Guest Post: “The Magnificent Liar” by Tim Powers

Continuing Tim Powers’s blog tour, I present to you a guest post about the colourful ‘hero’ Edward John Trelawny.

The Magnificent Liar

Hide Me Among the Graves had a number of colorful characters in it – I can say that with all due modesty, since I cheated and took real people who really lived for characters: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a genius painter who lost his health and his mind to chloral hydrate addiction; Christina Rossetti, a devout celibate recluse who nevertheless worked face-to-face with London’s prostitutes to reform them and wrote reams of poetry about guilt and reproachful ghosts; and Algernon Swinburne, possibly the best English-language poet since Shelley, who furiously dissipated his gifts with alcohol and sado-masochistic obsessions – but the most fascinating of this circle was a man whose greatest accomplishment was telling lies about his own life.

Edward John Trelawny managed – largely by living a long time – to be a central character in the Italian circle that included Lord Byron and Percy Shelley in the 1820s, and also a prominent figure in the London of the 1860s, a close friend of many of the Pre-Raphaelite painters and poets. The only other figure I can think of right now who did the same kind of era-straddling is Neal Cassady, who was the friend and inspiration of Jack Kerouac and Allan Ginsberg in the 1950s and then, after the Beat phenomenon had petered out, went on to be the same for Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters in the late ’60s.

An Interview with PAULA BRACKSTON

Paula Brackston lives in a wild, mountainous part of Wales. She is an author and Visiting Lecturer. Before becoming a writer, Paula tried her hand at various career paths, with mixed success. These included working as a groom on a racing yard, as a travel agent, a secretary, an English teacher, and a goat herd. Everyone involved (particularly the goats) is very relieved that she has now found a job she is actually able to do properly – and that is, write fiction. Her latest ‘series’ is The Shadow Chronicles, the second book of which – The Winter Witch – is published tomorrow in the UK.

Who is Paula Brackston?

A descendent of the Witches of the Blue Well, possessed of dangerous magic and ancient knowledge, cunningly disguised as an ordinary mortal, mother of two, walker of the dog, maker of meals, who also writes a bit.

The Winter Witch, the sequel to The Witch’s Daughter, will be published tomorrow by Constable & Robinson. How would you introduce the series to a potential reader, and what can fans of the first expect in the second?

Ah, well, you see, there are no sequels, as yet. Each book in The Shadow Chronicles is a stand alone. They have in common an exploration of witches through the ages, following the experiences of a witch as the main character. All kinds of witches, in different eras and settings, each with their own distinct magic and story.

What inspired you to write the novel? And where do you draw your inspiration from in general?

I live in the Brecon Beacons National Park, so I wake up each day to the most inspirational landscape you could imagine. That certainly formed the basis of not just the setting for The Winter Witch, but the characters such a place produces too. More generally, I am inspired by wilderness and wildness, by individuals who make their own way in the world, and by courage. Particularly courage, I think, as I am such a timid creature. I love inhabiting brave characters who overcome adversity. It makes me feel stronger, and I hope that works for my readers as well.

Guest Post: “SEEDS IN THE DESERT” by Peter Liney (Detainee Blog Tour)

I’m not exactly sure when THE DETAINEE started to take shape in my mind. For a long time I had this notion that I wanted to write a book about the human spirit, about the fact that, no matter how dark the situation, given hope, we always find a way to survive. Like those seeds that lie dormant in the desert, year in, year out, waiting for rain, and when it comes, suddenly burst into the most beautiful of life. Or the victims of kidnapping, political prisoners, those held for no reason and often under the most appalling of circumstances, where do they find the will to survive? To wait for the arrival of that shower of life-giving rain?

