Category: Speculative Fiction [RSS]

The speculative fiction category includes the novel The Private Enemy (set in the future), the alternative history novel The Fourth Protectorate, and the fantasy novel Muirgealia.

Hierarchy: Books / Fiction / Speculative Fiction /

Muirgealia: A Tale of Temporal Enchantment

If you’ve looked at the book list recently, you may have noticed a new pending title called Muirgealia. Muirgealia is a land that was home to a mixture of enchanters (with various magical abilities, including telepathy, telekinesis and the power to create areas of stasis), mystics (who can see through time in the form of visions), and handcræfters (people with no magical ability, who are typically inventors, engineers or artisans). Five hundred years before the start of the story, two calamities (one natural and the other contrived) lead to the usurpation of power by the enchanter¹ Pelouana, a traitor who formed an alliance with the warlords from the neighbouring land of Acralund. A warning from the future allowed most of the Muirgealians to escape into exile before a curse hit both Pelouana and Acralund.

At the start of the story, Muirgealia is deserted, except for Pelouana who has been trapped there for five centuries as a result of a magical explosion that fractured a stasis field (where time is almost stopped) causing drifting pockets of stasis. Acralund is sparsely populated by the remnant descendants of the warlords, who are still affected by the curse that prevents them from rebuilding their civilisation. The descendants of the Muirgealians in exile are in hiding, waiting for their future ally to be born and grow up to help them regain their land.

The people of Langdene, to the north of Muirgealia, unwittingly became caught up in events when their king ordered a mass migration south to escape a savage winter. They pass through Muirgealia just after Pelouana has taken over. She murders the king, suspecting him of being the one who had cursed her (it was, in fact, one of his descendants), and a rift forms between the king’s two surviving sons who end up creating two new nations, Farlania and Barlaneland, in the land to the south of Acralund.

Five hundred years later, Luciana is the daughter of the king of Barlaneland and Rupert is the second son of the king of Farlania. Pelouana is finally freed by the Acran, who first target Rupert, believing him to be the one who cursed them, and then target Luciana, believing that they can get to Rupert through her. Meanwhile, the Muirgealians want revenge and their land back (which contains all their books and other cultural works locked up in time). More importantly, they need to destroy the stasis bubbles that will cause havoc if they break free from the loose tethers that are keeping them in Muirgealia and drift around the rest of the world.

The “world” in question is an Earth-like planet with a single moon and orbiting a single star (or perhaps it is Earth in some forgotten past or other timeline). Langdene, Muirgealia, Acralund, Farlania and Barlaneland are all located in an eastern seaboard, bordered to the west by a mountain range. Well over a thousand years earlier, the entire continent was ruled by Potensmunda, a land beyond the mountains. The Potensmundan Empire was much like the Roman Empire. If you know any Latin, you might pick out the words “potens” (powerful) and “munda” (clean). The empire was like bleach, erasing all local languages and replacing them with Potensmundan. The empire has long since fallen, but the language and a few structures, including old roads, remain.

In universe, the above map was created long ago by people who didn’t have the modern surveyor’s tools that we have in our own world, so it’s not accurate. The three different fonts represent three different sets of handwriting, as the map has been modified over time. The translation convention applies here. English is used for modern dialects of Potensmundan, and the few words of ancient high Potensmundan are in Latin. The character names (which are a mixture of Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Germanic) can also be considered as having been translated into the closest match.

Incidentally, in case you’re wondering why I didn’t choose “Potensmundi” (powerful world) instead, there are two reasons. The first is aesthetic, I prefer the sound of Potensmunda. (I was looking for a four or five syllable name ending in an ahh sound, but don’t ask me why.) The second is pragmatic: an Internet search of “potensmundi” produces a huge load of hits (which isn’t particularly surprising, given its meaning) whereas “potensmunda” (or “potens munda”) isn’t so common, so I’m less likely to step into someone else’s digital footprints.

If you’re keen to know when Muirgealia is published, you can sign up to be notified, if you have a Dickimaw Books site account. Alternatively, you can subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog or the main news RSS feed or follow the Dickimaw Books Facebook page.

What happened to The Fourth Protectorate, which I’ve previously posted about and is also still listed as pending? Life happened. When I wrote it, the social disorder of the 1980s seemed firmly in the past. Recent years have put me off it. The Fourth Protectorate is without doubt the biggest and bleakest of all my novels. Muirgealia is the shortest and lightest. The Private Enemy comes somewhere in between.

¹Muirgealians use “enchanter” as a gender-neutral term. They don’t use “enchantress”. The Acran and Langdeners use “sorceress” instead.

