STORY ACCEPTANCE AT JUPITER SF

Just got word from Ian Redman who edits the rather wonderful magazine Jupiter that he has accepted my short story The Earth Beneath My Feet for an upcoming issue.


I am rather pleased wi' meself as a result.



http://www.jupitersf.co.uk/

THREE WHEELS ON MY (BAND) WAGON

I don’t want to come across of any more of a curmudgeon than I already am and certainly don’t want to rain on the parades of other writers but…

Is it just me or does anyone else think that the current fad for mixing classic English literature with horror is starting to wear a bit thin? Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was a bit of fun with a killer opening line (“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains") and if the trend had begun and ended there it would have been fine.

But recently everyone seems to be hopping upon this particular bandwagon with authors from Wells to Austen and a whole gaggle of monsters including sea serpents, vampires, werewolves and the previously mentioned zombies being co-opted to rampage across their texts. Basically it seems that if you can get the text on Project Gutenberg all you have to do is download it and add the monster of your choice (this may be a somewhat simplified version of the truth since I have only read P&P&Z and, to be honest, have no real intention of going anywhere near the various clones that have emerged like pod-people from the classic Jack Finney novel).

There is, of course, a great tradition of cross fertilization in fiction (both speculative and non-speculative) – Sherlock Holmes has met Dracula, Jack the Ripper and Sir Harry Flashman V.C, sequels by other hands have been written to The Time Machine and The Island of Dr Moreau, The War Of the Worlds has proven a fertile ground for SF writers time and time again, Tarzan and Doc Savage have met (albeit under different names in Philip Jose Farmer's magnificently twisted novel A Feast Unknown) even Elric and Kane have crossed paths (as have Elric and Conan in comic book form) but this current classics-n’-horror trend seems somewhat faddish and lazy to me (there, I said it).

At a time when publishers in general are becoming more and more conservative, books such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies are a soft option (or rather the pod-people-books are, since it’s doubtful that anyone could have predicted the huge success of P&P&Z) but I think that they are harmful both to writers and their audiences since they stifle the imaginations of both.

If you really want Regency or Victorian or Edwardian horror, there are many, many fine writers who were working at the time and will deliver more genuine scares (and occasional chuckles) than a whole plethora of delve and pillage authors. (I notice, with great relief, that no one has yet been tempted to ‘improve’ The Turn of the Screw or The Castle of Otranto or, god forbid, Frankenstein).

Fortunately, trends such as classics-n’-horror tend to be short lived. Let’s hope someone knocks the wheels of this particular bandwagon very, very soon.

KINGS OF THE NIGHT

Following the news that Flashing Swords is no more, where can discerning readers go for quality Sword and Sorcery fiction?

Well, one answer might be GW Thomas' excellent ezine Kings of the Night, which is one of the few publications (either online or in print) dedicated to the S&S genre.

The current issue contains:

THWACK! The Last Arrow's Tale

by Peter J Welmerink

Brock Strangebeard and the Towers of Matterkill

by Robert E. Keller

The Crypt of the Cobra

by C.L Werner

The Fount

by G.W Thomas

The Huntsman's Pack

by David A. Hardy

The Mark of Gennesh

by Jack Mackenzie

The Obsidian City

by James Lecky

There's also some rather spiffy links to the online back issues of the late lamented Flashing Swords as well as excellent articles on the history of Sword and Sorcery and (and, for me, this is particular treasure trove) links to the wonderful Tumithak stories of Charles R. Tanner - if you've never read them, now is the time).

If you care at all about the future of sword and sorcery, this is the place to be.

http://www.gwthomas.org/kingsofthenight.htm

GOODBYE TO FLASHING SWORDS

It's always sad when a fiction market bites the dust, particularly when the said market is one of the very few left publishing Sword and Sorcery.

It was announced today that Flashing Swords is going on indefinite suspension or, in other words, is closing down, probably forever.

In many ways, it was the magazine that lead the revival of sword and sorcery and a lot of fine writers including TW Williams, Steve Goble, SC Bryce, Natan Meyer and many others saw publication there.

The magazine had been undergoing difficulties for quite some time, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before its closure was announced.

Pity though.

NOTHING IS EVER WASTED

I am, and always have been, something of a hoarder, particularly when it comes to stories. I have notebooks and folders and flash drives filled with vague scribblings and half-finished tales: some of the stories even less finished than that, comprising of little more than a couple of pages of frantic typing and less-than-sparkling prose.

