What’s in the interview? Well, a whole lot of background stuff about my own move from London up to Cumbria, as well as something about my writing history and the transition from ancient history to science fiction… and back again.
Kindle Cover – Half Sick of Shadows
The immediate trigger for the interview was when Anastasia read Half Sick of Shadows, and we talk a little bit about that book in the midst of other things.
As an extra incentive, my historical fiction series (In a Milk and Honeyed Land, Scenes from a Life, and The Flame Before Us), together with two of my science fiction books (Far from the Spaceports, and Timing) are on Kindle Countdown deals this week, with price dropped to £0.99 and $0.99 on Amazon UK and US respectively. Navigate to http://www.kephrath.com/Extracts.aspx for some extracts from the historical series, or http://www.kephrath.com/ExtractsFuture.aspx for some from the speculative ones.
Finally, there’s a longish extract from what I am provisionally calling Quarry, which is my leap back into the even more remote past. Quarry explores the Langdale Axe factory and the people who lived and worked there – it’s at a very preliminary stage just yet, but hopefully as lockdown eases and life goes back to normal I shall have more time to develop it.
Readers of this blog will know that I have been very enthusiastic about NASA’s Dawn space probe which spent a long time investigating first Vesta, and then for a rather longer time Ceres, before eventually running out of fuel and being decommissioned. The results from that mission have substantially changed our perception of the asteroid belt, and in particular have confirmed the ubiquity of water ice in all parts of the solar system. Of course, it also raised a lot of questions, such as what was responsible for bright surface markings on Ceres, and how the dwarf planet could apparently have supported both ammonia deposits and a large ocean at various times in its history.
Pallas, as seen from the European Southern Observatory
Anyway, I read this week that NASA is considering a smaller and cheaper mission to the third largest asteroid, Pallas. If approved – and the decision will be made later this month – this would launch in August 2022, which gives it a suitable orbit for a gravity assist from Mars. Unlike Dawn, the low price tag means that this is a flyby mission rather than one that aims to go into orbit, so it will be a case of capturing whatever data can be obtained in a relatively short span of time. Basically, it’s cheaper and easier to just race past somewhere, rather than carry the fuel to slow down and be captured gravitationally. Nevertheless, it should provide another batch of results to extend our knowledge of the diverse objects making up the asteroid belt. And in particular it will give some more solid information that – no doubt – wil one day find its way into my Far from the Spaceports series!
Kindle Cover – Half Sick of Shadows
And in entirely unrelated news, last Friday I had the pleasure of participating in Helen Hollick’s blog series “Novel Conversations”, which focused on an interview with a character. In my case this was Brendan mab Emrys, who some people will know as the bard in the Arthurian section of Half Sick of Shadows. The interview can be found at Helen’s blog. And if you navigate over that way, you will also find an extract.
Finally, it would be sad to finish this blog post without briefly saying RIP Google+, which until yesterday was a place I shared out blog posts, nature photos, and other similar things.
This week I saw the first review of the Audiobook version of Half Sick of Shadows, and very pleasing it was too: “Half Sick of Shadows… takes Tennyson’s “Lady of Shallott” and gives it a speculative twist, keeping the measure and wonder of the original, but suggesting a plausible (perhaps) root to the story, in the vein of Jules Verne. The writing is lovely, in Richard’s mature and manly style, and with obvious care. The narration in the audio version by Menna Bonsels has a lovely Welsh lilt that brings the setting alive“.
And if you wanted to set up an Audible account, I suspect that Amazon’s Prime Day is a good time to do it. You can use it out for free for a trial period, get yourself Half Sick of Shadows as your first listen, and see how you like it. Links are Audible UK or Audible US, and here is the free sample…
Far from the Spaceports cover
Now, in Far from the Spaceports I presumed that there would be a spaceport in the British Isles. From there, Mitnash would catch some sort of shuttle to make the trip up to his deep-space vessel, the Harbour Porpoise.
“Finally, a second briefing with Elias, and a scramble to Euston to catch the overnight to Findhorn.
