New Realms has my #Clockwork story
Earlier this year on holiday in Albufeira, Portugal I read Kim Stanley Robinson’s historical fantasy novel, Galileo’s Dream. It’s my mother’s fault. Not only did she join me to the Children’s Science Fiction Book Club when I was four but she was an unquenchable reader (I’ve never liked the word avid – reminds me of hive insects) of historical novels. I didn’t so much enjoy the historical romances but the Lost Legions type stories that Henry Treece wrote fired the history cells as much as Asimov and Wyndham for the what if futures. I blogged a review here http://geoffnelder.com/galileos-dream-a-review/
While reading Galileo’s Dream I found Robinson’s style a bit slow at times but that kind of suits the historical context and the witticisms are marvellous eg
To a servant, “Mazzoleni, I am stupid.”
“I don’t know, Maestro…where does that leave the rest of us?”
It grew on me that I would like to write historical fantasy and find I enjoy doing so. Hence my The Eidolon Redoubt in Twisted Tales IX: Wunderkind edited by J Richard Jacobs, published by DDP, in which is my EIDOLON REDOUBT story. It’s a historical fantasy based on a watch tower in Somerset during the Napoleonic wars. Not free but for those of you with a few pennies it can be yours here. http://hyperurl.co/fip106
I am drawn to the Jacobean period when Newton, Hooke, Locke, Napier and how their women struggled to fight their subjugation. Clockwork is also inspired by a short black and white film, A Field in England (2013) written by Amy Jump, Directed by Ben Wheatley. In it a largely unexplained scene triggered my imagination. A rope is pulled as if the essence of the world will only be saved by such an action. The film is surreal, a wonderful peek into those mad English Civil War times of the 1640s and fuelled by Nature – especially magic mushrooms. Here’s the director talking about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgwnlM4qpEU 
The notion of a rope pulling at a capstan hidden from the world yet the planet needs it to be pulled forms the theme of Clockwork.
Alt History magazine rejected saying without elaboration that it didn’t fit. That annoyed me because I’d read their back issues and wrote Clockwork to fit. Nevertheless, Douglas W Lance at New Realms loved it and so it made it into New Realms magazine today. It tells the tale of a fictional day in the life of the real scientist Sir Francis Bacon. In my story he finds a rope and a message in an English wood – he has to pull the darn rope, doesn’t he?…
Click on the link if you’d like to read my tale and others for the price of a fast food meal, but lasting much longer.
http://www.fictionmagazines.com/shop/realm-issues/new-realm-vol-04-no-12/
Other Nelder News
I watched the film of book The Girl With All The Gifts by Mike Carey (2014) film is directed by Colm McCarthy (2016). It’s necessary to cut a lot of scenes to fit a 3-day read into a less-than-two hour film and it does feel rushed compared to the book. Disappointed that Melanie is black even though that’s a logical consequence of her name (from melanin) and that the hungries weren’t chased by bulldozers driven to action by outlaw ‘junkers’. In face the junkers don’t exist in the film. If you’ve not read the book, the film is good, if you’ve only seen the film, I’d advise to read the book – it will fill the gaps and enrich the experience.
Links to buy ARIA and other of my books are on my Amazon author page
Geoff’s UK Amazon author page
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Geoff-Nelder/e/B002BMB2XY
And for US readers http://www.amazon.com/Geoff-Nelder/e/B002BMB2XY
Geoff facebooks at http://www.facebook.com/AriaTrilogy and tweets at @geoffnelder
The post New Realms has my #Clockwork story appeared first on Geoff Nelder - Science Fiction Writer.
