An Interview with Sci-Fi Author Gareth L. Powell

Having recently read and enjoyed Gareth L. Powell’s The Recollection, (See review in previous post). I was thrilled when Gareth agreed to an interview. So without further ado, I give you, in his own words, Mister Gareth L. Powell

Hi Gareth, thanks for agreeing to the interview and congratulations on The Recollection. It’s an excellent read. On reading it, I felt like I could definitely see where some of your inspiration for the story came from. Could you tell me what first piqued your interest in Science Fiction?

“I was always fascinated by space and spaceships. I wanted to be an astronaut. I thought we’d all be living on the Moon by 1980. I remember watching the Apollo-Soyuz link-up on TV at home, and Star Trek on my grandparents’ old black and white TV set. Then we had Star Wars and the original Battlestar Galactica. I was also fortunate to have a local library with a well-stocked sci-fi section, and parents keen to encourage me to read whatever took my fancy. I discovered Heinlein, Clarke and Niven at an early age, then quickly progressed to Cyberpunk and the New Space Opera.”

In both Silversands and The Recollection I’ve been impressed with just how much you’ve managed to cram into both novels considering both are quite short reads. Are your first drafts as streamlined as the novels appear to be or does a lot end up on the “cutting room floor” so to speak?

“I edit as I go along. Each time I sit down to write, I start at the beginning and read through to where I finished at the end of the last section, making changes as I go. This means that by the time the first draft is completed, it’s actually been edited many times. That said, I did cut 20,000 words from Silversands.”

Following on from that, can you talk us through your self-editing process?

“A piece of writing – whether it’s a sentence, a paragraph or a whole page – has to have some sort of rhythm and flow to it. This is doubly true for lines of dialogue. I go back through and try to find that rhythm. I cut out unnecessary words and exposition; ditch adverbs; and replace everyday words with phrases that are more direct and striking.”

At the heart of The Recollection is a complex plot involving time travel. Was it difficult to keep all the threads of the story organized?

“It was hellishly complicated to work out how to get all the characters to arrive at the same point in history at the same time. I had to draw four dimensional charts to make sure all the distances and travel times added up. As one of the characters says in the book: ‘Ain’t relativity a bitch?’”

How did you go about planning the novel. What tools, if any, did you use?

“The only tools I used were a notebook and pen. I spent a year or so jotting down ideas, then when I felt a plot start to emerge, I began working out who the characters were, and eventually came up with a rough outline. Then I started writing, and the rest fell into place as I went. The story bubbled up out of me like a suppressed memory – it’s the book I’ve always wanted to write, and I poured all those early influences into it. “

In both your novels you’ve produced strong female protagonists. Was that a conscious decision and if so, why?

“In both books, the sex of the characters emerged organically. I wanted a good mix of male and female, so if character X was going to be a boy, character Y had to be a girl, and vice versa. In early outlines of The Recollection, the character that eventually became Kat Abdulov started out as male: an classic space pilot in the tradition of Han Solo, Mal Reynolds, John Truck, Beowulf Shaeffer, Lorq van Ray… I guess I made her female in order to comment on that archetype; and also because I already had the character of Ed in mind, and I didn’t want both my protagonists to be male.”

Do you feel there’s anything you need to take into consideration when writing from a female point of view?

“Despite what I said in my previous answer, I don’t dwell on a character’s sex while I’m writing them. I think of them as individuals, and write from that point of view. They are who they are; the rest is just plumbing. Without wishing to sound like Barney Stinson, I’ve always been surrounded by women; I’ve worked in offices where I’ve been the only man. I have two sisters and two daughters. I’m used to the company of women and find it as easy to place myself in the mind of a female character as a male one. If it’s true that a writer creates characters as reflections of their inner self, then Kat is as much an aspect of my personality as Ed. I’m very fond of her, and so I find it extremely gratifying when female readers respond positively to her. It makes me feel I’m doing something right.”

I’ve loved the cover art for both Silversands and The Recollection. Did you have any say in the production of the artwork?

“In both cases, I sent the artist some text from the book, to help them choose and visualize an image for the cover. I was shown rough sketches before the final artwork was produced, but the deciding vote always belonged to the publisher.”

Can you tell us about any future projects you’re working on?

“At the end of last year, I signed a contract with Solaris Books, the publishers of The Recollection, for a novel called ‘Ack-Ack Macaque’, which I’m currently in the process of writing. It’s the story of a cynical, one-eyed, cigar-chomping monkey whose starting to doubt everything, including his own existence, and it’s due to be published in January 2013. In the meantime, my first two books, Silversands and The Last Reef, are going to be released in digital format by Anarchy Books in April this year.”

