Dear Ryan
I’m back, and this time I’ve brought a bag full of the bleeding obvious.
If you want to write, you’ve got to write (yeah, don’t groan, I said today was Bring A Bag Of The Bleeding Obvious To Work Day, didn’t I?). It’s as simple as that. If you want to be an actor, or a rock star, and you can’t get a part in a play, or an audition for a band, then there are mitigating circumstances for you not acting or rock-starring. Except for “I haven’t got a pen”, there are no excuses for not writing. And even without a pen, crayon, pencil, or lump of dried monkey poo, you can be thinking about stuff to write down later.
Writing - being a writer - is an ongoing, long-term, cumulative thing. It accretes like dust. It’s not something you do for a few hours one weekend, like kayaking or SingStar. It’s an ongoing lifestyle choice, something that is never far away, like a favourite sweater, or an annoying brother.
It’s up to you how much of a lifestyle choice it becomes. You decide where to place it on the bell curve that runs from idle pass-time through serious hobby to life-altering obsession. It’s a little like smoking, I suppose. You may smoke a couple of cigarettes at a party once in a while, or you might be a forty-a-day guy: either way, you’re still a smoker, dude.
The point is, you’ve got to be doing it to be it. You’ve got to write. In the early stages of what, if you’re lucky (and I use the word advisedly), will be a process that eventually comes to dominate your life like a giant and petulantly demanding Writing God, you should write for yourself. You should write as often as you can. You should write for fun. You should write anything.
Just write. Get those writing joints shaken out. Build those writing muscles. Pump it! Get limber and flexible. Have a laugh. Hum the Rocky theme as you jog up the steps in Writerdelphia (note: metaphors in use).
You can write scraps and fragments, you can write a book, you can write short stories. It doesn’t really matter what it is. I’ve got a stack of folders and file cartons filled with stuff I spewed out as a teenager, and as a young man trying to get into the industry. Sometimes I can still fish a fragment out that's got some battery life left in it, but most of the stuff is beyond recycling. The folders and cartons simply represent the training montage from the movie of my career (note: there isn’t a movie of my career, obviously.)
Once you’ve got the habit of it, the habit of writing things down, and trying them out for size, and for the way they sound in your head when you read them back, you can start showing them to people. That will be the moment when people start saying stupid things to you that you don’t want to hear, which is a fun issue we’ll deal with next time.
For now, buy a pencil. Hey, why not buy a BOX of pencils!? Or, you know, a laptop. Or feed your monkey extra fibre and wait beside him with a hairdryer. Just get writing.
Visualise it this way: a poem or a song lyric is a 100 metres sprint; an article or feature is a 400 metres race; a short story is an 800 metres steeplechase; a novel is a marathon.
Would you try to run any of those things if you hadn’t been in training first?
Oh, and if this bag of the bleeding obvious has come as a disappointment (sorry, you were warned), let me throw in one Actual Solid Practical Tip, free and gratis, no purchase necessary. Buy a small notebook, one that pleases you to use and is small enough to carry in your pocket. Carry it in your pocket at all times. When you are not equipped with a pocket (I’m thinking, in bed, in the shower, dressed as Wonder Woman) strategically place the notebook near to your location (ie on the night stand, by the sink, in the glovebox of the invisible jet).
Write down any ideas you have. Any good names, or words, or notions. Any jokes you like, or stories, or whatever the hell else. Write down anything you think might be of use in your writing (suitably recycled, adjusted or customised, etc). Just collect stuff up for later use. If you don’t write ideas down when you think of them, YOU WILL FORGET THEM. Do not tell yourself you will be able to remember them later when you get home, because you will be lying to yourself, and no one likes a liar.
I’m only going to tell you that tip once.
Talk to you soon.
Dan
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Friday, February 05, 2010
Clickety-Clack! (the sound of my fingers typing faster than Jessica Fletcher's)
Up to my Nova Corps helmet chin-strap with some Marvel scripting right now, so I'll be back with another chunk of "Dear Ryan" writing tips as soon as (though here's one to be going on with: writing for a living trumps writing about writing for a living).
In the meantime, a short but very sweet review here.
In the meantime, a short but very sweet review here.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Dear Ryan
I got this letter by email the other day. As you can imagine, I get a lot of mail, most of it through this site. A lot of it is positive feedback for my books and comics, which I’m grateful to receive. I try to respond to everybody personally, even if it’s just a casual thank you.
Sometimes, people write to take me to task over something and generally tell me how wrong I am, or how bad, or how mistaken, or simply how crap. This is pretty much par for the course in this business we call Write, and I’m grateful for it too, no matter how odd that might sound. It’s not pleasant to be told you suck, but sometimes it’s useful. A writer needs to learn how to use negative criticism as free ammunition (to make him think about his own work and perhaps improve it) and not feel wounded. Either that, or never stick his head over the battlements.
I’m not invulnerable, and sometimes I feel dejected because of the things people say to me about my books despite the fact that, quite often, I don’t even think they mean to be hurtful.
Anyway, a hot button topic, positive or negative, is usually the death of characters (what a surprise). It crops up about as often as the other FAQ - writing advice. Ryan’s letter typifies the sentiment of much of my positive mail, but I found it a particularly stirring example. He’s given me permission to publish it below, so that rather than answering his request for tips privately, I can do it in public for everyone’s benefit.
Ryan, thanks.
Dear Mr. Abnett,
We met once, eight years ago at the 2002 Gamesday in Baltimore,
Maryland. I was just fifteen years old then and my father was with me. He had bought your Eisenhorn trilogy for me, which you signed, and I left untouched on my shelf all these years for fear of damaging actual signed copies. I finally did read the Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies just this past year, great stuff, the dialogue between Frauka and Carl when they're waiting in the lander and the thug gets the drop on them in the origin story about Patience had me laughing so hard I nearly fel out of my chair.
When you were signing them, I brought up how I was angry when you
killed Bragg. You asked me why I was angry and I gave you a rather offhand comment about how I liked the character. You nodded and went back to signing. Truth is, I was rather intimidated at that moment and my answer was a cop-out. Plus, my real answer was rather more long-winded so I figured it wasn't proper etiquette to tie up your time with it. It has always nagged me since then (silly, I know, right?) that I never got to tell you my real answer.
So here it is. It was not so much that you killed Bragg that upset me, but how he was killed. If he had died in war, slain by some agent of Chaos or what-have-you I do not think I would have felt much disappointment because he's a soldier and that is what you expect to happen. But having Cuu kill him really got to me. It made me so angry I couldn't even sleep after reading it. And it was because the Ghosts had been a family. The original Ghosts from Tanith, we had gotten to know them over a few books before the influx of the Vervunhivers. Here was this Vervunhiver betraying and killing off one of the original Ghosts, an outsider coming in and destroying the family. That's what made me so angry, and that's the answer I would have liked to have given you back in 2002.
Since that book, you've killed off many of the main characters,
and every one made me feel sad at their loss. It is for that very
reason that whenever I am asked my favorite author, my answer has
always been, Dan Abnett. I actually feel something when a character dies. They're fictional, not real, no one was actually harmed in the writing of your books, and yet I can still feel sad after putting the book down like I just lost someone I cared about.
I definitely do not have the gift of a storyteller, in fact my
stories usually fall flat when I tell them, but perhaps that is
another art altogether from the written story. But something in me wants to write stories, for no other reason than for myself. I have always wanted something more from life than what is possible. To me life is really all just variations of the same pattern. We get an education, we choose a career, we start a family, and we see things through to our end. But that doesn't hold much meaning for me.
What I find meaningful can only be found in stories. I want to go
slay a dragon, be a hero, save Middle Earth, clash lightsabers with a Sith, pour lasgun shots over a sandbag bunker, I think that pretty much conveys the idea. Sure, I try to satisfy this desire with reading, Warhammer, with video games, movies, TV shows, etc but my thirst is never really sated.
The only way I can experience all these fantastical things would be to live vicariously through the stories I create. Even if my
written stories fall flat and are as trash as I anticipate, at least they'll serve their purpose to me. I have no formal training, I never had a creative writing class in my life, I don't fancy myself a writer of any kind.
I just wanted to perhaps hear some advice from you on the subject of writing. You signed the word "Repent!" into my Eisenhorn books so perhaps that is really the key behind all things, but if you had any more elaborate answers that would be lovely. Another author made a comment about how whenever he's approached by people who say they want to write, his first question is, "What do you like to read?" because reading is a great way to improve writing and I agree with that.
When I do try to write, I have plenty of ideas for characters and
scenes and dialogue but it all gets lost in translation between my
brain and the screen. Honestly, I don't know how to start.
