Harry Harrison is dead!



 I have always considered The Stainless Steel Rat as the book that moved me from kiddy fair to 'grown-up' books when I read it 10 years old. It was a revelation to me in its witty approach and amoral universe. To Asimov, Bradbury, Moorcock, Dick and beyond, it all started with Slippery Jim Di Griz.

The voice of Harrison's fiction - in particular his more comical output - and the tight conceptual frameworks that he works within - like in Deathword or The Captive Universe - have been huge influences on my own writing. Panoptica definitely reflects that same snide, uncommitted satirical voice that's inclined to believe that everyone's an idiot.

A couple of years afterwards I wrote a letter to 2000AD (my one and only time) suggesting they could adapt classic sci fi novels, and suggesting The Stainless Steel Rat. Six or eight months later, guess what? I've never been able to find out if there was a connection between my letter and this adaptation (let's face it, probably not), but I flatter myself that I had a small hand in this.

I had the great good fortune to meet the great man at a party for (IIRC) Gollancz sometime at the end of the 90s, where I was intorduced by (name drop name drop!) Kim Newman. I burbled about the huge influence he had on me and the role he played in my development as a reader and writer. He was kind enough to listen benevolently, chat amiable and then wish me well.

He left some wonderful, timeless books and had a good long life, so I suppose we shouldn't be too sad. We only get one life and it's up to us to use it for the bast. Harry Harrison did that. I'll be raising a glass to him tonight.

Fantastic review of Panoptica

The Zone has published a bracingly positive review of Panoptica by Steven Hampton.

"Patrick Hudson's bold approach ensures that Panoptica is refreshingly appealing in its briskly paced jumble of satirical plot, and polemical digressions about everything from trickledown environmentalism to catwalk  fashionista parades.

"... many of the author's contract clause quips and exclusive gags about suburban mores, generalised social malaise and interposed specificity, are quite frequently hilarious.

"Fans of Jeff Noon's Vurt and the 'avant pulp' of Pixel Juice, Steve Aylett's 'Beerlight' stories (see Crime Studio), Rob Grant's Incompetence, Jack Womack's Elvissey, Max Barry's bar-coded Jennifer Government, Tricia Sullivan's Maul, and Robert Rankin's sardonic wit should enjoy this."

What fantastic praise! I also appreciated his nods to Robert Sheckley and John Sladek - those writers and others like them are very strong influences on Panoptica.

Of course, eagle-eyed readers will note that The Zone is the venue that publishes my own reviews. The only favour I've received here is that Tony gave the book a gentle nudge in the reviewer's direction. It's tough getting mainstream venues like The Zone to look at self-published material and so I freely admit my prior relationship helped here.

However, I think The Zone has demonstrated in the past that it's happy to monster its friends if they deserve it: only the good survive The Zone!

I'm somewhat relieved, therefore at the highly positive review. Phew!

Panoptica feels like a warped dream or a British Thomas Pynchon novel

Four star review of Panoptica on goodreads and Sift Reviews.

The review's not entirely enthusiastic, and another thumbs down for Gary and Pete - what's the matter with you people!

But still - four stars! Come on stray browsers seeking pictures of Priapus - buy my novel!

Panoptica review from The Future Fire Reviews

A fantastic new review of Panoptica at The Future Fire Reviews. Steve Pirie says:

"The relentless pace, the madness, the often chaotic leap from exaggerated voyeuristic concept to the people’s endless appetite for ‘the show’ is perfect to illustrate such a dystopian London Hudson is rattling at us from the page. Given today’s appetite for Big Brother, X-Factor and their like, it’s not too far a leap to make. ... a terrifically fun and entertaining read."

Living through the gold rush

A bank clerk

On reflection, there are some perverse economic incentives going on in the fiction industry. I have a suspicion that creative writing MAs are producing a number of writers (maybe a dozen a year, if I were to stick my neck out) who get two book deals for low advances and are then folded back in to the creative writing education as a way of making ends meet, and then create more such writers and so on and so forth.

