Benjamin Hope's Blog, page 3

From the World of The Procurement of Souls: Morpheuserum & Veriform

The next inventions up from The World of The Procurement of Souls are patented serums from The Inventors’ & Engineers’ Guild of Bio-Alchemy.

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Morpheuserum

High strength sleeping draught designed by Fellow and Master of The Guild, Professor Clarence Malahide.

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Veriform

This truth serum was designed by Baron Magnus Drinkwater under commission from the king and with funding from the Sovereign Armaments Division.

Kyanite Press Inaugural Edition: A Speculative Fiction Journal

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Thrilled to have my cautionary fairy-tale, The Rookery at Smeaton Abbey, included in Kyanite Press’ Inaugural Publication. I had the privilege of receiving an advance digital copy and not only is the authorship fantastic across the work selected but the diversity on offer is captivating: from cosmic horror to post-apocalyptic sci-fi; from deconstructed flash-fiction to ‘sword and planet’ traditions; from darker, more reflective imaginings to fantastical humour – I’m proud to have my own fantasy fable among them.

For anyone writing speculative fiction, I would urge you to take a good look at what Kyanite Publishing (of which Kyanite Press forms just one strand) have to offer. In addition to their speculative fiction journal, they own several publishing imprints: Kyanite Kiss, for speculative romance fiction; Kyanite Glass, for novella and serial story eBooks; and Kyanite Crypt, for all horror fiction! They are in their infancy now, but mighty oaks from little acorns do grow and I certainly wish them every success in their impressive and valuable endeavour and contribution to the speculative fiction genre at large.

Follow them on Twitter and Instagram @KyanitePub.

You can preview and buy the 1st edition of Kyanite Press’ Journal for Speculative Fiction through Amazon.

 

(Kyanite Press front page artwork used by agreement with Kyanite Publishing LLC)

 

From the World of The Procurement of Souls: VIVISALVE

 

VIVISALVE

Formulated by Baron Magnus Drinkwat[image error]er under commission from the king and part-funded by the Sovereign Armaments Division, Vivisalve is a paste compound primarily formed of propolis and the coagulant accelerants vitamin K, Mandragora officinarum, and Guaiacum officinale. The balm is capable of greatly accelerating the healing time of wounds and temporarily boosting the body’s energy reserves. It was put out of commission due to the high production costs involved.

From the World of The Procurement of Souls: VIROSCOPE

Exploring the world of Victorian inventions for #inventorsmonth got me reflecting on all my own devices and creations within the world of The Procurement of Souls. So, I thought I’d do a series of vignettes showcasing a few. I start tonight with the viroscope, used in the story by Clementine in an attempt to track down a missing girl…

Notes:

Designed and patented by Baron Magnus Drinkwater and his wife, the late Baroness Anna Drinkwater. Based upon the olfactory system, the viroscope works by matching cellular signatures, like the shape pattern of smells, to register the presence of natural living organisms, locating them through a compass which is engineered to gravitate towards the signature to which it has been attuned.

From the World of The Procurement of Souls

Exploring the world of Victorian inventions for #inventorsmonth got me reflecting on all my own devices and creations within the world of The Procurement of Souls. So, I thought I’d do a series of vignettes showcasing a few. I start tonight with the viroscope, used in the story by Clementine in an attempt to track down a missing girl…

Notes:

Designed and patented by Baron Magnus Drinkwater and his wife, the late Baroness Anna Drinkwater. Based upon the olfactory system, the viroscope works by matching cellular signatures, like the shape pattern of smells, to register the presence of natural living organisms, locating them through a compass which is engineered to gravitate towards the signature to which it has been attuned.

World Beard Day: When Facial Hair Invades Gothic Literature!

Well, as a self-confessed beardy of late (you can’t deny it when it’s on your face, after all!) I felt I had to mark World Beard Day this year. It would appear that I have endowed a number of my characters in The Procurement of Souls with a moustache at the very least! Here’s a few short extracts for a bit of facial hair fun…

Victorian Inventions: A Whistle-Stop Tour Part II

I must begin the second part of our whistle-stop tour in 1863 when, on 10th January, the world’s first underground steam-train line opened in London between Paddington and Farringdon, serving six other destinations in between!1 The thought of these steam-powered locomotives squealing through the dark, carrying gas-lit carriages behind them conjures quite the gothic scene! And it’s no wonder that it sent its ‘passengers coughing and spluttering into the streets’2, what with the smoke, soot and steam that issued throughout the subterranean tunnels flicking with yellow gaslight. All fuel for the imagination and a must for any Victorian or steampunk settings I would think!

