Steven J. Pemberton's Blog, page 21

Visions of the Universe

Yesterday (22 June 2013) we went to see Visions of the Universe, an exhibition of astronomical images at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. The pictures are mostly photographs, but there are some drawings as well, from the pre-telescope era.

The images have been chosen mainly for visual appeal, with some for historical significance - for instance, Galileo's drawings of the moons of Jupiter, and the first photograph of a heavenly body (our own moon, by John W Draper in 1839). Some will be familiar - the "Pillars of Creation" from the Hubble Space Telescope, and the "Eye of God" image of the Helix Nebula. Others are less well-known, such as the first colour photograph from the surface of Venus, taken by Venera 13, and a photo taken by Edwin Hubble that gave the first proof of the existence of galaxies outside our own.

The centrepiece of the exhibition is a 13-metre screen showing panoramas taken by the three rovers currently operating on Mars (Opportunity, Spirit and Curiosity). The detail in these is stunning, but oddly, apart from the colourless sky and the absence of vegetation, they could've been taken on Earth.

Tickets are priced at about £8, which is reasonable for London, and you should allow an hour, or maybe an hour and a half, to see all of it. The exhibition should appeal to anyone who likes beautiful pictures, not just to astronomy buffs. Visions of the Universe runs until 15 September.

Dust & Water is now on sale

I'm pleased to announce that the electronic edition of Dust & Water, the third instalment in my Barefoot Healer series, is now on sale. You can sample or buy it from these locations:

Amazon US - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C44CHMO

Amazon UK - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00C44CHMO

Smashwords - https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...

Other retailers will follow, once Smashwords approve it for their premium catalogue and start distributing it.

For the tree-haters among you, a print edition is in the works. (I still have to draw the maps for that.)

Dust & Water cover reveal

Here's the cover for Dust & Water, the third instalment in the Barefoot Healer series. I don't have a definite date for it to be released yet, but it should be in the next few weeks, unless my beta readers find any massive plot holes...



The hand on this one belongs to my sister Ellen - here's a behind-the-scenes photo:

Holiday in a black-and-white land

Breda and I had a week's holiday in Switzerland recently, so here are some photos from it.

This wasn't a skiing holiday, but a rail tour around the more scenic parts of the country. We were with a group from the sports and social club of Breda's former employer. We had a Swiss Pass, which gave us first class travel on all the trains and buses, and made full use of it.

We've been with this group a few times before, and this year was the best in terms of weather - mostly fine, but with plenty of snow lying on the ground. (It's quite a novelty, living in Britain, to see everything still working with more than a couple of millimetres of snow about.)

We spent the first few days in Filisur, in the east of the country.


Breda and me on the balcony of the hotel

There weren't enough rooms for everyone in the main part of the hotel, and Breda and I ended up in a self-catering chalet a few hundred yards down the road. That was fine, except that, with it being Switzerland in the winter, I had to do this a couple of times:



For the rest of the holiday, we stayed in Interlaken, which is roughly in the middle of the country.


In Interlaken, looking across the River Aar.

We used Interlaken as a base to visit the rest of the tourist sites. Highlights for me were the Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne, the Jungfrau and the Matterhorn.


At the Swiss Museum of Transport.

The Jungfrau is one of the highest mountains in the Alps. A rack railway leads to Jungfraujoch, a pass between the Jungfrau and its neighbour, the Mönch. This is the highest railway station in Europe - high enough that it's not recommended for anyone with breathing difficulties.


At Jungfraujoch.

The Matterhorn is at the other end of Switzerland, and to get there we were on trains most of the day. We had just enough time to ride a rack railway up to Gornergrat, a skiing area that looks across to the Matterhorn.


At Gornergrat, with the Matterhorn in the background.

Overall, we had a pleasant, relaxing stay. Everybody made us feel welcome, and we continue to be impressed with the punctuality of the Swiss railways. The only downside really is that everything is very expensive - we took the equivalent of £400 in cash and spent it all on lunches and snacks. But we'll definitely go back if the opportunity arises.

Resolutions for 2013

Better late than never, here are some of the things I want to accomplish this year...

Finish Dust & Water and put it on sale.

Finish the short story about dragons that I was working on this time last year.

Visit Dublin with Breda.

