the player to know that there was no animation), a sequence would begin whereupon the car would start to bounce up and down and create the illusion that the occupants were having a good time.

The code I wrote was undoubtedly silly, with variables such as HUMP_RATE and ORGASM_TIMER (I don't remember the exact terms, but you get the idea). But I thought the on-screen result was funny. Our producer thought it was funny, too, and so we kept it in the game.

The thing is... at no point did it occur to me that you could kill the prostitute afterwards and get your cash back. Of course you could kill anyone in GTA, and rob them. I knew that. But it certainly wasn't my plan to "pick up hooker, have sex with her, then beat her to death." Someone else managed to figure that one out (the US anchorman perhaps?) and then spin it in a way to make it sound like a deliberate design feature. It wasn't. The GTA series are "sandbox" style games where you can do whatever you like.

Charlie Brooker's TV programme showed the original GTA, too. There was footage of cars colliding with other cars. Bizarrely, I found this really stressful to watch. One of my tasks on the first GTA was to re-code the collision detection system, and it never really worked as well as I wanted it to. So even now, after all these years, I found myself tensing up when one vehicle hit another – just in case it broke the game.

What an odd thing to watch.

Anyhoo

2009-08-21T00:16:00.002+01:00

Newbie Night at the Fringe was a great success. We had some of the guys reading their stories from "The Small Print", along with a fine excerpt from fantasy book reminiscent of "Dune", bitchy drag queens("like a Woman's Institute meeting with the bass turned up"), and some very Scottish superheroes read by our own Kirsti from the Edinburgh writers' group.

Reading in public is scary. I know this. I used to be terrified of doing it. So I was watching out for shaking hands, breathless pauses, and of course the ultimate -- complete corpsification on stage. Where did I hear that word? Gav?

Gavin Inglis organised the event (all the www.underword.co.uk events) and began the evening by reading a story he'd written when he was nine, an SF tale in which a spaceship plunges into a black hole only to encounter an enormous set of gnashing metal teeth.

Nobody died on stage. Most people actually looked very confident indeed, which is amazing when you consider how packed the place was. Well done.

Anyhoo, there are lots more writerly and readerly events to come. So if you're in Edinburgh, get down there. I'd be there every night myself if I didn't live so far away.

See? I'm back on topic already.

Sod it.

2009-08-21T00:05:00.002+01:00

I was pretty angry earlier about the release of the Lockerbie bomber, so I posted a political rant which really had no place on a fantasy blog. I swore I'd stop doing things like that because it always starts a debate in the comments that I never have time to keep up with. Please do hit me if I do it again. I'll stick to apolitical topics.

Edinburgh Book Festival

2009-08-19T13:26:00.002+01:00

I keep forgetting I'm supposed to maintain a blog, what with real life happening all the time. There's been a lot to think about. Work on the next book continues. My characters are behaving themselves, mostly, and I've battered my plot with a stick until I know where it's going. I'm doing something a bit different with this book, something that I really can't talk about, but that I hope proves to be interesting and fun, even if it was utterly pointless mentioning it.

The Edinburgh book festival has started. The opening party was fine. Highland Park sponsored it, so free malt whisky all round, making me a happy Scot. Only a few faces I recognised, but it was nice to chat with Ken MacLeod and Joe Gordon among others. There was also a large man with enormous hair, who I don't know but keep seeing at literary events. Every time I see him, I feel an urge to introduce myself because his hair is so huge. I don't know why I should feel that way.

I'll be giving a workshop on writing fantasy this Friday -- a sort of Rough Guide for writers to bring with them to imaginary places -- so I've been working hard on refining that. If anyone reading this is attending, I look forward to meeting you, and I sincerely hope I can inspire you.

If you're in Edinburgh during the festival, I strongly recommend http://underword.co.uk/
Tonight is the "Newbie Night", during which a number of local writers will be reading in public for the first time. There must be a lot of shredded nerves in the capital this afternoon. I'll be prowling around the back, ready to thump hecklers. It's at Finger's Piano Bar, and drinks are £4 a pint. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Back to work now. See you at underword, or on Friday, or maybe never.

Book Launch V3.0

2009-07-21T21:46:00.003+01:00

The book launch for "God of Clocks" will be held at Waterstones, at the West End of Princes Street in Edinburgh. It's at 6pm on Thursday the 23rd July. Anyone who wants to come along is welcome. You can get (free) tickets by phoning Waterstones on 0131 226 2666. But you will probably have to listen to me speak, for which I apologise.

I should really be blogging more, but I never seem to get round to it. When I'm writing, I prefer to be writing fiction.

So what's happened lately?

My friend Dave got married to Karen. The wedding was held outdoors in Edinburgh's Botanic Gardens on a glorious sunny day. As Dave's best man, I had a huge amount of respect for the couple for not inviting God along.

Writing the best man's speech was difficult, I must admit. You can find hundreds of speeches if you look on the interweb, but they're all the same. Potted speeches with jokes like "giving a best man's speech is like making love to the Queen, it's a great honour but nobody wants to do it" and "the speech should last as long as the groom takes to make love... so thank you everyone, that's all I have to say." Different variations of the same speech must appear at thousands of weddings. I tried to do something a bit different, more personal. I think I got away with it without causing too much offence.

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to write the intro to a charity book called "The Small Print". The book has been written and put together by Lloyds staff and sponsored by Lloyds Banking Group. Proceeds go to the British Heart Foundation. I encourage you to find a copy, not just because its for a good cause, but because there are some great stories in there.

Unfortunately the bank didn't like the first introduction I wrote, and wouldn't publish it, so I wrote a different one. I think it was a shame not to print the original one, which reads as follows:

Given that Lloyds Banking Group staff have put this publication together, and that the bank itself is sponsoring it, I feel compelled to ask: Does this mean that someone in banking has a heart? From the recent press furore, I imagine most people would want to throw spanners at me for daring to suggest as much. Haven't bankers just ruined the world?

While it often seems that those who inhabit the uppermost tiers of our banking industry are bloodless parasites who deserve to be staked, decapitated and burned until their black hearts rot in the fourth circle of hell, we must remember that there are decent people in these companies too. People who actually care about others. This book is evidence of that.

In the following pages you will find many strange and wonderful things: a lingering ghost with one final task to accomplish; a music lover with a glass heart; a phantasm seen only in reflections; and an audacious art scam to make even Martin Creed blush (or, possibly, applaud).

Since these stories and poems demonstrate that some people in banking do have a heart, it is especially apt to note the charity they have chosen to support. The British Heart Foundation invests in pioneering research, prevention activity, and care and support for people living with heart disease. This might mean little to that tiny, elite group of fang-toothed financiers who lack the only vital organ required to benefit from such worthy endeavours, but it sure means a lot to the rest of us.

What's more, its nice to see that banks can be trusted to produce a fine publication for a good cause, even if they can't be trusted with our money.

Ok. Some people might argue that that intro is slightly critical of banks, but still... I wanted to make the point that there are good people in banking too - like the nice folks who put together that charity book - and I thought that it wouldn't have done any harm for Lloyds to have given themselves a self deprecating nod.

Nevertheless, I changed the intro. Perhaps it was too confrontational.

God of Clocks

2009-07-04T11:17:00.002+01:00

So I received a couple of emails yesterday. One from my nice publicist, Chloe, at MacMillan, pointing me to a great review of "God of Clocks" at Strange Horizons.

About a third of the way into God of Clocks, one of the characters remarks:

"We've got two hundred men and a drunk of a god locked up in a fucking inn" (p. 129)

It is a casual remark, and the reader doesn't blink. This is a quiet day at the office for Campbell and his characters.

Before I get on to talking about what an exuberant, bloody and brilliant novel this is I need to first point out that God of Clocks is the final volume of the Deepgate Codex, concluding the trilogy that began with Scar Night (2006) and was continued by Iron Angel (2008). (There is also a related and now sold out novella, Lye Street (2008), from Subterranean Press.) And yet, I like it.

The other email was from my agent, Simon, wishing me a happy release day. The book officially went on sale in the UK yesterday, but I'd been too busy writing the next one to notice.

Actually, the next book had been a bit of a head-scratcher until this last week. I knew the story I was writing, and I knew the characters, but I wasn't sure if I'd begun it in the best place. Something didn't feel right. Something was missing. But then I had one of those little ideas that clicked neatly into the place and the whole thing suddenly started to gather momentum. And now it's galloping along, and I feel good. All in all, it's been a fine week.

God of Clocks

2009-06-30T00:48:00.002+01:00

Scotland on Sunday did a nice piece on God of Clocks, and the Deepgate Codex as a whole. The good thing about not reading reviews is that when somebody sends you one, it's generally a nice one. This was one of those occasions when my family went out and bought multiple copies of the newspaper. (Although, saying that, it also contained a special memorial supplement on Michael Jackson, which might have had something to do with it.)

IN THE hierarchy of bookish values, literature trumps crime, crime looks down on sci-fi, and sci-fi is sniffy about fantasy. Despite attempts to categorise all non-realist novels – sci-fi, fantasy, and the even more maligned horror – as "speculative" or "weird" fiction, the pecking order is enshrined in bookshops and review pages across the country...

Inspirational

2009-06-23T23:48:00.003+01:00

Ok... Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been away for a while. I was going to blog about best man speeches, since I've been trying to write one for a while now. (Hardest thing I've ever done).
But later, later. First you have to see these wonderful images. Two different styles, but both from talented artists.

By MadMindInc

By Helenstar

Art V2.0

2009-05-28T17:57:00.003+01:00

Another couple of great images of Carnival from feralphoenix The first image will make immediate sense to those of you who have read "God of Clocks". Could it be counted as a spoiler? Who cares. These are too good not to post.

Carnival, Russian Style

2009-05-21T01:31:00.004+01:00

While we're on this arty theme...

