Hello hello, hello! Still here, still kicking about, avoiding the blank page and all that.
A favourite truism of mine (heard as a sample on Ride's "Going Blank Again") goes, "even a stuffed clock tells the right time twice a day." So in that spirit I am blogging again after an extended hiatus.
First, I have an interview for your perusal over at fellow author, Greg Mitchell's page.
A caution for those of a less religious bent that one of the answers gets pretty religious, so bare with me.
Well, I have some questions to answer, I will have a crack at one:
The glorious Justine H. asks: "... How exactly did you come up with the idea for leers? Are leers able to fall in love?And where on the Half-Continent did you come up with such an epicly amazing character as Sebastipole (and his amazingly epic name?!)?!?!"
Well, I think it came first with seeing something that made me think it would be "cool" to put a large box right on someone's face but then have it that instead of impeding their senses it heightened them.
Leers are just people who have soaked their eyes in chemicals to see things not normally possible and are trained in the use of a sthenicon and olphactologue, so as to falling in love, I suppose that is as variable for them as it is for any other soul. I can add, however, that being in relationship with a falseman might be awkward at best or downright frustrating/terrifying as they could always tell if you were speaking the truth or not, so fob-off answers like "Nothing," to the question "What's the matter?" would not work so well.
Sebastipole is actually a misspelling of the Ukrainian city of Sevastopol, made known to me through reading on the Crimean War. I have since figured however that as far as the Half-Continent goes, his name actually comes from the fact that his mother is Baste from Sebastian and his father a Pollard from Pollux (a bit odd to name your child thus, but Sebastipole's upbringing was a cold thing and it is the Half-Continent after all...)
Both Ken and Amanda were asking after the availability of my books in the necessary e-formats, and whether I am all down with it.
Firstly, I believe each publisher in each region (North America, UK, Australia/NZ, each of the European nations etc...) is figuring out how best to provide those formats and what the royalty rates ought to be. So it is happening, but the publishing industry is in a massive bit of flux at the moment as it transforms into the digital.
Am I down with it? Bring it on I say! I am, however, getting rather ticked with "torrent-ing" and otherwise illegal digital thieving of such formats. Sure, I could look at it as free advertising, but consider that if I can't make a living from these tales then I am not going to be able to write any more of them. Grrrr....
And here is a *SMILEY FACE* just to end on a happier note.
(Mr Bryddia, I shall get to questins soon(ish))
Showing posts with label leers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label leers. Show all posts
Poor, Down-trodden Teratologists
Taylor - by email - asked this recently:
"I have a question that has been rankling at me for a bit as I've become immersed in Monster Blood Tattoo, and it is this: In a world as monster-ridden and monster-phobic as the Half-Continent, why do people tend to have a negative view of lazhars, skolds, scourges, and any kinds of terotologists? I realize people might be a bit afraid of them due to their powers, but, for example, why does Felicitine refuse to allow Europe to stay at the Harefoot Dig? Or why, when Europe comes to see Rossamund at Winstermill, do most people "habitually disapprove of her trade"? It always seems that people are disdainful of those who have altered themselves for the protection of the Half-Continent, and in a land where showing the slightest bit of sympathy for monsters gets a person exiled or worse, this seems a bit narrow-minded of the population. What do you think?"
To which I responded:
I think you have hit the nail firmly on the head - people are inconsistent, and no less so in the Half-Continent. I found this very tension an excellent vehicle to quietly explore this inconsistency, which is essentially: people do not want the problem but neither are they happy about the solution.
What-is-more, while we certainly have Madam Felicitine being snobbish, Master Billetus is not; Madam Oubliette has established an entire wayhouse for the patronage and support of the teratologist (albeit because they are generally not wanted in the towns). There I go again: Why are they not wanted in the towns when they do such a service? Teratologists with their much-needed yet dangerous powers are seen as the "necessary evil", like a rat catcher or a garbage collector. They kill the monsters but have to have contact with them in order to do so, placing them in a kind of half-way status.
Skolds will receive the best reception (indeed in some parts of the H-c they are truly revered), then pistolleers, laggards, lurksmen, peltrymen, tractors - your more unaltered types; followed by scourges (who, while appreciated for their efforts are mistrusted for the deadly power of their chemistry and that they look so odd wrapped so completely in their fascins) and then falsemen (no one likes to think that the person they are talking to knows what they are thinking).
