He is Legend

Richard Matheson died today. I've only read one of his books but it was phenomenal. I read I Am Legend after seeing the Will Smith film of the same name, I remember enjoying the film but being blown away by the book. The film was a serviceable post-trauma zombie movie, the book is a classic piece of horror literature. Dark, claustrophobic and intelligent I am Legend has maybe the most interesting takes on the vampire story I've ever encountered. It's a short, powerful book with no words wasted and something very interesting to say.

At the start of I am Legend Robert Neville is the last surviving human in a world of vampires. He spends his days hunting them and his nights locked up in his house hoping the creatures outside don't find their way in. At first the book does a fantastic job of portraying Neville as a practical, capable man struggling to maintain his sanity in the face of complete loneliness. However, as the story progresses it heads into darker and darker territory towards an ending that's as bleak as it is perfect. I struggle to thing of a work of fiction with an ending as effective as I am Legend's. The storytelling is tight, focused and fearless. Neville remains an interesting and sympathetic character despite the impossible situations he finds himself in, I found myself desperately rooting for him despite the hopelessness of his situation.

I am Legend is rightfully considered to be a classic of Science Fiction Horror and has gone on to massively influence the genre. The zombie story is particularly indebted to Matheson, his story serving as a sort of pre-cursor to the genre in a way similar to George A Romero's Night of the Living Dead. Despite the sometimes off-putting genre pedigree I would recommend I am Legend to anyone in a way that I wouldn't with other influential writers. Don't bother with any of the adaptations just read the book. I'm going to check out some of his other works.

Skin Diseases & Novel Update 27/02/2012

Hello again, how is everyone?...  That's nice, glad to hear you're all doing well. I've spent most of this weekend worrying that I'd caught impetigo from my three year old nephew.  I wasn't really concerned about the disease itself, as according to nhs.uk impetigo is rarely a serious condition and my skin's already pretty much a write off.  I was worried that I'd pass it on to my girlfriend, mostly because I'm a selfless, heroic gentleman but also because I was afraid that it would be really awkward.  I'd not heard of impetigo before this weekend but my  dad described it as "basically herpes for kids"  and I've been terrified of having to tell the missus "I've not been fooling around with anyone, I caught this pestilence I've given you from my nephew."  Which is pretty much the worst excuse I could have come up with and would almost certainly have got me in to even more bother.  Fortunately both myself and Mrs myself seem to have dodged the plague and the nephew's looking better.

I've been able to do a fair bit of writing since the last update and I've managed to reach 27,709 words, or 37% of the novel.  Having said that, I'm a lot further than 37% into the plot and there are lots of gaps that I'm going to have to go back and fill in/or paper over, so it's probably more accurate to say I've half written the first 75% of the book.  I'm going to update on a Monday night from now on, so I'll be able to spend all of Sunday night actually writing the book and not end up having a late night writing the accompanying blog post.  Next week's target is 32,000, comeback on Monday to see if I reach it.

Novel Update 16/02/2012

Well this week's been a bit of a write off.  The word count's currently at 21,662, a fair way short of my 25,000 word target, so 29% of the total target's been written.  I know you all expected more from some idiot dicking about with words on the internet, I'm sorry I let you down.  I'm away this weekend so it doesn't look like I'll be able to write many more (although I'm travelling by train so I might be able to get a few thousand done).  However the weekend after that is the one before pay day so I'll be too poor for adventures and should be able to get some cheap, cheap writing done.  The current plan is 27,500 by Sunday 26th February, which should put me back on track for my self imposed first draft deadline of mid-April, come back then to see how much I've done.

Novel Update 30/01/2012

Hello all, apologies for the slight delay.  I've spent most of this weekend travelling about Yorkshire doing various exciting activities.  I was in Barnsley on Saturday to celebrate a friend's birthday.  We spent most of the day in various pubs including a nice real ale place and two Wetherspoons.  I'm a bit out of practice at daytime drinking and I was worried that I might be hungover on Sunday but we all paced ourselves and ate plenty of nutritionally dubious pub food so I ended up ok.

