DARK CURRENTS

I submitted a story for inclusion in an anthology edited by the redoubtable Ian Waites to be published by NewCon Press in spring and I'm glad to say it was accepted. I'm not a great fan of writing shorts - there's sod all money in it and they use up stories/characters/denouements at an alarming rate - but I wanted to give a new set of characters a run out before deciding to hand them a book of their own and I have to say that I was quite pleased with how they turned out.

The story is called 'Alternate Currents' and 'stars' Nikola Tesla the uber-genius who gave the world alternating current and all the joys of copious supplies of electricity. It'll be interesting to see what the reaction is but I've already decided to expand it into a full-length novel, working title 'Tesla Vs the Martians'. This is what I'll be working on once I've put the Demi-Monde to bed.

This is the cover art for 'Dark Currents' - excellent - and is the work of Ben Baldwin. He calls it 'Conflagration'.

HOW TO SURVIVE THE DEMI-MONDE

I had a request from an on-line magazine to write a piece about surviving the Demi-Monde. This was the result. It gives me a chance to show how Ella was dressed during her adventures in the ForthRight. Artwork as always by Nigel Robinson.

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

OK ... I've read the book and I've seen the Noomi Rapace Swedish film version and I'd not been been convinced by either of them so sheer curiosity persuaded me to take in David Fincher's effort. And though it wasn't a bad film I was left with the distinct impression that Fincher (and I'm a great admirer of his work so I say this with some reluctance) was intimidated by expectations generated by the book and the Swedish film adaptation.

I am of the firm belief that film adaptations of books must recognise the differences between what works in print and what works on celluloid ... but when a book like TGWTDT has sold 60 million copies it takes a brave, brave director (and an even braver studio) to defy this weight of expectation ... especially when Lisbeth Salander has become such an iconic character. Doug Liman/Tony Gilroy recognised the need to mutate a book when it moved from print to screen with their adaptation of the Bourne books and I think a little of their lack of reverence would have been helpful here.

In making Lisbeth (and I though Rooney Mara's performance was excellent) a more vulnerable character Fincher opened the way for a more liberated interpretation of the book's character dynamics. And what this did was make the two rape sequences (so powerful in the Swedish version) redundant and gratuitous in the Hollywood version: BUT I guess to have deleted them would have opened both Fincher and Sony to accusations of whimping out. Yet the fact is these could have been deleted with no harm done to Mara's interpretation of Lisbeth  (I would, however, have made the fight scene in the subway more visceral ... equip Lisbeth with a knuckleduster, perhaps?). The rapes got in the way ... which was unfortunate because Mara's portrayal made the burgeoning relationship between Lisbeth and Blomkvist much more believeable.

And while we're on the subject of Blomvkist, I thought Daniel Craig was terrific tho' who thought it necessary to have his daughter prompt the breakthru insight should be shot.

Yeah, it's better than the Swedish version ... the lighting's better, the acting's better ... but ... but ... but ... the script needs culling ... the tone is inconsistent ... it's too long ... the attempts to resolve the plot holes clunking ... and then there's the rape scenes. Roll on the 20 minute shorter Director's Cut.

My Score: 7/10

THE DEMI-MONDE IN NORTH AMERICA

Things seem to be going well for the DM in the States and Canada tho' it's difficult to assess how well. The reviews are starting to come in on Amazon.com ... nineteen thus far with ten 5* and three 4* which ain't bad. There have been some crackers in there too so I'm quite buoyed by the positive reaction.

Local papers in the US have also been picking up on the book. The Denver Examiner (weird to have your book being written about in the US) was the most intriguing http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.examiner.com%2Fbooks-in-denver%2Fbook-review-the-demi-monde-by-rod-rees-review&h=0AQF3LN9NAQGYzERwLkYmdPxGCSWBhHzeJku_9jxjPGkUfQ in that the writer alluded to my using an assumed name and having connections with the intelligence community. I just wish I was that interesting. Next up was the Iron Mountain Daily News (you couldn't make this up could you?) http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ironmountaindailynews.com%2Fpage%2Fcontent.detail%2Fid%2F532380%2FThe-Demi-Monde.html%3Fnav%3D5087&h=QAQG8cg9PAQGLIcZkTpqKVZl8Ia11SmcWhaWng1PG_3RggA which cited me as a latter-day Jonathan Swift ... now THAT really made my day. Jonathan Swift is one of my all time heroes. Regina M. Angeli you are a star!

Finally I got this in from Toronto's 'The World's Biggest Bookshop':

2012

A belated Happy New Year to all!

I had intended to open 2012 with a new slate - this in the form of having put the Demi-Monde saga finally to bed - but being an inveterate tweaker I'm still struggling to finished the the last book, 'The Demi-Monde: Fall'. It's almost there, just the glossary to polish and then it'll be in beta read mode. Probably tooooooooo long at 194,000 words (about a third thicker than the first three books) but there was a lot to cram in. What I've done is separate it into two parts - one mainly set in the Demi-Monde and one in the Real World - so effectively it's two books in one.

Am I happy with it? Difficult question to answer. I worry that the denouement - and I'm bringing a lot of story arcs together at the end - might be too convoluted and I'm tempted to include a second Epilogue to give some character resolution but that might just be over-egging the pudding. I'll decide after the next read thru.

Once 'Fall' is finally put to bed then I'll turn my thoughts about what to write next. I'm trying to chose between a SF whodunit series featuring a pair of characters called Rocco Rockman and his sidekick, JenniFur; a pulp SF series about invaders from Mars; or a stand-alone story about South Africa set in 2025. I might do them in reverse order.

New Year's Resolution; none of 'em is going to be longer than 120,000 words! I'm done with big books.

RADIO TIMES

I had two interviews on American radio over the holidays and neither of them went according to plan.

The first was with Giovanni Gelati which was scheduled for 22:45 (my time) on the 26th. I 'phoned in only to be greeted by a message that I was 18 hours early ... so I recalculated and thinking that I was now wanted at 09:00 PST I called back on the 27th at 17:00. I was eventually bumped thru to Giovanni - 'hey you were scheduled for yesterday' - but fortunately he managed to slide me into the programme which featured an American crime writer 'Ben; and a lecturer in Creative Writing at UCLA called 'Lisa'. The programme lasted an hour. I'd love to be able to make an assessment of how I did but that's beyond me: I found myself concentrating so hard on the questions that I couldn't step back to make an objective assessment. Giovanni seemed happy tho', so it must have gone OK.

The second was with Dr. Alvin Jones on CBS Radio. Here I was expecting Alvin's call at 12:30 my time, but it came an hour early so minor panic ensued. It was an interesting 15 minute chat and I managed to get in my competition to win a copy of the book: all listeners had to do was answer the riddle I got in my Xmas Day cracker:

What's covered in muscles and swings from Christmas cake to Christmas cake?

MERRY CHRISTMAS