People, those that know me well, have been asking me where I stole the '...novel with words in it!' joke from. The answer is from the following Mitchell and Webb Sketch.
The basic idea of satirical publicity quotes I stole from Monty Python's Big Red Bok (which was blue).
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Radio London Interview
My interview on Radio London can be heard here it starts at 1 hr 36 minutes in.
Moon Over Soho - Out Now in the UK
Moon Over Soho is out today: 373 sizzling hardback pages of murder, magic, mystery, hot sex, cool jazz and cream cakes. A book that the critics are already calling '...a novel with words in it!''Some of the characters are the same as the last book.'
Pedant's Weekly
'No really I just can't patronise this book enough...'
Sue Perkins
'The humor, the world-building, the action, the magic, the mystery, the procedural—all are top-notch.'
Ranting Dragon
'Moon Over Soho is a ton of fun.'
'Moon Over Soho is a ton of fun.'
My Bookish Ways
'Moon over Soho is one of the most entertaining books I’ve read in a long time.'
Fantasy Literature
...the climax is both exhilarating and emotionally affecting...'
SFReviews.net
'...a tale full of magic, mystery and humor, set in a city that lives and breathes with its own living history.'
On BBC London Today
I shall be on the Robert Elms show on BBC Radio London today talking about jazz, Soho and the background to the book Moon Over Soho. I'm arriving at one thirty pm so the best thing to do is tune in then and just stay completely still until I've finished.
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
My Hovercraft Is Full Of Eels
According to my agent my munificent ocelot is to be translated into Hungarian for the delight of its inhabitants. In tribute to this, no doubt, epic task I provide the following Monty Python sketch...
The Hungarian publisher is Agave who don't seem to have a website I can locate. Still I'd just like to say that my nipples are exploding with delight.
Monday, 18 April 2011
Stephen Walter
Many people have commented on how much they like the Gollancz covers of Moon Over Soho and Rivers of London. The element that I think gives the covers their unique look is the work of artist Stephen Walter. His master work The Island - a psychogeographical redrawing of Greater London as an Island - suits the tone and the content of the books perfectly.It also means that as long I keep stories with the boundaries of the city I love then I never have to worry about cover design again. Result!
Stephen Walter has a website here and feature in the British Library's online exhibition here.
Monday, 11 April 2011
My Non Review of Sucker Punch
The Evil Monster Boy wanted to go see Sucker Punch really badly and not just in an ordinary digital print but in super migraine inducing size at the IMAX cinema. I on the other hand, possibly because I am not a 15 year old boy, found myself vaguely repulsed by the trailer and decided that seeing the film was, in the language of marketing, a non-aspiration.So non-aspirational was this film that yesterday I paid for the Evil Monster Boy and his friend to go see it without me. Unfortunately I still had to take myself and my credit card down to Waterloo to get the tickets so that left me with a couple of hours to kill. I migrated first to the second hand book stalls under Waterloo Bridge and thence, as if drawn by magic, into the BFI restaurant. I took a window seat and enjoyed a braised pork and garlic mash main course followed by coffee and cake(1) for about £2 less than I would have paid to see the film.
Outside the sun set over the Thames while the Kinks fought with GLaDOS for my mental soundtrack and waves of tourists washed up and down the embankment. So go see Sucker Punch if you want to, you might even enjoy it, or perhaps treat yourself to a decent meal instead.
(1) This was a triumph!
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
Support Your Local Film Industry
Strictly speaking the UK no longer has what you'd call an actual 'film industry' but occasionally a good script will fight it's way through the army of gibbons to make it to your local multiplex.It is said that 'Attack the Block' is such a film and so I told the Evil Monster Boy that we mustn't miss it when it does its, no doubt, blink and you'll miss it national release. Not just because it looks like a really good film but because it's important to support British talent.
The Evil Monster Boy agreed because, what with the last Harry Potter film being finished, there's a lot of spare talent lying around. So if you don't want to spend the rest of your life wondering where you're own culture went(1) - go see Attack the Block.
(1) Unless you're an American or something obviously.
Monday, 4 April 2011
Writing Below Your Pay Grade
Bonekickers
Now you can criticise Bonekickers for many things and indeed it's actually quite hard to see where one would stop criticising Bonekickers but most of those things arose out of positive decisions on the part of the production team. In other words they did it to themselves. Like many TV professionals before them they chose to ignore real history, politics or archaeology so in order to tell a better story. That the series proved a turgid disappointing muddle is down to their, surprising given their track record, short comings as writers and is beyond the scope of this blog.
