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Just been watching this movie on TV. It’s a supernatural thriller starring Johnny Depp and Emmanuelle Seigner. Frank Langella and Lena Olin are quite good as the bad guys. The movie, overall, is quite interesting and watchable, but what the hell was that ending all about? Beats me. Must watch it again sometime, to see if I can figure it out.

Phil

I’ve built up a new stash of recently acquired books to add to my ever-growing “To Read” pile. If I can acquire a couple of extra lifetimes, I might even get to read a few of them.

First up is a large hardback anthology, Machines That Think, edited by Isaac Asimov, Patricia S. Warwick and Martin H. Greenberg. This one contains twenty-nine stories about robots and computers. Next up is The Year’s Best Fantasy, Second Annual Collection, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. I’m not nearly as big a fan of fantasy as I am of SF, but these two ladies always put together a decent anthology.

Third on our list is 18 Greatest Science Fiction Stories, edited by Laurence M. Janifer, followed by Not the Only Planet - Science Fiction Travel Stories, edited by Damien Broderick. And last up are two novels, which is a rarity for me these days (I tend to read a lot more short fiction than I do novels). The hardback of Mining the Oort, by Frederik Pohl looks very interesting indeed. And the final book is a novel by Edward Eager, The Time Garden, a kid’s/YA fantasy novel written back in 1958. Looks a bit of an oddity, but interesting.

Also, I must get another chapter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows under my belt. I’m about six chapters into it, and enjoying it so far.

Lots of good reading ahead…

Phil

As you may have noticed, there hasn’t been much activity on this blog recently. My last posting was about three weeks ago, after a five month period of regular posting, which averaged 2-3 posts per week. I reached 40 posts, and hit the proverbial brick wall, so I’ve been taking a breather, recharging the old batteries, and considering what to do next.

A major part of the problem is that I’ve started blogging at the most troubled period of my life, when I’m psychologically ill-equipped to handle the stress and dedication needed for regular posting. My teenage son died a year and a half ago this week, and I’m still finding it an almost impossible task to cope with the loss or even to really accept that he’s dead. I suffer from rollercoaster mood swings and almost omnipresent bouts of severe depression (things I had never really experienced before, to any large degree), and I’ve been in the middle of the biggest Mama of a depression for over a month now.

The result has been a complete loss of interest in pretty much everything, including blogging. The constant posting became a chore, the inspiration and ideas dried up, and everything came to a grinding halt. After this short break, I’m now trying to get myself together to begin posting again…

…or not. I’ve been using the break to think over what I’m going to do next. Starting the blog in the first place was a flash decision, right out of the blue. Up until five minutes before I installed Wordpress, I’d never even considered blogging. I’d always been focused on hand-coding a traditional website, but had been messing around for ages without actually getting anything online. I was up and making my first posting ten minutes after installing Wordpress. So setting up a blog has enabled me to get online quickly, after years of procrastination.

But I still don’t really know if blogging is for me. The constant need for regular posting “x” times per week, even when the ideas dry up or I just couldn’t be bothered, the worry over comments, or the lack of them. Do I even need all of this? Was my long-term preference for a traditional static site (putting up pages as and when I feel like it, concentrating on well-researched articles rather than more casual conversational postings) the correct choice for me, and setting up a blog a flash-in-the-pan that merely served to kick-start my online presence? Or is there a place for both static website and blog in my future plans?

A major part of my problem is that I started as a hand-coder, and it’s made me a real control freak. I’d describe myself as an advanced html coder, and beginner-to-intermediate at css, but learning fast. I know absolutely nothing about javascript, or about PHP or any other form of server-side programming, nor am I particularly inclined to take the trouble to learn any of this stuff. It seems like complete overkill for the site that I want to maintain. Personally I think that html and css are enough for my needs, and learning both through hand-coding may be slow and laborious, but it is thorough. And I prefer the control I have of every minute aspect of the coding and the layout of the website’s directory structure.

