Philip G. Williamson newnotes: Confessions of a Mutinous Fantasist

Hampstead Authors' Society No. 31 Issue 44. September 2001

HAS Website

Phil Williamson

The Hampstead Authors' Society now has its own website, deployed on server space kindly given us by the Society of Authors. The address is http://www.hasweb.org

The HAS website is intended as a noticeboard/resource for members, as well as a means of getting HAS known to others who may be interested in what HAS does, and may also be tempted to join. I have submitted the HAS site to 155 search engines, directories and indexes. Many of these take weeks or even months to register new sites, but it is with them, patiently awaiting visits from patrolling spiders, crawlers and web-bots (can anybody really picture what that means?) and should be registering soon.

At the time of writing, I have uploaded an introductory page with an animated link to the latest HASnotes, and four pages of other recent HASnotes. Over time, the site should grow to include various links and who-knows-what-else? If you have suggestions and comments about the content of the HAS site - for example, you might like to suggest links to other sites - please email Zsuzsanna. If you have a comment about the format of the HASsite or if you don't have your own site and are thinking of having one, feel free to contact me: philwil (at) chug.screaming.net. Discounts apply to HAS members.

How did I come to be building a site like this when there are so many other things to do in life? Good question. I vaguely recall a bludgeoning somewhere along the line, though it's equally possible that I volunteered. Whichever it may be, this is the result.

Like most authors, I have generally needed to find other sources of income to support a cruel and debilitating writing habit. Until a couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to have a well-paid, if stultifying, job in telesales, which occupied only a few hours a week. Unfortunately, that was brought to an abrupt end, after which I dabbled in a spell of grand larceny but still found myself among the great and good who make up our noble ranks of the unemployed. I had, however, been intrigued by the Internet for some time, and so enrolled on a course in web design and discovered a BRAND NEW INTEREST! When the course was done, I trawled a bit, landed some regular updating work for a publisher, and angled for the odd freelance design commission from individuals and small companies.

And actually, web design is enjoyable, though it can be exasperating at times. I never quite believe it's going to work. I haven't the faintest idea how it does. There's a touch of magic about the way pages can leave the PC and be transported into that strange electronic otherwhere of cyberspace where they may be viewed by absolutely anyone, anywhere in the world. Uploading makes me anxious - occasionally with good cause. It has happened that a page that appeared in splendid order on my hard disk has arrived in cyberspace with bits in a tangled mass. For no apparent reason. Then it's back to the editing software, muttering and cursing, leaden eyes glued to screen until eventually it's sorted. It is always sorted, with the upside that I will have gained a further insight into this extraordinary technology.

The culprits are HTML and JavaScript, the main markup and scripting languages for the web. Or more correctly, the culprit is the designer's treatment of them. In terms of the effect they can have, they resemble a pair of attention-deficited four-year-olds. JavaScript is particularly unforgiving, but both need to be coaxed and cajoled, bribed and berated… and they will never stay still. One of the most fascinating aspects of web design is the rate at which the technology is advancing. Almost daily there is something new to take on board. But essentially all these two little beasts are asking is to be accepted for what they are and treated with respect. Can't blame 'em. Woe betide thee should you try to ignore that.

These days, I'm told, I am entitled to style myself 'Webmaster'. And I do, with a flourish. I'm currently awaiting delivery of my new cape.

Confessions of a Mutinous Fantasist

by Phil Williamson

I have been a published novelist since the mid-eighties, with a total of thirteen titles to date. My first novels were somewhat hallucinatory, rather harsh, sometimes metaphysical satires on the follies of contemporary society, belief and certainty, sexual predation and obsession, unkindness and espionage - explorations of a traumatised, de-spiritualised world, devoid of tenderness, empathy, aesthetics or compassion. Misconstrued (there were those who actually seemed to believe I was advocating the kinds of behaviour I was describing) and possibly best forgotten, they had an element of the (disturbingly) dark fantastic to them, though they were firmly bedded in the 'real' world. I've not encountered anything more fantastic - or perplexing - than real life.

