Monday Review: Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

I knew there was a reason for picking up an old copy of Nineteen Eighty-Four around Christmas time. And it was this: to make sense of Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde.

Shades of Grey is the story of an ordinary young man, Eddie Russet, a largely unremarkable drone of the Colourtocracy, whose lot in life at the opening of the book is to undertake a chair census in the Outer Fringes.

And Eddie's adventures, for it is possible to have adventures in chair-counting, and his will they/won't they romance with the cute but feisty Jane Grey, lead us on a voyage of discovery about the world of Chromatacia, and the Rules by which its residents live.

Existing several centuries after the apocalyptic 'Something That Happened', Chromatacia is ruled by a hierarchy based on perception of colour, the monochromatic Greys being the working classes; Eddie, a Red, being fairly lowly; and the Purples being at the top of the pecking order. The technology is a strange mix of what had gone before: Model A Fords driving on self-healing organoplastoid roads, for instance; and life is lived under the ever watchful eye of Head Office - a name which, for certain sections of society, will instil rather more fear than that of Big Brother.

All of which is to say that this is a very Orwellian dystopia, but one with a dash of Ffordian madness. Shades of Grey is not as laugh out loud funny as some of Fforde's Thursday Next books, but it's a fun read if you like that kind of absurd humour, and definitely an original look at the dystopian genre, once you get your head around the premise of the Colourtocracy.

It could be said that Shades is a little light on plot; however, as the first book in a trilogy it does a good job of introducing the reader to a well-rounded world with plenty of hinted-at mystery, and sets the players up for the rest of the series. The supporting characters, too, seem to have taken a back seat to world-building, although I did find myself caring what happened to Eddie and Jane. But all that aside, the world itself is so much fun that who cares if the characters are only there to explore it and the plot doesn't kick in until book two.

From a Christian perspective, I have to mention the Word of Munsell, from which Chromatacia has derived its all-encompassing (but often nonsensical) Rulebook. The Rules start with a Golden Rule of sorts:

Everyone is expected to act with due regard for the well-being of others.

Then there are more potentially useful rules for the wellbeing of the state and its residents:

Marriage is an honourable estate, and should not be used simply as an excuse for legal intercourse.

A unanimous verdict by all the primes will countermand the Head Prefect.

But then the rules start to wander into the 'serving no useful purpose' territory:

Ovaltine may not be drunk at any time except before bed.

And of course, some are deliberately silly:

The cucumber and the tomato are both fruit; the avocado is a nut. To assist with the dietary requirements of vegetarians, on the first Tuesday of the month a chicken is officially a vegetable.

But the story makes the point that some of the rules are mind-bogglingly stupid. The number that lay between 72 and 74 was banned for reasons lost in history, as was counting sheep and making spoons. It also makes note that some rules were followed mindlessly for centuries, despite being obviously flawed:

Children under ten are to be given a glass of milk and a smack at 11 a.m.

Conversely, of course, such variations have also been abused by those seeking to take advantage of any tenuous loophole they could find; both approaches point out the potential for flaws in interpreting any ancient text, whether by mindless legalism or liberal loopholery.

Hopefully as the series progresses we will find out more about Munsell and his wisdom,but either way, I suspect this is going to be a series that gets better as it continues.

   

Oh, and let me just reassure my reader that there is absolutely no bandwagon-jumping intended here. Jasper Fforde does not specify how many shades of grey the title refers to. There may be fifty shades of grey, or there may only be three. It's probably not important. What's important is that this book will be a far better way to spend a few hours than certain other books you may have seen reviewed elsewhere on the interwebs.

Tuesday Tunes: Back to the Planet

I promised (threatened?) to unleash this on the unsuspecting blogosphere a while back, so, while I decide what to do with Tuesday Tunes from here on, please take a moment to enjoy what I still laughingly call the Sci-Fi Song of the Week.

This week, the only song I own a copy of on the original 12 inch orange vinyl. Yes, surely such a thing could only have happened in 1993!  Back to the Planet present their punk rock ode to the evils of pop culture, Teenage Turtles, in which are posed the eternal question: Is your brain on the blink?

CSFF Blog Tour vs Tuesday Tunes

This month the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour is highlighting Beckon by Tom Pawlik, which carries the tag line 'Come. And live forever.' In which spirit it is time to introduce the Top Ten Songs About Living Forever, painstakingly chosen by a mysterious tribe who have been holed up in a cave for centuries with nothing but Spotify to teach them about the way of the world above ground.