Copies of the Russian version of "Scar Night" arrived today, complete with a mad fab fantasy cover in which Carnival has lost her scars, but gained a vampire rock-chick leotard and some Freddy Krueger finger-blades to compensate. Not that I mind. I think it's outrageously cool. It's not every day you see your name in Cyrillic.

Deepgate Art #3

2009-05-20T12:31:00.012+01:00

More great images inspired by the books.

by swiftfox13

by Kit19

by squee-kitty

by Spring-Heeld-Jim

by Stitched-D-r-e-a-m-s

by Vlei

by NiteLyfe

Deepgate Art #2

2009-05-19T13:11:00.007+01:00

More great artwork.

by fimbulvetrice

by nitelyfe

by swiftfox13

by swiftfox13

Deepgate Art

2009-05-18T17:36:00.004+01:00

Over the next few days I'm going to be posting some superb artwork created by fans of the series. It's been an absolute delight to discover these pictures, and I'm very much in awe of the talent on display. I'll post them as soon as the artists give me permission to do so.

Here is a striking, atmospheric image of Carnival by MadMindInc

And a wonderful drawing of Dill on the spire of his tower by freddyfrijolero

Gary Mckinnon

2009-05-18T12:08:00.003+01:00

I received the following email, and thought I'd post it here. I've always felt that this was a ridiculously harsh punishment to give a computer geek looking for aliens, so I've signed the petition. If you agree, then hopefully some of you will sign it, too.

---

Gary Mckinnon hacked into insecure US government systems. Why? Well there are many sides to this story, the US government, Gary’s and I guess the whole PR offensive to save him from extradition. Gary is clearly a young man with exceptional computer skills, and has since been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome (a kind of Autism). The US government are going for life imprisonment.This to me is just crazy, cruel and to almost any sane person, a ridiculous waste of time and resources.

From what I can tell, all Gary really did was embarrass the US government by burrowing deep into what they thought was a secure system. Surely giving him a job to find weaknesses in systems is a much better use of his talents? Gary is clearly is no international terrorist, for which this extradition treaty really exists. And the consequences are very real. He could be locked away for life in a maximum security facility.

So, I have just signed on online petition at the 10 Downing Street website. I hope you feel compelled to do the same.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/mckinnon09/

Eurovision

2009-05-17T15:50:00.003+01:00

Watching the Eurovision Song Contest last night, I couldn't help but wonder if the Greek singer was trying to suggest something during the last ten seconds of his act. Is it just me, or does there appear to be something quite lewd about the climax of the song?

Not that there's anything suggestive in the lyrics.

"Time has come, so make a stand"

"Rising up, get into place"

"When I look into your eyes
It comes, as no surprise"

The Worst 10 Stories I Ever Tried to Write

2009-05-12T00:59:00.005+01:00

If you can bear to peek at the worst stories I've ever tried to write, they're here at Suvudu.com.

I had about 25 of these, all written years ago and then abandoned. The hardest part was deciding which 10 were the absolute worst. There was some pretty stiff competition.

Devil's Night

2009-05-03T15:51:00.001+01:00

The German version of "Iron Angel" arrived this week. It's called "Devil's Night", and I think the cover is rather excellent.

The Relatively Minor Inconvenience Bell Curve

2009-04-14T18:36:00.002+01:00

I don't know why, but no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to fit into this country's institutional machinery. For example, it has just taken me all winter to change my energy supplier. Scottish Power refused to let me go because they said the energy company I wanted to change to couldn't support my old electricity meter. In order to get through the labyrinth of red tape, I had to buy a brand new meter, have it installed, and then have it removed again the next day in order to fit a second brand new meter. All of which is ludicrous. But that was the only way they'd do it. It took four months.

Now it's tax.

My accountant filed my tax return well before the January deadline, and I duly sent off my cheque and thought no more about it. A couple of months later, HM Revenue and Customs sent me a reminder, saying that I had to pay my tax before a certain date. The reminder arrived two days after the deadline. They'd sent it to the wrong address, and it had been sitting in a neighbour's empty house for weeks.

So I phoned them up. "I've already paid this."

"No you haven't."

No, I hadn't. It seems they'd lost my cheque.

I paid the tax there and then over the phone. Unfortunately it was too late. Because the cheque had vanished and they'd sent the reminder to the wrong address, I had missed the deadline. Now they want me to pay a surcharge.

I said, "Was there anything else I could have done to avoid that surcharge? I sent my cheque on time. I paid you the moment you informed me you hadn't received my payment."

They said I have to appeal in writing.

Writing this reminds me of another example. A long time ago I owned a flat I wanted to rent out. I'd left my job and wanted to go and see some of the world. So I contacted a letting agent. He said, "Great flat, blah de blah, do you want to rent it furnished?" I did, so we signed something and he went off to look for tenants. I phoned the insurance company. "I'm letting out my flat, will I still be covered?"

"No," the said. "You'll need to change to our landlord's insurance policy."

"Fine." It was more expensive, but I wanted the peace of mind.

A year later I got back, to find out I haven't received any rent for the last ninth months and the flat was bare – no furniture, no TV, no bed. Not even a spoon. Someone had painted a large dragon on the wall, badly.

I phoned the letting agent.

He said, "The tenants wouldn't pay any rent."
"Where's all my stuff?"
"They stole it."

I phoned the tenants.

They said, "We paid all the rent up to the last month, but our deposit covered that."
"Where's all my stuff?"
"What stuff? We wanted an unfurnished flat, so the letting agent cleared it out for us before we moved in."

I phoned the police.

They said, "What's been stolen?"
"Everything I own." That wasn't entirely true. I still had the clothes in my backpack, and a plastic dog I'd bought in India for 20 rupees. And half a tube of toothpaste.

It turns out the police had had complaints about this letting agent before. They said they'd go and see him. They didn't. The officer who had been assigned my case went on holiday for a month. When he got back he left his job to work at another precinct. A new officer was put in charge. He'd get on to it as soon as he got back from his own two week holiday. He didn't. My case had become lost in the switch over. Months passed. Eventually they told me they couldn't pursue it because it had been too long since the original complaint. Sorry.

In the meantime, I phoned my insurance company.

They said, "You aren't covered."
"Yes I am," I said. "Because, I changed to your insurance policy for landlords like you told me to."
"But that policy doesn't cover theft or damage by tenants, or letting agents, or anyone with a key to the front door."
I waited a long moment. "What does it cover?"

Not much, it turned out.

Cormack McCarthy once said that if you were able to measure some human talent or attribute, such as luck, for everyone on the planet, and you plotted them all on a graph, it would form a bell-curve. And at one end, you'd find the luckiest person in the world.

Actually I think I'm pretty lucky. But if there's a bell curve that covers relatively minor inconvenience involving governments, councils, phone and insurance companies, banks, energy suppliers, the DVLA, and airport baggage handlers – any sort of system which will at times fail – then I have a sneaking suspicion I know which end I'm stuck at.

Still, the "relatively minor inconvenience bell curve" isn't such a bad one, when you think about the other possibilities. The loss of some stuff, a disconnected phone, a missing suitcase, or a fine from the tax man means nothing. It's completely insignificant when you compare it to all the actual suffering in the world: the grief, the hunger, the disease, the war.

It's still fucking annoying though.

Dreams

2009-04-10T15:54:00.006+01:00

I've been having a lot of extremely vivid dreams recently. Some of them, like the one I had two nights ago, are easy enough to explain.

My good friend has asked me to be best man at his wedding in July, and of course I'm honoured and chuffed. (This isn't the dream yet. This is real life.) My dream began at the wedding reception. Due to some strange technicality that wasn't clear, the wedding had been brought forward to an earlier date, and I hadn't found out about it until the very last minute. Of course I didn't have a best man's speech prepared. The reception was held in a huge white marquee. I remember sitting there in a panic, aware that I only had six minutes to come up with a speech. Suddenly I had three minutes left, then two, and my mind remained blank. And then it was my turn to speak. I stood up nervously in front of the expectant crowd. Everyone was looking at me. I couldn't think of anything to say. At that point I woke up.

Last night's dream was stranger.

I was in a park, somewhere. It was summertime and sunny and I could smell cut grass. Other people I knew were around, but, with one exception, I can't recall who they were. The only person I do remember is a well-know writer I've met a couple of times. A nice guy. I'm not going to say who he is. In my dream he was wearing a white t-shirt and jeans. At first he kept wanting to fight me, but the reason for this remains unclear. My friends were trying to stop him. This went on for a while, but then his attitude suddenly changed. He became friendly, then too friendly, which started to weird me out. Then he began to get aggressive again. I wanted to leave, but we had to stick together because it was the only way to defeat the vampires.

Yep. The vampires sort of sneaked up on me, too. God knows where they came from. That's dreams for you.

I've also been having a lot of dreams about the end of the world. The one that sticks in my mind is where I'm standing on a hill watching hundreds of nuclear missiles fall to earth. The sky is dark red, full of massive clouds. The landscape is also red, hazy, and a siren is wailing in the distance. I can see the missiles' jets burning as they descend through the clouds. In my dream they're falling slowly, like crimson flares. Its freezing cold and I want to go inside, but I can't bring myself to look away. I remember thinking, I'm not going to see anything as beautiful as this again.

That said, I had been playing Fallout 3 at the time.

Happy Birthday Neil

2009-04-09T04:05:00.002+01:00

It's my brother's birthday today. He has a blog here:

http://intheventofire.blogspot.com/

He's getting a book for his birthday. Guess which one.

More on God of Clocks

2009-04-08T12:16:00.002+01:00

A short Publishers Weekly review of the book here:

God of Clocks Alan Campbell. Bantam Spectra, $25 (384p) ISBN 978-0-553-38418-5

In the dramatic third and almost certainly concluding volume of Campbell's Deepgate Codex (after 2008's Iron Angel), an apocalyptic battle between warring gods puts the very existence of humankind in jeopardy as gore-splattered battlefields spill over from the realm of mortals and the depths of Hell to the labyrinth of Time itself. Featuring an ensemble cast of richly described characters, including a soul-eating giant and an angel trapped inside a 400-foot-tall golem, the numerous story lines eventually converge in a finale involving a multiverse of time paradoxes and mind-bending plot twists. Campbell's experience in video game design is evident in the relentless pacing and highly imaginative settings as well as his meticulous attention to detail in the many fight sequences. Readers will thrill to the hellishly dark imagery and labyrinthine plot lines.

