Prism

This week we find Steve Aylett on the chopping block. Steve’s latest novel LINT, published by Snowbooks has made it into the top 10 shortlist of that ‘Spread the Word’ competition. Now that the pleasantries are over, it’s time to twist that knife…

STEVE AYLETT IS INTERVIEWED BY MARTIN ROBERTS

MR: Is there a defining moment in your life that helped you in your decision to put ‘pen to paper’ and create the worlds of Beerlight, and Accomplice etc?
 
STEVE: I suppose I was affected by the many times I’ve reeled out of bookshops at the sight of all the dead meat hanging on the shelves in there. I ended up writing the sorts of books I wanted to read but hadn’t been able to find anywhere.

MR: Apparently there is mention of nine muses or Greek goddesses who presided over the arts and sciences. Do you have any particular muses of your own?

STEVE: My muse, unfortunately, is a sort of glass hen filled with ectoplasm and snot. It’s appalling really. I tell myself it’s a ‘trickster spirit’ but it’s probably just some trash. 
 

Warning! The following question developed its own basic awareness and decided that it was to be broken into two separate entries each with secret names that have long been forgotten.

To date, you have had published several works, ranging from novels to novellas, with a collection and comic in between. Can you tell us anything that stands out for you after the publication of these books and more importantly will they improve the readers’ sexual appeal? 

STEVE: I recall several occasions when people have died when I’ve sent them copies of my books, including William Burroughs and Kurt Vonnegut. The section of the community in which the books increase sexual appeal is very narrow and hasn’t been categorised yet.   

MR: I’m standing in the vast and cosmic space of a retail outlet; in one hand I have LINT, in the other, a packet of 12 economy light bulbs. Why should I choose to purchase your novel?

STEVE: If you’re in a retail outlet and you’re holding a copy of LINT, you probably bought it online. So go ahead and buy the bulbs too, since they’re actually available in the store.

MR: What are your feelings on the specialist press and/or self publication in general, and how do you imagine a British mainstream publisher should present your fiction to the public?

STEVE: The specialist press is fine and some of those books are beautiful objects, though they’re often prohibitively expensive, just out of the question for most people. Self-publishing is good for overspill side-projects that aren’t worth going through the hassle of submitting. I kept getting Americans asking where they could get hold of back-issues of The Caterer comic, which of course didn’t exist (it was mentioned in the novel LINT). So I ended up creating an issue and putting it out through Lulu. There was no point spending time submitting that anywhere (and I have no luck with comics anyway).  My books should be presented as colourful but not ‘wacky’. I like that the UK edition of LINT is colourful, and is the first really good cover on my books since the UK Slaughtermatic. A cover with a frame is good as it can contain a lot of colour but the border suggests it’s not wacky and ‘out of control’. I like a bit of codification, symbols - it helps with the rich/specific feel that my books have. I like it when all of an author’s stuff is re-released with covers that have a similar border or console but different artwork obviously, so that there’s an element of ‘collect them all’, like those stupid game cards. Japanese book design is spectacular. For some reason most publishers haven’t a clue how to present my stuff, and it ends up looking impoverished.

MR: Are there three works of art the world can’t live without? These can be books, paintings, film, music etc.

STEVE: The human race generally is still so poisonous and savage it only pretends it can’t live without those things. I personally love the book ‘The Horse’s Mouth’, and some women I know are works of art. 

MR: Last but not least, what’s next for Steve Aylett?

STEVE: A book set in Mike Moorcock’s ‘End of Time’ world, and the last ever Beerlight novel.” 

MR: Ladies, Gentlemen, and all things in-between, please put your hands together and pull them apart, repeat the process until your arms ache and your hands tingle, for our guest Steve Aylett.
 
Steve Aylett is the acclaimed author of Slaughtermatic, Atom, Toxicology, The Crime Studio, Shamanspace, The Velocity Gospel, Dummyland, Bigot Hall, the Tao Te Jinx, The Inflatable Volunteer, LINT and Fain the Sorcerer. To find out more about Steve’s work visit www.steveaylett.com 
 

Martin Roberts is an independent filmmaker, who currently resides in a mental institute commonly known as North Staffordshire.  Past projects include; the BBC award nominee ‘Paint’, an essay on Peter Jackson’s Braindead, in the collection Cinema Macabre (PS Publishing / BFS), and he is working on creating the largest video archive of British Fantasy writers in the UK - whatever particular genre they choose to work within.Contact Martin publicitycoordinator@britishfantasysociety.org 

First up to firing line we find Tim Lebbon who was awarded the ‘The August Derleth Fantasy Award’ Best Novel for DUSK published by Spectra Books…

… Now that the pleasantries are over, it’s time to twist that knife…

TIM LEBBON IS INTERVIEWED BY MARTIN ROBERTS 

MR:  Is there a defining moment in your life that helped you in your decision to put ‘pen to paper’ and create the world of Noreela as featured in Dusk, Dawn and soon to appear in After the War and Fallen? 

