Tamara Drewe by Posy Simmonds

Possibly my favourite comic book ever.

One thing I’ve always loved about comics is the way that the background can be as important as the foreground. Reading a book is linear thing, your eyes are dragged along a sequence of words, you watch a film at a rate of 24 frames per second, but with comics you can take as long as you like over each panel.  A good comic book writer can develop several stories in the background in a way that isn’t possible in prose fiction; they can also set the background to characters and events quite literally in the background.

Posy Simmonds does this to great effect in Tamara Drewe.  Tamara transforms herself with plastic surgery, a new wardrobe and a confidence that makes her the focus of attention in the remote village where she grew up, eventually  leading her to be regarded as a man-eater, home wrecker and even a slut.

Tamara Drewe originally appeared as a serial in the Guardian, and the restrictions of  a one page strip per week brought a wonderful economy to the writing.

But even more than the story, I love the artwork.  If anything it reminds me of Herge with its super realistic backgrounds and simplified foregrounds: some of the characters barely have two dots for eyes and a line for a mouth, just like Tin Tin.  It doesn’t matter – Simmonds has a fine eye for character, and the poses they strike, the clothes they wear are just so right and familiar.

But it’s the backgrounds that I adore, be it the contents of a bathroom, the vegetables on a chopping board or just the right mobile phones for two teenage girls.  (One is spoilt by her guilty father and so everything he gives her is just a little better quality than her friend.)  This is the power of comics, showing and not telling.  The machinery is just right, the line of cars parked outside a pub, the little bus that takes the teenage girls into town, even the device for killing ducks (and if you want to know what that is, read the book.)

A few reviewers suggested that Tamara Drewe should be entered for the Booker Prize.  Whilst I applaud the sentiment, I have to disagree.  You might as well suggest that Ivan Fischer’s recording of Mahler’s 4th should win.  It’s good, yes, but its a different art form.

Tamara Drewe shows just what comics can be.

Stone Age, Iron Age

I’ve just got the copy edited manuscript for Blood and Iron from Macmillan and I’m busy working through it.  It always amazes me the inconsistencies the copy editor picks up.  The MS must have been read by at least six people by now, including me,  and none of us noticed that I used the same word eight times on one page, or that one character knows another’s name even though they’ve never met before.

The copy editor also queried the fact that I said the Stone Age came after the Iron Age.  In fact everyone so far has pointed out this is the wrong way round.  They’re right of course, but I state here, for the record, before the reviews come in, that on Penrose the robots learned to handle iron long before they learned to handle stone.  In fact, for robots, the Iron Age means the time of the birth of the robots.

Okay, I make it me 1, copy editor 552 and counting.

Morphobia Alligator

Morphobia Alligator

Meet Morphobia Alligator, one of Sebastian Winnett’s inspired illustrations for Blood and Iron.

Morphobia Alligator is built to a different, and much older, design than that adopted by the robots in Twisted Metal.

What do you think?

Duality, Materialism and Why People Like Robots

Can a robot be capable of thought, creativity and emotion?

Many people and religions would answer “no”, believing that some spirit or soul within us is responsible for our thoughts.  This concept is known as Duality: the idea that the body and thoughts are two different things.  However, in the past hundred years or so, work on computers and the study of such natural phenomena as Emergent Behaviour have led to the materialistic belief that the mind can be explained in terms of  nuts and bolts and levers arranged in different patterns (or more accurately through an arrangement of cells and electrical impulses).

Now, materialism has been a common theme in SF for the past few decades.  One manifestation of this is the “mind running on a computer” idea. After all, if a mind is not some separate spirit or soul, and is instead just the result of physical interactions, then why can’t those interactions be modelled on a computer, pretty much the same way as the World is now modelled on Google Earth?  I used this idea myself in my Recursion trilogy where minds hopped freely back and forth between processing spaces. But whilst writing Divergence, the last book in the series, I became aware of the following problem: once we accept the ideas of minds jumping back and forth between computers, we are almost back at the idea of “souls” jumping between physical containers. On an intellectual level we are thinking “Materialism”, but subconsciously we are back at Duality.