Publishing: Traditional vs Sleb?

2009-04-06T22:45:00.001+01:00

I've received a lot of emails recently asking if I have any tips or advice on getting work published, so I thought I'd blog about that, with a disclaimer – I'm not an agent or an editor, so I can only say what worked for me (for what that's worth). Also, a lot of people have been sending me their work and asking that I take a look at it. Unfortunately, I have to give the same response. I'm sorry, but I just don't have the time. If I look at one, I'd have to read through them all, and that would take up most of the week. And to be honest, I'm not the best person to critique work anyway. You'd be far better finding a good writers' group.

When I started writing with a view to getting the work published, I read a few books on the subject. Some were better than others. "The Elements of Style" by Strunk and White is best of the bunch. You can find the text online here:

http://www.bartleby.com/141/

"Stein on Writing" by Sol Stein helps writers look at their prose from an editor's perspective. Bill Bryson's "Troublesome Words" is informative and funny. It's the only reference book I've seen that explains those esoteric rules of English usage such as why "Mr" should not have a full stop at the end, but "Prof." should, while gleefully poking fun at almost every major newspaper. And if you're looking for inspiration, Stephen King's "On Writing" will have you scrambling back to your keyboard with a smile on your face.

A lot of these books cover the same ground: Show don't tell; Omit needless words; Write with nouns and verbs. Everyone agrees on the basics, which is good news because there aren't that many basics to cover.

Finish your book. Join a writers' group. Get feedback. Rewrite. Polish the book until it's as good as you can make it.

Join a writer's group. That's worth mentioning twice. Don't join a group where everyone sits around massaging each others' egos. What's the point of that? Find a bunch of people who are serious about critiquing and improving their fiction, and who won't hesitate to let you know when something doesn't work.

Does your book fit neatly into a genre? Find out which agents represent authors who write in that genre. If someone at your writers' group says your work reminds them of Author X, then Google Author X and find out who represents them.

That's the best agent to ~~stalk~~, submit to first.

I read that work should be presented in "standard manuscript format", so that's what I did.

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mslee/format.html

Send about fifty pages, along with a short letter telling them a bit about yourself.

Then wait. If your chosen agent doesn't go for it, then try somewhere else. Remember, it's subjective. Some people will hate your book, but others might just love it.

So that's the traditional way to get your work published. No surprises there. Just long hours of hard work. If you decide to take that path, then I'm afraid I don't know any shortcuts.

But there is another way.

The alternative is to get your face on TV, and then provide a publisher with a celebrity book. It doesn't really matter how badly written it is, because the people who are going to buy it don't read proper books anyway, so they won't realise it's shit.

In this case, you're aiming for readers of those glossy gossip magazines – the ones with lots of celebrity pictures, where any text comes in small, easy-to-manage chunks and sentences usually end with an exclamation mark. This is good because it means that your book doesn't need to have any thought behind it whatsoever. For example, you can write paragraphs about your hair – whether or not to have it straightened or curled, or even dyed. The readers will relate to that because they have hair too, and have faced similar dilemmas. The book itself can be pointless, with entire chapters devoted to the mundane. You got up, ate breakfast, and so on. Your readers will be enthralled. She's just like me, they'll think.

You can probably get away with a biography every couple of years. Usually, there will be things that have happened during the time between books, events that the readers will want to know about. New kitchens, hairstyles, clothes, etc. Maybe you took a taxi somewhere? Or ate sushi? Let your imagination run wild. Sometimes nothing at all will have happened, but that's OK. It's real life, innit?

If you are a celebrity and you want to write fiction, ask your publisher to provide you with a ghostwriter. This is a person who takes your idea for the book and writes down all the words. If you can't think of a plot, just copy something you see on the TV. It doesn't have to be "War and Peace". Twenty or so events happening one after the other should do the trick. But do tell your ghostwriter to use simple language. After all, you might want to read it yourself one day.

Doctor Who

2009-03-20T17:15:00.004Z

My Doctor Who story has been published as a comic in issues 63 and 64 of "Doctor Who: Battles in Time" magazine. It's a two parter, called "About Last Night." I have of course missed those issues entirely, partly because I'm an idiot and forgot to look out for them, and partly because I live in the sort of place Ulysses Everett McGill called "a geographical oddity" - a small rural town where you are more likely to find "Spud Monthly" than any publication concerning daleks.

Ok, now I've said that - I really should say that I assume this is my story, and not one that just happens to have an identical name.

Daily Routines

2009-01-21T19:59:00.005Z

I’ve cheered up now. A friend of mine saw this and thought of me, or thought it might make a decent blog post.

http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/

It outlines the daily routines of some well known writers.

One thing that struck me is that they all get up at the crack of dawn. I can’t wake at 6am. I only ever see 6am by getting there the long, dark way. I have three routines:

1) The “Beginning a New Book and No Deadline in Sight” Work Routine.

9:00 am – 12:30 pm.

Get up. The time depends on the night before.

9:15 am – 5:30 pm

Coffee. Answer some emails. Put others off till later. Ignore all the hugs, prods, bings, blams and whoopies from Facebook. Shower. Pick up the mail and look through it for anything interesting. Big packages are good - books from publishers, manuscripts, sometimes a DVD or toy I bought. Everything else is usually bills or vacuous statements concerning credit cards I never use. File them in a big messy heap in the corner of my desk. Open the BT bill, and note the overcharges (11 months out of 12 now). Sigh. I’ll harass them later. Get on the phone and pay everything that needs paid.

Lunch. I want a freshly made chipped-steak burger from the local butchers, which I want to fry and then slap on a roll with cheese, gherkin and jalapeno relish but I’m going to have soup because I promised myself I’d watch my cholesterol after the New Year, stop smoking, get to bed earlier, eat bran and all that.

Think about looking for any new reviews on Amazon. Decide not to. A bad review would just depress me. There’s no point trying to write what everyone wants anyway. It’s a bad idea to try and please everyone. Focus groups give us bland cars, bland films, and bland food. That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.

No deadline in sight. Play a game of Risk on the computer. Force myself to open my accounts, because I need to do my tax return. Gaze at accounts for an hour. Sigh. Close spreadsheet. Have another game of Risk. Open word processor. Look at empty page. Close word processor. Why don’t I live in the south of France?

5:30 pm.

Do the washing up and make dinner, if it’s my turn.

6:30 pm.

There’s nothing on TV. Open a bottle of wine. Somehow it’s 11:30pm.

11:30 pm.

Open word processor. Look at empty page. Write another beginning for another new book. Notice that I have 27 of these openings now. Close word processor. Answer emails. Have a ten minute game of online poker. Win 83p. Open word processor. Start all over again.

1:30 am.

I must have decided to work tonight. I can’t sleep. Thinking about new book. How do I combine this idea with that idea? Or should I ditch those ideas, and concentrate on this other one? What would waves sound like if they broke against a mass of metal shrapnel? Back to the word processor.

2:30 am.

Still can’t sleep. Read for a while. Switch off light. Lie there thinking about the book. Switch light on again, and go back to the word processor. There are five opened books on the floor, but I haven’t managed to get into any of them.

3:30 am.

I’m never going to get to sleep. Have a glass of whisky to wind down. Should I just delete all that stuff I’ve written? Is it any good at all?

4:30 am.

Oh god, it’s half past four in the morning. I even forgot to finish that glass of whisky. I’ll need to TRY to sleep. Lie down. Get up. Type a few words. Lie down. Read some more. Reach for the light switch. How many emails did I forget to answer?

2) The “Getting into a New Book and Deadline is Ages away” Work Routine.

9:00 – 10:30 am

Get up. Coffee. Wash. Answer emails. Open “Chapter #” on the word processor. Have at it for an hour or so. The phone rings. Bastards! I’ll ignore it. What if it’s important? Argh. I’d better go downstairs. “Hello Madam, you have been specially selected to...” Slam the phone down. What the hell? Sod it. My concentration has been blown. The moment has gone. I am entirely justified in not doing any work for the rest of the day.

10:31 pm

Realise I'm being an arse, and go to back to work.

12:30 pm.

Lunch. I’m feeling pretty good. One burger isn’t going to hurt. Go out for a walk. Look in the charity shop for any first editions or other interesting books. Offer to take Tess for a walk up the hills. I like it when she stops to let me pull the fence wire up so she can scramble through to the next field, and when there are rabbits pelting all over the place and she stands there wagging her tail and doesn't notice any of them.

1:30 pm

Keen to get back. Have at it for the rest of the afternoon.

5:30 pm.

I’ll make the dinner after I finish this chapter.

11:30 pm.

I’ll call it a day after I finish this chapter.

3) The “Deadline Looming” Work Routine.

9:00am - 6:00pm

Work

6:00pm - 7:00pm

Eat take away food.

7:00pm - 6:00am

Work

6:00am - 9:00am

Stare at the screen, red-eyed and broken, until sleep comes.

--------

Reading over this, I think I need to get out more.

2008

2009-01-09T15:34:00.001Z

Happy New Year!

Ok that's enough happiness; let's have a good old moan. 2008 saw us plunging into a recession, or perhaps even a Great Depression, brought about by the unbridled greed and reckless gambling of some of the world's largest financial institutions. Over the last decade there seems to have been a brawl for profit as big business tried to squeeze every last cent out of us, the herd. You'll notice it every time you call a customer service number and are put on hold for an hour. Less staff to answer calls = more profit. Or worse, when you call up only to find yourself wrestling with a computer: "Say your house number... I'm sorry, I don't recognise that. Say your house number... I'm sorry, I don't... Please enter the long card number and press the hash key." I detest these systems for two reasons: first, when I'm on the phone I want to speak to a real person. The speaking computer is a wall with a slot for your bank card and a sign that says "We're not interested in listening to you. Just shut up and plug your card in here." And secondly, every time you hear that voice, it's a reminder that the person you really wanted to speak to is out of a job.

