Stephen Aryan

Real Ale: Heron Porter – Two Roses Brewery

A rich deep scarlet beer with chocolate on the nose and a full round smooth flavour.

This 4.2% Porter is one of my favourites from a local Yorkshire brewery, the Two Roses Brewery. So far, it’s definitely in my top 10 porters. At the moment I drink more of this, Ilkley Black (which I covered a while back) and one other I’m going to talk about soon from the Copper Dragon Brewery, than any other real ales. I’m definitely developing quite a think for porters and ruby ales over pale and stouts. I’m also slowly working out which hops I like and don’t as more and more breweries list which type they use on the bottle or website.

This ale has also been described as having hints of chocolate, bananas and cherries. I’ve no idea about the last two, but there is definitely a hint of chocolate, but this isn’t a sweet drink at all. Far from it, in fact there is definitely a slightly earthy taste and it’s so red it’s almost black when poured, so at first glance you might mistake it for a pint of the Irish Black Stuff. It’s only 4.2% so it’s very light and incredibly smooth to drink and a single pint or bottle doesn’t leave you feeling bloated or heavy. Very little fizz or froth, a lovely taste without a sour aftertaste.

There’s a lot of squabbling and splitting hairs about porters and stouts, which I won’t go into, but for me personally, I prefer it when porters are not heavy drinks. Stouts are usually much stronger and heavier. You can’t have more than two without feeling like you’ve had a big meal and need a sleep. The porters I tend to drink are nothing like that and you could have two without feeling bloated, drunk, or that you’ve just eaten a giant roast dinner! All of which is a long way of saying you could have a couple of these and easily have room for something else.

For 2013, Heron Porter is in my top 10 real ales. Highly recommended.

Finding Your Voice

Quite a while ago in a previous post I mentioned finding your voice and said it was a topic I would come back to. It’s a difficult thing to talk about, and I’m not in any position to offer advice on the subject, so I’m just going to put down some of my thoughts in a vaguely ordered fashion. I guess another reason it’s taken me so long is that I’m still not sure if I’ve found my own voice yet. I can point at certain characteristics common to my work, but beyond that it’s a hard thing to judge from here, so someone else might be better at it once they’ve read some of my work. Or I will look back in a few years and it will be a lot easier.

Another reason I’ve hesitated is that I think for most people the process of finding their voice isn’t something that happens overnight. Some young writers might get it right first time and have a clear picture of themselves, and therefore can write with a clear and precise perspective. Perhaps they just matured faster than others, but I think that’s rare and not everyone is like that. We all have to do a lot of growing up first. I believe the majority of people still have a lot of growing up to do even in their 20s, so it takes time to settle, to know yourself, to know who you are and therefore find your true voice. There are always exceptions to the rule, but I think maturity definitely plays a part.

Growing up, and to this day, I admire many writers, and for a time I aped their style in an attempt to find my own. There are a number of issues that are very important to me that might not be top 10 concerns for other people, and so I wrote stories with quite unsubtle references as I wanted to see these topics explored and discussed. I wrote TV scripts for some of my favourite shows that had open door policies, and once I’d got out of the habit of putting a brand new character I’d created front and centre ahead of the main cast, I tried to learn how to copy the house style and rhythm. I received some positive feedback and kept writing and trying new things, new mediums and new genres. This helped expand my horizons, find out what I liked and didn’t, and therefore what I wanted to do with my writing and what I wanted to avoid.

I’m not sure I believe the rule about writing X million words before you become good at it, whatever that means, but I definitely think it is a long process. Whether that is years gestating somewhere in the back of your head, constantly writing and rewriting before you finally sit down, or years at the keyboard constantly writing and inching forward towards something better and sharper. I think it’s different for everyone. I believe Joe Abercrombie’s First Law trilogy was his first major piece of fiction, but he’s spoken several times about thinking about the story for many years. About what he wanted to do with the series, what he wanted to avoid and what tropes he wanted to twist. Whereas contrast that with Patrick Rothfuss, who spent 13 years or so writing The Name of the Wind and the Kingkiller books. The amount of time they actually spent working on it, be it in their heads or on the page, could be about the same.

Another way to look at it is from writing about other people, their styles and characteristics. I’ll stick to fantasy authors and comic book writers as they’re two areas I know fairly well. Joe Abercrombie is known for writing characters that are fairly grey and you’d never mix up one of his novels with one by Ursula Le Guin. In the comics world, Jonathan Hickman is known for writing comics that are all pieces of a much larger puzzle, or are layers of an onion. He recently did a long run on Fantastic Four, which lasted a few years, and it was one big story, with lots of other stories wrapped inside. Brian Bendis is known for his realistic dialogue, and for reinventing old characters and franchises, and making them cool, interesting and relevant to the audience of today. Ed Brubaker has written a lot of espionage and crime comics, so he is very good at stories that constantly surprise the reader. When I pick up a comic by each of these writers I know a little of what to expect, but even if were given one of their comics with a blank cover, I could work out who had written it. The same goes for fantasy authors. There are similarities, different stripes within the same sub-genres (particularly with fantasy), but each writer has unique qualities.

