Hey, check out Escape Pod and listen to Steve Ely reading my short story The Veteran. http://escapepod.org/2007/08/09/ep118-the-veteran/ Seated on a bollard, the man contemplatively removed his pipe, as if to tamp it down or relight it. Instead, he placed it stem down in the top pocket of his shirt, then reached up and pressed his fingers against his cheekbone and forehead. His face came away from his hairline, round behind his ears, down to a point just above his Adam’s apple. The inside of his mouth and much of his sinus were also part of the prosthesis, so only bare eyeballs in the upper jut of his skull remained – the rest being the black spikes and plates of bio-interfaces.Very enjoyable — they were suderdiles not superdiles, but I’ve no problem with that!
Tag: Science Fiction
Get 'em while they're hot!
Forbidden Planet in Shaftsbury Avenue London has numerous signed copies of my books, and now Waterstones in Lakeside Thurrock has plenty too. In the latter you’ll find signed copies of Hilldiggers along with signed paperback copies of all my others from Macmillan. Many thanks to the staff of both shops for putting up with me!
Lakeside Waterstones Signing.
Article 5: Getting There.
Here’s an old one. I don’t recollect precisely when I wrote it, but certainly it was prior to 1999 when Macmillan took me on and prior to ’98 when I first started really using the Internet. It’s interesting to see my attitude of the time…
Getting There.
The first time novelist or short story writer is up a certain well known creek without even a canoe. If you’re a politician, a film star, or a model (you don’t even have to be able to write), the big publishers will provide you with a nice fat cheque and a power boat. The catch for a new author is that they might publish you if you’re known and as a new author you’ll only get known if they’ll publish you. It is also a sad fact that the likes of Harper and Collins receive two to three hundred manuscripts a week out of which they might publish two or three a year. Many large publishers freely admit that they will not even look at work unless it is submitted through an agent. It would also seem that these publishers are now run primarily by accountants and financial directors. Editors wanting to take on something new have to present this work to these people to justify the expenditure. As such justifications usually begin with, “Well this is like … ” the chance of anything groundbreaking being taken is minimal. The fact, I think, that all writers should be aware of is that these large publishers are not out to make books; they’re out to make money. So what other options are there? There are, thankfully, the small presses, and through them a gradual struggle up the ladder in the hope that you’ll reach a point where you can no longer be ignored. Small press publications range from illiterate productions of stapled-together A4 sheets to some magazines indistinguishable from what you’ll find on the newsagent’s shelf. There are presses that produce paperback books of a quality that exceeds that of the mainstream publishers (How often have you had one of these mainstream paperbacks fall apart in your hands as you read it? How often has the cover picture and blurb born no relation to the contents?) It is worth noting exactly what ‘small’ means in the latter cases. It usually only refers to circulation, editor’s bank balance, and advertising. They are not necessarily small on enthusiasm or professionalism. Don’t be fooled into thinking that you can get any old crap published here, but also be aware that if you are good, you stand a better chance here than with one of the lumbering giants that has a stranglehold on the the newstands and bookshops. Unfortunately the SF F and H (magazine) small presses are pretty much a closed circuit and it is quite possible for you to be very well known in them but not known outside. Very often the magazines published have a circulation that can only be numbered in the hundreds and not very many of them. The closed circuit is due to a large proportion of their readership being writers and by the mags only advertising in each other, (no doubt due to cost). What are you after though? If it is money then forget it. Payment ranges from a free copy of the mag your story is in to, if you’re really lucky, ten or twenty quid. The most I have achieved for short story publication was £60 from a magazine called Scheherazade and that was for ten thousand words divided over two copies. If it’s an audience you’re after then the most you can hope for is that for ten or fifteen minutes you will have the undivided attention of each of those hundreds of readers. Better than nothing. A problem you’ll face, writing for these small circulation magazines, is their proliferation and their swift demise. I have frequently had stories accepted by magazines that have then folded before publication of said story. There is no fault here in the enthusiasm or even financial acumen of the editors. It is just that a circulation of any more than a few hundred seems a tough barrier to break. Some have managed to, but for every one that does it seems that