Here’s the eerily beautiful cover for the next Zombies Need Brains anthology THE DEATH OF ALL THINGS, edited by Laura Anne Gilman and Kat Richardson. You can preorder the Kickstarter edition or ebook at the ZNB online store and get the anthology early. (While you’re there, why not check out the other upcoming anthologies?) The general trade paperback edition will be available on September 1st.

I’m one of twenty-two writers considering the Grim Reaper through mythical, fantastical, and futuristic portrayals of what we may encounter between life and death, and what may lie beyond. What does that teach us about the lives we live first? My own story is called ‘A Constant Companion‘.

Personally, I can’t wait to read the other stories from: K. M. Laney, Andrea Mullen, Faith Hunter, Kendra Leigh Speedling, Jason M. Hough, Julie Pitzel, Shaun Avery, Christie Golden, Leah Cutter, Aliette de Bodard, Andrew Dunlop, Juliet E McKenna, A. Merc Rustad, Ville Meriläinen, Amanda Kespohl, Mack Moyer, Fran Wilde, Kathryn McBride, Andrija Popovic, Jim C. Hines, Stephen Blackmoore, and Kiya Nicoll.

Cover art by Justin Adams. Cover design by C. Lennox Graphics, LLC.

Issues with WordPress and its technical underpinnings mean we need to do some updating and rethinking hereabouts.

Bear with us, as Cheryl deals with my inability to visualise things until I can actually see them, or the lack of them, and thus make up my mind…

We will endeavour to have everything sorted and stable as soon as possible.

And so we come to War for the Planet of the Apes, the latest in what now seems to be an ongoing series of films rather than merely a trilogy. We see where events since the last movie have led us, as man’s arrogance encompasses his own downfall. Will the unexpected consequences of bio-technology offer other primates a chance at the top slot?

Technologically, the film is a tour de force. What motion capture and CGI can do is astonishing – you really cannot see where reality stops and special effects start. So far, so increasingly common these days. But great special effects are not enough, as rather too many movies fail to realise. A film like this must also have sufficiently strong central performances to make it a drama, not merely a spectacle. Andy Serkis and Woody Harrelson deliver absolutely what’s needed. The dynamic between Caesar, leader of the apes, and Colonel McCullough, commanding an embattled remnant of humanity, is tense and compelling from start to finish.

Mankind’s inhumanity to man is front and centre, compared and contrasting with the apes’ mutually supportive culture. All Caesar and his kind want is to be left alone. Colonel McCullough needs an enemy to fight though, and unable to attack the virus that’s been humanity’s downfall, finds the scapegoats he needs in the apes.

As a war film, the movie wears its influences unashamedly on its sleeve, most obviously, though not exclusively films exploring the Vietnam War. It can absolutely and legitimately be called Ape-ocalypse Now. This is not merely retreading those footsteps though. Such echoes, and other references such as the slang names for servile apes, serve to tie this dystopian future to our own reality. There’s also the inescapable fact that the Vietnam War proved the hollowness of the American doctrine of ‘peace through superior firepower’. That undercurrent continually runs beneath our viewing of events where armed men seem to have an inescapable whip hand over apes with severely limited abilities to fight back. Beware assumptions.

Issues of gender in this movie are more complex than they might first appear, certainly as far as I am concerned. I’m using words like ‘man’ and ‘him’ advisedly because this is very male-gaze apocalypse. Not however, one where masculinity-under-threat-in-this-modern-liberal-world can finally come good, with its guns and its manly men taking charge of helpless women and children to save the day.

