Christopher Fowler's Blog, page 2

Alien Language

I’m currently reading hard SF writer Paul McAuley’s majestic dissection of Terry Gilliam’s ‘Brazil’, written for the BFI. Like most writers, he delivers other pieces outside of his regular novel output. I realised that I’d kept a huge electronic file of old articles, unseen pieces and bits of fiction, many of which have dated but are […]

Superficial And Super-functional: My Theory*

*Oops, that headline looks like it was written by Anne Elk, especially if you put ‘Chris’ after it. It was Noel Coward who commented on the potency of cheap music, touching on something that has always fascinated me. It applies to music, but as much to images and phrases that linger in the mind for […]

Oh No, It’s Christmas Movie Time!

  This year comedy has been forced into virtual extinction. Looking through the seasonal films it feels as if Christmas has become just another Netflix category, colour-coded in red, white and gold. The worst offenders are ‘Slumberland’, featuring charisma-bypass Jason Momoa, which takes Windsor McKay’s delightful 1905 comic strip original and removes everything joyful about […]

A Month of Sundays

At this time of the year it feels as if every day is like Sunday – gelid, grey, silent. We could be in the depths of the Kent countryside rather than at one of the world’s most trafficked spots, partly because we are beset by national postal, air and rail strikes. A friend has no […]

What Is ‘Mimetic Desire’?

‘I’m either taking feminist studies in eighties Hollywood films or unleashing my inner fairy,’ I was told by an intelligent, educated young woman deciding on university courses. She seemed (to me at least) to have so little understanding of her own identity that these were being held before her in equal balance as viable alternatives. […]

Christopher Priest: Dreams Of Flying

I’m always astonished by the number of brilliant authors we have in this country who, if Amazon is to be believed, barely register on popular book charts. The problem is with the chart itself which is always the same, starting flat, curving gently upwards and eventually descending to tail away. Let’s call the centre of the […]

My Kind Of Music

  The first piece of classical music I ever remember hearing was Mozart’s Horn Concerto No.4 at the age of 7. I know it was this because our headmistress had it played every Monday morning at the start of school assembly in the Invicta Infants School, Blackheath. This was followed by ‘Jupiter’ from Holst’s Planet […]

London-Centricity

I’ve been aware of the problem for a very long time, but it wasn’t something I could easily solve. All but one of my Bryant & May books are set in London. One the few that isn’t is one of my favourites – ‘White Corridor’. This bias of location occurs in my books from ‘Roofworld’ […]

The Politicians And The Shopkeeper

Russell Jones is going to have a fight on his hands getting anyone to read his book for more than a few pages at a time; not that it isn’t good, quite the reverse, but it’s utterly depressing. ‘The Decade in Tory’ is not a chronicle of our noble politicians’ activities by the privileged non-doms […]

Ten To Midnight

pyeople I type it again. pepople And again. peoytle Do you mean peyotl? people One word done. Onto the next. That’s what it’s like. Fatigue hits you like a wall. The Husband, who doesn’t really believe that illness exists unless it’s very visible, says that ME is a ‘fake illness’. I know because I watched […]