Supporting your local itinerant author

Posted on October 31, 2024 by Mark Hayes

First off, let me say this, I do not have a patron. I know plenty of writers and artists who do. I support several, but I don’t. The reason I don’t is unlike the patrons I chose to support I am not trying to make a living out of writing. I got one of those full time job things that were all the rage in the late 80’s and have never quite shaken the habit.

This is probably not going to change any time soon, though I would like it to…

In any regard while patron is a wonderful concept and I highly encourage people with disposable income who want to support a particular writer/artist/musican etc, to do so. Aside the obvious benefits for the artist in having a small but steady income stream to support there endeavors, for the sponsor it also promotes a feeling of been part of an artists inner circle. You get to see exclusive things, get insights on the creative process and the odd goodie here and there. You are part of their crew, a cog wheel in the engine that drives them, you have a relationship with them beyond just reading , looking at and listening to their work. And for the artist too it is a community that offers reassurance, a sense of worth and wellbeing.

Here then is a crux of a problem, I do not have a patron as I don’t need any level of fiscal support, nor would I wish to have it, I would sooner, if people were to patronise an artist, that they supported artists that need that kind of support. There are a lot of wonderful artists of all kins out there who struggle along for whom a couple of quid here or there would be most welcome. Support them, if you can. I don’t need that kind of support…

The other kind of support, however… The kind of support that comes along with having a bunch of pateron’s who form supportive community, offering the artist a little reassurance and a sense of wellbeing… Well that would at times be most welcome…

I say this in the full and unadulterated knowledge that I am oft perceived as a gruff independently minded middle aged Yorkshireman, stuffed full of opinions and never shy about sharing them. And to be fair the reason I am oft perceived as a gruff independently minded middle aged Yorkshireman, stuffed full of opinions and never shy about sharing them, is because I am a gruff independently minded middle aged Yorkshireman, stuffed full of opinions and never shy about sharing them.

That is to say while I am that gruff middle-aged Yorkshireman. I am also shy, retiring, and hide my insecurities behind bluster. I have a sever case of imposture syndrome most of the time and I am never quite so alone as when I stand in a crowded room surrounded by those I would wish to be my peers … I never really feel I deserve to stand along side them and trying to brazen it out only works for so long. Eventually I find corners to hide in and do so.

I throw words into the wind and what them swirl around me and hope to catch them again, I am a writer, writing is what I do, occasionally quite well, it defines me in many ways and I believe through my writing I add to the zeitgeist of humanity in positive ways.

But I don’t always believe any of that to be true…

So, yes, the reassurance of a crowd of paterons, of knowing there are some out there who genuinely care if I put one word in fount of another now and again would be a wonderful thing. I understand the appeal and think that perhaps that is more important than anything else to the patronized. Knowing that your people are out there. I don’t need a pateron page, and there are plenty others who do. But I do need support in other ways sometimes.

So, here is what I ask. If, and only if, you wish to support the literary side of my life, my writing, this blog and frankly if I am utterly honest my sense of wellbeing… There are several ways you can do so, firstly by following me on social media, the links for which can be found here on link tree https://linktr.ee/mark_hayes

Also on my linktree you will find a link to my author page on amazon, which you can chose to follow, and thus get an email about once a quarter or so when a new Harvey comes out or once a year or two when a new novel comes out. Which is to say almost never… Why would I ask you to do this? Well the more followers an author has, the more amazon are apt to ‘push’ them towards people who don’t follow them.

Also, while I mention Amazon, reviews there matter. I wish that was not so, but it is. So if you read a book and like it, please leave a review to say so, be it one of mine or anyone’s. I have gained a grand total of about 7 reviews on amazon this year, just 7…

So far this year I have sold, on amazon, around 187 books and have around 70000 Kindle unlimited pages reads which equates to another 150+ books. This has then been a quiet year for book sales but as I have not published anything new for well over two years it is still a reasonable little readership… But only 7 reviews from 330+ books… and one of those was a shitty one…

(if you don’t like a book just keep that to yourself mind, pointlessly negative reviews are never welcome, if you don’t like a book that’s fine, but no need to crush an authors soul by saying so. Seriously every author I know is the same, we all smile for a few minutes when we get a nice review, but the horrible ones eat us up inside for days. You want to really hurt an author maliciously, don’t stab them in the guts, just leave the a shity review, it will hurt more and longer)

There is also this blog of course, which you may be reading for the first time or a regular visitor, but if you haven’t followed it, then maybe consider doing so. At most you will get an email reminding you of its existence once in a while. Like posts if you like them , comment by all means, I want to interact with my audience, if I may call you that.

This is not a cry for help BTW, this is not a desperate call for attention, or me jumping up and down saying ‘look at me’. It is however me being honest that on occasion I feel it would be nice to have the kind of support that comes with patron followers and the positive reinforcement that brings.

