Geoff Nelder's Blog, page 34

On the run again in Urmston

I was in a hurry coming out of Sainsburys yesterday so ran a little. I heard hoodlums running behind me (they might have shouted but I'm hard of hearing) so I ran faster. They caught up and stopped me. Two Police Communitiy Officers demanded to go through my two carrier bags and asked why I was running. I said I didn't want to leave my wife on her own with grandson in the park too long. They found my receipts among the gingerbread men, fruit and newspapers and let me go. Then I had to explain to wife why I was late…

Never a dull day for Nelder.

One positive – the policewoman took one of my writing business cards. You never know… she might buy one of my books.

king death by Paul Finch

Another fine piece of short literature from Spectral Press. link and purchasing here.

 

Rodric cannot believe his luck during the medieval black plague. He was immune, unlike virtually everyone in the area he wandered – between Cannock Chase and the Welsh border. So he looted with impunity though he theatrically dressed in black armour just in case he met resistance. Of course England wouldn't be the green and pleasant land in the song, and award-winning author, Paul Finch, steeps us in the stench of rotting bodies, and plays with the retaking of the environment by Nature. To keep us engrossed in the medieval experience we are treated to a wonderful lexicon of the ages: Jongleur, rambraces, rerebraces, miniver, bascinet, seneschal, sokemen, and my favourite – ouches of gold. To save you reaching for Dictionary.com there is a glossary bringing up the rear though the context is usually enough to keep you going. Rodric meets a young unnamed lad with the result of more potential riches and yet an undoing. The former servant takes Rodric to his castle and its subjugation from the terrifying plague is described with splendid detail.

 

Readers might consider some of the tale as overdescriptive and the style could be tightened but it is excused by the beauty of the narrative: 'The implacable silence was haunting. It was a listening silence, Rodric fancied, an eavesdropping silence…'

There is a wonderful peak in the story's suspense and it is right at the end. Whether the boy or Rodric is the true king death is up to you.

 

 

more acks and an email from space

A good way to fill your book's acknowledgements page is to go through the relevant e-mail folder. The Left Luggage / ARIA folder held over two hundred emails. Many were the to and fro mails from the BSFA Orbiter group. Also from its original literary agent, Christopher Hill, then from various editors, who'd helped me out. I also found one from space. Okay not outer space… that would be weird, but he did e-mail me from the International Space Station! I needed to know what the struts of the ISS were made of. I needed them NOT to be magnetic in the story. I found the technical information for the tendering of the struts but no confirmation of what they were made of in the final construction. So I sent off an email. What I didn't expect is a reply from Leroy Chiao, while he was still in orbit in early 2005. Wow.

Another expert telephoned me in 2007 while I was researching and writing the second ARIA volume. I had used star chart software to see where the stars and moon were in the sky over the South Pacific at dates in 2016. Trouble is I used two different programs and they gave me different answers so I sent a query to Astronomical societies in Australia and New Zealand. The phone rang one day and it was Professor Alan Gilmore from New Zealand. He is famous for asteroid spotting but took time out to tell me Sirius, the Dog Star, wouldn't be visible on a particular night. He said he'd buy the book when it is published. Yeay, a guaranteed sale!

There were other experts too but sadly I've lost those letters and emails. For example a retired Royal Navy Commodore gave me advice on aspects of sailing across oceans in small boats and a Rarotongean chatted to me and sent me photos of her island. I can't remember their names. Please forgive my carelessness. Authors, make notes for your ack page!

Here's another possible cover art although I have a feeling the idea has been used already.

Acknowledgements for ARIA

ARIA is the new name for my science fiction trilogy of which the first is called Left Luggage. ARIA is an acronym of a amnesia-creating virus released from a case left on the struts of the International Space Station. The book is being published in 2012 by LL-Publications and I thought carefully over the last few days to write a page of acknowledgements. That page is in its first draft but I will post it here because it astonished me how many writers, some famous, have been involved. There have been other folk who I have not named, and who have encouraged me over the years though they have not actually read the manuscript. In particular Gladys Hobson and Brian Withecombe. Like me they had a literary agent, Christopher Hill, who was a sham. He reported to me with detailed progress reports of how Left Luggage attracted interest at HarperCollins and Crown publishers. I was offered a five-figure advance, as were many of his other clients. Sadly, it was all in Hill's demented mind. He'd not sent our books anywhere and he'd sat in his Edinburgh home in a kind of Walter Mitty stew. I'd even met him over dinner at an Edinburgh hotel and he was smartly dressed, spoke eloquently, and seemed well-educated – all the attributes of what I imagined a literary agent should be. Except he wasn't as over 60 of his "clients" found out. Many of us belong to a Beyond Hill yahoo group and have had our successes in spite of or maybe because of that weird experience.

