Iain Banks: Stonemouth

Scotland, present day. Stewart Gilmour, a lighting designer in his mid-twenties, is returning to his Scottish hometown after five years of exile to attend a funeral. He’s nervous about his return because of the circumstances of his leaving. Given a weekend’s grace to be in Stonemouth by local gangsters, Stewart faces up to those he left behind and those he let down.

On the surface, Stonemouth has much in common with at least two of Banks’s previous novels, The Steep Approach to Garbadale and The Crow Road, in that family secrets and indiscretions and funerals are involved. Banks may to some extent be reworking terrain he’s approached in the past, then, but that’s not to say that Stonemouth isn’t an impressive creation in its own right.   I’m not sure that it’s a novel that’ll win many new fans, (and Banks is one of the few literary novelists who actually provokes a fan reaction) but if you’re already sold on his contemporary world novels – Scots-centric, tech-savvy, left of centre, concerned with what happens when a confident man oversteps the mark, then you’ll lap this up.

            

Even if you’re not sold by that, then what will impress is Banks’s control of time, space and tension. He can wring huge amounts of apprehension out of his protagonist’s worry over what might may happen and there’s delight and surprise as we (and Stewart) piece together fully the events that led to him being run out of town five years earlier through both flashbacks and investigation.

Stonemouth could easily overbalance into something parodic (there’s violence, drugs, rival gangster families, true/forbidden love and the ever-present threat of the local suspension bridge and being thrown off it) but all these elements are held together well, delivering a novel that is affecting, funny, and at times scary, clever and brutal. In a word, smart.  

Banks, Iain. 2012. Stonemouth (London: Little, Brown), 356 pages, 978-1408702505

HISSAC Short Story Competition 2012

The Highlands and Islands Short Story Association (HISSAC) has announced details for its 2012 short story competition. Stories on any theme or genre except children's fiction are welcome. Stories should be no more than 2,500 words. There's a £400 first prize on offer. The competition closes on 31st July 2012. More information is available on the HISSAC website. 

3into1 Short Story Competition 2012

The 3into1 short story competition is for short fiction up to 3,000 words. The twist? Stories must feature these three elements: a £10 note, a bunch of fresh flowers, a black queen chess piece. As long as those elements are used, there's no restriction on theme or genre. There's a first prize of £1,000, a range of runners-up awards, and the top twenty stories will be published in an anthology. The competition closes on 31st July 2012. More details are on the 3into1 competition website. 

Wrekin Writers Doris Gooderson Short Story Competition 2012

Wrekin Writers have announced details of their 2012 short story competition. Stories on any topic up to 1,200 words may be submitted. There's a £150 first prize. Winning and shortlisted entries will be published in an anthology. The competition closes on the 9th July 2012. There's more information here. 

Bloody Scotland crime writing competition 2012

Bloody Scotland, the first Scottish national crime writing festival, has announced details of a short story competition. Stories should be up to 3,000 words and employ the theme "Worth the wait". The winner will receive the Arvon writing course of the choice from the 2013 calendar, a weekend pass to the festival (which is in mid-September) plus a decanter and rare whisky worth £2,000. Winning and shortlisted stories will be printed in an anthology. The competition closes 29th June 2012. You can find more information here. 

Writers New and Old summer 2012 writing competition

Writers New and Old has a short story competition open until 30th June 2012. Stories should be up to 2,000 words long, may be on any subject, but must mention the name "Henry VIII" at least once. There's a £50 first prize. You can find full details here. 

Impress Prize for New Writers 2012

The Impress Prize 2012 is open to previously unpublished writers, working wither in fiction or in non-fiction. Entrants should submit a book proposal and up to 6,000 sample words. The first prize on offer is publication with Impress. The competition closes for submissions on 15th June 2012. Full details can be found on the competition website.  

Mslexia poetry pamphlet competition 2012

Mslexia has announced details of a poetry pamphlet competition for women writers. Poets who have not previously has a collection published are invited to submit 18-20 poems as a collection. The competition is open until 18th June 2012. The first prize is publication with Seren Books. More details are available on Mslexia's website. 