Now and again, particularly when I find myself and the muse at loggerheads, I’ll go back to these unfinished tales and try to pick up the threads in an attempt to kick start my own imagination. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t (which leads me to believe that some of these stories simply don’t deserve to see the light of day).

The strangest thing though, is that they are, in some way, a chronicle of my current writing. The earliest of these scraps dates from about three years ago when I started, rather tentatively, to write again and it’s a sometimes fascinating – more often excruciating – thing to look through old stories and try to chart the path that lead from there to here (where ever here is, exactly).

Jane Yolen once spoke of the ‘writing muscle’ and how it needs to be exercised every day in order to stave off atrophy. Not every race needs to be a marathon, however, or every athletic pursuit lead to a gold medal – sometimes even the smallest piece of writing can help to stimulate the creative impulse and, of course, just because a character, concept, description or line of dialogue doesn’t work in one story does not mean that it cannot work in another. Robert E. Howard famously rewrote one of his unpublished King Kull tales (By This Axe I Rule) into the story that became The Phoenix On The Sword, the first Conan tale, for instance.

I suppose the whole point of this is that nothing is ever wasted or wasteful when it comes to the process of writing and that regular exercise of that mythical writing muscle can only make it stronger. Writing is a solitary pursuit, but one of the advantages of this is that no line, story or novel need necessarily see the light of day before its time.

Ah, so all those wasted hours weren't wasted after all.

EDWARD WOODWARD PASSES AWAY

The UK's Telegraph newpaper today reported the death of British actor Edward Woodward, aged 79.

Probably best known to horror/genre fans for the 1973 film The Wicker Man - widely regarded as one of the finest British horror movies ever made - also starring Christopher Lee and Britt Ekland.

His other well-known credits included the anti-Bond spy series Callan, the silly-but-fun 80's show The Equalizer and in the title role in Bruce Beresford's magnificent film Breaker Morant.

A full obiturary can be found here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/6581645/Edward-Woodward.html

THE 'RULES' OF SWORD AND SORCERY

Rules, as we all know, are meant to be broken. This statement leads, naturally, to the old maxim that you have to know the rules before you can actually begin to disregard them.

With that in mind, I recently re-read Darrell Schweitzer’s excellent essay ‘Sword and Sorcery, Dragon and Princess’, first published in ‘How To Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction’, edited by J.N Williamson (a fairly so-so book, to be honest but with the odd nugget of pure gold here and there, such as the Schweitzer essay).

In it, Schweitzer lays out, briefly but succinctly a few pointers for sword and sorcery fiction:

1) An imaginary, pre-gunpowder setting, usually based on medieval or ancient societies.
2) Magic
3) A vigorous, heroic warrior as the central character.

It is the last of these that define S&S since such characters (from Conan to Elric to Druss to Thongor) are the central pleasure of sword and sorcery fiction.

In terms of writing, he then goes on give a few useful tips:

Use plain language
a. Make sure you know what a barbarian is
b. Learn the rudiments of swordly combat
c. Make sure the magic is an integral part of the story
d. Keep the magic both limited and consistent
e. You need an action plot.

Within these half dozen pieces of advice, Darrell Schweitzer manages to bring in issues of world and society building. ‘Make sure you know what a barbarian is’ leads on to notions of society – if there are barbarians who, if anyone, represents the civilized portion of your newly created world. If the only people in this world are swordsmen and sorcerers, then who does the actual work – who harvests the crops, builds the glittering towers and, perhaps most apropos, who makes the swords? ‘Learn the rudiments of swordly combat’ more or less means ‘get your research right’ and the short but learned sections on magic point out such important matters as ‘if anything can happen in a story, no one cares what does’. At its most basic this boils down to the hero being able to free him or herself from any tricky situation with ‘one mighty bound’ or the villain being able to summon up endless armies of the dead (which our hero is able to dispatch with ease).

Of course, any set of rules and regulations – particularly when it comes to imaginative fiction – should only act as a starting point. As Schweitzer says, ‘tough-guy detective stories don’t all have the plot of The Maltese Falcon’ (and to that I might add, not all westerns have the plot of Shane) but in terms of crafting genre fiction, it’s important, I think, to understand underlying structure – what the reader can justifiably expect when he or she sits down to read a story, even if those expectations are subverted or totally turned on their head.