So here is the first draft of my acknowledgements page. Feel free to shout if I have missed you or erred.

—-

This novel would not have been possible without Daisy. Her twenty-four gears allowed my legs to rotate up the Welsh slope of Horseshoe Pass near Llangollen making my heart thump so fast my brain – freshly oxygenated – buzzed with an original idea. It was such a novel concept I dismounted at the summit, rushed into the Ponderosa Café and demanded a scrap of paper and a pencil. Thus ARIA was born.

I have trawled files to trigger my memory of all those editors, friends and critiquers who sculpted then polished ARIA to the diamond it now is. Any flaws are not their fault but mine.

The first real editor to lacerate my script and teach me about Point of View and strong characters is Doug Watts from the Jacqui Bennet Writing Bureau. My Hollywood-based pal, Jessie Lilley-Campbell helped me with Americanisms and pushed Left Luggage under the nose of Brad Linaweaver 1, (Battlestar Gallactica co-writer) who endorsed it. Each chapter cranked their way through the tough critique group of the British Science Fiction Association's Orbiters including Terry Jackman, Mark Iles, James Bloomer and Ian Clark. Encouragement came from award-winning SF writer Jon Courtenay Grimwood2, and Stargate novel writer, Sonny Whitelaw. Urging me on were publisher Neil Marr of BeWrite Books, friend and guru Les Floyd, American writing tutor and award-winning writer, M. Kenyon Charboneax3, and my American literary agent and friend, Rebecca Pratt. A wonderful writer in her own right, Bec Zugor, advised me on the Italian language uttered by mad Doctor Antonio Menzies. Louise Bolotin of the editing services, Plain Text, helped me with early chapters and query letters.

After all that help, and from too-many-to-mention-others, surely the manuscript would be perfect? Ha ha, but then I sent it to friend, hard-nosed crime writer, and agent, Allan Guthrie. Whoa! Advice from the world expert on pleonasms and tight narrative meant that I started over again.

During this time other novels and over fifty short stories had fled my fingers onto the world, so my style evolved, and is still developing. Perhaps it is in the bronze age now. In the last minutes Zetta Brown and Billye Johnson tweaked and poked ARIA further. Thanks to them and everyone.

None of this would have been possible if my wife had insisted I went out and found a proper job after I left teaching, so ultimate thanks to Gaynor and to my ever-tolerant grown-up kids, Eleanor and Rob. Above all they understand that when I am staring out of the window, I am really working.

NB the image is my sketch potential cover art.

1 "In Left Luggage Geoff Nelder asks the most important questions of life."

2 "Geoff Nelder wears science fiction like other people wear clothes."

3 "Memento meets the Twilight Zone."

Coll de Rates

One of the highlights of the year for my legs was their glee in reaching the top of the mountain pass in Spain known as the Coll de Rates. At the risk of divorce I took off from home last week, flew into Alicante and enjoyed a cycling break at Ciclo Costa Blanco see their website here. The hotel is a sports specialist one, the Albir Garden Resort situated five miles north of Benidorm. I hired a lightweight road bike (a German make – Bergamont Dolce) and boy did it make a welcome change from my heavyweight Dawes Super Galaxy touring bike with panniers etc. The original Bergamont I hired was all Carbon Fibre but it was too long for me and Terry Kerr, the founder of CCB, allowed me to swap for a more suitable sized Bergamont though it was aluminium with Carbon Fibre forks. It was so light that my muscles, used to powering my Dawes, shot it in wonderful acceleration from every traffic light stop. Brilliant. It did feel rather twitchy if I stood on pedals for steep sections and gusty winds played with me more than on my heavier beast. The Coll de Rates is often on the Tour of Spain (Vuelta) route because it is about 600 metres with 40 bends – many hairpin – in only 7 km. There is a timing device called a Stoppomat snf I punched my card at the bottom and – eventually – the top. I was just so pleased to have sufficient breath at the top to enjoy the rest of the day cycling 50 miles through mountains, villages, vineyards and olive groves. You should try it.

