Mark Chadbourn's Blog: Jack of Ravens, page 15

Pendragon – Published Today

‘Before King Arthur. Before Camelot. Before Excalibur. Every Legend Has A Beginning.’

Out today! The last days of Roman Britain. The seeds that will grow into the legend of King Arthur one hundred years later. An epic tale reaching from Hadrian’s Wall and Stonehenge to Gaul and Rome at the heart of the empire. Battles, conspiracy, rival factions and a colourful cast of soldiers and courtesans, spies, Emperors, barbarians and mystics.

Order it from your favourite bookstore, or buy it from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pendragon-Novel-Dark-Age-Book/dp/0593076044/

Pendragon – The Times Review

Great review of Pendragon in The Times today:

Pendragon has all the hallmarks of a traditional historical adventure story – there are battles, swords, and he bantering of violent men, all done with style. However, there is also intellectual heft to the story, with its themes of myth-making and the nature of power.

You can check it out or pre-order it here.

Why We Need Camelot

Arthurian lore is stitched deeply into my new book, Pendragon, published in just a few short days.  This is a story-telling tradition that may well go back one thousand five hundred years.  Perhaps even longer, if – as some think – Arthur was not a real, historical figure but based on a mythic hero arising out of tales of Annwn, the Welsh Otherworld of gods and magical beings.

Arthur matches the promise embedded in T H White’s title, The Once and Future King, by returning time and again in fireside tales, books, films, radio dramas, comics, and in every one slightly reinvented to speak to the concerns of the time in which the story is being told.  That’s because Arthur’s true importance is as a symbol, rather than as an historical figure.

And it’s a consideration of this element which lies at the heart of my telling: why do we need the myth of King Arthur so much that we keep bringing him back in new forms?

Pendragon is set one hundred years before Arthur was supposed to have lived and looks at how the man, the legend, both entwined, might have arisen out of historical events.  It’s decidedly and defiantly different from the Arthurian fiction you may be used to – no re-telling of oft-told tales.  All the familiar elements are there, but we come at them from oblique angles in the hope that the reader might see them in a new light.  In that way it’s a meditation on the meaning of King Arthur, as much as being about Arthur himself.

Or as the review from Parmenion Books says:

Pendragon…. the name just screams Arthur, Genevieve, Lancelot and all that goes with it. Well take that preconception and throw it out the window. Not since Bernard Cornwall took on the Arthur myth has any writer provided such a new and innovative view of the Arthurian story.

This constant reinvention of Arthur is a turbulent process, but the anchors remain the same to hold the idea fast – Excalibur, Camelot, the Round Table and the rest.  And they too are symbols, more powerful than their mundane appearance suggests.

Folklore speaks to why we keep calling Arthur back into our world.  He is the hero who sleeps beneath the hill with his loyal band of followers, waiting to be summoned in the hour of England’s – or the world’s – greatest need.  The saviour.  The ideal.  The non-religious symbol of something greater than ourselves that speaks to the highest callings – of service, of sacrifice, of the values, the striving for goodness, that bind us all together.

There are times when we need Camelot more than ever.

This is one of them, I think.

The UK has never been more divided.  The US too.  Divided socially, politically, geographically, financially, divided in how we see ourselves, in our purpose.  It’s important to look to greater principles to find those ties that bind, if divisions are ever to be overcome.

And lest we forget, symbols are more powerful than words, more powerful indeed than the men and women who purport to lead us.  Countries which marshall their national symbols thrive.  Those which don’t, struggle.  The USA, a country built on symbols, now almost wholly communicates with them.  From images of an eagle, or stars and stripes, or the gunslinger standing alone in desolate landscape, we understand very complex, multi-faceted ideas about the philosophy of that nation.  And that communication is more powerful than anything when the USA is selling itself across the world.

King Arthur is also a symbol of Britain.  He sells a layered but powerful idea of who we are as a nation.  As we edge out into an uncertain world, we need that too.

Pendragon: The First Review: ‘Highly Recommended’

If you were on the fence about picking up my forthcoming novel, Pendragon, the first review is now in…

Pendragon…. the name just screams Arthur, Genevieve, Lancelot and all that goes with it. Well take that preconception and throw it out the window. Not since Bernard Cornwall took on the Arthur myth has any writer provided such a new and innovative view of the Arthurian story.

 

A Guide To The Pubs Of Britain #1: Hagen & Hyde

In the introduction to this irregular series, I wrote about the importance of pubs for creatives as conducive environments for thinking and dreaming, disconnected from the real world.  And so I thought it only right that I begin this meandering tour of Britain’s finest pubs for writers and artists on my doorstep, at Hagen & Hyde in Balham, South London, the place where I wrote a significant chunk of my forthcoming novel, Pendragon.