What Sci-Fi shows, movies and books do you enjoy and what is it about them that you like?

“I enjoyed the recent Battlestar Galactica remake and the brief glimpse we got of Firefly, and Doctor Who holds a special place in my heart; but I’m wary of new sci-fi shows. I’ve been burned too often. Heroes, The Event, Outcasts – they all started out promisingly, but soon fell apart.”

“I have some movies I go back to time and again, such as the Back To The Future trilogy, The Chronicles of Riddick, and Independence Day. These are comfort movies. Escapism has its place. Some days you just want to see a fleet of spaceships blow the living hell out of famous American landmarks. When I’m in a more serious mood, I’ll go for something classic such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, or the original Day The Earth Stood Still.”

Quickfire round:

Tea or Coffee?

“Either, so long as it’s decaff. I quit caffiene in 1997 or 1998, and I’ve no plans to go back.”

Outline or not?

“Partial outline – more a rough sketch than an Ordanance Survey map.”

Star Wars or Star Trek?

“Star Wars (the original trilogy, not the later additions).”

Mac or PC?

“PC so far, but if I catch another virus, I may jump the fence and get a Mac.”

Alien or Predator?

“Alien. Even better: Aliens.”

OK, thanks Gareth. Once again, congratulations on The Recollection. I wish you lots of success with it. If people want to find out more about you and your work, where can they go?

“My website is at www.garethlpowell.com. Or you can find me on Twitter and Facebook.”

Stuart Clark is the author of the Project U.L.F. series of sci-fi adventure novels

The Recollection by Gareth L. Powell – A review

Edward Rico has a terrible secret that threatens the already tenuous bond he has with his brother, Verne, and when Verne learns of his brother’s betrayal he disappears, literally, in a fit of rage, through a mysterious arch in the London subway.
As more of the arches appear across the world, Ed resolves to right the wrong he has done and go after his brother, enlisting the help of Verne’s wife Alice. Together they embark on an adventure that neither of them is prepared for or could ever imagine.

Four hundred years in the future, starship captain Katherine Abdulov is offered an olive branch from the influential family that has disowned her. One mission. To travel to a distant planet and maintain the family’s monopoly on the Pep harvest before rival trader and Kat’s former lover, Victor Luciano claims it for his own. With the Abdulov reputation on the line and the chance to be welcomed back into the fold, what better incentive could there be than to go against the man who not only caused her expulsion but also then jilted her after the fact?

In the Strauli system, a mysterious race called the Dho inhabit a gigantic quartz ship called the Ark. They tolerate the intrusion and curiosity of humans, for they are an ancient race and they have been waiting patiently for a man to come into their midst – and a devastating evil to return.

Following on from his debut novel Silversands. Gareth L Powell has written another rip-roaring adventure that engages its warp drives right from the get-go and never slows down. From the moment Verne Rico disappears through an arch, we’re flung from one mysterious world to another, shot into the far-future and brought face-to-face with an unstoppable, unspeakable terror.
In The Recollection, Powell has managed to combine many SF tropes into a concise, exciting read. What I particularly liked about the book was the juxtaposition of the two main characters. Abdulov is a hard-nosed, kick-ass space captain with a clear goal in mind – revenge. Ed Rico, on the other hand, is a somewhat selfish, down-on-his-luck artist with a string of bad decisions behind him who seems to be acting more out of a sense of duty than anything else. What becomes apparent as the book progresses, is that Abdulov and Rico, two people from different times and different universes, may have more in common than first impressions would suggest.
The three threads of the story are woven together masterfully, resulting in a snowballing pace and a seamless transition when worlds and times collide. When the climax arrives, the reader is well and truly strapped in for a fight of epic proportions.
So, if you like your Sci-Fi bursting with ideas, packed full of adventure and seasoned with a healthy dose of time-travel, sentient spaceships and nanotech – The Recollection is for you.

Stuart Clark is the author of the Project U.L.F. Sci-Fi adventure series

Are we giving readers Author Fatigue?

