Jaine Fenn - Tales from the Garret

Book review: 'Music for Another World'

nospam@example.com (Jaine Fenn) — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 22:46:14 +0100

I should start my review of this collection of short stories with a confession: I wanted to be in it. I still love short stories, even if I don't get time to write (or read!) them enough these days. Music is also very important too me, although I'm strictly a consumer, not a producer, when it comes to that art. I've got an unpublished science fiction story where music, or at least love of music, is an element, and I submitted it to this anthology, but it didn't make the grade. I understood the editor's reasons for not including it at the time. Now, with this collection in my hand, I'm doubly sure he was right to do so.

Though this is a small press publication, it's a well-presented book containing a consistently high standard of writing. That writing covers a very broad spectrum: the book's slightly pretentious-sounding subtitle - 'Strange Fiction on the Theme of Music' – is actually pretty accurate. The unifying theme of music has resulted in a delightfully wide range of styles and genres (slipstream, ghost stories, alternate history, fantasy and science fiction to name but a few), settings (ranging from deep space through gritty suburban streets to the Christian heaven) and emotional effects. I mention emotion because of the soul-deep link between music and emotion. One of the strengths of this anthology is that it explores this link, and so does it without descending into sentimentality: although a number of the stories have a certain whimsy, they generally manage to be charming without becoming cloying.

It helps that Mark Harding, the editor, isn't afraid to show the darker side of life; there's a fair few untimely deaths and several stories feature drug use. There's less of the third part of the unholy triumvirate - sex - than might be expected, but more love, even if there's rarely a happy ending. Closet romantic though I am, that's fine by me in this context.

When it comes to musical, as opposed to literary, genres there's all sorts of styles, including classical, rock, punk and jazz, plus a few less easy to classify and yet to be invented musical genres too.

Perhaps a quarter of the stories are science fiction. Much of this felt quite old-fashioned, and sometimes read as though the writers were working outside of their usual genre – for example I lost patience with the rambling 'Deep Field', which featured a ship that needed shagging and a protagonist that needed slapping, plus more scientific inaccuracies than you could shake a conductor's baton at. The two shorter pieces, 'Lorna' and 'Figaro' worked well as 'space vignettes', while 'Star in a Glass' was perhaps the most sophisticated example of SF in the book.

I found the two ghost stories based around (possibly) dead romantic composers intriguing but somewhat unsatisfying, though this might be because I'm not particularly fond of that style of music. And much as I loved the idea of using the discography of a fictional band to illuminate an alternate 1980s in 'Shostakovich Ensemble, The', the result left me scratching my head - or perhaps the writer was being massively ironic when he told us that Shaking Stevens was executed for treason, and I just missed the point. I also felt that grouping the stories as 'movements' within the book didn't add anything; having said that the editor freely admits that others who aren't as close to the stories as he'd become might not see the pattern for themselves.

However, my complaints may be due less to a lack of skill on the storytellers' parts than to my preferences and/or interpretation. When you're dealing with not one, but two, subjective art forms, there's a lot of room for personal taste.

Some of the stories that worked best for me were the contemporary(ish) ones. Two in particular, 'Dybbuk Blues' and the 'The Legend of Left-Hand Lewis' were exquisitely written. They read like music, with not a note/word out of place, perfect pacing and careful phrasing; the writer in me kept stopping to admire the art, while the reader in me couldn't put down the book until the story resolved.

I also liked both the fantasy stories, even though fantasy isn't my genre. 'Festspeel' in particular, as this tale evoked a well-rounded other world seen through the eyes of a character I immediately cared about.

Good short stories, like good songs, have ability to briefly transport you to another place, and, despite the odd sour note, Music for Another World certainly achieves that.

Book review: 'Music for Another World'

nospam@example.com (Jaine Fenn) — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 22:46:14 +0100

However, my complains may be due less to a lack of skill on the storytellers' parts than to my preferences and/or interpretation. When you're dealing with not one, but two, subjective art forms, there's a lot of room for personal taste.

