In Print, December 2018 (and Progress)

There is always a great sense of accomplishment when a contributor’s copy arrives, but sometimes it’s extra-special. The photo above shows the inaugural hard-back collection from Compelling Science Fiction, the pro marketplace which has now published three of my stories. Two (Cogito, Ergo Sum and Hostile Intent) are reprinted here, I’m one of only two writers with two pieces in this volume, and that’s another great compliment to my writing. To say I’m thrilled to hold this book in my hands is an understatement, and it will be proudly displayed on my “brag shelf” forevermore!

This volume was produced as a Kickstarter venture, which ran beyond its goals and has been a resounding success. All credit to the tireless efforts of editor Joe Stech, who has helped launch new writing talent in the marketplace in the two years-plus Compelling has been in action – I certainly consider myself among them.

A limited number of copies are for sale direct from the Compelling website, find the link on the homepage here.

Also launching this month is Future Visions #3, the third in this quarterly anthology serries, brainchild of editor Brian J. Walton. Released in electronic and physical formats, think of FV as a bumper science fiction magazine produced in book format (reminiscent of the fabulous old New Writings in SF series that ran to thirty-something paperback volumes in the ‘70s-‘80s period – I certainly hope FV encounters equal success!)  My story A Lament for Marla, a dystopian piece looking at climate reclamation efforts in a harsh future Australia, appears here for the first time.

Here’s the direct link to the paperback at Amazon (US).

As a point of interest, click my author link in the line of featured writers appearing in the Amazon page for this volume – there’s someone else by the same name whose material gets mixed in with mine, but you’ll find links to twenty publications featuring my work!

I have a fistful of short-listings in play, 65 placements, 66 stories out, and over fifty pieces neither placed nor on submission at this time – but more on the statistics when I do my third anniversary post in a few weeks.

Cheers, Mike Adamson

In Print, November 2018 (and Progress)

There was no corresponding post last month – many apologies, but October seemed to be a frustrating month all round, what with tying up the anthropology course at the university and things being generally slow on the writing front.

There were two placements, The Devil’s Bride at the pro venue Abyss & Apex (to be published as Scans at the suggestion of the editor) and the slightly rewritten Last Stop Paradise at Stupefying Stories. Nothing actually came out last month – well, Walking on Titan appeared in Aurealis 116 on the 30^th, but I felt it was a good leader for this month’s update. Interestingly, they gave my piece leader slot in promotional blurbs, and had an artist illustrate it with a colour header piece! You can order and download via Smashwords here.

I presently have 71 submission in play, with more than 1030 in total, 64 placements, and am still hopeful of coming close to matching last year’s overall performance.

The first big anthology from Compelling Science Fiction is due soon, there’ll be an update when it’s released.

Cheers, Mike Adamson

Recently Read: The Skylark of Space by E. E. Smith

Taking a break from other reading, I thought I would take a trip down memory lane. Edward Elmer Smith, known, for his PhD in Chemistry, as “Doc” to his legion of fans in the Golden Age, was one of the popular science fiction writers in the early generations of the genre. This, his first novel, was published in 1928, serialised in Amazing Stories under the hand of Hugo Gernsbach – ninety years ago! It is worth bearing in mind the novel was written between 1915 and 1921 when Smith was in university, and the first half of the story, set on Earth and comprising a scientific, industrial and espionage thriller, was co-written with Lee Hawkins Garby, wife of a colleague. (Smith is reputed to have always had his romantic material ghost written, he was good at space ships and vast machines, not lovey-dovey stuff.)  That’s over a hundred years ago! Al Capone was at the height of his powers when this novel was serialised, and Albert Einstein was the most influential cosmologist, with decades of work ahead of him.

I remember reading many years ago a comment from one of the big voices in the field, that it was “unfortunate” so many people were introduced to science fiction through the likes of E. E. Smith. I took immediate exception to the remark, having enjoyed his work as a kid, but many years later I can perhaps see where that critic was coming from.

The work was first collected under one cover in 1946, it was already venerable even then. So, how does a novel written so far back survive, through an infinitude of editions, today?

I first read this novel when I was about eleven – the same copy, the Panther edition of 1974. The striking Chris Foss cover of course has nothing to do with the content of the book, something for which Foss was notorious, though his style was an undoubted selling point for a great many paperbacks of the period. The Foss mystique was welded to the Panther/Grenada reissue of the E. E. Smith classics in the 70s and for me, as a young science fiction enthusiast, the covers leant a fascination and compulsion to what were even then very old narratives.

The story concerns a scientist making a serendipitous discovery akin to cold fusion, the total conversion of matter into energy, released in a controlled manner. This gives him and his partner fundamental control of propulsion (a reactionless space drive), weapons, tractor beams and instrumentation overcoming the limitations of physics as they were then understood. Of course, a voyage into deep space is planned, the construction of a vessel to embody all these technologies – and there’s a bad guy of Holmesian complexity, think an evil Sherlock, equal in scientific competence to the heroes but utterly devoid of scruple. Yes, Moriarty by any other name.