This is a story about the dead-end destructiveness of arrogant white male masculinity so used to solving everything with aggression that it’s incapable of thinking outside that self-defeating box. That influences my response to the widespread online comment about the complete absence of female voices in the dialogue (apart from possibly one female soldier’s scream?) The one significant human female role is mute and childlike in the most literal sense, and while a couple of female apes have things to say, they do so through sign language. Could one view the lack of female voices as a feature rather than a bug, if one were prepared to squint a bit…? Then there’s the almost-gender-neutral appearance of the apes apart from the females’ apparent (and to my mind inexplicable) inclination to unflattering central partings and rustic ear decoration. I think there’s more to be discussed about the absence of female characters here than might be first apparent. Is that very absence what permits masculinity to turn so toxic?

Not that this excuses the use of perhaps the laziest motivate-your-male-protagonist cliche in the first act of the movie. There are other script-writing choices I can quibble with, most notably some utterly bone-headed human tactics as the film rushes to its conclusion.

A fourth movie is reportedly under discussion, or development, depending on what you read. I’ll be very interested to see it, provided that the writers can offer something more than man and ape in conflict. These films have done that, and done it well, but the story needs to move on. In my head at least, there must be other corners of this world where the post-apocalypse is working out differently, with male and female voices contributing equally to co-operation rather than conflict. I’d like to see how that’s working out, given so many challenges will still remain to drive a story.

One of the underlying themes of The Aldabreshin Compass series is the burden of rule. Rank has its obligations as well as its privileges. By this point in the story, our hero, the warlord Kheda feels increasingly under pressure from the expectations and assumptions of all those he rules over, all the more so because his own world view is changing in ways he cannot share.

Something’s got to give, but what? Or should that be who and where?

You can read the opening chapter to Western Shore by clicking here.

Spiderman: Homecoming continues to build on, and expand the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While, and oh, thank heavens, it’s not another Spiderman origin story retread, it does an excellent job of refocusing the character on its original appeal at the same time as updating and integrating the High School Hero into the modern day. As a decades-long fan of the comic, I’m thrilled to see a young, nerdy Peter Parker, while also very much appreciating a younger, more modern, far more relatable Aunt May rather than a grey-haired granny stereotype.

With its smaller scale and 80s-teen-movie vibe, the film is in many ways lighter in tone than other recent and forthcoming MCU movies. A story feels much less oppressive when the oncoming disaster is humiliation at a teenage party rather than global annihilation by aliens or android armies. On the other hand, that tighter focus and scenario simultaneously makes this story far more personal. We can empathise far more readily with the reality of that situation whereas we could only ever be onlookers in need of rescue from Ultron or the Chitauri. When a shop which Peter regularly visits, where we know he chats with the owner, becomes collateral damage – that has an emotional impact which can sometimes be lacking in the CGI-spectacular destruction of faceless hordes.

I also like the way that Peter’s school and classmates are portrayed. He’s attending a specialist science and technology school, where being intelligent is the norm, not a reason for ridicule. Yes, he has a bullying nemesis, in keeping with the High School vibe, but that lad doesn’t mock Peter’s brains, rather he’s jealous of his place on the Academic Decathlon team. Yes, there’s a roly-poly, nerdy sidekick, but he’s extremely bright and capable when it comes to playing his own vital role in the plot. Success in the Academic Decathlon is presented as a worthwhile victory to strive for. All of which might be merely worthy if it wasn’t for the presence of Tony Stark. We all know Tony’s off-the-scale-brilliant but one thing his involvement in these events highlights is the difference between intelligence and wisdom. Tony doesn’t listen, he’s arrogant, and he shrugs off what doesn’t interest him. That sets the tone that his employees adopt. It’s Peter who learns the lessons that result from the consequences of Tony’s mistakes – as well as his own teenage missteps, of course.

Michael Keaton is a stellar villain whose coherent motivation is so much more convincing and complex than mere motiveless malignity. Beneath the patent injustice and/or callousness that sparks his initial grievance, there are also a good few questions posed about the roles of big business and government and what happens to ordinary people when politicians and billionaires organise the world to suit themselves. With great power, comes great responsibility. Someone should remind them of that. Which is not to say Adrian Toombs is some misunderstood and wronged individual who warrants our sympathy. He has made his own choices, consciously and deliberately for years now, and as we see, is utterly ruthless in pursuit of his goals. We can believe that Peter is in very real danger, thanks to Michael Keaton’s performance and the personal nature of their conflict.

