Huzzah for Ian’s Shoelaces - or why I write this blog

Could it be possible that, in writing this blog, I'm already a throwback to a (not)long-passed way of life, a sort of digital bodger, treddling his way to another saucepan handle or chair leg?  That, in a matter of less than a decade, we’ve lost a way of life that we’d barely gotten used to?

Let me explain by quoting the ever excellent India Knight from her Sunday Times Magazine column earlier this year.  She, no doubt, isn’t the first to express these thoughts, but it was the first time that I felt a finger had been put on one of things ailing humanity.  Although it’s probably a long way behind poverty, starvation and cruelty, of course.

"I used to love wasting time on the internet.  I'd start off by reading a load of blogs I subscribed to, and these in turn would send me off to all sorts of other blogs and random links, and in all sorts of unpredictable directions...  The internet used to feel like an indefinite street of interesting, sometimes wildly eccentric, little independent shops.  Now it feels like a moribund clone-town high street - and half of it shut."

And that’s what this blog is.  A little independent shop with a slightly greying, podgy man behind the counter, waiting for the first customer of the day before he’ll allow himself lunch, wondering whether it’s worth it.  Whatever ‘it’ is in this instance.  A blog, not a tweet.  A thinkpiece, not a slogan.  

"I don't blame the bloggers for not blogging any more and tweeting instead... [but] what I miss is the feeling of walking about in someone else's world.  I find it less interesting to explore their snippets  - and, anyway, the hunger for things to go viral means the snippets are often contrived.  I also miss the communities that blogs used to create, none of which gave the sense that they were all foaming at the mouth."

I do occasionally wander on to Twitter but, to be honest, I’ve shyed away from tweeting for fear that my very British sense of humour may be lost in translation if the world was allowed to see my thoughts at the touch of a button.  And I did, briefly, monetise this blog, but removed the adverts as it wasn’t really what I wanted.

I’m well aware of the audience this blog generates, delighted that a few hardy souls from Israel to Ukraine stumble across it, but I write it for me as much as you.  And I’m not sure I totally agree with India Knight.  There are plenty of soundbites out there looking to go viral, but the eccentric blogs, like Ian’s Shoelaces haven’t been killed off.  Maybe you need to hunt a bit harder for them, ignore the clickbait and the echo chamber of social media, but we’re still here.  

After all, Ancient Rome had graffiti as well as great works of literature.  One didn’t kill off the other.  ‘Twas ever thus, and ever will be.

Who’s foolish now?

A story with a happy ending.  Following my wonderings whether I had a cursed story on my hands, resulting in a Mexican standoff that, admittedly, only I was aware of, probably because I’d exaggerated for comic effect, ‘The Fool’, an off-world tale of a man who once placed second in Mister New Mexico, has been published by New Accelerator.  Go on, you know you want to...

British science fiction and fantasy in rude health

It is with a heavy heart that I can announce that I have failed to make the cut for this year’s (or, possibly, last year’s; I’ve been dubious about their titling from the off, but they’ve rather painted themselves into a corner if they want to change it now) Best of British Science Fiction anthology.

Nor have I made it into its cousin, Best of British Fantasy, but that was something of a long shot as I neither like nor read fantasy, thought Lord of the Rings wasn’t worth labouring through just to snicker at “Nobody Tosses a Dwarf”, and have only watched two seasons of Game of Thrones.  That said, I did rather like Stormwarning, my entry for the latter.

On the sci-fi side, to be honest, I thought my entries - Charles Edward Tuckett’s Yuletide Message, New Shoes, and A Second Opinion - were good rather than great.  I therefore have to concede that, had any of them made it, I’d begin to wonder about the threshold for what I would like to see as the high water mark of speculative fiction on this damp and troubled island.  So all I can do is wish the publication and its overseer, Donna Bond, all the best for this year’s - or is it last year’s? - adventure.

Next year - or is it this year? - there’ll be How Did They Get You?, forthcoming in James Gunn's Ad Astra, and The Loimaa Protocol, at the very least, and the following year one of my personal favourites that Abyss and Apex have lined up.  Much stronger entries, much greater chance of mixing it with the greats.  Here's hoping.

I guess that makes me Eli Wallach...

I thought it was time I gave you an update on the Mexican standoff going on between an SFWA heavyweight, a minnow publisher, and my good self.

And that update is... absolutely nothing.

Since receiving the out-of-the-blue token-payment contract offer in mid-January I've had nothing from the minnow.  Not a chase, not a reminder, nothing.  And on the submission of the self-same story to the SFWA name, three hours before the contract dropped through my electronic doorslot, I let it go the four weeks stated on the submissions page (actually, I let it go six before realising I'd got it wrong) and have chased.  Twice.  Nothing.

I suspect I'm Eli Wallach in all this, but Lee and Clint don't seem to be paying attention.  I'm beginning to wonder how long this can go on for or, more probably, whether the contract with the bottom-feeder would never have been honoured (much like you, Nexxis!) and the submission to the land of milk and honey has long since been rejected.

I'm also beginning to wonder whether this is a minor symptom of a wider malaise.  Not only have I previously signed a contract with Nexxis (which I see from the link above, has just been acquired by another publisher) which nothing (neither payment nor publication) came of, but Eric Fomley's 'Martian' also seems to have gone the way of all flesh after accepting, but not publishing a drabble of mine.  I think I waived payment for that one, so there's no issue there; Eric's published other stuff of mine and I wish him well.