What was most disappointing was the fact that the scripts were so slackly written and nothing illustrates this point better than the scene in Episode 2 when a document from the late 18th Century is discovered which refers to a group of black revolutionary war soldiers as 'political prisoners'.
Now I'm not an expert in the historical use of language but that stood out like a bum note. I'm pretty certain that any writer with a historical sense that stretched back beyond their old copies of the Beano would hear that bum note too. The trouble was that it used to be very hard to know for sure.
Until now and this is where the blog really starts....
Because those nice people at Google have provided lazy writers with the Ngram Viewer which allows you to check the frequency of the use of a word or phrase against book contents going back all the way back to the dawn-ish of publishing. So let us enter the phrase 'political prisoner' into the magic engine so...
As you can see the phrase doesn't really occur with any frequency before the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Even so there is one occurrence of the term listed in a book dated 1798 so I think I'm going to give Ashley Pharoah the benefit of the doubt in this case(1). Which proves how useful this thing is for the jobbing writer.
Bonekickers, wretched waste of budget that it may have been, is not the reason for this blog which was actually prompted when a script for the TV pilot of "Poe" fell into my hands(3).
Poe
The premise for this series is strong - Edgar Allen Poe a fine mystery writer pursues a crime fighting career in Boston in the early 1840s complete with spunky female sidekick and traditional antagonistic relationship with the Boston P.D.(4). Jumping out of page 4 comes the term "boogie man" not used for the supernatural killer before the 20th century or was "out of the box" in anything but it's literal meaning.
Now it can be fun to throw in anachronisms, to have our hero be 'ahead of the curve' and invent idioms a century or so early - but this approach only works well if everybody else routinely speaks in the appropriate historical idiom - which they don't. For example the police commissioner[sic] refers to "crime scenes" not in use before the 20th Century. And spunky female side kick refuses - to reinforce some "fairer sex" stereotype... Until the 1920s stereotype was strictly a printing term.
But the point where my willing suspension of disbelief, a quite sturdy edifice I assure you, collapsed was when Poe suggested that a particularly dim police officer should return to the academy[sic] for a refresher course (not in widespread use until the 20th century again). Anachronism piled on anachronism.
Can I point out that it took me all of a minute and a half to look up these words and check when the Boston P.D. was established. So the argument that writers don't have time to do this basic research is total bollocks. These leads us onto...
Like Who Cares Dude?
Good question. Does it matter that some piece of fluff TV show has any historical accuracy, or even a close approximation? I would forgive Poe if I thought that the producers had taken a decision to be interestingly anachronistic in the manner of 'A Knights Tale' but the truth is I believe it's down to either basic incompetence or because they just don't care enough to do the work properly. I think it matters on a purely professional level as a writer that if you're going to be paid to do work you should at least do it to a certain minimum standard.
I think this represents a failure of historical imagination so that all periods of history collapse down to a sort of dog's dinner that's essentially indistinguishable from how the present is represented. When this happens the past becomes mute, it teaches us nothing through allegory or contrast it exists only as another flavour of processed mechanically recovered meat. Fit only for dogs.
(1) I still think it's really unlikely that the British authorities would refer to freed slaves that had fought for the Continental Army(2) as 'political prisoners' in an official document.
(2) In exact reversal of what actually happened but given that none of the rest of the script made any sense I suppose that's a moot point.
(3) I really will do just about anything rather than work
(4) Founded 1854!
(5) 'Above your pay grade' comes into use in the 1960s and "pay grade" itself after 1900.
Now you can criticise Bonekickers for many things and indeed it's actually quite hard to see where one would stop criticising Bonekickers but most of those things arose out of positive decisions on the part of the production team. In other words they did it to themselves. Like many TV professionals before them they chose to ignore real history, politics or archaeology so in order to tell a better story. That the series proved a turgid disappointing muddle is down to their, surprising given their track record, short comings as writers and is beyond the scope of this blog.
What was most disappointing was the fact that the scripts were so slackly written and nothing illustrates this point better than the scene in Episode 2 when a document from the late 18th Century is discovered which refers to a group of black revolutionary war soldiers as 'political prisoners'.
