My blog on many subjects, principally my writing and thoughts. My current project is The Cluster Cycle, published by Roan & Weatherford. Its first two entries are Starborn Vendetta (2023) and Lost Station Circé (2024).
Hi. This will be a very brief post. Today, I decided to release the final episode of my second run of Author Talks, a one-person podcast which features me talking about...well, basically anything that takes my interest within the scope of my profession. It's mainly story-based stuff, such as short story readings and discussions of story-based elements. This final episode looks at how World War I, one of the most notorious conflicts in history, has been portrayed in different works over time. Links below:
Poetic title, I know. But it's the kind of thing I need to write after the events of the American election. I won't dignify the current president elect by mentioning their name (an expletive is the closest I want to get at the moment of writing). Suffice to say, they should never have gotten this far. It appears the world is going through terrible times in more ways than one. I couldn't do anything about it since I live in the UK, but seeing it happen to a country where our family has friends, where my very liberal publisher is based, makes me feel very anxious and depressed. We're going to see four more years of that certifiable person's actions in office, self-serving policies that make everyone suffer.
One might ask: What's the point of writing? But let's remember, people write things because they feel motivated to do so. I'm fortunate as the UK is--relatively speaking--all right. Not perfect, not by a long way, but still okay. There are loads of books that were the better for the writing, even when the country they came from had a vested interest in not letting such books be published. All Quiet on the Western Front released in 1929, its sequel The Road Back in 1931, both when Nazism was beginning to gain ground in Germany. Many anti-nationalist and anti-oligarch pieces of media have seen success in countries which have those institutions engrained within them, like Japan and even China. And when McCarthyism and the so-called "Lavender Scare" were gripping America, fiction was created that pushed back against that reality.
Fiction is a means to vent frustration, but it is also a means for people to see something that could be made into a reality. There are reasons why some books helped galvanise popular movements against something that had previously not seen a consistent and conscious move against it. Film makers broke the Hayes Code, writers can topple and ridicule regimes. It's not going to be easy for anyone. For the moment, a power has appeared in America that taps into the country's worst aspects. Elitist culture, ingrained sexism and xenophobia, unwillingness to change in any meaningful or radical way, a political system just as likely to be a rotting snake eating its own tail as a dragon sailing over the world.
There are possible (perhaps foolish) silver linings. Firstly, this is the second term, so the incoming president legally can't run a second time unless there's some kind of sacrilegious change to the law and constitution. Secondly, it is possible members of the incoming incumbent party will actually restrain the more idiotic decisions (not very probable, but one can hope). Thirdly, most horrifyingly, the new incumbent has a vested interest in not provoking too major a conflict with the other two oligarch-driven world powers currently in the world. Fourthly, cultures and attitudes surrounding sexuality and gender once firmly pushed to the sidelines have become accepted enough to the mainstream that there should be some level of pushback to attempts at censorship (indeed some of the most radical pieces have come out in the most conservative times). Finally, perhaps most hopefully, America managed to survive last time. And of course, it could all go to the deepest and coldest bowls of hell in a hand basket.
I won't say don't rage. You should rage, though not in a way that gets you easily demonised and shut up. There are dark years ahead, but for the sake of people I know in America, I will continue working towards my degree. I will continue writing about worlds where it's completely okay to be LGBTQIA+, to be non-White, to be any gender or gender-nonconforming, to be disabled, to be different in some way, shape, or form. Being different isn't a crime. We need to remember that for the next four years, spread the word for the next four years, try not to trap ourselves in any kind of echo chamber for the next four years. And maybe, during and even at the end of those four years, things can be changed for the better.
This article is complemented by a vlog covering BristolCon 2024, which was meant to be a lot fancier than it ultimately was but I realise I'm gonna be one of those slightly scrappy vlog makers. And I don't mind. Below is an expanded prose version of the originally-planned script.
BristolCon is now fifteen years old. And in celebration of that, it held a two-day event from October 26 to 27th, with the usual Friday "BarCon" where people were social and maybe a little silly. Herein follows my written impressions of that event.
The days prior to my Friday departure were consumed by home affairs, and of course choosing what to take and what to leave behind. A simple train ride, simple meaning one change, brought me to that city of scooters, churches and beautiful views. Bristol. The Friday, of course including meeting old friends and acquaintances including Juliet E McKenna, Stephen Cox, and others I sadly can’t remember offhand (please). I also got my convention paraphernalia, and tried…karaoke. Never again.
Saturday, the first day of BristolCon, was a fun time and in parts an instructive one too. I actually did a reading from my novel Lost Station Circe, and got a good response. I heard later that the first live reading of your work is always the worst, and I think I did alright. After that, the panel on writing non-human characters with Grace Picknett-Powell, one of the guests of honour Peter F Hamilton, S Slottje, and moderator Koel Cornah. I also stayed for the wonderful Anna Smith-Spark’s entertaining reading from her novel A Sword of Bronzes and Ash, which was hilarious. She does grimdark, and I tend not to expect comedy from grimdark. So, good on her, that book’s further up my reading list.
