Heroes

You ever have a hero? One you could rely on deep into the grave? In the last ten years or so, the term ‘hero’ has been taken away from people we idolise and handed back to people who do things like spread themselves across live grenades so as a bus load of school kids don’t have early funerals… and rightly so, but for the purposes of this piece, I’m rolling with the former because choosing something else doesn’t come close for me.

I’ve had a few and as the years have gone by, they’ve never let me down. Some are so obvious, they’re hardly worth mentioning if you know me. Paul Stanley from Kiss and Alice Cooper are the big guns. Their philosophy is not so different despite their (seeming) rivalry.

There’s also been a few that were a sign of the times - that I picked up and put down as I needed them - which might actually be the whole point of even having a hero.

I was obsessive about Bjorn Borg for a while simply because he was the ‘whole game’. I’m not sure what I got out of it but there it is. Boris Karloff was another… again, because when it came to monster movies, he was also ‘the whole game’. Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart - the whole game. There are a few others like this. Short life-spans with no other purpose but to dam the river when needed

But when it comes to books, it’s not so simple for me. Neil Gaiman came close, not least because I once picked up The Doll’s House Sandman graphic novel on a whim one Saturday afternoon back in something like ‘90/’91 (whenever it came out) when I was headed to a weekend-long party and was early for the train. (Of note here is that the money I spent on the book was supposed be money set aside for booze… go figure).

It had all the makings of the kind of party everybody talked about for years but I wouldn’t know. I spent the entire two days with my head in that book, drinking tea and eating whatever food my then (very understanding) girlfriend chose to put in front of me. Having presumably finished the book, I vaguely recall something about being chased by a horse in the dark and going home alone (natch). It was a long time ago but Gaiman has been pretty consistent and I’m still with him… but so is the rest of the world and that makes him a lot less attractive these days as a name to bandy about. These days I’m more likely to waft Michael Chabon’s name in front of your face as a name of somebody you should be reading. Mr Gaiman needs no more assistance from me at the moment.

Stephen King came close to a lifelong thing but wobbled too much and got replaced by Clive Barker… who also wobbled, but when I went back to King he was still too unstable for me. I keep up with them both still but it’s probably unreasonable to expect either to still be on their respective mountain tops, standing on one leg and juggling a very singular crown - particularly when John Connolly came along and whitewashed both of them for me.

Anyway, as the years have trickled by, those I didn’t recognise as heroes for the longest time have risen to the surface. Most of them were dead by the time I figured this out which gives it a certain kind of closure. It’s unlikely that they will become zeroes anymore - the work is complete. Raymond Carver, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Kerouac, Orwell and Dylan Thomas have weathered that storm with a certain grace I can only dream of but then, there’s this man:

One of the really big deals for me out in the world is J.D. Salinger. Aside from his books being some kind of misinterpreted influential template for my own work, I liked the way he went to his grave with two fingers in the air over never having his books made into films and how digital books could kiss his ass. It’s not how he wanted things to be and credit where it’s due, his estate continued to pipe cement into that wall since he died.

Until a year or so back:

His son, Matt, the very man who been mixing that cement since 2010, was interviewed by the New York Times and the article brought up some important things - namely, this:

‘…during a trip to China earlier this year, he realized that many young people overseas read exclusively on phones and digital devices, and that e-books were the only way to get his father’s writing in front of them.’

and from the horses mouth:

“He wouldn’t want people to not be able to read his stuff.”

And while we can sit here all day and argue that both Catcher In The Rye (55 million copies in 30 languages!) and Franny and Zooey are both still widely available in paperback (show me a bookshop without either and I’ll show you a bookshop without clue), the world has changed - and continues to change - bringing into sharp perspective my own observation that a book isn’t a book unless it’s actually being read. If somebody is not devouring the story, it’s just some paper with some thicker paper on the outside that lives on a shelf to show other people what sort of person you’d like them to think you are.

It brings up all kinds of horrible questions I never want to have to answer about what constitutes as ‘reading’.

But in the end, he’s right and if that’s the opinion of the last bastion of something I hold so dear, I need to swallow a plateful of humble pie topped with pride and also get to work on making things available digitally. It’s not so long ago that I seem to recall saying “Once you can read a book on your phone, the game will be over” and I would have been at least partially right.

There will always be those who love a physical book, how it feels in their hands, what it means to them and how they remember where they bought it from. Those are my kind of people but I’m damn sure that whole Gaiman episode I described above would never have happened if I had downloaded The Doll’s House to a portable reading device. Things change and time moves with it eventually crushing everything in its path that doesn’t want to ‘flow’.

It’s sad, but I guess it’s not sad at all if you’re under thirty. If you’re under thirty, it’s just the way things are and the way they’ve always been.

Out there in the world somewhere, there are most likely people for whom eight track was the Bees Knees too.

Time, huh. Can’t live with it…

---

Footnote: Salinger also had a good line in quotes, so here’s a few of my favourites - all of which sound a lot like things that come out of my own mouth…

I’m sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect.

It’s funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they’ll do practically anything you want them to

There are still a few men who love desperately

I’m just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else’s

If you do something too good, then, after a while, if you don’t watch it, you start showing off. And then you’re not as good anymore

The World Is Not Enough

Now here's somewhere a man could kick back and chew over his place in the world and more than likely come to the conclusion that his place in the world was not worth chewing over. 

If he was smart, he would figure out those mountains had been around long before he was even a starseed and will be there for many moons after too. Even those rocks sitting beneath the surface of the water have a longer lifespan than he does and in all likelihood, probably provide a far more useful purpose in the world than he does too. 