All this, applies not just to me, it applies to supporting every artist, writer, musician, dancer, poet and whatever other creative things people are doing out there. And for the most part I don’t need a great deal of support. I am after all a gruff independently minded middle aged Yorkshireman, stuffed full of opinions and never shy about sharing them. So unless you are moved to offer a little support in my direction, worry not, but please offer support out to the creative community in general, in as many ways as you can.

Make a gnome impressionist who reads Haiku’s which sitting on a motorized toad stole happy by giving them a thumbs up or something of that order…

Thankyou, for reading this…

Mx

Posted in #amwriting, amwriting, indie novels, indie writers, indiewriter, reads, writes, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Music and words

Posted on October 30, 2024 by Mark Hayes

‘Why is Endless Winter not in the playlist?’ ~ A reader of Passing Place

This is a fairly straight forward question but one that may need a little explanation for those who have not read Passing Place. Which is the best novel I have ever written and quite possibly ever will, in my opinion. The first thing you may be asking yourself though is why would a novel have a play list? The simple answer to that is, because I made one. The more complicated answer is because music plays a large part in the make up of the novel, the main characters phycology, inspired much of it including the opening chapters, and it seem ridiculous at the time not to include a playlist.

So I did.

For those who may be wondering this is the complete playlist as compiled on what I laughingly call my You tube channel, that I put together a couple of years later.

As for the readers question, ‘Why is Endless Winter not in the playlist?’ the reason is actually quite simple. Unlike the other songs occasionally quote, mentioned in passing or which I associate with the novel, ‘Endless Winter’ is a song that doesn’t exist.

The original version of the Novel did not even feature Endless Winter, a fictional song from a fictional 1970’s prog rock opera based on HG Wells Time Machine. The song that was quoted and used in the original version of Passing Place was ‘Forever Autumn’ from a real 19070’s prog rock opera based on HG Wells War of the Worlds, which I used with some naivety and arguable quoted beyond the scope of reasonable fair usage.

This is why the wife of Richard, the main protagonist in Passing Place, was found dead in a bath tub with the song Endless Winter playing on a loop. Also why he answers a job advert he sees in a bus station window in a desert hick town in middle America several months later. An advert looking for a Piano Player, for Esqwiths Piano Bar and Grill, one who must know how to play ‘Endless Winter’ his dead wife’s favorite song.

Admittedly the cat also tells him to do so…

For reasons that should be obvious the lyrics to ‘Endless Winter’, which I had to write in full even though they are just quoted in part, feature heavily in the book , as the lyrics for the original song did originally. In fact that is the only change that has ever been made to the book.

It is mildly gratifying to my skills as a lyricist, that I occasionally get asked why the song that is so central as a theme within a novel in which music plays an important part is not in the playlist. Though that I took the original song and basically fiddled with the lyrics to create the new one, I am not entirely sure I deserve any plaudits here.

All that said perhaps one day I’ll ask one of my more musical friends to record it.

Passing Place remains the book of which I am most proud. I love all my novels but this one is the one with the most blood in the ink, the most slivers of my soul between its pages. Its a tale of loss and love, of hope and grief , and of choices, the choice we all have….

Also, there really is a forest in the cellar. As well as a Dryad waiting tables when she is not in the back garden with her tree. A gunslinger with a tale of the mythology in the old west. An Inuit whose spear is dropping blood on the bar and speak of tears like diamonds. The wisest doorman in all the universe who will teach you many things, including how to drink brandy the right way. A girl in the corridor with eyes in her hands. A literal devil called Lyal. A grey man form a grey world marveling at the colour in the swirl of his mop water. A chef who understand how to may causality sandwiches.

And a cat, did I mention the cat?

It is also, as well as my own favorite, my more critically acclaimed novel, as everyone who reads it, almost with out exception, loves it. When I go back to events it is the one people want to know if I have written a sequel for. Which I have not as it doesn’t need one and never did… And of course because of all that it is also my least successful novel in terms of sales… But I love it anyway.

Posted in amreading, amwriting, books, fantasy, fiction, indie novels, indie writers, novels, Passing Place, reads, sci-fi | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The fate of Eels

Posted on October 29, 2024 by Mark Hayes

My good friend Nimue Brown recently wrote about Circular inspiration, as a concept and positive force in the world. I am going to recount a little bit of what she said here but you can click on the link above and read the full article…

When inspiration flows, it creates cycles. We might think about this as being akin to other natural cycles, like the way water moves through the world. Inspiration is supposed to flow and move, hoarding it doesn’t work. The person who jealously guards their creative energy will find they have less of it, not more.

When we bring our inspiration into the world, that can inspire others. It might empower them to share something of their own. It might brighten their day, or spark an idea in then. The more we do that, the more we inspire each other, the more powerful this becomes.

