Jonathan L. Howard's Blog, page 22

Howard’s House of Hammer (Part 1)

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to win some Hammer goodies from the House of Horror itself, which was nice. The prize was five DVDs bearing eight films. Unhappily, the envelope turned up with its flap open and only one DVD inside. Happily, Hammer leapt into the breach as soon as they heard my distant cry of anguish and sent me new copies of the missing discs.

I’ve been watching these in episodic form during my lunch ever since and have now seen all eight films. Most of them I haven’t seen for a very long time indeed, and in the case of the Dick Barton films, I had never seen them at all.

The DVDs are the new Icon editions and are very much at the budget end of the market. This not only means that a lot of extras that earlier releases included have been jettisoned, but they are now even missing subtitles, which seems extraordinary. Some of the prints – the Bartons and X the Unknown— have been in the wars a little, but all of them are certainly watchable. I recall there being a fuss when Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter was released in a very poor version where the night scenes were pitch black and the day scenes were washed out, but this was the correct version where everything was properly balanced.

The eight films span the period from 1948 to 1957, before leaping forward to 1974’s Captain Kronos. The ‘fifties films are historically interesting because the cover the period when Hammer evolved from a production company making smallish films of all (cheap to do) genres into its most famous manifestation as the House of Horror. The pivotal moment is generally said to be 1955 when it secured the rights to Nigel Kneale’s The Quatermass Experiment, which had been enormously successful as a BBC series.

In 1957 it released The Curse of Frankenstein, its first colour film, and the one that started the trend that we generally think of when we think of Hammer horror; supersaturated colour, a bit of sex, some Grand Guignol style gore, and ideally Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. If you look at Hammer’s releases after that, the other fare starts to vanish as horror and psychological thrillers come to dominate their output. This continued through the ‘sixties and into the early ‘seventies, when a new form of unspeakable vileness came to Hammer – yes, On the Buses, I’m looking at you – and the House of Horror started to look rather unsteady on its foundations. A bit more on that when I talk about Captain Kronos.

Here then, in very nearly the order in which I watched them, are my capsule reviews of the eight films, kicking off with…




Back in the late ‘forties through to the early ‘fifties, the radio serial Dick Barton: Special Agent was extraordinarily popular. Every evening, the nation tuned in to the BBC Light Programme for a quarter hour of dreadful villainy opposed and overcome by the handy fists of Dick Barton and his trusty chums Snowy and Jock. Hammer decided they wanted some of that, and jumped in to buy the license. The intention was to make little programme fillers, each just over an hour presumably to avoid straining the concentration spans of the anticipated audience of schoolboys, rendered hyperactive by a surfeit of gobstoppers and sherbet fountains. The film series was apparently very successful, yet only three were made, for a reason we will get to.

First up is 1948’s Dick Barton: Special Agent. If there is anything notable about this, it’s how bad it is. The plot, what there is of it, is about an evil Nazi plot to release a plague of cholera across the country. The plan makes little sense, but it’s only there so perfidious German Nazis passing themselves off as kindly Swedes – Have they no shame? – can try an endless list of cack-handed ways of doing in Barton, Snowy, and Jock. The whole production has a curious air of being made up as they go along, and is so squarely pitched at the wide-eyed lads in the audience that it has the obligatory chirpy young fellow up there on screen to act as their avatar.

One peculiarity among many; the boy knows who Dick Barton is because he reads a Dick Barton magazine in which Barton is apparently a fictional character. This is perhaps less odd than it may at first seem; the Eagle comic regularly published “news” stories concerning its characters who were even seen in photographs. This blurring of fact and fiction may not be as odd as it now seems. In any case, the boy had no trouble reconciling the Barton of his magazine stories with the physical version before him, played nicely by Don Stannard.

Another peculiarity is that no external scenes, of which there are several, were recorded with sound, and so were dubbed in later. The studio resources apparently did not stretch to much in the way of Foley work, so these scenes are disconcertingly quiet except for the most unavoidable sound effects, and when characters speak there is usually no movement of their lips at all. The establishing scene in which the locally respected Dr Casper (Geoffrey Wincott) strolls through the village interacting with the locals is punctuated by his voice apparently floating in from another dimension. The overall effect is of a Terry Gilliam animation.

Yet another peculiarity is that, at the film’s climax, Snowy and Jock have to fight Casper’s small army of thugs. They have been so singularly incompetent through the film to this point that one is left in little doubt that the dozen or so goons will shortly be stamping the pair into bloody pulp. Against expectation, however, the fight kicks off and they actually put up a decent effort. The action cuts away to Barton’s pursuit of Casper, and then we return to the mass brawl. Confusingly, Snowy and Jock are no longer obviously involved and the thugs seem to be fighting one another. This goes on for quite a while until the police turn up and literally net the villains. Snowy and Jock are discovered, stunned. So, yes. The goons were fighting one another. Even writing about it some weeks after seeing it still causes me some cognitive dissonance. The bad guys were fighting themselves. Ow.

We’ll skip the second film Dick Barton Strikes Back for a moment and go onto the third, Dick Barton at Bay because I liked Strikes Back a lot and want to rave about it a bit, so I’ll get the less impressive At Bay out of the way first.

Production standards had come on leaps and bounds after the first film, which clearly had next to no budget. The sequels look far better, the stories work better, the external scenes have – Hallelujah! – properly recorded sound, and there is actually some characterisation in evidence. Jock has been dropped from the formula, which makes things a lot tighter, too, as now Barton only has to put up with one underachiever at a time. In fairness, Snowy has improved as a character although he’s still an idiot.

At Bay, which was released in 1950, concerns itself with that most fashionable bit of future tech of the period, a death ray. The doughty British have invented one, and some rotten foreigners (pretty obviously Soviets of some hue) wish to steal it. There’s little to say about this film as little of it has stayed in the memory. There is a great reliance on coincidence, even by the standards of such stories, and Barton is much less likeable than he was in Strikes Back, being very inclined to shoutiness and lacking much sense of humour.

The film isn’t so much bad as mediocre; it washes over you and then it’s gone. Its one and only worthy point of note is that the first reel contains an all too brief appearance by Patrick Macnee – later to find fame as John Steed in “The Avengers” – as Phillips, another special agent. Not being Dick Barton, Phillips discovers that his special agenthood does not provide him with outrageous bits of luck and he ends up full of bullet holes and floating down the Thames in the first five minutes.

Right, that’s the bad and the ugly out of the way. Now, let us backpedal our timebike back a year to 1949 and the film that one guesses from the evidence was filmed back-to-back with Dick Barton at Bay, Dick Barton Strikes Back.

Now this is a fun film. Interestingly, it’s also the one with a very “The Avengers” vibe to it in several respects. Briefly, Barton and Snowy are put onto the trail of a very dangerous foreigner (aren’t they all?), the splendidly named Alfonso Delmonte Fourcada, played with great panache by Sebastian Cabot, who went on to have a pretty good career.