Write more than 13 blog posts (the number I wrote last year). That's only one every four weeks on average, so it shouldn't be too hard (famous last words!). Counting this post ;-) I have two already!

Upload at least ten minutes of edited video, not including any videos that promote my books.

Publish another novel. I have an unfinished one that I put aside a few years ago to concentrate on the Barefoot Healer series, which is calling to me to finish it.

That's enough to be going on with. Check back in twelve months to see how I did!

Walking with Dinosaurs: The Arena Spectacular

We went to see the stage show of the TV show this evening at the O2 in Greenwich.

I think Breda enjoyed it more than I did, but overall we had a good time. It does what it says on the tin - about 20 life-size puppets of 10 species of dinosaur, close enough to feel their breath on your face. (And yes, you can see steam coming out of some of their nostrils.)

It's aimed more at children than adults - the dinosaurs don't really fight, they just circle round one another and roar a lot (loud enough to shake your seat in some cases). Though seeing as the bigger puppets weigh about a tonne and a half, it's probably not a good idea to have them crashing into one another.

The show is narrated by Huxley, a paleontologist, who displays a masterful command of the facts and figures, and narrowly escapes being eaten or stepped on several times. He's also useful for a sense of scale - in a dark arena, with nothing else from modern life visible, it's easy to forget how huge some of these animals really were. For instance, the Tyrannosaurus rex, officially the star of the show, is the size of a double-decker bus. I say "officially" because there's a juvenile T. rex, merely human-sized, which steals those scenes. It's the only one of the puppets that comes back for a curtain call.

I'd recommend this show to any child who likes dinosaurs, though it may not be suitable for nervous or very young children, as there are some bright flashing lights and a lot of loud noises.

So did I keep my resolutions?

A year ago, I set myself some goals for 2012. Time to find out how I did...

Finish Dust & Water and have it on sale by the end of the year. Um... no. I wanted to have the first draft done by 30 June, and I missed that one too. I finished it on 13 September, and am currently editing. I'm hoping to be done with that by the end of January. If I manage it, even though I missed the initial deadline, it'll still be the fastest I've ever finished a book.

Finish a short story. I didn't write any more of the one I was working on over Christmas last year, mainly because of all the other writing I was doing.

Read at least 15 books. I blew through this one - I managed 54.

Visit Dublin. Didn't get around to this either.

Become better at photography. I didn't make any special effort to do this.

Migrate my desktop computer to 64-bit Linux. Done.

Give blood at least once. I donated twice.

So that's three out of seven, which means I need to put more effort into reaching my goals next year... or pick resolutions that are easier to keep!

Of course, there are two big achievements that weren't on my list at the start of the year, which were publishing Escape Velocity and making a book trailer for it. This has actually been my most successful title so far, mainly thanks to KDP Select. So overall I think I've had a worthwhile year.

Come back in a few days to see what I've got planned for 2013...

Sneak preview of Dust & Water

Seeing as it's Christmas, here's a sneak peak at my new novel Dust & Water, volume III in The Barefoot Healer. This is a prologue, which is why there's no sign of Adramal. I'm still editing the book, so check back here for news of when it'll be released.

The Elector Galdrakh threaded his way among the narrow streets, counting the turnings to be sure he wouldn't lose his way. A different meeting place every time. Even I'm not that cautious. Of course, Galdrakh had countless advisers, servants, men-at-arms and general hangers-on who could be relied on to keep out eavesdroppers, whereas this fellow had... four men in hooded grey cloaks. And the horse. Don't forget the horse. It still surprised him, in a place that used four-legged transport less than just about anywhere else in the Empire, how many stables the city possessed.

He stepped around a pile of rubbish, steaming in the heat. Every time he thought he was getting used to the stench of the Warren, it slapped him in the face again, reminding him he didn't belong here. He glanced behind, confirming that his guards were still following at a discreet distance. They were dressed in the right sort of clothes, but they looked out of place, as if they'd rather be back in their barracks. They weren't the only ones.

At last, he stopped outside a wooden building that looked barely big enough for the five men, never mind the horse. The Temple of Rakeloth stood a few doors down, so he wasn't that far from where he'd started. He guessed he'd been given a deliberately roundabout route to shake off followers.