The small group session led by E J Doble, “Good, Bad, Undefined” was a whole load of fun. I even introduced Doble to the original meaning of nihilism when he used it in a context that…I have opinions on. Basically, a whole lot of interesting talk. Stephan Cox’s small bit on “Being Interesting” was also great fun, and it made me feel more confident in myself of being able to bring together a short pitch for different parts of my work. Something I…am not always good at. I caught SOME of the panel “Sex in the Citadel”, before my stomach called time and I had to get some lunch NOT from the hotel. And let me say, Spark, Tej Turner, Danie Ware, and David Cartwright can be truly hilarious about writing… Well, a certain song says it all.
Next was a whole hour of wandering around, and that’s where I got my haul (more on that later) and met up with a couple of other people including Emily Inkpen, who recently successfully kickstarted the third season of her sci-fi radio drama Dex Legacy. I tried capturing a little footage here, but… Well, I'm not good at vloging. After, the glorious Pete Ellis gave us a fascinating talk on Chemistry in Sci-fi and Fantasy. Since my late father was a research chemist, it was interesting getting even a brief overview of how the subject has been used. Which isn’t much, basically a couple of Isaac Azimov short stories, Clarkes’ The Fountains of Paradise, and a few others.
I almost went home after that as I was pretty tired, but decided to stay for Piotr Swietlik’s talk on Dialogue in Genre Fiction, and I’m glad I did. One, because it highlighted some points where my writing can…flag. Two, because it wasn't one-to-one with the previous year's version. And three, because I ended up triggering rounds of recurring giggles due to someone bringing up erotic fiction, there being some dialogue examples, and my brain ran with it…straight into the gutter. After that, I decided to end the day and head back to my hotel.
The Sunday was quiet to start, and I was able to have a long and interesting talk with Joanne Harris, the other guest of honour. Then the Small Group Session I led, “Must Main Characters Be Strong”, was a surprising amount of fun. Partly because I had about six more people than I was expecting, I think eleven or thirteen of us talking through what I felt might be a fairly shallow topic. But, what depths we found.
The attendees of my SGS "Must Main Characters Be Strong". Over double what I expected.
After that, I decided to check in on the panel “Rogues & Ruffians, Pirates & Thieves”. Featuring, when I got there, by Doble, David Green, Bav the co-chair, and Judith Mortimer acting as moderator. I have long wanted to write a specifically roguish character, and it was interesting hearing about some of the panel’s favourites. Sad no-one mentioned my personal favourite rogue character, Varric Tethris. But maybe he’s a bit niche… Then, something initially unplanned when I set out for Bristol on the Friday, Emily Inkpen’s session on audio dramas. Extremely informative, and great to meet her again in person.
After that, I attended Gareth L Powell’s Kaffeeklatsch. If you want to know what that is, a kaffeeklatsch is “an informal gathering over coffee”. There wasn’t any coffee, but it was delightfully informal. I like Gareth, nice guy. And I had a feeling that some of the insecurities I’d been feeling about how I got into wanting to be a writer and author were very common, and… Well, things could well work out in different ways. There is no absolute way to do it.
With Gareth L. Powell at his Kaffeeklatsch
Then I decided to attend the final panel on “Lost Cities And Abandoned Places”. This panel, hosted by Bav and featuring Piotr, Emily, Penny Hill, and Jonathan L. Howard, was a great time. The whole thing was livestreamed, as was everything from Panel Room 1, but I managed to record a section related to a question on the appeal of abandoned places. The audio quality's horrible, but hey ho, I was using a phone. And then the closing ceremony, the first I've ever attended, and…well, I’ll just show you my completed haul.
My complete hoard: Ian M. Banks' Excession, Lindsey Ellis's Axiom's End, Jim Al-Khalili's Sun Fail, Emily H. Wilson's Inanna, IndieBites 10: Tricksters & Treasures, Interzone Magazine issues 239, 263, 290-291, and 295
Now, onto what might be difficult. This two-day BristolCon was a huge amount of fun, but it also threw into perspective some elements of my life and attitude that I needed to rethink. And it's time for me to take a break from BristolCon. Will I never go back? Absolutely not, it's a lovely event and I've met people there I consider colleagues at least and friends I would hope. Will I give it a year's break? Yes. I've been going there or attending in some form for six years running, and it's beginning to lose its lustre. I don't want anything I do to do that. If there is no lustre, there should be comforting familiarity. Also, I have other things to commit to, like my current quest with the Open University to get a degree, and my writing endeavours.
I'll still be doing my best to keep in contact with these people, and keeping an eye on how things go, and finding other things I could attend virtually or otherwise should I choose. But to carry on loving BristolCon as much as I do, I need to take a break. If you want more BristolCon content, and some other comments, here's a vlog of my time down in Bristol and at the event on my YouTube channel.
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