Nigel Bird's Blog, page 57

Green Day

This is a long piece. If you don’t have the time or the patience to stick with it, click on this link to Nightfalls (US) to avoid any complications.


When the invitation from Katherine Tomlinson arrived in my email, I was delighted. Being asked to participate in an anthology by someone you respect is something special and it can be a tonic to any flagging ego.

Needless to say, I told her I’d be there and, no doubt, I went around smiling for the rest of the day.

I was grateful for the time I had to write something down, too. 6 months I had. More than enough. All I had to do was to imagine the end of the world and tell a story about it. Simple.

My idea came almost immediately. I wanted to use a DJ. Have him working like it was any other normal day. Maybe let him reflect upon his life and his regrets and use his status and his radio studio to put out word that he wanted to speak to the love of his life. Someone he’d not been in touch with for far too long. Maybe make peace or find some physical comfort with the woman.

It got me thinking about what I’d want to be doing when the world came to a full stop. Sex was there. Drugs. Family togetherness and playing games. Finding a spot in nature and contemplating. Joining some big party. The final choice would definitely be a difficult one. I reckon for me, I’d go for being with my family and imagining it was Christmas day – food, celebration and love.

Then came the time when 6 months had all but passed. Katherine emailed me a reminder with a week to go to the deadline and the word-count was zero.

Sadly for me, when I got the message from Katherine it coincided with my mother falling, damaging her arm and her confidence enormously. I asked Katherine for a week’s extension and it was very kindly granted.

The Monday after I’d returned from my time seeing her, I set about the opening. It involved the DJ driving in to work. There were pros and cons about the end-of-the-world thing. There were lunatics and the frenetic out on the streets, but the roads were free of traffic and it was an easy journey.

The DJ found a name, Greene, and so the story found its title also.

I came to admire Green Day at the first time of hearing, something from Dookie as I played pool with a couple of mates in Hampstead. I even went to see them around 15 years ago and loved their energy and the fullness of their sound.

Things were coming together nicely. Another couple of visits and I’d have it polished off by the end of the week - all I needed was to decide on what was going to happen.

The idea came the next day and it was something of a U-turn. No matter, now I knew my direction it would be simple.

The next day was Thursday. The day my mum was due out of hospital. The day it would come to feel like the world really had come to an end.

I got the call in the middle of a lesson. Mum had died. I cried – couldn’t help myself. I told the children I was working with how they could use what they know, tried and stop the quiver in the voice and sent them back to their own teacher. The motor-skills group finished off and left me alone. The adults were kind to me and told me to go home, not that I had any choice. First, what I needed to do was cry my eyes out until there were no tears left to make sure that I could be safe in the car.

I arrived home. Took a hug from my wife and got into bed.

Amidst a storm of emotions was some kind of clarity – I needed to clear my decks. A promise is a promise and my story needed to be finished. Besides, I needed something to focus on. Something to latch on to in a world that just wasn’t making any sense.

I typed at the keys. The words came. Sometimes I remembered what was really going on, so I quickly buried myself back into my fiction.

The words kept coming. The story seemed to hold. I found an ending and was done.

A couple of reads through and as soon as my wife stopped writing up her work, I grabbed the chance to get on the computer to send it to Katherine.

I explained the situation. Told her that I had no faith in what I had just produced and that I wouldn’t be in any shape to edit and entrusted that job to her.

And that’s when everything seemed to fall to pieces. When a brutal numbness took over my life.

I got back to some kind of normality after the funeral.

Katherine was great. Really lovely. So lovely that she suggested that the book might be dedicated to my mum, that plain old Irish woman who hadn’t managed to make it home. I didn’t want to be selfish, but at the same time couldn’t turn down such a warm and human offer. It’s in the book now and I’m so happy that it’s there. So delighted to see my story made the grade too.

And that’s how I came to write this story. It’ll be a marker in life for as long as I’m able to hold on to such things.

In so many ways it was the end of the world. Now, I suppose, it’s time to try and turn that into a new beginning. I can begin that process by recommending that you buy this book. My mum was big on charity and Nightfalls is for a very good cause. How neatly things can sometimes fit together.

With thanks.

