So there I was, listening to The Hobbit audiobook, and thinking, "Wow! I haven't read this in twelve years*." It's great.
There were vicious Goblins; tricksy Bagginses; treacherous Elves; Eagles; were-bears... you know the drill. It was absolutely action packed. There were so many events that there is no possible way the whole story could possibly fit into 384 pages.
Or rather, no way it could fit into 384 modern pages.
The thing is, most of us 21st century readers have acquired an addiction to first-person, or tight third person narration. In order to feed this habit, writers have to rely on a bag of long-winded tricks to explain what everybody beyond the hero is up to. For example, why did the Elves of Mirkwood imprison the Dwarves? Where did Gollum come from?
Tolkien had no need for bloated dialogs to get this information across: he hopped joyfully from head to head and not a bother on him. He'd give us whatever point of view was most relevant to the story and, if necessary, he could always fall back on a good old omniscient third-person narration: a view of the action that only God would have.
It gets the job done and done quickly.
More Favorable Reviews
Yes, yes, I'm bringing out the boast again. My story Heartless has garnered a few more favorable reviews. Terry at Fantasy Literature, said: "This story is new, challenging, exciting, unlike anything I’ve read before. I’ll be keeping my eye out for more by O Guilin."
Meanwhile, anthology editor, Rich Horton , listed it as one of his favorite tales from Beneath Ceaseless Skies in 2011.
Happy days!
*And even then, I was reading passages of it in a desperate attempt to trick a child into loving books.
- Mood:
cheerful
Most years I don't bother with resolutions, but this time it's different. I have two brand new cookbooks and my unbreakable, unbeatable rule will be to
I am going to beat this thing... this... eternal repetition of the same curries, day in, day out. Time for a change!
Watching
I saw X-Men: First Class last night. I don't know why I keep watching these when I'm not a fan of super-hero stuff. However, this one was decent enough. Magneto was a great character (unlike most of the others) and I genuinely enjoyed the very real divided loyalties of the mutants.
Reviews
Johnathan Crowe gave my story Heartless a lovely one-line review:
"a brilliantly nasty piece of work about dependency on magic"
Nice :)
You can still read it for free, on-line, here.
A New Year
I'm wishing all my friends a great New Year. Take no prisoners, that's what I say! It would be great to meet some of you in 2012. I'll be at WorldCon in Chicago -- and that's just for starters!
- Mood:
chipper
Members of my family keep asking me to explain the financial crisis to them. I'm no guru, but I have a certain set of beliefs about how the whole thing played out and last night I watched a documentary that reflected these ideas in a simple, yet devastating manner.
Inside Job, a film by Charles Ferguson and Chad Beck, interviews bankers and politicians from all over the world to build up a clear picture of what happened, how it happened and where we all are now. If you're a bit hazy on the details, I would highly recommend it.
Reading
I have just read the fist few pages of Warren Ellis' Crooked Little Vein. I think I'm going to like this one a lot!
Review
Some kind person has written a review of Beneath Ceaseless Skies #84, which contains my story Heartless. Beware: spoilers abound, but the story is out there on the web for free, so, if you haven't managed to look at it yet, now's your chance!
- Mood: chipper
Once upon a time, Karin's Book Nook was extremely kind to The Inferior. I'm delighted to say that the reviewer in question -- Karinlibrarian -- has been even more gentle with The Deserter.
"The Deserter is filled with secrets, betrayals, and heart-pounding action. This is the perfect follow-up novel [...]"
Read the rest of it here!
Apologies
I realise that this blog has been slowly deteriorating over the last few years into something of a propaganda/promotional tissue of endless blurb. Where is Peadar this week? Ooh, look! He is attending yet another Con with yet another banana...
While I'm not ashamed to blast people with the odd bit of self-promotion, in its undiluted form it gets old fast. I will do better. Soon.
World Fantasy Convention 2013 Cheap Memberships
For the next few days, attending membership of World Fantasy Con 2013 will be £75 (pounds sterling). After that, it shoots up 25%. I've joined up and can't wait to visit Brighton in the UK this time in two years. If Europe still exists by then, I'd love to see some of you there!