You'll notice it in advertisements too, the new levels of dirty tricks employed. "Sign up with us for only £1 a month (£30 a month after the first three months)" The business, whether it's Virgin or Sky or BT, or whoever, seems to be hoping that you'll miss the small print. And in the increased frequency of those insipid TV "Watch to Win" competitions. "Short of cash? Desperate? Win £1000 by telling us which one of these is one of Santa's reindeers? A) Rudolph B) David Beckham... oh, sod it, the answer is A. Just text us that, you monkeys. It'll only cost you a fiver." You'll see it in the adverts loan companies put on during daytime TV commercial breaks. "APR? Don't concern yourself with all that mumbo jumbo. We've got friendly people manning our phone lines. And since you're watching Jeremy Kyle, we don't think you'll understand APR anyway."

In the UK recently, this brawl for profit reached a level where energy companies were simply lying to customers to get them to sign more expensive contracts. Just plain lying. Try going to your energy supplier's website to find out how much they charge for electricity, how much per KWH. It isn't easy to get that figure. They don't want to tell you. Instead, you'll find, "Our energy is good value, that's all you need to know. Obviously, we're not going to tell you exactly how much it costs (the very idea!), but if you sign up with us, we'll give you... shopping vouchers."

Hurrah.

Well, you'll probably need those vouchers now anyway.

Meanwhile, the USA was having its own profit brawl as lenders sold mortgages to millions who could not afford to pay them back. These people must share the blame for not making sure they fully understood what they were getting into, but it's unfair to censure them too much. Their only crime was to trust the salesman, and to leave the maths to him. Decent people don't expect lenders to be that ruthless.

This debt was packaged in a way that disguised just how toxic it was, and sold on to banks whose greed had blinded them to the risks. When the housing bubble burst, a lot of money just vanished.

The banks took a huge hit, so they stopped lending to each other and started calling in loans. And because so many banks had all their money tied up in "investments" in a crashing market, they needed lending to function. Without it, they began to topple like dominoes.

And there was worse to come. HSBC actually "invested" over half a billion pounds in what turned out to be a pyramid scheme. If only the CEO had stopped into the pub on the way home that day, and said to any of the punters at the bar. "What do you reckon to this, then? Says here I can earn £££s, if I send off envelopes full of cash to these five people." I'm thinking that a large number of those "Watch to Win" calls must come from HSBC upper management.

At least, that's how it all seemed to a layman like me. With all its various tendrils, global finance is like that vast fungus that lives under Oregon. But one thing seems clear enough. Big business was too greedy, took too many risks in its lust for profit.

Now of course we're being forced to bail them out. Who'd have thought that in 2008 we'd all be paying off other people's debts?

Roll on 2009.

Merry Christmas Folks

2008-12-24T16:12:00.002Z

I hope you all have a great time, and a storming New Year.

All the Best,

Alan.

Story of a Sign

2008-11-24T15:44:00.001Z

Alonso Alvarez Barreda won the Cannes 2008 Fourth annual Short Film Online Competition, with "Story of a Sign."

It's a short film every writer should watch.

A stranger transforms a blind man's afternoon by changing his sign so that instead of telling people to have compassion, it makes people feel compassion. In a way it illustrates the old writer axiom "show don't tell". Great wee film.

God of Clocks

2008-11-20T10:58:00.000Z

A few people have rightly pointed out that this blog was becoming woefully out of date. Sorry about that. I don't suppose I'm what you would call a "keen blogger." There always seems to be something else to think about, and recently there's been a lot to think about.

Right now, I'm working through the US page proofs of "God of Clocks", the third and (probably) final instalment of the Deepgate Codex. It's almost finished now, and should be out March/April 2009. This book has a different feel to the last two, concentrating mostly on Rachel and Carnival, but I suppose I'd better not say too much about the plot. It's been a bit of a head-twister, but was good fun to write. The US cover will look like this:

Some stunning artwork there, as always, by Stephen Youll. I believe Dominic Harman will be designing the UK cover. When I receive the emails with these covers, it's like opening Christmas presents. You never know what's inside.

I've also written a two-part comic strip for "Doctor Who: Battles in Time" magazine, which, as an avid fan of all things Doctor Who, was a big deal for me, and an absolute joy. I was almost as excited about that commission as I was when "Scar Night" sold.

The original UK and US manuscripts for "Iron Angel" arrived recently, so my manuscript pile now reaches the top of the monitor on my desk. There are fifteen or so manuscripts there now, the various proof copies and edited/unedited versions of the books that I've worked through. A couple of million words, I suppose. I'm actually worried that it's becoming too heavy for the floorboards underneath. Does home insurance cover you for damage caused by manuscript?

But mostly, I've been thinking about book Four, and, to a lesser extent, books Five and Six. This will be a brand new fantasy trilogy. For the past few weeks, I've been wandering around with a protagonist, an antagonist, and an environment in my head. Or, more accurately, driving around with all this at the back of my mind. For some reason, I think mostly about plot and character when I'm driving.

I know what sort of book the next one will be, but I haven't fleshed out all of the details yet. The story is there... it'll just take a while to unearth it fully. Someone once said (I can't remember who) that a book is born when two distinct ideas come together. Currently, I think I'm at "ten and a half ideas", but they haven't all gelled yet.

So I've been a bit distant and preoccupied lately - slow to answer emails, blog, and so on. I don't do multitasking very well. Watch out on those roads.

Edinburgh Book Festival (please read if you missed me at the signing)

2008-08-26T20:55:00.002+01:00

The organisers of this year's Edinburgh Book Festival asked me to do a workshop on Writing Fantasy on Monday. I arrived at the venue -- a compound of tents and pavilions in Charlotte Square gardens -- a couple of hours early in order to find a quite space to go over my notes. The huge bookshop/cafe on the southern edge of the gardens seemed like a good start. So I grabbed a coffee, planted myself on the first available seat, and turned around to discover I'd picked the only table directly underneath my own books. A sad and embarrassing place to find yourself in. I downed the coffee and hurried away, in case anyone I knew spotted me and thought I was staking out the Alan Campbell section.

Later I'd make a bigger mistake. I'm still new to this.

The staff told me I needed to go the author's yurt -- a small sanctuary under canvas in one corner. I wandered over. Outside, the security guard eyed me suspiciously. "You need a pass to get in here."

Pass? "Erm. Ok... Where do I get a pass?"

"Inside."

"Ah."

A Terry Pratchett moment. Security let me in to the only place I needed a pass to get into, because I didn't have a pass. The author's yurt was snug, carpeted, and strewn with cushions, pleasantly Mongolian. They gave me a pass, although I didn't really need it now. I helped myself to a glass of wine and settled down to review my notes, scribbling on my printed sheets, Melodrama vs Drama, World Building, Magic, making the short bullet points I'd refer to later.

Sean Connery walked in.

An entourage of Book Festival staff and, presumably, Mr Connery's friends accompanied him. I'd like to say we chatted amicably, fellow Scots sharing the only truly Mongolian space in the festival and all, but that would be a complete and total lie. Still, a glance from the man himself was enough to make me feel oddly happy. It's not every day you come face to face to with one of your heroes. I'd have given anything to have exchanged a few words, but I couldn't bring myself to blunder on up to the man. It's bad enough to intrude on someone's privacy, and impossible when it's someone you respect so much.

World Building. Magic... erm. Character Development... James Bond is sitting over there, four feet away. I gave up on the notes. Mr Connery ambled past me again on the way out, and this time we exchanged a nod. I knew who he was. And he knew something about me. He knew I knew who he was. An odd sort of encounter, when you think about it. Suddenly I felt bizarrely cheerful again. Hadn't I just made some sort of connection with a screen legend?

I hung around for while longer, speaking to one of Mr Connery's guests who had remained behind... an intelligent fellow whose name I never did catch. We talked about Marie Curie, Composers, North Berwick restaurants, and Cinema. Whenever the conversation steered too close to writing fantasy, I eased it back towards cinema again, especially those films starring a certain Scot.

The workshop went well: a couple of friendly faces I knew, and eighteen more I didn't. Nobody heckled or threw crumpled bits of paper. Nobody stood up and said, "I've never heard anything so ridiculous in my life, you hack! I want a refund." Several people even thanked me afterwards and told me they'd found it useful, which was vast relief. I'd actually gotten away with it. To be honest, I'd have happily spraffed on about fantasy all afternoon, if they'd have let me, but they needed the tent for something else.

On the way out I got some unexpected news. The girl who had manned the door to prevent attendees from fleeing and demanding refunds explained that I had been scheduled to sign books at 3pm. Of course I couldn't have been there at that time. It was now after half past, and I'd just spent the last ninety minutes in front of twenty people, pretending to know what I was doing. If I'd learned about the signing sooner, I might have pointed out this little glitch to someone. As it was, nothing could be done now.

And if anyone had actually turned up, they weren't likely to be still waiting there now. Were they? So I headed in the direction of the beer tent with Paul Cockburn. But just as we arrived, I thought, sod it, I'd better go and make sure nobody is still waiting. So I left Paul with a few quid to get me a pint and ran over to the signing tent. Nobody around. None of my books evident anywhere. Okay, I was a wee bit disheartened that no one had waited, but what the hell. What was I expecting anyway? I'm not Sean Connery. I went back to the beer tent in an oddly relieved sort of sulk.