You know the scenario well. There you are, walking down the street, minding your own business when you see them. They’re standing there with their clipboards and colored vests. Turning their smiles on everyone and anyone. Not again, you think. It must be the third time this week. Already you don’t care what today’s charity is. Already you’re thinking how you can get out of this.
You look across the street. Damn. There’s two more of them over there. Smart, this lot. They’re working in pairs and they’ve got the whole street covered. There’s no crossing over for you. Now you’re ten paces closer and the crowd is thinning in front of you. You’re running out of time. Look at your feet. That’s it. Don’t make eye contact. Pretend like you’re deep in thought about something. No, better still, fake a call on your cell phone. Surely they won’t interrupt someone talking on their cell. But you’re closer now, and your phone isn’t ringing and you can’t do it without being spotted for a fraud.
“Hello,” s/he says, beaming at you. “How are you today?” Oh, that’s done it. Now you’re engaged. You can’t ignore them without coming across as intolerably rude.
“Fine thanks.”
“Do you have a minute for (insert cause here)?”
You’re shaking your head before they’ve even finished. “No,” you say. “I’m late for work/a train/an appointment.” And even to you, your excuse sounds weak and hollow.
But you made it! You’re through – and you feel guilty.
Why?
Because you’re the umpteenth person today to give that volunteer a lame brush-off. Because you really could have spared a minute of your time if you had really wanted to, and because planned parenthood/gay rights/save the whale is a good cause and you probably could have spared them a dollar. You justify it to yourself, of course. Well, there are a million good causes, I can’t give to them all – and there’s a sliver of truth in that. But you probably don’t give to many, if any.
But let’s backtrack for a moment to that sliver of truth. There’s hundreds, if not thousands of charities out there and all of them are vying for your attention and wanting your money. Depending on where you live, seeing volunteers canvassing for money has become so commonplace it’s become tiresome. (Hence the first thought of “How do I get out of this?”) It’s called charity fatigue.
It was thinking about this scenario that started me wondering – could the same thing apply to authors? There are already countless numbers of authors struggling to get their voices heard and, given the changing landscape of publishing, there are going to be countless more. Given that for most of them the marketing of their books – especially self-published books – falls squarely on their own shoulders, many of these individuals stand alone.
The key to success then, appears to be the creation of something called an “Author Brand” or “Author Platform” which consists, roughly, of the following – a website, a blog, a facebook account, a twitter account – in short, a sustained and continual web presence. But if every author is doing it, how does one author get his or her voice heard above the noise? To all intents and purposes, how does one author engage you enough to stop you and have you say, “I’m prepared to part with money for that.” Honestly, if I knew the answer to that, I wouldn’t need to be creating my own author brand.
But isn’t it possible that this cacophony of voices; this constant plugging of books could turn the reader in you apathetic? Could the authors lurking on forum boards, surreptitiously promoting their own work(s) every chance they get, give you a case of author fatigue – and if so, how are you then going to find new books and new authors to read? Would you even want to? Chances are, that to find a clear signal among the noise, people will turn to trusted sources.
A recent post by Mark Coker entitled “How ebook buyers discover books” would appear to support this. In his survey, 29% of respondents said they would buy books from online recommendations. Another 18% said they’ll simply buy ebooks from authors they already know. If that’s truly the case, is all the shouting from the rooftops in the name of self-promotion pointless? Are we authors just wasting our collective breath?
“Ah,” you say, “but look at Amanda Hocking. She managed to successfully market her author brand.” For those of you not familiar with Amanda Hocking’s story, let me direct you here, so you can read it in her own words. Then let me say this, from what I can tell from her blog, Miss Hocking is an extremely prolific and/or focused writer. The woman knocks a novel out in a period of days! That means she can generate repeat business extremely quickly and constantly feed a ravenous fan-base. Secondly, she was smart – what Miss Hocking’s success demonstrated was that word-of-mouth has now become word-on-the-net. By utilizing book bloggers and Kindle forum boards, Miss Hocking was able to reach a phenomenal amount of people. (Perhaps the book bloggers and reviewers of tomorrow will be to ebooks what publishers were to hardcopy books – the gatekeepers – the trusted sources for the download generation). As ebook authors are coming to realize, bloggers are their friends and it is through them they will ultimately succeed or fail, but whilst those resources are available to the rest of us there’s certainly a feeling that that route has been traveled and the masses that now follow are just poor relatives walking an already well-trodden path. It’s been done, we missed the boat, and if you do it you’re going to be one of millions of voices occupying the blogosphere, clamoring to be heard. If you really want to make a splash in the ebook world, you had better come up with an innovative new way to reach the masses. Thirdly, Miss Hocking was extremely LUCKY, which is to take nothing away from her hard work and dedication to her craft – but the fact of the matter remains that there had to be a little bit of luck involved. Perhaps that is what the rest of us cling to – “Well if it happened to her, why not me?”
I don’t want to rain on everyone’s parade here but the chance of this kind of success is slim. Which is not to say it won’t happen again – on the contrary, in fact I do believe it will happen again and perhaps with more frequency because as the ebook landscape gets more and more cluttered people will crave recommendations to help them navigate through it. Those recommendations will snowball and gather momentum until they once again reach a tipping point.
But I come back to the charity analogy. When I lived in the UK I supported three charities – Plan International, The Shark Trust and The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. I supported them because I chose to and because their missions aligned roughly with my own interests. I wasn’t coerced into giving to them because I was cold called or canvassed on the street. I sought them out because they interested me. Doesn’t the same apply with books? I can’t remember a single occasion where I bought a book based on a book trailer and I can count on one finger the number of times I’ve bought a book because of a blog. However, I do want to read Mark Chadbourn’s World’s End because I think it has a cool cover (yes, I do judge books by their covers) and I do want to read Robert J. Sawyers Rollback because I think it has an interesting premise.
“Author Brand” is a term that seems to get touted around as if it’s a golden nugget which, if only we could crack it, will send us on our path to untold riches, but as Chuck Wendig correctly points out in his post “Putting the Self-Publishing Cart before the Horse,” what seems to get regularly overlooked is the question of quality. You can invest as much energy as you like into creating your Author Brand but if you don’t have a quality product it will all be for nothing. I can’t speak for the quality of Miss Hocking’s work, I haven’t read any of her stuff, but I can only assume she writes good stories – and by that I don’t just mean editorially good, I mean she writes stories that people want to read and that they enjoy.
Perhaps the answer doesn’t lie in blanketing the internet with our presence (although it can’t hurt). Perhaps the answer lies in just writing a good book, trusting that the people who like what you write will seek you out, and hoping, just hoping, that the rest falls in to place.