TIM: It was at least seven years ago that I wrote the first few chapters of DUSK and sketched out the basic story arc of the two novels.  There was no real moment I can recall that said to me “Now is the time!”, but I’d been dwelling on the idea for a while, and the big attraction back then – and one of the continuing attractions of writing fantasy – was that this was my world, and I could do whatever the hell I wanted with it.   

MR:  Apparently there is mention of nine muses or Greek goddesses who presided over the arts and sciences. Do you have any particular muses of your own? 

TIM: If I have, she’s buried deep down, and mysterious and unknown to me.  There’s a drive to write, and a desire to tell stories that is never really quenched.  But inspirations, for me, come from many different places.  

Warning! The following question developed its own basic awareness and decided that it was to be broken into two separate entries each with secret names that have long been forgotten. 

To date, you have published over twenty books published, ranging from novels to novellas, with a few collections in between.  

Can you tell us anything that stands out for you after the publication of these books and more importantly will they improve the readers’ sexual appeal? 

TIM: Oh Hell yes, of course they’ll improve sex appeal!  There’s nothing sexier than a tall, pretty brunette sitting on a train reading a Lebbon novel, although, I have to admit, I have yet to see that longed-for sight.  (As an aside, I did once see a tall, pretty brunette sitting on a train reading a Steven Erikson novel … and much as Steve’s a lovely guy, I was jealous of him right then).  As to the first part of the question … I find it difficult singling one stand-out book out of all those I’ve had published.  Probably one of the most important career-wise was DUSK … and seeing MESMER (my first novel) for the first time was a great moment … and seeing the 30 DAYS OF NIGHT movie novelisation I wrote make the New York Times Bestseller list was quite a thrill too …   

MR:  I’m standing in the vast and cosmic space of a retail outlet; in one hand I have DUSK, in the other, a packet of 12 economy light bulbs. Why should I choose to purchase your novel?

TIM: Because my analogy for what happens to the world of DUSK is, think of our own planet if electricity suddenly stopped working.  And so after you’ve read it, you can burn it, providing instant light and heat. 

MR:  What are your feelings on the specialist press and self publication in general, and how do you imagine a British mainstream publisher would present your fiction to the public? 

TIM:  I’ve never self-published, so I can’t really comment on that.  But I’ve worked with indie publishers from day one, and I’ll continue to work with them, because there’s a real passion about what they do … and let’s face it, the likes of PS Publishing, Night Shade and Necessary Evil Press produce truly sexy books. 

As for a mainstream British publisher … I’d love to see my fantasy novels published over here, but how they’d be presented would depend entirely upon who published them…  

MR:  Are there three works of art the world can’t live without? These can be books, paintings, film, music etc. 

TIM: It would be nice to think that they are three yet to come.   

MR:  Last but not least, what’s next for Tim Lebbon? 

TIM:  Well … 2008 is a busy year for me.  There’s A WHISPER OF SOUTHERN LIGHTS, the new novella in the Assassin Series, out very soon.  FALLEN is a new stand-alone novel set in Noreela (the land in DUSK and DAWN), due in April from Bantam Spectra.  MIND THE GAP is the first novel in the Hidden Cities series, which I’m writing with Chris Golden.  AFTER THE WAR from Subterranean Press is a volume of two novellas set in Noreela.  And there’ll also be a huge collection of my short fiction, an anthology co-edited with Chris Golden and Jim Moore, a new novella from a UK indie publisher, as well as a new short novel from one of the great indie publishers in the ‘States.  And there’s other stuff too, as well as an occasional night’s sleep and a more occasional holiday … watch this space.  

MR:  Ladies, Gentlemen, and all things in-between, please put your hands together and pull them apart, repeat the process until your arms ache and your hands tingle, for our guest Tim Lebbon. 

Tim Lebbon’s first published story was in the UK indie magazine Psychotrope in 1994, and in 1997 Tanjen published his first novel Mesmer. Since then he’s had over twenty books published in the UK and US by Bantam Spectra, Night Shade Books, Simon & Schuster, Leisure Books, PS Publishing, Necessary Evil Press, Cemetery Dance and many others, with plenty more due soon. Quite a few of Tim’s novellas and novels have been optioned for the screen, and his novella White is soon to be a major movie from Rogue Pictures, written and directed by Stephen Susco (The Grudge). To find out more about Tim’s work visit www.timlebbon.net 

Martin Roberts is an independent filmmaker, who currently resides in a mental institute commonly known as North Staffordshire?  Past projects include; the BBC award nominee ‘Paint’, an essay on Peter Jackson’s Braindead, in the collection Cinema Macabre (PS Publishing / BFS), and he is working on creating the largest video archive of British Fantasy writers in the UK - whatever particular genre they choose to work within.  
 
