Engines of Empathy - Prologue

Here is the full text of the initial draft of the prologue of Engines of Empathy

PROLOGUE

     As always, leaving things to the last possible minute was proving to be a bad idea. In this case, a particularly bad idea as the last possible minute included the sum total of the time remaining in his life. He always expected he would die in his bed, or someone else’s bed many years hence. Warm, comfortable and surrounded by impatient descendants with something cryptic to say as his last words. He’d given his penultimate utterance a lot of thought, “My only regret is that you never met your birth parents,” had been his personal favourite. He imagined saying it to his grown up children and watching their faces as he drifted off.

     Of course his darling wife would be deceased by then, out-living that most perfect of women would be the honourable thing to do. Fate appeared to have a different opinion as she was away visiting her parents until the baby arrived. In his opinion the installation of children was a fine thing, but taking delivery of the finished product nine months later? That he felt was better left in the hands of experienced women.

     The rain and crashing thunder outside made it difficult to hear the whine and click of his approaching assassin. The only lighting available in the large mansion was the flickering glow of candles, and there were precious few of those.

     “What-ho Mr Wibbly?” he called into the darkness. Somewhere out there a door handle rattled, and then exploded out of the frame in response. The prototype possessed remarkable strength, but very poor fine-motor skills. Dashing on stockinged feet he made for the library. Closing the door he went to the fine writing desk that took pride of place in the room. He had bought it at an auction, recognising it as living oak, the rare wood that had been a key to the discovery of the age. The discovery that was now going to get him killed.

     The letter was complete, but there would be no time to post it now. He paused, listening between the rumbles of the storm outside for approaching death. There it was. The whirr and click of clockwork gears; the slow, deliberate sound of approaching betrayal. The letter folded up into a narrow strip, with shaking hands he prised open the hidden slat in the roll-top desk’s cover. Pressing the letter inside, he winced as the office door shuddered under repeated blows.

“I’ll be right there!” he called. Sliding the slat back into place, he patted the desk fondly one more time and whispered, “That should cause someone no end of trouble.” He smiled and went to meet his death.

Ghosts In A Desert World - Review

Matthew Tait is one of those Australian speculative and horror fiction personalities that has always intrigued me. He's a smart guy, and his views and opinions of what is going on in Australasian literature are worth noting. I was pleased to pick up a copy of his freshly released collection of short stories Ghosts In A Desert World

It's currently free on Amazon, but they tend to only allow you a free give away for 5 days at a time. The collection is worth acquiring, even if you do end up paying for it.

There are names that get tossed about when one is reviewing horror writers. Matheson is a good example, I've been compared to the late master myself. Tait does have some of the classic gore elements of Matheson present and very correct, but he also has that wonderful element usually found in the short stories of Joe R. Lansdale.

Remember when Lansdale wrote really fucked up fiction? His collection BY BIZARRE HANDS remains one of my favourite short story collections. The comparisons between Tait and Lansdale come when you experience the dread that both manage to so easily create. Tait's stories put us in a world that could be just around the corner for any of us. The country road, the small town, the invevitable outcome of too much popular culture, and a complete disregard for the sanctity of human life.

If I have one gripe with the collection it is that it is too Americanised. There are stories set in Australia, but they have American protagonists. The ones set in familiar locations of the USA are fine, but I wonder if they were written for an American market, which is disappointing as there is a good market for Australian horror of quality.

Tait loves gore, there's nothing here that focuses on suspense or only superanatural elements. It's visceral, every fleck of blood, every carefully orchestrated slash of a throat, or a wrist or a disembowling (which seems to be a personal favourite of the author) is well choreographed and adds to the intensity of the story. Not two characters are the same in this collection. The only common ground they share is folks from various walks of life finding themselves in situations that they didn't plan on, facing foes so unspeakably fucked up that you understand them thinking that this is some nightmare they have to wake up from.

Final verdict, a good gore filled collection of strong horror stories. The writing is competent and imaginative. The stories deliver and the blood just drips from every page.

Read it. You shouldn't be disappointed.

Who's driving this thing?!

I love that moment when you are on the edge of your seat, totally engrossed in an action packed story. You have no idea what is going to happen next.How is the hero going to get out of this impossible situation?