In this brief but extremely knowledgeable essay (it runs a mere five pages) Darrell Schweitzer manages to sketch out the foundations of the sword-and-sorcery genre in an intelligent, literate way.

And now that you know the rules, there’s nothing to stop you from breaking them (or indeed following them).

*** Poul Anderson's On Thud and Blunder, an equally wonderful essay on writing Heroic Fantasy can be found here: http://www.sfwa.org/2005/01/on-thud-and-blunder/, ***

WITH MANY SHADES

Perhaps rather foolishly given my recent heavy workload, I have decided to start a new blog - With Many Shades - dedicated to the various webzines and magazines out there.

It's pretty much just a list of magazines with links that might (hopefully) help to publicise the good work that many publishers are doing. There's no reviews or anything of that nature (because that would be far too time consuming) and it's all fairly basic at the moment.

The ethos behind it is quite simple: to do my own small part to support the various zines currently publishing sf & f.

Please feel free to drop by, become a follower and help spread the word.


http://withmanyshades.blogspot.com/

NIGHT OF THE EAGLE

Night of the Eagle (1962). Directed by Sidney Hayers. Starring Peter Wyngarde, Janet Blair, Margaret Johnston

Adapted from Fritz Leiber’s novel Conjure Wife, Night of the Eagle aka Burn Witch Burn is an effective little chiller that bears comparison with Jacques Tournier’s magnificent Night of the Demon (so much so that its UK title can hardly be an accident).

Like Night of the Demon, Night of the Eagle is a story of supernatural doings and black magic set against a genteel English background and like Tournier’s film is high on atmosphere, low on action (although pacey and never dull) and with a literate intelligent script that steadfastly refuses to do anything other than take its subject matter seriously.

That the script is intelligent is hardly surprising given Leiber’s source material and the involvement of Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont (who share scripting duties with George Baxt) two writers who knew how to deliver clever, slightly off-kilter horror.

Professor Norman Taylor (Peter Wyngarde) is a rational – perhaps too rational – man who lectures his students in the study of reason and rationality while continually scoffing at the supernatural. However, his life turns upside down when he discovers that his beloved wife Tansy (Janet Blair) has been dabbling with witchcraft and, worse, that she is convinced that his continued good fortune is due to her various charms and spells.

After forcing Tansy to burn the charms and gewgaws she has dotted around their house, Professor Taylor finds that things take a rapid turn for the worse – mummified spiders come back to life, he is accused of rape by one of his students and a tape recording of one of his lectures appears to act as a beacon for, well, something mysterious and deadly one stormy night.

Eventually, even Mrs. Tansy Taylor succumbs to the various dark forces all around them, leading Professor Norman even deeper into a dark, mysterious and deadly world and a confrontation with supernatural forces that makes him realise that, after all, there may be something to this witchcraft business.

An out and out fantasy on many levels – this is a world where even a humble university Professor drives a rather spiffy sports car, lives in a surprisingly spacious and tastefully decorated mock Tudor home and can afford a coastal pied-a-terre where his wife can commune with dark forces – Night of the Eagle has a claustrophobic, noirish quality, best typified by Wyngarde’s performance, who at times seems to be channelling the spirit of Ralph Meeker’s Mike Hammer in Kiss Me Deadly, all tightly wound rage and sharp suits, as well as in Sidney Hayer’s moody direction.

With some genuinely unsettling use of sound, an exciting supernatural climax that sees Wyngarde chased through his university by a stone eagle brought to murderous life (again recalling the climax of Night of the Demon) and a surprising denouement that wraps the whole thing up rather neatly, Night of the Eagle is an engrossing eighty or so minutes of taut, yet subtle horror that, in some ways - particularly with its collision of the mundane and the supernatural – prefigures such later movies as Rosemary’s Baby or The Omen.

The performances are top-notch, particularly Margaret Johnston’s creepy turn as Flora Carr, and Peter Wyngarde himself who’s journey from annoyed sceptic to terrified believer is beautifully handled by both star and director.

Although a fairly minor entry in the British horror canon, Night of the Eagle deserves to be right up there with other low-key shockers like Horror Hotel or The Damned.

Intelligent, absorbing and well made.

What more could you ask?