Aside the wisdom that oft lays behind the many words that Nimue writes, this particular concept is one I ardently agree with. It is why I am never less than flattered when anyone takes something I’ve done, no matter how minor, and turns it into something else. Often what is born from small moments of inspiration can be wonderful. The whole point of putting things out into the world is to see what comes back, and among the greatest of joys is to discover you have inspired someone else.

In her article Nimue offers up an example of Steven C Davis inspiring her and she inspiring him in return. I could also come up with many examples of this happening with the Harvey Duckman project which is almost entirely made up of cross inspiration and feeding ideas to the creative community to see what happens. However, as I have another recent example of this concept at work I thought I would recount it here.

Jessica Law, eclectic performer, writer, singer and occasional fay spirit running around fields catching motes of inspiration no one else can see in Edwardian dresses, or hiding under rhubarb half convinced she is a gnome… cares a lot about eels. More than some might say is healthy…. But we all need passions in life and Jessica’s passion for elongated wet slippery undulating things is no worse than mine for terrible B-movies. Hers at least is a passion that drives her to defend the natural world, and being Jessica write songs…

Several years ago she wrote a song called ‘Sargasso shanty’ which is all about the life cycle of the European Eel, because why would you not ( it’s a great song btw, look it up at some point). One of the reasons she did this was the European eel is endangered due to dams, weirs, and the basic lack of respect for rivers from successive governments. It was in effect a protest song…

In any regard her love of elongated wet slippery undulating things recently caused her to bring to the attention of others a petition to stop export of baby eels from UK to Russia. To quote from the petition…

UK government (DEFRA) is considering permitting the sale of millions of elvers (baby eels) from Gloucester to Russia next spring. Already last year they allowed the export of 1 tonne (3 million individuals) of this critically endangered species.

This is contrary to the letter and the spirit of Europe-wide laws and regulations designed to save this crucial species, to which the UK is a signatory.

When she put out the details of the petition over social media Jessica joked that people should sign it because otherwise she might have to write “ANOTHER protest song about saving the eels”

This was where I came in, obviously after first signing the petition, because lets save the eels people… But to ‘help’ Jessica I wrote the lyrics for a protest calypso inspired by the petition. Which is to say I threw a few words down on twitter, partly to help her ’cause-celeb’ as it might help get her original post out to a wider audience, and partly because I like making silly irritating jokes

And there, many might say, it should have ended. My silly little calypso was just that, silly. However… my silly little song got into Jessica’s head, and stayed there… For days. You have doubtless heard of an ‘ear worm’, this calypso of mine was apparently an ‘ear eel’

A few days later I got this reply on twitter (yes I am still calling it twitter, I will continue to call it twitter, its bloody twitter)

I may have expressed mild amusement, as I pointed out that it was a real song, its had lyrics and a tune (even if the tune was just one in Jessica’s head) ergo it was as real a song as any other. Silly, mildly fatuous and a tad ridiculous, but still a real song… Jessica, a professional musician not an itinerant novelist like myself, may not entirely of agreed. She also still had my ridiculous little song stuck in her head.

And there, many might say, it should have ended. Eventually some other tune would end up in Jessica head, and this one would be forgotten… Except Jessica being Jessica took another approach to removing it form her head, and last night I got home from the bar where we had been having an editorial meeting on matters Harvey to discover this message from Jessica…

https://jessicalaw.bandcamp.com/track/stop-sending-eels-to-putin

Just go and have a listen, its wonderful, seriously wonderful … She took the bare bones of my utter banality, along with her passion for elongated wet slippery undulating things, and turned it into something beautiful…

Which brings me back to the Circular Inspiration Nimue was talking about. Jessica’s post about the Eel petition and throw away line about ‘not writing another Eel protest song’ led to me been silly and writing a very bad one, which she has then taken and turned into something wonderful. But that is not the best bit, the best bit is this, Nimue and her partner Keith are part of Jessica’s band, and because of all this in all likelihood at some point in the future Keith is going to have to wear a shirt with billowing sleaves, calypso dance, and play maraca’s on stage.

Something we all want to see…

A final note, the Eel petition is still live, go sign it if you will. We really do need to stop sending the eels to Putin , for he is indeed an ‘oriable man.. but mostly because eels, elongated wet slippery undulating things, are endangered and we need to look after them.

The link for the petition is here <<<<<LINK TO PETITION>>>>>>

Posted in amreading, humour, opinion, pointless things of wonderfulness, politics | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Dear Edgar #22 The Fall of the House of Usher

Posted on October 27, 2024 by Mark Hayes

~at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.~

1838, the year ‘The Narrative of Arthur Gordan Pym of Nantucket‘ was published was also the year that our dear Edgar moved with his wife Victoria to Philadelphia so he could take up the job of assistant editor of Burtons Gentleman’s Magazine. This also marked the beginning of what was undoubtedly his most prolific and eventually most successful period as an author.

