An excerpt from Silver

I wanted to put up a short excerpt from Silver on here, so here it is!  It took me a while to decide on a piece.  I wanted to share my favourite characters with you, my favourite moments but eventually I settled on the moment that Emily May meets an angel.

This can also be found on the Silver tab above.  Hope you enjoy and feel the urge to read more!

"I lost it in the town centre, surrounded by pub goers preparing for the night ahead.  I kept my gun hidden and moved quickly through the groups of young men and women.  The noise danced across my senses and I lost my bearings.  I walked briskly, searching for any clue that the wolf had been there.  The noise eased as I left it all behind and a rattle down a nearby alley caught my attention.  It may just be a cat knocking over a bin lid but then on the other hand, it may not be.

I walked through the dark alley, my gun held up and my eyes sharp, peering into the shadows.  This was followed by an intense pain.  It took me a second or two to figure out where the pain had come from; my eyes.  They were closed.  I knew this because I could clearly see the inside of my eyelids, every tiny blood vessel against a pink background.  My knees buckled with the pain as my body scrabbled for ways of releasing me from it.  I ended up crouched, my arms over my head and face, shielding my eyes.  Eventually the pain eased.  The bright light dimmed.  I risked, very slowly, moving my arms and opening my eyes.  Colours danced in front of me but there was no pain.  I stood, feeling the reassuring weight of my gun still in my hand.  I searched for the culprit of the bright light, blinking furiously.

There was a man in front of me.  I ripped my stare up to his face.  I had to do this, you see, because he was naked.

He was not particularly buff.  He was no Spartan warrior or Schwarzenegger, which told me that this was not the Terminator come from the future to steal my leather jacket (good luck to him, it barely fit me).  The muscles in his arms and torso were defined.  His legs were thick set and hairy.  His genitals looked like a variant of all male genitalia I’d seen in my life. 

What?  Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have snuck a peak.

All in all, he was nothing out of the ordinary.  Except that he was naked in an alleyway.   

My first instinct was to aim my gun at him, but this seemed a little harsh considering his current situation.  One was vulnerable enough without clothes, never mind with a gun aimed at your flesh.  So the gun stayed at my side but my fingers twitched in readiness.

‘Are you alright?’  It seemed a good opener.  I blinked a few more times as my vision settled to normal.  He watched me.  ‘Ok,’ I breathed, looking around the alleyway.  ‘You seen a big dog go through here?’"

Surprisingly stumped when asked for comparisons

The other day I submitted Silver to a publisher.  Part of the submission guidelines were to suggest comparable authors and titles.  This stumped me.

I’ve done my research, I know not to brag about how my writing is as good as Terry Pratchett’s or that my series will be the next Twilight.  I never intended to compare my books with others in an attempt to sell it, I suppose I wanted to be accepted on the merit of my own writing and that it would then be the publisher’s job to find comparable titles as a selling point.

The truth of the matter is that I have read books about women, vampires, demon slayers and otherwise, fighting in their world of dark fantasy full of werewolves and angels.  I’ve read them and been bored, the woman always falls in love, usually with the bad guy.  She walks through a club of girating bodies with her weapon concealed at her side looking for the villain and when she lays eyes on him she is overwhelmed with passion and arousal and suddenly I’m reading a Mills and Boon book (not bad but not what I wanted).

Suddenly the strong heroine is made weak by a man.

I wanted to write a book where the female heroine wasn’t compromised by a man.  Sure there are love interests, sexual partners and men in Silver but they are not necessarily the obstacles that Emily May must overcome; they are tools to bring the obstacles into her life, they are her comfort and they are representations of the opportunities open to her.

The real obstacles come from deeper, darker issues.  Emily May will not be weakened by love or sex, but instead she is slowly dragged down by the amount of death that surrounds her and the weight of taking so many lives. 