I’ve never understood why some writers go to an office to put down words, or always sit in the same corner of the back room.  If you’ve given up on the nine to five, if you’ve gone for the freedom that the writing life entails, why not work anywhere and everywhere?  Why not work here?

Hagen & Hyde has just the right amount of studied quirkiness to spark the imagination.  A 1930s radio, a shelf of old shoes, a sewing machine, and, importantly, bookshelves with actual books on them.  That’s a sign.  The main bar is nice and airy – high ceilings, long bar, with an industrial aesthetic of oak walls, brick floors and iron girders.  Pretend you’re doing actual work, like they used to do in the old days.

It’s a rabbit warren, with a lower level bar where they put on bands and DJs at the weekend, a balcony, an outdoor balcony and a beer garden (which has some actual vegetation around it so you can ignore the Sainsbury’s loading bay beyond the end wall).  Always somewhere to hide.  Pretend it’s a memory castle, with a new story prompt in each drinking space.

I don’t like those big atmosphere-less pubs designed only to serve cheap beer to the masses until their legs buckle.  You know the ones I mean.  This is an independent with a neighbourhood feel.  Here you’ll encounter people of different ages, different ethnicities, different social classes.  Modern London, just as I like it.  Too many pubs in Britain are monocultures these days, and they’re dying because of it.

It’s a pub for beer-lovers, with an ever-changing selection of craft beers – today Squawk BC session IPA, Gipsy Hill Southpaw and Beaverton 8 Ball Rye – and okay food – deep fried squid, pulled pork, halloumi fritters…

On this journey, in life, in the pub, you mark your time with stories, both in the world around you, and in your head.  The old man singing to himself in the corner.  The woman carrying the armful of champagne bottles up the stairs to the balcony bar, each teetering step one wrong move from disaster.  Writing The End on the last page of my novel.

This is a good place for stories.  And a good place to start this quest.

The Grenfell Tower Blaze And The End Of Politics As We Know It

Everything has changed.  That’s how it feels in London right now, not a million miles away from the tower block catastrophe that has horrified the world.  I’ve never experienced such rage against politicians, from all parties.

This disaster should never have happened.

In an age of tragedies, what happened at Grenfell Tower has hit home in a visceral way.  The death count continues to rise – it could reach 150 – but the shock lies in the way those people died.  Grenfell resonates as a symbol of the malaise that grips the 21st century world.  Where money counts more than human beings.  Where the people we elevate to guide and protect us are incompetent, venal, or simply not up to the job, however well-intentioned.  Where it’s possible to make decisions without caring about the consequences.  This is the age of the shrug and move on.

No longer.  Prime Minister Theresa May – who seems to have a problem with empathy – was led away from a crowd of angry residents by her bodyguards. But so was London Mayor Sadiq Khan from the rival Labour Party.  And new Labour MP for Grenfell’s Kensington constituency, Emma Dent Coad , was attacked by residents for trying to blame the Conservatives when it emerged that as a councillor she sat on the committee which scrutinised the inferior work on the tower block that led to the fire.

You can hear it on the tube, in the pubs, everywhere you go.  People have had enough.  After the Brexit referendum, the Scottish referendum, years of austerity, and multiple elections, there’s a growing feeling that politicians are part of the problem not the solution.  Disrupting lives for ideological reasons, throwing the country into chaos for no obvious reward, dividing communities and families and friends, and leaving a trail of misery in their wake. Hobbyists who love the cut and thrust of the grand game while everyone else pays the price.  All parties, all politicians.  No one escapes the judgment.

Something has to change.  And if this mood continues on the streets of Britain, it will change, and fast.

 

Tolkien, Fantasy And The BBC

Interviewed live on the BBC the other day. I was talking about the influence of Tolkien and the large and still growing impact of fantasy in literature and popular culture in a debate with Oxford University scholar Dr Stuart Lee and the author Robin Hobb. Stuart and Robin are both knowledgable people, as you’d expect, but also good fun to be around, and we got into some interesting areas.  The general consensus was that fantasy is no longer the red-headed stepchild of the literary world, and now has a degree of respectability. Which kind of irks me. I always liked the outsider status, and that sense of fantasy as a transgressive genre. I don’t want to be part of the club.

I’m an old hand at TV interviews, but it still gives me a thrill to walk into the iconic Broadcasting House in London’s West End.  Old media has a buzz about it, even now, and in that place you feel bound into the long tradition of the BBC and broadcasting in general. The green rooms are still a bit shabby and the studios oddly unreal out of the context of the box in the corner of the lounge.

And my editor will be pleased to know I remembered to ramble, briefly, about Pendragon (published on July 13), King Arthur and the connection between history and myth.