But that's not a good reason to not even try.

---

Still jet-lagged to hell and back here. More time in the air than on the ground in a short four day period is not good for your equilibrium. I wrote a little - not as much as I would like, but enough. I did The Bad Thing and watched an airplane movie which knocked on to another and then another. Worth talking about are 500 Days Of Summer and Our Kind Of Traitor - both are good investments of your (wasted) time. 

I'm not going to tell anything about my trip here. It will make a good extra chapter for the Cities of the Dead collection - it was also the first time I have ever got in an uber car. It's very much the same as being in a regular cab in that you sit in the back while somebody drives you, but the reality is, it's more like being driven somewhere by a friend of a friend in a nice car that somebody gives a damn about. I can see why it works and how it is absolutely the death of the taxi as we know it. Then again, all it takes is one singular uber-murder scandal and the whole world will come crashing down around its ankles. 

I wonder if cab drivers moonlight as uber-drivers during their time off.

---

I picked up a couple of magazines at the airport too. One of them was the latest edition of Wired. Somewhere in there is an article about a company that hosts residential courses for kids who want to be You-Tubers when they grow up. It really is a thing. It says that five years ago, kids mostly wanted to be app developers but now they want to be You-Tubers making money for simply being themselves. 

Meanwhile, I mailed my friend Wayne Simmons a pic of his book on a Waterstones shelf yesterday - a pic from the period in which he wrote (and made his name with) horror. On one side of his book was Pride, Prejudice and Zombies and on the other side, a classic edition of Frankenstein. In that 'horror' section, there was a whole collection of Stephen King books but hardly anything else to speak of. No Ramsey Campbell, no Clive Barker and no James Herbert. 

Maybe horror fiction is resting. Maybe it's waiting for somebody to come out and lay waste to the world. Maybe Stephen King must die for people to pay attention again... but it didn't make any difference when James Herbert did, so that's a very poor answer to the problem.

Or maybe, horror authors need to become You-Tubers to regain their mojo, though I can't think of anything more boring to watch than a video of somebody staring out of the window before occasionally tapping some keys.

If you took a poll in an average school, I wonder how many kids would say they wanted to be a writer these days and how many of them would say they wanted to be a horror author - and just who would they want to be like? Who are their role models? I wonder exactly how many schools you would have to visit before you found a kid who wanted to be a horror author and said as much without being prompted from a list of previously arranged choices. 

Note to self: never buy Wired again. Wired is Cosmopolitan for the Samsung generation. It suggests the new world is built on algorithms and there is nothing we can do about it. It hosts adverts for apps that will close your blinds for you when you're not at home. It promotes great design discussed over many pages for items such as football boots and lamps.

It tells me the world is more connected than ever but does not even begin to explain why everybody feels so fucking alone.

Welcome to the true face of horror in 2016 in which horror writers now freelance for tech mags.

HOW DID IT GET TO BE FRIDAY ALREADY?

My lovely small person went to see Ariana Grande on Monday night - it's OK, I had never heard of her either. It was a little odd hearing about her going to a show and then transposing my own experience of being 14 on top of it though.

At a rough estimate, I worked out that the whole trip - including tickets, travel and essential tour tshirt - probably came in at something like £120 and that's probably being generous. I was going  to tell her about my first show alone (which was UFO back in '82/'83) and then thought better of it but in my silence, figured out the sum total of that trip (ticket, travel, essential tour shirt and oddly a copy of the MAD magazine summer special found at a newsstand outside the venue) came in at less than £15. Is that comparable? The ticket was something like £4 (if I ask my friend John, he probably still has his stub and could tell me for sure) which really enabled a kid of 14 to go out and see a lot of bands. 

Seeing a band sure is steep these days.

On the plus side, she had a great time and some dude from One Direction showed up in the area she was in "without a body guard!" 

Is that on a par with Dee Snider being found playing the slot machines in a local bingo hall after their first UK show? I guess somehow in a skewed universe of strange reality, it just might be. (Quickly references interested parties on such matters to own book titled Black Dye White Noise which contains such stories).

(On which note - if you're a fan of Dee Snider, his new podcast, Snider Comments, is everything you'd expect it to be - in the latest episode he has Wayne Kramer of MC5 in the studio. People forget just how cool MC5 were. Check this out this 45 year old clip from 1969. They don't make 'em like they used to and they really fucking should:

•••

In the interview I linked to yesterday over at Infected, I mention a Bukowski book cover I put together. A couple of people have asked if the could see it, so here it is. It's not a commercial venture or anything of the kind... just a guy messing about with something he loves. Anyway... 

•••

I got all fired up when I heard Clive Barker was finally unleashing The Scarlet Gospels but now it's been out two or three weeks, I'm not so sure I should have been. The reviews from long time fans are not good. Not good at all. I shouldn't have looked but the cat's out of the bag now and I can't get back in. Maybe I'll just leave it unread on the shelf for a little while and see how I feel some day in the future. Still, Clive is Clive and if you're of the same mindset, there's a neat interview with him up at Wired in which he talks about some important stuff - particularly his comments on Anne Rice and the way some her 'fans' treated her recently.

••• 

Finally, Matt Haig followed me on Twitter yesterday. Not sure what I did to deserve that but it's kinda cool for a great writer to click a button your name is attached to. His book The Humans is a fine, fine read. He has a new book out called Reasons To Stay Alive that I haven't got around to yet but regardless of that... Matt: I'll buy you a really big latte if you can be bothered driving to Ramsgate next Wednesday and I'll shoplift your book into the bargain.

•••

Oh - really finally - if you're at a loss for something to watch on TV now silly season is over, Duchovny's Aquarius is out there. Just saying. 

