An Urban Fantasy

New Website

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 17:08:00 +0000

I'll be incorporating this blog into my new website. http://www.alanmcampbell.co.uk/

Damnation for Beginners

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 13:37:00 +0000

I forgot to mention that my Subterranean novella "Damnation for Beginners" has received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly. So I'm mentioning it now. http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-59606-439-3

Prometheus

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 12:35:00 +0000

This film has split people. Either you love it or hate it. I'm firmly in the "love it" camp. What they could have done is this: "Bunch of characters unwittingly awaken an alien, which then kills them one by by one until the last character kills the alien in some final battle." In other words, they could have made it exactly the same as all the other Alien films.

Thankfully, they did something different. I don't want to drop any spoilers here, but the real horror in this film is not something bursting out of a chest, but rather the moment in the film when you realise why these alien giants created us and why the human race is going to have to die. Great concepts. I also loved Cthulhu and the frantic surgery the black supermutator catalyst gloop. And I loved the look of the film. So creepy. It's eerily similar to a place I've written about in my latest book. Also, Michael Fassbender was excellent. And so was Noomi thingy. And I love the irony in the final scenes and that the title works on multiple levels.

Some people over on IMDB have complained about certain flaws in the story. Notably - our protagonists just happen to stumble upon the alien base very quickly, and that as scientists they shouldn't have removed their helmets even if the air was safe. Well, yeah. But this is a story. The helmets come off so you can see the actors' faces, which allows them to act. Even these new see through plastic bubbles still create a barrier between you and the actor. And finding the base so quickly? As opposed to what? Flying round the surface for several days, mapping and taking readings? I don't want to spend four days in the cinema watching that. It's like the point William Goldman makes about unrealistic things that always happen in films - one of which is that a character can always park outside of a building he is visiting. In real life, Mel Gibson would drive around for 45 mins trying and failing to find a goddamn space for his Ferrari. But who wants to watch that? So - he gets there, parks, on we go. They get the planet, here's the base, on we go. If dreary realism is more important than story then turn off your TV and watch a blank screen for two hours. That's as real as it gets.

I did wonder why Michael Fassbender's character wears a helmet outside. Maybe they'd filmed him without a helmet initially, discovered that it spoiled the fantasy of a poisonous atmosphere, then rescripted it to give him a reason to wear it? And I smiled when, near the start of the film, they point out that one whole section is a self contained lifeboat. Whenever someone says something like that, you know the main ship is going to be destroyed. Was that a spoiler? Not really.

So the story's not perfect. Which story is? I think it's damn fine, an order of magnitude better than the previous Alien films, which is what it needed to be. Alien one and two were both great, but there comes a time when you have to move on. And that black gloop has opened up a whole new Pandora's box of possibilities.

That Endless dark, That Endless Grey Gloom. The Horror, The Horror.

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 20:48:00 +0000

If you've ever wondered what it might be like to survive after a megavolcano eruption blankets the skies in dense grey miserable ash that smothers the sun and lasts for what seems like an eternity, and brings with it an endless deluge of grey rainwater that softens everything and turns grass to mud and rots plants and leaves you desperately yearning for just one glimpse of sunlight, then simply visit Scotland in summer.

The Olympics

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 17:27:00 +0000

Olympic fever has gripped some part of the nation. I'm not sure fever is the right word. Malaise is probably a better one. I don't get it myself. The Olympic Games are essentially a jumping competition. People get together to see who can jump the highest. Part of it is also a running competition, where we discover who can run between two points slightly faster than the others. And then there's "who can throw something the furthest". So at the end of it, we will determine who is slightly quicker or stronger than the others on that day. And then everyone goes home. Thus heroes are made.

Heroes.

Heroes is a word that's misused when referring to athletes. The media uses it all the time. It can mean someone with great courage or someone who fights for a cause. Someone who triumphs over adversity. I think it means someone who makes a great sacrifice for others. It's used correctly when we talk about our soldiers. But please don't use it to describe someone who is good at playing, which is what sport is. All competitive sport is play fighting. Play fighting is practice fighting. And fighting is about asserting your dominance, which is about sex.

So the Olympic Games is a worldwide chest thumping confrontation driven by sex. The winner of the jumping competition (or the throwing a stick the farthest contest, or whatever the particular area of play it happens to be) comes from my tribe, my country, then I can celebrate because it means that my country is better than your country. Which means we can beat you up and take all your women any time we want to. Which means your women should come over here and breed with us.

