Byrne, baby, Byrne

Of the dozens of influences that have snuck into my writing (and by that I mean not just the published fantasy stuff, but the unpublished sci-fi and contemporary fiction pieces) comics have to be a major part.

Those who read my sporadic blog posts will have ascertained this, from my posts on Stan Lee, Superhero movies and Bryan Talbot. There are plenty of literary comic examples which would make the comic  devotee nod with agreement: Gaiman, Moore, Morrison, Wagner, Ennis. But (bar the 2000AD writers) most of those I loved as I matured. The stand out for me as a kid was John Byrne.

I got thinking about this after two 3 star reviews for my book on Amazon US. They were fair reviews- both liked the book, but commented that it jumped about a bit and spent time on characters who didn't seem to feature much. Part of that is the fact Volume One, of which book 1 Chained is only the first half of, was written as a larger book and then divided. But, to be fair, the other reason is that's my style.

I always loved stories where minor plot lines  and characters were introduced, hinting at a larger future sub-plot, which developed later and linked in with the main plot threads. The comics author and artist John Byrne was a master of it, and my love of his work in the 70/80s has stayed with me since.
I first recall reading Byrne during his X-men run with Chris Claremont. Inked by Terry Austin his style was awesome: he defined the look of what was to become the most popular Marvel title of the decade. Such great stories then too: Dark Phoenix, Days of Future Past, Arcade, Alpha Flight, Prometheus. Stunning. I read both US and UK reprints back then, so also caught the reprints of Iron Fist, plus his Captain America work (Union Jack and Baron Blood sticks in my brain).
So when Byrne took on Fantastic Four I was really pleased- I started collecting them around the time they went into the Negative Zone, catching up the older issues as I went. To me the FF run (perhaps 60 issues) was his greatest work. I adored what he did with the characters. The sub-plots, the acknowledgment of the rich supporting characters and prior stories. He loved both the cosmic tales (Galactus especially was done well by him) and the human (Sue loosing the baby springs to mind).

It had a huge influence on me. I compared all other writers to his style, and felt few came up to scratch. His art was excellent, irrespective of the inkers, and when he wrote Alpha Flight I was hooked on that as well (though my brother bought that one). It had the same style- the sub-plots, the evolving story-lines, almost soap opera in style.
I followed Byrne for a while after FF and Alpha Flight. He was becoming a bit of a victim to his own success. West Coast Avengers was good, but he tried to screw around previous writer's work too much; Hulk didn't work for me (Hulkbusters...?). When he bounced to DC I bought a few, but I never liked re-boots and never really liked DC heroes.



My tastes in comics changed around then, becoming more interested in mature readers titles. I lost track of JB, although I saw his New Men in Forbidden Planet the other week and was tempted.
His influence is obviously double-edged. When you read his work in one go the plots work great, building over time. If you read them as isolated issues then it's frustrating. My Prism fantasy series will run to six books, and when read together all the little strands knit together. I think of a few fantasy writers who do the same: George RR Martin and Erikson are two. And to be fair, not everyone likes that style. But I enjoy it, and it seems to work for me. And I have JB's influence to thank for it.
Perhaps I need a new sub-genre, like Space Opera, but fantasy style. "Soap Fantasy" comes to mind, but that sounds a little too late-night naughty TV channel for me....any (clean) suggestions welcome.

Come and meet the SkullDust Circle

I've been a little negligent with my blog this month, for which I apologise. Firstly work has been crazy busy/poorly, which is kind of fair enough (as I get paid for that stuff). Second there's a lot going down at the publishers meaning I've had to re-upload my Kindle book. Third, there's those three little people that live with me, whom I thought were hobbits but turned out to be my kids. Seems they like to spend time with me--quality time that doesn't involve me playing with my i-phone.

The final reason is that I've become part of a new blog. It's a writers blog, specifically its a group of us who've joined together to post stuff about our genres and writing. I thought it'd be good as I've tried to avoid droning on about my book on this blog, and the Roaring Mouse is to present others small-press/self-pub works.

It's called the Skull Dust Circle, and there are seven of us in the Circle (well, strictly its a septagon) and all of the guys on it are awesome authors that I'm flattered to be associated with. William Kenney and Gary Vanucci got the blog up and going. William is the author of In the Shadow of the Black Sun epic fantasy series, and is a superb artist as well. His own site is here. Gary is the author of the Ashenclaw books and their preludes, the Wothlanda series. His books have a very DnD/RPG bent to them, much like my own. His Eye on Ashenclaw blog is here.