The heroes, Seaton and Crane, are comic book stereotypes – brilliant in the Bruce Wayne/Tony Stark way, champion athletes with rippling physiques they never seem to have to work at, iron-jawed and of both unshakeable courage and golden-headed adherence to the side of the angels – ruthless too, in their willingness of wage war with superior weapons on behalf of their conception of right. No “Prime Directives” here, just pile on and annihilate! Kill the aliens!

It’s fascinating to consider this first outing for a big name. The style is pulpy and underdeveloped in many ways, and his penchant for having his characters speak in the American slang of the period is both charming and irritating – confusing to me when I was a kid. His real science is liberally sprinkled in, while his flights of technical fancy are wonderful to behold. His dismissal of the “Einstein theory” as “just a theory” is rather quaint, allowing his space vessels to travel at thousands of times the speed of light, while acknowledging that inertia still applies! Nevertheless, this novel is recognised as the first work of “space opera,” the first even marginally convincing attempt to explain deep space flight by scientific means, and to bring together the elements of the violent and exotic juxtaposed with hard steel and furious energies.

The influences are rather clear, though – as a child I was not yet widely enough read to know what I was looking at or make some rather obvious connections. Smith was heavily influenced by Burroughs – his alien civilization of the planet Osnome, lit by the light of a fifteen-star cluster so that night is unknown, peopled by warrior societies locked in a 6000-year war, equipped with flying vessels of every sort and welded to a social order based on monarchy and notions of Darwinian fitness, is detailed luxuriously and drips inference of Burroughs’ Barsoom. This is hardly surprising, A Princess of Mars must have been on Smith's bookshelf when he first put an ink-dipped pen nib to paper. The planet is unremittingly hot, therefore clothes are rarely worn – the classic way to spice up the narrative with the bare skin forbidden by polite society of the age. Yet the social mores of the Twenties are painfully in focus, the proprieties are observed at all times, no sex before marriage – and of course there is a great wedding scene as both heroes and their girlfriends exchange cloying vows of eternal betrothal in a glittering alien spectacle. Smith spent an entire chapter on it, the public must have lapped it up. One sees the wedding of John Carter and Dejah Thoris as the precursor, and the wedding of Ming the Merciless and Dale Arden in Flash Gordon, made just a few years after Smith’s opus, as the inevitable Hollywood cash-in. (Viewed objectively, Flash Gordon channels Skylark of Space at so many levels.)

The novel has been edited many times, with major changes between 1928 and 1946, and Smith, still alive in the mid-1970s, reworked the text for a hardcover edition in 1975, abridging it and removing most of Garby’s contribution. This may be the same text as the 1974 Panther edition, which is noted as having been revised by the author, and there is no credit for a co-author. Revisions are clear when considering the early dates of original composition: the text, while never mentioning a date at which events take place (and Washington seems entirely contemporary, though Smith is careful to describe nothing stylistically, allowing the text to remain contemporary as cars lost their running boards and so forth) mentions nuclear energy, the supersonic jet, the helicopter, computer and television. This is a case of reality surging by a work of fiction, which was retrospectively updated in its details to keep pace.

Critical reaction has been mixed down the decades, with some recognising the novel’s influence upon the field, and others the almost painfully amateurish plot development. What fares worst a century on is perhaps the self-serving social model it supports – white Americans save the funny-coloured natives and are showered with fabulous wealth and elevated to the highest honours in the process. Perhaps it was not meant that way, and it may be unfair to saddle a period piece with the outlook of modern times, but we live in a hyper-sensitive age, and as surely as any other writers of the period, Smith operated inside his own social environment. There is one Asian in the story, a servant who speak Engrish poorly, and black people are non-existent, while women are definitely the weaker sex, forever trembling, clinging to male arms or trotting off to prepare food – oh yes, this is America a hundred years ago. In the sequels Smith became more adventurous, introducing action-woman characters, retiring the shrinking-violet model, but the original is painfully conservative.

An unmodified classic edition, crediting both authors, can be found at Project Guttenberg

Here is an excellent discussion of the liberties taken both artistically and scientifically in this and subsequent volumes.

Can I recommend this book today? It’s difficult to, other than as a curiosity, yet so seminal has its influence been that one would have to say it is required reading along with Verne and Welles for the serious aficionado of the genre. I found it less enthralling than Burroughs, less compelling than the SF outings of Clarke Ashton Smith, but it is what it is – the one that started it all. The Skylark really was the first starship of Earth.

Cheers, Mike Adamson

The Allure of Nice, Round Numbers

A couple of days ago my writing campaign passed a milestone, its 1000^th submission. A thousand submissions since January 7^th 2016, resulting in 62 acceptances to date, with currently 66 active submissions in play… Any way you look at it, that’s a lot! I would have to say, when I started I had no real conception of where it would go or how it would unfold, I just hoped for the best and proceeded in the belief that a breakthrough was possible. Even now, every single day, I log on with undimmed enthusiasm, looking for that next acceptance, but, far more often, taking a rejection and turning it around to another market in the firm conviction it’ll cross the desk of the editor who appreciates and wants it sooner or later.

It’s cause to celebrate, and the white mudcake went down very well. So, is it a reason to rest on my laurels? Well, no, those laurels are pretty thin even now, and only unremitting effort makes headway. I opened a second submissions results file as the master list is unwieldy enough at 1000 entries, and will continue as before. My next round of submissions are lined up, some titles reading as of September 15^th, so I’ll keep the pressure on – it’s become a way of life, really.