BEAR NECESSITIES

Today, I'm going to share out some wisdom that isn't mine. Its the sort of thing I might say, would like to say, have kind of said now and then, but have never actually said so eloquently in this order.

What we have here is 24 tips for film-makers taken from the back of Paul Cronin's book Werner Herzog: A Guide for the Perplexed. If this is what they chose to throw on the back cover, count me for whatever's inside and consider a copy on its way.

Whilst they may originally be intended for film-makers, if you're trying to achieve anything that's out of the ordinary or that you want to do on your own terms (or both), they are as true for you as anybody:

1. Always take the initiative.
2. There is nothing wrong with spending a night in jail if it means getting the shot you need.
3. Send out all your dogs and one might return with prey.
4. Never wallow in your troubles; despair must be kept private and brief.
5. Learn to live with your mistakes.
6. Expand your knowledge and understanding of music and literature, old and modern.
7. That roll of unexposed celluloid you have in your hand might be the last in existence, so do something impressive with it.
8. There is never an excuse not to finish a film.
9. Carry bolt cutters everywhere.
10. Thwart institutional cowardice.
11. Ask for forgiveness, not permission.
12. Take your fate into your own hands.
13. Learn to read the inner essence of a landscape.
14. Ignite the fire within and explore unknown territory.
15. Walk straight ahead, never detour.
16. Maneuver and mislead, but always deliver.
17. Don’t be fearful of rejection.
18. Develop your own voice.
19. Day one is the point of no return.
20. A badge of honor is to fail a film theory class.
21. Chance is the lifeblood of cinema.
22. Guerrilla tactics are best.
23. Take revenge if need be.
24. Get used to the bear behind you.

Some things make your heart sing like a phoenix. 

It also has bears in it, which makes it doubly worth a damn, obviously.

•••

Sometime in recent history, I dropped something on here about Clive Barker's Scarlet Gospels - if such news rattled your cage and started a fire in your eyes, here's a link to the Earthling Deluxe Edition. It's not cheap but don't shoot the messenger. 

•••

INTERLUDE

Even though you never asked, I'll tell you this anyway - this sounds great on vinyl:

END OF INTERLUDE

•••

Talking of bears, which we kind of were, my lovely friend Michelle - better known as WolfSkullJack to the world and whose art you should be spending your money on - sent me a note yesterday and we talked (briefly... in 140 characters or less) about maybe doing something together to give the Romanian Bears a little something extra.

Thinking, thinking, thinking. This could be seriously supercool and very fun.

In case you missed it... she is wonderful and this is mine:

I believe it's based loosely on me... and if it's not, I don't care because that's what I tell everybody anyway. It's a better story than it not being based on me. 

Never let the truth come between you and a good story, huh.

I should add that to the end of the list from Werner Herzog and see if anybody notices.

THE DAY THE SUN STAYED IN THE SKY

What better way to start the day than seeing a copy of your book 'on holiday' - in this case, The Day The Sky Fell Down chilling out on the rocks in Lanzarote. Major league thanks to Roy Cole (for it is he) for shipping this in. 

You don't get that with a wedge of plastic whether it has an anti-glare screen and e-ink or not. I love seeing the things that fall out of my head onto paper actually being read and running free in the wild where they belong. Trying to stop a story once it's out there will only give you rope burns. 

•••

Today also brings the day brightening news that Clive Barker is finally set to release The Scarlet Gospels - for some of us, this has been a close on twenty year wait and to be honest, I'd banished all thought of it ever actually appearing to the back of the cupboard. On Barker's site, the release date is given as 19th May which is good enough for me with a limited edition variant also available through Earthling - though if you happen to drift off to that page, the book hasn't got a page redirect yet. It will come. 

I haven't been this excited by a book from somebody else for years. It looks like this:

•••

Talking of things that other people are up to, Foxcatcher and Birdman (two separate films if you haven't been paying attention to the world revolving - it's not a weird superhero movie, though I would pay to see it if it was) both look like they're more than worth getting out for.

Here's the trailer for Foxcatcher:

and here's Birdman: 

As for me... work continues to finish up Raised On Radio, work has begun on Almost Human - which is the next collection of Dirty Realism, I have four more chapters to go before The Family Of Noise is complete (you'd think four chapters would be easy to kill off wouldn't you), and aside from some scrappy bits and pieces lying around vying for my attention, as I was pushing Turn The Lamp Down Low into a shape it wanted to be in, a story that wants to be called Dragonfly turned up in my head. Great. Just when you thought you had a handle on things, something else turns up with legs attached.

Dear Mr Barker: I see now how quickly a good idea for a book can turn into twenty years of trying to figure out where something would like to go.

Dear Readers: I will try my very best not to take that long over it. What you should do while you're waiting is read this neat little feature on Lee Child as some guy from The Independent shadows him as he starts work on his next Jack Reacher novel. It will only take a couple of minutes so maybe you could find something else to do as well, like start a secret project that will help save the world in its own little way...

Le Fin.

Beware of Darkness - In All Its Forms

It seems like a lifetime since I found a new band that I thought was worth a damn - let alone one that I thought the whole world should know about. I guess the world might know already about these guys but they only crawled across my radar this morning - there's every chance that the next time I go out, I'll be met with a hundred t-shirts proclaiming me stupid and slow in hindsight. Beware of Darkness. This is their site - jump onto youtube and you might find some video clips there. This is the album cover for 'Orthodox' and hellfire, it's wonderful for all the right reasons. If you're feeling lazy, you could fire comparisons of Jet hooking up with The Black Angels at them, but that still wouldn't hit the mark:

Why did I not know about this before this morning? Cross at self... but satisfied.