Only after I'd finished my drink half an hour later did I discover that I'd been scheduled to appear in the bookshop, and not the signing tent. Bollocks. Paul and I hurried over to the bookshop at once, but by then it was very definitely too late. I grabbed one of the staff. It turned out that people had been waiting. The hardbacks had sold out. But when I hadn't shown, the book buyers got fed up and left. All while I was sitting in the bar next door, completely oblivious.

I am really sorry.

If I'd known, I would have been there.

So if you were one of those people who bought one of my books and waited in vain for me to sign it, please accept my apologies. If you still want me to sign the book, I'll try to sort that out for you. If you're local to Edinburgh maybe I can drive through. Otherwise, I'll send you a bookplate or something.

Deadlines

2008-08-21T14:47:00.002+01:00

Book Three is now in the hands of my editors. The working title is eerily similar to one of the suggestions someone made here on this blog, but I have a sneaking suspicion it's not going to be the final title... so I'm keeping schtum until it's agreed.

So now the real work begins. There's much I want to change in this book: ideas and character threads I'd like to expand, but my deadline was very tight. Here's hoping I'll have the time now.

This time, I had strived for over 1000 words a day, which is a lot for me.

In theory, writing a thousand words a day should be a breeze. Ten words a minute is 600 words an hour. So 1000 words shouldn't take much more than an hour and a half.

Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. It's very easy to type 600 words an hour, or even three times that amount. But it isn't so easy to look at a blank screen and pluck those words from thin air, not if they're going to be part of a story. Harder still if they're going to be the final part of a tale that's already a quarter of a million words long and full of separate threads that need to be brought to a conclusion.

The words must create, or form part of, a scene, which needs to advance characters along a storyline, perhaps including entirely made up conversations between different people, each of whom should have an agenda, motivation, beliefs, a personal history, their own particular way of interacting with others and their own way of interpreting the world around them. The words must define these people in a way that moves the plot forward, while tying together those different threads, manoeuvring subplots so that they will meet in the future. And they should incorporate sights, colours, sounds, and smells, in order to let the reader experience the environment as much as possible.

In fantasy, the story is usually set in an unfamiliar world, because part of the joy of reading fantasy is to explore exotic places. But these made up realms must necessarily have enough structure, rules, consistency to make them acceptable to a reader. History, religion, geology, physics, weather, ecology, political structure. I use the word acceptable here rather than plausible. Fantasy is generally implausible, but that's ok if it's consistent enough to be acceptable.

So those thousand words have a lot to do.

Scan Night took me more than three years to write. Iron Angel took about half that time -- it was a complex tale. After I finally finished the proofs of UK and US versions, I was left with about four months to write Book Three.

I scratched my head. Several weeks to think up a story and plan it out roughly, followed by three months of hard work at the keyboard. That would work. If I wrote 1000 words a day, weekends included, I'd have a 90,000 word story. Not exactly the epic scale of fantasy I'd have liked, but I didn't have time to worry about it. Maybe there would be days I'd manage more than 1000 words.

There were days like that. But, sadly, there were days when I didn't reach my target. Snuffly, wrapped in a blanket with the flu days. Taking the car to the garage days. Driving to the nearest town for a big supermarket shop days. And dreaded blank screen days, just staring and staring at an empty page. As the deadline loomed 1000 words a day became 1500, then 2000. At that stage I spend every waking hour at the keyboard. But I typed the final page on the morning of my deadline and then went to sleep for a week. I haven't looked at the story since, because I want to go back to it fresh... when the real work begins.

Book Three

2008-07-10T12:10:00.001+01:00

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I've been too busy working on Deepgate Codex III. So far I've managed to stick to my X number of words per day and, unless my brain suddenly freezes, I'm on schedule to have it finished on time.

After that comes the editing and proofs, which should be finished before the upcoming World War.

Cheers.

p.s.
I'm looking to exchange my car (which runs on petrol) for one that runs on something else, anything that doesn't have to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Vegetable oil? Steam? I'm open to offers.

p.p.s
I have working title for DCIII, but I'm not convinced its the best one. All ideas are welcome. (I realise that not having read the book might put readers at a disadvantage when it comes to suggesting a title, but that's a risk I'm prepared to take.)

Kucinich Calls to Impeach Bush

2008-06-10T15:36:00.000+01:00

An Ohio Democratic lawmaker and former presidential candidate has presented articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush to Congress.

Thirty-five articles were presented by Rep. Dennis Kucinich to the House of Representatives late Monday evening, airing live on C-SPAN.

"The House is not in order," said Kucinich to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), upon which Pelosi pounded her gavel.

Full Article at RawStory

The World Went Mad Again this Week.

2008-06-04T16:51:00.002+01:00

An airline passenger was threatened with arrest at Heathrow Airport and told that he wouldn't be allowed to fly. His crime? Wearing a t-shirt depicting Megatron, the evil robot leader of the Decepticons.

IT consultant Brad Jayakody from London was told his t-shirt was "offensive" because the 40ft cartoon robot had a gun for an arm. He escaped arrest, and eventually caught his flight, by changing into another shirt.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news....

BAA leader, Optimus Prime, was unavailable for comment.

--

Obama has clinched the Democrats' Presidential nomination. Or has he? The Republicans might just leap to Hillary's rescue yet, if rumours concerning a certain video tape are true. The video allegedly shows Obama's wife using the term "whitey" during a speech.

Whitey? That's right up there with Megatron for offensiveness.

--

West Midlands Police threatened two Christian preachers with arrest for handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly Muslim area of Birmingham. Apparently some people now consider this a "hate crime." (Not to be confused with the more acceptable "love crime", which is committed out of deep respect and compassion for the victim.)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news...

Evangelists Arthur Cunningham and Joseph Abraham are both whiteys. However, squads of armed police officers were called off after it became clear that the two preachers were not wearing Transformer t-shirts.

--

Condoleezza Rice said there's no point in talking to Iran unless the regime gives up its suspected nuclear weapons ambitions.

http://www.rawstory.com/news...

How do you give up "suspected" ambitions? How can you convince someone that their suspicions are false if they won't talk to you?

"I suspect you're trying to deceive me."
"I'm not."
"Well I'm not talking to you unless you give up your suspected ambitions."
"But..."
"Na Na Na. Not listening. Na Na Na."

Iran recently announced it was shifting away from the US dollar as oil currency -- a move which would deal a huge blow to the dollar and possibly threaten America's future status as sole superpower. Coincidentally, Iraq tried the same thing in late 2000, although they have now seen the error of their ways -- having returned to the petro-dollar after the US-led invasion to halt Saddam's suspected WMD program.

http://www.energybulletin.net/7707.html

Alien "Proof" Released

2008-05-31T14:43:00.001+01:00

This video appeared on youtube the same day that a man in Colorado claimed to have filmed an alien in Nebraska. It isn't clear if it is the same video or not.

It's either proof that extraterrestrials are coming down to earth and peering through windows, or it's grainy footage of someone wearing a crappy mask.

Scar Night Review

2008-05-30T12:39:00.000+01:00

Another review for SCAR NIGHT is up at the London International Festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film website

http://www.sci-fi-london.com/

Review aside, this is a cracker of a website, and well worth a look.

Some Pictures from the Iron Angel Launch

2008-05-17T13:34:00.000+01:00

Found these on my camera, of all places.

Granny Ghost in Elevator

2008-05-15T13:21:00.001+01:00

Apparently most of Asia has been freaked out by this new video. It's purported to be real, like many of these astonishing short videos we've been seeing on the web since decent CGI became possible on home PCs.

Nevertheless, it is creepy.

IRON ANGEL Launch, The Gadgey, and Touching Charles Stross's Short and Curlies.

2008-05-06T14:46:00.008+01:00

Lots of news.

A short story of mine called The Gadgey is up on the Strange Horizons website. This was something I wrote a while back, after SCAR NIGHT, but before that book was published. And with all the strange twists of life surrounding my first book sale, I forgot about the story for a long time before looking for a home for it. Anyhoo, I'm really pleased Strange Horizons decided to publish it, as it's a deeply serious work. Much like this blog post.

Iron Angel has also been released in the USA and Germany. To celebrate this, we had the launch as close to midway between those two countries as is possible -- without travelling very far from my home. The venue turned out to be Waterstones bookshop on Princes Street in Edinburgh.

My agent Simon Kavanagh and my editor Peter Lavery arrived by train from London. My mobile rang. "How far is the hotel from the station?" Simon said.

"Erm. Half an hour's walk?" I replied, not really knowing the answer.

"Sod that. I'm getting a taxi."

Peter's dulcet tones sounded in the background. "No, I don't think it's that far. Ten or fifteen minutes."

He was right. I agreed. But the damage had already been done. Simon hailed a cab, while Peter set off on foot.

Fifteen minutes later, Peter arrived at the hotel first.

Simon answered my call. "God, he's not there already, is he? I'll never hear the end of it."

"Where are you?"

He didn't know. "There's a semi-circle of grass, with benches, some trees. Is that near the hotel?"

"Do you see a Boots?"

"No."

"Do you see a spire?"

"Yes."

And so it went. Two people standing a hundred yards apart on the same street, yet unable to locate each other without mobile phones.
Friends, family, and some new faces showed up to join us at the bookshop. I tend to fret at these things. My feelings about public speaking have now lessened from sheer terror to bone-deep fear. I was the boy who went through five years of high school without putting his hand up once. So I tried to keep things brief. I did not expect so many people to buy books. That was a genuine surprise.

Thank you, sincerely.

And a big slàintemhath to the Waterstones staff, who were great. Seats, podium, wine, an impressive wall of Iron Angel copies. To be perfectly honest, I hadn't expected that either. I arrived, slightly confounded by it all, and without a pen.

We moved en masse to the Traverse Theatre Bar for a drink, before heading out in groups for a curry with Iain Banks and Adele, Ken Macleod, Hal Duncan, and Andrew Wilson. Caragh's dad arrived with a huge rubber Doctor Who alien mask he'd bought at the bookshop. We talked about books, publishing, poker, pool and drugs, the usual things writers talk about with publishers and agents. Sadly, the logistics of moving 16 people onwards to another venue proved too much and, after the meal, I missed some friends who had to leave the Traverse to catch trains home.