Kaye George - THE LAST WAVE

by Kaye George

I’m thrilled to have a story included in the anthology called NIGHTFALLS: Notes from the end of the world, edited by Dark Valentine’s Katherine Tomlinson! When I first started considering my story, which was to include the thoughts of a person who knew it would be the last night on earth, I had to start with how I should have the world end.
Apocalypse literature is not new to me, as a reader and a moviegoer, but it sure was as a writer. I once wrote a humorous zombie piece, but it only involved the death of one person, within the story. The threat of world annihilation was there, but only implied.
But now I had to get serious and think how the world might really end, if it ends soon. I’ll have to give a little background on myself for this to make sense. I’m a teensy bit neurotic. When a new strain of flu is announced on TV, I have it. (A mild case not worth going to the doctor for.) When anything contagious is going around, I have it. (Same parenthetical statement as above.) When a new form of mental deviation is discovered, I’m prone to it. Some people call it hypochondriasis, others call it hysteria. Whatever, it works for me.
Another thing about me is that I like to read popular physics, Isaac Asimov, Brian Greene and the like.
One thing I worry about is radio waves. Every day there are more and more devices in the US, and around the world, that get data from waves. The towers surround us. Waves are being beamed for our TVs, our phones, our Ipads, wireless Kindles, WiFis are everywhere. I even have a router filling my house with waves. We can print, remote, with no wires, from anywhere in our house and even from across the street.
All those waves are everywhere! And they’re going through our bodies. The only thing controlling all this chaos is keeping track of band widths. I’m scared.
Throw in a little physics, like the fact that colliding waves give off heat, and I had my plot.
My story is called 'The Last Wave'.
Kaye is the author of a number of titles including Choke, the Imogen Duckworthy Mysteries and the collection A Patchwork Of Stories.
 http://kayegeorge.com/index.html

APOCALYPTIC WALTZ - Richard Godwin

 
 
1)      Will you answer the last question first?
No, look at the last question.
2)      Is this question two?
It depends which numerical system you are using.
3)      Do numbers matter?
They do to mathematicians and salespeople.
4)      Are you in Nightfalls (US), the anthology of stories about the end of the world, edited by Katherine Tomlinson?
I am, and it’s a great anthology full of stories by some fine writers, among them Christopher Grant, AJ Hayes, Chris Rhatigan, Thomas Pluck, Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw, Col Bury, and yourself Nigel, to name but a few.
5)      Tell us about your story.
It’s called 'Blackout', a Beckett type skit on two characters stuck in a building surrounded by corpses. They talk about the meaning of life and argue about who has ended up with the biggest sausage.
6)      Any other news?
Mr. Glamour, my second novel, is out in paperback with Black Jackal Books, and he is preparing to meet you. Consider him Hannibal Lecter in Gucci. This is a novel about designer goods and those obsessed by them. It is a novel in which identity is linked to brands. Here are a couple of review excerpts:
‘The writing of Richard Godwin is original, bold and gets writers talking. Mr. Glamour is a giallo extravaganza that would make Dario Argento blush and request movie rights right away. It's a novel that builds on its layers to reach an absolutely crazy climax that not only lives up to the story, but that rewards the readers with a huge jaw-dropper moment. Rare are the endings that live up to their stories, but this is quite the success. A great story about identity in an era where your ass belongs to a designer.’
Benoit LeLievre, Dead End Follies.
‘Mr Glamour is a striking effort from one of the most daring crime writers in the business. It is the noirest of noir, fatalistic, ultra-violent and hellishly addictive.’
Mike Stafford, Book Geeks Magazine.
Mr. Glamour is available herein the UK, herein the US.
7)      That it?Apostle Rising, my debut novel, which has sold foreign rights in Europe, is now out for the first time as an E Book. In it a serial killer crucifies politicians. The E Book comes with some juicy extras, an excerpt from Mr. Glamour and four deliciously dark Noir stories, like the finest handmade chocolate. It is available:
Herein the US
Herein the UK
On Kobo
On Xin Xii
8)         Do you believe the end of the world is nigh and what is your answer to the first question?
No and yes.
You can find out more about Richard Godwin at www.richardgodwin.net

The Next Big Thing - Nigel Bird

I'm on a chain-gang.  The bracelets are killing me and I'm parched.

Never mind, it's what you get if you agree to be tagged in a never-ending book-blog string and it's what you get when you have good friends to tag you.