Writing Magazine Festival of Writing competition 2012

UK-based writing magazine Writing is running a novel competition. Synopses and the first chapter (up to 5,000 words) of the novel should be entered.  The first prize is for a residential place for one at the York Festival of Writing which runs from the 7th to 9th September 2012, plus one-on-one appointments with a literary agent, book doctor or publisher of your choice. Runners-up prizes include copies of author-turned-publisher and competition judge Harry Bingham's book How To Write. 


The competition closes on 22nd June 2012. Entries may be sent by post to Warners Group Publications, Fifth Floor, 31-32 Park Row, Leeds LS1 5JD or emailed to laurenr@warnersgroup.co.uk - entries should be marked as being "Writing Magazine Festival of Writing competition".  

Nick Darke Award 2012

Falmouth University's annual Nick Darke Award is open for new and original screenplays, radio plays and stage plays on an environmental theme.  Screenplays and documentary scripts should be for 30 minutes maximum running time, radio plays for forty five minutes and stage work for no more than an hour running time. Initial submissions should include an outline (of no more than 2,500 words), a CV and twenty script pages as a sample. The first prize is for £6,000. Entries close on 14th May 2012. More details can be found here. 

The Cabin In The Woods (2009, directed by Drew Goddard)

Five undergraduates go to a cabin in the woods. Bad things happen. 


And that's it, synopsis-wise. That's all you get. Though the poster and trailers tell you it's a horror flick with a difference, this is neither the time nor the place to go into any of that. 


Don't worry if the internet or your loudmouthed idiot of a workmate / buddy / family member / so-called friend not only tells you what's going on, but what they think about it. 


Feel free to ignore them. 


The Cabin In The Woods is a) a whole lot of fun and b) something to experience in the cinema for yourself and then c) talk about with others who have had that experience too. 


That is about all I can say at this point in time. Go see it. That's a recommendation. Then talk about it with people who have also seen it. Especially if they like horror movies. That'll help. Anyone else? Pity them. This film is not for them.   

Television writing opportunities

The BBC Drama Writers Academy 2012 is now open to prospective writers for continuing dramas such as EastEnders. Entries close 2nd May 2012 and writers should have had at least one previous professional commission. Details here.


ITV is currently open to submissions from black and ethnic minority writers based in Yorkshire or the North East who are interested in writing for Emmerdale.  Writers should submit an original script of between 30 and 90 minutes.  The closing date is 31st May and full details are here. 

Welsh Poetry Competition 2012

The Welsh Poetry Competition 2012 is now open for entries. Poems up to fifty lines may be entered. There's no restriction on theme or subject. There's a £300 first prize plus runners-up awards. The competition closes on 27th May 2012. You can find more information at the competition website.

Strange Chemistry open door period 2012

If you've got a completed young adult science fiction/fantasy novel, you're unagented, and you'd like to be published, then this is for you. Strange Chemistry, the YA SF/F sister to Angry Robot is open for submissions from now until the end of April 2012. You can find full details here. Good luck!  

Scottish Community Drama Play On Words Prize 2012

Play On Words is a one-act drama competition from the Scottish Community Drama Association, seeking new one-act plays with at least two characters running between 20 and 50 minutes. The competition offers a £250 first prize plus performance of the winning piece. The competition closing date is 30th June 2012. Full details and an entry form can be found here.  

Nottingham Short Story Competition 2012

The Nottingham Short Story Competition 2012 is now open for entries. Stories on any theme up to 2,500 words are sought. There's a first prize of £1,000 on offer. The competition closes on 30th April 2012. Full details? They're here.  

Bloomsbury Short Sentence crime short story competition

Short Sentence is a rolling crime story competition, the challenge being to produce crime fiction to a different monthly theme inside 1,000 words. April 2012's theme, for example, is "bad judgement". Monthly prizes include anthology publication, £100-worth of Bloomsbury books and tickets to the Harrogate Crime Festival 2013. The competition runs through until the end of October 2012; an overall winner chosen from the monthly winners, will receive an additional prize.  Full details are available on the competition website. 

