S.P. Oldham's Blog, page 37
July 8, 2019
Ook!
Chuffed to note that on my Discworld calendar, my birthday month just happens to have a picture of the Librarian on the illustration page. Suits me just fine, thank you!
Ook!
July 4, 2019
Drabble: 100 Word Horrors
Very pleased to say that I have just had a drabble (100 word story) accepted. Will provide link for new book when it is published. Thank you Kevin Kennedy
June 29, 2019
Teaser - Sleep, Think, Die
Scorching day here in South Wales - two hot days in a row, must be some kind of record...
Still not as hot as it was for Bumper and Lavender this particular afternoon. Extract from 'Sleep, Think, Die,' Book One in The Mindless Trilogy.
"The heat of the fire that was the aftermath of the explosion began to reach him as he drew closer, evaporating the beads of sweat on his skin, leaving him feeling dry and suddenly parched. Every now and then a small pop emanated from the blaze. The fire cracked and snapped, assaulting the day as if angry with it, sending trails of heavy black smoke upward in eye-watering columns. Bumper began to cough and attempt to cover his mouth with his undamaged arm. The back of his throat itched, irritated. He pushed on, lungs screaming.
He became aware of another sound; that of shouting. Someone was calling his name. Confused, he looked around, unable to see who it was. At last he looked, up, discerning through the smoke and his own exhaustion that it was Carson, standing at a shattered window and waving his arms like a mad-man.
No strength left with which to wave back, Bumper simply came to a standstill, panting heavily, looking dumbly up at him. His brow furrowed as he forced himself to concentrate, to focus on the words.
“Move!” Carson was screaming, “It’s almost on you! Move!”
Bumper blanched, remembering the eviscerated zombie-woman at last. He turned, surprised that despite her gory handicap she had caught up with him. He must have been groggier than he had realised.
He sighed, ready to give in, all the fight gone from him. The zombie woman pushed her scrawny neck forward, eyes bulbous, almost popping from her head. She allowed her slickly uncooperative intestines to fall and coil at her feet. Scrawny arms raised, she let out a fetid, breathy gurgle that might have been a laugh in other circumstances, gripped his ruined arm and leaned in for the bite.
Bumper’s world became a sudden and vivid rainbow; first the scarlet of sheer, utter pain as her bony fingers dug into his tortured limb. Then the white-hot bend of fury at his weakness and her mindless, brainless hunger. All this followed by the black of despair as he understood that he was spent; there was no way he could fight her, or even hold her off.
His legs buckled beneath him, throwing her off target. For one revolting moment she leaned over him, her near-skeletal hands on his shoulders, her grotesque wound almost in his face. She righted herself, pushing upwards from his frame, readjusting her stance.
Then she was gone. Something barrelled into her from the side, spearing her left to right. A high, feminine scream reached his ears and he knew it was not the zombie woman screeching.
Bumper blinked rapidly, trying to clear his eyes. A small woman in a flapping, filthy smock was forcing the zombie woman backwards, ever closer to the fire. She had run her through with a pole of some description. Bumper had no idea what the weapon was, nor did he care. He watched in bleary amazement as Lavender pressed on, the zombie writhing like a worm on a hook. They were at the fire, and Bumper wondered at Lavender’s ability to get so close without burning.
With one last grunt Lavender heaved forward. Through his clouded vision, it looked to Bumper like she too had disappeared into the fire. For a worrying moment there was no sign of her. Then she was back, dropping onto all fours, coughing and gasping, her boots and jeans smouldering and blackened.
She crawled to Bumper, “Are you ok?”
He shook his head, “Not really. Are you?”
Feet appeared in Bumper’s line of vision. He looked up to see Carson had left the window to meet them out on the street.
“Not really,” Lavender answered, not bothering to acknowledge Carson, “I didn’t get the medulla oblongata, but I think that bitch is dead,” she added in a small, breathy voice, “Her insides were spilling out all over the place, and I pushed her into the hottest looking part of the fire I could reach. Last time I looked, her guts had starting browning nicely. Reminded me of sausages.”