Now I'm not an expert in the historical use of language but that stood out like a bum note. I'm pretty certain that any writer with a historical sense that stretched back beyond their old copies of the Beano would hear that bum note too. The trouble was that it used to be very hard to know for sure.
Until now and this is where the blog really starts....
Because those nice people at Google have provided lazy writers with the Ngram Viewer which allows you to check the frequency of the use of a word or phrase against book contents going back all the way back to the dawn-ish of publishing. So let us enter the phrase 'political prisoner' into the magic engine so...
As you can see the phrase doesn't really occur with any frequency before the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Even so there is one occurrence of the term listed in a book dated 1798 so I think I'm going to give Ashley Pharoah the benefit of the doubt in this case(1). Which proves how useful this thing is for the jobbing writer.Poe
The premise for this series is strong - Edgar Allen Poe a fine mystery writer pursues a crime fighting career in Boston in the early 1840s complete with spunky female sidekick and traditional antagonistic relationship with the Boston P.D.(4). Jumping out of page 4 comes the term "boogie man" not used for the supernatural killer before the 20th century or was "out of the box" in anything but it's literal meaning.
Now it can be fun to throw in anachronisms, to have our hero be 'ahead of the curve' and invent idioms a century or so early - but this approach only works well if everybody else routinely speaks in the appropriate historical idiom - which they don't. For example the police commissioner[sic] refers to "crime scenes" not in use before the 20th Century. And spunky female side kick refuses - to reinforce some "fairer sex" stereotype... Until the 1920s stereotype was strictly a printing term.
But the point where my willing suspension of disbelief, a quite sturdy edifice I assure you, collapsed was when Poe suggested that a particularly dim police officer should return to the academy[sic] for a refresher course (not in widespread use until the 20th century again). Anachronism piled on anachronism.
Can I point out that it took me all of a minute and a half to look up these words and check when the Boston P.D. was established. So the argument that writers don't have time to do this basic research is total bollocks. These leads us onto...
Like Who Cares Dude?
Good question. Does it matter that some piece of fluff TV show has any historical accuracy, or even a close approximation? I would forgive Poe if I thought that the producers had taken a decision to be interestingly anachronistic in the manner of 'A Knights Tale' but the truth is I believe it's down to either basic incompetence or because they just don't care enough to do the work properly. I think it matters on a purely professional level as a writer that if you're going to be paid to do work you should at least do it to a certain minimum standard.
I think this represents a failure of historical imagination so that all periods of history collapse down to a sort of dog's dinner that's essentially indistinguishable from how the present is represented. When this happens the past becomes mute, it teaches us nothing through allegory or contrast it exists only as another flavour of processed mechanically recovered meat. Fit only for dogs.
So yeah - I think it matters. I think as writers we should strive to work above our pay grade(5) not below it.
(1) I still think it's really unlikely that the British authorities would refer to freed slaves that had fought for the Continental Army(2) as 'political prisoners' in an official document.
(2) In exact reversal of what actually happened but given that none of the rest of the script made any sense I suppose that's a moot point.
(3) I really will do just about anything rather than work
(4) Founded 1854!
(5) 'Above your pay grade' comes into use in the 1960s and "pay grade" itself after 1900.
Thursday, 31 March 2011
Moon Over Soho - UK Release Soon
In honour of the upcoming UK release of 'Moon Over Soho' on the 21st of April here is a big scan of the cover.
Friday, 11 March 2011
Live Chat - Today
I'm chatting live on Bitten By Books today from 12:00 CST/18:00 GMT any questions may be answered and there's a give-away competition to go with it.New Blog Policy
After fiddling around I have a new blog policy. I shall go back to blogging here but stuff relating directly to the books will also be mirrored at the Folly.
Gibbon Wrangling for Beginners: Part 1
Dealing with the Patronage Delusion
A SCRIPT DEVELOPING MEETING
YOU: Wouldn’t it just be quicker if…
I think you’ll agree that such an exchange is not conducive to a good working relationship.
(1) Not real gibbons(2), see previous posts.
(2) Although that would be kind of cool.
(3) Many writers are pushing for a cull(4) but animal rights groups have objected.
(4) Can I reiterate that I’m not talking about real gibbons here.
It is an unfortunate fact of life that if you embark upon a career in writing that sooner or later you will find yourself dealing with a gibbon(1), sometimes a whole troop of gibbons. This can be a very disorientating experience so I’d thought I’d offer some advice for budding writers.