Stuart Clark is the author of the Project U.L.F. series of sci-fi adventure novels

Explaining too much

I just finished a book on my Nook app for my iPad called “The Mating” by Nicky Charles. It was recommended to me by a friend, and the storyline is okay. It’s been done, but it was okay. However, I had two real problems with it.

First of all, she explained too much. There were so many times during the story where she should have just let the reader infer things from the scene, but instead she felt the need to add between one to three sentences explaining what I already knew. For example, the book is about werewolves, and it’s mostly a romance between Elise and the Alpha male of the pack. There is one scene where she goes to get her bags from the vehicle (they’ve just been married and she’s moving in) and he tells her not to worry about it. Others will take care of it. Immediately several other guys go to grab her things and carry them into the house.

The author should have left it right there. Everyone who knows wolf packs (or is into novels about werewolves) knows the Alpha is always obeyed. Even if you didn’t know that, you could infer it from the situation and their actions. However, the author felt the need to add a sentence explaining how the Alpha’s word was to be absolutely and immediately obeyed.

There is a fine line between not explaining enough, explaining just enough and explaining too much. I often fall on the side of not explaining enough. I think explaining too much disrupts the story just as much as not explaining enough, if not more, and it frustrated me while reading this novel.

Secondly, commas were in the randomest places, in the sentences and there were no commas where they should have been. (Please note this last sentence; it demonstrates what I’m talking about.) Talk about disrupting a sentence! I had the worst time reading it. I know that sometimes when a book is made into an e-format, things can get messed up like that. Still, this happened too many times to have all been from the reformatting,

I don’t mean to rag on this woman’s novel. The story, once I got into it, was interesting, but I just couldn’t get past these things. Has anyone else ever come across a book like this that they had problems with?

Say “Hi” to the newest member of my family!

This is our new puppy. We called her “Jua” which is swahili for sun or sunshine. My wife’s father used to do a lot of business in Africa so that’s where the swahili came from and we figured it worked well because of the golden color of her fur and the fact that she brings a little ray of sunshine into our lives.

In case you’re wondering what kind of dog Jua is, she’s a Cavapoo – a king charles cavalier spaniel/toy poodle cross breed. Most cavapoos have the curly hair from their poodle parent. However, Jua is somewhat unusual in as much as she was the only straight haired dog in her litter.

She seems to be settling in quite well!

A few tweaks…

The share and ‘like’ buttons now on our blog posts! Also, there is a new page called Trailers and Cool Stuff available. Look around and see what the SLB authors are up to.

What conversation about ebooks?

