Diversifications
Page 24
“The Bowdler Strain” first appeared in The Solaris Book Of New Science Fiction, edited by George Mann. This anthology served as a calling card for the recently established Solaris imprint and received rave reviews across the board.
Anyone who knows me knows I am of an inherently pessimistic, nay, even nihilistic bent. The glass isn’t just half empty, it has a crack in it and everything is leaking out. In “Terminal Event” I took all my fears of apocalypse—and they are many and great—and distilled them down into a single story, which turned out to have an oddly optimistic message in amongst all the nihilism and melancholic bleakness. December 1999’s Interzone became the tale’s first home.
“Out of the Blue, Into the Red” was my contribution to the second in the Crowther space anthology series, Mars Probes, published by Daw Books in 2002 over in the good ol’ U S of A. My participating notwithstanding, it’s a great collection, well worth checking out.
Serial killers have been done to death as a genre over the past decade, ever since Thomas Harris made them fashionable. It was fun, in “Killer-Killer”, to do them to death literally. Issue 3 of Crime Wave—the digest-sized anthology from the same stable as The Third Alternative—was the publication that welcomed the story into its exquisitely designed bosom.
“The Last Change” is odd in that it’s a story I forgot I wrote. I came across it on my hard drive one day and realised I had no memory of sitting down and actually penning it. This would suggest either that I didn’t and it’s someone else’s work—in which case I’m sorry, whoever you are—or that it emerged more or less spontaneously and then I set it aside, planning to work on it later, and neglected to go back. I (re)discovered it shortly before Paul Brazier asked for a contribution to his then-new SF website, Quercus. I sent the story to him, intending to give it a brush-up if he wanted it. In the event he liked it as it is, and so do I. Wherever it came from.
“Londres au XXIème siècle” was written to order for The Mammoth Book of New Jules Verne Adventures, edited by Mike Ashley and Eric Brown. I like to claim I wrote an entire Verne pastiche novel, then cut it up, threw away most of the pieces, and assembled the few that were left over into a story. But that would be a ridiculous thing to do. Wouldn’t it?
“At One” was a treat to write. It has a trick to it which is not seen at first by all who read it. The trick, of course, is that it is made up of words of just one…er, well, how do you say “syllable” when you’re confining yourself to words of just one syllable?
I often find that when you set yourself a writing challenge with definite rules, rather than being constrained and circumscribed you end up producing something surprisingly unusual and expansive. In the case of “At One” I started the story off, knowing nothing about it except that I was going to keep to monosyllables, and let the plot lead wheresoever it may. I had no idea, at the outset, that it was going to be about a hangman and capital punishment. 42: The Ultimate Answer took receipt of the tale for its October 2002 issue, and a big thank-you must go to that fanzine’s fiction editor, and all-round SF-world good egg, Sandy Auden.
“At One” then reappeared five years later in The British Invasion, an anthology published by top US horror publisher Cemetery Dance and edited by that masterful dark fantasy author Tim Lebbon.
I used to do quite a bit of cross-country running, and even the odd half-marathon. Whether it was around Richmond Park or out on the South Downs in Sussex, I found running an indispensable way of clearing my head and letting the thoughts flow. I had some of my greatest moments of lucidity, and some of my greatest moments of stupidity too, when I was an hour or so out from home, either broiling in the sun or soaked in the rain, lost in the rhythm of my own footfalls. “Running” I wrote almost completely in my head during one such foray. I captured the words on paper the moment I got home, pausing only to scrape the mud from my shins first. The story was published in issue 26 of that inestimable genre-fiction organ, The Third Alternative. Shortly after writing it, I gave up running and hung up my trainers. This was due to increasing wear and tear on the knees. At least, that’s what I tell people.
“Piecework” was written for Hideous Progeny, a Frankenstein-themed anthology edited by Brian Willis and published by Razor Blade Press. The anthology appeared in 2000 and is one of Razor Blade’s typically handsome productions. Small presses really do know how to make a book look good (vide the tome in your hands). Alert readers will note that the story pays homage to The Insect Play by the Čapek brothers. I acted in a performance of that play at school, aged 17. I was, as I recall, one of the militaristic-industrialist red ants in the third act. Touching little autobiographical detail there.
“Junk Male” first saw light of day in the September 2001 issue of Interzone (and, along with “Speedstream”, was voted one of the top five stories of the year by that magazine’s readership). Personally, I am getting pretty sick of the reams of rubbish that pour in through my letterbox every morning, the number of phone calls I receive from drones in call centres wanting to know if I need double glazing or a new kitchen, the “Holiday Deal!” faxes that use up my paper and give me the option of having my number removed from the mailing list only if I send a fax back at a cost to me of £1.50. And that’s not to mention the ton of spam I find clogging up my email in-box every time I log on (no, I do not need Viagra, not yet, and yes, I already have a degree, thank you very much for offering). It stands to reason that if someone has to try and sell me something, I do not want it. I wonder how many hours each of us, in total, will spend in our lives dealing with this constant daily bombardment of unsolicited crap. We aren’t safe from retail pressure even in our own homes. The world is not dumbing down. It is selling up.
There. End of rant. I’ll have my medication now please, nurse.
Finally, “Speedstream”, which has been seen before in Interzone (January 2001) and also, Hellenified, spread across three consecutive issues of 9 in the summer of 2003. I have always been fascinated by the idea of travel rather than the actuality. Travel is never as glamorous, when you do it, as it is when you imagine doing it. And that’s what “Speedstream” is about. The idea of travel. The prospect of endless new horizons. An eternity of moving on, journeying hopefully, not necessarily arriving.
It was, in that respect, the right tale to round Diversifications off with.
But you may disagree. That’s the beauty and mystery of writing in general and of short-story collections in particular. What’s good and what isn’t, what works and what doesn’t, is open to debate. An author isn’t always the best judge of his or her own work.
Here, at any rate, have been sixteen tales as good as I could make them, united between two covers. Strange orphans, unruly urchins, wayward kids—my brainchildren, once scattered across space and time, now at last assembled under one roof. It feels like a homecoming, of sorts. A family of outcasts, finally gathered in.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, thank you for coming. Who knows when we’ll all be together like this again?
–– J.M.H.L.
Eastbourne, April 2010
www.jameslovegrove.com
Diversifications
Copyright © James Lovegrove 2011
The right of James Lovegrove to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Originally published in printed book form in Diversifications by PS Publishing, this electronic version is published in April 2011 by PS by arrangement with the author. All rights reserved by the author.
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN
978-1-848631-67-0
PS Publishing Ltd
Grosvenor House, 1 New Road, Hornsea
HU18 1PG East Yorkshire / England
www.pspublishing.co.uk
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br /> Contents
CONTENTS
THE HEAD
CARRY THE MOON IN MY POCKET
SEVENTEEN SYLLABLES
THE METEOR PARTY
CUTTING CRITICISM
THE BOWDLER STRAIN
TERMINAL EVENT
OUT OF THE BLUE, INTO THE RED
KILLER-KILLER
THE LAST CHANCE
LONDRES AU XXIÈME SIÈCLE
AT ONE
RUNNNING
PIECEWORK
JUNK MALE
SPEEDSTREAM
AFTERWORD