Perhaps working inside a universe that has already been created, like Warhammer or Star Wars, or Warcraft where the general framework of the universe has already been established and I can work off that framework rather than from scratch would be easier?
Anyways, thank for you providing me with endless stories to enjoy
since the day I picked up First & Only.
Take care and thank you for your time,
-Ryan Brundage
Dear Ryan
Thanks for your email. The subject of Bragg’s death has come up time and again since The Guns of Tanith came out, and I’m sure my comments to you back in 2002 were a variation on what I usually ask: “Did you care?”
This is what matters to me, and this is why I ‘did’ it. I try to create character-driven stories that are so compelling they inspire gut reactions in a reader - even if that reaction is to hurl a book across a room in outrage. If I kill off a character and the readers utter a resounding “meh” then I don’t think I’m doing a bang-up job.
From your letter, I get it. You may not have been able to express it in 2002 (though you could have held the queue up for a few minutes, nobody would have minded), but your letter does it really well. I’m glad, it’s the response I wanted, because it’s a response. I’m flattered.
I think it’s important to realize that while I am in control of these books and characters, I’m not a cruel and vengeful creator. I am very engaged with them, and it pains me, really pains me, to do anything remotely unpleasant to any of them. I go where the drama takes me, and sometimes (though this will sound terribly poncey, so forgive me) it’s the characters who decide what happens next, and who lives or dies. To give you two non-specific examples, there’s one Ghost book where I knew a main character was going to die but only in the writing of the ‘death’ scene’ did I realise that it wasn’t going to be the one I was expecting it to be. In another Gaunt book, a Ghost died when I wasn’t expecting one to at all, unplanned. It just made sense. It wasn’t nice sense, but it was sense.
I’m glad this matters to you, and I’m glad and honored that it seems to matter to a lot of readers.
As for storytelling, I get asked for advice a lot, and I’d like to take this opportunity, in this post and the next few that follow, to set out some basic pointers as they appear to me. They are not infallible, and they are neither right nor wrong. They’re are just what they are. You can learn an awful lot from formal writing classes or informal advice from authors but, in the end, writing is just one of those things that are unquantifiable.
This post is now running too long, so I’ll end for now with a couple of comments. One is to pick up on the reading thing. It is the primary way to develop your writing and write better. Look at what other writers do and consider how they do it, how they achieve (or fail to achieve, heaven forbid) what they’re up to. I also believe that if you aren’t an eager reader you won’t make an eager writer. It’s like trying to be a great chef but not liking food much.
I also believe reading and writing enjoy a relationship that’s akin to the fuel in/fuel out principle. I’m not talking about plagiarism here; I just know that if I don’t read for a few days, if I don’t pour words into the fuel tank, I can’t write well. And it can be anything - a classic novel, a newspaper, a gossip magazine.
The second thing is just an idle aside. I agree that fiction is a marvelous escape, perhaps the greatest and purest route of all, but I think real life has a little more going for it than you suggest. Balance in all things.
Nice talking to you. I’ll post more soon.
Dan
Sometimes, people write to take me to task over something and generally tell me how wrong I am, or how bad, or how mistaken, or simply how crap. This is pretty much par for the course in this business we call Write, and I’m grateful for it too, no matter how odd that might sound. It’s not pleasant to be told you suck, but sometimes it’s useful. A writer needs to learn how to use negative criticism as free ammunition (to make him think about his own work and perhaps improve it) and not feel wounded. Either that, or never stick his head over the battlements.
I’m not invulnerable, and sometimes I feel dejected because of the things people say to me about my books despite the fact that, quite often, I don’t even think they mean to be hurtful.
Anyway, a hot button topic, positive or negative, is usually the death of characters (what a surprise). It crops up about as often as the other FAQ - writing advice. Ryan’s letter typifies the sentiment of much of my positive mail, but I found it a particularly stirring example. He’s given me permission to publish it below, so that rather than answering his request for tips privately, I can do it in public for everyone’s benefit.
Ryan, thanks.
Dear Mr. Abnett,
We met once, eight years ago at the 2002 Gamesday in Baltimore,
Maryland. I was just fifteen years old then and my father was with me. He had bought your Eisenhorn trilogy for me, which you signed, and I left untouched on my shelf all these years for fear of damaging actual signed copies. I finally did read the Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies just this past year, great stuff, the dialogue between Frauka and Carl when they're waiting in the lander and the thug gets the drop on them in the origin story about Patience had me laughing so hard I nearly fel out of my chair.
When you were signing them, I brought up how I was angry when you
killed Bragg. You asked me why I was angry and I gave you a rather offhand comment about how I liked the character. You nodded and went back to signing. Truth is, I was rather intimidated at that moment and my answer was a cop-out. Plus, my real answer was rather more long-winded so I figured it wasn't proper etiquette to tie up your time with it. It has always nagged me since then (silly, I know, right?) that I never got to tell you my real answer.
So here it is. It was not so much that you killed Bragg that upset me, but how he was killed. If he had died in war, slain by some agent of Chaos or what-have-you I do not think I would have felt much disappointment because he's a soldier and that is what you expect to happen. But having Cuu kill him really got to me. It made me so angry I couldn't even sleep after reading it. And it was because the Ghosts had been a family. The original Ghosts from Tanith, we had gotten to know them over a few books before the influx of the Vervunhivers. Here was this Vervunhiver betraying and killing off one of the original Ghosts, an outsider coming in and destroying the family. That's what made me so angry, and that's the answer I would have liked to have given you back in 2002.
Since that book, you've killed off many of the main characters,
and every one made me feel sad at their loss. It is for that very
reason that whenever I am asked my favorite author, my answer has
always been, Dan Abnett. I actually feel something when a character dies. They're fictional, not real, no one was actually harmed in the writing of your books, and yet I can still feel sad after putting the book down like I just lost someone I cared about.
I definitely do not have the gift of a storyteller, in fact my
stories usually fall flat when I tell them, but perhaps that is
another art altogether from the written story. But something in me wants to write stories, for no other reason than for myself. I have always wanted something more from life than what is possible. To me life is really all just variations of the same pattern. We get an education, we choose a career, we start a family, and we see things through to our end. But that doesn't hold much meaning for me.
What I find meaningful can only be found in stories. I want to go
slay a dragon, be a hero, save Middle Earth, clash lightsabers with a Sith, pour lasgun shots over a sandbag bunker, I think that pretty much conveys the idea. Sure, I try to satisfy this desire with reading, Warhammer, with video games, movies, TV shows, etc but my thirst is never really sated.
The only way I can experience all these fantastical things would be to live vicariously through the stories I create. Even if my
written stories fall flat and are as trash as I anticipate, at least they'll serve their purpose to me. I have no formal training, I never had a creative writing class in my life, I don't fancy myself a writer of any kind.
I just wanted to perhaps hear some advice from you on the subject of writing. You signed the word "Repent!" into my Eisenhorn books so perhaps that is really the key behind all things, but if you had any more elaborate answers that would be lovely. Another author made a comment about how whenever he's approached by people who say they want to write, his first question is, "What do you like to read?" because reading is a great way to improve writing and I agree with that.
When I do try to write, I have plenty of ideas for characters and
scenes and dialogue but it all gets lost in translation between my
brain and the screen. Honestly, I don't know how to start.
Perhaps working inside a universe that has already been created, like Warhammer or Star Wars, or Warcraft where the general framework of the universe has already been established and I can work off that framework rather than from scratch would be easier?
Anyways, thank for you providing me with endless stories to enjoy
since the day I picked up First & Only.
Take care and thank you for your time,
-Ryan Brundage
Dear Ryan
Thanks for your email. The subject of Bragg’s death has come up time and again since The Guns of Tanith came out, and I’m sure my comments to you back in 2002 were a variation on what I usually ask: “Did you care?”
This is what matters to me, and this is why I ‘did’ it. I try to create character-driven stories that are so compelling they inspire gut reactions in a reader - even if that reaction is to hurl a book across a room in outrage. If I kill off a character and the readers utter a resounding “meh” then I don’t think I’m doing a bang-up job.
From your letter, I get it. You may not have been able to express it in 2002 (though you could have held the queue up for a few minutes, nobody would have minded), but your letter does it really well. I’m glad, it’s the response I wanted, because it’s a response. I’m flattered.
I think it’s important to realize that while I am in control of these books and characters, I’m not a cruel and vengeful creator. I am very engaged with them, and it pains me, really pains me, to do anything remotely unpleasant to any of them. I go where the drama takes me, and sometimes (though this will sound terribly poncey, so forgive me) it’s the characters who decide what happens next, and who lives or dies. To give you two non-specific examples, there’s one Ghost book where I knew a main character was going to die but only in the writing of the ‘death’ scene’ did I realise that it wasn’t going to be the one I was expecting it to be. In another Gaunt book, a Ghost died when I wasn’t expecting one to at all, unplanned. It just made sense. It wasn’t nice sense, but it was sense.
