Tuesday Tunes at Christmas

It's an interesting phenomenon (possibly) that a lot of things that I would try to avoid most of the time become strangely palatable around Christmas. Like mince pies - I don't really like them, normally, but can't help myself come December. And a more common example, of course: sprouts.

And as far as tunes are concerned, there are, I think, three Cliff Richard numbers on high rotation during the festive season. That would be a frankly alarming propsect under normal circumstances, but Christmas without Cliff just doesn't seem right any more.

A slightly more bizarre variation on this theme features as this week's Sci-fi Santa Song of the Week: A Spaceman Came Travelling, by retired bin man Chris de Burgh. Completely mental nonsense about a spaceman who travelled for light years of time to bring a message for mankind to hear. Utter drivel really, but hey, it's Christmas, peace and goodwill to all men. Even Cliff and the de Burgh fella.

CSFF Blog Tour: Stephen Lawhead

As regular visitors will have gathered by now, this month's CSFF Blog Tour is about Stephen Lawhead's latest book, Scarlet. You will probably also have gathered that this blogger is more interested in science fiction than fantasy or legend. So as a compromise, I'm going to review Lawhead's science fiction epic, Empyrion.

The story begins about 300 years into Earth's future, but quickly flings it's heroes even further into the future and a very long way from Earth, thanks to a convenient wormhole. Your main protagonist is the unlikely hero Orion Treet, who, despite his cool name, is a rather boring historian. He and three others are sent to check up on the first extra-solar colony, set up by the Cynetics Corporation five years earlier. Unbeknown to them, so long has passed on the Empyrion colony that a whole civilisation has risen and subsequently fallen into a violent, oppressive and generally unpleasant state, sealed off from the wider world in a crystal dome.

The peoples origin has faded into legend, Cynetics a kind of legend, a rarely spoken name. Religion - of the worst kind - has risen again, with the people worshipping an entity called Trabant. Apparently communist block automobiles have also faded into legend.

They later discover that as well as this dystopia, a second civilisation has risen on the planet: the apparent paradise of Fierra, and so, naturally, begins a battle between good and evil, as our heroes either get acquainted with the God of the Fieri, or lose their minds thanks to the paranoid leaders of Dome.

The worlds are all well imagined, and spiritual themes run throughout the book, from the two contrasting religious societies, to the spiritual journeys of Treet and Yarden, to the talking fish, communication with which seems a lot like prayer. (On which note, intelligent marine mammals bringing a message of impending doom.... rings a bell somehow.)

The second half - originally the second book, Siege of Dome, gets off to a slow start, especially following the action towards the end of book one. It is partly concerned with Yarden's spiritual awakening, and partly with what became of Crocker, another of the Earthlings, but honestly I got a bit bored and just wanted to see how Treet was getting on. Once things got going again it was ok, but the whole 900 page volume is just too long.

And there's a couple of things that didn't work for me because, well, they didn't appear to serve any useful purpose. Like Crocker - as far as I can tell he should have just gone away and stayed there. And what was the deal with the coccoons? OK, this is a spoiler, but like I said, has no impact on the plot. Our hereos, on their way to Fierra, pass through a sort of mist or cloud, and get a bit wet. Later they get sick, bust out in boils and such, and eventually become coccooned by their own secretions. (Eeww!) And later they break out of them again, feeling younger, fitter and prettier than before. This much I get; it's a wierd alien disease they've contracted, and it works on that level fine. It also works as a sort of paralell to baptism and rebirth. Clever. And making them fitter probably enables them to survive the journey. Fair enough. But what I don't get is this: nobody mentions it again once they've moved on. If it were me, the first thing I'd be asking when I met a Fieri is 'What is the deal with that cloud and the coccons?' But no, they just carry on as if it was perfectly normal to spend days or weeks encased in pus in the middle of a desert on an unknown planet. Eh?

Anyway, that aside, I mostly like Empyrion, although the second book did drag at times. It's good sci-fi with a bit of a fantasy feel, and lots of spiritual (Christian in all but name) threads. My recommendation would be to skip all the bits about Crocker and his cat, and shave a few pages off your total reading.

And if anyone knows how to pronounce 'Tvrdy', please let me know.