On Sunday I went to York to see Robin Ince perform his Happiness Through Science show at the Hyena Lounge Comedy Club.  I'm a big fan of Robin Ince; I've seen him live several times before (I once saw him twice in one day at the Edinburgh Fringe) and I subscribe to his many podcasts, so I was expecting to enjoy the show but worried he might reuse material I'd already seen. Fortunately he didn't, and I enjoyed two hours plus interval of an intelligent, likeable man shouting enthusiastically about really interesting topics and ranting about terribly infuriating things.  Robin Ince always seems to attract interesting audiences to his shows and tonight's was no exception, the room was full with various breeds of academic who were more than happy to contribute a fact or clarify a misunderstanding.  This could easily have been terrible but Ince had created a vibe of jolly interest, so much so that when he mentioned Bishop Berkeley he received two contradictory heckles and proceeded to compère a brief discussion about the philosopher without derailing the show.  I left the show feeling enthused and interested in the world and would highly recommend seeing Robin Ince if he tours near you.

I knew I would be having a busy weekend so I made an effort to get as much done during the week as possible and reached 14,500 words by Friday night. Surprisingly I managed to get a fair bit of writing down over the weekend, writing on various trains and whilst waiting in pubs.  I would have written more but my solipsistic friend James Sizeland selfishly distracted me with beer and interesting conversation.  I'm quite proud of my writing this week, I've finished a scene I've been thinking about for a while that is really pivotal to the course of the novel but until yesterday I'd been unable to articulate properly.  The whole thing will need some serious polishing but so far I'm satisfied with how it's progressing.

I've been using a moleskin notepad I'd received for Christmas.  The piece of paper moleskin arrogantly slip in the back of their products claims that Hemingway used a moleskin, that's got to improve the writing. I'm only a few bottles of whiskey and a bunch of slaughtered animals away from the Nobel Prize.  The total word count stands at 16,297 which is 21.7% of my target 75,000.  Come back next week to see if I can hit 20,000 words.

Novel update 22/01/2012

I've had a fairly productive weekend this week.  Today I woke up early (for a Sunday) and constructed myself one of the greatest breakfasts ever fried.  This triumph of pork and grease gave me the strength to write over 2000 words and get fairly lost in some local woods.  I took a break from writing this afternoon to go for a walk with my mum.  We walked to the evocatively named "Druid's alter rock" a rocky outcrop with some impressive views of the valley.  Although we didn't spend much time on the rock as the wind was becoming increasingly aggressive and neither of us felt like a broken neck.  To escape the wind we cut through some woods hoping to find the path to the river, but we got lost and ended up going back the way we came, still it was a good walk.  On the way back we walked past a local antiques shop called Curio Cottage, a tiny building overflowing with strange old things that feels like it should be run by a kindly, magical shopkeeper in a CBBC TV show.

This week I've met my target and written 10,048 words.  This means that the novel is the longest single piece of writing I've done.  It's closest competitors are two reports I wrote for my Post Graduate Certificate in Education Studies and my B.Sc project on "Laser trapping and cooling, featuring atomic hose-pipes" which despite (or because of?) having a title like a hip-hop collaboration, was the most successful part of my Physics Degree.  10,048 words is 13.4% of my arbitrary target word count of 75,000 so while I've got a fair way to go I feel I'm on track.  Next week's target is 15,000 come back then to see if I've made it.

Novel update 15/01/2012

So far I've written 5395 words of the novel.  I'm not sure how long it's going to be in the end, the  Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula award rules define a novel as 40,000 words long and National Novel Writing Month say a novel should be over 50,000 words.  A brief google shows that most novels are longer, with the typical word count between 80,000 and 100,000.  I'm not sure how long my novel's going to end up being. I think 300-400 pages is a good length for a satisfying book.  Assuming 250 pages per word this gives me a rough target count of 75,000-100,000 words.  