twenty others go to the wall. That barrier I think is ultimately heart-breaking for many editors. Another problem can be the lengths of time involved. In some cases you will not recieve a reply for a few months, thereafter, if your work is accepted, it can be months and even years before you see your work in print, and see any cheque that might be involved. This is because small press editors have to work for a living and that job ain’t in publishing. They have piles of stories to read through and reject before they find your gem. And often they might only bring out their magazines quarterly or even yearly. You’ll often notice when looking at these magazines that they’ll have an issue number, but that the editor has not been brave enough to put on a date. In one case I had to wait three years from acceptance of one of my stories until publication. But let’s face it, if you’re a writer, you should be thinking about your next story on the way back from the post box. Why write for the small presses if your ultimate aim is big time publication? To begin with the small presses are a superb training ground for the wannabes. Very often the editors of these magazines will take time to offer some criticism of your work (remember, if that criticism is ‘this is drivel’ that’s more than you’ll get elsewhere). You’ll also get a fair amount of feedback in the letters pages and even in other magazines. In this sense the closed circuit will work for you; many of these magazines have review columns and as well as reviewing films, and large circulation books and magazines, they review each other. Also, because of that proportion of writers in the readership, you’ll know that if you do get published it is not because of a lack of submissions to the magazine. The small presses are essentially a proving ground for the wannabe. To break into the small press market you do have to buy magazines. Some magazines will only publish stories written by subscribers; a form of nepotism brought on by a desperation to get subscribers. Once you’ve bought a few magazines you’ll have a feel for them and from adverts in them you’ll find other mags to which you may send your scribblings. Each time you send something off (with an SAE and covering letter) you’ll quite probably get fliers from yet more magazines with your rejection or acceptance. It is quite easy to build up one hell of a list of possible markets. If you want to increase that list then get hold of publications like Zene, Light’s List, or Dragon’s breath. In the fifteen years I’ve been writing for the small presses I’ve felt no need to submit work outside the UK, but then I’m not someone who produces a story a day. Once you’ve broken into the small press market (meaning that you have proven your worth to yourself, not that you have learnt the funny handshake) it’s worth looking at the small press book publishers in the hope of having something longer published. As you do these things take note of your achievements and utilise what leverage they might give to get you higher up the writing ladder. Unfortunately though you’ll find that small press book publishers face similar difficulties to those of the magazine publishers. So far I’ve seen three of them get into difficulties.Club 199, a publisher aiming to produce cheap paperbacks (£1.99, hence the name) had the printing side of things organised but not the advertising side. New Guild, whom I was under contract with, made the same mistake. Tanjen, has recently ceased taking on any new work. Sadly, these small publishers are up against the huge advertising machines of the large publishers, the clout they have with the likes of W H Smiths and Waterstones, and the spreading of costs over huge print runs. For me my writing has been a gradual struggle up that ladder, the small presses being the first few rungs. Too often we hear of someone getting the x-thousands advance on their first book and hearing this lose sight of the fact that they are the exception. There is a lot of truth in the image of the writer struggling away in his garret then drinking himself to death. The reality is that writing is hard, getting published is hard, and that if you want easy money your best option is to become an estate agent. It took me five or more years to get my first short story accepted and then that magazine folded before publication of my work. After that slight boost (and it was a boost; someone had actually wanted my work) I got more and more stories published, the occasional novella serialised, and a one-off novella published for a single cash payment. For my short stories my reward was a copy of the magazine and some complimentary letters (mostly). After another five years I was getting the occasional cheque – about enough to pay for a toner cartridge a year – then in the following five years finally gained some notoriety through the publisher’s Tanjen, with the production of another novella (The Parasite) then a short story collection (The Engineer).
My story, I warn you, has been one of relative success.
Article 4: Counterculture.
Feeling seriously hacked off and bitchy when I did this one…
COUNTERCULTURE.
