Author: Chris

Posted on

Publishing Fifty-One: The Cover

All right, I confess. When I was writing the novel that became Fifty-One, the cover was not front of my mind.

Big issues bothered me, like whether the time travel paradoxes in the story might sink it under the weight of mind-bending puzzlement (they don’t, honest!). And so did small issues, like what had the weather been like on a specific day in July 1944.

In my idler moments, I even indulged fantasies of which actors might play Jake and Amy, my time-tossed, star-crossed lovers, if ever there was a movie version of the book.

I didn’t think about the cover. Maybe I’m just not a visual thinker.

Continue reading “Publishing Fifty-One: The Cover”

Posted on

Living the Author Dream – Fifty-One, Editing Stage Two

Someone once said that there are no great writers, only great rewriters. I am – to misquote Bob Dylan – “learning it these days.”

I wrote in the summer about the chastening (but valuable) experience of the first edits of my forthcoming novel, Fifty-One.

This first round of editing addressed the content of the story, and helped me iron out plot problems and flaws in the storytelling.

The next stage was line-editing.

Continue reading “Living the Author Dream – Fifty-One, Editing Stage Two”

Posted on

The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

(I’m still catching up with SF classics I missed first time round.)

Inspired by the excellent TV series, I finally got round to reading Margaret Atwood’s classic novel of religious dystopia. I’m sure everyone knows the set-up by now – a near-future New England, in which the US government has been overthrown by an extreme, Christian theocracy. The story focuses on Ofred, a handmaid, whose role is to serve the family of a powerful member of the elite, and to try to bear a child for him, through regular ‘ceremonies’, in which she is forced to have sex with him (toe-curlingly described, in a way that makes you feel sorry for everyone involved).

The television version was so tense that after each episode, I found myself releasing a long breath and wondering how I could face the next one.

If anything, the book is even more tense. Ofred’s thoughts flit from present to past erratically in a thoroughly convincing evocation of the mind of someone utterly terrified that the slightest mis-step, or word out of place, could be fatal. I don’t know how convincing the future world might have seemed in 1986, but in 2017 it is eerily on the money.

How did I miss this back in the 1980s? Atwood is a writer with a lot of mainstream credibility, by no means confined to a genre. But it was nominated for a Nebula and won the Arthur C Clarke award, so is clearly science fiction. I think – to my shame – that at that young age I probably assumed the book was not for me. I’m embarrassed to admit that I probably saw it as a ‘women’s book’, and passed by.

My loss, which I’m glad I’ve now put right. A big thumbs-up and eight out of ten.

Posted on

Writing Fifty One

Update – February 2018 – you can now buy Fifty One, out on 12 February from Filles Vertes Publishing. Check out the links here.

 

Half a mile from my home is Lewisham High Street. There’s nothing special about it – shabby, even by London standards: a street market, people getting on and off buses, phone shops and chain stores. It’s seen better days.

One day that definitely was not better – indeed, it was probably the street’s worst – was Friday July 28th, 1944.

Continue reading “Writing Fifty One”

Posted on

Ancillary Justice – Ann Leckie (2014)

[I’m catching up with SF classics I have missed.]

I suspect there is little I can say about this. Ann Leckie’s debut won just about every award going in 2014, and I felt like I was the only person who hadn’t yet read it.

Sometimes, when you come to a book that has been so highly praised, it can be off-putting. There’s a little internal voice that says, ‘go on then, impress me.’ And if you aren’t immediately grabbed, you might turn against it.

I had no such problems here – this was fantastic. I’m sure everyone’s familiar with the set-up. The protagonist, Breq, is the sole remaining part of what was once a group of ‘corpse soldiers’, part of a hive-mind military unit controlled by the AI that runs a troop spaceship on behalf of an expanding galactic empire. The book tells the story of her seeking revenge against the person who betrayed her, and also in parallel the story of that treachery.

I was utterly gripped from page one. The storytelling was engaging and compelling. I was so impressed with the way Leckie made the reader care deeply about the characters, even while playing all sorts of tricks with gender, point of view, individual consciousness. I especially liked the way the main character referred to everyone as female, even when noting that some people appeared to be male! (This appears to have annoyed some readers, but I thought it was funny.)

The far-future society was suitably strange, and sketched convincingly by the author, without going overboard on exposition – the focus remained strongly on the characters and their struggles. Breq, as the remnant of an artificial intelligence controlling a cadre of zombie soldiers, ought to be thoroughly inhuman. But Leckie gives her warmth and character, and a humanity that outshines that of some of the more ‘normal’ characters.  The occasional line such as, ‘I’m not human, but my body is’, made me laugh out loud.

A definite 9 out of 10, and I expect I will read the two further books in the trilogy.

Posted on

When I Close My Eyes – New Story in Interzone

It’s always a kick to have one of your stories hitting print, but I’m especially pleased that my latest story, ‘When I Close My Eyes’ is out this month in the UK’s longest-running (and best) science fiction magazine, Interzone.

I will confess: I’ve been trying to get a story in Interzone for ages, but they kept turning me down. The editor, Andy Cox, is rightly a demanding man. Anyway, you know the old saying: if at first you don’t succeed, make a bloody nuisance of yourself!

The story is probably my ‘hardest’ SF yet; set on Saturn’s moon, Titan, and featuring some fragile but peskily well-organised alien lifeforms. (There’s still a ghost in it, though, which I guess means that as SF goes, it isn’t that hard!)

You can buy Interzone here. If you subscribe – which you really should – you can even get this issue free.