So far, so good, however … there’s still no getting away from the most abiding and persistent problem of superhero movies based on characters with a decades-long back story. Yes, I mean the roles for women, drawn from source material written when very different cultural archetypes went unquestioned. Once again, the girls are peripheral to the male-focused action, only present in the stereotypical roles of objects of desire, domestic helpmeets and damsels in distress. The writers and actors make heroic efforts to lift the female characters above such clichés but even with the appearance of Mary Beth Lacey, apparent now working for Homeland Security or some such, there’s only so much they can do here. I can only hope that the hints of more and better to come in the next movie are fulfilled, from Michelle in particular – as long as they can do that without mangling the essence of the friendly neighbourhood Spiderman whom we know and love. I’ve had quite enough of that sort of thing with DC turning Superman supposedly dark and edgy and in the process erasing so much of his core character.

Oh hey, how about some more female-led superhero movies? That would work to elevate women and to offer girls their own role models, without eradicating the men. How about we stop looking at this as a zero sum game?

It’s been an interesting last little while in the SFF genre, notably for those of us keeping a watching brief on gender issues alongside our uncomplicated enjoyment of superheroes and the fantastic. But rather than demand your time and attention for an extended read on them all at once, here’s the first in a series of related (and hopefully not too spoilery) posts.

Wonder Woman was good fun. I most definitely appreciated seeing strong, athletic women taking charge of their own destiny on Themiscyra, and wearing costumes that drew far more on classical Mediterranean leather armour than on lingerie. Putting Diana into Great War London and seeing the clash of cultures that followed worked well, both in terms of the film, and incidentally to highlight today’s obdurate misogyny. Lucy Davis as Etta Candy gives a performance that’s central to exploring those particular themes all the more effectively through humour. I thought Chris Pine gives a good account of himself, and personally I didn’t feel his presence turned the film into All About Steve. Mind you, there really should be a law against anyone called Steve flying off alone a plane in a superhero movie now. There’s no telling what will follow…

Is this an particularly feminist movie? Not to my mind. Let’s not forget, Diana’s plot ultimately revolves around a response to male aggression. So far, so predictably defining a woman’s role as reactive to a man’s. On the other hand, there are some thoughtful asides on the causes of war and no over-soft-pedalling the dire practical and psychological consequences for men and women alike. Having a female villain in Doctor Poison was a good choice, though let’s not forget she is subservient to a man. But then again, this is set in 1918 … so … would a female villain with more overt agency have been anachronistic? There are arguments on both sides. Not least because a more overtly feminist movie would have offered endless ammunition to those primed to attack it as ‘message fiction’ long before they’d seen the opening credits.

All told, I felt Sameer and Napi were badly underused which meant their contribution ended up as primarily ‘see how prejudice extends to race as well as gender?’ rather than having that assuredly valid point made incidentally to more rounded roles for those particular characters. That said, making such roles meatier would mean extending a film with a run time that’s already well over two hours. Oh, here’s a thought? Maybe dial back the extended CGI-spectacular scenes just a bit here and there? Use those saved minutes for more interesting character exploration?

The film did drive a galloping coach and horses through established Greek myth, as I observed as we left the cinema. ‘I thought Greek myths had all sorts of variations?’ remarked one son. ‘That’s your biggest problem with a story set in a universe where a man dresses up as a giant bat to fight crime?’ queried the other. Well, yes, fair comment, both. The unexpected appearance of Spud from Trainspotting did also distract me. Just like my flashback to Renton’s toilet-dive when I watched Obi Wan Kenobi et al visit the underwater city in The Phantom Menace. But that’s probably just me…

So overall I thought it was a good, fun film rather than a great, deeply-meaningful one. I mean, compared to … oh, wait, there are no other female-led superhero movies to compare it to, are there? So let’s not get hypercritical here. As a foundation to build on, and as a film that proves that a female superhero can light up the box office with a good, fun, adventure story that everyone can enjoy, it’s exactly what we need at the moment.