CSFF Blog Tour vs Tuesday Tunes

Or: 'The Post That Wrote Itself', because rather than leave me to come up with the Top Ten Scarlet songs (obscure album tracks by Bananarama and U2 are all that come to mind), a couple of chaps called Jeff Johnson and Brian Dunning have put together a soundtrack CD for Scarlet, and a bunch of other Lawhead novels for that matter.

As you may know, I think soundtracks for novels are a pretty nifty idea. When they release the soundtracks for Empyrion and Dream Thief, I'll be sure to check them out.

Which rather scruffily leads us to the Sci-fi Song of the Week:

well, since I've already mentioned it once, here's another track from the classic Bananas LP True Confessions: Venus.

CSFF Blog Tour: Scarlet

This month the CSFF Blog Tour rolls round to Stephen Lawhead’s place, for a peek at his latest novel, Scarlet. Which is banned in my part of the world, because we all know Robin Hood was from the East Midlands and not Wales, and therefore I haven’t read the book.

Fortunately Mr Lawhead has also written a couple of science fiction novels in his time – the Empyrion duology, and Dream Thief, both of which I first read about a decade ago when Christian science fiction was a rare thing - not like now, when the shelves are awash with the stuff. Or at least, should be. Oh, and he co-authored City of Dreams with his son Ross, which looks an intriguing re-telling of the life of Jesus (set that in Wales – or Nottingham – and I’m in the queue!).

Anyway, Scarlet. Even at this early stage in the tour it looks like opinion may be divided over whether another Robin Hood story was a good idea. More reviews will be appearing over the next couple of days, so I guess we'll find out whether the actual books are any good: keep an eye on these bloggers:
Trish Anderson Brandon Barr Wayne Thomas Batson Jim Black Justin Boyer Grace Bridges Amy Browning Jackie Castle Valerie Comer CSFF Blog Tour D. G. D. Davidson Chris Deanne Jeff Draper April Erwin Beth Goddard Marcus Goodyear Andrea Graham Jill Hart Katie Hart Sherrie Hibbs Timothy Hicks Christopher Hopper Becca Johnson Jason Joyner Kait Karen Dawn King Tina Kulesa Mike Lynch Margaret Karen McSpadden Melissa Meeks Rebecca LuElla Miller Mirtika or Mir's Here Eve Nielsen John W. Otte John Ottinger Lyn Perry Deena Peterson Rachelle Cheryl Russel Ashley Rutherford Hanna Sandvig Chawna Schroeder James Somers Rachelle Sperling Speculative Faith Robert Treskillard Jason Waguespac Daniel I. Weaver Laura Williams Timothy Wise

For anyone still reading, and bothered how my writing expedition went this month, the wheels sort of fell off last week when Her Babyship got sick. Not badly, just enough to distract my attention from writing. I did get that short story finished, but it was very hurried to get it on time and within the word limits, so I don't expect any prizes. Which of course means I can revisit it in a couple of months - I'll probably trim it to its original size and post it somewhere (probably here) as a flash piece (depending on how short I think it should be and what you define as flash, of course...)

And another problem arose with the timeline of Project Seven, which looks increasingly like being set sometime after the London Olympics.

Time Crash

I know there are people reading this that wouldn't have seen Children in Need last week but might like to know about the Doctor Who bonus scene.

I could waste your time by going on about how it sums up everything good about Doctor Who in one eight minute scene, but I think it would be better just to let you watch it for yourselves if you haven't already done so.

As far as I can tell the beeb uploaded it with embedding disabled, so I'm going to do the decent thing and just give you the link.

Oh, and say that if you like it, give some cash to Pudsey or one of his colonial pals. ;)

Phursday Photos: Brrrrr!

It's our first frosty morning of the winter, and, having the day off work, I thought I'd wander around the garden with a camera for a few minutes. It's not a very big garden though, so all I came back with was this:

But that inspired me to post these, taken on the road up to the Basilica di Superga, which overlooks Turin, way back in February 2005.

Writing, Competitions, and Absent Titles

So yesterday wasn't a particularly productive day, wordcount-wise, although I did manage to scribble a couple of sentences when inspiration struck about the next chapter of the novel. I'll keep that turning over in my mind for a few days now as I need to get that short story finished and mailed off in the next week or so to meet the contest deadline.

Which seems a good point at which to throw in some linky goodness, if only for my own later perusal:

Creative Writing Contests - does exactly what it says on the tin: a whole bunch of poetry, fiction and non-fiction contests and calls for submissions in a handy blog-shaped format. They all seem to be from the US, which is not a whole bunch of use to me, but I subscribed to the feed so I don't miss anything too yummy.

