Alt.Fiction 2011: Cakes, Raffles and the Shepard Shuffle

Things I learnt about at this weekend’s Alt.Fiction: the direction of modern science-fiction, John Wayne, 1980s toy related comics, memetic theory in relation to religion and mythology, the Gordon the Gopher novel, waxed moustaches, Thai food, and… lots of other great stuff.

 

Alt.Fiction is like that. It’s a whirling multicoloured pinball machine of an event, where you bounce wildly from one interesting talk to another- whether that’s in a panel, a podcast or just by the bar while you’re drinking a cider. I think this is why it is regarded as one of the friendliest of conventions, the one where you make new friends in a short space of time and have more giggles over the drawing of a raffle than is strictly healthy.

 

In my opinion the real heroes of Alt.Fiction* are those writerly people (I’m including all manner of authors, publishers and publicists here) who probably were amazingly busy and probably did have a hundred people they had to meet up with but still stopped to say hello and have a natter. It’s easy for the writer at the beginning of his or her career to feel like publishing is a big exclusive circus on the moon with clowns made of gold, where everyone already knows each other and you are a tiny orphan child with a homemade t-shirt saying “I luv cirkuses”: the publishing people who pause to make the experience an inclusive, positive one are absolute stars and I cannot praise them enough.

 

I was involved in two podcasts this weekend and was pleased (and slightly alarmed) at the number of people who turned up for both, even the one on Sunday when we must all have had thumping headaches and delicate stomachs. Big thanks to Adam Christopher and Kim Lakin-Smith who spoke more sense about steampunk than I was capable of, and much slightly hungover gratitude to the lovely Jenni Hill, Mark Charon Newton and Graham McNeill who were all utterly charming and gave me an excuse to blather on about video games. Adele Wearing and Vincent Holland-Keen kept the whole thing running smoothly with style and panache, and indeed were true podcasting heroes.

 

Other highlights include meeting up with twitter buddies Andrew Reid (@mygoditsraining) and Hollie Chapman (@holliechapman86); talking to Graham McNeill about Dragon Age 2; the Mythology in Writing podcast where a brass band attempted to upstage the panel; and Dave Moore’s impromptu grammar demonstration over sticky rice. There were loads of other great moments but I think I’ll need a few days for my brain to process them all, and indeed I wish I’d had the good sense to bring a camera- a few pictures would have helped me remember everything beyond the haze of coffee and alcohol.

 

Looking forward to next year already!

 

*the bar staff were also heroes.

The Meaning of Steampunk

I was watching the eddies of conversation collide today on twitter, as you do, and I spotted a mini steampunk discussion. Given that I’ll be involved in a podcast on the subject this Saturday at Alt.Fiction, it caught my eye and now has me contemplating the actual meaning of the term “steampunk”.

            Adam Christopher (also podcasting on goggles and airships this weekend) mentioned that he couldn’t see how The Anubis Gates was a steampunk book, as there are no steam-based technologies in the story. In fact, the catalyst behind what is, quite frankly, a fantastic book is ancient Egyptian magic and time travel (also magical) that has nothing to do with Victorian steam-tech at all.

            This is a fair point. The reason it’s interesting to point this out with The Anubis Gates in particular is that Tim Powers is one of those mentioned in the famous letter to Locus magazine that coined the phrase in the first place.

…Personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term for Powers, Blaylock and myself. Something based on the appropriate technology of the era; like "steampunks", perhaps...

—K.W. Jeter

 

So if The Anubis Gates isn’t steampunk, then what is? What does it actually mean? Personally I like to think of the sub-genre as Historical Science Fantasy, but even that is a bit wobbly if we want it to cover TAG. Where is the science, really? This got me thinking though- do we really take the “steam” in steampunk to refer only to outlandish steam powered technology, such as Abraham Lincoln robots or flying machines? Or is steam actually a shorthand way of referring to a certain period of history, namely the Victorian era? (Whether or not we uproot that era and place it elsewhere, I think that’s really the heart of the genre). In other words, is steam actually just referring to the time of the industrial revolution, regardless of how much unlikely tech you’ve got in your Victorian Fantasy?

 

I’d love to know what you all think! So put on your best automated top hat, fire up the steampowered abacus and tell me what you think the term steampunk actually means.

Alt.Fiction Approaches! 25th-26th June

Alt.Fiction is very close indeed now, not this weekend but the next in fact. I went last year and had an absolute blast- I even, dare I say, learnt quite a lot about publishing and writing, alongside the lovely sense of community and shared geeky joy in discussing genre books. If you are at all interested in science-fiction, fantasy or horror this is the con to go to; it’s relaxed, fun and the schedule looks cracking this year too.

 

Alastair Reynolds and Dan Abnett are the Guests of Honour, there are workshops and screenings galore and no doubt a lively non-stop gathering in the bar, so do come along (you can see the list of guests and the full schedule here). My good friend Adam Christopher will be reading from his soon to be published book Empire State, and I’ll be talking on a couple of podcasts too- one on steampunk with Adam and the lovely Kim Lakin-Smith, and another on the rather juicily titled subject “Is Genre Just for Boys?” with Jenni Hill, Mark Newton and Graham McNeill. If you are there do pop over with your questions, moral support or flasks full of strong liquor.

 

See you there!