•••

I know I spend far too much time in the bookstore. Maybe I'm soaking it up for when it's no longer there. They have these cards on the counter at the moment: "The book that made me." The idea is that you fill it in (I guess about the book that changed your life) and then drop it in a box never to be seen again.

I thought hard about this. That's a tough call - but the universe has a way of giving you a good shake every now and then. Many times I've gone on record that since the day it came out it was always Clive Barker's Imajica, until around fifteen years later, I picked up Susannah Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Both are large. Both suffered the same fate - from the second they were begun, I barely moved or slept until they were finished, though I suspect I smoked a lot and ate far too many packets of crisps.

Weighing them up against each other, I still can't pin it down. I guess it's no big deal really. I hear a rumour (a decent rumour) that Jonathan Strange is about to be become some kind of TV show - and I don't want to watch it. I will, but I don't want to. Imajica on the other hand has largely been forgotten about by the masses - apart from those of us who have read it of course. We will never forget it. Couldn't if we wanted to.

I was kind of leading up to making a decision there wasn't I and it looked like I was headed for Imajica. It sits comfortably. See, if I say Imajica, that's OK. I can live with that. If I say Jonathan Strange, my heart always says "yeah, but what about Imajica?" So I guess I have decided. I don't like it though. Good job nobody is making me choose really.

I was actually leading up to something here - last night, I noticed that Clive Barker had posted some words about Imajica - being as I must have sold about 1000 copies of it over the years simply from talking about it non-stop, I'm going to paste it here with a clear conscience for you to read too. Enjoy it even - if it makes any sense:

I never came closer to giving up like I did with Imajica, never doubted more deeply my skills as a storyteller, was never more lost, never more afraid. But never was I more obsessed. I became so thoroughly immersed in the narrative that for a period of several weeks toward the end of the final draft a kind of benign insanity settled upon me. I woke from dreams of the Dominions only to write about them until I crept back to bed to dream them again. My ordinary life - what little I had - came to seem banal and featureless by contrast with what was happening to me- I should say Gentle, but I mean me- as we made our journey toward revelation. It's no accident that the book was finished as I prepared to leave England for America. By the time I came to write the final pages my house on Wimpole Street had been sold, its contents boxed up and sent to Los Angeles, so that all I had that I took comfort in had gone from around me. It was in some ways a perfect way to finish the novel: like Gentle, I was embarking on another kind of life, and in so doing leaving a country in which I had spent almost forty years. I do not discount the possibility that I will one day return there, of course, but for now, in the smog and sun of Los Angeles, the world seems very remote.

There's something about this paragraph that says I'm not the only one who thinks it's as close to perfect as a novel will ever get. Unlike many of his books, there was never any talk of a sequel and despite rumblings, there's never going to be a movie of it. Not in a million years. It can't be done. I would put an awful lot of money on the fact that not even Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro could pull it off properly even working together with a bottomless pit of money.

Then again, Susannah Clarke has played a good game by not even having a website - if you want any information about Jonathan Strange, you're just going to have to read the book - that's all there is.

Still... it's one war that's not worth fighting. Not really. Sooner or later, maybe something will come along and join them.

•••

Talking of great things, I've just started to watch Torchwood: Children of Earth again. Quite easily - and by a long, long way - the best television sic-fi show of all time. Yeah - even better than Doctor Who - apart from the Family of Blood storyline. As a five episode story arc, I've never sat through anything better written or more enjoyable. Seriously... I could watch it over and over for days on end and not get bored of it.

•••

Meanwhile, work continues. Never had something in my head that's wanted to move so fast onto paper and into the real world before. I'm not quite being Barker-esque about it, but I can see how that could happen to a man. If you're hankering for something quick but very cool to read, try this from Doug Crandell. It's really very good...

Beware of Darkness - In All Its Forms

It seems like a lifetime since I found a new band that I thought was worth a damn - let alone one that I thought the whole world should know about. I guess the world might know already about these guys but they only crawled across my radar this morning - there's every chance that the next time I go out, I'll be met with a hundred t-shirts proclaiming me stupid and slow in hindsight. Beware of Darkness. This is their site - jump onto youtube and you might find some video clips there. This is the album cover for 'Orthodox' and hellfire, it's wonderful for all the right reasons. If you're feeling lazy, you could fire comparisons of Jet hooking up with The Black Angels at them, but that still wouldn't hit the mark:

Why did I not know about this before this morning? Cross at self... but satisfied.

•••

I know I spend far too much time in the bookstore. Maybe I'm soaking it up for when it's no longer there. They have these cards on the counter at the moment: "The book that made me." The idea is that you fill it in (I guess about the book that changed your life) and then drop it in a box never to be seen again.

I thought hard about this. That's a tough call - but the universe has a way of giving you a good shake every now and then. Many times I've gone on record that since the day it came out it was always Clive Barker's Imajica, until around fifteen years later, I picked up Susannah Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Both are large. Both suffered the same fate - from the second they were begun, I barely moved or slept until they were finished, though I suspect I smoked a lot and ate far too many packets of crisps.

Weighing them up against each other, I still can't pin it down. I guess it's no big deal really. I hear a rumour (a decent rumour) that Jonathan Strange is about to be become some kind of TV show - and I don't want to watch it. I will, but I don't want to. Imajica on the other hand has largely been forgotten about by the masses - apart from those of us who have read it of course. We will never forget it. Couldn't if we wanted to.

