A World of Their Own: review of charity anthology

Anthologies are not everyone’s cup of tea, or in this case magic potion. Much like getting a box of chocolates and losing the little card that tells you what you’re devouring, the experience can be random in both a pleasant (strawberry cream) or not so enjoyable (coffee) way.

 This anthology was sent to me as an ARC (Advanced Review Copy) from one of the authors. There are a large number of contributors to the work, all who had at some stage a connection with a group of authors who met on the Harper Collins website Authonomy. The group, from a thread called The Alliance of Worldbuilders, shared an interest in speculative fiction and acted as a critique/support/social group before drifting from the aforementioned site into the realm of Facebook and, in a number of cases, publishing. 

 One of the reasons I rarely read anthology is that I’m not a huge short story fan. Often they feel incomplete, unsatisfactory, undeveloped, or lost in their own literacy—making up for absence of a good yarn with excess description or narrative. Flash fiction especially grates on my nerves, as it is rather tricky to do decently, and can feel pretentious. 

 So I’m happy to report that this anthology, and its fifteen or so contributors, entertained me immensely. Inevitably there were works that appealed to my tastes more than others, yet there were very few ‘coffee chocolate’ moments where I genuinely thought to skip onto the next story. There are a few that seemed to allude to other works, or to pre-existing fictions, that piqued my curiosity enough to investigate further. Let me bring a few highlights of those, and then note the others: 

 Will Macmillan Jones’s Dwarfs R Us is a pun-saturated tale of the awesome witch Grizelda returning her broom to the repair shop. I’ve read a few of the author’s books, and for fans of the lighter end of satirical fantasy this is good reading. Be prepared to groan out loud at the gags, though. 

 David Muir’s They Rise and We Smite is a longer paranormal fantasy along the lines of the Dresden Files and Aaronovitch’s PC Grant series. It’s tale of hidden wizard bloodlines descended from gorillas, and interaction with the world’s established religion, was very entertaining. The OTT battle scene at the end made me chuckle, and made up for the hefty info dump at the start necessary to establish the milieu. Muir returns to the setting in the Night of a Thousand Spells, with a rather unique baby going through dark mages like rusks. 

 Valerie Willis’s Destiny’s Game also had the feeling of being part of a greater work or setting. It would appeal to those with a taste in paranormal romance, a la City of Bones or Beautiful Creatures. The use of angels was nicely done, and the pace of the work kept me engaged, as did the light dialogue. 

 Jeremy Rodden’s How to Create a Villain is set in his cartoon world of Toonopolis, a fantasy setting populated by animated creatures. Despite the comical setting the story is quite serious, and a good introduction to Rodden’s style and quirky characters. As a short story it works well, and definitely intrigued me into reading more (or at least waiting for the exclusive Netflix series it probably deserves—LOL).  

In amongst the other stories with their speculative fiction feel there were a few clunkers and a few real standouts. Troll by KA Smith was superb—a reflection on urban decay mirrored by the physical and psychological deterioration of a homeless man. The language was skilled and the prose excellent, as was the story conclusion. The Thief Gets Away by TRM was a perfect fantasy short, with quirkiness, spot on dialogue and two cool little creatures living in someone’s hair. Lost Time Memory by Sam Dogra, again, was a perfect short story—great structure and characterisation. A good indicator of a successful short story is when you want the story to be expanded further, that there’s more to tell within the setting—namely it has hooked you into the milieu. Wyrm by AFE Smith was similar to the aforementioned pair in this—a great fantasy short, with solid plot, characters and a suitable twist (even if you guessed it half-way through—LOL). 

And finally, given that the anthology is dedicated to her, it would be remiss not to mention Lindsey J Parson’s contributions: Matilda, and Phoenix Feather. Of the pair, Matilda really enticed me—a poignant tale of a witch entering the twilight of her years, and her last adventure, with a companion demon. As an illustration of Lindsey’s talent it sits perfectly in this collection of fantastical tales.

 The anthology is raising money for the World Literacy Foundation and for that reason alone it’s worth a purchase—but more than that it’s an excellent collection of diverse speculative fiction stories with some talented contributors. Definitely recommended.

Links are: 

http://www.amazon.com/World-Their-Own-Lindsey-Parsons-ebook/dp/B014WQS2GQ/ 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Their-Own-Lindsey-Parsons-ebook/dp/B014WQS2GQ/ 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Their-Own-Lindsey-Parsons/dp/1909845817/ 

For the kindle US, kindle UK and print editions respectively.

Alternative Guide to Alternative Reality 3... Comics!

Read Part one of the blog at Life in the Realm of Fantasy

And hop over like an excited Bunny to part two at Fresh Pot of Tea

 

And now for part three.....