 

(ooo, look! Just noticed that my author page is up on the alt.fiction website! This pleases me*)

 

* The steampunk anthology, Her Majesty's Mysterious Conveyance, will be out soon, but more about that in another post.

Editing, the Second Draft and Serious Business

So the second draft of Ink for Thieves is finally finished. I’ll probably need to give it one more read through before I pass it on to my brave and wily beta reading team, but for now the big chunk of work is done. At least, on that book it is. The next couple of months will see more pulling out of hair and knuckle chewing as I read my way through the rough draft of Dead Zoo Shuffle and realise exactly how much delicate surgery that book needs before it’s readable- along with plenty of merry hacking, amputating and other bloody works.

 

Last night I remembered something Stephen King mentions in his book, On Writing. He said, (I may be paraphrasing slightly here) that you “shouldn’t come lightly to the page”. The first time I read that I don’t think I really understood what he was talking about. I thought perhaps he was suggesting that writing, real writing, was always hard work and could never be fun, which clearly wasn’t true at all. Now, having slogged my way through my first novel-length edit and emerged with what is, hopefully, a much shinier and sexier book, I think I’m starting to understand.

 

I think he’s talking about an acceptance of the sheer work involved. Yes, it’s fun and there are moments when the story suddenly comes together and the characters wander off to do what they want, and then the writing is exhilarating, but what you are doing is serious business. It is art. And you may well have to write this damn book over and over again until it is any good, and that thought is daunting, but no one ever said this was going to be a walk in the park, where gnomes massage your toesies and butterflies waft their secret songs into your ear holes. Much of the time in fact it’s rather more like heaving a giant dung ball on your back (that may or may not have a diamond secreted in it somewhere) and hauling it to the top of an impossibly tall mountain while goats with sarcastic eyebrows frown at you in a judgemental manner. But that’s alright because this is hardcore, this is SRS BSNS.

 

At least, I think that’s what he was talking about.

A Brief Visual Blog

And that pretty much sums up this week.

(Drommies, by the way, are small goat-like creatues quite essential for the survival of Juido and Andros in Ink for Thieves)

Upcoming Story in Hub Magazine, and Kittens

So in celebration of the fact that I have a short story coming up in Hub Magazine soon, I will:

 

a)      Do a snoopy dance (you will have to use your imagination here)

b)      Post a picture of a kitten

a)      and c) point you towards my previous two Hub stories, just in case you haven’t read them. The Sea, The Sea, The Sea is a tale of growing up, growing older and the terrible mysteries of, well, The Sea, and Jump is a story about how infatuation doesn’t always lead to flowers and chocolates. Sometimes, in fact, it leads to frogs.

 

The new story popping up presently in Hub is one of my favourites; a story initially scribbled into the back of my notebook whilst sitting on a train heading back from the SFX Weekender. As you can imagine, I was nursing a stinker of a hangover at the time and I think some of that hopeless terror and misery seeped through into the story.

 

Anyway, as soon as it’s up I shall shout and holler on here and possibly even post another picture of a kitten. Watch this space!

 

Douglas Adams: So Long and Thanks...

When I was little two of my aunties worked in care homes, and I would sometimes be dragged along to visit if there was a teacher training day or some such. My mum and my aunts, in their trinity of wisdom, would sit me down in front of a bookcase full of second-hand novels, knowing this would keep me out of trouble for hours. On one of these visits I happened to pick up a battered paperback that was to change my life: it was The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

 

I think I must have been around 10 or 11. That book coursed through my neural pathways, upgrading my brain in all sorts of exciting ways. My sense of humour changed drastically, moving from the Russ Abbott Show to Monty Python, from the Chuckle Brothers* to Blackadder. I began to think about the universe and my place in it, and got my first real introduction to science-fiction outside of Star Wars.

 

Ford Prefect became something of a hero to me, with his responsibility avoidance and blithe confidence. Ford didn’t want to save the Universe, he wanted to go to parties and get smashed. He wanted to do stuff and write things and not worry too much about the consequences of those things (like describing the Earth as “mostly harmless”). He was cool and interesting and didn’t quite fit in on our planet, and when you’re a teenager, these attributes are extremely attractive. Still are, really.

 

I read all the books in a fever of excitement, and then nearly expired with glee when I heard that there was not only a TV series but the radio series that had come first. The fact that each version veered from somewhat familiar to wildly different only pleased me more.

 

I look back on it now and I think I was supremely lucky to be introduced to Douglas Adams at such an impressionable age. Adams was witty and wise and a fantastically clever writer, whose tangents took you all over the wildly unlikely galaxy, often just to give you a punch line and something to think about. As I got older I read some of his thoughts on science, the natural world and Atheism, and much of what he said helped me to sort out my own confused thoughts on, yes, life, the Universe and everything. Just today I came across an article where Bop Ad talks a frightening amount of sense about the internet, and this was some 12 years ago.

 

When he died, 10 years ago today, I was a little bit heartbroken; I felt like I’d lost a hero, and the world had lost someone who knew more about what was coming to us than was reasonable or sensible. But I suppose, as I look back now on exactly how much of an impact that well-loved, battered paperback had on me, you don’t ever really lose your heroes. I still know where my towel is.

 

If you would like to listen to Marty and I blathering on about how totally froody Hitch-Hiker’s is, you can have a listen to the Box Room Special Number 42.

 

 

*Alright, to be fair, I never did like the Chuckle Brothers. Do now though, weirdly.