Jacqui Bennett Writers Bureau has a whole list of UK writing competitions, as well as all kinds of other useful stuff.

What I definitely will be doing next year is entering a few more of the Writers' News and Writing Magazine competitions. I've done a couple in the past, without any success, but you know what they say about practice...

And of course, once I've had lots of practice and can do a good short sf story...

But first I need to finish the one I'm working on. Which still doesn't have a title.

Writing update #2

Well, it looks like even without the help of NaNoWriMo, this blog is becoming a somewhat thinly populated blog about writing. Maybe I'll actually write something about writing next time, rather than just copping out like I am.

Still, the writing is coming along: the novel wordcount is at around 1770; if I can keep that pace up I'll easily have enough words to make a novel in 12 months time. Whether they fit together in any coherent way is an entirely different matter of course...

I have, however, hit a slight stumbling block. A passage that actually works quite well in itself simply does not work, chronologically speaking. I tried a little bit of research with a view to rewriting it later; alternatively, I could just set the novel ten years or so into the future, which may render some bits I have yet to write more difficult, but at least I could kid myself I was writing sci-fi after all...

Writing so far this month

So here's my first progress report for those interested (but mainly to keep me honest in my daily writing intentions).

So far I've managed to find somewhere between 20 & 40 minutes every day to do a bit of fiction. I've got a short story project up to about 960 words, which I need to get up to at least 1500 to qualify for the contest I am writing it for. I think another rewrite, a bit more showing not telling, should get me somewhere near the mark without padding.

Didn't get any long stints over the weekend, but spent some time pulling a few ideas together and scribbling notes for Project Seven. I've decided it would be nice to get a first draft of P7 finished in the next 12 months, and maybe participate in NaNo next time round.

Unlikely, but nice.

Total wordage for the month runs to about 2000 so far on the two projects. Which isn't a bad start really.

Spooky coincidence

Last night I was being industrious, and getting some long overdue web updates started elsewhere in my virtual empire.

I was uploading these photos, and decided I should try and find a suitable link to serve as a reminder of what the X-Files movie was all about and what it had to do with Minis.

But I couldn't track down the official movie web page because of all the chatter about the sequel. Well, let's hope that drags some more custom round my little corner of the webbiverse, eh?

I haven't seen the X-Files in a long time. I kind of lost interest in that last season, the one without Mulder, and I think it went on a bit too long. Surely Mulder finding his sister, and Scully becoming the believer, keeping the X-files going with a sceptical partner, surely that was the end?

I dare say I'll go see it, or if Her Babyship doesn't allow, watch it on DVD. Who knows, maybe it will even have the desired effect and send me scurrying out to amazon to get the TV series on DVD...

Phursday Photos: Tintern Abbey

If there's not a ruined castle nearby, an Abbey that Henry VIII got his hands on will do. This one is in the Welsh borderlands.Don't you love that archy goodness?

Is it NaNoWriMo again?

Well, it is tomorrow, and for squillions of wannabe writers like me, that means sitting down reguarly and trying to bash out a 50,000 word novel in 30 days flat.

Only, I will be doing no such thing. There is not even a remote possibility of the day job letting up in November, except for a few days set aside for long overdue tasks like boarding the loft and stowing Her Babyship's disused baby stuff securely, so no chance of getting close to 50k.

But I have been neglecting my writing somewhat lately. So, in a sort of spirit of solidarity with all my insane fellow writers who are diving into the NaNo thing, I'm going to make an effort to write something every day. I can probably cram 20 minutes of fiction writing into a lunch break, or before or after my working day (although that's usually when I write this rubbish, so I don't know what will happen there). There is a novel draft I need to add to, and some short story projects I want to at least attempt. There are plenty of ideas I can try to distill into, if you're lucky, blog-post length.

No targets at the moment, other than just to get back into the habit of writing. I guess I'll start tomorrow and see how far I get. Who knows, maybe I will get to 50k after all....

Tuesday Tunes

It's going to be quickies all week I think, so here's your Sci-fi Tune of the Week:

Buck Rogers by Feeder.



Does that work? My filter messes the 'Tube up....

Cartoon time!

More of the same at The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus.