A review of Film School: The True Story of a Midwestern Family Man Who Went to the World’s Most Famous Film School, Fell Flat on His Face, Had a Stroke, and Sold a Television Series to CBS in the Los Angeles Review of Books sums it up nicely:

Today, while film schools remain seductive, they have dropped the grit and doubled down on the glamour; their sharp edges have been carefully filed off and their values have been kid-tested, mother-approved. The still prevailing myth of the film-student-as-rebel obscures the banal truth: These are highly profitable institutions, buttressed by a wildly irresponsible student loan system preying on thousands of starry-eyed individuals all vying for “their shot.”

Panoptica - two new reviews!

Well, newish. I haven't perhaps been as on to it about this, time being pressing, as ever.

Anyway, over on amazon.co.uk Mike Davey gives it four stars saying "This book's style is Swift meets Dick with a dash of Vonnegut. A great first novel with satire thats cuts like a katana!"

Meanwhile, on amazon.com Jeffrey Hewitt (author of A Reflection of Glass) gives it another four star review. "This is an excellent first novel! The pace is insane - like a clown on a downhill slope riding on an out-of-control train greased with lightning, satire, and sharp British wit."

Panoptica has international appeal, and is good for what ails you! And a print-on-demand version is coming soon - luddites, watch this space!

My Reading Year 2011

Well, all in all, 2011 wasn't quite as horrible as 2010. I have a new job and will be shortly moving house, so it's all change here. A change is as good as a holiday, as they say, although having cashed-in a week of leave at my old place before starting at my new job, I have to wonder if that's true.

At the end of the year, I self-published Panoptica as an ebook on amazon, thus surfing the breaking wave of publishing phenomenon or throwing my lot in with a passing fad, depending on which way the future goes. To be honest, it's hard to imagine the impact of ereader going away. Maybe it'll all be through more—sophisticated tablet computer things, but it's clearly here to stay and has some expansion yet to do.

It's nice, however, to have it out of my hair, buried in the torrent of slurry, so I can move on to the next project. I'm not sure if my own entry comes a little late, and publicity remains a challenge, but at least it's out there. If you're a regular reader of this blog, I urge you to buy a copy – I mean, at worst it'll sit on your hard-drive harming no one. You might even enjoy reading it, but if you do, don't forget to leave a review on amazon! (A hard copy version is coming soon!)

Okay, that's the sponsorship over with. Let's get serious. Let's talk about books!

Cutting to the chase, the best books I read in 2011 are:

Necronomicon: The Best Weird Fiction of H P Lovecraft
Supergods by Grant Morrison
The Immortalisation Commission by John Gray
The Big Knockover & Other Stories by Dashiell Hammett

First review of Panoptica!

Amazingly, I got a review on amazon! This one came from a facebook page friend like swap. There was no obligation to read, but I guess the swapper liked the look of it and gave it whirl. Forunately, she liked it!

Panoptica by Patrick Hudson

Well, chums, I've been and gone and done it. My novel-length satire Panoptica is now available at amazon.co.uk and presumably in other territories, too. It's got a Facebook page, even.
Click the link for some back cover blurb!

Off the Grid by Dan Kolbet

Well, I decided I'd like to read some more self-published ficiton on the Kindle, and feeling a little bit loath to pay for it (I am mean) I thought it might be better if I can get it to pay me. I got in touch with the Self Publishing Review after they made an open call for reviewers and signed up, and this is my first review for them. Just to get the link in the first para, it's here, FWIW.

The SPR (as it shall be called from hereon, whatever the danger for confusion with The Society for Psychichal Research) charges authors for a review. That's a bit of a strange arrangement, but it seems to be common in the self-publishing arena. SPR charges US$40, but there are some places charging much much more. Kirkus Reviews - a name I'd heard but I don't know much about - charges between US$475 and US$525 for a review.  

$575!! Or all in caps a more expressive $%&%!!!

Paying for a review seems like an odd choice to me (who still thinks being paid to write them is a hilarious novelty) but it seems that in the vanity game there is no end to the queue of people waiting to take your money. At $40 it loooks more like a filtering system than a real money-making enterprise. A lot of the sites that will review what's now euphemistically called "indie ficition" have notices up saying they aren't accepting review submissions right now because they're so full up. I dunno if the bus has left on this one, but I have to say it's looking pretty crowded.