Pendragon Proofs Now In

The road to publication follows familiar landmarks – finishing the first draft, the various edits, through the delivery of the first box of books to publication day and the subsequent round of publicity and signings.  One of the key moments is the arrival of the uncorrected proofs – softbound copies of the novel, usually replete with the odd error, that go out to reviewers and booksellers.

The proofs for Pendragon, by the ‘other me’, James Wilde, are now in.  If you fall into one of those two groups, get in touch with Penguin Random House UK publicity to order your copy.

“Before King Arthur…before Camelot…before Excalibur…the Legend begins…”

You can pre-order this reimagining of the beginnings of the Arthurian myth here, or from your favourite book store.

A Guide To The Pubs Of Britain

I like pubs,and not just for the amber stuff.  Map out any history of writing in Britain and you’ll find pubs woven into the heart of it.  Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese in London has entertained the likes of Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, G K Chesterton, Samuel Johnson, Alfred Lord Tennyson and P G Wodehouse since the first iteration appeared on the site in 1538.  The Cheese is not alone.  Any pub tour of London is a tour of creativity.

Although writers have always looked for ways to bypass the conscious mind to get to the unconscious where all the creative heavy lifting is done – drink, drugs, shamanic drumming and dervish dancing – it’s not really about the booze.  It’s the space itself that’s important.

In the 1970s, Japanese architects turned away from the concept of a house as a machine for living.  Their new abstraction was that it could be a space of alternate reality, protected from the harshness of the outside world.  Kazuyo Sejima, for example, has designed living spaces that she sees as both introverted and extroverted, virtual and physical.

And this has always been the value of pubs to the creative.  They are liminal zones, dream-spaces, both a part of the world and set aside from it.  The unconscious adjacent to the conscious.  Stepping across the threshold, you accept a new set of liberating rules.  Hedonism is acceptable.  Quiet reflection.  Volubility, free of constraints.  A place of both solitude, where thoughts can arise and take form, and connection with other human beings from all walks of life, free of social rules.

The sensory aspects are important – the gloom, sometimes, or the points of light, the ale-smells and rumble of voices.  Drift in this circumscribed ritual space detached from the mundane world and the shackles reality imposes fall away.

There’s a reason why George Orwell felt driven to write a long essay about his imagined ideal pub, the Moon Under Water. Why Charles Dickens and Samuel Pepys before him hung out at The Grapes in Limehouse.  Why Dylan Thomas left his manuscript for Under Milk Wood in The French House in Soho and why Martin Amis, Ian McEwan and Julian Barnes all socialise in the Pillars of Hercules, also in Soho, where Dickens also used to drink.

I went to my first pub with friends from school when I was 16.  A pint of fizzy lager, a rite of passage, the feeling of transgression that all creators need.  Since then I’ve drank in pubs all over Britain, created stories, written novels, dreamed up TV shows and film scripts.  They’re vital places – not just for us creatives, but also for the communities they serve.  These days they’re under threat.  In the UK, twenty-nine pubs close every week, driven out of business by shockingly poor management by the industrial pub chains, and by social changes.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  The flagship Wandsworth Council has brought in new planning rules to protect important pubs.  All councils could do that if they were so minded.

But in the meantime we need to celebrate what we have.  I plan to write a regular guide here to the pubs that matter, to me, to us all.  Ones that have a weight of history and tradition, that are doing something different, haunted pubs, unique pubs, but most of all those Dionysian pagan temples to creativity.

Some of the early ones I’ll be writing about will be in London, but I’m always travelling so the aim is to cover pubs in all parts of the country.  If you have any ones you think are worth checking out, mention them in the comments and why you think they’re special.  I don’t need much arm twisting to have a pint in somewhere new.

The first entry in the Guide to British Pubs really has to be my local.  It’s the place where I wrote a big chunk of Pendragon (available now for pre-order, drinking buddies).  Watch for it here soon, and then others at an irregular pace in the weeks and months to come.  These will be the best of the best, ones worth visiting, somewhere you can conjure up your own stories.

The Swords Of Albion Redux

When you write a series of fantasies about swashbuckling Elizabethan spies, you don’t expect them to take on a contemporary relevance.  But here we are.

Elizabeth is on the throne.  A technology boom is underway.  We have a flowering of the arts and a rapidly growing capital city.

There’s talk of buccaneering trade deals.

And now…war with Spain?

It’s the sixteenth century all over again.

As yet no supernatural enemies besieging Britain, and I’m still looking for our Christopher Marlowe, who appears in book two.  See for yourself how little has changed in four hundred and fifty years.  You can sample the books here:

The Sword of Albion

The Scar-Crow Men

The Devil’s Looking Glass