I’m glad this matters to you, and I’m glad and honored that it seems to matter to a lot of readers.
As for storytelling, I get asked for advice a lot, and I’d like to take this opportunity, in this post and the next few that follow, to set out some basic pointers as they appear to me. They are not infallible, and they are neither right nor wrong. They’re are just what they are. You can learn an awful lot from formal writing classes or informal advice from authors but, in the end, writing is just one of those things that are unquantifiable.
This post is now running too long, so I’ll end for now with a couple of comments. One is to pick up on the reading thing. It is the primary way to develop your writing and write better. Look at what other writers do and consider how they do it, how they achieve (or fail to achieve, heaven forbid) what they’re up to. I also believe that if you aren’t an eager reader you won’t make an eager writer. It’s like trying to be a great chef but not liking food much.
I also believe reading and writing enjoy a relationship that’s akin to the fuel in/fuel out principle. I’m not talking about plagiarism here; I just know that if I don’t read for a few days, if I don’t pour words into the fuel tank, I can’t write well. And it can be anything - a classic novel, a newspaper, a gossip magazine.
The second thing is just an idle aside. I agree that fiction is a marvelous escape, perhaps the greatest and purest route of all, but I think real life has a little more going for it than you suggest. Balance in all things.
Nice talking to you. I’ll post more soon.
Dan
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Black Library Love
Here's how it's looking, official and timetabled. I believe there are still, like, two tickets left.
Run. RUN.
No Blog Like Home(page)
Babel Clash was a nice place to visit for a fortnight. The weather was great, and the company very affable, and the nightlife - man oh man! Between us Graham McNeill and I turned our stay as guest bloggers on the Borders US SF and F site into a record breaker - they got more traffic than during any previous guest tenure. So if you’re joining me here because you met me there, howdy! Let’s see what we can get nattering about.
Two cultural things for today. First, I see that Steve Jobs is finally marketing the dataslate I invented at the start of the Gaunt's Ghosts series ten years ago. B-dam tish!
Second (and I realise that this time I’m way late to the party) I went to see Avatar. Very groovy indeed. I was genuinely relieved to see Wayne Barlowe’s name in the end titles because, you know, otherwise he’d have every reason to feel intellectually raped. But doesn’t JC owe a fat old thank-you payment to the estate of Burne Hogarth for the jungles, and Roger Dean for... everything else? (Except for the Colonial Marines, which JC took from himself.)
And was it just me, or did the score from Oscar-winning composer James Horner* keep sounding either a) like the driving Colonial Marine music from Aliens, or b) like it was a note or two away from soaring into the main theme from Titanic?
* That’s James Horner, Oscar-winning composer of the music from James Cameron’s movies Aliens and Titanic.
Two cultural things for today. First, I see that Steve Jobs is finally marketing the dataslate I invented at the start of the Gaunt's Ghosts series ten years ago. B-dam tish!
Second (and I realise that this time I’m way late to the party) I went to see Avatar. Very groovy indeed. I was genuinely relieved to see Wayne Barlowe’s name in the end titles because, you know, otherwise he’d have every reason to feel intellectually raped. But doesn’t JC owe a fat old thank-you payment to the estate of Burne Hogarth for the jungles, and Roger Dean for... everything else? (Except for the Colonial Marines, which JC took from himself.)
And was it just me, or did the score from Oscar-winning composer James Horner* keep sounding either a) like the driving Colonial Marine music from Aliens, or b) like it was a note or two away from soaring into the main theme from Titanic?
* That’s James Horner, Oscar-winning composer of the music from James Cameron’s movies Aliens and Titanic.
Monday, February 01, 2010
First look: Embedded
To celebrate the first day of February or whatever else the funt you want to celebrate, Angry Robot has unveiled the cover art to my 2010 release, the combat SF novel Embedded. The art is by the fethtastically talented Larry Rostant. No further words are necessary. Just look.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
Noteworthy Alignments Get On My Wick, Says Author
So, coincidences. It’s no biggie, really, it’s just that I’m being stalked by coincidences.
I usually take a coincidence as a good thing, a sign that the universe is working the way it’s supposed to be, but just in the last few weeks, man, has my life been Noteworthy-alignment-of-two-or-more-events-or-circumstances-without-obvious-causal-connection Central.
It’s not even anything in particular, just an accumulation. the details would bore you (if you really must know, the latest one that made me exclaim in my Facebook status was that the latest issue of Fortean Times arrived through the door, and inside was an article on PRECISELY matched what I was working on - the same thing had happened with the Guardian and the TLS already this week).
One of the first questions they ask when they examine you for epilepsy and related conditions is if you experience deja vu. Hell, yeah. Mister, I’ve had deja vu BOTH times. Well, apparently, paramnesia can be a diagnostic indicator of epilepsy. I mention it because, to me, deja vu and coincidence are very similar things. They feel related. I wonder if coincidence can also be an epilepsy indicator, except I’m not sure if it can be.
I mean, it’s external, isn’t it? It’s not in my head, it’s clearly things out there in the world.
I was going to look it up on the Interweb, but I decided to wait. There’ll be an article about it in the paper tomorrow.
I usually take a coincidence as a good thing, a sign that the universe is working the way it’s supposed to be, but just in the last few weeks, man, has my life been Noteworthy-alignment-of-two-or-more-events-or-circumstances-without-obvious-causal-connection Central.
It’s not even anything in particular, just an accumulation. the details would bore you (if you really must know, the latest one that made me exclaim in my Facebook status was that the latest issue of Fortean Times arrived through the door, and inside was an article on PRECISELY matched what I was working on - the same thing had happened with the Guardian and the TLS already this week).
One of the first questions they ask when they examine you for epilepsy and related conditions is if you experience deja vu. Hell, yeah. Mister, I’ve had deja vu BOTH times. Well, apparently, paramnesia can be a diagnostic indicator of epilepsy. I mention it because, to me, deja vu and coincidence are very similar things. They feel related. I wonder if coincidence can also be an epilepsy indicator, except I’m not sure if it can be.
I mean, it’s external, isn’t it? It’s not in my head, it’s clearly things out there in the world.
I was going to look it up on the Interweb, but I decided to wait. There’ll be an article about it in the paper tomorrow.
Monday, January 25, 2010
And the winner is...
.. me! Or it could be. My fate is your hands. Here’s how it works. The fabulous comic website The Outhouse (www.theouthousers.com) is holding their first annual awards, and the winners are decided by a public vote. Andy and I have been nominated in two categories: Best Creative Team and Best Mainstream Ongoing (for Guardians of the Galaxy). So what you do is you go along to the website, register as an Outhouser (a free and painless process) and cast your vote. Then we finish on a big musical number, roll end titles.
What could possibly go wrong?
What could possibly go wrong?
Friday, January 22, 2010
Oh, let's just do another blog!
Yes, let's! I've got a drum kit, your dad's got a barn... we can put the show on right here!
Graham and I are still ruling the roost over at Borders Babel Clash, which is strengthening my blogging muscles and giving me momentum. So I’m back.
My confession about the Imperial Fists got you all over-excited, and condemned the blog forever to a very off-colour running gag. Which, BigWill and Matthew, I will make no effort to encourage (“Up the Emperor!”).
Flekkzo - thanks for the permission to keep writing ;) You put me in mind of the tone of Grand Moff Tarkin (“You may fire when ready”).
HiWayRobry - the Hawk Lords always sound to me like they’ve got a silver machine.
The SGC - As far as I’m concerned, and as far as I’ve been concerned all along, Loken is alive. (*Ming voice* “Loken’s alive!”). Plus, Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s got a cat called Loken, so I can’t let him down. Thanks for the YouTube tip, Adelie and BigWill.
Anonymous - I was wondering just how many people you were. One? Two? Three? Funnily enough, I’m writing Prospero Burns because I don’t like Russ and the Wolves much either, and I want to find out how they tick. The delay in that and the Ghosts has much more to do with my recent problems with epilepsy that have slowed everything down a bit. Sorry for the wait. Oh, I and I think I kill PLENTY of major characters in the Gaunt books. I’m infamous for it. Don’t lose anybody important in 10 books indeed! Honestly!
frieslander - the arrogance level may vary, but they’re all still seven foot high super-humans. It’s not so much a matter of lacking respect, I suppose, it’s more like different habitats, like saying Leopards have no respect for sardines, or eagles have no respect for termites. Or have I lost the plot? I don’t consciously favour Khorn, though I know I have a problem with Nurgle. I’d use Nurgle more, because the concept is the most interesting, but the name makes me laugh.
