Tough decision on new books
It was a decision I had to make, one that was hard in the making but one that I have to stick to. I have made a promise to myself not to buy any new books until December 2010 for two very important reasons: the first is due to the work I’ve been doing in the flat over the week in packing, organising and moving around 400 books or so up into our attic storage space in an attempt to get the flat back to looking like a home, rather than a storage warehouse. The second choice is a simple case of economy.
I know this is going to kill me, especially when thinking about the chat I had with Michael Stone the other week about buying stuff by friends and contacts, partly out of interest, partly out of support. I have always been big on the argument that as an indie press publisher I can’t complain about people not buying our books if I’m not buying other people’s and I have made a point of buying books by a lot of the people I have worked with.
However, this means I can actually start reading some of those I bought and that can’t be all bad can it? 
I decided to put a little list together so you can see what is on my list over the next few weeks/months. I may add to this a little later but these are the ones I’m going to start with:
Fourtold: Michael Stone
Lowside of the Road – A Life of Tom Waits: Barney Hoskyns
Innocent When You Dream – Tom Waits – The Collected Interviews: Mac Montandon (ed.)
Beneath the Surface: Simon Strantzas (only a couple left to read – an excellent collection)
Creeping in Reptile Flesh: Robert Hood
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror: Stephen Jones (ed.)
Collected Works: Nick Wallace (ed.) (I’m in this!)
The Manhattan Project: Jake Packard (promised to read and review it and am halfway through it – not enjoying it at all)
Fantastic Wonder Stories: Russell B. Farr (ed.) (About two thirds into this)
Troy: Simon Brown
Bull Running For Girls: Allyson Bird
Crosstown Traffic: Stuart Coupe, Julie Ogden & Robert Hood (eds.)
Hanteringen av odöda: John Ajvide Lindqvist
Year’s Best Australian SF & Fantasy – Volume Two: Bill Congreve & Michelle Marquardt (eds.) (Think I’ve read most of this)
I’m sure whilst organising the last of the books I’ll find more but for now that’s my list.
And yes, I found the other pile just a few moments ago…
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: Susanna Clarke
The Lions of Al-Rassan: Guy Gavriel Kay
The Priestess and the Slave: Jenny Blackford
Bound for Evil: Tom English (ed.)
Svavelvinter: Erik Granström
Behold the Spider! Dead Souls available on Amazon.com.
Dead Souls is now available through both the Morrigan Books website and Amazon.com.
Be sure to scare the bejeezus out of your nearest and dearest this Halloween by gifting them with some wonderful tales, penned by expert storytellers.
And a cover to make you squirm whenever you reach for your copy!
The 13 Gods/Goddesses of Modern Music. Stave the First: Stina Nordenstam
(note: this was actually written a few years ago and I am editing it to go with the other twelve entries coming soon)
Queen of lo-fi, queen of kooky; Stina Nordenstam, is, without doubt, Sweden’s most interesting musical artist. Starting out in 1991 with memories of a color, (an album not without its flaws) Stina announced herself onto the Swedish (and world) scene with barely a whisper.
As is so often the way with talented artists, Stina built up a cult following, which eagerly awaited her second (and best) offering And She Closed Her Eyes, in 1994. It was here that Stina married her unique voice to incredible, haunting music coupled with those lyrics…
Stina, like other Swedish artists, has been criticised for singing in English rather than her native tongue, yet I, for one, am thankful that she has chosen to express herself in my language as her lyrics hit a chord in me much stronger than I believe they would had she written and sung in Swedish.
After And She Closed Her Eyes, expectation was high and this inspired Nordenstam to a change in direction. The haunting voice was still there, the lyrics still amazing, yet the music had taken a darker edge. Although Dynamite (1997) doesn’t match the completeness of her previous release, it showed a maturing, developing artist, one who was interested in varying ideas within music. Those that had followed this picture-shy diva with interest were now hooked.