Jeremy Laszlo will be familiar to those who read the Roaring Mouse as I interviewed him earlier in May. He has written three books of his awesome series Blood and Brotherhood Saga. His style is greatly detailed and great fun to read. His website makes mine look like its written on a chalkboard, and you can find it just here! Benedict Martin writes fantasy, and draws rather amusing cartoons on his blog. He's at this site. David Woods and Stefain are both new authors whom I have yet to meet, but am certain I'll be hearing more of.

So the site will be a place for us to talk about our work, fantasy and sci-fi in general, and post about topics of interest. I've posted two so far- one on David Eddings and his rules of fantasy (Fantasy by numbers) and one a re-post about anti-heroes in fantasy (anti-heroic fantasy).

Take a look over at the Circle if you get the chance. Cloaks of Elvenkind optional.

On stretchy trousers, shark-repellent spray and ZOD

There’s a scene in the new Avengers movie where Captain America is sat feeling like a man out of time, not getting the cultural references around him. Then someone says a line about flying monkeys (as in the Wizard of Oz) and he smiles and says, “That one I get.”

It’s a scene slightly reminiscent of a great piece in the Civil War: Frontline comic where Ben Ulrich and Sally Floyd interview Cap in his cell and point out all the things about modern day America he doesn’t know about or doesn’t get. That’s an aside, as this blog isn’t about the comic (although I do love the Avengers franchise dearly)—it’s about the changing nature of superhero films.

When I came out of the Avengers last week, with my two eldest kids (9 and 8) we were buzzing about the movie. What was so special about it? My son hit the nail on the head as we drove home (as he often does). “Dad, that was awesome... it was just like the comic.”

And there you have it. The reasons it’s so good is that it was just like the comic. From the dialogue, to the plot, to the action, to the depiction of the Hulk. It was spot on. Now that’s no great surprise—Joss Whedon, amongst many things, wrote for Marvel (The Runaways was excellent, and his run on X-men was OK). But he carries something more to it... an understanding of how to translate what looks good on the comic page into something that doesn’t look like CGI cheese on the screen. It’s not simply a matter of special effects- Transformers 2 proved that. It’s the actors and the plot not coming across as too daft that makes it work.

Of course Avengers can’t claim to be the first to achieve that. There have been some amazing superhero movies over the years—but it made me think, when did they really start to reflect the comics? As I supped a glass of red wine I pondered the question, with the world becoming as fuzzy as a James T Kirk love scene

I grew up (well got chronologically older) in the seventies and eighties. It was an era where special effects really came into being, and marked the boom in sci-fi films and series (Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Blade Runner, Alien, Buck Rogers etc). There were attempts at fantasy films that hit or missed (Hawk the Slayer, Excalibur, Sword and Sorcerer, Conan, Krull... a rather mixed bag). And there were superhero films.

 I adored the sixties Batman re-runs as a kid, and indeed the film, which was shown fairly regularly in the pre-VCR days. Ironically it reflected the comic at the time it was made, but by the time I watched it Batman the comic was undergoing a re-birth with darker stories and grittier characters. And I was never a big DC fan. Then the big screen played host to Superman, and the little screen to the Hulk and Spiderman.

They just weren’t right. Superman was a great film, as was Superman 2, and I got the duvet cover, the posters, the bubblegum cards, and so forth. Superman 2 had the super-villians (kneel before Zod!) but it still didn’t feel like the comic, which was far more cosmic and on a different power scale. Similarly the Hulk series gave us great lines about not making me angry, and the eternal debate about stretchable trousers, but it was a different kettle of (green) fish to clashing with The Leader, The Abomination, Doc Samson, The U-Foes etc. And Spiderman? Loved the wall crawling, could cope with chunky white bracelets, but here was a dude with the best roster of villains ever in comics. And he spent most episodes battling hoods with pistols. Sigh.

The effects, the costumes, the stories just couldn’t match the comics. When did that change? I’m tempted to say with Batman, in the late Eighties. Yet even with the wonder of Tim Burton, and I do love those first two films, there is a vibe of underlying campness to it, a sort of silliness, that didn’t reflect what we were reading at the time (Batman in late eighties had seminal works like The Killing Joke, The Dark Knight Returns, Batman Year One).