It seems wherever one goes on the Internet, everyone is talking about ebooks. But are they? Sure, there are plenty of people talking about the sea change that’s happening in the publishing industry. There are stats to show that kindle sales are rising and even surpassing hardcover sales. There’s plenty of chat about self-publishing phenoms that make us all believe that yes, we too could be that millionaire author with our $1.99 ebook price point, and there’s interesting talk of traditionally published authors now going it alone down the self-publishing road. Yes, these are all markers to show that we have truly entered the age of the download generation, but is anyone talking about ebooks? I mean really talking about them? I’m not referring to any of the above, I’m talking about the books themselves. The e-ink. The blood, sweat and tears that authors have left on the electronic page. The magic weaved among the words. The stories themselves.

People have articulated over and over again why they will lament the loss of hardcopy books – the feel of it in their hands, the smell of it, the turning of the pages, the favorite dog-eared copy that holds a special place on their shelf and in their heart. The memories such a tome evoked – but there’s another reason why I will miss books. They’re a talking point.

I’m currently on the verge of buying an e-reader. I’ve realized there are three reasons for this. Firstly, I spend way too much on books and the lower price of ebooks will save me a ton of cash. Secondly, it’s convenient. I have a long commute and being able to carry multiple books at the same time and not run the risk of them getting roughed up in my bag (I hate damaged books!) is a win-win. Thirdly, I just don’t have the space for books any more.
It’s this third and final “confession” that’s most troubling to me. As a child I hoarded books. (There’s really no other word for it). There was a shelf above my bed that was so chock full of them that adding to it required vigorous shoving or Jenga-like balancing skills. Thankfully my father was good at home improvements because I swear, if that shelf had ever failed while I was sleeping the sheer volume of books would have killed me.

I loved having my books on display. Not only did it serve as a complete visual history of what I had read, it also showed my changing tastes and my growth as a reader. There was Willard Price’s “Adventure” series, Piers Anthony’s Xanth series, and the doorstop tomes of Brooks’ Shannara series. There was the dirty great head of a shark, all teeth and menace, thrusting upward towards the miniscule unsuspecting swimmer on the spine of Peter Benchley’s Jaws. There was Weis and Hickman’s Dragonlance trilogies, Tanis reaching for me with an outstretched hand, Desmond Bagley’s High Citadel, Craig Thomas’s Firefox and Firefox Down. And then there were a bunch of psychology books that piqued my interest in my late teens. Games People Play and the bright yellow cover of I’m OK, You’re OK by Thomas A. Harris which, incidentally, is an excellent book that everybody should read at least once in their lifetime. These were just a few.
Not only did I love looking at my own books, I loved going round other people’s houses and looking at their books. Immediately I could tell if I had a kinship with people. “I see you like Connolly too. Which one of his is your favorite?” Or, coming across something I was interested in I could ask, “Oh, you read this? What did you think of it?” Whereupon, more often than not, the person would walk over, whip the book from the shelf and hand it to me. “I liked it. Here. You can borrow it if you want.”
I’ve borrowed books and loved them enough to buy my own copy. I’ve loaned out books, happy to share my passion for a story, and got them back battered and beaten up (which p*ssed me off immensely). I’ve handed out books knowing full well I’d probably not see that copy again and I’ve repurchased books multiple times to replace the ones that didn’t come back. I’ve sat on trains and looked at what the people opposite me are reading. I’ve had people read over my shoulder for a few stops and then ask me what I’m reading, resulting in lengthy discussions. This was true word-of-mouth. With ebooks and ereaders these kinds of interactions just aren’t going to happen and I can’t help but think that this is going to impact sales figures.

Now I’m not for one minute suggesting that people won’t continue to talk about books. The Internet has the capacity to reach far more people than snatched conversations over coffee and review sites are a dime a dozen. However, an online review, no matter how good, is not the recommendation of a trusted friend. A review can’t pull the book down from its shelf and say, “Here. Take it,” and hand you a free copy. Dear God, that’s almost like…(whispers) piracy!
Granted, book clubs will still purchase their book of the month and discuss it at length, friends will still ask each other in passing “Have you read any good books lately?” But having books physically present in a room made starting that conversation all the more easy, almost inevitable, and I do think those conversations resulted in people buying books.

