Author Archives: Ben

BristolCon 2012

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Thoroughly enjoyed myself last Saturday at BristolCon, which is now its fourth year and therefore an established tradition of fandom. Bristol is an excitingly science fictional kind of place (see here if you don’t believe me) and full of surprises. Like, I hadn’t expected to be the opening and closing act.

Okay, that might overstate my role – but I was on the first panel of programme 1 and the last of programme 2. The opening number was a discussion on “Colonising the Solar System”, with Michael Dollin, Aliette de Bodard and Dev Agarwal and moderated by Guy Haley: could it happen? Would it be economic? Would we actually want to live in a Martian colony? And so on. That last question of course needed some clarification. Would I want to live in a small capsule buried beneath the Martian topsoil to escape the radiation? Not really. Would I want to live in a Robinson-style town-sized community inside a domed crater dome with full access to the natural wonders of Mars? Hell, yes!

For the closing act, I moderated a panel of Dolly Garland, Joanne Hall, Jonathan L Howard and Leigh Kennedy on “Nano or Nono – How to survive a writing challenge” – mostly discussing NanoWriMo, which three of the panellists had assayed but Leigh and I had not. We could all talk knowledgeably about the art and discipline of writing, though, and I think we  gave value for money. Favourite anecdote: Jonathan L Howard on how Dennis Wheatley once met a tax demand by retreating to the library (his personal one, of course) with nothing but a box of cigars, a crate of champagne and a typewriter, and banging out yet another occultic potboiler. At the words “library”, “champagne” and “cigars” alternative suggestions for how he might have met the tax demand did begin to come to mind, but I suppose the life of a wealthy gentleman writer must be a hard one.

As the very closing act, immediately after that panel I gave a reading from Phoenicia’s Worlds to an audience of five, three of whom I didn’t even know. Needless to say I was plugging my forthcoming publication at every available opportunity. And on that sort of subject it was good finally to meet Colin Tate of Clarion Publishing who will be re-publishing His Majesty’s Starship and Jeapes Japes next year. Cover designs! Oh my! (Pictures will follow when available …)

And in between all that, a very busy, involving and rewarding programme of Lots of Other Stuff, including Guest of Honour interviews with Gareth L. Powell and John Meaney. But the most enjoyable egobootistical moment was derailing a kaffeeklatsch with Philip Reeve and Moira Young. The sequence of events in the first five minutes went roughly:

  • Philip opens his mouth to speak.
  • Fan 1: Are you the Ben Jeapes who wrote His Majesty’s Starship?
  • Fan 2: Oh, I really loved that! Will you sing my copy? [Produces it]
  • Fan 3: I really liked The New World Order.
  • Me: [having signed copy and absorbed praise] … a-a-a-nd back to you, Philip …

Lunch was a baked potato with tuna and salad and homemade drizzle cake in the Arc Cafe beneath St Mary Redcliffe, which I mention only because it deserves the publicity and I’ve never had a meal in a church undercroft before. Bristol is truly full of surprises and I look forward to going back next year.

More of the same, but different

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“More of the same” is one of the more pejorative things you can say about a follow-up book, but sometimes – and especially with sequels – that is the whole point. But there is little more disheartening than the same old same old – and that’s to write, never mind to read.

When I was writing the Vampire Plagues, I was very pleased with myself for setting a Book 2 scene in our heroes’ living room. In Book 1 we had seen the basement, and the study, and the hallway, and a bedroom. Creating a whole new room to a house is a pretty basic achievement but it made it more interesting to me as the author and I hope to the readers too. It marginally expanded the world in which the kids operated. It added a little more detail and verisimilitude.

Then in chapter 2 they were off to Paris to fight vampires, and they never returned to that house again. At least, not in the books that I wrote.

Now I’m trying to come up with Phoenicia 2 and am faced with the added problem of technological change. Phoenicia’s Worlds is set a couple of centuries hence so we’ve already had a hefty dose of New Stuff. Phoenicia 2 is a few centuries after that. I’m not a hardline believer in the Singularity – it is quite possible for technological development to slow down, stagnate or even go backwards – but some things must have changed. I can’t just re-use the old concepts. I have to develop them, but not so much that it’s not the same universe anymore.

This morning I was writing a chapter set on a space station, built on a captured asteroid in orbit around a planet. A space station with a similar function – a port of entry – has featured prominently in Phoenicia’s Worlds. How to make this station the same, but different?

Then I remembered that in Phoenicia’s Worlds they haven’t got around to inventing artificial gravity except by the time honoured centrifugal method. Who’s to say that … ?

So anyway. A space station with the same basic function but an entirely different look and feel. It’s on an asteroid. With artificial gravity it can have an atmosphere. You can walk about outside, and see a horizon that curves down instead of up. You can look up and see the mother world above you. It’s all different, I tell you, but it’s the same too. The reader – at least those who have also read the first book – will immediately see that some time has passed. Think of someone sailing into Portsmouth 200 years ago, and doing the same today. They would certainly recognise it. The Isle of Wight would still be on their left, the sea forts would still guard the entrance to the Solent – but my, isn’t it big! And how do all these boats move about with no sail? And what’s that big building shaped like a spinnaker?

And all this for a single setting that I don’t intend to revisit in any further chapters. It is hard work. This is craftsmanship, this is. Trust me.