Otherworlds

Alma Deutscher is now fourteen years old. She’s already been somewhat of a sensation for her musical talents and they show no signs of abating. In this new piece she takes inspiration from the discordant sounds of city life, including traffic noises, sirens and general cacophony and creates a series of waltzes. In the opening segment she takes a cheeky poke at the critics who have accused her previous work (as a twelve year old…) of lacking the currently fashionable dissonance and being too melodic. It’s an amazing piece, and the way she has written the orchestral piece to mimic, initially, the sounds of city life is incredible Finn’s first novel A Step Beyond Context is available on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com and a few others as well. It’s a punchy genre-busting mystery with a heroine who is a Regency lady, a high tech mercenary and much more.

The tree on the hillside grows straight and so true And it is a fine place as so many folk knew And many a yeoman who yearned to be free Came and danced in the shade of the old dancing tree Oh the borders are hard and a fierce place to live And the people there take and there’s nothing to give But if you will take back what’s yours then you’ll see The sun rise and shine on the old dancing tree The hungry and homeless, well what is their life But struggle, starvation and hardship and strife But don’t raise your voice, or you’ll hear the decree That will send you one day to the old dancing tree The tax men will take every coin that you make And spare you no crumb, not for dear mercy’s sake If they see you hold back just a penny or three They will make you a date at the old dancing tree With thieves and with killers, with outlaws and all There’s many an honest man answered the call To give up his labour and there will he be To dance his last jig at the old dancing tre

We all know about lightning.   That sudden searing flash of light and heat, an instant release of energy that thrills the onlooker in its immediate and glorious destructive display, so quickly over with it needs an accompaniment of drum-roll thunder to keep the audience alert for its reappearance.  It’s magnificent at a distance, terrifying when closer.     The mechanism of lightning is the sudden equalisation of differently charged points.  Once the difference is sufficient enough to be unbearable for nature to maintain, the lightning appears drawing an incandescent equals sign vertically in the air. The storm we lived through was lightning of a kind, but the differential was not electrical, it was a differential in states of reality itself.   We didn’t know it at the time but a critical charge was building up in the ideosphere, a conceptual space far more remote and yet far more intimate than the atmospheric zones where simple climate forms.     The charge had begun building in th

This is probably going to be a pretty unfocussed post.  I apologise in advance for that, but it’s a subject that annoys me so much that I get distracted by shield-biting rage every time I try to think my way through it.   I’ll just jump in and swim to the far shore. I am fed up with the blatant lies being told by the people in power.   They always have, I’m sure, but recently with the rise of social media the lies are becoming more targeted, more outrageous and less nuanced.   It is as if the powers that be (and the powers that want to be) can’t even be bothered to hide their nonsense anymore, displaying an utter contempt for the people they are manipulating.   In this world of tribal politics the various factions know that their adherents will parrot the lies told by the witch-doctor regardless of their validity. Here in the UK we have the parties smearing each other in the run up to a General Election, blatantly spinning the facts about the policies that their rivals hold, and appa

Just a short update on my current work. I’ve completed my novel The Crow Journal and sent out samples with query letters to a small number of agents in the right genre market (and choosing that was difficult – is a novel set in 1850s London, that involves elements of mystery, magic and teen angst defined as Fantasy, Historical or Drama?) and now I wait to see what happens. I’m pleased with the novel, having started it way before A St ep Beyond Context and then put it aside, rediscovering it more than a year later and seeing the potential there before redrafting the whole thing. It tells the story of a young man in the early Victorian era who travels to London to seek the truth about his mixed Faerie/Human heritage and becomes embroiled in a plot that may tear apart the secret order of Magi that dwell in the capital. I’m pleased with the background setting, and feel it shows glimpses of a wider world than is required simply to serve the need of the story, and I think the narrative vo