Then she turned away from them and spilled her own guts into the dust."
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XJYGFC2
June 26, 2019
The Dragon Has Wings
Fancy taking a sneak preview at my current work in progress? Click the link: The Dragon Has Wings (Teaser) by S P Oldham
June 24, 2019
Crypt & Coffin
We visited Hereford at the weekend. Highly recommend the Cathedral with the Mappa Mundi and the Chained Library, which for me was the highlight of the weekend. The crypt felt very peaceful to me. This stone coffin was very impressive, you wouldn't want to drop that on your toe!
https://www.herefordcathedral.org/
Please forgive the wonky photography here! The Mappa Mundi (above)
The Chained Library. So very tempting, and what a great setting for a ghost story!
June 19, 2019
Haunted Forest
Very atmospheric, perfect for a spooky story setting. Photo credit to my son Rhys Oldham
June 17, 2019
Good Omens - My Review
For what it's worth, here is my humble review of Good Omens.
I first read the book a long time ago. I enjoyed it then, but I recently re-read it before watching the series, and I enjoyed it even more. I think they did an excellent job. It cannot have been an easy story to tell on-screen after all. Kudos to them for even braving it in the first place. In my personal opinion, I loved every minute of it. So much so that I binge-watched it all in one evening.
David Tennant is always brilliant and made a great demon Crowley, as I have said before elsewhere. But for my money, Michael Sheen was absolutely outstanding as the angel Aziraphael. A real treat to watch him in action. There are some big names making an appearance here and there, too, to add to the fun! I love how the demons really are repulsive (or at least unpleasant!) but how the angels, other than Aziraphael, are less than angelic too, so to speak. Of course if you want to get serious for a minute, the story is essentially about how there is no black and white; no good and evil. It simply isn't as straightforward as that. It is also a bit of a gentle reminder that we need to look after our world and stop abusing it. How very topical...
For the most part it adheres to the book. One or two characters weren't quite as I imagined them, but may well be spot-on for other viewers. This didn't detract from the story however. Even the credits and score are brilliant and immensely watchable!
I wish they would do more of STP/Neil Gaiman's stuff in this vein. I would love to see Only You Can Save Mankind, Johnny and the Dead and Johnny and the Bomb done the same way. Refreshingly different telly and I loved it!
And I loved the dedication at the end, too. Nothing fussy, nothing soppy or sentimental. Just a simple 'For Terry.' Perfect.
In fact I enjoyed it so much, I am going to watch it again!
June 14, 2019
FREE!
https://twitter.com/i/status/11395623...
June 9, 2019
Why Did You Write... Century Man?
Image source: http://manna.amazingfacts.org/amazingfacts/website/sabbathtruth/images/banners/Sabbath-through-centuries-large.jpg
Why Did You Write… Century Man?
This is one of those stories that just came to me, in a manner of speaking. I was daydreaming (not unusual; daydreams are places where your imagination can just wander free, something I very much enjoy) and the nebulous image of a man came to me. He was the kind of man who just could not fit into society, no matter how hard he tried or what he did. He was not overtly rude, violent or offensive in himself. There was just something about him that made others instinctively shun him. He just wasn’t right.
I allowed this character to develop in my head, asking myself what such a person might do as a consequence of never really being welcome anywhere. Even his workmates hold him at arm’s length, finding his interests sickening, bordering on perverse. It must be hard to always feel like a misfit, even if you are one. Perhaps it would be easy for such a person to lose themselves in an alternative reality; ie, dreams or daydreams. The real world can be hard, brutal even. In your daydreams, in your own imagination, things are the way you want them to be. In daydreams, no one can condemn you or judge you, unless you want them to.
I expanded on this. What if this man’s dreams were not in his imagination at all? What if he really was experiencing these alternatives to his own personal reality? That would increase his separation from the real world still further. The more lost he became in this other world, the more frequently he visited it, the stranger and more remote he would appear to others. To go a step further, the further back in time he went, the greater effect it had on his physical body.