This is the kind of book I want to read and I know I’m not the only one.  I’ve read forums, comments on social networking sites and blogs that tell me I’m not alone.  But I still haven’t been able to find a book that matches what I want.  I’m not saying that Silver succeeds in this, but I hope that it does.  I’m also not saying that Silver is the only book that might succeed in this, of course it’s not.  I just haven’t found a book that gives me what I want and is memorable yet.  But then I read titles other than dark fantasy and am possibly quite a slow reader.

Don’t worry, I didn’t put this long argument in my submission!  I hope I remained professional while giving a succinct answer but if not then I’ll never hear from the publisher again.  I’ve already moved on, writing my next novel and planning the future of Silver.

Contining on the topic of comparing your novel with other well known authors and titles, I found this on the publisher Orion’s blog;

Don’t mention Terry Pratchett! Or: How to submit your comic fantasy novel . . .

I’ve read a few articles like this one and I am always amazed and entertained at the things people supposedly write in their submission packages.  I am confident that I have remained professional throughout this process and that can only give me hope.

Game of Thrones and the tool of sex

I feel like I should write a post about Game of Thrones and have been wracking my brain since last Monday and the start of series 2 on Sky Atlantic.  I loved the first series but Game of Thrones is fantasy on an epic scale.  There are four families, both filled with characters and companions which means the cast list is horrendously long.  Each episode can only concentrate on so much so it is difficult to review as I don’t feel I’ve seen the full picture yet.

The one thing I am enjoying about series 2, and I feel the need to mention it, are the enormous Dire Wolves that we met as cubs in series 1.  They are beautiful and I want more of them, please.

However, this week’s episode got to me.  Something niggled away at me throughout and it was this; sex.  The use of sex as a tool and, most notably, incestual sex.  It is one of the taboo subjects in fiction along with bestiality and rape.  A writer must be careful when using any of these themes in their fiction, they must be used as a tool, with a purpose.

 

A successful example in Game of Thrones is the incestual relationship between Jaime and Cersei Lannister.  There is nothing visibly forced about what they do, in some way there is a sense of genuine affection, and it has resulted in the youngest Stark, Bran, becoming disabled and left to lead Winterfell in the second series and, of course, in Joffrey.  Joffrey, the awful child king, is now the centre of the war – he is not the true son of the king and therefore not the rightful heir which is a pivotal plot point in Game of Thrones.  Joffrey is at the centre of most of the storylines running through Game of Thrones.  All of this results in this incestual act between Jaime and Cersei feeling acceptable.

We had another brief glimpse of something incestual when we first met Viserys and Daenerys Targaryen.  Again, I found this to be acceptable as it gave an overview of Viserys ‘s character within seconds; this man is a horrible character who deserves a painful death at the hands of his sister.  It also showed that he viewed his sister purely as a piece of meat, a bargaining tool and to hell with what actually became of her.

An example of incest in series 2 comes from beyond the wall where we find Jon Snow (one of my favourites).  Here the Night Watch find a man who marries his daughters and, possibly, sacrifices his sons.  He is a disgusting oaf of a man surrounded young girls bearing his children.  While I shuddered at the thought of this storyline, I actually found it clever.  Here is a man who has found a way to survive beyond the wall, safe from the Wildlings – how?  Why?  What will become of his pregnant daughter who goes to Jon Snow for help and what will become of him?  This story on its own is intriguing but only because Jon Snow is an honourable, trustworthy and likeable character.  The viewer feels safe with him as he speaks with this horrible man, interacts with his daughters and follows him, carrying a crying baby, into the woods.  This example of incest is not acceptable but it is a tool that has been cleverly used in this particular plot point.

This week’s episode showed Theon Grerjoy riding astride a horse with a woman.  Now he doesn’t know she’s his sister (although she does), and technically the viewers don’t know (although it was easy enough to guess) but his grotesque fondling of her left me shuddering.  It was too much and pointless – we already know this man’s attitude towards sex and the only thing this scene produced was a small amount of embarrassment for -- but even that was outweighed by his father’s reaction to the sight of him.