10. Jeff Buckley: Eternal Life A song inspired by anger over "the man that shot Martin Luther King, World War II, slaughter in Guyana and that weird millionaire in Beckon, Wyoming who was kidnapping immigrants."

9. The Primevals: Elixir of Life The Scottish garage rock band categorically deny hunting dinosaurs through anomalies. Which is kind of a shame, because taht would be an interesting TV show.

8. Ookpikk: Soda Fountain of Youth Every top ten needs at least five minutes of quality electronica, and, well, who can resist a title like that?

7. Queen: Who Wants To Live Forever? Which is, in fact, the question asked by the book of the month.

6. Arrested Development: Fountain of Youth Unnecessarily catchy and suitably summery funky hip-hop.

5. Madness: Forever Young They just are, aren't they? I mean, Suggs is like 50, but he's still the naughty schoolboy from Baggy Trousers.

4. Dave Davies: Life After Life (Transformation) I couldn't come up with a suitable Kinks song for this month, so here's a 2002 solo offering from Dave. It couldn't be much further from the power chords of You Really Got Me if it tried though....  

3. Pretenders: Forever Young Not a cover of the Madness song. A cover of a Dylan song.

2. Gym Class Heroes: Live Forever [Fly With Me] More catchy hip-hop, of a slightly mellower flavour this time.

1. Evanescence: My Immortal Stunningly, hauntingly, gorgeously beautiful. But enough about Amy Lee, enjoy the music :)

Now Spotify the Top Ten, and pop back to yesterday's post for the links to the rest of the tour.

Monday Review: Beckon by Tom Pawlik

In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, Tyndale House. Bonus points to them for mailing a copy outside the US, but that won't affect my review.

Beckon is named after a barely noticeable Wyoming town, lurking somewhere on the outskirts of the Twilight Zone, where things are not quite as they seem. Which is odd in itself, because it's not until about a third of the way into the book that we actually arrive there.

The first part of the story is divided, somewhat unequally, into three parts, each introducing one of the main characters and their reasons for visiting Beckon. George Wilcox is looking for a cure for his wife's Alzheimer's; Elina Gutierrez is a disgraced cop on a personal mission to find her missing cousin; and our hero, Jack Kendrick, is on a quest to find out what happened to his father, guided by the wise and enigmatic Old Ben (wait, what?).

I found the story a bit of a slow burner; I wanted to discover what was going down in Beckon, not go potholing with Jack and Ben. However, when Jack does eventually arrive, and we flashback to see how Elina and George came to be there, the story of Beckon is slowly fleshed out and the stage is set for the final showdown.

I thought the way the three stories were split was a bit odd to start with, but it works well enough to make the ending satisfying, and helps maintain that air of mystery around the town of Beckon while you're on the way.

For all the story started slowly, once we were in those caves, I was absolutely in the caves. The writing totally took me in, I could picture every scene (although, it may have helped that the cave scenes were pretty much darkness throughout...) and absolutely believed it - except once.

*Spoiler approaching!*

Giant alien zombie cave spiders I could believe. Weird, barely human creatures covered in strange tattoos that seem to co-exist with the spiders, I could believe. But when we are given a physical demonstration of how quickly the people of Beckon are able to heal themselves, that was just a little less believable than the rest, and took me out of the story for a moment.

*End of spoiler*

I tend to find stories like Beckon - supernatural suspense novels with a Christian motif - often come across a bit Stephen King-lite, and the same could be said here, but in this instance it's not entirely a bad thing. King would have had a lot more gore and swearing, certainly; there are gory moments in Beckon, but not too many or too graphic - I wouldn't be surprised if the author had to work very hard to get the right balance. And Beckon clearly demonstrates that novels like this do not need an f-bomb every three pages, or indeed at all.

All in all, Beckon is a well-written story with plenty of action and suspense, a dash of humour, an interesting evil and a subtle but present hopeful note as befits a book aimed at a Christian audience.