Desperate self-pity after the break!

The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler

Once again, circumstances have conspired to keep me from blogging in a timely way. My commitment to blog about all the books I read has been sorely tested in the last month or so by a new job, house hunting, a bad cold, some other writing missions and – perhaps worst of all – a desire to do the books I read justice. Well, something's got to give, and I can't quit my job just yet, so on this occasion I'm going to have to admit up front that I'm not going to do this one justice.

Which is a huge shame, because this is a terrific book. This and The Big Knockover are two of the best I've read this year. I read both as part of my education in classic private eye stories for the sake of a project I'm working on, and by “project” I of course mean novel, and by “working on” I of course mean largely ignoring. What I'd really like to do here, in particular, is take the plot to bits, because that seems to be what I have the most trouble with. It's been so long that I'm not going to be able to do this in details, but let's see what I can do from memory.

Warning: this is not just boring crap about me, but boring crap about my boring struggles with my boring muse.

The Big Knockover and Other Stories

Things have gotten a bit behind here at Pointless Philosophical Asides due to visiting relatives, other projects and my search for a new job. I finished The Big Knockover about six weeks ago, and so that's quite a gap between reading and blogging, but what can I say, events intervened.

This book is one I took with me on holiday in late August. I have a Kindle now, which I'd loaded up with holiday reading (although I read much less on holidays these days than I used to, a situation exacerbated this time around as we had my mother with me) but I took this hard copy book with me because I was a little nervous about the combination of a beach or pool, an expensive electronic device and my own general cack-handedness.

It was also nice, I suppose, to have an old fashioned book with me that I could turn to while I got used the New Age of Publishing. Perhaps this will be the last print book I ever review? Hm, that seems unlikely, given the growing pile of hard copy books that sits by my desk. In fact, the Kindle has just become a sort of portable pile as it fills up with bright ideas from Project Gutenberg, and sudden “oh yes, I'd love to read that!” moments on amazon.

Anyway, I've been turning to Hammett recently in my ongoing quest to get a good grip on the detective genre for a project I'm working on. Hammett's stories are great, with just the right mix of sardonic wit, real danger and human insight. It's been a while, so I won't address too much in detail, but there are few general observations that I think are helpful to me.

A review of State of Change!

Well, some kind soul has reviewed my free pdf novel, State of Change, over on the Cover to Cover reading blog. It's a very fair review, so go ahead and read if you have been interested in reading but never taken the plunge. You can read it online or download a pdf version right here.

This might be my first fiction review EVER! I swear to God it's not a sock puppet!

The Invention of Murder & The Thin Man

Annoyingly, I have misplaced my copy of The Invention of Murder. I finished it a couple of weeks ago, then put it down but I cannot recall where it is. It's a mystery, although one hardly worth the attention of any of the real and fictional sleuths detailed within. I feel like a should know where it is, I should be able to recall where I put it, but the information remains just out of reach. It's an incredibly frustrating feeling and yet it's a state of mind that I actively seek in puzzles and mystery stories.

An Interview With Jerry Cornelius

This interview was published in the June 2003 issue of Magic Bullet - The Monthly Magazine for Assassins, Hitmen and the Murder trade. (I believe the magazine stopped publishing in 2007; a web search turns up nothing after this date). It didn't get a huge distribution, so I'm sure Cornelius fans everywhere will be interested to see this rarity back in circulation. It was written by the then-up-and-coming murder critic Bevan St Michael, who disappeared in 2008. If he's out there, please get in touch, Bev, as I still have the "package" in my loft.)

Read more after the jump!

The pile, she grows.

Something I try and avoid is piling up too many books in the "too read" pile. I am basically a childish type, who bristles under the yoke of authority: that's why I never got on with the idea of canon - regardless of any politically tinged rhetoric about dead white men and critical shibboleths, it's more of a matter of "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me".

With The Pile, the "you" in that statement becomes me. I become my own oppressor! How ironic!

