Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 113

Will Hollywood Be Annihilated?

Trigger warning; this is an unapologetically film industry-oriented column, but for me it’s an interesting subject. The Netflix movie ‘Annihilation’ is making waves for all the wrong reasons, but may ultimately turn out to favour the mega-channel and give Hollywood a spanking. Here’s why. The formerly unassailable studio system had dreams of global domination, but […]

‘Wild Chamber’ Is Out In Paperback Now

It got pleasing reviews in hardback* so here it is now in handy portable form. ‘Wild Chamber’ (hiding behind the new hardback out in three weeks) is the 15th Bryant & May mystery in a series I hope to get up to twenty (I’m currently working on the seventeenth). Here’s how I came to write […]

Hello To Berlin

Despite having been there at least half a dozen times I still needed to do some prep for this trip to Berlin because it was a leisure trip. The city is so vast and sprawling that it shows many sides and you never see the same one twice, especially if you end up crossing Alexanderplatz […]

Coming This Year: The Writers’ Service

I did an interview the other day in which I was asked if I had any phrases or watchwords by which to live, and I suggested two; Nobody loves a good all-rounder. and, No tombstone ever read, ‘This writer always delivered on time.’ By which I mean; it takes whatever it takes, however long it […]

Told To Be Old

Clearly there comes a day when a team from the government comes to your home or office and holds a meeting with you via a Powerpoint presentation, wherein they explain that you’ve been reclassified as an Old. They then reveal their plan for your future, which will involve becoming invisible, being ignored, sidelined and patronised. […]

A Wednesday Song Because…

It’s raining. I have a lot of work to get through before I head for Berlin tomorrow. I can’t find the piece I was going to post. So. What do you get if you cross the Argentinian Hollywood composer Lalo ‘Bullitt’ Schifrin with James Bond at his peak, hire Shirley Bassey to belt out the […]

Why We Need Hidden Heroes

  By winning the Oscar for Best Picture, Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape Of Water shifted the status of outsiders to the inside. Its liberal credentials are revealed in a variety of ways, from the fully fleshed out key roles taken by a voiceless woman, a middle-aged gay man and a black cleaning woman to the […]

Happy Birthday Frankenstein

He’s a sprightly 200 years old. Mary Shelley was only 20 when she conceived of a monster created from parts of animals and humans, galvanised to life. Her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley had attended anatomy classes and was fascinated by electrical experiments, which suggests that his ideas may have fed into hers. On that infamous […]

When Writing Becomes Teamwork

‘Nobody admires a good all-rounder.’ This was the motto of my earliest teacher/mentor Mr Scholar (really). It was advice I took to heart, by concentrating all my efforts on the subjects in which I excelled and dumping the vast majority I was lousy at. But it left me deficient in a number of skills, so […]

As I Was Saying…

The site is back up! This is entirely down to the uniquely talented creative director Simon Moore, who created the site in its first, most elegant incarnation (I’ve found the pictures we used for that one and I’ll post them next week). Next we’ll pick a new look for the site and get a few […]