Why "John Carter" was a flop

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 15:53:00 +0000

Some time ago, prior to giving a talk on world building to some university students, I looked up the top 100 grossing Hollywood films of all time. 97 of them where Science Fiction or Fantasy. The genre clearly has appeal. Now Disney's latest Fantasy epic, “John Carter”, looks set to rank among the biggest money-losers of all time. It had a great cast, sumptuous special effects, oodles of action and an entertaining story. On paper it would seem to provide the same sort of spectacle as Avatar – and, for a Hollywood blockbuster, spectacle is essential. So what went wrong?

I enjoyed it – but I think I went to see it for different reasons than most people would. I love classic Science Fiction and Fantasy. The story was never going to win any awards for originality – but that's because it was written by Edgar Rice Burroughs 100 years ago, and has been plundered by same genre films ever since. A guy is mysteriously transported to a faraway place, where he turns out to be “the chosen one”, beats the bad guys and gets the girl. Just like “Avatar”, you know how its going to end. And that's all fine. “Flash Gordon”, “Avatar”, even the “Star Wars” saga have all nodded their heads in its direction.

In terms of story “John Carter” and “Avatar” are very similar. An outsider arrives to save the native people from the bad guys and falls for the princess in the process. “Avatar” is stronger because we empathise with the “Poor Natives” who are in the process of being steamrollered by “The Evil Corporation”, whereas with “John Carter” we are rooting for our hero to save a privileged, kung fu fighting, sword master of a princess from a forced marriage to the handsome Dominic West. So there isn't quite as much at stake.

But I don't think that's where the film falls down. “John Carter” isn't a bad story by any means. “Avatar” didn't attract huge crowds because they really wanted to see native people kick corporate assets. It attracted people because of the sheer spectacle. You buy your cinema ticket, knowing you're going to spend the next two hours on a fabulously exotic distant world.

When you leave a cinema at night and the mall and car park are dark and quiet, do you ever felt a twinge of depression? Isn't it a bit like the feeling you have when you get back home after a wonderful holiday? Do you ever notice that this feeling is worse after big spectacle films like “Avatar”? Spectacle in a Hollywood blockbuster should not be underrated.

Most of “John Carter” was filmed in Utah, and it kinda looks like Utah. It's all a bit samey. That's a problem for this type of film, but not necessarily a terminal one. A Western set in Utah could have promised and offered more of a spectacle. Rather, it seems to me (looking at this from the viewpoint of a fantasy writer who builds worlds for a living) is that for any spectacle to be effective, the viewer has to be able to suspend their disbelief – has to allow themselves to be transported there. I've said this many times before. In Fantasy, no matter how weird a new world is, we need to believe, on some level, that it is real. If you're not remotely convinced that what you're seeing or reading is real, then why should you care about the characters?

Pandora and Middle Earth are fictional places, and yet I can believe that they are real. They are separate from our reality. My mind allows them to exist somewhere. Hogwarts School of Wizardry works fine because it's magic, and it's enough that magic could be real. The problem with a fantasy set on Mars is that you can look out of your window at night and see the red planet glimmering up there in the sky. And you've seen the photos and you know that it is airless and dead. And there aren't any four-armed green men or airships. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote his Barsoom stories at a time when it was conceivable that Mars might be populated. Today is different. Subconsciously, we know before going in to see “John Carter” that it's going to be difficult, if not impossible, to suspend our disbelief, and that ultimately makes the film a waste of time for most of us.

Which is a great shame. Fans of classic science fiction will enjoy “John Carter”, even if there aren't enough of us around for Hollywood to make its money back.

Collective Nouns

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:52:00 +0000

I recently found myself looking up the collective noun for dragons (it's "flight", apparently, but also "weyr" or "wing"), and it occurred to me that as language evolves we must lack collective nouns for countless modern words.

We have collective nouns for certain groups of people.

A faculty of academics.
A troupe of acrobats.
A crew of sailors.
A worship of writers (which does seem odd).

But how would you describe a collection of programmers? A class of programmers? Possibly, if they were object orientated programmers. A geek of programmers? A compilation of programmers?

What about other groups? There may already be collective nouns, but I couldn't find any.

I did find someone suggesting "an absence of waiters", which is great.

A tremble of bungee jumpers?
A swindle of bankers?
A conceit of tweeters? (Or bloggers, or even writers for that matter.)
A fiddle of politicians?
A delay of pharmacists?
A ruckus of drummers?
A surfeit of councillors?
An impediment of Health and Safety officers?