Alternative History

[Originally posted on Goodreads 2018-04-17.] I mentioned my pending novel The Fourth Protectorate in my earlier Crime and SF blog post. I also spoke briefly about it during Keith Skipper’s July 2017 monthly mardle in Radio Norfolk’s Matthew Gudgin’s Teatime Show. For those who are interested, here’s a little more information about the novel’s genre.

The Fourth Protectorate is an alternative history with supernatural elements, but what actually is alternative history? It’s sometimes referred to as a ‘what if?’ genre. What if something happened in the past that caused subsequent events to diverge from real life? That something is the point of departure, and the subsequent events form an alternate timeline (or history). I think the most well-known (but not the earliest) alternative history story is probably Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle (first published in 1962). The point of departure in that case was the different outcome of an attempt to assassinate US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In real life, Giuseppe Zangara tried to shoot Roosevelt in February 1933. The premise of The Man in the High Castle is what if Zangara had succeeded? In real life, Roosevelt felt so strongly about supporting the Allies during WWII that he broke tradition and stood for a third term. The alternative timeline has Roosevelt replaced by an isolationist who keeps the USA out of the war, which changes the outcome.

The ‘what if so-and-so died at an earlier point in time?’ premise is a common point of departure. The reverse ‘what if so-and-so didn’t die?’ is also used (to comic effect with Red Dwarf and rather more seriously with Star Trek: The Original Series). Other points of departure can be somewhat vaguer, such as ‘what if a battle was lost instead of won?’ (as with Len Deighton’s SS-GB, where the Battle of Britain was lost), or the point of departure can be something seemingly trivial (‘for want of a nail’).

In the case of The Fourth Protectorate, which is set from 1984 to 1995, the principle point of departure is the Brighton Bomb. What if it had killed the Prime Minister and the entire Cabinet? The event occurs in the chapter that’s rather unimaginatively called ‘Point of Departure’, and you can accept that as the actual point of departure if you like but, whilst thinking about the exact differences between the alternative timeline of the story and real life, I came to the conclusion that the real point of departure occurs earlier, but the differences are much subtler until 1984 is reached. So what actually causes the divergence?

In the world of The Fourth Protectorate, the supernatural exists, although most people aren’t aware of it, but there’s a constant conflict between good and evil. One side is trying to make the world a better place and the other is trying to ruin it. Both sides have some ability to predict future events, but neither side can interfere with free will. They can, however, plant suggestions in people’s minds to influence outcomes. People are free to choose to follow or ignore those suggestions, but those who have a natural predisposition towards the suggestion or those who have a weak will are more likely to comply. So when is the actual point of departure?

What if during the Blitz a bomb toggle was operated a fraction later? A minor suggestion planted in the airman’s mind that causes a momentary delay. The dispersal pattern changes, a different set of buildings are destroyed and a different set of people die. The global outcome is unchanged, but minor deviations start to occur that can lead up to a bomb or some people being in a slightly different location a few decades later. It may also have led to more significant changes. The Prime Minister and other ministers are never named in the book, so they may not be the same as in our real timeline.

So the principle point of departure is the ‘what if so-and-so died?’ type but the actual point of departure is a seemingly insignificant change that had a knock-on effect. This conveniently means that any minor discrepancies from real life at the start of the book now have an explanation (such as the reason why famous/infamous people who lived in that region in real life don’t appear to exist in the story).

One of the interesting things I’ve encountered while writing the novel is the background research to refresh my memory of the 1980s (and the previous decade). It’s reminded me of just how volatile that era was. There were definitely a lot of ‘what if?’ moments.

© OpenStreetMap contributors. (View larger map.)

Norfolk

[Originally posted on Goodreads 2017-06-16.] The Private Enemy is set predominantly in Norfolk, mostly in and around the city of Norwich and in a fictional rural Fenland neighbourhood in the west of Norfolk. The story may be set in the future but, much like today, the people living there aren’t homogeneous. They vary according to their upbringing, social status, employment and surroundings. Norfolk inhabitants are so often unfairly stereotyped in the media as ignorant, Mummerset-speaking, inbred rustics that I thought it might be useful to give a brief overview of the real Norfolk and how the fictional Norfolk of the novel differs from it. (There may be mild spoilers below in terms of the back story, but most of it’s already in the book blurb.)

Norfolk is a largely rural county, and its culture has been influenced by its geography (amongst other things). Situated in the east of England, with the North Sea to the east, north, and north-west, it’s not really a place that travellers pass through on route to somewhere else. In the past, it was even more isolated before the Fens in the west were drained (although that was done a long time ago). The transport links have improved in recent years with a more frequent intercity train service and the duelling of the A11. On the other hand, the rural public transportation within the county has declined.