Your tour, as ever, continues this way:
Noah Arsenault Julie Bihn Thomas Clayton Booher Thomas Fletcher Booher Beckie Burnham Brenda Castro Theresa Dunlap Nikole Hahn Ryan Heart Bruce Hennigan Janeen Ippolito Becky Jesse Jason Joyner Carol Keen Leighton Rebekah Loper Katie McCurdy Shannon McDermott Karen McSpadden Rebecca LuElla Miller Nissa Joan Nienhuis Faye Oygard Crista Richey Kathleen Smith Jessica Thomas Steve Trower Fred Warren Shane Werlinger

CSFF Blog Tour: Night of the Living Dead Christian

I don't normally like to get too personal on this blog, especially on a tour week when there's a slim chance that somebody might actually read the thing, but just in case my review of this month's featured book, Night of the Living Dead Christian by Matt Mikalatos, is a little frivolous and concentrates on how much fun Matt's writing is, I thought it might be appropriate to share the paragraph that really jumped out and bit me in the neck. And there were plenty more like it, snippets of dialogue that contained real thought-provoking truth. As a writer, moments like these serve to remind me of the power that stories can have - even silly stories about vampires and zombies. As a flawed and arguably monstrous human being, this particular moment was really a little closer to home than it had any right to be!

Anyway, this is Lara, the reformed vampire, relating what she learned from a pastor:

He showed me the fountain, but I'm still drinking from it. There's a well inside of me, but sometimes I want a drink that's faster, easier, and I take what I can get. There's a part of me that's not a vampire anymore, and there's this other part that still wants to be, sometimes. So every day I have to get a little sunshine, because sunlight doesn't kill vampires, it just burns the vampire out and leaves the human stronger. But until all the work is done I'm a vampire with a tan.

I think I need to be less afraid of the sunlight.

Gillian Adams Julie Bihn Red Bissell Thomas Clayton Booher Thomas Fletcher Booher Keanan Brand Beckie Burnham Morgan L. Busse Theresa Dunlap Amber French Tori Greene Nikole Hahn Ryan Heart Bruce Hennigan Janeen Ippolito Becky Jesse Jason Joyner Carol Keen Leighton Shannon McDermott Rebecca LuElla Miller Nissa Joan Nienhuis John W. Otte Crista Richey Sarah Sawyer Chawna Schroeder Rachel Starr Thomson Steve Trower Fred Warren Shane Werlinger Nicole White Dave Wilson

Monday Review: Night of the Living Dead Christian by Matt Mikalatos

In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I did not receive a free copy of this book from the publisher, because Matt Mikalatos' last book, Imaginary Jesus, was so staggeringly awesome there was no way this would escape my wish list. And by virtue of having a birthday earlier this month, I managed to get a copy in time to review it for the tour and not even deprive Matt of his hard-earned royalties. Yay me!

Anyway, the book. Given the fact that Matt Mikalatos is clearly insane an eccentric genius, I opened this book expecting something like a paperback Shaun of The Dead with a little spiritual insight mixed in for good measure. And, apart from the fact that it is less about zombies than it is about a mad scientist (actually, I would have thought that the British would be more likely to use the term eccentric genius, but what do I know?), a spiritually interested werewolf, the worst robot of all time, and our Generic Christian hero, Matt Mikalatos himself, that's almost what it is. There are zombies; they belong to a church that wants to remove the brains of its congregation. One of them is even adopted by story Matt - he's called Robert, and the fact that author Matt has the nerve to just go with the obvious gags like that just make me love this book even more.

Culbetron snickered. "He just said 'at stake' to a vampire. Hee hee hee."

More Christian books should embrace childlike humour. Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child and all that. Also the phrase 'It's clobbering time!' That should be in more Christian books too.

So far, so Shaun of the Dead. But what of the spiritual insight? Well, drawing the parallels between the common stumbling blocks to a truly transformed life and B-movie monsters works so well that it had to be done sooner or later. It may well have been done before, but that doesn't matter because Matt Mikalatos does it so well. I wouldn't be surprised to find that he has a degree in Stealth Theology or something, because he just slips those little nuggets of truth in among the silliness.

Vampires, werewolves, zombies, mummies - they can all be cured. If they want it badly enough.

And that is one of the great things about this book. In amongst the monsters and the silly jokes and all the other mayhem, suddenly something will just jump off the page and you will be face to face with your own dark side. Take a quick glance at the amazon reviews for the book, and you'll see words like 'convicting' come up almost as much as ones like 'hilarious'. The book doesn't pretend that there is an easy cure to any of our monstrosities - as Lara the vampire says, 'It's simple, but it's not easy.'