[image error]Steam locomotive on the Metropolitan Railway 1862, before the line opened. Image from The Story of London’s Underground by John R. Day and John Reed, 2008, isbn: 978-1-85414-316-7 (public domain image: October 1862)

And if the first steam-powered underground of 1863 provides the setting for a Victoriana romp, then 1873 provides the machine on which to write it! For I couldn’t pass over the 1870s without alighting on Christopher Latham Sholes and his patent for the first mass-produced typewriter which landed on the market in 1874. Whilst other, more primitive and unwieldy machines were in existence prior to this time, it was Sholes who was granted the patent for a typewriter in 1868. A patent which he sold to the Remington Arms Company in 1873 so that mass production was made possible3 and which included many of the features which stood the test of time over a hundred years later, not least the carriage-return, inked-ribbon, the keyboard layout and typebar mechanisation4. It was called the Remington, an invention which Mark Twain, no less, used to type (or dictated to a typist!) Life on the Mississippi on and thus facilitated the first typed book manuscript submission in history.5

[image error]Sholes’ prototype. Image from  George Iles (1912) Leading American Inventors, Henry Holt & Co., New York, USA, p.328 (public domain image)

Let us move now to the 1880s and the patenting of the gramophone by German immigrant Emile Berliner on November 8th 1887. Preceded by the poorer sound quality of Edison’s phonograph and his cylindrical recordings, Berliner’s gramophone finally enabled the mass-production of recordings using moulds to reproduce the record discs6. An important step-forward in the world’s cultural tapestry and a beautiful edition to any late-Victorian parlour!

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And finally, if the gramophone wasn’t enough for you, then ten years later, surely the patenting of the first wireless radio must be. For in 1897, a year after arriving in England and at the age of only 23, Guglielmo Marconi had broadcast up to 12 miles and patented his first radio-wave equipment.7 It seems apt to finish our whistle-stop tour here with this marvellous feat of engineering as by 1898, 3 years before her death, his station on the Isle of Wight enabled Queen Victoria to message her son, Prince Edward and successor to the throne, whilst aboard his yacht.7

[image error]Marconi’s spark-gap radio transmitter. Image from  Domenico Mazzotto (1906) Wireless Telegraphy and Telephony, translated by Selimo R. Bottone, Whittaker & Co., New York, p.338, fig.236 (public domain image)

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References

1TFL. London Underground. www.tfl.gov.uk. 2018 Accessed 22nd August, 2018.

2Halliday, Stephen. The History of London’s Underground Railway. www.thehistorypress.co.uk. 2018, thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/the-hi... Accessed 22nd August, 2018.

3Christopher Latham Sholes. www.britannica.com 2018. Accessed 22nd August, 2018.

4Typewriter. www.britannica.com 2018. Accessed 22nd August, 2018.

5Jones, Josh. Mark Twain Wrote the First Book Ever Written with a Typewriter. www.openculture.com. March. 15, 2013, openculture.com/2013/03/mark_twain_wr.... Accessed 22nd August, 2018.

6Bellis, Mary. Emile Berliner and the History of the Gramophone. ThoughtCo, Jun. 14, 2018, thoughtco.com/emile-berliner-history-.... Accessed 22nd August, 2018.

7History.com Staff. Guglielmo Marconi. A+E Networks. 2009, history.com/topics/inventions/gugliel..., Accessed 22nd August, 2018.

To celebrate the wonder of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein th...

To celebrate the wonder of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein this ‘Frankenstein Day’, here’s an extract from my novel, The Procurement of Souls.

Have you concocted fiendish machines in your own fiction or have a favourite monster in literature? I’d love to hear from you: leave a comment below!