Barton and Snowy lose track of him pretty quickly, but are called into an apparently unrelated and very horrible case; the entire population of a village has died simultaneously. No signs of violence, disease, or toxins.

The scene in which Barton and Snowy drive through the deserted village – the army having already removed the bodies – could easily have come from an Avengers episode, although Emma Peel would have been a definite improvement on Snowy. Shops are still standing open, half-finished pints of beer in the pub, the scene hangs on the silence of the village. Snowy’s main concern is to get a pint of beer himself, his entire raison d’être in a script that doesn’t know what to do with him. That he’s smacking his chops thirstily in a village of the dead doesn’t endear him to the viewer.

If the film demonstrates anything, it’s that Snowy and Jock were truly creatures of the radio in that they gave Barton somebody to explain to, and thereby communicate the action to the audience.  On screen, however, Snowy is so much dead weight and all of Don Stannard’s best scenes are when Barton is separated from him.

There’s even a very, very mild touch of romance in the air when Barton speaks with the secretary of Lord Armadale. She’s a lady of foreign extraction with the inexpressibly exotic name of Tina. Apparently the BBC cut any reference to romance from the radio series when they realised how many young and impressionable boys were listening, so they probably weren’t happy with the scenes of Barton being civil to a young, unmarried lady. This scene is followed with one that could have come from a 1950s James Bond film that never was, as Barton wanders the grounds of Armadale’s country house in a dinner jacket, only to espy Tina doing something suspicious with a dog.

Behave.

This is then followed by a scene, thoroughly effective in its unexpected brutality, of another village being wiped out that night by the mysterious super weapon.

Lordy-loo, but I enjoyed this film. Even the dialogue isn’t bad.

The climax takes place in Blackpool, although it is never called that; just “a northern city.” With a Golden Mile, a Winter Gardens, and a dirty big tower. It could be anywhere, really. That Blackpool is mentioned in the credits is clearly a coincidence.

So, the climax takes place in Blackpool. The villain is going to trigger his super weapon at the top of the tower, and hundreds of thousands will die. Snowy is bugger all use, so it’s up to Barton to save the day. There follows a sequence of such startling reality that I can still hardly believe it was ever filmed. Barton goes up in the lift, but the lift operator is one of the villain’s goons and he attacks Barton. There is a mad struggle in which the lift door is wrenched open. Barton is knocked down and the goon shoves him over the threshold so his head is dangling over the edge. And when I say Barton, I mean Stannard. The scene is not faked, he and the other actor are in an open lift going up Blackpool Tower and it’s difficult to believe they’re secured. Health and safety? Dick Barton laughs at your health and safety!

Barton beats the guy up, but the other goons cut the power to the lift and Barton has to go the rest of the way on foot. Another thug goes to intercept him and shoots him in the arm. Barton bleeds. He bleeds a lot. Yes, it’s a black and white film, but it’s also 1949. Barton slaps his bicep as he’s shot and a bastard-load of blood goes flying.

Barton struggles on, climbing the actual girders of the tower as he ascends. It is plainly Stannard. He is also plainly a very long way up and there is clearly no safety line. Back projected, you say? No, it definitely isn’t. My jaw was drooping with astonishment. This whole film is simply impossible to equate with the unimpressive and stagey first episode on any level.

Barton beats the gunman unconscious and finally reaches the observation deck at the top of the tower to confront the arch villain. The scene works so well, given that Barton will not kill but that the villain must die. Barton, in a dirty and tattered shirt, one sleeve blood soaked, advances in an exhausted shamble. He knows the weapon, which is already activated and is approaching its killing peak, is affecting him and he only has seconds of life left. Like the wrath of God, he keeps going somehow. The villain is grinning and delivering some mad speech, but we cannot hear a word of it over the electrical howl of the weapon. We can only see his lips move. The effect seems to magnify the lunatic evil of a man who feels nothing while he kills hundreds or thousands of men, women, and children. It’s a coup de cinema, and the last thing you’d expect in some cheap little programme filler.

I really liked this film.

Of course, there are shortcomings. There is an unspoken acceptance that gypsies will be evil because they are gypsies (Indeed, there’s a scene of the clan together that makes it seem likely that the production did actually hire real gypsies. Presumably being in a Dick Barton film assuaged any doubts they had about enforcing a stereotype). There is a scene where a villain not only doesn’t use his gun just to shoot Barton, but instead uses it to create a death-trap that really is pushing the “I expect you to die, Mr Bond. Barton. I meant Mr Barton” thing a bit too far, especially as the revolver then fires about twelve shots, sufficient to put down a small army of special agents. The film’s climax could have done with a little trimming just to keep the energy up, it’s true. Plus, the print is far from undamaged and we get jumps where there are missing frames.

All that aside, it’s a small gem of the cinema. Think of it as a precursor of “The Avengers,” or even the Bond films, at least in spirit.

It was Don Stannard’s finest hour, but it was also close to his last. Production moved from Strikes Back to At Bay and by the time the latter had finished filming, the first was ready to be released. There was a release party for Dick Barton Strikes Back and, afterwards, Stannard was driving home, giving Sebastian Cabot a lift.

There was a crash. Cabot walked away from it almost unscathed. Stannard died instantly.

There seemed to be no will to carry on with the Barton franchise after that. Given that the next title on the slate was Dick Barton in Africa, perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing.  Hammer released the competent but dull Dick Barton at Bay the following year, and then washed its hands of the special agent. A year later, in a surfeit of snobbery, so did the BBC. 

Hard to believe that, after all those Nazis, communists, gangsters, and mad scientists of every ilk, Dick Barton was finally laid low by a mandarin at the BBC who regarded all this derring-do as rather infra dig for the Corporation and so replaced it with something more educational; The Archers. A special agent trampled by “an everyday story of country folk.” That just about sums up all that is wrong with the world, I think.

As an aside, there have been a few attempts to revive Barton down the years, but never successfully. Indeed, Barton is a figure of fun these days. Unlike the flawed heroes like Sherlock Holmes, or the almost otherworldly ones like Father Brown, Dick Barton is very much the product of his time and of British society at that time. To call the character two dimensional is almost an insult to the Flatlanders, although there are strong flickers of personality in that second film, even if they were firmly extinguished by the third. It’s a shame, but Barton cannot live in our world; our cynicism and moral relativism would poison him. If he were to be revisited, I suspect there would be an attempt to update him. It wouldn’t work. It didn’t work with Bulldog Drummond in the ‘sixties, and it wouldn’t work with Dick Barton in the 21st century.

Goodbye, Dick Barton, and thanks for all the derring do. Britain salutes you.

Right. Next time, I’ll be moving onto the horror stuff. 

'Cos I'm a Manly Man

Yes, my friends, the time has come at last for me to unleash the sheer, shocking masculine power of my Movember moustache on you. I warned you about this a month ago, so if you're not ready by now, I can take no responsibility for any consequences. Stand by, because when the sheer awesomeness of my moustache is revealed, you will not be unchanged. Men will wither with envy, and forever hesitate before using the "Gents" toilets in future. Women... well, your near future experiences will involve the word "gusset," y'know what I mean?