Alt.Fiction 2012

So this weekend I've been at the Alt.Fiction festival of speculative fiction. This year (the event's sixth) the event ran at Leicester's Phoenix film and digital arts centre. Run by Writing East Midlands, Alt.Fiction is a little different from the more usual type of genre conference, being more focused on the practice of writing. You don't get any cosplay, but you do get a whole bunch of friendly, open people united by loves for the telling of story and the sharing of experience. 

This year is a day-and-a-half event. I rolled up slightly late on the Saturday so missed out on the first set of talks, but was more than welcomed by some cheery and familiar staffers (hi Zoe and Lucy, btw) and a chunky bag full of goodies (I'll drop in a picture soon, honest). 

There were three concurrent panels running through the day (full details over at Alt.Fiction's website for the time being at least), so I had to pick and choose. Not always easy, but here's my selections:

First up was what was billed as "Not Another Fucking Elf", an enjoyable and at times wide-ranging look at tropes in fantasy fiction. The talk, panelled by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Jenni Hill, Paul Cornell and Emma Newman covered reactions to Tolkeinesque high fantasy, spoofs, sendups and Pratchett, contemporary urban fantasy, games media (Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim got a fair bit of coverage), as well as a quick peek at zombies (the delicious notion of burhka-wearing zombies came from one delegate's writing students). 

Next was a riff on Dragon's Den, a how to/how not to session on pitching to agents and publishers featuring, among others* sf/fantasy agent and editor John Jarrold. Three willing (and for some at least, co-opted!) authors showed how not to approach publishing industry professionals. My notes on the advice dispensed:

• keep it short
• cover letters should have three paragraphs: a brief background of you, the writer / the novel you're pitching / comparator authors - and compare to new/recent authors and not to genre stalwarts
• do what it says on the agent/publisher’s website
• “wow” or “no” - no-one will take on a project they don’t feel passionate about
• is there series potential? (it’s easier to sell a three-book idea than a stand-alone)
• have a finished book
• and don’t be too precious about it either
• is the book secure in its genre positioning? Or, will the book buyers at Waterstones and WH Smith know where to put it on the shelves?
• be professional in everything
• submit your work, and develop a thick skin. You’ll need it. Everyone gets rejected and everyone gets edited.

Next up was a discussion of the state of UK genre television with Stephen Volk, Mark Morris, Adam Christopher, Selina Lock and the day’s secret weapon, the omnipresent Alasdair Stuart. The talk ranged around modes of viewing (everything from box-sets to stripping series across five consecutive days), the straight to DVD market for low-budget genre work and we were introduced to some insider jargon – “crunchy” projects, series being “noisy” in the schedules, and if genre storytelling on TV is “muscular” or not...

The next hour was spent looking at tropes in horror. Everything from zombie stories to spangly vampires was turned upside down and had its nether parts inspected in a very jolly session featuring Tom Fletcher, Marie O’Regan, Gary McMahon and the desperate-to-talk-about-but-not-spoil-Cabin In The Woods Alasdair Stuart.

Writing As A Day Job featured Tom Fletcher, Niki Valentine and Conrad Williams and gave a realistic insight into what it means to write for a living. The panel discussed the need to make a decision to write and to be serious about it – this manifested itself in various ways: doing a Creative Writing MA, either for the qualification in itself or to have a dedicated space to focus on writing, balancing part-time work (in writing or teaching writing where possible) and one’s own writing work, developing multiple income streams, not writing for free (small presses aside), and not turning a job down.

Knowing little about present-day comics, the comics panel with Paul Cornell, Mark Chadbourn, Selina Lock and Emma Vieceli ended up with me knocking together a shopping list of work I’m going to have to check out: Strangers In Paradise, Fables, The Unwritten, Scalped, The Phoenix, plus I’m going to have to investigate the digital resource comiXology too.    

Then on to the guests of honour. First up was the frankly legendary Ken McLeod, who gave a reading from his latest novel Intrusion and also chatted about publishing, inspiration, working as a writer in residence and the importance of carrying a notebook.  