Victorian Inventions: A Whistle-Stop Tour Part 1

What better way to celebrate #Inventorsmonth this August then to take a whistle-stop tour of some of the astounding discoveries and marvellous inventions that came out of the Victorian era? The period was awash them, not least because of the technologies that were precipitated by the Industrial Revolution that preceded it and the boom of technologies that developed again in the Second Industrial Revolution which took off from the latter end of the 1800s. So where to start? Where better than with the late 1830s and William Henry Fox Talbot? It was this English Member of Parliament whose light-sensitive paper, invented in 1839 (the calotype process of which he later patented in 1841), paved the way for modern photograph developing techniques after all, and allowed for multiple prints to be made from a single negative1. Think of the rich heritage and history found within such artefacts and prints that we would otherwise be without.

[image error]Example of Talbot’s light-sensitive paper in use: The Haystack by Henry Fox Talbot April 1844 (public domain image)

Next up, we travel into the 1840s and if I had to pick one invention, it would have to be the American, Elias Howe’s lockstitch sewing machine, patented in 1846, which, whilst not the first working sewing machine to be constructed, had the refinements necessary to make it work for a mass market. In turn, this would open up the possibilities of the garment industry inexorably with the boom in employment across the world (well into the 20th century where it represented new opportunities of work and a degree of liberation for countless women, in particular) and, more local to home and the time in question, with the faster, cheaper and higher quality production of garments for the rich and poor alike2. Hats, overcoats, corsets, suits and petticoats; all could be made at a fraction of the time and cost. Indeed, we should perhaps tip our brims to the man who not only brought us the lockstitch and the finery of the Victorian wardrobe it afforded but also the employment of thousands, if not millions, around the world.

[image error]The Elias Howe machine, patented in 1846. Image Source: Scientific American magazine, Vol. 75, No. 4, July 25, 1896, Munn and Co., New York, p. 72 (public domain image)

To the 1850s then, to 1855 to be more precise, and to the English inventor Sir Henry Bessemer and his process for producing steel from pig iron. It was this process of blowing air through molten non-phosphoric pig iron in order to remove the impurities that revolutionised the steel industry, making for an easier, quicker and cheaper production and a lighter and more malleable material3. The advent of such steel played a crucial role in the modernisation born of the Second Industrial Revolution and changed the face of the British landscape (indeed landscapes across the modern world) in the construction possibilities it afforded4: of the bridges, the ships, the buildings that could now be built bigger than ever before.

[image error]Cross-section of a Bessemer Converter. Artist unknown. Image dated 1891 (public domain image)

In Part 2, I shall pluck an invention from each of the latter decades of the Victorian era, starting with 1860s. Stay tuned…

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References

1History: William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877). BBC.co.uk, 2014.

2Mahmud, Arshad. Elias Howe: Biography. ASME.org. May 2012.

3 Henry Bessemer www.famousinventors.org, 2018.

4The Bessemer Process: The process that Made the modern World www.searchinginhistory.blogspot.com, June 22, 2015.

In Conversation with Claire Buss

www.cbvisions.weebly.com                   www.benjamin-hope.com

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On Creating a Believable World:

BH: I wrote a blog a few months back about researching for alternate history novels  where I discussed the need for the fictionalised world or premise to be rooted in truth so that the reader has something to hang their hat on as it were from which the imagined world can grow. I gave the example of the steampunk sub-genre which develops from the industrial revolution and the notion that the steam-powered technologies never died out. In The Procurement of Souls (PoS), I was keen to ensure that the late-Victorian setting was truthfully woven into the otherwise fantastical world in which the story takes place – as I mention in the blog, I tried to do this through the clothing; the architecture; the social norms of the time; some of the technology; and also through aspects of Victorian philosophy such as spiritual uncertainty, which I also hoped would also lend itself to 19th century gothic overtones. By contrast, it occurred to me that you had to fabricate all these aspects, which I drew on as my ‘root of truth’, for The Gaia Effect, and didn’t have a reality by which to refer to, being that it’s set in the future. I suppose you took today’s world as a frame of reference and then projected that into the future in order to pitch it in a way that gave the reader that all important element of truth or authenticity. I’m thinking about the social media technologies of City 42 such as The Sweeps, or the baby tech developed by the Corporation. Was this a conscious part of your writing process? How did you decide how far to stretch the technological advancement within The Gaia Effect?

