Today I'm blogging about James Blish and his paperback adaptations of the original Star Trek episodes over at Planet Stories. As you can see, they've reached heirloom, multi-generational status here.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Guest blogging at Planet Stories
Today I'm blogging about James Blish and his paperback adaptations of the original Star Trek episodes over at Planet Stories. As you can see, they've reached heirloom, multi-generational status here.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Guest blogging at Guys Lit Wire
This month at Guys Lit Wire, I review In the Heart of the Sea, Nathaniel Philbrick's book about the Essex, sunk by a sperm whale in 1820. Sound familiar? Herman Melville read about it, too.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Guest blog: "The Friends of Eddie LaCrosse"
Today I'm a guest at Erica Hayes' blog, discussing the influences behind Eddie LaCrosse, hero of The Sword-Edged Blonde. Stop by and leave a comment!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Now in paperback: The Sword-Edged Blonde
The mass-market paperback of the first Eddie LaCrosse novel, The Sword-Edged Blonde, hits shelves tomorrow, June 30. Included is a preview of the next adventure, Burn Me Deadly, due out this fall from Tor.
Watch for giveaways of signed copies soon!
Monday, June 22, 2009
What lives in Blackheath Woods?
I'm fascinated by the fae. Not the Tinkerbell kind of fairies, Disneyfied out of all ambiguity, but the elemental, primitive spirits believed to exist in pre-industrial times. They don't often make it into popular media unprocessed for mass consumption, but occasionally one slips through, as in this brilliant short film by Ciaran Foy:
(apologies for the Portuguese subtitles; it's the only copy I could find online. Posted here with the filmmaker's permission.)
I spoke to Irish filmmaker Ciaran Foy (seen below directing actress Katie Keogh) about this film, after reading that it originated as a reaction to the 1997 film Fairy Tale: A True Story.*
Alex: What about that film specifically inspired this very different, and much more brutal, take on the fae realm?
Ciaran Foy: I think it was the whole prissy tone of it. You know, the prim and proper upper class English girls wide-eyed in awe at the "ever so beautiful" and benevolent Faeries. It just felt wrong to me. In Ireland the Faerie or Sidhe (shee) race are not depicted like that at all. Quite the contrary. There are many parts of the country that still very much believe in their existence and one thing you do not do is disturb, anger or insult the Sidhe. In fact they are quite feared. In folk belief and practice, the Sidhe are often propitiated with offerings. With this in mind it was thought best never to name them directly, so they were referred to in euphemisms such as "The Good Neighbors," "The Good Folk," "The Little Folk," "The Gentry," or simply "The Folk," in the hope that if humans describe them as kind, they are more likely to be so.
In other words I wanted to take the Victorian cliché of little girls and angelic faeries and make it clash with the Celtic myth. Essentially taking something esbablished in the public conscious, and turning it on it’s head.
Was the belief in faeries part of your experience growing up?
I grew up in Dublin city, so on a day to day level, no. But we had relatives in the countryside where it was very much part of the experience and whenever we went to visit we would hear about it. There was a small bridge on the way to my aunts where it was considered bad luck if you didn't say, "Good morning faeries," whilst going over it. There was a farmer who lived near them who claimed that three of his sons had died because they had "been messing" at a faerie ring. Another local woman would always leave her front and back doors open at all times, to allow the Faeries a path way through. It's just part of the vernacular. The faeries are to be feared. The Bean Sidhe or Banshee (which means, faerie woman) was someone who you heard wailing before a death would occur. The person who didn't hear the wail was usually the victim. They say the doomed DeLorean car factory in Lisburn was warned it was being built on a faerie mound, etc. So relating faeries to notions of benevolence and innocent frolicking was just not heard of! You have to remember, occurrences like the burning of Bridget Cleary were scarily common in the 19th century. Ideas get passed down and in isolated communities they tend to remain in one form or another. In researching [his new film] The Shee, it was made obvious to me that there are still pockets of the country where these beliefs are staunchly held. And to suggest to them that their beliefs are just silly superstitions is like suggesting to a dogmatic Christian that their beliefs are but the same - some people will even get angry at you. So it's still there.
That all said, the believers tend to be from older generations, so it's possible this may be the last or one of the last generations of believers. The world is becoming a smaller place.
Was the design of the faeries dictated by the time of year in which you filmed, or was it the other way round? What else influenced the design?