Good short stories, like good songs, have ability to briefly transport you to another place, and, despite the odd sour note, Music for Another World certainly achieves that.

It's shameless self-promotion time!

nospam@example.com (Jaine Fenn) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:32:01 +0100

Today's a proper Book Birthday – the official release date of Guardians of Paradise. For reasons I'm not entirely sure of, it's two weeks earlier than originally scheduled. I shall celebrate letting my third book loose on the world in some way yet to be determined, probably involving alcohol.

And a reminder about other 'me stuff': anyone who is in the Midlands next Friday (the 10^th) might want to drop in to the Briar Rose Hotel, Bennetts Hill, Birmingham where I'll be the guest of the Birmingham SF Group. Doors open at 7.30pm for an 8pm start, and it's £4 for non-members (who, they tell me, would be most welcome).

Then there's the official launch and signing of Guardians, on the 2^nd of October at the little Green Dragon Bookshop in Alton, from 2pm to 3pm (and afterwards at the pub over the road).

It's a busy month.

Rediscovering old friends

nospam@example.com (Jaine Fenn) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 08:04:48 +0100

This week I'm concentrating on 'writing admin', including work on an essay and a book review I've been asked to write, and sending out a few short stories in the hopes of selling them.

I'm also taking the chance to revisit stories that need rework before they go to a magazine; like the novels, my short fiction gets critiqued, and I apply the results to the first draft. I say 'stories', but I've had to be picky; the two main pieces awaiting rework are both novellas, and I don't have time to do both of them justice. The one I've picked, 'The Ships of Aleph', is the easy option, as my critters only raised a few relatively minor points. It needs tweaking, but not major rewriting.

The first step is to re-read the piece, and I found myself enjoying this process. Okay, so I also found myself wincing at a few sentences, but overall it felt good to re-acquaint myself with that tale, and with the unusual gent who tells it.

Whether, once tweaked, 'The Ships of Aleph' will be good enough to see print is something a magazine editor gets to decide.

Stage 1a

nospam@example.com (Jaine Fenn) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 08:08:03 +0100

When I mentioned to a colleague at the current day-job (yes, I'm afraid I still need one of those to get by) that I'd finished the first draft of my current novel he asked whether the next stage was to send it to my editor. Well, no.

Getting the first draft down is, for me, the longest and hardest part of the process, but in some ways it's just the start. Next, I need to run what I've done past Tripod, my long-suffering and occasionally sarcastic writing group. They've been getting chunks of Bringer of Light to critique since January; they'll get the last quarter of the book this week, so they can critique it in time for our next meeting, in mid September.

Before Tripod see the first draft I do a quick read-through of the raw text and try to spot and fix any messy writing, minor inconsistencies or obvious typos - they're particularly good at spotting amusing typos. This is also my first 'out loud' read-through; the more chances I get to read the prose out, and to tinker as a result, the better the final result will be.

In an ideal world I'd wait until I'd received and digested my critters' feedback before I moved on to the next stage; sadly, the tight schedule I'm now on won't permit me that luxury.

Finished!

nospam@example.com (Jaine Fenn) — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 11:37:44 +0100

I’m pleased (and somewhat relieved) to announce that I’ve finally finished the first draft of Bringer of Light. Right now I’m thinking that, except for a few minor issues, it’s pretty damn good and will hardly need any rework. In about a week’s time I’ll have changed my mind, and it’ll be the worst thing I ever wrote, requiring a complete rewrite before delivery. This is quite normal.

I'm taking a few days off, then revisiting some long-neglected short stories before coming back to the novel with a more balanced view.

Meanwhile, my advance copies of Guardians of Paradise arrived this week, which was a cause of much rejoicing. I still experience immense pleasure the first time I pick up a physical copy of one of my books.