For me personally, I think this book works because the author is talking my language. He understands my life, my sense of humour, my enjoyment of things geeky, my parental frustration...

the kids were probably doing the afternoon snack ritual, which involves the children begging for snacks, rejecting whatever is offered to them, and then complaining about their day until they finally take the offered snack and are given sufficient energy not to be upset about all of life anymore. My presence mostly just adds an extra step, the part where I yell at them to stop being so cranky and eat something...

And as if knowing that part of my day so intimately wasn't enough, at the end of the story Matt (or, arguably, Krista) has a baby girl whose middle name is Hope...

So, all that being said, the big question is: had the Matt Mikalatos managed to live up to the expectations set by his debut novel?

Well, I was laughing out loud by the end of page two, but on the whole I didn't do that quite as much as I did while reading Imaginary Jesus. What I did do a lot of though, was think. And I had a whole lot of fun while doing it. So, yes, definitely, Night of the Living Dead Christian is every bit as essential a read as Imaginary Jesus is.

But don't take my word for it, go and ask these people (some of whom may have less in common with the author to start with).
Gillian Adams Julie Bihn Red Bissell Thomas Clayton Booher Thomas Fletcher Booher Keanan Brand Beckie Burnham Morgan L. Busse Theresa Dunlap Amber French Tori Greene Nikole Hahn Ryan Heart Bruce Hennigan Janeen Ippolito Becky Jesse Jason Joyner Carol Keen Leighton Shannon McDermott Rebecca LuElla Miller Nissa Joan Nienhuis John W. Otte Crista Richey Sarah Sawyer Chawna Schroeder Rachel Starr Thomson Steve Trower Fred Warren Shane Werlinger Nicole White Dave Wilson

Tuesday Tunes: LZ7 & Matt Redman - 27 Million

Yes, I know what day it is, but I got a gold star for blogging in the face of adversity last week, so you can't reasonably expect timely posting this week as well.

Anyway, this week rather than trawling the Tube for some footage of Back to the Planet (next week - possibly even on Tuesday) I'm going to share a little video, which I hope speaks for itself, and then ask you to go and download the song.

There are an estimated 27 million slaves in the world today - that's more than at any time in history. If you want to belong to a more civilised society where this kind of thing does not happen, download the song from your preferred digital media stockist and help raise awareness of the size of the problem, and money for the A21 Campaign to help fight it.

I'll even make it easy for you - here are some links: iTunes (UK) Amazon Play.com 7 Digital iTunes (US)

If not, I want to know what more constructive use you found for that 99p.

CSFF Blog Tour: The Realms Thereunder

No of course I haven't finished it. There's no review here. Except to say that I'm getting a whiff of Narnia, mixed with Alfred the Great, and the map in the front is showing just a little hint of Arthurian legend, although I've not seen him mentioned on the tour, so maybe that is for later in the series.

There are plenty of reviews you can read though (although, I haven't in much detail because I'm still reading the book):
Janeen Ippolito's character assassinations summaries;
Rebekah Loper's possibly technical review;
Nissa's Rune Poem review;
Shane Werlinger does it in three parts; and
Jason Joyner doesn't enjoy it.

It seems from the quick look through the reviews and posts on the tour, that opinion is divided by whether the reviewer likes the dual-timeline narrative device. I like it, when done well. I tried to use it during NaNoWriMo a couple of years back, and it's tricky to do well (at least in 30 days!). The chunks in each time period are quite short, especially as compared to something like Stephen King's It, which used the same  childhood/adulthood split but for far bigger chunks of story, and I can see how the frequent changing could be disorienting, although it hasn't bothered me yet.

A few people on the tour have noticed some little editorial mishaps in the book; I noticed a couple of things as soon as the story started that got under my English skin (we don't call them MDs, and there's only one 'b' in Abingdon!). Good job I'm running late, or I'd have ruined the book for the rest of you, who had no idea if Abingdon was even a real place. I've only seen the place mentioned a couple of times, but it irks me that the author can spell Nidergeard properly but not Abingdon...

Anyway, do please venture on into the rest of the tour, or visit the author's website.