So that was my theme, but where was my story? Well, if you’ll forgive me, it started with garbage (yes, I know I’m running a risk saying that, but hey, it’s the truth). Some years ago now, whilst visiting New York, I wandered into the City Library and was greeted by an exhibition about landfill on Staten Island. Ting! Yep, it was one of those writer moments – landfill, rubbish, everything society throws away, what if people were discarded with them? What if they were sent out to live on a stinking pile of waste in the middle of the ocean? Unable to escape, terrorised by fellow Islanders – that would be a pretty good challenge to the human spirit, wouldn’t it? What if society decided to discard all those they could no longer support? Those who can’t support themselves? So many countries in the world are concerned about their ageing populations, about how they can possibly sustain them, and really, the mathematics do seem overwhelmingly simple, not to mention, chilling. How will the few who are still working pay enough taxes to support those who are not? I mean, we can juggle the figures around, make people work a little longer, but is that going to do it? And that, of course, is if all things remain as they are.

What if we have yet another economic crisis? Or should I say, what if this one takes a turn for the worse? What if governments have to make even more savage cuts? No more free education, healthcare, the old left to take care of themselves – what would happen then?

And with story, of course, comes characters. Good, strong characters with clearly defined goals. The courageous Lena, the resourceful Jimmy, the enduring Delilah, and, of course, our hero, Clancy, a reformed villain with an inherent sense of right and wrong. A man to respect, and well-qualified to oversee a life-or-death challenge to the human spirit.

Now we have a tale to tell...

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Peter Liney’s The Detainee will be published by Jo Fletcher Books in the UK on July 4th 2013. The Detainee blog-tour continues at the following sites…

July 9th – J For Jetpack

July 10th – Speculative Assessments

July 11th – GavReads

July 12th – Ranting Dragon

There’s more! I’ll be sharing an excerpt from The Detainee this Friday, and with luck I’ll have the book reviewed next week or the one after. Be sure to come back and check these posts out!

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CORRECTION: The original version of this post stated that The Detainee was to be published on August 1st. I was wrong. Correct date now mentioned above.

Guest Post: “How Do You make Non-Humans Seem Human?” by Madeline Ashby

Madeline Ashby is the author of the critically-acclaimed vN and iD science fiction novels, the first two books in the Machine Dynasty series (both published by Angry Robot Books). Her protagonist is a “von Neumann machine, a self-replicating humanoid robot”. This made me wonder how one goes about making a non-human character relatable and sympathetic? When I was told Madeline was available for guest posts, I jumped at the chance to ask her about this. So, without further ado…

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How Do You Make Non-Humans Seem Human?

by Madeline Ashby

How do you make non-humans seem human? Well, with self-replicating humanoids designed to love and serve humans, it’s not that difficult. At least, it's not for me. In vN and iD, the robots love humans enough to spend significant amounts of time with them. They have long-term relationships, both at home and at work. The longer they live, the better they learn to “pass,” as human, or at least to behave in the most human way possible.

But that’s not the real issue. The real issue is making them read as human – making them leap off the page in the way that three-dimensional human characters do in other books. I try to do that in a few different ways.

First, I give them flaws. All of the robots I write make mistakes. It’s pretty easy to think of robots as functioning perfectly all the time, only undone by a single syntax error. That’s how pop culture usually depicts them, anyway. But that’s not the case, because that’s not how technology actually works. We all work with machines every day. It’s pretty rare that only one aspect of them ever fucks up. That’s not the nature of systemic failure, and robots are complex systems just like humans are. So do my robots make stupid decisions? Do they make the wrong assumptions? Do they fail to see the full implications of an issue? Sure. They’re limited, but so are humans.

And that’s the thing I’ve always come back to, in my books. I wanted to write a series of books about robots who didn’t think humans were all that special. There are so many other novels out there about how the vampire/angel/zombie/fae/alien/robot thinks humans are just the most special thing on Earth, and they wish they could be just as special. (In fact, Asimov wrote a whole novelette, and then a novel, about it.) And I was tired of that. I don’t buy it. I don’t think any other highly-developed sentient creature, organic or synthetic, would actually feel that way about us. Because feeling that way only comes as the result of a profound sense of self-loathing for your entire species.