As a newbie blogger, I feel that I’ve lost that control. Wordpress handles all the coding and site layout, and while this may be convenient for getting posts online quickly and easily, it is a lot less useful for helping me learn all the intricate elements of hand-coding. It’s taken the control of every last little aspect of the site and individual page design away from me. To regain that same level of control, I’d have to learn Wordpress inside out, and quite a lot about PHP to go with it. And I honestly don’t know if it’s worth the trouble, especially for the site I have planned, which will be made up of a large number of static pages, and only a couple of pages where the content changes regularly (a news page and an editorial page), something I could probably do manually anyway.

So it’s a time for reconsidering my options. Do I continue as I am with the same blog and hope that I pick up enough about Wordpress and PHP to become more of an “expert”? Do I keep the blog as the “main” hub of the website, and the rest as add on static webpages? Do I shift over mainly to a static website, and relegate the blog to a small part of the site? Or do I drop the blog altogether, and concentrate solely on a static website? To be honest, I still haven’t made up my mind, so there’s a lot of serious thinking ahead.

Choices, choices…

Phil

One of the things that I enjoyed most about the old SF magazines was the letters sent in by readers. Have a look through any magazines from (say) the 1940s or 1950s and you’ll find missives from fans of all descriptions, including some names that would later become big-name authors in the SF field. But the one thing you’ll really notice is a feeling of community, of “togetherness”. Those letters pages were a forum, THE place where SF fandom got together and discussed not only the stories from previous issues, but also other things in SF that were important to them. These letters pages were the place where SF fans hung out in between conventions, and played a vital part in creating and nurturing SF fandom as we know it.

With the arrival of widespread internet access, we should have expected a similar process to occur online, but on a much greater scale. Huge numbers of fans could potentially get together in a vast online virtual fandom, with near-instantaneous communication provided by online chat facilities, and email and forums allowing fans everywhere to maintain constant contact and discussions on a global scale that would’ve been impossible in the old magazines.

So why hasn’t it happened? Sure, fans do maintain contact by email and chats, do talk in forums, and do visit SF websites. But not on the scale we would’ve expected. It’s all fragmented and small-scale, some websites here and there, a few scattered watering holes on Usenet and in forums on the likes of Compuserve, Yahoo and Delphi. Where is the vast global SF fandom that the internet should’ve spawned, the single huge online SF forum where every SF fan could hang out? And where is the feeling of “family” and “togetherness” that so distinguished the letters pages in the SF magazines? It just isn’t there. Instead of the single collective “meeting place” or “virtual tavern”, the internet seems to be used more as an enhanced form of snail mail or telephone communication connecting lots of little separate communities and sites run by individuals. It’s all so long-distance and stand-offish.

It seems that, while the internet provides the potential for this theoretical vast collective global SF fan network, in reality it has turned out to be something else altogether - a disparate collection of small groups and individuals, all doing their own thing, and with the ability to communicate with or visit other such groups. Instead of a single vast collective fandom, everybody together, all of these little groups and individuals keep their distance, setting up their own little patch on the internet, and only commune with the rest of online SF fandom if they feel the need (which most rarely do).

I know that the internet has changed my life, and, like a junkie hooked on heroine, there’s no way I could survive without my daily fix. But frankly, compared to my fantasy of a single vast virtual SF fandom, I find the reality distinctly disappointing…

Phil

Some very nice comics arrived from Ebay today. A bunch of Miracleman comics, from the classic Eclipse Comics series. Issues 12, 14 , 22, 23, and Miracleman: Apocrypha #3 (of 3), to be exact. Leaves me just #’s 11, 13, 15 and 24 of the main series to complete the entire run. I was outbid on #24 at the last second (with the previously winning bid from me sitting at £21), something that I was rather pissed off about (to put it very mildly).

This series is a much sought after classic title. And the asking prices reflect that. Certain individual issues will pop up regularly at £30 or more - I expect the hotly demanded #’s 15 and 24 to cost me a pretty packet at some point. The four trade paperbacks of the main series - A Dream of Flying, The Red King Syndrome, Olympus and The Golden Age (there is also a fifth, covering the Miracleman: Apocrypha 3-part mini-series) - go for exorbitant prices (and only cover up to #22 of the 24 parts).