The Philadelphia years were later blighted when Victoria first fell ill, but this was still a few years away when in 1939 ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ was first published to minor acclaim in Burtons. It is a story many consider not only to be a gothic classic, but as foreshadowing his wife’s decline into consumption that became the very real tragedy in Poe’s life that was to come.

Usher was certainly the most lauded of the stories to be included in Poe’s short story collection ‘Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque’, published the following year. Most of the stories in the two volumes set released by Lea & Blanchard we have already covered, a few others first saw the light of day in that publication and will be coming up soon, but to focus on ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ for the moment, it is a tale in which our Dear Edgar returned to some of his favourite themes.

The themes of three earlier stories in particular are echoed in this story, those being Morella, Berenice and Ligeia. Which is not to say that Edgar was obsessed with putting female characters into soporific states that seem death like and letting them decay and wasting away, but it is a theme that comes up time and time again in the early tales. What is odd is that these themes were so prevalent before the wasting disease that took his wife from him not many years later was diagnosed. Equally the male characters in all these stories react to these tragedies with obsession and madness that echoes how the death of Victoria was to plunge him into a deep alcohol fuelled depression and began his own downward spiral to an early grave.

Occasionally life imitates art in dreadful ways.

The story itself is told to us by an unnamed narrator, who tells us he has been drawn to visit his friend Roderick Usher at his families isolated and rundown house. Roderick request this visit due to his melancholy illness, and the soon to be fatal illness of his twin sister Madeline. The narrator who seems somewhat enamoured with Roderick rushes to his side and spends several days in the mans company, seeing Madeline only the once in this time, a strange fae like figure that doesn’t acknowledge his presence.

At this point Poe has Roderick sing a poem called ‘The Haunted Palace’ to the narrator which seems to echo much of the state of The House of Usher. This is not entirely surprising as the poem in question was written by Poe and published separately earlier the same year. As poems go, its not among his best…

Some time later Roderick informs the narrator that his sister has died and takes him to view the corpse, which Roderick has lain in state in the dungeon like cellar. There to lay for two weeks until she can be buried. Of course, she is not actually dead, have you not read Poe before, ‘she’ is never dead… Just like in the earlier stories the woman in question has fallen into a death like coma. Yet Roderick claims he is convinced she is dead and the narrator convinced by him, though he does comment as to the rosy nature of her cheeks.

From this point onwards there is a building of atmosphere, the reading of a medieval romance called The Mad Trist that has some baring on Roderick’s state of mind. All the while strange cracking sounds and the master of the house descends further and further into madness. Roderick admits he has put his sister in her coffin alive. He is convinced of this and yet will do nothing, until his sister breaks out of the coffin, and attack Roderick, killing him with fear and herself as this is her final act, the narrator flees and behind him the house is struck by lightening and falls into the dark dank tarn on whoms shores it resided.

There is of course much more to the story than this brief synopsis, though it is in essence the tale, a tale that is renown for its tell. It is a masterclass of tension and atmosphere. It is gloomy, dark and full of foreboding, and that is exactly what it is meant to be. While it is true there is little new in this tale if you have read earlier Poe tales, specify the three mentioned above., this is the apex of those stories. This is Poe perfecting his own style, it avoids the overblow verbosity of Berenice, reuses the unworldly surrealist nature of Ligeia and mixes it with the darkness of Morella. Taking the best aspects of all three tales and melding them into something close to perfect.

There is a reason that this is both the best known and most critically acclaimed story in the ‘Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque’ collection. It is Poe at his best, his grim gothic brooding best.

AN FULL UNKINDNESS IN ALL ITS WONDERFUL GRIM GOTHIC BEAUTY

SHOULD YOU READ IT: If you read only one of Poe’s tales from among his early works make it this one. Read it by the light of too few candles and let the motes of dust in the air distract you.

ISSUES: Well, there is an argument to be had, that the poetry was unnecessary. But I am really clutching at straws here.

Bluffers fact:  ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ would have made Poe an utter fortune in rights had he lived in a different century. In 1928 two entirely separate silent movies were made. The first of these is a French movie by Polish born Jean Epstein who is an odd character who aside his ‘Usher’ movie mostly made documentaries about Britany. The second of the 1928 movies, an American made short film is for me far more interesting. Not least because it is like watching a psychedelic trip in black and white, that becomes increasingly strange as it goes along. ‘The last Theatre’ You Tube channel put it to music some years ago, and did a fabulous job doing so

The sheer number of further interpterion’s of ‘Usher’ is testament to its longevity in the zeitgeist.