1998 saw Stina release an album that, for me, is typically her, a cover album of thirty odd minutes long. A cover album in itself is nothing new, yet what if it was a cover album containing songs that Stina had not heard the original of or indeed had not liked upon hearing them? This was indeed an interesting approach to cover versions.
The result? Some extremely intriguing covers, culminating in the best track of all eleven, the title track People are Strange, which manages to be infinitely better than The Doors’ original (which I also love).
Then came the glitch in the system, the blot on the cv; after successful albums and a keen following, Stina left the creative freedom of East/West and joined Sony Records, resulting in a ‘re-birth’ unrequired and resulting in by far her weakest album to date. 2001 saw wonderful tracks such as The Diver, Welcome to Happiness and Clothe Yourself For The World surrounded by non-Stina tracks: Keen Yellow Planet and Lori Glory and it seemed as if we had lost the lo-fi queen we had come to love as she was engulfed by the Sony Hi-Fi commercial machine.
Yet all was not lost; 2004 saw Stina return with the aptly titled The World is Saved, a behemoth of an album, written, performed and produced by Nordenstam on her own label ‘A Walk in the Park’. It is a dark, brooding, powerful album that is the nearest to And She Closed Her Eyes in quality and completeness and was also this reviewer’s album of the year for 2004.
The world is truly saved.
Recommended listening:
And She Closed Her Eyes – 1994
The World is Saved – 2004
Avoid:
This is Stina Nordenstam – 2001
The 13 Gods/Goddesses of Modern Music – The Intro
I’ve been asked by a few people what I’m talking about here, and after Amanda Pillar’s (my in-house editor’s) comments about elitism in literature and music today, I thought what better day to hit you with some prime elitism of my own.
For yes, I am very elitist when it comes to music and for good reason. I mean there is so much crap out there that is basically fed to us on a daily basis: on radio stations, in shopping centres and at venues and, to be honest, most of us don’t put a whole lot of effort into thinking about music or looking for great new music, as we know what we like, and I think we should. I think there are so many wonderful artists out there who get overlooked for a multitude of reasons, most of them bad.
So I shall start my little mission of elitism by encouraging you to have a listen to some great, truly great music by introducing you to thirteen artists who pretty much always know how to rock my world, my socks and pretty much anything else that comes to mind. Some of these artists will be know to all of you, some not so much. For by saying that I search high and low for great music does not mean that it is always hard to find. Some of these may have been on your radio stations for years.
So get yourselves ready for at some point in the next few hours I am going to hit you with the first of the thirteen.
Muse Online Writers Conference 2009
(please be aware this is not a review of the rather weak new Muse album)
Over the weekend I took part in the Muse Online Writers Conference, hosting two events: a one hour pitch session for submission queries to our company and a one hour chat room, answering questions for those interested in Morrigan Books and/or the internal workings of a dark fiction publisher.
At first I was a little surprised by the high level of quality of the pitches I received (fully expecting some duds during the hour) but it was all made clear to me later by Lea Schizas, organiser and general goddess of the con, who explained that they had received pitches from more than 500 people and had filtered them down into the best of the best to meet me on the Saturday. As an aquistions editor, she knows what she is looking for, and so I have a few sample chapters on their way over the next few weeks.
Sunday was the chat and I thoroughly enjoyed this too. I found the questions thoughtful and engaging and twice I was caught out by questions on topics I just can’t seem to pin down. I’ll try and explain them here and hopefully some clever person might be able to help me in my search…
When asked if I preferred first person or third person POV, I responded by stating that I would love to publish an excellent second person POV novel. All went well until a wily person asked me which second person fiction I loved and I got a bit stumped. I mean, who is actually writing good second person stuff at the mo?
Not content with being caught out there, I then went off an rambled about how I prefer werewolf fiction to vampire fiction (after being asked my opinion on why vampires are so attractive to teens), which obviously gifted me with the question about what werewolf fiction has impressed me of late…oops…I knew I should have bought the Stephen Jones anthology at FCon…
And now, nearly a full twenty four hours later, I have just remembered that I rather enjoyed Carnies by Martin Livings. I think Martin still has a few copies left and I strongly advise buying one before they sell out.
