Mark Cantrell's Blog, page 48

CITIZEN ZERO: Setting The Scene

Behind the scenes of a dystopian realityHERE'S another selection of links to stories and articles from around the web that add up to a little scene-setting for the dystopian novel, Citizen Zero. Read 'em and weep, and then – maybe – buy the book…

 

Vice, 11 February 2014

 

How Private Contractors Are Profiting from Government Surveillance

 

 

READ HERE

 

NBC News, 7 February 2014

 

Snowden Docs: British Spies Used Sex and 'Dirty Tricks'

 

 

READ HER...

COMMENT: From Mother To Mausoleum

Has Parliament interred the body politic in a tomb of grandiose vanity?
After a recent work trip to the House of Lords (his very first), Mark Cantrell was left wondering if the Mother of Parliaments isn't more like a museum or a mausoleum dedicated to a bygone age, rather than a living legislature standing up to the challenges of a modern world

 AFTER the armed guards at the gate it was easy, or so I thought. I hadn't counted on the security checkpoint inside; the mugshot it scanned for...

NEWS: Award Honour For James Herbert

The Rats author to inspire fresh horror from beyond the grave
Horror writer James Herbert is set to continue sending a shiver down the book spine, thanks to a new literary award launched in his honour, writes Mark Cantrell

THERE'S no better way, really, to commemorate the original publication of The Rats by James Herbert – or indeed the author himself – than by creating a writing prize in his name.

 

The Rats, a delightfully grisly and thrilling tale of mutant vermin with a tas...

COMMENT: Stasi In Their Eyes

Smile, Iain Duncan Smith is watching youYou might not be signing on today; you might be getting ready to go to work, but the Secretary of State for Work & Pensions has got his eye on you all the same, writes Mark Cantrell

 In the tail end years of the last Labour Government, the information commissioner warned that Britain was "sleepwalking into a surveillance society". But while we have slept, and since the Coalition crept into office on the stalking horse of a backroom deal, there h...

BLOG: The Author's Brand

Satisfying the demand

THERE’S an old saying in the trade that I am rather fond of, if only because it means I can lurk safe and sound in the ‘background’: “A journalist should never be bigger than the story.”

Alas, that maxim doesn’t quite apply to the novelist.

 

The author of a book is rather expected to step out of the shadows and take to the podium. There, squinting in the limelight, we’re supposed to take a deep breath and promote, perform, pr...

POETRY: Wake Up And Smell The Brimstone

Let Us Be Damned
By Mark Cantrell

 

If one is Damned

Then why not embrace

Your Hell in all its fiery intensity?

Make it truly yours, and

Laugh in the face

Of demon hordes,

Pour scorn

On priestly hosts of Angels,

So-called, and mock the very face

Of Satan’s pitiful intent.

Be human, be Damned,

Live free,

Die to make a difference,

Against those who would have us all

The same.

In Hell we make our own,

In Sin, we find our freedom,

In Damnation, we break the shackles

Of those

Who’d judge us slaves.

He...

POETRY: Try This For A Triage

There's no rhyme in this threesome

Here's a small selection on poems for you to mull over, while I ponder what to post next. So, don't say I nerve give you anything, after all -- there's three posts here for the price of one...

Anus Domini

Opinions

Are like arseholes –

Everybody's

Got one,

But not all

Remain suitably

Airtight.

Mark Cantrell,

Stoke-on-Trent,

27 February 2007

Birthday Present

On my birthday,

I was given,

Brand-spanking new

And shiny,

A life of my very own.

I never used it.

It stayed on...

CITIZEN ZERO: Reliving The History

Living the origins

A million stories feed into the world created for CITIZEN ZERO, trickling into this dystopian fantasy future like tears of woe.

 

Sometimes, I feel like the zeitgeist is slipping away from my novel, as perhaps it should – especially given its grim themes – and then along comes some fresh media story that reminds we're living the prequel.

 

Okay, we're talking fiction here. It's all make believe. Sadly the same can't be said for the following stories and a...

BLOG: Owning The Goal

To the next novel and beyond

IT must sound a little odd for a published novelist to be saying this, but one of my prime goals for 2014 is to get back into the serious writing.

 

Over the last few years, it's kind of slipped away; there are times when it's felt almost like I've regressed back to becoming an aspiring writer, rather than being an active practitioner of the craft.

 

On the worst days, when the dark shakes have me in their grip, I fear the writer in me is gone forever.

 ...

BLOG: Nero Scribbling

 Notes on the walls of ruin

THERE are times, I must admit, when I feel like some kind of cut-price prole Nero, twiddling a pen while Rome burns. By that, I mean here I am, worrying about writing more books and developing my literary offering while the world is going to pot.

 

Right now, as I ponder these words, Syria is a humanitarian hell; Kiev is burning and Ukraine is said to be teetering on the brink of civil war; Russia is failing to hide a savage homophobia behind the Sochi wint...