... And the only thing you can do is keep typing to find out.

An afternoon with Sergio

I've mentioned a lot on Facebook lately that Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is one of my favourite films of all time. It is certainly my favourite Western. I ticked an item off the Bucket List today, I saw this film on the big screen. What impressed me most was the audience, the place was packed. A range of ages too. Younger and older generations were equally represented. We saw the extended version, which has most of the extra footage in it. This was only missing one minor scene and the movie ran to well over 2 hours.

The Wikipedia entry for this film reveals a lot of interesting trivia.

The audience was great, they laughed in delight at the moments they should have laughed in delight at, they oohed and aahed at the right moments too. Being in The Embassy theatre, owned by Sir Peter Jackson and site of the premiere's of the Lord Of The Rings movies and The Hobbit in November, made this a special treat.  Really pleased I saw this movie, and I'll be keeping an eye out for future retro-showings of other great movies (they did the full Back To The Future trilogy the other week!)

My Inner Teenage Girl Is Screaming

My inner teenage girl is screaming. Not my usual inner teenage girl screaming because she has just awoken, tied up in my basement next to my knife collection. No this is my other inner teenage girl. The one who read and actually enjoyed Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games.

I found myself pawing at the Kindle app on  my phone, trying to turn non-existent virtual pages. What do you mean it ends there? It can't end there!! What about Gale? What about Peeta? What happens next!? What will Katniss do???!!!

I feel like I have been infected with some insidious disease. A slow creeping malediction has cursed me. I picked the book at random from the 2500 titles on my Kindle app and found the use of present-tense less irritating than I thought I would after a few pages.

By the time I was two chapters into it I couldn't put it down. This is so clearly written for young teenage girls, I kept on thinking if anyone finds out I'm reading this I'm never going to be able to show my face at any masculine venue ever again. My inner teen-age girl agrees. Except she says "evah" and "ZOMG! I'd just die if anyone found out!"

Writing a blog post about it is probably not the best course of manly reputation saving action then.

But I need to write about it. I need to analyse why this book gripped me so much. Mostly I think I need to justify my own secret delight in the story and perhaps accept that I have a girl teeny-bopper in my mental wardrobe of voices in my head.

I don't know if this is standard YA teen fiction. I haven't read any Twilight.  I do read a lot of the Reasoning With Vampires blog. Which analyses just how god-awful Stephanie Meyer's writing is, and how her overly contrived story is probably making an entire generation of girls stupider. Even my inner teen-age girl is making gagging noises.

The key thing for me about Collins' book is that Katniss is the everygirl. She doesn't think she is pretty, or smart, or desirable. She is in a desperate situation and is adorably immature about boys and adult relationships. Of course she is smart, and pretty and desirable and she's also a damned good provider for her family. Her casual relationship with Gale is sweet. It's nice to see teenagers not focused on sex and true love and shit. Of course that they aren't thinking about sex all the time is what reminds me that this is a work of fiction.

Katniss (as we all know) takes the place of her younger sister Prim as the tribute for the Hunger Games. An annual facist celebration of victory over the rebellious and a chance to watch some young un's engage in some good old fashioned orienteering, wilderness survival and all the good Scouts outdoorsy activities promoted in books like Enid Blyton's Five series. The only difference is that while there are plenty of lashings (threatened at least) and other punishments are handed out like licks from Timmy there sure as hell isn't any gingerbeer.

What we do have is a grim and bloody headcount. People die in this book. They die badly and often. It's not just in the arena, that vast semi-VR wilderness where the tributes hunt each other to death. Death is a constant companion in Katniss' life outside the arena. She lives close to starvation. People die in the coal mines. People die of injury and and disease and malnutrition. She comments that the elderly are admired - for they have endured so much longer than anyone normally does.

This story is action packed. Katniss has great skills, the famous archery talent (which has of course lead to a spike in interest in the sport for kids). But hey the samet thing happened with the Lord of the Rings trilogy was released. It's good to get kids interested in an outdoor sport.