So, here's the pile, as it stands:

The problem is that there are just too many books I want to read and they are too readily available. Everywhere I go I seem to be falling over good books begging to be acquired! Where do they all come from? Well, for some classic "boring crap about me", hit the link!

Short Fiction Wednesday

Your Life Sentence by CC Finlay
The Red Bride by Samantha Henderson

I really hate those types of articles that start “As some one once said...” and then go on to offer some really famous quotation - “As someone once said, ‘a rose by any other name would smell as sweet...’” I mean honestly! If they don’t know that, how can you trust anything else they have to say? 

Was it him?

It is therefore with some annoyance that I begin this week’s short fiction Wednesday with, “As someone once said, drama is conflict.” Was it Brecht? Was it Shaw? Was it Chekhov? Gah! It doesn’t turn anything up on google... maybe it’s just a truism from days gone by? Maybe it was Aristotle? Answers on a postcard please! 

Anyway, whoever it was, it's good point. Fiction thrives on conflict: some one has something that some one else wants, and the story hangs on how they about getting it, or not getting as the case may be. There are others sorts of fiction, I suppose, that can work in the hands of someone that knows what they’re doing or strikes it lucky, but the vast majority of fiction uses this very simple formula (usually, as Sam Goldwyn observed, hinging on the matter of fighting or fucking).  

State of Change

Well, that's it: all ten part are out. State of Change is now available as a single pdf document here, but if you want to read it online the links, in order, are:

Part One: The Fear
Part Two: The Offer
Part Three: A Bit Like A Lobotomy
Part Four: The New Direction
Part Five: The Silver Machine
Part Six: Body Fuck/Mind Fuck
Part Seven: Psychedelic Super Nazis
Part Eight: Cuba Street Improv
Part Nine: The Not Quite Death of Arlo Makepeace Dylan
Part Ten: The End

I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to leave a comment and tell me what you think.

However....

All that said, Kick Ass was a fantastic movie.

ETA:

Yeah, okay, so i saw it the other night (in one of those teeny-tiny late run cinemas in town) and really enjoyed. One thing Millar does really well is hit those moments in an action narrative, all that hero's journey stuff, I guess: the Call, denial of the call, trip to the underworld etc etc. When it's connected with strong characters and a sharp execution - as here, and in the Ultimates vols 1&2 and (mostly) in Old Man Wolverine - it's breathtaking. When it doesn't work it feels empty, like he's going through the motions (the current Ultimate Avengers series). When he tries some other story arc - his FF run, eg - he comes adrift.

So, I think he's really good at one thing, and when that one thing works out it's hard to top him. That structural sensibility is not to be sniffed at: plenty of fine writers lack it. Sure, they have other fine qualities (fine prose, eg, or a fantastic imagination) but the structure stuff is what tips a story out and gives it forward momentum. Millars really good at that.

State of Change Part Ten: The End

Well, here we are, the final part. How does it all end? Well, only one way to find out, right? I know how it ends up, of course, but I didn't know when I wrote it, and that's quite obvious to me now. I'd go so far to say that things don't really end well.

Looking back, it's very clear that this is the work of a writer figuring out how to write a longer work. I'd already published a few shorts, and felt I had that under control, but how to make a longer work? How to sustain an idea through the complete movement? I now think the key is to have your end, however vague it might be, in sight. No matter how lost you get - and I got very lost here - you've got that ending standing in as a pole star keeping you on track.

Another important lesson I learned was revision. Early on, writing this on an Amiga, I had a catastrophic disc error which left me to type the whole thing in again from a print out. This gave me the freedom to drop stuff I didn't like, stuff that ultimately wasn't worth re-typing. The tyranny of what's there - you've got to break away from it.

Twice this thing attracted a publisher, and never made it to print. Well, it's still not published, but I feel it's out of my system now, even if only ten or so people have looked at it, let alone read the whole thing. Well, onward. I have other unpublised novels that I hope you'll be able to enjoy in the future - stay tuned for something else at some unspecified time. Maybe not coming soon, maybe not coming at all, but... er...