If you were to create a word cloud about yourself and then zoom out, and zoom out again, what words would stick out the most? What do you spend time talking about? What is important to you? What are the themes you want to explore? Even more simply, as the theme may not come out until later, what type of story do you want to write? Writing stories about important issues can work, but whether it’s coming from an environmental, religious, ethical or moral standpoint, I think you need to be careful and not come across as preachy and holier than thou.

The other piece of advice people often trot out is ‘write what you know’. That works, but only up to a point. I predominantly write fantasy, so there are lots of sharp and pointy weapons. I’ve done my homework but even so, I’ve never been in a real battle surrounded by hundreds of others and I never will be. Creativity and passion has to come into it, because if you’re not interested in writing about it, why would anyone else be interested in reading about it? Writing is hard, and it can be difficult, but when you are in the moment, when you are in the groove and the words are flowing, it’s a remarkable feeling and there is nothing like it and at those moments it’s very enjoyable. At other times it can be a massive ball-ache and a slog, but hey, no job on this planet is fun 365 days a year. Not even being a chocolate taster and this is coming from someone with a massive sweet tooth!

So, I’ve no idea if any of that makes any kind of sense, but as I said it’s not an easy thing to write about which is kind of why I’ve avoided it for so long.

Miserable isn’t Cool

There are lots of good comedy TV shows and films out there, so this doesn’t apply to everything, but in the last seven to ten years or so, there has been a noticeable growth of grim, depressing and gritty output on TV and at the cinema. Now, some of it is distinctly linked to the character to some degree, so I’m only going to mention Batman and Dexter in passing. The former doesn’t have much to laugh about in the Nolan films, but there is definitely a delicious dark river of humour and laughs in the latter. So putting those to one side, I’ve found myself walking away from certain TV shows and absolutely ignoring some film franchises because they’re just depressing and will sour my mood.

I’m not sure if the wealth of this material can be blamed on the current world climate being in the toilet, but in some ways I think it is linked to it. During a recession and times of hardship, the sale of chocolate tends to increase. People want a brief temporary boost to lift their mood. In the same way I think on some level we like to see other people being a bit miserable and upset, because we’re all feeling it. I’m not saying we like seeing people being injured or hurt, but I think seeing people share in our collective misery is somehow soothing. Misery loves company is a well worn saying and very true. Again, I feel I should stress, not everything is like this, and we don’t all want to feel this way all of the time. We want to watch stuff that will make us laugh and cry, that will lift us up, make us think about the future, family and believe in heroes. Films that will inspire, make people look up at the stars in wonder and imagine the possibilities and consider taming the impossible and making it into reality. I still want all of that, but sometimes, I also want to watch the darker content.

For whatever reason, I think I’ve moved out of that phase in my head and I don’t enjoy swimming in that collective pool of misery anymore. I’ve purposefully avoided certain TV shows because they’re just too bleak, despite all of their critical acclaim, such as Breaking Bad. I watched the first series about a year ago and haven’t gone back to it, despite the amazing performances, particularly by Bryan Cranston. I may not know the definite end of the series, but the show is a train wreck in slow motion over several years. You can hear the whistle and thrum of the engine, feel the vibrations while still lying on the tracks. I’ve no desire to witness the destruction of a man as he sinks deeper and deeper.

I’ve also become reluctant to watch some TV shows that I previously enjoyed a great deal, such as the Walking Dead because there’s no relief, no real joy, and no hope. I watched a few episodes last night, but found myself doing something else at the same time, and only keeping one eye on the screen. The acting was great, the sets and location were amazing, but it was just more of the same. I fell out of love with the comic a couple of years ago but have continued to read the trades when they’re loaned to me by a friend. Even so, I recently told him to stop passing them to me, as it’s just more of the same, misery, death and destruction as mankind tears itself apart in the shattered remains of the old world. Sometimes there are brief moments of joy or sparks of hope, and that can make them all the more poignant, but at the same time it also means wading through a lot of smelly brown stuff to get there for a few seconds of relief. I’ve already written about Man of Steel, so I won’t repeat myself, but for me the film was a huge let down on some levels, one of which is there was very little to inspire. The symbol on his chest stands for hope, but there was very little in the film that gave me hope for the future.