The action and tension are grim. The romance is a sub-plot and is meant to be another way of winning the games by guile rather than strength. Of course we have lots of conflict to muddy this but over all Collin's keeps it very safe by restricting it to kissing and fully clothed sleeping bag sharing cos it's damned cold. If I had a 14 year old daughter, I'd let her go camping alone with Peeta. I might not even feel it necessary to stab him in the thigh first.

Collin's doesn't bother with silly details like how does stuff happen. She has deus-ex-machina coming out of her cūlus. But that's okay. We don't care that things drop out of the sky, or that the entire environment can be manipulated in anyway shape or form. The focus is on the characters. The basic hunt and the way the experience changes Katniss. That's the heart of the story. She's a really great character.

The pretty dresses, the kissing and the rest of the story aren't bad either.

Prometheus – The Review Warning! Does contain SPOILERS!

By all accounts (particularly the Making Of Blade Runner documentary) Ridley Scott is a real prick to work with. He is a pedantic perfectionist who works people to their limit and accepts no compromise.  As an audience we see the ultimate illusion created by this true visionary. Alien was the finest science fiction film since 2001: A Space Odyssey and by returning to the Universe that is truly his alone, Scott has created a new masterpiece with Prometheus.

From the mind-bending opening scene which screamed, “This film is unlike anything you have seen before in the Aliens Universe” to the colour motif (that has been a key element of all 4 previous Alien films) Prometheus is a masterwork of film making.

Yes it is an Alien prequel. But it is so much more. This is a film with so many layers. It speaks to those of a spiritual bent and to the cynical atheist like myself equally. It engenders a sense of true wonder at the Universe and its infinite possibilities.

At another level the film confirms two facts.

1.       Noomi Rapace is a fantastic actor and a worthy successor to Sigourney Weaver.

2.       Charlize Theron has the finest arse in Christiandom.

SPOILERS BELOW….

The discovery of the final starmap and the journey to LV-223 were mercifully brief,  and the scene with the briefing was copied directly from Alien Vs Predator. Guy Pearce playing the old man was an odd choice, surely they could have just got an old actor? It stood out in his speech that while David was “The son he never had” clearly Vickers was his daughter.

David was a masterpiece of character and acting. Evesdropping on the sleeper’s dreams and watching Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia and styling himself in the same way was fantastic. Fassbender never dropped out of character. Even when he was rescuing Shaw and Holloway during the storm and they were flailing around and being blown by the wind – he was ramrod straight. He moved like a dancer and you never stopped being aware that he was in fact an artificial.

The industrial strength living conditions and grim realities of space-travel were again present. People puking after waking up from coldsleep, the body and mind being in shock.

The initial exploration of LV-223 which is of course NOT the same planet that Ripley and the Nostromo crew landed on (LV-426) heightened that sense of colour motif. The use of white in this film (representing purity, sterility and in some cultures, death) was subtle and profound (Alien of course had green/black, Aliens was electric blue, Alien 3 was red/orange and Alien4 was copper/rust).

The links to Alien are detailed and exact. The action unfolds in a fascinating way. The opening scene with the Engineer (or Space Jockey) sacrificing himself to create all life on earth was a totally different spin on things. This alternate use of the purification weapons of mass destruction (the goo that evolves into Aliens through successive generations when exposed to host genetic material) was a profound statement about technology.

Charlize Theron and Noomi Rapace carried this film, Michael Fossbender stole every scene he was in and Idris Alba was just rough enough to get Damaris’ heart racing.

The rest were there solely to be killed and ramp up the action. The death of Fifield and Millburn were almost darkly humorous.

“Get it off me!”

“I’m not touching that!”

“TOUCH IT! TOUCH IT!”

The unnamed crew and Ford the Irish medic were just there to be killed. The use of flamethrowers in decontamination spoke to me a lot about our primordial fears of the unknown. If we don’t understand it, we kill it. Kill it with fire!

Of course David was bound by his programming and the lunatic egomania of Weyland. A touching moment was when Shaw asked what he would do when Weyland died, and David said he would finally be free.

The Engineers created the Aliens. Clearly they were a programmed evolution through successive generations when combined with suitable biological genetic material. We saw this in Alien3 when the initial host was a dog – so the alien had a different shape to it. The multi-generational aspects of their evolution were fascinating to watch, Worms to big worms, to squid like creature to giant face-hugger to Engineer based Alien.

