And so
‘Liath Luachra: The Great Wild’ is Completed
Here in the Land of the Long White Cloud, I celebrated my upload of the final version of Liath Luachra: The Great Wild with a walk through the beautiful Otari Bush (one of the places I tend to plot the various Liath Luachra books).
It was very much a rush so getting back to nature was something of a relief. Recent complexities on the home and work front meant a difficult month where I ended up falling behind on a whole bunch of personal and creative projects. This also delayed completion of Liath Luachra: The Great Wild which I managed to complete and upload in digital form, only by cutting it very close to the submission deadline.
That said, I have to admit, I feel pleased with the final product. People who’ve read the previous books will probably get a few ‘ah, I see!’ clarification moments by seeing Liath Luachra as a much younger character. Those coming into for the first time, will find something quite different to what they were probably expecting.
In any case, from this point on, I’ll no longer have to try and explain what I’m up to. Everyone can make their own mind up for themselves.
Excerpt from ‘Liath Luachra: The Great Wild’
There was one morning when the world dissolved, obliterated in a downpour that melted the distant islands, then the immediate surroundings as well. Preceded by a cluster of unusually threatening, blue-bruised clouds, the incoming deluge had given plenty of warning. As a result, the girl was comfortably settled under a solitary oak at the tip of the inlet outcrop, cloak tugged tight around her shoulders as she waited to watch the clouds unload their burden.
The downpour rattled the lake’s surface with a startling intensity that she’d not seen before, a ferocious hail that scattered white-foamed eruptions across the water around her. Mirrored by countless ripples on that shuddering surface, the resulting kaleidoscope of movement was giddyingly, but terrifyingly, beautiful.
Tethered to the island by nothing but a thin strip of rock, the girl felt a swell of panic when even that link disappeared, and her existence reduced to the tree above and three paces of the rocky outcrop. Conscious that there was nothing beyond the fusillade of rain, she was struck by a sudden, shocking sense of absence. Terrified at the prospect of being cut adrift, she peered desperately through the deluge for any hint of physical substance, for any trace of natural solidness, for ... anything.
To her trembling relief, the downpour eased soon after, and although it seemed to take far too long a time, the outline of the island took substance through the rain. Whole and expansive, the Great Mother’s bulk emerged from the surrounding murk. Slowly, ponderously, it reached across the thin strip of stone, embraced the girl in her fulsome whole and, soothingly, reassuringly, brought her home.
You can find the link to the ebook and the paperback: HERE
At the moment, they’re only available on Amazon but I’m hoping they’ll be available to order from any physical bookshop in the next week or so.
Given the extremely soft launch with this book (and the complete absence of any marketing), I’d be very grateful for any support you can give with reviews/ratings etc.
Unless they’re negative, of course. If you didn’t like the book, for God’s sake keep it to yourself. I don’t know! Lock yourself in a cupboard or something - just don’t mention it to anyone. And don’t worry. We can just keep an awkward silence going. As my parents used to say, “if you’ve got something to say to me, I’d appreciate you saying it behind my back.”
What Happens Next?
Well, I’m off home shortly.
I must admit, I’m very much looking forward to merging into the background for a while, surrounded by accents similar to my own and by people who share the same cultural references. Living on the ‘wrong’ side of the planet, I find it critical to get home on a relatively regular basis - particularly for my creative work. I sometimes refer to this as ‘drinking from the well’ but, this time around, it’ll be more like jumping into the damn thing and completely submerging myself.
As a result, there won’t be a newsletter next month. I’ll be back on board to infest your inbox again at the end of July.
While I’m home, I won’t be doing any writing but I will be carrying out a lot of research: some for a new trilogy I want to write (set in early medieval times), some for the Beara series which I want to get back into next year. When I return, I have two non-fiction projects to complete (there’s a brief taster for one of these in the ‘paid’ section - further down this newsletter). One of these is quite enormous in scope so I may have to find other people to collaborate with. More on those in the July newsletter.
When I get back to Wellington, of course, there’s FIONN: The Betrayal to write and release and I also hope to start introducing audio and other elements into the newsletter.
Sheesh! I’ll probably need another holiday!
A review of ‘Holy Fire’ by Bruce Sterling
Apparently, the expression ‘Holy Fire’ originates from an Orthodox Christian belief involving a supposed miracle that occurs annually at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. According to the associated belief system, on the day before Orthodox Easter a blue light is emitted from Jesus' tomb to create a column of fire (the Holy Fire). This is then used as part of a religious celebration to light holy candles brought to the church by pilgrims and religious members. The tradition dates back to at least as early as 328 AD.
I must admit I’d only learned this as a result of Bruce Stirling’s book of the same name which I picked up about twenty years ago in a second hand-shop in Dublin. I’ve re-read the novel about three times since then. It’s a strange tale and although it certainly has its frustrating elements, it’s a book that remains close to my heart.
You may have heard of Bruce Stirling. He’s an American speculative fiction author most associated with the ‘cyberpunk’ genre. Many people consider him (with William Gibson and others) to be one of the forefathers of this sci-fi subgenre and he also has the reputation of being one of the ‘big brains’ in terms of speculative fiction (to the point he spends as much of his time giving talks as he does writing). I’ve not read any of his other books, sadly. That’s not because I’m avoiding them but simply because they’ve never really come across my path.