I was kind of leading up to making a decision there wasn't I and it looked like I was headed for Imajica. It sits comfortably. See, if I say Imajica, that's OK. I can live with that. If I say Jonathan Strange, my heart always says "yeah, but what about Imajica?" So I guess I have decided. I don't like it though. Good job nobody is making me choose really.

I was actually leading up to something here - last night, I noticed that Clive Barker had posted some words about Imajica - being as I must have sold about 1000 copies of it over the years simply from talking about it non-stop, I'm going to paste it here with a clear conscience for you to read too. Enjoy it even - if it makes any sense:

I never came closer to giving up like I did with Imajica, never doubted more deeply my skills as a storyteller, was never more lost, never more afraid. But never was I more obsessed. I became so thoroughly immersed in the narrative that for a period of several weeks toward the end of the final draft a kind of benign insanity settled upon me. I woke from dreams of the Dominions only to write about them until I crept back to bed to dream them again. My ordinary life - what little I had - came to seem banal and featureless by contrast with what was happening to me- I should say Gentle, but I mean me- as we made our journey toward revelation. It's no accident that the book was finished as I prepared to leave England for America. By the time I came to write the final pages my house on Wimpole Street had been sold, its contents boxed up and sent to Los Angeles, so that all I had that I took comfort in had gone from around me. It was in some ways a perfect way to finish the novel: like Gentle, I was embarking on another kind of life, and in so doing leaving a country in which I had spent almost forty years. I do not discount the possibility that I will one day return there, of course, but for now, in the smog and sun of Los Angeles, the world seems very remote.

There's something about this paragraph that says I'm not the only one who thinks it's as close to perfect as a novel will ever get. Unlike many of his books, there was never any talk of a sequel and despite rumblings, there's never going to be a movie of it. Not in a million years. It can't be done. I would put an awful lot of money on the fact that not even Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro could pull it off properly even working together with a bottomless pit of money.

Then again, Susannah Clarke has played a good game by not even having a website - if you want any information about Jonathan Strange, you're just going to have to read the book - that's all there is.

Still... it's one war that's not worth fighting. Not really. Sooner or later, maybe something will come along and join them.

•••

Talking of great things, I've just started to watch Torchwood: Children of Earth again. Quite easily - and by a long, long way - the best television sic-fi show of all time. Yeah - even better than Doctor Who - apart from the Family of Blood storyline. As a five episode story arc, I've never sat through anything better written or more enjoyable. Seriously... I could watch it over and over for days on end and not get bored of it.

•••

Meanwhile, work continues. Never had something in my head that's wanted to move so fast onto paper and into the real world before. I'm not quite being Barker-esque about it, but I can see how that could happen to a man. If you're hankering for something quick but very cool to read, try this from Doug Crandell. It's really very good...

The Thief Of Always

For reasons best known to the forces of random, what began with a quest to find a picture in a book of a gryphon on its hind legs (some homework assignment for Rhiannon), a couple of hours later I found myself re-reading The Thief Of Always. I hardly ever read a book twice and the first time I read this was when it came out and it was also the only time. I don't think the time I started reading it to Rhiannon years ago counts - she was way too young and I should have known better. I've always loved the illustrations in the book and this morning, I found this which is an excellent insight into how to build a book cover that means something: And I feel that says everything that needs saying about book covers in no small way. In amongst all of the talk about self publishing, how easy it can be, the chatter about the business of publishing, author margins, amazon vs the world and all manner of other things that actually have nothing to do with the beauty of a book - things like this have got lost. But this is why I love great books. This is why I have so many of them.

I'm not saying all of those other things aren't important in some way but when a lot of thought goes into the visual image you have of a book, it amounts to the difference between 'something you read' and 'something that buries itself in your heart'. What does it take, really? Another couple of months on the schedule to last a lifetime?

If you've never read this, then you should. Don't go standing for any cheap paperback nonsense either. This is one to hunt down as nature intended. Please don't ever make it into a movie - though I guess if that was ever going to happen, it would have by now. Hellraiser aside, whenever a studio gets hold of a Barker novel for a movie adaptation, they succeed in making the most wonderful fiction into gnarly garbage.

•••

Which in a round-about kind of way has brought me to a shuddering halt on a few things I had previously thought important. Must make a copious amount of coffee now in order to get thoughts previously considered to be in order, back in order.

Best Books Of 2012:

Or rather, the best books that I read during 2012. Some were still hot from the delivery truck when I picked them up, others could possibly be from 2011 and sat on the shelf for longer than intended. Hey, it wouldn't be a list that I made if it was well organised would it: 1. The Tooth Fairy - Graham Joyce 

OK. Having done my research for this post, I see that The Tooth Fairy came out originally back in the mid nineties. Too bad. It's still the best book I've read all year. It's kind of what you think it might be like, but then it goes and does so many different things and walks so many unknown paths that it really is difficult to describe - and it's wonderful on all those levels. I've seen some rough as hell covers for it though. Ignore them. It's an out and out giant slayer.

2. Up Jumps The Devil - Michael Poore

I picked this up at the airport in Colorado (a woman from Derby sold it to me who pinpointed my birthplace accent - I thought I had lost that long ago) and I stripped it down on the plane, train and an automobile. Obviously not whilst driving. Great character, great time spanning story, a slick sense of humour (an American that gets irony - totally worth the entrance fee) and generally a brilliantly fun  - dare I say - laugh out loud novel to lose yourself in for hours on end. Great cover design - bonus!