Well the design of the faeries was by Olwen Kelleghan. She’s amazing at coming up with psychologically freaky designs. I asked her to create a faerie that was vicious yet felt real. She did a number of sketches and one of them was like a cross between some twigs, an insect, and a concentration camp victim. It was horrible yet felt very organic. I’d never seen anything like it on screen before (this was way before Pan's Labyrinth) and I wanted to use it. One integral part of the design was that they had these rotting autumn leaves for wings. So in a static state they would look just like leaves while resting on a tree. In fact, for the final shot in the short, I initially wanted Melissa to back away and we would reveal a full tree behind her that was literally 'brimming with faeries' – we just couldn’t afford to get it done. So the design of the faeries came first. We shot in April and just graded to be autumnal looking.
Are you faeries intelligent and therefore vengeful, or do they attack Melissa instinctively?
Hmm… I’ve never been asked that before… I guess they are mostly instinctive, as I wouldn’t imagine you could ‘reason’ with my faeries. The same way if you disturbed an ant hill, you would expect instinctive attack. But that said, do you consider ants intelligent? Well, they builds cities, farms, raises animals, and organize themselves into a complex society complete with social ranks such as nobles, soldiers, workers and slaves. I guess it depends on ones definition of intelligence.
Do you feel Melissa deserved her fate?
Yes and no.
Yes, in the sense of the fable like ‘fairy tale’ feel of it. Like the best of the Grimms Fairytales – a character learns a lesson the hard way. “Do what your Mother says” – Melissa doesn’t. “Don’t mess around with things you don’t know about,” “Looks can be deceiving,” etc. I also cast a young actress who had a kind of humorous brat like quality to her – so we would be able to stomach her demise that little bit easier!
No, in the sense that she is just a curious child who innocently follows a faerie. But that’s also the point in a way. The best deaths in horrors, certainly the most shocking ones, happen to characters who don’t truly deserve it.
Many thanks to Ciaran Foy for taking the time to answer my questions. Watch for his upcoming film, The Shee, in the near future.
*Full disclosure: I have a soft spot for this film. Then again, I also have a soft spot for Godzilla Vs. Megalon, so take that under advisement.
(apologies for the Portuguese subtitles; it's the only copy I could find online. Posted here with the filmmaker's permission.)
I spoke to Irish filmmaker Ciaran Foy (seen below directing actress Katie Keogh) about this film, after reading that it originated as a reaction to the 1997 film Fairy Tale: A True Story.*
Alex: What about that film specifically inspired this very different, and much more brutal, take on the fae realm?
Ciaran Foy: I think it was the whole prissy tone of it. You know, the prim and proper upper class English girls wide-eyed in awe at the "ever so beautiful" and benevolent Faeries. It just felt wrong to me. In Ireland the Faerie or Sidhe (shee) race are not depicted like that at all. Quite the contrary. There are many parts of the country that still very much believe in their existence and one thing you do not do is disturb, anger or insult the Sidhe. In fact they are quite feared. In folk belief and practice, the Sidhe are often propitiated with offerings. With this in mind it was thought best never to name them directly, so they were referred to in euphemisms such as "The Good Neighbors," "The Good Folk," "The Little Folk," "The Gentry," or simply "The Folk," in the hope that if humans describe them as kind, they are more likely to be so.
In other words I wanted to take the Victorian cliché of little girls and angelic faeries and make it clash with the Celtic myth. Essentially taking something esbablished in the public conscious, and turning it on it’s head.
Was the belief in faeries part of your experience growing up?
I grew up in Dublin city, so on a day to day level, no. But we had relatives in the countryside where it was very much part of the experience and whenever we went to visit we would hear about it. There was a small bridge on the way to my aunts where it was considered bad luck if you didn't say, "Good morning faeries," whilst going over it. There was a farmer who lived near them who claimed that three of his sons had died because they had "been messing" at a faerie ring. Another local woman would always leave her front and back doors open at all times, to allow the Faeries a path way through. It's just part of the vernacular. The faeries are to be feared. The Bean Sidhe or Banshee (which means, faerie woman) was someone who you heard wailing before a death would occur. The person who didn't hear the wail was usually the victim. They say the doomed DeLorean car factory in Lisburn was warned it was being built on a faerie mound, etc. So relating faeries to notions of benevolence and innocent frolicking was just not heard of! You have to remember, occurrences like the burning of Bridget Cleary were scarily common in the 19th century. Ideas get passed down and in isolated communities they tend to remain in one form or another. In researching [his new film] The Shee, it was made obvious to me that there are still pockets of the country where these beliefs are staunchly held. And to suggest to them that their beliefs are just silly superstitions is like suggesting to a dogmatic Christian that their beliefs are but the same - some people will even get angry at you. So it's still there.