The pen scratched on the page.  The words crawled slowly in the wake of the nib.   They were weak and empty things, and there was no life in them.   I looked down at what I had written and sighed.   “It was a dark and stormy night…” A trite sentence, the latest in a series of trite attempts.    In a sudden rush of anger I tore the page from the notebook, perforated margin ripping away and leaving a gap toothed strip of paper confined behind the enclosing spring. What I would not give to be able to reach into the ideas and images that teemed in my imagination and bring them into the light.   What I wouldn’t give to be able to make the words on the page soar and breathe and live in the vivid colours and dynamic action of my dreams.   I yearned for that with a physical gnawing hunger in my being.   The imagination is the gateway to worlds undreamed of, a doorway to endless potential, yet from my faltering pen there trickled only thin rivulets of diluted sediment. I screwed up the torn-o

NaNoWriMo is a great idea. A community supporting its members in writing 50,000 words of a novel throughout November. It helps deal with one of the big issues about writing, that of the primary task being getting the words on paper (or screen etc) without letting second guessing or procrastination get in the way. A great idea, but I’ve never been tempted, and the reason is entirely down to me and my understanding of my own psyche. It’s the same reason that I stopped setting myself speed goals on the treadmill at the gym. I went through a period of setting a distance target rather than a time target during my workouts and spent a good three or four weeks noting the constant improvements in my speed. After that time though I plateaued. I’d improved my time over the distance by about 20% and that felt good, but suddenly I was hitting the same time or (horrors) slightly worse and coming off it exhausted. And all of a sudden I wasn’t looking forward to the treadmill. All of a sudden I c

A strange admission for someone of my long tenure in the worlds of fantasy and science fiction, but I’d never actually read Robert E Howard’s Conan stories before. I know they’re almost archetypal examples of the genre but for some reason I’d never got round to picking them up. That changed recently, when I bought the Audiobook “ Conan the Cimmerian Barbarian” which contains every one of Howard’s tales of the black haired barbarian that was published in Weird Tales magazine. Thirty five hours long and I enjoyed every moment. Consisting of a number of short stories and some novellas the canon covers episodes from the titular hero’s life, ranging from stories of desperate heists to cover his penury to intrigues in the throne rooms of great empires. In contrast to most of the fantasy works I’ve read these tales were tightly focused narratives of adventure, not epic feats of worldbuilding and exploration. I have to say that I am more likely to return to Conan’s world for entertainment

I The tavern hall was crowded that night, with raucous voices raised in laughter or contention and the thick sweet smell of acrid violets in the air that spoke of intoxicants other than ale and wine.   Zaira the singer moved through the press of people, accepting their accolades and compliments for the performance that she had just finished.  She had sung of bold heroes and far away places, of love and loss, and the crowd had cheered or groaned by turn, and filled her bowl with coin.  Not enough coin of course, to Zaira there was never enough coin.   She was a beautiful woman, dark and lithe and she had earned her living in this tavern and others like it in the city of Telek Tarim and had always dreamed of leaving behind the riverside wharves and the stink of poverty in favour of a new and perfumed life elsewhere.   Never enough coin for that, but always ways of obtaining more. Zaira had noticed the stranger as she had sung.   He was a massive man, strong and wide shouldered, sittin

With youth soft skin and eager heart I flinched from every venomed dart And guiltless sought to make things right Then as I grew I armour wore To save me from the wounds so sore A cuirass that was strong, but tight It saved me from the need for healing That armour coldly cut off feeling Dulled my hearing, blocked my sight But now I have that armour cast And free of it, I stand at last With steel strong skin I fear no fight Inspired by the writing prompt HERE using the quotation : Never make a defence or an apology until you are accused. Charles I of England Finn’s first novel A Step Beyond Context is available on Amazon.co,uk and Amazon.com and a few others as well. It’s a punchy genre-busting mystery with a heroine who is a Regency lady, a high tech mercenary and much more.

An exercise in inspiration – having a vaguely Lovecraftian mood on me I decided to just start typing and see where the mood take me. The first couple of lines sprang out of nowhere and I just let the whole thing flow without editing or pausing. When in that failing sleep I rose With eyes agleam in heart of night I left behind my calm repose And trod the path toward the light That came unbidden through the veil And whispered words of shade and doom That called to mind a far off tale And drew me onward in the gloom. There scenes of ancient lands I saw And cities cyclopean rose And bands of armoured men at war With shapes more fierce still than those Those shapes were not the men I knew Nor beast, nor fish, nor bird nor aught That I could name or know for true And with those ancient men they fought But sword and axe and spear and flame Could not prevail or win the day But only a forbidden name When spoken drove those fiends away Its echoes rang when it was named And