3. The Lighthouse Keeper - Alan K. Baker

This sounded like every book I would never read. A book about a lighthouse? Written by somebody who sounds like he might be a news-reader? Be fooled no longer. This one is a stealth bomber. Weird as hell. I didn't have clue where it was going, not even on the last page and that's because although it's about er... weird shit that goes on at a lighthouse, the book is more about the keepers themselves and therefore more about human nature and as we all know, when humans are trapped on a rock with a lighthouse and weird shit occurs, anything can happen. And does. Almost as bad a cover as Tooth Fairy but not sure what I would have done differently if faced with the task...

4. Say You're Sorry - Michael Robotham

Sometimes, you simply need a book in which people get bumped off and you can't figure out who it is or why. This is my crime pick of the year because I read it one day and that's a good enough recommendation as you'll get. With a superb lead character who's not a copper or damaged in the way that coppers normally are, the whole Joe O'Loughlin series is worthy of a lot more attention that they're getting. Get off your sofa, go find some and read them in order. No comment on the cover of this - professional "look at me I'm a crime novel' design going on here. Which is what's called for. Michael... write more... faster please.

5. The Wrath of Angels - John Connolly

Well. There's no show without punch and I still say Connolly is the best writer in the country. I think this deserves to be higher on the list but circumstances meant that I picked it up day of release which wasn't necessarily conducive to me paying the best of attention. Thus, it took me a while to get started with it. My fault, not his. If I started it again today it would be a different story. If you're not familiar with Charlie Parker, best go and log onto janetandjohn.com or lookatmepetthedog.com because you're no reader friend of mine. The best crime series, let me think... since McBain's 87th Precinct plus added supernatural elements that mean... well, I still haven't figured out what they mean but it doesn't matter. 'Fucking incredible' is as good write up you'll find. The covers? Pretty good - when the series started they were different and I had never seen anything like them but they brought them into line for the 'stupid people'. I'll let it pass simply because what goes on inside the pages is so damned good.

6. Manhood For Amateurs - Michael Chabon

My latest flame. Currently reading his entire catalogue one after the other. Something I've never done with anybody before. Chabon is phenomenal but something of an acquired taste. This particular book is a collection of essays on being a father - which is as far from as dull as it sounds as I can get. Quite honestly, Chabon is the kind of writer that makes me wonder why I even entertain such dreams but he's so good that you can't help but hand out large plates of respect. He's probably a great guy as well. Bastard. Nice selection of covers on both sides of the Atlantic - which makes a change. He also has out of control hair. I think we should be friends.

7. Gods and Beasts - Denise Mina

Is Denise Mina still the UK's best kept secret? I see a pattern emerging with myself for detective fiction in which nothing is the same as it has been for far too many years with regards to UK crime. Anyway - I'm not going to say anything about this. Go discover her for yourself. There are too few surprises in life without me taking the few that remain. Nice covers too. I can spot a Denise Mina at fifty paces. That's a good thing.

8. Falcons of Fire and Ice - Karen Maitland

I really mean this: Karen Maitland is not for everybody. You'll have figured that out during the first paragraph of any of her books. But if she strikes the chord with you, each and every one of her books comes as some kind of gift that fell off a godlike cloud. Totally unique. I have never read anything like her stories and I adore every single one for all the right reasons. Stellar stories with massive amounts of thought goes into the production right down to the paper and the typeface - and the covers... what can I say about the covers? Among some of the best work ever laid on a cover? Without question. I'm talking hardback here, you don't get the same effect with the paperbacks. Why isn't this at number one on the list?

9. Every One Loves You When You're Dead - Neil Strauss

Strauss returns which a collection of interview snippets with seemingly everybody in the whole world. Strung together with a loose theme, this is one for pop culture guzzlers to get their teeth into (and it serves Klosterman right for not writing something I could put on the list). The guy writes so well, I'd punch him in the mouth if I didn't want to shake his hand for setting the standard the rest of us culture types to attempt to live up to. Like Chabon, he's seems like a genuinely great guy too. I shall not however call him a bastard because he has no hair at all and has therefore suffered enough already. Cover? Not great. Good job I didn't judge it from the cover or it would still be on the shelf.

10. The Prisoner of Heaven - Carlos Ruis Zafon

Zafon. At this point in the run, I'm hardly likely to be able to talk you into loving the man and his work, so if you've been playing the 'Shadow' game, you'll already have been here and nodded sagely to yourself. If not, see the advice at the end of number five. I like these covers even though I think I shouldn't. That means they're working. Ignore me. I'm just bitter than nobody asked me to have a go at them.

•••

An interesting list. I need to tidy it up some thoughts. Nesbo didn't make the list because I didn't think The Bat was very good (for obvious reasons if you're a fan). Rankin returned with Rebus and I made the mistake of going for it on audiobook from audible - where it's read by the most annoying Scot on the planet. Truly dreadful but it's Rebus so I'll return to that one by purchasing something with pages in it. Shit cover. All the Rebus redesigns are shit. I hate them. True fact. That's a lot of hate for a set of book covers but they look cheap and disrespectful. Clive Barker's Abarat: Absolute Midnight nearly made the list but I'm just waiting for another instalment of something that isn't bloody Abarat to be frank. Me and the rest of the world. It will come. Gaiman has been a bit quiet. Was the Graveyard Book this year? That was a good read, but I've read so many kids books this year that I thought I might do a separate list... not that it was strictly a kids book I guess.

It's not right of me to actually name the worst book of the year is it but I think it was Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I made it through maybe a chapter and then decided to wash my hair instead. Sorry. That's the way it crumbles sometimes.

What did we learn here? Two things I think. 1. Brilliantly written original books need great covers so that people will be inclined to pick them up and investigate more. 2. People called Michael write really good books.

Le Fin.

