Anselm Audley's Blog, page 3
February 26, 2012
Attitudes not latitudes
History gloves on (or perhaps off) for this one. An interesting post Latitudes not Attitudes by historian Ian Morris, whose book I keep meaning to get hold of, about the influence of geography on history.
But while he makes some good points about where complex societies arose, he's wrong about the role of geography in Western expansion, and the clue is in the title. He talks about the vast difference of scale and might between the ships of the Chinese explorer Zheng He and those of, say, da...
February 23, 2012
Writing religion in fantasy II: Polydaemonism
The title is a touch gratuitous, but I came across the word 'polydaemonism' a few months ago, and this is as good an excuse to use it as any 
I was going to start by saying that it's difficult at the remove of two thousand years to understand the state of mind of a worshipper of the Greek (take the and/or Roman as read, I can't be bothered to keep repeating it) gods. And then I thought: Only if you're Protestant – culturally or actually.
Protestantism has essentially no place-memory. There...
February 17, 2012
Writing religion in fantasy
Trying to flesh out the Exiles for a continuation of the Vespera arc got me thinking about how we create religions in imaginary worlds, and how well it works.
Richelieu at La Rochelle - Henri Motte
If you're drawing on an Indo-European or Semitic setting, it's easy to create the structure. The Catholic Church of anytime between about 1100 and 1700 comes ready-made with hierarchy, enormous secular power and wealth, widespread corruption, and a whole apparatus of oppression. Worldly bishops...February 6, 2012
Long to reign over us…
My fictional monarchs are invariably mad, bad or dangerous to know. Queen Elizabeth II celebrates 60 years on the British throne today. She is none of those things – indeed quite the opposite – and I wish her all the best.
January 31, 2012
Written on the Heart
Is a play about the King James Bible. I went to see this in Stratford a few days ago, and it's brilliant. It's also sold out, so I hope it'll get another run somewhere, that more may see it. Now, I may be a little partial on this score, being as I have previously said a bibliolater, and also a sucker for any kind of ecclesiastical history, but it's not even just about the commission which produced the KJB in 1611, nor is even most of it set then.
Catholic Priest and Tyndale. Credit: RSC
It...January 30, 2012
On real paper
A simpler question this time, and a very short post to follow the last one:
My question is; do you intend to release Vespera in a hardcopy format?
I am really eager to read it, but I do not own a Kindle, and I do not wish to sit in-front of my PC reading it, I prefer holding a actual book in my hands as I ride the train or sit and relax somewhere.
It is my devout hope that there will be a hardcopy format as soon as possible: Attica is working out ways to do this, though it's unlikely to get...
January 26, 2012
I can do no other?
"Here I stand, I can do no other." – Martin Luther (supposedly).
Ebooks. Ebooks are great both for readers and authors – for readers, they're offering a range of choice which the trade publishers, with their herd mentality (Vampires? Readers don't want vampires. Who's Stephanie Meyer? She's sold half a million copies? Vampires! Bring us vampires!) haven't managed, and at better prices too. For authors, they're a lifeline – a chance to get a fair cut of the sale price and also to reach readers ...
January 4, 2012
Of time and ill chance
For my second question-answering post, a pair of in-world questions – thank you NeoAC!
The first is about dates, or more accurately, about how years are accounted for. We know that Lachazzar calls for the Crusade in the year 2781 of the calenda annalis, and other years pop there and here, starting with the ones that are mentioned in Carausius's History. I always wondered what event marked the year one of that era. Something like Romans, when they used the Ab urbe condita system, that's it...
December 18, 2011
My name from his be freed!
In the first of my answering-question posts: my favourite authors, and their effect on my writing (particularly of women). The full question is below.
I am part-way through Vespera, and utterly gripped by the unfolding political intrigue (so please don't reveal the ending!). I've also been struck by how many excellent strong female characters you write (my favourites thus far being Leonata, Anthemia and Daena, though Aesonia, Flavia and Thais come pretty close), which (at the risk of wild...
December 6, 2011
Ebook lending
A brief excursus from my usual topics, and from question-answering, into ebooks, since I now have a substantial vested interest in them.
About a year ago, I remember saying or (possibly only thinking) that it would be good to see an ebook warehouse appear – somewhere the purpose of which was to make money simply from selling ebooks in any format available to any device willing to have them. I wasn't sure there would be enough money in, but it seems someone with a great deal of experience has d...