You know who doesn’t experience that kind of self-loathing? Every other life form on this planet. Your dog does not feel bad about not being able to fly. Your cat does not want opposable thumbs. Anyone who’s ever lived with these animals knows that they’re capable of genuine emotions – otherwise, they couldn’t be trained. But that also means that they could feel a yearning to walk like us, talk like us, be like us – just like in that Louis Prima song. Only they don’t. They don’t want more. It’s we who anthropomorphize them, impose human ethics and feelings and customs on them, who teach them how to roll over. We’re the ones who want to be more and do more and live more, despite the evolutionary bounty we’ve grown accustomed to. We’re the ones who hate ourselves.

So I guess I just don’t think that robots would want to become more like us. I think we would build them to look and act and think like us, and then they’d diverge. And I think that the most important divergence in that evolutionary road might just be self-love.

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Other Blog Tour Links:

This post is part of Madeline’s blog tour supporting the release of her second novel. Prior to this, the author stopped by The Qwillery, My Bookish Ways, Dark Matter Fanzine,Big Shiny Robot, Escapism from Reality, and LeahRhyne.com, but there are more things still to follow (I’m afraid I’m not sure where, though). Madeline has also been interviewed by Cheryl Morgan. If you’re luck enough to live in or near Toronto, not only am I tremendously jealous of you, but you should stop by the novel’s launch, on July 6th!

Interview with CHRISTIAN SCHOON

Debut author Christian Schoon was born in the American Midwest, and started his writing career in earnest as an in-house writer at the Walt Disney Company in Burbank, California. (Which is rather cool…) After moving from LA to a farmstead in Iowa several years ago, he continues to work as a freelance and also now helps re-hab wildlife and foster abused/neglected horses. An interesting fellow, I thought it would be a great idea to interview him. Apparently, along with writing, he was once shot by a hometown cop…

Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Christian Schoon?

Just another guy with a book… Grew up in the American Midwest, worked my way through college playing in rock bands, doing odd jobs; got a degree in Journalism, moved to LA, hired on as a copywriter at Disney, then freelanced, wrote some TV scripts for teen and kids’ sci-fi and fantasy shows; moved back to Midwest, bought an old farmstead, got involved with several animal welfare groups; wrote a sci fi series, found a great agent, he sold the series to a fabulous publisher. And voila.

I thought we’d start with your fiction: Your debut novel, Zenn Scarlett, was recently published by Strange Chemistry. How would you introduce the novel to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?

The novel chronicles an eventful, well, very eventful, interlude in the life of a young girl in her novice year of training to be an exoveterinarian. Zenn is specializing the care and treatment of alien animals at the Ciscan Cloister Exovet Clinic and school on a colonized Mars that’s been cut-off from contact with Earth. Her alien patients are often huge, occasionally deadly and always fascinating. She’s love her courses, but she’s got a few problems. An absent father not communicating, a local towner boy showing an unusual and distracting interest in her just as end of term tests begin, a sudden surge of incidents at the cloister where animals escape their enclosures or exhibit uncharacteristically violent behavior and, oddest and most disturbing: she feels that she’s started… sharing the thoughts of some of her alien patients.

This is the first novel in a series. The sequel is well underway and will be published early next year.

What inspired you to write the novel? And where do you draw your inspiration from in general?

The Zenn Scarlett series grew out of my earlier-mentioned work with several animal welfare groups and the awesome veterinarians I met; some of these vets have developed unique skill sets in dealing with large, exotic and sometimes dangerous animals. This, along with my deep geek-love for all things science fictional, made Zenn’s adventures a logical progression for me once I started looking for a fresh creative challenge.

How were you introduced to genre fiction?

Well, there was Rusty’s Space Ship back in grade school, followed up quickly by the work of Golden Age sci-fi masters like Edgar Rice Burroughs, Asimov, Heinlein and that school of writers.