Contact Martin at publicitycoordinator@britishfantasysociety.org

New UK genre novelist Tim Wood, recently taken on by the John Jarrold Literary Agency, has completed an innovative trilogy. The first novel, TEPESCH DRAKUL, is set in the present day and, in the author’s words: ‘reveals the true history and ecology of the vampire. Where they originated, their grand design, how they work and who they really are.’  The stories are centred around a legendary demon slayer, Finn Angmon, and draws on the legends of Fionn mac Cumaill. The novels pay tribute to the dark eroticism of Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula, whilst entering the world of science fiction, taking the narrative to Vasudha, the home planet of the vampire kind.  In the fourth novel of the Finn Angmon series, a Vasudha becomes a battle ground when it is invaded by the Zilon, and humans must join forces with their enemy to save the planet.   

John Jarrold said:  ‘I have looked at Tim’s work over some time and with this series I feel he has really hit his stride.  Vampires abound at the moment, but Tim has looked deep into their being, while telling a terrific, fast-moving story with thrills and characters who involve the reader.  He has a great future.’ 

Currently, Tim leads a busy life as he is also information solutions director for Atkins management consultants. 

One of the first horror authors being published by Virgin/Random House is the doyen of British supernatural fiction, Ramsey Campbell.  Winner of many World Fantasy Awards, British Fantasy Awards and Lifetime Achievement Awards – amongst others – Campbell was designated as “Britain’s most respected living horror writer” by the Oxford Companion to English Literature.  His new novel, THE GRIN OF THE DARK, involves a search for a silent film comedian, Tubby Thackeray, whose career seemed to disappear overnight, and its effects on the investigator, film journalist Simon Lester.  Both chilling and funny, it’s Campbell at the top of his form.

John Jarrold concluded the deal with Adam Nevill at Virgin Books and Random House.  The novel will be published in May 2008. 

John Jarrold will be interviewing bestselling author Iain Banks at the annual Lincoln Book Festival at 8 p.m. on Monday May 12 in the Lincoln Drill Hall.  The interview will be followed by a Q&A session. 

‘I was lucky enough to be Iain’s SF editor in the late eighties and early nineties,’ said Jarrold.  ‘And we’ve been friends since 1986, so I have plenty of background when putting together questions!  We also worked together on RAW SPIRIT, his book on malt whisky, which he has said is the nearest thing to an autobiography he is ever likely to write, and it offers rich pickings regarding his life.’ 

For further information, contact Sara Bullimore, Lincoln Council’s Arts & Cultural Sector Officer, by e-mail on:  Sara.Bullimore@lincoln.gov.uk 

Albedo One (Ireland’s premiere magazine of speculative fiction) has now launched the International Aeon Award 2008 short fiction contest. Before any more details on that front, we’d just like to say thanks once more for supporting the Award in the past by mentioning it on your site, we’re sure that this has played a key part in its success! As always, if there’s anything we can ever do in return at Albedo One, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. We know you’ve been announcing the Award out of kindness or courtesy and we’re eager to return the favour if we can.

The contest is open to submissions of up to 8000 words (no minimum word limit) in any speculative fiction genre, from Fantasy and Science Fiction to Horror or anything in-between or unclassifiable. The judges have very broad tastes in this regard. The grand prize is 1000 euro and publication in Albedo One. Thanks to the success of last year’s Award, we’ve been able to add a second and third place cash prize of 200 and 100 euro respectively for this year. The second and third place stories will also be published in Albedo One.

The contest will run in four rounds from January 1st 2008 to November 30th 2008. Submissions can be made at any time between those two dates, and stories making the shortlist will be announced shortly after the end of each of the rounds, which end on March 31st, June 30th, September 30th and finally November 30th. After the last round, the top six stories from the shortlist will be chosen and passed on to respected science fiction, fantasy and horror author, Ian Watson (www.ianwatson.info), who will act as Grand Judge and pick the winner and second and third place stories.

The Aeon Award is all about promoting new writers and writing in the speculative fields, which has long been the goal of Albedo One. The quality of stories and submissions to the first and second Award has served to affirm our faith in the value of the speculative genres, and in the direction they will be taking in the future. Last year’s winner was Nina Allan’s “Angelus”, which was announced at a ceremony during the 29th European Science Fiction Convention, Copenhagen, Denmark, September 2007. The story will be published in issue 34 of Albedo One, due out in February.

The contest is open to writers from all nationalities, though the entries must be written in English. Full details and guidelines for entering the Award can be found on the Albedo One website at the following link: http://www.albedo1.com/html/aeon_award.html The entry fee for the Award is a paltry €7 (euro) and can be paid easily and securely on the Albedo One site. Email submissions may be made to fraslaw@yahoo.co.uk

Airlie Lawson and Tara Hiatt, Rights Directors at HarperCollins in London, have confirmed a deal with Claire Eddy of Tor Books in New York, to publish THE COURT OF THE AIR by Stephen Hunt, and his follow-up fantasy novel, THE KINGDOM BEYONE THE WAVES. 