Of lahzars, the disapproval goes much deeper, for there continues a rigourous debate as to what exactly they are - some hold that through the surgeries they have become a kind of gudgeon - and no one likes gudgeons - something other, whose capacities make them hard to control, place them outside the existing caste system, therefore upsetting the status quo, and very few in the H-c appreciate this (especially those of the higher situations, or with aspirations of social climbing).
So what we find in the Half-Continent is a lot of ignorance riddled with rumour; add to this "classists" snobbery - like Felicitine with her airs and graces - and the fact that a large proportion of the population are naivines (ie: never seen a monster) - and I reckon such inconsistency is valid (and a bit fun too - for me at least).
And never fear, there are those who are indeed fans of the lahzars - the obsequines, some of whom you might meet in Book 3.
Thank you Taylor!
... to this I might add (more in response to the query from Ben Bryddia) that the strange status lahzars have - the position of needful and powerful outsider - is an excellent mechanism for women to improve their lot in the commonly more patriarchal H-c / Haacobin society; hence there being a greater proportion of girl-lahzars. Never-the-less there are still plenty of boy ones too (the black-eyed wit, the Boanerges, the Knave of Diamonds - all in Book 2), it is just that they have not become the focus of my tale yet.
A question to the lady readers (if I may): how would you feel about changing your eyes by becoming a leer?
Breakfast = Vita Brits [TM] with Milo [TM] sprinkled on it and a cup of free-trade tea.
"I have a question that has been rankling at me for a bit as I've become immersed in Monster Blood Tattoo, and it is this: In a world as monster-ridden and monster-phobic as the Half-Continent, why do people tend to have a negative view of lazhars, skolds, scourges, and any kinds of terotologists? I realize people might be a bit afraid of them due to their powers, but, for example, why does Felicitine refuse to allow Europe to stay at the Harefoot Dig? Or why, when Europe comes to see Rossamund at Winstermill, do most people "habitually disapprove of her trade"? It always seems that people are disdainful of those who have altered themselves for the protection of the Half-Continent, and in a land where showing the slightest bit of sympathy for monsters gets a person exiled or worse, this seems a bit narrow-minded of the population. What do you think?"
To which I responded:
I think you have hit the nail firmly on the head - people are inconsistent, and no less so in the Half-Continent. I found this very tension an excellent vehicle to quietly explore this inconsistency, which is essentially: people do not want the problem but neither are they happy about the solution.
What-is-more, while we certainly have Madam Felicitine being snobbish, Master Billetus is not; Madam Oubliette has established an entire wayhouse for the patronage and support of the teratologist (albeit because they are generally not wanted in the towns). There I go again: Why are they not wanted in the towns when they do such a service? Teratologists with their much-needed yet dangerous powers are seen as the "necessary evil", like a rat catcher or a garbage collector. They kill the monsters but have to have contact with them in order to do so, placing them in a kind of half-way status.
Skolds will receive the best reception (indeed in some parts of the H-c they are truly revered), then pistolleers, laggards, lurksmen, peltrymen, tractors - your more unaltered types; followed by scourges (who, while appreciated for their efforts are mistrusted for the deadly power of their chemistry and that they look so odd wrapped so completely in their fascins) and then falsemen (no one likes to think that the person they are talking to knows what they are thinking).
Of lahzars, the disapproval goes much deeper, for there continues a rigourous debate as to what exactly they are - some hold that through the surgeries they have become a kind of gudgeon - and no one likes gudgeons - something other, whose capacities make them hard to control, place them outside the existing caste system, therefore upsetting the status quo, and very few in the H-c appreciate this (especially those of the higher situations, or with aspirations of social climbing).
So what we find in the Half-Continent is a lot of ignorance riddled with rumour; add to this "classists" snobbery - like Felicitine with her airs and graces - and the fact that a large proportion of the population are naivines (ie: never seen a monster) - and I reckon such inconsistency is valid (and a bit fun too - for me at least).
And never fear, there are those who are indeed fans of the lahzars - the obsequines, some of whom you might meet in Book 3.
Thank you Taylor!
... to this I might add (more in response to the query from Ben Bryddia) that the strange status lahzars have - the position of needful and powerful outsider - is an excellent mechanism for women to improve their lot in the commonly more patriarchal H-c / Haacobin society; hence there being a greater proportion of girl-lahzars. Never-the-less there are still plenty of boy ones too (the black-eyed wit, the Boanerges, the Knave of Diamonds - all in Book 2), it is just that they have not become the focus of my tale yet.
A question to the lady readers (if I may): how would you feel about changing your eyes by becoming a leer?
Breakfast = Vita Brits [TM] with Milo [TM] sprinkled on it and a cup of free-trade tea.
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