I had intended to gaze forlornly out of the window as I hurtled past Alnmouth again, this time heading north. However, fatigue had got the better of me and I was dozing at the time, propped up in a corner. I surfaced again somewhere well north of Dundee, just as it was getting light. On the east coast line, most of the trains stopped in Edinburgh, but this was the Spaceport Special, non-stop right the way through.
Catching the shuttle was slightly less exciting than boarding the train at Euston…”
Now, at the time of writing there were several sites being considered, several of them in Scotland. So I picked the Findhorn peninsula, and assumed that our current East Coast railway line from London via York, Newcastle and Berwick up to Edinburgh, would simply be extended northwards around the Cairngorms to give a high-speed link.
Artist’s impression, Sutherland Spaceport (The National Scot)
This week, however, I saw two news items indicating different sites. One is indeed in Scotland, but right up at the extreme north coast. The plan for Sutherland is specifically for a vertical take-off site, in the way we have become used to see rocket launches. The development would mean a lot for local employment and development, but will be balanced against environmental concerns. Follow this up in The National Scot newspaper.
Artist’s impression, satellite launched from winged booster (Cornwall Live)
But at the other end of the country, Newquay in Cornwall has been chosen by Virgin Orbit as a launch site. Here, the initial plan is for horizontal launch – a satellite with booster rocket is first carried to high altitude on a winged craft which takes off and lands conventionally (check out the video below). This certainly makes the transition from airport to spaceport easier, and leaves vertical launches open as an option in the future. Follow this one up at Cornwall Live, or (perhaps more excitingly) at Pirate FM.
It’s great for storytelling – but it’s also great for the space industry in the UK. We make a lot of space equipment here, especially in Glasgow and the home counties, but in order to actually launch it we’ve had to ship the finished products to launch sites in other parts of the world. Hopefully, by 2020 we might be launching from home soil. Mitnash may well be able to take the train from London to his shuttle launch site before much longer, though it might be a bit further north than Findhorn!
It’s just over a year since I published Half Sick of Shadows, and just over a week since the audiobook version came out!
And in celebration of all that, I have a number of giveaway book tokens for audio version – 5 each US and UK Audible tokens to be precise.
To be in with a chance of winning one of these, listen to the extract below and discover what two ideas the local people said about The Lady’s identity. Then email me on books@kephrath.com – or message me on Facebook if you prefer – telling me also whether you would prefer a US or UK token. The preview extract is also available at the three stores listed below.
I will draw the results randomly in a couple of weeks, and if you’re a lucky winner then you can decide for yourself who The Lady is!
If you’re not already an Audible member, then you get a free month’s trial, with free book as a perk for signing up. So don’t let not having membership put you off – you can sample it at no cost, and cancel it later if you decide it’s not for you. And you can also access the audio version at iTunes if you prefer using that source to Audible or Amazon.
Good news awaited me first thing this morning – an email saying that the audio version of Half Sick of Shadows has been approved and is now being distributed to Audible, Amazon and iTunes (link available soon).
The free sample is here:
and is also available in the usual way at the abovementioned sites.
Once again, vocal credits are due to Menna Bonsels – for a real treat, listen to the way she steadily alters The Lady’s voice as the penultimate chapter Metamorph unfolds.
For those who would like the Audible version but do not have an account, one of the perks of setting up a free one-month trial is that you get your first title completely free (and then one credit per month after that). If you’re also an Amazon Prime member, you get three free months and three free titles! Why not take out the free trial and use it to listen to Half Sick of Shadows! Great for you, and also great for author and narrator both!
An exciting bit of news today. After a good period of preparation and hard work, the Audiobook version of Half Sick of Shadows is almost ready for distribution. Currently it’s with the ACX approval team, who check various technical production details, and all being well the book will be generally available by the end of the month.
The narration has been carefully and beautifully done by Menna Bonsels. She has brought the bits of dialogue alive with a Welsh accent, which is just what I wanted for these early parts of British history before the Saxons came. Back then, my best guess is that our conversations all sounded rather like today’s Welsh. She has done a fantastic job. And the progressive ageing of The Lady, particularly in the later sections, is a real delight.