I have seven short-listings in play, probably my personal best, and a couple of submissions which are in very strong positions to turn into placements next year. With September being the heavy month for grading university papers I’ve not written a word in too long, but when I get back to it, I have some new material in notes to proceed with.

So, raising a glass to all future prospects, here’s to the future, may she be sweet, and may the next thousand submissions bring even greater success than the last!

Cheers, Mike Adamson

In Print, September 2018 (and Progress)

Some good news on a few fronts as we move into September. A few days ago, Alban Lake released the stand alone ebook/softback of my ghost novella The Last Train to Deakin Valley. This is my first outing as a solo author and, I hope, far from my last! You can order the book at Alban’s store here.

In other news, the Kickstarter campaign to fund the first print anthology of Compelling Science Fiction reached its stretch goal of 120% funded, so the promotional special issue of the magazine will feature five stories, not four. The print collection should be along in a few months but the digital special will be releasing very shortly, specifically for the 200+ backers.

I heard a couple of days ago from Andromeda Spaceways Magazine that my story “Triskellion’s Maze” has passed third readers, which puts it in the shortlist pool, so I should know something in the weeks and months ahead. Fingers crossed! This takes me to seven active short-listings – about my record, I believe.

I have 61 placements and earlier today made my 996^th submission. The big one thousand comes up very soon and will be worth a commemorative post!

Cheers, Mike Adamson

UPDATE

A couple of things to add under “Progress” for this month.

My hard SF short Walking on Titan has been bought by Aurealis to appear in issue #116. Apparently it passed some six readings to do so. This is my second appearance in Aurealis, Australia’s longest-running science fiction magazine, my last being Fear of the Dark in #104. And I have another short-listing, my contemplative-philosophic flash piece “Pilgrim in the Ruins” is being held by Kferrin.com for a slot maybe through into next year. News as it breaks, as ever…

UPDATE

Something extra under the “In Print” heading, my flash story Colour Therapy just went live at New Myths online magazine, and you can read the story right here.

Recently Read: The Moon of Skulls by Robert E. Howard

Last Christmas a package of books was under the tree for me, three old classics found at the largest remainder bookstore in the state, and I’ve had the pleasure of consuming them at my leisure, intermingled with others from the same source, reviewed previously.

Howard is most famous as the creator of Conan, but among his prolific writings are found many other heroes – F. X. Gordon, Kirby O’Donnell, King Kull, Sailor Costigan, Bran Mak Morn, Cormac Mac Art, and the central figure of this collection, Solomon Kane. The Solomon Kane stories are set in the 16^th – 17^th centuries and follow the wanderings of an English Puritan, a solider of fortune whose iron will and combative prowess take him to the far corners of the world, and through grim adventures with dark, supernatural twists. The introduction to this classic 1966 paperback collection, copyrighted by the late Glenn Lord, the agent to the Howard estate, describes him as sombre, black-clad, powerful without being of overwhelming stature, and the sort of tortured character who is eternally driven, searching for something he may never find.

                  

Three stories appear here, a quarter of Howard’s output on the character, and the titular piece, about half the volume, was first published in August, 1928 (in Weird Tales, of course.) This adventure is set in “darkest Africa,” inland from the slaver coasts, and sees Kane venturing alone into that “heart of darkness” to the rescue of an English woman abducted long ago and passed from hand to hand as a captive until fetching up in the lost kingdom of Negari. Here the psychopathic queen Nakari rules amongst the crumbling, cyclopean ruins of an earlier glory, where brutal rites and human sacrifice mark her ambitions to expand kingdom to empire, and Kane brings down these dreams in fire and fury in the course of the rescue. Wandering through the black depths of the ancient fortress, he encounters a dying captive, the last descendent of the original priesthood, who tells him of the origins of this lost fortress-city – that they were survivors from doomed Atlantis, whose glories have faded, usurped into barbarism down the thousands of years as those they took as slaves overcame the few Atlanteans and built their own power.

When reading texts from ninety years ago one is keenly aware of the change in times. Howard wrote this story in an age of broad-brimmed hats and waistcoats, of running-boards on cars, of candlestick-telephones, when Al Capone was the most feared name in Chicago, and Adolph Hitler was a political radical not long out of prison for organising the “Beer-Hall Putsch” of 1926. Racism is endemic to the era and one must make allowances for the nature of description – for descriptive language reflects prevailing expectations. Howard describes his African warriors as mighty giants, valorous in the extreme, yet of limited nature: a schism between the white man and his African cousins cannot help being in focus. His attribution of savagery, unthinking destruction and brutal slaughter, to a racial basis, makes one cringe today, and to read the piece is to be keenly aware of how far we have come in our social thought. That said, he was probably fairer in his imagery than many another writer of the times.

The second story, Skulls in the Stars, much shorter, follows supernatural slayings upon the moors and marshes of some unspecified place in rural England – justice at the point of a sword for an old miser whose murder of his brother gave birth to a horror that slays by night, and only in his own passing at the hands of the monster will his soul be cleansed. Howard weaves the fanatical Christianity of the era into his tales skilfully, including apt Bible quotations as his hero finds divine logic in the doings of fate and his own survival against all odds.