I hope you do, because I've slightly confused myself now and can't explain it.

In any case, and astounding masculinity aside, please remember that there is a serious purpose behind all this. Please, please visit http://uk.movember.com/mospace/1793088/ and donate something. Apparently one chap has made £12,000,000 in Movember donations. I'm not expecting that you'll be delighted to hear, but whatever you can give will be gratefully received. Remember, if you're a UK taxpayer, the testicular and prostate cancer charities can claim back the tax on your donation, which is a significant amount. Please take a moment to do so.

Right. Brace yourselves.




...or just enjoying yourself at a friendly soirée with your imaginary friends...



...the moustache is your guarantee of manliness! Remember: with a moustache, no charges will ever be pressed! 



Apart from the quite serious ones. 

Once again, please give what you can at http://uk.movember.com/mospace/1793088/ Every penny/cent is greatly appreciated, although if you could make sure that all pennies or cents are donated in multiples of a hundred, that would be a lot cooler and you won't look such a tightwad. 

Thank you, 
Jonathan

Utter Nonsense

I found the following while going through my files, and own myself vaguely astonished by it. I have only the very vaguest memories of writing it back in 2002, as a self-imposed writing exercise, I think. Make what you will of it. 

Radium House

The first thing I saw when I woke was Chris’ face. It took quarter of an hour before I found the rest of him. This really was intolerable and it was high time I did something about it.

I found the number in the Yellow Pages and ‘phoned them up immediately. They answered promptly. Their behaviour may be shocking but their customer relations are impeccable.

“Hello,” said whoever had picked up. “Radium House. How may I be of service?”

“You know full well,” I replied. There was a shocked silence for some moments, followed by a frantically whispered discussion.

Finally, they asked, “Has your friend been to visit recently, sir? Your friend.. ah…” The sound of file pages being quickly thumbed through.

“Chris,” I supplied to save them the bother. “If you mean to ask, did my friend Chris call around and unexpectedly explode, the answer is yes. In truth, however, you and I both know it wasn’t really Chris in any meaningful sense.”

“Do we?” wavered the voice. “Wasn’t he?”

“No, not really. Not since you, I assume, abducted him and hollowed him out with tiny mechanical beetles before replacing his innards with a mass of delicate clockwork and his bones, I would guess, with a collection of beautifully constructed pipe-bombs.”

There was more whispering in the background at the other end. I was sure I made out, “How did he know about the beetles?”

“What,” I continued, ”I should like to know is what have I ever done to you to precipitate these frequent and unwarranted attempts on my life.”

They weren’t listening, but still bickering over how this latest attempt could have failed. I cut across them with, “For you information, I was showing the ersatz Chris my collection of Kevlar and ceramic plate armour when he… when it detonated.”

More muttering. Somebody distinctly said, “Jammy bugger.”

I grew impatient. “So, what are you going to do about it?” I demanded.

There was an abrupt silence on the line. Then, slowly building from a basso prodfundo as if a gramophone record was accelerating from a dead stop up to seventy-eight revolutions per minute, a voice, arch and scratchy, said, “Weeeeeeee’reeee veeeerrrryy ssoorryy buut there’s nobody available to take your call here at present. Thank you for your interest in Radium House. Please ring off. Now.”

They were going to have to work harder than that to fob me off. “I wish to speak to a supervisor.”

The low rumble of a gramophone at the end of a record suddenly vanished and a new voice cut in. “So, we meet at last.”

“No, we’re talking on the telephone. In no wise may it be considered meeting. Who are you?”

“I… am the Supervisor. Soon the whole world will know my power. We’ve been watching you for a very long time, Mr Presley. Unfortunately for you, we have decided that the time has come… to act.”

“I’d just like to stop you there.”

“We cannot be stopped. Our will is implacable, our power irresistible, our wrath…”

“I’m Mr Paisley.”

A pause. Then…

“I beg your pardon?”

“You said Presley. My name’s Paisley.”

“Paisley..?”

“Elvin Paisley.”

“Oh,” said the Supervisor. “Oh, my giddy aunt. I’m so terribly sorry. I thought you were Elvis Presley.”

“Why would you think I was Elvis Presley? I thought he was dead?”

“Ah, well,” said the Supervisor sagely, “that’s what he’d love you to think. We’ve been hunting him for donkey’s years. Him and Groucho Marx. Skipped at the same time.”

“So all these murder attempts..?”

“Misunderstanding. So very, very sorry.”

“And Chris..?”

“Dead. Hollowed out. Exploded. But we’re very professional here. He barely suffered.”

“Well, that’s something I suppose.”

“If it’s any consolation, we actually got a very strong impression that he was a bit dull and egotistical.”

“You gained this impression before hollowing him out.”

“Yes, before and even during. Especially during. No great loss, in our opinion.” The Supervisor sighed. “What more can I say? We’re terribly sorry. We’ll send you a complimentary pen set for any inconvenience this little misunderstanding may have caused.”

“That’s very decent of you.”

“Our pleasure. The customer is king, after all.”

“Yes. Incidentally, and a propos to nothing, what is it that Radium House actually does?”

But he’d rung off. 


Copyright Jonathan L. Howard 2002-2011
Yes, I don't know why I'm defending the copyright on this either. Principle, I suppose.

It's a Winner! It's a Real Bilbo Bopper!

 For your information, the subject line is an unforgivably oblique reference back to the days of vinyl records. Just so you know. Or don't. 

Right, I shall be writing this entry in sort-of real time with choosing the winner of a personalised and signed copy of The Fear Institute. Which is to say, I shall be writing a bit, doing something, writing about what I just did, and so on. First thing up is that I shall randomise a number from 1 to (checks Twitter) 425, and then do some very tedious counting to find out who that is. If it's an inadmissible entry -- a group or whatever -- I do it again and keep doing it until I get an individual. I shall not be publishing the number, primarily because I'm likely to miscount and I can do without being pulled up over a failure in accuracy, thank you very much.

I was going to generate a number electronically, but that's boring, so I'm going to do it old school and break out some polyhedral dice. 425 is an awkward number, but that can't be helped. I'll generate a 1 to 5 for the hundred groupings, then roll percentiles. Obviously, if 426 to 500 comes up, I immediately re-roll. That'll give me a flat probability spread over the target numbers. 



Dice! (Huh!) What are they good for? (Generating random numbers!) Say it again!

Okay, here we go. 

And the winner is...

Arse. 

No winner, it's a group, although a thoroughly awesome group and one I'm very pleased to have following me -- Hammer Films. What, you don't have a legendary horror film production company following you? No? Awww. 

Awesome, but not an individual. Try again. 

And the winner is...

I can't find the damn dice. I had them a second ago. How the blazes have I lost them? Oh, panic over. Okay. 

And the winner is...