However, despite its apparent isolation, Norfolk’s culture and language have been shaped by incomers over the centuries: Romans, Angles, Saxons, Danes and Normans have all left their mark. Later, and more peacefully, came the Strangers — refugees from the Low Countries. (The word ‘stranger’ originally meant not a native of that place, but the Strangers in Norfolk has come to mean those particular immigrants.) Their influence can be seen in Norfolk architecture, the language, names and even symbols, such as the canary.

The modern strangers are from further afield, such as Eastern Europe, but there are also incomers from other parts of the UK, include those retiring here, those who fell in love with the county when visiting it on holiday, and those who came here for work placements. (My husband falls into that last category. We moved here in the mid 1990s having both studied at the University of Essex where we met.)

Norfolk is a lovely county with deep roots, but the seeming idyll masks homelessness and poverty. The future Norfolk of The Private Enemy has this same mixture, but in addition it has urban gangsters openly engaging in territorial disputes (which thankfully the real Norfolk doesn’t have).

This deviation from reality is due to events in the back story. Thirty-two years before the start of the novel (at some point in our near future), a fuel crisis triggered global anarchy that lasted two years. Peace was restored and the concept of nationality was abolished. The purported reason for this is that nationalism can cause conflict. Instead the world is divided into numbered sectors with a new capital city (to avoid any associations with the past) in the middle of each region. Sector 1 is the overall administrative centre and is the effective global ruling body.

In reality, far from creating the continually advertised ‘one world united in peace and prosperity’, the sectors (which mostly correspond to the old boundaries) are more fractured than before. Since the story is set mostly in Norfolk, with a few scenes in the capital city for this sector (Sector 55), the focus is on the fractures in this particular region.

The enmity between the rural and urban areas is a result of city raiders invading farmland during the anarchy. The passage of time hasn’t softened the long-held grudges of those who had to defend their homes and families against attack. Within the urban areas, rival gangs emerged during the anarchy to compete for resources, and they still hold sway through corruption and force of arms. So the fictional future Norwich is divided up into neighbourhoods controlled by gangsters and the so-called ‘Neutral Territory’, controlled by financiers and politicians, which acts as a buffer zone.

There are also ideological divides. The ‘Anti-Technology League’ want curbs on technology, claiming that the unsustainable energy demands required by high levels of technology caused the anarchy. Other groups want technological growth (or regrowth). The Anti-Techs seem to get their way some of the time, but Sector 1 are rather selective as to which demands they apparently submit to. Computers are banned, except for government departments (since they’re needed for administrative purposes). This means no Internet, emails or other forms of global electronic communication. Most mobile phone masts were destroyed during the anarchy and haven’t been replaced. This just leaves landlines for instant communication. There are no televisions, but there are cinemas. Radios are back to being analogue, which means they’re subject to static (and if that static happens to interrupt news items, only the paranoid would consider that censorship). And just to show that the Anti-Techs aren’t an all-powerful lobby group, Sector 1 has refused to ban electronic billboards used for product advertising (interspersed with little messages from your friendly politicians).

The Anti-Tech’s message that our modern gadget-filled world caused the anarchy has fuelled nostalgia, and the mismatched retro fashions reflect the desired idylls. This is further back in time for the rural areas than for the city, and the labour-saving devices, such as washing machines, that still exist are used but kept out of sight and not discussed in polite conversation (more a case of keeping back with the Joneses rather than keeping up with them).

The most prominent gangster in future Norwich is Jack Preston. The anarchy broke out when he was eleven years old. A fan of film noirs from the 1930s and 1940s, his adoption of a gangster style image from that era was essentially a coping mechanism, but he becomes so powerful and influential that others copy him, and he now drives the fashion in this region. (Other regions fall back on other styles. The reduced global communications means that sectors start to diverge.)

The next most prominent gangster, and Jack’s rival, is Big Stan O’Brien. He doesn’t want to be seen to be copying Jack, so he taps into his Sector 53 ancestry and adopts a Godfather-like figure, but since this mash-up is from Jack’s preferred era, he’s still effectively mimicking Jack.

So how do people talk in future Norfolk? Much like today, there are a variety of accents. The native Broad Norfolk is still in use, but social status is also a factor. As in real life, there are some professionals who grew up with Broad Norfolk but softened it as they moved up the promotional ladder (for example, this is the case with Detective Inspector Charles Hadley). There are also professionals who don’t soften their accents (Detective Sergeant Sarah Fenning) as they view it as part of their identity. In the city there are those who have a Norwich accent, and then there are those who are trying to copy Jack or Stan’s affectations. There are also incomers with their own accents.