It is human nature to strive to be, or to be perceived as, superior to your fellow. This striving stems from the simple imperative that if there’s someone higher up the ladder than you, then there’s still someone who can step on your fingers, or shit on you. It is the same quest for superiority that forms hierarchies in any organisation, group, or loose alliance. And it is the one that has created the ‘liter-arty intelligentsia’ (those with pretentions to being intellectual heavy-weights) who seek to rule the SFF world, and seem to think their pronouncements are holy writ. They also create slavish followers trying to squash themselves into the same mould. On the whole they are dreadfully serious – humour is alien to them. In conversation they will often smear popular culture. If everyone likes Friends, then they don’t and will give some apparently worthy reason why. The plain silly they can own, and thereby score points: “Well actually, my favourite program is the Magic Roundabout.” The points here are for false frivolity, thereby demonstrating how though they are intelligences to be reckoned with, they can still be fun. Even better if they can attach some meaning that isn’t there: “It’s about arachnophobia and patriarchal societies, you see.” If a group is discussing a film, they’ll always find a flaw to criticise, to demonstrate how observant they are and how so far above the work in question. However, if something is judged as being worthy by other, higher, members of the intelligentsia, they’ll hop on the same band wagon, for to say otherwise in such a case might open them to criticism. Perhaps they have not been bright enough to plumb the deep meaning of it all? You will find these same people in the Tate Modern, attaching meaning and importance to what is quite evidently crap to anyone with half a brain. Only the braver members of their kind might voice a contrary opinion, usually those ones who still have something functioning between their ears, and have yet to buy a life-time membership. Full members live to raise themselves in the regard of others, but are caught in a fantasy of self-regard. The top ten reading lists of same will always be for the sake of appearance and intellectual poseur points. They will denigrate some of the old greats just to demonstrate how independent is their thought. They’ll forget all about the lurid SF and fantasy books that drew them into the genre, because they have of course outgrown such trash. LeGuin and Delaney will be in and Dickson and Zelazny out. They’ll definitely dislike Lord of the Rings, obviously – too many normal plebs like it (and of course the same book has to be allegorical). In their lists will be a smattering of books concerning subjects ending –ophy, ology, istry or ics, and you can guarantee that none of them will be mathematics, physics, biology or chemistry, or anything actually useful. And presently they’ll be wading through a tome produced by some obscure European philosopher, and foolishly think that what insight they have is something new. Equally, they will, when asked to list their top ten favourite films, make their selection based on how they think this will enhance their facade, not on what they actually like. Blade Runner would certainly be allowable to them, but Terminator or Terminator II would definitely be out. Battleship Potemkin is a definite, but Total Recall will cause them pain (having its source as Philip K Dick but starring Arnold Schwartzenegger). Black and white films would be in, the more obscure the better, and better still if French, subtitled and deeply ‘intellectual’. In describing their selection they’ll use the word ‘noir’ a lot, and sometimes lapse into ‘surreal’. The defining spirit of these people, is a total lack of honesty. They are pretentious: truth is not their stock in trade, for if you are truthful people might see you as you really are, might be able to assess your intelligence, judge you. Better to lie about your intellectual gains, better to be obscure and misjudged as being deep. Better to appear to be … better.
TheGreyArea.
I’ve been a bit wary of including some people in my ‘friends’ list on myspace. There seem to be many bands on myspace and, really, I’m not going to include people just to up the number of my friends in this weird cyberspace popularity contest. To get included on my list a person needs to at least show some interest in SFF, writing or even better, have my name down in his or her books section. When this guy contacted me I thought, especially upon seeing a complete lack of a book section on his page, ah, another band-on-the-make, but he soon disabused me of that notion by directing me to his ‘Influences’. Miguel Vella TheGreyArea. He, his daughter and his wife Wendy then turned up at my Forbidden Planet signing where they got one of the staff to take this picture (I’m the ugly one on the left … and see that big stack of books to the left of me?). Both of them are fans, and on this occasion he sprang this as a surprise on her, since she didn’t even know why he’d taken her into the store. Cheers guys – nice to see you!
Lakeside Waterstones.
Article 3: Cities in Flight.