Edmund Jenkin was not an old man but he was weary and reaching the end of his resources.  He had been waiting for his caller who was overdue by an hour and he was worried.  The weather was bad but that was not what concerned him.   What concerned him was that the time was bad, the days were bad, the enemy was breaking through in ways they could not have imagined a decade ago and he was concerned that these were the final days. When he saw Jacob’s car draw up in his driveway he was not so much relieved as resigned.  There was still work to be done.   When he opened the door to his visitor though he shook his head. “You should not have brought the boy,” he said to Jacob.   The child was about ten years old and seemed hidden inside a hooded coat at least one size too large, playing some game on a smartphone that was occupying his full attention. “No choice Ed,” said Jacob, “His mother’s busy, I  couldn’t leave him behind.”   The two visitors entered the house and Edmund disposed of t

Old demons never die, they simply dim their flames And decompose through all the crime scene stages Righteous hatred stiffening in the rigor of history Prodded and examined, Questioned and challenged, The images of fire debated and heat’s meaning discussed. Then decomposition sets in and infernal foulness Mulches down in parody and meme’s rich loam And makes of slicing stamping real, a simple word A name to slander any, every, thing disliked, Dust, then, to dust in sleeping eyes and demons wake Unnoticed and unjust they change their name and sing The same old songs, bright torchlit rallies seen anew Men in rows, coloured spectacles where e-books burn And the old fire kindles and liberty turns to face The dawn with open, readied, leveled arms.

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I swear I didn’t set out to be one of those New Year resolution guys.  I’ve always thought that if something needs doing or changing then you either do it when it needs to get done, or you don’t, and why should a date on a calendar be the boss of me etc. However since the New Year I’ve just felt in the mood  to change things up.   I lost a lot of weight last year and want to carry on making progress, and just in the last couple of days I felt an inkling to get back to the gym.  I’ve been rising earlier than ever and getting to work about 2 hours earlier than I need to and so I’ve decided to spend one of those hours in the gym near work. Which of course necessitated joining the gym, buying some new clothes to work out in (since all my old stuff is now far too large) and so on. Today was my first session and it felt good but tiring as you’d expect.   I doubt I’ll be able to raise my arms from  the desk by lunchtime. Other stuff that feels good – I’ve decided to start meditating agai

  The pain is everywhere now.   The cords are tight around my arms and my legs, the long cuts on my back from the scourge weep blood, but the pain is no longer confined to arms, or legs, or cuts.   I  am  pain, a fire from head to toe flaring with every beat of my heart… or the drum… and the beat is fast, too fast.    The fire is outside me too, at the edge of the clearing, wood from the ash tree, flames crackling and eager.   The fire in my body longs to be reunited with the fire outside me and if I was not bound I would rush into its heart and be devoured.   The woman I love watches, eyes fearful, brave enough not to comfort me.   I endure. This is not my first journey on behalf of the people.  Since I found my gift in the Summer of Fevers I have journeyed often when there was need.   To find the will of the gods and the other beings who moved unseen in the woods and hills and mountains.  Unseen by most, but I could see them.     The heart drum beats faster and faster and I am sur

The crack in Context hung before my eyes like a twisted thread of blue lightning, frozen immobile.  It was hair-thin but it shone, and as I walked around it the crack always showed me its same shape as though it was superimposed over the scene and how I viewed the scene was irrelevant. The door opened and my boss stalked into the chapel.  Hendry was ex military and bad tempered so I got my defence in early. “Secured the scene, boss,” I told him, “Class Aleph anomaly.  Hasn’t become a full portal yet.” He paced around the crack glaring.   I opened my mouth to apologise for entering the scene alone but he cut me off with a bark. “Maryam!” The third member of our team ran into the room and I smiled just to see her.  Most psionics are a pain in the backside, talking in abstract airy platitudes and vague rambling about auras and feelings.  Maryam was about as airy and vague as a Glock sidearm. “Boss?” “Scan close Context.  Make sure nothing’s come through.” She nodded,  eyes unfocu