Category: News

The image below appears on the cover of Fortean Times 347, dated December 2016.

The headline beside it reads as follows:

ATTACK OF THE KILLER CLOWNS
The creepy craze that started in America and spread across the world

My copy of FT was delivered here on 8th November. Fortean coincidence, or what?

Fortean Times, the journal of well researched and sceptical reporting of strange phenomena, the bizarre and the inexplicable, is one of the most readable, intelligent and thought-provoking magazines in existence. It is also at times extremely amusing. In a world perceptibly going mad, it is a beacon of sanity. I read it cover-to-cover as soon as it arrives. A 12-month subscription costs: UK £38.98, EC £47.50, USA $88.99.

 

The Day the Earth Caught Fire was a British science fiction film made in 1961. These days it has become a somewhat under-rated and forgotten film, but it has its moments. Told from the point of view of the journalists and editor of a Fleet Street newspaper (in fact, the Daily Express), the film depicts the fate of the world after too much nuclear testing tilts the axis of the planet. Severe climate change ensues. In the film, the only possible remedy is thought to be the setting off of even more nuclear explosions, which will in theory cause a return to normality. However, there is an equal risk that the detonations will destroy what is left of the planet.

As the moment of detonation approaches, and the characters face their destiny, the machine room of the newspaper is set to print one of two final editions. The closing image in the film is of the front pages of both editions.

 

 

 

I can’t help remembering this as we prepare to spend the night watching TV, waiting for salvation or doom.

New Perspectives, the exhibition mounted by Beaford Arts of
photographs by James Ravilious and others, opened yesterday. (See entry below.) It runs until 12th November. The exhibition will eventually tour, displaying in several of the villages and towns which are the actual locations, but this opening is at the Goodwin Gallery, Petroc Brannams Campus, Barnstaple.

It’s a rare opportunity to see twenty-five of James Ravilious’s extraordinary black-and-white images of North Devon, beautifully printed, mounted and displayed. The exhibition celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of Beaford Arts, which holds the Ravilious archive. It was curated and organized by Caroline Preston, who with Lizzie Grant and Martyn Warren also curated the open submissions.

Nina and I went to the private view yesterday, happily mingling with the other amateur photographers whose contemporary pictures were shown alongside Ravilious’s originals, most of them from thirty or forty years ago.

Today is UK publication day for The Gradual, but resisting temptation to put up yet another scan of the attractive Gollancz cover, let me show you an image of something else entirely.

This is a part of the huge area of estuarial salt marshes at the mouth of the rivers Taw and Torridge. The photograph was taken on the southern side of the rivers, known as Northam Burrows. In the distance there is a glimpse of the seaside town of Westward Ho! (The exclamation mark is part of the town’s name, and has nothing to do with my possible surprise or excitement about it.)

I took the photo because I had my camera with me, and because it struck me as an interesting view. I took several more that day, in July this year, and this was the best of them.

Much later I discovered that a local arts organization called Beaford Arts was running a competition to celebrate their 50th anniversary, and were inviting photographic entries inspired by the work of James Ravilious.

Ravilious’s work as a photographer is not, I think, widely known outside Devon, but to my mind his photographs are not only artistic and beautiful, but have real social worth too. He was the son of the artist Eric Ravilious, a painter whose work I had already come to admire as he was based in Eastbourne – many of his paintings were inspired by the East Sussex coast where I was then living.

James Ravilious, working with Beaford Arts for about a quarter of a century, from 1972 until his premature death in 1999, set out to make a pictorial record not only of the unspoiled, peaceful and vulnerable scenery of North Devon, but also of the people who lived and worked in the area. Many of the people who live around here remember him well – he was much liked in his lifetime. He took more than 80,000 photographs in that quarter century, and also made archive copies of around 5,000 more photos taken by other photographers in earlier years. There is probably no other area of rural England so intensively recorded by such a wealth of remarkable photographs. In my opinion Ravilious is easily the equal of great French photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson (who had originally inspired Ravilious to take up photography) and Robert Doisneau. Both of these men worked almost exclusively in black-and-white, as did Ravilious.