I'm conscious that Ad Astra #7, which has a story of mine slated, should have been out last month but isn't yet, and Wit & Whimsy vol 2, which also has one of mine, seems to have emerged to complete internet silence.  Try googling it without being swept away in a tide of GK Chesterton - see?  I'm also sensing a slowing down of new markets opening up on the Grinder.  Plus we've also said goodbye to stalwarts such as Intergalactic Medicine Show as a place to submit.

Maybe this is one of those proxy indicators of the economy, like skirt length or magazine covers?  God knows writing this stuff is a labour of love; publishing it must be the same writ large.  As we pull in our belts stuff like this is the first to go.

On a happier note, I've stumbled across this review of Chronos Chronicles, which put my story under the ones 'the man known as SKJAM' liked.  Which is nice.

It's curtains for us

We caught up with Denis Villeneuve's 'Arrival' at the weekend.  I don't want to dwell on the joy of an intelligent, ideas-driven sci-fi rather than the usual effects-heavy, superhero sugar-rush.  I don't want to make a big thing out of two teenagers who had decided in advance that they were not going to like it being engaged throughout.  And I won't mention in passing that, having an MA in linguistics, the solidity of the science was palpable.

Instead, I want to focus on something not specific to Arrival, a point outside the realm of sci fi per se, but it's a question that's troubled me for some time and Arrival has been the proverbial straw that's broken the camel's back.  It's this:

Do all Americans sleep with the curtains - sorry, drapes - open?  Or does this only happen in movies?

Most readers of this blog are American so, please, help me out on this...

Or are we (and who's the 'we' here?  I assumed everybody did this, but maybe it's a uniquely British thing) the oddities for closing our curtains to keep out the dark, and only opening them to let in the light.

Actually, put like that it does sound a bit weird...

Why can't time travel be easy?

Perhaps it's because I've just waded into Audrey Niffenegger's 'The Time Traveler's Wife' (thoughts so far: is the grooming of a six-year old Clare okay because it's perpetrated by Clare's future husband, or because it's written by a woman?), but my mind has been turning to time travel.

It's a device that I've used before, that virtually every science fiction writer has deployed at some point.  It's also - sort of - the subject of my story The Loimaa Protocol, published in Wit & Whimsy volume 2.

It's never easy, time travel.  Have you noticed?  You either need some vehicle, or some esoteric token or knowledge.  Vehicles go wrong or are lost - how many time has the Doctor slapped the console of the TARDIS?  Spells don't always work.  Potions may need obscure ingredients that the corner shop just doesn't have.  Or, when you don't need any of those things, like in The Time Traveller's Wife, it's invariably uncontrollable, fickle, capricious.

Think of a story where the hero can just go 'Battle of Waterloo' and click his fingers without problem.  Easy as wandering down the end of the garden to pull some carrots.  No need to stoke the boilers of a time machine or incant correctly.  No, me neither.

There's a story-centric reason, of course.  Story is about somebody (singular or plural) who wants something but can't get it and has to overcome those barriers.  Story, at essence, is that simple.  But the second half is vital.  Nobody wants to read a story where the goals are easy.  That's why time travel is hard.

It's also because, in the real world, time travel is hard.  Actually, scrub that.  It's impossible.  (But, if it's impossible, then it doesn't matter where you set the dial between 'easy' and 'you must be joking' in terms of implausibility).

But - and this would be the real challenge to write - what about a story where the hero can time travel with ease, just wish himself elsewhen, with no need for a TARDIS or a book of spells?  The authorial challenge then is what challenges you present your hero, where do the barriers to be overcome move to if it's not the challenge of moving in time itself?  The very ease of your character's quest becomes the author's own problem to solve.  There's something quite meta- about that, don't you think?

Brace yourselves

Really struggling for a title for this posting, so a play on brace being two of something - although have you ever heard it used outside the context of bloodied animals held in the mouths of gundogs as they trot back to pink-faced men in tweeds with Purdeys under their armpits?

Well, you have now, because this posting is just to make you aware of a brace of stories that I'll have in circulation later this spring.  Atthisarts will have 'Five Minutes at Hotel Stormcove' out by May, and nestled in amongst 58 (yes, 58!) other stories will be my tale, 'A Room with a View'.  Not sure where I got that title from.  Looks great, even as a jpeg, I'm sure you'll agree.  Get your hands on one by clicking here.

Before that, 'How Did They Get You?', a tale of androids and Canadian whiskey on a Martian mining colony, will, hopefully, be appearing in issue number 7 - free, gratis and for nothing - of James Gunn's Ad Astra.  That'll hit your browser next month, I understand.

Both these tales are alike but very differing in that they went through a rewriting process in the light of editorial comments.   'How Did They Get You?' didn't just go through a process, but a wringer, being pitched in November 2017, chased in June 2018, with rewrites submitted in July and October 2018, and a final tweak last month.

Each redrafting was in response to detailed editorial comments questioning the science, the motives and actions of characters, the plot, everything.  Let's just say I don't think the good burghers of Ad Astra would have let Cervantes get away with Sancho Panza's donkey disappearing and reappearing in Don Quixote.  I doubt I thought as much about the story when I first wrote it as they did in reading it.  In contrast, my preference is always to keep the action moving along at a sufficient clip that you don't consider the bits that don't quite fit, hence my view of the process flip-flopped between 'oh my God, what now?' and 'good point, well made'.  To their credit, the rewrites improved the story without changing it.

Meanwhile, the edits for Hotel Stormcove were dealt with by an exchange of emails in a day.  I hope you enjoy them both, or this longer one...