My memory becomes slightly hazy from here, but I do remember standing outside the Traverse with Simon and Euan, and we were all chatting to Charlie Stross and then stroking his beard. I don't remember why, except that the discussion had turned to the similarities between beards and pubes.

Poor Andrew was looking a bit wobbly by now, yet still managed to negotiate the steps down to the bar with a kind of woozy grace, after which he moved on to glasses of water. Hal disappeared off to catch his train, got lost, and then reappeared a while later, having missed the last train back to Glasgow.

Next day, we explored Edinburgh with Hal and Caragh. Hal and me signed some books in the Transreal Fiction bookshop in the Grassmarket. Cool place. Caragh bought a SEE YOU JIMMY hat, which we all wore. At first I did post the pics here, but certain people (I'm not naming names, Simon) were too embarrassed to be seen cavorting in a daft bunnet with orange hair, and so I removed them.

But I can show these mysterious strangers, who might be anybody.

Someone (I'm not naming names, Simon) thinks that they "look a bit like a superhero." You can even see the cheeky grin under that tartan.

In the Evening we joined a ghost tour. The City of the Dead Tour took us into the Covenanters Prison and Black Mausoleum in Greyfriars kirkyard, the haunt of the famous Mackenzie Poltergeist. My friend Beck, who is a guide on one of these tours tells me that 2 or 3 unlucky tourists are attacked by this unseen entity each month. Usually they're burned or bitten. People often faint. Unfortunately we didn't see any ghostly goings on. I'd have been quite happy to have been attacked by a ghost, since any sort of evidence of consciousness existing after death would be worth the discomfort. Sadly I didn't get as much as a scratch.

Iron Angel Launch

2008-04-25T12:23:00.001+01:00

We're havıng a launch party for 'Iron Angel' on the 2nd May. It wıll be held ın Edınburgh at 6pm ın Waterstones bookshop at the West End of Prınces Street. I'm not entırely sure what's happenıng, but there mıght even be wıne. If not, there's always the pub afterwards. Frıends and famıly won't need tıckets (I hope, otherwıse there mıght be a rıot).

I probably should have posted thıs earlıer, but there you go.

p.s. I've not been able to access Facebook for a whıle, so sorry ıf I haven't replıed to those who sent me messages or requests through that websıte. I'll sort ıt out eventually.

AT-AT Walker on the Way.

2008-04-12T13:32:00.000+01:00

Win Some Books

2008-04-04T13:15:00.001+01:00

Robert at FantasyBookCritic blog is giving away three sets of my books.

HERE

It's free. You don't even have to answer one of those questions popular in late night TV phone-in quiz shows, such as:

What is the first letter in the phrase "shooting fish"?

A) S
B) Raw plugs
C) A balaclava.

Avebury

2008-03-29T15:56:00.008Z

Caragh's nan was taken ill suddenly this week, and so we found ourselves travelling south from Scotland to Swindon on a hastily arranged trip -- Caragh in a fret, me concerned but also lugging my laptop along in order to keep up with my schedule for Book Three. Thankfully, Edith O'Neill had improved by the time we reached her hospital bed, and everyone is hopeful that she will continue to recover.

It is six and a half hours drive from our home in Scotland to Swindon. I was worried that my aging Citroen would take this opportunity to remind me that I was no longer a member of any breakdown recovery service. The power steering has started to wheeze. An odd knocking sound grates my nerves every time the car goes over a pothole. I stopped at a garage and topped up with oil, hoping that that small gesture would placate the dark green machine enough to get us there safely. And I thought I'd test my new theory of conserving fuel by using 5th gear at every opportunity and by not applying my brakes on the motorway unless I really was going to hit something.

Seemed to work.

Caragh's brother Kieran and his wife Paula had booked a cottage in Avebury, just a few miles from the hospital in Swindon, and had given a room over to us. Infinitely more organised, they set off well before we did, their little baby girl Beth snoozing in her child seat, while I was hunting for my phone charger and then mucking about with oil in the local garage. But a dodgy tyre valve delayed them by hours, and so we arrived at the cottage first.

Teacher's Cottage is a handsome brick house in the heart of the ancient and picturesque Wiltshire village of Avebury. On the opposite side of the lane from the front door a gothic portico leads into a tidy graveyard around the pretty village church. A Neolithic ditch and bank engirdles the village and also the henge: a stone circle that is larger, older, and far more impressive than its famous cousin at Stonehenge.

Huge monoliths or paddle-shaped stones, some weighing sixty tonnes, stand upright in the fields and seem to defy explanation as much as gravity. There is something creepy about those stones, a feeling I blame on the TV series "Children of the Stones" that terrified me so much as a lad. I can barely remember the show and yet it must have left a mark, or a scar, deep in my subconscious. At night I could almost sense the stones waiting out there in the darkness. Part of me half-expected them to have moved the next morning.

Even the crows roosting in the village trees are creepy, and they seem to know it.

My partner Caragh, who is an archaeologist, was intrigued by the site and by all those other ancient monuments in the area: the multi-chambered West Kennet Long Barrow; the inexplicably huge manmade mound that is Silbury Hill. She was so passionate about the history of these circles, barrows and mounds -- and all the theories exploring their origins and intended purposes -- that Kieran and I took to suggesting some alternative theories of our own. Clearly the henge was designed as a tourist attraction from the outset. The cavemen who built it would undoubtedly have charged an admission fee of one groat (all ancient peoples used groats as currency) They probably put on bands, sold tourist tat from stalls (pebbles, cup-and-ball games, paper windmills, model-henge's and so on), and they might have hired Morris dancers or forced dinosaurs to fight to the death in a pit. West Kennet Long Barrow, a few miles away, would have made a perfect cool environment for storing beer long before someone had the idea of using it to inter bones. And aren't the slopes of Silbury Hill just set at the perfect pitch for sledging?

None of our theories met with Caragh's approval. She didn't even deign to offer them the serious academic contemplation we felt that they deserved.

Avebury impressed me, but my heart sank a little when I first glimpsed the other tourists. Swinging the car into the village, we passed a couple of Crusties who were admiring the henge from the roadside. They wore rough hemp trousers and shirts decorated with esoteric Eastern symbols and OM talismans, crystals and beads and Celtic knots and their hair hung in mats and clumps like really bad thatch. And like the other members of that soap-shunning tribe they boasted abundant nasal piercings and were accompanied by an ill-fed ragged brown dog on a piece of string. Of course henges are a magnet for them.

Don't get me wrong, I've nothing against hippy soap dodgers. But I dislike all the pseudo - mystical - healing - crystal - lay - line - magick - with - a - "k" - crop - circle - tree - hugging - naga - baba - earth - mother - gaia - worshipping - ayurverdic - Om - chakra - wank that goes with it.

We had dinner at the Red Lion, a fine ye olde English thatched pub with an 86 foot deep well in the dining room. The well had been covered with glass and now made an unusual feature-table on which to set your pint. Friendly place, the food was ok. Apparently the pub had appeared on the TV show "Most Haunted". Well it's, like, really old and has a thatched roof.

The local Henge Shop was surprisingly good: full of prints of old maps and fine crafts and informative books and fossils and huge chunks of crystal, adamantine or basalt with tags which did not claim to bring a lover back, and cast replicas of gargoyles from old Cathedrals, and other, more useful things like hats.

But the National Trust shop and its oh-we-are-just-soooo-vegetarian restaurant were an altogether different pair of creatures. On our second day in Avebury we had lunch at the restaurant. My vegetable hotpot consisted of a pot of vegetables served on a plate of vegetables. Kieran's chickpea curry looked suspiciously like someone had spooned out some chickpeas onto a bed of rice. No chakra-damaging meat in sight.

And the shop...

Here were all the books on Mother Goddess worship and ley lines and the mysteries of healing springs and UFOs and the power of crystals and earth talismans and ancient Indian philosophy explained by a seventh level mystic guru from Surrey called Kevin. Now all this would be fair enough in Edinburgh's Cockburn Street, but this was a National Trust shop. Kieran was examining a tray of magnetic stones (magnets encased in resin so that they looked a bit like stones -- 5 for a pound) but he accidentally pinged a fistful of them across the floor. They clattered everywhere, skittering off under the racks of mugs and postcards, and we grinned guiltily then picked them up while the elderly women behind the counter lifted their noses and admonished us with brute silence.

I picked up a book on crop circles and studied the chapter titles. Chapter four's heading posed the question "Genuine or Hoax?" In a rational world I would have turned to that page to find one word, and not the one beginning with "g", and then skimmed onwards through a pad of blank pages and at last arrived at one final paragraph in which the author made a heartfelt and humble apology for wasting the reader's time. But what I found instead was an argument in which the author stated that the patterns found in some crop circles were of such intricate mathematical or geometrical design that they could not possibly have been made by man.

That makes sense.

Us mere humans, who have sent astronauts to the moon and designed computers that can perform billions of calculations in the blink of an eye and have invented jet aircraft and the internal combustion engine and cracked the human genome and put satellites in orbit which can transmit information at the speed of light between some dude in London and his mum in New Zealand and have mapped galaxies and photographed nebulae and split the atom and developed theories about the nature of time and space and matter and cured so many diseases and have genetically modified the plants and animals around us and massively altered the very face of the planet we live on to suit our own needs yes, us ignorant apes could not possibly come up with a complicated way of flattening corn.

So it must be aliens.

Of course it is much more likely that a bunch of supremely intelligent alien beings travel in their space ships light years across the universe to reach our small blue world and then once here do not say "hi, we're from Alpha Centauri, nice to meet you guys and do you mind if we film this?", but instead come down in the dead of night and use their weird force fields to make concentric circles in a field near Swindon.