 

If I were a dishonest man (and the admission that my previous Movember moustache makes me look like the Village People indicates I am utterly honest) then I’d claim that some awesome seminal sci-fi story created my interest in alternate reality. The truth is far from that- it was a combination of the awesome old-school Star Trek, and Marvel comics that take the blame.

For those who follow my blog that’ll come as no surprise. I’ve rambled about the key influence of comics in my fantasy writing before, and its impact on my current book, The Infinity Bridge, is glaring. The whole plot begs for a graphic novel, and the pace, dialogue and action is very comic book style in places.

One of the fundamental aspects of the book is the idea of alternate reality, that history/evolution/physical laws of the world could have diverged at some stage from our own. It’s a wonderful plot device—the possibilities are endless, and range from the divergences of individuals (think It’s a Wondeful Life and Sliding Doors) to entire worlds and their structure (think Wizard of Oz and Narnia in more extreme examples). So it is no surprise that the theme is a massive one in the world of comics.

The first mainstream use of alternate worlds was over in DC-world, back in the Wonder Woman and Flash comics. Wonder Woman kicked it off with our hot pants heroine falling through a dimensional rift and meeting a double called Tara Teruna (two Wonder Women... and so the fantasy begins...). But the Flash story, Flash of Two Worlds, was the seminal moment where we have a true ‘alternate.’ It used the great idea that the Golden Age Flash, a comic book character in our Flash’s world as well as ours, existed in a parallel world (called Earth-2 in later series). DC expanded this idea again and again, using the tool to resurrect Golden Age incarnations of their characters, and ones acquired from other publishers over the years.

It all got a little bonkers in the end, and DC started to wrap it all up with the series Crisis on Infinite Earths... and then rebooted and rebooted and wrote Infinite Crisis and 52 and... bleh...

But I’ve never been a DC boy (although my moustache again may infer otherwise), I’m Marvel through and through. For me the series ‘What If’, which was serialised in UK comics was my first exposure. It was a series where the light-bulb headed Watcher told a yarn about a reality that had diverged at a significant historical moment in the Marvel Universe. There were so many good ones, the memorable ones for me (probably because his was the most popular comic at the time) being the Spiderman ones: what if Aunt May had been popped instead of Uncle Ben?; What if someone else had been bitten by that radioactive spider?; What if Spidey joined the Fantastic Four?; What if the Spider clone lived? (it did, much to the groans of multitudes of Spider fans).

Yet those tales were only ever short spin-off ideas. The parallel worlds and alternate history as actual plot lines in Marvel comics really took off with the X-men. My era of the X-men was the classic Claremont-Byrne run, reprinted in the UK in wonderful monochrome which made some parts rather tricky to follow. Towards the end of their run together, the pair did a story Days of Futures Past, in which characters from an alternate future travel to the mainstream world of the X-men to try and avert a key event that created their divergent reality. It was massively and deservedly popular (not least because you got to see Wolverine toasted by a Sentinel...bub) and Claremont returned again and again to that alternate, often bringing characters and villains across (Rachel Summers Phoenix; Nimrod; Forge etc).

The idea grew and grew over the years, and there’s an awesome geek out list on the web with all the alternates numbered (from a 2005 summary I think). I found myself reading like a sad-o through it and nodding at the ones I recognised....

You can see the appeal as a writer, especially if you write a series. Alternate realities allow the writer to screw around with characters, about what we know or think we know about them, without upsetting the mainstream ones. It also allows the rather tired concept of evil versions of characters to be used (none may live up to the glory of evil-Kirk and his guy-liner).

It would be difficult to write anything on comics and how they influenced me without doffing the cap to Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Watchmen runs with the concept of how history would be altered if superheroes existed in our world—so how would the presence of a superhuman impact upon the Vietnam War, or international relations/politics, or day-to-day living, or technology. The influence of the Watchmen comic on the genre is vast, and it deservedly maintains its status in comic book history. If you are not a particular comic fan and wanted to see what could be done differently with the genre then this is a great place to start (the subtleties to the plot-lines are marvellous).

 

So that wraps up my ranting on alternate worlds, taking it back to where it all began for me. I haven’t broken any new ground in my book, using the alternate history model as an excuse for Steampunk fun. Oh, and its meant I could have an ogre pop up in some woods near York. In the sequels to the book I’m planning a few weirder ideas... and, yes, at some point I’ll need an evil version of a character. Its just got to be done...

 

The Infinity Bridge is up on t'Amazon, both in print and in Kindle. If you want a peek then click on the links...

 

Amazon UK

Amazon everywhere else, like the USA and Oz

 

 

 

 

Young and Restless

On Facebook I’m in a zillion and one groups, mainly because people practice stealth grouping wherein I seem to be added to groups without my noticing. I had a cull of late, where I went and removed myself from pointless ones, and kept the ones where I had at least a modicum of interest. Some are straight promo ones, whereas others are ‘book clubs’ (promo ones interspersed with occasional debate... and links...).