Philip - “The Space Wolves have kept their links to humanity”. Frieslander not the only one in need of special pills, I think ;)
Graham and I are still ruling the roost over at Borders Babel Clash, which is strengthening my blogging muscles and giving me momentum. So I’m back.
My confession about the Imperial Fists got you all over-excited, and condemned the blog forever to a very off-colour running gag. Which, BigWill and Matthew, I will make no effort to encourage (“Up the Emperor!”).
Flekkzo - thanks for the permission to keep writing ;) You put me in mind of the tone of Grand Moff Tarkin (“You may fire when ready”).
HiWayRobry - the Hawk Lords always sound to me like they’ve got a silver machine.
The SGC - As far as I’m concerned, and as far as I’ve been concerned all along, Loken is alive. (*Ming voice* “Loken’s alive!”). Plus, Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s got a cat called Loken, so I can’t let him down. Thanks for the YouTube tip, Adelie and BigWill.
Anonymous - I was wondering just how many people you were. One? Two? Three? Funnily enough, I’m writing Prospero Burns because I don’t like Russ and the Wolves much either, and I want to find out how they tick. The delay in that and the Ghosts has much more to do with my recent problems with epilepsy that have slowed everything down a bit. Sorry for the wait. Oh, I and I think I kill PLENTY of major characters in the Gaunt books. I’m infamous for it. Don’t lose anybody important in 10 books indeed! Honestly!
frieslander - the arrogance level may vary, but they’re all still seven foot high super-humans. It’s not so much a matter of lacking respect, I suppose, it’s more like different habitats, like saying Leopards have no respect for sardines, or eagles have no respect for termites. Or have I lost the plot? I don’t consciously favour Khorn, though I know I have a problem with Nurgle. I’d use Nurgle more, because the concept is the most interesting, but the name makes me laugh.
Philip - “The Space Wolves have kept their links to humanity”. Frieslander not the only one in need of special pills, I think ;)
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Babel Clash 2: Electric Boogaloo
Just thought I’d re-remind all of you that Im guest blogger over at the BORDERS sci-fi blog Babel Clash (link in the post below). It’s going well, and thanks to those of you who have already turned up to hurl vegetables at the stocks. In fact, I really shouldn’t draw attention to the fact that I’ve posted there two days in a row AND answered questions, because it will make painfully clear what a laggard I am here. I will do better. I will. It’s one of my New Year Resolutions.
To prove my point:
BigWill - I’m not sure how they compare, but a comparison would necessarily involve tests in sneaking about and hiding behind trees, which the Tanith would obviously win. My favorite chapter (apart from the iron Snakes, because that’s mine) is the Imperial Fists (this is not a lie or a joke, so don’t wait for a punchline). Incidentally, my least favorite was always the Wolves, but Prospero Burns is rapidly changing that.
Willard - thank you, me too, and see my previous answer.
frieslander - David, I can’t imagine what you mean ;)
Yes, I suppose some fair-minded, generous, liberal-thinking Astartes might be quite impressed by the Tanith. a) do you know any? and b) even then, they’d be quite condescending.
Lars - I don’t think so. Then again, Monsters Inc (a fine film) isn’t the first story to use the idea of a magic door either. By the way, it’s a pen AND a keyboard.
Big - yes, yes! Away with the cartoony garnish! Big, these Wolves are so ****ing mean and tough, they are going to ****ing come round Horus’s crib and **** him up so ****ing nasty, he won’t be able to ******* without a **** and two sturdy ***** ****. Actually, they are so ****ing ***** and ******* ***** *****, they don’t even like being called Space Wolves. THAT’S how hard they are!
Matthew - I know, but this is big and bright American Borders, where dreams still dream to be dreamed. Plus, you never know, you might get yourself a lovely taupe portcullis thing.
To prove my point:
BigWill - I’m not sure how they compare, but a comparison would necessarily involve tests in sneaking about and hiding behind trees, which the Tanith would obviously win. My favorite chapter (apart from the iron Snakes, because that’s mine) is the Imperial Fists (this is not a lie or a joke, so don’t wait for a punchline). Incidentally, my least favorite was always the Wolves, but Prospero Burns is rapidly changing that.
Willard - thank you, me too, and see my previous answer.
frieslander - David, I can’t imagine what you mean ;)
Yes, I suppose some fair-minded, generous, liberal-thinking Astartes might be quite impressed by the Tanith. a) do you know any? and b) even then, they’d be quite condescending.
Lars - I don’t think so. Then again, Monsters Inc (a fine film) isn’t the first story to use the idea of a magic door either. By the way, it’s a pen AND a keyboard.
Big - yes, yes! Away with the cartoony garnish! Big, these Wolves are so ****ing mean and tough, they are going to ****ing come round Horus’s crib and **** him up so ****ing nasty, he won’t be able to ******* without a **** and two sturdy ***** ****. Actually, they are so ****ing ***** and ******* ***** *****, they don’t even like being called Space Wolves. THAT’S how hard they are!
Matthew - I know, but this is big and bright American Borders, where dreams still dream to be dreamed. Plus, you never know, you might get yourself a lovely taupe portcullis thing.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Babel Clash
So, as part of a serious New Years Resolution-y effort to get my blog-a-rhythms pulsing along at a more regular lick, you are hereby given notice that as of the 19th of January, which is this coming Tuesday, I will be the latest guest blogger on Babel Clash, the BORDERS sci-fi blog. This can be found at http://bordersblog.com/scifi/
I’ll be in the driving seat there for the next two weeks, posting at least something every day, so pop along and take a peek. And comment. You know how to comment, don’t you? You just put your cursor on the link and click...
“Will there be a theme to your ramblings?” I hear you ask. Is there ever? Honestly? How long have you known me? Do I ever stick to a point? Nominally, I will be talking about (and taking questions about) writing in someone else’s Universe (which is, of course, what I do at Marvel and Black Library). But I may digress. You all know I am very easily distrac... oh look! That dog’s got a puffy tail!
Where was I? Oh yeah... I was on Babel Clash, the BORDERS sci-fi blog. Let’s go!
I’ll be in the driving seat there for the next two weeks, posting at least something every day, so pop along and take a peek. And comment. You know how to comment, don’t you? You just put your cursor on the link and click...
“Will there be a theme to your ramblings?” I hear you ask. Is there ever? Honestly? How long have you known me? Do I ever stick to a point? Nominally, I will be talking about (and taking questions about) writing in someone else’s Universe (which is, of course, what I do at Marvel and Black Library). But I may digress. You all know I am very easily distrac... oh look! That dog’s got a puffy tail!
Where was I? Oh yeah... I was on Babel Clash, the BORDERS sci-fi blog. Let’s go!
Thursday, December 24, 2009
To hear air-brakes in the snow
It’s Christmas Eve already, and Nik’s birthday (Happy Birthday, Nik!) and the snow is beginning to retreat, though that didn’t stop a large truck breaking down on the main road outside in the middle of last night and keeping me awake by farting its air brakes every couple of minutes. Also on a downside today is the news that Dan O’Bannon is no longer with us. Amongst his contributions to the genre, not the least being his creative influence on Alien, one of the absolute highlights for me remains Dark Star, the student film he made with John Carpenter that went on to become a successful indie feature. It was a real team effort: O’Bannon worked as a scripter, editor and actor on the movie. If the name Dark Star means nothing to you, give yourself a Christmas Present and find a copy to watch. I remember seeing it for the first time around Christmas when I was, well, a kid. It had a lasting effect. My god, I just this second realised where I got the ‘to camera’ diary room pieces in Guardians of the Galaxy from.
Anyway, it is, nevertheless, Christmas, and we should think happy thoughts. As I lay in bed listening to the music of the air brakes, I thought about all the cool ideas I didn’t get around to using this year: the magical catering supply company called Witchkraft Services; the title “Horrorscope” (Andy and I ended up calling it something else, as readers will discover next year); a character called Drew Morgue (actually, that’s a lie, as he ended up sneaking back in somewhere else); the fact that an on-line identity of nonspecific gender may be referred to as s/h/it; and the phrase “like the galaxy, he had a western spiral arm”, which I just can’t seem to sneak in anywhere.
There were many others, and some are too juicy not to be reserved for later use. Thanks for reading this year, and thanks for all your generous support and encouragement. Please accept my apologies for anything that’s run late - normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.