It was Spiderman who saved it for me. The X-men was close, and in retrospect probably turned the tide, but Sam Raimi’s trilogy was perfect. I’d loved Raimi’s Evil Dead films as a student, mainly for the brilliant Evil Dead 2, which has the best lines ever in a horror film... and a chainsaw grafted to a stump of an arm. With Spiderman he got it perfect—the effects, the story, the acting. The sense of pity you had for Peter Parker that pervaded the comics from day one was captured, as was the menace of the Green Goblin and the tragedy that follows. Spiderman 2 was even better—I can watch and re-watch the scene in the bank where he pulls Aunt May down as the vault door hurtles overhead.

And they’ve gone from strength to strength. The X-men trilogy was well done, as were the two prequels. The two Iron Man films were also great, and I loved Thor. Less certain about the two Hulk ones, Daredevil and Elektra and I’ve never been a big Batman fan so the Dark Knight style films have left me feeling a bit despondent. The prospect of a Spiderman re-boot isn’t thrilling me, I’ll admit, perhaps because I’m sick of re-boots and liked the previous films so much.

Of course, other (non superhero) comics have had the big screen flourish. They are a mixed bag too: Alan Moore’s have struggled notably, sadly as he’s probably the best comics writer alive (Watchmen was OK, as was V for Vendetta, but League of Extraordinary Gentlemen contravened the Geneva convention); 300 was cool, Wanted I’ve not even seen (although the comic was a let down). Kick Ass is on my to be watched list (the comic pushed the taste boundary for me too).

Now they’ve got it right, from a comics fan perspective, I hope they stay on track. The worst thing in the world would be to get carried away and let shite stories slip in. I’m hoping for an awesome Avengers 2, and given the popularity of the current film I’m certain they’ll do one. And despite all I’ve written, I loved those superhero movies/series when I was a kid because it was still a buzz seeing characters you love coming to life on the screen—even if they weren’t quite right.

Which would lead perfectly into talking about The Hobbit....

But that’s a blog for another day....

A funny Spiderman clip to finish with... Kenny Everett's take on the Web slinger...

The Muddy Funsters*

There have been several key changes during my descent into mid-lifeness and fatherhood. The first is that I boo all the time. Seriously, the littlest thing sets me off. I hear the strains of classical music over the scene of a kid and his dad and the tears spurt out. I can’t even think of that scene in the Lion King where Simba lifts his dad’s paw and it flops to the dust all limp. Don’t even mention Finding Nemo, I can’t even see the screen to type now. I mean, WTF? I wade knee deep in daily gore in my job and deal with grimness +10 every day on Intensive Care, but anything that reminds me of Dads and kids and poignancy gets me going.

Anyhow, the blog isn’t about that. It’s not about existential dread that life is ebbing away. It’s not about inability to drink alcohol in anything beyond a thimble or be convinced my brain is oozing from my nose in anger. It’s about how I can’t stand gangster films anymore.

Seriously, I used to be massively into them. If it had Scorcese, De Palma or Coppolla on it I’d lap it up. I’d crave the twitchy De Niro face or Joe Pesci freaking out or Al Pacino gurning. As students we used to love ‘em. Throw in a few about South-central LA and gangsta-stylie drive-bys for variety, just to dilute the crotch-grabbing, you’re a good kid, forget about it lead-ins to stiletto/vice/baseball bat/head shot scenes.

Then it changed. I can’t quite remember what film it was... perhaps it was that one with Leonardo and Jack Nicolson. I sat and watched it and then everyone gets popped at the end in a totally pointless fashion and I thought... I just don’t like this anymore. It’s like I see enough blood and stuff at work without needing a fix at home. But then it can’t be quite that, because I enjoy the gratuitous Game of Thrones...

I think it’s the gangster thing, the crime thing. There came a moment when I ceased to find them of interest, of value. There’s a genuine glamorisation of crime within film and, perhaps less so, literature. The writers and the directors seem to have an admiration for criminals, feeling that if they show some kind of compassionate side (camaraderie, loyalty, GSOH) then it makes the nasty shit they do seem a little more acceptable or understandable. The characters are usually bullies, slinging their weight around to get what they want, feeling that it’s all about ‘respect’ and so forth. Yet they’re the sort of kids who at school used to kick crap out of smaller kids. It’s that romantic notion that if you fight for what you believe (even if that belief is flawed) then it’s acceptable. It’s bollocks, really.