So I decided to write a book that was unmistakeably materialistic.  I came up with the idea of using robots, robots that would take a piece of wire and twist it into a new mind. These robots would seek out metal to make children, and, when resources were short, they would fight other robots for metal just as humans fight each other for land and food.  I liked the idea, and the novel that eventually became Twisted Metal began to unfold. The novel deals with robots that are capable of thought, creativity and emotion, and of anger, hatred and irrationality, but each with a mind made up of nothing more than a piece of metal twisted into shape by his or her mother.

But I digress.  I wanted to say why I think people like robots.  And I think it’s this fascination that they are the same as us, but oh so different.  You take a piece of metal, you twist it into a robot, and what you have there is exactly what you built.  It may malfunction and try and kill you, it may learn how to love you, or it may just hoover the carpet, but what you are looking at is materialism in action.  And this, for many people, is their first glimpse that the world may be stranger than they think…

(The above originally appeared as an article in SciFi Now Magazine)

Debatable Spaces

SF Writer and scriptwriter Philip Palmer asked me to contribute to his SF Song of the Week feature.  You can read about it by following the link.  I won’t give the game away by saying what it is (how about that for suspense?), but I’ll point out that I remember listening to this at university and thinking “That would make a good story”.

That got me thinking about music that has inspired me to write.  More on that, I think, in a later blog.

Snow Day

This is isn’t a twitter type blog.  If you want to know how I spend my days then you really should consider getting a hobby.  I don’t do anything that interesting in my spare time anyway, to be honest.

But…

The sky is a brilliant blue, outside there is well over a foot of snow that has not really gone away since the week before Christmas.  Snow has been falling on snow so everything is clean and white, snow is piled up on the branches of the trees and stuffed deep into the bushes.  The snow is so deep on the road outside my house that no-one is attempting even  to put grit down, never mind trying to drive along it.  The schools are all closed for the third day running and as the snow isn’t melting the snowmen are forming crowds on the lawns.  There are thrushes, starlings, young blackbirds and magpies everywhere, eating the scraps that people have put out for them, and because no-one can really go anywhere, people are looking more relaxed and they’re taking the time to stop and chat.

Someone on the radio this morning said that Snow Days are costing the economy a fortune.  I’ll try and look as if I care.

Three for the Price of One

I watched the film The African Queen for the first time yesterday, and very enjoyable it was too.

Now, alongside Robots and Accordions, this blog celebrates good writing, and the screenplay had that in abundance.  I was particularly taken by a scene near the beginning of the film where Katherine Hepburn’s character kneels at the bedside of her brother.  He’s going mad, having just seen the Germans destroy the village where he works as a missionary, and he is reliving his past life.  Whilst his sister listens, he talks about how he must pass his exams tomorrow in order to become successful in life.  If he doesn’t pass, he resolves to become a missionary and in that way perform the Lord’s work.  He decides, that being the case, he will take his sister with him, wherever he is sent.

There’s a really nice example of the writer’s craft in the above scene:  many different bits of information being conveyed by one monologue.  First, there is the brother’s madness, which is distressing for his sister and the viewer.  Second, we get see a little of the brother’s back story.  And thirdly, there is the look of hurt on Katherine Hepburn’s face when her brother describes her as ‘not a comely woman’.  All that emotion conveyed in a couple of sentences.

I love this sort of economical writing, I’d rather see it than overblown prose any day. Three for the price of one.

Kerfuffle

Unlike many people, I don’t actually have a problem with X Factor.  Yes, I find the way they humiliate people in the early stages of the contest annoying to say the least, and yes, I’m fed up with the way they draw out announcing the results, but no, I don’t see any problem with having a talent show on TV. I can’t help thinking that some of the ire directed against it is due to the fact that everyone can participate in it, and not just the privileged few who have attended stage school.

Anyway, this is a very roundabout way of getting to the fact that I saw Kerfuffle on Friday night in Stockport.  It was an odd (though very enjoyable) event.  I can’t remember the last time I went to a folk gig where they put cashew nuts on the table, and I’m sure I’ve never been to one in a boat club before.  There was something reassuringly and authentically folky (and I’m not being sarcastic) about the raffle at half time and the support act that had an almost Music Hall feel to it (I haven’t sang Cushy Butterfield for years).