The third piece, The Footfalls Within, takes Kane back to Africa, where he encounters the misery of an Arab slaver column, and though taken captive, with guile sets one against another until tricking them to a night-begotten temple with tales of riches, where they will be undone by the horror that waits upon trespassers – thus freeing the captives. In this Howard demonstrates the loathing for coarse slavery widely felt in his time as well as in our own, and casts Kane as the hand of justice. He couches it in a convincing Biblical speech of the era, and glories in setting a lone hero against overwhelming odds – yet is not above ju-ju magic saving the day for his Puritan.

Howard was just 22 when he created this character and in many ways his writing is far beyond such a tender age today. He writes with the verve and pace of youthful energy, but with a depth of understanding of the way the world works we today associate with greater maturity. He was a king of the pulps, one of the best remembered authors of his era, is credited with invention of the sword & sorcery genre, and his legacy lives on in enthusiastic tributes as the current century continues; thus it is of great interest to look back on his work, understand it in the context of the time when it was written, and to enjoy the adventure for its own sake.

Cheers, Mike Adamson

Progress, August 2018

There can be lengthy periods of inactivity, then a flurry of “trade” falls more or less together. Following the selection of both my stories with Compelling for their first hardback print anthology a couple of days ago, today I scored another double.

Lovecraftiana picked up my comedy-horror The Forgotten Supremo for their spring edition, bringing me to five stories with the magazine to date, and Alien Dimensions picked up my SF piece Innocuous but Lethal. This latter was first published about twenty years ago at the HMS Beagle website run by Elsevier Scientific, an outlet which has not existed in well over a decade. They published short fiction highlighting the biological sciences and I was happy to oblige with this xenobiological short. They asked for 1500 words, but in an expansive mood asked me to double the length for an action conclusion. Here's a screen shot from The Submission Grinder – as you can see, they were both very quick turnarounds!

Both pieces will be coming out in the next couple of months, watch for covers and purchase links as soon as they come available.

I have a story at second-tier consideration with Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, the sword-and-planet adventure “Tymass by Ring-Light,” so here’s hoping the gods smile.

Also, Galaxy’s Edge have had some problems with their direct submission engine (having recently changed from submission by invitation only) and today I was able to remake a submission which had gone missing, so fingers crossed there. And Alban Lake are moving ahead on preparation of my stand-alone paranormal novella The Last Train to Deakin Valley, so watch out for news of this one soon.

UPDATE

A couple of days after this post went up, I scored an extra placement, my short story Rebirth was acquired by Compelling Science Fiction to appear in a special promotional edition (number “11.5”) as a sweetener on the Kickstarter campaign for the anthology mentioned in the previous post. This is a great honour, and my third placement with the magazine!

And at mid-month, my hard SF short "Walking on Titan" was short-listed at Aurealis, I should know something in a few weeks -- fingers crossed this will be my second spot with the magazine.

Cheers, Mike

Selected for a New Anthology!

August opens with some most welcome news, the excellent online magazine Compelling Science Fiction is launching a best-of print anthology, and both my placements with the mag, Cogito, Ergo Sum and Hostile Intent, have been chosen to feature. Above is the proposed cover, which should look very impressive around a hardback!

The project is being funded by Kickstarter, a mechanism with quite a record of successful ventures. Here’s the link.

Do consider pledging a few bucks to help this collection get off the launchpad – you’ll be midwifing at the re-birth of 27 top-notch tales in a very attractive package! There’s a variety of backer rewards to choose from, up to and including (the most expensive pledge) a mini-convention in the Colorado Rockies next year!

More news as it breaks,

Cheers, Mike Adamson

In Print, July 2018 (and Progress) Addendum

In the weeks I’ve been down two anthologies have been released featuring my work. From B Cubed press, find my piece Hellrider in the collection Afterthe Orange, politically-themed SF for troubled times. (Will see if I can upload a better image!)

And from “A Murder of Storytellers” you’ll find my story The Moth and the Candle in the anthology Dies Infaustus, a collection of nautically-themed horror/dark fantasy pieces.

Both are well worth a look!

Cheers, Mike Adamson

Blog's Back Up, Now!

Apologies for the blog being a bit quiet lately! There were some technical issues – basically I lost the ability to sign into the standard blog – view it no bother, but sign in ceased to work so the blog became un-editable. This is common, apparently, among older blogs, when password confusion sets in, and I ran afoul of something similar, the old Google umbrella app situation causing conflicts. The slightest (unwitting) change in the global setting and the local password was compromised.

Well, salvation was at hand – there was an old version of the blog abandoned as soon as it was started due to other global problems, and I went back into that, found it editable, and over two days migrated the entire contents of the old blog into it. 81 posts, including every illustration, completely rebuilt, the only difference being that the posts are all now on a common upload date, and each is annotated with the original date of publication. The month of July 2018 contains all previous posts – confusing, maybe, but that’s as good as it’s going to get.

There are changes in the wind, a new visual layout/scheme and there’ll be a quick-link column to the right, under the posts list, displaying the covers of all my published work, so you’ll have rapid access to either free reads or point-of-sale.

Plenty of new posts to come, there’ll be book reviews and heads-up notice of new releases.