Any other suggestions gratefully received.

Damnation for Beginners

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:52:00 +0000

A novella I wrote for Subterranean a while back has now been announced. "Damnation for Beginners" is a revenge story set in the Deepgate world between Cog City and Hell.

http://www.subterraneanpress.com/index.php/2012/01/07/alan-campbell-announcing-damnation-for-beginners/

Free eBook of "Lye Street"

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:18:00 +0000

In the face of recent eBook price fixing by Apple and five of the leading publishers, I have decided to temporarily offer my novella "Lye Street" for free to anyone who wants to read it. I'm doing this to promote my other books and to bring readers to my new Facebook page.

"Lye Street" is a stand-alone novella which acts as a prequel to the Deepgate books.

The kindle version is currently selling on Amazon for $0.99c (currently 86p), and also on Smashwords for the same amount.

The original limited edition hardback can be found here.

If you want a free copy of "Lye Street", please visit http://www.facebook.com/UrbanFantasy for details. And if you want to "like" the page, that would be great.

Merry Christmas folks.

Facebook Page

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:13:00 +0000

A friends of mine has started a Facebook page to promote my work.

http://www.facebook.com/UrbanFantasy

If any fans would like to like it, then that would be cool.

Mercury UFO Photo Analysis Reveals Spacecraft

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:13:00 +0000

A series of photos from a Nasa telescope shows what some people believe to be an enormous, planet-sized spacecraft in the sky next to Mercury. The mysterious object becomes visible as a solar flare passes over it, leading some ufologists to believe that it is actually a cloaked spaceship.

Nasa scientists claim that the object is merely an artefact of their image processing system, caused when subsequent images are superimposed on previous ones to improve clarity.

However, independent image processing reveals something far more difficult to explain.

If we start with the clearest of the Nasa images:

The object appears to show two parallel cylindrical structures.

Now, things become interesting when one adjusts the contrast levels, sets the CMYK gauss overlay into the ultra-range to compensate for the inevitable Doppler IR bleed out and micro-pascal quasi-interference. When these adjustments are made, it is just possible to make out more details in the craft structure.

A darker band is just visible towards the top of the structure. Further sharpening and image rectification using a Pascallian Callanetic Shunt algorithm reveals yet more detail.

Now we are about at the limit of recoverable detail. We can, however, reduce the contrast, quadra-filter for UV, and lighten the bromine quanta waves, to give a much clearer version:

The resulting image definitely appears to be a craft of some sort. One can clearly see what appears to be twin "nacelles" towards the stern (possibly a propulsion system?) and a disc like structure at the bow, possibly housing the bridge and/or tactical systems. Both appear to be connected to a central "body" or "lower hull" - perhaps housing an engine, sleeping quarters, or cargo space.

In light of this new evidence, it is apparent that Nasa's pathetic "image processing artefact" explanation is simply an ill thought out cover story for what many of us have suspected for years: that there is, in fact, a planet-sized invisible space ship sitting next to Mercury.

Paying too much for your eBook?

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 13:28:00 +0000

So it turns out that Apple, along with five of the worlds biggest publishers are being investigated for fixing the price of eBooks. Often - bizarrely - the eBooks cost more than the paper copies. Ian Rankin's THE IMPOSSIBLE DEAD is £7.79 for the hardcover, and a smidgeon under a tenner if you simply want the words but are prepared to forego the paper.

In my case, the digital version of SEA OF GHOSTS cost slightly less than the hardcover, but even that seems far too much to me. After all, with digital copies, there are no production costs whatsoever and virtually no distribution costs to take into account (simply maintaining servers and software). When I self published LYE STREET several months back, I priced it at 99 cents (about 80p), which was the lowest Amazon would permit me to sell it at. They still take 70%.

So why do some books cost more in this format? The government is partly to blame. VAT is charged at 20% on eBooks, but not real books. Why? Presumably because it is a handy source of revenue until enough people complain, and they are forced to stop it. While publisher price fixing appears to partly responsible, they can only charge these prices if enough people are prepared to pay them. That requires a large fan base. Authors like Ian Rankin and Stephen King already have large enough fan bases to make this sort of pricing feasible. Most other authors don't.

Almost every book in the Amazon Kindle Bestseller list is 99p. Those few titles that cost more are all by big name writers with millions of fans. For the rest of us writers, it seems to me that publishers have to bring down the price of our eBooks to compete in a very crowded marketplace.