Gillian Adams Red Bissell Thomas Clayton Booher Keanan Brand Beckie Burnham Melissa Carswell Jeff Chapman CSFF Blog Tour Theresa Dunlap Emmalyn Edwards April Erwin Victor Gentile Tori Greene Nikole Hahn Ryan Heart Bruce Hennigan Timothy Hicks Christopher Hopper Janeen Ippolito Jason Joyner Carol Keen Krystine Kercher Rebekah Loper Margaret Marzabeth Shannon McDermott Rebecca LuElla Miller Mirriam Neal Eve Nielsen Nissa John W. Otte Donita K. Paul Joan Nienhuis Crista Richey Sarah Sawyer Chawna Schroeder Kathleen Smith Donna Swanson Rachel Starr Thomson Fred Warren Dona Watson Shane Werlinger Nicole White Rachel Wyant

CSFF Blog Tour: An Apology in Advance

In conjunction with the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of The Realms Thereunder courtesy of the publisher, Thomas Nelson, for review. Unfortunately, the time at which I received it was last Wednesday, just a couple of days before receiving a delivery of a rather different type (Bryony Hope, 5.30am last Friday, 7lb 14 because somebody was bound to ask).

All of which somewhat elaborate excuse-making is to say that there may or may not be a full review of the book on this blog this week, but it will appear at some stage.

In the meantime, the blurb tells of an army of knights that will remain sleeping until the last days, a homeless man stalked by a pale, wraithlike creature with a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth, and a Scottish police officer who specializes in hunting mythical creatures.

It also tells of a mythical world bleeding into our reality, a dark spiritual evil manifesting itself in forgotten corners of the British Isles, and the ultimate threat to humanity.

It doesn't tell of spaceships, aliens or time travel, so might not be quite my usual genre, but I felt I should make the effort to give a view from the right side of the Atlantic.

However, should I fail epically in this mission, you can find more comment and reviews of the book in question at these blogs:

Gillian Adams Red Bissell Thomas Clayton Booher Keanan Brand Beckie Burnham Melissa Carswell Jeff Chapman CSFF Blog Tour Theresa Dunlap Emmalyn Edwards April Erwin Victor Gentile Tori Greene Nikole Hahn Ryan Heart Bruce Hennigan Timothy Hicks Christopher Hopper Janeen Ippolito Jason Joyner Carol Keen Krystine Kercher Rebekah Loper Margaret Marzabeth Shannon McDermott Rebecca LuElla Miller Mirriam Neal Eve Nielsen Nissa John W. Otte Donita K. Paul Joan Nienhuis Crista Richey Sarah Sawyer Chawna Schroeder Kathleen Smith Donna Swanson Rachel Starr Thomson Fred Warren Dona Watson Shane Werlinger Nicole White Rachel Wyant

Monday Review: Nineteen Eighty-Four

It was quite a year, 1984. It was the year that Frankie said Relax, and for Admiral Kirk and the crew of the USS Enterprise, the needs of the one outweighed the needs of the many, and they went off in search of Spock.

It was the year of Ghostbusters, the Space Shuttle Discovery, Torvill and Dean, and African famine.

Madonna was on the verge of world domination with the release of Like a Virgin, as was Clive Sinclair in his field of expertise with the Spectrum+. Both of these were to have some significance as I plunged irrevocably towards teenagerhood, as was the fact that 1984 was when my family upped and left the home of my childhood for what seemed like a far less desirable place a stones throw from Birmingham.

It’s fair to say I have mixed feelings about that year and its legacy, and maybe that’s why it has taken me so long to read its official biography by George Orwell. And, now that I have, I have mixed feelings about that too.

It was kinda hard to get into at first, took a while before the descriptive/info-dumping phase finished and Winston met his co-protagonist Julia, and their somewhat stop-start illicit affair began in whatever moments they could snatch away from the prying eyes of Big Brother. Then that gets interrupted by a big chunk of the book (The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism by Emmanual Goldstein), which although supposedly some sort of Bible for the more rebellious drones of the Party, was very dull and much harder to wade through than the actual story.

And in the last part of the book, Julia and Winston are caught, separated, tortured and finally rehabilitated into life under the Party. From a plot perspective, this is where most of the interesting stuff happens, much of it I found reminiscent of scenes from The Prisoner (good 1960s original, not crappy Hollywood remake).

On the subject of plot, it should be noted that not very much actually happens. It’s something of a fall and rise of Winston Smith (or possibly it’s a rise and fall?), precipitated by his befriending Julia. But for all the shortfalls of the plot, there is no denying that the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four speaks loud and clear into the Airstrip One Britain of 2012. We are all too familiar with the concept of Big Brother; Newspeak of a sort is taking ova thx 2 txt msgs; and even perpetual war does not take a massive leap of imagination.