I’m also becoming very tired with snarky journalists and columnists who tear things apart and seem to relish it. Whether it’s a book, TV show, film or even a celebrity in the public eye, there seems to a feast of people queuing up to destroy them and tear them down. Recently critics have ripped into the new Lone Ranger film and before that they went to town on John Carter, which was actually a lot of fun. I’ve not seen the Lone Ranger, but I doubt it is as bad as they claim and even so, it’s not meant to be anything other than a light, enjoyable summer romp for all the family. I mean look at the main character and Johnny Depp’s costume! It’s not a historical representation of anything. It’s also made by the same people as Pirates, so that gives you an idea of what to expect and yet they seemed to love filling entire pages with venom. The celebrity thing, well, people seem to enjoy that, so you could argue the media are just giving the people what they want. I still think it’s shameful and actually none of our business. Personally I have no interest and don’t care about who slept with who, or how many pounds someone put on, or their new haircut.

I’m not going to go into the grimdark fantasy thing too much as people have written about that a lot elsewhere, but I will say when every character is grey in a book it’s hard to find any heroes and you may come away feeling a bit grimy. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with writing about heroes, people that inspire and lead by example. The black hat and white hat fantasy books of my youth are gone, Eddings and Brooks etc, but I’m now more interested in reading about good guys trying to help people, whatever that means in 2013, and I use the term good guys very loosely.

So I think I’ve turned a corner somewhere in my head. Things are still pretty grim, we’re still in a worldwide recession, but I don’t want to add to that anymore. I’ve no desire to go back to pouring more of the really bleak stuff into my head that doesn’t need to be there. I might be missing out on some great stuff, but I’m ok with that.

Man of Steel

I’ve held off writing a post about this, mostly because I wanted to get some distance from the film, so I could write about it with some perspective. In the end I managed to say everything I wanted to on the latest episode of the Comic Book Outsiders podcast I co-host with Scott Grandison. We’re now putting out episodes as and when we feel the need, although we used to be fortnightly. So if you’ve only just heard about this now for the first time, there are 5 years of podcasts on iTunes to get through. I’ll wait here until you’re finished.

I ended up speaking about the film it a fairly calm and mostly wounded manner, although I did have a good rant about some fans reactions to the recent Doctor Who casting news. So if you’ve not seen Man of Steel or don’t want to know who the new Doctor is, then I’d skip those bits.

Looking ahead to Man of Steel 2, or whatever they end up calling it, I remain nervous and anxious. I’m worried because the same director looks set to sit in the chair, and I sincerely hope all of those involved in making the big decisions about the new film listen to the genuine concerns that have been raised. Not the fanboy moans about the shield being the wrong shape, or Jimmy being Jenny, or a thousand other tiny things that don’t actually matter. I mean the big things. The contradictions. Clark apparently not caring about the wanton destruction he inflicts upon humanity in one breath and then doing something totally against character to save a single family. The big stuff, the character issues that sit at the very heart of the character and the message he stands for. It may not be what Siegel and Shuster intended when they created Superman, but that is what he has come to mean over the last seventy years. Hope, caring for your fellow man, that every life counts, that there is good in every person and that we can be great as a people in time.

Dark and gritty and humourless doesn’t work for Superman. He’s the light, Batman is the shadow. They work so well together, sometimes, because they are so different. He wants to bring Batman into the light, he wants Batman to believe more in humanity and the belief that there is good in every one. Naive, perhaps. Inspiring, absolutely. Batman experienced first hand as a boy the evil and desperation that lurks in the hearts of men. He doesn’t always see the best in them. That’s one of the many differences between them. Right now, in the new Superman film world, they’re both different shades of grey.

Casting wise for Batman, I hope they go for someone older, with an edge. Like John Hamm, or Josh Brolin, not someone who is young dandy with a chiselled jaw. We need acting chops, we need gravitas, not dreamy eyes and great abs. Time will tell if they listen at all and who they cast, but rather than being excited, as I am by the prospect of more Avengers films, I’m just worried and nervous, which isn’t a good thing.

The evolution of MMOs

I’ve been playing computer games at home since they’ve been available. All the way back to the ZX Spectrum 81, which took forever to load, crashed all the time, and was a spaceship of blocks shooting aliens made of other blocks. Not quite Pong, but not far off. Zoom forward a couple of decades and now the computer games industry is a multi-billion dollar global business. A really popular game, often as part of a big franchise like Halo, can easily make more money than some fairly big movies.

MMOs, or Massively Multiplayer Online games, are relatively new, and the first one I remember playing regularly is Everquest which came out in 1999. MMOs are giant (often fantasy-based) worlds where thousands of players interact with each other while doing quests, seeking treasure and exploring. Lots of magic and swords, epic history, sweeping gorgeous landscapes and amazing monsters. That’s putting it very simply but you get the idea. Everquest was basic in a lot of ways but incredibly advanced in others. It allowed me to play the game with several friends who were dotted around the country. Co-opt playing over the internet wasn’t possible before broadband when we all had dial-up. Some of you reading this are probably wondering what dial-up is! Anyway this was also the first time we had a chat channel open, Skype usually, and we talked to each other while questing and working together as a team. It was the closest we could get to being in the world without virtual reality. I’m still waiting for my VR helmet.