I suppose I had the urge to do this because my 64th birthday is coming up on Guy Fawkes night (5th November) and someone said at my age I'll have to slow down. Nooooo! Or, at least I'll have to speed up first. Photographs rarely do justice to steep inclines and the grandeur of mountain views but here are some I took.

The tunnel is on the N332 main road. It isn't too bad cycling on this smooth tarmac as long as the rush hour is somewhere sometime else. I chicken out and ride on the hardshoulder but hardened locals whiz by me on the main stretch. The tunnels are interesting and not so long you are in the dark.

This photo is from the summit of the hill climb.

Note the clouds. I knew the forecast was for showers so I took my laptop and took the opportunity to write a few thousand extra words on the third volume of my SF trilogy: ARIA. Really pleased with its progress and on my return was delighted to find LL-Publications had taken on Billye Johnson as my editor. She has already sent me a first draft file and I'm working through it with eagerness now to see this book out.

Okay, so here is a photo of me on the bike at the hotel. I should doctor it but I won't.

[image error]

Not my blog on the Man Booker prize

For once I am directing you to Dr John Yeoman's blog instead of mine. He has a beef on why he considers the Man-Booker attempts to glorify literature as faulty. I agree with him on the whole although I did enjoy DB Pierre's Vernon God Little, which won the prize in 2003 and wasn't literary in the least!

Here is John's blog >> http://www.writers-village.org/writing-award-blog/why-booker-prize-winners-write-bad-books  Enjoy.

Changes

I made some changes to my website. Not much but if you have a Kindle you might like to see the links there on the home page http://geoffnelder.com and I'm generating interest, hopefully, in my Hot Air, which is currently only out in ebook. Hot Air is a thriller – imagine trying to shoot down a hot air balloon! Haha. And yet it happens near Bath. However, the feisty fiery-headed young woman protagonist is abducted making the book go to the Mediterranean. Lovely scenery, exciting escapes and chases. See that page too please. http://geoffnelder.com/hotair.htm

Controversy at the Con

It always follows that when a large group of friendly writers pour their weary bones into their going-home transport, someone is busy writing what seems to many to be a sour grapes blog. And so it is for this year's British Fantasy Society's annual bash, FantasyCon 2011 in Brighton. In spite of luminaries such as veteran SF writers being in attendance and readily accessible, the plethora of awards for both mainstream and independent presses and their authors / artists, Stephen Jones has poured scorn. In a peanut shell he raises a kind of nepotism in the way the awards work. That is: there was an unhealthy relationship between the winner of best novel and short story – the beautiful erotic-vampire-writer, Sam Stone, her feller, David Howe, and the means of award voting. There is no perfect democracy and if you have nothing better to do you could devise a better way to award points and votes to books and artists. However, I have read and reviewed Sam's books and know that in spite of the abundance of vampire literature, she manages to pull off original concepts and exhilirating three-dimensional characters. I haven't read all the other books in the category so I cannot say if Demon Dance is better than the others. But I have been a fiction judge, and have been judged, and know how subjective the whole process is – not just for novels but for all art. If another book won the awards I know from the stochastics and probability theory I have applied to my climate stats that you can accuse any system of not being fair. If Stephen Jones (his argument here) is saying that an officer of BFS (David Howe is this year's chairman and Sam's partner) should not be involved as an award nominee then he may have a moot point. However, it is not disallowed at present. Stephen should move such a move in the proper channels instead of picking on the recipients after the event.

It's tempting to say awards don't matter. Many of us have entered for them and come away empty-handed / headed and won a few, with the feeling that it was sooooo objective that the importance is lessened. However, readers note them, publishers use them on back covers so it is best if an award is seen to be honest and as objective as possible.

With regard to FantasyCon 2011, Sam Stone should keep her awards. Her work is worthy. Change the system for future awards if the feeling Stephen has is shared, but don't diss the winners.

FantasyCon 2011 – hot, hot hot

I'm suffering jet lag. Okay, the distance between Brighton and Chester is only a handful of hundreds of miles and four hours by train, but the distance in terms of literary milieu I am on the other side of the planet. A day ago I was shaking hands with Brian Aldiss. Brian Aldiss! And Christopher Priest, Ramsey Campbell, and other writer friends such as Jonathan Pinnock, Ian Whates, Robert Harkess, Raven Dane and Sam Stone. My experience became enhanced with the artists too – Steve Upham, Vincent Chong and Andy Bigwood. Then the publishers – most of whom are also fine writers but are these days mostly producing exquisite publications – Terry Martin, Lee Harris, Christopher Teague, Simon Marshal-Jones and others. My hand hasn't been so excited for years. Loved the hugs too… thanks Sam.