For those who have bookmarked my blog, please note the address is now very slightly different!

Stay tuned!

Cheers, Mike Adamson

Header art from a royalty-free site.

In Print, July 2018 (and Progress)

This post was first uploaded on Sunday 1^st July, 2018. Archived posts have been recovered following irretrievable login problems.

Just released, catch my “Middle Stars” piece The One that is All in the latest edition of Outposts of Beyond, from Alban Lake. Print or digital editions, click here.

Also, a few days ago my “Middle Stars: The Colonial War” short “Elusive Target” was shortlisted at NewMyths, and there should be a decision by October.

I recently made my 925^th submission, so I’m closing in on that thousand! I still have over seventy pieces on submission, though new material has been slower in appearing this year than last.

Cheers,

Mike Adamson

In Print, June 2018 (and Progress)

This post was first uploaded on Tuesday 19^th June, 2018. Archived posts have been recovered following irretrievable login problems.

June 20^th will always be a sombre day for me, as it’s a year today I lost my Mom. I wish she could have lived to see the strides I’ve made as a writer, I’ll always regret that she has not had the pleasure of enjoyong developments as they came about.

Releasing today is the anthology Wavelengths, an SF collection focussing on modes of communication, from JayHenge Press. The volume features my story Sing to Me, the Alien Said, one of my “Tales of the Middle Stars” opus. It’s available in ebook and print editions through Amazon USand Amazon UK.

The anthology After the Orange, featuring my story Hellrider, is coming out shortly, final proofs have been seen, so watch this space for links.

Here’s the link to the Nature/Futures blog with my discussion of Masques (see entry for May 30^th):

Here’s the cover of the edition containing the story:

And here’s the free online archive of the story itself.

Nature, in print and electronic editions in a variety of languages, is estimated to reach eight million readers, and it’s quite a thrill to imagine science professionals all over the world turning to the inside back page and browsing the week’s SF outing!

Cheers,

Mike Adamson

In Print, May 2018 (and Progress) Addendum

This post was first uploaded on Friday 25^th May, 2018. Archived posts have been recovered following irretrievable login problems.

I’ve never before needed to do two “in print” pieces in the same month but I think the news is worth it. Masques is appearing in the edition of Nature due on the 31^st – I’ve approved a proof copy of the page and am absolutely delighted with it. I’ve penned an entry for their blog discussing the motivations for the piece, and will provide a link as soon as it comes available.

Also at the proof stage is Hellrider for the anthology After the Orange, a volume of socio-political commentary tales for our troubled era.

In other news, Alban Lake Publishing are picking up my ghost novella The Last Train to Deakin Valley, a 23, 000-worder set in the Peak District of Derbyshire. At this length it’ll be under its own cover, a stand-alone release, my first so far (and I trust not the last!) I should have more details soon.

And Heroic Fantasy Quarterly have my sword and sorcery piece “The Dreamer in the Dark” under short-list consideration, for which I have my fingers tightly crossed.

Cheers, Mike Adamson

NB: Header image from a royalty-free image site.

In Print, May 2018 (and Progress)

This post was first uploaded on Friday 4^th May, 2018. Archived posts have been recovered following irretrievable login problems.

Appearing just a few days late is Lovecraftiana Vol.3 No.1, featuring my story Arcanum Miskatonica, a fiendish event in the cloisters of modern day Miskatonic Uuiversity, Arkham, Massachusetts. This is my fourth appearance in the magazine over their nine issues to date, making me a semi-regular contributor. Click here to order.

Also just put is Bloodbond for May, 2018, from Alban Lake, a specialist vampire magazine, featuring my Lucinda Crane adventure Stalking Nemesis. This one was meant to appear in the edition six months ago but was postponed to this current volume. Print and digital editions available, click here to order.

A couple of placements have come in over the last 24 hours, the anthology Temporal Fractures: (Mis)adventures in Time, published by Specul8 in Queensland, picked up my piece With Scientific Detachment, for a planned December release. However, the best news in a while is that my flash short Masques has been picked up by Nature Futures. Futures is the science fiction feature in the back page of the great biological sciences journal Nature, and they pay a very handsome professional rate. I could not be more thrilled!

UPDATE --

The anthology Dies Infaustus, from 'A Muder of Storytellers'  has picked up my short story The Moth and the Candle, one of the peripheral tales to my Ocean saga, begun long, long ago but hopefully with a future I can build toward. That's two which have found homes so far!

The Chronos Chronicles has at last been released, this was one of my earliest acceptances, from late 2016, a time travel piece titled The Winds of Time. You can order the paperback here.

Cheers, Mike Adamson

Recently Read: “The Zhukov Briefing” by Anthony Trew

This post was first uploaded on Wednesday 2^nd May, 2018. Archived posts have been recovered following irretrievable login problems.

From the perspective of a troubled 21^st century it’s often interesting to look back on earlier chapters of turbulent history – Alastair Maclean’s Ice Station Zebra is a classic, evoking the Cold War of the 1960s in a taut, exciting package, and standard against which many are judged to this day. There have been more espionage thrillers written and filmed than you can shake a stick at, they became very much a sub-genre in their own right, and the South African writer the late Anthony Trew (1906 – 1996), while his first forte was perhaps the sea in general, made an interesting contribution with his 1975 outing The Zhukov Briefing.