Last up for the day for me was games writer James Swallow. I almost skipped this session, but ended up being very glad that I didn’t. James’ highly informative, info-packed and well-illustrated overview on writing for games underlined the medium’s importance and the particular challenges, difficulties and rewards for writing for video games. 

Apologies for the bullet-point approach:

·         games offer uniqueness to the reader/player, who’s an active participant in the narrative

·         immersion is the goal; games writing is about letting the player discover the story rather than having the story delivered to them (via a book, film, TV show and so on). Thus, the player owns the experience.

·         games writing needs to encompass the different ways a player might interact with a gaming environment; exploring or blasting through as examples, and offer a rewarding experience tailored to these differing approaches

·          much games writing is background and invisible: games bibles, character biographies, cut scenes, dialogue, “barks” (those little snippets of dialogue you get from NPCs from time to time), “discoverables” (on-screen text, documents to be uncovered), “environmental narrative” (adding depth to story through mise-en-scene). It’s not all about the main story and the main character dialogue.

·         linear narratives and sandbox games offer very different writing challenges. The sandbox type of roaming environment games need structuring also (“tree and vine storytelling” meaning the free-roaming gamer will come back to the plot at some point), but still allow and reward a player who’s just roaming the game world.

·         Creating the illusion of free will, by careful writing, so that necessary game events will happen, but will happen in ways that should feel organic to the individual  games experience

·         Creating games/genre-appropriate character. First person games often feature a blank, “empty vessel” hero, who should be filled with what the player brings to the game. Third person games often necessitate a colourful, quirky, rounded character.

James rounded off by underlining that gaming as yet at least isn’t a writer-focused medium; often games are developed by a gaming engine or production point of view, and the writer works to a pre-set brief. However, the games industry is ripe with possibility and opportunity for new writers and though the games technology isn’t there yet for a fully novelistic or artistic experience, it’s on its way.   

Day two opened for me with an hour-long panel discussion with Graham Joyce and Kate Laity on fairies; a wide-ranging and at times quite serious debate on travel, openness, the liminal supernatural, comparative folklore, on respect for beliefs and on differing approaches to the little people. 


The next panel focused on diversity in fantasy. Again, a broad approach was employed, looking positively at gender, race, faith (and/or its absence) and sexuality in terms of authordom, fantasy fiction characters, author responsibility, table-top gamer culture and larping. 


The last panel for me of the event was on short fiction. The discussion ranged from a broadly positive (though realistic) look at the industry, opportunities for new writers, the impact of e- and self-publishing, the globalisation of markets via the internet and to some extent the increased relevance of short fiction to contemporary life. 


Though Sunday was a little muted for me (a combination of more serious subject-matter in my choices, hangovers all round, plus a vague feeling of ennui that it was all over), the event as a whole was a success and the panels and readings never less than stimulating. I met some lovely and enthusiastic people, came away with a fresh-bought stack of books, had a long list of authors new to me to check out and I made notes for a short story sparked in the intersection between two of the Sunday sessions.   


Alt.Fiction is back in 2013, provisionally mid-May and again in Leicester. I'll be there! 

The Grey (2011, directed by Joe Carnahan)

Alaska, present day. Ottway (Liam Neeson) is an exterminator, killing wolves who might attack oil pipeline workers. He's near-suicidal after the loss of his wife. His roster is being flown back to Anchorage at the end of their shift rotation, but it crashes in a blizzard. There are seven survivors. Ottway takes charge, primarily because he understands wolves better than anyone else, and a pack of the animals is stalking the crash site, attracted by the dead bodies. The seven, reckoning the authorities will never find them, decide to trek to civilisation. They're tracked by the wolves. A battle of endurance and wits ensues.


The Grey is a old-fashioned grown-up movie of the kind they almost don't make any more, pitching Hawksian everyman character actors against nature, God and each other. Director Carnahan deliberately doesn't introduce us properly to all of them; these are initially ciphers who develop character through their conflicts and in the quiet moments between action sequences.  The technical work is generally fine throughout; there's a splendidly-realised plane crash and the real/CG/animatronic wolves are well done. Only a cliff-top climbing sequence fails to convince fully, either in the visual effects or in the contrivance that allows the party to cross the ravine. 