In fact, with the exception of the extreme sexual repression under the Party, much about the world of 1984 is alarmingly plausible from the outset:

The pen was an archaic instrument, seldom used even for signatures... Apart from very short notes, it was usual to dictate everything into the speak-write…

And by pen, Winston is not referring to the type of ink-pencil I usually use these days, but one with a proper nib and everything. Very prescient, in the details as in the bigger picture, and for that reason a definite must-read. I would have to say, however, it’s probably not a must-read again.

Badly thought out Despair of the Week

I wasn't going to make a habit of this, but I saw this video on geekologie.com and, honestly, it was too good (ie bad) to ignore. It's straight out of the '90s, when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Vanilla Ice (apparently) were at the peak of their powers, and is a prime example of Christians sticking their beards into what other people's children should or should not be watching on TV and getting for Christmas.

They do make one good point in the course of the video, but I'm not convinced the Mickey Mouse comic with the ouija board in was contemporary with the rest of the stuff.

I suspect it's been cut to make them look even more stupid than they would otherwise -

What's the problem with this guy [Vanilla Ice]?
MC Hammer is certainly not a role model we as Christians should emulate, though he claims to be a Christian.

Actually, the thought of these guys doing the Hammer dance, I think he may have a point after all. Although I'm still curious as to what the problem with Vanilla Ice actually was.

Anyway, my point, besides ruthlessly mocking these muppets, is that this kind of thing actually happens in real life - Christians decrying things they have only a passing knowledge of, like the Harry Potter phenomenon (which must have made these guys' heads explode) that many condemned on the basis of what Mavis said about it after church last week.

I have no problem with people having a genuine problem with the way some stuff is marketed these days - the fact that you can pick up Playboy branded stationary on the High Street, blatantly aimed at the average schoolgirl, is a bit of a worry - but you might at least try watching these things before telling us all why they're evil.

What I have a problem with is people like these, who (a) make Christians out to be a bunch of opinionated killjoys; (b) seem to think children can't tell the difference between an animated pizza-eating reptile and real life; and (c) are probably so wrapped up in seeing the devil behind every successful TV franchise that they've completely missed the real problems in the world.

Next week: I attempt to stop ranting and get this blog back on topic - tune in to see if I succeed!

Daily Mail Despair of the Week

Apparently, Peppa Pig is a bad influence on children. According to the Daily Mail:

One father spoke of his despair at how his four-year-old son had taken to splashing in what he gleefully called ‘muddy puddles’ on his way to school - copying Peppa's favourite pastime.

I wish I lived in a world where that was the biggest problem facing society. Kids are being forced to grow up too quickly anyway these days, without causing despair or having their favourite TV characters banned for, um, being children!

Let's get a few things straight to start with:

1. Peppa always puts her wellies on before jumping up and down in those muddy puddles (don't get me started on the fact that she's a pig)
2. Puddle jumping is often enjoyed as a fun activity for the whole family. Heaven forbid.
3. Out in the fresh air, no less. 
4. George may ask for chocolate cake for breakfast, but to my knowledge he never gets it. 
5. One episode even gives a handy tutorial in making salad more appealing to kids by forming it into the shape of a dinosaur. 
6. I've given this far too much thought haven't I? 
7. Peppa is a pig. 

Maybe I have given this too much thought, but seriously? A kid jumps in a puddle or asks for chocolate instead of broccoli and all you can do is lash out at a cartoon pig?

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying we should let our kids have chocolate cake for breakfast, but experience tells me that if we don't let our children have small amounts of chocolate cake under close supervision, they will end up binge-eating it down the park with those unruly kids from the next street. 

And it never stops with chocolate cake. Oh no, it will soon progress to Mississippi Mud Pie and Black Forest Gateaux, and before you know it they'll be hopped up on a cocktail of banoffee pie and treacle sponge, indulging in wild, cake-fuelled orgies of unashamed muddy puddle-jumping.

Surely we, as parents, have a duty to educate our children, to show them that things like cake - and cartoons - can be highly enjoyable, in the right context. 

I mean come on, everyone loves jumping up and down in muddy puddles! 

Enjoy Peppa Pig responsibly 

For the facts about excessive cake consumption visit www.cakeaware.co.uk 

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article... meh.