Since Everquest there have been dozens of other MMOs, with more advanced graphics, bigger worlds, more powerful game engines, but that’s the nature of the industry. It never stops changing and is always moving forward. Elder Scrolls is another franchise of fantasy based games, although this was always a one player game that wasn’t online, that embraced many of the aspects of an MMO. You could just wander off and explore if you wanted to and didn’t have to spend all day doing quests. You could craft your own objects, buy your own horses, a ship and even a house. These too grew more and more advanced until the most recent in the series, Skyrim, which by all accounts was an amazing game. Everyone I’ve spoken to has said how awesome it is and I have held off buying it as I know it would turn into a time suck and I’d become addicted very easily. I know I would enjoy it, and it would be 200-300 hours of play time until I reached the end, but right now I want to put that time into other stuff.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the biggest MMO, probably of all time, which is WarCraft. I started playing it pretty much from the start, then went away for a while, then came back and eventually got bored and left again. I’ve not played it in a few years now, but it is still very popular with millions of players around the world and they keep bringing out new content to keep it fresh.

I like to stay up to date with the news from the MMO gaming world and I know that an Elder Scrolls MMO is in development and is due out next year at some point. I was excited by it and I know several of my friends will start playing it the minute it is released. However, having now seen 30 minutes of game footage I’m less excited. In some ways Bethesda Studios have an advantage over some of their competitors because they’ve had several games in the Elder Scrolls franchise, all fantasy based, and each new game has been a dramatic improvement on the last. So their online game should be something amazing. From the footage I’ve seen so far, it looks nice, has great graphics, resembles Skyrim but of course is also online. So you can search for groups, teleport to dungeons and so on. So far everything looks the same as all of the other modern MMOs. I haven’t seen anything new that made me sit up and take notice. Don’t get me wrong, if I played it, the game would no doubt keep me engaged for 3-6 months, but once I’ve explored and done quite a few quests I would lose interest and drop it. I have no desire to grind for the next tier of equipment, or endlessly run through dungeons in larger and larger groups. Been there, done that half a dozen times already across as many games.

The other new MMO that has piqued my interest is from Sony Online Entertainment, the people behind Everquest. They are developing a new Everquest game. The original spawned a sequel in 2004, and amazingly both games are still going, although they are now on a free to play model, with extras which players pay for. This model has become increasingly popular in recent years as more traditional PC and console games companies try to retain players and hold their interest as more and more people move to playing games on their phones and tablet devices. Anyway, from what I’ve been reading this week, Sony went back to the drawing board and twice scrapped their plans before coming up with Everquest Next.

For all the shiny graphics the new games are promising with more realistic looking landscapes with grass flowing in the wind, and clouds moving across the sky, that part of the game interests me the least. The new character classes and fancy moves, combos and explosions are nice, but again, just shiny window dressing. If it’s the same game over and over again in a new skin, then why bother? Some players will get bored quickly and move on. I know I will.

With Everquest Next, Sony are promising something new and only a few days ago they released online several videos showing content, but more importantly, new ideas and a new approach to the game. They outlined several radical ideas, like AI that learns or adapts, so the orcs don’t always spawn at the same point in the road forever, but move depending on risk and reward to them. Towns and cities can be destroyed and affected by players and more importantly, new places can be built. Players can not only create and craft objects, but they can create homes and buildings. The world and ground you stand on can also be affected, so players could dig a hole at any point in the game and mine for minerals, or encounter underground monsters and secret cities and buried artefacts from thousands of years of history built into the layers of the world. So the landscape is constantly changing as events move through the world and you don’t have to wait for a new add-on expansion every two years to change a zone.

More info can be seen here and on Part1 of the video here. For me, the ability to create and build, and the ability to log into the game on Day 1 and then Day 200 and find a totally different world that is constantly changing, is far more interesting than better graphics and fancy moves. The ability to create an object or even the perfect house or boat, that will then be used by hundreds or thousands of others in the game and earn a commission every time is interesting to me. It sounds a bit like a cross between the old game Civilisation with an MMO, except this time you’re not controlling the entire world, just living in and having to cope with change.

I’m not just looking to run around with a sword in someone else’s imagination anymore. I’ve done that a lot already. I’ve been the warrior, the priest, the wizard, now I want to do more. I want to experience what the warrior does on his days off. I want to be the master brewer or alchemist or shipwright or chef. I want a fully rounded, more immersive experience. I want to experience all aspects (within reason) of the character’s life within the game, not just the fighting part. Some of this are already available but only a limited capacity. To create the perfect brewery in a border town and plan to settle down and focus on that, only for the whole town to be overrun and burned down by rampaging orcs, forcing you to pick up the sword again and go on the hunt. That is exciting. That is interesting. More importantly, that is NEW in the game.