CHRISTMAS MARKUP

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 14:07:00 +0000

I've been looking for Christmas presents. One which looked like a good deal was on Groupon here:

I know a few women who might like this sort of thing. And it was reduced from £56.25 to £12.99, which is an apparent saving of 77%.

Knowing nothing about this sort of thing, I Googled the product, to see if it was any good.

And the supplier came up, here:

It seems to be the same product. The ingredients match. But, surprisingly, the masks only cost 51p from the supplier, so £2.55 for five, before shipping. £2.55 to £56.25. Not a bad markup!

Jet2.com Free Flights Scam

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:00:00 +0000

Today I received a nice email from Jet2.com, reminding me that I have gathered enough loyalty points for a free flight anywhere in Zone 1 (Europe). These loyalty points work as follows:

Hurrah. Great news. In fact, the loyalty scheme was the reason I previously booked all my flights with Jet2.com. Now I had enough for a free flight!

I went to the website to check it out. And sure enough, no mistake:

But then there's always catches with these things. I checked the email again and found this in the small print.

FREE applies to base fare only. Ok, what is the base fare?

I tried a few days in Prague, flying from Edinburgh.

The base fare is £26.99 each way. So if you had to buy this flight, instead of getting it free with your loyalty points, it would only cost £53.98. Not too shabby, really.

But of course that's just the base fare.

You must then add the other fees Jet2 insist upon charging you. They charge you to check in and charge you to take your luggage with you and charge you to select a seat (mandatory, as far as I can tell) and charge you to book the ticket and then charge you to pay for it. They will also give you a couple of microwaved ready meals for £12, if you can bear that. I couldn't. This was all getting out of hand.

They call this "drip pricing" and it puts the costs up a bit:

£103.53. Your cheap airfare has suddenly doubled, which would be annoying if you didn't have the loyalty points to get the flight for free.

Doesn't bother me, because I have a free zone one flight:

Except, hang on... didn't it say something about applying to the base fare only?

And the base fare is only 2 x £26.99 = £53.98. Annoying. My free flight doesn't seem to be free any more.

£103.53 - £53.98 = £49.55.

My free flight now costs £49.55.

*Big grump*

Well, I suppose half price is better than no loyalty discount. So with wild abandon I clicked on the "Spend my Points" tab. I'm going to Prague in March for less than £50! That's still a good deal, even if my loyalty points aren't worth as much as I was told they would be. Of course I choose exactly the same flight I've already priced.

But then this happens:

Hang on, hang on...

Why is the base fare now 99p? It wasn't 99p a minute ago, when I checked the cost of the flight. Just to make sure, I went back and checked it again.

Yep. £53.98.
Some sort of weird glitch? Anyway, back to the "Spend my Points" tab.

Huh? There's definitely something funny going on here. If I want to pay in cash, the base fare is £26.99 each way. However, when I want to use my loyalty points to pay for the flight, the base fare drops to 99p each way.

*Bigger grump*

So how much is my free Jet2.com flight actually going to cost me now? Remember, it originally cost £103.53.

I went through the motions.

So, £103.53 if you pay by cash. But if you use your hard earned loyalty points to get the flight for free, it costs £101.48. A deduction of £2.05.

£101.48 for a FREE flight.

It seems I have been mislead. Jet2.com tell you you can save up your loyalty points and use them for free flights. They do this so that you will think it is a good deal and book through them. But by changing the base fare when you attempt to book your free flight, they ensure that your flight is not actually free at all.

GROTOX

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 18:38:00 +0000

Quantum Levitation

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 10:40:00 +0000

Tel-Aviv University demos quantum superconductors locked in a magnetic field (www.quantumlevitation.com). For an explanation of the physics behind this demonstration, visit www.quantumlevitation.com/levitation/The_physics.html.

It's Turner Prize Time Again.

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 09:35:00 +0000

Movie Remakes

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 12:44:00 +0000

In a recent article, film critic Barry Norman lamented the decline of creativity in the American film industry, which, he (quite rightly) states “hasn’t merely reached the bottom of the barrel, but has plunged right through it.” The problem? Hollywood is set to produce 30 remakes of 1980s films. Having exhausted most of the classics, and then the mediocre films, they now appear to be picking through whatever else is left: “Police Academy”, “Footloose”, “Cliffhanger”, “Drop Dead Fred” and “Porkys”.

Police Academy? Seriously?