In a week that’s seen more tedious instances of people with no real knowledge of genre asserting that women don’t or can’t write SF or Fantasy*, here’s a little something to prove otherwise.

And if you’re expecting any kind of dragon that’s prepared to live alongside humans, think again…

Feel free to spread the word.

Here’s the first chapter of Northern Storm.

* No, I’m not going to link. Like just about every female writer I know, I am sick to death of this endlessly recurrent nonsense.

After the holiday-and-other-stuff hiatus, here’s where you can find the opening chapter of Southern Fire, Book 1 of The Aldabreshin Compass.
I’ve mentioned before that I am always determined not to rewrite the last book each time I start a new one. This time round, I was absolutely determined to write a very different series.

Meet Daish Kheda, absolute ruler and warlord, unquestioned master of all he surveys. Of course that means when trouble arrives, absolutely everyone is looking back at him, expecting him to have all the answers. That’s a problem when the trouble that’s turned up is invaders backed by violent sorcery, and all Aldabreshin law and custom bans magic on pain of death…

I’ve had three separate conversations about this recently, relating to very different stories by different writers, so that’s a good prompt for a blog post. Famously, of course, Raymond Chandler said, when in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun. There are doubtless times when that will help, though overall, desperation rarely leads to good prose.

Even so, that man, his presence, his motives, the nature of his gun and its bullets, must still serve the essentials of the story. People, plot and place. Shooting or shagging, or their local equivalents, still always need to advance your story or tell us something important about your characters and their situation.

The first of those conversations was about ‘grittying up’ a story. There’s a good measure of violence driving this plot later on but, we wondered, would readers be taken by surprise, and not in a good way. There was precious little in the early chapters to make the reader aware of potentially dangerous undercurrents. Not that throwing an abrupt bar brawl into an early chapter would be any answer. There was no place for that in the story. After some consideration, verbal violence proved to be the answer, telling us something about this world and about key characters. Violence comes in many forms in the real world, so you don’t need to only ever bludgeon readers with characters hacking each other to pieces.

That said, when you do pit your characters against foes in a fist-fight or a fire-fight, you do need to get the details right. If this is outside your own personal experience, then you will need to do your research, and not only about the practicalities. Always remember such events are there to serve the story. Emotional responses are going to reveal so much about characters. This is where biographies and autobiographies become vital resources, giving insights into the ways real people have coped with extraordinary and dangerous situations.

The second conversation was about sex, specifically whether or not Our Hero should end up in bed with The Girl. That climax would certainly satisfy a lot of readers’ expectations. Only this particular story has spent over a hundred thousand words testing expectations in fantasy fiction that have become so apparently inevitable that they’ve congealed into cliché. One particular notion that’s being challenged is the idea that otherwise intelligent and sexually experienced people must unaccountably become slaves to lust.

So, no, we concluded, this narrative has no business ending in a night of passion. Now, that’s all well and good, but that means conveying the reasons for Our Hero and The Girl to go their separate ways which will work both for the story and for those readers who had come this far expecting a Happily Ever After in the bedroom. When it comes to sex, no one likes to be left unsatisfied on the pages or between the sheets. As with so many other elements of story-telling, knowing your tropes is important when it comes to sex.

The third conversation concluded that yes, sex was the way to go. This particular story includes a central, political marriage alliance, but there’s no place earlier in the narrative, either in terms of plot or pacing, for a lengthy courtship, negotiations, whatever. But this relationship is going to be crucial for subsequent events and how key characters respond. So we need real insights into these two people and their private personal relationship. We’re not going to see that if this pivotal chapter focuses on their wedding. A wedding is a production involving all sorts of people, and it’s an event where the central players are on show, presenting a public face. Also, let’s be honest, The Big Wedding is becoming something of a cliché in historical/fantasy fiction.