I think there’s another reason why ebooks are going to hurt sales. One copy is always going to be enough. Sure, my digital library can get wiped out in a cataclysmic system crash but the outlets where I buy my ebooks from will have a record of my purchases and let me instantly replace them. I’m convinced I’m single-handedly responsible for making Terry Brooks successful. I bought at least five copies of the Sword of Shannara over the years to replace loaners that never came back – and here’s the kicker, I had no intention whatsoever of rereading it. I just liked owning that book. I liked the cover. I liked the look of it on my shelf, the fat width of it jutting above the books to either side like the top of a castle battlement. I liked seeing it among all my other books, a kaleidoscope of colored spines, vertically oriented text and thumbnail pictures. I won’t get any of that with an ebook.
I’m pleased to see the eReaders are now incorporating lending features, I think this can only be a good thing, but once you’ve borrowed an ebook, are you seriously going to then go and buy it? Why would you ever want to? I rarely re-read books, but it’s not a ebook I’d be buying, it’s just bytes, and let’s be honest, an e-reader lying around the house just doesn’t have the same aesthetic as a book now does it? There was uproar when Harper Collins announced it was going to place restrictions on libraries, only allowing them to lend ebook titles a finite number of times before repurchasing, it got me thinking about how people value ebooks versus physical books and the whole distribution dynamic of books among the general population – borrowing, buying and loaning. I think that’s a topic for a whole other blog post but suffice to say, in hindsight, Harper Collins policy actually starts to make some sense to me.

I’m not against ebooks, in fact I’m really looking forward to the ease with which Ill be able to access them with an e-reader. But I will miss books. Not for any of the usual reasons people give, I’ll just miss owning them.

Are people talking about ebooks? Really talking about ebooks? I’m sure they are, but I don’t think they’re having the same kind of spontaneous conversations that arise from having books physically on display – and I think that’s a sad loss.

Stuart Clark is the author of the Project U.L.F. series of Science Fiction adventure books

An Appreciation of Jeff Wayne’s “War of the Worlds”

“No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space.”

So begins Richard Burton’s narration of Jeff Wayne’s musical version of H.G. Wells’ classic, The War of the Worlds.

Given that this is my first blog entry on the ‘Eclectic Authors’ group blog, I thought it fitting to pay a tribute to one of my earliest influences. As a science fiction author, it’s very easy for me to pinpoint two seminal works that originally got me interested in the genre.   One of them was Star Wars.  The other followed only a year later and came in the form of Jeff Wayne’s musical version of “War of the Worlds.”

As a child, my father would often play WOTW on long journeys in the car. From Burton’s opening lines to the end, I was always captivated.  The opening orchestral strings still give me goose bumps to this day. A real treat would be to go over to my friend’s house whose father had the double album.  I would pull it from his record collection and stare at the stunning yet disturbing artwork of Michael Trim, Geoff Taylor and Peter Goodfellow.

The first cylinder lands on Horsell Common

Jeff Wayne was born in Queens, New York.  He spent four years of his young life in the UK when his father, Jerry Wayne, an actor, singer and theatre producer played Sky Masterson in the original West End musical production of Guys and Dolls.  After moving back to the US, Wayne completed a degree in journalism, supporting himself by playing keyboards in bands and coaching tennis.
In 1966 Wayne composed the score for his father’s successful West End show “Two Cities,” based on another classic, Dickens’ “A Tale of Two cities.”   He returned to the UK and became a record producer, helping to produce David Essex’s album “Rock on.”  He would later collaborate with Essex again on the WOTW project.
Through the course of the 1970’s, Wayne wrote thousands of advertising jingles as well as a number feature film and documentary film scores.  He was also a musical director for various artists.  It was his father that introduced him to Wells’ War of the Worlds.

Wayne’s WOTW was really a product of the times.  In 1978, progressive rock (prog rock) was popular and the concept album – an album with a running theme – was in its hey-day.  Electronic keyboards gave musicians access to a plethora of (other wordly) sounds and the vocoder was the perfect tool to give the martians their voice.  With all the ingredients in place, Wayne took on the science fiction classic.

Despite Wayne’s long list of credentials, for his project to have success it needed credibility and that credibility came in the form of Burton and his supporting cast who read like a who’s-who of popular rock and pop artists of the 70’s.

Burton was arguably one of Britain’s finest actors and a household name on both sides of the Atlantic due to his seven academy award nominations and his turbulent relationship with Elizabeth Taylor.
It is through Burton and his understated yet sympathetic portrayal of the journalist that we witness the invasion.

The Martians Attack London

Scattered through the musical score, the journalist drops anecdotal narration, describing the scenes of horror as he witnesses them, the world being systematically over run by the martian invaders.

The secondary cast gave the album huge amounts of kudos just because of their standing in popular culture at the time, but the fact of the matter is they were all perfectly cast. Justin Hayward (Moody Blues) is the sung voice of the journalist, with Chris Thompson (Manfred Manns Earth band/”Blinded by the light”), starring as the voice of the people.  Hayward performs the ballad Forever Autumn which alone went on to be a top five hit in the UK chart, while Mann sings Thunder Child, a lament to the loss of a warship that would symbolize mankind’s last stand.