So what altered in me? I think the love of the gangster film and the fascination with crime boils back to the intrigue of the anti-hero (which I blogged about on Alison De Luca’s blog here.). Part of growing up is that challenge of the status quo, testing the boundaries of what we’ve been raised to believe is just and right. We are teased by the Dark Side, with glimpses of the uglier aspects of human nature. The gangster in these films is the anti-hero. He’s the one who does what we wouldn’t, who doesn’t give a shit and fights/shoots/kills to get what he wants. And clearly there’s some anti-heroes that I find acceptable and enjoy and others that I don’t, and I wonder if that’s a touch hypocritical of me? I like reading about the loveable rogue—say like Locke Lamora in Scott Lynch’s books. He’s a con-man, like a Hustler in a fantasy world. We all love Robin Hood, especially if he gives to the poor. Tyrion in Game of Thrones is great... because he’s naughty, but not downright evil. But there’s a tipping point when I can’t enjoy it, when I can’t drag up even a morbid interest in the character. And I think that threshold alters more and more with age.

So am I just a miserable old sod now? Well, yes, I am. To be fair, I do find some crime films/books entertaining—specifically I quite like the gangster-comedy ones like Lock, Stock and Snatch, mainly because I find the southern accents funny. Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction is one of my favourites, perhaps because of the dialogue and its slapstick nature. On my book blog, The Roaring Mouse, I’m featuring a comedy-crime book about a contract assassin getting married that I would describe as Grosse Point Blank crosses with Meet the Parents. Perhaps that says more about me that I can stomach the gangster-violence-glamorisation when it derides itself. And I suppose that opens up a whole host of new questions...

* The Muddy Funster title refers to an old Harry Enfield sketch where he satirised the BBC and its dubbing over bad language in films. He played a Robert De Niro character in ‘Badfellas’ whose badly dubbed character asked, “Did you fun my wife, you muddy funster?” Watch it... its superb!

The Moon's Malady

I've just finished reading Stephen Donaldson's First Chronicle of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. It's taken me about 29 years to finish it, which is approximately a tenth of a page a day. OK, I'm being silly. I started reading it age 12, when I was looking for a book as 'cool' as LOTR and I got through about two chapters of leper-laden woe and thought 'feck this' and went out and bought a Conan book instead.

It can't be described as an easy read. The main character is very difficult to warm to, not least because of a rape scene in the middle of book one. Moreover the prose is very dense in places with adjectives that would keep the grammar goblin happy well into the night, unlike me who tends to fall asleep reading in bed with big words (until the book hits my head and wakes me up).

But one theme I found interesting is the idea that Covenant, the main character, is in a world that he denies. Throughout the book you ponder whether it is his delusion that you are reading about, although we find it easier to believe in the Land than Covenant does. The doubt is fuelled by him flipping back to our world at the end of each book, usually with an injury that correlates with whatever hurt him in the Land. This idea has sort of been done to death now, although to my mind the perfect version of it was Life On Mars/ Ashes to Ashes.

I digress. What fascinated me was the concept of delusion in a world of fantasy. It fascinates me because it is a key theme in my own fantasy series. When I was devising the plot for the trilogy I wanted some spin on the fantasy setting that would feel fresh, perhaps a little different. It occurred to me that it would be interesting to have the main character suffer with a psychiatric condition, and from there it sort of grew to include a few other characters. I couldn't recall many fantasy books I'd read where there was mental illness as a theme beyond the odd psychopathic persona (and you'd argue whether psychopathic traits are psychiatric illnesses or severe personality disorders). A quick web-search didn't pull up many, so I thought 'let's go with this.'

The idea that evolved was that the type of magic that the heroine Emelia utilises, Wild-magic, is a kind of psychic phenomenon. the magic involves telekinesis, pyrokinesis, some telepathy etc. So I thought, 'What if the magic of the mind also produces a disorder of it?' In Emelia's case she develops a bipolar type condition--manic-depression--with some degree of delusional thought processes. Like 'real' bipolar disorder it fluctuates, not only between hypomania and depression, but in its intensity and how much it compromises her life. In Volume One it is mainly the depression and the delusions we see (especially in the finale); in volume two (out perhaps later in year) we get a far more florid appearance of her condition, with hypomania and quite marked depression. The impact this has on her and her friends is key to the plot and I hope that I have written it well enough to reflect the distress of the condition.