Copies of my Exit, Pursued by a Bee and the Escape Velocity anthology were among other items in the FantasyCon raffle. My SF mystery might have gone unnoticed but the Mistress of Ceremonies, Sarah Pinborough was 'tired' by the time she had to read the title and so fumbled it. Luckily, a helper said. "Exit, Pursued by a Bee, and it is a good book!". Yeay, Sarah can be a Mistress again!

Link to FantasyCon 2011 >>> here

Speaking of the Escape Velocity anthology, I met several of the contributors during the weekend – besides Bec Zugor (I travelled up the railtrack to Chichesterto have lunch with her and her family – excellent day). EV contributors at FantasyCon included Jonathan Pinnock, Robert Harkess, Roy Gray, Mark Lewis and Ian Whates. I also met the charming Carmelo Rafala of Immersion Press, who wrote the Mother Tongue story in Escape Velocity issue one. Jonathan Pinnock was there to launch his amazing Mrs Darcy Versus the Aliens – see the link here. I've known Jonathan for years on various forums and admired his writing style but I had no idea he was soooo tall. I had to stand on a box of his books to shake his hand.

I attended several literary panels including one in which graphic artists discussed cover art issues and I learned why you rarely see turquoise in digital-art covers. Thanks, Vincent, who explained it to me in detail in the bar later. Also, in a panel on the future of SF Brian Aldiss said how single-word titles work best for promotion, then quoted his own Hot House as an example. Ian Whates pointed out to him that it was two words… ha ha. But in fact it really is one word – Hothouse as it was published in 1962. Ian could have quoted his No Time Like Tomorrow title back at him. Nevertheless, a one word title does have appeal. I tend to go for two or more.

Xaghra's Revenge is a case in point. I managed to have a quick word with the Angry Robot publisher, Lee Harris, who have had the synopsis and samples in his inbox since May. They've been very busy this year including having an unagented submission window with the resulting flood of novels to consider. I bought Peter Crowther's latest book, Darkness Falling, from them. A fantasy thriller with people disappearing – unnerving when that includes the pilot of a plane you are in. Hopefully, there will be good news about XR in due course.

Besides the exuberance I went through meeting all these folk – all good people in spite of their chosen genre of unspeakable horror! – there were other moments of excitement. A burlesque show was laid on: all based on fantasy themes we were treated to playlets and delightful striptease. Of course being based inBrightonin the British heatwave (28 C shade temp in October), there was plenty of bare flesh of all sexes on display on the beach and even bikinis in the town. I thought I was inAmsterdamin some of the narrow lanes with their windows wide open and an interesting sweet aroma wafting along. I was distinctly light-headed by the time I reached the end of the lane. With that, the hot sun, the ocean, the marvellously friendly gay communities, the cosmopolitan eateries (many many veggie cafes) and the runners along the promenades, Brighton was a combo ofAmsterdamand Sliema inMalta. I hope to go back soon.

 

More on FantasyCon

At FantasyCon (this coming weekend in Brighton, Uk) is the lunch launch of Full Fathom Forty, a collection of forty short speculative fiction stories selected from thousands of entries this year. It is to celebrate the BFS 40th anniversary. Below is a list of contributors. Somehow, a story of mine was chosen. But look at the luminaries in whose light I bask!…

Featuring the fantastic fiction and poetry of:

Nina Allan | Suzanne Barbieri | Carl Barker | Mike Barrett | Ramsey Campbell | Jonathan Carroll | Adrian Chamberlin | Simon Clark | Raven Dane | Jan Edwards | Murray Ewing | Paul Finch | Christopher Fowler | Matthew Fryer | Stephen Gallagher | Cate Gardner | R B Harkess | Ian Hunter | Wilf Kelleher Jones | Jasper Kent | Joel Lane | Stephen Laws | Mark Lewis | Alison J Littlewood | Steve Lockley | Graham Masterton | Peter Mark May | Geoff Nelder | Kim Newman | Stan Nicholls | Martin Owton | Cas Peace | John Llewellyn Probert | Tina Rath | Steven Savile | Robert Shearman | Jim Steel | Sam Stone | Deborah Walker | Conrad Williams.

Wife and I spent an excellent day in Urmston looking after our two-year-old grandson. He's becoming artistic too as you can see from this photo today. Erm, pictures are meant to be walked on…