Many of Ravilious’s pictures can be seen on his website. The whole archive is maintained by Beaford Arts, and much of that can also be viewed online.

The other day I learned that my photo of Northam Burrows has been selected to be exhibited, and will be displayed alongside a photograph taken by Ravilious in 1977, of Braunton Burrows, on the opposite side of the estuary. I believe the exhibition will be touring in Devon soon, but I don’t think it will be shown outside the county.

So do take some time to look at Ravilious’s astonishingly beautiful photographs, and reflect, as he wished us to do, that this unique tract of England might one day be casually destroyed by those who have an insatiable need for road widening schemes, shopping malls and estate houses.

This is the cover of the Russian translation of The Affirmation, due to be published by Eksmo on 6th October. It accurately identifies the book as a product of the age of typewriters …

According to my trusty Russian speaker (Nina), the title translates as Lottery, or maybe a slight adaptation of the word. In the novel it’s called a Lotterie.

As always I’m really pleased to see this particular novel given a new lease of life.

Tom Hunter, current director of the Arthur C. Clarke Award, wants to open the prize to self-published novels. He is at present uncertain how this might work. One way he is mooting would be to throw it open to anyone, but charge each writer the same submission fee presently paid by publishers. Another proposal is to allow the panel of judges to call in self-published books. The two could or might be combined in some way.

But it seems to me that this begs the question of what a self-published novel actually is. For example, an ebook made available by a writer through Kindle is self-published — Amazon is only the distributor. Amazon does not act or function as publisher, and the writer remains the de facto publisher.  So here is a definition that might be helpful:

Self-published works are not eligible where the author is the publisher. If the publisher is a company which has been specifically set up to publish the work in question, and/or the author is the person who owns the majority shareholding or otherwise controls the company, the work is ineligible.

That strikes me as a clear, uncontroversial and defensible statement of how self-published novels, intended to be submitted to a literary award, should be defined and regulated. It also accepts by implication that there is a difference between self-published texts and professionally published books. Although it is always unacknowledged by those who campaign for literary parity, here is the difference:

A book brought out by a trade publisher goes through various processes and tests before it is printed and distributed through bookshops.

• The author, who in many cases has the experience of publishing earlier works, will have completed several drafts and read-throughs before submitting it to the publisher.
• The manuscript will be read and judged by an experienced editor, and in some cases by several other people who work for the publisher.
• After it has been accepted the publisher will almost invariably require changes, usually minor but sometimes quite extensive: parts of the book might be requested to be shortened, lengthened, clarified, rewritten, etc.
• When the author has been given time to consider and carry out the revisions, the next stage is a close copy edit of the text. The copy editor will modify the text to conform to the publisher’s house style, and to normal printing conventions. At the same time various small but important matters will be addressed. Spelling and grammar will be corrected. Inconsistencies of plot or character or language or background will be queried.
• After the book has been set in type, both an in-house proofreader and the author will go closely through the text to make sure everything is correct.
• The book will be designed. Typeface and general typography will be chosen, as will page layout, chapter breaks, and so on.
• A cover is designed by an artist, overseen by the publisher’s art department.
• The finished book is then printed and bound.

None of these steps, or almost none, will apply to a self-published book. It is nothing to do with elitism (a frequent charge against people who know the difference). Writing is a profession. It has standards.

More than one hundred books are submitted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award every year — 113 were sent in for the 2016 prize. That’s a lot of reading to get through in a matter of a few weeks, and if the floodgates were opened and the commitment had to increase I believe it would become unworkable for most people. If self-published books were regulated as suggested above, then perhaps numbers would stay more or less where they are.