In order to put this scene into context, Theon had just left a ship after having sex with a woman on board and treating her like filth.  Perhaps there is method behind this seemingly useless madness.  Theon is the best friend of Robb Stark, the new King of the North, a likeable character.  Theon brings an instant dislike into that particular camp.  I can only hope that this story is going somewhere other than bringing a new faction into the war.

Throughout series 1 of Game of Thrones we had acceptable incest and unacceptable rape that turned into a thriving relationship.  The sex in series 1 was complex and challenged the viewers values.  The sex in series 2 is harsh; the belittling of women, prostitution, incest for incest sake, sex for the sake of creating a son.  It does not make for pleasant viewing and most viewers will only be able to take so much.  It is a sharp reminder to writers that sex must be used as a tool for a purpose in fiction; what can be gained for this interaction between these characters? 

Priest - Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

Minor SPOILER warning

I wanted to see Priest at the cinema but was still reeling from Legion, the Paul Bettany starring angel and demon flop.  Priest recently became available on Sky Movies so I recorded it and stared at it with suspicion on my planner for a while.

Tonight I decided to give it a go.

Priest is a Sci-fi/Western in a world where there are vampires and humans living in the same world.  The vampires are a completely different species to humans and are alien looking beings with sharp teeth and no eyes.   In a bid to fight the vampires, the church creates the Priests, humans with special powers and training.  The Priests fought the vampires and won the war.  Society no longer had a need for the Priests and they were forced to assimilate back into society in a world where they were no longer welcome.

Paul Bettany plays a Priest who is fighting to get his niece, kidnapped by vampires, back.

The first thing that peaked my interest in this film was the vampires.  As a teenager I enjoyed the ‘teen vamp’.  Buffy was my Bible.  As I’ve grown up I’ve become tired of these vampires; Twilight, True Blood, The Vampire Diaries bore me.  I’ve been there and I’ve seen it.  It is original concepts, for example 40 Days of Night, that really hold my attention.  Ideas that vampires are not just the sophisticated, charming killers that fall in love with some pouting woman.  What I loved about the 40 Days of Night vampire and the Priest vampire is that they are a completely different species, although they may be humanoid.

The next thing that grabbed my attention in Priest was the world it is set in.  A post-war society run by the church.  I enjoyed the contrast between sin and faith and the differentiation between the church or organised religion and having belief and strength in faith.  While it is a common thing in fantasy and science fiction for organised religion to be the bad guy, Priest still gave enough interesting theories to make the use of the church acceptable.

The Priests act as the medium between the normal person and the domineering church.  They have total and complete belief and faith in God and to go against their vows is to go against the church, to go against God.  To break their vows in the ultimate sacrifice.  What Paul Bettany’s Priest throws up is the question of whether God is working through the church only or through those who believe in him and therefore to go against the church is not to go against God.  

 

While the church is a pivotal character in Priest, the actual antagonist is played by Karl Urban.  At first I thought that Karl Urban’s acting was a little wooden although he seems to loosen up as the film goes on.  There is little I can say about Karl Urban’s character without giving away major spoilers.  

I was at first very worried about Paul Bettany’s American accent but he is a fantastic actor and he plays it flawlessly.  Karl Urban spends the film speaking with a low, husky voice and half way through Paul Bettany also picks this up.  It made me wonder if both had watched Batman during filming.

This is a damsel in distress film and on principle this was the major flaw in Priest for me.  There is a female Priest but even she gushes through most of the film.  I would have preferred a stronger female character, and I think it’s a shame the female Priest couldn’t have fulfilled this.  Paul Bettany’s niece does eventually show some bravery in character and the female Priest is still an energising character, so not all is lost.

Priest is not perfect but it is fast paced and fresh.  I thoroughly enjoyed it as a quick, action/science fiction film that cleverly leaves questions and gives you food for thought if you’re hungry.  If you like something different with your vampire, or science fiction/fantasy films, give it a go.