Neeson centres the movie in his efficiently unshowy way, projecting authority and doubt in equal measure.  Carnahan knows when to hold off and just let him be on camera: Neeson's practically on-screen for the whole two hours. The wolf attacks are fast and brutal, there's plenty of blood, hypothermia and shivering in remote locations. There's just enough ambiguity in what's going on to allow us to understand the wolves as allegorical as much as real; the humans adopt some of the pack animals' attributes more than once, for example, and Neeson gets a great actorly rant-against-God moment. In these moments, The Grey is almost as good a wilderness thriller as Deliverance or Jeremiah Johnson. 


The Grey isn't perhaps for everyone, as it's not a upbeat tale of male bonding and survival against the odds. It's a tad grimmer than that, a more serious movie, and something of a return to the original promise Joe Carnahan showed with his first film Narc after the more lightweight Smokin Aces and A-Team. Recommended.     

The Observer / Anthony Burgess Arts Journalism Prize

The Observer/Anthony Burgess Prize for Arts Journalism seeks new, unpublished arts journalism writing of up to 1,500 words (this might be a review, an artist profile or interview as examples) suitable for publication in The Observer newspaper. The competition closes on 15th September 2012. There's a £2,000 first prize plus publication in the newspaper. More details may be found on the competition website. 

Joe R Lansdale: Bad Chili

Texas. Hap Collins’ best friend Leonard Pine’s lover is murdered. Leonard goes wild with grief, shooting up the biker bar where his lover, Raul, had been seeing another man. Hap does what he can to calm Leonard down, and the two begin to investigate the killing. Along the way, Hap gets bitten by a rabid squirrel and is hospitalised where he meets a new love, Brett. Raul’s corpse leads Hap and Leonard into a conspiracy involving hijacking container-loads of grease, illicit pornography involving gay bashing, biker gangs, a tornado, a kill-crazy PI and King Arthur, a local canned chilli magnate.

Lansdale’s Hap and Leonard novels are a Texan wonder, combining snappy dialogue, bursts of extreme violence, a dry wit and a casual attitude to living throughout. Hap and Leonard, eternally one step from the poor-house, muddle through as best they can, sometimes jumping to the wrong conclusions, sometimes using fists instead of brains, but always guided by a certain wonky morality and their closeness as friends. As dry as a sand martini, Bad Chili is massive amounts of fun, art times touching, and occasionally veering into the baroque with a supporting cast of colourful Texan eccentrics.     

Lansdale, Joe R. 1997. Bad Chili (London: Gollancz), 292 pages, 978-0753813966

Ernest Cline: Ready Player One

America, mid 21st century. Wade Watts is a teenager who spends most of his time in an immense online environment, OASIS, like pretty much everyone else. He's obsessed, like many others, with the search for information about a fabulous treasure, the bequest of the long-dead 1980s obsessive OASIS founder James Halliday. Wade lucks into a first clue and, both in competition with and alongside his virtual friends Aech and Art3mis, he battles the evil IOI Corporation for the 'Easter egg' and with it, both unlimited wealth and control of OASIS.     


Ready Player One starts well enough; the dystopic America is well-realised (stacks of trailers as shanty skyscrapers, dependency on online interaction as a distraction from the real world) and there's some initial fun to be had in the pop culture referencing. There's a love story along the way, friends are made, friendships are challenged and then restored, nasty corporate villains present themselves to hiss and boo at, and there's a fair amount of minutiae about long-obsolete video games systems. And that's about it.


Wade's challenges are presented like a video game, with end-of-level bad guys, cryptic clues, much virtual battling in mecha suits, interacting with 70s and 80s movies and so on. After a while, the book becomes like watching someone else play a videogame, because that's largely what's presented to us, and as such the novelty soon wears off.