NEVER APOLOGISE, NEVER EXPLAIN... A RANT OF SORTS

As I have written elsewhere, on bylines and indeed on this very page, I am an unashamed and unabashed writer of science fiction and fantasy. (Fair enough, more fantasy than science fiction these days but the point is still valid).

Better and more accomplished writers than I have, in the past, penned extremely well reasoned arguments about the validity of SF & F as literature rather than simple escapism. Certainly since the 1960’s with the birth of the New Wave, speculative fiction has consciously adopted many of those literary devices either popularized or developed by the modernists and postmodernists.

The validity of the speculative form can be seen time and time and again in the work of writers such as Jeanette Winterson, Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon, Martin Amis, Iain Banks and Will Self (although both Winterson and Atwood – or their publishers - have repudiated the SF tag, perhaps fearing alienation from mass audience and critics alike).

At its heart, modern speculative fiction has the capacity to study the both the human and inhuman condition in a way which more mainstream literature remains unable to do. For instance – and to use some old and much worn tropes – climate change, overpopulation, the rise of the virtual rather than actual society all belong to SF, although they are increasingly finding their way into not only mainstream literature, but also the actual world.

The tropes of fantasy (particularly of the heroic kind) are increasingly finding their way into the mainstream as well – particularly with writers such as Steven Pressfield, Conn Iggulden, Robyn Young and Simon Scarrow – where the swashbuckling aspects of the genre are written against historical backgrounds (backgrounds that writers of unashamed fantasy have been plundering for years to add verisimilitude to their more fantastic works).

Could it be that the much hoped and longed for breaking down of the literary barriers is actually beginning to happen?

Sadly, the answer is probably not. The publishing ghettoes are as firmly entrenched as ever they were, the readers of Historical Adventures (for lack of a better expression) are frequently indifferent to their more fantastical cousins and the success ‘non-sf’ speculative novels owes little to their SF veneer.

At its best speculative fiction can hold a mirror up to the world: sometimes that reflection is dark and distorted, sometimes it is bright and shining. At its best it can be the equal of any ‘serious’ literature and encapsulate aspects of humanity that, again, literary fiction can sometimes struggle to capture.

Equally it can be bloody good fun both to read and to write (issues of the blank page to one side). For these reasons and more I am and remain an unashamed and unabashed writer of science fiction and fantasy.

WHISPERTHIEF

My short story Whisperthief is currently available online at the very excellent ezine Sorcerous Signals and features some really rather splendid artwork by Holly Eddy.

It's a return to the Latter Days and the Shining City of PameGlorias.

You can find the story here, should you care to do so:

http://www.sorceroussignals.com/Whisperthief.html

DEATH LINE

DEATH LINE (1973). Directed by Gary Sherman. Starring Donald Pleasance, David Ladd, Sharon Gurney, Hugh Armstrong, Christopher Lee.

There’s something nasty lurking in the London Underground, something that is snatching late-night commuters from the platforms, never to be seen again. But when this particular nasty something snatches James Manfred O.B.E, big shot at the Ministry and general all-round sleaze merchant, people start to take notice.

Or to be more accurate, typical 70’s couple Alex and Patricia take notice which in turn leads to the involvement of not-so typical copper Inspector Calhoun (played with lip-smacking comic relish by Donald Pleasance) and, very briefly, Stratton-Villiers of MI5 (Christopher Lee who, it appears, was just passing that afternoon and popped in to do a quick cameo).

The investigation leads to the revelation that the descendants of tunnel workers, trapped by a cave-in many moons ago, have been living and breeding in the London Underground and have, over the years, developed a taste for human flesh. Or rather they had been since this cannibalistic colony has now been reduced to a single member – known in the credits only as ‘the Man – an unnaturally strong, disease ridden, drooling pile of rags whose only words are ‘Mind The Doors’.

Cue some nicely gory set-pieces, a chase through the darkness when Patricia is kidnapped by the Man to start a new line of underground commuter-munchers and a brilliant performance from Donald Pleasance holding the whole thing together.

Death Line is an odd film, even by the standards of early 70’s British horror (and let us not forget that this is the era which gave us Pyschomania, Dracula AD 1972, Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter and The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires, among others). The direction by Gary Sherman (who would later go on to direct cult favourite Dead and Buried) is smooth and assured – particularly in the long takes that show us around the Man’s underground lair, filled with mouldering corpses, or during the opening credits that show Manford (James Cossins, in fine bowler-hatted, moustache twitching form) prowling the flesh-pots of Soho – and the use of sound is particularly effective in creating mood and tension, but most of all it is the performances raise Death Line well above the usual exploitation film standard.