One of the guards approached - presumably their sergeant. "Do you want us to go in with you, Sir?"

He wished he could say yes, but Kerevash had insisted he come alone. Even bringing guards this far was, strictly speaking, a breach of that agreement. He shook his head. "Wait ten minutes. If I haven't come out by then, come in and rescue me."

"Yes, Sir." The sergeant turned on his heel and walked smartly to rejoin his colleagues - not quite marching, but he was plainly having trouble remembering he was supposed to be a civilian.

Galdrakh took a deep breath and lifted his fist to knock. The door looked as though it might fall off if he struck it too hard. He rapped out the agreed-upon pattern - that too, was different every time.

The door opened almost immediately. One of the hooded men stood there. Galdrakh hesitated. This was the first time he'd seen one in daylight, and he could've sworn there was nothing under the hood. The man raised an arm, motioning him to enter, and the sun glinted off a flat surface in the middle of the hood.

Idiot. It's just a black mask. He brushed past the man and into the building. The door swung shut behind him, closing with a final-sounding thud. A deep orange light, like a candle but somehow darker, came from further back in the room, suggesting its contents rather than illuminating it. He looked around for the other cloaked men, not seeing them. They had a knack of staying out of sight until they were needed. He heard nothing, not even the noises of the street. It took more courage than he thought he had not to turn and run.

"I would not harm you, Elector," came a voice from the far end of the room. It seemed to echo, as though the speaker was in a much larger space. "At least - not without good reason." The man spoke with refined precision, in a slight accent that Galdrakh couldn't place.

"Sh-Shadrakh be with you, too, Kerevash," replied Galdrakh, hating the shakiness in his voice. Was the man just a shrewd guesser, or could he really read minds? As Galdrakh's eyes adjusted to the light, he picked out the man's form. From head to foot, Kerevash was clad in metal armour, so black that it seemed darker than the shadows. Spikes projected from each joint, curved and twisted like horns. The helmet resembled an upturned bucket, with a narrow slit for the eyes. The man never removed any part of his armour, even in the height of summer when three slaves with fans hadn't been able to keep Galdrakh cool.

Kerevash's horse, almost as black as his armour, stood next to him, eyes glistening. Galdrakh had though horses were skittish creatures, prone to whinnying and neighing, but this animal was silent, and motionless but for the occasional flick of its ears or swish of its tail.

Kerevash said, "The Revenue Service will raid one of your warehouses before dawn on Kharadar's Day."

A chill stole over him. Not because of the raid - those happened almost every fortnight now, and were no more than a minor nuisance even when he didn't know about them in advance - but because of the confidence with which Kerevash spoke. He could've been talking about the sun rising tomorrow.

"Which one?" said Galdrakh.

"My informant was not able to be precise, but believes the target will be Ash-Herak or Ash-Tanabe. Kelstakh will make his final decision as close to the time as possible. Apparently he suspects one of his staff is in your pay."

"Only one?"

"Also, Pyram is bluffing about being in negotiations with another supplier. I believe that if you lower your price by perhaps five percent, he will accept."

"I'd suspected as much, but it's useful to hear it from someone else."

"I have given you something of value," said Kerevash. The orange light grew dimmer, and the room seemed to shrink. "Now it's your turn."

One of the cloaked men approached. He might've been the one who opened the door; they all looked the same. He extended a gloved hand, offering a slate. Galdrakh accepted it. The man leaned forward in an approximation of a bow, and then withdrew with a loping gait that made it hard to be sure whether he was walking forwards or backwards. He made no sound, not even the rustling of fabric.

Galdrakh squinted at the slate. The writing resembled... not exactly that of a child or a foreigner, but of someone who wasn't used to the Imperial script. The lettering was stiff, and Galdrakh wondered if the cloaked man had kept his gloves on while writing. Some of the forms looked quaint, as if the man had learned from the most ancient book he could find.

"It is a list of resources we require for the next stage," said Kerevash.

"I can see that," said Galdrakh. "Some of these things... they're not going to be easy to obtain."

"I am willing to cover any extra costs you incur."

"It's not a matter of cost. I mean, a copy of The Decrees of Emperor Valekhna? You do know he's been dead over two thousand years? And that later Emperors have amended or revoked every one of his decrees?"