Of course I remain a little sceptical, as quite often games companies promise a lot and then have to scale back and back until you don’t recognise what was delivered. But I’m also trying to be less cynical and remain optimistic and I’ve even signed up to the Beta for EQ Next Landmark. So we’ll see what happens but something needs to radically shake up the MMO industry as the games are becoming increasingly repetitive and just the same kind of game with a new skin and shinier graphics, over and over again.

Real Ale: Kraftwerk – Revolutions Brewing Company

Mid-brown beer hopped with noble German hops. Medium-bodied, moderate levels of bitterness and a balanced finish. Somewhere between English brown ale and German Alt-Bier.

This 4.5% beer comes from the Castleford based, Revolutions Brewery, where they pay homage to music from the analogue age, before digital and downloads. All of the names of their ales also come from music and they produce special brews to help promote brands. As it says on their website, love music, love beer.

This is definitely not your usual real ale and as mentioned above it does taste a bit like a German beer, but is dark and tasty without tasting like a stout, as it’s only 4.5%. So it’s not a heavy drink at all and it has a very mild bitter aftertaste. It’s very tasty and something rather special in my opinion.

Another thing I really liked about it is the more real ale I drink, the more I think about brewing as a science. To me the brewers are wizards or chefs, conjuring up the perfect pint, with a drop of this, a pinch of that, and two spoonfuls of something else. I know there are real ales like this one out there, and as a fan of dark ales and ruby ales I’m going to come across all of them sooner or later, but even so, they will be slightly different. This is because the brewery has approached it from a slightly different angle, and even with the same ingredients two brewers would produce something slightly diffferent.

Anyway, Revolutions Brewery has some great real ales and they love their music, so if that sounds like your sort of thing then check them out.

Recharged

I’m back from my holiday, feeling refreshed and recharged and ready to face the second half of the year. I saved up some favourite books I’d been holding onto for months, and a couple of new ones, and then spent most of the week lying by a pool, drinking cold beer and reading in the Portuguese sunshine. I’m not the fastest reader but still managed to get through four and a half in a week, which is pretty good for me. There is an earlier post about which books I took with me and below are my initial thoughts.

This was my second time reading The Name of the Wind, and actually, it was more satisfying this time. It must be two years since I first read it, and although I had an idea of the overall arc of the story, I had forgotten so much. So many details, so many little clues and nuances, and now, with the whole story fresh in my mind I am ready to dive into The Wise Man’s Fear. It’s a monster of a book, plus I have the weighty hardback, but apart from it being a tax on my wrists, I can’t wait to start it.

Small side note. It was recently announced that The Kingkiller Chronicle has been optioned for a TV series. In the wake of the enormous, galactic success, of Game of Thrones, it was inevitable that TV execs and others would be looking for another fantasy series they could adapt. I’m really not sure about this. It’s far too early to be worried, it may never actually happen and could get stuck in development hell, but my initial gut reaction was not one of celebration. Now, I love Game of Thrones, and I read the books before the TV series, and am also a fan of the TV series. The Kingkiller Chronicle is not even remotely like Game of Thrones, it’s so very different, maybe more so than some people might realise. It’s definitely a wait and see. I could be proven totally wrong and the TV show might be amazing, so for now I’ll say no more and just stay quiet.

The Eighth Court was the final book in The Courts of the Feyre series by Mike Shevdon and although I really enjoyed it, so much so that I read the whole thing in one day, I was left feeling a little sad because there will no more tales of Blackbird and Dogstar. I feel that Shevdon has barely scratched the surface with some of the characters and the world he has created but it’s not my book or my world, or my story for that matter. I’d love to see more stories set in this world and I guess only time well tell if Shevdon comes back to it. As I’ve mentioned before I’ve very picky about my urban fantasy, and this is a brilliant series that I highly recommend. So if you’ve never read them, savour the books and don’t race through them, as four is all you are getting.

I gobbled up Exit Kingdom in a day as well. This is the second book by Alden Bell, set in the same world he created with The Reapers are the Angels. It’s a prequel, of sorts, but it also references a few events in Reapers, but without spoiling anything. So in theory you could read this first and then Reapers and it would not spoil the story. The dialogue is glorious and overly dramatic at times, but it is also very in keeping with the world Bell has created and I found myself loving the rhythms and sound of it. The story is dark, twisted, unpredictable and bleak at times and once again it is a story not about zombies, but about humanity. In my opinion, this and Reapers are far superior to some of the other zombie material out there at the moment that is flooding the comic book world, our TV screens and even the cinemas. A fantastic read and I am keen to read more by Bell, whether set in this world, or something completely new.

Ack-Ack Macaque is just a giant bag of fun, wrapped up in a monkey shaped blanket. Ok, I admit that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but suffice to say there are a lot of ideas thrown onto the page and they all gel and come together nicely in the end. Powell has a lot of fun with the story and dialogue in particular and it really translates into making it an enjoyable experience for the reader. I know that this is only the beginning as there is still a lot to explore in this strange new world Powell has created with its own alternate history. Hive Monkey, the second book featuring AAM is due out next year and after reading this I am really looking forward to seeing where he goes next.