Cline's grasp of pop culture is very specific (Rush, John Hughes movies, Spaced, the Val Kilmer-starring Real Genius as examples), though not as 80s-focused as advertised (we're mid 70s to mid 90s, broadly speaking) but nothing's done with this other than repetitive name-checking and redundant explanations of what the shout-outs refer to. These are signs without referents, which comes across as pretty pointless, as these popcult icons stand for nothing in this world other than their own existence.


This is made more odd as a) the novel is in first person from Wade and presented as his autobiography, thus the people he's speaking to would have this popcult knowledge and b) the readership of the novel already knows that Explorers was a 1985 Joe Dante movie and doesn't need to be reminded, thank you very much. Subtle, it ain't. 


Wade/Cline has the annoying habit of retrofitting Wade's world to suit his present circumstances - it reads at times as though the novel's been made up on the fly rather than being plotted out or at least seeded with appropriate information to pay off later - and all too often potentially interesting material (how does he bypass IOI's systems again?) is glossed over to get us back to yet another death-match. 


Ready Player One is a bit of an oddity: the pop culture geekiness isn't well enough sustained or indeed deep enough in references and obscurity to appeal to that crowd, and there's not much here to please hardcore SF buffs either, as there's precious new to intrigue. As an entry point for younger readers or the casually curious, though, it may sustain a readership. Certainly the ingredients are there and it's an easy, fast reading experience if not, ultimately, a rewarding one.         


Cline, Ernest. 2012. Ready Player One (London: Arrow). 372 pages. 978-0099560432

Ben Aaronovitch: Rivers of London

Peter Grant is a young copper in the Met who's waiting on his first real posting after training and beat cop duty. Then he sees a ghost at a murder scene. He's seconded to the unpromising-sounding Economic and Specialist Crime team, and soon finds that he's been apprenticed to a one-man magical police task force, and to the last warranted wizard attached to New Scotland Yard, Thomas Nightingale. Rivers of London follows Grant as he begins his apprenticeship, works on a series of violent crimes linked to a long-dead actor, and slowly becomes embroiled in the occult underworld and the river deities of London. 


Aaronovitch's first Peter Grant adventure (a sequel, Moon Over Soho, is also available) is a zippy, accomplished book which neatly straddles the police procedural / comic novel / urban fantasy genres, with a little bit of psychogeography / deep topography thrown in for good measure. The jokes are genuinely good, there's a nice sense of engagement with London's past and present alike. The policework details feel genuine and well-observed and Aaronovitch has a vivid and accurate sense of London's layout and of the diversity of city life in the early 21st century. There are plenty of pop-culture asides for SF/horror/fantasy fans (there are hat-tips along the way to everything from Death Line to City of Vice) plus there's enough that's new here to make this a creditable addition to the slew of novels over the years that have sought to engage with London Other. Recommended.    


Arronovitch, Ben. 2011. Rivers of London (London: Gollancz), 390 pages, 978-0575097582

A Lonely Place To Die (2011, directed by Julian Gilbey)

Scotland, present day. Seasoned climber Alison (Melissa George) and her friends are adventure holidaying in the Highlands. They're out trekking when they come find a young schoolgirl who's been imprisoned in a buried chamber. Now being pursued by the girl's captors, Alison and the others battle to get the girl and themselves to civilisation and safety while elsewhere, other forces are at work to ensure the girl's rescue.


A Lonely Place To Die starts briskly enough, with some excellently-photographed locations, some neat climbing action and a couple of very well-executed stunts and shock moments. The low budget is generally controlled well and the perhaps well-worn plot of a bunch of groomed and brand-labelled middle class holidaymakers being tormented in the wilds opens well. There's no political subtext here though; this is a straight chase. That being said, where A Lonely Place To Die holds up best is in its first half. As the story opens up though, we get rather bogged down in plot elements from another couple of movies altogether, with Eastern European dignitaries, a grizzled snatch team, a Wicker Man-esque ceremony in the background and a subsidiary villain seemingly possessed by something Other in the final quarter hour all serving to detract from the simplicity of the set-up. 