"I did not summon you here to give me a history lesson, Elector. You need not concern yourself with my reasons for needing any of the items on that list."

"Well, the nearest copy of that book is probably in Akhtar. It'll take a fortnight and a half to get it, assuming my man there can persuade the owner to sell it."

"Then our plan will be delayed by a fortnight and a half."

"No!" Galdrakh took a step forward. The cloaked man moved to block his path. A second one came from the other side, faster than should have been possible. Galdrakh held up his hands and retreated, head bowed. "I mean, I'll make every effort to get it sooner." He stopped himself from clenching his fist. They shouldn't be able to order someone like him around. If anyone else dared to speak to him like that, he'd have them flogged - if they were lucky. But the results would be worth every insult - if the plan came together on time.

"Good. There is one other matter. The last batch of dust was insufficiently pure."

Galdrakh gulped. "We agreed one pound in twelve."

Kerevash didn't answer immediately. Did he wear a helmet so that his silences couldn't be interpreted? "There have been... difficulties in the refinement process."

The pause before difficulties told Galdrakh that Kerevash hadn't expected him to argue. Did he have an advantage he could press here? He tucked the slate into a pocket.

"Henceforth," said Kerevash, "the purity must be one pound in six."

"Out of the question," Galdrakh spluttered. "The priests have already caught at least four miners trying to smuggle dust onto the spoil heap. We don't need to give them any more reason to come looking for us."

"Then find more miners who can be bribed."

"Anybody who's willing to help already is. I'm paying them more than they earn in a fortnight for each pound they bring out."

"In that case, the priests will have to be persuaded to be less zealous in their inspections."

That took a moment to sink in. "Bribe a priest of Tanshalm? Are you serious?"

"Blackmail is another possibility."

"You're mad," Galdrakh whispered.

"Many have said similar things," Kerevash replied. Galdrakh thought he heard a hint of amusement. "Some men are difficult to persuade, but I have never yet encountered a man who could not be persuaded at all. Unless you raise the purity to one pound in six, our plan will not finish on time."

Galdrakh sighed. Always it came back to that. "I'll see what I can do. There might be another way. Is there anything else?"

"That is all."

"Then I'll bid you good day." As Galdrakh turned to the door, he said, "Actually, there is one other thing - my aunts are trying to get the house back."

"Why is that a problem? You said that your uncle bequeathed it to you. They have no claim on it."

"They say my uncle made a codicil to his will that leaves it to them. Some of their men might try to interfere with what you're doing there." Galdrakh wasn't sure what Kerevash was doing at the house, which suited him - the less he knew, the less he could tell the Governor-General or the other Electors, should they become curious.

"Strange that they have said nothing about it until now."

"They said they were going to hire an advocate to find it."

"Then they do not possess it."

"Yet."

"It would seem prudent to ensure that they do not come to possess this codicil."

"I have a couple of people I can give that task to," said Galdrakh.

"Good day, then."

Outside, Galdrakh blinked as his eyes adjusted to the daylight. His guards emerged from doorways and alleys and followed him as he set off home. He would need a long bath when he got there - not just to wash off the dirt and the stink of the Warren but to get rid of the feeling that Kerevash, not him, was the one running this circus. Something about the man - no, everything about the man - made his skin crawl. But he had no choice. Without Kerevash's help, Galdrakh stood no chance of becoming the next Governor-General.

The making of the Escape Velocity trailer

I'm a member of an amateur film-making club, and earlier this year I decided to call on their skills to help me make a live-action trailer for Escape Velocity. (If you haven't already seen it, go here to have a look.) A lot of indie book trailers look like animated Powerpoint presentations, with the text of the blurb rolling over stock photos (or stock video if you're lucky), but I wanted to do something a bit more ambitious.

Initially I thought I'd make something like a movie trailer, with rapid cutting of clips of all the exciting bits. I soon realised that would take too long and cost too much, so I decided to film one scene that gives a flavour of what the book is about. (The middle of chapter 20, if you want to compare it with the book.) It would use as few actors and as few locations as possible, and so could be shot in a couple of days. From thinking "I'd like to make a trailer" to having it on YouTube took about six months, which is breakneck speed by amateur standards - or at least by this amateur's standards.