If your enjoying this steady wander through Poe, you might want to check out the first blog series I did on HP Lovecraft in the paperback edition

Posted in book reviews, Dear Edgar, Goth, horror, opinion, Poe, reads | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Dear Edgar #21 The Man That Was Used Up

Posted on October 25, 2024 by Mark Hayes

Let us begin with a question. When does a man cease to be a man? Which is to say, at what point have you replaced so many of his parts he is not longer the sum of them…*

*To be very clear form the offset this is a hypothetical question posed by this particular story. I do not suggest this question should be applied to real people nor would I condone anyone who did.

Poe posed this question in his story in the 1839 edition of Burtons Gentleman’s Magazine in his story ‘The Man That Was Used Up : A Tale of the Late Bugaboo and Kickapoo Campaign’. The man in question is Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith, a famous war hero of the ‘Indian’ wars. The general is sought out by Poe’s unnamed narrator because he is considered to be ‘one of the most remarkable men of the age’ which he certainly proves to be, in one respect at least.

Before we go any further it needs to be remembered that Poe was a former soldier himself, and while he never served in the west he would have known plenty who did from his time at West Point. His opinion of the people and tribes of the first nations was clearly coloured by this experience and the common opinions of colonial Americans of the period. The Little Bighorn was still over thirty years away, Wounded Knee fifty. The ‘Indian’ wars were current events through out Poe’s life. This does perhaps make it slightly odd that of the two tribes mentioned in the story only one of them is real.

The Kickapoo people’s are now three midwestern tribes, sharing a common heritage and Algonquain language that now reside in Olkahoma, Kansas and Texas, though their origins lay further north where they resided in half of what is now Illinois before being forced south in the 1830’s. There are around 5000 Kickapoo’s remaining on reservation land in the US today. In 1800 there were closer to 100000…

The Bugaboo’s on the other hand are entirely fictional, so probably faired better…

In any regard the Kickapoo and Bugaboo of Poe’s story are not the relatively peaceful tribesmen upon whom a genocide was committed. Peaceful tribes force in to war against a violent foe determined to run them off their lands, repeatedly cheating, lying and breaking treaties. The narrative of western colonialism being the aggressor was not a narrative that would gain sympathy among Poe’s readers or indeed from Poe himself. Thus the native tribes make for a perfect boggy men for this story, slowly whittling down the valiant Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith and whittled him down they have. Luckily however the story focus on the effects more than the actions of the ‘natives’, though the depiction of barbaric practices treatment of prisoners is entirely one sided as one may expect.

At the beginning of the narrative we are told Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith is, ‘an impressive physical specimen at six feet tall with flowing black hair, large and lustrous eyes, powerful-looking shoulders, and other essentially perfect attributes’ and this indeed the man the narrator meets at the beginning of the tale.

Later however the narrator begins to hear rumors that cast shade of doubt on the truth of the man. All is not quite what it seems and many a lady who has admired the general for afar, well they will not be drawn beyond to say it is a shame that he… well…

Eventually the narrator visits the general at his residence and there he discovers the truth that no one will say aloud. The general, the fine figure of a man he met earlier, is in fact a facade. The general has paid for his sins in the Indian wars and the Bugaboo extracted there tole upon him.

The general is a man of parts, most of those parts having to be attached by his much verbally abused servant, a negro house slave, on a morning. The cork leg, the false arm , the wig , the false eye, the false pallet … All wonderfully made , a wonder of modern science as it were. but never the less, the general was a man , ‘all used up’

The problem with all this and what was intended as a humorous tale of a man who is more parts than human, a cyborg if you like, long before the word cyborg was invented. When is a man no longer a man… A job the story does well…

But the humor, beyond the narrators questioning of various socialites to find out more about the general, is lost due to the racism in the depiction as savages of an actual native people who were among the most peaceful and put upon tribes in north America, forced marched south to less plentiful scrub land to open up Illinois for white settlers. Then there is the other racism of calling a fictional tribe the ‘bugaboo’ which given the word literally means boggy-man or monster , and finally there is the racism directed by the general at his servant which is used by Poe for comic effect…

All of which is no way as humorous in these latter days than it was intended to be when Poe wrote it and as much as Poe needs to be read with him being ‘of his time’ in mind, sometimes that excusing of the writer doesn’t make the reading of their tales any easier.

A PAIR OF RAVENS LOOKING AT EACH OTHER SHIFTILY NOT REALLY WANTING TO ADMIT THEY LIKED IT

SHOULD YOU READ IT: It isn’t terrible , in fact it still is quite amusing in parts, it just has a few too many issues and not enough charm to make up for them.

ISSUES: Well there is the racism. Then there is the other racism and finally there is the racism…

Bluffers fact:  There are many tales about men who are all used up. Michael Moorcock was inspired by this tale when he wrote his short story ‘The Stone Thing’ about a warrior who has replaced many parts of himself over the years springs to mind. In Moorcock’s tale the final punchline involves one singular piece of anatomy that was replaced with a carved piece of granite. The lady with the warrior admires it beauty, its girth, its pleasing curvature… everything in fact, and bemoans only that it was made of stone. “Alas, there is little else in the mountains of the stone men” says the warrior, sadly.