In Century Man the main protagonist does not himself commit evil. He is essentially a voyeur, taking pleasure from the bloody events of long ago, believing himself safe from harm as he looks on. By the time he realises he is mistaken in this, it is too late.
In writing this, I enjoyed describing various historical settings and the things that took place in them. I thought it would be fitting that he would bring back small mementos of his ‘visits.’ Things that would be considered valuable antiques and rare treasures back here, in the modern world.
So in essence, Century Man evolved from a daydream, and became about daydreams, though of a far more dangerous kind than I am prone to indulge in…
June 1, 2019
Why Did You Write... Blank Screen?
Why Did You Write… Blank Screen?
This one was prompted by a personal experience of mine, in the early days of the chatroom. Nothing major, I just ran across some odious individual, hiding behind the screen. I am sure it has happened t many of us. What’s fascinating is how shocked I was, at the time. This person could have been on the other side of the planet, I would very likely never, ever lay eyes on him in reality, yet for a minute there, I experienced a flicker of shock and even fear. Bear in mind, this was in the early days, when chatrooms abounded and social media was nowhere near as rampant as it is now.
A few years later, I was sitting around idly daydreaming, as you do. I was thinking about how easy it is to ‘become’ someone else when you are safely anonymous. Or to perhaps allow your true side, however ugly, to show itself when in reality you might try to hide it. Especially if your true self is someone society would shun or even, in the worst cases, punish or imprison for your deeds.
In Blank Screen, I wanted to create a deeply unlikable character – Blank Screen himself – who allows his anger and resentment to spill out onto the screen, being especially abusive to and dismissive of women. I wanted some kind of retribution to be meted out to him. It is all too often the case these days, that people become ‘keyboard warriors,’ or simply online bullies, displaying the most appalling, repulsive behaviour, saying the most offensive, mean-spirited things on the net that most of them would never, in a million years, have the guts or the lack of judgement to say if they found themselves in a room with their intended target. Sad to say, most of them get away with it.
I didn’t want Blank Screen being allowed to get away with it any longer. I wanted to introduce a supernatural element to his just desserts – because that is something you can’t run away from. A room full of women armed with baseball bats? Yes, he might have been beaten to death, but that would be an escape too, of sorts. Besides, though many of us have often wished such punishment on someone, in the heat of anger usually, it takes a lot to actually swing that bat. Most of us, I suspect, would not be capable of it. Not when we have had time to cool down, when the offender is led in, helpless and awaiting his fate. That takes a special sort of person, I think. Not necessarily in a good way.
Hand him over to authorities? Okay, that’s the way we do things in civilised society, but chances are his case would have dragged on for months, if not years, and nothing real in the way of punishment would have been the end result. Naming and shaming? Well, I suspect most online bullies cringe at the thought. After all, anonymity is their life blood. But Blank Screen is a particularly unpleasant individual. He doesn’t have any real life friends anyway. I imagine his family have largely disowned him. Hence a supernatural form of justice – as defined by Red Man – was the way to go. I also liked the contrast – ultra high-tech modernity via ancient, malevolent forces. Seemed to balance nicely, to me.
I chose to leave it to your imagination just who Red Man is – though I have given a very obvious hint, I think, to demonic forces of some kind by way of his name. The problem is, for Blank Screen anyway, Red Man does not just exist online. Nor is he confined by the wires and circuits of a PC.
I left the ending of this story deliberately undefined. That is really the case throughout these stories, with one or two exceptions. Sometimes, allowing the imagination to run wild is more effective that outlining a specific outcome. For my own part, at the point where the PC is switched off and the use of Blank Screen’s name dawns on him, one of two things happen: the PC comes alive again, and he becomes entrapped in a conversation of hellish proportions with Red Man and no one else; or, Red Man appears in the flesh (so to speak) in the room with Blank Screen, where lessons are taught and punishment is dealt out, which would probably be a whole other story…