I was taken ever-so-slightly aback when in the late eighties Grafton Books approached me, mooting the idea of an epic high fantasy novel to capitalise on the success they had enjoyed with several series of novels in that sub-genre. Initially I declined. I'd enjoyed a long-term love affair with fantasy and science fiction, but not lately. The era of vision showed all the signs of being over. The genre - in particular the high fantasy sub-genre in which I was being asked to write - seemed to be sinking into a gooey pud of near-unrelenting predictability. A rant about publishers' attitudes and market forces might be appropriate here, but essentially what had been a repository of visionary, innovative fiction now sagged under the ballast of 'second and third helpings' - albeit often highly-popular ones. Regurgitated characters, half-baked plots, oafish, poached heroics and groaning table-loads of Tolkien réchauffé… Déjà vu seemed to have become the daily fare.

A handful of authors of earlier decades were still occasionally producing interesting material, but for the most part, everything I stumbled across turned out pale in comparison. I felt there was little I could contribute. I should add that I was subsequently taken to task by sf/fantasy aficionados who with some justification pointed out that as I had more or less lost touch with the genre in recent years, I no longer really knew what I was talking about. Exceptional new work was - infrequently - still being published, they insisted. Unfortunately, most of it bypassed the reading public, and upon closer examination, much of what was hailed by the experts remained, in fact, stuck in its tracks, only rarely distinguishable from the dross.

Any road up, Grafton nagged.

They waved dosh.

I buckled.

I agreed to write a piece of speculative high fantasy but, given my festering cynicism, determined that it would also satirise and parody what was currently being foisted on the reading public in boatloads. The result was the nattily titled Dinbig of Khimmur. Drawing from an expanding raft of cultural, historical and literary and entertainment sources - and god knows what else - it was too long and a touch clotted, but possibly redeemed by a stonking, convoluted plot, a slippery protagonist and a cast of thousands. Somehow or other it did achieve its aim of providing a good ole fantasy yarn while simultaneously critiqueing the plight of the genre in which it paddled, at least as I perceived it. For a short time it even sold in reasonable numbers, then vanished, probably forever. Dinbig had been intended as a one-off, but writing it (re)kindled a fascination with the potential of the fantastic, the places to which it can take the enquiring mind. And it fell in well with other interests. Eight more fictions followed.

The most recent is Enchantment's Edge, an epic trilogy graced with unusually dire cover art. It's an intricate - just slightly subversive - mystical/fantasy thriller, set in an imagined medieval world that is nevertheless a close, if distorted, reflection of our own. The tale is fast and vast, a fairly easy read, I think. In common with most of my fiction, it teems with undercurrents examining, in no particular order, the evolution of religious thought, the possible realities behind what we perceive, the world of dream and illusion, conflict vs order, mankind's spiritual nature, identity, and the paradoxes of consciousness and its interaction with the physical universe. In short, what it is to be human.

In the last couple of years I have stepped away from genre fantasy, at least for a while. Two rather odd illustrated books for young children are due out - after my publisher and I agree on a suitable artist, and after said artist comes up with the goods. I have also recently completed a new novel, which is in the process of hurling itself at publishers. It's a ruthless, disturbing psychological thriller, set in contemporary London. Its narrator is a murderer, a fairly unpleasant, deeply-damaged habitual drug user and sociopath who has nothing in common with me.

Phil Williamson

Reviews of Enchantment's Edge by Philip G. Williamson at: http://www.hasweb.org/booksreviewspgw.html

Opening chapters can be read on the Philip G. Williamson website here

TRAVEL

Of Stones, Sand & Survival, and the Big Deep Blue Philip Williamson's musings in Egypt

In God's Own Country - Kerala, India

Auschwitz

DON'T MISS THE NEXT EVENT
ON THURSDAY 15th NOVEMBER…

Panel discussion on topic of 'Agents, editors and critics: the role of these 'gatekeepers' in today's publishing' with:

It will be a lively discussion ranging from how much real power each type of 'gatekeeper' (agent; editor; critic) has in the face of increasing demands for quick profits and 'dumbing down' of the market to how new and talented writers can get through the three gates in publishing when they don't know the route.

It's not about how to write a bestseller, but a challenging look at where publishing is going.