A Martian fighting machine destroys HMS Thunder Child

As the journalist struggles for his own survival he meets secondary characters, the late Phil Lynott of the band Thin Lizzie putting in a star turn as the deranged Parson Nathaniel, a man driven mad by the events around him that are inexplicable within the framework of his religious beliefs.  To him, the martians are just “demons in another form.”

"I shall burn them with my holy cross!"

Lynott is joined in his duet “The Spirit of Man” by Julie Covington (Evita/”Don’t Cry for me Argentina”) who plays Beth, his wife, a woman desperate to make him see reason again. Essex plays the artilleryman, a character we meet early on in the piece when his unit is “wiped out” fighting the martians on Horsell common.  It is the first time the humans square-up against the invaders and an indication of the shape of things to come.  He travels briefly with the journalist to London where the two are separated during a massive martian attack but they are reunited later when Essex lends his gravelly vocals to the rousing “Brave New World,” a battle cry for human resilience.  At this point it is hinted at that the soldier has also become slightly mentally unhinged, a Victorian victim of post-traumatic stress perhaps.

You know where..? Underground

When you’ve listened to the musical WOTW a few times it’s hard to imagine anyone else bringing these characters to life, but the real genius of the work lies in Wayne’s composition – a seamless melding and layering of acoustic, electric and orchestral arrangements.  Sure, there’s the occasional twangy guitar in there but this was the seventies man, and if the musical style dates the work a little I would argue that it is all the better for it.

Much of the album’s success lies in Wayne’s ability to use music as a medium to bring WOTW to a wider audience.  For every die-hard sci-fi fan who was an instant convert, there were probably many others who didn’t like science fiction or weren’t big readers but who found the album an attractive alternative because they were more inclined toward music and the spoken word.  Maybe they were just tempted to give it a listen because of the big names associated with it.  Whatever the reason, to quote Burton himself, “from that moment, they were doomed.”

As mentioned before, WOTW was first released in 1978.  It spent 235 weeks on the UK chart and sold more than 13 million copies.  In 1995 a special edition featuring remixes and additional concept art was released and in 2005, the original album was digitally remastered.
Each re-release of the album has touched a new generation and garnered Wayne’s version of WOTW a legion of lifelong fans.  The interest generated in the work has spawned a number of spin-off projects.
In 1994 and 1998, computer game versions of WOTW were released and a PlayStation game is also available. 2007 was supposed to see the release of an animated movie version, although at present it is still in the production stages. Test animation footage can be seen here
A live tour of the production began in the UK and Ireland in 2006. As well as featuring some of the original voice talent (Justin Hayward, Chris Thompson) It includes a holographic projection of Burton and a gigantic martian fighting machine.  The orchestra is conducted by none other than Wayne himself.

The show has proved to be such a huge success that it has toured annually since, visiting Australia and New Zealand, Germany, Holland and Belgium.  You may want to prepare yourself, it can only be a matter of time before the martians invade US shores.

Wayne’s “War of the Worlds” will always hold a special place in my heart as one of my earliest influences. Like Star Wars, it has survived the test of time remarkably well.  I still listen to it on a regular basis and digital technology allows me to skip to a favorite track if time is short but that’s never as satisfying as hearing Burton’s opening lines and listening to it in its entirety.
If you have not yet had the opportunity to experience Wayne’s War of the Worlds I would strongly recommend you do so.  It’s a great piece of work.

Additional Links:

All things relating to Jeff Wayne’s “War of the Worlds”
A fascinating history of Jeff Wayne’s “War of the Worlds”

Stuart Clark is the author of the Project U.L.F series of science fiction adventure novels.

“Would You Like a Free Mug With Your Coffee?”: Drug-Company Gifts for Doctors

By Chris Stookey

During my medical residency in the 1990s, the hospital where I worked put on, like most hospitals, a monthly “drug luncheon.”  A drug luncheon is something akin to a fair where drug companies operate booths pitching their various wares, in this case, drugs.  The drug companies, themselves, pay for the event.  I remember how my fellow residents would get excited on drug luncheon day.  There would be free food, flashy slide-show presentations, and free gifts.  All the doctors, residents, and medical students at the hospital were invited to attend.