For some festive fun, frolics and chuckles, may I recommend you head over to Comic Geek Speak and listen to the podcast interview Andy Lanning and I did about our Marvel work (amongst other things); It’s over here: http://www.comicgeekspeak.com/episodes/comic_geek_speak-971.php We were in an especially silly mood. I believe Cor has already expressed an interest in catching up with the comic stuff, so I’ll just say that Marvel has issued both Nova and the Guardians of the Galaxy in numbered trade paperback collections.
I can also very much recommend a trip over to http://www.paulcornell.com/ where Mr C has been running his splendid 12 blogs of Christmas. Yes, I do turn up in the mix at once point, but that’s not why I’m recommending it. There are all sorts of diversions and entertainments, plus people such as Russell T. Davies and Stephan Moffat talking about Christmases and New Years, past and present.
Right, half seven, time for the day to begin. There’s a cup of tea to make and birthday presents to be removed from hiding.
If I don’t see you before, Happy Christmas, everyone.
Anyway, it is, nevertheless, Christmas, and we should think happy thoughts. As I lay in bed listening to the music of the air brakes, I thought about all the cool ideas I didn’t get around to using this year: the magical catering supply company called Witchkraft Services; the title “Horrorscope” (Andy and I ended up calling it something else, as readers will discover next year); a character called Drew Morgue (actually, that’s a lie, as he ended up sneaking back in somewhere else); the fact that an on-line identity of nonspecific gender may be referred to as s/h/it; and the phrase “like the galaxy, he had a western spiral arm”, which I just can’t seem to sneak in anywhere.
There were many others, and some are too juicy not to be reserved for later use. Thanks for reading this year, and thanks for all your generous support and encouragement. Please accept my apologies for anything that’s run late - normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.
For some festive fun, frolics and chuckles, may I recommend you head over to Comic Geek Speak and listen to the podcast interview Andy Lanning and I did about our Marvel work (amongst other things); It’s over here: http://www.comicgeekspeak.com/episodes/comic_geek_speak-971.php We were in an especially silly mood. I believe Cor has already expressed an interest in catching up with the comic stuff, so I’ll just say that Marvel has issued both Nova and the Guardians of the Galaxy in numbered trade paperback collections.
I can also very much recommend a trip over to http://www.paulcornell.com/ where Mr C has been running his splendid 12 blogs of Christmas. Yes, I do turn up in the mix at once point, but that’s not why I’m recommending it. There are all sorts of diversions and entertainments, plus people such as Russell T. Davies and Stephan Moffat talking about Christmases and New Years, past and present.
Right, half seven, time for the day to begin. There’s a cup of tea to make and birthday presents to be removed from hiding.
If I don’t see you before, Happy Christmas, everyone.
Monday, November 23, 2009
The doctor will see you now.
“Oh, really?” said the specialist. “An author, eh?” and so began an enthusiastic ten minute chat about the merits of Dan Brown, which was all very nice and cordial, except I was sitting there, waiting anxiously to get the results of my MRI and find out if I had terminal Brain Death Lurgy or Sudden Cerebral Splat Out The Ears Syndrome, or whatever.
So I was a little tense and braced, and a ten minute chat about the relative merits of D. Brown Esq was not high on my list marked ‘to do’. Maybe, I suddenly thought, this is his way of relaxing me so he can Break It To Me Gently. Oh god...
Turns out, I have epilepsy. I ‘just’ have epilepsy. No family history, no explanation of why I have suddenly developed it, but I know what’s going on now, and, without making light of the condition in any way, it seems like a pretty good result, considering where the Dan Brown chat could have been leading.
Can I just thank you all for your messages of support and encouragement here and on Twitter and Facebook etc. You guys...
As many of you have mentioned, it’s now been revealed that I wrote the screenplay for the 40K animated movie 'Ultramarines' (http://ultramarinesthemovie.com/). I’ve been itching to let the cat out of the bag about this, and I’m properly excited it’s now been officially announced. Lots of you already have questions, and I’ll be answering them here and on the official site as we go along. But be patient! I’ll bring you the first update on the production as soon as they un-cuff me and let me out of this cupboard marked ‘secret movie stuff’.
Seeing as we’re getting all link-happy, I would like to point you to Nathan Long’s spiffy new website (www.sabrepunk.com), and also to an interesting dialogue I had with Mark Charan Newton, which Mark ran as a guest on Jeff Vandermeer’s blog (http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2009/11/11/genre-fiction-and-tie-in-fiction-–-a-conversation-between-mark-charan-newton-and-dan-abnett/). As the link suggests, it’s a chat about tie-in fiction, which some of you might find thought-provoking.
One of the questions I got asked by the specialist was “do you ever experience deja vu?” Do I? Not again! I get deja vu a lot (along with its close kinfolk Astonishing Coincidence, Synchronicity, Morphic Resonance and Jamais Vu). What that means for my head, I don’t know, but it segues me neatly to the last thing I wanted to mention. About twenty five years ago, as an undergraduate, I went with several of my friends to a Lloyd Cole and the Commotions gig. We liked them very much, and we liked the show very much too, especially the endearing fact that they played some of their best numbers more than once (“because we don’t know that many songs yet” Mr Cole offered by way of an explanation).
One of my best friends - we’ll call him Duffy, because that’s his name - decided, for reasons he later came to regret, not to come to the gig. He was kicking himself for missing it within days, if not hours, of the concert.
Last week, he emailed me (he lives in a distant part of the world now). He wanted to tell me that he had finally got the chance to go to a Lloyd Cole concert (no more Commotions these days), and had enjoyed it hugely. After the interval, Mr Cole had played one of his most famous songs, but because some of the audience had been late back from the bar, and had missed it, he played it again. Then he said, “I haven’t played a song twice in one concert since 1984. Back then it was because I didn’t know many songs”). He was referring, you see, to the actual concert that I had been to, and which Duffy had missed, and now Duffy and been there when he said-
I’m sure you get it. Nice and synchronous though, right?
So I was a little tense and braced, and a ten minute chat about the relative merits of D. Brown Esq was not high on my list marked ‘to do’. Maybe, I suddenly thought, this is his way of relaxing me so he can Break It To Me Gently. Oh god...
Turns out, I have epilepsy. I ‘just’ have epilepsy. No family history, no explanation of why I have suddenly developed it, but I know what’s going on now, and, without making light of the condition in any way, it seems like a pretty good result, considering where the Dan Brown chat could have been leading.
Can I just thank you all for your messages of support and encouragement here and on Twitter and Facebook etc. You guys...
As many of you have mentioned, it’s now been revealed that I wrote the screenplay for the 40K animated movie 'Ultramarines' (http://ultramarinesthemovie.com/). I’ve been itching to let the cat out of the bag about this, and I’m properly excited it’s now been officially announced. Lots of you already have questions, and I’ll be answering them here and on the official site as we go along. But be patient! I’ll bring you the first update on the production as soon as they un-cuff me and let me out of this cupboard marked ‘secret movie stuff’.
Seeing as we’re getting all link-happy, I would like to point you to Nathan Long’s spiffy new website (www.sabrepunk.com), and also to an interesting dialogue I had with Mark Charan Newton, which Mark ran as a guest on Jeff Vandermeer’s blog (http://www.jeffvandermeer.com/2009/11/11/genre-fiction-and-tie-in-fiction-–-a-conversation-between-mark-charan-newton-and-dan-abnett/). As the link suggests, it’s a chat about tie-in fiction, which some of you might find thought-provoking.
One of the questions I got asked by the specialist was “do you ever experience deja vu?” Do I? Not again! I get deja vu a lot (along with its close kinfolk Astonishing Coincidence, Synchronicity, Morphic Resonance and Jamais Vu). What that means for my head, I don’t know, but it segues me neatly to the last thing I wanted to mention. About twenty five years ago, as an undergraduate, I went with several of my friends to a Lloyd Cole and the Commotions gig. We liked them very much, and we liked the show very much too, especially the endearing fact that they played some of their best numbers more than once (“because we don’t know that many songs yet” Mr Cole offered by way of an explanation).
One of my best friends - we’ll call him Duffy, because that’s his name - decided, for reasons he later came to regret, not to come to the gig. He was kicking himself for missing it within days, if not hours, of the concert.
Last week, he emailed me (he lives in a distant part of the world now). He wanted to tell me that he had finally got the chance to go to a Lloyd Cole concert (no more Commotions these days), and had enjoyed it hugely. After the interval, Mr Cole had played one of his most famous songs, but because some of the audience had been late back from the bar, and had missed it, he played it again. Then he said, “I haven’t played a song twice in one concert since 1984. Back then it was because I didn’t know many songs”). He was referring, you see, to the actual concert that I had been to, and which Duffy had missed, and now Duffy and been there when he said-
I’m sure you get it. Nice and synchronous though, right?