I did rage a bit against the final scene – surely the Engineer should have been back on his crashed ship and had the alien burst out of his chest. But this was NOT LV-426 so that scene happened on a different world. Another weapons outbreak… another disaster from those who thought they had the power over life and death. Once I clicked to that it made a lot more sense.

The most powerful moment in the film for me came when Shaw declared she was not going home. I literally gasped. Of course! You have access to that kind of technology, why go back? She chose to believe and that drove her onwards into the unknown which is really the ultimate purpose of faith.

Fuck You Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury, you bastard. You were supposed to live forever. You alone would keep writing long after the rest of us were mouldering bones and withered flesh. You were the shining star. The celestial furnace of creativity that could never be extinguished. You were the one who lit the way for so many genres and other great writers. You defined and re-defined the many genres of Speculative Fiction. You broke through literary market barriers like a rioting mob.

You will always be the Shakespeare of the 20^th Century science-fiction writers. Like Shakespeare your ideas ranged from the quirky to the inspirational. You had the same English words as the rest of us, but what you did with them. The way you linked them together. You wrote poetic prose. I have on occasion stopped and re-read a single line of yours and marvelled at how perfect, how utterly perfect your command of words really was.

The characters you created stepped off the page and said, “This is my life story.” Every one so believable and utterly unforgettable. So today Mr Bradbury I will remember you and will read your immortal stories again.

I know we will teach our grandchildren to love fiction and the power of imagination. “Look!” we will say. “There was once a man, a great man. He made the world a better place by writing stories that were unlike any other. He is gone but the stories remain. Read them and know him as we knew him.”

You were the wild and childlike prophet of a thousand possible futures. You lived and lived and lived. And now you are dead.

There will never be another human being like you and there will never be another story by you. So fuck you Ray Bradbury.

“Recreate the world in your own image and make it better for your having been here.”

- Ray Bradbury, speech at Brown University (1995)

Editors As A Species

  Yes, editors are human. We have families, day jobs, hobbies, and our own writing, editing, submitting and re-writing to get on with.

We did however take on the job of reviewing submissions for (in my case) anthologies and production scripts. So we don't complain. We do however read some of the most god-awful literature ever excreted from the backsides of some barely literate apes.

We don't get paid for this. In fact the last anthology I edited I personally put up the US$350 to pay our writers $25 for each successful submission. The publisher wasn't able to pay anything but I wanted quality stories, and I got them.

We don't get paid. We instead get to pore over the full range of experience and ability in the written word. We get stories that are so disparate from the guidelines we wonder if the submitter made a mistake and sent us the wrong file. We get stories in foreign languages, in unopenable file formats, in stupid fonts, in weird colours. We get stories that are incomprehensible, lacking in any form of grammar, spell or punctuation checking. We get piles and piles of complete turkey-droppings. And then...

...We find something that takes our breath away. A story we simply have to have. The story you read and it sticks with you. The story you wish you had written. The story that makes you wonder, what the hell am I doing? If there are writers out there who are this good, I may as well just pack up my pencil and go fishing instead.

Those are the ones that make it a joy to write an acceptance letter. Those are the ones that make all the soul-destroying, "please don't take it personally, but your story isn't what we are looking for", sanitised responses, when all you really want to do is email them saying, "Are you kidding me? Please never submit anything to anyone ever again, in case by some bizarre accident it accidentally gets published and the collective IQ of the world drops sharply as a result."

So like every other writer, editors go through the pangs of rejection and the joys of acceptance. There is nothing like putting together a publication of stories that are your favourites. Giving money to people for writing is the greatest feeling in the world. Their gratitude is genuine and the lessons we can provide to those who aren't there yet are sincere.

Spare a thought for the editors. That we respond at all is indication enough that not only are we human, we still have some faith in literate humanity left.

cheers
Paul

PS: I write reports for the government all day. At night I write and edit short stories, novels, audio-plays, screen-plays and the occassional offensive limerick.

Old Stories: The Tower

I've been trawling through some old files and finding old stories. This one is from 2009 or earlier. Never published of course.