This left me with consideration of how i would portray the other Wild-mages in the book. The biggest difficulty was Jem, who is a major character and Emelia's mentor. I needed him to have a degree of stability and order in his make-up as Jem is all about rigidity and control in his life. Clearly a fervent mania wasn't right for him, nor a florid schizophrenia.

In the end I settled on obsessive-compulsive disorder for Jem. OCD is something that is often made light of-- after all, most of us have little 'obsessive' traits that infiltrate our lives. For my part I am a bit of a checker--I can't leave the house (especially on holiday) without checking all the doors are locked, to the point I have turned around on my way to work to come back. But this is mild, insignificant compared to 'real' OCD.

OCD is remarkably common--about 2% of the population suffer with it to some degree, and the profile has been raised by celebrity sufferers like David Beckham (and Samuel Johnson and Howard Hughes in the past). I saw a number of cases when I worked in Psychiatry, mainly co-existent with depressive illness, but one sticks in my mind beyond all others. It was a patient whom I met in Canada. He had a huge number of obsessions and compulsions, and some times the individual ones would compete within him and he would become 'frozen' , like when your computer is given too much to do at once. I recall finding him stood before a doorway once, unable to pass through yet unable to step back. For him medication was only a beginning, it was cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) that helped to unravel his condition.

Would OCD fit into a fantasy world? Well it was probably around in the olden days anyway--I imagine, along with other conditions such as schizophrenia, it was regarded as possession. You can visualise the effect admitting to compulsive thoughts to expose oneself in church would go down in Purtian times. Quick trip to the Exorcist. (As an aside Jean Foucault proposed, in Madness and Civilisation, that in the olden days we were far more acceptant of mental illness and it was the development of rationalists (and Victorians) that created the stigmatisation of mental illness). In my fantasy world, Jem copes with his OCD via discipline and meditation, which was taught him by a Galvorian monk. He practises his own CBT and calming techniques, although his traits emerge at stressful times (such as the checking and need for cleanliness). In volume II (book 3) we get to see how he reacts to a trip into the swamp and by book 5 we can see him cleaning his environment utilising his magical abilities.

Mental illness and psychiatric conditions are far more prevalent in the modern world than we give credit for. Most of us have either experienced or had close friends who have suffered from one or more such problems and have insight into the impact they can have on lives for many years. I hope that by writing about them, even within fantastical settings, they can become a topic that become easier to discuss and think about.

As a last note, the title, the Moon's Malady, is a reference for how the girls that Emelia knows in her workplace think of mental illness: namely that it is linked to the lunar cycles. This was taken straight from our own world's history of understanding mental illness--for many years it was considered 'madness' was related to the moon, hence 'lunacy' as an archaic term. And the world I've just created has four moons--so if that hold any weight, the inhabitants of Nurolia will have to become far more relaxed about discussing it than we are as a society!

Your adventure ends here...

Chain of thought is a funny thing. I was driving to work t'other day, toxifying the beautiful countryside with my gas guzzling SUV (fantasising I was a member of CTU from 24) when an old Pulp song came on the stereo. The song was called 'Something Changed' from the album Different Class. In essence it's about what would have happened if Jarvis and his lass had never met- would she be with someone else instead? What if he'd decided to go and have a beer or stay in bed instead of going out and first meeting his missus.
I'd actually bought it for my wife back when it came out as we were both Pulp fans and we'd just started going out- me in Scarborough, her in Stoke. It seemed to capture the sense we had at the time that this was more than just a short term thing- and 16 years later I suppose I can say we were right about that! (picture me getting home tonight to find that she's eloped with the pool attendant Juan...)

So onwards my brain goes and I start thinking how much life is like a Fighting Fantasy book. Man, I loved those books. I can remember the first one I bought- The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. I was probably 10 and I'd seen the DnD stuff that my mate Nick's older brothers used and been eager to play it, but our attempts were chaotic as we didn't really 'get' it. So when I found this book on holiday in Scotland I thought that it was the next best thing.
I must have spent all the time that I didn't ski that week playing the book. I had no dice so I used ripped pieces of paper numbered 1-6. I mapped it all out. Loved it. Loved the nagging uncertainty of choice within it.