These dice are taking the piss now. That's three numbers in a row over 425. This isn't going brilliantly, is it? This is why they never let me compère Eurovision. 

And the winner is...

W00t! A viable account! Finally.

@eslamprey! Come on down!

Evelyn S. Lamprey, a splendid name that I may use for a character at some point, is a photographer, and lives in a haunted house. I'm not going to have to make up anything at all for the character, really, am I? There's the story right there. 

Congratulations to you, Evelyn. I'll scribble in a copy of The Fear Institute and get it off to you before the end of the week. Commiserations to everyone else, especially those who offered "special" favours for me to rig the lottery, favours that I regretfully had to decline for reasons that now elude me. Believe me, you had a narrow escape. 

The Fear Institute comes out in about a fortnight from Headline in the UK and, I would guess, Australia. Still no idea when it will be published in the US or Canada. Sorry about that, but I'm completely out of the loop on how that's progressing. If you really cannot wait, I'm told that the Book Depository do a good job, but I don't have personal experience of their service. You can find The Fear Institute here: http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Johannes-Cabal-Jonathan-Howard/9780755347988 

Wheee! Competition Time!

 I announced a little give-away on Twitter the other day, but if you didn't see it there, I'll repeat it here. 

Basically, I've received my hardback copies of The Fear Institute and I'm going to give one away -- personalised and signed -- to somebody chosen randomly from my followers list on Twitter. The only restriction really is that it has to go to an individual and not an organisation or a bot or anything like that. I shall be doing the picking on Wednesday, all the while bitterly regretting that Twitter doesn't helpfully number your followers. That would make this so much easier if the random number turns out to be an awkward one. 

I shall announce the winner both on Twitter and on here, and then weep as the fair weather followers who only followed me to be in with a chance at the prize bail on me. You unfeeling bastards.

An Apology, plus Random Star Wars

 Oh, dear, it's been a dog's age since I last posted. My apologies; I've been a bit distracted. I still am, but at least I've got some nonsense to go on here. I was daydreaming while having breakfast the other day, a thought occurred, and I ended up writing it down. It went like this...


LEIA: No! Alderaan is peaceful. We have no weapons. You can't possibly...

TARKIN: You would prefer another target? A military target? Then name the system! I grow tired of asking this, so it'll be the last time. Where is the Rebel base?

LEIA: (softly) Dantooine. (LEIA lowers her head in shame) They're on Dantooine.

TARKIN: There. You see, Lord Vader, she can be reasonable. (addressing MOTTI) Continue with the operation. You may fire when ready.

LEIA: What?

MOTTI: What?

TARKIN: Fire when ready. You may fire when ready. (MOTTI just looks at him with open disbelief) Blow up the planet, Admiral Motti!

MOTTI: But… I’m sorry, I’m missing something here, I must be. You said you’d blow up Alderaan if Princess Leia here – hello, Princess…

LEIA: Hi.

MOTTI: …if Princess Leia didn’t tell you were the rebel base is.

(TARKIN shrugs in a “So?” sort of way)

MOTTI: Well, she did. She just did. I heard her. She said Dantooine.

TARKIN: Your point being..?

MOTTI: It’s not my point, Governor Tarkin, it’s your point. You said you wouldn’t blow up Alderaan if she told you. She’s told you, and now you’re telling me to blow up Alderaan anyway. I don’t get it.

TARKIN: Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration.

MOTTI: Seriously? It’s a bit of a distance so we’ll blow up an innocent planet instead? There are five lifeless worlds in this system – why don’t we blow one of them up instead? 
TARKIN: It is a demonstration of this station’s power!
MOTTI: That’s still no reason to go blowing Alderaan up. Populated planets, unpopulated planets, they’re all much of a muchness, really. Blowing one up’s pretty much like blowing up the other. So, why don’t we blow up an unpopulated planet so there’s actually somebody to see it… on Alderaan… which we don’t blow up, so they go, “Wow! That was a pretty impressive demonstration of power.” Whereas if we blow up Alderaan, we’re the only ones who are around afterwards to say anything about it. Not much of a demonstration is it, really? That’s more like bragging. 
TARKIN: Are you being insubordinate, Motti? 
MOTTI: No! No. Not at all, I… well, just a little bit. Anyway, look, we checked the main weapon array during commissioning and it performed perfectly. We don’t need to blow up a couple of billion people to prove that. It all just seems a bit… you know… evil.
TARKIN: I grow tired of your prattle. (Turning to DARTH VADER) Vader, I feel it is time that the admiral… retired.
(Pause)
TARKIN: Vader?
VADER: It is a bit harsh, though, isn’t it?
TARKIN: Oh, for gods’ sakes. Not you too? You’re both making me look really bad in front of… (he nods sideways at LEIA, but neither MOTTI or VADER pick up on it) ...the risonerpay.
VADER: The what?
LEIA: The prisoner. 
VADER: Oh. 
MOTTI: Seriously though, governor, is this really the message that we want to be sending out? “We’re the Empire, and we’ll vaporise your planet for no good reason”? It’s terrible PR. 
VADER: Arbitrary. 
MOTTI: Yes! That’s it, that’s it exactly. It’s arbitrary.

TARKIN: (Sincere and emphatic) We are the Empire, and they will fear us.
MOTTI: Exactly, now you’re getting it. And that’s not really the image we want to project, is it? 
VADER: You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
(MOTTI nods his agreement)
TAKIN: Don’t you dare get all homespun with me, Vader. That doesn’t even make sense. 
MOTTI: It means…
TAKIN: I know what it means! (Sees LEIA is smirking) Right. Fine. You know what? I don’t care. Blow up Alderaan. Don’t blow up Alderaan. Blow up empty moons. Blow up Coruscant, if you like. I don’t care.
MOTTI: Oh, don’t be like that…
TAKIN: I don’t bloody care! (MOTTI puts a conciliatory hand on his shoulder but TARKIN shrugs it off) Don’t touch me! (He leaves in a temper)
(There is a silence)
VADER: Well, that was embarrassing.
LEIA: So… are you blowing up Alderaan? Or not?
(MOTTI shakes his head – the destruction of Alderaan is not his main concern. There is another silence)
MOTTI: I wish he wouldn’t just take off like that. 
VADER: Childish. 
MOTTI: It is, a bit.

INTERIOR: MILLENNIUM FALCON -- CENTRAL HOLD AREA.

Ben watches Luke practice the lightsabre with a small "seeker" robot. Ben suddenly turns away and sits down. He falters,
seems almost faint.

LUKE: Are you all right? What's wrong?

BEN: (Considers his feelings, then frowns and shrugs) Nothing. I’m good. 

