Cyber Circus

by Kim Lakin-Smith

On my return, I decided to make the most of the opportunities I had been blessed with. I signed up at Stafford Collage for two years and did a 360 on my previous A’level results. Having studied English Literature, Theatre Studies and Stage Design, I found a new passion in the form of playwriting. In 1993 I enrolled at the University of Glamorgan on their Combined Studies course. Why ‘Combined Studies’ sounded better to me than ‘Humanities’ is lost to history. I do know that my time at Glamorgan was transformative work-wise and on a personal level. I loved everything about South Wales from its connections to my welsh granddad to its glorious summers to slate grey rooftops slick with rain to the misty fairyland of the valleys. My studies took in America’s Wild West, Jazz, Religion, Media Studies, Theatre, Gothic Literature, Women Writers, and a new, major influence – Transgression and Sexuality.

  Just as I was discovering the wonders of academia, real life came crashing down about my ears. My mother was diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer. Inside the year, she had passed away, as had my grandmother. It was a bleak period and I threw myself into my degree, rejecting the more emotional creative writing for academic study. For two years I immersed myself in feminist theory and the study of anything I found challenging and wanted to understand – pornography, S&M, transvestism, transgender and sexuality, subjects which developed in me a passion for otherness and a deep-rooted desire to promote understanding.

  All the same, a year into my PhD, something didn’t feel quite right. I missed using my imagination and applied for and was awarded a scholarship to study for an MA in Writing at Nottingham Trent University. While ecstatic to write fiction again, I felt a sense of loss for my academic studies and the time I had spent as a lecturer at Glamorgan.

  Set loose in a fiction writing environment again, I had a bloody good time meeting likeminded folk and trying to write in a structured, plot-driven format. Award-winning author and lecturer, Graham Joyce introduced me to the graft behind the craft of writing. He also enjoyed calling me a procrastinator – a red rag to a bull – and pushing me as damned hard as he could to take writing seriously.

  Things clicked when I met my husband, Del. Not only did Del encourage me to take up writing fulltime, but he also introduced me to Nottingham’s Rock City, a world where I finally felt at home. Rock music had always been part of my life but I had never shared in the vibrancy and dark brilliance of the alternative scene. Celebrating difference, freakishness and absurdity, the tribes of goths, emos, rockabillies, punks and skaters sparked my imagination like never before. When I became pregnant with our daughter, Scarlet, Del and I moved into Ivy House, located a good distance from Nottingham. But the legacy of the city’s alternative underbelly stayed with me. The result was my first novel, Tourniquet, an ode to the tribal mentality of the alternative scene and what it means to belong. I had no concept of fitting into ‘Fantasy’ or ‘Horror’ or ‘Science Fiction’ at the time. I just wrote the story I wanted to tell.

  May 2006, Del suggested we attend a local writers’ event, the very first Alt Fiction. He was keen to hear Richard Morgan’s reading and I desperately wanted to meet Storm Constantine. Not only did we share a love for the alternative music scene but I was a great admirer of Storm’s short fiction magazine, Visionary Tongue. Trembling with nerves, I approached Storm in between readings and was over the moon when she asked Del and me to join her for a drink. Within two weeks, Storm had read the manuscript for Tourniquet and wanted to publish it. I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect home for Tourniquet than Immanion Press. Likewise I had no idea that our daytrip to Alt Fiction would see us join the genre convention circuit and meet so many wonderful, talented and colourful new friends.

  One of these precious encounters was with Ian Whates at Fantasycon 2006. I don’t know at what stage in the evening Ian and I started chatting, but we’ve been chatting ever since. Those who’ve seen Ian’s home library could attest to the fact that if anyone could juggle a successful writing career with running a genre publishing house in the form of Newcon Press, it was Ian. I was delighted when Ian accepted my short stories ‘Heart Song’ for Newcon’s anthology of women writers, Myth-Understandings, and ‘The Killing Fields’ for Celebration, celebrating 50 years of the British Science Fiction Society. I also enjoyed working with Ian on the BSFA’s Matrix magazine before home and work commitments meant I had to step down.

  Something that came to the fore around this time was my reoccurring desire to ground stories in science and mechanics. An interest in steampunk led me to explore gaspunk in my 2009 BSFA nominated short story ‘Johnny and Emmie-Lou Get Married’ (Interzone #222). New influences filtered through into my writing – a love of cars, machinery, and action scenes from films like Mad Max, Pitch Black, Fast and the Furious, etc – alongside a fascination with the notion of the lone warrior in a post-apocalyptic setting. These themes dominated my YA novel, Autodrome, the novella, ‘Queen Rat’ (from Echelon Press’s forthcoming Her Majesty’s Royal Conveyance anthology) and my short story, ‘The Harvest’ in Further Conflicts (Newcon Press, 2011). This is not to suggest I completely bypassed my gothic inclinations. ‘Unearthed’ and ‘The Shadow Keeper’ (Black Static #12 and #13) were both very much in the traditional horror vein, with my latest short story ‘Field of the Dead’ appearing in The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women, (Robinson Publishing, released October 2012.)

  This crossover between SF and dark fantasy was never more evident than in my new book, Cyber Circus. Originally conceived of as a twin novella to my short story, ‘Black Sunday’, Cyber Circus grew into a novel in its own right. The world of Sore Earth and the weird circus within it drew on all of my favourite inspirations – dystopian landscapes, lone warriors, theatre, fight scenes, cyborgs, and the many glorious shades of otherness. Looking at the story now, it is not so hard to see how Desirious Nim and her burlesque act developed from my love of dancing as a child. Or how Hellequin’s biomorph implant is just a logical extension of the hearing aid I suffered wearing in childhood – and was fortunate enough to discard in adulthood. Lulu’s gender lawlessness, cross-species love affairs, violation of sexual boundaries, piercings and tattoos – every piece of the story has evolved from a piece of me. Slice me open and you’ll find a seam for every tribe: geek girl, gearhead, hippy chick, SF nerd, environmentalist, other.

  In the future, I hope to return to the worlds of Sore Earth and Renegade City. After all, a writer is only ever as good as his or her next book. Sitting at my desk in Ivy House, I’m still conscious of the flickering lights and creaking floorboards. The difference is the same darkness I once feared now fuels the strange little stories I write.

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