Can’t really comment on the fifth book, Ice Forged, as I’m still reading it, but so far it’s a down and dirty fantasy series with several likeable characters and some rather hideous villains.

Next up will be The Wise Man’s Fear, and then Rebellion, the second Blood and Feathers book by Lou Morgan.

So what have you been reading over the summer? Can you recommend any new urban fantasy series I might not have heard about before?

Heroic Scents

Inspired by the recent news that Stan the Man Lee has released his own branded cologne, I thought for a bit of fun it would be nice to come up with branded aftershaves for superhero characters. I’m slightly disappointed Stan Lee’s is not called Excelsior! and it has to have the exclamation mark afterwards because that’s how you say it.

Anyway, about three months ago a similar conversation came up and I brainstormed some ideas with Gav from the Sidekickcast.

So far we’ve got SNIKT for Wolverine. Thwip! for Spider-man. Armor for Tony Stark and possible three different ones for Captain America called Red, White and Blue. Still not 100% happy with the Cap ones.

Had a few ideas for Thor on twitter, but none of them have really rocked me just yet.

So, send in your ideas for other smellies. Subtle and clever wins….a firm handshake from me. Cos it was my idea, I’m the final judge.

Projects Update July 2013

Thought I would just do a quick general post on the projects I’m currently working on.

The Novel – The next draft has gone off to my agent for her feedback. I’ve timed it just right so that I can go on holiday in a few days and I won’t spend the entire time pondering, staring off into the distance and making notes. I’m going to chill out for a week, switch off, unplug and just unwind. It will also give me time to ponder (more quietly in the background) what I’ve written, or defrag it and reorder it in my head, to fall back on my old computing terms. Hopefully when I return I can then listen to the next set of comments and be a more detached and hopefully make the next draft even better.

The Game – I’ve been quiet on this for a while, but we’re starting to move forward again. This is a work for hire job I did where I wrote the bulk of the main story. I have to be very vague on details, but I can say it’s currently in testing, so once testing is far enough along, they will plant a flag in the sand and announce a release date. The game is innovative in many ways and unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, which is one of the goals we set out with. I’m very excited to see what happens with this, but it is also another string to my bow as writing this was unlike anything I’d done before and if I get a chance I’d like to try it again in the future.

Flux – This is a comic mini series I’ve co-written with Pete Rogers and with art by Maysam Barza. We’ve now sent the submission package off into the wide world to a couple of comic book publishers. Now comes the awful waiting, the nail biting, the gnashing of teeth as we wait for an answer. In the meantime Maysam is cracking on with the next chunk of art.

ComicSeries2 – I’d not co-written something before and when I approached Pete about writing what would eventually become Flux, it was with a lot of trepidation. Writing is normally a solitary affair, except for TV where you have writers rooms (which I’ve not tried, but would love to), so I had no idea if it was a good idea and if it would work. I chose Pete very carefully too as I thought we were well suited and I thought we would get along, but again there was no guarantee. Thankfully my leap of faith paid off, it worked really well and we immediately starting talking about doing something else. There’s a working title for this but I’m keeping it mum as it might become the actual title. With this project we’re doing something completely different to Flux, totally different genre and approach and right now it’s in the early stages. But I’m feeling the same level of excitement and am looking forward to seeing what we can come up with together.

The River – Adam, Ryan and I put Empyre on the shelf, as despite what we thought was a cracking and interesting idea, with amazing art (that’s me saying that not Adam, as he doesn’t think he’s very good!), the publishers we submitted to weren’t interested. We were told there’s too much like it out there already. A big shame but we did learn a lot from it, so we just have to chalk it up to experience and move on. What Adam and I are cooking up now with The River (working title) is pretty off the wall, but I’m also keeping it pretty focused which is something I seem good at doing. It’s very different to anything I’ve developed before and we came up with the core of this idea together. It’s based on lots of different things we’re both interested in, so we keep brainstorming lots of little touches, which is making the world feel more realistic and lived in. When I get back from my holiday I’m going to press on with this with the goal of having another submission ready before the end of the year. Sounds easy, six months away and all, but experience has taught me lots of stuff gets in the way, so Christmas is reasonable and any earlier is brilliant.

Dapper Chimp web comic – Digital comics are going through a revolution, there is so much innovation in that space at the moment it’s amazing. I’m not a full convert, but I really like some of what is going on, such as what Mark Waid and others are doing at Thrillbent.com and what they’ve done with MonkeyBrain comics. They’ve produced short, punchy comics that are only available digitally, and at some point may be available as physical collections. Several different publishers have expressed an interest in different titles and they are printing the trades. Dapper Chimp was set up by Pete Rogers and the first digital comic will soon be available on ComiXology. I’ve recently developed a superhero satire in the mould of Mystery Men, as a mini series, and the idea is to publish it exclusively via Dapper Chimp and then if it does well, produce a physical printed edition at some point. The story is ready, now all I need is an artist. So if you’re a budding artist, looking for something funny but also with heart, get in touch.