One group is a YA book group, which I think I joined by virtue of one of the admins being someone I knew. Initially I thought, well I don’t write YA but I have read some of what I consider YA, and have been made to sit through movies and TV series based on YA paranormal romance. So I stuck with it, and the other day read a really great thread on a YA writers work getting chopped off some award nominations because of sexual content.

 

It got me thinking about the genre, not least because since I joined the group I’ve written a book targeted at teens. It came about because the oldest two kids (Charlie, 10 and Evelyn, 8) wanted a book by me that they could read without falling asleep or reaching for a thesaurus. So I wrote one. And now I’m thinking, what ‘category’ should it fall into?

 

Literature is getting like music with its genres/styles, and like the cinema with its censorship/age classifications. In t’old days life was fairly simple, or so I thought. We had books for kids (Dr Who books, CS Lewis, Winnie the Pooh, Enid Blyton) and books for grown-ups (the rest). We also had ones written for kids that adults liked (what are now called cross-over books). The idea there was kids books for older kids that weren’t suitable for young ‘uns never really occurred to me. This was probably because by the time I was a teenager I was reading adult ones (mainly fantasy, sci-fi) and chuckling at any rude bits.

 

But there was a definite teen-literature market even then. Books such as Catcher in the Rye, with its teen protagonist, was a popular book amongst angst-saturated teens and the Outsiders, by SE Hinton, really got the ball rolling in the Sixties, not least because Susan Hinton was a teenager when she wrote it. I remember the film, with its plethora of brat-packers, and its depiction of gang fights, smoking and drinking, and swearing. Not surprisingly it was a perfect YA book, as it didn’t patronise its audience.

 

I think as a male geek-nerd of the first order I missed out on the YA evolution in the Eighties. I recall the Flowers in the Attic by VC Andrews being popular, but I was never clear whether that was a book for teens or one for adults that teens read. And herein is a curious dilemma. Is the whole idea of YA a little patronising?

 

YA is targeted at teens: the common age range is described as 12-18. The bottom end is often overlapped with another genre, middle-grade, which I think is kind of 10-12/13 ish. I find it fascinating when I think of the maturation of adolescents between 12 and 18 just how anyone could think there is a book whose themes/contents would be relevant or appropriate for the whole group. I suppose what I’m pondering is the content, and what is acceptable for MG, for YA and what is adult?

 

When we boil it down I think we’re looking at language, as in expletives, sexual content and violence/horror. Even the bottom (MG) end of the market is happy with violence. Take Harry Potter: we have plenty of scraps, some torture, bits of murder, death, snakes eating wizards. I read Conan as a 10 year old and loved splattering viscera. The reality is that kids won’t bat an eyelid at most violent content, within reason. Acceptable violence in YA? I think of a 15 film: a bit of splatter, spurting vessels, guns, swords, but not full anatomical gore and torture.

 

Expletives? That’s tricky too. Teenagers are the worse swearers on the planet, as they think it’s cool. What’s OK for expletives in the books they read? I suppose its volume, rather than precise usage, and also whether it’s appropriately put in versus put in to titillate. For my part, I don’t tend to put cussing in my books, even the adult ones!

 

And then finally we come to sexual content. As a father, this is the one I struggle most with as I’m probably in denial about the whole issue. Teenagers at my high school, even in the Eighties, were obsessed with sexual themes. By the time most were 14-15 porn had crept into lives, 18 rated sex scenes were passed around on video-tape, and a few were already practising them. And since then we have the internet, and kids with laptops and locks on their bedroom doors. The reality is that what we consider too rude for kids isn’t probably a scratch on the surface compared to what they’re reading or watching. Which isn’t to say we should condone or advocate it in our literature. I think its all down to context, isn’t it? Pointless, exploitative, overly detailed erotica hasn’t really got a place in YA books IMHO. Intimate scenes, sex scenes which are relevant to characters/relationships/plots, are surely OK in our YA books? Other aspects of sexuality, such as homosexuality should definitely have a place. Perhaps even sexual crime (incest, rape) may be acceptable if written in an appropriate fashion. We do our teens a disservice by shying away.

 

Now, having said all of that, just because we can doesn’t mean we have to. Books like Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, Harry Potter, Philip Reeves’ Mortal Engines, The Hunger Games and Cirque du Freak are tame by the above standards yet read by adults. My book, with its group of teens being chased by killer androids, touches on some mature concepts of identity, self-worth and mental illness, but in a manner I think puts me in the MG category akin to Reeves, Pullman and Rowling. And I’m happy being there—with no cussing, shagging or decapitation.

 

Until the sequel.