We would walk into the large conference room where the luncheon was held, and we would immediately be assaulted by the smell of simmering casseroles and by blue-suited drug salesmen, the so-called “drug reps.”  We would pile our plates with free food, then the drug reps would invite us to visit their booths where we were promised a variety of gifts.  The gifts would range to include free drug samples, free stethoscopes, and free trips to tropical places.  Nearly every drug rep offered you a complimentary pen with the company logo on it.  There were also free penlights, free centimeter rulers, free tee-shirts, and free coffee mugs—all with the company logo, of course.

In addition to the free food and gifts, we also earned free “CMEs,” continuing medical education units, at these lectures.  All doctors must stay up-to-date by attending lectures and taking medical courses, and all must earn a certain number of CME credits every year to keep their licenses current.  As it turns out, the pharmaceutical industry funds about half of all CME courses offered in the United States, and CME credit was an important part of the drug luncheon experience during my residency days.  Simply by signing our names on an attendance sheet at the luncheon, we earned valuable CME credit.

All we had to do in exchange for the free food, gifts, and CMEs was listen to a four- or five-minute sales pitch by this or that drug rep regarding his company’s newest and greatest wonder drug just brought to market.  In addition, there were lectures and videos promoting featured drugs.

I always came away from these luncheons feeling a little “unclean.”  Had we all just been pawns in a big brain-washing scheme, a scheme to get us to prescribe the drugs pitched at the luncheon?  My fellow residents all answered this question with a resounding, “No!”  They all said their prescribing habits were not in any way influenced by these luncheons.  They were just there for the free food and gifts.

But, I wondered: if no one’s drug-prescribing habits were influenced by the free food and gifts, then why were the drug companies spending so much money to put these luncheons on in the first place?  Was it simply because they liked us?  I suspected the truth was the marketing departments at the drug companies had thoroughly researched the answer to the question, and the answer was a resounding, “Yes! Drug luncheons do influence prescribing behavior.”

Yet, if the luncheons influenced prescribing, was this ethical?  Shouldn’t doctors be prescribing medications based what’s best for their patients—rather than on a free lunch and a fountain pen?

I’m certainly not the only one who feels uncomfortable about drug-company-sponsored free food and CMEs.  Dr. Marcia Angell, a former editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, has been outspoken in her criticism of this practice.  Dr. Bernard Lo, a leading medical ethicist at the University of California, has called for an end to drug-company-funded CME conferences.  In June of this year, the University of Michigan Medical School announced it would no longer accept drug company money for CME coursework (the first medical school to do so).

According to an article appearing in The New York Times (June 23, 2010), drug companies and medical device manufacturers spend around $1 billion a year to sponsor CME events.  The drug companies maintain they offer lectures, information, and courses that are free from bias.  Dr. Michael Steinman, a professor of medicine at the San Francisco V.A. Medical Center, disagrees.  As quoted in the Times article, Steinman believes: “The course providers have a subtle and probably unconscious incentive to put on courses that are favorable to industry because they know where their bread is buttered.”

Meanwhile, as I wander around the hospital where I work today, I still see the signs of drug company marketing.  There’s the doctor who just walked by with a drug company pen in her white coat.  There’s another doctor drinking coffee from a mug with the name of a popular antidepressant written on it.  Another doctor gleefully tells me he’ll be going to a medical conference in Hawaii—meals and CME credits paid for by the drug company sponsoring the event.

I tell my colleague to have a good time in Hawaii.  Rather than mention my discomfort with drug-industry-sponsored CME, I simply shrug my shoulders and say: “Be sure to wear sunscreen.”

Hello all!

Since the best way to begin a conversation with someone new is to introduce yourself, that is what I will do here. I am B. Pine, and I am the author of a fantasy series titled The Draca Wards Saga. The first book, Familiar Origins, was picked up by Silver Leaf Books and is now available. The official release date is May 2011, but it is available right now on Kindle, and as a pre-order.

In order to break the ice, many seminars and workshops would have each member of the group state a few interesting facts about themselves. It always seems to work, so I will pick up on that and list five things about me that I think are interesting:

1. I am a left-handed Capricorn. (Look up other left-handed Capricorns; many of them are quite famous. He,he!)
2. My oldest child was born in England.
3. My youngest was born on Halloween.
4. I love Boxers (the dog, not the shorts)
5. I skipped kindergarten and was placed straight into first grade.

The Draca Wards Saga is my main project at the moment. You can find out more about it here: www.dracawards.com

I like putting images in my posts. So here’s one. This is the map of my world:

Click here to read a few interviews: Familiar Origins Tales of the Council of Elders

That’s all I have for now. But I hope to have more for you all soon.

B.