Catmachine

I like to think I’m a rational person, but nevertheless I love a good ghost story. However I have noticed a tendency for some people to seize on rationalism as Something To Believe In which seems to miss the entire point of the mindset. I think of this viewpoint as Born Again Scepticism because it most often afflicts people who were really into Weird Shit when they were younger but became disillusioned by Weird Shit’s constant failure to deliver. Born Again Scepticism espouses a kind of knee jerk “because it doesn’t exist!” holier than thou attitude to anything that isn’t scientific canon and is evangelical about deploying it. Born Again Sceptics are usually not actual scientists. As I've mentioned before on this blog, Carl Sagan – who most definitely was a scientist – said: “No matter how unorthodox the reasoning process or how unpalatable the conclusions, there is no excuse for any attempt to suppress new ideas, least of all by scientists committed to the free exchange of ideas.”...

Wernigerode, European Tour 1995 Wendi fought her way free of the dream. It had been one of those nightmares, the irrational ones that could upset her for hours after waking up. She'd had none since the band had spent a month in Devon the previous spring and she had been hoping that they'd been banished forever by her strange experiences back then. But no. As familiar as the face of a school bully after the summer holidays, the dark red despair froze her brainstem as she struggled to open her eyes, move her limbs or do anything to escape its grip. There was shape to one side of her and she fancied it was Peter. He was speaking to her but none of the words made any sense. He shook her by the shoulder. "Hey, wake up. We're here." She ripped her eyes open. The dream's logic hung about her head in a cloud and a whimpering sound emerged from the back of her throat. Where the fuck was she? None of this made any sense. Shapes moved in front of a blinding white darknes...

I've always had trouble coming up with the titles for stories, especially novels. I never thought of a satisfactory title for the first novel I wrote in around 1990 (near future science fiction, the dates of some of the events in which we've now passed) and for a long time my debut novel Comeback (an urban fantasy) was known only by the working title of Genie in Underland . This is an obvious reference to Alice in Wonderland , a book that at first glance does have some similarities to Comeback and was very probably an influence (subconscious or otherwise) - as a child the Alice books were amongst my favourites. Both have a female protagonist who enters a mysterious subterranean realm in pursuit of their goal. Both journeys start with a memorable descent – Alice's rabbit hole and Genie's escalator – into a world where the normal rules of logic have been waived. And I'd say the central characters do have some traits in common. Not that Alice is the equivalent of a c...

Worldbuilding can be tricky if you're writing science fiction or fantasy. There's so much to do—the readers are unfamiliar with the background, social mores and customs of the novel's environment and as such are at a disadvantage when it comes to working out what's going on. The characters themselves are no help. They know all this stuff anyway, so there's no way they are going to be able to remind each other of what they've known for years without sounding unrealistic. One solution is to use an omniscient narrator but then if you're not careful there's a temptation to fall into the "telling not showing" trap... Convincing worldbuilding is a skill that it can take years to master. However there is a way around this if you're in a hurry. If you set the novel in the real world you can take the background as read— everyone knows all this stuff right? —and concentrate on the actual story. Interestingly there is an added bonus of using this me...

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“This will be my year!” That’s a mantra I often used to hear people repeat on New Year’s Day. Probably trying to exercise the power of positive thinking. Fair enough, I say. In the end sometimes it was their year and sometimes it wasn’t. Personally I don’t remember having “a year” or even thinking that in particular – I was cautious about tempting fate. But this year – finally – I was ready to hope for “my year” as my debut novel was due to be published. The release date had already been put back twice due to the pandemic but I was sure that 21 January 21 was an auspicious date for it to finally be released upon the world. I hadn’t counted on the pandemic coming roaring back stronger than ever and us all being in lockdown again. Of course being confined to our homes isn’t nearly the drawback it would have been in the past. People could buy the book online  from all the places people normally buy books. However, I suspect having to rely on online only promotion and sales meant sligh...

What with all the furore surrounding the fiftieth anniversary of Doctor Who back in November 2013 you might have thought that the programme had celebrated enough anniversaries for now. After all - fifty one and a bit years on from the first episode? Nothing that special. But today, 25 January 2015, sees the fortieth anniversary of the beginning of what is probably my favourite run of sixteen episodes (four stories in the old money) from the show. There are of course stories and episodes that I like more than that, but this particular period - from 25 January to 10 May 1975 - was the most consistently enjoyable time for me watching. There is a danger that in writing this I will go over old ground but checking back on the Dimensionally Transcendental Confession blogs covering the relevant period it appears that I restrained myself from going into too much detail. It was almost as if I knew I was going to write this blog five years hence. My enjoyment of these particular four mon...

The problem with fiction is that if it tries to reflect the real world too accurately you run into all sorts of logical problems. This is particularly noticeable with long running TV series - especially soaps - as they strive to reflect the real world more and more. Take Eastenders . Its grim portrait of life in the east end of London is on several times a week at prime time with an omnibus edition on Sundays.  This raises the question - in the Eastenders universe what is on BBC1 at the times Eastenders is shown in ours? Are they watching us? The problem is of course that soaps often are a big part of the viewing public's lives and the omission of itself as fiction from the world it portrays means that a soap such as Eastenders will always have an air of unreality about it. But there's nothing really that could be done about it - the invention of another fictional soap to fill the gap would have the opposite effect and make things appear even further from reality. Some...

Another interlude that takes place during the novel I started during 2012's NaNoWriMo containing some more of Wendi's backstory. January 1990 After a while the appeal of working in the record shop began to wane for Wendi. She earned little more than she would have by signing on and had only taken it in the first place to get the Restart people off her back. The free promos from the record company reps were all that kept her going - and she wouldn't be able to get them anywhere else - but finding the money to go to gigs and to rehearse with the nascent band her and Peter were putting together was becoming difficult. In the end SoundStore made the decision for her. A new contract from senior management came round which all staff were obliged to sign. One clause said that all promos received from reps were " the property of SoundStore Ltd " which was a bit of a coincidence given that one of the senior managers had just set up a mail order rare records se...

A Christmas interlude that takes place during the novel I started during this year's NaNoWriMo . It's not part of the novel and not written in November so is probably more of a NoNoNoNo... Saturday 25 December 1993 Wendi opened her eyes to find herself lying on the sofa in front of the muted television. On screen Noel Edmonds was wearing an obscene jumper and talking on the telephone. She felt about for the remote and the cathode ray tube relaxed into inactivity with an electric sigh. The sun was shining through the large glass window and against the odds - it had been pissing down the night before - it was a nice day. She wrapped the blanket around herself and stood up. The penthouse flat was bare and undecorated. The record company had purchased it only recently and were intending it to be used by the more successful members of the talent whilst in London. Whilst Beam certainly were flavour of the month in some quarters they were hardly the most lucrative act on the...