Mr Ransom & Mr Smith on the blogging author.

A couple of weeks ago, I got in touch with Christopher Ransom (see review of his new novel The Fading here) about something so small, I can't even remember what it was but it propelled us into an email exchange on the pros and cons of blogging - on which subject he gave me the thumbs up to repost the contents of here. So in the interest of er... research on how important a blog is for a writer these days, here's the not so contrasting views between a published author (him) and  a 'not-published in the strictest sense of the word' author (me), here's that very conversation - unedited: Hey Sion,

First off, my apologies for being delayed in getting back to you.  I had a good friend in town for 5 days, during which we attended an author event for Tom Piccirilli, hit a Wilco concert at Red Rocks, hosted a bbq for my family, capping it off with one of my own author events in Boulder to promote the US release of my second novel, The Haunting of James Hastings, aka Killing Ghost (US).  Needless to say, after 5 days of work and play, all of which involved copious amounts of beer, I was flat exhausted and needed a day or two to get back on top of my correspondence ... well, enough of the excuse making.

 

I had originally intended to get back to you personally as I was intrigued by your blog response to my almost-blog about blogging.  I thought you displayed quite a bit of good humor and made the discussion interesting, especially considering I came off as a bit of jerk with respect to blogging.  The truth is, when I posted that "news" item on my site, I was lamenting my own crumbling will-power in the face of today's publishing needs and, I suppose, sending myself a bit of a reminder not to slack off on the book writing.  One of the main reasons I have held off on blogging is my fear of losing (wasting) valuable writing time.  I am, by nature, a procrastinator and time-waster when it comes to staring at my computer monitor.  And, in all honesty, I've seen too many would-be writers spend the lot of their time blogging or writing smaller pieces daily when they could have been writing 3, 5 or 10 pages of prose each day.  In other words, in addition to longing for the days when an author could afford to sit back and limit himself to writing novels and sending them off to his editor, with no further promotional responsibilities, I was talking to myself.  My post was something of a last gasp.

 

However, the reality is, that just-write-a-good-book publishing climate is gone.  If one is fortunate enough to have a publisher that promotes one's books (as opposed to simple binding and printing the thing and dropping it off at a few stores), one is EXPECTED to do one's part in flogging the book online, be that in one's blog, on Facebook, on Twitter, through email campaigns, etc.  As any writer or would-be writer knows by now, we are living in frightening times.  The book market is changing, book stores are vanishing, e-books are flourishing, revenue models are changing, self-published authors are riding a wave, mid-list authors are seeing their print deals go up in smoke, publishers are panicking about how to keep abreast of everything, and readers... well, readers are more discriminating than ever.  All this change is inevitable with the current advent of technology, but it does send author and publisher alike scrambling for a foothold.

 

Another reality I hadn't thought of, but which your post called to mind for me, is that we can't really know how the authors of yore, or those favorite authors of mine that I alluded to in my post, would have responded to the current technology and communication channels back in the day - because they simply didn't exist.  Would Stephen King, Dan Simmons, Clive Barker, Robert McCammon, Dean Koontz, and so many other horror, mainstream, or even literary authors have taken to blogging, tweeting, and Facebooking with their fans and the online community (whatever that is) in their day, had they possessed the tools?  I guess we can't know.  Except to observe that many of them are doing it now that they DO have the tools. All of them have formidable online presences, some of them staffed and well-funded.  So much for my notion of the old school, yes?

 

Which brings us back to the point I almost but didn't really make at all: I am in the process of ramping up my own online marketing efforts.  This will include a stronger and more professional Facebook presence, a Twitter feed run by my invisible friend Noel Shaker to help promote The Fading, and more updates on my author site.  I'm doing this for a few reasons.  One, I have realized that I spend too much time dallying online, contributing to other sites, when I could be building something of my own.  Another is, I am grateful for my readership and want to nourish that lest it go up in smoke.  And lastly but not in the least, my publisher has, ahem, 'encouraged me' to boost my efforts at online marketing and offered to boost their own in my service.  So, it's really a matter of playing the game the way the game is played nowadays.  It's making the most of the tools at hand, building a readership the way one builds a business, and meeting our publisher's commitment with deeper commitments of our own.  

 

Time will tell if my readers and new readers really are interested in hearing more from me than what I have been able to publish in novel form, once annually, but I admit I am curious to see where it leads.  I am in constant conversation about books, writing, publishing, movies, random events, ugly trends, and terrifying world developments -- all with my friends, in person and on other authors' forums.  The only real shift for me, then, will be to direct all that time and energy at my own channels.

 

Still, even as I type this, a little red light is blinking in the back of my skull.  Don't forget to write some new pages for the new novel today, that warning light is telling me.  Whore yourself out in all the best possible ways, it says, but don't forget the books.  The books are everything.  To siphon energy and commitment away from them, from their daily creation, is, after all, the first sin of any would-be professional author.

 

See how easy that was?  I think I just wrote my first new blog entry.  Thank you for continuing the conversation, and inspiring me to do so.

 

Feel free to post this on your site.  I plan to put this -- along with your very generous review of The Fading -- on my site, my Facebook page, and then plug it through Noel's Twitter feed @TheFadedMan.  

 

It's what we do now, isn't it?