My tag came from Daniel O'Shea over at his blog Going Ballistic.  He's done a great interview over there and now it's my turn to give the questions a try.

At the end of the piece, I'll link to the folk I've tagged so you can find out about their great stuff as soon as they've been roped in, branded and put theirs up.

Thanks to Dan for the tag.  Now, here goes:


1 What is the working title of your next book?
Because I’ve only just put out Mr Suit (US), I’m going to refer to that as my ‘next book because I’ve not had time to think about a new story yet.

2 Where did the idea come from for the book?
I was moved by the court-cases here in the UK by people with great physical difficulties who wanted to have the right to die – a man with locked-in syndrome was so incapacitated that he couldn’t take his own life and his close family couldn’t end things without being charged with murder.  It seemed crazy and I wanted to write a serious novel on the subject. 
As research, I read The Diving Bell And The Butterfly and also a brilliant novel called Senseless (by Stona Fitch).  They were so good, I needed to find another approach, hence Mr Suit.
3 What genre does your book fall under?

Screwball noir.
 4   What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
I’d have a man with locked-in syndrome for the role of Archie just to get it right. His wife might be Joan Crawford and Mr Suit would be Broderick Crawford (I figure that’s OK because them being dead already doesn’t make the prospect of the film being made any less likely). 
Ritchie, Tarantino and Capra can collaborate on production and direction.


5)   What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
When a plan for a gangland euthanasia party goes wrong, someone’s bound to end up sleeping with the fishes.

 6)   Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

 It’s self-published as an e-book and a paperback.  
7)   How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
Though it’s only a novella, I spent a long time on the first draft.  A good couple of months fine tuning. 
Unusually for me, when it came to the edit I ended up adding words rather than taking them away to try and give this one a slightly different feel than my usual work.   

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
It’s a pretty crazy plot with a zesty pace and a fair dose of adult content.  For that, I reckon I’m blaming Anthony Neil Smith, Allan Guthrie, Matthew McBride, Douglas Lindsay, Charlie Williams and Donna Moore. 

9   Who or what inspired you to write this book?
See question 1.  

What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?
It’s unpredictable – I doubt the twists can be fathomed in advance of coming across them.
It features the slowest getaway vehicle in the history of crime fiction.
There’s a little sex to add some spice it that’s your boat.
The humour runs through it from start to finish, so if you’re a fan of dark comedy it might well be for you.

Questions, Questions and Tony Black.

Next Tuesday, 27th November, Tony Black will be appearing at my local library in Dunbar (7:30 - 9:00 pm).

I feel very honoured to have been asked by Tony to host part of the event as an interviewer and hope that I can add some flavour to the evening. 

The guy's got a rich back list to dig in to and he's putting things out on a regular basis. 

He works on Pulp Pusher and keeps us entertained with his posting.  He has the Di Brennan series, the Gus Durie series, Doug Michie has made a recent appearance in The Storm Without and there's the Blasted Heath release RIP Robbie Silva.

It's a large surface to scratch.

I do have ideas of what to ask and I know that Tony's charm and knowledge will make the evening really lively and informative for any who attend.

Thing is, I want to do a good job for the guy.  With that in mind, I wonder if you have any particular questions that you think I should ask.  Maybe about characters or writing style.  I wouldn't be seeking the kind of obvious things that folk ask after a reading, but something that's very specific or might be revealing of something of interest to the writer interested in developing their craft.

You might also leave a few ideas of what not to ask.  Maybe you know something that's better left uncovered or maybe you've presented many events yourself and have your own pet-hates.

Either way, I'd be delighted to hear from you in the comments and will pick any good ones to use on Tuesday.

Many thanks for your help.