The second novel – I’d actually started working on this before I submitted my first. I’ve got the spine of the story sorted, the characters are ready, most of the main beats are there and I’ve written the first couple of chapters. This has been put on hold of late but I’ve been poking around at it again recently, looking forward to it and also backwards to book 1 to make sure they fit together. They’re not connected like you’d find in a trilogy, as each book in the series is a standalone story, but there is connecting tissue between them as they’re set in the same world and linear in time. I guess I’ll inch this along as and when I can in the next few months and just see how I do.

All of that sounds like a lot, but everything moves at different speeds, so it’s rare for many things to overlap. Occasionally I do start to flap a bit, and what follows are several late nights until the pressure is off a bit, but overall I am able to juggle different things quite well. It also follows the whole ethos of not putting all my eggs into one basket.

Holiday Reads

It’s almost time for my summer holiday so I thought I’d do a quick post on what I’m going to be reading while relaxing by the pool. I’m not a fast reader at all, but when on holiday with few distractions, I can get through about four or five books in a week. So I often save up special books and also add books from authors who are new to me into the mix. I’m also taking a few trade paperbacks I’ve been saving up from my to read pile.

The Eighth Court by Mike Shevdon from Angry Robot Books.
I have very particular tastes when it comes to urban fantasy, and just can’t get on with some series, so finding something that I really like is tricky. Shevdon’s books are one of my favourites and this is the fourth and final book in the series which is set in modern day in the UK. There are some scenes in London, but it is not London-centric, and throughout the course of the series we get to explore all sorts of places and buildings with historic resonance. I’m being very vague on purpose to avoid spoilers because he mixes real world history with the fantastical. We follow an everyman into this bizarre world hidden in plain sight and delve into the world of the feyre and a secret history of the world.

Exit Kingdom by Alden Bell from Panmacmillan. This is the second book by Alden Bell set in a post apocalyptic world where zombies have overrun the world. The first book, The Reapers are the Angels, is one of my favourite books, probably ever. I’ve also read it twice already and it only came out maybe two years ago. Yeah, it’s that good. I came to his first book completely cold, I knew nothing about it, and absolutely loved it. In a review I compared it to I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, but with zombies instead of vampires, so it’s really about the people, the situation and coping, it’s about isolation and humanity and not so much about running away from shambling ghouls. It’s also set many years after the fall, so it is not a world where everything has just fallen apart. The first book focused on a young girl called Temple and along the way she came into contact with an interesting character called Moses Todd. This book is set before the events of Reapers and this time Moses is the main character, along with his brother. I’ve been holding on to my copy of this since March when it came out and saving it. I’m really looking forward to it.

Ice Forged by Gail Z. Martin from Orbit books. Martin is an author I’ve been aware of for a while, but I’ve not managed to find time to read something by her until now. The blurb for this book sounded exactly like my kind of thing, and it is a nice dash of fantasy, which is different enough from the other two books on my list so far. So I’ve avoided reading any reviews or interviews about this and am going to come to it, and her writing, completely cold and see what happens.

This is also the first book in a new series by Martin, so if I enjoy her work I can back and pick up some of her other novels in the interim until the next book in this series comes out! Discovering a debut author is always brilliant, but coming to a more well established one that I’ve just missed out on until now for whatever reason is a real treat as there is a lot more to read with no waiting.

Ack-Ack Macaque by Gareth L Powell from Solaris Books.
The first time I heard anything about this book was at Eastercon this year where Gareth was doing a reading. The reading was funny, crazy, full of action and very exciting. After investigating a little further and reading the blurb on the back I immediately picked up a copy at the convention. What’s not to love? A one-eyed cigar smoking monkey who was a Spitfire pilot in WW II. I’m sold on that sentence alone. From what I’ve read in reviews and from overhearing other people talking it, I think the book is going to be jam packed full of action and humour, making it another very different book to the others I am taking with me.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss from Gollancz.
It’s easy to assume everyone knows what this book is about and who Rothfuss is, but I’m also aware other people will be horrified that I’d never read a book by Gail Z. Martin until now as she is not a new author. The fact is there are a lot of authors out there, the fantasy market is more crowded than twenty years ago, and all of us only have so much time and varying levels of awareness via our various media channels. I’m very aware of who Brandon Sanderson is, and I have one of his books on my pile to read, but so far haven’t got around to it. Once again it comes down to too many books and not enough time.