That all said, the believers tend to be from older generations, so it's possible this may be the last or one of the last generations of believers. The world is becoming a smaller place.
Was the design of the faeries dictated by the time of year in which you filmed, or was it the other way round? What else influenced the design?
Well the design of the faeries was by Olwen Kelleghan. She’s amazing at coming up with psychologically freaky designs. I asked her to create a faerie that was vicious yet felt real. She did a number of sketches and one of them was like a cross between some twigs, an insect, and a concentration camp victim. It was horrible yet felt very organic. I’d never seen anything like it on screen before (this was way before Pan's Labyrinth) and I wanted to use it. One integral part of the design was that they had these rotting autumn leaves for wings. So in a static state they would look just like leaves while resting on a tree. In fact, for the final shot in the short, I initially wanted Melissa to back away and we would reveal a full tree behind her that was literally 'brimming with faeries' – we just couldn’t afford to get it done. So the design of the faeries came first. We shot in April and just graded to be autumnal looking.
Are you faeries intelligent and therefore vengeful, or do they attack Melissa instinctively?
Hmm… I’ve never been asked that before… I guess they are mostly instinctive, as I wouldn’t imagine you could ‘reason’ with my faeries. The same way if you disturbed an ant hill, you would expect instinctive attack. But that said, do you consider ants intelligent? Well, they builds cities, farms, raises animals, and organize themselves into a complex society complete with social ranks such as nobles, soldiers, workers and slaves. I guess it depends on ones definition of intelligence.
Do you feel Melissa deserved her fate?
Yes and no.
Yes, in the sense of the fable like ‘fairy tale’ feel of it. Like the best of the Grimms Fairytales – a character learns a lesson the hard way. “Do what your Mother says” – Melissa doesn’t. “Don’t mess around with things you don’t know about,” “Looks can be deceiving,” etc. I also cast a young actress who had a kind of humorous brat like quality to her – so we would be able to stomach her demise that little bit easier!
No, in the sense that she is just a curious child who innocently follows a faerie. But that’s also the point in a way. The best deaths in horrors, certainly the most shocking ones, happen to characters who don’t truly deserve it.
Many thanks to Ciaran Foy for taking the time to answer my questions. Watch for his upcoming film, The Shee, in the near future.
*Full disclosure: I have a soft spot for this film. Then again, I also have a soft spot for Godzilla Vs. Megalon, so take that under advisement.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Rediscovered: John Barry's score for King Kong (1976 version)
I was 13 when I saw the Dino De Laurentiis version of King Kong. That's how it was promoted, and how it's remembered: few people recall the actual director (John Guillermin), or the cast besides then-newcomer Jessica Lange (Jeff Bridges played the hippie hero and Charles Grodin the comic villain). Instead of the Empire State Building, the poster showed Kong astride the towers of the then-new World Trade Center:
I didn't really like the movie--too much goofy romance, not enough monster-on-monster fighting--but I recognized the musical score as something special. Composed by John Barry, it had the majesty and scale entirely missing from the expensive but cheap-looking film. I bought the soundtrack album, one of the few ways in the pre-VHS era to take a movie "home" with you, and played it over and over. But as music delivery systems changed from vinyl to digital, a few gems were lost, among them Barry's score for King Kong.
John Barry wields a big baton in the movie music world. He essentially created the James Bond theme, though legal maneuvers kept it credited to Monty Norman. He scored most of the classic Bond films, as well as Born Free, Out of Africa and Dances with Wolves. He also scored some dogs: Raise the Titanic, The Legend of the Lone Ranger, and Howard the Duck. But even when working with utter drek, his scores never pandered: his music for Disney's dire The Black Hole captures more of the wonder and mystery of space than anything since the solar system lined up to "Also Sprach Zarathustra."
And his music for King Kong--briefly released on CD back in 2005, and now commanding collector's prices on Amazon--is even better. His opening theme hammers home Kong's stature, then shifts into a spooky section that promises suspense and danger. In his detailed liner notes for the CD, Stephen Woolston refers to this track as "a cloud of doom," but I'd call it a shroud of mystery: what I've always heard, in every track on the album, is storybook magic as opposed to monster-movie bombast. Barry's innovation--considering the girl Dwan as the main character, and her emotional relationship with Kong the true subject--was so brilliant that James Newton Howard also used it when scoring the recent Peter Jackson remake.