How do you enjoy being a writer and working within the publishing industry? Do you have any specific working, writing, researching practices?

So far (knock on synthwood) my experience with the world of books and publishing has been solidly fab. My agent is a genre-savvy guy who immediately “got” Zenn and saw the book’s potential. My editor at Strange Chemistry is equally well-versed and has provided valuable feedback and made sure Zenn Scarlett was ready for release into the wild. As for work habits, I try to get as much of my writing as possible done in the morning. Afternoons are then used for any research and for wasting large chunks of time surfing favorite author and book sites.

When did you realize you wanted to be an author, and what was your first foray into writing? Do you still look back on it fondly?

Writing appealed to me from a fairly early age since I could go off on my own and do the work, get feedback, do whatever polishing was needed and have the project completed. I’m not really a team-player sort. I like my space. My first challenging writing work was done as an in-house copy and scriptwriter in the home video division of the Walt Disney Company in Burbank, and yes I do look back on those years with great fondness. Even though this did demand that I buck up and “play for the team,” my colleagues there were a truly wonderful bunch of creative and warm individuals and they made my time at Disney a pleasure. But I never really encountered an office-type setting similar to this again, and quickly decided work-from-home freelancing was the thing for me.

What’s your opinion of the genre today, and where do you see your work fitting into it?

With all the publishing options available today there’s more great genre writing materializing before our eyes almost every day. The problem, of course, is winnowing through the surging tsunami of chaff to find the good stuff. And blogs like this one are often one of the most effective screening systems readers can turn to in order to track down their next read.

With any luck, my own writing will find its way to exactly this kind of platform and rise into the field of vision of those hungry-for-better readers and trigger some friendly word-of-mouth attention.

What other projects are you working on, and what do you have currently in the pipeline?

My main effort just now is the sequel to Zenn Scarlett. I’m also mulling a streampunkish sort of TV series that I will hopeful be able to turn my attention to once Zenn’s follow-on adventure is nailed down.

What are you reading at the moment (fiction, non-fiction)?

I’m reading several great new Strange Chemistry titles just now: a riveting sci-fi thriller, Playing Tyler by T.L. Costa and an eerie interpretation of a classic SF tale, Tainted by A.E. Rought. In non-fiction, I’m just about finished with Britain After Rome: The Fall and Rise 400–1070. This is a great glimpse into the real-world dystopia that was Britain in the wake of Rome’s collapse. It’s also very Game of Throne-ish, of course.

What’s something readers might be surprised to learn about you?

I was once shot at by the police in my tiny Minnesota home town. Details on request…

What are you most looking forward to in the next twelve months?

No surprise here: the publication of Zenn Scarlett: May 7 in the US/Canada, May 2 in the UK. After that, I’ll start looking forward to the release of the sequel. Yeah, predictable.

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For more about Zenn Scarlett, it’s sequel and Christian himself, be sure to check out Goodreads, his Author Blog, his Twitter, and also his Strange Chemistry Author Page.

“The Wolf Gift” by Anne Rice (Arrow/Random House)

After reinventing the Vampire for modern literature, Anne Rice turns her attentions to Werewolf mythology with great success

MAN OR MONSTER?

After a brutal attack Reuben finds himself changing. His hair is longer, his skin is more sensitive and her can hear things he never could before.

Now he must confront the beast within him or lose himself completely.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before on the site, but Anne Rice is one of my favourite authors. Reading the Vampire Chronicles was a turning point in my life as a reader, and indeed set me on the path that turned me into as voracious a reader as I am today. The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned have been re-read so many times, I almost know them off by heart. It was with great interest, therefore, that I started reading The Wolf Gift – after redefining vampire fiction with her novels, I was really interested to see what Rice could do with that other supernatural mainstay, the werewolf. What she’s come up with is pretty great.

Upcoming: Anne Rice’s WOLF GIFT Blog Tour