Sunday, November 15, 2009
"Caution: Unexpected honking"
So I’m sitting here, writing this, watching the finals of the Over 35 Bronze Man-Lady. I assume that’s hyphenated. It could be, at a pinch, a slash. And before you go all taste and decency on me, it’s a ballroom dancing competition, and Man-Lady is a category that simply denotes a man dancing with a lady. Unnecessary clarity, I feel, unless there are categories I don’t know about like Man-Rotary Washing Line or Gnu-Lady.
Daughter B is taking part - she just won her third trophy. I’m sitting on the folding chairs with one eye on the dancefloor and my lap top in my lap. Outside in the park, thanks to the weekend storms, it looks like someone went bug-funt with an industrial leaf-blower.
I mention all of this simply for colour. It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon. Thanks for all the messages of encouragement and support, I’ve really appreciated them. I did indeed break the MRI machine - this was just after they had scanned me to establish I have no cats in me. It’s probably their fault for not including the question “Are you an omega-level telekine scheduled for termination by the Ordo Hereticus?” on the pre-MRI checklist (between, presumably, “Have you got any metal plates, pins or stents?” and “Are you wearing tattooed eye-liner?”).
Anyway, it broke, and I had to come back later. In fact, when I say broke, it actually had the MRI equivalent of a paper jam, which, if you’ve ever had an MRI, you’ll be able to picture. Curious thing: they warn you about the odd loud noises, the banging, the necessity to stay still, and the potential claustrophobia (you’re inside a metal tube - now I know what an individually-vended King Edward cigar feels like), but they don’t warn that about halfway through, the MRI machine will stop banging like a pneumatic drill and starting making a noise like... Well, you know those horns that kids have on their bikes? A squeezy rubber bulb attached to a chrome horn? The sort of thing a seal would use in a circus? A honking thing? A sound most commonly experienced in Looney Tunes cartoons and Benny Hill sketches?
A noise like that. Behind my head. Over and over and over again.
Odd. Anyway, I didn’t break it this time, and the doctors and technicians were all smiley, and in a week or so, I’ll get the final results - “I’m sorry, Mr Abnett, but we’ve scanned your head and we can’t find any trace of a brain at all.” Equally odd is the fact that I choose this week to watch the final few episodes of the fourth season of Bones. I don’t want to spoil things for anyone who hasn't seen it, but odd, that’s what I’m saying. Odd.
Still, I’m getting a lot of reading done. More news as it happens. We’re off home, where there’s a dumpling with my name on it (note to self: stop labeling things).
Daughter B is taking part - she just won her third trophy. I’m sitting on the folding chairs with one eye on the dancefloor and my lap top in my lap. Outside in the park, thanks to the weekend storms, it looks like someone went bug-funt with an industrial leaf-blower.
I mention all of this simply for colour. It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon. Thanks for all the messages of encouragement and support, I’ve really appreciated them. I did indeed break the MRI machine - this was just after they had scanned me to establish I have no cats in me. It’s probably their fault for not including the question “Are you an omega-level telekine scheduled for termination by the Ordo Hereticus?” on the pre-MRI checklist (between, presumably, “Have you got any metal plates, pins or stents?” and “Are you wearing tattooed eye-liner?”).
Anyway, it broke, and I had to come back later. In fact, when I say broke, it actually had the MRI equivalent of a paper jam, which, if you’ve ever had an MRI, you’ll be able to picture. Curious thing: they warn you about the odd loud noises, the banging, the necessity to stay still, and the potential claustrophobia (you’re inside a metal tube - now I know what an individually-vended King Edward cigar feels like), but they don’t warn that about halfway through, the MRI machine will stop banging like a pneumatic drill and starting making a noise like... Well, you know those horns that kids have on their bikes? A squeezy rubber bulb attached to a chrome horn? The sort of thing a seal would use in a circus? A honking thing? A sound most commonly experienced in Looney Tunes cartoons and Benny Hill sketches?
A noise like that. Behind my head. Over and over and over again.
Odd. Anyway, I didn’t break it this time, and the doctors and technicians were all smiley, and in a week or so, I’ll get the final results - “I’m sorry, Mr Abnett, but we’ve scanned your head and we can’t find any trace of a brain at all.” Equally odd is the fact that I choose this week to watch the final few episodes of the fourth season of Bones. I don’t want to spoil things for anyone who hasn't seen it, but odd, that’s what I’m saying. Odd.
Still, I’m getting a lot of reading done. More news as it happens. We’re off home, where there’s a dumpling with my name on it (note to self: stop labeling things).
Thursday, October 22, 2009
I Hate Dan Abnett
Wonders will never cease. The marvelous Mark Charan Newton, author of "Villjamur", read "Triumff", and liked it so much that he has written a few words to inspire others to read it too. What a very fine chap he is. Take it away Mr Newton.
Enough has been said about the plot already, so what I most of all want to add is this:
I hate Dan Abnett.
Why? Because having proved himself the king of noir-infused miltary SF, it takes quite a talent to move easily to something completely different - and this really is a triumffant leap in style. Such transitions really are difficult to pull off, and you would have thought that he's been writing books like this for the past decade.
Our foppish lead, Sir Rupert, heads on a rip-snorter of a ride across a steampunk alternate London that blends historical truth with the wonderfully bizarre. Half the time pissed, the rest getting down and dirty in duels (though the two are not mutually exclusive), this unlikely hero heads on the trail of Occult Goings On of the highest order. Whilst it's chock-full of nods-of-the-head to the finest of Culture and Art and History, it doesn't come over as pretentious – because most of all, "Triumff" is a great slice of British fun.
Anyway, back to the prose, which is the most entertaining aspect: Dan's style here is the bastard-son of, say, Scott Lynch and Tim Powers and all that's best of Blackadder. The depiction of the cityscape is a brew of heady descriptions, and written with a vast and esoteric vocabulary. And the humour is delivered with a wry smile that will have you guffawing boisterously from your armchair.
What's especially annoying, though, is that this pesky Abnett chap makes such a change of gear in writing and storytelling look so damn easy.
Enough has been said about the plot already, so what I most of all want to add is this:
I hate Dan Abnett.
Why? Because having proved himself the king of noir-infused miltary SF, it takes quite a talent to move easily to something completely different - and this really is a triumffant leap in style. Such transitions really are difficult to pull off, and you would have thought that he's been writing books like this for the past decade.
Our foppish lead, Sir Rupert, heads on a rip-snorter of a ride across a steampunk alternate London that blends historical truth with the wonderfully bizarre. Half the time pissed, the rest getting down and dirty in duels (though the two are not mutually exclusive), this unlikely hero heads on the trail of Occult Goings On of the highest order. Whilst it's chock-full of nods-of-the-head to the finest of Culture and Art and History, it doesn't come over as pretentious – because most of all, "Triumff" is a great slice of British fun.
Anyway, back to the prose, which is the most entertaining aspect: Dan's style here is the bastard-son of, say, Scott Lynch and Tim Powers and all that's best of Blackadder. The depiction of the cityscape is a brew of heady descriptions, and written with a vast and esoteric vocabulary. And the humour is delivered with a wry smile that will have you guffawing boisterously from your armchair.
What's especially annoying, though, is that this pesky Abnett chap makes such a change of gear in writing and storytelling look so damn easy.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Friday, October 09, 2009
Something for the weekend.
Forbidden Planet beckons, and Nik tells me that I've worked too much again, this week, what with more books in the mind-mill for AR and BL!
So, this is just to say that we both admire Matthew Farrer beyond anything that we can adequately express in a couple of sentences. We are beyond delighted that he has read and reviewed "Triumff", and here are his thoughts.
TRIUMFF - Her Majesty’s Hero, by Dan Abnett
It’s raining. It’s pouring. London is very much the worse for water, and as the little tour that opens Triumff shows you how bad things are there it also shows you what sort of London you’ve stepped into: a city of wooden buildings, wagon-rutted streets, cock-fighting pits, overflowing sewers and oddly underdressed nuns. Foul weather or no, it’s a jaunty, amused little expedition: you can feel Dan getting into the rhythm of his prose, feeling the saunter and spring in its step, seeing the gleam in its eye. It’s an intro that gets you into just the right frame of mind to meet our hero. Who is, of course, in the process of duelling for his life.
Sir Rupert Triumff, seafarer, Constable of the Gravesend Basin and celebrated discoverer of Australia, was commanding over a yard of sharpened metal of his own. His black locks hung in ringlets around his brow, his shirt had acquired two extra slits since he had put it on that morning, and he was humming a song about the Guinea Coast for no real reason at all. Triumff had once read the title page of Vegetius, owned a risible translation of Livy, and often quoted Caesar, even though he had never been within ten feet of a copy. He was not, at that stage, entirely sure what day it was.