Sci-fi Song of the Week

Hmmmm let's see, we need a sci-fi song for the week before Christmas. I wonder if we could possibly find something suitable, possibly involving Fountains of Wayne....

Spam and muppets

I always knew this. That's why I wrote Countless as the Stars. But now the nice science & sci-fi gurus at io9.com have said it too, so it's about as official as it's going to get (probably):

Adding 'in space' to anything makes it better!

A case in point:

+

=

So there you go. Um, not to say that Countless as the Stars is actually better than the original... oh dear, ever wish you'd never started down a train of thought?

Still, there's time to get part one of The Bible: In Space (at least, if you live in the UK) before Christmas and make up your own minds ;)

It makes a great gift too.

Sci-fi Song of the Week

Let's see, we need a sci-fi related song - I'm feeling a little space-y this week - for two weeks before Christmas. I feel sure thing exists - perhaps in Japan...?

CSFF Blog Tour: Corus the Champion

So today concludes the blog tour for Corus the Champion by D Barkley Briggs, a book I haven't read, but don't take that as a bad thing as my opinion of fantasy novels is rarely a good indication of how good they are.

I have, however, read some of the blogs on the tour, and there's a lot of people saying a lot of nice things about it. Here are just a few posts that may be of interest:
Shannon McDermott digs into the religion in the story;
Bruce Hennigan compares it to Tolkien, no less;
John Otte gives us a writing prompt (sorry, I don't think I'll be taking that one up); and
Mharvi points us in the direction of a rather large blooper.

You should also check out the author's website, and his blog, and then all the rest of the tour participants listed at the foot of yesterday's post.

Tuesday Tunes: The Chorus of Champions

You see what I did there? It's the blog tour for Corus the Champion, see, and it's Tuesday, which means tunes, so... Anyway, here's the Top Ten Champion Choons.

10. Top Cat: Champion Deejay
One of Hanna-Barbera's more enduring hip-hop artists, despite initially having to change his name to Boss Cat in the UK for copyright reasons.

9. The Low Anthem: Champion Angel
You know, now I come to think about it, I'm not actually sure Hanna-Barbera even had a record label.

8. Hypnotic Brass Ensemble: Champion
I can say with reasonable certainty that no Top Ten has yet had 3 and a half minutes of, well, brass, but who knows, we could be setting a precedent.

7. Hammerfall: The Champion
Because you gotta love Swedish rock music. Unfortunately this track is about a minute and a half longer than strictly necessary.

6. The Polyphonic Spree: The Championship
Continuing the quest for eclecticism, have some choral symphonic pop rock. At least, that's what the interweb calls it, but I'm sure it was wrong about that Top Cat thing.

5. The Chevin: Champion
There's something a bit U2 about this track, at least if you cover your ears and squint.

4. Reverend and the Makers: Heavyweight Champion of the World
And he's probably not even a real vicar, just some bloke from Sheffield, whatever the interweb tells you.

3. Fatboy Slim: Champion Sound
The bloke doing the vocals on this is Lateef the Truthseeker. I wonder if he knows Top Cat?

2. Wire: Champs
That's more like it: good old fashioned British punk rock. It might be less than two minutes long, but at least you know where you stand.

1. Jonathan Coulton: We Are The Champions
Well if the interweb is to be believed, this was really written by some bloke called Freddie Mercury, but we all know how reliable that is, so here's the original version by the original geek-rocker.

Spotify the Top Ten now - you know it makes sense.

And don't forget that all this jolliness is part of the CSFF Blog Tour for Corus the Champion by D Barkley Briggs, which continues this way:
Gillian Adams Noah Arsenault Beckie Burnham CSFF Blog Tour Carol Bruce Collett Theresa Dunlap Emmalyn Edwards April Erwin Victor Gentile Nikole Hahn Ryan Heart Bruce Hennigan Christopher Hopper Jason Joyner Carol Keen Krystine Kercher Marzabeth Shannon McDermott Rebecca LuElla Miller Eve Nielsen John Otte Donita K Paul Sarah Sawyer Kathleen Smith Donna Swanson Rachel Starr Thomson Fred Warren Phyllis Wheeler Nicole White Rachel Wyant


Sci-fi Song of the Week

Because he finished our Top Ten, and because it just ain't Christmas 'til you've heard Chiron Beta Prime.