CB: Yes Benjamin, creating the technological aspects of the book was a conscious decision throughout. I thought about how technology might move forwards in the next two hundred years and tried to extrapolate accordingly. I also considered how things might have been hampered by the apocalyptic event in the story. In The Gaia Effect it’s called The Event, a world-wide war using high-energy radiation weapons which destroyed much of the natural planet. I tried to make the tech believable and realistic but also recognisable to the reader as an extension of what they use and experience today.

“It’s called the Event, a world-wide war using high energy radiation weapons.”

What about the technology in The Procurement of Souls? There is an interesting blend of science and mysticism – did you do a lot of research into Victorian-era science or was it intuitive guesswork?

BH: Funny enough, Arthur Macabe asked a similar question in our discussion for his 23rd Interview from the Void. He was asking me about the mechanics of the soul extraction process that Dr Weimer carries out on his victims. This blend of science and mysticism, as you put it, around the concept of the soul and the bio-alchemy that Dr Weimer exploits and Magnus struggles with within the story really underpins the gothic quality that I was striving for. It enabled me to explore and develop some key Victorian gothic tropes and ideas within my imagined world. For example, the theme of spiritual and scientific change and uncertainty that is so prevalent in gothic literature is played out within Magnus’ private inner journey but also more explicitly in scenes such as that between Abbot Ignatius of St VIllicus’ monastery and Dr Weimer, who debate what the soul actually is and what this means for religion. In terms of research, yes, I looked at belief structures around at the time (including the alternative work by the occult author Éliphas Lévi Zahed, whose work I quote at the beginning of each of the three parts of the book) but it was of course largely then developed further through good old fashioned imagination!

CB: And what about the social aspect of your alternate Victorian world? Was it intentional to have such a marked class divide?

“My intentions go back to my aim to situate the fantasy story within a context that has that all-important seed of truth.”

BH: Again, if you look to a lot of Victorian literature the class divide is a prevalent feature; it’s hard to avoid, I think, in such a time in history. My intentions go back to my aim to situate the fantasy story within a context that has that all-important seed of truth. This meant trying my best to portray a realistic version of that world: of the rambling back alleys; bowing tenement buildings; brothels; and all the character types that might be found in such places in as true a light as I could – again, this involved a lot of research (The Victorian Underworld by Kellow Chesney is a brilliant source for those that are interested). And then similarly, with the upper echelons, I did my homework to understand ranks at the time and the lifestyle for those of means. As such, I think the class divide within the book is a product of the time I was seeking to describe, albeit an alternative version.

On Language:

BH:  Language was also an important element for me in my efforts to create a believable alternate history. I ended up doing quite a lot of research into the etymology of specific words when I was unsure as to how appropriate their usage was. For example, I decided to omit the word okay as, although there is some disagreement about its heritage, it appears to hail from America in the mid-1800s and didn’t necessarily make it into common English parlance until quite some time later; I felt that it was too 20th century for use in my 19th century world. In The Gaia Effect, I thought that you were really successful in weaving aspects from your future world into the characters’ everyday dialogue; you use the verb to sweep in a social media context, much like ‘Tweeting’ and ‘Facetiming’ today and frag, presumably as an expletive. Where did that idea come from? Was character time-specific word-choice a conscious process for you when writing dialogue?

“I write very organically; I don’t have a set plan of what will happen.”

CB: I really wanted to have a pervasive social media aspect in my book. I think it’s highly likely that current platforms will get much more invasive as technology improves and I also think that each generation will become more and more accepting of that level of intrusiveness. It made sense to use the Sweeps throughout the book – to refer to checking them, making them and talking about sweeping things out. After all we already talk about the hashtag in everyday conversation, ‘#justsaying.’

I write very organically, I don’t have a set plan of what will happen and I tend to let my characters do the talking so I never consciously think ‘oh, they must use this word’. Obviously once the way the characters interacted with the sweeps was established I had to make sure that rolled out throughout the book. I often find when I’m writing that I end up doing a lot of back weaving when I finish the first draft as I’m trying to edit the plot holes!   