Citadel of Chaos (with the bloody Gangees in it) and Forest of Doom (Yaztromo rocks) were bought on return to Leeds and then I was an addict. Me and Dan (my brother) must have got 20 or so of the series, plus the spin-offs like Sorcery. Some other series tried to emulate them (like Lone Wolf) but usually they just complicated it to try make it more grown up. WTF? It was supposed to be a gung-ho slaughter fest- with increasingly graphic endings ( Demon bird lays eggs in your brain...your adventure ends here...). I nursed what I thought was a dark secret as I read the books, always keeping my thumb at the prior entry lest the choice I'd made resulted in my arse being consumed by a frisky ghoul...turned out everyone did it (the thumb part, not the arse-chomping).

Inevitably I moved on to, well, every role-playing game available from 1984-1990. The books fell by the way-side but I can't forget the buzz of playing them for those early days and the wonderful illustrations.

(As an aside I found them in my bro's garage the other month and have bestowed them upon my 9 year old- and so it begins again...)

So is life like Fighting Fantasy? I ponder my life as I stumble into middle-age and, like Pulp, think about those significant choices and indeed some less significant. Where would I be if I'd chosen -pursue your love of comics and go to art college (turn to p345)? rather than -decide that blood and brains are more fun, train as a doctor (turn to p132)? Well I'd probably be a good sight poorer, probably not as happy, and I wouldn't have met my wife.
Other choices- which university would you like to spend 5 years drinking at? If it is Leeds go to p109, if Cardiff go to p222, if London your adventure is over. Such choices ripple through your life- if I'd gone to Cardiff or London would I live and work where I am now? If me and Amanda had chosen to stay in Australia would we have kids..the same kids?

It gets mind-blowing at times. I wonder just how free some of those choices were? Now my choices are constrained heavily by family, debt, money, career, that weigh like Marley's chains around me (OK that's over-dramatic...family aren't a chain, although kids do limit your options more than a rabbit did). But even back in those formative years how much freedom did I truly have? My choice of career was undoubtedly influenced by my mum being a physio and me spending time as a kid hanging around hospitals. It didn't dictate my choice- but there was bias within me. Your choice of spouse is hardly totally random- its not an episode of Blind Date after all. It's like the entries in the Fighting Fantasy Book of Life have some clue, perhaps they're in italics or bold.

And without being morbid one of them will have "Your adventure end here" when you turn the page. I've had one or two scrapes over the years that have almost ended on those entries (Car engine on fire...that's a great story...). And sadly, and I know this from random sad shit that happens at work on Intensive Care, you don't always have a choice about turning a page and can't keep your thumb at the last entry.

But when I look back I've chosen my adventure well so far. I've had a fair few 5s and 6s with my dice rolls and beat some tough monsters. I've got a full character sheet, with a vorpal wife +5, three Kids of Exhausting Fun, a house almost as good as Baba Yaga's Hut and a Career of Extra-Healing that generally works well.

The Roaring Mouse

We are all readers before we are writers. Was that in an Abba song? No, maybe that was something about dancing before I could walk... but I digress. First and foremost to be decent writers (something I among many aspire to) we need to read. Not just our genre but everything... books, comics, magazines, cereal packets (got that one off the missus).

To this end I started reviewing books. First on Amazon and Completely Novel, then for Fantasy Book Review and finally I've decided for my own blog. But as this one is busy enough I've decided to run it as a parallel blog...

So, the Roaring Mouse...

Why the title? My remit is to showcase indie, small press and self-pub books as the rest of the literary world gets enough cyber-minutes from snarkier reviewers than I. Inevitably it will have a fantasy-SF bent, as I'm that way inclined, but I'll also shove in some horror and thrillers too. The title is a play on the comedy the Mouse That Roared, which we all recall as Peter Sellers in a variety of roles. The analogy is that small press and self-pub can carry the same quality and literary impact as anything the big publishers decided to carry and, indeed, are probably less likely to follow trends of twinkly vampires and magicians at school.

So please jump across to the sister blog and follow and comment and hopefully read!

The Roaring Mouse