- Mood:
apologetic
Other than that, I'm just hanging on to see the full program for TitanCon next week where I'll be moderating panels full of real-life Stark children, 2000ad artists, Hodor and Syrio Forel. Bloody Hell!
Oh, and I'll also get to do a reading in the company of Ian McDonald.
Yes, I can name-drop along with the best of them and I intend to make the most of it!
ETA: Ooh! Almost missed this! There's a book giveaway of When The Hero Comes Home on Goodreads. Check it out here!
- Mood: chipper
On a more positive note, there's a brand new review of The Deserter over at Fantasy Book Review and it's been really kind.
"Peadar Ó Guilín continues to push the boundaries further and further back and young-adults will relish the maturity with which they are treated here. I recommend that you read The Inferior and then highly recommend that you straight-away begin on The Deserter."
Enjoy the rest of your week, lads and lasses...
- Mood: cheerful
A new review -- not of The Deserter, as you might expect, but of The Inferior -- is up on FantasyBookReview.co.uk.
"this book is a must read." And they should know, right? Right?
The paperback edition of the When The Hero Comes Home anthology is now available on Amazon.com.
And now, the part of the post you've both been waiting for...
Idiot
Yes, I am an idiot and my idiocy has caused me a nightmare of a week. Here are the two worst things I have done so far...
1) I put diesel into my petrol-engined car. The final bill, including about €30 of the wrong fuel, ended up at about €300. Go me! Or not...
2) I left my work laptop in the backseat of my car overnight. One guess as to what happens next.
I am awaiting my next move with bated breath.
- Mood: blah
The first, is from The BookBag. They loved The Inferior, so it's not strange to hear them say:
"I loved it and all fans of action-based dystopian fiction will love it too. I understand there is to be another book in this Bone World sequence - I only hope we don't have to wait another four years for it."
You can read the full thing here.
The second one, is from the Swedish blogger, Cybermage.
"I would really like to read more of Peadar Ó Guilín after this. His characters are just like I like them and the clash of primitives against technology is a favorite theme of mine. You might read The Inferior and The Deserter as a standalone duology but it is part of a trilogy. I have no idea when the last book will be out though I await it with high expectancy."
Once again, the full review can be found here.
- Mood: cheerful
Things Go Right
Now, the "Alien Society Epic" is something they can claim to have invented, or at least to have perfected. Whereas most TV of the time insisted that all civilizations were the same as ours** with the exception that all of their inhabitants had perfect teeth, HBO always prided itself on emphasizing what made their settings unique. Thus, for example, in Rome, a mother is pleased to see her young son being groomed for sex (she thinks) by a powerful older man; in Deadwood, racism is a trait in even the more admirable characters. These societies were different in many ways that would appall us, the viewers and HBO delighted in rubbing our noses in it.
An amazing scene in the first episode of Rome showed a slave being struck by one of the characters. The action was so natural, so unconscious, so violent... and none of the other characters so much as blinked when it happened. Just one of those things, like swatting at a fly.
I loved that HBO had the guts to take us far from Kansas in these series and for a while, I thought it was the reason I enjoyed them so much. I longed for the day when the US channel would raise its standard in Ireland so we could all bow down and kiss its knobbly toes...
And then, Sky Atlantic came along.
Things Go Wrong
Sky Atlantic promised that I would never have to buy another boxset. They would bring the magic of HBO into my front room while comely maidens fed me grapes and rubbed my sweaty forehead with unguents. Hurray! Even better, among the first two offerings from the channel, were two "Alien Society" series I'd been greatly looking forward to: Boardwalk Empire -- big award winner, set in the US prohibition era, and Treme -- picking up the pieces in a post-Katrina New Orleans with many of the creators and cast from the best show of all time, The Wire.
I couldn't wait.