I’d love some tips of where I can go for some top drawer werewolf stuff (just so I’m ready for next year’s con and tough questions), as it seems my werewolf lore mainly concerns itself with films.
Speaking about the werewolves, I received my copy of Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater today, and I do confess to being a little apprensive about this one. Elaine Cunningham was impressed though and that’s always a plus sign in my book!
But back to the conference and with it being on EST time (six hours behind us here in Sweden) I wasn’t able to take place anywhere near as much as I wanted to be but I am going to make sure I am ready for 2010, after already being invited to be a participant there too.
And I could go on all day about Lea Schivas, host of both my groups and very involved in the whole conference, full of support for writers, publishers and editors, encouraging groups and chats and even pushing a writer to pitch to me when the writer didn’t actually feel like she could (and it was a very good pitch indeed)!
I already hinted that I’d like to be involved with Lea on something in the future and I hope that she doesn’t take that as an empty invitation as it definitely wasn’t (and I’ll stalk her to prove it ).
All in all, a very enjoyable con and, as I mentioned earlier, one that I am going to make sure Morrigan Books is very involved in next year.
Interview
The lovely Mihai Adascalitei interviewed me for his Dark Wolf’s Fantasy Reviews site:
Launch report – Kulturnatten, Norrköping, 26th September 2009
Now, before I get into too deep an analysis here, you need to know one thing and that is that Norrköping is about as cultural as a packet of soggy ready salted crisps…you’re getting where this is headed aren’t you?
To be honest I was not expecting any sort of success here, as this is not a convention and not even an event focused on books in general, as music, food, and folklore all had their place. My location today was at a table in the entrance hall of the town’s main library (yes it has a few, with no plans to knock any down – like I just saw in my hometown last week) and a rather good view of all the comings and goings at that location were afforded.
Everything started off well, as within twenty minutes of sitting there I was interviewed by one of the local papers (Norrköpings Tidningar) and had a good chat with a couple about Swecon, which the mighty Graham Joyce is at this year, and which Morrigan Books may well have a table in the dealers’ room – meaning I expect to see Mr. Savile and Mr. Duns there…
However, things slowed down pretty quickly and it wasn’t long before I was counting how many times I’d heard comments about not liking horror fiction, with my tired old response of ‘Do you like crime fiction then?’. Bet you can’t guess their answer…
One of the best examples of this cultural vacuum was the poetry readings, which took place behind me and had an audience of eight, two of which were part of the troupe and one who was one of the town’s drunks and quite clearly asleep. I know poetry isn’t one of the big things these days (or any days) but eight people? They asked if any of the audience wanted to come up and read a poem to fill in some time and I was so tempted to attack them with my witch poem, Maleficus, but I have trouble remembering two of the lines off by heart. I’d post that here but it’s just been accepted to a magazine and I am afeared in case it goes against contract.
So what did we sell? Well we sold one copy of Grants Pass, one copy of Dead Souls and one copy of the hardback of The Even (the latter bought by a massive Gaiman fan, who thought the blurb for Moore’s book sounded like his cup of tea). And I didn’t even have to look at my notes to remember them
Still, I thought today was worth it, as I’m making people take notice of our company, I had a few requests for information, gave out several postcards and business cards and am fully aware that these things are totally necessary in this industry of ours.
I’ll keep you updated on our next venture.
Con report – Fantasy Con 2009
(Please note I’m writing this already aware that I am going to forget events and/or people during the report, nothing personal, just a normal human memory – I think.)