I know Trew’s work from my early exposure, e.g., Death of a Supertanker (1978), which I read in the 1980s, but I was never able to collect as many of his novels as I would have liked, and on a recent foray into the state’s biggest book exchange I happened upon The Zhukov Briefing, in the Fontana edition I am most familiar with from those days.

Some may recall the prolonged dramas in the Baltic in the 1990s as the Swedish military scoured their coastal waters for Soviet submarines lying close inshore, presumably conducting espionage, so this novel, written twenty years earlier as a work of fiction, is somewhat prescient. It features a Soviet ballistic missile submarine going aground on the Norwegian island of Vrakoy, and the political and espionage wrangles surrounding it during the week before Russian salvage teams can refloat it. Not just any boat, of course, but the newest, biggest and most secret, thus the Russians’ haste to downplay its importance and the West’s rush to score an intelligence coup, through the abduction of a Russian officer and a clever attempt to offload blame by trying to convince him he had been taken by Chinese agents.

Clearly, Trew is at his best when writing about the sea itself and the technology with which humans tackle it. The opening chapters, describing the Zhukov getting into difficulty on her cruise from Leningrad to Murmansk via the Baltic and Norwegian Seas, are the most compelling part of the book, as once the submarine has been safely grounded to save her from doing down (an explosion in the forward torpedo room compromised her hull) the narrative changes character. It becomes a series of initiatives executed by a plethora of characters, enough for it to become a little difficult at times to remember who’s who, and the pace and conviction of the opening section is never quite recovered. The Russian captain, so central to events at the beginning, is quite forgotten by the end. However, the tiny island and its isolated community is brought to life well, such that one can visualise it easily.

As a picture of the espionage community over forty years ago it is an interesting window on the past – this is the age before personal computers or mobile phones, telex was in use (a predecessor to fax), when aircraft designed in the 1950s remained in service, and World War II was in easy living memory – one character had been a Quisling, a Norwegian Nazi collaborator, for instance. Either Trew runs askew on some technical details or the typset introduced errors (the presentation of the text features a fair few typographical problems), “Lockheed SR-1A operating from the Keflavik Air Base,” is clearly a typo for SR-71, but they operated out of Beal AFB in California, and did not land during missions, refuelling as often as necessary. Perhaps this was not fully appreciated in 1975. Narrative is neither as flowing nor as tidily trimmed as is typically demanded these days, but he flourishes when evoking the Arctic seaways.

It’s an entertaining read if you can get your thinking gear around the dozens of characters coming and going, and there are some clever twists toward the end. If you’re in the mood for an historical thriller and fancy some steel-and-salt-water, this one stands up well 43 years on.

Cheers, Mike Adamson

Recently Read: “A Ravel of Waters” by Geoffrey Jenkins

This post was first uploaded on Friday 30^th March, 2018. Archived posts have been recovered following irretrievable login problems.

I became a fan of South African sea novelist the late-Geoffrey Jenkins in my late teens/early 20s, when my fascination with all things marine and submarine blossomed – not many years before I learned SCUBA diving and went to work with dolphins for an all-too brief period. I collected the classic Fontana editions with the brilliant Chris Foss wraparound covers and thoroughly enjoyed them. But a few I was never able to grab, and recently found a mint copy of his 1981 novel A Ravel of Waters at a truly amazing second hand book dealer.

                           

South Africa, as a country bordered by three oceans, has produced a number of noteworthy sea-writers, Anthony Trew and Wilbur Smith amongst them. Jenkins wrote principally about the sea, with a military espionage/thriller twist. His first novel, A Twist of Sand was published in 1958 and over the following twenty years he produced some epic adventures set around the stormy coasts of his native Africa, and in the Southern Ocean which fascinated him. Some would say he was somewhat written out by the 1980s, his 1984 outing Fireprint I remember struck me as a bit forced, lacking the creative spark of his earlier work.

A Ravel of Waters was hailed as a long-awaited comeback piece, and I enjoyed his dramatic turn of phrase when describing the wild Southern Ocean, one of his favourite localities for drama (see especially the brilliant Scend of the Sea and Southtrap). The story features the then-current technical proposal to bring back sail power for commercial carriers, and do so with space-age flair, hi-tech materials, computerised control, critical design developed with wind-tunnel experimentation to get far more power from sails than was ever dreamed of in the golden age. The experimental tallship Jetwindis on her maiden proving voyage, the vital leg of which is from Argentina to South Africa, through the turmoil of the far south. One can sense the writer’s enthusiasm when discussing the mechanics of re-imagined sail power, he is at his most passionate when bringing the vessel to life.

In 1981, the political situation down there revolved around Argentina’s claim to the Falkland Islands, which erupted into war the following year. The novel takes place in the period of unrest between Britain and Argentina, though the Galtieri regime is not mentioned by name, nor does the name of Thatcher appear anywhere. This was also deep in the Cold War and the east-west tensions of the period form the over-riding background, that sees an Argentine extremist and his cadre ally themselves with the Soviet Union in preparation for a Falklands incursion with Russia’s tacit support, involving taking over the Jetwind as a political pawn.