Anyway, you’ll be able to tell for yourself soon. Of course I’ll post the final purchase links here when they are available – this should be on Audible, Amazon and iTunes.
Meanwhile, here’s a short sample of the whole to give you a taste…
Today’s post follows on in a loose manner from last week’s, but is also inspired by thinking about film versions of books. The connection is once again the complex of tales to do with Arthur and his companions – the so-called Matter of Britain. As mentioned last time, these stories – even the oldest variants of them that we know – are in constant tension and conflict with each other. There is no single authoritative original version, and different tellers of these tales have focused on divergent features. Did Arthur die on the battlefield? Was he taken away mortally wounded to die elsewhere and be laid to rest? Did he go elsewhere to be healed, and return one day? What did happen between Lancelot and Guinevere? Was the Grail a peripheral distraction, or the vital centre of the whole company? And so many other questions, all unanswerable… or rather with so many possible answers.
Now, the group of authors we call the Inklings relished this endless magical well of possibility, and drew from it in many different ways according to their preferences and personalities. But, as the book I have been reading comments, “To some readers, the idea of endless revision may imply infidelity to a source text. Compare this to the experience of many logocentric moviegoers, who experience sharp disappointment or anger when the film adaptation of a beloved book appears to them to be a travesty of the author’s work.”
Merlin and Nimue, by Edward Burne-Jones (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool)
Now, one feature of the Arthurian tales is that they have metamorphosed into several different media – prose, for sure, but also poetry, music, film, art, sculpture, cartoons and animation. And, allowing for the availability of these technologies, this multi-media presentation has been part of the tradition from as far back as we can trace it. Did our twelfth century ancestors argue whether the French prose Vulgate cycle was better or worse than Lazamon Brut’s massive poetic treatment? Or did they, in fact, relish and appreciate the diversity of approach?
Of course we don’t know if such a debate happened, but this whole study has made me reevaluate my own reaction to film versions of books. Like lots of us, I have in the past had the kind of “disappointment or anger” mentioned above, but am revising my views. To be sure, any book or film (or comic, or play, or musical, or opera, or whatever) might be uncompelling simply as a piece of artistry, but that is a separate matter. Just to tell the tale in a different way is not, I think, such a problem. Quite apart from the varying strengths and weaknesses of each of those media, each story-teller will choose to focus on different facets of the tale as suits their purpose and interest. And that, I think, is not a bad thing. Of which more next week…
A few days ago I was walking in the Chiltern hills, at the north east end of The Ridgeway. This is often billed as Britain’s oldest road, and is known to have had some 5000 years of traffic going to and fro. I suspect that in fact usage goes back a lot further. Today’s Ridgeway (which is one of our National Trails) goes from Ivinghoe Beacon to Avebury (or the other way), and it is the central part of a really long route which at one time went from The Wash diagonally down to the English Channel. It is possible still to do that, by diligently joining together lots of separate paths – for example The Peddars Way gets you through large parts of East Anglia – but The Ridgeway is the section which is most generously provided with maps and signposts.
Walking on these ancient trackways always gives me a keen sense of those myriads of individuals who have walked that way before. It also invariably gives me a desire to write a story which somehow incorporates the network of paths, their very many fascinating way-stations, and the travellers themselves. But so far I have only a desire, not a plot or anything else substantial.
Part of the Avebury stone circle complex
The Ridgeway is 87 miles long – in practice a little further as you have to come away from the track to find lodgings for the night, and then make your way back in the morning. It’s easy walking, and easy to finish in about a week, or else in a series of weekends with train journeys to and fro. And one of the great things about walking it is that you are covering the ground at the same rate as your remote ancestors. You’re seeing broadly the same terrain as they did (barring houses and a definite lack of trees), watching distant rises and dips in the ground approach at the same slow speed as they did, and experiencing the sun wheeling overhead from east to west in the same way.