CSFF Blog Tour: Rewriting the Bible

Well, the tour's officially over, but I'm hoping I might catch a few stragglers here, because I might just say something interesting.

Obviously, I haven't read Bark of the Bog Owl, but I have read a few of the reviews and other posts on the tour this week, so I've picked up that it isn't a guide to recognising the calls of fantastic creatures.

What it is, is a fantasy re-telling of the story of King David, and it is the comments on this aspect of the story which I have been most interested in.

For those who have figured out what Old Testament Space Opera is, it should be fairly clear where I stand on the subject - and why I'm interested in the opinions of readers of CSF.

Opinions like:

The plot is predictable. But how many children's stories aren't predictable? The joy is in the journey and the journey Aidan led me on was most enjoyable.(Sally Apokedak)

Now I'll be the first to admit that once you figure out where Countless as the Stars is going, you have a pretty good idea how it's going to end. I guess the story may be less well known than David and Goliath, but, at heart, it follows very closely the Old Testament story, embellishing it with spaceships, rayguns, and sub-plots of my own invention, all of which I hope would make for an interesting journey.

My problem is that while 'predictable' may be ok for a kids book, following so closely the OT, I have ended up with a lot of sex, drugs and violence. The sex is all behind closed doors, and it's included for good reason (it was in the Bible, after all) but it's enough to rule it out as a kids book - and I fear predictable may be less ok for an adult book.

On the other hand, Brandon Barr said:

Fantasy fiction can retell a story, giving it a new setting, new names, and can
refresh our senses, reminding us of the true power of the story. .

And Becky Miller wrote:

I discovered I had a greater understanding of the Biblical event and yet
experienced a story that was so unique and fun, it was in no way spoiled because
I knew key plot points in advance.

Which are the kinds of things I hoped to achieve in Countless as the Stars. Certainly, I learned a whole lot while studying the Biblical events and trying to relate them to 21st Century life through a science fiction novel.

That's why I translated wine into drugs, and deliberately kept the sex in. (My original intention was to continue the story, and explore the consequences of these actions; there's a semi-plotted sequel in existence, although it may never see the light of day unless some publisher is willing to remix Countless and put both novels out.)

If I were to re-write King David, he would be a computer nerd, dedicated to finding the achilles heel of the genetically engineered super-human Goliath (the pure space opera version already being well known of course - Luke & the Death Star). But I'd include all of David's less admirable traits - I would certainly make him a womaniser (he may be a nerd, but he's a nerd with fame, money and power). He may, for the sake of relating to real life, stop somewhere short of murder to get the woman of his dreams, but you can be sure it would be pretty unpleasant - and surprisingly ungodly.

And, probably, not really suitable for a children's book.

Bark of the Blog Owl

I'm back in familiar territory for this month's blog tour, bluffing my through having never picked up the book in question (which, for the interested among you, is called Bark of the Bog Owl, and is part one of the Wilderking trilogy by Jonathan Rogers.

I won't bore you with a stock synopsis, you can find that on the book's website, or browse through my tourmates' blogs for a proper review. Suffice to say, it's a fantasy novel, and the protagonist is 12 years old - that should be enough to know whether you want to read it or not.

I do have one question though: Why are the heroes of CSF novels all called Aidan? Wilderking's hero is called Aidan Errolson, The Door Within's hero is called Aiden Thomas, and the hero of Countless as the Stars is Aidan Qqayle... Coincidence? Or bizarre subliminal messaging?

Check out these blogs for the answers to none of these questions...

Brandon Barr
Jim Black
Justin Boyer
Grace Bridges
Amy Browning
Jackie Castle
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
D. G. D. Davidson
Chris Deanne
Janey DeMeo
Merrie Destefano or Alien Dream
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Marcus Goodyear
Andrea Graham
Jill Hart
Katie Hart
Sherrie Hibbs
Christopher Hopper
Becca Johnson
Jason Joyner
Karen
Dawn King
Mike Lynch
Rachel Marks
Karen McSpadden
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Eve Nielsen
John W. Otte
Lyn Perry
Deena Peterson
Rachelle
Cheryl Russel
Ashley Rutherford
Hanna Sandvig
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Donna Swanson
Daniel I. Weaver
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise

Tuesday Tunes: Justified & Ancient

I seem to recall saying I would use this feature to review some of the more obscure acts in my music collection.