I still need A Dream of Flying and Olympus, but the high asking prices for the trade paperbacks have forced me to concentrate on the original comics instead. In a way, this is preferable, as the original comics are worth more anyway - the trade paperbacks only have artificially inflated prices only because of the fact that the series is unlikely to be reprinted anytime soon due to the complicated legal situation surrounding the creators rights. But I’d definitely like to get the other two tpbs, eventually (and at the right price), as this series is structured to fit four “books”, and are extremely collectible in this format.

I don’t usually pay this kind of inflated collector’s prices for comics - I have better things to do with my money - but, for a series like Miracleman (originally known as Marvelman, an infinitely better title, at least in my opinion), it’s well worth paying out over the odds. The original modern incarnation of Marvelman first appeared as a black and white strip in the classic British comic, Warrior, at the start of the 1980s. It was written by a then relatively unknown Alan Moore (later an equally relative unknown Neil Gaiman) and drawn by Garry Leach (later Alan Davis and others), and totally redefined the stagnant superhero genre. It blew me away. It was, and remains, my favourite superhero strip of all time. By a huge margin. When you rate something as highly as that, you’ll pay what it takes to get it.

I’ve been following the Gaiman vs McFarlane legal squabble over Miracleman copyrights with interest. Apparently Gaiman says that issue 25 was mostly completed before Eclipse went under, and that he’d get it finished, and the Miracleman story finally wrapped up, if the legal situation ever gets resolved in his favour.

Lets hope that’s how it turns out, and sooner rather than later.

Phil

I’ve just recently bought the hardback of the final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It’s been sitting in front of me for about a week now, and I’m trying to get up the nerve to actually read it. And it’s proving more difficult than even I’d imagined it would be.

My son, Philip, died on 19th April 2006, at the tender age of only 14 years and 9 months, from complications caused by terminal cancer. He was a huge Harry Potter fan. I had read the first three Potter novels to him when he was younger, at one chapter a night - he loved his latest bedtime installment of Potter - and read books 4, 5 and 6 to him as he lay ill in hospital. We hung on, hoping against hope that the final HP novel would be released, in time for him to reach the end of the story. But it wasn’t to be. He died before the final book was published, and one of my most poignant regrets is that he never got to find out how it all ended.

I made a promise to myself, and to my son, the day he died. I swore that, when the final HP book was released, I’d read it out aloud, one chapter per night, in the hope that he might just finally hear the end of the story “up there”, or wherever else he may be. I’ve avoided all spoilers like the plague. I haven’t even glanced at the back of the dust jacket. I know absolutely nothing about the story, other than the nebulous “somebody dies” that I’ve seen floating around the internet. So whatever happens, it’ll come as a complete surprise.

But now that I’ve finally got the book, I’m finding it very difficult to carry out my promise. There’s something, an internal fear holding me back. It’s like an invisible forcefield, a mountain I have to climb before I can open the book for the first time. It’s incredible how something as untouchable, as unsolid as the mind, the emotions, can feel so physically real, like a giant pair of hands, holding me back. I really need my kid right now, both in person and to give me a much-needed metaphysical push in the back.

Well, I’ve made up my mind. By the time the coming weekend is out, come hell or high water, I’ll have broken the ice, the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will be well and truly behind me, and I’ll be moving through the book at a regular chapter per night.

And at last, if there’s any justice at all, and any such place as an afterlife, my son (and I) will find some sort of closure with the end of the Harry Potter saga.

Phil

I love fanzines. I really do. I get a bigger kick out of reading a tatty old A5 black & white fanzine done on an ancient dot matrix printer than I do from 99.9% of professional publications. That’s a bit strange, considering the fact that professional publications are supposed to be “superior” in every way, both visually and production-wise, and in the quality of writers and articles. So why do fanzines fascinate me so much?