I once met a guy on an overnight bus whose claim to fame was that a photo of his arse had appeared in a book on UFOs -- a big mainstream book, like, by a guy who knew what he was talking about, knew about the black choppers in Area 51 and everything, and it's all a big conspiracy. This erstwhile passenger had sat on a hill somewhere and afterwards developed a strange rash.

Aliens.

The hill was a renowned hotspot for extra-terrestrial encounters, you see.

In the National Trust bookshop I didn't spy that particular volume, but there was a book written by two flying saucer experts. They were depicted on the cover, both wearing giant headphones of the sort typical in the seventies and they held aloft small silver ray gun type things like miniature satellite dishes. They looked so earnest and serious that I couldn't bring myself to open the book. I had to set it down gently and take a long deep breath.

While we waited on news from the hospital we nipped down the road to Marlborough, another handsome and historic town built from red brick. For lunch we ambled into the former church, now a reasonably priced cafe and gift shop, where we squirted sachets of ketchup onto our Cumberland sausage, egg and chips under the gazes of glass saints in the windows and beneath huge wooden boards packed with grand curlicues of script reminding us not to steal or kill or covet anybody's ass.

Baby Beth sat in her high chair and watched us all with her huge blue eyes, gurgling cutely. I chatted with Paula about religion and decided that maybe it wasn't such a bad thing after all. Those chips were really good.

In the local bookshop I spied the Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which consisted of two huge volumes that each weighed as much as a spare wheel for my car, and so didn't appear to be very compact at first glance. Only when I heaved one of the giant books down from the shelf and opened it did I see that each broad page had been crammed with text so small that one required the supplied magnifying glass to read it. By compact, they meant that 16400 pages had been squeezed into a mere 4100. And it is truly a wonderful book, full of words nobody saw fit to include in my other Oxford Dictionary -- words like deathwards (towards death), slob-land (muddy ground), sulke (hard to sell, as in Never was a thrifty trader more willing to put of a sulke commodity than she was to truck for her maydenhead) and tankodrome (a park for military vehicles). Of course after I read "tankodrome" I had to buy it.

We set off back north on Friday, up the dreaded M6 which funnels millions of cars through a chokepoint between the busy cities of Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. The rain lashed down. Lorries hissed by. My windscreen wipers creaked and smeared it all into a grey blur. Seventy miles an hour became sixty, then twenty, and then a long crawl through road works where whole teams of blinking vans and generators and men in yellow jackets had converged on one spot to remove a pebble from the fast lane. Speed cameras and average speed cameras and warning signs for speed cameras, all waiting for some future day when a sudden drop in traffic congestion might make it actually possible to exceed 15 mph. And on almost every overpass there waited a solitary vehicle, occasionally a mobile speed trap, but more often just a normal lorry or car that had stopped there for some unknown reason. Why are they there? Do they go there to have a picnic and watch traffic? Is it a swingers' thing? It's completely inexplicable.

Aliens, probably.

The Book Formerly Known as Penny Devil

2008-03-02T14:07:00.000Z

The advance reading copies of "Iron Angel" are now out and doing the rounds. That a large part of the book is set in Hell is apt, since it felt like I was actually there while writing it. The creation of Book Two has been a much more difficult process than writing the first one.

Publishers sometimes talk about a strange malady called "secondbookitis". After taking several years to write your debut, you're suddenly thrust into a position where you now have to produce a second book to a deadline, and now you are keenly aware you have an audience.

I don't know if this peculiar affliction had a grip on me. Perhaps it did. It seems that for every word I left in the final draft of "Iron Angel", I deleted another two. Swathes of text, characters and even book-length threads, all binned. Writers advise you to murder your darlings. "Iron Angel" produced mass graves full of darlings.

Kirkus have provided the first quote: “Flavorsome, original and leavened with a fierce sense of humor.” Nice enough, but curiously bready.

Writing "Lye Street" was far less stressful (perhaps something to do with only having 26,000 words to write, as opposed to 150,000 or so). It was a limited edition with only 2000 copies printed, and these have now sold out -- thanks to the stunning artwork by Bob Eggleton and Dave McKean, I'll wager.

So now it's on to Book Three. No title yet, but as the deadline looms I know I'll be thinking of calling it "God, I Really Need a Holiday" or "Can this be a Really Short One, Please?" or "Everyone Dies After 80,000 Words."

And the BT fun goes on and on and on.

2008-02-17T12:14:00.007Z

After twice promising to waive their evil, immoral - and undoubtedly illegal - reconnection fee, BT once again reneged. They had no record, they said, of promising to waive the charge - or rather their system had no record.

Now, I'm pretty sure the operator had typed something into his computer - I remembered hearing keys clacking, after all - which leads me to think that either this "system" has the memory of a goldfish, or BT are simply just a bunch of lying, conniving rotters.

I have a degree in Computer Science and worked as a software engineer for more than a decade. Generally we don't engineer software to be this shit.

So am I being lied to?

Rather than waive the fee, as they had twice promised to do, they now offered us a 15% discount. What a bargain! They disconnect you without warning or permission, force you into a twelve month contract with them against your will, charge £125 to reconnect you, but now you only pay £106.25. What other mugger would offer you such a good deal?

"Give me all the cash in your wallet!"

"No!"

"Erm... Ok. Give me 85% of the cash."

Yeah. Right.

This time, however, I was away from home, so BT spoke to my partner, Caragh. She can be pretty fierce, take it from me, and I think BT might have met their match with her. So... finally - FINALLY - the wicked corporate goldfish monster relented. They admitted that they were in error, again, and they waived the fee, again.

I didn't trust them. I phoned.

"You've really cancelled that ridiculous fee?"

"Yes."

And they actually had. With a massive sigh of relief, I asked them to lift the restrictions on my phone. They had disabled outgoing calls from our phone because I wouldn't pay their outlandish charge in the first place. Now that they'd realised their mistake, I just wanted to forget about the last two months of fighting them. I wanted my phone working again.

"It will cost you £12," they said.

"But no," I said, quietly and patiently. "You disabled my phone because I didn't pay your £125. Now you have admitted charging me in error and removed the charge. I am not paying you to lift the restrictions."

"The restrictions were placed on the phone because you didn't pay the remainder of the bill, the advance line rental, call charges and processing fee."

"But all that amounts to... about £38," I said. "And you'll see that I paid you a £50 deposit in December, just like you asked me to. Is my maths rusty, or don't you now owe me £12?"

"No. That £50 was a deposit. You'll get that back in 6 months. You still owe us £38. We'll add the £12 charge for lifting the restrictions to you next bill."

I gave up. I'd had enough. I sighed. I paid. When I have enough energy to continue dealing with them, I'll fight this second charge. I don't care if it's £12 or £1200, or 12p. It's the principle of the thing. You have to stand up to muggers and fight back.

And then I realised that the cash I'd just paid them included a £4.50 "payment processing fee."

Payment processing fee? Surely BT don't charge you for paying them money? That couldn't be right, could it?

"What's this payment processing fee?" I asked.

"If you don't pay by direct debit, we have to charge you £4.50 to process your payment."

"But I paid by debit card."

"Yes but we still have to process it."

I thought about this. "How much is does it cost to process the processing fee?" I asked. "If you charge me for paying my bill, then what's the charge for paying the charge?"

"Nothing."

"Why? If you don't charge to process the processing fee, why do you charge to process the bill? Can't you just process the bill in the same way you process the processing fee - you know... the free way?"

They said, "The bank charges us £4.50 every time we accept a payment by debit card."

"FOUR POUNDS FIFTY!? My bank charges you £4.50 every time I use my debit card?"

"Yes."

"But that's ridiculous!" I exclaimed. "I've used my debit card thousands of times, for small purchases as well as large ones. If they charged a shop £4.50 every time I spend a fiver on my card, the shop wouldn't make any money. Nobody would accept debit cards."

I get the feeling that BT are lying to me again, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt one last time. I'll go into my bank on Monday and confirm that they do indeed charge BT £4.50 every time I use my debit card. If my bank doesn't charge this much, then this seems to me to be a case of fraud, and it becomes a matter for the police.

Before I hung up, I asked them again to send out my compensation form. If it doesn't turn up within a week, then I'll lodge an official complaint with OFCOM. I also asked them to confirm they have the right address. Four times now, I've asked them to change it, and four times they have changed it. And four times it has mysteriously changed back to the wrong address.

They still had the wrong address. They changed it again. Fifth time lucky? Will it stay that way? Or will BT's computer system continue to swim around and around, gaping at the insides of its bowl?

Meanwhile, I'll continue to wait for them to return my deposit, which will have risen from £50 to £54.50, once I include the processing fee.

More fun with BT

2008-02-08T15:19:00.003Z

BT finally agreed to send out the compensation claim form. By my calculations they owe me about £250 for travelling expenses I incurred, for loss of phone service, and for calls made to BT the service centre to try to sort out the fruits of their incompetence.

A week later and the claim form has still not arrived. It turns out BT still had the wrong address on their database, despite me asking them to correct it three times. Only one out of God knows how many letters has reached me. And that one was a bill.

They still want me to pay £125 because they cut me off by mistake.

In order to let OFCOM deal with this, I need to give them my BT account number. BT refuse to tell me what my account number is (for security reasons). It was on the one slip of paper they sent me, they said, but that has now vanished (my fault -- I think I shredded it in despair and confusion.) I asked them to send another copy, so that I could read my account number printed on the top. They agreed. The copy didn't arrive. Gone to the wrong address, I presume.

Yesterday I phoned the service centre in India again. After explaining the whole story for the thirty-eighth time, and another 45 mins or so on hold. They apologised and agreed to waive the £125 charge. But the bastards have areed to do this before. Just like they agreed to compensate me. It doesn't mean anything. It's their special kind of torture.

ME: "You'll waive the fee? At last. But I still can't use my phone. Can you switch it back on please?"

THEM: "You need to call 0800 800 150, and ask them to lift the restrictions from your line."