I'm not sure if the KLF really fit that, since 1990's What Time is Love? brought them to the attention of most of the world, and they didn't exactly avoid publicity, but that's where we'll start.

I can't remember what it was about them (although I'm sure the whole Mu Mu thing had me curious) but something got me hooked, and a lot of my pocket money in the early 90s was spent buying up any record I could find by the KLF or their alter-egos the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, resulting in a collection of remixes of some tracks, none of which sound anything like the radio version...

And lately, thanks to the wonders of e-bay, I have started to fill the gaps in my collection, notably a copy of The JAMs' original and unedited LP 1987, an album which straddles the thin line between genius and lunacy as only Drummond & Cauty can.

The album wavers from the sublime to the ridiculous right from the opening Hey Hey We Are Not The Monkees ('We don't even like the Monkees/I don't think I ever liked the Monkees', King Boy shouts, before the now familiar refrain 'We're justified, and we're ancient...') and frequently detours to the utterly insane - random sampling from last weeks Top of the Pops anyone?

The (then) new technique of sampling other people's records was abused pretty much indiscriminately, at its best on Don't Take Five (Take What You Want), which takes its title from Dave Brubeck's heavily sampled Take Five, and All You Need Is Love, which starts with a Beatles sample, and relies heavily on the Government's 'Don't Die of Ignorance' AIDS awareness campaign and Samantha Fox's Touch Me to make what sounds suspiciously like a political point...

Side 2 starts, bizarrely, with Mu Re Con, apparently recorded by accident when a Vietnamese session musician sang it while the tapes were running, and Bill and Jimmy happened to like it...

From there we descend again into madness: The Queen And I, the infamous track which took pretty much the whole of Dancing Queen without permission and had Abba forcing withdrawal and destruction of the record... which subsequently became the basis of much of the JAMs 'mythos', right up to the KLF's huge hit 3am Eternal.

The final track on the album, Next, takes similar liberties with copyright, taking obvious samples from Stevie Wonder's Superstition, and The Lonely Goatherd from The Sound of Music, among numerous, less obvious, others.

It is completely bonkers, and at times virtually unlistenable, but with far more high points than low. And it's an essential part of the JAMs/KLF story, which so intrigued me as a yoof...

Now, since I had such fun tracking down obscure Mars related songs the other week, I thought I'd add another little feature to Tuesday Tunes...

Sci-fi Song of the Week

Normally I'd suggest you all try and track it down from your favourite download site, but you might need to hit e-bay for the inaugural offering, which, to tie in with the rest of the post, is of course...

Doctorin' the Tardis by The Timelords (also known as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, furthermore known as the KLF).

Miss, I wannabe a Marcher Lord!

Ah, to be a careers adviser in the 13th Century, when there was no more noble calling than to defend England's borders against the Welsh.

Of course, things have moved on a bit since then, and nowadays Marcher Lords are out on the borderlands of fiction, setting up an outpost for Christian speculative fiction. Or, as Jeff Gerke puts it, 'weird' Christian fiction.

Weird Christian fiction eh? Now that's an idea I can relate to. So I - and I'm sure, many visitors to this blog (many? Do I even have many visitors?) - will be watching Marcher Lord Press over the next 12 months. I may well become a regular customer. If I put my mind to it and write something good (and weird!), who knows, there may even be an outside chance of becoming a MLP author (well, it's a more realistic ambition than becoming the next Iain Banks, isn't it?)

Personal ambitions aside, I wish MLP the best of luck, and look forward to some quality Christian weirdness next Christmas.

Oh, and I really should go check out his forums & collaborative fiction site some time.

What are the chances?

Not that I was bored and just messing about online instead of working or anything, but by a curious coincidence, this happened:
Well, it amused me anyway.

miscellaneous bloggery 9

I've spotted a few interesting titbits around over the last week or two, which I was going to share but Elliot beat me to it.

This looked fun too: What 5 scifi movies do you watch over and over? Well, based purely on the movies I've actually bothered to buy on DVD....

• Star Wars (Episodes 4 & 5. Is that two choices?)
• The Matrix
• Serenity
• Back to the Future (Part 2 if I could only take one)
• ...and, if the judges are lenient and let The Empire Strike Back, I'll put Ghostbusters in for light entertainment.

And here's a little something that's been amusing me lately: The Ongoing Adventures of ASBO Jesus.

Proper writing may resume shortly. If I can find the time.