Now, our ancestors had different motives for walking these paths than we do. We walk for recreation and inspiration, while for them, motives of trade, diplomacy, marriage, or religious festivity would be at the core. There are all kinds of monuments spread out along the paths. We understand the purpose of some of them, but others have become obscure. We wonder at the prodigious effort involved, but cannot any more grasp the function.
Wayland’s Smithy, The Ridgeway
It’s also worth remembering that the various sites and signs of occupancy spread out along the 90-odd miles of The Ridgeway, let alone the much longer distance of the whole route, are themselves spread out over time. It’s easy to forget this, and imagine that a Neolithic, or a Bronze Age traveller, would be seeing the same things as you are. But the reality is quite different. There are Neolithic sites like Wayland’s Smithy, dating from about 5-6000 years ago. There are Bronze Age sites like Avebury or the Uffington WHite Horse. To the people who built these – which are themselves separated by a great gulf of time – Wayland’s Smithy was already unthinkably old. Then there are Iron Age forts, ditches, and banks – and the builders of these would have lost all sense of the earlier constructions as living sites. They would simply have been relics from the past, part of the context of the new homes and sacred sites.
Kindle Cover – Half Sick of Shadows
It was this sense of a multi-layered land which was part of the inspiration for Half Sick of Shadows. This did not take place along The Ridgeway, but in a winding river valley. A chalk scarp overlooked the river, and the various human homes nearby, but there are many parts of southern England where that could happen. So that story is not tied to The Ridgeway – but the idea of the land changing slowly, witnessing the rapid passage of generations, was absolutely there. And in that story, there is someone for whom the changes in the land itself seem quick.
One day, perhaps, I’ll write those other stories of the ancient world and its journeys. Meanwhile I shall continue to walk parts of the old paths, and gather ideas for the tales as I do so.
I was going to write a blog on something to do with Alexa, but that will now appear after the Christmas holiday break. That’s partly because I have been moving rocks and making new gravel paths, and ending the day somewhat fatigued…
So instead, this is just a short post about an email I received last night, saying that Half Sick of Shadows has been awarded an IndieBrag Medallion.
Specially, I read this:
We have completed the review process for your book “Half Sick of Shadows” and I am pleased to inform you that it has been selected to receive a B.R.A.G. Medallion. We would now like to assist you in gaining recognition of your fine work. In return, we ask that you permit us to add your book to the listing of Medallion honorees on our website www.bragmedallion.com.
Well, needless to say I haven’t yet had time to do the stuff at their website – that will follow over the next few days – but that was a very nice piece of news just as the holiday break is starting!
A follow-up to my earlier post this week, catching up on some more news. But first, here is a couple of snaps (one enlarged and annotated) I took earlier today in the early morning as I walked to East Finchley tube station.
The Moon, Jupiter and Mars, annotated
The Moon, Jupiter and Mars
All very evocative, and leads nicely into my next link, which is a guest post I wrote for Lisl’s Before the Second Sleep blog, on the subject of title. Naturally enough, it’s a topic that really interests me – how will human settlements across the solar system adapt to and reflect the physical nature of the world they are set on?
In particular I look at Mars’ moon Phobos, both in the post and in Timing. So far as we can tell, Phobos is extremely fragile. Several factors cause this, including its original component parts, the closeness of its orbit to Mars, and the impact of whatever piece of space debris caused the giant crater Stickney. But whatever the cause… how might human society adapt to living on a moon where you can’t trust the ground below your feet? For the rest of the post, follow this link.
And also here’s a reminder of the Kindle Countdown offer on most of my books, and the Goodreads giveaway on Half Sick of Shadows. Here are the links…
Half Sick of Shadows is on Goodreads giveaway, with three copies to be won by the end of this coming weekend.
All the other books are on Kindle countdown deal at £0.99 or $0.99 if you are in the UK or US respectively – but once again only until the end of the weekend. Links for these are:
And I haven’t forgotten about the upcoming Alexa news, following recent activity coding for the new Alexa Show (the one with the screen). But that’s for another day…