Now I’d be the first to concede that production values and visual quality in pro magazines is usually superior, although some amateur and semi-pro publications are just as slick as their pro counterparts. Older fanzines were usually cheap ‘n’ cheerful A5 photocopied “cut ‘n’ paste” jobbies, but once computers, DTP software and fancy inkjet and laser printers became cheaper and more accessible for Joe Public (late-1980s onwards), even low-end fanzine production took a quantum leap up in quality. Compare the average A5 or A4 home-produced fanzine from the early or mid-1980s with one produced today. At least in the area of production quality and visuals, there’s no comparison. The only similarity is in the quality of the written content.

I’d argue strongly with the second part, that pro magazines attract higher quality articles, writers and artwork. Some of the best articles I’ve ever read came out of fanzines, and some of the art was breathtaking, definitely pro quality. Many of the top “fan” writers are at least as good as their pro competitors, in some cases better, and, in accordance with their “fan” status are usually much more knowledgeable about their chosen subject than a pro writer who has no personal interest in a certain topic, merely researching it for the purposes of writing an article. They aren’t constrained by having to please a certain audience or market, by the fear that they might “offend” someone, or that they have to abide by the editorial policies of a pro publication. They can write what they like, no holds barred.

And, more importantly, they write what they do for the love of it, not for money (there’s precious little of that available in working for fanzines). And this shines through in the writing. I’ve read so many articles in pro magazines that were obviously done just “by the numbers”, to earn a pay-packet. In comparison, a good fanzine article is a breath of fresh air, a jolt of high-octane enthusiasm and fanboy expertise done for the sheer joy of it.

Many of the current generation of writers and artists in SF and comics started out in fanzines, honing their skills and experience in those zines, until (with a bit of good luck) they were picked up by the pro publications. Many others, just as talented, never make it into the pro field, and continue working for fanzines until they fade away and return to having a Real Life, working, paying bills and raising kids. But their legacy and talent lives on in the existing small print runs of the zines they worked for. Which is why I’d be a rabid supporter of any initiative to preserve small press publications of all kinds.

Which brings me to probably the most important reason that I’m fascinated with fanzines: any one of us can create one, given we have the dedication and effort needed. Commercial publications are created by a nebulous “elite” far removed from we mere mortals “up there” in their ivory towers. Fanzines are created by “one of us”, yer average (although talented) “Joe Bloggs” fan down here on Planet Earth. I, you, any of us could make a zine, or at least contribute to one, whereas we would have no chance of being published in a pro magazine. As far as I’m concerned, it’s almost an “us vs them” thing.

This explains my extremely strong affinity with fanzines and small press in general. It also goes much of the way towards explaining why I’d read articles in fanzines that are based on topics which wouldn’t interest me in the least if they were in a commercial publication. Completely different sets of expectations and values for small press vs commercial press, I know. But both play by different rules, and are judged accordingly (at least by me).

I’ve been away from small press for a long time, far too long (about twelve years). I’ve only recently returned to the fold, with a renewed enthusiasm, and I have a lot of catching up to do.

Now lets start those fanzines rolling in…

Phil

I’ve been going through a bit of a crazy phase recently. Almost a reversion to my youth, or, at least, my youthful collecting habits. I’ve been spending a lot of money on Ebay, trying to pick up some of the rare relics of my early-to-mid teenage years, when I was an obsessive collector of British comics, as opposed to the more easily found US comics that I became a collector of from my later teens onwards.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been buying a lot of old issues of my favourite British comics from the 1960s and 1970s, mainly Lion, Valiant and Thunder. I would dearly love to be able to buy a whole bunch of Countdown and TV Century 21, but these are a lot harder to find and a heckuva lot more expensive than the Lion, Valiant and Thunder. Maybe someday, when I’m rich.