The hero is Peter Rainier, a young solo yachtsman who has just crossed the same stretch of ocean in another hi-tech sailing vessel. This prompts him to be offered command of Jetwind after her skipper dies in a mysterious accident, and the vessel’s Argentinian first officer puts her about to Port Stanley in the Falklands where she is laid up for reasons no one can determine. An Argentine warship is dispatched to impound the ship, but Rainier gets them to sea in a hair-raising night escape. The first officer must of course hijack them, and takes them to a rendezvous in mid-ocean where a Russian naval contingent is using a vast grounded iceberg as a secret harbour. The iceberg known as Trolltonga was a genuine object, the largest ever observed to that time, it calved from Antarctica in 1965 and its last remnants melted in the latitudes of New Zealand in 1978; Jenkins used it with artistic license as the locality for his finale some years after that date.

The First Officer, Grohman, comes across fairly manic, as might be expected, but somewhat cardboard in his bad-guy-ness. One must remind oneself, no one on this ship is over 28 years of age, not even those ex-Navy and secret service, and it is a little difficult to relate to men of determination and action who are half one’s years. Ships at sea typically benefit from the experience of many years at the senior level, and though the circumstances are somewhat extenuating, it’s very youth-oriented.

The romantic interest comes between Rainier and the sailmaker, Kay Fenton, a romance which blossoms somewhat haphazardly, crystallizing when Kay goes overboard in a fall from the yards and is rescued by the skipper in a small-boat action. However, Jenkins’ age certainly plays a part in his expression – he was 61 when this book was published and when it comes to romantic dialogue he has twenty-somethings speaking in the vernacular of the 1940s – few young, dynamic types in 1981 called each other “darling.”

I feel Jenkins underplayed the ending. Short sentences are a fairly transparent device to imply pace, and his staccato narrative jars against his smooth expression earlier in the book. The closing chapters would have been too late to introduce new characters, so the Soviet naval squadron remains impersonal, mere background to the conflict of the principals. The action is at least a little contrived – times and distances are mysteriously ignored – are we dealing with fifty metres or five hundred? We have a few minutes before everything blows up, can a man in a survival suit really swim X distance in the time available? Can a cold water survival suit really cushion a man against a fall from the heights, inside a cylindrical metal mast? And so forth.

The Russian naval flotilla is blown sky high during an operation to refuel from a special reserve sunk on the oceanic bank which had grounded the berg – somewhat convenient, perhaps, yet Jenkins mysteriously underplays the episode. Perhaps we are inured to vast SFX sequences in Hollywood blockbusters, the sort of imagery this novel cries out for, but the visuals of the narrative fall short by today’s expectations.

Overall, A Ravel of Waters was an entertaining read, at its best when rhapsodizing about the mechanics of sail propulsion and the lonely, terrifying reaches of the Southern Ocean. If you enjoy a pacy thriller with action and exotic locales, and can overlook the odd shortcoming in dialogue and narrative, it’s well worth a look, and the international tensions of the pre-Falklands War period are interesting to look back on from nearly four decades hence.

Cheers, Mike Adamson.

When Research is Fun: Peter Ackroyd’s London, the Biography

This post was first uploaded on Sunday 25^th March, 2018. Archived posts have been recovered following irretrievable login problems.

Maybe it takes a geek, nerd or dweeb to revel in a textbook, but we do exist and sometimes textbooks are a joy. I’m not talking calculus, nor French syntax, though I’d warrant there are mathematicians and linguists who would get a real charge from them. I’m talking more from the standpoint of a history buff who scans for writing inspiration, and recently had the pleasure of working through 800+ pages of delight.

Peter Ackroyd’s London, the Biography is not strictly a textbook, of course, but a popular volume: one of my most enjoyable reads in a long time. It was picked up in a book exchange for me last year by my family, and when I finally got around to tackling the intimidating brick of a book, I discovered a lively, light-scholarly text so packed with fascinating information it amazed at the turn of every page. This is Ackroyd’s academic field, his works are numerous and I will be on the lookout for others. As a Brit ex-pat I have an enduring interest in my mother-country, and have visited London on a few occasions. The city as a focus of historic development, of empire and a crossroads of the world is a story of almost unimaginable scope; Ackroyd traces human habitation on the site from the Bronze Age to the present day, though the volume, while trending from the ancient to the modern, is not in fact arranged chronologically, but by topic areas.

Fascinating information, facts and figures, spill from its pages. Past ages are brought to life through the words of those present from Roman times onward, and the city is seen as a separate entity from the country around it. The city remained, snug inside its Roman walls, throughout Late Antiquity, when Britain returned to a largely tribal state and the few civitates struggled to preserve the order of Imperial times within their own boundaries. Yet Londinium remained, prospered, spread and sprawled, and was rebuilt many times. The city burned over and over, the great fire of 1666 is the one best recorded by history, but it was merely one of many in the ages when flammable structures crowded close in rookeries and warrens.