Because Gibbons are insanely status conscious they frequently see all professional relationships in terms of patronage. Because in the eyes of a gibbon a writer will always have roughly the same status as the cleaning lady this can lead them to exhibit strange behaviour which may cause alarm to the uninitiated.
Gibbons find it very difficult to deal with the fact that they are dependent on lowly writers for their livelihood. The fact that they must rely on talent to develop, produce and finally sell the product causes them a sort of constant low grade psychic pain. Like many people suffering from chronic pain the constant discomfort can lead to irritability, loss of temper and bouts of irrationality. To compensate gibbons frequently seek to recast straightforward professional arrangements as acts of patronage.
In this scenario they see themselves not as, admittedly high paid, media professionals contracting with a fellow professional but as Medici or Saatchi like patrons who have deigned to scatter their largesse on the mendicant writer who perforce must genuflect and kiss the feet of his betters.
Now - when you think you’ve got an agreement amongst equals and they believe that they’ve allowed the beneficent light of their countenance fall upon your unworthy form – it can lead to certain amount of cognitive dissonance. For example:
A SCRIPT DEVELOPING MEETING
YOU: I’ve knocked up a few sample scenes to test the concept I think it would be useful if you had a look to see if you thought I was on the right track.
GIBBON: No! I must not for it is written that in the beginning there shall be the pitch and the pitch shall beget the summary and from the loins of the summery shall come the outline which shall beget the scene breakdown and only then, when each and every one of these has been discussed yea unto the nth degree shall the script be written. So it is written, so shall it be. So say we all.
YOU: Wouldn’t it just be quicker if…
GIBBON: You dare question the wisdom of the ages, down upon your belly worm and beg forgiveness of the almighty commissioning editor before whom you are but a lowly dung beetle.
I think you’ll agree that such an exchange is not conducive to a good working relationship.
Remedy: unfortunately like most the problems associated with a gibbon infestation there is almost certainly no cure(3) but there are strategies that can help ameliorate the most unpleasant symptoms.
Firstly: don’t be an enabler. It’s always tempting to ‘go with the flow’ in the hope of having a quiet life but this would be a mistake. Enabling this kind of delusional behaviour is counterproductive in the long run and not good for the gibbons themselves.
Secondly: be firm. Always be firm and explain your position in clear measured tones. If you see signs that the gibbon has misinterpreted your position remain calm and restate your position again.
Thirdly: never lose your temper. Gibbons are hypersensitive to status and react very negatively to any suggestion that they may have offended or overstepped the bounds. The males in particular are prone to excessive territoriality which can manifest in chest beating, insults and feces hurling. It’s best to just to wait for these episodes to subside and then to continue as if nothing has happened.
Fourthly: do not be afraid to walk away. Ultimately you can do without them but they can’t do without you.
(1) Not real gibbons(2), see previous posts.
(2) Although that would be kind of cool.
(3) Many writers are pushing for a cull(4) but animal rights groups have objected.
(4) Can I reiterate that I’m not talking about real gibbons here.
Monday, 7 February 2011
Monday, 31 January 2011
Midnight Riot: US Launch Tomorrow
My novel Midnight Riot is officially released in the US and Canada on the 1st of February 2011 and will be available at all good bookshops(1), online and in many electronic formats.Midnight Riot: what the critics are saying...
"...fresh and original and a wonderful read. I loved it." - Charlaine Harris
"A hilarious, keenly imagined caper." - Diana Gabaldon
"Filled with detail and imagination, the quality of this achievement stands out...." - Peter F. Hamilton
"A witty and inventive twist to urban fantasy...Wouldn't let go until the last page." - Mario Acevedo
"...sweet relief for readers allergic to cliché." - Locus Magazine
"...the most satisfying fantasy thriller to hit bookshelves in quite some time." - SFX Magazine
"...witty, fun, and full of vivid characters, and the plot twists will keep even seasoned mystery fans guessing." - Publishers Weekly
A round up of links to the online reviews can be found here.
A round up of links to the online reviews can be found here.
Midnight Riot is published in the UK by Gollancz as Rivers of London and a second book featuring the further adventures of Peter Grant, Moon Over Soho, will be released on both sides of the pond this spring!
(1) And hopefully most of the bad bookshops as well.
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