CITIES IN FLIGHT. There seems a belief, ascribed to by many of those writing short science fiction today, that nothing of importance happens unless it is set in the ‘mean streets’ of some city. On the whole the works stemming from this will be based on some student or other urbanite living a squalid existence in a seedy flat, while experiencing either relationship problems, or angst about an inability to have a relationship at all. Often, the writers are displaying a lack of imagination by casting themselves in the lead role in the only setting they have experienced. From the other side, there are many writers of fantasy who cannot step away from the image of their characters questing through the wilderness or some agrarian idyll, though that usually stems only from the secondhand experience gained throught the books they have read. Getting back to the cities though: are the writers of much urban science fiction nowadays suffering from the same delusion as the fantasy writers? Cities and the country bleed into each other. There are towns, villages, single houses and an infinite combination of everything inbetween; industrial sites in the country; city parks; wastelands being reclaimed by nature; connecting rivers and transport systems; and, fuckit, urban foxes. And of course in both directions there is a continuous exchange of people: wide varieties of commuters and ‘overspill’ and many so-called ‘country’ people moving into the cities to work. The dividing line, unfortunately, is near illusory, perceived mainly by resentful minds. Cities no longer have impenetrable walls around them with gates that are closed up at night and the countryside is no longer filled with Barny Hayseed clones chewing on straws and muttering about ‘tham thar towny buggers’. This perception displays the same blinkered vision as the present urban government, which legislates for cities and against the country – damaging those millions dwelling in between and polarising the attitude of many others – or of those dwellers in a time warp, the fox hunting lobby, who manage to piss off all camps. Britons live in a huge and wonderful variety of environments. Along our coasts there are many people who have tried to opt out by living in their boats, others divide their lives between boats and often much neglected coastal houses, there are huge transitory populations on the sea on oil rigs and in container ships, many millions inhabit suburbs, large populations live in villages where their only real connection with the countryside is that they notice it from their car whilst caught behind a tractor on their weekly visit to Asda, there are inclusive island populations who don’t even think about any division between city and country, there are towns where the countryside is only a step away and in which the residents truly live their lives in both. Of course, everything I’ve just written is also blinkered, for I’m describing Britain today. Maybe, an SF writer should be thinking of tomorrow’s Britain or an alternate one, or both. Also, Britain contains only a small fraction of the world’s population – there are actually other countries, and some very different ways of life. As for our urban environments? Even now the computer revolution is beginning to decentralise white collar professions, so what need to live in the city? Robotic manufacture is whittling down the required work force so what future need of industrialised towns? And the financial imperatives that originally made urban dwelling a necessity, will they last? Umph! Still today, still parochial! What about undersea dwellings, orbital communities, nomadic populations, cave dwelling morlocks, people adapted to live under the sea, people loading their minds into VR, even nomadic minds leaping from artificial body to body? Ach, I could go on and on, but the point is made: urban SF writers, lift up your heads, take a look around and try to imagine yourself somewhere else. Oscar Wilde quipped about how he may be lying in the gutter, but he’s looking at the stars, some people, it would seem, are lying face-down in that same gutter.
Death Ray Magazine.
I must get hold of a copy of Death Ray Magazine. Here’s either part or all of a review in it of Hilldiggers:
“Asher has an axe to grind, but what a shiny, well-honed and beautifully weighted axe it is… He’s on top of his game with this one and his confidence entwines a fibrous thread throughout the plot. Multiple narratives occurring in different time frames, shifts between first-and third-person perspectives, a detailed and convincing description of planetary ecosystems…In lesser hands, a rambling wayward text could well result. What we have instead is a wonderfully rich and complex tale that happily flips between giving the mind something weighty to mull over and pleasing its baser, thrill-seeking desires… Asher’s skill is making it all seem wild, wonderful, politically provoking and fresh.”
Very nice.
Article 1: Leeches.
For no apparent reason (well, other than being lazy and not getting on with some writing) I started reading through some of the articles I wrote for various publications. These are accessible on my website http://freespace.virgin.net/n.asher but since that place is all cobwebby and rarely visited, I thought I might start putting a few of them up here. The first is one I did for Outland, a magazine published by Ottakars (do they still publish it) to advertise The Skinner.
LEECHES.