It’s no great spoiler to say that Sir Rupert manages to survive the end of the duel, albeit neither undefeated nor unscathed, but even as the clouds clear over London you can tell they’re gathering over Triumff. We get a short course in the world the story has led us into: Queen Elizabeth XXX sits on the throne not only of England but of the Anglo-Hispanic Unity, a superpower that has dominated both Europe and the New World for centuries, aided by the rediscovery of Magick during the Renaissance and the incorporation of “the Cantrips and the Jinx” into the natural philosophies of the Church. And eavesdropping on a meeting of wicked conspirators gives a handy introduction to what certain parties want to do to this status quo (something rather bad), and hints at the magickal means they plan to employ to do it (something considerably worse).
Triumff thought he had problems before. The fallout from his expedition to Australia in search of new forms of Magick has put him in a deeply uncomfortable position at Court - the “attempts on one’s life” sort of level - and he’s wondering if and for how long he can conceal the real nature of what he found there, let alone the true nature of the native Australian who returned to England with him. These problems are about to get a sharp push down his list of priorities, though, when a terrible act of sabotage devastates the cantripworks that keep mighty London running.
The City was utterly, utterly dark. ... Usually, the City at night lies like a black velvet cape encrusted with winking sequins, spread across the muddy earth by some titanic Raleigh for some celestial Elizabeth. Tonight, even the poetry had been turned off. Everything down there, under the beating rain, was dark, and blind, and cold and frightened.
Before he knows it Triumff has been roped into a secret mission in the frantic defence of the kingdom, and as he and his little band of allies swashbuckle their way to the heart of the conspiracy we careen through swordfights, disguised identities, lute-playing, vile magick, a sedan-chair chase, the finer points of cat-nailing, and helping hands from an Italian genius, a fierce old hedge-witch and... something rather stranger. The whole adventure’s cheerful, crazy momentum carries it into a royal showdown with a hideous apparition and a literally explosive climax.
Triumff is the sort of story that tends to get described as “rollicking”, and in fact I’m pretty sure Dan used that exact word in one of his YouTube interviews recently. It’s a good word. Rollicking, roistering, roller-coasting. You can tell that Dan had fun with this. I’ve enjoyed and admired his Black Library work, but there’s a high-spirited gusto in Triumff that I don’t think I’ve really seen from him before. The sense of fun is infectious - if you read this book in company I predict you’ll be regularly tugging your companions’s sleeves wanting to share the bit that just got you chuckling. The writing has the occasional shade of Kim Newman, a touch of Blackadder and a few passages that put me in mind of Pratchett, but while you can catch Dan’s nods to some of his tastes and influences this remains indisputably an Abnett novel. It has Dan’s trademark crisp, pacy prose, his skill at evoking scenery and image, and his deft switches of direction. He has an easy confidence in shifting between his cast as their subplots and trajectories converge, bringing in minor characters for scenes that help broaden the picture and give backdrop to the main story, and changing gears from high slapstick to mournful or macabre. Dan’s prose is like a master fencer’s technique: however frantic the pace may seem, if you look carefully you can see how poised and controlled each movement actually is. Triumff also re-uses a technique from the Ravenor novels, switching between first and third person, with one Mr Beaver of Fleet Street providing commentary on the events as they unroll and occasionally stopping to address the reader directly. It’s a conceit that generally worked for Ravenor but actually works better here: it’s better built into the way the story is framed, and more suited to the amiably unruly feel.
In a garret on Fleet Street, your humble servant, the author, Master Wllm Beaver, sat, scribbling away by the light of the single overhead lamp. It was a piece on “Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Hose”, as I recall. It was destined never to be finished. My HB pencil had just broken, and a rummaging search was underway in the drawers of the desk for a clasp knife with which to resharpen it before item four (“You can wear it on your head if you seek to obtain money with menaces from a Banking House, Real Estate Society or Postal Depot”) slipped from my mind.
Triumff grabs the reader by the scruff of the neck early on and drags you along at such a pace that you can take the rough patches in stride, but in fairness, the rough patches are there. The main characters are sharply-drawn and endearing, but the supporting cast feels a little overstocked, and I found myself sometimes having to backtrack to earlier scenes so I could keep some of the characters straight in my head. The various subplots are handled well during the body of the book but there were rather a lot of them jostling for resolution at the end, and that meant that not all of them had satisfying payoffs and robbed the ending of some of its energy. There’s also a connection between an early scene of New World shamans and a subsequent character with a role right at the climax (be spoiler-aware when discussing this in the comments, please) which may have been intended as a deliberate bait-and-switch surprise but which ends up feeling disjointed.
None of this means that Triumff is less than a pleasure to read. I was busted more than once sneakily reading it while I was supposed to have my laptop open for something else entirely, I’ve read bits out from it to family and friends, and am very much looking forward to it hitting the shelves so I can start comparing favourite moments with other readers. It’s been great to see what Dan can do when he stretches his stride to the fullest.
So far no Angry Robot book seems to be anything like any of the others. I’ve now sampled the shuddering psychological wringer of Slights, the hypodermic-sharp post-cyberpunk of Moxyland and now had my swashbuckle dialled up to eleven for Triumff. Dan’s next book for them promises to be something different again, and I look forward to enjoying it as much as I’ve enjoyed this.
He saluted me, and strode away down the gravel path. As he disappeared from view behind the stable arch, I could hear that he was humming a song about the Guinea Coast.
That was the last time I saw him.
Until the next.
So, this is just to say that we both admire Matthew Farrer beyond anything that we can adequately express in a couple of sentences. We are beyond delighted that he has read and reviewed "Triumff", and here are his thoughts.
TRIUMFF - Her Majesty’s Hero, by Dan Abnett
It’s raining. It’s pouring. London is very much the worse for water, and as the little tour that opens Triumff shows you how bad things are there it also shows you what sort of London you’ve stepped into: a city of wooden buildings, wagon-rutted streets, cock-fighting pits, overflowing sewers and oddly underdressed nuns. Foul weather or no, it’s a jaunty, amused little expedition: you can feel Dan getting into the rhythm of his prose, feeling the saunter and spring in its step, seeing the gleam in its eye. It’s an intro that gets you into just the right frame of mind to meet our hero. Who is, of course, in the process of duelling for his life.
Sir Rupert Triumff, seafarer, Constable of the Gravesend Basin and celebrated discoverer of Australia, was commanding over a yard of sharpened metal of his own. His black locks hung in ringlets around his brow, his shirt had acquired two extra slits since he had put it on that morning, and he was humming a song about the Guinea Coast for no real reason at all. Triumff had once read the title page of Vegetius, owned a risible translation of Livy, and often quoted Caesar, even though he had never been within ten feet of a copy. He was not, at that stage, entirely sure what day it was.
It’s no great spoiler to say that Sir Rupert manages to survive the end of the duel, albeit neither undefeated nor unscathed, but even as the clouds clear over London you can tell they’re gathering over Triumff. We get a short course in the world the story has led us into: Queen Elizabeth XXX sits on the throne not only of England but of the Anglo-Hispanic Unity, a superpower that has dominated both Europe and the New World for centuries, aided by the rediscovery of Magick during the Renaissance and the incorporation of “the Cantrips and the Jinx” into the natural philosophies of the Church. And eavesdropping on a meeting of wicked conspirators gives a handy introduction to what certain parties want to do to this status quo (something rather bad), and hints at the magickal means they plan to employ to do it (something considerably worse).
Triumff thought he had problems before. The fallout from his expedition to Australia in search of new forms of Magick has put him in a deeply uncomfortable position at Court - the “attempts on one’s life” sort of level - and he’s wondering if and for how long he can conceal the real nature of what he found there, let alone the true nature of the native Australian who returned to England with him. These problems are about to get a sharp push down his list of priorities, though, when a terrible act of sabotage devastates the cantripworks that keep mighty London running.
The City was utterly, utterly dark. ... Usually, the City at night lies like a black velvet cape encrusted with winking sequins, spread across the muddy earth by some titanic Raleigh for some celestial Elizabeth. Tonight, even the poetry had been turned off. Everything down there, under the beating rain, was dark, and blind, and cold and frightened.
Before he knows it Triumff has been roped into a secret mission in the frantic defence of the kingdom, and as he and his little band of allies swashbuckle their way to the heart of the conspiracy we careen through swordfights, disguised identities, lute-playing, vile magick, a sedan-chair chase, the finer points of cat-nailing, and helping hands from an Italian genius, a fierce old hedge-witch and... something rather stranger. The whole adventure’s cheerful, crazy momentum carries it into a royal showdown with a hideous apparition and a literally explosive climax.