I wrote a script that distilled the scene to its essence. (A copy is here - 116K PDF.) It started at about twice the length it is here - there's a lot of stuff in it that deals with consequences of earlier scenes, or makes promises that pay off in later scenes, but which isn't meaningful or necessary if I'm just trying to get you to read the book.

I shot the news report first, using members of the club to play the parts of the newsreader and William Norris. We filmed the newsreader against a green screen, to let me put the background of the London Eye in later.

(Filming the newsreader with a very low-budget autocue.)

I recruited the actors who play Sam and Jennie Grainger from a local amateur dramatic society. Only one person was interested in each part, which could've been awkward had they proven unsuitable. Fortunately, Matt and Jo were (are) both good actors, who were professional in their attitude and patient with the seemingly-endless delays in finding a day when everything and everybody was available for filming. I didn't have to direct them much - just as well, as I'm not a particularly gifted director. I told them about the overall plot of the book and their characters' personalities and motivations, and let them figure out how they wanted to play their parts. The only instruction I had to give them was not to over-emote - they're used to theatre acting, so I had to remind them that the audience is three feet away, not three hundred.

The delays in filming did give me the opportunity to think about the script some more. The ending was a bit limp, so I replaced it with part of a later scene.

For the set, we used the basement of a club member's house. It was under construction at the time, so he didn't mind having graffiti in Russian on the walls - a puzzle for future archaeologists! For weeks, I kept the wrapper of every takeaway I ate, to have plenty of rubbish to put in the bin - which of course you can't see in most of the shots...

(Painting Russian graffiti on the set.)

I drew a storyboard to try to make sure I'd get all the shots I needed, but ended up treating that more as a suggestion than a blueprint. We filmed the whole scene from all the angles we thought we'd need, which turned out to be easier than just filming what I thought would be used from each angle. The actors don't move much or interact much with the props, so there was little continuity to worry about.

We put the camera on a dolly (wheeled platform) and track. You see these used all the time on professional shoots, but amateurs seldom bother with them, as they're difficult to use properly. Ben, our director of photography, had worked with them a lot. (Hardly surprising, really, given that he's worked in film and TV for years.) So almost every shot in the film has some camera movement in it, even if it's only a few inches, which helps to lift the production above the typical amateur level.

(Checking white balance before recording a shot - what human eyes see as white, the camera might not, depending on the lighting.)

At the end of the shoot, Ben then volunteered to edit the film. Seeing as his professional work is mostly in editing, I jumped at the offer. We ran into all sorts of technical difficulties, mostly because of the fact that the files that came out of the camera weren't compatible with Final Cut Pro, but we got there in the end. Ben also graded the film (adjusted the brightness, contrast and colour) to compensate for its being a bit underexposed and also for the fact that Matt tended to be upstaged by his very red shirt.

(Before grading, as it came out of the camera.)

(After grading. Note the weaker red in Matt's shirt and Jo's skin, and the slight increase in overall brightness.)

Ben tinkered with the sound a lot to balance the volume of the dialogue, which varied between shots. This was partly because the actors were louder in some takes than others, but mostly because in wide shots, you can't get the microphone as near to the actors as you can in a close-up. I insisted that he replace the sound of Jo typing on the keyboard at the start with a louder and more clattery one. Most keyboards are fairly quiet nowadays, but I think this is one of those situations where audiences think they know what something is supposed to sound like, and think it's wrong if it doesn't sound like that. (Consider the "shing" sound you hear when someone draws a sword in a fantasy film. That's metal scraping over metal. You keep a sword in a metal container, it's going to be blunt before long...)

We entered the film into a local amateur competition, where it came second out of thirteen. We'd hoped it would win, but that was still a pretty good result.

Everybody gave their time and expertise free (meaning I now owe a lot of favours), and we had a lot of fun making something I think we can be justly proud of.

A reading from Escape Velocity

Here's another video about Escape Velocity - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XbNwN...

This is a reading by me of part of chapter 29. I've called it Casing the Joint, even though the chapters don't have titles, because that's basically what the characters are doing here.

While I was editing this, I snipped out a few bits that are important in the context of the story as a whole, but which are confusing when considered just within the chapter. I cut out a few other bits that slow it down when you're listening to me reading. Enjoy!