Donald Pleasance’s Inspector Calhoun in particular is a delight. By turns comic, sinister and frustrated (“I sometimes think coppers should be like elephants, big feet and long memories… or is that the other way round”) he holds centre stage in virtually every scene he’s in, even when up against Christopher Lee (although to be fair, Lee has very little to do here). Norman Rossington as his long-suffering side-kick, Rogers, provides a nice foil for him to work off, and even the rather bland young couple (David Ladd and Sharon Gurney) manage to elicit some sympathy from the audience.

But it is Hugh Armstrong’s performance as The Man, which makes Death Line such a compelling piece of schlock-cinema. Virtually wordless (apart from the aforementioned ‘Mind the doors’) his sense of animalistic rage, tempered by occasional flashes of humanity is practically a force of nature in the film and his grief at the death of his mate/wife, known here as The Woman is almost palpable. It’s strange that the audience should manage to feel empathy or sympathy for what should have been a comedy cannibal, but the combination of Sherman’s direction and Armstrong’s remarkable performance manage just that.

In some ways, it’s possible to draw a direct line between The Man and those other great icons of the 1970’s horror such as Leatherface (and the long, lingering shots of decomposing bodies certainly bring to mind Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and Michael Myers: yet The Man is a much rounder character, driven by need rather than desire and certain much more human than either.

But such matters are for academics or serous students of horror cinema - at its heart, Death Line is nothing more than a good old-fashioned horror flick and none the worse for it.

FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED

FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED (1969). Directed by Terence Fisher. Starring Peter Cushing, Simon Ward, Veronica Carlson, Freddie Jones.

The penultimate outing for Peter Cushing as the eponymous Baron, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed is a grim and nihilistic treat for any lover of Hammer films.

In a nutshell, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed sees the Baron at an impasse, unable to continue with his work without the help of the brilliant but insane Dr Brandt. His solution is to kidnap Brandt from the asylum where he is incarcerated – with the help of a young couple whom he is conveniently blackmailing - cure the sickness in his brain and then transplant said brain to the body of the unfortunate Professor Richter. Unfortunately the now sane but unrecognisable Brandt/Richter fails to see the upside of this procedure and, driven to despair, literally brings the house down in a blazing climax that consumes both himself and Baron Frankenstein.

Taken in such bald terms, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed might come across as yet another run-of-the-mill gothic shocker. And indeed, all the prerequisite Hammer motifs are there – a Mittel Europa setting sometime in the 1800’s, a plethora of recognisable character actors (Thorley Walters, Freddie Jones, Geoffrey Bayldon) playing parts they could do in their sleep and a young, handsome couple (Simon Ward and Veronica Carlson) to act as foil to the machinations of the Baron. But what sets Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed apart from even the other films in the series is Cushing’s portrayal of the Baron himself.

Shorn of much of the black humour and virtually all of the ‘adult fairytale’ aspects of the earlier films, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed sees Cushing at his charming and glacial best – a man who has long since abandoned the (albeit twisted) altruism of his previous work and has become singular and fanatical in the pursuit of his goals.

This is a man who will not hesitate at blackmail, murder and even rape to achieve his ends and it is a testament to Cushing’s performance that, despite all this, we still feel a certain empathy with the now clearly insane Victor Frankenstein and perhaps even a touch of sympathy when he and his creation meet their fiery demise.

But if Cushing provides the focus of the film it is Freddie Jones as the physically and psychologically mutilated Brandt who provides its emotional core. More undeniably human than, say, Christopher Lee’s earlier patchwork Creature or Dave Prowse’s later Neanderthal incarnation, and far, far less brutish than either, Brandt’s fate is one of a man robbed of everything. The scenes in which he confronts his wife who, understandably, fails to recognise him, are heartbreaking and certainly unexpected in the context of a gothic horror and his anguish at what has happened is all but palpable.

With Terence Fisher behind the camera, the film has all the hallmarks of that great – and underrated director – the violence is handled with aplomb (particularly the opening scenes in which Frankenstein, hideously masked, stalks and kills a fresh victim to provide material for his experiments) and the low-budget of the film is expertly masked once again proving that Fisher was always capable of making a silk purse from whatever was at hand.