I’ve also started collecting old annuals, those hardback, once-yearly collections of strips and other goodies from our favourite comics. Again, mainly Valiant, Lion and Thunder, although I did also pick up a nice Countdown Annual from 1972. I remember from when I was a kid - these were the Holy Grail, usually too expensive for me to buy (didn’t have a lot of pocket money back in the ’60s and ’70s, and annuals cost on average ten times the price of the weekly comic), and usually confined to Christmas presents from my Dad or other relatives.

Well, I’ve made a really good start on picking up many annuals from the ’60s and ’70s period, and I’m starting to develop a real knack for picking them up dirt cheap, or, at least, relatively cheap. (I’ve just won two more as I’m typing - Lion Annual 1973 and Thunder Annual 1973). I often look at this ever-growing stack of annuals beside me, and wonder “Am I going mental? Why am I collecting all of this old stuff? What the hell am I going to do with it?” And then I open an annual and feel the tidal wave of nostagia wash over me, all the old memories boring up from the depths of my moth-eaten excuse for a brain. And I feel good. Really good. Maybe nostalgia is the narcotic of the 40-somethings (I’m 46). If it is, I’m a complete addict. Since my son died in April 2006, I have little else left in my life.

At least nostalgia is a much safer and more productive addiction than cigarettes, booze and drugs. And we all need our little hobbies to spend our money on, or life would be unbearable, all bills and shopping and crappy Real Life nonsense. The thought makes me shudder…

Phil

I buy a lot of books. And I do mean a lot of books. Most of them second hand (”used” books for our transatlantic pals). I think it’s a tragedy that so many classic SF novels and short story collections/anthologies are out of print. But it does make for a booming trade in “used” books.

This week’s haul? Here we go:

• The Zero Stone by Andre Norton
• Operation Time Search by Andre Norton
• Armageddon 2419 AD (Buck Rogers) by Philip Francis Nowlan
• When HARLIE Was One by David Gerrold
• Escape Plans by Gwyneth Jones
• White Queen by Gwyneth Jones
• The Wall of Years by Andrew M. Stephenson
• The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge
• The Second Book of Fritz Leiber by Fritz Leiber
• ChronoSpace by Allen Steele
• White Light by William Barton and Michael Capobianco
• Fellow Traveler by Willliam Barton and Michael Capobianco
• Washington’s Dirigible by John Barnes
• Acts of Conscience by William Barton
• When Heaven Fell by William Barton
• The Good New Stuff - Adventure SF In The Grand Tradition edited by Gardner Dozois

Quite a haul of books. Nice to see a couple of early Andre Nortons in there, A Dozois anthology is always welcome, and Fritz Leiber, Allen Steele, David Gerrold, John Barnes and Joan Vinge are authors that I’m quite fond of. Nowlan’s original Buck Rogers is something that I’ve been wanting to read for quite a while. William Barton is someone I’ve read in short form in the various SF magazines (mostly Asimov’s), and I’m looking forward to his novels. Gwyneth Jones is someone I haven’t read before, but it sounds like she’ll be right up my street. Likewise the Andrew Stephenson novel.

Now to find the time to read all this stuff. Know any life extension techniques?

Phil

As I’m sitting here, thinking about what to rustle up for my next “big” posting, I’m listening to a very good album by The Cult - Pure Cult: The Singles 1984-1995. It’s a cracking album, pretty much the best material released by the band, with the exception of some of their best album tracks, such as “The Hollow Man”. All the top singles are here, from the earliest classics such as “Resurrection Joe”, “She Sells Sanctuary”, “Rain” and “Revolution”, through “Lil’ Devil”, “Wild Flower” and “Love Removal Machine”, to later material such as “Star”, “In the Clouds” and “Coming Down (Drug Tongue)”.

The early material by the band was indie rock, with punkish origins, but from the mid-’80s onwards, the band reinvented themselves as a raunchy rock band in the mold of AC/DC and Led Zeppelin. This gives almost a feeling of listening to two completely different bands as we work our way through this album, something I find curiously refreshing.

Overall, this is an excellent retrospective of the bands singles releases. Great foot-stomping, raunchy, full-blooded R&B based blues rock. A highly recommended album!

Phil