On Developing the Sequels:

BH: With PoS having come out this July, I [image error]have already begun on its sequel, A New Religion. It’s funny, as I never consciously set out to write it as a serial (although I also now have a prequal in mind!); rather, I had an overall story arc to PoS which developed as I wrote. It was simply that when I came to the end of that arc – and it felt the right place to finish the first book where I have – so much had developed in my inner narrative that I felt that I had to keep going. I think, for me, I had also invested so much in this world I had developed that I also wanted to see where characters would take themselves next. I’m enjoying bringing in other characters from the protagonists’ pasts too and introducing those who were mentioned in PoS but never actually interacted with the narrative. I don’t want to say too much more about A New Religion at this stage, but I decided to include the prologue at the end of PoS as a sneak preview! I know you’re finished the first draft of the sequel to The Gaia Effect and that you’re currently busy editing. Was the development of this sequel a similar experience for you, given that to begin with you didn’t even set out to write a full manuscript?

[image error]CB: The Gaia Effect was the result of a one-chapter competition entry. The entry requirements were for a first chapter which I duly wrote and sent in. I did not realise that if you were fortunate enough to make it through to the next round you had to submit the rest of the book so The Gaia Effect was written and edited in about three months. When I got to the end I had an idea about continuing the story but it wasn’t anything clearly defined. I went away, worked on some other projects and have now come back to book two – The Gaia Project. The bulk of the sequel has been written apart from the end section which is still in development but I am working through my editing pass at the moment. I hope to have it ready for beta readers by the end of July because with two small children, I doubt very much that I will be able to get a great deal of work done through the summer holidays.

On Gender:

CB: One of the things I really enjoyed about coming back to the world of The Gaia Effect was revisiting my characters and weirdly finding their voices again without a problem. It’s very comforting to be writing for them again because of course I know them so well. It’s been commented by readers of The Gaia Effect that I write from my male character POV in a natural and believable way and I do find if very easy to write Jed’s story. One of your main characters is Clementine, the plucky young heroine – did you find it easy to write from a girl’s point of view? Do you think the fact that she was a daughter and not a son made any difference to your plot?

BH: This is an interesting one. I think for any character to work, the reader has to sympathise or empathise with them at some point in their journey at least – even for the anti-heroes (granted, this is somewhat difficult with Dr Weimer who is sociopathic!). Thinking in these terms, then the writer also has to do the same. To a greater extend, in fact: to write from a character’s perspective we need to inhabit their minds and view the world through their eyes. My strategy when writing from Clementine’s POV was to do just this: yes, she’s a young woman of 17 but she has strong motivations and an unshakable sense of justice which comes with being the age she is. I tried tapping into these motivations and her particular stance partly by engendering these feelings from when I was this age but mainly from my imagination. And aside from anything else, the thing that facilitates writing from any character’s perspective, be they male, female, or somewhere in-between, is the fact that as their creator, you know them intimately. So, no, I didn’t find it any trickier writing as Clementine, than any other character. I think you have to believe in the courage of your convictions and know that you are writing their truth.

“To write from a character’s perspective we need to inhabit their minds and view the world through their eyes.”

The second part of the question, relating to her influence on the plot as a daughter rather than a son, this absolutely made a difference and it was a conscious choice to go with this dynamic. Magnus and Clementine’s relationship is steered a great deal by the past trauma in their lives of the death of her mother, Anna. This has a huge impact on both of them, in terms of their interactions, their motivations, and their inner thoughts and feelings: Clementine is partly driven by the need to fill her mother’s shoes and complete her legacy; Magnus’ own journey is shaped by the mother/daughter parallels he recognises in Clementine and emotional changes he must face in accepting this. Magnus’ child had to be a daughter for the plot threads to work. It would be a different story had they both been male!

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About:

[image error]Claire Buss is a science fiction, fantasy & contemporary writer and poet based in the UK. She wanted to be Lois Lane when she grew up but work experience at her local paper was eye-opening. Instead, Claire went on to work in a variety of admin roles for over a decade but never felt quite at home. An avid reader, baker and Pinterest addict Claire won second place in the Barking and Dagenham Pen to Print writing competition in 2015 with her debut novel, The Gaia Effect, setting her writing career in motion. She has since released five books, has plans for many more and is hopelessly addicted to cake. You can find Claire at http://www.cbvisions.weebly.com or follow her on Twitter @grasshopper2407.