A thousand words

nospam@example.com (Jaine Fenn) — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 08:15:09 +0100

Actually you'll continue to get rather less than that from me, as although the massive five chapter long, multiple viewpoint conflict is finally over in the first draft of Bringer of Light, there's still a couple of chapters' worth of resolution.

Given I'm still working on the first draft, it seems a little surreal to already be discussing the cover, but the publishing schedules currently have the book hitting the shelves in July next year. And so, I've been chatting to Nik Keevil, who has done some of my previous covers, about what I'd like on this one.

I'm very lucky to be consulted so closely about my covers; it's one of the many things I love about being published by Gollancz. I've pulled together some descriptive passages for the artist, and I'm tempted to share them, but I suspect that would be foolish at this early stage. All I'll say for now is that the scene that won't leave my head is of a dramatic event in space. I look forward to seeing what Nik makes of it.

Meanwhile, with Guardians of Paradise hitting the shops in less than a month, I'm poised (or possibly braced) for the reviews, but so far my Google alert for the phrase is mainly turning up un-related references to t-shirts and posters.

Brum SF

nospam@example.com (Jaine Fenn) — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 19:39:28 +0100

The Birmingham SF Group, an esteemed science fiction society which is nearly as old as I am, have kindly invited me along as their guest in September.

I'll be doing an interview and a reading from Guardians of Paradise on Friday the 10^th of September, at the Briar Rose Hotel, Bennetts Hill. The doors open at 7.30pm for an 8pm start, and non members are welcome, for £4 payable on the door.

Another Thursday, another Book Birthday

nospam@example.com (Jaine Fenn) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 08:04:14 +0100

Today isn't really a full book birthday, but it is the day Consorts of Heaven comes out in paperback. The paperback has a new cover, very similar to the old one except with (I think) better colouring and a nicer font for my name. (In contrast to my last imported image this one is tiny as I, ahem, copied it from somewhere beginning with 'A'. Note to self: must ask editor for proper jpg.)

I'm celebrating by giving myself an evening off to go see 'Spamalot' with Beloved.

Other people's series

nospam@example.com (Jaine Fenn) — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 12:24:57 +0100

Although the climax of Bringer of Light might be exciting for the characters, it's turning into a bit of a death-march for the author. Between writing it and doing a temporary but full-time day-job I've not got a lot of brain left.

However, I am one of those writers who is lucky enough to be able to read fiction whilst writing it - even if I don't have time to read as much as I'd like to - so I thought I'd pass on some reading recommendations, both of them series.

Charles Stross's 'Merchant Princes' series is pleasingly hard to pigeonhole. I suppose you could call it political slipstream fantasy, if you had to apply a label. This is a series that does need to be read in one go, as it's a single story split over six books. It manages to combine page-turning adventure with sharp political and social insight: for example it applies a hard and painful dose of reality to the fictional trope of an adopted child turning out to be a princess. It's also less than complimentary about American foreign policy, but that's fine by me, as so am I.

Jasper Fforde's 'Thursday Next' series can be read as stand-alones. This is fortunate, as I find them rather like champagne truffles: rich and very moreish but liable to lead to upsets if you gobble the whole lot at once. If my first recommendation was hard to quantify, this one's impossible, so I won't try. I do love how Fforde makes me care about Thursday, and rail against the injustice visited upon her (even when she doesn’t remember it herself – he plays some interesting tricks with memory), whilst at the same time making me grin at his wit and marvel at his skill. Damn the man and his prodigious talent. I'm currently reading The Well of Lost Plots, which confirms my suspicion that the process of writing a novel has very little to do with the author him- or herself. Fforde's recent book Shades of Grey is actually SF, so I'll be looking out for that one.

Apologies, by the way, for the strange formatting issues on this blog. I use a mega-wide screen and so didn't realise that importing the picture of the new cover for Guardians of Paradise a few weeks ago had messed things up. I have resized the image, so hopefully the problem should be sorted now.