I, amused by Moorcock’s tale, and knowing granite is by nature mildly radioactive once wrote my own tale of a warrior that was all used up for an anthology. Mine was in a sci-fi setting, in which the final bit of the man that aliens had changed was also a fine example of a thing admired by a princess for it beauty, its girth, its pleasing curvature… Though she does bemoan that it was made out of Strontium 90, even if it is useful to have it glow in the dark that way…

So, Poe is indirectly responsible for a radio active penis. I am not sure what he would think about that.

Posted in amreading, Dear Edgar, humour, Poe, sci-fi, steampunk | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Cultist Prayer

Posted on October 17, 2024 by Mark Hayes

I was raised in The Church of England and thus I learned The lords prayer by rote, as one does when your are sent off to Sunday school every Sunday to listen to bible stories and be taught about the great beard in the sky, my prospective salvation, hell and what not…

I am sure those raised in the Cult of Cthulhu experience much the same.

In any regard, it was a slow morning when this thought occurred to me…

May the old one’s look kindly on your existence

Posted in big questions, books, cthulhu, dreamlands, horror, Lovecraft, rites | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Redux: Beguiling darkness: Tethered

Posted on October 15, 2024 by Mark Hayes

The below is a post form earlier this year that induced a review of a book that had not at the time yet been published. As it has now been published I am redoing the original post with a link to the book itself, which I highly recommend.

In the distant past before the lost years and the breaking of the world, in a younger less cynical time, I was sent a manuscript to read. This was about four years ( three atrocious prime ministers and one pandemic) ago and no one knew what was about to happen. Which is to say a lot. So one hopes that the writer of the manuscript in question will forgive me if I admit I had more or less forgotten everything about it by last month when I was asked if I wanted an ARC copy of the final novel.

The only things I really remembered were being impressed with the authors style, the darkness of the setting, finding myself drawn in by the involving central character and wanting to know where the story was going to go. So of course I said yes, I would love to an ARC copy. I then went back and read the notes I’d sent for the author back in 2020.

Between the earlier draft novel I was sent in 2020 and this ARC a whole lot of revision and some whole sale changes have been undertaken to the manuscript. Well its been four years, or maybe a life time, its hard to tell some days… All of which is good, because nothing about this book has been rushed, there has been some major cutting along the way, the latter half of the book in particular is heavily revised, as is the part played in the narrative by the supporting cast.

One character a minor but notable villain, doesn’t die where I am sure I remember her dying in the original draft, indeed it is unclear if she dies at all now (though quite possibly she does). As I quite like the character in question, who is equally complex in her own nasty way, that rather pleased me, as she stands to return in a bigger role in another novel with luck.

This is a book littered with strong female characters who very defiantly have their own agency as well as their own flaws, it would have been easy for one of them to draw the spot light off the main character. One of the minor flaws of the early draft was that the main characters ‘friend’ Beth had a habit of overshadowing her at times. Beth could carry another novel in her own right, strong, darkly humoured, honourable, unflappable yet with a certain vulnerability and a sentimental streak, she is moved to do what needs to be done and whats right, rather than whats easy, or whats legal… She is a wonderfully well rounded character that could easily sit at the centre of all this, yet in this final version of this novel she remains firmly stage right and best supporting actress through out and never upstages Evie who carry the novel throughout.

That is a hard trick to pull off as a writer. To balance such a strong set of characters and make sure the lead remains firmly the lead is hard. Generally a writer ends up watering down the other characters, something you could not accuse JA Wood of doing here. Nothing has been watered down. Only polished and improved in the four intervening years since I last read of Evie’s world.

But lets leave Evie to one side for a moment and talk about the world which she inhabits. It is a dark and beguiling place. You get the sense that at the heart of this world is a civilisation in decline. Parts of the great city she inhabits are rundown, abandoned or over run with criminal gangs. A whole ward of the city was once powered by strange devices run on ‘ebony’ a dark essence drawn from the aetheric plane. The Ebony ward is not alone in its sense of decay and decline, whatever Ebony actually the taping of the aetheric plain for power is in part responsible for the slow breaking down of society. There was a war, a catastrophic war at some time in the past, and the world is what survived. Some people have powers, chimeric powers, that cause some to label them demons. To control and contain them they are tethered by priest of a complex religion of ten gods , the ten travellers, using a strange substance called taroais that is lethal to chimera, binding them and their powers, which also slowly kills them. And this is the progressive nation…

This is part steam punk, or perhaps diesel punk, part urban fantasy, part dark fantasy and a whole lot of fascinating. Not least because the writer doesn’t make the mistake of explaining the world too deeply, so the readers perception and the writers vision may not be entirely the same, but it entices you further in with snippets here and there. We get the names of a couple of the ten gods and only the vaguest idea what each god is for, yet even this is done with a delicate hand. Evie, we aren’t quite told, has ten studs in her ear, one for each god. While she is not overtly pious she has a habit of touching these much like one might touch a crucifix of a anhk. It subtleties like that which make the characters and the world seem alive and vibrant through the writing without it been forced. We get hints of the worlds history, hints of other nations and hints as to the true nature of chimera. But there is a careful vagueness, and much left to the imagination and it is all the better for it. It leaves you wanting more, while keeping the story flowing.