I want my book to be as deep yet direct as a cruse missile with a philosophy degree and a passion for scuba diving so I'm not going to pad it out to meet an arbitrary word count but it's nice to have a target.  If I use the lower number then I can say that I've written approximately 7.2% of the book (and that I've put a bit too much thought into almost meaningless numbers).  My goal for nest week is 10,000 words which would be 13.3% of the book.  I'll update again next week and let you  all know how I've done.  

Opinions on Books: The Casebook of Carnacki the Ghost Finder

For today’s entry I’m taking a break from the video-games of the 2000s to talk about something a little more classical, so sit back in your leather wing-back armchair, pour yourself a brandy, turn on the atmospheric soundtrack and read all about my opinions on the Edwardian ghost buster Thomas Carnacki.

I haven’t always enjoyed the supernatural detective genre.  As a child I thought Scooby Doo was ridiculous, not for the talking dog, that was brilliant.  What I had a problem with was the terribly predictable stories.  I demanded more than a suspect list of one and half an episode of running down corridors from my pre-turkey dinosaur and potato smiles entertainment.  Years past and I learnt a vital lesson, there’s more to life than Scooby Doo. 

As I got older I became enthralled by supernatural mysteries; Buffy, Hellboy, John Constantine, the Winchester brothers.  All relatable, flawed (mostly) humans investigating sinister and often grisly puzzles, but rather than end their adventures with a drawing room confession or an arrest like boring old Hercule Poirot they would fight giant Lovecraftian monsters, much more exciting.  Thomas Carnacki is one of the original Occult detectives, created by William Hope Hodgeson in 1910.  The Ghost Finder appeared in a six short stories for the wonderfully named Idler magazine.  These stories, along with three adventures published after Hodgeson’s death are collected in The Casebook of Carnacki the Ghost Finder published by Wordsworth Mystery & Supernatural.  The book’s RRP is £3 for 200 pages so it’s very cheap, but is it any good?

I was expecting Carnacki to be a predictable character.  As he was one of the first occult detectives and a widely acknowledged influence on those that followed him I had assumed that he would seem tired.  I worried that time would have changed Carnacki from a character to a cliché, but thanks to Hodgeson this is never a problem.  Probably my favourite thing about Carnacki is his rational approach to the supernatural.  Carnacki is always prepared for a mundane solution to the supposed hauntings he encounters and often sceptical of supernatural phenomena.  However, when he finds indisputable evidence of supernatural threats he has no problem accepting them as real.  

This is a refreshing change to Mulder and Scully type characters, always assuming a mystery must be either totally rational or totally paranormal.  Carnacki lives in a world where ghosts and demons exist alongside human menaces so he is always prepared for either problem.  Following this unusually agnostic approach Carnacki tackles supernatural problems scientifically; reading research papers on the occult, using then modern technology such as his trusty camera and devises new methods of fighting spirits such as his “electric pentacle”.  Carnacki is not some indestructible action hero who fights evil with quips and sarcasm, he’s always scared of the demonic forces that trouble him, but he’s a hero because he fights them anyway, because no one else knows how.

With most occult detectives stories the reader can usually expect the villain to be some sort of supernatural foe or maybe revealed as humans all along in a surprise twist, Hodgeson takes a different approach.  Hodgeston treats Ghosts and humans as equally likely culprits; sometimes the monster is a terrifying supernatural apparition from beyond time and space, sometimes its Scooby doo style crooks trying to steal an inheritance.  This stops the mysteries from becoming predictable and boring, ensuring the reader never knows what to expect.

Hodgeson portrays most of the threats as mysteries even to Carnacki, as if for all his expertise and experience the Ghost Finder only knows a tiny fraction of the truth about his supernatural enemies, creating a terrific sense of unease that is often genuinely spooky.  The author creates great unknowable menaces then locks Carnacki (and the reader) in a dark room with them, protected only by lines of chalk and electricity that might not work at all.  This is undermined slightly as each story is narrated by Carnacki so his survival is never in doubt.

In conclusion The Casebook of Carnacki the Ghost Finder by William Hope Hodgeson provides a collection of varied, intriguing and unsettling short stories.  Definitely worth reading/buying for a superior early example of the occult detective genre.