That’s the world of The Private Enemy, but the difficulty came in deciding how to represent these various accents. Writing guides frown on the use of funetik, and they have a point. It can be quite incomprehensible. The first 10,000 words of this novel formed the major part of my portfolio for my diploma in creative writing. The work has also been critiqued on other courses and writing groups, and at various times I’ve used various approaches, including following the much advocated advice to use dictionary spelling and allow the word choice and cadence to establish the voice. After all, if I’m spending all that time studying the art of creative writing, I ought to follow the laws laid down by the experts.

I dutifully corrected all the spelling and sent my first chapter round to my latest group. The result?

Is [Broad Norfolk character] American?

How did that happen? I’d used Norfolk syntax, so why did it sound American? (This wasn’t Jack’s hard-boiled affectation.)

Earlier, I mentioned immigrants to Norfolk, but I didn’t mention the emigrants. When you saw the word Norfolk in this blog’s title, did you immediately think of Norfolk, England (famous for its admiral) or Norfolk, Virginia (famous for its naval base)?

One of the earliest Englishmen to settle in the Virginia colony was Adam Thoroughgood from King’s Lynn, Norfolk (England). The early settlers undoubtedly brought their native accents with them, but over the generations the pronunciation of the sundered groups diverged as new immigrants from other areas arrived and the natural evolution of language occurred. However, despite this change, there are still a few elements common to Broad Norfolk and some parts of America that aren’t so common in the rest of the UK. For example, in Broad Norfolk ‘wholly’ is used in the sense of ‘very’, ‘yard’ can mean garden, and a person might address their friend as ‘ole partner’. So, while there are some very distinctive words and phrases in Broad Norfolk, there are a few cases that can superficially appear American if the pronunciation isn’t clarified.

Another bit of feedback from the group came in the form of corrections in a returned copy where the initial h’s from words in the dialogue were crossed out and replaced with apostrophes. Other dialects may drop their aitches but Norfolk doesn’t drop haitches. In addition, some of the dialect’s idiosyncrasies can look like typographical errors, such as the regularisation of the third person singular present tense (‘she do’, ‘he say’, ‘that look like rain’).

The problem with this creative writing rule is that it relies on the reader being familiar with the accent. Broad Norfolk is a little-known dialect that’s frequently misrepresented. There are so many times that I see this rule presented with some example dialogue followed by a statement that the reader will naturally hear such-and-such well-known accent when reading it.

The other advice to writers is to avoid dialects altogether and always use standard English, but the concept of standard English is a fallacy as English is a pluricentric language. (I’ve seen enough edit wars over the years to verify this.) There are standards within regions but even these can be disputed. Alice may believe that her public school accent is standard English and think that Bob sounds awfully common. Bob may believe his estuary accent is standard and think that Alice sounds a bit posh.

I could’ve saved myself a lot of headaches if I’d stuck with one specific textbook English for all the characters. Not only was the Broad Norfolk causing me problems, but also the hybrid accents for characters like Jack and Stan. However the drawback with standardizing the way everyone talks is that it suggests a lack of diversity, but the whole point of the setting was its fractured nature.

Incidentally, in case there’s any misunderstanding, I’m not a linguistic expert nor can I speak Broad Norfolk. My experience is limited to living in Norfolk for over twenty years and listening to people airing their views on the local radio, nattering on the bus, conversing with cashiers or checkout assistants, or chatting with friends and neighbours. (Any resident of Norfolk who claims that the dialect is extinct must be living in some kind of élite enclave.) I therefore decided to solicit the advice of Norfolk dialect expert Keith Skipper, which was just as well as it turned out that I’d unwittingly picked up some long-defunct words from an old book written by a late Norfolk author.

In the end, I decided on a small amount of spelling deviations. The feedback so far has included:

Didn’t like the dialect.
Really didn’t like the dialect.
Didn’t have a problem with the dialect.
Liked the dialect.
Would’ve liked more guide to the pronunciation.
Would’ve liked footnotes.
Haven’t got round to reading the story yet but really enjoyed reading the glossary of Norfolk terms at the back.

Which just goes to show that readers (like people in general) are diverse, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.

Incidentally, the second edition of The Private Enemy is due out on 30th September 2017. The font is smaller (10pt instead of 11pt) and the layout is more compact. This has reduced the page count and overall size and weight, which means a reduction in print and postage costs and this will be reflected in a reduction in the retail price. The revised first edition will continue to be available until the end of September [2017]. More news on the new edition to follow in the next month or so.

Crime and SF

[Originally posted on Goodreads 2016-06-27.] I’ve written about my children’s books in a post about The Foolish Hedgehog and a post about Quack, Quack, Quack. Give My Hat Back! but I haven’t really said much about my adult fiction, so I thought it was about time to write about my published fiction and a pending novel.