Not knowing where to start, I think I’ll jump in at the British Fantasy Awards, as not only were they arguably the main event of the con but Morrigan Books had a nomination for the Best Collection award, for Gary McMahon’s How to Make Monsters. Gary didn’t win, otherwise you’d have heard me from a radius of about 200 miles, but congratulations nevertheless to Allyson Bird for Bull Running for Girls and for Screaming Dreams for publishing it. I haven’t actually read the book yet, as I picked up my signed copy from Allyson at the weekend but I’ll let you know if it deserved to beat our Gary when I have read it…
I was pleased to see Andrew Hook pick up the award for Best Small Press, as although Elastic Press have now closed their doors, Andrew did a hell of a lot for the small press scene and credit where credit is due.
Determined to get my hands on the Best Novella, The Reach of Children by Tim Lebbon now. Not as much because it won or even because Tim is a damn fine writer but mainly due to his powerful acceptance speech about how the death of his mother, three and half years ago, inspired the story. My mother inspired me to read, which fuelled my writing, and she died in January 2006, which would make the deaths very close. Humdrumming is no longer so I think I will have to get in touch with Tim in order to get a copy.
Joseph D’Lacey won best newcomer and although I admit to not having read that much of his work, his attitude and his enthusiasm over the weekend were a joy to see!
Vincent Chong won best artist (again) and the man is a star, he really is!
There were of course other notable awards but if I’m going to put them all down then I might as well become the BFS myself…
I’ve mentioned, a few times, about me not enjoying Fantasy Con 2008 for various reasons. Some were very much of my own making, such as bumping my hire car at the hotel, as I was in an unnecessary rush to get checked in (and there was no need). Some were the hotels and the cons fault though, such as not getting the wine I ordered for the launch of our first three books and not booking the table in the dealers’ room that I asked for, forcing me to sit out in the corridor of doom until some nice chaps informed me of a free spot on Sunday morning.
This year was excellent and negative for very different reasons: the negative mainly down to a sales element. You know I’m coming down from Sweden and printing books and distributing books in England and when you don’t sell as many as you had hoped for then you do get a little down. I know Dead Souls is a fantastic book and there has been a lot of work gone into that. I wasn’t all together surprised though, as there weren’t many sales overall and the dealers’ room was empty on more than one occasion over the weekend.
I’m also a little bit disappointed by how questions to the society are answered sometimes. Usually I got all the help I needed and having the table in the dealers’ room was a big plus this year. However, try as I might I can’t get myself a launch for Morrigan Books, as every time I ask I get told that I might as well join the mass book launch which then changes day and time, while I’m planning my authors travelling over for a signing. It’s not even that I’m annoyed that these things happen, more that I don’t understand why the natural repsonse to the questions is “I don’t know who told you that” in a very dismissive tone.
That aside though, I had an excellent time this year, helped by the fact that my close friend and co-editor of one of our anthologies for next year, Greg Ballam came down with me for the weekend. I also spent quite a bit of time with Carole Johnstone, who has been published in three of our five titles so far and is due to appear in a couple more next year, and her sister, Lorna, who were just the best company ever! Two other writers also making our table at the bar lots of fun were two from the upcoming Morrigan Books’ publication, The Phantom Queen Awakes>/i>, Peter Bell and Sharon Kae Reamer. I managed to meet up with Gary Fry of Gray Friar Press, Steve Upham of Screaming Dreams and get some good advice from them (and Ian Whates of NewCon Press of course) about the world of publishing. Meeting Joseph D’Lacey was a treat and I’m really hoping he is going to be working on a future project with Morrigan Books too! Not only was he great to talk to but he introduced me to a new cocktail – which only took the bar staff around 45 mins to make…
It was great to have a good chat too with some of those appearing in Morrigan Books’ titles, such as: Ramsey Campbell, who is a gent, Paul Finch (lovely bloke) and that McMahon geezer. Apart from me having the extra joy of Burnley beating Sunderland on the Saturday, me and Gary (and Emily) had some good chats and it’s always a pleasure to see one of the best new writers around.
Managed a brief chat with Simon Unsworth and Steve Duffy and there are a few names I just did not get a decent chance to speak to (either because they were in demand or avoiding me like the plague) and amongst that number were: Tim Lebbon, Conrad Williams and Stephen Volk.