So, The Name of the Wind is the first book in the Kingkiller Chronicle, an epic fantasy tale by Rothfuss who I would describe as a storyteller. By that I mean he creates a wonderfully dynamic and rich world without bogging the reader down in pages and pages of detail. His story in some ways feels like an urban folk tale, about someone who actually lived, or it’s a parable that has been told down through the generations. It’s also very hard to describe the book as it doesn’t fit into any pigeon hole and is hard to put it alongside other books for comparison. It tells the story of Kvothe, a figure of legend almost, a man feared and loathed by some and respected and loved by others. The story begins with him as a grown man telling a scribe his version of events, starting with his childhood and gradually bringing him up to the present. But there are also chapters set in the present so it’s not just a look back at another time. Kvothe is also a renaissance man, and again you can’t say he’s a wizard, or warrior, or mage etc, he’s just a man who has adventures, gets caught up in weird and wonderful events, gets in to lots of trouble, goes through some terrible and awful moments, but also makes some amazing discoveries full of wonder and maybe even a touch of magic. There is a lot to tell, there’s no doubt, as Kvothe has lived a very interesting life and this first book is pretty weighty, and is one of at least three. The second book is even bigger I think but again, this is not because Rothfuss spends ten pages describing the smoke coming out of the chimney.

This book has sold a lot of copies, I mean hundreds of thousands, maybe even a few million. It’s incredibly popular and rightly so in my opinion. It’s one of those lightning rod books in the genre like Lynch’s Lies of Locke Lamora or The Painted Man by PV Brett, or The Blade Itself by Abercrombie. It’s an incredibly unique book, something that is not perfect, and there are some bits I didn’t like, but overall it marks Rothfuss as an incredibly talented writer and someone who is forging ahead and doing his own thing, which others will then seek to imitate.

This is the second time I’ve read Name of the Wind, because it was quite a while since I read it, and now I have a copy of the second volume staring at me. I’ve also forgotten quite a bit from the first time around so I want to sink back into this rich world, rediscover the nuances of the character and get myself up to speed in readiness for reading book 2, The Wise Man’s Fear.

Comics
Reading comics is a very different experience for me compared to novels. It takes me a bit of time to sink back into a book, but with a comic I can read for five or ten minutes, read an issue and I’m in the story almost straight away and can be completely satisfied. So I always take a few trades to read for those smaller gaps of time when I want to read something.

Danger Club by Landry Walker and Eric Jones from Image comics.
I read the first issue of this when it came out a while ago, thought the premise was very interesting, thought the artwork was amazing and the colours very vibrant. Briefly put, all of the worlds superheroes go off into space to fight a very serious threat and then they never come back. So, suddenly all that’s left are lots of sidekicks and kids with powers. So it’s a bit Lord of the Flies, and it focuses very much on the next generation of heroes and villains. What do you do when your mentor is taken away from you? Are the junior heroes ready to cope? And if not, what will they do? What effect will the responsibility have on them? Likewise for the junior villains. Are they really capable of carrying out some terrible acts?

Manhattan Projects Vol. 2 by Jonathan Hickman from Image comics.
Simply put, what if the Manhattan Project that we know about was simply one of many strange, weird and wonderful scientific projects that were being worked on by the best minds at that time in history. This twisted science fact meets science fiction book focuses on a group of very weird almost mirror universe versions of well known historic scientists getting up to all sorts of stuff. It involves portals to other worlds, alien invasions and lots of other weird science. Hickman writes for Marvel comics and is known for writing very big stories, and by that I mean long term, big sky, complex but not convoluted stories which are structured into chapters almost like a novel, with rewarding endings. He did a great run on Fantastic Four that was planned out years in advance and now he is doing the same on Avengers. This comic is a breeding ground for all sorts of ideas he probably can’t fit in other places and for some stuff that is too weird to go into a mainstream comic.

Peter Panzerfaust Vol. 1 by Kurtis J. Wiebe from Image comics.
Peter Pan, and the Lost Boys, in World War II. That’s pretty much it. I read the first issue a long time ago, then lost touch with the series for some reason, but now I’m trying to catch up in trade. It begins with an almost Band of Brothers storytelling device, where an old man is talking about his experiences during the war, and it then flashes back to him as a young boy meeting a heroic and dashing and strange young man named Peter. The scope is vast, the twist on characters is only limited by imagination and this series has been picked up by the BBC to be adapted first into a digital motion comic (for some reason) and then later a live action TV series. I can see the latter working very well, not sure what the point of the former is, given that motion comics are the new dodo, and the real evolution in digital comics is coming from Thrillbent.com. Check out the website for free digital only comics where they are pushing the boundary of digital. Anyway, this series looks like a lot of fun and I really enjoyed the first issue.

A possibly sneaky fourth trade, if I get time, is Fatale Vol. 2 by Brubaker and Phillips.
It’s crime meets Lovecraftian horror. Meta fiction within fiction, weird people who don’t appear to be quite human, strange cults, immortals, demons, random chaos that actually points towards something else. Lots of ideas thrown onto the page and you have to hold on to your seat and just enjoy the ride.