Anyway, the band themselves are young and very talented.  Hannah James has an assured touch on the accordion and a wonderfully clear voice, Jamie Robert’s guitar playing put me in mind of John Renbourn.  The group played an eclectic range of music, whilst remaining firmly within the tradition.  Definitely a group to watch.

But what’s all this got to do with X Factor?  Not that much, I suppose, except to note that this is a group of young people who have been immersed in music from a young age and who came together after entering a folk competition at the Derby Assembly Rooms (the place where Alt.Fiction has been held!).  So there you are are.  Talent shows for Folk Musicians.  I wonder what Simon Cowell would make of that?

Incidentally, posts have been a bit slow here recently as I’m busy working on another project.  More about this in the new year…

Books I didn’t Expect to Enjoy

People sometimes ask for my favourite books, or the authors that most influence me.  The following are neither of these.  They’re the books that were recommended to me that I didn’t want to read because they looked dreadful, the books that I picked up because I was bored or because there was nothing else to hand.  Never judge a book by its cover, be wary of its reputation.  I really enjoyed the following…

The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot

When my daughter recommended these to me I was like  no way,   but when I started reading them I was like hey these are soooo cool.

Actually, I found the books really funny.  Like all the best fictional diarists, Mia’s perception of herself is not that of the reader, and a lot of the comedy stems from this.  I like the fact that you could read these as teenager and then again as an adult and have a completely different view of what went on.

There are also links to online tips on how to be a princess on the jacket, but I haven’t used those yet.

Bravo Two Zero by Andy McNab

A number of friends (all male) recommended this, and I read it in the end mainly to keep them quiet.  I’m glad I did as it gave me a completely different perspective on army life.  The book deals with fighting and incompetence and torture, but it’s the small details that stick in the mind, the events that take part away from the action, like the author walking the streets with his girlfriend the night before he set off on his mission as they neither of them knew what else to do.

Rachel’s Holiday by Marian Keyes

Chick lit of the highest calibre.  Yes, its a rom com, but with a twist as the heroine gradually comes to terms with the fact that she’s an alcoholic and drug addict.  Marian Keyes know’s all about this as she used to be one herself. Writing a book that deals with the issue, but keeping it funny, positive and yet realistic is quite an achievement.

Incidentally, the book says Trust Marian on the spine.  I can’t help thinking that I should have something similar on the spines of my books.   How does Trust Tony sound?

Max J Friedländer

I came across Friedländer in Michael Frayn’s novel Headlong (which comes thoroughly recommended).

Max J. Friedländer , 1867-1958, was a German art historian who, according to Frayn, warned against the “vanity of attempting to describe pictures in detail”.  Friedländer recommends “the strictest economy of words”, limiting oneself to “aphoristic remarks, put together unsystematically”.  The advice struck a chord with me on reading the book, and, as I discovered on subsequently searching the web, it seems to have struck a chord with others.

The advice reminds me of the eyeball kick, mentioned by the the Turkey City Lexicon,  amongst other guides:

That perfect, telling detail that creates an instant visual image. The ideal of certain postmodern schools of SF is to achieve a “crammed prose” full of “eyeball kicks.”

It wasn’t always thus.  Chesterton opened one of his Father Brown stories  to excellent effect with paragraphs of atmospheric description of  dark and sinister pine forests, but this is old fashioned writing in the days of big budget movies, especially for those of us working in the SF field.  You’re never going to get the reader to imagine the same spectacle as they can be seen on the big screen, but you can arrest them with the small details (It’s years since I read Schindler’s List, but the image that to always comes to my mind from that book is not the barbed wire or the soldiers, but the little girl in the red coat).

Personally, I don’t like passages describing scenery, I like to keep such things to a minimum, but maybe that’s a matter of taste.

Or maybe not.  You’d be surprised how much description a reader fills in for themselves.  Think of Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.  About the only description Austen gives is that he is tall.  The rest is left to the reader’s imagination.