While on the subject of the Clarke Award, and knowing that no one can agree what it is actually “for”, it seems to me that over the thirty years of its existence it has tended to highlight well written centralist science fiction as well as more ambitious works which are pushing at the edges of the definition of the genre. Science fiction has always been a progressive form: it changes and improves and expands, and we look to something like the Clarke Award to reflect that unique literary spirit. In this it differs from fan-based prizes. Most of the people who have won the prize in the past have been serious about their writing, and the general tone of discussion has been, until recently, equally serious.

(Many congratulations to Adrian Tchaikovsy on his win! I hope it will have a significant impact on his career.)

Here is the cover for L’inclinaison, the beautiful new translated edition of The Gradual, from Gilles Dumay’s collection Lunes d’encre (published by Denoël in Paris). It has been translated by Jacques Collin, who also translated The Adjacent.

It is due to be published at the end of September.

Yesterday, I received my first finished copies of Gollancz’s hardcover edition (see below), which is due to appear on 15th September. Sounds like a busy month — the following events are coming up, in addition to the books being published:

Wednesday, 14th September. I shall be at Waterstones in Bath, 4-5 Milsom Street, Bath — interview and signing. 6:00 for 6:30pm. Contact the shop for more details.

Weekend of 17th/18th September. With many others of the Gollancz authors I shall be taking part in this year’s Gollancz Festival, largely based in Foyles bookstore in Charing Cross Road, London.

Saturday 24th September. I am taking part in a celebration of H. G. Wells’ 150th anniversary at Bromley Central Library (Large Hall, 4th Floor, from 11:15am onwards). There will be several talks (including mine), a chance to view selected items from the extensive Wells archive, and a walk around parts of Bromley associated with Wells. More info here.

Sunday 25th September. After a mad dash northwards I shall be giving a talk called Reality, Memory and Doubt at Brighouse Library, at 4:00pm. This will follow a free screening of the film of The Prestige, at 1.30pm. (Perhaps this is the moment to say that the “Lord Colderdale” mentioned in the film, and the book, has nothing whatsoever to do with Calderdale, the local authority which runs the library.) More details here, or if you call 01422 288060.

Finally, just a reminder of the cover images of the English-language editions of The Gradual published in September, Gollancz (UK) and Titan (USA):

 

 

Ten years later, I think I have at last solved a small mystery. It concerns the actor Sir Michael Caine, whom I met in 2006 during the evening of the UK premiere of the film based on my novel, The Prestige. Never having had a film made of something I had written, not to mention never having been to a star-studded party at a film premiere, for me the whole evening was weird and weirdly memorable.

To recap (I have described this elsewhere): during the party, a stand-up affair in an uncrowded room, I saw Caine standing to one side and thought I should introduce myself. I thought Caine had done well in an underwritten supporting role in the film, bringing a kind of intelligent conviction to the scenes he was in. When I told him my name, it obviously meant nothing to him. I told him I had written the novel on which the film was based. The atmosphere suddenly cooled. He raised himself up, looked down his nose at me (he is surprisingly tall), and said, “I never talk to writers.” He immediately turned away and stalked off.

In all truth I think I was more amused than offended by this, although it was probably the one incident I remembered afterwards with complete clarity. I assumed that during his long career Michael Caine must have had many aggravating brushes with writers, some of whom are well capable of acting like arrogant shits. Even so, the mood at this party was low key and friendly, and one would think, wouldn’t one?, that in the cause of general harmony such past experiences can be temporarily set aside in the cause of good manners. Well, apparently not.

I have been recently re-reading the published Journals of John Fowles. In the second volume Fowles describes meeting Caine at the end of 1966 for the filming of The Magus. Both were then youngish middle-aged men, both had become suddenly famous and successful – Fowles was 45 (two best-selling novels, a film of The Collector already made), Caine 33 (starring roles in several films, including Zulu and the Len Deighton adaptations, and an Oscar nomination for Alfie). They met again and worked together the following year while The Magus was being filmed in Majorca. We shall probably never know what Caine thought of Fowles, but through Fowles’s unrestrained and often contentious journals we have the other side.