Increasingly it seems that the American film industry operates on cycles of around 20 or 30 years. If you want to know what's going to be in the cinema next year, look back to find out whatever was showing three decades ago. At this rate we can look forward to revisiting “Avatar” and “Inception” in the twenty forties, along with the next batch of Trons, Clash of the Titans, Gladiators and Spidermans. Can you contain your excitement? I can.

Another disconcerting trend involves what Hollywood has taken to calling “reboots”. The “Hulk” reboot, the “Fantastic Four” reboot, the second “Planet of the Apes” reboot. A reboot appears to happen whenever a film doesn't generate the expected cash to justify making the numerous cash-generating sequels. Reboots are, essentially, remakes – except that they retain the concept or character (which they know is popular) and ditch the previous movie's story. That didn't translate to box office sales, so it never happened.

It's all about making safe money. There's an equation here. And there are people with calculators applying it to the back catalogue. “That one cost X million to make, and brought in Y million. We can remake it for this amount and it ought to bring in that amount. Those who haven't seen it will probably like it. And those who saw it 20 years ago might be tempted to see it again.” Y - X = Profit.

But doing this alienates half the viewing public. People might watch a remake of a film they fondly remember – but two, three, four of them? You get bored. What happens when there's nothing new at all, when a visit to the cinema means enduring one of “The Hollywood Hundred”, the set group of films that just cycle through remake after remake?

(With the exponential rise in computer power and the increasing complexity of computer graphics, we'll soon have digital Brad Pitts and Johnny Depps, indistinguishable from the real people, acting in the lead roles. Who do you want to see as the protagonist in “Alien: Reressurection”? Pick whoever you like, both versions of the film are showing in the same cinema, with digital Depp on screen three, digital Pitt on four.)

Like Mr Norman, I recently despaired. I don't go to the cinema nearly as often as I used to. Increasingly, there’s nothing worth watching. The last time I looked, my choice was “The Smurfs”, “The Smurfs 3D”, some animation about penguins, some other kids' films, and “Fright Night.” “Fright Night” had decent reviews, but is wasn't enough to tempt us. I've seen it before. I know the story. I might watch it on DVD, if there's nothing better available, but I'm sure as hell not driving into town and spending £20 to see it on the large screen.

It seems to me that the remake trend will continue for a while, but will ultimately dwindle. A lot of us are already fed up of remakes. As Hollywood films become increasingly repetitive – the same small clutch of ideas shown again and again – people will get bored, box office profits will slide, and the big studios will have to re-asses their business model. This is great news for Indie film makers, and for screenwriters. There's going to be a renaissance. The next big hits, the ones that make the most profit, aren't going to come from this slew of remakes, but will increasingly be low budget films that show viewers something they haven't seen before. At which point Hollywood will, hopefully, sit up and take notice.

M

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:06:00 +0000

YARD SALE

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 14:18:00 +0000

My partner's folks are having a yard sale on Saturday 27th August, 10am - 2pm. It's a huge clear out - acres of stuff from the house and several former businesses. Furniture, Kitchenware, Prints, Picture Frames, Boxes of Embroidery Supplies, Books, Toys, Games, Glassware, Bric-a-Brac, etc. It's on South Back Road in Biggar.

MAP HERE

#4

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 16:21:00 +0000

#3

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 15:07:00 +0000

#2

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 01:32:00 +0000

Cartoons

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 15:30:00 +0000

I've been working in my spare time with Canadian cartoonist, Ken Schotsch, creator of "Dingers". We are looking to find a home for these "one a day" cartoons. In the meantime, I'll post a few here.

We Own the Words

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Campbell) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 12:34:00 +0000

Bethesda Softworks are suing the creators of a game called "Mineworks" over the title of thier new game. As Markus Persson explains on his blog, Bethesda, the software company behind the "Fallout" and "Morrowind" series, have taken exception to Mr Persson's plan to call his new game "Scrolls", which they say conflicts with their existing trademark "The Elder Scrolls".

So can you really own the rights to all the individual words used in a trademark? If Bethesda's lawyers are to believed, then presumably "The" and "Elder" are also out of bounds. That's going to cause a few problems, not least for Bethesda, who can't be the first company to trademark a title containing the word "The". What's going to happen if all media companies start suing each other in cases like this? Could I trademark the titles of my books? (Would I want to?) What about trademarking the entire texts?

Perhaps Bethesda's lawyers are touchy because the company has another "Elder Scrolls" game in development. Also in development is a game called "Rage". That's "Rage" - one word - and is presumably not based on the "Streets of Rage" trademark by Sega.