In the end, however, both shows proved to be ho-hum disappointments for me and I couldn't work out why. They had everything, I thought, a HBO show should have: wonderful acting; brilliant dialog; alien attitudes and lifestyles... But with Treme in particular, despite its amazing music set-pieces and fascinating characters, I never, ever felt the urge to watch two episodes in a row. Never. Even more telling, was the fact that I allowed weeks to go by between watching the episodes I had recorded.
Boardwalk Empire was a little more successful, but only a little. Yes, I sat down in front of it every week, admired the costumes and the acting. No, I didn't lay awake wondering what would happen next.
And then, some time around the middle of the BE series, I watched an episode that had me sitting on the edge of my seat, and what had been missing became obvious. It was like a lesson straight out of Writing 101, the sort of thing you would imagine the geniuses of HBO wouldn't even need to think about.
But for the first time in the series, two equally powerful forces had clashed and the main character, Nucky Thompson, looked like he might actually be under threat. Up to then, he and his organization had coped far too easily with everything. There was never a real sense of danger.
The successful formula HBO had been following up to that point, seems to need, along with all the small dramas of the individuals, a larger conflict that everything else feeds into and intensifies. This is true for Deadwood -- although the actual conflict changes from series to series -- for Rome and for The Wire.
Treme's big conflict, for me, is just too nebulous at the moment. People versus an uncaring system. Boardwalk Empire has a conflict, but only a few times does it ever feel like a struggle between equals. It's almost like, and I hate to say it, HBO don't understand their own formula, that they arrive at these amazing shows by accident.
Having said that, the end of Season One of BE makes it look like that situation is about to change for the better. Here's hoping!
Things Go Right?
Of course, now we have Game of Thrones to watch on a Monday night and those of us who have read the books already, know that there is an excellent central conflict ready-made. The first two episodes have certainly emphasized that and so far, so very good. Here's hoping HBO have got their mojo back and will give us another classic!
Review Stuff
Strangely enough, reviews for The Inferior still crop up from time to time. A very flattering, but spoilerish one, came in the other day from the CyberMage blog. Nice. I would link, but links + livejournal + chrome browser seems to be out of the question unless I go into the html tab. I'm just not in the mood for all that hard work.
Interview in Irish
I've just agreed to do a radio interview in Irish -- I haven't spoken the language in months and I was very rusty on the phone. Here's hoping I can remember the correct word for Steampunk. It's bound to crop up... Isn't it?
I'll update with date and times when I know.
*If you are a commodities trader, you may prefer to imagine a poor person scrounging off your hard work.
**Not literally true, of course. But true.
*If you are a commodities trader, you may prefer to imagine a poor person scrounging off your hard work.
**Not literally true, of course. But true.
- Mood:
busy
I'm sure I've mentioned my old writing group before. They're called The Critter Litter and they're still around, still accomplishing great things. I learned a hell of a lot from them over the years and owe the sale of more than one short story to their collective insight. Recently, one of our members,
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=91.7){kind=small}
eugie , won the Nebula Award for her Short Story, Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest, but the others are no slouches, putting out and often selling a slew of pieces, short and long.Recently, the litter's funny man, Hank Quense announced the ePublication of a brand new collection of stories, Tales From Gundarland. Here's the blurb:
"Laughter is contagious. Enjoy some by reading this book! It's filled with delightful entertainment. Without commercial interruption!
Gundarland: Populated by humans, elves, dwarfs and other races, it presents the background for unique adventures, brilliant heroes and cunning visions."
I look forward to more tales of morbid dwarfs and insane characters forgotten by Shakespeare.
Nice Things About My Lovely Accent
And of course, my flist is a talented place to be too. Hurray for all of us! One of them, whose lj handle I won't reveal in case I'm not supposed to, is the excellent editor-at-large, Gabrielle Harbowy, whom I was fortunate to meet at WorldCon in Montréal. She had some lovely things to say both about The Inferior and, surprisingly, my accent. Perhaps you will all stop mocking me now or threatening to steal my lucky charms :-(
- Mood: chipper