Black Gate #15

Black Gate #15 is out soon. It's a terrific magazine for fantasy readers and I would recommend it wholeheartedly even if they weren't publishing a short story by me in #15. As it happens, they are. My story's an 11 000 word adventure called "The Shuttered Temple." The issue's full contents list can be found here:

http://bit.ly/hQRlW4

Also, in case you missed it, "Fantasy Magazine" published a new Cabal short online the other week entitle "The House of Gears." You can find it here: 
http://www.fantasy-magazine.com/new/new-fiction/the-house-of-gears/
There's an option at the top of the page to hear it read by Stefan Rudnicki too, which was unexpected and rather wonderful. 

Oh, My Giddy Aunt

Well, the new series of Doctor Who is starting this evening and I am rather looking forward to it. I wanted to mark the event somehow and, struck by a small coincidence, I think I have the perfect way.  

As will be apparent to anyone with even my briefest acquaintance, I rather like Doctor Who, in much the same way that Catholics rather like the Pope, and bears rather like the toilet facilities in the woods. My rather liking has taken the usual form of frothing gently at the merest hint of a Vworp, but has also manifested in a desire to write for Doctor Who in whatever manner becomes possible. Back in 1999, that meant writing for the line of novels, the television series having plunged back into the space/time continuum of uncertainty after the unsuccessful BBC/Fox pilot TV movie version of 1996. 
I started by pitching an idea to BBC Books having blithely ignored the writers' guide notes that specifically forbade the use of classic monsters for a first project. Unsurprisingly they rejected it. 

For my second shot, I read the guide properly and came up with something entirely new. It was a second Doctor story featuring Zoë and Jamie as his companions, and it was set in Hollywood in 1927. The idea behind it was original as far as I knew (and I read a lot of SFF) and would present the Doctor in a slightly new way, based on a single scene from "The Wheel in Space" that had resonated strongly with me. I wanted it to be a very historical "historical" and researched the hell out of the time and the place. I would be using not just one or two, but a whole bunch of well known Hollywood personalities and I wanted to understand them well enough to portray them fairly. I read about ten assorted biographies and memoirs, and read as much as I could about the movie industry generally in those distant days, helped greatly by my good friend Marsha who even managed to hunt down and buy for me two long out of print books on Mack Sennett. I had maps, I had timelines of the films in production at the assorted studios, I had a strong story. What could possibly go wrong? 

I wrote the first chapter, but the heavy work of putting together a detailed synopisis had to go on the back burner when my daughter was born and the father gig took priority. I never stopped working entirely on the book, however, drawing in new research and new events to improve the plot. 
Then, when I was almost ready to pitch the story in early 2001, the project died a sudden and total death. To my deepening horror, I read that later in the year a new novel would be published in the Doctor Who series. My was to feature the second Doctor, and be set in Hollywood, 1927.The new novel featured the second Doctor, and was set in Hollywood, 1947. There was no earthly way that BBC Books would publish two books with such similar settings. I played around with trying to change it, but it didn't wash. It had to be Hollywood, and no other Doctor worked in the part as well. That was that.  It's always galled me, though. I like that first chapter to this day, and had intended to write the whole novel in the same, somewhat proto-Cabalesque fashion. I've also been intending to publish it here for some time, in the same way I did for the odd little story I put up last year, but was looking for the right moment. That the right time has arrived is based purely on a small coincidence -- that the new antagonists in Doctor Who are called The Silence, and that the Doctor Who novel I shall now never write would have been called... _____________________________________________________________________Doctor Who: The Silents

Chapter I

The vampire advanced slowly, hands clawed and clutching, eyes wide and piercing. There was nothing urbane or aristocratic about him; this was a predator in human form – black coat and battered top hat notwithstanding – as perfect a hunter as a white shark in the ocean, as perfect a killer as a crocodile on the Ganges. The substantial difference was the vampire had far more teeth than either. He grinned and those grotesque teeth glittered wetly in the light; two jaws full of sharp pointed fangs. There would be no neat puncture wounds, no delicate connoisseur’s sip at the jugular vein with him; he would tear out a throat and gulp down the red, foaming flood.

He stepped closer still and started to laugh, a surprisingly rich and mellifluous sound.

His top set of teeth fell out and clattered onto the make-up table.

“God damn it,” said the vampire.

He leaned closer to the mirror in which he’d been posing and studied his open mouth, removing the lower set of teeth and placing them by their mate. The gums were reddened and he had an unpleasant sense that he could taste blood. It was no good; the teeth were agony, he couldn’t hope to wear them for more than a few minutes at a time. He pulled up a chair and sat down heavily, watching himself watch himself in the mirror. “What a way to make a living,” he said finally. “Feh.”

The door opened. A young man came in and picked up a book, saw what was sitting in the chair, said “You look hideous, dad,” and walked out.

The vampire reached up with both hands to loosely grasp the brim of his hat on either side. Instantly, it waggled upwards as if trying to escape his fingertips before he clamped it down again. An old vaudeville trick but, then, he was an old vaudevillian.

“Tanks, m’boy,” he said, assuming the character of an Irish drunk. “Dat means da worl’ to ye ol’ fadda, t’be sure.” 

He leaned closer to the mirror and re-examined his face, the newest of the legendary thousand. His son was right – he really did look pretty horrible. The thought cheered him immeasurably. Yes, the teeth were agonising but what artist doesn’t suffer for his art? Michaelangelo spent months on his back creating the Creation on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Beethoven was deaf. Goya went screwy. A painful set of false teeth seemed pretty small potatoes in comparison. “I am an artiste,” he said aloud in a convincing Bostonian accent.

“What did you say?” came his son’s voice from the next room.

“I said, you oughta see me with the teeth,” Lon Chaney shouted back.

 

Hollywood. 1927.

Play with the word.

“Hollywood”. Glitter, glamour, starlets and premieres, dream palaces to present the dreams. Dreams that can be yours for the price of ticket in the cheap seats. Smell the dust in the air and the horsehair you’re sitting on and, in darkness, a silver ray makes fantasies for you, just for you.

Twenty years ago, it barely existed. A small community of farmers who lived a simple life. A population of three thousand. A dry town where drink was neither tolerated nor looked for. It was nowhere; open land and closed minds.

But…

It had light. Gorgeous, pure, uninterrupted from dawn ‘til dusk light. The skies stayed clear for long, long periods and the precious rays pattered down on the dour farmers. Light: pure, free and essential to the nascent business of making movies.

So the filmmakers abandoned the east coast with its miserable skies and Atlantic weather systems and came west. Came west to where you could film from sun up to well nigh sundown. Where God himself provided the light unstintingly and without regard to the subject matter. Where the locals glared suspiciously at all these damn foreigners and Jews who’d come to ruin their little town. Where the question on everybody’s lips was, “Where the Hell can you get a drink in this hick burg, anyway?”

 

Mack Sennett was drinking alone this evening. The single malt had come to him through the kindly offices of a Canadian associate and Sennett was appreciative of the thought. Eight long, tedious years of prohibition had made Volstead look an even bigger ass than he had in ’19 when he’d been so damn proud to have the act that bore his name become law. Was he still so proud now that the worst predictions of the act’s detractors had come to pass; nobody took a damn bit of notice, the police were more than eager to look the other way and the spics in the east had built a gangster empire out of bootlegging? Sennett filled his shot glass and looked out of the window at the darkening sky. He didn’t give a bent nickel for the morality of it, just the damn inconvenience.