Stephen Jones got his copies of Dead Souls and Grants Pass and so we’ll see if any of those get into Best New Horror 21 next year.
For me, I seem to have enjoyed this year’s event more as I saw it more as a chance to network, to meet new writers and publishers and build up the connections with those I had already met before (or connected with online), rather than as a publisher coming to sell off some books. I have been building up the connections for the selling side over the last year or so and after the chats this weekend have some more ideas on how to go in the future.
I’d say I’m looking forward to next year, although I’m not sure I’m attending, due to the small matter of the World Con in Melbourne the same month. Of course there is a small matter of the World Horror Con in Brighton next March before any of that…
Thoughts on District 9 (contains spoilers)
I’ll start with the good, as there was a lot to be admired here. I did enjoy the Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield camera effects and felt they added a nice touch to the documentary feel of the film at times. Putting us right in the action, with blurring screens and close ups of the conditions the ‘prawns’ lived in hit home a little harder than it may have done.
I also loved the character of ‘Christopher’ and the interaction between him and his son was so heart-warming and I admit to having a tear in my eye towards the end, first when his son came and sat on his knee and then when he died after telling his son they were going home. OK he didn’t die there but it was heavily implied that he would (from body language). Also the whole fact that he was treated as a ghetto ‘foreigner’ with no mind, when he was clearly of superior intelligence to us was done rather well too.
Having the unknown as the main character and a very ordinary character at that was a nice move, as we were able to watch the breakdown through his eyes and feel more of what was going on. I thought the actor did a more than commendable job and added to the realism of the film.
There were many political elements that were done well and the scene where a man could let military scientists have his son-in-law for research purposes, at the promise of money, was both tragic and expected. For this was science-fiction at its core, that the genre isn’t about the future but a social commentary of where we are today, that we are prepared to sell each other for profit, that we treat immigrants with less respect than household pets and that we have very offensive names for those we believe lower than us. The race in District 9 are called ‘prawns’ because not only do they look like them to us but that they are “bottom feeders”, a term I am sure has been used to describe those at the bottom of the chain in human society.
I first liked that the ship landed above Johannesburg, until I found out it was by accident and then I thought it became more of an overkill on the part of the writers, a case of, maybe the audiences won’t know we are directly relating to our treatment of the African ghettos and so we will put District 9 there.
I thought the representation of the military was stereotypical but warranted but also I agreed that there was a little too much action, too much of the ‘cool’ Alien weaponry and too many unnecessary head exploding shots. We got you the first few times, you didn’t have to keep doing it. The super robot, manned by our protagonist was a little too much he’s down, he’s up, he’s down, he’s up for me too.
All in all a very good watch with some excellent scenes, however, a lot less in the way of heavy action scenes and more on the dialogue and social commentary and it could have been a classic.
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Now playing: Patrick Wolf – Battle
via FoxyTunes
Some days are bigger than others
Stepping on the scales this morning showed me a weight of 80.3 kilos (177 pounds, 12 stones 6 pounds), which puts me under my BMI maximum for the first time since I was around 18 or 19 (memory hazy here and I do need to get back to England and dig out some old pics), meaning that for around half of my life I have been overweight. To have put myself in the ‘normal’ weight bracket for the first time in 20 years is massive and I am so pleased with how this has gone and the fact that at no time of this weight loss run have I resorted to fast track methods, meaning that keeping under this bracket should be much easier than it could have been. For this is the problem with various ‘no carbs’, or ‘Atkins’ methods is that at some point you have to go back to your normal eating day and it’s very hard to maintain. I am hoping that just aiming for eating healthier (and a little bit less) is good enough.
I’ve decided to go down to 76 kilos now, as I like the option of being able to go out and party, go to cons and not have to worry about being overweight when I come back.
As I said though, I’m very happy today and wonder how I should celebrate – fudge maybe? *winks*