ME: "Do you have a reference number or something you can give me? I guarantee that when I phone them up nobody will know anything about this."

So they gave me another number. It's like a lottery - maybe this one will work. I phoned the other service dept, gave them my reference number, and waited on hold for another 45 mins for them to switch my phone like back on.

They didn't switch it back on. Nobody had any idea what was going on. The reference number didn't help. They said they had to investigate and that they'd call be back within 4 hours.

"You won't call me back," I said. "You never call back when you promise to."

"We will. We promise."

They didn't. My phone is still disconnected.

So I called them back today. Now BT has no record of agreeing to waive the £125 fee. No record of my complaint. No record of anything. According to their system I still owe them £125, and its rising. The compensation claim form has still not arrived. It might never arrive. My phone doesn't work. It might never work. I will probably never know by BT account number, so OFCOM won't help.

They've promised to call back.

They Mugged me Again

2008-02-05T16:04:00.002Z

BT have now disconnected me for non payment of the £125 reconnection fee.

Mugged by BT. Again.

2008-01-19T21:09:00.002Z

My first communication from BT arrived this morning. It was a reminder for a bill. A reminder. This is first thing they've sent me since they cut me off in error, hijacked my phone line, and forced me into a 12 month contract with them against my wishes.

This reminder had the wrong address on it, but reached me somehow (I live in a small town, and the posties are very good). No mention of the £50 deposit I already paid them, or of the compensation they'd promised me for having to drive a total of 250 miles just so that I could read my email and send documents and queries to my editor in order to meet my deadline (not to mention the £90 I spent on mobile phone calls to demand my phone line back, or the £30 I had already paid to my own phone company in advance fees.) I did not tell them that my grandmother died, and I didn't know to go to her hospital bedside that afternoon because my mobile had run out of charge, and my family couldn't reach me because BT had cut my phone line. The death of a family member was not something I was prepared to speak about with these people.

No. I simply made it abundantly clear how much they had inconvenienced me.

Now this "reminder" arrives, saying I owe them £165 or so.

£33 for three months line rental, payable in advance.
£0.14 for calls I made.
£4.50 for some spurious charge I incurred for paying BT money.
£124.99 BT reconnection fee.

Of course I called them up, and, after a mere 10 minutes, got straight through to their call centre in India.

(Paraphrasing)
Me: "I'm not paying this, you utter bastards. You can't disconnect me from another phone company just because you made a stupid mistake, then keep me on hold for over three hours each time I call to try and sort it out, then force me into a 12 month phone contract with yourselves, which I have to agree to if I want a phone, then promise me compensation and not cough up, then charge me £50 deposit to guarantee I get a connection back, while depriving me of a phone line for two and a half weeks, AND THEN CHARGE ME £125 FUCKING POUNDS FOR RECONNECTING ME."

Them: "The system says you need to pay this £125 because engineers were called round."

Me: "I don't care. You disconnected me. YOUR mistake. I'm not paying it."

Them: "I don't know about that. You have to pay because the system doesn't mention any of that other stuff."

Me: "Are you saying I'm wrong? ARE YOU SAYING I'M LYING ABOUT THIS? Or is robbery now BT's policy?"

Them: "Erm... Engineers... System... £125..."

Me: "This company is the greediest and most incompetent company I have ever dealt with. You could not possibly be more incompentent if you tried. It is simply impossible to be any worse."

Them: "The system says..."

Me: "LET ME SPEAK TO YOUR BOSS!!!!!!"

And now a second "complaints procedure" is underway. I have a new reference number and everything. But one thing's for sure. I have to get away from BT before I lose my mind. Even if it means no phone. Even if it means moving to a new house with a non-BT line. I have to get away from these idiots.

Another LYE STREET review

2008-01-07T15:40:00.000Z

HERE

Happy New Year

2008-01-04T16:09:00.000Z

Wishing you all the best for 2008.

Despite ongoing protests from South Lanarkshire Council we celebrated Hogmanay in the usual way in Biggar. The ritual burning of witches has been carried out in this small Scottish town for almost 300 years. Locals disguise the event as a simple bonfire outside the Corn Exchange.

The celebrations begin with a march up the High Street. Torch bearers follow a pipe band.

Torch bearers surround the bonfire. This year's sacrificies are a witch from Symington and two hapless warlocks who claimed to be tourists from Kent, all now tucked safely away in a wicker cage in the heart of the pyre. Burning will commence shortly.

Charlie, one of the Biggar elders, lights the fire to the tune of "There's a Burning Tonight here in Biggar." Subtle hand gestures can be seen among the local policemen and town leaders.

The pipers blare out "Scotland the Brave" to mask the screaming. Later, the bus shelter will melt from the heat, two windows will crack, and the smell of roasted meat will send droves of people to the chippy in search of king rib suppers. Much fun is had by all.

There you have it. Not only a great tradition here in the Scottish Borders, but a practical way of ridding the land of evil.

Mugged by BT

2007-12-14T15:20:00.001Z

For once, the lack of updates in this blog has been due to circumstances outside my control. I've been mugged by the UK's largest telecommunications company. BT took my phone line and forced me into a twelve month contract with them.

New neighbours moved into the house next door and asked for a telephone line to be installed. BT looked at their database and, instead of simply switching the previous tenant's account over to the new tenant, accidentally switched my telephone line over to my neighbour instead.

Now, I wasn't with BT. I paid my bills to another phone company who rented that line from BT (if you want to know why I wasn't with BT, just try phoning their customer support -- the number is 0800 800 880 -- and see how you get on).

So BT switched the line over in error, cutting me off without my consent. My old telephone provider said they couldn't reconnect me -- they needed that BT line back.

I called BT customer services on my mobile. They promised that their complaints department would contact me within 48 hours.

Of course they didn't.

I called them back: a three and a half hour phone call, during which time they kept me on hold for three hours. If I'd known it would take that long, I would have watched a couple of films, back to back.

BT informed me that they would reconnect the line within two working days. The cost to me? A mere £50 deposit. They refused to reconnect the line without this payment up front. If I wanted a phone I had no option but to cough up.

*Sounds of spitting fury from this end of the conversation*

And there was worse to come. Because BT disconnected my phone in error, and the only way I could get my phone line back was through BT, BT insisted that I sign up for a 12 month contract with them -- at a much higher cost than what I was paying my old provider.

"Is that legal?" I asked, incredulous. "It sounds like extortion."

They remained sympathetic, but insistent. Twelve month contract or no phone.

"I've had no phone or internet for a week a now," I explained, "and I need those reconnected so that I can work. I have a deadline. The final US proofs for my second book will be emailed to me any day now, and I need to be in contact with my editor -- I need to send documents and queries back and forth to the USA. If I can't do that, the book will be delayed and all the money Bantam spent on advertising will be wasted."

Again they remained sympathetic, but insistent. Twelve month contract or nothing.

And it really seemed that I didn't have a choice. I called every other phone company I could think of. They all told me the same thing: "We need a working BT line."

Obviously, this works out well for BT. By disconnecting the phone line of a customer with a rival company and by being the only provider willing to reconnect that line, BT can steal that customer away from the rival company and then strong-arm them into a new contract with themselves, all without that customer's consent. Good for the shareholders. Bad for customer relations, but then who cares about the customers, right? Three hours waiting on hold really nails that point home.

I'm told this is called "slamming" in the telecommunications industry. It feels like I've been mugged.

I needed a phone, so I had to pay, and I had to sign up for the 12 month contract. They didn't reconnect me in two days, as promised. The whole process took 17 days, during which time I remained cut off.

That's BT for you. If you're thinking of going with them for your phone, you can call them on 0800 800 880. If you decide to go with another company instead, you might end up with BT anyway.

LYE STREET review from Publishers Weekly

2007-11-02T16:36:00.000Z

Subterranean Press have taken Lye Street (my 26k prequel to Scar Night) and produced a limited edition hardcover with beautiful illustrations by Bob Eggleton and a stunning dust jacket by Dave McKean of Sandman, Hellblazer and Mirrormask fame. Lye Street ends just where the first book of the Deepgate Codex begins.

From Publishers Weekly:

Lye Street: A Novella of the Deepgate Codex
Alan Campbell. Subterranean (www.subterraneanpress.com), $25 (136p) ISBN 978-1-59606-135-4

Campbell's nightmarish prequel to Scar Night (2006) explores the depths of twisted revenge. Every half-century since the Deepgate year 511, when Henry Bucklestrappe was extracted mysteriously from the temple dungeons and nastily murdered, the hideously scarred angel, Carnival, has slain a Bucklestrappe descendent. Now, in 1012, it is wily old prospector Sal Greene's turn to be a victim. He asks phantasmacist Laccus Ravencrag to summon up the demon Basilis, unexpectedly impotent, to battle Carnival, herself victimized by her own psyche and trapped by the brutal witch Ruby. Campbell meshes pity with terror against the bleak phantasmagoric backdrop of a city suspended from chains, swinging dismally over a yawning abyss. In a civilization literally built upon nothing, dark magic and vengeance are the rule of the day, and Campbell will quickly have readers under his creepy and sometimes heartbreaking spell. (Jan.)

----

Treasured Places

2007-10-23T17:06:00.000+01:00

RCAHMS (that's the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland) are having a celebration. Not a celebration with a mobile disco and draught Stella, but one more focused on Scotland's past, and their library of historical images.

You still have time to vote for your favourite image of the most treasured places of Scotland.

http://www.treasuredplaces.org.uk/index.php

The winning image will be celebrated by a poem written by Valerie Gillies.

(It will then taken on an all inclusive cruise to the Cayman Islands, where it will meet other images of treasured places from around the world and compete in a "one-image-takes-all" superquiz for the grand prize of one night with Bryan Ferry.)

I would have posted this sooner, but I've been REALLY busy. There are some interesting images here, especially the Rosslyn Chapel one, which everyone should vote for.