He thought about gangsters. The studios were starting to make movies about them, “crime doesn’t pay” and all that hooey, black hats and white hats, like they were Westerns. Good luck to ‘em – he sipped slowly – but that wasn’t his bag. He was Mack Sennett. The man who created the Keystone Kops. The man who discovered Chaplin. Mack Sennett, the King of Comedy.

The King of Comedy.

Why didn’t he feel so damn funny now, then?

He gulped the glass dry in a spasm and instantly regretted it; he’d hardly tasted the stuff on the way down. He refilled his glass and promised himself he’d take his time with this one. Like most of his promises to himself, he doubted he’d keep it.

His Irish blood liked to play to the crowd; rambunctiously good-humoured one moment, dark and brooding the next. All he needed was a shillelagh and a shamrock and he'd be all set for St Patrick’s Day. It didn’t escape him that he was becoming a stereotype in a town of stereotypes. He was getting older and the laughs, the laughs just didn’t come as freely as they’d used to. Everybody was such a pressed and starched intellectual these days. What the hell was the world coming to these days, anyway?

Some freak with batwing ears and an Adam’s apple you could have perched a parrot on had been holding court at the next table to Sennett at the restaurant that evening. According to him, custard pie fights were passé. Coming from somebody who looked like a good belly laugh would kill them, that was kind of rich. Ten years before, Sennett would have been pleased to smash the freak in the face with a nice big cream cake from the trolley. Now, though… Now he didn’t know what he could get away with anymore.

Mabel had invented the custard pie fight, beautiful Mabel, queen to his king. Her star turn in “Mickey” had saved his studio. That son of a bitch in the restaurant wasn’t worthy to kiss her shoes. Passé. Sennett would give him passé if he ever saw him again. Son of a bitch. Freak.

Sennett drained the glass at a gulp, the promise to himself already forgotten.

 

Hollywood. 1927.

Play with the number.

“1927”. The Roaring Twenties. A time of excess, excitement, and hedonism. The Great War is over. Things can never be so bad ever again. On the other side of the world a newer, greater war is already growing strongly from the seeds of Versailles, founded in humiliation, watered with nationalism, and old hatreds made new and shiny again. When it blossoms, hope will wither and the sky will burn. But that’s the other side of the world and that’s the future. 1927 is a time for flappers and dancing and jazz.

 

Brooksie was breathless from dancing and rested her hands on her knees as she tried to recover and chatter with her circle of girlfriends simultaneously. Of course, they weren’t really her girlfriends – she didn’t know half of them from Eve in the garden – but that didn’t matter. They were attracted by her vivacity, her quick wit and her celebrity. Brooksie was a star, after all; a real live star, not just a starlet third from the left in the bathing beauties scene. She’d got top billing, magazine covers, fame and infamy. She had a short, energetic affair with Chaplin (“Now you know why he walks like that,” she grinned to delighted shrieks of laughter). The world was her oyster.

She wasn’t sure she liked oysters.

“Miss Brooks,” a young man desired her attention. He filled his evening suit nicely, handsome certainly, rich… probably. But Brooksie only wanted to know one thing.

“Can you dance?”

He started to smile. That was good enough. She took him by the hands and drew him out onto the floor and they danced. He danced like her grandma but it didn’t matter. She had the music and she had the floor and that’s all she really wanted and needed right then.

 

Hollywood, 1927. A place and a time created so that anything can happen.

 

It is dark by the high wall around the studio lot. The guards have completed their rounds, secured the studio lot to their satisfaction and have retired to the gatehouse for the night. They believe that there is nobody here who shouldn’t be. For the moment, they are right.

In the darkness by the wall, a sound swells out of nowhere. It is not a natural sound nor is it pleasant; a discordant howl of agonised and outraged reality. It is the sound of space and time being ruptured and twisted, painfully dragged from their traditional places of respect and used by somebody who has read the small print of causality better than they.

A faint breeze builds from a volume of air – its temperature dropping slightly as if the heat is leaking into somewhere else – as something large, dark and hulking starts to shoulder its way into existence. At first it is barely visible, just the suspicion of a block perhaps five feet along an edge and nine high. Then there is a pulsing blue glow that emanates from its apex, deepening the shadows by the wall. The howling is rhythmic now, almost like the laboured breathing of an incensed dragon. The block grows into existence quickly, as quickly as a developing photograph in the chemical bath, an image out of nothing.

Then, sooner than it seems, it stands there as if it always has. The rhythmic blue light at its top dies with the howl until there is near silence, broken by the distant, frenzied barking of dogs whose ears will be ringing for days.

“Police Public Call Box” reads the mendacious sign across the top lintel of double doors set into its front. “Police Telephone,” another sign on the left-hand door lies unrepentantly. Even the block’s form is a deception. Once it was cunning, once it could change its appearance to blend in with any surrounding. A tree, a rock, a Doric column overgrown with ivy, whatever was necessary. But some time ago, thirty-six years into the future, a small component within had broken in a way not easily imaginable in less than seven dimensions. Now it couldn’t change shape at all, but was stuck as a dark blue London police box until such time as its mathematically imprecise chameleonic heart could be repaired. Only one man could do this but he… he couldn’t remember where he’d put the manual.

The police box – out of place and out of time – sits impassively. If one were to touch it with a fingertip, one would be aware of a faint, oddly vivacious vibration running through it. If one were to listen carefully, one might hear bickering going on inside. 

 

The heat can kill a man by day, the cold kill him by night in the Sierra Nevada. A short drive from the coast, this is a harsh desert land. Further north, it contains Death Valley, the hottest and most honestly named place on Earth. To the south-west, cowboys and Indians ride around and shoot blanks at one another.

In the desert, in the lee of a Babylon that never was, there is a gap in the sand. Once it held a piece of volcanic glass for longer than there have been humans in the Americas. The glass was unique: not fallen from space or left by some ancient visitor but simply formed by natural if freakish processes of heat and pressure. The chances of its formation were infinitesimal, the probability of it ending on the surface when other examples only exist well within the Earth’s mantel were inconsequential. Yet when the lifespan of a planet is measured in thousands of millions of years, the nearly impossible may become the nearly inevitable.

The piece of volcanic glass was about the size and weight of a bowling ball, jagged but for the smoothed side that had been exposed to blowing sand for the last eighty years. Its cold, grey glitter had caught an eye and it had been taken away and left on a shelf. But the way it caught the light was intriguing and an inquiring mind had studied it closely.

It was nothing but a piece of volcanic glass, as natural as rainfall and shadows. A simple lump of fused sand. It had no secret agendas, no evil intent, not an iota of malevolence and yet, unless something came along to break an inevitable – a nearly inevitable – chain of events, it would kill every man, woman and child on Earth.