The cumulative effect is both jarring and disappointing. While there are effective moments in the second half, and the cast throughout is game (George is fine and unshowy, and there's reliable support from the ever-twitchy Sean Harris, the glowering Karel Roden and the stern Eamonn Walker), Gilbey's lack of confidence in presenting a straightforward story told well means that the lead character is pushed out of the narrative and we're left with multiple endings, many of which might look good on screen, but aren't emotionally involving. 


Gilbey has an eye for arresting imagery (the hooded and masked killer, the climactic street-scene background action, some well-shot gore), and maximum effect is milked from the location shooting and from the tight budget, but his tendency to be distracted by the moment ultimately harms the movie, which falls apart towards the end. An interesting failure, nevertheless, and a movie that'll leave genre fans with plenty to argue about. Hopefully next time out Gilbey (as co-writer, director and co-editor) can focus on the bigger picture and not let his tendency for visual distraction outweigh his ability to tell a story.        

Word Hut short story competition

The Word Hut is running a competition (its third) for short stories in any genre as long as they're no more than 1,000 words.  Entries should be received no later than 13th May 2012. There's a £50 first prize. You can find more information here.

Historical Novel Society International Award 2012/13

The Historical Novel Society has announced details of its first novel writing competition. Historical fiction of any kind may be entered; initially a 5,000 word opening sample and synopsis by 30th September 2012, then long-listed authors will be asked to submit full manuscripts.  The first prize is £5000 and electronic publication. The full competition details and rules may be found on the HNS website. 

Shona MacLean: The Redemption of Alexander Seaton

Banff, Scotland, 1626. Schoolmaster Alexander Seaton has spent the last six months in disgrace after betraying a friendship and destroying his chances of becoming a minister. One night he fails to help a troubled man; the next morning the same man is found dead in Seaton’s schoolroom. Initially suspected of the murder, Seaton is co-opted by the town worthies to make enquiries in Aberdeen as to the provenance of documents the man was found to be carrying: detailed maps of the coastal area. It’s feared they might be intelligence indicating a planned Catholic invasion of the British Isles. As Seaton investigates, he begins to re-adjust better to his new world and to draw himself out of self-pity. However, as he does do, Banff is plunged into recrimination and extremist religious practices, as Catholic plotting, individual moral weakness and consorting with Satan are variously cited as the source of the town’s ills and the escalating body count.

Redemption is perhaps better read as a character piece and as an evocation of time and place than as a narrative thriller. The elements of the latter are all in place and the first hundred or so pages push the main story on apace, but as we continue into the novel it becomes increasingly clear that what’s been foregrounded is perhaps better experienced as context for Seaton’s re-evaluation of himself. Some of the clues as to what’s going on are perhaps too subtle and the final revelations, which make redundant much of the previous information we’ve been given, may be frustrating to some readers who were expecting a more traditionally-focused tale.

However, the recreation of early seventeenth century Scotland is convincing in both detail and in moral outlook and the insights into Presbyterian life and philosophy are necessary in cementing the character actions into a plausible belief framework. Much of the writing is effective and there’s a touching backstory behind Seaton’s anguish. Redemption perhaps doesn’t work on all levels, but if approached as a literary work rather than one which will deliver in terms of whodunit-style excitement, it has much to offer.        

MacLean, Shona. 2009. The Redemption of Alexander Seaton (London: Quercus), 410 pages, 978-1847247919

Moon (2009, directed by Duncan Jones)

Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) works on the moon as the sole human staffing an ore-mining facility. He's accompanied only by a friendly computer system, GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey). Sam's ending the end of his three-year rotation and can't wait to get home, but as he nears his shift-end date, he becomes increasingly disorientated and convinced that he's not alone.

Duncan Jones' first film (he's also directed 2011's Source Code) is a smart low-budget SF movie which makes the most of its limited resources in a manner not dissimilar to Kevin Smith's Clerks and Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs in extracting the maximum in genre-appropriate thrills from limitations in locations and in cast and using these as an advantage.  We're in throwback SF territory here: there are riffs around ideas and visuals found in Solaris, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, Dark Star, Outland and Silent Running and there's much pleasure to be extracted from playing off our knowledge of and expectations derived from these movies.