Above: Cover of the original vinyl soundtrack album circa 1976. Below: the main title music.
When I spoke to Woolston about the album he said, "I became a huge film music and John Barry fan when I was a teenager, largely due to my love for James Bond films. So, I started collected Barry's albums and seeing films scored by him whenever I could. I first came across Barry's Kong score on the original Arista LP, which I bought from 'Movie Boulevard' in Leeds in the '80s, probably back when it was still called 'Discount Soundtracks.'
"I actually like Barry's score more than the classic Max Steiner score for the original. I know that's heretical in soundtrack circles, but I feel Barry brought a real majesty, mystery, romanticism and tragedy to that score."
I agree. Steiner's original score is rightly regarded a classic for its Wagnerian use of leitmotivs and orchestrations. Perhaps Howard's score for the Jackson version will someday be as highly regarded, but I doubt it. I don't recall a single moment when that music gave me chills, or opened up a sense of wonder, or brought an unexpected tear to my eye. Barry's score did, and still does, all those things, in spite of accompanying a rather dire version of the story.
Buy the soundtrack here.
I didn't really like the movie--too much goofy romance, not enough monster-on-monster fighting--but I recognized the musical score as something special. Composed by John Barry, it had the majesty and scale entirely missing from the expensive but cheap-looking film. I bought the soundtrack album, one of the few ways in the pre-VHS era to take a movie "home" with you, and played it over and over. But as music delivery systems changed from vinyl to digital, a few gems were lost, among them Barry's score for King Kong.
John Barry wields a big baton in the movie music world. He essentially created the James Bond theme, though legal maneuvers kept it credited to Monty Norman. He scored most of the classic Bond films, as well as Born Free, Out of Africa and Dances with Wolves. He also scored some dogs: Raise the Titanic, The Legend of the Lone Ranger, and Howard the Duck. But even when working with utter drek, his scores never pandered: his music for Disney's dire The Black Hole captures more of the wonder and mystery of space than anything since the solar system lined up to "Also Sprach Zarathustra."
And his music for King Kong--briefly released on CD back in 2005, and now commanding collector's prices on Amazon--is even better. His opening theme hammers home Kong's stature, then shifts into a spooky section that promises suspense and danger. In his detailed liner notes for the CD, Stephen Woolston refers to this track as "a cloud of doom," but I'd call it a shroud of mystery: what I've always heard, in every track on the album, is storybook magic as opposed to monster-movie bombast. Barry's innovation--considering the girl Dwan as the main character, and her emotional relationship with Kong the true subject--was so brilliant that James Newton Howard also used it when scoring the recent Peter Jackson remake.
Above: Cover of the original vinyl soundtrack album circa 1976. Below: the main title music.When I spoke to Woolston about the album he said, "I became a huge film music and John Barry fan when I was a teenager, largely due to my love for James Bond films. So, I started collected Barry's albums and seeing films scored by him whenever I could. I first came across Barry's Kong score on the original Arista LP, which I bought from 'Movie Boulevard' in Leeds in the '80s, probably back when it was still called 'Discount Soundtracks.'
"I actually like Barry's score more than the classic Max Steiner score for the original. I know that's heretical in soundtrack circles, but I feel Barry brought a real majesty, mystery, romanticism and tragedy to that score."
I agree. Steiner's original score is rightly regarded a classic for its Wagnerian use of leitmotivs and orchestrations. Perhaps Howard's score for the Jackson version will someday be as highly regarded, but I doubt it. I don't recall a single moment when that music gave me chills, or opened up a sense of wonder, or brought an unexpected tear to my eye. Barry's score did, and still does, all those things, in spite of accompanying a rather dire version of the story.
Buy the soundtrack here.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Send a friend to GenCon with a copy of Blood Groove
The good folks at the Flames Rising horror webzine are running a cool contest: send a friend to GenCon in Indianapolis.
That's right, you don't enter the contest for yourself, but for a friend. And in addition to a four-day GenCon pass, the winner will receive a prize package that includes a signed copy of Blood Groove.
To enter a friend and find out more details, go here.
That's right, you don't enter the contest for yourself, but for a friend. And in addition to a four-day GenCon pass, the winner will receive a prize package that includes a signed copy of Blood Groove.
To enter a friend and find out more details, go here.
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