One Man's Opinion: LIGHT by M JOHN HARRISON

Light (US) is a little different from my usual read, but it came to me highly recommended by a trusted friend and so I went for it.
Essentially, it’s the science-fiction aspect of the book that is my uncharted territory, not that I needed to have worried.  M John Harrison has produced a work that is highly engaging throughout and suffuses high drama and tension into an intricate plot that is populated by tremendous characters.
The story is told in three strands which occasionally overlap and eventually come together.
There’s Michael Kearney, a scientist on the verge of a breakthrough of immense proportions.  He’s an Oxbridge graduate who’s a bit of a loafer and who relies upon his partner to do most of the research in the messy lab.  He’s obsessed by a creature called the Shrander which appears to be chasing him.  He also has a rather interesting relationship with women – mostly he kills them as a sacrifice to keep him safe, but he never quite manages to get round to ditching his ex-wife.  There’s a wonderful moment when, after a few days in bed together, Kearney decides he need to work and says goodbye to that ex-wife.  “I knew you’d go out again,” she tells him.  In that phrase I think you get to see some of the author’s talent.  It encapsulates so much about their relationship and her character (and indeed that moment that many lovers may experience when they’ve wrapped themselves in a perfectly safe bubble for a while).  Lovely and heartbreaking and apparently simply crafted.
The next strand of the story follows a burned-out space pilot who is addicted to spending time in ‘The Tanks’.  When inside the tank, the world is one of imagination and dreams.  It’s full of an amniotic fluid that bathes the subject and keeps them alive.  When the money in the machine runs out, the subject is prepared for release with tranquilisers and hormones to help with the withdrawal as reality kicks back in.  Ed Chianese loves the tanks.  Unfortunately, not everyone loves Ed.  He’s being chased by the imposing, frightening and heartless Cray sisters who are prepared to pretty much anything to get the guy.  Ed’s only chance is to fight them and run and from the point of his flight, his world becomes an exciting and eventful place to be.
The third aspect of the story is about a human who has been through a process of becoming a space-craft.  She’s part consciousness, part machine.  She’s on a mission to get her existence sorted out.  Unbeknown to her, the man she turns to for help (Uncle Zip) ends up setting her up so that he can follow her and reach his own goal and this is an engrossing journey in itself.
I need to admit that some of the aspects of the imagination had me bamboozled – the nature of travel, the K-Tract, the morphing and genetic interference and such.  Luckily, though, I don’t think that spoiled my enjoyment at all.There are bizarre sex scenes, there's crazy fashion, there's shape-shifing and there's a gentle sense of parody from time-to-time.The plot is driven by the needs and desires of the characters.  The settings are wonderfully described.  The questions posed are challenging and fun to consider and the image of the future seems to be neither welcoming of frightening, more just the way things turn out.
Well worth the investment of time and money this one.  Check it out.  It's just been brought out on kindle, too.

One Man's Opinion: ANIMAL KINGDOM

You have a pretty good idea of where you are within the first minutes of Animal Kingdom.
The credits appear over images of an armed robbery and the story opens with a young man sitting next to an unconscious lady.  Deal Or No Deal’s on the box and it looks like a normal day in a boring life.  Normal, that is, until the paramedics turn up and set to work on the woman who had OD’d on heroine.
The young man is Joshua Cody.  He calls his estranged grandmother to ask for help with the funeral arrangements and ends up moving in with her. 
Joshua’s mother kept him away from his extended family in the hope that he wouldn’t get mixed up in their crime syndicate of robbery and drug pushing.  Now that he’s in the arms of his Grandmother, Smurf, things don’t look good.
Smurf is a matriarchal lune.  She has 4 crazy sons, 3 living at home and the craziest of them all, Pope, who’s in hiding. For the set-up, think Cody Jarrett in White Heat, here; it’s unlikely that the choice of name for the Animal Kingdom family is purely accidental.
The Cody family is in trouble because the lawless drug enforcers in police uniform are watching their every move in a bid to find Pope.
The film is stark.  It’s often static and claustrophobic.  The characters are brutally real and easy to get to know.  There are no bells and whistles to distract from the story’s tension and uncomfortable quality.  The performances are superb and the whole piece fits together like apple, sugar and pastry.  Pope would have fitted well in to Blue Velvet and the main character Josh is played in a deadpan way that suggests the actor James Frecheville is going places (if he hasn’t already).
There’s no doubt that this is one to watch.
I’d also like to appeal to fans of Australian cinema to point me in the direction of more similar movies should there be many of them around.

Mr Suit

MR SUIT (US) is as ugly or as beautiful as a pug, depending on your feelings on the breed.

He's a hard man and he's top of the pile.  He also likes to appear at his best and has a wonderful taste in clothing.

Since the accidental shooting of one of his men, ARCHIE, he's been paying for restpite care and for hospital bills that continually prick at his conscience - Archie's been a victim of Locked-In Syndrome ever since.