Every topic is covered – religion, civic planning, architecture, ethnicities and immigration, the royal seat, trade and empire, ancient and modern warfare, pollution, transport, sewerage, technical innovation, art, literature, disease, crime and punishment, the horrors of the old prisons – I never knew the gallows at Tyburn were designed to hang 24 at once…

A fair few stories suggested themselves to me as I worked through the book, and I wrote up notes for some. The volume provides an extensive bibliography so the sources for further reading on specifics are there. As a window on the London of medieval, Tudor, Elizabethan, Cromwellian, Georgian and Victorian times, this book is remarkable, bringing the ages to life both with direct citation and a pithy and perceptive interpretation of the ocean of records which still exist.

Under the streets of London are the cities of the past, and it is amazing to discover that there are streets which have followed the same course for over a thousand years. Layer upon layer of foundations can be located, Roman relics are common, and throughout the city one may chart waves of development and redevelopment, the poor in the industrial warrens of the east, the wealthy in the swank suburbs of the west, while south of the river burgeoned in crime and squalor from the 1600s onward. And what about the old London Bridge? A marvel of medieval engineering, a castle-like span bearing over 100 buildings, many four stories tall, which lasted until only a few hundred years ago – what a feat for the age!

Similarly, the people of the past are brought to vivid life, with verbal portraiture of the maladies of congested urban life – the effects upon people of vast population and great want. London was known as the deepest pit of poverty, filth and disease in Western Europe, and possibly the world, European travellers were appalled by the conditions they encountered. Yet every voice is heard, from guildsmen of Chaucer’s day to the journals of Samuel Pepys (his eye witness account of the great fire is especially evocative), the writings of Charles Dickens and his contemporaries, a host of civil commentators throughout the ages – too many to enumerate, but all serving to bring history to life.

If, like me, you enjoy history for its own sake, with or without the archaeological perspective, and have any affinity for Britain, I thoroughly recommend London, the Biography. It was my bedside companion for some two months and I have not reshelved it yet – it is so natural to pick it up and immerse myself in history for just a little longer!

Cheers, Mike Adamson

In Print, March 2018 (and Progress)

This post was first uploaded on Sunday 4^th March, 2018. Archived posts have been recovered following irretrievable login problems.

I’m delighted to start off the month with my very first podcast! My fantasy short Devotions (first published in 2013 in the online mag Spirit & Spell) was picked up by Centropic Oracle and the podcast went live on March 2nd. Read by Charly Thomas, it’s a nice seven-minute listen. Interestingly, though I did not specifically describe the first-person narrative character, CO has interpreted the protagonist as female, while it has always been male in my own mind, and indeed was illustrated male for S&S.

Listen to the podcast right here.

Also going live is the promotional blog at Flame Tree Publishing for their next pair of anthologies going on release, and I scored a placement with Endless Apocalypse for my SF short Flight of the Storm God, one of my “Post-Habitable Earth” stories. The blog showcases author Q&As, and you can catch my commentaries on this and the next instalment with regard to my piece.

A rather special accolade came my way recently, as my story Hostile Intent, which appeared in Compelling Science Fiction #10, has received a first-round nomination for this year's Hugo Awards in the Best Novelette category. Of course, this means very little, as those which become official nominees are the five stories in each category which garner the most overall votes, and it's doubtful the story will have enough exposure to draw that kind of attention. There again, if anyone reading this is a member of the World Science Fiction Society and eligible to vote, you know which story I hope you'll vote for!

Update:

The second round promo blog for Endless Apocalypse went live on 8/3/18, you can read it here.

And on the same day I picked up my seventh simultaneous shortlisting (a new personal best), my historic-horror tale "The Moth and the Candle" has passed first readers at the anthology Dies Infaustus.

On March 14th an eighth short-listing came up; this time my "Middle Stars" piece "The Dreaming Giants" is currently held for further consideration at Aurealis. Definitely a new record!

Cheers, Mike Adamson

Further Progress

This post was first uploaded on Monday 19^th February, 2018. Archived posts have been recovered following irretrievable login problems.

Since my last post I’ve had a run of success (droughts and monsoons seem to go in cycles…) and I have some new placements to record here.

Lovecraftiana have taken another story from me, Arcanum Miskatonica, for the Walpurgisnacht, 2018 edition. This is a modern day story which sees the shadow of terrible things stir in the ivy cloisters of a certain New England university.

The political anthology After the Orange has accepted my dystopian piece Hellrider, which looks at the horrors of facist America in the decades ahead.

Also on the future political theme, my SF vengeance piece Hunters in the Maze was picked up for the anthology Unrealpolitik, from Jay Henge – my third piece with them.

And finally, my “Middle Stars” piece On the Shoulder of a God placed today with Selene Quarterly, sister publication to Helios Quarterly in which I was featured early last year.

Eight days remain in the month – I wonder if a fifth placement might come along? If so, it would be a new personal best!

Cheers, Mike Adamson

(Header image obtained from a royalty-free site)

Lost in the Rush

This post was first uploaded on Wednesday 7^th February, 2018. Archived posts have been recovered following irretrievable login problems.

Talk about missing one completely – here’s the anthology Sword and Planet, from Rogue Planet Press, published March 6^th last year! My story By the Moons of Grolph is featured, a fantasy/SF mash-up establishing a world I’d love to return to at some point.

Here’s the POD sales link.

All told I now have five placements with Horrified Press/Rogue Planet, and I should think there’ll be others in due course.

Cheers,

Mike Adamson

PS: I passed 800 submissions yesterday!