Triumff is the sort of story that tends to get described as “rollicking”, and in fact I’m pretty sure Dan used that exact word in one of his YouTube interviews recently. It’s a good word. Rollicking, roistering, roller-coasting. You can tell that Dan had fun with this. I’ve enjoyed and admired his Black Library work, but there’s a high-spirited gusto in Triumff that I don’t think I’ve really seen from him before. The sense of fun is infectious - if you read this book in company I predict you’ll be regularly tugging your companions’s sleeves wanting to share the bit that just got you chuckling. The writing has the occasional shade of Kim Newman, a touch of Blackadder and a few passages that put me in mind of Pratchett, but while you can catch Dan’s nods to some of his tastes and influences this remains indisputably an Abnett novel. It has Dan’s trademark crisp, pacy prose, his skill at evoking scenery and image, and his deft switches of direction. He has an easy confidence in shifting between his cast as their subplots and trajectories converge, bringing in minor characters for scenes that help broaden the picture and give backdrop to the main story, and changing gears from high slapstick to mournful or macabre. Dan’s prose is like a master fencer’s technique: however frantic the pace may seem, if you look carefully you can see how poised and controlled each movement actually is. Triumff also re-uses a technique from the Ravenor novels, switching between first and third person, with one Mr Beaver of Fleet Street providing commentary on the events as they unroll and occasionally stopping to address the reader directly. It’s a conceit that generally worked for Ravenor but actually works better here: it’s better built into the way the story is framed, and more suited to the amiably unruly feel.
In a garret on Fleet Street, your humble servant, the author, Master Wllm Beaver, sat, scribbling away by the light of the single overhead lamp. It was a piece on “Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Hose”, as I recall. It was destined never to be finished. My HB pencil had just broken, and a rummaging search was underway in the drawers of the desk for a clasp knife with which to resharpen it before item four (“You can wear it on your head if you seek to obtain money with menaces from a Banking House, Real Estate Society or Postal Depot”) slipped from my mind.
Triumff grabs the reader by the scruff of the neck early on and drags you along at such a pace that you can take the rough patches in stride, but in fairness, the rough patches are there. The main characters are sharply-drawn and endearing, but the supporting cast feels a little overstocked, and I found myself sometimes having to backtrack to earlier scenes so I could keep some of the characters straight in my head. The various subplots are handled well during the body of the book but there were rather a lot of them jostling for resolution at the end, and that meant that not all of them had satisfying payoffs and robbed the ending of some of its energy. There’s also a connection between an early scene of New World shamans and a subsequent character with a role right at the climax (be spoiler-aware when discussing this in the comments, please) which may have been intended as a deliberate bait-and-switch surprise but which ends up feeling disjointed.
None of this means that Triumff is less than a pleasure to read. I was busted more than once sneakily reading it while I was supposed to have my laptop open for something else entirely, I’ve read bits out from it to family and friends, and am very much looking forward to it hitting the shelves so I can start comparing favourite moments with other readers. It’s been great to see what Dan can do when he stretches his stride to the fullest.
So far no Angry Robot book seems to be anything like any of the others. I’ve now sampled the shuddering psychological wringer of Slights, the hypodermic-sharp post-cyberpunk of Moxyland and now had my swashbuckle dialled up to eleven for Triumff. Dan’s next book for them promises to be something different again, and I look forward to enjoying it as much as I’ve enjoyed this.
He saluted me, and strode away down the gravel path. As he disappeared from view behind the stable arch, I could hear that he was humming a song about the Guinea Coast.
That was the last time I saw him.
Until the next.
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Day of Days!
It has arrived! My day of days, and my comp copies of "Triumff"! I'm going to take this opportunity, if I may, to introduce a new guest blogger. I know, I know, you've read a review of "Triumff" already, you might even have read two, but, frankly, I can't get enough of people saying nice things about this book. It's my baby, and it has been for a very long time, and I can't think of anything nicer to do, today, than revel in praise for it!
I was seriously considering have a competition for best review of "Triumff", but they've all been so darned marvelous that it'd be impossible to choose just one!
Jonathan Green has been a fellow Black Library writer, and a very fine fellow for more years than I care to remember. He's a jolly good writer and a jolly good egg, and I can't say enough nice things about him. I sent him "Triumff", and the dear man read it. This is what he had to say. Thank you, Jonathan, and take it away:
Triumffant
A review of Dan Abnett’s Triumff: Her Majesty’s Hero by Jonathan Green
Triumff: Her Majesty's Hero is Dan Abnett’s long-awaited and much-anticipated original fiction debut. He’s been writing for years, of course (which is patently apparent in Triumff), and is already a multi-million-selling author, but outside of 2000AD, Games Workshop and various other comic-writing and tie-in novelisation gigs, he is still, unbelievably a relative unknown. But all that is about to change with the publication of this truly original work of fiction.
The setting is the present day, only it’s a world very different to our own, the sun never having set on the glories of the first Elizabethan Age. In this alternate reality the Renaissance saw a re-emergence of the Magick Arts and hence the arresting of significant technological development. Against this backdrop of Shakespearean thesps, wily cardinals and duelling noblemen, Sir Rupert Triumff – dandy, drinker and dueller – is catapulted into a revenger’s tragedy’s worth of intrigue as he tries to uncover and put paid to a nefarious and damnably traitorous scheme.
Abnett’s world-building is assured and satisfyingly detailed, although none of this detail ever swamps the plot which moves at a rollicking rate. In fact, it reads like a Blackadder-inspired cinematic blockbuster. As a result, the alternate Elizabethan setting is instantly recognisable, populated with pastiches of historical figures as well as characters that have walked right out of your television set. There’s even a nod to hardcore Warhammer fans. Humour, action and intrigue abound in equal measure, and combine with Abnett’s idiosyncratic clockpunk stylings to create a wholly satisfying read.
To dismiss Triumff: Her Majesty's Hero as a Pratchett clone is to do it a disservice; this is classic Abnett. From the economy of description – which nonetheless conjures a vivid and fascinating backdrop – to the grand set-piece action scenes and frequent, pun-tastic humour – that extends to a scene right out of Bond – it could hardly be anything else.
If you want your buckles well and truly swashed and derring done, you know where to come. Triumff is, in a word, a triumph.
I was seriously considering have a competition for best review of "Triumff", but they've all been so darned marvelous that it'd be impossible to choose just one!
Jonathan Green has been a fellow Black Library writer, and a very fine fellow for more years than I care to remember. He's a jolly good writer and a jolly good egg, and I can't say enough nice things about him. I sent him "Triumff", and the dear man read it. This is what he had to say. Thank you, Jonathan, and take it away:
Triumffant
A review of Dan Abnett’s Triumff: Her Majesty’s Hero by Jonathan Green
Triumff: Her Majesty's Hero is Dan Abnett’s long-awaited and much-anticipated original fiction debut. He’s been writing for years, of course (which is patently apparent in Triumff), and is already a multi-million-selling author, but outside of 2000AD, Games Workshop and various other comic-writing and tie-in novelisation gigs, he is still, unbelievably a relative unknown. But all that is about to change with the publication of this truly original work of fiction.
The setting is the present day, only it’s a world very different to our own, the sun never having set on the glories of the first Elizabethan Age. In this alternate reality the Renaissance saw a re-emergence of the Magick Arts and hence the arresting of significant technological development. Against this backdrop of Shakespearean thesps, wily cardinals and duelling noblemen, Sir Rupert Triumff – dandy, drinker and dueller – is catapulted into a revenger’s tragedy’s worth of intrigue as he tries to uncover and put paid to a nefarious and damnably traitorous scheme.
Abnett’s world-building is assured and satisfyingly detailed, although none of this detail ever swamps the plot which moves at a rollicking rate. In fact, it reads like a Blackadder-inspired cinematic blockbuster. As a result, the alternate Elizabethan setting is instantly recognisable, populated with pastiches of historical figures as well as characters that have walked right out of your television set. There’s even a nod to hardcore Warhammer fans. Humour, action and intrigue abound in equal measure, and combine with Abnett’s idiosyncratic clockpunk stylings to create a wholly satisfying read.
To dismiss Triumff: Her Majesty's Hero as a Pratchett clone is to do it a disservice; this is classic Abnett. From the economy of description – which nonetheless conjures a vivid and fascinating backdrop – to the grand set-piece action scenes and frequent, pun-tastic humour – that extends to a scene right out of Bond – it could hardly be anything else.
If you want your buckles well and truly swashed and derring done, you know where to come. Triumff is, in a word, a triumph.
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