CSFF Blog Tour: Corus the Champion by D Barkley Briggs

As a way of easing myself back into the world of blogging after an intense month of novelling, and prior to easing myself backout of it again for Christmas, there is a conveniently timed CSFF Blog Tour, for, as the more astute reader will have realised, Corus the Champion, by D Barkley Briggs.

Corus the Champion is the second title in the Legends of Karac Tor series, which Briggs wrote as a tale his four sons could relate to as they dealt with the loss of their mother. The Legends of Karac Tor tells the tale of four brothers who, 'while struggling to adjust to life without mom, become enmeshed in the crisis of another world. Along the way they must find their courage, face their pain, and never quit searching for home.'

I've made this point before, when the tour happened upon the first book in the series, but I'll make it again because it's a good point (and also I haven't done the homework). The point that strikes me about that is how the author used his talent to help his kids, and by extension, others in the same situation - thus bringing something good out of a bad situation.

We writerly types are always encouraged to write about what we know, and as I've taken a look back over the editorial notes I've been carefully excising from my NaNo script, I'm seeing ways I can use my own bad situations to add depth to that story (as I tried to last year, with the first draft of Project Seven, which will likely never be revived). Writing for me is sometimes a therapeutic attempt to work through my own dark side, and if at the same time I can help someone else out of the same situation - or stop someone getting into it - then it helps me make sense of it.

And, just maybe, it will show that even writers of fantasy novels can make a difference.

And now it's your turn, make a difference to these lovely people by stopping off at their blogs:
Gillian Adams Noah Arsenault Beckie Burnham CSFF Blog Tour Carol Bruce Collett Theresa Dunlap Emmalyn Edwards April Erwin Victor Gentile Nikole Hahn Ryan Heart Bruce Hennigan Christopher Hopper Jason Joyner Julie Carol Keen Krystine Kercher Marzabeth Shannon McDermott Rebecca LuElla Miller Eve Nielsen Sarah Sawyer Kathleen Smith Donna Swanson Rachel Starr Thomson Fred Warren Phyllis Wheeler Nicole White Rachel Wyant

NaNoWriWeekFive

Yes, it's that time of year when thousands of word weary novelists emerge blinking into the cold harsh light of reality, sleep deprived but with another first draft under their belts.

And, yes, as you will have gathered, I made it to the required 50,000 words (50,591 in 29 days, for the record), but I'm not sure the novel is finished. I write the final chapter - sort of - but most of the preceding chapters need a lot of doctoring to properly lead up to that point and tell the story I want to tell.

It is, it has to be said, a mess at the moment. The original concept got a little bent out of shape in the process of being written, and a lot of the earlier chapters need to be completely re-written or just dumped entirely; and there are a lot of editorial notes and so on that need to be extracted and turned into fiction somehow, so the whole thing is still a very long way from finished.

This has been, I think, the first time I have attempted to write something of this length without more than a vague idea where it was going, hence the quantity of about turns and footnotes, but despite all that, it shaped up, over the course of the month, to be something I actually like. It changed a little from the original urban fantasy feel when my protagonist finally revealed his back story to me during a 1000 word sprint on my penultimate night of novelling, but starting out with that element of weirdness in it allowed me to get the story down, and I'm fairly confident that with a little work this can be something worthwhile.

Now all that remains is to unlock my inner editor, and set about the second draft...

NaNoWriWeekFour

As of the now, I am officially ahead of target. By 8 words, but this month, every word counts. And it's the first time since Day Five that I have been ahead of the game, so all in all the last few days have gone well. Sort of.

The plot is starting to come together. It's got exciting action, some interesting plot twists, a completely unnecessary zombie apocalypse, psychic vampires, and two female characters I keep interchanging with each other at random. Ok, I admit it, it's a mess. I had to retcon most of the plot yesterday when I started to work out what was going on, and since then chapters have been springing up in the middle of the manuscript with only a vague idea of where they belong. And there are two action-y sub-plots, and the one that ends at the end of the novel has far less climactic potential than the one that ends on the way to the first one...

Oh yes, and one of my characters has served no real purpose in the story yet. That's a whole mess of sub-plot to be woven in once I've extracted two of the prologues and got the main story timeline sorted (I'm fairly sure someone was wearing a bikini in October). But that's all part of the fun. All I have to do now is stay above the line for a few more days....