A tight and taut script from Bert Batt and Anthony Nelson Keys gives the actors and director great scope to flex their cinematic muscles and if both Ward and Carlson seem a little underwritten it is only in comparison to the powerhouse performances of Cushing and Jones.

Although somewhat overlooked at the time, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed is arguably the most grimly enjoyable of the Cushing/ Fisher Frankenstein films and has a bleak view of the human condition that belies the popular view of Hammer films as somewhat cheap and campy shockers.

It would be followed a few years later by the equally enjoyable Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell but by then popular taste in cinematic horror had moved on (ironically thanks in large part to the trail that Hammer themselves had blazed) and Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed stands as a high water mark of a studio that was occasionally brilliant and never less than entertaining.

FICTION MECHANICS

As part of my ongoing quest to improve my abilities as a writer, I’ve recently started to delve into Barry Longyear’s excellent book on fiction mechanics – Science Fiction Writer's Workshop -I: An Introduction to Fiction Mechanics.

Over the years I have read a lot of books and articles on the craft of writing and managed to take away at least a little bit of useful advice or practice from each, but few of them have engaged my attention in the same way as Fiction Mechanics.

Mostly, this is down to the non-nonsense approach that Barry Longyear starts and ends with and the insistence, almost from the opening lines, that this book is designed to be used rather than simply read. As a result there are dozens of useful exercises contained within the book, generally pointed towards specific outcomes that all fiction – but in particular science fiction – requires.

Thus there are chapters on story structure, starts, backfill and the constituent parts of a story – all of which contain examples of both how to and how not to do it (one of the things that makes this book so endearing is Mr Longyear’s willingness to share his mistakes as well as his triumphs and the examples include first drafts as well as re-written drafts so that the would-be fictioneer can compare and contrast).

One of the most important things I’ve taken away from it so far is the Obstacle in Fiction. Put quite simply, the Obstacle is anything that stands between a character and his or her goal. These can be both big and small, overarching the story-line or directly linked to a specific outcome or motivation.

Thus, to use a very simple example: if a character is hungry and wants to eat but has no money to buy food, the obstacle is that particular lack of cash. How they go about getting the money provides the narrative and their success or failure provides the outcome.

Alright, so the above example (which is my own rather than culled from the book) would hardly provide the most exciting story in the world but as soon as you start to build upon the notion that obstacles - both great and small, physical and abstract - exist within the narrative and within scenes and sections, the business of creating fiction starts to become a little clearer.

If the hungry character decides to steal a loaf of bread to feed himself, the obstacle then becomes different. It can be a physical one (the ever watchful shopkeeper) or a moral one (is it right to steal, regardless of circumstance). If the character decides to steal the bread and is chased the obstacle becomes different again – how to get away with his skin and lunch intact.

Fiction, like life itself, can be full of these little obstacles and it is by striving against them (and creating more in the process) that the structure of a story can begin to evolve.

Longyear also delivers some sterling advice on opening a story: in particular the all important ‘hook’ and frequently uses diagrams to illustrate his points, showing how aspects of the story can be moved along its narrative line to create a point of entry for both the writer and reader (at its broadest and crudest, this is simply a character facing the muzzles of a firing-squad and then going back to tell the reader how this came to be).

In particular, there is a refreshing lack of literary pretension about Fiction Mechanics. Although this is not to say that it is a crude book, rather that it sets out to do exactly what it says – to help the reader/writer understand the building blocks of genre fiction and to apply them to his/ her own work.

Winner of the Hugo, Nebula and John W. Campbell Awards (for his excellent novella Enemy Mine) Barry Longyear’s advice is grounded very firmly in the practicalities of crafting speculative fiction and is a worthy addition to any writer’s bookshelf.

LACUNA

Megan Arkenberg, who produces the excellent SF/F ezine Mirror Dance, is also producing Lacuna, a new zine of historical fiction:

"Lacuna is a biannual e-journal of historical fiction and alternate history. Our mission is to bring you well-researched, well-written, character-driven fiction and poetry that demonstrates an understanding of both history and human nature."

The first issue can be found here:

http://lacunajournal.blogspot.com/2009/10/issue-1-october-2009.html