 

Lem Bernstein wondered what the heck he’d got himself involved in. He sat in his private viewing room and waited for the movie to start. He’d been promised that he wouldn’t be disappointed, that this was what Hollywood, the world had been waiting for. This was it, the big technical breakthrough that would jump things forwards again.

“Sound, eh?” Bernstein had said when the inventor had come to see him. “Everybody and his goddamn dog has a sound system. None of them is worth spit. Trust me, my boy, it’ll happen but not yet.”

“Sound?” said the inventor, slightly surprised, slightly amused. “Oh no, Mr Bernstein, this isn’t sound. It’s much better than sound.” He’d smiled disarmingly honestly. “Sound’s easy. This is unique.”

“Sound’s easy, huh?” Bernstein thought of the embarrassingly poor demonstrations he’d attended and found that very difficult to believe. “So, if sound’s beneath you, what have you got?”

“It’s… very difficult to describe. You really have to see it. Trust me,” two words that usually set off Bernstein’s bunko alarms, “trust me, you will not be disappointed.”

“And how much do I have to ‘invest’ before you have something you can show me?” Bernstein awaited the sting.

“Not a nickel, sir.” The inventor reached into his briefcase and produced a film can. “It’s already up and running.”

Bernstein blinked. “No development?” How was the scam supposed to work then?

“No, Mr Bernstein, that’s all done. I just need my invention to be seen. That’s very important.”

Bernstein considered. Maybe he was on the level after all. That would explain why he had come to a distributor rather than one of the studios. He wanted somebody who could bend the ears of the studio heads, look at this new toy, buy into it or get left behind. If it was really all the inventor had suggested it could mean serious money. If it was all the inventor had suggested. The proof of the pudding awaited.

The inventor had assured Bernstein that no special equipment was required, that the process was entirely involved in the filming and could be shown at any picturehouse on pretty much any projector.

“The secret is at the filming end of things, Mr Bernstein. No refitting required anywhere else. That’s the beauty of it.”

“What is the secret?”

“I’ll show you first.”

An idea struck Bernstein, a hugely exciting one. “Colour? Is that it? Cheap colour stock?”

But the inventor was already in the booth at the rear of the showing room. Bernstein waited impatiently for the minutes it took for the film to be wound onto the projector; he had a feeling that whatever this new process was, it would change everything. It was a gut feeling and his gut feelings rarely steered him wrong.

Then the projector chittered into life and the screen illuminated. Bernstein leaned forward in his chair, eager not to miss anything, conscious that this could be history in the making. For a long moment there was nothing but cueing marks and junk before the image cleared. Bernstein looked harder. It looked like a workshop. Big deal. He was starting to feel deflated and foolish when he belatedly realised that there was some colour – flickering, uncertain – but only around the edge of the screen. He looked there but it had gone; only the image of the workshop in black and white remained. It wasn’t quite black and white, he realised. There was an odd sepia tint in it that looked more like lilac as he looked harder at it. He had the sense that there was colour in his peripheral vision and allowed his eye to wander there. No, that was… not colour but coloured oddly too. Tinted film? Was this what he’d been led to get so excited about?

“Does anyth...?” He paused. His voice sounded distant. He couldn’t even hear it reverberating through his skull properly. Something moved at the edge of camera. Another one of the damn optical illusions the film seemed to be riddled with. He looked right at it but, this time, it didn’t vanish.

Lem Bernstein leaned slowly back in his chair, his mouth opening in disbelief. His hands tightened around the arms of the chair. He started sweating, coldly. He made pathetic little bleats, screams that couldn’t find their way out of his throat. A place in the middle of his mind itched fiercely.

The inventor spoke from directly behind him; he hadn’t made a sound as he’d left the booth. There was almost no sound anywhere; even the noisy projector seemed to be on another planet. Why was it so quiet? wondered Bernstein, unable to tear his gaze from what he could see on the screen. I can’t hear the blood in my ears, I can’t hear my pulse. Am I dying?

“Yes,” said the inventor right by him, unwittingly answering Bernstein’s unspoken question. The inventor’s voice was the only thing that didn’t seem attenuated, distant. “It is quite an eye-opener, isn’t it?”

 

In the shaded corner of the studio backlot, the door of the police box that was not a police box opened. Light flooded out – a surprise as the small patterned glass windows in the doors were transparent yet dark. Enter the protagonists.

The first out was the heroic young man. Not too bright – even he would admit that – but with the heart of a lion, a heart that burned with righteousness without the least fleck of evil, ill-thought or even selfishness. A paragon, not to be despised if only for his very rarity. His name was Jamie McCrimmon and, like the police box, he had no right to be here and now. Over a century before he had been pursued across the Highlands of Scotland by red-coated soldiers who would have bayoneted him or hanged him in a second if they had ever caught up with him. Now, generations later and thousands of miles away, he felt reasonably safe from them. He still carried a sgian dhu dirk in his boot just to be on the safe side, however. He looked searchingly into the shadows and listened carefully, a man used to danger.

The next was the romantic interest. Petite, almost childlike, the sort of heart-shaped face that talent scouts go crazy for, framed in straight black hair. Childlike too was the stony seriousness of her expression. She looked around, unamused.  “Where are we?” she demanded finally.

Enter the third and last of the central characters. A wise man, a wizard, a genius. He looked like none of these things. An unflattering haircut – probably involving a pudding basin – has had time to grow out a little but still lacked for authority or discipline. His coat could have been an overlarge jacket or perhaps his jacket was an oversize coat – it was hard to be certain. A white shirt with a badly tied cravat, checked trousers and functional boots completed the ensemble. He was wearing his habitual expression, concerned but slightly disconsolate, as he locked the door of the box behind him. He took off one boot and put the key there, hopping in an ungainly fashion to the woman as he tried to put it back on.

“Earth, Zoë. Really! It really is Earth. The west coast of what you’d call the Pan-American Federation.” He finally got his boot on and stamped several times to force his heel into place. “Really and truly.” His brow crumpled. “You don’t believe I’d lie to you, do you?”

“Well, where you say we are isn’t always where we’ve ended up, now, is it, Doctor?” said Jamie, grinning broadly.

“I resent that,” replied the Doctor, the little man in his badly fitting clothes. He went back to the police box and patted its door as if it were a pet. “The TARDIS has been behaving splendidly recently. We’re here, aren’t we? Smell that air,” he took a deep breath, “Earth. Unmistakable.”

Zoë remained unconvinced. “Even if this is Earth, we can't be where you think we are. The west coast is solidly built to a height of at least five hundred metres. But look,” she pointed at the night sky, “there’s nothing.”