The Tower by Paul Mannering

The architect and reason for the tower were lost to the sea in aeons past.  Only the stones remained. Each block of black basalt curved slightly, just enough to cling to its brethren and encompass the tiniest angle of curvature in the round edifice.  The tower stood tall and phallic on the barren black cliffs above a storm grey sea and waited.

 Tomlay and Adelsa left the tower in dull morning light cast by the ancient red sun. The tide had receded uncovering the rich mudflats and the shellfish that they harvested.  Today they called each other Tomlay and Adelsa, yesterday each had created different names for the other.  One was male and the other female, and after smashing the hard calcite husks of their meal, they slurped and gnashed their teeth against the pale slime flesh nestled within.

The emptiness of their bellies satiated, Tomlay grunted at Adelsa and pushed up against her buttocks, his genitals swelling.  Adelsa, today bearing the complimentary female parts refused him and Tomlay pushed harder, grunting with increased ferocity.  The female scampered away and climbed the sea-worn stones of the cliff, pausing, crouched on a narrow ledge to throw small stones at the furious male below.

With a dismissive gesture, Tomlay turned away from her and loped off down the beach.  Hunched over, his flat pale hands slapped the hard-packed wet sand every few strides and he collected and discarded anything that caught his eye without pausing in his rush.

Adelsa’s hoots faded into the hiss and moan of the surf.  Tomlay scampered over the horizon, if Adelsa would refuse him today, then he would seek solace elsewhere.

The sun was midway between the grey sea and the highest point of the sky when Tomlay reached the next bay.  The tide was returning, sweeping back in a long pulsing flood to cover the mud and sand, refreshing the shellfish beds and maintaining the smooth palate of the long beach. Tomlay splashed through the edge of the surf until the salt stung his eyes and his translucent eyelids flexed shut and turned his view into a muted sepia shade.

Turning away from the water, he scuttled on long boned legs, up and over the dunes as barren as the tower cliffs, to the border of the marshlands beyond.  The marsh did not interest Tomlay or Adelsa, they had never found reason to penetrate its humid, rustling depths.  Passing along the soft-earthed strip of land between sand and bog Tomlay felt his lust swell anew.

At the further end of the second bay, a peninsula rose.  Twin to the rock under the tower, this outcrop made a pedestal for a statue, vast and unknowable, the smooth stone rose to a dizzying height in the air and bore a pleasing feminine shape like that which Adelsa wore today and Tomlay might wear tomorrow if Adelsa tired of it.

His hairless body glowing with exertion Tomlay bounded up the rocks, leaping and grunting he sprang and clung until he reached the top.  Here he rested, idly stroking himself as he crouched and breathed the salty air. Squinting up at the statue Tomlay considered every curve and niche.  Not wanting to waste his climax, he released his grip upon himself and hooting in delight scuttled forward to leap upon the naked toe of the figure. From there he scampered up the smooth incline of the massive carved foot and laid his hands on the cool stone of the giant ankle.

Adelsa grew bored with crouching on her ledge.  She knew where Tomlay was going, having been there herself many times. Straightening, she finished climbing to the top of the cliff and with her back to the tower; she flexed and twisted her body, catching the warmth of the morning sun on the waxen flesh of her breasts and thighs.

Tomlay became one with the embodiment of female essence.  He entered her; this vast repository for all that was female, merging his own flesh with that of the dark stone.  In the warmth of her womb, he was zygote.  Fertilized egg dividing and conscious of all existence, the seething turmoil of a billion-billion generations of DNA twisted around him.  Filtered light glowed sanguine and comforting; he remembered conception and birth throughout time.  This was the culmination of life, only the genetic memory remained. Tomlay ejaculated and cried out, his emissions floating in the warm space that both surrounded and engulfed him.

Returning to the tower Adelsa felt the shuddering connection that Tomlay made with the female, encased in the up-thrust structure. With a moaning cry to the burning sun her own form broke down and joined with his in the union of genetic replication. Together they disseminated in to the component units of genes and the chemical codex of life. 

Through out the day and the night they would gestate. In the following dawn two new forms would emerge, craft names for themselves and bask under the pale light of the red sun and experience the success of life.