So what’s it all about?
The plot is summarized on Amazon but so poorly written by the publisher (it gave far too much of story away) I ended up rewriting it myself - here:
Towards the end of the 21st century, medical industrial complexes dominate the world economy. The western world is one of synthetic memory drugs, benevolent government surveillance, and underground anarchists. Power is mostly held by conservative senior citizens who scrutinise their health and capital investments with fanatical care, to gain access to the latest advancements in life-extension technology while the young live on the fringes of society, living on free, government-issued rations and a black market in stolen technological gadgetry from an earlier, less sophisticated age.
Mia Ziemann is a 94-year-old medical economist who enjoys all the benefits of her position. Following an invitation to the deathbed of an ancient lover however, and a chance encounter with a young bohemian dress-designer, Mia comes to the awful realisation that she has lived a closeted life bereft of pleasure and adventure.
But, by submitting herself to a radical experimental procedure, she has a chance to do it all over again.
So, you can see the appeal of the book. It essentially follows the old ‘second chance at life’ or ‘reliving your youth over’ tropes. It’s through the world-building developed to facilitate this trope however, that the book really shines. Under Stirling’s guiding hand, the future is truly a fascinating place. Mia receives an invitation to an ancient lover’s deathbed event via a talking dog. The old lover bequeaths her a ‘memory palace’. The near-future, post-plague world in which she lives, meanwhile, is controlled by a (mostly) benevolent government who work with the medical establishment to extend the lives of its citizens – particularly those seen as actively contributing to society.
This dynamic has led to some fascinating societal changes. Many people have become completely consumed by their personal healthcare, ensuring they eat the right foods, taking regular vitamins, carrying out regular physio exercise, while also avoiding activities that might have a detrimental impact (e.g. smoking drinking, unhealthy food, etc). At the same time, they work assiduously at jobs contributing to the betterment of society to earn further health ‘credits’.
For Mia this, means that although she’s reached the grand age of 94 and has a bucketload of health ‘credits’ ‘banked’ for future use, her entire life has been one of conservatism, of abstinence, of … well, of not really living.
Thrown by the deathbed encounter with her old lover, Mia re-examines her life and decides to ‘cash in’ her health credits by volunteering for a new cutting-edge, technological process that will return her body to youthful form once more. Restored to youth, however, Mia finds she’s no longer the person she used to be (the 94-year old woman). Escaping the medical facility, she hitches a ride to Europe, joins a group of outlaw artists and anarchists and commences a wild voyage of self-discovery of spiritualty, eroticism, and the nature of art - the ‘holy fire’ of creative experience.
The good stuff
As mentioned earlier, the world-building in this novel absolutely shines. The future medical-based economy is very believable and, having personally lived through some of the boozier (but beautiful) art scenes in Continental Europe, this representation rings true as well. Sterling’s prose is excellent but it’s his consideration of ideas – expressed in a literary manner - that really impressed me. Holy Fire is full of quotable lines and intriguing ideas. These high concepts (love, the human condition, the nature of art, the meaning of death etc.) are not the kind of stuff you often find in fiction (in this quantity, at least).
The bad stuff
Unfortunately, the growing focus on conceptual intellectualisation means that the plot of the narrative is undermined. From the time that Mia starts engaging and conversing with the European-based artists, the pace begins to slow, caught up and entangled in the characters conversations and philosophising on the arts. These conversations form the intellectual core of the narrative theme and although they’re thoughtful, occasionally witty, and insightful … they do tend to go on a bit and, as a result, the plot of the narrative tends to run aground, barley rescued towards the end of the book when Stirling tries to bring it all to a close.
The character of Mia is also a bit of handicap. In her quest to learn and appreciate the ‘holy fire’, she has to listen and learn from a multitude of other characters, something that reduces her to a more passive role in the story. Some of that is salvaged, later in the book but, like the pacing problem, it does impact on the actual story.
Conclusion
I guess after a certain age, everyone dreams of ‘going back’, of turning back the page to make different decisions or take different actions. Mia’s experience, however, reveals how impossible this objective is in practice. In a manner similar to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle (that there’s an inherent uncertainty in the act of measuring a variable of a particle – in other words, the act of measuring something, irrevocably changes it) by reclaiming her youth, her current self is displaced by someone with very different needs and desires.
Sterling’s consideration of the theme (and the associated themes) makes it one of the most unusual fictions I’ve ever read and it really does leave you thinking about it after you’ve finished reading it.
If you’re looking for an entertainment with a tight plot and fluid action, you might want to give this book a miss. For anyone looking for a thoughtful, fiction-based consideration on the human condition, this is one I’d recommend. If you’ve ever been young and in love in Europe … I couldn’t recommend this book enough.
The End
That’s it for this month’s free section. This month’s paid section covers:
Visual Representation of Irish Mythology (part of a much larger non-fiction project I’m currently working )
News of a very good Irish-New Zealand/Maori television series
Let’s catch up again in July!
Slán go fóill! (Bye for a while!)
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