But back to the characters themselves, if Beth has several layers of complexity, Evie has so many more. A recovering addict, leading a double life, hiding the truth about herself and in deep with the seedier side of society and gangsters forcing her to pay off her debts by making illegal devices for them. The rift between her and Beth haunts her and she is forced to sink or swim and is starting to drown, and all this is before she blackmailed into ‘acquiring’ an object from a second criminal gang, by a woman who knows she is a pulse chimera and how much damage that secret could do both her and her parents. From there things only get more complicated and dangerous for Evie, everything she loves is under threat and she is far from blameless, at least in her eyes, as her Blackmailer is part of a dark conspiracy of rich and powerful people who seek to rid the world of all chimera.

This is a fabulous ride of a novel, through a dark gritty fantasy landscape, with strong characters, betrayals, surprises, shocks, a whole world of imagination to explore and wonder at. There will I am sure be more to come, and I was delighted to go back to it and see how much what had been a good book when I read the early draft four year ago has been revise and polished into something so much more than it was.

J.A.Woods Tethered is out now, (finally). Its took a few years to write, but is none the worse for that. This is among the best pure adventure I have read in what seems like an age, it rich, dark and leaves you wanting to read more. I can not recommend it enough.

Finally I will add that J.A.Wood had also written short story’s that appeared in the original incarnations of Harvey Duckman Presents. She will also be making a much welcomed return to the new Harvey Duckman Presents Anthologies in the forth coming and as yet untitled Dark/Urban Fantasy anthology that will be out at the end of January with a story involving a perfectly normal rabbit…

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Holly Trinity and the apocalypse

Posted on October 8, 2024 by Mark Hayes

Ben Sawyers ‘Holly Trinity’ is a wonderful creation, the protector of York who sleeps below the city until needed, then raises her umbrella and does battle with the supernatural forces that plague the city. Often, of late, listening to Kate Bush songs while she does so…

He is also a nice chap…

This is his blog on his Holy story in Death +70

Where the Basket-Weavers Sit and Smile
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After the end…

Posted on October 4, 2024 by Mark Hayes

For the Latest Harvey Duckman Presents anthology, which was released today, I wrote a story set after an apocalypse (as this was the brief given this is a collection of post apocalypse stories) about an old man walking up a hill 70 years after the end of the world…

Except that is not what the story I wrote was about at all. It is the story I set out to write because after several false starts that never quite seemed right I finally started writing a story for this book after the book had been given a name by its wonderful editor in chief CG Hatton, and so i knew the book was to be called Death+70 based on the conceptual idea of how quickly nature will recover post the end of the world.

If you have ever seen ‘Seven monkey’ and the over grown streets of New York post virus you will get the idea. Just as if you see footage of how fast the wilderness has recovered and thrived around Chernobyl, or regrown over abandoned buildings anywhere. Nature is resilient, the end of our civilization would not bother it in the slightest, no matter how big the bang we go out with. To the trees we are just walking fertilizer that has not gone back into the ground yet. (the trees could well be farming humanity btw, think about it , we breath in oxygen and turn it in to the carbon dioxide they need, and we are basically a sack of carbon and chemicals which are their main food stuff)

The point was the natural world recovers, and as that was the title of the book I thought well if I have a character who was about fifteen at the end of the world, he would be eighty-five seventy years later. Some one with vaccines in there system from before the fall, and who benefited from modern nutrition while they were growing up could go on to live that long. So I came up with an old man climbing a hill to visit the grave of his lost love, seeing the world that regrew after the apocalypse. It fitted with the title of the book and seemed a nice idea.

So as I say I wrote a story about an old man walking up a hill 70 years after the end of the world…

But as I said that is not what the story I wrote at all, it was the story i set out to write, what I wrote instead was an allegory on a different subject. A story about the helplessness of old age, the insidiousness of creeping dementia and ultimately finding some dignity in death. This was not my intention, it is merely what the story became, stories have a habit of doing that, finding ways to be about something other than you intended. To become personal, when you intended them to be otherwise.