If you want to find a plausible alien, go turn over the nearest rock and see what wriggles out, but to that I’ll add the proviso that you need to have some idea as to what put that squirmy thing there in the first place. Create an alien and you must have some conception of the ecology it arose from. It’s no good imagining some flesh-eating monster on some barren planet with nothing for it to eat but the human explorers who have just arrived (the get-out in the film that comes to mind is that the monsters were brought to the barren planet in a spaceship). However, that’s easily said and not so easily done. “Gerrit off! Gerrit off!” A four-foot long leech had attached itself to his hip. He fell in the sand and grabbed hold of the horrible thing in both hands to try and prevent it boring in even further. Jane grabbed up the line and began hauling in the rhinoworm while Ambel tended to Peck. He did the only thing that was possible in the circumstances: he grabbed hold of the leech in both hands, put his foot against Peck’s leg, and hauled with all his might. Peck let out a scream as the leech pulled away with a fist-sized plug of his flesh in its circular mouth. Ambel bashed the creature against a rock until the lump came free, then after trampling the creature to slurry he handed the piece of flesh back to Peck. Peck screwed it back into his leg, then wrapped a bandage from his pack round it to hold it in place. Two of my favourite subjects are combined by the ecology of Spatterjay: immortality and flesh-eating monsters. The idea for this life-system was conceived in the short story (excerpt above and below) of the same name in my collection The Engineer (Tanjen) and there was fairly simplistic, but complete – skeletal. The story, along with another from the same collection (Snairls) formed the basis of what became The Skinner. What’s in a name? Names given to life forms can be misleading, and equivalent characteristics identified by untrained observers have led many to be misapplied. In America a hemlock is a tree whilst here in Britain it is a poisonous herb, so how the hell did that come about? How much more might be people’s misapprehension of alien life? Take leeches. These creatures are pretty horrible here on Earth, and when seeing something of similar habit and appearance oozing along a stream bed on an alien world it would be easy to reapply the name. Unfortunate then to discover their feeding habit is to take out lumps of flesh, that they can grow to the size of a hippopotamus on land and that of a whale in the sea, and that they can make you immortal. “How old are you, Ambel?” “Oh, a bit.” Ambel rolled down his shirt sleeve and looked shifty. “Come on. This is really important.” “Don’t rightly know. Been on the ships for a while.” Erlin wasn’t having that. “You do know. Don’t fob me off!” Ambel looked uncomfortable. “No one believes me,” he complained. “I will.” Ambel got up and headed for the door, as he opened it he mumbled, “Spatterjay Hoop was a crazy git.” He went out onto the deck. Erlin sat down on the chair and shook her head. They were all crazy gits, and Ambel was no better. If he thought she was going to believe he knew Spatterjay Hoop, the man after whom this strange little world had been named a thousand solstan years ago, then he was probably worse. Ridiculous idea. Wasn’t it? Erlin’s discovery that the bite of a Spatterjay leech transmitted a form of viral immortality, made that world a definite place to head for once the Zimmer frame was imminent. However, those seekers after eternal life became less enthusiastic upon discovering a world not cosseted by the Human Polity, where the incredibly tough and ancient hoopers might inadvertently tear off your arm, and where the leeches would continue to feed upon the hosts of the viral fibres – who were to them a reusable food resource. Implausible? Not really: why kill the whole animal when you can regularly harvest its flesh? Oh come on… Here on Earth, under that rock, you’ll find similar strategies. Pick up a veterinary book on helminthology (the study of parasitic worms) if you want to find some real horrors. One parasite’s cycle includes both sheep and ants. Inside the ant it alters the function of that insect’s brain so it climbs to the top of a grass stalk and there clings with its pincers, waiting for a sheep to come along and eat it. There’s another that gets inside a snail and so adjusts that creature’s physiology that it grows a thicker shell, thus protecting both parasite and snail. The downside being that the snail no longer has the resources to breed, whilst the parasite breeds inside it. There’s always a downside: She had nothing left to throw up when she followed them into the basin in the top of the hill. She just retched a little. The rest of Peck was jammed, writhing about and making horrible noises, between two rocks. Erlin followed them down and watched in horror as they dragged him out and dropped him on the ground. All his muscles she could see, all his veins. His lidless eye-balls glared up at the sky. She advanced with her laser switched on. It was the only merciful thing to do. “No!” Ambel knocked the laser from her hand. “Don’t you think he’s got enough problems? Find his clothes.” Erlin dropped to her knees, not sure if she wanted to cry or laugh. No, this was not happening … but it was. When she looked up, Ambel and Boris were putting Peck’s skin back on him, tugging the wrinkles up his legs and pressing the air bubbles out … and Peck was helping them. Do you wanna live forever? Of course you do, but not if it hurts. And what do you reckon is the most valuable thing on a world where money is worth buggerall, and life might be eternal? Death. The small leeches hang in the peartrunk trees and drop on any who might brush against the those fat trunks. Larger leeches squelch along the ground and sometimes take to the water where they wait with thread-cutting mouths agape for an unwary foot. On land they can grow as large as a hippo and taking a chunk, with a mouth the size of a bucket, from a hooper human can have some untoward effects unless that individual gets plenty of dome-grown food. It wouldn’t be much fun to have another skinner running about… Reaching the size at which they can no longer support the weight of their slimy bodies the leeches take to the sea and grow ever larger. There the hoopers must hunt them for the treasure their bodies contain because, out of necessity, it is there that the oceanic leeches change in a very particular way. It’s the mouth, you see, when it finally becomes so large that harvesting flesh is no longer an option, the leech has to eat its prey whole, and obviously there are dangers in swallowing something in no particular hurry to die. Oceanic leeches begin to produce in themselves, in their bile, a poison that kills the immortality-imparting virus, and thus their prey. From this bile, by centrifuge and crystallisation, is refined a pure poison called sprine, which is worth more to hoopers than gold or gems. Death. All treasures are difficult to obtain – that’s the nature of the beast.