After their first meeting he describes “Mike” Caine as ‘a thoroughly unlikeable young man’ and ‘good at poker faced banter … but he’s got to give more than that.’ Although he later compliments Caine on his ‘exemplary behaviour between takes’, when he sees the first cut of the film he describes Caine’s performance as ‘excruciatingly bad, totally incredible as an English graduate’, and that ‘his failure pervades the whole picture, the one part we couldn’t afford to go wrong.’ (Later that day, Fowles reports that a large part of the cliff on which his house was standing has slipped into the sea. Maybe this informed his mood?)

I read all this when the Fowles diaries were first published, but because the comments appeared in a long book filled with similarly disparaging remarks about dozens of people (including, as it happens, me) I didn’t take much notice. However, reading it again last month I suddenly made the connection – Volume 2 of the Fowles Journals was published in 2006, just a few weeks before the film of The Prestige was released in the UK. Michael Caine had clearly come across these remarks: someone must have tipped him off, or he had found himself named in the book’s index, while browsing in a bookstore. Suddenly, it all made sense to me, and for a few moments I even felt forgiving of him.

The Journals, Volume 2, John Fowles. Jonathan Cape, 2006, 463 pp, ISBN 978-022-406912-0

I normally avoid politics, but this is beyond politics.

Referenda in the UK are only advisory. They are not legally binding. The British Parliament is sovereign. The referendum last week was advisory.

Although the public voted in favour of leaving, the UK is not obliged to withdraw from the EU unless Parliament decides to do so. In fact it cannot. Parliamentary decisions cannot be constrained by non-parliamentary opinion. (Cf. the abolition of hanging in 1965, when around 85% of the British public were believed at that time to be in favour of retention.) Parliament is sovereign.

Before the referendum it was known that only a minority of sitting MPs were on the Brexit side. Because of the Tories’ tiny majority David Cameron would have had to allow a free vote — after that the question of leaving the EU would not have arisen.

But Cameron caved in to his Euro sceptics and the abominable Ukip, and committed himself to the referendum. He has paid the price. In the words of Polly Toynbee’s brilliant essay in today’s Guardian, “his place in history is assured only as the man who shipwrecked Britain.”

The country now has fallen into the hands of opportunistic but weak and inexperienced Tory adventurers like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. Nigel Farage, who runs Ukip, is a disgrace to our nation, a national embarrassment. The union with Scotland will certainly collapse. On the other side of the Irish Sea the Sinn Fein party of Northern Ireland want union with the rest of Ireland (which remains in the EU) – such a development runs a severe risk of renewed violence from the Protestants in the north. The British special relationship with the USA is faltering, even in the words of the mild and moderate President Obama. The EU is already urging Britain to speed up the divorce and get the hell out of the way.

Britain is becoming a pariah, a sort of offshore irrelevance, for now at least dominated by bigots and opportunists, armed with nuclear weapons.

I love Europe as it has become in the years after World War 2. I see it as a peaceful, tolerant, civilized, enlightened place, full of progressive technology, culture, ideas and art. It has pioneered Human Rights, the abolition of the death penalty, legislation on crucial environmental issues, the free movement of citizens, a gradual growth into secularism after centuries of dominance by churches.

The hated EU bureaucracy that these Tory adventurers have focused on is the same bureaucracy employed by every large state, the old UK included. Nowhere is perfect. Until this week, the inexplicable little marriage of convenience between mainland Europe and my island home was something that worked against all the odds, a bickering, annoying relationship between two sides who knew each other rather too well. The result was a paradoxical but stable and fruitful partnership, perhaps a model for all civilized nations to aspire to.

They could stop all this now. Parliament is sovereign — it cannot be said too often. If the MPs had the guts to defy the “advice” of the public, if Parliament trusted in its own beliefs, it could quash the referendum now, immediately, today, tomorrow, next week, before any more damage is done.

Of course it will not, and so we drift into a future that suddenly seems deeply unpleasant and dangerous.

With less than twenty-four hours to go, here is something that approximately half the population of the UK will not find funny.

See you on the other side …