HarperCollins Voyager acquired World rights in three novels from John Jarrold, and have already sold German, French, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese rights, and are presently pursuing interest in a number of other markets. 

‘I’m delighted,’ said John Jarrold.  ‘I’ve known the guys at Tor for over twenty years, and they have a wonderful reputation.  I don’t think Stephen could be in better hands in the US.  Congratulations to him, HarperCollins and Claire!’ 

Welcome to the winter instalment of Elastic News!

Firstly, there’s a Norfolk motto which is “do different” (deriving from the old saying, “People in Norfolk do things different”), and we’ve been following that statement since I began Elastic Press five years ago. This is evident from the diverse titles and genres we’ve published, and the various ways in which we’ve held launches for our books. However, 2008 is going to be an extra special “do different” year for us, because as well as doing things differently from other publishers, we’ll actually be doing things differently to the way that we do them ourselves!

Confused? Here’s the low down.

1. All our single-author collections next year will feature introductions – something we’ve only done with our anthologies so far. We hope this will add an interesting angle to the reading experience;

2. For the first time, we’ll be publishing a second collection of stories by someone we’ve already published;

3. In May and August we’ll be publishing two books instead of the usual one;

4. We’re also going to republish a collection of short stories that originally appeared in the 1970s;

5. We’ll be giving away a free book next November!

Those are the basics, here are the specifics in our exciting publishing schedule for 2008:

Continue Reading »

Saturday January 26th
The previous BFS Open Night in York was well-received by all, and much beer and wine was consumed (especially beer).
 
As with the October ‘07 Open Night, the next one is to be held at York Brewery. York Brewery is a short walk from the train station, and an ever-so-slightly longer stagger back (accounting for the zig-zag pattern of movement).
 
The space we’ll have in the brewery is very atmospheric, so we have decided to make this An Evening of Ghost Stories in Europe’s Most-Haunted City (following a suitably chatty start to the evening). I will confirm more details closer to the event.
 
If you’re planning on making a weekend of it (and York is a great weekend destination), there’re no races on this time, so accommodation should be easy to find. I’d recommend trying www.wheatlandslodge.co.uk first, otherwise do a search at www.visityork.org
 
There’s no need to register, but if you are interested in reading a short ghost tale (one of your own, or perhaps a classic), please let me know by email (prism AT britishfantasysociety.org) (also let me know what piece you’d like to read so I can plan the best order). I can’t guarantee that everyone will get a spot, however.
 
Have a great Christmas and New Year and I hope to see you all on the 26th!If you know of anyone else that might be interested in this Open Night, please let them know about this event - non-members are welcome.

Report by Peter Coleborn

Despite confusion over dates and venue, the room reserved for the Christmas Open Night was packed, and at times it was difficult to negotiate from one end to the other. It didn’t help that the pub also hosted another private party in an adjacent room. It (the pub) thought it could easily handle such large numbers, I imagine. Well, it could, if you didn’t mind a long wait while ordering drinks at the upstairs bar. I wish that venue owners wouldn’t focus so much on profit (allegedly)…This was the first Open Night I had attended for some time. It really is becoming more and more difficult (and expensive) arranging rail travel (and who likes to ride coaches?). So we (Jan Edwards and I) had lunch in Reading with Jen and Pat Barber, and then caught a rather slow train into Waterloo, arriving at Ye Olde Cock at the same time as Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane. And pretty soon after, the room started to fill up. Around eight o’clock Chris Teague (Pendragon Press) launched a new collection by Tony Richards (alas, too ill to attend himself), and the people behind the Pantechnicon online magazine (Trudi Topham and Joshua Rainbird) gave a talk – and then the drinking and chatting recommenced.
 
As mentioned, the room was packed. It was a great opportunity to meet up with friends again, some not seen for quite a while. Amongst the attendees were: Scott Andrews, Allen Ashley, Susanne Barbieri, David Bezzina, Doug Bradley,  Pat Cadigan, Simon Clark, Bob Covington, Peter & Nicky Crowther, Cory Doctorow, Les & Val Edwards, Christopher Fowler, Amanda Foubister, Stephen Gallagher, Simon Guerrier, Stephen Jones, Paul McAuley, Adam Nevill, Marion Pitman, Tina Rath, Michael Marshall Smith, Mandy Slater, Charles Stross, Nicholas Vince and Conrad Williams.

The next London Open Night is scheduled for March (date to be confirmed). On 26th January, York hosts the first Open night of 2008. If you are able, go along to one or both.