 

Interesting huh? To which I responded:

These are certainly weird times we live in. Some of my most liked authors are successfully avoiding any sort of online presence at all (Chuck Klosterman, Bret Easton Ellis off the top of my head) and appear to be quite happy letting their publishers run the game for them. But to come full circle with it and to put it in some kind of perspective, I am unpublished with fiction (day job is another thing entirely) and I figured the odds were stacked against me anyway, so I began my journey planning to do absolutely everything myself. I'm kind of OK with this but I needed a great model to base it on - and I did just one thing. I copied Neil Gaiman. I really like his presence and how he deals with his audience, I like the insights into his life (even if it does seem more interesting than mine). So I decided that if Gaiman had a blog, I would too, Gaiman had a twitter account, so would I. It's advanced from this somewhat over the last 12 months but the foundation was there and  - despite still not having finished the book - feel like it's a good place to start if people do happen along to my online space. The one key thing that I think is critical in this is to NOT have a facebook page. I know so many people who are locked into the time-sucking satanism of it, it's frightening. Interestingly, none of them are particularly successful apart from on their own facebook page - which is bad self hype to believe in.

 

And it's weird too because I, like you, am a loyal reader. I will always check out Clive Barker etc... it's just how I am. James Herbert has almost nothing online, King is more info-driven, Koontz makes an effort now and again, but up against Gaiman, nobody is really knocking it out of the park. I don't think anything less of those guys because of it but like you say, that's not the game anymore... what about the readers who are in their twenties? You're going to be their Stephen King/Dean Koontz - what do they expect? I can't quite figure it out but luckily, I really like blogging. Without a publisher breathing down my neck I can blog about Queesryche if it want to or a sandwich and pretend to be on the level of Gaiman (er - that's my big plan - fake it til you make it) - do you think your publisher would expect rather more exact pimping of your own product? It's a tough call.

 

Writing is never what those who aren't writers think it is huh. For what it's worth, here's my overall thought on it. If 'you' (not you personally, obviously) want to interact with me and like what I do, I have a site and you can contact me there. I will answer (so long as you're not being an idiot). If I have something to say, that's where I'll say it. Nobody serious about what they are doing has time to go and knock on each individual 'fans' door to work like that. I am not Santa. If I've said something particularly great, other people can do the networking thing for me.

 

And that sits really well with me. Here are you and I - interacting, with purpose about something important, from an email. I'd check in or add you to my news feed and see what you had to say because I like what you do. That's enough. As a grown up, I don't expect you to drop everything to tell me what you had on your toast this morning... 

 

Man, we all griped when there were rules and gatekeepers. Now they have taken all those things away, we don't know what to do with ourselves.

 

I guess you just need to put one sentence after another and keep going... 

More came after this, but after that, it peters out into 'we have work to do' much shorter paragraphs and a promise to keep in touch and bandy around some more ideas. I guess the point of me republishing it here is this: just because you got somebody to 'print and distribute' your work (known in the trade as 'publishing'), doesn't mean you won't find yourself thinking about these things. Nobody is going to come and take it off your hands. There is no holy grail at the end of the line anymore - I'm not sure there ever was. We may live in frightening times but they can be exciting frightening times too if you care to keep hold of the umbrella when the hurricane comes knocking...

You can find Mr Ransom online here.

BOOKS OF MAGIC (1)

This collection of redesigned Clive Barker covers are from Jeannette Kaczorowski - not sure if they were ever actually published (and I think I would know if they had been) but they certainly add a little class where quite often, publishers like to make Barker look like a cheap horror merchant - which as well know, is very untrue.

BLACKBERRY DELIGHT

I'm one of those people that has two phones. I don't like it but it's a bit of a necessity to keep me sane. Having an iphone is pretty neat, but it's saturated with day-job stuff and you simply can't escape doing more work every time you press the damn button. My other phone is (was) a Sony Ericsson Cyber-Shot. Great phone but the key for a space has died a death and it's pretty annoying. So yesterday, I went to find a new phone and at six o'clock came out of Tesco armed with a BlackBerry. There was good thinking behind it. I needed a decent phone, some messaging services and the ability to keep on top of my personal email. Picture my face. Three hours to try and hook it up to wi-fi (never successfully achieved despite it being as simple as entering a password), total complexity when it comes to setting up email accounts, a lousy app store with an even worse interface. The only thing the damn thing had going for it was that it was black. By midnight, it was back at the store and the money back in my account. Compared to how unbelievably easy the iPhone is when you want to do, well, anything at all, it's shockingly awful that they think they can get away with this shit and hold their heads high as a market leader. Honestly... a worse piece of tech I have never layed my hands on.

The search continues - annoyingly, a couple of years ago, there were some great looking phones on the market but now, they're like cars. They all look the same and they all do the same thing. Functionality over design is really fucking dull believe me and not all it's cracked up to be.

I finished a crackerjack of a book yesterday too. It took me well into the early hours of this morning but it was worth it. Nattily titled She's Never Coming Back, it's a real Harlan Coben affair but Swedish (by Hans Koppel - real name Karl Petter Lidbeck, hidden presumably because he normally writes for kids). If you can handle the darkness of a Swedish kidnapping in the most bizarre of circumstances and have got enough time to chew it up in a day, grab yourself a copy. That leaves me free to make a start on Clive Barker's Absolute Midnight this evening.

Which won't be finished in one sitting. Guaranteed.

I have also decided that I am going to start wearing a lot of suits (not all at the same time). This may be a passing phase, but seems to me if you can find the right suit, it can speak volumes about you. Especially when you've got a ton of hair to go with it. (Note to self: be careful! This road has potential potholes every ten feet.)

Anyway - back to work. Lots to do...

Currently listening to: a great Stevie Wonder mash-up.

Currently reading: see above.

Not currently: speaking much on the phone

Liking: how Alcatraz might shape up over the next few weeks and seeing the potential in Once Upon A Time

Not that impressed with: a really slow kick-in for the second half of the Supernatural season. Sloooow.