The wedding night though, that’s where these two are really going to get to know each other, in every sense, for better or worse. There can be precious few secrets between two people naked together in bed. They’re going to learn a lot of important things about each other, which will influence their future life together. For instance, they’re going to learn about each other’s prior sexual experience, because let’s remember ‘virgin’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘untouched by human hand’. Incidentally, the reader can also learn a lot about this culture and society from how its people approach sex. So from the writer’s point of view, this consummation offers a whole load of opportunities to serve people, plot and place in one chapter.

The flip side of that is the considerable authorial challenge of writing a sexual encounter that won’t make readers giggle or squirm, and not in a good way. There are oh, so many pitfalls when it comes to writing sex, starting with but by no means limited to describing the mechanics of Tab A into Slot B. It’s one of those writing tasks that can leave authors feeling very exposed as they search their own experience in order to realistically convey emotional and physical responses.

Add to that, in the majority of sexual situations, a writer’s personal experience is only going to take them half way. For those of us with very, very good friends of different gender and/or orientation to our own, this is generally the cue for a quiet night in with a bottle of wine and a very frank discussion. Then there’s what can be gained from reading other writers; the ones who can do sex well, and equally important, those who do it really badly. As always, spotting overused tropes and clichés becomes critical to avoiding throwing your readers out of the moment. Another resource is erotica, and in particular, reading what those writers who specialise in that genre have to share about the tricks of their particular trade.

Writing sex and/or violence is rarely easy, but doing anything worthwhile seldom is. Sex and violence are integral facts of human life, to a greater or lesser extent. If your fiction is going to have something worthwhile to say about our common humanity, you’re going to find yourself tackling this challenge, sooner or later, to a greater or lesser extent. With writing, as with sex and violence, thinking ahead will greatly increase your chances of a satisfactory outcome.

Here’s something that should be of interest to those of you who’ve been following my writing on Equality in SFF. Last year, Luna Press put out a call for papers, with a view to publishing a non-fiction volume on ‘Gender Identity and Sexuality in Fantasy and Science Fiction’. You can now pre-order this wide-ranging collection of papers exploring ways in which speculative fiction in all its forms is dealing with current issues and debates relating to gender identity and sexuality.

I decided to pursue my interest in exploring reasons for the persistent under-representation of, and lack of visibility for, women authors and writers of colour, gay and non-binary writers.

In particular I decided to test that comfortable assumption that as women and others enter writing careers in equal numbers to the established white western men, those diverse authors with sufficient talent will naturally rise to the top. The far less palatable flip side to this being of course, that if such writers don’t rise up the ranks, well… they’re just not up to it, self-evidently…

The thing is though, this idea that parity of entry will naturally lead to equality of opportunity and representation at all levels has been tested and found badly lacking over the past twenty, thirty years, for women and others in the law, medicine, academia, banking and a whole host of other professions as well as careers in STEM fields. Why should SF&F be any different?

Crucially legislation has made it impossible for those responsible for recruitment and retention in those areas to simply shrug and say well, they tried and it’s a shame but what can be done? Research and analysis has identified successive barriers to equality of opportunity which are remarkably consistent across those professions and careers mentioned above. There are Gate Keepers, there is the challenge of The Sticky Floor, and then The Leaky Pipe. Only those determined enough to defeat such obstacles can face the final challenge of Breaking the Glass Ceiling.

All of which sounds remarkably like an epic fantasy quest to me – but I digress.

So I decided to take a good look at the evidence from such research in other fields, to see what might be applicable to the ongoing issue of lack of diversity in genre publishing, and to see what factors might be specific to SF&F. Because if we’re to tackle this problem in any meaningful fashion, the more thoroughly we understand it, the better our chances will be.