Parallel worlds and chats with vampires

Working on something for a workshop, I recently got stuck on a technical question. Well the problem was trying to think a way to do something impossible involving a well-known speculation. If you accept the idea that parallel universes exist, how do you get to one and back and how do you find a specific one that you where aiming for?

Admittedly I was terrible at physics at school, which might not be helping. I have thought of one way but it is very vague for the minute. It probably isn’t going to have much of a solid scientific explanation either. It could work for the context of the story though.

This is a common problem though I think. At a certain point, scientific accuracy has to leave the room for the story to continue. I think we can all think of one example, where we have spotted some factual detail, there to show us that the writer has done some research.

Also re-read ‘Interview with the Vampire’ by Anne Rice. Given the latter entries in this series, it is actually rather interesting. It becomes in places a discussion on the New World which lacks God and morality and so makes the vampires the walking dead in that sense. They live in a universe where they have moved themselves beyond morality and then want it back and find they can’t. Well that was my reading of the character of Louis anyway. I also remembered ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’. Both are about a young man given immortality and have sensual writing amid moral decline.

'Handling the undead' and life experiences

Finished reading ‘Handling the Undead’ by John Ajvide Lindqvist. It deals with the return of the dead, but they don’t shamble around biting people. They return and the living have to deal with it. This turns the novel into something that cuts deeper. Ramsey Campbell reviewed ‘Pet Sematary (Spoiler warning) saying that he would have preferred it, if the child returned dead, but not malevolent and the family had to cope with this. It’s difficult to believe that Lindquist has read this, but the finished book proves the success of this approach.

Something else I’ve been wondering, is it easier to become moved by fictional events once you have lived for a while? When you are young, it’s possible to not get the full force of what death or heartbreak means. So when it happens in fiction, you don’t really understand until a certain point in your life.

Location and A Short history of Myth

Trying to think a plot for the vampire story. Basically where it is going to be set. There needs to be a reason for it. Although, it could always just happen in the place. But I think I should at least make an effort for some attempt at a reason.

Finished reading 'A Short history of Myth' by Karen Armstrong. Very interesting study, that makes you wish that the writer could be given space to expand it.

Convention worries and more paradoxes

I’ve been feeling down of late. A large part of it, is that a couple of conventions are looming and I’m getting worried that I haven’t got anything to submit to editors, or have read all the relevant books beforehand. I realise that I may be the only person who thinks like this. I have not signed up for any sessions for pitching anything, or having to interview anybody. I am not going to have to take an exam, when I get there, so I should not have to worry.

Trying to work on idea for a story, I’m having a problem with the Grandfather paradox. You can’t kill your own grandfather, but your grandchild could kill you, after you have caused it to be born. There should be a reason, for why this can’t work, but I can’t think of it.

'Fairyland', connection fail, the branch strikes, vampire ideas

Finished reading ‘Fairyland’ by Paul J. McAuley. It’s a very good novel dealing with the emergence of new genetic modification technology and the emergence of artificially created creatures called Dolls.

One of the things that impressed me about the novel, was that the future world felt believable through the technique of accumulated little details. We know we are in the future when the lead character remembers an event from his childhood dated to before the end of the twentieth century. It makes references to small things, rather then having long passages about how the world works.

These posts are getting less frequent at the moment, because my internet connection seems to fail, in windy weather. And now it appears to be on the verge of a massive fail.

Well actually it did. We had a man from the phone company around. Basically the problem was that a branch had poked its way through the phone line. This is probably symbolic of something, but I am not sure what.

I am still trying think of a new angle for a vampire story. Think that I might have got one, but still in the stages of making it work. Just having the idea is not good enough. Where I have stumbled before is having the idea, then that moment of err, and then what? I still don’t want it to be one which tries to find a scientific explanation for vampires. It’s not that, this notion is a good one; it’s just that it seems to have been by people before, who are more talented then me. So that’s out.

Also, really uneasy about the whole vulnerable to Christian symbols thing. That could end up asking for a scene where the vampire is confronted with a cross and then tries to hide behind the complete works of Richard Dawkins. (I’m sure somebody has done something like this.)

Sleepwalking, TV book clubs and the power level of vampires.

I’ve recently read ‘The Sleepwalker’s Introduction to Flight’ by Sion Scott-Wilson. I picked this up, because I liked the sound of the novel’s premise. Practising to become a cliff-diver in the garden, Mikey Hough hits the ground and puts himself into a coma. When he comes out of it, he learns that in the accident, he has lost the ability to sleep. While in hospital, he befriends a former RAF pilot and vows to track down his stolen Distinguished Flying Cross.

However, this apparently is a comic novel. What this translates into is a succession of grotesqueries. None of them are funny. It also turns into another story where the teenage narrator is able to win the girl next door. This is a familiar device that feels more like fan fiction then anything believable. The difficulty I have is that the novel strains to be funny, when it would work better with a more restrained style. Not everything has to be humorous.

I’ve finally seen the new channel 4/More 4 programme ‘The TV Book Club’. It suffers from having less than 30 minutes to cover an interview, an author profile, a look at obscure words and a study and review of the featured book. So the book that some person has been trying to fit in time to read in a week gets dealt with, over four minutes.

I’ve also been trying to think of a vampire story that could work and be relatively fresh. The difficulty is that it does all seem as if it has been done before. Something that I have noticed is that the power level of vampires seems to have been going down since ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker. In the novel, Van Helsing sits down and tells everybody about Dracula’s powers. According to him, Dracula has the strength of 20 men, the powers of necromancy, can control the weather, control rats, owls, bats, foxes and wolves, change himself into mist, go out in the day and dematerialise. But vampires rarely demonstrate all these powers in one novel these days

Spider-Man, jobs, Day of the Triffids

Sad to hear that Toby Maguire and Sam Raimi have been dropped from doing another Spider-Man film. Sony doesn’t really seem to be getting much goodwill from doing this. Criticism of Spider-Man 3 was largely defected from Ramie, as he clearly didn’t want to have Venom in the film. The studio has been talking about doing a reboot of the franchise, although the audience may not be that interested in sitting though another origin story. Unless it’s all over in 20 minutes.

Do you have ever those moments, when it feels that your ambitions have been thwarted by geography? I’ve seen an advert for a job of a library assistant that I would have liked to apply for but it’s in a different part of the country.

Saw the adaptation of ‘Day of the Triffids’ that was shown over Christmas, eventually. Good updating of the reason for the breeding of the Triffids and Eddie Izzard was impressive as the villain. However I ultimately felt that it was a let down. Firstly have the traffics gain roots that can grasp people and drag them though things, may have sounded impressive, but makes no sense. If they can do that, why have a sting, when they could just have prey dragged to them? It also weakens the basis for their name. (Three main roots – tri). Then there is the whole idea that the hero needs to have unresolved issues with his father. This smacks of something from an American book on screen writing. As does the whole ‘trying to remember something important from his childhood’ strand.