When Archie's wife, LIZA, approaches Mr Suit to ask for an act of kindness that will release Archie from the prison that is his body, it seems like a win-win situation.

As with many things real and imagined, it's a tangled web they end up weaving. 

If you come and negotiate the web you'll find out about bluff and double-bluff, hidden treasure, a modern-day Billy the Kid, the slowest getaway in the history of crime, a little about Kentish Town noir and about how messed up a family can really be.

It's a romp, a farce and a crime piece all wrapped into one novella.

I'd recommend it to the house.

Good Grief

It’s two weeks since my mum died.
As you can probably imagine, life’s gone in to a tailspin of sorts.  With things moving up and down and round and round at such a rate of change, it’s been very difficult to get any sense of perspective at all.
The first week was all about my immediate family.  Looking after Dad and trying to keep the arrangements on track.  It all led up to the funeral and the sense of relief that it brought in ways I was surprised by.
Week two has been very different. 
I’m in the house alone during the day, feeling a little insecure about the world outside of my doors and the people who live there.  I’m experiencing an odd kind of exhaustion that means I need to go to bed when the need arises.  Not that I’m sleeping all day – I just can’t.
One of the things that’s helped has been writing-related activities.  I’ve managed to fill the emptiness that I feel, at least until the children come home from school, with creativity.
THE SHADOWS OF DEATH (US) was my first reflexive move. 
Hard to say why I needed to put it out there as a collection.
First of all, I had a story (the opener) which I felt needed to be read.  I’m very proud of it and the way it should impact upon a reader.  It’s a tale from the concentration camps of Poland that caused quite some movement within me when I penned it.
Next, I took a photograph on a visit to the church where Mum’s funeral took place.  There are some examples of stained glass that had been smashed and refitted at the time of the reformation.  Using it as a cover for something was a strong push.
The final thing, I think, was a need to make a marker for myself to remember this time.  For many years I wrote poems to capture moments; they acted like photos do for others.  I felt a collection would give me a constant reminder of the pain, which suits me well.
Other than the opening stories, there are a couple of other strong pieces ; I say that with reasonable confidence as they’ve appeared in some mighty collections. 
There are also a couple of oddities.  One about guilt, one about a couple of American police in 1970, one inspired by Godot and another about a shopping receipt.  I have no idea of their value to anyone else, but at this time they’ve offered me a great service.
I hope it works, though I don’t really mind if it doesn’t. 
There may be purists out there who feel only the best should ever go out.  For now I’ll turn a deaf ear to them as I’m not listening to anything by my heart. 
I’ve also completed a first draft of a novella I began before the summer.  I had 6000 words already and have finished it by adding another 5000 or so.  I’ve been lucky to have feedback on it from my steady pals at Crimeficwriters and I’m ready to redraft.
I’d like to thank all those friends in the writing world who’ve offered support and condolences and I hope I can repay in kind some day.
I’d also like to thank writing for being such an ever-present entity in my life.
Till soon.

One Man's Opinion: THE FIRST CUT by JOHN KENYON

 John Kenyon is a classy writer.
In ‘The First Cut’ (US), he offers a collection of stories that is a pleasure to read.
One of the features of his work is the ability to plant a seed in a reader’s mind and then chop down the plant as soon as it appears so that another seed can take its place.  There were times when I thought I had outsmarted the author and knew where a piece was going, only to find that it was Mr Kenyon who had the upper hand every time.  This kind of loop-the-loop is a lot of fun to be part of.
Another feature is his ability to create a story in an unusual setting – there are lots of tangents from the ordinary here to enjoy.
This collection might also offer a number of tips to the reader, should they ever find themselves in a tight spot, a kind of self-help book for the criminal:
how to bury a body the right way.
how to deliver the perfect Christmas gift to your child when you’re short of cash.
how to ease your conscience after a hit.
why a little-white lie might serve better than a full confession.
how to keep out subliminal messages and maintain self-control.
My favourite in the collection is the opener, a story about a hit-man who has grown to resent Quentin Tarantino movies and who becomes linked in with organ-donation in a rather macabre fashion.
Recommended. I'd also like to point you in the direction of Grimm Tales, published by Untreed Reads.  It's a really great anthology that John put together through his site 'TIRBD'.  There's a foreward in there from Ken Bruen, who sells it far better than I might.  Check it out.