Conrad Williams's Blog, page 6

Dead Letters Teaser #6

Cancer Dancer, Pat Cadigan

The thing about London is, it has no grid. Streets wind and wander; you can start out thinking you’re going one place and end up somewhere completely different, with no idea how to get back. It’s part of London’s charm and it can drive visitors crazy, particularly those from the US. After twenty years, I was used to it. I still got lost, I just didn’t stress about it.

I thought for sure I’d get lost looking for the Eternity Club. It was in a nookish cranny called a close (as in close by, not close the door), the kind of place you could walk past dozens of times and never notice. But I went right to it, as if I’d been there a thousand times before. The outside of the building was painted dark brown, with equally dark windows too high up for me to try peeking through. No street number, no doorbell, not even so much as a discreet “Members Only” sign.

 

Dead Letters Teaser #5

Wonders to Come, Christopher Fowler

When he looked down from the glass stairwell wall he saw that the stage had been vacated. At its back, the immense high-definition screens were black and dead. The movement of the crowd was increasing as those at the back started to push forward. The security teams were trying to herd them toward the service exits, but instinctively the guests were trying to return to the electronic gates through which they had entered.

He felt the plate glass reverberate from an explosion. Running to the next stairwell window, he followed the direction of everyone’s turning heads. The first of the fountains, a great concentric circuit of pipework set in the baroque concrete turrets of an artificial lake, had blown itself apart under the unregulated pressure. Shards of stone and steel were raining down on those caught at the back of the crowd.

Dead Letters Teaser #4

Ausland, Alison Moore

Over dinner, Karla told Lukas about her life in London, her secretarial career and her late husband, and Lukas told Karla about his work as a physicist, the research he had done, the papers he had published in scientific journals. ‘I knew it!’ she said. ‘Please tell me you have an inventing shed!’ and he told her that he did. ‘I remember all the things you wanted to invent,’ she said. ‘You wanted to make a robot that would do your homework for you.’ Lukas laughed, nodding. ‘You had plans to build all sorts of machines.’

Dead Letters Teaser #3

In Memoriam, Joanne Harris

First I open, and read, and sort the letters containing valuables. Cheques and cash we return, if we can. Sometimes you can find an address if you open the envelope. Things of intermediate value – clothes, trinkets, toys, books – we keep for six months, then dispose of. Watches, jewellery, artwork, we tend to try to keep longer. Perishable items we get rid of at once. Birthday cakes; live bait; garden plants; groceries; and once a box of soft, pale moths, drowsy in their wrapping of banana leaves and rice paper, which, slipping through my fingers like dusty old transparencies, came back to life in the clear, cold air, and flew up into the overhead lights, where they remained until they died, dropping one by one to the floor in clusters of brownish blossom.

Dead Letters Teaser #2

Over to You, Michael Marshall Smith

I put the phone down and picked up the bishop. As with any small object whose purpose inherently involves being touched, it was hard not to roll it around in the fingers, and to wonder who else had done so. What with me not being psychic, no answers were forthcoming.

When I touched my finger to the base, it was at least as damp as the day before. Which seemed odd, as the ambient temperature was reasonably high. I raised it to my nose, and thought the smell was a little stronger, too.

I closed my eyes and tried to get closer than Scott’s pretty decent summation. I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed to me to have something of hospital corridors about it.

Dead Letters Teaser #1

The Green Letter, by Steven Hall

I’d like to warn you that the attached footage is very distressing. As you’ll see for yourself, Captain Wayne made fourteen requests for the test to be aborted, which were not observed despite clear and increasing levels of distress. I consider this inexcusable and will implement whatever reprimand you consider appropriate without hesitation, including my own resignation from the project and the department, if you feel this to be appropriate.

Liverpool Lime Street

  Catch!

Bestwick… Campbell… Williams…

I’ll be reading at an event at Waterstone’s, Liverpool, tomorrow night to celebrate the launch of Simon Bestwick’s post-apocalyptic novel Hell’s Ditch along with horror legend Ramsey Campbell. Tickets are available for £3 and we kick off at 6.30 pm. Come and join us!

Dead Letters is alive!

It’s always a thrill to receive a box of books in the post. And it was especially satisfying to open this parcel, if only because it meant it hadn’t gone missing (which I was convinced was going to happen). The books are lovely; Titan have done a beautiful job. It seems like such a long time ago that I first came up with the concept, but all the hard work was done by others: eighteen ridiculously-talented writers (and each one a pleasure to deal with) contributed wonderful stories. I was thinking with some sadness that the project was over, but really, with the book’s publication, it’s only just started. Because now you lovely readers get involved. I hope you love this anthology as much as I do.

Penlightenment: TWSBI Diamond 580AL

Apparently TWSBI is pronounced ‘twizbee’. What does TWSBI stand for though? Totes Wonderful Scrivening Beauty Innit? This Writer Sucks Balls Indefinitely? Actually, don’t answer that.

I like demonstrater pens (a ‘demonstrater’, for those who do not know – and likely do not care – is a clear pen allowing you to see the workings within). My first, and one of my daily workhorses, was a Lamy Safari Vista. I still use it a lot. It was relatively cheap but it writes smoothly, is well balanced and it has a fantastic fat clip. I prefer to write with a fine nib (I spend most of my writing time inside notebooks on the small size) but I bought the Lamy with a medium nib, because I wasn’t convinced it would be as smooth with a fine. I still don’t know if that’s the case, but the nibs are interchangeable so I might experiment one day, if I’m feeling particularly daring.

Anyway, I ordered the TWSBI with a fine nib, because I suspected quality wouldn’t be compromised, given the price. And it wasn’t. It’s butter smooth. It’s a lovely pen to use, and I use it most days even though I was at first worried about taking it outside in case I lost it. When inspiration abandons me, the pen becomes an object to fiddle with, and it does a great job then too. My pen, as you can see, is adorned with some attractive orange sections (the orange version has been discontinued, apparently, making mine not only a thing of beauty, but of rare beauty).

I like to watch the ink sloshing in the faceted barrel. The TWSB can hold quite a bit of ink (current load: J Herbin’s Poussière de Lune – ooh, get me.). The pen transmits its quality through its heft and smooth finish. It even makes a nice noise when you screw the cap back on… In short, it demands to be fiddled with. It even comes with its own little spanner and some silicone grease so you can fiddle to your heart’s content while you give your pen a service.

My only gripe is that you can’t really post the cap. Well, you can, but then you run the risk of hosing yourself with ink when you try to take it off again. The end of the pen has a piston mechanism that you twist to draw ink into the barrel. Twist it the other way and it forces the ink towards the nib. I guess the designers didn’t expect customers to want to post the cap, as it does mean the pen becomes quite large. So best to keep it off, but be careful you don’t lose the thing.

TWSBI also offer a similar model of pen in a mini version and recently released a model called the Eco, which gives you a competitively priced fountain pen. If I come across any of these items in the future I’ll be sure to post a review, but for the time being I’m happy with my 580AL in hard-to-find orange (the green does look good too though… sigh).