To say too much about the plot would be to start to give the game away and though Moon loses some of its certainty in the latter stages when narrative flaws problematise the film's final act, there's huge amounts to enjoy and appreciate. From Rockwell's central performance, Jones' assured and unobtrusive direction, Clint Mansell's persuasive score and some thrilling art direction, set design and model effects work, Moon is a great little film of the kind they almost never make any more. 

Tenby Arts Festival writing competitions 2012

Tenby Arts Centre has announced two writing competitions; one for short stories of up to 1,500 words, and one for poems of up to 40 lines. There's no set theme for either. The competitions close on 14th July 2012 and both offer £150 as a first prize, with runners-up prizes also. More details may be found here.   

Paris Literary Prize 2012

The 2012 Paris Literary Prize is now open for novella submissions. Work of between 17,000 and 35,000 words may be entered (single novellas only; no collections or linked stories). Entrants should not have been previously commercially published. The competition is open until 1st September 2012. First prize is €10,000 plus a weekend in Paris. There are two runners-up prizes, both of €2,000. Full details may be found on the Paris Literary Prize competition website.   

Wasafiri New Writing prizes 2012

Now open for its 2012 new writing competition, Wasafiri magazine is seeking poetry, fiction and life writing from writers who have not yet had a book published. The competitions close 27th July 2012. There are £300 prizes for winners in each category, which each have a 3,000 word limit. You can find full details here and the full rules are here (opens as a .pdf).  

SI Leeds Literary Prize

The SI Leeds Literary Prize is a new initiative for black and Asian women writers. Novels or short story collections over 30,000 words may be entered. There's a first prize of £2,000 and a range of runners-up awards. The competition closing date is 1st June 2012. For full details, eligibility criteria and so on please see the competition website.  

Tim Underwood and Chuck Miller: Bare Bones - Conversations on Terror with Stephen King

Bare Bones is a collection of interviews from the first decade of Stephen King’s career (Carrie to Pet Sematary in print, with some references to drafts of It). The interviews are arranged thematically, rather than chronologically and though there’s some repetition in King’s anecdotes and some overlap across the material presented here, this is a decent overview of King’s approach to genre writing and how it dovetails with his personality.

A useful companion volume to Danse Macabre and On Writing, though perhaps not essential in its own right; nevertheless Bare Bones allows King, in his folksy and at times naive way, to discuss his approaches to craft and genre as well as to perseverance as a struggling writer as well as to (at the time) managing the stresses of becoming something of a media mogul.  

Underwood, Tim and Miller, Chuck. 1988. Bare Bones: Conversations on Terror with Stephen King (London: New English Library), 284 pages, 978-0450516067 

      

Geraldine Brooks: Year of Wonders

Derbyshire, 1665. Anna Frith is a young widow in the lead-mining village of Eyam. Her lodger, an apprentice tailor, receives a shipment of cloth and with it, the plague. The disease spreads fast and the village, led by a charismatic and determined preacher, decides to isolate itself in order to prevent the infection’s spread to their neighbours. Anna proves to be unaffected by the outbreak, and does what she can to aid others as they fall victim to not just illness, but religious mania, persecution, madness, allegations of witchcraft and other crises.

Year of Wonders focuses, not on the plague itself, but on its usefulness as an extended metaphor by which to scrutinise its main players. This is a world where many are bound by convention and by oppressive moral frameworks, and who react under pressure and opportunity in a range of ways, most (but not all of them) ultimately destructive. Though some parts are perhaps necessarily episodic, there’s a strong through-line as we follow Anna through her various travails, including several developing relationships exploring her passions, infatuations and loves.

Much of the writing convinces in its detail and in the well-judged use of dialect and period slang. There’s confusion at one point over dates, bit that aside, this is an accomplished, detailed and affecting novel. A brief but useful afterword gives some guidance on the novel’s genesis and some of the source material.  

Brooks, Geraldine. 2002. Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague (London: Fourth Estate), 310 pages, 978-1841154589