Dementia is a subject close to my heart, my mother has been slipping from in degrees for several years. It is a slow death that kills the mind before the body, and you watch your loved ones wither before you. It is also the future I expect will come my way in time, which frankly terrifies me. As I say, sometimes, more often than we perhaps admit, the stories we write become personal in ways we did not intend.

In any regard, I will be donating my ‘fee’ for this story to the charity Dementia UK. I do not actually take a fee from ‘Harvey’ as a rule, so in actuality I am donating the amount my fee would be if i took one. In essence it is the same. The below is from Dementia UK’s website, and more eloquent than I on the subject.

One in two of us will be affected by dementia in our lifetime. Families living with the condition are often left feeling exhausted, overwhelmed and alone. With your support, together we can provide vital specialist dementia nursing services, so more families can access our life-changing support and live as well as possible, for as long as possible. Please donate today and help ensure no one faces dementia alone.

When a new book is released I generally urge people to get a copy and my tale aside it is a wonderful collection of stories and you should get one. Really you should , there are a host of wonderful writers in there, with wonderful stories. Frankly I think it is probably the best collection I have ever been part of. All the stories are amazing and the wealth of imagination that went into them astounds me and I helped curate it. So please buy a copy

But regardless if the book doesn’t appeal to you, or indeed if it does and you do buy a copy (which i hope you do) , please take a few minutes out of your day to visit Dementia UK’s website and read about there work at https://www.dementiauk.org/ If only for the memory of an old man who may one day walk up a hill

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A Gentleman

Posted on September 24, 2024 by Mark Hayes

There follows an orphaned piece from my scraps folder, which I think was originally written as the opening to a short story that would have served as a prequal to my 2020 novel Maybe. That it was written in 2021 suggests I intended to write it for one of the originals Harvey Duckman anthologies, applying uncommon good sense and writing something linked to open of my novels for the anthology. Which was also probably why, as a short story, it never got finished. It is however a fun little piece, involving two of the major Characters in Maybe, Benjamin West and Gothe.

A Gentleman

“It seems to me, that the use of lockpicks should fall under the remit of a gentleman’s valet, rather than the gentleman himself.” Benjamin West grumbled just after he snapped his second pick in quick succession. 

“I’m sure there are those who might agree with you West, but sadly I regret to inform you that I do not.” His former manservant observed, in a voice which were you to describe it as arid would be to suggest it was moister that it was. Think instead of the word desiccated… 

“Really? And why is that Gothe?” West asked, more to distract himself than out of genuine interest.   

Gothe waited until his employer managed to hook the broken tip free and had once more commenced his efforts to pick the desk draw before replying. When he did it was with typical stoicism. “In the first instance, West, I am not in fact your valet. While in the second, I neglected in my youth to be trained in the arts of the common thief.” 

The lock was frustrating, mostly because it should have been simplicity itself. A simple mortice, locking a desk draw. Opening it should have been the work of a moment to open. The lock however seemed to be deceptively complex. He narrowed his eyes and stared at it while he pulled a third #2 short-hooked-pick out of the small fold over leather case at his side he set about using it. Though at this point he was not so much trying to pick the lock as clear the broken tip of the previous pick from the keyhole.  

“Yes well…” West said began then bit his lip as he tried to concentrate on the task at hand. He tasted the salt and iron of blood in his mouth and paused to dabbed at the small cut in an absent-minded fashion before returning to his task, and levering up what he hoped was the last of the pins, before sliding in the crank and giving it a satisfying twist to the right.  

The lock clicked.  

West turned to his former manservant, his face a picture of smug satisfaction. “Luckily one of us knows the value in the ‘arts of a common thief’.”  

“I am sure that is a matter of great pride for your grandfather having paid for your expensive education West.” Came the arid observation in return. 

Benjamin gifted Gothe a flinty stare as he pulled the draw open. 

If perhaps he had been paying closer attention to the draw and less to his former manservant’s pallid visage Benjamin West might have noticed the trick latch that sprung up as the draw opened. Had he noticed he could have held it in place with his spare hand while he hooked it in place. It was after all a simple trap designed to catch out an amateur thief. 

There was a flash and explosion of black powder filled the air. Caught out by the trap, Benjamin had not the wit to hold his breath, and thus got a lung full of whatever foul concoction the dust trap contained. Whatever it was it burned, and he collapsed reeling to the ground half coughing, half choking. 

Gothe looked on impassively, thinking to himself of the advantages of breathing been more a choice than a necessity. 

What is in the draw and why was the draw trapped? Well, I know the answer to that, but its not really something I need to trouble you with, save to say what is in the draw directly leads to Benjamin West and his former manservant Gothe attending a funeral in a drizzle, and making the acquaintance of Miss’ Maybe’ aka Eliza TuPaKa, who promptly due to a misunderstanding shoots one of them… But that’s just the opening chapter of ‘Maybe’.

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