I’ve Heard the Mermaid Sing is a short story ebook (approximately 2,500 words) set in 1928 about a yegg (thief) from St Louis who’s fleeing to Europe on the RMS Aquitania after a jewellery shop heist turned to murder when an off-duty policeman happened to turn up to get a bracelet repaired at the wrong moment. The story is written in 1920s vernacular, but although I was aiming to reproduce the style of that era some slang doesn’t age well. There was one phrase in particular that I had to cut when my writing friends advised against it as they said it conjured up an inappropriate image, and it wasn’t the image I had intended. As much as I wanted an authentic feel, there’s no escaping the fact that anyone reading it is living in the twenty-first century.

The Private Enemy is my first published novel, although it isn’t the first novel that I wrote. The first draft dates back to the early 1990s (possibly 1992, although I can’t remember exactly) but I completely rewrote it after going on the online creative writing course I’ve previously mentioned and the first 10,000 words formed the majority of my portfolio for my later diploma in creative writing. It’s a crime/thriller story set in a technologically-regressed future where the world has been divided into numbered sectors, each with a governing city called Central City, which is located in roughly the geographical centre of the sector. The back story is that 32 years before the events in the first chapter, a fuel crisis triggered global anarchy that lasted for two years before order was restored. The aim of those restructuring the newly established peace was that by removing national identities wars could be averted, but human nature being what it is this merely papered over deep resentments and corruption. The regression in technology is publicly justified by the fuel limitations and the lobbying of anti-technology groups, but privately the restrictions on technology allows greater control over communications. This isn’t a whodunnit mystery, but a story about one person’s private quest to prove that murder has been committed and ensure that justice is done in an increasingly volatile world. The novel is approximately 136,000 words. The paperback (revised first) edition is 140mm (5.5in) wide by 216mm (8.5in) high with a 32mm (1.3in) spine. The text is 11pt on cream paper. It’s also available as an ebook which, without the hefty print costs, is a lot cheaper. [Update 2019-09-18: there’s now a second edition paperback.]

The Fourth Protectorate is actually the first novel that I wrote, although it has had many titles and undergone many revisions. I wrote the first version in the early 1980s when I was probably around eleven or twelve years old, and it was heavily influenced by science fiction stories I was reading at the time, in particular Doctor Who and the Cybermen. (Before the proliferation of videos, the novelisations were the only way to access those old Dr Who stories, and they had the added advantage of not suffering from low-budget props.) As I grew older, I became more interested in politics, so by the time I went to the University of Essex in my late teens, the science fiction elements of the story had been toned down, with a totalitarian government rather than futuristic machines as the antagonist. I put the story on the back burner and returned to a fantasy story that I had started when I was seventeen. My third novel was The Private Enemy. I wrote a few other stories after that and from time to time switched attention back to the earlier novels, but after I rewrote The Private Enemy, having improved my writing style on the creative writing course, I decided to revisit that first novel and I rewrote it from scratch. It still has a residual science fiction device echoing back to that first draft, and it still has a police state from that second draft, but (I hope) it’s much better written. (It also now has a supernatural element that wasn’t present in the earliest drafts.) The 1980s have been and gone, and the novel is now set in an alternate history from 1984 to 1995 that charts the rise of a Cromwell-style Protectorate in Britain that becomes a dictatorship. Britain in the real 1980s was fairly turbulent, with plenty of strikes and riots, but the alternative 1980s in the story notches this up. How does the Protectorate establish itself? Through a referendum. Hmm. Yes, seriously, I wrote that before the recent [2016] referendum was proposed.

On a side note, if you’re at all interested, I voted to remain last week. While I’m disappointed with the result, we need to move on or we may, like those sci-fi stories where attempts are made to change some past event, make a bad thing worse, but I hope that, at the very least, people will learn from it. However, recent events have taught me that I was wrong to think that just because my novel is set in an alternative history from 1984 to 1995 it can’t be affected by current events, so I’ve decided that I really ought to crack on and get it finished before life overtakes it. It’s currently around 133,000 words, so it will probably be around the same size as The Private Enemy. It’s going through the final tuning stages at the moment. Are there any plot holes? Does the topology of the world in the story make sense? (That is, if characters go from A to B, does their route make sense? A few rough sketches can help here.) Are any scenes too dialect heavy or too wordy? These things usually require an impartial reading by someone experienced in the art of creative writing. How much more work needs to be done will depend on the feedback. The final task is proof-reading to pick up any spelling mistakes or typos that have been missed in earlier readings.