“Ah,” said the Doctor, putting his hands together as if about to deliver an oft-delivered sermon, “that’s because…”

“We’re not in your time anymore,” finished Jamie, causing the Doctor’s pomposity to deflate abruptly. “I know it’s a big lot to try an’ accept but I had to an’ I’m not even from the future. You,” he jabbed his finger at her angrily. This argument had been backwards and forwards so many times already, it made him sick. “You’re a… a… an astrologer an’ something else an’…”

“Astrophysicist, Jamie,” corrected the Doctor. “An astrologer is something quite, quite different. Actually,” he turned his attention back to the girl, “I think your training is why you’re having so much trouble accepting what we’ve been telling you, isn’t it, Zoë?”

“I’m quite prepared to accept how your TARDIS machine travels through space…”

“Aye, well, that’s good of you,” interjected Jamie hotly.

“Wormhole theory is well established and, although the technological end of things hasn’t been settled yet, I’m quite prepared to accept other races may have made it practical.”

“Wormhole theory?” said the Doctor, as if only yokels travelled by wormhole.

“But time travel is quite impossible. The energy requirements are astronomical. Literally astronomical,” she emphasised.

“What would you suggest?” asked the Doctor with interest.

Zoë considered. “A supernova, I think. Or a black hole. Yes, a black hole, that would be best.”

“A black hole,” echoed the Doctor, impressed. “That’s very good.”

“You see? Can you imagine the problems involved with capturing and containing a black hole? It’s unimaginable.”

“I don’t have to imagine it,” said the Doctor and looked her in the eye.

Zoë was caught by his glance and paused. The imperious pout she’d been wearing weakened. “That’s not possible,” she said faintly.

The Doctor took her hand sympathetically. It's always painful when a paradigm dies. “It is possible. Worse yet, it’s practical with the right tools. My people,” he seemed almost apologetic, “my people have had them for a very, very, very long time.”

Zoë had a fast mind, sometimes too fast for her to keep up with. Right now, it was quickly running down a list of theories and models that, despite their hypothetical status, were treated by her and her colleagues –

 Nobody I know has even been born yet, she thought frantically. Not even their parents. What about the grandfather paradox? What about causality?

– as gospel, the absolute truth. The list was gathering a lot of crosses; theories that precluded the possibility of time travel. If she accepted this, if she accepted that the TARDIS really did move through space and time using a power source she had no desire to think about, then so much she knew was wrong. The thought terrified her in ways she hadn’t thought possible. She realised that she’d forgotten to breathe and took a deep breath. That seemed to help so she took another and then another, faster and faster. 

“Och, hey!” said Jamie as she started to sway.

“Oh!” cried the Doctor in dismay. “She’s hyperventilating! Don’t let her fall!”

Jamie moved quickly to grab her under the arms as she toppled over but didn’t position himself well, being knocked to the floor by the sudden weight. He lay under the unconscious woman not sure what to do next. “What was all that about? Why’d she faint?”

“Oh dear! Oh dear!” The Doctor was frantically sorting through his pockets. “A brown paper bag, I must have a brown paper bag somewhere!” He paused and his panic left him. “Wait, though,” he smiled, “the brown paper bag’s only useful before somebody faints.” Panic descended on him again and he started frantically searching his pockets once more. “Smelling salts! Smelling salts! I must have smelling salts somewhere!”

Abruptly, the strong beam of a flashlight fell across them. The Doctor squinted into it. “I don’t suppose you have any smelling salts, do you?” he asked of the holder. The reply was the sound of a revolver’s hammer being drawn back. “Oh,” said the Doctor, his face falling. “A simple ‘no’ would have sufficed.”

 

The players are in place, the crew is waiting. Lights, camera and…

  _____________________________________________________________________ And that's all there is, and all there will ever be. Apart from a few typos that have been cleared up, this is the first and only draft of Chapter 1 of The Silents, dating from July, 1999. It was planned to include Sennett, Louise Brooks, and Chaney in major roles with Buster Keaton in a major supporting role and, among others, cameos for Edgar Kennedy and Frank Capra, who was working for Sennett at the time and was by all accounts an enthusiastic womaniser. He tries it on with Zoë at one point. You can imagine how well that goes. The story was also to touch upon why there are no extant copies of the vampire film Lon Chaney is preparing for at the beginning of the chapter, London After Midnight.  I feel melancholy now, for the Who that never was.  Never mind. We're off to barbecue some veggieburgers soon and then settle down in front of the box for six pm to enjoy the Who that is, and long may it continue to be so. 

Genre for Japan

 Just a quick 'un. Genre for Japan is an auction of science fiction, fantasy and horror bits and bobs, the proceeds which will go to the Japanese Tsunami Appeal administered by the British Red Cross. Lots have been provided by authors and publishers, and include signed works by the likes of Gaiman, Pullman, and Pratchett among many others. It runs until midnight (BST, i.e. GMT+1), Sunday the third of April.

From the Vault

 Dear me, another long break between posts. My apologies; I know the world wilts and the colours are not quite so bright in the absence of my recondite musings. Yes, it does. It does, truly. You just haven't been paying attention. Trust me, you've really missed me. Oh, suit yourself. 

So, what have I been up to? Well, I have been largely tidying up one of the novels I finished last year (One of the three. I've mentioned that already, have I? Oh. Well, anyway. THREE). It's one of the two non-Cabal novels, and is pretty good fun. It will be interesting to see if I'm alone in that judgement. I'm waiting on notes for Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute, so in the meantime I'm going to write a short or two and polish the third novel. 

None of this is very exciting, I'll grant you, so in an endeavour to give this post some sort of interest, here's an artefact of sorts.

I do find myself concerned that, after I've won every literary prize imaginable and they build a new wing to the British Library to hold my archives for the wonderment of future generations, it is going to be quite a small building. Probably about the size of an outhouse. The reason for this is that I write almost purely in electronic form and, apart from a few notebooks and some fitfully notated MSS, there is limited wonderment to be had from gazing at old hard drives.

Marvel, then, upon one of the few times I've had the cap off a pen to do anything other than notes. I should point out that the following contains some mild spoilers for Johannes Cabal the Detective, so please be warned. 




This first stab is notably different from the published version in that the "Inland Sea" (later the Gallaco Sea) is much smaller or, at least, the mapped section is much smaller. This changed for a variety of reasons, particularly because I didn't want Mirkarvia to have two land borders with enemy states, and because I wanted Senza to have access to the Gallaco. This map is the first appearance of Polorus. As originally drawn, Polorus was all sea and there was no good reason why the Hortense need not have flown to Katamenia over the sea, staying out of Senzan airspace the whole time. When I realised this, I shrank the sea and called the reclaimed land Polorus. Then, in subsequent drafts, I shoved Polorus further north and opened out the sea again, thus



Actually, this isn't quite the finished version as it still includes a scale bar. I bunged this in as a place holder and then decided to dump it altogether rather than redefine it to fit with the travel times and implied distances of the voyage. Getting rid of it represented a last small concession to my initial plan to leave the geography entirely undefined. 

I have a few scraps of paper lying around with similar notes (you can see from the crumpling on the map just how carefully preserved that one was), so if anybody's interested, I can slap one or other of them on the scanner for a future episode of "When Idiots Doodle."